Seasonal Allergies: Gear Up Now!

What would a healing post, from me, be without my favorite herb... stinging nettles!  It is my "go to" herb for all nourishing and healing needs.  Start with nettles + herbs specific for the health symptoms = healing equation!

Got allergies?  Gear up now to fortify your body before pollen season. (I know, it does seem like winter will never go away, here in Northern NY!  But, pollen season will happen!) This self-responsible, preventative health action will help to ease the seasonal allergy symptoms.  Breathe freely this spring, summer, and fall...

1.  Freeze dried stinging nettles:  Get to Nature's Storehouse, Canton, NY and purchase some freeze-dried stinging nettles.  Start taking them now to calm and heal your immune system and relieve the seasonal pollen allergies.  

2.  Local, raw honey.  Start eating 1/2 to 1 teaspoon two times daily, now.  Local, raw honey will acclimate your body to the local allergens before they bloom and blossom. This local honey will help to relieve or even rid your seasonal pollen allergies.

3.  Herbal Formula:  Herbs Etc. is a great company.  I use many of their formulas in healing ways with friends, family, and clients.  They work!

Allertonic® Enhances healthy inflammatory responses of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. Stabilizes mast cell walls and fixed antibodies found in the eyes and respiratory system, keeping the tissues calm. Normalizes secretion of the respiratory system, liquefies mucus, stimulates its removal from the lungs, and keeps pulmonary tissues hydrated.

Ingredients: Fresh Stinging Nettle herb, Licorice root, Eyebright herb, Horehound herb, Osha root, fresh Horsetail herb, fresh Mullein leaf, Elecampane root, and fresh Plantain leaf.

Suggested Use:

Acute: Take one soft gel or 40 drops with water every two to three hours until comfort is achieved or as directed by your health care professional. Noticeable comfort is attained within the first or second day. Switch to ongoing use.

Ongoing: Take one soft gel or 40 drops with water three times a day.

Proactive: Two months prior to seasonal challenges, take one soft gel or 40 drops with water twice a day.

4.  Yes, you can use all three of these natural, allergy relief "foods" as a preventative measure.  Start now, before the snow melts!

5.  Whole foods:  I would be seriously amiss as a whole food, holistic healer if I did not tell you that the foods you put into your body, every time you eat, affect the way you feel.  Eat crap, feel like crap!  If you over load your body with packaged, factory made foods, you overwhelm your immune system (actually, you overwhelm your whole body, every body cell!).  Your immune response to allergens in the seasonal air will be seriously heightened if your body is already overwhelmed by crap food.  Eat whole, love your body cells!

6.  Liver Nourishment:  As I write this post, I have a draft post on liver nourishment, ready to go.  Be looking for it.  Keeping the liver healthy will cut down on seasonal allergy symptoms.

7. Acupuncture: is an excellent healing tool in the seasonal allergy toolbox. Give Five Elements Living a call if allergy relief is in your plans!

PS:  I can order any product from Herbs Etc. for you.  Check Nature's Storehouse OR the Potsdam Food Coop for a similar product.  Compare the ingredients as many herbal companies make allergy relief herbal combinations.

Need Help? Not sure about herbal healing foods:  what to take, how to take it, when to take it, etc?  As a Certified Herbalist, I can help with this!  Give me a shout.

Gut Bugs for Lunch

Gut Bugs are Essential for Whole Body Health

We hear it all the time, gut microbes are essential for the health and healing of the whole body, not to mention prevention of everything from colon issues to depression and cancer.  Natural medicine has encouraged fermented foods forever, mainstream medicine is finally catching on!

Although the mainstream medical recommendation is for a fecal transplant?? Are they serious?  Transplanting someone else's poop into my colon.  Sounds like fun...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_bacteriotherapy

How about eating 100% whole foods to heal current problems and to prevent further health issues AND try eating raw, fermented foods to replenish the gut bacteria?

Science is "proving" that having healthy microbes in your gut is what keeps the immune, nervous, gastro-intestinal, and skin healthy.  Gut health is an indication of complete body health, right down to each individual body cell. (It is that body cell health thing again.  If you have sat through one of my whole food healing workshops, you hear about healing your body cells!)

Whole foods are full of fiber and nutrients that feed the gut bugs you want to proliferate in your gut.  Feeding the gut bugs healthy, whole foods keeps you healthy.  A fine example of a  mutualistic relationship between humans and bacteria.

Above is a picture of a recent lunch I made for myself:

1.  My beloved beets, grated raw, from the Kent Family Growers,

2.  Topped with Hawthorne Valley Raw Sauerkraut, Nature's Storehouse in Canton carries this,

(Wild Brine Dill and Garlic Sauerkraut Salad from the Potsdam Food Coop is a tasty choice as well!)

3.  I then topped it with raw sunflower seeds, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds (yeah, I forgot them in the picture!),

4.  Raw, Fermented, Wild Brine pickles and pickled garlic from the Potsdam Coop,

5.  Local, full fat yogurt from Prosper's Farmstead Creamery, North Lawrence, NY.

End results:

Yummy lunch full of fiber to feed the gut microbes AND the sauerkraut, pickles, and yogurt are loaded with good, gut building bacteria to replenish mine.  (Remember, fermented pickles and sauerkraut must be raw.  If you heat can it after fermenting to store on the shelves, you are killing the gut microbes.)

Do your gut and whole body health (Your body cells; it is the body cell thing again!) a favor:  Eat good gut bugs for lunch!