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Healthy Breakfast_ The FreeDiet™ 3-Minute Super Smoothie

April 7, 2021 Dr. Tom Rofrano

Healthy and Fast Breakfast Smoothie Recipe

Years ago when I was figuring out how to heal myself from Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, gut, skin, pain, and other chronic health issues I was having, I came up with the FreeDiet®. This diet is free of not only gluten but gluten, grains, sugar, yeast, dairy, eggs, soy legumes, nightshades, and processed foods.

I was struggling with what to eat for breakfast and then came up with the idea of having a smoothie. However, smoothies typically take a lot of time and effort because of washing the fruits, spinach, and kale. It just takes a whole lot of time, effort, and energy. I came up with a solution in under three minutes of how to make a nutritious breakfast smoothie.

How to Make the FreeDiet® 3-Minute Super Smoothie

Start with 12 ounces of filtered water and add half a cup of organic frozen blueberries or cherries. Frozen berries are easy because you don’t have to wash them and they’re already frozen so it’s like adding ice to the smoothie.
Blend filtered water and organic berries on low for about five seconds.
Add a scoop of the FreeDiet® Protein or Organic Pea Protein
Add a rounded tablespoon of organic FreeGreens™ (concentrated fruits and vegetables, chlorella, spirulina) for a number of servings of fruits and vegetables in a concentrated powder.
Add a tablespoon of ground flaxseed. Grind this ahead of time and keep stored in the refrigerator in a glass jar. It’s an excellent source of essential fats, fiber and flax lignans.
Add 1 tablespoon of Organic Psyllium Husk Powder as it’s a great source of fiber and is very cleansing. You can start with a teaspoon and work your way up to a tablespoon over a 1-2 weeks.
Add 1 tablespoon Organic Virgin Unrefined Coconut Oil.

Blend All Ingredients

Put the lid on the blender and blend for five seconds. Check the smoothie after five seconds to see if additional blending is needed. This smoothie is a great source of protein, fruits, vegetables, essential fats, and fiber. It’s fast, easy, delicious, and a great way to start your day.

One troubleshooting tip with psyllium fiber, if you don’t drink it right away, it can get really thick. So, you can use just a teaspoon of psyllium instead. Either drink the smoothie very soon after making or just stick with a level teaspoon of psyllium fiber instead.

That is all it takes for a delicious and nutritious breakfast! Click here for your savings on our FreeDiet®Super Smoothie bundle.

How and Why You Should Soak Nuts

February 22, 2021 Dr. Tom Rofrano

Have you ever soaked nuts before eating them? Why would you consider soaking nuts? Soaked nuts do not even sound very appealing. But soaking nuts before eating them is beneficial.

Benefits of Soaking Nuts

There are three reasons soaking nuts is beneficial. Here are three reasons you should consider this:

1. Reduce Mold

The first reason is a four-letter word: mold. Yes, that’s right. Most nuts have mold on them. You may not be able to taste or see it, but they’re kept in storage bins for weeks or months and accumulate mold, which produces toxins called mycotoxins. Soaking nuts helps reduce and eliminate mold from the nuts.

2. Eliminate Pesticide Residue

If the nuts are not organic, they are sprayed with pesticides and fumigated with chemicals. Soaking the nuts helps reduce and eliminate pesticide residue.

3. Easier to Digest

Soaking nuts makes them more digestible, and the nutrients become more bioavailable as soaking helps reduce phytic acid, lectins, and oxalates. Those are all compounds that block nutrient absorption and can also aggravate gut issues and affect your health in other negative ways.

How to Properly Soak Nuts

The other day, I soaked some nuts and poured off the water and could tell they had been affected by mold. Over a couple of days, I had moldy almonds and pecans. If you’re not soaking nuts, you’re eating mold and mycotoxins. I have seen water become disgusting in as little as four hours.

To minimize your exposure to toxins, ensure you’re soaking nuts before eating them. It’s simple to do:

Take the nuts and pour them into a bowl or a mason jar. You can do this with seeds as well.
Pour filtered water at least 1/2 inch over the top of the nuts.
Add a tablespoon of salt for every quart of water, stir it in the water to dissolve, and set it on the counter for 12 to 24 hours.
After the nuts have soaked, pour off the contaminated water.
Rinse the nuts or seeds with fresh water. You can pour fresh water back in, put it in the refrigerator, and use the prepared nuts for recipes or snacks.
Remove the amount you’re going to eat daily, pour fresh water over them, and put it back in the refrigerator. You can do that for about five days.

Soaked Nuts Recipes

If you have more questions about how to remove mold from nuts, I have a great resource for you. There are many recipes in my book, The FreeDiet®: How to heal your gut and Thyroid and free yourself from pain, fatigue, fogginess, and fat. My wife, Dawn, has plenty of recipes using soaked and low mold nuts for various dressings and desserts. On page 32, there are detailed instructions on how to soak and dehydrate nuts properly.

How to Roast or Dehydrate Nuts

Aside from using them in recipes, you can also dehydrate or roast them. Place them in the oven at 200 degrees for 2-4 hours. If you want them to roast faster, you can do it at a higher temperature. I like to use lower temperatures.

You want to sprinkle plenty of salt all over the nuts first. If you prefer, you can also use a dehydrator: spread it out on the sheet, add plenty of salt, and put it in the dehydrator. I prefer using a temperature of 120 degrees for 24 to 48 hours. You can use a higher temperature if you want them done faster. You can use cinnamon, stevia, or monk fruit to sweeten the nuts, making it a great dessert snack.

Those are the best options for consuming nuts. They taste great and are a lot healthier for you. Give it a try!

Contact Us Today

Here at the Natural Medicine Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, we work with patients using our functional medicine approach. To schedule an appointment with me, Dr. Tom Rofrano, please call my office. We look forward to hearing from you!

How and Why to Soak Nuts [Video]

February 28, 2018 Dr. Tom Rofrano

Hi, I’m Dr. Tom Rofrano and today I’m going to show you how easy it is to soak a variety of nuts and why you even bother doing it.

Three Reasons to Soak Nuts

First of all, nuts, although they taste great, they are covered with fungus. Yes, that’s right. I mean they’re stored in these large bins for weeks or months at a time, and they can accumulate a lot of fungus, mold. And therefore, by soaking nuts, you’re washing off, rinsing off a good portion of the mold and fungus that’s on the nuts. That’s number one.

Two, they also fumigate most nuts with pesticides with less on organic. However, other nuts are fumigated with sometimes very toxic chemicals. So it’s another reason why you want to soak nuts.

And thirdly, it makes them much more digestible and absorbable. And if you do it right, they actually taste better, believe it or not. So we’re going to show you that now.

How to Soak Nuts

I put these in the water this morning. Let me show you, these are some pecans right here. So let me show you with the water, they’re looking like, this is just, okay. So yes, this is what, look at this. Now, this is what you would be eating, if you don’t soak these. Yes, all this crud in here. I don’t have a microscope right now, but it’s probably covered, loaded with mold.

And let’s see about the walnuts in here. I put these in early this morning. Yes, look how disgusting that is. Do you want to drink that? I don’t think so. This is what you’re eating if you’re not soaking the nuts. And what else do we have here? Almonds. Look at how cloudy that water is. So we’re going to see what this looks like. Oh my gosh. Yes, it’s just loaded with fungus. I’d imagine.

So anyway, I think you want to avoid all that, and instead you just put the nuts in something like this glass jar, mason jar, jar like this. Here’s a bag of raw walnuts, pour in like this, but three quarters in the way out, not all the way up because the nuts overflow. Then add some filtered water like that. Put the water almost to the top, and you just put the top on and put in the refrigerator, and that’s it.

You can put some salt in there if you want. You keep them in there overnight, and the next morning you rinse the water off like I did here. So let me just show you all rinse this off like it is the next day. I’m going to pour this out. Okay, so now I’ll, take a handful of what I’m going to eat right in there and then when I’m done with that, I’ll pour some filtered water back in and put it back in the refrigerator, and that’s it. It’s very very simple.

Nuts Taste Better

Other than that, so some of these nuts actually taste better. So like walnuts, the bitterness just goes away. I mean it’s amazing how much better they taste, the same thing with almonds. Some nuts, people just don’t like them. So they don’t like the taste. So in that case what you could do is put them in a dehydrator if you have one, on 120 degrees for 24 to 48 hours, or in an oven.

I’m sure almost everyone has an oven, and it’s very simple. You could heat them at 200 degrees for two hours, and this is one way to do it. You can even sprinkle some salt over the nuts, and they taste great. And when you do that they travel really well, because they’re not wet. And yeah, they taste great. So either way, that is another option to put them in the oven or dehydrator.

And that is our tip of the day. If you would like any more health tips you could just visit me, just share your information with us. I’d be happy to give you the latest updates on health tips as we go along.

Thank you for reading our blog! How can we help you? Contact us today.

The FreeDiet™ 3-Minute Super Smoothie

January 16, 2018 Dr. Tom Rofrano

™™

Hi, my name is Dr. Tom Rofrano and this morning I’m going to show you my 3-minute super smoothie. This smoothie started because the thought of getting up and washing the fruit and getting some baby spinach and kale and cleaning and washing that was just a bit overwhelming. So I came up with this strategy to save time and get it done. Let me show you how easy my three-minute super smoothie recipe is.

Getting Started

The first thing you do is get your blender. I have got a Vitamix here. Pour in 12 ounces of filtered water. Then we have our frozen blueberries, wild blueberries or organic ones. You can also use cherries. We’re just going to do a half a cup of those. To that, I’m going to add some Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. I’m going to put a tablespoon of that. You can use two tablespoons, but for most people, one tablespoon is fine.

Add Protein

The blender is on low, and I’m going to turn it on for just five seconds. You don’t want to overdo this. I have some Organic Pea Protein here, which is an excellent source of protein with a very low allergy potential. So we’re going to use two scoops of that. Another excellent option is our vanilla Paleo Protein. Whoops, I got protein all over myself, make sure you wear an apron, too.

Add FreeGreens™

Then add FreeGreens™. I use a product we have at the natural medicine clinic. So this has organic barley grass juice, wheat grass juice, spirulina, chlorella, many different organic fruits and vegetables and is naturally sweet, so it tastes great. Instead of doing all the fruits and vegetables and all that stuff just add a scoop of this. Actually what I do is a half a scoop, and then I do the other half a scoop in the afternoon with just plain water, it’s very refreshing. So I get my afternoon boost, but you can do one scoop if you want to do it all at once.

Include Fiber

And then we have some ground flaxseed which is an excellent source of fiber, essential fats and flax lignans, a tablespoon of that. And then lastly a tablespoon of Psyllium Husk Powder which is the source of fiber very cleansing and also very filling. So add a tablespoon of that (start with a teaspoon initially and gradually increase to a tablespoon over the next week or two). And we keep this on low and then again just turn it up just a few seconds.