Tara Prana

Mother. Teacher. Foodie. Friend.

Navigation

Falling off the sugar-wagon

by

Yep, it’s true. I’m saying it- I have fallen off the grain and processed sugar free wagon.

I have a high expectation of myself, particularly being a food-blogger. Once you blog about how you eat you have almost ‘put yourself out there’ to be judged by others. You don’t want to be snapped hoeing into something that goes against your food-stance (think “Paleo Food Blogger found eating Big Mac in dark alleyway”). Pete Evans, the Chef, was recently the target of this. The front page of a leading newspaper ‘exposed’ him as admitting to eating grains and sugar while judging the My Kitchen Rules TV series. As part of his paid employment. How ridiculous! If someone said they were eating low-fat food only and I caught them eating a pie, no one would care. When you claim to be grain or sugar free, it is somehow different.

No, I haven’t been eating Big Macs in dark alleyways! But over the Christmas/Summer/New Year period I became more relaxed. I would eat a chocolate here, a sweet there. If I went to a function or event and they had catered for gluten-free people, I would value and appreciate that and eat the gluten-free slice on offer, knowing it would have included soy flour and be loaded with refined sugar. When I went to cafes I started eating the gluten-free brownies and cakes again and at home kept eating more and more little chocolates that we had in the fridge. If I had run out of my own grain-free bread I would eat a slice or two of my daughters’ gluten-free bread.

Of course, this is not a huge deal. I didn’t fall to pieces or anything, and it is not like I started eating bread and pasta again and hanging out at McDonalds. I was just having a ‘little bit more sugar’ again and eating gluten-free grains. Hardly a big deal, I thought!  I had also stopped having my regular bone broths as, being summer, it was just too hot. I felt okay, but not quite in my best health. I had also started to steadily put on weight and found it hard to keep it off- an unfamiliar concept for me who spent 18 months desperately trying to gain weight and at the height of my illness was 12kg less than I am now!

Then I decided to write and produce a book in a very short space of time. It was a happily-hectic time and I felt drained and run down after the book’s release, but I didn’t mind. I was happy with what I had created.

However, I got sick. Not just a head cold but the proper, awful flu with fevers and ending in a bad chest infection and anti-biotics.

You see, since starting to ‘eat clean’ exactly two years ago and healing myself through GAPS, I have not been sick. I have had a head cold once but that is all. If you knew me before (wheat-eating, potato chip and pie-loving Tara) you would have known me as ‘Tara who always gets sick”. That’s how my boss saw me. It was awful. I was always unwell and if I got something, I got it badly. I’m talking bed-ridden for 5 weeks, unable to work for 8 weeks. If I had to have anti-biotics my body would go into turmoil.

The wonderful, lovely, amazing thing is that that didn’t happen this time. That won’t happen to me anymore. Because of the healing and the nourishing and loving that I have done for my body and mind, it bounced back after illness. Yeah, I feel run-down and not-quite-right as I try to consume more pro-biotics and restore the balance. But I am not bed-ridden and I now trust my body to do it’s thing. It was a helpful reminder to ease off the sweets, take the chocolate out of the house (except I was gifted some again yesterday-eek!!) and get back into my bone broths and grain-free cooking again. I’m not going to beat myself up or feel guilty- I may blog about grain and sugar free eating but I am still human! The important thing is that I re-focussed and started listening to my body once again.

Have you learned to listen to your body, or do you still struggle with this? It can be hard when we don’t actually want to hear what it is saying!

“Lalalalalalalalala!”

Tara x

*Here are some SKINNY BUT SICK TARA and CHUBBIER THAN I WOULD LIKE TO BE BUT HEALTHY AND HAPPY TARA pictures!

IMG_3684

I felt really weak and drawn at this time. Don’t worry, my youngest isn’t sad that I am unwell, she just liked to cry back then. A lot. Oh, actually still does now.

I thought I looked good back then, but now I just see pale and drawn.

I thought I looked good back then, but now I just see pale and drawn.

Healthy me with colour in my face and sunshine in my smile!

Healthy me with colour in my face and sunshine in my smile!

Healthy Jellies!

by

IMG_1521 I didn’t really know much about Gelatin before going grain-free.

I knew that Jelly (or Jello if you are North American) was yummy but assumed it was not that good for you due to the sugar and artificial colouring it contains. This is actually an interesting point as it is probably most recognised as the food served in hospitals!

During my personal health journey of healing my gut with bone broths and stews, I quickly realised the benefits contained in good quality Gelatin from grass-fed meat and their link to gut repair. After all, this is predominantly how I healed myself by following the GAPS protocol. Because I was following many Paleo and GAPS diet blogs, I started seeing a Gelatin product that was sourced from grass-fed animals being used in various recipes. I purchased some and started experimenting with jelly and jelly shapes and then I heard about a ‘benefits of Gelatin’ workshop being run locally to me. It was run by Aimee from www.primalinfluence.com and taught us how to make the Jelly shapes that I had already been making using juice, but also Marshmallows and a Jaffa Panna Cotta! Don’t worry, I will share these other two recipes with you in another post- they were so delicious!

These days, I make the Jelly shapes about once a week and my daughters have them in their lunchboxes everyday. As a lunchbox addition it is just a wonderful sweet, fruity ‘treat’ but is packed with so many health benefits. Gelatin contains calcium, collagen, amino acids and magnesium and has gut-healing, anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties. I make sure that I always use the best-quality juice that I can get and only use Great Lakes’ Grass-fed Gelatin.

This recipe features in my eBook ‘Forget the Sandwich!- Fast, easy, whole-food, kid-approved lunchbox recipes and ideas by a Teacher, School-Mum and Food-Blogger’, along with other easy, nutritious snack and lunch ideas.

** This recipe has been amended- it previously read as 2 LITRES instead of 2 CUPS, an error which has now been fixed. My apologies if you tried the recipe with the incorrect measurements**

Healthy Jellies!
 
Print
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Healthy jellies perfect for a healthy snack or lunchbox item.
Author:
Recipe type: Snacks/Lunchboxes
Serves: 20+
Ingredients
  • 2 cups 100% Fruit juice
  • 4 TBS (AUS 20ml) Great Lakes Beef Gelatin powder
  • optional- 1-2TBS raw honey (or other sweetener)
  • optional- pinch of Beetroot powder
Instructions
  1. Grease jelly or chocolate moulds using macadamia oil (coconut oil will solidify).
  2. Pour the juice into a saucepan with a large surface area- don't heat yet!
  3. Sprinkle the Gelatin lightly and evenly and allow to 'Bloom' (it will start to look brain-like and the children will love watching!) for 5-10 mins or until translucent.
  4. Heat pan on medium heat and whisk until dissolved.
  5. If using, add optional sweetener and powder and keep whisking (I tend not to use sweetener if I am using apple juice)
  6. Pour into moulds and place in refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
  7. Remove from moulds and place in a container in the fridge.
  8. Lasts approx. 5 days in the fridge. Yield depends on molds.
Notes
You can purchase Great Lakes Gelatin from www.iherb.com. If I am using straight apple juice I use the beetroot powder to give it an appealing pink colour. I have also experimented with combining apple, pear and beetroot juice to obtain that colour. Play around with the fruits that your children enjoy.

IMG_1461IMG_1448IMG_1439IMG_1456IMG_1479IMG_1473

New Year EVolutions

by

This New Year’s Eve is different for me.

I generally go into the New Year with not much fanfare on the actual night, but a loose wish and hope that ‘Next year will be better/I will be wealthier/I will be happier’. I do a little prayer or make a little wish and then go about my business, my year and hope that those things ‘will just happen’ somehow. Isn’t that how it works??

No. Um, did you know that there is no New Year Santa equivalent who will magically grant me my wishes? Who will trim my thighs, boost my bank balance and make me magically ‘happy’ without me having to do anything? It seems I didn’t, for all these years.

So what has changed, what made me realise this disappointing fact? Well, just a major health crisis followed by traumatic personal experiences followed by my husband having brain surgery followed by a TOTAL PERSONALITY CHANGE. A good one, in a happy way. You know, like those spiritual people write about in their books about being reborn and seeing the light and finding who they truly are? I’m not one of those spiritual people. I’m actually quite the cynic, a pragmatic person and I don’t like rainbows. But now, after the aforementioned events I am kinda one of those people and I am going to say this: the other day I read a quote (but I can’t remember where or who said it or who quoted it-sorry!) but it said something like the following. The difference between change and transformation is that when you change, you can change back, but when you transform you can never go back. (*Disclaimer: If this is your amazing quote please let me know and I will credit you. Right here______).

And that explains the ‘why’. Why this New Year’s eve is different for me. Instead of blindly ‘wishing for 2015 to be better’ I am actively doing things to make it better. Not by saying I am going on a diet, not by saying I will exercise everyday and then won’t, but looking at myself, who I am and where I want to be this year. There are a few things that I have done to help me in this task:

  1. Learn to meditate. I have not started to regularly meditate and I have not made a resolution to ‘start meditating this year’ or anything. I have simply downloaded some meditation tracks by the lovely Melissa Ambrosini and it is my goal to open myself up to meditation and see if it works for me. It might not, so I am not going to make a silly resolution that I’ll do it all year.
  2. Make peace with 2014. Yeah…. that one. The truth is, I am not really there yet. Not at all. But some things have helped me to realise that this is actually really important. That many people look ahead to the new year with starry eyes, pushing the previous year behind them without making peace with it. Without acknowledging and accepting the negative things that happened in it and going through a process of closure. So that they can move on. Really, I am just happy that I have identified that I need to do this, and have started the process.
  3. Plan my 2015. If you had told me in the past that I needed to do this or that people actually did this I would have thought it funny! But I did a transformative thing. I bought a book. It is called Create Your Shining Year and it is not only going to change my year but my life I think! If you have not heard of this book check it out. Apart from the rainbows it is pretty bloody awesome. (*No, I am not an affiliate. Yet. I really want to be).

So yeah, that’s it. And sorry that I didn’t talk about Grain. Or No Grain. I’m aware that I’m actually the ‘Grain-free Lady’ and not the ‘spiritual advice lady’, but to add to my other wisdom I’ll end with this:

You can’t separate physical health from mental health from spiritual health. It took me a long time to work that one out too.

What are your New Year’s Resolutions Planned, active personal goals for 2015?

HAPPY New Year!

Tara xTara-Portraits-6

 

Tried and tested Banana pancakes!

by

Versions of this absolutely simple recipe have circled the internet blogosphere in many forms. This is mine.

OFGFD-Oct-22

Tried and tested Banana pancakes!
 
Print
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
This is my version of a well-documented easy 'pancake' recipe.
Author:
Recipe type: Lunchbox, Breakfast, Snacks, Kids food
Cuisine: Snacks
Serves: 2-5
Ingredients
  • 1 Large Banana (eg Cavendish not Lady Finger), the riper the better.
  • 2 Eggs (Preferably Free range/Organic/Pasture raised).
  • Butter or Ghee
  • Optional- Cinnamon or Nut butter.
Instructions
  1. Mash the banana well.
  2. In a separate bowl, Whisk eggs lightly.
  3. Combine (adding optional Cinnamon or Nut butter if using).
  4. Heat Butter or Ghee in frypan.
  5. Pour mixture to make preferred sized pancakes. I made pikelet-size.
  6. Flip then eat!
  7. Makes 2-5 depending on size. Can freeze in large batches for school lunches, but they do dry a little.

OFGFD-Oct-15

OFGFD-Oct-18 OFGFD-Oct-19 OFGFD-Oct-20 OFGFD-Oct-21

OFGFD-Oct-23

The first time I made these I couldn’t believe just how easy they were! Best of all, everyone in the house loves them.

I hope you do too!

 

Tara x