Real Food Friday Feast - Creamy Sweet Potato Soup

No matter what the weather, I just love soup. I'm always looking for new soup recipes and this one appealed to me because I love sweet potatoes and I'm always looking for new ways to cook them. The nice thing about them is that they are naturally sweet and sweet dishes are always so much easier to get kids to eat! But this is the kind of sweet dish you WANT them to eat because it's all real food, all good for them and very tasty.

Here is what your sweet potato soup will be doing for you and your family, nutritionally:

• Sweet potatoes are high in vitamin B6. Vitamin B6, along with vitamin B12, helps reduce the chemical homocysteine in our bodies. Homocysteine is an amino acid in our bodies made from dietary protein. It has been linked with heart disease, strokes and deep vein thrombosis. Since our bodies don't produce vitamin B, and it is essential to our health, we need to get it from our diet.
• They're a good source of vitamin C. We all know that vitamin C can help keep colds and flu at bay, but not many people know that it also plays an important role in bone and tooth formation, digestion, and blood cell formation. It helps accelerate wound healing, produces collagen which helps maintain skin’s youthful elasticity, and is essen­tial to helping us cope with stress. It even appears to help protect our body against toxins that may be linked to cancer.
• They contain Vitamin D which is vital for immune system and overall health. Vitamin D is both a vitamin AND a hormone and it's made in our bodies when we are in sunlight. If you have been to European countries, you may have heard about seasonal affective disorder (or SAD) SAD has been linked to inadequate sunlight and a vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D plays an important role in our energy levels, moods, and helps to build healthy bones, heart, nerves, skin, and teeth. It also supports the thyroid gland.
• They contain iron. Iron is necessary to give us energy, but it's also needed for red and white blood cell production, resistance to stress, proper im­mune system functioning, and the metabolizing of protein.
• They're a good source of mag­nesium, which is the relaxation and anti-stress mineral. Magnesium is necessary for healthy artery, blood, bone, heart, muscle, and nerve function, yet experts have found that most people are deficient in this very important mineral.
• They're a source of potassium, which helps regulate heartbeat and nerve signals. It also relaxes muscle contractions, reduces swelling, and protects and controls the kidneys.
• They are naturally sweet-tasting but they contain natural sugars which are slowly released into the bloodstream, providing a balanced and regular source of energy, without the blood sugar spikes you'd usually get from sweet dishes that are  linked to fatigue and weight gain.
• Sweet potatoes with orange flesh are high in carotenoids like beta carotene, which is the precursor to vitamin A in your body. Carotenoids improve our eyesight and our immunity against diseases. They are powerful antioxidants that help protect against cancer and the effects of aging. Studies at Harvard University of more than 124,000 people showed a 32% reduction in risk of lung cancer in people who ate a variety of carotenoid-rich foods as part of their regular diet. Another study of women who had finished treatment for early stage breast cancer found that women with the highest blood concentrations of carotenoids had the least likelihood of cancer recurrence.

Sweet potato soup

3 organic, large sweet potatoes

1 large organic carrot
450ml bone broth
1 Tbs raw honey
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp nutmeg
Black pepper
Cayenne pepper (optional)
1/3 cup cream (make sure it's free range or organic. Woolies sells organic. I used coconut cream which I got from the Byranston Organic Market)

Method

• Scrub potatoes and carrot and chop into small chunks
• Add the bone broth to a pot and put on medium heat
• Add potato and carrots
• Place lid on and bring to a boil then allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes
• Stir in the honey, salt, nutmeg, black pepper, and cayenne pepper
• Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes
• Remove from heat
• Use a hand blender to puree or place in a normal blender
• Stir in cream
• Serve

Enjoy!

Wellness Wednesday - Acne and diet

Acne is a very common problem for a lot of teenagers. It's pretty much expected that it will happen to some of our kids at some point in their lives and, while it's not life-threatening in any way, it can be extremely painful. It can also lead to bad scarring, not just on the skin, but internally as well because it wreaks havoc with a child's self-esteem and confidence.

What causes acne? Well, most dermatologists will tell you that the exact cause is not known. There can be many causes and, what may apply to one person, won't apply to another. We know acne starts to develop when the hair follicles (pores) of the skin become clogged with sebum, bacteria and dead skin cells. Sebum is an oily substance produced by the sebaceous (oil) glands. It's there to lubricate the skin and hair.

During puberty and throughout the teen years, there are increased levels of androgen hormones which stimulate the sebaceous glands to grow and produce more sebum. Excess sebum production can result in the follicle becoming blocked up. Something else that happens during puberty is that the skin cells of the follicle lining shed more quickly and they can form sticky clumps. Bacteria and dead skin cells can combine with the sebum in the clogged pore. The two things combined can cause an immune response resulting in inflammation.

So we know how acne develops, but, as I said, there are many factors that can cause the development to happen. In teens, obviously a major factor is the change in hormones that affect the sebaceous glands. But what is it that causes some teens to have severe acne while others have very mild, occasional acne and others have clear skin?

Heredity is known to be a factor in acne. If you had acne as a teenager, your child is likely to be susceptible. Diet, hormonal imbalance, or nervous system disorders can cause a person to be more prone to acne. For women, premenstrual acne starts a few days before each period, when progesterone hormones are at their highest. Then there are things like allergies to molds, foods, chemicals, cosmetics, and various other things that can also cause acne. There are some medications that can cause acne such as dilantin, lithium, isoniazid, iodine, steroids, and some birth control pills. In severe cases, candida-yeast overgrowth, toxic bowel, liver dysfunction and thyroid, gonadal or adrenal disorders can also cause acne.

Another important factor to consider is emotional stress and fatigue which can trigger, and exacerbate acne. Ted Grossbart is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He is also the co-author of Skin Deep: A Mind/Body Program for Healthy Skin. He points out that the skin is intimately connected with the nervous system. With acne, emotional issues can trigger an outbreak or make it worse, even when there’s a clear physical cause. In addition to working with teen-age acne patients, he is seeing patients between 20 and 40 years old with very difficult acne problems. He's found that each of these patients is dealing with adolescent issues, i.e. sexual or professional identity, separation from parents, and anger. As he works with these adults on their teen issues, their skin clears up.

In most cases, the first stop for anyone suffering with acne will be a dermatologist and the most likely treatment will be conventional medication. These will usually include a mix of creams and tablets and probably the most common medication for severe acne, Roaccutane. Unfortunately, as with most medications, it comes with horrible side effects such as depression, psychosis, aggression and mood swings. The most common side effects are dry skin, lips, hair and eyes, headaches, nosebleeds and changes in blood lipids. If it is taken during pregnancy it can lead to major birth defects. It can cause damage to your liver and it raises your blood sugar levels.

It's not something I'd want to put my child on, that's for sure. As I said, there are many factors that can cause acne. The first step is to ensure that your child feels loved, secure and happy. Teenagers who suffer from acne will suffer from a lack of confidence and self-esteem which will only make their acne worse eventually IF you, as a parent, don't work hard to constantly build them up. Remember that kids can be incredibly cruel to each other. Names like "pizza face" are pretty common for teenagers suffering from acne. That is something that your child will carry into adulthood and it often leaves far worse scars than that actual acne itself.

Some dermatologists might recommend some supplements to help the skin heal and there is nothing wrong with supplements, provided they are not synthetic and are properly prescribed. Often people ARE suffering from malnutrition due to a bad diet and, in that case, supplements can help. The problem with supplements is that, if you are suffering from problems with your colon, it's pretty likely that your body won't even be able to absorb the nutrients from the supplements and, in that case, they won't be helping at all. The other thing is that supplements are really just substitutes for a good diet. That means that, if you ARE eating a good diet, those supplements should be totally unnecessary. They're really expensive so, to me, it would make more sense to forego the supplements and fix the diet.

So that would be the second step I'd take. Fix up the diet and the colon. Most people would cut out sweets and junk and be done with it but it goes much deeper than that. So many people these days have food sensitivities.  Food sensitivities are not to be confused with food allergies. An allergy will have an immediate response on the system. It is potentially deadly and the symptoms will likely be itching, wheezing, swelling and a rash. The most common food allergies will be caused by shellfish, nuts, eggs, peanuts and dairy. Food sensitivities, on the other hand, usually take about 72 hours to show themselves. They may not be life-threatening in the short term, but they can have devastating effects in the longterm. Some of the most common food sensitivity symptoms include:

• Skin conditions like acne, eczema, psoriasis, rashes etc
• Digestive issues like constipation, diarrhea, cramping, bloating (all common symptoms of IBS)
• Headaches or migraines
• Fatigue or lack of energy
• Difficulty losing weight or obesity
• ADD/ ADHD
• Arthritis
• Ear infections
• Sinus Infections
• Achy and painful joints

Those are just some of them but there are plenty more. Just to make things a little more tricky, food sensitivities can be triggered by perfectly healthy, whole foods which means we won't even suspect them. We'll keep feeding them to our kids thinking we are doing them a favour. Some examples of foods that trigger sensitivities are:

• Wheat/Gluten 
• Grains (even soaked and sprouted) 
• Dairy  
• Eggs (often the white rather than the yolk) 
• Nuts 
• Soy
• Conventional meat
• Some fruits and vegetables

Often, simply cutting these out of a diet can fix the problem. Bear in mind, however, that it's not going to be immediate. You will need to give it some time and have some patience. It will be a process of elimination. Eliminate all of them. Give it some time and see if it clears. If it does, then slowly re-introduce them one at a time until you find the culprits. I would, however, recommend eliminating wheat and gluten permanently. While you are busy cleaning up your child's diet it's important to also clean out foods that aren't actually real foods. This means no more junk (at all), no more processed foods, no more sweet drinks like coca cola or even fruit juice and nothing that contains artificial colours or flavours.

I know that sounds incredibly hard but it's actually not. We have been eating like that for a year and a half and we don't feel in any way deprived. All you need to do is make sure that whatever your child eats is real food. In other words, you need to make it from scratch to avoid any of the wrong ingredients being put into it. There are loads of recipes on this blog that you can try out if you feel lost, from pizza to chocolate cake!

Start adding things like bone broth to your meals, only buy free-range meat, dairy and eggs and stay away from conventional produce. Stick to organic. These days it's easy to be organic. Woolies and Pick n Pay both have a lot of organic products on their shelves and the prices are affordable. If you are worried about the cost, just consider the price of the medication and supplements you will not have to buy and the side effects your child WON'T have to suffer from.

Nine times out of ten, if your child has a healthy colon, they will have healthy skin. Healthy skin leads to confidence which is going to further help their skin problem. They will also feel more energised and focused. You'll find this diet will help with any ADD and ADHD symptoms as well. 

What do you have to lose by trying?

Monday Mix-up - Why you shouldn't drink bottled, carbonated, drinks

A while back I posted a blog about Coca-Cola and why it's so bad for you. Because it was only focused on Coca Cola, I thought I'd elaborate a bit more on other drinks today. There are so many options when you walk into a shop and most of us simply go according to whatever flavour we are in the mood for at the time. What if you could make a more informed decision based on how a particular drink is going to benefit you, or not?

Unfortunately I can say, without a doubt, that pretty much ALL of the soft drinks you see on a shelf are going to be bad for you! How do I know this? Well, you only have to look as far as the ingredients to get an idea of just what kind of damage you are going to be inflicting on your body.

The basic ingredients in your average soft drink will be:

• High fructose corn syrup - I posted about this some time ago and you can follow the link to get all the info on it but, in a nutshell, it severely damages your liver, it lowers your IQ, it makes you gain body fat rapidly, it contains mercury which is highly toxic, it can cause diabetes and it fuels the growth of tumours.
• Artificial colours - Follow the link to get a more comprehensive breakdown of all the colours. They ALL contribute to the growth of tumours and most of them cause food allergies. That multi-coloured, pretty looking cake you had made for your child is, unfortunately, toxic beyond all measure. So are all the soft drinks and sweets they are eating.
• Phosphoric Acid - A highly corrosive acid that can form toxic fumes when it comes into contact with alcohols, ketones and other organic compounds. It’s used in fertilizers, livestock feed, soaps, polishes, dyes, polishing metals and in many other nonfood products. Manufacturers add it to soft drinks to give them that sharp, tangy taste and to help preserve their shelf life by slowing the growth of molds and bacteria in their drinks.
• Carbonated Water - A lot of people drink sparkling water thinking that it's a healthier choice and yes, in terms of sugar and other ingredients, yes it is. However, it has two rather awful side effects. The first is that it is very damaging to your teeth. Research conducted by Dr. David Bartlett, head of prosthodentics at the King's College in London, documented that tooth brushing with a mildly abrasive toothpaste would take 100 years to erode the top 1 mm of tooth enamel. However, a person who combines these normal tooth brushing habits with a daily habit of drinking carbonated beverages will produce the same degree of tooth erosion in just two years. The second side effect of carbonated water is that it leads to a deficiency is calcium and subsequent weakening of the bones.
• Artificial flavours - While these may make your juice taste delicious, they are terribly destructive from the moment they enter your body. They are cancer-causing, some lead to genetic defects and respiratory and cardiac failure.
• Caffeine - This has been linked to certain cancers, breast lumps, irregular heart beat and high blood pressure. You shouldn't drink more than 2 caffeine beverages a day but, first choice is, obviously, to avoid them completely.
• Preservatives - These are bad for all the same reasons that artificial colours and flavours are bad. 
• Aspartame and other sugar replacements - This is probably the worst thing you can put in your body. It causes everything from brain tumors to multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia and diabetes.

Aside from the toxic ingredients IN the actual soft drink, there is also the issue of the container that it is packaged in. Plastic soft drink, water bottles and cans contain a toxic chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) and this stuff leaches from the bottles into the soft drinks and, eventually, into you. There is plenty of research to link BPA to all sorts of maladies. It messes with your hormone levels, causes brain and behaviour problems, cancer and heart problems.

Those bottles and cans, while horribly bad for you, are just as bad for the environment. Most people don't recycle. They simply throw their cans and bottles in a bin (if we're lucky) or worse, on the ground. If they aren't being recycled, they are going to end up in a landfill eventually where they will leach toxins into the ground. Rubbish doesn't stop at a landfill. Everything works in a cycle on our planet. That means that, eventually, those toxins will end up in our rivers and oceans and come back to haunt us time and time again.

For the love of your body and your planet, next time you are thirsty, make sure you are carrying a glass water bottle filled with water, that you bought from home instead of stopping at a shop to buy something that is going to poison you AND the environment. 

Real Food Friday Feast - Tomato Soup

I LOVE tomatoes. I can eat a tomato like I eat an apple. That's how much I love them:) But one of my favourite ways to enjoy tomato is in tomato soup. The only problem is that I usually can't eat it because it often has cream in it and I'm lactose intolerant. So I went on the hunt for an easy recipe that would taste good without cream and then I did some experimenting.

If you don't eat many tomatoes, now is the time to start. They are REALLY good for you. Here's why:

• One cup of raw tomatoes is a great source of Vitamins A, C, K, folate and potassium. They also provide thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, magnesium, phosphorus and copper, all of which are necessary for good health.
• As with other fruits and vegetables, they provide protection against high blood pressure, high cholesterol, strokes, and heart disease.
• Beta-carotene, which is also found in carrots and sweet potatoes, helps protect your skin against sun damage. The lycopene in tomatoes also makes skin less sensitive to UV light damage, which causes fine lines and wrinkles.
• The vitamin K and calcium in tomatoes are both very good for strengthening and repairing bones and lycopene also has been shown to improve bone mass, which will prevent, and fight, osteoporosis.
• Lycopene (again!) can reduce the risk of several cancers, including prostate, cervical, mouth, pharynx, throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectal, prostate and ovarian cancer. Vitamins A and C are antioxidants and fight the free radicals which cause cell damage.
• Tomatoes are a very good source of chromium, which helps to regulate blood sugar.
• The vitamin A that tomatoes contain can improve vision and help prevent night blindness. Recent research shows that eating tomatoes can help reduce the risk of macular degeneration which is a serious and irreversible eye condition. Vitamin A also works to make your hair strong and shiny.
• Tomatoes can help prevent kidney stones and gallstones. 
• If you are one of the millions of people who deal with mild to moderate chronic pain (such as from arthritis or back pain), tomatoes may be a natural pain-killer for you. They are high in bioflavonoids and carotenoids, which are known anti-inflammatory agents. Chronic pain usually goes hand in hand with chronic inflammation, so attacking the inflammation is a good way to fight the chronic pain. That's why many conventional medications that fight pain are actually anti-inflammatory medications.
• Adding tomatoes to your meals can help you lose weight because they are good "filler" food. They contain lots of fibre and water so they can bulk up a meal without adding loads of calories.

By the way, lycopene, which I mentioned a few times above, becomes available when you cook the tomatoes for a bit. That is why tomato soup is a GREAT cancer fighter and preventer.

So, here's how you make it:

Tomato soup

Ingredients

3 large ripe tomatoes
2 carrots

1 medium sized sweet potato
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
olive oil/coconut oil/duck fat or butter
1.5 litres bone broth
1 Tbs organic tomato paste
1 small bunch fresh basil
Mineral salt (himalayan rock salt or sea salt)
Freshly ground black pepper

Method

• Roughly slice the carrots
• Peel and roughly chop the onions
• Peel and slice the garlic
• Put a large pot on medium heat and add about 2 Tbs olive oil
• Add all your chopped and sliced ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon
• Cook for around 10 to 15 minutes keeping the lid on but slightly skewed until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape, and the onion is lightly golden
• Add the bone broth to the pot
• Roughly chop up the sweet potato and add to the pot
• Bring to the boil then allow to simmer for 10 minutes
• Add the tomatoes and tomato paste
• Give it a good stir and bring to the boil again
• Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on
• Remove the pot from the heat
• Season with salt and pepper and add the basil leaves
• Use a hand blender or a normal blender to make the soup smooth

Don't panic when it comes out orange. Tomato soup is usually orange unless you add some kind of colouring OR you only use tinned tomatoes instead of whole ones. Even then, it still won't be as red as you think. The more "real" your food is, the better. Tinned foods tend to contain BPA so I'd avoid them. 

The sweet potato is optional. I added it when I realised my soup was thinner than I wanted. It's optional but I can tell you it makes it taste yummy! The other alternative is to only use 1 litre of bone broth but I seriously think your soup will be lacking something without the sweet potato. It takes the slight acidic edge off that tomatoes can sometimes have and just smooths it off perfectly.

Enjoy!

Wellness Wednesday - If you only had 18 days to live...

I've always loved the song, Salt Water, by Julian Lennon. I was a teenager when it was released and I was drawn to it because I have always been drawn to songs that tugged on my emotions. I didn't really think too hard about the meaning behind the words at the time. There are other things to worry about when you're a teenager;)

I usually just let my iTunes cycle through songs at random when I'm sitting here. Yesterday, it suddenly started playing and I hadn't listened to it for years so it drew me in immediately. I stopped what I was doing and, this time, I REALLY listened to the lyrics. It dawned on me just how important they actually were. This song was written in 1991. It's now 2014 and all I can think of is how much time I wasted worrying about the most ridiculous things when, in reality, I should have been worrying about something far bigger, just as the song says.

Another trip down memory lane involved us watching Armageddon on Sunday. GLM hadn't seen it yet. I had but I had forgotten the storyline. Just like the song, I think it was pretty relevant that I ended up watching it again, now. When I was younger, it was terrifying, but it was just a movie and I forgot all about it. I was far too focused on my date;) Watching it as a grown woman, it struck a chord.

It got me to thinking, what would the world do if it was suddenly faced with an abrupt ending? What would you do if you knew you only had 18 days left of life? If you knew that, after 18 days, your life, your family's lives, the lives of your friends and every other person in the world was going to simply cease to be.

It's morbid, I know. But reality often is. No-one wants to think about the fact that we are all living on a giant, spinning rock, moving through an endless solar system filled with all sorts of flying debris that could hit us at any time. The fact is that it HAS happened. 65 million years ago, a 10 kilometre asteroid struck the earth causing a global firestorm, then a cold snap and finally a global warming and that was the end of the dinosaurs. There are many other incidences but that one is definitely the most well known.

There IS a point to all this;) My point is that we get so caught up in our lives and the little things that make us human: a fight with a sibling, traffic, paying bills, losing weight, what's for dinner. All of that stuff makes it easy for us to forget just how small we are, and how insignificant we actually are in the whole scheme of things.

If we were told an asteroid or a comet was going to be hitting earth in a few days, it would certainly be something we could all comprehend. It's something tangible and inevitable. It would be unbelievably scary to face, not only your own mortality, but that of the entire human race but we wouldn't question it because it's pretty easy to prove these days with the technology we have.

But, tell a person that we are on a one-way trip to the end of the human race BECAUSE of the human race causing things like climate change and global warming and everyone scoffs. What is that all about? Is it so much harder to comprehend because it's not in our immediate sphere of understanding and experience? Green Peace has been trying for years to slow down the mass destruction of all the earth's natural resources and yet the destruction is as massive as it ever was. It's been about as effective as a 5 year old trying to stop the Gautrain with one hand. 

Have we gotten so big for our boots that we think we're indestructible? Or have we just gotten so complacent that we've forgotten how to care? Or maybe it's that it isn't going to affect us so we figure there's no point in getting worked up about it. Let's focus on that last point for a bit because it IS affecting us and you should be aware of it. Haven't you noticed how the weather has changed over the last few decades? Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods like we've never seen before. These things don't just happen out of the blue. There has to be a catalyst.

We sit at home and we watch on TV and we say, "Wow, that's just terrible. The people in charge really need to do something." Really? What are they going to do? They're doing just what they've always done which is worry about their own pockets and how it will affect them. How are they going to stop natural disasters anyway? Most of them are still ignoring global warming because it doesn't make them any money to try and find alternative options and it's not affecting them directly.

It IS affecting us and it started decades ago. We are slap bang in the middle of the earth responding to the way we are abusing it. That means it WILL continue to get worse in your lifetime but here's who it will REALLY affect: your children and your grandchildren, and THEIR children and grandchildren.

That should bother you. I don't even have kids yet and it bothers ME. I think of my nieces and nephews and the world we are going to be leaving them with and it terrifies me.

Here's what I know. It's not going to start with the people in charge. It has to start with US. If every person made a decision to do something positive for the earth, things would change. If everyone just stepped outside their little lives for a bit and focused on the bigger picture, they'd see in a heartbeat what the powers-that-be are refusing to acknowledge. WE are the ones with the power to effect change and we needed to start yesterday.

There are bigger problems than a difference in religion, sexuality or race. Life is about more than the oscar nominations, the latest beauty products and the latest fashions. Go back to that question of what you would do if you knew the human race was going to cease to be in 18 days. None of those issues would matter anymore. NONE of them. It would become about survival. The world would completely unite in their efforts to find a way to survive, right? And I bet Matthew McConaughey's oscar nomination would be the furtherest thing from your mind.

So why can't we unite in this now? Why is it so hard to comprehend that we ARE, in fact, running out of time. It may not be something as tangible as an asteroid, but it DOES exist and it's just as real.

If you're not sure about what you can do, I'll give you some pointers and I go into much more detail here:

• Eat closer to home
• Eat organic and free range
• Grow your own food
• Start a compost heap
• Get rid of your petrol lawn mower
• Use biodegradable body care
• Use biodegradable household products
• Reduce pesticides in your area
• Buy stuff that uses less packaging, or NO packaging
• Reduce, re-use and recycle
• Save water
• Save electricity

I have blogged about this before but I don't think it can be said enough so I guess I'll just keep saying it because someone, somewhere is going to sit up and take notice and that's the whole point of blogging. Don't say that you're just one person and how can it possibly make a difference. If I had that attitude I'd have stopped ages ago. The problem is, I'm AWARE now. How can I NOT do whatever I can knowing what I know? How can anyone? The internet has the power to create a star in minutes, why can't we use it to save the world? Why can't something like that go viral? Something that is so important it is literally a matter of life and death?

I live in hope.

Meanwhile, here is the song I mentioned in the beginning, complete with lyrics. Have a listen and a read. I hope it strikes the same chord with you.

Monday Mix-up - Bad diet = Bad behaviour?

Did you know that, whether they live in a first world or a third world country, most of the world's population is suffering from malnutrition? Hard to believe when a large part of the world's population is clinically obese...

The truth is that you can eat truckloads of food, but if what you are eating isn't REAL food, it's likely to be nutritionally devoid of the essential minerals and vitamins your body needs in order to function. No matter how much you eat, your body will continue to be deprived of nutrients and you will end up suffering from malnutrition without even being aware of it.

We live in increasingly violent times, particularly in South Africa. Crimes like rape, murder, hijackings burglaries are such a common part of our daily lives we have become complacent about them. Yes, we find them horrifying. But we hear about them so often on the news that we have become almost numb to them. We express our horror and then, in the same breath, talk about what's for dinner. It doesn't make us bad people. It's the nature of the beast. A person can only take so much horror before their mind finds a way to deal with it.

Violence isn't area specific. There are bad people the world over. Violence is also not specific to a particular age group, sex, nationality or income bracket. It seems that anyone, from any walk of life, can be predisposed to violence. There are so many theories as to what will make a person violent. Studies have found that there are biological factors involved, as well as individual and family factors.
A large body of research suggests that socio-economic factors like poverty, racism and socioeconomic inequality can play a big role in violent behavior, but not everyone agrees on this theory.

The fact is, no-one really knows for sure. Everything I listed earlier is just theory. So, while we're on theories, I'm going to throw one out there too. I'm going to suggest that another factor could have to do with the food we eat, or DON'T eat.

I'm not just making this up. In my previous blog post on making butter, I briefly mentioned that trans fats have been linked to violence. It made me decide to look into a bit further. What I found was disturbing.

In the first human study of its kind, researchers have linked trans fat consumption to increased aggression. The study was published in the Public Library of Science's journal on the 5th March 2012. Researchers at the Department of Medicine at the University of California decided to investigate based on the following:

"Dietary trans fatty acids (dTFA) are primarily synthetic compounds that have been introduced only recently; little is known about their behavioral effects. dTFA inhibit production of omega-3 fatty acids, which experimentally have been shown to reduce aggression. Potential behavioral effects of dTFA merit investigation. We sought to determine whether dTFA are associated with aggression/irritability."

The study looked at 945 adult men and women who had normal levels of cholesterol and didn't suffer from diabetes, HIV, cancer or heart disease. Based on the outcome of the study, the researchers found that there is unequivocal evidence linking dTFA with behavioral irritability and aggression.

Aside from the fact that people are eating more and more trans fats, there is also the issue of what they AREN'T eating. According to a report published in 2013 by the Weston A. Price Foundation, deficiencies of vitamins A, D, K, B1, B3, B6, B12 and folate, and of the minerals iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium, zinc, chromium and manganese can all contribute to mental instability and violent behavior.

The article, "Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight" was compiled by Sylvia Onusic, PhD, CNS, LDN. Onusic says, "We can blame violence on the media and on the breakdown of the home, but the fact is that a large number of Americans, living mostly on devitalized processed food, are suffering from malnutrition. In many cases, this means their brains are starving."

Frighteningly, we are seeing a return of diseases caused by nutritional deficiency such as Scurvy and Pellagra. Scurvy was a common disease for sailors who travelled on ships for months at a time. Because they couldn't store fresh fruits and vegetables, the sailors would have to do without them for long periods of time and this lead to a deficiency in Vitamin C. Both diseases were declared eradicated long ago by public health officials. In this day and age it seems unbelievable that, with so much access to nutritional food, people are choosing to deprive themselves and instead eat foods that are plastic and toxic. Many of these diseases cause brain injuries as well.

Pellagra includes symptoms like anxiety, hyperactivity, aggression, depression, fatigue, headache, insomnia and hallucinations. It's a disease caused by a deficiency of niacin (vitamin B3). Zinc deficiency is linked with angry, aggressive, and hostile behaviors that lead to violence. The best dietary sources of zinc are red meat and shellfish but people are choosing to eat junk food over quality red meat and shellfish. Something else to consider is that, while people may be eating this stuff, it may not even be making it into their bodies because so many people these days suffer from things like leaky gut, IBS and gluten sensitivities. Gluten intolerance is strongly linked with schizophrenia.

Onusic goes on to say, "Making things worse are excitotoxins so prevalent in the food supply, such as MSG and Aspartame. People who live on processed food and who drink diet sodas are exposed to these mind-altering chemicals at very high levels."

Other processed foods that are linked to violent behavior include sugar, artificial colours and flavourings, caffeine, alcohol and soy foods. Environmentally we are exposed to things like mercury, arsenic, lead, fire retardants, pesticides, heavy metals and Teflon (the non-stick in our frying pans) on a daily basis. Do you have mercury fillings? I'd look into getting rid of those for many reasons. If a person is showing signs of aggression or violent behaviour and you add psychiatric medication to the mix, it is like creating a time-bomb.

The Weston A. Price Foundation has pointed out the poor nutritional quality of school lunches and the flaws in the USDA dietary guidelines which everyone seems determined to follow. At a press conference in January, 2010, the Foundation proposed guidelines that include eggs, organ meats and healthy animal fats. In the words of the foundation spokesman, “Our brains need cholesterol to function properly and our children need cholesterol-rich food for optimal mental and emotional development.”

Studies have shown that people who are depressed, criminals who show the most violent behavior, and the most violent suicides have low cholesterol levels. According to Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, “The only solution to the mounting levels of violence is a return to real, nutrient-dense food. We must create a culture in which eating processed food is seen as uncool, and in which home cooking is embraced as a life-enhancing skill.”

There's enough evidence to make a person think. It's not all just theory. If food has been scientifically linked to causing ADHD symptoms, how far removed is that from bad behaviour? For a thorough rundown of all the things you should be eating, read through the whole article: Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight. If you don't feel like doing that, here is a list of foods to start including in yours and your family's diet with immediate effect:

• Organic fruit and vegetables
• Free-range meat
• Full-cream, free-range and organic dairy products
• Free-range eggs
• Organ meats like liver and kidney
• Butter
• Fermented foods

Cut out EVERYTHING that is processed in any way. That pretty much includes just about anything in packaging of any kinds and lives on the middles shelves of a grocery store. Don't buy fruit and vegetables that are out of season and never eat conventional meat. If you think that you'll starve without all that stuff, have a look through some of my Real Food Friday Feast posts to see how easy it is to make real, tasty, nutritious food.

It's hard to change a mindset and yet, it's never been more urgent. For so many reasons we need to start doing things the right way. We have a planet to think of and we have the survival of the human race to think of and, to bring it closer to home, we have our own lives and our children's lives to think of. For the sake of all of that, share these posts and spread the word. 

Meanwhile, I'll just keep posting because it's bound to make a difference to someone, somewhere.

Real Food Friday Feast - How to make butter (yes, it's actually good for you!)

I love being able to make things at home that I've always had to rely on a grocery store to supply me with! The problem with buying from a grocery store is that you never really know what you're getting. Making it at home means you can control exactly what goes into it.

Butter was something I'd been wanting to tackle for a while but I needed to collect enough cream first. That's because butter is actually just cream that has been whipped into a frenzy;) How did I collect my cream? Well, I've been buying us raw milk from a local smallholding for the last few months. I don't know if you've had raw milk before but it is EXCEPTIONALLY creamy. If you leave it to sit for a while, all of the cream will rise to the top and you will end up with a layer of cream about 5cm thick in your milk bottle.

Some people live for that layer of cream. GLM doesn't. She actually hates it. So, every time she drank a glass of milk, she would scoop the cream off the top and add it to a container in the freezer. We collected cream over about 3 months. I wasn't in a rush to make butter obviously;) To be honest, I was a bit nervous that it wouldn't work so I kept putting it off but, eventually, I had a good amount of cream and I decided to bite the bullet and try.

Before we go any further, perhaps I should deal with the myth that butter is really bad for your heart.

That's what I think about THAT!

Butter is incredibly GOOD for you. It's margarine that is going to kill you. I just wish I could find a way to make the world believe that. I know how hard it is to break out of a mindset. I used to be just like you. I avoided ANY saturated fats. It took me months to come around but, once I did, I was happy to admit I was wrong. Thank goodness, in all my years of not eating butter I didn't touch margarine either because I just lumped it into the same category as butter and classed it as unhealthy.

It IS unhealthy. But not for the reason I thought it was at the time. The sad truth is that, for decades, the world's morning slice of toast has been completely ruined by replacing good, wholesome butter with chemical-laden, man-made, toxic margarine.

The great BUTTER VS. MARGARINE debate

For the last 5 or so decades, the food processing industry has used advertising campaigns to, very successfully, lie about the urgent need to replace “unhealthy” butter with “healthy” margarine. Ironically, it was science that started the problem by incorrectly suggesting butter MIGHT be the bad guy. Now, it's science we can thank for finally coming forward and admitting that this teaching was nothing more than made-up.

Amazingly, even back in the 60's and 70's there was more than enough scientific evidence to prove that butter was way better than margarine for your health. Unfortunately it was too late. Someone had already put it out there, the industrial fake food industry had cottoned on and started putting money into an alternative and they began to relentlessly convince the world to eat margarine for health reasons. If they didn't do it, someone was going to lose money and isn't that what it always comes down to?

It's scary how prophetic this 1970's advert actually was. Mother nature got shafted while the fake food industry actually managed to convince all of us that fake was better. And we bought into the propaganda.

Here is some info on margarine:

The main ingredients in margarine are vegetable oils like soybean or safflower oil. The problem with vegetable oils is that they are mostly unsaturated, and unsaturated oils are liquid at room temperature. Makes them pretty hard to spread!

But the fake food industry came up with a solution to this problem: They subjected the vegetable oils to a hydrogenation process. This process had two advantages for the manufacturer: it prolonged the shelf life of the margarine and it made them harder at room temperature. Basically, the process of hydrogenation made unsaturated fats resemble saturated fats.

You may be unfamiliar with the term, hydrogenated fats. Let me put it in a language that you'll understand: They are also known as trans fats. These days very few people HAVEN'T heard of trans fats and they KNOW that they are highly toxic. Margarine has always been chock-full of trans fats but these days you do get some that profess to be trans fat-free. However, you should be aware that manufacturers can label their products trans-fat free as long as there is less than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving. If you are unsure, get to know your terms. If it says hydrogenated anywhere on that label, stay away. Trust me when I say that even small amounts of trans fats can lead to heart disease.

Here's what trans fats do to you:

Partially hydrogenated fatty acids damage arteries and blood vessels. They lower good cholesterol, and raise blood levels of triglycerides and lipoproteins which damages your heart and cardiovascular system. They also raise something called C-reactive protein which is an inflammatory and cellular dysfunction marker. They actually prevent your body from using essential omega 3-fatty acids and prostaglandins, which are needed to get rid of blood clots. What's even worse is that a diet high in partially hydrogenated fatty acids will eventually lead to heart disease, insulin resistance and type 2 Diabetes.

As if that isn't enough, it isn't only the trans fats in margarine that could be harming you. The soybean and safflower oil used in margarine, can be seriously harmful on their own. These types of oils are the biggest sources of polyunsaturated Omega-6 fatty acids. You may think that's good but it's not. We are already eating TOO much omega-6 fatty acids in our diets. It's a real problem because several studies link excessive consumption of polyunsaturated vegetable oils with cancer and the very thing margarine is supposed to prevent: heart disease. Strangely enough, it's also connected to excessive violence.

But back to margarine: 

Here is the whole process of making margarine:

• Vegetable oils are extracted from corn, cottonseed, soybeans or safflower seeds. Hexane, which is an organic compound commonly used as a solvent, is used in the extraction process.
• The oil is steam cleaned to remove most impurities. Steaming also destroys vitamins and antioxidants.
• Hydrogen gas is bubbled through liquid oil in the presence of a catalyst (usually nickel). This forces unsaturated fatty acids to become saturated and solid. The more complete the hydrogenation process, the firmer the finished product. Margarine undergoes partial hydrogenation, to make it semi-solid. Partial hydrogenation produces a lumpy grey grease and results in the formation of trans-fats. (Can anyone say blegh!?)
• Emulsifiers are added to remove lumps and bleach is added to get rid of the grey color.
• Then it goes through a second steam cleaning to remove chemical odors.
• Synthetic vitamins, artificial colors and a natural yellow color are added.

And all of this is healthy how exactly? Knowing all this, why would anyone choose to eat this poison?

In case you aren't convinced as to why butter is better, I'll give you 5 reasons why:

• Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) - Raw organic butter has loads of anti- tumor CLA. It prevents the growth of cancer cells in the skin, colon, breasts and lungs. It’s anti-fungal and it stimulates muscle growth while at the same time preventing weight gain.
• Butyric Acid - Butter contains 4% butyric acid – a short chain fatty acid that can prevent the growth of tumors. It also signals the immune system to start working when an infection is starting in the body.
• Vitamin K2 - Raw, organic butter and cream contains vitamin K2 which is necessary for vitamin D synthesis. K2 also moves calcium out of your blood stream and into your bone cells which increases bone density instead of calcifying arterial and heart tissue. You can read this article on vitamin K deficiency symptoms for more info.
• Fat–Soluble Vitamins - Butter is a great source of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, and E. It also does a great job of helping your body to assimilate them.
• The Wulzen Factor - Raw, unpasteurised butter, cream and milk contain something called the “Wulzen factor” which protects against calcification of the joints, or osteoarthritis. It also protects against cataracts, and the calcification of the pineal gland. Pasteurization destroys the Wulzen Factor so you need to eat raw butter to get this benefit.

There is basically NOTHING negative about eating butter. In fact, your body NEEDS it to function properly. Your lungs, heart, immune system liver, bones, hormones and cell membranes all need high quality saturated fats for healthy cell membranes, hormone and vitamin D production, and the transport and utilisation of important vitamins and minerals.

The good thing about using the cream from the raw milk to make my butter is that it also contains the Wulzen Factor. It's very hard to get your hands on raw butter. You won't find it in any shops and even farmer's markets seem to only stock pasteurised butter.

It was quite a process making my butter but it's not alway that complicated. I'll give you the basic rundown and then I'll give you some options for troubleshooting your butter making.

How to make butter

Ingredients

Cream (if you want it to be extremely healthy, use raw cream but, at the very least, use organic)

Method

• Make sure your cream is room temperature before you even start (this is very important and I'll explain why later)
• Place cream in a glass jar and seal the lid
• Shake the jar for anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes (this is a great arm workout too;) )
• You'll eventually notice that there is a hard lump in the jar and some milky liquid
• Place a cloth over a bowl and pour the contents of the jar onto the cloth
• Gather up the ends of the cloth and let all the liquid drip out. Give it a while to drain.
• Place the solid lump of butter in a bowl and pour some ice water over it
• Using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the water for a few minutes
• Repeat the process of pouring the butter and liquid onto a cloth covering a bowl
• Gather up the ends of the cloth, tie a piece of string around them and tie it from the handle of one of your kitchen cupboards with the bowl underneath to catch all the liquid
• Leave it to drip for several hours. You can even squeeze the lump of butter to speed up the process.
• Open up the cloth and, voila, you have butter! It should keep in the fridge for 2 weeks (if it lasts that long!)

Finally! I made my own butter!

Troubleshooting

So, my first mistake was not waiting for the cream to warm up to room temperature. 

My second mistake was using my electric mixer first off.

Basically, if the cream isn't warm enough, it won't thicken AND, if you mix it too fast, it breaks down the fat instead of thickening it. After about 30 minutes of beating my cream to death, it was still completely liquid! I put it back in the container and in the fridge and did some research to see where I went wrong. 

The next day I took it out of the fridge and allowed it to warm to room temperature and then I used the shaking method and shook it in my jar for 20 minutes.

It did separate but it was essentially STILL just thick cream and some liquid... I wasn't beaten yet! I separated the liquid and cream and placed the thick cream in a container and back in the fridge and went back to my research!

The next day I placed the cream (which was pretty rock hard by now) in a bowl, added some ice water and mixed it with my electric mixer. Within a few minutes I had butter! The advantage of the water was that it cleaned off the last bits of liquid. The liquid is actually buttermilk and it's quite sour so it will ruin the taste of your butter and it will make it spoil faster.

I don't think it always has to be such a process. Every site you google tells you it happens pretty much immediately. You can't go wrong with shaking it. It is the best way to get it to separate and it really isn't as hard to do as it sounds! I thought it would be exhausting. It actually happened so fast I was completely taken by surprise. I'm sure I probably could have just used my electric mixer then and there with some ice water but, frankly, I needed a break;) My research had also told me that, once the cream was thickened, it seemed to turn to butter faster if it was cold.

All of the hard work paid off. The butter we have is so sweet and creamy and, even better, it's raw so it's loaded with all sorts of yummy goodness!

You may not end up with a LOT of butter but hey, I can say I made my own butter! And that, in itself, is quite a thrill:)

Wellness Wednesday - Should ALL children with ADHD SYMPTOMS be medicated?

These days it seems like every second child has been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and is on Ritalin or Concerta or some other medication meant to help them, and their parents and teachers, cope. For a while now I've been thinking about doing a blog post on it, but first I wanted to do as much research as I could on the topic.

I've listened to mother's talking about their kids and, what I have noticed is that they think GP's are VERY quick to diagnose and prescribe medication without even referring the child to a specialist first. It doesn't surprise me. There are very few doctor's that I know of that would actually take the time to try different options and make absolutely sure that medication is the only option.

I, for one, would be terrified to put my child on permanent medication. I refuse to even take a panado myself, so the thought of having to keep my child medicated on a daily basis is anathema to me. There is a time and a place for medicine but, in cases where they may be another option, I would be far more willing to consider that first.

There IS another option, but unfortunately, there are very few doctors who are open to it right now. However, there have been enough tests to prove that it is a very real and relevant option and I wonder why more parents don't try it. It's called...

Food.

Hear me out before you roll your eyeballs at me. You know I am a firm believer in using food as a medication. It works for me and it works for countless others out there. I'm not alone. So please hear me out?

My issue with an ADHD diagnosis is that it really sometimes seems like it's more convenient for the parents and the teachers then it is for the children. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cases where the parents and the teachers clearly want what's best for the children and doctors try to find ways to help them and try to figure out what exactly is going on. But there seem to be more cases where the doctors simply diagnose, write the script and move on. Parents don't know any different. They think it's the only alternative and so the child ends up on chronic medication, no questions asked.

ADHD symptoms are caused by problems with the frontal lobe of the brain, and while several neurotransmitters are involved, it seems that it is an inefficiency of dopamine transmission that may be the key issue. There ARE families who seem to have more instances of ADHD than others and have known genetic issues with their dopamine receptors. It's natural, therefore, to simply assume that the problem is genetics related to dopamine and that, if a child has the symptoms, we need to hand them dopamine in the form of a ritalin tablet, and that's that.

Here's the problem with that: A LOT of different issues can cause problems with the frontal lobe and other associated ADHD areas. It's not just genetic. Here are some examples of things that will affect our ability to stay focused:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Lack of sleep 
• Inflammation
• Eating habits

How you fare when faced with all of these will probably be linked to your genetics as well as your environment. A family with bad sleeping or eating habits may ALL end up having ADHD symptoms JUST as the family with a genetic dopamine problem does. Ritalin will help perk up the frontal lobe for sure, regardless of the cause. No doubt that you'll see an improvement. The problem is, you are basically ignoring an ongoing environmental issue that is actually damaging the brain while you mask the symptoms with, what is effectively, nothing more than a plaster.

That's the problem with medication in general. It never actually fixes the problem, it merely masks it. Your child may be hyperactive and have trouble concentrating because they react badly to sugar or to processed foods or grains. They may be anxious, depressed or not getting enough sleep. Getting to the root of the problem might be all that it took to help them focus. That would allow your child to still be the person they need to be, instead of transforming them into a little robot that simply acts like all the other pupils in their class.

That is an unfortunate side effect of Ritalin. It stops people from feeling, thinking and reacting in their natural way. While it may help them focus on school, I have to wonder if school is ALL that it should be about. Isn't their development as a person just as important? If not more so? What they study, and the marks they get, shouldn't be what defines them. It's their personality that ultimately makes them who they are and helps them to succeed in whatever they do. It's what drives them.

A HUGE amount of ADD and ADHD diagnoses have been linked to food sensitivities. Doctors won't talk about and yet it's true. There have been MANY tests done.

One of them was a study done by Dr. Lidy Pelsser of the ADHD Reserach Centre in the Netherlands. The study determined that food may be the key to treating ADHD and was published in The Lancet journal. It suggests that with a very restrictive diet, kids with ADHD could experience a significant reduction in symptoms.

According to Dr. Pelsser:

“The disorder is triggered in many cases by external factors and those can be treated through changes to one's environment. ADHD, it's just a couple of symptoms, it's not a disease. The way we think about, and treat these behaviors is wrong. There is a paradigm shift needed. If a child is diagnosed ADHD, we should say, 'OK, we have got those symptoms, now let's start looking for a cause.' “

Pelsser compares ADHD to eczema. He says, “The skin is affected, but a lot of people get eczema because of a latex allergy or because they are eating a pineapple or strawberries."

What he's basically saying is, how can you possibly prescribe any kind of medication without knowing the cause? If you can find the cause, you can eliminate it and, voila, no eczema OR medication.

A whopping 64% of kids diagnosed with ADHD are actually just experiencing a hypersensitivity to food. If all parents knew that I doubt they would actually CHOOSE to just put their child on medication without trying to find out if their child is one of the 64%.

Pelsser's study was done with a group of children at a school, who were all ADD/ADHD diagnosed. They were put on a VERY restricted diet for 5 weeks and their behaviour was documented throughout the study. Teachers and parents were AMAZED. After the study the kids turned into “normal” kids with “normal” behaviour. They ceased to be distracted or forgetful and the temper tantrums stopped altogether.

This doesn't mean that diet is the answer for all kids, of course. Diet is the biggest cause, but, as I said, there are other causes. Work your way through ALL of them BEFORE YOU decided to simply put them on medication. Once you have eliminated every possibility, THEN you can resort to the meds. They should honestly be the absolute LAST resort.

So, what is this diet? Well, there are quite a few variations but the ones that seem to work the best are paleo-based, real food diets. ALL processed foods need to be eliminated completely as well as gluten, sugar and dairy. I know a lot of you will say' “How is this possible?!” But the question you should be asking is, “Do I have a choice?”

If you had to choose between putting your child on chronic medication or depriving them of ice-cream, chips and sweets, to me it would be a no-brainer. No child should be eating that stuff anyway. It's laden with chemicals that will be causing a lot more issues than just ADHD. You'll be doing your child the hugest favour if you teach them how to eat real food. You'll be prolonging their life and helping to prevent them from getting a far worse, chronic disease in the future.

Life doesn't end when you eat real food. In fact, there is a whole world of delicious, wholesome food that you have yet to discover! And it's an amazing world! I have uploaded MANY recipes that you can try out for your family. They include cakes and other sweet stuff too. Your child doesn't have to never eat any treats again. It's the nature of those treats that will change. Have a look through some of my Real Food Friday Feast posts for ideas on what to cook and bake and put your child on a diet for a few weeks. If the behaviour improves, you are on the right track. If it doesn't, you may need to revisit things. Do this in conjunction with a health professional who is going to SUPPORT you, not ridicule you or tell you you are wasting your time.

Your child deserves the best help they can get, and so do you. I hope you have LOTS of success with this!

Monday Mix-up - Have we lost our sense of humanity?

Our country is being caught up in a terrifying wave of Xenophobia as we speak. People are being killed for the "unspeakable sin" of being born in a country different to ours. It would sound completely crazy if it wasn't so horrifyingly real. I feel ashamed to call myself South African right now.

What is it that makes one human being hate another human being with such passion? Especially if they don't take the time to know a person. How is it possible for us to look at someone and see only their nationality, colour, religion or sexual orientation? What is that makes us look away from a person in a wheelchair, or someone who is hard of hearing or visually impaired? We treat clinically obese people, homeless people and people who, by society's standards, don't have the "correct" look about them, as if they are anathema to the human race.

Right now, a lot of South Africans are hating foreign nationals simply because they're here, in our country. Hitler hated the Jewish peoples simply because they existed. In apartheid days, the whites hated the blacks simply because they existed. All of these things started with one or two people filled with hate, and they spread that hatred every chance they got. But the hatred didn't just end there. It manifested into crimes so brutal, one wonders how any human being could stand it and how any human being could DO it. What inspires such hatred in people?

Well I have my own opinion about that. But you're wondering what this has to do with Mellow Health. Well, I believe that everything around us, and everything that we are, is connected. I'm not a religious person. In fact, I personally think religion is to blame for a lot of the world's problems and is responsible for a great deal of the heartache in the world. I don't believe in any god. I believe in the power within all of us and the connectivity of that power to the universe as a whole. I am a firm believer that nothing happens by accident. I don't believe in coincidences. I think this is very relevant to what my blog centres around, and that is an awareness, and a consciousness, not only of ourselves, but of the world around us and every living creature in it.

Why else would you want to live consciously if not for the sake of Mother Earth and all the creatures that depend on her to live? Why would we bother to recycle, buy free range and organic and use environmentally friendly products if NOT for the sake of the Earth and all her inhabitants?

The sad thing is that most people DON'T do any of the above and it would never enter their heads to even start. In fact, most people are so focused on their own needs and wants that they can barely focus on the person in front of them, never mind the Earth and everything else on it.

Unfortunately, it's this attitude, this total lack of awareness of each other, that starts having a ripple affect on everything around us. This is what we teach our kids and, the more this lack of awareness spreads, the less people seem to care about anyone but themselves.

An example of this is when GLM and I decided to go for a road cycle around our area and do some exploring. I quickly became very aware of how vulnerable I felt on my little bike, with just a plastic helmet for protection. Motorists actually pay little to NO attention to anything other than themselves, on the road. Cars would come speeding up behind us and then skim past us with barely enough space to miss us, going at over 80kms an hour. Rest assured, we took back roads to try and avoid too many cars AND we hugged the shoulder of the road everywhere that we went and never cycled 2 abreast.

That made no difference to the cars. The general behaviour and reaction to us suggested that we were very much in their way and keeping them from their very important lives and, if they had to run us down to get to their very important lives, they would. Can I just stress that not one of these was a taxi. These were young guys and girls, people with families, (and kids without seatbelts which I will NEVER understand!??!!!) elderly people, people of all races, shapes and sizes.

I've lived in Johannesburg for about 8 years in total, and I know how crazy the roads are. It's every person for themselves. But has it occurred to anyone just how selfish that is? It's almost as if being in a car gives someone the right to strip any humans inside the other cars of ALL that makes them human. They just seem to see them as an annoyance that needs to be moved aside as soon as possible.

It reminds me of the way we treat ants. We stomp on them, pour water on them, spray them with poison, anything to get them out of our space because they are an inconvenience. We don't think about what they might be feeling shortly before death hits them unawares. We are so focused on our own needs and wants. When you are speeding along a residential road, you aren't thinking about what might happen if you hit someone. You are only thinking of where YOU need to be. But, if you hit a cyclist or runner, that will change in an instant. And yet, I bet your first thought will still be how this will affect YOUR life, not, "Is the person I hit ok?"

When did we stop really SEEING other living creatures? When did we lose our sense of humanity? Our sense of empathy? Even when we do meet up with someone else, if they don't match up to our preconceived ideas of what a person should be, we brush them aside without a second thought and we've already moved on. We take that first impression and we use it to find them wanting because they don't fit the mould. They're too skinny, too fat, too ugly, too short, the wrong colour, the wrong nationality, they're gay, lesbian, black, asian, they talk too much, not enough, they don't know how to have fun, they're depressing and boring etc.

Sure, we all have different connections to people and not everyone is going to be a lifelong friend. But EVERYONE has a story, and everyone has a life that is precious to them. Most people are fighting battles in some way or other in their lives and everyone, until they prove otherwise, is deserving of dignity and respect. Even then, there is probably a reason they are the way they are. If you don't like them, move on. But do it without causing any harm.

It's part of the hippocratic oath but I think it should be something we all strive to live by. For most people it's more like, "First, let me get what I want."

I admit it: I used to be young and stupid. I'm sure most of us have been there at some point. You think you're invincible and you do stupid things without thinking of consequences. I'm not proud of it, but I also know that I wouldn't be who I was if I hadn't gone through those lessons. Despite that, I have always had a very strong sense of empathy. I hated to see people hurting. Seeing a person homeless and on the streets often brought tears to my eyes. The fact that I can't help everyone that needs it, hurts. That doesn't mean I haven't hurt people. We all hurt those we love at some point in our lives. We make mistakes that cause harm. That's how life goes. We're human and we're fallible. And the pain you feel over hurting someone is a terrible pain to live with. That is also part of being human, or it should be.

It's because we're all different that we often end up doing things like that, and that difference is a good thing actually. The world would be a dull place if we were all the same. BUT, we can be outspoken and honest without being cruel. We can disagree with someone's opinion without breaking them down in the process. We can dislike how a person lives their lives without disliking the actual person and ALWAYS, we can respect people DESPITE our differences.

It takes a lot of energy to hate a person. I often wonder why anyone would want to put themselves through that. Every day that you live on this Earth is a gift. The idea that someone could waste that gift on hatred is crazy to me. And again I come back to the question: what inspires such hatred?

My personal opinion is that hate is based on fear. We fear what we don't understand, we fear what we can't control and change and we fear losing what we have. If a person filled with fear feels threatened, and they perceive anything to be an imminent threat, they are going to react to protect themselves and their loved ones. Usually, it's not a rational reaction.

Unfortunately, I'm well aware that there are people who actively hate me. It's such a STRONG emotion I often wonder how it's possible to feel it and I wonder what inspires it in them. On my weaker days I wonder what I did to inspire that but deep down I KNOW that it isn't all on me. I can honestly say that I don't hate anyone. There are people I don't particularly like! But I feel mostly indifferent to them. I would still be polite to them if I saw them and I definitely don't actively think of ways to cause them pain. Hating them would mean I'd have to think about them consciously every day and focus on that emotion. What a waste of time and energy.

I can't imagine how draining it would be and how destructive it would be. I think that kind of fear-based hatred would be enough to drive a person insane. Look at Hitler. His fear of the jewish people caused him to hate them with such a passion that he forgot that they were even human. It drove him insane, literally. Only a man who was clinically insane could perform such heinous atrocities. That kind of hatred and fear can be contagious. He managed to spread it throughout an entire country! How scary is that? If you allow yourself to hate, pretty soon, you will affect those around you. You will forget reasoning and sensibility and it will be all about your hatred. Families have disintegrated because of it. Wars have started for the same reason.

About a year and a half ago, we lost one of the greatest humans to ever grace the earth with his presence, Nelson Mandela. If anyone ever earned the right to hate, it was him, but he never did. He taught us one of the greatest lessons a human being can teach others. He showed us the true meaning of empathy and forgiveness.

Most of us will never go through even a bit of what he experienced in his lifetime and yet we find it hard to see the person in the car at the stop street opposite us, as human. We hold on to hurts, imagined or real, as if they are the be-all and end-all in our lives and we allow them to define us and shape our lives. We allow fear to engulf us, we refuse to try and find understanding and our world becomes smaller and smaller and more insulated as we struggle to avoid anything that might change the delicate balance in our lives.

What is the worst that can happen? You will find you actually DON'T think the same as another person and that's really okay. Smile and move on. If a person hurts you, try to understand it first. Don't attack back without knowing the cause. All that will do is leave you even more hurt and full of anger. If they won't answer you, then move on and take it as a lesson learnt. Take it from someone who's learnt that lesson...

Try not to judge someone without knowing their story. If you aren't interested in their story, then just move quietly past them without adding to it. Most people don't need MORE heartache in their lives. They have enough already. They just hide it well because society demands it.

If you are going to send out a ripple in your life, make sure it's one that touches lives positively. If wars can be started from fear and hate, imagine what the power of love and understanding can do?

It starts small, with just one person. Why not let that person be you?

Real Food Friday Feast - Spinach, tomato and mushroom quiche

Everyone is looking for light, healthy meals right now. First of all, it's just too hot to eat anything heavy, and second of all, everyone is on a diet, right? Tell me you HAVEN'T made a decision to lose all your holiday fat in January;) I don't believe you!

Normally, I'd say stay far away from a quiche. But that's only because most quiches are made with a wheat crust base meaning I can't eat them. Not only that, gluten is actually really bad for everyone, not just me, so if you want to stay healthy, you should be avoiding it altogether. Also, the base not only makes the quiche pretty unhealthy for you, but also adds LOADS of calories to your meal so, if you're trying to cut down, conventional quiche is not really the way to go.

However, the rest of the ingredients in the quiche are so good for you, provided you use nice free-range cheese and organic veggies that is. All that is easy enough to get from Woolies and even Pick n Pay have come to the party with their organic stock.

There are a few options for a wheat-free crust such as chickpea flour and coconut flour but today, I'm going with a sweet potato crust because they're yummy and they're full of goodness. You can also feel free to play around with your filling. I went with these ingredients because they were on hand but really, anything goes!

Spinach, tomato and mushroom Quiche

The Crust

Ingredients

2 medium-sized raw sweet potatoes (keep the skins on, just give them a good scrub)
2½ Tbs melted butter

Mineral salt (himalayan rock salt or sea salt)

Method

Preheat oven to 230° C
Grate the sweet potato (you need to end up with about 2 cups)
Add a bit of sea salt to season
Pour the butter over the grated potato and mix well
Press the potato into a pie dish so that it covers the bottom of the dish as well as the sides
Bake for 20 minutes then turn the oven down to 180° C

Filling

1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
1 handful chopped spinach

6 eggs
1 clove garlic, finely chopped

Butter

Salt and pepper
Origanum

About 6 button mushrooms, chopped (or whichever mushrooms you prefer!)
½ cup grated cheese (This is optional but it makes it extra yummy. Just make sure it's organic or free-range)

Method

In a frying pan, cook onion and garlic in a bit of butter
Add a pinch of salt and pepper

Sprinkle some origanum over it

Once the onion is soft, add the tomatoes and mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes

Remove from heat
Whisk 6 eggs in a mixing bowl
Add the cooked vegetables to the egg in the mixing bowl

Pour mixture over the sweet potato crust
Top with grated cheese and add another sprinkle of origanum over the top
Bake for 30 minutes
Allow 10 minutes for quiche to cool before cutting up

Enjoy!

This whole dish takes about 15 minutes max to prepare, not including the baking time of course. But it's a quick, easy, healthy meal and I guarantee, everyone is going to love it. I'd recommend serving it with a side salad but that's entirely up to you:)

Wellness Wednesday - Post holiday detoxing

I had a feeling that title would get people's attention;) After a holiday filled with overindulging in every way, everyone is now looking for the quick fix. I imagine it as a car that's been 4x4ing in a rainforest for 2 weeks and has dirt in every orifice. Now you want to simply put it through a wash and clean out all the dirt. But what if you still continued to drive that car on a muddy dirt road every day? Let me tell you that you will STILL be finding dirt on that car pretty much for the rest of your days, no matter how many times you wash it!

I don't place much faith in detoxes for the same reason I don't believe that that car will ever come clean. As long as you keep adding to the "dirt", you are fighting a losing battle.

I had a couple of friends who decided to do the Master Cleanse. You know the one where Beyonce lost 20 pounds in 2 weeks? (You live on a ridiculous diet of water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper and nothing else.)

Within 24 hours of starting the detox, they had the most horrific headaches and they felt horribly nauseous. By day 2 other symptoms included fatigue, dizziness, irritability, mood swings, intense cravings, sinus drainage, diarrhea/constipation, flu-like symptoms, brain fog, increased urination, increased appetite and a raging thirst. Needless to say, no-one lasted past day 3 on that detox! Let's face it, it would take extreme dedication to push through all of that to the other side.

Here's the thing that people don't take into account when it comes to detoxing. Your body has had open season with every manner of chemical, toxin and stimulant for YEARS. Forget about the 2 week holiday you've just had. The only difference between the holidays and daily life is that it's more concentrated. The fact is that, for most, if not ALL of your life, you have eaten and drunk pretty much whatever you want. Even when you were trying to be healthy, you were still probably eating conventional meat, fruit and vegetables, coffee or tea and sugar-free soft drinks. Now, all of a sudden, all of that is coming to a screeching halt. No warning, no easing gently onto the brakes. Just SCREEEEEECH!

So basically, with immediate effect, you deprived your body of caffeine, sugar, alcohol, sweets (which are the same as, but also different to, sugar because they contain so much other rubbish) gluten and MSG to name a few. What did you expect your body to do? Unfortunately it is not going to thank you. It is going to go into a state of absolute shock and withdrawal. Imagine you were a cocaine addict and you stopped cold turkey. You've seen it in movies. It's not easy at all. In fact, it's far from pretty. This is really no different.

If you are 30 years old and you decided it's time to a detox, you are making changes to a body that has been in pretty much the same routine for the last 30 years. It's a sure bet that you are going to feel sick as your body tries to adjust to the changes! The question is, why would you only do this after a holiday?

We are all aware that we indulge ourselves on holidays and I guess that's what makes us feel the need to do a clean out. We feel a bit guilty. The thing with the detox is not just the horribly withdrawal you experience, its the fact that it only lasts a couple of weeks at most and then it's over and we go back to the way we were before and within a couple of weeks we are right back where we started. What a waste of time and effort.

Our bodies naturally detox every day. Considering the amount of rubbish we put in them, it's pretty scary the amount of pressure we are putting them under but it rallies and it cleans out the rubbish, daily. The problem is that, over time, our bodies collect SO MANY toxins from beauty products, food and the environment, that it doesn't know what to do with them and so it stores them outside of the regular elimination system, in the body fat, to prevent them poisoning the body. These build up over time and they are going to make you feel pretty awful and eventually make you very ill, probably terminally.

You're thinking that a detox is probably the best solution then, right? I agree, but not in the way you think. I don't think a 2 week detox crash diet is going to be the solution. I DO think that you need to clean your body up, however.

You probably won't like what I'm going to say next, because no-one likes to do the hard work or take the road less travelled but that's pretty much what you are going to have to do. You are also probably going to want to do it nice and slowly. It's going to involve change and that change needs to be a longterm thing, not just a 2 week thing. The best way to detox your body is to make a permanent lifestyle change.

Let's talk about the part where I said you are going to want to do it slowly. When I cut chemicals out of my life, I made the mistake of pretty much changing over to natural and organic in EVERYTHING, with immediate effect. I hit a major healing crisis. My body went into withdrawal and I got very, very sick. I wasn't doing a 2 week detox diet. I was making a permanent change so, once my body had adjusted, I was fine. But it was a few months of hell. Yup, these things don't happen in 2 weeks. It can take months for your body to slowly get rid of all the rubbish. I lost about 4kgs of body fat and I wasn't exactly overweight. But the good thing about losing that fat is that it contained a lot of the toxins that my body wasn't sure what to do with.

A year and a half later and I am the healthiest and happiest I've ever been. My body is the cleanest it's ever been and I intend to keep it that way. I don't need to do any crash detox diets because my body detoxes itself every day, naturally and, because I don't have much rubbish in me to get rid of, it's an easy, painless process.

Over christmas I ate more than usual, as you do! But 90% of it was organic and free-range (eating out makes it hard to stick to it 100%) and, at all times, I only use organic and natural beauty and household products. That applies all the time so my body gets a permanent break from having to deal with more toxins there. The only bad indulgence over the holidays, for me, was alcohol. Not that I can drink much! While everyone around me is on their 5th drink, I'm struggling with number 2;) I get a hangover with one glass of wine! Sad because I love a glass of expensive red wine now and then:( By the way, this happened BEFORE I went organic. It's just a bit worse now!

My way of dealing with it is making sure that, in between alcoholic drinks, I sip on a mug of milkthistle and stinging nettle tea which really helps the liver and kidneys to get rid of the alcohol and other toxins. I drink it all of the next day too. I take longer to recover than most people because my body is so unaccustomed to any toxins and I sometimes wonder why I do it;) Well, why does anyone indulge over the holidays? Because you want to relax in every possible way.

The way I see it, I live 99% of my life clean. If I want to unwind with a glass of wine, I am going to do it. Life is all about balance. You have to enjoy it too. For me, it has become such a way of life to live and eat cleanly, it doesn't enter my head to do anything different. It doesn't get in the way of my life and, honestly, I PREFER food that is organic. It tastes so much nicer! So that isn't a hardship for me at all.  But it's not fun being the only one at the dinner table sipping a glass of water simply because alcohol is bad for me. So I roll with the punches, drink my wine, and eat my free-range, organic dinner:) And my body doesn't punish me because it's a healthy body 99% of the time.

So, my recommendation is that you make yourself a list of the things you need to cut out and start one at a time. As I said, it's not a fast process. Start with caffeine. That alone takes about 3 weeks to get out of your system and the symptoms are all the awful ones I listed earlier. It's not pleasant which is why you should rather tackle it alone before you move on to sugar. Give yourself a couple of months to slowly clean up your life. The challenge is keeping it that way. The trick is not to see giving in to a cup of coffee as failure. You simply go back to where you were before as if it didn't happen. You aren't going to suffer withdrawals after 1 cup of coffee or one block of chocolate. You will if you go back to drinking a cup a day again.

Focus on living your life 80% organic and 20% conventional for the first few months. You'll know when you're ready to change over and make it 100%. You'll start to feel the energy in your body and you'll enjoy it. Believe me, you'll want more of it.

Let me know how it goes!