nutrition

Blog / Book Reviews / Health & Spirituality

Blame it on Genetics

ToadstoolsAfter 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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January 26, 2010
Blog / Quotes / Stories & News

Biodynamic Vitamins

Rose HipsThe word “biodynamic” seems to be all the rage these days, so I thought it appropriate to attach it to Rudolf Hauschka’s perspective on Vitamins :-).

I am one of those people who personally believes that nature got it right the first time…in other words a spoonful of home-made rose-hip syrup provides Vitamin C in a natural form that is easily absorbed and digested by humans–synthetic Vitamin C will never be the same thing. (Despite this I do confess to taking a Vitamin B complex tablet daily at the moment – not something I usually do but a naturopath recommended it so I thought I’d try it out).

Chapter Eighteen of Rudolf Hauschka’s book Nutrition: A Holistic Approach (1967) gave me a completely different perspective of vitamins than I have come across before. His section on the history of food and nutrition also looks at the interaction of humans and food in an entirely different light but I will have to do a separate post for that.

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January 21, 2010
Blog / Quotes

Mens Sana In Corpore Sano

A Healthy Mind in A Healthy Body

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

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“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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January 19, 2010
Read more about the article Zesty Nasturtiums
hellaD / Herbs and Spices / Our Food

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 the flower and suck out the nectar, “Ummmm yummy,”…

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July 9, 2009
Read more about the article Rose Hips on the Tree of Life
hellaD / Herbs and Spices / Our Food

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, red rose hips which come after them.…

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June 1, 2009
Read more about the article Mankind’s Old Friend Fenugreek
hellaD / Herbs and Spices / Our Food

Mankind’s Old Friend Fenugreek

An interesting property of fenugreek is it's affinity for certain wild yeasts, which are beneficial to the digestive tract as well as being useful in the fermenting process of making traditional dosas or idlis, by attracting wild yeasts to the batter. Fenugreek is a great adaptogen.

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May 6, 2009
Read more about the article The Pleasures of Fennel
hellaD / Herbs and Spices / Our Food

The Pleasures of Fennel

The ancients believed all knowledge was transmitted from the gods via the lacy branches of fennel. This plant family forms a bridge between ether and earth, and may be the reason that fennel is used to assist digestion and balance the nervous system.

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January 27, 2009
Food Security / Our Food

Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture

FOODDECLARATION.ORG

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You know that passionate feeling that wells up inside you? The sort of feeling of pride and hope and love and excitement and connection all melted and molten together? This is the feeling that has often been used by dictators by calling it patriotism and is a feeling I am generally wary of. I remember the last time I felt it so strongly. I was on the banks of a river in Oregon, it was summer and it was so beautiful. The feeling bubbled up from the earth, the flora and the river and I felt so amazed at the beauty. It was the first time that I felt really excited to be a part of this country and I thought about all the various landscapes and wished that we hadn’t covered much of them with monoculture crops.

At Slow Food Nation, the largest celebration of American food in history, a Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture was signed on 25 August, 2008 to help accelerate the transformation of the present industrialized agricultural system in the US.

Endorsed by academics, students, agricultural institutes, writers, farmers, filmmakers and chefs, the declaration emerged as the movement to establish better food and farming in the US gains continued strength and support from all sectors of society.

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January 17, 2009