Going to a body and nutrition expert with my husband is one of the best things we’ve done for ourselves. What was the key take away? Warning! Turn Alkaline!

Turn Alkaline? Are we magicians? Well according to biochemists we are! You can change your body chemistry with what you eat!

Chemicals have seeped into foods, air, and water, which in turn lower our system’s ability to control the chemistry of our body fluids, increasing illness and chronic disease.

The sad fact is that most food consumption in the wealthiest nations has shifted from nutritious raw foods to low nutritional value processed foods and we need to shift it back. Now that our total biological terrain is at risk, we urgently need to do some clean up by shifting our body chemistry back to the raw, organic foods it was designed to function on as we’ve evolved.

Below I’ve listed out a quick list of the good foods (alkaline) to treat your body to often…

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I can remember as a kid blowing the fuzz off of a dandelion weed and making a wish. Little did I know that dandelions were nutritious. Dandelion greens are considered a leafy vegetable that contain more nutrition than broccoli. Having a higher content of vitamins A, and C, and iron. Dandelions also contain lots of magnesium and potassium.

The best time to eat dandelion greens is in the spring and early summer when the leaves are still young. Dandelion greens should be harvested in early spring, before the flowers appear.  They’re a bit bitter but taste fantastic in a salad. You can also saute the flowers, roots and leaves with onion and garlic, serve them on a sandwich or salad, boil the leaves and serve like spinach or add them to your green smoothies like I do!

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“Humans seldom value what they cannot name.”

To make way for modern tech terms such as BlackBerry, blog, voicemail and broadband, the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has opted to drop terms pertaining to nature.  No longer can a child check this dictionary and learn more about the blackberry, dandelion, acorn, heron, otter, magpie, sycamore, or willow.

Why were these words deemed expendable? A statement from the Oxford University Press clarifies: 

the 10,000 words and phrases in the junior dictionary were selected using several criteria, including how often words would be used by young children.

I’m sorry, maybe I’m missing something here…but which word does your child use more? Broadband…. or dandelion?

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Ever since reading the novel Dandelion Wine in grade school, I’ve been rather curious about the culinary history of this common garden plant. Many consider it a weed, others think it has magical seeds that grant wishes when blown, however, what few realize is that it has been a medicinal healing plant for centuries.

Some like dandelion root as a tea, and it’s also sometimes made into a tincture or supplement. Dandelion is also known to be very rich in vitamins C and K and beta-carotene, and additionally a good source of calcium and iron. Traditionally it is known as a liver tonic, so drinking a tea that has dandelion flowers blended with it makes sense for those looking to take better care of the liver. Many folks make pancakes with the flowers, and interesting salads and all sorts of wild recipes with the leaves.

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For a fresh look at local food, try your backyard!

Most suburban areas are full of free food, but we’re too busy pulling and mowing to take notice of the bounty of our own neighborhoods. We’ll buy gourmet greens at the market, but spend a summer eradicating all traces of “weeds” in our yard.

Wild greens are everywhere. They don’t need you to water them, and they grow like crazy in most man-made environments. Many of the plants that are now considered weeds were once food and medicine for us. They can still feed and heal us, but we gotta get over that weed vs. food idea.

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