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Maple Nut Bark, a healthy indulgence

This recipe is very forgiving, use what you have and it will probably work out just fine. Unroasted, unsalted nuts and seeds are the healthiest option. I don’t use any nuts or seeds with salt or oils on them, with the exception of roasted organic pumpkin seeds, but raw works great too.

2 1/2 C mixed raw nuts and seeds; I generally use a mix of almonds, pecans, walnuts and brazil nuts. If I’m running low on nuts, I’ll throw in some seeds to make up the 2 1/2 Cups; pumpkin, chia, flax, sesame, sunflower.

Put the nuts and seeds into a large mixing bowl, add 1/2 cup of maple syrup (honey would work as well but you may need to heat it first so it’s thinner and coats the nuts well), 1/2 tsp of high quality salt (I use Redmond Real Salt) and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Toss all the coat the nuts well.

Spread blend out on a parchment-lined baking sheet, adding more syrup if required so all the nuts are surrounded by a thin layer of syrup.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees until the syrup is bubbling all over, stirring occasionally to keep the syrup well distributed. If you find some patches are browning too fast and not coated with enough syrup, you can pour a little more syrup on the pan so all the nuts are surrounded.

All the blend to bubble for 10-15 minutes, watching closely to avoid it getting too dark/burnt. The last five minutes of cooking are very important, I’ve scorched many a pan of expensive nuts- so don’t leave it alone!

When the mixture has bubbled and thickened, remove it from the oven and let cool completely before breaking into chunks. Store in an airtight container.

How to Handle Food Cravings Part Two

If you missed part one of this series, check it out here…

It took me many years and a lot of learning to finally understand that just because I have difficulty controlling myself around food, it doesn’t mean I’m weak, or a failure. All it really means is that I have a pretty normal brain in an environment filled with high sugar, high fat, hyperpalatable (a.k.a super tasty) foods that humans didn’t evolve to handle. The truth is, our modern food environment has changed drastically in the last 100 years and some of us have brains that are more easily overwhelmed by the explosion of chemicals and neurotransmitters caused by these modern foods that act a lot like drugs or other addictive substances. We just aren’t evolved to handle Dairy Queen Blizzards and Turtles Cheesecake, it’s not our fault.

Some people insist that this is a form of addiction to food and it should be treated as such. I’m painfully aware that modern food has addictive qualities, in fact, food manufacturers spend billions of dollars in research and development to make them as addictive as possible. Despite that, I’m not inclined to pathologize a problem that’s really a result of a normal brain bombarded with modern foods. That’s why I prefer to refer to it as “hijacking” and I teach my clients about the causes of hijacking, how to get un-hijacked and how to prevent it in the first place. The way I see it, the biological, sociological and psychological elements that make one more susceptible to addictive tendencies are mechanisms in the hijacking process as well, so all of those need to be addressed to develop a brain that’s resistant to hijacking.

For those of us that are more prone to addictions of all kinds, food cravings might be considered the least harmful iteration. That’s little solace to those that have to constantly evoke willpower and push back against the impulse that’s almost constantly telling us to “EAT THAT FOOD”. Despite it impacting our health, our weight and our self-esteem, our choice of substance is likely the least damaging of all the vices we could struggle with and it’s also one of the least addictive. Sugar is bad, but heroin is worse, you get my drift, so I encourage my clients to breath some self-compassion and relief into this problem as a first step. You can do this.

One very interesting thing to recognize is that those with less addictive wiring don’t have better willpower or self-control. In fact, recent research on willpower suggests that if a food craving arises for these folks, it’s generally milder, easier to resist and it doesn’t return. Basically, they say no once and they’re done. For those with near incessant cravings, resisting can be an all-day affair and by 4pm, we’re spent. It may help you to know that if you fit in this category, willpower researchers would agree that you actually have MORE willpower than less susceptible people, but you also have to use more of it. You can think of willpower like your cellphone battery, it only has so much charge and once it’s drained, the brakes are off.

But there’s hope. I don’t want to make it sound like there is a simple fix to this problem, because it takes effort to address those biological, sociological and psychological factors that contribute to susceptibility and while there are many things we can correct, some things, like our genetics, we just have to work with.

This is why my approach to food hijacking is multifaceted. It includes a fresh, whole foods diet with lots of protein, healthy fats, fiber and water.

Sometimes I recommend that my clients try a brain and health reset by only eating whole, unprocessed foods for periods of 5 to 30 days. Eating the right amount and type of calories and macronutrients without the hyperpalatable stuff that hijacks our brains can do wonders for cravings and health in general. In most cases, clients report that their cravings drop significantly within five days of adopting a whole-foods diet. Sometimes, starting with a diet that can feel restrictive isn’t the right move and we need to start with EFT Tapping, some exercise and some supplementation to help build resilience and gradually transition the diet to a healthier one. Everyone is different, but my approach is to embrace the concept of “harm-reduction” rather than abstinence. I work with my clients to help them get to a place where they are eating extremely well 80% of the time and 20% of the time they can eat whatever they like and live their lives fully, but have the tools and knowledge to get themselves back on track even after their brain has been hijacked by hyperpalatable foods.

The EFT Tapping we use for tougher cases of food cravings and brain hijacking is much deeper than simply tapping on cravings. This work focuses on the root causes of our overzealous craving mechanism, which could range from childhood conditioning that food is love, turning to food to minimize pain of any kind, turning to food to celebrate or rebel, food scarcity in our history or ancestry or even feeling that we need to carry extra weight as a form of protection of some kind. There are many deep and personal reasons that we develop a relationship to food that doesn’t serve us. You can unpack it and heal it, one issue at a time.

You can get started by trying my Ten Steps to Getting Unhijacked and let me know if you get stuck!

If you’d like to learn more sign up below and I’ll send you my FREE presentation on Why we CRAVE and how to STOP!

How to Handle Food Cravings Part One

If you’re reading this, first let me say, I feel your pain. Second let me say, there’s nothing wrong with you! Food cravings and emotional eating are extremely common, and they have much more to do with our primitive brains in a modern food environment than with a lack of willpower or self-control.

I’ve personally struggled with food cravings and even something that might be considered “food addiction”, although I’m not really a fan of that term or ideology. Some people’s brains are more susceptible to addiction and I’m definitely one of them, but for many people, food cravings aren’t something deeply wired into your genetic blueprint.

When I begin my work with a client struggling with food cravings, one of the first things I ask is about their personal and family history of addictive behaviour. If that’s an issue, that might mean they have a brain like mine and we’ll need a deeper approach, but in many cases, food cravings have more to do with external factors and mindset that can be changed easily with some nutrition changes, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Tapping and some coaching.

So let’s start there.

One of the most powerful and effective tools for simple food cravings I’ve ever found, is EFT Tapping. Dr. Peta Stapleton is a clinical and health psychologist that specializes in eating disorders and is a pioneer in EFT Tapping research. She has been doing high-quality EFT research since 2010. A 2012 Griffith University study in Australia showed that 4 weeks of EFT for food cravings caused significantly greater improvement in food cravings, the subjective power of food and craving restraint than untreated individuals. The improvements in food cravings and the subjective power of food were maintained 12 months after the study, indicating long-term resolution of food cravings. Another study published in 2019 showed that EFT reduced activity in areas of the brain associated with food cravings through fMRI imaging! It’s like having an “off” switch for food cravings!

EFT Tapping is easy to learn and you can get the basics here in less than 10 minutes.

Applying EFT Tapping for simple food cravings is also quite easy. If you can think of a food you’d like to eat right now, pop on over to my YouTube video and try some tapping on it and see how it works for you!

If you find the EFT tapping didn’t work all that well, or only worked temporarily, don’t give up! You may just have a brain more like mine and you need more advanced tools and interventions. We’ll talk more about those soon or you can contact me for a free 15-minute consult and I can explain my unique approach to stress and emotional eating and stubborn food cravings using EFT, holistic nutrition and lifestyle coaching!

Is Emotional Eating Ever Okay?

Let’s start with the facts: Everyone eats for purely emotional or psychological reasons sometimes. It’s just human nature and it’s not something that should have any shame around it. Check out part one and two of my article on How to Handle Food Cravings to gain a better understanding of the complicated biological, psychological and social elements that create a web of influences on eating behaviours that most of us are completely unaware of.

Our emotional connection to food starts with our very first meal. Feeding as an infant is a time when we connect deeply and bond with our caregivers. As we grow, certain foods are associated with fun, family and feelings of happiness and satisfaction. In our North American culture many of us experience “fun foods” like birthday cake, Halloween candy, Christmas cookies, Easter Bunny chocolates, summertime ice cream and “hot dog day” at school for the duration of our childhoods. These experiences cause unconscious learning and condition us to love these foods. Some children would eat themselves into a coma if we let them, so sometimes it’s even worse if your parents had to control your food intake for your own good, leaving you feeling deprived of all these treats!

Eating in general and eating certain foods in particular, can have major impacts on our brain that influence learning and unconscious psychological conditioning around food. The psychological associations we make between food and feelings of happiness, fun or comfort are biochemically reinforced again and again when we eat hyperpalatable (very tasty) foods. These treats can cause a big spike of dopamine, a neuromodulator that makes us feel great! Alcohol, cocaine and heroin all cause addiction by flooding the brain with dopamine to create a “high”. Food can do this as well, to a lesser, but still powerful extent. Paired with the feedback loops from the gut that signal the brain to eat more of any substance that contains sugar and the social elements of eating and we have a perfect storm that can lead to problematic cravings and emotional eating as we unconsciously seek feelings of pleasure, comfort or satisfaction that have been associated with food in a myriad of ways.

Some people, including me, have a higher susceptibility to food cravings and emotional eating. Those with lower susceptibility don’t understand and they often tell us to just use some “grit” and self-control to manage our food intake. Through my personal and clinical experience, I’ve concluded that willpower is not an effective tool in the face of incessant food cravings and when people imply that we’re weak, it can be very hurtful. We don’t need more grit; we need strategies to manage the powerful biochemical, psychological and social elements that outweigh willpower every day of the week, and sometimes, that strategy may include eating for emotional reasons!

No one wants to live in deprivation and I’m certainly not encouraging total abstinence from delicious foods. I’m an advocate for what I think of as “harm-reduction” strategies in relation to our modern food environment. That means being aware of the potential dangers of hyperpalatable, addictive and engineered foods including the negative effects they have on our health, but also how they affect our brain and our ability to control our intake of them.

Let’s face it; life can be extremely hard sometimes. All the yoga, mantras, spa days, counseling and breath work in the world just can’t compete with a quick hit of dopamine from a hot fudge sundae. That’s the unfortunate truth we must accept to move forward. Here’s another truth; the “hit” we get from food is extremely short-lived and often followed by an equal and opposite low that ultimately leaves us feeling worse. This is especially true if you let guilt get you in its grip after eating something you wish you hadn’t.

So, now that you have a little better understanding of the deep mechanisms at work when you reach for a “treat”, stay tuned for part two as we explore my guidelines for using food as a mood management strategy in the least destructive way possible.

For more info and content about overcoming food cravings, emotional eating and food addiction check out The Evolution Wellness Podcast or register below and I’ll send you the link to my FREE presentation Why We Crave and How to Stop It.

Why we CRAVE and How to STOP it

Calling all Holistic Health Practitioners in Frontenac County

If you’re an alternative, holistic, natural, spiritual, metaphysical or complementary health and wellness practitioner that sees clients or teaches in Frontenac County or the surrounding rural area WE NEED YOU!

I was inspired to start this fair last year as a way to bring awareness to holistic health practices and offerings here at home in Frontenac County. We have SO many incredible practitioners in our area, yet our clients often seek services in Kingston because they have no idea that we’re here, silently working away in our little home offices or online.

Our world is shifting and people are in great need of alternatives to our overburdened and broken health care system. We all know that we can help alleviate that burden and teach people how to take care of themselves through our powerful offerings.

We also know that our services are often dismissed as being unscientific, woo-woo or ineffective and many people don’t even get the opportunity to understand just how inaccurate that sentiment is.

It’s my mission to change that…but we need to come together in the strong, powerful way that only holistic practitioners can. I sincerely hope you can sense the importance of showing up and standing up for what we collectively know to be true (that healing involves the body, mind and spirit) and you’ll add your flame to our collective light in Frontenac County.

Saturday, September 21st, 2024

10am-3pm (8:00-9:45 set up, 3:00-4:30 tear down)

Storrington Centre, 3910 Battersea Road

Cost: $50 for vendor spaces, entry for the public free with donation to the local food bank.

I promise I won’t spam you, this list is only for vendors of the fair to stay connected!

To get completely up to speed you can read the updates and action items for each month here:

The Holistic Way to Quit Smoking

If you prefer to listen to a podcast about the holistic way to quit smoking or want more information and ideas, check out The Evolution Wellness Podcast Episode 6.

Do you genuinely, 100% WANT to quit smoking?

Or maybe you’re more like 80/20, 70/30 or even 50/50? Part of you really wants to quit, but another part of you doesn’t even want to consider it?

Understanding how ready you are to quit smoking is an important first step and it’s okay if that fluctuates moment to moment or day to day, in fact that’s pretty normal.

Whenever we’re in the grip of addiction, there’s almost always a part of ourselves that would rather be free, but at the same time, there are reasons that we’re addicted in the first place that keep the addiction rooted in place, and we can’t just snap our fingers and make those go away. A portion of that is the physical addiction to a substance, but to a larger degree, our minds and emotions keep us in a perpetual state of needing and it’s this state of “needing” that keeps us reaching for our substance of choice.

The holistic approach to any problem is about addressing the body, mind and spiritual root causes and healing or resolving them. Healing addiction certainly requires a holistic approach and the majority of addiction treatments don’t adequately address (or even investigate) the true root causes of the addiction in the first place, which is why they are rarely successful.

Statistics on success or failure rates of conventional addiction treatment are virtually non-existent because of the high rates of relapse and the inability to follow individuals for the duration of their lives to adequate assess the permanence of their recovery.

Addressing the “Body” component of addiction

To overcome addiction, we will inevitably need to address the physical “need” to smoke which we can think of as the actual, physical addiction to nicotine. Within 10 seconds of inhalation of a cigarette there is an unnatural flood of chemicals in the brain that overwhelms it and causes the sensation of pleasure that addictive substances are known for. We become accustomed to this regular, unnatural flood of chemicals and when the floods stop, our brains don’t quite know what to do next. Fortunately, this addiction is not as hard to break as you may think. Nicotine is largely gone from your body within 48 hours and your brain will try to rebalance itself immediately when the nicotine hits and the chemical floods stop. Supporting your brain with good nutrition, some supplementation, homeopathy, sunlight, exercise and lots of water can help it recover it’s natural, healthy state much faster. It’s highly possible that in some cases, the brain needs on-going support due to nutrient deficiencies, neurotransmitter imbalances, gut -brain axis health issues or other “physical” problems that we need to uncover and correct. This is how we address the “body” component in healing addiction and it can’t be skipped, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle.

Healing the “Mind” component of addiction

In order to permanently quit smoking and truly heal the addiction, it’s essential to uncover and resolve the deep, often unconscious drivers for addiction. Some of these drivers are things that made us susceptible to becoming addicted in the first place and some are additions, added over the years of being in an addicted state that keep us there. We often hear the term “self-sabotage” in regards to these drivers, but my thinking on that has evolved over the years. Now I think of these drivers as completely reasonable and common elements that all humans develop as an attempt to solve some sort of deep problem. We’re not actively sabotaging ourselves by continuing to smoke, it’s much more likely that we’re trying to help ourselves in a messed-up, backwards sort of way that doesn’t really make sense when we unpack it.

Where this deep work starts and the path it takes is highly individual, but there are common patterns to explore.

Sometimes it’s helpful to understand the reasons we began smoking in the first place since this can point to deep, underlying fears or needs that the smoking seemed like a solution to. For example, needing to fit in to a peer group is a very common reason we begin smoking. This sort of thing depends on our evolutionary “caveman” brain that desperately needs to be part of a tribe. Being excluded is as good as dead to the caveman brain, and it can certainly feel like that to the adolescent brain as well. Chances are being excluded from the “smokers club” is not something that would terribly upset you today, but in many cases, that old subconscious wiring that made you want to fit in still has some power over your thinking and behaviours.

It’s also necessary to address the fears, resistance and general negative emotions associated with quitting smoking. These can range from fears about withdrawal, fear of failure, feelings of deprivation, depression, anxiety, irritability etc. or resistance about our identity and our perceptions of self.

To address and truly heal these mental/emotional components of addiction we need powerful tools. In my experience we need multiple tools that can resolve and clear energy and subconscious blockages, which traditional counselling strategies can’t touch. EFT Tapping is one of the best of these tools, which is why it’s my main modality but there are many others that we can use in conjunction such as Orpheus (formerly known as PSTEC, which is another modality I use in my smoking cessation protocol), hypnosis, Reiki, Z-point, sound therapy and homeopathy.

Understanding the “Spiritual” elements of healing addiction

I have to start this section by saying I’m not an advocate for 12 Step programs, although I do like some of the elements of them, my type of spirituality rejects any religious dogma and wholly rejects the idea that we are broken sinners that should repent and beg for forgiveness from a “God” outside of ourselves. To make it brief: I believe that we are all “Source” energy manifested here on Earth in a physical form with an ego and a limited human brain and our goal here is to awaken to our true, divine nature while living in this physical world.

The fact is that smoking (or the use of any addictive substance) is your system’s (body, mind and spirit) way of solving a problem. Mind you, it’s not the BEST solution, but if we can understand it as an attempt to get into alignment with our divine self, feel better or solve some sort of problem we’re experiencing, it can breed self-compassion and self-compassion is a powerful stepping stone to complete healing.

Working on the mind and the emotional body often results in deeper inquiry that inevitably leads us to the spirit or what some may refer to as our soul. Human struggle and challenges can be an impetus for deep spiritual growth and expansion and addiction is perhaps one of our greatest potential challenges due to its ability to completely hijack our autonomy and our soul intentions in this lifetime. From a spiritual perspective, it’s possible that we’ve set ourselves up with a big challenge for the “fun” of it or for the conscious expansion we could experience as a result. We could compare it to how we expose ourselves to ice baths or haunted houses, learning to overcome the brain’s response to the discomfort and fear and keeping our wits. From the spiritual perspective, an entire lifetime on Earth is the painful exposure that we have the ability to experience without losing our spiritual wits. Addiction can be like being dunked into an ice bath blindfolded and with your arms and legs tied and your soul may have been saying “oh yeah, that’s a good challenge, let me see if I can I get back to remembering my true divine nature with THAT hurdle!”

If that resonates with you, you can apply that concept to any challenges we face in a human lifetime. If nothing else, it helps our limited human brains explain the pain we’re experiencing and sometimes making some deeper meaning from pain does alleviate it to some degree. Watch out for the potential of using this idea as a way to “by-pass” the deeper work and convince ourselves that it’s all fine, it’s not fine and the goal is to heal and move through the pain, not to by-pass it. When you start doing this type of spiritual work you’re never “done”, there is no “done”, only more expansion.

Quit Smoking for Good

Most people have tried to quit smoking multiple times and it’s natural to have reluctance to trying again, but I’m willing to bet that you’ve never used a comprehensive holistic approach that involves addressing the body, mind and spirit in your past attempts at quitting.

If you’d like to learn more about my approach or how to work with me so you can permanently stop smoking, go ahead and book a free 15 minute consultation here.

Holiday Indulgence Recovery

First, no judgement here.

If you overdid it at the dinner table, or before dinner, or after dinner, or between breakfast, lunch and dinner….or just constantly for the duration of the holidays, I get it. I’ve been there. I’ve felt the blah, icky, guilty, shame of wrecking myself with food because there was just SO much temptation and SO little control. Thankfully, I don’t feel that way anymore for a number of reasons that I think will help you too. It can be really easy to just keep sliding down into the abyss of food hijacking, so I’m glad you’re here and ready to take some action to shift this!

How I break free from the cycle

I’m no longer a victim of diet culture and the impossible beauty standards of society that used to make me feel horrible about myself because my body has a tendency to store fat. Maybe you can relate. I used to beat up on myself and told myself I was a weak, greedy glutton, a pathetic, fat loser. I am not exagerating and I know I’m not alone. The shame and guilt that accompanies extra weight powers a multi-million dollar weight loss industry. My perspective has shifted dramatically over the years and even though my body still likes to pack away as many extra calories as it can, I don’t view that as a character flaw. It means NOTHING about who I am, my work ethic, my mental fortitude or my intelligence. Shifting out of shame, guilt and self-judgement with EFT Tapping was a huge key to my empowerment around this.
I consistently eat well and move regularly because I genuinely love myself now and I feel better, think better and enjoy my life more when I do those things, not because I’m trying to lose weight or avoid gaining weight.
If and when I find myself “hijacked”, which is the term I use to describe being in the grip of constant food cravings and overindulgence (which still happens ocassionally, although it happens less and less the more solid my foundation of healthy habits), I use at least a few of my ten steps to getting unhijacked and I’m able to break free of that damaging cycle quickly.

If you’ve indulged more than your body can handle and you’re feeling really lousy, bloated, in pain, depressed and defeated, take these powerful steps to take control today.

Make yourself some homemade bone broth to soothe an irritated gut and nourish your soul. Chances are you have turkey bones leftover, so now is a good time to start a big pot of broth. If you’re new to homemade broth, check out my favourite recipe from a master here.
Drink at least 2 litres of water today to help flush out inflammatory compounds.
Get outside for a walk, even if it’s dull and grey to get some natural light into your eyes and help reset your dopamine levels.
Do some EFT tapping on food cravings, self-judgement or anything else that you’re feeling. Do your best to shift out of that attitude of self-deprication and foster self-compassion. If you’re someone that’s prone to getting hijacked, it’s not your fault and it’s not a character flaw. You can learn how to work with and through it.
Look through my ten steps to getting unhijacked and do the things that are easiest for you. Taking action on getting unhooked is powerful in it’s own right. This is your life and your body, it’s all up to you.

If you need some support and expert guidance, consider signing up for my brand new 5 day whole food reset this January. This program takes care of step one of getting unhijacked and is a powerful way to unhook from relentless cravings!

CITIZEN ACTION REQUIRED: Health Canada Natural Health Product Regulations

Natural Health Products (NHP’s) are already fairly heavily regulated in Canada, and we have one of best programs in the world to ensure that the products on our market are safe and high quality, but Health Canada has set its sights on tightening those restrictions even further and making life harder for natural health product manufacturers. Natural Health Products have been defined as things like vitamins, minerals, herbs, homeopathic medicines, probiotics, essential fatty acids, protein powders and other supplements, traditional Chinese medicine and can even include body care products like toothpastes, body creams, shampoos and much more. Generally, if a product makes a health claim that it can prevent or treat any sort of ailment and it doesn’t fall under the definition of a drug, it is regulated as an NHP.

Some rather disturbing changes were slipped into law in Canada under Bill C-47 (sections 500-504), the latest budget bill that have changed the definition of a natural health product giving Health Canada some unnecessary and disturbing powers that have the potential to seriously harm the natural health product industry in Canada. That action is making a lot of people in the natural health industry very nervous and rightfully so. Changing the definitions on the sly like that is dirty pool and we have to assume there is a plan behind it.

In conjunction with that, they have also proposed significant changes to the fees and fines natural health product manufacturers are subject to, which could also have a negative impact on the products currently available on our market and make it much harder for new products to make it to market. The proposal indicates that small businesses will be eligible for reimbursements on many of those fees, but that will require a significant administrative burden that sours the deal.

If you’ve read enough and are ready to do what you can to stand up against these changes write a letter to your MP and tell them you rely on natural health products to keep yourself and your family healthy and want them to represent your interests on this matter. You can find a pre-written letter here. You can also sign the e-petition here. Now, share this information with everyone you know that relys on natural health products!

I’ve been in this industry for over twenty years, and I’ll be honest with you, even after spending eight hours reading through all the materials, it’s hard to sort out what they’re up to. Most of my colleagues are screaming bloody murder saying that Health Canada has an agenda to destroy the natural health industry, including practitioners and make conventional medicine the only valid option for Canadians and that definitely isn’t out of the question, but I’m a big believer in trying to objectively see the nuance in a situation and understand it from every angle.

If you haven’t seen this discussion paper written by Shawn Buckley, lawyer and President of the Natural Health Products Protection Association (NHPPA) a not-for-profit industry watch dog, it might be worth a read to get the perspective of those in the industry that are concerned about these changes. https://nhppa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NHPPA-Discussion-Paper-on-2023-Health-Canada-Initiatives-Revised-June-26-2023.pdf

While I don’t fully share the NHPPA conclusions and predictions about the ultimate agenda of Health Canada to remove natural health products and providers from the Canadian health landscape, I do understand the heinous nature of the influence of big pharma on the natural health sector. I believe it’s naive to think that influence hasn’t reached senior levels of management at Health Canada, whether that’s conscious or simply through the biases the pharmaceutial industry has done an excellent job at creating since the 1800’s. They’ve always had an agenda to destroy any competition for their products and they still invest a lot of time and money to those efforts. That machine runs on money. Period.

I believe in the innate goodness of all people including those at Health Canada and in big pharma. I think most of us are just trying to do what we think is best and while some at the top level might be motivated to destroy the natural health industry because we are “competition”, I doubt very much that most go to work every day with that agenda in mind, at least not with any conscious intent.

We are living in a time of “us vs. them” and we HAVE to pull our energy out of that polarizing and destructive space if we’re going to successfully bring humanity to a new level of being and I see this as a great opportunity to do so. I could write pages about what I think is happening with power structures vs. people, and I do think we’re in a great awakening moment here on planet Earth. I know how hard it is to resist the impulse to go to the place of outrage when “the evil Empire” we call government is exerting its force on us and I’m not saying we should roll over and let them win, but we can’t beat them at their own game. The forces of darkness will always win at the game of war, after all, they invented that game and even though we are in a pivotal moment of being called to stand up against the dark veil, the way of light is with love, compassion and understanding for the people that are under the spell of the evil empire and exerting its will by doing what they’ve been conditioned to think is best. Most of us have likely been under a spell or two of our own at some point in our immortal souls’ journey and we are blessed to be awake this time around (at least that’s how I perceive my reality, yours may be completely different and I respect that too).

Here are my thoughts from that place of trying to see both sides and understand how our oppressors may be doing what they think is best and how we might be able to lovingly break the spell and invite them to see our version of the truth.

I worked closely with Alain Roy for a number of years. He is an icon in the natural health product industry, has worked for a number of very successful companies, developed products, does consulting work and is the current president of Veeva, a very reputable natural health product company. He helped me understand the industry and its relationship with Health Canada and the history of the regulation of natural health products.

I know many people, including Mr. Buckley, think that natural health products shouldn’t be regulated at all, but I disagree. In fact, Alain gave me some perspective and education in that regard and told me that he and a number of other CEO’s/Presidents of reputable natural health products actually petitioned Health Canada to regulate the industry many years ago. He said our markets were being infiltrated by unethical companies and the ethical ones were being negatively impacted by inferior and cheap products flooding the market. The risks to the natural health industry as a whole were great, and in order to maintain public trust in the industry they needed to get those unsafe and ineffective products removed from the market. Being in a heavily regulated industry isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if you can trust the regulators that is.

Our current system is pretty good, not perfect, and things were slipping through the cracks a bit but that didn’t seem to be a big enough problem for Health Canada to address it, but during C0V1D there was a sudden surge of novel products on the market, mostly from US companies making claims about detoxing spike protein or preventing and curing this “novel” illness (whether it actually was novel at all is another story-but that’s even beyond the realm of Health Canada). Health Canada is tasked with protecting the public from unethical and potentially dangerous products on our markets and I can’t fault them for feeling that they need to address this. While there are a lot of new supplements on the market that are probably excellent and can really help people with the effects of C0V1D and of the shots, the sad reality is that there are many unethical and greedy profiteers that will try to scam the public with crappy supplements. In fact, I tried to look up some of those new products myself and concluded that they didn’t pass my own litmus tests and I wouldn’t recommend them to my clients. In one case, the CEO of the company had zero background in natural health but had impressive business experience. They also weren’t disclosing what was actually in the products and what evidence their claims were based on. Those are huge red-flags for me. All the companies I work with provide full lists of ingredients with their dosages and you can easily find the evidence they use to make their claims. I was upset that these companies were flooding our market and I saw a lot of well-meaning coaches and practitioners getting swept up in it and becoming salespeople for them. That whole situation is what prompted my article Help with Supplements.

On the other hand, the inability to make a claim for a natural health product that could potentially heal disease and prevent people from learning that there are non-pharmaceutical options to restore and maintain health has been a huge problem in our current system and these changes could make that situation even worse. Mr. Buckley gives a few solid examples in his discussion paper, but I’ll give you one based on my own experience. Berberine is an herb with incredible potential to regulate blood sugar as well as, if not better than the classic diabetes drug, Metformin. Allowing it to be marketed as a natural health product that could prevent diabetes could save countless lives and dollars, but it’s a direct competitor with big pharma and they will do whatever they can to malign it and get it removed from the market. We’ve seen the influence of chemical pharmacology on natural medicine since the beginning of medicine and to this day, the main reason natural medicine is viewed with such disdain is a direct result of the smear campaign that began in the 1800’s from pharmacists that thought the new chemistry was vastly superior to blood-letting and incantations. Destroying the competition that we see as inferior is, after all, human nature.

Despite the fact that it’s common knowledge that diet, exercise and supplementation can reverse and cure many diseases, it is illegal for anyone to make a health claim on diseases that are considered “incurable” such as diabetes. Health Canada regulations tie the hands of even the licensed natural health practitioners such as homeopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists and naturopaths to give their patients and clients truthful information about what natural health products can do and how they could be used as alternatives to conventional medicine. The regulations on these professionals are stifling, to say the least and it appears that the current intentions of Health Canada will make this worse. If natural health practitioners can’t tell people that their interventions can truly heal serious diseases, then we’re on track for an even bigger pharma monopoly.

Another major issue in this fight is the tendency for those that don’t understand the nature of natural medicine to insist on applying the standard of the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to natural health products and interventions. That may be appropriate in a few instances, but for the vast majority of natural interventions, it is not. Natural health products are different, they don’t work like drugs do; they are often working on correcting root cause issues versus treating “disease”. For example, trying to study a nutrient like magnesium or vitamin C with the “gold standard” double-blind, placebo-controlled study isn’t even possible because we all have varying levels of stores of nutrients, we all extract different levels of nutrients from our food and we may use nutrients at different rates making it impossible to control the variables. Not to mention the costs of running clinical trials. Even if we consider a plant compound like Berberine that might be feasible to run through a clinical trial, it’s important to understand that no one can or will invest the millions of dollars required to conduct a trial when they can’t secure a patent that would allow for recovery of their investment. That is a game that only pharma can play and win at. It simply can’t be applied to natural medicines. We must rely on traditional and anecdotal evidence for the effectiveness and safety of natural health products and I’m concerned that Health Canada is moving away from that model under the auspices of “public safety”.

As for the proposed fees or potential fines for natural health product manufacturers, I feel that this is something that should be left alone for the time being and certainly not using the same criteria that is used for pharma. While I understand the need for Health Canada to step up their inspections of facilities and make sure manufacturers are meeting the requirements that are already in place for quality assurance and regulation, I think we should continue funding that publicly. Let’s face it, any fees inflicted on producers will get passed on to the consumer, so we’ll be funding it ourselves one way or another. If and when we get to a point where Canada has a publicly-funded Medicaid system, which MUST include inexpensive natural health products, then it makes sense to have fees for producers, but at the scale of their profit margins.

The reality is that Health Canada should have big pharma firmly in its sights at this moment in history and shouldn’t be wasting precious time and resources on the natural health industry. The fact that they are focusing on an industry that poses less risk to the public than that of getting struck by lightning is telling (reference to that statistic is in the discussion paper from Mr. Buckley). The mountain of evidence incriminating the pharma-medical complex grows by the day. You can find links and info relative the pandemic alone here, but the corruption started long, long ago. Most recently, we have Dr. Aseem Malhotra on a world-tour calling out the medical establishment, journals, researchers and their cozy, corrupt relationship with the pharma industry speaking to sold-out rooms full of doctors and getting standing ovations. When we’ve cleaned up the corrupt mess of pharma in medicine, then spending some time and money cleaning up the natural health industry MIGHT make sense, but only if it comes with public-funding to study natural medicines and fully support their use as a first step in correcting health.

Wow. If you’ve gotten this far you must care enough to take some action!

Number one, let your elected officials know where you stand. Take any or all of my words and use them to craft your own letters to your Federal Member of Parliament. You can use the form letter at SaveOurSupplements if you’re not into writing letters.

Number two, sign the e-petition here.

Number three, SHARE this with anyone you know that uses natural health products!

Guidance from Hawk

I appreciate all of my clients, but the long-term clients that I’ve developed deep relationships with over the years are so much fun to work with. We often have interesting, exploratory conversations in our work together that provides great benefit to conscious evolution, sometimes for both of us! After some time together, we work from a solid platform of deep, spiritual understandings that we have developed, both together and independently over time that lends itself well to playful interactions with something most of us call “The Universe” for lack of a better word. It doesn’t matter how we refer to it, we know what the other means and we are often in awe at its magic as things unfold in our sessions.

Red Tailed Hawk Perched on a wooden post 4654081 © Albert Trujillo | Dreamstime.com

In this particular session, my client was giving me a report on progress and events that had transpired in the last month. She’s been developing trust in herself, getting clear guidance and working through the self-doubt that we all seem to bump up against from time to time. She’s been heavily involved in the energy healing community in her town but things have been shifting there and she’d been very unclear about her role and how to move forward with healing work. Trying to sort out guidance from our higher selves is tough work and we all struggle with how to differentiate between our egos, our subconscious fears and the voice of spirit. We had been working through some stuckness of not being sure what the next step was for months.

As we unpacked events, thoughts and potential blocks, a hawk came and sat outside her window and stayed for over 30 minutes. We talked about the hawk, she asked if it had a message for her. All she felt in the moment was that she was on the right track. We both had some goosebumps, which is always an indication for me that I’m paying attention to the right things in my work and we continued to work away while the hawk sat with us.

Traditional wisdom, spiritualty, metaphysical and other energy teachings hold that all things in nature have a unique energy signature that we can use in various ways. When an animal shows up in unusual or unexpected ways, we pay attention and we “spiritual” types often head to our favourite animal wisdom books and websites to see what messages spirit is giving us through the symbolism of the animal. After our session, she went and looked up the energy of hawk and sent me this excerpt from a website she found (https://www.californiapsychics.com/blog/animal-sightings-symbolism/meaning-hawk-sighting.html):

“Spread Your Wings and Expand Your Consciousness

When you have a hawk sighting, it’s a sign from the spirit realm that you are ready to take on a larger, more powerful expansion and vision of your world. The hawk symbolizes a need to start looking forward, envisioning your path ahead, and perhaps even preparing for a greater role in life. You could end up leading a group or church, becoming a parent or just finding a wider audience for your talents, gifts, and ideas. A hawk sighting is a direct message from the angels and the Great Spirit that the time has come to spread your wings, to fly higher, and to expand your vision.

What does the hawk know that you don’t?

In the physical world, hawks have incredible eyesight, and because of that they have an association, in a spiritual sense, with clairvoyance, meaning “to see.” When a hawk comes into your life, it’s telling you to trust your instincts and your intuition, and let them lead you to the next step in line with your path. Note, the hawk will not lead you on a path that is not yours to follow. They are simply here to show you that it’s time to expand your own road and make greater that which already exists within you. Having trust in your higher self will lead you to greater freedom of mind, body, and soul.

Caring and Steadfast

Hawks hunt in groups and they mate for life. As an expansion of the thought of eliminating those psychic vampires, the hawk surrounds himself with those he can trust—in love, life, and the hunt. When you have a hawk sighting, it means you should take a look at those you call your family (or soul family). If you are fortunate and wise, you have chosen your friends well. You also know you can trust them in times of bounty and in times of want. Hopefully, you are equally as caring and steadfast.

Seeing the Big Picture

You can call upon the hawk’s clarity to help you when you are feeling “stuck.” The hawk can help you when you feel like something’s missing. Often the answers we seek are right before us. However, life can get in the way. This may cause us to overlook even the most obvious next steps. The hawk’s focus can help us to not only see the bigger picture, but it can also reveal the clearest path ahead.”

It was perfect; exactly what she needed to hear to help her take the next steps that she had been wondering about.

Guidance can take all sorts of forms. Messages from animals is one that’s really fun and playful and acts as a strong affirmation that there is order and something that is watching over us, loving us and supporting us beyond this human experience. Over the course of the next three days, I had a red-tailed hawk hanging around my house. He was hunting and eating right outside my kitchen windows where I’d be sure to see him. I’ve never seen that before and I haven’t seen it since. I guess I needed to hear the same message. It’s so fun to play with unseen forces of the universe.

EFT Tapping for Food Cravings and Stress Eating Course

Photo 197578665 / Food Cravings © Charlieaja | Dreamstime.com

Are food cravings or stress eating having a negative impact on your life? Do you struggle to control yourself around chocolate, wine, bread, sugar, pop, potato chips, fast food or any other food that you know is damaging to you?

Ellie Steele, Certified, Advanced EFT Practitioner

This course will teach you a powerful tool that goes way beyond willpower. Emotional Freedom Techniques, a.k.a. EFT Tapping, is a powerful mind-body intervention that involves tapping with your fingertips on certain points on the body to immediately reduce unwanted cravings and dissipate stress or negative emotions that lead us to reach for comfort foods (or any other substance or behaviour we may abuse). The effectiveness of EFT Tapping for permanently reducing food cravings, the perceived power of food, symptoms of depression and anxiety and improving dietary restraint has been demonstrated in multiple studies. In fact, EFT is considered an evidence-based technique and there have been over 275 review articles, research studies and meta-analyses published in professional, peer-reviewed
journals on energy medicine tools including EFT. You can review the research here if you’re interested.

Join me, Ellie Steele Holistic Nutritionist, Advanced Emotional Freedom Techniques Practitioner and Wellness Coach, for this eight hour course to learn how to apply EFT Tapping to gain control over food cravings, stress eating or other unwanted addictive behaviours.

If you’d like to be notified when the ONLINE version of this program is open again, please use the form below to indicate your interest and you’ll be the first to know when registration opens!