organic living

A Garden for the Bees

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I use to be so afraid of getting a bee sting since I have a pretty adverse reaction. My Mom carries an epi-pen since she has an even worse reaction, so I learned to fear these little bugs early on. Needless to say I would swing and bat at the bees when I would garden.

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Three bees are in this flower!

Flash forward to now many years later and in the middle of our bee crisis (thank you Monsanto) I have developed a much different relationship with these creatures. It began with sitting at my pond and watching my turtles and fish. I guess because I was in observer mode I wasn’t fearful of being stung and I watched just how many bees came to drink from our pond. Hundreds of them come at the end of the day and if can be scary if you let yourself go there. We made our pond for turtles from the pound and its very natural, murky, full of plants and logs and things turtles like. The plants make it safe for the bees to land and drink. They actually drink the water from the roots of the plants that are above the water level. They are not interested in people, they are bees and have a mission and usually it does not involve you!

At about 6:00 if you are lucky enough to be sitting at the pond you can watch the bees one and two at a time fly off in the same direction home. Within 30 minutes hundreds of bees fly home and they are all from the same hive. I totally understand the meaning of bee line, until I witnessed this I never really knew what that expression meant! These bees have become dependent on my pond and since I know that without bees we would starve to death I have changed how I garden and plant many extra bee-liscious things to keep them near by.

This year purely from my compost I have begun to grow pumpkins I think. I composted so many different kinds of squash, pumpkins and gourds that I’m now sure yet just what is growing but I tell you what the bees love these! I am fascinated and more in awe each day and have pretty much lost my fear of getting stung.

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Down under the leaves its cool and there are so many bees flying from flower to flower

 

Spicy Organic Sweet Potatoes

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Serves 4

Ingredients:

o 1 ½ pounds organic sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
o 1 small organic red onion, peeled and chopped
o 2 TBSP organic, unrefined raw coconut oil
o 1 to 1 ½ tsp organic chili pepper
o 4 gloves organic garlic, chopped fine

Directions:

Heat oven to 400o. Place the prepared potatoes (or yams) and onions in a reusable plastic bag. Drizzle in the coconut oil. Shake bag to coat vegetables well. Next, spread the vegetables into a glass baking dish in one layer; sprinkle evenly with the chili powder. Cover with foil and roast for 35 minutes. Remove the foil, carefully add the chopped garlic evenly, then cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned. Serve warm.

Blessings to you and may you take a moment to enjoy the beautiful food you have placed before you! 🙂

Fueling for Fitness

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As a health and nutrition coach, people often ask me: What do I eat before I exercise to make sure I have enough energy to get through? What do I eat after my workout to recover? These are important questions, because what you’re eating could be sabotaging your workout results! A one-year Stanford University study of 350 men and women found that those who worked out three to five times a week for 30 – 40 minutes had NO significant weight loss! How can that be? It’s due to what, when and how people eat before and after their workouts. Filling up with the right fuel at the right times is essential to keeping your energy up, your workout performance high, and your body in fat-burning mode!

Top Tips for Fueling for Fitness

• Hydration is more important than you can imagine. Start drinking water as soon as you wake up. In the morning, you haven’t had water for six to eight hours and your cells need replenishing. Drink a full glass of water before you eat or drink anything else (coffee doesn’t count toward hydration). Plain hot water will actually penetrate the cells the fastest.

• Stay well-hydrated throughout the day. It won’t work to just start drinking water right before or during your workout. Hydration is an ongoing process. If you’re not drinking enough water, you will run out of energy – both mentally and physically.

• A daily goal is to drink half your weight in ounces of water each day. If you weigh 150 pounds, that’s 75 ounces a day – more in very hot weather or if you plan to have a rigorous workout. Hydrating regulates your body temperature, replaces water lost through sweat, and helps transport nutrients to your cells so you have energy. Did you know that most people are chronically dehydrated? Dehydration is a key reason for low energy, headaches, poor concentration, muscle cramps, and digestive issues. Take a moment to think about your day-to-day water intake; are you getting enough?

Avoid “Sports” Drinks

Contrary to popular belief (and advertising), Gatorade (or Vitamin Water or Propel or Powerade) is NOT a good hydrating choice, particularly if you want to maintain or lose weight. Why? These drinks contain high-fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners, as well as other ingredients you want to avoid such as food dyes. High-fructose corn syrup, aka sugar, can make you hungrier by increasing your body’s hunger-regulating hormone (ghrelin) and lowering the hormone that tells you when you’re full (leptin). Artificial sweeteners have been shown to increase sugar cravings, and many contain unhealthy chemicals.

cocnut_water Instead, if you feel you need more than water after a heavy workout or in very hot weather, turn to “nature’s water” – coconut water. Choose only those brands that are 100% pure raw coconut water, with or without natural fruit – no sugar added! You can also add Chia seeds to your water for energy! Chia Seeds are known as running food. Chia was first cultivated by the ancient Aztecs who would go on marches for days, surviving only on chia, yet being able to sustain high energy levels. Chia seeds contain high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, protein, fiber, antioxidants, calcium, magnesium, zinc, and copper. When you put them in water, they plump up and get very soft.

What to Eat Pre-Workout

As a general rule, you want to eat about half the calories you expect to burn during your upcoming workout. Eat 1 ½ to 2 hours pre-workout, and your meal should consist of:

• 60% GOOD carbs (about 40 grams) • 30% CLEAN, LEAN protein (10-15 grams) • 10% HEALTHY fat (less than 10 grams)

• Note that the percentages may vary based on the level and length of your workout.

Good carbs fuel muscles and enable peak performance. They also keep your blood sugar and energy levels stable during your workout.

Clean lean protein prevents the breakdown of muscle for fuel, and gives your muscles a head start on recovery after exercising.

Healthy fats help balance blood sugar and ensure that fat-soluble vitamins are delivered to your cells so your body can use them. Healthy fats also keep your joints lubricated and they slow digestion, allowing for sustained energy and longer workouts.

For Morning Exercisers, here are some examples of a pre-workout breakfast:

• Oatmeal (with no added sugar) topped with walnuts, berries and half a banana

• A protein shake (see recipe below)

• Food For Life Bread (toasted) with pure almond butter and one sliced fruit (banana, apple, strawberries, etc.)

For Afternoon or Evening Exercisers, here are some examples of a pre-workout lunch:

• Steamed vegetables with quinoa

• Brown rice with lean protein and vegetables

• Soup and salad

A balanced meal one to two hours before your workout might be all you need. But some people need a small snack about 30-45 minutes before a workout for an ENERGY BOOST. **Snack examples** include: a banana, a Smoothie (see recipe); a Larabar or Power Bites (see recipe) or other all-natural bar. **You want clean, fast-digesting carbohydrates,** little protein, very little fat, so the fuel is available during your workout. And all meals and snacks should be accompanied by water.

Tips:

• If you work out first thing in the morning, you will want to have your snack before your workout and your breakfast meal after.

• The larger the meal/snack, or the more fat and protein it contains, the longer you will need to properly digest before exercising. If you consume too much food, or food high in fat, your muscles will focus on digesting that food instead of on your workout. That can cause stomach upset, muscle cramping and deplete your energy.

What to Eat POST-Workout

After your workout is a time for your muscles to rebuild, repair and recover. You should refuel within 15-30 minutes of your workout, and your post-workout snack should have more protein than carbs if you are strength training, and more carbs than protein for cardio exercise.

In the same way that I don’t recommend Gatorade’s ingredients, I steer clear of protein drinks such as Muscle Milk, Boost or Detour. Read the label and you’ll find sugar, additives and chemicals – not what you want to put in your healthy body! Instead, have a post-workout smoothie with plant protein. If you take the time to prepare for your workout – beginning with water in the morning and eating consciously throughout the day – you’ll find that you have the energy to exercise better and longer, and that helps you reach your goals!

Recipes will be posted shortly, there are some good ones up already for smoothies…

As with all days eat, heal and live!1898230_816696338357058_21970766_n

Jennifer

Social Media Freeze

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I used to love posting on Facebook when I began my business it was pretty cool to watch my likes grow…..now 2 years later I feel frozen before I post. What’s that about? I mean what happened to the carefree, happy postings that were not meant to do anything other than post info about what I thought was interesting, funny or a must read for anyone out there. I realized I have become judgmental about my own beliefs and started questioning myself more and more.

Some may think that is a good thing, I however feel that this really shook me from my happy place and tossed me in a heap of the sticky unknowing. I have been sitting in this place now for quite some time and once you get here, it is hard to pull yourself back to where you were. In fact, I’m not sure if I will ever be back in my cushy little blissful social media life because now there is this new facet, one that has been tainted by people I don’t even know and that is part of who I am now.

Which direction do I take? I’ve never had to ask myself this, I’ve been a happily driven entrepreneurial spirit since I was in college . What do I do to get my “me” back?

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I think what started my gradual slippage was the constant need to keep up with  the social media bandwagon. Christ, it’s constant! Then trying to keep up with the format changes on Facebook, WordPress, Instagram, my website….  and link them together and post things daily because there is tooooo much pressure from your colleagues when you see all their stuff…..aaahhhhhh, IT’S TOO MUCH!!!

I just became frozen and I gradually started slipping and loosing my interest.

Of course there are also those jerks out there who say they are your friend (but really who has 400+ “friends”)  who just want to argue their point to the death knowing that they make you look like an ass if you counter their post. I know this seems trivial, and years ago I would never think this could affect me this way, but it got me and has kept me quietly wondering if anyone else knows what this feels like.

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There is an addiction to checking in with these social websites, and before you realize it you have become hooked and are an internet junkie. You can spend all day at your computer and pretty much not do a dam thing but waste your life trying to create an image of what you would like others to think you are. I used to think our kids are so screwed up because they never had a moment to focus on their life without all of their friends knowing what they were doing. I’m right about that and did not notice that my life too has been greatly affected by this world of social media posting, reading, and keeping up with it all.

I feel relieved that while I was awake in the wee hours of the dark morning I was able to decipher the monkey chatter in my head; you know that voice that keeps you awake after you wake up to pee. While the world was quiet my brain was fully active with great ideas, direction and energy and a message to myself that I still have it and in order to go get it I must let go of the time freezing comparisson that has grown from getting way too connected.

I love my blog, it is where I come to share my thoughts, recipes and the part of me that did not get lost on the social media self judgment witch hunt! I feel peaceful reeling myself back in and am thankful for those crystal clear thoughts that I paid attention to last night, I feel unstuck and ready to roll. I’m going to feed my chickens, clean my bunny pens and check back into my life!

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As with all days eat, heal, be true to your inner voice and live your life like no one is watching!

Jennifer

Home Grown Organic Food Made Simple while saving water!

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I have been an avid organic gardener for over 10 years and before that would dabble with various plants and veggies. I love the taste of freshly harvested lettuce and kale and feel super charged that it came from my land.

ImageThis year my garden was a true disaster. I planted from heirloom organic seeds, replenished my dirt with my own compost which is usually amazing and I have had the worst yield. My crab and devil grasses are at an all time high, my chickens figured out how to get in my garden and destroy any new baby lettuces that actually had a chance. And then there were those seeds, I mean entire rows, that never sprouted not even one! UGH I was frustrated and saddened.

Then one day I saw an interview on 60 minutes that was about aeroponic tower gardens. It had the skeptic in me saying that is not a way to garden, hydroponics/aeroponics is for growing medical marijuana, not food. So I halfway listened to the story. A few weeks later a colleague of mine told me about her tower garden and how much fun she has had with her boys teaching them to grow food.

When the same topic comes into my life from completely different sources a little light inside me says WAKE UP JEN! This is something your life needs to learn about. So I set up a phone meeting with my friend and she walked me through the benefits of the tower garden system. Before I hung up she helped me order my first tower garden!  Within a week it arrived in boxes and it was like Christmas in June!

ImageI love jigsaw puzzles and dove into all the boxes to set out on assembling my tower garden in my kitchen! As my husband sat at the kitchen table working on his computer I quickly covered every inch of counter top and floor space with all the parts and pieces.The large green reservoir holds approximately 20 gallons of water which is pumped up the tower on the inside and recycled continuously. Its a truly brilliant system. I also got a steel dolly to be able to rotate my garden and move it around easily and an extension kit to have 8 more holes to grow food.

ImageI will say there were not too many parts, the size of the parts on the other hand were a bit cumbersome for my tiny little space but I was determined to assemble my tower on this beautiful Sunday morning and have it ready to use by days end!

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With only one glitch, which was assembling the additional two towers, my tower garden was up and ready to be moved outside within an hour. I really had no idea that it would be so tall! I was thrilled to be ready to take it to the next step and plant my veggies.

ImageThe only thing I did not foresee was the timing of growing my own seedlings to fill the tower garden. So if you are planing on growing the seeds that come with your tower garden kit there is no need to assemble your tower garden (unless you are like me and cannot wait to see it up) until your seeds are ready to be planted in your tower. I skipped this step and went to my local garden center and purchased 6 packs of organic romaine, heirloom kale, some dill and strawberries. I rolled the plants in my hands to remove most of the dirt from the root-balls to fit them properly into the baskets provided that snap into the hole you see in the tower. I also found the smallest plants at the nursery knowing their root-balls wouldn’t be as developed and would be less traumatized by removing their dirt.

ImageThe planting took about 30 minutes and I enjoyed every moment as my tower became filled with possibility! I tested my PH to make sure I was starting with a balanced level, adjusted it until the reading was correct, put in the required amount of organic mineral blend and plugged it in. I had a small snafu with the timer but figured it out by day 2. When you test your system to ensure that the pump works just make sure you flip the timer switch to on that way your timer starts working immediately. Sounds basic and simple, but I however was overly enthusiastic that my assembly worked on the first go and since I had programmed the timer once it started I thought that was all there was to it.

The placement of your tower is paramount to its success and also to its’ water requirements. How much daily sun exposure you get, whether its morning to early afternoon or afternoon till evening will help you to balance the amount of aeroponic flushes per hour your plants need.

So two days later I hopped on a plane and took off for Italy.

When I returned home to my great surprise this is what my garden looked like!

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Zero maintenance, all this needed was a turn every few days and I’m not even sure it got that while I was away and the reservoir of water was down only 2″!!!  Now each day I harvest a head of my own organic lettuce, some kale and I’m thrilled I don’t have to fight the weeds or pick off the pincher bugs.

This has changed my perspective on growing my own produce. In three and a half weeks these delicious veggies grew without any input from me other than running an extension cord to the pump! I did not have to add water, which is something I would have had to do daily to keep my lettuces alive normally. I am already starting to get ready for my second planting and feel that even on my farm in sunny southern California this is a system that makes the most sense for me to grow my lettuces, kale and herbs. In fact I can see how I could easily use two towers all year round to keep my family’s need for fresh organic salad materials available every day. I will still use my normal in ground garden for tomatoes, things that climb like cucumbers and peas and for crops that would be altogether to large for this type of environment such as squash and eggplant but I have a new found appreciation in the aeroponic tower garden.

The system includes:

  • Tower Garden vertical aeroponic garden
  • Seeds for growing gourmet lettuce, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, basil, and cucumber
  • Seed starter enviro-dome
  • 20 rock wool seed starter cubes and net pots
  • Pump, timer and drain tube
  • Tower Tonic Mineral Blend plant food
  • pH test kit and 1 bottle each of pH+ and pH-
  • Measuring cup

If you are interested in ordering your own tower garden click on the photo above or this link and it will take you to the tower garden website. If you are like me you may find this is not only an amazing way to grow healthy food for you and your family, you may find this could be a wonderful business adventure to become involved in. You have the power to create what you want in your life, my advise is to eat, heal, live and love your live!

Feel free to email me with any questions you have regarding growing your own food. If I can help you create your own small island of sustainability, then I feel we are making the change that is so needed in our world.

The REAL Breakfast of Champions!

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Today is a brand new day! I know we have all heard this before and yet we often keep repeating the same way of doing our life including what we eat. In order to feel our BEST I believe alternating what we eat makes a huge difference in not only how we feel internally but in how our bodies PERFORM.  If we eat the same thing, day in day out we will often find it to be boring and more often than not our body will eventually build up a bit of an intolerance for the same thing. This is especially true with wheat and gluten products. Introducing new foods to rotate in is a very good way to take notice of how your food makes you feel.

So to start my week of with a new twist, and I highly recommend you give this a try,  I dressed up my gluten free oatmeal a bit differently. Not only is it DELISH, it is soothing and loaded with lots of minerals and nutrients your body needs to perform well.

Gluten Free Oatmeal cooked with organic raisins, organic cranberries and organic cherries. I then add some organic almond milk and a very small amount of raw organic honey after it is cooked but while still on the stove to warm the milk and make it creamy. Also while still on the stove I put in a teaspoon of organic raw unprocessed coconut oil, sprinkle liberally with organic cinnamon and today I am trying a new super food product by Spectrum Essentials called Decadent Blend! This has Flax and Chia seeds ground together with coconut and cocoa. OMG off the charts wonderful and this should keep me satisfied until well, I am hungry again.  Image

Cherries and Antioxidants:

Did you know that cherries rank among the top 20 foods with the highest concentration of antioxidants. In fact, the standard one-cup serving of cherries has the capacity to carry 4,873 antioxidants!

  • Antioxidants are substances found in foods that may protect cells from damage caused by unstable molecules, known as free radicals.
  • Cherries are especially rich in a phytochemical called anthocyanin which may reduce a person’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Anthocyanins give cherries their deep red color and also protect cells from damage during an interaction with oxygen. This important process also serves to protect the heart and surrounding tissue, inhibit plaque formation and reduce inflammation. Research also suggests that the anthocyanins found in cherries further protect neural cells and promote brain health .
  • They also contain melatonin which is an important antioxidant that helps maintain optimum brain functioning and may deter the onset of age-related chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Raisins

  • Raisins also contain quercetin a type of polyphenol that acts as an antioxidant that protects the cells in your body from free radical damage. raisins also contain phytochemical compound resveratrol. Resveratrol, a polyphenol anti-oxidant, has anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, blood cholesterol lowering activities.
  • Studies suggest that resveratrol has been found to have protective action against cancers like melanoma, colon and prostate, and diseases such as coronary heart disease (CHD), degenerative nerve disease, Alzheimer’s disease and viral/ fungal infections.

Cinnamon

  • The active principles in the cinnamon spice are known to have anti-oxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-septic, local anesthetic, anti-inflammatory, rubefacient (warming and soothing), carminative and anti-flatulent properties.

  • Cinnamon has the highest anti-oxidant strength of all the food sources in nature.

Oatmeal

  • Oatmeal is appealing to health experts because it actually reduces your craving for foods that are not good for you. oatmeal provides you with high levels of fiber and very low levels of fat.
  • A fiber known as beta-glucan seems to be the all-star compound in oatmeal. There have been hundreds of studies published on beta-glucan.One study published in Vascular Health Risk Management concluded, “Dietary intake of beta-glucans has been shown to reduce risk factors to benefit the treatment of diabetes and associated complications. In addition, beta-glucans also promote wound healing and alleviate ischemic heart injury.
  • There is absolutely no cholesterol in oatmeal, so you will never have to worry about it clogging your arteries.
  • The minerals that you absorb from oatmeal make this a more healthy option than taking them in supplement form.
  • A word of caution, Oatmeal is also rich in omega-6 fatty acids, containing almost 2 grams per half-cup serving. Omega-6s seem to be a mixed bag, providing some health benefits, yet too much of them — combined with too little omega-3 fatty acid sources — can cause inflammation and other problems.

 

I hope this will give you some inspiration for switching your breakfast foods to help change your outcome for the day!

As with all days EAT, HEAL and LIVE!!!!

Make You Own Wood Cleaner

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As I walk down the cleaning isle in any store but a health food store the smells and chemicals give me a headache right away and I try not to breathe. Now I’m supposed to buy this stuff to clean my house right? And yet I feel sick standing with the unopened containers of all these “household cleaners” wondering which is the lesser evil. I know there are more environmentally friendly cleaning products and even those have me wondering if maybe I can do something myself. So I decided to launch my workshop series Healthy Homes Heal,  which takes us to a deeper level of evaluating all that is going into our daily health including the products we use to keep our homes clean.

I think one of the best ways to change our lifestyle is one step at a time. If we have too many things to change all at once it is overwhelming and it is hard to know what exactly is helping with making you feel better. Lets start comfortably with one simple new healthy non-toxic product and remove the old more toxic one! Sounds easy enough to me and so that is the goal for the first of this series.

Home Remedies are things I love because its like chemistry class at your kitchen table and you get to choose what to make. When you start to embrace YOUR POWER and realize the things your put in your body (by feeding or simply through absorption or inhalation) have an impact in how you feel, only then can you control your health with simple things like eating organic foods, using less toxic cleaning supplies and avoiding toxicity like hanging out while your friends smoke cigarettes. Image

Ok now onto making your own Wood Dressing and watch your wood become alive!  What you’ll need is an empty clean spray bottle I used a 32oz. one and used every drop throughout the next two days feeding and cleaning any wood in site. I used it on my beautiful antique dressers, my floors, my mahogany doors and jambs and even my untreated outdoor wood furniture! My furniture and floors look different two days later, they are richer in color and feel smooth and satiated I guess could be the word!

Wood Dressing:

1 32 oz. empty spray bottle

2 cups Olive Oil preferably produced in the USA

2 cups white vinegar

80 drops doTerra Wild Orange Oil or Lemon (I cannot attest for the purity of any other essential oil on the marketplace nor would I recommend using on your furniture)

Put all ingredients together in bottle and shake well. Be warned you will want to feed everything in sight! Shake bottle before each spray as the oils and vinegar will separate.

Another note once you apply this to your wood floors let it seep into the grain, wipe off excess if you feel you must . The floor can be slippery for about a half hour until it is absorbed please be careful not to slip while it dries. Use soft clean cloth for your furniture and the same principle applies here if there is excess wipe off with a clean cloth although you will find that most of your wood is starving and will drink in all this pure food!

As with all things in life love what you are doing NOW!

EAT….HEAL…..LIVE!

Healing my husband from C Difficile

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Each day before 6:30 a.m. I have already cooked breakfast and lunch for my husband Michael to take to work. As he leaves each morning loaded with a smoothie full of super foods to sip on as he drives to work; breakfast with some form of gluten-free cereal with fruit and almond milk or a brown rice breakfast quesadilla and a lunch with an amazing salad loaded with new exciting and alive foods; I thank my lucky stars he looks so good and has a smile on his face.

You see in January 2011 when Michael was walking out the door to work I turned around to say goodbye and the next second he was down on the floor in extreme pain with a ruptured colon. We did not know it at the time but had I not gotten him to the hospital right away he would have died from this. Michael had some serious life threatening health issues ahead of him that we could never have foreseen and looking back now I have learned and grown so much but as we were in the middle of such a catastrophic health issue I was foggy, scared, looking for answers and found very few from the medical community. What I really needed was someone to help me sort through finding alternative options for healing.  I believe there is always a way to change the outcome and I was not ready to have my husband end up with a permanent colostomy without searching high and low and scouring the internet for answers. To this day he is here because we changed our diet, our lifestyle choices and became consistent with very supportive supplements.

I won’t go into the gruesome details of the next 6 months but they were the scariest times in both our lives and are still fresh enough that we check in with each other many times throughout the day and give thanks for being alive! So with a ruptured colon comes infection in your sterile abdominal cavity. The only way to get rid of infection is with mass doses of hard-core antibiotics. Mass doses of antibiotics for extended periods of time can lead to a host of new problems and within 3 months he endured 3 surgeries with 3 hospital stints each visit lead to more antibiotics……his system was shocked and completely void of any good bacteria that could help him heal and left him open to contracting a host of new problems. This lead to contracting the nasty and antibiotic resistant super bacteria called C Difficile

Now put yourself in a hospital where C Difficile is commonplace, it is easily spread from one patient to the next by the nursing staff or from simply touching a counter top or door knob with the bacteria and your immune system is compromised you are at great risk for contracting different strains of this antibiotic resistant beast and they can take over your body quickly. A new report from the CDC (Center for Disease Control)  shows that the rates of infection for this bacteria are at historic highs.

Almost all C Difficile infections are connected to getting medical care! GASP!! Can you believe that!

Its a very lonely and scary place to be because the doctors have limited tools and many of those tools are what lead to this problem in the first place. I think that most of our physicians thought we would sue them and they backed away from us as soon as we were released from the hospital. I’m writing this because as we were going through our battle I could not find any information to help us and I felt like it was Michael and me against the world huddled in our little house trying to find something that would fix him.

There is GREAT news out there and on the other side of our struggle we found success!!!!! We changed our diet immediately once we knew what could help, became a totally bonded couple and found a new way to live our life with products that help your body battle this monster. We also found an environmental physician who I call our Goddess Doctor. She was instrumental in our healing and recover process and is our primary physician for ever more.

Here are links to the products that had a significant impact with combating C Difficile that helped us along with completely removing all gluten, sugar, dairy, most grains even the non gluten ones and paying attention to and removing  anything that caused discomfort after eating.

Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics

Saccharomyces-Boulardii-MOS

EcoNugenics Digestive Enzymes 

Biocidin

On Guard from dōTERRA®

There is so much more to this story. Part two will be our diet shift and foods that help you heal as you go through this journey. You should know that Michael is doing much better a year and 1 month off all antibiotics and he is still healing. This is some pretty tough stuff to battle and had I known how many people die from this annually I think I would have been more scared. The good news is that we are proof of going against the grain and working outside of your “primary care physician” with new ways of healing really has its benefits.

As with all posts be well and if this strikes a chord within and you have issues please send me a message I am here to help. Jennifer

Eat….Heal…..Live!

Chill the Office Chinchilla

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Ok I do not like the thought of caging animals. Therefore I am against any store selling animals in general and selling animals like bunnies, chinchillas, mice, rats and well birds and reptiles too. Most often these guys end up in the shelter when the kids get tired of cleaning the cages. So if you are thinking it would be a good experience and responsibility for your child to care for a pet please go to your local animals shelter and find the already discarded ones or get in touch with a species specific rescue, there are TONS!Image

So anyway no to rant on that touchy subject I have a chinchilla from some idiot girl who felt the need to breed more animals that have no business in a cage. I thought I would be able to keep him in the barn with my odd family consisting of 2 rescue bunnies, 1 guinea pig and a cockatiel because he could climb all over but Chinchillas cannot tolerate heat over 80 degrees! Therefore this adorable little guy now lives in my office. I have a pretty big 3 story cage and each day for the most part I let him run all over the place while I am in here working.

Chinchillas I think are a combination of a bunny and a squirrel they are not cuddly and really should not be someones pet, especially a child who wants to hold them. They are rodents, they chew and will bite if you do not let go of them. They are not mean, they just want to jump and run and be an animal who is not kept in those awfully small cages. I’m just curious what sick, mean person designed cages for these little guys that are 24″ x 24″……Oy I could start a new rant about that too.

I’m not really sure why this was my morning topic; I guess I thought sharing some of my life could give you a little bigger understanding of what impacts my day and how I have been able to incorporate all my rescue animals, manage my holistic health coaching business, cook all our organic gluten-free meals and keep sane!

Enjoy your day, treat your pets with the utmost respect they deserve and as always

EAT……HEAL…….LIVE!            

Jennifer