Event: From the Inside Out with KORA and TOM
We’re hosting an exciting event with KORA, Miranda Kerr’s skincare company. There are limited tickets available, so get in quick!
To download the flyer below Click Here.
Detox Updates
We hope you are all enjoying your detox! For our detox plan, updates and recipes check out the detox page!
DETOX YOUR BOX!
February is detox month, as the new-year celebrations come to an end there’s no better time to give your body a rest and start making choices that you can carry with you for the rest of the year.
Which is why, here at T.O.M Organic we’re inviting you all to join us on a GREAT BOX DETOX. Because no part of your body should be exposed to any kind of toxin.
We’ve teamed up with the gorgeous Lola Berry (superstar nutritionist) the beautiful Dr. Carolina Gonzales (superstar Dr. of Chinese Medicine), the lovely Jessica Ainscough (our ‘Wellness Warrior’), along with inspiring recipes from Gwinganna (leading organic lifestyle retreat) to bring you a nourishing detox plan that will change the way you live (literally)!
Did you know that as women, our bodies detox naturally each month – it’s called your period, and science suggests that one of the reasons women live longer than men is because of this fact!
WHAT IS A DETOX?
A detox is just that de-toxifying – getting the toxins out of your body. The best way to detox is to make long-term dietary improvements It’s pretty simple really, we just need to look at what we put into and onto our bodies – work out what’s toxic and replace it with something that’s not.
It doesn’t need to be a fad and it doesn’t need to be extreme, in fact it’s more about making good lifestyle choices that can affect both your body and the world we live in.
It’s important to remember that there’s no point in just concentrating on what you eat if you continue to wash yourself in chemicals and lather them on your skin, make sure your detox is all encompassing inside and out with respect to our body, soul and planet (tampons included!).
HOW DO I DO IT?
STEP 1: PREPARE. This is a mistake most people make – they just jump straight in the deep end, but to have a lasting effect it’s imp
ortant to know what you’re doing wrong in the first place. Spend the first few days making lists – of the things you eat on a regular basis, the contents of your bathroom and laundry cupboards. Now you have the list, you can identify the problem areas and start to fix them!
STEP 2: MARKET DAY. The most common detox complaint is that people feel hungry and that they have nothing to eat. This isn’t true – you just need to be well prepared and get creative! Find your nearest Farmers Market or Green Grocer; team up with a friend or partner – enjoy experimenting with new ingredients together! Rid your kitchen of all things on the “Don’t Touch” list (you don’t need to throw them away – donate non-perishables to charity or give them away to friends). And then stock up on all the things on the “Happy Healthy” list – grab some recipes from our Detox Blog Page and get cooking!
STEP 3: START ON A FRIDAY. It’s always a good idea to start a detox on a Friday – you may feel a little tired and grumpy for the first few days- that’s just your body getting rid of all the toxins – so give yourself a few days to adjust before you have to head back to work or school on a Monday.
STEP 4: BEGIN YOUR DETOX. Check out our DETOX YOUR BOX guide from Feb 1 right here for a more detailed look at our detox plan. For now, here’s a few starting points. For The First Two Weeks:
DON’T TOUCH:Caffeine (Tea, Coffee, Energy Drinks) Meat Dairy Soft Drink Sugar Wheat Vegetable, Canola Oil Soy-based products Processed Foods Deep Fried Food Artificial colours, flavours and preservatives Added Salt . HAPPY HEALTHY FOODS Fresh seasonal fruit and veg Eggs (limited) Fish Nuts and seeds (unroasted & unsalted!) Wholegrains: buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth, oats Brown rice, lentils, chickpeas, legumes. Coconut Flour, Rice Flour, Quinoa Flour Coconut Oil Coconut Sugar, Agave Syrup, Honey (limited) Fresh Juice (get creative!) Almond Milk, Rice Milk Herbal Tea Coconut Milk Yoghurt (dairy free)
Drink loads of water – it’s super important to flushthe toxins out of your body – as a general guide you should aim for 1 litre of water for 22kg of body weight per day!
Don’t forget to exercise. Detoxing is not about losing weight – but about making a healthier ‘you’ – so use your detox month as an excuse to get into a routine and help your body feel healthier and happier.
For the next month we will updating you regularly right here on the T.O.M blog, and via Facebook, Twitter, and KORA. So if you’d like to join us on THE GREAT BOX DETOX – we’d love to support you – and hear how you’re going!
For more DETOX YOUR BOX updates follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up to our newsletter here.
Cramping Your Style
As a teenager I remember my grandmother telling me that the cramps I was getting during my period were my body’s way of preparing me for labour (needless to say this left me in no hurry to have a baby!)
Many women experience ‘period pain’ at that time of month, in varying degrees of intensity from discomfort to severe physical pain.
During menstruation the body releases a hormone called prostaglandins, which causes the uterus to contract in order to help the shed its lining (and my grandmother was right, it’s also the hormone responsible for contractions in childbirth). Researchers believe that this hormone is one of the main causes of menstrual cramps – the contractions are painful because they compress the blood vessels to the uterus, cutting off the blood supply and depriving the tissues of blood.
What can you do?
Unfortunately not all remedies work for everyone but here at T.O.M we’ve come up with a list of natural remedies to help you out:
- 1. A heat pack is usually a good start – placed on the lower abdomen the heat helps to relax the muscles in the uterus. You can also make a ginger compress by boiling up a pot of ginger tea (raw ginger root steeped in hot water for 15mins), soak a towel in the hot water and place it on your belly, ginger helps increase blood circulation which should help with the cramps.
- Drink hot tea – the trick here is to drink LOTS of it, we’ve found that chamomile or ginger have the best effect because both have calming properties and ginger also helps to alleviate nausea.
- Regular exercise between periods also helps with cramping. Here at T.O.M we love Yoga, women experience hormonal changes during menstruation, and tend to become anxious during this phase. A regular practice of yoga can help relief from pain, and helps to relax both the body and mind.
- The power of Maca – taking 1/4tsp a day of this super-food has helped many women we know reduce cramping. Maca balances women’s hormones and that is why it’s so effective with menstrual cramps. Plus, it’s a powerful antioxidant (good things all ‘round!)
Everyone’s body is different, and they all react in different ways, so if you have any concerns about the cramping pain (or anything else!) that you experience during your period you should always see your doctor.
FACT: How much blood do we loose?
Seems like a few cups, right? More? I didn’t believe (and during my period, sometimes still don’t) that is actually only about 50-80 ml – that’s only about 1/4 to 1/3 cup.
Everyday we make choices about what we put in and on our bodies. Over our lifetime we may use 12,000 tampons – that’s 12,000 opportunities to make healthy choices, starting now.
An Evening of Incredible Food and Learning with Therese Kerr and Chef Kate
Here at T.O.M Organic we love to eat (no really, we LOVE to eat), and so we were super excited last week because on Thursday night we were lucky enough to spend the evening with Therese Kerr (Miranda’s mum) and Chef Kate at the KORA/Glo Health event here in Melbourne.
We had an incredible night, met lots of lovely people from the KORA community and learned so much about making good food choices for our bodies. We also ate, of course, and the food was both delicious and healthy! Winner of the night – Chef Kate’s Coconut and Raspberries muffins – these were A-Mazing, really truly, you should make these NOW!
The sugar free vegan chocolate dessert (divine!)
We learned lots of secrets to healthy, happy living and left with our goodie bag and a vow to stock up on all things coconut (flour, oil, sugar…who knew!). If you ever have to the chance to get to one of these events, GO! There was so much to learn and so many amazing people to meet and stories to hear, a big thank you to Therese and Kate – two incredibly gorgeous women (inside and out) – for a fantastic and insightful evening – my rejuvelac is in the jar fermenting, can’t wait!
Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for our attempts at some of the recipes we were given on the night!
Tea Time at T.O.M
Here in the T.O.M office we love our tea, we get excited when someone brings in new tea, we drink it daily (and there is often cake involved). On a recent trip to London Aimee spent a long time (she says hours) sitting on the floor of Wholefoods in front of the organic tea aisle, dreaming of filling up her suitcase with boxes and boxes of delicious tea.
It makes us warm in winter and cold in summer (iced of course), it can be soothing, invigorating, it can wake you up or help you to sleep. We often find that when That Time of Month hits we can solve many of our problems with, yes, that’s right, tea, many gynaecologists recommend drinking tea to help sooth period pain and cramps and here at T.O.M Aimee has introduced us all to, what has become, my absolute favourite homemade tea!
Homemade Lemongrass & Ginger Tea
1 stalk of lemongrass, cut into 3cm pieces
3cm of ginger, sliced finely
6 cups water
2 tbsp honey (optional)
Place the lemongrass and ginger in a pot with the water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Strain and serve with honey if too pungent. (Makes 5 cups.)
We’ve also recently discovered many other ways to use our tea! Cooled green tea can be used as a simple facial toner, and can even be turned into ice cubes to use after a facial! We also love using chamomile tea mixed with lemon juice (1 cup of tea for one tablespoon of lemon juice) as a hair rinse to bring out natural highlights and tones in your hair before summer!
Talkin’ About Tampons
image courtesy of socialchangeroom.com
As you can probably imagine – here in the T.O.M office we talk about tampons – a lot. Sometimes for hours on end, we talk about tampons and pads and periods like we talk about what we ate for dinner last night. In fact – it feels like such a normal topic of conversation that I can’t believe I ever felt awkward about it at all (and I did – those teenage years of a burning red face every time I had to ask a school friend if I could ‘borrow’ a tampon – as if you would ever give one back).
It’s funny – the awkwardness attached to tampons and pads (and menstruation in general) – given that every woman in her life has, or will, for many many years come in to contact with these products. We aren’t afraid of buying toilet paper, or deodorant or body wax. So why do so many – otherwise rational women – find buying tampons such an embarrassing experience?
We share makeup tips and our favourite beauty products – we rave about a new clothing store we found or even sexy lingerie we splurged on, but how often do we discuss the brand of tampons we use with our friends? Clearly I’m now the embarrassing friend that meets other women and doesn’t stop raving about my favourite tampons (T.O.M of course!) – but why shouldn’t we – there is no reason women should be awkward talking about this (and they are – trust me – I get all sorts of looks like I’ve just broken the most sacred code on earth) and it’s not like I’m going in to gory detail – when I discover something I think is amazing – I want other people to know about it – and if that amazing thing happens to be a tampon – then so be it!
We don’t talk enough about these things.
When I started working at T.O.M I brought home boxes and boxes of tampons and was getting really excited telling my boyfriend all about the benefits of organic cotton tampons (sales pitch unnecessary, but hey!). He stared at me blankly for a while – unsure what to say, hesitant to even pick up the boxes – then he says to me ‘Why are they [the boxes] different colours?’ to which I respond ‘They’re mini, regular and light.’ to which he says ‘Which one are you?’ My turn for blank staring, what? Which one am I what? Click. Oh, you think they’re based on the size of my…and then I burst out laughing. Obviously, before we have children he still has a few things to learn. We use up to 12,000 tampons in one lifetime – that’s 12,000 reasons we should be talking about tampons, because we should be vigilant about what we put inside our bodies – in all aspects of our lives. T.O.M Organic tampons were created to keep the chemicals out: of the air, water, soil and our bodies – which means you (and all the women you know) can have peace of mind every ‘Time Of Month’. So, until next time – please – share your T.O.M story with your friends, you mother, your daughter, your sister, your boyfriend’s sister (and your boyfriend), your boss, your teacher – all the women in your life.
Lots of Love, Amber and all the tampon talking girls in the T.O.M office.
Amber is T.O.M Organics newest staff member. Other than talking about tampons and T.O.M, she also loves eating mangoes in the sun, riding her bike to work and taking self-proclaimed ‘awesome’ photos with a LOMO camera (a real one, not an iPhone one).
One Online Order, Two Deliveries
We all know the feeling when that time of month hits. You open the bathroom cupboard and realise you’re out of tampons. Then you’re off scrambling to the shops (or worse, awkwardly sending someone else there for you). Here at T.O.M we’re all about making life easier, so we’ve decided to do the running around for you.
Our new door-to-door subscriptions not only mean you never have to worry about running out again, you can also rest assured that your tampons are certified organic, no chemicals guaranteed. We will deliver 3, 6 or 12 month supplies of Certified Organic tampons directly to your door. And to make it even more convenient, our subscriptions are ‘rolling’, which means that if you sign up to a 6 month subscription, we will direct debit your account twice a year and send you out a new 6 month supply of T.O.M. Naturally, you can opt out at any time.
But we’re on a mission to make all women’s lives easier. So to kick off this exciting new concept, T.O.M are giving you the chance to make a difference to someone else’s life too.
The Sacred Heart Mission Women’s House looks after women in need, offering them shelter, food, medical assistance, a place to talk, and a place to feel at ease.
For the next month (Nov 8 – Dec 6) with every online order purchased, we won’t just deliver to your door, but to theirs as well.
So help us make a real difference to women in need by buying your subscription from our online shop here.
Thanks ,
Aimee
Would You Eat Plastic or Drink Bleach?
The ladies over at KORA asked us to go into a little more detail about what the list of ingredients on the back of conventional tampon packs actually means?
The choice to stock our refrigerators with organic food and lather our bodies and faces with organic skincare may have become second nature – but how often do we take the time to read the list of ‘ingredients’ on our box of tampons?
Why should you care?
Almost every tampon sold in Australia (and the world for that matter) can be commonly made from: rayon/viscose, polypropylene, polyester and conventional cotton – and to that list you can add perfume and bleach and if the string of your tampon is coloured then you can also add dye. This list translates to: wood pulp, bleach, plastic, chemicals and toxic pesticides.
Rayon is used to make clothes, curtains and that wadding inside of zippo lighters
Polypropelyne is used to make packaging, carpet and Australian banknotes.
Polyester is used to make clothing, tents, sleeping bags and sails for boats.
25% of the world’s pesticides are sprayed onto conventional cotton; it is commonly known as the ‘world’s dirtiest crop’.
To find out more about the ingredients of your tampon head to over our blog at KORA
We’d love to hear why you choose non-toxic organic products!
It’s that ‘Time Of Month’ for you to be pampered by Miranda Kerr’s KORA Organics Skincare. Enter now by simply liking and sharing with your friends your friends to enter and win a KORA Organics Skincare Giveaway.
