We Were Born to be Healthy:
Part 7 of 7

evolution rThis is the last installment of my 7-part series. Part 1 is HERE; Part 2 is HERE; Part 3 is HERE; Part 4 is HERE; Part 5 is HERE; and Part 6 is HERE.

 

Natural supplements for immune support
(These products are available through healthcare professionals.)

 

Some of my patients are interested in a natural way to support their immune system. I offer those patients four specific products that may enhance their immune system and gut microbiome during the healing process.

 

Andrographis Complex and Gotu Kola Complex support healing, and ProSynbiotic and Prescript-Assist support the gut microbiome.

 

Andrographis Complex contains Echinacea root, Holy Basil herb, and Andrographis herb. This herbal combination assists the immune system in fighting infection.
Andrographis for blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gotu Kola Complex contains Gotu Kola herb, Grape seed, and Gingko leaf. This herbal combination assists regeneration of connective tissue and supports circulation.
Gotu Kola for blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ProSynbiotic is a probiotic/prebiotic. This is a blend of 4 strains of research-supported probiotic microbes and 2 types of prebiotic fibers that help support a healthy gut microbiome.
ProSynbiotic for blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prescript-Assist is a probiotic/prebiotic. This is a blend of 29 soil-based microbial strains that have been research-supported to assist intestinal flora. It also contains a prebiotic composition of Humic and Fulvic acids.
Prescript-assist for blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preventive Medicine

 

My maintenance program is actually a preventive medicine program. In addition to an effective oral hygiene protocol, I recommend appropriate visits to a total-health-oriented dental office, a Paleo-type diet, and incorporation of other elements for health including restorative sleep, efficient exercise, and stress reduction.

 

My bottom line is to enhance the potential for quality of life.
Pillars of health for blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUMMARY

 

What we take in through our mouths has a profound influence on our overall health. All chronic disease, of which periodontal disease is one, is improved or worsened based on our diet and lifestyle. A Paleo-type diet and lifestyle will put in place the epigenetics that our genes require to function in a healthy state as we were designed to function.

 

We Were Born to be Healthy.

 

Part 1 is HERE; Part 2 is HERE; Part 3 is HERE; Part 4 is HERE; Part 5 is HERE; and Part 6 is HERE.

We Were Born to be Healthy:
Part 6 of 7

evolution rThis is installment 6. Part 1 is HERE; Part 2 is HERE, Part 3 is HERE, Part 4 is HERE, Part 5 is HERE.

 

Here is how I treat advanced gum disease in my office.

 

I first address the acute problem if there is one. Other dental procedures that need to be completed are treated. Then I perform specific gum treatment usually using the PerioLase laser with LANAP (Laser Assisted New Attachment Procedure).

 

Following active gum treatment, I establish a necessary maintenance program based on the needs of each patient.

 

But, I go a step further. I incorporate my knowledge of primal nutrition and my appreciation for gut health. I provide nutrition and immune support for my patients who are interested in improving their health for the rest of their lives.

 

Nutrient-Dense foods:

 

The science clearly shows that nutrient-dense foods are medicine. They allow every cell in our body to survive and thrive. The trick is knowing what these foods are and what they are not.

 

It is important to understand that any nutrient isolated alone in a synthetic supplement form does not produce the health effects, as would a whole food containing that nutrient. Real food contains so much more nutrient-synergism than we understand or comprehend. Our knowledge is not as advanced as we might think it is.

 

This is a typical meal of the Standard American Diet.

Burger for blog

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This is the obvious result of years of ingestion of the Standard American Diet.

Cellular damage was actually occurring and beginning to compound decades before clinical signs and symptoms were evident.

Overweight for blog

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here is a summary of nutrient-dense foods:

Animal proteins should be pastured and wild caught – not grain fed or farmed. Organ meats are one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet – liver, brain, heart, kidney (you may need to acquire a taste for these). Healthy fats are your friends, contrary to popular belief. Saturated fats from grass fed beef or pastured pork are healthy; coconut oil is healthy; avocados are healthy; butter from grass fed cattle is healthy. All non-starchy and deeply colored veggies are healthy. Seaweeds like kelp and wakame are healthy. All dark colored fruits like berries in moderation are healthy. Nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, and fermented foods are healthy. Homemade bone broth is extremely healthy for your gut. And don’t forget clean, filtered water.

 

A healthy plate of food

In order to get the combination of micronutrients and macronutrients your body requires and craves, you could think about eating in this way:
Food Plate for blog

For every meal or snack you eat, visualize it like a plate of food.

  • More than 1/2 of the plate should be non-starchy veggies with healthy fat like olive oil or melted butter from grass-fed cattle.
  • Up to 1/4 could be a protein like salmon or pastured chicken or grass fed beef with its own healthy fats.
  • And less than 1/4 could be a few nuts or a few blueberries or maybe a small sweet potato – again with some healthy fats if possible.

 

Here is what to avoid:

Grains, processed foods (including pasteurized milk products), sugars, industrial oils, and legumes (because of antinutrients and high carbohydrates) should be avoided. Animal products from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) should definitely be avoided. CAFOs are cluttered, unhealthy factories where antibiotics, hormones, chemicals, and other toxic substances often are administered to the livestock. Then these meats are processed for sale.

 

These are CAFOs

CAFO 1 for blogCAFO 2 for blog

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the next and last installment, I will discuss some natural supplements I suggest to my patients, and then I will wrap up my thoughts with my overall lifestyle philosophy.

We Were Born to be Healthy:
Part 5 of 7

evolution rThis is installment 5. Part 1 is HERE; Part 2 is HERE, Part 3 is HERE, Part 4 is HERE.

 

Leaky gut

 

Undigested proteins from grains, ingested toxins, and unhealthy levels of microbes can damage the one-cell-layer-thick lining of the intestines, creating small holes in the lining. This is called intestinal permeability or leaky gut. With constant exposure to indigestible peptides, toxins, and unhealthy bacteria, damage to the gut lining becomes more serious. Just like tears in cheesecloth, an opening or pathway is created for unwanted stuff to leak into the blood system.

 

Damage to the gut lining sets up a critical scenario.

 

Specific biological insults could occur:

  • Undigested peptides from grains and other undigested food particles could leak through these holes into the bloodstream.
  • Toxins and Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) that are very irritating could leak through these holes creating severe systemic inflammation.

 

The results:

 

Our immune system would react to these insults by creating a cascade of inflammatory reactions within the lumen of the intestines as well as within the bloodstream and throughout the rest of the body.

 

Complicating this process, some of these invading peptides might look like normal proteins in other tissues of our body. After enough insult to our body through this leaky gut, our immune system could become confused and begin attacking the normal cells of various organs that looked like these invading peptides (called molecular mimicry). Those tissues and organs that had the weakest genetic predisposition could become affected – possibly the Beta cells in the pancreas resulting in type 1 diabetes; possibly the skin cells resulting in psoriasis; possibly the thyroid cells resulting in hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis; possibly the joint cells resulting in rheumatic arthritis; or possibly the periodontal tissues resulting in periodontitis.

 

We are more bacteria than human

 

Our human body is made up of 10 trillion human cells. However, our body is host to 100 trillion microbial cells. Most of these live within our digestive system, and the far majority of them reside in the colon. We are healthy when these microbes are in a state of homeostasis. We are unhealthy when this delicate balance goes astray.

 

There are probably 35,000 or more microbial species in our gut, most of which cannot be cultured through normal means. Gut bacteria affect our entire body including our mouths.

 

Studies have shown that patients with inflammatory bowel disease have unhealthy bacterial changes in their saliva. Research also has shown that species of gut bacteria have been able to become dormant, live intracellularly in red blood cells without detection, and then migrate to distant organs of the body, resulting in infections of apparently unknown origin. Healthy bacteria in fermented foods have been shown to improve the bacterial components in dental plaque in a randomized controlled trial involving a population of school children. All this research demonstrates how bacteria from the gut influence our entire body.

 

By returning the gut bacteria to a healthy balance is proving promising for various diseases. Some cutting-edge procedures like Fecal Microbiota Transplants (FMT) (Here, Here) have replaced bad bacteria in the gut successfully with healthy populations to cure Clostridium difficile, an otherwise difficult infection to treat. These procedures currently are being investigated for the treatment of obesity, Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclerosis, and even ALS – all of which have been shown to have chronic inflammation as the underlying cause.

 

Periodontal disease is a chronic inflammatory disease, which may very well respond to reestablishment of healthy gut bacteria.

We Were Born to be Healthy:
Part 4 of 7

evolution rThis is installment 4. Part 1 is HERE; Part 2 is HERE, Part 3 is HERE.

 

Studies (Here, Here, Here) have shown that a Paleo-type diet embraces those nutrients that allow our individual cells to survive and thrive, and has been the way of eating through the course of human evolution. I will go into a full description of this way of eating in a future installment, but first I will discuss the connections and underlying causes of chronic inflammation and chronic disease?

 

Here is the connection – the vicious cycle.

 

What goes into our mouths affects our good bacteria and our overall health. Our gut bacteria are the major players in health and disease.

 

Our guts never evolved to deal with acellular carbohydrates effectively. These acellular carbohydrates changed the gut bacteria (known as the gut microbiome) and increased the harmful types of microbes. Harmful bacteria and lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which are cell membrane remnants of dead gram-negative bacteria, began to proliferate in the gut causing irritation and imbalance of bacteria. This is an unhealthy development.

 

LPS

 

I have created this diagram to help you visualize the damaging part of gram-negative bacteria.

 

LPS for Website

 

My diagram is a make-believe bacterium, half of which represents a gram-positive bacterium and the other half represents a gram-negative bacterium. The left half is the gram-positive part and the right half is the gram-negative part. The cytoplasm (the liquid center of the cell) is noted in the center and the cell membrane is identified with white arrows.

 

The most distinguishing feature telling the two bacteria apart is the outer layer of their cell membranes. The outer layer of the cell membrane of the gram-positive bacterium is relatively smooth; the outer layer of the cell membrane of the gram-negative bacterium is extremely jagged. This rough layer is known as the Lipopolysaccharide outer shell, and it only occurs on gram-negative types.

 

After gram-negative bacteria die, the LPS remnants can act like spurs. They become serious problems if they get into the bloodstream.

 

An accumulation of unhealthy bacteria in our gut is not the only problem. Ingested toxins also can irritate the intestinal lining. In addition, our digestive system never evolved to completely breakdown the proteins in grains.

 

In the next installment I will describe how LPS, toxins, and undigested proteins get into the bloodstream to cause havoc.

We Were Born to be Healthy:
Part 3 of 7

evolution rThis is the 3rd installment. Part 1 is HERE, and Part 2 is HERE.

 

Ian Spreadury wrote a seminal paper in 2012 reviewing 112 peer-reviewed articles, which helped create for me a clearer perspective of being healthy. The answers to “What happens and why?” take shape with the dawn of civilization.

 

About 10,000 years ago, the age of civilization began. With it, grain agriculture emerged. The seeds of grasses were cultivated and then processed into flour. Flour could feed the masses. But, flour was an acellular carbohydrate.

 

What’s the big deal with acellular carbohydrates?

 

All of our plants are made up of cells that have cell walls. When we eat plants, our digestive system naturally breaks down these cell walls and utilizes the nutrients of the entire cell. When man places unnaturally high pressure and heat on plant cells, the cell walls are destroyed and the resulting product is a highly condensed substance without cell walls. These are acellular carbohydrates.

 

Man took the seeds of grasses, destroyed their cell walls, and created an acellular carbohydrate called flour. Many of the original nutrients within the natural cell were lost. Sugary foods also were processed into acellular carbohydrates. As these processed carbohydrates became commercialized, many varieties of carbohydrate-dense foods were created. These dense, acellular carbohydrates have played havoc on our digestive systems ever since.

 

Today, most Americans eat dense, acellular carbohydrates at every meal and for every snack. Ian Spreadbury recognized that the foods that contained 23% or less carbohydrate density were more easily handled by our digestive system; foods that contained more than 23% carbohydrate density were implicated in chronic inflammation and chronic disease.

 

The food we eat is part of the answer to the question, “What Happens and Why?”

 

(For your information, I have listed some common foods with their carbohydrate densities: “less than or equal to 23%” and “more than 23%”. I’ve also listed a government-sponsored website and instructions that you can use to calculate the carbohydrate density for almost any food you can think of. Both are at this link.)

 

Here are summaries of two papers that demonstrate how our food can be our best medicine.

 

Scientific Paper # 1:

 

An experiment was reported in the Journal of Periodontology in 2009. Ten individuals were allowed to eat whatever they could fish, forage, and cook over a course of four weeks. They only were given some basics of whole, unprocessed foods to start off. They could not practice any oral hygiene. At the beginning of the study, bacterial cultures were taken from their tongues, dental plaque, and gum pockets along with recordings of pocket depths and points of gum bleeding. At the end of four weeks, the researchers discovered that the plaque levels had increased in both volume and varieties of bacterial species. However, they were surprised that the species of bacteria were not virulent and that pocket depths as well as bleeding points decreased significantly. In essence, these individuals ate nutrient-dense whole foods, didn’t practice any oral hygiene, and their signs of gum infection decreased.

 

Scientific Paper #2:

 

In this other paper, researchers summarized results of 37 clinical studies to determine the actual nutrients that assisted in periodontal healing after surgery or assisted in overall periodontal health. Here are the nutrients most often associated with gum health:

  • Vitamin D (primary source: the sun; dietary sources: fatty fish, pastured eggs)
  • DHA (dietary sources: oily fish like salmon, sardines, anchovies)
  • Low ratios of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids (In the US the ratio is about 30:1, but in healthy societies it is closer to 1:1)
  • Low processed carbs and high fibers (dietary sources: fruits and vegetables)
  • Calcium (dietary sources: bones and bone broth, dark leafy greens, canned salmon with bones)
  • Magnesium (dietary sources: Swiss chard, spinach, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts, raw cocoa)
  • Vitamin C (dietary sources: broccoli, citrus)

 

It would be interesting if there were a diet that incorporated an abundance of these nutrients in its base of food choices.

 

And, there is. It’s the Paleo-type diet Here, Here, Here.

We Were Born to be Healthy:
Part 1 of 7

evolution rWe were born to be healthy. Is that such a difficult concept to wrap your head around?
 
Over these seven installments, I will share my story and what I have learned to unequivocally state, “We were born to be healthy.”
 
Since I’m a periodontist, I’m going to take a dental perspective. However, the health of our body and the health of our mouths are intimately and intricately connected. What happens in any human cell eventually affects every other cell to some extent. So, let’s get on with the task of being the healthy specimen we were designed to be.
 
My enlightenment
 
For the first 66 years of my life, I was an unhealthy guy. I thought I was healthy, but I wasn’t. As a matter of fact, in 2006 I had a stroke. From 2006 until 2013, I actively pursued a new course to get healthy. I began exercising aerobically 5 days a week for about an hour a day. I ate low-fat, high carb/high fiber foods because my physicians told me that was what I should do. But, if I was getting healthier, why was I gaining weight?
 
Then I took an unbelievable 5-day CE program in 2013 called Nutrition Intensive for Healthcare Professionals. I thought this would hone my skills and confirm what I was doing was on track. It had a different slant from what I was previously learning; it was based on ancestral nutrition. To my surprise, in those 5 days I learned that what I was doing was essentially wrong. The basic truths I was told to believe were actually false. That blew me away. My foundation was rocked.
 
I went on from there to get educated, as I had never been educated in my entire professional career. I eventually became a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner and a Certified Primal BluePrint Expert. Concepts began to gel, and I knew we as humans were born to be healthy.
 
I am now the poster-boy for a Primal Lifestyle. It has changed my entire life and my total body health. In the last two and a half years, my blood chemistries have improved significantly, and I have lost over 30 pounds without “dieting”. I am a work in progress.
 
I am healthier today than I have ever been. And, I have incorporated what I have learned into my treatment for my periodontal patients who want to know.
 
Things to think about
 

  • We were not born with a Lipitor deficiency.
  • We were not born with a fluoride deficiency.

 
We were born to be healthy, but disease is rampant.
 
Disease happens for a reason. There must be cellular damage that eventually manifests into some type of definable disease. For example:

  • Something happens to our cellular function to create cardiovascular disease.
  • Something happens to our biological chemistry to create tooth decay.
  • Something happens to our immune system to create gum disease.

 
The question is, “What Happens and Why?” By the end of these installments, you will know what I believe happens to disrupt our body and take it off its designed course of health.

Best Dental Insurance You Can Have

evolution rWhat’s the best dental insurance? It’s not the dental rider on your employer’s health plan. It’s not the government-assisted program better known as a freebie. It’s not some self-pay contraption. It’s none of those obvious things.
 
The best dental insurance is you doing what you need to do for yourself to prevent dental disease altogether. Yup. It’s all you – with a little help from your diet, your lifestyle, and your motivation.
 
Let’s be clear. Our primal ancestors hardly ever had gum disease or tooth decay. There are many reasons – they didn’t eat processed foods; they weren’t exposed to the environmental toxins of today; they didn’t live with chronic psychological stress many of us are coping with. Oh yeah, they ate nutrient-dense foods and lived an active lifestyle. All those things (1) provided nourishment for their cells to survive and thrive, (2) maintained diverse and healthy gut bacteria, and (3) sustained an intact intestinal lining.
 
In today’s world, we can’t duplicate what was around in the Paleolithic Era. And, we wouldn’t want to live that way! But, today we can incorporate the best of that world with the best of our current way of life. Here are the steps I think we all could take to provide ourselves with the best dental insurance (and for that matter, overall health insurance):

  • Consume nutrient-dense foods. A Paleo-type diet stands out as being the best from my personal research and experience.
  • Sleep restoratively. Sleep about 7-8 hours a night starting from the hours between 9 PM and 11 PM. Make it a dark, cool, quiet room.
  • Exercise efficiently. This includes a combination of (1) some aerobic exercise, (2) 1-2 days a week of brief, high-intensity interval training, (3) 1-2 days a week of brief, intense strength training, and (4) non-exercise movements during the course of most of each day.
  • Reduce stress. Meditate; practice yoga; try diaphragmatic breathing; and experiment with progressive, total body muscle relaxation.
  • Practice effective oral hygiene. Brush into the gum margins; floss and clean the between surfaces of each of your teeth; scrape the topside of your tongue to remove odor forming bacteria and microscopic food remnants.
  • Visit a dental professional as necessary. Appointments don’t need to be every 6 months. They need to be with a frequency that addresses your individual needs – sometimes every couple of months and sometimes every few years.

 
There you have it. The best dental (and overall health) insurance you can have.

Paleo and Perio:
Who’da Thunk?

evolution rWho would have thought that a Paleo Diet could improve or prevent periodontal disease (gum disease)? The science is there, and its interpretation is exciting. Here are two papers that have great importance:
 
PAPER #1:
 
In a paper published in 2009, researchers evaluated a group of 10 people who lived for 30 days in a replicated Stone Age environment near the Rhine River in Switzerland. The design of this research required a diet that was devoid of all processed foods. Their diet only consisted of foods that ancient people would have consumed in that geographical area around 5,700 years ago. They were given some basics of raw food, but they had to forage and fish for most of their food. During the 4-week course of the study, these individuals were unable to perform any oral hygiene; they were not given any modern gadgets like toothbrushes or dental floss. At the beginning of the study, any existing gum problems were recorded and the types of bacteria present in their mouths were determined.
 
At the completion of the 4-week experiment, plaque levels at the gum line around the teeth increased as expected. However, researchers were surprised by a reduction in gum infection. The depths of infected gum pockets decreased significantly (p < 0.001), and bleeding from the gum pockets decreased significantly (p < 0.001). When bacteria in the mouth were examined at the end of the study, those samples revealed a change in the balance of bacteria, which favored healthy types of microbes rather than pathogenic ones. Good bacteria increased; bad bacteria decreased; plaque increased; and the individuals could not perform any oral hygiene for the entire 30 days – the researchers were shocked!
 
The reasons for the surprise results were the ingestion of nutrient-dense foods (these positively affected the gut and mouth microbiome along with the intestinal lining) as well as the complete avoidance of any processed foods (these would have damaged the gut and mouth microbiome along with the intestinal lining).
 
A diet that supports this type of healthy outcome is a Paleo-type diet.
 
PAPER #2:
 
It would be helpful if specific nutrients that were contained in foods could be identified that improved mouth health. In a paper that was published in 2013, the authors performed an extensive search of peer-reviewed literature attempting to identify the types of nutrients that could help tissues heal after periodontal surgery and help prevent periodontal disease.
 
If a diet contained these beneficial nutrients in abundance in their natural states, it probably would be embraced. Nutrients in their natural state and contained in food are much more effective biologically than nutrients that are commercially isolated and unnaturally provided in supplement form.
 
The authors of this analysis reviewed 37 published papers and concluded, “There is some evidence that a wide variety of dietary components – including macronutrients and micronutrients – are integral for optimal periodontal health as well as healing after periodontal procedures.”
 
Here is a summary of the nutrients that were reported either to improve healing after periodontal surgery or to reduce the incidence of periodontal disease:

  • Vitamin D
  • DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid that is abundant in fatty fish like salmon)
  • Low ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids (ideal ratio is 1:1; average US diet consists of ratio about 30:1)
  • Low ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids (ideal ratio is 1:1; average US diet consists of ratio about 30:1)
  • Low sugar and processed carbohydrates; high fiber
  • Calcium
  • Magnesium
  • Vitamin C

 
A diet that incorporates all these nutrients within its food choices is a Paleo-type diet.
 
MY SUMMARY
 
A Paleo-type diet avoids processed foods that have been identified with gut dysbiosis, intestinal permeability, and chronic inflammation. A Paleo-type diet provides all the nutrients needed for every cell to survive and thrive. Such a diet consists of animal products from head to tail that have been pasture raised or wild caught, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. There are no acellular carbohydrates, no processed foods, and no unhealthy fats or oils included in a Paleo-type diet.

Is Gum Disease an Autoimmune Disease?

evolution rGum disease (or periodontal disease) can be viewed as an acute infection as well as a chronic infection. Is the chronic phase actually related to an autoimmune reaction?

 

An autoimmune disease is a disease in which the body produces antibodies that attack its own tissues, leading to the deterioration, and in some cases to the destruction, of its healthy tissue.

 

In the acute phase of periodontal disease, bacteria can initiate an infection and inflammation with significant swelling and bleeding and pain. Taking an antimicrobial or removing the irritant causing the distress could relieve the acute symptoms and destroy some of the offending microbes. Acute means a condition of short duration but typically severe.

 

In the chronic phase of periodontal disease, inflammation exists for a long time or is constantly recurring. Chronic diseases don’t heal by themselves, and they grow worse over time. A chronic disease usually doesn’t have one single cause but rather several factors that give rise to the disease. Individuals with chronic disease generally also have complex symptoms.

 

Could chronic periodontal disease have many components, one of which being an autoimmune response?

 

Dr. Alessio Fasano has suggested that autoimmune diseases are a result of these three elements:

  • A genetic predisposition, and
  • An environmental trigger (like diet or bacteria), and
  • Leaky gut.

 

In his conclusion, if you could eliminate any one of these, then you could potentially eliminate the autoimmune reaction.

 

It is interesting to note that many inflammatory markers in patients with periodontal disease are the same ones present in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is considered an autoimmune disease. Some researchers have raised the question, “Which came first, Rheumatoid Arthritis or Periodontal Disease?”

 

In November 2013, several researchers published a paper demonstrating that specific intestinal bacteria were strongly correlated with newly acquired rheumatoid arthritis in their patient base. Also, these researchers showed that those specific bacteria when placed into the guts of sterile mice caused inflammatory reactions like those in their rheumatoid arthritis patients.

 

It is not a big leap to consider that specific unhealthy bacteria in the gut are actually initiating or contributing to the development and progression of chronic periodontal disease. Therefore, it would not be a big leap to consider improving the diet to eliminate the offending “foods” that cause unhealthy changes not only in the gut lining but also in the healthy microbiome of the gut. The lifestyle that might work the best could incorporate a Paleolithic-type diet.

 

 

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My Favorite Paleo Recipes:
Salmon-Crab Croquettes with Spicy Honey Mustard Sauce

 
evolution rI combined two of my favorite seafood (salmon and crab) into one dish. The seasonings and textures join to provide a tasty meal. Lots of nutrients and trace minerals make this a nutrient-dense main course. I place the croquettes on a bed of greens and avocados and top off with my spicy sauce for a satisfying and Paleo healthy dinner.

Croquettes 5
 
Ingredients:

 
Croquettes
 
1 can (7.5 oz) wild caught sockeye salmon with skin and bones, drained
1/2 can (8 oz) lump crabmeat, drained
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 Tbs dried chopped basil
1 Tbs dried chopped parsley
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tsp Kelp Granules (I use Sea Seasonings brand)
1 Tsp sea salt
1/2 Tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 Tsp ground pepper
1 Tbs lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
Ghee or Coconut Oil for pan
Bed of salad greens and chopped avocado on which to place croquettes
 
Spicy Honey Mustard Sauce
 
2 Tsp wasabi powder (I use Sushi Sonic Real Wasabi)
2 Tsp local raw honey
1/3 C healthy mayo
3 Tbs Dijon mustard
 
Preparation:
 
Croquettes

  • In a large bowl, fold-in all ingredients (except ghee or coconut oil)
  • Shape into 6 patties

Croquettes 4

  • Place patties on a plate covered with paper towels (this absorbs excess moisture) and place in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  • Heat a large pan over medium heat, and add ghee or coconut oil.
  • Add the patties to pan, turn down heat to low, and cook covered until bottoms are browned (about 5 minutes). Turn and cook covered until the other side is brown (about another 5 minutes).
  • Serve croquettes on a bed of greens with chopped avocado and topped with Spicy Honey Mustard Sauce

 
Spicy Honey Mustard Sauce

  • Mix wasabi powder with enough cool water to make a paste. Wait 10 minutes for it to develop flavor.

Croquettes 1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  • Add honey to paste and mix well.

Croquettes 2
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  • In mixing bowl, add mayo, mustard, and honey wasabi mixture. Mix well.

Croquettes 3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  • Use as dressing to top off croquettes and salad.

Croquettes 5