Green Pasture Farms has launched!

 

I thought you might like to know about a new delivery service launched and put together by my good friend Simon Whyatt, a personal trainer here in Manchester (http://www.greenpasturefarms.co.uk). 

Like me, Simon is passionate about good quality meat from animals who are allowed to roam on pasture and eat their natural diet (which includes things like grass, flowers, hay, insects and grubs- NOT omega-6-laden grains which make farm animals sick with bacterial infections and dependent on antibiotics). Green Pasture Farms is a collection of farms from Pendle in North Lancashire, and they provide meat selection boxes, offal and cheaper cuts and even things like marrow bones and pasture-raised beef tallow, which I can vouch for as imparting a heavenly taste to cooking and roasting, as well as being a healthier and more stable alternative to heat-damaged seed oils.

They will also deliver anywhere in the mainland UK, and if you have a freezer it might be worth spending a bit more, as orders over £100 get free delivery!

Fertility Workshops launching!

Some of you may know that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about fertility recently, what with my recent addition to the Mums-to-Be club. From a personal perspective, I’d (perhaps naively) believed that my age would militate against me getting pregnant, as a relatively elderly (!) primigravida. But I’ve realised that much of the fear-mongering about women’s fertility after 35 is misplaced, as much can be done to improve one’s chances of rewinding time if you give your body the building blocks to nurture a healthy egg.

With that in mind, I’m launching a series of fertility workshops in the Chorlton area for small groups of women who are seeking to improve their chances of a healthy conception. In the course of the 2-hour session, attendees will learn about the importance and benefits of nutrient-dense foods and fats (those that we’ve been taught to avoid!), things such as:

- grass-fed meats, broths, offal, eggs, seafood, butter.

- why you might need to supplement with cod liver oil and Vitamin D.

Participants will get to sample some tasty recipes and try their hand at making fermented foods, which can restore healthy gut flora and immune function.

That’s not all….

Nutrition is a good part of the battle, but it’s not the only part. We’ll also cover:

- Why it’s essential to improve basal body temperature as a marker of  healthy ovulation, and how to do this.

- The role that stress plays in infertility; how to interrupt the stress response using the wonderfully simple techniques of Emotional Transformation and return the body to a state of relaxation (and thereby a normal cycle).

All this, including handouts and food is included for the price, a bargain at £35. Dates will be booked around your availability, and are likely to include Saturdays. Book now, and get a discount for multiple bookings :-)

Why stress really is the silent assassin…

ImageA new study emerged last week showing that ‘nervous’ mice are more prone to developing aggressive cancer than their more placid counterparts. The research, carried out by the Stanford University School of Medicine, examined the different ways in which mice responded to stressful scenarios (i.e. whether they explored the dark, ‘scary’ parts of their enclosures) and then subjected them to the kind of UV exposure that causes skin cancer in humans. All the mice went on to develop tumours, but the anxious mice developed them in greater number and more invasively. There seems to be a number of mechanisms behind this, including greater levels of immune-suppressing corticosteroid hormones, fewer immune cells circulating in the bloodstream, and greater numbers of regulatory T-cells which dampen the immunological  response to the tumours. It remains to be seen how this translates into human trials.Of course the researchers are already looking at drug-based solutions for suppressing anxiety in cancer patients, but surely a much more effective and safer intervention might start with something like meditation, or relaxation methods such as EFT, Emotional Transformation, and all the other therapies that help restore us to a healing, parasympathetic state? http://www.livescience.com/19904-anxiety-cancer-risk.html