Rant for today

I'm going to end up having a bit of a rant in this post more than likely. This morning, for no apparent reason I started thinking about herbs (medicinal and otherwise) and how before the NHS, margarine and McDonalds existed, using herbs as part of everyday life was just as commonplace. Seasonal fruit was actually seasonal with raspberries in June, strawberries in July, cherries in July & August and apples and blackberries in September and if a bit late October. There are many, many great things about the age we live in but I think that we have also lost a hell of a lot as well.
We shouldn't eat strawberries in December and have cherry tomatoes shipped over from where they were grown in Spain and still have them as fresh and plump looking as when they were picked because the fact that we can means that the fruit/veggies have either been frozen and stored (so you have no idea how old it is) or pumped full or coated with preservatives non of which
are on the ingredients list and actually probably both. The point is that all of these things end up being digested and processed by your body in the normal way except a lot of the time your body cannot in fact break the chemical/preservative down to it's smallest component and excrete it via the usual channels so they end up staying in your liver or being stored in your fat. All of which contributes to so many health problems which we are seeing earlier and are becoming much more common like hayfever, asthma, general allergies, food allergies, IBS, poor immune function, arthritis and I could go on but you get the point. To be fair to people though how many people do you know who know when different vegetables and fruits are in and out of season? Without looking it up that is. http://www.localfoodalliance.co.uk/8_63_Seasonal-Chart.html
By the time WWII came around we'd lost a lot of the knowledge and skills that women especially (but not only women) had with regards to herbs, food and incorporating the two together for general health and well being of their families. So what I'm going to do (and I must point out this is going to be when I have time so probably only on a semi-regular basis) is put up recipes for things of a herbal nature which can be incorporated into everyday eating. The first one is going to be rosehip syrup which can be used as a sauce with desserts or meat and can be added to porridge (instead of sugar) or put on pancakes or spread on toast. Herbs are versatile and you are simply limited by your imagination......

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Help Yourself after a Cancer Diagnosis; An Herbalist Perspective

Disclaimer: I am an Herbalist not a GP, if you think there is a possibility that you might have cancer then you need to go to your doctor to get checked. I am also not claiming to treat cancer. Cancer can be very scary, the sheer thought of it can bring anxiety attacks on in some people. But every person is different, as is every cancer and cancer has a much higher survival rate than it used to, even 5 years ago. The treatment however can have some truly awful side effects which can make the treatment a miserable experience. There are things that you can do for yourself that will help during the process. The first thing I am going to say is once you have received your diagnosis then go and see an herbalist as we are fantastic at helping with the side effects of mainstream cancer treatment. But then I would say that, I am an Herbalist after all!  Green Smoothie Fasting : This is specific to the day before and the day of the chemo treatment. (And the day after if yo...
Read more

An Herbal Perspective on Menopause

  Menopause defined: Menopause literally means ‘stopping menstruation’. The word is made up of Greek meno (monthly) and pausis (to stop). Women won’t know menopause has occurred until a year has passed since the date of the last period—the actual date can only be decided retrospectively. Menopause, then, occurs on one distinct date and is not what most people mean when they describe themselves, or the women who consult them, as ‘menopausal’. The more correct term, the ‘climacteric’, is rarely used; perimenopausal is now the favoured lay and medical term. The peri-menopause is analogous to puberty and the years when the menstrual cycle starts to become established; both are characterised by hormonal and sometimes emotional fluctuations, and menstrual irregularity. Menopause isn’t a disease, it’s a transition, one of the most impactful of a woman’s life. It isn’t something you get cured of and, having other health conditions won’t stop the menopause; if you are diabetic and you...
Read more

Healthy Fudge

Image
Healthy Fudge Recipe with photographs I finally managed to get this up. I wrote a post on the Facebook page with this recipe without the photographs and people seemed to like it. So I decided to post it here with some rather terrible photographs to demonstrate as a slightly more permanent reference. Ingredients: 200g 70%+ chocolate 300g Coconut oil 35g ground turmeric powder 20g ground cinnamon 5g ground pepper Directions: Melt the chocolate and the coconut over a low heat  Add the powders to the mixture                   Continue to stir over the low heat until the mixture is smooth. This makes about 1pt. Then Either Spoon into chocolate moulds or into an ice cube tray     Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to set Eat at leisure Or Pour onto a flat tray and place into the freezer for an hour Take out of the freezer and cut it up into even pieces Put the ...
Read more