Salicylate Sensitivity

by Mila McManus, MD

A common challenge in our practice is identifying the source of sensitivities or intolerances. While dairy, gluten, and eggs are more common sensitivities, salicylate sensitivity is a real issue for some people and can cause adverse reactions in those who cannot tolerate it.

Salicylates (sặ∙lis∙y∙late) are a group of chemicals derived from salicylic acid. They are found naturally in some fruits, vegetables, spices, tea, wine, vinegar, honey, olives, and pickles, to name a few. Synthetic forms are used in manufacturing products such as toothpaste, perfumes, shampoos and conditioners, mouthwash, lotion, and medications such as aspirin and Pepto Bismol. Compared to foods, more potent amounts of salicylates are found in medications, which is why salicylate intolerance is most commonly linked to medications.

People with salicylate sensitivity cannot properly metabolize and excrete salicylates. One possible cause is the overproduction of leukotrienes, inflammatory mediators linked to a variety of conditions, including asthma, allergic rhinitis, anaphylaxis, rheumatoid arthritis, and interstitial lung disease. The build-up of leukotrienes in the body leads to the related symptoms of salicylate intolerance. Another likely cause is a sulfur deficiency. Often, a patient will avoid sulfur (e.g., garlic, onions, and sulfa drugs) to avoid reactions that will only create another deficiency. One deficiency can lead to another deficiency and reactions.

Diagnosis of salicylate intolerance is difficult. The most common symptoms can parade as an environmental allergy, with a stuffy nose and asthma. Or it could look like a sinus infection and inflammation, with nasal and sinus polyps. Yet others experience digestive issues, including diarrhea, gas, abdominal pain, and colitis. Some patients have all of these symptoms constantly coming and going. Many of the symptoms overlap with mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). There are no laboratory tests to diagnose it; however, healthcare professionals will use provocation as one standard test, which involves administering a small amount of salicylic acid and monitoring for symptoms. A trial elimination diet is another method.

The amount of salicylates that trigger a reaction can vary by individual. Some people experience symptoms after exposure to a small amount of these chemicals, while others can tolerate larger amounts before reacting. Extremely salicylate-sensitive people must avoid as many products, medications, and high-salicylate foods as possible. Unfortunately, a low salicylate diet can be restrictive and cause nutrient deficiencies. It is important to use a food and symptom diary and be monitored by a healthcare professional.

The bottom line is that salicylate sensitivity is worth exploring with a trial elimination diet when a patient doesn’t improve within two to three months in our program.

Be Well.

References

Htps://www.healthline.com/nutrition/salicylate-sensitivity

By Mila McManus MD|2025-05-24T15:58:05-05:00June 1st, 2025|Articles, General|

by Mila McManus, MD

Akkermansia is a unique probiotic that takes up 5% of the gut microbiome and thrives when we eat plenty of vegetables, nuts, and seeds. — Feed your Akkermansia by eating fiber!

Akkermansia is one of many favorable gut flora found in the gut microbiome. The gut flora (a.k.a. probiotics or good bacteria) are the natural bacterial barrier that lines the entire digestive tract and protects us from invasive, pathogenic (disease-causing) microorganisms such as yeast, opportunistic bad bacteria, and parasites. They also act as a barrier against the chemicals and toxins we swallow daily. Think of probiotics as the military force that protects your body from the outside world. Akkermansia is ideally populated at about 5 percent of the total bowel flora force and has unique characteristics and job duties. Let’s meet Akkermansia.

A unique characteristic of Akkermansia gut flora populations is that they require proper balance—not too few and not too many. This species helps to promote healthy intestinal mucus by promoting mucus production. Akkermansia are fed, and thrive on, pre-biotic fibers eaten by the human host (that’s you and me). Suppose Akkermansia does not have pre-biotic fibers to eat. In that case, another unique characteristic is that it will survive by consuming your mucosal lining, disintegrating the gut’s mucus lining, leading to intestinal inflammation, increased permeability, and endotoxemia – thus, the importance of balance. One of the pitfalls of a low-fiber Standard American Diet (SAD), or a carnivore, keto, or strict low-carb diet, is missing these important pre-biotic-fibers in plant foods. This leads to the overgrowth of Akkermansia which, in turn, can harm the gut.

We can prevent overgrowth, however! By consuming plentiful pre-biotic fibers, we help to feed Akkermansia and maintain the right population balance. While the balance is not so delicate that it needs to be carefully monitored, we can strike a healthy balance by including foods and supplements that cultivate the species, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, olive oil, and the supplement berberine, all of which exerts substantial benefits including:

Improves insulin responses
Increases butyrate production (protects gut barrier, modulates immune responses)
Reduces blood sugar
Reduces triglycerides
Prevents fatty liver
Strengthens the intestinal barrier and reduces inflammation there
Reduces endotoxemia (fancy word for toxins in the blood stream due to compromised gut barrier)

Feed your Akkermansia for a healthy gut. Starve your Akkermansia, and it will eat your gut! Eat your vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds! Be Well.

Akkermansia is available at The Woodlands Institute for Health and Wellness

References:

Davis, William. (2022). Super Gut. Hachette Books

PendulumLife.com/HCP

By Mila McManus MD|2025-05-20T07:32:25-05:00May 21st, 2025|Articles, General|

by Mila McManus, MD

With rare exceptions, salad dressing on a salad bar, restaurant menu, or the grocery store's dressing aisle is a toxic ingredient nightmare.

The nightmare begins when we have healthful intentions to eat a bowl of fresh salad and then top it off with a sabotaging salad dressing. Unfortunately, with rare exceptions, salad dressings on a salad bar, restaurant menu, or at the grocery store are a nightmare!

The number one offending ingredient in salad dressing is damaged seed oils. Most large producers of the most popular brands use inflammatory, damaged seed oils such as soybean, canola, or tainted blends that are unknown to the shopper. Damaged oils damage our cells and lead to toxicity and illness. They cannot nourish tissues, make new cells, repair, or detoxify the body. Rather, they are waste that must be stored or removed from the body, overtaxing the detoxification pathways. They are often stored as fat, and they can disturb the proper balance of HDL and LDL cholesterols in the body.

Salad dressings contain other concerning ingredients as well. The most common are genetically modified items, chemicals, and high-allergen ingredients. Specific examples include corn starch, gluten, monosodium glutamate (MSG), yeast extract, natamycin (mold inhibitor), Propylene glycol alginate, Polysorbate 60, and high fructose corn sugar. Sugar-free versions contain artificial sweeteners known to destroy the gut biome or cause cancer.

Fortunately, several companies are now building their reputations on clean salad dressing ingredients that are gluten-free, often organic, low in carbohydrate sugars, and do not contain genetically modified ingredients. Look for these brands:

Bragg Organic Dressing & Marinade
California Olive Ranch
Primal Kitchen
Sir Kensington
Chosen Foods
Simply Organic Dressing packets

Perhaps the most cost-friendly solution is making your own salad dressing at home. Here are six diverse recipes to make your salad a delicious, nutrient powerhouse.

Skip the Nightmare. Eat real. Be well.

By Mila McManus MD|2025-05-07T05:37:41-05:00May 8th, 2025|Articles, General|

by Mila McManus, MD

Fructose, especially high fructose corn sugar (HFCS), has earned its title as the most harmful sugar, causing a plethora of health problems. All sugars can be harmful, especially when eaten in excess. We always recommend reducing sugar intake as much as possible and limiting choices to real whole food, such as fresh fruit.

The negative effects of high fructose sugar intake include:

Fatty liver
High Triglycerides
Weight Gain
Leptin Resistance
Increased gut permeability, or leaky gut
Hunger and sugar cravings
Increases uric acid, which contributes to Cardiovascular Disease, cognitive decline, and kidney stones, to name a few
Is more addictive than cocaine
Causes insulin resistance

Fructose is a simple sugar found in fruit, vegetables, and some natural sweeteners. High fructose corn sugar [HFCS] is a manufactured sweetening additive derived from corn, a heavily subsidized [think cheap] crop. Over the last 50 years, HFCS use by the food industry has increased considerably worldwide. Other names are corn syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, isoglucose, or crystalline fructose. It is used to sweeten ultra processed food and beverages. Manufacturers love HFCS because, compared to regular sugar, it is sweeter, cheaper, and produced in abundance. However, it is a main culprit contributing to the dramatic rise in lifestyle diseases over the last several decades.

The body’s preferred source of fuel is glucose, the form of sugar we are “wired” to use. While fructose is a simple sugar, the liver must convert it to glucose. Once converted, it is used for energy if the blood needs glucose, or it will be stored in the liver, or fat cells. The process of converting fructose results in a waste product called uric acid, a key contributor to gout and heart disease. A good analogy would be to say that glucose is a clean fuel and fructose is a dirty fuel that pollutes your body.

High fructose corn sugar is a combination of fructose and glucose made from corn starch. It is cheaper and sweeter than cane sugar. It is found in soft drinks, bread, juices, ice cream, canned fruit, canned soup, ketchup, sweetened dairy products, cakes, cereal bars, salad dressings, and many other manufactured foods. We recommend eliminating these foods for a multitude of health reasons, notwithstanding the ones listed above.

We also recommend avoiding corn syrup, honey, and agave nectar as they are predominantly fructose. It is best to limit fresh fruit to no more than 2-3 servings a day. Grapes, watermelon, jackfruit, and dried fruits are intensified forms of fructose, so best avoided or limited. Small fresh fruit is a better choice and offers natural fructose. Fructose in fruit isn’t what’s causing disease in most people. Naturally occurring fructose in fruit is part of a complex web of nutrients and fiber and does not exhibit the same biological effects as the high fructose found in corn sugar. Along with the fructose in a piece of fruit you’re also getting fiber, hydration, vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients your body needs. Good choices include apples, apricots, berries, melon, citrus fruit, kiwi, cherries, pear, plum, and peach. A portion is about the size of a tennis ball, or ½ to 1 cup of fresh bite-sized pieces.

If you need help eliminating harmful fructose from your diet, our staff nutritionist is available to guide you to healthier choices that are best for your unique body and health status.

Eat Well, Be Well.

References:

Dr. David Perlmutter, author of Drop Acid: The Surprising New Science of Uric Acid

https://www.livestrong.com/article/34054-list-foods-high-fructose/

https://drhyman.com/blogs/content/manufactureres-downsized-high-fructose-corn-syrup-still-concerned?_pos=3&_sid=ebacdeac0&_ss=r

By Mila McManus MD|2025-03-19T08:09:12-05:00March 19th, 2025|Articles, General|

by Mila McManus, MD

Over the next two weeks, we will introduce you to twelve science-backed hacks to help you be more mindful and create new eating habits. — **Part 1 of 2**

Learning to be mindful about your eating habits can be transforming. Over the next two weeks, we will introduce you to twelve science-backed hacks to help you be more mindful and create new eating habits. Because we eat a few, to several, times daily, our eating habits are deeply entrenched, and we often don’t think much about them. Most of the following hacks are easy to implement AND don’t cost anything, AND they will help you change how you think about your eating patterns. Implement them one by one or put them together for greater impact on your health!

ONE: Eat until you are 80% full. This concept originates from Okinawa and is called “Hara Hachi Bu” in Japanese. It matters because there is a delay between your stomach being full and the leptin hormone communicating that to your brain. Be mindful that ultra-processed foods often contain ingredients designed to trick your brain so that it does not hear the fullness message from leptin, contributing to overeating, craving more, and metabolic dysfunction, including weight gain, diabetes, and/or dementia. One aspect of mindfulness is learning to listen to your body and stop eating when you can still comfortably do some yoga or go for a stroll.

TWO: Sit down to eat and eat slowly. Digestion is accomplished through the parasympathetic nervous system, along with healing, recovery, and rest. If you are stressed while eating, you do so in your “fight or flight” state through the sympathetic nervous system. Science demonstrates that our gut permeability is increased during this stressed state, and our production and release of digestive enzymes are decreased, making for poor digestion. Thoughtlessly eating on the go can increase the likelihood of leaky gut and digestive discomfort. Mindful eating is eating more slowly and chewing your food longer. It helps decrease overeating as you are more likely to “hear” or experience the fullness message given by your leptin hormone.

THREE: Plan meals and snacks to avoid reaching the point of “hangry”. Failure to plan is a plan to fail. Once you hit the hangry (hungry and angry) place, odds are that your choices will also suffer. Maintaining steady blood sugar levels and avoiding severe spikes and drops is a fundamental habit hack to avoid most diseases. Being mindful of the need to plan, organize, and shop for your week will help you succeed. Carry a cooler if necessary and plan balanced snacks such as mixed nuts, olives, apples, or celery with nut butter, fresh veggies, hummus or guacamole, grass-fed beef sticks, and/or a balanced, clean ingredient food bar such as the Aloha brand.

FOUR: Make sleep a priority. Poor sleep is directly correlated to poor eating habits. Skimping on sleep alters and disrupts your appetite hormones. It stimulates ghrelin to communicate hunger messages and reduces leptin messages of fullness. And, of course, when you are tired, you have less emotional bandwidth to make better food choices in the first place. Sleep is also when your body detoxifies, resets hormones, and recovers from stress. Focusing your mind and thinking on prioritizing sleep is one of the most important habit hacks you can do for yourself.

FIVE: After eating, get moving. Muscles love glucose (i.e. sugar). This habit hack is one of the best ways to maintain stable blood sugar: get moving within 30 minutes of eating. Mindfully plan to walk, do some gardening, wash the car, or go for a family bike ride after meals. Enjoyable activity after eating reduces stress, promotes the body’s utilization of the food eaten, improves relationships, and helps with digestion and quality sleep.

SIX: Track your eating frequency. For a week or two, keep a journal of each snack and meal, including the time of day and how you felt emotionally or what you were doing before you went to get a snack. Being mindful in this way helps you to identify emotional and distracted eating, and/or eating out of boredom. Scrolling the phone or watching TV while eating is not mindful and can lead to far more calorie consumption than your body can utilize. You may want to move all eating to the kitchen table rather than the couch, desk, or bed. This goes hand in hand with eating slowly until 80% full and will prevent you from mindlessly finishing off a bag of crackers or chips. It will help you see what emotions or events make you go to food to soothe you. Then, you can find healthier ways to relax and soothe your emotions or relieve your boredom rather than doing so with food. Here’s a link to a simple practice to reduce anxiety without using food.

Stay tuned next week for the other six mindful eating hacks for 2025. In the meantime, start hacking and be well.

Reference

https://drhyman.com/pages/eating-guide-101

By Mila McManus MD|2025-01-22T10:12:36-05:00January 23rd, 2025|Articles, General|

by Mila McManus, MD

Even if you eat 100% organic, some oats and cereal, chickpeas, hummus, and breads have been found to contain glyphosate!

You may have heard about glyphosate being found in organic foods. Apparently, it is true. Even if you eat 100% organic, instant oats, some cereals, chickpeas, hummus, and some bread have been found to contain the toxic weed-killer glyphosate!

You might wonder how this can happen when the USDA’s organic certification program forbids spraying glyphosate on organic crops. One certain answer involves the complexity and difficulty of preventing cross-contamination. Organic food fields are exposed to glyphosate through wind drift, contaminated water, equipment, and food-contact surfaces. Preventing these cross-contaminations can be prohibitively expensive to food producers and is a bigger problem than most people realize. Unfortunately, other reasons include human error, incompetence, and greed.

Does this mean it’s not worth eating organic? Of course not. Studies show that when we switch to an all-organic diet, we can reduce the amount of glyphosate (and other toxins) in our bodies by a whopping 70% in just one week. Glyphosates are toxic to every cell, tissue, and organ in your body, especially the liver. Not every organic food has glyphosate; by changing to organic foods, the amount of glyphosate consumed profoundly decreases.

Another reason to choose organic is to avoid other toxic aspects of living. Toxins are everywhere– nonstick cookware, heavy metals and chemicals in drinking water, weed killers and other pesticides, industrial air pollution, BPA and other chemicals from plastics, phthalates from personal care products, artificial sweeteners, food colorings, and artificial flavorings, etc.

Watching what we put on and in our bodies is a good first step, but it’s not enough. We must also promote our bodies’ natural detoxification exit pathways to remove these toxins. Otherwise, the build-up presents a heavy burden on our organ systems, leading to disease. Breathing, sweating, urinating, bowel elimination, and mobilizing lymphatics all help to eliminate toxins. Your lungs, skin, kidneys, colon, liver, and mucous membranes work daily to eliminate toxins – another reason to emphasize clean food and water to support your exit pathways!

Sometimes the news can make us want to give up altogether. Truthfully, it makes it more important than ever to supplement, detoxify, avoid sources of toxicity, and sweat for better health!

Be Well. Choose Organic. Detox Daily.

References: GreenMedInfo Daily Newsletter. July 16^th, 2024. Organic Food Shocker: Is Toxic Glyphosate Hiding In Your Pantry?

By Mila McManus MD|2024-08-08T14:10:48-05:00August 14th, 2024|Articles, General|

by Nancy Mehlert, MS

What in the world is aah-TAAH-fuh-jee you ask? “Auto” means self and “phagy” means eat. Thus the literal meaning is “self-eating”. It is the natural way that the body cleans out accumulated debris, including toxins and damaged cells, to make way for regeneration of newer, healthier cells. Read What is Autophagy? for more information.

Your dietary choices have a direct impact, for better or worse, on processes like inflammation and autophagy. There are several dietary choices we can avoid if we want to stimulate autophagy. We will describe two of the most significant here and then list food-specific do’s and don’ts.

mTOR, or the Mammalian Target of Rapamycin, is a complex protein that serves as the body’s most important nutrient pathway. When mTOR is stimulated, muscle-building is promoted. When mTOR is not stimulated, it instructs the cell to turn on the repair and maintenance processes, one of which is autophagy. Both actions are necessary. mTOR is stimulated when we eat large amounts of protein, preventing the body from effectively cleaning out debris and damaged cells. Virtually all cancers are associated with mTOR activation. When fully grown humans consume significant protein without doing adequate exercise to build additional muscle, then overstimulating the mTOR pathway becomes a very inflammatory process. Balance with protein is key. Yes we need it for essential bodily processes, but too much is harmful[i].
Insulin is a hormone that controls nutrient storage. When we eat, we secrete insulin into the bloodstream to usher nutrients into the right storage places. If there are excess carbohydrates in the diet, they are converted by insulin to fat. The lower your average insulin level, the slower the aging process. Lower insulin levels activate autophagy; high levels, especially chronically, result in inhibiting autophagy, adding to inflammation, and ultimately leading to disease and faster aging.

With these two concepts in mind, here are dietary do’s and don’ts for staying young and healthy:

Intermittent fasting even for a couple days a week for at least 16-17 hours will activate autophagy. An example of this would be to finish dinner by 7:00 p.m. and then sleep through the night not eating again until noon the next day. Water and coffee are fine during the fast.
Examine Protein Intake. Reduce daily protein intake to 15-20 grams a few days a week. Many Americans consume 8-15 or more ounces of protein every day. Six ounces of meat is equivalent to 50 g of protein, a healthy range for a person weighing about 130-135 lbs. with 25% body fat. But in order to trigger autophagy, this amount can be lowered to 15-20 grams which equates to only 2 ½ ounces of protein. Most of us could reduce significant inflammation by increasing healthy fats and vegetables and reducing our meat portions.
Examine Carbohydrate Intake. Depending on weight, age, height, metabolic rate, and health status, carbohydrate needs vary widely. With a Metabolic test, we can determine the correct carbohydrate intake for you to maintain your current weight, or lose weight.
Eat at the same time each day and avoid snacking prior to bedtime (avoid food 3 or more hours before bedtime). Sleep is not for digesting, but rather restoration, healing, cleaning (autophagy) and resetting.
Avoid sugars and processed foods, dairy, and hydrogenated oils. These foods hinder the role of your mitochondria where some autophagy occurs, diminishing their function and causing inflammation.
More good autophagy-inducing foods include curcumin, organic green tea, organic coffee, Reishi mushrooms, ginseng, garlic, pomegranate, elderberries, ginger, and cinnamon.

If you are interested in your personal ideal carbohydrate and protein needs, call (281) 298-6742 to schedule an appointment with our Staff Nutrition expert, Nancy Mehlert MS, for a Metacheck and private nutrition consultation.

[i] J.Mercola, Fat for Fuel, (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House,Inc.,2017) p. 51-52.

By Mila McManus MD|2020-11-10T08:37:42-05:00November 10th, 2020|General, NANCY’S NUTRITIONAL NUGGET|

$100 Off now thru June 30, 2020

GX Sciences* is proud to introduce the most comprehensive nutrigenomics test available to validate your specific nutritional supplement needs. The scientific study of individualized genetics and nutrition is known as nutritional genomics or “nutrigenomics”. Nutrigenomic testing accurately identifies each patient’s genetic protein variations to identify sites of metabolic weakness. These key proteins are involved in enzyme conversion, nutritional delivery and signaling pathways in the cell. Our expert physicians have designed a genetic panel that evaluates 55 of the most common, research backed, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that can affect a patient’s ability to regain and maintain their metabolic functionality. Abnormalities in specific polymorphisms can negatively affect many physiological and metabolic processes. Overcoming these metabolic weaknesses with the right supplements allows each patient to overcome their genetic weaknesses (SNPs) and maintain optimal health.

“As a practicing physician, the ability to test your individual, unique genetic footprint takes a lot of the guesswork out with regard to customizing a treatment regimen that gets you the best results”, says Mila McManus, MD. “We all have some minor genetic variants, mutations called SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) and 75% of all people have significant variations in the most important nutritional metabolism pathways that affect how we function.” For instance, MTHFR mutation affects how our bodies activate and utilize B vitamins. This in turn affects how well a person detoxifies, makes and clears hormones and neurotransmitters. This means a person would be more likely to have mood disorders, insomnia, cancer, heart disease, etc. Two other common SNPs are the GAD and COMT. These can cause lifelong anxiety. The good news, and the reason to want to know, is that there are work-arounds for a variety of SNPs.

GX Sciences differs from 23&me in that it tests for many more relevant mutations and offers recommendations to address them.

You can pick up a saliva kit at our office, or we can ship a kit to you. Price for the comprehensive panel is regularly $499; however, GX Sciences is offering $100 discount through June 2020! Turnaround time for results is typically 3 weeks.

*Gx Sciences maintains your genetic information privately. They never have and never will sell, give away, trade or use personal information in any way other than to ship your package, call you about a shipment or offer you special discounting. No e-mail addresses are sold, traded, etc.! This has been a long standing company policy that will remain unchanged.

By Mila McManus MD|2020-06-03T10:27:45-05:00June 5th, 2020|Articles, General|

Edited from Ashely McCrary, www.healthylittlepeach.com

As May and June approach, our delicious Texas Peaches will start showing up in road stands and grocery stores. Here’s a wonderful outdoor grilling treat that includes the sweet and beautiful peach in a creative way. This recipe is Whole30 and Paleo compliant.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Salad

1 pound Flank Steak (ideally antibiotic free and/or 100% grass fed)

2 peaches, sliced

2-3 slices of pre-cooked bacon (uncured)

1 large red onion, peeled and sliced

3-4 tablespoons pecans

1 avocado, peeled, pitted, sliced

½ cup coconut or Bragg aminos

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

4 cups spinach/arugula mix or field green mix

Peach Vinaigrette dressing

1 large peach

2 garlic cloves, peeled

¼ cup olive or avocado oil

4 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard

1 tablespoon coconut or Bragg aminos

Instructions:

1. Place the steak in a silicone bag or shallow dish. In a small bowl, add ½ cup coconut or Bragg aminos, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Mix together and pour over the flank steak. Seal the bag or cover the dish and place in the refrigerator to marinate, ideally overnight.
2. Prepare the grill. Ideal temperature is 425°
3. Take the flank steak out of the refrigerator about 10-15 minutes prior grilling.
4. Prep salad ingredients. Slice the peaches, onions, and avocados and set aside. Fruit works better on the grill if firm and cut into larger, thicker pieces. Set out the pecans and lettuces.
5. Make the dressing. Place all the dressing ingredients into the food processor or blender, including the 3rd peach, with the pit removed, 2 garlic cloves, olive or avocado oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, Dijon mustard, and coconut or Bragg aminos. Blend until creamy.
6. Take the flank steak, the peaches and the bacon to the grill. Place the steak on the grill. Spray the grill with non-stick spray or douse a paper towel in oil to run over the grate just prior to adding the peaches. Try not to move the peaches until they are striped well, then turn. You could also skewer the peaches if you prefer. Place the pre-cooked bacon on the grill last, reheating for just about 30-45 seconds on each side.
7. Remove the steak, peaches, and bacon from the grill. Thinly slice the flank steak into strips.
8. Arrange lettuces among 4 bowls or plates, top with onion, pecans, avocado, crumbled bacon, then grilled peaches and slices of flank steak. Top with dressing and serve.

By Mila McManus MD|2020-04-30T14:56:24-05:00May 1st, 2020|General, Recipes|

Nancy Mehlert, MS

Ready to leave the COVID 19 Pandemic behind you? It seems like a lot of people are ready for the quarantined life to be over.

I’ve been thinking about what happens to our nutrition at times like these, and I think it has been different, for different people. I know many who have stayed the course, gotten more exercise and smoothly sailed through, in terms of nutrition at least. And others, who have found the stresses dragging them back to old habits, comfort food, and drinks. We are all different. We struggle in different ways.

It is common for major life changes to get in the way of our best laid nutritional plans.

May I encourage you to be kind to yourself? There is no use in beating yourself up or drowning in guilt. These times have been, and continue to be, difficult. It is hard to find anyone who thinks this is an easy time. The complexities of caring for the elderly, schooling children, staying employed, and all working under the same roof 24-7 – none of this is easy stuff, individually or collectively.

But as we see some possible light at the end of this tunnel, now is a good time to take stock and organize your thoughts in a positive, GO FORWARD mind set. It is a good time to figure out how to GO FORWARD in confidence and make some corrections to course where needed. Here are some productive and healthy things to do in the next couple of weeks as we hopefully emerge from this quarantine:

If you feel like your nutritional wheels totally fell off the wagon, have you discovered something valuable from the experience? We learn from our mistakes. What’s yours? What would you do differently next time as a key learning point? Then, forgive yourself, and GO FORWARD.

What have you done well? Look hard. Find at least one thing. There is something good to be discovered. Give yourself credit for that one thing. GO FORWARD with that good thing.

Talk to friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. Ask them how they have coped nutritionally during this strange time and learn from their successes and mistakes. Take a new idea, a new recipe, a new habit, and GO FORWARD with it tucked into your steps.

Start now to pull your nutritional boundaries back into place, one thing at a time. Start with just one thing and do it (or stop it). Then choose the next thing. GO FORWARD in positive and affirming ways that will help you transition smoothly into the next season of life.

Reach out if you need help with course correction. Perhaps a detoxification program would be in order, or a nutrition consultation to revitalize your menu plans with a few easy recipes. Or maybe some ONDAMED sessions and/or IR Saunas to reinvigorate your energy pathways and detoxify.

Resolve to take one new good habit into the future with you. I’ve started to use Stasher® Bags for food storage and Swedish dishcloths (shop@threebluebirds.com) , both of which make me happier and less wasteful in the kitchen. Take a look at our revised and updated Highway to Health and Health Reset Protocol Cookbook where you will find helpful reminders and plenty of ideas for healthy eating. Let’s GO FORWARD TOGETHER!

By Mila McManus MD|2020-04-30T14:31:35-05:00May 1st, 2020|General, NANCY’S NUTRITIONAL NUGGET|

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