Do you eat your bitters? Bitter foods offer a multitude of health benefits, such as improving digestion, enhancing liver detoxification, and clearing up your skin when hormonal issues lie at the root of issues like acne. But did you know bitters can also improve your mood, clearing feelings of depressed malaise and calming the fires of impatience and anger?

​In Chinese medicine and in Ayurveda, the hallmark of a balanced meal is the inclusion of all of the flavours. ​​By including all of the flavours in a meal, you’re probably going to feel very satisfied. And satisfaction is a crucial element of enjoyable, intuitive eating.

One of these flavours is bitter, a very important taste that many of us are missing on our plates.

Throughout Spring and Summer in my Southeast Queensland neighbourhood, edible weeds pop up everywhere including in my own my backyard.

​Under the kids’ trampoline out of the lawnmower’s reach, I find dandelion greens, sow thistle, sheep sorrel, and wild carrot, among other largely unknown yet freely available sources of nutrition (always correctly identify plants before eating them, come to one of my Herb Walks to help you with this!). At the farmer’s market I uncover a similar array: mustard greens, endive, chicory, kale, parsley, rocket.​
​

Constipation, colds and flu start to rear their heads in autumn as we transition into the colder months. Here are 11 tips to help you move through the season with strength and grace.

Updated April 2023. Originally published in Living Now magazine, 2016.

At this time of year, as the sap of the trees and flowers returns to their root systems, we too are preparing to turn inward. In virtually every ancient medicine system, this season of harvest was seen as the time of the year to pull inward and gather together on all levels; a time to plan for the approaching darkness and stillness of winter.

In TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), autumn is associated with wind and dryness. It’s also the season associated with the lungs and large intestine, which are responsible for releasing carbon dioxide and food wastes, respectively. It follows that the energy of both these organs is ‘letting go’. Elimination problems like chronic constipation can be exacerbated at this time of year. Emotionally, it’s the time of year to look at things we are hanging onto that are no longer serving us, and to let them go for good.

Cleansing from a western fad perspective is pure diet culture BS. But in Ayurveda the "C" word takes on a somewhat different, multifaceted meaning. This can be both problematic and refreshing depending on your perspective. 

In this episode I interview Narayana Commerford, Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultant, Yoga Teacher, and owner of Evolution Botanicals.

In this episode:

• How Ayurveda didn’t accompany yoga to the west, and the effects of this on contemporary yoga practice
• Different spiritual practices (e.g. Vipassana, Tantra) are not suited to everyone
• Everything can be medicine or harmful, depending on context
• Your constitution informs the medicine you need
• Diet culture vs. the introspective curiosity inherent to Ayurveda
• Ojas, or vitality: is your “cleanse” giving you that?
• Cleanses are effective at short-term weight loss, but not effective at long-term weight loss
• Keeping digestion healthy is key in Ayurveda
• Cleanses and fasting can disrupt agni and metabolism, and aggravate vata
• The Magic Bullet Syndrome: cleanses won’t fix the lifestyle problems causing your health issues in the first place
• Nara’s experience with chronic fatigue, discovering how stressful dieting was on his body, and how he recovered

Post-interview solo:

• Navigating the touchy issue of Ayurvedic “cleansing” amidst the sea of diet culture and accusations of pseudo-science
• The differences between a juice cleanse, and pancha karma or “cleansing” in the traditional Ayurvedic sense
• Where I feel a few days of kitchari might be appropriate, and where it definitely would not be appropriate
• Hardcore cleanses in Ayurveda

Links: 
​
Nara’s company Evolution Botanicals
Website: https://evolutionbotanicals.com.au/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evolutionbotanicals
Instagram: @evolutionbotanicals
Non-Diet Yogi Patreon

Pre-launch waiting list for interest in Casey’s Non-Diet Ayurveda Course:
https://www.funkyforest.com.au/courses.html
​
Casey's articles on Ayurveda, TCM and Intuitive Eating
https://www.funkyforest.com.au/blog/ayurveda-tcm-intuitive-eating-or-dietary-dogma
https://www.funkyforest.com.au/blog/beyond-pitta-kapha-vata-ayurveda-tcm-intuitive-eating

Funky Forest Health & Wellbeing - online non-diet nutrition & naturopathic consulting services and in-person yoga classes

Grab your free e-book The Modern Yogi's BS-Free Guide to Wellbeing

Funky Forest Health & Wellbeing Facebook page

Instagram @nondietyogi  @caseyaconroy  @funkyforesthealth
​
Support the show
​

The Paleolithic diet. Road to wholefood-based wellness and weight loss? Or meat-centred craze based on shaky science? Perhaps there’s a middle way.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the paleo approach to eating, and often it’s a strong one. From anthropologists to acclaimed authors, nutritionists to naturopaths, Crossfit trainers to colonic hydrotherapists, and pretty much any health-conscious individual in between – the paleo movement now seems less like a fad and more like a dietary era in itself.
​

Mugwort is like the grandmother you always wanted, which might be why she is often referred to by herbalists as cronewort after the wise elder archetype. Like a patient grandparent who has been ignored and not visited for far too long, she welcomes you with zeal and open, forgiving arms, eager to distil her timeless wisdom to anyone willing to listen.

Perhaps this is why she is also known as the herb for new initiates to the plant spirit path. She is so easy to talk to. She welcomes you with open, soft, silvery hands. All you have to do is open up the conversation by saying "hello". And when you do, she will gently invite you in to realms of deeper perception, where a new way of communing with plants and integrating the healing process is possible.

In my communications with her I'm always amazed at how quick and clear she is in her conversing. She is so chatty (at least, relative to other plants I've spoken with) that I often doubt myself - "did she really just say that?" - although that is becoming less of an issue with time. More about that soon.

Mugwort's genus name Artemisia hints at the moon goddess that it it's namesake. Every image I've seen of the greek goddess Artemis (or Diana, her Roman equivalent) depicts her as huntress and protector of the wild creatures of the forest. She doesn't kill indiscriminately; she brings death only when it is timely and appropriate. And she also brings life, as is evident in her traditional use by herbal midwives in labour and birth.

Edit on 14 June 2020: Since writing this article I've learnt more about mugwort and the many different species growing around the Sunshine Coast Hinterlands, where I live. I believe one of the species naturalised to this area (and pictured below) may be Chinese mugwort (Artemisia verlotiorum) which is more aromatic than common mugwort (A. vulgaris) and grows 1-3 m high. 

For some years I've been interested in organic gardening, particularly permaculture. Recently I've taken a deeper dive into this method of 'natural' farming within which is embedded a deep reverence for, and trust of nature. And I've realised that permaculture has some uncanny parallels to the non-diet approach and Health at Every Size movement I am so passionate about in my clinical practice. For the last 7 or so years I've been working with people with weight, food and body image concerns, from wanting to lose a couple of kilograms to life threatening eating disorders.

One of the greatest teachers of this method of farming is Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution. In this book Fukuoka describes his discovery of "do nothing" farming, where he creates situations where nature will do the work with the minimum of interference on his part.

So instead of spending hours ploughing the soil or spending money on adding chemical fertilisers to his crops, he simply chucks the rice straw back on the ground after harvesting it and scatters chook poo over it. Occasionally he sows clover to use as a green manure.

​And that's pretty much it.

And rather than seeing everything turn into a wilderness and watching helplessly as the prickles take over, Fukuoka actually equals the yield of farms that have had these modern high intervention inputs applied to them, with a fraction of the investment of labour and resources.
​

Of course by "healthy weight" I don't mean what the BMI deems healthy. I adopt Dr. Rick Kausman's description of your healthiest weight being the most comfortable, natural weight for you - the weight your body naturally arrives at and maintains when we provide the right "soil" (see number 2). So here's what I gathered together in my current understanding of permaculture principles and my more deeply rooted understanding of HAES and the non-diet approach. The biggest parallels between permaculture, and the non-diet approach and HAES as roads to body peace, are:

Recently I changed my Instagram handle from @forestyogini to my actual name. It may seem insignificant - just petty semantics - to some. But to me it's no small decision. It’s a personal (de)identity shift I’ve been thinking about making for some time.

Why? 

For those who give a shit and are still reading:

I no longer feel comfortable calling myself a yogi or yogini.

A few months back when I listened to Dana Falsetti’s excellent podcast “Deep Dive” on this very topic, it validated my feelings of unease and finally exhumed the heart of the matter for me.

Perhaps it's the spirit of Australia Day (being celebrated this whole long weekend) and the historical colonialism, racism and cultural misappropriation that surrounds this controversial holiday that have finally pushed me over the "dare to change your Insta handle and confuse everyone!" line. 

I practise yoga and I make money from teaching yoga. But I just don’t feel like I have the authority to claim the title yogi. In the same way I have been feeling increasingly uncomfortable saying namaste at the end of class. For the same reason I don’t wear mala beads or paint a bindi on my head. For the same reason most yoga teachers probably wouldn't recognise the goddess in the picture above (hint: it's not Kali).

Don’t worry, I’ve tried all of these things and more. But for me, they’ve never felt quite right as I explained at length in my post Why I quit yoga (and what brought me back). For me, letting go of the self-appointed yogi title is yet another layer of self-discovery, and my gradual disentanglement from the clusterfuck of fake spiritual empowerment and "holier than thou"-ness that I call the Sexy, Successful, Spiritual Woman Ideal.

There are three main reasons I'm letting go of the yogi title.

James Cameron has directed and produced some of the best movies of all time IMO. The run of action movies he directed in the 80's was pivotal in forming the fertile ground of my childhood imagination - The Terminator series, Alien trilogy and in the early 90's, Point Break (which is so bad, it's good, y'know?)

I have spoken of my love for Aliens in this blog on intuitive eating (Aliens and intuitive eating? YES!)

Sigourney Weaver plays the central character Ellen Ripley, a leader and a warrior. To get a taste of Ripley, watch the clip below where she is about to enter the alien hive in order to find and rescue her adoptive daughter, just as the colony is minutes away from exploding. It's pure badass.

Aliens is one of the rare movies where a female is the lead role heroine AND she is not hyper-sexualised.

I mean, Wonder Woman and Tomb Raider are OK and maybe make small inroads in the eternal quest for equal gender representation in action movies, but who seriously fights villians in high heeled boots whilst maintaining deep cleavage, and a full face of make up? Practicality and believability factor: zero.

Ripley is also a mother.
​