Book Review: Optimize Your Immune System: Create Health and Resilience with a Kitchen Pharmacy by Marie Ruggles RD, CN + giveaway

Optimize Your Immune System: Create Health and Resilience with a Kitchen Pharmacy
by Marie Ruggles RD, CN
September 27, 2020
Genre: Heath/ Food/ Medical/ Immunology
Many people think that it’s normal to come down with an illness each year and, for some, two or three times a year. Yet researchers have proven that nutrition and lifestyle factors can boost your immune system.

Learn how to build a kitchen pharmacy of whole foods, superfoods and nutrients to provide a stable foundation for your health. And when you’re at an increased risk of infection, know what to do to derail a virus before it takes hold.

Follow this immune-boosting roadmap to a healthier diet, making you less prone to viral infections and more resilient after an illness.

In Optimize Your Immune System, you’ll read about the three phases of immune support.
Phase I: Everyday immune strengthening and care
Phase II: After exposure to an unhealthy person or environment
Phase III: Immune-boosting support to prevent an illness when you feel like you’re coming down with something

For each of these phases, Marie Ruggles, M.S., R.D., C.N., C.D.E., draws upon over forty years of experience within the wellness arena.

The book begins with her explaining how the immune system works and what it does. From there, she discusses the foods that help and hinder our immunity. She even gives a whole foods quick start guide for those who aren’t too certain where to start.

She also shares the concept of juice bathing, and how to minimize the fuss and mess of juicing while maximizing its benefit.

Optimize Your Immune System makes specific recommendations for how to fortify and stimulate your body’s natural defenses using a simple kitchen pharmacy, no matter which phase of immune support you are facing.

Diving deep, the book looks closely at whole foods, superfoods, nutrients and supplements, even giving specific product recommendations for those brands and products the author personally loves most.

The final chapter of the book pulls everything together in an easy-to-reference format sharing phase-specific recommendations, as well as how to eat more nutritious foods even if you’re on a limited budget.

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Marie Ruggles has written an easy to understand book helping people understand how to improve their health and build a strong immune system through the foods you eat. The book has a good format that makes it simple to refer back to for reference, and Ruggles also includes recommendations on the products or stores she uses, which helps you find some of the items.

One of the most beneficial things she discusses is processed foods. Processed food is something that has surfaced in the last sixty years or so and has had a significant impact on our health. Ruggles discusses how whole foods can improve already damaged cells and improve your health.

Her book includes chapters with meal ideas, ways to change up boring or repetitive dishes, vitamins, and minerals, to name a few. This book has so much beneficial information that I highly recommend this as a must-read for health improvement and making real-life changes.

Getting 5 sheep

Denise B

About the Author
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Marie Ruggle’s teaching focus is on coaching others to take back their power by developing a home inventory of natural wellness solutions. She is obsessed with searching for the healthiest products and bringing nutrition science (eating for prevention) into the kitchen by sharing easy hacks for getting real food on the table with minimal effort. Her background is in Nutrition & Public Health. She has a master’s degree from Columbia University where she started her career in research. She also has a certification in Essential Oil Safety and has been a Certified Diabetes Educator for many years.

Blog Tour Schedule 

January 4th 

Reads & Reels (Spotlight) http://readsandreels.com

I Smell Sheep (Review) http://www.ismellsheep.com/

Book After Book (Review) http://bookafterbook.blogspot.com/ 

January 5th 

Tsarina Press (Spotlight) https://www.tsarinapress.com/

Rambling Mads (Review) http://ramblingmads.com

January 6th 

B is for Book Review (Spotlight) https://bforbookreview.wordpress.com

Book Dragons Not Worms (Spotlight) https://bookdragonsnotworms.blogspot.com/?m=1

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@bookmarkedwithchris (Review) https://www.instagram.com/bookmarkedwithchris/

The Faerie Review (Review) http://www.thefaeriereview.com

January 8th 

Sophril Reads (Spotlight) http://sophrilreads.wordpress.com

@bookandwinelovers (Review) https://www.instagram.com/bookandwinelovers/

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Selah's Manga Mania Review: Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu Volume 1 by Natsuya Semikawa (Author), Virginia Nitouhei (Artist)

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu Volume 1
by Natsuya Semikawa (Author), Virginia Nitouhei (Artist)
September 18, 2018
164 pages
Publisher: Udon Entertainment
Volumes: 6 (book 7 releases 5/20)
A Japanese style pub called “Nobu” exists in a back alley of the fictional medieval European city of Eiteriach. Its customers? A pair of slacker soldiers, a spoiled heiress, an uptight tax collector, and more... When the citizens of this strange world sit down to enjoy some unfamiliar Japanese cuisine, their troubles simply melt away…


The curtain rises on this otherworldly eatery and the gourmet fantasy about to unfold within!

I love food manga. When it's done well it's relaxing and the culinary elements add to the characterizations and overall story. There are only so many ways to set up characters needing to cook, though...or are there?

Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu takes a Japanese tavern and links it down in a medieval(ish) fantasy German town. Soldiers, tax collectors, children, artisans all gather to eat this strange new food and drink an ale called whatsontap. I've only read two volumes, but in the second we get a glimpse that the Izakaya is actually a gateway to modern Japan, which is how the owner and waitress can secure ingredients found nowhere else. No matter what, Nobu, the owner/chef, and Shinobu the waitress greet everyone with open arms and feed them unfamiliar dishes catered to their preferences, causing them to fall in love with Japanese cuisine.

The good: This is such a relaxing, sweet title without being overly saccharine. Obviously, the characters are a vehicle for the food, but they all are fleshed out and are recurring, which I love.

Every chapter focuses on a different person with a personal problem to solve or a desire that needs fulfilling and they all find some sort of satisfaction at Izakaya Nobu. There's a real sense of community that slowly builds as the town accepts this strange place. It's also great that the food is referenced in Japanese and German terms, so both cultures are referenced.

Food titles either tend to reference dishes very quickly like an itemized list or take time building it into the story. Here, the dishes are the star, but the author does a fantastic job of using the creation of the dishes to develop Nobu and Shinobu and the consumption of the food to really show how people can appreciate and be changed by food. It's relaxing and exciting to see these dishes come together and strangely satisfying to see people light up when they describe what they're eating. You really feel like you understand what the food tastes like and how it transcends these villagers' lives.

It'll also leave you really hungry.

As of vol 2, the nature of the portal is briefly shone, and I hope it gets referenced more in the future. Still, the village and the food are what I want to see.

The bad: Nothing. This is a great all-ages title, though be aware that though it's a loose interpretation of medieval Germany things like marrying very young and being on the streets are referenced, so parents may want to read the first volume to gauge the feel. Honestly, you either love something like this or you don't. This is one of my favorite types of titles because it makes me slow down and relax, and reminds me to appreciate things like what's on my plate and who's around me. If you prefer fast-paced plot and drama, this won't be your thing.

The Ick: Nothing.

5 sheep hungry for yakisoba and whatsontap

About the Reviewer

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Selah Janel is a writer who is trying to start doing that again instead of reading manga all the time.

Selah's Manga Mania: Sweetness and Lightning Vol.1 by Gido Amagakure

Sweetness and Lightning Vol. 1

by Gido Amagakure (Author, Illustrator)

January 6, 2016

Volumes: 10

Publisher: Kodansha Comics

English publisher: NA Kodansha USA

Genre: Slice of life

192 pages

Having lost his wife, math teacher Kouhei Inuzuka is doing his best to raise his young daughter Tsumugi as a single father. He's pretty bad at cooking and doesn't have a huge appetite to begin with, but chance brings his little family and one of his students, Kotori Iida, together for homemade adventures. With those three cooks in the kitchen, it's no wonder this dinner table drama is so delicious.

I like to bop back and forth between newer and older series, and there’s one that I’ve gotten into lately that’s super cute, great if you’re not here for gooey romance, and spectacular if you love food.

If you know me even for five seconds, you know that I’m here for food. I will binge culinary documentaries to relax, Chef is a fave comfort movie of mine, and I will zone out to PBS cooking shows.

So I am completely here for Sweetness and Lightning by Gido Amagakure. The basic plot is Kohei Inuzuka is a teacher who has lost his wife and is trying to care for his young daughter, Tsumugi. The thing is, he’s not great at cooking. He encounters his student, Kotori Iida at her mom’s restaurant and helps prepare a basic meal for the pair. The thing is…she’s also not too great at cooking. Her mother is an expert, but is often off doing media stuff around the country and isn’t home a lot. Through the offscreen help of her mother and some friends (and some trial and error) the three meet at the restaurant to learn to prepare dishes together.

We all know I love Baby and Me (review), so this series is going to tick a lot of my boxes.

The Good: Just a lot of cute. So much cute. Tsumugi at school, her gaining confidence through learning about food, and just so many great scenes of the three muddling through things. I also really like that the parent/child relationship is extremely positive, and there are also plenty of scenes of them working through missing the wife/mother – a lot of the dishes they make are things that remind them of her or can be traced to her, so you never feel like her death is a complete macguffin to get the series rolling. You also see Tsumugi grow a lot (I’m up to volume 5 out of 10) and interact and learn with the kids in her preschool and extracurricular activities.

I also like a lot of Iida’s development – she has a phobia of knives but wants to progress as she sees Tsumugi learn things. You also slowly get a sense of her relationship with her divorced parents and friends around her. She starts out super introverted and she never becomes terribly extroverted, but there’s a realistic progression.

And the food. If you ever wanted to learn about Japanese food, this is a great series. The preparation scenes have almost loving detail, and it’s fun to see characters taking time to enjoy and talk about why these dishes have meaning to them. Food is definitely a character all its own and this series handles is really well. And it will make you so hungry. I went out for Japanese the other day and it was all I could do to not order one of everything (and I may have been scanning through the menu covertly seeing if anything was from the series so I could try it. What, we all have our priorities).

It’s also great to see female characters enjoying food, and pretty much most of the main cast has their own unique relationship with certain dishes, as well as various levels of skill in the kitchen (men and women. This is even brought up at times, which is extra nice).

The bad: Nothing, really, so far. The only thing I’m a little antsy on is that there’s the undercurrent of Iida having a crush on Inuzuki. The thing is, so far this has been played pretty subtly so I’m not quite sure if it’s going to go into her seeing him as a father figure or keeping with the student/teacher crush. The only reason I bring it up is manga sometimes has a history of pairing students and teachers together, and honestly, it’s not my thing. Plus, in the context of this (because she’s like high school and presumably a minor and he’s old enough to have a kid that’s about three), seeing that through on-screen would kind of kill it for me. As of volume five, nothing has really developed and though her feelings are noticed by others and it’s brought up from time to time, it’s been danced around so far, which feels normal to me. If it starts actively becoming a thing, though, then we’d have to revisit.

The ick: Nah, nothing, unless you hate reading about gorgeous food preparation and enjoyment.

The bonus: this is one of a few food-centric mangas, and like its brethren it features recipes. No, I haven’t taken the time to try one yet (I have some anxious flashbacks to Kitchen Princess and trying to help make flan from its recipe), but it has them, and it’s also really great about explaining the dishes and the process within the pages of the story, itself. The endnotes about certain things that may not translate are also very good for this manga, as well.

All in all, I say give it a try. Have a snack handy, though, you’ll need it.

4.5 hungry sheep

About the Author:

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Selah Janel is a writer who is trying to start doing that again instead of reading manga all the time.

Glittery Ghoul Donuts with Laura Bickle (Flesh book tour) + giveaway

Glittery Ghoul Donuts 
By Laura Bickle

When I saw vampire donuts come across a friend’s Facebook feed, I knew that I had to give them a try. I’ve had my own share of Pinterest disasters, to be certain, but I think this is something I can handle. The worst thing that could possibly happen would be that I’d have a dozen mangled donuts, right? I could eat all the evidence before anyone was the wiser. 

1. I gathered my materials. I picked up a dozen glazed donuts, a bag of plastic vampire fangs, and a package of candy eyes. For fun, I got some edible glitter. I originally thought I might make sparkly vampire donuts with silver glitter, but decided to get green so that the completed creatures would remind me more of ghouls.

2. I squished some vampire fangs into the donut holes to make mouths.

3. Then I added the candy eyes. They stick very well into the donut glaze.

4. Then I dusted the donuts with edible green glitter. I was pretty pleased with my green choice…they seem particularly monstrous.

5. And ta-da! A horde of flesh-eating ghoul donuts!

I’m counting this as a Halloween craft win.

Do you have any Halloween crafts you’re going to make this season? Any raven wreaths, bat cookies, or carved pumpkins on your agenda? 

Flesh 

by Laura Bickle September 19, 2017 
Genre: YA Horror
ISBN: 9781537857992
ASIN: B074XBJ697
Number of pages: 307
Word Count: 76,573
Cover Artist: Danielle Fine
The dead are easy to talk to. Live people, not so much.

Charlie Sulliven thinks she knows all the secrets of the dead. Raised in a funeral home, she’s the reluctant “Ghoul Girl,” her reputation tied to a disastrous Halloween party. But navigating her life as a high school sophomore is an anxiety-inducing puzzle to her. She haunts the funeral home with her parents, emo older brother, Garth, their pistol-packing Gramma, and the glass-eyeball-devouring dachshund, Lothar.

Chewed human bodies are appearing in her parents’ morgue…and disappearing in the middle of the night. The bodies seem tied to a local legend, Catfish Bob, who has resurfaced in the muddy Milburn river near Charlie’s small town. When one of Charlie’s classmates, Amanda, awakens in the cooler as a flesh-eating ghoul, Charlie must protect her newfound friend and step up to unravel the mystery…and try to avoid becoming lunch meat for the dead.

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Excerpt
“Amanda, I…Oh.”

I don’t know what else to say. My brain just shuts down.

She is wearing the sheet, wound around her like a toga. It trails behind her bare feet, sort of like a painting about Greek goddesses I’ve seen in art books. She’s leaning over another body stored in the cooler unit on a cart. Her back is to me, and I can only see her pale skin and her burgundy-black hair shuddering.

“Amanda.”

She turns at the sound of my voice, seeming only to hear me for the first time. Her face is covered in dark blood. In her hand, she’s holding a big chunk of purple flesh. Her eyes are half-closed. The autopsy incision on the elderly body below her has been ripped open, and I’m pretty sure that what she’s holding is a lung.

“So hungry…” she murmurs.

I retreat until my back presses against the cold door. A whimper escapes my lips, and I drop the laundry basket with a sharp crack of plastic on the tile floor. This has to be a dream. A screwed-up anxiety dream that I’ll wake up from any moment now…

Amanda’s black eyes snap open. She stares at the chunk of flesh in her hand. “I…Agh…What’s going on?”

Lothar waddles over to her and begins to beg. Bile rises in my throat. “That’s Mrs. Canner,” I manage to answer. “She’s seventy-two and died of surgery complications for varicose veins. Deep vein thrombosis, I think. I don’t remember.” I’m babbling, trying to keep the bile down.

Amanda drops the lung with a wet splat. The dog scrambles to it and begins scarfing it down. Her hands are trembling. She presses them to her temples. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

I nudge the laundry basket closer to her with my foot. “I brought you some clothes. And, um. Food. You should get dressed.”

I think I should be afraid. I think I really ought to be. But Amanda seems genuinely confused. She reaches for the clothes I’ve brought her. To be polite, I know that I should really look away. But I can’t move. I am not turning my back on her. My heart pounds, and I struggle to take deep, uneven breaths.

Amanda unwinds the sheet and slips into my clothes. Though I avert my eyes, I see that her shoulder and side are still torn open. But my mother hasn’t begun the autopsy yet, so there is no Y-incision across her chest and abdomen.

“Do you remember what happened to you?” I manage to ask. I congratulate myself for having a rational thought. Woot.

Her voice is halting, and her brow wrinkles as she struggles to button my jeans. “I remember…something was chasing me. Jesus, it hurt…” Her hand comes up to her neck, and she seems to remember, fingering the edges of the wound. “Am I in a hospital?” she asks again.

I suck in a breath. “No. You’re at my house.” It’s not a lie. Not really.

She scans the room, as if registering the sight of the cadavers. “You’re the girl whose parents run the funeral home. The Ghoul Girl.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” I tell her.

“Why am I here?” Her breath makes ghosts in the cold air.

“The Sheriff found you, alongside the road.” That’s true also, even if not the whole truth. “I think we should get you upstairs, so you can talk to my parents…”

She shakes her head, and her dark hair slaps across her face. “No. I…Oh my god. I’m here because…somebody thought I was dead?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah.”

About the Author:
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Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams. 

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