Health Benefits of Fermented foods

Have you tried fermented foods? If you're not sure you probably have without knowing it.

Today there are a lot of popular drinks and pills like "Kombucha" and "probiotics" and we've all heard that yoghurt is good for our digestion but when you start talking about billions of lactobacillus even I get a bit lost.

But fermenting foods is nothing new, our ancestors have been doing this form of food preservation for centuries, think miso and sauerkraut.
Science is just finding out how healthy these foods are for us, also how they help our bodies digest and absorb nutrients, add essential vitamins, nutrients, and amino acids to foods while removing toxins.

                                   

"The fermentation doesn't just preserve the foods they make them rich in healthy microbes"

I used to have a lot of problems with my digestion before understanding and noticing the link between what I'm putting into my body and how my body is reacting. I knew little about food allergies, sensitivities and healthy gut flora.

Gut flora might sound kinda weird but really they are the tiny microbes living in our stomach lining and digestive tract, they are considered the "healthy" bacteria. This healthy bacteria is essential for a balanced hormone production, healthy immune function, and can even help prevent depression. 

  

The balance of "good" bacteria to "bad" bacteria ratio is very important and should be in the range of about 80% "good" to 20% "bad" but sadly in our North American diets is is often the opposite!

This unbalance is also due to our Health Care culture of over-prescribing antibiotics, which kill all bacteria, the good, the bad and the ugly!

For more information on healthy gut flora click here fermented and cultured

If you suffer from regular heartburn and indigestion you may want to start doing some research into how fermented foods can help.
Water Kefir Grains

I started using water kefir grains a few years ago and noticed the health and digestion benefits soon after; less indigestion, gas and bloating, more energy and even better complexion!

Making your own kefir grain drinks is very simple and since they grow when you use them you can give the surplus away and get all your friends to try it too. You can also get milk kefir grains but use the water grains if you are lactose intolerant like me.

 There might be an online site near you where you can get kefir grains for free locally. Here is a free site for the San Francisco/Bay Area  Kefir Grains

And if you're really interested in trying to make your own fermented foods 

check out this site Wild Fermentation

They have tonnes of recipes and information to get you started.

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This super easy to make elixer aids digestion and is good to use where there is gas, bloating, and discomfort after eating. 

Mix equal parts honey with apple cider vinegar in a container with a tight fitting lid, keep refrigerated or it will ferment and turn to alcohol.

 Take one tablespoon of elixer before meals, make sure to shake mixture before taking each time as it may separate.

This powerful "Oxymel", it's called, helps digest fats, 

carbs and protein and helps revitalize the metabolism.

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Another great way to get healthy fermented food into your diet is with a

sourdough bread starter, and yes you can make them gluten free!

Sourdough starters can be used to make your own pancakes, 

bread, muffins and add some air and spring to your baked goods. 

This recipe for a gluten free started uses a mixture of gf flours but you can make a starter with any one of these flours, you don't have to use them all.

Gluten Free Starter

Now you have some information on healthy flora and hopefully some inspiration on making your own fermentations or at least working some more fermented foods into your life.

When you use less energy digesting you can use more energy thinking and creating!

Lemonade with Ginger, Sage, Echinacea

Stay healthy during cold and flu season with this delicious lemonade elixer. Make your own according to taste and available ingredients. I make a big pitcher of this juice and drink daily to keep up immunity during the cold season or when I'm feeling run down. Lemons, Sage and Honey are especially soothing for sore throats. 

What you will Need:

-10 Lemons 

-2 Tblsp Echinacea (dried)

-2 Tblsp White Sage fresh or dried

-2 Tbl Ginger fresh sliced

-8 tblsp Raw Honey (to taste)

-10 cups distilled water

Measure 2 cups of distilled water and pour into saucepan, next add Echinacea, Sage and Ginger. Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes being careful not to let mixture get to a rolling boil.

Strain the mixture into a heat safe container, next add 6 tblsp of the honey to the hot herbal mix and stir until dissolved.

Next squeeze or press 8-10 medium sized lemons into a glass pitcher (I like mine quite lemony), add 8 cups of distilled water and 1 cup of the herbal honey mixture. Chill and taste.

At this point you can add more lemons to make it more sour and if you like it sweeter add more honey. I find it easiest to add honey to hot water to dissolve first. Use 1 tblsp to 1/2 cup of water and add in increments according to taste.

I also like my juice with lots of ginger and add another tblsp of fresh sliced ginger to stay in the pitcher, it generally stays on the bottom. This doesn't last long in my house!

RE: Homemade Dog Food For Arthritis Update

An Update on this recipe...

I am now feeding my dogs 3/4 wet homemade dog food to 1/4 dry kibble and make the food without meat so I can rotate different options of protein into each meal. I am using more fish, such as canned salmon and sardines, this helps to keep their weight down and supply omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA that are good for the skin and coat. In addition, they help regulate the immune system and reduce inflammation.

I will also add one eggs a couple of times a week, my dogs are 80 and 100lbs so I will add a whole egg per dish of food. Yogurt is also a nice treat for them and good for digestion.

Keeping their weight down is always a challenge so I have decreased the barley and lentils to add more quinoa, squash, raw apples and carrots, fresh peas, blueberries and greens.

Try different things out on your dogs to see what they like. 

Never feed dogs grapes, rasins, chocolate, coffee, caffeine, avocado's or macadamia nuts

and try to limit fat scraps.

This will keep in the fridge for a week. I make 2 large pots at a time and freeze one pot so I only have to make the food once a week.

Here is a pic of the homeopathic pellets that I have my Rottweiler on that make the biggest difference in her mobility.

I started her on 2 pellets 2x day for a month and now keep her on 2 pellets once a day. I have tried to reduce to 3x a week and she started limping.

These pellets can be found at most health food stores or try looking online. I use rhus toxicodendron  30c and bryonia alba 30c

Remember she is a 100lb Rottweiler so consult your vet or health professional before giving your pet any medications for specific amounts.

That's all for now, good luck and keep me posted on any updates or great tips you may have as well.

Harvesting Plant Medicine In A Sacred Manner

Native Americans have used plant medicine since the first creation of man. Being an oral society, teaching through stories, many of the traditional ways of doing things have been lost through assimilation into our now modern culture.

These teachings I am sharing here are from many years of working with plants, elders and attending ceremony. Learning how to listen, how to pay attention to nature and to look for the signs when the plants are ready to be used. Native American Medicine Way teaches the interconnectedness of all things, and it celebrates and respects all living things. It teaches us to harvest plants by taking only what we need, to give back and to live in balance with nature.

Over harvesting is also a great problem these days, many of our medicines like Goldenseal and Black cohosh are endangered because they have been used as a "cure all". 

There is a lot of talk about using cultivated plants vs wild plants. I too agree that plants grown in their natural environment will be more potent but I also understand the need for sustainable practices, and continually harvesting root medicine that kills the plant is not sustainable. I also have a great respect for the Plant Nation and their ability to adapt and believe that healing has a lot more to do with than it's constituents.

Harvesting of herbs and plants should be done as if in a sacred ceremony. You should never drink alcohol or be under the influence of drugs for at least 4 days within harvesting or making medicine. You should be in a good state of mind and not have feelings of anger or sadness or anything you could pass on to the medicine. Think of yourself as a vessel of healing that the Creator flows through.

Women should not harvest or make medicine during their moon time, when menstruating. This guideline is not meant as a negative or sexist tradition but to honor the life giver's and respect their monthly sacred ceremony. A woman is considered to be too powerful at this time and making medicine or attending ceremony at this time could make others sick. This warning is for their protection too.

Medicine should be gathered in the morning, preferably after the dew has evaporated a bit and before the heat of the day has arrived. Gathering plants begins before you leave your house. One must be in a good mind set, start off by praying, smudging and cleansing in a good way. Your mind should already be on the plants, talking to them, letting them know what your intentions are and that you are coming to gather them today.

An offering of tobacco corn or cornmeal is left outside under a tree where it will not be stepped on. Introduce yourself, make your intentions known, what plants you are looking for or what type of healing is needed. 

It is best if you are learning to gather plants from someone knowledgable in this area. Try to see if there are any native plant walks or guided tours, this will help you get to know the area and what grows where. If you are going out on your own take a plant identification guide with you and do not touch a plant if you are not absolutely sure of what it is.

Here are some of the tools I take when I go out to harvest

When you have found a plant that you want to harvest take a look around, is the patch large enough for you to gather what you need? The general rule is to gather no more that 1/4 or 25% of what is growing there. If there is enough give an offering of tobacco or corn to the plants as a sign of respect, and in giving something back to the earth when you have taken something.

Take only what you need and be sure to take a variety of plant sizes so as not to take all of the plants of the same generation.

To harvest the top part of a plant use a pair of scissors or a sharp knife that will cut through the stem without crushing or bending the remaining stem. 

When digging for roots be careful to do as little damage as possible to surrounding plants. Use your hands or small digging tools shovels are usually too big for tight spaces and leave big holes. 

Try to replant anything dug up by mistake and cover up any holes left behind.

Some Native Americans follow strict guidelines and only harvest until 2-3pm. I have been taught this way, unless there is an emergency and I need to gather a plant right then.

To gather plants according to the moon phases, gather the top part of a plant (including the leaf, flower, stem and tree bark) during the time when the moon is closely approaching full. Likewise the roots are gathered when the light of the moon is going down during the new moon phase. The best time to gather bark from the tree's is in the Spring when the sap is running. When the moon is up and the sap or the water levels are up the bark will release easier from the tree. Be careful when harvesting bark from a tree and try to find someone who has done it before to show you because any puncture of the inner membranes can cause the tree to bleed to death from loss of sap.

There is a lunar chart on the bottom of my blog if you are unsure of the moon phases.

Do not gather plants from road sides or places that you know to use contaminants or pesticides. Always look up to see where the runoff of rain water is coming from, what is being washed down to where you are harvesting from.

Before you go out into the field know the State and Federal laws, some states have protected or endangered plants that cannot be harvested.

When you harvest the plants make sure you have a way to carry them back without crushing or mixing the plants. I take a large woven basket style bag and bring extra bags and paper to layer in between. When I get home I take the plants out immediately to hang or lay out to dry outside in the shade for an hour to let out any bugs or spiders that may be in the plants 

never leaving them in the bag too long to get wilted and moldy.

Then hang the plants to dry or lay somewhere where the air can circulate.

Dried herbs and plants should always be dried and kept out of direct sunlight and away from heat.

When plants are dry they can then be stored in paper or plastic bags, labelled with the date harvested and  when properly stored will keep for up to 2 years.

When you gather Medicinal Plants in a good way to make medicine for yourself or someone else, this is the foundation of your Medicine. It is my belief that this is where the healing starts.

The information presented here is for education only from teachings I received from a Coast Salish elder I worked with for the past 10 years, and also from the book "Native Plants Native Healing Traditional Muskogee Way" by Tis Mal Crow

Homemade Dog Food for Arthritis

So I'm finally posting this dog food recipe after being asked many times.

I can't tell you enough how happy I am that I finally started my dog on this recipe as I noticed changes in them immediately! 

I have a 7 tear old Rottweiler (Nikita shown below with our other guy Levi) that has had shoulder injuries and joint issues since she was 3. 

Nikita doesn't have hip displasia and the condition comes and goes so we have just tried to take the best care of her that we could. We have always fed our dogs the best food, top quality supplements and fish oils and tried to keep their weight down. We have always been super active so in the last year when her mobility really went down we were at a loss. Some days she was is so much pain and we hadn't even walked her!

 The Vet said Nikita has arthritis in her shoulder and she needs to lose weight. I was at a loss because she could barely walk at this point so I realized I needed to change the way we were feeding them.  

I then started doing some serious research online and hit my Natural Remedy Veterinarian Books. 

This recipe has been adapted from "The Veterinarians Guide To Natural Remedies For Dogs" by Martin Zucker, which is super easy to read and follow and has some great info.

I call this Dog Stew because that's what it looks like and tastes like! 

(I've even eaten it myself for lunch it's pretty good)

Dog Stew 

1 lb ground turkey, lamb or beef heart

1 cups of celery

2 cups of carrots

2 cups of spinach/kale or greens

3 cloves of garlic

1 1/2 cups of pearl barley

1/2 cup lentils

1/2 cup brown rice

1 cup of fresh parsley

1 cup of fresh/dried nettles

1/2 cup dried rosehips

Most of these ingredients are naturally alkaline and anti-inflammatory. I add the rosehips for Vitamin C and the Nettles for the minerals, nutrients and they are excellent for joint pain. 

Combine ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil then simmer 1 1/2 hours. Keep pot covered and stir every 15-30 minutes. Add water if needed but it should be quite thick when done.

This makes a lot of stew so I let this cool then freeze half at a time.

I mix and match with the ingredients with what I have in the house or garden but try to stay consistent with what I find is the "base" of the recipe, which is the barley, brown rice, good quality meats, minimum of 2 cups of fresh greens, garlic and the parsley. 

Other than that I sometimes put in squash in place of carrots and I've used quinoa in place of the lentils.

This whole pot costs around $14 if it's all organic and feeds both my dogs for a week, mixed with dry kibble. I give them 1/2 cup of dry kibble and 1 cup of stew 2X daily and they both look so good and have lost weight. Nikita (Rottweiler) has a very sensitive digestion and usually a lot of gas but on this food her poop has never been so normal looking, solid and consistent and almost no gas. 

And they love the food! they can't wait for feeding time and it's easy for me to add their supplements to.

For Nikita I also add a glucosamine with MSM and a Calcium carbonate supplement. I recommend doing your own research and discussing any changes with your Vet. 

I would also suggest just starting your dog on the new food regime first then adding supplements one by one with a few weeks in-between so you can see what is working or not.  

Nikita now has more energy so I can walk her again because with her arthritis she needs to keep moving. 

Short daily walks keep her fit and keeps her mobile. We also gently stretch her out at home on the floor and give regular massages. When she's having a hard day like when it's extra damp and cold out we just play inside. I try to keep a close eye on her when we walk because she wants to go forever, she has no sense of when she needs to stop and if I overdo it she pays the price limping in pain for 2-5 days after. For these times I give her Arnica homeopathic pellets which seem to heal her up faster and help with the pain and inflammation.

I wish I had started all of my dogs on homemade food a long time ago but I always thought it was going to be labour intensive and expensive. It only takes me about 2 hours a week and saves me around $30 a month in food bills for them! (never mind the Vet bills) Plus they are healthier and happier than ever!

From now on this is how I will feed all of my dogs, unless I find an even better recipe! I'll keep you posted;)

Get Creative With Terrariums

Seems like terrariums are all the rage lately so a friend and I wanted to make some for Christmas gifts.

I was surprised when I looked into the "how to" at how creative some people got with theirs and decided to have some fun with mine.

The basics are pretty easy. Start with any glass bowl, I found some interesting ones at the thrift store. You can also buy a specific terrarium bowl but they are pretty pricey.

Then add a layer of rocks, charcoal, sand and/or soil depending on the plants you are using.

You can get all of these at any gardening store.

I also used pretty rocks that I have collected and some marbles 

So here they are!

This fun beach scene is for my friends that just got married in Mexico on the beach

I really liked this vase I found and picked the plants to fit. They are nestled in reindeer lichen and I got the cool shells at an eclectic store here in San Francisco.

For obvious reasons this one stole the show! I created a Star Wars battle scene for my husband

I got the figurines online from amazon and the cool "living stones" plants from a store 

on Etsy (acorndesignsource) and the black sand is from our local beach

And I squished the leftover air plant into this tiny bottle using a pencil to arrange everything

I made all of these for the same cost of buying a terrarium kit or buying an already 

made one from the store plus my friend made a couple too,

 and you can get creative and really personalize them.

They are also pretty easy to take care of just spray with water once a week 

and keep in filtered light.

So get inspired and have fun with your terrarium!

Easy Handmade Gift Ideas - Infused Herbal Oils

This Infused Herbal Oil is so easy to make and requires no cooking!

Will last up to 1 year so keep on hand for last minute gift giving.

This oil will get stronger as it steeps

You will need: Large bottle of Olive Oil, Head of Garlic, Mixed Peppercorns, Pink Peppercorns, Chili Flakes, Sprigs of Thyme and Rosemary and Decorative Bottles

First add peppercorns, garlic, chili flakes, rosemary and thyme into bottles, next fill with olive oil

Put on cap, label or wrap with ribbons, etc....

These oils will get stronger as they steep so I advise using within 6 months.

Keep away from direct heat and sunlight for a fresh tasting oil

Use in stir-fry's, salad dressings, pour over roasted chicken or pot roast, or use as a bread dip with balsamic vinegar.

I added the pink peppercorns for a festive look, all ingredients are optional and to taste.

Other flavors to consider....lemon peel and ginger, garlic parsley and sundried tomato...