Calendar
Current Classes:
Get Cultured!
Transforming Dairy into SuperFood Nutrition
Join us for simple and engaging course on making yogurts, kefirs, whey, rejuvelac, yogurt and kefir soft cheeses, yogurt doughs for baking (very exciting!), infused butters, ghees, and cultured creams! Requests honored also. All protocols presented are the product of years of research and study. What foods heal? What foods harm?
June 6th: 5:00pm until 8:00pm
426B Pennsylvania Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95062
$40-50 Sliding scale
Health Alchemy classes 2010 – What are they?
Check the calendar regularly as it can change suddenly with new offerings.
The class offerings will be adjusted according to demand. This series is meant to teach Life Skills 101. This is learning how to eat skillfully, eating for the seasons, what to do when ill or different types of weather, and how to see imbalance before they become “diseases.”
Craig is teaching classes by request only through early 2010. Some possible topics are below.
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Craig can also offer private cooking lessons, will cater private parties up to 25 people, and he offers prescriptive yoga postures, breathing exercises, meditations, coaching, and how to plant simple foods and herbs in your garden.
Health Alchemy and Life Skills - Client Centered Healthcare
A Planetary Synthesis of Modern and Traditional Health
Instructor: Craig Lane
Bio: Craig Lane is a certified Nutritionist and Herbalist with a BS degree in Nutrition, author of the book Moving Into Balance, graduate of the Kushi Institute of Macrobiotics, a Shiatsu Massage Therapist, and a Macrobiotic chef. Craig resides in Santa Cruz, CA where he has a daily yoga practice. He turned to the path of a healer after breaking his neck in a car accident 20 years ago.
Syllabus: This series will cover practical and theoretical healing and health systems with a focus on direct experience, personal truths, and dialogue/questioning around current health paradigms. Students will leave the series with a comprehensive understanding of how to determine their body type, how to self-diagnose minor health imbalances before they become illnesses or degenerative disease, how to understand what health is according to different healing systems, awareness of how emotions and thoughts are affected by food, learning to eat different foods and cook differently during different seasons, how to cook for different types of people, meal planning, and understanding the use and preparation of animal food versus vegetable foods. Students will experience the elemental energies, learn to slow or halt the aging process, and begin to question the Western model of symptom avoidance through excess medication.
Note – This is a tentative offering of classes. Following is a supplementary list of class topics that can be integrated into the course offerings upon request. I have been teaching “client-centered” nutrition for ten years by offering people options in their diet plans and letting them choose what works and feels best for them. Some people like to be told exactly what to eat and how to prepare it and others only want general recommendations. This class series offers students a chance to see themselves and their health more objectively and how to help and teach others by “healing” themselves first and living by example.
Food Energetics and Elemental Nutrition- Students will learn the following in this class: a basic knowledge of self-diagnosis, a basic idea of what health is according to Macrobiotics, Western allopathic medicine, and other traditional health systems, a basic outline of intake versus discharge of bodily systems, why standard American refined foods cause illness, how to experience and discern between the “energies” of polarity operating in the natural world and in ourselves, and students will have a greater knowledge of how to discern between all the different dietary plans and philosophies.
Self-Diagnosis (2 classes) – The Art of Staying Healthy & The Fountain of Youth – How to assess your health and body type – Students will learn how to see themselves through awareness of the pulse, the tongue, skin color, bowel and urine changes, facial formation and skin tone, and other methods. Simple weight loss and gain pointers will be offered, along with information on how to make daily dietary adjustments to make balance in body, mind, and emotions. In the second class, focus will be on seeing ourselves objectively and learning the myth of the Fountain of Youth. The myth contains truths about longevity that can be lived and learned.
The Truth about Cancer, AIDS, and Degeneration - This class will focus on the body’s ability to maintain balance and why it cannot under certain circumstances. The disease and illness process will be thoroughly discussed, along with how the body adapts and how it functions in good health. Case studies and real life stories will be explained and discussed.
Experiencing the Elements through Common Foods and Herbs- Students will learn the following in this class: categories of foods and herbs and specific foods and herbs to balance ailments, ailments and afflictions. What elemental energies are will be experienced through tasting common foods and herbs and seeing illness and unhealthy feelings as aspects of these energies. The healing history of certain foods and herbs will be discussed.
Starting and Refining Your Cooking: How To Shop For Health Foods, Equipment Needs, and Basic Cooking Instruction – this class will focus on how to pick out the highest quality produce, what proper cooking equipment is needed, how to find high quality prepared foods, and how to plan meals and leftovers for a busy lifestyle.
Nutrition and Emotional Health – Students will learn the following in this class: what is emotional health, how the Chinese, Ayurvedic, and traditional peoples see it. How the “Western” world sees it. Chinese Five-Element and Yin/Yang Theories will be taught in conjunction with emotions. Practical techniques and foods to get back in balance, including specific foods, flavors, cooking styles, and different cooking methods will be taught, along with helpful meditations and inquiries.
Eating and Cooking With the Seasons- students will learn how to prepare different types of meals for different seasons and climates including using different types of foods, focus on flavors and colors, different cooking techniques, focusing on certain foods for different seasons, and the use of local, seasonal, and organic foods. Seasonal energies and how they affect the body will also be addressed.
Protein Foods: How to Prepare & Comparisons/Contrasts – this class will offer information and practical ideas of how and why to use animal versus vegetable protein, how to properly prepare and eat protein foods, why certain people should avoid animal foods, and why others should minimize vegetable proteins.
Weight and Performance Issues – Power Foods – students will learn how to lose or gain weight, how to increase athletic performance, and learning to differentiate between tonic and draining foods. Class focus will be on foods and herbs with concentrated nourishment to substitute for vitamins, minerals and other potentially wasteful supplements.
The Cholesterol Myths – No health topic brings as much misunderstanding, and ignorance, as the theorized cholesterol/circulatory connection. When the so-called heart disease studies are analyzed with an objective eye, one can see the manipulation of data to serve the pharmaceutical industries. This class will present what cholesterol is, how it is made, and how important it is for good health.
Intestinal Ecology – We all know anti-biotics are overprescribed. We also know of the value of steriodal anti-inflammatories for pain and discomfort. What we do not know is how the intestinal flora suffers from excess of these medications and other drugs. This class will cover digestion and the relationship of our intestinal microbes to good health and digestion.
The Truth of Dietary Systems – Many of us want to get in better health. Many know they are overweight and toxic. With all the hype and conflicting information out there it is no wonder many people are confused. Students will leave this class with an understanding of the positives and negatives of all the major dietary plans. Emphasis is on dialogue, personal needs, and willingness to see different perspectives.
Restoring Essence Workshop – This all day workshop will cover how to restore youthful essence and enthusiasm to our lives through diet, yoga, simple meditations, breath exercises, and other simple yet profound ideas. Craig offers his personal experience as inspiration and many exciting stories as well as a personal massage for every participant.
Healing the Healers Workshop – This workshop is designed for health professionals, even doctors, who have lost their enthusiasm from overwork and life burn-out. Many restorative techniques will be taught including yoga, diet and cooking ideas, breath-work, personal inquiry and guided meditations, a personal massage, and a one on one consultation.
What is Health, Really? - Based on personal experience, Craig has found many health experts, including doctors have no unified concept of health, nor do they the live the life of a healer. This series of classes is designed for medical and health professionals who feel bound by the fragmented and overspecialized “Western” concepts of health and the overuse of drugs and surgery. Clinics and hospitals can choose classes from the lists above, with Craig’s help to initiate health professionals into becoming anointed “healers.”
The Essence of Perception – For whom is all this for? How do we know what we know? Why do we notice some things and not others?
Experiencing the Elementals – this unique workshop will allow the participants to experience the primal building blocks of what these bodies are made of: air, fire, water, and earth. Using foods (the five flavors), breathing techniques, inquiry, outdoor plant activities and dialogue, the class will learn how to discern what their body actually needs, and what unexplainable, inner, subtle experiences might be, like hot flashes.
Sugar Blues Weekend Workshop – many Americans overuse refined sugar. Many do not know that sugar was originally considered a powerful medicine hundreds of years ago. Natural healers were persecuted and even killed for speaking out against its use. Now, we can learn to skillfully drop this poison from our diet. The root of many, many illnesses lies in sugar consumption. It drains the adrenals, causes blood sugar, moods, hormones, and energy levels to fluctuate wildly. The pancreas suffers. Our state of mind suffers (ADD). Stranded sailors who were forced to live on sugar began to show signs of insanity. Attending this fun and exciting weekend will offer restoration, hope, and inspiration to those suffering from unexplainable illnesses and pain.
Biological Transmutations – Protein and Mineral Anxieties Gone Forever! –
Experiencing the Chakras – evolution versus involution
Supplementary classes:
How To Cook and Use Vegetables
Energies and Indications of Supplements
Making Condiments and Sauces
Tying It All Together – Bridging the Gap Between Western Nutrition and Traditional Diets
Cooking with Miso, Seaweeds, and Fats/Oils
How To Prepare Vegan “Animal-Type” Foods
How To Eat Healthy On The Run
Cooking With Grains
Eating for Pregnancy and Nursing
Kid’s Foods
Eating for Old Age
Female Versus Male Dietary Needs and Adjustments in Family Cooking
How to Prepare less Extreme Desserts
New Class Ideas
Essence of perception
Elementals – Density versus Space
Men’s Essence Workshops
Truth Telling – Seeing I’s
Energetic Reprogramming/reframing//restructuring
Manifesting Motion, Sourcing Stillness
Resting in Stillness and Light
Balanced Living