Taking liquid herbs

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I love using liquid herbal medicines in my clinic because they are individually designed on a client by client basis and there is the potential to work on a few conditions with one bottle of herbs which keeps patient costs down and also means less supplements to take each day.

The one and only down side to liquid herbs is the taste! Ohh man can it be bad! Even I have to psych myself up to take some of my mixes and the really yucky ones will be taken followed by a lot of complaining and face pulling!

The feral taste of liquid herbs is the main complaint I hear in my clinic (others include the size of the tablets and the taste of the powders). The great thing is that my clients persevere and continue to take their herbs despite the taste. Why? Because they work! Plain and simple, no other explanation needed.

Liquid herbs are cost-effective, quickly and easily absorbed and really work so for this reason I will often tell my clients to just ‘suck it up’ and take their herbs. Really, it’s a moment of displeasure for a big gain and, if you have ever done a tequila or sambuca shot, I’m sure you can take liquid herbs!

And the good news is, the longer you take them the easier it gets! Often a big part of what we don’t like in liquid herbs is the ‘bitter’ flavour. This is because the western diet is greatly deficient in bitter foods so we are not used to the taste. Once we wake up the bitter taste buds the herbs are quite easy to take.

Other tips for taking your herbs

1.       Take them as a shot
Don’t pour your dose of herbs into a 200ml glass of water and force yourself to scull the whole thing! I advise my clients to measure out their herbs and then fill the rest of the measuring cup with water and get it down quick, like a shot.

2.       Use warm water
One of my clients told me that this makes them a whole lot easier to swallow.

3.       Use pineapple juice
I don’t like mixing my herbs with juice because it just makes the juice taste bad. But some people find them easier to take this way.

4.       Wash them down with a glass of water with lemon juice
This will help to get the aftertaste out of your mouth

There are other options like glycerine and special flavour mixes that can be purchased from the herb wholesalers to add to the formula but I don’t believe in using these so I don’t stock them in my clinic. I know, I’m a big meanie!
Certain herbs, like those used to improve digestive function, actually need to be tasted. The bitter taste is what gets your digestion started so there is nothing gained by covering the taste up. Plus I don’t want to waste space in the formula with a flavour improver instead of using a valuable herb. And, I hate it when people try to mask an unpleasant flavour. I can always taste the real flavour underneath and it just makes the whole experience a lot worse. So I believe that the flavour of liquid herbs should be embraced!

Now, I don’t want to totally turn you off using liquid herbs.  Some people actually like the taste and I have to admit that I will sometimes take a mix and find myself saying “ohh yummy” afterwards! To me, Liquorice is delicious and cramp bark is pretty good too! I always tell my new clients how bad their herbs are going to taste and really make them sound like the worst thing ever and I am often pleasantly surprised when they come to their next appointment and say “the herbs were fine, I don’t mind taking them at all”.

So I guess the message is, we’re all different and our taste buds are different too but if you persevere with your herbs, you should get used to the taste.
And if not, whinge enough and your naturopath will probably give in and order you tablets instead but remember, this will probably be more expensive as you’ll more than likely need a few different tablets to cover the different actions of the liquid herbs.

Do you have any secret tips for taking liquid herbs? Please share them with us in the comments box below 

Not hungry in the morning?

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You must eat Breakfast!

Your metabolism has slowed down over night.
You have been fasting for 8+ hours.
You’re dehydrated.
You have no fuel left in your tank.

How could it possibly be OK to go to work without refuelling?

You’re not hungry? Well lets get that metabolism kick started.
As soon as you wake up, go to the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of warm water and then squeeze in 1/4 fresh lemon juice and drink it.

Now, go and have your shower and get ready and then you should find that the idea of food is a little more inviting.

Have breakfast before you have a coffee.

Coffee can often supress the appetite and also cause you to feel a little jittery on an empty stomach so always have your coffee after breakfast. You may even find that once you start eating in the morning you won’t even feel like a coffee.

Prepare your breakfast the night before.

If your excuse for skipping breakfast is that you’re in too much of a rush in the morning you have three options.
Option one, you can get up half an hour early so that you can prepare your breakfast and sit down to eat it.
Option two, you can prepare something before bed such as my chia pudding or amuesli bar or almond muffin.
Option three have a good quality protein shake.
Option two and three mean that you can take your breakfast with you if you’re running late. No excuses 

Start with a liquid breakfast.

Some people who have gone years without eating breakfast really struggle with the idea of eating in the morning. Work yourself up to solids and start with a veggie juice or a smoothie. You might be surprised by how satisfying and sustaining a vegetable juice can be. Try to make sure that your juice is mostly vegetables rather than fruit to keep the sugar content down. Try kale, cucumber, mint and apple for a yummy combo to get you started.

Smoothies are quick and easy to make using milk, banana, seeds and maybe even some kale.. Check out two of my recipes here.

What other tricks do you use to get your appetite started? I’d love you to share your tips in the comment box below.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

The weather has turned a bit chilly, grey and rainy in Sydney today and it’s making me fancy soup!

This recipe came from my friend Kristen and the first time I made it I had to keep texting photos to her because it just felt too easy! If you like pumpkin soup then you should really give this one a go. Roasting the veggies gives it such a rich and delicious flavour.

Ingredients

  1 butternut pumpkin, roughly chopped

  1 onion, whole

  ½ bulb garlic

  Approx 500ml chicken or vegetable stock

  Black pepper

Method

1.       Preheat oven to 180

2.       Place pumpkin, onion and garlic on oven tray (skins on)

3.       Roast vegetables until soft, approx 45mins

4.       Remove from oven, scoop pumpkin out of skin and squeeze onion and garlic out of their skins (use tongs, not your hands!).

5.       Blend or stick mix the vegetables together with chicken stock until you have your preferred consistency

6.       Add black pepper to taste

7.       Heat in saucepan and serve

A note about stock:

I often have homemade chicken stock in my freezer but if you need to use a bought stock try to go for one with as few nasty ingredients as possible and a low salt option. A good rule is to look at the ingredients list and choose the one with the least ingredients and the least numbers and names you can’t pronounce (additives, preservatives, MSG etc).

Breakfast

Are you uninspired and unenthused when it comes to breakfast? Read on because your world is about to be changed forever...

I used to hate breakfast. Even on the days when I was eating something nice, breakfast just didn't interest me. Growing up, my two favourite things to eat for breakfast were pancakes with lemon and sugar or porridge with brown sugar.. Notice a theme? Yep, massive sugar addict! It's no wonder I used to have hypoglycaemia!

Once I realised that these sugar loaded foods were no good for me I just became uninterested and in my early days of being a Naturopath my breakfast was usually a protein shake or a protein bar.

But now I love breakfast HURRAH!!

What changed? Maybe me... Or maybe I just discovered some really yummy breakfast options! In summer I love a smoothie, in winter its my hot breakfast bowl and on the days I know I'm going to in a manic rush its my pre-made chia pudding on the go. And the best thing about these 3 options is that you can change the ingredients every time you make it so that you don't have to have the exact same thing day in and day out. Perfection :)

Ohh and the pancakes? I now have the best pancake recipe in the world and i can eat as many as I want without feeling sick or guilty. Life is wonderful and breakfast is soooo fun!

So now you have 4 delicious breakfast recipes to try out and I really recommend that you do try them. A few of my friends and clients have given them a whirl and the feedback has been great so far. I only eat yummy food so I promise they are good!

But what if you haven't done the weekly shop, you have no chia seeds, no oats and no milk! How can we tart up your standard breakfast to make it that little bit more nutritious? Here are a few things you can do to improve the quality of the most important meal of the day:

Peanut butter on toast

I'm a little bit anti-peanut butter but to try and make this exercise realistic I would suggest going for a natural peanut butter rather than the highly processed scarily combined peanut butter that lots of people buy.. You want your peanut butter to be made from Peanuts. FULL STOP.

Here is the ingredients list from what I think is probably the most popular peanut butter brand in Australia : Roasted peanuts (65%), maltodextrin (from tapioca), sugar, vegetable oil (antioxidant (320)), salt, emulsifier (471)

65% Peanuts!! Seriously?! That is just wrong.. Next time you buy peanut butter please read the ingredietns list and buy one that has 100% peanuts.

My preferred option would be that you ditch the peanut butter and go for almond butter, cashew butter or the combo ABC which has almonds, brazil and cashew nuts. These options should be easy to find in the health food section of your supermarket.

The most important rule when you come to bread is absolutely no white bread. White bread is highly processed and refined, it breaks down into sugar in your body and it provides very little fibre. Have you ever noticed that when you chew white bread it turns into a paste in your mouth? Now imagine when you swallow this how it sticks to your digestive tract and clogs it up.. ewww... Now think about when you eat wholemeal or wholegrain bread, how it stays pretty rough in your mouth and when you swallow it, it moves through your digestive tract acting like a brush all the way through.

These are the little pictures I like to plant in peoples heads to help them make the right food choice ;)

 Muesli

No two muesli's are created equal. Again it all comes down to reading the packaging. What you want is for your ingredients list to only contain words that you understand and can pronounce. And you don't want any sugar on the ingredients list. With all of the dried fruit in muesli there is no need to add sugar to it.

Carman's fruit and nut muesli does not have added sugar and can be found at your supermarket. They also have fruit free and gluten free options as well as a bircher style.

I used to make my own muesli and while it was costly, it was the best muesli I have ever had. I would just buy oats, puffed rice, dried fruit, coconut, nuts and seeds and mix it up to my liking. This is the best way to go if you want to know exactly what's in your bowl.

For really good quality health-ful breakfast cereal that comes out of a packet, you can't go past forage. Forage was designed by Australian Naturopath Dr Damien Kristof and while it's fairly expensive at $17.90 for a 500g bag, it is very well balanced, high quality and tasty. Really, you're paying for the quality and health benefits of this one..

Nothing

Lets face it, lots of you skip breakfast and just have a coffee.. And, from my experience in clinic, most of you know that this is not OK! Your body has just been shut down over night and when you wake up it is time to break the fast... Breakfast!

If you find it difficult to stomach breakky, just have a protein shake or my magic smoothie. Something is better than nothing and we want to get your metabolism started to fuel you through the day. Here is a blog post all about how to wake up your appetite in the morning

Here are some of the awesome breakfast photos my clients have sent me this week

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Protein Balls

A couple of people have asked me for protein ball recipes this week.

I have a few of these high protein, healthy snack recipes in my repertoire but this is probably the one that most people will have the ingredients for already in their pantry. Well, that might be wrong.. If I’ve totally lost touch with reality… But I created this recipe out of ingredients I had in my pantry!

You will need:

  1+ 1/3 cup nutmeal (I used almond and hazelnut meal)

  ¼ Cup flaxseeds (Linseeds)

  2 Dates

  ½ tablespoon tahini

  1 teaspoon toasted coconut chips

  3 tablespoons hazelnut butter

  ½ teaspoon coconut oil.

Method:

1.       Blend ingredients, adding them in order of list.

2.       Once well blended and moist, roll into balls and refrigerate until you need a snack.

Did I mention that it’s ridiculously easy to make these?!

Enjoy!