Favorite Cold Remedies

I have now officially been defeated by my first cold of the year…I worked tirelessly all fall only to avoid the inevitable. The virus happens to be a highly intelligent species, training tirelessly (mutating and multiplying) to outsmart the enemy (our immune systems.) Enough of my pity party, no matter how healthy we eat and how frequently we irrigate our nasal passages (I’ll explain later) we all get colds, so here are some of my favorite tricks to fight back.

Garlic

            The compound Allium Sativa present in garlic is a healing powerhouse with strong antibiotic and antifungal qualities. It is truly a miracle bulb and is also known to lower cholesterol, purify the blood, and could help prevent cancer. Eating garlic regularly is a great and tasty way to keep up your health and immune system but it can also be taken like a medicine at the first signs of a cold. The trick is to activate the allicin compound and healing properties the bulb must it must be crushed, chopped, or chewed before you swallow it. I like to crush two or three bulbs with a chef’s knife, cut it into pill-sized pieces and swallow whole with a glass of water.

Raw Honey & Bee Products

            Honey that has not been pasteurized offers BILLIONS of health benefits one of the best being its amazing natural antibiotics, which will directly kill bacteria and microbes. Eat a spoonful with your garlic or put it in your cold season tea….

            As if bees aren’t amazing enough, they have yet another cold fighting remedy in their little pollen collecting baskets in the form of propolis! Bee propolis a resinous substance made from different saps collected from trees and plants. Bees use it for a variety of things, one of them being keeping the hive safe from any intruders. If a foreign object, bacteria, or creature finds its way in they’ll mummify it in the propolis to keep it from harming anyone else. A teacher of mine was working at an apiaries and they once found a mouse totally embalmed in propolis in one of the hives! Crazy! Anyhow can do the same thing in our bodies, isolating harmful germs and bacteria to prevent them from spreading. A local Vermont company, Honey Gardens, makes a bee propolis throat spray as well as Elderberry Syrup that contains propolis and raw honey.

Neti-pot

            I know it seems really creepy, but regular cleansing of your nasal passages is an essential way to avoid colds, clear out your nose, and keep the whole system working, moisturized and healthy! Buying a neti pot is a great investment and you’ll feel the difference with every breath. Even if you think you’re too congested for it to work, just try it may be just the trick to clearing you up. There are a few safety tips to be aware of though so here’s what I think is most important:

-Clean your neti with warm water and a gentle, chemical free soap to keep it safe and clean.

-Make sure the water is warm enough and you have used a correct amount of salt. Although it doesn’t seem like it the less salt in the water the harder it is for it to travel through the sinus

-While you neti, BREATHE THROUGH YOUR MOUTH, it will make everything go more smoothly

-Although you will really want to blow your nose right after, be careful! Only blow very gently and through both nostrils at once. If you plug one up that water could go somewhere else in the sinuses and cause discomfort.

Those are my three never fail favorites but here are a few other maintenance and healing tips:

Zinc Supplements-can be effective in shortening duration and severity of a cold if taken at the first sign 

Vitamin D supplements- Very important to keep immunity up, especially during the winter months because above Boston we don’t receive any natural vitamin D from the sun

Sweat it out-two really awesome ways to get your lymph system moving and help your body get rid of whatever is slowing you down. Find a sauna, steam room, or make yourself a ginger bath! Put about 1/8 a cup of grated or powdered ginger under the faucet of a really hot bath and you are in for a little trip. It is HOT and you will SWEAT but it is extremely detoxifying and is especially effective before bed because you’ll pass right out (make sure you tell someone your in the tub!) 

 A word on supplements: Raw, organic, and real food supplements are best especially for vitamins apposed to minerals. They will be more expensive but you will get much more out of them!

Happy Healing!

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Paint it, Black

I have been known to marvel at the vibrant colors and patterns found in plants and vegetables.  When wandering grocery store aisles, the sight of a purple carrot, neon lentil, or the bright thick stems of a bunch of rainbow chard are sure to have me reworking my grocery list to plan a meal around that color scheme. When it comes to the ends of the color spectrum I am torn however, as charred toast and bleached flour aren’t exactly nutritional superstars.

Rice, like so many other plants we know and love, comes in all sorts of colors and shapes, each variation changing the way it cooks, holds, and tastes. This grain has nourished and sustained mankind for longer than we can even imagine thanks to its high carbohydrate content and it’s ability to grow anywhere. Today, we mostly see fortified white rice, made through a process of removing the bran and hull from the rice then adding back the nutrients lost with the outer parts of the grain. So why remove the healthiest part, just to try and add it back? Turns out brown rice, or rice with the healthy hull and bran intact, does not keep nearly as long as processed white rice, and for a crop meant to save billions of people in times of draught and famine, a long shelf life is crucial. However, for those of us with the good fortune to be picky with what we eat, choosing brown rice is a great way to get iron (ladies), fiber, and tons of other vitamins and minerals. While not everyone agrees, I much prefer the nutty taste of whole grain rice, like brown, and my new best friend…black rice.

Black rice is high in complex carbohydrates and high quality protein while being very low in fat and calories. Because it is most often sold as a whole grain (yay) we get all the trace minerals and fiber making it a fabulous digestive aid and cholesterol reducer. Most whole grain rice varietys offer these same benefits but the little black outfit this rice wears makes it oh so very sexy. The black color is actually a deep purple which is created by anthocyanin, a powerful phytonutrient and antioxident also found in blueberries, grapes, and acai berries. Anthocyanin has been known to protect against heart disease, cancer, and free radical damage to the eyes and skin with recent studies showing it's potential to protect from diseases caused by inflammation, such as diabetes. This rice is traditionally known as "forbidden" rice because in ancient China it was grown only to be consumed by the emperor. It was believed to be an elixer of health and far superior to white rice, so anyone found to be growing or consuming it was to be punished to the harshest extent stealing the emperor's health. I told you it was sexy....

You know what else I think is sexy....sushi. I love the idea of combining seaweed with raw vegetables and a healthy grain, like brown rice, but when I saw the black I decided I had to give sushi making a go just for the visuals if not the awesome health factor. 

Black Rice Sushi

Black Rice

Organic Sushi Nori

 In mine:

Avocado

Cucumber

Carrot

Kale

Sprouts

Fresh Parsley & Mint

Get creative! One idea I was loving is fruity sushi with a cool combo like mango apple kiwi and the whole time I was making these I was wishing for a nice little mango slice to put in. Also to add more flavor pull a marination trick with the carrots, cukes, and kale just like I did with carrots in my summer rolls. 

Cooking black rice

2 cups black rice

4 cups water

pinch of salt

sesame seeds

1/2 tsp brown rice syrup 

Rinse the rice once then place it in a bowl and cover it in cool clean water, allowing it to soak overnight. Drain the rice then combine with water and salt and bring it all to a boil at high heat. Once it boils, reduce heat to a simmer and cover with a nice tight lid. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes, then taste for doneness. It should be soft and chewy.

For sushi making, I let the rice cook a little longer, about 25 minutes, as the rice will get a bit stickier.

Once its cooked, mix in sesame seeds and a tiny touch of brown rice syrup. 

To make the Sushi 

1.     Feel the nori sheet for the rough or smooth side and lay it with the rough side facing up on the mat

2.     Keeping your hands wet, make a rice ball and place it in the middle of the nori sheet. Start gently spreading the rice in an even layer over the nori either with your hands or I like to use a wooden spoon, leaving the upper margin (about 2cm) uncovered.

3.     Starting placing your ingredients in an even line along one egde of the sheet. Make sure you don’t try and stuff too much in as it will make the rolling process much harder. I am guilty of this as you can see from the picture, and had to go back and take some things out.

4.     Begin to roll the sushi in steps, stopping at the end of every roll and squeezing firmly along the whole thing. You should keep a very tight grip and apply pressure at all times while rolling the sushi. Continue to roll in these steps until you reach the end of the mat.

5.     Using a wet knife, cut the sushi into about 6 pieces and there ya go!

I won't lie...I was not that great at sushi making. It worked out nicely for the pictures but they did not exactly hold up well in terms of eating. So for any of you that share my little problem may I suggest the deconstructed sushi bowl aka all the ingredients for sushi in a bowl. I personally love sushi bowls and make them for dinner all the time as its a wonderful, healthy, and partially raw one dish meal.

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Makes me happy

Coconut Oil Makes me Happy

As a lot of you probably know virgin coconut oil is AWESOME. It got totally slammed about 20 years ago for its high saturated fat content until we figured out some interesting things about it. It contains only medium chain triglycerides, which aren’t thought to be as bad as other types of saturated fats in that they raise your good (HDL) cholesterol instead of LDL. It is very high in fat so its smart to limit consumption but its stability makes it useful for cooking, even at higher temps. It is much more resistance to rancidity than other oils which is great because when a fat of any type goes rancid it essentially becomes a carcinogen and can be dangerous to ingest and have floating around in your breathing air. It is arguable one of the healthiest cooking oils to use. I also love the mild coconutty flavor it lends to baked goods and stir fry’s!

However, if coconut oil were simply a cooking oil it would not make me this happy. What really makes me happy is I can grab my tub of coconut oil from the kitchen and bring it into my shower. It is totally nourishing for skin and hair making an awesome body oil and conditioner. I’ll put a small amount in my hair before shampooing, let it sit for a while, and wash it out with shampoo, to make sure my hair doesn’t get too greasy. Before I even get out of the shower I’ll use it on my body because even though it feels oily it absorbs super fast especially when your skin is still warm and wet. I promise you will end up with the softest, healthiest looking hair and skin! Just make sure you are using organic, extra virgin, unrefined, cold pressed oil, especially for your skin. I really love Nutiva’s brand, and the containers are big enough to last a while.

One more thing! It is solid above 76F so I usually bring it with me in the shower so it will soften up and spread more easily!

 Hope it makes you as happy as it makes me!

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Honey B Kelpy

So summer is coming to an end, school is starting up again, and I have decided it’s time to pay a little more attention to Honey B. My summer was bittersweet I will admit, there were ups and downs, but I got to spend lots of time with my awesome family-a thing worth more than endless days at the beach (even though I had plenty of those too:)


The beautiful autumn months are looming now with promise of fiery foliage, winter squash, apple picking, and cozy nights by the fire…but before we get too excited we have to savor the last sweet moments of summer while we can, and what better way to do that than spending a couple days in the raw!

I now present Honey B Kelpy, a delightful bowl of raw goodness that rejuvinates your digestive system and packs a seriously vibrant nutritional punch

Deep Sea Goodness

Some of you other health nuts have probably heard of or experimented with Kelp Noodles, a low calorie, raw, and gluten free “pasta” alternative. I’ll be the first to admit the squiggly, slippery, jelly-like strands can’t really play on the same field as some fresh, homemade, semolina pasta, but it’s fun to pretend.

Sea vegetables are a miraculous little family that have been revered for their health giving properties for centuries. In fact, regular consumption of these under sea treats are thought to be responsible for the good health of many Asian populations whom include seaweeds in many of their traditional dishes. Since all seaweeds are naturally very high in iodine, a key mineral to forming thyroid hormones, they promote thyroid function and health of the metabolism. Combine that with their extremely low calorie count and they are the perfect staple for staying fit! Sea Veggies also contain wonderful anti-inflammatory fucan substances as well as a combo of magnesium and folic acid ideal for cardiovascular health.

Is all this nutritional crap stressing you out?

Thank goodness kelp contains B-vitamins ideal for the stressed out and anxious…

 

Weaving an Heirloom

Perhaps my favorite nutritional guideline is to eat your colors and there’s no better way to ingest those hues than taking full advantage of heirloom season. The most exciting part of late summer is the vibrant and unique heirloom variety vegetables that steal the show of farmers markets and produce sections. The plump red orange tomatoes bursting out of their skins and wounded carrots bleeding purple through their core, my eyes can’t get enough of the colorful feast!

In my mind, a colorless and pretty tasteless ingredient such as kelp noodles just screams blank canvas waiting to be painted. My imagination runs wild with the different cutting styles, textural ingredients, and dying veggies that I could use to color these noodles pretty. Be creative! Mother nature and a little out of the box thinking is all you need make a beautiful and nurturing meal for yourself.

How its made & what you need

• Package of kelp noodles (wash first and store in filtered water after opening)
• Array of heirloom veggies-carrots, tomatoes, radish, or some rainbow chard
• Handful of herbs-I used mint, cilantro, & a little basil
• Beets-for color try to find red & golden!
• Purple Cabbage, shredded
• Freshly grated ginger 

First, julienne the carrots into small rods, chop the herbs, shred the cabbage, and if you have a totally awesome julienne peeler like me then shred your beets!


Awesome way to eat beets raw and really allows the dye to spread onto anything kelp noodles, rice, quinoa, salads yum!

Then mix it all together with the herbs and ginger and allow to marinate for a few minutes while you make the dressing!


The Dressing

The dressing is really up to you as the meal is pretty flavorless and you could really go any direction. I find that for a dish so light it’s good to use a hearty & savory dressing even though the colors seem to beg for citrus. So try a light lemon, ginger, sesame dressing or maybe even mandarin orange, go wild! I’ll share my Raw Deep Sea Tahini recipe that boasts delish healthy fats, added protein, iron, calcium, and some extra color of course. 

-1 Tbs raw tahini 

-1/2 tsp raw coconut oil 

-Drop or two of raw agave 

-1 tsp Spirulina powder 

-Sesame seeds 

-Splash of tamari or liquid aminos 

*If its too thick add a splash of coconut water*

Once the dressing is made, toss with the kelp noodles until well mixed. When it looks like all the noodles are evenly coated combine with the veggie mixture. Wanna add a little something extra? Try sprinkling on some hemp hearts or chia seeds for some added protein, fiber, and omegas! 

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Scary Stuff

It's reading scary stuff like this that reinforces the importance of buying organic and trying to eliminate products containing dangerous chemicals from our daily life.

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Karma Kameleon Keenwah

My Muse
Mersh-my chameleon, my roommate, my inspiration, and truly a girl after my own heart. Just look at her munch that kale, what a champ! Her beautiful coloring and love for greens inspired this bright and healthy quinoa salad; a dish that is delicious served hot but also does great for days in the fridge.

Quinoa
Quinoa and I have had a rocky relationship. We were tight last summer, but we spent a little too much time together and then...I got bored. But recently, I have missed our old bond and decided to rekindle things with my one-time favorite seed. This seed, disguised as a grain, comes in an array of colors like pink and orange, but you will most commonly see the yellow, black, and red varieties on the shelves and in the bulk sections of many stores. It has a great crunchy, nutty, fluffy thing going on, not to mention an adorable curly-q that pops out when cooked. Quinoa is a great (gluten free) protein source for vegetarians and also boasts high levels of Vitamins B2, E, and fiber as well as having a good amount of iron (also good for the veggieheads).

To Cook:

Rinse and strain at least twice to get rid of the bitter flavor on the coating of the seeds

1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water (as you can see I mixed varieties and used 1/2 cup yellow and 1/2 black)

Bring water and quinoa to a boil with a pinch of sea salt

Reduce to simmer and cover

Check for doneness after about 15 minutes (should be a little more translucent, with the curly-Q exposed, and a slight crunch!)

*When cooking quinoa for a savory dish, I always make a little extra as it makes a wonderful breakfast with cinnamon and apples! Maybe even a little almond milk…

Chameleon Friendly Pesto
To flavor the quinoa I took some ideas and ingredients from my cold-blooded friend who loves dandelion greens and kale. I had an abundance of basil ready to be picked, plenty of dandelion greens for Mersh, and as always a bunch of kale in my fridge. Get creative with your pesto! Dandelion is a wild green that grows in abundance almost everywhere, it’s a little bitter, but easy to mask. And just to be clear, Mersh doesn't eat this pesto, so it's not actually chameleon friendly...

Wild Pesto

Large Handful of fresh Basil

1 cup loosely packed washed dandelion and kale

1 tbs Olive Oil

3 or 4 walnuts or pine nuts...or not

2 cloves of garlic
sprinkle of sea salt

big pinch of parmesan 

Combine in a food processor or blender, 

adding more oil or even a little water if needed!

Blending it in
Use whatever you have in the fridge! Pack as much color in as possible to get the most nutrition out of the meal and experiment with different shapes and cutting techniques, you’ll end with something beautiful! To max out the color in this dish I used ½ cup of black quinoa, and ½ cup of yellow in addition to a steamed broccoli head cut into florets, a handful of chopped purple cabbage, some torn green kale, and a carrot cut into matchsticks.


Finishing up!
 When the quinoa is just about finished stir in the raw kale and cabbage as another 2 minutes in the simmering quinoa should be enough to lightly cook the veggies (above pic). Once the veggies are a little soft and the quinoa is all done, remove from heat, drain any extra water, and stir in the pesto, broccoli, and carrots! For 1 cup of quinoa I used about 2 tbs of the pesto to flavor!

Yin Yang!
Couldn't resist...

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You can Milk an Almond?

Easy!

Easier than I like to admit honestly, because people are usually so impressed when I tell them I make my own almond milk! I recently have really backed off from cow dairy as, even though it doesn’t give me too much trouble, it just puts a little strain on my digestive system that I think it can do without. For a quick lesson in evolution, think about most mammals, they drink their mother’s milk until mature enough to handle other foods. All mammals except humans, that is. For some mysterious reason we decided that we just loved milk so much why not steal it from other mammals, namely cows & goats. We are all born with the enzyme lactase in our bellies, to digest the sugar in milk called lactose. This enzyme is only supposed to stick around about a year or two but somehow many of us have "outsmarted" nature and tricked our bodies into producing lactase even longer so we continue to have the ability to digest milk. So, those who are lactose intolerant are actually the normal ones, as their bodies stopped producing the enzyme at the correct time. Personally, I have had a love hate relationship with dairy my whole life, never a fan as a kid, I even convinced my mom to start buying me Lactaid Milk. However, my body can handle it to some extent as long as I don’t over do it.  Since trying to back off from the dairy, I sometimes feel an empty space in my heart when I want a bowl of cereal or a creamy smoothie, so I have been happily exploring alternatives to fill that little hole.

Soy Last Year

You don't want dairy? Drink Soy milk! No. Not the biggest fan of soy anything, really. Since going vegetarian I have felt that people expect me to love tofu (a high protein soy product), but I don’t. Not only am I turned off by the texture and flavor but with a little investigation it’s easy to find that soy is an ingredient present in so many processed foods (think corn and HFCS). Soy Lecithin is an ingredient you’ll see used as a binding agent in foods like ice cream and veggie burgers, just to name two. However, there are many other kinds of emulsifying  agents out there but since soy is so cheap, thanks to government subsidies, it is the obvious choice for most food producing companies. The high levels of estrogen in soy have been linked to possibly causing breast cancer and have also been found to worsen PMS in some women. So, all in all, I am SOy over soy and would encourage others who are trying to avoid cow dairy as well to give some other “milks” a try.

She’s Nuts

Nuts are the best, particularly almonds, cashews, and walnuts. Aside from boasting incredible nutrition from omega 3's, high protein, potassium and zinc, they are a healthy, high energy, snack that are easy to keep in your backpack or purse for snacking. However, nuts are smarter than you think, and they have developed a disguise that is stopping you from absorbing their nutrition! The skins that many nuts dress themselves in contain enzyme inhibitors that are responsible for keeping the nut from sprouting in your cabinet. These inhibitors are much harder for your body to digest and actually prevent your body from getting the most nutrition out of these little packages of energy. For almonds, you can leave them in a bowl of filtered water overnight and by morning the skins will be lose and easy to remove. I used to spend about an hour peeling the skins off with a finger nail until I discovered that you can pop em' right out with one good squeeze, a feeling similar to eating edemame. Beware; you may have some flying almonds though (found one in my toaster, yet another late night smoke alarm incident). Buy organic, raw nuts that haven’t been toasted or salted to be sure you get the max amount of lively nutrients. Cashews and walnuts only need to be soaked for about 5 hours, but make sure you rinse the nuts before eating, as the soak water is loaded with those very enzymes you’re trying to get rid of.

It’s like having a cow in the Kitchen

Almond milk is so freaking simple to make its silly. Combine a handful, about 8, of your soaked and peeled almonds (I like to use 2 or 3 unsoaked almonds too, just for the flavor) and 500 mL of filtered water in the blender. I use a combo of chop, liquefy, and puree to milk my almonds, but be sure to stop the blender for a minute to let the pieces of almond settle to the bottom then liquefy again. You can add a dab of honey as well, if you like, but I find the almonds to be sweet enough on their own. The result will be a bubbly, white milk in the blender, which you can run through a sieve or cheesecloth to remove the ground up almond. Sometimes I won't strain it, as the almond pieces in the milk can be a delicious addition to morning oatmeal or cereal. But you can also safe the almond puree to save and stir into oat or rice dishes later, without the milk.


Nuts over Almonds

Now the nutrition part, I promise ill make it quick! Almonds are incredibly rich in protein, fat, zinc, potassium, iron, B vitamins, and magnesium and are good for respiratory and digestive health. It also has a wonderful amount of calcium, even greater than cow dairy and usually is less than 60 cals per serving! So start milking your almonds, go nuts!

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