Added Supplements For Alivia

So my dear sweet Alivia has had digestion issues since birth. She had severe colic, severe reflux and diarrhea ALL the time. Never a normal poo. I've done SO much research and have tried everything to help her digestion. To aid her digestion every day she gets coconut oil, freshly ground flax (added to smoothie or oatmeal), a probiotic, chlorophyll, and recently I added digestive enzymes. If the digestive enzymes don't do the trick I need to take her to a naturopath. I had her do a strength test and of course the results were different then the blood test (which is of course not dependable) and food sensitvity test. What more can a girl do? :(

Coconut Oil

Let me list the ways I love to use thee:

1. Body moisturizer. I'm sure there are more creative, less oily ways to use this but we use it straight baby. After bath time I put it all over the girls. I use it on my skin and once a week I soak my hair in it for about an hour and then wash it out. Love it!

2. Supplement. Can you even call it that? Probably not. But I try to make sure the girls and I all have at least 1-2 tablespoons of this a day. I usually add it to a morning smoothie or melt it over cooked peas. Yum.

3. Cooking. It's not great to heat up things like olive oil past a certain temperature. Coconut oil is a healthier oil when it comes to cooking. We like to use it when we cook stir fry and it tastes lovely.

Wow. I thought I had a longer list then that. I think it's late and I can't think of anything else right now. If I think of other uses for it I will add it. Please add your own too!
ps. Only use 100% organic, extra virgin, cold pressed, centrifuge extracted coconut oil. :) What a mouth full.

I Love To Lather My Hair Up With Dioxane And Sodium Laureth Sulfate!

So I think we all know that the products we use on our body to stay clean and look good have an ingredients list full of words most can't even pronounce. That is mostly because they are crazy chemicals and neurotoxins eating away at our brains! Fun! So I have a really good online site that I use when on the hunt for a product that is virtually toxin free. It lists most commonly used shampoos/conditioners, makeup, deoderants, ect. and will rate them on their toxicity. It's a very thorough and useful site. Go ahead! Look up your most loved products and see how toxic they are. Some of them are sort of surprising.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto

I have a million recipes that I would love to share on here and am always on the hunt for good ones. Here is a family favorite. I'm not sure why it's called a pesto because it's not technically pesto, but whatever. This is great for an appetizer or I make some hummus too and then eat the two with vegetables, lebanese flatbread and crispy italian breadsticks as a meal. My 20 month old eats it by the spoonfuls which is hilarious because it has a strong taste. Anyways, it's SO wonderful.

-1 cup (250 ml) sun-dried tomatos in olive oil (make sure you get a tasty one because there are some that aren't that great and can make the whole thing taste bad. Or if you prefer, buy sun-dried tomatos that aren't packed in oil and then add olive oil to the desired texture when blending.)
-3 cloves fresh garlic
-a little fresh lemon juice
-1/2 cup fresh basil
-1/4 cup fresh parsley
-half or a whole fresh tomato (this depends on what type of texture you want)

*Combine everything in a food processor and blend until you reach the desired texture. We usually blend until it is all finely chopped and has a little bit of a chunky texture. Easy peasy!

It's a little different everytime we make it...but always good. Also, try and buy organic ingredients, if you can afford it, when making food. This is a super healthy snack if there are no pesitcides in it! I try and make a larger batch of this and eat it as a snack instead of something like chips and salsa. Seriously, it's a keeper!

Children and Adult Health books

After I gave birth to my oldest daughter, a Swiss friend of mine told me about these great health books that she had so I checked them out. I bought them right away! They are wonderful! the children's health book is called "Smart Medicine For A Healthier Child" and the adult health book is called "Smart Medicine For Healthier Living".
One reason these books are so great is because of how they have a full spectrum of responses to common health problems. Let's take the common cold for example. If you look in the common cold section of the book it will give you a run down of what a cold looks like, feels like and any symptoms you might experience. Then after that it will have about 6 different sections on different ways to treat your cold. The sections include:

-Conventional Treatments (using medicine to treat a cold)
-Dietary Guidelines
-Nutritional Supplements
-Herbal Treatments
-Homeopathy
-Accupressure

So for someone like me that doesn't like to use medicine to treat our colds and likes to use herbal, homeopathic and essential oil treatments instead this tells you exactly which are appropriate to use for each section and what quantities to use depending on the age (hence the two different books, one for children and one for adults). I definitely believe there is a place for medicine but I also definitely believe that we abuse it and use it WAY too often. So these books are such a great balance between the medical world and the natural healing world. Love them and totally recommend them!

Daily Supplements For Children

So I've done a lot of research on supplements and boy can it get confusing and frustrating. It's hard to know sometimes which ones are legit and which ones are unnecessary or even bad for our kids. Here is what the girls get daily:

-a quality probiotic suitable for their ages. I like Baby's Jarro-Dophilus which is good for kids 4 and under.
-a good quality Krill oil. I like the one you can order from Mercola. For small children who can't swallow capsules you can break it open and squeeze it onto their food.
-Sweet Echinacea. I don't give this to them daily but just as an immunity booster once a week or so. Then if they are sick they get it more often.
-A tablespoon of cold pressed organic coconut oil. I usually try and mix it into something, like a smoothie for instance. We actually use this oil for MANY things but I might get into that in another post.

So that is it! I really should be checking if they are low on zinc and giving that to them as well if they need it. But I haven't gotten that far yet.

I would love to hear what others give their children!

Homemade Kefir

So let's get this blog started off right with a post on homemade kefir! I wonder who else out there makes this wonderful stuff. A good friend of mine taught me how to make it. If you want more info. on kefir go here.

What you will need to make this delicious replacement for your yogurt:

-kefir starter (these can be found in some natural grocery stores/markets or ordered online here
Don't be scared of the price. You can re-use the grains many many times before you would need new ones.
-milk (preferably organic and raw if you can find it otherwise as unprocessed as you can get it. Non-homogenized, ect.)
-mason jars

This is what the kefir grains will look like after mixing the starter with a bit of milk and letting them sit at room temperature for about 1-2 days. Don't be scared of them!

Kefir is extremely easy to make and is very beneficial to your digestive system. In the morning a lot of times I make either a green smoothie (a fruit smoothie with added spinach, kale, ect.) or a kefir smoothie (a fruit smoothie with added kefir and cold pressed organic coconut oil). Voila! A wonderful healthy energizing breakfast!