Oh I simply LOVE the farmers market!

I have a favourite morning. It’s every first and third Friday of the month. I do the school run and then spend a blissful hour walking around my local farmers market. I love it, whatever the weather I’m there because I believe it’s truly the best way to buy food.

Farmers market food is fresh, its local and it tastes delicious. I now know the stall holders and have a chat with them whilst buying the Bream they caught yesterday or the tomatoes picked today and discussing all the things you can do with artichokes (ooh err). Yes you pay a little bit more but it’s sustainable for the people putting in the extreme hard work.

The food available means we are eating seasonally which is so much better for health. Asparagus doesn’t grow here in February so it’s not a good idea to eat it. We have lots of beetroot and squashes around, combined with dark leafy greens which means the large amount of folates, iron and beta carotene that’s naturally occurring is what we need through the cold winter.

In my clinic I’m forever banging on about getting back to basics with food. In general we rely very heavily on processed, packaged, convenience foods and bread based goods. Most of my 80 year old clients have  better health than the 30 year olds I see because the post war diet was so exceptional. The quick and easy food we eat today alongside coffees, fizzy drinks and take-aways are killing us. By going back to basics with food we are getting a better nutritional foundation and our bodies thank us for it.

Shopping this way also stops me having to endure supermarkets. They are really noisy, over bright horrible places. More importantly the food is inferior. For the most part it  has travelled often thousands of miles. Its’ picked when unripe, refrigerated, stored and is tasteless and nutritionally void. The ethics behind supermarkets suck too. Those fabulous 2-4-1 offers don’t come from supermarkets profits. They coerce the farmers into doing the deals and taking the hit and if they don’t tow the line they get dropped and their whole business can go under. Chef Arthur Potts-Dawson brought this to our attention when he launched the People’s Supermarket and started to fight back against the
supermarkets power.

More important than any of that is that our food tastes real again – I’ve noticed how I’m loathed to let anything waste. I’ve pounded the pavements on a drizzly day to buy my kale so I won’t let it rot in the bottom of the fridge, I’ve become really imaginative with food again and I’m
using new veg I didn’t even know existed. Look out for your local farm shops, local seasonal food is the key here. Try it out and trust me, meal times will become exciting again!

And finally heres something that made us Balanced Wellness ladies laugh - Farmers Market by Armstrong and Miller

"what do you mean you haven't taken the bins out, I asked you to do that this morning!"

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom there lived a blonde princess with an out of tune voice and a happy go lucky attitude who dreamed someday her Prince would come to rescue her.

32 years and a divorce later she’s having second thoughts.

It is my best friends’ daughters 8^th birthday this weekend and all she wants is the Disney Princess collection. I happily oblige and buy her Rapunzel. We both adore Rapunzel and she is ridiculously ecstatic with her gift. She proceeds to introduce me to all the other princesses as well as talking me through every tiny dress detail and matching hair accessory (ah the joy of being 8). As we sit down to watch Tangled for the 15^th time, I ponder ‘how do Disney Fairy Tales affect our perception of the world as we grow up?’

As young girls we watch Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Tangled. Each has a very similar format.

1. Young princess with impossibly fabulous hair starts singing
2. Bunch of animals skilled in housework appear
3. Cue handsome Prince usually on horse with tight trousers
4. There is a chance meeting between the two
5. There is some sort of predicament that tries to keep the two apart
6. Good wins over evil, the beautiful triumph over the ugly
7. The Prince and Princess fall in love, we know this because of ‘loves true kiss’
8. They live happily ever after, the end

Hmm. So as girls we are taught four key lessons

1. You need good hair/a good voice/a skilful menagerie to capture a Prince
2. Real men sing and ride horses
3. Your dream prince is out there waiting to rescue you
4. When you meet him you will live happily ever after

As these princess-wannabes transform into women they throw themselves into relationship under the illusion that once love strikes the ‘happily ever after’ follows. We are not taught in school that relationships take commitment, energy, understanding, maturity, compromise and communication. We look forward to the big diamond ring, the big white dress and that big long aisle (mine was the length of a football pitch). We are simply not prepared for the reality of marriage. I wonder how Belle and the Beast are getting on 20 years later. Are the stresses of running a castle, having a couple of kids and paying ridiculously large heating bills affecting their relationship magic? We don’t know because Disney doesn’t show us this bit. I personally would love to see Cinderella – the Sequel.

Divorce rates in the UK, USA and Russia (hmm wonder if they have Disney in Russian?) are the highest in the world compared with countries like India who only have 11 marriages in every 1,000 ending in divorce. The Indian culture is very different from ours. They are taught a marriage is about duty, family and partnership. Many marriages are still arranged in Indian culture so love, if it happens, is an added bonus. Indian women have a different perspective on marriage. They do not have great expectations and an illusion of Prince Charming. Therefore are they less likely to be disappointed and end up in the divorce courts?

Now I am an adult and have some experience under my belt I can confirm that all the Disney taught lessons above are total rubbish. Good hair and an excellent singing voice do not keep a sex life alive. You can’t spot a real man by how well he mounts a horse. And skipping off into the sunset after the wedding day is not the end of the story, its the beginning. Is it time we ditched the Disney Delusion and got real with our daughters?

i'm not a fan of wearing deodorant... or clothes for that matter

Aren’t breasts wonderful? I mean really. Boobies. Babylons. Bazongas. Breasticles. Baps. They, and all the ridiculously creative words used to describe them, simply are the best. Curvy, round, splendid parts of our bodies that symbolise womanhood, motherhood and sexuality. I salute you.

I felt the time was right to discuss our wondrous mammary hillocks (I discovered that phrase in an erotic fiction once and never forgot it) thanks to an interesting piece of research I saw today. Also a blog post that has the words boobies in it apparently gets more readers, I wonder if that’s true…

Anyway the researchers at the University of Reading have been studying breasts and in particular breast cancer and have found traces of parabens in the tissue of tumours. Parabens are chemical preservatives used by the cosmetic and toiletry industry in all of our favourite products from face creams, make-up, perfumes to shampoos and deodorants.

So why would parabens be found in breast tumours? Apparently parabens mimic the action of the female hormone oestrogen which can drive the growth of human breast tumours. Dr Darbre from Reading University said “Many of the concentrations of the parabens measured in these breast tissues would be sufficient to drive the growth of oestrogen-dependent human breast cancer cells in the laboratory.” Crumbs.

For a few years now I have stayed away from chemical deodorants, not because of parabens but because of the aluminium salts they use as an antiperspirant.  Aluminium is linked with all sorts of nasty diseases including alzheimer’s, kidney and liver problems, memory loss, osteoporosis and cancer. And I really didn’t like the sound of that. So I found natural alternatives instead. Now I know about the paraben issue I am definitely staying away from chemical deodorants.

I’m unsure why we have become a society that is so worried about bodily functions. We must shave our hair, we must not sweat, we must not smell. I agree that nobody is a fan of stale body odour however a clean woman without deodorant or perfume can smell incredible. Both men and women have these natural chemical responses – pheromones – which are designed by Mother Nature to attract a mate. What a marvellous thing to know that we have inbuilt fragrances that smell delicious and are not full of horrid chemicals which could potentially kill us in years to come. Sod the Lynx effect, we have our own power magnets already within us.

So this is my call to all women. Throw away your nasty chemical deodorants and smell like YOU for a change for the sake of having happy, healthy breasts which let’s be honest are so much sexier than smelling like a toxic perfume factory. Hello boys…