Author Archives: acuplace@gmail.com

About acuplace@gmail.com

Sarah began her studies of holistic health at the National University of Health Sciences in Lombard where she earned a certificate in Therapeutic Massage Therapy in 2003. Sarah continued on her educational journey at the Temple of Kriya Yoga where she earned a 200 hour certificate in Hatha Yoga teacher training. From here Sarah continued on to the Midwest College of Oriental Medicine earning a Bachelor's degree in Nutrition and Master's degree in Oriental Medicine. Sarah also holds an advanced 108 hour certificate in Acupuncture from the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Guangzhou, China where she spent time in specialized lectures on Traditional Chinese Medicine for women’s health, weight loss, MS, strokes and more. Sarah is also an Adjunct Professor and Clinic Supervisor at the College of Lake County Health and Wellness Promotions Program.

St Patrick’s Day Shake (healthy shamrock shake)

There is a recipe floating around facebook from the detoxinista for a healthy version of the shamrock shake. Dr. Scott printed the recipe for patients to take home and told me it tastes just like a mint chocolate chip shake. Did you know there are over 54 ingredients in a Shamrock Shake? That’s nuts! This version is “paleo” and vegan too so if you’ve been missing your shakes because your allergic to dairy or trying to eat better here is a great alternative that doesn’t feel like an alternative. I tried it on Thursday with my mom and oh my goodness was it delicious!

Give this a try and tell me what you think!

What you need: (this makes 3 small shakes)

2 cup almond milk

1/2 avocado, pitted

2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach

2 drops of peppermint essential oil (from here of course) or you can use peppermint extract for a more pepperminty experience add an extra drop or two this is more of a subtle background mint flavor

10-12 soft Medjool dates, pitted

2 handfuls of ice

What you do:

Put all the above ingredients in a high speed blender. Blend until everything is smooth and creamy. If you want sweeter add more dates. Enjoy immediately.

Thanks Detoxinista! (p.s. she has a bunch of other yummy recipes too!)

How to Sprout Lentils

In yogapuncture for Spring we talked about how eating sprouted foods in the spring is a great idea because it mimics exactly what our environment is doing. (want more info? you can purchase March yogapuncture for $15, message me how). Sprouts are packed with nutrition and energy, just what we need in the spring time. Plus they are super easy to do yourself. You can buy a sprout-ing kit but probably have everything you need at home, you don’t need to spend much money to get started.

What you need:

A mason jar or other class container (sprouts will double in size so make sure your container is big enough)

2 cups of water

2/3 cup of lentils or other legume, seed etc

cheese cloth or paper towel (cheese cloth is preferable) I didn’t have any cheese cloth to start so I just used paper towel to cover but the cheese cloth makes it much easier to drain the water without disturbing your lentils.

What you do:

Put your lentils in your mason jar and soak in water over night. Cover with cheese cloth or paper towel don’t put in an air tight container.

After you soak the lentils over night drain the water completely first and then rinse with fresh water and drain again.

sproutlings on day 2

Do this until your lentils sprout to your desired size.

Take your lentils out of the jar and lay out on a towel to pat dry, place in a dry jar with a lid and keep refrigerated.

Eat and enjoy!

Beat a Cold Quick

This was supposed to be posted last week but my computer ate it. Its even more relevant now that we have a break in the cold. A friendly reminder to keep you neck covered if you ditch the jacket this week so you don’t end up getting sick.

I could end this blog pretty quick, beat a cold by not getting yourself run down and then eating sugar.

That’s not usually what happens though does it?

Last week was my daughter’s birthday and I spent 2 days cooking and cleaning for what was meant to be a low key party with the family.

 

There was left over cake to eat. So we did on Sunday night. Monday I had a little at lunch too.

 

When I was leaving work on Monday night the bug that’s been bothering everyone decided to attack. I felt like I got hit by a bus. The sore throat, achy body and chills started almost all at once. I was low on my vitamin D supplement and didn’t feel well enough to grab my needles. So here is what I did.

I drew a bath of the warmest water I could stand and dumped a coffee cup of Epsom salts, bentonite clay and dead sea salts into it. I soaked until I felt nice and warm then I took my time getting out of the tub as many times if I get up too fast I have a tendency to feel dizzy. Once out of the tub I put on layers: sweat pants and a big heavy sweatshirt and fuzzy socks. I gave my husband and daughter a squeeze goodnight and crawled into bed under a big heap of blankets to sleep for the night. Its best to stay under the covers until you sweat to get all the yuck out. It took a while before I felt warm enough to peak a toe out from under the covers but I slept all bundled up for the night. When I woke the next morning most of my symptoms except for fatigue were all but gone.

 

Lucky for me I had the next day off to rest and load up on my usual cold go-too’s. Thieves in the diffuser. Chinese Herbs, Yin Qiao which rocks for a sore throat. Loaded up on my vitamins, extra fluids, and rest. This has been my (knock on wood) only cold all winter and I was able to kick it super fast.

 

Never under estimate a warm bath and rest to the rescue! (also never under estimate how sugar can knock down your immune system)

 

Stay healthy my friends. 🙂

Green Lentil Curry

This is another great recipe with a foundation of spleen foods with a balance of winter and spring goodies to keep your body nourished, full and healthy. The inspiration comes from the shrinking kitchen, here is what I came up with.

what you need:

3 small yellow potatoes, cubed

1/2 cup green lentils, rinsed well

4 cups water

2 cups of cauliflower

1 yellow squash

1 small eggplant, cubed

1 medium carrot, slices

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon tumeric (eyeballed)

4 large cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon dried chili powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 c chopped cilantro

One small piece of ginger root

What you do:

Rinse lentils and then put into large stockpot with water and bring to boil over medium high heat.

Add potatoes and carrot to lentils, simmer uncovered for 5 minutes

Add cauliflower, squash, eggplant, salt and tumeric.

Return to a boil, cover and then turn to low to simmer for 10 minutes or until veggies are tender. Stir a few times.

Meanwhile add chopped garlic, ginger, cumin and chili paste to coconut oil until carmelized.

 

Add cornstarch into veggie lentil mix to thicken juices and turn eat up high for 1-2 minutes.

Add in carmelized garlic ginger paste and cilantro and stir to combine.

 

Hardy enough to eat alone or add to quinoa, rice or cauliflower “rice”.

Natural Remedy for Cellulite

A few years ago I was on a cruise and treated myself to a “burrito wrap”, body wrap spa treatment. The experience taught me alot. Part of the procedure was having the therapist dry brush my body before applying the clay. She was trying to sell me on a $50 brush to cure my “cellulite”. I didn’t buy it but I did look into what dry brushing was all about (and bought a dry brush at Wal-Mart for $4 when I got home).

I never got completely into the dry brush routine and had all but forgotten about it until several weeks ago. This crazy winter has been giving me dry skin and I thought I’d give the dry brush a go and see if it would help. Its been feeling quite amazing. The dry brushing helps to rev up circulation and feels quite invigorating. Other benefits include opening the pores, glowing skin, tighter skin, reduction in cellulite. Dry brushing can also aid digestion and kidney function. It seems to put me in a better mood too.

Its best to do when your skin is dry. (I usually do before a nice hot shower) You can do twice a day if you like or remember (I’m not usually that good about remembering) 🙂

Make long brush strokes up towards to the heart to promote proper circulation.

If your goal is getting rid of cellulite after dry brushing and shower massage some citrus fresh essential oil blend over the affected area and cover with coconut oil to seal in the blend. Order your citrus fresh here!

Enjoy!

 

Sneaky Cheesy Taco Macaroni

I recently came across The Shrinking Kitchen. If you are sick of cooking the same old things every week this site has some great meal plans and a printable grocery list. This was the first recipe I tried from the site and I already have plans to alter it a little more but I think this would be an awesome introduction meal for a child who is a picky eater or who won’t eat veggies. I thought it would be a perfect meal for my niece who says we only have “garbage” to eat at our house 🙂

The black beans are nourishing to the kidneys and the butternut squash and spices aid the spleen making it a good meal for these cold days as well as a meal to transition from winter to spring.

Here it the original recipe. Below are my adaptations and I share a few hints at the end too.

What you need:

1 pound of organic ground beef

1 can of black beans, drained (I would have added 2 if I had an extra)

1 can of diced tomatoes with chiles with juice (same as beans)

4 cups of water

4 cups brown rice penne pasta

DIY taco seasoning, thanks Mavis this is basically me throwing sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, oregano, cumin, and Chile coban and paprika onto everything 🙂

1.5 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoon flour

2 cups cubed butternut squash

1 1/2 cup whole milk

1 1/2 cup shredded mexican blend cheese

seasoning salt, pepper to taste

What you do:

In a stock pot brown meat over medium high heat. Add beans, tomatoes, spices, and water and bring to a boil. Add pasta, cover, and reduce heat to low. Let cook until most of juices are cooked down. In the mean time melt butter in a space sauce pan. Whisk in flour until lumps are gone. Add milk and bring to rolling boil stirring constantly. Add squash and cook until tender. Add cheese and stir until well blended and melted. Transfer to a blender to smooth. When pasta is cooked stir cheese sauce into pasta and serve. We topped with some avocado.

* As I was cooking I thought ditching the milk and adding a mix of cauliflower puree and chicken stock instead would be nice as we don’t normally have milk in the house. I also think you could ditch pasta altogether and use spaghetti squash instead and it would be just as lovely and even better for the spleen. If you get to it before me let me know how it turns out!

Apple Test Results

The results of the apple test are in. If a picture is worth a thousand words I wonder what the smell of an apple is worth? The pictures do the apples justice but the smells of each apple were most striking to me.

Apple Test Before and After
Apple and Water before and after:
Apple and Trader Joe’s Vitamin before and after:
***This one didn’t turn black which I found interesting according to Tyanna, she has never not seen the other apples go black(GNC, Walgreen generic, centrum). What was striking about this apple is that it smelled the worst, rancid.
Apple and Shaklee Vitamin before and after:

Pretty shocking eh? I didn’t even want to touch this one to throw it in the garbage. yuck.
Apple and Usana Vitamin before and after:
You can see from the picture that the apple still looks pretty good. Again the most striking thing about this apple to me was the smell. It smelled like it has just been sliced crisp and fresh and the feel of the apple was still firm when I threw it away.

 

*** I consulted with Tyanna at the end of the apple test. She normally leaves the containers open and lets the apples oxidate. The vitamins dissolve and the apples change in 6-12 hours. I kept my containers sealed so I don’t know if that would have changed the results at all perhaps the apple in water would have been more brownish like it normally turns after sitting out for awhile.

Let me know what you think. If anyone does an apple test with their own vitamins please let me know how it goes.

Apple Test

One 1/7/2010 I started my own apple test experiment to share as a follow up to the blog Do You Know What Is In Your Vitamins? For those of you curious as to what the apple test would look like but too lazy to do it yourself. Check back tomorrow to see the results.

I’ve seen the apple test presentation before but wanted to see if for myself. (I always did love science expirements.)

I started with 2 apples and 4 tuperware containers. An apple half is floating in regular tap water in each of the containers.


The first is simply an apple and water. This is meant to represent the normal dealth and decay of the aging process of our cells.

The second is apple, water, and trader joe’s men multi vitamin formula. (it was laying around) This is probably just slightly better then pharmacy and generic brand vitamins. You know the cheap ones that you’re probably buying because a vitamin is just a vitamin right?

The third is apple, water, and Shaklee multi vitamin + iron (again it was laying around) Shaklee is known for having an above average quality.

The fourth is apple, water and Usana Mega Antioxidant. This is half of Usana Essentials that I take every morning. Usana uses a binding agent to keep their vitamins together made of olive oil called Olivol.
Supposedly Usana will help keep the apple from turning brown for longer than any of the others. We’ll see what happens next.

Do you know what are in your vitamins?

Several years ago I posted a question on Facebook to see who was taking vitamins, what people were taking, and what brands people were using. My partner at the time and I were doing research as to what brand we wanted to endorse and that had the best quality and value for our patients.

As we met with various reps of different supplement companies I learned one thing: everyone has the best vitamins on the market. As we poured over research data and stats and catalogs we went back to the simplest way to know if a product is worthy. We started using the vitamin samples left behind by all those reps.

I’m not going to lie, in the past I was not a very good supplement taker myself. At least I didn’t used to be but we’ll get to that. In many circles there is still controversy over the need to take vitamins. Some people feel they are a waste of time and all of those nutrients should be received from the foods we eat. Which in theory is good but who eats fresh fruits and vegetables everyday? Others argue that our soil is so depleted that vitamins are a necessity for health. Still others are starting to take note of vitamin deficiencies and their relation to certain ailments. (for example did you know if you have pain conditions many times a part of the culpret is a vitamin B deficincy?) Anyways I started taking Shaklee vitamins. They had a good reputation, they had research backing them, and as always, I wanted to see for myself. The result was I didn’t really feel much of anything. I went on to another brand, this one was a powder that I mixed with water called isotonix. The result, a big sticky mess. Again I didn’t feel much during the process of taking them as directed or after I stopped.

Now I was starting to get discouraged thinking that maybe vitamins weren’t really all that big of deal and I should just stick with Chinese herbs and call it a day. I might have if it weren’t for my background in nutrition. It was around this time that I met Tyanna Cannata of Usana vitamins doing a presentation on her vitamins. She had some great information to share that I will now pass onto you.

First, the label on your vitamins that tells you what percentage of your daily requirements are in your vitamins tells only half the story, actually more like 20%. Vitamin companies are only required by law to put 20% of what the label actually says is in each pill in the entire bottle. 20%! No wonder I wasn’t feeling anything with these vitamins. There might not have been anything in them to feel. Second, most companies use byproducts of petrochemicals (think about scraps after making a tire) as binders to keep the vitamins together in a pill form. I don’t know about you but that is pretty gross. What’s worse is that Tyanna had a visual of all of this. She calls it the apple test.

In three seperate jars there contained half of an apple soaking in water. The first jar had a regular old apple in water. This represented the natural aging process. The apple was starting to turn brown as apples do when they’ve been out for awhile. The second jar had an apple in water with a Centrum complete vitamin. This apple was floating in murky blackish gray water and the apple itself was blackish gray. This was a demonstation of the “additives” that the body absorbs when taking a vitamin that is not up to par and what it is doing to your body. The last jar held an apple floating in water with a usana vitamin. The apple had not turned brown, instead it looked as if it had just been cut. This represented using a vitamin with actual vitamins in it and how it can slow down the aging process and keep your cells healthy.

You might think big deal, so what, who cares about apples? Me too. I was more intrigued by the results Kara was feeling on the vitamins. She was reporting having more energy to get more things done (she has 2 kids 1 who still doesn’t sleep through the night and owns a business) and having 3 bowel movements a day and on and on. I went through my last round of trials myself, this time with Usana. I started to notice my energy levels pick up. It occured to me when it was midnight and I was laying in bed while Christian slept watching tv not because I was restless and couldn’t sleep but because I wasn’t tired. What was even more surprising is that I was waking up in the morning with the sun shine during the fall without an alarm clock because I wanted to not because I had to. Getting up in the morning has always been a struggle for me, to say the least.

When we sold that practice in 2011, I left Usana with it. I became pregnant and started taking a brand from Whole Foods thinking it was probably just as good and also because usana did not at the time have a prenatal vitamin. Kara became pregnant shortly after and had her own version of the apple test with Rainbow vitamins when she dropped one and absentmindedly threw it into the toilet. After coming home from work she noted her toilet bowl was black and flushing didn’t take it away. It took several tries of scrubbing to get the film off the bowl. She quickly switched back to Usana. At almost the same time my husband said he really missed taking his vitamins. We’ve been back to taking them ever since and have noticed this year in the midst of sickies all over that an extra boost of vitamins added to our healthcare routine has make a huge impact in not getting sick this winter.

Vitamins are rated on a star scale 0-5. 5 star having the best potentancy and purity.

Lyle MacWilliam MSc, FP has published a great book called NUTRISEARCH COMPARATIVE GUIDE TO NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS it contains over 1500 products available in the US and Canada. You can find this book just about anywhere, Barnes and Noble, Amazon etc.

Below are the ratings for the vitamins mentioned above taken for this book.

Shaklee = 1 star

Isotonix = 2 stars

Centrum = 0 stars

Usana = 5 stars

Now I know what its like to take vitamins with vitamins inside of them. It makes a difference to me. But don’t take my word for it, try it yourself or try the apple test. Stay tuned for pictures of my apple test in the next blog.

See if you are as healthy as you feel and take the true health assessment.