Tag Archives: gut health

Thai Curry Beef

| 2 Comments | Beatty Protocols, Meals, Recipes

Thai Curry Beef - Instant Pot or Slowcooker Options, made with Stewing Beef and Bone Broth in less than 15 minutes!Cooking for kids is a game changer eh? And I only have 1! Kudos to you mamas (and papas! #dontforgetdads) cooking for multiple babies. I never truly appreciated the flexibility I had when it was just me and maybe my husband I was cooking for. Timing didn’t really matter, meltdowns didn’t happen if we ate too close to bedtime, smoothies or salads were a totally fine fall-back option. Add in a baby learning to eat and having to be a little extra thoughtful about making sure our meals fit her stage of eating development just complicates things even further!

Since nutrient-dense, home-cooked meals are the top priority in my house (read: non-negotiable), I have had to figure out some ways to get those kind of meals on the table quickly! My favourite tool for accomplishing this is without a doubt, my Instant Pot. I use it several times a week and honestly don’t know how I would manage without it! Things are usually a little crazy in the mornings, so while I could put dinner in the slow cooker, it goes much more smoothly if I can throw it in the instant pot during her afternoon nap around 1-2ish. (Bonus: you can put frozen meat in it too! So I only sort of have to plan ahead.)

Instant Pot Love

Ingredients for Amanda Naturally's Thai Curry Beef using the instant pot or slow cooker!

This amazing gadget is especially helpful because the easiest meat for my almost 11-month old to eat, is anything that is shredded or pulled. Chicken thighs, pork shoulder and stewing beef are top choices right now. Considering the fact that it’s the middle of summer, stewing beef doesn’t normally come in to the rotation. But it’s such a great food for her – both developmentally and nutritionally – that I was determined to figure out how to use it in a way that wasn’t just plain ol’ stew!

This recipe for Thai Curry Beef is a typical weekday recipe for me – a non-recipe recipe as I like to call it. A “throw it all in the instant pot and see what happens” recipe. And boy did it turn out delicious! It’s now part of the weekly rotation and we all love it – especially the kiddo! 

Thai Curry Beef
A quick recipe with only 10-15 minutes prep TOTAL! Delicious, family-friendly, nutrient-dense and flexible!
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Prep Time
15 min
Prep Time
15 min
Sauce
  1. 1 cup bone broth
  2. 1 onion, diced
  3. 1 tbsp green curry paste (I like Aroy D brand)
  4. 1 tbsp fish sauce (optional, but it takes it to the next level)
  5. 1-2 cloves of garlic (or 2+ tsp garlic granules/powder)
  6. ½ tsp salt
Beef
  1. 2 lbs stewing beef (grassfed preferred)
Final Touches
  1. 4 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped
  2. ½ cup full-fat coconut milk
  3. cilantro, for garnish
  4. green onion, for garnish
  5. sweet potato noodles, zoodles, cauli-rice or white rice for serving
Instructions
  1. Combine broth, onion, curry paste, fish sauce, garlic and salt into the bottom of your slow cooker. Mix well.
  2. Add in stewing beef. Cook on low all day (minimum 8 hours).
  3. Stir in ½ cup coconut milk and spinach about 10 minutes before serving. Heat through.
  4. Serve on sweet potato noodles, zoodles, cauli-rice or white-rice, topped with cilantro and green onion.
INSTANT POT DIRECTIONS
  1. Combine sauce ingredients in bottom of the instant pot.
  2. Add stewing beef, secure lid. Press "Meat/Stew".
  3. When done, let it return to pressure naturally and ideally let it sit in warming or slow cooker mode for another hour or so. You can let it sit more if you have the time!
  4. Stir in ½ cup coconut milk and spinach about 10 minutes before serving. Heat through.
  5. Serve on sweet potato noodles, zoodles, cauli-rice or white-rice, topped with cilantro and green onion.
Amanda Naturally http://www.amandanaturally.com/

Body Odour

| 2 Comments | Personal Care Products, Pregnancy & Postpartum

Anyone else find smelly armpits as annoying as I do? Well, it can be hard to 100% eliminate that issue (while staying clear of toxic compounds like aluminum, that is), but there are definitely a lot of hacks you can employ. Try some of these out and let me know how they work for you!

Diet

Of course the first thing I mention is diet. But that’s because it can have a huge impact. I have seen this first hand (both personally and professionally). The most notorious offenders for increasing body odour are:

Try eliminating these for a few weeks and see if you notice a change!

Beneficial Microbes

An imbalance of bacteria both internal and external (they cover our skin too!), can absolutely contribute to increased smelliness. To address, make sure you’re taking all the steps to maintain a Healthy Gut, with a focus on lots of fermented foods like sauerkraut, fermented carrots, yogurt and kombucha!

Topically, make sure to avoid conventional personal care products (like soap and antiperspirant) that can kill off the good guys. Usually when beneficial microbes are eliminated, the nasty ones grow back faster, creating an even more dramatic imbalance. You can also help encourage the growth of beneficial microbes by utilizing an apple cider vinegar spray (dilute 1:4 with water) or even a topical probiotic!

Deodorant, not Antiperspirant

Antiperspirants use aluminum (amongst other sketchy ingredients) to get into your sweat glands, causing them to swell and preventing sweat from being released. I heard a hilarious analogy, that’s a little off-colour. It goes like this… you know the feeling when you really really have to have a BM, but you’re in a really inconvenient place, like a coffee shop, or the library, so you hold it. That’s what you’re doing with your armpits – holding in something that really needs to get out – but instead of using muscle, you’re using a toxic compound. 

Deodorant addresses odour, but depending on the formulation it can often make things worse. So I recommend trying a few different types to find one that works for you. I struggled to find a natural deodorant that didn’t make me smell worse. And then I found Primally Pure – which is so clean you can eat it, and it actually works! Or you can go super simple (which I do sometimes too!) and just use a homemade deodorant of coconut oil, essential oils and baking soda.

Extra Help

Sometimes all that just doesn’t cut it. For example, during the postpartum period. It must have been the excess/different hormones that my body was having to break down, but ugh I totally smelled bad. Finding a good (natural) deodorant was great, but I had to take it one step further and help my armpits detox a bit! I know lots of people who swear by the armpit detoxes and cleanses (The Wellness Mama has a good one!), but considering how little time I have these days, I needed something faster. I started using Beautycounter’s Charcoal Cleansing Bar under my arms when I showered and after only a few uses the odour was completely gone. I was even able to stop using deodorant days that I wasn’t exercising!

First Foods

| 0 Comments | Baby

JUDGEMENT-FREE POST: Please note that this not how you *should* do things. This is just a window into how I did things, and I relied mostly on my instincts. Do what feels right mama. *Should precedes shame* so I strongly encourage you not to *should yourself*! Parenting is hard enough as it is. You’re doing great!! 

Introducing foods to your baby can be a fun, but also intimidating process. The best advice I can give is to (a) understand when a baby is ready for food, (b) identify your goal with food intro and (c) have a few resources you can trust!

 

When Is A Baby Ready For Food?

There are 3 things you want to look for:

  1. Interest. Ideally your kid is expressing an interest in what you’re doing when you’re eating. They might want to grab your food, or try putting things in their mouth. This is a little tricky, because as of 4 months most babies put everything into their mouths, and suddenly are a lot more interested in the world, so this isn’t the only consideration for being food-ready.
  2. Sitting Up Independently. For safety reasons, it is best if your kid can sit up, mostly unassisted. Sticking them in the bumbo doesn’t count!
  3. No More Tongue-Thrust Reflux. The tongue thrust reflex is an important safety reflex in newborns. If something solid gets in their mouth, the tongue automatically pushes it away, to protect the airway. This tends to disappear somewhere between 4-7 months. (NOTE: I struggled to find a video showing the tongue-thrust reflex, other than this one, but I’m posting cautiously. I promise I’m not judging this family, it’s just a great example of the reflex!)

 

My 2 Goals with Food Intro

NUTRITION: My first goal was nutrition – obviously! Breastmilk is notoriously low in iron and zinc, and no matter how many supplements you take, it won’t become sufficient for your kiddo. That’s why the recommendation from the medical community is to start with iron-fortified grains. Since I am a real-foodie, the idea of using a fortified food as a first food doesn’t sit well with me. Not to mention grains are full of anti-nutrients that actually inhibit nutrient absorption and can contribute to poor gut-health. A lot of real-foodies, or those who follow baby-led weaning principles, choose root veggies as an alternative. But, those don’t contain the nutrients babies need! So instead, I went straight to the source of iron…meat, specifically liver. The first food that we gave Baby H was pate – specifically my friend Megan Garcia’s Pate. Although I modified the recipe to be dairy-free (I used bone broth and coconut oil), and I used ingredients I had on hand such as chicken livers (instead of beef), rosemary and a gala apple.

FUN & FLAVOUR: To avoid becoming too clinical about food, I also started introducing fun, high-flavour foods. While babies don’t need fruits & vegetables til around 1 year, I played around with them to help develop her palate. I took a page out of the book French Kids Eat Anything (stay tuned for a post on this amazing book) and started with fun soups. I also did not worry about introducing one food at a time, since that (a) didn’t make intuitive sense to me (b) there’s no evidence to back that up and (c) food should taste good, not bland! So my soups contained big flavours like cumin, ginger, coriander, and even Thai curry! Things we wanted to eat!

Check out my post on Favourite Foods at 6 Months!

 

Resources

Megan Garcia – my friend Megan is a wonderful resource. She has a ton of free information to get you started. But even better, she has a course you can take, which walks you through nutrition and introducing foods to your baby! Great for anyone who wants to go into this stage with all the knowledge and confidence!

CanDo Kiddo – I subscribe to Rachel’s newsletter, and there was one video that really resonated with me. It showed the stages of muscle development as a child learns to move food through their mouth. It was absolutely fascinating. She also has great info on her blog, as well as a course you can take to boost confidence!

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