10 Gluten-Free and Paleo Friendly Whole Food Alternatives

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

It’s no secret that gluten-free food is wildly popular in the health industry. As a Paleo community, this is great news, as it symbolizes a definite turn in the right direction.

However, even though gluten-free options for breads, noodles, and other grain favorites line the shelves, they’re often still heavily processed.

They’re also usually packed with non-gluten grains that contain hefty amounts of simple carbs (aka sugars) and empty calories.

The Benefits of Whole Food Alternatives

Making food swaps in favor of whole food-based alternatives has several benefits.

Check them out below.

Nutrient Density

Unlike the processed “gluten-free” options in stores, vegetables offer tons of nutrition for very few carbs and calories. This opens up more room in our diets for nutrient-dense foods while also upping our micronutrient intake.

Low Glycemic Index

Unfortunately, most grains and gluten-free packaged products still contain large amounts of carbohydrates. While moderate carb intake is fine on a Paleo diet, you really want to get your carbs from whole food, nutrient-dense sources such as beets and squashes, which have a low glycemic index, rather than from empty simple sugars. This will help keep your blood sugar stable while also possibly improving mood and lowering inflammation.

Weight Loss

Vegetables add tons of volume to dishes for very few calories. For example, one cup of broccoli contains only 31 calories and six grams of carbs, while just one slice of gluten-free bread contains roughly 60-70 calories and 15 grams of carbs a slice. This is why you may also experience weight loss when making a food swap in favor of veggie alternatives.

10 Gluten-Free and Paleo Food Swaps

Now, on to the good stuff. Below are some ingenious ways to create wraps, buns, noodles, and more, all using whole, gluten-free foods:

1. Swiss Chard Tortillas

While gluten-free, most tortillas on the market still contain a hefty dose of carbohydrates and processed grains. Various lettuces sometimes make decent alternatives, but it can be hard to find one that holds together well enough to qualify as a tortilla or wrap.

Enter Swiss chard. Its leaves are sturdy enough to hold and wrap various meats and veggies (plus the genius “rice” alternative found below) and can be dipped into homemade sauces without crumbling. Plus, they contain only seven grams of carbs per cup and are high in vitamin K, A, C, as well as an array of essential minerals.

2. Cauliflower Rice

Cauliflower rice is a life-saver for Paleo folks looking to add “bulk” to a meal without adding carbohydrate-dense grains. It can be made into a fried rice dish by sautéing with meats and veggies, or even used in Paleo sushi rolls in place of high-carb sticky rice.

Making a gluten-free food swap from rice to cauliflower will save you about 30 grams of carbs per cup.

3. Zucchini Lasagna

Many of us crave comfort food without the uncomfortable effects of eating grains. Slicing zucchini into sheets that mimic pasta layers saves you the discomfort that can result from grain-based versions.

Zucchini contains about four grams of carbs per cup, which is a far cry from the average 35 carbs for every two ounces of pasta.

4. Mashed Cauliflower Potatoes

Cauliflower steps in once again to remind us that indulging in comfort food can be perfectly Paleo. Here, instead of mashing high-carb, high-calorie potatoes with butter at Thanksgiving (or any day of the week, really), we can boil or steam cauliflower and mash it up with a dash of olive oil or coconut spread.

Cauliflower contains only five carbs per cup as compared to mashed potatoes, which contain roughly 30 grams.

5. Portobello Mushroom Buns

Many struggle trying to enjoy hamburgers without the bun. Lettuce is okay, but tends to lack the thickness associated with grain-based buns. Even the gluten-free varieties contain high amounts of grain-based carbs (roughly 15 a slice) and calories.

Portobello mushroom caps alleviate bun deprivation by providing a sturdy place to rest your burgers. They’re also a great source of B vitamins and a range of minerals as well as being low in carbs and calories.

6. Zucchini Pasta

A single zucchini and a spiralizer can bring pasta back into your diet in as little as 10 minutes. These “noodles” hold together well, and can be eaten raw in a light “pasta” salad or sautéed and covered in marinara for a comforting bowl of Paleo spaghetti.

Zucchini pasta will also save you an average of 30 grams of carbs per cup.

Pro tip: If you’re looking to make thicker noodles, beets are another pasta alternative. While beets are slightly starchy, they’re also packed with phytonutrients, folate, manganese, potassium, and copper.

Simply run slices through a spiralizer and sauté with veggies and ground beef, or use them in a noodle soup.

7. Spaghetti Squash Hash Browns

While spaghetti squash has earned its reputation as a low-carb spaghetti alternative, it also works wonders as a hash brown substitute. You can easily fill the hash brown vacancy alongside your eggs and bacon by forming baked squash “patties” and cooking them in coconut oil over medium heat until brown on both sides. Add a little salt and you’ll quickly forget about the heavily processed version.

To compare, spaghetti squash has only 10 grams of carbs per cup, while regular hash browns contain 18 grams per cup.

8. Almond Meal Breadcrumbs

It’s taken a while to find a breadcrumb alternative for the simple fact that, well, bread is bread and it’s not Paleo. Now, however, the days of breadcrumb-free casseroles are over: almond meal makes a hearty and, when toasted, crunchy breadcrumb alternative without the gluten or grains. It also gives you a nice dose of healthy fats, vitamin E, plant protein, and only 10 grams of carbs per half cup.

9. Baked Zucchini Fries

Fries are the quintessential burger side. And, as Paleo foodies agree, we eat a lot of grass-fed burgers. Swapping out potato fries – which are often fried in highly inflammatory vegetable oils – with baked zucchini fries as a side will save you calories, carbs, and inflammation.

Simply preheat your oven to 425ºF, slice zucchini and remove the seeds, toss with a dash of olive or coconut oil and almond meal breadcrumbs, and bake until golden for 15 minutes.

10. Apple Chips and Nachos

Dehydrating apple slices to make chips will spare you calories and inflammatory vegetable oils, while also curbing even the strongest crunch craving.

The versatility of apples doesn’t stop there, however.

Try making apple “nachos” using horizontally sliced apple slices topped with almond butter, dark chocolate chips, and coconut shreds for a sweet movie snack.

Apple slices contain 15 grams of carbs, as compared to roughly 60 grams in four ounces of chips.

Watch this video – What I Ate Today | Paleo, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes

Bottom Line

Swapping grain-based breads, wraps, and pastas for vegetable alternatives can save you dollars, excess carbs, calories, and inflammation, while also upping your nutrient intake. Not to mention, they’ll surely have you fantasizing about tortillas and pasta without guilt.

Written by Megan Patiry

Author Bio:

Megan is an inquisitive nutrition and wellness writer harboring an editorial love affair with the decadent and the nutritious. She is a dedicated researcher in all areas of ancestral health, a certified specialist in fitness nutrition, personal trainer, and professional almond milk latte addict.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook

What’s MTHFR Mutation + 4 Natural Ways to Alleviate Symptoms

 

Click HERE to Discover these 80 Keto-Friendly and Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes

MTHFR Mutation – What It Is and 4 Natural Ways to Alleviate Symptoms

MTHFR is a gene that is closely associated with the body’s ability to detox, keep inflammation levels down, and regulate immunity.

Unless you’re a geneticist, it might feel overwhelming to consider how your genes affect your health.

However, untangling the basics of MTHFR and how it might be impacting you on a daily basis is a major proactive step to protecting your long-term health. Plus, you can ease everyday symptoms you might not even know are associated with it.

What is a MTHFR Mutation?

MTHFR stands for “methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase” (which is precisely why it gets abbreviated). It is a gene that provides instructions for producing an enzyme of the same name. This MTHFR enzyme adds a methyl group to folic acid and folate, converting them to an active form and making the nutrient usable by the body. 

A missing methyl group equals an inability to put folate to work. Think of the methyl group as the keys that make a car drive. Without the “keys,” folate can’t drive and get its job done in the body.

Folic acid and folate are also referred to as vitamin B9. Folic acid itself is a synthetic form of the nutrient folate, which is found in foods. Without the methyl group, people who have a genetic mutation associated with MTHFR may be unable to properly activate B9 in their bodies.

This can lead to symptoms of vitamin B9 deficiency even if they get plenty in diet or supplement form. It’s all about conversion and activation, not necessarily ingestion of the nutrient. The more mutations you have, the less effective your MTHFR gene could be.

While people with mutations will still have genes that partially function, in most people, they could be functioning at only 20 to 70 percent of their potential.

Without the methyl group added to B9, folate is useless in the body, leading to problems converting homocysteine (an amino acid) into methionine, which is required for metabolism, muscle growth, and glutathione synthesis.

Glutathione is a potent antioxidant in the body that reduces oxidative stress and decreases autoimmune activity. So, lacking this crucial methyl group can lead to inflammation and several other health issues that can become chronic and long-term.

When you have a MTHFR mutation, the effectiveness of your MTHFR gene is impaired. There are multiple locations on the MTHFR gene, and you can have several mutations present on this single gene.

There are two that are most commonly studied: C677T and A1298C. While these have gained most of the research, there are several other known MTHFR polymorphisms. The more mutations you have, the less effective your MTHFR gene could be.

How The Food You Eat Changes Your Genes

The simple presence of a genetic polymorphism does not mean that it’s actively hindering your gene’s ability to work. This is where epigenetics, or the way that your environment and lifestyle influence how your genes work, can become involved.

You can also have active mutations that can be neutralized by lifestyle and dietary factors. Supplementing with the needed active folate, for example, could help to neutralize the negative effects of a poor-functioning MTHFR gene. It’s not always that simple, though.

All genetic mutations are inherited from your parents when you get the rest of your DNA. You are either homozygous (two copies) or heterozygous (one copy) for all genetic mutations that you have, or you can have two normal copies of a gene, meaning that there is no mutation present.

You will only ever have two sides of a gene: one from your father and one from your mother. If you are homozygous for any mutation, it means you got one from each parent. If you are heterozygous, then your parents would have to be tested to determine which one passed down the mutated version. This information is not necessary, however, to address your genetic health.

With MTHFR, there are three notable categories of problematic methylation issues:

• MTHFR Homozygous C677T: 30 to 40 percent of Americans are likely to have at least one copy of this mutation, with 10-15 percent of Caucasians and 25 percent of Hispanics having the homozygous mutation.

• MTHFR Homozygous A1298C: While firm research statistics aren’t available for the prevalence of this, it’s thought that approximately 20 percent of Americans may be homozygous for this mutation. This particular gene is associated with depression, neurotransmitter imbalances, and other complex problems, like recurrent miscarriage or infertility in both men and women.

• MTHFR Compound Heterozygous C677T + A1298C: There are no known statistics on the prevalence of this compound heterozygous mutation, but research suggests it could be the most problematic scenario. The mutations occur in two places on the gene, resulting in a dramatically reduced gene capacity. It has similar homocysteine and inflammatory complications as those associated with homozygosity of C677T.

It is estimated that 40 to 60 percent of the population has at least one mutation on the MTHFR gene while 14 to 20 percent may have one of the aforementioned severe combinations.

Bottom line: MTHFR is a gene that produces an enzyme that is essential for numerous processes in the body that regulate health: inflammation, detox, fertility, and more. With a MTHFR mutation and the lack of the proper nutrient activation, you can suffer from numerous symptoms.

MTHFR Mutation Symptoms

If you have a MTHFR mutation and problems converting homocysteine, some symptoms you might experience could include:

• Elevated homocysteine levels (shown via a blood test)
• Elevated LDL and suppressed HDL
• Inability to activate B6, B9, and B12
• Fatigue
• Brain fog
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Insomnia and sleep problems
• Histamine problems
• Alcohol intolerance
• Detox problems
• Addictions, including alcoholism
• Migraines
• Headaches
• Chronic pain in the joints and muscles
• Restless legs
• Obesity and weight problems

Conditions Linked to MTHFR Mutations

While this list is far from exhaustive, research links several conditions with MTHFR mutations, including:

• Bipolar disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Polycystic ovary syndrome
• Fibromyalgia
• Diabetes, type 1 or type 2
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Parkinson’s disease and other tremor disorders
• Irritable bowel disease and other intestinal disorders
• Pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and postpartum depression
• Thyroid disease
• Any autoimmune disease
• ADHD
• Down syndrome and neural tube disorders
• Heart disease and risk for heart attack
• Alzheimer’s
• Autism and other developmental problems, especially in children
• Recurrent pregnancy loss
• Infertility
• Colon cancer
• Leukemia

Bottom line: MTHFR can have a significant impact on both short-term quality of life and long-term health and disease development.

4 Ways to Manage MTHFR Symptoms and Risks

Since MTHFR is far from rare, many people could discover that they possibly have problematic genetic combinations. However, thanks to modern understanding of how diet and environment can “turn on” or “turn off” our genetic mutations, we can have a say in how our genes continue to work.

By making some dietary and lifestyle adjustments, people with MTHFR mutations can alleviate symptoms, decrease associated health risks, and improve their general health and the outlook of chronic conditions.

1. Manage Stress

Stress of any kind can hamper all kinds of methylation activity in the body, a.k.a. can impair the body from transferring active folate to substances elsewhere. This can result in decreased use of critical nutrients like B6, B9, and B12 as well as reduced levels of the master antioxidant, glutathione.

As if stress isn’t bad enough, the actual presence of stress can cause the body to be unable to complete the tasks it needs to counter the effects of stress.

Help your body cope with stress by:

Practicing yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, or deep breathing to engage the parasympathetic nervous system and combat the constant “fight or flight” response.

Exercise regularly to promote a healthy weight, decrease inflammation, and get better sleep.

Spend time outside, both to get vitamin D and to soak up the balancing effect of nature, which is scientifically proven to decrease stress levels.

Avoid processed and synthetic foods. Instead, reach for fresh vegetables, healthy fats, and antioxidant fruits.

2. Completely Avoid Synthetic Folic Acid and Processed Foods

When you have MTHFR mutations and you load your body with synthetic folic acid or supplemental folate that is not activated, your body is not only unable to use these nutrients, but you also risk toxicity. When you have MTHFR, it’s important to stop taking synthetic supplements and switch to activated ones.

As always, don’t stop supplements or medications without consulting your doctor. However, if you have MTHFR and your doctor advises higher doses of folic acid, seek a second opinion from a medical professional who is well-versed in genetics.

3. Supplement with Active Folate

Known as 5-MTHF, activated folate already contains the methyl group and doesn’t need to be converted in the body. This allows it to get to work right away.

Many nutrients, including active folate, are essential for the production of neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine. Deficiencies or conversion issues can manifest as depression, anxiety, or similar nervous system disorders.

However, it’s not as simple as taking a few pills. Some people can be highly sensitive to methylated supplements and may need to get the nutrients they need in a milder way. Working with a practitioner who understands methylation is a vital first step.

Active forms of B12 and B6 can also be beneficial for the function of active folate. While these can all be obtained directly from food sources, if gut issues are present, they may not digest and absorb properly.

For people with homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations, it’s best to properly supplement to ensure continuous availability of these vital nutrients.

4. Support the Gut

When your body is genetically impaired in its ability to activate or use nutrients, you can minimize the effects by optimizing gut health. The gut is where nutrients are absorbed and used in the body, so keeping your gut running efficiently is key.

This doesn’t only mean eating a gut-friendly diet but living a lifestyle that minimizes exposure to toxins and chemicals that can enter the body and cause problems like leaky gut. 

Digestive issues are common in people with MTHFR mutations, ranging from stomach acid imbalances to problems in the small intestine. They can also be prone to higher incidences of allergies and inflammation.

When leaky gut occurs, this can deplete nutrients and exacerbate conditions that exist or are genetic tendencies.

Boost your gut health naturally by:

• Eliminating all processed, synthetic, and refined foods
• Eliminating foods that you are allergic or sensitive to
• Eliminating GMOs, grains, dairy, and sugar from your diet
• Increasing probiotic supplements and foods
• Staying hydrated
• Eating plenty of fiber
• Consuming foods and supplements that repair the gut lining, including bone broth, collagen, and glutamine

Watch this video – MTHFR GENE MUTATION Diet, lifestyle and supplements (with Troubleshooting guide)

Bottom line: MTHFR is far from a sentence to terrible health, although many who have it are able to tie it to years of symptoms and conditions that are difficult to address. Once you eliminate triggers and focus on optimizing nutrient levels, you can start taking steps towards a healthy and vibrant lifestyle.

Written by Aimee McNew

Author Bio:

Aimee McNew is a Certified Nutritionist who specializes in women’s health, thyroid problems, infertility, and digestive wellness. She ate her way back to health using a Paleo diet, lost 80 pounds, and had a healthy baby after numerous miscarriages. She focuses on simple nutrition practices that promote long-lasting results.

A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.

Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.

To find out more, click on – Keto Slow Cooker Cookbook