Three things I never travel without are Medicinal Charcoal, Grapefruit Seed Extract and Bentonite Clay (all of which can be found at a local health food store near you). Charcoal helps detoxify the body and helps soothe an upset stomach, or even a hangover. Grapefruit Seed Extract is highly alkalizing and a powerful natural remedy with anti-bacterial properties that I take prophylactically in the morning and always add to questionable water before I drink it (even though it doesn’t work as a true water disinfectant, such as iodine). Food-grade Bentonite Clay is, as the name suggests, a natural healing mud that when dried and ground-up into a powder is lightweight and has a great variety of uses. I take it to soothe sun burns or blistered feet after walking around in sandals all day, even for bee stings, but one can also take it orally to again help with an upset stomach or to detoxify the body. If at the end of your trip you still haven’t used it, make a mask for your face – it’s cooling and balancing, and will make your skin feel great. Leave it on for 10 minutes until it crackles. Then wash it off with a last plunge into the lake or ocean…
Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
Travel Companions
by Helge Hellberg | April 11th, 2009Lunch At Fish.
by Helge Hellberg | April 9th, 2009I love this place. Scents of saltwater, wood and mud in the air (especially at low tide), and the clicking sound of riggings from nearby sailboats mix together with raucous laments from ever-hungry seagulls that eye your plate enviously… watching as you create a healthier watershed with every bite you eat. That’s Fish.
Located on the water’s edge in Sausalito, it’s one of my favorite places to eat and watch and waste an entire afternoon. It serves great seafood – delivered daily – and either purchased from local purveyors or caught from their own boat. Everything the restaurant offers supports sustainable fisheries and Fish buys as much of their produce as possible from local organic farmers. The flavors are large and simple, as are the presentations: Fish grills over an oak wood fire and serves drinks out of mason jars. You’ll feel good about what you eat, in your belly, and in your heart.
FISH.
350 Harbor Drive
Sausalito, California 94965
Phone 415.331.FISH
Fax 415.331.3421
www.331FISH.com
A Carrot is a Memory Stick
by Helge Hellberg | April 8th, 2009A carrot seed is less than half a millimeter in diameter; a tiny speck of dirt, dust in the wind. And yet it contains millions of years of DNA, intelligence that, once put into soil with a bit of water, turns the seed into a big, orange, healthy, nutrient rich, delicious, bioflavonoid packed, eye disease preventing vegetable. And if this is not enough, halfway through the growing cycle, the seed knows to produce carrot tops – an exceptionally efficient solar power plant that supplies the carrot with energy converted straight from sunlight through photosynthesis. During the growth from seed to carrot, the carrot collects and stores the climate data, including all environmental nuances of the region, such as soil quality, duration of sunshine, etc., so that the next generation of seeds will be better equipped and adapted than the generations of carrots that have been eaten before. A carrot is a natural memory stick. What a miracle.
With my Eyes Closed
by Helge Hellberg | April 7th, 2009I was sitting on a pier at a lake somewhere on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and in my hand held a perfect pear. A “perfect pear” has a window of about 20 minutes, some pear growers will tell you, and of course they know best. My pear must at least have been close to that 20 minute window – it smelled incredibly complex, fruity and yet robust, and the rough skin left a tad of tartness and expectation on my tongue. Then I took a bite, and held the piece in my mouth for a moment before chewing it further. While my pear was still perfectly firm, sweet juice ran down on both sides of my chin and trickled down my throat. I chewed slowly and I’m sure I was blushing, as this was one of the most intimate encounters I’ve ever had with a piece of fruit. For the entire time I was eating it, I had my eyes closed. I realized that our sense of taste is as good as we pay attention to it. Silly us, for any meal eaten with our eyes open…
Wayfarer
by Helge Hellberg | April 4th, 2009When I struggle to keep my balance in a busy life, this poem by the Persian poet Hafiz re-connects me to my self:
Wayfarer
Your whole mind and body have been tied
To the foot of the Devine Elephant
With a thousand golden chains.
Now, begin to rain intelligence and compassion
Upon all your tender, wounded cells
And realize the profound absurdity
Of thinking
That you can ever go Anywhere
Or do Anything
Without God’s will.
