Tag Archives: healthy eating

Be Like Royalty: Add Cress

Let Food be Your Medicine, ,

Roast fowl to him that’s sated will seem less
Upon the board than leaves of garden cress.

— Saadi Shirazi, Persian poet

 

Garden cress might not be filling, but it adds a peppery spiciness and lots of nutrients to your meal. It’s been cultivated for thousands of years and enjoyed by royalty.

I got my first-ever taste a few weeks ago through my community-supported agriculture program, Earth-Shares CSA. I had heard of watercress sandwiches, so I rooted around and found a simple solution: toast with butter and cress.

I tried it. What a fun new taste—and even my college-aged son loved it. We have a new summer fave. Especially because garden cress has as much anti-cancer potential as cabbage, kohlrabi, and Chinese broccoli. And apparently it even has more vitamin C than oranges.

If you know someone with cataracts or age-related macular degeneration, maybe gift them some potted cress.

Other goodies in these greens include Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Copper, and Manganese.

Another benefit is this annual is supposedly easy to grow in the house, so you can get a fresh dose anytime, and enjoy it like royalty.

Thriver Soup Ingredient:

Here are some cress recipes to try: https://cressinfo.com/recipes/

Sources:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0646e/T0646E0t.htm

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2437/2

https://www.healwithfood.org/health-benefits/garden-cress-nutritional-benefits.php

Going ’Round the Mulberry

Let Food be Your Medicine, ,

Here we go ’round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, The mulberry bush. Here we go ’round the mulberry bush so early in the morning.

English nursery rhyme

I grew up hearing this song and assumed mulberries grew on bushes, like raspberries and blueberries.

Nope. They grow on trees. My sister and I discovered this two summers ago on Long Island, where we saw a man picking what looked like long raspberries off a tree. A tree? What was he eating?

Mulberries.

Oh, we crammed our mouths with their luscious juiciness until we couldn’t reach any more. So sweet, so ripe, and no exterior seeds.

This past week my friend Laura and I took a walk and she identified a mulberry tree. I didn’t know they grew in the Cincinnati area. We filled a bag with what we could reach.

When we met again, she arrived holding a bag filled with fresh, ripe mulberries she had picked. What a treat! And then we found more. I’m in mulberry heaven.

Fortunately, mulberries have great nutritional value. According to https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/mulberries.html, they can improve digestion, reduce cholesterol, aid in weight loss, increase circulation, build bone tissues, boost the immune system, prevent certain cancers, slow down the aging process, decrease blood pressure, protect eyes, and improve metabolism.

That’s a pretty nice list of benefits. Makes me want to go ‘round a mulberry tree and pick more. Just need a ladder to catch those ones up high…

Thriver Soup Ingredient:
To find mulberries, check your local farmers’ markets or look for dried varieties in stores.
https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/mulberries.html includes nutrition facts.
Research on “Composition of anthocyanins in mulberry and their antioxidant activity”
Look up effects of mulberry extracts before considering using them.

Mandarins a-peeling against cancer

Let Food be Your Medicine,

I have picked a lemon, and with it / An orange and a (fragrant) mandarin.

Gathering with care these (precious) things, / And while gathering I said with care:

“Thou who art Queen of the sun and of the moon / And of the stars–lo! here I call to thee!

And with what power I have I conjure thee / To grant to me the favour I implore!

Aradia, by Charles G. Leland

 

Fresh, fragrant mandarins are precious, full of flavor, and full of power.

The magic lies in their peels—which are quite edible and contain potent anti-cancer properties (see links below).

Also called clementines and tangerines, these citrus fruits are fresh and sitting in grocery stores now.

If you have a high-speed blender, mix two whole mandarins (peel on) with a quarter cup cranberries (at this time of year, try frozen, not the packaged sugary snacks), a little raw honey and/or stevia, a quarter cup raw/soaked-in-salt-water pecans, and coconut butter. Blend. Mmmm! Add chia seeds if desired.

Taste the fragrance, ingest the power.

Sources:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/aradia/ara07.htm

https://www.livestrong.com/article/310997-can-you-eat-clementines-with-the-peel/

http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2006/pdf/2006-v21n01-p34.pdf

https://www.healwithfood.org/health-benefits/mandarin-tangerines.php

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19116217

Power Up Your Spiritual Vibration Tues Apr 17

Events, Let Food be Your Medicine, , ,

Find out how to “Power Up Your Spiritual Vibration with Energized Food” at 7 p.m.  Tuesday, April 17, at 4251 Hamilton Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45223

Discover simple ways to super-charge your spiritual life with high-vibrational foods. Learn how to select more enlightening edibles to thrive on every level. Take home easy pointers for preparing power-packed provisions to raise your consciousness.

Heidi Bright, in radical remission since 2011 from highly aggressive end-stage cancer, shares meal solutions she learned during years spent regaining her health. She earned the 2014 Voices of Women Award for outstanding achievement in personal transformation from Whole Living Journal and a 2017 Unsung Hero Award from Cancer Family Care. Her third traditionally published nonfiction book, Thriver Soup: A Feast for Living Consciously During the Cancer Journey, is physician-endorsed with 250 healing solutions.

Where: Revelation Spiritual Church Bldg., 4251 Hamilton Ave. Cincinnati 45223
(Look for the BIG WHITE SIGN in front yard, directly across street from BIG GREEN & WHITE SIGN for a dentist.)

Sacred Journeys through Cancer

Complementary Therapies, Let Food be Your Medicine, Mapping the Emotions, Soaring with Spirit, , , ,

Find out how to identify ineffective cancer treatment products, how to deal with emotions, which supplements to prioritize, what I put in my green smoothie every day, whether to go to nontraditional cancer centers, how to do a body-centered sitting practice, and more.

This is what Beth Ann Gilmer and I talked about during her Sacred Journeys blog talk radio show Tuesday.

Listen to the interview from the beginning to 1:01:00, and then skip to 1:22:28 to finish it out: https://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/066/show_10668921_2018_03_21_01_05_29.mp3?cId=f647eb4c-8c6d-4867-b705-9a603583e167

Nutritious Food is focus of Annie Appleseed Conf.

Complementary Therapies, Events, Let Food be Your Medicine, ,

 

 

 

Did you know the seaweed nori, used to make sushi, is a source of Vitamin B12? This is one of the things I learned during the Annie Appleseed Complementary and Alternative Medicine cancer conference March 1-3.

I had spoken on Thursday to a crowd of nearly 200 about creating conditions for thriving, including how to determine your nutritional status. The annual national gathering, in West Palm Beach, Fla., explores both integrative and alternative cancer treatments.

On Friday, an oncologist and a gynecologist searched out my book-signing table. They bought a copy of Thriver Soup.

The next day they came back to my table and purchased a second copy.

Another woman came to my table during Friday’s events and purchased a copy of Thriver Soup. The next day she also came back, telling me she had a large number of cancer books at home, yet Thriver Soup topped them.

The food was incredible—only organic, and mostly fresh, raw and local; no gluten, no dairy, no meat. I have never eaten such healthy food in a hotel or at a conference.

To hear a quick, free version of my talk, come to the Art of Healing: Spring into Wellness Fair  on Saturday, March 17, at 250 East Main St., Batavia, Ohio, 45103. I will speak at 1:45 p.m. I also will be presenting the full talk at 2 p.m.  April 7 during the Victory of Light Festival at the Sharonville Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sprouting beans during winter

Let Food be Your Medicine, , , ,

The life-giving potential continues increasing, and the earth is always covered with yellow sprouts, the world blooms with Golden Flowers.

Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, Hexagram 16 Joy

The life-giving potential of spring lives all winter in my kitchen. Glass bowls provide nests for tender bean and lentil shoots. My lentil volume increases dramatically when the seeds are sprouted.

See in the photos a bag of beans like the one I started with and the initial eight quarts of sprouted lentils it created; I cooked one of those quarts of lentils, and let the other quart continue growing until I had an additional quart of fresh sprouts.

Sprouting is a key element of my diet. While summer months bring massive piles of local, organic, living greens onto my countertops, winter generally means veggies shipped in from far lands. What could be more nutritious during hibernation season than baby beans? They offer their vibrant riches to whomever accesses them.

Sprouting is easy to do, if you plan ahead and can find organic beans still capable of sprouting. Local health food stores usually have a supply. Just soak one part beans in four parts filtered water for about 12 hours. Rinse, drain, and repeat the rinsing and draining two or three times each day. After a couple of days, depending on the temperature in your home, you will see little white legs growing on these babies. Your nutritional powerhouses are ready for preparation and consumption.

Cook the sprouts as you would any dried bean. My preferred method to reduce intestinal gas formation is to bring the beans to a boil, rinse and drain, then bring to a boil again with a fresh pot of water and cook until tender.

Mung bean sprouts can be eaten raw and are extremely nutritious. I put them in my high-speed blender along with a liquid tonic, such as green tea and homemade kombucha tea. I usually add blanched kale and various other nutritious foods. It’s not exactly a gourmet-tasting slushy, yet I sure like the end results. I’d say the sprouts and greens have something to do with my hair looking so healthy. I’m 56 now and sidestepped the grey hair typical of chemo veterans.

I thank my sprouts and green smoothies.

While the world outside slows down, ices over, and darkens, my digestive system gets a sunny delight every day to keep my cells humming happily.

Thriver Soup Ingredient:

Here are links for sprouting beans and other ideas:

http://www.sproutingsprouts.com/how-to-sprout-beans/how-to-sprout-beans-including-adzuki-garbanzo-lentil-peas-and-mung-beans (how to sprout beans)

http://www.choosy-beggars.com/index.php/2009/10/16/spinach-and-white-bean-dip/ (bean dip recipe)

http://www.livestrong.com/article/473284-how-to-blanch-kale/ (how to blanch kale)

 

FREE presentations Feb. 24 in Davidson, NC

Events, Let Food be Your Medicine, Night of Mourning, , , , ,

FREE presentations

Thriving Beyond a Dark Night of the Soul
and
Power up Your Spiritual Vibration with Energized Food

Saturday, Feb. 24
The Nook, 400 North Harbor Place, Suite C
Davidson, NC 28036; 704.896.3111

Join me at 10:30-11:30 am for

Thriving Beyond a Dark Night of the Soul
Your Take-aways
+ Understand what a “dark night of the soul” is
+ Learn how to use it to transform your life
+ Gain 14 healing solutions you can begin using immediately

and from 1-2 pm for

Power up Your Spiritual Vibration with Energized Food
Your Take-aways
+ Discover the spiritual qualities of certain foods.
+ Learn how to find out your nutritional status
+ Consider simple ways to reduce inflammation

Wrestling a 24-pound Turkey

Let Food be Your Medicine, , ,

“Ask and it will be given to you…”

Matthew 7:7, Christian Bible

I have come to believe when we put forth effort in certain directions (though not always), and ask for assistance, the Divine tends to step in and support us. It’s sort of a “God (sometimes) helps those who help themselves” perception.

I’m in my mid-50s and had never, before this year, cooked a whole turkey on my own. Recently my friend Cynthia Wells sold me her freezer so I knew I would have space this Thanksgiving to store leftovers.

I drove to Red Sun Farm in Loveland, Ohio. There, I could see white heirloom turkeys roaming a field of sunshine, and I signed up for a whole gobbler.

Shortly after making my deposit, I got a postcard from La-Z-Boy offering me a free carving set because I had purchased a replacement chair from them. I wasn’t expecting much, but my beautiful new large knife and fork have ceramic handles. I was all set to slice meat with my new poker and sabre.

Or so I thought.

Right before Thanksgiving I drove to the farm to pick up my poultry.
Kind of.
The bird weighed more than 24 pounds. 
Mind you, I had two broken fingers from falling off a galloping horse a few weeks earlier. (With two fingers taped together, I am in training to “Live long and prosper.”) And I’m also not supposed to carry heavy loads because of all my abdominal surgeries, including for uterine sarcoma.

I barely managed to pick up the box anyway and lug it to my Prius trunk.

Thanksgiving morning, I got out the roasting bag and read that it was only for meat up to 24 pounds. My turkey was bigger than that. Still, I managed to clean up and wrestle that weighty gobbler into its bag. And close the tie.

Once in the bag, I had a new problem. My pan was not big enough for a 24+-pound fowl. What to do?

I asked in prayer: Any ideas? You got me this far, please keep it coming.

Ten minutes later the answer popped into my brain. Use aluminum foil to form a basin.

I made the foil fowl bowl and managed to plop my big-bird-in-a-bag onto it. Into the oven it went. Whew.

After it finished baking, my son and I agreed it was too heavy to pull out, so we cut open the bag and left it in the oven. My nice new carving set made slicing so easy.

I felt so supported making this turkey. My freezer now contains bags of organic, free-range meat and multiple jars of deeply nourishing turkey bone broth.

The broth is perfect for making my hearty “thriver soup” with local organic Napa cabbage and onions from Earth-shares CSA in Loveland, fresh local potatoes from Harvest Market in Milford, and Shiloh Farms organic lentils I am sprouting (available through Jungle Jim’s in Eastgate), all in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area.

Thriver Soup Ingredient:

It would have been easy for me to assume the idea to put the turkey in an aluminum foil bowl was my idea. I think, however, because so many details had lined up before this request, I was being supported by an idea from the Divine. I gave thanks.

If you ask for information, pay attention to your thoughts. An idea might suddenly arise. It probably will be easy to miss, or dismiss, but if you are paying attention, you might recognize it as a gift and give thanks.