Real Food Kitchen Tour

Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Liz Schau, author of the Holistic Health blog.

Please note: The Real Food Kitchen Tour will be going on hiatus through the end of the year. We’re taking a break to celebrate the holidays… plus I don’t have any more submissions! Please scroll down to learn how to submit your photos and we’ll see you guys online next year!

What’s a Real Foodie?

A “real foodie” is someone who cooks “traditional” food. We cook stuff from scratch using real ingredients, like raw milk, grass-fed beef, eggs from chickens that run around outdoors, whole grains, sourdough and yogurt starters, mineral-rich sea salt, and natural sweeteners like honey and real maple syrup.

We don’t use modern foods that are either fake, super-refined, or denatured. This includes modern vegetable oils like Crisco and margarine, soy milk, meat from factory farms, pasteurized milk from cows eating corn and soybeans, refined white flour, factory-made sweeteners like HFCS or even refined white sugar, or commercial yeast.

We believe in eating wholesome, nutrient-dense foods that come from nature. So we shop at farmer’s markets or buy direct from the farmer, or we grow food in our own backyards.

Liz-Schau-Wearing-My-Disease-On-My-Sleeve-Hashimotos-Thyroiditis — Liz Schau Healed Her Hashimoto's

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health

This week we travel to San Antonio, Texas to visit Liz Schau, author of the Liz Schau, Holistic Health blog.

I just love real food recovery stories, don’t you?

Liz was diagnosed in 2007 with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, which is an “incurable” (or so we’re told) autoimmune disease.

Here’s Liz’s story:

I was at the height of my autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto’s) and was absolutely miserable. I’d gained 60 pounds in a matter of months, taking me from a size four at 125 to a size 14 at about 190 lbs. I was terribly depressed and anxious, bloated and constipated, suffered from full-body hives, changes in my hair and skin color/texture, peeing every 10 minutes, fatigued so bad that I would take a nap shortly after waking up in the morning. I couldn’t concentrate or remember jack, and suffering a horrific systemic yeast infection which left me infected in the most unforgiving places.

I’d thought many times about ending my life because, yes, the symptoms were really that bad. To top it off, I didn’t have the support or empathy from my friends or family, most of whom brushed off the disease like it was nothing to be too concerned about: “take the pill, you’ll be fine”. Well I did take the thyroid pill, at my doctor’s discretion, and nothing got better.

I decided I simply could not go on living in constant physical and emotional pain the rest of my life. Out of pain and necessity, I read every book and article I could find on my symptoms. Soon, I uncovered age-old forgotten dietary traditions which revolutionized my health. I discovered that our gut and what we eat dictate our whole minds and bodies and immune systems. Though my medication wasn’t working, a new diet was.

Years later, with lots of time, education, and hard work, my Hashimoto’s was in total un-medicated remission. My doctor had weaned me off of my medication, my numbers stayed balanced, and symptoms resolved themselves. Suddenly, I had a message to share. I went back to school and got a certification in Holistic Health and Nutrition Counseling. I learned directly from doctors and researchers who were revolutionizing the way people felt, all with specific changes to diet. Then, I started working with lovely ladies who were also suffering at the hands of a thyroid disease, autoimmune disease, or yeast overgrowth.

Liz shares the “nitty-gritty details of her story of her recovery from Hashimoto’s in the following guest blog posts:

Healing Hashimoto’s
Healing Hashimoto’s Part 2

Blog Name: Liz Schau, Holistic Health
Blog Author: Liz Schau
How Long Blogging: Many years!
Location: San Antonio, TX
House or Apartment:Apartment home (top floor of a two-story house)
Size of Kitchen: 9′ by 16′
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I love our huge fridge, huge pantry, and spacious layout. The vintage checker block pattern tile is also cute!
Things You Would Change: I wish there were more counter space and better lighting. There’s not much natural sunlight from the angle of the kitchen window, so it’s all artificial light in there (I thrive on natural sunlight in the house). And when I have lots of jars and bottles on the counter tops, fermenting, there’s little room left for meal prep. Our freezer also feels pretty small, which makes it hard to store all of my nuts and seeds, grains, bone broth, meat, frozen veggies, etc.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: My collection of glass (jars and bottles) is definitely my favorite. I have always had a love for glass, colored or clear — there’s something so antique and romantic about it. When I got into traditional food and actually started fermenting my own food and drinks, I finally had a good reason to collect even more glass! We have a home brew supply store a few minutes away from us, and I have found many a container there, as well as our local thrift store. I also love my plastic tight-weave strainer I found at a local Asian grocer; I made gallons and gallons of water kefir with it.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: The pile-up of dishes! We don’t have a dishwasher, and because cooking real food requires starting from scratch, we always have a pile of dishes in the sink. I do, however, love making food from scratch and find it therapeutic — the only drawback is the clean-up. Also finding a steady supply of pastured eggs has been tough for us. By the time we get to the farmer’s market, all three egg vendors are always sold out, so we end up buying pastured eggs from Whole Foods (which I wish we could change).
Current Family Favorite Meal: Roast pastured chicken with root veggies and probiotic sauerkraut and pickles is always a go-to meal for us. It’s so satisfying and simple. We have also been into middle eastern food lately and I’ve made curried kebabs with properly soaked hummus. We rarely eat grains and high-carb food at home. Chocolate coconut flour cake (with ghee) is our favorite dessert. And we go through gallons of water kefir each week.
Favorite Cookbooks: Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz is a book that I found in an independent book store in Austin, TX recently. I had been coveting the book for a while now, and was so happy to find it in person. This book has proven so inspiring to me and helped me feel connected to my food heritage and ancestry — something I think many Americans are seeking. I feel so empowered making these foods. I also love Pure Pleasures by my friend Natalia KW. She’s a raw food chef, and while we’re not raw foodists, I love to use her condiments, salads, and desserts because they’re fresh and healthy and are a great dairy-free and grain-free option for us.

We love our good fats and fish. I’ve recently gotten into ghee, which is delicious!

Cookbooks that I use on a regular basis.

Nuts, seeds, grains, flours, and legumes staying fresh. Also my bin of vegetable clippings for making stock later.

Pastured pork bones hiding in the back, for making stock (we love our farmer’s market vendors).

Homemade wild sourdough starter made with white rice flour and sorghum flour (with raisins in it) getting started! I’m working on a lighter/whiter version.

Organic spice rack above the stove for easy access

(L to R): kimchi (lying down), red beets and radishes, curried yellow beets, cabbage and celery, okra, tomatillo salsa, carrots and jalapenos, sauerkraut and pickles in the background. We eat these at every meal.

Brewing two-gallons of water kefir at a time

(L to R): kimchi and carrots and jalapenos, honey wine and ginger beer in the 1/2 gallon growlers (raw, recipes from “Wild Fermentation”), cranberry and mint water kefir in the other jars.

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

Are you a real foodie? Do you have a kitchen that you’d like to see featured on CHEESESLAVE?

Please email me at annmarie AT realfoodmedia dot com. Either send me a link to a Flickr set or email me your photos (minimum of 5, but more is better). Note: Please send me LARGE photos. Minimum 610 width. If they’re too small, I can’t use them.

Oh, and please send the answers to the above questions (at the very top of this post).

As much as I’d love to include all the photos I receive, I can’t guarantee that I will use your photos in the series. I’m looking for creative, good quality photos.

Some ideas for photos:

Show us what’s in your fridge or what’s fermenting on your counter
Take some snaps of some of your favorite kitchen gadgets, or show us how you organize your spices
Got backyard chickens? Send some pics!
How about a lovely herb garden?
Kids or pets are always cute!
Try to include at least one photo of yourself, ideally in your kitchen

And no, you don’t have to have a blog to be included in the tour.

Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health

What’s a Real Foodie?

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

Read next

How I Went Too Low-Carb on the GAPS Diet (Guest Post)

Hawaii Vacation: The Food

Bone Broth: A Cure for Cellulite?

Comments ()

What’s a Real Foodie?

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

Read next

Comments ( )

Comments ()