Quinoa with Pine Nuts and Lemon-Dill Dressing

Bring the water and a pinch of salt to a boil.
Thoroughly rinse the quinoa and add to the boiling water.
Reduce the heat and simmer (covered) until the water is fully absorbed.
While the quinoa is simmering, mix the lemon juice, olive oil, flax, ume plum, and dill together for a light and refreshing dressing.
Add the pine nuts to the pot of quinoa 3-5 minutes before it is finished cooking.
Serve the quinoa tossed with the lemon-dill dressing.

Simple White Bean Salad

Combine all the ingredients (except the beans) in an air-tight container.
Add the beans (rinse thoroughly first) to the marinade and gently mix until everything is well mingled.
Cover tightly and chill.
Serve cold.

HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF FLUORIDE IN YOUR DRINKING WATER This quick Fluoride Action Network video shows us some of the major concerns of fluoride in drinking water. Check out the warning label on your toothpaste tube. It notes that the amount of fluoride in a single brushing (.25 mg) should not be swallowed, and if so, the label says you should contact a Poison Control Center. Interestingly, that’s the same amount that’s in an average glass of tap water. Learn more and watch:

CLONED MEAT NOW IN U.S. FOOD SUPPLY
Although the USDA only recently removed a voluntary market sale moratorium on foods from cloned animals, a Kansas cattleman claims these products are already in the U.S. food supply. “I have sold offspring of cloned animals into feedlots, and they are in the food chain,” said Donald Coover, a cattleman and veterinarian. Coover says he has sold semen from clones to many US meat producers in the past few years, and that others have been doing the same. Despite strong public opposition, the FDA has announced that these foods do not need to be labeled as such, so consumers buying meat dairy and eggs don’t know if the product came from a cloned animal. Fortunately, the USDA has clarified that foods labeled as “organic” cannot come from cloned animals.
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_10496.cfm

Vaccine companies investigated for manslaughter!

You know how great you feel when you finish spring cleaning. Your closets are organized, and all of your home’s nooks and crannies are free of dirt and clutter. This spring, you can extend that feeling of well-being to your body by cleansing from the inside out.

Just as you want to rid your home of dust and grime, you may also want to do something extra to rid your body of toxins. Ridding yourself of those chemicals may allow your body to absorb more nutrients from your food, may help kick start your weight loss plan, and provide you with newfound energy. From hair spray and lawn fertilizer to hormones and preservatives, we inhale, ingest and absorb toxic chemicals every day. Our internal cleansing system is designed to remove natural waste products. But it might need a little help.

Think your body isn’t overloaded? The average home contains more than 1,000 chemicals. We all struggle with the amount of substances that build up in our systems. Our bodies won’t cleanse themselves of anything new until they get rid of the toxins already on board. Starting this spring with a whole body cleanse may help to re-set and re-fortify the body’s natural internal cleansing process.

I love the Clean Start Cleanse and you can buy it here!

I’d like to offer these internal ’spring cleaning’ tips:

Try to drink at least 64 ounces of bottled or filtered water every day.

Avoid eating a lot of highly processed foods and foods with refined flour, sugar, saturated fats or artificial sweeteners.

Take it easy and give your body the time it needs to rest and re-build while you’re cleansing.

Gentle stretching, short walks in the fresh air and yoga are all good choices.

Follow these tips and you may feel lighter, cleaner and more revitalized this spring.

Studies show that tap water across the U.S. is contaminated with many industrial chemicals, and now we know that millions of Americans are also drinking low-level mixtures of pharmaceuticals with every glass of water.

I would really recommend that you install a RO water system in your home and ideally a whole home system since even showering in tap water is not real great for your health.

Read more here!

Hi everyone,

I’m running a little late this month because I have spent the last 3 weeks sicker than I have been for at least 15 years. From all of those who I have talked to, this is the short end of the nasty flu strain that is going around this year. I have talked to others who were out for 6 weeks with the same symptoms. Now because I rarely get sick, I am not a patient patient. There is never an illness in my home that we can’t get over in 2-3 days, and we just hardly never get sick bugs at my house. But I have had 3 weeks to think about all that I have done “wrong” to “earn” my 3 weeks of torture. I thought I’d share to help you be more successful in fighting the nasty bugs that are circulating right now and hopefully keep you off your bed this month.

1. Get plenty of rest when you feel something coming on. I however was headed for the airport for 4 days of Disneyland when I knew something was coming, and you can imagine, there wasn’t a lot of rest involved. Then I of course hit the ground running when we got home, because every mom knows how much work there is to do when returning from vacation.

2. Eat all natural whole foods and avoid processed, dead foods when you’re sick. Focus on fruits and vegetables. Once again, when on vacation, living in a hotel room, I didn’t have access to hardly any fruits or vegetables, and interestingly enough they’re hard to find while eating inside Disneyland. I always tried to eat salads when i could, but restaurant salads are far from the healthy organic, home made salads I would eat at home.

3. Drink plenty of good water. Well, at about $3 for a small bottle of water, I tried to drink often but it’s hard to keep plunking that much down for the amounts I knew I should have been drinking, I tried to opt for filling my bottles with water from the drinking fountains, but I just really struggle with drinking tap water too so that was just as hard.

4. Catch the nasty bugs early before they have time to get a strong hold. At the very first sign of illness, start pumping the echinacea and vitamin C every hour on the hour. I gave this a very good try, constantly between rides, but I wasn’t able to take what I wanted because I was on vacation and unfortunately didn’t bring my whole herbal arsenal with me. My favorite product in the whole world that just nips any illness right in the bud is called VSC and we take it often at any first sniffles or runny noses and that is why no illness ever lasts more than a day or two at my house. I highly recommend having a stash on hand at all times. For kids, I use a liquid version. I unfortunately didn’t bring enough on vacation, and you can’t buy it in stores so I was up a creek without a paddle…

5. Use a netti pot and gargle with salt water and a drop of tea tree. I didn’t bring my netti pot along, and while I did gargle with echinacea, using real salt water is one of the most useful ways to fight a early bug. you can read more about the benefits of gargling here.

So there you have it, the “Shari Lyon, why I got so sick” confessional. It makes me crazy that I wasn’t able to be over this in just a couple of days, but as you can see, I really deserved to suffer longer than that because I broke everyone of the basic rules of getting better faster!

So, here’s to your health and I hope none of you will have to fight the nasty bugs running around out there this month!

Cherry-cinnamon oatmeal

Serves 10

Although similar in flavor to stove-top oatmeal, this baked version has a mix of textures: a slightly firm, almost crusty top and a meltingly soft interior.

2 1/2 cups rice, hemp or almond milk
11/4 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup date sugar or raw agave nectar
1 3/4 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup dried cherries
3/4 cup chopped almonds, toasted
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly coat an 8×8-inch baking dish with cooking spray. 2. In a large bowl, combine milk, water, vanilla extract, and sugar. In a second large bowl, combine oats, cherries, almonds, and cinnamon. Pour liquid ingredients into oat mixture and stir. Pour into prepared baking dish and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until all liquid is absorbed.

-10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system, which is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake. You’d normally vomit from such an intake, but the phosphoric acid cuts the flavor. Your immune system is non-existent for up to 6 hours.

-20 minutes: Your blood sugar skyrockets. Your liver attempts to maximize insulin production in order to turn high levels of sugar into fat.

-40 minutes: As your body finishes absorbing the caffeine, your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your liver pumps more sugar into the bloodstream.

-45 minutes: Your body increases dopamine production, tricking you into feeling pleasure and adding to the addictiveness of the beverage.

-60 minutes: The sugar crash begins.

Source- Dr. Mercola: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9665.cfm

Well, it hasn’t been long since I discussed the dangers of plastics in a newsletter, but given that there has been a huge surge of articles this month on the dangers of leaching plastic I thought I better mention it again for those of you who missed it.

A couple of weeks ago researchers at the University of Cincinnati released a startling new study showing that many of these bottles leach bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disrupter, into water that is being stored within polycarbonate water bottles.

All the evidence out there tells us that this stuff is not good for you; EWG tested canned foods recently, which are lined with the same BPA plastic as these water bottles are made from. As it turns out, foods from metal cans contain significantly more of the chemical than water from bottles.

With this new research, metal water bottles are looking better and better. Some have a plastic lining, but Klean Kanteen makes metal water bottles that are BPA free. These are the bottles I sold back at Christmas time. if enough people are interested, I will do another order, just e-mail me if you are interested. you can also get these bottles online, but because I get them wholesale, I am able to sell them for less than all retailers online.Parents who are concerned about baby’s plastic bottles should know that although this study didn’t look at baby bottles, it studied the same type of plastic. At this point, there’s enough research out there to justify the added expense of buying BPA-free or glass bottles. You can also adapt the Klean Kanteen metal bottles to use a sippy spout and bottle nipple, which is really cool.

Click here to read more about plastics and which ones are best to use and avoid.

1) Reduce consumption of processed foods.
2) Eat food with ingredients your grandmother would have used.
3) Purchase organic eggs and of course other organic products.
4) Cook with grapeseed oil instead of butter, margarine or vegetable oil.
5) Avoid conventional soy and corn products (most of it is genetically engineered).
6) Avoid meat raised with antibiotics and/or synthetic hormones.
7) Avoid exposing kids to non-fermented soy.
8 ) Consume organic foods during first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
9) Look for organic milk or milk labeled as being made without rBGH.
10) Thoroughly research any vaccines you are considering.

Source: http://www.allergykids.com