You Don't Have To Like It To Eat It

Well, it's been a while since my last post. I love to be busy and sometimes wish there was more time in the day to fit everything in (including updating my blog)!

As you might know by now, when I do get some time to relax I love to watch TV shows about health and nutrition. My latest find has been a show called "Fat Men Can't Hunt".

In this show a group of really obese British people were taken to Africa to live with an African tribe who live by traditional methods of hunting and gathering. The group of Brits had to live by these methods and the results were very interesting.

During a time when hunting by the men was not bringing in much meat, the food available was mainly nuts and berries which had been collected by the women of the tribe. This was the only food available and although there was plenty of it and the Fat Brits were extremely hungry they refused to eat it!!!!

The nutritionist who was monitoring their progress was astounded. This was a really unexpected result. She explained to them how their health was being effected (not being able to go to the toilet, low energy, headaches) and still they would not eat the food that the tribe was attempting to share with them. Guess what their reason was.............they didn't like the taste!
Yes, these people who were more that happy to stuff their faces day in day out with junk food would rather starve than eat a nut that tasted of well a nut.

I have come across children who say this as well when faced with a vegetable or fruit that they don't want to eat.

"I don't like it" has now become a justifiable reason not to eat something nutritious.

Well I say, You Don't Have To Like It To Eat It. Just put it in your mouth, chew and swallow. The people in the African tribe mentioned above had no problem with the taste of their food, yet the Fat Brits would rather have starved to death then eat something they didn't like. Am I mistaken or is this insane?

Talking about delicious, healthy food, I am progressing nicely with my Vegetable Plot. The rain seems to have abated for now and we have had some really nice sunny days.

I went to the local stables to collect some manure and the stable hand kindly filled a large bin liner for me. Unfortunately it was so heavy that we couldn't lift it, but eventually managed to heave it onto a wheel barrow and then into the boot of my car. With a huge effort I than managed to drag it across my garden to the plot. Lesson number one in manure collecting - soaking, wet manure weighs a hundred times more than dry manure!!

I then started the technical process off double digging. Basically this means digging a trench, one spade deep, at one end of the plot, putting in some manure then digging another trench next to the first one , filling in the first trench with the soil from the second etc etc until the whole plot is done and the last trench is filled with the soil taken from the first trench.

I was only onto my third trench when my big bag of manure ran out!! I realized that at this rate I would need approx. one ton of manure for my six plots and this was going to be really heavy. So I went back to the stable and started to organise a trailer load to be delivered and dumped in my drive. Luckily about this time the weather became really bad (wet and windy) so everything was put on hold.

I then bought a gardening book which explained that digging in to much manure was a bad thing and one spade full should do approx 1 metre of land. Ooops!! Well those first three trenches will be well fertilised so I'll put the potatoes there which like fertile soil apparently.

I have ordered my organic seeds, a bit late in the month, but better late then never. I have already sown some carrot and onion seeds in little jiffy7 pots (neat little individual compost pellets which expand when wet) and put in a propagator(plastic tray with transparent plastic lid) on my sunny kitchen window sill. These seeds take 20 days to germinate, which seems like a long time to me. If only I had known I would have started sowing the seeds a bit earlier. Oh, well you live and learn.

So remember You Don't Have To Like It To Eat It and wet manure is really heavy!!!

Here's to your good health................naturally!!

Nadine Masseron ND

Healthy Choices

It is great to see so many campaigns and TV shows out at the moment promoting healthy eating.

It is more important than ever before that we are made to be aware of the health problems that can occur when following a mainly convenience/junk food diet.

I was watching one of these shows the other day called ‘Honey, we’re killing the kids!’ On this program a family with pretty unhealthy children is asked to make some diet and lifestyle changes to improve the health of their kids.

The family were given a new diet plan and recipes to prepare, which included plenty of good, home- cooked food with a large variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. On reading the new diet plan the mother announced ‘but we don’t do fresh food.’

Well I nearly fell off my chair in amazement!

Had this family really made a conscious decision to never eat fresh food?

On another show ‘The River Cottage Treatment’, a group of people who used mainly ready meals and junk in their diets were taken to live on an organic farm to show them what real food was, and hopefully make them want to eat properly. One man on this program announced ‘I don’t eat vegetables except potatoes and turnip.’

The presenter and cook went to huge lengths to try and get this man to eat a vegetable. Eventually he did eat an organic parsnip chip, but that was it.

I am also sad to say that a member of my own family announced when he was a teenager that he would never again eat anything green, except peas, and has pretty much kept to this vow.

What is going on here? How have these people managed to decide to exclude from their diets the main food group that will benefit their health and then substitute it with stuff that will eventually make them sick and kill them.
And they think this is okay????

Believe me, this is not an option!!!! It is NOT okay to make this kind of choice regarding food if you want to lead a full, healthy, happy life.

Of all the things that can be eaten, fresh vegetables have the most health benefits, there is a huge variety and they are delicious. The only choice you have is how to prepare them!

Here in the UK the government recommends a minimum 5 portions of fruit and veg are eaten a day. It is definitely better if these are fresh and organic.

Talking about vegetables here’s a quick update on my veggie garden.

The digging is still in progress and I have decided to have 6 small plots (8 foot by 4 foot). Plot 1 will be growing root vegetables (potatoes, carrots and onions), plot 2 – beans and peas, plot 3 – salads, plot 4 – squashes, plot 5 – herbs, plot 6 – not sure or fallow.

Unfortunately due to gales so strong that a large tree actually blew over in the garden followed by freezing snow, I have not ventured out there for a while. Roll on spring!!!

Hope you are having better weather wherever you may be reading this!
Here’s to your good health………………naturally!!

A Healthy New Year

Well Christmas and New Year are beginning to feel like a distant memory.

I made a big mistake this festive season and decided to throw caution to the wind and indulge in all the non-healthy things that are in abundance at Christmas. I started on the chocolates and mince pies around mid-December and gradually built up to an enormous traditional Christmas Lunch with all the trimmings and a bottle of wine on the day it self.

The indigestion started on boxing day and lasted up until New Year, I lost my appetite completely as my body put itself on a mini fast, with all food making me feel nauseous and unwell. I am still asking myself why I did it.

So New Years Resolution Number One is never to do that again!!!

I am now back to my regular healthy diet and feeling fit and ready to tackle anything that comes my way in 2007! I did review my diet and lifestyle to see if there was any room for improvement and have found something that I can aspire too!!!

Yes, I have decided to put a Vegetable Plot at the end of my garden and grow my own in 2007!

Never mind that I have no gardening experience at all, surely it can't be that hard to grow a few vegetables, after all man has been growing vegetables for thousands of years.

The only thing that really surprises me is that I know nothing about this essential part of life. Wasn't this vital knowledge supposed to be passed down from generation to generation? I know my grandparents' back garden was one big vegetable plot and they just about grew everything. Sadly two generations on and this skill has been lost in my family.

Well not any more!! Last week, armed with a spade and fork I started my Vegetable Garden. This seems as good a time as any, the ground is really soft and muddy at this time of year and is surprisingly easy to dig.

So I selected a piece of lawn near the back fence and got stuck in. The first thing that occurred to me was what was I going to do with all the turf I was digging up?? I couldn't just leave it in a huge heap in the middle of the garden?? Well, luckily for me I have a rather big garden with lots of overgrown areas, so I have started clearing these areas and am transplanting the lawn to the sections which are grassless, mud patches. Genius!!!!! It is taking a bit longer than I thought as I am now carrying sections of lawn all over the garden. But by the end of two days I have one section dug already.

Next job is to dig in some manure which I am going to have to collect from the local stables. I am in a bit of a dilemma as to what to put it in as I don't really want stinking horse poo all over the car!

How fortunate was I that on TV last night was a program called 'Grow Your Own Vegetables'. Good timing!! I have picked up some tips on growing potatoes so went to the garden centre today and bought some seed potatoes. Funnily enough they looked just like ordinary potatoes?? Am now going to put them in egg boxes in a cool dark place and wait for them to sprout before I plant them in March. I feel like a potato expert already, how easy is this!!!!

Will let you know!!!

Good Health......Naturally

This morning, as I was adding the cinnamon to my breakfast porridge, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a lady recently.

I was doing some promotional work presenting the benefits of natural health and recommending one of my personal favourite super foods, Spirulina, when a lady approached me and firmly stated that she did not agree with taking any kind of vitamins or supplements. She went on to say that she believed that we should get all the nutrients we need from our diet and the food we eat.

A lady after my own heart! I couldn’t agree more. I did add though that this was a hard thing to do sometimes as modern day life styles and the food industry itself does not always support this.

I then asked her what kind of diet she followed to gain maximum nutrition. She went on to describe one of the worst diets I have ever heard (her day started with 2 cigarettes in the car on the way to work, followed by a strong coffee and nothing more till lunch which was a packet of chips and the rest of day just went from bad to worse), if ever someone was in serious need of some vitamins and minerals it was this lady.

The look on my face must have said it all as she looked sad and said that really her life style didn’t allow for healthy eating although it was something she really believed in.

I suggested to her that if she started the day with a bowl of porridge, which is so easy and quick to make, she would be off to a good start. Her face fell even more and she admitted that she did not know how to make porridge and could I tell her how to do it, as she would love to know how.

My heart really went out to her. How is it that so many people have lost the simple skills needed to live a healthy life, like cooking and preparing food?

Believe me, it is not rocket science to know how to make a healthy breakfast but it is essential to good health, going to the moon is not!
So here it is! To make porridge: Add one cup of raw porridge oats to a pan with 3 cups of cold water and ½ cup of milk (soya milk is good) and cook on low heat stirring now and again till the oats are cooked, approx 7-10 minutes (add more water if it gets to thick). Serve with a splash of cold milk and honey or brown sugar. Yummmy.

Naturopathic Perspective

With Nadine Masseron, ND