7 day nourishing autumn menu
Autumn belongs to the Metal element, nourishing the Lungs & Large Intestine; dryness, grief, and letting go.
But all seasonal healing begins with the Earth element:
the Spleen and Stomach.
When digestion is warm, strong, and supported, Lung qi descends with clarity, and immunity deepens.
This meal plan is here to warm digestion,
moisten the Lungs, and steady the emotions heading into the holidays.
Donations are welcome if you feel called.
Follow along and nourish the season with me.
~LoLo
Seasonal menu rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine and ancestral nourishment.
Nourishment has never belonged only to the privileged.
It has always belonged to the people: to mothers stirring pots with whatever was available, to grandmothers making medicine from kitchen scraps, to families stretching ingredients with skill, heart, and ancestral wisdom.
Traditional Chinese Medicine teaches that healing begins with what we already have.
Not with perfection. Not with elaborate ingredients.
But with warmth, intention, and the simple act of tending the body with care.
I want you to feel rooted, not pressured.
Use this meal plan as a guide, not a rule
Substitute freely. Shop from your pantry. Buy local or organic when you can, and when you can’t, honor what is accessible.
Your health is not determined by price tags, labels, or trends.
It is shaped by rhythm, season, presence, and the small, consistent ways you nourish yourself and your family.
This work is for all of us, especially the women, mothers, caregivers, and community tenders who make so much out of so little.
You are seen. You are part of a lineage of resourceful, intuitive, resilient healers.
May these meals remind you that wellness is not a product, but a living ecosystem.
A weaving of tradition, body, Earth, and remembrance.
~LoLo
A mother. A medicine woman in training. A keeper of stories. A builder of worlds.
LoLo Schaffer
I have lived many lives inside this one.
Daughter. Sister. Auntie. Mother of five. Doctoral student of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Researcher in ethnobotany and women’s folk traditions. Community herbalist. Homeschooling mama. Ritualist. Writer. And a woman who has risen, again and again, from the ashes of old identities and old homes.
My path into this work did not begin in a classroom, it began in the body.
In illness.
In mothering children with autoimmune conditions while navigating my own.
In learning how to repair what had been fractured: generationally, emotionally, and physiologically.
It began in dreams, too; the kind that arrive like initiations.
Dreams of giraffes tearing away old skin so new life could grow.
Dreams of bees leaving the body so the wound could finally breathe.
Dreams of Egyptian cats leading my children and me across thresholds into worlds of safety, beauty, and belonging.
Dreams of waves that restored my strength.
Dreams of angels carrying chants into the sky.
These weren’t just dreams; they were instructions.
They taught me what my elders never could:
that the body remembers, the Earth remembers, and women’s medicine never disappears…it waits.
My life’s work is to remember what was lost in my lineage, and to help others remember too.
Why Amel Wellness Exists
Amel Wellness is a living ecosystem, a place where Traditional Chinese Medicine, ancestral foods, ethnobotany, and feminine folk medicine come together as one healing lineage.
This work is my response to the silencing of women’s knowledge.
To the erasure of midwives, herbalists, foragers, foremothers, and keepers of song.
To the disconnection created by modern life.
It is also my response to my children, to witnessing their bodies speak through illness, resilience, and sensitivity. They are my greatest teachers. They shaped the way I understand inflammation, nourishment, and repair. They shaped the way I understand love.
Today, I stand in my work, not as someone who arrived, but as someone continually apprenticed to the Earth, the seasons, and the ancestors.
What I Do
At Amel Wellness, I weave:
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Ethnobotanical research
Herbal medicine
Ancestral foodways (including carnivore/ancestral nourishment)
Seasonal living
Ritual and folk practices
Community education
Storywork and remembrance
My hope is simple:
To help people remember what the body and Earth have always known.
To offer remedies that nourish, rituals that restore, and teachings that root us back into the web of life.
Every formula, workshop, recipe, and written piece is a small act of ecological restoration:
tending soil, tending body, tending spirit.
Where I Am Rooted
I carry strong threads to Italy, my matrilineal lands calling me back through language, dreams, and memory.
I currently live and work in Eastern North America, where the forests, rivers, and seasons continue to shape my medicine.
Welcome
Welcome to a healing space that is not transactional, but relational.
Not a product, but a living system.
Not self-care, but soul-care.
Welcome to a place where you can remember yourself.
Welcome to the work.
Welcome to the returning.
Welcome to Amel Wellness.