Gluten Free Quinoa Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing


Posted by Dr. Stacy Goldstein

With the weather get­ting warmer, there is noth­ing like a refresh­ing quinoa salad for snack, lunch or din­ner. Here is one of my favourites – it’s a fan­tas­tic take on tabouli salad, great for a sum­mer pic­nic or a week­end BBQ.

(From Cana­dian Liv­ing Mag­a­zine March 2011, By Ali­son Kent and the Test Kitchen)

quinoa

Ingre­di­ents
1 cup (250 mL) quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
1/4 cup (50 mL) lemon juice
1/4 cup (50 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup (50 mL) tahini
1/4 cup (50 mL) warm water
1 small clove gar­lic, minced
1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground cumin
1/4 tsp (1 mL) pep­per
2 cups (500 mL) grape toma­toes or cherry toma­toes, halved
1 cup (250 mL) diced Eng­lish cucum­ber
1 cup (250 mL) drained rinsed canned lentils
2/3 cup (150 mL) chopped fresh pars­ley
1/3 cup (75 mL) chopped fresh mint
3 green onions, thinly sliced

Prepa­ra­tion:
In saucepan, bring quinoa, half of the salt and 2 cups water to boil over high heat; reduce heat, cover and sim­mer until no liq­uid remains and quinoa is ten­der, about 15 min­utes. Let cool.

In large bowl, whisk together lemon juice, oil, tahini, warm water, gar­lic, cumin, pep­per and remain­ing salt. Stir in quinoa, toma­toes, cucum­ber, lentils, pars­ley, mint and green onions, toss­ing to coat. (Make-ahead: Cover and refrig­er­ate for up to 3 days.)


Massage Therapy


Posted by Dr. Liang Dai

I am proud to announce that Hamp­ton Well­ness Cen­tre will be adding mas­sage ther­apy in June to our ever expand­ing list of ser­vices to our patients and com­mu­nity. Fur­ther details of mas­sage ther­apy will be posted in the com­ing weeks so check back often for new infor­ma­tion.  And be sure to check back every Tues­day for our new blogs writ­ten by the doc­tors at Hamp­ton Well­ness Centre.

Mas­sage Ther­apy Com­ing Soon!11.0x5.5-NPPV08-39-Jaffe-Chicagoland-IL-CUST-4c-68701-Rindd.indd


Relief from Headaches & Migraines


Posted by Dr. Liang Dai

A cou­ple of weeks ago, our team had a booth at The National Women’s Show in the Ottawa Con­ven­tion Cen­tre (next to the Westin Hotel).  Over those two days, it became evi­dent that about 1 in 2 women that I had talked to suf­fered headaches or migraines chron­i­cally.  That is a stag­ger­ing num­ber and would be con­sid­ered as an epi­demic or pan­demic if it were a dis­ease.  What was really shock­ing was how many women con­sid­ered their chronic headaches and even migraines as “normal.”

headacheLet’s be clear; headaches and migraines are not nor­mal and should not be con­sid­ered incon­se­quen­tial. If you had a choice of con­tin­u­ing to live with your cur­rent headaches or have the sever­ity and fre­quency decreased, and in some cases be headache free, what would you choose?  I would hope every­one would want to choose liv­ing life with­out headaches and migraines.

Some­times all it takes is mak­ing some lifestyle choices.  For some peo­ple it could be as sim­ple as dim­ming the screen on your com­puter or plac­ing a com­puter screen fil­ter on your mon­i­tor.  For oth­ers, it may mean remov­ing some food sen­si­tiv­i­ties.   Foods such as choco­late and wine can con­tain cer­tain com­pounds (ie. tan­nins) that can trig­ger headaches or migraines.  Caf­feine on the other hand is known to ini­ti­ate a headache in some peo­ple and take away the headache in oth­ers. Whether we like it or not, most of us are sen­si­tive to one food or another and as such it is rec­om­mended to have a food and envi­ron­men­tal allergy/sensitivity test done to know for cer­tain.  This is a ser­vice that is offered here at our clinic by Dr. Marie Matheson.

Other cases of headaches and migraines may require a more inves­tiga­tive approach.  With a proper exam­i­na­tion, we can deter­mine if the cer­vi­cal spine has a nor­mal curve.  The curve in the neck is also known as the arc of life, due to the impor­tance of it pro­tect­ing the ner­vous system.

“Loss of the cer­vi­cal curve stretches the spinal cord 5 to 7cm and pro­duces patho­log­i­cal ten­sion, putting the body in a state of dis­ease.” – Alfred Brieg, MD.

xray1

In addi­tion of increased patho­log­i­cal ten­sion on the spinal cord, it pro­duces more strain on your neck mus­cles.  This in turn can induce ten­sion headaches.  If you think of the cer­vi­cal curve (arc of life) as a banana and the cur­va­ture that the fruit has, what hap­pens when you try to straighten out the banana?  The flesh of the fruit will com­press and bruise.  The same com­pres­sions can hap­pen with your spinal cord.  If you sus­pect that you may not have an opti­mal cur­va­ture in your cer­vi­cal spine, talk to a chi­ro­prac­tor to see if there are non-invasive ways to deter­mine the cer­vi­cal curve and how it relates to your headaches and migraines.


Nature’s ‘Dirty Needle’


Posted by Dr. Marie Matheson

What is Lyme dis­ease and how to pre­vent it?

blades_of_grassAs warmer weather begins to draw us out­side, you should be aware of the risk of tick bites.  While it’s smart to be vig­i­lant against ticks year-round, I advise to take extra pre­cau­tions in warmer months (April through Sep­tem­ber) when ticks are most active.  Ticks feed on blood.  Imma­ture ticks – so small in the lar­val stage that they can barely be seen – up to nymphs and adults, all need blood to fuel them to their next life phase.  And if they’ve drawn blood from an infected source before bit­ing a human, they can spread Lyme dis­ease.

While Lyme is an ill­ness caused by the bac­terium Bor­re­lia burgdor­feri, ticks may also carry other infec­tions that may be trans­mit­ted with the bite includ­ing Ehrli­chio­sis, Rocky Moun­tain Spot­ted Fever, Babesia and Bar­tonella. Bor­re­lia burgdor­feri has been reported in parts of Europe, Asia, Aus­tralia, and through­out much of North America.

Lyme dis­ease in humans can have seri­ous symp­toms and com­pli­ca­tions if left untreated.  These include chills, bulls eye rash (fact buster: only 30% of patient’s get this), fever, headache, mus­cle and joint pain, neu­ro­log­i­cal and car­diac manifestations.

For­tu­nately, there are sev­eral actions you can take to pre­vent tick bites and reduce your risk of tick-borne disease.

 

Pro­tect Your­self from Tick Bites

Know where ticks thrive. Ticks live in moist, humid envi­ron­ments, par­tic­u­larly near wooded or grassy areas. On trails, even around the house, ticks hang on the ends of taller grass wait­ing to come in con­tact with their next host.  Always walk in the cen­ter of trails to avoid the side grass.

Cover up! Wear light col­ored clothes (to see ticks), a long sleeve shirt and long pants, tucked into your socks to keep ticks off of your skin.

Check your body for ticks after being out­doors, even in your own yard. Bathe or shower as soon as pos­si­ble after com­ing indoors (prefer­ably within two hours) to wash off and more eas­ily find ticks that are crawl­ing on you. Use a hand-held or full-length mir­ror to view all parts of your body and remove any tick you find. Take spe­cial care to check these parts of your body for ticks:  under the arms; in and around the ears; belly but­ton; back of the knees; and in and around all head and body hair.

Check your cloth­ing and pets for ticks. Ticks are often car­ried into the house on cloth­ing and pets.  Any ticks you find should be removed. Plac­ing clothes into a dryer on high heat effec­tively kills ticks.

Mod­ify your land­scap­ing:  Keep patios, play areas and play­ground equip­ment away from shrubs, bushes, and other veg­e­ta­tion. Reg­u­larly remove leaf piles and clear tall grasses and brush around your home.

Dis­cour­age deer. Ticks love to feed on deer and birds. Both play a major role in aid­ing ticks’ geo­graphic dis­tri­b­u­tion.  In fact, Health Canada warns that sur­veil­lance has iden­ti­fied migra­tory birds that have brought tick-carrying Lyme dis­ease to non-endemic parts of the coun­try.   By remov­ing plants that attract deer and con­struct­ing phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers that dis­cour­age deer from enter­ing your yard, you can pre­vent ticks from spread­ing near your home.

 

What to Do If You’ve Been Bit­ten by a Tick

Remove an attached tick using fine-tipped tweez­ers or tick remover (pur­chased at most pet stores) at the sur­face of the skin as soon as you notice it.  Do not use a match to burn it.  If tweez­ers are not avail­able, use a tis­sue to pro­tect your fin­gers as expo­sure to ticks flu­ids may lead to trans­mis­sion of disease.

Seek imme­di­ate med­ical treat­ment regard­less of how long the tick has been attached, the bac­te­ria can pen­e­trate the blood stream within min­utes. Prompt use of antibi­otics should be taken as soon as pos­si­ble, fol­low­ing ILADS guidelines.

 

To Learn More: join Dr. Marie for a Lyme Dis­ease infor­ma­tion ses­sion Fri­day, May 24, 7-9:30pm @ Rama Lotus Yoga Cen­tre, 342 Glad­stone Avenue, Ottawa by Dr. Marie Math­e­son ND, from 7-7:45pm, and a screen­ing of the award-winning doc­u­men­tary “Under Our Skin” from 7:45-9:30pm. This is a FREE event, open to the public.


5 Limiting Beliefs: Belief #2


Posted by Dr. Amanda Chan

Last arti­cle, we dis­cussed how we often see pain or dis­ease as the enemy. Instead, pain can be looked at as a mes­sage, let­ting us know that some­thing in our life, needs to change.

Today, we look at belief #2: doc­tor knows best.

doctors-advice

Too often, we give up our con­trol or power to some­one exter­nal to us, who we think may know more than us. You may say, well, my doc­tor is an expert and stud­ied med­i­cine for so long, they must know what’s best for me and my body.

The truth is, you are an expert in your own body. No one knows your body bet­ter than you do. For exam­ple, my med­ical doc­tor is a 60 year old man. He knows about dis­ease and med­i­cine and he does not know what it’s like to be in a female body.

When I went through 4 years of chi­ro­prac­tic school, I was taught how to recog­nise all types of dis­eases, ill­ness, patholo­gies and how to treat them. What they did not teach me is how to help some­one who is well.

Doctor’s learn to treat dis­ease. They don’t know if you are well. Well­ness is your domain. Even when I go to see my doc­tor for my annual checkup, he’s not look­ing to see if I am well, he’s look­ing to see if I am “sick” in some way. It is pos­si­ble to have a dis­ease and to be well, emo­tion­ally, men­tally and spiritually.

Next time some­one gives you health infor­ma­tion, do your own research and inform your­self before mak­ing your deci­sion. Remem­ber that there are no ‘side effects’, there are only effects.

Stay tuned for my next blog Belief #3: My body is flawed