Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in our Family/Health section. To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
- Lee Eldrige
The Athlete Tribe
- Dr. Michelle Wright
Dr Michelle Wright is a British-trained General Practitioner and Director of HealthFirst, providing physical First Aid training and Mental Health First Aid training, as well as Health Education, throughout Switzerland (www.healthfirst.ch). She also has a regular radio show about health on World Radio Switzerland. Believing that prevention is better than cure and that we should be treating the root cause of illness, Dr Michelle is also a Lifestyle Medicine enthusiast. - Birgit Suess is a Swiss-American who grew up between the US and Switzerland and speaks English, German and Swiss-German. Because of a worldwide shortage of Speech Therapists, she uses technology to connect special needs students around the world with English speaking Speech Therapists. With almost 20 years of experience as a Speech Therapist and 10 years experience with Teletherapy, she is a pioneer in the Teletherapy world. Her personal specialty is working on social language with high functioning children on the Autism Spectrum. Her passion is finding new and innovative ways to help children with special needs.
- Dr. Irina Schurov is a Nutritional Neuroscientist with a PhD from Cambridge University (UK) and over 20 years’ experience in science and health-providing services. She created and founded LiveRight, an initiative to help others through nutrition and wellbeing strategies. By building an educational platform around healthy eating habits, by restoring the relationships between people and food, by supporting your individual circumstances and through personalized coaching in nutrition, she wants to help you and your family achieve the optimal balance between help and life.
- Dr. Penny Fraser
Dr Penny is a British-trained Emergency Medicine doctor, who lives in Geneva. She is also the mother of two busy little skiers aged 7 and 8. Along with Dr Michelle Wright and her other colleagues at HealthFirst, she has a passion for delivering health education and First Aid training to the English-speaking community in Switzerland
By Hiba Giacoletto, Healthwise
If you love Nutella, why not trying making a healthier version at home? This recipe is a much healthier version of store-bought Nutella, using only whole foods like hazelnuts and cacao powder and sweetened with a little maple syrup – an unrefined sweetener.
The main ingredient in this recipe is hazelnuts. Hazelnuts are a good source of Vitamin E as well as iron, zinc, calcium and potassium. And because they are made up of 60 – 70% oil, when you whizz them in a food processor for just a minute or two, they quickly turn into a beautiful, creamy spread. To this, we add the cacao powder, melted cacao butter or coconut oil plus a little maple syrup – and voilà – you have your healthier Nutella or Healthtella!
Method:
- Heat your oven to 135 degrees Celsius.
- Measure 1 cup or 200g hazelnuts and place on a tray in the oven for about 20 minutes or until they are evenly roasted.
- Remove from the oven and rub the hazelnuts between your hands to remove any loose skin.
- Once they are completely cool, place them in food processor and grind them until they are liquid. This should take about 1-2 minutes and you may need to stop and scrape down the sides a few times.
- Once your hazelnut spread is ready, add the following:
- 25g melted cacao butter OR melted extra virgin coconut oil
- 3-4 tbsp water
- 4 tbsp maple syrup
- 2-3 tbsp cacao
- Mix everything until it is well combined and you have achieved the right taste and consistency. Store in the fridge but take it out a little before you eat it so it becomes less solid.
Author's bio
Hiba Giacoletto is a Certified Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) with a Masters Degree in Psychology
Hiba helps people lose weight, feel more energetic or take control of their eating without diets or deprivation. She believes that no one way of eating or living works for everyone and that it is about experimenting to find what truly works for you. She uses a unique blend of NUTRITION + PSYCHOLOGY + COACHING to help people start trusting their body's wisdom to make food and lifestyle choices that enable them to look and feel their best. She is convinced that regardless of what you might have tried in the past, she can help you get unstuck, overcome self-sabotage behavior and find your mojo!
You can book a FREE 45 minute Health Chat via her website, www.healthwise.ch to find out whether Health Coaching is right for you.
www.healthwise.ch
www.facebook.com/healthwise.ch
www.twitter.com/HibaGiacoletto
www.pinterest.com/healthwisech/
By Hiba Giacoletto, Healthwise
Zucchini Crust Pizza is easier to make than traditional pizza, and it is also a great way of eating more vegetables while eating less white flour.
This healthier pizza is simply a crust of made of grated zucchini mixed with eggs. The pizza taste really comes from the toppings - you can add whatever you like.
Through sheer laziness, I recently experimented with a tomato sauce that doesn’t actually need to be cooked to taste amazing and I share the recipe for this below. Besides using it for this pizza, you can also combine this tomato sauce with zucchini noodles for a completely raw meal or with normal pasta which heats up the sauce and tastes wonderful.
My colleague, Dr Michelle, has worked for many years in the world of family medicine - including for teenagers. And, of course, with their mums and dads who, just like you, worry about their children's health, safety and happiness today and for the future too.
She has written such an excellent, accessible and informative article that I would like it to share with you, all about cervical cancer and how we can protect our daughters with the HPV vaccine – available now in Switzerland. Do you know what cervical cancer is? Take five minutes to read on to find out more….
By Hiba Giacoletto, Healthwise
This summer, why not try making your own iced coffee? This recipe takes just a few minutes to make and is dairy, soy and refined sugar-free. I find it especially delicious with maple syrup but if you don’t have this you can also use honey or another sweetener.
RECIPE - Makes 2-3 cups of coffee
2 tbsp almond butter (made only of ground almonds)
3 dl water
1-3 tbsp maple syrup or honey (depending on how sweet you like it)
1 cup coffee – brewed, then left to cool in a bowl. You can add ice cubes or put it in the fridge if you are impatient!
Combine the almond butter and water in a blender and blend until smooth. This is actually a lazy version of almond milk which is better than store-bought almond milk as it has no additives. You can also use 3 dl almond milk instead. Add the coffee and maple syrup or honey.
Serve in a glass with ice cubes.
Store leftovers in a jar in the fridge.
When you employ a nanny it is important to put put together an employment contract to ensure both you and the nanny are protected legally. In Switzerland, there are Standard Employment Contract regulations for Domestic Staff including nannies. Please bear these in mind when drawing up a contract including minimum salaries.
Below are some key points to include in your nanny contract:
- Full name and addresses of both the employee and employer, contact details
- The start date and whether the contract is open ended or fixed
- The duties and responsibilities required in detail
- Salary and contributions / deductions
- Room and board provision if relevant
- Working hours, overtime etc
- A Confidentiality Clause
- Grievance procedure
- Termination, notice and probation clauses
- Holidays, illness etc
- Contact details to call in an emergency
- Special clauses / agreements
Disclaimer – Rockmybaby ® is not an employment lawyer nor specializes in employment law and strongly suggests seeking advice from a lawyer when drawing up an employment contract.
Guest blogger's Bio
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Tanya is Swiss by Nationality and lives in Zurich with her husband, Russell, and her two little girls.
After having her second baby, and understanding only too well the challenges of working and having children (with no family support as they are all back in South Africa), Tanya is determined to provide a service, through her franchise business, Rockmybaby, that will help make life a little easier for families when it comes to childcare. She strives to help parents feel confident in the care of their children so that they can have some well-deserved time-out’s for themselves.
Over her career, Tanya has worked in corporate environments, providing recruitment services to clients across different industries.
