Making Informed Food Choices – Baking Powder

We haven’t had baking powder in the house for over a month.  When we ran out, we agreed to do some more research, actually try to find a purer form that aligned more with our food ethics.  At PCC, the nearest natural foods store to us, there are four options for Baking Powder:  Bob’s Redmill, Rumford, Frontier and Hain.  The first three options all use cornstarch and do not have any sign of it being verifiable non-GMO, despite comments on Frontier’s site that it doesn’t contain GM ingredients.  If it’s not verifiable, it’s not good enough for us.  The Hain is the gluten free option and uses potato starch from inorganic potatoes, a possible GM food and, like corn, also produced with large amounts of chemicals when grown inorganically. We won’t eat non-organic corn or potatoes in any other form, so why buy it in this form?  Whole Foods and the Central Co-op have similar options.  Here is the first road bump to helping consumers make informed decisions on what they are purchasing.  If it’s at a natural food store it is NOT necessarily organic or non-GMO.  In fact, a large majority of the items in any of these stores are likely to be not only inorganic but also contain GM ingredients.

That led me to looking online.  I searched for non-GMO organic baking powder.  Lots of links came up with organic baking powder in the heading.  Clicking on them took me to all of the above products listed available at the local PCC  which we’ve already established as NOT organic or verifiable non-GMO.  Here is where we hit yet another road bump in helping consumers make informed and accurate decisions about what they’re purchasing:  searches online can be very misleading.  If the word organic is anywhere on a site it can show up anywhere in the search, leading people to think that the products that are listed under that link are indeed organic or non-GM.  You have to look closer, dig a little deeper –  that’s inconvenient, takes time and is not done by the majority of consumers.

The next option, if a ready made product is not available, would be to make one yourself.  This leads to looking up recipes for home-made baking powder.  It seems pretty simple and straight forward – at first.  According to most recipes you need three things:  sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), cream of tartar, and a starch – usually cornstarch is listed.  Cornstarch is available organic and is on the shelf at most natural food stores (usually sitting next to a non-organic option, which of course costs less, thus tempting the consumer to chose it instead – but that’s another post altogether.)  So what about the other two ingredients?  Sodium bicarbonate – baking soda – it’s most likely already in the cupboard of households all across the country.  It’s the alkali ingredient in the baking powder and can be used on its own to raise baked products if an acid ingredient is in the recipe.  How it is sourced and processed is more than I want to dive into in this post.  So for the moment I’ll move onto cream of tartar.

Cream of tartar is an acid and, according to the sources I have found, is a bi-product of the wine making industry.  How it is processed is still something I am researching, but in the mean time I just want to address that I have not been able to find an organic source for it.  The wine industry is another chemical heavy industry.  Pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and inorganic fertilizers all play a part in the production of non-organic wine grapes.  We don’t want to play any part in encouraging that and don’t in our everyday food choices, so why do so for this ingredient?

With all this taken into consideration, my husband and I sat down and discussed our options.  The first thing to point out is that for me personally this isn’t that big of a deal.  I hardly ever eat things that contain baking powder due mainly to the fact that  I don’t (can’t) eat sugar and most quick raised baked goods contain sugar.  So, it really came down to what my husband wanted to do.  He really prefers to keep what comes into our house as pure as possible and said that for now, he would rather just go without the baking powder and find creative ways to live without it.  We’ve already been having crepes instead of pancakes and enjoying them.  We know from past experience that we love spoon bread, a variation of cornbread that uses a lot more eggs and no chemical leavening.  I’m sure we can discover more foods to try in place of what would call for baking powder.  In the past I’ve often made quick breads for my husband to add to his lunches, since we’ve been out of the baking powder he’s just been taking more whole grain breads and nut butters for his afternoon or mid-morning snacks. Due to my intolerance to yeast, baking with it in our house is not an option but we are fortunate to have two local bakeries with plenty of options – Tall Grass Bakery and Essential Baking Company.  I suggested he look into some of their less savory breads as a replacement to the quick breads if he gets a craving.  He’s looking forward to that.  Really when it comes down to it, it’s a matter of the mind.  We can think about what we can’t have when trying to make more conscious and informed choices about what we eat and be miserable or we can look at what we can have, even make it a fun adventure and feel good about making better choices for ourselves and our world.

If anyone is interested in a little trivia about the history of baking powder and similar products here are a couple of links to get you started.

http://foodtimeline.org/foodfaq.html#bakingpowder

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/BakingPowderHistory.htm

 

Recent Herbal Dabblings

During my blogging hiatus and all through this last year I worked on deepening and reconnecting to my herbalist practices.   I went to the Bastyr Herbal Fair  back in June, The Northwest Herbal Fair in August and started wild crafting again and obtaining locally grown herbs to  once again start making my own tinctures, infused oils and dried herbs.  I studied and practiced Plant Spirit Medicine more and more and made my first few flower essences.

I dedicated one under the eaves closet to drying and storing my preparations.  I just recently started pressing out some of my tinctures and infused oils.  I’m integrating some of my wild crafted and locally grown dry herbs into my  much consumed herbal teas.

My favorite blend right now is a calming, soothing and nourishing to the nervous system blend of Chamomile, Lemon Balm, Linden, and Oat Straw.  Sometimes I throw in a little rose petals and/or mint.  It’s a delicious and amazingly effective cuppa.

My skin is getting some loving care as well from all my herbal dabblings.  I had harvested Wild Nootka Rose early in the summer and a large amount went into a jar and was covered by organic olive oil.  I recently pressed that out and poured off some into a small jar, added a small piece of split vanilla bean and am using it as my moisturizer for face, neck and chest.  It is so lovely.  It leaves the skin feeling soft and satiny and it’s helping a lot from the cool weather drying out that hits me every year.

My herbal allies spoil me so!

Gluten-free Food for Thought

Today started off with Teff pancakes from a recipe in Bob’s Red Mill Baking Cookbook.  Teff is a very tasty gluten-free grain and the pancakes are always yummy, especially when they get cooked in coconut oil.  But my tummy didn’t seem to appreciate them, after a while I got a pretty bad stomach ache.  I’ve had them before and not had to much of a problem, but sometimes my body is more sensitive than at other times, I guess this may have been one of those sensitive days.

The thing is, it may not be the teff  that bugged me but the large quantity of baking powder that goes into them to get them to raise.  I know that my body would prefer to be completely leavening free but I don’t adhere to its wishes on that completely.  The times are getting rarer, though, when I will have something with baking powder or baking soda.  Not having gluten hardly ever (I’m really not supposed to have it at all on the anti-candida diet) leaves me with only gluten free baking options and they leave much to be desired.  Most recipes call for things I don’t consider whole foods like xanthum gum and often several cups of various starches and only a little whole gluten-free grain.  I don’t care to eat a bunch of stuff, when I can eat so little as it is, that is basically junk food.

A woman I know recently told me that she finally figured out that that gluten-free bread she was eating wasn’t good for her, and she was probably right if it was like many gluten-free breads I have seen on the market.  Gluten-free doesn’t mean healthy and nourishing.  Whole cooked gluten-free grains and seeds are certainly healthy and those teff pancakes really aren’t that bad either.

Gluten-free can be healthy, but it can also just be another form of junk food and empty calories.  For those who really care about their health it would be a good idea to be certain which version they’re consuming on a regular basis.  So often when I pick up gluten-free products and look at the ingredients list I see a lot of sugars and fillers.  That’s sad.  Especially for people with serious health conditions that require them to be gluten-free.  Conditions that are often related to the intestines and can make absorption of nutrients very difficult, meaning what ever they are eating should be as packed with nutrients as possible.

Gluten-free is a big business these days and as with any business there will be those that are out there just to make a buck, not necessarily producing things with our best health interests in mind.   That’s up to each of us to decide if what we are putting into our bodies is really what our bodies need for us to thrive.  I for one want to thrive.

Food on Friday

There was a time when I was writing a lot about food, several posts a week back when I had a separate blog dedicated to food stuff.  I haven’t done as much writing on food since then, just a little here and there and yet it is a major part of my daily life, so I wonder why.  It might feel a bit overwhelming to me, making sure I get pictures for every thing so to make the posts more appealing.  But if I am going to write about food, I need to let myself off that hook and just write and if I have some pics, great.  If not, it encourages people to use their imaginations, right?  Right.

So lets talk food, then.

First of all we are on a tight budget once again, recovering from several things life threw at us recently.  This means food gets super simple again.  It also means we decided to use a coupon in our Chinook Book for a 20% off on an organic delivery of veggies and fruit.  We’re trying a new place for us this time around, having done various CSA’s and general organic food delivery programs before.  Ultimately my preferred way to shop is at the farmer’s market where I can browse and pick up what appeals at the time.  Winter isn’t so good for that around here, and the delivery programs tend to save us a good deal of money when we most need it, like in winter when utility bills are so much higher.

So for this time around we’re trying New Roots Organics.  It is a local company running out of the Ballard neighborhood here in Seattle and has been in business since the late ’90s.  They deliver their bins of organic produce directly to your home weekly or bi-weekly, depending on your needs.  They seem to have a decent variety of veggies each week from what I have seen and a good substitution system.  You can add items as well, and the prices are pretty decent for the extra items, something that is not always the case with other similar programs.  Since I can have hardly any fruit these days while fighting this systemic candida, I was pleased to see that they had a veggies only option and then we can add on the few pieces of fruit that Mark needs for the week.  He’s eating out of what we canned last summer for a lot of his fruit right now, but still likes to have some fresh stuff through out the week.  I’m able to get my avocados and lemons, which are essential to my huge raw salad meal that I have on a nearly daily basis.  So far it’s a win win.  Of course this was our first week, so we’ll see if it continues to work for us.

Here is a picture of what we got this week.

In this order:
1 bunch Beets
1 lb Carrots
1 large batch Broccoli
1 large bunch Collards
1 large bunch Chard
1 head Red Leaf Lettuce
2 Red Bell Peppers
1 pkg Mushrooms
1lb Garnet Yams
1lb Russet Potatoes
2 Avocados
1 Grapefruit
1 Orange
1 Apple
5 Bananas
2 Lemons

And one of the leaves of lettuce leant for a bit of entertainment:

All I needed to complete the look was a skimpy outfit made from cabbage leaves and a turnip tail and I could have tried out for the veggie playboy bunny!  ; – )

One of the potatoes and some of the broccoli became my lunch shortly after I noticed the box had been delivered.  Last night we had fresh fettuccine with mushrooms and an olive oil/butter drizzle topped with a little grated hard cheese and yummy side salad.  This dinner was a splurge for me because it had mushrooms, dairy and wheat in it, things I am having to either eliminate or highly minimize my intake of while on the anti-candida diet.  This is a favorite dish of ours and we have done variations of it over the past couple years.  It was a yummy treat!  But not one I can have again for quite a while!

We have some great meals planned around these veggies that I will share some of in future posts.  In the mean time I’ll share what we did Wednesday night to clear out the veggie bins and make room for the order we received the next day.

Mixed Roasted Veggies with Steamed Rice

A quarter of a head of cabbage
2 stalks celery
1 huge carrot
1 leek (pulled from my friend Ecogrrl’s garden when we visited recently – thanks Ecogrrl!)
2 small zucchini
a few slices of daikon radish

In a large cast iron skillet, saute the leeks in a bit of olive oil till wilted.  Add the rest of the veggies and more olive oil to coat well and a sprinkling of sea salt.  Place the cast iron skillet, uncovered into the oven at 400 degrees F.  Roast for 25-35 minutes till soft and starting to caramelize a little.  Serve over or next to steamed rice.  Simple, easy and delicious!

Goraw Product Review

The anti-candida diet gives me up to two servings of grain a day, which means that I have to find grain-free snack alternatives.  They can’t have fruits or sweetening of any sorts and they have to be gluten and yeast free as well.  Oh and organic – that’s my standard for eating.  Even in the big local natural food stores, this can be a challenge to find.  A big challenge.  So when I found a couple Goraw Flax Snax products that met all my standards, I snagged them up.

The cost of between 4-5 dollars per small package is pretty pricey; but, frankly, I’m used to pure organic foods costing a bit and I make the sacrifices (like not going to the movies or going out or having cable) that are needed to make it possible to pay for the purest food I can get.

I picked up the pizza and spicy flavors and I opened both bags before I pulled away from the store.  I was pleasantly surprised about the crispy, yet easy to chew texture of the flax snax.  They had a nice nutty flavor.  The seasonings were mild and not as strong as I’m used to finding in chips and crackers.  But the subtlety was nice for a change.   I could see these being good in so many ways.  But for now I have simply eaten them plain and crumbled up on my giant lunch time salads.  The latter is a nice change from the typical sprinkling of sunflower seeds that normally adorn my salads.  Variety is nice.

They are good for you to.  Unlike a lot of really salty, fat laden, scary additive enhanced (even in the “natural” and organic products, think things like yeast extract which shows up way to often in organic food products and has a make up much like MSG and similar effects) crunchy snacks out there.  These are made from pure sprouted seeds, that have plenty of protein and healthy nutrients, and pure spices.  A win in my book, any day.

Eventually I hope to try making something similar and thus reduce my cost output and have fun with the “do it yourself” way.  In the mean time I am glad to have found these products and look  forward to trying a few more by this company, some of which will have to wait till I can have fruits again – something to look forward to.

Struggling to Be Well – A Life Story

In the mid to late ’90s I went through a health ordeal that changed me forever.  It changed the course of my life, it changed my approach to health, it led me to study natural medicine and become a certified herbalist.  It changed my approach to food and to living.

In the late 70′s I had gotten Lymes Disease when I was a 3 or 4.  At the time it wasn’t really known and it took nearly five years before a doctor recognized the symptoms listed on my medical records with the symptoms I sometimes showed several years later.  This was before Lymes disease was considered possible to contract west of the Rockies.  This was before there was treatment.  By the time there was a treatment, if you want to call living on anti-biotics a treatment, the damage in my body was already done.  The beginning of many auto-immune conditions began to play out in my system and I was treated in the typical Western medicine way, harsh drugs and anti-biotics.  Lots and lots of anti-biotics.  Which over time made things much worse.  Until I was a freshman in college and became so ill I had to quit school.

It was within the next couple years that I started to take my health into my own hands and started working with Naturopathic doctors and those that took a more whole approach to health without using harsh chemicals and drugs.  By then I had several conditions that all made true and full wellness seem impossible to achieve. I studied herbal medicine at a small school in Oregon and started to eat more organic foods little by little.  I was determined to do what needed to be done  to get better and maybe even use that education and experience to help others someday.  My health was awful and eventually I was diagnosed with systemic Candida.  An overgrowth of yeast that had spread to my bloodstream and was causing hell in nearly every part of my body.  I went on a strict diet to starve and get rid of the excess yeast and restore my internal flora to a proper balance.  It lasted over a year.  No sugar of any sort, including nearly all fruit.  And the list of what I could eat was much shorter than the list of what I couldn’t. I got a little better.  My symptoms of the various auto-immune conditions settled down with only the occasional problem.  I began to think about going back to school or doing an organic farming training program and any other number of things.  For the first time in a long time I was starting to think about my future like I could have one, a real one.

Then in 2001 I moved to Washington State and got married.  I was taking time off from working, thinking about what I wanted to do and enjoying my new life with a wonderful man in a beautiful place.  I eventually took a job at a plant nursery, something I had done for several years in the past.  I was enjoying having a part time job and keeping a bit of my independence, ‘cus I was an independent kind of girl.  I started to relax a little.  Then I started having signs of some of my health issues flaring up again.  Before I knew it I was sick again.  I had to quit my job.  Some days I didn’t have the strength to lift my head from my pillow, let alone walk.  It came and went in bouts as auto-immune things tend to do.  Sometimes I was doing ok and I tried to live the active life I loved, hiking, snowshoeing, backpacking, but it was all slipping away from me again little by little.

I was very lucky to have incredible health insurance at the time that covered natural medicine.  I settled in to a weekly visit to a wonderful doctor with lots of experience dealing with my kind of issues.  We worked together and again I slowly began to get better.  I learned more about other aspects of natural medicine during this time and eventually was able to take complete charge of my health on my own, and just in time as my husband’s job ended and the insurance with it.

We eventually moved away from Seattle to Olympia where my husband’s new job was.  It was during this time that we got involved with some organized religion and with that came all sorts of social eating situations where I was regularly compromising my health needs to be polite and have a social life.  And it wasn’t long before I started to get very ill again.  The pattern repeating.  Four years of this and I had flare ups of various levels, sometimes making it hard for me to walk, sometimes I was ok.   We were also going through some situations that were high stress and everything we had started to believe was challenged, head on.  We were at a place of reassessing everything about our lives, our beliefs, everything.  Then my husband lost his job, we moved again, back to Seattle, stress ensued as we tried to keep a roof over our heads, with no way for me to take a job because we had learned by then that taking care of myself so I could function at least somewhat was a full time job itself.  My husband just barely got another job, right before we would have been homeless.

I became less strict again with my eating when I was outside my own home.  And my health yo-yo’d along with my yo-yoing commitment to do what I needed to do.  Eventually I realized I had to be fully committed to doing what I needed to for my health, no matter the cost.  I stopped eating meat which always made me sick afterwards and eventually became painful for me to digest to where I was doubled over.  I became a vegetarian, with the very rare local seafood a few times a year.  I stopped eating out except where I could find out every ingredient of every item I was eating.  We stopped eating with friends and family.  And as all this was happening I also noticed an increase in my chemical sensitivity to things outside of food – going a lot of places became out of the question.  I couldn’t even be around my nephews without getting really sick, due to detergent and fabric softeners.  It was heart-breaking and frustrating and I felt like a royal pain in the ass sister-in-law and daughter-in-law and friend.   In a culture where chemicals abound and social activities are almost always centered around food and beverages and rarely around food and beverages that are organic and chemical free, eating the way I need to can  be very isolating.  But being as ill as I can get is worse than feeling isolated.   It was a hard choice to finally commit fully to no longer making exceptions.  At the same time it was easy.  I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

But I wasn’t getting all better.  My mind was starting to cause me problems.  I couldn’t remember things short term, I couldn’t find words for things, even simple things.  I kept breaking out in rashes and hives and any other number of seriously debilitating symptoms began to appear more regularly.  I was getting more and more depressed.  I was trying so hard and I began to despair.  Then one morning it became clear.  All the symptoms all the situations that were happening with my health, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognized it sooner, but then my brain was so often fuzzy I  suppose it made sense that it took me so long.  The Candida was back.  I may have been eating healthier than most Americans but I still was having the occasional sugary things and with an immune system on the fritz it was enough to have everything slip out of balance.

So here I am again.  But now, more is known about things that feed or worsen Candida than it was the first time I went through this.  Now the diet is even stricter.  Now I will have to be not only sugar and fruit and yeast and so-many- other-things-free, I will have to be gluten-free as well.  And this time, I’m a vegetarian.  This time the challenge is bigger, but I’m a lot more knowledgeable this time round and I am more determined than ever to finally be well.  I finally have hope for it.  I know I can thrive and ANYTHING is worth my finally being able to thrive in my health, in my body, in my mind and in my spirit.

Confidence

The other day I was heading to the gym to spend some much needed time in the pool and sauna.  But before I left I paused.  I was feeling uncomfortable in my own skin suddenly and was dreading going.  It royally pissed me off.  I found I was asking myself where the confident, be yourself, don’t care what others think girl had gone?  I wondered why I could go to a yoga studio, settle in on my mat and find my confidence again but when I go to the gym, it suddenly disappears.

One of the reasons I love yoga is that it has taught me to be self-accepting and non-judgmental towards myself.  Something that can be very difficult due to a body that fights me all the time.  Having several auto-immune conditions and health issues that I struggle with on a daily bases has made feeling like finding a place and time that I will thrive in is impossible.  But when I settle in on my mat I feel hope.  And acceptance.  Both my energy and my muscles are effected  by my health conditions.  Some days I can be energetic and with minimal pain, the next I can hardly move.  Learning to accept where I am today and what my body can do today is something that yoga has gifted to me.

I went ahead and went to the gym and toughed my way through it.  I even enjoyed my time in the pool and sauna.  But I found myself once again wondering where that confident woman had gone? The one that when she was in her early twenties decided she hated shaving and wondered why the hell she kept on doing it.  And when she realized it was because of some societal standard of feminine beauty, she just stopped.

It was a time of accessing things and a time that it was easier to toss out the crap that society lays on us, especially as women, and just go forth and be who I am, as I chose to be.  Oh it wasn’t always easy.  I had to deal with the attitude of my employer and co-workers.  I was called a hippy – like it was a bad thing.  I was called a dike in a most derogatory way, and I mean how ridiculous is that anyway?  I had a friend who was a lesbian and she was as girly as the next.  Pure stupidity is what I dealt with.  Oh and people’s discomfort.  I found a lot of woman either judged immediately while others got really defensive because my confidence to let go of societies concept of what a woman should look like challenged their own conformity – though it wasn’t my intention to do so.  I did like to offer the opportunity to think about the reasons we do things though – I think this was the beginning of my own path towards mindfulness.  Being willing to examine why we do certain things and if we find the reasons are not good enough  being able to let those things go.  It is a slow and sometimes painful path.  And sometimes you find yourself winding back around and touching on the same subjects again.  Like what happened to me recently.

I didn’t shave my legs or armpits for over ten years.  Then one afternoon, summer before last I found myself in the shower and looking at my husband’s razor.  I was in a good place.  Comfortable with who I was, but curious if I would like a shaven leg look after all these years.  I wasn’t the least interested in shaving my pits, mind you.  I liked that and over time have found that it can make feel sexy in its own way.  I was hesitant.  I remembered how I really did hate the maintenance of having shaven legs – I mean all that shaving, which I had hated with a passion.  Was I willing to try it out for the sake of curiosity and be stuck with maintaining it or going through the process of growing it out again,which is not the best stage.  Eventually I put the razor to my legs and peeled away over ten years of who I had been.  I looked down at my legs and thought, “Hm.  That looks really weird.”  In fact it took me a few weeks to get used to it again.  I liked the feel of the  smoothness, but it disappeared so quickly.  I went through the summer and then when winter came and I grew it back out again.  And that was the pattern for this year as well.  But this year I found I was feeling uncomfortable in public with unshaven legs, especially in places like the gym where judgement of bodies, your own and others reigns supreme.  And there I was, pissed off at letting society and others ideas of beauty and what is accepted for women effect me.  Damn it, I was above all that crap.  I had worked at that for over ten years of my life as my lithe body slipped away from me due to illness.  I had to ask myself, if you can’t handle the pressure, then why don’t you just give in and start shaving again full time?

The next day found me at a yoga class I had not gone to before.  A new teacher.  As I was settling onto my mat before class the teacher came into sight for the first time.  She was a strong beautiful woman who radiated confidence.  So when she raised her arms in the first few movements of class and I saw her unshaven arm pits the whole thing came home to me again.  I had been like that.  I wanted to find that place in me again.  For my beauty to radiate out beyond societies ideas of what beauty is.  To feel comfortable and confident no matter what I look like on the outside, whether I shave or don’t shave or have a slender body or a lumpy one.  That I could find that place of self-acceptance and confidence and non-judgement off the mat as much as on,  in places far less accepting of women who don’t follow the code of beauty set up by whoever determines these things, in places like the gym or the dance floor or anywhere else  I might choose to go. So I moved through my practice that day with the intention to breath in confidence and breath out negativity.  To glory in the strength my body was offering me that day, to find my inner strength and confidence once more and carry it with me once the mat was rolled up and I was walking out into the world beyond the comfortable place of my yoga practice.

A Yoga Dream

I have a yoga dream.

The studio would be an easy stroll from my home. It would be spacious with earthy tones and a no scents policy.

All the instructors would be warm, gentle and funny.  They would first and foremost encourage non-judgement and would practice it themselves.  They would believe strongly that a practice is a persons own and encourage them to find what works for them at that time, in that pose, in that place on the mat.  They wouldn’t feel the need to control every aspect only offer suggestions gently and without pressure.  They would respect each person for who they are and you’ld know it.  You would know that you are valued that when they say Namaste they really mean it with all they are.

Included in the schedule would be mid morning and mid afternoon options.  There would be a good gentle to intermediate vinyasa class available at those time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s there would be Yin Yoga at the same times – so a weeks practice could have a balance of Yin and Yang.  The classes would be long enough to provide a good 15 minute seated meditation after shavasana, sometimes guided, sometimes not.  Different techniques of meditation would be intorduced and practiced.  The beginning of the class would include plenty of pranayama in all its variety.  We would be reminded to smile.

Connected to the studio would be a completely organic vegetarian café with lots of fresh raw foods.  There would be comfy chairs to sit in and chat over a cup of herbal or green tea, maybe an ayurvedic option.  There would be a lending library with books on yoga, ayurveda and sustainable natural living and eating. Only completely natural and sustainable products would be sold and used in the studio. There would be a sauna. There would be plenty of options to meet the needs of various incomes so that yoga would be available to all.  The whole thing would be non-profit.  There would be plenty of happy healthy smiling people.

This is my yoga dream.