Healing through Local Food

Today's post is going to be about supporting your local farmer’s market and reaping the many benefits of purchasing and consuming local food. You will develop a sense of community and begin your journey to a healthy mind, body, and soul – all by supporting your local farmers!

Thank goodness farmers markets are (slowly) starting to make a comeback!

Back in the good ole days when most humans lived in small farming villages, people worked together to feed their people. We cared about our neighbors. We farmed with our neighbors and we ate the bountiful harvest our hard work produced as a community.

Today, it's a little different. We sit on the couch torn away from our neighbors watching “Dancing with the Stars” and relying on supermarkets to supply us with food. Our bellies have gotten fat, our health has taken a turn for the worse, and, in my humble opinion, it seems as if an unnatural proportion of our nation’s population suffers from frequent irritability and/or mild depression. According to multiple web sources, one out of every ten U.S. citizens is clinically depressed.

Why are we so unhealthy/fat/depressed? I believe that the primary cause is that, as a country, our sense of community is largely nonexistent. We are so separated from our fellow man and our land that we have lost who we are as humans. By and large, no longer do we buy milk from the milkman, fruit from the local produce stand, or meat from the local butcher. Instead of associating the faces of our fellow townspeople with the goods that we purchase, as was likely the case with many of our forebears, we associate brands and retail chains with our purchased goods.

You don't know the chicken you are eating tonight for dinner. We don't thank the chicken for giving its life to us so we can have a warm meal. We just eat it totally oblivious to the fact that this little chicken was a creature with a life. Same goes with plants. Everything we eat had a life (unless it's crap artificial GMO over-corporatized Satan food!) I'm sure you are thinking, “Wow, you're getting a little hippy on me right now….” But think about it.

When we start pulling away from the fundamentals like farming together, knowing our neighbors, knowing our farmers, and our farmers loving their animals, we become a self-absorbed, unilateral, and an ultimately diseased society. Food is our foundation. Humans, as heterotrophs that depend on the persistence of other consumable organisms, have a connection to the soil and land that, when interrupted, shakes us to our very foundation. We used to thrive because we farmed together in communities. Everyone pulled his/her weight in these mostly bygone societies, and the type of slovenly lives that many Americans lead would never have been tolerated.

Communities have been squashed. We go to the grocery store to get all our food (from God knows where) with our interaction consisting of nothing more than a small nod from the overworked and underpaid associate who is slaving away under harsh florescent lights in an over-sterilized, austere environment.

Who wants food from these places!? How terrible has it gotten! PLEASE find information about your local farmer’s market. I promise there is one near you. The experience is almost spiritual. You socialize with real people in the fresh air who LOVE what they do and LOVE the animals they are raising. You see pictures of the local farms, and each farmer is PROUD of his/her farm. You meet their families and you bond the way people are supposed to when dealing with something so sacred and important as food. And best of all, you receive food that locally-grown and healthy.

So please find a farmer and support him/her. Let’s get back to the basics. Even if it is just getting meat from a local farmer, that is a start! YOU can really make a change if you just take small steps.

I GUARANTEE you will begin to feel better when you buy local fruits, veggies, meats, and milk from farmers in your area. That is the way to freedom and health. That is what humanity is all about.

Heal yourself. Buy local.

All about the HAIR!

So this post is more about my crusade against chemicals. I hate all the nasty chemicals they put in deodorant, shampoo, conditioners, cleaning supplies, carpets, clothes, everything! We are literally saturated in toxins! No wonder 1 in 3 people will develop cancer at some point in their life!

Lizzy, what does this have to do with hair? Recently in my anti-chemical thinking I did some research and I read that shampoos and conditioners can be very dangerous. So many nasty chemicals that your body actually sucks in through your scalp! Yikes! That lead me to pursue alternative ways to cleanse the doo! The only one that really caught my eye as having a good chance in working was the baking soda (shampoo) and apple cider vinegar (conditioner) substitute.

As a little side note, I have been OBSESSED with growing my hair...I seriously have tried everything (chemical and non-chemical) and the only things that really worked were:

• Cutting off all the damaged ends (that means everything with artificial color)
• Changing my diet (see specific carb diet post), 
• Washing my hair no more than about 3-4 times a week
• Small trims every 2 months. 
• Just a little help if you are looking to grow your hair out!

So back to the baking soda and apple cider vinegar! What I do with the baking soda is put some in a plastic bag and bring it in the shower. I  wet my hair and rub the baking soda in until the scalp is pretty well covered in baking soda, then I start the scrubbing! I make sure to really clean the scalp with the baking soda. Finally, I rinse all the baking soda out.

Next, I take the apple cider vinegar and put some in a plastic bottle. I fill it a little less than half way, fill the rest with water and give a good shake! This obviously isn't an exact science and you will find what works for your hair. You may prefer more or you may prefer less. After I finish with the baking soda rinse I proceed to rinse the hair with the apple cider vinegar water. All you do is pour about half the vinegar water on your hair, let it sit for a min or two and then shower it out.

Initially you will smell the apple cider vinegar, but it goes away once the hair is dry!

So what did you do by not using shampoo!? You didn't pollute the water supply more, you didn't drench yourself in chemicals, you are saving money, and best of all you aren't supporting evil greedy corporations that put junk into their products!

Little steps that you take to back away from toxic consumerism is not only going to help you and your family, but it will help our planet as well!

Specific Carbohydrate Diet

Thank God for the Specific Carb Diet. This diet is one that truly helps people with digestive disorders. The gut is allowed to heal and your body totally switches to enjoy REAL food. What is the specific carb diet? This diet seems strict at first, outlawing processed sugars, all wheat, barley, rye, rice, certain legumes, ect. I highly recommend the book called Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall. This book breaks it down and tells you all rules. It seems overwhelming in the beginning, I personally got angry at the fact that so many foods (mainly crappy, mineral and vitamin deficient foods) seemed to get cut out of my diet and I resented it the first, but stuck to it because it SLOWLY was starting to help.

After about 4 months I started to see big changes. I was having more energy. My symptoms began to get better and I was having more normal bathroom visits. Also, my hair also started growing! My hair had literally been the same length for about 3 years. Yeah...3 years! I was trying with all my might to grow it out and it just would not grow. After starting this diet though, my hair was growing like crazy.

I will not sugar coat my experience for the first 3 months. I was moody and tired. I seemed winded and my symptoms actually got worse. I was always hungry and I was craving sugary snacks like a mofo! It was not fun. But I knew I needed to do something drastic if I wanted to stay off the cancer causing medicine the medical community was so apt to inject me with. So I stuck it out and finally when I felt like I was going to give up and throw in the towel, I got better. I didn't have cravings. I wasn't moody. The routine of fixing food didn't seem so daunting and frustrating. I liked eating healthy and my body seemed to not reject the diet any more!

Then about 8 months into the diet I slipped one day and went out to eat. Interestingly enough, I didn't have any symptoms. I wish I would have though because eating out that one day put me back into crappy eating mode. Not all at once, but slowly I started to eat little naughty snacks here and there. Eating out more and more and BOOM! It struck. All the symptoms returned and I was back at square one. I had to restart all over again, and granted it didn't take me 4 months to get better, I did have all the cravings again like the first time.

So the moral of my story is if you are having digestive issues try the specific carb diet! More importantly, stick to it and don't go astray because you will regret having to start all over again.

The human body doesn't need all the crap we put into it! We need pure fresh veggies from the soil, healthy grass fed animals and wild free fish for our bodies! Nothing more. Anything else will just slowly kill you.

Wonderful Coconut Oil

Ohhh coconut oil how I love you. It truly is great for so many things. For example, have wrinkles? Virgin coconut oil works to reduce wrinkles! Why? Coconut oil has vitamin E and vitamin K. Both vitamins are shown to greatly improve skin elasticity and moisture content. Not to mention, coconut oil has been shown to reduce acne and clear up problem areas on the face and other parts of the body like dry skin or rashes.

So what about consumption of coconut oil? Coconut oil is high in saturated fat. And guess what?!?! That's a good thing. In the book, Nourishing Traditions The Cookbook that challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, it explains how SOME saturated fats are bad for us. Those being cheap vegetable oils like canola and just plain vegetable oil. That is because they have to go through a hard core heating process that just basically leaves them a big nasty pile of worthless fat that our body can't digest. Therefore, it packs on in our arteries and builds up. The book does a lot better job of explaining it...and I HIGHLY recommend this book to people who enjoy cooking (and have an open mind)..But you get the main idea. You're eating a dead food that contains no benefits to your body.

Coconut oil on the other hand is pure and not heated to oblivion therefore it keeps all of its anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti- fungal properties! It's just a great oil that people should start using more often. If you have digestive issues, you should have this in your cabinet. I'm not joking, put the computer down and go out and get some now. Haha. But seriously.  

So how do I use coconut oil? I sometimes take a teaspoon of it in the afternoon after a meal. I put it on my face before I go to bed. I use it when I go out into the sun. I cook a lot of my food in it, and I use just a little tiny bit on my hair to soothe the ends. So needless to say, I am a fan.

Happy healing everybody!!!

I like it RAW! Goats milk Yogurt!

A couple days ago I made raw goats milk yogurt. Honestly, I was a little scared because of all the negative propaganda about raw goats milk. I was thinking...Wow..drinking raw milk AND letting it sit out for over a day. I'm going hard core!

(Raw goats milk yogurt is great because it has all the beneficial bacteria, which is great for the gut, AND you are supporting local farmers!!!)

Also...Those who are thinking about drinking raw milk, you may want to start out eating raw yogurt for about a week first. I hear it gets your intestines use to the bacteria and the milk in a more gentle way.

So how did it turn out!? Great! I was so surprised. I let it sit out for a day in a half before putting it in the refrigerator. It's the food of the Gods. I am in love. In fact, I just made a new batch...because I ate all the other stuff!

So what did I do? 

First- I heated up my milk. I didn't scold it or boil it. I heated it just a little above warm. I did not use a thermometer because I'm really trying to get back to the basics of just relying on feel and instincts...(I think we as a society are so completely disconnected from instinct that we have put ourselves in a dangerous situation..We rely on technology way too much!).....As...I sit here blogging....on my computer....(hypocrite..I know...aren't we all!)...haha...But in all seriousness...I heated the milk until it felt right.

Second- I mixed in one packet of Yogourmet Freeze Dried Yogurt Starter into 1 cup of raw warmed milk. I put the raw milk in a small glass pickling jar and stirred everything in real well. Why did I add a starter if the milk is already raw? Mainly just to make it thicker faster. I didn't want to leave it out for 3 days for it to get thick enough. I was impatient.

Third- I let the glass pickling jar sit in a Yogourmet Yogurt Maker for about 30 hours.

When I took it out it was a yogurt consistency. I mixed it with some raw honey and went to town! I hope everyone gives it a try!


Delicious!


Happy Healing!

Stop wearing deodorant! Go for the oil!

Slowly but surely I am starting to move away from deodorant (and other store bought beauty products) and before you think..."okay going a little far there aren't we?"...I have some news. You don't need it!

Our skin absorbs everything we put on it. If we put on lotion, our skin will absorb it. We put on deodorant, our skin will absorb it. Make-up? Yup that too. Our skin sucks it in! So do you really think the companies that put out all these products want the best for us? No. They want us to smell decent (look decent) and they want to produce a product that costs very little for them to make. That means there is a lot of cheap artificial crap in these products (which in turn, pollutes your body). Aluminum oxide. Not good for you.

I am not one of those hippies that wears no make-up, lives in a grass hut, and chants to the spirit gods all day...But I am slowly moving away from our "conventional" way of beauty.

There are so many natural products out there that you can buy that do the same thing (if not better) and cost less. Not to mention, soooooo much better for our environment.

For example, instead of deodorant use tea tree oil! Yes, tea tree oil is another one of those amazing nature products that are good for so many things!

What you do is get  a small spray bottle (the type you get at Wal-Mart) Fill it a little less than half-way up with water and add about 3-4 drops of tea tree oil. I also add in some rosemary & lavender, it makes it smell so good. Then give that bottle a good shake, and spritz it on under the armpits! Let those pits dry for a bit and there you go! You smell nice, AND it hardly cost you anything! AND everything is all natural! So your body isn't absorbing crap! It's a win win for everybody!

Why tea tree oil?? It's another wonderful natural antibacterial! It's also very powerful and that is why you have to dilute it. So don't go rubbing pure tea tree oil on your face because you will have a bad day.

As far as my smell is concerned...I swear, I never smell funky. It lasts me all day and last me longer than deodorant.

Tea tree oil is also great for cleaning and clearing out the sinuses. 

For cleaning, just take a spray bottle fill it with water and add about 4-5 drops of tea tree oil. Then start cleaning. All you are left with is a wonderful natural aroma! (Remember, it's a natural antibacterial so it really cleans!)

For sinuses, put a couple of drops in your hand, rub your hands together and breath deeply into your hands. I promise...Your sinuses will thank you for it.

This stuff also lasts a long time. Because you are only using drops, it takes awhile for it to run out.

So I hope I have persuaded you to make the switch to tea tree oil, if not completely, at least a couple of times a week!You will be making a healthy change that will smell good and help your body!

I believe that this helps my Crohn's because the less artificial stuff that I put into my body the less my body has to fight against foreign particles. I am sure this will assist in my healing and make my body feel happy!

So happy healing everybody! :-)

The Powers of Manuka Honey

Manuka honey is probably one of the main items I use to help my body stay on track. This amazing stuff doesn't have to only be used by people that have Crohn's.

Let me explain the wonders of Manuka honey. First, Manuka honey is a antifungal, antibacterial, anti- inflammatory miracle product. You can use it when you are having skin problems (like pimples, redness, etc.) or you can ingest it to calm the ole intestines (like I do on a daily basis).

This stuff cleans out all that nasty bacteria and allows the good flora to flourish in your gut. It also makes bleeding subside. This isn't going to happen the first day you consume it. It will take about 3-5 days for symptoms to improve. I noticed a difference in about a week. What I do is take a teaspoon of Wedderspoon active 16+ (you can find it on amazon.com) in the morning before I eat anything, and teaspoon at night before I go to bed. Then Vwalha! Happy Healing!

For the skin, I usually put it on my face ( it is very sticky and thick, so be ready for fun!) and let it sit there for about 30 seconds then wash it off with warm water. I only do this when my skin has broken out or looks rashy and I do it before bed. Since it is a natural antibacterial it wont irritate your face. I just love this stuff.

I find the best way to use it, is to consume it. I believe that it works inside to help my outside. I noticed my skin looks a hell of a lot better since using this product. Crohn's people usually have bad skin because the intestines aren't absorbing nutrients and because there is way to much bad bacteria in the intestines.

So I urge everyone to give Manuka honey a try if you are having skin or stomach issues. It will help.

I feel like I have to say --- I am not a doctor and I am not trying to treat or cure you.....

But Manuka honey is amazing.