We just made a batch of these and the wonderful aroma fills our apartment. These are so delicious, you barely realise you are on the Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet. Based on the Zucchini Muffin recipe in Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall.

• 2 c grated zucchini
• 2 c ground almonds
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 c ghee or melted butter
• 1/3 c honey (raw)
• 2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t baking soda
• couple of pinches of salt
• A couple handfuls of frozen or fresh blueberries

Method: Mix almond flour, zucchini, fat and honey. Add the eggs, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Mix very well. Add blueberries (or other fruit), but don’t add too many or the muffins will not hold together.

Bake in muffin tins filled 2/3 full for about 20 minutes in a 350 F (180 C) degree oven.

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Harsha and Sufi Rigney produce a wonderful calendar every year that is full of wonderful hint, tips and tid-bits about gardening by the moon, your health and various other aspects. I have been reading Harshas horoscopes for years and they are always amazingly spot on. They live in New Zealand so the calendar they make is geared towards the Southern Hemisphere. As we are now living in Canada I am hoping to generate enough interest in this wonderful Moon Calendar that they will make a version for us in the Northern Hemisphere as well. To further this aim, I am posting Harsha’s health horoscopes for 2010 from this years calendar. If you like what you see, please send Harsha and Sufi a message begging them to make a calendar for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. You can contact them through their website www.astrovision.co.nz. The following is taken from the Moon Calendar 2010 and is written by Harsha Rigney. I have added in the details of this years solar and lunar eclipses of which there are four this year. Please read more–find your sign and learn what you can do to help yourself stay healthy and strong.

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Most of my life I have been excessively healthy. No cavities, never sick, and with rapid healing powers so that I have no scars despite the multitude of oven burns, chopped fingertips and other disasters that being a chef generally involve (I have chopped off the tip of my left pointer finger several times but you wouldn’t know by looking at it!). I took that amazing health for granted, assumed that it was just who I was and didn’t stop to think for a second that it might not last. Working in the fast-paced and highly demanding culinary industry stresses your body physically, the long hours and high pressure alone are quite enough to wear you down over time, but along with that for years I maintained a diet of coffee and cigarettes, and generally didn’t really put anything else into my body. After a couple years of this I discovered that I was highly neurotic, with blood sugar swings that left me an emotional basket case.

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I picked up a bag of shelled hazelnuts and soon found they are very easy to shell using a morter and pestle. After soaking the nut meat overnight I roasted them in a very low oven. The following recipe is what resulted next:

• 1 1/2 c hazelnuts (ground)
• 1/2 c almonds (ground)
• 1 T anise (ground)
• 3 T butter, softened (or coconut, lard, duck fat)
• 6 eggs (separated)
• 1″ slice date paste or 2 handfuls of seeded dates
• 1/2 c boiling water (approximate)

Method: Boil water and soak the dates in boiling water to soften. Mix the nuts, anise and butter. Add egg yolks to the nut mixture. Mash the dates to a pulp and add to mixture. Mix well. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks (add a pinch of salt). Fold the egg whites into the nut mixture in 2 to 3 stages. Do not over mix. The egg whites will bring air into the mixture to lighten the cake.

Place mixture into a round cake tin that has been buttered and floured. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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In December I had a hair analysis test done which showed high levels of pesticides in my body that are helping to overload my detox systems. I did the test because I thought I would find high levels of flouride or pharmaceutical drugs from drinking tap water, but instead found high levels of Advent and Tordon 50 among other things (like Cyanazine and Eraicaine). As a result I have gotten interested in the issue of pesticide use in British Columbia. It seems that most other provinces have some sort of guidelines and restrictions but BC doesn’t. At the moment the Integrated Pest Management group is asking for discussion, comments and suggestions, please get involved in the discussion here.

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As we all know the supplement industry is run by greed and money almost to the same degree as the pharmaceutical industry (if that’s possible). I personally believe that we can get everything we need from our food, but at times we may not be able to afford to buy all organic or from farmers markets, we may not have the strength of will to break all our addictions to coffee, sugar, processed foods, chocolate, alcohol or whatever it may be. We may be working overtime trying to make ends meet and pay the bills and not have time to learn how to make bone stock, yogurt, kombucha, sauerkraut and everything else. So I do appreciate that at times it is necessary to use supplements. But be warned if you do so there is a whole lot of products out there that won’t do what they say, and are packaged brightly to tempt you to throw your money at them. I spent time working for a multi-level marketing company (EQUINOX) that sold herb and supplements for a very high price–I ended up totally bankrupt from that venture–this may be part of why I have nearly as much resistance to the supplement industry as I do to the pharmaceutical industry. I much prefer, as do most of us, to use herbal teas, cod liver oil, berries, sauerkraut and yogurt than popping a unknown pill.

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After reading Anna’s positive experiences with the GAPs diet I ordered the book and have just finished reading it, I have tried a lot of diets over the years especially after living in a moldy apartment in Wellington, NZ which has resulted in problems with my digestive tract ever since. November last year was a month of non-stop rain here in Vancouver, BC and with the temperature change, was the perfect breeding ground for mushrooms, mold and yeasts. As a result our health problems reared their ugly heads again and showed us that we still have an overgrowth of harmful yeast in our systems. In some ways this is good because we at least know that we need to deal with it.

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My copy of Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride arrived last week and over the weekend I had leftover spaghetti squash. On page 149 I found a recipe for egg-free bread/cake/muffins which called for mashed squash. Spaghetti squash is a little watery so it comes out quite dense, but very healthy and tasty.

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Quotes in this post are from Nutrition: A Holistic Approach by Rudolf Hauschka.

“We have made use of our thoughts to develop techniques which aim to build a civilization based on comfort. Those who notice how narrow and egotistical this self-serving use of thought is may also find, as they observe themselves, that their thinking has become shadowy and abstract; it can no longer lay hold on the reality of the cosmos. Such individuals may begin to wonder what would happen if they served thinking instead of making it serve them. What would be the result of making oneself a perceptive organ for the power of thought, of concentrating one’s whole being in the act of listening? One who practices this art will find himself able, with this selfless new thinking, to enter the realm of living metamorphosis, where thoughts grow and become expressions of the creative thinking of the cosmos. He comes into touch with objective reality, with essential being.” p 45

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There is an amazing lady Harsha Rigney who is an Astrological Councellor. She lives in New Zealand and writes the most spot on and comprehensive horoscopes I have ever had the opportunity to read. She also produces a fantastic Astrovision Moon Calendar, which is specific to the Southern Hemisphere but is full of very pertinent information. Her health horoscopes for 2010 were recently published in the Healthy Options December issue and brings light to the challenges we are all facing…

“We have all stepped into the pressure zone–no one is exempt; we are all under the challenge to break through the confining control of fear to come to a new dimension of living. Humanity is in the process of metamorphosis–both globally and for each of us individually. As in the stages of metamorphosis, as each new life form beckons, it initiates the process of death for the old identity before the new life can emerge.”

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