Yummy Rice Cakes!

One of the most important steps to making the cleanse easier to manage is ensuring that we don't feel hungry and that we have snacks to choose from.  One of the foods that I will commonly use as a snack on the cleanse is rice cakes -   I usually put almond butter on rice cakes for a quick, protein rich, easily transportable snack.   Sometimes I can find rice cakes a bit too bulky/thick though, so I have been delighted to find the Plum.M.Good organic brown rice thins.  These rice thins seem to be about one quarter the thickness of regular rice cakes and they are always fresh and very yummy (and are available in a variety of flavours)!  So far, I have only been able to find these rice thins at Blush Lane in Edmonton, but they are worth the trip!

Food for Thought for 2014

In the December 4, 2013 issue of the Natural Medicine Journal, author Jacob Schor comments on a study (originally published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) that evaluated the impact that school based interventions had on elementary students' fruit consumption.  There were 3 groups of elementary aged children in this study:  1 group received no intervention/served as a control, 1 group was taught a 15 minute lesson 1 time per week for the entire school year around developing skills for making healthy food and life choices, and 1 group received no specific lessons but their homeroom teacher brought fruit to school at least 3 times per week, kept the fruit on their desk until they ate it, and in general ate healthy snacks during the school day.  Both the group who received the lessons and the group whose teacher ate healthy snacks increased their fruit consumption during the school year in comparison to the control group, but interestingly only the group whose teacher ate healthy snacks maintained an increased level of fruit consumption at the 1 year post intervention follow-up.  This study provides an excellent insight into how important it is for adults to model healthy food choices for the little people in their lives - telling kids what is best to eat will not be as effective as them seeing their adult loved ones eating the food themselves as well.  For me, the message of this study extends beyond food and can be applied to our behaviour in general -  it is how we move through the world and choose to behave, rather than just what we say, that has the deepest impact on those around us and has the most potential to help make the world a more peaceful and healthy place.  For me, this message serves as a great reminder and a great motivator moving forward into 2014.  

Getting Grounded

One of the most important ways we can support our overall health (and make a cleanse easier to manage) is to aim to keep our selves grounded in the face of our busy lives.  In the January 2014 issue of Shambhala Sun magazine, author Andrea Miller writes about her experience at a retreat offered by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.  In her piece, Miller describes learning about the importance of integrating a singing bowl/bell into our daily lives as a source of grounding and centring support.  Miller also mentions that the bell can be a bell of mindfulness that we cultivate within and that we can utilize regular parts of our daily routine as reminders for us to ring the bell/focus on feeling more grounded and more mindful.  I found this article very inspiring and really appreciate how it offers another very simple and easily integrated way to continue to work on being more mindful, more centred, and more aware on a daily basis.  Even if we choose just one part of our daily routine to serve as a reminder (before we get dressed in the morning, before we turn on the computer for the day, before we sit down for lunch in the afternoon etc.) to ring our internal bell of mindfulness, we have already created more space for increased grounding which offers great support for our overall health.

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.