Author: Tom

In an effort to continually learn and further my knowledge on all things health and nutrition related I have compiled a nice stack of some light reading material! This does not include the books I have already read, which include Dr. Fung’s Obesity Code, The Complete Guide to Fasting, Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes book and several others, it also does not include the spiritual books I am currently reading. Besides this stack I have about 9 more on my Amazon shopping list that my library did not have. I am very picky on what authors I read and who I take any health information from. One thing that will get them thrown out of the stack pretty much right away is any conflict of interests, depending on what it is, as well as really crazy out there advice. All of these made the cut!

The titles in no particular order:

The Alzheimer’s Antidote by Amy Burger. My grandfather Alzheimer’s and my paternal grandmother and maternal grandmother all had dementia so anything on this subject is near and dear to my heart. I heard her speak on a podcast and knew I absolutely had to get her book! In the talk I heard she was also talking about the work she is doing for diet to help with ADHD and Autism. her work is phenomenal.

Next up is The Salt Fix by Dr. James DiNicolantonio. I have heard such great things about this book and know how much salt can help with health. It’s one of the simplest things we can do sometimes. He also co-wrote the book The Longevity Solution with Dr. Fung(will be shown below) and I trust Dr. Fung’s work!

Last for this set is Why We Get Fat and What To Do About it and Good Calories, Bad Calories both by Gary Taubes. He is journalist I heard speak and when I learned his story and saw him speak, via youtube, at some low carb events I knew I wanted to read his works.

The Diabetes Code by Dr. Jason Fung. His book The Obesity Code is what got me started down this whole new path to healthy and wellness. The Diabetes Code primarily deals with Type 2 diabetes and reversing it however does have some information on Type 1 as well.

Think Like a Pancreas is quite an interesting work. I got it as Mr. Lowcarb is a Type 1 diabetic so he will always be on insulin, we wanted some direction on how to get the best results with the insulin and how best to figure ratios, etc. Obviously if you are a T2D it is best to get off insulin or never have to be on it in the first place. But for a T1D using as little as possible to keep your blood glucose stable is the next best solution.

Winning the Cancer Battle by Louis Smith, I know him personally, is chalked full of good information. I know so many that he has helped, himself included, beat cancer with diet and supplementation.

The Magnesium Factor by Seelig and Rosanoff is another powerhouse of information. Magnesium is such an important mineral that most of the population is deficient in. One of the authors actually assisted NeoLife in formulating the Magnesium Complex we have today which is the best there is out there. Boasting of all 3 forms of magnesium, yes there are 3 forms, and double bond amino acid chelation for best absorption so you can take less and get more from it has been a game changer for us. This book goes through the over 700 body responses that magnesium controls! Outstanding.

The Longevity Solution, Dr. Fung’s latest book co-written with Dr. James from The Salt fix, really focuses on staying young and what causes aging. I am about half way through it and am riveted to it!

Cholesterol Clarity and Keto Clarity by Jimmy Moore and Dr. Eric Westman: I am about half way through Cholesterol Clarity and once again can I just say mind blown. The information is so good and really will help you advocate for yourself if your doctor tries to push statins and how to have that all to important conversation with your doctor. Keto Clarity I have not read yet, it actually just came in the mail, but I am looking forward to diving into it. I have been listening to Jimmy’s podcasts so I know the book will be just as good.

Undoctored By William Davis; I will be honest, I can’t give a review on it yet but it came highly recommended by trusted sources so I am going to dive in and soak it up! Wheat Belly and Wheat Belly Total health by Dr. Davis as well I know are excellent books. I have known for a long time how wheat and grains hurt our guts and now look forward to reading these books. Wheat Belly has been on my list for some time now.

I am looking forward to being able to share information I learn in future blog posts! Here’s to life long learning…cheers!

Thanks to all the interest in sharing better health through low carb ketogenic way of life and sharing recipes. My passion is to reach as many people as possible. This blog has been a great success in a short amount of time, thanks to new followers every day, and making an impact which is the whole purpose. Through chatting with others we thought it would be nice to have a group that we could support each other, ask questions and just make some new friends. So we have started our own party on Facebook to do just this. If you’re on Facebook just search out Shari’s Low Carb Kitchen or click the link. So come join our party, introduce yourself and make some new friends. We will have some read alongs, and some weekly challenges for those that would like to participate. Hope to see you there.

Going LCHF/Ketogenic doesn’t mean you have to give up bread! This Keto Roll recipe is simple to make and doesn’t take fancy ingredients. The fanciest ingredient needed is Psyllium husk powder, which should be a staple in your kitchen, and the rest are ingredients almost everyone would have on hand. You can even change it up by adding different seasonings such as garlic for a lovely garlic roll to go with a yummy spaghetti squash dish! So versatile!

What you need:

• 5 tbsp ground psyllium husk powder
• 1¼ cups almond flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed(optional)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 tsp cider vinegar
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

Instructions:

• Preheat Oven to 350 degrees F
• Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. I like to sift my dry ingredients together to ensure all the lumps are out. Start water boiling.

Combine egg whites and vinegar in a small bowl, add to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Add boiling water, beat with hand mixer for about 30 seconds. Do not overmix, will have a consistency of a thick stick to your ribs oatmeal or playdoh.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with a little spray, I use avocado oil spray. Moisten hands with a little olive oil and roll the dough into 8 equal size rolls.

Bake on lower rack of oven for 50-60 minutes. After cooking is done turn off oven leaving rolls in for another 10 minutes, I find this helps to keep the rolls from being hollow inside.

Finish cooling on a cooling rack or eat right away.
Serve with butter and toppings of your choice. Great for sandwich fixings.

Depending on the brand of psyllium husk you use the inside may be a purplish color. This is completely normal and doesn’t effect the taste of the roll. The texture of the roll is not that of traditional roll, it may have a little bit of a spongy texture and you can play with the amount of water if you want. If I don’t add the flaxseed I will use a little less than the full cup.

Nutrition: Serving Size 1 roll; Net Carb 1.5g; Fat 9.75g; Protein 5.25

While perusing the recipe section at Diet Doctorhttps://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes I saw a recipe with radishes. Now I have never used radishes before but I have used bacon and bacon makes everything better. I have had radishes in salads before but never prepared buy me. I was feeling adventurous, so while at the store I picked up some radishes. Not being familiar with them I didn’t know there were different types, they had some whitish ones and some lovely pink ones and then ugly black ones all in the same thing and only one price listed. I got some white ones and some pink ones, the black really didn’t look appetizing, along with some other veggies for other recipes…stay tuned… finished my shopping and checked out. At the checkout I was chatting with the cashier and learned the pink ones were called watermelon radishes which was really cool considering I love watermelon.

One tip I would like to offer is do not mix the different types when cooking as they do not cook at the same rate. The watermelon ones cooked much quicker than the regular white ones which left them kind of woody tasting.

Ingredients you will need, besides the obvious of radishes, are:

• 10 oz. bacon, chopped
• 1½ lbs radishes, quartered
• 1 garlic clove, pressed
• salt and pepper

First things first, I had to wash these babies up and trim them. I always wash my veggies and fruit with a kelp soap called Green by Golden(NeoLife) as its totally safe and does a great job so I don’t have to worry about anything with my kids. We also use this to wash up in the shower. After trimming slice off any bad spots and quarter them.

While prepping the radishes you can have the bacon cooking up on the stove top. You could cook your bacon in the oven and just put some of that bacon grease in the pan and saute the garlic up.

Once bacon is cooked remove from pan and set aside. Add the garlic to the bacon grease and cook for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the radishes to the pan
stirring occasionally and fry till tender and have a nice color, about 10-15 minutes. *A note here, if you have different types of radishes pull the ones that are tender out and let the others cook longer. While radishes are frying break up the bacon into smaller pieces. After the radishes are finished add the bacon back to the pan and season with salt and pepper leaving it to cook for a few minutes to get everything nicely flavored and hot. Remove from pan and eat while still hot.

You can enjoy as a side dish or fry up a couple eggs, since you still have the bacon grease in the pan, and enjoy as a nice meal. That is what I choose to do. It is heavenly.

Nutrition Info per serving(this makes 4 servings): Net Carbs 4g; Protein 10g; Fat 28g. *This is for the radish dish only*

While doing some research, because I am a research junkie, I came across a very interesting article on babies and ketosis. This information really rocked my brain because it made so much sense.

Some people, both medical professionals and lay people, seem to think ketogenesis is abnormal or unhealthy and I will admit I was one of those people until I started looking at the real science and not the hype. It is exactly the opposite of unhealthy or abnormal. In the article I read from Ketotic.org it states, “ketogenic metabolism is normal and desirable, human newborns are in ketosis. ” Continue reading “Ketogenic Babies” →

Tonight’s dinners is one of our family favorites, of course the past few times we have made it I wasn’t able to capture the pictures for a nice post. Surprise surprise I still got barely any pictures, at least I did get one of the finished recipe. This makes about 6 servings and takes less than 30 minutes from start to finish to make! The best part, this is easy to increase and is easy on the budget…perfect for party or a big family like mine!

This is from Ditch the Carbs, one of my favorite sites to pull and tweak recipes from.

Ingredients you need:

1 onion quartered and sliced,1 clove garlic crushed, 1.65 lb ground/mince beef, 2 oz full fat cream cheese, 3 slices bacon diced, salt/pepper to taste, 3 Med eggs,1/2 cup heavy cream, 1 1/2 cup shredded/grated cheese divided, 2 tbsp mustard,2 pickles sliced

Instructions

Beef Layer

• Fry the bacon pieces until cooked and set aside.
• Fry the onion, garlic and beef until thoroughly cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste, stir through the cream cheese. 
• Pour the beef layer into the baking dish. Sprinkle the bacon pieces over.

Cheese Burger Sauce

• Mix the eggs, cream, 1 cup of the shredded cheese, mustard, salt and pepper together. Pour the cheese sauce over the beef layer.
• Place slices of pickles all over the top then cover with the remaining 1/2 cup shredded cheese.
• Bake at 180C/350F for 15 minutes until the cheese is golden and crispy.
• Delicious served with salad and low carb mayo or full fat sour cream.

Nutritional information:  613 Calories , Fat 51g, Carbohydrates 3g, Protein 33g

We know having a balance between our glucose and insulin is vitally important for our health. It’s why we chose to eat LCHF/Ketogenic way of eating.
Tonight I had the pleasure of presenting on glucose and diet at our monthly NeoLife Experience meeting. I think diet and supplementing with targeted food supplements to assist our cells to become more insulin sensitive so we can use less insulin is super important. It is my hope that this FB Live video will be informative and educational.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FUF_WBpstc&w=560&h=315]

There were a couple things I had wanted to touch on, however forgot to. Glucose in the brain and Alzheimer’s/Dementia. This is very near and dear to my heart as family members suffered from this and eventually it took them from us. I will do a post about that soon.

I am very much in favor of diet and supplementation for filling the gaps of any diet. In my experience most supplements do not do what they say they will or are poor quality and can do more harm than good. There is one brand I trust explicitly and that I know truly work. The only pharmaceutical grade whole food supplements that I have seen. NeoLife~ Based in Nature Back

Do you think living a LCHF Ketogenic lifestyle means no more bread? Well think again! There are many low carb bread recipes out there and I like a few, but I was still searching for a chewy sandwich bread. Recently I had a family member contact me to ask if I had heard of this bread book and the author and if I hadn’t could I look into it. So I diligently took to researching both the author, Kelley Herring, and the book.* Allow me to share one of her recipes that paired with my chowder just beautifully. Out of all the bread recipes I have tried this is one my kids have said they liked the best. I am going to change out the baking powder for baking soda and see if that makes a difference, if it does I will update the recipe.

What you need:

• 3/4 cups blanched almond flour
• 3 tbsp coconut flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt or pink himalayan salt
• 3 tsp psyllium husk powder
• 3 eggs + 1 egg white
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar(braggs or similar with the “mother”)
• 1/4 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(177C), grease a 7.5″x 3×5″ loaf pan(mine is a tad bigger than this as it was the smallest I could find so my loaf is not as tall as I would like). Place a parchment sling in the greased pan, covering the bottom and extending over the edges.

In a small bowl combine the dry ingredients. While it is not totally necessary I find that sifting the dry ingredients works nicely and eliminates lumps.

In another bowl whisk the eggs, egg white and vinegar together. I use my hand blender for this, but as long as they are well beaten that is all that matters. Add the dry ingredients and stir until combined.

Pour in hot water and stir vigorously. Batter will be thick and sticky like oatmeal. Spread into prepared pan and transfer to oven. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Once bread is done turn oven off leaving bread in the oven for 5 minutes, then cool in pan for 10 min and transfer to a wire rack until cooled completely. Store in an airtight container….if you have any leftovers that is!

Nutrition information: 60 calories, 4g fat, 3g carbohydrate, 1g net carbohydrate, 2g fiber, 3g protein.

* The author, Kelley Herring, seemed to have good research and her recipes were spot on. After some independent research I found only high praise from those that had tried her earlier recipes so I decided to take the leap and give it a try. Her newest book is Keto Breads and has many recipes I am anxious to try. The big negative was the ordering process was very painful as it continued trying to upsell more and more things and kept taking me to pages to buy more things. I did not appreciate this at all. I just wanted to buy the book so I could review the recipes, not spend oodles more or try to be upsold on things. I do not like websites that do this type of thing which is why I am not adding a link. That was very disappointing.

It’s winter here in the frozen tundra and I have been in the mood for a hearty filling soup. I love chowders but they are typically high in carbohydrates do to the flour that is used in traditional chowders. Thanks to Kyndra at Peace Love & Low Carb I have found a chowder that is not only low in carbohydrates but also has so many of my favorite foods! Chicken, Bacon..because bacon makes everything more tasty… veggies and mushrooms, I love me some mushrooms! To top it off it’s fairly easy to make in the crockpot and budget friendly for a large family like mine! Continue reading “Chicken Bacon Chowder” →

I’ve said it before and I will say again pizza is a lovely comfort food. There is just something about pizza toppings. A good crust is lovely but it’s the toppings that make the pizza. Unfortunately pizza is very high in carbohydrates, but let us not despair, with just a little ingenuity us low carb folks can enjoy pizza in many different forms. Growing up my family would often make pizza out of things like tortillas and bagels. My kids like that too. Recently I posted about our low carb bagels and how yummy they are. Well who said bagels are just for breakfast? Certainly not me. Why not turn them into easy personal pizzas? That’s just what we did for dinner tonight.

Cut the bagels in half, add low carb pizza sauce to each half…I have found about 1tbsp works well. Add your favorite cheeses for pizza and your favorite toppings. Featured above I have some pepperoni, some olives, some mushroom, some crumbled bacon. The sky is the limit for what you want. Bake in the oven, about 425 F and then toss under the broiler for a few minutes to help crisp up the toppings without over cooking the bagels.

Let cool a few minutes, if you can control yourself, before digging in. The best part is how low carb and filling these are. One full bagel is only 2.4 net carbs, which means 1 bagel pizza is only 1.2 net carbs plus about 1g carbs for pizza sauce. Now you can have guilt free enjoyment!