分类: Naturopathy

Treating allergies naturally

10/10/2017

Do you dread high pollen count days? Is spring a season of antihistamine overload, soggy tissues, and hiding indoors? Treating seasonal allergies naturally is straight forward with the right know-how.

The sleeping earth of winter is re-awakening, spring is well and truly here, and nature heralds her return. We feel an extraordinary push for life and movement within our own bodies, and we see it in the natural world. And with our own blossoming comes that of the beautiful plant world: so many, pollen-producing, allergenic plants!

The glorious feeling of taking that first breath of crisp, early spring air might be somewhat stifled if you’re one of many sufferers of seasonal allergies. All those pollens and animal hair can set off your allergic rhinitis, a fancy way of saying hay fever. Worse still: when your allergies trigger your asthma!

Detoxification: so NOT about juice fasts & colonics

21/4/2017

When you hear the word "detoxification", what springs to mind? Juice fasting and colon cleanses? Coffee enemas and starvation? Health spas and slimming teas? For years, this is what I thought when I heard that oh-so-sexy-sounding word, and practised, much to my body's distress.

For the vast majority of people, these things are totally unnecessary - and they can actually set a person up for disordered eating and eating disorders.

When it comes to optimising your body’s detoxification processes, just doing a 3-day juice fast or a colonic – then going back to your normal diet – won’t cut it. It’s time to understand how our bodies really work, and what you can do to gently detoxify every day.

Dealing with infant fever and mummy burnout

29/10/2016

Archie was all better by the time this photo was taken - but he still liked his Lemon Balm & Chamomile tea!

A week of practical food and herbal remedies

The last week has felt like one big night out on the town, without the mood lifting substances! (they’re contraindicated when you’re breastfeeding – bugger). My 14 month-old has been fighting off a virus leaving him feverish, cranky and extremely clingy. Four days of severe sleep deprivation has gifted me with the under eye bags of an English bulldog with conjunctivitis.

Nights have been punctuated by the following tiring sleep-wake cycle of breast milk-soaked bibs and screaming: Archie wakes every hour (or what feels like every 10 minutes) crying inconsolably. Archie refuses the magical breast because he hates everything. Parents tag team rocking and singing him back to sleep. I breast pump so my boobs do not pop open with milk. Archie finally falls back asleep on someone’s chest. Mummy about to drift off only to have Archie wake again with screams that would test the congeniality of the friendliest neighbour.

The days have been long and hard as he cried if we put him down for even a second. Add to that the unexpected ups and downs of normal life and you’ve got one very tired mumma (and – my partner’s edit - daddy!)

Any parent of little kids will be familiar with this scenario – and if you aren’t, you will be soon! (Oh YES, you WILL.) It’s stressful for everybody and I was eager for any kind of help I could get – nutritional, herbal, and emotional.

Luckily there exists an abundance of wonderful foods and herbs to help. This article covers what I did in the last week to help Archie deal with his mild fever (37.8 degrees Celsius at its highest point) and to support myself through the increased stress of it all. It is by no means a comprehensive “what to do” guide for fever in kids.

If your baby (over 6 months old) or child has a fever over 40 degrees Celsius, seek medical advice immediately. If your baby is under 6 months old and has a fever of any kind I suggest seeking medical advice just to be safe.

INTERGALACTIC CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

24/4/2016

You know those times when you create something so unexpectedly delicious, so unapologetically radical, so exceptionally epic, that it makes you want to jump up in glee and dance like a Beastie Boy in a Japanese train station?

Well, this was one of those times.

The full moon in Aries raging at the moment might have me a little more excited than I otherwise would be. But trust me, these are worth the effort of washing (licking) chocolate truffle mix off of everything.

After seeing a few similar recipes pop up on my Instagram feed, I decided I had to try them. It took a few exposures to convince me because these babies contain one of the ingredients I have been scared - terrified, actually - to use in my food adventures. Powdered medicinal mushrooms.

Immune-boosting Shiitake & Veg Stir Fry

11/3/2016

Corresponding to my piece on 11 tips for a healthy autumn, here's one of my favourite autumn recipes, using the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, and based on a recipe from my Chinese-malay mum! It's quick, easy, and most importantly, delicious. And it's vegan so everyone can enjoy this one!

Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes) were a favourite ingredient in my mum's Chinese cooking while I was growing up, and I still love them today. They're packed with flavour, have a great chewy texture and make an incredible meat alternative.

Their powerful immune-modulating and anti-tumour actions make them ideal as an adjunct therapy in cancer, for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Other medicinal mushrooms include maitake, reishi, and chaga. I often wonder how different our collective state of health would be if we routinely offered our kids traditional foods like these? I also chucked a little Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng) in for extra mum-staying power!

Dairy - yay or nay?

20/8/2014

Tonnes of clients ask me what "I think" about dairy. With the paleo movement at its zenith, the anti-dairy mania couldn't be higher - but it's an equal and opposite, inevitable reaction to the "got milk?" attitude of recent decades, where anyone who didn't drink milk was made to think their bones would crumble like feta the second they hit 60.

As a yoga-loving, natural therapy-studying, Accredited Practising Dietitian with 8 years of formal scientific training I find myself in an interesting position.

We need between 1000 and 1200 milligrams of calcium per day for healthy bones. Before you think "I'm not vegan, I'll be right," know that many Australians are deficient in calcium, so plenty of omnivores aren’t getting enough, either. No matter what your diet, you need to make sure to include two or three servings of calcium-rich foods in each meal, and you’ll be able to hit that target for bone health.

The Australian Guidelines to Healthy Eating suggest consuming 2.5 - 4 serves of milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or alternatives (mostly reduced fat) per day, depending on your age, gender and whether or not you're pregnant or lactating. In short, dairy (or alternatives) is an essential part of every Australian's diet - according to the AGHE guidelines anyway.

My dietetic training heightened the urge to ensure everyone gets enough dairy (or alternatives) into their diet to ensure an adequate intake of calcium and other minerals, and stop their poor little bones from snapping in half. Whether that actually happens if you don't get adequate dairy is another story altogether, and one I'll save for later :)

On the flip side, being a yogi into healthy, sustainable, wholefood based living has exposed me to two camps - the "drink milk as long as it's raw" camp and the "dairy is the devil" camp.

So what do I think of dairy? My opinion is based on what I've learnt from scientific studies (either supporting or denigrating dairy), what I've seen in practice, and my own personal experience (i.e. my 7 years as a vegetarian and 2 years as a vegan).

Here it is: I don't think dairy is inherently "bad" or "good' - I think that for some people it's a health food, and for others it brings disease.

Cows are cute

Why do some races and cultures do well on dairy, thriving on raw milk products and kefir from infancy to old age, whilst others suffer from respiratory problems, lowered immunity and digestion issues when they consume any milk products - including organic? Why does one person thrive on a vegan diet whilst another feels weak after a few days without animal flesh?

Besides factors like quality (go for organic if you can), age, health/disease status, and environment, genetic inheritance plays a huge part in whether or not certain foods are suitable, or will ever be suitable, for a person to include in their diet.

As a student dietitian I worked with newly arrived migrants in community health settings, including a memorable group of migrants from Burma. We would teach the group cooking skills, which was laughable considering their far superior skills in cooking amazing Burmese cuisine. We also “enlightened” them on the five food groups from which they were supposed to eat, and where they could find these foods in Australian supermarkets.

One of the recommendations from the Australian Guidelines to Healthy Eating was that each adult should include the (then) 2-3 serves of dairy foods per day (this has since increased to 2.5-4 serves.)

These were a people who had never eaten dairy foods in their lives, had never milked other animals for any reason, and here we were telling them they needed to start consuming considerable amounts of breast milk from another mammalian species in order to maintain bone health.

Even though in the west such foods are deemed essential, the fact is they work well for certain groups but not so well for others. Certain African, Oriental and eastern European ethnic groups show a demonstrable intolerance for milk products. African and Oriental groups typically lack the lactase enzyme needed to break down the milk sugar lactose. On the other hand, people of eastern European descent do have a high lactase concentration yet frequently show an unusual sensitivity to dairy products.

Many ethnic groups traditionally ate lots of dairy, sometimes as their staple food. The Abkhasians of Russia are an example. But in contrast to most westerners, the dairy these people traditionally ate was fresh, not homogenised nor pasteurised, organic, and included cultured milk products which are high in probiotics, which may have even supported their ability to break down dairy sugars and proteins.

Being half Chinese, I battled with terrible lactose intolerance as a kid, and don't touch milk nowadays. However I do find I can get away with eating some high quality cheese (which I LOVE) because cheese is much lower in lactose. Goat's cheese works best digestively - for me.

Additionally, cultural beliefs play a large part in the inclusion of dairy in many diets. In India the cow is revered as a sacred animal, a manifestation of mother and sustainer of life. Milk is consumed in many forms as a highly nutritious food, and for thousands of years ghee has been used in therapeutic interventions in Ayurvedic health. For someone to deem dairy “bad” would be offensive and non-sensical to someone of Indian descent with deeply instilled Hindu values.

It is quite understandable for someone with a high lactase concentration or of Indo-European descent to conclude that dairy products digest seamlessly and are “good” for health. It is just as natural for those with a low lactase level to conclude that dairy is “bad”, especially give the gas and stomach cramps its consumption can induce. Neither of these assumptions are true or false universally, and trouble arises when either of these conclusions are generalised.

There is not one but a whole spectrum of nutritional systems suitable for human consumption. This spectrum is a function of genetic inheritance, geography and cultural beliefs.

Almond milk - an easy to make dairy alternative.

6 Ways to Discover your Dairy Dilection

In short, what works for one person may not work for everyone. I don't believe the Paleo hype that says "we were not meant to eat dairy." Who was not meant to eat dairy should perhaps be the question.

Nor do I agree with the belief that we should all be drinking cow's milk to get our calcium. Here's some things to keep in mind when deciding on whether to go cow or not:

Use general guidelines wisely, keeping in mind that they are general and were designed for the general Australian population. They might not work for you, or they might!
Listen to your body. Do you feel tired, bloated and crampy after eating yoghurt? Then it's probably not an ideal food for you! Are you of Swiss descent and have no trouble guzzling milk and eating cheese? Then go for it! Just make sure you're getting all the other goodies you need from the other food groups, too.
Go for quality - organic or biodynamic or non-homogenised cow's or goat's milk reigns supreme over normal pasteurised, homogenised milk. Cows from organic and biodynamic farms are generally treated better, too.

If your body can indeed deal with dairy just fine but you like cows and don't like the horrible conditions they often have to withstand in order for us to extract their baby's food from their teats - then don't have dairy. There are other ways to get your calcium, I repeat, there are other ways!
For the dairy-wary: go for kale, other dark green leafies, nuts, sesame seeds, tempeh, blackstrap molasses, tahini, almond butter, broccoli, amaranth, adzuki beans, okra, figs, among others.
If you're still in doubt about whether you're getting all the nutrients you need, speak to an open-minded nutrition professional - a university qualified dietitian, nutritionist, or naturopath. Not a paleo health coach, your vegan activist friend, or your cross fit trainer - pretty please.

Plenty of non-dairy ways to get your calcium!

Following the trail to my calling

30/7/2014

My first week back at university studying Naturopathy has been exciting, intense and above all, reassuring.

Reassuring because sitting in my first herbal medicine class, I felt like I had chosen a path of study that was like coming home. I was elated to be there, and hungrily mopping up the teachers' words. Not gritting my teeth in strong disagreeance with the lecturer, vowing to do things differently once I graduated!

One of the things my herbal manufacturing lecturer said really stood out for me:

"In life we may meander, take a convoluted path, or get-side-tracked. But if we persist, we are always drawn back to our true purpose, one way or another." Diana Bowman

In my class there are people in their 50's who have deferred following their dreams until their kids left home. Others who began their study a decade or more ago and had to stop when life (sickness, pregnancy, deaths, financial restraints) got in the way, who have now picked up the scent to follow the trail again. Others like me who have been in allied health for a few years, and want to widen their scope with some holistic sideview mirrors.

Looking back, I sometimes feel regret at not choosing naturopathy as my first degree (and consequently racking up a sizeable HECS debt!).

But I shake that regret off when I think of all I have learnt along the way. I feel that I needed to go through an entire veterinary science degree, to travel and live overseas, to do my masters in (mainstream) dietetics, to practise on my own as a holistic dietitian in a climate where dietitians are usually anything but... all part of nourishing my basic desire to heal using every tool I possibly can, whether that be allopathic or natural medicine. Whether that be for humans or animals. Whether people are rich or poor, sick or healthy.

Naturopathy is the closest thing I've found the embodies this wide-viewed approach. I love that we don't need to choose one over the other - natural/complementary medicine over mainstream medicine. We can choose both. For example, if someone with cancer decides to take a chemotherapy treatment approach, they can mop up the damage with herbs, nutrition and lifestyle changes and drastically reduce the harsh side effects of chemo.

Ironically, I remember telling my year co-ordinator and SOSE teacher in Grade 9 that I wanted to be a naturopath. Her advice was to "choose something else that better used my intelligence." A similar thing happened in Grade 11 when I talked to my careers adviser. Not that my convoluted path was their fault! I believe all my experience has enriched my life deeply, and given me a huge appreciation for being where I am, now.

"The wild woman is the source, the light, the night, the dark, and the daybreak. She is the smell of good mud and the back leg of the fox. She is the voice that says, "This way, this way."
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

In case you were wondering, I am continuing to practise as a dietitian. It's just that once I've graduated I'll be dual-qualified as an accredited practising dietitian and a naturopath, which is exciting!

A nutritionist first and foremost, I will always believe in the immense power of food, and will ALWAYS look at diet as one of the primary targets for anyone looking to improve their general health or move past their health issues.

Although I've nearly lost count of how much uni I've done (this is my third degree - gulp!), I do seem to have a sick affinity for study and have not stopped doing online courses, informal and formal mentorships, and in person trainings since I graduated from dietetics. Plus I decided it was time to put all those excuses and fears to bed and JUST DO IT!

I look forward to sharing my journey with you and all the loops, dog legs and hurdles that will inevitably pop up along the way!

Big love,
Casey

Forward>>

Casey's blog

Treating allergies naturally

Detoxification: so NOT about juice fasts & colonics

Dealing with infant fever and mummy burnout

INTERGALACTIC CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Immune-boosting Shiitake & Veg Stir Fry

Dairy - yay or nay?

6 Ways to Discover your Dairy Dilection

Following the trail to my calling

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Casey's blog

Treating allergies naturally

Detoxification: so NOT about juice fasts & colonics

​Dealing with infant fever and mummy burnout

INTERGALACTIC CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Immune-boosting Shiitake & Veg Stir Fry

Dairy - yay or nay?

6 Ways to Discover your Dairy Dilection

Following the trail to my calling

Categories

POPULAR POSTS

ARCHIVES

MORE CATEGORIES

Dealing with infant fever and mummy burnout