Last week my oldest was home from university for several days so of course I had to make all his favorites foods. He's diabetic, so these foods have all been adapted to fit into a ketogenic lifestyle, with the exception of his favorite Ragu of Beef over Mashed Potatoes. He requested I make the potatoes but we limit how much he and I eat. He, in particular, was able to eat a lot this time due to a great deal of manual labor cleaning up our yard after Hurricane Michael. Physical activity lowers blood sugar and he did so much wood chopping he had to correct with sugar and starches several times in one day, so it was alright for him to have a large serving of mashed potatoes. Although we are several hours inland the wind was strong here and we had several branches the size of small trees down and hanging dangerously. My husband had to work long hours, of course, so I was grateful for my son's help and the help of our neighbors cleaning up.

After several days of low carb pizza and Keto chocolate cream pie and Halo Top ice cream I gained about six pounds, so now that things are back to normal I decided to do a long fast. Autophagy, the process through which the body removes and replaces damaged cells, kicks in after about 12 hours of fasting and peaks around 40 hours. I rarely fast longer than 42 hours because of that and also because I start to feel unwell around that time. Once I made it to 72 hours fasting, but today at 40 hours I couldn't remember the user name to log into our banking app to deposit a check, even though I was just on it earlier paying bills, so I decided it was time to eat! I didn't eat because I felt hungry, however, and today's Keto-Ade recipe is one reason for that. This is a vinegar tonic, very popular right now, but made without all the sweeteners and juice and stuff you usually find in them. This will fit right into a ketogenic lifestyle and will even work for a less-strict carnivore diet.

Keto-Ade Vinegar Tonic
Serves 1
2 TBSP vinegar
3 drops each Young Living Slique Essence, Cinnamon Bark, Black Pepper, Ginger, Bergamot, and Lemon Essential Oils
2 cups water

Mix all ingredients and sip upon awakening, before meals, or when feeling hungry while fasting.

As most of you know I am in Dr. Fung's private Facebook fasting group and the moderators there are very much against coffee with cream during fasting. Any food, even Keto food, raises insulin response which can knock you out of autophagy and which causes weight gain, and they believe the cream prevents autophagy and that broth also does this. However, Dr. Fung himself allows both cream with coffee and broth during fasting (Dr. Fung approves the group but does not monitor it himself) and I avail myself of both to extend my fasts when I would otherwise be unable. Last night, for example, I was terribly hungry around 22 hours of fasting so I had some broth and coffee with cream while everyone else ate supper and that was enough to help me go to bed early and actually fall asleep without eating. Just in case, however, I like to have a vinegar tonic.

In The Obesity Code Dr. Fung explains vinegar is a protective compound because it dampens insulin response. While most magazine and Internet recipes will tell you the only vinegar that works is the raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, Dr. Fung uses sushi as an example of a high-carb food made safe through the use of vinegar and sushi vinegar is rice vinegar which is not raw. So, although I used the apple cider vinegar because I had some, I think any vinegar you prefer will work. I've heard good things about coconut vinegar but haven't found any around here. The oils I use are all from fruits and herbs that have been shown in studies to reduce hunger and increase metabolism and autophagy. Because they are essential oils they have no carbs or calories and you only need a tiny bit. The Slique Essence does contain stevia but because it is so diluted you can't taste it. If you want to avoid stevia all together during fasting you can substitute Grapefruit Essential Oil. Remember, most essential oils are NOT safe to eat. Young Living's Vitality oils are specially formulated to be edible (although any YL oil that is made as a Vitality oil is edible; they are just labeled differently for FDA compliance but they are the same oils). You can purchase Young Living oils from the link on the Home page.

One of the things I've really been missing since we switched to the ketogenic diet are doughnuts. I know I'm not the only one; all my kids have wished for them at some point. It's not like we ate doughnuts all the time before, although if I'd known our son would get Type 1 Diabetes I would have gotten them more often while we still could! We did have them every so often, however. Luckily for me, I prefer cake doughnuts to the yeast-raised kind, most likely due to my Midwestern upbringing. Cake doughnuts are the prevalent recipe in the Midwest and yeast-raised, like the famous Krispy Kreme or Cafe Du Monde are iconic in the South. The reason I say I'm lucky is, as far as I can see, the yeast-raised are impossible to replicate without using wheat.

I've been messing around with doughnut recipes and I think I've gotten pretty to close to a regular cake doughnut. These do require a couple things for success: a silicone doughnut pan and Vital Wheat Gluten. Wheat Gluten is the protein found in wheat. It helps make baked goods elastic, like regular wheat products and has very few carbs. If you have Celiac Disease you will have to substitute eggs or something else. The original recipes I found for doughnuts were either too eggy or tasted very dry. I added butter for moisture, but it does make the doughnuts very apt to crumble. If you want a sturdier doughnut you can replace the butter in my recipe with heavy whipping cream or eggs. I was the only one who found that dough too dry; everyone else loved it! I'm at my lowest weight in two years, and if I can lose that much while eating doughnuts for dinner I'll take it!

Keto Chocolate Doughnuts
Makes 6
Dough:
3 TBSP Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3 TBSP Coconut Flour
3 TBSP Almond Flour
6 TBSP Vital Wheat Gluten
3/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 cup Monkfruit Granulated Sweetener
1/2 tsp Salt
7 TBSP Sour Cream
3/4-1 cup Unsalted Butter, softened

Frosting:
1/4 cup Powdered Monkfruit Sweetener
1 TBSP Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 TBSP Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
1.5 TBSP Water

Mix all frosting ingredients until smooth and set aside. The frosting will firm up and become the texture of chocolate mousse. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a doughnut pan well with butter or coconut oil. Mix all dry ingredients for doughnut dough. Add sour cream and 3/4 cup butter. The dough should seize together into a ball. If it resembles coarse crumbs keep adding butter as needed until it makes a smooth ball of dough. Bake 10-15 minutes or until the edges of the doughnuts just begin to pull away from the pan. Do not over-bake. Cool the doughnuts completely in the pan and then turn out onto a platter. Frost with the frosting very gently (in my quest to make these moist I made them quite fragile) and add sprinkles if desired. I can't find Keto sprinkles, so I just add a tiny bit because my youngest always requests them!

We were so excited about these we had them for supper one night. The kids were thrilled! I never have understood why doughnuts are acceptable as a meal for breakfast only. I'm sorry it took me so long to get this posted. Both kids had a little stomach bug last week and I got it over the weekend. Today I had one home from school with a cough and runny eyes and sore throat. I had a Parent-Teacher Conference with his teacher and when I got there she was taking cough drops for the same thing. I took a bunch of ImmuPro and Inner Defense supplements when I got home, because I sure can't afford to catch another illness! Those are some Young Living products I really recommend.

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