Paleo Honey “Mustard” Chicken Salad made autoimmune protocol friendly with the new KC Naturals AIP Mustard! This salad is quick to throw together, crunchy, sweet & savory!
I completely forgot to post this recipe for my Honey “Mustard” Chicken Salad featuring the new KC Naturals AIP Imitation Mustard! Since seeds are out on the AIP, and it can be hard to find a mustard not made with distilled (corn) vinegar or added spices, this is pretty revolutionary!
I call this salad my WEEKEND SALAD because I throw it together on Saturday morning and it feeds me all weekend! I hate spending time in the kitchen on Saturday & Sunday, especially because we usually have fun activities planned like the beach or the boat or meeting friends at a brewery. Rather than trying to hunt down healthy eats (which are touch to come by in a small beach community), I divvy up this salad into 4 containers!
When I had histamine intolerance, this is also how I would plan my meals. I would prep my protein and veggies and stick them in the freezer (to halt histamine production in cooked protein) and then grab & go. Even though I was eating a rather restricted diet back then, this made it so much easier to integrate a healing protocol into my lifestyle.
Enjoying your favorite hobbies, activities and outings with friends is a non-negotiable to me. Many times when someone embarks on the autoimmune protocol, they also use it as an excuse to enter victim mode. I hear people say “I can’t go to happy hour anymore” or “I can’t go out to eat with friends anymore”, and their social life becomes depleted.
Yes you CAN. You can do everything you did before you started the AIP or another special diet, but it may look a little different. I drink alcohol now, but when I didn’t, I would attend happy hour & have the bartender make me a fun mocktail. If I had plans with a friend for lunch, I’d ask if I could choose the place so we both could eat.
We often times make excuses for living life and being happy. Just because you have an autoimmune disease or you have to avoid certain foods does not make you a victim of your body or this world. If the hardest part of my day/your day is avoiding a cupcake, then we’re sitting pretty aren’t we? These sentiments may resemble tough love or make you feel uncomfortable, but I wish someone had told me this back when I started AIP in 2014.
While I never allowed AIP to dictate my hobbies, friendships or happiness, I did let it make me feel “different” from my peers and family. I’ve overcome that mental block, and I’m even healthier and happier for it. That is my hope for the autoimmune community – to simultaneously work on mindset while working on healing through food and lifestyle.
I can feel the stress and anxiety in the questions and emails I get through my blog & social media. The victim mentality, fear and anxiousness certainly permeates the community. It doesn’t need to be that way though. Often times fear, anger and worry are the emotions that have led to the imbalance in our immune systems and constitution in the first place.
All this to say, if you feel stuck in the victim mentality, only you can pull yourself out. Look inward for validation, love and respect rather than outward. Know that this is a flash in the pan of your life – a chapter in a book of short stories. Your health will change – it will improve – it may take a step back here and there – but your body wants to be in balance again. What we most have power over is our mindset.
One Response
Thank you so much for this, it’s often the toughest part of getting used to an AIP lifestyle. I love to cook, have enjoyed different kinds of foods and have been around a family member who was diagnosed and used this and became healthy again. Then there was my own diagnosis and resulting epiphany 🙂 So now I share with many others the gems I find, cook up these wonders, and they can see how normal, fun, and worthwhile choosing AIP can be. I feel positively spoiled due to the wealth of information and yumminess others (like you ♡) have made aviable to those of us who are starting this journey. Again, thank you ♡♡♡♡