Acupuncture Girl

fastcompany:

You can find out a bit more about this image from our May 31 Infographic Of The Day: 56 Years Of America’s Most Terrifying Tornadoes

newsweek:

56 years of tornado tracks, mapped.

Why I am not a fan of total Raw Food Diets

Chinese medicine considers each ailment in the context of the individual person who is exhibiting the symptom.  No diet, herb, or treatment is ‘best’ for everyone. 
When I hear of a person who does well with a raw diet, I’m glad for them.  And I wonder - was it just that they eliminated all the unhealthy processed food, and factory-farm meat? Having detoxed from the ‘standard American diet”, they now they feel better.  But you don’t have to go to a raw diet to give up the bad stuff. Here is an example of how, for some people, a totally raw diet is not the right thing. 
I’m still going to recommend that people focus on eating organic, local, whole foods.  But you can cook these and include grass-fed, pastured livestock meats, and still be healthy.
Listen to your own body, whatever I or anyone else tells you.
—————————————————————
Dr. Ben Kim’s Natural Health Newsletter
April 18, 2013
 
“Dear Reader,
 
If you connect with those who encourage a 100% raw food diet
for optimal health, I hope that you’ll read today’s newsletter
with an open mind.
 
In my experience, eating plenty of fresh, nutrient-rich raw 
foods is a huge plus for most people.  But where there is a long
history of gastrointestinal distress, I have consistently found 
that during the initial phases of healing and recovery, it’s 
actually better to eat more cooked foods than raw.  
 
Please note that this opinion isn’t based on theory - it’s based
on working intimately with people with a wide range of GI 
conditions, from people with ulcerative colitis who have 
suffered through bloody diarrhea dozens of times daily, to
those with more manageable conditions like mild gastritis or
a peptic ulcer.  
 
If your GI tract - specifically, the muscles that govern its
contractile waves and the mucosal lining that regulates 
processing of the foods that you eat - has been damaged
by many years of inflammation, eating large quantities of
plant fibers can actually further stress weakened areas.
 
When you cook plant foods, you soften their fibers, making
it easier for your GI tract to handle these foods and extract
nutrients from within.
 
Where there is pain from inflammation and ulcerations, I 
find that potato soup is a reliable soothing remedy.   I 
routinely advise clients to blend steamed Yukon gold potatoes
with mineral rich broth (vegetable, chicken, or beef broth
work equally well), and to have nothing but this soup until
their pain abates.  
 
As chronic GI inflammation subsides, you can use a blend of
potatoes and other cooked vegetables in soups as preventive
tonics to protect against further irritation of a sensitive GI mucosal
lining.  A good example of this type of soup can be found
here:
 
http://www.drbenkim.com/restaurant-quality-soup.htm
 
In this example, we combine potatoes with well cooked 
cauliflower and shallots or onions, but you can blend broccoli,
spinach, or any other vegetables along with the 
potatoes, provided that they are first softened by cooking.
 
Please consider sharing this information with those in your
life who have chronic digestive trouble.  
 
***
 
Also an excellent tool for chronic GI stress is a quality blend
of health-enhancing organisms.  The idea behind taking
therapeutic amounts of probiotics is to ensure that the walls
of your colon are well protected by a dense shield of 
immune-strengthening organisms.  This shield can protect
your GI tract from colonization by large numbers of organisms
that can take root in your mucosal lining and even create pores
in your GI wall that can allow incompletely digested food
particles to enter your bloodstream and trigger inflammation
elsewhere in your body.
 
Creating a protective shield of health-enhancing organisms 
along your colon wall is much like laying down grass seed
to create a thick lawn that doesn’t allow room for weeds to
take root.  When you have large numbers of healthy organisms
in your GI tract, it becomes near impossible for undesirable organisms
like yeast and some types of bacteria to establish a significant
presence in your body.
 
If you’re interested in taking a professional grade probiotic
that I have consistently found to be helpful in reversing and 
preventing “dysbiosis,” feel free to have a look at  Synbiotic 
Plus:
 
https://www.drbenkim.com/sunshop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=123
 
I am finding that three capsules, twice daily is a good amount
in most cases, but where there isn’t enough improvement
with this amount, I typically increase to three capsules, three times
a day.  
 
So there you have it - blended potato soup and quality 
probiotics - these are two highly effective tools that I 
utilize to address most cases of chronic GI distress.  
 
That’s all for today.  I wish you and yours a safe and healthy
week ahead.  Let’s not forget to chew well and dwell on 
things that we’re grateful for!”

“To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal,
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it,
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

— ~Mary Oliver

Meghan Telpner on Sustainability in the Yoga Studio (and in your Home)

undiet

There is much to be said for what we do on our mat.

We know it goes well beyond the physicality of our practice in connecting us with our truest, sweetest being. Somehow, however, we often put up a block to what else we can be doing to strengthen the practice of yoga.

It’s not always about logging more hours on the mat, or getting more training.

Sometimes, the deeper practice comes from questioning everything that happens around our mat and off our mat. One of the first places to look, might even be the accessories of our practice—the products we use that are intended to heal us, lend to a deeper and more beneficial practice, but that may actually be doing the opposite.

This is how we can start to look at UnDieting our yoga practice.

To UnDiet is to questioning what we see around us and stop accepting it as normal because everyone else is doing it; we can undiet the way we eat, the way we work and our beauty care routine.

We can also UnDiet our yoga practice in five simple ways:

1. Ditch the bottled water.

There is no “away.” Let’s be clear. We are all part of this universe and now, unfortunately, so is every bit of plastic ever created. Plastic bottles of water create unnecessary waste, not to mention the BPA that leach from our bottles into our bodies and that disrupt hormones at trace levels. It is not about safe levels—there aren’t any. Drink 100% pure, clean water and do so from glass or stainless steel. Forgot your bottle before class? Get to know the tap or the water fountain. Disposable and/or recyclable plastic is no longer an option.

2. Those oils smell nice…sort of.

Everyone loves a good shoulder and neck massage in shivasana, or maybe a deep inhale of lavender or spruce to tickle the neurotransmitters into calming down. But are those oils truly healing? Most oils that you buy for about $10 a bottle are inedible—meaning they are not food grade, and are made of synthetic chemicals. If we wouldn’t throw it into our blender and make a smoothie with it, should we be rubbing it on our skin or inhaling it, allowing it to bypass our detoxification organs? Those cheap synthetic oils are best used to clean our floors—and that’s about it. Ensure your essential oils, whether as aromatherapy, or a cleaning agent are 100% food grade.

3. Post yoga fuel.

Energy bars sold in the health food store must be healthy, right? They are, after all, at the health food store. Look at the ingredient label: very few of these bars contain any whole, real food ingredients. If you wouldn’t buy each ingredient on its own, probably best to take a pass on it. Make your post yoga fuel real food—an apple and almond butter, a power smoothie, or home baked granola with nuts and dried fruit. There are loads of options, just try and stick to the ones that don’t come in cellophane wrappers.

4. The mat clean up.

Yoga mats will eventually start to deteriorate—that’s sort of inevitable. Sort of. This happens far more slowly if you take the time to clean down your mat after each practice and let it hang to dry. Eco mat or otherwise, you don’t want and shouldn’t have to replace your mat as often as you do. Make an eco-cleaner of water, tea tree essential oil, cinnamon essential oil and a little vinegar or lemon juice. Spritz your mat after every use, wipe it down and hang it to dry. Depending on how often you use your mat, you should likely shower it down once a week to once a month. Remember—there is no land called “away”—so we need to stop throwing things there.

5. What are you burning?

We love our candles. They bring an energy into the room, cast a warm glow and often lend a soft scent. Most of those candles, however, are totally and completely toxic. Most conventional candles are made of 
paraffin—the final by-product in the refining of petroleum. When we burn paraffin candles this carcinogenic substance becomes an inhalant—like secondhand smoke.
 Many candles also contain wicks with metal cores containinglead which is extremely dangerous when heated. And of course, those artificial fragrances and colors which are really one massive chemical cocktail. Instead, seek out fragrance free beeswax candles, and just let the beeswax and your food-grade essential oils do the aromatherapy.

Once we start to pay attention to the accessories that surround us during our practice, a time in our day when we are likely most present, we will also start to notice ways we can UnDiet, clean up and do better in other areas too.

As with yoga, UnDieting our lives is a practice, and one that is best started today.

Today is the day!

 source: Elephant Journal

Meghan TelpnerMeghan Telpner is a Toronto based nutritionista and sought after media personality thanks to her refreshingly humorous, engaging and real approach to healthy living. Her online cooking courses and health programs are improving the lives of people around the world. Meghan’s book UnDiet, Eat Your Way to Vibrant Health will be released North America wide in April, 2013. Join Meghan’s community on twitter @MeghanTelpner. For more visit MeghanTelpner.com.