My passion has been Herbal medicine for many, many years now, it’s helping me in my own health journey and I have seen time and time again the amazing results achieved with simple herbs. This time of the year I’m all about the Hawthorn berries, lining nearly every hedgerow in this beautiful island we live on. Mythology connects Hawthorn to the fairy folk. Hawthorn has been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years, prescribed by the Ancient Greek physician Dioscorides in the first century AD as a remedy for heart problems. Those red berries could remind you of blood cells. The beauty of herbal medicine is when you consult with a practitioner that loves the craft, it is through knowledge and intuition that they will create a formula that targets your specific needs. Some herbs I would have often used alongside hawthorn would be – black pepper, ginger, cayenne, gingko, garlic, motherwort, nettle, cleavers etc. But let’s get back to the hawthorn berry and what we herbalists traditionally use it to help:
What is in hawthorn berries that make them such a powerhouse:
Remember as with all forms of medication, if you are currently on a medication regime, check first for interactions or contra-indications. You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - follow us on facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset
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We all use spices of some form in our daily life, whether it’s hot spices in a curry or aromatic spices like cinnamon in a cinnamon bun. Spices come from various parts of the plant – seeds, roots and fruits. We don’t think about them too deeply normally, but here are 5 of my top tips when it comes to buying, using and storing your spices to get the best out of them.
Top 5 spice tips:
ii.Dry space iii.Away from heat iv.In the dark
You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com I love cooking but sometimes we make mistakes and think we have to start again. Here are a few hacks that will help you if that happens Burnt rice Firstly don’t scrape any of the burnt rice up into the rest of the rice. Remove what you can, place it in a bowl and cover it with a few slices of white bread. The bread will absorb the burnt aroma leaving you with useable rice Over salted soup/stews We’ve all done it, slipped or just been heavy handed with the salt. Simply add a peeled potato to the soup/stew and it will balance out the excess salt Thicken sauces Add a lasagne sheet to the sauce, it will absorb excess fluid, then remove the sheet before using the sauce No stick cakes It’s rotten when you bake a delicious cake and it sticks to the pan, it ruins it. But there is a simple solution when using ceramic or metal dishes (not glass). When you take the cake out of the oven place it on top of a damp tea towel and leave sit for a few minutes . When you turn the cake over it should just slip out. Soften raw onions Not a mistake per say but can definitely ruin a dish. Sometimes raw onion can be a little too sharp. Just place it in iced water for a few minutes and it will take the sharpness down a notch Too sweet Add a dash of sour – lemon juice Too salty Add a dash of lemon juice or mild vinegar Stir in starch – quinoa, rice, pasta, couscous Use a little Indian cooking trick “tarka” garlic, aromatic herbs and spices are sauteed separately and added at the end of cooking to add a burst of flavour in the final step Too sour Add a little sweet – sugar, syrup, honey Too spicy Add some fat – butter, coconut milk/cream You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - follow us on facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset Here are some more kitchen hacks you wish you’d always known
Clean your wooden chopping board Place coarse salt on the board then cut a lemon in half, rub the salt round the board with the half lemon, inner side down. Still chopping board It’s so annoying when you’re chopping board keeps moving so a quick tip is to place a damp tea towel underneath it and it won’t budge Non-stick measuring cups When you’re baking or cooking and you need to measure out liquids or sticky substances, you don’t want half of it to stick to the measuring cup. Simply coat the inside of the cup with some oil Removing the fat Often we want to remove the excess fat from a stew/stock/sauce. Place an ice cube on a large spoon, place on the surface of the liquid, the fat will rise to the cooler temperature and just scoop it out on the spoon. Another way is to place the ice in a muslin cloth, tie up and dip into the liquid, the fat will stick to the cloth Poached eggs x12 If you are making breakfast for a gang, poached eggs can be a pain, but here is a quick hack.
You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - follow us on facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset What do varicose veins, broken capillaries and haemorrhoids have in common? They are all sign of weakness in the capillary and vein walls. Often caused by internal or external pressure.
So, does that mean you can use a similar solution for them all? Yes, you can, if you are talking about using topical Witch Hazel. I have seen all these issues improve very quickly by using Witch Hazel on the areas. Whether it is a case of:
This is such a simple solution that works so quickly it’s almost magic. So what do you do?
So why does it work? Well, Witch Hazel contains:
So this cheap bottle of herbal topical treatment, the thing you would see in your grannies cupboard, that was often put on your cuts and stings as a child is also one of the best remedies I know for Haemorrhoids, Varicose Veins and broken capillaries. You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - follow us on facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset Over the years I have had to have many conversations with clients about diet change, how certain foods could be the root problem when it comes to the symptoms they are suffering. It’s not always the cause but I have definitely seen food choices impact most of my clients outcomes.
So what really makes the difference? I would definitely say that mindset is right up there. How we think about our choices, what they make us feel. Does someone asking you to remove a food you eat regularly make you feel:
So let’s get rid of all of those and simplify things. What if I just told you that “it’s what you do on a regular basis that makes the difference, what you do every now and then makes little difference” (except if you are allergic, diabetic etc) This works both ways, if you eat foods that help your health on a regular basis you will see a positive change, if you only do it every now and then you really won’t see much change, but you also see the same when you eat foods that are not good for your health, do it on a regular basis and you will start to have symptoms of ill health, if you eat them every now and then you won’t see those changes. Any food choices have to be sustainable or you are just going to keep needing help every time you stop, so make it simple. Don’t make it about absolutes, just make what you do on a regular basis a healthy choice. You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset We have heard for so long the idea of low fat diets, low fat foods for health and weight loss that it can be hard to drop the idea.
The science shows that we need good quality fats as part of a healthy diet, the fats we do not need are those we find in processed foods, fried foods and by using the wrong oils for cooking. So how do we ditch the idea of low fat fads? The best way is to focus on what we can eat and increase that in our diet. So here are some of the best healthy fats to introduce into your diet and some ideas how:
Ways to add: Breakfast
Lunch/dinner
Snacks
Low fat yoghurt are the most common low fat food that comes up in conversation, but more often than not they are lacking the goodness that we eat them for and the fat is replaced with sugars, salts and artificial sweeteners and flavourings. When you eat more food that nourishes your body, the craving for foods that are not so good tends to go away. It’s a win win all around. You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - https://bit.ly/3UKdkZH Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset I am a big fan of eating foods we love that love us back! This is a no bake chocolate cookie packed with goodness. They are straight from the freezer so great for the warm weather too.
Ingredients
Method
Body benefits
If you tend to snack here are a few easy rules to live by that will help improve weight and health issues related to your snacking:
You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars follow us on Facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset Everything feels so stretched these days and never more so with the food budget. Food prices have gone through major hikes in recent times. So how do we continue to make healthy choices when our incomes remain the same but food prices increase?
Each month I will include a recipe for a Healthy plate on a budget! Sometimes you have enough in your fridge already but need a little help to see how to bring it together. This month I’m going on a fridge raid. That is my whatever’s in the fridge fried rice, the everything but the kitchen sink of dishes. Fridge fried rice Ingredient
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You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - follow us on facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset Many of these hacks I learnt from my mother and grandmother or just figuring it out myself, a few of them were just happened upon by chance and every now and then I see one on social media that surprises me still. So, here are some of my favourites
Retrieving egg shell We’ve all dropped bits of egg shell in our eggs when we cracked them and they can be a pain to retrieve. I noticed years ago that if you use the rest of the shell to scoop out the broken off piece it acts like a magnet Fresh test – eggs Pop your egg into a glass jug of water. If it lies flat on the bottom it’s fresh: 1-3 days old. It will gradually tip upwards the older it gets and if it floats to the top it’s time to bin that egg Quick peel – garlic Place the garlic cloves under a saucepan and push down till the garlic smashes Place all cloves in Tupperware and put the lid on. Then Shake it up. All the skins will separate from the body of the garlic Saving fresh herbs I love the smell of fresh herbs in the kitchen but sometimes you just have too much. Rather than waste any simply chop them up and place them in an ice tray and add olive oil then freeze. Take out a cube at a time. Buttermilk alternative I don’t know how many times a recipe needed buttermilk and I didn’t have any. Simply add a Tbsp of apple cider vinegar/vinegar to each cup of milk and leave sit for 10 minutes You can follow carina at: www.itsanaturalchoice.com www.breaking-fads.com Rest & Reset webinars - follow us on facebook Follow her journey on Facebook & Instagram: @itsanaturalchoice @welovebreakingfads Rest & Reset |
AuthorCarina Kennedy was formerly a Nurse, now a Nutritional Therapist and Herbalist living in the west of Ireland. Her passion is food, health and teaching clients to gain control of their life with simple techniques. Archives
July 2023
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