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!
Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Liz Schau, author of the Holistic Health blog.
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.
This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health
Liz Schau Healed Her Hashimoto's
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
Picture-Perfect: My Kitchen
Walk-in pantry with dry goods
We love our good fats and fish. I’ve recently gotten into ghee, which is delicious!
Cookbooks that I use on a regular basis.
Bottom shelf of the freezer
Nuts, seeds, grains, flours, and legumes staying fresh. Also my bin of vegetable clippings for making stock later.
Homemade frozen stock
Pastured pork bones hiding in the back, for making stock (we love our farmer’s market vendors).
Let there be light!
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.
Our beautiful vintage kitchen!
Organic spice rack above the stove for easy access
My shelf of homemade ferments
(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
Fermentation
(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
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Bubbling Brook Farm
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Taste is Trump
Real Food Kitchen Tour: CHEESESLAVE
Real Food Kitchen Tour: GAPS Diet Kitchen
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Mom
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Radically Natural Living
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Amanda Brown
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Pamela Montazeri
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Cracking an Egg with One Hand
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Yolks, Kefir & Gristle
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Okparaeke Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Kid
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Artistta
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Nourished & Nurtured
Real Food Kitchen Tour: May All Seasons Be Sweet to Thee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Hybrid Rasta Mama
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Granola Mom 4 God
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Devotee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Forager
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Leftover Queen
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Health Home & Happiness
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.
Photo credit: A warm welcome Project365(3) Day 10 by Keith Williamson, on Flickr and DearThyroid.org
Disclosure:cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
You kept saying “we” and “us” – are you married?
I love all the ferments you have! Inspiring for sure
Great kitchen tour! I love San Antonio because it has such a strong Mexican heritage, which means GREAT occasional splurges for eating out.
Cranberry-mint water kefir sounds fantastic. Do you have a recipe you could post, Liz?
Congrats on getting your thyroid issues resolved. Real food has helped my thyroid issues significantly too. HOORAY for real food!
Yay – another San Antonio girl. Great story – you inspire me to keep working on my adrenal fatigue.
Fantastic!! I love seeing others’ kitchens
Love all the fun ferments!!! Great ideas. And Liz’s story rings true for me and brings back painful days I’m glad to have overcome through real food and nutritional therapy as well! Thanks for sharing your home with us, Liz 
Well, gosh darn it! I can’t decide what’s cuter: Liz or her kitchen!!
Loved the tour. It’s always fun to nose around someone else’s place and see what they have. I’m always so inspired afterward!
Aw thanks everyone! I love connecting with you real foodies too.
Yes Meagan, I am. And he has his own story of healing with traditional and probiotic foods. Pretty amazing that he healed by default — simply eating the foods I make.
Kristen, for the water kefir, I simply made it plain for the first ferment (according to directions), then I did a second ferment where I simply added fresh mint sprigs and dried cranberries. That simple.
Liz, do your water kefir grains grow? I’d like to make bigger batches of water kefir but my grains have never multiplied. I’ve had them for a couple years now and they’re still working fine, but they just don’t seem to want to grow. Unlike my milk kefir grains – they are soooo prolific.
Oh, and I love Wild Fermentation, too. My husband recently made one of the mead recipes and got really inspired about brewing more, but we just don’t have the space for it right now in our little apartment. =)
Hey Meghan, yes they did! Do you think it could be the temperature in your home? It could also be that they need more sugar or minerals. Have you ever thrown in eggshells or aluminum-free baking soda (1/8 tsp) with your batches? Or maybe try a different kind of sugar and see how they respond.
I love your kitchen and found your story very inspiring for me as candida takeover was exactly the same reason I started on this traditional food journey in March. I am fairly knowledgeable but have questions every day? How much water kefir do you drink a day? I make water kefir every day. I am constantly rotating quart jars! But I am healing myself inside out! I love your kitchen. The retro is awesome. And I want your freezer!!
Thank you for sharing. Happy Holidays to all.
I drink tons! I went through Herxheimer reactions when I first changed my diet about four years ago, so I released lots of bad bacteria and yeast at that time. Since then, I am totally fine eating large amounts of probiotic foods/drinks and get no detox reactions. Since I love the flavor and am still working on getting rid of some residual yeast, I allow myself to drink/eat probiotics freely. Water kefir is awesome and so full of other vitamins and minerals aside from the probiotics. We make ours with eggshells, so I think they add lots of additional nutrition.
When your grains grow, you can make it in large batches, which is what we do and it works out great!
this post inspired me to start making water kefir, I finally want to try this!
I have lots of frozen stock in my freezer too. I totally understand about a sink full of dishes!
So excited to see your kitchen and then I went and read your recovery story… such hope!
Loved this!!! I too am completely healed of my thyroid craziness and no longer have to take medication! I can remember waking up (more tired than when I went to bed) and having to take care of three young babies…my mom would call and the only description I could give her was that it felt like I had been run over by a semi-truck. You just feel so aweful! Eventually my thyroid tried to kill me! I had a thyroid storm and was in the hospital. It wasn’t long after I decided to try and figure this all out for myself as the pills weren’t helping!
My husband too has been healed of a lot of pain and he can’t believe it has all been food related.
I have made kefir, but I have never made a water version…now I want to make it…it must be good! =) And I’m sure the kids will love it! We just moved (and still ate real food!!! Only two meals out and they were salads or salmon!), but this was a good motivator to get my kitchen up and running with the ferments! I have totally slacked…thankfully we still have some pickles and carrot kraut around, but the kids are dying for kimchee and saurkraut!
Love the shirt!!
Thanks for the inspiration!
Come visit me and my friend Brenda as we share our stories at: http://www.wellfedhomestead.com
We would love to have your insight!
Blessings!
So sorry to hear about your experience, Tarena! But I’m so glad to hear you were able to heal it nutritionally too — good for you!!
So inspiring! I have Hashimoto’s but my symptoms are not as bad as Liz’s were. Thankfully, I have an MD who is a WAPF/holistic/self-thinker. We’ve been trying to come up with a plan and this really helps. Thank you for sharing!! I have only 9-ish more weeks to go with my pregnancy, then hopefully I can get on a road to recovery. I am so scared to try ferments. What if I don’t like them, or can’t stomach it?? I still have one foot in the standard American diet world, and one foot in the WAPF world. Thank you for the motivation and letting us know how good you feel now. I long for the day I feel “normal” again.
How do those mason jars hold up in the freezer?
They do great, Tessa. However, when I’m filling them with liquid, like bone broths, I make sure to leave a few inches of room for the liquid to expand so there’s not an explosion.
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