Over the past year, I’ve added 7 foods or drinks to my diet to see if healing my body naturally is possible. I’ve been studying nutrition for many years to find a simple way to live that best supports the body’s ability to take care of itself. I’ve also been on a long health journey, myself, to figure out the root of some of my symptoms like memory loss, difficulty focusing, and having a constant stuffy nose.
Below you will find 4 foods that I have added to my regular diet to test if they could help my body heal. I included for each food what problems I noticed to resolve after adding the food into my diet. If it is a homemade food, I also included how I make that food so that you would have that information if you wanted to add it into your diet.
Side-note: I’ve broken up this post into two parts because my time is limited right now. Between taking care of my toddler and husband, creating my membership site, and writing new articles to post here, I can only accomplish so much at a time. So, you will just have to come back in two weeks to learn the other 3 foods that are helping my body heal in this season!
Food #1: Sourdough Yeast
Having a sourdough starter is probably one of my favorite additions to my family’s diet the past year. I have had a sourdough starter before, but I let it go bad when we were moving around a lot a few years ago. However, I got a new starter about a year ago. Now that we have been eating more sourdough products, I have noticed a few improvements since using it.
One of the most impressive improvements since using my sourdough starter involves my son’s egg allergy. Around 8 months, my son would break out in hives when eating eggs. When he was around a year old, I made him pancakes with my sourdough yeast. Surprisingly, he didn’t react to the eggs in the pancakes. We tried giving him eggs without sourdough yeast, and he would still get hives.
Also, we tested different egg brands before trying sourdough just in case it was the brand of eggs. We tried organic eggs, eggs from vegetarian-fed chickens, eggs from pasture-raised chickens, and cage-free eggs. However, he reacted with all of the brands we tried. So, there just might be something to sourdough yeast and children’s egg allergies.
Another improvement I have seen with sourdough yeast is that my family eats less bread because of how filling sourdough is. I have recently started using whole wheat flour in my sourdough recipes, so that has helped a little more with eating less too. I also noticed that I don’t get bloated with sourdough as I do without it. Granted, that may also be because I don’t eat as much sourdough products as I do non-sourdough products.
HOW I STARTED MY SOURDOUGH STARTER
I bought a sourdough starter from Cultures for Health (this post is not sponsored). They aren’t the highest-reviewed source for sourdough starters, but I have had good experiences with them in the past. Their sourdough starter came dried, so I only had to add water to get it started. I followed their instructions and had a working sourdough starter within a week.
My favorite thing about having a sourdough starter is that it is pretty easy to take care of. I feed it 50% water and 50% flour every day unless I have it in the fridge. When I am not able to use the starter, I keep it in the fridge. Whenever I’m ready to use it, it takes about a day or two of feeding the starter to get it ready to be used. I use the starter to make galettes, cinnamon rolls, pancakes, biscuits, bread, cookies, and many other things. Sourdough is very versatile, plus it’s always a hit at events.
HOW TO START YOUR OWN STARTER
If you want to start your own sourdough starter, you need one or two wide-mouth jars to keep it in. Depending on how much sourdough you want to make, you either need a large jar or a medium jar. You also need a sourdough culture. You can either get one off Amazon here or learn how to start your own from scratch here. Other items you need are a spatula for feeding the starter, flour you want to feed your starter with, and filtered water.
Once you have a sourdough starter, I highly recommend you follow the instructions that came with the starter you bought. If you want to get fancy, you can use a baker’s scale to measure the amount of water and flour to feed your starter. Otherwise, you can use measuring cups to measure the water and flour.
That’s pretty much it with starting your own sourdough starter. It’s fairly straight-forward to do. Once you get comfortable with taking care of it, it’s easy to learn how to incorporate it into your
Food #2: Almonds
One of the unexpected changes I have seen with my health comes from adding raw nuts into my diet. With all of my research into detoxing, I realized that I don’t have many healthy fats in my diet. So, I started eating raw almonds throughout the day.
The first thing I noticed after a month of eating almonds is that my hair and skin both look healthier. Neither one looks as dry as they used to. However, we have water with an extremely high amount of salt where we live, so my hair and face have
Since I’ve seen how my body is benefiting from eating raw nuts, I will continue eating them to see if I notice any other benefits. I normally buy any brand of almonds. However, I have recently learned that pesticides and herbicides are heavily used with almonds compared to other nuts. So, I am switching to organic, which I know is, unfortunately, more expensive. But if my body (and my other family members’) needs healthy fat, nuts are an easy and stress-free way to get it.
Food #3: Dark chocolate
Do you ever get cravings for chocolate? I get some intense chocolate cravings. So, I wanted to see if I could quench that craving using dark chocolate.
It turns out, eating dark chocolate has helped curb my chocolate cravings. I’ve noticed that if I eat a handful of dark chocolate almonds a few times a week, my cravings for chocolate go away. I have heard that craving chocolate might mean that your body is low in potassium, which dark chocolate is a good source of. So, I think eating dark chocolate from time to time may be helping my body get the potassium it needs. Plus, it helps with my sweet cravings.
If you weren’t aware, dark chocolate has more health benefits to it than milk chocolate, and it has less sugar. So, one thing I’ve been doing is replacing recipes that have milk chocolate chips with dark chocolate chips. Most recipes I’ve done this with have tasted really good, so I’m going to keep doing it until someone catches me!
If you want to try out dark chocolate, I recommend you find dark chocolate with the highest amount of cacao you can stand. Above 70% cacao is ideal, but you can work up to that if bitter chocolate is not your favorite. Also, be aware that dark chocolate-coated foods often have a lot of added sugar. So, just check the food label to find the option that has the least amount of added sugar (that you can tolerate).
Food #4: Homemade Chicken Broth
I’ve been making chicken broth for a few years now, and I have really loved it! Some of the improvements in my recipes I’ve seen from using homemade chicken broth is better flavor when used to replace water when cooking rice, beans, or quinoa. I’ve also noticed that my family eats less when I use homemade chicken broth in recipes. We still eat less with homemade chicken broth than with store-bought chicken broth.
Chicken broth is a great source of healthy fat, minerals, collagen, and gelatin. Gelatin is great for your hair, skin, and nails. Plus, if you season your chicken broth with herbs and vegetables, the broth will be even more packed with nutrients. I highly recommend making your own chicken broth!
HOW I MAKE CHICKEN BROTH
I’m all about efficiency, so I buy two refrigerated whole raw chickens from the store about once a month. I prepare and season both chickens and cook them in a roasting pan. Sometimes I put carrots, celery, potatoes, and/or onions in the bottom of the roasting pans to cook in the chicken broth. (This makes super tasty vegetables that I have yet seen turned down by anyone!)
After cooking the chickens and they’ve cooled down some, I drain the juice from the pan into a jar to store. I, then, pull off the chicken meat from each one, storing them in freezer bags for future meals. Once the meat is off, I immediately put both
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHICKEN BROTH
If you want to start making your own chicken broth, you need a slow cooker (or you could cook it on the stove), fine mesh strainer, and mason jars for storage. You could also save back store-bought jars from other foods to use here. I have several, myself!
Once you’re ready to make chicken broth, you can either buy a whole raw chicken like I do, or save the bones from any chicken you eat. You can save bones from frozen chicken wings to use to make broth. My favorite bones to use is from a whole chicken because you get a variety of bones. Some bones will have more bone marrow than others, so a variety of bones may actually provide a good variety of nutrients. (This is not proven, it’s only a theory.)
Once you have the chicken bones, you can add vegetable scraps, whole vegetables, and/or herbs into the broth. This part is optional. The added vegetables and herbs boost the flavor and nutrition of the broth if you do use them.
When you have all the ingredients, just follow the instructions above or whatever method you want to try out. I want to caution you on two things when making your own chicken broth. First, cooling down the chicken broth quickly after cooking it in the slow cooker or stove is critical! I have gotten salmonella poisoning several times because I didn’t take this seriously. Second, do not fill your jars up to the brim with broth or any liquid or they will bust. Liquids expand when they freeze, so they need about 1-2 inches of empty jar space to expand. (I learned the hard way here too.)
Food #5: Kombucha
One of the greatest improvements to my family’s health has been from the addition of Kombucha to our diet. Kombucha is a fermented tea that is considered a natural probiotic and prebiotic. It helps with digestion and giving the immune system a little boost.
I started making our own Kombucha because it’s not cheap to buy from the store. We were buying 4 to 5 bottles every few weeks, which started adding up after a while. So, I started our own Kombucha from a store-bought bottle, and we have loved the results!
One major improvement I’ve seen is with my husband’s problems with reflux and constipation. Since he has been drinking Kombucha, he no longer has problems with reflux. As for his digestive system, when he is really stressed at work, he does have problems. He did say, though, that it does improve over a few days if he drinks Kombucha daily.
How I Make Kombucha
I’ve also noticed that we have a quick turnaround when we get sick. I’m not sure if that’s entirely due to Kombucha, but I believe it does lessen the severity of our symptoms when we get sick. It may even help shorten the time we’re sick. However, the whole diet plays a role in sickness, so Kombucha is not entirely responsible for improving my family’s immune systems.
If you want to make your own Kombucha, it’s really simple. Here’s what you need:
- A gallon or half-gallon glass jar (depending on how much you want to make)
- Some kind of cloth to cover the top (either a hand towel or dish towel can work)
- A rubber band to secure the cloth with
- Loose leaf tea or tea bags
- A soup pot to boil tea in
- Sugar (I prefer using non-GMO sugar from the store)
- Filtered water (tap water can kill the probiotics)
- Utensils (more about this below)
You first need a SCOBY to make Kombucha. A SCOBY is a colony of bacteria and yeast that ferment tea. To get one, you can make your own from store-bought Kombucha, buy a SCOBY starter, or get one from a friend who’s already making Kombucha.
I made our own SCOBY from store-bought Kombucha, which is fairly simple to do.
All you need to do is buy 4 to 5 bottles of unflavored Kombucha from the store. If the bottles already have a SCOBY in them, then that’s even better. If you can’t find unflavored, look for the flavors that have a SCOBY starting to grow in them. Unflavored is ideal because flavored Kombuchas may have a pH that prevents the SCOBY from growing. This is why the best kind of Kombucha to buy is the kind with a SCOBY already growing in them.
Once you have the 4 to 5 bottles of Kombucha, pour them into your gallon or half-gallon glass jar. Use a cloth or thin towel as the lid and secure with a rubber band. Now, you have to wait 3 to 4 weeks for a SCOBY to form, or longer if the SCOBY is slow to form.
Here are the steps to making your own Kombucha once you have a SCOBY:
- If you have a gallon jar, boil 14 cups of filtered water. If you have a half-gallon jar, boil 8 cups of filtered water.
- Once the water is boiling, add 1 cup of sugar to the water if you are making 1 gallon or 1/2 cup of sugar if you’re making a half-gallon. Stir the sugar until dissolved.
- Once the sugar has dissolved, turn off the heat and move the pot away from the heat. If you’re making a gallon, place 2 tbsps of loose tea leaves or 8 tea bags into the sugar water. If you’re making a half-gallon then put in 1 tbsp of loose tea leaves or 4 tea bags into the sugar water.
- Let the tea sit in the hot water until the water is close to room temperature.
- Get out your Kombucha jar with your SCOBY, a big plate that your SCOBY can fit on, big measuring cup, empty Kombucha bottles, and a fine mesh strainer if you used loose tea leaves.
- If you want to be especially careful, you can rinse the plate, measuring cup, and strainer in a little bit of vinegar before using them. This just helps keep the SCOBY a little cleaner.
- Remove the SCOBY from the glass jar and place it on the plate. Scoop all but 2 cups of the Kombucha from the glass jar into the empty Kombucha bottles using the big measuring cup. Seal the bottles and place in a cool, dark area so they can carbonate for 3 to 5 days.
- Once you have 2 cups left in your glass jar, remove the tea bags from the newly brewed tea, or place the strainer around the opening of the glass jar if you used loose tea leaves.
- Using the big measuring cup, transfer the newly brewed tea into the glass jar.
- Once the new tea is in the jar, replace the SCOBY in the glass jar. Place the cloth back on the top of the jar with a rubber band, and place the jar in a cool area that’s away from direct sunlight.
- Wait 7 to 10 days and repeat steps 1 through 10.
That’s it! If you follow these steps, you’ll figure out quickly that making Kombucha isn’t so difficult. Plus, it saves you so much money to make your own.
Side-note: Kombucha not only provides the body with tons of probiotics, it also has all the benefits from the tea you brew.
Food #6: Water
This is one thing that I am trying to drink more of every day. The body needs water, especially when you’re trying to get toxic materials and waste out of your body.
A time when you especially need water to flush out toxic materials or waste is when you exercise. Exercise produces a lot of lactic acid in the body that will store up in your muscles and cause them to knot. Exercise can also break down fat, which could release toxic materials, like heavy metals or toxic chemicals, into the blood. Post-exercise fatigue, nausea, and lightheadedness may be caused by release of these toxic materials into the blood. This is why it is extremely important to drink enough water throughout the day.
I’m terrible at drinking water. I have noticed that when I don’t drink water, I get lethargic and can’t focus very well in the afternoon. So, I’m working on drinking two glasses of water before eating my first meal. That way I have to drink at least two glasses before I can eat.
How to Drink More Water
You can get water from tea, fresh juicy fruits and vegetables, and soups or stews, to name a few. Oh, and I can’t forget that Kombucha is a good source too. My personal favorite way to drink water, though, is in the form of a chai latte. Yum!
On the other hand, drinks high in sugar can dehydrate the body. Sugar competes with the body for water. So, not only do you lose the water you’re drinking in the sugary drink, but more water from your body could be drawn out to flush the sugar out.
Food #7: Milk
Okay, this one is more of what I’m not drinking than what I’m drinking. I have not had cow’s milk in several months now. When I started weaning my son, I wanted a safe option for him to drink to protect his brain while it’s developing. Since we do not have a local source of raw milk, we tried organic, unsweetened coconut milk and oat milk with him. Surprisingly, he likes both.
One of the reasons why I want him to drink coconut milk is because the fat is excellent for his brain development. It’s good for my brain, too. Unfortunately, oat milk does not have the fat that coconut milk does. However, oat milk is (to me) a little less bland than coconut milk.
The biggest improvement I’ve seen for myself has not been from drinking coconut milk but from not drinking cow’s milk. After a month or two of not drinking cow’s milk, I can actually smell again. My post-nasal drip has improved tremendously. Before, I couldn’t even smell when my son had a poopy diaper. Now, I can smell it almost every time.
I have heard of many women who have improved smell and less inflammation in their noses after cutting out cow’s milk from their diet. There is some research that suggests that cow’s milk increases mucus production, particularly in women. However, whether the studies tested 1%, 2%, whole, organic, non-organic, or raw milk is unclear. I don’t believe they would all give the same results when testing for mucus production.
There is a theory that a reason why cow’s milk is giving people so much trouble today is that there is an imbalance of hormones in 1% and 2% milks. It’s said that some of the hormones are removed with the fat, which may not be good for our bodies. Also, you may have noticed that 1% milk has a greenish tint to it, which is said to be the result of removing fat from the milk.
Back to coconut milk…
Regardless of drinking cow’s milk or not, I’m trying to drink more coconut milk. I haven’t been consistent with it, so I haven’t seen too many improvements yet.
Coconut milk has a lot of good fat that the body needs for repairing damaged cells and making new ones. I don’t eat or drink enough healthy fat, so I’ve added this (and almonds) to my diet to see if it makes a difference. I’ll keep you updated on any improvements I see.
Foods Healing My Body
These are the seven foods or drinks that I have added to my family’s diet in the past year. Some have been more recent adds, and others we’ve been eating or drinking for awhile now.
I think the key here is that we’re changing our diet up to see if we can see any improvements. So, if you or a family member is struggling with weird symptoms, or you think you can do better in the diet compartment, then I recommend trying different fresh foods and drinks. You never know when the addition (or removal) of a food actually helps resolve a symptom or two. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to try something new from time to time.
Be sure to leave a comment below if you try to try something new! I’d love to keep up with you to see if you have any improvements.