New England Naturopathic Health

04/12/2025

Best hot chocolate and coffee in town!

03/26/2025

LD1128 "An Act to Modernize the Formulary for Naturopathic Doctors" is on its way to the Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee to be introduced by Waterville Representative Cassie Julia on April 3rd @ 1 PM. Thanks to all of you who responded to the survey last week and offers to testify at the hearing. If you prefer to sign off on a letter of support to your legislators and optionally include a few words of your own story, please follow this link. If we all do our part and let the committee know that the public supports increased access to safe pharmaceutical prescribing from NDs, we may just have a fighting chance of passing this crucial legislation!!!

Founded in 1985, the AANP represents licensed naturopathic doctors, students, and allied healthcare professionals nationwide.

03/22/2025

Go to our survey to find out how you can help!
https://1vakj2two1p.typeform.com/to/sByybWGd

03/16/2025

TIME SENSITIVE: Introducing LR606 - An Act to Modernize the Pharmaceutical Formulary for Naturopathic Doctors

The Maine Association of Naturopathic Doctors needs your support to help ensure passage of our bill!!

LR606 is a crucial piece of legislation designed to:
✅ “Modernize” the pharmaceutical prescription rights of NDs in the state of Maine to be consistent with our training and with the prescription rights of NDs in the neighboring states of New Hampshire and Vermont

✅ Ensure that NDs in Maine can prescribe life-saving medications when necessary (examples of medications currently excluded from Maine ND’s formulary include rescue inhalers, certain antibiotics, antiviral medications, blood pressure medications and diabetes medications)

✅ Reduce the redundancy of multiple visits between specialists and primary care doctors for medication management

✅ Provide access to enhanced preventive medicine practiced by NDs that will save resources for insurance companies and tax payers and reduce congestion in emergency facilities

Please follow this link to share your support for NDs in Maine by March 20th 💕 https://1vakj2two1p.typeform.com/to/sByybWGd

01/28/2025

NENH Whole 30 blog, Days 15-22

Hey all, hope you are staying warm and keeping the faith out there. The sunshine, melting ice and slight smell of spring in the air lifted my spirits today after an emotionally challenging week with many nights of involuntary waking waaaaaay before dawn as my brain insisted on trying (and failing) to solve ALL of the world's problems. Fortunately the stable brain chemistry that comes along with getting off the dopamine roller coaster is quite conducive to navigating sticky situations with a minimum of overreaction.

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This weeks meals run the gamut of quick and prefabbed on a rushed night (see dressed up Amy's Split Pea soup) to intricately planned birthday feast (see video of brunch table).

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I love to show off the luxuriousness of real, whole food. Stellar seasonal ingredients that speak for themselves and need very little pampering are key. Let's use fruit as an example. Though virtually nothing is in season in Maine, citrus fruits and kiwis from California are in their prime. Blood oranges are always heavily featured in my meals this time of year for their stunning color, sophisticated taste and ability to play well with both sweet and savory taste profiles.

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And don't even get me started on the mangos. They are cheer and fairy dust embodied. I have twice had the privilege of living in Ecuador during the December-January mango season during which it is mandatory to eat at least ten mangos a day and the children's faces are perpetually sticky with nectar...and smiling. Just imagine American children considering fruit a treat. Sigh....a girl can dream.

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Today marks 28 days with no alcohol or sugar and 22 days of Whole 30 (delayed start due to stupid Covid ruining everything as usual). Typically by week 3 I am starting to miss chocolate, cheese and wine. Interestingly, this time around I miss none of these. Why? No clue. I can only hope that this contentedness with the simple things, both in life and food, persists.

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To all of you who are in the active or pre-contemplative stages of improving your self care regimen, remember to keep it simple and joyful. Focus what naturally draws your attention and inspires you so that you may ease into the journey sustainably.

Stay cozy and well nourished, Doc C

01/20/2025

NENH Whole 30 blog, days 8-15

In which we get REALLY hungry and taste test some Whole 30 compliant versions of Jeffy's favorite comfort foods to stick to the proverbial ribs.

On this day in which the emotions are running high for all of us, please accept this offering of peace, love and beautiful food. May it provide you with a pleasant distraction at a minimum.

This week was challenging. Lots of late nights and work obligations, a growth-spurt induced sleep regression for my 5-year-old, a rigamarole with my car, frigid weather...all of which reduced time and energy for cooking while simultaneously inducing dangerously low blood sugar levels. There is always a week during the Whole 30 that my husband basically loses the will to live. This was that week. And so, I give you: Whole 30 comfort foods. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Reviving my recipe writing skills from detox programs past, here is the recipe for the best of the meals shown below:

Apple sausage stuffed spaghetti squash
Prep time: ~20 mins
Cook time: ~75 minutes

Ingredients:
1 large spaghetti squash
2 tablespoons ghee
2 tablespoons braggs coconut aminos
1 pound ground pork
2 tablespoons Bub and Martha’s seasoning
1 large apple, chopped
1 cup celery, minced
1 head garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 shallots, chopped
½ cup dried fruit of choice
1 cup roasted walnuts, chopped
2 eggs
Balsamic vinegar for drizzling

Directions:
Squash:
Preheat the oven to 400 F (note: I do not have a convection setting on my oven, but if I did I would have used it for this recipe and reduced the cooking time)
Split spaghetti squash lengthwise, place face down in a large casserole dish in ~1 inch of water
Bake at 400 F for 45 minutes or until knife easily cuts into the back skin, remove and drain the water
Melt the ghee and brush it onto the flesh of the squash, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of coconut aminos

Roast garlic:
Cut the bottom off of the garlic head and place face down in 1 tablespoon olive oil in a small glass pyrex, roast for 20-25 minutes until is fragrant and the visible portion of the garlic cloves is caramelized
Remove the roasted cloves and chop into desired size chunks (depends on whether you are a garlic person or not)

Stuffing:
While the squash and garlic are baking, heat a heavy cast iron pan (or other heavy-bottom pan) over medium heat
Once is capable of sizzling water, add the sausage and the Bub and Martha’s seasoning
Sear the sausage in its own fat until medium brown
Add the shallots, celery, apples, thyme and continue to saute over medium heat until well combined
Reduce heat to low, add the remaining tablespoon of braggs aminos, cover and keep over low heat an additional 10+ minutes until meat is well browned
Add the dried fruit, nuts and roasted garlic and fold in
Beat the two eggs into a uniform mixture, pour over and incorporate into the stuffing

Add the stuffing to the two squash halves, cover in aluminum foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes at 400 F

Uncover, drizzle both squash halves with thick balsamic vinegar
Move to top rack and broil on high to brown the surfaces of the squash halves, ~ 5 mins

Enjoy with a hot mug of tea for a soul-soothing experience

Keep the faith, y'all.
Much love, Doc C

01/13/2025

NENH Whole 30 blog Days 1 through 7

Happy New Year Y'all!! Hoping everyone is finding their stride in the post-holiday void. As an offering to the collective food consciousness and optimal health through whatever chaos 2025 may have in store, I present you with a captioned photo journal of my first week of Whole 30 meals and fun times.

New Years COVID 😵 delayed the normal start time of January 2nd, but I have to say that starting Whole 30 toward the end of COVID symptoms really helped hasten our recovery and curtail the post-COVID fatigue.

I find that my morning food prep, normally sacred, is even more so when my tools are limited (but colorful!) and presentation matters SO MUCH. Without the dopamine-inducing effect of dairy, grains, sugar, etc... we must evoke enthusiasm for food by making it beautiful. While everyone else in my family is some sort of professional artist, my unconventional media apparently are functional medicine and bento boxes 😉.

Re: bento boxes, get yo'self a Bentgo https://bentgo.com/. They can take a beating, they last forever and will make your morning food prep a joy as well.

This is my 5th or 6th Whole 30, so at this point I either easily traverse the keto flu through the first week, or I could not differentiate it from the COVID blahs. Either way, there have only been upsides so far for mind and body. I have been meditating on the "why" behind the rapid gains in mood, patience and productivity and rather than attributing it to eliminating any one food or vice, I am increasingly convinced that blood sugar stability is the primary factor.

In my own journey as a Naturopathic Doctoral student and now practicing clinician for the past 15 years, I have learned a thing or two about perpetually nudging nutrition practices in an anti-inflammatory direction. Because, let's face it, the food supply in this country is really stacked against us and our best interests. My point is that I am normally a mindful consumer of local, minimally-processed, mostly-organic (thanks to Daybreak Growers Alliance) food. That said, I tend to lean a little heavily on the gluten-free grains, the CHEESE, the dark chocolate and the decompression-after-long-hard-day/weekend-its-gotta-be-4 o'clock- somewhere cocktails. Though these things undoubtedly contribute some level of inflammatory input when I have let them all creep up, the gains from eliminating pro-inflammatory foods normally take at least a couple of weeks to observe. So, I am intrigued with this idea of simply getting off the blood sugar instability roller coaster.

Normally, on returning home from a long day at the office, I need to fed immediately or else isolate myself with the dog until its time for dinner, in the interests of not alienating my family with my hangriness. I am aware that I cannot eat a ton of carbohydrates while working due to the blood-sugar destabilizing effects on my brain and thought process (as any patient who has interacted with me when I don't take a lunch break can attest) living without the high carb foods seems to create a baseline stability that is not easily perturbed. I love being tolerant of my 5-year-old's antics, my husband's lovable-but-somewhat-difficult-to-follow conversation style, my patients' peaks and valleys in their health journeys and the ridiculousness of political happenings...somehow it all seems easier to compartmentalize in functional ways.

So I will leave you with this wish: may you all find the means to functionally compartmentalize your stressors, whether through blood sugar stability or other healthful tactics.

Look out for Week 2 photos next weekend and give a shout if you'd like to share your Whole 30 or other January health-overhaul practices as well!

In health, Doc C

11/12/2024

[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain. ~Dwight D Eisenhower

If you are able, consider making a gift to the Wounded Warrior Project or another non-profit that provides direct support to disabled veterans and their caregivers.
woundedwarriorproject.org

11/03/2024

Super excited to have the opportunity to present my research on neuroinflammation and psychiatric disorders at the New Hampshire Association of Naturopathic Doctors conference this weekend. It gives me goosebumps to be included in the same speaker lineup as many of my long-venerated heroes in the ND world. Hoping to earn my place among them 🤞

10/20/2024

My lovely assistant Anastasia is helping me make mocktails today for the “Healthy Holiday Habits” class at Apollo today. See you there at 2!!

10/15/2024

Hey friends, come join me and nutrition guru Hannah Parker for some pre-holiday fun and learning at Apollo's Day Spa this coming Sunday. For $15, you can pick up some excellent tips to live your best life during this cuckoo time of year PLUS taste test some fancy medicinal mocktails and Dr Corrie's famous Festive Quinoa Salad. I guarantee a super fun time and would love to see y'all there!

06/30/2024

The bad news is that we lost many trees on our camp road this past year due to wind storms and logging. The good news is that Mother Nature knows how to make the best of a crap situation by giving us hardy medicinal plants like achillea (yarrow), tanacetum (daisy) and this huge colony of verbascum (mullein) that love to grow in land cleared by humans. Giving thanks for the reminder that beauty can grow out of devastation and for the opportunity to educate Ana about power plants while she is still young enough to appreciate this magic.