Having done a fair bit of research on this, and tried many different ways to increase my collagen intake, I want to make it simple for you:

What is collagen?

Collagen is a protein. Proteins are made of amino acids, of which there are 20 in existence, nine of which are ‘essential’ (our body can’t manufacture them). Collagen contains 18 different amino acids and is almost a ‘complete’ protein – it’s only missing one of the nine essential amino acids (tryptophan).

Including the amino acids that form collagen in your diet is a wonderful thing. In the ancestral food world it is most known for being a gut healer, but collagen will also help with every part of our body that needs protein; hair and skin, ligaments, cartilage, our immune system, and our joints.

Collagen can be found in the tissues (skin, bone, cartilage and tendons) of land and sea animals. We can get that collagen out of those tissues by heating and breaking it down.

What is gelatin?

Gelatin is formed when you heat collagen rich tissues in water (for example, by making a broth). The amino acids literally gelatinise. The chemical structure of collagen is changed during this process, which can render it easier to digest.

The easiest and cheapest way to ingest collagen

The simplest, and most economical, way to get collagen into your diet is to make bone broth from bones that also have cartilage, tendons, and skin still on them. This can be done by, for example, including chicken feet or ligamentous joints such as beef knees in your broth pot.

Once cooked and chilled, a bone broth that is full of gelatin will literally be like a jelly – it will wiggle when you shake it! If you want a gelatin-rich broth and are finding your resulting stock too liquidy, increase the amount of ligamentous joints and/or decrease the amount of water that you are using when you make it.

Bone broth costs hardly anything to make and if you get into the habit of making and drinking it regularly, you’ll have the cheapest form of collagen available in your kitchen!

If you’d like more information on broth, check out the two podcast episodes I’ve done on it, Your Broth Questions Answered and Bones and Water – The Magic of Stock and if you’d like to my five favourite ways to use broth in my own kitchen, check out this article.

What about supplementation?

Both collagen and gelatin are available as supplements. When taken from land animals collagen is often bovine (from beef) or porcine (from pigs) and is mostly sourced from animal hide. Collagen can also be sourced from marine life, poultry and the membrane of eggshells.

Understanding the labels

You might’ve seen the term ‘collagen peptides’ or ‘hydrolysed collagen’ on supplements. In order to make collagen easy to supplement, it goes through a process called cleaving. This breaks down collagen’s amino acids into shorter chains, making it easy to mix into all liquids, including cold ones.

The differences between collagen and gelatin as supplements

The main difference between collagen and gelatin as supplements is the way you can use them.

You can add collagen powder to cold or hot drinks (hot water will not denature it) and it will dissolve.

If you add gelatin powder to a cold drink it will clump and gel. It needs slow working into hot water to dissolve.

So, if you want to supplement collagen and use it to quickly and easily stir into hot or cold drinks you will need to purchase collagen (which will have been hydrolysed).

If, however, you’re not bothered about adding collagen to drinks and you instead want to have some fun making things like gummies, gelatin is perfect.

For a third option, collagen is available encapsulated so you can take tablets of it with one of your meals instead!

Where to source collagen and gelatin supplements

In the US, if you want powders, I trust the Great Lakes brand. They have a huge range of collagen and gelatin. You can buy some plus support my podcast work here.

They currently have a deal of 25% off orders over $150.

One Earth Health, our current podcast sponsors and producers of the liver capsules that I love, sell New Zealand grass-fed beef collagen in capsules. You can get 5% off your order and support my podcast work by using this link.

Outside the US (where i live), these sources are harder to get hold of. I currently use Igennus collagen peptides. You can read about this here.

Have I answered all your collagen and gelatin questions? Do you use these products as supplements in your kitchen, or are you relying on bone broth? Comment below and let me know!

Changing food habits can be daunting. We may have tried before and not achieved what we wanted. We may have very little support. We may have what seems like a mountain to climb.

My journey to ancestral eating was long and winding! I’ve made a lot of changes in my food habits in my lifetime. I’ve lost 140lbs, I’ve eaten raw vegan and then, after two years, reintroduced animal foods in order to heal PCOS, I’ve water fasted, I’ve cut all sugar (including fruit) out of my diet in order to help address menstrual vertigo and, in the process of trying to heal my son, I’ve worked with many diets – including two years on GAPS and forays into AIP and Lectin-Free.

Looking back, some of these were more useful than others, but all of them required massive change in what I was eating. I’ve learnt what helps and what doesn’t along the way and here offer you my top tips for changing food habits below.

This blog post accompanies and expands upon Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode #74, 14 Tips For Changing Your Food Habits which you can find here.

Before we start, I want to bring up the D word: Discipline. The world would have us believe that changing food habits requires incredible discipline…and consequently we can often blame ourselves when we ‘fail’; recognise the “I’m just not strong enough” response?

When I first started my food changing journey, I applied discipline with incredible determination. And what I’ve learnt is that, even if you can achieve your goal, there are always consequences of disciplining yourself to do something. I’m still living with the consequences of the discipline I apply to myself in my 20s to lose half my body weight and I’ve learnt through subsequent changes that the safest, most long-lasting, a most satisfying way to change your food habits is to apply tenderness, to come closer to yourself and to work gently, step-by-step. Yes, it may take more time, and it may even be more painful, but it will change your whole life for the better!

OK, let’s get onto the tips:

Know Your Why

Being clear and excited about the reason why you want to change your food habits is the biggest determiner of your success.

Is it because you want more energy? Then, think about why you want more energy. What are you going to be able to do with that energy that you can’t do now? How will that impact your life? What will your life look like when that happens? How will you feel?

At age 20, I weighed 240 lbs (over 20 stone, you can see pictures here. Over the next year I went on to lose half that weight. The thing that kept me going was that I was really clear where I was heading. I wanted my 20s to be fun – I wanted to wear nice clothes, be able to move around with ease, to love how I looked when I went out. I held that vision in my head through every decision I made.

What is it for you? Why do you want to change your habits? Time spent getting clear and fleshing out all the details of this will really help.

Work On Your Emotions And Stresses

The stressful situations in your life have a huge impact on your food choices. If you’re angry at your boss or your partner, you’re not going to make a good food choice. If you’re frustrated because you’re not able to express how you feel, you’re going to look for ease in food. Actively find a way to work through your emotions and stresses. Sometimes this can be a simple as being in nature, sometimes more friend time can help.

Clear The Decks

When you’re six inches away from food and hungry (or upset), you are not going to make a good food choice. Clear the food that you do not want to eat out of your home.

Think Ahead

When you are hungry, it’s best to have good food in front of you as that then becomes what you eat. But this requires some planning to make good food easily available when you need it. Perhaps you need to do some bulk cooking at the weekend or have a standby snack available for those times when you’re really tired?

Listen to Ancestral Kitchen Podcast, episode #83: Meal Planning and Ancestral Food Rhythms

Tell Someone What You’re Doing

Accountability can be really helpful when we want to make a change. Finding someone who will support you and telling them your plans can cement the intentions in your own head and also give you an extra boost when you feel most vulnerable. If you can find someone who wants to make changes along with you, even better.

Be Careful Of The Thing You “Have To Have”

It is well-known in food intolerance practice that very often the thing that we “just can’t” give up is the thing that is causing us the biggest problems. If you are suffering with problems that you believe are linked to food, and have that food that you can’t live without, be wary and consider going without it for a stretch of time.

Find Something To Replace It With

Before you give up a particular food, think about what you can replace it with. For example, if you want to cut out gluten but love bread, work on finding or creating a gluten-free bread that you can turn to instead. Or if you want to cut sugar from your diet, think about what else can give you that sweetness (tropical fruit, cinnamon, roasted root vegetables) and actively bring more that into your diet.

Change The Habits You Associate With Food

Food is never eaten in isolation. Things come before it, rituals happen with it, and we do things after it. If you can change those up, you’ll find it easier to let go of unwanted foods.

The clearest example I can give you for this is when I gave up cigarettes. I had previously strongly associated smoking with two things – post-eating and when drinking alcohol. I determined that these could become weak points for me. In order to facilitate breaking my nicotine addiction, I set up my routine to go for a walk after my meal and I stopped drinking alcohol. It made a huge difference; not putting me in a habitual associative state and therefore helping me quit successfully.

Make The Food Yourself

Putting your time, effort and love into creating food is an incredible way to help you avoid overeating on it. Making food yourself changes how much you value that food.

Since I started making chocolate from raw cacao beans at home, the value I place on chocolate has rocketed! I know just how much work has gone into producing it, and therefore I’m really careful about how much I eat it.

Ensure You Are Eating Enough

It is extremely hard to make good food choices and resist food temptation when you are hungry or malnourished. Make sure that you are giving yourself enough energy through food, and that you have a good balance of proteins, carbs and fats. That may mean changing your habitual patterns, for example eating a breakfast, eating breakfast earlier, having a snack, or eating more meals a day.

Give Yourself What You Need Outside Of Food

If you are not paying attention to what you need in life, you are much more likely to turn to food to fill voids.

I find this to be particularly true for women and sweet foods. We need to give ourselves ‘sweetness’ in our lives. We need to feel luxuriousness, we need to feel treated, we need to feel satisfied, we need to feel rested. How can we give ourselves these things throughout our days? Can we rest with a cup of tea on the sofa? Can we spend time rubbing essential oils into our bodies? Can we cuddle up on the sofa with our partner, child or pet? Can we spend an un-scheduled afternoon once a week doing whatever we feel like?

The more we give to ourselves outside of our food, the more we won’t look for those sensations in what we eat.

Find Out What’s More Interesting To You

It’s so easy, if we’ve been plagued by ill-health or simply love being in the kitchen, for us to let food become the centre of our worlds.

It’s important to find other things in our lives that are more interesting to us than what we are about to eat. What holds you spellbound? Creative pursuits are wonderful for this. Do you have a garden? Do you like to paint? Can you knit/weave/crochet? Can you join a choir?

The more we can build these pursuits, the more balanced our awareness will become. This way our lives become full of little centres of interest and excitement of which food is just one.

Breathe

Creating space between my actions has really helped me in my food journey. It’s not been easy: held in the grip of an addiction, the last thing we want to do is pause; we want to just eat the chocolate! But if we can slow ourselves down and breathe, we open up an opportunity for conscious choice to get a look-in.

This habit, of pausing, is something that gets stronger the more we practice it. And the good news is we can practice it in many areas of our life – pausing to breathe before we respond in anger, pausing before we answer the telephone, pausing before we choose our next action. Each moment we practice it, we build muscles to help us deal with our unwanted food habits.

Do It, With Consciousness

When my husband first suggested to me that, upon wanting to eat a sweet treat that deep down I knew was wrong, I should eat it anyway but do it slowly and consciously, I went crazy at him!

Of course I shouldn’t be eating the food! That was a problem in the first place!

A decade on, although I still balk at this idea, I’ve had experience of doing it and know it changes the energy of a situation.

Sometimes giving ourselves the ‘bad’ thing that we want can be a step forward in our food journey. If we can eat that food calmly – enjoying every single crumb, and consciously – noticing what we feel and what it brings us, we can not only satisfy ourselves but also learn a lot.

Good support can go such a long way to our success in changing our food habits. My podcast has nearly one hundred informal, fun, supportive episodes. Check Ancestral Kitchen Podcast on your app or find it here.

I first became aware of the concept of healing the gut biome 15 years ago. It was a revelation – I’d grown up in a family where health and food weren’t connected. We ate cheap supermarket fare. By the time I was a teen I was obese and addicted to sugar (I was 280lbs aged 20 – you can see photos here).

I lost half my body weight aged 20, but I didn’t learn anything about health in that process – I just did the 1990s ‘thing’ of cutting out fat. It was a decade later before, hit with yet another bout of ‘tummy problems’, I stumbled across the word ‘candida’. That encounter prompted me to start researching the biome.

Since that day, I’ve been on a gut healing path. Back then, I thought it’d be easy (she lets out an ironic laugh whilst typing). It’s not, is it?!

Gut healing is not easy. We must give ourselves some space to acknowledge that and therefore feel better about our efforts.

Add together 15 years of my own healing, 15 years of watching and sharing my husband’s healing and 9 years of a healing journey with my son and here are 7 tips that come from nearly 40 years of a daily gut healing practice.

1. Figure out what might be keeping you stuck (not just what extra things you need).

Often giving a food up can make more difference than bringing in a new food. Experienced nutritionists talk about how we have a tendency to cling to the foods that are doing us harm – being without them initiates feelings inside our bodies that are ‘different’ (potentially healing) and we don’t like that change. As well as adding healing foods in, do a recce of what you’re eating now and how you relate to/feel about those foods.

2. Use protocols, but don’t become stuck in them.

My hand is up here. I have used and seriously become stuck in protocols. I ate raw vegan for two years, at the end of which I found it difficult to stand due to muscle weakness, yet I carried on for months, attributing it to ‘detox’. I stayed on the GAPS diet despite being in a position where I was losing too much weight and struggling to get through the day (listen to my GAPS experience here).

It can be hard to move on from a healing ‘diet’. We might have begun it thinking it was ‘the answer’ to our problems and be scared to move away. In addition, the force of habit can be binding – particularly when that way of eating has been a positive part of our lives for some time and we don’t want to make yet another change.

Our needs change and we need to stay attentive to every moment, questioning our experience and trusting our instincts to know (or feel) when it’s time to move on. Yes, protocols can be incredibly healing, but we mustn’t override our individual needs for the ‘safety’ of someone else’s rules.

3. Consistency and persistence always trump intermittent grand gestures.

Going on a fast, doing a cleanse, making a huge batch of kimchi and dousing your food with it for weeks – these things aren’t necessarily bad, but they aren’t the things that do the healing over time. It’s what we do every day that counts; the unsexy continuance of little, good things day in day out.

For years I would cyclically get really excited about the latest ferment I’d made and consume it with abandon…my sleep getting worse and worse until I was run ragged. It took me a while to realise that eating large amount of probiotics stops me sleeping – and even longer to be willing to give up my delicious binging on probiotics! Finally, about 10 years ago, I started weighing my sauerkraut (I started with 0.5g a day!). I’ve been gradually upping the amount of probiotics I have every day since then; for a decade. How many sauerkraut weighing sessions is that (I don’t even want to think about it!)?

Even without the issues I have with probiotics, I know that it’s what I cook, serve and eat every day that makes a difference in the long-term to the inhabitants of my gut and therefore my healing.

4. Think about prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics.

Probiotics get all the press, but feeding our biome with prebiotics is vital and I am sure that future research will confirm that postbiotics and paraprobiotics (learn about them here) are just as important in the healing work they do. A varied ancestral diet, with processing of grains can give you all of these!

5. Healing is not fair – don’t compare yourself.

Some people seem to be able to not care about what they eat and have really great health. So how come I can’t?!

This statement honestly might be true, but it is certainly not helpful.

We are each on an individual journey and it serves us to pay attention to, learn from and act upon our own body. Comparison is not just the thief of joy, it is the thief of healing. It can put us into a dark space where we’ll be demotivated and sad – releasing a raft of negative chemicals into our bloodstream and affecting our next food choices.

If you end up in the comparison space and can’t get out, try the next step…

6. Don’t think you’ll get to perfect, contemplate how you might have been if you hadn’t started.

When I first began my healing journey, I thought I’d nail it – I’d be this bouncy, always-energetic, radiant, immune superbeing. After 15 years of hard, anti-social, time-and-money-consuming choices the mythical me hasn’t materialised! When a set back gets me down, I stop myself spiraling by thinking about how things might have been now if I’d not taken all the steps I have over the last 15 years.

I do not have a good history – obese in my formative years, a sugar addict, taking 5+ rounds of anti-biotics every year in my teens, on the contraceptive pill for over a decade. Where would I be now if I’d not taken responsibility for my own health and changed my life? Very far from the place I am writing this to you now. Whatever you’ve done, whatever you’re doing, whatever you can do – it has, is and it will make a difference.

7. Remember to nourish yourself in other ways

Gut healing is not just about what we eat. Nourishment comes to us in so many other ways. I often need reminding that I am not a machine – yes, I create a lot of learning content, but I cannot keep working when I am tired without consequences. Nor can you. We need touch. We need creativity. We need laughter. We need rest. These things affect our brain and blood chemistry and therefore our gut health.

Why so much lard?

Because, next week, we will leave our home and travel to Britain for just over a month. I am looking look forward to the trip in so many ways – seeing friends and family and reuniting my son, Gabriel, with his grandparents, but, being away from our kitchen is a challenge for me.

There are some mainstays of our diet, like lard, that are difficult to source away from home and I’m busy preparing the essentials that we’ll pack into our two suitcases to help us eat well when we’re away. I’ve spent long stretches of time away from a ‘home’ kitchen, without the luxury of a car boot, living out of suitcases and I’ve still managed to feel good about how I’m eating and the food I’m giving my family.

In this article, I’ll outline some cornerstones to eating ancestrally away from your home and give you examples from my own kitchen that you can take away and use for yourself!

Eating Ancestrally Away From Home:

1/ Work out what’s important to you

2/ Choose where you stay carefully

3/ identify where you can compromise most easily

4/ Think about your ‘essential’ equipment

Let’s look at these one by one:

1/ Work out what’s important to you (and use that to guide your choices)

What are the foundations of your diet? Are they easily accessible in the location where you’ll be staying? If not, prioritise taking these.

For us, the three most important daily inputs that are hard/expensive to replicate when we’re away are probiotics, sourdough bread and good fat. Hence, these are the three things I focus on.

Probiotics

The two easiest probiotics from our routine to travel with are sauerkraut and water kefir. Here’s how I organise it:

Sauerkraut: A month before we go, I make a special two-kilo (four-and-a-half pound) jar of sauerkraut which is destined to be transferred into a tightly-locking food container and travel with us in our suitcase. I always wrap this food container in a plastic bag (or two) and tie tightly because air pressure changes cause containers to leak and I don’t want sauerkraut juice all over my clothes!

Water Kefir: The night before we leave, I prepare four tablespoons of water kefir grains for their journey! I mix up a sugar/water solution and put it into small jar, adding the water kefir grains and screwing the lid on tightly. I then wrap this jar in a plastic bag and seal it tightly. The jar will nestle in the middle of our case (ideally surrounded by socks…I’ve never had one smash this way!).

When we arrive, I buy two two-litre water bottles and drink/decant the water. I cut the top quarter off one of them and discard it, using the bottom three-quarters as the container for my water kefir’s first ferment. I fill it up with sugar/water solution, add my well-travelled grains and cover it with whatever I can find (a cut-up bit of plastic bag, a face towel, some kitchen paper). The second of the two water bottles becomes the container for the kefir’s second fermentation. I use these plastic bottles over and over for the duration of our trip, often transporting them from kitchen to kitchen if we’re moving location.

Sourdough bread

In order to continue to make good quality spelt and rye bread whilst away I do two things:

1/ Pre-order local flour to arrive in location where I’ll be

2/ Take my sourdough starter with me

I also often take a lightweight silicone loaf tin with me for baking.

It is very possible to take sourdough starter on a long journey. Refresh it, at a low hydration (70% hydration works for my rye starter), just before you go. When you arrive check how it’s doing and refresh again if necessary. (If you want more information on creating and maintaining a rye sourdough starter, check out my pay-what-you-can course here.)

Making sourdough bread with flours from many different locations has taught me so much about uniqueness and beauty of grains and helped me become more intuitive, less perfectionist baker. I’d recommend giving it a go!

Fat

This year we will take around two kilos (4.5 pounds) of home-rendered lard to England with us. Ideally, we’d have more, but we don’t have the luggage space, so I’ll be very deliberate in my use of it (and we’ll supplement it with bought butter and olive oil).

In order to get the lard to our destination, I freeze it before we travel. As I pack our suitcase, I deliberately reserve a space for the lard. It is, along with our toothbrushes, one of the last things that goes into the case before it’s zipped up!

2/ Choose where you stay carefully

Prioritise getting a kitchen!

It is challenging enough to be away from home and eat ancestrally, but to be without a kitchen makes it so much harder. Go out of your way to look for places to stay that have kitchens. Here in Europe, we would choose to stay in an AirBnB over an hotel because this.

If you are staying with friends and/or family, and the kitchen that you get to use is not so well-equipped, ask people if they have things you can borrow – a blender, some jars, loaf tin. Sharing what you make with them as a thank you is a beautiful exchange!

3/ Work out where you can compromise most easily

Trying to make our diets 100% perfect 100% of the time is such a stressful endeavour! Being out of your home environment is the time to compromise.

For example:

• When we’re travelling it’s harder to access raw milk, so we will either avoid milk or opt for good-quality pasteurised milk.
• My energy is limited; when we travel, I don’t often do the research/travel to get local meat. This is the time when I will consciously use other sources. We (shock, horror!) will go to supermarkets, choosing the least harmful produce we can find there.

4/ Think about your ‘essential’ equipment

Simple, good equipment can completely change our experience of cooking. What small tools do you use in your kitchen that you’d be lost without? Consider taking them with you.

Travelling (often with just one family suitcase for a month’s trip) I have become very selective with the equipment that I take with me. Here’s what’s going in this year:

My knife: Being able to work efficiently in an unfamiliar space is important. I find it incredibly frustrating using other peoples knives, and have my own that I take with me. If you are flying, remember to put this in your hold luggage!

My small funnel and my plastic sieve: These are essential for my water kefir making process. They are tiny and fit easily in my suitcase.

My small digital scales: I weigh ingredients for bread, and I’m constantly surprised how many kitchens don’t have good scales.

The luggage for our trips is often made up of a large percentage of food and kitchen equipment! This means that I have to take less of everything else, mainly less clothes and less shoes (on our last trip, I wore the same sandals every day for five weeks). This is, as a practice, really eye-opening. On my return home I often wonder why I need all the other things hanging in my wardrobe and, this way, I always feel good about the effort I went to to secure food for myself and the two people I love most in the world.

Happy travels!

P.S. If you want to hear more about travelling and eating ancestrally, check out Ancestral Kitchen Podcast #47 ‘The Christmas Survival Guide’ (where we talk about travelling and, in particular, cover scenarios I haven’t here like staying as someone’s guest and pre-ordering a lot of food) and also #15 of Kitchen Table Chats (where I go in depth into our logistics for our trip last year), the show that goes out to supporters of Ancestral Kitchen Podcast. To get access to this second one (plus so much more support) join the ‘companionship’ level of our supporters group on Patreon here 

This article will explain protein recommendations, what that looks like on your plate and give you 16 ideas for high protein breakfasts.

How much protein do I need?

The sources that I’ve read suggest that, as women, we need one gram of protein for every kilogram of our body weight. If we are very active, breastfeeding, insulin-resistant or peri-menopausal that figure goes up.

Let’s make that more tangible: I weigh 10 stone (140lbs/65kg), so that means I need 65g of protein a day which is 22g per meal.

How much protein is in food?

Here’s some information from Laura Bryden’s ‘The Hormone Repair Manual’:

In order to get 20g of protein, we need to eat:

• Red meat 77g (or 2.71oz)

• Chicken breast 87g (or 3.06oz)

• Almonds is 93g (or 3.28oz)

• Salmon 105g (or 3.70oz)

• Feta cheese 121g (or 4.26oz)

• Eggs 159g (or 5.60oz) c. three medium eggs

• Tofu 167g (or 5.89oz)

• Chickpeas 242g (or 8.53oz)

• Lentils 263g (or 9.27oz)

As you’ll notice, animal sources are generally higher in protein than plant sources. In addition, animal sources are more likely to be ‘complete’ proteins (i.e. include all the essential amino acids – that is the amino acids that our bodies cannot generate themselves). There is certainly a place for plant proteins – but in order to prioritise protein per mouthful, I look to animal sources first.

Why high protein for breakfast?

Protein at breakfast is so beneficial. It regulates our circadian rhythms therefore helps us sleep better, it aids with sugar processing by sensitising our insulin production and it fires up metabolism. In addition, it fills us up, meaning we’re less likely to run out of energy or be hungry during the morning.

How can I eat a high protein breakfast?

If you want to eat a high-protein breakfast make these key ingredients central to the first meal of your day:

Broth

Beef bone broth has 10g of protein per cup/250ml and is so easy to drink or work into other dishes.

Dairy

1 cup/250ml of milk or milk kefir has over 8g of protein, and it is easy to blend into smoothies or simply to drink. Cheese is even higher in protein with just 28g/1oz of cheddar having 7.6g of protein, 28g/1oz of Parmesan having 9.2g of protein and half a cup of cottage cheese having 13g of protein.

Collagen powder

The two problems I hear from people about breakfast are:

1 – I don’t have the time to make a meal early in the morning, and

2 – I just can’t eat that much early in the day

Both of these often apply to me! Collagen powder has 20g of protein per two scoops and is so easy to mix into virtually any breakfast or breakfast drink. 

Collagen powder may seem more costly than other protein options at first sight, but when I sat down and worked out how much each of my proteins cost per gram, I realised it was actually cheaper than all my other sources. 

As it’s not an unprocessed food, I pay attention to how I source collagen (just as I pay attention to where I get meat and dairy from). Many manufacturers state the animals are grass fed but do not give any more details on their provenance and, as a recent article by Tara Couture revealed, hormone-treated animal hides are used for collagen powder. Check your supplier to ensure what you are buying aligns with your standards.

Eggs

Eggs are one of the ultimate healthy fast foods, hence very useful for breakfast protein. One medium egg has 6 to 7g of protein.

Meat

Having meat for breakfast may need a psychological shift, but it’s a great way to get protein without much bulk. Beef can be prioritised over pork and chicken because it is higher in protein.

Oats

This one may surprise you! Oats have one of the highest protein levels of any grain. The ones I source have 16g of protein per hundred grams, which puts them on a par with many cheeses. Being a plant protein, they do not have the full spectrum of amino acids, but they are higher in the essential amino acids than many other cereals.

Now let’s get to how to combine these ingredients:

16 High Protein Breakfast Ideas:

Below you’ll find a long list of breakfast ideas that’ll get you to 20g of protein before lunch. I’ve focused in on the protein, not including reference to fruit and vegetables – do add these to the dishes based on what you fancy and what you have digestive room for!

1/ Cook grains in broth and add a high protein extra. You can do this freshly, or use broth to reheat previously-cooked grains. Click here to access my recipe for breakfast bone broth bowl, which explains my process. You could try one of my favourite takes on this: cooking 55g (2oz) (dry weight) of grains in a cup of broth, mixing in a teaspoon of miso and then poaching an egg in it – it’ll give you a breakfast with around 24g of protein.

2/ Poaching two eggs in a cup of broth will give you over 20g of protein.

3/ Have a cup of broth with sourdough bread and 50g (scant 2oz) of cheese. If you’re having something like cheddar, you’re looking at 25g of protein.

4/ Drink a cup of broth immediately on waking, giving 10g of protein before you’ve even got to your breakfast!

5/ Stir collagen powder into bone broth for the ultimate highprotein drink. Two scoops of collagen powder plus a cup of broth will give you 30g protein.

6/ Two boiled eggs eaten with a small square of cheese will get you over 20g of protein. Soft-boiled eggs cook in a few minutes; hard-boiled eggs can be cooked in bulk and stored in the fridge.

7/ If I want to eat more eggs, I find scrambling them easier. I can often eat three scrambled eggs (remember one egg will give you 6-7g of protein), when I couldn’t manage that many boiled. You can also add left over meat scraps or some flaked fish into the saucepan whilst cooking for higher protein content.

8/ Omelettes are quick, easy and another way to eat multiple eggs. A three-egg omelette with 28g (1oz) of grated cheddar in the middle will give you around 25g of protein.

9/ ‘Special cheese on toast’ is one of the breakfasts my husband, Rob, often makes for me! Mix 50g (2oz) of grated cheddar-style cheese with a beaten egg and dollop it onto a large piece of sourdough bread before putting under the grill. This comes in at over 20g of protein.

10/ Beef patties or meatballs cooked in advance and frozen can be taken out of the freezer before bed to provide a high protein breakfast. In my house a beef patty usually weighs just under 100g (c. 4oz), so I know I’m getting 25g of protein from just one.

11/ Sausages are another good option. A 75g Italian-style sausage will have 13.6g of protein in. One of these with a fried egg or a cup of broth (or both!) makes a great breakfast.

12/ A small portion of oats cooked with a cup of milk will bring you close to 20g of protein (you can previously soak the oats in minimal water to ferment if you like, see my instructions here). If you add an egg to the saucepan a couple of minutes before you serve, you get to around 23g of protein.

13/ Collagen can be stirred into oats so easily. Sourdough porridge plus two scoops of collagen powder will give you almost 30g of protein. Adding some nuts and/or seeds will boost protein and give you more texture. If you prefer a sweet breakfast, this is a good option for you.

14/ Savoury oats are amazing! Cook your oats in a cup of broth and you’ll have almost 20g of protein. To up the protein more, add in an egg just before they’re done or sprinkle some cheese on top of them.

15/ Stir collagen into whatever you are drinking or eating – your coffee, your orange juice, your yoghurt, your grains cooked in broth. On days that are super busy this is such a great fall-back.

16/ Smoothies: using milk or milk kefir as a base for a high-protein smoothie is quick and delicious. A cup and a half of milk plus a raw egg and a spoonful of flax seed and you’re at 20g of protein. Adding collagen, perhaps just half a scoop, can up this further.

I hope this helps give you some high protein breakfast ideas! Each of the suggestions above is open-ended and can be a springboard for new combinations – let me know your own ideas below, by email or on Instagram.

And importantly – don’t stress about your breakfasts! Being the healthiest we can is so much more than a counting game and is achieved by our consistent daily choices (which must be achievable to be repeatable!). Eat what you enjoy, and can manage. Be gentle with yourself. 

If you enjoyed this article, you’d like the other ancestral food content I send out bi-weekly in my newsletter – you can get on my mailing list here!

You may also enjoy:

Breakfast Bone Broth Bowl

My 5 Favourite Ways To Use Bone Broth

Collagen and Gelatin Made Simple

We need B vitamins for so many things, including a healthy nervous system, to stave off anxiety and for good sleep.

I regularly sprout buckwheat. It is an easy process – although it takes 2 to 3 days, the hands on time needed is just a couple of minutes, twice a day. Here’s how:

How to Sprout Buckwheat (for increased vitamin B content!)

What you will need:

The ideal set up for sprouting grains is a large mason jar, some gauze and an elastic band – my method below uses these. If you do not have these, you can sprout your grains in a bowl but when it comes to draining and rinsing you will need to use an additional sieve/colander.

Process:

• Put your buckwheat in a large mason jar and cover with ample water (at least twice as much as the buckwheat). Cover the mason jar with a square of gauze and secure the gauze to the rim using an elastic band.

• Leave to soak for 24 hours.

• Drain the buckwheat by tipping the jar up over the sink and allowing the water to run out.

• Rinse the buckwheat three or four times by refilling the jar with water, agitating a little and then allowing the water to drain out.

• Invert the jar of drained buckwheat and leave it at a 45° angle so that any residual water can escape (you can do this by resting it on a draining rack or by leaning the jar, upside-down, inside a bowl). Leave the grains 12 hours.

• After these 12 hours, again rinse and drain the buckwheat three or four times, replacing the jar in its upside-down 45° angle afterwards.

• From 24 hours onwards you should start to see little sprouts appearing on your buckwheat grains. I usually wait until these are between 2 and 4 mm in length.

• When you are ready to use your buckwheat, rinse and drain it well.

FAQS

How can I use sprouted buckwheat?

You can use these sprouted grain wherever you’d use unsprouted buckwheat. At the end of the sprouting process, the grains are wet and can be eaten in salads, added to smoothies, or blended with more water and made into pancakes (check my recipe for sprouted, fermented buckwheat pancakes) or a smooth porridge. If you dry the groats (which can be done in a dehydrator or low oven), they make a crunchy cereal or can be used in the Russian recipe Kasha.

My sprouts are done, but I’m not ready to use them!

Not a problem! If you’re not ready to use this buckwheat, you can store it in the fridge for a few days (just make sure you rinse it thoroughly once a day). It will continue to sprout, but not as quickly.

How can I store sprouted grains?

Unused grains can be stored in the fridge in the jar they were sprouted in. Rinse them daily. You can also dry the sprouted grains in a dehydrator or low oven. Once fully-dry, they will keep, in a sealed container, for many months.

You might also like:

Sprouted, Fermented Buckwheat Pancakes

7 Delicious Ways to Use Millet in Your Kitchen

How to Make Fermented Oats

Sleep is, and always has been, my Achilles heel.

If you, like me, struggle with sleep, I feel for you! Good sleep is not only vital to keep us disease-free, but not sleeping well has such an impact on how we show up…to oursleves, as parents and partners and in our work.

Not sleeping can feel like an impossible problem to deal with – but I want you to know that implementing ancestral wisdom in your lifestyle can really help with your sleep. I have tried so many thing for sleep (over more than a decade) and the foundational pillars that have improved my sleep have not been pills; they’ve all been real food changes or real lifestyle changes. In this post I will share with you how I’ve directly and cumulatively slept better by changing my lifestyle and my routines.

How can ancestral wisdom help my sleep?

As humans living in the 21st century, there’s a huge dissonance between our current lifestyles and what would have been the ‘norm’ for most of humanity’s history. This dissonance has a powerful negative impact on our sleep.

Many of us are clear on oft-cited sleep advice, to:

• move our bodies regularly (preferably in nature), and

• expose ourselves to natural light early in the day.

Both of these, which would have been routine for our ancestors, have helped me. I work to get outside and move my body in the early morning as much as I can. Sometimes it’s taking my son to school (on the train), sometimes it’s pottering the garden. It is not possible every day – sometimes I’ll go out later, sometimes I’m not able to get out at all. The important thing for me is that I go out early more often than not! I’m aided in my quest by consciously choosing to not have a car. It means I have to walk or cycle places (as I have no other option); I see the non-car lifestyle choice to be a kind of ‘insurance’ that’ll help me stay mobile as my life moves on!

Here are some other aspects of my lifestyle that make a positive difference to my sleep:

Conscious light/screen usage:

Modern lighting technology (in our homes and in our screens) confuses the iris and brain and can result in tiredness, pain and a negative change in our mental state. My own experience is that it also directly affects sleep quality. I have made changes to mitigate this impact in my life:

• I don’t own a smart phone. I did not realise the effect that a phone screen was having on my mental health and sleep until I gave up my iPhone (you can listen to Ancestral Kitchen Podcast #12 for more information on this). The effect of not looking at a phone has had a *huge* positive effect on my life. Now, when I look at a standard phone screen I can feel the negative impact it is having on my eyes and brain very quickly. I sleep so much better without a smartphone in my life. I currently use an old Nokia phone for text and calls, but if you want something more modern there are phones which use non-invasive e-ink screen technology (more below on this).

• I use an e-book reader (which has an e-ink screen) as my main computer, only using standard computer screens when absolutely necessary. This has downsides (the main one which is that the e-book reader i currently own is black and white – colour ones are just being developed) but having experienced the difference in my sleep there is no way I’d go back to a standard computer screen.

Why are e-ink screens different?

Standard screens work by switching light on and off (this is called a ‘flicker’) which forces our iris to respond in an unnatural way and confuses our brains. Standard screens also emit unnatural light frequencies – something our ancestors would not have had to deal with! E-ink screens are different because they have no flicker (hence no need for the iris to respond unnaturally and no brain confusion) and they don’t emit any electronic light – they are literally like looking at a piece of paper.

I understand that dumping a phone and computer is a big move. If you are not ready to or can’t give up your smartphone/computer screen, take a look Iris Tech – they make software that minimises the flicker on standard screens.

Last two in the light category:

• I do not use LED or fluorescent lighting in my home, because, like screens, they flicker and give off unnatural light frequencies. We use old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs (which, unlike halogen bulbs, can be recycled) and, when it’s appropriate, candles.

• I have a pair of blue light blocker glasses (made by Swanwick) and wear them if I am in an environment lit by electronic light in the evening. Our ancestors would never have had blue light coming at them at the end of the day and I do my best to avoid it.

Work patterns and routine:

• Without a smartphone, I’m not scrolling social media. I batch my social media usage (currently going on one platform, Instagram, twice a week). This is an incredible way to reduce anxiety and free up space in your life – it has definitely improved my sleep!

• Most days I stop working by 5pm. I then have an evening routine which is geared towards winding down: I do light kitchen tasks, I read – both alone and out loud. I spend time with my son and husband.

• I am in bed by 8.30pm and usually asleep by 9pm. I wake early (especially during the summer months). It feels right to tie my sleeping and waking to the light patterns of nature as would have the generations before me.

Other physical practices:

• Research clearly shows now breathing impacts health, longevity and sleep. A breathing practise with long exhales has been shown to calm the nervous system and therefore improve sleep. This can be achieved by spending a few minutes a day in a practise but I prefer to keep it joyful and sing/chant! Singing would have been an everyday part of our ancestors’ lifestyles – and doing so calls for a quick inbreath and an extended outbreath.

• Cycling cold and heat exposure has been shown to improve sleep – cold exposure in the morning and then exposure to warmth before bed. Certainly our ancestors would not have been in air-conditioned/heated environments as many of us currently are. I have found cold exposure very hard – my husband engages in cold showers (you can hear him talking about it in Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode number 37). I’ve tried this but not been able to keep them up. Instead, on cold mornings, I try to expose my torso to cold (by, for instance, taking my coat off (but leaving my gloves and hat on) on the way home from a walk). In the evening I will then do something warming (like having a warm shower).

Alot of the lifestyle changes that I’ve made in order to improve my health and sleep may seem ‘extreme’ when looked at from a standard perspective. But they are *all* looking at ancestral lifestyles and learning from them. In ‘improving’ our lives with technological and societal changes, we’ve overlooked the taken-for-granted wisdom that the life we were designed to live gave us. We pay the price for that in our society’s physical and mental health. As individuals, with the help of those who’ve realised these things before us, we have the power to take this knowledge and do something with it to improve our lives and our sleep.

Check out my sister post – Improving Your Sleep With Ancestral Foods here!

Good sleep is so important – it affects how we show up to ourselves, as parents and partners and in our work. If you suffer from lack of sleep, I want you to know that what you eat can make a huge difference to how well you sleep and that traditional food has much help to offer.

How do I know?

Sleep is (and always has been) my Achilles heel and I have tried so many things to improve it (over more than a decade).

The foundational pillars that have improved my sleep have not been pills; they’ve all been real food changes or real lifestyle changes.

In this post I will share with you how I’ve directly and cumulatively slept better by making simple food changes and altering my routines.

If you, or anyone you know, struggles with sleep this post (and its sister post Sleeping Habits of Our Ancestors) is for you!

Caffeine and alcohol

Before we dive into the active steps that have helped me sleep better, let’s cover caffeine and alcohol. Standard sleep advice would have you avoid them and this is sound. If you’re looking to replace coffee, dandelion or chicory are good alternatives. For tea, I love to enjoy rooibus (red bush), a drink that, like black tea, goes well with a dash of milk.

Aside from restricting caffeine and alcohol, here are the traditional food changes that have worked for me:

Seven food habits to help you sleep

Eat enough

To sleep well our bodies need to receive enough food, including enough carbohydrate. Influenced by the diet culture, it’s too easy restrict ourselves or think we need to avoid carbohydrate. This can devastate sleep patterns. If you want to sleep well, it’s important to eat well and for me, it’s also key to eat carbohydrate with every meal.

Eat a good breakfast that includes animal protein

Protein in the early morning has been shown to improve sleep and traditionally, many breakfast meals of our ancestors included ample animal protein. For me, in practice this means often having one or two soft-boiled eggs with sourdough pancakes or an egg poached in bone broth with millet. Some days, I can’t manage both protein and carb…it’s too bulky. For those breakfasts, I’ll mix some collagen protein powder into my sourdough porridge.

Ensure you get enough saturated fat

Fat is so important for satiety (I first noticed this when my son was a baby; he would sleep so much better with a good amount of saturated fat in his diet!). And fat (along with protein, addressed above) is really important in managing blood sugar throughout the day and therefore helping to avoid adrenal spikes which can play havoc with our sleep routine. I eat fat with every meal – home-rendered lard, butter and olive oil are my go-to choices.

Don’t be afraid of having a bedtime snack

It’s easy to listen to the loud voices that promote widening your fasting window by eating supper early and breakfast late. This does not work for everyone, especially those with stressed adrenal systems. If you wake in the early hours and find it hard to get back to sleep, having a small snack before bed could really help. Typical snacks include a small slice of sourdough with a piece of cheese and a slice of apple or an oatcake with butter and a few almonds.

Take a tiny camomile tea to bed

Sometimes, night wakefulness can be fixed with a little calming calorie hit. I have found that making and leaving a tiny honey-sweetened camomile tea (1-2 tsp camomile, 1/4 cup water and a tsp honey) by my bed is useful. If I wake at 2/3am, it’ll often help me get back to sleep.

Be careful with raw fermented foods

I love fermenting, but I cannot eat raw fermented foods with abandon as they stop me sleeping. If you struggle with sleep notice whether it’s worse after a lot of fermented foods and if so consider restricting, and then gradually increasing your intake of these ‘super’ foods. This reaction could be a sign of a histamine sensitivity – you may want to do some research and see if it fits your symptoms.

Deliberately include food that is high in vitamin B

Vitamin B is essential for a healthy nervous system, and can really help with mood, anxiety and sleep. I discovered this after taking a vitamin B supplement and finding it helped my state of mind and sleep.

I would always choose food-sourced nutrients over a tablet and now I work to ensure that I’m eating foods high in vitamin B daily. Liver is an incredible source of B vitamins. If you’d like to eat more liver, but struggle to, you can listen to my podcast episode, How to Get More (& Tastier!) Liver into Your Diet here. If you’re not a liver-lover, look at buckwheat. This delicious seed is full of B vitamins. Check out my recipe for sprouted, fermented buckwheat pancakes or make the Kasha in Nourishing Traditions that I talk about in Ancestral Kitchen Podcast #34.

I want to end with some encouragement. I have spent most of my life struggling with sleep and I know just now much it can ruin a life. Know that there are options available that will help and if you apply them calmly and diligently you can make a difference. Read my post on the sleeping habits of our ancestors here to come at your sleep from the lifestyle angle.

I use bone broth daily in my kitchen, yet most of the time I’m not drinking it. Here are my five favourite ways:

#1: Cook grains in it

This is the main way we use bone broth in our house. Every day, we eat cooked grains – usually millet or sorghum. I cook up a huge batch in bone broth every 2 to 3 days. We eat it fresh, and then it goes into the fridge to be used for breakfasts and suppers in the following days.

This is such a great way to use bone broth because:

1. You can get your bone broth intake up, without actually drinking bone broth.
2. It’ll get your kids eating bone broth without realising it!
3. It makes plain grains, which can sometimes seem a bit bland, tastier than if they were just cooked with water.

Tip: add the fat from the top of your bone broth into the saucepan when you’re cooking your grains. It will help make the finished dish tastier, and give you more nutrition!

#2: Poach eggs in it

Eggs cooked in water, i.e. poached, are delicious. But eggs cooked in broth are even nicer! They are really simple too; heat some broth in a small saucepan, and when it’s quite warm (a light simmer is fine, but don’t have it boiling) gently crack an egg into it. Pop the lid of the saucepan on and when the egg is poached how you like it, carefully pour the whole thing into a bowl and enjoy.

#3: Drink it with added goodies!

Bone broth has such depth of flavour and is an amazing comfort drink. If you’re net keen on drinking a mug of it plain, including fresh herbs in your broth can give you a myriad of interesting and medicinal options (you can add the herbs when you’re initially making broth, reheat your broth with herbs in the saucepan, or just add your herbs and let them steep in the mug for a few minutes). If you often take powders such as medicinal mushrooms, you can stir these in. It’s also great with raw cream and you can even make a delicious hot chocolate using clear bone broth made from chicken feet.

#4: Use it to make a rich stew

I make stew with local meat, alliums, starchy veg and seasonal greens often. Usually, the juice that comes from the meat is enough to flavour the water and give the stew a deep, beautiful richness. But when I’m looking for something extra special, instead of adding water to my stew, I will add bone broth. This gives a double whammy broth flavour – the resulting stew is off the charts delicious!

#5: Heat up leftovers in it

A lot of my everyday cooking is made up of leftovers. Many times a week I will simply combine and reheat food that I’ve cooked earlier. I make this extra tasty by adding a couple of spoons of bone broth to the mix whilst I’m reheating. This has the added benefit of moistening the dish too.

Check out my recipe for Breakfast Broth Bowl (pictured above) here!

My podcast co-host and I dedicated an entire episode of Ancestral Kitchen Podcast to bone broth! To listen in to the episode, titled Bones & Water – The Magic Of Stock, click below (or find us in your favourite podcast app!).

Maybe you’ve tried before but stopped as it was just too much?

Or perhaps you’ve poured over the cookbook Nourishing Traditions but had so many ideas you just didn’t know where to begin?

My podcast co-host, Andrea, and I often get asked these questions. So we’ve developed 20 Small Steps To An Ancestral Kitchen; a roadmap that helps break down the step-by-step path to going from a standard diet to an ancestral kitchen.

Because any change can be broken down into small steps – including eating ancestrally. And then all we need to do is put one foot in front of the other. Slowly, we build something new. That’s how my ancestral kitchen developed – I started with sauerkraut, then found raw milk locally and after that began fermenting it. Everything else slowly followed.

Wherever you are in your ancestral food journey, these 20 Steps To An Ancestral Kitchen will help you. Download a .pdf that details them all here. There’s a resources list that’ll support you through each step on page 2.

And listen to Ancestral Kitchen Podcast #50 – 20 Small Steps To An Ancestral Kitchen to hear Andrea and I breakdown the steps, talk about why they are important, where we each started and share advice and support for your transition.