If you haven't seen "Food Inc.," rent it and watch with friends and families. It will impact how you think, buy, grow and eat.

“Food Inc.” will change the way you think about food, which will influence you to change what you buy, grow and eat.

I started keeping backyard chickens this year so everything I eat isn’t transported 1500 miles. Raising chickens is a fantastic family hobby because it gets children involved in growing food and teaches them where food comes from. Like growing vegetables, it may influence your children to make different food choices.

Keeping chickens is not as much work as having a dog. The attention chickens require is worth the payoff of fresh eggs and freshly butchered free range chickens — if you go that route. With or without butchering, the eggs are a fabulous reward.

That's me, putting the roof on my chicken coop.

“Food Inc.” influenced me to continue keeping chickens because they’re local and free range, and to splurge on more organic products at the grocery store. This is hard because I have the frugal gene, inherited from my parents who came of age in the Great Depression. I started small by buying organic carrots and Stonyfield Organic Yogurt. I don’t buy all organic, but some, which makes a difference.

What really upset me on the film was this prediction: people born after 2000 will have a one-in-three chance of being diabetic; for minorities, it’s a one-in-two probability.

That’s frightening. Our food is causing a health epidemic.

The good news:

1. Parents can influence children to make different decisions around food. We can raise chickens and grow vegetables, cook at home more, pack lunches and expect children to eat wholesome food, free from excess sugar, fat and salt.

2. Consumers can vote with our pocketbooks. Every time we buy a burger or a gallon of milk, we influence how food is grown, transported and sold.

Rent ”Food Inc.” and watch it with friends and family. It will influence how you think, buy, grow food and eat.

Your health and your children’s health depend on it.

We are currently blending up the following 6 teas for the holiday season. They will make amazing gifts as well as lovely additions for your holiday gatherings.

roses in the snow- a blend of cedar, hawthorn berry and roses, like a fresh snow in the mountains, only hot and yummy

healthy holidays- our immune boosting herbal blend that can be used as a chai, mulling spice or delicious spicy decoction

date night-for those romantic evenings together, warming aphrodisiacs and real dates for a hint of sweetness

feminine fortitude- a high mineral herbal blend for all women, makes an excellent pregnancy tea

family immunity- an elderberry based tea for the whole family, can also be used as a base for making an amazing syrup

easy naps and calm nights- a relaxing and calming tea for both parents and kids, seriously who doesn’t need this around?

So you’re obligated to go to your Mother in-laws for Thanksgiving and you don’t exactly want to go…Guess what? You’re not alone.

Tomes have been written about toxic inlaws and how to “cope” with them. Therapists have built empires on memories of our childhoods, and that doesn’t change the fact that you are still expected to join in the holiday festivities and be polite.

Ditch the inlaws and enjoy Thanksgiving. I really mean that. I don’t mean stay home and ignore your inlaws, I mean change the way you see and interact with them and you will instead find comedy, peace and enjoyment.

So check it out, there are four types of people in our lives, and if you mis-categorize a relationship it can be emotionally, financially and socially devestating. Here is something to pass along to your email list of friends and anybody you know who suffers from mis-categorized inlaws:

Four types of people:

1: Strangers, 2: Friends, 3: Relatives, 4: Family

From categories 1, 2 & 3 we create category 4.

Read that again. From categories 1, 2 & 3 we create category 4.

Here is how it all breaks down:

Category 1: Strangers

These are people we meet on the street, pass in parking lots, or sit next to in the movie theatre. Some strangers will come into our lives and quickly leave while some will linger and eventually become our friends. Once they are our friends, they are no longer strangers right?

Category 2: Friends

Friends are the cool people. They are colleagues, neighbors, kids from our youth, and they can be relatives. Some friendships in our lives last years and then mysteriously end, and some friends become so dear to us, that they are not just friends anymore, they have become family.

Category 3: Relatives

Relatives are simply that, relatives. They are people related to us by blood, or through marriage or adoption. Relatives are people we send obligatory gifts and cards to on birthdays and holidays. They are people we eat Thanksgiving dinner with, and to whom we are polite. I can save you a lot of pain if you understand this one concept – Relatives are not family.

Category 4: Family

A family consists of strangers, friends and relatives we bring into our lives by choice because we want to hang out with them. We trust these people, and we feel safe when we are with them. We love them unconditionally, and we would do most anything for them.

In a perfect world we would spend the holidays with our “Family” but tradition has it instead that we spend holidays with our “relatives”. So if you have dredged up sour feelings about turkey day…ditch the inlaws and enjoy Thanksgiving. Simply let go of the idea that they are family, they are in fact relatives. You don’t have to say anything out loud to anybody, just show up, have a good time and be related.

Thanksgiving is upon us, and many of us will be sitting down with relatives to a fancy meal of Turkey and pie. Some of us will say grace on our food and announce the things we are grateful for. Collective “Aaahhh” – a feel good moment we can all share.

And while it is both sweet, and appropriate to be grateful, we don’t need a holiday to remind us of our many blessings. It’s just a good habit, like hygiene. We should include “Thanks-giving” in our random thoughts as we go throughout the day. Every day – not just the third Thursday in November.

Here is what happens, our conscious mind is cluttered with things on our “to do” list. We rush about on tight schedules trying to make our flights, jobs, and appointments. We check our handhelds and respond to a myriad of email and social media, without creating original thoughts of our own. Instead of acting, we react – and often it is with negative scattered energy.

Without paying attention to the magnificent wonders in our lives, we instead receive crap, problems, challenges, bills, leaky roofs, flat tires, sick cats, troubling relatives or whatever it is that crosses our conscious minds. And what we focus on, we internalize and send back out into the universe…even without trying. Ouch!

Whether or not you admit it, like it, or even believe it, you radiate what you experience. So here is the challenge – you want to be healthy? Do you want to be well? Do you want to have energy and find enthusiasm in life?

It’s very easy, begin by finding the good in what you see – and express your gratitude. Start by giving thanks (Thanks Giving) to yourself – pay attention to the energy you feel. Let that happiness melt you inside. Let it seep out of your personal aura, let it shower those around you. Plants and animals are very receptive to positive energy – hey wait a minute, so are humans young and old.

You don’t even have to use out loud words if you don’t want to – or if it would ruin your image…just think the thoughts “hey isn’t it cool that…or “I am so incredibly fortunate to have…”,”This is my lucky day because…”, “Hey wow, I am so happy that…”

Thanksgiving – it is an attitude, not just a holiday or a meal. – Angela Oberer

With five brothers and three sisters, I learned to act quickly when good food was available. We always had enough to eat, but the first time I saw leftovers on meat was when I visited my husband’s family at age 22.

My mother advised my ever-hungry brothers, “Have some bread and gravy, a peanut butter sandwich or a can of soup if you’re still hungry.”

They taught me to have a good offense when snacks and desserts were served. Luckily, I followed my brothers and sisters outside to play in the yard, so the grab-and-stuff eating habits didn’t make me obese.

Back then, parents encouraged their children to walk to school and play outside, so I worked off the second desserts and potato chips. High fructose corn syrup wasn’t yet on the food pyramid.

With childhood obesity predicted to skyrocket to one-in-five obese children by 2010, parents must take preventative action.

Mindful eating is the practice of eating slowly, paying attention to the scent, sensation and taste of what you are chewing and swallowing.

Mindful eating means remembering the people who grew, harvested, transported, sold and prepared the food. When we remember the effort behind food, it’s harder to waste it.

Try this exercise to eat more mindfully with your family, borrowed from the Unitarian Universalist Winter 2009 magazine.

This photo is from a fellow blogger, www.sarahdbelle.wordpress.com. Sarah writes about food and her struggle with anorexia.

1. choose two fruits or vegetables that everyone in the family can eat, for example, strawberries and carrots. Have enough for everyone to eat one of each.

2. Wash the produce, slice and arrange them artfully on two serving plates, one for strawberries, one for carrots.

3. Pass the strawberries. Invite each person to take one and slowly, quietly chew it. “Take your time. Chew throughly and deliberately, to fully experience the texture and flavor. Imagine the earth, the sun, the water and the air that nurtured the strawberry. Taste the sunlight in the strawberry.”

4. Next, pass the tray of carrots and say the same thing for the carrots.

5. Share a moment of silence.

6. Talk about what it was like to each simple foods together, silently. What did you learn about eating? About strawberries? About carrots?

7. What would it be like to eat a whole meal in mindful silence? Could you do it? Why or why not?

Enjoy a happy and mindful Thanksgiving Day dinner with your family.

Two of my nephews pull the meat off the carcass after dinner last year. Involve the youngsters at your Thanksgiving Day dinner in preparation and clean up.

With Thanksgiving coming, parents can try something new with cornucopia of unfamiliar foods.

I challenge parents to:

1. NOT prepare special foods for children’s Thanksgiving meal, no matter how “picky” they are. Special foods creates entitlement and reinforce pickiness. It’s too much work . You are not their servants! They can learn to be adventuresome.

2. Say NOTHING and I mean NOTHING about the foods that are served. Invite children and teens to “Try it.”

3. Treat their inquiries, hesitations or quiet rejections to the food like a dead tennis ball. Act like your children are talking about different kinds of leaves falling from  trees. It takes three days to die of dehydration and three weeks to die of hunger.

For one day, I challenge you to subdue the natural desire to monitor their food except to moderate their consumption of chips, high-fructose syrup drinks and dessert. If they are still hungry after Thanksgiving dinner, allow them to solve the problem when you get home.

At family meals in the next few days, emphasize manners. At my house we ask, “What would Grandma say about the way you’re slurping that soup?” Ask your children how they should act at Thanksgiving dinner. They know.

Impress upon them how to be a good guest. Good guests never yell, “Yuck!” when a food is offered. They politely say, “No thank you.” Good guests take moderate amounts of special treats. Do not allow them to gobble up all of the shrimp or other treats.

The root of discipline is “disciple” which is Greek for “student.” Our children are our students. We are their first teachers. Your children and your Thanksgiving dinner hosts will appreciate well-mannered youngsters. You will enjoy the day more if they are prepared on how to act and you haven’t prepared special foods (unless your child has a medical condition).

Children respond to our expectations — verbal and non-verbal. Practice being an actor. When we change our behavior and expectations, children and teenagers will make other choices. The older the child, the longer the re-training takes. Parents must be stalwart when setting new expectations. You can do it!

I look forward to hearing comments on parents who use this strategy.

It’s All In The Fine Print

Ever take a close look at the label of the food you are feeding your kids and yourself? All I can say is open your eyes and start paying attention. Today Americans are in a major health crisis and individually we have some responsibility for the fat mess we are in.  TV entices us to the latest and greatest fast frozen food cuisine, let’s not even go there today about the fast food restaurants and their all out assault on our children and their health…Can you say Happy (Not) Meal

There are even chemicals mixtures they have concocted to be “ better that natural” Fake milk, cheese, butter even egg replacements YUCK..

If you want to know if what you place in your family’s mouth is good for them you better start reading the fine print and understanding what it really says, not what the manufacturer wants you to believe. They use trick little terms like “Natural, and Healthy to throw you off the trail. Because these terms are as yet undefined by the food industry manufactures can use them to mean any little thing their hearts desire in the mean time killing ours. Read The Entire Article Here

Because of my wellness background, I am always asked various questions and sought out for advice. I try to provide the best wisdom possible and below is a synopsis of 25 snippets of advice. I do not know everything, but I do hope you enjoy reading a few of my “tips”….

Keep a positive attitude * Stop smoking if you haven’t already * Be active in some fashion every day * Control your stress * Maintain close, personal relationships * Resolve conflicts peacefully * Practice gratitude * Eat fruit for dessert * Make it a habit to have at least one vegetable with every meal * Buy organic when possible * Drink water throughout the day * Avoid secondhand smoke * Celebrate life * Love yourself * Pay it forward * Take time for you, everyday * Eat foods closest to nature * Make healthy and active living a family virtue * Be passionate about what you do * Ask yourself, “What kind of life do I really want?” * If you have children, tell them you love them * Step outside your comfort zone * Go vegetarian once a week * Get outside * LIVE!

                       *** 1 Hour For Wellness  Teleseminar Series***

                                        ”Feeding Your  Family On The Go”

                                                What Your Family Gets  

                                                                    vs 

                                          What You Think They’re Getting

                                                          November 5th,2009

                                            6pm PST    Length 1 hour 10 mins

PTA meetings, play dates, track meets, ballet class, the list goes on and on…. We live very busy lives these days so how do we feed our families healthy meals with so much to do….

Join Dr. Dionne, Dr. Lorraine and Dr. Ursula as they discuss tips and strategies to help keep your families happy and healthy on the GO! There will be time for Q&A and lots of useful tips shared.. From planning, to meal prep time, to pre and post sports practice snacks we got it all on  the go………

Please Join Us this Thursday evening 6pm PST for an informative and fun DoctorMOM discussion Click here for more information on  joining the  free Teleseminar November 5th,2009