Food as Medicine talk: 1 August via zoom webinar – tickets on sale now!

Following my SOLD OUT Food as Medicine talk on 23 May 2020 I am holding another on SAT 1 AUGUST via zoom webinar so you can attend from the comfort of your own home – wherever that may be. 

My co-presenter is Marieke Rodenstein - Australia’s pre eminent holistic dietician, GAPS practitioner and staunch advocate of organic & regenerative farming practices and traditional wholefoods. We have been touring Australia for over 1 year to spread our message that food is still the most powerful medicine. We think it is now more important than ever before that people focus on improving their health and building strong immunity and resilience naturally. 

We are excited that people are finally seeing robust health as a necessity and not as a luxury though many are still confused as to how to achieve this. This is where we come in and explain the fundamentals of robust nutrition and robust gut health to clear the confusion and set you on a stellar path towards robust health. 

Adopting a nutrient-dense traditional wholefoods diet is still the single most important step you can take to improve and maintain your health. Addressing the other lifestyle factors or pillars of health that we will discuss will further bolster your health and resilience.

Because a delicious wholefoods lunch can not be provided as we do in our in person talks, instead I will be gifting each participant up to 5 of my online cooking classes (retailing at $79 each) so that you can learn how to make your own bone broth, slow cooks, organ meat meals, chocolate and GF baked cakes in your home (that’s $395 worth of cooking classes for free!!!!). As I’ve always argued, cooking and preparing your own nourishing meals at home is the fastest, most profound (and cheapest) way to vibrant health. Now that we are eating out less and forced to eat in more (whether we want to or not!) home cooking is taking on greater importance in our lives and knowing how to master the wholefoods staples is essential.

As part of the talk (9am-2pm) you will receive a comprehensive 63 page Food as Medicine how-to manual that sets you up for life with all of the information covered in the talk including shopping lists, healthy swap table, list of recommended holistic practitioners, meal formulas, and practical how to etc.

Click here to learn more or purchase a ticket.

Tickets will sell out fast so book early to avoid disappointment. 

Greek olive and mint loaf (“Eliopita”)

I took my mama’s traditional recipe and “wholefoodised” it to make it gluten-free and maximise nutrient-density. The whole house reminds me of my mum when we bake this this. My kids LOVE it! I hope you do too!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups (250g) of activated savoury buckwheat

• 100g Reggiano Parmigiano (parmesan) cheese

• 1 cup whole milk

• 1 cup (250g) Greek style full fat yogurt 

• ½ cup extra virgin cold pressed olive oil

• 4 eggs

• 80g (3/4 cup) pitted black olives, roughly chopped, plus extra for decorating

• 1 bunch (approx. 50g) mint, roughly chopped, stems removed

Directions:

Process activated buckwheat in a nut grinder or Thermomix (speed 9, 20 seconds) until it resembles a soft fine flour and add it to a large mixing bowl. 

Beat the eggs with stick blender, or process in a food processor or Thermomix (speed 6, 20 seconds) until fluffy and add to the large mixing bowl.

Grate the cheese by processing it in a food processor or Thermomix (speed 9, 15 seconds) and add to the large mixing bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the large mixing bowl and stir until they are well combined to form a batter. 

Pour batter into a 20cm2 square cake tin or rectangular loaf tin lined with baking paper and decorate with a scattering of olives on top. 

Bake at 180 degrees for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean. This is the same cooking time if making a double batch in a larger cake tin (I use a 30cm x 30cm cake tin).

Place under heated grill element to brown the top of the slice (if required). 

Allow to cool before cutting into large square segments of about 10 cm2 (for square cake tin) or 1 inch slices (for loaf tin). Serve at room temperature.

Slices can be stored in an airtight container for 3 days before requiring refrigeration. They can be frozen up to 3 months. 

If you love this recipe you might also like to try my flaounes recipe which is another wholefoods spin on a traditional Cypriot family recipe. 

Why rest is different to sleep

While I bundle sleep and rest together as one of the 8 Foundations or Pillars of Health, rest is different to sleep. 

As Chis Kresser articulates, rest happens when you are AWAKE, doing SOMETHING THAT YOU ENJOY, and THAT DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WORK.

Our hunter gatherer ancestors would punctuate their days resting when they were not under obligation to hunt, gather or attend to other duties. Rest is a requirement of our ancient DNA to function properly. Deep rest activates our parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system. Repair and digestion can take place along with cultivating mental calmness, emotional stability and set the scene for sound sleep. Today however our modern lives are characterised by a chaos of busy-ness as we fly from one task to the other without pausing for breath. Productivity and working “around the clock” are often seen as badges of honour. This comes at a great cost to our nervous system (which is always on high alert), and to our overall health. Deep rest becomes even more important when we individually and collectively are under heightened levels of stress and uncertainty.

Contrary to the way I was raised, resting during waking hours is not a waste of time, nor an indulgence, nor a luxury, nor a sign of being lazy, irrespective of a long To DO list (that ‘to do’ list will never end by the way). Rest is not something to feel guilty about (it took me a long time to learn that). Rest is a necessity. Period. 

One challenge many people face (especially business owners) is that the boundaries between work and rest have become so blurred that it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other (especially when you love what you do so much that it doesn’t feel like ‘work’). This makes it very easy to be in work mode 100% of the time except for when you’re sleeping. But here’s the thing- working and getting ample sleep isn’t enough. You need to rest too.

So you need to carve out time to actually rest without guilt. Even if you get ample sleep if you don’t rest and you spend your days in work mode you risk burning out, or ultimately not being as healthy, vibrant and productive as you could be. Ideally having one FULL DAY off a week to rest is the best option to allow the body to move into parasympathetic mode and allow you to become even more productive. Sometimes our best ideas and revelations come to us in this environment.

Rest can take many forms and can be both active or passive. Here are some examples (some of which fall within some of the other 7 Foundations of Health):

🙏🏻meditate

🙏🏻spend time in nature

🙏🏻journal or write or draw 

🙏🏻sit or lie in the sun or in your favourite indoor space doing nothing except just being

🙏🏻read a non work related work

🙏🏻dance, do yoga or other movement

🙏🏻talk with a friend/loved one not about work

🙏🏻play games /puzzles

🙏🏻laze in bed

🙏🏻cook

🙏🏻spend time in a garden/ do gardening

🙏🏻have a massage

I hope this will inspire you to have some guilt-free rest time each day.