November 2013!

We are keeping it simple yet extraordinary!
Every week we are featuring an amazing
veggie wrap, freshly made hummus,
muffins and cookies
prepared  locally with love

by our favorite chef, Anne of
~Wild Indigo Catering~

We invite you to help us support locally grown, locally produced

and locally prepared foods!

http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html-
Excellent site for how-to composting at home!

 

Peace, love and vegetables! 

February is Heart Health Month at Healthy Harvest!

Nordic Naturals Fish Oils meet or exceed international pharmaceutical standards, exceptional freshness levels and award winning purity levels, great taste, multi-patented manufacturing process and research based innovation, corporate social responsibility and sustainable sourcing.

Nordic Naturals fish oils are in their true triglyceride form.

True Triglyceride vs. Ethyl Ester Form of Fish Oil
Ensuring optimal absorption

The established health benefits of omega-3s are based on decades of data—much of which are based on natural triglyceride omega-3s. Whereas most concentrated fish oils on the market today are in the ethyl ester molecular form—a synthetic fat with only 18 years of history in the human diet—all Nordic Naturals formulas are produced in true triglyceride form to ensure optimal absorption and results. New research shows that the absorption advantage of the triglyceride form is significant—up to 70% more than ethyl esters.

Happy 2013!!!

Avoid processed and frozen foods whenever you can; their packaging creates excessive and hard-to recycle waste.





Hawthorn Tree in bloom

Heart Health
Summary of the important clinical effects of Hawthorn:
(Christopher Hobbs LAc, AHG)

1. It dilates the arteries that supply the heart muscle itself with blood, oxygen, and fuel, providing a better supply of these essential nutrients. This results, with continued use, in a stronger, more efficient heart beat.

2. It acts as a powerful free-radical scavenger, protecting the heart against the harmful effects of lessened oxygen--a common result of vascular disease, such as atherosclerosis.

3. It can help steady the heartbeat, if it is irregular, and does not lead to dependence.

4. It has mild sedative activity, which may be useful where mild heart disease is combined with nervousness, hypochondria, etc., in which case it can be combined with lavender or lemon balm.

In this modern age with its times of stress and anxiety, it is reassuring that nature has provided such a gentle yet effective cardiovascular protector as hawthorn.

Marke the faire blooming of the Hawthorne tree
Who finely cloathed in a robe of white,
Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight.
~Chaucer

Cardiovascular Health Tips
by Tony Isaacs,
Natural Health Author, Advocate and Researcher

The arteries are major blood vessels that the heart uses to pump blood from the heart to the rest of the body. Over time, arterial walls can become congested with a fatty substance known as plaque. When this happens to a severe point, the arteries may begin to harden and the blood flow can become compromised and ultimately result in a heart attack. Mainstream medicine's approach for treating plaque is to use drugs or surgery. However, there are natural ways to prevent and remove plaque.

As is the case when addressing many health concerns, exercise and diet can play major roles in avoiding and reducing plaque. Exercise is already known for many benefits to the body such as reducing risk factors for disease, better mental function, and weight control. Exercise can also improve your circulation which can help reduce plaque. According to the Mayo Clinic,
you can do this by getting 30 to 60 minutes of exercise on most days of the week.

When it comes to diet, what you avoid is equally important as what you eat. Many foods that are high in saturated fat and cholesterol can cause plaque to build up. Some examples include deep fried foods, foods that are high in trans fats, refined foods, and processed foods. Alcohol should also be avoided and red meat should be avoided or
eaten in very small portions.

Foods that are nutrient dense, high in fiber, low in sodium and low in saturated fat help avoid and reduce arterial plaque. Fiber helps block the intestinal absorption of cholesterol. It also makes you feel full longer which can result in less overall calorie consumption. Some examples of fiber-rich foods include organic (non-GMO) whole grains, organic fruits and vegetables.

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fats that the body cannot make on its own. They can be found in supplements and also in foods like cold water fish, walnuts, flax seeds and healthy oils such as olive oil. Fish oil supplements can lower blood pressure and reduce arterial plaque and they also lower triglycerides.

Niacin raises HDL, which is known as "good cholesterol". HDL cholesterol removes bad LDL cholesterol and arterial plaque. According to the FDA, "Niacin is the best agent known to raise blood levels of HDL, which helps remove cholesterol deposits from the artery walls."

Vitamin C is crucial in repair and healing of the endothelial layer of cells inside of coronary and carotid arteries. When this layer is not maintained properly by the body, it can become the site for lesions that begin the process of atherosclerosis.

Coenzyme Q10 strengthens arteries and veins and cleans out accumulated plaque.

Digestive enzymes help break down the food our body does not digest. When taken on an empty stomach, they enter the bloodstream intact. As they circulate, they remove toxins and break down the fats responsible for plaque formation. Digestive enzymes in supplements and raw foods help prevent heart disease.

Serrapeptase is a particularly potent digestive enzyme when it comes to dissolving arterial plaque. It has the unique ability to digest non-living tissue that is a by-product of the healing response
without harming living tissue. Serrapeptase is used to dissolve non-living tissues to include: scar tissue, fibrosis, blood clots, cysts and arterial plaque.

Some herbal remedies can also help fight plaque by improving circulation, reducing blood clots, lowering cholesterol and reducing stress. The herb hawthorn helps remove plaque blockages by widening blood vessels. Horsetail is rich in silica and can aid removal of plaque by strengthening artery walls.

Other helpful herbs include
 ashwagandha, ginger, garlic and guggul.


Ginger

Garlic

Guggul

Hawthorn

Pics of some our most beloved immune enhancing herbs!

We have a lot of news products, as usual, but I would like to highlight a few local products...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have any questions on vegan or vegetarian foods, please feel free to ask! We are happy to show you our animal-free products.
We have tons of recipe books too!!

 

We also carry organic turkey, bacon, sausage and grass-fed ground beef and hotdogs as well as local free range eggs from Calee's Coops and local honey from Busy Bee Farm, Cornercopia Farm and our house honey which is gathered near Max Patch, NC.

 

For those eating more raw foods and juicing,
I will be doing a special orders for Vitamixes and dehydrators. If anyone is interested in getting a Vitamix or dehydrator, please let me know.
We presently have a selection of juicers, wheatgrass juicers, yogurt makers and nut/seed/grain/legume "milk" makers in stock!



One of my favorite poems by William Wordsworth~

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798

      Five years have past; five summers, with the length
      Of five long winters! and again I hear
      These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
      With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
      Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
      That on a wild secluded scene impress
      Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
      The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
      The day is come when I again repose
      Here, under this dark sycamore, and view                        10
      These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
      Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
      Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
      'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
      These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
      Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
      Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
      Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
      With some uncertain notice, as might seem
      Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,                     20
      Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
      The Hermit sits alone.
                              These beauteous forms,
      Through a long absence, have not been to me
      As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
      But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
      Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
      In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
      Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
      And passing even into my purer mind,
      With tranquil restoration:--feelings too                        30
      Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
      As have no slight or trivial influence
      On that best portion of a good man's life,
      His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
      Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
      To them I may have owed another gift,
      Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
      In which the burthen of the mystery,
      In which the heavy and the weary weight
      Of all this unintelligible world,                               40
      Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
      In which the affections gently lead us on,--
      Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
      And even the motion of our human blood
      Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
      In body, and become a living soul:
      While with an eye made quiet by the power
      Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
      We see into the life of things.
                                       If this
      Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft--                        50
      In darkness and amid the many shapes
      Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
      Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
      Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--
      How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
      O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
      How often has my spirit turned to thee!
        And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
      With many recognitions dim and faint,
      And somewhat of a sad perplexity,                               60
      The picture of the mind revives again:
      While here I stand, not only with the sense
      Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
      That in this moment there is life and food
      For future years. And so I dare to hope,
      Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
      I came among these hills; when like a roe
      I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
      Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
      Wherever nature led: more like a man                            70
      Flying from something that he dreads, than one
      Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
      (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
      And their glad animal movements all gone by)
      To me was all in all.--I cannot paint
      What then I was. The sounding cataract
      Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
      The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
      Their colours and their forms, were then to me
      An appetite; a feeling and a love,                              80
      That had no need of a remoter charm,
      By thought supplied, nor any interest
      Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,
      And all its aching joys are now no more,
      And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
      Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
      Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
      Abundant recompence. For I have learned
      To look on nature, not as in the hour
      Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes                    90
      The still, sad music of humanity,
      Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
      To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
      A presence that disturbs me with the joy
      Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
      Of something far more deeply interfused,
      Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
      And the round ocean and the living air,
      And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
      A motion and a spirit, that impels                             100
      All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
      And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
      A lover of the meadows and the woods,
      And mountains; and of all that we behold
      From this green earth; of all the mighty world
      Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
      And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
      In nature and the language of the sense,
      The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
      The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul                  110
      Of all my moral being.
                              Nor perchance,
      If I were not thus taught, should I the more
      Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
      For thou art with me here upon the banks
      Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
      My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
      The language of my former heart, and read
      My former pleasures in the shooting lights
      Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
      May I behold in thee what I was once,                          120
      My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
      Knowing that Nature never did betray
      The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
      Through all the years of this our life, to lead
      From joy to joy: for she can so inform
      The mind that is within us, so impress
      With quietness and beauty, and so feed
      With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
      Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
      Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all                    130
      The dreary intercourse of daily life,
      Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
      Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
      Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
      Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
      And let the misty mountain-winds be free
      To blow against thee: and, in after years,
      When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
      Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
      Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,                       140
      Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
      For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
      If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
      Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
      Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
      And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--
      If I should be where I no more can hear
      Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
      Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
      That on the banks of this delightful stream                    150
      We stood together; and that I, so long
      A worshipper of Nature, hither came
      Unwearied in that service: rather say
      With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
      Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
      That after many wanderings, many years
      Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
      And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
      More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
                                                              1798.