Special Holiday Episode: 41 Recipes to Create Your Dream IBD Friendly Thanksgiving
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In this special holiday edition episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, Karyn takes a deep dive into creating your most joyful and gut-friendly Thanksgiving yet! With the launch of her newly revised 2024 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook, Karyn shares her top tips to ensure the recipes work for your unique healing journey. Whether you’re in remission or facing a flare-up, there’s something for everyone to savor this holiday season.
From traditional Thanksgiving favorites reimagined for sensitive tummies to innovative twists on holiday classics, Karyn shows you how to enjoy the festivities without compromising your gut health. If the thought of Thanksgiving has been stressing you out, this episode is packed with everything you need to navigate the holiday with confidence and joy.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [03:38] Why Thanksgiving with IBD is different—and how to make it work for you.
✅ [07:19] How Karyn’s Thanksgiving recipe experiments turned into a gut-friendly recipe collection.
✅ [11:42] Five key tips to make the cookbook recipes work for your unique needs.
✅ [15:49] Why adapting and personalizing recipes is the key to success this holiday season.
✅ [17:18] A reminder to have fun and make this Thanksgiving special for YOU.
And so much more…
Karyn’s 41 recipes cover everything from breakfast to appetizers, festive drinks, side dishes, and desserts—all made with gut-soothing love. If you’ve ever struggled with finding food that’s both holiday-appropriate and IBD-friendly, this cookbook and episode are exactly what you need!
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- 2024 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook (FREE!): KarynHaley.com/Thanksgiving
- Contact Karyn for recipe advice: hello@karynhaley.com
- Connect with Karyn on social: @IBDHealthCoach
Get ready to create your dream IBD-friendly Thanksgiving and enjoy the holiday season with food that loves you back!
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Episode Transcript:
Karyn Haley [00:00:08]:
Thanksgiving. It’s coming up, dear one. Are you looking forward to it or are you dreading it? And sure, there’s a lot to dread about America’s favorite holiday. There’s that political discord that inevitably ends up at the dinner table conversation. Here’s the freeloading family member that just sits around and watches football all day while you do the work, even the cleanup. Here’s the mind numbing fatigue that you feel after everyone leaves. But us IBD gals, we know all too well that those little nuances, they pale in comparison to the dreaded meal itself. Because instead of the typical gripes that most moms get to have, our biggest Thanksgiving fear is what’s on the menu that won’t make me sick, right? If you have been stressed or anxious or worried or like just downright annoyed about this holiday because it just never does you right, hold onto your stuffing, my friend, because I’ve got your back.
Karyn Haley [00:01:16]:
My newly revised for 2024 IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook with 16 new mouth watering gut healing recipes. It’s out and trust me, you are going to love it. If you don’t have your copy yet, you’re going to want to have it on hand because this conversation today, this is your Thanksgiving Cookbook Companion guide. It’s packed with everything you need to know to make this cookbook work for your individual IBD needs. So before we go any further, go ahead, just stop what you’re doing right now. Of course, if you’re driving, just keep driving. You can do it later. But anything else, you just stop what you’re doing right now.
Karyn Haley [00:01:58]:
Hit pause on your podcast player. Hit pause on YouTube go to KarynHaly.com/Thanksgiving that’s KarynHaly.com/Thanksgiving to get your hands on my brand new for this year, the revised edition for this year Thanksgiving Table Cookbook. It’s got amazing recipes from your holiday breakfast to midday appetite. Appetizers, festive drinks, even main meals, side dishes that rock, and desserts that are going to make you want to slap your grandma. This is the hottest ticket and I am offering it to you this holiday season absolutely free. Yeah, that’s right, it’s free. Now remember when you go to karynhaley.com/thanksgiving my mom had to be a little different and spell my name with a Y. So it’s K A R Y N H a l e y.com /thanksgiving.
Karyn Haley [00:02:56]:
But this cookbook, I do it every year and it’s just my way of giving thanks. Giving thanks to you dear one, for being A part of our fabulous IBD community of moms. Okay, do you have it? Do you have your IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook, the 2024 version that is. Do you have that one on hand? All right, awesome. Let’s go ahead and get this friendsgiving companion guide party started. All right, so first things first. I have got to start by saying something that you might already know, but it bears repeating because sometimes we need reminders. And the thing that I want to tell you first is that IBD plays by different rules.
Karyn Haley [00:03:38]:
IBD plays by different rules. And not only does it play by different rules than what the normal population is dealing with, but my ibd, your ibd, and even your family members ibd, they all play by different rules. You know, if I were to write a cookbook for everyone with, let’s say, let’s just use any kind of illness, like, okay, so let’s say diabetes, or let’s say I were to write a cookbook for everybody with heart disease, there would be less variability for everyone’s dietary needs because there’s more similarities with illnesses like that. But when it comes to ibd, when it comes to Crohn’s and colitis, there is no one size fits all diet. So there is no one size fits all cookbook. And so that’s why I wanted to create this cookbook companion guide to help you make the most of your own cookbook and to make these recipes work for you. So let me just give you a little bit of context with how this vision even started. Like, how did this even come about? How did creating this free cookbook even become a glimmer of an idea for me to roll with? So we have to go back to 2008, because that’s when I started the specific carbohydrate diet, the scd.
Karyn Haley [00:05:05]:
And the first big holiday started in July of that year. And the first big holiday that came up after this life changing transformation was Thanksgiving. And I remember just being nervous as hell, just to put it lightly. I was really nervous. And because in the past, especially as a child, I loved Thanksgiving food. I loved it. Stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy and yeast rolls and green bean casserole, pumpkin pie. My mouth is like literally watering just saying those things.
Karyn Haley [00:05:42]:
So I couldn’t figure out how was I going to get through this holiday? Could I even hope to enjoy myself anymore because I couldn’t eat those foods? Those were the foods that I lived for. Well, if we could go backwards just a bit, you might see that that was back in 2008. We’re now in 2024. So that was 16 years ago. And it was the first year that I decided I’m going to buck the system. I am going to buck the traditional Thanksgiving system and I’m going to create my own gut friendly holiday traditions. And then every year since that first year, I’ve been experimenting with the traditional Thanksgiving fare, but not just making it gut friendly, but also gut soothing. And of course it had to be delicious.
Karyn Haley [00:06:34]:
And so at first I did that just for me. I created some really amazing, exquisite menu options, if I do say so myself. Gotta pat myself on the back because I loved them, my family loved them. Our holiday guests that we had at our house would rave about them, they would applaud my creativity. But as I started to work with clients when they would change their diets, I realized that I wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t the only one in desperate need of good gut loving food during the holidays. Ibders like me, they wanted to be part of the holiday gathering. They didn’t want to sit on the sidelines while everyone else enjoyed the day.
Karyn Haley [00:07:19]:
Or worse, if you maybe like gave into the temptation of it all and you ate those gut disrupting foods only to then pay for it later with abdominal pain and bloating and gas and then those multiple trips to the bathroom or maybe even worse, something that impacts you so badly that you end up in a flare up. So little by little over the years, these small Thanksgiving additions and tweaks, a side dish here, an appetizer there, it has now all these years later, it has grown into this recipe collection with 41amazing holiday recipes. And it covers breakfast appetizers, drinks, main meals, side dishes and desserts. My favorite part. And so like I mentioned at the top, it’s my free gift to you. It’s my free gift to you for being a part of our little slice of IBD space in the universe. And it’s all yours. It’s all yours.
Karyn Haley [00:08:21]:
All you have to do is go to Karynhaley.com/thanksgiving to get it. I am so stinking proud of this year’s version, in particular of this year’s version of the cookbook. My team and I, we worked tirelessly like starting six months ago, sampling, tweaking, until we came up with 16 new kid tested IBD mom approved recipes that I know you’re going to love from my favorite new breakfast, new kid on the block. It’s called prosciutto wrapped egg cups. So good to appetizers like candied Pecans to pumpkin hummus to main dishes like a turkey alternative called harissa peppercorn strip steak, apricot glazed ham, and desserts like apple cider donut cake and caramel bottom banana cream pie. Did I mention that all the recipes are made with gut soothing love? So even though they might sound like oh, y, those are gut disruptors for sure. I’m trusting, trust me, they’re not. They are gluten free, they are grain free, they are low or no lactose, they are refined sugar free.
Karyn Haley [00:09:36]:
But the one thing I can promise you that they are not is free of taste. So, yes, the answer, if you’re asking yourself, is it possible, yes, we can have Thanksgiving, we can have an amazing meal, we can have amazing food during the holidays. We can have food that’s so good for our belly. And I cannot wait for you to try these out. I can’t wait for you to see the different recipes that you can make for you this holiday season. But like I mentioned up front, we all know that everyone with a gut disorder needs an approach to healing that’s their own, that’s personalized, you know, personalized to them. And one IBD gal’s gut soothing gold is another IBD gal’s gut destroying enemy. So that’s why I wanted you to just keep a few tips in mind to help you navigate this year’s 2024 cookbook with all the skill and craftiness of a world class nutritionist slash expert chef, slashed slash gut loving goddess all rolled into one.
Karyn Haley [00:10:48]:
Because you are all those things, my friend. Because you kind of have to be, you have to be some version of all of that for yourself when you have IBD and it’s tough job. Besides everything you’re already dealing with, it’s another layer that you have to know what food to eat, like a nutritionist and you have to know how to cook it right. I mean, there’s so many different things we have to do, but I’m here to make that piece of it just a little bit easy for you this holiday season. So here are some of my best tips to make this cookbook work specifically for you. These are my best tried and true tips to make sure that when you eat this holiday season, instead of your belly saying, whoa, what is going on in there? Your belly’s actually going to say, thanks, friend, thanks. I actually enjoyed that. Okay, so tip number one.
Karyn Haley [00:11:42]:
Tip number one is not every recipe is going to work for you. Even though there are 41 recipes in this cookbook. I have no doubt not everyone not. Not all of them are going to work for you. Not every recipe in this cookbook works for me 100% of the time. So the same is going to go for you. It depends on where you’re at in your healing journey and what food sensitivities and allergies you have. So I just want you to know that going in, look at the ingredients carefully, look at the guide at the top of each recipe so that you will know which types of eating plans each recipe is best for.
Karyn Haley [00:12:20]:
Then within the recipe itself, look for my substitutions list. Because I’ve tried my best to anticipate the issues that tend to come up for most Ibders. So even if you see an ingredient in the ingredient list that just doesn’t work for you, that doesn’t mean that the recipe won’t work for you as a whole. You might need to make some tweaks to make it your own, but I know you can do it. Okay, tip number two, just because you’re in a flare up doesn’t mean you can’t eat from this cookbook. I thought about that because I wanted you to be able to eat too. I’ve got you covered because you deserve an enjoyable Thanksgiving just like everybody else. If you’re in a flare up, what I want you to do is choose one of my creamy gut soothing pureed soups like spiced pumpkin or curry cauliflower soup.
Karyn Haley [00:13:12]:
Or choose the well cooked veggies that I have in there like my roasted winter vegetables or butternut squash mash without the nut topping or celery root mash. Choose simple ingredient recipes. Things like my pumpkin muffins, roast turkey, sweet potato wedges and my famous grain and dairy free dinner rolls. So you can eat too, my friends. Even if you’re in a flare up, Thanksgiving is calling your name. Even when an IBD flare up is happening and the food that you eat needs to be easy to digest and easy to absorb. Okay, I’ve got another tip for you. It’s tip number three.
Karyn Haley [00:13:53]:
Don’t be afraid to adapt, change, tweak, or even completely overhaul a recipe. I want you to make it your own. Make it work for you. These recipes are highly adaptable and easy to alter. So go for it. If there’s a recipe that maybe it includes nuts but you don’t eat nuts, omit them. If you’re looking for more vegetarian options, but you see something like my stuffing recipe and it contains sausage, for example, remove the sausage, replace it with a vegetarian protein option, or just leave it out completely. If you are like me and you’re prone to kidney stones.
Karyn Haley [00:14:33]:
You’re going to want to switch out the almond flour and replace that with cashew flour because that’s better for your kidney health. So you can adapt anything you need to adapt, my friend. Make these recipes your own. Okay, tip number four, I want you to get in touch. I really do. I want, I want to hear from you when you’re stuck trying to figure out how to adapt a recipe. When you’re in doubt about an ingredient, email me or DM me on social media. I am happy to help you figure out substitutions, figure out tweaks we can make to help you eat these recipes.
Karyn Haley [00:15:12]:
When in doubt, reach out. My email is helloarenhaly.com hello@karynhaley.com that’s my email and my handle on social media is @ibdhealthcoach @ibdhealthcoach. I promise I read every message, every email that comes my way and I will get back in touch with you. We have a little bit of time till Thanksgiving, so look at that cookbook now so that I can really help you figure this out so you can have the Thanksgiving that you deserve. All right, lastly, last tip I want to share with you today is to have fun with this. Have fun with this. That’s what this is about.
Karyn Haley [00:15:49]:
The goal of this cookbook is to make your life easier during the holidays, not to complicate it. With 41 recipes inside, you certainly won’t be making all of them this holiday season. Just pick the ones that maybe look easy or fun or maybe pick something that’s challenging if that’s fun for you. There’s such a variety in this cookbook with taste with where you’re at on your gut healing journey with difficulty level of the recipes with traditional versus maybe a little bit of new age Thanksgiving. This is holiday fun for you and your entire family. And they are just going to love these recipes. I know they are. They’re going to love them as much as you do.
Karyn Haley [00:16:35]:
So have fun with it because even though some of the recipe ingredients, they may be a little bit different, they do still taste amazing. So amazing that you are going to be proud to share these holiday goodies at the office party, at friendsgiving at Thanksgiving or any other holiday that you celebrate this year. Okay, so that’s it. Those are my five tips for you. That’s all the information that I think you need to make this cookbook your own. That’s your companion guide to the IBD Foodie Thanksgiving Table Cookbook in a gut shell and don’t forget the most important thing. When in doubt, reach out. When in doubt, reach out.
Karyn Haley [00:17:18]:
Okay, if you haven’t already grabbed your cookbook, what are you waiting for? You got to do it now if you want to be prepared for Thanksgiving. Because this Thanksgiving goodness, it goes away. It goes away after Thanksgiving, after that holiday is over. And it’s not going to be available for free again until the 2025 edition comes out. I want you to get it now. All right? Happy Thanksgiving, my friend. Happy cooking, happy baking, Happy bellies, happiness all around. Go get that cookbook.
Karyn Haley [00:17:47]:
Karynhaley.com/thanksgiving until we meet again. I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy gut healing journey. Chat soon.