Archive for the 'Nutrition' Category
Stupendous Soups and Stews!
December 09th, 2010 // Cooking, Nutrition
Winter is fast approaching and in Vancouver, we have had some real winter weather for the first time in a few years already!
One of the best things about this season for me is warm, nourishing and easy to digest soup! Soup is one of the most creative meals, you can have a different soup every day all season. My favorite this year is Mushroom Barley.
I was having a conversation recently about how great soup is with my friend Annette, who happens to be a Holistic Nutritionalist. She taught me some easy tips on making my own veggie soup broth:
-When cooking veggies, save ends in a container in the freezer
-When container is full, boil with lots of water in large pot
-Put boiled veggie ends in compost *bonus points: veggies get double use before returning to the earth AND are easier to compost
-Freeze stock for soup cooking days as needed
-Repeat these steps and always have soup stock available for quick and easy, homemade soup cooking!
Just for fun and my love of soup, here is a poem written about soup by my good friend and very talented musician, Henry.
Soup
soup she comes spitting fire
slurping down the bitter root
then the stock becomes much thicker
softening gently the starchy fruit
from kingdom come
comes tomato cans
marching down the alley way
sitting nicely upon your hand
the juice comes out
sporting shades
and bends down through
the chinese maze
susans cat feels much better
it’s the bitter end of a long
drawn out
sickness
Henry of Henry and the Nightcrawlers
Enjoy!
Love,
S
Hunter Gather
August 02nd, 2010 // Cooking, Feminine-ist, Love, Nutrition, Textiles
Healthy eating and the digestion of food into energy, naturally follow being in a space of self-love. A city like Vancouver in 2010 offers infinite choices of what and how to eat. An array of ethnic cuisine plus a bundle of social and lifestyle options are available to us anytime. Organic, fair trade or local? Vegetarian, vegan or raw? Gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free?
I am currently reading the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen. It offers great insight into what we are eating and the journey of our food to our plates. Today, most people have become removed a few degrees from the process of harvesting and gathering their own food. The faster life gets the larger the gap between foods source and our mouths becomes. As we move this direction, I wish to reconnect with our ancestral roots as hunter-gatherers. Summer is here and I have been harvesting plenty of food from the garden and picking wild berries.
Many of my family members go hunting annually for deer, moose and elk and I will be joining in a deer hunt with my uncle this fall. As a flexitarian, I choose to eat wild meat because it helps my body to thrive and I feel the animal has the richest life. As a yoga teacher I have encountered controversy around these choices. I believe when honored, respected, loved, thanked and used to continue on ongoing creative cycle an omnivore diet is in integrity with spirit. After the hunt, my uncle will give the horns and hooves to a local chief to use as medicine in ceremony and I will do my best to cure the hide.
Every choice has a consequence and I want to be conscious of the relationship I have with my food.
Love well,
Sara
xoxo
Look at my Garden Grow!
July 17th, 2010 // Feminine-ist, Garden, Nutrition, Wellness
Summer is in full bloom. Vancouver is a great walking and cycling city. I am thrilled to have noticed so many gardens cropping up among sidewalks, front yards, back yards, balconies and anywhere you can find soil in this city. Who needs grass when you can have flowers or better yet, food?
This spring a few of my neighbors and I were inspired to clean up some abandoned patches around our apartment building, grow some food and build a compost. It has created a greater sense of community in our building and generated lots of conversation with our neighbors. We focused mostly on edibles and plated some flowers near the parking lot. It required some physical labor, time, teamwork and a bit of money. The results have been so rewarding. Benefits include an abundance of fresh and delicious food and herbs for sharing anytime and the satisfaction that we grew it ourselves.
Flowers - sunflowers to follow!
Our kale has done especially well and I have been eating loads of it with garlic tahini dressing. Peas out of the pod and right off the vine are one of my favorite childhood memories that I was able to relive in the middle of the city. This week I harvested some of our rhubarb for a delicious vegan crumble (I substituted Stevia for sugar). Tip: Rhubarb is super easy to grow, mine has been thriving in the shade. Yesterday I had half a bowl of fresh raspberries in my oatmeal. Are you ready to get gardening yet?
Neighborhood clean up project
Its time we bring country to the city. There are so many ways to integrate this into your life; herb garden in the window, hanging tomato plant on a balcony, share a plot in a community garden, dig up some grass in front of your home, recruit your neighbors, get a bit dirty and play.
Potatoes grow in reclyed tires and lettuce loves found wooden box.
Love well,
Sara
Neighbors are happy and so are the bees!
Birthing the Blissful Way
July 09th, 2010 // Birth, Feminine-ist, Lifeline Technique, Nutrition, Shanti Uganda, Wellness
My involvement with The Shanti Uganda Society in the past few years has introduced me to the world of birthing babies. It was a subject I had not put much thought into as I always imagined I would start a family around 30, when my mother did and after my career was well established. The more I learned, the more I awakened to the reality that I really did not know much about giving birth at all. It seems to be one of these very big and life changing experiences people talk a lot about without sharing many details.
The Shanti Uganda Birth House
From my perspective, the human body is a miracle machine. Our bodies breathe, beat a heart, digest food, fend off disease and so much more without us needing to think about it. Thank goodness, right? Could you imagine what our already busy lives would be like if we had to consciously think about all of these functions? Doesn’t it make sense then that if our bodies are designed to do all of these functions so well that it might also be programmed to give birth to a baby; those of us having a female experience, anyhow?
If we aren’t thinking about all of these things happening it makes them subconscious. This is why consciously breathing in yoga class is so beneficial to our infinite minds. When we consciously do something already happening on a subconscious level, we bridge the gap, we bring light to shadow and this is the process of awakening into our potential.
As a Lifeline™ Practitioner, I know that each moment of our experience, beginning with conception leaves an imprint on our subconscious minds that impacts how we move through life. In the process of childbirth, your subconscious mind is activated to guide you through the process, if there is trauma imprinted there from your own birth it is possible that a reactionary response of fear will become activated, creating birthing complications. I am passionate about helping families harmonize any generational subconscious trauma so they can experience how graceful birth is designed to be.
Giving birth to babies has been happening since the beginning of this universe. It is one of the most natural and essential cycles we all share and gives our lives so much meaning. A blissful birth is possible for all of us. There are so many resources available here in Vancouver. I recently met a brilliant prenatal coach, Crystal who is passionate about pre and postnatal nutrition and even preconception! Every choice we make has a consequence. Hypnosis is also a great way to prepare your mind for birth and there are some great trainings focusing on birth. Gloria Lemay’s blog is rich in resources about natural birth and I feel blessed that she facilitated my Doula training.
Love well,
Sara
xoxo