Best Recipes

Oh, where to begin?

I love food. Food is a great pleasure and great food is a pleasure to share. This time of year especially, I seek out recipes that will not only be delicious, but also a bit festive. Following the autoimmune version of the paleo diet can be challenging, however, as many of the best recipes include nightshade vegetables or eggs. And many of sites out there are more primal than paleo, allowing cheese from time to time as well. Not that there isn't some room for flexibility in most diets, but when you are trying to eat paleo for autoimmune reasons, it can be hard to find a recipe that meets your needs.

So I have decided to put together a small guide to get you through those first critical couple of weeks. The paleo diet for autoimmune suffers is not about losing weight. Some blogs about the paleo diet recommend that you eat a very low carb diet, or focus more on weight loss than on autoimmune health. But for me, the paleo diet is about cutting out things that increase or cause my inflammation. I try to focus on eating whole foods and getting anywhere from 30-100 grams of carbohydrates per day. I just don't worry about whether or not I am gaining or losing weight right now. I am just trying to focus on eating a pretty restrictive version of the paleo diet, and doing it in an affordable way.

I focus on finding recipes I like and adapting them to fit my needs. After a while, it will become easy and second nature, and I won't feel like I am missing out. I find the best approach is to take recipes I like and change the ingredients to match my needs.

I have several favorite websites that I go to for recipes:

For delicious entrees and baked goods, I like Elana's Pantry and The Spunky Coconut.

While not as strict as autoimmune-paleo, both sites feature wonderful baked good recipes, and a flair a for creative cooking with limited ingredients. Elana also follows the paleo diet and has many yummy recipes on her site for main dishes, vegetables, side dishes, and is currently doing a series on home-made Christmas gifts.

Another one of my favorite paleo recipe sites is CFSCC Presents: Eat this! Moderated by Kelly Greco, this has dozens of really excellent Paleo recipes. Many of them feature tomatoes and peppers, but I just leave them out...

Megan's Menu is another site I like to visit. Megan has many great paleo versions of comfort foods like pizza and chicken soup, and is not afraid to experiment!

One of the best sites out there right now, in my opinion is the Paleo Diet Lifestyle. It is a great resource for recipes, and even though it does often use nightshade vegetables, and sometimes dairy, I either leave those items out, or substitute them when possible.

So these are only a few of the sites I look to regularly for inspiration, and I hope that you find them useful as as a place to begin.