Aunt Sally’s $10,000 Chicken Recipe Gets a Makeover

My Aunt Sally won $10,000 for this recipe, plus it is lowfat, simple, and delicious!

This is my slightly healthier spin on it as I use olive oil instead of butter, brown rice instead of white, and lowfat sour cream rather than full fat.

Preparation:

• Rinse and trim fat off four boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Marinate for at least 30 minutes (recipe below)
• Heat skillet over medium high heat, then add 1-2 tablespoons olive or canola oil.
• Sear chicken breasts on medium high heat for a few seconds on each side, and reduce heat to medium or medium low depending on your stove. Read more

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Make Your Exercise Time Count in 3 Simple Steps

By Bonnie Pfiester, Fitness Trainer

Diet and exercise are not hard but take time. Unfortunately time is not something most people have a lot of.

Ironically, people end up wasting a lot of time because they don’t manage their time wisely.

They spend too much time doing one thing, not enough time doing important things or wasting time doing anything and everything but the right thing. When people feel as though their effort does not match their results, they give up.

I want to encourage you! Here are 3 simple steps to help you make the most of your time.

1. Take more time to eat less. You look like what you eat more than you look like what you do. The catch is eating right takes time. The whole process starts with grocery shopping. If you don’t shop well, you can’t expect to eat well. Then you have to prepare the food and do whatever it takes to make sure you have healthy food with you at all times. Packing lunches and snacks are a vital part of avoiding temptation.

Paying closer attention to calories and portion sizes will also require some time but the payoff is tremendous.

2. Take less time to exercise more. Many people invest a lot of time in what they would call exercise, but is often just increased activity. Although activity is good for your health, it’s not as effective for weight loss.

Many people are just going through the motions and wasting a lot of time doing minimal effort. Really burn some calories by turning a long morning stroll into a purposeful power walk. If you do weights, train at a higher intensity with less rest in between.

You don’t have to spend three hours at the gym everyday. Commit to one powerful hour three to five days a week and make every minute count! The more quality time you invest, the greater the reward.

3. Take the time to make sure you are not wasting time. This is a biggie. People spend a lot of time and energy on things that don’t work. Fad diets, weight loss gimmicks, books and fitness magazines often lead you to believe weight loss can be easy. It’s our human nature to try the easy way first. In the end, we just waste a lot of time trying to avoid the inevitable. Other people struggle because they completely go it alone with no guidance at all.

A person who is basically guessing their way through their fitness program is doomed for failure. Don’t waste your time floundering around aimlessly. Invest a little time initially to be properly guided. Hire a professional if you need to. Diet and fitness does work.

If you take time to understand why and how it works, you’ll be a lot more motivated to apply it to your own life.

~Bonnie 
www.LongevityClubs.com

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Night Sweats

Night sweats or night time “hot flashes” can be a very frustrating problem for women in menopause or peri-menopause.

Typically a hot flash is an experience of intense heat with sweating and increased heartbeat. The hot flash can last for a few minutes or up to 30 minutes.

Usually the sensation of heat begins on the face or chest, or back of the neck and then spreads throughout the entire body. The skin will feel hot to the touch.

Recently I received this reader question:

Q: “I’m a 44 year old female, and several nights a month I get “night sweats.” About 10 years ago, my doctor suggested using Evening Primrose Oil, which helped for a while, but doesn’t any longer. Any suggestions? What else can I try for night sweats?” Read more

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Why You Should Lighten Your Purse and Lose Your Wallet

The days of big fat leather wallets loaded with long roles of plastic sheathed photos of friends, family, and girlfriends are over, thanks to modern day technology.

Large wallets were so 1987!

The new wallet is the “money clip” one simple tip I always give men with low back pain, neck pain, hip/hamstring/knee problems, is to check their wallet for unneeded items and then shift the wallet to the front of their pants or carry it in a jacket pocket.

It’s amazing how simply sitting on a large wadded up leather wallet all day long can throw a body out of whack.

Now let’s get one thing perfectly straight….I am in no way as a doctor endorsing fanny packs *shudder* unless they are those Kevlar kind from REI that kind of look cool.

Part of being healthy and feeling good is checking in on the ergonomics of our posture, and physical structure from time to time. Read more

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My Basic Vitamin Program

“What Vitamins Should I Take?”

Is the most common question I get as a Naturopathic Physician.

I typically believe the average person that doesn’t eat “perfectly” ie:

• Eats the “Basic American Diet” (BAD) of white refined, processed foods
• Doesn’t consume 5-9 servings of fruits and veggies daily
• Eats Fast Food several times a week Read more

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Cheapest Health Foods

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

Eating healthy on the cheap can be tough, but if you stock your kitchen with the healthy cheap essentials it should save a great deal in the long run.

I buy certain staples like organic cheese and organic butter when they are on sale and keep them in the freezer.

Consider buying your organic meats, eggs, and fish in bulk and store in a larger freezer out in the garage.

Remember we have to pay for our health one way or another. Prevention is key. The food that graces your kitchen table is the best disease prevention money can buy. President Obama thinks that we will never fix the National Deficit until we fix the Health Care Crisis, I think we will never fix the Health Care Crisis until we fix the crisis at our kitchen tables.

Here are my favorite cheap health foods:

Read more

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Favorite Massager: Medirub Massager

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

If you are looking for a great massager - look no further!  The Medi-rub Massager® has been my favorite massage therapy device for over ten years.

My Dad is an Ironman Triathalete and purchased one ten years ago; it’s still going strong. I found myself always dropping by or driving  out specifically to use it, and one day it dawned on me to just purchase my own.

If you are in chronic pain, have fibromyalgia, diabetes, or are a “Weekend Warrior” like me, thinking you can ride some gnarly single track on your mountain bike, you will definitely fall in love with the Medirub Massager too.

The massager is SO powerful you can feel your skin itching within minutes….a great sign that you have increased circulation as red blood cells are forced towards the surface of the skin.

I do a lot of hands on body work with my patients and I find that by recommending the very powerful Medi-rub® massager between appointments addressing chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, and so forth, it drastically reduces the need for office visits. If you have a Medical Assistant you can always have them rub your patients down while they are waiting to see you.

Now of course I want to recommend my way out of a job with this massager and head straight to the Bahamas!

Another benefit that I was excited to find when I talked with Becky at Medirub was that a top Beverly Hills massage therapist uses this massager for treating cellulite! Do you hear that ladies? If you can’t do the Diet and Exercise like fitness trainer Bonnie Pfiester recommends, you can at least rub your full body down with this thing. Increasing circulation to areas with cellulite is one of the best ways to reduce cellulite.

That is really why most massage creams for cellulite work so well. It is likely the daily massaging of the area, and not the actual crème which, we will discuss in a future article. I will be writing a longer article on the cellulite protocol she uses along with the massager for her high end clients so that you can repeat it in your own home!

Uses for the Medi-rub® Massager:

• Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy

• Upper Neck Pain

• Back Pain

• Low Back Pain

• Fibromyalgia

• Cellulite

So stop by Medi-Rub® to check out my new (well - not so new, but VERY loved for the past ten years…) favorite thing this week!

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen table!

~Dr. Nicole

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Are Plastics Causing Brain Damage?

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

Recently, researchers at Yale University found an alarming result to their preliminary study on how plastics affect the functioning of our Central Nervous System.

Wow! Imagine the possibilities? Wouldn’t it be nice to blame all your forgetfulness on that Tupperware lunch you just microwaved? Maybe you had brain fog this morning because you drank your organic coffee from a plastic traveler’s mug?

Maybe it is plastics, not aluminum, causing Alzheimer’s; maybe it’s all the plastics in our environment breaking down and causing the rates of ADHD, depression, autism, and other diseases of relatively unknown etiology to suddenly rise.

Doesn’t that sound crazy? But—it very well could be reality. All new chemicals are guilty until proven innocent. Why? Because that is the SAFEST option for consumers. However, the FDA does not promote safety, they promote big business in America. Anyone can see that in their inability to properly examine new substances for consumers to ingest.

Did you know that all new food additives can be FDA approved simply by laboratory testing on animals alone? Doesn’t that make you want to think twice before drinking that sucralose sports drink? If you don’t believe me then just think about why tobacco, a known killer has not been banned by the FDA?

You are drinking a man made substance that has NEVER been tested on human beings and approved for safety.

Plastics are no different. Researchers are JUST NOW growing concerned about the degradation of plastics in our environment and starting to really do some preliminary research on the health consequences of plastics.

What would we all do without plastics? We have grown so dependent on plastics.

You might be reading this right now and freaking out! OH MY GOSH! Everything in my house is plastic. My house is made of modified plastics…I drive in plastics…I eat out of plastics…I drink out of plastics! My child is teething on a big piece of plastic.

As a doctor and researcher with a passion for biochemistry, I really think that plastics - just like lead pipes, BPA, Azo yellow dye, asbestos, and all the medications the FDA is constantly approving and then yanking off the shelves - boils down to the same final dilemma that no one in the world is ever willing to accept:

You just can’t cheat the system.

I support people looking for a better way, an easier way. I am always after the same. However, the better way does not involve “cheating the system,” it involves supporting it. When we look for cheap quick fixes for today’s problems without thinking forward to the future generations, we will ALWAYS have a problem with our environment.

Think forward to fifty years from now—think about how much more plastic will be in our environment if we don’t stop now.

So, on one hand we have a very preliminary study done on plastics…and some evidence that plastics may be the problem in certain reproductive cancers…is there enough evidence yet…?

The problem is that the FDA approves something and then that thing is this “golden child” that then must be proven guilty (via expensive research).

Is “innocent until proven guilty” the best solution for potentially toxic products? There are plastics manufacturers everywhere burying the very research we need because they don’t want consumers to stop buying their products.

As a doctor with ten years of post secondary education, I vote for “why bother waiting around to find out”. The damage done by plastics is already more than enough evidence. We know they are bad. We know they break down in to “xenoestrogens,” or molecules that structurally mimic estrogen and are thus able to stimulate estrogen receptors.

We know that we should not even be drinking out of plastic water bottles. We know that smaller organisms in our environment are slowly transforming to a predominantly female gender as a result of the presence of these xenoestrogens in our environment.

This study by Yale University showing that plastics interfere with brain functions is simply the tip of the plastics iceberg. Unfortunately this may just be too big of an iceberg for us to navigate around.

What can you do as a consumer? Stop buying plastics, of course. There are typically superior products available made of stainless steel, glass, wood, and cast iron options that have circulated through generations and proven safe by the best test of all. The test of time is better than any double blind randomized control trial.

Every new thing in science gets a critical eye from me, and the plastics story is no exception. There is enough significant evidence at this point in time to warrant pulling most plastics from the shelves, and yet the FDA is not doing so because the bottom line is always the same thing—money.

Yes, at times these things may cost a little bit more, but just think of it as YOU having the voice to VOTE for what you want our environment to be composed of by choosing NOT to purchase items made of plastic.

©KitchenTableMedicine.com, LLC ™

Harvard Docs Score an “F” For Taking Big Bucks From Big Pharma

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

I always love reading Dr. Mercola’s opinions on various new stories because he is fearless, and is quick to point out the pink elephant in the room. He must get a lot of hate mail…poor guy.  But for those of us sitting back going, “AMEN!!!” I would just like to take a moment to say thanks.  Especially when I read up on a topic that has had me concerned for nearly a decade….how drugs are marketed.

Here is Dr. Mercola’s take on this topic: “Harvard Med Students Rebel Against Big Pharma”And here is the original article if you would like more info.

So I don’t really find it big news at all that Harvard Med School recently scored an “F” (yes - the worse score possible) for taking too many kick backs from big pharma….

Not to mention one of the largest drug manufacturers put up shop just right across the street…
Hmmm….coinkydink?

I think NOT!!!

As much as I would love for some drug rep to whisk me away from my life of overworking hell and take me to the Bahamas where I just have to listen to some seminar to make an extra $20,000 grand this year in “grants” or whatever….it just is not going to happen.

The Chief of Staff at the hospital I worked wouldn’t even use a single pen made by a drug rep, and heaven forbid some newbie actually made it past me and into his office!

At the time, I would sit at my desk and organize my free pads of paper, water my free Viagra cactus, eat my free glucophage doughnuts, and drink my free coffee from the Angiotensin II Receptor Blocking Rep (blood pressure med) without being educated enough to understand how deep the bitter ugly irony of my drug rep riddled world was…especially when the phone would ring and I would talk to little old ladies about how they couldn’t afford food because medicare didn’t cover this drug that they desperately needed.

Back before I actually became a doctor, I would observe the doctors I worked for so that I could be as “doctor like” as possible. I watched every move they made. Memorized anything they said.  I watched how most drug reps would manage to schmooze their way in.

I watched how certain doctors refused to read their literature. I watched one doctor hold up a sign she had made with a black sharpie pen that said, “NO THICK GLOSSY LANDFILL” as she signed for that week’s free samples….she was a pharmacologist and an MD, and she knew better than to take advice on how to be a doctor from some “barbie doll with a briefcase.”  Her words, not mine.

Now that 100 people have just unsubscribed from my blog, be sure to drop me some fan mail if you like my occasional angry rants because it sure does help me fight this cause.

Nonetheless….good will prevail over evil….and this article on what should be the BEST of American medical schools demonstrates the fraudulent duplicity in our health care system that results in us being the most unhealthy country second to Finland, while we manage to spend the MOST on health care.

Can I give the entire American health care system an “F” while we are at it? I guess I can’t really fault the students when the teachers….the doctors (from the Latin “docere” meaning “to teach”) are replete with corruption.

You know where the best med school is though?

Bastyr University….my alma mater. The best school for naturopathic physicians in the world. Go there….trust me, there isn’t a drug rep to be found.

If Obama wants to make a difference in health care while in the oval office, he needs to cap how drug companies are allowed to market their product. And for all you capitalists out there…

I know this is America, but we have to draw the ethical line somewhere, and it looks like we need to start on the street dividing Harvard from Big Pharma.

Related Reading:

Drug Company Had Hit List for Doctors Who Criticized Them

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Dr. Nicole’s Pediatric Advice to New Parents

by Dr. Nicole Sundene

The other day I joked on Twitter, “Oh my gosh I got so busy Twittering I forgot a baby on the scale! BRB (be right back)” and my doctor and nurse friends all thought that was pretty funny, because some days in a family practice or pediatrics setting we get so busy we literally feel like this.

Don’t worry… I am on a break from seeing patients while I prepare to move  down to Arizona.

A decade ago, I spent my first week medical assisting in pediatrics for the hospital, I weighed and measured so many babies that I would have nightmares that one would roll off the counter and fall on the floor. I would wake up in a panicked cold sweat from the new responsibility of parents entrusting the care of their precious child in my hands.

Read more

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Does this Snuggie Make me Look Fat?

by Dr. Nicole Sundene

With 1/3 of Americans obese, every month is now “Weight Loss Month” at the kitchen table!

It may be acceptable for me to hide in a Snuggie like I did on Mother’s Day, but I am moving down south to Arizona and need to tone up FAST! Here are some of my favorite weight loss tips and tricks:

• Best Alternative Medicine Plan for Weight Loss
• Know your fat burning zone so your exercise counts.
• Ride the Wave or find a new fun toy to help you burn a few extra calories and stretch out those hips from sitting around the office all day.
• Sleep: Studies show if you don’t get enough sleep that is a cause for weight gain, and during these “Tough Economic Times” we need to use all the freebies we can snatch up!
• Calcium: Are you getting enough calcium? Research supports calcium supplementation for weight loss. Woo hoo!! This is a simple and cheap thing we should be taking anyway. I am not a fan of calcium carbonate as commonly used in many antacids, because we actually need acid to absorb our minerals, therefore I prefer calcium citrate. Non-menopausal adult women should get about 1200mg in daily divided doses to prevent osteoporosis and help control weight.
• Fiber: Best source for fiber is fruits and veggies. I also use these chewable fiber tablets by Enzymatic Therapy, add ground flaxseeds to smoothies, and typically don’t recommend psyllium fiber as it can make some people really gassy….especially if I have to be around them!
• Chomium Picolinate: To help balance cravings try 200mcg of chromium twice daily.
• Multivitamin: If you are restricting your diet be sure to make sure all your bases are covered by taking a high quality multivitamin.
• Make a Zero Zone: Your fridge feng shui is Uber important. Zero calories and guilt free snacks like fruits and veggies should be readily available and accessable. Hide the non-whole food treats for the “out of site out of mind” benefit.
• Make it a Gym Date: Whether catching up with a girlfriend over the stairmaster, or strutting your stuff on an actual date at the gym, suggest healthy alternatives to the typical dates that consist of sitting around and overeating, overdrinking, and over-overing in the Standard American Diet (SAD) fashion.
• Reading: Join our book club just by staying tuned, or subscribed. Bobbie Laing will be writing about many different genres between self help books, engaging novels, and so forth. When we have a quiet night reading, we are nurturing that within us that is stressed and needs to be calm while avoiding television ad brainwashing.

Read More: Weight Loss category

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Water Safe Test Kit

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

Is your home drinking water safe?

I was a little shocked to find out that mine had toxic LEAD in it, after using eVitamins Water Safe Drinking Water Test. I knew the chlorine would be in there because I can taste the difference, but the lead was a bit of an unpleasant surprise.

Although we have done away with lead pipes and lead paint since the 1980’s, many fixtures are still partially made of lead, and this toxic metal that causes anemia, decreased neurological functioning, and immune dysfunction should be filtered out!

I realized that my Aquasana filter was indeed doing me a great deal of good, and that I needed to also start giving my parade of pets safe filtered water too. It is worth the extra few minutes a day it takes to fill up their water bowls. Pets are especially susceptible to environmental toxins.

Sometimes I worry as a Naturopathic Physician that I am over-paranoid about toxins in our environment, so the  Biochemist in me grabbed this test kit over at eVitamins to see if maybe I didn’t need to be so paranoid after all.

Now I know why most patients I’ve tested for heavy metals in Seattle consistently show high lead and mercury levels.  We are drinking poison! I wish mercury was included in this test kit, but most high quality filters also filter mercury out of our water as well as other toxic substances such as pesticides, bacteria, chlorine and so forth.

I like the simple Aquasauna filters that can be added to your kitchen sink. Don’t forget the shower filter too, or you can filter the water straight at it’s source with a whole home water filter (somewhat expensive but highly recommended for those with chronic disease or small children constantly bathing in it.)

Since the ONLY thing we should be drinking is WATER (read my “Obesity Tax on Soda” tirade for more info) you CAN afford a water filter when you give up soda and  juice.  Filtering the toxins out at the kitchen sink is the most economic way to go. Save  your favorite glass  jars and fill them in lieu of plastic bottles. Be cool….be a “jar drinker” like me! You can also use stainless steel containers for small children that should not be trusted with glass, such as my fav brand I can guarantee is aluminum free: Klean Kanteen.

You should especially purchase this Water Safe Test Kit if you have developing children in your home, suffer from chronic disease, or if your water has a funky odor. Water should never have an odor!

Dr. Nicole

Related reading:

Detoxify Your Home

Mold: Getting Rid of it in Your Home

Decreasing Home Pollutants

Chlorine Shower Filter: Anti-Aging

Liver Support Protocol

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Cholesterol Diet

The good news is there are many lifestyle changes that will lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The combination of a low-saturated-fat, total-fat, and low-cholesterol diet, physical activity, and weight control can have many positive effects on overall health.

In addition to lowering the “bad” LDL cholesterol, they can raise the “good” HDL cholesterol.

The body naturally makes cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol is found in foods that contain animal products (butter, milk, cheese, chicken, beef, eggs, etc.). Plant products do NOT contain cholesterol. There are many good things cholesterol does in the body, including:

Read more

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Autism: Eight Questions Dr. Nicole has for Parents

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

I won’t even pretend to be an expert on autism, but since this great group of autism blogging moms found me here at the kitchen table, I have a few questions of my own….

Below is a brief interview I did with one parent of a child diagnosed with autism, and if you would like to copy and paste the questions in to the comments section and share your own answers either anonymously or publicly it would greatly help me while I research the latest biochemistry on autism, vaccines, diets, vitamins, low homocysteine, and so forth.  Also other doctors and health care professional subscribed to my website will benefit.

Please share any other info you think would be helpful beyond my very basic questions, please by all means do so…I sincerely believe that the parents are the experts on this topic and even though April is “Autism Awareness Month,” author Tara McClintick and I decided that autism continues 365 days a year….so we are going to keep talking about this important and ever growing “epidemic” at the kitchen table.

#1 Did you have a difficult time getting pregnant?

Yes. We were childless for 9 years and I had two or three unsuccessful cervical bypass procedures. I also had one ectopic pregnancy prior to the birth of my daughter. I did manage to get pregnant on my own without drugs or other procedures. I was 29 when she was born.

#2 Was the pregnancy complicated or simple?

Very simple. Very little morning sickness, nothing major.

#3 Any problemss at birth?

Not at all. However, I was induced and was in labor for almost 17 hours.

#4 Normal APGARS?

Yes.

#5 Did your child exhibit any signs or symptoms before diagnosis physical or otherwise?

Yes. She was unable to nurse (could not latch on). She had poor eye contact, few words by age 2, echolalia when she did speak, repetitive behavior (such as stacking books), wandering, not pointing, not always responding to her name, sensory sensitivity, tantruming

#6 Was the onset around the time of the MMR vaccine?

I don’t recall when this vaccine was administered, but we definitely knew there was something wrong by about 18 months.

#7 Was your child vaccinated on a full schedule or partial schedule?

Full, at least I think so. She was vaccinnated as the schedule required in 1997-98.

#8 Any other factors going on with the family before or at the time of onset?

No.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen table to share your story.

Related reading:

Autism Awareness Month

Autism: 10 Strategies for Implementing Diet Changes

The Autism Diet Connection

Autism: 10 Tips for Everyone

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Alternative Medicine Help for Seasonal Allergies

Already the impending doom of scratchy throats, runny itchy noses, water eyes and chronic congestion are slowly setting in amongst many of us. Have no fear though, I have put together a basic plan to help avoid if not reduce the use of allergy medicines that tend to leave us feeling drowsy and groggy.

Having an alternative medicine plan in store before allergy season sets in full force will save you time, medication, and misery in the long run.

First I will be discussing how to get your body in optimal conditioning to cope with allergy season, and then I will discuss specific natural medicines that will help support your immune system to reduce the overall severity of seasonal allergies. If you always tend to be “sick” the months of March, April, May and September you more likely have seasonal allergies than a bad cold.

Now is a great time to do a SPRING CLEANING. Having a healthy liver aids the detoxification of histamine, that nasty molecule that gives us the irritating symptoms of allergies. Read more

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How ANYONE Can be a Naturopath in 10 Simple Steps

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

One day a student from UW Med School followed me around on my Bastyr Internship Rounds and said, “is being a Naturopathic Doctor all about fish oil and probiotics?”

To which I responded, “pretty much.”

As much as this is a little tongue in cheek humor for my colleagues, I hope you all will be reminded of the pillars of health.

Plus I don’t have all the time in the world to nag everyone on the planet so here is how you can help Dr. Nicole on her nagging mission:

#1 Tell everyone to investigate and TREAT THE ROOT CAUSE of their health problem. Remember that “Disease is Our Teacher” and symptoms are the only way the body can send messages that something has gone haywire. Read more

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Safeway: Dr. Nicole Grocery Shops From Home

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

I had to “product test” Safeway.com’s option to have groceries delivered and was quite pleased by the experience!

First of all let’s give mad Props to delivery man Jeff that was friendly and walked me through the process, suggesting that in the future I click the option to allow for substitutions because if I don’t want it he’ll just take it back to my local Safeway and refund my account.

Jeff gets a gold star for not taking my tip as well, since I hadn’t ordered groceries online before I wasn’t sure what kind of tip I should give and all my friends that I consulted with weren’t sure either. So I just handed him the tip and asked, “for future reference what do people normally tip you for your service?”

To which he replied, “we don’t accept tips.” Pheew! Okay that disaster was everted and I had also saved another few bucks to boot! It is also nice to know that there are still some honest people out there these days.

BONUSES OF SHOPPING ONLINE:

• No people in my way
• No waiting in lines
• No pointless small talk with strangers
• No impulse shopping
• No screaming children…yes I still scream and cry when I don’t get the candy I want…. *wink*

The nice thing about Safeway grocery delivery is that you can also have groceries sent to sick or elderly friends that are shut in, or low on funds…a “care package” for your broke college kids!

It is also simple to use their site and search for the latest deals as they come up!

I found many of the organic and natural products I frequently use on sale and was given the Buyers Club discount.

Most of the produce I buy are from the Farmers Market near my house so I just need the basic staples. But, I found some good deals online at Safeway too and the search function makes it virtually impossible to mess up!

As I said earlier, I found it much less tempting to impulse shop online, and it was easier to find the deals and check them out, since they pop up as the top choice.

My overall grocery “cybertrip” was only about half of what I normally pay due to lack of impulse shopping.

Online shopping may be a great way for people to lose weight as they distance themselves from the immediacy of food and impulse shopping.

Remember if you have a sick or shut in friend or relative you can always tell them you would be happy to have some groceries delivered. This is thoughtful and easy thanks to Safeway.com! Act like it is no big deal because you get it free from work or something. People are proud, but they are also grateful.

Which is why we all need to adopt the homeless, weak, and elderly in need around us and consider what true poverty, loneliness, sickness, and isolation is.

Of course I had to product test this before I could recommend it, and was certainly happy to because….

Grocery store shoppingis the Trifecta of everything I detest (had to use that because I gave up the Hate for 2008)

In conclusion I was delighted to beta test this whole Safeway delivery thing my friend has been bragging about for five years. We have it set up as an an affiliate program so if you click through any Safeway banners (of just book mark) this page we get a small donation which helps us unleash the inner fabulosity of our free healthy breaking news and nags!

Thanks for your purchases!

Dr. Nicole

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Environmental Working Group

Nothing is more important to us than protecting our children. Which is precisely why we’re huge fans of Environmental Working Group (EWG.org).

Feeding our children should be about choosing first foods, messy bibs, and learning to use a cup – not keeping tabs on scientifc research to avoid harmful chemicals like bisphenol-A (BPA).

We want EWG at the table, advocating for our kids – and yours – so their health is no longer compromised by toxic chemicals like BPA, which is dangerous to kids’ growing bodies, implicated in diseases and problems such as diabetes, heart disease, neurological disorders, and cancer. Read more

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Bastyr Herb Fair June 6th!

Mark your calenders! June 6th is the Bastyr Herb Fair!

Our own “Doc Martin” - Eric Martin, Acupuncturist and master herbalist, will be leading herb walks at this year’s 11th Annual Bastyr Herb Fair! I probably won’t be there because I don’t like crowds of people… and already know it all! (Just kidding). Anyway, this is a fun free time for friends and family.

Be sure to try the acupressure foot path! I plan to talk about how to make your own foot path soon. It is pretty simple - anyone who can pour a cement path can do it. You just need to stick some smooth river rocks about halfway in to properly massage the feet.

This is a great opportunity learn a bit more about herbs! Read more

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Anti-Aging Diet

By Dr. Nicole Sundene

“If I could turn back time….”  name that tune!

The fountain of youth is not that difficult to find. Really it is inside of all of us. It simply starts with making the better decisions when at all possible.

Let’s face it, nobody wants to BE old, nobody wants to LOOK old, and most importantly nobody wants to FEEL old. he bad news is that aging is just a reality of living.

The good news is that to some degree we can reverse the aging process, if not drastically slow it down through better diet and lifestyle decisions. After working eight years in patient care, two of which were spent with a dermatologist I have concluded that the best “preserved” older people are those that exercise, eat right, and have positive mental attitudes.

Botox and collagen will only take you so far, and in my opinion there is no substance that will give you that healthy youthful glow that only proper nutrition and exercise provide. Read more

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