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Tag: Weight

Shopping List I

By on April 12, 2016in Choosing Healthy Foods, Food Preparations, Health and Wellness Blog, Healthy Eating Habits

Ok, so still no recipes quite yet! That’s because you need to set up a healthy pantry first! Here is a Shopping List that will fill your fridge and your cupboards with all the ingredients and nutritious foods you will need to make our recipes.

Baked Goods: Ezekiel bread, Manna bread, Coconut meat paleo wraps

Baking Ingredients: Baking powder (aluminum-free), Baking soda (aluminum-free), Cream of tartar, Flour, Almond, Amaranth, Buckwheat, Chestnut, Coconut, Hemp, Millet, Oats, Quinoa

Beverages: Coconut water (raw, fresh), A variety of teas (Chaga Mushroom, Dandy Blend Dandelion Tea, Green tea, Horsetail, Matcha tea, Nettle, Reishi, Ron Teeguarden teas)

Boxed Goods: Vegetable broth (organic), Meat broth (organic, low sodium chicken, turkey, or beef)

Canned Goods: Unsweetened applesauce, Artichokes in water, Beans (Kidney, Garbanzo, Black), Coconut cream, Hearts of palm, Pumpkin, Wild sockeye salmon with no salt added, Sardines

Cereal and Breakfast: Sprouted buckwheat groats, Ezekiel granola with cinnamon and raisins, Holy Crap, Jules’ Fuel, Quinoa flakes, Steel-cut oats (gluten-free)

Crackers: Mary’s Gone Crackers, Vegetable crackers (raw)

Dried Fruit: Apricots, Cherries, Cranberries, Dates, Figs, Goji Berries, Incan Berries, Mulberries, Prunes, Raisins

Dry Goods: Açai powder, Bee pollen, Blue green algae, Camu camu, Cacao nibs raw, Cacao powder raw, Chlorella/spirulina powder, Coconut raw shredded unsweetened, Maca, Marine phytoplankton, Mushroom powders, Noni, Phycocyanin blue pigment from Longevity Warehouse, Physillum flakes, Protein powders, Royal jelly, SeaSnax seaweed, Seaweed (nori, dulse, wakame, kelp), Seaweed soup by Truth Calkins from Longevity Warehouse, Sundried tomatoes, Vanilla powder

Frozen Beverages: Raw coconut water

Frozen Fruits: Açai Sambazon, Berries mixed, Blueberries, Coconut meat, Cranberries, Goji berries, Mixed berries, Raspberries, Strawberries

Frozen Vegetables: Corn, Peas, Spinach

Frozen Treats: Luna and Larry’s Coconut Bliss ice cream – great non-dairy frozen dessert!

Grains, Beans, Noodles and Rice: Amaranth, Beans all varieties, Buckwheat groats, Noodles, Bean noodles, Quinoa noodles, Rice noodles, Soba noodles, Quinoa sprouted and non-sprouted, Mung beans sprouted, Rice (black rice, sprouted brown rice, wild rice

Jarred Goods: Aloe Vera Gel, Anchovies, Unsweetened Applesauce, Artichokes, Organic Capers, Fish Sauce, Horseradish, Lemon Juice, Lime Juice, Olives, Tomatoes

Nuts: Choose organic,  non-roasted,  and  non-salted (sprouted if possible): Almonds, Brazil nuts, Cashews, Hazelnuts, Macadamia nuts, Pecans, Pine nuts, Pistachios, Sacha inchi, Walnuts

Stay tuned!  The rest of  your shopping list is coming next week!

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.

Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health.

The 10 Basics of Healthy Eating

By on April 12, 2016in Health and Wellness Blog, Healthy Eating Habits, Vitamins, Minerals and More

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS!  Let’s start at the beginning and think about some everyday choices that are simple to do and can make a big difference. Incorporating the following actions into your nutritional plan will lead to some profoundly positive changes in your physical health, energy and mental well-being.

  1. Eat as close to nature as possible: This means eating whole foods, such as organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds in their most natural state. Try to avoid pre-cut and prepackaged vegetables. Every time you cut up a fruit or a veggie, nutrition escapes, so the less slicing of fruits and vegetables you do, and the sooner you eat them, the better.
  2. Opt for organic foods: It’s a known fact that organic foods have a higher content of phyto-nutrients and antioxidants. It always cracks us up when we read the odd article on the front page of the newspaper, declaring that it makes no difference if you eat organic or non-organic foods. We can tell you without a doubt that eating foods that are sprayed with chemicals does make a difference. Even though it might not show up immediately, eventually it will play havoc with your overall health. “My Potato Project; The Importance of Organic” is a great video on YouTube that will change the way you think about organic food.
  3. Eat locally and in season. The fresher the better. It’s better to buy food from your own backyard than food imported from a foreign country. This is not only for environmental and economic reasons. Eating local food puts your body in tune with your immediate environment and compensates for the nutritional demands the weather puts on your body.
  4. Reduce animal protein: There’s plenty of evidence to show that reducing meat on a daily basis is a good choice (see end of blog for list of resources). If you can’t live without meat at each meal, start with baby steps, and incorporate a few vegetarian meals a week into your diet. When you do eat meat, keep serving sizes to one third the size of your hand and make sure they are organic and from happy, well-fed animals.
  5. Eat tons of raw, colorful vegetables. Almost all diets include lots and lots of vegetables, and the rawer the better. Although there are a few vegetables that are better eaten cooked, most vegetables lose nutritional value through cooking. As well, eating a rainbow of vegetables and fruits is a simple and fun way to ensure you get the variety of nutrients you need for optimum health.
  6. Include fermented foods, sprouted foods, and fresh green juice in your diet.  All of these foods boost nutrition and are excellent for your digestive health.
  7. Supercharge your diet: Add some nutritionally packed super-foods, like aloe vera, coconut, goji berries, blue-green algae and acai into your diet. However, don’t get carried away with this.  These need to be eaten in small amounts.
  8. Keep lots of healthy snacks on hand: Vegetables that are cleaned and ready to grab are one of the best. Whenever you leave home, carry a bag of food and a glass bottle filled with healthy filtered water. If you’re going to a movie, make your own popcorn and grab an apple, or bring your own goji berry and nut mixture, complete with raw chocolates, or whatever is handy. If you don’t bring your own food, you might be tempted to make bad food choices, and that food is usually loaded with sugars, horrible fats and additives.
  9. Find the right percentages: Try the 80/20 and the 90/10 rules. The 80/20 rule is eating until you are only about 80 percent full so you don’t overtax your digestive system and allow it to work far more efficiently. The 90/10 rule is eating healthy 90 percent of the time and cutting yourself a little slack 10 percent of the time. If you have to cheat, go for it and suffer no guilt.
  10. Calm inflammation by slashing the sugar and refined carbohydrates and balancing the fats by increasing omega 3s.

The key is to just focus on adding healthy foods to your diet, rather than taking things away. Eventually, your taste buds will change, and you’ll be less inclined to eat foods that aren’t good for you.

Resources:

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell

No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution by John Robbins

Dr. John McDougall

The Amen Solution by Dr. Daniel G. Amen

Sugar Impact Diet by JJ Virgen

 Access your complementary recipe here.

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.
Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health and exploding taste buds.

Best Practice Recipe Tips

By on March 29, 2016in Food Preparations, Health and Wellness Blog, Healthy Eating Habits

There’s no complementary recipe quite yet, as first we want to give you some tips and tricks to prepare for successful recipe making!

Here are some Recipe Tips to consider when starting any cooking process or when you are approaching a new recipe.  Try incorporating these 15 tips into your cooking routines, and you will be on a path to a happier, healthier, and more delicious life right away.

  1. Realistically determine how much time you have and whether you have enough time to cook a specific recipe.  Otherwise it’s stress not cooking.
  2. Start with fresh produce, and think about what’s available locally and seasonally.
  3. Be mindful of how you are feeling. Your body might be craving a type of vegetable or a soup, for example. You will feel much more nourished if you eat a dish that satisfies your craving.
  4. Check to make sure that you have all the right kitchen equipment for the recipe.
  5. Read through the entire recipe to make sure that you have all the ingredients on hand and know how long it will take you to prepare the recipe.
  6. Shop economically.  Here are a few examples.  Try saving money by going to the bulk section and just buying the small amount of an ingredient you need for a recipe rather than a whole package of that ingredient.  Split a large wholesale package up between friends.   The least processed and packaged a food is, the cheaper it will be. Compare the price of frozen vegetables to fresh vegetables when shopping out of season. Vegetables that are frozen are always frozen at their peak of freshness which means they are very nutritious.
  7. Save yourself a trip to the grocery store.  Innovate, be adventuresome, that’s what good cooks do!  If you can’t find the right herb or ingredient think about what else you have on hand that you could substitute.
  8. You can substitute dried herbs for fresh herbs.  Please note that if you are using dried herbs, you only need 1/3 of the amount of fresh herbs called for in the recipe.
  9.  Consider making a double recipe and freezing any leftovers.  This works when cooking savory foods like soups and casseroles (as long as you have a big enough pot!) but do not do this when you are baking.  Baking is more of a science, and measurements need to be precise for your recipe to turn out properly.
  10. Taste the dish as you cook, to make sure you like the way it is seasoned, you can add more salt, pepper or spice to it if you like.
  11. If a recipe calls for gluten-free flour, you can choose buckwheat, quinoa, or any gluten-free baking mix you like.  The baking mixes mimic the texture of wheat flour in baking nicely, but check the ingredients as they are often filled with garbage ingredients, high in carbs and high in calories.
  12. For sweeteners, yacón syrup can sometimes be hard to find and is expensive, but is a great substitute for maple syrup or honey. I like using organic raw honey and organic maple syrup occasionally , as they each have their own nutritional properties, but beware they will affect your blood sugar.  Lakanto is also awesome because it is just like granulated sugar, it substitutes well in baking, and won’t affect your blood sugar. Stevia is a good option too, but be careful with proportions, you only need to use a tiny bit, or it can be overly sweet and have a funny after taste.  Avoid artifical sweeteners.  
  13. Olive oil is a personal favorite for cooking.  When oil is heated it loses it’s nutritional properties, so when you can, try sautéing your vegetables or proteins in a little vegetable or chicken broth, and add the olive oil at the end of the cooking process to add flavor and fat to your recipe.
  14. Engage your families and friends in the cooking or cleaning- up process – have fun with it. Put on some music, sip some wine.
  15. Lastly, remember to take the time to sit down and enjoy what you’ve made! Chew slowly, be present, enjoy your company and be thankful for the food that is nourishing your body.

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.

Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health.

Where Do I Even Start With All This Health Stuff

By on March 29, 2016in Health and Wellness Blog, Healthy Eating Habits

To be nourished is something entirely different from being fed. When you make a conscious choice to be nourished, you begin choosing quality food that leaves you feeling good instead of merely satiated. You stop counting the calories in your food and you start counting the nutrition and life-enhancing benefits of your food.  You care where your food comes from and how it’s grown… To be nourished also means more than just the food you eat, it’s the relationships you surround yourself with, your sense of gratitude, the environment you live in, even how much you laugh!

HELLO! and Welcome to our Living Well and Eating Clean blog. In this blog we promise to provide you with all of the latest news, updates and flavors in the health industry. We will commit to teaching you how to nourish yourself and your family.  We also believe in bio-individuality, which means that no one diet fits all, therefore, you will find lots of animal product-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free and soy-free options.

Once a week you will get a content rich blog filled with insights into the latest happening in the world of health, nutrition and well-being.  A recipe will accompany the blog to compliment the week’s lesson.  We hope you enjoy the journey!

 

How can you get motivated to eat well and live well? Have you ever asked yourself this question?

Perhaps you have been stuck in the fad diet cycle? You know, the one where you are inspired into action with the latest weight-loss craze and after weeks of strict restriction and weird recipes, you find yourself gaining back even more weight as you return to normal eating. Well, the time may well be now to make a lasting change.

Every day it seems as though a new type of nutritional obsession is announced, and each one claims to hold the secret to permanent weight loss and better health. Is it any wonder there’s so much confusion? One week you’re told to eat soy; the next you’re told soy is bad for you. You have been tricked into thinking all no-fat, fat-free, and low-fat foods are healthy. In fact, they are destructive to your health, and they don’t fill you up. Companies have actually been replacing fat in foods with sugar, which, as it turns out, is actually the biggest creator of fat. Worst of all, almost all packaged foods now contain sugar. In this book, we have attempted to provide you with information so that you can make more informed decisions regarding your own personal nutritional needs.

We’ve all heard the phrase “you are what you eat,” and it really is true, that when it comes to brain health and optimum physical performance. Your body is a strong and vibrant machine that requires fuel, and even the smallest nutritional deficiency can impact your mood, emotions, behavior, hormones and performance.

The fact is, you are all unique and what works for other people might not work for you. There is no one- size-fits-all solution. Your nutritional approach has to be customized based on a number of factors, including how healthy and fit you are, your age, your gender and whether or not you are tolerant or intolerant of certain foods. You are a constant work in progress, so just because you were able to tolerate a certain food as a young adult doesn’t mean you can tolerate the same food at a different stage of life. Your body is always changing, and it’s important to be mindful of that.  At Recipes for Life we call that bio-individuality.

We encourage you to take a proactive approach to your health; it’s important that you continue to study and update your diet constantly because the information changes daily. There is a constant flow of new thinking, new research, and new products, so make it part of your health plan to stay on top of the latest information.

There are some basic, sound principles you can start with, to help you be the very best that you can be. Tune in next week to learn the basics of healthy eating!

Access your complementary recipe here.

 

Health Coach Rita Thomas and Chef Erin Holm hope to inspire families, friends and communities to live happier, healthier and more delicious lives.
Sign up for their weekly health and recipe blog to start your journey to good health.