4 Helpful Books for Empowered Parenting
Written by Stacey on May 3, 2010 – -- By Ruth Hofer
Nourishment doesn’t just come from food. Experiencing life gives us the chance to learn, and if you really take the time to listen, you can gain wisdom from almost anyone you meet. Reading books is a great pastime to cultivate, not only for personal enjoyment but also to educate yourself and expand your mind. I love reading. Here’s a brief review of some of the more recent books I checked out of my city library to feed my raw mom mind with:
Full Moon Feast
(http://www.wisefoodways.com/moons/)
By Jessica Prentice
Have you ever read a book that you want to copy out and quote everything or underline each sentence? This was one of those books. I haven’t resonated with a book this deeply since the Sunfood Diet Success System. Before actually reading Jessica’s book, I thought it was just a recipe book, and while it does contain lots of recipes, that’s not where the magic is. This a beautifully written and soulful look at the issues and stories that surround what we feed ourselves and our families with.
It goes into great depth about the physical source of food stuff, supporting the concept of local eating. Full Moon Feast also looks at the cultural and nutritional significance of traditional food preparation and has some beautiful passages on the idea of woman’s role as nourisher. It looks with reverence to traditional food gathering practices and pays attention to the seasons. The book also looks with respect at the work of Weston Price.
But above all else, it is personal and authentic… and I love the rhythmical chapter structure based around the cycle of the moon. Beautiful stuff… I’ll definitely be posting more articles about concepts this book has made me question. The sub heading for this book is ‘food and the hunger for connection’ and it definitely made me yearn to connect more deeply with the earth and examine my place in circle of life.
The recipes at the end of each chapter are personal and authentic too; with lots of space for each reader’s own playful experimentation. I doubt that I’ll be making all the recipes she shares any time soon, but I’ve already tried some of the herbal elixirs and the lacto fermented section looks awesome.
Baby Greens
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Greens-Live-Food-Approach-Children/dp/1583941371
by Michela Lynn
Another great book! It even comes with a personal recommendation and foreword by Dr Gabriel Cousens. Smaller and easier to just dip in and out of randomly than Full Moon Feast, it still had some little gems in it. A lot of the info contained within this book I already knew, but as a mother of a small child I got some food presentation tips.
There was a whole recipe section I didn’t really get into as I already have way more raw recipes collected than I’m every going to actually get around to making, but I’d totally recommend this book to any mother just starting out on the raw path. There was some awesome information contained in the last few chapters about making meal times fun and not a power struggle. It also had some good advice on cultivating healthy attitude towards food and gave some great healthy eating based activities to do with little kids. A totally fun and easy read.
Last Child in the Woods
by Richard Louv
The author is in Australia right now and I’m going to a lecture he’s giving next week. I can’t wait! In this book, Richard looks to the lack of direct connection with nature as the cause of so many of dis-eases that our children, and our society as a whole, are currently experiencing. The main concept this book is trying to put out there is that our kids are becoming ‘nature- deficient’.
I’m so grateful I live on some land not far by the beach, so my children are blessed to be exposed to nature on an ongoing daily basis. Reading this really brought home how important that is. He also talks about how we have a tendency to view a nature experience as just that – a ‘nature experience’: the natural world is something to be conquered instead of something that just is. Our children can just be in nature without having to ‘be’ anything.
A really informative book and a good ‘call-to-arms’ to let our children to go run wild, free and outside, to find the stillness in nature and within themselves.
The Blossoming Heart
by Robbi Zeck ND
This is the third time I’ve checked this book out. I should just go out and buy it already. It’s not a healthy recipe book or a book on parenting, but it is still an epic book for any raw mom. I use it as a reference tool, helping me develop a relationship with essential oils and building trust of my intuition and senses.
This book contains a really user friendly system of using essential oils in daily life for wellbeing, creating certain emotional states and healing any imbalances you or your family might be experiencing. A good reference book for creating a sweet life.
Tags: chocolate, flabby arms, green smoothie detox, pineapple
Posted in Raw Food for Kids, Raw Food for Men, Raw Food for Women | 1 Comment »
By Caryn on May 6, 2010
Progressive Moms would also likely enjoy “Above All Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times” Here’s the Amazon overview and you can read more at http://tinyurl.com/AboveAllBeKind. Too late to ship for Mothers Day, but you could always make a certificate saying it will be coming.
Best,
Caryn
Above All, Be Kind teaches parents how to raise their children to be humane in the broadest sense—to become not only more compassionate in their interactions with family and friends, but to grow up to make life choices that demonstrate respect for the environment, other species, and all people. The book includes chapters for early, middle, teenage, and young adult years, as well as activities, issue sidebars, cases, tips, and profiles.
Zoe Weil is cofounder and President of the International Institute for Humane Education. She developed the first graduate program in humane education in the U.S. and conducts frequent humane education workshops. Author of several humane education books for young people, and a parent, she lives in Maine.
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