#does this count as tsp content

[thenarryparable]

I need more narrator designs like Lemon so. Here.

(ITS LESS CHOPPY NOW)

[can-i-see-your-passport-please]

stanley parable? haha morew like stanley parallels am i righ-[GETS PUNCHED]

ok ok bad jokes aside TELL ME ABOUT THE PARALLELS IN THE FUNNY CROSSOVER AU MY EARS ARE WIDE THEFUCK OPEN !!! ! ! ! !!!

OKAY OKAY SO SO SO. The main parallels come down to the ARCS the characters go through, so let's discuss that first.

(General content warning for themes of the world being a game)

To put it very simply: the Narrator's character development is him learning he isn't as in control as he thought he is. He may have console commands, he may be the writer of the story, he may have some level of control over what the parable does, but he is no god. He is as bound to the code as anything else in the game.

Meanwhile, Gordon's character development is him realizing he's an AI- not just an AI, but one shaped by an outside force that sometimes controls his body, movements, and mind. It triggers an existential crisis in him, and also causes him to gain a deeper understanding of WHY Dr Coomer was so freaked out- the player knew why, but Gordon doesn't. But it also gives Gordon this different conflict- one of learning that his free will would regularly just get sucked away.

The Narrator and Gordon's arcs parallel each other in that they both realize they're not in full control. The Narrator has some, but not full control over the Parable, which infuriates him because he is shown to have this intense need for control- control over Stanley, control over his story, control over the building, control over his audience's perspective on his game, control over EVERYTHING. The Curator even pointed this out in the Museum End, about how Stanley and the Narrator wish to destroy and control each other.

And he keeps getting denied that control. Tries to control Stanley, that never fucking works. Tries to control his story, Stanley just refuses to go along with it. Tries to control the building, and it just shifts and warps around him, refusing to let him do anything. Tries to control his audience's perspective on the game... well, we know what happened there.

Gordon too has a need for control, but to a lesser extent. Gordon's (mostly) human, he knows he doesn't have full control over everything and never will, and is mostly chill with that (which translates to "never really thinking about it much," because how many of you think about the level of control you have over your life). And he does try to kinda control what the Science Team do, if "trying to get them to not die" counts.

However, he takes a level of comfort in the fact that at the very least, he has control over himself. He has control over his own body, his own mind, his own emotions. Sure, his temper is pretty quick to trigger, but he is the One Sane Man, and he can control himself.

AND THEN HE REALIZES HE LITERALLY CAN'T. His entire personality was shaped by a being beyond his comprehension, and all the control he thought he had over himself was an illusion. And at any second, all the control he CURRENTLY has could be completely sucked away, and his brain could be overwritten by something literally beyond their comprehension.

So tldr: the Narrator wants control over everything, and Gordon wants control over himself, and both learn that they've never really had that.

Now, Benrey and Stanley's parallels.

Benrey's character development is basically him slowwwly starting to have a complete mental breakdown. He's been hanging on okay for a while- he's hanging out with the Science Team, Gordon can be in the same room as him sometimes, he's not as much as a wreck as he was immediately post-Xen (though that's not saying much). But the strings that have been holding his mental state up are slowly but surely fraying, and he cannot hold on forever- especially if he keeps refusing to process the INCREDIBLY TRAUMATIC EVENTS THAT OCCURRED DURING THE RESCAS AND XEN.

Stanley's character development is... So, one of my favorite interpretations of Stanley back when I first got into TSP was that Stanley was so, so idiotically stubborn. And a facet of that stubbornness was he REFUSED to directly communicate with words, instead communicating through body language, actions, and drawings. I'm going with something similar, and his arc is being forced to fucking communicate sometimes. He eventually HAS to communicate not through drawings, but more through sign language, and he HATES having to use words to communicate.

Benrey and Stanley's arcs also parallel each other in terms of the fact that both of them need to overcome just how fucking stubborn they are. Stanley despises the Narrator while also caring for him deeply, but admitting he cares is giving the Narrator some level of power over him. And he refuses to ever give him any power. They are in an eternal game, and giving the Narrator power is giving him an advantage, a bigger chance for an ultimate victory, which Stanley will never give.

Meanwhile Benrey loves so deeply, so painfully, and desperately wants to help and be helped, love and be loved, but he would genuinely rather claw his heart out than EVER admit that. Because there's a part of him that's very aware that everyone would stop viewing him as the pure evil villain he "knows" he is if they knew how much pain he was in. He does not want to be loved or cared for in the slightest. After all, since when do bad guys deserve that? (And also Benrey's a little asshole <333)

Tldr: Benrey's inability to communicate with Gordon is primarily driven by love and self-hatred, and Stanley's inability to communicate with the Narrator is primarily driven by rage and spite.

So the main parallels are between Gordon and the Narrator, and Benrey and Stanley. However, there are smaller scale parallels that are just as important and interesting.

Benrey and the Narrator are one of those smaller scale parallels. They're both beings beyond human who are aware of it's a game, who are far, far more powerful than their silly gay person they like tormenting affectionately. (Also they've both refused to process two unfathomably traumatic events- for the Narrator, it's the skip button end, for Benrey, it's Xen.)

But there's a crucial difference there- the Narrator has a deep need for control, while Benrey doesn't. The Narrator needs to control as much as he can, especially since he already has this much power, which tends to be addictive.

But Benrey doesn't really care that much- his mindset is far more akin to positive nihilism than the Narrator's. Benrey just explores his powers, has a little fun, acts a little silly.

(And ironically, this gives him far more control than the Narrator has. Being that obsessed with control and power doesn't let you accept that there are things you won't be able to control. Benrey's accepted that, the Narrator hasn't.)

Stanley and Gordon are far more obvious parallels. Both are player characters, both are somewhat controlled by the player (see: Not Stanley end), both have a lot of contradictory emotions of simultaneous love and hate towards their powerful obviously gay sillyboy.

But the main difference is that while Gordon reasonably freaks out about being the player character, Stanley doesn't have much reaction to it. Partially because he's been living in the parable for an eternity, and partially because he's kinda... shut off his ability to let himself feel anything about it. After all, if he starts feeling something about the fact that he's the player character, he'll have an existential crisis, and his whole house of cards is gonna come tumbling down.

Meanwhile Gordon straight-up can't shut off his emotions about it. Gordon feels everything- love, hate, anger, fear- and he feels it so much that it's painful. Stanley's completely disconnected from his emotions, but Gordon is painfully connected to them. He might TRY to push shit aside, he might TRY to not think about it, but he really can't avoid things as long as Stanley can. It's just in his nature- he's far more emotional than Stanley is.

PLEASE KEEP SENDING ME ASKS ABT THIS AU I HAVE NORMAL EMOTIONS ABOUT IT

[themochimadeoftaro]

another aggie page that me and @nico00235 made yesterday with our sonas as narrator and stanley :)!

this one was a lot more cheesy HAHA /pos

Btw mutuals, if you want to do an aggie together... hmu 👀

[lowcarbnutrients]

How Your Passion For Health Can Skyrocket Your Career

When I signed up for the Culinary Nourishment Professional Program in the fall of 2012, I had no purpose of becoming an exercising nutritional expert or health and wellness coach.

To be reasonable, I had not intended to become a reporter when I looked for journalism academic year previously, either. I knew I wished to write as well as review things and also that I suched as paper as well as pens. I really felt something drawing me towards journalism institution, yet operating in a newsroom? Not for me. Still, my personal rule was to constantly follow my gut, no matter how crazy it seemed. I stuck to it.

Later, when I came across the CNE program and really felt that familiar "Yes! This! Now!" feeling, I chose to regard the call based upon an unclear suggestion that it would give me something to cover. I registered, learned to prepare as well as develop healthy and balanced dishes as well as, through several loads enchanting coincidences, now function below in the pink kitchen, on top of running my very own show as a web content programmer for wellness professionals.

I spend my days covering, reviewing, photographing and preparing food. It's my dream task, the one where my journalism as well as nourishment abilities get to be best friends.

It's a task I didn't also know existed, due to the fact that it really did not. I made it up.

When attempting to identify how you can transform your passion right into your day task, it's appealing to count on the well-worn paths: Coming to be a dietitian. A yoga exercise instructor. An individual trainer. You can plot it out on your five-year strategy, you can describe it to individuals in a sentence or less. You can point to thousands of individuals who've done the same point as well as succeeded.

But what happens if you're passionate about wellness and wellness, yet those standard jobs just don't feel ideal? What if you in fact like your day task, or you have existing abilities in a different area you do not want to abandon? What if you really feel drawn to do something, but aren't certain where it will lead you?

3 Approaches To Combine Your Abilities as well as Passion:

1. Your gut recognizes things you do not.

Let's admit it: Your brain is a little a know-it-all. It most likely likes to tell you that it's cognizant of where certain options will lead you, thanks significantly, since of reasoning and also previous instances and also probability and also such. Your brain probably desires you to march down one of those dirty, well-worn paths due to the fact that it's a hell of a great deal less complicated to anticipate the end outcome. Your mind suches as forecasting end results.

But what if your brain does not recognize the entire tale? Maybe the work you were indicated to have doesn't also exist yet. Maybe taking this action will certainly lead you to the following action, as well as your dream profession is 10 steps down the line. Now that scientific research has started respecting this "lower mind" in our bellies, it may be time for you to start doing the same.

2. It doesn't need to be all or nothing.

Following your enthusiasm doesn't have to imply a complete job change.

If you're enthusiastic about wellness as well as health, however still wish to maintain your day task, there are loads of methods you can combine both. Your CNE education can be your secret second weapon, the thing that establishes you besides the countless various other writers/lawyers/graphic designers/administrative assistants available. Perhaps you'll use your brand-new skills to make your existing office a much healthier place to function. Perhaps you'll bring in brand-new customers with comparable sensibilities. Maybe you'll just be way much better at your task since you feel entirely amazing.

3. You are unique. Your profession can be, too.

Your career could not look like anybody else's. That's fine. It does not have to. The world is changing, as well as your job most likely will not include doing the precise very same point daily for thirty years. I do not know what your future holds, yet I recognize that trusting your gut is the very first step towards obtaining there.

Parsley Avocado Mashup

By Jaclyn Desforges

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh parsley

1 large avocado

1/4 cup tahini

1 clove garlic, minced

1 inch ginger root, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

3 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp tamari

Salt and cayenne to taste

Instructions:

Place all components in the blender.

Blend until not-quite-smooth.

Serve with cut up veggies-- or consume it with a spoon. I will not judge.

Jaclyn Desforges assists nutritional experts and other health experts produce attention-grabbing content so they can feel great regarding advertising their companies online. She's likewise a Culinary Nourishment Expert as well as a training assistant in the Culinary Nourishment Professional program. You can discover more about her at jaclyndesforges.com or follow her on Twitter.

[perfectlyrose]

Up In Flames (5/10)

Summary: In the year since they decided to become a team, John Smith and Rose Tyler have made quite the names for themselves as Team TARDIS, bank robbers extraordinaire. Newspapers the world over run headlines about The Doctor and the Bad Wolf and their latest heists. They’re practically unstoppable.

Then their world spins to a halt with a phone call. Jack’s in trouble again and a formidable enemy from John’s past has emerged from the shadows to try and destroy the bank robbing couple once and for all. Will they be able to survive this new threat intact or will the life they’ve been building together go up in flames?

A sequel to Watch it Burn, a Nine/Rose bank robbers AU

Word Count: 2552

Rating: Teen

Note:  Surprise! An update! It’s only been a month this time! :D Our favorite stress baker strikes again! (Whilst causing more stress. He's multitasking.)

Read here: tumblr // ao3 // tsp  // ff

John quietly extricated himself from the still sleeping Rose’s embrace after a few hours of sleep and padded towards her kitchen. His head was spinning with memories of the Master and and vague plans to take him down that refused to coalesce into something he could actually use and all of it was infused with worry for Jack and for Rose. He was terrified that the Master would get his hands on his precious girl and John knew without a doubt that he would torture her just to make him suffer.

John squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, trying to banish the image from his head. He needed a distraction and the best one he knew was baking.

He hadn’t spent much time in Rose’s flat so he started rooting through her cabinets as quietly as possible  to see what she had to work with. A few minutes later he was staring at the collection of dishes and utensils he’d gathered in consternation. Rose had two knives, a small mixing bowl, a dodgy mixing spoon that had seen better days, and two cookie sheets. That was it. There were no cake pans, no spatulas, no anything that he would consider actual baking materials.

John was almost scared to look in the cupboard to see if she had any ingredients.

He had known from the start that she was a disaster in the kitchen but this was still a shock. Everyone should at least have the basics in their kitchen.

He wrote a quick note and left it on the kitchen counter for Rose in case she woke up before he got back and slipped out the door. There was a 24 hour Tescos down the block that should have what he needed, even if it was two in the morning.

Rose was still fast asleep when he returned with bags full of baking utensils and ingredients. He quickly put everything away and set the oven to preheat while he washed the new dishes he planned on using.

By the time the oven beeped its readiness at him he was almost done mixing his favorite chocolate cake batter. John hummed absently as he stirred the batter and then poured it into the cake pan. He slid it into the oven, set the timer then started working on his icing.

His mind quieted like it always did when his hands were busy creating sweets. The chaotic tangles of thought from earlier slowed and started to swirl into the shape of a nebulous plan.

His main goal at this juncture was to keep Rose away from the Master at all costs. Rescuing Jack and taking down his old enemy and one-time friend were important goals as well but they remained secondary.

He plotted as he waited for the cake to finish baking. By the time it was counting down its final seconds he had decided on a course of action. He turned the timer off before its beep could disturb the quiet of the flat.

John pulled the cake out and left it to cool as he went to go check on Rose. He stood in the doorway, gazing at the sleeping blonde. She was sprawled out over the whole bed, hair splayed across the pillow. There were soft snores emanating from her and John couldn’t suppress the small smile that bloomed on his face, didn’t even want to. He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d fallen in love, but somewhere along the way amidst the bank heists and bickering and long nights in bed he had undeniably ended up head over heels for his cheeky partner in crime.

She made him better. He couldn’t explain it but he was simply a better version of himself around her. Rose drove him crazy half the time, challenged him, made him mad, but she also made him smile more than he had in years. She always, always gave him hope.

That’s why he couldn’t let her get near the Master. The man took pleasure in destroying beautiful things and he wasn’t going to let him do that to Rose. He wasn’t even going to give him a chance.

She was going to kill him for trying to shelter her, was going to say that she could take care of herself and he knew that she could. But he needed to protect her from Koschei.

Rose was too important to risk. A world without her light wouldn’t be worth living in.

Ignoring the cake waiting to be iced, John shucked his jeans and crawled back into bed with the woman he loved. Without waking, she curled into him almost immediately, gravitating towards his presence like she always did. John buried his nose in her hair and worked on committing the smell of her and the feel of her skin underneath his fingertips to memory.

She had forgiven him once, but if his plan went the way he expected it would, he doubted he would be granted such benediction again.

As long as she was alive and safe, John thought he could live with the knowledge that Rose hated him.

As long as she was alive and safe, John thought he could do anything to keep her that way, even if it meant destroying himself and their relationship in the process.

He pulled her tighter against him and for just a moment tried to forget every reason why this might be his last opportunity to do so.

When Rose awoke about an hour later, it was to the lingering smell of warm chocolate in the air and the firm press of John’s arms around her.

“Mmm, this is nice,” she mumbled, still half asleep.

“Mornin’” he said, nuzzling into her neck. He was content to continue ignoring the outside world and the problems they were dealing with for another few minutes.

Rose flipped over so she was facing him, bumping her nose against his before leaning in for a quick kiss. “The flat smells like chocolate,” she said after pulling away slightly. “Did you get up in the middle of the night to bake again.”

“Might’ve done.”

“Smells good.”

“Want me to go get you tea so you can have cake in a bit?” he offered, knowing full well that she didn’t do anything before having a cuppa unless absolutely necessary.

“That’d be brilliant, ta.”

He laid another kiss on her lips, lingering and soft, before pulling away and climbing out of bed to go put the kettle on.

Rose watched him go appreciatively, admiring the view of his legs since he wasn’t currently wearing trousers. She knew she should get up and get started with the day, that time was of the essence when it came to rescuing Jack but it wasn’t often that John came back to bed for a cuddle or offered to go get her tea.

Between that reaction and the fact that he had gotten up to bake at some point, Rose knew he had to be more nervous about the Master than he was letting on. Daft man, always trying to keep things from her when he knew she was a grifter who could read people, who could specifically read him better than probably anyone else in existence.

Rose sat up, propping the pillows up against her headboard so she could lean against them. She had just settled in when John walked in with two steaming mugs in his hand. He handed the lighter colored one to Rose and cradled the darker one in his large palms as he sat back down on the bed with her.

Rose smiled at him, eyes still heavy with sleep. “Thanks, John.”

He just nodded and took a sip of his tea. Rose followed suit, humming quietly as it hit her tongue.

Rose was halfway through her cuppa when something occurred to her. “Hold on, we’re in my flat and I know I don’t own a cake pan but you said you made cake.”

“You didn’t own anything that could actually be called bakeware,” John said. “And nothing even resembling a cake pan.”

“You said ‘didn’t.’ Does that mean I now do own bakeware.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you seriously go out and buy kitchen supplies in the middle of the night?” Rose asked, incredulous.

“It was an emergency. No kitchen should be that lacking in supplies,” John insisted.

“I can’t believe you made a Tescos run in the middle of the night to buy bakeware for my kitchen.”

“And cake ingredients. You didn’t have flour , Rose. Who doesn’t have flour in their kitchen?”

“I don’t bake!”

“Rose, everyone should have flour.”

She just rolled her eyes and took the last gulp of her tea. “Whatever. I want to see what you made.”

Rose scrambled out of bed and pulled on the jumper she’d left on the floor the previous night before heading towards the kitchen.

John finished his tea and followed her.

“Yum, chocolate,” Rose said, leaning over the cake and taking a deep sniff. “Smells delicious.”

“Should taste delicious too. Still have to frost it before you can start eating though.”

“Mmm, okay. You do that, I’m going to put water on for more tea.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Not the one we need to make though,” Rose said reluctantly. She didn’t really want to return to the reality of their situation but they had to eventually. “But let’s do tea and cake and then we can move on to working on our plan to rescue Jack.”

“Always a damsel in distress, that one,” John quipped, swallowing down the guilt of keeping Rose in the dark about his real plans.

“He’d be able to pull off the princess dress if he had one,” Rose mused.

“What makes you think he doesn’t have one somewhere?”

Rose paused with the kettle in her hand, cocking her head to the side as she considered it. “Good point. He probably does.”

“Probably has multiple,” he said, starting to smooth the icing onto the cake.

Rose set the kettle to boil and plopped teabags into their mugs. Once the tea was ready, she took the mugs into the living room and waited for John to cut the cake and join her. They were quiet as they ate, except for Rose’s compliments on the cake.

The things unsaid weighed heavy in the room, suffocating any other avenue of conversation.

She washed down her last bit of cake with her last swallow of tea and set her dishes down on the end table. She padded over to where she’d left her bag the previous night and dug for her notepad.

“Are you ready to get to work?” She asked, settling back down on the couch crosslegged.

“Let me grab my laptop so we can take a closer look at the info Clara got for us,” John said. He grabbed their dishes and deposited them in the sink before getting his laptop. He sat on the other end of the couch from Rose and quickly opened up the files Clara had sent him.

“We didn’t get much with the hack, but we have the building where I think Koschei has set up his headquarters. I would guess that he is keeping Jack there, too.”

Rose shifted to look at his screen. “Show me.”

He pulled up the address on Google Maps and switched to street view. It was a fortress of a building. Two floors plus a basement, limited windows, and a wall topped with barbed wire obstructing a clear view of any entrance points.

“Not ideal,” she said. “Can you go ahead and print that for me?”

John printed the street view photo and handed the laptop to Rose so she could look at the surrounding buildings while he got the printout. “See anything useful?”

“No,” she admitted, frustration already seeping into her voice. “Looks like a goddamn fortress. It’s not going to be easy to get in and probably even harder to get out.”

“Sounds about right,” he said. He opened one of the folders he hadn’t looked at closely. It looked like dossiers on various London-based criminals. He recognized a few names but no one who was particularly close to either him or Rose.

He was about to set these aside for later when he caught sight of a folder labeled “TT.” He opened it up and his heart stuttered. There was a subfolders labelled with his and Rose’s Team TARDIS names, as well as one on Jack. A separate folder had information on all of their signed heists, starting with the Agency job.

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked, breaking his concentration. “You just went pale.”

He turned the laptop around so she could see the screen. “They’ve been doing research on us. This has to be how they found Jack.”

Rose leaned in to look at the multitude of folders on them and their activities. “We already knew that Jack was taken to get to us. This just confirms what he said. Have you opened these to see what they have on us?”

John shook his head and turned the laptop back around. He opened the Bad Wolf folder first.

“Yours is empty,” he said, surprised. “It looks like Clara got in deep enough to get the folders but not the information in them before the system booted her out.”

Rose made a face. “Any of them have information?”

John opened the folder on himself. There were a few files in there but they were all incomplete and unreadable.

The files on their heists were more intact.

“They have very detailed reports of the jobs we’ve pulled. Police records and second opinions from other thieves. They’ve even tracked where some of the money went.”

Rose gave a low whistle. “So, they know exactly how we operate.”

“Looks like it.”

“Guess we’re going to have to mix things up if we want to have any chance of getting Jack out, then. They’ll be ready for our usual tricks.”

John could practically see the gears turning in her mind as she tapped a pen against her bottom lip. He loved watching her scheme.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“Oh, I think I have a few tricks up my sleeves,” she said, smile forming. “They won’t know what hit them.”

John tried to let her familiar sharp smile settle his nerves but he kept going back to those corrupted files in his folder. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the Master knew exactly who he was, knew that John and Theta and The Doctor were one and the same. If he knew that, it didn’t matter what tricks Rose could throw at them, the Master would be ready for John.

He knew what that meant. He’d hoped that helping Rose come up with a plan of action would dissuade him from the plan he’d formed while baking but it seemed like the only way forward now. John was going to have to go in alone, consequences be damned. He had to keep Rose safe.

The match had been lit in John’s mind the moment he’d decided on his plan, it was only a matter of time before it burned his fingers or he dropped it on the pyre on which he stood. Either way, everything was going up in flames.

[notquitebilateral]

ALCOHOLIC CHOCOLATE ADVENTURE!

So, just to clarify, I don't actually like alcohol. I love home experiments for the sake of curiousity and baking for others. So this is where it stems from.

The background:

I am trying to make non-disgusting alcoholic chocolate for a tart. This tart specifically. The reason? The person who inspired this likes alcohol but is allergic to cocoa. So white chocolate!

I don't expect this stuff to stay smooth like most chocolate should. I am more worried about the taste.

The ingredients:

White chocolate and 7x distilled 40% alc./vol. vodka (hereafter referred to as EtOH). (I took a suggestion from a few people and the dude at the liquor store because I'm clueless on alcohol). Cue the experiment!

I am going off a 0.192 oz/mL ratio of choco to EtOH. This was 12 oz of choco to 1/4c of EtOH in a random recipe I found with white choco. This was champange. I have a higher alcohol content.

Try #1

1.3 oz choco with 1 overflowing tsp of EtOH. I'm at home in a kitchen mates I don't have graduated cylinders, pipettes, analytical scales or hot plates. I have a stovetop, measuring spoons and a kitchen scale.

The result?

Taste test: (Thank you neighbours!)

Not half bad. Little bad at setting, but the actual choco and EtOH in the recipe will be mixed in with other things.

Good, hard to taste vodka, could be stronger. (My opinion does not count because I tried it all and it was pretty disgusting to me.)

Try #2

2.5 oz choco with roughly 2.6 tsp EtOH.

She no likey setting because I am impatient. Oh well.

Taste?

Good, better tasting than #1, need to try slightly stronger to see if it works better.

Try #3

2.4 oz choco to 3 tsp EtOH. Oops the chocolate was on the burner too long, I'm a dumbass. It is more golden, the alcohol bubbled in the pan because I panicked and put it in fast but we will see how this goes because it mixed together really well.

Taste

Very good. I think the alcohol burnt off but I ran out of extra while chocolate so I cannot replicate this. Sooo we're going to do this with a 0.175 oz/mL ratio which comes to 12 oz of choco to roughly 1/4c + 1 tsp EtOH in the tart recipe and not evaporate the alcohol. Time to get cooking!

I'm making a non-alcoholic version tomorrow.

[stanandcharleyandfriends]

Medium Chain Fatty Acids

There are a lot of different fats you can feed your dog. And those fats carry a variety of health benefits.

Coconut oil is a great way to add to your dog’s diet and take advantage of those benefits. Here’s why.

First of all, coconut oil is made up of a mixture of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Together these 3 fats contain an impressive list of fatty acids. Many of these are Medium Chain Fatty Acids (MCFAs), including 48% lauric acid, 8% caprylic acid and 7% capric acid, plus myristic and palmitic acids.

Coconut oil also contains about 2% linoleic acid (polyunsaturated fatty acids) and about 6% oleic acid (monounsaturated fatty acids).

It’s the MCFAs in coconut oil, especially the lauric acid, that give it such a powerful punch when it comes to your dog’s health.

But that’s not all it can do …

7 Reasons To Use Coconut Oil For Dogs

Here are just a few of the reasons to feed your dog coconut oil:

#1 It helps with weight loss

Obesity in dogs is a common issue, one that can have some long term health effects. If your dog’s overweight, this puts stress on his body and can lead to:

High blood pressure

Joint problems or osteoarthritis

Diabetes or insulin resistance

Respiratory difficulties

Liver disease or dysfunction

Adding coconut oil to your dog’s diet can balance the thyroid and help with weight loss.

Studies show feeding a diet featuring MCFAs will help with weight gain and can potentially decrease the size of fat depots.

Your dog’s body can metabolize MCFAs to get an immediate boost of energy, enhancing athletic performance and helping with weight loss. The energy boost can also help with increased stamina.

#2 It can disinfect cuts and wounds and soothe cracked pads

Studies show that coconut oil has natural antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-fungal properties. This makes it ideal as a natural topical antibiotic and the perfect alternative to those chemical based products out there. Use it to help heal cuts and wounds.

If your dog scratches his ears or chews his paws because of allergies, it’s also really good for soothing and healing these sores too.

And since it’s safe to eat, you don’t have to worry about your dog licking it off.

#3 It’s great for the skin and coat

Studies show that coconut oil hydrates the skin and increases skin surface lipid levels. This makes it an effective moisturizer if your dog suffers from dry skin or has dandruff.

And, not only does it hydrate dry skin and help your dog beat the annoying itch that comes with it, it will make his coat sleek and glossy and help combat that ‘stinky dog’ smell.

#4 It helps improve brain function

As your dog gets older, his brain may need a little extra simulation to stay young.

Coconut oil is the answer. It can improve cognitive function in older dogs by providing the brain with energy in the form of ketones, promoting good nerve and brain function and preventing dementia.

#5 It can help improve gut health

If your dog has allergies, yeast may be a big concern, especially in the gut.

But you can use coconut oil for dogs with allergies!

In a research study comparing several different oils, coconut oil showed the greatest impact on stopping the growth of yeast in the gut.

It also helps the gut in other ways:

Improves digestion and nutrient absorption

Reduces inflammation

Helps heal digestive disorders like inflammatory bowel syndrome and colitis

#6 It can be used to clean teeth

Searching for a natural toothpaste?

Thanks to its antimicrobial properties, coconut oil makes the perfect natural teeth cleaner. It helps eliminate the harmful bacteria that live in your dog’s mouth. This can help prevent plaque from forming and avoid dental disease.

In a research study comparing several different oils, coconut oil showed the greatest impact on stopping the growth of yeast in the gut.

Best of all, most dogs love the taste so it makes this ‘chore’ less of a pain. Just open his mouth wide and scrub some on your dog’s teeth.

#7 It can repel fleas and ticks

One little known use of coconut oil is to repel insects like fleas and ticks. It smells pleasant and is completely non-toxic. Just rub it into your dog’s coat before going for a walk in the woods to help repel ticks.

Research shows that it can even help naturally eliminate mites that cause mange.

Unlike many over-the-counter products, coconut oil is safe, even if fed in larger amounts. It’s also much less likely to oxidize and become rancid than other fats (including fish oil).

Feeding Your Dog Coconut Oil

Because coconut oil has so many healthy benefits, there are a lot of great uses for it.

So how do you actually give it to your dog?

Just feed coconut oil as a daily supplement by adding it directly to your dog’s dinner.

Unlike many over-the-counter products, coconut oil is safe, even if fed in larger amounts.

Remember coconut oil is a Medium Chain Fatty Acid (MCFA) and your dog still needs other fatty acids in his diet. If you’re feeding your dog hemp oil or other supplements, add the coconut oil to the rotation, but don’t replace his regular oils or he may be missing important fatty acids. The best approach is to just rotate the oils each day.

How Much Coconut Oil Can You Give Your Dog?

So what’s the ideal dosage of coconut oil for dogs?

If you’re giving your dog coconut oil daily or every few days, give him up to 1 tsp per 10 pounds of body weight.

You might want to start at just 1/4 of that amount and work your way up to avoid loose stools.

Most dogs don’t mind the taste of coconut oil and will eat it happily. If your dog is more picky, you can try adding coconut meat, coconut milk or coconut water to his meals.

Be careful it doesn’t contain sugar or preservatives. And 14 oz of coconut milk contains about 5 tbsp of coconut oil – that’s about a tsp per ounce of coconut milk. So a 14 oz container would last a small dog about two weeks.

So, in a nutshell, coconut oil for dogs is an inexpensive, healthy addition to your dog’s diet – start feeding it today.

Quality counts, so don’t skimp on your coconut oil. Look for organic, extra-virgin coconut oil in glass jars. You also want to find cold-pressed coconut oil.

[Related] Want more recipes for great ways to use coconut oil for your dog? Find them here.

[RELATED] Read more about the benefits of coconut oil for your dog here.

***

Hint: if you have an Aldi supermarket nearby, you’ll find reasonably-priced organic coconut oil there!

[souvikdutta]

Health Benefits Of Palm Jaggery.

Palm jaggery is an excellent substitute for white sugar. Let’s put it this way-As compared to white sugar that is devoid of nutrients. palm jaggery is a nutritious sweetener. All the phytonutrients of white sugar get flushed out during processing. Apart from its sweet taste, it contains no nutrients. On the other hand, jaggery is processed without any chemicals or artificial ingredients. So, it is a healthy and natural sweetener.

Palm jaggery is the most beneficial and nutrient-rich variety of raw jaggery. It is prepared from palm tree extract and is loaded with minerals and vitamins. However, some people dislike its appearance. It is also pricey. But palm jaggery benefits are enviable because of its medicinal properties, you won’t really mind it!

Health Benefits Of Palm Jaggery The palm jaggery benefits for health are:

1. Rich Source Of Minerals 2. Restores Healthy Digestion 3. Rich In Nutrients 4. Energy Booster 5. Active Cleanser 6. Relieves Constipation 7. Relieves Many Common Ailments 8. Heals Migraines 9. Helps In Weight Loss 10. Seasonal Effects On Body

1. Rich Source Of Minerals Palm jaggery is rich in essential minerals. According to some studies, it has 60 times more minerals than white sugar. It is also the storehouse of many vitamins.

2. Restores Healthy Digestion It may sound strange, but palm jaggery works as a digestive agent. In some regions of India, people take a small serving of it after heavy meals to digest the food. It activates the digestive enzymes and helps to cleanse the intestinal tracts

3. Rich In Nutrients Palm jaggery is rich in iron. Its regular consumption increases hemoglobin levels and treats anemia. Magnesium, on the other hand, regulates the nervous system. The high antioxidant content of this natural sweetener helps to protect body cells from damages caused by free radicals. It is equally rich in calcium, potassium, and phosphorus.

4. Energy Booster Palm jaggery has composite carbohydrates. You can digest it sooner than the white sugar. It releases out energy if you consume it regularly. It means that you can stay fresh and active for hours after eating palm jaggery.

5. Active Cleanser Palm jaggery also cleans up your system. It cleanses the respiratory tract, intestines, food pipe, lungs, and stomach. It also helps to wipe out the toxins from the body, leaving you healthy and fit!

6. Relieves Constipation Jaggery palm is full of dietary fibers. These fibers help to treat constipation and indigestion. It helps to clean the system by flushing out unwanted particles. It also stimulates bowel movement.

7. Relieves Many Common Ailments Palm jaggery was used in ancient times for its medicinal properties. In fact, it was used to treat dry cough and cold. Palm jaggery helps to clear the respiratory tract by dissolving the mucus. If a person is suffering from respiratory problems like asthma can take palm jaggery to treat it. 8. Heals Migraines Migraine is the most painful of all headaches. The natural medicinal content of palm jaggery helps to reduce this pain. Just take 1 tsp of palm jaggery, and you will experience relief from migraine.

9. Helps In Weight Loss This is a startling fact about palm jaggery. A higher count of potassium in this raw sweetener reduces water retention and bloating. As such, your weight loss regimen is well supported by this sweetener. 10. Seasonal Effects On Body Palm jaggery offers relief from both blistering summers and chilling winters. In summer, palmyra jaggery gives you the cooling respite while date palm jaggery keeps you warm during winters.

These are some of the past palm jaggery benefits. It is tough to give up white sugar completely. But try to replace it with this sweetener. Switch to this natural sweetener and experience a healthy makeover! Do you like palm jaggery? Does it find a place in your regular diet? How do you use it? Share with us in the comments section below.

[healthpector]

Green tea secrets for weight loss

Yes, green tea helps you shed weight. No, with it in the kind of ice cream or sausage doesn't count. Neither does sporting green tea cosmetics. Or falling on green tea-scented bath bombs on your bathtub. Time to around the health and health experts to spill the real scoop about green tea.

 Find out does sex make you lose weight?

 Green tea vs. black tea. Why does this matter?

 To start with, All Types of tea -- green and black -- are green leaves initially, then the fresh leaves are cured and fermented. This breaks down the majority of its active chemicals.

 It was lightly massaging the leaves before choosing. This not only prevents the compounds, in addition, but it also destroys the enzymes, which would split them down quickly.

 Traditional green tea is a herbal and natural medicine to ease digestion, and help heal wounds, and boost cardiovascular health, stabilize blood glucose, improve digestion and enhance cognitive functioning.

 Now, this historical heritage also includes a powerful Scientific Presence with a large number of research demonstrating that green tea includes antioxidants (which are around eight times stronger than vitamin C) and other compounds which help reduce cholesterol and guard against cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetesand gum disease, and viral and bacterial diseases.

 How about weight loss?

 Green tea contains Inhibition of this breakdown of fructose that prevents absorption of the fat, making sure you do not gain more weight.

 In green tea inhibit a significant receptor -- catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) -- which speeds the metabolism up, thus stepping up the metabolic rate.

 Can you receive precisely the very same advantages with flavored green tea?

The Accession of flavors such as pomegranate, Vitamin, etc., doesn't lower the benefits of green tea. But if the flavoring comprises sugar, the extra calories will indeed cancel the goodness of green tea for weight loss.

 How about brewed green tea?

Chemically speaking, there is no difference between warm green tea and its iced edition. But, remember that brewed teas are often over-diluted using water, which affects their efficacy.

 Does the brand or wide range of green tea matter?

Absolutely! There can be quite a gap In the standard of tea leaves and the amount of extra, unnecessary ingredients that can mess up your green tea powers. To reap the most benefits, start looking for brands that use natural ingredients and don't have any artificial preservatives. Also, attempt to select these two kinds of green tea when possible:

  Matcha:     The green tea leaves have been ground to a fine powder which you'll be     able to whisk into water. As you have the natural leaves, you receive more     antioxidants than out of several other green teas.

Hojicha:     As it is chosen after a year and roasted in a more incredible warmth than     other teas, hojicha comprises reduced amounts of caffeine.

 Does green tea expires after some time?

However, it will not spoil your tea, and tea bags typically hold their antioxidant effectiveness for up to 6 weeks.

 What is the very best method to consume a cup of green tea?

Ideally, Forget the tea bag and also Elect for Brand new leaves. With green tea, you also wish to pour warm water directly above the leaves to extract their character. Employing a teabag reduces the effectiveness of this chemical response.

 Cut the bag and put water on the contents straight. In terms of the brewing piece itself, do not allow the water to reach a complete boil. Instead, pour the water on the tea directly before it stems and then let it steep for 3-4 minutes.

 Just how much green tea should I have daily?

There is no such measure of drinking green tea. But ideally, you can start with 3-4 cups a day and then increase it at your convenience. 

 When I am not in a "tea mood," would a green tea extract do just fine?

Yes. In Reality, depending upon the Immersion of this formulation, 1 tsp of green tea extract could equal the added benefits Of drinking 8-10 cups of green tea.

  Also Read:-Benefits of green tea with honey

[clamjumper5-blog]

Thai Beef Basil with Coconut Rice

This Thai Beef Basil with Coconut Rice is an incredibly flavorful, easy-to-make dinner that can be customized for all types of spicy food level preferences. It’s on regular rotation in our weekly meal plans!

(This recipe for Thai Beef Basil was originally posted in Februrary 2011, but was updated with new photos and content in 2018).

One of my favorite things in life is going out for Thai or Indian food with Chris. It’s basically like free entertainment when I watch him order food to his ideal level of spiciness. BTW, his ideal level of spiciness is “AS HOT AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY MAKE IT.” He has all kinds of strategies to get the waiter or waitress to understand how spicy he wants his food including telling them, “make it Thai hot, please” and “I want 10 stars!” and “make it as spicy as you can; I promise I will eat it!” But my favorite is when he says, “make me cry!” For the record, in the almost ten years I’ve been with Chris, there have only been two occasions where he’s found the food he’s ordered ridiculously spicy… Almost to the point of tears. It’s generally not even close to being hot enough, no matter how he orders it.

I love spicy food, too, but definitely not to the level he does. Call me crazy, but I don’t quite see the joy in crying while I’m eating. I cook a lot of spicy food at home and love that it’s easy to vary spicy levels serving to serving, whether it’s by adding some additional peppers into one person’s serving, sprinkling on some crushed red pepper, or drizzling on lots of Sriracha (also of note, Chris recently tried to argue with me that Sriracha isn’t meant to be spicy. Hello??). I discovered a Thai beef and coconut rice recipe from Martha Stewart about 8 years ago and have slowly adapted it to our specific tastes over the years. It’s one of the meals we have in our regular rotation now and one we both get super excited about.

It’s delicious year-round, but especially during the summer considering many of us likely have absolutely out of control basil plants growing on our decks.

THAI BEEF BASIL WITH COCONUT RICE RECIPE

One awesome thing about this Thai beef basil recipe is that it’s so versatile and can cater to many different tastes for spice. It’s easy to get the flavor of peppers without too much heat by simply removing the seeds of the peppers. But you can leave them in if you love heat. You can also use fewer peppers for those who are spicy-averse and you can add additional peppers as garnish for anyone who loves it. And when push comes to shove, you can always add garnishes like lime wedges to cut the heat or crushed red pepper and Sriracha sauce to add more.

I should also mention that the coconut rice is an excellent complement to the Thai beef because it’s nice and mild and helps take away a little bit of the heat in each bite.

WHAT KIND OF PEPPERS SHOULD I USE?

The good news is that you can really use any type of spicy pepper for this dish. I love using Thai chili peppers, but they can sometimes be tough to find, so I often substitute with habanero peppers or long hot chili peppers. If you want a little less heat, but still lots of flavor, use jalapeño peppers. And like I mentioned above, keep in or remove the seeds depending on your preferences.

CAN I SUBSTITUTE QUINOA OR BROWN RICE?

Yes! I actually make this dish all the time with quinoa and occasionally use brown rice, too. But it’s definitely at it’s most indulgent and best with jasmine rice. The jasmine rice is so light and fluffy with an awesome touch of sweetness from the coconut milk. Quinoa and brown rice have more of a nutty flavor and the coconut milk isn’t quite as prevalent in it. But since I like to make a big batch of this and eat it for leftovers throughout the week, I often try to make it a bit healthier with quinoa. You can use whatever type of grain you prefer!

CAN I SUBSTITUTE GROUND CHICKEN, GROUND PORK, OR STEAK?

Yes to all! Obviously you may not be able to call this “beef basil” depending on what meat you use, but you can certainly use any type of ground beef or even steak in this dish. I told you it was versatile!

You’ll want to get your rice started first and then get going on the rest of the recipe. It’s a quick and easy one, which means you’ll have dinner on the table in no time. Though my husband doesn’t do too much to help out in the kitchen, he always offers to chop my chili peppers and garlic for this recipe, which is pretty much the toughest part. If you’re chopping the peppers, I recommend wearing gloves… Especially if you wear contacts. If you’ve never felt the pain of touching your eye after chopping a hot pepper, count yourself very lucky!

After sautéing half the hot peppers and all the garlic, you’ll add the beef, then mix in a soy sauce/fish sauce/sugar solution and then add in chopped tomatoes, basil, and remaining peppers and briefly cook.

Serve the fluffy coconut rice in a bowl with the beef basil served over the top. If you love the spice, sprinkle on additional chopped peppers, a little crushed pepper, and a Sriracha drizzle. And top off with lime wedges. Even if you’re not trying to cut the heat, there’s something so delicious about a little bit of fresh lime juice squeezed on the top of this dish.

Thai beef basil is actually the dish Chris most often orders when we’re at a Thai restaurant, so it makes me extra happy that he loves my version so much. I haven’t actually made him cry… But I’ve gotten his serving to the spicy level that he’s talking about when he says “make me cry.”

I know this isn’t really traditional Thai food and is definitely Americanized (especially if you’re using jalapeño peppers or quinoa!), but it’s an eclectic fusion dinner that is sure to satisfy most Thai food cravings… Which I get all the time!

Honestly, I think my favorite part of this dish is all that fresh basil. I want a piece of basil in every bite! It’s funny because Chris often leaves his basil behind and makes sure to eat every single pepper.

Believe it or not, it’s actually quite rare that I make recipes twice. I just love trying new things too much and unless a recipe is off-the-walls amazing, I probably won’t make it again for quite a while. This Thai beef basil qualifies as off-the-walls amazing. Plus, it’s so quick and simple, that it’s one of those meals I can add to my weekly meal plan and know that I won’t have to spend all night in the kitchen. It’s right up there with tacos as one of our “eat all the time” meals.

I should note that I actually have managed to make Chris cry with spicy food just once in our 10 years together. It was with a ridiculously spicy ghost chili pepper sauce that we used ONE drop of in mac and cheese. He claims his hearing was affected and refused to go near it again. I opted out of trying it. Do you blame me??

How spicy do you like your food?

If you’re looking for other recipes with a kick, check out my Spicy Clam Chowder with Corn or my Spicy Lime Linguine with Clams and Sausage.

5 from 3 votes

Print

Thai Beef Basil

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

20 mins

Total Time

35 mins

  This Thai Beef Basil with Coconut Rice is an incredibly flavorful, easy-to-make dinner that can be customized for all types of spicy food level preferences. 

Course: Entree

Cuisine: Eclectic, Fusion, Thai

Keyword: Beef, Rice, Spicy

Servings: 6 servings

Author: Sues

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups jasmine rice (can also use brown rice or quinoa)

1 can light coconut milk

1 1/4 cups water

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 Tbsp chopped Thai chili peppers (can also use habanero, long hot chili peppers, or jalapeño peppers), seeds removed to tone down heat if desired + additional peppers for topping if extra heat is desired

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb. lean ground sirloin

3 Tbsp fish sauce

3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups loosely packed fresh basil

2 small tomatoes, chopped

Lime wedges, for garnish

crushed red pepper, for topping

Sriracha, for serving

Instructions

In a medium saucepan, combine rice, coconut milk, water, and salt. Let mixture come to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cover. Let simmer until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is nice and fluffy, about 20 minutes. 

While the rice is cooking, heat a cast-iron skillet or wok over high, add the oil, and toss in half the hot peppers and garlic. Cook for about 15 seconds. Turn the heat down to medium-high and add the beef and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, for about 5 minutes, until just cooked through.

In a small bowl, stir together fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Stir this mixture into the beef and cook for another 30 seconds.

Add basil, tomatoes, and remaining peppers and stir to combine. When basil is starting to wilt, remove pan from heat, about 30 seconds.

Serve coconut rice in bowls and top with beef basil mixture. Garnish with lime wedges, crushed red pepper, and Sriracha sauce, if desired. For extra heat, add additional chopped peppers.

Recipe Notes

Adapted from Martha Stewart

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Source: https://wearenotmartha.com/thai-beef-basil-with-coconut-rice/

[temperkitten7-blog]

Syn Free Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion

Healthy Delicious Syn Free Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion the perfect addition to any main meal.

When it comes to vegetables, there is nothing more satisfying than a beautiful tray bake of roasted vegetables, those lovely healthy colour of natural food and nothing artificial.

I love roasted vegetables, it really enhances the flavour, especially when you add some seasoning or fresh herbs and can easily be made to accompany whatever main dish you are making with the flavours you choose to add.

For this tray of Roasted Vegetables, I just went for some simple garlic, salt, black pepper and herbs such as Rosemary, as I planned to serve it with this Slow Cooker Chicken Mushroom Meatloaf and boy was it delicious.

Usually when roasting any kind of vegetables and a good drizzle of olive oil is the preferred method, but using olive oil spray oil and a little stock, I manage to make these equally delicious while still being syn free. The stock method is a trick I use in lots of recipes and it really does work in place of oil.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with using olive oil, it’s one of the healthiest oils out there, so you if you have syns to spare, then definitely use it. But I’d already used quite a few syns today, so wanted to keep this side of Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion syn free.

I do recommend using baby potatoes in their skins, they are so much tastier roasted and think of the fibre, plus they are lower GI too.

I use baby Yukon golds which have a gorgeous yellow colour and an amazing buttery flavour. So you can imagine how good these taste roasted.

Wondering what you can serve these Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion with? Check out these recipes:

or head on over to my Full Recipe Index with over 850 delicious Slimming World and Weight Watchers recipes all fully searchable by meal type, ingredients, syn value and smart points etc.

Hey, I’ve even been known to dig into just a bowl of this Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion with a little crumbled feta on top as part of my healthy extra A choice – yum!!

or even a bowl with some of these yummy Syn Free Gravy drizzled over the top. 

Both are perfectly acceptable meals – don’t judge me. When you have leftovers, sometimes it’s just about the simple things, right?

What about 1/3 speed foods with these Syn Free Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion

The carrots and onion will count as part of your speed foods, but you can treat this as your potato type side to any main meal, and then add some additional greens.

The Sauteed Garlic Shredded Brussels Sprouts go really well – just saying!!!

But remember speed foods are recommended, not compulsory, so it’s no biggy if you have the odd meal that does meet the full 1/3 speed foods criteria. So long as you aim for it at most meals then it’s fine.

Kitchen Items use for the Syn Free Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Parsnips, Carrots and Onion ?

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See the handy Pinterest image below if you wish to pin this for later 🙂

Yield: serves 4

 Healthy Delicious Rosemary Roasted Potatoes, Carrots, Parsnip and Onion the perfect addition to any main meal from chicken, to fish and even vegetarian dishes.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

600g of baby yellow potatoes *I used baby Yukon gold potatoes - sliced in half

3 medium carrots, roughly chopped

3 medium parsnips, roughly chopped

1 red onion, roughly chopped

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

a handful of fresh chopped Rosemary (or 1 tsp of dried)

1/2 cup (120ml) of vegetable stock

1/2 tsp of salt

pinch of black pepper

fresh chopped parsley

olive oil spray oil

Instructions

Add the potatoes to a saucepan of water

Bring to a boil, then turn off heat and leave for 4-5 minutes

Preheat oven to 200c or 400f

Drain potatoes and add them along with the carrots, parsnips, onion and garlic to a large baking tray lined with parchment paper, spread well out.

Sprinkle with the rosemary, salt and black pepper.

Pour the vegetable stock over the top.

Then with the olive oil spray.

Roast for 40 minutes until softened lightly golden.

Sprinkle with the fresh parsley.

Serve and enjoy!!!

Notes

This recipe is dairy free, gluten free, vegan, Slimming World and Weight Watchers friendly

Extra Easy - Syn Free per serving

Green/Vegan - Syn Free per serving

WW Smart Points - 6 per serving

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Do not screenshot or post recipe or content in full.

Nutritional information is an estimate and is to be used for informational purposes only. Ingredients can vary greatly from brand to brand and therefore it would be impossible to give accurate information. 

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Check Legal section, for Full Disclaimer, Disclosure and Privacy Policy. 

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

4

Serving Size:

1 Amount Per Serving:Calories: 228 Total Fat: 0.5g Saturated Fat: 0.1g Sodium: 452mg Carbohydrates: 52.8g Fiber: 8.9g Sugar: 12.1g Protein: 5.2g

Nutritional information is an estimate and is to be used for informational purposes only. Ingredients can vary greatly from brand to brand and therefore it would be impossible to give accurate information.

You might also be interested in....

It is the responsibility of the Reader to assure the products or ingredients they use in any recipes from Slimming Eats are allergen-free (gluten-free, egg-free and/or dairy-free, for example) or Vegetarian friendly. Slimming Eats assumes no liability for inaccuracies or misstatement about products, opinions or comments on this site.

Nutritional information is an estimate and is to be used for informational purposes only

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Source: http://www.slimmingeats.com/blog/rosemary-roasted-potatoes-parsnips-carrots-and-onion

[basketnovel50-blog]

Gingerbread amaretto chocolate tart

Hello, lazy cats!! This is my last recipe before Xmas, so I’ve decided to make it count 😛 . It’s an aromatic gingerbread tart filled with the most luxurious and indulgent chocolate amaretto ganache. It will knock the socks off the competition, that’s a promise!

If you are not keen on the alcohol content, you could simply replace it by more almond milk infused with orange peel (the ganache is super smooth so I would advise against using zest, although if the bits do not bother you, there is no problem) and add a few drops of orange extract to the ganache for a chocolate orange filling.

Well, as I have heaps to do over the next few days, I shall make this post short and sweet – I bet you’ve got lots to get on with! Duncan, our fluffy princess Tina and myself thank you for putting trust in our recipes. We wish you Merry Xmas and Happy New Year! We hope you get to spend it in amongst your loved ones, eating delicious vegan Xmas food, snuggling with your pets and sharing love! Love is all we need and now even more so than ever!

PS: If you make my gingerbread amaretto chocolate tart, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram as @lazycatkitchen and use the #lazycatkitchen hashtag. I love seeing your takes on my recipes!

makes: 1 x 25 cm / 10" dia

prep: 45 min

cooking: 25 min

Ingredients

GINGERBREAD BASE (or shortcust pastry + all the spices)

65 g / scant 1/3 cup coconut oil (I use this one)

220 g / 1 + 2/3 cup all purpose flour*

2 level tsp ground ginger

2 level tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground all spice

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp baking soda

a good pinch of fine sea salt

65 g / 1/3 cup dark muscovado sugar

30 ml / 2 tbsp aquafaba**

75 ml / ¼ cup + 1 tbsp maple syrup or molasses

GANACHE FILLING

300 g / 10.5 oz 70% dark vegan chocolate (I used Green & Blacks cooking chocolate)

120 ml / ½ cup coconut cream (solid part of full fat coconut milk only)

180 ml / ¾ cup almond milk

80 ml / 1/3 cup amaretto (I used Disaronno)***

80 ml / 1/3 cup maple syrup

Method

GINGERBREAD BASE (or shortcust pastry + all the spices)

Place the coconut oil in a small pot and melt it on the lowest setting. Let it cool down.

Sift the flour, all the spices, baking soda and salt into a medium size bowl. Mix really well.

Place the cooled coconut oil, sugar and aquafaba in a large bowl. Cream them together with an electric whisk until well combined and slightly thickened. Add the maple syrup and whisk some more until you get a thick, homogeneous mixture.

Fold ½ of the flour mix into the wet ingredients and, once combined, add the remaining half. Make sure there are no flour pockets and everything is well combined, but do not knead. The dough will be quite loose and sticky, that’s fine, it’s the way it should be. Wrap the dough in a piece of cling film (glad wrap) and place it in the fridge for at least 1 hour. You can safely keep it in the fridge overnight too.

Allow the dough to come to room temperature and then roll it slowly and gently between two sheets of baking paper or on a lightly floured surface.

Roll the dough into a 3 mm thin circle that is large enough to cover the base of the tart tin and the sides.

Roll the rolled out dough onto a rolling pin, place the rolling pin over the tart case and gently unroll the dough on the top of the tart tin.

Mould the dough into the tart case (making sure it fits really snugly everywhere) and trim the excess with a sharp knife. Patch up any holes or thin edges with the off-cuts and pierce the bottom of the pastry with a fork in a few places.

Place the lined tart case back in the fridge while you heat up the oven to to 175° C / 350° F.

Once the oven is ready, line the inside of the pastry case with a large piece of baking paper (I crumple it first so that it’s more flexible) and then arrange baking beads (or whatever you use instead) on top of the pastry. Blind bake for 10 minutes.

After 15 minutes, take the beads and the baking paper off and return to the tart to the oven for another 10-15 minutes. Allow it to cool completely.

GANACHE FILLING

Place the broken up chocolate pieces and coconut cream in a clean glass or metal bowl over a bain marie (water bath). Warm them both up on the lowest setting (the water underneath should barely simmer and not boil) until the chocolate has been melted. Make sure the water does not touch the bowl the chocolate is in.

Once the chocolate has melted, whisk it into the cream with a wire whisk, then add almond milk, amaretto and maple syrup. You can adjust the amount of syrup to taste, but make sure you compensate by adding more almond milk (if you end up using less maple syrup than I did).

Allow the mixture to cool down and fill the tart case.

Transfer the filled tart case into the fridge. Allow it to set for at least 8 hours (overnight is best). PS: this tart sets quite firm, but it wasn’t quite set when I took these photos, hence it looks a little softer.

Notes

*For the gluten-free version, use 220 g / 1 + 2/3 cup GF flour mix and ½ teaspoon of xanthan gum (unless the mix contains xanthan gum already).

**From a tin of low-sodium chickpeas or home cooked chickpeas, it is explained here.

***If you are not keen on alcohol content, replace the amaretto with almond milk. I recommend infusing the milk with orange peel first and adding a few drops of orange extract to the ganache for a chocolate orange version instead.

If you want more info on some of the ingredients that we use in our recipes, check out our glossary.

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Source: https://www.lazycatkitchen.com/gingerbread-amaretto-chocolate-tart/

[howtoloseweightfastsafely]

Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Last chapter, we mentioned the "batch meal" process. This is my secret to eliminating anxiety around meals and having food ready at a moment's notice.

Here are the basics:

I'll then eat this same meal for lunch until Thursday.

Thursday night, I'll cook again to get me through the next few days.

I like Fage brand since they make plain full-fat and 2% greek yogurts. Chobani does not do this, from my knowledge.

Note: Don't buy the large containers since it's such a pain to correctly measure portion sizes. Just buy the small containers.

It's easy, it's simple, and it makes life so much easier.

Oh yeah, before I forget. Here's...

A stupid simple food prep "hack" that 90% of dieters drop the ball on, but will guarantee you perfect portion control and effortless weight loss

When you want to weigh your food into portions, how would you usually do it?

If you're like most people, you'll simply take the prepared food, put it on a bowl/plate and pop it on a scale. Subtract out (or "tare") the weight of the plate, and voila, you have the weight of your food.

Perfect, right? Wrong.

When you weigh foods (especially meat) after they're prepared, they're guaranteed to weigh less. This is due to the water weight of the food that's been lost during the cooking process.

Studies show up to 33% of weight in meats is lost after cooking.

And if you're counting your food intake based on the post-cooking, post-water-loss weight, yet comparing the serving size to the numbers on the nutrition panel, you may be understating your calorie intake.

Sure, this isn't a make-or-break thing if it's a one-off occurrence. And sure you can get by guesstimating when you buy food outside (which is rarely, I hope!)...

But anytime you cook at home, I highly suggest you weigh food before you cook.

Think of it this way...

When you're cooking up 8 oz. of boneless skinless chicken thighs (300 calories or so) with 1 tsp of coconut oil (50 calories or so) and some other spices and whatnot, you're at about 400 calories. Sounds like a decent-sized meal.

If you did this the wrong way, though, by weighing after you cooked...

Your 8 oz. of chicken would probably weigh 5 or 6 oz. at most. If you assume 6 oz. of chicken (225 calories) plus 1 tsp of oil (50 calories), you're now at 275 calories for the meal. Already off by 125 calories.

Add the fact that you're eating this same meal for 3 or 4 days, and you're already eating a cool 600 calories more than you thought for the week. Even worse, you may be making the same mistake with another meal in the day, meaning you could be off as much as 250-300 calories per day! In one week, that's 1750 calories more than you'd pictured, making weight loss much more difficult if you ask me!

This is just one of the many reasons people stick to their diets, but still, fail to see results.

It's the little things that add up and throw us off track. Don't let this happen to you.

Simply weigh your food before you cook, and you'll be much happier with how you look and progress toward your goals.

If you're making large batch meals, follow this process:

1. Weigh out the whole size of the meat beforehand (3 lbs. for example)

2. Know how big your serving size will be for each meal (8 oz. for example)

3. Diving the whole size of the meat by the serving size, to know how many portions you'll need

3 lbs = 48 oz

 48 oz/8 oz per serving = 6 servings

4. After cooking your food, weigh the whole batch.

Let's say the 48 oz. become 36 oz. after cooking

5. Divide the new sizes by the # of servings, and you have the new cooked-food serving size

36 oz/6 servings = 6 oz per serving

6. Now simply weigh and pack up the food into 6 oz. servings, and enjoy!

And, while we're on the topic of sizing up our food...

If you decide to grab some fast food for a change, keep decision making and unnecessary thinking to a minimum (and fat loss to a maximum), by eating one of these:

1. Chipotle salad bowls:

a) Chicken or steak (sometimes double), black beans, lettuce, pico de gallo, hot sauce.

b) If it's a heavy workout day, I'll sometimes also have some rice and a touch of sour cream.

c) I stay away from the cheese, guac, and other condiments since they can easily throw you out of your calorie balance.

d) I've read the nutrition panel on the Chipotle site like 50 times so I know this usually runs me around 450-650 calories depending on what I add in.

2. Subway

a) The food quality here is very poor, I'll admit, but it lets me count/control my calories which is a 100% win for weight loss

b) I'm a smaller guy and generally need 1800 calories or so if I'm looking to lean up a bit.

c) So I make sure my Subway lunches are right around the 600 calorie mark, for an even split of 1800 calories into 3 meals

d) This leaves me with a simple, but favorite choice of mine:

i. Black Forest Ham & Turkey on Toasted Footlong Wheat bread, with copious amounts of spicy mustard, tons of veggies, and no cheese. Perfecto!

e) I'll add in double meat sometimes for a protein boost, but for the most part, I'll keep to a single serving (try to avoid excess intake of processed, non-organic cold cuts)

3. Otherwise, you can stick to very simple sandwiches or salads

a) For sandwiches, have some simple cold cuts like ham, turkey or roast beef and some veggies on toasted bread or a wrap.

Skip the mayo or any dressing/sauces, since they are quick calorie bombs and it's hard to know how much of said condiment is in your meal.

Mustard and/or spicy mustard is my go-to condiment

You can get a sandwich with chicken breast too, and just have Frank's Red Hot or Cholula hot sauce

Skip the cheese, especially since I've seen delis put on 4-6 slices of cheese on sandwiches way too often. Gotta make sacrifices from time to time!

b) For salads, stick to veggies, chicken, eggs, or other protein sources, anddressing on the side.

Eyeball the protein portion in the salad which usually comes out to 1-2 palm sizes (about 20-40 grams of protein, or 200-300 calories at most taking into account oils used during prep or fattier cuts of meat)

Don't get breaded chicken or other breaded products. It's extra crappy calories and it usually has trans-fat (the worst kind).

Never, NEVER have them put a dressing on for you, or you can just about guarantee missing your calorie totals.

And do not pour the whole dressing cup over your salad

Get dressing on the side, dip your fork into the dressing cup, and then take some salad onto the fork.

You'll get the same amount of taste, but your salad won't be doused in dressing and you won't be eating 600 calories of sauce.

Follow the plans above, and fat loss will be a cinch. Eat right when you can and cook batch meals as much as possible, and if all else fail, eat from one of the semi-healthy options above.

 Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "If you want maximum results in minimum time you're going to have to work out (and workout hard, at that)"

Read the next article about "How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

Topic 33: For Even Better Leg Up And/or See Faster Results In Fixing Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested, Do The Following:

Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

Learn more by visiting our website here: invigoratenow.com

[robertheiser-blog]

Blooom Review 2019: Free 401k Analysis + Human CFP Financial Advice For $10 a Month

Does the New Year have you motivated to give your retirement account a tune-up? As opposed to many other online advisors, Blooom.com (with three Os) focuses on providing advice for 401k, 403b, 457, and TSP accounts by offering both a free 401k analysis and charging a flat $10/month fee for ongoing portfolio management and CFP advice. They don't require you to move any money over to them.

Free 401k analysis screenshots. Anyone can sign up for their free 401k analysis with no commitment. They don't ask for last name or credit card information.

1. They ask you for first name, current age, and retirement age. You don't need to be super-specific here, they just want some basic information to create your target asset allocation and time horizon.

2. They ask you short risk questionnaire. I'm still not convinced of the validity of finding your risk tolerance via a few multiple choice questions, but I suppose this is the most practical way to at least get you in the ballpark. They had me at 68% stocks and 32% bonds, which is actually really close to my actual stock/bond mix.

3. Provide your login credentials. Blooom will automatically pull in your 401k holdings and other information when you provide them your username and password. This is similar to how I track my own portfolio via Personal Capital. It took them a couple of minutes to crunch everything.

4. Analysis results and screenshots. They first give you an overall report card. Looks like I have a lot to work on:

Next, they told me about the fees that I am paying. It appears that because my fees were “difficult to identify”, they used an average number based on all of their clients. I'm guessing this is because I have a lot of non-mutual-fund holdings in my Solo 401k.

They then analyze asset allocation, identifying the mutual funds and assigning the proper asset class. They they compare with their recommended asset allocation for you:

Free 401k analysis review. My main concern about this analysis is that it only takes into account your 401k. If your 401k is your only retirement savings, then this is fine. However, my 401k is only a portion of my overall portfolio. In addition, I use tax-efficient asset placement, so my 401k mostly holds REITs and TIPs. While their asset allocation breakdown of my actual funds was mostly correct, I was never going to be close to their target mix. This prevented me from getting value out of this service.

Paid management service review. Here's what the paid service includes:

Fee analysis. Each mutual fund you own charges an expense ratio that is quietly taken out of your balances daily. There may also be additional administrative fees charged by your provider.

Asset allocation advice. They will come up with a mix of stocks and bonds that are appropriate for your age, and time horizon. Their suggested asset allocation advice is in line with that of other robo-advisors.

Rebalancing service. Blooom will rebalance your assets periodically back towards your target values. They'll help you maintain diversification across asset classes like US stocks, international stocks, safe bonds, etc.

Chat with Certified Financial Planners. You can e-mail or Live Chat with a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) about any financial topic, not just 401ks.

Fiduciary advice. Blooom is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) and pledges a fiduciary duty under the law to give advice in your best interest only. This is an important detail!

Blooom has settled on a flat $10 a month fee for ongoing 401k management and advice. This is the same if you have $10,000 or $10 million. Flat fees end up being a high percentage of small accounts though, for example on $10,000 that ends up being 1.2% a year. My personal opinion is that if you have few thousand dollars or less, you should buy the cheapest S&P 500 index fund (or a low-cost Target Date fund) in your 401k and focus on increasing your contribution rate. You don't need to pay $10 a month for advice right now. Asset allocation isn't that important yet. Of course, the financial advisor access may be worth more than $10 a month by itself (see below).

While flat fees don't work out mathematically for small accounts, you will start to save money as your account grows when compared to a percentage-based fee. Once you reach about $50,000 in assets, paying a flat $10 a month becomes cheaper than paying 0.25% of your assets annually.

If you had a solid low-cost, diversified Target Retirement fund from Vanguard, Fidelity Index Series, or Schwab Index Series, you may not need to pay for extra advice either. The asset allocation, rebalancing, and growing more conservative over time is all baked-in. The problem is that there are a lot of bad Target Retirement funds out there that have added layers of fees, stuffed with expensive questionable funds, and chase performance.

The hidden deal? You can get ongoing financial advice from a human CFP for only $10 a month! I think the most overlooked feature of the Blooom paid service is that they include the ability to Live Chat (text) or e-mail with Certified Financial Planners with no minimum balance requirement. A read human CFP, not a chat bot!

DID YOU KNOW blooom clients have access to a CFP? Just ping us on chat, email, Morse code, singing telegram, Pony Express… well, you get the idea, we are accessible.

They also seem to welcome questions about topics outside your 401k:

Ask our advisors any financial questions you have… even beyond 401ks! […] We go beyond retirement advice. Thinking about how a puppy or new car might affect you financially? Give us a whirl! Whether it's $20 or $20,000, we want all our blooom members to make smart decisions about their finances.

I don't know of any other place I can get a CFP to chat with me for ten bucks. Do you? For example, Betterment won't let you have CFP access until you have $100,000 held with them (and 401k assets don't count). You could always pay $10 for the first month and see how you like their CFP advice, as there is no contract on the monthly plan.

Bottom line. Blooom is an online financial advisor that manages 401k/403b/TSP employer retirement accounts. This works out if the majority of your retirement assets are in such a plan. They offer a free 401k/403b analysis to try them out. Above that, they will manage your funds and provide chat/e-mail access to a Certified Financial Planner for a flat $10 a month. This is one of the cheapest ways I know of to chat and email with a human Certified Financial Planner.

Disclosure: I have an affiliate relationship with Blooom. If you try out the free 401k analysis, I get nothing. If you end up being a paid member of Blooom through one of the links above, I will get a commission at no extra cost to you. All content and opinions remain my own.

“The editorial content here is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone.”

Blooom Review 2019: Free 401k Analysis + Human CFP Financial Advice For $10 a Month from My Money Blog.

Copyright © 2018 MyMoneyBlog.com. All Rights Reserved. Do not re-syndicate without permission.

[ketohc]

Keto Peanut Butter: How Do You Take It?

Keto Peanut Butter: How Do You Take It?

We all can be honest about the guilty pleasure we hide deep down for the love of Peanut butter and alike. Over a loaf of bread or a cookie, a spoonful straight inside the mouth, or dipped finger for a quick splurge; this buttery spread makes you totally dazzled every time you try it differently.

Also, for people seeking protein for a reason would never miss on this little bottle. Gym trainers generally recommend their clients to include peanut butter in their diet, because it does not only provide protein but also fills you with high-fat. And given the taste of it, no one would ever say No to a treat as such. If you are new to the peanut butter world and have only limited understanding of it, here is a small piece information we’d like to share first before taking you further.

What is Peanut Butter?

Peanut butter is nothing but the little nuts being roasted and ground into a paste and are considered as an unprocessed food.

With so many brands selling bottles and bottle of Peanut butter every year, one can easily get distracted and end up buying one without noticing the ingredients. However, if you carefully go through the list, you would see that it includes added sugar, trans fat and vegetable oils. This in the future can cause several heath issues counting heart diseases as one.

What do you do then?

Well, don’t lose hope here. If you are willing to spend a little time on creating this amazing butter yourself at home, you’re going to save so many unnecessary ingredients and some money too!

All you would need is Peanuts and a blender (salt is optional).

Method:

Roast your peanut in a preheat oven (to 350°F) for 10 minutes until light golden and oily on the top. Put them in a food processor and run it till it reaches a consistency of your liking, while checking on it every 10 seconds so that you don’t loose the chunky texture (if that’s how you like it).

There, you have your very own, home-made peanut butter.

Benefits of Eating Peanut Butter in a Keto Diet

If you are wondering about peanut butter fitting in your ketogenic-diet, here are few benefits that might give you a fair idea.

1. High-Fat:

One major requirement for someone on a keto-diet would be pushing down fat in the body, and peanut butter does exactly that. This high-fat product contains 50% fat in it, which is a great keep.

2. Low-Carb:

Though we wouldn’t really consider having peanut butter in the low-carb book with about 14g net carb in 100g serving, yet, it makes it to the list with other components that deserves a thought. The butter is high in fat and fiber, and is low in glycemic index.

3. Protein Content:

Like we mentioned before, peanut butter is high in fat and protein. Though it does not cover the entire protein source, but 25g in 100g serving is not bad at all!

4. Highly Nutritious:

Peanut butter is said to have good amount of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals along with important antioxidants.

Can You Eat Peanut Butter on Keto?

When we talk about a Keto-diet, we generally have a list of can and cannot eats to refer from. Every little thing we include in the diet is never too perfect. In fact, there are a lot of food items that needs a second thought, though we are confident about including them in the list.

Peanut butter however, seems kind of safe to be included in the diet. Reason being, peanut butter is not eaten alone as a food and is generally preferred on something you are planning to eat. And, every two tablespoon of the butter gives you 16g fat and about 4g net carbohydrates. That is a safe amount to go for, without worrying about exceeding the carb content in your meal.

Should you worry about intake anyway?

This totally depends on the serving you are planning to indulge in, the kind of peanut butter you are scooping on your plate and how many days are you including it in your diet.

As mentioned earlier, the contents in the peanut butter (you buy from the market) might make the taste a little ahead of the unprocessed ones, however, you might want to jump to the home-made ones if you know the aftereffects of it.

The hydrogenated oils and trans fat included in the peanut butter these days, can increase the risk of many illness, ranging from heart disease, increased cholesterol to even cancer, if consumed for a long time, honestly. Having said that, one on keto-diet needs to understand the difference between artificial trans fat, polyunsaturated fats and healthy fats.

Also, here is one more warning, which goes through all the recipes that has peanuts. If you are allergic, please give it a pass.

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Is Peanut Butter High in Carbs?

Now that we know the goodness of peanut butter, we might believe that there cannot be much bad in it which is partially correct. Boosting your energy and metabolism for a proper weight you are desiring, peanut butter allures you into taking it in the keto-diet, however, one needs to know if it is actually keto-friendly or not.

  With the amazing taste it carries, peanut butter is too good to limit it to just two spoons. Just a spoon more won’t hurt – is what you would think every time you scoop from a bottle. But beware! That extra spoon you give in to, will bring along calories that won’t really suit your ketogenic-diet. And like we say, anything in moderation is the best way to go about it.

Feeling sad about it?

Okay, what if we toldyou that you can keep a check on your intake for the day and add in that extra spoon you’ve been drooling over? That is only possible if you can keep that extra spoon aside for the day and indulge later when you have room for more calorie, but within the recommended scale. What better than being able to have your favorite peanut butter in two meals!

  Peanut butter also comes with aflatoxin (can also cause cancer) and agglutinin, and can affect your health ruthlessly if consumed for a long time frequently.Therefore, a lot of professionals and health experts don’t like including peanut butter in the Ketogenic-diet in the list.

What is the Best Peanut Butter for Keto Diet?

Peanuts are generally not recommended in the Keto-diet, though they claim to be high in fat. But, controverting that, peanut butter makes amazing smoothies and quick snacks with healthy fats to offer (if home-made or unprocessed). So, how do we exclude it from the diet plan?

  To support the above, peanut butter also carries adequate magnesium to help the dieters from suffering the much feared ‘keto-flu’.

Keto Recipes with Peanut Butter

This amazing butter is one good way to start your morning or relax for a snack in the evening, and if taken in moderation, will provide you with much more than you were thinking. Allow us to reveal one more amazing fact – you don’t need to take a spoon every time you want to use your peanut butter over a food. In fact you can make a recipe out of it and eat as a meal as well. We have few recipes for you to try out if you haven’t heard of them yet. These will give you a nice peanut butter feel and fat content too!

Peanut Butter Pancakes:

Love pancakes? Most of us do, and some of us don’t. Never mind, we are going to try something different from the shared recipes, that will make your keto-diet look so, non-keto types. Also, feeding this to your family members who aren’t dieting will save you time from making two types of breakfasts.

This recipe is going to include flaxseed, but honestly, that needn’t be worried about. The taste doesn’t even come barging in your mouth against the peanut.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. of Peanut butter

2 Eggs (large)

4 tbsp. flaxseed

4 tbsp. whipped cream (heavy)

2 tbsp. Maple syrup (optional)

1 tbsp. Butter (for cooking)

Method:

Take a bowl and mix everything together

Grease the pan with butter and place it over medium-low flame.

Pour in the batter when the pan is hot

Cook it until the edges turn brown and the surface shows bubbles

Turn it upside down and let the other side cook too for about a minute or so

Top it with butter and It is optional to use maple syrup as well

Low Carb Peanut Butter Cookies:

Being on a Keto-diet, you miss on so many things that you loved before taking up the challenge. And most of all, if you are a cookie-lover, you are expected to feel bad about looking at them every time, and putting it back in the box.

Well, no more!

We have a special recipe that you can add to your book and eat each one, without feeling guilty about it. But yes, remember not to overeat (that’s a tough job), though these cookies contain only about 9g of net carbs in 100g. You definitely need to check your chart.

Ingredients:

¾ cup of Peanut butter (sugar-free)

1 Egg (large)

2/3 cup of Erythritol (powdered)

¼ cup of Butter

½ tsp. Salt

½ tsp. Vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat your oven to 355°F

Mix everything else in a large bowl, well enough for a soft dough

Dice them and roll into balls, sizing of your choice

Use a fork to press the balls slightly, and then use the bottom of a flat to press it for a perfect cookie shape

Bake these for about 15 – 20 minutes, till they are slightly brown

Let it sit on the baking tray till they cool off a bit, else picking them while hot might lead to cracking and breaking

Peanut Butter Fat Bombs:

Before we start off with the recipe sharing, we would like you to know about peanut fat bombs, if you didn’t already.

What are fat bombs?

Fat bombs are commonly intended to serve people who are looking at adding healthier fats and less carbs in their diet (apt for keto). These are little packs of healthy fats, seeds and nuts.

Generally, fat bombs are frozen to create either mini-muffins or sticks as a snack, to provide energy when you get those hunger pangs, or even during the day. And since these are quite low in carbs, they fit very well in the Keto-diet.

Peanut butter fat bombs can be stored in the freezer longer than 5-6 days, so you can keep them as a rescuer when you seriously need something to kill your cravings. Also, this recipe is not going to take more than 5 minutes!

Ingredients:

2/3 cup of unroasted Peanut butter (sugar-free)

½ cup of Solid Coconut oil

1 tsp. Cinnamon (ground to powder)

¼ tsp. Salt (sea)

1 tbsp. Maple syrup

2 tsp. Vanilla extract

Sea salt (coarse for topping)

Dark Chocolate (optional)

Method:

Use paper liners over the muffin tins

Take a large bowl to combine the raw peanut butter and solid coconut oil and microwave occasionally to mix and and melt it completely

To this, add cinnamon, salt, vanilla extract and the maple syrup, and whisk it until you know its well combined

Evenly distribute the paste into the muffin tins and sprinkle the sea salt you kept aside

Freeze them for about an hour or more and then take them out. Using grated dark chocolate over these is optional

Keto Peanut Butter Mousse:

Now here a bonus recipe for you, that you might have never thought of considering in the first go, given the name – Peanut butter mousse!

This cup of low-carb, gluten free dessert is going to make you thank the creator. It takes only 5 minutes to prepare it and what more would you want, when you have a dessert, though you’re on a Ketogenic-diet.

  We think our love for desserts die right when we know we need to skip it for good; but to be honest, it doesn’t really go off easily. Every time you look at someone enjoying their share of a dessert, you just gulp down, comfort yourself and shake your head. But no more!

  This little dessert is going to give you 30g fat and only 4g carb per serving… Yayy!

Ingredients:

113g Cream cheese

1 tbsp. Peanut butter (sugar-free)

½ cup of Whipping cream (heavy)

½ tsp. Vanilla extract

8-10 drops Stevia extract (for sweetening)

Method:

Take a bowl and whip the cream enough to make it thick, using a hand mixer

Using another bowl, beat the peanut butter, cream cheese, stevia and vanilla extract till it turns creamy and smooth

Add the whipped cream to the above mixture and mix for about one minute till the whole thing turns light and fluffy

There you go, a nice dessert for you to show off whenever you feel down and deprived of sweetness. You can store it in the refrigerator for about a week.

References

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/195554?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=J_Am_Med_TrendMD_1

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/122/1/27/110405

https://www.peta.org/living/food/vegan-keto-tips-recipes/

https://asweetlife.org/why-i-chose-a-ketogenic-diet-for-diabetes-management/

https://wellandwealthy.org/easy-keto-recipes/

https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/717451

https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com

https://www.fatforweightloss.com.au/recipe/peanut-butter-cookies/

https://whatmollymade.com/peanut-butter-fat-bombs/

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[ask-artsy-oncie]

Disney and their Representation of Animated Latin@s, in response to people getting in an internet fist-fight over Coco

I’ve had some very choice words for Disney in regards to their representation of Latin@s ever since I was 14 and actually started thinking about it with a conscious mind.

As my sidebar states, I am half-Salvadoran (from my father’s side) and half-French (from my mother’s side). When I was 14, the 3D remastered release of Beauty and the Beast was in theaters, and I went to go see it with a friend, who is full Mexican. It is her favorite Disney Princess movie, so by the end of it, as we were exiting the theater, I made some stupid joke, something about being French and therefore being more like Belle than she was. It was all in good nature, of course, nothing to be taken seriously, but it got me thinking. When I got home that day, I asked my mother why, if there’s a French princess, there isn’t a Latina princess, too. What she said to me in response is still burned into my mind today, and continues to inspire me as an artist.

She said to me, “Because unless you go out and make one, yourself, Pocahontas is the best you’re going to get.”

Unfortunately, in this year of 2017, I feel like this is still true, today.

If you’re a die-hard defender of Disney, you may not like me after reading this. I want to emphasize that I don’t hate Disney as a company, and I don’t (at all) hate all the movies I’m going to bring up in this post, but I do think Disney has some serious flaws when it comes to racial representation. Yes, other companies do, as well, and the animation industry as a whole is very White-washed. But Disney is the massive giant of a company that looms over all of them, it has the most influence, and enjoys flaunting off how inclusive it is, when, in this case, that is far from the truth. This is an unpleasant conversation to be had, but it’s important and needs to be addressed.

vvvv More under the cut vvvv

I should really go in chronological order, but since I opened up with the princess talk I might as well start off with Elena.

I do want to make a note of something before we really dive deep into things. I want to say that I’m going to only be looking at Renaissance Disney onward, which excludes The Three Caballeros. This is because it’s mostly going to focus on representation that affects children currently, and not only is The Three Caballeros a product of its time (1944) (much like Speedy Gonzales, I might add, who me and many other Latin@s have no issue with, personally, but is a harmful stereotype, nonetheless), but not many children are exposed to it, anymore. That would be like expecting millennials to have been exposed to Charlie Chaplin when we were little. I cannot dissect this piece of media, neither positively nor negatively, without being unfair to Disney as a company today. Ever since its Renaissance, however, Disney HAS pushed and continues to push and revive and market all its successes since the Renaissance began with The Little Mermaid, so everything from that movie onward is fair game.

Now, about Elena...

I will admit to having not watched Elena of Avalor. I hardly watch TV anymore as it is, and that actually ties into the real point I want to make about Elena. I cannot argue against or praise Elena of Avalor for its content (though in the commercials I’ve seen promoting the show, I couldn’t help but notice that there are characters who mispronounce her name as the more English-sounding “Elaina”, which is offensive in its own right), but I don’t plan to, because for its content to really matter, it has to have been seen. No, instead, I don’t count Elena of Avalor as true Latin@ representation purely because of her inaccessibility. Elena may be officially the first Latina Disney princess, but she is treated so poorly that she may as well not exist.

I’ve already mentioned that I don’t watch TV much, any more. That’s not just a personal thing, that’s actually a pretty accepted trend. I’m not kidding, if you still think that TV is going to eventually stomp out the popularity of the internet, I can’t help you. Animated movies, though, they’re still a very widely viewed form of media, and Disney animated movies still continue to get billions upon billions of dollars in box-office (Disney/Pixar owns four of the top five highest grossing box-office movies), that doesn’t even count DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital sales after the movie is released for home viewing. If Disney really wanted to make Elena this new Disney princess to stand alongside all the others (which seems to be the plan, considering she’s on the official Disney Princess website, though this website seems a little poorly kept, seeing as it has yet to include Moana, and multiple titles and profiles, including ones for Frozen, which Disney can’t get enough of, seem to be missing from the main page.) they would have given her a full-length film with high-budget animation.

That’s not what we get. Instead, Elena gets a television cartoon series (which is a step-up from her originally announced side role on Sophia the First, another children’s cartoon series, granted) that, according to the aforementioned Disney Princess website, airs at 7:30 PM.

Also known as: The recommended bedtime for most young children.

This piles on a few factors as to why Elena of Avalor becomes inaccessible to many children who would benefit from seeing a Latin@ princess (Latin@ children). I cannot tell you the amount of White people I have seen look at Elena and oogle over her because “she’s representation!”

Sorry to sound like a bitter tumblr user, but please, I ask that you check your privilege. 

In order for someone to regularly view Elena of Avalor AND give it ratings that show Disney that people are watching and that Elena is profitable, they must:

-Own a TV

-Have a Television Service Provider (TSP) 

-Have Disney Channel or Disney Junior (which are premium paid channels)

-Consider letting their child stay up past the recommended bedtime just to watch TV, and that’s only if they know Elena will be on at that time. We are assuming this is the average parent who doesn’t actively check Disney-dot-com to see if there’s a new Disney Princess.

To see the newest Disney Animated film, they must

-Have access to the local movie theater (transportation)

-Have money for movie tickets.

Disney has treated Elena the way many TV networks (back when we were kids and TV was still widely popular) would treat a program that they eventually want to get rid of, by putting it in a time slot they know most people can’t watch it at and blaming the bad ratings on its unpopularity before removing it entirely. Disney will most likely keep airing Elena because it’s good press, they look like inclusionists by doing so, but Elena has her own “inaccessible little time slot”, which happens to include a poorly chosen air time (why could she not be a Saturday morning cartoon?) as well as the fact that she’s on TV at all, as opposed to the silver screen.

I have to say, that for the while that I worked at Toys R Us, it was rather heartwarming to see Latin@ children buying Elena dolls and accessories, it truly was, but that’s of the children who bought Elena merchandise, period. The sad truth that non-Latin@ (or ignorant Latin@) Disney fans have to face is, most Latin@ children recognize Peppa Pig before they recognize Elena. No kidding, they go absolutely rabid over Peppa Pig. This is because Peppa Pig airs on public-access television in the morning, and is accessible for the very reasons Elena of Avalor is inaccessible. And, truth-be-told, even more Latin@ children recognize and buy Frozen merchandise at Toys R Us, because they need neither a TV nor a TSP to have seen Frozen. Disney, by touting the fact that they now have a Latina princess while refusing to give her a spotlight on the silver screen, shows its (very large) Latin@ following that really, all they care about is the pat on the back that they get for having representation. To them, it doesn’t have to be good representation.

(Side note, does anyone want to rant with me over the fact that the Face Character for Elena at Disneyland, instead of saying “cheese” or even just saying “queso”, just spouts out a random Latin American food when you take a picture with her? She tried to get my sister to say “pan dulce” with her. If that ain’t the classic “stereotyping Latin@s based on the food we eat” then I don’t know what is.)

Alright, now let’s head back to the Renaissance: The Emperor’s New Groove

I don’t really have a problem with this movie. There’s not a lot I can really complain about it, representation-wise. Mostly, I’d like to tell you what makes it so great so I can later contrast it, in terms of concepts, to Coco (and, oh, boy, will I get to Coco). What makes Emperor’s New Groove such a terrific example of “how to treat a Latin@ animated movie” are as follows:

-It doesn’t take place in Mexico (instead in pre-colonial South America)

-Just the fact that it’s pre-colonial and recognizes that there was a civilization in Central and South America before Spain marched its way on in

-It acknowledges the culture it’s portraying outside of the holidays said culture celebrates

-Despite the fact that its title bares resemblance to the Hans Christian Anderson fair tale, it is more-or-less an original story with little influence from European fairy tales (though it does strike conceptual similarities with Caliph Stork, a German fairy tale) 

I really do like Emperor’s New Groove as a piece of Latin@ representation from Disney. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suffer from the very fatal flaw of casting White actors to voice colored characters. Other than Yzma’s VA, Eartha Kitt, none of the other voice actors are people of color. I mean, I love David Spade, but, having been so famous for his place in a comedy duo with the late Chris Farley, he was about as type-casted for Kuzco’s role as Anna Kendrick was type-casted to play as princess Poppy in Dreamworks’s Trolls. As in, there was none. (Ironically, he and Anna Kendrick are type-casted for rather similar personalities). Not to say that David Spade didn’t do a great job, but there was very little keeping Disney from grabbing an aspiring Latin@ voice actor, other than the draw that Spade’s name gave to the movie (and even that wasn’t much, as this movie has a really small box-office profit by Disney standards, it was even beat by Bolt and Chicken Little, which are commonly hated Disney movies). And that’s just the lead role, that doesn’t account for, again, 99% of the voice actors being White. 

This isn’t even a Disney-exclusive issue, either. Dreamworks’s The Road to El Dorado, which came out the same year, which is also conceptually a great Latin@ movie (despite the leading characters being Spaniards), also suffers from casting much of its colored characters with White VAs. At the very least, the leading lady was voiced by a Latina, but that’s a super small step in the right direction.

This is, of course, a trend we’re just only beginning to see the end of, with movies like Big Hero 6 (I’m getting to that, by the way) and Moana giving more attention to VAs of color, so I may have to chalk Emperor’s New Grove up as another product of its time, but this is definitely something that needs to end as soon as possible.

Of course, though, the Emperor’s New Groove is still not a Disney princess movie, as much as we love to joke about Kuzco being a Disney princess, so, as good as this movie is, I’m not changing my argument about there being no real Latina Disney princess, yet.

Unfortunately, due to its poor box office, this movie kind of faded into obscurity in terms of marketing. Of course, people of my generation remember it fondly and reference it frequently, but Disney didn’t treat it all that very well. (It got a TV series, but so did literally every Renaissance Disney film that they could manage. It wasn’t some special treatment.)

I think I’ve said all I can about this movie.

Now, I wanna talk a little about ham-handed representation that is: Honey Lemon.

Honey’s a sweet girl, really, she is, and I don’t dislike her as a character. In fact, I’m super glad that Disney gave us women in science in Big Hero 6. Honey and Gogo are wonderful inspirations and role models for young girls, but that doesn’t excuse Disney from the fact that Honey isn’t a good example of Latin@ representation. And I’m not talking about her looks. She looks pretty Latina, while still keeping physical features from her comic book counterpart. No, instead, Honey is an example of unnecessarily changing a colored character’s race to another marginalized race, purely to be able to say that they have a Latin@ in this movie.

Honey Lemon, who in the comics bares the legal name Aiko Miyazaki (Honey Lemon was only her super hero name), was originally a Japanese science student. And her race-change isn’t a unique case for this movie, either, as the all-Japanese cast of the comics was changed to a more mixed-race cast for the movie. While it looks good on Disney’s part to do this, it wasn’t necessary at all, and they could have very well had a main cast comprised entirely of Japanese people. Hell, Disney, this movie takes place in San Francisco, and a Japanese-meshed “San Fransokyo” at that. Have you been to the Bay Area? It wouldn’t have been unrealistic at all to have a main cast (of just five human characters, mind you) that was only made up of Asians.

What Honey Lemon (as well as Wasabi) represents in reality is the idea that marginalized races are interchangeable. There is nothing inherently Latin@ about Honey Lemon, and despite the fact that her voice actor is Latina, I can’t help but feel like her accent feels forced at times, as if the directors were trying to get her to “sound more Latina” so she could become more marketable. Diversity is a wonderful thing, but because changing the races of these characters was, again, just so unnecessary considering the source material, it’s just another way of Disney showing us that people of color are exploitable, so long as they can get more “progressive points” for the more races they choose to portray. Honey didn’t feel like a gift, what she (and Wasabi) felt like was Disney’s desperate grab for a medal and praise.

Again, I don’t hate Big Hero 6 by any means, but you can’t pretend it’s representation. Its diversity is disingenuous and serves only to be a crowd-pleaser.

Alright, now we’re getting to the big boy, the elephant in the room. You thought this post was already super long? Get ready to delve into Pixar’s Coco.

By now, you’ve probably either seen or heard of Coco’s teaser trailer. This movie isn’t even out, yet, but, as per the norm, it is anything but free from internet speculation and criticism.

I do want to start by saying that, no, this movie isn’t going to be a total nuke to Latin@ representation. Its been flaunted as having an all-Latin@ cast, and that’s amazing, that’s something that we should have had all along. It’s something that not even Jorge R. Gutierrez’s The Book of Life (I’m getting to that, okay?) can tout due to Channing Tatum’s role as Joaquin Madragón and Ron Perlman’s role as Xibalba. Not to mention that, yes, it is another main-stream animated movie featuring Latin@ culture, and, technically, we Latin@s should be thankful for it. But, not so fast: if the LGBTQIAP community is allowed to openly criticize and not accept LeFou’s sexual orientation as proper representation in Disney’s live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, then why should Latin@s blindly accept every bone that’s thrown our way without thinking critically about the media that we consume, and its origins?

It’s no secret that Coco is being compared to The Book of Life in terms of concept, character design, set design, prop design, and even composition (the way certain scenes are shot). 

(via @kristoffbjorgman, but I got this via @pan-pizza ‘s blog, he is a Latino Youtuber who seems to have a very strong opinion about Coco.)

But should we be so quick as to call it a rip-off? Well, that’s up for debate. Though the composition of some of the scenes does look disturbingly similar, I don’t think conclusions should be jumped to in either argument. Firstly, much of what makes this movie feel like such a “rip-off” are its Latin@ elements and aesthetics (the imagery of the guitar, the marigolds, the select colors used, even the grandmother’s wicker wheelchair, which was compared to Anita Sánchez’s) and exist more because of the movie’s setting than some kind of copyright conspiracy.

Coco also seems like it will be more focused on just familial love than The Book of Life’s messages on romantic, familial, platonic, and even self love. That doesn’t really make it less, it’s good to see Disney and Pixar moving towards the trend of familial love. But plot-wise, that also makes it dissimilar to The Book of Life. The trailer for Coco also shows the young protagonist, Miguel, falling into the land of the dead by means of curiosity, rather than the desperation to follow his poisoned love interest, as Manolo Sánchez does.

Conceptually, though, one cannot argue one way or another whether this movie had taken ideas directly from The Book of Life. The point brought up that, if Coco began production in 2013, then it couldn’t possibly have taken from The Book of Life, which was released in 2014, is deeply flawed, and the reason why this point is flawed is the very reason that Coco becomes problematic. The Book of Life does not exist in a vacuum, and was not always intended to be produced by Reel FX from the moment of it’s creation. Jorge R. Gutierrez pitched this movie over and over to multiple animation studios, including Disney, for over a decade before it was accepted by Reel FX. He was turned down from everywhere else, again, including Disney.

This is also not the first time Gutierrez was turned down by Disney, as he also pitched a show for Disney Channel called Carmen Got Expelled, which never got greenlit.

I really just cannot even begin to explain how much having a tall, curly-haired girl, much less protagonist, in a TV show would have meant to me as a kid.

Incidentally, it’s interesting that the show that Jorge R. Gutierrez did end up working on for Disney, as the lead character designer, was not made by him and had absolutely no references to Latin@ culture within said character designs. (Not that I’d expect there to be in a Canadian-created show, but it is so very interesting that this is all they allowed Gutierrez to work with)

But, tangent aside, it is within the realm of possibility that Disney did take ideas from a failed pitch, assuming it would go nowhere with anyone else, when Lee Unkrich wanted to make a Dia de los Muertos film.

But there’s something more to say about the mere idea that Coco could be ripped off from The Book of Life. And that is 

that it doesn’t matter if it’s a rip-off or not.

People really seem to be having a lot of fun pointing fingers and trying to start some kind of studio war because two movies look similar. What’s happening because of this is that it alienates and divides fans who believe that there is ripping off going on, and fans who feel the need to defend Disney, into an “us vs. them” mentality. It becomes an argument about whether someone stole from someone else, and that’s something no one can really prove or disprove unless this was a widespread press-statement from Pixar admitting their theft. It’s a pointless argument that’s only going to end in hurt feelings and it does not matter.

There is something that does matter, though, something far more problematic and impacting to any artist of color looking to create something for mainstream media, and that is the comparison between the origins of The Book of Life, which is used purely as an example in this case, and the origins of Coco.

As mentioned earlier, Jorge R. Gutierrez and The Book of Life was rejected from multiple animation studios. Why is that? What was the reason he was given to defend keeping such an interesting, fresh concept from being created? Oh yeah.

Gutierrez was told that there was no audience for that kind of movie, that “no one wants to watch a Mexican movie”.

This was what held off The Book of Life from mainstream media for over a decade. The thought that nobody wants, or cares about, a movie that takes place in Mexico, about Mexicans and their culture. This was what was told to a Mexican artist and creator, who poured not only his heart and soul, but also his culture and life experiences, into his work.

This also just doesn’t make any sense, considering the very large Latin@ following Disney has. It’s not like we need another White princess, even back in the 2000′s.

Or maybe it was just that Disney didn’t want to add a Latin@ creator to their payroll?

Because, fast forward a decade, and the “sugar skull” aesthetic has become rampantly popular among White Americans, mostly attracting middle-aged, White, stay-at-home moms who like to feel “cultured” yet have nothing to do, and teenage White girls who also think it’s cute to wear Native American head dresses as accessories. Don’t believe me? Look at the kind of merchandise it’s found on:

(Thaneeya McArdle is White, by the way, you’d think they’d let Latin@ artists create art books portraying their holiday and culture, but this is another example of my eventual point.)

(Michael’s literally just caters to middle-aged, stay at home White moms with nothing to do. I worked there for over a year, I’d know)

(Oh yeah, Hot Topic is a huge (arguably the biggest) offender, and they market the holiday as if it were something edgy or emo, to attract their demographic, when that’s nothing to do with the holiday, at all. Literally, just google image “sugar skull hot topic” and prepare to be disgusted.)

(And don’t think I’m leaving Party City out of the fun!)

I don’t think I have to say that this is cultural appropriation, but I will. This just adds to treating us like a costume, treating our culture and Dia de los Muertos as some kind of marketable fashion, even more so that what they did to Cinco de Mayo. They are not celebrating us or our culture, just using us as some kind of accessory, all while they want us out of the United States and stereotype us as lazy, criminals, and un-assimilated (should I bring up the fact that Trump won among white people on a racist platform that targeted Latin@s?)

During this time, Pixar employee Lee Unkrich, a White man, took a trip to Mexico, viewed Mexico from a tourist’s perspective, and decided to make a film about Mexico.

And it got approved immediately.

This is what I’m talking about. The origins of Coco represent a very real racist mentality that is still present in the animation industry. It is still an incredibly White-dominated industry (as even the director of Coco, who is a woman, is still White. Come on, Disney, even Dreamworks got a Chinese woman to direct Kung Fu Pandas 2 and 3) and that they still only want stories from marginalized cultures so long as White people tell them, and they are not stories for White people to tell. It is almost impossible to tell them correctly and do them justice, and you only shut out artists from said cultures who could tell the same story a million times better. And this goes without saying, but not everything is about White people and for White people. Sometimes it’s time to sit down and shut up and just listen. This is a problem in the industry that we still need to climb our way out of, and people should be thinking about this rather than whether Coco was a rip-off or not.

I’d argue that it was ripped from the hands of Latin@ artists.

I do want to bring to light that Jorge R. Gutierrez is rooting for Coco as a movie. It makes sense, of course, there are many Latin@s working on it, and it’d be damning to us for Disney to look at Coco as unsuccessful and then just say “well I guess there really was no audience for that”. But that doesn’t stop me from criticizing it and its origin, same as, again, it doesn’t stop us queer people from criticizing LeFou’s sexuality at the risk of Disney saying “well, I guess people just don’t want to see gay characters”. I genuinely do not think that I can sit through Coco and enjoy it, just because I know of why it exists in the first place. I’d love to enjoy and support it, but animation is also the industry I strive to be in, it is my life goal, and look at the way they treat creators like me.

This isn’t the only thing that bothers me about it, conceptually, either. Coco is the second mainstream Latin@ movie in a long time, and what do they decide to make it about? Dia de los Muertos. Between that and the wave of sugar skull aesthetics becoming so popular, I believe that Dia de los Muertos is now officially the only thing that White people care about regarding Latin@s (other than our food and booze, of course, but we all know what happens when you try to make an animated film about food.)

Going back to what made The Emperor’s new Groove and even The Road to El Dorado so great, there are so many more aspects of Latin@ culture that could be delved into, expanded upon, shown to the world outside of just one Latin@ holiday, especially if you go back to pre-colonial Latin America. The Book of Life can be about Dia de los Muertos because, first of all, it was created by a Mexican person who does not view his own culture as just an aesthetic or accessory, but also because it was the first of its kind to do so in mainstream media, and I’m not saying this because it came out in 2014 in contrast to Coco’s release date of 2018, I’m saying this because it was a concept for a decade prior. There was nothing like it at the time of its conception. But now we’ve heard this song and dance number, before. There’s more to Latin@ culture than Dia de los Muertos, just like there’s more to White American culture than Christmas. Coco, is, again, capitalizing on the aesthetic and appeal of Dia de los Muertos more than it cares about telling a Latin@ story. If it cared about telling a Latin@ story, it would have had a Latin@ director, and it also wouldn’t have tried to copyright Dia de los Muertos. Yes. This is an actual thing that happened, that Disney tried (and failed) to do. If you’re ever in doubt over how little Disney actually cares about Latin@ culture outside of its marketability to White Americans, just take a look at what they’ve already tried to do. Coco exists because Disney wants to market a Latin@ story to White American audiences.

Disney/Pixar is a behemoth of a company. They can afford (and afford to accept) directors and artists from Latin America to tell a Latin@ story, because if there really is no audience for that, and they tank in box office, they still have billions upon billions of dollars to fall back on. But they don’t want to, they clearly don’t want to. I think that the comparisons to The Book of Life are funny to a degree, but it’s so distracting to the real issue at hand.

In short, we need to think more about the media we consume and who influences it and why.

TL;DR: Disney has a strong history of poor, or poorly handled Latin@ representation, it doesn’t matter if Coco is a rip-off of The Book of Life, because what matters is the racism in the animation industry that kept The Book of Life from existing for a long time, and that allowed Coco to exist in the first place. It’s important to critically analyze media and its creators.