Homemade Tooth Powder

A few months ago my family switched to tooth powder instead of store bought toothpaste. We wanted to save money, be more self sufficient and I wanted to know exactly what we were using to brush our teeth with. Since we've been using it, my gums feel healthier and there's no weird after taste.

This tooth powder is SLS and flouride free. It's made with baking soda to gently clean and freshen breath, xylitol to sweeten the tooth powder and promote gum healing, sea salt to act as a mild abbrasive to gently clean and peppermint essential oil to reduce inflammation of the gums and freshen breath.

Making and using this tooth powder is very cost efficient. I'm guessing each batch I make costs about $1-2 where as a tube of Green Beaver tooth paste (which is what I used to buy) was $6.

Try it and let me know what you think!

Homemade Tooth Powder
Combine 2 heaping tablespoons of baking soda, 1 tablespoon of xylitol, 1/2 tsp of sea salt, and about 10 drops of your favourite essential oils (I mostly use traditional peppermint but I would love to recreate Green Beaver's Cilantro Mint or do a lime flavoured one).

Store in a resealable jar. To use, place a small spoon (I use a baby spoon) of tooth powder in your palm and dip a wet toothbrush in it. Brush as usual.

Sick again...

I never really used to get sick. Maybe once a year I'd catch something and that'd be it.

But this year, this year is the complete opposite. I blame sugar, stress and inactivity.

I've gotten so lazy with our diet, especially since we've moved and I've started driving Dave and Ally into town. I'd literally get breakfast from Timmies or Starbuck's every morning and then a coffee or a frap in the afternoon/evening. Sugar sugar sugar! All horrible overprocessed white sugar junk that is a nightmare to our bank account and even worse: to our immune systems. So no more drive through. That alone should give our immune systems a boost.

Stress has been a huge struggle for me this year. Having a third child killed my patience, lol. I get angry quickly (having a crap diet certainly adds to that too) and overwhelmed even quicker. I have a hard time with noises I'm learning. I really struggle with crowds and don't like too much visual stimulation. Having three children in the house (and one who isn't aware of their noise level) has been tough. I really need to learn to tune things out. And I also get stressed when I'm unorganized which we've been unorganized since we've planned on moving last summer. I like simplicity but right now my life feels anything but.

Both stress and poor diet with too much overprocessed sugar has led to inactivity. When I'm stressed or deperessed I have a hard time motivating myself to do anything. When the house is unorganized and a disaster, I don't want to do a single thing. I need to get over that and just go... when it's not pouring out we do get outside daily now which is an improvement but I miss hiking.

So we're no longer getting drive through and I'm hoping the easter chocolates get eaten soon (we didn't buy much but were given too much by family, I need to learn to say no to it). And I want to get outside regardless of weather, even if it's just a walk to the mailbox or to pull some weeds. I'm sure that once we improve on those things, we'll start feeling better and get sick a lot less.

But tonight, I'm drinking my vitman C tabs and vegging on the sofa.

Elderberry Syrup

It's cold and flu season again and this year I'm determined to not get sick! I don't usually get sick often but the past few years, I have been getting one or two colds which knock me out.

I've been reading about elderberries and their effectiveness against the cold and flu viruses. Elderberries contain vitamin A, vitmain C, calcium, potassium and iron. They are also anti-viral and boost the immune system! Making a syrup from elderberries and taking it daily can prevent getting sick. If you do become sick with a cold, a flu or suffer from a viral infection, taking elderberry syrup will lessen the severity of the symptoms and decrease the length of illness.

So last month I made a batch of elderberry syrup and have been doing my best to take it daily. I don't mind the taste but my oldest daughter and my husband need some coaxing to take it!

Here's how I made it:
1 cup dried elderberries (if you can find fresh even better. They're usually found in September locally)
3 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup local honey, preferablly raw

In a pot, combine elderberries, water and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain by squeezing all liquids from the elderberries over a mesh strainer then pour back into pot. Pour in honey and stir until melted. Pour into sterilized jar and refridgerate for up to 3 months.

I take two teaspoons daily, my kids take one (I made one without honey for Sophie as she's under 15 months) and should we become sick, we'll increase to 3 or 4 doses per day.

Herbal Salves

I've been absent, I know. Our computer's USB ports aren't working and I haven't been able to upload pictures and for some reason I'm having a hard time blogging without the use of photos! But I'm here today and hopefully we'll remember to take the computer in to be repaired (a super quick repair we've been told) so that I feel more inspired to blog!

Anyhoo... this is about salves. I *love* salves and have been buying them from farmer's markets, health food stores and small brick and mortar stores for years now. But I always assumed making them was so difficult so I didn't even bother. Well, let me tell you: they're super duper easy!! I made up a placenta salve for a client using a basic first aid salve recipe and then adding about a teaspoon of her dried placenta. I've heard amazing things about placenta salves for cesarean moms and I know of someone who belongs to my placenta service providers group who's daughter nearly had her fingers amputated in a paper shredder accident (!!) and her mother applied placenta salve to it to speed up the healing. But I had no personal experience nor did I personally know someone who used it postpartum so I offered it free to a few clients in exchange for feedback. I also made up a batch without added placenta for a friend's birthday on the weekend. Now I just need to get around to making myself a batch (I want both placenta and regular first aid salve).

Here's a recipe and how to:

First Aid Salve

• First you need to make an herbal infused oil. I used one part herbs to 2 parts oil. The oil I chose was a mixture of organic (make sure to only use organic ingredients for salves) virgin coconut oil and apricot kernal oil. I used comfrey, calendula and goldenseal and placed a tablespoon of each into a crockpot. Then I added 4 tablespoons of coconut oil and 2 tablespoons of apricot kernal oil. Turn the crockpot onto low and let the oil infuse for about 3 hours. Let cool and strain into a clean container using cheesecloth.
• In a pot on low-medium heat, warm the infused oil and add about a tablespoon of grated beeswax (use local beeswax if available). Then you can add 800 IUs of vitamin E and a drop of lavender essential oil. You can also add 1/2 a tsp of tea tree oil but I chose not to. Stir until beeswax melts into oil.
• You'll know your mixture is the right consistency by dipping a teaspoon into the pot and then sticking it into the freezer to set. When it sets, test it to make sure it's not too hard or too soft. If it's too soft, add a little more beeswax. If it's too hard, add more oil.
• Pour into sterile brown glass jars and seal.
• Voila... you are done! This can be used on cuts, scrapes, bug bites, etc.

For placenta salve, I make a second batch of infused oil using a teaspoon (or 1 or two capsules) of dried and ground placenta in 100mls of carrier oil: I used apricot kernel oil). Either in a double boiler or a crockpot set on low, allow the placenta to infuse the oil for abuot an hour or so. You'll know it's done when you start to smell placenta (not burnt or overly strong, just placenta-y.) Strain into a small pot using cheesecloth and then add 3 tablespoons of the first aid salve and follow above instructions.

To use placenta salve on a cesarean incision, wait until the bandages have been removed and the wound has closed up. A mother who birthed vaginally can also use this cream on tender or torn and reparied bits too. The same rule for taking encapsulated placenta internally applies for placenta salve: if infection of any kind is suspected, stop use until all symptoms disappear.

Parker's 2 year Check-up

Parker had his two year doctor's appointment yesterday and I was eager to discuss my suspected gluten intolerance with our family doctor. I worried all week how I was going to word it just right so my doctor wouldn't just shake his head at me like he tends to do. He's not the most supportive doctor, or at least he hasn't been when I switched my maternity care to a midwife when I was pregnant with Sophie. Methinks he was a tand offended.

I wrote all of my concerns for Parker so I could bring it with me. I tend to get flustered and forget everything I want to discuss. My concerns and possible symptoms were:
~ reflux up until around 1 year
~ delayed in speech development
~ Mucousy, acidic BMs up to 6 times per day
~ Often undigested foods in BMs
~ VERY fussy, cries a lot
~ Poor sleeping
~ Gassy
~ Horrid, open sores and welts kind of diaper rashes.
~ seems to have an intolerance to citrus as it will worsen his symptoms after eating.

Now imagine my surprise when my doctor agreed with me that it was most likely an inolerance to gluten!! He offered to have him tested for Celiac but I decided not to as it's a blood test and I don't want to put him through that. Instead we agreed to stick with a GF diet and check back with the doctor in 6 months. He said that sometimes it could also be an allergy to dairy but since our GF diet seems to be showing improvments already to stick with this. He also said that often a child will outgrow a sensitivity so we'll see.

So  YAY that all went well... until my doctor started talking about his poor sleeping and crying. I wasn't so much looking for solutions to his nightime wakings as it doesn't really bother me, I just thought it was important for him to know and I've heard that it can sometiems be related to Celiac disease. He offered suggestons but then about the crying, he threw his hands up and said that Parker looked happy and healthy so he didn't know what to say. I was starting to get frustrated because this is what he said when I brought him in at 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, etc etc about his constant crying. Seriously my poor little man has spent the first year of his life crying and while it's not as often as before it's still abnormal, imo. All my doctor kept saying all those months was that he's healthy and maybe I was just overwhelmed and that caring for a baby was harder than I expected. Ummm.... I have been working with children and babies for 10 years and Parker is my second child. I think I knew exactly what to expect from caring for a newborn and baby. And yesterday he was starting to say the same thing, that because he looked healthy and happy (in the 10 minutes we were in his office he determined that since Parker wasn't crying then that he was a happy child who doesn't cry anymore than other toddlers!!) he didn't know what to say. I could feel myself getting angry and wasn't ready to argue with my doctor so I got up and told him I was leaving. I was at the door when I turned around, crying at this point, and just let all my frustrations with the care my family has been recieving from him in the past two years and how insulted I was by how he handled my concerns over my child's crying.
He apologized and gave me a referral to see Parker's old paediatrician again whom I really like. So hopefully he can give us some answers.
In the meantime, we're sticking with our GF diet and looking for a new family doctor!

Going Gluten Free.

A facebook friend posted a link to the Gluten Free Challenge and I happened to be bored that day so I clicked on her link and had a read through. I was very interested when I read some of the symptoms of gluten intollerance in children and Parker fit several of them.

Since Parker was born, he's always had very mucousy, frequent BMs and horrid diaper rashes. He would poop up to 6 times a day and it would be (tmi warning!) very loose and sometimes even frothy and even if we changed him as soon as he had gone, his poor bum would be so red and irritated, sometimes welts and blisters would be left behind. Parker also has been a very spirited child, always irritable and has always been a bit behind in reaching his milestones (but not enough to warrant therapy of any sort). My dr wasn't concerned: he blamed it on teething, too much fruit, extended breastfeeding, and because even though Parker was slow to meet his milestones he did eventually meet them.

So after reading into Gluten Intolerance and Celiac Disease, my husband and I decided to go gluten free with him for a month and see if we noticed a difference. And my goodness... it's only been 5 days and already we noticed a HUGE difference!! He's only having one or two normal bms a day as opposed to up to 6 loose and acidic bms a day which has made him less irritable because his little bum isn't burnt raw constantly.

Yesterday was a slip up day though... we went hiking with my SIL and I didn't think we'd be gone for too long so I only packed him a snack and she didn't know we were going gluten free so she packed a pb/banana/honey sandwhich for him. He didn't eat the bread but we gave him the bananas from it and then later on that day I gave him a few of my potato chips not thinking there'd be gluten in there (I later read there was). So today his BMs were loose (not like before though) and his little bum was a bit red. I will definitely be more vigilant from now on, it's hard though as we're learning as we go along.

He has his 2 year check up on Monday and I'll mention this to his doctor and see what he has to say about it all.

Being that I love to cook, it's actually been fun looking up new recipes to try out! The other night I made mushroom soup from Gluten Free Girl which was yummy but cost waaaayyyy too much money to make (we're talking $35 for a pot of soup which is too much imo). She has some other recipes that I've tried and am eager to try as well. Last night we had quinoa salad with smoked salmon which was delicious!

Soap Nuts

I've been hearing about the benefits of soap nuts for a while now and finally about two weeks ago I decided to give it a try. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of their cleaning power because it's just a the outer shell of a seed from a tree grown in India or Nepal. But I have to say, I'm so impressed with them! They work so well at my regular laundry that I tried them with cloth diapers and soap nuts work even better than detergent on cloth because you don't need to do a final rinse. Think of all the water and energy being saved from skipping a final rinse!
For a load of laundry, put 4-6 soapnuts in the cloth bag that is usually provided when you buy a bag of soapnuts from your health food store.Toss the bag in with your wash load and do laundry as you normally would. Just make sure to remove the bag before putting your clothing in the dryer.
I've been reusing them only twice because I want to make a liquid concentrate from the used soapnuts (I've been reading that you could use them up to four times and then compost the used soap nuts.). You can use soapnut concentrate for a lot of different things: shampoo, dishsoap, add some to a bath for clearing up eczema or psoriasis and general household cleaning. I'm eager to make up a liquid concentrate when I have enough soapnuts to do so. I found this website to be so helpful. There's tons of great information and ideas on how to use soap nuts.
The only negative I can think of for soapnuts is that they aren't effective at getting rid of stains but I usually pretreat my stains with some oxyclean anyways. Also, laying your stained clothing or diapers in the direct sunlight for a few hours will get rid of almost any stain!
I definitely recommend giving soapnuts a try. I'm glad I finally did as I will not be going back to man made detergents again. :)

My Secret Weapon...

against chubby baby neck crease yuckies: probiotic powder!

Neither of my other children really had that problem but while they were big babies (9lbs12oz and 9lbs 3oz at birth) they were also long and not roly-poly like Sophie is. I always washed her creases in the morning and at night but that darn neck crease always got so red and I hate to say it: gross. It was cheesy and smelly and not very pleasant. I tried washing and drying it more often but that seemed to just irritate her. I tried cornstarch which we all know just feeds yeast so obviously that didn't work. Then I thought I'd try some of the probiotic powder that I had in the freezer (Reuteri brand) and it honestly cleared it up almost completely overnight. It was completely gone by day 2! Just sprinkle a little bit on and wash it off in the morning.
Works like magic!

Movies and Ear Candling

I don't know what it is about ear candling (aka ear coning) that I like so much but I am absolutely relaxed during and after the treatment.

Last Saturday night we ordered the Chris Rock documentary Hair off Shaw on Demand and candled our ears.  The documentary was alright: I love documentaries but after watching so many "heavy" ones lately, I needed something much "lighter" and easier to watch. So Hair it was!

For the ear candling, we only did 1 cone per ear but we should have used two or three since we haven't had it done in almost two years. And no matter how many times I do it, I always amazed at how much wax is drawn from our ears, how much clearer my hearing is and how I don't feel as much pressure in my head any longer.

You can find ear candles at your local health food store usually.

And be warned... some people may find this next picture gross but I find it fascinating at how much wax is drawn from the ear!

Simple and Natural Cleaning

Some of the most toxic stuff in our homes are those that are used for cleaning. So toxic that people die each year from the chemicals in cleaners.
Some of the toxins in commercially made cleansers are:

• formaldehyde which is a known carcinogen.
• chlorine which is the #1 cause of breast cancer and has also been used in chemical warfare.
• triclosan which can cause liver damage
• petroleum distillates causes skin and lung cancer
• amonia which causes respiratory problems
• perchlorethylene damages liver, kidney and nervous systems.
• hydrochloric acid damages kidney and liver.
• hypochlorite bleach damaging to skin, eyes and respiratory system and pulmanory edema.
• enzymes and phosphorus cause rashes, allergies and sinus infections

This is just a SMALL list of what is in commercially made cleansers. Since world war 2, more than 80,000 chemicals have been invented. Most of these have been invented for chemical warfare but are now used in our cleaners, food and water supplies.
Once I found this out, I had to make a change! For the past few years I've stopped using most commerical cleansers and went back to basics: vinegar, baking soda, aromatherapy, washing soda, etc. These clean just as well if not better than what you can buy at the store and best of all you save SO much money.
Here's a list of recipes for cleaners:

Soft Scrubber: Mix 1/2 cup baking soda with just enough liquid detergent (I like 7th Generation) to make a paste. Scoop some onto a wet cloth and scrub away! Works great for the bathtub.
Window Cleaner: In a spray bottle, mix in 1/4tsp liquid detergent, 3 tbls vinegar and 2 cups water.
All purpose cleaner: Fill a spray bottle 1/4 of the way full with vinegar (5%), add 20 drops tea tree oil, 10 drops lavender essential oil and fill with water. Shake well before each use. I use this cleaner the most to wash down my counters, spray on cutting boards, wash the bathroom, etc.
Floor Wash: To clean my floors, I fill up the sink abouta  1/4 way with hot water and add a glug (1/4 cup maybe?) of vinegar with 10 drops tea tree oil and 5 drops of lavender. The essential oils will not only help disinfect your floors but leaves your house smelling great!
Mold Killer: Mix 2 tsp tea tree oil in 2 cups water in either a bucket or a spray bottle and apply to moldy area. Do not rinse. Works better than anythign I've ever used!
Disinfectant: To wash cutting boards or when cleaning the toilet bowl, use straight vinegar and leave on as long as possible. I spray vinegar on my cutting boards before I go to bed at night and just rinse in the morning.

Give it a try and I promise you'll never go back to toxin filled chemical cleaners!

Reasons To Choose Cloth Diapers

I have lots of pregnant friends right now who are asking me about my experience cloth diapering 3 children (two of whom are currently still in diapers). I'm so happy to see cloth diapers becoming more and more popular and even happier to see the great changes made to cloth diapers since I started using them on my oldest nearly 14 years ago!
Cloth diapering is the obvious choice for my children for many reasons. Some reasons to consider cloth diapering are:

• Less of an environmental impact than disposables. The average child goes through between 6000-7000 diapers. That's a lot of garbage if using disposables. Only 30% of disposable diapers are actually biodegradable and what's worse is that a heavy majority of disosable diaper users don't bother to flush fecal matter so that gets sent to our landfills too. Many people don't know that you aren't actually allowed to throw human waste into the garbage because the viruses that can be found in fecal matter can make it's way into our water system. And that's just nasty! Also less energy is required to make cloth diapers. Choose a diaper made from a renewable resource and you're being ultra friendly to our planet!
• Cloth diapers are healthier for your baby! Male infertility has been linked to disposable diapers because it's believed that the gel warms up a boy's testicles and can stop normal growth. Also, consider the chemicals that are used to make disposable diapers: Tribulytin has been found in Pampers Baby Dry (Greenpeace, May 2000) which harms the immune system, is a hormone disrupter and is speculated to cause male infertility. Traces of dioxen which is a known carcinogen has been found in disposable diapers. The gel in disposable diapers is made from Sodium Polyacrylate which is linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome. And yet another health reason to switch to cloth: It's been shown that disposable diapers can cause asthma in children!
• Cloth diapers will save you money! Do the math! If a child goes through an average of 6000-7000 diapers the costs add up! On average, cloth diapers can cost you $500 over 3 years including laundering expenses. Disposables can cost on average $2000. That's already a savings of $1500... just imagine how much you'd save if you went on to have more children! And cloth diapers have an excellent resale value so you could easily get half your money back.
• Children potty learn at a younger age. Because cloth diapers do not hide the feeling of wetness, children tend to use the potty at a much younger age.
• Less diaper rashes and skin irritations. Disposable diapers tend to cause more skin irritations and diaper rashes than cloth diapers due to two reasons: the chemicals are irritating to the skin and because children feel dry parents tend to change their children's diapers less frequently.
• Cloth diapers are just cuter! Cloth diapers have changed so much in the last few years... they now come in adorable prints. No one will argue that cloth diapers beat out disposable diapers in the cuteness factor!

My experience with Placentophagy

As most of you know, I had my placenta encapsulated (dried, ground up and put into capsules) during my first few days postpartum. I decided to take them to avoid PPD but I got so much more out of it than that! For me the benefits were noticeable right away which surprised me.. I was thinking it would take a week or so to kick in.
Benefits of placentophagy for me were:

• increase in energy. This was huge for me because with my first two children, I was so tired for the first few months. This time I was going for walks and feeling good about it at 4 days pp.
• increase in mental clarity. I felt awake after only a few days of taking my pills. There was no "mommy fog" that I had with my first two. And you'd think with 3 children in the house, I'd be feeling foggy more so this time around!
• no major mood swings. My mood and my emotions have been pretty consistent, no major ups or downs like during pregnancy or postpartem after my first 2.
• milk came in earlier. With my first two, my milk didn't come in until day 5 an 6. This time it started coming in at the end of day 2.
• faster recovery. I think because my body was more nourished from the placenta, I was able to heal faster, I wasn't as sore and my stitches healed faster.
• shorter postpartem bleed. The other two times I had very heavy bleeding the first two weeks and bleeding didn't stop until around 6 weeks in. This time, it slowed down within days and fully stopped by week 4.
• increase in libido/quick return of desire. This is a bit tmi but it's an unexpected benefit for me and I know lack of desire is a huge stress for most new moms. I don't know if it's the hormones or because of all the other benefits and I just feel more like my old self faster that this increase and return of libido has returned quicker.

I was taking two capsules a day bit on "rough" days I took two more later om in the day. I stopped taking it at 6 weeks as I felt 100% healed for a few weeks but within a few days I was no longer feeling as great. I was tired and irritable and feeling down. So started taking them again but only 1 per day now and will do so until they run out.
All in all, I am SO impressed and thankful for this amazing healing organ my body grew to grow Sophie and to heal me.

Placentophagy Resources

When I was pregnant with Sophie I researched as much as I could about placentophagy (consuming placenta). It's hard to find resources on this because there really hasn't been many studies done so most of what's out there is personal experience.

I decided to do up a list and a bunch of links to resources I found useful in learning about placentophagy and encapsulation and share it! Hopefully you all find it useful as well and it helps you decide that using your placenta for postpartem healing is the way to go!

http://placentabenefits.info/index.asp (I really like the information on this site but as someone who is learning to process placenta I'm a bit disappointed with the business side of things. When I inquired about taking the training through them, I got a recorded interview to listen to before calling them for my own interview. In the taped interview, the owner of PBi explained how it would work once training is completed and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Basically, you pay PBi a certain amount from each time you are hired to encapsulate placenta and you have to get a certain number of clients each month. This felt like I was applying for a carsales position and I was not interested at all and have decided to learn myself through experience. But ignoring that, they do have great information on their site)

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1908194,00.html (a humorous article on a father's experience with encapsulation)

http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/eatplcnt.html (GREAT resource with LOTS of information)

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=912886 (Mothering.com is one of my favourite resources for all things natural. This has a link to the process in encapsulating placenta.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=944092 (another link to a discussion on Mothering.com)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22087790/

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/After_Birth_May_be_Key_to_Bouncing_Back_After_Birth_Bay_Area.html (video clip)

Placenta Encapsulation

Before Sophie was born, my husband and I decided we wanted to take her placenta home with us. I had terrible PPD after the birth of my son and didn't want to experience that again nor did I want to take medication for it while I was nursing my daughter. Even though some anti-depressants get a passing grade for nursing mothers, it still passes onto the infant and can cause lethargy which I noticed with Parker. So having Sophie's placenta processed and encapsulated was a no brainer for us.

Consuming placenta has been a part of history for a very long time and is a part of traditional Chinese medicine that women have been taking for thousands of years to aid in the speedy recovery from giving birth.

Placenta contains many vitamins and minerals such as B6 and is high in iron and protein. It also contains Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone which is proven to be a stress reducer which postpartem women have a less than average amount of. Placenta is also believed to help with lactation.

I found this website to be very useful: http://placentabenefits.info/index.asp. After talkign with my doula who has been processing placenta for nearly 30 years and also talking with my midwife, I decided this was something I was interested in.

When I delivered the placenta the nurses put it in the freezer for us. I was expected them to say something but they didn't even bat an eye. I've heard horror stories of hospitals refusing to release the placenta to the mother, etc. But this wasn't our case at all I think because it's becoming more and more popular for mothers to take the placenta home.

Lorie, our doula, came over 4 or 5 days after Sophie's birth to process the placenta for us. At first I was looking into doing it ourselves as it is pretty simple but caring for a newborn, a toddler, a teenager plus recovering from childbirth I knew it'd be best to hire someone to do this for us!

I meant to take pictures of the encapsulation but I decided to take a much needed nap instead. Basically what Lorie did was remove the cord and membranes (we have that in the freezer still to plant under a special tree for Sophie this spring or summer) and then she steamed it. This part I remember quite well as it has a very strong smell much like liver. After steaming it, she sliced it thin and dehydrated it for 7 or so hours. The next morning Lorie came over to grind it up and put it into capsules for me. Simple as that!

I take two each morning and I can honestly say I feel a difference. I'm no longer weepy, less stressed and I generally just feel better.