A few posts back Julie Cowdroy wrote about the Below the Line campaign – a program in May that sees well-fed westerners live on $2 a day to experience what it’s like for the world’s poorest. And to raise $$. I promised to give it a crack and did so for a day. As, it seems, with most people who did it, I resorted to lentils.

Lentils are cheap. And Dr Weston A Price considers the little buggers the most nutritious of all legumes – high in minerals and they help assimilate protein and iron absorption. But they can be bland and horrible and really crook on the gut. If you don’t play right.

Here’s some tricks for eating them.

Just mine. It’s not a comprehensive list.

1. Add red lentils to soups and casseroles and curries…

for extra bulk and fibre and protein. A cheap way to spread out a meal. Simply rince a handful and toss in 15-20 minutes before the dish is cooked. They disintegrate and you’ll barely know they’re there.

2. Soak your green and brown lentils a few hours.

Most recipes will say you don’t need to at all because they’re quite low on phytic acid. Soak in warm water with a bit of lemon juice. Seven hours is good.

3. I make dahl…
by boiling  soaked brown lentils (1.5 cups)  in water to cover, adding a tsp of turmeric (a great anti-inflammatory), pepper and garlic. I simmer for an hour  (covered) and then whisk the lentils til creamy. In a pan I saute cumin seeds and 2 small hot chillies in butter (or ghee) and then fold that through the lentils with some coriander.

4. I sprout lentils.

Here’s a few cooking and eating tips I live by for a Tuesday. Enjoy! Oh, by the way, the new nutrition makeover show I finished filming in January – Eat Yourself Sexy – will appear on Lifestyle YOU in August…in time for Spring. That should give you enough time to subscribe to Foxtel/Austar!

1. I blend my tomatoes. Cooking tomatoes increases the available lycopene antioxidant content by five times. Blending tomatoes does the same but avoids the heat and oxidation, as well as water and enzyme damaging properties of cooking.

2. Marinate meat in rosemary. Cooking meat at high temperatures can create toxins called heterocyclic amines, linked to cancer. But, marinating lowers the risk by preventing the formation of the toxins -  rosemary is the most effective marinade herb to use. Makes sense. They taste good together.

3. Here’s how to do speedy pumpkin: To stirfry cubes of pumpkin (for a quick lunch salad etc) without pre-steaming it, fry it up with a liberal shake of salt. I’m not sure why, but the salt breaks down the pumpkin’s starch faster, so it softens as you fry.

4. I cook with coconut oil. It tastes amazing – a little bit sweet and a bit toasted. And it’s sooo good for you. It’s made up of ninety percent saturated fats (good fats). And 50 percent of the fat content iis a fat rarely found in nature called lauric acid. Your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, which has anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-protozoa properties, as well as being antifungal, antioxidant, and soothing. PLUS it supports thyroid gland and enzyme function.Pumpkin in particular tastes great with this oil. It’s also less fattening than other oils…if that matters to you.

Sometimes health needs to be explained in nonsensical, onomatopoeic language. Yuk! Goob! Stodge! If you’ve been unwell for a while, or get gut aches for no discernible reason (and you’re told you’ve got IBS), or you go around in circles with complaints, or if you have some sort of auto-immune disease, then you totally know what I mean. Health, once you’ve gone past the level of taking a pill or getting a cast put on a broken leg, is nebular.

Or fuzzy.

Melbourne naturapath Gill Stannard alerted me to this youtube link with Gil Hedley talking about The Fuzz, a case for stretching in the morning. Totally pervy and visceral. And totally geared at anyone with inflammation issues (hello, auto-immune disease!!!).

This much you need to know: if you have inflammation issues, stretch in the morning, get massages, move.

Other ways to deal with inflammation:

1. Avoid processed foods - trans-fats, high-fructose corn syrup, chemicals, additives and other “non-food” ingredients. Sugar is highly inflammatory.
2. Eat healthy fats such as extra-virgin olive oil, coconut, avocados, nuts and seeds.
3. If you drink alcohol – an occasional glass of red wine is best.
4. Eat coloured vegetables and fruit. Eat more veggies than fruit (5-6 servings of veggies, 3-4 servings of fruit).
5. Only eat non-gluten grains – quinoa, amaranth and brown rice.

6. Eat turmeric. Here’s why.

It’s ugly and lumpy and mostly people don’t know what it is when they see it at the shops. But I love turmeric. Even if it does stain every device in my kitchen a bright yellow.

Know this: more and more studies are showing it beats inflammation. And fights cancer. I eat it as often as I can and it’s made major inroads into my puffiness from that damn ole thyroid disease. SO MUCH SO, MY RECENT TEST RESULTS WHICH I GOT BACK YESTERDAY SHOW I’VE REDUCED MY ANTIBODIES TO NORMAL LEVELS. It wasn’t just turmeric. But it was from diet! Yes. It can be done. PLEASE be heartened by this. Read more about how I heal my auto-immune disease here.

Turmeric has been called one of nature’s most powerful healers.

Another week, another installment. A month or so ago I posted my musings on my not-so-amusing journey with hashimoto’s.

This week, I’ve invited Melbourne personal trainer, BioSignature practitioner and blogger Kat Eden to give her comic – or otherwise  – input.

thyroid disease can feel like you're hovering in a pool of sludge

I came across Kat on the site Dumb Little Men and loved her tips on living life better. I contacted her cold (it’s one of my favourite things to do – contact someone I find interesting and just start talking) and found her advice very sound, especially in regards to hormones and digestion.

Over to Kat:

What causes this whole caper?

From my way of thinking, and based on clinical experience I’d say stress has to be one of the biggest players in sparking auto-immune disease. In particular chronic stress. It doesn’t really matter where the stress comes from, or even if it’s a whole bunch of little stressors rather than one great big life-changing event. Your body doesn’t separate one type of stress from another in terms of the way your nervous system and hormones respond, so the accumulation of stress can be (often quite suddenly) very toxic.

I quite love Clare Bowditch.

That’s her up above. The admiration kicked off when she emailed me a while back after reading something I’d written and she suggested we meet for tea when I was in Melbourne next cos we’d have stacks in common. I love contacting people I’d like to meet and suggesting tea. I love people I’d love to meet who do the same.

She’s also very whimsical.

And musical. She’s recording her next album RIGHT NOW. This tune is from it.

She also has issues with her thyroid. I posted my experiences with auto-immune disease a few weeks back. And now I’ve asked Clare to share:

Weirdest symptoms? A swelling in the throat every time I had a sip of coffee or tea or wine.

Best tip to stick to?  I have a very beautiful GP who kept saying to me, “Remember, your body is your best friend. It wants to help you. Listen to it. Slow down. Life is for enjoying!”. This was the best advice I could have had. She also challenged me to find ways of entertaining and being entertained that didn’t involve wheat, recreational sugar, alcohol, or caffeine, which sounds basic, but I found it a real challenge! Excellent quality fish oil and selenium drops were also a part of my healing.

What’s your philosophical stance? Dicky thyroids are a mystery, but mine got my attention and asked me to be a bit gentler with myself.  The only reason I listened is because it didn’t really leave me any other options. I entered 2010 a much happier person than the one who began 2009. I conclude, therefore, that my dicky thyroid was a great lesson in how to be honest with myself.

I love this advice. Yay, to gentle! And I love reading about other people’s symptoms…it’s somehwo comforting to know yours aren’t the weirdest.

If you have auto-immune, what’s your weirdest?