Light Therapy For Hormone Health

I felt this post was timely as it's always this time of year that people feel down and sluggish and just, well, fed up.  When you look at the reasons why, it's not so hard to understand. The run up to Christmas and New Year brings so much excitement, busyness, anticipation, celebration and, on the day, (hopefully) fun and enjoyment, that when it's suddenly all over and you have to once again face the daily grind, it takes a while for the cogs to shift gear. The new year also brings a time to reflect on where you are and what you want to accomplish, and if you feel anything less than motivated and inspired, you may even start to feel like you're failing in some way. Add to all this that Valentine's is around the corner I wanted to give people who aren't feeling so excited (read: pi**ed off with life) something else to think about. So, show yourself a little love this Valentine's weekend, and read this post!

There's A Liiiiiight.....(Over at the frankenstein's place......)

There's a big factor concerning light at this time of year that few people recognise or pay attention to. Most people will have accumulated a little bit of a tan during the summer and the purpose of this is to store vitamin D for the winter, but by the time early February rolls round, that bit of a tan is well and truly gone (unless you're a sunbedder) and vitamin D levels will be very low (unless you eat a significant amount of fish or liver, or take your vitamin D3 with K2 like a good girl/boy).

It's important to realise that lighting in the winter can and does affect your vitamin D levels, which of course affects your mood due to its role in serotonin production. The low levels of vitamin D can lead to SAD (seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression that occurs mainly during the winter months in the Northern parts of the globe when sunlight weakens significantly and days are short). But it also affects many other aspects of hormone health, which is what I want to talk about today.

Growing Awareness Of The Influence Of Light On The Body

I'm pretty certain most people are aware at some level these days about how lighting can affect us. Perhaps you've been told to turn off electronics an hour before bed, or to get as much natural light during the day possible, or perhaps even that you need to use a light box in the winter to combat SAD.

These tips; while useful; are a far cry from the whole story, which I couldn't even get into here in its entirety. Even I thought I knew a lot about lighting for health until I started to really delve into it and experiment on myself. The effects I experienced within just a few days of serious light therapy (which was NOT hard, by the way) were amazing. But I'll get to that in a minute, first I want to give you the low down on how lighting affects your hormones and how you can control it to heal your hormones, especially if you are a woman.

The Circadian Rhythm

Our bodies are designed to awaken with the breaking dawn and start winding down for sleep soon after sundown, with cortisol (commonly known as the stress hormone, but which also has many other roles in the body) highest in the morning and lowest at night - this is part of what makes up the circadian rhythm and essentially what makes us diurnal creatures. Receptors in our eyes and skin utilise the natural lighting of the world around us to balance our circadian rhythm and keep our entire hormonal system in balance. But the world we live in now is, for all intents and purposes, an alien planet to our DNA. We do not live primarily outdoors any more, we have lights on all the time right up until we switch off for bed, we do not even notice the moon and we certainly don't sleep with the curtains open.

Another big factor of the role of light/dark in our lives is its impact on melatonin production. Anyone reading this taking melatonin as a sleep aid? Did you know that supplementing with pharmacological melatonin does little more than make you sleepy in the day? Melatonin is primarily produced in the gut - yes the gut! - with an extra spurt from the pineal gland up in the brain in the evenings in response to a darkening environment. Melatonin has other important functions in the body than simply making you feel sleepy at night, such as its role in the regulation of the digestive tract, and its healing qualities there, but supplementing with melatonin may increase your levels too much and leave you feeling sleepy and sluggish the next day. Not exactly a recipe for happiness.

One of the ways to get good sleep at night (as well as help to wake you up in the morning without caffeine, balance your hormones and improve your overall health) is to use a UV lamp; or those sexy new goggles; for about half an hour every morning as soon as you get up. This, along with a good half hour's outdoor daylight exposure in the early afternoon, using orange tinted glasses or strictly candle light after dark every evening, and avoiding electronics for at least an hour before bed will really help to reset your body clock and get you feeling better and sleeping better. If you were to couple that half hour outside with a brisk walk or even a game of ball with the kids, you'd sleep even better. Ask me how I know this ;-)

On the topic of exercise, do avoid sitting for more than 45mins at a time without getting up for a stretch, a quick nip to the loo or a cuppa (decaff) tea, as it's now known that sitting for long periods drastically reduces your life span. Yes you read that right. We were designed to be moving all day, one by product of which is that you would need your sleep and would sleep deeply while your body heals itself. An hour of intense cardio a day, as is commonly touted as a cure-all for the obesity epidemic, does not make up for a day of sitting on your butt and is actually very bad for you. It raises cortisol (not good if you do your workout after work in the evening) because it is very stressful on the body which raises blood sugar levels and makes you store more fat. Conventional "wisdom" for you.

Image courtesy of Jeyjoo.com (I have never taken a successful photo of the moon!)

Lunaception for Female Hormonal Health

There's another element that really made a difference to my hormonal health and I'm not the best person to explain it. Lauren Geertsen from +EmpoweredSustenance wrote a fantastic post on the topic of Lunaception and I highly recommend reading it and following her guidelines. It basically explains that aligning your menstrual cycle with the moon phases is very effective for balancing hormones naturally and simply. Most women are designed to ovulate with the full moon and bleed with the new moon (though there are some ladies who experience the complete opposite). By lighting your bedroom at night for the three nights of the full moon, or leaving your curtains open if the moon shines into your window and there isn't significant cloud cover, and then sleeping in the pitch black for the rest of the month, your body slowly shifts your hormonal production until you are aligned with the moon.

It does sound completely hippy-dippy but within three months I was ovulating with the full moon, and I experienced almost no PMS symptoms at all. On the second month my period was delayed by a full 6 days, which brought me to within 2 days of the new moon.  I also noticed a slightly shorter bleed time. The paleo diet and high dose starflower oil supplementation did me a lot of favours in that department, but this simple technique has eradicated the lingering urge to bicker and cry and beat people up the week before my period. Hallelujah! Even if it is a placebo effect (not likely, but lets be cynical for a moment) it's worked for me and many more women and what's the harm in trying it out? Only your other half need know about your experiment ;-)

So what does all this have to do with feeling blue? Well melatonin factors into many biological processes but you can't be happy if you're tired and wired, and certainly not if you're hormonal, so if you get your sleep sorted out, guess what? You're going to feel a helluva lot happier and healthier as a result! The entire hormonal system is very complex and it would take ages to cover it completely, but suffice to say, if you want to be happy you need to be healthy and it's the same the other way around. So, look after your melatonin production - get to bed by 10-11pm, wear your funky orange glasses at night, use your UV light while you're doing your hair and make up (or reading the paper, men) - and otherwise generally follow a paleo lifestyle. Good movement, eating, sleeping and playing habits are what make for a healthy, happy and fulfilling life!

Detoxifying Sparkly Bath Bombs!

Detoxifying Bath Bombs

For Christmas this year I gave a few of my lady loved ones some bath bombs to go along with the little gifts the kids made during our attempt at a Cost-Free Christmas (I'll do a special on that one in the run up to the festive season next year ;-) They were well received, looked and smelled heavenly and even the kids got a few little ones each since they love them just as much. There was one left, all on its own, by the time I'd wrapped up the others as gifts and I kept it all for myself. Trouble was, when I used it the other night, after a hectic week of being back on the homeschooling ball, I realised that I needed to make more. Lots more! 

The combination of beautiful scent, sparkly fizzing water, moisturising cocoa butter and candle light, as well as knowing how much good Epsom salts does the body, makes this an affordable and necessary indulgence! Honestly, once you see how few ingredients you need to make a batch of these babies, and see how cost effective the ingredients are, you will find yourself with your very own large-bags-of-possibly-suspect-looking-white-powders problem :-) 

Though very expensive to buy, bathbombs are cheap to make, not difficult at all (though it can be tricky getting the moisture content right - more about that below) and you can make many in a relatively short space of time. Making them yourself also means you can keep a careful eye on the ingredients; sodium laureth/laurel sulphate is NOT good for you at all, and bath bombs already fizz, so why do you need bubbles as well? And don't get me started on synthetic fragrances, which are highly allergenic and often just totally overpowering. Anyone walked past that large name branded soap store and feel attacked by the smell? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yuck; pass.

For the sake of Christmas I coloured these with a little food colouring; not entirely natural but the concentration once diluted in the bath would be so small I figured it was okay for the small gift of three bombs per person I gave out. Chances are they'd likely use one a month (maybe even less) so I consoled myself with that and rejoiced in how pretty they turned out. The addition of edible sparkles was purely extravagant, but made all the difference between a simple homemade gift and one that was really special. 

Unfortunately I didn't get many photos as you have to work quite quickly once you start incorporating the liquids but I've given as much detail in the method below that you should be able to find your way through the fairly simple process. 

If you are making these just for yourself and your family, you can feel free to omit the colour and sparkles entirely; the rest of the ingredients are what make it good for you and smell so good; in all honesty the colour and sparkles just stick to the side of the bath once the cocoa butter has dissolved into the water (and the sparkles stick to you once you get out, even after you towel off ha ha!) But if you are planning to make these as a special gift, I do recommend the colour and sparkles, it makes it really special. You could also include some homemade dipped beeswax candles if you're so inclined; I'll be doing a post about them next time, along with how lighting affects your hormones and how to manipulate light to heal your body.

So, who could you give these to? 

Well, besides the obvious choices such as girl friends, mothers, sisters, aunts, and so on, you'd be surprised to learn that many men are not averse to bath products! For a man who does a lot of manual labour or works out a lot, these are a great gift, as Epsom salts are wonderfully soothing for aching muscles - use a blend of orange, lavender, peppermint and black pepper essential oils to uplift the spirits, unwind the mind, and loosen the muscles; adding a tablespoon or two of cayenne pepper will give it natural colour and generate more heat to ease stiff muscles and joints too. If you feel pretty certain the man you have in mind would NOT like a pack of bath bombs, skip the moulding stage (and the glitter) and simply provide him with a big jar full of the salts mixture and directions to add one to two cups of salts to a hot bath. If you still want it to fizz, make sure the jar you supply is air tight and preferably not glass if it is to be stored in the bathroom.

You may be wondering why these are called detoxifying bath bombs - well the secret is in the Epsom salts. But I'm not the best person to tell you about this; here's a great article for you which includes the hows and whys as well as contraindications that you should be aware of, such as pregnancy, dehydration, and cardiovascular disease, in which case I recommend you check with a doctor just in case. The smaller amounts of Epsom salts in a bath bomb made up as per my recipe should be ok, but please check first!

The addition of the green clay also helps to pull toxins from the body - like a face mask. You can add more than I suggest in the recipe if you want to, but no more than about a quarter cup as it may affect the fizzing action of the bombs and you may need more moisture to bind them together. I only had about a tablespoon left in my apothecary stash so I used it up in these.

I add a cupful of Epsom salts to the bath every time I bath, and sometimes a cupful of apple cider vinegar as well, for the minerals, the magnesium and the detoxing effect. The amount of Epsom salt in one bath bomb is admittedly not quite enough to give you a thorough detoxing, but, if used regularly alongside a healthy lifestyle with plenty of daily movement, deep breathing, sleep, minimal alcohol and processed foods, they go a good ways to gently transporting out of your body the natural build up of toxins in the lymph system. I do find that I get a bit thirsty afterwards, so have some good clean filtered water or chamomile tea ready for after the bath. If you choose to add more Epsom salts to the bath along with the bomb, I'd recommend going to bed straight after - it can leave you feeling a bit heavy and tired, but you'll feel great the next day. 

So without further ado, here's the recipe!

Detoxing Sparkly Bath Bombs

Gather together:

• Large bowl (and smaller bowls if making different colours)
• 2 cups bicarbonate of soda/ sodium bicarbonate / baking soda 
• 2 cups Epsom salts
• 1 cup citric acid (I get all of my bicarb, Epsom salts and citric acid from this garden supply store)
• A small spray bottle filled with witch hazel or mineral water (witch hazel is better as it's less likely to make the bombs react ahead of time, you can find it at your local pharmacy) and an optional tablespoon of rosewater which you can get in the baking aisle at the supermarket. I made up an infusion of horsetail and comfrey leaf for mine as they are good for the skin, get them here.
• 1 tablespoon of French green clay (I get mine here)
• 3 tablespoons, approximately 15g, of finely grated cocoa butter (a microplane works well for this!)
• Essential oils of choice - I used 12 drops of Ylang Ylang, 9 drops of geranium, 18 drops of tincture of Benzoin (if yours is very thick it can be useful to warm it slightly by wrapping it in a warm cloth for a few minutes), 6 drops of frankincense and 15 drops of grapefruit - please check for safety of the oils you intend to use, especially if the person you are giving it to has any health conditions or is pregnant or nursing. I get my essential oils and cocoa butter here; cost effective as well as being good quality with great service.
• Optional - food colours, edible glitters and any additions of your choice such as dried flowers, herbs or spices (cinnamon, cayenne pepper, turmeric etc can give a nice scent/warming action/yellow tint respectively). I was going to add some little jasmine flowers but decided not to in the end, they can clog up the drain, so consider that before you use anything bigger than individual petals.
• Whisk
• A mould of some description - I recommend using a proper bomb mould if you can, but if you don't have one (or six, you can find them easily on ebay or online, but they can be pricey) you most likely have something around the house that will work. I used some silicon cupcake moulds, dedicated to soap making, inside a muffin tin. But I warn you, if this is your first attempt I do not recommend using silicon moulds as the mixture needs to be really well packed which is difficult with a mould that gives. Simply using a muffin tin would work well, as the bombs come out easily if they were packed tightly enough, but a large tray can be unwieldy. 
• Other mould possibilities - ice cube trays, chocolate moulds, trimmed down yogurt pots, shot glasses, etc - anything that has smooth sides (or only vertical ridges), is wider at the top than the bottom and is sturdy enough to withstand pressure and being banged on the counter!
• Gloves if you have sensitive skin - citric acid can be irritating. When I had eczema on my hands really badly, I had to use gloves, but now my eczema is gone I find I don't have any problems handling the citric acid. 

Let's start!

Blend the powders (aside from the sparkles) and grated cocoa butter into a large bowl. If you are making more than one colour, divide your mixture now.

Add your colours and sparkles if using and blend well after each addition - only add a few drops of colour at a time and whisk thoroughly in between.

Add essential oils if you are using, one variety at a time, and no more than 6 drops at a time, whisking well after each addition.

If you have used a fair bit of colour and essential oils you may find that the mixture is starting to resemble damp sand already. Scrunch a bit in your palm tightly and if it holds its shape well, especially if it does when you drop it into the bowl, then you probably don't need to add any more moisture.

This is the tricky part - you have to get it just; just; damp. If it is too damp it will expand due to some reaction taking place prematurely, but if it is too dry it may be too crumbly to hold together. I will say this though, my bath bombs usually expand a little; English climate is just too damp to be able to get this 100% right on any occasion except maybe the warmest summer day; but they do still work beautifully and as long as you haven't majorly over-dampened yours, they shouldn't expand too much and should still fizz exuberantly in the bath. Trust me ;-)

So what you want to do now is spray two or three sprays at a time of the liquid into the bowl and then whisk thoroughly and test after each addition. Test it by clamping it into your palm. If it holds its shape but falls to bits when you dump it back into the bowl, it's a little too dry still but nearly there. When it holds it shape both in your palm and keeps intact mostly when you dump it back into the bowl, you can start moulding. Trust yourself - it may still feel pretty dry, but don't be tempted to add more moisture. If you really aren't sure, you can always mould one, bang it out of the mould and see if it holds together. If it does (and doesn't start to expand a little) you have created a perfect mixture! Well done! If it does crumble a little you may need to add just one or two sprays more. If it starts to expand a bit immediately you may have over-done it a tad, but unless the whole lot starts fizzing you should still be able to make usable bombs.

Pack the mixture into your moulds as tightly as you can. Add a good mound of mixture to the mould and compress it fairly lightly with your fingers or a spoon until you can see if it needs more or not; if it does, add some more before you compress it all the way down otherwise it may separate at the join when you tap it out. Keep adding more until you're fairly certain there's enough in the mould and then really give it some elbow grease. It needs to be compressed enough to withstand a hard bang on the counter to remove it without falling to bits. If you're making layered bombs with your different colours, follow the same method just switching between your colours as you fill your mould. If you are using a muffin tray on its own, do one bomb first, follow the next step to remove it and make sure it's holding together well before you go on and fill all the cups. If you are using silicon moulds I recommend drying them in the moulds and then gently peeling the moulds off the bombs once completely dry - about 24-48 hours later.

Now, once you have moulded your bombs, you should have no problem getting them out by turning them over and giving them a sharp bang into a cloth-lined counter top. They should just pop right out and be sitting pretty when you lift your tray. If you have a single mould such as a sphere or egg shape which is common, you will have to unmould after each one. I made some egg shaped ones a couple of years ago with a friend and we found the best way to get them out was to carefully squeeze the pointy ends of one side of the mould to release it from the bomb and then turn it over onto our hand and do the same for the other side. I imagine a similar method would work for spheres though I haven't tried them. If anyone knows of a good method be sure to leave us a comment!

If your mix is expanding a wee bit, and you have used a shaped mould that you want to keep it's shape and not lose any definition, you can dry your bombs in the mould - provided you have enough moulds to get the rest done while you're waiting. You can't dilly dally once you've reached this point, one must forge ahead! If it turns out your bombs are just not pretty enough to give away after all, console yourself that you won't care when they're in your tub! Then, with your new-found knowledge and experience you can whip up another batch, knowing exactly what you're looking for in the texture and make perfect ones to give away the second time round, yes?

The possibilities are pretty endless with these; you can add so many lovely things like the flower petals, herbs and spices mentioned, or make so many pretty varieties such as snow white ones with some silver glitter or layered pink, green and yellow for Easter, pink ones with rose petals for Valentine's day, lilac ones with lavender flowers for Mother's day and so on and so forth! Be creative and experiment to your heart's content. Be warned though, making these can be pretty addictive - as can soap making - do not attempt it if you don't want to be consumed by a sudden new passion!

Happy making ;-)

Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls

Happy New Year!!!! 

2016 is when it's all going to happen, you'll see. The year of the Monkey is coming swiftly a upon us and is bringing with him the energy and wisdom to really make a good go of things this year. I have written my goals for this year, planned the whole year's worth of blog posts and Etsy makes and I'm nearly done planning our home education topic for the next couple of months - Space! But first things first, we need a detox from all that Christmas food...

Hands up who's done a bit of over indulging the last few weeks? (Mine is raised...)

If you're anything like us, you need a healthy alternative to get back on track after a (semi) controlled binge, such as over Christmas. I actually made these chocolate chip cookie balls for Christmas but they are so good I just had to make them again; albeit a bit healthier this time; to help us recover from the sugar addiction that the festive season can reignite. I made them with organic unrefined cane sugar and milk chocolate chips for Christmas, but this time I made them with honey and dark chocolate chips instead and I preferred them to the first batch. Unfortunately I did not take great photos (we were in a rush to get to the in-law's for Christmas) and I didn't do a chocolate drizzle on the current batch. Ho hum...one of my resolutions is to learn to use my camera more effectively and take better photos :-)

We are normally a family of snackers, so it's important to have healthy alternatives around, especially during a time when familial and friendly peer-pressure can get pretty high. But the standard options of fruit, nuts, plaintain crisps and sometimes little cupcakes aren't quite enough at times like this. We need hardcore paleo snacks to help forget the taste of the not-even-remotely-paleo-but-at-least-grain-free cheesecakes, triple chocolate mousses, potato crisps, ice cream, chocolates and alcohol that saturated our Christmas-to-New-Year week.

These little cookie balls are crisp and crunchy, delicately sweet, nutty and the little bursts of chocolate throughout create a very un-paleo taste experience. On the auto-immune paleo diet these are not allowed, but I did eat quite a few as they are egg-free (eggs are one of my few-remaining immediate triggers), not to mention a fair amount of the other above-mentioned naughties. But seriously, who can resist something as gorgeous as a CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE BALL?!?! Especially when delicately sat in a tiny pink petit four case... sigh... And I do believe that a little bit of what you fancy does you good. Unless you're a big time sugar addict or in the very early stages of the auto-immune protocol, in which case I completely retract that statement. But honestly, even my husband who doesn't care much for paleo alternatives to most things (to him it's the real deal or nothing... I hang my head in despair) agreed that they were pretty good. Result!

Along with the auto-immune paleo currant cakes that I adore toasted, with ghee spread on top (recipe coming soon!) these are a saving grace when the kids are begging for more sweets and I've ditched the last of it. One day I'll get around to using my pure liquorice extract sticks to make some of the jelly sweets I used to make; it'll probably be the closest I'll get to the liquorice sweets I've loved since childhood but have yet to find a healthy version of. When I do conjure them up in the Apothecary kitchen I'll be sure to fill you in ;-)

So without further ado, here they are!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls

Egg free, grain free, refined sugar free and can be dairy free

Combine the following dry ingredients in a bowl:

150g Ground almonds
1/2 cup arrowroot flour
1 tbs gelatine
3 tbs coconut flour
Pinch salt
1 tsp each of cinnamon and allspice (optional - gives a Christmassy taste, especially if you use orange extract instead of the vanilla)

Melt 130mls of butter, ghee or coconut oil slowly over a low heat and stir in 1/4cup of honey or 1/3 cup maple syrup till thoroughly combined.
Add 1tsp of vanilla or orange extract

Mix butter/honey mixture into the dry ingredients until well combined and then add 100g of the very best dark chocolate chips you can get your hands on. If nothing else I try to get fairly traded varieties.

Carefully compress small palmfuls and roll into little balls before placing into petit four cases on a cookie sheet or, if you don't have cases, just place onto a wax paper-lined cookie sheet. They do not spread out or change shape in any way so you can pack them quite closely together, as long as they have about a centimetre between them to allow even cooking.

Bake at 180C (or 160C in a fan oven) for about 10-15 mins, checking often after about 8 minutes as they brown quickly once they start to. When they are just golden on top remove from the oven and cool on the tray. At this point they become fair game to any passers by so be careful to keep them somewhere out of sight until you're ready to drizzle some more dark chocolate on the top, which I highly recommend. I'm not a bad influence... your arm is just flexible :-)

Give these babies a whirl and you won't be sorry. And if you find a way to make them better, let us know! Experimentation is the spice of life. Have a great January!

Make Your Own Grass-Fed Ghee

Condolences, Paris

On a sombre note to begin with I just want to give a shout out to everyone affected by the recent Parisian attacks, my heart aches for you all. I don't generally follow the news, but it's hard to be on the internet without seeing something related to it. It's terrible and frighteningly close to home. Politics holds no interest for me, but I wish so much that this conflict could be resolved. There's no good outcome from a war. Period. Who even knows what they're still fighting over? I've never understood it and probably never will. I'll stick to trying to help people instead, thanks.

Back On Home Ground

I am now firmly back on the Auto Immune Protocol/Paleo diet (AIP) as I've been feeling a bit more rubbish every day with all the new introductions I've made over the past few months (and some for the last year, yikes!), such as raw dairy kefir, red wine, coffee, salad  (chocolate comes from a plant but is not salad...chocolate comes from a plant but is not salad...), a trial run of buckwheat, vitamin E capsules I have since discovered are derived from corn, and more potato crisps than I care to admit... All of which; along with the stress of buying/selling house, impending Christmas, homeschooling, website development, less than optimal sleep and general life-sustaining duties; have clearly made a large impact on my health in that amazingly insidious fashion it does. One day you're okay enough to get through the day, the next you're unable to get out of bed... Sorry thyroid, I'll do better from now on, honestly.

So for the last two weeks I've been very strictly following the AIP and not touching even traces of the offending foods known to exacerbate autoimmunity through its interaction with the gut lining and hence the immune system. I am feeling much better already and I'm now really grateful that I never totally went off the diet, but just slipped a little over the last year or two. Don't get me wrong, that little-but-often slippage is more that enough for someone with autoimmune disease to degrade their health substantially; I certainly don't advocate it and I've learned the hard way that "occasionally" should be just that - special occasions like birthdays and Christmas - not once a week. Learn from my mistakes: don't heal your body enough to feel better and then jump off the wagon. Stay on the wagon, heal properly and completely, then once you've reintroduced the core foods you can start enjoying the occasional forbidden foods. Autoimmunity never goes away, but you can control it and stay symptom free if you can accept in your heart and soul that it's better to be without certain foods than to live in pain and discomfort.

I think I recommend this book, "The Paleo Approach" by Dr. Sarah Ballantyne in every one of my posts (to the point I decided to add an Amazon link with it in the sidebar for you!), but honestly it really is the only thing that has helped me and is what I turn back to every time I have any problems or I'm unsure of a particular food. I also bought the paperback copy despite having it on kindle as it is such a tome of information with such awesome diagrams to explain things that the kindle edition just doesn't do it justice. If you can afford the physical version right out of the gate, I highly recommend it.

I Can't Be Without You, Butter...

As all forms of dairy - even raw, grass-fed fermented forms and butter - are off the list for at least the first three months I decided it was time to learn to make ghee. I would go back to just coconut oil as my main fat source but honestly, butterfat is just too good to pass up, not only the taste but also for its nutritional value and hormone balancing properties (which I know my body needs especially at the moment). I have no desire (or time) to reinvent the wheel - and why should I when someone else has done such a fantastic job and deserves the recognition? - so here's a post by Lauren Geertsen of +Empowered Sustenance on why grass-fed butter and ghee are superfoods.

To give you a hint, the butterfat that comprises ghee, or clarified butter, is so full of vitamins and minerals that it's surpassed by only a handful of foods such as liver. It's also the most valuable source of vitamin K2, something Dr. Weston A. Price called "activator X" as it's necessary for the utilisation of vitamin D which keeps teeth and bones healthy. But here's the catch, only grass-fed butter contains this important vitamin, so it really is vital to get the very best butter you can. Ghee is fantastic for even really high heat cooking as it's very stable. Melt a dollop with your veggies before serving... Heaven...

So without further ado, here's how to make the most simple and cost effective (to my knowledge!) grass-fed clarified butter or ghee. If your butter costs you £1.60, assuming you don't need to buy any of the items you'll need to make this the total cost is only £3.20 and about half an hour of your precious time.

Make Your Own Ghee

You will need:
2 blocks of Kerrygold butter - I only recommend Kerrygold as it's the only butter I know of that is totally grass-fed.
Small pot
Large spoon / slotted spoon
Coffee filter / fine mesh strainer / kitchen towel / muslin cloth for straining
Jug
Glass jar with lid for storage

Here we go!

1. Melt the butter over a gentle heat in the small pot. Do not stir the butter at any point, you want the milk proteins and sugars to slowly separate from the butterfat and rise to the top.

2. Let it slowly start to simmer over the low heat; you will start to see the milk floating to the top.

3. After about 20 minutes most of the milk should have separated from the fat. Be careful though, this stuff bubbles volcanically!

4. Skim off the milk once it's cooled for a few minutes.

5. Strain the fat through one of the straining mediums you've chosen. I initially used a coffee filter but after about 30 minutes of waiting for it to strain I was worried it would cool down and solidify too much to pass through. I ended up using the actual basket for the coffee machine with much more success!

Voilà! Your very own grass-fed ghee with very little effort and cost. Just pour it into a clean glass jar with a lid and store it in the fridge for several months. Like it'll last that long... Mine lasted the sum total of 1 week and never even made it to the fridge. ;-)

How To Make Your Own Liver Capsules (And Why You Need It)

Liver: Nature's A-Z Multivitamin

If I'm the first person you're hearing this from, I'll eat my hat! But honestly, no one could overstate the benefits of adding pasture raised ruminant liver to your diet. If you are one those people who have been told that liver stores toxins, let me be the one to set this straight for you. Liver stores the vitamins, minerals and cofactors needed to neutralise and excrete toxins, not the toxins themselves. This is why liver is such a potent source of beneficial nutrients. It's been one of the most revered organ meats throughout human history, often prized heavily over other organs and especially over muscle meat (which was often left on the animal or fed to pets). Muscle meats are what we consume on a day by day basis in our Westernised lives. So, what's wrong with that, you wonder? 

Muscle Meats Contain Less Nutrients Than Organ Meats

+Chris Kresser, L.Ac talks about the difference in value of the nutrients in beef liver compared to that of beef muscle meat, carrots and apples. Here's the table he provides that shows the stark contrast, and led me to creating my own liver capsules so that I can be sure to improve my nutritional intake during this stressful time in my life. He also links to another page on the Weston Price website but it's no longer there, however this is the post I believe he was referring to (and covers concerns about Vitamin A overdose as well). By the way, you should definitely download and read all Chris' free PDFs which are pure gold. 

Lean muscle meats also don't contain much gelatine or fat, both of which work to balance the proteins in the muscle meat and the by products of eating a lot of it, such as excess methionine. This increases our need for other proteins such as glycine found in the skin, bones and hooves of animals (what gelatine is derived from). If you don't like bone broths or gelatine then you can get some of the glycine you need to counteract a diet high in muscle meats by eating both liver (which is high is folate) and spinach (which is high in betaine), as these two nutrients are used by the body to generate glycine. Folks like me on an autoimmune paleo diet who have fosaken sources of folate such as beans and eggs, and sources of betaine such as wheat and eggs again, have extra need for the balancing properties of gelatine and liver (and that's without even considering the benefit of these on joints - which can suffer in a person dealing with autoimmunity - and the benefit to the digestive tract, the seat of all the issues).

Now if all this has your stomach turning because you believe that meat will kill you, cause a heart attack or give you cancer, here's another quick post by Chris Kresser that gives you links to a couple of fantastic articles from a few years ago. It's worth the two minute read just for the amusing "not this s&*^ again..." tone of his writing ;-) If you want to jump straight to the articles, here's the one by +Robb Wolf Paleo Diet which is brilliant (and you should definitely read his book!) and here's the one +Mark Sisson put up on the subject which is equally valuable. 

Liver Contains Bioavailable Nutrients In The Right Ratios To Each Other 

This is important for the reasons stated above, but also because very often store-bought supplements and multivitamins contain synthetic vitamins and minerals that can actually block the receptors in your body that would otherwise make use of the real vitamins in your food. For instance it's now known that the common form of vitamin C found in supplements such as vitamin C powders and in multivitamins (aka ascorbic acid) is an incomplete form of vitamin C. In other words, there are more elements to real vitamin C that your body needs in order to use it properly. 

But this isolated form of vitamin C fills up your vitamin C receptor sites (the little holes that the vitamin C keys fit into on your cells) and then your body can't utilise the vitamin C in that orange you ate or from the rosehip extract you spent all that time making. Essentially it then causes vitamin C deficiency. Unfortunately I cannot find the study I originally read, but here is an article by Lauren of +Empowered Sustenance which discusses this problem with supplements in general, and here is another article that, while it is a little over-the-top and very American, does bring many truths to bear. Liver contains the vitamins and minerals your body needs for optimum function in a form that the body can recognise and use. 

So now you know why you need to eat a natural, whole-food multivitamin to improve your overall health, but for most of us who weren't raised eating organ meats it can be hard to overcome the strong taste. I can eat chicken liver as a pate made with onions and balsamic vinegar (delicious with some plantain crisps) but I cannot stomach either pork liver or beef liver (or any other organ meat come to that, especially kidney). So I started making my own liver capsules, and with the small outlay initially to get the capsule making machine and the shells, it really is much more cost effective than buying dessicated grass-fed liver capsules. So without further ado...

How To Make Your Own Liver Capsules

First of all you will need the freshest grass fed liver you can find. I really don't advocate buying conventional liver, but if that is all you can get, try to at least buy Red Tractor marked liver if you're in the UK. Any liver is going to be better than no liver, in my humble opinion, but do the very best you can, even if it means driving to a few butchers. There are differences between chicken liver, pork liver and beef liver, so a variety of them all is best, but if this is your first time making them, start with just beef liver as it is easier to slice and dry. I have to apologise in advance for the photography - I'm still getting to grips with my husband's camera and it was a terribly dull English day so the lighting isn't great. Sorry! Hopefully the pictures are good enough that you can at least work out what I'm talking about.

Just a note to those who don't have a capsule filling machine but still want to take liver without the gross-factor; you can freeze liver into small cubes and drink them with some water just like normal tablets, but I haven't actually tried this method and so cannot attest as to whether or not you definitely can't taste the liver before you get it down, or how well it'll go down. But still a great and simple option if hiding blitzed up liver in your bolognaise won't work and you can't afford a capsule filling machine just yet.

1. Slice your liver as thinly as possible - I managed to get mine about 3mm thick with a (very) sharp knife. Arrange it carefully on something that will allow air to circulate freely. I used a drying rack on some baking paper on a cookie sheet. It will shrink a fair bit so feel free to pack them quite close together. I had some little bits left over that would have just fallen though the holes in my rack so I chopped them up finer and put them in an ice cube tray and froze them for doggie treats.

2. Put it in the oven. I set my fan oven to the plate warm setting; if you don't have a fan oven, I'd recommend the lowest temperature it does with the door propped ajar just a crack. They'll need to be in there at least overnight, so plan not to need your oven during this time! If you have a dehydrator all the better. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture when I took them out, but you'll know they're done when they're fully adhered to the rack (no way around this one! Just pop them off with your fingers) and snap easily under pressure.

3. Grind up the liver chunks. Break them up into smaller pieces and then grind them up in a coffee grinder or blender with a coffee/nut grinding capability. Sieve each batch to catch the bigger particles and add them back into the grinder with the next batch.

4. Set up your capsule filling machine. Once you have your liver powder, set up your capsule machine according to the instructions. This one I bought on Amazon for about £25 and the bag of 1000 capsules for £10. It's important to remember to check the sizes of the capsules and make sure you order the same size capsules as the filling machine. I bought size 0 capsules which are about 2cm in length, but you can get both bigger and smaller capsules depending on what you're comfortable with.

Now make sure your hands are clean and VERY dry. If you have any moisture on your hands the capsules will stick to you. As it goes, having very dry hands makes it hard to grip the little buggers, but hey, it's all part of the fun! 

Kind of hard to see the capsules because they're clear - left is the short top part of the capsule and right is the narrow end.

You need to make sure you put the correct part of the capsule into the right side of the filling machine; so for mine, the short fat end of the capsule goes in the top, and the narrow end goes into the base. Be sure to press them down well enough so that the ones in the base are flush with the surface and cannot be felt when you run your fingers over them, and the ones in the top are sturdily secured (they may not fit in completely as the bottoms do in the base, which is fine as long as they're not going to fall out when you turn it over.) Ethan discovered a quick way to do this - use the spreader card to flatten them all at once!

Place the requisite part of the capsule into the machine

Push them in till flush 

Use the spreader card to press them all in at once!

5. Fill your capsules. Start by fitting the base of the machine with the stand so that the base cannot be pushed down. This provides structure for when you use the tamping tool to compact the powder and fill your capsules with more than you would be able to otherwise. This means less work for you and fewer caps to swallow! Place the base and stand into a bowl or on a plate to catch what you scrape off.

Add stand to bottom of base

Spoon some powder over the holes and use the spreader card to evenly fill the capsules and scrape off the rest. Use the tamping tool to firmly compact the powder and then spread a second layer over to fill them again. Scrape off the excess and remove the base from the bowl or plate.

Spoon powder over holes

Scrape off excess and compact with tamping tool, then add more powder and scrape excess off again.

Remove from bowl/plate and turn stand over or remove it completely

6. Join your capsules together. Either remove the stand from the bottom of the base or turn it over so that the springs in the base will move. Place the top onto the base and push down firmly on the edges. I couldn't photograph this bit as it is a two-handed job! Take the top off the base and the capsules should be there, filled and joined like magical little bullets. Press the top firmly to eject the capsules. Voilà! And now do it about 20 more times.... It is a bit of a long ting, but you get into a rhythm and before you know it you have 430 capsules! 

Magic!

Everybody loves helpers...

Luckily for me, Ethan has a bit of thing for making capsules (until he bores of it or something else takes his fancy) and I managed to snap a photo of him ejecting the capsules.

Making your own capsules is one of those pleasant chores that, with the help of good company, or a book or podcast to listen to, is therapeutic and quite fun. 

So, now that you have them, what are you going to do with them? Well, take them, of course ;-) My capsules weigh about 500mg each and I take 4 with breakfast and 4 with dinner, daily. I have noticed since I started taking the beef liver capsules that I feel a bit better - energy is better than I felt while taking the chicken liver caps I made last time, but then again, I was only taking 4 per day. It's one of those things, take as many as you feel comfortable with and see how you feel. No difference after a couple of weeks? Take a couple more per day and so on until you're feeling better. There is very little danger of consuming too much vitamin A this way; you're only really in danger of that if you take retinoic acid-containing supplements as well as these babies. If you are concerned however, the link above to the Weston Price article covers it in detail.

Happy Capsule Making!

UK-Based Health Building Website and Shop Coming Your Way Soon

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Oh come on, you know you're singing it too! Don't fight it, let it flow....


So after some thought and much consideration I have decided to change the name of my blog to what my website will be when I launch it next year (SOOOO excited!!) I really hope none of my readers will miss this post and then not be able to find me; that would really suck! So in honour of this little event, I thought I would give you a preview of what you can expect from my website (and me in general over the time it will take to get my site up and running) and hopefully get you as excited about it as I am :-) Check below for links to my new Facebook page and Twitter and Instagram feeds!

A UK-based health and wellness information centre

Find yourself link-hopping all night and not actually finding the thing you were looking for? The internet is vast, and I want to make it easier to find the info you need. There are so many excellent websites out there but sometimes they can be hard to find or navigate, and a lot of times they are based in another country, which makes it hard to know what's relevant if you live somewhere else, like in the UK.

I want to give people an everything-under-one-roof type health and wellness website, where you will not only be able to book my services as a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practioner, but also find some (hopefully) really cool and relevant information. I'll also include my UK-based tweaks to - and links to - other good sources of information so that you can delve deeper into any of the subjects as you wish. One of my biggest frustrations with the internet is just how many people claim to have THE answer to all your troubles, and of course it is the ONLY answer...Pah, I say! NOBODY at all, not even the greatest expert in any of the fields, has all the answers, and that's a fact.

Because the truth is we are all as unique as our fingerprints and what works great for you, might really mess me up. Here's looking at you, low-carb diets... My intention with this website is not necessarily to provide the information itself, but certainly to provide pathways to information that you can follow to find what you are being called to. Does that make sense?? In other words, if you are leaning towards the Paleo diet because you've heard good things and your instinct is telling you to go for it, but you need more information before you take the plunge, then I can steer you towards the most well researched and cited information I've found to date. And I never stop reading!

The other thing I want to provide is a tried-and-tested approach to the various health building diets out there that really are making people better and stamping out the scourges of the 21st century like autoimmune diseases and diabetes and cancer. I've played guinea pig to many of them already and I have experienced the pitfalls and the benefits as well as researched why I experienced those pitfalls. I will be able to recommend books, websites and provide recipes and DIY's to make your life easier if you are going to try one of them. And at some point in the future I'll get around to compiling my recipes and putting them all into an affordable little ebook for you all ;-)

Here's a list of topics you can expect to see as the website grows:

• How to clear up your skin naturally
• How to stop hair-fall and heal your scalp
• How to get better sleep
• All natural body care and green cleaning (that is SUPER cheap and gloriously messy easy!)
• Pointers on foods that heal and foods that harm 
• Hacks to make healthy living simpler and more affordable
• Ancestral health diets and how to make them work for you
• Importance of your microbiome and probiotics
• Making your own supplements and the ones to buy that will actually help you (hint: you pee most of your supplements out!)
• Stress and how it affects your health
• Stress busting tips for really busy people like you and me
• How to take charge of your health and actually get better
• Connecting with nature and the Universe
• How we can only be as healthy as the Earth
• Eco living made simple
• Tons of recipes!
• Crafty how-to's
• Homeschooling ins and outs
• And probably a heckuva lot more!

The Apothecary Shop

I'll also be opening up my Etsy shop very soon with my homemade products at real-people prices. Who needs to spend £5.00 on a "luxury handmade natural soap" with artificial fragrances and colourants, when a £2.00 full-sized bar of all natural soap will benefit the whole family (and environment) in more ways than just the wallet department?

Expect to see a variety of soaps, kefir grains, facial oils, clay masks, moisturising balms, eco cleaning products, herbal tea blends and more, all made from biodegradable and 100% natural ingredients. I'll also put up some of mine and the kids' crafty items, just for fun and a bit of extra fundraising for the kids' homeschooling adventures.

In the meantime I'll carry on putting up the odd post with recipes every couple of weeks or so. Stay tuned because next time I'll show you how to make your own liver capsules for those who can't bear the taste (like me!) and why you need liver in your diet.

So what do you think? Excited or ho-hum? Is there something you feel is missing that you would like to know more about? Please weigh in below! Also you can like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date with the latest posts and happenings. Be well!

Rosehips, The Underappreciated Jewels of Winter Health

So much about following a whole foods diet revolves around avoiding things and foods that used to be your norm, that sometimes it's hard to see how much there is to embrace that didn't used to be your norm! So last week when I was doing one of my yearly chores that I love - collecting and preserving some local wild crafted produce, I realised I needed to remind fellow real food followers (what a lovely interrupted alliteration, don't you agree?) that there is so much to look forward to as opposed to always thinking about what you're missing; if you do at all.

I wanted to write a post about rosehips and provide some simple recipes to use these beautiful, healthful little gems. SO many people pass them by without even noticing them unless for their striking colour, yet they could well be an answer to robust winter health for many who suffer in the colder weather. 

Gorgeous this year!

Here is a link to a website that gives such wonderful information on rosehips I couldn’t possibly hope to do better, so please go and have a look! Then come back here and use the recipes which don’t incorporate unhealthy additions such as sugar or agave nectar. Though cheap and plentiful (and useful for preserving foods) sugar actually requires that the body donate vitamins and minerals to process the sugar molecules; in other words where rosehips will give your body a good dose of excellent vitamins and minerals, a lot of those will be used up by the processing of the sugar you used to make the syrup or jelly. To me that doesn’t seem a great trade, especially at a time of year when you’re likely to be indulging more than during the summer months and your body will be actively trying to replace lost elements donated to processing these depleting “dead” foods.

Using honey instead will actually improve the benefits of the rosehips due to its antimicrobial capabilities. It is always best to buy raw organic local honey, but I’ve had success with supermarket brand honey such as Morrisons Clear honey (though not the smart price option) and even better with Sainsbury’s Organic honey. They’re not local, and they’re blended with other honeys and they’re possibly heat treated too, but the syrups and medicines I make from them don’t go off, so I know that they still retain at least some of their antimicrobial action. When I have my own bees this will no longer be a worry :-D Until then I have to think about the sustainability of our finances. Here is a great post that talks about the wonders of honey.

The rosehips of the dog rose grow rampant round my way and I collect as many as I can every year. I just can't help myself; they are so plentiful! And this year they are so round and red and sweet, I am planning on getting some more tomorrow while this dry spell lasts. Can't have too many rosehips, that's for sure, especially since it seems I am too late for the elderberries that I normally stock the freezer with for making jelly pots for the kids (see below) and for adding to the water kefir. 

I have some rosehips drying, some I made into an unsweetened juice/syrup/extract (whatever you want to call it; the high amount of pectin gives a wonderful silky and thick liquid) and some I made into sweetened syrup...accidentally. I was attempting to make jelly, but I really didn't want to use sugar for reasons stated above and I really didn't want to boil it for extensive periods of time and ruin all those wonderful vitamins and minerals. So...basically... I didn't want to make jelly?? Anyway, the result was delicious and the kids went mad for it. Since it only made a small amount as I was just testing a recipe, I figure I do need to make more and stat!

As a side note, you’d be hard pressed to miss the huge clusters of these bright gems dripping into the roads at the moment, but I don’t advocate picking them from the roadside unless you have no access at all to a more enclosed park or field border where you’re sure to find more. The fumes from the traffic just can’t be good for you. But if you really are stuck for any other place to gather from, roadside hips are better than no hips at all! Just soak them in an apple cider vinegar solution (1 part vinegar to 3 parts water) for around 15 minutes before rinsing thoroughly to hopefully neautralise some of the toxins, as you would for washing non-organic veggies and fruit from the supermarket.

So, if you'll excuse the limited photography (I always forget to take photos unless I'm focused on that) here are a few recipes for you to try:

Accidental Rosehip Syrup (Makes a small batch, about a pint)

2 cups whole, rinsed rosehips

Generous dash of ground ginger or thumb sized piece fresh, grated

Pinch of salt

3 cups water

• Add all ingredients to a lidded pot and bring to a gentle boil, covered.
• Allow to simmer gently until the rosehips have softened enough to be mashed up with a potato masher.
• Simmer for a further 10 mins and then cool for 20-30mins in the covered pot.
• Strain through a muslin or cotton tea towel/cloth.
• You can let it drip if you want or you can squeeze it but beware it will be hot! And if you squeeze it it will not be clear, but rather a little opaque, which no one here even noticed (and I couldn’t afford the work surface space to wait for it to drip!)
• Once you have all the liquid, allow it to cool to room temperature (or at least no more than body temperature, dip a clean pinkie in to test)
• Add half as much honey as liquid. Eg: 600mls liquid = 300mls honey.
• Pour into sterilised jars and seal tightly. I use old honey jars and lids that sit in a Milton solution for a minimum of 20mins as I don’t like to deal with boiling jars; too many chances for accidents and I'm a clutz as it is!)

Don’t throw out the rosehip mush you collect in the cloth; you could simmer this once more. That’s how potent these little jewels are. This lasted over a week in the fridge, and I’m sure it would have lasted longer but it disappeared mysteriously...

Straining the liquid... Whaddya think of my tiling? Lol ;-)

Unsweetened Rosehip Extraction

This one is a lot less precise because I do what I usually tend to do – bung it all in a pot and add water etc till it looks right lol! But here’s a guide:

Twice the amount of water as (fresh) rosehips. If you’re looking into your pot and the rosehips come up halfway, add water until it comes up two thirds of the way, a good pinch of salt and you should be good to go.

Now you can get creative and add whatever you want or not. I left mine plain so I can use it however I fancy in whatever I want eg tea, the jellies I describe below or even in some of my pudding recipes where no one will be able to notice it but I’ll know it’s in there, working it’s magic!

Additions that work well – Lemon, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, etc, use your imagination. Generally speaking, if it works with apple it’ll work with the flavour of the rosehips.

Follow the simmering instructions above but instead of adding honey when cooled, I froze mine into cubes and then dumped them into freezer bags. Easy peasy and now you have rosehip extract on demand! Don’t forget to make a second batch from the mush ;-)

Yes, I know I need new ice cube trays...

How To Dry Rosehips

You can use the methods described in the post above or you can just dry them whole. Last year I dried them in my dehydrator after cutting them in half but not de-seeding them, but throughout the year I found myself avoiding them because I’d have to scrape out the seeds and little hairs before I could do anything with them.

This year I couldn't get to my dehydrator as it’s still packed up from our move to the flat and I really didn't have time to spend halving and de-seeding them all. So I just picked off the little caps on the flower ends to allow for ventilation and then lay them on a tea towel on top of my tumble dryer with another towel covering them to keep the dust off.

I'm hoping this will make them easier to use. Currently they've been drying for about a week and a half but are still a little spongy so I'm going to leave them another few days till I'm certain they’re completely dry.

Uses for these dry little rubies are infinite! I add them to the stock pot, use them in teas, boil them up and add some yarrow to give when my kids have a fever, make more syrup, and I'm sure I’ll think of more ways and add them here as I do! What cool things do you do with these that you could share with us?

Taken today - mostly dried

UPDATE 30 October 2015: I just realised as I was preparing another batch of extract that I never gave any instructions for using your dried rosehips! A good rule of thumb would be 1 cup dried hips to 5 cups water if you want to only do it once, otherwise you can use 1 cup to 3 cups water and then do it again a bit later. I see no reason why you couldn't store them in the fridge for a few days between batches. Once you've decided how you want to do it, place the dried hips in a pot with a good lid and add the water and continue with the instructions I descibed in the accidental rosehip syrup/rosehip extract. 

Rosehip and Lemon Jelly Pots

These are dead simple and I make them into little baby food pots that I got in Asda for a bargain price of £2.50 for a tray of 8. The kids have a jelly pot with their lunch most days for the extra protein and the benefits of the gelatine, and I concoct different flavours every so often but they really do adore the rosehip varieties! Unfortunately I didn't think to take any photos at all, but I'll try to remember next time I make some.

2L glass jug with 8 cubes of the plain rosehip extract

4 tbs lemon juice, freshly squeezed is best but works just as well with bottled

2 tbs gelatine dissolved in ½ cup hot water

Add enough cold water to offset the heat of the gelatine mixture, then add the gelatine and mix well

Add 4-6 heaped dessertspoons of honey, to taste

Make up to the 1L mark for stiff jellies or the 2pt mark for slightly wobblier jellies

Pour into pots and refrigerate till set.

The kids love this made into ice lollies as well, which, with the addition of ginger and turmeric (which adds great anti-inflammatory benefits and colour) makes for very soothing pops during a chesty cold. Just omit the gelatine but use the hot water to steep 1 tbs ginger and 1tsp turmeric a bit before adding. Even better would be to boil the ginger and turmeric for a few minutes first to really extract the beneficial compounds, then strain through a cloth to catch the grounds.

Rosehip and Apple Jelly Pots

2L glass jug with 8 cubes of plain rosehip extract

1 tbs cinnamon and 2 tbs gelatine dissolved in ½ cup hot water

1 L freshly pressed, not-from-concentrate apple juice (preferably organic – Sainsbury’s do a good one)

Combine and pour into pots and refrigerate till set.

I hope you find this gives you the motivation to explore your local park for some free goodies this Autumn, or some new inspiration for recipes if you already do some wild-crafting when out and about. Please share any tips you have in the comments below!