Week Two
Week two of my experiment was very interesting. I hit one major stumbling block and had one important revelation.
Stumbling Block:
I needed new ideas for foods to prepare so I went online to find recipes. I tried a few, which were horrible. (Note to self: Don’t use chickpeas flour in anything ever again). I found two great recipes that I will keep making:
1) Black Bean and Quinoa Falafel from yummly.com (I used millet instead of quinoa because I hate the taste of quinoa and I didn’t use any tomatoes.)
2) Granola (breakfast cereal) – I found the recipe in the book, Stay Healthy During Chemo by Mike Herbert, ND. This is a great substitute for refined cereals.
Revelation:
After watching another one of Babara O’Neill’s videos, I finally found out why I’ve been suffering from low iron all these years. I was very upset after I watched the video. I’ve been to many doctors and all they did was prescribe iron tablets. The tablets didn’t solve the root problem of WHY I was deficient in the first place. I now know there were two main things I was doing wrong.
1) I was drinking with my meals. This neutralized the hydrochloric acid in my stomach. Strong hydrochloric acid is essential in removing iron from food so my body can absorb it.
2) I was not paring my food properly. For example, I should only eat protein with vegetables. So spaghetti and meatball is out. Pizza is out, etc. Eating the wrong foods together can also neutralize the acid. My sister sent me a few videos on this. It’s a bit confusing and hard to implement because I’ve been doing it wrong all my life, but I’m learning. Here's a great chart to print out and keep on the fridge.
Foods I Stopped Eating (along with everything from Week 1):
Eating less meat
Proteins with starches (No rice and peas with chicken – I did cabbage with chicken instead)
Foods I Started Eating (along with everything from Week 1):
Fresh parsley
Fresh cilantro
Green drink almost every morning
Chia seeds