Healthstarter

Unhurried weekend breakfast is quite possibly the most delightful experience and feeling. 🥰 We also recently discovered these Original Sunshine gluten-free bagels that are made from wheat starch (I had no idea that existed!) 🥯 🍳 🥓 🍅 🥒 🧀 ☕️ We got them when on vacation and I’m already thinking about ordering more online. Gluten free isn’t optional for me, and out of every gluten-free bagel I’ve tried, this one actually tastes and chews like a real bagel.

Still treating it like bread though, not a daily thing … just a good weekend brunch addition. And because it’s mostly starch, I build the plate around it with real protein and fat: eggs, smoked salmon or bacon, avocado, a little cheese or yogurt, so it’s balanced and actually keeps me full.

If gluten-free bagels have felt like a letdown before, this one is worth a try!

This is my beach read. 🏖️📖 As a mom, I am committed to giving my child the best opportunities for vital health. I am learning that even for kids, maybe especially for kids, starting with the basics of nutrient-dense foods from infancy, restful sleep, and engaging in activities that promote a healthy microbiome including sunshine, fresh air, community, and plentiful foods with probiotics and fibers is absolutely essential for thriving and growing well.

My takeaways from this book so far:

1. Immunity is built in the belly. The majority of immune tissue lives in and around the digestive tract, so when I think about helping my child stay resilient through a school year of shared germs, I am really thinking about what is happening in the gut.

2. The microbiome gets seeded early and keeps getting shaped. Birth, feeding, antibiotics, pets, dirt, and time outside all leave a mark, and what I appreciate is that nothing about it is fixed. Every meal is another chance to feed the bacteria we want to keep around.

3. Symptoms we treat as separate often share a root. Lipski keeps drawing lines between digestion and the things parents get used to managing one by one, whether that is recurring ear infections, stomachaches that show up on school mornings, eczema, congestion, or trouble settling and focusing. Her invitation is to look at the gut early rather than last.

4. Fiber and fermented foods are the daily practice. Variety matters more than any single superfood, so I am thinking in terms of how many different plants land on the plate in a week rather than perfecting one meal.

5. Digestion begins before the first bite. A calm, unhurried table, real chewing, and eating together do more than we give them credit for, because a stressed nervous system quite literally slows digestion down.

6. Sleep, sunshine, and play belong in the same conversation as food. They regulate the same systems, and they are the parts kids tend to be most delighted to participate in.

What keeps landing for me is how reachable all of it is. None of this asks for a perfect pantry or a rigid routine, just a steady return to real food, real rest, and real time outside, which happens to be the same foundation I keep coming back to for myself.

If you are somewhere in the thick of this with your own kids, I would love for you to follow along while I read the rest. I will share the parts that are worth keeping. 🫶🏽

That 3pm crash, the cravings you can’t explain, the energy that comes and goes? Your blood sugar might be on a rollercoaster. 🎢

Here’s the ride: a sugary or refined-carb meal 🍩 spikes your glucose, insulin rushes out and often overshoots, you crash, 💥 and your brain begs for more sugar to climb back up. Do it often enough and your cells stop responding to insulin. That’s insulin resistance, the road that leads toward prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. 😟

The hopeful part: this is largely driven by daily habits, which means daily habits can bend it back. 🥳

Swipe for three plate changes 🥘 and three daily habits that steady the whole thing. My favorite is the “movement snack”: a 10 minute walk after a meal 🚶🏾, or a set of squats and lunges, that lets your muscles soak up glucose without extra insulin.

You don’t need a total overhaul. Pick one from each side and let it compound. And this is bio-individual, so what steadies your blood sugar won’t look identical to anyone else’s. Start where you are and pay attention to how your own body responds!

** This is educational content, not a diagnosis or treatment plan. Sources in the comments.

One more reason to use ghee, and not avocado oil for most cooking needs.

Almost all processed foods on grocery store shelves claiming to be made with avocado oil actually contain cheaper substitute oils, according to a new study by University of California Davis researchers.
Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/07/15/the-avocado-oil-boom-has-a-fraud-problem-new-study-suggests/?utm_source=ForbesMainFacebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ForbesMainFB
Photo: Getty Images

Breakfast! Utopihen Farms eggs scrambled in ghee with on a GF Siete Foods chickpea flour tortilla. Then, a bowl of Harmless Harvest coconut yogurt with vanilla matcha, Bees & Trees Manuka Honey honey, fresh organic berries and peaches. Of course after my Numi Organic Tea earl grey. Yum! 😋