Candid Conversations with Teens

I recently came across this video from CityLine–it’s worth a watch if you have a teen in your life.

How much do you think you know about your teenager? Host Tracy Moore sits down with 12 teens for a candid conversation about what’s really happening in their lives.

Whether you are a parent, coach, auntie, uncle, grandparent or other interested adult, this show will give you some insight into what’s going on in the life of today’s teens and how you can help.

Teen CityLine Real

How Sugar Affects Your Immune System

This piece of research dates back to 1973, but the results are no less relevant to your immune system today.

The study showed that the ability of your immune system to deal with bacteria was significantly decreased for up to five hours after eating sugar. The sugar didn’t decrease the number of immune cells, but it decreased the effectiveness of those cells.

Dr. Kendra talks about this study is her latest video here.


If you need more proof that reducing sugar intake is important for your health, listen to Dr. Mark Hyman interviewed by John Robbins on Food Revolution Network, or watch the documentary FED UP. And if you need help making a change, your local naturopathic doctor is never far off!

The Marathon of Pregnancy

Pregnancy is a big deal.

We have to give up wine and coffee, and avoid certain foods like fish and brie cheese. We have to get a house ready for a new member of the family who is “a little high maintenance”. We have to consider how this new person will affect the relationships in the family. And then there’s the worry that starts almost immediately upon hearing there is someone growing inside us.

But did you know the physical demands of pregnancy are an even bigger deal?

One study using blood tests, for example, showed that moms had lower levels of nutrients during their pregnancy, and for up to six months after.

Dr. Kendra, the pregnancy support ND, at StoneTree Clinic talks about what she wishes all moms knew about pregnancy in this video:

Dr. Kendra is presently in the middle of running her own “marathon” and is expecting to welcome another member to her family in May 2018! Come in and see her before she starts her maternity leave on April 27, 2018.

Fear not, Dr. Maggie and Dr. Candice are all lined up to care for Dr. Kendra’s patients during her leave. You can learn more about them here!

Welcome to Our New YouTube Channel

What do Naturopaths wish everyone knew? You can find out in the first videos on our new YouTube Channel.

In two minutes or less, these short videos will feature StoneTree Naturopathic Doctors offering up their wisdom on various health topics.

Our first two videos are live:

We are just getting started with videos to teach you how to understand and improve your health. Visit our channel to watch our latest videos, and subscribe to get updates when new ones are posted!

Dr. Maggie on Concussion Recovery

Dr. Kendra on Pregnancy

Ten Recipes to Save Your Life

I love this Ted Talk. Jamie Oliver, chef, food and health activist, gives an unsettling talk on the absolute crisis we are in with respect to our health and food.

In this impassioned talk, he reports:

  • In the 18 minutes of his talk, 4 Americans will be dead from the food they eat.
  • Two-thirds of Americans are overweight.
  • American children will live 10 years shorter than their parents.

As Jamie says, “Diet-related disease is the biggest killer in the United States, right now, here today.”

Lest you think we’ve escaped the problem here in Canada, we haven’t. Our rates may be lower, but we’re headed to the same place–we’re just a decade behind. Our main streets are clogged with fast food and sugary drinks. Our homes are no longer a place for cooking and eating together, and our schools make food decisions based on economics, not nutrition.

Perhaps the most staggering moment in the talk is Jamie showing clips of young school children who are unable to identify vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, and broccoli.

How do you deal with a problem this big? Jamie gives many suggestions, but the one I like the best is this: Every child, before they leave school, should be taught to cook 10 recipes that will save their life.

A great idea. And here they are: http://www.cookingmanager.com/jamie-oliver-teach-ten-recipes/

Commit to one a week. One a month. Hell, you could commit to one a year if your kids are young. Do it with your kids, and then have them do it for the family, or even better, for their friends!

 

Why Healthy Eating is Hard

This video is perhaps the funniest way we’ve seen to capture the confusion around food that the health industry has managed to generate over the years.

So funny, but also so true. It feels like nutritional advice is constantly shifting and contradicting previous advice. What to do?

For us, nutrition falls squarely into the category of simple but not easy. It’s simple to eat better: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

The trouble is that following that advice is not always easy. That’s where we come in:

  • Need to understand how your diet is affecting your health and how changing it can dramatically change how you feel? Book an appointment with a Naturopathic Doctor.
  • Want some insight into what specific foods you might feel better avoiding? Get a food intolerance test to find out.
  • Looking for access to gluten- or dairy-free foods and other specialty nutritional items? Check out the new Pantry at StoneTree.

Changing how you eat isn’t easy. But it is simple, and it is possible. And we can help!

Lazy: A Manifesto

“Life is too short to be busy.”
Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing

This essay from author Tim Kreider speaks for itself and is absolutely worth the listen.

Our addiction to “busyness” as a culture does not make our lives better. It keeps us away from the people and things we love. It gives us a sense of purpose that is often purposeless, and keeps as in the dark about what our true art is.

It’s summer holiday time. Book an hour, a day, a week–whatever you can–and revel in your laziness. Rediscover, as the Italians say, dolce far nientethe sweetness of doing nothing.

After all, doing nothing IS doing something!

Enjoy,

The StoneTree Team

How to Decide What to Eat

North Americans are obsessed with figuring out what is or isn’t the BEST food or diet.

Reports in the media like this one report on a single food that is magic for a specific health complaint–in this case nuts and colon cancer. No doubt some media outlet will post an article the soon that nuts are bad for you because they are too fattening, too contaminated or likely to cause diverticulitis.

It seems like there is just no knowing what is good for you and what isn’t.

In fact, the International Food Information Council Foundation’s annual Food and Health survey this spring reported that 78% of those surveyed reported they encountered conflicting information about healthy food, and the follow-up questions indicated that 58% of respondents reported that this conflicting info created doubt in the food choices they were making.

We’re confused, in other words, and we don’t know what to do.

How To Decide What To Eat

Knowledge is power…expect when it isn’t. The way that health and nutrition is reported in western media is not making us healthier and more empowered. It’s doing the exact opposite.

The best resource I have found to take the confusion out of healthy food and healthy eating is Michael Pollen’s book, In Defense of Food.  He digs into lots of great detail to support his thesis which is simple, easy and NOT confusing: eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

By “food”, Pollan means things your great-grandmother would recognize as food. Whole foods. The more processed a food becomes the less it should be eaten.

  • Strawberries? Yes. Strawberry jam…less so.  “Strawberry” milkshake from McDonalds? No.
  • Non-GMO corn? Yes. GMO, round-up ready corn…less so. Organic corn chips even less so. High fructose corn syrup? No.
  • Sunflower seeds? Yes. Sunflower oil…less so. Commercially produced, low-fat salad dressing with sunflower oil? No.
  • Grass fed beef. Yes. (Assuming you eat meat.) Commercially farmed corn feed beef…less so. Processed beef patties with fake cheese and simulated bacon flavouring? No.

It’s a good rule of thumb. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. If you want to learn more, you can watch the documentary “In Defense of Food” on Netflix.

By they way…Pollan followed up In Defense of Food with Food Rules, a guide to answer the question, “What should I eat?” Guess what the last rule is?

“Break the rules once in a while.”

Worth considering. All these years of study and worry and research and media don’t seem to have made us any healthier!

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

This Year, Eat Together

I am blessed with many friends both old and new, who love food. We have sat around countless tables together cooking, eating, drinking and laughing.

Every Monday night the lot of us get together for dinner. It can be as few as two families and as many as six. We take turns cooking for each other or we do potluck. Occasionally we even order in.

The point is not the food – although it is always outstanding in this great group of health-conscious foodies. Equally, the point isn’t about making it a big deal, in fact, we are often all finished and back to our respective homes by 8:30PM.

The point is to connect with each other. To share a few laughs. To start off our week knowing we have more in our lives then our work or our stressors. It helps us to remember we are not alone–we’re part of a group and a community.

Eating together is one Europe’s great secrets of health and wellness. Eating together usually results in eating better food, eating it more slowly, which usually means eating less of it.

Eating together creates laughter, which we know improves health and wellness on so many levels.

President’s Choice mission for 2017–Canada’s 150th birthday–is to get Canadians to eat together. This is a goal we can get behind.

Check out their awesome video:

Share it with your friends and make a plan to get together regularly this year.

Eat well, laughs lots and connect often!

Eating You Alive Film

The 2016-17 Be the Change film series kicks off on October 19th with the new documentary “Eating you Alive”.

We love the film series as a rule, but we’re hosting this particular film because we know from training, from clinical experience with thousands of patients, and from our own lives, that what you eat is directly tied to your health.

This is one of the core philosophies of naturopathic medicine, but the evidence in the scientific literature is building to the point that it just can’t be ignored by anyone in health care any longer. Food is medicine. You can use that medicine to your benefit, or to your detriment. The choice is yours, and this is one of those films that makes the right choice abundantly clear, and easier to make.

There are showings at 5PM and 7:30PM on Wednesday, October 19th. Come out and join us to learn more about how your diet can change your health and your life!

:: Info and Tickets

Eating You Alive Trailer