Salad Dressing Made Easy!

Summer abounds with lush, juicy, crunchy, yummy produce.  A simple salad dressing, lite and tasty so as not to overwhelm the taste of the amazing fruits and veggies, is essential in the kitchen.

Commercial salad dressings are full of garbage, fake ingredients, that do not nourish your beautiful body cells.

Making a salad dressing, from scratch, is terribly simple AND you will know every ingredient that goes into making it (and into your body!). You can create a cell nourishing, heavenly tasting salad dressing in less than 30 minutes. (This includes picking the fresh herbs and rinsing them off!)

Have a quart size, wide mouth canning jar, on hand for the finished product.

1. Pour 2 cups raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar (ACV) into your blender.

1. Skip outside for some fresh herbs. Yes, it is important to skip. When we create food from a happy, loving space, our energy infuses the food and nourishes all who eat it.  Go ahead, skip.

1. At home I skip to pick: basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, cilantro, mint, and dill. Today, I am writing from my family's camp in the ADK Mts. I have to go with what is on hand: my rogue oregano and thyme plants all over in the lawn, wild mint, dandelion greens, and raspberry and strawberry leaves. Shh, don't tell my kids about the wild stuff, they might freak out.

My Friend Basil, my Hornbeck Canoe, and an ADK lake... does it get better?

1. Pick big handfuls of herbs and remove all bugs. Despite the bugs lending a 'lil extra protein to the dressing; the bugs prefer to be left outside with their lives intact. Rinse the herbs and put into the blender with the vinegar. (By the way, at home I use local ACV from Martin's Farm Stand. I love how there is always a big gob of the "mother" on the bottom of the gallon jug of ACV.  This can be used to ferment another batch of AVC.  I tried feeding it to my kids on a spoon. Seriously, it is like sauerkraut or yogurt... good for the gut.  I got it past their mouths once.  I was threatened, by both my sons, if I ever tried that slimy trick again, well it was not a pretty threat!  I just eat it myself and figure some day they will come around to Mom's holistic way of eating!)
2. Put cover on the blender.  This is a very important step. If left undone, it can be a catastrophe in the kitchen... green liquid dripping off the ceiling in a circle above your head.  Trust me, I know this to be true!
3. Blend into a green, foaming puree.
4. Pour into quart canning jar.
5. Stir with a spoon to calm the foaming green stuff.  It will seem like it has swollen to fill the whole jar but it will calm down.
6. Add a good squeeze of organic, yellow mustard. I would say about 1 tbsp. More mustard will not be an issue.
7. Pour in some organic, extra virgin olive oil to fill jar. No, the olive oil featured below is not organic. It is from Italy where Monsanto has not created their death grip on food!  I do not put the olive oil into the blender because it makes the blender an oily mess to clean.  I simply rinse the green, herbed vinegar stuff out of the blender and drink. No soap or hot water required for clean up.
8. Voila'!  Dressing fit for fresh, local produce nourishing your cells!

Optional ingredients: unrefined sea salt by the pinch or two and either local, raw honey or local, maple syrup.  Maybe a tbsp. of the sweetener.  Maple syrup will blend in at any time in the making process.  If using honey, add honey to the vinegar herb puree when blending, as it mixes together better.

To use: Use a hefty, long handled soup or serving spoon.  Remove jar cover and stir well.  Remove a big spoonful as you are stirring.  This keeps a better blend of oil to vinegar, otherwise the oil rises to the top quickly when you stop stirring.  This is fine, you want this effect.  Commercial dressings stay blended because they have chemical binder ingredients.

Storage: I leave my jar on the storage shelf under my kitchen table, no refrigeration required. AND it will last until you use it all up. Vinegar preserves!

My Healing Yard

If you have ever wandered up my driveway to socialize, have dinner, perhaps a healing session or a holistic class, or maybe an evening campfire, you know my yard's wildness!  The first 2/3's, moving up my driveway, is wild and free.  My backyard is overrun with wild plants.

When my Dad visits he always asks: "Do you want me to come over with my lawn tractor and help you mow this place?" He loves to taunt me about my weeds.   (Shhh, never call them weeds to their "blossom." Such rudeness hurts their feelings!)

My yard, a disaster to my Dad, is a healing oasis to me.  I nurture wild plants that will heal asthma to zits, cancer to psoriasis, provide birth control options, heal your body's inflammation, and everything in between. Annoying weeds they may be to most, to me they are my humble, healing friends that I protect with the gentle fierceness of a mother. And, they graciously feed butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and so many more wild creatures!

(All of the healing hints I will give, below, for my beloved weeds are but the tip of the iceberg for what each magical plant can be used for. Every plant has so many healing uses!)

Here we have Mullein (It is the tall plant with the yellow flower stalk), an amazing healing plant for asthma and your body's glands.  Mullein oil can be rubbed over the thyroid, the ovaries, the testicles, or any gland and you can take mullein tincture to nourish all your glands from the inside of your body.  

Yeah, I have a few cats about the home who like to get into the photo ops!  The Milk Weed, hanging out here with my friend Mullein, is also good for asthma, constipation, and is reputed to be anti-fertility by the Mohawks.  Milk Weed makes a fun, pink jelly for smearing on winter toast... don't forget the butter! 

Got zits?  Try Dandelion leaf and root tea.  Add some Burdock Root and Red Clover flowers to this mix and you have a gentle liver and skin nourishing blend.  

Of course, I would add my best friend Stinging Nettles to the above and every healing herb recipe. It just makes good nourishing sense to add nettles!

Red Clover Blossoms!

Dandelion's useful parts: leaf, flower, root.  Burdock Root.. you have to dig it OR buy some from The Kent Family Growers or Birdsfoot Farm!

Dandelion leaves... and underneath the leaves, for fall harvesting, are the roots.

Cancer?  The above blend does wonders to cleanse/nourish the liver and blood so your immune system can do its job in healing and removing cancer from the body.  Add some peppermint (below) as its healing oils and chemical constituents are amazing healing energy for digestive tract issues!

Thank you, Robin, for this wonderful mint variety.  Seems the deer like it too!  Smart animals.

Want to increase fertility and your ability to conceive?  Try a tea (medicinal strength infusion) of Red Raspberry leaf (below), Red Clover Blossoms (picture above), and Stinging Nettles (below). The link above has a "recipe" for a liver detox infusion.  Follow the same principles when making your "Fertili-Tea."  No simmering of the infusion is needed as you are using all leaves and flowers. Just steep the infusion overnight.

Red Raspberry Leaf, while you are collecting leaves for making tea... eat the berries!

Stinging Nettles, nestled up against my home.

Want to decrease fertility? Chicory Root tea (below) decreases sperm count.  Milkweed (see above) decreases female fertility.  Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Carrot (below), decreases female fertility and prevents pregnancy.

Red Raspberry Leaf (above) nourishes the uterus and reproductive tract throughout a female's life cycle.  My plant intuition says it has to be nourishing for males as well.

There are many herbs to control fertility, enhance pregnancy and birthing, and nourish the reproductive tract. That is a whole book waiting to be written OR grab a copy of Susun Weed's Childbearing Years.  This is a great place to start in learning female reproductive herbs.

Chicory:  the root is used as a medicinal infusion to decrease sperm count.

Queen Anne's Lace flower head: the seeds are used to prevent pregnancy.

The below Black Eyed Susan patch adorns the yard behind my house and garage (and you are only seeing about 1/5 of this flower patch!).  I leave it wild purely to heal my heart and soul (and my cat's as well... all 4 cats seem to love their wild flower jungle!).

Native Americans used the plant for internal parasites, skin wounds, earaches, snake bites, and the common cold.

Wild plants are wonderful.  Befriend one today!  Paula

PS  Stay tuned for Healing Backyard Plants, Pt 2

AND

The Healing Powers of the Great White Pine

Ablation?

Ablation?  

Seriously?  

Fry the Inside of My Uterus?

(This article was not meant to hit the pages of my WholeFoodHealer blog as it is a female issue.  But as I was signed into this account when I was actually creating and writing it for this account:  www.wisewomenredtent.com, it automatically posted here.  I did immediately remove it from this account but it seems to have slipped into the world anyhow.

I started the Wise Women Red Tent blog as a space to address female health topics from a Wise Woman and holistic perspective. WholeFoodHealer has a mixed gender following.)

Ablation is defined as removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation). This definition alone, erosive processes??, would make me shudder and stop to think about what was being recommended for my body, my precious uterus.

“Stop your heavy period and restore your life” is NovaSure’s advertising hype for uterine ablation.  Wow, my life needs restoring because I bleed?  Really?

And next, the opening paragraph on the NovaSure’s website is a scary patriarchal mindset, PMS as Wise Woman Susun Weed aptly calls it.

Heavy bleeding is a symptom that there is an imbalance in a woman's body.  Eroding the endometrium will not heal this imbalance.  Correcting the imbalance will heal the heavy bleeding and prevent more complex female health problems down the road of life.

Address the cause, not the symptoms.

I would look at the woman's diet and lifestyle to unravel the causes of her heavy bleeding symptoms.  I would suggest diet and lifestyle changes that were fitting to her unique, individual needs.  I would recommend herbs (wild yam to start) to assist in healing the imbalances in her whole body. This makes more sense to me than burning away the endometrium, the uterine lining.

I am a Functional Medicine RN, Herbalist trained in the Wise Women tradition, Yoga Mentor & Natural Health Educator.  I worked in Maternal Child Nursing for 12 years before leaving to focus on Wise Women centered care & Natural Health Education.

I first heard of this uterine ablation while sitting at my healing table working with a beautiful female soul.  She told me she had this procedure 10 years prior, at age 32!  I then gently said, “Wait, what? Please explain that to me again.”  I was shocked to say the least but maintained my compassionate energy.

When I removed myself from standard medical care, I lost tract of new procedures created to “solve women’s issues.”  Consequently, I am paying attention again, not to recommend the procedures, but to support women in healing and avoiding such procedures.

Not wanting to make her feel bad for her choice; I opened my ears, heart, and soul and listened to her story.  I was amazed and frustrated at how she was convinced that burning away the inside of her uterus, the endometrium, was just the thing she needed to do to solve all her womanly problems.

I have since heard this story, many times over, and it breaks my heart.  Red tents are needed in every community to remind women of the wisdom of their own body, to listen and hear what the symptoms of heavy bleeding are struggling to tell them.

My wish is to be able to support women in these situations.  By sitting with them, listening to their “her-stories,” and helping them to unravel the causes of the menstrual symptoms.  The body will heal when we remove the cause(s) of the health symptoms and nourish the body back to health with nourishing, Wise Woman supported, life giving choices.  Lifestyle changes centered on whole food eating, whole health living, and herbs to nourish and heal the woman’s beautiful female organs and her entire body, every cell in her body, would be how I would create a Red Tent for every woman I am blessed to support on their healing paths.

Interview with Susun Weed, Native American Healer

This is a very exciting interview for me as Susun Weed's book, The Child Bearing Years, was my first book on herbs, purchased in 1993.  Susun gave me that nudge I needed to continue my walk (It all started when I was a kid watching my Grandfather stirring his herbal magic) on my holistic healing path!

The live interview happened Tuesday, November 12th @ 9 PM and has been archived at BlogTalk Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/susunweed/2013/11/13/ask-herbal-health-expert-susun-weed-and-hololistic-health-with-paula-youmell

The show begins with 90 minutes of Susun doing Q & A on herbs and healing,

the last 30 minutes of the show is our interview time together.

An edited version has been, or will be, published and archived at four different sites:

www.wisewomanradio.com,

www.womensradio.com,

www.wisewomanmentor.com and on our blog

at www.wisewomantradition.com/wisewomanweb.

Preventing Hair Loss, Restoring Hair Growth

Amazing herbs for health, hair, skin.... Stinging Nettles, Yarrow, and Rosemary (in the order they appear above).

Recently, it seems, that many people have been asking me in my workshops:

"What can I do about hair loss, thinning hair as I age?"  This is a topic that hits home with me as I have always had very fine and thin hair.  More thinning with age?  What will I have left?

So I decided to do an experiment with me as the guinea pig.  This is all natural, no abuse to the guinea pig's (ME!) skin or eyes as happens in commercial body care product testing.

Keep in mind this is about hair growth.  It takes time and a long term commitment (uh-oh!)

1.  I have added the following herbal essential oils to my shampoo:  Rosemary, oregano, peppermint, and yarrow.  I add about 8 drops per ounce of shampoo and I recommend using an all natural shampoo.  Chemicals in our hair care products clog the pores of the scalp and contribute to unhealthy hair, scalp, and hair loss.  Aubrey Organics products are a nice choice, available at Nature's Storehouse in Canton.  Read ingredients for "whole" ingredients, just as you would on a food product label and you can find other natural brands as well.  Read the ingredients, not just the "all natural" hype label on the front of the product.

2.  I make a tea and pour it over my scalp, making certain to soak my hair, well, through to the scalp, all over my head.  It is made with the whole herbs yarrow, nettles, and rosemary.  See pictures above.  For information on making herbal teas, email me.

I make a quart every 4 days and use 1 cup per day after shampooing.  Shampoo less often, the tea lasts longer.  Keep it refrigerated and always label your quart jar.  It is fine to drink, so no panic if someone should indulge in a 'lil of your herbal, scalp tea.

3.  I then massage my scalp in two different ways.  One is the general "rub my fingers and knead the scalp" method.  The other is placing my fingers in a stationary place on the scalp and shifting the whole scalp back and forth and side to side underneath my fingers.  This helps tremendously with scalp circulation and relaxing the scalp muscles around the actual hair shaft.  Do this massaging when washing your hair, when applying the above scalp tea, and when spraying on the below concoction of herbs.

4.  A scalp spray made up of about 1/3 cup of the above scalp tea which I then add the rosemary, peppermint, and oregano essential oils to it.  I am thinking about adding drops of the tinctures of yarrow, nettles, and horsetail as well.  This is made to spray onto the scalp, before bedtime, and massage the scalp as per above.

5.  Oh, and I am taking a saw palmetto and horsetail herbal tincture (easy to make with the herbs, good vodka, and a month's time to let the herbs "steep" into the vodka.  Horsetail is good for hair and skin health and saw palmetto is an herb for hair loss prevention / restoration.

Did I not say I was being a guinea pig?!

Today, as I write, it is November 9th.  I have been playing this hair restoration game for about 1 month now.  I imagine it will take at least 6 months before I can see any major changes (yes, my hair grows slowly!).

See what I mean about this being a long-term commitment... let's just see if I can stick to this hair restoration challenge and then report back my fabulous results.  Then, I will patent my formulas and become the rich, modern day Lady Godiva (Yes, I will also need to make some more of that face cream and take care of aging on the face as well) riding the streets of Potsdam!

Horse or Harley? Horse called Harley?

If all else fails, I still have this gorgeous Doo-Rag (from my Harley riding days), graciously modeled by my Thanksgiving pie pumpkin!  I will plop it onto my head and tie into place, forget about making any more scalp tea, and then, I will buy another Harley.  Or maybe a horse and I will name her Harley!

Update March 2019: It is 5 1/2 years later, where the hell does the time go?

Time & commitment to the process is absolutely required. I cannot say I have been consistent with above stuff.

What I do now, 5 1/2 years later:

• whole foods 100% (well, 98.435%) of the time.

• take Synergy multi-vites for women (I only take 2 daily, not the 4)

• take Synergy’s whole food vitamin c, magnesium daily, extra vitamin D 2-3 X weekly, and use wild yam herb capsules for general feminine health

• rub this oily herb infused goop on my scalp 2-3 times weekly on the nights I am going to wash my hair the next day. Less is more and this bottle lasts for months.

• herbal medicinal infusion “teas” for bone, skin, hair. Sometimes this is simple a stinging nettle only infusion. I make 2-4 quarts at a time so I have enough for a couple days to a week.

• whole health living AND yoga every day. Well, seriously, yoga (links to many blog posts I have written about Yoga’s amazing benefits for health, weight loss, healing, inner peace…) in every moment but that’s because Yoga is not about the poses.