Making Love in the Kitchen

It is a rare treat when I can simultaneously show off the best shower ever and my adorable (or so I proclaim) cuddle rolls all at one go. This was at the Tofino Hot Springs cove last summer.

The photo may be sweet but did the title catch your attention? I hope it did.

Remember a few weeks back when I wrote all about water and how I love to bits drinking my fresh Spring Water? We often get so caught up in the water that we drink, that we forget about the water we are bathing in every single day.

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We all get them from time to time. They creep up on us and it’s all we can think about for the rest of the day. We get a bit cranky and feel like taking a snooze. We may even resort to digging deep in our pantries to see what we can come up with. I’m talking sugar cravings. We all know that when we get them they’re super beastly and relentless. We often find ourselves giving in just to stop that “need” we feel.

It’s okay to admit you give in. It’s not the end of the world, it just means we need to take a look at why they’re happening and what emotions we’re experiencing and nutrients we’re missing out on that are the driving factors. When we get down to it, stress is often the real culprit here. As Meghan has outlined this week, stress is a huge problem we face in our day-to-day lives. It seems to be especially prominent this time of year when our routines are changing, kids are off to school, and we have a million things on our to-do lists.

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My name is Jen and I do not condone the use or consumption of packaged foods.

This is not because I have the “nutritionist” moniker associated with my name. It is just my food philosophy. I believe in eating whole unprocessed foods because I really want to be healthy and quite honestly, packaged foods are gross. The were made in some far off factory from strange ingredients and taste more like the cardboard box they come in than real food (I know this because I was once a university student and managed to somehow get by on lean cuisines and frozen burritos for dinner. I’ve since moved on).

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With all the running around, vacationing, working, and other summer fun happening, many of us are finding it kind of tricky to plan our meals properly. Not having the typical routine set out for us, we often get home from our Summer frolicking h-u-n-g-r-y and not wanting to do much in the way of cooking.

The temptation to turn to foods of convenience may just lure us in. The ultimate in convenience foods- Ramen noodles.

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Last week Meghan introduced the concept of Healthwashing, what it is and how we can avoid falling victim to its hold. Very useful information these days when we are bombarded with health claims pretty much everywhere we go and through every media outlet. I’ve also uncovered a few of my favourite (or not-so favourite) food-type items that have crazy un-food like ingredient lists. Speaking of un-food ingredient lists…Chef Boyardee anyone?

Eating whole foods and avoiding packaged yucky-town products is amazing but what about the stuff we put on our bodies? Even those products carry health claims too and let me tell you, there is nothing healthy about most conventional creams, lotions, and potions. Since it’s still the lovely summertime and we ladies like to keep things smooth in the leg department, I thought I would talk about a really weird product used for removal of unwanted hair – Nair.

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Now that we’ve defined the dirtiness that is Healthwashing, it’s time we start addressing some of the viscous culprits. Back in May, I received a press release for a brand shiny new cook book by Anna Boiarde, granddaughter and niece to the brothers behind Chef Boyardee (they changed the spelling for phonetic reasons). I thought I should take the PR rep up on her offer and schedule an interview, that they agreed could be filmed. The PR rep claimed to love my website and all my recipes and when I arrived at the downtown hotel for the interview, she went to the trouble of lining up all these Chef Boyardee “foods” beside me.

Anna’s book is truly beautiful and has some really delicious sounding, back to basics style Italian recipes. She claims to shop organic, feed her family well and from our interview, clearly has an appreciation for top quality ingredients.

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Have you ever wondered why every item in the produce aisle doesn’t carry the “Health Check”? Or perhaps how buying a plastic bottle of water might help women with breast cancer (when the bottle itself is contributing to the high breast cancer rates), or perhaps why women on a diet think that a calorie free, chemical soda might help them lose weight?

Did you know the “Health Check” is absolutely meaningless? Companies pay the Heart and Stroke Foundation to use it on their products, and pay various other groups to use various other claims.

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Last week I discussed the mystery of the hot dog. We learned what it’s made from and realized that all it really amounts to is highly processed meat with a boat-load of preservatives. Not edible in the least! Today, we’re embarking on some new and equally frightening territory. Hold on tight.

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When I was growing up my parents made a deal: my mom prepared meals on weeknights and my dad was in charge of weekend dinners. Of course, this meant ordering take-out or going out to eat on Saturday nights, and grilling up hamburgers or hot dogs on Sunday nights. It was a routine my father could handle and every Sunday at around 5 pm or so, he would come find me and ask me if I wanted a “hut dog” or a hamburger. Yeah, that’s not a typo. For whatever reason he called them hut dogs and still does.

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Wow me part of a posse and even better a superhero posse, what could be better! Teaming up with these amazing people to talk about what I love most is a dream come true.

As a Naturopathic Doctor I am constantly asked about detox diets and programs.

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It’s guess the “food” time!! Here’s a snippet from a looong list of ingredients… You may need your encyclopedia for this one:

nonfat milk, corn syrup, water, high fructose corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole milk, cocoa processed with alkali, modified corn starch, hydrogenated coconut oil, salt, potassium sorbate and propyl paraben – as preservatives, carrageenan, propylene glycol alginate, natural and artificial vanilla flavor, soy lecithin), sugar, brownies (sugar, wheat flour, cocoa processed with alkali, water, eggs, egg whites, dried apple powder, nonfat dry milk, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, vanilla extract, soybean oil, salt), cream, corn syrup, macadamia brittle [sugar, macadamia nuts, corn syrup, butter (cream, salt), coconut oil, molasses, soy lecithin, salt, sodium bicarbonate], cocoa powder and chocolate liquor processed with alkali, stabilizer (modified whey, maltodextrin, microcrystalline cellulose, mono and diglycerides, cellulose gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan), whey powder, brown color (blue 1, red 40, yellow 5), vitamin a palmitate

This my loverly lovers is something being marketed to us as “a healthy choice”.

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Guest Post by Kerry Helston, author of Mercury In My Mouth

More and more of us are starting to see how great we can feel when we switch on, feed ourselves wholesome and nourishing foods, possibly even cleanse our bodies and rid our house of toxic products. But what happens when we have a constant source of pollution and toxins sitting right in our mouths? It’s pretty likely that your dentist didn’t tell you (because they don’t have to), but those silver fillings you have in your mouth, they actually contain about 50% mercury by weight.

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Much of this post was written and shared over a year ago. I have tweaked a few things and believe this is worth sharing again, and maybe again and again if you missed it the first time around. See, sugar and sweets is a problem for us. We are so hooked on sweetness that massive powerful industries are built on the fake chemical version of sugar and our weakness for sweetness. This fake stuff is being put into everything- from vitamins, to soda, to gum, to tooth paste.

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One of the challenges in our 21 Days To Health program is to eliminate and/or reduce the use of daily cosmetic or personal care products in favour of a safer, more natural ones. In my post last week, I asked the question about What Stinks In My Panty Hose where I question how I could still smell a perfume in a pair of tights, seven years later. An interesting discussion came up as the Question that day was about what product is the toughest to give up or change.

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Going Au Naturelle is the recommendation for Day 9 of the 21 Days To Health Program and might just be one of the most important ones. I am sure, by now, you are familiar with my Natural Body Care book, or maybe have popped in on my Natural Body Care workshop. It is one thing to change up your diet to one that is cleaner and less processed, but we also need to think about what is going on our body.

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