Wild Leek Soup... Yummy!

Wild Leek, Herb, & Local Veggie Soup

Simple and took me about 20 minutes to make, 
including the cleaning time for the wild leeks.

• Early in the day I put out to thaw about 1 1/2 cups of each of these frozen veggies from my winter veggie CSA :

1. broccoli 
2. red, orange, and yellow pepper pieces
3. orange cherry tomatoes

• I brought 4 1/2 to 5 cups to a boil and poured into my Vita Mix blender.

• Add the white parts, set green leafy tops aside for later, of 15 or so wild leeks and blend into a puree.

• To the Vita Mix liquid add:

1. handful of fresh rosemary sprigs from the window sill herb pot 

2. handfuls of sage & oregano and the leaves off a long sprig (5-6 inches) of thyme - all herbs in the garden that are up and ready for use

• Blend all this green stuff into the wild leek liquid.

• Pour green liquid back into pot on the stove. Do not turn on heat again

• Add in the completely thawed veggies and 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. unrefined sea salt.

• Cover pot and leave until dinner time. I made it about 1 1/2 hours before dinner so the flavors could meld together for a short while.

• Tomorrow night I will add a can of organic chickpeas to the leftovers to change it just a little bit.

Optional add ins:

• fresh chives scattered across the top after you ladle into the soup bowls.
• garlic chives blended into the broth.
• any fresh herbs you have in the garden. I have parsley but I did not want to disturb the small patch this early in the season.
• fresh, tender dandelion greens.
• wild violet leaves from the yard? 
• harvest wild violet flowers just before serving and sprinkle across the top with the chopped chives. Violets add in some awesome, local Vitamin C for spring rejuvenation!
• I would have added frozen sweet corn kernels and cauliflower pieces but I seemed to have used all of those frozen CSA goodies.

Serve with whole grain bread, butter, & cheese. If you are lucky, and we were, serve up a local baby green salad. Spring pleasure food!

Grab what you have on hand and create a simple spring soup to enjoy in this untimely hot weather! Share what you threw together and tell us if it was yummy!

You Are NOT What You Eat

 

Ok, so the story, as we have been told, is that You Are What You Eat. 

I truly love this statement as it says so much. If you stop and think consciously about this statement, you just might think hard and long about your food choices.

At the same time that this statement says so much... it does not say enough. Hence my title:

You Are NOT What You Eat.

Let me explain myself.

1. You ARE what your body digests.

• real food is required

• chew well: food must be masticated very well so your body can easily break it down (digest it) otherwise you will just be pooping out undigested chucks of food. Pity, seems like such a waste of good food! 

• strong stomach acid is required to break down food so you are able to use all of the nutrients in that real food you spend good money on. You want to encourage stomach acid not repress it with acid suppressing drugs.

• good microbial colonization of your intestinal tract is needed for certain biological activities; microorganisms perform a host of useful functions such as fermenting unused energy substrates, training the immune system, preventing growth of harmful, pathogenic bacteria, regulating the development of the gut, producing vitamins for the host, such as biotin and vitamin K, and producing hormones to direct your body to store fats (and so many more good gut bug jobs). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora

Let's move on with this You Are NOT What You Eat concept...

2. You ARE what your body can absorb.

• in order for nutrients to be absorbed, they have to be able to be digested. I will refer you back to #1 above.

• your small intestine must be healthy in order to absorb the nutrients from the digested food. Processed, packaged, factory made foods (and all the synthetic ingredients in them) damage the villi and micro villi that line your small intestine. Damaged villi do not absorb nutrients well. Ask your body's cells how they feel about this lack of nutrients coming at them? What destroys these precious little villi and micro villi you ask?

1. packaged food's synthetic ingredients
2. sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup
3. hydrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils
4. GMO food crops
5. gluten in people with celiac disease or gluten intolernaces
6. poor chewing... see above.

3. You ARE What Your Heart Can Circulate Around Your Body and Deliver To Your Body Cells.

• moving your body daily creates a strong heart, strong blood vessels, and strong muscles that all help to pump blood around your body. I could go on and on and write a whole book on the benefits of daily movement to your body's tissue strength and how this movement supports the movement of fluids, oxygen, and nutrients throughout your body. I will spare you the long story. Trust me, just get up and move. Dance and your body cells dance with you!

4. You ARE What Can Pass Across Your Body Cell Membranes. 

The nutrients in your real food that you have chewed well, were digested well, and absorbed into your villi and micro villi are only useful IF they can pass across the cell membrane and actually nourish your body cells. Complicated, eh?

• your cell membranes need healthy fat from real food to keep it strong and intact allowing nutrients into the cell and cellular waste products out of the cell.

• also, a daily dose of healthy protein keeps the cell membranes happy.

• avoid processed, packaged, factory made foods as they contain unhealthy fats (hydrogenated & partially hydrogenated oils, cheap vegetable oils high in omega 6 fatty acids), denatured proteins, and synthetic ingredients that confuse your body and interfere with this whole digestion - absorption - circulation - and transport across the cell membrane process (for more information head back up to #1).

You are SO much more than just what you eat. You ARE what you:

• digest

• absorb

• circulate

• pass into your each and every tiny cell

Deeper Dive Homework: look at your food and your bodily processes in a different light.  Feed your body whole foods.  Support all your bodily processes so you, in turn, feed your body cells well.

PS  Dandelions are a great digestive aid!

Comments and questions are always welcome! 

80/20 Deception

I compare this 80/20 eating plan to a license to kill.  I know, I am harsh, but let's look at the reality of this bold eating statement:

Essentially what this 80/20 statement is saying is:

• eat good food - real food - whole food 80% of the time AND
• 20% of the time just let it all hang out and eat anything you want (food products, fast food, and junk food that are not even real food, yikes!). 

This equation, in most people's hand, seems like it could be dangerous. Let me explain.

Questions:

1. Do you want to heal and thrive or just survive 80% of the time?
2. Do you want health professional who hold you accountable to good cellular health or health professionals who say, "Hey, go ahead, poison your body cells 20% of the time?"  (I warned you I am harsh. Achieving health is not something to sugar coat. This reminds me of My Holistic Momma's Dilemma post.)

If you were diagnosed with lung cancer would you want to be told?:

"Hey, 80% of the time... give up those cigarettes but 20% of the time, well just go for it. Smoke whatever you want."

Liver disease...

"80% of the time avoid alcohol but 20% of the time enjoy all of the drinks you want."

Car Care: Would you put gasoline in your car's gas tank 80% of the time and corn syrup the other 20% of the time? (This is just for perspective on this 80/20% thought line.)

Hang on good people, stick with me on this one... here comes the positive, loving, there may be some interim usefulness to this 80/20 thing.

Now do not get me wrong, if a person was on "the reverse 80/20 eating plan" and consumed 80% processed, packaged, and junk food... swapping out the eating habits to an 80% whole food and 20% not so whole food eating plan would be a huge improvement. This person would notice major shifts in their energy, sleep, colon health, mental alertness, digestive ease, moods and happiness... their 80/20 eating plan's healthy side effects would on and on.

For example: I have clients who give up eating any & all sugar for just 3 days. This means reading each label carefully for every conceivable form of sugar that food manufacturers use to hide the real sugar content of food. Truthfully, most clients will just go on a 100% "no packaged food" for 3 days to rid sugar from their lives.

100% of the time I get emails or phone calls with this general message: 

     "I cannot believe how much better I feel just from this one change in my eating habits. (Now remember, in getting sugar out of the diet they have also removed all packaged foods. Bonus healing effects happen with this double shift in eating.) I have better energy, fall asleep with ease, wake up feeling more refreshed, have no sugar cravings; the mid afternoon slump and moodiness has eneded, I just feel so much better."

Natural foods start the cellular healing process immediately! This is a 100% win win.

80% Junk vs. 20% Real Food?

Shifting to 80% Whole Food & 20% not so whole foods might be the shift that pushes one over the edge to get even healthier. Feeling good begets wanting to feel great!

Quite frankly, I know I am not saying anything that most people do not already innately know: Your body needs real food to thrive. This is nature's plan. Being reminded of these cold, hard facts is a story that not everyone wants to hear. Learning, relearning what we innately know, means something has to change. A shift in lifestyle has to be made. This creates discomfort.

Try this fun field trip to take on a cold, cloudy, North Country day: 

1. slowly wander through your local grocery store and take 1 item per food category off the shelves in each section of the store,
2. read all ingredients carefully, and
3. decide if any or all ingredients seem like anything nature intended to be in your body contributing to (or detracting from) your body's cellular health.

What are your thoughts on the 80/20 Eating Plan?

Spring Fling with Nettles

Stinging nettles poking out of the ground, 4/16/15.

I grow nettles in the "flower" bed up against my home. I have been asked on many occasions: "What person in their right mind would plant nettles in any flower bed and the bed right up against the house?" The answer is obvious to me; I am not in my right mind and who wouldn't plant nettles so close to the house? They are oh so close when I need them for soups. stews, stir fries, pesto, tinctures, medicinal infusions, etc.

Now here is the double edged sword with this situation: they are close at hand but these 'lil buggers like to run and take over the world just like mints. They create this under soil runner that, well, just runs, and runs, and runs spiraling out of control. I spend the spring pulling the renegade nettles out of the rest of the flower bed in front of my home. When I planted them, 5 years ago, I politely asked them to stay in their space on the side of the house. I even dug down into the soil and planted sandstone pieces to deter them from running. They out smarted me.

As aggravating as this can be, I do have a steady supply of spring nettles that I do not feel guilty about pulling. I snip the leaves to eat and plant the runners along the yard's edge hoping for yet more nettles to eat and make medicine with.

My bowl of nettle tops and leaves.

A close up of 2 nettle tops ready for dinner.

Nettles in the pan, a gentle saute' in butter is all that is needed.

The stems that I gently cooked first;  why waste the nutrients?

Cooked nettles waiting for me to consciously devour them.

The finished salad with nettles scattered across the top.

I have made mention of my Spring difficulties around food. All winter I graciously and gratefully eat local cabbage, root veggies, and squash. I save my frozen local summer veggies to tide me over when I can no longer stand the thought of a root veggie and cabbage slaw. Yes, it does happen. (My winter leftovers are waiting to be made into sauerkraut when I can dig enough wild leeks to enhance this kraut batch.) 

I yearn for local food: asparagus, greens, fiddle heads, peas, strawberries...

To survive until the local food is bountiful once again, I buy food from California. There, I confessed. The above salad is Romaine lettuce, celery, carrots, and juicy red peppers from California. I also buy non-local fruits: mango, banana, kiwi, citrus, and canned organic pineapple. I am desperate for neatly gift packaged sunshine to tide me over to the local food scene. A ripe mango has a serious amount of sun waiting to burst out of its skin. I bow my head in gratitude to the people, the trees, and the soil that brings me these gems to keep me happy.

I plopped the above salad down in front of my kids, minus the nettles of course. They would have flipped had I expected them to eat Nettles! (They did each have a small spoonful that they chucked into their mouths and barely chewed before swallowing. Someday they will appreciate the things I have exposed them to...) Here was my salad response:

"Finally, a real salad. No more nasty cabbage - root veggie slaw! Yay!"

Poor kids, they suffer so.

"Wow, Mom broke down and bought something that didn't grow within 20 miles of our home."

When do they learn to not harass the person keeping them in food?

Tip for the day: Get outside. Snip some nettles. Hey, dig some wild leeks and saute' them together, ever so gently. Enjoy the taste sensation, the local wild food, and the spring nourishment for your body. Oh yeah, don't bother sharing with the kids!

To create your own female energy spring fling:

Join the Female ♀ Moon Cycle Wisdom Training

Tuition, this year, stays at $72 Bucks in honor of My Mom,

an awesome female, & her Birthday (April 17th)! 

BUY HEALING COURSE NOW

Coffee and My Calamitous Affair, Revisited

Dandelion Coffee jar on my front porch in Northern NY, USA

In August of 2014 I wrote a post on Coffee and my calamitous affair with it. Refresh your memory here: http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/blog/2014/7/19/my-calamitous-love-affair-with-coffee

Moving forward a few months and seasons:

April 19th, 2015:  My calamitous affair with coffee has continued, on & off. Who can resist the smell, the taste, the sensation in the mouth, throat, and belly? Ah, so tasty, warm, and soothing (well, soothing until the caffeine hits my system exactly 15.2 seconds after the first sip!). 

I have tried many, many coffee substitutes and I have to say all may have been tasty in one aspect or another but all have never, ever, replicated the coffee experience (caffeine jitters aside, of course!). One has to enjoy them on a different level and not be thinking of them as coffee or you will be utterly disappointed.

On our family trip to Jamaica, April 2015, I find the most amazing, tasty, and coffee like drink ever: Sunburst's Products Dandelion Coffee. I picked up a jar at the Kingston Airport as we were preparing to depart Jamaica. I had no idea what I was buying as I obviously had not tried it. My thought was this: "If this stuff is even remotely tasty, it will help with my detox off the Blue Mountain coffee that I drank every morning at 6 AM. Seriously, despite my calamitous relationship with coffee - caffeine, what person in their right mind is going to say no to Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee? When in Jamaica, do as the Jamaicans do! (Thank You Mr. White at Great Huts Ecological Resort in Boston Bay, Jamaica. What a great man he is, greeting me every 6 AM with a "Good Morning Miss Paula, the coffee is ready. Where is Eli? I bet Jake is still sleeping!" All words said with the kindest twinkle in his eye.  Mr. White was the person, while off work duty, he jumped to fix me up with a local remedy poultice to soothe my bee stung foot. Hugs to Mr. White for making awesome Blue Mountain coffee every AM and your sincere Jamaican kindness!)

So now I am home and must detox from coffee OR:

• put up with caffeine side effects every day
• suffer the caffeine withdrawal headache for a day or two

I opt for the wean down off coffee detox plan:

• 1st morning: 3/4 coffee, 1/4 dandelion coffee
• 2nd morning: a 1/2 & 1/2 blend
• 3rd morning: 3/4 dandelion and 1/4 coffee
• 4th morning: 100% dandelion coffee in my cup

Here is what I found upon brewing the dandelion coffee:

• smelled awesome, very coffee like
• looks dark and rich, how I prefer my coffee
• let's taste the stuff! I was not disappointed but pleasantly surprised! Dandelion Coffee is by far the best "substitute" I have ever tasted. I think, if I was given a cup and not told that it was not real coffee, I would not know and believe I was drinking coffee! I would soon be curious as to why the caffeine effects were not quickly kicking in.

When my current jar gets low, I will be ordering more and hoping the product becomes easy to find here in the USA.  http://www.sunburstproducts.com/our-products/

Got Seasonal Allergies Healing Hint:

If seasonal plant and pollen allergies tend to drag you down, try this:

1. 1/4 tsp. of raw, local honey every AM & PM. The honey must be cold extracted from the comb to preserve the properties that will ease your allergy symptoms. If the comb was heated up, as this makes it so much easier to extract the sticky honey, the heat cooks the enzymes, nutrients, and immune healing factors that help to ease seasonal allergies. Sometimes the challenge with this is stopping at 1/4 tsp. Think of it as mind-body-soul healing medicine where truly more is not always better!
2. Stinging nettles. Most healers recommend freeze dried nettles in capsule form (You can find Ecclectic Institute's freeze dried nettles at Nature's Storehouse, Canton, NY). If you have stinging nettles around you, consider yourself fortunate, and indulge in your healing wild garden's bounty. Please be considerate of the plant and leave plenty for re-growth and to prevent soil depletion. With your nettles: make tea, make pesto, gently stir fry or steam.

My quart size bottle of medicine! This jar lasts a very long time. Local, raw honey is widely available in Northern, NY. Check farm stands, the Potsdam Food Coop, Nature's Storehouse in Canton, Martin's Farm Stand, and Garden Share's Local Food Guide for more local sources.

Are You an Upper or a Downer?

The infectious smile of happy kids, definitely an upper!

On your walk through this world, do you lift people up or drag them down?

The way you carry and express your life force energy can be a healing tonic to yourself or a noose about everyone's neck.

Stop yourself in the moments of your day and quickly assess your:

1. body posture 
2. facial expression
3. tone of voice
4. words and thoughts

Are you inviting yourself and others to relax, smile, and love life?

This is your daily "Yoga" call to action. When we lift each other up the whole world vibrates at a higher level of energy and color. Smile and make a rainbow today!

My lift up for the next four days:

I have been asked questions about "scholarships" to take the ♀ Moon Cycle Wisdom course; young woman showing interest but wanted an affordable option for their younger year's income. As an uplift to the world I am offering scholarships, because you see these are my thoughts... the more females who engage with their own female energy around their menstrual cycles and life on this planet, the more:

1. positive energy for all. Life and energy IS a balance and when we are in the flow of balanced female-male energy peacefulness will be a side effect. (all energy balances out: hot-cold, light-dark, birth-death, etc.)
2. more happy females taking this course will in turn encourage other females to take this course and the results will be: see #1 above, and
3. It all becomes a vibrant cycle (no vicious cycles here!) of paying forward female healing energy.

here are My "Be An Upper" Scholarship Plans: 

4 Hours for 4 Days Scholarships to the ♀ Moon Cycle Wisdom Course

1. April 12th, noon to 4 PM $85
2. April 13th, Noon to 4 PM $100
3. April 14th, noon to 4 PM $115
4. April 15th, Noon to 4 PM $130

(All dates linked directly to the "scholarship of the Day" Order Page, click and join the Female Fun!)

The sooner you enroll to heal your energy around your female moon cycle, the bigger your scholarship and savings!

 

Check Back on April 16th. It is a special day!

My End Note:

Be an Upper!