Want to Cook Like A Rebel? Cookery Class 23 March 2014 in Leap, West Cork

Food Rebels!!! 

Want to learn some new recipes, cooking from scratch and a few simple meals that will uplift you? If you have been feeling low, heavy, have some health issues or are just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired...then it's time to come out and learn how to cook - like a rebel! 

Perhaps some high vibration foods are all your body needs to restore its' usual vitality and even if this is the first step on a new road - eating well is all about understanding how and what to cook. 

For you seasoned foodies out there, are junk and ready made meals creeping into your menu? Maybe a little tune-up and gentle reminder about what to feed your body is what you need...

However most importantly, eating well and renewed health starts with reducing the amount of processed food in your diet. Making more of our meals from basic ingredients is easier then you might think - all it takes is a little push in the right direction.

As a food rebel you can learn how to feed yourself and your family - make some items you may have thought too difficult and get to know your food on an entirely new, energetic level. There is no time like right now, and no better place to practice being a rebel!

This next class we will focus on high quality protein sources for vegetarian meals, even if you are not a vegetarian, including more vegetable protein sources in your diet has many advantages for improved digestive health and building lean muscles. All food should taste great, be versatile and easy to prepare, no matter what the ingredients! 

Come out and join an Intuitive Rebel Nutritionist in Leap, West Cork

23rd March 2014 (Veggie Meals – best quality protein sources & Bread) 11am to 3pm 

Only €35 for class, organic food, recipes & notes!

Contact April on mobile 087 236 1616 or email: info@aprildanann.com to book your place…

See you there!

Tasty….jasmine rice, lentils & roasted vegetables

Anatomy of Pain….Food, Animals & Us

Anatomy of Pain….. You know, it’s all in the body

So yesterday I finally relented and listened to my body – I had a feeling I needed some of my Rebel Remedy for a couple of days to help me shift this whateveritwas that was coming up for me….so I took some and then went about my day….

Of course it worked, I felt better and life goes on. What came up was really interesting though, and gave me a few more insights into why I feel so strongly about the way we go about living our lives and growing our own food as much as possible.

I have been on about food, nutrition, eating, diet, cooking and all things to do with the stuff we put into our bodies for such a long time. I have spent years as a vegetarian, a vegan (healing from cancer) and now – well I don’t have an exact name for the way we eat, except we….

Eat Like Pagans! LOL

So what came up for me from my body was ‘pain’, hurt and discomfort. Yet somehow I knew it wasn’t all mine, it was something that was rising up from my bones….for days (weeks?) I hurt physically, not a huge amount, just enough to be uncomfortable.

But I had been putting it down to the workouts I have been doing. You know the kind of aches that come along with moving muscles, joints and bones and pushing yourself a little harder then usual? It sort of feels good for awhile, but it also should settle down as your body adjusts to the new movements.

Well, by Sunday morning I was just aching. My ankles, knees, shoulders, and back all sort of hurt and I had to get to the bottom of it once and for all. So I poured up some of my Rebel Remedy tincture (I make this for trauma, inner pain, shock and acute stress) and sipped this in water…

Of course then I went on with my day and kind of forgot about things because I was feeling more like myself! But this morning once I got up and went to start my workout I remembered what I was feeling yesterday, because I was feeling so much better.

I realized some of this ‘pain’ I had taken on was from meat…animal flesh I had eaten over a lifetime until a few years ago when I decided to do something quite different. At the time my only option was to stop eating meat altogether in order to clean out my body and to detox.

To be honest I never fully realized until this past week that some of the stuff I have been releasing and detoxing are emotional trauma suffered by the animals (food, meat, milk, cheese) during their lives and certainly on their way to their deaths. 

I just assumed it was more of my own stuff from when I was bullied….it was so familiar to me. Which then led me to wonder if the animals themselves perceive being pushed, poked, dragged and proded to their deaths as being bullied? Or maybe it’s also how they might ‘feel’ being kept in an enclosed confined space with hundreds (thousands?) of other animals in a battery farm operation…..

How can I be so very certain about some of these facts on how food animals are raised and treated? I worked for many years as a Food Hygiene Inspector – I was the one who carried out ante and post mortem inspection of food animals. In cold barns, abattoirs, meat lockers and kill floors – I saw it all.

I was also the one who threatened to pull licenses and shut down the plant for any notion of cruelty or bullying. And I was the one who could calmly walk an injured, old or frightened animal down the chute to the kill floor without the need for an electric prod or any harm done. 

After all these animals were giving up their lives to be our food….Just from an understanding of what was to come, a little gentleness - this animal was not going to be ill handled on my watch.

Needless to say over the years I have spent quite a large portion of my life meat free. But, once I was in a position to raise, grow and manage my own food animals, this is what we do for our own needs.

And our own consciousness.  

The only meat I eat now is what I can raise myself, it’s only a limited amount, so when the meat runs out we are vegetarians for the rest of the year! However, I know each animal is treated (loved!) well, fed organically, interacted with, has space to roam and enjoy their time with us just being animals.

All animals which are destined for food on our tables, should be treated with respect through every stage of their existence and not bullied or mishandled in any way. This improves the quality of the meat and the quality of our lives equally. 

Do unto others…..

So….all of this has been coming up for me because I took my remedy for trauma and shock. Perhaps now I will expand its’ uses and benefits to cover bullying as well. 

April

West Cork grown Comfrey Cream at Rebel Foods Market Stall

Comfrey Cream

Comfrey cream has got to be my all time favourite cream, lotion, balm, potion or anything else that I make around here. I can’t seem to find an end to all of the ways and means that it gets used.

We use it for everything!

In case you are not that familiar with this herb, it has been noted and used for many centuries for it’s ability to increase cell production, reduce inflammation and soothe irritated tissues. Thus, it can settle things down on the skin and at the same time lessen scarring. 

A few weeks ago I noticed an old scar on my arm from a barbed wire fence that I got years ago trying to help my cat through, away from the neighbours’ dogs. It was just a long thin scratch at the time and healed up right away. 

But it left a long thin, very noticeable scar straight across my arm. Funny how most of the other scars I have tend to fade over time, but not this one. It was still prominent on my arm, at least to me….

So, I started putting some ordinary comfrey cream on it, night after night and low and behold…it has faded to nearly nothing. I love this about comfrey – it is soothing, healing and a skin regenerator all at the same time.

I make my comfrey cream with only the finest comfrey around, ahem…my own West Cork grown comfrey, so I know it is quality, right from the outset. I also use only organic beeswax (my own until it runs out) and organic grade therapeutic oils such as coconut, sweet almond, jojoba and cold pressed olive oil.

For so many years I put nothing on my skin. Only water. And then once I started with my own creams, lotions, ointments, balms and salves – I can’t get enough! My skin is drinking them in.

And not only my skin. 

At least once a week (or maybe more) someone comments on my hair – even when it’s a mess, it’s still shiny or actually, sometimes glossy. Perhaps its’ also because I rub comfrey cream all over my hands and then through my hair once it’s dry or maybe it’s the nettle & rosemary rinse, but then it might also be the fact I am Nightshade free….

Or it’s a combination of all three of the above. But, we do have healthy hair around here – so whatever we are doing, I think I will keep doing it! LOL

Coming back to healing and protecting skin, for far too many years I suffered each winter with dry, chapped hands that would split at the knuckles and around my nails. If you have ever had this happen, you can probably appreciate how painful this is. And how much I would dread getting my hands wet.

But, half of my day is spent with wet hands – cooking, cleaning or making something or other. So steering clear of water is not an option – it is often a key ingredient in the many things I do around here.

Over the years I have used comfrey creams from many different sources (they have far more ingredients then mine do), then finally gave up because they simply didn’t work. That is until I made my own and combined it with body butters or on occasion cocoa butter. 

The bottom line here is that my own creams are so pure and natural they do no harm to delicate and healing skin. I add essential oils to back up the therapeutic effects while boosting their detox and repair properties.

One other area I have been plagued with is cold sores on my lips. For years I have fasted as a discipline and for detox purposes, however, because fasting pushes out whatever toxins, viruses etc. that are hanging around in the body, cold sores would always break out for me.

Until my trusty comfrey cream that is! I kind of don’t want to speak too soon, but this is the longest I have gone without a cold sore in years – all due to using my Fire & Ice Comfrey Cream blend. I think it killed the virus dead the last time it even thought of surfacing. 

Then, my son used comfrey cream to heal up an in-grown toenail, we all put it on minor scrapes, cuts and burns and there is a jar in the barn for the animals which we use when ever someone gets a scratch or sore spot. 

Comfrey is just an all round healing, comforting herb and a must have cream for the medicine cabinet, or next to your bed, or in your purse, on the kitchen window…..

April 

Rebel Foods Market Stall Comfrey Creams

A Manufactured Mess…..

It is high time that we stop and think about everything that we choose to put in our mouth, on our skin and into our minds while considering the fact, that we are over fed and under nourished eating ‘food’ that is all part of a BIG LIE. 


Why is it that we are overweight, sick and tired, diseased, stressed out and under functioning in a world with an abundance of every kind of ‘food’? How is it possible that we are being ‘fed’ a lie about what we should be eating, how much, when and why but for the most part, we can’t see it?

If you can understand that there are hidden agendas, Big Gov, Big Seed, Big Pharma and ‘world order’ propaganda machines are out there actively encouraging you to believe what they are telling you about health, illness, vaccines, and have general media control, then it is not too much of a stretch to apply this same truth to the food industry. 

The agriculture and food sectors, and more precisely what they sell us, manipulate consumers through a means of dependence on the cheap, lifeless and nutritionally depleted products they push. Like all else we have been blind sided by false food claims, a belief that this food is all we can afford in a recession (and in general), that it forms part of a balanced diet and besides it follows a food pyramid guide developed by ‘government nutritional experts’.

There you have the outline of a ticking time bomb, and it lives in us.

I am hoping that with the waking up of large segments of the population - post  Swine Flu ‘panic-demic’, banking disaster and mass migration, there are more and more who are asking the questions and doing their own research. This action and public reaction can continue and will now carry over onto the biggest source of the problems- the food we are eating.

When we follow the typical western diet that is considered so ‘normal, fairly healthy and affordable’, we are playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette with our health. The spin from these big corporations would have us believe that everyone should get up in the morning to eat cereal from a box, drink a litre of caffeinated beverages, eat high fat ‘healthy’ muffins for snacks and prepare quick meals in minutes at the end of the day with vegetables and plant based items ‘on the side’ of chemically laced meat. 

In fact if it comes from a box or a package, it is clean, sanitized and therefore, 'all right', we can just read the label and ‘know’ what we are eating.

Then, because we are overweight following their regimen and eating their ‘food’, we start a diet after Christmas in the New Year, join a gym and in general, stay in this endless game. The only problem is that we do this consistently, year in, year out, make half hearted attempts at ‘eating healthy’ with limited success and then it is back to the old ingrained habits. 

We are hooked on the high fat, high sugar, high salt, drugged up and low nutrient value over processed products that have our health, bodies, self esteem, moods and all else, in a manufactured mess.

There is no one to blame but us for the ‘shape’ we are in, our will power is weak, we have ‘food issues’, emotional eating, and poor lifestyle habits- well maybe we do, BUT this behaviour is endorsed and contributed to by the manufacturers of this food. 

Next time you go to your supermarket do a visual check of the aisles- how many are devoted to processed packaged foods, prepared ready meals, sweets, cakes and spilling out into high traffic areas, junk food of every conception?

We are programmed to think that meals take minutes to prepare, the less time spent in the kitchen the better, that most of the meal comes from a box, or a package or better yet, a takeaway. We eat the same foods from week to week with different sauces. Thus now we have taste buds that are too shut down to discern all the subtle flavours of the additives, colourants, preservatives, and other chemical ‘enhancers’ that have been consigned to our food.

The food is a joke, you can’t process something to death and then breathe life back into it with a sprinkle of vitamins and minerals, once it is dead- that is it. And believe me, your highly intelligent body that has recognition capabilities for hundreds of thousands of compounds, knows the difference. This false economy (where the jokers are gone wild) is not only the reality outside of you it is the reality within, set up and orchestrated by Big Food. Big Seed and Big Agriculture (have I left anything out?).

The fallacy is the food, it is not nutrition and should not even be called food, white bread toast offers nothing, hyper-caffeinated coffee maxes out your adrenal function, half the fruit and vegetables are poisoned from mass production in depleted soils and a continuous rota of spraying chemicals, and deep fried crisps are NOT a food group. 

We are being ‘drugged’ and sickened by the food we ingest.

You are what you eat, and feel and think and do- the key here is that what you EAT has a profound influence over what you feel and think and do.

These scientists who are studying food, making the announcements and the recommendations on the world dietary requirements are bought and paid for by those that stand to gain from you buying their products. Big Gov doesn’t want you to live too long and be a drain on the old age pension scheme, Big Pharma plans to have you for a few years in the drug cartel, and Big Food, well they just want you to eat your way to your allotted three score and ten and then its bye-bye.

We are being lied to by the very same makers of the Swine Flu Hoax, they who control the media, push the drugs, own the economy and the banks, also control your food. And what is worse, they have manipulated what you think you know about the food you eat, you are being duped into believing that certain foods are healthy and nutritious when they certainly do not make you feel good or nourished in a warm and fuzzy way.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Now is the time, to take stock of your entire life starting with your diet. There is absolutely no need to fear anything (or take any medication etc.) when you are healthy and taking care of your essential resource – your health.

Prime your immune function and be ready for life, eat in the right way (ask me how!) exercise, fast and detox regularly to stay healthy. You deserve better.

April

Oil Pulling for Detox & Health

Oil Pulling

I recently got back into Oil Pulling or swishing as my children like to call it….and it is making such a difference to my well being (again!), even after only a few days. I did a few days fasting last week and included oil pulling each day – to such a difference.

In case you are not entirely certain what oil pulling is; this is a technique using about a teaspoon or two of coconut or sesame oil (usually, but other oils can work) and swishing it around in your mouth for 20 minutes or so.

After the time is up, you just spit it all out and rinse your mouth. Voila – refreshed and ready to go. 

It sounds and is, so utterly simple. But with some incredible and wonderful side effects - I often find significant results from oil pulling in as little as 1 day! Of course I add some healing benefits into my coconut oil as well…essential oils of cinnamon, tea tree, lemon, lemon grass, peppermint, clove, oregano and so forth, a different combination every couple of days.

The oils all work together and ‘pulls’ the toxins out from the general mouth area while the essential oils go and do all the things herbs and spices are meant to do. I have experienced many different results from oil pulling – which I would not have seen otherwise along my healing journey.

Some of these are a clarity in thinking, fresher breath, whiter teeth, healthy gums and tongue while others are more the results of deeper cleansing. I always feel as if my sinuses and the glands in my face and neck are benefiting from this too with less severe symptoms of glandular fever a few years ago.

I often also feel a clearing in my ears….as if whatever has been sitting around there for ever so long, starts to move or be pulled out. This can only be a good thing as far as I am concerned – I am all for taking out the rubbish in the most gentle way possible. 

However, I often have other indicators of detox taking place such as a little achy in my joints or rash in the beginning, but then my knees and skin becoming very clear. Mostly though, it’s when any brain fog clears and I feel more of a mind/body connection that I know this technique really does some good for my health.

Because this is all about controlling and perhaps eliminating some of the nasty bacteria living and growing in our teeth and mouth, I often follow up an oil pulling session with a mouthful of my lovely West Cork made Apple Cider Vinegar or some of my Rebel Juice probiotic drinks…..which adds the good guys back into your system. 

So, if you think your mouth, head, brain and body might benefit from some oil pulling – it’s so easy to get started on it and all you need is 20 minutes!

April

Raw Unrefined Coconut Oil mixed with essential oils - on my stand at the market

Food for the Soul

What to eat today….

I remember a time when it was such a chore to prepare, cook --- no it was a chore to even think about what to prepare or cook for a meal. It was as if my mind was stuck and I couldn’t even think clearly about what I would like to eat.

Perhaps part of the problem back then was that I was so busy (distracted?) by all the other stuff in my life. At the end of the day I really didn’t have any energy left to do much about nourishing myself, let alone anyone else. 

But another thing that was happening which was probably far worse was that I really wasn’t thinking all that much about the food/meals/nutrition I ended up putting into my body. 

A meal was prepared just to get something on the table most days. Things were rushed, I was tired, food was a hassle, eating was a mindless activity. Life was an ordeal.

Then, when I absolutely had no choice in the matter and had to start carefully considering exactly what went into my body for each and every meal to make it count (because the way I was living had made me sick)…then my eyes and my world opened up.

I allowed my intuition, (not advertising, imbalance, tiredness, peer pressure or worse – indifference) to dictate the needs of my body, mind and spirit. Nourishing myself has since become a multi-dimensional approach to far more then just staying alive –

It’s a process of paying attention, listening and thoroughly engaging with my food and the environment it comes from. I am feeding my body, mind and soul through the food choices I make each and every day.

So, that’s why I feast some days, fast other days and eat normally any days in between. My relationship with eating and food has become a spiritual experience – one that only asks of me to be present and involved with the food on my plate. 

Spiritual for me means being alive….

April

Yarrow