Fresh Home-grown Basil Tops Home-made Wheatless Pizza

Home-grown basil grows beside tomatoes and petunias in thriving urban garden

Home-grown herbs and vegetables in your balcony garden

My fresh basil plant grew indoors for awhile, until I could tell it was time to put it outside. So I created a combined herb and vegetable garden in one of my long balcony planters this year, planting basil beside a tomato plant, and even planting a hanging petunia plant beside them for color. Everything grew together comfortably and each species seemed to thrive without killing off any of the other. A truly model ethos for an  urban garden!

Home-made gluten-free pizza with fresh red pepper, cheese, and fresh herbs

Home-made gluten-free pizza made with brown rice flour

Home-made gluten-free pizza, made without wheat, is made with about 2 cups of a combination of brown rice flour, potato flour, and sorghum flour; then 1 package of yeast, 1 tsp of sea salt, and 1 tsp of xantham gum - and that's pretty much it. You just add 2 eggs (or 2 egg-replacements, as I did), 1 1/2 cup warm water, 2 tbsp olive oil to the yeast, stir, and then mix it all together with the different flours and other dry products. Mix it well. Roll the dough into 2 balls, cover and let stand in a warm place for 1/2 hour to let it rise. 

Afterwards, flatten each into greased pizza pans, and cook just the pizza dough for 5 to 7 minutes. Then bring it out of the oven, spread tomato spread for pizza on the dough, cut red peppers, cheese, fresh sage and basil, and put on top. Bake the pizza for another 20 minutes. Makes two 12-inch pizzas.

Chemical-Free Skincare Enhances Wellness

Imagine knowing that everything that you wash with and put onto your body was chemical-free! Recently while searching for affordable soaps, shampoos and skin moisturizers that don't have harmful chemicals in them, I found that they were neither plentiful, affordable, nor easy to get. Some health food stores carry products that are advertised as chemical-free and healthy, but when I looked up their ingredients at the Skin Deep Cosmetic Database, they were rated as harmful in many cases.

Many chemical-free products are advertised online, but most of the ones I found that were rated as safe at Skin Deep were made in limited quantities by small operations in the United States that did not deliver outside of the U.S.A. Since I live in Canada, I decided to search for Canadian-made chemical-free skincare products. And I found Consonant Body Organic Skincare, a manufacturer of 100% natural products that have "no parabens, no sulfates, no petroleum ingredients, and certainly no phthalates." The way I found Consonant was by walking down Yonge Street in Toronto one day and seeing a sign that stuck in my mind for days. It said:

What Goes On Your Body Goes In Your Body

Chemical-free skin care products at Consonant Body Organic Skincare

A few days later, I went into Consonant's store to investigate the prices.  I met Kristina, who did a wonderful job of explaining the features and benefits of their product line, and gave me some samples. I was surprised to find how affordable their skin care products were.

A chemical-free skin care product for eyes

Ultra Firming Organic Eye Cream from Consonant Body Organic Skincare

Eventually I purchased

an Ultra Moisturizing Organic Eye Creme product for $35 CAD.

I thought the price was good, and I have been using it daily for 3 months now.

Compared to Mary Cohr and Yonka products that I recently reviewed and also use daily, this chemical-free skincare product is much more affordable - as well as being organic.

How to Avoid Preservatives in Food and Products

Preservatives can be avoided by reading labels, researching online, and finding suppliers who sell food and products without them.

BHA in Food

If you eat potato chips, lard, butter, cereal, instant mashed potatoes, preserved meat, beer, baked goods, dry beverage and dessert mixes, chewing gum and many other foods, you are eating butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) - a preservative that prevents food from going rotten. The latest environmental research reports that "the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies BHA as a possible human carcinogen, and the European Commission on Endocrine Disruption has listed BHA as a Category 1 priority substance, based on evidence that it interferes with hormone function."

You can avoid BHA by buying fresh food, cooking and baking yourself, and even making your own beer.

BHA in Skin Products

BHA is also in skin products, and is often recommended for aging skin since it has many of the same effects that estrogen does.  On Skin Deep, a cosmetic database, BHA is rated "highly hazardous" (9-10 out of 10).

Avoid BHA by reading labels

Wellness and Wheat

Anyone concerned with wellness is now concerned with wheat

There are many ways that wheat affects wellness - from weight gain, to raised blood sugar and many other adverse health effects including heart disease.

One-third of my family are celiac, or disturbed by eating gluten, or allergic to wheat - that's 6 out of a group of 18 counting my mother, my three sisters, my two brothers, and our combined 11 children.

But none of us were remotely affected by wheat over thirty years ago when we used to gather at family celebrations and eat a wheat-based delicacy called "kutia". Most of our family's symptoms have since included stomach problems and breathing problems (kind of like hay fever).


Ways that wheat affect wellness are:

• increased appetite
• formation of small LDL particles, which combined with increased appetite, creates belly fat
• belly fat causes inflammation, higher blood sugar/higher blood pressure = risk of heart disease
• mood swings
• depression
• joint pain and swelling
• acid reflux
• irritated bowel
• peripheral neuropathy (numbness in hands and legs)

Eating fresh food, or real food that has not been processed in any way, is the best way to stay healthy. But for those days when I feel like making dough, I have a good supply of brown rice flour and soy flour. Home-made pizza was a hit at our house when I made this gluten-free home-made pizza.