Health Freedom Expo 2011

It's that time again. I'm really excited to see who will be exhibiting this year!

This expo is always filled with all kinds of wonderful organizations to get invloved with and new products to try.

http://www.healthfreedomexpo.com/site/

Dear Jujube

Dear Jujube,
I have been waiting a year for you to return and now that you have, I am enjoying you immensely!

One of my favorite famers market vendors started harvesting their jujubes and I've been having my fill of them. Jujubes are also known as chinese or red dates. They range from cherry to plum size and can be eaten at various stages in development. I enjoy them most when they're brown to sienna colored and the skin is still crisp. At this stage, they're reminiscent of a light and airy apple, but truly have their own unique flavor and texture. As the jujube matures, the skin becomes wrinkly and the flavor becomes more date like.

The wonderful thing about growing jujubes is they don't ripen all at once, so you can pick and enjoy throughout the season, instead of harvesting all at the same time.

Jujubes are high in vitamin c, potassium, minerals and antioxidants. They have been used medicinally for many years and are often made into tea to sooth sore throats. Indulging in jujubes this time of year can boost your bodies immune system and help you avoid getting sick. Jujubes are one of natures most perfect foods!

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Placentaphagy for Postpartum Health and Well Being

Placentaphagy is the practice of eating your own placenta.
Placenta is great for many things, but is especially wonderful for postpartum Moms. It is rich in nutrients that aid in postpartum healing and well being. Consuming your placenta after birth can help bring your bodies hormones back into balance, stop postpartum hemorrhage, replenish nutrients, increase milk supply and keep postpartum depression at bay. There are many ways to consume your placenta. Some people choose to cook it first, but I wanted to use it raw, so that all the nutrients remained intact.

When I became pregnant I started researching the benefits of placenta and decided that I would give it a try. My daughter is now 9 weeks old and I am very pleased that I used my placenta. I lost quite a bit of blood during birth, but I had no issues postpartum. I also had much more energy than I or my midwife expected. I had placenta smoothies for a week after birth and then started on my capsules.

You can have someone else prepare the placenta for you or do it yourself. I am DIYer in many other aspect of life, so I figured this should be no different. My midwife offered to help me with it and I gathered all the needed supplies, so that I would have everything ready to go come labor day.

For the smoothies I used mixed berries(masks the color and taste of the placenta) and pineapple. usually I would use a scoop of green protein powder, but placenta is rich in iron and protein, so it wasn't needed.
For the capsules, I used my dehydrator, spice/coffee grinder, capsules and a capsule machine.
I ordered some of my encapsulation supplies from here http://shop.placentabenefits.info/

Directly after birth, the placenta was double bagged and stored in the fridge. I started preparing the placenta the next day. I took my time with it while baby napped and it turned out to be incredibly therapeutic. While prepping it, I thought of all that we had just been through and how just hours ago, that placenta was inside of me nurishing my baby. I studied the different parts of the placenta and really took in just how amazing it was. In these moments I understood why some women choose to make placenta prints to hang on the wall or plant their placenta.

There are several different methods to dehydrating placenta. Here are the basic steps I used.

Cover all surfaces you will be working on with wax paper (remember you are working with a raw organ, so proper hygiene is very important)
Rinse placenta
Remove cord and membrane
Cut into small thin pieces (dehydrates faster)
I lay some out on wax paper and froze for smoothies
I put the rest in my dehydrator on parchment paper and dehydrated on 110 degrees until it was dry
(the pieces should snap when you bend them)
Process in grinder into a smooth powder
Encapsulate (how many capsules you get depends on the size of your placenta. I had approximately 100)
I washed everything that came into contact with my placenta in hot water and then soaked in tea tree oil and grapefruit seed extract.

*Warning*
Some of the pictures below are bloody. If you're easily offended don't go any further.

Pieces frozen for smoothies

Placenta on the deydrator screen. I also dried a piece of my daughters cord for a keepsake.

Dried pieces and pieces in grinder




Powder ready for encapsulation


My husband filled the capsules using a capsule machine. He said it made it much quicker.

Vitamin K and Newborns

To dose or not to dose, that is the question.
For us, it's not to dose. After researching the pros and cons of vitamin K right after birth and the risk of vitamin K deficiency, we decided against it. It's a personal decision for parents to make before the birth of their child. If you decide against vit K, your health care practitioner will likely have you sign a waiver before labor day.

In most hospitals, vit K is given to all newborns across the board. As a parent, you do have a choice in the matter.
For us, it is important to eliminate any unnecessary pain to our baby or unnecessary substances to our baby's system. If you opt out of vitamin k, you can still have your baby dosed in cases of a traumatic birth causing alot of bruising or scarring.

Since the 3rd trimester, I've been drinking nettles and red rasberry leaf tea daily.
http://andeverything-in-between.blogspot.com/2009/10/red-raspberry-leaf-and-nettle-leaf-tea.html
At 39 weeks, I added an extra cup per day in preperation for birth. This will give my colostrum and breastmilk a vit k boost. It will not give baby as much as an injection or oral dose would, but I feel it will be sufficient enough for an average, non traumatic home birth. We also will delay cord clamping/cutting so baby won't be deprived of their natural blood volume.

Again, this is a personal decision for parents to make. Just know that you do have a choice in what happens to your baby during and after birth.

Helpful websites
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/vitktop.html
http://www.womens-health.co.uk/vitk.asp

Hypnobabies

http://hypnobabies.com/

Hypnobabies teaches medical hypnosis techniques for childbirth. It aims to help you create a peaceful childbirth experience for yourself, your baby and your birth partner. You can either take the course in person or order the home study course.

I know a couple of Mamas who took the class and were very satisfied with it. They loved it, but with the expense and time it would take to do the class, I figured I would do better with the home course. I bought a used set from the hypnobabies website and after I'm done, I can sell it back to them.

I started the course at about 6 months along and I've been really pleased with it. When I first looked into hypnobabies, I was thinking you would be completely out of it. It's not like that at all. It's a way to deeply relax yourself by creating your own mental anesthesia and reprogram any negative thoughts of birth you may have.

Hypnobabies also emphasizes staying positive throughout the whole pregnancy and not letting any negative comments or visual images make you fearful of natural birth. Another thing I enjoy, are the affirmations you listen to each day. The affirmations are about everything from trusting your body to eating healthy and excepting your growing belly. They help me tremendously!

They recommend you start at about 30 weeks, because it's a 5 weeks course. However, if you're like me and get side tracked, they recommend you start earlier, so you can get through all of it and practice before baby comes. I'm currently 40 weeks and doing what's called daily maintenance.

The relaxation techniques I've used during my pregnancy have been priceless. I'm curious to see how I do with everything I've learned from hypnobabies on my baby's birthday.
I will update this post once baby is here!

Chiro's for Prego's

Ahhh, the chiropractor.
I never thought of going to the chiropractor before becoming pregnant. I never had any body or joint pains that bothered me that much. Sure, there was a running injury here and there, but nothing I felt needed chiro attention.

At the beginning of my 2nd trimester, I became immobile. I was aware of the relaxin hormone and what it does to a pregnant body, but I had no idea the pain it could cause. It started out as just aching hips and trouble getting up from a seated or laying position. For weeks, I was on the verge of tears several times throughout the day. Then, it got so bad that I would get stuck in mid stride while out walking. The last straw was when I got stuck getting up from the toilet. I was in so much pain that I had to have my husband help get me out of the bathroom and into bed.

I had been reading up on some other women's experiences getting adjusted while pregnant. Some needed pain relief, others wanted to adjust the position of the baby toward the end of pregnancy. I spoke to my midwife and she recommended a chiropractor that dealt with pregnant women.
I hobbled into the office for my first visit. There was a consultation followed by a few minutes on the roller bed. I don't know the technical term for it, but it's basically a heated bed with rollers underneath used to loosen you up. It was relaxing. After that, the chiro assessed me to see what type of adjustments I would need. Then, he got started and snap, crackle, pop we were done. It was an odd experience, but after about 20 minutes, I felt so much better. As the day went on, I felt even better. The next day, I was like a new woman! There was still some soreness, but nothing like I had been experiencing. Keep in mind, everyone has a different reaction to a chiro visit and may need more than one adjustment.

I am now in my 3rd trimester and just went back for an adjustment last week. I was starting to get stuck walking again and had been dealing with sciatica. http://www.spineuniverse.com/conditions/sciatica/pregnancy-back-pain-sciatica
Once again, I'm feeling like a new woman. This time however, I could not tolerate the roller bed. Since the 2nd tri, I can only lay on my back for a couple of minutes and all that motion was making me sick. So, he used some other techniques to loosen me up before the adjustment.

Mama's, please don't spend your pregnancy in pain. If you haven't already and you feel you need to, go see a chiropractor. Just make sure you check with your health care provider and find someone who works with pregnant women.

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Women for Wellness

Short notice, I know...
I will be teaching a Vegan/Raw Vegan cooking class Thursday, May 27th for Black Women for Wellness Los Angeles. BWWLA is a wonderful organization filled with many resources and tools to improve womens health and wellbeing. They offer everything from dance and fitness classes to spiritual and emotional support.

Thursdays 3 hour class is interactive and will focus on increasing fruits and vegetables into your diet. By the end of class, you will have learned the basics of maintaining a healthy vegan diet and be armed with many recipes and samples to help jumpstart your journey into vegan cooking and raw vegan uncooking.

If you miss this one, no worries! There are still 3 classes available in June.
All information can be found here.

http://www.bwwla.com/index.php?id=155

Essential Oils vs Synthetic Fragrance

When you know better, you do better and now I know better.

Up until last year, I was still open to using some fragrance oils, but not anymore. I've been making my own beauty and hygiene products at home for awhile now, but only recently started scenting them. I was never too concerned with them smelling like anything other than what I was using. Sure, I would throw in some of my standard essential oils, but that was more for its properties and benefits than smell.

Last year, when I began making products for my family, my interest in smell was piqued. So, I dived deeper into fragrancing. I quickly learned that it's not so easy to find out what makes up a "fragrance". After researching further, I figured out why.
According to the FDA, fragrances fall under the trade secret formula law. This means that manufacturers don't have to disclose the ingredients of their fragrances. In short, you and I will never know exactly what makes up a particular scent. Fragrances can have 100's of ingredients and because of the trade secret law, it's often used as a facade for harmful chemicals and preservatives.

The FDA has said that they regulate what exactly is allowed, but that is far from a guarantee of safety. Some of the ingredients allowed are harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, parabens and phthalates. Many of these ingredients are known to cause reproductive system toxicity, cancer, allergy/asthma flare ups, migraines and other negative health issues.

So, why in the world would anyone ever want to use synthetic fragrance or products with synthetic fragrance in them?
Firstly, fragrance oils are much cheaper. Just like with many things harmful to the Earth and its inhabitants, it boils down to money. Synthetic fragrances filled with phthalates that make them last longer, are much cheaper than organic essential oils. Given the choice, I think people would choose to pay a little more now, than pay even more in health bills, pain and suffering later.

Secondly, there are some scents that can't be mimicked naturally. For example, have you ever smelled a banana scent or eaten a banana flavored candy? It smells and tastes "good", but not truly like and actual banana. It's more of an exaggerated version of what a banana smells and tastes like. Unfortunately, people have gotten accustomed to these synthetic scents and flavors and strayed away from what nature has given us.

There are other alternatives to using synthetic fragrances to add wonderful aromatics to your products. Some of which are absolutes, attars, hydrosols, infusions, extracts and essential oils.

An essential oil is a liquid that is most frequently steam distilled, cold pressed or extracted from the leaves, stems, flowers, bark, roots, or other elements of a plant. Essential oils contain the true essence of the botanical it was derived from and are highly concentrated, so a little goes a long way. Essential Oils offer a myriad of therapeutic psychological and physical benefits and are great for use in aromatherapy and skin applications when diluted.

A few of my favorites are, chamomile, fennel, frankincense, lavender, lime peel, patchouli, sweet orange...
I will be highlighting these and others in follow up posts.

Health Freedom Expo

I happened to read about this expo on the internet a day before it began. I'm really glad that I did, because I gathered a ton of great information and met some truly inspiring people! A few of my favorite vendors there were Animal Acres, Leaf Cuisine, Natural Solution and Bragg Live Foods.


Animal Acres: You know how you keep meaning to get in contact with a person or group and never have? That's me with Animal Acres. I have loved them from afar for so long and was extremely excited when I found out they had a booth at the expo. What a blessing!
I enjoyed chatting with the volunteers about the animal sanctuary, veganism, volunteer opportunities and the Veggie Pride Parade. http://veggiepridela.com/
I am so excited to get started helping Animal Acres rescue and rehabilitate abused farm animals. I hope to get a group together soon to go take a tour and lend a hand wherever it's needed. http://www.animalacres.org/

Leaf Cuisine: I've tried quite a few of their raw food offerings through Whole Foods and have been pleased. It was nice to see them there preparing fresh food and educating expo goers on raw and living cuisine. I stopped by and grabbed some "Kickin' Kale Crisps". They were delish and I plan on loading up my dehydrator with my own version soon! http://leaforganics.com/


Bragg Live Foods: This was one of the busier booths at the expo. I passed by several times and they were always overflowing with curious people. Patricia Bragg was there speaking with everyone about the benefits of the Bragg line and living a healthy lifestyle. I was able to get in and grab a few samples and purchase some of their new salad dressing. They had several new items to check out and try. I've been a fan of Bragg's ever since I discovered their Apple cider vinegar. It's truly the best tasting and most nutritious on the market.
While there, I was given a bottle of their new ACV drink. Wowza, it was good! I've mixed up my own at home before but they must have the ratio just right because it was wonderful. I will be purchasing this again as soon as it's available in stores. http://www.bragg.com/


Natural Solution: There were several vendors selling Himalayan salt, but none were the brand that I am familiar with. I happened to see a friend from my raw foods group while I was there and he recommended I try Natural Solutions. He said that the quality was wonderful and the prices were great. He was right and I stocked up on some at whole sale price!
There is nothing like using HS in your food preparation or body applications. The health benefits are remarkable for both the inside and outside of your body. http://designed4lifeusa.com

Before leaving the expo, I received a coupon to The New World Fair in Pasadena, May 16-17, 2009. There will be exhibitors, live music, speakers and even an open drum circle!

I won't miss this one! If your interested, check out the website for more info.
http://www.newworldfair.org

Dandelion Greens

Dandelions are in the sunflower family and grow all year long, peaking in the springtime. Chances are, you have some growing in your back yard right now. You know, those small yellow flowers that mature into feathery balls that get blown off into the wind. They're much more than just weeds, so stop trying to get rid of them and start eating them!

The dandelion leaves are what you want to harvest and taste best if picked before flowering occurs. They have a slightly bitter and tangy flavor that goes especially well with salads.

Besides flavor, dandelions are filled with more nutrients than many wider known greens. Just one cup of raw dandelions has 98%DV of Vit A, 58%DV of Vit C and 18%DV of calcium. http://www.elook.org/nutrition/vegetables/2410.html

Dandelion greens aid in digestion as well as cleanse the liver, blood and kidneys. For the most benefit, you can use them in tinctures, teas and juices.

Nothing makes me feel more alive than a freshly squeezed glass of juice in the morning. This recipe using the dandelion greens is especially great for fasting and cleansing.

Dandelion Lemonade

makes about 24 ounces

1/2 bunch organic dandelion

1 collard leaf or handful spinach

1 lemon

2 cucumbers

2 apples

Put all ingredients through your juicer.

Enjoy straight or over ice!

Hibiscus Flowers

Hibiscus flowers come in a range of species and are grown in warm regions throughout the world. Different species are used for many things including making paper, hair tonics, teas and herbal medicines.

I bought a big bag of dried hibiscus flowers with the intent of using some with my henna hair treatment and using some to make ice cold agua de jamaica. I haven't mixed up my hair concoction yet, but I sure did make a big pot of Jamaica.

Jamaica has a taste all it's own. A perk of making it at home is you can steep the flowers for however long you like to get your desired strength. Jamaica is also great paired with ginger, citrus fruits or spices.

Hibiscus flowers are a great source of vitamin c and can help reduce high blood pressure. So drink up!
http://www.pennherb.com/newsletters/2004/11/1129%20Hibiscus%20Flowers.htm

This time I kept it simple:

Agua de Jamaica


2 cups hibiscus flowers- great source of vit C
6 cups filtered water- filtered is best for drinking

1 1inch piece of ginger- helps digestion and upset stomach
agave syrup to taste- I prefer agave to white sugar



Be sure and wear clothing and use utensils you don't mind getting stained.


Bring water and ginger up to boil, then add flowers.
Let boil for 2 minutes and then remove from heat.


Steep the flowers and ginger in the water for 30 minutes to 2 hours and then drain. Add your agave syrup to taste. Pour over ice or refrigerate.
Enjoy!

Head to Toe Body Butter

I have been making some of my own beauty products for a couple of years now. I tired of reading labels over and over only to find out that it's not something that I want to put on or in my body.

My motto is: If I can put it in my mouth, then I will put it on my body. Everything else is rubbish!

I generally use the same products in the bathroom as I do in the kitchen. All of my cooking oils do double duty as hair and body moisturizers.
Fruit and coconut/nut milks are blended into conditioners and many of my teas and spices are used as well. Let's not forget my beloved baking soda. There is not a day that goes by that I don't use baking soda. I use it as a hair cleanser, teeth cleanser, face and body exfoliant, antacid...the list goes on.

I like to keep my beauty regimen basic, all natural, chemical free and healthful.
Although, I've been using oils and butters to moisturize my hair and skin, I had not yet ventured into mixing, whipping or fragrancing them.
I decided I would put together a recipe for myself as well as gifts for some family members. They were very pleased.

Here's my basic shea butter recipe:

1/2c unrefined shea butter- repairs, moisturizes and nourishes
1/4c virgin coconut oil- heals and protects from sun
1tsp vitamin E oil- antioxidant that helps your butter stay fresh
Few drops of fragrance oil- use any kind you like
3tbl cornstarch- helps butter go on smooth with a less greasy feel
I get my supplies from http://www.thesage.com/catalog/index.html
Make sure you have all your ingredients portioned out and ready to go. You don't want to be fumbling around once you've started melting your butters.


Melt your butters by putting it in a bowl over steaming hot water. I bring the water to boil and then turn it off. The heat from the steam is efficient enough to melt your butters.

Once the butter is fully melted, I add in the coconut oil. Combine well and let cool for about 30 minutes. At this point I add in the other oils and cornstarch.

Next I put the mixture in the fridge or freezer until it starts setting up. I take it out and start beating with a hand held mixer. After beating for about a minute I return to the fridge. I do this about 3 times until the desired consistency is reached.

It should resemble a thick whipped cream.

I store my whipped butters in a glass container. There are no preservatives in this mixture, so be sure to keep your storage containers clean and free of outside moisture. Use it from your head to your toes.

This will be the greatest feeling moisturizer you've ever put on your hair and body. The best thing about it is you know exactly what every ingredient is and where it came from!