Herbs and Spices

Beeturia: Low Stomach Acid

Do The Beet Test: How to Tell if You Have Low Stomach Acid & Weak Digestion reposted from www.tarawarner.com

by Heather Gardner
www.consciousearthcompany.com

I’m sure you’ve been there. The moment when, in fright and fear, sure that you have some ghastly ailment; you reach for the phone in panic to dial the doc and announce that you have…pink pee!! Until, with a sigh of relief, you remember that you drank a virtuous vegetable juice or had eaten a salad containing beetroot.

That was me last week. At a festival for the weekend, I propped up the juice bar all morning, engrossed in a great raw nutrition book. I was slurping away on their joyous juices and several slipped down the hatch with blood building beetroot satisfaction. A few hours later the above “pink tinged pee” panic set in. Luckily I knew what it meant and took the opportunity to assess the health of my guts and decide to do a digestion detox. I knew it was time to make a crock of kimchi, stop going bananas with fruit, pile on the probiotics and dig out the digestive enzymes.

Make Your Own Turmeric Supplements

Make Your Own Turmeric Supplements

One of these days I have to write up a post about how amazing and nutritious traditional Burmese food is -- until I have enough time to do so, I will satisfy myself with raving about some traditional Burmese medicine. In Myanmar they have several grades of turmeric, some are especially medicinal ...

You Need to Know About Codex Alimentarius

You Need to Know About Codex Alimentarius

In order to understand what is going on with all the recent crack downs on cowshares, private food clubs and restrictions on herbal remedies it is important to know about the set of food regulations called Codex Alimentarius which are now in play in both the EU and North America. Gaia-Health is a we ...

Louiza – Berber Whiskey

Louiza – Berber Whiskey

This summer, while shopping at the Trout Lake Farmer's market, I came across a rare find--a sack full of fresh Lemon Verbena for only $4! I have tried growing lemon verbena on two occasions now, but both times they haven't made it through the winter--or that's what I thought. The woman who sold me t ...

Zesty Nasturtiums

Zesty Nasturtiums

Published in Healthy Options Magazine July 2009 Tucked away in my memory lies a happy scene which we probably all share: a patch of bright yellow and orange nasturtium flowers surrounded by their round dollar leaves. Squatting down you reach out and pick the long funnel off the back end of t ...

Rose Hips on the Tree of Life

Rose Hips on the Tree of Life

--Recipe for Rose Hip Soup-- Unlike people, roses probably do not consider themselves as having a purpose in life. But if a rose bush did have a mission, I expect its greatest sense of achievement would come from creating, not just a whole lot of beautiful flowers, but the grand array of round, r ...

Mankind’s Old Friend Fenugreek

Mankind’s Old Friend Fenugreek

Refreshing recipe for Fenugreek and Fennel Salad Fenugreek: (Trigonella foenum-graecum) called methi in the Ayurvedic tradition, has been a trusted friend of mankind for a long time, perhaps even before crops were cultivated. It is widely used in Ayurvedic medicine and cooking, which dates back a ...

Experiencing Coriander/Cilantro

Experiencing Coriander/Cilantro

Published in the column A Flirtation With Herbs in Healthy Options Magazine, New Zealand, April 2009 I was away for much of the summer, helping my sister with her newest addition to the family. As a result, my balcony garden didn't do so well. My spaghetti squash died, my nasturtiums were ...

The Pleasures of Fennel

The Pleasures of Fennel

I remember the first time I had a chance to get to know wild fennel. It was growing tall and wild behind an empty lot I walked through every day on my way to work at an Italian restaurant in the Viaduct harbour in Auckland, New Zealand. It's funny to look back on that period in my life and realize t ...

Turmeric’s Got the Midas Touch

Turmeric’s Got the Midas Touch

Golden Spice of a Golden Land I developed a deep respect for turmeric the last time I was in Myanmar (Burma). Not paying close attention to where I was putting my feet, I had stumbled on a hole in the sidewalk while walking the streets of Yangon and sprained my ankle. Several Burmese friends ad ...