Live Well with Leonie

Wow!

One of the most biologically devastating inventions in the modern wardrobe is the narrow, pointed toe-box of the modern shoe. For hundreds of thousands of years, all ancient humans and indigenous tribes walked barefoot or in wide leather moccasins. This allowed their toes, specifically the big toe, to splay incredibly wide, grasping the earth like fingers. This ancestral "toe splay" was not an aesthetic quirk; it was a mandatory, elite structural requirement that kept the entire kinetic chain of the human leg perfectly balanced.

Modern biomechanics and podiatry reveal exactly why modern footwear is destroying our mobility. Your big toe is controlled by a massive muscle running along your inner arch called the Abductor Hallucis. When your big toe is splayed wide, this muscle engages, physically locking your ankle into a stable, upright position and preventing your arch from collapsing inward (overpronation). However, modern shoes violently crush the big toe inward, completely deactivating this muscle.

This structural collapse directly causes the agonizing bone deformities known as bunions, alongside chronic knee and hip pain. By abandoning our natural toe splay, we have completely destroyed our biological foundation. Transitioning to wide-toe-box shoes and actively practicing toe-spreading exercises instantly re-engages this dormant muscle. Are your toes crushed together, or do you have a natural, healthy splay?

Ok first up, I'm not butter-shaming this poor woman. She tried and it wasn't the best experience for her but she's learning how to make real butter and her friends advice will help next time.

Now when I first read this, I did think "pity she doesn't have a Thermomix" cos it actually does make butter so quickly and easily.

However, the lessons she learned are worth pointing out cos they apply to any butter-making regardless of how you do it.

First off, do use pure or pouring cream - not thickened aka heavy cream. I do have friends who use thickened cream to make butter and it seems to work for them but I prefer my butter unadulterated.

Manufacturers use gelatine, guar gum, lactase, vegetable gum (processed eucheuma seaweed - similar to but not the same as carrageenan - IYKYK), carrageenan (google it), and/or emulsifier 470 (fatty acid salts of aluminium, ammonia, calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium). Neither of the last three should be used in infant formulas but doubt an infant would be eating butter anyway.

Now I don't know about you and, as I said, I'm not here to butter-shame anyone but I prefer to eat butter. Real butter. No additives, no preservatives, no other stuff butter.

I get that real butter is usually hard so not easy to spread. However, a recent article highlighted that Mainland Buttersoft Spreadable is actually one of the very very few butter spreads that are actually just butter (with a bit of salt). I've bought this and been happy with the spreadability of it.

I also make my own butter in my Thermomix. Easy as and doesn't take anywhere near as long as this poor woman experienced.

Depending on the cream you buy, it's just seconds to minutes. For example, double cream is almost butter so whips into butter in seconds. Fresh cream will take longer. Fresh cream at use-by will whip up faster so grab that whenever it's on mark-down special and whip up your own real butter.

A final note on rinsing your butter. If you haven't done it or seen butter made you're probs wot-the-ing right now. You do need to rinse your butter in COLD water - the colder, the better. It draws out the buttermilk and the more you rinse it, the less it's likely to go rancid.

I store most of my homemade butter in the freezer in small packets. Whenever I'm running low, I just take another packet out.

Have you made your own butter? It IS so much cheaper and I love knowing what's in my butter!

Making this supermarket staple at home? Social media users say there’s one big mistake to avoid If scrolling through social media has ever tempted you to try making a supermarket staple from scratch, this kitchen experiment might make you think twice before reaching for the mixer. After seeing homemade butter popping up alongside homemade bread online, Better Homes and Gardens writer...

Another example of foil that’s plastic!

Opened a box of Mary’s Gone Crackers. They’re organic, gluten-free, tasty and pretty healthy crackers.

Inside the box they were wrapped in a foil wrapper. Could be foil. Maybe.

Definitely not. As I tore the packet open, the foil separated from the plastic. It’s obvious… it’s clear plastic.

My WhollyShrink ate it but it really annoys me it’s another plastic wrapper. The search continues. The education continues.

Love feeding my WhollyShrink but sure as hell wish I didn’t have anything to give it.

If you’d like your own WhollyShrink to feed the plastic I know you have in your life, comment PLASTIC and I’ll send you a link and a 10% discount code.

We may not be able to avoid plastic but we can do something about recycling it!

Now here’s a fab excuse for making kimchi! Just found a recipe on Cookidoo so have added it to My Week to make next weekend.

Have you ever made kimchi?

🥬🦠 Did you know? A bacterium found in kimchi has just given scientists a fascinating new clue about how beneficial microbes might help carry tiny plastic particles out of the digestive tract.

Researchers from South Korea isolated a lactic-acid bacterium called Leuconostoc mesenteroides CBA3656 from kimchi and tested whether it could attach itself to polystyrene nanoplastics.

The result was striking.

In laboratory conditions, the kimchi-derived bacterium showed an 87% adsorption rate—essentially acting like a microscopic biological “Velcro” that allows plastic particles to stick to its surface.

But researchers didn't stop there.

When they placed the bacteria in conditions designed to resemble the human intestine, it still maintained a 57% binding rate. In experiments using germ-free mice, animals given the bacterium also excreted more than twice as much nanoplastic in their f***s as control animals.

The study, published in Bioresource Technology in 2026, suggests the bacteria may work by physically binding nanoplastics and helping move them through the digestive system rather than breaking the plastic down.

And that's what makes the discovery so interesting: scientists are beginning to investigate whether certain probiotic bacteria could potentially act as microscopic “carriers” for environmental particles inside the gut.

💡 Try this: Kimchi is already a nutrient-rich fermented food containing beneficial microorganisms and fiber. Adding it to meals can be an easy way to include fermented foods in your diet.

The fascinating part is that the research isn't really about kimchi “destroying” plastic. It's about what one tiny organism living in fermented food may be capable of doing.

Sometimes the smallest members of our microbiome may have the most unexpected jobs.

White Willow bark - the original aspirin. It contains salicylic acid or salicin that works to block pain receptors.

I suspect most people today don’t realise that “herbal remedies” were the original medicines before drug companies realised there was money to be made by creating a synthetic version that could be replicated cheaply.

Now of course most people aren’t going to go and try to find a White Willow and start hacking off bits of bark. Rest easy (literally and pardon the pun). White Willow bark can be bought in bark, supplement, and powder form from health food shops.

Like all pain remedies, and indeed like aspirin, it’s not designed to be taken forever and always. If you have chronic pain, it’s time to get to the root cause and address that instead of the manifestation of the cause. Happy to have a chat to see if I can help you with options.

Surviving the brutal, relentless physical demands of tracking and hunting across the ancient North American wilderness required a fast-acting botanical medicine for severe physical pain. When Native American scouts or tribal elders suffered from agonizing joint swelling, intense muscle aches, or severe fevers, they turned to the White Willow tree. By peeling the bark and aggressively chewing the bitter inner layers, they could instantly silence crippling pain and continue their grueling physical journeys.

Modern pharmacology has completely decoded the astonishing chemical override hidden inside this ancient tree. White willow bark contains an incredibly heavy concentration of a botanical compound called Salicin. When swallowed, the body converts this into salicylic acid. When this acid enters the bloodstream, it acts as a highly targeted biological block. It physically hunts down and inhibits the COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes—the exact cellular mechanisms responsible for producing prostaglandins, which are the chemical messengers that trigger swelling, fever, and pain signals to the brain.

This ancient botanical compound was so flawlessly effective at stopping inflammation that the modern pharmaceutical industry chemically copied it to create Aspirin. Have you ever utilized raw tree barks to cure chronic joint pain?

Well they were delicious!

My tummy was gurgle-growling, letting me know food was strongly desired. But what to make?

Quick squiz in the fridge revealed eggs, cheese, fried bacon bits, and found a tomato in a bowl on the bench. Frittata! Mini ones.

Enter my Thermomix Nester which I’ve been dying to use. Hacked a Cookidoo frittata recipe and so delighted with the results. Scrummy!

I love being able to make my food my way by hacking existing recipes.

Another tip: the recipe calls for allowing the frittatas to rest for 2-3 mins. Didn’t want to stand waiting but there was a Louie buzzing around the room so inverted the Varoma base onto the tray and Nester which were already resting in the Varoma lid to catch the drips. Perfect. Must remember to do that for other things.

Like to try 100% pure Frankincense for yourself? Let's chat!

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Hey peeps, it's me again!

The label-reading, WTF is in that food product person.

I'm always intrigued by articles in emails and online where a study has been done or an article written about a food product.

Me being me, and you've probs realised by now that I don't always take what I read as gospel or that I necessarily trust what's written. After all, the articles etc are often written to sell a different product. Other articles are genuine studies to recommend tastier, although often not healthier products.

Here's one about tomato sauce. Now lil ole label-reading me knows that a lot of tomato sauces aren't all that fab. Some are quite high in sugar (or a sugar-alternative that may not be at all healthy either); some have a large number of other stuff than tomatoes... and so on.

Some aren't gluten-free which means they've been thickened with flour instead of ingredient-reduction through cooking. Yay (heavy sarcasm)!

What stood out for me in this article was that the top two contain 79% tomatoes written as if that's fantastic. Soooo what's the rest in there? Spices, vinegar, and sugar - whether real or sugar-alternative.

The low sugar and salt one uses a sugar-alternative and is still 1.8g of sugar per serve - a serve being 15ml. The second equal top product also low sugar and salt just states "sugar" as the ingredient so perhaps the real stuff. It has 2.3g of sugar per 15ml serve.

While it's great to reduce the sugar and not by adding in an alternative, salt is not the poison we've been told it is. It's necessary for our health but I acknowledge some folks do need to limit intake for health reasons.

I've bought different tomato sauces over the years - we all have I'm sure. If I didn't make my own these days, I'd be buying one of the commercial brands but making it as healthy as possible.

Making my own is just so easy in my Thermomix and soooo much tastier and healthier than the store-bought. It has more ingredients in it but they're all real food (no preservatives) so it's all about flavour and nutrition as well. It does have sugar in it but I reduce the amount to make it healthier and I'll be honest, I don't notice the reduction flavour-wise. Let me know in the comments if you'd like the recipe link.

What's in your tomato sauce? Dietitian compares popular supermarket bottles How does your favourite squeeze stack up? Image Source: Dennis Klein / Unsplash