Homemade Almond Milk

The new alternative milk craze (almond/cashew/hemp/coconut and good ‘ol rice or soy) is in full gear. These products take up nearly an entire aisle of Whole Foods (or your local equivalent)! This is a good thing for those of us who don’t do well with dairy - it allows us to try different varieties of nut milks and have some non dairy milk on hand in case of a culinary emergency. However, the commercial brands, even the best of them, contain some or many undesirable preservatives (think carageegan) to keep them fresh for a longer shelf life. It really is incredibly easy to whip up some homemade almond milk if you have a good recipe and a high-powered blender. And trust me, once you go homemade, you will never want to go back to commercial.

EASY AND SUPER DELICIOUS HOMEMADE ALMOND MILK

YIELD: 3.5 CUPS
PREP TIME: 10 MINUTES

INGREDIENTS

1 cup raw almonds, soaked in water

3.5 cups filtered water

1-2 pitted Medjool dates

1 whole vanilla bean chopped (or 1/2-1 tsp vanilla extract)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

small pinch of fine grain sea salt, to enhance flavor

DIRECTIONS

Place almonds in a bowl and cover with filtered water. It’s preferred to soak them overnight (for 8-12 hours) in the water, but you can get away with soaking for 1-2 hours.

Rinse and drain the almonds and place into a blender along with 4 cups filtered water, pitted dates, and chopped vanilla bean.

Blend on highest speed for 1 minute or so.

Place a nut milk bag over a large bowl and slowly pour the almond milk mixture into the bag. Gently squeeze the bottom of the bag to release the milk. This is a tad labor intensive and messy, but trust me, it is worth it.

Rinse out blender and pour the milk back in. Add the cinnamon and pinch of sea salt and blend on low to combine.

Pour into a glass jar to store in the fridge for up to 3-5 days. Shake jar very well before using, as the mixture separates when sitting. Enjoy!

Bonus: The leftover almond meal is great for gluten free baking recipes- I also use it as a filler for homemade veggie burgers and salmon patties.

The Road to Healing

Welcome to Themindfulgut where I will share what I have learned on my lifelong journey from chronic pain and illness to good digestive health and overall wellbeing. The science is clear: better digestive health will help with metabolism, nutrient absorption (which is the root cause of so many ailments) and a better mental state. It is possible to feel better and live a healthier and happier life, simply by understanding the importance of what we eat, learning what our body needs and then eating and living mindfully.

At the age of 14, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (an inflammatory bowel disease or IBD). Ulcerative colitis is an auto-immune disease that affects the lining of the large intestine (colon) causing severe abdominal pain and gastrointestinal bleeding, among other things.  There is no known cause of Ulcerative Colitis and there is no cure, other than to remove the colon. I resigned to live a life where I casually took nine capsules of medicine daily, always felt mildly uncomfortable and often was in pain.  I lived with the disease by managing it, which worked for many years.  Until it didn’t.

When I was in my late twenties, I saw top specialists for a variety of physical ailments, but no one was connecting the dots.  I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), psoriasis, spondylitis - all autoimmune disorders - but no doctor saw that these issues were related. The doctors treated symptoms individually, but there was always something going on - and as time marched on, more symptoms arose. When I spoke to my doctors about ways I could change things for myself by way of diet and nutrition, I was told there was nothing I could do to help myself other than take my drugs and try to reduce stress.

So I did what I could to reduce stress.   Yoga and psychotherapy helped.  I ate a diet of mostly organic foods.  Although I was ill into my thirties and was sick during both of my pregnancies, none of my doctors seemed alarmed.  Indeed, I was told that I was high risk for getting colon cancer and lymphoma, but it was understood that since I was being monitored by the top doctors in New York City, whatever disease I might get would be caught early enough to treat.  This was unsettling, but I felt there was nothing I could do except trust these highly regarded experts.

It was not until my infant son began to have health problems, that I learned I could heal myself.  In order to understand and resolve his health and developmental issues, we went to a very progressive developmental pediatrician.  We completely changed my son’s diet, eliminating dairy, gluten and soy.  In solidarity with him, I took dairy out of my diet.

Amazingly, within five days, some of my son’s physical and neurological symptoms diminished. And within weeks, my colitis and many of my other ailments began to disappear. Six weeks after taking dairy out of my diet, and putting myself on omega 3 and probiotic dietary supplements, my gastroenterologist of ten years performed a colonoscopy and said,  “I don’t recognize you. Keep doing whatever you’re doing”. One year and another colonoscopy later, my doctor said, “If I didn’t know you, I’d never know you have ulcerative colitis.” After that visit, I took myself off of the drugs entirely.  One year later, my doctor said there is no sign of the disease and that he saw no evidence that I ever had ulcerative colitis.

This was diet. I now live disease-free and drug-free.  I have educated myself through reading, research and learning from various alternative and open-minded medical practitioners.  I am now a Nutritional Therapy Consultant, where I help people understand that they, too, can take control of their health and see dramatic shifts in their physical, neurological and mental health. It is not too late to reverse the effects that your diet or your genetics or your microbiome has inflicted on you. You don’t need to accept poor function or chalk things up to the effects of aging. Our bodies have an innate intelligence that can guide us to healing. The key is to find, in your specific case, how best to get on that healing track. Hopefully these articles, recipes, mindfulness exercises and alternative therapy recommendations will help you find a way to help yourself.

Balance

I was mixing the second of five concoctions that I would ingest that day.  This cleanse was serious; five drinks and one colonic each day for five days.  No solid food.  Just water. As I stood at the kitchen counter, intently mixing bentonite clay, psyllium seed husks, apple pectin and peppermint leaf, I turned to see my husband staring at me with amazement.  “Do you think I’ve gone over the edge?” I asked.  “Well,” he began, “I just feel like you should be wearing a sari, not an outfit from the Barney’s sample sale.”

I saw his point.  I had changed significantly since embarking on a journey that began in 2009 when, in an effort to stand in solidarity with my son as we dealt with his apparent GI disorders, I took dairy out of my diet.  It was so radically beneficial for me, I went further.  I helped myself by changing my diet in other ways, deepening my yoga practice and finding and releasing the great stressors in my life.  Over the course of four years, I went from buying food only sold at my neighborhood co-op, to reading the labels at the co-op, to making many of my own ingredients in order to cut out additives and chemicals - even those generally deemed harmless. I also went weekly to a craniosacral therapist, participated in a yoga teacher training program, and started writing as a way to deal with the difficulties in my life.  I came up with the idea for this blog in an effort to share the nuggets of knowledge I managed to pick up along the way with a community of like-minded people.

As most readers of this blog probably know, there are many of us out there; individuals with autoimmune disorders seeking answers and advice as to how best to cure, or at least minimize, our afflictions.  We look for community to connect, share ideas and commiserate.

Meghan O’Rourke is one of those people, as she explains in her beautifully written piece that appeared in the August 26, 2013 New Yorker magazine, entitled “What’s Wrong With Me.”  O’Rourke’s essay chronicles her struggles with autoimmune disease and the mysteries surrounding her illness.  She is always aching, fatigued, in pain and confused about her ailments.  She is unsure what is going on with her body and wonders how she can get the energy and strength she needs to get through the day.  But she goes on to talk about a deep emotional side-effect of her journey – a fear that her efforts to heal and understand her body were altering her identity from person (perhaps with some mysterious ailments) to patient.  She engages with other sufferers online.  She completely changes her diet by eliminating many foods and she turns to a varierty of supplements, vitamins and minerals.  She engrosses herself in the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for a month.  She makes her own almond milk (no easy task), brushes her body to help stimulate her lymphatic system and rid herself of toxins.  She swallows pills and liquids that can make one gag.  It is very compelling and extremely familiar.  And although it’s working – she is healing herself somewhat – she questions whether the incremental medical gains are worth the nagging feeling of obsession and seeming loss of self.  Her excellent piece challenges us to look in the mirror and ask the questions she asked:  have I gone over the edge?  Am I letting all of this define me?

Those of us with disease do have choices.  We can immerse ourselves in the world of the healing.  We can read everything, connect to others with similar struggles, change our diets, our habits, our environments and open our minds to new therapies and answers so that we can change our bodies and live a healthier life.  But along with that comes the risk of becoming obsessive about these ideas and driving ourselves and our loved ones nuts.

Of course, we also have the choice to do nothing, avoid change and carry the risks that go along with just living (in some cases for many years) with disease.  In our efforts not to get sucked into the fanatical world, we can go on living a “normal” life and hope for the best.

We also have the choice to find balance.

O’Rourke chose to eat well (but not always following everything to the letter) while living her life and accepting her disease.  I chose to immerse myself completely.  I allowed my journey to unfold before me, taking me on retreats to learn about proper digestion , working with different healers and eating many different foods.  All of this has worked wonders for me on a physical and psychological level.  But when I asked my husband if I had gone over the edge, what I was really doing was asking myself.  I realized that I might have been farther gone than I was emotionally healthy.  For years, I had followed a strict diet and created many wonderful new recipes which I loved.  But once I moved to Vermont and had more time on my hands, I went many levels deeper.  Defeating illness became my life.  That moment in the kitchen gave me pause; it alerted me that my ability to dive so deeply, while incredibly helpful and useful, could also be causing me to lose myself in a never ending quest.

The yogis say that just by noticing and acknowledging one’s behaviors, we can create the change we need.  By acknowledging, out loud, that I was close to fanaticism I was able to see things more clearly as how to approach my illness.  Yes, I continue to educate myself and encourage my family to try certain foods.  I still watch what I eat and try new things.  In fact, this week my son and I are eating soup, trying out the GAPS diet (so we can both possibly eat dairy again one day). But by taking a moment to pause, I was able to see this all in perspective.  What came out of this for me was the importance of living mindfully and with intention to feel good both physically and emotionally.   For me the key is focusing on family, friends, work, interests and hobbies - so that this disease is a part of my life, but isn’t it entirely.