The Paleo Toddler Series: Basic Pantry Building and Shopping

So now that I've given you all some amazing looking recipes to try, I just know you're chomping at the bit to go out and restock your entire pantry, and start looking like these guys in the picture!

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But emptying all your old processed chemical foods into the bin and completely replenishing is just not an option for almost all of us out there!  We didn't have much of a choice since our Baby B's health was at stake, and luckily we were mostly Paleo so there wasn't too much of an overhaul, but it still ate up quite a bit of the grocery money that week.  

Now that we've been doing this for a bit, I'm starting to get the hang of finding out where to save money, how to get the best buys for what we need, and how to do our shopping so that we don't end up wasting a bunch of produce (that shit adds up!!)

Figure out what you eat most.  Spend a month playing around with different meals that are Paleo or Paleo-ish and see what you eat the most of.  If you aren't ready to go full Paleo, incorporate 3-4 meals a week with your standard fare.  For example, we found that we eat a ton of eggs and beef now, leafy greens are here and there, and that we upped our consumption of sweet potatoes, carrots, avocado and peppers.  After you find what type of foods work best for you and your family, meal planning and grocery lists are so much easier to handle.

Plan, plan, and plan some more.  Go through Pinterest (you can take a look at The Paleo Toddler Board, Dinner Time, or "Man Food" for inspiration and take aways) or Google to help find recipes with the foods you eat most often.  Then go ahead and do the handy dandy meal planning.  I Heart Planners is having a September Meal Planning Challenge that I just signed up for, complete with free calendar printable!

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Shop small, shop often.  This one I'm not a huge fan of, but it does help minimize our waste.  At the very least, I buy only what we need for the week's meal plan plus a few snacks on hand, and at the most I will end up at the store 2-3 times a week for new produce as it runs out.  This way it stays fresh, and we are sure to use it! 

Don't be afraid of the bulk bins.  While produce is best bought in small quantities, dry goods you definitely want in larger amounts!  We go through coconut and almond flour like crazy, and B can eat lentils and quinoa so it's a much cheaper option to buy big bags and pour in tidy containers! Sprouts has an amazing selection of bulk products, and even stores like Kroger are getting in on the act by having bulk section that they keep adding to.  

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Also, if you have access to Costco, a membership will benefit you greatly!  Costco has tons of organic items, which can vary from store to store.  A 5 lb. bag of almond flour costs around $25, much better than $11-$12 for 10 oz at the grocery store! We also use them to stock up on grassfed butter, organic seasonings, eggs, and meat. Be sure to stick to your list otherwise it's too easy to walk away with chocolate cake the size of a small dog, and car batteries!

Phase out old food.  Realize this is a process.  As you finish off your bad foods, simply don't replace them.  Put that money you would spend on inferior food in a jar or in your budget towards clean snacks or grassfed meats.  If you do that for a month, there should be a nice sum to use for your new clean shopping list.  I calculated the amount we would spend on fast food, candy, or bags of chips with hydrogenated oils and my jaw dropped.  We could have had grassfed steak 2-3 times that month at home, and vodka, if we hadn't spent that money!  

Homemade is the way to go.  I know we are all busy, and many of you out there are busier than I am.  I implore you to set aside just a couple hours a week to pre-make a few things.

They taste better, you know what's in it, and it saves you money since you can make huge batches.  I've started making our Paleo English Muffins in bulk and freezing them so we can just pull a couple out to toast  and be on with our day.  Having pre-made food also makes it sooooooo much harder to justify bad food when you know you have options at home.

I promise just like with anything else, it gets easier as you go.  One day you will look back and wonder how you managed without the food-style you have now!  Cheers!

How do you prep and budget for your clean meals? Let me know!

The Paleo Toddler Series: Store Bought Snacks

In my last post I talked about how Baby B was diagnosed with severe leaky gut and massive food sensitivities.  Nowadays it seems as though EVERYTHING that is marketed for babies and toddlers include dairy, gluten, rice and/or oats, and high fructose corn syrup in at least 3 different forms. After realizing I had to get rid of his yogurt pouches, cheesy puffs, GF teething biscuits and could no longer make his favorite dish of fried rice with eggs and pea, I was left in a panic and scratching my head-what to do next?

I started by doing the same thing I did for myself when I had to go Gluten Free; I sought out the ready to eat snack foods first.  By knowing I had store snacks to eat, it bought me some time to make my own snacks, and encouraged me to really get the ball rolling with the rest of the plan.

Off I trotted to Sprouts to get

The Pregnancy That Wasn't, and Natural Ways to Boost Estrogen.

Phantom Pregnancy. Ever heard of it?  No? Don't feel bad, neither had I.  After I had Baby B, my hormones were all wonky and I had HORRIBLE Postpartum Depression.  I should have known that my hormones would not go back to normal all on their own.

7 months later, I am still having amenorreah, which is the absence of menstruation, which is not uncommon for mommas who are exclusively breastfeeding.  And since I have a history of PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), menstruation is always irregular and a pain in my ass as is.

Well, we had a scare.  I started showing signs of being knocked up again.  Smells that were sending me racing to the bathroom.  Dry heaving, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headaches, backaches, swollen feet, weight gain, even craving tacos and coffee again.  4 pregnancy tests later, we were scratching our heads in confusion.  How is this possible that they are all coming up negative?  So, after looking up CNM (Certified Nurse Midwives) in our area, off I went for a blood test and hopefully an ultrasound to try and get the yay or nay that Baby #2 was on the way.


Imagine my surprise when the ultrasound showed absolutely nothing.  Not even a smidgen. As the Nurse Midwife explained to me that because my body had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome for so long, it naturally had suppressed estrogen, and that breastfeeding was suppressing both my progesterone and estrogen even further which is what happens to our bodies during pregnancy.  Hence, the feelings and symptoms of pregnancy that I was experiencing.

 Even though we weren't really hoping to be pregnant so soon, it was still a let down to know that I wasn't pregnant.  Almost the same as I felt when I realized I'd had a miscarriage, really.  Then, I was so frustrated and angry with my body, that it couldn't even sustain life, and instead was giving me all this misinformation that was making feel sick and so tired I couldn't keep up with my son when he really needed me to.

The CNM went on to prescribe me antibiotics to help with the bacteria that was also thinning out my uterine lining, and some estrogen cream.  He had offered the option of Birth Control pills as an option for boosting my estrogen, however I have found the pill to make me quite ill, and very emotional when I first start it.  Combine that with postpartum depression, and a huge move, and it has the very real potential to be a recipe for disaster.  The cream however, was an outrageous price even with our insurance, so I did what I normally do and started hunting around for natural alternatives to the pharmaceutical prescription.

After hunting around for awhile, I found many herbs and supplements that will help balance the hormone system in the body.  Although I had to be careful, since a few of them such as Black Cohosh and Parsley will decrease milk supply if you are nursing.

Wild yam cream was one of the first hits for regulating estrogen and progesterone.  Both including more yams into your diet, as well as using a cream is supposed to help with the effects of menopause, PMS, and general hormone health.

Next on the list, was red raspberry leaves.  Either in tea form, or in supplements.  The red raspberry helps strengthen the uterus during pregnancy, and so obviously it would help my thinking uterine walls, making sex much more comfortable, as well as helping with hormonal balance.  Most PMS teas that you find will have red raspberry in them somewhere.

After that is an Auervedyic-type supplement by Irwin Naturals, for menstrual and hormonal relief and balance. Although they are softgels, they are definitely horse pills, so make sure to have water on hand to wash them down!

Finally, my beloved Supermom multivitamins by Beeyoutiful!  I started taking these as a way to help with my diabetes, and simply kept taking them throughout pregnancy and after.  While I went down to 1 per day for awhile due to Baby B having a sensitive tummy and reflux, now that he's doing better, I will be upping to the full dosage of 2 per day for maxim results. And, after visiting the site, I noticed they now have a Super Lady formula as well!  After I'm done breastfeeding, I will be switching over to those bad boys!

Another natural supplement for hormonal balance is Evening Primrose Oil.  I used that stuff while trying to kickstart my labour which you can read about here, and lo and behold, it has another use so I didn't waste money and only use a small portion of it. 

And as always, diet diet diet.  Adding in dark leafy greens, minimizing processed and refined foods and sugar, yams, and lean protiens are the way to go for any kind of optimal health, especially for hormonal balance.

Although not an extensive list by any means, these are what I have found to really help me. After just a week, I'm already feeling more energy.  For more information you can click Here for information on nutrition, and Here for more information on supplements and herbs to help with hormonal balance.