I used to be an anti-pesticide activist. That meant I’d get together with town council members to educate them about the dangers of herbicides and insecticides and propose alternatives. I also met with every hospital in Western New York in 1988 and convinced them to halt their lawn spray programs.
The efforts of our small, dedicated group made the national press as Buffalo became the first city in the country to stop using dangerous chemicals in public spaces. Those were proud and satisfying years.
But now I have another task at hand. Not unlike protesting the use of dangerous chemicals in our schools, I have a mission to abort the use of pesticides, chemicals and superfluous substances in our bodies. This assault now comes in the form of drugs, over the counter and, worse yet, prescribed medications.
My message may seem a bit dramatic or reactionary, but the analogy between pesticides and drugs is powerful and very real.
Whereas I used to be concerned about pollution sprayed on the lawns on which our children romped, it has become increasingly clear that the worst pollutants of all are the ones we willingly place directly into our mouths and the mouths of our children. Wait a minute! Aren’t medicines supposed to be carefully crafted substances that aid us when we’re sick? Well, I say a resounding NO.
Think of your garden. You wouldn’t be caught dead spraying pesticides on it, would you? Instead you carefully collect your table scraps and garden waste, add manure and allow the mixture to cultivate and breed lovely, enzyme-producing matter called compost. Then you till your treasured compost into your soil to make sure your plants are adequately nourished with health-boosting natural nutrients.
If you see a pest, do you react with a pesticide? Of course not! To do so would weaken your plants, make them less hardy and might ultimately compromise their good health.
Then, why would we give our child an antibiotic? It acts precisely like a pesticide in the body. It not only kills the bad bugs but wipes out any beneficial microorganisms that keep the child thriving.
Next time you’re pressured by a well-meaning practitioner to give your child a medication that your intuition tells you is harmful, remember my garden analogy. Our guts, like the soil of a healthy garden, are filled with a plethora of microorganisms that live in a delicate balance.
How arrogant of us to assume that we know the lasting consequences of introducing a powerful, microbe-killing agent into this environment. Instead, let’s strengthen our gut garden with probiotic-rich foods like raw milk and overall sound nutrition and let’s learn about and use alternatives to antibiotics.
Join me. Learn how to treat your family through homeopathy.
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One of the best investments you can make in your family's health is the purchase of a homeopathy kit. With a little education, you'll have what you need at your fingertips to treat whatever illnesses come up. Contact our office to find out more.
Sunflower seeds have become the darling of my pantry. Wait until you taste this granola that makes my family smile and makes me relish how clever I am!
Actually, I’m not all that clever. I have to give full credit to a great little company in Vermont that I recently learned about called Honest Body. They offer a full selection of different flavors of granola.
This young husband/wife team uses only the purest ingredients, and I urge you to order granola from them.
My version isn’t nearly as perfected as theirs, but it’s pretty good.
I guessed at their recipe.
• Start with a few pounds of raw organic sunflower seeds.
• In a large mixing bowl, cover the seeds with at least 4 inches of water and let them stand overnight for up to 24 hours.
• Strain the water and spread the soaked seeds as thinly as possible on cookie sheets.
• Place the sheets in a dehydrator or low oven at 110 degrees for approximately 24 hours…or until thoroughly dry.
• Once the seeds are dry, toss them into a large mixing bowl and start adding the fun stuff…coconut shreds, cinnamon, vanilla extract, Celtic salt, raisins, chopped dehydrated fruit, such as apples or prunes, chopped walnuts, sesame seeds, etc.
That’s it!
I store my granola in a glass container, and it doesn't need to be refrigerated because it’s eaten within a few days. Delicious!
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My signature philosophy is that health is not random. After you've tried my delicious recipe, consider contacting my office to schedule a free 15-minute phone conversation about adding homeopathy to your health strategy.
Last night, my husband and I attended a party. I engaged in a discussion with a guest I knew from years ago. Being an obstetrics nurse at a local hospital, she told me about a project she hoped to launch in our hometown.
Since she used to be a home-birthing advocate, I was eager to hear her plans. (Home-birthing is my idea of taking control of a family’s wellbeing from day one).
But within minutes, I grew uneasy.
She told me that with the aid of government grants (already a suspicious start), she intended to open a reproductive clinic in a public school in an under- privileged area of town. It would entice kids, during their study hall time, to be treated for pregnancies, to replenish their supply of French ticklers (excuse me, I couldn’t resist), drugs to suppress reproductive hormones and who knows what else.
Call me old fashioned, but is the intent of school to fabricate little consumers to purchase life-altering products that could affect their bodies, souls and legacies?
As she spoke, my husband was surreptitiously stroking my shoulder. He sensed a volcano in me about to erupt.
“So, we might call it The-Parents-Have- Nothing-To -Say -About -Their -Own-Offspring’s Future-‘Cause-Someone-Else-Knows-Better-Clinic ?” I offered.
“But this is for underprivileged kids, who don’t have the opportunity of making good choices,” she apologized.
My husband’s grasp grew tighter.
As a Sicilian American, I’m aware of prejudices my grandparents and parents endured less than a century ago. Someone might judge that they were disadvantaged and incapable of making proper decisions. In fact, this is often the flavor of discrimination.
I image my grandparents would have questioned the intention of a stranger who would lure their daughter to ingest questionable, synthetic hormones so as to keep her from having their grandchild. Particularly if the counselor condescendingly regarded Sicilian-Americans incapable of making good choices.
What might have made my grandparents particularly suspicious is that their “underprivileged” child might be influenced by someone whose grants depended on the number of kids enlisted in the program.
The ultimate question for anyone faced with these kinds of busy-bodies ought to be, why is it anyone’s business how many children a family has in the first place!?
My conversation with the nurse was making my militant bone grow stronger by the minute, and particularly flexed because the implication is that certain lineages (those who we deem don’t make decisions similar to ours) ought to be curtailed.
I thought certain sentiments went without saying, but it became apparent that they needed to be expressed. So, while we were serving the cake, I did just that.
I told her that a decision to consider limiting the lineage of a particular family via birth control pills, morning-after drugs and other such “services” is exclusively the jurisdiction of the unconditional love of a parent. And that any rational parent would protect their youngster from such shenanigans.
Additionally, such an assessment ought not be under the influence of a psycho-babbling counselor who is paid to recruit young innocents.
Well, I didn’t say it exactly like that. I was more polite.
I held back while my gut festered and my thoughts turned to….. Since when are the reproductive organs of another woman’s child up for grabs?
You might accuse me of not being very progressive, but her thinking seemed arrogant and disruptive of family life, hence immoral.
Indeed, I was raised to believe that children are a blessing and that their unique characteristics are from the family’s roots and that’s why it’s solely the family’s responsibility to protect and nurture them.
Now, it’s the day after the party and in a way, I regret having said this to the nurse, whose day job is to help bring babies into the world in an upscale hospital.
After all, we were at a party.
On second thought, I couldn’t harbor my impulses.
It seems that my pro-family, anti-meds, parent-decisive, keep-your-hands-off -my-kids, Sicilian-American ancestry inadvertently expressed itself.
Some bloodlines haven’t yet been suppressed.
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If you feel as passionately as I do about taking charge of your family's health, I encourage you to explore my website for many, many free articles about using homeopathy at home. Or contact my office to schedule a consultation to discuss how homeopathy could fit with your family's health strategy. It's also free!
Despite what you may believe, eating well doesn't have to mean a huge grocery bill. Here are some tricks I've employed over the years that helped me save money while ensuring that my children grew into strong, healthy men.
I found that one of the best ways to raise a family is to teach the importance of knowing how to find and prepare quality meals. These are some of the routines and practices that have helped me to raise three healthy boys while leading a busy life as a homeopath, writer and educator.
What has helped you save money while nourishing your family?
Last weekend, I had the privilege to speak at the regional conference of the Weston A. Price Foundation. For those of you who weren’t able to attend, I wanted to share some photos from the day.
I spoke about how to treat fever the homeopathic way. No drugs and your children will be healthier for it. To get up to speed on the topic, check out my past blog post on fever.
I need all the help I can get from my family to help me get ready for these events. That's my son, Giuseppe, helping me set up and my father is overseeing the progress.
More than two hundred people attended this wonderful weekend of workshops geared toward helping families take charge of their health through nutrition and natural healing.
I always enjoy the opportunity to talk to people about what homeopathy can do for them. Our HomeopathyWorks booth allowed me to do just that.
Of course, one of the highlights of the conference was being on a plenary panel with the highly regarded Sally Fallon Morel, who wrote one of my favorite cookbooks about nutritious food, Nourishing Traditions.
Another exciting announcement: we have a new website!
From now on when you enter www.homeopathyworks.net into your browser, you will be redirected to our new-and-improved site, JoetteCalabrese.com.
We now have a great search function where you can search all of my articles by keyword. Stay tuned for other new features that will be available soon, such as a whole section devoted to homeopathy research where you’ll be able to read articles about clinical trials and other new developments in the science of homeopathy.
Don’t forget to click on the link for our products page as well – very soon we will be selling remedy kits through the website!
Also very exciting is the new section “Shopping with Joette,” where you can support our community of like-minded vendors who supply us with the foods and products we use on a daily basis.
Have a look around and tell us what you think!
We would all avoid surgery if we could. Homeopathy, in fact, allows us to do so in many cases, but sometimes going under the knife is necessary.
Fortunately, the fact that homeopathy doesn’t interact with conventional drugs or medical treatments makes it the perfect companion to surgical procedures. Learn this simple surgical protocol, and you’ll be ready for the next time you or a loved one faces surgery.
You may not know that at the turn of the century, our country boasted many homeopathic hospitals where skilled surgeons knew the value of using homeopathy before and after operations. This type of medicine is still practiced in other countries such as England, Switzerland, Germany and India.
The following protocol has been shown to help the surgical patient by reducing the inherent shock from an operation, preventing infection, boosting the immune system, alleviating post-op pain, speeding recovery and even stabilizing the person’s emotional state.
Have these remedies on hand for surgery, which might include tooth extraction, organ removal or a simple mole excision.
The more severe the pain, the more frequent the administration and the higher the potency required.
That means that if you have any homeopathic education and experience, a higher potency can be used. If homeopathy is rather new in your life, then use potencies such as 30 or 200. For the sake of expediency, the remedies below are indicated in 200c. One dose is generally 4 pills, regardless of the size of the person taking the remedy.
1) Arnica montana 200c is given morning and night on the day before surgery, and then repeated the morning of and just before being wheeled into the operating room. Remember that the purpose of Arnica montana is to keep infection at bay, minimize the shock to the system, reduce swelling, minimize the possibility of hemorrhages and put the person at ease.
This should be repeated as soon as possible after surgery and administered every 2-3 hours as needed. Then it can be repeated as often as required to eliminate pain. If the pain is persistent, this indicates the need for more frequent repetition, perhaps every hour or two.
2) If pain is still a problem, Hypericum 200 is used as an alternate so that Arnica is administered say, every even hour and Hypericum every odd hour.
3) Sometimes other remedies are required, such as Staphysagria 200 for wound pain or site infection.
4) Nux vomica is generally used for nausea, constipation or diarrhea from the anesthetic.
5) Phosphorus also comes into use as a powerful remedy for headaches and difficulty withdrawing from the anesthetic.
After surgery, choose the issue that is the most trying and then the remedy that most closely matches the symptoms.
Don’t use more than one remedy at a time except in the case of extreme pain or if you are working with a homeopath. In some cases, the aid of a classical homeopath may still be needed to address the nuances and complications. However, you can do plenty to protect and get your loved one off to a good start.
With this elegant protocol, surgery takes on a whole new light…even becoming a compatible option.
And options are what we homeopaths and mothers like!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ The best way to be prepared for whatever emergencies come your family's way is to own a kit with the most frequently used homeopathic remedies. Kits are available by calling our office at (716) 941-1045. My free first-aid chart available to download here is your kit's perfect companion.
Oh, the flurry of excitement of back to school time!
Shiny, new school supplies and autumn clothes. Let’s take this opportunity to make a fresh start with our children’s meals as well.
I urge my students to reassess their dietary habits yearly, just like a corporation regularly evaluates its efficiency and productivity. I urge you to clean house and consider potential culprits that may be silently attacking your child’s health.
Too many refined carbohydrates are detrimental to good health and one of the worst offenders is gluten-laden foods.
I know, I know. Cakes, cookies, biscuits and such are attractive, tasty and inexpensive, but if your child can’t overcome certain health challenges, including emotional and/or intellectual ones, these might be likely to blame.
I often recommend that a child abstain from ALL gluten products for 60 days. I don’t mean fewer of these products, or smaller bites of them. I mean totally eliminate them from his diet.
Unfortunately, this means not only Cap’n Crunch has to go, but otherwise wholesome oats, wheat, spelt and rye must be eliminated as well. Instead, try delicious hot cereals such as teff or quinoa; they make a lovely breakfast along with eggs.
Substitute rice pasta for wheat/semolina. Tinkyada Brand is good source of many kinds of pasta.
As an Italian American, I can tell you that if you cook this pasta according to the directions, it tastes authentic.
After the 60 day fast, allow your child a gluten feast! For example, give him wheat toast for breakfast, a wheat bread sandwich for lunch, a bagel for a snack, and pasta for dinner.
Now watch his behavior, sleep, respiratory and gastrointestinal activity. Note his energy, his color, and his odor. Is there darkness under his eyes? Is he wiggly, itchy, too chilly or warm?
If you notice any of these changes after gluten has been reintroduced into his diet, then you will know that the child is sensitive to gluten and must be kept away from it. The same experiment can be done for any suspected food sensitivity such as pasteurized dairy products, sugar cane, corn syrup, dyes or preservative-laden foods, etc.
Here’s a powerful clue: the food that most often does the worst harm is the one that’s the most craved. Does your child cry or carry on when you tell him he must have eggs instead of toast? If so, then regard gluten a possible culprit.
Homeopathy has a history of resolving the problem. If gluten intolerance is part of the family history–something that his father and grandmother have– he’ll still be able, in large part, to overcome this tendency. It’s a matter of selecting the correct and deep-acting constitutional remedy that is person specific.
Interestingly, in my experience, I’ve observed a proclivity for gluten intolerance more often in Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans. I’ve also noted that many children don’t present this problem until they’ve been treated with antibiotics, vaccinations or the like.
If you’re working with a classical homeopath, every symptom, no matter how minute, is important to disclose; it will help your homeopath determine the constitutional remedy that will uproot the propensity for this problem in the first place.
After all, getting to the bottom of the problem is what homeopathy does best!
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Nutrition is fundamental to the work I do with homeopathy! Read more about how the correct remedy helped to bring Liz's diet into alignment here. Lots more articles and free information on homeopathyworks.net.
I designed it especially to provide a framework to guide you through your remedy choices. It is perfect for busy mothers and others who love curing their families themselves.
Deal with the flu without drugs and expensive commercial products.
The easiest, safest and most inexpensive way to treat your whole family.
Learn to choose the correct homeopathic remedy to give on the way to the emergency room or better yet,
avoid the trip altogether.
Homeopathy is inexpensive, non-invasive and profoundly curative.
Boost and maintain optimum health with simple foods, instead of vitamin pills.
New To Homeopathy?Quickstart Guide Contact
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| Joette is not a physician and the relationship between Joette and her clients is not of prescriber and patient, but as educator and client. It is fully the client's choice whether or not to take advantage of the information Joette presents. Homeopathy doesn't "treat" an illness; it addresses the entire person as a matter of wholeness that is an educational process, not a medical one. In order to be treated or diagnosed, Joette believes that the advice of a holistic physician is in order. Disclaimer: Claims based on traditional homeopathic practice, not accepted medical evidence. Not FDA evaluated. 2009-2023 © Joette Calabrese – Practical Homeopathy® - HomeopathyWorks® - Health and Wellness
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