Wanting to detox and beat sugar cravings? Think about your genes.

Posted on 3 November, 2014 by | Leave a comment

I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life struggling against my body. Having a naturally stockier build, or ‘sausage body’ as I like to lovingly call it, I definitely went through a chubby phase in my tween years.

Struggling to lose weight & feel good

It’s a classic story a lot of people can probably relate to, men and women alike. Working through puberty, wanting to look good and feel attractive, all while being bombarded by all sorts of confusing, conflicting and media-hyped messages about fitness and nutrition. I remember always being told that if I exercised enough, I could eat whatever I want. However, being a bookish kid, I usually didn’t exercise much, but still wanted to eat tasty snacks. So I would feel guilty about food and always be trying to “eat less and exercise more”.

How guilt-inducing, frustrating and exhausting is the Eat Less & Exercise More approach?!

All too many people, myself included, find that that whole thing only ends with disappointment and hating your body even more. It’s high time for a better strategy.

Surprise: you’re an animal!

Here’s a thought: last time you went to the zoo and you were looking at those chimps and gorillas, did it strike you how similar they are to us? How despite all our fancy clothes and perfumed soap, we’re really just animals too?

Animals don’t sit around stressing about whether they ate too many bugs or leaves, they just know what’s right for them to eat, and how much, and they just go on enjoying life with a fit, muscular, healthy body. Shouldn’t we feel that way too? Wouldn’t that be incredibly liberating?

If we look at ourselves as the ‘humanimals’ that we are, living in our habitat, we can gain insight into what our genes are programmed to thrive on, and understand why we may seek out or crave certain foods. From that basis of simple knowledge, we can move forward eating and enjoying food care-free, while having that fit, healthy, happy body.

 

 

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Understanding the ‘humanimal’ mind

You’re going to be so relieved after you read this. There is a solid scientific reason you crave, dream about, and feel drawn to all those tasty sugary naughty junky foods. Your brain is literally programmed to be able to pick them out of a crowd.

The reason is that we’ve evolved very little since we were hunter-gatherers, living off of the land and what we were lucky or clever enough to find/kill that day. Therefore if we were scanning the landscape and there is a calorie-rich food source visible (let’s say some nice sugary berries) our eyes snap right to it and we feel alarms in our brain like “FOOD! RIGHT THERE! OMG FOOD! EAT! EEEEEAT.” This is because in general the hunter-gatherer approach would be to eat more when food is available, since we don’t know if it will be available tomorrow.

Well, your brain has precious little, if anything, different from that hunting-gathering ancestor of yours. So you get precisely those same EATRIGHTNOW signals when you slap eyes on an ooey-gooey grilled cheese sandwich, or a picture of a chocolate cake. (I started drooling typing that, wow. There’s the animal brain for ya!)

Cravings are not a bad thing

We’ve been taught and guilted into feeling like whenever we crave a food, we are naughty naughty bad and we should just quell that down and control ourselves. If we give in to cravings we will just be fat and ugly forever.

Newsflash: those cravings are literally programmed into your DNA. They are your body telling you what it needs right now.

But, this message comes with a very important caveat. These days, our body’s signals can be a liiiiiittle bit confused, what with our modern flashy environment and unnatural foods and chemicals and distractions, etc. So, your body may be telling you that you “need to eat 2 burgers and an ice cream after yes definitely the ice cream”, however there is a lot at play there.

You also may crave more food after you’ve just eaten because the food may not have been very nourishing, or you may be needing water. Therefore your body sends signals to eat more because it is seeking more water or nutrients.

It doesn’t know how to tell you “I need vitamin C!” or “Feed me some omega 3’s!”, all it can say is “eat!” and hope that it can get some of what it needs from there.

Our ancient brains are overwhelmed in this modern world

Studies show that historically food would definitely not have been constantly available, and we would have been a lot more programmed to be able to survive off of fat stores. We would be easily able to switch to burning our body fat to get us through a few days of not finding much food.

The problem is nowadays we have food available constantly. Our monkey brains are programmed to pick out high-carb, sugary foods to be able to survive and get energy fast, but now we’re literally surrounded by those foods, at arm’s reach, ALL the time. And our monkey brains still want them just as bad.

Foods high in carbs and sugars convert to fat the fastest when we eat them. They are a quick easy source of energy and our bodies just love to store them away for later use. That includes a sweet potato or whole-grain cereal just as much as a cupcake or chocolate bar.

Because these foods burn the fastest, they often leave us in the lurch. We swing from “Mmm yummy i’m full that was delicious” to “OMG I am HANGRY, FEED ME NOW”, waaaay too fast.

The thing is, once you understand WHY you have cravings and get hungry way too often, it’s so easy to re-program your approach to work WITH your genes and that crazy monkey brain.

It doesn’t need to be complicated. The monkey brain is simple, and we can have it in our palm in no time. How to get there you ask? It’s all about breaking the sugar/carb addiction, and choosing more nourishing foods.

How to keep your monkey brain happy, not hangry

  1. Eat more fat – Yes, fat! Avocados, salmon, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, full-fat milk, full-fat greek yogurt, quality cheese, eggs. It’s aaaaall good baby!
  2. Eat good quality protein – Organically raised, happy, free-range animals and fish. Dairy and eggs from the same.
  3. Get good sleep – Those hunger signals we were talking about before get just sooo much more confused when you are tired. The energy has to come from somewhere, and if you’re not rested, you’re going to be mighty tempted to get it from a chocolate chip muffin.
  4. Use a proven plan – I love programs like the 21 Day Sugar Detox, which is wildly popular and gets rave reviews left right and center. It’s a fast and well-tested way to press the reset button and learn how to work WITH those genes instead of against them.
  5. Lose the body shame! – Once you understand what you’re genetically programmed to want, you realize it’s not your fault. Using a simple program like the 21DSD teaches you to be confident in the right food choices, enjoy eating, and get on with living life! Enough said!

I hope you’ve enjoyed these guidelines on how to make your genes work for you.

If you want a well-engineered plan to take away all the mind-sweat and give you an excellent kickstart, more info on the 21 Day Sugar Detox can be found by clicking the image below! Cheers!

Balanced Bites

 

 

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How to make a week’s worth of Paleo meals in 1 hour

Posted on 26 October, 2014 by | Leave a comment

If you’re experimenting with any sort of real food, whole food, ancestrally-based eating regime, you may have found that you feel sort shackled to your kitchen.  Planning, shopping and preparing meals every evening can be a lot of work.

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Personally I have breakfast and lunch at work during the week so when I get home after work I have to make dinner for that night, plus breakfast and lunch for the next day.

I can imagine with kids this would take on a whole new level of difficulty, because of the sheer volume of food needing to be prepared, and also the time that’s needed every evening. I kind of understand why my mum used to just pop a frozen pizza in the oven sometimes…

But, once you’ve experienced how a paleo-type diet can majorly boost and repair your health,  you can’t really just go back to those frozen pizzas! Luckily there are ways to “hack the system” of meal prep to achieve your paleo eating goals without blowing your budget or your evenings on food.

Hacking the paleo meal prep system

The key is planning out your meals in advance, and then having a concentrated shopping session and prep session. Planning first allows you to be a lot more efficient with the whole operation. You mastermind the whole week first, and then never have to think about it again. No coming home and thinking “what’s for dinner…” and standing in front of the fridge for 10 minutes trying to come up with something.

Shopping all in one go means you save a whole lot of time, rather than popping to the store or the market in dribs and drabs whenever you need something. Then, prepping or cooking all in one session, all according to your meal plan of course, gets you all set up for the week. That way on each day during the week you only have to “assemble” your meals, rather than make them.

The 4 stages of fast paleo meal-making

 

 

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This is a basic process on how to make your path to eating tasty paleo meals fast, painless and stress-free.

STEP 1: Plan

Put together a plan for what you’ll be eating each day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Then write out a shopping list corresponding to the plan so that you’ll have all the ingredients.

SMART TIP: Write the list in the order of the areas of the supermarket, or grouped under “fish store”, “farmer’s market”, “Whole Foods” etc, according to where you shop. That way it’s much easier to keep track as you work through the list.

ANOTHER SMART TIP: Subscribe to a service like 20 Dishes, which produces your meal plan and shopping list for you, based on how many people you’re feeding, and any special requirements like if you’re on the autoimmune protocol or low FODMAP. Their meal plans are specifically configured so that you can make a week’s worth of meals in 1 hour!

They also provide an “action plan” to make your time most efficient. This takes away the problem of wrestling with 5 recipes at once trying not to burn anything. 20 Dishes provides a step by step roadmap to prep everything at once in an organized and efficient way.

STEP 2: Shop

Armed with your list, make the circuit of your supermarket or local shops to collect all your goods in one fell swoop.

STEP 3: Prep & Store

This is where that 20 Dishes meal prep action plan really helps; all the mental work is done already so there’s no need to flounder around trying to get things done. It’s proven to take only 60 minutes so I know I don’t need to make any more time than that in my day. All the meat gets cooked, veggies get chopped, and salads get prepped. Then everything goes in the fridge or freezer in pre-planned containers so it’s very grab-and-go.

SMART TIP: Get enough food storage containers (preferably glass!!) so each family member has their designated breakfast, lunch and snack container. That way you can just make an assembly line and slap it all together. Here are some great containers that are non-toxic: Glasslock 18-Piece Assorted Oven Safe Container Set

STEP 4: Assemble

Each day when you get home, just pull out all your pre-prepped goodies, heat up any parts to be heated, and assemble on the plates. That’s it! So satisfyingly fast and easy.

SMART TIP: For those parts that need to be heated (ie meat), you definitely want to be storing in glass (as mentioned above) as this will skip even another step for you – those glass containers can go straight in the oven! That way you’re avoiding the yuckiness of the microwave as well. Coooooool.

Well, that’s about it folks. You’ve got my basic fast paleo meal prep system laid out here, and then if you’re wanting to save some more time and mental sweat on getting those meals planned and prepped for each week, I definitely recommend checking out 20 Dishes. Even just thinking about it I can feel that burden lifting off my shoulders…ahhh. :) The image below will take you to more info.

 

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Wellness career: My experience with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN)

Posted on 21 September, 2014 by | 2 comments

I’m writing this article having just finished my 1-year holistic health coaching certification through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition a couple of weeks ago.

This article is to share my experience with the IIN program and to help you discover a potential path into better personal wellness and maybe even a career in the health field, if it interests you. (Also check out my Become a Health Coach page!)

The buzz around Institute for Integrative Nutrition

I’ve read a lot of different comments and so-called “reviews” on Integrative Nutrition around the internet, and I noticed some of them weren’t even written by people who completed the course, they were just based on an outside point of view or hear-say.

Personally I think that’s pretty unfair, and I wanted to contribute an honest run-down as someone who has actually done the course.

All I can say about IIN haters is this:

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Preventative healthcare (or often called “alternative”, even though it should be the main and primary approach to wellness, except in the case of an emergency) is a growing field, and its success threatens the monopoly that conventional medicine currently holds.

I think that scares a lot of conventionally-educated professionals, and companies who make a lot of money off of feeding pharmaceuticals to desperate people who don’t know any better.

This is not to say that I think IIN is for everyone. That’s definitely not the case and I wouldn’t recommend jumping into the course without a good amount of research and consideration.

All I can do is share my own experience, and hopefully that will help you gain more insight and help you get to wherever you are hoping to go with your health and your career.

Me before IIN

Before I enrolled with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition I was working in the interior design industry, which is what I studied in university. Actually working in your field seems to be a feat in itself these days, however I had discovered that I found it pretty shallow and un-fulfilling.

I would spend free moments at work googling natural solutions to health issues and the nutritional power of real foods. I was fired up about natural health and I wanted a certification to round out my knowledge.

Here are a couple of pages from my workbook at the beginning of my studies with IIN.

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Feeling stuck & knowing you have more to offer

You can see I felt stagnant in my job and really wanted to do something more meaningful and valuable.

I knew preventative, holistic health & nutrition was where I should focus for a career shift, because I literally couldn’t stop consuming information about it, and would talk someone’s ear off about it if they gave me half a chance. To this day when I catch up with my partner Will in the evening I’m usually raving about some cool new health or nutrition thing I researched that day.

Pros & Cons of IIN

I did a bunch of research before jumping into enrolling in a nutrition program, and I definitely had doubts about IIN.

My main reservation was how cheesy and almost cult-ish their marketing seems. I didn’t like how their site tries to push you to speak with a representative, and doesn’t actually give that much information about the curriculum besides some over-arching statements like “learn 100 dietary theories”.

When I eventually did talk to an enrollment advisor on the phone, I found her to be pretty vague in answering questions about the program, and kind of pushy and seedy.

However, the pros out-weighed the cons for me in the end, because there are some seriously AWESOME, UNIQUE things about IIN’s school and program. Here are some of the highlights from my perspective:

  • Learn from anywhere. I wouldn’t have been able to enroll in nutrition school if I had to attend classes, because I have to keep a full-time job. I listened to my lectures during my commute or while cooking dinner, and then spent a couple of hours on the weekend doing workbook exercises and taking notes.
  • Personal growth & business education. Unlike your average university education where you learn a whole lot of theory but then have no idea how to succeed in the real world, I really liked that IIN’s curriculum walks you through a gradual process of personal development, so you can clarify your ‘offering to the world’ and really make it a marketable, appealing package. This is exciting and useful whether you want to sell your services to the public, or just be able to convince yourself and your family to make a lifestyle change.
  • Mind-blowingly awesome lecturers. The contributing faculty at Integrative Nutrition is basically a who’s-who of the alternative health world. Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Andrew Weil, David Wolfe, Sally Fallon Morell, Dr. Barry Sears, Gary Taubes and Dr. Mark Hyman were some of the highlights for me. These are some of the absolute top names in forward-thinking nutrition and health. The cool thing is the IIN lectures are very recent and fresh so you get to hear about their latest work and research hot off the press.
  • Highly inspiring graduates. Although the marketing and enrollment process wasn’t that appealing to me, I got past that hurdle by checking out how successful some of IIN’s grads are. Some of the ones I find most inspiring are Isabel Foxen-Duke, Christa Orecchio, and Alisa Vitti.

 What IIN did for me

As soon as I enrolled with IIN, I had this huge, glowing, vibrating feeling of having opened the door to destiny or something. It was totally awesome.

During my year at IIN I’ve been able to:

  • present a series of wellness lectures at a large corporate office
  • land a paying client
  • connect with other students around the world who are valuable friends and contacts, and see how they have applied their IIN knowledge, whether for personal healing and growth or in a business context
  • learn how to take great care of myself and start showing myself a lot more love
  • learn a boatload of actionable techniques and strategies for lifestyle change and healthy eating, which I’ve applied to myself and also helped others
  • start and maintain a yoga and meditation practice, which is a huge step considering any type of spirituality or practice was a LONG shot away for me, one year ago
  • have my mind expanded about different nutritional approaches that can work for different people
  • learn how to market my services in a loving, genuine and valuable way
  • feel like I’ve finally found my mission in life that I can never get enough of!!

Some warnings or things you should know

As I said earlier, my goal with sharing this experience is to help others gather information and make the smartest, most informed decision. Here are some things you may want to be aware of if you’re considering studying holistic nutrition:

  1. It’s not an automatic job  – just like when you go to university or college you attend classes and study and write tests and graduate, and then you have to go out and pound the pavement yourself. You have to produce marketing materials (like a CV, or a website, or whatever) and make yourself known to the world. IIN is the same way. There is A LOT of juicy and inspiring information shared in the course, but actually doing the work is up to you. Making a new career happen, by yourself and for yourself, will be the scariest and most difficult thing you will do, but also the most exciting, exhilarating and rewarding.
  2. You will learn conflicting theories – I read one “review” of IIN (again by someone who hadn’t actually attended the course) where they said it was a “confusing and misleading” school that taught “many opposing theories”. That’s the interesting thing about nutrition – it’s not like math where there’s only one right answer. It’s more like politics or religion, where people are very quick to defend their personal preference, but a lot of different approaches CAN work and be effective. I see this as a positive point of IIN in that it doesn’t indoctrinate students with one “correct” approach such as veganism or macrobiotics or the blood type diet etc. It touches on all of these (and many more), exploring the pros and cons and suggesting where they might work for different individuals in different situations. This helps you experiment with applying or recommending different approaches that might be uniquely effective for you, your family or your clients.
  3. You will not be forced to do the work, and the tests are easy – surprise, there will be no one pestering you and watching over your shoulder to make you do the work. I found that IIN required a lot more independent motivation that even university did, since it’s distance learning and it all depends on your own passion and fire to make it happen. The tests in the IIN curriculum are simple and basic, more like a walk-through or overview of the information. However the information on offer is very in-depth and complex and it’s all there for you if you’re hungry for it.
  4. You get what you put in – I’m commenting again on other reviews of IIN that I saw before I chose to enroll, where the writer was complaining about basically not having an Ivey league accreditation and high-paying job handed over at the end. IIN is a certification, not an automatic ticket to the top. I believe that IIN is good for people who have that insatiable drive to engage with the world of holistic health and really feel that that is their mission in life. It’s not for those who just might want to dabble in a little bit of reading about nutrition, because they will not get much out of this course. If you want to do some casual reading, try just checking out some blogs or buying a couple of books on the subject, rather than engaging with a big investment like IIN that requires a passionate self-starter.

Is the IIN Health Coaching course worth it?

For me, it was totally 100% worth it. I’ve taken a huge step toward becoming the valuable, in-demand wellness professional I want to be, and learned so much about how to share that offering with the world. And judging from the comments, inspiration and excitement buzzing around the roughly 1500 other students in my enrollment class, they are all absolutely loving their IIN experience as well.

Who is IIN right for?

  • people who want to shift into the wellness profession but do not want to spend 4 years doing a degree. IIN arms you with the practical skills to get in the field and start counselling clients in one year, and you can even start while you’re a student.
  • people who want to start an incredible personal growth journey, regardless of their profession. A lot of the students in my class were working on their own health issues or wanted to help those in their family.
  • people who already have a related certification but want to expand their offering. This would be people like doctors, nurses, dentists, personal trainers, acupuncturists, social workers, dietitians, massage therapists, etc etc. The IIN approach is called integrative for a reason – it brings wellness knowledge full-circle to help counselors improve their clients’ lives from all sides, not just diet.

Who should not enroll with IIN?

  • people who need someone else to organize or direct their activities
  • people who don’t believe that nutrition and lifestyle practices can affect your health
  • people who cannot be bothered making a change or trying something new
  • people with a closed heart or judgmental outlook

The Thrive Primal IIN Discount Scholarship

If you’re feeling informed, engaged and inspired by this article, I’m excited to say that I’ve been given license to share a discount with my readers of up to 25%! To get the full discount, you have to pay the tuition fees in full before March 20. Click here to find out more and access the discount.

If you enroll through the above link, I will receive a small payment that goes toward keeping this site running, so I can continue to share this valuable information. If you appreciate the effort I put into sharing this info, it would be awesome if you could enroll through my link. Thank you!! :)

Shine on.

 Questions or comments?

As a proud and thriving graduate of IIN I’m totally keen on helping other passionate people have the same awesome experience I had. If you have questions I would be happy to help you out, just get in touch via the contact page.

Also check out my Become a Health Coach page for some interesting articles about why health coaches are so important to the future of healthcare, and to grab free info about the IIN program. Cheers!

 

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How to forage tasty wild foods in the fall

Posted on 15 September, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Autumn brings to mind such lovely images, scents and memories. There’s so much delicious produce to buy and favourite recipes to make, all while getting cozied up again in knits, plaid, denim and leather that’s been stored all summer.

This fall I’d like to help you learn about some wild foods you can harvest from your local landscape, so you can branch out from the supermarket or farmers’ market and get all the amazing juicy nutrition that foraged undomesticated foods have to offer.

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 Where to find wild foods

I’ve had success in urban parks, along river valleys, beside country roads, and exploring trails stemming from dog parks. Once you know what to look for, your eyes start to see tasty wild foods everywhere! :)

What to collect in the Fall

I’m a beginner forager, so I’m not well-versed with the full list of what you could haul in. So far this season I’ve picked up sumac, wild apples, crab apples, may apples, puffball mushrooms, wild ginger and wild leeks (ramps). I’m also experimenting with foraging acorns, nettles and pine nuts.

This post won’t serve as an exhaustive list but I’ll go into some depth on what I’ve learned so far on how to find, harvest and process those wild foods I have experience with, for tasty, nutritious and unique meals.

Foraging for sumac and wild apples

Natural DIY_fall foraging_sumac wild apples-01Sumac and apples are pretty easy to find as far as foraging goes. Apples may be untended domesticated cultivars (ie abandoned orchards, or trees that are the “babies” of orchard trees that got pooped out by a bird or whatever and grew somewhere untended). Or they may be wild apples, which are sort of like the apples that would have been found here before settlers came and starting breeding only perfect, big round juicy apples. Domesticated apples are kind of like if you compare wild strawberries vs domestic strawberries – tiny, tart and delicious vs big, GMO and watery. Wild apples are more potent in their antioxidant power and have more varieties of wonderful flavours.

Crab apples vs wild apples?

You may be thinking, oh yeah wild apples! Like those little shitty crab apples that are sour and only taste good when you cook them! Wild apples are actually a little different in that they are the predecessors of our tasty big modern apples. They are just smaller and more concentrated in their flavour. You can recognize that they might remind you of apples that you know, like Gala or MacIntosh or Golden Delicious, but they’ll be like smaller gnarled cute forms of them.

Crab apples on the other hand hang more like cherries on the tree, are much smaller, and are very tart. They are more drop or oval-shaped, not really apple-shaped.

Natural DIY_fall foraging_crab apples vs wild applesForaging apples and safety considerations

If you’re ever in doubt of whether a fruit you’ve found is in fact an apple, you can cut it in half along its ‘equator’ horizontally. If it has a star shaped profile with 5 seeds, then it’s an apple.

If you’re harvesting near a road or agricultural area, make sure you wash them well before eating to get rid of airborne chemicals.

I’ve heard that if you find a wormhole that is heading from the inside apple to the outside, this could harbour bacteria. Feel free to just trim off any yucky parts and enjoy what’s left. It’s still a free, delicious, nutritious apple!

Where to find wild apples?

We’ve had luck in an urban park by a river valley in Toronto, a little distance from the river in more dry grassland type spaces. Also along road-sides in the country near Stratford, Ontario. You could try checking the tree maps on FallingFruit.org and see if there are any marked in your area.

What to make with wild apples?

You can experiment with apple sauce, apple butter, apple pie, stewed apples, apple jelly, apple juice or cider, apple vinegar. I’m sure that’s just a start! This weekend we made a beautiful apple crumble from our foraged apples, pears and may apples.

Natural DIY_fall foraging_crumble recipe wild apples

The recipe for wild apple crumble with homemade paleo vanilla ice cream will appear in a later post, which I’ll link to when it’s done!

Foraging for sumac

Sumac is also easy to find, you’ve probably seen it everywhere and not even realised it! It tends to change colour dramatically in the fall and becomes quite striking.

Hold on, isn’t sumac poisonous!?

You’re right, there is one type of sumac which is poisonous, and according to my readings it’s pretty bad too. But luckily it’s very easy to tell the good one from the poison one! Poison sumac has:

  • white berries
  • grows in very wet swampy areas
  • smooth reddish branches

Whereas the sumac you want to be foraging, which is called Staghorn Sumac, has:

  • red furry berries in a cone shape
  • grows along roadsides and everywhere else but in more dry woodland areas
  • furry brownish branches, thus the name Staghorn

So clearly you would need to be pretty confused to mix up those 2.

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How to harvest Staghorn Sumac

Harvesting Staghorn Sumac is pretty darn easy. Just clip off those nice fluffy berry bundles and pop them in a bag to take home.

How many should you take? Well first of all, ensure you are respecting the plant and the ecosystem. You should aim not to forage more than 10% of any plant/berry/root/mushroom etc that you find. That way you will ensure the plant can continue to grow for years to come and bring joy and sustenance to other animals (that includes humans don’t forget!)

The other consideration is what you want to make. We made sumac-ade, a refreshing drink, from the sumac that we picked this fall. I found that one head of sumac berries makes one nice tall glass of drink. So that will give you an idea of how much to pick based on your party size and how thirsty you’re all going to be after all this foraging! :)

How to make Sumac-ade

A drink made from sumac is probably the laziest and easiest way you can use your foraged bounty. I know that sumac also has many other medicinal and nutritional applications, but at this particular time I just wanted to enjoy some wild sustenance right quick.

The steps are simple:

  1. Push the furry berries off of their stems into a bowl, just with your hands. If you find the furs to be irritating, you could wear gloves.
  2. Add fresh water to the bowl, about 2 Cups per head of berries. This could be hot or cold water depending on your goal for your drink.
  3. Let the berries soak for about 20 minutes – you can also mush the berries with your hands or with the back of a spoon to encourage their juices to come out.
  4. Strain the juice into a glass, and if you’re doing the cold version you can add some ice if you like!

It’s that simple! So are you wondering what it will taste like? I thought it was quite a bit like cranberry juice, except a lighter gentler version. Really tasty and refreshing, plus the pink colour is gorgeous! I plan to experiment with cocktails in the future…

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Foraging for May Apples

So the confusing thing about May Apples is they are not ripe in May, nor are they apples! They are ripe in late summer – early fall (or mid-summer in warmer areas) and they are a strange fleshy fruit that has a pleasant light taste. They are ripe when they are firm and yellow, like a pale lemon yellow. Find them by noting their 1-2 umbrella shaped leaves on a Y-shaped stem, and one single fruit coming from the middle of the Y. You can eat them as is, add them to salads, or make a stewed preserve out of them if you find enough!

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 Safely identifying may apples

Note that to the inexperienced eye, hogweed has sort of similar-looking jaggedy edged leaves (although hogweed is MUCH larger). Hogweed is a super dangerous plant that can cause chemical burns to the skin. It’s easy to tell the difference though because hogweed is tall (3-5 feet or taller) and has large flowers that have a similar structure to Queen Anne’s lace. The may apple plant is only about max 18″ tall and has white blossoms that look like apple blossoms in the spring.

Natural DIY_fall foraging_may apple vs hogweed-01

 Wild Leeks (Ramps)

When Will and I learned how to forage wild leeks (also called “ramps”), our leader Peter (from Puck’s Plenty) led us up off the track into a sparsely wooded area and explained how we were standing in a wild leek patch. I was sort of confused and was looking around and asked where the plants were. Peter started pointing them out, and then I started seeing them everywhere under our feet! It’s funny how when your eye gets trained to spot something, you can’t believe you never noticed it before.

Natural DIY_fall foraging_wild leeks ramps-01

 

How to harvest and prepare wild leeks

The wild leeks will be in bunches, 2/3 buried like you can see in the image above on the left. You can take a spade or small shovel, and gently pry up the whole bunch of leeks (be sure to leave enough to allow the patch to continue to thrive). Then just shake off the worst of the dirt, and stick ’em in your bag! The images above show them washed (top right), and then sauteeing in grass-fed butter (bottom right) – YUM!

I just sauteed them whole, but you could also chop them up. Wild leeks have a delicious spicy taste that is divine with a pork roast or with creative mexican dishes. Next time I’m definitely serving them up with some raw grass-fed sour cream.

Wild Ginger Root

Peter taught us how to harvest wild ginger root without disturbing the plant. First identify the plant by its heart-shaped leaves (pictured below), and then run your hand down and find the main root. The roots are partially above ground so they are pretty easy to follow. You’ll see the main root that has the leaves attached, and forking off of that root will be secondary roots. You can gently tug the secondary root above ground and then snip off a few inches. That’s it! The secondary roots will grow back and you’ve got yourself a tasty aromatic flavouring.

How to find and use wild ginger root

We found our wild ginger on a moist slope near a creek. The plants are about 6″ tall. If in doubt of the plant’s identification, just snap off a little piece of root and sniff it!

We chopped ours up and used it in a stirfry. You can also simply steep it in just-boiled water to make a tea. It has a lovely scent and mild flavour.

natural diy_fall foraging_wild ginger root-01

Gem-studded mini puffball mushrooms

Mushrooms are a whole different story, as I’m sure you’ve heard. You never want to go foraging for mushrooms unless you’re very experienced (or your guide is!). Luckily Peter is a long-time forager and he taught us about one species that’s pretty fail-safe. It’s a type of mini puffball mushroom called the Gem-studded.

Where to find mini puffball mushrooms

We found our mushrooms in a damp and shadowy pine forest. They enjoy the sparse floor created by all the pine needles. Just take your knife and gently press toward your thumb to cut off the puffball part of the mushroom.

How to make sure your puffball mushrooms are safe

This species is easy to identify because of its little “gems” – the protrusions covering it. Peter didn’t mention any dangerous look-alike species. Another safety net is to cut the mushroom in half vertically – it must be white all the way through.

Natural DIY_fall foraging_gem studded puffball mushroom-01

How to use gem-studded mushrooms

Will and I fried up our little puffballs in butter. They turned beautifully golden but kept their shape, unlike a lot of mushrooms that shrivel when cooked. They had a nice almost ‘meaty’ texture, and unique flavour. Definitely worth trying! The day after our foraging trip we even went out in High Park (Toronto) and found a few more little puffs. They seem to be quite common! We felt confident in identifying them since their gem-studs are so distinctive.

In Conclusion…

I hope this post helps you in your foraging adventures!

Hopefully you’re successful in locating some of these tasty edibles in your area, and may your body thrive on their delicious flavours and juicy wild nutrition.

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to help you out! Please share foraging stories, recipes or tips in the comments below…

 

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How to deal with anxiety and stress naturally

Posted on 24 February, 2014 by | Leave a comment

It’s easy to get wrapped up in chronic stress and anxiety

Anxiety is an ongoing problem for me. I think with adult-hood came increased expectations for my life, with accompanying worries of how to fulfill those expectations.  I actually went to the doctor a few years ago with chest pain, worried that I had some sort of premature heart issues (which was possibly reasonable to be concerned about considering the history of heart and cholesterol problems on both parents’ sides). I had an ECG done and the doctor said my heart was fine; it was probably digestive upset that was causing the pain.

I didn’t have enough self-awareness then, but I know now I had caused the pain by breathing too shallow and too infrequently for too long. I think it was from stress from having my first serious full time job at the time, and the work environment there. Granted there was likely some digestive upset too, because I was still eating gluten and processed foods then.

I don’t remember how at the time but I guess I managed to sort of overcome my stress response for the next two years or so, but then it returned about 6 months ago, along with more job and career-related stresses. It was way worse this time, culminating in a couple of near-panic-attacks on public transit on the way home from work. I would also get headaches and jaw tension. I think I also caused myself constipation which results from elevated cortisol. It makes sense evolutionarily that if we are being chased by a predator our body wouldn’t be spending energy on digestion and elimination, and wouldn’t be cueing us to stop for a bathroom break.

Recently with studying candida overgrowth and other side effects of poor digestion/elimination, I realized how absolutely critical it is to work on my mental game and stress response.

What is stress exactly?

Stress can be anything “real”, as in a tiger chasing you or sitting through a tough exam, or “imagined/perceived”, as in a worry that your partner will leave you, or feeling like you’re not good enough at your job.

Dealing with real immediate stress should go such that our sympathetic nervous system jumps into action, with responses such as a spike in cortisol, adrenaline, increased heart rate, vasodilation, dilation of the pupils etc so that we can escape the immediate threat. However chronic stress is what most of us deal with these days, and although it may be all too real with our “busy modern” lifestyles, we can choose to remediate the effects with how we mentally respond to the stress. This will control our physiological responses in turn.

Why it’s so important to control your stress response

The reason why stress can mess you up so badly is that it involves an all-encompassing mental and physical system of responses. When stress hormones are released, your body’s energy is devoted to immediate action, and taken away from vital “maintenance” activities like digestion, immunity, detoxifying, repair etc. These functions are needed every day to keep your body running cleanly and efficiently, kind of like your car getting an oil change. Normally these are completed during a restful downtime, however with the chronic stress response being a constant force, you may not ever give them the chance to work.

Stress wreaks havoc on all of your body’s tissues

In a normal immune response the immune cells incite a battle on the offending agent, and when the work is done cortisol comes and tells them when to slow down or stop to prevent damage to the body’s own tissues.

However during a chronic stress response, all body tissues are targets for damage because the immune system becomes down-regulated to sensing cortisol. It re-programs itself to the “new normal” of a higher level of cortisol. It no longer reads the cortisol and keeps waging a battle on “the enemy”, which could now be any of the body’s own tissues. This causes damage and inflammation which could manifest as any number of health problems.

Cellular-level low grade inflammation is now cited as the root cause for most serious conditions and diseases including obesity, cancer, diabetes, auto-immune diseases and heart disease. This is why chronic stress can cause so much trouble for the body. A similar inflammatory cascade resulting in cell death and loss of nerve transmission also happens in the brain itself.

How to deal with chronic stress and anxiety with short every day routines

1. Breathing

This was a major working point for me, and still is, after working on it every day for about a month now. It’s definitely getting better but it’s really taken time! However take inspiration from this image (which I have as the lock screen on my phone):

stress relief relaxation inspiration

And begin gradually I did, with lots of research.

When I was really panicked and almost hyperventilating, the first thing that helped me was to focus on breathing OUT. I read an article that explained that when you are anxious, you keep trying to breathe IN more because you feel like you can’t get a deep enough breath, when in reality you’re not making enough SPACE for your in-breath, because you’re not cleansing your body of carbon dioxide by not breathing OUT completely.

So, breathing STEP ONE:

Focus on breathing out, caving your abdomen in completely, pushing the air out noisily through your nose until your body is empty. Then relax and let your pelvis and belly and lower ribs fill naturally with fresh, oxygen-filled air. Keep your shoulders down and neck and jaw loose.

Do this as many times as you need to. It took probably a week of doing this, for several minutes, a few times a day for me to start calming my breath.

Breathing, STEP TWO:

Once you feel like you can get a deep breath again, expand your capacity and relaxation with this technique from Dr. Andrew Weil, one of the most respected experts in holistic health.

Do this technique at least twice per day. You can’t do it too often. Dr. Weil says it’s the single most effective preventive technique he’s ever discovered in all his years and travels.


Here is a link if you have trouble using with the iFrame viewer above.

Dr. Andrew Weil breathing technique

Breathing, STEP THREE:

I learned this technique from Sadie Nardini’s yoga classes on Youtube. She calls it “Golden Flame Breathing”.

Envision a small golden flame the size of a match on your pelvic floor in the middle of the core of your body, between your hip bones. As you breathe in, the flame grows bigger and wider to widen out your pelvis and fill your core with heat and energy. As you breathe out, picture your pelvic floor and hip bones pinching and folding up to squeeze the flame up and out of your body, so that it shrinks to a little match again. Engage your pelvic floor as you do this (sort of like kegels, but that is out of the scope of this article. You can google pelvic floor engagement exercises!)

Sadie explains that this gets your core working to bring fresh air to all your tissues and fire up your energy, digestion, detox and shedding extra weight. I found the golden flame image really useful.

2. Baroque music

Baroque music has been said to calm the mind and as a result all those other responses like heart rate and hormonal signals. The tempo is often similar to that of your heart beat which naturally calms your breath and slows your stress response.

I went online and downloaded albums called “100 Best Baroque” and “The #1 Baroque Album”. Some of the artists include Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Purcell. Here is a sample of a beautiful song I find very calming:

Here is a link in case you can’t use the above viewer.

I put on baroque music whenever I am walking somewhere, commuting or working. I try to make it an automatic because I do find that when it’s playing I remember to take more deep breaths and the beauty calms my mind.

3. Yoga in the bathroom

I’m talking about the bathroom at work, or wherever you might be spending your daytime hours and sitting still for long periods. Even 1 minute of a few quick poses with deep breathing can do wonders to re-centre your mind and get you breathing again. These would be standing poses of course. Please don’t get down on the floor in your office bathroom…

One of my favourites is the twisted chair pose, seen below. Since the pose is fairly uncomfortable it’s natural to hold your breath, but that is clearly not the point! I like to remember to force myself to breathe deep into the back of the body, keep the feet engaged, keep the spine long with the shoulders away from the ears, and try to lift the belly off the thigh.

Twisted-Chair-PoseThe image is borrowed from blisstree.com

Here are a few other poses you can do in just a few minutes at your desk. They’re not even that awkward-looking so you shouldn’t get too many strange looks. I would seriously recommend printing this off because “out of sight out of mind” is all too true. Even if you might think “Oh, I should do some stretches”, if you have a little routine right in front of you, you are sooo much more likely to actually do it.

Office yoga

 

4. Herbs and Supplements

Ashwagandha is a known “adaptogen” herb that has been used for thousands of years. It has been shown to provide the relaxing and mood-lifting benefits of anti-depressant meds without any of the risks or side effects. Of course you should do your own thorough research first to check if this is right for you, especially if you take other medications.

The effects of ashwagandha take some time to build up so you could try one whole bottle and then evaluate. I got a bottle from my local natural foods store for about $18.00. I’ve been taking it for about a month and haven’t noticed any significant effects, but I honestly think I’ve just wound myself too tight to be able to appreciate this herb. I will continue taking it and hopefully as I work on my anxiety it will have more effect. I’ve read some great reviews/results online.

Magnesium is known to be one of the main factors lacking in our modern diet. It has a gentle calming effect. I take 300-600mg daily with dinner, or with a snack before bedtime. (Do your own research or check with a practitioner first).

B Complex Vitamins are known to help with brain and liver health, which can help with anxiety and detox. I take a low-dose B complex which has 25-50 mg of each type of B vitamin. Take these with food for best absorption.

5. Sleep and Eating

When you’re working on stress and anxiety, it’s important to show your animal, instinct-driven body that you are in a “time of plenty” not a famine or drought or under attack or anything.

Therefore getting quality sleep in a restful environment is important. I wear yellow-tinted glasses for an hour or 2 before bed to kickstart my melatonin production, and use f.lux on my computer screen to make it mellow-coloured. I also wear a soft comfortable black eye mask to bed for complete darkness. I usually do a quick session of yoga and breathing before bed – even 5 minutes can make a huge difference to ease tightness, get the breath slowed down and calm the mind.

I was beginning to experiment with intermittent fasting a couple of weeks ago, until I found research that said if you’re already dealing with stress or anxiety, fasting may trigger a greater stress response in the body. It’s important to show the body there is food available and prevent a stress response. So for now I am working on getting fat-adapted (fuelling the body with fat instead of carbs) and I may approach intermittent fasting again at a later time.

6. Holding Tension

This is an exercise of constant vigilance. Whenever you remember, check in with yourself and feel where you’re holding tension. For me this is my jaw and my neck/shoulders. Sometimes even when I’m “relaxed” on the couch or whatever, I’ll notice I’m clenching one hand, or some of my toes. I make a conscious effort to release this tension and take a few deep breaths. I also massage my face, jaw and neck sometimes while breathing deeply. Even if you’re not stressed or tense this feels amazing.

One final thing on this is I’ve noticed in many of the yoga sessions I’ve done, the instructor will mention “softening the eyes” or “keeping the gaze soft”. I think this is important especially with the amount of time looking at screens, and with our active, worried minds. Gazing softly helps calm your thoughts and soothe those creases from your forehead. I think it subconsciously makes you view the world in a more understanding, friendly frame as well.

In Closing

I know a lot of this stuff seems inconvenient or time-consuming, but even if you remember twice per day to do a little bit of stretching and breathing, and put those supplements right on your countertop so you can’t forget. I put them in a little container every evening and put them with my lunch for work. Make it a reflex to play that baroque music during your commute, and make a point to truly appreciate the beautiful sound.

Simple things like taking a moment for yourself, breathing and listening to music can be the beginning of a meditation practice, which is still out of my reach at this point but after having tried the above techniques for about a month I can see that I will eventually be able to get there.

What do you do for stress relief or to stop the anxious mental chatter? Share below!

 

 

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How to find raw grass fed milk and butter in Canada

Posted on 17 September, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Raw milk is a bit of a controversial topic. In fact, in Canada, it is completely banned from being sold to the public. All milk in Canada must be deposited into a centrally controlled “pool” and pasteurized before it is allowed to be sold. Raw milk is considered dangerous and un-fit for general consumption.

So why would you want to drink raw milk?

The idea of drinking raw milk entered my awareness after going to the dentist a few months ago. Those events aren’t actually directly connected – don’t think for a second that my dentist made any dietary recommendations for healing my teeth – Oh nooo! (sarcasm!) The only things he recommended was to use a high-fluoride toothpaste, and awful electric toothbrush with skull-penetrating vibration that made me feel like I was going to the dentist to get my teeth drilled every single day…but more on the follies of mainstream dentistry another time!

Long story short, I found out that my dental health was not as pristine as I would have expected, considering I was brushing twice a day, flossing every day, and using mouthwash. I was also eating a generally Paleo diet very low in sugar and processed foods. So you would think I would have the healthiest teeth ever!

WRONG – I had some major issues including gingivitis, deep gum pockets and several impending cavities. I was actually pretty traumatized by the dire prognosis on my teeth.

And what does dental health have to do with raw milk?

Well, in typical ME style I was determined to reject the standard-issue dental diagnosis of “Come back in a month after using this high-chemical mouthwash, then we will fill one half of your cavities and put preventive resin on most of the rest of your teeth, then a month later we will fill some more cavities, then soon after that we should probably put a crown on that tooth…” etc etc etc. I was basically destined to constant HIGHLY unpleasant visits to the dentist, plus having to deal with a steady stream of insurance submittals, not to mention from then on having a mouth full of half-fake teeth…

I set out to do some SERIOUS research, and stumbled upon the Weston A Price Foundation and the book Cure Tooth Decay. This line of thinking embraces nutrient-dense foods with high levels of fat-soluble nutrients in line with the diet of our not-too-long-ago farming ancestors, and remote societies all over the world that still eat this way. Those societies display incredible resistance to tooth decay, plus they have the most gorgeous white teeth that fit into perfectly formed jaws and symmetrical faces.

One of the mainstays of these nutrient-dense foods is raw, grass fed dairy. Cows who are free to roam on pastured lands and eat green grass provide beautiful healthy milk free of toxins and high in super-nourishing vitamins that help us keep strong bones and teeth. Check out this link for all the reasons why raw milk is extremely beneficial.

Ok, so how do I get some if it’s illegal in Canada?

So after I did all that reading I was determined to get my hands on this raw milk that would heal my poor teeth and save me forever from the torture of the dentist’s chair. But how was that going to happen in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where raw milk is entirely illegal to sell, and where years of lobbying has barely influenced the law whatsoever?

Natural DIY how to find raw grass fed milk in Toronto Ontario Canada 2

I did A LOT of Googling, and found basically nothing (other than lots of advice to drive across the border and bring lots of grass fed products back; apparently it’s legal to do so for personal consumption). Finally I discovered the possiblity of a raw milk cowshare. Check out this website for raw milk cowshares in your area: Real Milk Finder.

These awesome farmers help people in their communities get access to the wonderful fresh products they produce through organizations like cowshares and co-ops. I buy milk, butter, cheese and kefir as well as 100% grass fed free range beef through a farm in west-central Ontario. Will and I actually bought a 1/4 share of a healthy, silky-coated shiny-eyed dairy cow that provides us with 25 L worth of dairy per week. A lovely warm-hearted guy who runs a co-op then brings the products into downtown Toronto once a week for convenient pick-up.

This is a loop-hole around the anti-raw-milk law: if you technically own a cow – or in our case, part of a cow – you can consume the products in whatever state you wish. We bought a share that is valid for the length of the cow’s life, about 6 years. This is easy to do by contacting the people on the Real Milk site in good faith.

It’s pretty sweet to have a part in such a grass-roots movement and to be able to imagine our happy little cow prancing in a green field somewhere not too far away, even though we are stuck here on the 25th floor above the dull roar of the Gardiner Expressway.

What is raw milk like?

The products are really affordable, plus they come in re-useable containers like glass jars. The milk is slightly creamy and deliciously flavourful. I had never tried raw milk before paying $500 for a cowshare (kind of risky I guess!) but it’s seriously delicious, and my stomach loves it. Despite not having a great time with commercial dairy products like ice cream.

We’ve been drinking the milk and kefir, and eating heaps of grass fed butter for about 2 months now, and seriously, my teeth have stopped hurting. I plan on going back to the dentist for an x-ray in about year’s time to compare to the x-rays I got a few months ago, and I’m betting the cavities I had developing will have halted, or maybe even disappeared.

Anyway, that’s about all I have to share at the moment, but feel free to comment below or get in touch if you have questions! I am ultra passionate about sharing knowledge and information on how to get your hands on quality local food.

image credits: 1–2

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How to make your own natural chemical-free mouthwash

Posted on 21 August, 2013 by | Leave a comment

A few months ago I started getting wise to the idea that the “normal” oral care products that we use without a second thought may not be the best for our mouths.

Ingredients like fluoride, alcohol and abrasives in mouthwash and toothpaste are a result of the ultra-commercialization of our self-care routines and may not actually give us the result we are looking for, which is of course: strong beautiful healthy teeth and gums!

I’ve found many sources that support the idea of making your own natural oral care products with safe household ingredients. The underlying thought is not to put anything in your mouth that you wouldn’t eat! You definitely wouldn’t eat toothpaste – it has a warning right on the tube that says do not swallow more than a pea-sized amount.

The gums, mouth tissues and sinuses are one of the fastest routes to the bloodstream through an ultra-thin layer of skin. Why do you think people take cocaine by rubbing it on their gums or inhaling it? Gross reference, I know, but it’s true. Therefore I’m happy to have stopped administering chemicals right into my bloodstream with commercial toothpastes and mouthwashes.

Here is what I use for mouthwash instead:

ingredients for natural mouthwashJust mix up in a glass (rough amounts):

1. 1/2 tsp of baking soda

2. 1/3 tsp of good sea salt

3. 2 drops of tea tree oil

4. 2 drops of peppermint oil

5. the powder from one emptied-out calcium-magnesium capsule

with a little bit of warm water, so that it looks like this:

DIY natural mouthwash with baking soda and tea tree oil

 

Mix it up until the salt crystals dissolve, then slurp it back and slosh around your mouth thoroughly for a good minute or so. Sometimes if I put too much water in I have to do it in 2 mouthfuls to use up all the good ingredients.

It doesn’t sting or burn like commercial mouthwash, and leaves a nice clean herbal taste.

Try it out and let me know what you think in the comments! Or maybe you have your own recipe you can share? I’d love to hear about it!

 

 

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