In my house, this is dessert.  It is simple as simple, which is why it is free of almost every allergen, except for citrus.  Should I bore you with the spiel of everything it is “free” of?  It’s just fruit and ginger. That’s all.  Talk about a Garden of Eden delight!  As pure to nature as it is, don’t give it to your 9 month old baby.  She’s not ready for strawberries or lime juice yet.

You don’t need sugar or honey or lard or grains to make a delightful dish full of sweet, zesty spring. All you need is fresh lime juice and ginger!  It is the lime juice ginger combo that makes this dish taste like strawberries are dancing in your mouth.

Sometimes people think that eating a whole foods diet is too time consuming.  People, look at the ingredients to this recipe below!  This is simple, easy, and quick.  All it takes is half a pear that you don’t even have to peel (we would lose too many nutrients if we did that!) and a handful of strawberries.  The other half of the pear can be diced up super small for your 9 month old baby to pick up with her developing pincer grasp.

You can make it a single serving for two, as pictured above, and pop it in the toaster oven.  The toaster oven is a totally acceptable baking platform for your mini dessert.  Or you can triple the recipe for your family of 6 and bake it in the real oven.  It would also make the most lovely filling for a pie or tart.

I’m wondering if you’re thinking that fresh ginger is a complicated type of food.  It doesn’t have to be a high maintenance foodie thing if you keep it on hand as a staple — which you should, given all it’s benefits and edible versatility!  Fresh ginger works well in both sweet and savory dishes, and like I said before, your green smoothie.  To preserve your ginger for quick but longer lasting freshness, peel your fresh ginger and store it covered with water in an airtight container.  That will make it friendly for you to whip out in a jiffy.

Use my recipe as a base and take it to new levels!  It would be absolutely fantastic with a dollop of homemade, unsweetened whipped cream or a drizzle of full fat coconut milk.  I would love to adorn it with crushed, raw hazelnuts, to be roasted with the fruit in the oven, but I’m holding off on tree nuts for the time being.  If you try the crushed hazelnut part, please let me know!

Gingerly Baked Strawberries & Pears with Lime
Serves 2

• 1/2 organic pear
• 4 organic strawberries
• 1 lime slice
• finely grated fresh ginger ~ about the amount of 2 peas

1. Chop pears and strawberries.
2. Squeeze lime slice over fruit.
3. Gently distribute fresh ginger by stirring the fruit mixture.
4. Cover and bake in a vintage pyrex baking dish at 350°F for 20 minutes.

A lifetime of living with undiagnosed food reactions can cause irreversible health problems.  This doesn’t have to happen to your beautiful baby.  The tips below give you the tools you need to prevent food reactions and allergies in your growing child.  They also provide the best ways to give your baby the healthiest start to life.

1.  Introduce solid foods at the appropriate time.

I know you can’t wait to give your baby all that homemade food you just pureed and carefully placed in your BPA-free ice cube trays.  But hold off if your baby is not 6 months!  Prior to 6 months, a baby’s gut is not mature enough to handle solid foods.  Giving solid foods prior to 6 months can pave the way for inflammation and food allergies later on.  Read up on the signs that your baby is ready for solid foods.  Some of those signs are being able to sit up, showing interest in it, and having a developed gag reflex present.  Some babies are not ready for solid foods the day they turn 6 months. Each baby is different.

And just a living proof note here:  Have you heard about all my food allergies?  Yeah, I was given solid foods at 2 months of age.  I’ve had an inflamed gut almost my entire life.

2.  Introduce one food at a time, every 3-4 days.

We introduce food in this manner to help isolate food reactions.  It is much easier this way to identify what baby ate than to play detective with 5 new foods.  It’s already difficult trying to pin down the one new food as an actual food reaction, let alone when several are added at one time.  With my second baby, I tried to skip steps here and add a few new foods at a time.  It didn’t work out for me, because my baby would react, and then I would have to remove ALL of them and start over.  Don’t waste your time!  It sounds like a waste of time to introduce one food at a time, but you’ll be backtracking if you pile it on and he reacts.

Food allergies can manifest as hives, respiratory distress, eczema, or swelling.  Food reactions can show up as diarrhea, mucousy stool, a change in stool color, rough red skin on the cheeks or face, diaper rash, a runny nose, constipation, ear infections, a rash around the mouth, wheezing, hyperactivity, or irritability.  This list is not exhaustive.  Food allergies versus food reactions in babies can get murky.  The most important thing to note, is if they react or not.  If they react, there’s a problem, and you should remove that food to test again at a later date.

3.  Hold off on grains until baby is 9 months.

If you’re making your own baby food, hold off on the grains until your baby is 9 months old.  I know it’s tempting to serve up rice cereal as baby’s first food (because everyone else is doing it), but don’t do it!  Amylase, the enzyme needed to digest grains, becomes a robust part of your baby’s digestive tract when she hits 9 months of age. This is why it is difficult for babies under 9 months to digest grains.  They often develop reactions to grains when they are introduced prior to this time (note:  It is undigested food that can really rev up the food allergy train!).

4.  Delay introduction of allergenic foods.

For the most part, I look at 6-9 months of age as introducing non-allergenic fruits and vegetables.  I view 9-12 months as the introduction of grains and gentle proteins like beans.  Honey should never be given to infants under 1 year of age due to the risk of botulism.  At 12-18 months, night shades, eggs, lemons, limes, strawberries, and soy may be introduced.  Foods that have a higher allergenic potential should be delayed until at least 18 months of age or older.  These foods include nuts, tropical fruits, corn, and grains containing gluten.  Peanuts, cow milk products, and shellfish should be introduced around 2-3 years of age.  It’s not all black-and-white though, so the most important rule of thumb is this:  delay the allergenic foods, saving the most allergic ones for last.

This means that you shouldn’t be mixing lemon juice in your 7 month old’s pureed pears.  Watch labels on baby food.  I love those pureed organic baby food pouches, but HAPPYBABY’s organic pears contains lemon juice.

5.  Feed your baby the most nutrient dense food as close to it’s natural state as possible.

It’s true that making your baby his own food is going to be the most nutrient dense food he can get. Baby food that’s been sitting around in a jar or a pouch will have less vitamins and antioxidants in it then the avocado you can freshly mash for him.

6.  Organic only.

By all means, make sure the food you give your baby is organic.  Babies have smaller bodies, making the pesticide from that non-organic apricot a much bigger deal than if you were to eat it.  Protect your baby early and do your best to feed her as much organic food as possible.  Pesticides exposure in babies can lead to neuro-developmental problems.  Protect your baby’s brains and feed her organic food!

7.  Think raw.

Most baby food in the jar or the pouch has been boiled to a pulp.  You don’t have to peel and boil that pear!  Blend it up raw, with the skin, and try that!  Of course, if you use the skin, only use organic, and be sure to wash it well.  Raw foods are loaded with antioxidants.  Giving your baby food every day with as many antioxidants in it as possible is the best way to supercharge his health for life.  Antioxidants are protective and ward off disease.  Bananas are an excellent vehicle for increasing antioxidants from raw fruits and veggies in your baby’s diet.  Three of my baby’s raw food favorites are bananas with kale, blueberries with pears, and carrots with apples.  Having a Vita-mix really helps to serve your baby raw, antioxidant rich foods.

8.  Vary the texture!

I can not say this one enough!  If you don’t have time to make your own baby food, try to mix in a few homemade foods here and there that vary the texture.  Help your baby experience foods that are thick, thin, and even lumpy (but soft).  Mashing food with a fork provides a different texture than food that was blended in a Vita-mix.  When baby turns 9 months old, her pincer grasp starts to develop to where she can start picking up little bits of soft foods.  This is a great time to offer her tiny bits of soft food to grab herself.  Soft foods I have offered my baby at this time are cut up plantains, bananas, avocados, pears, and soaked raisins (CUT-up raisins!).  You can also finely grate beets or carrots for her to pick up and feed herself.

9.  Let her play with it.

Letting baby play with her food allows her to experience and learn about food.  You can put a spoonful of pureed food on her tray if she is under 9 months.  My babies have absolutely loved playing with whole apples that have one central ring of peel removed for them to lick (stem removed).  Of course, this needs to be done under supervision and the apple shouldn’t be old and mushy.  I have done the same thing with firm pears.

10.  Think outside the conventional box.

The world is wide open for your baby!  Try giving her plantains in place of bananas.  Plantains actually work a lot better than bananas for their little pincer grasping fingers to pick up.  Try your own mixtures of foods.  Mash broccoli with avocado.  Try cauliflower with coconut milk.  Think seaweed (from clean waters) or parsnips.  Consider adding fresh ginger to those yams.

Solid food introduction is best done under the supervision of a naturopathic physician.

I had a complex love-hate relationship with the original archerfriendly diet — back in the day when I had interstitial cystitis.  I loved that this new diet made me feel better, but I didn’t love myself enough to follow it.  When it came to my actual behavior, I had very little will power.  This is why it took me so long to get past 13 days of eating archerfriendly.

In fact, out of rebellion and self-hatred, I would purposefully and intentionally eat foods that were an absolute archerfriendly no-no.  Because of my bladder condition, the no-no a-f foods led to painful bladder spasms that felt like my bladder was contracting on razor blades.  Certain foods would trigger this bodily reaction and I knew what they were.

Most of the time I barely got by just to avoid all my bladder’s enemies.  But there were days when I really couldn’t stand myself.  On those days, I didn’t care.  It was hard to like myself on those days, making it difficult to find the motivation to take care of my body.  When that self-loathing presented its ugly head, I ran straight for the foods that made my bladder painfully angry.  I intentionally ate food that harmed my body.  On purpose.

Hating on my body like this was essentially cursing it.  I cursed my body when I deliberately ate foods I knew would bring harm.  I cursed my body every time I hated it.  How can a body work well when it is at war with itself?

It has taken several years of intense emotional work to get out of the professional cursing bod biz.   I am still re-training my heart in the blessing bod biz (let’s call it the BBB just for fun).  I am learning to love myself in a way that speaks blessings to my body instead of curses.

This new way of living makes me go out of my way to cultivate loving tenderness towards my body.  It must begin in a heart that loves the skin that houses it.  A heart that desires nothing but goodness for its breathing flesh.  A heart that wants to bless its home.

It is the swallowing of a multi-vitamin in the morning or the lifting of 10 pound weights or the sleeping that starts for the night by 11 that screams love to all the hate written on the walls of my past.  Hate can not stand the sight of the smallest freckle of love.

I bless my body when I take pleasure in caring for it.  I bless my body when I sow goodness into it, from both my heart and my actions.  In my heart, the blessing says, “I wish you well.”  This is my redemption for all those years of hating.

When we are able to truly say to our body, “I wish you well”, our behavior will follow in that same rhythm of blessing and our body will listen to our words.

Where do you need to wish your body well?

Nettles are everywhere!  They can be found in your back yard, farmer’s markets, the Bible, Africa, a bowl of soup, and even in ancient proverbs.  One particular nettle proverb that caught my attention was this:  Faut pas pousser mémé dans les orties.  It is a French saying which literally translates in English to “Don’t push your grandma in the nettles!”  This phrase is similar to the American adage of “Don’t push your luck.”

Although I’ve never been good with cliches, it is interesting that across the globe, nettles are known for their sting.  It is the herb that bites that has a lesson to teach us.  The same part of the plant that stings is actually an allergy antidote.

Works Wonders for Allergies

Nettles are my go to herb for seasonal allergies and other allergic related reactions.  It is the freeze dried form of this herb that works the allergy magic.  While the exact mechanism has not been researched, data exists on the effectiveness of using freeze-dried nettles in the treatment of allergic rhinitis¹.  However, a valid hypothetical explanation exists.  The same phytochemicals that cause the stinging skin sensation may be preserved when they are freeze-dried.  When the freeze-dried form is ingested, these same phytochemicals (one of them is histamine) modulate the allergic response in a way that mimics an anti-histamine medication.  Even though research studies do not explain this mechanism from A to Z, clinical results tell for themselves.  This herb works for allergies in as little as 30 minutes.

Beneficial for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia 

Male hormones drive the growth of the prostate in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).  It is the root of Urtica dioca that can modulate these hormones in a way that interferes with their ability to grow the prostate.  To help you understand the concept in a very titrated fashion, think of it this way:  Mr. Hormone tells the prostate to grow in size.  Usually Mr. Prostate listens to Mr. Hormone, because that’s just the way God made him.  But, when nettle root is around, Mr. Prostate can’t really hear what Mr. Hormone is telling him to do.  Think of nettle root as hormone ear muffs for the prostate.  When nettle root is around, it may be harder for the prostate to grow.

Nettle Leaves Have Multiple Uses

Nettle leaves are a rich source of chlorophyll, which may be why they have been traditionally used as a spring tonic.  They contain high levels of antioxidants, including the wonderful anti-allergy flavonoid, quercitin.  They are a decent source of vegan calcium and iron.  Because of their nutrient density, they are an optimal green to consume in pregnancy.  With all these goodies, nettle leaves act as a natural anti-inflammatory agent.  Nettle leaf tea can be used as a diuretic, especially for flushing out the urinary tract during an infection.

Nettle Seeds Are a Kidney’s Best Friend

Best friends bring the best out of you.  They also protect you when you’re in trouble.  This is what nettle seeds do for the kidney.  They help to regenerate dying nephrons.  Urtica dioca seeds are especially beneficial for those on hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis.

Using Nettles Safely

In general, nettles are very safe because they are consumed as a food throughout the world. However, because nettle leaves are diuretic, they are an archenemy to kidneys in chronic renal failure.  Do not use nettle leaves if you have any sort of acute or chronic kidney failure.

If you would like to start taking the seeds, root, or leaves of Urtica dioca, please consult your naturopathic doctor.  A licensed healthcare practitioner can safely tailor the dose according to your needs. 

Resources:
<sup>1.   Mittman P:  Randomized, double-blind study of freeze-dried Urtica dioca in the treatment of allergic rhinitis.  Planta Medica. February 1990.
2.  Yarnell, Eric.  Urology.  Bastyr University.  Fall 2011.
3.  Hoffman, David.  Medical Herbalism:  The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine.  Healing Arts Press, 2003.
4.  Urtica dioca Monograph.  Alternative Medicine Review.  Volume 12.  September 2007.</sup>

Tequila is a good way to piss off a liver.

If you want to be the nerdy liver advocate at your Cinco de Mayo party, set a bowl of this salad right next to the mojito bar.  It contains two liver superfoods:  kale and lime juice.  Both of these foods help detoxify your liver.  After all that tequila, your liver is really going to need a hug.  Send it some fiesta love by eating this salad at your Cinco de Mayo party.

Your friends will never notice the organic purple kale.  The mariachi flavors entertain the tongue with freshly chopped jalapeño pepper singing the hottest note.  It’s harmonized with a sour green apple and smokey cumin.

Don’t forget about your blood sugar (your liver is in charge of that too!).  I know you love those salty organic corn chips with that homemade salsa!  Eat a bunch of corn chips with all those mojitos, and your liver is really going to rage.  Balance those carbs with some protein!

[If you're a hippie foodie, you can skip the  next paragraph since you already know all about the trendy "grain" known as quinoa.]

The base of this salad is made with quinoa (pronounced “KEEN-wah”), an ancient Incan seed that is used as a grain.  Quinoa is a complete protein source, since it contains all of the essential amino acids.  Not only that, it’s rich in magnesium.  Magnesium is good for migraine headaches, and having a little extra magnesium in your system might not be a bad idea for the morning of Seis de Mayo. Quinoa can be eaten cold or hot.  It cooks super fast and easy, and makes a delicious breakfast.

Make sure they don’t spill the tequila in your Mariachi Quinoa Salad!

Mariachi Quinoa Salad
Makes ~ 4 quarts of salad

• 1.5 cups dry quinoa
• 3-5 radishes
• 1.5 inches of cucumber
• 1/4 red pepper
• 3 scallions
• 2 jalapeño peppers, seeds optional
• 1/2 a granny smith apple
• 2 leaves of purple kale, de-stalked
• ~ 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro
• juice of 2 limes
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• generous sprinkles of sea salt

Directions

1. Thoroughly rinse 1.5 cups of dry quinoa.  Add rinsed quinoa to a saucepan with 3 cups of filtered water and cover with a lid.  Bring to a boil.  Turn off heat, keep lid on, and quinoa will be done in about 20 minutes.  Chill quinoa prior to mixing salad. You may want to make the quinoa the night before you compose the salad.
2. Thoroughly wash and rinse your vegetables.  Slice and dice up the veggies.  Vary how you cut the veggies (don’t want everything to look the same!).  Slice those radishes.  Slice and dice the cuke.  Make matchsticks with the red pepper.  Slice the scallions.  Chop the jalapeño in little bits (keep the seeds if you want it extra spicy).  Make mini matchsticks out of the granny smith apple.  Roll the kale and finely slice into kale ribbons.  Trim stems on cilantro and roughly chop.
3. Mix quinoa with all of the veggies mentioned above.
4. Whisk together lime juice, olive oil, cumin, paprika, and salt.  Pour over salad.
5. Mix and serve.

Ever since I suggested that you add fresh ginger to your green smoothies, I couldn’t resist.  I’ve been adding it to mine, and wow, has it taken me for a tasty ride!

I’m a sensitive one.  If I eat too much ginger, I get esophagitis.  Especially if that ginger is raw.  One time I drank raw beet and ginger juice. That one hurt.  Real bad.  That experience scared me away from adding gobs of fresh ginger to my smoothies.  If my esophagus is flared up, then I can’t enjoy the spicy Indian and Thai food that I love so much.  And then I’m downing DGL and slippery elm to get it back to normal.

So, sensitive ones, easy on the ginger, ok?

This smoothie is easy on the ginger.  All you need is a green pea size of ginger, and the ginger zip is totally there and alive on your tongue, but still friendly to your food chute.  Plus, the bananas balance out the spice of the ginger.  Bananas are good for esophagitis.  They cool it down.

Speaking of going easy, I’ve got to go easy on these bananas.  Bananas are high in sugar.  I’m sure you knew that, right?  That means if you are diabetic, pre-diabetic, or have insanely chronic problems with hypoglycemia, you should steer clear of the yellow mushy monkey food.  Tomorrow, I’m going to do this smoothie with full fat coconut milk (gotta get that tropical feel in there) and some stevia to replace the missing banana sugars.  You can do this too, if you can’t have bananas.  Smoothies are flexible!

Spinach, Banana, & Ginger Smoothie
Makes about one serving of two cups

• 1 frozen banana
• the juice of 1/2 a lemon or 1 Tablespoon organic lemon juice
• 1 pea sized piece of peeled, fresh ginger
• 3 super good handfuls of raw, organic spinach (handfuls are flex.)
• water as needed

Throw everything in a blender and blend away!  If you use a Vita-mix, protect your ears like I do with your styling Peltor junior earmuffs.

In light of Earth Day yesterday, you may have finally switched out your incandescent lights and replaced them with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).  Or maybe you went “green” a while ago and have been using CFLs for years.  Either way, beware.

When a CFL breaks in your home, it is considered a toxic mercury exposure.  These wonderful “green” lights ride a very fine line from being better for the environment to being terrible for your health in a matter of shattered seconds.

Inside the intact CFL light bulb lives mercury vapor.  The mercury gas escapes the CFL when the glass is broken.  That’s not too much of a problem until your 2 year old grabs one and drops it on the floor.  Or there’s an earthquake and all the CFLs in your home break.  These energy efficient bulbs, even though they are “green”, are a source of toxic mercury exposure when the glass fractures.  The mercury vapor is breathed in, enters your body through the lungs, and dissolves into your blood.  This kind of mercury has a very short half life in the blood, making it virtually impossible to test for the mercury exposure with a simple blood test.  Where did all that mercury in the blood go?

Your body.

Mercury is a neurotoxin.  Once it gets in the blood, it doesn’t like being there, so it quickly redistributes to other tissues in your body.  One of the places it loves is the brain.

This is of particular concern when it comes to children and babies.  They are little.  They take more breaths a minute than adults do.  Infants breath even faster than kids.  This means if children or infants are around a freshly broken CFL, they are rapidly inhaling the mercury vapor.  What’s worse is that mercury vapor likes to hang out around the floor, right where the kids roll and play.

In light of the herb of the month, I have a treat for you!  Triple Ginger Coconut Milk Ice Cream.  Best dairy free ice cream I’ve ever had.

In this homemade ice cream, ginger manifests its herbal self in 3 powerful ways:  dried, fresh, and crystallized.  This results in a spicy trinity of tastiness that swoons your tongue for more.  The golden goo made by the bees sweetens the deal with just the right balance, and the chewy crystallized ginger pieces add the perfect texture variation.

I’ve already written all about how amazing ginger is, but to refresh your memory, I’ll remind you that it’s excellent for nausea, motion sickness, digestion, and even painful periods.  So yes, you can eat this ice cream if you are pouting at home in sweats from nauseating cramps.  This ice cream is more than a dessert.  It has medicine in it.  How could this ice cream not be my favorite, with all this hippie medicine in it with no compromise in flavor or texture?

I am a sweetener minimalist, and most of the food here at archerfriendly reflects that.  But this ice cream?  It’s special.  It has a bit more sweetener than most of the things I make.  That means it is a very special treat to be eaten on rare occasions.  If I’m going to splurge on something sweet, this is what I want it to be.  Medicinal ice cream sweetened with honey and made with pure, organic ingredients.  This is quality, allergy friendly ice cream (if you’re not allergic to eggs!).

Speaking of eggs, please be warned that consumption of raw eggs could lead to food poisoning.  You can minimize this by using a food thermometer to test the temperature of your ice cream prior to cooling it.

This would be a top notch dessert for your a-f Thai themed dinner party.  For the main course, you could make red thai curry in your crock-pot.  As an appetizer, you could serve Tom Kha Gai Soup.  You could even make date sweetened cardamom black bean brownies to serve with the ice cream (recipe coming!).  Cardamom is Thai, too, not just Indian.  And it’s medicinal… I just turned your Thai dinner party into a therapeutic retreat!

When the fresh ginger is infused in organic, full fat coconut milk, it creates an olfactory experience that will make you inpatient for the final product.  You might be tempted to taste it, just like it’s pictured below.  When it’s complete, you will also be impressed at how easily it scoops…just like normal-person ice cream.  In fact, offer some to your normal-person friends and see how much they like it.

Triple Ginger Coconut Milk Ice Cream
Makes slightly over 7 cups of ice cream

 

Ingredients

• 5 cups organic full fat coconut milk
• 1 good thumb sized piece of fresh ginger root, chopped
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• pinch of sea salt
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 8 cage free egg yolks
• 3/4 cup golden bee goo (honey)
• 1/3 heaping cup chopped crystallized ginger (measure it chopped)
• extra chopped crystallized ginger if you want to use it as a topping

Directions

1. Place chopped crystallized ginger pieces in the freezer.
2. Place coconut milk, fresh ginger root, ground ginger, sea salt, and vanilla in a medium sized pot over medium heat.  Cook for about 30 minutes while stirring, careful that it does not boil.  If mixture boils, turn heat down.
3. Whisk egg yolks and honey together in a heat friendly bowl (non-plastic).
4. Add 1/2 cup of the hot coconut milk mixture to the egg yolk & honey mixture.  Whisk it well.
5. Pour egg & honey mixture into the pot with the rest of the coconut milk mixture.  Turn heat down to low.
6. Cook on low for about 3-5 minutes, while carefully stirring the mixture and watching for it to thicken.
7. Pour mixture over a stainless steel strainer to remove the fresh ginger pieces.
8. Place mixture in the fridge and chill for at least 4 hours.
9. Pour mixture into your 2 quart, pre-frozen ice cream maker.
10. Follow ice cream making directions from the manufacturer.  (I used a cuisinart ice cream maker x 30 minutes.)
11. 5 minutes before the ice cream maker is finished, add the chopped crystallized ginger into your ice cream as it spins in the ice cream maker.
12. When ice cream maker is done, pour mixture into a freezer friendly container and store in the freezer.
13. Top with chopped crystallized ginger prior to serving.

Ginger root is tasty.  Especially when preserved in cane sugar and consumed in the form of crystallized ginger. Tastes like candy.

I used to live in sugar snob land where any form of sugar was EVIL!  As a sugar snob, crystallized ginger would have been absolutely off limits.  Pfff.  Eat it raw or drink it in tea, but don’t contaminate it with naughty sugar!  Boy, did I think I was something…

When I discovered crystallized ginger, I was a recent immigrant to the new land:  sugar-in-very-small-quantities-might-be-ok-especially-if-it-is-medicinal.  As a new immigrant, I went nuts on crystallized ginger, out of fear that I would be deported back to the sugar-is-evil land.

This was not a good idea.   I must have forgotten that ginger is a heating herb.  My entire digestive tract was on fire.  For days.  This is what can happen to you, too, if you OD on ginger like I did.

Ginger Can Sizzle A Stomach Ulcer

Ginger can frizzle a stomach ulcer and make it worse!  Please, do not use ginger if you have a stomach ulcer or esophagitis.  You might have more than fire in your belly if you do that… I’m talking H – E – double hockey sticks kind of fire.

Car Sickness Panacea

My husband keeps ginger chews by The Ginger People in his backpack for that afternoon-riding-a-bus-while-facing-sideways-and-coding-websites-on-a-laptop nausea.  Yeah, that’s motion sickness.  (I think I’m going to toss my a-f cookies just writing about it.)  Same thing for that back seat car sickness.  The individually wrapped ginger chews by The Ginger People work wonders for car sickness, and because they are individually wrapped, they are portable!  You can tuck them in your commuter bag for that nauseating afternoon bus ride.  You can keep them in your purse for the car sick kids in the back seat. (I promise, no endorsements from the G.P. for these plugs!)

Excellent for Nausea

Ginger is a top notch choice for nausea, but its effectiveness for pregnancy associated morning sickness may vary.  Pregnancy nausea is finicky.  However, the ginger chews mentioned above almost immediately took away the nausea I experienced during natural childbirth, and only half a chew did the trick.

There’s actually a research study that showed ginger to be better than a placebo in terms of treating chemotherapy-induced nausea.¹  In patients receiving chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer, ginger enhanced the effectiveness of anti-nausea pharmaceuticals.²

Supports Digestion

Ginger stimulates the secretion of stomach acid and also helps with constipation.  It can also help relieve gas.  This is why it’s such a great idea to cook with ginger and get it in your food.  Here are some of my recipes to get started!

Dysmenorrhea

This is the medical term for painful periods.  Ginger, GINGER people (no, not the company above, I’m talking to you!), worked just as good as ibuprofen for pain relief during menstruation.³

Cardiovascular Support

As a cardiovascular stimulant, ginger can increase the heart rate, and thus improve circulation.  This is a physiological reason why ginger is warming.  Ginger can also fight against atherosclerosis, due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Cautions

• High doses of ginger should be avoided during pregnancy, since it can stimulate menstruation.
• Ginger may interfere with anticoagulant drugs due to its anti-platelet properties.
• Ginger can irritate esophagitis and stomach ulcers.

Medicine

For smaller doses of ginger, it is best consumed as a food.  It makes an excellent hot tea, especially if you have a chilly constitution.  Fresh ginger can be added to your green smoothies or chopped up and cooked in food.  Due to its volatile oil content, it is most potent in the raw state.  For higher doses of ginger, capsules may be a better choice.

If you would like to start taking ginger, please consult your naturopathic doctor.  A licensed healthcare practitioner can tailor the dose according to your needs.

References:
<sup>1. Pace JC:  Oral ingestion of encapsulated ginger and reported self-care actions for the relief of chemotherapy associated nausea and vomiting.  Dissertations Abstracts International.  1987.  47:3297-B
2. Panahy Y, Saadat A, Sahebkar A, et al:  Effect of ginger on acute and delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomitting:  a pilot, randomized, open-label clinical trial.  Integrative Cancer Therapies.  Feb 7 2012.
3.  Ozgoli G, Goli M, Moattar F:  Comparison of effects of ginger, mefenamic acid, and ibuprofen on pain in women with primary dysmenorrhea.  Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.  2009.  15(2):129-32.
4.  Yarnell, Eric.  Botanical Medicine V.  Bastyr University.  Spring 2011.</sup> 

You don’t have to limit sharing this dish with your hippie food friends that only eat natural, sugar free foods.  Nooo!  You can make it for a potluck at your Sunday morning donut-serving church.  You can make it for your in-laws that own a bagel shop.  You can make it for your Gram that lives in the boondocks.  All of them, the fast food junkers and even the candied corn syrup yams-in-a-can people, they will like this!

No need to be shy about your health food.  It’s ok to come out of the closet with your cooking.  Bring what you eat to the potluck.  Don’t just make what everyone wants you to make!  Your tasty health food might convert someone, you know.  (Totally giving myself a pep talk here…)

Last Easter, I made this dish for an Easter dinner with my friends.  It was a last minute recipe combo with ingredients I had on hand.  My friends at this dinner, they eat normal, but they are always eager to try my experiments.  I didn’t think I’d get such a response as I did.  They loved it.  The Normal Eaters!  It even had stevia in it.

I have made this recipe since then (because it is so delicious), but I have been holding myself back from sharing it with you until now.  Consider this post a virtual Easter egg and the recipe as your egg prize.

Sorry.  That’s weird.  Virtual a-f Easter eggs?   I wonder what they would look like.  All easter eggy weirdness aside, you can still receive this recipe as my Easter present to you.  I’ve saved it, special, just to share it with you at this time.

Because of the holiday, my local grocer has yams AND (organic) pears on sale this week.  I hope yours does too, since you’re going to make this for dinner on April 8, 2011.

One of the spices in this recipe is the herb of the month for April!  Can you guess?

Sliced, Layered, & Roasted Yams n’ Pears
Makes a full 3 quart glass baking dish

• 4 yams, cut in discs (with skin) ~ 1 cm thick
• 4 small pears or 3 large pears, sliced length-wise, top to bottom (with skin)
• 1 cup full fat coconut milk
• 4 drops liquid stevia
• 1/2 Tablespoon maple syrup
• 1/4 to 1/3 piece of a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
• 1/4 tsp saigon cinnamon + a lil’ more for garnish
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Mix coconut milk, stevia, maple syrup, and fresh grated ginger.  Set aside.
3. Mix saigon cinnamon and sea salt together in a spunky shot glass.  This will be used to sprinkle on the layers.
4. Cover bottom of glass baking dish with 1 layer of yam discs.  Use a pastry brush to dip and spread the coconut milk mixture on top of yams, conservatively.  Sprinkle salt & cinnamon mixture from your spunky shot glass on top of the coconut milk covered yams.
5. Repeat with another layer of yams until yams are all gone.
6. Top with sliced pears.  Pour remaining coconut milk mixture over the pears.
7. Garnish with remaining cinnamon and salt.
8. Cover with aluminum foil & bake for 55 minutes.
9. Remove foil & bake for 5 more minutes.

I have saved the best for last.  This final one is the most meaningful to me, and it’s the one that will bring you the most health.

Your core relationships: they go up, they go down, and they go side-to-side.  Translated that means your bonds with your parents, your kids, and your spouse.  Your physical health springs from the health of these relationships.

There’s something about those family relationships that etch us on the inside, giving us a fate that steers the direction of our health.  These core relationships, they make us or break us (if we don’t work on them).  Our core relationships have high influence on our emotional selves, and we can not separate our physical selves from our emotional selves.  Core relationships are labeled “core” because that is exactly where they imprint us:  at the core.

This is the stuff everyone likes to avoid, and a lot of people also have no idea how much these relationships have impacted them.  So there’s this avoidance AND a lack of awareness.  I think it’s a mixture of both of these things that cause us to think our physical health is one dimensional.  We like to think that our childhood relationship with our father has nothing to do with our chronic neck pain.  But it’s all connected.  We can’t cut off our core relationships from affecting our health.  Why?  Because many times the damage done in a core relationship whispers a message to our inner self that we are defective in some way.  We fall for that message.  We believe it because it’s, well, a core relationship.  And then our body, she follows what the mind believes.

Strengthening your core relationships looks different for everybody, and it varies depending on the relationship.  Working on a relationship with your deceased parents will look very different than that of your living child.  It kind of seems weird, strengthening a relationship when the other person isn’t around anymore.  You can ask yourself, how has this relationship impacted who I am?  Was there an overarching message from this relationship that impacted me in a positive or negative way?  What was the message from the relationship?

For those still in your life, it may be very well worth your time to explore the messages you are getting and giving in your core relationships.  Actions speak louder than words.  You can say “I love you” with your lips, but what are your actions saying?  Does your schedule say, “you’re not worth my time”?

The best way to strengthen these relationships is to heal them from the inside out.  What is it inside of you that makes you pass up in person time with your mom?  Why do you always flip at your husband when dirty dishes are all over the kitchen?  What is there, deep in there, I’m pointing right at that?  What is it inside your heart that is affecting your behavior in the core relationship?  I encourage you to investigate these things.  If it’s too difficult to do this alone, find help from a friend, a pastor, a spiritual leader, or a professional.

Healthy core relationships that give a positive message about who you are enables your body to function as intended.  Love is powerful medicine.

How have you seen your physical health change after working on these relationships?

The grime in your house can contain heavy metals, mold, dust, and pet dander.  These things will never boost your health.  In fact, they can make it worse.  Household filth also brews emotional muck, which can create stress that snowballs into even more health consequences.

A dirty house can cause quite a few health problems:

1.  Heavy Metal Exposure

Our shoes carry in heavy metal contaminants from the environment into our home.  Dust can contain heavy metals, especially lead.  Heavy metals build up in the body and wreck havoc on your health.  It’s not a week’s worth of lead contaminated dust that harms your health, but living in this type of environment day in and day out.  Each heavy metal can bring harm in different ways.  Mercury likes neurological tissues and lead likes the bones.  It’s easier to minimize heavy metal exposure rather than trying to get it out of your body later.  It’s a real pain in the you know what to detox from heavy metals.

To minimize heavy metal exposure in your house, take your shoes off at the door.  Vacuum weekly with a vacuum that contains a HEPA filter.  Change or clean that filter regularly.  Dust weekly.

2.  Allergies to Mold

Mold and moisture are best friends.  Because they are inseparable pals, mold wants to be everywhere that moisture is:  around window molding, bathtubs, and sinks.  But their hangout spots aren’t limited to the bathroom or kitchen.  They are sneaky comrades, and in the right environment, can throw a party on just about anything.

Mold isn’t good for anyone.  If you have any type of respiratory illness, you should especially be keen on ridding your entire home of mold.  Even if you got tested for mold allergies and it came back negative, your body may still react to mold in the form of inflammation.  Over time, inflammation becomes chronic.  Chronic inflammation leads to disease.

To cleanse your home of mold, first treat the cause of the problem:  excess moisture.  Run a fan when you take a shower. Use a dehumidifier if your home tends to be damp.  If you have mold in your home, consider using a ventilating face mask while cleaning it up.  A water and vinegar solution is an excellent non-toxic choice to kill and clean up mold.

3.  Allergies to Dust & Pet Dander

Dust and pet dander are airborne household contaminants.  Many people have allergies to dust and pet dander, but even if there’s no allergy, these airborne dirt specs can still cause inflammation in your body.  If you have seasonal allergies, asthma, eczema, or a chronic respiratory illness, consider treating your body by regularly cleaning your house from these airborne health hazards.

Cleaning your home from dust and pet dander is something that needs to be done on a very regular basis.  If you’re just the average Joe, the following house tasks need to be done weekly for optimal health:  changing bed linens & washing in hot water, dusting, and vacuuming with a vacuum that contains a HEPA filter.  In some cases, weekly cleaning is not frequent enough.

Be careful when you are cleaning your nest!  Don’t make your nest another health hazard by using toxic chemicals to clean it up.  There are plenty of natural alternatives that work just as well, if not better.  As I mentioned earlier, a vinegar and water solution is great for cleaning mold, but it is also an excellent choice for cleaning windows and mirrors.  Baking soda works great against soap grime in sinks and tubs.  For a dusting alternative, I just use an old sock moistened with a dab of water, but you can also find olive oil based recipes online.  You are not doing yourself a health favor if you’re using chemical dusting spray.

Why eat organic, go through the hastle of making organic green smoothies every morning, exercise every day, and shell out cash to see your naturopath, but never clean up the muck in your house that mucks up your health?  If you want to get serious about your health, clean your roost regularly.

What steps are you taking to keep your home a healthy place to live?

Many people miss out on advancing their health simply because their life is too chaotic.  Supplements are stuffed in the back of a cupboard.  Treatment plans are crumpled in a purse for weeks.  Organic produce is rotting in the vegetable drawer because cooking it just never happened.  Good intentions were made to follow through on the new diet changes, but by the time the next appointment occurred, the confession was made.  “I didn’t do it.”

I have known this chaos.

When I used to live in constant pandemonium, I craved organization.  I had good intentions to get my life in order, and they were real, but I couldn’t find the right key to unlock myself out of all the disorder.  It’s not that the key was hard to find but that I was too overwhelmed to find it.  Or I just didn’t care.  It was easier to cut myself off from the clutter, then to face it.  I zoned out because I hated the chaos.  But I felt like I couldn’t get out of the chaos cycle.

Chaos is a total drag on your life in every way.  It’s hard to be focused on anything, let alone living a healthy life, when your week is overstuffed with commitments and everything is everywhere.  The chaos clouds out goals, and blurs any memory of the last time we broke a sweat because it feels like yesterday we just went on a run.  It’s hard to focus on one thing because, oh, there’s everything all at once, and it’s easier to avoid than to face.  The loss of focus, the zoning out, the goals that never get written…It’s too chaotic.

If you really want to take your health up a notch, you need to work on your chaos.  Your circumstances, your life, your disorder… it really does play into your health.  Do what you need to do to get your life in order.  Make a get-out-of-chaos date with your spouse and make a plan!

Chaos can come in all forms, and sometimes, it’s not so much a lack of external organization but a lack of internal order.  Is there chaos on the inside that needs to be addressed first?  This was my problem when I used to live in craziness.  I hid in the chaos because it was easier to live in it than to face what was tangling me up on the inside.  To stop swimming in chaos on the outside, you need to do a heart check on the inside.

Below are the top 3 things that have helped me bring order to managing my health:

1.  Get Accountable.  

This works best with a buddy.  Sometimes that little nudge from a friend goes a long way.  More recently though, I have been keeping myself accountable with a paper tracking system.  If you’re going solo on this, you’ve gotta make a plan and write it down!  Chaos pushes us to the clouds, accountability brings us back to earth.

2.   Chart Your Progress.

This has helped me immensely.  A chart helps you see results.  Results are motivational.  A chart is a piece of paper that tells you how it is.  I have a health habits check-off chart that I use, and it feeds back the reality of what I’m doing and not doing straight to my brain.  I have this problem where I think I took my supplements today because I’m remembering when I took them yesterday.  If I check my chart, I actually never took them today.

3.   Make Your Own Health Paper Repository.

Put everything health related in a file folder or 3-ring binder:  labs, treatment plans, health progress charts, medications, supplements, etc.  Now you won’t have loose papers from the doctor hanging out in the back seat of your car.  They will all have a home!  Having all your labs in one place enables you to see your health journey.  If you brought your health paper repository with you to your naturopathic doctor visit, they would really find you to be the greatest little health nerd.  Seriously though, you should always bring your lab results with you any time you see a doctor for the first time.  A health paper repository makes this easy for you.

When it comes to your health, what do you do to stop swimming in chaos?

You can’t separate your finances from your physical well-being.  You need money to pay for your health. You need money to buy top of the line fish oil and high quality multi-vitamins.  You need money to buy organic grass-fed beef from a local farmer.  You need money to eat archerfriendly. And if your insurance doesn’t cover naturopaths?  You might need a couple hundred for that, too.

After all the basics are covered, it still costs money to pursue whole health.  There are frugal ways about it, yes, but it still costs more.  I wish organic food was cheaper and that the toxic options were not always the cheapest options.  But it’s not like this.  We have to agree that making our bodies better places to live is going to cost us something… more than just paying our health insurance premiums.

You Are Worth It

This is where we need to be careful.  All this extra money, blown on supplements and special food, can ricochet back on us in the form of financial stress.  What was done in the hopes of health can hinder health if you give those natural dollars out of fear.  That’s not health.  Nope, health is freedom, the exact opposite of a burden.  Forking over the extra cash, beyond that of your health insurance, should be something you do with joy, because you love yourself, and you want to invest in your life.  I wonder how much more health this could bring you, if you took pleasure in your heart, every time you spent another dollar on your health.  Could you even say, “I’m worth it?”

Build a Budget & Build Your Health

Even though you are worth the price of what it costs for you to thrive, you still need to be smart with your dollars.  It may not be the wisest thing to take a month long vacation in the vineyards of France when you can barely afford organic apples in your kitchen.  Prudence with your money empowers you to really say it like you mean it, “I’m worth it.”  One way to be prudent, to give you that extra umph you need to love on yourself in the name of health, is to make a budget.

No one really enjoys budgeting.  It takes time.  It can bring an uncomfortable self-awareness of what matters most to you.  But knowing where every dollar is going is the only way to alleviate stress stemming from financial fear.  Financial fear is gnarly and likes to whisper in your ear that you’re not worth it.  That your health isn’t worth it.  Fight back with love for yourself, for your health, for you. Fight back with a budget.  When it’s written out on paper, you have tangible evidence to mush into Mr. Gnarly Financial Fear’s face.  If you need help with budgeting, check out Dave Ramsey’s thoughts.

Mr. Gnarly Financial Fear still bugs me from time to time and I have to continue to remind myself that I’m worth it.  Keeping a monthly budget that includes a health allowance has brought me unexpected freedom to love myself in this way.

How are you exercising your financial muscles for better health?

Working out the costs and benefits of your health care can feel like you’re trying to lasso a bronco, especially when Mr. Insurance Company is involved.  He goes in one direction, and then all of a sudden, he bucks away and, just like that, denies your insurance claim.  I’ve had quite a few frustrating experiences like this.

I recently needed a new night guard, but I wasn’t going to have my dentist make it until my insurance benefits were checked.  The administrative assistant at my dentist’s office offered to call my insurance company.  They gave her the go:  I had benefits to cover a new night guard.  A night guard was made and the claim was submitted.

Denied!

We all fought the denial.  My dentist submitted paperwork for a reconsideration.  Denied again.  Then my dentist took pictures.  She called them.  I called them.  Nothing worked after several months of fighting the wild horse.

I was now left with a $500 piece of dental equipment I didn’t want to pay for out-of-pocket. Fortunately, my dentist ate the cost of what my insurance company would have paid (I have a nice dentist).  But really?  This was my fault.  I should have been the one to call my insurance company and ask whether or not I had coverage for the night guard.  I probably would have discovered ahead of time that tiny little reason they used to deny the claim.

Your Are Your Own Health Care Boss

If you have health insurance, know your benefits and verify them with your insurance company yourself.  Don’t rely on office staff to talk to your insurance company for you.  Knowing your insurance benefits is your responsibility.  It is not your doctor’s responsibility to know what your insurance covers and what it doesn’t.  When your doctor’s office provides you with that information, it is a service that they are providing to you for free.  It’s not their job to get it right, it’s yours.

When you receive a previously approved insurance denial, it can result in an ethical dilemma.  Is your doctor financially responsible for what your insurance company denies?  Just because your insurance company can’t be tamed with a piece of rope doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ride your own health horse.  You are the only person responsible for your health, and that includes what it costs to take care of you.  You wouldn’t expect your doctor to come home and cook you a gluten-free vegetarian meal for your new diet, would you?  Same goes with money.  Your doctor is not responsible to pay for your health care costs.  You are.

Being versed in your health insurance plan is especially crucial when it comes to alternative healthcare.  Some insurance companies include naturopathic physicians in their plans.  Others don’t.  If you want your insurance to pay for your alternative healthcare services, talk to them yourself.  Sometimes you can receive reimbursement for seeing a naturopathic doctor, even if they are out-of-network.

How to Best Wrangle the Health Insurance Bronco

1.  Call your insurance company.
2.  Record the date.
3.  Record the insurance rep’s name (he will usually give you his first name).
4.  Record your benefit questions as well as the answers.

If your insurance company denies a claim you previously discussed with your insurance company, it’s much more powerful to say, “I talked with ___ on this date and this is what he said…”.  You have less of a fighting chance if you say, “Umm, my doctor’s office called you and they said that you said…”.  You run into the he said she said thing, and it just doesn’t work.

For those of you who don’t have health insurance, think of something else to grab by the horns.  Is there something you can do to access the healthcare you need?  Is there low-income state insurance you could apply for?  Have you looked into health clinics that offer a sliding fee scale based on your income?  Have you investigated student clinics that often provide care at a very reasonable price?  Have you investigated the possibility of getting catastrophic health insurance if you can’t afford the basics?

What part of managing your healthcare do you need to lasso?