We eat a lot of eggs and butter in our household. My Elodie will almost always eat organic, humanely raised, pastured eggs. She will eat them scrambled, fried, in soups, in rice.. the girl just loves to eat eggs. Which is amazing really, since she won’t eat beef because cows are her friends. We have breakfast for supper or lunch several times a week. Sometimes I keep it simple, other times I spice things a little with other veggies or herbs. We’ll pair eggs with just about anything. There really isn’t a lot they won’t go with, and there are endless ways to cook them if you just a little creative ;). Eggs are a main staple in our household because of Elodie and because of my Cataplexy diet.
Wait… cata-what?
Cataplexy is “a sudden loss of muscle control with retention of clear consciousness that follows a strong emotional stimulus (elation, surprise, anger, embarrassment, laughter)” – Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary.
It’s a little more complicated that that though. There are several other factors that can affect cataplexy. Some of these factors are sex, sleep, diet, stress, certain physical movements, illness, or injury. The medical community is a little behind the times with a few these factors, though. Most neurologists will roll their eyes at you if you say your diet alters your cataplectic symptoms or if you say your symptoms worsen when you have a cold. At least that’s my personal experience and the experience of other patients who I have spoken to over the years. And you’re hard pressed to find medical information about alternative means of dealing with it. Laughter has to be one of the worst triggers for me. Because laughing good and hard makes me collapse to the ground someone tossing a sack of taters. Belly laughs are always better accomplished when sitting down or next to a soft something to fall into lol.
Cataplexy is basically a “sudden fall”. Kind of like passing out, only you are completely conscious the entire time. Episodes have been known to last a few seconds to a few hours (more rarely). Usually the episodes are followed by a complete recovery, but patients can become injured during falls. While a full fall is characteristic of cataplexy, it can also target individual muscle groups (neck, jaw, shoulders, limbs) Cataplexy is most often seen in patients with narcolepsy, however, there are the rare patients that experience cataplexy completely separately. When this happens, it is called Isolated Cataplexy. I happen to be one of the rare patients :). It’s like a won the oddball medical lottery or something!
I used pharmaceutical medications to control my cataplexy symptoms for several years. The medications worked wonderfully. Nearly all of my symptoms were halted immediately after beginning treatment. But that came at a huge price. I had endless side effects, and in the end, the side effects were not worth the good parts of taking the medications. I went off all of my medications (under the watchful eye of my doctors!!!) when I found out I was four weeks pregnant with my first child. I have been off all of my cataplexy medications every since.
I use alternative treatments that I found helpful like chiropractic care, relaxation techniques, herbs and essential oils, but this post is about the wonderful things dietary fats and cholesterol do to help my cataplexy symptoms. If you have access to the internet or a local news channel, you’ve probably seen or heard the new (and old but re-vamped) research surrounding the benefits of consuming proper dietary fats and cholesterol. In fact, the great egg debate took a complete turn when a large portion of the medical community changed it’s entire stance on the cholesterol found in eggs and heart disease. Authority Nutrition has an easy to understand article detailed (with sources!) some of the good benefits of consuming eggs. If you do a little research on pubmed, you will find countless articles about neurological condition and the therapeutic benefits of consuming dietary fats and cholesterol.
My medical conditions thrive with daily consumption of healthy fats, cholesterol, and carbohydrates. You will never see any low-fat ingredients in our house or in any of my recipes. I crash without fat, cholesterol, and carbs. And most of my crabs come from fruits. Because this is what works for me. This is what keeps me healthy. This is what helps control my pain and bad flare ups. This is what helps my neurological issues, my digestive issues, and my bladder issues. A full fat, cholesterol, and carb-ed up (mostly from fruits) lifestyle betters my health. And it’s one of the reasons I became a health coach. Our bodies might be the same basic anatomy, but we’re all individual people. We should eat according to that and according to how our bodies thrive. This just happens to be what makes all my innards happy :). And as a bonus.. I lose weight this way, which is a huge struggle with my four.. count ’em, FOUR.. reproductive disorders. So you’ll find us routinely munching dark chocolate, nuts, seeds, avocados, organic pastured butter, eggs, fatty fish, non-gmo fermented tofu, shrimp, raw organic pastured cheeses, bulletproof coffee/dandelion coffee, and all kinds of fresh fruits and soaked and sprouted ancient grains.
So.. we continued our eggs for supper tradition yesterday with some cast iron fried eggs with a scrumptious beet salad that gave me the dietary fats and cholesterol I needed yesterday. We paired the eggs and salad with watermelon and some beans for Elodie (she doesn’t eat salads right now).
IC Friendly Egg Tip: Eggs can be an IC trigger for some people, however, some ICers with egg troubles are able to eat organic pastured duck or quail eggs instead. Tucson has several local sources of duck eggs, so make sure you check in your local areas for sources around you. We found our source through a Craigslist search believe it or not, so make sure you check all avenues.
..Cast Iron Fried Eggs and Scrumptious Beet Salad with Sacred Herbs Dressing..
For the Cast Iron Fried Eggs:
– 2 tbsp grass-fed organic pastured unsalted butter
– organic pastured eggs
To make the eggs in a cast iron pan, take your well seasoned pan and place over medium heat. Melt two tablespoons of grass-fed organic pastured unsalted butter. Once the butter is completely melted, crack your eggs into the pan. Room-ish temperature eggs will typically cook much better in cast iron than cold eggs :). If you plan on flipping your eggs, wait until the pan-side egg is completely cooked before flipping, otherwise they will stick to the pan. This is were people go wrong cooking eggs in cast iron. Flip if you like. Runny eggs gross me out a little visually even though I like the taste, so we do a soft yolk instead. This way you still get some of the same nutritional benefits of a runny egg without the runny part that people sometimes object to. Remove from the cast iron pan as soon as they are done to your liking and wipe it down to clean.
I typically don’t eat a lot of salt, so we almost always use unsalted butter. It’s much more bladder friendly. I also don’t salt food very much. Since I was seasoning the salad with just a touch of salt, I didn’t add any to the eggs, but feel free to season them to your taste :).
For the Scrumptious Beet Salad:
– handful or two of organic greens of choice
– grated Beyond Organic Green-Fed Cheddar Cheese
– handful or two of organic fresh or pickled beets, thinly sliced into bite size pieces (use fresh for IC Friendly!)
– 2-3 tbsp of organic raw sunflower seeds
– about 10 or so organic Japanese cucumber slices
– thinly sliced organic onion (optional)
– sea salt to taste (optional)
– freshly ground black pepper to taste or IC Friendly Black Pepper Alternative (optional)
Salads are pretty straight forward :). Just combine all of the ingredients in a bowl, saving the sea salt and black pepper for last and use to taste. Then simply put a little salad dressing on it, and you’re good to go! Joel added organic raisins to his salad while I added sliced organic onion to mine. While we had fresh beets in the fridge, I have other plans for those this week :). I used organic pickled beets.
Most people with IC are unable to eat vinegar, but I have no trouble with it. We each a food that we can eat that others can’t, and vinegar happens to be mine! Lucky me. But if you can’t eat foods fermented in vinegar, simply slice fresh red or golden beets instead. As far as the Beyond Organic cheese goes, this is the only aged cheese that I have found to be IC friendly. Eowyn absolutely loves it! She would devour an entire block of it in one sitting if we allowed her to. She is highly sensitive to dairy, and the Beyond Organic dairy products are the only dairy products she can eat without getting terribly sick. They’re IC friendly and kind to the digestive tract :). Definitely worth a try if you’re hunting for IC and gut friendly options.
For the Sacred Herbs Salad Dressing (IC Friendly!):
– 2 tbsp of Beyond Organic Terrain Sacred Herbs
– 1 tbsp organic lemon juice or 1 drop of lemon essential oil (optional) -(I recommend buying lemon essential oil from Here or Here.)
– organic olive oil
Very simple salad dressing. Just mix it all together. I used a small attachment for my NutriBullet to make sure it was completely incorporated. And then just add it to your salad. See.. quick and easy :). If you want to make this dressing IC friendly, simply omit the lemon juice or try using a drop of lemon essential oil. Essential oils can be great alternatives to bladder triggers like citrus ingredients. Even without the lemon juice, the recipe tastes amazing. If you omit the lemon juice, you can add an extra tablespoon of Terrain Sacred Herbs.
This was a quick and easy IC friendly meal that was a great way to end a long day of cleaning and school work. Joel and I ate the leftovers for lunch today, with the addition of organic orange tomatoes in his salad. It’s definitely a salad I could eat over and over again considering the different beet combinations.
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happiness grows.. 