It’s always the things you never thought about that trip you up in life and it was that way for us with our first bash at the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol. We were already pretty rigid Paleo but we did eat a lot of nuts, seeds, tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. Most worrying was the amount of omega 6 from all the nuts (and nut flour for Paleo friendly baking) but it was not till we tried to cut all of these foods out that we realised just how prominent they were in our diet.
Still, we got around that by focusing on all the autoimmune protocol friendly foods that we could eat and looked upon it as a way to jazz up our diet rather than pining for all the foods that we had to give up, for 30 days at least. We worked in a bunch of new vegetables and cooked things in different ways along with a load of fermented foods so generally, whilst it was a tough process, it was a worthwhile one.
Anyhow, like I said, things were going well, or so I thought, till I casually glanced at the ingredients of one of my spice mixes and noticed it had chilli in it. So, I started to look at them all and sure enough: chill, paprika, cayenne. Damn, three weeks in and we had been eating chilli powder all along. Well, no wonder my psoriasis had not improved as much as I had hoped. Oh well, back to the drawing board!
So, if you are working hard to heal your leaky gut for the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol or for any other Leaky Gut protocol then you need to ditch chilli, for a while at least and that can mean food gets kind of boring if your a spice fiend like myself. So, these spices are all 100% chilli free so enjoy.
Autoimmune Friendly Spices
Now, you can buy some of these in the shops but this has to come with the caveat that you will need to read the packet to make sure there is no chili (cayene /paprika / pimento) but these are some spice mixes I have made up ourself and that work really well without any kind of chilli pepper or tomato so please feel free to have a go yourself. Also, I am toying with making these up and offering them for sale on the blog, I guess they would be about £2.00 each with free postage so drop a comment if your interested and I can figure out getting some larger batches done.
Garam Masala
Ingredients listed in order of volume. I do it by taste so exact measures are not exactly providedl
- Coriander
- Cumin
- Pepper
- Salt
- Nutmeg
- Fenugreek
- Cloves
- Aniseed
- Cinnamon
- Cardamom
This is kind of sweet and mixes well with honey and oil to give you an Indian tasting rub but without any chilli messing up your day.
Chinese Five Spice
This is great one for Chinese cooking, stir frys and the like and has a kind of sweet aniseed taste.
- Black Pepper
- Aniseed
- Cinnamon
- Cloves
Indonesian Spice Blend
This one works well with curried dishes, soups or just as a spice for meat – let me know if you figure out any other uses.
- Coriander
- Ginger
- Caraway
- Black Pepper
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Garlic Powder
- Cardamom
- Clove
- Mace
Seasoned Salt
This is a simple one for use on meat or in stir fries, it works well mixed with oil and just rubbed on chicken breast before you nuke it or on steaks.
- Sea Salt
- Coriander
- Black Pepper
- Bay Powder
- Basil
- Cloves
Lemon Pepper
This is the little sister of Seasoned Salt above and again is just a flexible friend for adding some flavour to your dishes.
- Coarse Black Pepper
- Lemon Peel
Mustard Powder
Finally, if you like a bit of heat whilst chilli is off the menu then Mustard Powder can give you that fix. Really, it is just yellow mustard seeds ground up so no need for a recipe but damn, it’s pretty tasty and mixes well with oil and a bit of salt to flavour meat before grilling.
Autoimmune Friendly Herbs & Spices
Wan’t some good news for a change? Pretty much all herbs are autoimmune safe if you tolerate them so if you are were used to a lot of flavour and that mostly came from spices, you can really shift the balance towards herbs and have nothing to worry about. The following are a few mixes we have experimented with but here you can with pretty much anything, just be sure to check the label and make sure there are no nasties!
Italian Garlic Seasoning
This is useful when you want a bit of an Italian flavour and works well with fish and meat. It will also work in grass fed mince and is even better if you tolerate tomatoes after your 30 days and can use it in a bolognese type sauce with some courgette or sweet potato strips made as a pasta replacement!
- Garlic Granules
- Oregano
- Parsley
Italian Seasoning
This is another italian one (can you tell we used to eat a lot of pasta before the paleo ship came in?). Pretty flexible, works well with meat and fish.
- Oregano
- Garlic Granules
- Basil
- Marjoram
Onion, Chive & Parsley Salt
Again, this works well with fish and I have not tried it with any meat yet but mixed with some oil it flavoured up some cod fillets amazingly ( and lets be honest, they need it).
- Onion Powder
- Chive
- Parsley
- Fine Rock Salt
What are you using?
I would love to hear any experiences from other folks on the Paleo autoimmune protocol and to know what you are using to spice up your meals. Food is just too important a part of my day to just have bland flavours so anything that is working for you, drop a comment and I will give it a go!
On a side note, I hear that the new Practical Paleo book from the ever wonderful Balanced Bites has a bunch of Autoimmune Friendly Recipes and even a 30 day Autoimmune Meal plan so I am certainly going to be picking that up when it drops.
Oh well folks, I have more Paleo and Autoimmune stuff lined up so remember to follow us on Facebook to get all updates and please be kind and press the big red Google+1 button on the right hand side to help us get a foothold on Google Mountain.
I am just starting this autoimmune protocol. The book says to avoid nuts and seeds as well as night shades. Are some of these spices considered seeds?
You know Rose, that is a damn good question, I will double check and update the post a little later this weekend (surrounded by the kids at the moment). If you can handle it, stick with herbs as they are all pretty much good to go and lemon juice, garlic and some woody herbs makes for a pretty tasty marinade. More later!
I just came from Paleomom’s website and a whole bunch of her “avoid” and “use with caution” spices are on your list. I tend to overspice everything too 😛 However, I don’t actually have an autoimmune disease, but I’m interested in seeing how my body reacts to certain foods once I cut them out and add them back in.
Well, from the Robb Wolf book and my other reading around this, it is really the chilli pepper spices that are the big problem so cayenne, paprika, chilli powder etc. That is a bit of a problem though as nearly every kind of commercial spice has one of these in it so you are kind of stuck.
We have done some exclusion testing and reintroduction and we clearly have issues with chilli based spices and everything else seems okay.
Ultimately, you have to cut it out and reintroduce but my main aim here was to give people a way to cut out chilli to test that one spice and see if it causes them a problem as I know, for us, it causes an instant reaction (which kind of sucks).
Let me know how you get on.
Thank you so much for sharing these! The autoimmune protocol is such a hard adjustment. Unfortunately for me, mine seems to need to last A LOT longer than 30 days. Nightshades and eggs are NOT my friends.
But, battling MS is not an easy thing, and if leaving those out will help, then so be it! 😉
I’ve been doing the autoimmune protocol for a few months now with no seed spices. I feel so good I’m afraid to reintroduce them – at this point I am in the hang of just cooking with herbs. It does make eating out impossible, however!
Mickey
Hey, I know, it is kind of tough to get rid of chilli all together and a lot of the simple, shop bought short cuts are just not suitable any longer but… we have found that making up our own spices that are not using chilli has opened some of those doors again and like you say, there is a whole world of herbs out there.
I know without a doubt that paprika and cayenne make my psoriasis itch straight away and often my wife (Who has MS) will get light symptoms in her hands so chilli is just not our friend.
Still, we get on okay with Eggs and bell peppers so it’s all good.
Love your blog by the way.
Hi Marcus,
My problem with chillies is the headache they give me! When I was younger I suffered with migraines a lot and although I don’t tend to get the other symptoms now ( aura, numbness and vomiting)I still get a banging headache and nausea if I have anything with chilli in it. I’m wondering if I may have a problem with nightshades because cooked tomatoes used to trigger my migraines. I would be lost if I had to give up tomatoes and aubergine now!
Nice to find a UK blog about Paleo. I’ve only been eating paleo for two weeks now and already feel better in myself.