Category Archives: Health

July 7, 2017 · 7:48 am

#notinmycity – raising awareness of human trafficking – it’s time to abolish modern day slavery

#notinmycitycampaign to end human slavery and human trafficking mounted by singer Paul Brandt and designer Paul Hardy in Calgary

Tonight, on a perfectly calm and warm summer evening I stood at the confluence of the Elbow and Bow rivers, surrounded by roses, in the garden of Deane House restaurant in Calgary. I sipped an Italian rosé wine and ate halibut cakes, duck arancini, cured salmon and seared ahi tuna. My loving husband of 27 years stood beside me. Sounds ideal, except for a knot in the pit of my stomach.

Why the knot? Despite, the glorious day and the chance to catch up with a few caring friends, we were actually there to learn more about a grotesque subject – the fact that human slavery which is also know as human trafficking exists in our city and our country.

According to the Criminal Code of Canada, trafficking in persons occurs when “someone recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person, or exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a person for the purpose of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation (Criminal Code of Canada 2015).

This is modern day slavery. It is time to abolish it but that can only happen if more Canadians become aware that it is happening right here in our cities, our provinces, our blessed country. Tonight Calgarians, Paul Brandt and Paul Hardy launched their #notinmycity campaign to tackle this subject and raise money for both the Sheldon Kennedy Centre for Child Advocacy and the Joy Smith Foundation. Continue reading →

On carrots and writing for Alberta Health Services’ applemag.ca

I was a nurse for over 20 years. I was a Masters-prepared Nurse Practitioner for 10 of those years. I left that profession because, though I loved working with people, I wanted find ways to help people stay healthy instead of caring for them once they’d become very ill. I saw that the further we got from food as a society the sicker we were getting. I thought writing about food and starting up food tours would be fun ways to engage and connect people with the source of food and all the health and joy it can bring to our lives.

I’m very pleased that after 11 years in my new career I have the opportunity to go full circle and to write for Alberta Health Services’ health magazine (applemag.ca) on the topic of healthy food. It’s a dream come true to write for a magazine whose credo is “Be healthy. Be Well. Be informed.”

In my regular “Food Sight” column I’ll be writing about a different great ingredient each issue. For the food issue I also got to write about five ways to build a healthy plate. Here are the first two pieces. Grab a carrot to munch on and have a read.

	click on the photo to expand to the article >

A carrot close-up

	Look inside >

Build a healthy plate

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Filed under Great ingredients, Health, Recipes, Writing

Tagged as applemag.ca, building a healthy plate, carrots, food sight, healthy eating, Karen Anderson, recipes

June 22, 2016 · 6:47 am

#IDY2016 – the gift of a guru – @SadhguruJV and @Ishafoundation

I met a great teacher last year in India. I met Sadhguru.

Sadh means knowledge that comes from within. Guru is a Sanskrit: गुरु noun that connotes “teacher”. When I met Sadhguru, I met an enlightened human being who is able to access knowledge from within. This is the knowledge of all existence from the beginning of existence.

Attaining enlightenment comes with certain perks.

Today is the second annual International Day of Yoga. One of Sadhguru’s goals is to share the science of yoga. The video above was made last year so that anyone anywhere can access the benefits of yoga. This year Sadhguru and legions of volunteers taught hundreds of thousands of people the simple UPA yoga described in the video. Today Sadhguru taught people from 135 nations live at the United Nations in New York City that same yoga.

I’ve been blessed by my guru. Sharing this video here is a tiny offering of love, gratitude and respect for him and his work. I’ll share more about my experience of meeting Sadhguru at Isha foundation in India in the rest of the post. Continue reading →

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Filed under Health, India, Savour life, Travel

Tagged as International Day of Yoga 2016, isha, isha foundation, sadhguru, upa yoga instruction

May 27, 2016 · 3:19 am

#Bread is on the rise – my @AlbertaatNoon column for May

Despite being punched down by the “wheat belly” gluten-free movement, bread is once again on the rise. Why is bread making a comeback? Maybe it’s because gluten (the protein found in wheat responsible for giving bread it’s elasticity) wasn’t the evil culprit some claimed it to be. With the exception of people who have Celiac Disease or actual allergies to wheat, gluten hasn’t shown harmful effects on humans in any solid research trials.

Bread has been “the staff of life” for thousands of years and wheat is the most commonly eaten substance in the world. Wheat varietals have evolved with plant breeding and natural selection. They’ve been tolerated well.

Michael Pollan, in his book Cooked – A Natural History of Transformation (Penguin, 2013) delves deeply into the bread box to conclude that perhaps it’s not the wheat that’s the problem; perhaps it is all the additives in commercially prepared bread combined with a lack of time spent making that same bread.

Time is important in bread making. Time allows the yeasts and bacteria in our environment to do their thing which turns out to be really important for the health of humans. What do they do? They combine with bread’s flour and water and if given the time, they will “eat” the sugars in the flour, produce the gas that causes dough to rise and most importantly for people that find wheat hard to digest; they partially digest the proteins (like gluten) in flour for us.

I hope you’ll watch the 2015 CBC Fifth Estate video above that probed into the “war on wheat” and that you’ll tune into my CBC Alberta at Noon show tomorrow, Friday, May 27 between noon and 1230 p.m. on 99.1 FM when I’ll talk more about how to get rolling in the dough – with sourdough and a few easier bread recipes.

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Filed under Alberta at Noon, Health

Tagged as Alberta at Noon, bread, gluten, sourdough

April 28, 2016 · 9:25 am

Summer Cooking Camps for Kids in #Alberta – my @AlbertaatNoon Column for April, 2016

Some of my favourite cooking utensils – photo credit – Geoff Lilge

Entrepreneurs invent business opportunities to meet societal needs. Few parents have the time or skill to teach their children to cook. Few schools include cooking in their curriculums and yet, thanks to the work of food educators like Jamie Oliver we know we need to reconnect children to food literacy and cooking skills. Enter the entrepreneur.

Need creates opportunity and here’s the response – this post contains a list of very entrepreneurial summer cooking camps for kids around Alberta this summer. Continue reading →

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Filed under Alberta at Noon, Health

Tagged as Alberta at Noon, Benefits of cooking for children, Kids cooking camps, Summer Cooking Camps in Alberta, Teaching children to cook

April 28, 2016 · 7:40 am

My favourite #TEDtalk of all time – Teach every child about food by @JamieOliver

If I tell you this is the my favourite TEDTalk will you take the time to watch the video above? I hope you will but maybe you don’t have 20 minutes so I’ll give you the “Cole’s Notes” version of the video’s message in this post. Continue reading →

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Filed under Alberta at Noon, Health

Tagged as basic cooking skills, Cooking skills for kids, Cooking with kids, Food Day Revolution, Jamie Oliver, Prevention of Childhood Obesity, TEDTalks