Marjorie Nass

Why add seeds to your diet?

marjorienass — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:01:07 +0000

Seeds are mini powerhouses of energy that you can add to just about anything you’re eating, but I especially like using them in smoothies. The seed of any plant holds infinite potential in that it has everything needed to grow! Seeds are great additions to any healthy diet , as they contain necessary healthy proteins and fats. Whether you’re eating primarily a plant based diet, or are trying to decrease your animal protein intake, seeds are perfect.

In 2003, When I first started working with Pratima Raichur, Ayurvedic practictioner, she suggested I add sesame seeds, flax seeds and sunflower seeds to my diet. I recommend investing in an mini coffee bean grinder to use exclusively for nuts and seeds (not your coffee beans). Grind a each tablespoon of sesame seeds, flax seeds and sunflower seeds together and add to your morning smoothie. You’ll get the thickening texture of a “protein powder” but without the additives many powders contain.

The past couple of years, I’ve added chia seeds and hemp seeds to smoothies, as they are both considered a complete source of protein. Chia seeds should be soaked, at least for a few minutes, as they expand (remember chia seed pets?) and will provide fiber and bulk in your diet. See my recipe for Chia Seed pudding here.

Hemp seeds are considered a complete source of protein, delicious, and can be sprinkled on salads or also blended into a smoothie. Mix up your seed consumption, since the best diet is one that is varied. Have fun and experiment. Please post additional recipes in the comments below.

Keep nuts and seeds for freshness, and buy organic, as they can be heavily sprayed with pesticides. I love Nutiva, a great brand committed to the highest level of freshness. The folks at Nutiva say growing hemp in rotation with soy or corn help’s clean fields of weeds and improve’s the tilth of the soil. An ideal crop for helping farmers kick the chemical habitat!

Simple kitchari (mung bean, rice and vegetable stew)

marjorienass — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:53:19 +0000

Kitchari is a simple, easy to make nourishing food. A traditional Indian dish, the possibilities are endless. If you prefer more or less of certain spices, have fun with switching it up. I often double the amount of spice here to heat it up, as I am prone to coldness and dryness in my constitution (Vata). It’s perfect if you want to keep your meals simple for a day as you cook a pot in the morning and eat it it for all three meals. It’s easy to digest and delicious.

Gratitude to Cate Stillman, Yogahealer for the inspiring recipe.

¾ cup whole or split mung beans soaked overnight and rinsed

¾ cup white basmati rice, rinsed

2 teaspoons ghee (clarified butter)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger root

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon garam masala

1 cup chopped root vegetables like beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, turnips

4-6 cups water, depending on how liquid you prefer your kitchari. Start with less, you can always add more!

2 cups chopped greens, like swiss chard, spinach, kale, whatever you have around

chopped cilantro for garnish

salt to taste

Heat the ghee and the seeds until they pop, a few minutes on a medium flame

Add the rest of the spices including the ginger and stir another minute

Add the beans, rice and root vegetables and stir for a few minutes

Add the water, stir and bring to a boil. Cover and cook for 35 minutes

Turn off the heat, stir in the greens and cover for ten minutes

Salt to taste and add cilantro to serve.

This recipe is flexible, if you have more or less greens or root vegetables, throw them into this delicious stew

Simple changes – earlier to bed

marjorienass — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:33:09 +0000

Simple Ways to Shift your Health: EarlIER to Bed

Feeling tired and depleted? Listen to your body, it’s telling you something! One of the simplest ways to feel better quickly is to go to bed earlier.

There are more ways to connect online than ever before, and it’s become harder to shut down and simply get to bed. One particularly stressful day this past week I was in bed at 8:30 and slept until 6am. I literally felt like a different person in the morning, as my body and mind really needed the rest. By going to bed earlier, I don’t awaken between 2 and 3AM which I did habitually for most of my adult life. I start by shutting off all electronics – computer, iphone, television etc, by 8pm. Take a bath or a shower, read something light and inspiring, and go to bed. The extra energy and time you have the next morning will simply amaze you.

Begin slowly by getting to bed fifteen minutes earlier than usual. If you get off track with a couple of very late nights, don’t beat yourself up, simply get to bed earlier when you can. Ideally, sleeping when it’s dark and awakening just before sunrise sets your body up in alignment with nature. You’ll notice how small changes can make a big difference and your life will be filled with more ease and joy.

Why cleanse?

marjorienass — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:41:41 +0000

Spring is the perfect time to lighten up in all areas of your life. We all know about spring cleaning, and the joys of opening closets and giving away or donating what you no longer use or wear. It frees up space, and the result is being able to see what clothes and belongings you’ve chosen to keep and then utilize them optimally. Cleansing, also known as detoxing, is like spring cleaning for your body.

Personally, since 2003, I’ve been cleansing twice a year, in spring and fall, for three weeks. After reluctantly taking a round of antibiotics for a severe skin infection, Pratima Raichur, of Pratima skincare recommended I do a cleanse. Other than to avoid the worst of the after effects of the antibiotics, I had no idea why I was cleansing, or the benefits other than dropping a few pounds. The cleanse was only about my diet as I made absolutely no other changes in my habits or my lifestyle. The first cleanse required eliminating all animal products (with the exception of ghee, or clarified butter) caffeine, alcohol, sugar and wheat, and eating mostly fruits, vegetables, and kitchari. Kitchari a a warm nourishing soup or stew prepared with Indian spices like turmeric, cumin seeds, black mustard seeds and hing, rice, mung beans, and vegetables. Eliminating alcohol and caffeine are a non issue for me, but I really missed my chocolate, bread, and sweets. I viewed the detox as a punishment, something to suffer through, and couldn’t wait to be finished. I cheated when I went out for a previously scheduled birthday dinner in the middle of the cleanse and felt very sick afterwards. My body was not ready to eat a rich meal like that, and now I have better strategies when these situations arise.

Ten years of bi-annual cleansing later, and I look forward to the process. Spring cleaning my body is so much more than changing my diet. I schedule the cleanse for weeks that I can lighten my schedule and social commitments, so I can have more time to practice self care such as taking baths, oil massages, and going to sleep early. Nourishing myself this way may sound self indulgent, but what happens as a result of taking the time for oneself, is a whole different level of awareness and energy. This I can now take into my teaching yoga and wellness and share with students and my family and friends. This year, as part of the Yogidetox, my diet was exclusively fruits and vegetables blended into living soups, green smoothies and juices, with some added some nuts and seeds. If you had told me I would be doing this even two years ago I would have laughed, but I see it as ever deepening evolution, and my curiousity continues to grow about what’s possible. And as Cate Stillman, my teacher and mentor, of Yogahealer says, it’s preventative medicine. I’m reluctant to write this down, but I haven’t had a cold since December 2010!

Emerging from this spring’s cleanse, I’ve never felt better. Giving your digestive system a rest is an opportunity to reset your immune system and thrive in ways you didn’t know were possible. The main thing I notice is my clarity. I’m more efficient, less fatigued, and living life fully, even thriving. Yes, I’ve lost a little weight, so if that’s your goal, great, and your body will have a chance to release and digest stored toxins. More importantly, you will learn new habits and ways of eating during a cleanse which will continue to serve you even after the cleanse is over, like Spring cleaning your closets.

If three weeks seems like torture, start simply by noticing when you feel hungry, and drink some hot water first. Waiting until your body actually needs food will ensure your previous meal digested and assimilated properly.

Please join Laura Tulumbas Juell and me for a conference call/Q & A about the joys, pitfalls, and fears of cleansing on Sunday April 15th 7-8pm. Even if you can’t make the call live, you’ll receive a free recording you can download on your computer or listen to on your iphone. Click here to register.

In addition, my colleague and friend, Wellness Coach Michele Pauker and I recently had a dialogue about lightening up for the spring you can listen to here. Thank you for your patience as I work out this new technology; please note the conversation itself starts 11 minutes into the call, so you can just fast forward to that point on the recordering. Michele is offering a 5 day Urban Life Cleanse which she discusses on the call.

Finally the next Optimal Health workshop at Virayoga is Saturday May 5. Cleanse and Release what no longer serve as we move through Spring and into summer.

Look forward to seeing you on the mat and hearing your voices on the call!

Raw Chia seed pudding

marjorienass — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:42:00 +0000

I made this Chia Seed Pudding dessert with Mesquite Cashew Mylk instead of plain almond milk and it’s fantastic. I took it to a pot luck and everyone raved and asked for the recipe, so here it is!

Via Yogahealer.com
Mesquite Cashew Mylk
1/3 cup soaked almonds
one cup soaked cashews
4 cups water
pinch sea salt
four tbsp mesquite powder (Available at health food stores)
Blend and strain (if using a regular blender) If using a vitamix, you can use the nut milk without straining.

To make Chia Seed pudding

Place one and 1/3 cup chia seeds in a large bowl and slowly wisk in the nut milk
add
1 tsp vanilla extract OR 1/2 fresh vanilla bean (cut the bean in half and use a knife to scrape the seeds).
1 tsp cinnamon
use a wisk to keep out the clumps after ten minutes, and refrigerate for two hours or more. Serve and enjoy.

How Yoga Hurt Me, How Yoga Healed Me

marjorienass — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:03:00 +0000

As life long New Yorker, born to two parents who are lifelong New Yorkers, I began reading the New York Times in elementary school. The New York Times article entitled how Yoga Can Wreck your body“ is so sensationalistic, it will discourage individuals who’d greatly benefit from yoga, and this would be a big loss. Along with the physical risks inherent in moving ones body, yoga can save lives. It saved mine.

I had just begun practicing yoga in 1998 when I suffered a serious life threatening major depression requiring hospitalization. My first time back on the mat was a few months later when a dear friend from college came by and urged me to practice a few poses along with her. An essential element for depressed patients who have been largely physically immobile is movement. When the body remains sedentary, the mind goes to the same thoughts again and again, and can getstuck in some seriously dark places. Yoga began to open up sensation and reveal light in my body so I could get out of the darkness of my mind.

I began to go to yoga classes, sometimes my sole activity for entire day. Since I’d been in bed for the better part of several months. I was physically stiff, shut down, and unable to sleep without medication. The yoga classes were terribly hard, even the basic level classes, and I experienced intense sweating, and even shaking in my body. But without exception, I felt better afterwards. The poses gave my mind a rest from the distressing thoughts I couldn’t escape. But because my shoulders,in particular, were so tight, there were poses I had no business attempting, including chaturanga and upward facing dog, which are taught in nearly every “yoga flow” class, as well as full wheel and headstand. While practicing shoulder stand and plow, I experienced bruises on the vertebrae of my neck because of my tight shoulders. Soon I began experiencing pains in my neck and shoulders, and tingling in my arms. But the yoga was healing me on a deeper, emotional level. Sometimes the physical pain was severe enough to force me to miss class. More often I would just skip the poses that hurt. During my first teacher training in 2001, my neck was in spasm one day, and when I couldn’t sit up, had to remain lying on the floor during one of the sessions. I received shiatsu and deep tissue massage,which provided relief, but none of my yoga teachers had any answers for me in terms of the physical practice.

When one of my fellow teacher trainees offered me a private healing session, we focused on making space in my upper body, shoulders, and neck. My heart hurt as it opened up. My shoulders and neck no longer did. In 2002, I found Anusara yoga, and my teachers Amy Ippoliti, Elena Brower, Anusara Yoga founder John Friend, Ellen Saltonstall, and Zhenja LaRosa. I also found an amazing community of supportive students and friends.

With the Anusara Universal Principles of Alignment, I learned to make space in my body, which had been so diminished by the depression. I learned to strengthen my body while in alignment, and create clearer boundaries in some of my hyperextended joints. And ultimately Ihealed over the period of a year. AlthoughI still experienced occasional discomfort while practicing, the pain became my teacher, and I learned how to align even more precisely, and to listen to my own body’s wisdom. When I started teaching what I’d learned, the same principles helped hundreds of students out of pain, and it was often pain they’d been experiencing for years.

At 47 my body is stronger and more flexible than ever, and I have a daily practice and take two or three open or advanced classes per week. Although never naturally flexible, yoga has opened up my body in a way I never thought possible. I follow a specific ayurvedic regimen of foods that nourish my body and my mind, and I receive acupuncture and structural integration, a form of body work, on a regular basis. I no longer suffer from depression, but know that had I stopped practicing asana because my body hurt, I never would have healed the deeply imbedded emotional pain. One thing is certain, whatever physical pain I had was never as severe as the depression,and I guess that’s why it never occurred to me to stop practicing yoga.

If you’re new to yoga, find a class that’s for beginners, find a teacher who explains the poses and the reasons how and why to align your body safely in a way that you truly understand, because it’s not about the yoga poses, it’s about being more present in all areas of who you are. One of the definitions of yoga means to engage in the world more fully, stepping completely into the fullness of the experience of who we are meant to be. My wish is that we all step in safely and with the right guidance.

Light Winter Supper

marjorienass — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:21:00 +0000

Since I’ve been enjoying preparing/cooking most of my own food the past six months, when three friends and yoga teachers who meet a few times a year planned to be at my place, I jumped at the chance to share some simple quick recipes, and they were all a hit.
I had a super busy week, and other than roasting the squash ahead of time, all the prep took less than one hour.

Gratitude to Cate Stillman, Yoga Healer, for the recipes, initially in the yogahealer post Fall Cleanse packet. I’ve tweaked her original recipes after making them myself a half a dozen times. Thanks to my Mom who taught me how to be a cook in the kitchen without necessarily measuring. Please use organic ingredients whenever possible.

Butternut Squash Soup – 6 servings
Use organic ingredients whenever possible.
One butternut squash
2 tablespoons ghee, butter or oil
1 leek, chopped
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or cinnamon
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth (or two veggie broth cubes plus 4 cups water)
one can coconut milk
salt and pepper

Roast a butternut squash. Treat it like two separate vegetables when preparing to roast. Cut off the bulb of the vegetable, and scoop out the flesh and seeds. Halve the other, oblong part of the squash. Roast flesh facing down in a half inch of water, for 1 hour at 375 degrees or until you can easily pierce the squash. Let cool, scoop out the flesh from the skin and set aside.
Heat butter or ghee and sautee the leeks for 5-7 minutes in a soup pot.
Add nutmeg, then butternut squash and broth. Cook for 10 more minutes
Either use an immersion blender(my choice) to puree or transfer to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
Add the coconut milk and salt and pepper to taste, and blend again.

Stovetop brussel sprouts with leeks,lemon and pecans
Six servings, or less if you love brussel sprouts like I do.

one pound brussel sprouts, preferably the small size
two tablespoons ghee or oil
one half leek, minced
one lemon
one half cup toasted pecans
salt and pepper to taste
Peel the outer leaves off the brussel sprouts, then trim the roots. If the sprouts are large, cut them in half.
Sautee leeks in ghee for a few minutes, add brussel sprouts and saute continuously for about 10 minutes.
Add fresh lemon juice, pecans and salt and pepper to taste.

Chocomole Raw Chocolate pudding
Four servings

two ripe avocados
1/3 cup raw cacao powder
1/3 cup pure maple syrup (grade B if possible)
1/3 cup water or coconut water
2 tablespoons raw mesquite powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla powder
Blend all ingredients in a vitamix, food processor or blender.
Enjoy!

Coconut Butter Cups with Date Filling

marjorienass — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:19:00 +0000

I’ve been waiting a while to make these after reading the recipe on Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Life newsletter, which I highly recommend you check out, in addition to her book Crazy Sexy Diet.
And the recipe is listed on another site raw foods website which I look forward to exploring more

This recipe made about 25 mini coconut butter cups, so I have plenty to bring for Thanksgiving to my family’s and also to serve the students at the semi private therapeutics series at my home studio yesterday.
Definitely take them out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before serving
and enjoy!

Ingredients:
Artisana Raw Coconut Butter, melted, as needed

1 cup dates, packed (a scant cup also works)
1 Tbsp raw almond butter – (or other seed/nut butter)
1 Tbsp raw coconut butter
1/4 cup filtered water
1/4 tsp sea salt, or to taste *optional

Filling:
In a blender (or food processor), add 1/4 cup water, then the dates and blend to a thick paste. Add in 1 tablespoon coconut butter, and 1 tablespoon almond butter & sea salt.

You may want to use heaping tablespoons, taste as you add. Store in a glass jar & refrigerate, or freeze to chill. (best to use after it’s chilled, but will also work right away).

Variation: Add the seeds from a vanilla bean for delicious vanilla coconut cups. Also try diving the mixture and adding cinnamon, nutmeg, &/or ginger to spice things up.

Note: If you don’t have a blender or food processor, the filling can be made by mashing ingredients together on a plate with a fork.

To Assemble Cups:

Fill mini muffin liners with a small layer of coconut butter (1/4 inch), stick in the freezer for a few minutes until solid. Scoop 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon of filling into the center of cups, and smooth it out. MAKE SURE to leave space around the edges! Refreeze for another minute if the bottom layer start to melt.

Then fill in the top, and the edges with another layer of coconut butter, and freeze until the top hardens. They are now ready to eat. If you leave in the freezer until really solid, you can let thaw for a moment before biting into them, but I like the hard shell.

Holy Chocomole!

marjorienass — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:53:00 +0000

Ok I’ve been telling so many people about the recipe I made this week so here it is!
After reading about raw chocolate pudding/mousse for the past couple of months, I finally tried it, and and pleased to say the results far out weighted my expectations!
In fact, I’m bringing it serve for dessert on Thanksgiving. Thank you to Cate Stillman, Yogahealer who put this in the Emerging from the Fall Cleanse packet.

Two ripe avocados
1/3 cup organic raw cacao
2 tablespoons organic mesquite powder (I’m new to this product, found in health food stores and also used it to make cashew/almond milk. It has a mildly sweet chocolate flavor)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon organic vanilla extract
1/3 cup water or coconut water
blend in food processor-I used my vitamix
blend until smooth and it’s done!!

For more great recipes for the holidays get your free Thanksgiving guide here from Cate.

Yogi Detox Broccoli Soup

marjorienass — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:40:00 +0000

In preparation for the Yogi Detox Fall cleanse, which begins next sunday, I’ve been utilizing the amazing recipes from the spring detox with Cate Stillman of Yoga Healer.com. Tonight, for the first time I tried the Brazil Nuts and broccoli soup which is amazing and will be a staple of mine when we officially begin the cleanse next sunday.

One stalk celery, handful of brazil nuts, 1/2 lemon juice, 1 tbsp fresh thyme (I used dried when I couldn’t find fresh at two health food stores rather than stressing) 2 cups broccoli, stalks are fine, one organic veggie broth cube, salt and pepper and pinch of cayenne, plus 2-3 cups of hot water. I use my vitamix which blends it into a smooth creamy vegan soup, but you can use your blender, it will just be a bit chunkier. The soup is amazingly delicious and filling. You can use sprouts or fresh veggies for a garnish on top of the soup.
If you’re interested in shifting to a healthier lifestyle, the yogi detox is for you. There are four phone calls, a forum, and a huge packet of information. Laura Juell and I will also be leading an asana class on Saturday September 22 2-4pm for anyone cleansing. Please email me with any questions marjorienass@gmail.com