deezll, Author at Chronic Alternatives • Page 2 of 7

Dehumidifying to affect where we are now?

Probably this should be split into a larger number of posts? What for example does dehumidifying have to do with youtube updates?

I recently made an update to my first ever youtube clip. In the more recent update I’m moving around a bit rather than sitting in two locations that I’m mysteriously transported between.

I was able to move better back then than I am now.

I think my inner pessimist shines through when I act as if things are bad. It seems to be a recurring theme, showing up at various points in my life.

The following image was put at the beginning of my updated status report. My own little joke; as you can see I move about the same pace as a snail nowadays.

Keepin’ it real

This isn’t a great way to be portrayed and my first clip demonstrates that I wasn’t comfortable with showing my unsteadiness. I wasn’t used to being a little unsteady and so we’re left to wonder at the mysterious transportation between locations!

This time round (on the suggestion of my filmmaker friend, Toby) we are being a little more ‘authentic’ and honest.

I think it was a good call to make. In these clips I present myself in the best possible light (ignore my grubby hair). I talk about what I’d like to do and aim to do but there are still times when my aim is wide of the mark.

I’m not one of those people who believe there’s no such word as can’t because there patently is.

I’m also one of those people who think things are worth chipping away at because you never know, you might end up a few steps further along than when you started.

A change was better than a rest!

Like many people recently I went to visit family for a couple of days. In that time my whole body worked better but mostly my brain, nose and bladder. on getting back home things eventually returned to the way they were, my walking and thinking slowed and my balance worsened… noticeably. It may all be psychological and perhaps these effects were from visiting family but I don’t think so. I didn’t have a post nasal drip and my family don’t normally affect how my nose does or doesn’t run.

Dehumidify to address mould (it’s everywhere)

My next installment could be looking at harnessing the anti-inflammatory effects of proteolytic enzymes or questioning whether it’s worth worrying about candida (mould in the body) when we have condensation at home (potentially, mould in our environment)?

This link helped get me straight and the man’s midland accent is darling especially when being described by Americans in the comments below it! Some of the American sites addressing the ‘mold’ issue can be a little alarmist but the truth is, unknown damage could be happening to us where we live. Mostly this can be ok, especially if our bodies are working at their tip top best

I bought a HEPA filter after reading on a US site about the perils of mould and its effects on brain health (amongst many other organ systems) before realising that the best way to go at this was to get a dehumidifer to dehumidify or reduce the moisture in our house (we don’t have a tumble dryer so, since moving to a condensing boiler and away from an airing cupbard washing dries near the radiator).

I look forward to sharing with you how I get on with one of the two different types of dehumidifier on the market.

Planning isn’t a dirty word!

The title for this piece mentions the dreaded P word, planning. It helps point us toward an important aspect of the season…

Not just Christmas dinner timing; which accompaniments to accommodate the most ‘select’ eaters coming to stay or optimal christmas pudding creation time but also likely nap times for all generations visiting.

Planning and timing are for life not just for Christmas (but especially at xmas?)

The military I’m sure have an acronym using lots of P words about planning. Some folk mention 5, 6 7 and more Ps!

Luckily we don’t all need to become soldiers to take on board some of their advice:

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

Whatever plans we get set up, know that we can’t control the world but it’s still going to be ok!

Family are likely be happier with our presence than our presents even after uber agonising over which perfectly chosen gift to get.
Don’t pile challenges unnecessarily in the way.
Be realistic about what we can fit into the allotted time and space.

I was helpfully pointed toward this post as a way of highlighting how to keep ‘control’ of Christmas. Whilst I appreciated the sentiment, I felt it sometimes missed the point? Using the word ‘control’ I believe is misguided and leads to potential upset further down the line?

I don’t consider my life is best equated to a busy mum of four who seeks comfort in dipping into chocolate from the fridge.

We all have schedules but most with a chronic condition learn fairly soon that schedules aren’t always kept… and again, that’s ok.

Ultimately, none of us have control over our lives (MS or not). The sooner this is acknowledged the sooner we can concentrate on now.

Perhaps I have a whiff of Bah Humbug about me? It feels a little like Christmas has already been here too long and we’ve just past the first week of December!

I know it may not sound like it but I DO actually love Christmas. I’ve been buying bits of presents online for the last month or two whilst trying not to include this gifting faux pas, a Walkman, a Pager and a couple of cassette tapes.

Even with my plans I’ll still be panicking nearer the time that I have more gifts to feel like I’m buying.

I’m trying to ask myself what’s most important about the season and to put limited energy in the right direction.

It’s a new feeling to get used to: I no longer make NO plans in the belief that things’ll just work themselves out. Perhaps, rather boringly for the rest of my family I’m getting timings set up to visit them in the runup to Christmas which is taking longer than it did when I could drive myself to visit them.

But, I don’t think I’ve entirely wrung the joy out of Christmas. It has taken on a different shape compared to my party seasons just 10 years ago but like many others also reluctantly shifting their own expectations we seem to exist quite well in the space where forethought used to be ‘not the done thing’.

I think it’s time to change this… Who’s with me “PLANNING IS PREFERRED”… Let’s take it one season at a time!

Pleiotropic… what?

Pleiotropic, this word explains why the posts on this site are a little scattered and not yet bundled into nice easy sections.

It’s not just because my brain hasn’t felt sharp enough to turn on a concise, subject dividing sixpence recently!

Also, life isn’t neat and tidy: Everything is interconnected!

what does pleiotropic mean?

Dr Tom O Bryan defined pleiotropic for his followers a few years back… multi-pronged essentially. Wellness and healing take time – they don’t happen overnight. this makes them unsexy and unlikely to grab any headlines. Can you imagine for example?

Extra, Extra, Read All About It:

“Woman makes her life a little bit better by doing a bit of exercise every day, improving sleeping habits, finding a hobby, connecting with friends and eating real food.”

it’ll barely fit on one line for a start!

This whole site is about going at making life a little bit better. Whether you are a person with diagnosed illness or just knackered the whole time and feel like the sparkle has gone from life you will find a post that could be of use. It’s tricky to find the line between being preachy about what we know deep down will be good for us (decent sleep and relaxation) and providing posts of actual use.

This recent link from an employee at the NIH (US National Institute of Health) touches on why we all have to be our own doctor. The institutions around us on the whole don’t make their best profits from well adjusted, healthy customers. It’s not in the food industry’s interest either to encourage us to skip a meal every now and then.

There are many ways we can get life flowing a little better, only one of which is food. Another life improver is exercise: choosing a type that fits into our lives makes it more likely we’ll keep up that New Year’s resolution that fails every year by around March!

I believe the pages on this site can help to make life a little bit better.

It’s perhaps not a huge claim but one that is achievable and when we achieve one thing then we feel more positive about tackling another thing and another…

Marginal improvements are still improvements!

A series recently aired on the BBC, Doctor in the House illustrated this multi-pronged approach to living a better life by living life a little bit better.

Micro or macro, which is important?

The tiny, micro part of our world and the macro events on a global scale can both be altered by the chaos effect!

In this post I’ll be looking at the possible commercial benefits of looking out for each other.

So, it’s been a week or two and lots of life seems to have been going on while nothing very much is happening. I’ve been thinking about one thing especially in relation to exploring the benefits of a happy gut:

News of shrinking amazon rain forest fell hot on the heels of my greater understanding of the ecosystem in our own gut. We need to protect that inner environment as much as any other endangered environment on our planet.

The micro and the macro really do seem to be as important as each other for our increased wellbeing. The Butterfly Effect or Chaos Theory is alive and well whether you go big or go small!

Since doing the free online course from the University of Colorado, Boulder it’s becoming clearer (to me in my tiny mind anyway) that we’re all part of this living thing… planet earth.

If one bit isn’t working well, the whole lot suffers in not immediately visible ways.

Coincidentally, NCAR the National Center for Atmospheric Research is also in Boulder, CO. We could think about the flapping of a butterfly’s wings here but that would point to some sort of potential for a belief in Gaia. Is the Earth a system we (humans, pandas, ants etc) are merely cogs to aid in its efficient running? If that is the case might we want to start behaving a little differently both as individuals and a society? Let’s try and avoiding creating the right conditions for terrorism to thrive?

I think thinking more about our possibly avoidable troubles might do us good both on the minute/microbial and the global scale?

A few summers ago the media latched on to scaring us about the very real and present danger of antibiotic resistant bacteria – MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) and Cdiff (chlostridium difficile). These and bacteria like them could wipe out immune compromised patients in a hospital at the drop of a hat we’re told.

As we’re losing the competent managing of bacteria in our Western, developed lives I believe we need to think a little longer about how we’re treating indigenous peoples of remote parts of the world. Their microbiome is unexposed to our diet and physiologically stressful lifestyle and consequently have rich and diverse communities of bacteria in their gut which strengthen their immune system and mean they suffer few if any auto-immune disorders?

Their robust immune systems could be due to a number of things but at the end of the day, people in their communities appear to suffer with less disease than here in the developed world.

Tribal poo (for want of a better term) is a real resource one that we ignore at our peril. Chronic Cdiff can best be treated with a fecal microbiota transplant as I’ve linked to in an earlier post.

In the gut of people who eat a traditional diet, live close to the earth and are exposed to a similar variety of the bacteria they’ve lived around for hundreds of thousands of years their populations of gut bacteria are far more diverse than ours.

We, who watch boxed sets of things and stay up past darkness generally are likely to have had at least three courses of antibiotics in our lives and consequently have a less interesting collection of guests at the party going on in our guts.

Tribal poo transplants will have something to do with how we’ll stop superbugs.

It’s a bit sad that we don’t seem able to protect things just for the sake of them surviving. Polar bears, tigers – the list of endangered species due to habitat destruction I believe is quite long?

But perhaps we may be able to save these isolated populations because they could be of benefit to us?

In an earlier post I talk about the evolutionary benefits of altruism… are there any? I think I thought there were because if we all subscribe to the idea to look out for each other eventualy, one day, we’ll be someone else’s ‘each other’.

positivity, because you’re worth it!

It’s been a kind of a busy season including the most recent piece in my health and wellbeing puzzle which involved a welcome shot of positivity… and an overnight stay in den Haag last month.

Most if not all the posts in this blog from the last year and more, address something in life which can be adapted or adjusted to make our life a little bit better.

Life hacks?

Hardly, as I lack the dedication to attach scientific rigour to things I’ve found out and chosen to share with anyone that’s interested.

Looking online; reporting on hacks would appear to be a mainly male pursuit, or perhaps they’re just the ones that better broadcast their results?

Anyway, speaking to the dutch therapist and walking away with a stack of his handwritten notes has left me googling quite a lot!

…”And then I discovered the PADs.

Well, I didn’t discover them, of course — they’ve been known for decades — but what I learned in my little sabbatical from corporate science here at Atlas is that autoimmune disease is caused by autoantigens.

Duh, you say.

But that statement has more content than your typical tautology. Autoantigens are active participants in the initiation and development of autoimmunity. After all, breaking tolerance is not a trivial thing — we have elaborate mechanisms to make sure that it doesn’t happen. So you need to produce autoantigens in sufficient quantity and context to prompt your immune system into performing an unnatural act. Then, over subsequent years and decades, you have to continue to produce autoantigens to mature the immune response to the point that it becomes clinically relevant. Once disease gets going, autoantigens are the raw fuel for the inflammatory cycle that sets up in target organs, and they drive the formation and deposition of immune complexes, which account for much of the morbidity and mortality in patients.

So, yeah, autoantigens are kind of a big deal. What if you could stop the body from producing them? What if you could deprive the immune system of its inflammatory fuel?”

PAD inhibition, just one amongst a stack of other scribbles from the dutchman,

led me to the quote above which is the most rational description I’ve seen for contracting a variety of chronic conditions and explains the relative lack of effectiveness of immunomodulators

I feel like I’ve been given a lifeline! Having a condition that people don’t seem able to treat effectively can ultimately be quite lonely. The consultation with a Dutchman left me feeling more optimistic than I have for a long time.

I believe that positivity, now bathing my body’s cells in place of state engineered defeatism is as much of a boost to my health as any amount of exercise and personalised physio. In the next few posts I’ll go further into what I’ve been told and found out, including breathing exercises and eating plenty of good fats, no stuff from packets and a little less than a kilo of veg a day!

stress and pedalogate!

My lack of speed in getting a post out allows me to refer to stress and pedalogate and roll a couple of subjects together that I think are related.

One of them has a more English sensibility to it and the other is global in its appeal. Both, I feel are worth thinking about a bit more thoughtfully as human beings.

The first is Pedalogate! The British media had a field day when the newspapers were full of stories that highlighted some of the NHS’ more surprising expenditure.

Our national Health Service was paying for leisure activities (instead of questionably effective pharmaceutical treatments?) for some patients with various types of long term illness. At the bottom of this post will be a link to an article from the Daily Mail. Our chances to experience escapism should never be looked down on. whether through a James Bond movie, a good book or creating imaginary worlds!

My recent researches investigating psychoneuroimmunology have included the findings from the endocrinologist Hans Selye in the 1930s. His groundbreaking work looked into the effects of stress on the immune systems of lab rats.

His General Adaptation Syndrome examined an organism’s ability to take stress in its stride.

As an exquisitely balanced organism we’re designed to be resilient and thrive under fire from the slings and arrows that life has in store for most if not all of us.

The breakdown of this bouncebackability happens over long term exposure to a stressor.

It seems this crucial piece of research that is now coming back into prominence hasn’t necessarily been taken to heart by the wider public?

At best, the wide ranging effects of stress seem to be paid lip service to.

But ultimately the research points toward this: We can affect how our body functions by how we think!

How huge is that?

Sitting in a pedalo on a lake and feeling nature around us can help us to think more clearly.

A pedalo trip could give the patient a brief respite from the situation they’re more than capable of getting themselves stuck in by repeating negative thought patterns.

Being given the chance to leave our everyday existence allows us breathing space and the chance to get a bit of distance on a situation that, if we’re off sick from work we could probably benefit from!

This autumn has involved taking apart some of my own negative thought processes some of which go back decades and I hope now I am aware of them, I will be able to examine and change my situation?

The article in the Daily Mail

an explanation of the image (I don’t have one of a pedalo) but its creation represents my efforts at escapism which gives me the chance to take me out of myself, get a bit of distance and think more clearly.

How’s your community?

This post is about a question I’ve had for quite a long time.

I started wondering about a week before I broke my foot. Two metatarsals as it turned out the next morning at Accident and Emergency made a truly memorable definitive almost, cracking sound.

Instead of earning the injury smothered in glory and basking in shades of heroism on a field of play somewhere, I misjudged the last step at the bottom of a flight of stairs… in my own home.

I was distracted by something (you’ve perhaps noticed that likelihood from the breadth of previous posts). I choose to keep reminding myself fuzzy thinking and unclarified thought processes happen even to people without the cognitive issues MS can bring.

…Let’s get back to a topic in this post:

At the end of 2013 as an owner of a long term condition and a potential beneficiary of future medical research, I was invited to take a tour around a stem cell lab in Cambridge. The mice whose brains provide said cells are looked after incredibly well. Good food (I assume although I didn’t taste it), fresh air and calming, soothing treatment right up until the point of execution.

Even before a trial can start the three Rs of animal research must be asked before any vivisection can take place:

Replace the use of animals with alternative techniques, or avoid the use of animals altogether.
Reduce the number of animals used to a minimum, to obtain information from fewer animals or more information from the same number of animals.
Refine the way experiments are carried out, to make sure animals suffer as little as possible. This includes better housing and improvements to procedures which minimise pain and suffering and/or improve animal welfare.

(Taken from Understanding Animal Research (the organisors of the event at one of Cambridge University’s colleges).

Their physical condition was being well taken care of but the thing that might have distracted me from the bottom step before I met it sooner than expected, was curiosity and concern about the animals’ wellbeing as I knew their health was well catered for.

The folk working in the lab were very pleased with their new consignment of individually air conditioned living quarters: each mouse’s bedsit was a bit bigger than the size of a shoebox. Each animal was effectively in solitary confinement and had a layer of clear, climate controlled air and at least 2 sheets of rigid plastic between it and its neighbour.

It’s hard not to draw a human analogy as these experiments are being undertaken because the mice are similar to us. The life of a mouse is worth less than that of a large primate in animal research circles; The study has gone through the three Rs so human and mouse brains must be similar enough to be worthy of taking animals’ lives.

These mice didn’t have any social interaction or while we’re thinking about it, access to exercise.

A lab assistant had been telling me of playing the radio 24/7 so the cortisol levels of the mice didn’t spike in response to stray loud noises (which were now being muffled by local radio). Uneven hormone levels could introduce an unwanted variable into the studies, making the end results at best, unreliable.

whilst the mice seemed to be well cared for during their shortened lives their care seemed to fall short (in the eyes of this non animal biologist)

We, as humans are advised to get some movement into our daily lives. Our bodies, we’re told, will function all the better for it. Without movement our bodies will atrophy and succumb to all manner of lifestyle diseases. Sarcopenia (muscle loss) we’re told isn’t an inevitability of growing old. Our brains will also suffer from slowed cerebral bloodflow brought on by reduced physical activity.

It’s suggested we cultivate human interaction in our lives and be present in our community. Study after study show survival rates and life expectancy decline with increasing isolation.

The mere extension of life is no measure or indication of the quality of that life but our experience of life becomes richer in company… even if it’s only to give us the chance to grumble about others: we NEED others in our lives!

To this end I am setting up a public meeting to listen and talk with and to our community about itself.

I’m not entirely sure what the take home from this post is other than don’t be mistaken for a mouse, get as much movement as you can and speak to people on whatever platform you can. Reading this online you have access to a computer; search for a special interest or support group if it’s tricky to get out physically and meet up – no matter what our situation there’s bound to be someone else in our shoes that’s set up a group for people like us (fellow human beings).

Seek out connection, the quality and length of our lives a bit depends on it!

Another post will focus on how our microbiome, made up in part by the communities of bacteria in our bodies that help digest our food and produce happy brain chemicals also need to be paid attention to. How can we eat better to help keep them, and us, happy and functioning as best we can?

This blog is about finding ways for everyone to feel a little bit better.

Thanks for joining in, it would be great to hear your thoughts on some of the issues covered in this post.

Investigate!

Blue skies are here again!

As an antidote to the functional infographic of pathologies further down the page here’s some blue sky to gaze at 🙂 although there does seem to be quite a lot of it about looking out of the window at the moment.

Apologies for sparse posts recently. I promised a post about stress reduction strategies in my last post and that’s still to come as I talked about the bad effects of stressors on the body. The good effects we can generate are still to come… I’ve not forgotten about it.

I’ve been getting my learn on using a somewhat scattergun approach.

There are various functional approaches to improving wellness including FMT and cPNI (a bunch of acronyms again). These strategies have held my attention as I’ve chosen to investigate them aswell as taking an online microbiology course from the University of Boulder.

I received this graphic from a health blogger I’ve been following for… what must be 10 years?

I need to adjust my thinking on this ‘new’ technology! I know a version of the web has been around since the 50s but I had no dealings with ARPA net, the military early adopters.

Finding approaches to fixing my leaky gut is something I plan to revisit (after talking about gut permeability in previous posts) Step up candida to take your rightful place as just ONE of many things that can cause a leaky gut.

Christa Orrechio is another health and wellness online presence I listen to and will be trying some more approaches that will deal more effectively with bloating and other digestive issues which are some of the more visible signs of an unhappy tummy.

I’d been on rotations of various anti virals, antifungals and anti-parasitic protocols before but a more integrative/holistic protocol that promises to deal with inflammation of the gut lining before worrying too much about clearing gut baddies (fatigue and brain fog are two other symptoms).

Stressors

Today’s post is suitable for those with MS and those who live in the world, generally. Stress is everywhere and it’s worse for us all than we might at first think.

Apologies Shakespeare for paraphasing the start of Sonnet 43:

Sress, how do we love thee? let me count the number of ways (in no particular order)

Sugar causes our body to make changes (normalise elevated blood sugar) to get back to a level playing field (homeostasis). This requirement of extra chemical processes is a stress on our body. Although as the last chocolate brownie post said, if we consciously choose sugar enjoy the experience that can come from it (breaking sweet bread together).
sugar, is just one of the addictive substance which all present a psychological aswell as physiological stress for us: We’re no longer choosing that last cookie/insert preferred naughty but nice poison here. Instead we’re in the grasp of something we have no control over.
Lack of control in all sorts of arenas can cause our bodies stress.
Lack of sleep: I started this post in my head whilst lying awake unable to find sleep. I’d done all the ‘concentrate on your breathing’ and ‘watch intrusive thoughts drift past on a waterway of calm’ but the waterway of calm was more of a babbling brook and had the potential to reach rushing, Niagran proportions.
In this age of 24hr rolling news, with its wails of heightened terror alerts and tales of impending doom every day our body and brain can be forgiven for being in a state of constant arousal. This is fine for short bursts, it allows us to do the living of life.

Our brains can get stuck in the fight, flight or freeze mode (deadline brought forward or an altercation with someone from work are our modern equivalents of a sabre tooth tiger).

Unfortunately, this gives us a permanently elevated cortisol level.

When these stressors come into our life the sympathetic nervous system throws out cortisol as if our lives depended on it. The body can’t spend any time in ‘rest and digest’ mode. Food doesn’t get digested effectively and nutrients aren’t absorbed. Our body is ready for the ‘off’.

These somewhat avoidable states of stress also use up our store of various B vitamins which can further impact on our body’s ability to cope with stress…

Essential maintenance gets pushed to the bottom of the body’s priority list, including essential, unpanicked functioning of our immune system. If we’re stuck in this mode for extended periods of time the immune system can start going a bit postal. Some argue our increased stress levels are contributing to the increase in auto-immune related disorders.

When the parasympathetic nervous system is engaged, our body can start spending time and energy repairing and protecting itself.

Both these nervous systems are part of the autonomic nervous system. (We’re a complicated little kit of no instructions, aren’t we?) Mostly, the ANS is in charge of stuff so we don’t have to consciously think about it: like when to start panicking, breathing, sweating and when to get roused into anger or lust.

Stuff we don’t need to have much control over.

But some of it… we can shape.

The jolt of coffee feeling that cortisol produces (a release of adrenaline accompanies caffeine and contributes to many of the cells in the body getting focused. They are undistracted and better able to prime themselves for flight); This feeling can become quite addictive. I’m curious myself whether this might explain some of the interactions in our lives that seemed to erupt from nowhere?

Are some of us addicted to that caffeine free, self produced little buzz of hyper-alertness?

How can we get our bodies under the parasympatheic nervous system’s shielding wing?

Look out for the next installment which explores some of the strategies to get to that calm, healing space most of us visit briefly most days.

Gorgeous gluten free brownies

After speaking to a number of people I feel assured that the batch of dairy and gluten free ginger brownies made recently is worth sharing.

It’s been tricky trying to be mindful of following a reduced sugar diet whilst also testing chocolate brownie recipes (bearing in mind my candida/leaky gut posts of the last few months). Notice my use of the word ‘mindful’. I wouldn’t have made the brownies at all if I were following a strictly low sugar lifestyle 100% of the time.

But, I figure life needs to be considered in the round: making these brownies has given me an excuse to consume more sugar but it also causes me to see the appreciation and enjoyment in people’s faces when they eat the product I’ve made.

I think my soul benefits more from that social interaction than my digestive tract suffers from dealing with its temporarily higher sugar contents!

I’d love to enter into a debate about whether its healthy to use sugar as a reward in society but it seems pretty ingrained and I’m trying to address my ease to fall into argument (it doesn’t make our cells happy but that’s a topic for another post)!

(I’m not an anthropologist or dietician (not even sure how to spell it) so the above statement hasn’t been scientifically verified).

There does seem to be quite a lot of delight seen in people’s faces when they taste these gluten free brownies. Especially when you introduce them as a reduced sugar, vegetable based, gluten and dairy free, sweet treat.

People don’t tend to expect an awful lot with that sort of billing.

Ginger and chocolate brownies using sweet potato allows for reduced sugar and serves as the sweet route to one of our five a day!

I’m glad I saw this post online recently. Apart from the sugar you could call this recipe a healthfood 😉

Ingredients and method:

2x100g slab of dark chocolate
2x eggs
2x teaspoons of vanilla extract
5x balls of ginger in syrup chopped up (from cake making aisle of supermarket)
200g of cooked sweet potato
125g of brown sugar (no need to use special sorts)
100g of gluten free plain flour
100g of coconut oil
A pinch of baking powder (less than a ¼ teaspoon)

Optional extras

Up to 100g of whatever else you like in brownies; flaked almond, crushed walnuts, brazils and pecans all work.
fresh blueberries, dried cranberries soaked in ginger wine
A rounded tablespoon of cocoa powder
A teaspoon of ginger powder.

Line a shallow baking tray (eg 26x20cmx3cm depth) with greaseproof paper (some recipes suggest putting the oven on at the start but I don’t like working against the clock) turn it up to 180C (160 fan oven) gas mark 4/350f

Get two, big mixing bowls (don’t try doing it all in one bowl, it’ll work but the extra washing up extravagance is worth it). The sweet potato flesh can make the finished brownie quite heavy. I know the point of brownies is that they’re not cake but the finished texture is a little less vegetal lumpen)

FIRST BOWL: break up a pack and a half of the chocolate slabs and spoon the coconut oil on top (exact measurements don’t seem to have been essential: if stuff is a few grams under it doesn’t seem to have mattered). Microwave for a minute or so until the mixture is well on its way to melted.

Add the sweet potato flesh and flour, a pinch of baking powder (ginger and cocoa powder, if using), break up the remaining half bar of chocolate, add that + whatever extras you might be choosing.

SECOND BOWL: add the sugar and eggs and whiskn for a minute or two (so the mix is airy but we’re not looking for meringue consistency). Our household’s first electric whisk a few months back was a revelation.

Tip the FIRST BOWL,into the SECOND BOWL, stir gently together until well mixed, pour into the lined tray and put in the heated oven for 20 minutes (check at 18 minutes, an overdone brownie is a terrible thing!)

Look out for my chocolate beetroot brownie recipe coming soon.