Admittedly, the rutabaga is a homely vegetable with a fun-to-say name. You’ve probably seen them in the produce section, and quickly walked by, avoiding a direct look at them in case they might turn into fairytale trolls out to get you. So call them by their other name, swedes, and keep reading.
Tahini is ground sesame seeds – it’s a product which is rich in nutrients and has been used in recipes and as a healing agent for centuries. The sesame plant is native to India and was found growing naturally from northeastern Africa to the far east. The seeds were primarily used for their oil, as a base for perfumes and as a seasoning. The name sesame is derived from the ancient Egyptian word sesemt and later from the Greek word sesamon.
As a society, we are constantly bombarded by conflicting information as to what is “good for us” to eat—and what is not.
For example, a pervasive myth exists that “salt is bad.” While an excess of salt in the diet can be harmful, and in some cases a person may need to monitor salt intake based on certain health conditions—it is important that we don’t throw out salt altogether. Salt is actually an incredibly important element of our diet that we require to function, feel good and thrive on a daily basis.
The key here, of course, is moderation.
For so many of us, weight-loss diets rarely work. Stringent, restricted, and sometimes unhealthy, post-holiday crash diets often do more harm than good in the long-run.
Rather than beat yourself up to slim down, the end of January is the perfect time to try making subtle but powerful and lasting changes to your eating by adopting a more mindful approach to your eating. You will enjoy your food more, find increased energy, and see a more gradual but permanent and vibrant change in the way you look, feel, and approach your meals.
Seaweed is often touted as some of the most nutrient dense food in the world. Seaweed has been used for centuries in the Far East and India, but only in the late 20th Century did it become popular in the United States where its primary introduction was during the health food trend in the 1970s. Today it is a popular addition to sushi. Seaweed is a term that defines many plants that grow in the ocean. Kelp is one of these.
Ayurveda is one of the most ancient of the healing arts that considers the body, the mind and the spirit. Its philosophy is the basis of other eastern healing methods and also includes several holistic healing methods. Ayurveda states that disease begins in the gastrointestinal tract when the system is out of balance and food is not digested properly. It uses foods as a treatment based on six tastes of sweet, sour, pungent, bitter and astringent.
THE RAW FOOD DIET
“You are what you eat!” As a health enthusiast who practices the natural ways of healing, I have to say that the statement holds a lot of truth. The raw food diet is regaining its popularity once again. That’s right, folks, this is another old-school way of healing recently being unearthed.
I have been a Paleo eater for the past eight years, and it has completely changed my life.
For those of you that don’t know, the Paleo diet is short for “paleolithic”—also known as the “caveman” diet -- and includes grass-produced meat, fish/seafood, fresh fruits and veggies, eggs, nuts and seeds, healthful oils (olive, walnut, flaxseed, macadamia, avocado, coconut), and eliminates/minimizes sugars, grains, dairy and beans.
This new way of eating came as a result of discovering my inability to process sugars and starchy foods.
Peppermint is in the genus Mentha which includes more than one hundred species, and is thought to be a natural hybrid of spearmint and forest mint. Its origin is believed to be in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean basin, and has been used in recipes and as a medicinal herb since 1500 B.C.E. It found its way as far north as Scandinavia and was mentioned in the Icelandic Pharmacopoeias in the mid-13th Century.
Cocoa is the bean from the cacao tree which is a native plant in the Amazon region of Brazil. It made its way throughout Central and South American during ancient times. The seeds are contained in a pod and were ground into powder. Today the food is known as cocoa powder.