A Journey from Mainstream to Alternative

 

This is Miss Charlie, so far she's been 14 times around the sun. I made the choice early in her life to raise her naturally as possible. And by that I mean a raw species appropriate diet, minimal chemical and vaccine exposure. Thru this journey I may have become what some people may say is a bit of a hippy. I wasn't always this way, it's been a slow evolution over my lifetime that was somewhat accelerated in the last 15 years. 

For a certain portion my life I was a meat eating, junk food consumer who smoked, drank moderately everyday and had no issue using household chemicals and weed sprays. What changed? Well these two fur children who went over the rainbow bridge before their time.

Meet Bobo and Mollie, mum and daughter, they both passed away as the result of liver disease. Mollie left first at 3 yrs 8 months old and then Bobo 2 years later 11 years 4 months. I was told after Mollie passed that lightening wouldn't strike twice  and that Bobo wasn't at risk. The vets were horribly wrong and lightening not only struck twice but 3 times in the same family. And this where my path drew me away from conventional veterinarians and on a journey towards health both in my own and my fur childs life.

When Mollie was diagnosed with liver disease in June 2005 I went on a quest for the best way to support her and I found an ebook called "Hope For Healing" It was written by a lady with first hand experience of canine liver disease and focused on healing thru diet. I purchased, downloaded and showed Mollies Vets. They read it and then told me they didn't think much of the nutritional approach as they were 'men of science'!! My first thought was well isn't nutrition the original science, aren't plants the inspirations for many medicines. Somewhat perplexed I incorporated a mix of the 2 worlds. Had I been living in the city I would have taken her straight to a naturopath, but I was stuck with what I had in my regional town and Mollie went into liver failure a few months later in September and we gave her her wings a couple of days later on September 17th 2005

Within the next 12 months I was concerned about Bobo, she showed some elevated liver enzymes on a blood test and I was told it was nothing of concern. on a further test a locum vet tested her for Addisons and it came up negative. I was then assured again that it was impossible she'd have liver disease as well. How wrong they were! I still remember the day in August 2007 when I took her to the vet after I noticed her urine was brown. On looking at her urine sample the vets faced turned a shade of grey I hadn't seen on a human before. I took her to a specialist in the city but she never came home. Bobo got her wings on 7th September 2007.  

Both girls had surgical procedures within the months before their liver disease was diagnosed. Neither had a blood test to check their liver enzymes prior to their anaesthetics. A simple blood test could have prevented the dire situations we ended up in. around the time I lost Bo it had become standard practice to test liver enzymes prior to giving anaesthetics but unfortunately my vet had't caught up on this yet.

After losing these two I no longer trusted mainstream Vets. It's taken 14 years for me to find one that I can work with but we'll get there in a minute.

And then there was Ruby, she was Mollies sister. Mollie chose me and Ruby chose my sister. Just before I lost Bobo we'd found a naturopathic vet in our town, Dr Catherine. Bobo saw her once before she passed away. And my sister started taking Ruby to her. Just after Bobo passed we tested Ruby's blood and her liver enzymes were elevated. Strike 3! fortunately we caught her early enough and with the help of Dr Catherine and beautiful care from my sister she lived another 7 years and passed away at 13 1/2.

Charlie came into my life a month after I lost Bobo. And after taking her to the vets for her puppy vaccines I soon realised that I couldn't go down the conventional path any more. I decided that she'd have her first heat before she was spayed and that I would titre test her rather than vaccinate annually. So I started taking her to Dr Catherine just after her 1st Birthday. From then I mixed Dr Catherines  guidance with a whole lot of research and here we are today. 

Based on what I'd been thru with Bobo and Mollie, I decided to raw feed, reduce toxins and not vaccinate. her first few vaccination Titres were on the higher end of the scale and at the point where Charlie let saw Dr Catherine at about 4 years old she was still covered by her original vaccinations. I recently had her Titres checked again and they haven't changed she's still fully covered and still hasn't had a vaccine since her last puppy shot. 

The decision to allow her first heat before spaying, proved to be a wise choice, I'm fairly sure it was at the suggestion of Dr Catherine, and it turns out that there has been research since that indicates that although spaying early reduces the risk of mammary cancer it also increases the risk of other cancers. Allowing sexual maturity only minimally raises the mammary cancer risk but significantly reduces the risk of other cancers. When you start researching there's a whole world of information that your vet either isn't taught or simply doesn't have the time to find.

We've recently found an amazing conventional Vet who is open to my ideas and hasn't shamed me for my hippy ways. Charlie currently has an issue with high parathyroid hormone levels and we're working together to solve the issues that come from that. Charlie has Hyper Calcemia as a result of the elevated parathyroid hormone. Parathyroid hormone is meant to increase when the body needs more calcium released into the blood. Calcium isn't just for bones, it also played a part in heart and nervous system processes, but when the levels are unnecessarily high it can damage the kidneys. So we've got her on diuretics to move the excess out and I'm trying to find how this all started. Let's just say I've learnt a lot about the parathyroid lately, but the condition is rare in dogs so there's not a lot of info out there. But at least we now have a Vet who is willing to discuss and consider what I find. 

The path from mainstream to alternative has also been reflected in my own health journey. In taking notice of nutrition for Charlie I also stated to take notice of how I was taking care of myself and new information literally kept falling in my lap. I kept finding ads for health summits, books to read and in more recent times podcasts. I became fascinated with immune health and inflammation.  And what I've learned for me applies back to Charlie. Not everything is the same but the principle of maintaining immune health and minimising inflammation are the same. And now I'm studying Human Nutrition, the information just kind of bounces back and forth between the 2 legged and 4 legged worlds. 

It's such an amazing path to be on and I'm honing in on where I want to take it. With the way the world is at the moment and what we've all been thru since March 2020 it's apparent that it's now more important than ever to find something to do that lights you up. 

I'm finding more and more every day that I want to be marching to the beat of my own drum and be home with Charlie. I'm not guaranteed how much longer I'll have her, I'm planning on at least another 5 years, and judging by the way she bosses me around and how otherwise healthy she is I'm hoping I'm right. But for now she's welcome to hog the bed every night for as long as she wants ❤️

Love always 

 

Lib and Charlie xxx

 

 

Learning to Breathe

Oh my! It's been a while since I've written anything here. Some serious time out was required. My thoughts over the last months have been expressed in lines and squiggles in my drawing book. Perhaps sometime soon I'll share some of my crazy scribbles with you. 

I came here to see if I could be inspired to write something and I found this post below that I'd written over 6 months ago sitting in my drafts. It's time to share it with you, hope you like it ....

There are so many stresses and anxieties in this life that consume our thoughts that sometimes we simply forget to breathe. It's like 'holding your breath' while your waiting for an outcome to play out in the physical world.
Often when I'm upset or worrying about things, waiting for the outcome, I do this. I'll often catch myself holding my breath or shallow breathing

I've been learning about mindfulness and putting it into practice in my life is teaching me to stop, be in the present and breathe. I'm starting to recognize these moments when I'm 'holding my breath' and when I do I'm pausing to breathe. Taking time to fill my lungs with air.

Breathe in the good stuff... exhale the bad stuff 
Breathe in the healing ...... breathe out the immune suppressing, aging, cancer causing worry. 

It's little wonder that people who meditate and practice yoga or tai chi often appear to be younger and healthier beyond their years.... they simply spend a lot of time actually breathing. And in doing so they relax their mind and body and all the good stuff follows.

It's something that I just randomly noticed one day recently, a mini epiphany of sorts. I'd noticed it in the past but the thought was fleeting and I never did anything about it. Being older and a little wiser I'm taking time to notice.

I'm taking time to be present and breathe......... 

photo by Dingzeyu Li courtesy of unsplash.com

Gluten Free Apple Crumble

I've just had one of those moments where I needed dessert. Perhaps it was because dinner was a little while ago or because I was watching someone cook dessert on Masterchef. Whatever it was I had a desire that needed to be fulfilled. Given that I'm gluten and lactose intolerant and on a clean eating path there's no processed goodies in my house. I've refused to buy I cream ever since I realised how many chemicals were in it and I haven't quite got around to making the raw ice cream I've been dreaming of. So what was tonight's answer?

Today I stocked up on fresh produce and there are plenty of apples in the house for juicing so I decided to create my food intolerant version of Apple Crumble with an Almond Milk Custard. Given the time and the fact I was using Apple I went easy on the sugar side. Not much was needed anyway with the sweetness of the apple. The crumble was created with flax meal, chopped pistachio and almond. I also added some craisins that were in the pantry to add a variation in flavour. Once constructed it was drizzled with honey before baking in the oven for 15 mins. 

I made this dessert for one person so if you are making it for more people you'll need to adjust your quantities accordingly. It's also easier if you make it in a rammekin or small dish

Here's the recipe

Apple Crumble

1 apple per person 

2 tablespoons flax meal

8 almonds 

8 pistachio

1 tablespoons craisins

1 tablespoon honey

Chop the Apple and place into a rammekin. Sprinkle craisins over the Apple and then top it with the flax meal. Chop the almonds and pistachios and sprinkle over the top. Drizzle honey over the whole thing. Place into an oven heated to 180 degrees and bake for 15mins.

While the crumble is in the oven you can make the custard. It only takes 5 minutes so you can leave it until the crumble is almost cooked.

Almond Milk Custard

This recipe will easily serve 2. If you are cooking for one you can either indulge or save some for the next night

150grams almond milk

1 egg

10 grams unrefined cane sugar or coconut sugar. I used rapadura

10 grams gluten free cornflour

Vanilla

Place a saucepan on kitchen scales and measure 150grams almond milk. Add the egg and whisk well.  Add vanilla, sugar and cornflour and whisk well again. I normally whisk it til it foams a little. Place over a low heat and whisk until it starts to thicken. I like my custard to be thick but still runny so once it starts to thicken you don't need to continue with the heat for long. Remove from heat and whisk well to ensure a smooth conistency. 

Remove the crumble from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Because of the portion size you can serve it in the rammekin. Pour some custard over the top and enjoy

Taking It Up A Notch

I've been seriously interested in Nutrition for a few years now and one of my goals is to study online with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in the US. In the interim I'm reading and learning via books and blogs but last month I hit the jackpot via an email from Kris Carr. It contained a link to the Hay House World Summit. 

I've heard about the summit before but never fully realised what it was about. This time I followed the link and was blown away. Over the course of 4 weeks 100 interviews and several videos were released to view and listen to for free. I jumped in with both feet and listened to  Mike Dooley, Melodie Beattie, Cheryl Richardson, Louise Hay and many more. I also watched a documentary called 'Hungry for Change' which looked at the obesity epidemic and how processed foods and so called diet foods are causing not only obesity but also significant health issues in society. You'd be inclined to think that with advances in science and technology that we would all be getting healthier but this is not the case. Health simply comes down to nutrition and eating a natural diet. The calorie laden nutritionally deficient processed foods are leaving people obese and undernourished. It's little wonder why as a society were becoming sicker.

From my earlier posts you'll see that I've been on the right path for a while now but watching 'Hungry for Change' has kind of kicked it up a level for me. I've had a few months where I wasn't really caring for myself very well. I was drinking more wine than I normally would and eating a little too much sugar and processed foods, and not drinking enough water. I'm gluten intolerant so the level of processed foods I consume is much less than the average person but even with a slight increase it was showing in my skin. But more on that in a minute.

After the summit ended I wanted to know more so I bought the 'Hungry for Change' book on Kindle and started reading. I then discovered that the authors have a website called FMTV it's like Netflix for health and wellbeing. They have a 7 day trial so I signed up and watched 'Food Matters' and 'Fat Sick and Nearly Dead' 

OMG how much I've learned all ready. In the last few days I've introduced 2 things. And if you watch 'Hungry for Change' you'll hear them say if you add things in then eventually you wont want the bad stuff. If you deprive yourself it's harder to give things up. But if you add the good stuff in eventually the bad stuff just leaves.

David Wolfe suggests starting each day by drinking 1-2 litres of water before you have food or coffee. I now go to bed with a jug of water and a glass beside the bed so that as soon as I wake up I can start drinking my water. 

The other thing I'm doing is juicing again.... lots of dark leafy green vegies to give my body a regular micro nutrient boost. My juice consists of organic celery, kale, spinach, cos lettuce (romaine), rocket (arugula), parsley, coriander (cilantro), carrot, beetroot, apple and lemon. I put this all thru a cold press juicer and make enough for a couple of days. It stores really well in an airtight jar in the fridge. And I've even found a use for the pulp... I've been making raw wraps with it. I put the pulp in the thermomix with an organic zucchini and some flax meal and then spread it out onto dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for a few hours. The wraps are very tasty.

This was today's lunch 

Pulp and Zucchini wrap with homemade hummus, tofu,

 baby spinach and homegrown rocket and coriander.

I was so inspired that today I went to the nursery and purchased some more coriander, parsley, coriander and kale seedlings.

Oh and after only 3 days of juicing and 2 days of drinking a litre of water first thing my skin is already looking better, and the horrid dark circles under my eyes have started to disappear.  

If you are interested in your health then I'd highly recommend either watching or reading Hungry for Change. It features some of the leaders in the health and wellness movement. I've included links above for the people I've mentioned as they are a wealth of knowledge in their individual areas.

In the Raw and a little Fermented!

I've been more than a little fascinated with the benefits of fermented foods for quite some time now. There have been a few attempts at making sauerkraut in the last year but the results have usually ended up being consumed by my best friend. But in recent months the whole fermenting fascination has been rekindled by chef Pete Evens 'Paleo Way'. I eagerly awaited the release of his culture for life fermenting kit only to find that it was a little out of my price bracket. So I decided to order some vegetable starter culture online at healyourself.com.au and go back to the good old fashioned way of fermenting in air lock preserving jars. 2 days after I received shipping notification for the starter culture an email appeared in my inbox from The Raw Chef, Russell James, offering the fermented vegetable module of his online Fermentation course at a ridiculous price... so I snapped it up.

The particular course I purchased offered 10 recipes plus access to a bonus 4. They include not only a downloadable pdf version of each recipe but also a video showing either Russell or his colleague Amy demonstrating how to make each one. The trick to creating fermented vegetables that don't grow mold is all in how you pack it into the jar! So simple yet so easy to mess up. Fortunately in my previous adventures I managed to create without mold but didn't have the confidence to eat it hence my best friend being my guinea pig. 

My first attempts in the last week were using Himalayan salt on it's own as a catalyst to ferment then later in the week after my starter culture arrived I started using that. The advantage of the starter culture is that it creates a ferment with a much higher pro biotic content than you would get using salt alone.

Here's some of what I've made so far. It's still all in the fermentation stage but I have sampled and it's already delish and  that's coming from someone whose taste buds previously found sauerkraut to be totally undesirable

The other thing that's happened as a result of this is that I've also rekindled my love of raw food eating and have taken the dehydrator out of the cupboard and started creating again. The Raw Chef has recipes on his blog and I've taken a few of these and run with them. So far this week I've created zucchini tortillas, buckwheat bread, marinated mushrooms, dried tomatoes, cashew mayonnaise and raw macadamia cheese.

Top left: zucchini wrap ready to dehydrate. Top right: assembling the wrap with grated

carrot, lettuce, marinted adn dehydrated mushrooms, macadamia cheese, dried tomatoes 

and cashew cheese. Bottom left and right:all wrapped up and ready to eat 

I'm still eating cooked foods but this has been reduced and I have to say I'm feeling better for it. I'd started eating more processed foods again and as a result my sugar cravings had come back. In the last week I've noticed a distinct decline in my sugar cravings. I'm hoping these will go completely once I start eating the fermented veg and krauts

If you want to experiment yourself and need a little inspiration or guidance the Raw Chef offers a free 10 Recipe eBook, there's a link in the side bar.

basil

I love the smell of fresh basil and it's even better when it's home grown. This is a bunch I picked earlier

I threw it in the Thermomix with a handful of organic cashews, garlic, Himalayan salt and some locally produced olive oil and voila.....

Chunky Basil and Cashew pesto. This little dish of yumminess was the perfect condiment for my dinner

Crispy skinned Tasmanian salmon fillet with native lemon pepper seasoning, cucumber, home grown lettuce and chard, and a cherry tomato sauce that I made the other day. And of course a couple of dollops of my fresh pesto......It was delish

veggie patch

I have a little vegie garden, actually it's more of a veranda/container garden. Here's some of what I'm growing.

Micro Greens, Lettuce, Wheat Grass and Aristotle Basil

Celery, Basil, Perennial Coriander and Mizuna.

I also have lots of other things growing that I'll share with you soon. My little garden is grown organically and I love the idea of growing as much as I can so I know what's going into my food. At the moment it's mainly herbs and salad greens.

The picture of the micro greens (above) was taken a couple of weeks ago. I've been harvesting them and here's what they look like on the table.

Basil, Rocket, Purple Cabbage and Kale.

It was so worth the effort as they are super tasty! Yes I'll be growing more of these......

a juice a day

At the end of last year I bought myself a cold press juicer. It's fairly basic, it won't make sausages like some others do but it does the job. My challenge for myself for this year is a juice a day. This mornings concoction was orange, mango and freshly harvested wheat grass from my verandah garden.

I must admit that I missed day 1 of my challenge. A few too many Bellinis for New Years didn't really set the pace for juicing before work... But I did have a home made fruit smoothie so that sort of counts!