GAPS-Friendly Fig Newtons!

Here is another, in a series of dessert recipes that are GAPS friendly: Fig Newtons! It's a sweet, delicious and filling snack! 

A little bit goes a long way. I suggest most people keep their glycemic load total to less than 25 points total a day to stay well. Three figs totals 16 points. 1/6 of this recipe is 16 points. There is not much room for much fruit for the rest of the day, but it's so worth it!

For more information on the glycemic load and how to calculate your food's impact on your insulin level, see http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Glycemic_index_and_glycemic_load_for_100_foods.htm

Ingredients:

Fig Spread:

1 pack of cut up dried figs (18-20 figs)

1 cup water

Cookie Dough:

2/3 cup tallow or butter

1/3 cup honey (it can be replaced with stevia to taste)

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp baking soda

2 cups almond flour or other nut flour, like coconut

½ tsp salt

freshly ground nutmeg (optional)

Soak 1 pack of cut up dried figs in water over night and/or simmer until soft and process until smooth.

Preheat oven to 350°F and combine butter, honey, vanilla, baking soda, almond flour, salt, and nutmeg (optional) in food processor until they form a ball. Wrap in wax paper and cool in refrigerator for easier handling.

Roll out half of the dough (or press) into a pie pan or cake pan for the bottom layer.

Spread the fig spread on the layer and roll out the rest of the dough for the top of the crust between two pieces of wax paper floured with your nut flour, for easier handling.

Flip on top of fig filling and bake for about 12-15 minutes until light brown.

Take a break and enjoy your GAPS friendly Fig Newtons!

To Your Health,
Dr. Barbara

A GAPS Friendly Very, Berry Cream Flan!

The theme for the last few blogs have been recipes for desserts. Here's another one, no one will ever guess this flan/pie is made with coconut milk, it's so rich. 

You can personalize your flan by choosing the berry of your preference. I have made one with blueberries and the other with raspberries.

Raspberry Cream Flan

Ingredients for two flans:

Crust enough for two flans:

1 1/2 cup flaked or shredded, unsweetened coconut (without sulfites)

6 pitted Medjool dates

3 tbsp coconut oil

1 egg white

1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Topping for two flans:

4 cups coconut milk

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk

¼ cup honey

10 drops stevia

Blueberry Cream Flan

4 tsp grated lemon and orange rind

2 tsp vanilla

1 pack of gelatin

1 1/2 cups organic berries of your choice

 Crust:

In food processor, combine the ingredients for the crust, in the order written, pulsing after each addition. Press into bottom of a square cake pan, springform, or flan pan. Sprinkle with berries. 

Topping:

Using the same food processor, add all ingredients and blend until smooth and slightly fluffy. Pour over berries.

Bake in 350°F/180° oven for 60-70 minutes or until golden.

This berry cream flan can be served warm or cold. One pie makes 12 servings. 

To Your Health, 

Dr. Barbara

No Bake Chocolate Strawberry Un-Cheesecake! Sweet Summer!

DR POWELL'S NO BAKE UN-CHEESECAKE

This cheesecake, which has no cheese in it, is so easy, and so tasty you will be making this for every social event you go to or arrange. It requires no baking, but does requires some advanced preparation: 1 hour to soak the cashews and 2 hours in the freezer. Let it thaw slightly before serving. This is a real hit!

This recipe can be made GAPS friendly for those of you who are doing GAPS and have not yet controlled all the inflammatory symptoms. For some people, it can take years of eating GAPS, or there has been an insult to the bowel and one has to start GAPS "level one" all over again. 

To make it GAPS friendly or if you are avoiding cocoa, maybe because you are allergic to chocolate, you can replace cocoa with more organic strawberries and it will still taste fantastic.

Ingredients:
Crust
1 cup raw walnuts
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup pitted Medjool dates
Filling
2 1/2 cups raw cashews
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup 
1/3 cup water
2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sliced organic strawberries - or 1 package Swanson's Organic Strawberries soaked until soft.
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
1/4 cup cocoa powder or 1 cup sliced organic strawberries if avoiding cocoa.

Instructions
Place cashews in a large bowl and cover it with cold water. Soak for 1 hour. Drain.
Grease 8 inch spring form pan with coconut oil
Place walnuts, shredded coconut, and salt in blender and pulse to combine. Drop dates in one at a time. Make sure to take the pits out of the Medjool dates. Continue processing until the mixture holds together when pressed between your fingers. Press the crust firmly into bottom of the pan.

Filling

1. Combine the cashews, coconut oil, maple syrup, water, vanilla and salt and process in the same blender without cleaning, until smooth and creamy.
2. Divide between 2 bowls
3. Pour half back into the blender, add strawberries and lemon juice and process until smooth.
4. Stir the cocoa powder into the other half of the filling
5. Drop 2-3 tablespoons of the filling into the crust, alternating between the strawberry and chocolate in a checkerboard fashion. Tap the pan on the counter from time to time to keep it level. Continue until all the filling is in the pan. If you like, insert a butter knife into the filling and give it a quick swirl.
6. Place into freezer until cheesecake is set for about 2 hours. 
7. Remove from freezer, remove the ring from spring form pan and store in refrigerator before serving!

For true GAPS, avoid cocoa:  Ignore step 2,3,4 and 5. After step 1, add 2 cups of organic strawberries, blend and pour the blended mixture into the prepared pan. Proceed to step 8 and 9.

I hope you enjoy your no bake strawberry un-cheesecake as much as I did!

To Your Health.
Dr. Barbara

Good News: Omega-3 Supplements Could Prevent Skin Cancer Study

I recommend for everyone to get some sun exposure, especially in the summer and take some vitamin D supplementation for good health. 
If you are worried about sun exposure giving you skin cancer, there are ways to reduce that risk, and here is a report of one way. This works because it helps to reduce the inflammatory Omega 6/3 ratio closer to the healthy 2/1. In Canada, the average Omega 6/3 ratio is a horrible 10/1. 

BYW you can have your own Omega 6/3 ratio measure with a simple blood test.




Taking a regular dose of omega 3 rich fish oils, can boost skin immunity to sun light, and could help to protect against skin cancer by blocking the sun's ability to suppress immune response. Read more here. 
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Omega-3-supplements-could-prevent-skin-cancer-Study

To Your Health
Dr. Barbara

Sunlight Boosts Nitric Oxide Production, Lowers Risk of Heart disease, Stroke

Sunbathers

Skin exposure to sunshine boosts nitric oxide production and that is a good thing. And researchers have found that the  nitric oxide levels were independent of vitamin D levels. Sunlight triggers healthy metabolism that can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

But many people are worried that they will get melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, if they should get sun exposure without a sun screen. Sun exposure reduces the risk of many conditions and studies show the benefits of sun exposure outweighs the risks. In regards to dying from skin cancer, studies show your risk is 80 times lower on average than your risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke. So it makes sense to work at  lowering your risk for heart attacks and strokes, with getting some sun exposure. 

A recent study by Dr. Weller et al, has some very important conclusions. We need sun exposure as well as good vitamin D blood levels, from sun and from dietary sources to be well. 

Dr. Weller ,lead researcher is quoted as saying:

"We suspect that the benefits to heart health of sunlight will outweigh the risk of skin cancer. The work we have done provides a mechanism that might account for this, and also explains why dietary vitamin D supplements alone will not be able to compensate for lack of sunlight."

I recommend, unless you conciously fit in time for sun exposure that can be proven to give you a vitamin D level above 120 nmol/l, than get as much sun as possible and take a good quality supplement of Vitamin D3, followed with regular blood tests to verify you are getting enough.

There is more here on how to normalize borderline or high blood pressure, the importance of vitamin D, the real incidence of melanoma and the dangerous effects of fructose on the body.

To Your Health
Dr. Barbara

1247
UVA lowers blood pressure and vasodilates the systemic arterial vasculature by mobilisation of cutaneous nitric oxide stores

D Liu,¹ BO Fernandez,³ NN Lang,² JM Gallagher,⁴ DE Newby,² M Feelisch³ and RB Weller^1,5 1Dermatology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom,²Cardiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, ³Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, ⁴Leithmount Surgery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom and ⁵Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

The incidence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD) correlates with latitude and rises in winter. Population vitamin D levels inversely correlate with CVD, but oral supplementation does not alter CVD rates. Skin contains large stores of nitrite(NO₂) and nitrate(NO₃). Nitrate is biologically inert, but can be photo-reduced to active NO₂ and nitric oxide (NO). The dermal vasculature enables rapid systemic dispersal of NO₂ and NO.We hypothesised that ultraviolet A (UVA) mobilises NO bioactivity from skin to circulation to exert beneficial cardiovascular effects. Vit’ D is a marker for sunlight exposure. 24 healthy volunteers were sham (temp’ control) irradiated then actively irradiated with 20 J/cm² UVA. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) fell and heart rate rose during active but not sham irrad’n (3.50±0.73 mmHg vs 2.80±0.98). The MAP fall was sustained for 50 mins in the active group only. Temperature rise was the same in both groups. Circulatory nitrite rose (0.50±0.04 μM to 0.72±0.04 μM p<0.001) and nitrate fell (11.79± 0.64 μM to 8.99±0.40 μM (p<0.001)) during active, but not sham irradiation. There was no change in circulating vitamin D levels. 12 volunteers had forearm blood flow (FBF) measured by venous plethysmography while 8 μmol/min of the NOS antagonist L-NMMA was infused to the brachial artery. FBF rose during active but not sham irradiation (23.7±6.5 % over baseline vs no change p<.0002). Physiological levels of UVA irradiation cause systemic vasodilation and lower BP in a vitamin D and NOS independent manner. Deaths from CVD and stroke are 60 to 100 times higher than from skin cancers in northern Europe. This study provides a mechanistic explanation for the inverse correlation between sunlight exposure and CVD mortality. Sunlight has beneficial effects independently of vitamin D synthesis.

Omega-3 from fish and flax backed to prevent broken hips: Study

Eating GAPS diet and protocol naturally heals the bowel and improves digestion. It naturally increases the blood levels of omega 3 which are asssociated with less inflammation and better health. And it naturally lowers the omega 6 to omega 3 ratio to a more normal, healthy ratio. The closer the ratio is to 2:1 the better. The average Canadian's ratio is a disturbing 10:1.

Here is an interesting article showing that blood levels of omega 3's with less omega 6's ( from grain and seed oils) is associated with less incidence of fractured hips in post menopausal women.

Omega-3 from fish and flax backed to prevent broken hips: Study


Consuming high levels of omega-3 fatty acidsmay reduce the risk for hip fractures in postmenopausal women, research suggests.

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Research/Omega-3-from-fish-and-flax-backed-to-prevent-broken-hips-Study


When I recommend GAPS diet for so many different conditions, it is hard to believe it could really remedy all these health problems. GAPS really reduces inflammation, and less inflammation means less disease.

To your Health.

Dr. Barbara

More On How Low Cholesterol May Be Bad for Your Health

A surprising percentage of my patients with mental health symptoms have low total cholesterol. Low cholesterol, which is a level below 4.14 mmol/l or 160 mg/dl may lead to numerous health problems as I have written about in this blog entry. If you have low cholesterol or if you have any mental health symptoms, that article is worth reading again. 

Here is another article on the subject, posted by R. L. Coffield which describes the observation of the link between low cholesterol and poor health and early death. Of course, he starts by stating the obvious, we hear so much to the contrary, who wouldn't be confused.


Health conscious people may be feeling increasingly confused over the litany of contradictory claims made by the medical profession, pharmaceutical companies and a host of independent scientists. Lately, it seems there is a growing chorus of researchers espousing that low cholesterol levels may, indeed, actually be detrimental to one’s health.

Low Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con (not to be confused with Colpo's book of the same title) is just one of many medical professionals speaking out about the scientifically unverifiable link between cholesterol and heart disease. Dr. Malcolm is a vocal member of a growing number of professionals who believe that “A falling cholesterol level is associated with a greater risk of heart disease.” He cites statistics showing that when cholesterol levels in Japan rose, “…life expectancy increased, and death from all forms of cardiovascular disease fell dramatically.”

Become informed. Read the whole article.
http://suite101.com/article/low-cholesterol-may-be-bad-for-your-health-a68808

There is also mention, that health and longevity are linked to diets lower in simple carbohydrates. 

To your health.
Dr. B