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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 bec
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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 you ca
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Healthy Fudge

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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 pieces in a container and store in the fridge The choc
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We Do Have to Share the Planet You Know.....

Last night I was on the bus going to work and a post popped up in my Facebook feed; it was about recycling and at the end there was a link to about 20 photographs, all of animals in various states of distress or malformation due to rubbish that has been thrown away by people. Here is the link to the photos: http://www.thinkinghumanity.com/2015/05/you-will-want-to-recycle-everything-after-seeing-these-photos.html As far as I am concerned I do not consider myself an activist in any way, I do not post rants on either my personal or business Facebook page over anything really, nor political statements or anything of the like. I also do not get truly angry very often, there is little that can make me genuinely angry. However, this is one of the things that can. I am going to do a bit of finger wagging now because with the best will in the world we are all a little guilty of this. I know most people these days are actually socially conscious and responsible, at least a little bit an
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Bokashi Bins

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My Bokashi bins arrived yesterday (30/10/13) and I'm so excited. I've decided to write a blog about the whole thing because I'm a complete novice at this so documenting the whole experience will hopefully be an interesting read. I personally really, really resent having to throw food away and I'm not overly fond of the idea of it going into landfill. I have a friend who is much more environmentally aware than I am and she's had a set for a few months now and she hasn't thrown any food away since. Needless to say I liked this idea so I bought some. Leeds City Council currently have offers on various composting bin/systems and I bought it via this link: http://www.leeds.getcomposting.com/ What you get: As you can tell by the photo's; there are two bins so that while the first is fermenting the second can be filled up. The bits that come with are: A grille on which the food sits on to allow the liquid feed to collect underneath. A tap to drain the liq
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Book review - Propolis in Oral Healthcare

Propolis in Oral Healthcare James Fearnley and Dr Philip Wander This is a small pale blue and white book, A5 size with 66 pages published by The Dispensary Press www.thedispensary.org.uk and it very much does what it says on the tin, to quote the Ronseal advert. The book is divided into 3 sections; Section 1 is General application of propolis in oral health, Section 2 Using propolis to treat disease and Section 3 is Some dental research over the last 25 years. There is a foreword by Prof. R Ireland by the introduction and the About the Authors paragraphs are on the back cover below a couple of paragraphs to briefly describe what bee propolis actually is. Where it comes from, why it's made etc, etc. This theme is expanded upon at the front of section 1 to give a broader picture. Section 1 The first section is entitled General Application of Propolis in Oral Health This is a short section and it goes through which propolis product is the best one to use for dif
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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
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