Rooting Around In The Earth

The Earth, Herself and the soil we walk around upon, is loaded with microbes. It is the way of Nature. Our bodies have more microbial cells than human cells (The human body contains trillions of microorganisms — outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1.) Modern Human’s obsession with destroying every microbial organism is creating imbalances in our bodies and health, in all living beings, and in the general health of the entire planet.

In college for my RN degree, we learned the germ theory of disease. This germ theory (remember it is a theory not a fact) states that microorganisms, bacteria, virus and fungi, are the cause of most diseases. It is the cornerstone of modern medicine and treatment of diseases.

As soon as I finished nursing school, I began (honestly, continued) my training / learning in Natural Medicine-Natural Health. In my mid 20’s, I read a book by a talented and wise herbalist, James Green, called The Male Herbal: The Definitive Health Care Book for Men and Boys. James Green introduced me to a theory called Terrain Theory. This theory stated that germs cannot invade the body if the body is healthy. So when the terrain, the soil of our bodies - our flesh, is unhealthy, we are wide open and susceptible to inviting in micro-organisms that are not a natural part of our body’s terrain. Obviously, this will cause upset in the body’s health.

Think yeast overgrowth in the vagina. Yeast is normal there, in the vagina, but when the body is unhealthy, BAM, prime opportunity for the yeast to overgrow /over populate the vagina and you now have an irritating problem.

A light bulb went on in my head. This made so much more sense to me than the mindset that we are walking around constantly at war with every microbe we cross paths with.

Let go of the trauma of the 1950s people. Everything does not have to be heat, hot water, and/or chemical sterilized to death. Learn to live in harmony with microbes because when you kill them off with antimicrobials - antibiotics, you are killing the beneficial as well as the not so beneficial microbes.

Living in harmony with microbes means taking care of our body as Nature intended. See this link on Lifestyle Choices. Your natural living habits are your amazing Lifestyle Medicine habits that keep your terrain nourished and healthy.

• Eat Dirt: pull an organic carrot from the soil, wipe off obvious Soil (Dirt as W. B. Logan calls this Ecstatic Skin) , eat the carrot & be grateful for the Soil Microbes you are not paying 50 bucks for in encapsulated form out of a supplement bottle.

• 100% Whole Food Eating: food are the Sacred substances that nourish your every body cell

• Stop using antimicrobial hand sanitizers

• Stop using chemical and antibiotic antimicrobial cleansers in your home (see image below)

• Eat organic food

• Avoid all chemical in home, yard, garden, garage, etc.

• Live from a space of Nature because you are Nature.

Our Gut Microbial Health (digestive tract) is of top notch importance in the development, or not, of

• auto-immune conditions

• mood disorders: think anxiety & depression

• small intestinal and colon ill health issues

• The list goes on & on…

• Upcoming classes at Five Elements Living to create Healthy Gut Microbial Lifestyle Habits: https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/the-science-of-functional-medicine-classes

• Live a Whole Health Lifestyle for Your Well Being

Your Best Medicine

As an herbalist student of Rosemary Gladstar, I have great respect for her healing ways. This quote could not be nearer or dearer to my heart. Truly, the way we live our lives, every day, IS the best medicine we can give ourselves.

We have a powerful choice, every day, in the food we feed our body, mind, and soul with. 

Whole foods feed our bodies; feed our cells for vibrant health and healing.

Whole, positive thoughts (our own and those we invite into our lives) feed our minds for happy living.

Whole, deep spirited energy feed our souls for compassionate living and loving from our hearts.

I hope 2016 is your best medicine year yet! 

I am creating learn at home eCourses to better support you with my health & healing work. Learn from home and invite your best medicine into 2016 and your life!

E-Courses To Walk Your Health Path

Join me and bring powerful medicine into your life. We both will be glad you did!  

Healthy people make the best communities to live in.  Join my quest to support your health and healing and make our communities vibrate and glow with amazing health!

My Healthy New Years Gift to the next 5 people who enroll in:  Food As Your Healing Tool: using foods for your healing advantage & decrease disease causing inflammation.  

25% discount off the $60 tuition: $45 for the first five "get healthy in 2016" students!

Class release dates on January 6th & 13th, 2016

Gluten Free Apple Pie

Whole Grain Gluten Free Pie Crust

• 1/3 cup butter* from pasture raised cows
• 1 cup whole grain, gluten-free flour**
• 1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt
• 1 - 2 tbsp. cold water (I use my local milk)

When making a whole grain pie crust, I have found it much easier to make it in a food processor.  The pie dough melds together really well and rolls out nicely.  I have tried many methods: fork, fork and knife, pie pastry hand blender, etc.  The best whole grain pie crust, for me, is made in a food processor.

I put in the flour, sprinkle the salt in, add butter in cold slices, and put the lid on. Turn the food processor on and drizzle the water or milk in through the top. When the dough balls up and is rolling about inside the canister, shut off the processor.

To roll the dough I sprinkle a bit of oat flour onto my pastry cloth and use the cotton sleeve on my rolling-pin. I bought my cloth pi making set at Evan's & White's Hardware store, Potsdam.

Roll out the pie dough and put it into the pie plate.  I make a second recipe for the top crust.  I have found it works best, for me, to make one crust at a time in the food processor.  If I am going to make a lattice top, like the pie above, I just make a little extra dough and make one batch only. (Approximately 1 1/3 cup flour plus maybe and extra tbsp., 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 2 tbsp. cold milk.)

Apple Filling

• 4 very large, organic Braeburn apples, or whatever your favorite flavor of organic apple.  I prefer Pink Lady apples... but they are expensive so I save them for eating and buy a cheaper apple for pies.
• Slice into thin pieces, leave the nutritious peels intact on the apples
• 1/2 cup unrefined sucanat sugar
• 1 to 3 tsp. pure Ceylon cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. vanilla
• oat flour, say 1/4 cup, to thicken the apple juice so the pie is not runny.

Mix apples with rest of ingredients.  Fill pie crust and top with 2nd crust or lattice top. Pop into the oven and bake for approximately 50 to 60 minutes at 350 F.  Apples should be gently bubbling inside the pie, not running liquid all over the oven.

*I have been using Kerry Gold Butter from Ireland.  I am not thrilled about using something transported from so far away. Local food is better!

I wish we had a farm cooperative in Northern NY that produced butter from pasture raised cows.  However, I received a "tip" from Jessica Prosper of Prosper's Farmstead Creamery!  I just ordered (from Nature's Storehouse Wholeshare) 5 lbs of pasture raised butter from a farm cooperative in New York State:  Kriemhild's Dairy.  They are not in Northern NY State, but hey, they are not in Ireland either!  Thanks for the tip Jessica!

**I use mostly gluten free oat flour in pie crusts.  This one also had millet, quinoa, teff, and amaranth flours.  Then I added in a 1/4 cup of dark buckwheat flour.

The oat flour will make a smooth crust.  Add in the millet, quinoa, amaranth, and teff and the crust gets textured... grainy.  If you are not used to this in whole grains, I am just warning you!  The buckwheat flour has a very strong flavor.  Very yummy, but again, if you are not used to this flavor it is a big leap from refined, white flour pie crust pastries.  I find them flavorful, a true taste sensation as compared to white flour crusts that to me taste like baked wall paper paste. Enjoy the yummy, new flavors on your taste buds.

The pie is very yummy and full of whole-cell regenerating, healthy, whole foods. No refined flours and sugars depleting the health of the body cells in my home!   I encourage you to read and learn about feeding your body cells with whole food to prevent and heal lifestyle related diseases.  It is nature's plan!  

Protein Powder I Use

Protein Powder I Use...

Wait...What?  Protein, Paula... have I stumbled upon the wrong Paula's blog post?

I get questions from clients, quite frequently, on what I think is the best protein powder to use.

Stepping back a few years... protein powders come in and out of fashion like clothing styles. I know this cyclic pattern, I have plaid shirts purchased when I was 20 years old and 28 years later (yes, I still have those plaid shirts), I am right back in the swing of fashion!

Enter protein powders from the late 70's and 80's.  With a processing makeover (claiming to preserve the vital nutrients of raw milk and colostrum... maybe, but I have a hard time believing that you can remove the liquid whey from the whole milk and then process it into powdered form and still retain all the vital nutrients...really?)  and a new label, perhaps some updated, high tech marketing hype and voila... a new fad ready to sell to the newest generation.

My favorite protein powder is this: zero, zip, nada, zilch, none of them!  In my eyes, they are very processed, refined, manufactured products... not food.  When food is in its whole state, it is a nourishing, cell building gift to your body.  Processed products by any name: rice protein powder, soy protein powder, whey protein powder, hemp protein powder (get the idea here?), well... not so nourishing.

My thoughts, and I know I go against the grain, take it for what it is worth.

Now if you are making your own cheese and keeping the whey liquid to use, great.  Much different than the powdered whey stuff sold as health food.  Again, this is my healing thoughts.

If you think you need more protein, for whatever your reason, use real foods - whole foods. Are you using protein powders in a smoothie to up your daily protein?  Add a raw egg or two from healthy chickens, raised by farmers you know, and living on farms that are clean and natural.  I would never use a commercially raised egg in raw form, organic or not.  Add raw nuts and seeds, they are loaded with protein and healthy fat to boot. Tolerate dairy?  Use real milk from real cows / goats / sheep / yaks, raised eating their natural diets and keep the milk raw and unprocessed. (I am not a big fan of the packaged milk replacements: rice, soy, almond milk, etc.  Again, it is processed, made in a factory. Make your almond milk at home, it is easy and you control the ingredients and process.  Email me for a recipe.) Add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of beans to the smoothie, if you tolerate them.  I recommend light tasting and lighter colored beans for this purpose.

All of these recommendations, for smoothies, are foods that can be eaten just as food.  I am not a big fan of tossing a bunch of yummy foods in a blender and pureeing into a liquid meal.  I like to chew food in a real meal form.  So, with that said, eat any of the above foods to increase your protein intake.  Take soft boiled eggs (from healthy, local chickens), 3 minutes, for on the go meals.  Cheese and yogurt from well raised animals.  Eat lentils and split peas in all sorts of yummy dishes:  soups, stews, Indian dahl... the sky is the limit.

My point is that there are many plant and animal whole foods that can be added to your diet without resorting to powdered protein products.  Nature did not make them, a factory did.

My focal point for making healthy food choices: did nature make it or was it concocted in a factory?

I will confess, I have had running dialogues with various naturopathic healers who recommend protein powders.  One healer, in particular, I have their whole food protocol for healing disease that clearly states to eat natural foods, avoid packaged foods.  Then the protocol recommends a protein powder and protein snack bar made by a specific company.  What?! Really?!  When I read this my first thought was: "How can this "healer" recommend a 100% whole food diet that eliminates packaged foods, and then turn around and recommend a factory made protein product or two, all in the same health education document? How is this not sending a very confusing message to those seeking healing?"

As I always say, take the information in and create your own healing truths.

Stay tuned for fat... Mmmm, Mmmm Fat, coming soon in a newsletter blog post near you!

Local Food Abounds, Health Benefits Innumerable

What's in the bowls, you ask?

Fresh, raw grape-apple sauce made from local concord grapes (across the road from me) and local apples (Thank you, Anna Campbell!).

I have been making this fresh, every morning, by chopping apples with their skins intact and putting them into the blender.  Pull grapes from their vines, seeds and skins intact, and toss into the blender.

Blend on high speed until a well blended sauce, pour into bowls and enjoy!

BENEFITS:  The benefits of local foods is that the nutrition is intact. The food is fresher as it has not been transported thousands of miles.  Apples and grapes are an amazing cleansing AM food for the liver and colon.

The skins are loaded with phyto-nutrients.   The grape seeds, well, they are too.  People pay good money for grape seed extract and yet spit the seeds out of the grapes they are eating.  What?  Grind them up, glean the benefits of the seeds!

The nutrition in both fruits is low sugar and feeds the body cells with an amazing array of nutrients (most of which we know nothing about nor have a name / label for them!).  It is a fall food to enjoy until they are gone, knowing that next season they will be back to enjoy again.