LENA BLOG

Alternative medicine encompasses everything from homeopathy to herbal therapy, acupuncture to massage. To me, alternative or complementary medicine is anything that keeps my body well and on the road to balanced healing. Not to denigrate modern medicine, but many drugs that are commonplace today can actually cause imbalances and keep us from achieving our highest states of health. This, of course, is not always true (especially in cases where health is severely compromised), but on a day-to-day basis, I reach for the alternatives to the drugs and medicines you would find at the pharmacist or doctor’s office. Alternative medicine, to me, would more accurately be termed original medicine . If you read back in the annals of medical history, herbs, essential oils, and medicines that were completely organic were the norm for centuries. Granted, there were diseases and epidemics that ran rampant and ended lives by the thousands. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to the dentist or ...

As you may have read, I have once again become a proponent of juicing. If you are unsure what exactly juicing involves, read the above article that will tell you the basics of this health-producing activity. Although I will explain in more detail in future articles, in brief you want your body to be slightly alkaline not acidic on the pH scale. Therefore starting your day by alkalizing your insides is a healthy thing to do — every day. With that said, my new, favorite morning routine looks like this : First, right after I wake up, I drink a glass of water with a  lemon ice cube  melted in it. I do this prior to doing anything, including walking my dog,  Quincy Blu . This helps to alkalize my system right away. (Although it seems counterintuitive, lemon juice creates alkalinity not acidity in your body.) Second, after returning from our morning walk, I make myself a wonderful glassful of cantaloupe juice. Another easy way to alkalize my insides along with supplying...

What are antioxidants and free radicals? And should I take them for my skin? Anything you swallow (pills included) will get into your bloodstream and affect your entire body. Although antioxidants can help your skin look its best, they are important and beneficial to much more than just your skin. I mention this because the mindset of taking supplements to affect one thing is akin to exercising to spot reduce a certain body part. It just can’t be done. Exercise will affect your whole body; antioxidants will too. Before explaining what antioxidants are, it’s important to understand a bit about their nemesis: free radicals. What is a free radical? Normally functioning molecules have two or three electrons; free radicals are missing one electron, making that molecule unstable. So they hunt for an electron they can take from a neighboring molecule. Free radicals aren’t particular—they attack the nearest stable molecule in order to create stability for itself. Free radical...

Juicing is not to be confused with drinking juice. The two couldn’t be more different. Juicing involves taking whole fruits and vegetables (skin, rinds, and all) and putting them through a machine called a juicer. What comes out is the liquid version of whatever you put through the machine. Drinking juice, orange or apple or grape, for instance, usually involves ingesting a manufactured product that has other ingredients in it, not just the fruit juice. Juicing is a way of getting pure vitamins and minerals into your body very quickly and without any preservatives or other chemicals. I was given a juicer years ago as a birthday present. This was a thoughtful gift, although I rarely used it. In fact, when I was moving to Chicago in 2002, I wasn’t sure if I should pack it up and bring it with me. Why should I? I hardly ever used it! I didn’t have any good books on juicing, and back then I wasn’t very clear on the hows and whys of juicing. So, like many things in ...

Although this drink looks yummy, I prefer to take the tablets. If you are looking for a great all-around supplement to take, spirulina would be a good choice. Spirulina is sometimes called “the perfect food.” It contains amino acids , vitamins , minerals , and high levels of vitamin A . This vitamin A is in the form of beta carotene from a food source, therefore allowing the high IU content to be safe. The following is taken from a handout I picked up at a natural foods grocery store many years ago. I could not find a source for this piece and hope that its author will be pleased with its inclusion here. Spirulina: Diet and Energy Aid Spirulina is considered by many to be an amazing diet and energy aid and is a source of concentrated nutrients that has been used for centuries. The ancient Aztecs thrived on spirulina from Lake Texcoco in Mexico, and for the people who live around the Lake in Chad, Africa, spirulina has been a mainstay in their diet for generation...