Hi, I'm Britt.☺
After a polite recommendation (read: extremely persistent, unrelenting recommendations) from my boyfriend, I am excited to be here to share my story. It is a story filled with puns, food allergies, avocados, and me, seriously geeking out over how beautiful and delicious food can be. Not kidding. Show me a brightly colored vegetable, or maybe even an uncharacteristically colored fruit like those tie-dye Rainier cherries, and I'll go bananas. Or nuts! Depending what food group I'm feeling crazy about that day.
I mean, look at this mango. Look at this beautiful mango.
And how about this big green bowl of YUM!
Or these monkey tails? I quite literally went bananas over making these. (They're bananas, I'm allowed. lol)
Side note if this wasn't obvious already: Anyone who knows me or, well, passes me in the street, can tell right off the bat, I have harnessed the gift of being really, really weird. The good kind of weird, though. A giggling, optimistic, child-like vibrancy. I'm a huge goof ball. Life is WAY more fun that way! Amiright?! You'll see that in my writing, but I digress.
So, but wait. I know what you're thinking...You said you're gluten free AND vegan? That seems pretty restrictive, what's up with that?
First things, first.
Almost exactly 4 years ago, I started to develop some serious health issues. I went from being an extremely energetic, active, and happy camper to constantly battling fatigue, depression, and weight gain (among many, many other symptoms.) It was 9 months, dozens of doctor's appointments, and a slew of blood/physical tests later before it came to light that I was suffering from severe Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS). There's a good portion of the population that deals with this condition, which is also referred to as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or more generally as Adrenal Exhaustion.
In a nutshell, AFS is the result of extreme, prolonged stress that eventually the adrenal glands can no longer compensate for. Eventually, they just can't produce the proper adrenal hormones to combat the situation. There are a few degrees of severity, but at its worst, there is no recovery. As the condition worsens, your list of symptoms will grow. As it turns out, your adrenal glands are responsible for quite a bit of your health: mood, memory, immune system, metabolism, digestion, sleep, energy....I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point.
I was at about a 3/4 on the AFS scale. In fact, my doctor at the time said she'd never seen adrenal levels so low in her medical career. (See my adrenal hormone and neurotransmitter profile below. The red area in the middle shows the target area for all these levels.)
Not exactly the best award to win, but after almost a year of wild goose hunting, I was happy to know what type of beast I was dealing with. Once you know what it looks like, you can strategically combat it.
The glutens. Oh, the glutens.
One of my first defenses was cutting gluten out of my diet. It was almost instantly apparent that gluten was causing me digestive issues and contributing to the fatigue. I personally just went cold, gluten free turkey because I've always been an all-in, or none-in kinda gal. People now ask me frequently if I miss it and, to be honest, I feel way better without it so it's not even an option. Plus, eating anything with gluten these days would pretty much give me the equivalent of stomach flu. No bueno!
Then, eggstreme migraines.
A year later, I started having earth-shattering migraines. These were the type of migraines that made me sensitive to light, sound, and generally just existing. I tried everything short of wizardry to get rid of them, too. It wasn't until I read "The Virgin Diet" by JJ Virgin that relief was on the horizon. I took out the 7 most common allergy-causing foods as she suggests (gluten, sugar, peanuts, eggs, dairy, corn, and soy). A few weeks into the diet, I realized that eggs and peanuts were part of the problem. Soon after, dairy was tacked onto the list. At that point, I tried going full vegan and it felt amazing. My body just processed food so much more seamlessly and my energy increased yet again.
I'll admit, I still eat fish here and there. Okay, okay. I eat sushi once a week, but it doesn't seem to bother me the way other meats do. I will forever have the mindset that each person should listen to his/her body and eat what feels good. If eating meat feels good to you, do that! If gluten doesn't bother you, power to ya! What I will say, however, is that eating a plant-based, low sugar diet with very little processed food is going to be the best for everyone's body.
Now, I share every bite.
After finally having to cut all animal products out of my diet, I felt pretty discouraged. So much of the food I had once eaten was completely off the table now, so what was I supposed to eat? I threw a small pity party but no one brought a gluten free and vegan cake, so I made a decision:
Instead of moping about all the food I couldn't eat, I would create gluten free and vegan recipes that I would love.
Starting January 1st, 2014 my goal was to write 2 original recipes per week for a year. After 52 weeks, I'd have 104 recipes and a wholly original cookbook. Not only would I have created a recipe bank of food I love, but I could share it with others that deal with similar restrictions.
As I perfected each recipe, I'd share it with family and friends for feedback. The responses were wildly positive. Unexpectedly, I had people begging for these recipes about 4 months into the year. It was clear they needed to be shared with the world before I could even have the cookbook published.
In August of 2014, SharingEveryBite.com was officially born.
Since the launch of my blog, I have been sharing a new bite (recipe) every week on the blog. It seems that the Steemit community might be in need of some plant-based lovin', so I'm here to share!
What exactly will I post on Steemit?
Every week, I will be sharing recipes that are:
- gluten free
- vegan
- soy free
- peanut free
- sesame, onion, and pea-free (Did I forget to mention those are allergies too?)
- FULL OF YUMMM ;)
If that seems like a lot of ingredients....it kind of is! But that's the challenge, and that's the great fun of it all: Figuring out how to completely reinvent recipes to discover something fresh, exciting, healthy, and most importantly, delicious. Along the way, I'll also share tidbits of health knowledge, food facts, and the funny little things I'm up to in the world.
Here's a preview of the first recipe comin' at ya!
Oh. You want more recipes now?
If you're so inclined....- I have over 50 recipes posted on my blog at www.sharingeverybite.com
- Stay up to date by liking my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sharingeverybite
- Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharingeverybit
- See behind the scenes pics on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharingeverybite/
- Collect the recipes and see other content on my Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/sharingeverybit/
- Find out what I'm up to in the professional world on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bnunley