Monday Morsels: Sleep Troubles Support #3
It’s #mondaymorsels day, a brief post about a food you’ll want to add to your grocery list. This food, as always, will be related to the main topic of the month! This month, we’re talking sleep support.
Click on the image to get the full exploration of today’s find!
Let’s continue to build your grocery list with those foods that can help support good quality SLEEP - a pillar in Keeping Well.
This week, we focus on a certain amino acid needed to formulate the all-important sleep neurotransmitters + hormones. Look for a list of foods as good tryptophan sources later in the article!
Add this one to your list: TRYPTOPHAN RICH FOODS.
BECAUSE MELATONIN
In order for your body to make the get-to-sleep-hormone Melatonin, you need some ingredients: chief among them, the amino acid tryptophan. Because tryptophan gets converted into Serotonin at the gut level (with the help of your microbiome + endocrine cells in your gut) and then that gets converted into Melatonin. Therefore, tryptophan —> serotonin —> melatonin = sleep like a teenager.
BECAUSE MOOD
Studies show that those who struggle with moods sometimes have lower tryptophan levels in their blood. Where tryptophan levels were lower, study participants reported higher anxiety, and a lower emotional resiliency. If you understand that serotonin is a feel-good neurotransmitter, when tryptophan levels are low, the production of serotonin can start to wane, which may contribute to lower moods. Those who struggle with insomnia will often also struggle with mood and anxiety.
BECAUSE HORMONAL + BLOOD SUGAR BALANCE
Once you rev up production of Melatonin (via the consuming + assimilation of Tryptophan, and then conversion into Serotonin via the gut) you are not only able to support your pineal gland function and improve sleep, the hormone Melatonin is able to be Queen Bee - helping to balance all other hormones and keep the out-of-balance ones in check. With deeper + better quality sleep, so comes the building blocks of hormonal balance - but also blood sugar balance. This work takes place under a deep sleep in the night! Interesting to note that hormonal and blood sugar imbalances can be triggering insomnia as well. It’s a catch 22, it would seem!
Easiest way to pinpoint those foods that offer a good amount of tryptophan: ALL COMPLETE PROTEIN.
FOODS THAT OFFER A GOOD AMOUNT OF TRYPTOPHAN: poultry, animal + fish protein, seafood, eggs, most nuts + seeds and their butters, spirulina, dairy, peanuts, whole wheat, beans + legumes (properly 'activated'), leek, tomatoes, dark leafy greens, potatoes, apricots, raisins, avocado, plums, kiwi, plantain, peaches, mustard, fenugreek, spearmint, fennel, caraway. Your highest and most bio-available amounts will be found in your animal protein from land and water.
So build your grocery list accordingly there, friend! Protein for the good-sleep win! (Keeping my fingers crossed that you can digest like a pro. But that’s a post for another day.)
Struggle with sleep issues? I’m throwing a Vitality: SLEEP class, coming up in November. Find the full details here.
Monday Morsels: Sleep Troubles Support #2
It’s #mondaymorsels day, a brief post about a food you’ll want to add to your grocery list. This food, as always, will be related to the main topic of the month! This month, we’re talking sleep support.
Click on the image to get the full exploration of today’s find!
Let’s continue to build your grocery list with those foods that can help support good quality SLEEP - a pillar in Keeping Well.
This week’s entry is a perfect seasonal offering that you should be easily able to add to meals, whether or not sleep is an issue!
Add this one to your list: BEETS.
BECAUSE ANTIOXIDANTS
Anything real-food deep in colour provides the body with a rich array of antioxidants. Antioxidants help do the clean up of things like inflammation + oxidative stress - two root causes of why your pineal gland has a hard time making melatonin + figuring out your internal 24 hour clock. Clean up rescue on aisle 5!
BECAUSE BLOOD FLOW
Naturally occurring nitrates found in beets help to dilate blood vessels, and enhance your body’s circulatory prowess in delivering blood + nutrients to cells and organs all around your body. When this delivery system is optimized, so now you can better get the nutrients to areas like your pineal gland, grand poobah of sleep regulation.
BECAUSE LIVER LOVIN
When sleep feels like an elusive beast, it can be one of the signals your body is sending requesting some liver lovin, especially if it is rooted in hormonal imbalances or blood sugar imbalances. Making lists in the middle of the night? Waking up with a bit of heart racing? Super sluggish and hard to get out of bed in the morning? The liver may need some support. When you address this, you may see a reduction in this imbalances, and thus better and more restful sleep has a chance to get restored. Beets = super liver love!
Bonus here too, beets provide your body with a lot of those nutrients you’ll need to convert your tryptophan (amino acid from all protein) into serotonin, and then into melatonin, your sleep-like-a-teenager hormone. Yes please to getting to sleep with ease!
Roast them (trimmed, in a lidded dish, 50-60 minutes at 350F in the oven), simmer them (25 minutes) steam them (haven’t tried this - love the roasted ones so much!) or ferment them (beet kvass!), doesn’t matter. Add them to your dinner meal rotation at least 2 times a week to reap those benefits.
Oh yeaaaaaa - what about a good ole fashioned Borscht? It’s one of the liver-lovin recipes in my Liver E-Book. Just set it up to be half off for the month of October there, my friend. Think of this as an invitation to make some delicious liver-loving things, with the round-about idea to improve your sleep.
Good quality sleep really is one of the key pillars to Keeping Well. So go bank on that, kitten!
Monday Morsels: Sleep Troubles Support #1
It’s #mondaymorsels day, a brief post about a food you’ll want to add to your grocery list. This food, as always, will be related to the main topic of the month! This month, we’re talking sleep support.
Click on the image to get the full exploration of today’s find!
New month, new topic here at #goodfoodHQ! Let’s dive in to the ways Holistic Nutrition can help support good quality SLEEP.
We are building our grocery list one sleep-supporting food at a time!
Add this one to your list: LIVER.
BECAUSE B VITAMINS
Organ meats, especially liver, are powerhouses of B vitamins. All of them. In brilliant balance. Together, they’re needed to make conversions of the amino acid Tryptophan into the feel-good neurotransmitter called Serotonin. B vitamins then help make the conversion of Serotonin into Melatonin - that all-important sleep-inducing hormone your body naturally makes.
BECAUSE K2
As we age, our bodies have the tendency of depositing calcium in places we don’t necessarily want - one of these places is the Pineal Gland. Your pineal gland governs your sleep/wake cycles, and with the calcification (further exacerbated by the chlorine found in our water) comes an impeded ability to do its job. Consuming foods high in vitamin K2 will help calcium deposit where it SHOULD go, keeping it from being deposited on your pineal gland. This will, in turn, support improved sleep!
BECAUSE CHOLINE
Liver is a rich source of choline - a crucial nutrient needed in the biochemistry of falling asleep + staying asleep. This important vitamin is also a key player in optimizing your body’s Circadian Rhythm - a function of your pineal gland. When it works well, sleep comes more easily. Choline for the good sleep win!
Liver is kinda non-negotiable when sleep is an issue, my dear.
Find it tricky to add liver to your day to day? Find a good pate you enjoy. Slip some of that into your next meatballs or burgers. Eat liver pate cold - as a dip with crackers, veg, seaweed crackers. I love liver pate on apple slices. Add some liver to your ground meats! When all else fails, find a desiccated liver supplement, and keep it consistent on the daily.
Now go eat some liver, kids. I just took some Coconut Chicken Liver Pate out of the freezer for lunch today. Because SLEEP.
(Oh yes -make a big batch and freeze in 1/2 cup portions. They defrost like a dream!)
Monday Morsels: Histamine Help #4
It’s #mondaymorsels day, a brief post about a food you’ll want to add to your grocery list. This food, as always, will be related to the main topic of the month! This month, we’re talking histamine support.
Click on the image to get the full exploration of today’s not-in-the-grocery-store-you’ll-have-to-make-it-yourself find!
One last week of diving in to building your histamine busting grocery list. (Our main topic this month on all things #goodfoodHQ.)
We are building our low histamine grocery list one histamine-busting food at a time!
Add this one to your list: MEAT STOCK.
BECAUSE GUT LOVE
Meat Stock is one of the best foods for the cells of your intestinal lining - and when there is something amiss at this level, you start to wane on the production of a histamine-busting enzyme called DAO (Di-Amine Oxidase). Work at improving the integrity at the gut lining, and you start to improve things so that you can produce your own histamine-busting capabilities.
BECAUSE INFLAMMATION
Meat Stock helps deeply nourish all organs that are involved in possible histamine mediated reactions - nourishing to the gut, the liver, the adrenals, your nervous system, and especially supportive to the immune system, which is mounting the entire histamine reaction. Nourishing deeply helps to reduce inflammation, and take some stress off of your nervous system / adrenals / liver.
BECAUSE LOW HISTAMINE
Meat Stock vs Bone Broth: bone broth, due to its long cooking time, is higher in histamines. A meat stock requires a shorter cooking time, and hence ends up being lower in histamines. If you find you aren’t able to tolerate a long cook (aka Bone Broth), then it’s time to figure out how to make your own Meat Stock. (Recipe link below)
Meat Stock is the bomb, my friend. As my Dad says, it’s good for what ails ya. And if nothing’s ailing ya, it’s good for that too.
The tricky thing here is that no one on the market is producing a short cook Meat Stock. It’s something you have to undertake yourself. Here’s the thing: IT’S DEAD EASY. Whether you’re making it on the stove top or in a Pressure Cooker (like the Instant Pot), it’s a case of plonking your ingredients in (chicken parts (backs + necks or gizzards) + a few veg like carrots and celery and onions if you can tolerate, omit any chicken skin if you’re in an active flare-up), covering up with filtered water, and simmering for 1.5 hours on stove top or 45 minutes in the instant pot.
Run through a sieve. Reserve your liquid gold - and toss the rest in the compost pile.
Look for a full exploration of WHY Meat Stock may be a better option for you than Bone Broth here. (Recipe included)
In passing - 50% off sale on my Vitality: HISTAMINES class for the rest of the month.
Empower yourself with ways to feel better, should histamines be a tricky thing for you!
Want to get your hands on a pdf or printable version of this brilliant superb food? (My new term - instead of super food (all real food is super food) I’m calling it now Superb Food.) Add your name to the weekly newsletter to get a 3-recipe ebook that includes the Meat Stock recipe.
Monday Morsels: Histamine Help #3
Starting this week, every Monday, a quick blog post about a food you’ll want to add to your grocery list. This food, as always, will be related to the main topic of the month! This month, we’re talking histamine support.
Click on the image to get the full exploration of today’s grocery store find!
Listen. Things are shifting around here.
With the changes to algorithms on social media channels, and the desire to bury content there in the hopes of offering you one-sided information only, I am moving my weekly Monday Morsels column to the blog.
Probably something I should have done a long time ago.
In the interest of offering science-backed information on how the real food can support you through Keeping Well, I want to make sure you’re able to access this information. Best way: sign up for the (now) weekly newsletter.
I’ll be posting a short blog write up here every Monday, where we focus in on one specific food to add to your grocery list, keeping the month’s main topic at hand. A link to this will be included in every weekly newsletter, making sure you don’t miss the good info.
For September, we’re zeroing in on how Holistic Nutrition can be of support to someone struggling with possible histamine mediated issues.
We are building our low histamine grocery list one histamine-busting food at a time!
Add this one to your list: NIGELLA SEEDS.
BECAUSE GUT LOVE
Thymoquinone (TQ) is the main active component of nigella seeds, and nigella seed oil. Preliminary studies are showing some protective effect of this seed on the mucosal lining of the gut (ok in rats, but someday maybe in humans?). TQ helped lower histamine release in the gut where there was known gut leakage. What's at the root of histamine troubles for some? LEAKY GUT.
BECAUSE INFLAMMATION
Nigella is a brilliant anti-inflammatory herb. What's at the root of many troubles with histamines? Chronic inflammation!
BECAUSE CALM
Nigella seed has been studied for its protective effect on the Central Nervous System. In mice (someday humans I hope!) studies show that this potent seed enhances the work of GABA, a calming neurotransmitter.
Check out your favourite health food store to get a live, non-irradiated product in order to glean the benefits of this potent seed. Look for Nigella Seeds or nigella oil. They are sometimes labelled Kalonji seeds (traditional Indian name), black seeds, or Black Cumin Seeds. My fave spots where I see it all the time: at The Light Cellar, and Amaranth Whole Foods in Arbour Lake.
I have also seen nigella seeds in honey, from Shaganappi Grocer here in Calgary.
And hey - they grow into the most beautiful flowers. Annuals here in Calgary! Grow your own + harvest the seeds!
Not sure how to add them to your diet? Hit me up below! I'll share some quick tips.