Grass-Fed, Grass-Finished Beef

For most of my life beef was beef. When I went to the store the only differentiating factors I cared about were the price and the cut (i.e. how tender the beef was).

No more!

Now my concerns are--in order--"what did the cow eat?" and "is there enough fat in the cut?"

Feed

My concern over the cow's feed derives from the Paleo AIP diet. I can approach this concern from two angles. First, the transitive property of food; I am not supposed to eat corn, and if I eat a cow which ate corn, then I eat corn. Second, eating healthy food; eating corn makes me sick and if a cow eats corn then the cow gets sick (not diseased, just not healthy).

Sick cows taste bland (like cardboard) which is why BBQ sauce is so important with typical steaks. But remember, flavor predicts nutrients which means that bland meat has fewer nutrients.

On the flip side, meat from healthy cows tastes awesome, so that meat must have a lot of nutrients. And from what I've experienced with grass-fed, grass-finished beef, the flavor is astounding.

To make sure you pick nutritious beef, there are some labels you need to know; "grass-fed", "grass-finished", and "all vegetarian feed".

Grass-Fed

"Grass-fed" means that the cow was fed only grass (no grain, especially not corn) until it was tall enough to start fattening up for market.

Grass-Finished

"Grass-finished" means that the cow was fed only grass its entire life. The term "finished" comes from the old cowboy days from when they would tend cattle which graze in fields. The cows were considered "finished" when they were ready to take to market ("finished" in more ways than one, I might add).

All Vegetarian Feed

Grass-fed used to mean grass-finished, but supermarkets have caused confusion by re-branding grass-fed as "until the cow is tall enough". The way you can be sure is if the label on the beef says "all vegetarian feed". "All vegetarian feed" means the cow was fed grains; typically corn since corn is so abundant and cheap right now.

If the label only says "grass-fed" then you should look up the brand of meat on the Internet to find out if the beef is also grass-finished.

By being aware of these phrases and what they mean, you will be able to choose amazing meat which doesn't need a sauce at all.

By the way, anywhere else on this site where I mention grass-fed, I also mean grass-finished.

Pricing

Ranchers are paid per pound of meat that they sell and not the nutrient density. This reward system heavily influences their decisions when raising cattle.

Grain, and particularly corn does a great job fattening up a cow. Because of the cost to the cow's health, feedlots expect to lose 2-4% of their cattle; that's how ranchers know mathematically that they are getting optimum yield from their livestock. Since ranchers are paid per pound, optimum yield is the metric they target. This means that even with losing part of their herd, a rancher will get the highest number of pounds of salable beef by feeding the cattle corn.

Because corn fattens up a cow quickly, it takes about 1.5 years to finish a cow on grains. This means ranchers spend less time getting a cow from infancy to market, which also means higher yields.

It can take a 2-3 years to finish a grass-fed cow. This means it takes twice as long to get a grass-fed cow to market which makes such meat roughly twice the price.

Grass-fed beef is tough to find in your local supermarket. If you do happen to find it, then most likely the beef will be wrapped in vacuum-sealed plastic packaging.

You may need to check with specialty butchers in your area. Ask the butcher if the cow is also grass-finished. If they say "what's that?"--which most supermarket butchers will say--then you know that the butcher is not knowledgeable enough about beef and you will not be getting quality meat.

I personally drive 20-30 minutes north to Central Market because nearby supermarkets don't carry grass-fed beef. The first time I went to that market I asked their butchers if their grass-fed beef is also grass-finished and they launched into a short, affirmative explanation.

Knowledgeable butchers? Check! Grass-fed beef? Check!

If you can't find grass-finished beef in your area, then the best place for you to get yours is probably the Internet. You might also look into getting beefalo, a cow-bison hybrid which also has good flavor although slightly more gamy.

Cut and Fat

I don't purchase the most expensive cuts; the way I cook the meat allows me to get the tenderness of the best cuts but at a far lower cost (I'll give you my recipe in my next post). In particular, I buy tri-tip steak at $14 per pound instead of the New York cuts at $26 per pound. I've tried the Teres Majors and the Flank Steak--both of which have slightly different flavor--but to me they aren't worth the increased cost. On the other hand, I've also tried the top round cut (at $10 per pound), but the flavor is pretty flat because there isn't enough fat.

My first time cooking a grass-fed steak I tried the top round. I was pleased that it didn't taste much like cardboard, but I was disappointed because the flavor was still flat.

My second time cooking I upgraded to the tri-tip and was floored at the difference in flavor. Visually, the biggest difference between the tri-tip and top round is the marbling; i.e. How much fat and how distributed it is within the meat. Sometimes there are large pockets of fat within a particular tri-tip slice, but I am happy to eat it. Not only do I like the flavor, but fat is actually healthy for you; it's an essential nutrient for many processes within your body, including brain function.

Book Recommendation

By the way, if you want to read a great story on how to get the world's best-tasting beef, then I heartily recommend "Steak: One Man's Search for the Worlds Tastiest Piece of Beef", by Mark Schatzker. It's a great read and will teach you all about beef from around the world. This book, and others extolling the virtues of grass-fed beef, got me excited for eating grass-fed beef. I hope you are excited, too, after reading this post.

I also learned to prepare my steaks "dry" which means no sauce or spices on the beef. Season only with salt; that's the way to enjoy the beef's most authentic flavor.

Why Flavor Matters

We all know that flavor matters. But do we know why flavor matters?

For hundreds of years humans have been scouring the globe for spices to add to food. Part of that drive was to show off a person's wealth ("I can get spices from the middle east", "Oh yeah? Well I can get spices all the way from India!"). But in our modern age we use spices to make food more interesting, so much so that we have a huge industry surrounding the creation and marketing of flavor.

Is there a purpose for flavor? From an evolutionary perspective, what benefit does flavor give us? Why do we seek out a variety of flavor? Any why does food these days taste bland even though it's loaded with as much or more flavoring than in decades past?

Predictions

Along the way to adopting the Paleo AIP diet I've read dozens of food-related books. A powerful, perspective-changing book is "The Dorito Effect" by Mark Schatzker. That book gave me an answer to why flavor matters: flavor predicts nutrients.

Our brain and our gut are tied together. Both use the same chemicals to get their work done, for instance serotonin is an important neurochemical and digestion regulator. Moreover, a significant portion of our brain is dedicated to managing our digestive tract. Part of this dedication is to ensure that what we've ingested moves down the alimentary canal which means coordinating the movement of a lot of muscles. But a less-noticed purpose is that the brain learns what nutrients it can expect based on the flavor of the food consumed.

In technology a big area of interest is "Machine Learning". In Machine Learning people hand computers a huge volume of data (e.g. images, audio, video, world-wide weather information, etc.) and some algorithms for trying to find patterns within that data, and then the computer produces a predictive model based on that data (e.g. Based on all large set of pictures, and tags which tell the computer what can be found in those pictures, it figures out how it can identify what's in the pictures without consulting the original data set). With such a model you can hand the computer new input and it will make predictions based on that image (e.g. Give the computer a never-seen-before picture with a cat in it and the computer is likely to state that there is a cat in the picture).

You can think of the brain and gut as one big machine learning computer; it figures out what is in the food we eat based on smell. As we take in food, our brain remembers those smells and tastes and compares that information with the nutrients it detects in the hours after consuming the food. With the knowledge of the nutrients coming from flavors the body can prepare itself to handle that food. For example, it may pump out more acid than normal to help process the incoming fats. Or the body may prepare for a flood of sugar.

Not only can the body prepare for food at the time of consumption, but it can request foods when it needs certain nutrients. The body knows what flavors led to a particular nutrient so it can send a signal which says "I need this flavor". When we satisfy that craving we get a sense of pleasure to help tighten that need+crave+consume loop (which I learned from "The Addictive Brain").

If we need to broaden our variety of nutrients then our body can also start craving a variety of flavors as it looks for new sources.

A related effect is the strength of the craving. If we need a little bit of a nutrient we will probably crave it a little. If we need a lot of a nutrient then the craving will be stronger. If the desired food only supplies a little bit of that nutrient, then the craving will be even stronger.

Ruminating Goats

The associative power of flavors to nutrients through dietary machine learning was illustrated by The Dorito Effect via an experiment with nutrient-deficient goats. Scientists took a group of potassium-deficient goats and gave them hay one day, coconut-flavored hay the next day, and their choice the third. But here's the twist. When eating the coconut hay, half of the goats were given potassium directly into their stomachs so that they didn't taste any potassium. After that experience, the goats who received the potassium only wanted to eat the coconut-flavored hay while the other half of the goats would eat either kind.

Such automatic learning also happens with negative food experiences: give a goat food which makes it sick and then it will avoid that flavor thereafter. (If you want to read scientific articles about the flavor-nutrient learning phenomenon, then you should check out this paper and the various papers it references).

Why Predictions Work

In nature flavor predicts nutrients because the flavor is often a byproduct of the nutrients breaking down. For example, the rich, meaty flavor of tomatoes comes from the breakdown of essential amino acids within the tomato. If the tomato doesn't have many of those amino acids then it won't have much flavor.

Regrettably, modern tomatoes (and many other foods) are grown for size instead of nutrient density which means they carry more water weight and fewer nutrients than they used to. I don't believe companies are maliciously driving out nutrients; I just think that their metric for success is dollars, and dollars are directly tied to pounds of produce sold, so growing food for poundage is the natural result.

Bland Food

If flavor predicts nutrients then a lack of flavor means a lack of nutrients.

After reading The Dorito Effect I started paying more attention to the flavor of food. I could of course sense the initial 2x4-to-the-head flavors from the sauce or flavoring, but I would try and notice the underlying flavors that those sauces or spices were trying to cover up.

I noticed that sour cream and onion chips just don't taste nearly as good as they did when I was in grade school. I tried the exact same brands and they're still bland; I mostly taste salt and a little bit of metal. And flavoring technology has come a long way in the last 30 years which should mean stronger flavors.

I noticed that typical fruits and vegetables can taste fairly bland. The Dorito Effect calls out tomatoes as being bred for size and thus water-weight and I now notice how bland they are. Fortunately The Dorito Effect points to some better strains. Unfortunately I'll never try the better strains because tomatoes are verboten on my diet.

I noticed that all chicken and all beef tasted like cardboard. Costco does a good job of soaking their chicken in a brine, but sometimes the flavoring is underwhelming while at other times it is excessive (Hello Rosemary!). But regardless, I know that the flavor is not the chicken; it's the brine. The same thing with beef; I consistently get dressed up cardboard.

Food Lies

Flavor predicts nutrients, while a lack of flavor means no/few nutrients. What happens when there are nutrients but no flavor? Your brain will look for some aspect of flavor that it can associate with the nutrients it finds and will then crave that food even though it is bland.

But then what happens when a food has flavor but no nutrients? Meaning, what does your brain do when food is lying to it? Your brain will discount the flavors it senses.

I think my brain has discounted a lot of flavors, which is why so many classic foods are bland to me. I used to love candy and I savored the various flavors. But now I just notice sugar. Same with sodas; the flavors have gotten subtler while I only notice the sweetness level. This discounting has caused me to stop eating a lot of foods simply because the the flavor died out. I know that the flavors are still there, but my body figured out that the food was lying to me.

Artificial vs. Natural vs. Honest

As a result of lying food I try and only buy foods that tell the truth. But the truth can sometimes be hard to come by.

For example, if the box says "artificial flavor" then the food lies. That one is pretty easy to detect.

But what if the package says "natural flavor"?

Foods with "natural flavor" also lie. "Natural flavor" is a legal term and only means that the government considers the process which derived the flavor is "natural". Natural flavors still lie to you; they promise certain nutrients that the food won't deliver on.

What if the container states something similar to "natural vanilla flavor"? Take out the word "vanilla" and you can see that it is just "natural flavor"...more lies.

The only way to be sure food isn't lying to you is to buy foods which do not have any man-made flavors. Try finding pickles which are honest; it's tougher than you might think. I'm going to start making my own pickles.

I expect that after eating honest foods for a while, my brain will start to enjoy flavors again (and it has already started to).

More Honesty

Along with foods without added flavors, I try and buy smaller fruits and vegetables. For example, smaller strawberries tend to have more concentrated flavors. Larger fruits can taste a bit watered-down. By buying smaller I hope to help encourage supermarkets to buy smaller, and thus encourage farmers to grow smaller.

Foods in the supermarket are also picked before they have completely ripened. This is done with the expectation that the food will ripen in transit. Growers and sellers do this to maximize the shelf-life of the food and thus maximize their profit potential. Because fresh foods are picked early, they often lack some of their nutrients and thus some of their flavor.

One solution to this fresh food flavor deficit problem is to buy frozen foods. Frozen foods are often picked when they are fully ripened and frozen shortly thereafter because the distance from the farm to the freezing plant is much smaller. Consequently, frozen foods are more likely to have better flavor and nutrient profiles.

When it comes to beef, I buy grass-fed, grass-finished beef. I'll get into the details of this kind of beef in my next article, but suffice it to say grass-fed, grass-finished beef does not taste like cardboard! Woo hoo! (If you want to read a great story on the world's best-tasting beef, then I heartily recommend "Steak: One Man's Search for the Worlds Tastiest Piece of Beef", by Mark Schatzker. Spoiler alert! It isn't Kobe Beef...not even close.)

Similarly with chicken, I would buy free-range chickens; ones which are allowed and encouraged to forage for bugs and other things that chickens would eat in the wild. That will give their meat the true flavors we crave.

I hope that, with this knowledge, you can be more aware of the flavors around you and that you can now notice food lies. By ruminating on the flavors you eat I hope you can find food that speaks to you and that you gain greater joy in the food you consume.

Paleo AIP Basics

There are a many different places on the web which talk about the Paleo Auto-Immune Protocol diet. Some are more verbose than others. In this post I want to give a relatively high-level rundown of the Paleo diet as well as the Paleo AIP variant. I also want get into the why of these diets because that is what has helped me buy into and maintain this lifestyle change.

The Paleo diet stems from what scientists think paleolithic man ate. The idea is that our bodies have evolved over millions of years to process certain kinds of food more easily than others. Scientists believe that a hunter-gatherer would eat only foods which can be easily sourced (i.e. hunted/captured/gathered) at any time. As a result, paleolithic man's digestion has certain expectations about what will be consumed.

Hormones

Part of why people think that the Paleo diet works (and why I think it works) is that when the body is getting the same nutrient profile that its ancestors received then the body feels nutritionally satisfied and will settle into its optimum balance. On the flip side, when the body doesn't get the nutrients is it prepared through evolution to receive then the body feels nutritionally starved and will work to protect itself for the future.

Paleolithic man had to get through times of plenty (spring and summer) and survive through times of scarcity (winter and famine). Individuals had to do this for decades, and genetics had to do this for generations, automatically, and without modern farming techniques. Consequently, all bodies (not only humans, but every creature on this earth) have evolved to adapt to their nutritional environment. That environment changes with the seasons and the cells of all creatures have evolved to react to the profile of nutrients they receive across the entire year.

Winter is Coming

When fall is coming on and plants aren't as nutritious as they were in their prime then the body (and more specifically its cells) is nutritionally starved. As a result, cells and put out hormones that say "winter is coming; pack away energy for later."

You would think that our brains would be in control of stating "winter is coming" because we can visually perceive the signs of fall. But that knowledge in our brain is somewhat isolated. The remainder of the cells in our bodies can only watch what nutrients actually come into them. As a result, they only know the environment based on their food; if they are not getting enough of the right nutrients then they think "winter is coming." Hence, even though we may restrict calories, if we are not getting enough variety of other nutrients then our body will start gaining weight.

The good news is that if we get the right variety of foods--irrespective of calories--so that our cells are receiving the nutrients they need to function optimally, then the cells start putting out hormones which say "It's spring-time; time to clean up!" The Paleo diet it thought to help mimic the nutrient profile paleolithic man needed during the spring and summer; and because of modern cultivation and global shipping our cells do not need to pack anything away for winter.

Reducing Stress

Related to an unhealthy nutrient profile is stress. If our body is under chronic negative stress then it starts to put out hormones that say "winter is coming." I say negative stress because exercise can be a positive stress that causes our bodies to put out hormones that say "time to get active!" and can counteract some of the negative stress we may have including counteracting stress from work and from our diets.

In my own life, my sleep apnea was putting me under significant negative stress which is part of why I kept gaining weight leading up to getting a CPAP machine (the other part is that I was using sugar to keep myself going because I was so exhausted). In your own life, if you feel tired all the time then you might need to get your sleep assessed and treated before you can start to see big results.

Autoimmune Stress

With autoimmune disease the body is constantly under stress; The body itself appears to be the enemy. Contributing to that stress is the foods we eat; they can contain naturally occurring chemicals that stimulate the immune system. Such foods might have been a precursor to the autoimmune disease in the first place. For example, my inverse psoriasis started 20 years ago while I was living in Thailand, 155 lbs, and eating a lot of peppers. I had trained my mouth to ignore the spices so that I could better-integrate with the culture, but my immune system was under constant stress because of the capsaicin in peppers.

The idea of the Paleo AIP diet is to match the Paleo diet and to also remove anything which might be causing autoimmune responses. When the body is no longer trying to fight off invaders (i.e. foods that stimulate inflammation) and is able to get the nutrients it needs, then it can finally relax and divest itself of its fat reserves.

The Paleo AIP lifestyle also includes some exercise and plenty of sleep. I exercise about 20 minutes once per week (although I am trying to step that up to 20 minutes 3-4 times per week). I still need to get more and better sleep (the CPAP can only do so much), and I have reduced some of my other stresses by not working at home, not watching TV anymore (they generate artificial stress to keep you hooked through commercial breaks), and not going on Facebook or other social media (it seems that all things ad-based generate stress to keep you coming back).

But aside from sleep, exercise, and general lifestyle, we're here to talk about food.

Allowed Foods

The Paleo AIP diet focuses more on eating the whole animal and not just the muscles; meaning lots of organ meat. However, I've stuck with standard cuts of meat and have found tremendous success. I buy grass-fed, grass-finished, tri-tip beef and, between my wife and I, we eat about 1 - 1.5 lbs each day at dinner. I'll give you my spectacular recipe in a future post.

The basic Paleo AIP diet includes the following:

• meat (grass-fed+grass-finished, pasture-raised, or wild)
• chicken in moderation (pasture-raised is ideal but difficult to acquire, while free-range is an okay fall-back)
• fish and shellfish
• vegetables of all kinds
• green vegetables
• colorful vegetables
• cruciferous vegetables
• sea vegetables
• mushrooms
• herbs and spices
• fats
• healthy animal fats
• olive oil
• coconut oil
• avocados
• palm oil (but not palm kernel oil)
• fruit (in moderation; lots of fructose is a problem)
• probiotic/fermented foods
• glycine-rich foods

You will want to get high quality foods from each of those categories, and make sure you get plenty of variety and volume. The more nutrient-dense the food, the better. For example, starchy vegetables are less nutrient-dense, so you should probably eat them in moderation. Whereas foods like broccoli are much better for you (someday I'll teach you my recipe for simple broccoli).

Forbidden Foods

The Paleo AIP diet eliminates the following:

• gluten (e.g. wheat)
• dairy
• soy (all sources including oils, soy lecithin, and many other less-obvious ingredients)
• corn
• grains (e.g. rice, quinoa)
• beans and legumes (e.g. peanuts, cocoa/chocolate 😞, and coffee)
• seeds and seed oils (e.g. chia, sunflower, safflower, canola oil, and palm kernel oil)
• nuts and nut oils (coconut oil is fine in moderation since it isn't actually a tree nut)
• nightshades
• tomatoes
• potatoes (sweet potatoes are okay)
• eggplant
• peppers (even sweet peppers)
• paprika
• seed-based spices (e.g. dill seeds, ground pepper, and pepper corns)
• alcohol

That "no" list may seem daunting, and I admit that it is (I miss chocolate), but it is also crucial. Each of those foods has a component which either causes leaky gut (what seems to be a precursor to autoimmune disease) or stimulates the immune system. For perfectly healthy people these foods are not an issue, but for people with autoimmune disease the reactions to these foods can be strong. I've had reactions to chocolate (high-quality chocolate which had no soy or other forbidden ingredients) as well as "Balsamic Vinegar of Modena" which contains an ingredient called "grape must" which is crushed (and sometimes cooked) grape seeds.

Following this diet means that I can eat few prepackaged foods; soy is everywhere and so are seed oils. Consequently, I end up making everything myself. My staples are the mixed greens from Costco (I will eat a mixing bowl filled with them, dressed with an aromatic, extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar), or the Costco Mediterranean chopped salad which I eat without any of the included toppings (again, just olive oil and vinegar).

For the first while I craved crunchy foods and carbohydrates. I found that I could get the crunch I needed from carrots and sweet potato chips (more on this below). I've also found plantain chips at TJ Maxx; some are better than others, and I avoid any which have "spices" or "paprika" in the ingredient list. Thankfully, when I started the Paleo AIP diet I had already eliminated wheat and corn, otherwise I would have had to contend with super-strong carb cravings.

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are actually tubers and are not in the nightshade family. They just happen to colloquially be called potatoes. Thank goodness for that because now I can get my potato chip fix from good sweet potato chips. Someday, when I have a much larger kitchen I hope to make my own chips. I also like making a sweet potato cauliflower mash instead of mashed potatoes.

Increased Sensitivity

Once I had eliminated the major items from the "no" list I found that my body became more sensitive to ingredients on the forbidden list. For example, I ate chocolate periodically for the first few weeks, didn't have any for a week or two, and then tried some again and had an urgent response; it cleared out my digestive tract within 30 minutes. Definitely a sensitivity.

I believe that I got an exaggerated reaction because my body is now hyper-vigilant. My immune system used to be doing all it can to fight off lots of different invaders so it was exhausted from fighting on all fronts. It could only fight a little bit against each front in the nonstop battle. But once the battles ceased my immune system had a lot of idle troops watching for invaders. As a result, now when it sees an invader all of the troops wake up and engage the enemy.

It will take about 6 months of a calm immune system before I can start reintroducing some of those foods. In that time many of the idle troops will die off. There will be some of each kind left so that my body can recreate troops as needed (similarly to how a vaccine trains the body to watch for certain kinds of invaders). Consequently my body's response to future invaders will be smaller, but could become dramatic if I tax my body again.

Despite this roller coaster of immune responses and my disappointment over lost foods, I can honestly say that I am enjoying it. Now that the farmers market season is in full swing I am looking forward to expanding my repertoire of foods. 😋

Why an Anti-Inflammatory Diet

My journey toward adopting the Anti-Inflammatory Diet called Paleo AIP has been long and winding. It started a few years ago when I read the book "The Calorie Myth." I had some success following that book's diet and exercise program. I lost 3 inches on my waist while eating far more food with each meal than I had previously.

Unfortunately, in order to avoid inconveniencing others, I stopped following that diet during a vacation and never really got completely back on it.

Then, 2 years ago, I went to see a sleep doctor who diagnosed my difficulty resting: sleep apnea. In the process of completing a sleep study and follow-up consultations, each time I visited the doctor, I saw that I had gained another 10 lbs. This consistent increase was incredibly frustrating because I was trying to follow what I remembered of "The Calorie Myth," although, in retrospect, probably not strictly enough. I was drinking a lot of soda to keep myself going during the day, and I was only exercising once a week instead of every other day.

My sleep doctor recommended something she called "the TQI (To Quiet Inflammation) diet," created by a woman who lives on Vashon Island, near Seattle. After some digging on the internet, I finally found her website and her book, "The Abascal Way: To Quiet Inflammation for Health and Weight Loss." I ordered the material and started reading.

As I explored her writing, I had a tough time understanding her book and found it difficult to internalize the principles behind her proscriptions. I also read several other diet books that seemed uninspired or not quite right for me. My mind kept gravitating toward an Anti-Inflammatory approach. I figured I should give it another chance, since the idea of reducing inflammatory stress resonated with the theoretical framework presented in "The Calorie Myth"--that weight loss or gain is about hormones, not about "calories in/calories out."

So, I delved into more anti-inflammatory diet books. I searched for a program that would provide me with a predefined meal plan and exercise regimen, so that I wouldn't need to reinvent the wheel with every ingredient.

I found a couple books on Amazon that had high ratings and looked promising: "The Immune System Recovery Plan: A Doctor's 4-step Program to Treat Autoimmune Disease" and "The Paleo Approach: Reverse Autoimmune Disease and Heal Your Body"

I started reading the first book and adopted its recommendations one at a time. First, I removed gluten. Then I dropped corn from any source, including high fructose corn syrup. Eliminating corn is tough for anyone in modern society. Try going to a Mexican Restaurant: ordering fajitas without tortillas will earn you bizarre looks from any waiter. The difficulty eliminating corn is compounded for me. Work tempts me with giant glass-door fridges packed with soft drinks.

At this point, despite foregoing significant chunks of my normal diet, I wasn't making any visible progress, and I was only feeling marginally better. In addition, I was falling asleep trying to read Recovery Plan. So, I switched to perusing The Paleo Approach.

And . . . instantly hooked! The beginning of The Paleo Approach is a dense explanation of how the immune system works, how the gut functions, and how autoimmune disease starts. To my great surprise, I learned that psoriasis is an autoimmune disease--so is inverse psoriasis, which is my specific malady (normal psoriasis is on the extremities [e.g. arms or legs] while inverse is closer to the core of the body).

I thought, "Why wasn't I told this?!?" (I might have been told, but I definitely don't remember.) "I can bring my psoriasis under control without steroids!" From that moment, I began to follow the precepts of the book in earnest.

Each inflammatory food the book presented, I eliminated from my diet. I also paid more attention to my body's response to food, such as whether or not I got flu symptoms (e.g. phlegm or body aches) or intestinal grumblings within 30 minutes of eating. I used to ignore those feelings, because I could always work through them, and I needed to quickly resume whatever I was working on. But, now I use those feelings as cues that my body is responding negatively to something in the food and that I should figure out what the offending ingredient is and avoid it.

A couple of weeks reading The Paleo Approach helped me understand what was happening and alter my diet positively. The transition was a little tough (Alas, potato chips!) but I worked through it with the help of awesome steaks (simple, salt-dusted, and seriously delish!); lots of mixed greens with quality, flavorful olive oil and vinegar; and crunchy baby carrots.

After 4 weeks, my weight loss was visible, and I started getting comments. I continued losing weight for about another 8 weeks. My weight has since plateaued, but I am much more energetic, I can exercise more easily (I run without feeling asthmatic which has never happened to me), and food tastes better. My cravings for chips have faded, replaced by nutritious alternatives: plantain chips.

Changing my diet alone didn't completely reverse my inverse psoriasis. The inflammation died down. At the 12-week mark, I stopped applying my medications, but I still had some redness. So, I changed the soap I use. Now, I can barely see my symptoms. I am going to continue to keep an eye out for agents of inflammation and eradicate them from my daily life.

Psoriasis has no cure: I will have this autoimmune disease for the remainder of my life. But, as I continue this anti-inflammation diet, I am hopeful that my symptoms will almost completely disappear, and only rarely, if ever, showing up again. Once my symptoms improve long enough, I should be able to reintroduce some of the foods I have eliminated, knowing that my body will give me cues about what it will and won't tolerate.

Weight Loss Through Diet

Pickles: I've lost 55 lbs in the last 4 months. I dropped from 250 to 195 and it's entirely due to my diet. And I don't mean "diet" as how much I consume--I'm eating a lot of food each day. I mean "diet" as what I consume--where I choose to get my nutrients from.

When starting this diet my goal wasn't losing weight; it's just an amazing side-effect. I started down this path because I wanted to bring my psoriasis under control. As I researched this class of diets the books I read frequently mentioned weight loss, so I knew that I might see some weight reduction but I didn't expect to lose this much and definitely not this quickly.

So what is this miracle diet? The short answer is an "anti-inflammatory diet". The long answer is much more involved; I followed 3 diets simultaneously.

At the core, I am choosing to follow the Paleo Auto-Immune Protocol (a.k.a. Paleo AIP) because food outside of that diet appears to contribute to my psoriasis. The second diet was low FODMAP because high FODMAP foods cause me digestive distress. Finally, I also avoid high-fructose foods because I have fructose malabsorption meaning lots of fructose also causes digestive distress.

In the last 4 months my gut has healed a little so I have relaxed my FODMAP restrictions; I'll eat high FODMAP food, just not in large quantities. I expect to start eating more fructose, but I am waiting a while longer before testing that. However, I believe I will need to follow Paleo AIP--or some other anti-inflammatory diet--the rest of my life. My psoriasis symptoms have improved and almost disappeared, but it's taking a lot of time and deliberate choices throughout my life.

This post is the start of a series of posts which will explain what I've learned over the last few years about diet and exercise. Along the way I will detail my adventures in cooking while Pineapple critiques my efforts. From the best steak ever and my smoothie recipes, to newly-discovered allergies.

I'll occasionally cover non-food topics such as my exercise regiment or how I improved my symptoms by changing my soap. But I promise that the vast majority of my posts will be focused on food.

A Pox on Black Angus

So, my dad was in town for a tour of the 520 bridge, and we decided we'd meet and go out. After my husband made some quip about the moniker conjuring some medieval disease, we opted for the restaurant next door to the hotel in Federal Way, WA--Black Angus. On the front of the restaurant was a ginormous sign: "Wednesday nights--Prime Rib Special with Free Mud Pie."

We checked our watches--7:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. And we moseyed on in, already salivating for prime rib and pie. As soon as we sat down, my dad asked about the prime rib.

"We're out," the waitress snapped.

What??? They advertised a prime rib special. What restaurant runs out of prime rib on prime rib night???

After a few minutes, we regrouped and asked what they were substituting for the prime rib, so customers could still get the free mud pie.

"No substitutions."

And she confirmed with the manager.

Seriously???

At that point, I was ready to get up and leave, but my dad and my husband convinced me to give it a shot. We placed our orders for the least expensive items on the menu and waited for the food to arrive. The steaks were rare on the inside, and a tough well-done on the outside. The rubbery chicken was drowned in teriyaki sauce with the taste and consistency of cough syrup. The shrimp was soggy, the green beans shriveled and freezer-burned, and the salads wilted. And we were not about to order dessert.

We used coupons amounting to 20% off the total bill. The tip we paid was 15% to the penny (although if I had my way, I wouldn't have paid any at all, since the waitress was so unattentive and the customer service so poor).

To top off the whole experience, my normally cast-iron stomach was so upset that I spent the entire sleepless night worshipping the porcelain throne. Medieval disease indeed.

Food poisoning aside, what kind of a business establishment advertises a special that it doesn't actually provide, and offers no way for customers to substitute? That's no way to build a positive reputation and earn repeat business. As a retail business owner, that practice is pure idiocy.

I've only been at one other restaurant where the manager had worse customer service (although the food was undeniably fab)--P.F. Chang in Orem, UT--and I boycotted the restaurant for more than two years. And counting.

Next time, I'm going to save my $50 and go to Carl's Jr.

 -Pineapple

Thai Noodles to Die For

For date night on Friday, we decided to try a Thai restaurant close to our new digs in Washington state. After reading reviews of various local options, we decided on a budget-friendly, family-owned restaurant, Irene Thai Cuisine, in Woodinville, WA.

The service was friendly and fast, the restaurant ambience cozy. The decor could only be considered delightfully eclectic: a mix of rustic Thai thatching, photos of traditional and modern Thailand, colorful saltwater fish, hanging rain catchers for an indoor waterfall-like feature, sparkling knick-knacks, varnished bamboo wall coverings, and more modern granite countertops.

We decided to order spring rolls, which arrived piping hot, served with the house chili sauce. The rolls were delivered at the same time as one of the main dishes, since we elected to eat family style.

My husband lived for two years in Thailand some time back, so he knows his way around Thai cuisine. He selected Kuay Teaw Kua, a noodle dish with wide noodles, fried egg, vegetables, and oyster sauce. I selected my old stand-by, Massaman Curry... mild, just in case they season it per Thai taste. I was tempted to go medium, but I can always make it hotter.

The curry was pretty good flavor-wise--nutty, sweet, and slightly tangy--but the potatoes were slightly undercooked. I like potatoes to be firm, but melt in your mouth... not quite so crunchy. The potatoes made the curry a bit difficult to eat at the time, but I'm sure it's awesome the second day after it sits in rice overnight and is reheated, cooking the potatoes a bit more. In my experience, curry tastes much better the second day anyway...

The Kuay Teaw Kua, on the other hand, was spectacular! The flavors mixed together well, the dish was cooked just right. We both loved it! That was the shining star, and the reason we will go back. I am especially excited to try the Phad Se-ew, as that's generally a favorite for me, and the kitchen seems to do an especially good job with noodle dishes.

For dessert, we shared an order of black sticky rice, which was absolutely fabulous! Two thumbs way up! We fought over the last bite and wished we'd ordered two. Next time, maybe we will!

-Pineapple