I'm sitting in Starbucks reading through "The Juice Generation" by Eric Helms, founder of the first juicery in the US back in 1999 before any of us really starting thinking about juice that extended beyond Tropicana. It seemed fitting that a little boy started sobbing in front of me upon finishing his juice. I feel your pain, little man. Sometimes those satisfying flavors are too darn hard to part with. I've been witnessing an immense support of this so-called juice generation in the storefront where I work and am amazed at how passionately so many locals feel toward the products. When there is a surge of popularity for anything in the health and fitness world, I'm inclined to immediately take a step back before jumping through the floodgates. Sometimes the health benefits may be available, but intentions are not correctly aligned. The owners have established more than a business here, however, by promoting a balanced lifestyle and self-care perspective. Juice bars are popping up all over the place, and though many may approach the business honestly, some are simply taking advantage of a trend. The production may be half-hearted, produce may not be 100% organic in an effort to cut costs and boost profits, and juices may be watered down, reducing the nutritional punch in each bottle. I'm not exactly business-minded, as I find the heart and soul behind a name to be the most crucial element of a company, rather than profit margins.
And it's all about the mentality in my book. I rolled out my mat in a hot yoga class on Monday, and began the class not with an immediate sweat session, but with a moment of stillness. The instructor made a point to have us take a minute to set our intentions for the practice that morning. Sure, it's just one hour of the day, but the power of a short period of time when approached humbly can significantly alter your attitude toward the day, toward others, and toward yourself. Intentions can be focused physically, emotionally, or mentally, whichever you feel needs the most love and care. We dedicated a few minutes to headstands. I have never been able to find my way into one, but I slowed the process, followed the introductory steps, and used core strength I didn't even know I had to lift my feet off the ground, eventually holding the full pose. I was SO excited. It was both a physical and mental accomplishment. We really are our own worst enemies. I felt such an overwhelming wave of pride, not because I thought I could show off to the class (there were 4 other people), but because I beat myself. Yoga is another one of those "trends", but when practiced with pure intentions, you fully understand its draw and grasp the benefits.
So let's work on setting our intentions, whether big or small.
1/28/15
1/17/15
The Balls are Good
As I've previously discussed, I'm a sugar lover but terrified of the vast amounts we consume. There has to be a happy medium in the food world where "sweet" doesn't have to mean "bad for you". I am now working part-time at a small raw & organic juice company here in Ohio called Native Cold Pressed. Their products are absolutely delicious using only organic fruits and vegetables, no water. You're getting a solid 3-5 pounds of produce in each bottle which is incredible. Consuming vegetables has never been so easy. A friend of the owners' happens to run a small company that makes clean energy bites, which we sell in our storefront. They're crazy good.
So I was trying to think of delicious snacks I could make to have on hand and something I could easily take with me to work, and the obvious dawned on me. As much as I support our local companies, I can just make my own energy bites! I've made coconut-date balls in the past consisting of only dates, almonds, and coconut essentially thrown in the food processor and you're done. Sadly when I moved to Columbus, I moved away from the food processor in my mom's kitchen. But a blender turned out to work just fine! I stumbled upon a very appealing food blog called "Better With Cake", where the author shares recipes for healthy treats. The following is my adaptation of her cookie dough bites:
Yields 16 Energy Bites
Ingredients
So I was trying to think of delicious snacks I could make to have on hand and something I could easily take with me to work, and the obvious dawned on me. As much as I support our local companies, I can just make my own energy bites! I've made coconut-date balls in the past consisting of only dates, almonds, and coconut essentially thrown in the food processor and you're done. Sadly when I moved to Columbus, I moved away from the food processor in my mom's kitchen. But a blender turned out to work just fine! I stumbled upon a very appealing food blog called "Better With Cake", where the author shares recipes for healthy treats. The following is my adaptation of her cookie dough bites:
Yields 16 Energy Bites
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Raw Cashews
- 1/2 Cup Rolled Oats
- 14 Jumbo Medjool Dates, pitted
- 1 tsp. Vanilla
- 2 Tbsp. Ground Flaxseed
- 1/2 tsp. salt
Directions
- Combine cashews and oats in a blender. Blend until you have "flour", this should yield 2 cups
- Set flour aside and blend dates. Yields 2 cups of binding agent
- Add the flour back in the blender with the dates and remaining ingredients.
- Blend until you have a thick consistency
- Use a tablespoon to ball up your "dough" until it's in the desired shape
- Store in fridge or on counter in an airtight container, whichever your preference
These taste so decadent! Trey and I went through them over the course of 24 hours (I halved the recipe so it was only a total of 8). Dates are an amazing sweet source of energy that pack in both fiber and more potassium than bananas. They're a great tool for substituting refined sugars and I'm sure I'll be messing around with them more to come up with other combinations like this. Try them out, it's so easy! Credit to Emma at Better with Cake for the idea.
Tomorrow is Sunday which means you should be in your kitchen. Ta Ta!
1/15/15
The Decline of our Sanity
Last night we watched a documentary called "GMO OMG" - or I should say I was cooking and listening while Trey was watching. The director, Jeremy Seifert, and his children do a rather entertaining job of exposing the harmful effects of GMOs and the industry's efforts to covery it all up. GMO is a term that only begun to receive notable attention in the past decade, and I know that I didn't bother to learn more about it at first. This documentary was filmed in 2012, and all of the people Jeremy interviewed had either never heard of GMOs, had heard of them but didn't know what they were, or knew what they were and didn't realize they were eating them. It's actually a little scary to think about how the food industry has altered the basic building blocks of our food without outwardly letting us know.
But apparently not everyone agrees. Both Colorado and California rejected the labeling of GMO foods consecutively in 2012 and 2013, followed by Oregon's rejection this past November (NPR). Thankfully Vermont has signed the first GMO labeling requirement to take effect in 2016, with continued campaigns to prevent the instatement. Many soy products, refined sugars, and corn syrup are derived from genetically engineered ingredients. Are we really still not convinced that it's better for our bodies to avoid corn syrup and refined sugars? I honestly find the GMO dilemma funny from a consumer perspective. When you ingest these ingredients, you're hurting yourself. Why are we fighting so hard to continue? The FDA doesn't have any safety regulations or scanning processes for GM food, and there is alarming evidence of pre-cancerous cell growth from these types of products (Natural Revolution). It's a risky and unnecessary game.
Sure, I understand much of the fight comes from the companies surviving because of GMO use. They require much less crop maintenance and increase crop production tenfold, and that means revenue. But those crops will provide a yield once and once only, whereas unaltered seeds may produce for consecutive growing seasons. In developing countries, this reproduction is key to survival. If the food industry continues on to expand GM production, a lot of populations will be left struggling. Not to mention they're destroying the microorganisms in the soil necessary for reuse of the land. This practice expands, our land dies.
Food for thought (ha!) on this glorious Thursday in January. I'll share with you some actual food next!
But apparently not everyone agrees. Both Colorado and California rejected the labeling of GMO foods consecutively in 2012 and 2013, followed by Oregon's rejection this past November (NPR). Thankfully Vermont has signed the first GMO labeling requirement to take effect in 2016, with continued campaigns to prevent the instatement. Many soy products, refined sugars, and corn syrup are derived from genetically engineered ingredients. Are we really still not convinced that it's better for our bodies to avoid corn syrup and refined sugars? I honestly find the GMO dilemma funny from a consumer perspective. When you ingest these ingredients, you're hurting yourself. Why are we fighting so hard to continue? The FDA doesn't have any safety regulations or scanning processes for GM food, and there is alarming evidence of pre-cancerous cell growth from these types of products (Natural Revolution). It's a risky and unnecessary game.
Sure, I understand much of the fight comes from the companies surviving because of GMO use. They require much less crop maintenance and increase crop production tenfold, and that means revenue. But those crops will provide a yield once and once only, whereas unaltered seeds may produce for consecutive growing seasons. In developing countries, this reproduction is key to survival. If the food industry continues on to expand GM production, a lot of populations will be left struggling. Not to mention they're destroying the microorganisms in the soil necessary for reuse of the land. This practice expands, our land dies.
Food for thought (ha!) on this glorious Thursday in January. I'll share with you some actual food next!
1/8/15
Sugar, You Sneaky Bastard
I've had a fascination with sugar lately. The world is suddenly realizing that too much sugar leads to health problems and weight issues. As kids we're taught to eat sugar in moderation and parents fear that sugar high that will leave their children bouncing off the walls. So as much as we're all aware that too much sugar is a bad thing, we weren't ever told exactly why.
My understanding is still in its beginning stages, but I've read a book or two, a few articles, and watched some documentaries that reveal how sugar affects the body. Of course, we can find sugar in fruits and vegetables, but this is the naturally occuring fructose that our bodies are able to use productively because of the fiber that accompanies it. It's that added sugar that'll get ya. I've considered myself to be a relatively healthy person for a while now, but not until fairly recently did it occur to me to check for added sugars in products like pasta sauce, ketchup, peanut butter, cereal, yogurt, and milk. I love all these things and therefore they should love me. But it's an unrequited love, sadly. A good amount of sugar that is found outside of your produce is refined (aka Sucrose) and therefore stripped of any nutritional quality. Instead of turning into energy your body can use, it creates a huge imbalance that, in short, can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain if you're consistently consuming too much. The American Heart Association estimates that we should be intaking no more than 25 grams of added sugar, which excludes the delicious fruits and milk that most of us adore, but we consume a rough average of 83 grams each day. That's madness.
I am no nutrition expert, but I've definitely discovered a passion there, one that I plan to pursue in a way I haven't yet figured out. The funny thing is I was planning on sharing two chocolate bark recipes today and now I've ironically rambled on about the dangers of added sugar instead. Don't get me wrong, I love sugar and indulge in something sweet every day. But it's all about moderation, people.
As I mentioned, this post went in a different direction than intended. Ah, the beauty of free-writing. For a couple of reasons, I'm not going to share a recipe for sweet treats at this moment; One being my current focus on store-bought products that should never have added sugar in them, and two being that I just made SUCH a delicious pasta sauce from scratch. And I have to share that now, instead. I would like to preface this creation with a fun fact from my refrigerator. I have a bottle of Kroger Pasta Sauce whose third ingredient listed is sugar, hitting your system with a whopping 9 grams per 1/2 cup. I don't know about you, but I use more than half a cup of sauce on my pasta, so you do the math. It baffles me that companies feel the need to add sugar to a product like this one where the focus should be to bring out the naturally sweet tomato flavors with various spices. That's the entire purpose of spices.
My understanding is still in its beginning stages, but I've read a book or two, a few articles, and watched some documentaries that reveal how sugar affects the body. Of course, we can find sugar in fruits and vegetables, but this is the naturally occuring fructose that our bodies are able to use productively because of the fiber that accompanies it. It's that added sugar that'll get ya. I've considered myself to be a relatively healthy person for a while now, but not until fairly recently did it occur to me to check for added sugars in products like pasta sauce, ketchup, peanut butter, cereal, yogurt, and milk. I love all these things and therefore they should love me. But it's an unrequited love, sadly. A good amount of sugar that is found outside of your produce is refined (aka Sucrose) and therefore stripped of any nutritional quality. Instead of turning into energy your body can use, it creates a huge imbalance that, in short, can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain if you're consistently consuming too much. The American Heart Association estimates that we should be intaking no more than 25 grams of added sugar, which excludes the delicious fruits and milk that most of us adore, but we consume a rough average of 83 grams each day. That's madness.
I am no nutrition expert, but I've definitely discovered a passion there, one that I plan to pursue in a way I haven't yet figured out. The funny thing is I was planning on sharing two chocolate bark recipes today and now I've ironically rambled on about the dangers of added sugar instead. Don't get me wrong, I love sugar and indulge in something sweet every day. But it's all about moderation, people.
As I mentioned, this post went in a different direction than intended. Ah, the beauty of free-writing. For a couple of reasons, I'm not going to share a recipe for sweet treats at this moment; One being my current focus on store-bought products that should never have added sugar in them, and two being that I just made SUCH a delicious pasta sauce from scratch. And I have to share that now, instead. I would like to preface this creation with a fun fact from my refrigerator. I have a bottle of Kroger Pasta Sauce whose third ingredient listed is sugar, hitting your system with a whopping 9 grams per 1/2 cup. I don't know about you, but I use more than half a cup of sauce on my pasta, so you do the math. It baffles me that companies feel the need to add sugar to a product like this one where the focus should be to bring out the naturally sweet tomato flavors with various spices. That's the entire purpose of spices.
Veggie Madness
Ingredients
Makes 2 Servings
Makes 2 Servings
- Big Gulp of Olive Oil
- 1/2 White Onion
- 2 Cloves Garlic, crushed and diced
- Crushed Red Pepper Flakes, to your liking but don't leave them out!
- 1 14.5-ounce Can Diced Tomatoes
- 4 oz. Tomato Paste (Smallest size I can find is 6 oz)
- 1 Cup Packed Spinach, shredded
- 2 Zucchini & Spiralizer Tool
- Parmesan, for topping
Instructions
1. Heat saucepan over medium-low with olive oil, add onions and saute for a few minutes until they begin to look translucent
2. Add garlic and crushed red pepper flakes, saute together for another few minutes until the mixture becomes very fragrant
3. Add in the can of diced tomatoes, including the juices, and stir
4. Add the tomato paste next, stir well, and throw in all of your spinach
5. Continue stirring occasionally. While the sauce is cooking, make your zucchini "noodles" by pressing one end into the Spiralizer and twisting against the blade.
6. When the spinach has cooked down into the sauce, you're set to go!
7. Top half of your zucchini pasta with half (or more...) of the sauce and sprinkle in some Parmesan for added flavor
If you don't have a spiralizer, you should get one. It was gifted to me (Go Ari!) for Christmas and I never owned one before. Obviously you can cook regular pasta to serve your sauce with, but I love the extra dose of veggies.
Fresh food, I love you. It really is a privelege, so we should all be taking advantage more.