In January, a new option for the elimination phase of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)  was announced: Modified AIP Elimination. If you are looking for the exact details of which foods are included and avoided in both Core and Modified AIP, don’t miss What is AIP: The Definitive Guide which has been completely updated.

A quick summary of the reasons why Modified AIP was added as an elimination option:

• Many patients in the AIP medical studies saw results before reaching a full elimination 
• AIP Certified Coaches reported seeing good results without a full elimination using a modified protocol in their practices
• Recent elimination diet research indicates that stricter does not always produce better results 
• Increasing accessibility, affordability, and sustainability can widen the reach and application of AIP

If you’d like to read more about why AIP was updated, the research process behind making the update, be sure to read Announcing Modified AIP: A 2024 Update to the Autoimmune Protocol.

Introducing: An updated Autoimmune Wellness Resource Library

The founding mission here at Autoimmune Wellness has been to provide free resources for anyone who wants to embark on AIP. Since 2012, we’ve been delivering a resource library with food lists, meal plans, and other materials as a part of our AIP Quick Start Guide email series. Since inception, over 200,000 of you have downloaded these materials!

With the 2024 update to the Autoimmune Protocol, it was a prime opportunity to take a look at this resource library and give it a comprehensive update. Not only have all of the prior resources been edited and redesigned, but new materials have been added for the new Modified AIP elimination (including dedicated food lists, a meal plan, and reintroduction materials). 

Here is a list of what is included in the updated Autoimmune Wellness Resource Library:

• AIP Quick-Start Guide 
• Core AIP Foods to Include 
• Core AIP Foods to Avoid
• Modified AIP Foods to Include (NEW!)
• Modified AIP Foods to Avoid (NEW!)
• Core AIP Meal Plan & Shopping List
• Modified AIP Meal Plan & Shopping List (NEW!)
• AIP Reintroduction Guide
• Core AIP Reintroduction Stages
• Modified AIP Reintroduction Stages (NEW!)
• Food Reaction Checklist
• AIP Medical Research Review (NEW!)

All of these materials are presented as beautifully-designed .pdf files that you can read on your computer, e-reader, or other digital device. They can also be printed at home. 

How can you download these materials?

1. If you are a subscriber to the Autoimmune Wellness newsletter, you should have an email in your inbox with download links to each resource in the library. 

2. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can sign up here and receive the AIP Quick Start email series, in which you will be sent the resources in a series of emails over the course of 6 days. 

3. If you only want specific resources, you can sign up to receive them individually by opting in using the following links: 

• AIP Quick-Start Guide, Core and Modified AIP Food Lists 
• Core AIP Meal Plan and Shopping List
• Modified AIP Meal Plan and Shopping List
• AIP Reintroduction Guide, Core and Modified AIP Reintroduction Stages, and Food Reaction Checklist

Are you a practitioner that uses AIP in your practice and would like an extended library of AIP resources to use with your patients or clients? Be sure to consider taking the AIP Certified Coach Practitioner Training Program, where you can learn best practices for implementing and personalizing AIP for the population you serve. Graduates are granted a license to use a collection of 50+ handouts directly with their clients, including assessments, journals, troubleshooting materials, and more. 

If you’d like to hear me talk through these materials, listen to the podcast below:

Thank you for being a member of the Autoimmune Wellness community, and I sincerely hope these resources help you, your friends, or your loved ones embark on AIP easily and successfully! 

The post Core & Modified AIP: An Updated AIP Resource Library! appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

I wanted to introduce you to the newest AIP cookbook on the scene, Meals You Deserve by Kris King!

Many of you likely recognize Kris as one of the recipe contributors for Autoimmune Wellness (you can view her impressive AIP library of recipes on the site here!). Since the blog has become an archive, Kris has put her talent to good use in creating an ebook of recipes for the AIP community to continue to enjoy.

What are my favorite things about Meals You Deserve? 

• Recipes that are full of flavor and fun to make!
• The recipes are all compliant with AIP Core Elimination (yes, including that chicken and dumplings on the cover!)
• It contains extras such as meal planner sheets and budget planner sheets, for keeping you organized and within your financial limits.
• Quick tips to make cooking for AIP seamless in your own kitchen!

I sat down with Kris to record a podcast to talk about her story of healing using AIP, the process of writing an ebook, her favorite AIP cooking hacks, and more! You can tune in by using the podcast player at the bottom of this post.

Meals You Deserve is perfect for anyone looking to embark on Core AIP and looking for simple recipes with fun flavors that also won’t break the bank. I can’t recommend it enough!

The post Introducing Meals You Deserve by Kris King appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Since inception in 2011, the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) has not undergone any major updates or changes and has existed as originally conceived by experts and used by the autoimmune community. Today, that is changing with the announcement of a new option: Modified AIP Elimination. This post serves to provide the rationale behind this change as well as provide links for learning more about the new protocol.

Reasons to update AIP

First, let’s discuss some AIP history and what led to these changes. Originally, Sarah Ballantyne, PhD. wrote extensively about and refined the protocol on her blog and in her books, which formed the foundations of the AIP protocol and movement. These foundations led to collaboration between leaders in the AIP community in the creation of the AIP Certified Coach Practitioner Training, serving to educate healthcare providers in best practices for using AIP with their clients and patients. 

Additionally, Sarah’s research and writing sparked interest from the medical community to formally study the efficacy of AIP for various autoimmune conditions, including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriasis. While medical research into the efficacy of AIP is still in its infancy, early results have shown promise at helping those with autoimmune disease achieve a higher quality of life, less symptom burden, and need less medication (you can read a review of all the results here). 

Now that there is an emerging body of research into the efficacy of AIP, as well as a large group of practitioners with many collective years of expertise in AIP implementation and customization, it is time for analysis to see what is working and what could be made better for the next wave of individuals looking to embark on the protocol. Here are the major reasons why the Autoimmune Protocol is being updated now:

#1 Many patients in the AIP medical studies saw results before reaching a full elimination

In each of the AIP medical studies, a 6-week, gradual transition was used to ease patients into the elimination phase, which was then maintained for 4 more weeks. In the AIP IBD Study, 73% of patients achieved clinical remission at week 5, which was 1 week before the full elimination was complete. In this study, all of these patients then maintained clinical remission throughout the duration of the study and no additional patients reached clinical remission after this point. What this tells us is that it is likely the earliest eliminations, specifically, that were most responsible for the favorable results and that the full elimination phase may not have been necessary for all of them. 

#2 AIP Certified Coaches are reporting good results without a full elimination 

The Autoimmune Protocol has now been in widespread use in the practitioner community for many years through AIP Certified Coach. Nearly 1,000 healthcare providers from all types of backgrounds and specialties have been trained and certified to implement AIP in their work. In surveying the graduate community, AIP Certified Coaches have told us that they often find the original protocol is more restrictive than necessary and they are often modifying the list of eliminations to suit their clients’ and patients’ needs. They also report that they continue to see good results using a modified or less restricted elimination protocol.

#3 Other elimination diet research indicates that stricter is not always better

When AIP was conceived there was very little research into the efficacy of elimination diets to help manage autoimmune disease, especially conducted directly with humans. In the last decade, this has changed and many studies have been published using different elimination protocols for specific autoimmune conditions, especially gluten-free and dairy-free diets. The promising results from studies using fewer eliminations shows that for some patients and conditions, progress can be made with a simpler approach. 

#4 Increasing accessibility, affordability, and sustainability can widen the reach of AIP

Food access and budget have always been major barriers to individuals implementing the Autoimmune Protocol, both on their own or in working with a coach. Some patients are simply not able to source or afford the ingredients needed to implement a full elimination, and others don’t have the time to prepare the entirety of their meals from scratch. In this case, we’ve long recommended modifying the protocol to accommodate those facing these barriers, but providing an official version of the protocol that is more budget-friendly and accessible will allow even more people to find healing through AIP. 

The process of updating AIP

Updating AIP in 2024 has come out of consultation with many key players in the AIP community over the course of a few months. We interviewed researchers who performed the AIP medical studies and research in other similar areas, as well as experts and writers in the area of autoimmune health. We also surveyed and interviewed key members of the AIP Certified Coach community who predominantly work with autoimmune patients or clients. Lastly, we considered recent scientific evidence for elimination diets, food allergies/sensitivities, and reintroduction protocols in the new approach. 

What we learned from this exploration was two-fold: first, that the original protocol still had high value and efficacy in both research and practice. And second, that many researchers and AIP Certified Coaches were confident that some patients would be best served by a less-restrictive option. This led to the creation of two separate options for the elimination phase which are detailed below.

Introducing: Core AIP and Modified AIP

Going forward, there are now two versions of the Elimination Phase, to be known as AIP Core Elimination and AIP Modified Elimination.

The original protocol, as used in the AIP medical studies and original AIP literature is not changing and will now be known as AIP Core Elimination. The intention is to preserve the original protocol for research comparison and to use with patients or clients who either need a stricter approach or can implement it easily (due to support, finances, or time). 

The new protocol, a less-strict and more accessible version will be known as AIP Modified Elimination. This new protocol incorporates what we’ve learned about foods that are well-tolerated in the autoimmune community, and is simplified for ease of implementation, budget, and accessibility.

You can read more about which foods are included and avoided in both Core AIP and Modified AIP Elimination protocols at the updated Definitive Guide to AIP. 

Which protocol to start with?

This then leads to the question of which protocol a person should choose when they embark on the Autoimmune Protocol. That depends! 

The goal of AIP has always been to discover the least-restrictive dietary approach that produces the best health for each person. With this in mind, Modified AIP is an ideal starting point for most people as it is more affordable, accessible, takes less time to implement, and still removes the most potentially-problematic foods. Ideally, modified AIP produces the desired result and then a person can move on to the reintroduction phase, sparing them a drawn-out elimination and reintroduction process. 

There are a few reasons why a person would choose Core AIP to begin with. They may have a condition, like IBD, where research indicates that the elimination phase has a good chance of producing results quickly. Or they may have another condition that is potentially serious and are highly motivated to transition and implement to find relief. Lastly, they may not experience some of the barriers that make Core AIP difficult to implement – like a lack of cooking skill, financial flexibility, or support at home. 

FAQ: 

Is anything changing about the original AIP protocol?

No, the original protocol is now simply known as “Core AIP” for differentiation. All of the foods eliminated, included, timeline, and reintroduction procedure remain the same. See the updated Definitive Guide to AIP for food lists and more information.

Who has the right to update AIP? 

There is no one expert that owns the rights to determine what the AIP protocol entails, and Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, whose work formed the foundation of the AIP movement, has moved on from researching and working with the autoimmune community. This is why this update is coming by consensus from the leaders of the AIP Certified Coach community as well as researchers who have studied the protocol in medical studies.

What happens to all of the recipes and resources labeled AIP?

All of the recipes, meal plans, and other resources created for Core AIP also apply to Modified AIP, since Core AIP simply has more eliminations than Modified AIP. As more resources for Modified AIP are created, a distinction will emerge and each person navigating either protocol should be careful to check recipes for compliant ingredients. Be sure to bookmark the updated Definitive Guide to AIP for reference as it will always contain the most current protocol information and food lists.

How does this change the reintroduction protocol?

The reintroduction protocol following Core AIP is the same as it was originally, and the reintroduction protocol following Modified AIP simply starts further along in the process since many foods in various reintroduction stages are already included during the elimination phase. You can learn more at the updated Reintroduction Guide.

This is a big update, and one that is bound to increase the amount of people who are positively affected by embarking on the Autoimmune Protocol. If you have any questions that aren’t addressed here, feel free to post them in the comments! 

The post Announcing Modified AIP: A 2024 Update to the Autoimmune Protocol appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Hi Everyone! 

Mickey here… I hope this post finds you enjoying a peaceful and healthy New Year holiday! I wanted to take a moment to give you a heads up about an event coming up that is relevant to the AIP community as well as make an announcement about AIP Certified Coach.

First… The 2023 AIP Summit is scheduled for January 9-15! 

If you are looking to learn more about healing with the Autoimmune Protocol, directly from AIP Certified Coaches, the AIP Summit is for you! 

Each day starts at 10AM EST with a live welcome and then attendees can watch the day’s prepared presentations in any order and at whatever time works in their schedule for the following 24 hours. Each of the presentations features at least one AIP Certified Coach and the topic aligns with that coach’s expertise. 

So what types of presentations will you find at the AIP Summit? There are cooking demonstrations, deep dives into science or specific conditions, discussions about the impact of lifestyle factors, best practices for integrating AIP into life in the real world, and more. Additionally, attendees can submit questions after watching the presentations to be answered live during a Q&A panel the following day.

Since 2020, the AIP Summit has served over 15,000 people looking to learn more about AIP. Whether you are new to the protocol, or a seasoned traveler on the autoimmune journey, you are sure to learn some tips to help support your best health, straight from the experts! 

>> Sign up here to attend the AIP Summit! 

Second… a big announcement regarding AIP Certified Coach! 

I am honored to announce that Jaime Hartman, FNTP will be taking over as co-teacher and collaborator for AIP Certified Coach, the practitioner training program we founded in 2017 to help all types of healthcare providers integrate AIP into the work they do. 

This partnership should come as no surprise, since Jaime has been a pillar of the AIP community since the very beginning, was a part of the first cohort of AIP Certified Coach, and brings her rich clinical experience and educational background to the program. 

Together, Jaime and I are engaged in a ground-up remodel of the AIP Certified Coach, to be launched in time for the usual Spring enrollment in 2023. While the Autoimmune Protocol itself has not changed meaningfully since the program was created, we are re-writing and delivering all lectures to incorporate new information (like medical study results!) and additional perspectives we’ve gained. 

If you are a healthcare practitioner of any kind (we train health coaches, nutritional therapists, nutritionists, dietitians, physical therapists, fitness professionals, bodyworkers, nurses, physician’s assistants, medical doctors, naturopathic doctors, and more!), we would love to have you join us in the 2023 class, enrolling February 15 for a March 6 start date. 

>> Sign up to be notified of the details and enrollment opening for AIP Certified Coach here! 

In health, 

Mickey

The post AIP in 2023: An Announcement & an Invitation! appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Today I’m sharing that after 10 years helping build and lead this movement and seven years at Autoimmune Welln­­­ess and AIP Certified Coach with Mickey, I have decided to step away from my work in the AIP space.

In a general sense, I am making this decision because I believe that slowing down and practicing community care are the next right things for me. I am so proud of everything Mickey and I have built and all the ways we’ve been able to serve the AIP community, but I don’t believe that my leadership in this space is the most valuable way I can contribute at this point.

To clarify, I still believe AIP is an incredibly powerful tool in the autoimmune management toolbox. I think that the future of AIP is bright and has already changed the standard of healthcare for autoimmune patients. After a decade of this work, I’d love to contribute to different conversations about health and wellness and support new voices ready to lead with fresh approaches to the AIP movement and new takes on the autoimmune healing journey.

My personal vision for the work I did in the AIP community was always to empower others so they could courageously contribute their voices to a revolutionary shift in the standard of autoimmune healthcare. And it’s right in our tagline here at Autoimmune Wellness that together, Mickey and I had a vision to build community. There are many, many voices now and the community is thriving. I think those visions are realized and now I’m making space for new visions.

I’m not entirely certain about all the details of my next steps, but if you’d like to follow my writing or learn a little more about the personal aspects of the decision to step away, you can find me here on Substack.

So, what does this mean for Autoimmune Wellness?

After I shared my decision with Mickey this past summer, we started to consider the best way forward for Autoimmune Wellness. We decided that turning it into an archive was the right path.

As an archive, all the current Autoimmune Wellness content, from groundbreaking research to definitive guides on the AIP basics, from practical how-to articles to hopeful stories of recovery, from the podcast to the hundreds of recipes, will continue to exist as a kind of dependable digital library to serve the autoimmune community. The resources on the site itself and the email auto-responder which offers free downloadable tools will be available to anyone looking for support in their healing journey.

New content will be limited and focused on opportunities to leverage the site and subscriber list to amplify the work of others in the Autoimmune Protocol space or share new and relevant events or research for those utilizing nutrition and lifestyle approaches in their autoimmune disease management.

Autoimmune Wellness social media accounts will also continue but will be used to amplify information and events important to the AIP community, share the work of other AIP recipe creators, spotlight AIP Certified Coach alumni, or to occasionally broadcast live interviews with autoimmune experts.

In particular, Mickey is looking forward to ramping up on the AIP research front and will serve as curator and steward of the Autoimmune Wellness archive and social media presence going forward.

What does this mean for AIP Certified Coach?

Mickey will continue to teach AIP Certified Coach and train new AIP coaches from across the health and wellness spectrum. Angie will be stepping away, but a dynamic new partnership is in the works and will be announced soon. If you are an AIP Certified Coach alum, look for emails with more details from Mickey soon.

If you are a provider interested in training, join the interest list here. If you are looking for AIP coaching support, find a coach at the directory here.

Thank you!

We had no idea what would happen when we started, but our intuition said to go for it. Thank you for also believing there was something here worth growing. We are deeply, sincerely grateful to all of you for being our readers and cheerleaders. For literally supporting us by clicking on this blog, buying our books, enrolling in our programs, and helping spread AIP.

We also want to acknowledge, with the deepest sense of gratitude, the team who helped grow and sustain Autoimmune Wellness over the years: Grace Heerman, Alicia Green, and Jordan Taylor.

We have also had an amazing core recipe and article team over the years who took the site to new levels with their contributions: Dr. Rob Abbott, Sarah Kolman, Sophie Van Tiggelen, Christina Feindel, Kate Jay, Alaena Haber, Kelsey McReynolds, Wendi Washington-Hunt, Beth Chen, Indira Pullidath, Kris King, and Erin Shearer.

It’s a privilege to have come this far and have a platform that now has long-term value for our fellow autoimmune patients. We know the legacy of our work represented in this archive, only possible because of your support and the work of our team, will continue to benefit and sustain the AIP movement well into the future.

If you’d like to listen to us discuss this decision, we uploaded a short episode of The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast that you can listen to below: 

 

If this work has been meaningful in your healing journeys, please share your stories in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

The post A Special Message From Angie appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

This post contains affiliate links. Click here to see what that means!In order to support our blogging activities, we may receive monetary compensation or other types or remuneration for our endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this blog. 

I have HUGE news today–I’m coming out with a brand-new AIP cookbook!

It’s called The Nutrient-Dense Kitchen and it releases March 2019 (details below on how you can order a signed, pre-release copy!).

Angie and I both know from personal experience that being successful on AIP is much more than simply eliminating foods. Healing is both quickened and deepened when you ensure that in addition to avoiding your food triggers, your make an effort to maximize nutrient density in the diet.

But what exactly is nutrient density? Simply put, it is the amount of micronutrients a food contains relative to the energy it provides. Not only does my new book teach you about getting good nutrition in an approachable way, but I have developed all of the recipes so you’ll be maximizing nutrient density with every bite.

Inside The Nutrient-Dense Kitchen, you’ll find:

• 125 Autoimmune Protocol compliant recipes (free from gluten, grains, dairy, eggs, nuts, seeds, and nightshades)
• Recipes that satisfy low-FODMAP, low-carb, or coconut-free diets
• Recipes that take 45 minutes (or less) to prepare, can be made in one pot, or can be made in an Instant Pot
• 5 meal plan and shopping list combinations, including budget and two-person options

 

In order to create a book I believe in and maintain complete control over the content, I am self-publishing The Nutrient-Dense Kitchen. By pre-ordering your copy directly from me, you get some awesome perks!

Your pre-order bonuses include:

• A signed copy of the first hardcover printing
• Early delivery of the book (up to a month before traditional release)
• Membership to a private insider FB group (Dec-Feb)
• Access to pre-release recipes from the book

Be one of the first to get your hands on The Nutrient-Dense Kitchen! Only a limited number of books are available for pre-order so reserve your copy now!

Click here to learn more and pre-order! >>

The post Announcing The Nutrient-Dense Kitchen by Mickey Trescott! appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 3: Real Food on a Budget. We’re dedicating this season to discussing an aspect of natural healing that often gets left out of the conversation: affordability. We’ll be chatting with experts and peers from the AIP community about how to best balance money with your health priorities.

This season is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association (NTA), a holistic nutrition school that trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants with an emphasis on bioindividual nutrition. Learn more about them by visiting NutritionalTherapy.com, or read about our experiences going through their NTP and NTC programs in our comparison article.

Season 3 Episode 8 is our final episode of the season! In this episode, we’re giving the floor to five members of the autoimmune community to hear their number one piece of advice when it comes to saving money on the AIP.

Since these recommendations can be so individual, we wanted to see what was getting the AIP community actual mileage when they put it into practice. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

How to listen:

If you’d like to have our podcasts sent directly to your device, subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher!

If you’d like to download the .mp3, you can do so by following this link.

If you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below!

Full Transcript:

Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a resource for those seeking to live well with chronic illness. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’m the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt. I’m a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I’m the author of The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage my endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease.

After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.AutoimmuneWellness.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

We also wrote a book called The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook together that serves as a do-it-yourself guidebook to living well with chronic illness.

Mickey Trescott: If you’re looking for more information about the autoimmune protocol, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at autoimmunewellness.com, so we can send you our free quick start guide. It contains printable AIP food lists, a 2-week food plan, a 90-minute batch cooking video, a mindset video, and food reintroduction guides.

This season of the podcast, real food on a budget is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

Topics:

1. Mitch Hankins, Instinctual Wellbeing [3:46]
2. Sophie Van Tiggelen of A Squirrel in the Kitchen [8:43]
3. Anne Marie Garland from Grass-fed Salsa [15:51]
4. Samantha Jo Teague of the Unskilled Cavewoman [20:56]
5. Kerry Jeffery of Emotional Autoimmunity [24:27]

Angie Alt: Hi everyone! Angie here. Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, season 3. How are you doing, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: I’m feeling a little bit sad because we’re almost done with this podcast series, and it’s been really fun.

Angie Alt: I know. This was a really new topic for us to explore so in-depth. And it’s been pretty rewarding to talk to all these folks.

Mickey Trescott: I agree.

Angie Alt: So today we have a really fun episode for you guys. As you know, with this season of the podcast we’ve been on a mission to dig into the nitty gritty of how to make eating a nourishing, real foods diet both affordable and sustainable.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. If you guys haven’t been following along, we covered the following topics in our previous episodes. We talked about sourcing affordable, highest quality meats, vegetables, and fats. Tips and tricks for effective meal planning, batch cooking, and minimizing food waste. Creative food sourcing options, like buying clubs and online shopping. How to minimize waste and reimagine leftovers. Creating a food budget and prioritizing your food spending. And also how to do AIP on an extremely low budget, like fixed income or food stamps.

I think we’ve done a really good job covering these bases. If you guys haven’t heard any of the episodes in this series, make sure to go back and listen to them. There’s a ton of really great info there. Info that I think is new territory for our movement our community. It’s been really fun.

Angie Alt: Right. We hope there’s something there for everybody. So, if there has been one recurring message this season, it has been that not every one of these recommendations is going to work for everyone, obviously. We’re all at different places with our health, our finances, our support systems and even our access based on the areas where we live. We thought it would be a good idea to round out this season of the podcast by devoting a whole episode to chatting with some of the members of the AIP blogging community about their number one money saving tip.

Since these recommendations can be so individual, we wanted to see what was getting the AIP community actual mileage when they put it into practice.

1. Mitch Hankins, Instinctual Wellbeing [3:46]

Mickey Trescott: Alright. So let’s move on and talk to our first guest.

So you guys; the first community member that we’re going to chat with today is Mitch Hankins from the blog Instinctual Wellbeing. Mitch, what is your number one tip for saving money on AIP?

Mitch Hankins: There are so many good ones. When my wife and I were kind of going through financial stuff a few years ago, we definitely had to get creative with sticking to an AIP and whole foods diet on a very limited budget. And very quickly, I think the thing we realized that was most helpful was not being afraid to grocery shop hop; or grocery store hop.

Basically, what we ended up doing is just taking note of maybe two or even three grocery stores in our area, and what products did we regularly use from each of those, and finding which store had the best prices for that particular item. Maybe we’d get a certain percentage of things from Whole Foods. And then for us, we’d drive down the road and hit up Trader Joe’s for 30 minutes and grab some things there. Sometimes we’d go to the Asian mart to pick up a few items there, like coconut milk and even some sweet potato noodles and things of that nature.

So, really just learning where we could get the best deals. And then taking advantage of that. One thing I would say; we did live in a pretty large metropolitan area, and I know some people don’t. So one thing you could do if you live in a more rural or smaller town, could be to do that same thing, but online.

I know there’s lots of great shops nowadays online where you can buy AIP products, and even meats. You could meet your local farmers in your area. But again, it all comes back to this putting pieces together of a puzzle, instead of just trying to get everything at one store, and fit that into your budget when it might not work as well.

Angie Alt: I love this tip, Mitch. Because actually my husband and I do it, too. And again, you know, we’re lucky to live in a kind of urban/suburban area. So we have Whole Foods and we have Trader Joe’s and we have all the places. So we can kind of hop around. But it really allows us to take advantage of the lowest price on an item in whatever store. So I totally agree that this is a smart one.

Mickey Trescott: And a lot of stores have rotating sales, too. So by going to multiple stores, you can actually see; you have a greater chance of being able to pick up some of the things they have on sale that are maybe time sensitive. And another thing, is that actually grocery stores make their money by putting certain things on sale, and then keeping other staples at a high price to basically round it out. It’s almost like; it’s not really cheating, but you’re paying for that convenience of getting every single thing at the same store. You’ll notice that certain things are marked down to kind of lure you to shop there, and then other staples are right at the highest price. That’s how they make their money. Great tip, Mitch.

Mitch Hankins: Absolutely. And just one other note on that; I’m glad you brought up the sales thing. Because some grocery stores will have regular, like weekly sales. For instance, during that period of our lives, we would go to our Whole Foods and have rotisserie chicken Wednesday. Because every Wednesday at our particular Whole Foods, rotisserie chickens were $2 off normal.

And then they had a lot of other things. I think for a while they were doing fresh salmon on Tuesdays was like $2 or $3 off per filet. So looking for those recurring deals as well. And maybe scheduling your meal plan, or scheduling your dinners around that can be helpful.

Angie Alt: Yeah. So smart. I did this even before AIP. I really would use; and Mickey and I talked about this in an earlier episode. But I would really use those flyers with the sales to plan my meals. Proactively around what stores were offering what discounts.

Mitch Hankins: Absolutely. That’s a great point.

Angie Alt: Mitch, will you let our listeners know where people can find you?

Mitch Hankins: Absolutely. My blog is InstinctualWellbeing.com. and similarly, uncreatively, my Instagram is also @InstinctualWellbeing. And Facebook is Instinctual Wellbeing. So you can find me and connect with me there. You can also shoot me an email if you really wanted to chat more about budget friendly tips, or anything, at [email protected]. That’s where you can connect with me.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. Thank you so much for chatting with us today, Mitch.

Mitch Hankins: Absolutely. Thank you!

2. Sophie Van Tiggelen of A Squirrel in the Kitchen [8:43]

Mickey Trescott: Next up, we’re going to chat with Sophie Van Tiggelen of A Squirrel in the Kitchen. Sophie, what is your number one tip for saving money on AIP?

Sophie Van Tiggelen: My very first tip I think that eating vegetables and fruit is very important. You need to eat as much vegetables and fruit as you can. Like, try to fill up your plate with at least three-quarters of vegetables. They are a great source of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. And the fiber content of vegetables is really important for healthy gut microflora.

So I’m always trying to eat a maximum of vegetables and fruit to have the full spectrum of nutrients. But then the problem is; how can you eat good quality vegetables and fruit on a budget without breaking the bank? So my first tip would be to eat seasonal. For example, there is no point wanting to eat delicious raspberries in the middle of winter. They are super expensive. I would advise you to try to eat fall and winter produce. Like apples, oranges, and pears. So that really helps to reduce your grocery bill.

Then I would say try to take advantage of promotions that you see in stores. And this is great, because it’s going to push you to expand your veggie repertoire, and try new things that you might now have thought about before.

I would also try to avoid fancy or exotic produce. I know that when I’m grocery shopping, I’m always attracted by those exotic and tropical fruits, because they’re all colorful and they look so good. But usually they are very expensive.

Also, I try to avoid special vegetables or unusual vegetables that come from far away. So I would advise here to eat local. It’s less expensive. They come from your neighborhood; the farmers around you. And it’s cheaper to produce them.

You can usually find local produce at your health food store. Here in Colorado, I like either Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage. Or you can also try to find a farmer’s market in your area. That’s a very good way to eat local produce.

To keep your budget low, I would also advise to think about the food return you’re going to get when you buy something. Try to stretch your dollars, and stretch your meals. For example, I love to buy spaghetti squash because I know they will go a long way. And I will be able to use them for several meals. It’s the same for cabbage, collard greens, carrots, broccoli, or sweet potatoes. They are easy to prepare. They reheat well. And you can stretch them for several meals.

Another big one for me is to be smart and to avoid waste. I try to never, ever throw food away. And before I buy something new or start on a new vegetable, I will make sure that I eat everything I have prepared. All these little pieces that are left over in your fridge; every two to three days I will put everything together and reheat the plate and just eat it. Because we can lose a lot of money, also, in the long run by just throwing food away.

Angie Alt: Yeah, these are great tips, Sophie!

Sophie Van Tiggelen: And I have one last point about the quality of the food that you buy. Do you have to buy organic? Let’s face it; it’s not always possible to buy organic. We know it’s better for you because you want to avoid pesticides because they have a negative impact on your health and immune system. But it’s not always possible. So I would advise people to refer to the famous Dirty Dozen/Clean 15 lists, and try to do the best you can. And if you have to buy conventional, that’s just fine. It’s alright. It’s better to eat conventional vegetables than just go to fast food. So yeah, these are my tips.

Angie Alt: This is a lady after our own heart, Mickey.

Mickey Trescott: I know. I love it.

Angie Alt: They’re all so good, and I love the focus on budgeting around the veggies. You know, we tend to think of the meats in this diet as being the big hefty expenditure on the budget, and that’s true. But, you can really get out of control with the veggies, too. Like you were talking about, Sophie. Buying berries out of season. You could practically need a credit card for it!

Sophie Van Tiggelen: Yes, definitely.

Angie Alt: Sophie, will you let our listeners know where people can find you?

Sophie Van Tiggelen: Oh, yes, certainly. Everyone can find me first on my blog, which is A Squirrel in the Kitchen. I’m also very active on Instagram and Facebook. You can find me there. And I would like to mention that I’m very excited about my upcoming second cookbook, which is coming out June 12th. It’s called The Autoimmune Protocol Made Simple. And it’s a whole new set of fresh and appealing recipes for the autoimmune protocol.

Mickey Trescott: We’re so excited about it, Sophie. Thanks so much for talking with us today.

Sophie Van Tiggelen: Thank you.

Mickey Trescott: A final word from our title sponsor this season, the Nutritional Therapy Association. We wanted to take a moment to publicly thank NTA for graciously sponsoring this podcast season; real food on a budget. Producing, editing, and transcribing this podcast is a big job for both us and our team, and their support means we can offer all of this to you guys at no cost.

Angie Alt: We also want to thank them for the quality of both the NTP and the NTC programs that Mickey and I have benefited from, and the incredible community of coaches they have trained that are truly changing the world.

The NTP and NTC programs changed our lives, and we’re talking about more than career here, you guys. Of course, the training and education took us to a whole other level in our work; but the life-changing stuff is in feeling you’re part of a tribe who cares deeply about health and wellness. It’s in joining and association filled with intelligent people who are changing the way we do health care. And it’s in the pride that comes from knowing you and your classmates, soon to be colleagues, are part of a cutting-edge profession. So yeah; life-changing.

Mickey Trescott: And if any of you guys are looking into transforming your career, or simply learning more so that you can better help yourself and your community, check out everything the Nutritional Therapy Association has to offer at the website www.NutritionalTherapy.com.

3. Anne Marie Garland from Grass-fed Salsa [15:51]

Angie Alt: Next up, we are going to chat with Anne Marie Garland from Grass-fed Salsa. Anne Marie; what is your number one tip for saving money on AIP?

Anne Marie Garland: This is something that my husband and I have been doing for probably four years now. We try to do one meal a day that is vegetarian. And we do this for a couple of reasons, but primarily it started for budgetary reasons. And we found that it works best when we do it for dinner. So if we have protein with breakfast; like animal protein with breakfast and lunch. And then dinner ends up being entirely vegetarian.

And for us, it makes us feel more energized throughout the day to have protein with breakfast and lunch. I also feel like it helps support my adrenals better when I have protein with breakfast and lunch. But then at dinner, because we’re eating it later in the day and then we’re going to sleep shortly after. As long as we have enough protein and enough fat, we seem to be really satiated. And the bonus there is that we’re actually eating a ton of veggies during that meal.

We’ll make; I don’t even know. One or two pounds of beet fries. That’s one of our favorite ways to do this. And beet fries are something that I feel like most people kind of have a negative opinion about beets. But if you scrub them really well, they don’t taste as earthy as they do if you just kind of cook them right off; without washing and without scrubbing them.

So we scrub them really well, and then we coat them in bacon grease. And I think the bacon grease is the trick with this. It helps them get really crispy, and not feel really soggy. And we just kind of cut them into fries type shapes. And then we just bake them like that. So we coat them in bacon grease, put salt and maybe some chives on them. Chives is a really good addition. And then we can make that with an avocado mayo. I have an avocado mayo that’s egg-free on my recipes. So we’ll just use that. It’s kind of like an aioli dipping sauce for them. It’s really good. That’s pretty much our trick.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. I mean, Anne Marie, I think this is a super savvy hack. Because we all know, from talking about budgeting for AIP and food sourcing, that high quality meat is often the most expensive part about doing this diet. And we actually get a lot of confusion from people that think they need to be eating large amounts of protein every single meal.

I think for some people; like I was vegan for 10 years before I transitioned to AIP. So there was a phase where I felt like I was eating a lot of meat, because nutritionally I needed it. But after about a year of that, I really backed off a lot. And I did something similar to you. Having one meal a day meat free. For me, often it’s lunch. Different strokes for different folks. Whatever works for people. But just not having to have that meat prepared; either the energy to actually make it, and also not having to pay for the protein for that meal. And then getting all those veggies. I think it’s a win for all angles.

Angie Alt: My favorite part of this is the amount of veggies you’re going to get in. Right? You’re talking about one to two pounds of beets, along with other vegetables, in the form of avocado mayo or whatever you’re having at that particular meal. You’re winning the veggie contest.

Anne Marie Garland: Totally. And we usually do make it along side a nonstarchy veggie, as well. So maybe we’ll have it with a salad. Or we’ll sauté some greens. Green beans is also another one we like to bake along with the beet fries.

Mickey Trescott: Really cool. I like your suggestion, too, of kind of front loading the protein. Just because that’s actually a nice way to go with your digestive flow throughout the day, and also blood sugar. So a lot us find that more of the starchy carbs at the end of the day with dinner can actually help us sleep. And some people actually don’t really digest protein that well towards the end of the day, just because they’ve got so much food in their system and their body’s already kind of working on all that other stuff. So I can see why a lighter dinner without the protein might actually help there. I think I’m going to try it.

Anne Marie Garland: Yeah, that makes sense too, for me, since my diagnosis is celiac. Maybe just with my digestion, it works really well.

Mickey Trescott: Well thank you so much, Anne Marie, for sharing that tip with us. Will you let our listeners know where they can find you?

Anne Marie Garland: Yes. You can find me anywhere on social media and on the internet at Grass-fed Salsa. And on the website it’s just GrassfedSalsa.com.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. Thanks so much.

Anne Marie Garland: Thank you.

4. Samantha Jo Teague of the Unskilled Cavewoman [20:56]

Angie Alt: Next up, we’re going to chat with Samantha Jo Teague of the Unskilled Cavewoman. Samantha Jo, what is your number one tip for saving money on AIP?

Samantha Jo Teague: I love using dried herbs. Instead of spending about $7 or so on a tiny little jar of organic dried parsley or basil, I can get a one-pound bulk bag from your various online venders from anywhere from $15-20.

Mickey Trescott: Where online are you shopping for your bulk herbs?

Samantha Jo Teague: I tend to bounce between either iHerb, VitaCost, and Amazon. I’m constantly price checking and comparing. Because if you’re going to buy a handful of spices, and as long as you meet their shipping requirement. Because I like to get the free shipping, too, otherwise it’s not really worth it. You bounce between those three vendors, and you can find really good prices.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. We talked a little bit earlier in this season about shopping for food online, but we didn’t mention iHerb or VitaCost, which I think both of those I’ve used a little bit in the past. And it’s awesome to see that you’re finding that they have really good prices on bulk spices.

Samantha Jo Teague: Definitely. It saves a ton of money. Especially when you season everything, and you’re cooking almost every day. Or doing bulk cooking every few days. You end up using a lot more of those dried spices than you would think you do. And having that extra, you just store it in an airtight bag while you fill up the tiny jar again. I like to reuse the jars, too. When that’s empty you just fill it on up.

And I also like to pull from the larger bag, and I’ll make blends. Like an Italian blend. Or an herbs de Provence. Or Greek seasoning. And you keep those on hand for when you need to make something even more quickly, and you don’t want to drag out #allthejars.

Angie Alt: I love it. I love the tip on reusing the jars, too. I was just about to ask you how you kind of store everything and if you had any tips there. So I love the reusing of the jars. And you’re totally right. On AIP, you really rely on these herbs for the real taste and pleasure of the food, right. So we go through a ton of it.

Samantha Jo Teague: Oh yes. Tons and tons. And I like using fresh herbs, and fresh ginger, and things like that. But if you’re going through a flare. Or even if you’re just forgetful or busy, quite often those tend to go bad quickly in the fridge and then you end up throwing it away. And with the dried herbs, those aren’t going to go bad for a long time.

Mickey Trescott: Thank you so much for that tip, Samantha Jo. Will you let our listeners know where people can find you?

Samantha Jo Teague: Yes ma’am. I blog over at theUnskilledCavewoman.com. I’m also on Instagram and Facebook as the Unskilled Cavewoman. And occasionally I do a little tweeting on over at Cavewoman Skills. It was too long to write the Unskilled Cavewoman on Twitter.

Mickey Trescott: Well thank you so much for having this chat with us.

Samantha Jo Teague: Thanks! It was fun talking to you ladies.

5. Kerry Jeffery of Emotional Autoimmunity [24:27]

Mickey Trescott: Alright you guys, last up we’re going to be chatting with Kerry Jeffery of Emotional Autoimmunity. So Kerry, what is your number one tip for saving money on AIP?

Kerry Jeffery: My number one tip for everybody is that I use what is called minced meat, here in Australia. I think you guys call it ground meat. It’s really cheap. It’s really versatile for stir fries, one pan meals, burgers. All different sorts of things. And what I really love about using the minced meat, or the ground meat, is that if you’re marinating, like for doing a stir fry, and using things like ginger and garlic. If you massage that through the meat and leave that for a couple of hours, then the flavor really goes in so you get a big flavor bang for very little expense.

And the other thing I wanted to mention, too, is most supermarkets mark down their meat when it’s getting close to the use by date. So I have a couple of supermarkets that I stalk pretty regularly. Particularly if they’ve got things like organic chicken thighs or drumsticks or other cuts of meat. Then I buy a whole lot, put them in the freezer, and that keeps us going for a while.

One of the biggest tricks I found was, I was losing track of what was in my freezer. Especially if I got a big tray of steaks or meat or something, and I was wrapping it up individually to freeze. I would forget what it was. So now I’m really good at putting a little label on. You can even just write what the meat is on a piece of paper, sort of wrap that up in a layer of the Glad wrap or whatever you’re freezing it in, with the date. And that means you save a lot of waste. Because there’s nothing worse than going to the freezer and finding this mystery meat, and you don’t know how long it’s been there for. Or even what it is or how to use it. So there are the tips that I really recommend for everybody, if you want to save a bit of money on AIP.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome! Kerry, I can definitely resonate with that recommendation to just make sure that you’re labeling. I know a lot of us; we’ve talked a lot about the leftovers, and just making sure that we’re using up all of that before we buy more. But the same applies with the freezer. And I think sometimes people think that if you throw something in your freezer, it will last forever, so it doesn’t really matter if you’re not organized or aren’t tracking it. But things do go bad in the freezer, especially if they’ve been there for a while. If you pull it out, and you’re like; what is this? I don’t know how long it’s been here. You’re much more likely to be like; I think I might need to toss this. Right?

Kerry Jeffery: Exactly. And every now and then, just plan to go through your freezer, and just use everything before you buy everything else. Because the trap I fell into was, I kept buying this meat, and then putting it in the freezer on the top. And I lost track of what was down on the bottom. And then when I did decide to do a big clean out in the freezer; I had meat that had been there over a year! So it was a massive waste. So it’s just a really good idea to keep track of what you’ve got in the freezer. And use it all up, and then start again.

Angie Alt: Right. I imagine this helps you rotate the meat pretty quickly.

Kerry Jeffery: It does.

Angie Alt: Using the oldest stuff first. I also love the tip about the minced meat; AKA ground meat. Definitely way back, even before I started AIP, the ground meat was the lifesaver.

Kerry Jeffery: For sure. Another thing, a trap that I fell into earlier in the day was buying what I thought were the veggies and stuff that I had to eat, like kale, because it’s so nutritious. And I even do that now. I bought a big bunch of kale that I was going to make some juice with and do some other things. And when I went to use it, it had just gone off. Because it’s unfamiliar to me.

So for people first trying AIP, don’t automatically buy stuff just because we say it’s really nutritious or you should eat that. If it’s not something that you’re actually going to eat, or if it’s something you’ve got to learn a new way to cook with, or new recipes, you’re more likely to put it off and then it’s just going to go to that big graveyard in the sky of expired veggies in your vegetable crisper.

Angie Alt: The big graveyard in the sky. Love it. Kerry, will you let our listeners know where people can find you?

Kerry Jeffery: Yes! They can find me at www.EmotionalAutoimmunity.com for my website. I’m also on Facebook. I also run a free support group for anybody who is struggling with the emotional side of life with chronic illness. And that’s called Emotional Autoimmunity Recovery Support. You can just put that into the search on Facebook and find me.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. Thank you so much for chatting with us today, Kerry.

Kerry Jeffery: You’re so welcome.

Mickey Trescott: Alright you guys, that’s it for this episode, and season, of the Autoimmune Wellness podcast. We hope you guys have learned a lot from our fellow AIP bloggers, and from this season as a whole. As always, we appreciate your support. You guys are such an engaged and passionate community, and we love being able to collaborate with and support you guys on your journeys.

Although this season of the podcast has come to a close, we have some really great ideas brewing about how we can bring value to your lives in future seasons. So make sure to keep in touch with us by signing up for our newsletter, on the blog, and following us on social media. We’ll see you guys next time.

Angie Alt: Bye!

Angie Alt: Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Autoimmune Wellness podcast. We’re honored to have you as a listener, and we hope that you’ve gained some useful information.

Mickey Trescott: Did you know that we have dozens of informative articles about living well with autoimmune disease, and over 250 elimination phase compliant recipes on our website, updated multiple times per week? Make sure to click on over to AutoimmuneWellness.com. Follow us on social media. And sign up for our newsletter to find out about all of this new content.

We’re either at Autoimmune Paleo, or at Autoimmune Wellness on any of these channels. You can sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of any page on our website. Don’t forget to connect with the AIP community by using the hashtag #AutoimmuneWellness.

Angie Alt: If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes, as this helps others find us. See you next time!

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The post S3 E8 – Money-Saving Tips From The AIP Community appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 3: Real Food on a Budget. We’re dedicating this season to discussing an aspect of natural healing that often gets left out of the conversation: affordability. We’ll be chatting with experts and peers from the AIP community about how to best balance money with your health priorities.

This season is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association (NTA), a holistic nutrition school that trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants with an emphasis on bioindividual nutrition. Learn more about them by visiting NutritionalTherapy.com, or read about our experiences going through their NTP and NTC programs in our comparison article.

Season 3 Episode 7 is focused on how to both prioritize your food choices, and make a budget for eating this way that is sustainable longterm. Angie and Mickey share their personal stories of budgeting and managing medical expenses and debt. They also chat with guest Jenny Harris about how to modify AIP for lower budgets, and how to find local assistance for food budgeting concerns.

This is a bit of a tricky topic but we hope sharing our experiences and ideas will help you feel supported wherever you find yourself in your journey. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

How to listen:

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If you’d like to download the .mp3, you can do so by following this link.

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Full Transcript:

Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a resource for those seeking to live well with chronic illness. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’m the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt. I’m a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I’m the author of The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage my endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease.

After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.AutoimmuneWellness.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

We also wrote a book called The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook together that serves as a do-it-yourself guidebook to living well with chronic illness.

Mickey Trescott: If you’re looking for more information about the autoimmune protocol, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at autoimmunewellness.com, so we can send you our free quick start guide. It contains printable AIP food lists, a 2-week food plan, a 90-minute batch cooking video, a mindset video, and food reintroduction guides.

This season of the podcast, real food on a budget is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

Topics:

1. Different levels of budget concerns [2:19]
2. Budgeting benefits on AIP [7:13]
3. Personal budgeting stories [9:41]
4. Benefit of minimalism [15:58]
5. An investment in your future health [18:53]
6. Introducing our guest, Jenny Harris [23:41]
7. Roadblocks and challenges [29:05]
8. Finding local assistance [31:05]
9. AIP modifications on low-budget [35:44]

Mickey Trescott: Hey guys! Mickey here. Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, season 3. How are you doing today, Angie?

Angie Alt: I’m good. Hopefully there won’t be any puppy noise in the background. My puppy is being very naughty today, you guys.

Mickey Trescott: Sometimes it happens. You know, those animals.

Angie Alt: Mm-hmm.

Mickey Trescott: So today we are continuing our discussion related to the topic this season. Real food on a budget. This episode is going to be about how to both prioritize your food choices, and make a budget for eating this way. Today we’re tackling a little bit of a tricky topic, but we hope that sharing some of our experiences and ideas will help you guys feel supported wherever you find yourself in your journey.

1. Different levels of budget concerns [2:19]

Mickey Trescott: So first, let’s talk about the three main categories that people find themselves in when we talk about budgeting concerns. The first, of course, are people who are wealthy. They can afford anything. There really aren’t any barriers to getting what they want, because they can go to Whole Foods and get whatever they want. Or they can afford the functional medicine practitioner. Most of us, sadly, don’t find ourselves in this situation.

The middle is actually where most of us are probably at. That’s where people have resources to allocate towards maybe eating better or better medical care, but it means almost always you’re going to have to make some strategic planning. There is flexibility. So there’s a lot of choices sometimes. And maybe going without something so that you can get something else. There are those options to kind of move things around a little bit, and prioritize.

And then lastly there are people who are low income. So those are people who face significant challenges and stress around budgeting for food. And it involves fixed resources without flexibility. So that’s an important distinguishing characteristic between those who truly are low-income. I would say that a lot of people in the middle maybe think they’re a little more low-income than they really are. But the truth is, a lot of us have some flexibility. And that is where a lot of the difficulties come up.

Angie Alt: So in the second segment of the podcast, we’ll be talking a lot more about those in the lowest income group, and some strategies that they can use. We really believe everyone should have access to healing foods. And we want to talk about the ways to make that reality for those in that challenging circumstance.

But in this first segment, we want to focus on the middle category of folks. Because probably most of you guys listening to this podcast find yourselves here. It’s where Mickey and I ourselves land. So we just want to kind of take a stab at the topic that is probably most of us are facing.

We also want to acknowledge that having a chronic illness alone can be limiting to the budget. It’s expensive to be sick. And we totally get that.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. The different ways even just having an autoimmune disease before you get into some of the diet and lifestyle stuff that you might want to do. I mean, medical bills and medications are expensive. So a lot of that, if you’re someone who has just gone through a diagnosis, you know how front loaded those costs can be. So all at once, you might be going to see different doctors and specialists. Burning through maybe a high deductible, or something. Which is sadly very common these days. Getting through all of that testing, and some of those initial treatments.

Angie Alt: Right. And then there’s also the higher cost of insurance. Even though we have laws that guard against things like preexisting conditions with coinsurance and high deductibles, it means that usually folks with chronic illness do end up paying more.

Mickey Trescott: Yep. There’s also an income loss due to lack of ability to work. A lot of people don’t really realize this lack of opportunity cost. But really, sometimes it can involve the work of your partner or your spouse. Sometimes it can affect your ability to do childcare or household duties. Most autoimmune diseases come with some level of disability, and that can come through in either a lack of ability to actually hold a job at a certain amount of hours per week. It can also mean that you have to pay others or get help from other people in your family to do work around the house, which can be expensive. Both emotionally and financially.

Angie Alt: Right. And then there’s the cost of natural or alternative treatments. Which, unfortunately, means usually paying out of pocket. We don’t have good systems in place that allow proper reimbursement through our insurance system for most of those kinds of treatments. And the fact is that combining the best of those natural and alternative treatments with conventional and do-it-yourself methods means that this can be really; a no-brainer. Something you definitely want to take on so you can heal. But it can be really expensive. This includes things like paying for supplements, and paying for different kinds of therapies. Maybe massage, acupuncture, things of that nature.

2. Budgeting benefits on AIP [7:13]

Mickey Trescott: All these things considered, why those of us with autoimmune disease have a little more of a tricky time making a budget. Why should we do it in the first place? We have some reasons for you guys.

Budgeting really stops overspending and prevents debt. So when you know exactly how much money you have coming in, and you’ve planned to use that money in a variety of categories and predictably. Of course, you can’t control the future, and you never really know exactly what’s going to happen. But that act of actually planning helps you not to spend too much of your money, and prevents you from needing to go into debt.

How many of us have not made a plan and then unexpectedly, but then actually kind of expectedly being like; oh, this expense came up. And I kind of knew it was coming but I didn’t really plan for it. You might end up in a situation where you have to go into debt for that.

Angie Alt: Right. Also budgeting can help us reach our goals. For instance, proactively saving. Having that budgetary line item in place helps us kind of get there and reach those goals in reasonable timelines instead of haphazardly putting $10 in the savings account every couple of months.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. It also helps you stop worrying. So, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lot of anxiety since my diagnosis and initial path with autoimmune disease. Just because, financially it was really difficult for me back then. And even though I’m healthy now, sometimes I worry that if I got sick again, I wouldn’t have the money to kind of figure it out. And I’m anticipating that stress.

So, being able to move towards and reach some of those savings goals might help you stop worrying and relieve some of that anxiety related to it.

Angie Alt: Right. And kind of along those same lines, it helps you have more flexibility. I think when you kind of have planned your expenses, and you have allocated pots of money that are there for certain kind of expenses, it just allows you to be a lot more flexible. And should something really large and unexpected come up, you have more leeway between those different budget line items to kind of move things around, if necessary.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. And lastly, it gives you more control over your money. You know exactly where it’s going, instead of feeling kind of like a passenger every month, paying all your bills and kind of not understanding where everything goes. You understand, actually, now that I have a budget, I know exactly where everything is going. And you can make changes and be informed in that way.

3. Personal budgeting stories [9:41]

Angie Alt: Right. So, Mickey, maybe we can share a little bit about our personal approaches to budgeting and especially how things looked when we first started on this path.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So I talked a little bit about my diagnosis, and how that financially impacted us. It was very stressful, understandably. Just the diagnosis in and of itself is really stressful. But at the time, my husband and I were both working minimum wage plus tips jobs in a major city. Living paycheck to paycheck. By all means, we were not poor. We were able to pay the bills that we had. We were able to have a great lifestyle that we were happy with.

But when I started to get sick and I wasn’t able to bring in that income, I lost my job. And then we added in all the medical stuff. Which, when I got diagnosed, I didn’t have insurance. So I was paying everything out of pocket. I ended up going into a lot of debt because I didn’t really have any savings, and I didn’t really have a budget, and I didn’t really plan. That kind of threw me for a loop, that six months of my life.

But coming out of it, I learned that I needed to make some big decisions. Like that flexibility piece we were talking about. My husband and I made some decisions that were able to help us pay back that debt just by choosing to go without certain things. For instance, we didn’t have a car. At one point we relied on just using the bus or riding our bike.

Another thing we did was we had roommates in a house that we rented instead of having the house to ourselves. Another thing we did was not go out to eat ever. And we didn’t go on any vacations. So I consider even making so little money in that phase of my life, I realized the position of privilege that I was in being able to be flexible in that way. And yes it was stressful. My husband was then the sole provider. We were taking on debt. We didn’t know how long I would be sick. And then the food budget was just increasing, increasing, increasing. Which is really what we’re going to be talking about today.

But in the end, it all worked out. We were able to pay off that debt. I was able to go back to work. And me feeling better was a really important part of that process; to realize that I was one day going to be able to recover enough to then go back to work and kind of get the cycle working out. So I kind of didn’t have a plan. And got caught in a little bit of a hard place. But that flexibility was really how we got unstuck. What about you, Angie?

Angie Alt: So, for me, the flexibility piece didn’t exist as much. When I started to get sick, we had already come into our marriage with pretty significant education debt. And we had good jobs. Especially my husband, had a great job. And we had really great insurance. We were very, very lucky to have such good insurance coverage. But it meant that I was really limited to pursue anything kind of outside of what was covered within our insurance situation, because we had a lot of debt already to deal with.

So it meant that I had to be really creative within the insurance; what was covered within the insurance. And I had to get really high mileage, basically, out of all of my appointments with my doctors, and be really, really well prepared, and be a really strong advocate for myself. I had to spend a lot of time working with the insurance company, trying to navigate that process. Which can be really frustrating and really difficult, especially when you’re sick. But I was limited in terms of the flexibility.

And later, when we decided that we would choose to take on some more debt for some of those treatments and some of that help that was outside of the insurance system, we really had to buckle down in other areas in order to be able to meet all of our responsibilities with that debt.

Over time, that has eased a lot. We’re not in quite the same situation as we were before. Especially because I was able to go back to work and make a better living than I did previously, when I wasn’t so sick anymore. That made a really big difference for us. But it was not a simple process.

Mickey Trescott: And a lot of these transitions, and during the diagnosis and kind of what followed. We’ve gone without a lot of things and made a lot of choices so that we could afford good food. Would you say that applies to you, Angie?

Angie Alt: Yeah, for sure. For instance, until only about three years ago, we only had one car. We drove an early 2000 Honda Civic, and that’s all we had. My husband commuted back and forth to his work in the city using the commuter buses, or the train. We were really just relying on that. We didn’t really take any significant vacations. Anything that was more than a weekend drive or something away. We also really kind of cut certain line items from our budget. Things like new clothes and those kinds of extras. We just made do the best we could with what was in front of us.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, something that really shifted for us, as far as that flexibility pieces. Before I got sick, I wouldn’t say we ate out an incredible amount. But we definitely were doing a lot of the quick, fast-ish food, but not quite fast food. Like Chipotle type eating out. Fairly often. And when I got sick and I had to change everything about what I ate, one of those unintended benefits was that we kind of wiped out the whole restaurants and eating out.

And like I said, we didn’t really have a lot of money to spend on eating out. But just transitioning that to the food budget actually ended up making it so that we were spending the same amount of money that we’ve always been spending on food. We’re just spending it on better, higher quality groceries, and cooking the food instead of going out to eat.

Angie Alt: Yeah, that’s absolutely true for us, as well. I mean, we probably went out four to five times a month on average, and that changed to four to five times, maybe, a year on average.

4. Benefit of minimalism [15:58]

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. And something else that happened for us, personally. We started to kind of take on and embrace minimalism. So we didn’t give away or sell everything that we owned and live in a tiny house, by any means. But we definitely made a conscious effort to buy durable and affordable products that last, and usually on sale. So actually some of them ended up not being that affordable.

But things like cast iron Dutch oven. I would know that would make cooking for AIP be so much easier. And yes, it’s a few hundred dollars for a really high quality one. But what I would do is save up, and wait until I got it, and then look at Sur La Table when they’re having their 40% off sale. Go in and grab that, knowing that I’m going to have it for maybe 10, 20 years.

And when you break down that few hundred-dollar cost by that amount of time; as long as you buy the right one, and it’s well made, and durable, and has a great warranty, and you’re actually going to use it. Those types of things; I still have a lot of those great cooking tools that I bought piece by piece in the beginning. Because of that minimalism thing. And then also with the clothes. Not shopping, not having too much stuff. Only having the stuff that we need. I think that relieves a lot of stress in a different way. Not having clutter and stuff. But that’s another topic.

Angie Alt: Yeah. I mean, we’ve done that probably to an extent that worked for our family at the time. And at different points, it was more a match to our lifestyle than others. It’s hard to go too minimalist with a child in the house. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: {laughs}

Angie Alt: There’s all kinds of things that go along with that. But I mean, for instance. While we were living in Africa, that was definitely a part of our life. And for that very, very early part of me getting sick, it definitely made a difference.

We also minimized a lot of repeat expenses that add up. For instance, we didn’t go out for cocktails all the time. We didn’t go to the movies. We didn’t go to the salon. I didn’t get my nails done regularly. Honestly, probably I should have gotten my hair cut a little more often than I did. We minimized all that as much as possible.

I didn’t spend a lot on any beauty products. And you know, I really still don’t. That kind of became something that, even when my budget could maybe afford a bit more of that, I still didn’t really bring that on board. We weren’t running to the store and grabbing 8 bottles of kombucha a week. Things like that. Those little expenses seem very small in the moment, but it can add up to hundreds of dollars in a year.

5. An investment in your future health [18:53]

Angie Alt: You can kind of comment here, too, Mickey and let them know if you feel this way. But I feel like investing up front in my healing meant that I could work more in the future. And I had more energy to give to my work. I had more ability to be pretty darned productive and very creative in ways that I wasn’t able to be before. So even though it was probably costing money that was really stretching us thin in the beginning. In the end, it has paid off because I was able to really start a whole new career and pour a lot of my life blood, basically, into it. That I couldn’t have done before, had I not put this much into my healing.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, I totally agree. And I definitely remember a time in my life and my recovery where I made the decision to continue the level of eating well and medical care, like natural treatments that were out of pocket. Even though that month to month period, we couldn’t afford it. We were going into debt every month. Just having faith that in three or six months, I would hopefully be on the same trajectory that I had experienced early with AIP, and that I would be able to go to work. So, that was definitely a conscious effort. And you know, definitely an act of faith.

We’re not saying you can just say, I’m going to pay for this and you’re guaranteed results. Definitely investing up front, I knew if the quality of the food went up and I did the right things, then hopefully that would give me more energy. And it did. I was able to go back to work part time, and then full time. And then also back to school, and all that stuff. And then I met this lady. We haven’t stopped since. {laughs}

Angie Alt: {laughs} But I guess, the thing for me too. In hindsight, I realize that I probably have more energy and ability and clear thought and creativity and all those things than I even did before I got sick. I’m not saying; just like you said. I’m not saying that this happens for everyone. And that it will supercharge you into some amazing career. Or you’ll go back to your former job and be like a rocket ship to the top, and get all these raises and promotions or anything like that.

I’m not saying that that necessarily happens to everybody. But it really transformed my ability. My baseline is totally different. I didn’t even consider before I got sick that I would ever work at the level that I do now. And I think that’s all down to that investment that I put into my health.

Mickey Trescott: Mm-hmm. And continued investment. I feel the same way, Angie. I feel like my brain works completely differently, like it did. Sometimes the body is a little far behind and that’s kind of a Hashi thing. But my brain works again. And I’m able to do a level of critical thinking and planning that I just wasn’t capable of for years.

Angie Alt: Right.

Mickey Trescott: And that’s very useful. That’s an asset.

Alright. So we know that there are situations where some of these simple, low-lying adjustments are not enough. We can’t speak for everyone. Our personal experience is what it is. But digging in to make AIP, or any healing dietary protocol work, for those with extremely limited incomes and other financial barriers to wellness is up next. So if you guys are kind of listening to us; and you’re like; man, that sounds nice. We’ve got some info for you in our next segment. See you soon.

Mickey Trescott: A quick work from our title sponsor this season, the Nutritional Therapy Association. The NTA is a holistic nutrition school that reconnects people to healing foods and vibrant health. They provide practical, affordable, and transformative nutrition education through their courses, empowering you to launch a new career and heal yourself, your community, and the world.

The NTA trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners; like me, I’m an NTP; and consultants, like Angie, she’s an NTC. Emphasizing a bioindividual nutrition. The NTC program is fully online, and the NTP program has workshops in the US, Canada, and Australia. There are scholarships, payment plans, and financial aid available to make both programs accessible to all who desire a comprehensive, holistic nutrition education.

To learn more, visit their website at www.NutritionalTherapy.com. Be sure to check out their free 7-day nutritional therapy 101 course.

6. Introducing our guest, Jenny Harris [23:41]

Angie Alt: Hey everybody! We’re back. Today we are speaking to Jenny Harris, who is a registered dietician nutritionist and trained chef, living in Seattle, Washington. She received her masters of science in nutrition from Bastyr University. Her Bachelors degree of nutrition in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And completed her dietetic internship at Virginia Polytech Institute and State University.

She also holds an associates degree in culinary arts from the New England Culinary Institute. She’s a member of the dietitians in integrative and functional medicine and the food and culinary professional dietetic practice groups of the academy of nutrition and dietetics. And if that isn’t enough, for the last 10 years, Jenny has mainly worked in community health. Serving low income women and families through the WIC program in Seattle, Washington. Last year, she became one of our very first graduates of the AIP Certified Coach program, and that is how we found out about the awesome work she does.

Today, we’re going to go deep with Jenny about how to make healing protocols work, even on very low and fixed incomes. She’ll be sharing with us the specifics of government assistance programs in the US. The realities that people are facing when they need the assistance, and how eating a healing diet should not be exclusive. Welcome, Jenny.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. Yeah, welcome Jenny. Thanks so much for being here.

Jenny Harris: Thanks for having me.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. So the first question, a lot of our audience like we talked about in the first half of this podcast. A lot of us find ourselves in the middle, and maybe not knowing a lot about these government assistant programs. Can you maybe give us a little bit more of a definition of some of these programs and kind of what they entail?

Jenny Harris: Sure, sure. My experience has mainly been working with the WIC program, as it’s mostly known. The full name is the supplemental nutrition program for women, children, and infants. And it is mainly geared towards anyone that’s pregnant, or postpartum, and then infants, and children under age 5. Specifically, you look at your gross income to meet guidelines for that program. And you’d be at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. In addition, you would have to meet a nutrition risk. Also have a proof of address, in a particular state where you are applying.

In addition to that, there is the SNAP program, which is the supplemental nutrition assistance program, known as food stamps. It was previously known as. You would go in and your income would be assessed as well. And for that program, you would be at or below 130%. There are some other qualifications for that program.

And then in addition, there’s social security. And that program, the lowest age you would need to be is 62. It’s based on the number of years that you’re working, and you receive credits that you would need to get retirement benefits.

Mickey Trescott: Great. And the difference maybe between WIC and SNAP and social security, as far as what people can get for food. My understanding is that WIC has the strictest list of maybe what people can buy with the money, and then food stamps is a little bit more lax. And then social security, people can use that money for whatever they want. Is that right?

Jenny Harris: Sure. Yes, that is correct. The WIC program has specific foods that have been chosen to meet certain nutrition requirements for those particular times in life. Whether you’re pregnant or postpartum, as a child or an infant. The SNAP benefits, it’s a little bit more broad range of items to choose from. And as far as social security goes, I’m not quite as familiar with that. But that sounds right.

Mickey Trescott: And as far as WIC, that might provide the most difficulty, I think, with working within a healing diet. Because they do have certain foods that you can buy. And then with food stamps, I think most programs; at least the ones that I know of here in Oregon where I live. As long as they’re buying food, it doesn’t matter what they’re buying.

Jenny Harris: Yeah, you would have to look at; WIC is evolving more and more. But they have, now, substitutions for different things. For example, if you’re a vegetarian you can choose to get soy milk now, instead of just regular milk, as an option. So there are different options you can look at within the program.

Mickey Trescott: OK. And I’m just kind of looking up some of these requirements. The gross income below 185% of poverty level for WIC, and 130%. The 2017 numbers are looking at $20,000 to $15,000 for food stamps. So those are pretty low-income levels. But just for anyone listening, if they’re thinking maybe they might qualify for that and they don’t know. That might be something to look into.

Jenny Harris: Definitely. And you can do that all online. You can go in and look at your eligibility.

7. Roadblocks and challenges [29:05]

Angie Alt: So, Jenny, we were talking in the last segment about some of the realities that come up for folks like us, who have autoimmune disease or chronic illness of some kind. And the challenges that that presents just all on its own, in terms of budget considerations when we’re getting ready to adopt a healing protocol. And I think there’s probably some special stressors and issues that come up for folks with a really limited income, or even no income. And maybe you can talk with us about that a little bit. I think it’s good for everybody to have a little bit of a reality check about the extra barriers we’re talking about here.

Jenny Harris: You know, looking at housing situation. With a special diet, and you’re living or you’re not knowing where you’re living. Moving from place to place, or possibly staying with friends. Or you have a large group of people living together. Even the possibility of being in a shelter. You have some limitations on what’s available to you, as far as a kitchen. Or how you can store your food, particularly. Depending on where you’re living.

I think some other things to think about would be just families that are working and possibly going to school at the same time. Which I know, a lot of people do. That just brings up some limited time for meal prep and shopping. And also thinking about the idea, now, of food deserts. Where just access to a grocery store, you may be looking at shopping at a convenience store, or possibly using a food bank for your grocery needs.

When you’re looking for a provider, just looking at your accessibility. And then I think, just something to think about, looking at cultural needs. Food needs related to religion. Think all of those can factor in with someone who is potentially wanting to do AIP or a healing diet.

Angie Alt: Thanks so much. I think that’s good for everybody to kind of think about that long list of extra barriers that might exist there.

8. Finding local assistance [31:05]

Mickey Trescott: Can you tell us a little bit more about how people can become more aware of some local, low or no-cost healthcare resources? Because, like we talked about before. The healthcare part and the food budget part are usually competing. And sometimes if people can take advantage of some of these programs where they get assistance in the food side, if they can also make that happen in the healthcare side, that might help them have more access to all of this.

Jenny Harris: I do think that’s really important to consider. Making that first step, whether it’s connecting to a WIC clinic or a public health clinic. Your local community center. Those are great places to start. Anyone that’s in need of medical care, or needs a provider. A great place to start is to go into a public health clinic. All kinds of services there. Seeing a nurse. Many times these clinics also have medical clinics available. And they also have services where they can help you get signed up for health care.

Beyond that, there are programs out there. Even connected to your local hospital. I did some research, and actually didn’t even realize this. But I looked into a Swedish medical center, which is where I used to work in Seattle. They actually cover healthcare costs for anyone that would meet that profile.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah; Jenny, actually I have a personal story to talk about Swedish. Actually, when I was very sick, one of my ER visits was actually at Swedish when I lived in Seattle. And at that time, I didn’t make a lot of money. Angie and I talked about in the first section of this podcast. My husband and I both made minimum wage. And when I got that bill from the emergency room, I didn’t have insurance. And I talked to their billing department, and they said; oh, you should submit a request for financial assistance. And I did that. And they actually covered 90% of the bill.

At that time, I wasn’t below the federal poverty line. But I found their assistance was much more generous. And that actually ended up working out really well for me. And actually, my next two hospital visits, I had insurance, and financially it was much worse for me because of coinsurance and that kind of stuff. So yeah, definitely people should reach out to the different institutions that they’re getting health care from. Because you never really know what kind of programs they have in place.

Jenny Harris: It was exciting to see that, yes. They have such a generous beyond to help people. I think when I was looking; I looked up a few programs. Even just Googling in your local area. Low income, health care assistance. Along those lines. I was able to find, within the Seattle area, there are some organizations like Bastyr that have clinics. They actually go into different community clinic sites around the city and provide, in many cases, free health care services.

So, I think that depending on where you’re living. It would just be a matter of researching that. But I think reaching out to different clinics and just asking is a great place to start.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, and even some of these natural health care centers. I know Bastyr up in Washington state, and a lot of schools will offer acupuncture or massage therapy or whatever for a reduced rate for working with a student. I’ve known people that have seen doctors at the Bastyr clinic that are still in their training. Obviously supervised by licensed doctors. But those kinds of options too, are totally out there and available for people that need it.

Jenny Harris: Also looking into if you’re a senior or that age group, you can look at senior nutrition services that are out there.

Mickey Trescott: Sometimes for people, it’s a matter of pride and looking out for these resources and asking. But I’ve seen signs. My local dental clinic had a sign a couple of weeks ago that said; “Free community tooth check in.” So anyone could go in and see kind of what they’re dealing with in their mouth. A lot of practitioners offer charity work. Be on the look out for that. Because even my grandfather, who is a rheumatologist. He sees patients one day a week that are low income at no cost. So that can be really helpful.

9. AIP modifications on low-budget [35:44]

Angie Alt: Ok. So, that’s a really interesting discussion about the healthcare side of it. And all the different possibilities for folks to explore out there. But let’s get into the meat of this discussion. How do we make AIP work for folks on very low budget? Jenny, we’d love to kind of dig into this with you and talk about some ideas. I think for Mickey and mine point of view, there are some smart modifications to make here. But we’d love to hear your ideas.

Jenny Harris: I think in thinking about this, I feel like I went back to thinking about how my grandmother used to cook.

Mickey Trescott: Right.

Jenny Harris: Thinking about ways that she would be efficient and save. Really, the things that you all highlight in your book, as far as the nutrient powerhouse foods, really are, for the most part, very affordable. When you’re looking at organ meats. If you’re using bones for broths. That was one thing that my grandmother always did. Depending on where you’re located or what’s available to you. Fish, whether you’re in the interior of the country, or the exterior. You can potentially find those, depending on the season, at a decent cost.

And then also looking at, if you have homemade fermented foods. And also just vegetables in season. But I think all of those things; if you’re working with AIP, I think it would be just a matter of cooking technique.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. I think that’s really valid, Jenny. I know we kind of have a part to play in setting the framework of kind of what AIP is and what it isn’t. But I think this is kind of a great situation to modify the AIP template. And some of you guys listening might find it a little controversial. But I think if someone is faced with the decision of doing a healing diet that is heavily modified to fit their income and not doing it all. They should try to do that modification.

I definitely think things like white rice; which people can cook that in broth and fat. That might not even; just allowing it in the elimination diet for people that don’t have access to enough meet and vegetables to fill their diet. That could totally be possible. Even some properly prepared beans. So soaked, sprouted, that kind of thing. Which I know beans are included on WIC, so it’s one of those foods that might be hard for some people to figure out which foods qualify.

Eggs, too. A lot of people are very sensitive to them. What do you guys think?

Angie Alt: Right. I think if I was working with a client who was very low income, and they had the opportunity to get eggs. Either with their WIC benefits or food stamp benefits, I would be encouraging them to find the best quality that they can afford within that food budget. And give them a shot. Because they are so nutrient dense, and they are a good source of inexpensive protein.

Of course, if it turns out that they have some really obvious sensitivities, we might want to work around that. But I think they’re one of the potential modifications that are probably worth making.

Jenny Harris: I can agree with all of that. There’s definitely another source of protein that I think a lot of people have access to. I know through WIC you receive peanut butter. So that would be something also to think about.

Angie Alt: I remember, too. There was definitely a part of my life where I needed both WIC and SNAP benefits. And it was when my daughter was quite young. And I remember that there was a lot of canned seafood products that were available with the WIC checks. Tuna and things like that. If you just look carefully for brands without additives like soy and everything, I think that’s a great way to get in some inexpensive protein and stretch those benefits.

Jenny Harris: Yes, definitely. And I think that’s a great source of fish and those omega-3s that aren’t as easily accessible.

Angie Alt: I mean, if you’re trying to go to the fish counter and get wild-caught salmon filets, that almost blows my budget. So I can totally understand that. I think there’s also an important piece to raise here, you guys. Which is; conventionally raised meats, fruits, and vegetables are acceptable. I think we get a little too caught up in perfectionism when it comes to AIP. And there definitely are levels of good, better, and best.

And if you choose conventionally raised, because that’s the most affordable, and not organic, then go for it. It’s better that you’re eating some kind of protein, and you’re getting some kind of fruits and vegetables, then you’re totally avoiding them because they’re not perfectly grass-fed or organic or whatever.

If you’re going to go for conventionally raised meats, you’re going to want to trim the fat, and kind of try to avoid that fat. If you’re going to go for conventionally raised, non-organic fruits and vegetables, then whenever possible choose produce that can be peeled. A lot of the pesticides and other chemicals that we’re trying to avoid in non-organic fruits and vegetables are there with that peel. So if you can peel, that will help reduce your exposure to it.

But I think, if you can buy a bunch of non-organic carrots that are on sale and stretch your meals for a whole week, and contribute to your overall healing that way, it’s much better to do that than to hold out to save up enough money for the organic.

Jenny Harris: Sure. And I do think just learning, too, what fruits and vegetables are in season. And also, if you are using the SNAP benefits. Those are actually, in various programs across the country, you can use those at farmer’s markets. You can actually get double the amount. If you’re spending $10, you can actually get $20 worth of fruits and vegetables using those SNAP benefits.

Angie Alt: Yeah, that’s such a big change to the program from when I needed to access it. And I think it’s awesome, and so wonderful that we’re putting that opportunity out there.

You know, I saw another idea that I think is such a good one. I think you kind of pointed us out to a little bit earlier, Jenny. Looking for discount stores, or grocery outlets or shopping Asian or Hispanic markets. When I first started AIP, I was living in the Bay area in California, and I found some Hispanic and Asian markets that were incredible in terms of what I could get with the produce. I mean, I could go in there with like $50 and come out with so much produce. It was way more than I really thought I could get at a regular store. And it stretched our family’s food budget really far. And made a huge difference. So I don’t think folks should write off those stores.

Jenny Harris: In my experience with WIC, and working with a lot of families from different cultures, often I would be asking what they eat. A lot of cultures will eat just basically meat and vegetables, for the most part, with spices. I love going in and being kind of pushed to try new and different vegetables.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, it’s really exciting, too, now that we have some different resources in the AIP community with different recipe developers that are kind of coming up with some of these more ethnically inspired meals that I think make people from those communities feel a little bit more like they can cook in the flavors that feel traditional and good to them without so much having to come up with it themselves, you know what I mean.

Jenny Harris: I feel similarly, Angie, when I go shopping at the Asian market here that’s close by my house. I do feel similarly, as far as feeling like I’m really getting a lot more for my money.

Angie Alt: Yeah, a lot of bang for your buck. Well, Jenny will you let our listeners know what your up to in your work currently, and where they can find you online?

Jenny Harris: Sure. Currently I’m transitioning. I have been a stay at home mom for a little over a year. And have now started up a website and a blog; FoodyNutrition.com. And I’m just starting there. I’m hoping to work with the public in the future. I’m excited and learning more about functional medicine.

Mickey Trescott: That’s awesome. We definitely need more functional medicine real food RDs. So we’re super excited about what you’re doing, Jenny.

Angie Alt: Yeah.

Jenny Harris: Thanks.

Angie Alt: Thanks again for agreeing to have this conversation with us today, Jenny. You guys, we’ll be back next week. Take care everyone.

Mickey Trescott: Bye!

Jenny Harris: Bye.

Angie Alt: Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Autoimmune Wellness podcast. We’re honored to have you as a listener, and we hope that you’ve gained some useful information.

Mickey Trescott: Did you know that we have dozens of informative articles about living well with autoimmune disease, and over 250 elimination phase compliant recipes on our website, updated multiple times per week? Make sure to click on over to AutoimmuneWellness.com. Follow us on social media. And sign up for our newsletter to find out about all of this new content.

We’re either at Autoimmune Paleo, or at Autoimmune Wellness on any of these channels. You can sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of any page on our website. Don’t forget to connect with the AIP community by using the hashtag #AutoimmuneWellness.

Angie Alt: If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes, as this helps others find us. See you next time!

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The post S3 E7 – Food Budgeting + Prioritizing w/ Jenny Harris appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 3: Real Food on a Budget. We’re dedicating this season to discussing an aspect of natural healing that often gets left out of the conversation: affordability. We’ll be chatting with experts and peers from the AIP community about how to best balance money with your health priorities.

This season is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association (NTA), a holistic nutrition school that trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants with an emphasis on bioindividual nutrition. Learn more about them by visiting NutritionalTherapy.com, or read about our experiences going through their NTP and NTC programs in our comparison article.

Season 3 Episode 6 is not just about a clever way to maximize your food budget, but one of the biggest struggles our culture faces when it comes to sustainable food production: reducing food waste.

We are discussing how to make the most of all the ingredients we’ve talked about sourcing in the previous episodes so you can best minimize waste and reuse leftovers. Our guest is Rachael Bryant from the blog Meatified, who shares some excellent advice and personal experience around creating a low-waste kitchen. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

How to listen:

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Full Transcript:

Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a resource for those seeking to live well with chronic illness. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’m the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt. I’m a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I’m the author of The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage my endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease.

After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.AutoimmuneWellness.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

We also wrote a book called The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook together that serves as a do-it-yourself guidebook to living well with chronic illness.

Mickey Trescott: If you’re looking for more information about the autoimmune protocol, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at autoimmunewellness.com, so we can send you our free quick start guide. It contains printable AIP food lists, a 2-week food plan, a 90-minute batch cooking video, a mindset video, and food reintroduction guides.

This season of the podcast, real food on a budget is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

Topics:

1. Ways to reduce waste [4:23]
2. Food storage methods [12:52]
3. Our guest, Rachael Bryant from Meatified [22:44]
4. Reimagining leftovers [29:30]
5. Using food “scraps” [39:23]

Angie Alt: Hi everyone! Angie here. Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, season 3. How are you doing today, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: I’m doing great. Cozied up here on kind of a cool day. Ready for some warmer weather in the Pacific Northwest.

Angie Alt: Oh, gosh. Me too. I feel like it’s the longest winter. Which is ridiculous, because it really hasn’t been that bad. But I’m really ready for the sun.

Mickey Trescott: Me too.

Angie Alt: Ok. Today we’re continuing our discussion related to the topic this season; real food on a budget. This episode is going to be about how to make the most out of all of the ingredients we’ve talked about sourcing in the previous episodes. It’s all about minimizing waste, and reusing leftovers.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So after we figured out how to get our hands on all of these really well-sourced, healthy, nutrient dense, and sometimes a little bit expensive ingredients, depending on kind of how we’ve sourced. We have to figure out how we’re going to maximize them, and use every last bit.

So, you guys. We as a culture have a really massive problem with food waste. I looked up a couple of stats, and globally we waste 1.3 trillion tons of food per year. Which, that is just insane. And it’s estimated that up to 50% of food that’s produced; that’s either meat that’s raised or produce that’s grown, or processed food that’s made, is not even eaten. So, I don’t know how that makes you guys feel, but I feel kind of disgusted by that.

Angie Alt: Yeah, it makes mew ant to cry, to be honest. Especially; my experience living in developing countries and everything and seeing this problem. In the United States we have a particularly bad problem with food waste. So much so that our government even has an initiative to try to reduce it by the year 2020, I believe. I have to check in on that and read that again.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, I think it’s 30% by 2030.

Angie Alt: 30% by 2030. Ok. Yeah, when I reflect on all of that, it’s literally heart breaking for me. And I kind of have a little bit of a problem about it.

Mickey Trescott: Part of it is within the food system. Part of that food isn’t even being purchased. So a lot of it is wasted in the field. Maybe because of the timing of harvesting, or the market, or in the factory where they process food, or whatever. But we have a lot of angles to tackle this. And the on that we are most poised to handle is actually in our own homes, and our kitchens, and how we waste food through the course of planning and cooking our meals every day.

Angie Alt: Right. We could make a big impact. If we each did that, it would be huge!

1. Ways to reduce waste [4:23]

Mickey Trescott: Today we’re going to talk in this first segment of this episode about some ways that we can reduce waste. And so the first one; we’re going to sound like a broken record, guys. But planning. Planning is really key. Right Angie?

Angie Alt: Yep. Meal planning all the way. I know we’ve talked about it like 800 times this season, you guys. But it’s absolutely key.

Mickey Trescott: You know, meal planning; Angie’s a little more of a meal planner than I am. But I do know that when I make a meal plan, what I tend to do is take inventory of what I have and when it expires. How I can use it up before it goes bad. And then also making a list of what to buy. I’m not just wandering around the grocery store being like; oh, these Brussel sprouts look good. I have a list, and I know exactly the quantities that I need. And that first act of meal planning; it organizes all of that into a plan that I can follow. And I’m much less likely to have waste at the end of it.

Angie Alt: Yep. Really the smart way to go. And you can pay attention to what’s in your deep freeze, and what’s in your pantry before you go so that you don’t end up with doubles of things and then some of it going bad because you forgot what you had available. It’s just really the smart way to go in terms of planning.

The next step that kind of goes along with meal planning is batch cooking. Which we’ve talked about before. Mickey does a little more batch cooking than I do. We’re kind of opposite in that way. I do a little more meal planning and a little less batch cooking; she does more batch cooking and less meal planning. But this is kind of the next important step in trying to reduce waste at home.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. When you batch cook, you’re using a larger quantity of ingredients. So I find if I make a batch of chili I might use one or two whole yellow onions, for example. Where if I’m making like a one-off meal, that’s not a big batch, I might use a quarter or half of an onion. And then that onion is sitting in my fridge.

Or, if I have a bag of carrots, I might use the whole bag of carrots in a batch cook versus a couple of carrots and then having the rest of them potentially go bad. So, through batch cooking you can make a bunch of food. And then whatever you’re not going to eat in the next few days, you can just freeze immediately. So you can really visually see; ok, all of those ingredients that I bought have been turned into meals. Which are perfectly portioned. I can visualize them in the fridge. And then whatever I’m not going to use, I can freeze either immediately or if I get a couple of days in, maybe I unexpectedly eat out and I don’t need one of those meals. Guess what? Pop it in the freezer. You know? It’s a really easy way to kind of get a handle on that whole meal situation.

Angie Alt: Right. The next topic in terms of reducing waste is how you shop, right?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. And if you meal plan, or batch cook, or both, I think that can really inform your shopping in a way that, like I said before, avoids impulse buys. When I’m doing more meal planning, I’m definitely going right for the things I’m looking for. And I’m buying exactly what I need. So like I was talking about with the carrots; if I only need a couple of carrots for a recipe and I have all my meals planned for the week, I know that that bag of carrots, unless I’m maybe going to want to be eating carrots as a snack with some pate or something, I’m not really going to need that whole bag. So I might just go for the bulk carrots and get a couple.

Same thing with beets. I might get one beet for a chili instead of getting a whole bunch of beets. So I don’t know if you have any experiences like that, but getting exactly what you need is definitely the way to prevent waste from happening.

Angie Alt: Yeah, for sure. In fact; my husband and I always have a little bit of a disagreement here. Because if I send him out to shop, he’s the guy going out to get the bounty for the family, right, and he buys whatever. If I say, buy apples. I’ll say 4, and he’ll buy 8. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: Just in case.

Angie Alt: Yeah, just getting the most in case. So I really pay close attention to the numbers we need, and what we can go through realistically in a week so that there’s no waste.

Mickey Trescott: Or even if there’s a trip coming up. Something that happens a lot in our household. We’ll go out of town for a few days. Which is, you know, not really long enough to have to completely clear your fridge. But it is long enough to where a lot of things don’t last for a few days. And if we do a shop a couple of days before we go out of town, I have to tell my husband; hey. We need to not buy a huge thing of bananas. {laughs} Those are not going to last. So just thinking ahead a little bit with that shopping is really important.

Angie Alt: Right. I think you had some tips, too, Mickey about fridge organization when you’re bringing home all of those groceries. How do you arrange?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, so it can be really tempting to put all of that new, fresh stuff kind of throw it right in the front and throw it on top of what’s there. But that’s kind of how things get buried. So, even the way that you organize your fridge and the way that you put your ingredients away can affect how you use them.

Something that I do; I have a very small fridge, so I have to really maximize the way that I use the space. But I only have one drawer, and that’s where I keep all my produce. So what I’ll do is I’ll pull out the drawer, and I’ll put out anything that’s aged in there. And then I’ll put all of the brand new stuff right in the bottom, and I’ll put the stuff that’s older on top so that when I go into the fridge, I see it. And I remember; ok, I need to use those greens up. Or those mushrooms are ready to go. So everything at the top is kind of the priority. And those oldest items are kind of the most visible.

Angie Alt: Right. Super smart.

Mickey Trescott: If you guys have done some reintros, and you’re eating a little bit more of some of the packaged perishables. These might be things like eggs, or yogurt, or things that you’re going to be going through more frequently. There aren’t a lot of those things on the elimination phase. But when you reintroduce foods, that might become an option for you. A good thing is just to make sure that you rotate those.

So like when I buy eggs, I don’t want to put the new eggs on the top. Because then the eggs that are below it might not get eaten in time. So that’s another way to think about it.

Angie Alt: Yeah, I totally do that too. How about using up all the fresh ingredients before you go shopping again? How do you make sure you do this? I know how we approach it in our house. How do you do it in your house, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: You know, we do kind of a fridge dump soup. And something actually going back to batch cooking; I always have batch cooked meals in the freezer available. So when we end up on that last meal, sometimes it’s not literally the last meal. Sometimes I can do a fridge dump soup, which is basically every vegetable or meat that’s in the fridge. I just figure out how to make a soup with that with some broth and some spices. That’s a way to use up all the perishables. And if we’re not literally going to the store that day, I can get us by one more meal with what I have in the freezer. That’s kind of how we do it, making sure all those perishables are totally eaten through.

And sometimes, it’s like a game. Sometimes it’s really fun to kind of figure out; “What can I make with a sweet potato, some broth, and some leftover chicken.” You know?

Angie Alt: Yeah. I actually kind of like that feeling. And it makes my daughter kind of crazy, but we definitely use everything, right down to the very last. My fridge is literally empty. My pantry, other than bulk stuff like maybe some cassava flour is literally empty. We use everything before we go and shop again. And if I have those weird odds and ends, yeah I love the challenge of kind of coming up with that last meal before you shop that’s all the weird stuff. That’s a good feeling to use it up.

I usually will try to make a little bit of a baked something. A little bit of a casserole type thing. Or some kind of a hash with those last bits.

2. Food storage methods [12:52].

Angie Alt: Another important part of reducing waste is storing food correctly, and I think a lot of people might not know about some of these options. And I think, especially in the US. We probably tend to throw stuff out too soon thinking that it’s gone bad. And really, if we would have taken just a little care with storing the food, it would have lasted for a long time.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, there are lots of resources online for you guys, if you’re really curious about storing food. I think Angie and I tend to be on the less conservative side. As far as meat and leftovers and stuff, I would totally agree with Angie. I definitely let my leftovers go sometimes up to a week and it’s fine. Sometimes it needs a little refresh with maybe some new spices and add some different flavors, a sauce or something. But I have no problem eating leftovers. Which I know we’ll talk about in a little bit.

But some things that you guys can do to kind of make the food that you buy last longer; a trick that I learned with herbs. Like fresh cilantro, fresh parsley, fresh basil. The best way to keep those is actually to put them in a little glass or jar of water, kind of like you would a flower arrangement. And then cover them with a plastic bag and kind of tie it tight so they both have that water and a little humidity. It will kind of keep them alive. Because you know how quickly those herbs can go wilty and slimy. They’re so flavorful, and so important in AIP cooking, that I just like to snip a little bit to use in a recipe, and then kind of keep the rest of them alive.

Some things that you might not be aware of actually last a lot longer in the refrigerator. So, while avocados you’re going to want to keep on the counter if you’re ripening them, once they’re close to or they are ripe, they’re going to last a little bit longer in the fridge. Same thing with citrus. I always; and I don’t know if this is just because I live in the Pacific Northwest, and it’s kind of damp here. But my citrus does not last out on the counter more than a few days without going moldy. So I’ll put it in the fridge along with some other fruits, like apples. They tend to stay much more crisp and last longer in there.

And then, if you store your greens with a damp paper towel, that can keep them fresh. I don’t know; do you have any other storage tips, Angie?

Angie Alt: Yeah, you know you can store cooked ground meat, fish, and poultry for about two days. And then you need to use it. Red meat is ok up to five days. And like Mickey said, I think she and I tend to be a little less conservative here. I’ll sometimes go up to 7 days there.

Regular leftovers just already prepared meals are usually good for five days in the fridge. Covered in good containers. You can make crackers, or those kinds of foods. Which we don’t tend to eat as much on strict elimination phase AIP. But there are some recipes out there. They’ll stay better longer in airtight containers so they don’t go stale.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. And just preventing your food from going bad in the first place, before you get a chance to eat it, that’s a part of reducing waste. Because especially; I don’t buy those clamshell packs of greens just because unless I’m hosting a dinner party and I know that I’m going to have 8 people eating a ton of salad, they just don’t keep for me more than 2 days, and they go slimy, and I end up having to throw some of it away.

So I prefer instead getting a big head of lettuce and chopping it. It’s a little more work, but I don’t have that food waste that way. So you guys just kind of have to figure out what works for you there to store things.

Angie Alt: Right. I think we kind of already touched on freezing meals and ingredients before they go bad. That’s always smart. What about eating the odd bits of vegetables. Do you have some thoughts here, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: Well, you know, I think sometimes we have such a sterile approach to food. Especially; we’re talking organically produced food. So this recommendation definitely changes if you can’t afford organic vegetables and you’re buying some conventional, we definitely advocate for peeling in that case. But if you’re buying organic fruits and veggies, I am definitely known to eat some of the odd bits of the vegetables. So things like kiwi skins.

Now they actually have those kiwis that are actually smooth on the outside. Bit I’ve always, even the fuzzy ones. I don’t mind the way it tastes. And there’s nutrients there, and fiber. Just peeling a kiwi, you lose a lot of it there. So, that also applies to other vegetables. I don’t peel carrots. I only peel the very top of beets. So I just slice the very top off. And any of that part that’s maybe kind of muddy where it was on the surface of the soil. Sometimes it’s a little mossy or muddy there. I’ll kind of slice that part off. But anything under there, you know, I just scrub it really well. Make sure there’s no dirt there. But I don’t peel it, because that creates waste.

Same thing if you’re going to be buying some fresh bunches of farm carrots or farm beets. You can actually eat carrot tops. I actually think Sarah Ballantyne has some recipes for sautéed carrot greens. Same thing with the beet greens. They’re just like chard. They don’t save very long, so when you buy them attached to the beet. I’ll usually cook the beet, and then use the greens in the same recipe. But just making sure to kind of use all of those odd bits, and waste as little as we can. You can even go as far as using orange peels and lemon peels to preserve them and use them in other recipes and things like that.

Angie Alt: Right. I think lastly is kind of buying the “ugly” veggies or discounted meat. This is a biggie for me. I do this a lot. This produce isn’t really sold. It’s usually wasted, because it doesn’t look perfect enough. And that to me is crime number one. I literally feel like it’s criminal. So I’ll grab that stuff, and buy it on purpose. And I have, more than once, had a checker say; “Oh, these apples are bruised.” Or whatever. “Do you want to get rid of these and replace them with something nicer.” And I always say no. I want it. Because I know it’s just going to get thrown away.

And if you really are opposed to that, you can cut those little ugly bits off and use the rest of the fruit.

Mickey Trescott: Totally. And the best-case scenario, the stores will have; and I think this is becoming more common. Where they’ll separate out the ugly veggies or fruits, and have them at a discounted price. Because a lot of people aren’t going to be activists, like you are Angie, and buy ugly produce just because they want to. If they’re incentivized with a lower cost. Or if you frequent your grocer and you’re like; “Hey, if you guys end up with a bunch of ugly apples at the end of the season, I’ll buy them at a discount.” Maybe you can use a dehydrator, or make some applesauce and freeze it. Whatever. Be creative that way. That’s definitely a great way to even save money, and reduce the waste there.

Angie Alt: That’s it for the first half of this episode. You guys, we’ll be back after the break with a guest who will help us talk about even more creative and specific ways to reduce our waste. She is a maven in this area. Be right back.

Mickey Trescott: A quick word from our title sponsor this season,The Nutritional Therapy Association. Angie and I both graduated from two different NTA programs. And even though that was a while ago, we can still remember what it was like to be students. Angie, what made you go down this path in the first place?

 

Angie Alt: Well it was you, Mick. I could see that their programs had greatly expanded your knowledge base and expertise. And I was already familiar with, and aligned with, their philosophy. I was kind of sold. But then I realized that their NTC course was perfect for my virtual coaching work, I was totally in. How did you decide between the various programs?

Mickey Trescott: What really sealed the deal for me was the NTA’s focus on real food and nutrient density. So, I also found the program really affordable and convenient with the online component. Which they’ve even made a lot easier now with their fully online NTC course that doesn’t have any in-person requirements. So, Angie do you have any favorite memories from your time as a student?

Angie Alt: Oh gosh, this is really hard to narrow down. I had a fantastic, really seasoned instructor, Caroline Berringer, who was so full of information. The way she taught was very enthusiastic, and it made everything stick. And I felt like she embodied the passion I had for helping others with their health.

And it was also my classmates. I went through the program with some really smart and motivated people, and it made me want to give it my all. Mickey, how about you?

Mickey Trescott: I started my NTA training while I was still in the very early days of my recovery. And at the beginning of my 9-month program, I was definitely still having a hard time physically making it through those workshop weekends. But by the end of the program, my health had improved so much that the workshop weekends were feeling really energizing and fun for me, and not draining. Which was really cool to see that transition. And a lot of my classmates, also, noticed a big difference. So that was really fun.

If you guys thing that you might be a good fit for one of NTA’s programs, you can check out their free 7-day nutritional therapy 101 course, and more program information, at www.NutritionalTherapy.com.

3. Our guest, Rachael Bryant from Meatified [22:44]

Angie Alt: Alright, you guys. On to our interview today. We are speaking with the incredible Rachael Bryant. She is the food blogger and recipe developer behind Meatified.com, which is probably the most fun food blog name ever. She’s also the author of the AIP cookbook, Nourish. And she’s also a fantastic food photographer. If you guys aren’t following her on Instagram at Meatified, you need to do yourself a favor and go check it out.

Rachael’s childhood involved a totally different style of eating and “convenience store cooking”, but in adulthood, she took those challenges and transformed her diet and kitchen skills, all while beating back an autoimmune disease. Thanks so much, Rachael, for joining us today.

Rachael Bryant: Hi Mickey and Angie. Thank you so much for having me.

Mickey Trescott: We know that minimizing waste and creative use of leftovers is an area of expertise for you. So we are super excited to pick your brain today.

Angie Alt: Yay! Ok, so let’s jump right in, here. Rachael, let’s start from the top. How did you first get inspired to be so creative in this area of minimizing waste and reusing leftovers?

Rachael Bryant: Honestly, there are two strands to this. Growing up, my mom did not cook at all. So my only real experience of home cooking came from my grandma. She’s the sort of person who, honestly, could make a meal out of nothing. And out of a kitchen that was probably; would probably fit into my guest bathroom two or three times over. I’m not sure how she managed it. So she was this very, very creative person.

But also, growing up in England, she lived through the war and she lived through rationing. You didn’t waste anything. I grew up around that environment where food was precious. Which maybe sounds a bit strange to us now. But it was something that you didn’t take for granted, and you always had to do something with. The way that she did that, in all very practical utilitarian way. But she also did it in such a creative way, and could bring meals to the table based on the contents of a tiny little under the counter fridge and some magic in the background.

That’s really what I wanted to bring into my own kitchen. That mix of practicality, but also creativity, and also fun. She might have been making meals that were very practical, but they were never boring. They were made with love, and that came through.

But the other aspect of cooking for me, in terms of keeping my kitchen stocked, is that I actually live about an hour; at least an hour away, from the nearest grocery store. So when I go grocery shopping, I go, and I try to be prepared for about a week at a time. If I’ve forgotten something, or if I need something, I can’t just zip out and go grab it. So I’ve learned over the years to be adaptable and to be able to work with what I have.

It used to stress me out, I’ll be honest. It’s not all roses. I didn’t pop out of the cooking womb, and be like, “I can do it all, and I’m good at it straight away!” Because I wasn’t. The way I sort of make it fun is I treat it a little bit like a puzzle or a game. It’s like problem solving. I will start with what’s seasonal, or what is on sale, or what I can afford that week, and then sort of build my cart from there. I don’t necessarily go into a grocery store or into the kitchen and have this prearranged idea of what I’m going to do. Does that make sense?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, totally. And actually, that’s something that’s a big reason why we wanted to talk to you, Rachael. Because we know that, Angie and I are more of the meal planning kind of followers. We have more plan based on what we do, and we know that you’re a little more creative, and you like to wing it on the spot. And we realize that there are people out there that like cooking that way, and don’t like adhering to kind of a rigid plan and everything. So I think that speaks to a lot.

Part of eating this way, even if you plan and you have a bunch of food leftover, or if you don’t plan. You’re going to be eating a lot of leftovers. And one of the things we’ve noticed; I don’t know if you’ve noticed this in the community. But some people who say that they don’t like leftovers, or they get sick of eating leftovers. Do you have any comments about that?

Rachael Bryant: Ok, see. I love leftovers. The reason I love leftovers, is the way I look at it, it’s a free meal. You’ve practically got a meal, right there, ready to go that you don’t have to cook. And to be honest, when you have to, like we do, make so much of what we eat from scratch. If I’ve got half a meal, or part of a meal, or a whole meal in the fridge ready to go, I am happy. I am really, really happy, you know?

But I think part of the reason some people feel; “Leftovers; ugh!” Is because they have this idea that it has to mean eating the exact same thing 14 times in a row until it’s gone. You know? They expect to be sick of it because it is repetitive. But I like to think of leftovers more as a starting point. It’s like a base that you have that you can build on. You don’t necessarily have to eat the same thing over and over.

It’s like a choose your own adventure kind of deal, except with food. Which is like two of my favorite things. You’ve got a puzzle and a creative thing over here. And you’ve got the, “I need to eat, where’s my food?” Part of it over here. So like, you know, say you’ve got a whole bunch of roast chicken leftover. And you could sit there and you could eat that roast chicken exactly as it is several times over until you probably never want to see roast chicken again. At least for a couple of weeks, right?

You don’t have to eat it that exact same way. You could shred it and add it to a soup. You could have some cauliflower rice left over, and then the chicken comes into play with that. Maybe you bring in some pesto that you’ve got in the fridge, too. Maybe you’ve got some olives lingering around in your pantry. Maybe you’ve got some lemon. By the time you’ve added a couple of different elements, you can have a completely different dish. So it doesn’t have to be the same thing over and over.

4. Reimagining leftovers [29:30]

Angie Alt: I love that! I love this idea of using leftovers as the starting point. That’s a much more creative way to think about it. I really love that. Maybe, Rachael, you could get into telling us a little bit about that. Reimagining the leftovers. I see you sharing all the time on that amazing Instagram account of yours about different sauces, and marinades, and soups, and spice mixtures that you’ve put together. Maybe you can give us some ideas about how you reimagine leftovers.

Rachael Bryant: So what I like to do; I’m a weirdo, I think, in some respects. Because I don’t like to be super planned out and super organized. It sounds kind of odd when I say it out loud. I don’t like to get into a lot of details. I don’t want to have to make out a weeks’ worth of shopping list, right down to the tiny, tiny details.

What I like to do is always have an assortment of different sauces, or spice blends, or condiments. Basically anything you can add to a meal that would sort of jazz it up without too much effort. So maybe; I have a cheese sauce recipe on my blog. Which is a terrible misnomer, because there’s not really any cheese in it. But it’s like a cheesy, creamy sauce that you can make ahead of time. You can put it in the freezer. You can keep it in the fridge. Or maybe I will have a jar of pesto. Or maybe I might make a double batch of my barbecue sauce.

And I’ve found if you’ve got a couple of different things like that in your fridge, and your freezer, then you can take a very plan base. A protein and a veggie. And then you can start to jazz it up with very little effort. So you’ve got this tool to hand; these condiments. I just call them flavor boosters. Which sounds a little pretentious, but it’s a lot easier than saying sauces, condiments, seasoning blends, oh my!

If you’ve got a couple of these things, you can make them ahead of time. But you’re not stuck in the kitchen for hours batch cooking. It takes maybe 20 minutes to make a batch of cheese sauce and some pesto. Right? So that way I’ve got some things to hand, and I’ve kind of got a plan. But I’m not completely tied down to one set meal, or one way of doing things. Does that make sense?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. It totally makes sense. And actually, I like to kind of play in the balance in between the two. I like to have a little bit of planned stuff, and then I like to see what happens with having some sauces. A lot of times, Rachael, I’ll actually make some little pesto ice cubes or something and even put them in the freezer, so it’s even that one step easier. So I can just pull that out, throw it, and sauté it up with some leftover chicken or whatever.

Rachael Bryant: Exactly. I think there’s this thing that people assume. I think especially because we’re food bloggers. There’s maybe this assumption that I’m cooking a meal every night that has three different elements, and I’m making all of them from scratch. But really, I have a kind of unspoken, unwritten rule where probably for each meal I’m probably only cooking one thing. And then maybe the other elements of my meal are coming from leftovers or coming from things I can make simply.

So, say tonight I’m roasting chicken thighs. Right? I’m only cooking for two people, so I probably only need two or three. But I’ll probably cook myself a whole tray, or 8 or 9. So that I have leftovers. So to start off, maybe I’m cooking that chicken and that’s the one element that I’m making for this meal that I’m actually cooking right this second this evening. Then to round it out, maybe I’ve got some sweet potato in the fridge. Or some rice. Or something that you’ve reintroduced that’s going to add that carb element to the plate. Then maybe I’ll add myself a side salad. Then I’ve got a meal right there, but I’ve only really cooked one thing.

The next day, I can roll this forward. I’ve got this leftover cold chicken. So maybe what I’ll do is I will reheat that in some of my cheese sauce. I can add in maybe some sliced mushrooms and some spinach. And then I’ve got this creamy chicken casserole. But I haven’t really cooked, so much as I’ve brought other elements together. So that’s sort of my base method.

Angie Alt: I love this! It’s like; you’re kind of having the sauces and things like that ready to go to kind of jazz up things as you move forward. It’s like, your batch cooking actually includes a little bit of those things that are helping make the leftovers that much better.

Rachael Bryant: For me, it helps me avoid being bored, but it also helps me from feeling really overwhelmed. Like, oh my goodness. I have to make a meal. Meal capital M. You know? If I think of it less as something that I have to sort of conceive of all at once and it has to be this cohesive fancy thing. And if instead I think of building it as a plate, then that sort of helps me become less overwhelmed.

Again, sometimes I think people assume that I love being in the kitchen. And I’m a food blogger, sure. And I love food, definitely. But even I don’t always want to be in the kitchen. When I started cooking, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. So if you can get to a point where you are comfortable with just pulling things together and not feel like everything you make has to be perfect or have a recipe title. Or be this massively cohesive thing. I think it frees you up of a lot of emotional energy, too.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah.

Rachael Bryant: Which maybe sounds a little silly when I say “emotional energy.” But I think when you are, maybe really tired and exhausted. Maybe you’re really overwhelmed. Maybe emotionally you know your autoimmune issues are taking a toll in that respect. If you can sort of leg go a little of the weight of expectations, and be like; it is just a meal. You’re building a plate. A little bit at a time. I think that helps to not be so overwhelmed and intimidated.

Angie Alt: Yep. I totally think this is a thing. There are a lot of emotions that go into food, and preparing foods. You have some really good points there, Rachael.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, and I think it’s important for people to realize, too, that food bloggers are not eating these perfectly curated plates of food three meals a day. That’s a big misconception. I’ve met a lot of food bloggers. And while there are people who I think have a little bit more of a visual approach, and enjoy cooking more, and are a little bit more of that kind of foodie type, most people are very utilitarian when it comes to their cooking and getting food on their plates. I’ve been really refreshed, actually, meeting a lot of people in real life and just realize that they, most of the time, eat chicken thighs and broccoli, and a carb on the side of something like I do. You know?

Angie Alt: Right.

Rachael Bryant: Definitely. I think that’s part of something; I have a little bit of internal conflict on, too. Because I do like to make pretty food photos. And for me, it’s a creative outlet for someone who, honestly I never considered myself creative at all before I started food blogging. So for me it’s like this fun thing, and I like to make these pretty food photos. But then on the other hand, sometimes I almost feel like; I don’t want to say I feel guilty. But I am aware that those very same food photos can be very intimidating.

Like if I think of where I started; I would have gone, “Psh! I can’t make food like that.” Or if I had made a recipe and it hadn’t turned out like the photo, I probably would have assumed that it was me. You know? I do find that hard to sort of balance. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that, really.

Mickey Trescott: You know, Rachael, I’m kind of in a similar boat. I love photography, and I think of it as kind of an art for me. But at the same time, a lot of people are unable to mentally say, “I can do this.” Unless they see something that looks good to them. And I think part of the images are inspiring to people to understanding that even though this diet has this long list of foods they can’t have.

If they see some beautiful imagery, like our books or our Instagram feeds, or anything. And they’re like; “Wow, this food looks incredibly delicious.” They might make that mental shift. Like, “Maybe I can actually do that.” And I think that’s the important role it plays, and where the line, that boundary is in then having them think I need to be eating this Instagram worthy food every single meal. That’s not realistic.

And that’s where I think sharing some more of the real life behind the scenes type stuff is important, too. But, you know, I think both are really valuable, and I wouldn’t feel bad at all about doing the great work that you do and showing people how beautiful eating this way can be. Because for some people, that is really important. That inspiration.

Rachael Bryant: It’s true, isn’t it? Because the visual is kind of significant. I think it helps for people to see that it’s not all about the list of what you can’t have. Mindset is so important. The longer I do this, the longer I’m invested in my own health. The longer I’m cooking for myself, that becomes more significant to me. It’s not about what you can’t have, it’s about what you’re choosing to do for yourself. It’s about the choices that you can make. The ways that you can work with what you do have and can have. And I think that applies to cooking, but it applies to everything, really.

5. Using food “scraps” [39:23]

Angie Alt: Right. Ok, Rachael. How about, you talk to us about using food scraps. I think that you’re very talented in this. Again, we see this reflected in your recipe creations and your food photography and the things that you’re sharing with the community. Can you tell us about how your kind of minimizing waste, and making that food budget go really far in terms of reusing food scraps?

Rachael Bryant: The main two things I probably do here when it comes to cleaning out the fridge at the end of the week. And I am a weirdo. I take a kind of strange pride in getting to the end of the week and getting that fridge right down to it’s sort of bare, empty…

Angie Alt: Mickey and I totally do too. We totally talked about this earlier. {laughs}

Rachael Bryant: It’s like it’s looking at you, and you’re feeling really good. Because it’s like; almost gone. And then you have that last challenge at the end and you’re like; ok, can I actually make another meal now, or have I pushed this too far? {laughs}

What I do to really make use of everything, two main things that I do. One, this isn’t rocket science, but making broth. My husband is now well used to the fact the freezer at any point is probably 40% bits of bones or random things that I can’t throw away or an ice cube tray of something that I could throw into vegetables or whatever later on. So broth is my key thing.

I think a lot of people have this idea. I don’t know; I think maybe it’s because a lot of recipes or methods you see online, where people teach you about how to make broth. You very often see whole chicken carcasses, or specific bones that people have gone out. Go out and buy soup bones. But obviously we’re not all doing that. I try to use up what I have.

I think my favorite way to make broth right now is with pork bones. Specifically rib bones. Whenever there’s a sale on pork ribs, I’m there. Not just because I like ribs. Because they make really, really good broth. But you don’t see people talking about pork broth. People tend to think chicken or beef.

But with broth, I’m using little bits of vegetable scraps that I will save. So say carrot tops, or the end of leeks, or the odd onion, or what have you. But I’m also making use of all of the bones from meat that we’re using to make meals throughout the week.

Mickey Trescott: I love this reusing bone conversation. I think it’s something that can’t be said enough. Because I do the exact same thing as you, Rachael. I have a bag or four at all times in the freezer.

Rachael Bryant: It’s terrible! {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: Once you realize how many bones you can save and you start saving them, it becomes like a hoarding problem.

Rachael Bryant: It is! Then I have this separate baggie. And it’s like, the separate baggie. Once I’ve made broth with you once and you’re real clean and defuzzed. Then I’m like; you’re going in the special bag to be reused.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. And I don’t know about you, but I mix, like half and half. I mix types of bones. I don’t ever buy bones for broth. And I know part of that is because I buy whole animals, so I end up getting a bunch of bones when I get my order. But just from cooking chickens, or chicken thighs. I usually eat bone-in meat. So when people are like; you know, bones are expensive. Beef knuckle bones at Whole Foods. I’m always like; I haven’t bought bones in forever, just because I’m always reusing them. You know?

Rachael Bryant: I do the same thing. I always prioritize those bone-in meats. And often, they’re cheaper, too. Because you’re not paying for them to debone and de-skin. And you’re not paying the premium on the lean meats. Which, a lot of the time I don’t want.

Mickey Trescott: And you get all those little scraps of meat, and that connective tissue, that’s still attached to the bone that’s then going to go into your broth. So that meat is going to add flavor, and all of that connective tissue is going to add some more gelatin and collagen and everything. I can’t really see an argument for doing it any other way. It’s not only the cheapest, but I think you end up with a better tasting and nutritious broth in the end, too.

Rachael Bryant: The other thing that I do. Probably other people do it, too, but I don’t see anybody talking about it. {laughs} So maybe I have a little bit of a weird hoarding problem in this respect, too. But if I roast a chicken. Or if I’ve cooked any kind of meat, and it’s done on a pan. It’s got all those; it’s got all that fat and roasting pan juices or whatever. I will pour that off into a freezer container. I will freeze that too.

And then once I; I usually make broth in my Instant Pot. So once I’ve gone through that process, and I’ve strained it, and I’ve gotten rid of the bits and the bones and things and I’m just left with the broth that I’m going to put into jars, then what I’ll do is I’ll take some of these frozen reserved pan juices, and I’ll put those back into the mix and heat that up again.

And it does two things. One, I’m not wasting anything. Two, it adds a lot more flavor. Because you’re not just getting the bones. You’re getting that kind of more meaty depth of flavor. But also, and this is especially true, something like chicken or pork or more fatty cuts in general. Is that way you’re getting all the fat that’s sort of left behind after you’ve roasted and cooked. And that makes a really, really nice seal. Once you’ve poured off your broth, and put it in the fridge, or whatever. I end up with a really nice fat cap there, more than I would necessarily just making the straight broth. And that helps to preserve it, to keep it longer. So it’s helping to avoid waste from that perspective, too. You’re also grossing out your husband, again. But by now, he’s used to it.

Angie Alt: {laughs} Yeah. I love the fat cap thing, too. I feel like your broth keeps longer that way.

Rachael Bryant: Yep. Definitely. It really does help. People have asked me; “how long should I keep it?” And I know technically I should probably tell you like a week, but honestly in my own house, I couldn’t tell you how long some of that broth lasts. And I use it. I wouldn’t necessarily tell someone else to do it. But I do it with no shame. It lasts a long time.

Mickey Trescott: That’s so {laughs} funny, Rachael, because we were just talking earlier about this in the first section of this podcast. And we were like; you know, the government recommends a few days with leftovers, but I definitely leave things for a week, sometimes even more. Especially broth.

Rachael Bryant: Oh broth has been in my fridge for more weeks than I probably even am aware of. Don’t do what I do, but maybe think about doing what I do? {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: Exactly. Everyone’s doing their own thing. But I think a lot of people, too, are unnecessarily skeeved out by food safety, when there’s some other things that are a little more sketch than leaving something in your fridge for a couple of days too long.

Rachael Bryant: I think, too, part of that is distance from food. For a lot of people coming into AIP or just real food, just cooking in general. Maybe you’ve come from an environment like me. When I was a kid, when I was a teenager. I didn’t really start to cook for myself until I was in college. And I was ruled by the dates on packages, because I didn’t know how to differentiate any of the stuff for myself. So I probably threw away lots of perfectly fine food, because I didn’t really understand how to tell if something was still good.

The other thing that I do, in fact probably the main thing that I do that’s the mainstay of the food that I eat each day. I always make a soup. Usually it’s the weekend. Usually cleaning out the fridge with whatever I’ve got left. Very often it’s got a kind of root vegetable base. Usually because those are the things that last longest, you know. Because I have to shop for a week or so once. The way I sort of rotate through my food is I’ll eat the fresher, more delicate things first. Like lighter leaves and salads and stuff like that. Certain fruits, and then sort of as the week progresses, I’ll work my way through the more hardy stuff. The stuff that keeps longer.

So usually at the end of the week I’ve got some parsnips, or carrots. Something like that. And then I will clean out the fridge with whatever else I have left, and I will make myself a very simple pureed vegetable soup. I usually keep it very neutral in seasoning, and the reason is that soup sort of becomes the base for my next weeks’ breakfast. I know some people are probably making a face right now. “Soup for breakfast, really?”

But for me, it helps on a couple of levels. First of all, I’m not wasting anything, it helps me clean out that fridge at the end of the week. But also it gives me a really nice base in the morning for a very simple meal that I don’t have to cook; that I can just reheat. But what I like to do is start off with this base soup and then kind of jazz it up different ways throughout the week, dependent on things I have to hand. So, I don’t necessarily have to have the exact same soup each time.

And so, this kind of sums up my approach in a nutshell. It’s like; I’ve got a base level of planning, in this case the soup. And then I sort of wing it each day so that I don’t get bored.

Mickey Trescott: I love that, Rachael.

Angie Alt: I love it.

Mickey Trescott: Thanks so much for sharing in detail the way that you would work through what we call a fridge dump soup, and then use that as a base for recipes going forward in your week. That’s awesome.

Angie Alt: Yay!

Mickey Trescott: So, Rachael, will you let our listeners know just kind of what you’re up to in your work currently, and where they can find you online?

Rachael Bryant: You can find all of my recipes on my blog. It’s Meatified.com. and it’s a bit of a nonsense word. It’s sort of like a little mini in-joke. Because I used to be vegetarian. Many years ago. And when I started to eat meat again, I was joking to my husband about how I’ve meatified my diet. So it’s a little bit of a nonsense made up word. So that’s where you can find me, anyway.

On social media, you can find me on Instagram. It’s where I post more of my day-to-day things. I’m really terrible at stories, but I’m trying to get better, so that I can show more of the real meals I make, the less styled food that I eat. And you can find me on Instagram at Meatified, as well. I’m also on Facebook, but I’m really bad at keeping up with that, truth be told. But if you want to follow me there, that’s where you’ll find me.

To be honest, I’m not really working on anything special right now.

Mickey Trescott: What about your cookbook? I mean, your cookbook just came out. Again, it’s a really incredible resource. I just made the chili a couple of weeks ago. Super tasty.

Rachael Bryant: I love that recipe! Although I hated making it at the time. My husband; he’s not even Texan. Right? He’s from California. But he lived in Texas for 30 years, so he has really, very specific thoughts about chili. And that chili, and the barbecue sauce in my cookbook. He sent me back into the kitchen, I’m not even joking, about 30 times. It was ridiculous. I was beginning to curse his name, and chili, and everything barbecue.

Mickey Trescott: {laughs}

Rachael Bryant: By the time I was done. But yes. My cookbook; the original version of my cookbook is called Nourish. And it’s got a subtitle of The Paleo Healing Cookbook. And it’s a hardcover edition. This year, we actually did come up, because a lot of saying were saying, “We love your cookbook, but we don’t really love hardcover.” Or, “We want a paperback we can lay open in the kitchen a bit better or get a bit messy.” So we’ve actually just launched a paperback edition. And it’s just called The Paleo Healing Cookbook. It has the updated cover, and it’s the paperback edition. But the recipes are the same.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. If you guys are interested in checking out Rachael’s stuff, we definitely encourage you to do that. She’s a really important part of our AIP community. We’re really grateful for her work.

Thank you again for agreeing to chat with us today, Rachael. And for everybody else, we’ll be back next week with a new episode. Take care!

Angie Alt: Bye everybody!

Angie Alt: Thanks for joining us on this episode of The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast. We’re honored to have you as a listener, and we hope that you’ve gained some useful information.

Mickey Trescott: Did you know that we have dozens of informative articles about living well with autoimmune disease, and over 250 elimination phase compliant recipes on our website, updated multiple times per week? Make sure to click on over to AutoimmuneWellness.com. Follow us on social media. And sign up for our newsletter to find out about all of this new content.

We’re either at Autoimmune Paleo, or at Autoimmune Wellness on any of these channels. You can sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of any page on our website. Don’t forget to connect with the AIP community by using the hashtag #AutoimmuneWellness.

Angie Alt: If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes, as this helps others find us. See you next time!

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The post S3 E6 – Minimizing Waste w/ Rachael Bryant appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 3: Real Food on a Budget. We’re dedicating this season to discussing an aspect of natural healing that often gets left out of the conversation: affordability. We’ll be chatting with experts and peers from the AIP community about how to best balance money with your health priorities.

This season is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association (NTA), a holistic nutrition school that trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants with an emphasis on bioindividual nutrition. Learn more about them by visiting NutritionalTherapy.com, or read about our experiences going through their NTP and NTC programs in our comparison article.

Season 3 Episode 5 is all about buying clubs and online markets that will help you strategically stretch your budget and adopt the AIP sustainably for the long term. We discuss the pros and cons of local buying clubs, co-ops, membership programs, and bulk meat sources, as well as our favorite online shopping portals.

Our hope is that this episode will help you best leverage all of these resources so you can stretch your budget as far as it will go. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

How to listen:

If you’d like to have our podcasts sent directly to your device, subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher!

If you’d like to download the .mp3, you can do so by following this link.

If you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below!

Full Transcript:

Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a resource for those seeking to live well with chronic illness. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’m the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt. I’m a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I’m the author of The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage my endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease.

After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.AutoimmuneWellness.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

We also wrote a book called The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook together that serves as a do-it-yourself guidebook to living well with chronic illness.

Mickey Trescott: If you’re looking for more information about the autoimmune protocol, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at autoimmunewellness.com, so we can send you our free quick start guide. It contains printable AIP food lists, a 2-week food plan, a 90-minute batch cooking video, a mindset video, and food reintroduction guides.

This season of the podcast, real food on a budget is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

Topics:

1. Local buying clubs and food co-ops [2:45]
2. A hybrid option [7:04]
3. Bulk membership stores [11:39]
4. Online buying options [16:34]
5. Buying meat online [31:32]

Mickey Trescott: Hey, everybody! Mickey here. Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, season 3. How’s it going over there in DC, Angie?

Angie Alt: It’s going pretty well. I’m sad to report that it’s still winter. But we seem to be getting closer to spring, so that is making me a little bit happier.

Mickey Trescott: Yay for sunshine coming!

Angie Alt: Yay for sunshine! Vitamin D please.

Mickey Trescott: I know. Today we are continuing our discussion related to the topic this season. If you guys haven’t been paying attention, we are talking about real food on a budget. Which is really an important concept to a lot of us, if we want to be able to be eating this way long-term, right?

This episode is going to be about buying clubs and online markets. And how we can best leverage these resources to strategically help out with our sourcing needs and stretching our budgets. It can be super easy to overdo it with either of these options; I mean, hello. Amazon Prime, we’re looking at you!

But we hope that this episode will give you guys some great ideas about how you can use online shopping to your advantage.

1. Local buying clubs and food co-ops [2:45]

Angie Alt: So, maybe we can start with buying clubs. Mick, do you want to talk about that first?

Mickey Trescott: So a buying club is just any time you band together with either community members, or a company, and you get bulk pricing on foods and home goods. So when you go to a grocery store and you buy one unit of something. Like one apple, or one little six-ounce applesauce or something. You’re getting actually the highest price for that, because you’re buying it in the smallest quantity.

So the grocery store, obviously they have a wholesale account. They’re able to buy food from distributors or farmers at a really good price. And their service is that they’re bringing it in, sorting it, putting it out for you, and you’re able to buy it in a really small quantity.

If you kind of reverse that, and you figure out how to band with other people in order to buy the biggest quantity of something, you can get a really good deal. So this might take the form of, say, a local Facebook group. So I’m the member of a local real food buying club on Facebook in my local area. It has over a couple of thousand members. And there are certain people in the community that will coordinate with local farmers to engage in bulk buys. So this might look like, you know, maybe they’re buying a cow and they want to split it with a few families. That would be kind of like a small share.

Sometimes they’ll even go to a honey vender, and they’ll get 100 jars of honey and everyone will split it. They do charge $20 a year to be a member. I know there are some groups out there that are nonprofits or free. Sometimes it’s just collections of neighbors. But this is definitely something to look into, especially if you live somewhere like I do. Where there’s a lot of food production locally. It’s hard for me to actually get that high-quality food in the store.

I think some of you guys in rural area will understand that disconnect. You think that living in an area where all the food is produced, you have great access to it. But it’s actually the other way around. My local grocery store is the equivalent of a Walmart. So these local food buying clubs can really help get that high-quality food at a better cost.

Angie Alt: I don’t belong to a formal group like Mickey does, through Facebook. But I have informally joined groups in the past where, for instance, I got maple syrup that was bought in bulk from the producer. And sometimes I do this with fish. I’ve done it to get salmon from Alaska.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. Banding together, guys, can definitely save you some money. And honestly it doesn’t have to be a formal Facebook group. It can even be your family. So, something that I do because I live on property with my mom, her sister and her partner. We all actually band together to buy meat. And my brother actually lives a few hours away in Seattle. So between the four different families, we’ll buy a whole cow every year, and then split it into quarters. If we were just buying a quarter of a cow, the price is higher than if you buy the whole thing. So even your family can work like a buying club.

Angie Alt: Right. What about co-ops? Let’s explain and talk about co-ops.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, co-ops are an awesome business model for like a grocery store. There can also be more informal co-ops that don’t have a storefront. But basically, they function differently from a corporation because they are member or employee owned. So this means if you have a local food co-op, they might ask you to pay a member fee. It might be a one-time fee up front.

I think when I lived in California, I paid $75 once to be a member, and that gets you a share. So you can actually vote on leadership, and then you get discounts on all the food they buy. Sometimes they have you pay per year. Sometimes you don’t even have to pay, but it just means that the store is actually owned by the employees and the people that run it.

So there’s a few different models. But really, the point of a co-op is to get the highest quality food at a price that is lower than normal. So by paying into the co-op system, you know that that money, that profit that the store is making, isn’t actually going to some shareholder’s pockets. It’s actually going to reinvest in the business and keep the price down for the people that shop there. So co-ops can be a really fun option, also.

2. A hybrid option [7:04]

Angie Alt: Yeah. It’s a great way to really get engaged with your community and good quality food providers. Here’s an interesting set up. And I actually don’t do this as an adult. But when I was a kid, my mom and aunt and grandmother belonged to Azure Standard. Can you tell us about Azure Standard?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah; actually, I didn’t know that about your family, Angie, but I actually used them a lot about 5 or 6 years ago when I first started getting into real food. Especially with the online buying. So they’re a little bit of a hybrid.

They are a major real food distributor in the United States. They have an online store. But instead of shipping directly to you; which I think they do now. But they didn’t in the past, 5 or 6 years ago. What you had to do, was it was a buying club. They had no fee to join. You sign up, you join what’s called a drop.

Which is, basically someone in your community who has arranged an area where a semi can come drop off some orders. So everyone that is a member of that drop; they order all their food online. I think each drop has like a $500 minimum from the company. And then a truck shows up at, usually a church parking lot or some area that’s easily accessible to a lot of people.

Our drop in Seattle had about 20 or 30 families that would then show up, meet the truck. It would be the same time every couple of weeks or every month. And they would just get their order that literally came straight off a palate. And you can get some amazing bulk goods for crazy, crazy low prices.

So I would get things like gallons of coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, some of the flours. And actually, Azure standard has an organic farm here in Oregon, and they grow a lot of herbs, and spices. And they even have pastured meat and lamb. So I was ordering a lot of frozen meat from them.

Angie Alt: You know, Azure Standard has been around for a really long time. I mean, way back when my family was doing when I was a kid, they didn’t even offer non-GMO products, because there wasn’t GMO yet.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah.

Angie Alt: They were always kind of the number one place to go if you wanted really high quality, organic food that was really inexpensive. And you know, my aunt and my mom and my grandma would band together and get these big orders. My family and my aunt and uncle’s family both had four kids, so they were trying to feed 8 kids on really good quality food. We would use the food we got there to supplement the hunting and fishing that my dad and uncle were doing. And the garden that we grew.

My grandma was really into herbal and medicinal teas, and she could get big bulk orders of that from Azure Standard. It was really great.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, it’s like Christmas. Meeting the truck, and having all your bulk groceries.

Angie Alt: Yeah!

Mickey Trescott: And they actually have a lot of stuff that, if anyone lives rurally, maybe you’re on a farm or you have some animals. They have a lot of goods that are really good for animals. So back when I lived in Seattle and had chickens, they had the only non-GMO soy-free chicken feed at a price that I could afford. So I ordered our chicken feed from them, and all that kind of stuff.

They even sold like root vegetables, and pantry storage foods. So I would get a lot of onions. Things that we’ve talked about this before; not really worrying too much if there’s a blemish on your veggies. It’s totally normal, and especially with those root veggies. It does not matter. So you can get an amazing price on that stuff from them.

Angie Alt: Right. And it’s a really good chance to meet your kind of local real food advocate community. I remember when we would go to the semi to pick up the foods. There would be all these other people that were kind of into that same health conscious lifestyle.

Mickey Trescott: You’re kind of like; “What did you get?” {laughs}

Angie Alt: Right.

Mickey Trescott: Like swapping stories of what they’re getting and what they’re doing with it. It’s really fun.

Angie Alt: Right. I remember I used to love; even when I was a kid, I used to love to browse their catalog. Which I don’t even know if they put out a catalog, anymore. Maybe you just order everything on their online site. But yeah; great resource, you guys.

Mickey Trescott: And it’s pretty cool that it’s been around so long. So www.AzureStandard.com is their website if you guys want to check it out. And they have some videos online. Trust us; it’s not scary to join a drop. I remember the first time I did it, I was like; who are these people, and how does this work? They explain everything on the website. And the prices are probably in line with the cheapest you can get for some of these high-quality foods. So they do a really great service for our community.

3. Bulk membership stores [11:39]

Angie Alt: Ok, so another possibility, which is kind of the opposite of Azure Standards in terms of everybody knowing about it, is Costco. Costco is a members-only, big box, discount retailer. You have to pay a membership fee every year. But there is quite a bit of benefit to having that Costco membership.

The standard membership is just $60 per year. It let’s you purchase products for your home and family at Costco locations and on their website. And the prices are greatly reduced, because again they’re buying these such huge bulk quantities. And then you can get an executive membership for $120 per year. And that membership gives you a 2% reward, up to $1000. So you can kind of earn money a little bit, as your spending money.

The Paleo Mom has a guide on her website to AIP Costco shopping that is a very helpful resource.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah; are you a Costco shopper, Angie? What’s been your experience with them?

Angie Alt: Well, so this is interesting. We used to be Costco members, but my husband is kind of a Costco fanatic. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: {laughs}

Angie Alt: So, it didn’t really work that well for us. Because he’d be like; “Oh, look at this, a 2-gallon jar of pickled eggs!”

Mickey Trescott: Oh my gosh.

Angie Alt: And I would be like; “We do not need this.” So we have a small family, and we don’t live close to our extended family. So sharing all of that with other people didn’t really make sense for us in the long-term. But I know that for families that are a little bit bigger, or have an extended family around them, Costco can be an enormous win. How about you?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, we don’t have a Costco membership. But both my mom and my dad have Costco memberships, and I will kind of tag along with them when they go. Maybe once or twice a year just to pick up a few things.

I’ve actually been really impressed, as the years have gone on, at their selection of more real food options. So things that I see really frequently are some high-quality cooking oil. So things like gallons of coconut oil, avocado oil. Sometimes they have good olive oil, but you know, you’ve got to kind of do your research on the supplier there.

As far as meat, I’ve heard that they have a lot more grass-fed meat. It’s pretty reliable to find there. Pasture raised chicken, and some frozen, wild-caught salmon. So those are all things that you would be eating on AIP, and by buying in bulk and having a deep freezer you could definitely save there.

During the summer, they have amazing prices on organic berries. So they’ll have organic strawberries, raspberries. Sometimes even blueberries, which is really fun if you’re going to do any kind of making gummies, or freezing for the winter. That can be a really great source there.

And then they have some great home goods. They have a nice stainless pot and pan set that I bought. They have a Vitamix that they occasionally will sell for a really great price. Magic Bullet, some of those sorts of things. So if you’re kind of outfitting your kitchen, too, Costco can be a great place to think about. Maybe picking up some of those home goods, too.

Angie Alt: Right. Right. The avocado oil is the one that stands out. When we did have a membership, I don’t think there’s a better price on avocado oil than what Costco offers.

Mickey Trescott: Yep.

Angie Alt: Yep. I think people should definitely check it out if they can really benefit from those big bulk orders of stuff.

Mickey Trescott: Next we’re going to chat about some of the different online options. This can be really huge for any of you that have limited access to shopping due to where you live. And when used carefully, some of them can actually equal a really big savings. So we’ll be talking about that next.

Angie Alt: A quick word from our title sponsor this season; The Nutritional Therapy Association. How you plan and purchase food can significantly affect your health; both in body and budget. Well-informed, proactive planning makes a big difference. Our sponsor, the Nutritional Therapy Association, launched a new, fully online, nutritional therapy consultant course that emphasizes a wide-range of integrated nutrition and lifestyle strategies to transform health.

The new curriculum includes culinary healing modules that empower NTCs with practical knowledge and skills necessary to source, prep, and plan meals for themselves and their nutrition clients. Covering everything from shopping practices to knife skills, from meal prep to fermentation.

It also trains NTCs to address the wider context of health and healing with lifestyle strategies. I completed my NTC training in 2016, and it has been enormously positive for my practice and my ability to help others achieve their wellness goals. If you guys want to learn more about how to become an NTC, and check out their free, Nutritional Therapy 101 course, go to www.NutritionalTherapy.com.

4. Online buying options [16:34]

Angie Alt: OK, you guys. So now that we’ve covered some of the in-person buying club options, we wanted to continue the discussion and talk about some of the options out there for buying food online. Mickey, when did buying food and supplements online not seem weird to you anymore?

Mickey Trescott: It’s weird. Because since getting into the whole real food movement, we also, around that 2012 time, there was a really big shift in the concept that you could actually be buying food and supplements online. And I definitely remember that. It was kind of like; go back to eating real foods that are not packaged and not processed. But also, there’s this other whole source that is on the internet that seemed a little bit strange.

So, I actually started ordering supplements on Amazon when I was going through my illness. I think that’s around 2013. And back then, when we started AIP, there really weren’t any snacky, shelf-stable options out there.

Angie Alt: No. Nothing.

Mickey Trescott: There was no cassava flour. There were no Power Balls. There was nothing like that. So those kind of fun snacky options were not an option. And supplements are actually really expensive in the store, so I figured that out pretty quick and I started saving money there pretty early on.

I’d say around 2015 was the year that I really started buying food online. I had gone to PaleoFx, and I was introduced to Thrive Market through them. And I kind of went online. I definitely didn’t jump on the bandwagon right away. I think it took me another whole year to really come around to the concept that I could actually be saving money by ordering a bunch of stuff online. But then I was getting epic bars and things on Amazon, so it was kind of a slow roll.

But I’m at the point now where I do a lot of my shopping, especially for things that are not shelf stable and household goods, online. What about you, Angie?

Angie Alt: I think I started in about 2012 with Tropical Traditions. And then not very long after that, I started buying some fat from FatWorks, too, online. At the time, sourcing the high-quality fat, especially, still wasn’t that easy in my local grocery stores and through my farmers. Like getting palm shortening, or coconut oil. Especially in bulk, because I was using so much of that kind of stuff at that time. Being able to find really high-quality olive oil that I trusted. And then animal fats like lard, or tallow. That just really wasn’t available quite yet.

I also started used Tropical Traditions later when I was trying to figure out egg reintroductions. I realized that I might have a soy issue, and not really an egg issue. A lot of you will know that chickens are often fed a diet that has some soy in it, and that can come through in the egg itself and cause issues when you’re trying to reintroduce. And Tropical Traditions was the only source out there that I could find with 100% soy-free eggs.

It was a little too expensive to maintain over the long-term, but I did it a few times. Ordered eggs from them, so I could test out my theory and figure out if it was soy or eggs. It turned out to be soy, guys.

And then in 2015, I started using other online retailers. There were just more options. And in the past year, we started expanding a lot, my husband and I, in an effort to not only save money, but also we both have very committed passionate full-time careers in our home. So we were trying to save time. Being able to order things online really made a big difference. I think I’ve mentioned it before; shopping in my neck of the woods is very time intensive because of the population density. So ordering online has been a lifesaver.

Mickey Trescott: I actually forgot about Tropical Traditions, but I definitely ordered a lot of coconut oil from them. Actually, I still order coconut oil from them, because I think it has the best flavor and it’s the cleanest. And that era of the soy-free eggs; that’s when I was ordering the feed from Azure Standard. Because I was in the same boat, trying to re-intro eggs and figure out; is this because my chickens are eating soy feed, or because I’m allergic to the eggs?

Angie Alt: Right.

Mickey Trescott: And, same deal. It was the soy.

Angie Alt: Yep.

Mickey Trescott: Really funny.

Angie Alt: Ok, so what are some options for people to use to buy food online?

Mickey Trescott: Thrive Market is something that I love. It’s an online store. It’s kind of like a Costco. So there’s a $60 membership, but they do have a 30-day free trial. So you can go on and you can make as many orders as you want. And I think if you hit $50, it’s free shipping. So it’s very affordable to try. When you buy a membership, your membership actually sponsors one for a low-income family. So we love that charity component that they have.

Their prices are about 25-50% off the list price for natural products. So I would say if you live in an urban area and you have a variety of stores that have competitive pricing, their prices might not be mind-blowing for you. But for me, I live in a rural area. So any of the stores around here, I don’t have a specialty grocer that puts things on sale at all. So all of those natural products in my local stores are like the exact highest price they could possibly be. So I save a lot of money by shopping with Thrive Market.

And I actually get every pantry item I possibly can from them. Spices, nuts, alternative flours like cassava flour. I get a lot of oils from them. They have a great olive oil that I love. I get vinegars there. Chocolate, of course.

And then, actually, I think the area where I save the most money using their service is by getting all of my personal care products and my natural cleaning products. So this is things like the 7th generation dish soap that I use, and the laundry soap, and Dr. Bronner’s, and that kind of thing. A bottle of Dr. Bronner’s at my local store is $16 for one of those big bottles. And on thrive, they’re usually like $11 or $12. So that’s a big savings.

And then the convenience, for me. Just the regular grocery store is a half-hour away. Specialty grocer is an hour away. So in addition to that cost savings, I get a big savings just in having that stuff delivered to my house.

The biggest downside in the beginning with Thrive was actually their shipping was very slow. So it used to take a week to 10 days to get an order from them. Which, when you’re used to working with Amazon, which we’re going to talk about in a minute, is a little frustrating. But I’ve actually noticed, I think their warehouses have expanded. Because I’ve been getting my orders in three to four days, recently.

Angie Alt: That’s nice. So I think your point about whether or not you live in an urban area with a lot of different grocery store options and competitive pricing was a really good one. I don’t use Thrive as much as you. I don’t have it dialed in like Mickey does; in part because some of the prices are actually better in my stores. Dr. Bronner’s is a really good example. I can usually find it for $11 or $12 on sale somewhere, for one of those big bottles.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, like Trader Joe’s is where I used to buy it. And I don’t have a Trader Joe’s by me. So, I actually added up all of my savings. I’ve been ordering roughly once a month for all of 2017, and I saved $900 by shopping with them.

Angie Alt: That’s awesome.

Mickey Trescott: So definitely worth that $60 membership. But I think it matters if you use it, and what you get from them. Because I’ve definitely heard from other people like you, Angie, if you’re in an urban area and you have some areas with good prices, it might not work out to be that cheap. And also, it depends what you buy from them, too.

Angie Alt: Yeah. I do still order some of my personal care products through them, from time to time. Because it is a great option.

Ok, let’s talk about the infamous Amazon. Of course.

Mickey Trescott: I have to be honest; I’ve always been a little weirded out by ordering food on Amazon. I haven’t totally gotten into it. But if there’s ever something I can’t get anywhere else, I get it on Amazon.

Angie Alt: Right. It’s like; if you’ve scoured every other option and you just can’t find it, it’s probably on Amazon.

Mickey Trescott: It’s free to shop. If you pay $100 a year for Amazon Prime, which most of us do, you get free 2-day shipping. Which is really convenient. I’ll run my supplements until literally I have two days left, and then reorder. {laughs}

Angie Alt: I do the same thing.

Mickey Trescott: I don’t know. You’re maximizing your warehouse space in your kitchen.

Angie Alt: Right.

Mickey Trescott: And then if you live in an area where they have Amazon Fresh, a Prime membership gets you some mileage there. I definitely don’t live anywhere near somewhere where anyone would deliver groceries to me.

Angie Alt: So, we do have the option for Amazon Fresh in our area, and we recently tried it out. And I have to say, there were some bumps, for sure. Because it’s a new service. They’re just doing this as they kind of team up with Whole Foods. So it wasn’t completely accident free, getting our order. But we did give it a shot. I think they’ll probably improve as they roll out the service. And it was handy.

The things that I usually rely on more, for Amazon, are the shelf-stable stuff that I want to have. Things like KC Natural’s barbecue sauces; AIP barbecue sauces. I order them every couple of months, and have a little pack in my cupboard. Things like that.

Also, I tend to order a lot of my cooking tools off of Amazon.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, they have some really great prices. Especially during their sales season. So like Prime Day and Black Friday, you guys can be on the lookout for things like crazy deals on Instant Pots, stuff like that, if whatever you’re looking for happens to be on sale. You can get super lucky with an Amazon super sale.

Angie Alt: And they have hundreds of really cute gummy molds. I got all of my gummy molds from Amazon. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You’ll never find a selection of really specific cookware anywhere like Amazon. It just blows stores out of the water.

Angie Alt: Yeah. OK, how about Tropical Traditions? Let’s tell everybody about them. We kind of alluded to them earlier.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So Tropical Traditions is a company that; what I love about them is they kind of narrowed their focus. They’re not trying to be a purveyor of every food. But they just have really high-quality source of tropical oils. So they have great coconut oils and coconut products. This is how I first got introduced to them. I use their gold label coconut oil, which is the least heat processed, the least refined. It’s really creamy, and it has a really good flavor. They also have varying grades, so depending on what you’re going to use it for. And they also have other coconut products. Like coconut butter, coconut flakes. I absolutely love their stuff.

They also have some high-quality meat and fish and soy free eggs. I haven’t purchased their meat. Actually, I’ve purchased turkeys from them. One thanksgiving I tried out their turkeys. They had pasture raised, completely free-range turkey. Super delicious. I find the prices of their meat and fish to be a lot higher than what I can find locally. So that doesn’t work as a source for me. But if you’re in an area that it’s kind of hard to find, and you’re willing to pay what they’re asking, I think they’re a good source there.

And they do have those soy free eggs. Which if you’re doing reintroductions, that can really be a great source for people that are worried about maybe the soy and the eggs. To test that out.

Angie Alt: And they do have; they offer discounted products and coupons really often. So what I do is I usually, once a year, order a big bulk order of palm shortening and coconut oil. I kind of wait and watch for when they run great discounts or have coupons.

One of the discounts they run is free shipping on those big gallon-sized containers of palm shortening and coconut oil. Which is really great, because they’re huge. So the shipping can be kind of pricey on them. But I’ll do that. At the beginning of the year, I ordered palm shortening. You could buy three gallons for free shipping. It was really inexpensive to do that, and then I shared with a friend.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, another thing to know about them is they run tons of sales all the time. So I will never go to their website and just buy everything list price without free shipping. I wait and if you follow them on Facebook or you get their newsletter. I find their newsletter a little bit overwhelming, because they send it a lot. But they always have a deal going on.

Like their coconut oil, I actually wait until they have the two for one. So they’ll do the gallon of gold coconut oil, and then they’ll throw in a second one for free.

Angie Alt: Yep. I do the same thing.

Mickey Trescott: And then if you find a coupon for free shipping, you’re kind of in super luck. I only order from them once or twice a year. But again, it’s that bulk. And the quality; I’ve never had a coconut oil that tastes as great as theirs. So I love it.

Angie Alt: Yeah, and I’ve kind of got it timed now. Like, a gallon of each of those. A gallon of the palm shortening definitely lasts me a full year. A gallon of the coconut oil probably lasts me around 6 to 7 months, I guess. I usually go through about two a year. So a really good option there.

Angie Alt: Ok. So there’s also a few online specialty stores. They don’t really have a membership. Usually have free shipping over a certain amount. Let’s talk about a few of those.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, we just wanted to mention some of these. They’re not all the same, but they have the same idea where they’re trying to create a nice, online store that’s curated with really high-quality products. The first one we’re going to mention is ShopAIP. They are the first ever, 100% AIP compliant online shop. They donate 5% of their products annually to autoimmune related causes. So obviously they’re kind of in this community with us. They’re offering a lot of products that are of interest to people that are on AIP, and if you guys want to have a shopping experience that is 100% AIP, it’s definitely the place to go.

Similarly, there are a couple of other companies. One is Barefoot Provisions. And another is called Wild Mountain Paleo Market. So these places both have online stores. You guys can Google them and look them up. They both offer more wider paleo type options. They all have different offerings from each other. So if you’re kind of like an Epic person, you might find one of these stores has more of the goods that you’re looking for. But they all have really well curated stuff. And some of those hardest to find specialty items that you might not find on Thrive or Amazon.

I know Wild Mountain Paleo Market has their own AIP compliant pemmican bar, that’s kind of similar to an Epic bar that is super tasty. I actually prefer the flavor of it over the Epic bars. So they have some things like that that are a little bit unusual that you’ll only find there.

5. Buying meat online [31:32]

Angie Alt: OK, last but not least. Let’s talk about buying meat online. Which can be a little crazy. In the beginning, it seems a little crazy. But there are some really great options out there.

Mickey Trescott: You know, I love all of these new companies that are trying to think about how we buy meat. Because that’s one of the hardest things about transitioning to this lifestyle, is just finding a really good source of meat. And not everyone has a farmer in their backyard.

So Butcher Box is the first company we’re going to talk about. They have a monthly subscription box with a variety of meats that are great for people that don’t have a freezer. So how it works is you pick out the size of box. It’s almost like a CSA. Like an online meat CSA. They source a variety of proteins from really great farms in the US. So they might send you a couple of pork chops. Maybe a chicken. Maybe some ground beef. Depending on the size of the box that you’re getting. And they’ll mail it to you in a cooler box once a month. So that’s really great for people that don’t have a lot of space to store things.

I know Angie and I have both tried their service. I’m like a bulk meat hoarder, so I don’t need a service like that. But I thought that the quality of the meat was really top notch.

Angie Alt: Yeah, I thought the quality of the meat was really great too. And I used it for a short time back in; hmm, I don’t remember if that 2017 or 2016. All the years are blurring together, Mick.

Mickey Trescott: I know. We’ve been at this for a while.

Angie Alt: We’ve been at this for a while. But anyway. I tried it out for a while while I was kind of waiting for my farmer, who was getting together a meat CSA for herself. And then once she got that together, I of course wanted to support somebody local. And you know, a farm that I could see and I could see those animals and how they were living and everything. It turned out to be an option that I didn’t need in the long term. But in that interim piece, it was great. It was really helpful.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. So also, there’s a company called Crowd Cow. This is a really interesting startup that allows people to purchase a portion of a cow online. So they’ll put on their website that a farm has a certain amount of shares. And then you can purchase as much of the cow that works for you. And they kind of crowd source the selling of all of the cow so that everyone gets a really great price. It’s almost like an online cow-buying club.

Angie Alt: Yeah. And I love the name. Crowd Cow. It’s so cute and fun. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. It really is.

Angie Alt: Ok, so the old standby that a lot of us know about in the community, because they’ve kind of been around with us all for quite a while is US Wellness Meats. They sell meat by the cut online. I think pretty much everybody in the AIP community knows that they’re a great source of sugar-free bacon, and they also have a lot of pastured organ meats.

Mickey Trescott: Yep. They sell meat by the cut. So they have more of a traditional store. When you go to US Wellness; I think it’s actually grasslandbeef.com. You’ll see the meat being sold by the cut. Which, for me, when I’m doing recipe development, a lot of times I run out of organ meats because I buy the whole animals and I actually always buy from US Wellness when that happens. Because they have a really great, clean source. Their poultry is all pastured. And everything is a great high quality. And I think their prices on the organ meats are really good.

They also have a great sugar-free uncured bacon ends, which are kind of like the random pieces left over from when they slice and package the regular bacon. And when I make pate, it doesn’t matter, I can just chop that up, fry it up, and use that fat to make that recipe. It doesn’t have to be in a perfectly cut strip. So that’s a little hack there. I like that they sell those ends. It provides an affordable way for people to get their hands on some great bacon.

Angie Alt: Yeah. And a few times in the past, when I’ve kind of been in desperation for bones, and things like that for bone broth, I’ve ordered from them. When I was working on my first cookbook, I kind of ran into a tight spot, and needed some specialty cuts, and I got them from them, too. So very helpful.

And then for seafood, a great option online is Vital Choice Seafood. This is really high-quality seafood sold online.

Mickey Trescott: Yep. They have a great store, and some great products. Both frozen and then they also have some canned products, as well.

Angie Alt: Yeah. And I think, if I remember right, Vital Choice was started by an actual fisherman. He was really wanting to make sure that people had this option.

Mickey Trescott: That’s awesome. I know there’s a lot of you guys in the middle of the country that don’t have the access to high-quality seafood that we do living on the coast. So having frozen seafood is a really great option. Especially because if the company is doing it right, which I think this is Vital Choices’ practice. They’ll freeze the fish on the boat, so it’s super, super fresh. I have a little bit of an issue with histamine with seafoods, and I can definitely tell when I don’t get seafood that has been handled properly. So I actually almost exclusively eat frozen seafood, because it minimizes that risk of having a histamine reaction.

Angie Alt: Right. Ok, so hopefully you guys aren’t going to find this list of options too overwhelming. We recommend you check out all of these options, and pick one or two to test out for a while and see if you like their system, if you like their products. And if it actually helps you save money. Mickey and I are definitely not using all of these options all the time ourselves. It was about finding out what was the most convenient and affordable for us. And we hope that you’ll be able to take these choices and do something similar to kind of tweak your budget and stay with the real food approach. So, we’ll be back next week with another episode, you guys. Take care everyone.

Mickey Trescott: Bye guys!

Angie Alt: Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Autoimmune Wellness podcast. We’re honored to have you as a listener, and we hope that you’ve gained some useful information.

Mickey Trescott: Did you know that we have dozens of informative articles about living well with autoimmune disease, and over 250 elimination phase compliant recipes on our website, updated multiple times per week? Make sure to click on over to AutoimmuneWellness.com. Follow us on social media. And sign up for our newsletter to find out about all of this new content.

We’re either at Autoimmune Paleo, or at Autoimmune Wellness on any of these channels. You can sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of any page on our website. Don’t forget to connect with the AIP community by using the hashtag #AutoimmuneWellness.

Angie Alt: If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes, as this helps others find us. See you next time!

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The post S3 E5 – Buying Clubs + Online Markets appeared first on Autoimmune Wellness.

Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 3: Real Food on a Budget. We’re dedicating this season to discussing an aspect of natural healing that often gets left out of the conversation: affordability. We’ll be chatting with experts and peers from the AIP community about how to best balance money with your health priorities.

This season is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association (NTA), a holistic nutrition school that trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants with an emphasis on bioindividual nutrition. Learn more about them by visiting NutritionalTherapy.com, or read about our experiences going through their NTP and NTC programs in our comparison article.

Season 3 Episode 4 is all about the best ways to source produce — veggies and fruit — with budget in mind. This is a deep dive into all things produce sourcing! We cover our personal sourcing tips and how we personally save money, and we chat with our guest, Tyler Boggs of Heart2Heart Farms, about the benefits of CSAs and how to source your fruits and veggies if you can’t afford organic. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

How to listen:

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If you’d like to download the .mp3, you can do so by following this link.

If you’d like to play the episode right now in your browser, use the player below!

Full Transcript:

Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a resource for those seeking to live well with chronic illness. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’m the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt. I’m a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I’m the author of The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage my endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease.

After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.AutoimmuneWellness.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

We also wrote a book called The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook together that serves as a do-it-yourself guidebook to living well with chronic illness.

Mickey Trescott: If you’re looking for more information about the autoimmune protocol, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at autoimmunewellness.com, so we can send you our free quick start guide. It contains printable AIP food lists, a 2-week food plan, a 90-minute batch cooking video, a mindset video, and food reintroduction guides.

This season of the podcast, real food on a budget is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

 

Topics:

1. Budget friendly sourcing of produce [2:14]
2. Personal sourcing tips from Mickey and Angie [8:40]
3. Guest interview with Tyler Boggs of Heart2Heart Farms [14:22]
4. Personal approach to budgeting for produce [18:54]
5. Produce scoring stories [24:24]
6. Sourcing when you can’t afford organic [29:45]
7. Benefits of a CSA [34:01]

Angie Alt: Hi everyone! Angie here. Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast season 3. How are you doing, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: I’m doing great, how about you Angie?

Angie Alt: I’m good. I’ve been flying around to the West Coast a bunch, but I am home today and ready to chat about our next topic.

Mickey Trescott: I know, Angie’s been like a little ping-pong ball, back and forth.

Angie Alt: It’s been kind of crazy. I just traveled out to the West three times in three weeks, you guys. But I’m ready to do it. Anything for the cause. {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: {laughs}

1. Budget friendly sourcing of produce [2:14]

Angie Alt: Ok, so today we’re continuing our discussion related to the topic this season, real food on a budget. This episode is going to be about how to source produce. From veggies to fruit with a budget in mind.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, so we really wanted to take a deep dive into all things produce sourcing. Because there’s kind of a lot of nuance here. So if you guys have the Autoimmune Wellness Handbook, you will be familiar with the concept of good, better, and best that we talk about when it comes to food sourcing in general. But we kind of wanted to go over it in terms of produce.

So what this means is that you have a few different layers of quality that you can choose to buy your produce. So instead of saying everybody needs to buy the highest level, and this is the only way to heal. We’re kind of presenting a variety of ways that you guys can plan your sourcing. So that you can make the most use of the resources that you have.

So first category is good. This is for those of you who can’t get all organic fruits and vegetables. What we recommend doing is to start with the Environmental Working Groups list of dirtiest and cleanest produce. If you guys do a quick Google, type in EWG dirty dozen, and clean 15, you’ll come up with a cute little chart where the Environmental Working Group has tested all the fruits and vegetables in production in the US, and they’ve identified the ones that have the highest chemical residue of pesticides and stuff.

So, this is a really great way to kind of prioritize your fruit and veggie choices, right Angie?

Angie Alt: Yeah. Well, this is a way for you to kind of get the max out of the foods that you can afford to buy organic, and kind of be really strategic about those purchases, so you’re not having to spend so much money on totally organic and utilizing the research to do that.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So the 2017 dirty dozen list; I have it pulled up here. They don’t have the 2018 list out yet. I think it’s coming out soon. But the dirty dozen. These are the fruits and vegetables with the highest amount of pesticides. Strawberries, apples, nectarines, peaches, celery, grapes, cherries, spinach, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers. We know you guys are probably not eating tomatoes and sweet bell peppers, if you’re on AIP. But those are going to be foods that have the highest pesticides. And you know, some of those are pretty surprising to me. Like cucumbers, I maybe wouldn’t have thought. But you know, those are the ones that were tested.

The clean 15 list has avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, cabbage, sweet peas, onions, mangos, asparagus, papaya, kiwi, eggplant, honeydew, grapefruit, cantaloupe, and cauliflower. So these were the vegetables that were shown to have the least amount of pesticides. So they might be ok for you to get conventional.

So some things like cauliflower, or cabbage, or onions. These are vegetables that are AIP friendly. Avocado. I buy conventional avocados a lot just because they’re on the top of the clean 15 list, they don’t have a lot of pesticides, and also they have a nice thick skin. And organic avocados; super expensive.

Angie Alt: Super expensive. Yeah, I do totally the same thing. One thing I didn’t realize, though. I hadn’t realized that cauliflower was on the clean 15 list, and I’ve been buying organic. So I’ll probably switch up. Because I like to use a lot of different cauliflower in my cooking.

Mickey Trescott: Yep. Yeah, so in addition to the dirty dozen and the clean 15 and kind of being able to prioritize there; something else you can do is watch for some sales on organic local in-season produce. So it’s usually way more economical to buy this way and checking out frozen vegetables. A lot of times freezing preserves nutrients, and is also lower cost. So if you guys are just getting started with upping the quality of your food, some of those recommendations might work for you.

Angie Alt: Right. So moving onto the better category. So this is the next step up in terms of budgeting and sourcing. If you can avoid some organic produce, you can focus on organic versions of those on the dirty dozen list. And round out a variety with the non-organic fruits and vegetables from that clean 15 list that we talked about. And you can shop at your local farmer’s market, and look for great deals on organic local produce.

If you focus on the local produce, the idea here is that you might find that your budget actually accommodates more of the organic. Because you won’t have the shipping cost as part of the premium you’re paying at the store.

Mickey Trescott: And then the best. So if you’re going to go all out and get the best produce you possibly can, which we recommend over the long term the more you can shift that budget to kind of up the food quality all across the board, you would be getting all, or as much of your produce as possible, organic, local, and in season. A great way to do this is by joining a CSA, which stands for community supported agriculture. This is when you pay the share of a farmer’s produce at the beginning of the season, and then the farmer has that money to invest and creating that harvest. And then you pick it up weekly. Sometimes they’ll deliver it to you. And then filling in whatever you’re not getting there with a variety at the farmer’s market co-op, natural food store.

I would also add her that the very, very best is actually growing your own. Right? So if you have complete control over all aspects of producing your food, that’s the most sustainable and it’s going to be the freshest. It’s going to be, obviously, the most in-season because you don’t have all the tricks that all the industrial even organic food growers have up their sleeves. And it’s going to be really convenient; it’s going to be right at home.

2. Personal sourcing tips from Mickey and Angie [8:30]

Angie Alt: Right. So great option if you can do that. So maybe we should talk about how we source our produce, Mickey.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So I live in Willamette Valley in Oregon. I live in an area where I can grow a lot. And actually something that I am striving to do better every single year is to become more self-reliant and grow my own food. So, we have a big herb garden that we use year-round. I grow lots of greens like kale, chard, lettuces, and zucchini.

Something that I learned, even when I lived in Seattle in the city when I really didn’t have a lot of food budget for good produce, was I actually found a chart online that said the most expensive produce per ounce from high to low. And actually, the highest cost that we pay in the store is actually herbs and greens. So things like cilantro, rosemary, thyme. And then the greens like the baby lettuces, spinach, kale, chard. And those are actually the easiest things to grow and they take the smallest amount of room. They don’t need a super deep bed. A lot of them can be grown in pots. So those are things that I prioritize growing just because of cost.

Another thing that I do is I pick my own in the summer. In the summer, there’s a crazy bounty of things like berries. My husband and I will go to the farm and we’ll pick pounds and pounds of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and then we’ll freeze them. And like right now, it’s the middle of winter, and we still have a bunch of frozen berries from the summer. Something else we do is we harvest persimmons from a persimmon tree in the winter, and so kind of the flip side.

And then I have different produce sourcing depending on if it’s summer or if it’s winter. Because even though we live somewhere that food grows, it’s not totally year-round. So in the summer, that’s when it’s amazing bounty all the time. I like to go to the farmer’s market. I haven’t been doing a CSA the last couple of years because I’ve been traveling so much that it’s a little complicated trying to figure out what to do with that food. I’m considering it this year because I’m not traveling as much.

In the winter, I fill in the gaps with like a Fred Myers, which for those of you who don’t live in the Northwest, it’s kind of like a Walmart. I don’t actually have a great specialty grocer where I live. I don’t have a Whole Foods, or even a Sprouts or Trader Joe’s. So actually surprisingly, they have a pretty good selection of organic produce in the winter. It’s the same industrial organic stuff that you find at Whole Foods. Honestly, it’s a lot cheaper because it’s not in a fancy store. But that’s where I kind of round out my produce when I have to.

Angie Alt: Awesome. So, I also have a mix, depending on the season. In the summertime, I get 100% organic CSA from my local farmer. The same farmer that I get most of my meat from. And she grows a bunch of different herbs, greens, onions, some fruits. Honestly, there’s a lot of nightshades in that CSA, but my husband and daughter can enjoy some of that. or we share it with neighbors or friends.

Even when I travel, I like having the weekly CSA. I usually arrange with a friend of mine who also enjoys this quality of food and have her pick up my CSA, and basically share it with her family. Like a little gift to her when I’m traveling.

And then in the winter, I mostly use Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, and I get a combination of organic and non-organic fruits and vegetables. Usually based on that Environmental Working Groups guide. I don’t grow a lot of my own, because I live in a pretty urban/suburban area and I don’t really have a space for that. I have done a little bit of pot gardening in the past. Growing some greens in pots and stuff on our balcony. Mostly I stick to purchasing from my local farms, or the Trader Joe’s/Whole Foods combo. So that’s it. That’s my produce sourcing.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. I think it’s good to just share with people the different ways that we get our hands on this stuff. I am blessed to live kind of in farm country, but I also don’t have a good grocery store right by me. So by necessity, I’m forced to be a little more self-reliant. And Angie, I know you have a lot of options as far as stores around you, and you can actually leverage that and shop around. It’s more convenient for you to kind of see where you can get for the best price.

Angie Alt: Right. Right. Ok, so that’s it for the first half of this episode, you guys. We’ll be back after the break with a guest who is going to help us expand these ideas. He’s kind of amazing. We can’t wait to share.

Mickey Trescott: A quick word from our title sponsor this season, the Nutritional Therapy Association. The NTA empowers it’s graduates to source, prepare, and integrate a variety of well-sourced plant foods as part of a nutrient dense diet. For example, did you know that the betaine in beets aids digestion? Chromium in romaine lettuce can help regulate blood sugar? And that brussels sprouts have been found to boost beneficial gut bacteria? Through their nutritional therapy practitioner training program, which I took in 2012, and the nutritional therapy consultant program, which Angie took in 2015, the NTA teaches students to use foods therapeutically and focuses on building foundational health by integrating customized diets based on everybody’s unique needs.

For more information on the NTA’s nutritional therapy programs, and to access their free 7-day 101 course, check out their website at www.NutritionalTherapy.com.

3. Guest interview with Tyler Boggs of Heart2Heart Farms [14:22]

Mickey Trescott: Alright guys, onto our interview for today. It’s just Mickey for this segment. Today we are speaking with Tyler Boggs, one half of the duo behind the incredible Heart2Heart Farms here in Oregon, with his wife, Elizabeth. Tyler and Elizabeth started raising animals and growing food after they converted to a real food lifestyle, but found that it was difficult to afford it. Not only did they start their farm to produce food for themselves, but they passionately developed a barter and work-trade systems to allow those in need to feed those they love.

A few short years later, Tyler has never been happier, sharing what he has and providing a sanctuary where people can nourish their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls. Other than being a good husband and father, there is no higher caller in the world to him than that. Thank you so much, Tyler, for joining us from Sherwood, Oregon. Your neighbor! As you know, we’re just kicking off a very focused podcast season dedicated to helping people making a healing diet and lifestyle fit into their budget. We know this is an area that you have a ton of expertise in, and I’m really excited to get started talking to you today.

Tyler Boggs: Thank you, Mickey. We’re super excited as well.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. So, first we know that your farm was born out of a personal struggle to afford this high-quality food. We know a lot of other people struggle with this, too, and they might resonate with your story. So can you tell us a little bit about how those circumstances lead to the creation of Heart2Heart farms?

Tyler Boggs: Yeah. Tight budget leads to necessity. So when we decided to eat organic; it started with just becoming jaded with the food industry in general and deciding enough is enough. And we needed to get the chemicals out of our food.

And when we did that, our food bill went up to over $1400 a month. Almost immediately. And that just wasn’t sustainable. So we immediately just started to get creative. And the first thing that we thought of; I mean, a seed packet was $2. And we didn’t really know anything. I mean, I grew up on a farm. but I deployed very early and spent a bunch of years overseas. So I didn’t have much experience personally farming. So we just got on Google. We bought some seed packets and got on Google, and started planting and failing miserably. But at $2 a seed packet, you can have a lot of failure and still produce a bunch of food.

And the result was, we actually ended up producing more than we needed in many areas, and giving that away. and then people would request. Once we started doing that, people would say; I’d like something of this, and I’d like some of this. And it grew, no pun intended, organically. And then we started the farm just through that. So believe it or not, it was seed packets and Google.

Mickey Trescott: Wow.

Tyler Boggs: Desperation. We made the commitment that we were done with the food industry. And we would do whatever it takes. You would be surprised at what $20 in seed will buy. A weekly grocery budget for us would produce a whole season full of food.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think a lot of people aren’t really even familiar with those seed packets. But what would you even ballpark estimate one of those $2 packets of seeds; for something even as expensive at the store as like kale or lettuce or something. What’s the dollar value ballpark for something like that?

Tyler Boggs: You’re looking at probably 1000%.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah.

Tyler Boggs: It’s 100 times. It’s super, super; at retail prices, that $2 seed packet will produce hundreds and hundreds of dollars’ worth of produce at a retail rate. Especially if you’re talking about organic produce.

And for us, it was really just the scary piece was that we’d never done it and we didn’t want to mess it up. And not having the basic foundation really prevented us, for a long time, from just starting to put seeds in the ground. But really, that’s it. It’s just starting to put seeds in the ground.

My wife is a part of all of these wonderful Facebook groups where she can just take a picture of the plant, and post it to this group, and they can tell her what it needs. At the very beginning, that was critical. They’d say; it needs more water. The soil doesn’t have enough nitrogen. And these plant experts were just willing to give all their incredible advice. I mean, it really didn’t take much. It was just the getting started and overcoming that fear of messing it up.

4. Personal approach to budgeting for produce [18:54]

Mickey Trescott: I love that. that’s so cool. So, can you tell me a little bit about your family’s personal approach to stretching your food budget, especially in terms of produce. How do you make the most of what you’ve got?

Tyler Boggs: That’s a super great question. And that was probably the biggest challenge up front. Number one was self-reliance. Really deciding that we were going to be the beginning and end. We were going to take whatever action we needed to to make sure that our family was eating chemical free. So self-reliance, and then that action step. We were going to act, even if we didn’t have all the information. We were just going to get started.

But the other piece that was really important, was seasonal abundance and eating seasonally. One of the things that we’ve found is, whether it’s a farmer or somebody who just has a garden in their back yard. There are crops that over produce. Whether it’s tomatoes in the late summer, or whether it’s zucchini in the early fall. It doesn’t take; one bush will provide more than a family needs. So there are lots and lots and lots of people. As long as you’re willing to eat what’s available seasonally and search that stuff out. In the summer you’ve got pears and apple trees all down the highway and the roads. It’s just a matter of finding them. And they’ll drop far more fruit than anybody generally uses. So if we’re willing to shift our diet and eat what’s in season, and what’s abundant; that really helped immensely, as well. Just looking for those opportunities. Finding out what gets ripe and when.

I remember, every time we’d go for a walk or go for a drive, we’d write down where apple trees, and pear trees, and fruit trees were on the sides of the road. Because inevitably, all you’ve got to know is when they get ripe, and they just drop the fruit. 90% of it rots on the ground. So self-reliance, seasonal eating.

Preserving; preservation. Liz is a fermentationist. So preservation is a huge piece of what she does in fermentation. But also drying and dehydrating. And then pressure canning, and even water bath canning. So, preserve, preserve, preserve. When those things are in abundance, and you get 100 pounds of apples, obviously we can’t eat those before they go bad. So finding a way to make sure that they last. Even if you can get them to last a couple of months. But ideally, last until the next harvest. So increasing our knowledge in preservation.

And then building community I think is the next step. Because it’s challenging to go this road alone. So we started with one other family. As soon as we got really excited about it, we found a really close friend that was in the same boat. Hurting financially but really wanted to improve their health and change their lifestyle. It’s amazing how much more energy you have working with one other couple. And instead of doing it just for yourself, which can become monotonous and tiresome; now all of a sudden, you’re kind of the champion and cheerleader for somebody else who you know is hurting as well. And it makes it much harder to quit.

And then ultimately building a network. Three, four, five families where we can all keep our eyes out for trees that are going into harvest and abundances becoming available. And then, eventually reaching out and developing a gleaning network with farmers. Where, when you’ve got a team of three or four or five families; now all of a sudden you can be super useful to a farmer when they have abundance, either gather that or get it to families in need.

So I would say, if I were to really boil it down as far as our personal approach, it would be just those five areas. Self-reliance, eating seasonally and taking advantage of seasonal abundance that’s wasted, preservation, building community, and then ultimately developing a larger network that can keep their eyes open for stuff that’s going to waste.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. I love that, Tyler. And something that I’m noticing. There’s a really strong theme in personal responsibility. It really sounds like you guys didn’t allow yourselves to be victim to not having enough money to afford what you want. You really were willing to go out and figure out a system in some very unconventional ways to make this work for you. And I think that’s really interesting.

A lot of people go to the store, and we have everything in all seasons. So we’re kind of lulled into thinking we can get whatever we want whenever we want. And we don’t really realize how against nature that is, right? Zucchini in January is just like; when you see things grow in the ground, you just realize how unusual that is. So I think that’s really awesome advice. And I would really encourage people to just kind of start thinking about seasonally. And how much extra there is at certain times of the year, and how they could take advantage of that. that is really smart thinking.

Tyler Boggs: And being easy on yourself. This desperation was born out of a victim mindset that had been in place for years. And so just because; so we took action once. It doesn’t mean we always took action. I think we were just kind of fed up. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired, we knew we needed to make a change, and nobody else was going to make it for us.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah.

Tyler Boggs: It just takes that one decision to go from that mindset of; we can’t afford it. To.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. What am I going to do to fix it?

Tyler Boggs: How can we figure this out.

5. Produce scoring stories [24:24]

Mickey Trescott: I love that. that’s so empowering. That’s what we’re all about. So we know that you specialize in some really creative food sourcing, and you have some opportunities for people in our community. Can you share an interesting story of scoring some delicious food for very little or no money?

Tyler Boggs: {laughs} I could bore you with probably hours of stories. When it comes to; I think as you build a network and community, and really develop the mindset. Or as we developed the mindset that we were going to do this no matter what, doors started opening. And we started talking about sharing abundance with the community. And that was inspirational to many people.

So I had a gentleman call me and say; hey, I’ve got a guy and he works in sales for this company and they sell produce. There’s a bunch of waste, and here’s his name. And when we gave him a call, that developed into a relationship with our first wholesaler, which was Nasdaq produce.

We just gave him a call and said; hey, this is what we’re doing. We’ve got a farm. we’re feeding the community. We’re upcycling and gleaning, so if there’s anything that you guys ever have that goes to waste. And this was our first wholesale account. So we would pick up 55-gallon drums. We provided them with 55-gallon drums, and they would fill them with scraps and produce that they were throwing away. and we would bring it back to the farm, and the community would sort through them and pick out anything that was good.

And that ultimately; it started in a pickup truck, and then it went to a pickup truck and horse trailer, and it eventually went to a box truck. But that was thousands and thousands of pounds, just because we made the commitment that anything we had in abundance we were going to share with the community first. And that was a 3-year relationship, which actually opened the door to most of our other relationships.

And we had a similar story where a friend had a plum tree. Or a friend of a friend of a friend was actually I think how it went. But once people heard that we were sharing; gleaning and sharing with the community. Plum trees are one of those things that are super obnoxious to people in their backyard. Because when they fall, the yellow jackets get all over, and then their kids get stung with bees. So I’ve found everybody with pear and plum trees; everybody wants you to help with because they drop massive amounts in a very short period of time, because the bees go crazy and their kids get stung.

We actually were able to go and harvest hundreds and hundreds of pounds of these plums. We did it a separate time with pear trees, as well. And we just bring it back. We dry a bunch. We gave a bunch out fresh. The ones that weren’t super pretty we dried and dehydrated. And the ones that were even less pretty, we ended up pressing. We made the apples into apple cider vinegar, and the pears into… it’s amazing what you can do with a backyard and a couple of fruit trees.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. I love that. the Pacific Northwest, especially. It kind of depends where people live. But I feel like we live in this climate that produces a bounty whether or not someone is tending or not. So between the blackberries and all the fruit trees. Even some of the greens, like dandelion greens and miner’s lettuce. Just the stuff that kind of grows as weeds everywhere. We have a bounty, whether or not we even put it there, you know?

Tyler Boggs: Absolutely. And the same is true, believe it or not, for livestock. We were talking about seasonal eating earlier. I think one of the things that happened early on for us is that I got a call from somebody that had pigs. And in the winter, pigs become super challenging. Especially if people aren’t prepared. And this person had had a couple of litters of pigs, and they weren’t prepared. And then in the middle of winter they needed to get rid of them. So they had four pigs. And they asked if we could take them. And I said; well we don’t really have room for them but I could probably find somebody that does.

So we created a relationship where if we found homes for three we would get one for free. And for us, that was a huge deal. So it just took some leg work to find homes for three pigs. Find three people that wanted; essentially they were selling them for half of what the market was selling at. So all we had to do was do a little bit of leg work, and to get a free pig out of the deal was just super incredible. And that’s hundreds and hundreds of dollars’ worth of meat.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, totally. Actually, Tyler, I don’t know if you know this, but we got a pig from you last year. My mom did. And she bred it, and now we have 9 pigs.

Tyler Boggs: {laughs} It happens quickly!

Mickey Trescott: She paid for the pig, but all of a sudden we’ve got all this meat running around. And she’s going to sell most of them. But what ended up as a couple-hundred dollar investment has turned into thousands of dollars. And they’re eating all of our waste. All of the scraps. Running around the farm, kind of taking over. So it’s kind of fun.

Tyler Boggs: That’s so good to hear. And I love that. the whole goal is to help people get self-sufficient. And it’s amazing how little it takes. People were so intimidated by it. But if we just decide that we’re going to do it, and then seek out the information. It really is simple. So great job; that’s super exciting to hear.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah! Well, I’ll tell you how it is on the other side when we’re all done with the pig experiment. But right now, it’s at peak cute. They’re really fun to have around.

Tyler Boggs: That’s awesome.

6. Sourcing when you can’t afford organic [29:45]

Mickey Trescott: So if people can’t afford only organic fruits and vegetables; this is a big topic in our community. What are your tips for sourcing?

Tyler Boggs: Oh wow. Well, sourcing. Specifically. I would say; I mean, we made a list of the top 20. You get the top 20 most toxic, and you just make sure that no matter what, those are 100% organic. And the good news is almost all of them grow incredibly well here. In your backyard. Like strawberries, and spinach, and apples, and peaches, and pears, grapes, and celery and tomatoes are on there. And potatoes. But all those things are really simple to grow and they grow really, really well here. So just making sure, whatever you do, the sourcing of those is super, super careful.

And then from there, I just really go back to question number two. Focusing on seasonal abundance. Preserving. Building community. Buying seed for those things first. Those are the most toxic. So if those are things that you’re committed to being part of your diet, go get an apple tree.

Better yet, here’s an idea. You can go get a willow branch, and soak it in water, and make willow tea. And then you can take a cutting off of an apple tree, cut a branch off, soak it in the tea for 24 hours and root it in the ground and make your own apple tree. You can make hundreds. We actually just did our starts for grapes and for figs this year. And for trimming, we found one gentleman that was pruning a fig tree. This was a couple of years back. And he just hated throwing it all on the burn pile. So we developed a relationship with him. So he would prune his fig trees. And we would come on pruning days, and we’d help him a little bit. And we’d pick up all the starts. And we just made over 800 fig trees from his pruning of his one tree this year.

Mickey Trescott: I love that. that’s super creative.

Tyler Boggs: The total cost; if you don’t’ want to make willow bark tea, you can actually buy rooting compound at a store. A bottle of it is like $6. So for $6 you create 600 trees. And it will feed hundreds of families. Anyway. That would be my recommendation, is start with the top 20. Make sure you get seeds for those.

Start talking to somebody that’s doing it so that you can get a coach, you can get a mentor. Or join a couple of Facebook groups. And really just put some seeds in the ground. Get some stuff started. The most important part is taking a step.

Mickey Trescott: I love that. Super awesome. It really shows you what you can do with a little creativity and a little work, starting to plant stuff. I know a lot of people are probably really intimidated. And I would say to any of you guys listening that has some space to grow stuff and you’re still feeling intimidated. Think of maybe how you felt before changing your diet. It was scary and unknown, and you did it, and now it’s not that hard. And I feel it’s really similar with growing things, you know. You might even start with just some herbs in a window sill before you kind of dip your toes into something like growing some of your greens or lettuces or planting a tree.

Tyler Boggs: And calling a friend, I think, is really important, as well. Every one of us knows somebody that gardens. And I felt kind of stupid calling. But just saying; hey look. Just putting it out there, and making a phone call. And saying; I’m committed to growing food for my family, but I’m really nervous about this. And I want to be transparent about my feelings. If I have questions, can I call you? And chances are great they’re going to be super excited for you and super willing to help.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, this is a lot of people’s hobby, you know. My grandma, that’s her hobby.

Tyler Boggs: Yeah. And that support system is important.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. I love that.

Tyler Boggs: Whether it’s in nutrition and diet, and health, or whether it’s in gardening and growing food. Having somebody that’s a mentor that you can call when you get frustrated I think is really, really wonderful.

7. Benefits of a CSA [34:01]

Mickey Trescott: I love that. So Tyler, can you talk to us about the unique opportunities that CSAs present for both farmer’s and customers? We’d like to help people understand the risk and reward trust that goes into this arrangement. So with a CSA, people are paying a lot of money up front, and that actually helps the farmers be able to produce that harvest for the rest of the year.

Tyler Boggs: Yeah, the CSA, the community supported agriculture concept is super phenomenal. My experience is that risk is pretty minimal as long as you’re dealing with somebody that has been farming for a while. Risk is that I will get less broccoli and I will get more cabbage. So if that’s the risk to you, then maybe that’s something to take into consideration.

But the opportunity is really for people to save money. Generally speaking, CSAs are a fraction of what it would be to buy at the farmer’s market, or even buy local organic. Huge increase in quality, because you’re getting stuff that’s fresh from the land. Usually it’s picked that morning, and there’s no preservation methods. No shipping. So your quality is through the roof. And then you really get to eat seasonally. You get to eat what the land is producing.

Especially if you pick a farm that’s really doing soil building and regenerative farming. If they’re focused on vermiculture and increasing mycelium mycorrhizal cultures. The organic matter in the soil is really important. Then you’re getting a higher nutritional value. Because plant can’t create nutrients out of nothing. So if you’re really careful about the soil that’s being built underneath it and the farmer’s practices, then you’re getting, in your head of lettuce, up to 5-10 times more nutrients than you would be getting even in organic commercial products. Because it’s grown consciously, and the farmer is focused on soil building.

So there’s a big difference. With the CSA specifically, the farmer gets to plan their crops. Plan in advance. People don’t realize how expensive and how time-consuming farmer’s markets are. When we did; I don’t know, our first year we did farmer’s markets I think we did 6 or 8 of them. And it was amazing in talking to the other farmers; almost all of them, their goal was to break even. And it was really scary.

Because it was so expensive and so time consuming, that their goal was just to get the word out for their farm. and they literally didn’t make any money. So people are spending tons. They’re really paying top dollar at these farmer’s markets, not realizing that the farmer is not getting any of it. Because the cost to the farmer is so expensive.

So the CSA allows the farmer to do what a farmer does. Which is farm. He gets to focus on growing his food. He doesn’t have to go to the farmer’s market. He doesn’t have to stress about low-producing crops. He can focus on what’s really doing well that season. And really do what he does best, which is nourish the soil and grow crops and healthy livestock. As opposed to marketing.

Mickey Trescott: I love that. that’s really great, Tyler. Thank you so much for that, and thank you so much for this conversation. I think that this has been really eye opening for me. I feel really excited to get some more plants in the ground this year. And renewed in my excitement to just kind of support the local food system and kind of what you’re doing.

Will you let our listeners know what you and Elizabeth are working on right now, and kind of where they can find you guys, and how they can support you?

Tyler Boggs: OH, yeah, that would be wonderful. So we’ve got the food pantry, which is for everybody in need. There is no restriction. And that’s Good Neighbor Family Pantry. And that’s at www. GoodNeighborFamilyPantry.org. Or obviously on Facebook. Just Good Neighbor Family Pantry. And then the farm is Heart2Heart Farms. And that’s again on Facebook and on the web.

The farm has the work for livestock and work for meats program, where we allow people to show up. We set aside about 50% of everything that we produce for people to work-trade for and low-income families. We also do bartering for people that have old things they’re not using. Whether it’s tools or firearms and ammunition. Anything we can use out here on the farm. Just bartering.

We currently just launched a meat buyers club, which was previously a meat CSA. I’m not even sure if the website is up to date on it yet. But it allows people to have a 6-month subscription. And it saves them as much as 70% off of retail rates when it comes to meat. Which is really, really wonderful for a lot of folks that are hurting financially. And we’re finally delivering. We’re delivering all along the I-5 corridor. So all the way up to Olympia and all the way down to Roseburg, which is really kind of neat.

But the goal, everything that we do is really to help create self-sufficiency. We had a client that just reached out. He was buying rabbits every week. So I just asked him; I pulled him aside and said; look, you’re spending a bunch of money on rabbit every week. And he said, well it’s the only meat that doesn’t make me sick. We had a wonderful conversation about his health and about his goals. And I said; look. If you just spent what you would spend in two weeks on rabbits, I could get you a breeding trio, and I’ll teach you how to breed them. Because a lot of what we do is consultation. My goal is really to help people get self-sufficient.

So he bought a trio of rabbits, and I taught him how to breed. He just had his first litter of babies. So now he’s able to supply his family and his community with chemical-free meats from his backyard. And he’s no longer purchasing meat on a regular basis.

So that’s the other piece. If people are really serious about this, don’t be afraid to reach out to us. Send me a message on Facebook, or send us a message on the website. We do a lot of consultation. We do basic farm tours for people that are really serious about creating this lifestyle and want to come out and kind of see what we’re doing.

And then, of course, we try to provide resources that equip people. Everything from super foods and tuberose starch like Yukon and sunchoke, to even trailer rental and livestock hauling and helping people get established with breeding stock.

And then our foster pig program and birthday parties are super popular if you just want to support us. But go to the website, check us out. More than anything else, I would say just get started. This is simpler than you think it is, and feeing yourself chemical free; there’s been nothing that’s been more life changing for me.

Mickey Trescott: I love it so much, Tyler. Your passion really comes through. And I can’t believe I’m sitting here. And you’re like; “And then we do this food gleaning program. And then the meat.” It’s like, you guys are incredible. You can tell that your fires are lit, and you and Elizabeth really care about your community and spreading this information far and wide. So thank you so much for what you do and agreeing to have this conversation.

Everybody else, we’ll be back next week. I hope you guys are super inspired. Take care.

Angie Alt: Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Autoimmune Wellness podcast. We’re honored to have you as a listener, and we hope that you’ve gained some useful information.

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