Rivera - Eat for your Gut: Paleo-inspired recipes to reduce inflammation, improve gut health, and manage autoimmunity. Eat for your Condition Cookbook Series 1

Table of Contents

---

WHO AM I?

---

My name is Dr. Nicole Rivera, I am the owner of Integrative Wellness Group and a practicing Functional Medicine Doctor. My wellness journey started a long time ago. I grew up in an Italian household with Sunday pasta dinners and an obsession with breaded chicken cutlets that I demanded for lunch as a preschooler. When I was young, I didnt learn too much about cooking. However, I picked up on a few family recipes like making a mean tomato sauce or what Italian Americans affectionately call gravy.

I started working in the restaurant industry at 15 years old where I really started to expand my knowledge of food and palette for ethnic cuisine. One of my most transformational jobs was at a high end restaurant in Philadelphia where I learned a lot about what I call fancy food. The restaurant prided themselves on sourcing fresh, whole foods indigenous to the Positano Coast of Italy. I will never forget the day a customer demanded we add chicken parmesan to the menu and my boss (straight off the boat from Italy) stormed in the kitchen and started cursing in Italian. While laughing, I inquired why on Earth she was losing it. She informed me that chicken parmesan does not exist in Italy, because their culture is all about amazing, fresh fish with simple ingredients like lemon and olive oil.

That moment was so pivotal for me. I realized there were so many cultures around the world enjoying delicious, homemade foods that did not come from a package or a fryer, which was primarily Standard American Diet (SAD). I decided to play with my moms recipes and healthify them. I was successful at it, but still did not have a large knowledge base of healthy cooking. After college, I moved to California for chiropractic school where I learned about healthy living, organic food, GMOs, and toxins, which was where my cooking went to the next level. I always had a passion for food.

Every dollar I saved in college went towards swanky dinners in San Francisco. My best friend also a food lover and fantastic cook and I talked about opening a restaurant as a retirement plan. Keep in mind, we havent even started our careers yet. During school, I was obsessed with nutrition classes, but I focused on becoming a good chiropractor since that was the whole reason I moved to Cali in the first place. I started practicing in Seattle, WA. My office was next to the Microsoft building, which made up most of our clientele.

Our office was strictly chiropractic and did not offer nutritional services. As a new practitioner, I cant even count how many clients came in stating that they were not feeling better from the adjustment. I was so frustrated, because it had nothing to do with the quality of my body work, and everything to do with their lifestyle. I was working on people who worked 15 hour days, drank tons of coffee, and ate out of a vending machine. No chiropractic adjustment could magically undo all that damage. So, I decided to offer nutritional services along with chiropractic care in my own practice.

My fianc and I moved to NJ in 2011 to open Integrative Wellness Group in Belmar, New Jersey. Our mission was to help people get well and stay well through various facets of healing. I started my nutritional services based on simple blood and hair analysis to better guide my clients. I then embarked on a functional medicine degree, which expanded my knowledge base and understanding of how certain foods affect certain conditions. I created recipes and meal plans to heal specific ailments. Then, I had a light bulb moment to write a cookbook to help people to heal and manage their conditions, and enjoy awesome food while doing it! From my kitchen to yours, bon appetit!

---

WHY AM I EATING FOR MY GUT?

---

This cookbook will empower you to take control of your health and use food to improve your current condition.

My recipes are geared toward an easy-to-digest, anti-inflammatory diet that can help you relieve any gastrointestinal discomfort you may have. There are many layers to gut health. Diet is obviously a very important one, but there is also the possibility of an overgrowth of bacteria, yeast, or infestation of parasites. If you try upgrading your diet and your symptoms do not improve, see a Functional Medicine doctor in your area for proper analysis to understand your symptoms. Functional Medicine doctors use specific analysis such as stool analysis, neurotransmitter testing, heavy metal testing, blood testing, and autoimmune testing for a more accurate diagnosis. Eating for your gut will help people eliminate foods that inflame and irritate the gastrointestinal system which will decrease digestive issues and abdominal discomfort.

The foods incorporated in these recipes are geared toward cleansing the gut, repairing its integrity, and replenishing the good flora for healthy digestion and elimination. Healing the gut depends on your current symptoms and/or current diagnosis. This book creates a guide for those dealing with an autoimmune condition and those who are struggling with dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is an imbalance in the gut flora resulting in symptoms like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, gas, reflux, heartburn, and abdominal pain or cramping. Autoimmunity is typically associated with some level of dysbiosis, but also has another component known as leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut is when the integrity of the gut lining becomes compromised and foreign particles can pass more easily from the gut into the bloodstream.

In a healthy gut, only nutrients can pass into the blood. This leakiness can happen due to toxins, pesticides, heavy metals, and genetically modified foods that damage the gut lining. When foreign particles like bacteria, yeast, or food particles get into the bloodstream where they are unwelcome, the immune system will react.

Your immune system kicks in an inflammatory response to foods like gluten, dairy, eggs, and nightshades (ie. tomatoes, white potatoes, peppers, and eggplant).

Your body will soon create a memory of these invaders through the production of antibodies. Your body will actually remember that these foods are foreign invaders and that they need to be attacked upon entering the body. This speaks to people who have food sensitivities, food allergies, and/or autoimmune conditions. In autoimmunity, the memory component of the immune system can have a level of error. As the immune system attacks these foreign invaders, sometimes the immune system can confuse organ tissue for the foreign invader, which can allow an attack on an organ. Since some hybridized foods like gluten have been known to have protein sequences that resemble the tissue that makes up the thyroid, overconsumption over the long term can trigger an attack of the thyroid.

There are many other factors that play into autoimmunity such as heavy metals, toxicity, and stress, but our focus is on foods that heal the gut to take you off of the autoimmune spectrum. The point to be made here is when eating for autoimmunity, you want to eliminate all inflammatory foods and heal your gut. You must heal the gut before focusing on the organ that is being affected by the autoimmune attack.

Next page