Nutritional Halloween Treats

It feels like the summer holidays were only but a blink away!   Not only is it half term, but it’s that spooky time of year; Halloween. It's a time when adults get to show their inner child with fancy dress and pretending that trickle treating is for the children’s benefit!  With celebrations and holidays to celebrate, we thought we would give you some tips on how to keep it healthy and still fun. Here are a few treats for your Halloween party.

Alcohol Free Mulled Wine Made with elderberries, lemon, ginger and cinnamon is rich in vitamin C to boost the immune system fighting off the common cold and flu. Alcohol free mulled wine Serves 2 Ingredients 400g of elderberries 1.25 litres of water 2 cinnamon stick 50g raisins 10 cloves 3 large oranges 3 tablespoons of manuka honey ¼ lemon 1 piece of ginger root (grated) Method Grate the zest from the oranges and lemon, and then juice them with the elderberries and add the cloves. Place all the above into a large saucepan. Add the water, honey, cinnamon sticks, grated ginger and raisins. Heat the mixture for 20 mins, try not to let it simmer. Remove from the heat and drain through a sieve into a large punch bowl. Your wine is now ready to serve.

Raw Cinnamon Chocolate Truffles Made from chopped dates and nuts, cocoa powder, nuts and cinnamon. The combination of nuts and cinnamon stabilise the blood sugar levels, meaning you won’t have hyperactive children and adults on your hands! Raw Cinnamon and chocolate truffles Serves 10 Ingredients •           100g of chopped pitted dates •           100g of chopped mixed nuts •           1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder •           2 tablespoon of cocoa powder Method 1.         Use a food processer to turn the dates into a paste. 2.         Add the chopped nuts, cinnamon powder and a    tablespoon of cocoa powder and mix together evenly. 3.         Roll the paste into small balls between the palms of your hands. 4.         Roll the truffles in the remaining tablespoon of cocoa powder to give them a nice finish and take the stickiness away.

Pumpkin Soup Made with garlic and a dash of pepper. Its good fun to get creative with pumpkin designs to show off your talent in your window. Make the most of it, and cook the pumpkin itself, it is nutritiously rich in vitamin A to help you see in the dark when out on ghost and ghoul watch. Pumpkin Soup Serves 5 Ingredients ·         2 tablespoon of coconut oil ·         750g of Pumpkin deseeded, and cubed (scooped from the pumpkin, important you keep the pumpkin for decoration) ·         4 cloves of crushed garlic ·         2 finely chopped onion ·         1 teaspoon of ground black peppercorns ·         250g of double cream ·         600ml of vegetable stock ·         2 finely chopped red chillies Method 1.    Add coconut oil to a hot pan and fry off the onions until golden brown. Add the crushed garlic and chilli, lightly fry and leave to cool 2.    In a saucepan add the stock and pumpkin cubes, simmer for 10 minutes and then add the cream and ground black pepper and take off the heat 3.    Add the contents from the frying pan to the pumpkins and blend with a hand blender The soup is now ready to be reheated when needed and served

Beauty isn't just skin deep: looking after you skin

Many things can take a toll on our skin, whether it be seasonal changes from cold winters with drying central heating to sizzling UV rays of the summer sun, natural hormonal changes as we pass through life stages, the environment, and even our own immune system.

Here are some of our top tips on how a good daily skincare and healthy diet can help to keep you glowing on the outside and within.

Be gentle: the top skin layer protects your body from the environment but it is delicate. Avoid rough exfoliating techniques, stripping this layer can worsen acne and dry the skin Instead use gentle cleansers – those with rose oil are particular soothing. For open wounds, manuka honey helps protect against bacteria .

Support natural elimination: a healthy liver, kidneys and digestion enable the body to deal with that may otherwise come out through the skin as spots. Helpful foods are artichoke, dandelion and alfalfa.

Eat clean: choose unprocessed wholefoods such as colourful vegetables, fruit, nuts, oily fish and avocado – they are rich in skin-supportive essential fats and antioxidants like Vitamin A, C,E manganese and zinc

Drink water: our skin contains four layers, with the cells in the upper layers being flatter and drier. Staying hydrating helps the cells stay plump and look youthful.

Golden rule: use ingredients on your skin that you’d be happy to eat – your body absorbs some of them.

How to reduce premature aging

Sun exposure

Cells in the lower levels of the skin produce melanin, a pigment that helps to create your tan as part of protecting the skin and its DNA from UV damage. Enjoying some time in the sun is important to maintain healthy vitamin D levels, but the key is moderation.

Bare 20: Skin can protect itself from a little sun, with the palest skin having an SPF2, constantly wearing high SPF sunblock can prevent vitamin D which is important to keep normal skin health. Ideally get up to 20 minutes of sun exposure daily without sunscreen, or less if the skin turns slightly pink.

Go natural: When spending the day outside choose natural sunscreen. Coconut oil is one option that provides SPF4 and supports elastin to keep skin supple but you need to reapply frequently to benefit from its UV barrier.

Nutrient boost: sip green tea in the sun, antioxidant-rich foods such as green tea help protect the skin from UV damage.

A natural facelift

Vitamin C supports collagen production for reduced appearance of wrinkles. Choose topical creams containing vitamin C to use on fine lines, include a high strength supplement and eat rich food sources as broccoli and berries.

Sea Algae helps to support the firmness, moisture and structure to improve skin appearance.

Acne

Hormonal balance

From puberty onwards both men and women can have an influx of testosterone that increase in a oily wax called sebum, causing hair follicles to become blocked and creating pockets of bacteria and debris. Spots that tend to surface on the chin can also be related to hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle.

Apply zinc to the affected area and take a supplement to support healing and a healthy level of testosterone.

Only pop spots hygienically - use a comedone extractor as your hands can lead to bacteria and debris being pushed deeper into the skin, increasing chances of scarring and infection.

Include garlic in the diet for its antimicrobial effects to help reduce any bacterial or fungal skin infections.

Hopefully this will give you a good starting point for flawless skin, for further support the Patrick Holford skin problems covers all dietary and lifestyle changes to get yourself flawless skin.

Is Stress a Modern Disease?

Is Stress a Modern Disease?

Stress is not something you can see like a cut or a bruise and therefore is not always easily recognised. However our modern lifestyles make it an increasing problem, both personally and economically.

Government figures for the UK in 2013-2014 show stress, and its related conditions anxiety, depression and musculoskeletal problems, accounted for the majority of days lost due to work-related ill health: 11.3 and 8.3 million days respectively. On average this was 23 days off work per case of stress, depression or anxiety.

Are you affected by stress?

Some ways you can identify if you could be under stress are if you experience any of the following:

• A vicious cycle of insomnia and fatigue
• Achy joints and other signs of inflammation in the body
• Cardiovascular problems such as palpitations
• Poor immune system that is supressed under stress and when the body relaxes,
• illnesses often show
• Possible supressed appetite followed by sugar and salt cravings
• Caffeine dependence
• Poor liver function
• Light headed when standing up
• Pupils have a delayed or no dilation reaction to light

Physiological effect of stress

Stress makes your body want to run away from the situation to keep you safe. It does this by releasing cortisol to stimulate the liver and tissue stores to produce glucose for energy. To meet the demands you may crave carbohydrates and caffeine. However, you don’t really need the marathon amount of energy produced and the high circulating sugar causes glycation (aging, inflammation and damage to cells).

What to do: the first few steps

• Follow a high protein, low GL diet to balance blood sugar and reduce the aging effect
• Include foods or supplements containing vitamin B12 and folic acid and vitamin B3 which contribute to a reduction of fatigue
• Avoid grains as these contain gluten and lectins. Sensitivity to these is common and may cause inflammation that activates the stress pathway to intensify anxiety
• Consider supplementing chromium which forms part of the GTF (gluten tolerance factor) that contributes to the maintenance of a healthy blood sugar level
• Read The Stress Cure by Patrick Holford, who outlines HeartMath® and a quick coherence technique exercise for you to learn how to transform negative stressful experiences into something calming

Gluten Free Vegan Brownies with walnuts

Recipe serves 12

Ingredients

·         225g of 70% Montezuma's Organic Very Dark Chocolate Bar Vegan

·         100g of Doves Gluten Free white flour

·         4 Tbsp flaxseed meal (ground raw flaxseed) with 4tablespoons of water

·         120g of coconut oil

·         100g of caster sugar

·         1 table spoon of green and blacks cocoa powder

·         100g of chopped walnuts

Method

1.    Preheat the oven to 170C for 20 mins

2.    Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, don’t forget to also cover the sides

3.    Heat the butter and chocolate in a bowl above a saucepan of simmering water

4.    Leave the chocolate to cool

5.    Whisk flaxseed meal with 4 water and add with the caster sugar till light and fluffy. It should look airy with lots of bubbles

6.    Fold in the cooled chocolate and sieve in the flour and cocoa powder and fold that in also

7.    Mix in chopped nuts

8.    Pour the mixture into the baking tray and leave in the oven to cook for 15 mins.  Check at 10mins see if they are firm as gluten free tends to cook with quicker.

·         

Beauty is more than skin deep

Many things can take a toll on our skin, whether it be seasonal changes from cold winters with drying central heating to sizzling UV rays of the summer sun, natural hormonal changes as we pass through life stages, the environment, and even our own immune system.
Here are some of our top tips on how a good daily skincare and healthy diet can help to keep you glowing on the outside and within.

Be gentle: the top skin layer protects your body from the environment but it is delicate. Avoid rough exfoliating techniques, stripping this layer can worsen acne and dry the skin Instead use gentle cleansers – those with rose oil are particular soothing. For open wounds, manuka honey helps protect against bacteria .
Support natural elimination: a healthy liver, kidneys and digestion enable the body to deal with that may otherwise come out through the skin as spots. Helpful foods are artichoke, dandelion and alfalfa.

Eat clean: choose unprocessed wholefoods such as colourful vegetables, fruit, nuts, oily fish and avocado – they are rich in skin-supportive essential fats and antioxidants like Vitamin A, C,E manganese and zinc

Drink water: our skin contains four layers, with the cells in the upper layers being flatter and drier. Staying hydrating helps the cells stay plump and look youthful.

Golden rule: use ingredients on your skin that you’d be happy to eat – your body absorbs some of them.


How to reduce premature ageing

Sun exposure
Cells in the lower levels of the skin produce melanin, a pigment that helps to create your tan as part of protecting the skin and its DNA from UV damage. Enjoying some time in the sun is important to maintain healthy vitamin D levels, but the key is moderation.

Bare 20: Skin can protect itself from a little sun, with the palest skin having an SPF2, constantly wearing high SPF sunblock can prevent vitamin D which is important to keep normal skin health. Ideally get up to 20 minutes of sun exposure daily without sunscreen, or less if the skin turns slightly pink.

Go natural: When spending the day outside choose natural sunscreen. Coconut oil is one option that provides SPF4 and supports elastin to keep skin supple but you need to reapply frequently to benefit from its UV barrier.

Nutrient boost: sip green tea in the sun, antioxidant-rich foods such as green tea help protect the skin from UV damage.

A natural facelift

Vitamin C supports collagen production for reduced appearance of wrinkles. Choose topical creams containing vitamin C to use on fine lines, include a high strength supplement and eat rich food sources as broccoli and berries.
Sea Algae helps to support the firmness, moisture and structure to improve skin appearance.
Acne

Hormonal balance
From puberty onwards both men and women can have an influx of testosterone that increase in a oily wax called sebum, causing hair follicles to become blocked and creating pockets of bacteria and debris. Spots that tend to surface on the chin can also be related to hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle.

Apply zinc to the affected area and take a supplement to support healing and a healthy level of testosterone.
Only pop spots hygienically - use a comedone extractor as your hands can lead to bacteria and debris being pushed deeper into the skin, increasing chances of scarring and infection.
Include garlic in the diet for its antimicrobial effects to help reduce any bacterial or fungal skin infections.

Hopefully this will give you a good starting point for flawless skin, for further support have a referral to a dermatologist

I can also take bookings and make bespoke creams to support your skin

Have a lovely week

Is Stress a Modern Disease

Stress is not something you can see like a cut or a bruise and therefore is not always easily recognised. However our modern lifestyles make it an increasing problem, both personally and economically.

Government figures for the UK in 2013-2014 show stress, and its related conditions anxiety, depression and musculoskeletal problems, accounted for the majority of days lost due to work-related ill health: 11.3 and 8.3 million days respectively. On average this was 23 days off work per case of stress, depression or anxiety.

Are you affected by stress?

Some ways you can identify if you could be under stress are if you experience any of the following:

• A vicious cycle of insomnia and fatigue
• Achy joints and other signs of inflammation in the body
• Cardiovascular problems such as palpitations
• Poor immune system that is supressed under stress and when the body relaxes,
• illnesses often show
• Possible supressed appetite followed by sugar and salt cravings
• Caffeine dependence
• Poor liver function
• Light headed when standing up
• Pupils have a delayed or no dilation reaction to light

Physiological effect of stress

Stress makes your body want to run away from the situation to keep you safe. It does this by releasing cortisol to stimulate the liver and tissue stores to produce glucose for energy. To meet the demands you may crave carbohydrates and caffeine. However, you don’t really need the marathon amount of energy produced and the high circulating sugar causes glycation (aging, inflammation and damage to cells).

What to do: the first few steps

• Follow a high protein, low GL diet to balance blood sugar and reduce the aging effect
• Include foods or supplements containing vitamin B12 and folic acid and vitamin B3 which contribute to a reduction of fatigue
• Avoid grains as these contain gluten and lectins. Sensitivity to these is common and may cause inflammation that activates the stress pathway to intensify anxiety
• Consider supplementing chromium which forms part of the GTF (gluten tolerance factor) that contributes to the maintenance of a healthy blood sugar level
• Read The Stress Cure by Patrick Holford, who outlines HeartMath® and a quick coherence technique exercise for you to learn how to transform negative stressful experiences into something calming

Women's Health - Hormonal Changes & Imbalance

Women may naturally have some hormonal ups and downs as they go through life that start from the first menstrual cycle, pregnancy and then during and possibly after menopause. For some these hormonal symptoms can be quite debilitating, and affect fertility and mood. The good news is many symptoms can be improved through lifestyle and dietary changes.

Symptoms and conditions that indicate/suggest hormonal imbalance include:

• PMS (moodiness, sore breasts, irritable, depressed, sugar cravings)
• Menstrual problems (heavy, painful, irregular)
• Fertility issues
• Acne
• PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)
• Ovarian cysts
• Endometriosis
• Menopausal symptoms (hot flushes, vaginal dryness, insomnia, weight gain around the midriff)
• Fibrocystic breasts
• Excess hair growth on face, chest, stomach
• Thinning hair (male- pattern baldness)

Suspected hormonal imbalance – what to do

Visit your doctor

If some symptoms sound familiar have a chat with your doctor as they can run scans and blood tests to look for imbalances and possible cysts on the ovaries. Once you have a diagnosis, it makes life easier, as you know what you are treating.

Visit a nutritional therapist

They will look at blood sugar, hormonal levels, health history, lifestyle and diet. They may do blood and saliva testing to check when your hormonal levels are high and low. The results can help a nutritional therapist develop a targeted programme to manage or improve your symptoms. If there are fertility issues, you may want to use a combination of natural treatment with medical management.

Self Help

Read Patrick Holford’s Balance Your Hormones book. It provides dietary and lifestyle support and a basic hormonal health questionnaire to use as a guideline to help you make changes.

Try the 100% Health questionnaire - a detailed questionnaire that gives you advice tailored to your individual health goals.

Consider nutritional support - Female Balance is a daily supplement for women that contains Vitamin B6 to support hormonal activity, along with vitamins B12, folic acid, niacin, vitamin C and magnesium to support mind health and reduce fatigue.

Basic 5 top dietary and lifestyle tips

1. Limit alcohol and quit smoking - the two can upset your blood sugar levels and stress response, resulting in menstrual irregularity, depression and early menopause
2. Dietary fibre is crucial to maintaining hormonal balance by binding to and removing unwanted oestrogen from the body. Get your intake from vegetables and oats to benefit from a range of nutrients.
3. Use BPA free plastic or glass. You may have noticed that storage containers labelled ‘free of BPAs’ are becoming more popular. This is because BPAs can mimic oestrogens, causing havoc with your hormones.
4. Weight bearing exercise to improve muscle tone. Muscles act as a glucose sink, which means less is circulating the system to disrupt hormones. Often a small amount of weight loss when overweight can make a huge difference to the regularity of menstruation and mood.
5. Consider if you need to use contraceptives and HRT - ask your doctor about natural ways to prevent conception and manage menopausal symptoms. Hormonal medications can cause havoc and confusion to the body, especially when taken for long periods of tim

Women's Health - Hormonal Changes & Imbalance

Women's Health - Hormonal Changes & Imbalance

Women may naturally have some hormonal ups and downs as they go through life that start from the first menstrual cycle, pregnancy and then during and possibly after menopause. For some these hormonal symptoms can be quite debilitating, and affect fertility and mood. The good news is many symptoms can be improved through lifestyle and dietary changes.

Symptoms and conditions that indicate/suggest hormonal imbalance include:

• PMS (moodiness, sore breasts, irritable, depressed, sugar cravings)
• Menstrual problems (heavy, painful, irregular)
• Fertility issues
• Acne
• PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)
• Ovarian cysts
• Endometriosis
• Menopausal symptoms (hot flushes, vaginal dryness, insomnia, weight gain around the midriff)
• Fibrocystic breasts
• Excess hair growth on face, chest, stomach
• Thinning hair (male- pattern baldness)

Suspected hormonal imbalance – what to do

Visit your doctor

If some symptoms sound familiar have a chat with your doctor as they can run scans and blood tests to look for imbalances and possible cysts on the ovaries. Once you have a diagnosis, it makes life easier, as you know what you are treating.

Visit a nutritional therapist

They will look at blood sugar, hormonal levels, health history, lifestyle and diet. They may do blood and saliva testing to check when your hormonal levels are high and low. The results can help a nutritional therapist develop a targeted programme to manage or improve your symptoms. If there are fertility issues, you may want to use a combination of natural treatment with medical management.

Self Help

Read Patrick Holford’s Balance Your Hormones book. It provides dietary and lifestyle support and a basic hormonal health questionnaire to use as a guideline to help you make changes.

Try the 100% Health questionnaire - a detailed questionnaire that gives you advice tailored to your individual health goals.

Consider nutritional support - Female Balance is a daily supplement for women that contains Vitamin B6 to support hormonal activity, along with vitamins B12, folic acid, niacin, vitamin C and magnesium to support mind health and reduce fatigue.

Basic 5 top dietary and lifestyle tips

1. Limit alcohol and quit smoking - the two can upset your blood sugar levels and stress response, resulting in menstrual irregularity, depression and early menopause
2. Dietary fibre is crucial to maintaining hormonal balance by binding to and removing unwanted oestrogen from the body. Get your intake from vegetables and oats to benefit from a range of nutrients.
3. Use BPA free plastic or glass. You may have noticed that storage containers labelled ‘free of BPAs’ are becoming more popular. This is because BPAs can mimic oestrogens, causing havoc with your hormones.
4. Weight bearing exercise to improve muscle tone. Muscles act as a glucose sink, which means less is circulating the system to disrupt hormones. Often a small amount of weight loss when overweight can make a huge difference to the regularity of menstruation and mood.
5. Consider if you need to use contraceptives and HRT - ask your doctor about natural ways to prevent conception and manage menopausal symptoms. Hormonal medications can cause havoc and confusion to the body, especially when taken for long periods of time.