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| Here's little Theo; the 8 month old cause of my current health craziness, and worth every minute of it. |
I have Hashimotos and a gluten intolerance that is not diagnosed Celiac, but is certainly autoimmune and related to my genetics and a leaky gut. I just had my seventh child, and, lucky for me, I have remission of my autoimmune disease during pregnancy. That is a mercy, because I am getting old here, and pregnancy is pretty challenging anymore! I have killer veins and a lot of irritability and depression during pregnancy, but, praise the Lord, I can eat dairy!
I follow Sarah Ballantyne's work and a few years ago I bit the bullet and did the Autoimmune Protocol whole hog. It made a huge difference in my life. Huge. Since then I have been able to reintroduce many foods that I cut out during the elimination phase. And during this pregnancy I was able to enjoy dairy (read "survive on Greek yogurt") without consequences.
But, as Sarah has said, people with autoimmune disease who enjoy remission during pregnancy often experience flare up postpartum. I have been waiting and expecting this, and Boom! the several weeks around the baby turning six months old finally delivered. Suffice it to say, emotional turmoil, a very leaky gut and lots of odd adverse reactions to foods have signaled that it is time to be back on a tight, clean elimination phase of AIP again. Joy.
Dairy is being a huge problem, as is alcohol, which seems to open me up to be intolerant to whatever I eat with it. And yet, one needs some enjoyment in life! I have cut out dairy almost completely; I am having only a tiny bit of organic half and half in my coffee, and rare tastes of cheese, but I am weaning off even more because I want/need to feel as well as I can. So, for that second cup of coffee, I have started replacing the cream with a nutrient rich concoction that is not too weird, and in fact very yummy.
You have heard of 'bulletproof' coffee; so have I, and I don't like oil in my drinks. I do not have a super immersion blender to emulsify my morning beverage; and if I did I would question getting it dirty every morning. Dishes are the bane of this house. Dishes and socks.
Anyway, below is my take on Paleo Coffee:
Yummy, creamy, not too oily, not too coconut-y Paleo Coffee Cream
I took the coconut cream off the top of a can of good Thai coconut milk; let my daughter put the milky liquid from below into a smoothie. I got the coconut cream good and cold, as you do when you are going to whip it into paleo 'whipped cream'.
I also took a block of Kerry Gold, unsalted, grass-fed Irish butter. Softened that to room temperature, as you do when you want to whip butter. You see where this is going. Then I simply whipped the coconut cream (by hand, actually, with a whisk), and added the butter and whipped some more. This way the two were nicely blended and emulsified. I keep this in a container in the fridge and scoop off a bit for each cup of coffee. It is crumbly when cold, but blends well with coffee and does not go too oily on the surface of the drink. And as I said, it is creamy, not too oily, not too coconut-y. Grass fed butter has different fats than conventional American butter, plus vitamins and other good things. And not much lactose. This level of dairy seems to be gong really well! And of course, I am hitting the sardines and leafy greens and other good stuff as I should on AIP. (Not keen on organ meats; we have a bunch of liver and onions frozen, because we could not get ourselves to eat it! Next maybe I will be hiding some of that in meatballs...)
