(NaturalNews) When Ron and Nadine from the Living Libations beauty care and chocolate company (www.LivingLibations.com) attempted to fly to the United States in August of this year, they ran into something completely unexpected: Drug-sniffing dogs at the Toronto airport. When their dogs took a special interest in their raw, unrefined chocolate with hemp seeds and superfood extracts, they were arrested, handcuffed and put through hours of tortuous interrogation. Such begins the journey of Ron and Nadine, the chocolate freedom fighters from Canada.

Read more about this crazy story here:

I can’t believe that it’s been two weeks since I last wrote on my Blog!  I think that is the longest gap I’ve had since I started writing over a year ago.

The reason for my absence is due to the launch of my very first Embracing LIfe! Retreat! 

On the 14th September myself and my team headed up to Coolum Beach to Nirvana Luxor Resort and settled in for the week.  Nirvana itself isn’t quite set up for the type of retreat we wanted to run, so we commandeered two of the large ground floor apartments and set one up for meals, (which ended up feeling like an intimate little restaurant - see pics here), and one to hold our lectures, group discussions and watch DVD’s.

So the first part of the day was busily moving tables from one room to another, as well as lounges, chairs and crockery and cutlery from other rooms, ready to cater for 20+ people.  It all came together beautifully and we had our space really well set up for the week.

Roseanne from Sunlight Saunas drove up from Brisbane to deliver a three person cabin sauna and a solo system for everyone to use during the week, and I had bought with me a portable unit from Grander Water to ensure we had good quality water to drink during our detox.

Then we were ready to go!  The guests started arriving and by Sunday evening we were all there tucking into a three course raw gourmet meal that was a hit with everyone!

It was a busy week for the team - myself, my Mum Trish, who worked in food preparation and was the wise woman of the group; Annie who did beautiful Yoga classes, massage and weaved food magic; and my friend Trudy, who helped us non-stop and wove magic of her own throughout the retreat.

The whole amazing experience couldn’t have happened without the help and support of a number of people and companies who assisted with products, supplies and samples for the group.  Over the next week I will be talking about these wonderful people and thanking them individually for their support.

Everyone had an absolutely fantastic time and felt re-energised and healthy after their three day juice fast and raw vegan cleanse.  I received some fabulous testimonials from people who have very generously shared their thoughts about the retreat.  You can read them here and get an idea of the type of experience you would have if you joined us at one of the Embracing Life! Retreats.

At the time of writing this, I have four spaces left for the Perth Retreat coming up on the 19th of October, so if yourself or anyone you know would like to come along, you can still secure your place online at the retreat website - www.embracinghealth.com.au/retreat

I am truly grateful to everyone who helped to make this new venture such a success - the team, the participants, my partner William, my family, and everyone who wished me well, had faith in me, and offered their positive thoughts and feedback about my ideas.  It has meant a lot to me and I appreciate every single word and thought.

Thank you!

The Green Smoothie Challenge is on again!  Being run by Anand and Runi from Raw Power - they have set up the GSC as a two week challenge to drink a litre of green smoothies every day.  Great as an introduction to raw food for new people, but also a great challenge for those of us that are old hands at it!

I have been invited to be a guest naturopath and answer health questions on the Green Smoothie forum, so there are some great questions and answers there - not just on health, but on all sorts of things to do with green smoothies. Anand is answering lots of questions and is a great authority on the subject.

Check it out at www.greensmoothiechallenge.com and register to get on the e-mail list and so that you can log in to the forum area.

On another note, I’m sitting here at Nirvana Luxor Resort typing away on my laptop as we’re getting ready to launch the first of my Embracing Life! Retreats.  I am incredibly excited and am looking foward to a great week!  I will keep you updated during the week as to how it’s all going and I’ll hopefully be able to load some pictures of what we’re up to as well!

I really like this quote from one of my favourite books by Charles Eisenstein, The Yoga of Eating:

“A discrepancy between what we eat and who we are in the world generates a kind of tension, which is resolved either when the diet moves back in line with the person’s incarnate role, or when the person’s entire life changes to come into harmony with the new diet.

Force, that is, will power, can hold diet and being apart, but not forever. The tension will build, in the form of intense cravings, aversion, and eventually, physical illness. The body speaks its message louder and louder trying to get what it needs, even as it does its best to function with those needs unfulfilled.”

This continues on with the type of message that I try to put across, and that is that health is much, much more than just what we eat, and that there are many other influences impacting who we are and how we choose to live.

We can’t just think that changing our diet is going to be the total answer to living a full, happy, healthy life. If we have been craving certain foods, eating out of boredom, eating junk because we are too busy to prepare healthy food etc - until the issues underlying those habits are addressed, (as Charles says above), will power will only work for so long.

Which means that ultimately to change our diet means a re-evaluation of who we are. Isn’t that great?  So when we want to refine our eating habits, first we need to look within and get to know ourselves a little better.  To try to understand what it is driving our habits and to see how we might be able to fulfill our true needs, rather than using food as a substitute.

And that is always a very positive thing to do

I get asked a lot about supplements, which ones are the best, what do I take every day, and how to know which ones you need.

I was once a total supplement junkie - I had 40 bottles of different tablets and capsules on my bench top, and every morning I would take handfuls of vitamins, minerals, herbs and every new wonder nutrient that came out.  It was expensive, and to be honest, I didn’t really notice much of a difference in my health.

That was before I had learnt fully about food as medicine - I had always had a very good diet, but I still thought I needed to take supplements to acheive outstanding health.  Unfortunately, like so many others, I had bought into the marketing and the hype and not looked any deeper than that.

All that was quite a while ago, and now I rarely take supplements at all.  I am much more happy using superfoods, green smoothies, and concentrated green nutrition like chlorella, rather than taking synthetic vitamins that have been created in a laboratory and have very little lifeforce at all.

And my health is better now, than when I was taking all those pills!

There is also the other myth around supplements, and that is that you can still live a lousy lifestyle, eat garbage, never exercise and use toxic personal care and cleaning products - but if you take a multi-vitamin, then you’ve made up for all the bad stuff!

Sorry!  Not to be…  You can’t live an unhealthy lifestyle and think that you are going to find health in a bottle - it just doesn’t happen.

As a naturopath, the way I use supplements with patients is as a medicine to relieve symptoms and correct problems quickly, whilst introducing changes to diet and lifestyle.  They are for short term use only, and if the underlying causes aren’t corrected, then the supplements alone are not going to produce the desired result.

As Ann Wigmore has famously said “The sober truth is, there is no cure for anything besides the body’s inherent ability to heal itself”

And the simple tools for that are whole foods as found in nature, good quality water, exercise, sunlight, good rest and a positive outlook.  Not a bucket load of the latest and greatest supplements!