Kitchen pharmacy is a new workshop I'll be delivering at MeVeg Conference on the 5th of December.

Can we really prepare our simple cures in our kitchens? Why do we need home preparation? And are they really effective?
  In this workshop we will discuss the benefits of home-made preparations; you will be introduced to simple formulas for dealing with common ailments using simple ingredients available in most of our kitchens. We will discuss our need to integrate more herbs and spices in our everyday life and what’s the difference between preparing them in our houses and swallowing them in capsules and pills? And most importantly, we will discuss why most of us underestimate the power of our kitchen herbs and how to make the most out of them.
  The topics we will tackle include:
  -          Cold and flu
  -          Digestive problems
  -          Heart and blood vessels
  -          Stress
  -          Aches and pains
  -          Nourishing your system

There are many other great workshops there too! Two of them I highly recommend:
-   Grow your own plants by Shumaila Ahmed, 
-   Gluten Free living by Abeda Oturkar

I am sure many others will also be great, I just personally attended with these two amazing ladies and learnt so much.

You can learn more about the conference at: http://mevegcongress.com/mevegcongress/schedule-of-meveg-congress/

Meveg Congress will be held on 5-6 DEC 2011 at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre. There is an opportunity for students/women of schools and colleges to attend and volunteer at the regional congress and student / teacher/women's groups  /  to attend seminars and /or workshops only. Corporates/ food industry delegates / Chefs and Cooks and those who would like to interact with experts and gain new knowledge.

Wish to see you all there!!!

One main reason I chose to join pharmacy (I didn’t actually choose, but… that’s another story!!) was my passion about herbal remedies and natural preparations of medicines and cures. I grew in a house that honors natural cures. We rarely felt the need to consult a physician. Linden leaves and anise seeds teas were always available for common cold bouts, frankincense for productive cough, cumin and chamomile for spasm and colics, cinnamon milk for menstrual cramps, parsley for renal colic… simple remedies available in our kitchen were always there for the rescue and they never failed us.

My grandmother pantry and refrigerator were full of natural jams, home-made pickles, freshly prepared yogurt, green leaves, rose water, and orange blossoms hydrosols. I loved the fragrance of her spice rack and enjoyed the trips with my aunts to the old souks to stock on our precious herbs and spices.

As I grew up, my book shelves became filled with recipe books and old wisdom series. I saw the kitchen as my lab and the food as my sacred medical cure.

When I joined pharmacy, I waited impatiently to learn more about these natural cures, to know scientific basics behind their miraculous efficiency and deepen my skills in preparing formulas and dosage forms. Unfortunately, after years of overwhelming herbal studies, I felt totally incompetent. Among the hundreds of plant families, thousands of species, millions of preparations and options… I was totally lost. What I didn’t recognize at the time is that the way we studied and approached these remedies stripped them away from the true essence that I was drawn to in the first place; it took away their ‘soul’. Plants, herbs, remedies and medicines for me were miracles of creation that should be approached in awe and gratitude, not reduced down to molecular structures and barren list of Latin names. Each natural substance has much deeper wisdom to offer. When we gently touch it, smell it, admire it and feel it, when we soulfully turn it into syrup, tea, capsule or ointment, it willingly reveals its hidden secrets.

My experience with nature is a relationship between a student and its teacher, a wise teacher who reveals its secret teachings only to its sincere allies.

Why do our education system rob us away from this sacred connection, from this true essence, from this relationship of love, awe and gratitude? Scientific studies shouldn’t be so crude and soulless.

It took me years to embrace back my passion, to learn how to combine science with love and wonder and this, I think, is the missing ingredient in our formula, not only in our education and health care systems, but in our everyday lives as well.  


Have a great Day!

Sometimes we feel as if life has just stopped for us... nothing new is happening... nothing interesting... our plans are not working the way we wished them to... our dreams are not manifesting... our hearts are not pumping with excitement and enthusiasm as they used to... even our tears seem stuck not having enough energy to fall.
 Sometimes, time is just passing us by…nothing new… nothing exciting… Hours follow hours… Days follow days… months and even years… We’re getting older; our hearts are sinking in our chests… Our brains’ chatter is torturing us with negativity and pessimism… What am I doing wrong? We wonder… What’s next? 
If this is how you feel sometimes my friend, than know that you are not alone… We all pass by this time of our life. You can look at it as depressing, down time or you can consider it, as a friend of mine says, an incubation period… An essential period in our creativity cycle… A period that precedes all the ‘AHA’ moments!!! 

When you reach your incubation period, you know that it’s time to stop… Time to breathe…
Close your eyes… take a deep breath… inhale slowly... and, as you let the air is go out, visualize it carrying with it all worries, pain, boredom, and negativity driving them away… far… far away from you… from your life… Pause… Inhale again slowly…draw fresh air filled with calm and peace… filled with compassion and love… compassion for yourself and love for who you really are… concentrate on your breath for just few minutes or as long as you wish… just breathe… Breathe in calm and serenity and breathe out anxiety and worries… Calmly and gently, breathe out any intruding thoughts or negative emotions.

Breath is an amazing healing tool… Just breathing… Try it… few seconds are enough for total rejuvenation and restoration. It brings you back to your centre of balance… To the here and now. It connects you to your own inner wisdom, grounds you in your body and generates marvellous mind self-renewal abilities.
In many languages –including Arabic- the word ‘breath’ (nafas) share the same root as the word ‘soul’ (nafs). Breathing is your first step for soul restoration… for total balance and amazing power.
In our stressful, hectic modern life, no wonder we lose our sense of balance as we lost our breath. We rarely have the time or the energy to just sit calmly and breathe…. To calm our minds and give room for our creative powers to percolate… It’s as simple as that, believe me. Try it for yourself and see how amazing power it brings.

Sometimes, we think that the answer to our problems, depression, sadness and stresses is to work more, achieve more, strive more, push harder, dig deeper… Whereas, the answer is much simpler… Slow down… Get centered… Breathe!

Breathing helps us simplify and balance our life; it helps us reconnect with the miracle of our mere existence and enjoy the feelings of grace and gratitude. Sometimes the answer is not in ‘doing’, it is just in ‘being’!