sweetened condensed milk

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk – no cook

 

Sweetened Condensed milk was one of my all-time favourite foods as a kid. When the ‘all sugar is bad‘ craze hit, my favourite food went out the window for at least 30 years.

How exciting to now understand that it can be included in your Pro Metabolic diet and still be healthy! Yay!

After continually buying tins of Sweetened Condensed Milk for a while, and not quite being sure of the source of the milk, I wondered if it was possible to make it at home. So I found the cooking it on the stove top recipe.

I tried this once. After 30 minutes of continual stirring, wasting so much time and still burning the mixture on the bottom of the pot – I thought surely there must be a better way? A non-cook way.

Pleased to report there is and it’s quick, easy and awesome!

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk - No cook

A quicker, easier way to make Sweetened Condensed Milk
Prep Time10 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Healthy
Keyword: 3 ingredients

Equipment

  • 1 Food processor

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Low Fat Skim Milk Powder
  • 2 cups Icing Sugar
  • 1 cup Cold Water

Instructions

  • Throw all ingredients in a Food Processor and whiz until smooth.
  • Check mix after about 3 minutes of blending and add a little more water if necessary.
  • Spoon into a container.
  • Store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Recipe Notes

Now some people add a dash of vanilla essence, or a pinch of salt. Some even add a few tablespoons of melted butter to enhance the flavour. You make your Sweetened Condensed Milk how you like it.

Now one important thing is that the water going in must be COLD. Do not add boiled water or hot water to this. This is because Milk Powder dissolves better in cold water. If you put hot water in, you will get a clumpy mess.

This is also why I use Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar.) Normal granulated sugar likes hot water to melt in but the Milk Powder doesn’t. So if you use granulated sugar with this, you will get crunchy Sweetened Condensed Milk.

Also while I haven’t tried this in a blender, I’m not sure if it will work, as it is quite thick. I believe it needs the power of the bigger blades in a food processor. But if you try a blender – let me know how you go!

All the little tricks are important. It may look a little more runny at first than the canned version but will firm up in the fridge.

Best Milk Powder

Now the best source of Milk Powder I have found in Australia is this one by Collagen X – Organic Skim Milk Powder – they have it available on their ebay store. I’m not sure if they ship this one to overseas locations – please ask them.

Update: The lovely crew at Collagen X, have advised that they are able to extend the special Slimbirdy 10% discount that you would normally get when buying their gelatin products on their website – on their ebay store for the Organic Skim Milk Powder! 

All you have to do is make an offer for the Organic Skim Milk Powder at 10% less than the listed price on the ebay store, put the code Slimbirdy in the notes and they will honour the discount! So very nice of them to find a way to help us.

How to use Sweetened Condensed Milk

I use it on my fruit and Greek yogurt just to jazz up the sweetness. It is also in quite a few of my recipes in my Sweet Treats Dessert Recipe book.

I used to use it in my coffee as well however, I found it packed on the pounds for me as it was just too much sweet/sugar for my lifestyle. This is how I have my coffee now – Lemon Coffee – which has a whole new weight loss element to it as well.

I feel so much better making Sweetened Condensed Milk myself and knowing where the milk comes from.

Happy, healthy cooking.

Cheers

 

Kristy x

PS: For those concerned about all the sugar in this recipe, a pro metabolic diet allows sugar as it increases your metabolism, but only if you eat it correctly. To learn how to do this, grab a copy of my main book The ZEN Beach Diet, which explains everything.

Lemon Coffee

histamine Ray Peat

Histamine Ray Peat

In our private facebook group, we were talking about fruit making up a large part of a pro metabolic diet. However about 25% of the group advised they suffered histamine intolerance with fruit, so this is a big problem.

To help everyone out, here is summary of notes I have taken on histamine from various sources including Ray…

Histamine is broken down in the body by an enzyme called Diamine Oxidase.

If you develop a DAO deficiency and are unable to break down histamine, you could develop an intolerance—which is where all the symptoms come in.

Some of these include:

  • headaches
  • bloating
  • abdominal pain
  • nausea
  • flushing, especially of the head and chest
  • a congested, runny, or itchy nose
  • red, itchy, or watery eyes
  • dizziness
  • heart palpitations

Some reasons your DAO enzyme levels could be affected include:

  • medications that block DAO functions or prevent production
  • gastrointestinal disorders, such as Leaky Gut and IBS
  • histamine-rich foods that cause DAO enzymes to function improperly
  • foods that block DAO enzymes or trigger histamine release
  • Bacterial overgrowth is another contributing factor for developing a histamine intolerance. Bacteria grows when food isn’t digested properly, causing histamine overproduction. Normal levels of DAO enzymes can’t break down the increased levels of histamine in your body, causing a reaction.
  • Ray Peat advised: “And one of the things that turns on the production of more mast cells or the secretion or leakage of histamine from the mast cells is prostaglandins produced from the polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially prostaglandin E 2. Besides making the prostaglandins in themselves, they cause changes in cells that disrupt their functions. In fact every function of the cell can be disrupted by too much of the polyunsaturated fats.
    And one of the worst things they do is to interrupt oxidative metabolism and the energy deficit I think is ultimately the thing that leads to really serious allergy problems.”

 

Things that help Diamine Oxidase production & therefore histamine intolerance …

  • T3
  • Vitamin E
  • Magnesium
  • Vitamin C
  • Calcium & Vitamin K
  • Vitamin D
  • Copper
  • Progesterone
  • Less protein (as undigested protein in the gut raises histamine. Or you can improve your digestion!)

 

On Histamine, Ray Peat advises…

T3, the active form of thyroid hormone… does several things that prevent overproduction of histamine. It’s been known for anti-inflammatory for a long time but one of its mechanisms is to stabilize mast cells so they don’t secrete serotonin, histamine and other inflammatory things.”

“Yes, the calcium and vitamin D are two of the things that are very strongly anti-allergic. Magnesium is the most famous because of magnesium deficiency, they found caused terrific range of inflammatory diseases in animals and they would cure skin diseases, heart disease, nerve disease, liver disease and so on just by correcting a magnesium deficiency. With vitamin D and calcium working with magnesium are very important so that some people cure their allergies just by supplementing vitamin D or vitamin K which is the other major calcium regulating vitamin.”

“…the real thing I think is to adjust your thyroid and progesterone. Progesterone has broad variety of antihistamine effects. Estrogen turns on both the multiplication of mast cells and their tendency to release histamine and serotonin. And so getting your thyroid to a good level will reduce your estrogen and increase your progesterone and shift the balance in histamine production. Aspirin is another anti – histamine that works indirectly by reducing prostaglandin production and nitric oxide production.”

I hope this summary helps you find the answers, if you suffer histamine intolerance symptoms.

Always learning,

 

Kristy

Lemon Coffee

Cherry High Protein Ice Cream with Marmalade

The trick with a pro metabolic diet is to create food that is super delicious but also good for you. This new Cherry High Protein Ice Cream recipe certainly fits the bill.

I’ve made High Protein Ice Cream before in this recipe. However it is a plain vanilla, so it’s time to jazz things up a bit and make it taste super amazing.

Cherry High Protein Ice Cream with Marmalade

High protein dessert you can eat for breakfast
Prep Time15 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Pro Metabolic
Keyword: High protein, cottage cheese

Equipment

  • 1 bowl
  • 1 spoon
  • 1 stick blender or food processor
  • 1 plastic container

Ingredients

  • 1 500g Cottage Cheese (17.64oz)
  • 1 395g Sweetened Condensed Milk - 1 tin - 13.93oz
  • 1/4 cup Orange Marmalade
  • 2 cups Cherries (Frozen or fresh)
  • 2 cups Blueberries (Frozen or fresh)

Instructions

  • Tip everything into a bowl.
  • Mix together a little with a spoon.
  • Whiz a little with a stick blender to break up the fruit a little to keep it a bit chunky, or if you would like it completely smooth, then use a food processor.
  • Pour in little containers for portion control or one large one to scoop out.

I’ve been enjoying frozen cherries towards the end of our summer and so one day just whipped up this combination to see what would happen. The addition of marmalade too was an accident, as I just wanted to finish off the jar. But it adds a delicious flavoursome tang and it’s become a fast favourite.

So I’ve been eating this Cherry High Protein Ice Cream for breakfast in our super hot weather. It’s just filling and delicious.

Here are the macro stats:

Total amount:-

2,131 Calories

87g Protein

396g Carbohydrates

20g Fat

Divide the batch by 4 to get the appropriate serving size for a meal:

532 Calories

22g Protein

99g Carbohydrates

5g Fat

So this ice cream as all the correct macros to suit a meal. So if you are going to have this Cherry High Protein Ice Cream in addition to a meal, then be careful to have a smaller amount that fits your total macros. Otherwise weight will pile on, and that’s not what we are after.

For those looking for weight loss help in a pro metabolic diet, grab a copy of the ZEN Beach Diet and the new Lemon Coffee + Pro Metabolic Diet Weight Loss Dynamite Books to get started today.

Cheers

 

Kristy

Lemon Coffee

Thyroid Diet and Hormones

A good friend sent me a message after my Insta story post on the Keto Diet causes Hair loss.

She was trying to convince me that it was menopause causing the hair loss and had  nothing to do with diet.  “It’s all about hormones,” she said.

Yes menopause can cause hair loss, absolutely.

Double yes, it totally is about hormones.

But she is 100% incorrect to say that diet doesn’t play a part. Diet is a massive contributor to how your hormones function.

I am the perfect example, I changed from Keto which is an anti Thyroid Diet to a Pro Metabolic Thyroid Supporting Diet and my thinning hair grew back.

Let’s discuss just one aspect –  feeding the Thyroid properly.

The Thyroid requires sufficient carbohydrates to function optimally. It controls the entire metabolic rate of your body and how efficiently you create and use energy.

Once you mess with this and don’t eat enough carbs, it slows your body down. This in turn slows down your body’s ability to remove excess estrogen, causing an estrogen dominance situation, leading to all kinds of issues.

Issues like this:

  • abnormal menstruation (heavy/painful periods),
  • PMS,
  • headaches,
  • bloating,
  • mood swings,
  • fatigue,
  • anxiety & depression,
  • breast tenderness,
  • endometriosis,
  • fibroids,
  • hormonal weight gain
  • breast cancer

Also once you are in an estrogen dominant state, this further negatively impacts how the thyroid works as well. So it becomes a vicious cycle.

All because you didn’t eat carbs or enough of them!

(There are good and not so good carbs to have, learn which are which in my FREE 7 day email course. Click here to get started.)

Then there’s progesterone. Your thyroid also stimulates progesterone production.

So we’re back at the start— no carbs, wrecking thyroid function and then progesterone stops too.

Following this pattern, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that testosterone also declines when thyroid function declines.

So this is just one tiny glimpse of it and if you’re so inclined, you can study it until you’re blue in the face.

Or you can just grab a copy of the ZEN Beach Diet and start living the life  – enough of the right food, enough sun, enough of the right type of gentle exercise, enough rest and just enough of the good habits to let nature work it’s magic.

Bliss out.

 

Kristy x

Note: For those still on the Keto, Carnivore, Low Carb train and say you don’t need to eat carbs, your body can make them from fat – it is true that they can be made. However when you are relying on this conversion for your entire fuel, it puts the body under stress, which it can’t keep up forever. I think I lasted 10 years on Keto because I didn’t exercise much. Those who do will fall apart much quicker. 

Lemon Coffee

Lemon Coffee Plus Pro Metabolic Diet – Weight Loss Dynamite

For the past six months I’ve been working on a secret project! And now I can finally talk about it because it’s up, it’s out and ready to go! Yay!

It’s a new book called…

Lemon Coffee plus Pro Metabolic Diet – Weight Loss Dynamite! 

Lemon Coffee weight loss was a Tik Tok viral hit that I came across by accident. Different posts and videos claimed all kinds of weight loss success with it.  Whereas “experts” denounced it, claiming no scientific benefit. The main problem I could see with those who tried Lemon Coffee was that they were doing all the usual stress based weight loss methods. They had no solid nutritional diet plan, as a foundation.

I spent the last 6 months drinking it and looking further into it’s benefits, from a pro metabolic health point of view. And I can tell you, IT WORKS!

It especially moves weight from your mid section and belly.

Once you learn the amazing effects lemon actually had on liver function, and bile flow, you will understand why Lemon Coffee specifically targets this area. Coffee already has many benefits for the liver, so when you add lemon as well, it’s a double whammy of liver function support.

In the book, Lemon Coffee plus Pro Metabolic Diet – Weight Loss Dynamite, I detail a new way to make the coffee.  The way they originally put it together made it taste horrible and it was not something you’d be likely to continue. Also they were throwing away one of the most beneficial parts of the lemon!

You need to be able to drink it long term. It felt good to me from the very beginning.  But I really noticed weight loss benefits after about 2 months, and they continued on the longer I did it.

Anyway I detail more about my experience in the book, answer many questions about Lemon Coffee that I saw being asked around the web. I share the many benefits of lemon, coffee, the special benefits of the combination. Even ginger gets a special mention.

There is an introduction to a pro metabolic diet as this is the key to success with Lemon Coffee. Along with a handful of my favourite meat based recipes and some fruity side dishes.

My husband Adrian has outdone himself on the photography once again. I can honestly say the book is our most visually stunning yet.

We’re excited to bring it to you, and hope you love it.

To read more about the book and how to buy it, please click here or the image below.

Kristy x

Lemon Coffee

strawberry ice cream

Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe – Ray Peat Inspired

Who doesn’t love strawberry ice cream?

I’ve been meaning to try the 4 cups of fruit and 1 tin sweetened condensed milk ice cream idea for a long time. I’m always looking for ways to utilise lots of fruit in yummy dishes for our pro metabolic diet. This is perfect with Summer coming on here in Australia.

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fruit

Fruit in a Pro Metabolic Diet

In our private facebook group we were talking about how much fruit people buy in their weekly shop. It was prompted by me trying to organise myself better, to make sure I was sticking to my ZEN Beach Diet.

It’s one thing knowing WHAT to do and HOW to do it,

but actually DOING it is another thing entirely.

Some people are super focused on food prep and planning their meals and to be honest, I wish I was far more like that. But I’m not, so that’s why the basic outline of a meal in the ZEN Beach Diet is so helpful, because at least you easily know what each meal is supposed look like macro-wise.

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Blueberry Muffin Recipe

In a Ray Peat style diet we’re trying to fit fruit in everywhere, so an easy Blueberry Muffin Recipe is perfect.

I’m loving the ease of frozen blueberries lately. Not to mention they’re $17kg instead of the fresh ones, which are $45kg!

What?!

Until food started to get ridiculously expensive, I didn’t even consider it.

Let’s get cooking, and a little more explanation later.

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Oat Bran in a Ray Peat Inspired Diet?

Ray Peat mentioned that he is trying a bit of Oat Bran recently and feeling better for it. I personally feel better minimising starches and grains. I still have 25% of my carbs as starch because I find just sugar/fruit alone doesn’t feel quite right, especially in winter.

So I bought some Oat Bran this Australian winter just to try it.

Read on to see what conclusions I’ve drawn.

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