Healthy and Inspired Living
Todd Caldecott is a clinical herbalist, practitioner of Ayurveda and a registered professional member of the American Herbalists Guild. He received his diploma at the Coastal Mountain College of Healing Arts in 1996, and continued his training in India at the Arya Vaidya Chikitsalayam. From 1997 through 2001 Todd maintained a clinical practice in Nelson BC, producing wildcrafted herbal products for the local market, and worked as a consultant for the non-timber forest products (NTFPs) industry to help develop a market for native medicinal plants. From 1998 through 2004 Todd was Director of Clinical Herbal Studies at the Wild Rose College of Natural Healing in Calgary AB, where he developed and taught a three year clinical program in herbal medicine. Todd is author of the acclaimed textbook Ayurveda: The Divine Science of Life, and editor of the book Ayurveda in Nepal, which summarizes the 800 year old Bajracharya tradition of Nepalese Ayurveda. His most recent book, Food As Medicine: The Theory and Practice of Food is highly regarded an eminently thorough, concise and practical book outlining the use of food, nutrition, dietary therapy and detoxification. Todd continues to work with traditional Ayurvedic physicians in Nepal to help preserve this ancient system of knowledge, while also serving as a consultant for both the natural products and IT industries.
We’ve all heard of the North Pacific Gyre and the enormous island of plastic garbage that floats there. An island made of tiny pieces of plastic, each at one time part of whole that represented an idea – a promise in the form of convenience or necessity that was so convincing that we failed to comprehend [...]
Some would say that even if you eat a “balanced diet” you should still take supplements because there are not enough vitamins and minerals in the soil. What do you think? There is some truth to the assertion that supplementation has become necessary due to the fact modern agricultural practices don’t preserve the quality and [...]
For most of us summer is an easy going time where we can cast off the burden of winter, dispense with the winter coats, hats and boots that clog up the mudroom or front hall, walk barefoot in the grass and lie in the shade of the trees, meditating on the shapes of the clouds [...]
Kitchari is the classical Ayurvedic panacea, eaten whenever there is ill health or during a therapeutic regimen such as panch karma and detoxification. Essentially made from rice, kitchari is a universal food found in other cultures, with similar sounding names such as ‘kushari’ in the Middle East and ‘congee’ in China. There are an infinite [...]
Although I generally don’t eat desert, with a family of three kids and a wife, my mostly dessert-less perspective on the issue is seldom shared. So, yielding to the demands of the masses, I included an alternative to regular cake, made from quinoa, in my book Food As Medicine. Many people with celiac disease and sensitivities [...]
Dandruff is a hyper-proliferative affliction of the skin of the scalp, meaning that for some reason the skin has a rapid rate of turnover and flakes off in excessive amounts. Although emboldened with it’s own scientific name, Pityriasis Simplex Capillitii (complete with no less than eleven syllables and a double ‘ii’ thrown in for good [...]
All systems of traditional medicine make extensive use of the medicinal properties of both fresh and dried fruit, cooked with water to make a compote, or prepared as medicinal jams and syrups, such as blood building syrup. Ayurveda maintains a large class of medicinal jams called lehyas, which means ‘to lick’, referring to the method [...]
Today I stopped in at one of the local natural health pharmacies here in Vancouver, and saw one of the staff recommend a product called grapefruit seed extract (GSE) to a lactating mother whose baby was suffering from oral thrush (candidiasis). Not to be confused with grape seed extract, which is commonly used as an antioxidant supplement, grapefruit [...]
Insomnia is a general term used to describe the patient’s perception that the amount or quality of sleep he or she experiences is inadequate, despite that the fact that the opportunity for adequate sleep exists. The problems can range from having difficulty falling asleep, being too easily disrupted with multiple awakenings, or early morning awakenings [...]
A few months back I addressed the issue of veganism in my blog, and provided a series of snippets and references from my book, suggesting that a long term vegan diet – especially in women and children – can be dangerous. This post generated a fair amount of reaction by vegans, but it also opened [...]
