EarthMind- Integral health and wellbeing

22/07/2025

Several banks finance Israeli settlements, weapons, and military, which contributes to human rights abuses in Palestine. In this article Marlous Veldt and Jasmine Owens assess which UK current account providers are most and least complicit.

22/07/2025

Time for some ethical banking!

Several banks finance Israeli settlements, weapons, and military, which contributes to human rights abuses in Palestine. In this article Marlous Veldt and Jasmine Owens assess which UK current account providers are most and least complicit.

10/06/2025

Thousands of volunteers from more than 50 countries are partaking in the Global March to Gaza to break the siege and blockade, deliver humanitarian aid, and demand an end to Israel’s genocide.

10/06/2025

While governments prevaricate the people act...

Thousands of volunteers from more than 50 countries are partaking in the Global March to Gaza to break the siege and blockade, deliver humanitarian aid, and demand an end to Israel’s genocide.

04/04/2025

AN American-based museum showcasing Palestinian art and culture has announced the opening date and location of a new Scottish branch

04/04/2025

You've got to love Scotland! We welcome the art of culture of all people.

AN American-based museum showcasing Palestinian art and culture has announced the opening date and location of a new Scottish branch

09/10/2024

Look at this brilliant idea, organised by a local in the village who has ties with Palestine.

19/05/2024

Report for Day 6 of Owen Okie's foraging exploits. I am joining in for the last two days but not partaking in the various seasnails and mussels (I know, if I was starving I couldn't be so picky...!). After a day and a half, I am already feeling light headed and sick of the whole thing. So again. A lot of respect for him!!

Here is the link again: https://www.gofundme.com/f/owens-forage-for-peace-in-palestine

Owen: I’ve lost about 2.5 kg so far.�
My system has definitely switched gears into state of metabolic efficiency. Slow, physically with a certain lethargy. I get out of breath walking up a gentle slope, and dizzy upon standing too quickly. My nervous system feels slowed down as well, yet also sensitised to sound, taste, smells. I can taste the sweetness in gorse flowers (which have a lovely coconut aroma but a strong leguminous taste), dandelion or wild garlic flowers (strong garlic flavor and a mustard-like heat). Sensitized also to different stimuli, finding myself getting more irritated and impatient with the kids for example.

The sensitivity correlates with that sense of awareness and perception diffusing outwards into the world. Not so much boundary-less but porous and boundless.
�My neighbor kindly donated a huge tangle of nettle roots dug from the garden. I wouldn’t want to expend the energy to dig them up. I cleaned a few of the long and narrow roots, chopped them and tried boiling and toasting them. Boiled they have a nutty flavour, quite pleasant. They are extremely fibrous, but as I chew I can taste the sweeter starch as it separates from the roots. After sufficient chewing to extract the starch I spit out the fibers. I can almost instantly feel myself perk up slightly as the energy trickles into my blood. Toasted in the cast-iron pan they are also nice, a bit like dry roasted barley (used for home brewing). But be careful not to burn! My daughter harvested some more silverweed roots with me and these are also quite nice toasted.

Bo and the kids join me for breakfast with a bowl of steamed nettles, orache and garlic along with the roots.�
We went out to forage mussels and winkles, catching the end of the low-tide and came back with a wealth of them along with some bladderwrack. So lunch consisted of a blended soup of nettles, garlic, orache and bladderwrack. And a large bowl of steamed mussels with garlic. I wrapped the mussels in raw garlic leaves and orache. I instantly feel stronger as its a rather substantial meal.
�
The rest of the day I munched on nettles roots. Not a large quantity but I can notice the effect.

17/05/2024

Report for day 4 of Owen Okie's forage for Peace (https://www.gofundme.com/f/owens-forage-for-peace-in-palestine):

Out of curiosity I’ve weighed all my food for the day to determine my caloric consumption. According to some of the UN statistics many in Gaza, depending on location and the whim of the restrictions on humanitarian aid, have been eating about 250/day.

Breakfast: 70 calories.

Had some thistle stem and roots. The stems are a great deal of work to peel and still very small at this time of year. Roots have used up their winter stores to make their first leaves and are still thin, fibrous. By fall they will be fat and full of inulin (at least many of the Aster family - chicory, dandelion and thistles).

Couldn’t finish my bowl of nettle-limpet soup, even with some wild garlic (ramps) blended in. Not that it tastes bad....something about the limpets...I was warned by some one who grew up on Isle of Lewis not to eat them due to his experience having to collect them for dinner in his childhood! Managed to eat:

50 g nettles: 21 calories, Limpets: about 50 g for 43 calories ( about 10 g protein), wild garlic 4 cal.
https://www.fankal.com/en/foods/9106-limpets.html

Lunch: 53 calories.

So today trying orache (180 g) with wild garlic (40g). This is tastier. But at 26 cal/gram for the Orache that’s 47 calories and 16/100 g wild garlic 6 cal for the wild garlic. I had a nibble of Thistle roots, which were ok though very fibrous and the stems (nice), but would need to harvest much more.

Dinner: 114 calories.

Orache (165 g) with nettles( 100 g) and wild garlic (60 g), and 20 g burdock root at 72 cal/100 g!. Tasted fine. The Burdock root was a new addition. Raw it was highly bitter. This is normal for spring roots, the inulin stored up in the fall has been used up and the roots have more bitterness. Spring roots like Burdock will be more beneficial to your liver in the spring and as pre-biotics for you microflora in the fall (inulin is an excellent pre-biotic). I roasted sliced root in the oven which greatly reduced the bitterness. The were pleasant in flavor but highly fibrous. I resorted to chewing like gum then spitting out the fibres.

TOTAL for Day 4: 237 calories. Nettles and limpets providing about 20 g protein.

So that’s a pretty low calorie diet!

15/05/2024

Day 3 of Owen's Forage for Peace:

I feel tired, low-energy and spaced out. Caloric deficit in action. Today I'm gonna weigh what I eat so I can calculate my calorie and protein intake. I have a low-carb diet, but I do eat plenty of fruit, and a little dry fruit. So here I am with a nearly zero carb diet (7.5 g/ 100 g of nettles). I've been thinking about the lengths hunter-gatherers go to get honey. How we are hard-wired to search out sweet and fatty foods, especially under stress. At this time of year there is nothing available unless one gets creative and taps a birch tree (no sugar maples here) and boils the sap down. Acute stessors result in a cortisol release which will promote a Central Motivational State (in the brain) to search out sugar, salt, fat all of which might have been expended fleeing or fighting . The sugar then down-regulates the amygdala resulting in the nervous system calming down. With chronic stress it becomes a different, less adaptive mechanism - constant craving of high energy foods that we don't need combined with insufficient activity resulting in metabolic syndrome, diabetes, etc...So interesting to see how my body (and mind) re-adjust over this week.

15/05/2024

I accompanied Owen on his breakfast forage this morning...🌱

Harvesting thistles, nettles, oranchi and some fir tips. I made a couple of videos of him in action. Which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSABxfTLSIuPpsLoytaaQvzwD-4YIhvts

Also keep donating and sharing (I'll be asking you the same thing to you every day): https://www.gofundme.com/f/owens-forage-for-peace-in-palestine

Lastly, see my breakfast next to his...I must admit I'm not looking forward to the day where I am supposedly joining him. I guess this weekend. I did taste some of the nettle/limpet soup he made....erm. No comment 🤔. But I do so admire his dedication and commitment...🧡

15/05/2024

A legal analysis by the University Network for Human Rights.

GENOCIDE IN GAZA
ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS APPLICATION
TO ISRAEL’S MILITARY ACTIONS SINCE OCTOBER 7, 2023
May 15, 2024.