Healthy Holiday Cookie Recipes: Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Sugar-Free, and Low-Glycemic

It’s unfortunate that many of the holiday foods out there contain processed and damaging ingredients like gluten and sugar.  Many holiday recipes contain foods that also contribute to hidden food allergies.

When you choose to make healthy alternatives for your favorite holiday recipes like these delicious holiday cookies and the recipes in my e-book, Healthy Holiday Traditions: Nourishing Recipes for Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s Celebrations, you’ll feel more energetic, lighter, enjoy a smaller waistline, and think more clearer!

Those are *my* kind of cookies!  Enjoy these gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and low-glycemic cookie recipes and give yourself a healthy treat for the holidays!

Dr. Ritamarie’s Healthy Holiday Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pecans
• 1/2 cup almonds, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil
• 3/4 cup dates, pitted
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch sea salt

Directions:

1. Process nuts and dates with salt and spices in food processor until they are completely chopped. Mixture should be a little coarse and should hold together. If needed, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water.
2. Roll or press dough onto non-stick sheets and use cookie cutters to make into desired festive shapes.
3. Place in freezer until they are firm.

Dr. Ritamarie’s Low-Glycemic Healthy Holiday Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pecans
• 1/2 cup almonds, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup unsweetened dried coconut
• 1 tablespoon Chia Gel
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch sea salt
• 10 – 15 drops stevia concentrate, to taste (Sweet Leaf)

Directions:

1. Process pecans, almonds, coconut, and chia gel with salt and spices in food processor until they are completely chopped. Mixture should be a little coarse and should hold together. If needed, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of water.
2. Roll or press dough onto non stick sheets and use cookie cutters to make into desired shapes.
3. Place in freezer until they are firm.

Chia Gel

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chia seed
• 2 1/2 cups water

Directions:

1. Put chia and water into a quart sized Mason jar or a glass bowl that can be covered.
2. Shake or mix well.
3. Allow to stand at room temperature for 8 hours or overnight or for 12 or more hours in the refrigerator. Store up to a week at room temperature.

The healthy holiday cookie recipe above can be found inHealthy Holiday Traditions: Nourishing Recipes for Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s Celebrations containing:

• Gingerbread Men
• Latkes
• Christmas Cookies and Pudding
• Eggless Egg Nog
• Hors D’oeuvres
• Apple Pie and Ice Cream
• Candies and more!

Click HERE to order!

The Dangers of Undiagnosed Food Allergies: Breaking Down Instead of Breaking Out

Food is intended to replenish your cells, nourish your organs, and give you the energy you need to do all the things in your life that bring you joy. Yet sometimes this process backfires and meal times leave you bloated, exhausted, and unmotivated.

So what goes wrong?

One of the often overlooked causes of feeling “bad” after eating is food allergies and food intolerances.

When your immune system mistakes good food for a foreign invader, it sets up a cascade of inflammatory reactions to “kill it”, leading to pain, inflammation, and dysfunction in your body.

Most people don’t even realize anything’s wrong… at first.

Even If You’re Not Breaking Out, You May Still Be Breaking Down

Conventional medicine discounts the importance of food allergies in solving chronic health challenges and persistent body fat issues, save for those outwardly manifesting allergies that cause an immediate skin reaction or inability to breathe.

For those types of food allergies, the solution is clear from a medical perspective: avoid the food and if you accidentally get exposed, take an anti-histamine medication or a shot of epinephrine.

But what about the other kinds of food allergies – the insidious ones that contribute to chronic symptoms and health challenges? The problem with detecting these types of food intolerances is that the reaction is often not immediate, so it takes a lot of detective work to determine what foods are causing the problem.

Food allergies are tested for and managed by many alternative practitioners, yet there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about what they are, what causes food allergies, and whether these allergies can be overcome.

So, What’s Your Poison?

It’s possible that many “healthy” foods are not so good for you. It is said that “one man’s food is another man’s poison,” and this is so true when it comes to food allergy reactions. Even highly nutritious foods like broccoli or blueberries can induce an immune response that leaves you ill.

Your immune system is a double edged sword. The same reactions that can protect you from dangerous microbes can inflame and damage your essential body tissues and lead to chronic health issues.

What Happens When You Ignore Food Allergies and Intolerances?

Chronic over activity of your immune system can lead to problems like:

• weight gain
  
• depression
• joint pain
• fatigue
• headaches
• indigestion
• asthma
• eczema
• fibromyalgia
• autoimmune conditions
• autism
• attention deficit disorder
• and many more

So what causes your immune system to get confused and attack good food?

We’ll cover a few here and invite you to learn the details at a brand new, hot off the press, FREE teleseminar on January 3rd, 2012 called Turning Food Allergies Inside Out: Revealing the Causes, Culprits, and Cures. You’ll find the details below.

The Causes of Food Allergies

There are many causes of food allergies and intolerances, but here is a list of the most common (References are published below for further reading).

1. Infancy Food Exposure: Exposure to foods other than breast milk during the first few months of life can contribute to food allergies. Your digestive tract was designed to be able to allow larger molecules through during early life so that your mom could nurse you, pass on the protective antibodies from her immune system, and protect you. Unfortunately, what also passes through her milk are her food antibodies too.
   In addition, if you are fed anything other than breast milk in those early months, those openings in your digestive tract work against you and allow proteins from cow’s milk or soy, the most common foods in infant formula, to pass into your blood stream and create an immune reaction. (1) (2)
2. Immunizations: If you were immunized, the goal was to create a protective immune response to the injected substances. Unfortunately, carrier substances injected with the immunizations include things like egg albumin, which can cause you to become allergic to eggs.(3)
3. Antibiotics: Within the first year of life, intake of antibiotics has been associated with increased risk of food allergy. (4)
4. Antacids: The use of antacids impair stomach acid production and leads to the poor digestion of proteins. These undigested proteins irritate the delicate lining of your intestine, eventually eroding it enough so that the larger molecules enter your blood stream and mount an immune system attack. (5) (6)
5. Gluten: Gluten-containing foods inflame and damage your intestinal mucous membrane and result in Leaky Gut Syndrome. As a result large, undigested protein molecules enter your blood stream and your immune system attacks them. (7)
6. Stress: Eating when stressed causes increased cortisol production, which shuts down your digestion and can lead to Leaky Gut Syndrome. (9)
7. Sugar: Eating sugar disrupts normal intestinal flora and disrupts digestion. (10)

How to Tell if You Have a Potential Food Allergies or Intolerance

How do you know if food allergies may be contributing to your health concerns? Take this short self assessment quiz and find out for yourself:

1. Do you feel tired after eating?
2. Do you frequently clear your throat after meals?
3. Do you feel like you need looser pants at the end of the day?
4. Do you crave certain foods (like bread, cheese, and other snack foods) and feel the urge to eat more even if you feel full?
5. Do you feel like your pulse and heart beat become rapid after eating certain foods?
6. Do you have inflammation and pain for which you haven’t found a cause?
7. Have you been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease?
8. Do you experience belching, bloating, gas, or pain after eating?
9. Do you have persistent extra weight in spite of a low calorie diet and exercise?
10. Do you have asthma?
11. Do you have difficulty focusing that comes and goes?
12. Have you lost your motivation for things you used to enjoy?
13. Do you need to urinate frequently?
14. Do you have an irritable bowel?
15. Do you have unexplained bouts of depression, anxiety, or irritability?
16. Do you have frequent skin rashes, eczema, or psoriasis?

If you answered yes even to ONE of these, you might have an undiagnosed food allergy. If you answered yes to 3 or more you most certainly do.

For the full scoop on food allergies and how they are affecting your health, your energy, and your life, join me on January 3rd, 2012 for a free teleseminar:

Turning Food Allergies Inside Out: Revealing the Causes, Culprits, and Cures
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012, 7:30 p.m. Central

This food allergy teleseminar will cover:

• What’s happening in your body that causes your immune system to start attacking your food
• The step-by-step sequence of events that occurs during a food allergy reaction
• The most common food triggers
• The role of your digestive tract in causing and clearing food allergies
• Elimination diets and how they work
• Lab testing for food allergies
• Retesting culprit foods
• Enjoying your food, loving your life

I’ll go into even more detail about the effects of food allergies, so be sure to join us:

Register HERE!

If you’re tired of being tired, unfocused, and uncomfortable, or if you are sick of the weight that just won’t budge despite your best efforts, you owe it to yourself to explore whether food allergies are contributing to your ill health.

Learn how to become energetic, happy, and productive once more.

Food Allergy References

(1) Analysis of Intestinal Flora Development in Breast-Fed and Formula-Fed Infants by Using Molecular Identification and Detection Methods. Harmsen, Hermie J. M.; Wildeboer-Veloo, Alida C. M.; Raangs, Gerwin C.; Wagendorp, Arjen A.; Klijn, Nicolette; Bindels, Jacques G.; Welling, Gjalt W. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition: January 2000 – Volume 30 – Issue 1 – pp 61-67.

(2) Influence Of Maternal Good Antigen Avoidance During Pregnancy and Lactation on Incidence of Atopic Eczema in Infants. R. K. Chandra; S. Puri; C. Suraiya; P. S. Cheema. Clinical & Experimental Allergy: Volume 16, Issue 6, pp 563-569, November 1986.

(3) Is Infant Immunization a Risk Factor for Childhood Asthma or Allergy? Trudi Kemp; Neil Pearce; Penny Fitzharris; Julian Crane; David Fergusson; Ian St. George; Kristin Wickens; and Richard Beasley. Epidemiology Vol. 8, No. 6 (Nov., 1997), pp. 678-680 (article consists of 3 pages) Published by: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3702662

(4) Antibiotic Administration Early in Life Impairs Specific Humoral Responses to an Oral Antigen and Increases Intestinal Mast Cell Numbers and Mediator Concentrations. S. Nutten; A. Schumann; D. Donnicola; A. Mercenier; S. Rami; and C. L. Garcia-Rodenas. Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2007 February; 14(2): 190-197. Published online 2006. December 6. doi: 10.1128/CVI.00055-06.

(5) Anti-Acids Lead to Immunological and Morphological Changes in the Intestine Of BALB/C Mice Similar to Human Food Allergy. Isabella Pali-Schöll; Ali Ö. Yildirim; Ute Ackermann; Tanja Knauer; Christoph Becker; Holger Garn; Harald Renz; Erika Jensen-Jarolim; Heinz Fehrenbach. Experimental and Toxicologic Pathology: Volume 60, Issues 4-5, 5 August 2008, pp. 337-345.

(6) Food Allergy: Recent Advances in Pathophysiology and Treatment. Annual Review of Medicine Vol. 60: 261-277 (Volume publication date February 2009). Scott H. Sicherer and Hugh A. Sampson. The Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Division of Allergy and Immunology, Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029-6574.

(7) Intestinal Permeability in Patients with Eczema and Food Allergy. P.G Jackson; R.W.R Baker; M.H Lessof; Jean Ferrett; D.M Macdonald. The Lancet Volume 317, Issue 8233, 13 June 1981, pp. 1285-1286.

(8) Stress and Intestinal Disease. By Adam Moeser. http://www.cvm.ncsu.edu/ccmtr/documents/Moeser.pdf

(9) Your Hidden Food Allergies are Making You Fat. Rudy Riera, MD and Roger Davis Deutsch.

(10) The Pulse Test. Arthur F. Coca.

(11) Dr, Mandellss 5 Day Allergy Relief System.

(12) Food Allergy Survival Guide. Vesanto Melinda MS, RD.

Gluten Free Raw Foods Recipes to the Rescue: Healthy Habits Lead to Happy Hormones

Gluten free diets have been lauded for every thing from autism to eczema, asthma to ADD.  But have you ever considered that gluten may be wrecking your sex life?

Can such a tiny little protein as gluten, found in all your favorite breads, pastas, desserts and breakfast cereals really create havoc in so many parts of your body?

The research overwhelmingly says YES!By destroying your hormones and the glands that produce them, gluten leaves no body part unscathed, even if your symptoms are confined to a few select areas.  The problem is, much of the damage caused by gluten is silent, until you reach a critical threshold, them fall apart.

Magic Moments Candies

This is especially true of gluten induced osteoporosis.I’ve seen it happen over and over again.So what’s the solution?  Is there a magic drug or herb or procedure you can do to cure the damage gluten creates in your body?

The good news is, the answer doesn’t require any drugs, radiation or special surgical procedure,it’s not dependent on hormone replacement or herbal remedies.

It’s not something that acupuncture or chiropractic can cure either, although both can be helpful in repairing the damage.

In fact the solution is absolutely free.

The answer is at the tip of your fork, your most powerful healing tool.

Drum roll please.

The solution is to stop eating gluten, which means no more bread, pie, cookies, crackers, bagels, croissants, breakfast cereal….

YIKES.   So, what’s left to eat?

Asian Salad on a Bed of Sprouted Lentils

Enter the wonderful world of raw foods.

You think all that processed CR_P is good, what until you taste the real thing.

And no, I don’t mean connect to the awesomeness of a carrot and make love with romaine lettuce – although eating food straight from nature is in fact the ideal.

What I mean is the magic that happens when someone who really had a knack for flavors and textures and bringing out the delicate essence of fresh whole food turns the ordinary into the extraordinaire.

Take for example the photos sprinkled throughout this article.  They are the foods we make in Eating for Hormone Balance.  Let’s face it! your hormones need and want lots of produce…cruciferous vegetables, sea vegetables, sprouts, high quality fats,   They’re thrown off by white flour, white sugar, processed fats, preservatives and hormones in your foods.

Happy Hormone Collard Wraps

We’ve figured out how to take the best of science in terms of hormone research and blend it with the best foods and herbs that nature has to offer.

By using all whole, raw and living foods, completely gluten and dairy free, we create masterful hormone boosting and balancing dishes that taste great.

We leave out all the top 5 allergens, so people with food allergies have a safe haven for clean food.

Here’s what we’re making

There’s still time to register for Eating for Hormone Balance.

Attend in person and get to eat the foods or attend online and get to watch real-time and get your questions answered.  In either case you get a video after class…fully indexed by recipe plus a recipe guide, all digital documents!

Learning to make delicious foods that nourish and protect is worth the investment at any price.

Register for Eating For Hormone Balance Live class or Web cast and get videos FREE

Dr. Lindsey Berkson, author of Safe Hormone, Smart Women  and 14 other books on hormones and health, believes that nutrition is the first line of defense in keeping your hormones safe and balanced.  Watch as she makes a hormone balancing green drink.

Creamy and Filling Green Drink with Dr. Lindsey Berkson

Learn a full range of delicious hormone balancing recipes from Dr. Ritamarie and Team

Eating for Hormone Balance

Chipolte Orange Mango Kale Chips

The Top Three Foods To Avoid at All Costs

- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

When it comes to the dangers of the Standard American Diet, it’s hard to limit all the possible exclusions to only the 3 top foods to avoid, but here goes. The three foods discussed in this video are devastating to your health:

In this video you’ll learn:

• why margarine not only swells your joints and muscles, it increases your risk of heart disease and cancer.
• the mechanism behind how sugar effects your metabolism and why high fructose corn sugar is so damaging to your liver.
• the dangers of white bread, the ridiculous approach to its production, and how it affects your blood sugar with empty, gluten-damaging calories.

One Dish Raw Food Meals for Summer: Pineapple Chipotle Salad

- by Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo

If your summer is keeping you busy and you want to include more raw food meals without spending hours in the kitchen, then all you need to do is find a few one dish meal recipes that deliver exciting and satisfying tastes.   I made this salad the other night after a busy day of work and rushing kids around to appointments.  It was quick, easy to prepare, and very delicious and satisfying.

The unusual combination of pineapple and sesame for the dressing is a delight to the taste buds.

Not only is this one dish meal for summer refreshing, light, and tangy, it’s a nutritional winner as it’s high in calcium and vitamin C!

Pineapple Chipotle Salad

Ingredients:

• 4 cups mixed greens
• 1 tomato, finely diced
• 1 cup finely diced red bell pepper
• 1 cup pineapple, cut into tiny cubes
• 1 cup pineapple plus core (for dressing)
• ¼ cup sesame tahini
• 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
• Water to desired consistency

Directions:

Place all vegetables in a bowl.  Put pineapple core and 1 cup pineapple in blender with tahini, chipotle, and salt.  Blend and pour over salad.

It’s so much fun to put together the ingredients on hand and create a masterpiece.

We did something similar in the One Dish Meals Class on Sunday.  I challenged Karen to go through my refrigerator, choose some ingredients and make a recipe on the fly in front of the entire class.  The pressure was on!!!

She made an amazing Arugula Salad containing fresh mango slices, heirloom tomatoes, sunflower sprouts and a few other ingredients.  The videos from this raw food class will be up in a few days so you can watch Karen create on the fly and learn to make an array of taste tantalizing one dish meals.  I loved the Curried Cauliflower, Caribbean Mung Beans and Sweet and Sour Broccoli.  You can enjoy these delicious recipes and more here! 

Looking for even more recipes? 

•  Delicious
• nutritious
• quick and easy
• sugar-free
• dairy-free
• gluten-free
• trans-fat free 

Discover Deliciously Quick Lunch and Dinner Ideas!  Find out more!