While the idea of Oil Pulling or OP is very very old, it is brand new to me. I've come across the idea of Oil Pulling a few times in the last month or so, and keep meaning to search on it more. Yesterday we were at the book store and as I turned a corner there it was, a book on Oil Pulling. I decided to see how much I could read before the boys got bored and we had to leave.
Well, I'll tell you, my kids are amazing... they lasted so long that I really nearly finished it! Every 3rd or 4th page I could feel my mouth drop a little, and I would find myself looking for Chris to tell him what I just read. It was fantastic!
There seem to be no side effects to Oil Pulling, nor are there really any rules or strict guidelines to follow. Searching online I couldn't find very many sites on the topic, but here are a few that I did find....
http://www.oilpulling.com/
http://www.oilpulling.org/oil-pulling/
http://www.naturalnews.com/025578_oil_pulling_health_learning.html
It sounds like something that can't hurt to try, and could actually help? Who knows eh?
At any rate, Chris and I started Oil Pulling with Sesame Seed Oil today. It was really not that bad. I must say that the 20 minutes took some time to finish, and my tounge was pretty sore afterwards, but other then that it was ok. The oil looked like milk when we spat it out in the trash afterwards. I'm looking forward to trying it for a few weeks at least (after which I will stop to see if there is a noticable difference).
I have noticed that for a while now (at least 2 weeks) I have had a horrible tension headache and my neck hurts more then normal. I'm not sure what it's all about, but last night I started getting a little worried that it was maybe some residual mercury in my body from the removal of my last 2 mercury fillings. The dentist did not remove them properly, and I don't think I detoxed long enough with Cilantro. I have since increased my intake of Cilantro to 2-3 Tbsp today, and will continue that amount (or more) for a few weeks. I hope all of these together will get rid of this ache I have!
Sunday
a new site of mine
In an effort to work smarter and not harder, I've started a separate site for anything to do with food and or recipes. This should now leave the 'What am I trying to do now' site, as it should be, which is talking about the stuff that I'm trying to do. :)
Please see this site for anything to do with food!
Please see this site for anything to do with food!
Thursday
Keep your sickness to yourself! (my rant for the day!)
There's an epidemic of sorts in my neighbourhood. It started a few weeks before Christmas, and it has just reared it's ugly head yet again. What is it? The stomach flu!
I'm calling it an epidemic because I really don't know what else to say, there are some families here that have been 'hit' with this 'bug' 3 or 4 times! (Yes you read that right, 3 or 4 times!!!) I just can't believe it, I really can't. I heard a few stories of people (kids and adults) being so sick that they are literally in the washroom every 2 hours throwing up (despite not eating -this to me is pretty serious, especially when it is for 3 or 4 days in a row!) And don't get me started on why these people are still going to work and sending their kids to school!
There are so many reasons that this epidemic bothers me.
Oh where do I start???
-The fact that people try to 'suck it up' and go to work or send their kids to school. ????? How do you expect your body to heal itself when you don't give it the rest it needs?
-Swallowing assorted pills and liquids to help relieve the symptoms does nothing NOTHING good for you or your body in actually fighting the infection. Your body needs rest, Vitamin C, soup, tea, and plenty of water, and of course, MORE REST! (maybe throw in there some oil of oregano, or echinacea and maybe zinc... depending on what ails you...)
-If you are green in colour, your child has a fever, if you have been throwing up or just don't feel completely healthy you need to listen to your body and give it rest and time to heal. Trust me, and trust your body, it knows how to do it, and given the right environment it WILL do it.
-So many days my kids came home to tell me who threw up in class today, and who left early because they weren't feeling well. Then the next day they would be back at school, obviously not completely healthy, but still back. Tell me this, is your job more important then YOU, is your child's grade 2 xmas party more important then a HEALTHY child? Is the health of all the other children in the class not important to you?
So, you all may be wondering how we fared over the holidays. Well, to tell you the truth I'm pretty sure the 'bug' did 'hit' us. My youngest was first, he had a stomach ache all day, and was resting and drinking a lot of tea and water. He threw up once in the morning, and because I made him rest some more, felt better by the afternoon. My oldest son had a stomach ache the next week at night, he threw up twice in about 2 hours and slept without incident that night, only to wake up feeling great. Both my husband and I had a stomach ache for about 36 hours, but that was the extent of that.
If anyone is interested in what we do when things are going around here is it...
We all triple our Vitamin C intake (for my kids they get 500g 3X day, my hubby and I take 1000g 3X day)
We add either oil of oregano 3-5 X day (if we feel we may be catching 'it') or echinacea 3-5 X day(early prevention)
We also make 100000% sure that we do not miss our regular supplements (which are multi vits, probiotics, vit D and fish oils)
being sick is something that happens to everyone, whether you get really sick for a week, or just don't feel yourself for a few days. My rant here isn't about being sick, it's about not taking care of yourself or your kids when you are sick! Stay home, stop eating sugar, sleep (don't just sit and watch tv, actually sleep!), don't medicate yourself to get rid of the symptoms instead give your body the things it needs to fight the actual invaders! Keep your sickness to yourself too, please stop sending your kids to school when they are clearly ill, you are doing a disservice to everyone else!
Grrrr, I think that's it......
for now?
Irony? just saw this article in the globe and mail.... it may not be just me, what do you think?
I'm calling it an epidemic because I really don't know what else to say, there are some families here that have been 'hit' with this 'bug' 3 or 4 times! (Yes you read that right, 3 or 4 times!!!) I just can't believe it, I really can't. I heard a few stories of people (kids and adults) being so sick that they are literally in the washroom every 2 hours throwing up (despite not eating -this to me is pretty serious, especially when it is for 3 or 4 days in a row!) And don't get me started on why these people are still going to work and sending their kids to school!
There are so many reasons that this epidemic bothers me.
Oh where do I start???
-The fact that people try to 'suck it up' and go to work or send their kids to school. ????? How do you expect your body to heal itself when you don't give it the rest it needs?
-Swallowing assorted pills and liquids to help relieve the symptoms does nothing NOTHING good for you or your body in actually fighting the infection. Your body needs rest, Vitamin C, soup, tea, and plenty of water, and of course, MORE REST! (maybe throw in there some oil of oregano, or echinacea and maybe zinc... depending on what ails you...)
-If you are green in colour, your child has a fever, if you have been throwing up or just don't feel completely healthy you need to listen to your body and give it rest and time to heal. Trust me, and trust your body, it knows how to do it, and given the right environment it WILL do it.
-So many days my kids came home to tell me who threw up in class today, and who left early because they weren't feeling well. Then the next day they would be back at school, obviously not completely healthy, but still back. Tell me this, is your job more important then YOU, is your child's grade 2 xmas party more important then a HEALTHY child? Is the health of all the other children in the class not important to you?
*here's a true story, a mother at the school here was complaining one morning about how lethargic her kid was, she said she thought he was coming down with something, so she gave him a pain reliever, some cough syrup and (and I'm quoting her here) "a bunch of spoonfuls of sugar to try to wake him up' SERIOUSLY????? I felt like grabbing that poor 4 year old and taking care of him...*
So, you all may be wondering how we fared over the holidays. Well, to tell you the truth I'm pretty sure the 'bug' did 'hit' us. My youngest was first, he had a stomach ache all day, and was resting and drinking a lot of tea and water. He threw up once in the morning, and because I made him rest some more, felt better by the afternoon. My oldest son had a stomach ache the next week at night, he threw up twice in about 2 hours and slept without incident that night, only to wake up feeling great. Both my husband and I had a stomach ache for about 36 hours, but that was the extent of that.
If anyone is interested in what we do when things are going around here is it...
We all triple our Vitamin C intake (for my kids they get 500g 3X day, my hubby and I take 1000g 3X day)
We add either oil of oregano 3-5 X day (if we feel we may be catching 'it') or echinacea 3-5 X day(early prevention)
We also make 100000% sure that we do not miss our regular supplements (which are multi vits, probiotics, vit D and fish oils)
being sick is something that happens to everyone, whether you get really sick for a week, or just don't feel yourself for a few days. My rant here isn't about being sick, it's about not taking care of yourself or your kids when you are sick! Stay home, stop eating sugar, sleep (don't just sit and watch tv, actually sleep!), don't medicate yourself to get rid of the symptoms instead give your body the things it needs to fight the actual invaders! Keep your sickness to yourself too, please stop sending your kids to school when they are clearly ill, you are doing a disservice to everyone else!
Grrrr, I think that's it......
for now?
Irony? just saw this article in the globe and mail.... it may not be just me, what do you think?
Wednesday
More FOOD
Yesterday was freezing cold. I'm not talking about -20.C or even -30.C, here with the windchill it was a blistering -45.C!!! Being a stay-at-home mom and having the school 14 houses away, I could not with a conscious drive my kids to school..... alas, we walked (bundled up to the max!)... brrrrrrr. What you need to understand with a cold that COLD, is that it is really really hard to warm up after wards. You should also know that I'm the kind of person who hates (HATES!) being cold, I think it's the worst torture around. Usually I'm wearing a sweater, slippers, and have a little heater going even when the house is a balmy 73.F!
anyways....
now that you know how cold it really was, and how much of a wimp I am you'll understand why I wanted to turn my oven on and keep it that way all day! The only way I could do this was to bake and cook all day. Great timing too because I had been reading a bunch of blogs with amazing sounding treats on it that I just needed to try! Here it goes.....
Recipe #1 from iheartwellness is a wicked salt and vinegar guilt free tv munching snack!
Just as the site says: Mix together sunflower seeds, apple cider vinegar and sea salt!
I used 3 cups sunflower seeds,
3Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar and 3Tbsp of Sea Salt
Mix
Place in an oven for 250 (I turned it up to 325) and bake for 1-2 hours (stirring every 20 minutes).
I'm glad I did these first cause they were so delish to munch on while making the rest of my goodies!!
While snacking on these yummy treats, I was also making some AMAZING granola bars... This recipe is also from iheartwellness, On the site Kris makes them into 'clusters', but I ended up changing it up a bit , and adding / subtracting parts to suit my ingredients. Here is what I did...
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup crushed walnuts
1 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup cranberries
3 Tbsp Chia seeds
1tsp vanilla
1 cup melted coconut oil
Mix well together, put on cookie sheet and flatten. Place in freezer to set. While there make your chocolate sauce. I mixed together in a pot on the stove the following...
2 Tbsp butter (or coconut oil)
1 Tbsp cocoa
1 1/2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
Once the bars are set, take them out of the freezer, cut into desired sizes (bars or squares, etc), and drizzle still hot chocolate sauce. Put back into freezer to set chocolate and store in the fridge. Now, I've never made granola bars before, but these turned out so amazing, that even my hubby and kids were sneaking into the kitchen to wolf some more down!
So, I have now put away my cooled and flavoured sunflower seeds into a nice glass jar in the fridge. The bars are staying safe away from my fingers in a container in the fridge. And I'm starting to make some mint chocolate covered peanut butter balls. I found this recipe here on all day I dream about food so yum!!
I tweaked it a bit with half rice flour and half regular flour, and used a mint chocolate for some of them, and the rest I made chocolate with the cocoa powder....
Here is what they turned into..
This is the Chunky peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and flour mixed together (I used maple syrup instead of the sugar substitutes shes had listed) all rolled into cute little balls.
Put these into the freezer while you melt your chocolate....
Then dip each peanut butter ball into the melted chocolate, and place back into the freezer to set. Store in the fridge if you have any left! Yum!!
Mine have little holes in the tops from the toothpicks I put in them to help me with dipping!
While I was making all these, I also made a few dozen (ok, 5 dozen), of my kids fav flour free totally chocolate and peanut butter cookies....
you can find the recipe here from last time, and made some yummy gluten and dairy free butter chicken for dinner!
and so, after all this, I was tired, and worn out, and full of chocolate.... but best of all,
I WASN'T COLD!!!!!!!
(and better yet, my fridge was full of yummy healthy treats for the rest of the week!)
Later!
T
anyways....
now that you know how cold it really was, and how much of a wimp I am you'll understand why I wanted to turn my oven on and keep it that way all day! The only way I could do this was to bake and cook all day. Great timing too because I had been reading a bunch of blogs with amazing sounding treats on it that I just needed to try! Here it goes.....
Recipe #1 from iheartwellness is a wicked salt and vinegar guilt free tv munching snack!
Just as the site says: Mix together sunflower seeds, apple cider vinegar and sea salt!
I used 3 cups sunflower seeds,
3Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar and 3Tbsp of Sea Salt
Mix
Place in an oven for 250 (I turned it up to 325) and bake for 1-2 hours (stirring every 20 minutes).
I'm glad I did these first cause they were so delish to munch on while making the rest of my goodies!!
While snacking on these yummy treats, I was also making some AMAZING granola bars... This recipe is also from iheartwellness, On the site Kris makes them into 'clusters', but I ended up changing it up a bit , and adding / subtracting parts to suit my ingredients. Here is what I did...
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup crushed walnuts
1 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup cranberries
3 Tbsp Chia seeds
1tsp vanilla
1 cup melted coconut oil
Mix well together, put on cookie sheet and flatten. Place in freezer to set. While there make your chocolate sauce. I mixed together in a pot on the stove the following...
2 Tbsp butter (or coconut oil)
1 Tbsp cocoa
1 1/2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
Once the bars are set, take them out of the freezer, cut into desired sizes (bars or squares, etc), and drizzle still hot chocolate sauce. Put back into freezer to set chocolate and store in the fridge. Now, I've never made granola bars before, but these turned out so amazing, that even my hubby and kids were sneaking into the kitchen to wolf some more down!
I tweaked it a bit with half rice flour and half regular flour, and used a mint chocolate for some of them, and the rest I made chocolate with the cocoa powder....
Here is what they turned into..
This is the Chunky peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and flour mixed together (I used maple syrup instead of the sugar substitutes shes had listed) all rolled into cute little balls.
I WASN'T COLD!!!!!!!
(and better yet, my fridge was full of yummy healthy treats for the rest of the week!)
Later!
T
Tuesday
Fav. Recipes.
OKay, here it goes. People have been asking me for some of these because they are the bomb! (and pretty healthy too).... I am happily passing these on, please enjoy! (and remember, these are not my original recipes, I do not have that kind of skill!)
My fav way to eat QUINOA!!!!
Teriyaki Quinoa
#1 Cook 1 cup dry Quinoa (or use leftovers, that's what I do)
- if you are cooking leftovers, start at step 2!
#2 In a saucepan heat 4 large cloves of garlic and 1TBsp of grated fresh ginger (or more, I like more)
#3Once heated through and fragrant, add Quinoa and stir. (if this is your only item for the meal, add things like grated carrots, celery, minced peppers, minced broccoli, here's your chance to get creative!)
#4 add in 3-4 TBsp Tamari (gluten free is best), 2TBsp agave nectar (or sweetener), 1/2 lemon squeezed. Stir well. Keep at low heat.
#5 Add to plate and sprinkle with sesame seeds and cut green onions.
ENJOY!!!!
*found and adapted from ALIVE magazine*
My Fav Soup (besides homemade Chicken noodle and Borsht!)
Carrot Ginger Chicken Soup!
#1 saute medium onion in butter or coconut oil.
#2 add 2TBsp grated GInger, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1tsp ground cinnamon
#3 add 9-10 cut up carrots (not too big!) and mix well. (I added 1 regular sized sweet potato and 6 carrots this time)
#4 add 1 can coconut milk, then fill that with water and add that. Add the juice of 1 orange.
#5 Boil slightly, then simmer 10-15 minutes(don't boil too much, remember there is milk in there!)
#6 While the soup is cooling a little Chop up your chicken into small bite sized pieces. Cook with a bit of olive or grape seed oil, a dash of salt and pepper. When done, set aside. (I would have a photo, but Chicken never looks good in photos!)
#7 When soup is cooled, blend it until it's creamy smooth.
Add in Chicken, stir, reheat and Serve!
YUM!!!!
*taken from Zuzanna's workout site*
My fav way to eat QUINOA!!!!
Teriyaki Quinoa
#1 Cook 1 cup dry Quinoa (or use leftovers, that's what I do)
- if you are cooking leftovers, start at step 2!
#2 In a saucepan heat 4 large cloves of garlic and 1TBsp of grated fresh ginger (or more, I like more)
#3Once heated through and fragrant, add Quinoa and stir. (if this is your only item for the meal, add things like grated carrots, celery, minced peppers, minced broccoli, here's your chance to get creative!)
#4 add in 3-4 TBsp Tamari (gluten free is best), 2TBsp agave nectar (or sweetener), 1/2 lemon squeezed. Stir well. Keep at low heat.
#5 Add to plate and sprinkle with sesame seeds and cut green onions.
ENJOY!!!!
*found and adapted from ALIVE magazine*
My Fav Soup (besides homemade Chicken noodle and Borsht!)
Carrot Ginger Chicken Soup!
#1 saute medium onion in butter or coconut oil.
#2 add 2TBsp grated GInger, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1tsp ground cinnamon
#3 add 9-10 cut up carrots (not too big!) and mix well. (I added 1 regular sized sweet potato and 6 carrots this time)
#4 add 1 can coconut milk, then fill that with water and add that. Add the juice of 1 orange.
#5 Boil slightly, then simmer 10-15 minutes(don't boil too much, remember there is milk in there!)
#6 While the soup is cooling a little Chop up your chicken into small bite sized pieces. Cook with a bit of olive or grape seed oil, a dash of salt and pepper. When done, set aside. (I would have a photo, but Chicken never looks good in photos!)
#7 When soup is cooled, blend it until it's creamy smooth.
Add in Chicken, stir, reheat and Serve!
YUM!!!!
*taken from Zuzanna's workout site*
More Quotes that make me Happy!
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~E.E. Cummings
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. Marcus Tullius Cicero
You cannot point to the same river twice because new water is always flowing... Heraclitus
The following authors are all Unknown to me...
Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.
Never Limit your own Potential or your own Beliefs.
If something would be good for you in the future, why don't you just start now?
Success is usually dependent on doing things differently.
The only thing we should ever strive to control is our own thinking.
The of following are from Deepak Chopra.....
If something breaks the rule, no matter what it is, no matter how infrequent it is, no matter how remote the probability, it means that a new possibility has arisen.... we have to pay attention.
Expectations determine outcomes.
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