Welcome New Year! Welcome January 2014 Cleanse!

Happy New Year!  Best wishes to everyone for a new year that is filled with continued growth and balancing, health and happiness wise.  
For me, the start of a new year also means the start of my annual January cleanse.  I have been doing a cleanse for the month of January since 2001, and even though I am always glad when it is over, I do look forward to it every year.  I like the simplicity that the cleanse offers after the busyness of the holiday season.  I also appreciate the opportunity the cleanse provides to ground my self in my body and listen more carefully to the messages my body shares.  I have a feeling that this cleanse will again be made up of mainly simple suppers, so there may not be too many recipes to share.  I do hope though to post other interesting bits of information and I look forward to connecting more over the month!

The Dirty Dozen Endocrine Disruptors

The American based Environmental Working Group, which publishes a yearly dirty dozen and clean fifteen list of fruit and vegetables, has just released a dirty dozen list of endocrine disruptors.  This list contains a number of chemicals that can mimic or disrupt the hormonal balance in our body and can increase our risk of developing different types of cancer and other health concerns.  

The dirty dozen endocrine disruptors include:  

BPA  - which is a chemical found in plastics and is in the lining of many food cans, thermal paper receipts, and plastic products.

Dioxins - which are industrial toxins that have infiltrated the food supply and are especially found in higher fat foods like meat, dairy, and eggs.

Atrazine - which is a chemical used on corn crops and has infiltrated the water supply.

Phthalates - which are chemicals also found in plastics and are in food containers, plastic wrap, children's toys, as well as in fragrance containing/scented body care products.

Perchlorate - which is found in rocket fuel and has also infiltrated the food and water supply.

Fire retardants - which are found in foam furniture, carpet padding, and mattresses.

Lead- which is a heavy metal and is found in old paint and has infiltrated the water supply.

Arsenic - which is also a heavy metal and has also infiltrated the water supply.

Mercury - which is a heavy metal that gets into the air and oceans through burning coal and is found in fish. 

Perfluorinated Chemicals/PFCs - which are found in non stick cookware and stain/water resistant clothes/furniture/carpet.

Organophosphate Pesticides - which are some of the more commonly used pesticides currently and have infiltrated the food supply.

Glycol Ethers - which are solvents in paints, cleaning products, brake fluid and cosmetics.

The pervasiveness of many of these compounds can feel pretty overwhelming.  It is important to understand the nutrients and antioxidants from the foods that we eat (even if they aren't certified organic), the antioxidant rich supplements we might take, the exercise we do, and the positive stress release activities we have in our routines (meditation, journaling) all help to strengthen our body's ability to manage these compounds.  Some other relatively easy positive steps we can take to limit some of our exposure include:  switching to natural based body care products and cleaners, using glass storage containers, using non stick cookware, buying certified organic food when possible, drinking filtered water.

For more info on the Environmental Working Group's dirty dozen endocrine disruptors list, see their website at www.ewg.org

Simple Seasonal Supper

Last week, I picked up beets and a small pumpkin squash from the grocery store (my garden space is small, so I don't grow either of these veggies) and decided to make a simple seasonal supper a few nights ago.  Although the veggies took approximately 1 hour to bake, the preparation time was pretty quick.  To prepare the squash, I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, placed the squash into a casserole dish, spooned some of the tomato 'juice' I had on hand from the many tomatoes I have harvested from my garden this year into the centre, added some oregano and sea salt, and baked for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  Once the squash was in the oven, I diced the beets and placed them in a casserole dish with diced onion, garlic, and zucchini.  I added a simple tahini sauce (tahini, nutritional yeast, tamari, lemon juice) over the veggies and placed the dish, alongside the squash, in the oven and baked for 45-50 minutes.  The whole preparation time for both of these dishes combined was at the most 20 minutes!  Once the veggies were ready, I served them with pinto beans and short grain brown rice.  This was a hearty and delicious and easy fall meal!

Hello September!

Even though the arrival of September means most of the front yard perennials have finished their work for the year, the echinacea plants are in full bloom.  Echinacea is my favorite perennial and is such a great immune stimulating herb!  I love seeing the echinacea plants every year!









With the summer winding down, I have already made my second batch of yummy fall granola (the recipe is from the Oct 30, 2010 blog post).  With these last 2 batches, I didn't have any cashews, so I added extra almonds and walnuts instead.  I also didn't have any sesame seeds, so I added hemp seeds and I have changed from using canola oil to coconut oil.  Each time I make the granola, it is quick and easy (it takes under 20 minutes to add the ingredients together and another 24 minutes to bake) and it is always delicious!




This year I planted 5 small tomato plants that I picked up from the farmer's market and they have turned into a tomato jungle!!  I have already picked enough tomatoes to make 1 batch of my favourite tomato soup.  Because tomatoes can aggravate both joint pain and heartburn, this soup isn't a great fit for everyone, but if you can tolerate tomatoes, it is yummy and easy to make.
Here is the recipe for Simple Tomato Soup:
1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 onion, chopped, 4 cloves garlic, minced, 1 cup crimini mushrooms, chopped, 2 cups zucchini, chopped, 1 tbsp basil (I also used a handful of fresh basil, oregano, and parsley), 2 tbsp wheat free tamari, 8 cups tomato 'juice' (to make the juice, I stewed the tomatoes until they were primarily liquid and then stamped them through a colander and discarded the skins and saved the remaining juice), 2 - 4 cups leafy greens (I used a combination of kale and collards), chopped, 2 cups cooked green lentils, 1/2-1 package pasta (I used tinkyada brown rice penne), cooked

Place olive oil in a soup pot over low-medium heat.  Add onion and garlic and saute for 3 minutes.  Add crimini mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes.  Add zucchini, basil, and wheat free tamari and saute for 3 minutes.  Add tomato juice and bring to boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add leafy greens, lentils and rice pasta.

I have been making some variation of this recipe for more than 20 years and it never disappoints!  To make it even more enjoyable, the tomatoes, zucchini, leafy greens, fresh basil, fresh oregano, and fresh parsley that I used in this recipe are all directly from my backyard garden.  The penne that I used in this recipe soaked up most of the tomato juice and turned the recipe into more of a stew than a soup!






I have been aiming to pick zucchini regularly from my garden, but I missed one and ended up with a super zucchini!  In order to use up some of the super zucchini, I made chocolate zucchini bread (really a cake :))!  This is definitely a treat recipe and not a every day food recipe, but it is so yummy and well worth making if you find your self with LOTS of zucchini.  The recipe I used is from the book Color Me Vegan by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.  This book has many delicious and nutritious recipes based on the variety of lovely and colorful vegetables and fruits available and is a good one to have at home/borrow from the library.  I substituted spelt flour for whole wheat flour, coconut oil for canola oil, and halved the amount of sugar (and used pure maple syrup instead of granulated sugar) and the bread/cake still turned out great.

More Garden Pictures!

Some of my favourite plants in my front and back garden are medicinal plants.  Each of these plants are perennials and are well developed for/easy to grow in the Edmonton climate.   Here are pictures of some of the medicinal plants found in the gardens:

This is sage which is an excellent herb for supporting overall hormonal health.

This is hyssop which is an excellent herb for supporting overall lung health.

This is goldenrod which is an excellent herb for supporting overall urinary health.

This is rhodiola which is an excellent herb for supporting overall emotional health.

This is St John's Wort which is also an excellent herb for supporting overall emotional health.

This is arnica, which in it's homeopathic form, is excellent for supporting body pain and trauma.

This is feverfew which is an excellent herb for supporting migraines.

This is yarrow which is an excellent herb for addressing fevers.

Garden Pictures!

I meant to post these flower pictures a few weeks ago, but am only getting around to doing so now!  These flower pictures are of the plant pulsatilla, which is an excellent homeopathic remedy for acute childhood illnesses (amongst other concerns).  It is also called the prairie crocus and is native to the prairies, so it very easily grows/flourishes here in Alberta.  It is one of the first plants to flower in the spring - it produces beautiful blooms and I am always so happy to see it back again for another year.  I have also included a picture of the self seeding lettuce in my back garden box - it is growing by leaps and bounds and I had my first salad with it tonight.  Yummy!!

Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen

Every year, the US based environmental working group (EWG), publishes a list of the top 12 fruits and vegetables that are the most contaminated with pesticide residues and the top 15 fruits and vegetables that are least contaminated with pesticide residues.  In the past, they have stated that one could reduce their pesticide exposure by 80% if they bought/consumed only certified organic forms of the dirty dozen.  I don't see this specific info on their website anymore, but these lists still do give a great insight into the fruits and vegetables that are the most and the least important to buy in the certified organic form.  The dirty dozen includes: apples, celery, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, hot peppers, nectarines, peaches, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, sweet bell peppers.  The EWG has also included 2 additional groups of vegetables on the dirty dozen + list - leafy greens (especially kale and collard greens) and summer squash (zucchini, yellow crookneck squash) because they have both been found to contain residues of pesticides that are particularly toxic to the central nervous system.  The clean fifteen includes:  asparagus, avocado, cabbage, cantaloupe, sweet corn, eggplant, grapefruit, kiwi, mango, mushrooms, onions, papaya, pineapple, frozen sweet peas, sweet potatoes.  The EWG does note that a small amount of the sweet corn (field corn, which is used in processed corn based foods, is almost always genetically modified) and (Hawaiian) papaya sold in the US is genetically modified and it would still be best to buy the certified organic form.  Even though this information is US based, I think it is 100% applicable to us in Canada as well and can help to inform our grocery shopping choices.  For more info on the dirty dozen + and the clean fifteen, see http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/index.php .