A little turmeric each day keeps the doctor away

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Let me preface this by saying I not a medical professional. Or a health practitioner of any sort. Or, for that matter, an old wife. However, I do follow the health and living pages on the New York Times, the Guardian and The Huffington Post websites, amongst others. And due to a family history of Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons, I keep a particular eye out for articles relating to brain health.

Recently, I came across one entitled Neurogenesis: How to Change Your Brain by neurologist David Permutter, M.D. Obviously, you can read the full article yourself, but let me summarise it.

Up until fairly recently (the late 90s) it was believed that once we’re past early childhood, our brains don’t regenerate. But apparently they do. Not surprisingly, this process of neurogenesis is controlled by our DNA and a specific gene codes the production of a protein (BNDF), which plays a key role in creating new neurons.

Recent studies have revealed that patients with Alzheimer’s (and a number of other neurological conditions) have decreased levels of BNDF. Fortunately, as Permutter goes on to say “many of the factors that influence our DNA to produce BDNF factors are under our direct control.” That’s excellent news, but it begs the obvious question: how?

Back to you Dr Perlmutter. He continues, “The gene that turns on BDNF is activated by a variety of factors including physical exercise, caloric restriction, curcumin and the omega-3 fat, DHA.”

I can’t say I’m hugely surprised by physical exercise, calorie restriction (note to self, must eat only 2/3 of that block of Green & Black chocolate) and omega-3. But what’s the deal with curcumin? Well,  it turns out that curcumin is the main active ingredient in turmeric. Apparently Alzheimer’s is not nearly as common in Indian villages.

So what’s all of this got to do with the photograph of a bowl of pumpkin soup below? Basically this is post is an introduction to a series of recipes which will follow. 101 (or possibly closer to 11) recipes with turmeric. They’ll be easy, I promise. I love cooking, but this is not about making curry from scratch.

Recipe with Turmeric No. 1

Particularly useful when you have a lurgy and don’t really feel up to cooking.

Ingredients

1 packet of ready made organic pumpkin soup, 1/2 an onion, 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, a pinch of chilli powder and half a lemon.

Method

Finely (or roughly – whatever works for you) chop half an onion. Sauté gently in a saucepan, along with the half teaspoon of turmeric and a pinch of chilli powder. Cook the onion as long as your like, until soft if that’s the way you like it, or a little longer if you like it crispy. Add the soup. Bring to the boil. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

If you care about presentation, feel free to swirl some yoghurt or cream through the soup and sprinkle some finely chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander. Otherwise, you’re done.

I hope you enjoy it and that maybe it helps create a neuron or two…

The rose bug rescue

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Just a quick post tonight, as I’m fighting off a bug and need to put my head on the pillow earlier than the usual midnight.

Speaking of bugs… The roses are in full bloom in the garden. Arranging some in a vase this morning, I discovered that one flower in particular appeared to be occupied by small insects. I’m new to gardening, so I have no idea what kind of insects they were (still are, I hope) although I do know they’re not aphids.

I was apologetic to the first few that crawled out of the petals, but when the whole family appeared, I was mortified. An entire extended family of bugs, senior and junior, shot out of rose.

What should have been 5 minutes of gathering a few roses from the garden turned into a half hour rescue mission. I placed them carefully, or in some cases shook them off the Telecom bill which served as the rescue vehicle, back onto the same rose bush.

As I’ve said, I can’t identify them for you (they certainly didn’t stop for introductions), perhaps they’ve been eating the few aphids I did spot on the beautiful pale pink rose. Whatever service they perform in this eco-system, I’m sure they do a fine job and I hope they’re settling into their new home.

If anyone can identify this insect, please let me know!

A weird thing happened on the way off the mat

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I’ve wanted to practice yoga for years. I’ve tried. I’ve gone to the occasional class at a gym, but haven’t stuck with it. Mostly because I dislike gyms intensely and have taken out a membership against the advice of my intuition. I’ve also tried the odd class at a yoga studio, but whether it’s the time of day, or the size of the class (i.e. large), these haven’t worked for me either.

This year, however, that same inner voice that advised me against joining a gym became increasingly insistent that I find some way of developing a regular yoga practice. And so when I serendipitously came across Marianne Elliot’s 30 days of yoga online programme designed to help you develop a practice at home, something felt right and I signed up.

Forty days later, I’m on the mat each day and while I’m there a mysterious thing happens. Actually, part of the mystery is that I’m there at all…

For me, one of the best things about Marianne’s programme has been the focus on intention. At the beginning of the 30 days, but also at the beginning of each daily practice. On the very first day my intention was, and everyday my intention is, simply to show up.

There are numerous days when quite honestly, it is the very last thing I feel like. I am not a morning person so it’s not part of my morning routine. And so often, as is the case today, I still haven’t got to the mat by 10pm. But I know I will. As soon as I’ve hit the ‘publish’ button for this post, I’ll sit down, take a deep breath and begin the practice. And this is where the heart of the mystery lies, I begin and something weird happens to time. Before I know it, 40 minutes have passed and I’m chanting Om to finish. I don’t know how it happens, but it does, every single day. And I’m loving it.

So thank you to my inner voice for insisting I find a yoga practice that works for me and thank you to Marianne for appearing at exactly the right time. Long may the mystery of my yoga practice continue.

Lessons from the old fashioned mower

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I couldn’t put off mowing the lawn any longer. The grass was almost long enough to warrant a goat.

We have an old fashioned reel lawn mower. It is quite possibly older than me. It has been in the family for many years, mowed these lawns hundreds of times and if it could talk, I expect it would have a number of things to tell me.

My sneaking suspicion is that the first words out its mouth would be “For a human being, you’re not very smart, perhaps next time you might like to not leave it quite so long between mowings. It would make it considerably easier on both of us.”

The second thing that Mowice the Mower would tell me, smugly I imagine, is that my grandmother (who bought the mower) was much fitter than I am. Whereas I schedule exercise into my day around work and sometimes don’t get to it, a considerable amount of exercise was embedded into Granny’s everyday activities, such as maintaining a large garden with a sizeable vege patch. And mowing.

The final piece of advice, possibly offered less acerbically than the previous two, would be that there’s nothing quite like a good cup of tea and a little piece of something chocolatey after an hour’s worth of blister inducing mowing.

Finding comfort in a young tree

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Today, in the wake of hearing David Suzuki talk last night, I’ve been aware of myself feeling a very low level yet lingering feeling of discomfort. His words were challenging. His message wasn’t a particularly hopeful one and yet I’ve been thinking about it on and off all day. In particular, about the extraordinary ability of foresight we have as human beings. And how at arguably well past the 11th hour, we are turning our back on the very strategy that has allowed us to flourish.

As human beings, isn’t it so often a feeling of discomfort that motivates us to change?… I’m not going to even try and elaborate at 1am on Saturday morning. If I’m being really honest, tonight, all I want to do is take off this very light but prickly robe of discomfort, hang it up in the wardrobe and replace it with one that feels reassuring. And I have just found comfort in an unexpected place.

Uploading photographs onto my laptop, I’ve found one I took yesterday of a very young tree tree growing in Wellington’s botanical gardens. I find enormous comfort in the way this little plant rooted firmly in the earth, is getting on with growing. Bathed in sunlight, surrounded by trees of different shapes and sizes, with plenty of space to grow, it is quietly thriving and I can almost hear it tell me to simply feel the earth beneath my feet, breathe deeply and and together we can dream a bright and brilliant future into being.

Wise elders and a wedge of orange cake

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This evening, David Suzuki, the iconic Canadian scientist, broadcaster and environmentalist spoke at the Embassy theatre in Wellington. Essentially on a “Last Lecture” tour he has been traveling in this part of the world for the last 5 weeks.

I am a big fan of Mr Suzuki and he had some beautifully profound things to say. He talked of Earth as our Mother, not just metaphorically but literally. We are created from earth, air, fire and water, he told us. We are air, every bit of food was once alive, the New Zealand water we drink has cartwheeled its way around the earth and we are fueled by plants that capture sunlight. We are created by Mother Earth and she provides us with our most fundamental needs.

This man is speaking my language. He is talking the language of Onemeall, of OMA, of Grandmother Earth. One, me, all. We are all one. We are all connected. As David said tonight, “If I am air and you are air, then I am you”. Or as the lovely Stephanie, Co-Founder of Onemeall would say “One table, us all gathered. One meal, us all invited. One planet, us all communing.”

And yet, in spite of his beautiful words I left the Embassy feeling, well, a little ill at ease.

Partly it was that he spoke of islands of plastic in the Pacific the size of Texas. Partly it was that he told us we’re past the 59th minute and at 1 hour, our time is up. But mostly, it was because I felt the sharp edge of his activism and I found it to be disengaging.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-activism.  It was my career for several years, one I lived and breathed. I come from a long line of advocates, my grandfather was a barrister known in Wellington as a champion of the underdogs. Advocacy and activism are part of my genetic makeup, my cellular memory.

David’s talk left me feeling impressed, hugely grateful for the impassioned words of a wise Elder, but it also left me feeling, once again, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the plight we’re facing and consequently emotionally disengaged. I didn’t leave the theatre feeling that there is something I can do which will really make a difference. And I couldn’t help comparing it with the other Canadian Elder I’ve listened to very recently.

Nearly two weeks ago, along with approximately 4000 other people, I found myself caught up in the magic of a Leonard Cohen concert. His music, his poetry, his storytelling. I don’t think I’d previously experienced on that scale, such a tangible sense of shared well-beng. And not in a spacey, fringey way but in a deeply grounded way.

As I left the venue, smiling and being smiled at, what I felt quite frankly was love. And empathy. The experience I had just shared with thousands of other people, all but three of them unknown to me, left me wanting to be a more loving and kinder person.

This evening, enjoying a delicious meal (thank you Mother Earth) with two beloved friends after the lecture, we talked about the sharp edges of activism and the warm embrace of connecting with friends, family and neighbours. And as we shared a single wedge of orange cake and a laugh with the cheerful waitress, that sense of wellbeing and empathy crept back into my heart.

Having said all of that, although personally I am gravitating towards the approach of a warm embrace, I suspect that we need the occasional sharp edge too. So let’s listen to the messages of our Elders, however they choose to sing their song.

Happiness

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“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

Henry David Thoreau

For Kylie, Stephanie and Richard.

Happiness

Not counting sheep

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I don’t know if this quirky little custom is found elsewhere in the world, but in New Zealand, if you can’t sleep, it is suggested that you count sheep. Close your eyes, imagine a big green paddock with sheep. Lots of them. Which I suppose is not unreasonable in a country of just over 4 million people and just over 40 million sheep.

However, I have to say, it has never worked for me. Even when we had a sheep farm.

And yet last night, I once again found myself attempting to count sheep. Heavens only knows why, actually now that I come to think about it, it probably has something to do with developing a merino clothing range… Anyway, I very quickly got bored with sheep but it occurred that there may be something to this whole counting thing. So I switched to people. Specifically, people I’m grateful to.

This time last year, I had just embarked on a 2 month trip in the United States. In part, a market research trip for Onemeall, over the 8 weeks I was fortunate enough to have conversations with many truly amazing people. And I was able to make that journey, and have those experiences, because of amazing people here.

As I worked my way backwards through time, I held the faces of hundreds of people in my mind’s eye and far more effective than sheep have ever been, they sent me off to sleep. The conscious, soft focus on people’s faces, one after another after another, definitely worked. But unlike the sheer monotony of counting white woolley creatures (having said that, I’ve met some sheep with fabulous personalities and I think they’re highly underated) this process was delightful. Remembering people’s faces, rocked me gently, gracefully, gratefully off to sleep.

Packaging, nature’s way.

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The humble broad or fava bean, or vicia faba if we’re being formal, was on the menu this evening.

As I sat in the garden, shelling the market fresh beans, I was struck by the brilliance with which Nature carries out the function of packaging. Little bright green beans nestled into soft spongey material inside a much harder shell, which then becomes food for all those busy little organisms in my compost heap. Effective, efficient AND beautiful. Awesome.

By the way, a couple ended up in the garden, so if I wake up tomorrow and find a giant beanstalk outside my window, the next post may not be for a while. Fee-fi-fo-fum!...

Connecting the dots

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Trying to ignore the noise the kitten is making chasing bugs on the window sill, fingers poised on the keyboard, I am full of questions and one in particular is demanding my attention. Why should I start blogging? Each day it seems, I come across another excellent blog with someone who has something informative, entertaining or downright inspirational to say. So why me?

Because actually this is about you. This is about connecting you. To amazing people, to their stories, to very cool and sustainable ‘stuff’ and transformative services.

I believe that a big piece of  this planetary puzzle we’re all a part of, is people who care about each other and the planet, doing what they’re good at and doing what they love. Being, as the marvelous Sir Ken Robinson would say, in their element.

I’m in my element connecting people. Connecting people to each other, to goods and services which I (and more to the point other people who know far more about these things than I do) believe will make a contribution to restoring the planet.

Recently I watched Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford in 2005. He talks about connecting the dots and how so often, it’s only in retrospect that we can connect them.  For me, the challenge and the joy, is in figuring out how to connect some of the dots as we look forward.

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