What’s so nice about fermented cheese is that they make the nuts and seeds or whatever base ingredients very easy to digest. Typically, nuts and seeds are hard to digest and are better on the digestive system when soaked and fermented. This means not only easier digestion but also the increased bioavailability of nutrients in the nuts and seeds.

Making cheese does take time but it’s actually very simple to do.

PART 1: Culturing The Cheese

There are two steps to this cheese making process; first we prepare and culture the nut pate and secondly we age it.

To begin, here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 cup of unpasteurized almonds
• 1 cup of raw pumpkin seeds
• 1 starter culture
• 1 tbsp. coconut yogurt
• 1 tbsp. real salt
• 1 tbsp. reasoning of choice (rosemary, thyme, basil)

Here;s how you make it:

1. Begin by soaking your nuts & seeds for 6-8 hours.
2. Afterwards, give them a nice rinse.
3. Next, you have options. I would recommend blending them with 2 cups of water, straining through a nut mylk bag and viola, you have fresh nut milk. You can then use the pulp to make your cheese! You can also just blend the soaked nuts.
4. If you go the first route, you’ll want to add a little bit of liquid back to the pulp or what I do is add one big tbsp. of coconut yogurt to the pulp. This serves as a starter culture and will add creaminess.
5. If you go the second route – simply blend the nuts with a starter culture with sea salt.
6. Transfer this mixture to your nut mylk bag or cheese cloth and wrap tightly.
7. You can put in your dehydrator on low for 24hrs, or you can let it sit on your counter for 36 hours. This is the initial culturing phase.

PART 2: Aging & Flavoring The Cheese

After you’ve completed part 1 and your cheese has cultured (you’ll know because will be dry on the outside and soft on the inside with a yeasty smell) your next step is to age it with some flavor.

1. Take your cultured cheese and place it into a glass bowl.
2. Add your choice of spices. I like to add this blend of 24 spices for a savory cheese.
3. Mix the spices into the cheese until fully incorporated.
4. Scoop the mixture onto parchment paper.
5. Roll it into a log shape.
6. Store in the fridge for 4-6 days. This will age the cheese, making it more potent in probiotic bacteria and flavor.
7. Serve on top of my savory sprouted sunflower seed crackers, sourdough bread or dip with veggie sticks.

For more delicious probiotic food recipes like this and over 130 other whole food recipes be sure to check out my new cookbook The Gourmet Foodie!

If we look beneath the surface — even beyond what we see in the mirror — there’s a lot going on. Digestion for example, is a phenomenon that takes place beyond what the eyes can see.

Have you ever pondered on how our bodies are capable of eating food and turning it into eye balls? Or how we drink water and it makes blood and urine? It’s rather fascinating and is all done behind closed doors.

THE BRAIN-GUT AXIS

It may seem the digestive process is happening magically all on it’s own, it’s not. At a primordial level, we are doing it. We are digesting food (or not digesting it) based on the silent signals we send to our second brain (the gut) on a momentary basis.

It is through the vagus nerve — a little nerve that connects the tongue to the gut — that the gut is connected to the brain. The vagus nerve is stimulated by the receptors on the back of our tongues. When we eat something, it sends signals to the gut to start the digestive process. This is known as the gut-brain axis — the two are intrinsically connected.

When we are in states of stress; however, we tend to chew poorly, breathe rapidly and send a surge or stress hormones that interfere with the digestive process. Though food may be stimulating the vagus nerve slightly, the process is disrupted. One way it shows up physically is inn the way we chew.

Though simple, you’ll notice you cannot chew thoroughly and properly and be stressed at the same time. As you become more aware of your chewing, your heart rate slows and you become more relaxed. You cannot be relaxed and chew stressfully at the same time.

Therefore, in order to fully heal the gut, you have to; to some degree, heal the brain. Surely, there are supplements you can take that help heal the digestive system; however, they are just supplements — usually making up for what is lost when the brain is broken and digestive system goes hay-wire. When the mind is calm, the body is and all processes are functioning correctly.

IS YOUR BRAIN INFLAMED? 

If the digestive system misses one too many beats we start to accumulate inflammation in the body. In short, undigested food leads to bacterial overgrowth, toxicity and inflammatory responses. When there is any sort of inflammation in the body for long periods, eventually other barrier systems will break down such as the blood-brain barrier.

This causes brain inflammation. I know pretty nuts to think about. Who would have thought all that fast-food actually makes people stupid too!

By taking measures to heal the gut though, one can do numbers for healing the brain — as they are connected. It’s not easy to think your way to healing when your brain is broken and inflamed. This is where working at a physical level becomes very useful.

Here are great tools that will help heal from the body, inward, as you slowly work on the inner-work:

• Broth– Made from the bones of wild or pastured animals, bone broth is one of the most healing foods for the gut next to probiotics. To spare you a novel, bone broth contains every essential nutrient to build a strong and healthy intestinal tract. It also soothes inflammation and has a direct impact on the nervous system. The gut is known as the enteric nervous system or second brain. When sipping broth, it soothes the intestinal tract, which sends the same calming signals to the brain. It’s a wonderful sleep tonic and overall stress-balancing food. Someone with a broken brain-barrier and gut tends to have an overactive sympathetic nervous system, foods like bone broth will stimulate the parasympathetic system, which helps the body relax and chill out. Which is totally essential to good digestion. The parasympathetic nervous system is the “rest and digest” mechanism. Check out my earlier post here to learn how to make your own broth and start sipping on it daily. If this grosses you out too much, or takes too much time, then get your hands on some grass-fed gelatin or collagen. It’s a modern day miracle.
• Glutamine– When we put our bodies through high amounts of stress of any type — physical, mental, emotional — our need for glutamine is increased. When overly stressed, glutamine is one of the first nutrients our bodies use up. Our natural production becomes depleted and our body falls apart in many ways. At this point, which is the point many people are at, glutamine becomes an essential amino acid that we need to get through diet or supplementation. Otherwise, our guts become vulnerable to permeability — aka Leaky Gut. Which again, is caused by stress and poor digestion. By consuming glutamine rich foods (like bone broth or my favorite Vitality SuperGreens) we provide the gut with the exact nutrition it needs to build intestinal lining. It also:
  • Removes metabolic residues from digestion such as ammonia, which can cause leaky gut.
  • Synthesizes proteins
  • Contains gluconeogenesis, which keeps blood sugar stable. Which when out of balance throws hunger hormones out of whack.
  • Processes nucleic acids, which makes up our DNA.
• Probiotic Foods– Without probiotics (healthy gut bacteria) we die. It’s that simple my friends. We are more bacteria than we are human. The good bacteria are our protectors from harmful bacteria, yeast, fungi and parasites. When we kill off these wonderful little micro-organisms our immune system becomes vulnerable and we get sick. People have written entire books on probiotics because of their value and importance. If you’re not in the know on probiotics, please educate yourself. I’d start with the Body Ecology Diet book for an easy read on what is a vast topic. In short, probiotics are what digest our food on a essential level. They are responsible for extracting nutrients and turning them into our hair, skin, nails, tissues, organs and so on. They are the miracle workers! Without them, again, we die. It’s not even a matter of healthy skin and hair or a bloated stomach, it’s a matter of diminishing biological energy to the point of cellular death and disease. So avoid this, and drink kefir regularly.

How quiet time heals the gut

When you meditate, do tai chi, breathe slowly, certain yoga or best of all do these things in nature — you flood your brain with oxygen. In states of chronic stress people don’t breathe well. Their hearts beat rapidly all the time and their breathes are short and shallow.

When the brain is flooded with oxygen and we are breathing deeply, we active the parasympathetic nervous systems. Which tells the body it is okay to relax because we are not in threat. We can get back to building resilient, healthy and beautiful bodies to live our lives fully!

Surely, there are supplements that can help oxygenate your body but nothing like oxygen itself. Also, the supplements only help treat the symptom. Which can be helpful if you are working on healing things at the root; such as learning to relax, enjoy life and be happy again.

To get to the root, we have to learn how to breathe again. In order to accomplish this feat,  we’re going to have to teach our bodies that it is OKAY to relax. That means a bigger task than most want to sign up for. Because it means using your own inner-power to create a sense of well-being each moment. Can you handle the responsibility of creating happiness and serenity each day?

And I will say this, the more you’ve hardwired your brain to fear relaxation, the more you need it. Or die early and diseased, you’re choice…

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSY-NESS?

In physics there are some basic types of energy; potential energy, genetic energy, thermal (heat) energy, work energy and free energy. Looking just at heat and work energy, we find a fundamental difference. Work energy is found by calculating force x distance. Heat energy, there is only force or effort, but not much distance. So, in work, we actually get some where, from point A to point B, but in heat energy, there is a lot going on without any distance being produced (you’re not getting anywhere).

This is the difference between getting something done (productivity) and being busy. Many of us are busy getting nothing doing and it is a waste of energy. So, this is a major obstacle for many of us; were addicted to busyness. And due to the lack of actual productivity, we have difficulty actually resting. If you’ve ever done a hard days work, some manual labor or some sort, where you are actually productive, it is easy to rest.

So, let me just ask you an honest question, what are you being productive in life, or just busy?

Here are some things that can help:

• Set an achievable goal and get it done: Most of us fail to produce something because we set too high of a goal. This is ambition; where our desires exceed our competence and ability. Set easy to achieve goals and finish them each day to get them done. Do things to get them done, not to just look busy.
• Take 10: Just for 10 minutes each night set aside total quiet time before you frantically jump into bed. If you’re an achiever, then use your Type-A traits to your advantage. Make quiet time as important as stressing out over everything else But then when your actually in quiet time, shush our mouth and mind and just be.
• Accept your insanity: Nothing changes until we first accept it. Admit you’re addicted to stimulation and can’t relax. Then accept it. Then laugh about it. Then go for a walk in nature and smell a flower, become fascinated by something beautiful and realize that your problems aren’t “out-there” they are in your mind. And you can leave that thing any time you wish to be happy.
• Breathe: This one is simple and sweet. Just as often as you can, use your mind to your advantage and check in with your breathe. Are you breathing short and shallow from your chest? If so, take a few deep breathes form your belly; feel it relax as we tend to hold a lot of tension there. You don’t need Qigong or Tai Chi to relearn how to breathe, you can do it anywhere and it’s totally free. This is a simple and wonderful place to start becoming self-aware.

Making appointments with yourself to just be is not for everyone. Some people simply lover suffering and stress too much. I know it because I was one of them. I learned to survive by being stressed as if it was actually helpful.

Despite how we’ve been programed to remain busy and stressed at all times in today’s world, I will give you a secret…STOP THINKING AND LOOK. Thinking is condensed energy, its harder to think about something than it is to do it, to feel and to look. Looking, observation, awareness require much less energy and are more effective than thinking.

In regards to relaxing, stop thinking, look around, there’s stillness here, all the data and information in the world is there. So, if you want to know something, just look. You don’t need to give yourself a headache about it. By becoming more observant and aware, you might also find that things are never as bad as we imagine them. So, in order to be free from the trap that is the mind; don’t think, look. After all, it is difficult to truly rest and relax if your mind is still turning when you go to lay down.

For whatever reason, we have this tendency to resist things. We fight bedtimes rather than embrace them with nightly rituals — regardless that we all know a peaceful routine would improve the quality of our sleep and health.

It’s been shown that quality of sleep matters more than the amount of sleep you get, but what are the best ways to our sleep? Better yet, what are we doing that is destroying our sleep?

Here are a few major sleep destroying habits:

• Unhealthy Light Exposure: Before electricity, iPhones, computers and alarms we were entertained and maintained by Mother Nature. Though technology has it’s benefits, most of it doesn’t belong in the bedroom. Blue light from these devices interferes with mitochondrial energy production, slowing the metabolism and increasing stress hormones that rob us of good quality sleep.
• Not having a Routine: Good sleep requires a rhythm. However, many adults will resist having a routine and bedtime in general. This is likely because as kids, we resisted naps because we were being forced to, not free too. Now, because were too busy too nap, we crave them. When we have to do things, we are not free to. However, take a look around, no one is stopping us from enjoying the sweet rewards of a peaceful nights sleep but our own minds. So if you’re resisting having a bedtime cause it makes you feel like an old person, just realize skimping sleep will make you old, faster.
• Keep stimulated- Stimulation is not the same as energy. Hormones like cortisol and adrenaline impair metabolism and increase the stress hormone melatonin, which is not necessary for good sleep but actually impairs sleep by slowing the metabolic rate. Exercising late, taking caffeine in large doses, drinking and smoking amongst other factors that stimulate us are recipes for insomnia.
• Stay up later than the Sun- While the Sun is a great promoter of energy production and good sleep, there is a reason it sets. Staying up late into the evening, especially staring into blue light is a horrible idea if you want to sleep. But don’t take my word for it, just stay up until 3 am for a few nights and see what happens. I wouldn’t recommend it though.
• Think about the next day. Planning is essential for cultivating good luck. We are typically either planning to fail or planning to succeed. However, the time and place is not bedtime. This creates endless thinking that typically yields no actual helpful results considering  your brain is functioning fragmentally because well…it’s bedtime and it’s trying to shut off. Save planning for the morning, when you’re brains actually working. You can do like me and create a “6 impossible things before breakfast” list, where you put down 6 things that if you did that day would produce 80% or more of your desired outcome and happiness. All fueled solely by Bulletproof coffee, before any solid food

My Top Effective Yet Simple Sleep Hacks

Whether or not you currently have trouble sleeping, there are actually quite a bit you can easily do to improve your sleep. These are the most basic yet most critical activities that will help you improve both the quality and quantity of sleep so you can properly rejuvenate every night. Best of all, they cost nothing!

1. Get Daily Sunlight & Use Red Light Before Bed: Real light (from the sun) is essential for ensuring a fast metabolism, which is our best defense against stress and ensuring restorative sleep. In the presence of darkness, our metabolism slows and there is an increase of stress substances that ruin good sleep. In fact, chronic darkness damages the mitochondria, where as Sun Light and Red Light activates them. For example, bight light activates the key enzyme, cytochrome oxidase, which turns on energy production.Now it is important that you avoid Blue Light from electronics; however, one easy thing to do for improving sleep is getting daily sunlight. If you can spend all morning/day in the sun, I bet you will sleep like a baby. Otherwise, if this isn’t possible due to location or season, then try three bright incandescent lights (250 watt BR40 bulb with 10” metal surround) or a Red Light Machine on your skin before bed to turn up the metabolism and turn down the stress hormones.
2. Create a bedtime ritual. Start winding down at least two hours before bed. Most importantly, give yourself permission to relax! The work never ends, let’s face and accept that — there will always be more. Now that we can own that, let’s start getting out of our heads and creating a life worth living. Design a bedtime routine that excites you as much as vacation does. One that starts about 2 hours before bed, filled with essential oils, love making, classical music, massages, candles, writing and good non-fiction books. This is the time to start shutting off the lights. You’d be surprised what little odds and ends you can pick up for a ritual sacred for little to nothing.
3. Eat Sugar Before Bed: Cortisol regulates blood sugar, so when blood sugar is low, cortisol rises, which turns down the body temperature. You can effectively suppress the stress response by eating ripe fruits, fresh orange juice, milk or raw honey before bed. Most of these also contain anti-stress minerals (magnesium, potassium, and calcium) that improve energy production and sleep quality.
4. Go to bed by 10:00 p.m. The body creates an extra surge of cortisol after 11 p.m. to keep you awake if you push it past 10 pm. A good general rule of thumb is to make it to bed before 10 pm. This way you avoid the “wired and tired” syndrome. This is best for restoring our natural rhythms and keeping our immunity at peak. Not to mention, sleeping truly does make you beautiful!
5. Don’t exercise within 2 hours of bedtime: Exercise can be a stress and promote a release of many stress substances. Exercise depletes glycogen, which is used to balance blood sugar while sleeping, to lower cortisol and to prevent the of carbon dioxide. When exercise chronic and exhausting, it can increase cortisol and lower sex hormones that promote sleep quality and lead to hypothyroid.Here’s a tip; exercise is least stressful when the metabolism is at its highest, using in the afternoon from 11 to 3 pm usually. However, if you cannot work out during this time, take 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 50 mg. of niacinamide, with some vitamin k before and after working out to reduce the stress from exercise.
6. Consider These Supplements: While you can address most of the hormonal imbalances that ruin sleep with lifestyle and diet, there are a few clinically proven supplements that address the high stress chemicals. First is l-theanine, this is an amino acid that induces GABA and reduces cortisol. L-gylcine, found in Collagen/Gelatin also works the same, lowering cortisol by 20%. Consuming salt before bed can lower the adrenaline, putting an end to that racing mind.

Honestly, I say this time and time again health is not about what you put in, it is about what we can comfortably and happily take out. This rings true for our sleep as well, it is less about what we do and more about what we don’t do. These are sleep basics that are easy to implement immediately and most cost no money.

More on Food and Sleep

Your brain uses a lot of energy while you’re sleeping for releasing rest and repair hormones.  That being said, adequate nutrition is a powerful tool for improved sleep. We’ve covered a few dietary tips for sleep already, but here are a few more…

Dietary Tips for Great Sleep:

1. Avoid PUFA: Polyunsaturated fats a.ka. PUFA are promoted as the “healthy fats”, yet they are highly toxic to the human physiology. They impair energy production and metabolism, they suppress immune function, lower the body temperature, damage the brain and heart, inhibit protein digestion, increase estrogen and even attribute to cancer, while impairing our detoxification systems.Not to mention, PUFA are the basic breakdown products that make up the inflammatory prostaglandins, isoprostanes, and lipid peroxides. Excess consumption of PUFA will not only ruin good sleep, but they are associated with many diseases including cancer, hair loss and diabetes.

    

2. Eat 1-2 Tbsp. Raw Honey Before Bed. Your brain uses liver glycogen at night, and raw honey replenishes this supply and can create stable glucose levels for hours.
3. Try Grass-fed Collagen Before Bed. This is perhaps one of my favorite’s because it has so many additional benefits other than lowering cortisol and increasing GABA. These supplements improves skin dramatically, thickens hair, and repairs joint and muscle tissue!

Here’s my pro-sleep tonic:

• 1 cup warm, non-homogenized milk
• 2 tbsp. raw honey
• 2 scoops gelatin
• dash of salt