An Interview discussing all things Of Oat & Earth and Graves’ Disease

1.     Where did the idea of Oat & Earth come from?

I had been cooking healthy, nourishing food for years and posting photos of my creations on my personal Instagram. After a while, I started to think that all of my friends must be getting sick of seeing my incessant food posts and thought I should set up an account purely for my food blogging. That way, fellow foodies, and those who actually enjoyed my recipe updates, could follow along on a platform solely dedicated to that. I also had some lovely, encouraging friends and housemates who would always praise my creations, suggesting that I start a food blog or write a cookbook.

About six months after I fell ill with Graves’ Disease, I decided I needed to make a change in my lifestyle and reduce my stress load. My partner was offered a job on the South Coast and so I decided it was a great opportunity to take leave from my permanent, full-time teaching position, move away with him, and make time for the hobbies I had been neglecting while trying to manage my heavy workload. Once we had moved and I changed to casual teaching (just a few days a week), I finally had time to really access my suppressed creativity and I started spending my mornings walking by the beach, taking in the incredible views while my mind wandered. By the time I was home from my walk, I had conjuring up some sort of recipe that, by then, I was busting to try.

When I fell ill, one of the first changes my naturopath suggested I make was giving up gluten. I had already been conscious of steering clear of refined, white grains and had certainly dabbled in the field of non-gluten containing pseudo grains as a means of maintaining general health and wellbeing. I decided this would be a very easy step for me to take. However, the only shock that came, was that I could no longer eat oats. Oats had been a staple part of my diet up until then. I had basically eaten them every morning of my life and, at one point, had quite the addiction to raw muesli – yep, just dry, straight from the jar, and at another point, made green porridge every day for years (I’ll explain later)! My naturopath tried to console me by informing me that I was able to purchase gluten free oats (oats are naturally gluten free but are just contaminated with gluten because they are grown and processed on the same equipment as wheat and barley). This had brought some relief, but that was only until I crossed the road to the health food shop only to find that unlike my regular bags of $1 oats, these gluten free ones were $13 for a bag half the size!! Nonetheless, I could not live without my oats, so I started buying the gluten free ones.

Now, as mentioned earlier, I had been making ‘green porridge’ for years before this. It was a recipe I made up one winter’s morning while my partner and I were sipping away on our icy smoothies. With goose bumps forming on my arms and a mild brain freeze developing, I decided a smoothie wasn’t the most appropriate breakfast choice for winter, but I so loved the healthy blend of ingredients that it contained! In pursuit of not sacrificing the nutritional value of my breakfast, but avoiding giving myself pneumonia, I decided to turn my smoothie ingredients into a porridge. I blended the banana, spinach, egg and milk together, then poured it into a saucepan with the oats, chia seeds and cinnamon and cooked it as a porridge. I then topped it with the remaining banana, natural peanut butter, Greek yoghurt and blueberries. The result was surprisingly delicious!! This creative porridge idea then sparked me to begin creating more weird and wonderful porridge recipes that certainly challenged my grandmother’s traditional definition of porridge. These creative porridge recipes were the first things I posted on my food blog. Therefore, I knew I had to include ‘oat’ in the name. Another hobby I started engaging in once moving to part time work was also pottery. I had always admired the beauty of handmade ceramics and loved their functionality that complemented my love of food. I decided my food blog would not only feature the oat-based creations I was experimenting with, but I also wanted to serve those creations in and on the ceramics I was making myself – and that is where the ‘earth’ component of the name is derived from.  Both that and the fact that the earth is what is vital to the process of food and nourishment. It provides us with the nourishing gifts that sustain us and help us to thrive – natural, whole foods. 

2.     What do you enjoy most about creating and photographing recipes?

I enjoy the creativity I experience when I am faced with a challenge. That challenge being, using the ingredients in front of me to create the most healthy, balanced meal possible that absolutely does not compromise on taste! Food is such a wonderful pleasure, both in the flavours and textures that it provides, but also in the health-giving it bestows upon us. I get so much joy from being able to put together some ingredients that I can watch transform into food that makes me feel great, both physically and emotionally. I have always loved photography and had been enjoying taking landscape and nature photos long before I really started my food ones. I find that I naturally have so much adoration for natural beauty and I see that in all forms of the earth’s gifts, whether it be visually stunning landscapes or incredibly bright, and intricately textured fruits and vegetables. Photography is a way for me to capture that beauty and preserve it for future viewing and sharing.

3.     How did you learn to cook?

Well, my mother often laughs at the fact that I am now an adamant cook. My mother herself is a fantastic cook, who would always create her own recipes, just using what she had on hand, and they always resulted in something that tasted amazing! Her secret is to just taste as you go and add what is needed. She would often invite me into the kitchen as a teenager to watch what she was doing so that I would learn. However, I would always half-heartedly follow her and somewhat disinterestedly watch for a few minutes before mysteriously disappearing. However, every night as we sat down at dinner, I would then ask mum what was in the meal. I think I learnt by tasting the food and then finding out how to create those complex flavours once I had tried it. The one thing I always cooked while growing up though, was baked goods and desserts! I worked in a bakery from the time I was 14 years old and I think that, along with being a sweet tooth and the creativity that baking involves, sparked my interest. I would spend weekends baking cheesecakes, mudcakes, apple slices and, my favourite, making creamed rice. Being a real lover of food, as soon as I left home, I started cooking crazily. I even managed to make pesto chicken, quinoa and broccolini dishes in my university college kitchenette, using just a small electric frying pan, a microwave and a kettle! A somewhat different diet to my fellow dorm dwellers, who would wake at 11am to their comforting bowls of mi goreng!!

4.     Why did you decide to use Instagram as your platform?

I had been enjoying using Instagram myself to find foodie inspiration and found that it allowed so much space for creativity to be shared without the typical barriers of trying to write to a magazine to be published. I find that it’s a way to create your own ‘magazine’ of content for free, in a way that is not limited by the boundaries and regulations of others.

5.     How has Grave’s Disease impacted your life?

Graves’ has been both a blessing and a curse. I often spend days resenting it, particularly when I am wound up in bed nursing all sorts of aches and pains instead of attending that dinner party I had been so excited about. I often experience long bouts of insomnia, heightened anxiety and very low immunity (catching every virus under the sun), particularly when under a lot of stress, which has usually caused a flare. However, in some ways, I am able to see some of the positives that have come from living with a chronic illness. Being diagnosed with Graves’ Disease allowed me to prove to myself that I am ultimately an optimistic person. From the get-go, I have been researching and seeking out help from others, finding proactive ways to manage my health as much as I possibly can. It also really pushed me to delve further into my own creativity and excitement around food, as I aimed to harness the power that nourishing food can provide. It also taught me that if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. My diagnosis provided a perspective change for me. I started to value a balanced lifestyle more than a busy lifestyle that was solely focussed on achievement and proving myself. I spent my high school years in the SRC, environmental group, as an A-grade student and school captain. I then spent my university days studying way more than my friends and achieving High Distinctions in all of my courses and graduating with distinction, a ‘first-in-the-degree’ award and being handed a job as a targeted graduate. In that job, I spent every afternoon, night and weekend preparing and organising lessons and never allowed myself any down-time or space to explore slower activities that didn’t ‘achieve’ something. Looking back, I always put far too much pressure on myself to always be ‘achieving’ something. It was what made me feel good, feel worthy. However, getting Graves’ meant having to slow down, leave that targeted graduate job and just cut myself some slack. To be honest, I never would have stopped if there wasn’t something serious enough to stop me. It was only a matter of time until my body started objecting to this unrelenting obsession with ‘busyness’ and ‘worthiness’. I admit that I still struggle with sitting still or not using my time ‘efficiently’. However, I consciously tune into how I am feeling and what my body is telling me, more frequently allowing space for daily yoga and meditation, reading, a bath with some tea, time with friends and slow hours in the kitchen getting creative. This time isn’t necessarily ‘achieving’ a goal or completing a job, its just time I’m giving myself to do something that makes me feel full of calm joy - just because. 

6.     What led you to GD diagnosis?

As mentioned earlier, I had been working at a very behaviourally challenging high school while also working every night and weekend, living with 7 housemates, commuting almost an hour each way to work and also trying to maintain a relationship and some sort of ‘healthy’ lifestyle and social life. I had been getting more anxious than usual, unable to sleep and had been complaining of dizziness at work each day. I then started getting heart palpitations. My heart was beating hard and fast and was skipping beats. When I tried to exercise, I would get pains in my chest and not be able to continue. I had read and was told that heart palpitations were probably just due to stress or too much caffeine. However, after mentioning that I could not exercise without getting really out of breath and pains in my chest, the doctor started to realise that it may have been something more serious. He sent me for multiple blood tests, urine tests, ultrasounds and he ordered me a holter monitor to monitor my heart. I thought that I was probably just stressed from my job and had caught a virus. I was never expecting that there was anything serious that was actually wrong. I had never had any majorly concerning health problems and had been health conscious for quite some time. I was hoping that these symptoms were going to go away in a couple of days.

I went back to work, but after another few days, I still had all of the symptoms and also felt like I had the flu (I’m also a high school teacher – hello noisy and busy environment – and I was working at a challenging school with very badly behaved teenagers – think screaming, throwing, pushing, swearing, refusal to do work, and just general high energy, draining clientele). So, I took the day off to rest and went to simply get a doctor’s certificate to justify my absence. However, the new doctor who saw me said that my recent test results were already back, so she opened them and said “Oohhh…hmmmm. You’ve got hyperthyroidism and your levels are so high that it looks like it’s probably even Grave’s Disease”. She made a few phone calls to confirm and then very bluntly told me that I would have this disease forever and I could soon have heart failure, so I needed to start medication as soon as possible. I could not comprehend what she was saying and still didn’t believe her because I lived a healthy lifestyle and I knew that should mean that I couldn’t have a disease. Only unhealthy people got diseases, right? She sent me off with a prescription for two different types of medication – one to slow my thyroid down and one to slow my heart down. I went home with a bag full of pills and started crying to my housemate.

After the initial shock and phone calls to my parents, where they immediately heard “Graves’ Disease” and thought it must have been a death sentence, I started to do some research. Firstly, I found out that Doctor Graves was the man who first discovered the disease, and that was why it was given its ominous name. I also found out that Graves’ Disease is a chronic autoimmune disease, where the immune system disfunctions and begins attacking the body, in my case, my thyroid gland (a small butterfly shaped organ in the front of your throat – I thought it was in your thigh, naturally…), causing it to enlarge and become overactive, or "hyperthyroid".  Graves is also an endocrine/hormonal disease, as the thyroid controls the hormonal system and pretty much every function in your body (hard to believe I knew nothing about such a powerful organ)!

The thyroid is the pace maker of the body, so an overactive thyroid means everything goes into speed overload. A couple of days after being diagnosed, I was set up with the holter monitor, where I had to wear cords and sticky pads all over my chest and stomach for 24 hours to monitor my heart. This revealed that my resting heart rate was about 100 and was reaching an average human’s maximum heart rate of 200, just by simply walking on the beach. Having everything in my body going fast explained why I had terrible insomnia, hand shakes, greater than usual anxiety and was always starving (this has been a life-long problem for me though)! The thyroid particularly controls the speed of your metabolism and therefore, usually those with Graves’ Disease lose a lot of weight and a lot of their bone density and strength. I think because of my generous eating habits and strengthening exercises, I was lucky to not experience these symptoms.

7.     Does GD affect you on a daily basis?

Currently, no. I am so pleased to be able to say that!! I hit rock bottom with my health earlier this year and had to leave my job to spend a month in bed. I assumed it was all just my Graves’ Disease as this had flared up again last year. However, I found a practitioner who I call ‘the wizard’ who has changed my life! He is a naturopath and kinesiologist and after some testing, he found that I had an underlying virus burrowed into my system and had also been adversely impacted by a vaccine I had over 18 months ago. He has treated me for both this, and my insomnia, and I am currently feeling amazing! I have also taken a break from teaching this year to recover and pursue my love of recipe development and food photography, which has greatly reduced my stress.

However, when asked this question last year I had a very different answer. It was a big, fat YES. I now know that the constant flu-like symptoms were probably caused by (or at least exacerbated by) the reaction to the immunisation. However, without that knowledge, here is what 2019 Krystle had to say:

I have to admit that it does. The worst part is the low immunity and the sleep challenges. Having a compromised immune system means I seem to catch everything under the sun and my body takes longer to fight it than most others who catch the same virus. The ‘fast-paced’ overdrive that the body goes into when I have a flare causes sleep troubles for me, which does not help my immune system! Once I finally quieten my mind at night, I often then wake up at 4am full of adrenaline and stress hormones, mind swirling with thoughts about the day ahead. Inevitably, this means I constantly feel exhausted and run-down and I seem to be constantly getting sick. When receiving the devastating news of my first flare this year, I begged my doctor not to put me straight back on medication. I wanted to try herbal tonics, yoga, psychology, massage and breathing exercises first. However, it turned out that it was already too far gone, and I was still buried under piles of marking and reports that weren't going anywhere soon. I realised that I either had to quit this position or just take the medication again. I knew it wasn't financially viable to just quit and it also didn't feel fair on my students or colleagues. I kept pushing through and very resentfully started taking my medication. However, I am sill constantly feeling like I have the flu. I still get dizzy, fatigued (but wired), have terrible headaches and a constantly aching throat and glands. 

8.     What would you like other people of Grave’s Disease to know?

Stress, lifestyle and diet have a significant impact on the severity of your symptoms and long-term management of the disease. When I initially left my full-time job, engaged in more hobbies and relaxation, and reduced my toxic exposure (through natural foods, skincare and cleaning products), my thyroid hormone levels stayed stable. For almost two years, I did not have my hormone levels outside the ‘healthy/normal’ range. I stopped medication completely for 14 months and I did not experience the symptoms I was experiencing before and again now. I would still get run down easily and get sick if I had a few late nights, but my immune system/gut was slowly getting stronger and stronger and I know that my food choices and lifestyle changes were at the heart of this improvement. I have always eaten what I thought was a healthy diet, however, I wish I had known earlier how important it was to reduce my stress levels and to avoid foods and household products containing any unnatural ingredients/chemicals. I have unfortunately fallen back into the trap of full-time work and a stressful workload. For me, stress seems to be the key player. No matter how healthily I eat or how many supplements I take, if I am stressed, I will still get sick. Autoimmune diseases are on the rise, and my research tells me that this is due to the fast-paced, stressful lives we're leading and the unnatural, chemical-filled lifestyle of modern times. If you do not have an autoimmune disease, please try to reduce your exposure to chemicals and stress as much as possible, as this will lessen your possibility of developing one. If you are already suffering from one, this is even more vital for you, as it is likely to reduce your symptoms and hopefully, over time, it will heal you.

This time last year, I decided to start Dr Amy Myer's Autoimmune Protocol. I had already been implementing most of the suggestions Dr Myers makes for the process of healing, such as minimising toxins, reducing stress (this has been a bit harder this year again), avoiding gluten and eating whole foods. However, I decided to go one step further and follow her healing diet for about 6 weeks. Now, I have never ever followed a diet. I am a huge advocate for not restricting yourself, but rather enjoying a wholesome, varied diet that you still enjoy. However, this is not THAT kind of diet. This is one where Dr Myers suggests removing all inflammatory, irritating foods for one month, and then slowly reintroducing them. I have mainly been eating vegetarian/vegan for quite some time now, so it did take me a while to come around to this. The diet involves removing all grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, eggs and nightshades (along with the usual gluten, dairy, refined sugar, alcohol and caffeine). That means that all that's left is all other vegetables, fruits, meat and coconut products. I found this to still be a diet I could manage, as I was able to still fill my plate with vegetables, but what I missed the most was the meat-free protein sources, such as lentils, beans, eggs, tempeh, quinoa etc. However, I know I was able to reintroduce those things very slowly and gradually once I had given my gut and immune system time to calm and heal. Dr Myers had Graves' Disease herself and has treated many patients with her protocol. I have also read about other practitioners who promote a similar approach, such as Dr Izabella Wentz. I was so glad I was willing to try this as it meant not having to permanently remove my thyroid and replace it with synthetic hormones for the rest of my life!! While doing the protocol, my doctor noticed my thyroid antibodies dropping rapidly (a great sign) and said she only ever sees this when a patient follows an autoimmune paleo protocol. It wasn’t long before my thyroid was back in range and I could stop taking any medication again. This quick remission shocked my endocrinologist who said she no longer recommends removing my thyroid (thank god I didn’t follow her initial advice) and said I do not have to visit her or have regular blood tests anymore. I am in full remission. I always believed there was hope beyond the morbid options I had been presented with and I was determined not to stop searching for natural, holistic answers, until I found them!