Book review: The Garden Apothecary by Reece Carter

What a beautiful book Reece has created.

The wonder that is herbal medicine is available to everyone, but just how to make use of the beautiful gift from Mother Nature when you haven’t been trained in herbal medicine can be a little daunting. This book makes herbal medicine doable for everyone, and the collection of home remedies will also hopefully help you to improve yours and your families health.

There is a wide range of remedies – creams, teas, tinctures, foods, gummies, addressing many issues such as colds and ‘flu, stress, sleep issues, skin issues, digestion and more.

Most people think of home remedy books as those faded books stored in our grandmothers bookshelf or in the second hand bookshelf, but this book is a modern take on those classics that you will find yourself returning to again and again.

And the herbalist that delivers this information is a different picture to the traditional herbalist stereotype – not a gypsy-esque woman wearing shawls and beads, but a charming muscular man (Reece is a model in his spare time) who sweetly dedicated this book to his Mum.

There’s plenty of eye candy in this book, and not just the pages with the tight shirts. Beautiful pictures of amber bottles, raw herbs, spices and luscious gardens are the pages I dwell on the most.

I am so excited to see this type of information being shared into the world. The remedies are gentle but effective, the recipes are easy to follow and achieavable.

There are so many brilliant recipes in this book I can’t list all of my favourites, but some include the herbal tea blends pg 120-121, the skin repair body cream pg 68 and lemon balm ointment for cold sores pg 73 (I love these herbs!) and the ‘Forget-Me-Not’ Salsa Verde pg 104 (I love herbs used in food).

There’s guides on how to grow you own herbs, where to source them, and information about what the herbs are useful fore.

If you want to start growing your own herbs or making your own recipes, check this book out. It is something you’ll keep coming back to, not just for the recipes but the scattering of health tips and naturopathic wisdom as well.

The Garden Apothecary by Reece Carter

The post Book review: The Garden Apothecary appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Getting your children to eat well is a big concern for many parents. The struggle involves not just knowing what to feed your child, but how to get them to actually eat it. Meal time battles are a great source of stress, and it’s in response to this that paediatric nutritionist Mandy Sacher has created her book: Wholesome Child.

I’ve come across a fair few cook books aimed at children, but Wholesome Child is currently my favourite. This is not just a recipe book but an impressively thorough nutrition guide as well. It includes digestible information about the different food groups, additives and preservatives, good vs bad fats, sugar, and tips for dealing with fussy eaters. There are also lunch box ideas and meal plans. The recipes are aimed at children between 1-6 years of age, however my husband and I have enjoyed the dishes as well.

The book is structured around an 8 step guide of incremental changes that can be made to your diet, which will allow you gradually introduce healthy foods and phase out unhealthy foods. Dramatic diet changes are rarely well appreciated by young or old, and by making small steps it helps to reduce the negative responses your child may have.

Step 1: Whole Grains – Replace processed grains with whole grains and focus on variety

Step 2: Reduce Sugar – Set healthy limits and create structure

Step 3: Increase Vegetables – Get creative and persevere

Step 4: Boost Protein – Balance healthy animal proteins with vegetarian options

Step 5: Healthy Fats – Focus on good fats and avoid processed low-fat foods

Step 6: Balance Fruit – In the recommended amounts, it’s a healthy part of a child’s diet

Step 7: Rethink Dairy – Moderate milk consumption and focus on high-calcium foods

Step 8: Avoid Nasties – Eat real food that is free of preservatives, additives, artificial colours, GM ingredients and excessive sodium

With the focus on making small changes, these suggestions are ones you are likely to stick to. It also helps that the recipes genuinely taste good.

Generally the recipes are gluten free and low in dairy, and use alternatives to sugar such as maple syrup, and use coconut oil rather than butter. Most commonly they are recipes you and your children are already familiar with such as brownies, cupcakes, fish fingers and patties, but they are boosted with vegetables and other healthy ingredients such as seeds, good fats and other wholegrains.

Spread throughout the book are charts and tips which allow you to make modifications to the recipes, for instance a guide on how to bake with different flours is extremely handy if you wanted to adjust some of the baking recipes to suit what you have on hand. Initially I didn’t have the variety of ingredients Mandy suggests, so adjusted the recipes to use spelt or wheat flour where gluten free was called for, or puffed rice instead of puffed quinoa, and when carob powder is used I’ve just used extra cocoa powder. But because I really like all the recipes and plan to keep cooking them, I’ve been gradually adding to my collection of pantry staples.

My favourite sections include Mandy’s suggestions on dealing with fussy eating, her guide on additives and preservatives, and her thorough guide on sugar which includes an eye opening section on hidden sugars and suggestions on how to curb sugar cravings and swap the worst offenders for healthier, but still tasty, alternatives.

On top of all that, the book is just gorgeous. The rainbow charts, decorative details and vibrant photography make it a pleasure to read through. This is a recipe book that you can immerse yourself in, and I have done this on numerous occasions. I like to sit down with Ash and say “What would you like to make today?” So far he has picked out the veggie platter (that wasn’t a recipe but he liked the picture, pg 47), choc chia pops (pg 89), strawberry milkshake (pg 225), carrot and cinnamon muffins (pg 83) and flaxseed crackers (pg 185).

One of the big successes we had was the Mac ‘n’ Cheese, which I am excited to share the recipe with you.

Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Serves: 4
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 30 min

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Brown Rice Penne
• 1 Cup Cauliflower Florets
• 1 Cup Zucchini, Peeled And Shredded
• 1-2 Tbs Coconut Oil
• ¾ Cup Milk Of Choice
• 1 Tbs Tapioca Flour
• 1 ½ Cups Cheddar Cheese, Shredded
• 1 Tbs Chia Seeds
• Sea Salt And Pepper, To Taste
• 1 Tsp Paprika Powder

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain and set aside.
3. Place cauliflower in a food processor and process until it reaches a rice-like consistency.
4. Heat oil in a large frying pan and sauté cauliflower and zucchini for about 5 mins.
5. In a saucepan, warm ½ cup of milk.
6. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining milk and the flour until there are no lumps. Then whisk this mixture into the warm milk. Continue whisking gently until milk thickens to the consistency of heavy cream.
7. Mix cheese, chia seeds, sautéed cauliflower and zucchini into the milk-flour mixture and season with salt and pepper. For a smoother consistency you can process using a hand held blender.
8. Place the pasta in a casserole dish and pour the cheese and veggie sauce over it. Sprinkle with paprika powder and shredded cheese (optional) and bake in the oven for 30 mins until the top is golden.

Tip: For a school-friendly version, place mixture in mini muffin holders and bake for approximately 25 mins to create mini mac ‘n’ cheese muffins. If your child does not like the sight of seeds, them leave out chia seeds and use chia powder instead.

The post Review: Wholesome Child Cookbook and Nutrition Guide (plus Bonus recipe!) appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Eat Right For Your Shape is a beautiful and easy to read, Ayurvedic food and lifestyle guide by Supercharged Food author Lee Holmes. I have spent a lot of time pouring over this book, and have cooked several recipes from it – loving every one. My favourites so far are the Green Bean Subji and Sweet Potato Hash. Below you will find my review and details on how to win a copy of this book for yourself.

“Even if you only follow Ayurvedic recipes one day a week, see this as a positive change.”

Lee recommends implementing changes at your own pace which is a suggestion I agree with – whenever faced with the idea of a radical diet overhaul I immediately think of all the foods I can’t have, then proceed to stick my head in the sand. Instead of coming at these diet principles from the approach of what you can’t have, think about it more like something that you can do in bits and pieces to suit you.

Lee makes it easy for you to get an idea of your Dosha (constitution/body type) and then choose the right recipes for you with colour coded symbols and helpful summaries. To start with, there is a quiz where you can find your dosha, and then a chapter describing the characteristics of each dosha so you can get to know it, and then a handy graph listing the best foods to eat for each type for easy reference. Not only that, there are meal plans as well.

The meals are also split into seasons and tagged for their appropriate dosha, with suggestions given on how to adjust the recipe for other doshas. I think that one of Lee’s aims is not to provide you a strict list of meals to eat (although there is meal plan for each dosha included), but rather to provide you with guide of what foods will boost your health, and then encourages you to incorporate this as much as is possible for you.

There is also a section explaining intermittent fasting – you might know this as the 5:2 diet – and the practice of this in a traditional Ayurvedic diet. While commonly recommended as a tool for weight loss, Lee also recommends this method of eating as a way to give your digestive system a ‘rest’.

One of the things I love about the way Lee writes is how laid back she is – she suggests just taking on as much as you would like to from her recommendations, and if you have a moment of eating some less health promoting foods, to absolutely NOT feel guilty about it.

But wait, there’s more.

Not only do you get a beautiful guide to eating for your dosha, recipes and meal plans, there’s also a section on incorporating Ayurvedic lifestyle techniques, including yoga, mindful eating and breathing techniques. This book is much more than a recipe book, it is a complete Ayurvedic lifestyle guide. And while there are several Ayurvedic books already published, many could be considered overwhelming, and I am yet to find one quite as pretty as this.

In case you missed it, check out my interview with Lee where we chatted about her trip to India which inspired her recipes for this book and how her eating style has changed over the years. We also chatted about intermittent fasting, some Ayurvedic principles and Lee explains Doshas and how we can balance our health by eating to suit our type.

Eat Right for Your Shape GIVEAWAY

Want to win a copy of Eat Right for Your Shape? Just comment below in 25 words and tell me what your favorite food memory is.

Share the Facebook or Instagram post for extra brownie points.

Competition guidelines

Competition ends Saturday 21st May 2016.

Winners will be announced in my newsletter on Monday 23nd May 2016

Only open to Australian residents.

The winning entry must be subscribed to my newsletter.

The post Book Review – Eat Right for your Shape by Lee Holmes + a GIVEAWAY! appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.