Autumn is traditionally a time to make fermented foods, jams and preserves for winter. Around this time of year we begin to enjoy warming, comforting autumn meals like soups, stews, and any slow cooked foods with seasonal root vegetables. 

Labneh is a wonderful addition to any autumn meal, or just as a moreish snack with crackers and veggie sticks to keep you powering through a chilly afternoon. It's irresistably deliciously creamy, salty and tangy. It also makes a beautiful gift for friends and family, and as you make it you can infuse it with your loving energy!

Do you watch what you eat?

Do you spend all day thinking about and planning your meals?
​Are you "careful" with your food choices?
Do you have rules and judgement around food?
Do you try to make the "best" or "healthiest" decision every time you eat something?
Do you struggle with weight concern, emotional eating, binging, and/or food obsession?

If so, you might want to take a look at your personal diet mentality.

Diet mentality, or diet thinking, leads to dieting behaviours. And dieting behaviours build a cage around a person that places serious limits on their capacity to live and enjoy a rich, full, and meaningful life.
​
​If there was ever an opportune time for us as individuals to slay our own private diet mentalities and weight biases - and for us to collectively dismantle the very diet culture that it stands upon - NOW is the time.

The next new moon falls on Wednesday, April 26th. This mid-autumn moon cycle is known in many parts of the world as the Blood Moon or Hunter's Moon. And it is the perfect time for you to put this diet thing to bed, for good.

Read on for 7 hard-core (but realistic) ways to slay that MF beast that is the diet mentality!

​When someone comes to me with low iron, one of the first foods I think of is liver. 

Yes, I know. Gross. But hear me out...
 
Liver is a true superfood – and you know how much I loathe using that word, so inundated is the health food marketing world with claims of it. So when I use it you know I really mean it.
 
And you know I really, REALLY mean it because for the decade that I was vegetarian, the very thought of eating cooked, blended organ meat would have made me hurl. Even once I started eating meat again a few years ago, the idea of liver still grossed me out.
 
That is, until I finally worked up the courage to buy some liver and cook the dreaded thing. I was heavily pregnant and iron deficient, despite having started to eat muscle meat – mostly fish - for a year or so already.
 
I remember frying the small amount of liver I had purchased, and making a batch of liver pâté. I carefully placed it into a jar. I was nervous and grossed out, but curious. Finally, I tentatively tasted it. The next thing I remember I was crouched over the kitchen sink with an empty jar in one hand, and a cleanly licked spoon in the other. I had devoured the whole jar of pâté in one sitting – or should I say, in one standing.

Kefir is the new (and very ancient) kid on the trendy healthy food block.

Fermented foods have been an important part of the diet in many parts of the world for more than 5000 years. Fermented milks, like sourdough bread, pickled vegetables and properly brewed beer, are just one of those traditional foods now missing from the standard western diet, much to our detriment.

Most of the food we eat nowadays has been mass-produced in the most rapid and cost-effective way possible, meaning we miss out on a lot of good bacteria present in natural whole foods. Hello allergies, chronic fatigue and depleted immune systems!

You could benefit from re-introducing some of these wonderful foods back into your diet, so read on to find out more about the new kid on the block, KEFIR.

What is kefir?

Kefir is a cultured milk product, very similar in taste to yoghurt. However, you can also make many yummy vegan forms of kefir, as it can be successfully made from the milk of nuts, seeds or coconut, or cereal grains. Vegans can also make a non-dairy kefir using sugar water mixed with citrus and dried fruit.

Kefir can be used as a direct substitute for yoghurt in a variety of food products and dishes. It is easier to make than yoghurt.

What’s the difference between kefir and yoghurt?

Both traditional yoghurt and kefir are fermented (cultured) dairy products that offer a good source of calcium, B vitamins, potassium and protein. As a result of the fermentation process, both have a tart, slightly acidic flavour, and both contain enzymes that break down lactose, the principal sugar in milk. Therefore kefir and yoghurt are usually well-tolerated by lactose-intolerant people, of which about three quarters of the world’s population is!

Yoghurt is made by culturing fresh milk (previously boiled and cooled) with a bacteria starter. The starter, usually containing two or three beneficial bacteria, comes from a previously made batch of yoghurt.

Yoghurt must ferment in an environment warmer than normal room temperature, for a fairly specific amount of time (about 8 to 16 hours), in order to develop properly. The culture bacteria in yogurt have only a limited lifespan and must be renewed regularly with new culture.

In contrast, kefir is made by culturing fresh milk with live kefir grains. These grains are actually colonies of more than 30 bacteria and yeasts that are bound together in a stable, symbiotic relationship.

Kefir ferments at room temperature, and has a wider range of acceptable fermentation periods (from about 12 hours to two days). Kefir grains stay alive and robust indefinitely. They also grow in size and number during the fermentation process. After the milk is fermented, the grains are filtered out and added to new milk for another batch of kefir.

What’s so good about kefir?

Yoghurt introduces beneficial bacteria into the intestines. Unfortunately, this effect is transitory and requires eating yoghurt daily to maintain the benefit! In contrast, the beneficial microorganisms in kefir actually take up residence in the intestines, where they can continue to aid in digestion and repel harmful bacteria.

Kefir confers a wide range of health benefits, from shortening “intestinal transit time” (i.e. relieving constipation) to suppressing the growth of Salmonella, healing ulcers, and strengthening the immune system. It is also said to be more digestible than yoghurt because the curds are smaller, and more of the lactose is broken down by the broader bacterial complex present in kefir.

Why should I care about kefir?

Kefir is one example of lacto-fermentation. It is useful to understand this simple but powerful process through which milk, vegetables and other foods can change flavour and texture, become more digestible, and gain a longer shelf life.

As mentioned earlier, kefir is more digestible than other dairy products, including yoghurt. Moreover, home-made kefir is both better and cheaper than either commercial yoghurt or kefir, and so can be an economical alternative in a budget-conscious kitchen.

Kefir is extremely versatile. It can be made into a huge variety of products including cheese, butter, buttermilk, and crème fraiche. It can also be used in baked goods, and is especially good as a sourdough starter. The whey by-product from kefir fermentation can be used as a starter for other lacto-fermentations, such as sauerkraut, eliminating the need to add all or almost all of the salt usually required.

Kefir (and yoghurt) have several very useful properties, often applied in Indian cuisines, for example. First, kefir can be used to marinate meats, such as chicken. Just as with yoghurt, the mildly acidic nature of kefir helps break down and tenderise the meat tissue. It also contributes tart undertones to curries and other dishes, as well as acts as a thickener. Moreover, the casein protein in kefir (and yogurt) acts as a cooling counterbalance to hot peppers and other spicy ingredients.

Enough talk... time for action!
Makes 1 L

2 cups of drinking coconut meat (About 3 or 4 young, green coconuts)
1 packet Kefir probiotic culture (available from health food stores)
2 cups coconut cream
A pinch of celtic sea salt

1. Scrape out the meat of your drinking coconuts, and place in a  blender or food processor.

2. Blend continuously for as long as it takes to get a smooth paste using a little of the coconut cream to get it going.

3. Scrape this into a 1 litre measuring jug. 1 packet of kefir makes 1 litre of finished product so fill the remaining volume up with coconut cream. If it's not 1 litre add coconut water or more coconut cream.

4. Next add the packet of kefir and mix it in very well with a plastic or wooden spoon and place the mixture in two 1 litre glass jars as the mixture will to expand  by about 1/3. Keep the jars tightly sealed with lids.

5. Keep the jars out of the fridge (perhaps in the pantry) to ferment, for about 8 hours. You can do this in the morning to have a nice afternoon snack or in the evening to have it ready for the morning. Keep your kefir at room temperature - around 20-25 degrees Celsius is optimum. The hotter the weather the quicker the beneficial cultures multiply so keep an eye on it if it's a hot day.

6. Once it's fermented (it should smell slightly acidic and bubble up) put it in the fridge to stop the fermenting process... or you'll be sorry!

If you want to make more you can use 1 cup of the same mixture and repeat the process 5 times in total from the original batch.The initial effort is worth it for the wonderful feeling this food leaves in your tummy and the digestive and immune-boosting benefits of this long-lost superfood! 

If you like to play with food, add a little honey and cinnamon or vanilla beans before eating. Serve with sliced fresh figs and a drizzle of honey or agave (see photo above!) Make a passionfruit honey kefir for porridge or fruit salad. Add coriander, mint, lemon juice and honey for a tangy accompaniment for your dhal or make a tzatziki for chick pea rissoles. What else can you think of? The possibilites are endless!

I have a question for you.

What do you think your body wants most?

Better food? Cleaner air? More sex? All of the above?

Balance, or homeostasis, is what your body wants most. Your body naturally wants to be balanced. Any tiny change to your environment that alters your blood's pH and oxygen saturation will elicit a cascade of events that ultimately attempts to bring you back into a state of perfect balance.

Did you know that the food you eat is a major contributing factor to the overall balance of the body? According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the energetic effects of some foods on the body are mild, such as vegetables and whole grains.

Foods such as meat, milk, sugar and salt have more extreme effects on the body, and when consumed in excess, can throw it off balance. This struggle eventually leads to a craving for whatever the body needs to regain balance. Extreme foods can be divided into two categories: contractive and expansive. Traditional Chinese Medicine recognises these food qualities as Yin (expansive) and Yang (contractive).

Sometimes my clients seem to be eating all the right things - their macronutrient intake is spot on, and they are getting adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals - but their bodies are still showing serious signs of imbalance.

This is when I might look to traditional, more energetically-based approaches like TCM for clues on how to get that person feeling better.

Any die hard yogi, health coach, or budding nutritionist will tell you that your smoothie just isn't complete without acai berries, maca, or chia seeds. But did you know that far many flung "superfoods" carry a heavy environmental and social footprint?

Who wants to live to 100?

Who wants to look 25 forever?

If you've been brought up or conditioned to any extent by mass western culture, you may find your answers to those questions a little bit contradictory!

The western world is obsessed with youth, yet most of us want to live forever. Which implies ageing.

Our cultural impetus is on remaining youthful looking at any cost but at the same time, wanting to extend our life span for as long as possible -  it's a really weird mix.

Whilst I was in India earlier this year, I was astounded and pleasantly surprised to see billboards with elderly female politicians, activists and even moviestars - complete with jowls, pigmentation spots, double chins and droopy eyelids. How refreshing! You never see this kind of thing in Australia.

Of course there is a reverence for youthful beauty in India, but it doesn't totally predominante the media's portrayal (and therefore, the people's acceptance) of women. It got me thinking - if I had to choose between the two, would I rather live to 100, or look 25 forever? Obviously one is possible naturally, the other is somewhat possible via unnatural, expensive and painful means. So having a low tolerance to pain and no progress to date in my plastic surgery funds savings account, I guess I'll go for living until 100! (And just enjoy being 27 while I'm at that actual age).

The nutritionist in me then asked the inevitable question: what should we eat to live to a healthy 100, rather than the decrepit centenarian on life support and a plethora of medications that fuels the fear of ageing? And possibly even retain into advanced age, a degree of sexiness, aliveness, vivacity and pep? (I realise that using that word reveals a distinct lack of pep).

To answer this, we need to distinguish between life span and health span.

It's curious that in the west there is an emphasis on extending life span, rather than health span. According to United Nations estimates, Australia has the fourth-highest male life expectancy in the world (79 years) and the third-highest female life expectancy (84 years).

Big woop!

Many of us have spent time in nursing homes or seen grandparents battle with multiple chronic diseases for years leading up to their deaths. Life span seems more an indicator of how accessible modern medicine and pharmaceuticals are than how healthy a people are overall.

Life span is measured in years, but a longer life doesn't necessarily mean a healthier life. For many people in the western world, optimal health is reached between ages 20-30, after which pre-disease states start to set in and health deteriorates over the next few decades - asthma or allergies in your 20's, adrenal fatigue and PCOS in your 30's, pre-diabetes or diabetes in your 40's, high blood pressure in your 50's and so on. Check out any national health statistics for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases - and the ever-younger ages people are developing these conditions - and you'll see that we have succeeded in extending our lifespans, only to spend more of our lives dying slowly.

Despite its amazing advances in treating acute health crises, modern medicine has been less successful in treating chronic disease, prolonging life span but not the proportion of life spent in an optimally healthy state. Our hospitals and nursing homes are filled with people "living" to ever increasing ages, but rather than dying late in life, people are spending more time starting to die early in life, and spending much of it in a suboptimal state of health.

Health span on the other hand, is the capacity for people to live vitality-filled, healthy lives until very late in life. According to John Robbins in his fantastic book, Healthy at 100,tThe Okinawans of Japan, Abkhasians of the Caucasus, Vilcabambans of Ecuador and the Hunzas of Pakistan are the longest-living peoples on the planet, but they also maintain incredibly high levels of health until very late in life.

So how do they do it? Sure, they exercise far more, have a respect and adulation for elders, find joy in their work and don't have a word for retirement in their vocabularies; all of this contributes to their comparitively long and vitality-filled lives. But from a purely dietary perspective, the traditional diets of these long-lived cultures are remarkably similar:

* The percentage of their diets that come from plant foods is between 90% (Abkhasians of Soviet regions) and 99% (Vilcabambans of Ecuador and the Hunzas)

* Their consumption of salt is low, and consumption of refined sugar and processed food is nil. Yep, not a smidgen of crap.

* Their overall daily calorie intake (adult males) is 1800 to 1900. In Australia, where lifestyles are far more sedentary, the average man consumes 2650 calories a day.

* In these diets, percent of calories from protein ranges from 10 percent to 15 percent, from fat it's 15-20% and from carbohydrates it's 65-74%. Mind boggling to the average westerner, who has been told to up the protein and cut the carbs in order to lose weight! The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends a daily macronutrient ratio of 10 percent to 35 percent protein, 20 percent to 35 percent fat and 45 percent to 65 percent carbohydrates.

I'm not saying we should emulate exactly the macronutrient ratios of these cultures, in the same way I don't expect we should all live in mud houses and run up mountains for 6 hours a day. These are simply points to think about and experiment with in your diet, rather than replicate exactly. And it doesn't have to complicated. In the words of Michael Pollan, "Eat real food. Mostly plants. Not too much."