1. If it doesn’t rot its not food (right- generally, if bacteria in the environment are not eating it- something is wrong with it).

2. Eat as a family! model behaviours- from talking about food, planning meals, making your meals, eating your food, sharing your food, CHEWING.

3. Know what your food eats! (as per Michael Pollan)

There were some fascinating questions and discussions.  If you’d like to know more here is the PREZI I presented.

http://prezi.com/ai3h8emkeq7p/present/?auth_key=qzp2r0o&follow=ezcjd0nv73lg

As well here is a list of resources for feeding your family:

Weston A Price Organization- www.westonaprice.org

Nina Plack- http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/healthy-snacks/the-healthiest-food-for-mother-and-baby/

They are what you feed them- http://www.theyarewhatyoufeedthem.com/home.php

Farm folk city folk- http://www.ffcf.bc.ca/

My personal opinion is that it does NOT require a massive workout routine and a cleanse to lighten up and energize yourself. Despite what many people think.  In fact, overly regimented plans- can often be too ambitious and not realistic.  It depends on who you are. Start small, let your changes be apart of your daily spring routine.

My suggestions to you are:

1. Look around (in the woods & fields)- for what is starting to grow and starting eating more of that. (Nettles, greens (lettuce, arugula, spinach, kale, chard, mustard greens, clover, chickweed), asparagus, garlic)

2. Stoke you digestive fire with digestive aids (Eg. upon waking and before meals- a splash of apple cider or lemon juice in a glass of warm water, lemon ginger tea after meals, kombucha, beet kvass (recipe below).

3. Cut out the crap (EVERYDAY)-  caffine, alcohol, processed foods.  As well as wheat and dairy for a couple weeks.  (this is not as easy as it sounds!)

4. Do not over eat

5. Get active on a daily basis

Voila- the 5 most vital elements of a cleanse.

Beet Kvass Recipe

• 3 medium organic purple beets (peeled and chopped coarsely)
• 1/4 cup of whey*
• 1 tablespoon of sea salt
• filtered water
• 1 large 1 litre glass jar

Place beets, whey & salt into jar.  Add water.  Stir and cover securely. Keep at room temperature for 2 days. Strain and drink or  transfer liquid to fridge.

If you’d like to make another batch- those beets are still good to go- just keep a little liquid beet juice in jar and add more water.  Strain and drink again. Discard beets after second use.

Beet Kvass is a Ukrainian traditional medicine. It is loaded with nutrients; it is a blood tonic, alkalizes the body, aids digestion, cleanses the liver.

* How to extract Whey

Use high quality yogurt- like Saugeen. Over a glass pitcher or jar- secure cheese cloth.  Pour 1-2 cups of yogurt and leave for 2- 12 hours.  The yellow liquid with you strain off is whey- a powerful lacto-fermenting agent.  The yogurt remnants is your very own delicious cream cheese! UM.

Who are you? Who do you want to be?

What patterns are serving you, what patterns aren’t?

What is holding you back, what is pushing you forward?

What brings you energy? What drains you?

Where do you want to head from here?

Pretty deep considerations, huh?

Retreats offer an environment to ask these questions.  Toreally sit, think and feel what the answers are. I snapped at this opportunity; heading into this New Year I wanted to reflect on the challenges and gifts of the past year and bring some intentions to the year ahead.  Which is where I’ve been this month- reintegrating and carefully shifting my energies to serve me and hopefully others.  Hope to see on the mat over the coming weeks.

My next yoga retreat:

Pranafication: Lasqueti Yoga Retreat July 20-22

See blog posts from August from last years retreat

Stay Tuned

While Im not necessarily into labelling diets- or “steps” to achieve- I did think these are good suggestions…

DON’T JUST EAT IT – LIVE IT

Here are six key elements of the Paleolithic lifestyle, according to Pedro Carrera-Bastos, a Swedish health researcher specializing in the effects of “ancestral” diets, and his colleagues.

1. SUNSHINE

Getting enough vitamin D is crucial to bone health, and may also play a role in preventing cardiovascular disease and some cancers. The simplest way to meet your needs: sunlight. But modern office-bound humans rarely spend enough time outside to get enough. Some hunter-gatherer cultures at high latitudes have found other ways – the Inuit, for example, rely on fatty fish for vitamin D.

2. SLEEP

Go to sleep when it’s dark, get up when it’s light. Our bodies have powerful internal clocks that try to enforce this simple rule. Even a night or two of disrupted sleep has immediate effects on your appetite hormones ghrelin and leptin. That’s why sleep patterns are closely related to obesity and metabolic syndrome: Too little sleep is most common these days, but too much isn’t good either.

3. NO POLLUTION

An obvious one – but easier said than done in the modern world.

4. ACUTE STRESS

The typical hunter-gatherer life punctuated long periods of low stress with short bouts of acute stress that triggered the fight-or-flight response. In contrast, modern office workers often show signs of chronically elevated stress, which can have consequences such as elevated blood pressure and a weakened immune system.

5. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Sure, paleo folks got more exercise than we do. But what kind?

-Large amounts of light-to-moderate activity, such as walking or jogging, while hunting and foraging. Estimates place the typical distance covered at five to 16 kilometres per day.

-Hard days were usually followed by easy days – though not totally sedentary.

-Short bursts of very high-intensity activity. This can be mimicked with interval training once or twice per week.

-Wide variety of daily activities that strengthen the whole body, ranging from carrying children and digging tubers to dancing.

6. FRESH, UNPROCESSED FOOD

The paleo diet is often hyped as a meat lover’s fantasy. While it varies from culture to culture, modern hunter-gatherers typically get only 35 per cent of their calories from meat, with the rest derived from plants. Even if we assume a 50-50 split, the greater caloric density of meat means that, by volume, the paleo “plate” would have had significantly more vegetables and fruit than meat on it.

BOTTOM LINE: So will going paleo really pay off with better health? As a big-picture guide to how to organize your life, definitely. But don’t get carried away with trying to recreate the exact details of a long-lost diet. Humans have changed and diversified even over the past few thousand years, so the only way to know what works best for your genes is to experiment. Go wild.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Whether you like downhill, snow-shoeing, cross country, tubing, hiking, mountaineering… do not be afraid of snow folks- recharge your battery and keep your juices flowing by keeping it moving in the mountains.

We will be prepping our ski & snowboard legs in yoga for the next few weeks.

Any suggestions?

New Year’s Pranafication Retreat in Costa RicaDec 24th, 2011 – Jan 1st, 2012 and Jan 1st – Jan 7th, 2012
At Nosara, Costa Rica
Recharge, Renew and Rejuvenate in one of the most pranafied places on the planet – Costa Rica – where we return for our seventh year to world-renown jungle surf spot – Nosara. Our one-week or two week transformation retreats allow you to create your own alchemical retreat experience with great community. From Ocean bliss to ecstatic breakthroughs, we will offer a way for you to create a living yoga retreat.
transformational prana flow® yoga • epic surfing for beginners/intermediate • ocean pranafication • tantric meditations and fire ceremony • flow arts: staff and kalari • mantra and ecstatic kirtan • yogadventures (horseback riding/ziplining) • ritual vision – New Year’s Eve-Day • salsa dancing with locals • yogatrancedance™ • optional living yoga sadhana teacher training

I wish I could take credit for this idea! About 5 years ago, when I was really getting into preserving local food for the winter.  I asked a gal at the farmers market- what her favourite recipe for tomato sauce was.  She told me it was SO simple.  Always slow roast your tomatoes.

Boy was she right.  Slow roasting elimates excess water, concentrates flavour and caramelizes the natural sugars.

Simple roasted tomato sauce recipe

10 pounds of organic heirloom tomatoes

2 onions

1 head of garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

splash of red wine or balsmaic

fresh herbs (optional: oregano, basil, rosemary, parsley)

salt & pepper

Roast tomatoes at 350 for 3 hours. In a heavy bottom pot, sauté onions and garlic in the olive oil until translucent.  Add tomato- bring to boil & simmer. Add herbs, salt, pepper & remove from heat.  You can hand blend sauce depending on your desired consistency.

Eat fresh, freeze or process in jars.

Imagine how this will taste come February?!