5 Easy Ways to Support Earth Day

The grass is greener on the [out]side! 

1) Download a thirty-day 'green living' challenge here. Lots of great tips for becoming more green in that guide. I recently committed myself to the challenge listed on Day 3. No more dryer sheets. Instead I'm going to be using wool balls that are reusable and made by independent artists. I bought mine off of Etsy. 

2) Check out EarthDay.ca and look for events happening in your area. There weren't too many events registered for Toronto, which made me sad because over 3 million people live in the city! I thought there would have been tons of events listed. 

3) Commit yourself to a green challenge. EarthDay.org has several pledges you can make here. Easy ones like pledging to recycle E-waste.

4) Seeing as today is Monday, make today a meatless-Monday! Reducing your overall meat consumption is always good for the environment. I'm cooking up some tempeh tonight. 

5) Get outside and enjoy the beautiful Earth we live on! Garden, walk, sit on the deck/patio, bike, etc. Now that is Spring, it's time to soak up the fresh, fragrant, and floral air! 

Hoppy Easter!

Chocolate Nests Complete with Pastel About-to-Hatch Eggs

Hoppy Easter! 

Recipe for the nests is found here, only this time I used almond butter instead of peanut. 

And of course, I topped the nests with mini eggs thanks to my current addiction. 

The Human Hippy

Pictured above are two lattes... but not-at-all in the traditional sense. They are homemade almond milk, dandelion root coffee, and local, raw honey infused lattes. I know, I know: I'm a hippy.

Nevertheless, even though I present mostly uber healthy recipes on my blog and talk about healthy living and eating all.the.time., please understand that I am also human. My diet isn't perfect and sometimes eat food that isn't good for me. Enter my nemesis:

Ah, mini eggs. I never, ever crave candy. But when the Spring season rolls around and these bad boys hit the shelves, I have to buy a pack. Gah they're so good! Thank goodness they leave stores after Easter. Thank goodness they are a once a year treat.

So there you have it. Even naturopaths have junk food cravings. Most of the time we are regarded as hippies, but we're also humans with weaknesses just like everyone else.
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Happy Long Weekend!

Life Updates

- I have roughly one month left of classes until I enter clinic! It's going to be the last month I set foot in a classroom in my life... after twenty years of classes. Crazy.
- I start learning vitamin B12 injections tomorrow.
- I've made this pizza twice now. Awesome!
- I have my official clinic schedule for next year! I'm super happy with the shifts I have AND the supervisors who I'll be working under. I'll talk more about my shifts, satellites, and supervisors in a later post.
- I had my OSCE 3 on Friday. Here is how it runs: enter clinic room, greet patient, take their history (i.e. ask them a ton of questions about their health complaint), rule out emergent conditions and red flags, perform physical exams, diagnose the patient, recommend further testing/labs, and recommend a treatment for their condition ...all in 18 minutes ...all the while being marked/evaluated by a clinic supervisor who is sitting in the corner of the room ...then repeat this whole process two more times with two new patients. It was an adrenalin-packed hour that's for sure!
- I celebrated completed OSCE 3 by checking out this place with friends. Fun times.
- I think my OSCE 3 went very well. I was proud of performance(s). I have to pass OSCE 3 in order to enter clinic. Here's hoping the evaluators thought I was competent!

Caramel Apple Timbits

- I made these donuts yesterday (but since I didn't have a donut pan, I made "timbits" using a mini muffin tin).  They are pictured above.
- Anyone have nice Spring weather yet? While it's sunny out here, it is still cold.
- I walked into Bulk Barn this weekend: holy Easter candy overload! I forgot how sugar-laden this holiday is. However, seeing them all (an entire row of Eater candy only, by the way) brought make nostalgic memories. Malt chocolate eggs, foil wrapped chocolate eggs, jelly beans, gummy bunnies, mini eggs, caramel filled chocolate eggs... Om nom nom!
- I selected my clinic office for next year. I'm going to be sharing a room with two of my CCNM best buds. 

Silly Shamrock Shake

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

McDonald's has been serving its famous "Shamrock Shake" all month-long. If you take a peek at the ingredients, which are presented in this article, you'll see that it has 30+ ingredients and most are complete junk. So silly. Instead of indulging in this toxic treat, I've chosenhi to drink my healthier and cleaner shamrock shake, which happens to be made with only 5 ingredients!

(My Super-Healthy Version of the) Shamrock Shake

1 ripe banana, chopped and frozen

1 cup almond mylk

1/2 cup packed mint leaves

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons raw honey

Blend all ingredients until smooth.  Serve immediately or the mint will oxidize and turn the smoothie brown. Serves 2. Alternatively you can use spinach instead of mint.

May the Luck of the Irish Be With You Today!

The Month of Green

'Tis March, the month of all things green! 

I talk a lot about diet, food, nutrition, health, and healthy eating on this blog a lot. I know, I know, most of you must be sick of it. But I'm a foodie and a (future) naturopathic doctor, so food is always going to play a big part of my life and career. 

Mmm, green veggie overload!

Nevertheless, as an outsider, healthy eating can seem overwhelming. Chia seeds, paleo, buckwheat, avocados, veganism, pomegranates? What diet is best, what foods to eat, how about supplements? There's a lot ...but where to begin!

This month, if you are interested in improving your health through diet and nutrition, the one-and-only recommendation I can give is to EAT MORE GREENS!

Honestly, out of all of the dietary changes you could make and new foods you could start eating, adding more GREENS to your diet is by far the most important and easiest thing you can do. If you choose to do one healthy thing during the month of March, make it eating more green veggies (though especially leafy green ones). Yesterday, I kicked off the month with a leafy green, kale salad recipe. You can expect more green-veggie coming up this month. 

Green Veg Examples: kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, arugula, micro greens, sprouts, bok choy, broccoli, green peas, herbs (cilantro, parsley, mint, basil, etc), rapini, swiss chard, beet greens, collard greens, mustard greens, zuchinni, asparagus, savory cabbage, green pepper, leeks, green onions, green beans, cucumber, celery, lettuce, artichoke, turnip greens, jalapenos, edamame, etc...

It's March. It's time to get our green on!

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday, Dinkum! 

[P.S. There will be also blog post today regarding naturopathic medicine. Stay tuned! ]

Chocolate Love

All of my friends gave me chocolate yesterday. They know me well!

Mmm, chocolate coma!

On VDay I gave out homemade peanut butter cups wrapped in foil just like real chocolate.

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups 

HOMEMADE PB CUPS... Reese's has got nothing on these yummy cups.

 200 grams of chocolate (equivalent to two bars)

0.5 cup of plain peanut butter (natural)

0.25 cup of honey

Melt chocolate on minimum heat. Take a mini muffin tin or a regular sized tin with a bit of oil to keep it well greased. Spoon melted chocolate into the bottom of chocolate (a little more than a teaspoon). Then place the muffin tin in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up. After 5 minutes, take a heaping teaspoon of the honey PB and roll it into a ball, then flatten it it into a disc. Place the disc ontop of the chocolate base in the muffin tin. Make sure that the disc is not as wide as the entire tin's width (you want room to get chocolate on the sides of the PB disc). Then pour chocolate on top of the disc, making sure that chocolate gets all around the disc and covers the top entirely. Continue until all the cups are filled with discs and covered with chocolate. Garnish with a peanut and place in the freezer to firm up for another 5 minutes.  To remove the cups, use a spoon to "plop" the discs out. They will seem stuck but they will pop out easily due to greasing them in advance. Makes 12 mini PB cups or 6 large ones.

Share with those you love! <3

Substitutions: use maple syrup instead of honey and almond butter instead of PB.

Have a LOVEly day!

Fruit and vegetable love: how suiting for a naturopathic, health focused blog!

Ah Valentine's Day, the commercialialized day of love. A rip-off in many aspects (overpriced flowers and 3-course meals, false expectations, a whole lot of pink junk on store shelves...you know what I mean). Nonetheless I am a big fan of this holiday. What can I say: red is my favorite color, I love holidays at school (everyone us full of spirit), and I love chocolate...three things that V-Day offers.

Regardless of whether or not you are celebrating today, I hope you have a lovely day! 

My Natural Beauty Stash

My bathroom cabinet is pictured above. I took this picture because I wanted to talk about "natural beauty" today and by peeking into my cabinet, you can clearly see what kind of beauty regime I follow. My bathroom cabinet could very well be mistaken for a kitchen cabinet because the majority of the products I put on my face can also be safely consumed. I apply to my body three types of products: those that are certified organic, are generally all-natural and contain clean ingredients, or are made-in-my-own-kitchen-using-regular-ingredients-and-stored-in-recycled-containers.

Here is a breakdown of my "natural beauty" stash 

(moving right to left, top to bottom; starting in the far left, upper corner): 

Little jar of oil with red/white lid - moisturizing face oil (jojoba oil, vitamin E, lavender essential oil)
Little jar of brown powder - dry shampoo (equal parts cocoa powder and cornstarch, recipe courtesy of Talia!)
Small mason jar of brown substance - facial scrub made with cherries and espresso powder (a gift from Elle!)
Orange lidded jar - batch of my homemade deodorant 

Yellow honey pot - homemade body butter (another Talia recipe!)
Little black tub - Lush brand neutral concealer make-up
Organic dusting powder - Physician's Formula organic facial dusting powder
Thorne lipgloss - got this lipbalm as a freebie at the Naturopathic Doctors Ontario convention I went to in November. It's not bad. The flavor is weird and sometimes it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but because it's only made of nourishing oils and was free, so I'll continue to use it :)

Sweets For My Sweet

I made cupcakes last night at midnight. Odd, I know; but the baking bug always bites me at the weirdest times. Oh, and since Valentine's Day is coming up (in two weeks time), why not bake some sweets for your sweet rather than buy them sweet junk? I've got lots of baking inspiration on this blog, but I also recommend this blog and this one for lots of tasty, yet healthier, dessert recipes.

This picture was taken with a pink filtered lens. Makes everything look nice and rosy!

The Cupcakes

1.5 cups buckwheat (or whole wheat) flour

3/4 cup sugar (coconut sugar works)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon (or pinch) of salt

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1 tablespoon vinegar of choice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups of cold water

Mix dry. Mix wet. Pour into greased or a lined muffin tin. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Makes 10-12 cupcakes.  

The Icing

1/2 cup hazelnuts or cashews

1/4 cup honey

1/4 milk or water

Splash of vanilla extract

1 beet, cooked

Blend all the ingredients in a blender (alternatively, use nut butter instead of raw nuts; stir the ingredients well). Spread onto cooled cupcakes. The beet doesn't change the taste of the cupcake; it just adds some rosy color!

Hello Big Year!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a restful winter break. I know that I sure did. It was the perfect combination of relaxation and fun-times that I felt fully recharged and ready to tackle what is shaping up to be the most challenging semester of my academic career ...not to mention, the LAST (classroom) semester of my life! That's right, come May 2013, I am entering Clinic full-time. No more classes, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks!

Despite me feeling energized and excited to get through this semester, I still find myself scrambling at the end of the day, wondering how my precious daytime hours have vanished. The point is: I'm busy, now more than ever; the busiest I've been since I started my adventure at CCNM. For this reason, I left you hanging, after a whole week into the new year, without any update from me. So sad. I meant to write this little blurb each day since starting back at CCNM (I resumed my classes a week ago today), but somehow, each day, time has managed to scurry-on by...

Anyway, what I am trying to say, is that 1) I haven't forgot about you and blogging; in fact, I miss writing daily, but 2) my blogging schedule is going to be a bit more sporadic this semester. I can't commit to daily blogging like I have done over the last 2.5 years of school. I just have too much on my plate right now. But I will be popping in from time-to-time sharing my med school adventures (for instance, we learned how to draw blood today!), some recipes (made a wicked Mung Bean Stew tonight, plus I got a new camera, so my food pictures will be better than ever), and of course health tips (got sleep woes? I've got (several) remedies for that!)

Thanks for hanging with me during this turbulent semester!

Annual Xmas Blogging Break

Now that school's done, I'm taking the next couple of weeks off from blogging. I hope you do too (by that I mean, spend some time away from the computer, cellphone, game counsel, and television; connect with real people as much as possible. It'll do your soul (and your posture, and your eyes...) some good!).

See you in 2013!

Happy (Healthy) Holidays,

Love Becca

How Romantic!

Did you know that since I started at CCNM in 2010 (September), that I have written SEVENTY exams? Wow, wow, and more wow!  Thanks to my classmate T for counting.

Yesterday we wrote our last exam, Radiology and Advanced Imaging Techniques, and boy, what a way to end an exam period! This was, by far, the funnest (not a real word, I know) exam that I have ever written at CCNM! We all sat in the pitch dark; the examination theatre's lights were turned off so that we could best see the images that were projected onto the screen in the front of the theatre. A series of eleven images were then shown on the screen, with each image pausing for four minutes before moving onto the next. This reel of images then cycled through once more. We were all given an exam sheet with exactly eleven pages; one page per image. Each page featured a series of short answer and multiple choice questions  that (for the most part) pertained to the corresponding image shown on the screen. Oh, and because the room was dark, we were each allowed to bring a light source to help us see our individual exam. It was quite the romantic exam: a pitch black room, filled with approximately one-hundred and forty glowing students. We were glowing thanks to our light-source of choice (candles, flashlights, mini lamps, and even a string of Xmas lights were used), but we were also likely glowing because we knew that relaxation, family, and fun were jjjuuuussstttt around the corner!

P.S. I didn't post last night because I was off celebrating the end of exams (and also my birthday gone by) by attending the opening night of the Nutcracker Ballet! It was absolutely lovely and I am so very lucky to have been able to attend it.

Brain Dump

Brain dump (noun): a blog post where all the things that have been lingering on the blogger's mind are dumped.

- Do you know what the number one industry in the world is? The pharmaceutical drug industry. And number two? The illegal drug industry. Why are we all hooked on drugs?!

- Remember my post on the book Your Brain on Nature? Well, here is an article written by the book's author. I really like the article's title: Two hours of pine forest and call me in the morning. Love it!

Source 

- I love, love, love all the brightly colored fashion hitting stores this season (see above). It's like a highlighter exploded all over the mall. I love super bright colors; they just radiate happiness!

- I'm over halfway done my final exams (5 out of 9 exams are done and done!). I celebrated by dining at Chipotle. Yum!

- This is a very creative recipe idea. No dairy, no soy, no junk... just plain old cashews, turned into cream cheese.

- Green tea is an anticancer agent because of its medicinal epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) content. Naturopathic oncologists often prescribe concentrated EGCG to cancer patients due to its potent antioxidant effects. While the cancer dosage of EGCG is about 600 mg three times a day, you can easily get about 300 mg of EGCG in just one cup of green tea. Maybe this is why I drink green tea every morning: for its anticancer effects!

Orange Peel Tea

Image source here. 

According to TCM theories, orange peels can help with digestion when we've overeaten. Chen Pi (which is Chinese for Tangerine Peel) prevents stagnation, dries dampness, and descends stomach Qi; three actions that help moderate overeating.

Apparently the medicinal properties in the peel will help you feel less bloated, stuffed, and lethargic (you know, all those awesome feelings that come after eating a giant meal). Since oranges are in season in December, I am going to make this tea to have after my Xmas dinner meal. I'm excited to see if this orange peel theory has merit...

My Xmas dinner* recommendation: one mug of Orange Peel Tea

(*because everyone overeats at this meal)

Take tangerine or clementine peels, dry them out (let them sit in the sun, bake them, or let them dry out on the counter), then place them in boiling water, let steep for 15 minutes to make tea, then finally, drink this tea after a big meal! 

Ginger & Lemon

With third-year going great, a semester nearing completion, and holiday season in full swing, here at Navigating Naturopathy, we think it's a great time to celebrate!

What better way to celebrate than with a gluten-free, vegan, refined-sugar free, cake! This cake is inspired by a Ginger Lemon cupcake I devoured at the restaurant Fresh over a year ago. I've had that flavor combination stuck in my head since then and today I finally got around to reproduce it. I don't know about you, but this cake just screams a warm and fuzzy Fall to me. ;)

Ginger Lemon Cake with Chestnut Frosting  

Inspired by this recipe and Fresh restaurants.

Cake: 

1.5 cups buckwheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

0.5 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 inch chunk of fresh ginger*

1.5 teaspoons fresh lemon zest

Pinch of sea salt

0.5 cup coconut oil

0.3 cup molasses

0.5 cup honey

0.25 cup fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons apple sauce

Frosting:

2 cups un-shelled chestnuts

3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions: 

Place all the wet ingredients into a blender along with the fresh ginger. Blend until smooth and the ginger has been pulverized. *Alternatively, replace the fresh ginger with dried, about 3 teaspoons. Pour the wet ingredients into a bowl and add the dry ingredients. Pour into a lined cake pan and bake at 350F for 40 minutes. Let cool completely, then spread with frosting. This makes a one-layer cake; feel free to double the ingredients (including the frosting ones) and and stack them with a layer of frosting in between. For the frosting: add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.

Xmas in the City

The holiday season is in full swing here in Toronto. In fact, this past weekend featured the Santa Clause Parade and the Cavalcade of Lights (fireworks, tree lightening, etc). I've also seen several Xmas trees already glowing in home windows!

Here are some scenes from around the city: 

The famous Xmas-themed Bay windows.

Another shot from the windows: cute mice sleeping in matchboxes and a chair made of a broken plate. 

My first hot chocolate of the season. Dairy-free and delicious. 

Dundas Square's Xmas tree is lit up in blue. 

'Tis the season to be jolly!

Om Nom!

Image source here. 

Hope your weekend was full of funnies! 

_________________________________

For all of those who have served: today we honor you. Lest we forget.

Hallowe'en Brownies, Take Two.

Happy Hallowe'en! 

Class was canceled this morning due to a power outage, so how did I spend my morning? Being super productive, of course, by taking better pictures of yesterday's raw chocolate brownies with pumpkin frosting. Ha ha.