Do you struggle to find recipes that work for your family with a restricted diet? Perhaps you deal with food allergies, food sensitivities or are on a healing diet.  I’m here to take away a little of the pain! Our family manages dozens (yes dozens!) of food sensitivities plus a corn allergy and autoimmune disease.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE ♥

I’ve scoured the internet to bring you SIMPLE, DELICIOUS, real-food recipes. The recipes you will find here generally follow these guidelines:

Healing with Real Food

Remember that old saying “eat what’s on the outside isles of the grocery store?”  Well, we do that now, and it’s working!

As the primary cook for our family, it can be a challenge to find recipes that work for everyone. My kids are gluten-free, and my husband follows a standard Paleo diet template which avoids grains, dairy (raw dairy is ok on occasions if you tolerate it), sugar, processed foods, beans, and alcohol.

Because I manage an autoimmune disease and am working to prevent others from occurring, I choose to follow the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) template which takes the Paleo diet one step further and limits additional inflammatory foods that often aggravate those with autoimmune conditions. Best-selling author, blogger, and scientist, Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, explains AIP here.

I know, many of you are shaking your head right now wondering, “what DO you guys eat!?” I get that question all of the time, and it’s quite simple. We eat REAL food!…pastured meat and poultry, wild caught fish, vegetables (LOTS of green ones!), fruit and healthy fats needed for healthy brains. What most people don’t realize is that we eat WAY more vegetables now than we did when we were vegan.

To learn more about my healing journey, click HERE.


Our Favorite AIP and PALEO Cookbooks:


Does eating a modified diet take a little getting used to?

Of course! It doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, this has been a 10-year journey for me. But once you feel (and see) the healing benefits, you naturally want to do more of what you were doing. You become committed to your health and feeling good. Each day becomes a new step forward.

Is it easy to follow a Paleo diet? 

Yes and no. A big portion is your mindset. If you focus your attention only on what you cannot eat, then it’s going to be a struggle. However, if you focus on all of the wonderful, colorful foods you CAN eat, then it’s going to be a much easier transition for you.

It took a few months at first, but how we approach restaurants, which can often pose the biggest problem at first, is we ignore everything else on the menu and immediately zoom in on what we can eat. I quickly skim the menu to find what meat and veggies I have to work with and go from there.   At restaurants we often order burgers with no buns, skip the pasta and rice and load up on veggies. Not too shabby when you think about it.

For me, well it’s a little different story. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a roller coaster battling cravings, especially sugar. But I don’t give up because I’ve felt the benefits that this type of diet has on my body and especially my brain.  It took experimenting with many different diet protocols (raw foods, vegetarian, vegan, SCD, Paleo, AIP) to find what worked best with my body and then make additional tweaks.

Paleo works great for my husband because he can tolerate nuts and seeds and nightshade spices. I’ve discovered that those wreak havoc on my body due to my autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, and therefore I found that the AIP diet works best for my body right now. In addition, I know that healing my gut is a key component and that takes time.

Health is not “one size fits all.” Patience is key. Be gentle with yourself and with the process when making a change.

On the plus side, I discovered that chronic bloating and gas ARE NOT NORMAL and are cured with a change in diet. Yay! That’s when the lightbulb went off in my head. I’m very thankful that ultimately, an elimination diet, helped me tune into my innate wisdom.

My body is telling me, loud and clear, exactly what it wants and doesn’t want right now so I’m going to listen and help each of YOU tune into your bodies.

In the meantime let’s enjoy some delicious, healthy, allergy-friendly recipes!

Peace and Love,

 ♥ Jennifer