Tag Archives: nutrition

Boost Immunity with Foods

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Elderberry juice boosts immunity

You may have heard that this is a particularly tough flu season. Simple actions like choosing healthy foods can boost the immunity of yourself and your family to give all of you the best chance of fighting off flu and colds.


Your Immune System

Your immune system defends your body against disease by ridding your body of foreign invaders. Your immune system is not a constant, though. Your actions can boost or inhibit your immunity. If your body is already struggling because you are tired, for example, you will have more difficulty fighting off a cold.

The simplest way to boost your immunity this winter is to understand which foods provide your body with the nutrients it needs to function well.


Basic Immunity-building Pantry

Foods help your immune system through the vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients that help the system function. The most important immunity building vitamins are: Beta carotene (increases number of cells fighting infection), Vitamin C (increases white blood cells and antibodies), and Vitamin E (increases B-cells that destroy bacteria). Immunity building minerals are zinc (helps white blood cells reproduce quickly) and selenium (increases fighting cells). Don’t run out and buy a supplement pill, though. You can get all of these vitamins and minerals in food.

Stock your pantry with colorful fruits and vegetables. Carrots and sweet potatoes have beta carotene. Citrus has vitamin C. Blueberries, cranberries, pomegranate seeds, cherries, and other dark blue, purple, and red fruits are high in antioxidants, which reduce inflammation. Elderberries are particularly good for helping you fight colds and flu as an antiviral an antioxidant. Mushrooms have selenium and many other minerals an vitamins. Garlic is a great flu fighter with antioxidants and other immune-building properties.

Choose a variety of proteins. Beans, nuts, fish, and lean meats can all contribute toward your immune-boosting diet. Almonds provide vitamin E. Salmon is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Sunflower seeds have selenium, as do many nuts, whole grains, and seeds.

Add herbs and spices to your foods. Medicinal herbs, like echinacea, goldenseal, and astragalus, are all immune boosters that fight viruses or increase the efficiency of white blood cells. You don’t want to add these to your foods, though. Culinary spices, like cayenne, oregano, and ginger, are also bacteria fighters. Use them fresh if you can, but use them in any form. Even black pepper can give you a little immune boost.


Every Day Foods

The range of immunity building foods is broad. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to tell you that only 5 or 10 or 50 of them are best for you because there is enough variety for you to choose your favorites. Still, I am going to suggest a few foods that will help you build immunity every day.

Smoothies. Start your morning with smoothies. Add dark fruits and vegetables, almond milk or yoghurt as a base, a few ice cubes to make it cool and reduce the intensity. That’s it! Just choose a colorful collection every morning.

Soup. With lunch, have a cup of soup every day. Chicken or vegetable broth both make a good base, but make sure you add garlic, perhaps ginger, lots of herbs and spices, and a few colorful vegetables.

Salad. With dinner every night, have leafy greens. Spinach and romaine lettuce are both very nutritious. Choose your dressing carefully. Better yet, make your own from olive oil, vinegar, and herbs. Each of these gives you a little boost. Maybe sometimes you have cooked kale with cider vinegar instead, but make sure you eat leafy greens every day.

Whole Grains. If you are going to eat cereal or bread, make them rich and nutty. The variety of grains, nuts, and seeds will help you over time.

Doesn’t that seem simple? It is. Boosting your immunity really isn’t difficult to understand or to do. These choices are easy to make every day, and the benefits build over time.


Keep in Mind

Avoid processed ingredients like white sugar and bleached wheat flour. Just avoiding those two will help you avoid many processed foods that have been drained of most nutritional value.

Get enough sleep. Yes, that isn’t a food, but rest is important enough to the healthy functioning of your immune system that you can undermine all of the good work you do with nutritious food by not getting enough sleep. Sleep for your health.

Image © Photooasis | Dreamstime.com

Nutritious Herbal Teas for Pregnancy

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Woman drinking tea
There is no more important time to be vigilant about your nutrition than during pregnancy, when your eating choices have lasting consequences for the health and development of your child. Does that sound intense? It should, but good nutrition is within your reach.

During pregnancy, you need more vitamins and minerals, more protein, more omega-3 fatty acids, more amino acids. You need more than just extra calories; you need nutrient-dense extra calories.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I met a midwife in my town who was over 90 years old. She had attended births for even some of my older friends and acquaintances. She was the grandmother protector of all midwives in town. Her only hard rule for eating during pregnancy was her requirement that a pregnant woman have at least one leaf of romaine lettuce every day. That made me laugh, but I ate the lettuce every day. It turns out that romaine is nutrient-, protein-, vitamin-, and mineral-dense. My midwife, considerably younger, asked all of her patients to drink tea every day, and she started every office visit with stinging nettle tea. So, I also drank a lot of nettle tea, raspberry leaf tea, and oat straw tea, all of which both science and tradition tell us are very good for a pregnant woman.

To boost your nutrition during pregnancy, in addition to eating home-cooked whole foods, drink tea. You can switch teas depending on your needs in the moment, and you will help yourself and your baby.


Feeling Queasy?
Ginger and mint. If you are experiencing morning sickness or mild nausea, during pregnancy or any other time, both ginger and mint can help settle your stomach. When I was a child, at the first hint of me having a stomach ache, my mother went outside to pick mint from around our house and made tea. She continued to do this for me then for my children.

Organic Morning Wellness Tea from Earth Mama Angel Baby includes ginger and spearmint along with a hint of peppermint, chamomile and lemon balm.

Herbal Tea for Pregnant Women


Feeling Anxious?
Lemon balm and chamomile. Lemon balm, especially with other herbs, can help reduce the feeling of stress and anxiety, and chamomile is so gently calming that many mothers use it with their babies and children as well.

Organic Peaceful Mama Tea from Earth Mama Angel Baby includes tension easing lemon balm, calcium rich oat straw, calming chamomile, and a whiff of red raspberry leaf and orange peel.

Calming Herbal Tea for Pregnancy


Getting Ready for the Birth?
Red Raspberry Leaf. The nutritious properties of red raspberry leaf are great for all women, but it is particularly good as a tonic for muscles of the pelvic area.

Third Trimester Tea from Earth Mama Angel Baby includes 100% organic herbs, including red raspberry leaf (an all-around great pregnancy herb), iron-rich stinging nettle, calming chamomile and rosehips (both full of vitamins and bioflavonoids), and calcium filled oat straw.

Herbal Tea for Third Trimester of Pregnancy

Drinking herbal teas is a gentle, easy way to ensure that you are getting more of the vitamins and minerals you need during pregnancy from natural foods. Better nutrition is good for you and for your baby. Drink up!

Image © Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime.com

Foods to Avoid While Breastfeeding?

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Milkmaid Tea for breastfeeding mothers

Have you been told to avoid certain foods while you are breastfeeding? If so, let’s back up and ask why. Unless there is a specific reason YOU, your baby, or your family should not be exposed to certain foods, you don’t need a list of foods to avoid. You don’t need to avoid any foods if both you and your baby are happy.

The rules of good nutrition still apply. Favor unprocessed, whole foods. Buy organic any foods that are known to have the most pesticide residues. Get your vitamins and minerals from food sources when possible. Eat a lot of dark, colorful vegetables and fruits for the micronutrients.

If you wonder whether you are getting enough nutrition from your foods, sip tea while you are nursing. (Though, be careful never to hold a hot cup of tea over your baby. One kick and you can have an ugly accident. Let the tea cool off before you drink it.) If your milk supply is adequate, you could choose to drink nutrient-packed Third Trimester Tea from Earth Mama Angel Baby. This is a blend of red raspberry leaf, stinging nettle, chamomile, rose hips, and oat straw. All of these are great during pregnancy and during nursing. If you need to boost your milk production, Organic Milkmaid Tea included traditional herbal galactagogues, including fennel, fenugreek, anise seed and caraway seed, and mineral packed nettle and red raspberry leaf. Don’t drink this one while pregnant or if you already have enough milk. Whether you sip tea or water, having a drink nearby while you are nursing helps you to get enough water.

Will eating a lot of garlic flavour your breastmilk? Sure it will, but that isn’t a problem, if your baby likes garlic-flavoured breastmilk.

Can you eat peanuts and other nut butters? Sure, if you don’t have a history of peanut allergies in your family and your baby isn’t bothered. It won’t cause your baby to develop an allergy, and nuts (along with avocados, olives, salmon, and other oily foods) give you healthy fats you need.

Most of the foods that you might have heard you shouldn’t eat while breastfeeding (minus the nasty foods none of us should eat), is being eaten right now by a breastfeeding mother who is experiencing no problems. Your reactions and your babies reactions can be different.

If your baby is feeling gassy or having an unexplained diaper rash, the food you eat could potentially be the cause. You can eliminate foods that have been known to cause problems with some breastfeeding babies, then you can re-introduce slowly to check whether that was really the problem.

In the end, the only food my first baby seemed sensitive to me eating was tomatoes. Other foods often put in the same category, oranges and lemons, caused no problems at all. I don’t love tomatoes myself, so it was no hardship to give them up, and it helped my daughter avoid diaper rash. My second child had no sensitivities, and he still has no food sensitivities.

Your baby will be different. Start by assuming you can eat anything unless you have a family history of specific allergies. I found that it helped to keep a journal of my food and my baby’s reactions when I thought there might be a problem. I continued that same journal once I introduced solid foods. If you have already dealt with allergies, you are probably familiar with the idea of keeping a food journal of foods eaten and symptoms noticed. If you do have allergies, look over La Leche League’s list of articles on allergies and breastfeeding for specific help.

If you notice no discomfort in your baby, go ahead and eat curry, chocolate, and whatever else you love.

For more details on the foods that you don’t necessarily need to avoid while breastfeeding, read Kelly Mom’s post on foods to eat while nursing. She busts breastfeeding food myths with science.

How Are Families Going Sugar Free?

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A spiral of sugar

Have you heard “The Toxic Truth about Sugar”? Last week, a group of scientists published their research on sugar in the journal Nature. Sugar, they found, can trigger “liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases.” They suggest using the models of intervention used to reduce alcohol and tobacco use to similarly reduce sugar use.

A lot of our customers talk about how they have created sugar-free nutrition for their families. This isn’t just a would-be-nice dream. When you consider the damage sugar can cause, keeping your children away from sugar becomes a high priority for their current and future health.

So, where do you start?


Know Sugar When You See It

Start in your pantry. Look at every food item and train yourself to find the hidden sugars that you didn’t even realize were hiding in your kitchen. Look for:

  • Agave Nectar
  • Brown Sugar
  • Cane Crystals
  • Corn Sugar
  • Corn Sweetener
  • Corn Syrup
  • Crystalline Fructose
  • Dextrin
  • Dextrose
  • Evaporated Cane Juice
  • Fructose
  • Fruit Juice Concentrate
  • Galactose
  • Glucose
  • High-fructose Corn Syrup
  • Honey
  • Hydrogenated Starch
  • Invert Sugar
  • Lactose
  • Malt Syrup
  • Maltose
  • Mannitol
  • Maple Syrup
  • Molasses
  • Polyols
  • Raw Sugar
  • Sorbitol
  • Sorghum
  • Sucrose
  • Sugar
  • Syrup
  • Turbinado Sugar
  • Xylitol

That might not even be all of the hidden sugars. I compiled the list from several sources calling attention to added sugar on food labels.


And, Know Where Those Sugars Hide

Next step, look beyond the obvious places to find places that you just can’t believe would have added sugars. Look for sugar in toothpaste, cough syrup, chewing gum, mints, flavoured yogurt, vitamin water, bottled tea, juice drinks, packaged cereals, instant cereals, granola bars, applesauce, preserved fruit, salad dressing, barbeque sauce, tomato sauce, baked beans, soup, sugar-cured meats, as well, of course, as candies, cakes, and everything else you already know has sugar in it.

Have you found sugars in most of your canned, boxed, bottled, and otherwise packaged foods? To avoid the hidden sugars, start your family’s sugar-free journey by giving up prepared and packaged foods. It’s a simple and essential move.

Maybe you still want sweets (like the gooey sugar-free brownies we linked to on Saturday on the Making Love in the Kitchen blog). There are an abundance of websites and cookbooks that will help you find substitute sweets or sweets with less sugar, but they are still sweets.


Stop Looking for Substitutes

In the end, I suggest that rather than looking for substitutes to satisfy a sweet tooth, you get to the root of the problem and eat without the sweet. Pull your family’s natural human appetite for sweets back to levels the body can handle and satisfy that appetite with natural sweeteners like fruit, dairy, or even a bit of honey or maple syrup.

Start now so your children won’t expect sweets. By now, I mean even if you are just pregnant. Start from the first minute and the minute before that to bring your family’s nutritional focus to whole foods. Help your young children value the tasty, natural flavors of fresh foods without additives. (Read “My Sugar-free Son” at Mothering.com.)

Families are going sugar free by managing then shifting expectations about sweets. The amount of sugar consumed by the average North American is staggering. You don’t have to accept that as normal or inevitable for your children. Start with substitutions then move on to a whole new way of looking at food. You’ll feel great, and your children will grow without the hindrance of all of those toxic calories.

Image © Giedrius Zaleckas | Dreamstime.com

3 Reasons We Like Making Love in the Kitchen

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Meghan Telpner creed

Where does Nature Mom go when she needs allergy-free recipes and clear reasoning for changing her eating habits? Making Love in the Kitchen with Meghan Telpner.

I seriously can’t recommend her site/blog enough. And if you are lucky enough to be local (she’s in Toronto), her cooking classes completely changed my boring, tasteless cooking void of all our allergy foods. I’m still learning everyday.


1. Don’t Take No for an Answer

A diagnosis of disease is not the last word. You have control of your health. It’s best if you start now, before allergy or disease force you to change your habits. If you are already facing disease, nutrition-dense foods will only help. No, I’m not claiming that you should forgo allopathic medicine, but you can improve body and mind through diet.

This is one of the most important lessons I learn from Meghan Telpner. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and chose meditation, acupuncture, and a whole foods diet rather than surgery or medication. After six years, she is symptom free. During that time, she became a certified nutritionist and opened her own cooking school in Toronto.


2. Create a Guide that Excites You

For Meghan, her creed is her philosophy of living. Her creed is the image you see above. You might find this inspiring, but I want to tell you that part of the power of this creed is you flipping the switch and realizing that YOU can and you MUST create your own beautiful philosophy of living so that you are realizing your own dreams. Start here if you like, but stretch it, test it, try out a few new things, and build a philosophy that makes your heart sing.


3. You Can Still Eat Brownies

Are you worried that your food will be boring if you remove sugar and other processed ingredients? Really? Well, stop that right now. If anything, conventional, processed foods are a crutch that keeps you from being creative with food. If you need to be convinced that you will be fine in a future with healthful foods, Butternut Squash Ooo-eee Goo-eee Brownies will ease your transition.

When you hang out on the Parenting by Nature Facebook page, you will find that Nature Mom and others mention Making Love in the Kitchen a lot. Join us!