Autoimmune paleo diet experiment, day 1

Feeling excited! I also feel this is not that different from what I normally eat so I think it won't be difficult. Me and my husband missed morning coffee until I realized that we should just stop dreaming about it and decide that we don't really need it anyway. I started my morning with rooibos tea, husband with black tea that some allow and some don't on the autoimmune paleo diet (I will use AIP for short). I like to add a hint of cinnamon in my rooibos tea as well.

Just drinking the tea felt so satisfying and it didn't mess with my blood sugar like coffee and strong black tea does. For breakfast we had a soup that had been in the slow cooker overnight. (We also had it for lunch and snack, I kept feeling hungry and ate bowlfuls and bowlfuls of it.) It is a basic soup also consumed on GAPS diet with individual variations in the vegetables and meats. I have bought a big lead free slow cooker (Hamilton Beach, I think it is the 6 quart slow cooker) which is perfect because I can make enough soup for all of us for several meals. I also use it to make bone broth.

Basic chicken vegetable soup for any meal
Autoimmune paleo, paleo, GAPS, gluten free, dairy free, corn free, soy free, nut free, legume free

Home made bone broth (I boil a chicken or leftover carcass of chicken with still some meat on it in water with a splash of apple cider vinegar, some bay leaves and sometimes black or white peppers - although some don't allow those on AIP diet so I left them out from the last batch - and leftover veggies like celery and carrots in a slow cooker on low for 24 hours, you can find several recipes and tutorials online, like this one). I usually add some water as well as the broth is pretty concentrated.

Vegetables (I use most often different cruciferous vegetables like kale, white cabbage, napa cabbage, mushrooms - I think shiitake is sometimes not included on AIP - carrots, celery, zucchini- this time I added in addition to those mentioned before also daikon and Japanese white sweet potato and had my husband who has worked in a restaurant to chop everything as he does it so well :))

Some chicken cut in strips (if you used a whole chicken to make your broth, save the meat from it, tear it to strips and add it to the ready soup, you don't necessarily need to cook it for hours anymore). I keep the meat-vegetable ratio probably at something like 15-20% meat and rest vegetables. I try to eat mostly veggies and just add meat for some protein in the absence of legumes, nuts and other protein sources (there is protein in vegetables as well of course).

For spices I added chopped ginger and garlic (if chosen to include it to AIP), Himalayan pink salt (I have it always handy because I use it for lactofermented vegetables) and herbs from my garden (my favorites for this soup are cilantro, thyme, rosemary).

Eat with a spoonful of home made sauerkraut to improve digestion. You can find plenty of lactofermented sauerkraut recipes online as well as in the book Nourishing traditions, a good basic book for anyone interested in healthy traditional nourishing foods.

For dinner we are planning to have some spaghetti squash, chicken and vegetables. If I come up with a delicious recipe I will post it later! Now off to unpack from our trip to Sequoia. Happy new year to everyone! And please post your recipes to the comments, I'd love to get some more ideas!

Sirpa