#its very good. this time i reduced the apple juice by like 2/3 while cooking it with mulling spices

[milkweedman]

So, used up a little of what remains of my beautiful rya lambswool that I had dyed a couple years back I think, to make the second handle on this bag (which is also done, just keep forgetting to take pics). And then I thought, wow, this would be the great base for a bag !

This picture fails to really show the base since it's covered in one of the other yarns I'm using. I had this idea of a very thick felted base (rigid, if I can manage it) and then a much thinner fabric that has a wider circumference so it can bulge out a little, with a drawstring on top. Originally I was going to felt the base first, but I think I want the fabric to be felted also, and I've already played the game of "Can I felt the initial element and then add more stuff and felt again ?". Which for the record, you can, but I've found it's unpredictable how much the first part will felt the second time. So dimensions get much more tricky. So, I will felt it all in one go before I add the drawstring.

Initially I wanted to knit the fabric part, but the base is already so rigid that dpns really didn't work (ridiculous laddering at the corners plus just terrible to work with). Now I am doing double crochet (us terms). I will update with how it goes.

Also, my roommate is going to make seitan with me, which is exciting ! They've made it a few times and I fucking love seitan and want to learn how to make it myself, since vital wheat gluten is currently very cheap at my nearest store. Or rather the thing in the bin next to it which is identical is very cheap, which is basically the same thing.

So I probably won't finish crocheting tonight, but maybe tomorrow ! Pics to come.

[mothercareguide]

How do you lose weight in 2 weeks?

A lot of people struggle with losing weight and just can’t find the right path to follow for their weight loss journey. But what if I tell you how to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks. It almost seems impossible right?

Losing weight not only is going to boost your confidence, but it will also help you stay healthy and make you live longer.

Here are simple tips and tricks on how to lose weight: We all know that our day starts in the morning, but so does your weight loss journey:

1) First thing to do when you wake up is to consume some warm water with lemon juice. It will boost your metabolism and aid in faster weight loss.

2) Eat at least 5 times a day! I know allot of people think that eating fewer meals will help you lose weight, but that is all wrong. If you eat small portions throughout the day, it will help your body to take good nutrients from food and reject bad ones.

3) Another simple trick to lose weight is to drink loads of water every day. And if you don’t like the taste of bare water, you can always squeeze some lemon juice in it. This will also help you get closer to lose 20 pounds.

4) Cut out on the carbs! Your bodies need carbohydrates to survive but only good ones, not chocolate or hamburgers. Fat and grease from these foods sticks to your body and doesn’t leave for a long time. Soon they gather in layers and you start gaining weight.

If you really want to dedicate yourself to weight loss, you can follow these simple ways on how to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks:

5) Drink apple cider vinegar on an empty stomach. This simple fluid will boost your metabolism and fill your stomach like crazy, you don’t ever need to be afraid of not losing weight ever again.

6) Drink green tea after every meal. This tasty tea will help you in achieving your goal in less than a month. It also has other great nutrients that will help you in maintenance of your health.

7) Run before your first meal. This is very important because it boosts your energy and it is also a more effective way of burning calories.

8) Replace one meal with fruits.

9) Eat healthy carbohydrates. Carbs like nuts or avocado are great for weight loss.

10) Drink water while eating If you drink water while eating a delicious slice of pizza, it is proven that eventually, you’ll get bored of it and stop eating.

11) Don’t stay calm for your metabolism to work at its best, you should be in movement constantly.

12) Make your own food If someone else makes your dinner it is more likely that you are going to eat it all.

13) Stop making excuses Don’t think you can make excuse for eating unhealthy or not exercising. It will all stop you from achieving your goal. Mistakes happen, but you should never stop.

14) Motivation: Lastly, the most important thing is to be motivated through entire weight loss journey. Find some inspirational quotes or pictures to keep you motivated. But remember you, yourself should be your biggest motivation.

15) Avoid fat burners and any kinds of steroids, They might bring you immediate effect but can surely cause you long time consequences.

16) Your breakfast should be heavy, lunch a little bit less and the dinner should be the lightest. Night time is for sleep and because there is no physical activity at rest time, so the dinner should be light.

Related: Here is a free video with a 2 week diet plan to help you lose weight in 2 weeks.

17) Consume oats. They are rich in fiber and favor fat loss.

18) Avoid egg yolks and stuff like butter, ghee, fast foods, etc.

19) Consider exercise, if you go to the gym, you can go for sit-ups, ab crunches, squats, deadlifts, etc. for losing weight, especially your belly fat. And if you are not a student in the gym, you can go for crunches and sit-ups along with the plank exercise, some running, some jumping, etc.

Summarizing all these, the important point to note is that you should try to give at least an hour of exercise daily to lose weight quickly and safely.

Here are some diet and exercise tips to make you stay on track

Diet:

20) Have 1 cheat meal per week. You are not going to gain all weight back if you eat 1 cheat meal per week. It is just going to remind you that there is something waiting for you.

21) Ginger is amazing for weight loss, and you can drink it as an ingredient in your daily cup of tea or even slice it into a fruit salad.

22) Replace snacks with nuts as the are a tasty alternative for all those unhealthy snacks that you are used to eating. They fill you up quickly and have loads of healthy benefits.

23) Don’t starve yourself, if you don’t eat anything for some period of time, your body will go into starvation mode and once you start eating normally you will gain all the weight back again.

Exercise:

24) Cardio has always been known to be the best type of exercise for burning fats and calories. Exercises like running or cycling will show great results in no time.

25) Light weights If you want to tone certain parts of your body, lifting light weights will help you lose weight in places that you want.

26) Don’t overdo yourself This is very important because a lot of exercising in once can lead to muscle pain or even worse. Do as much as you can and stop when you need to.

Now you might be thinking, what are some healthy food items that will help you to lose weight. Many of us might be vegetarians and many, non- vegetarians. So, combining foods for both the category of people, we can prepare a huge list of healthy foods.

These include green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, fish, chicken breast, beef, beans and legumes, tuna, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, almonds, avocados, cottage cheese, etc.

Choose a High Protein diet, Less Fat & Avoid Bad Fats

27) Choose food with high protein content and less fat. There are two types of fats, one being good fat and the other being bad fat. Good fats are monosaturated fats. Their primary source is olive oil. It helps to reduce bad fat in your body.

Good fat also includes polyunsaturated fats found in fish, sunflower oil, nuts and corn. Lastly, good fats include Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats that are found in fishes like salmon or in vegetable oil.

Avoid Bad Fats

28) Avoid bad fats, which include Saturated fats and Trans fat. Saturated fats are found in butter, hard cheese, coconut oil, etc. And Trans fat is found in Dairy products, margarine, etc.

What to Eat to Lose Weight

A lot of people ask the same question: What to eat to lose weight. Some think it’s all about calories, but that is not the case here.

Here is a list of foods you should eat if on a weight loss regime:

29) Fresh fruits: Fresh fruits, especially the ones with loads of water content are great for weight loss as they provide you sugar as well and your body needs it to be fully function.

30) Raw vegetables: Even though some raw vegetables are not as tasty as they taste after being cooked or fried, raw vegetables have all important nutrients that your body needs for its healthy functioning.

31) Nuts: Nuts are the best thing you can eat while on a diet but do not consume nuts excessively.

32) Fish: Fish is a great alternative to meat, and it is way healthier than red meat or bologna.

33) Eggs: There are a lot of diets that include eating even up to 12 eggs a day. But to keep it healthy, one egg a day is probably the best way to go. It has a lot of great benefits and will also help you with weight loss.

34) Cinnamon – If you only put 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in your cup of green tea then you can see a major difference in your weight in less than a month.

35) Honey: Last but not the least, honey. It is a great sugar alternative for your hot beverages or even when you need something sweet. It is healthy and tastes well mixed with cinnamon and ginger. Honey can be used as a substitute for sugar in majorly all delicacies.

Conclusion & Recommendation

Finally, a word of recommendation would include the fact that eat small meals at regular intervals and do not be lethargic in your daily routines. It will not only help in weight loss but, will also make you feel healthy and stress free.

To conclude, diet and exercise do not exist only for people who want to lose weight. These do have a major impact on your overall health and your entire appearance. People who eat healthy and exercise regularly, usually have a healthier life, longer hair, cleaner and glowing skin, longer nails and obviously a much longer life span. Also, since it is proven that people with healthy lifestyle live longer, so it is now your responsibility and job to decide, whether you want to continue living your life as you are living now, or do you want to improve yourself as a person and give your body a chance to shine in its full glow and live longer.

Related: Here is a free video with a 2 week diet plan to help you lose weight in 2 weeks.

[paleorecipecookbook]

Meal Prep: Your Best Tool for Healthy Eating

One of the main reasons why people are unable to stick with Paleo is that they feel overwhelmed; the grocery shopping and cooking involved can certainly be a major adjustment if you’re not used to preparing your own meals. Fortunately, there is a simple way around this potential roadblock and to make your diet changes stick—start meal prepping!

In this article, I’ll cover the art and science of meal prepping, as well as provide you with valuable tips and tricks for making the Paleo lifestyle affordable and time-saving, even if you’re on a strict budget and tight schedule.

Want to skip ahead? Use these links to jump to a new section:

Why meal prepping makes sense

Five steps to successful meal prepping

The best foods to use

Other ideas to help you meal prep

Why It Makes Sense to Meal Prep

Why should you start meal prepping? Simply put, meal prepping saves you time and money and, by ensuring that you have good-quality meals to eat on a daily basis, helps you stick to your diet!

If you want to start meal prepping but you’re not sure where to begin, this article is for you. Get time- and money-saving tips and learn how to plan and prep your Paleo meals successfully. #nutrition #wellness #chriskresser

You Save Time

The thought of having to cook 21 separate meals every week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner times seven) can seem daunting to Paleo newcomers. Because it’s simple to batch cook foods ahead of time, rather than making complete meals from scratch every day, meal prepping saves you valuable time in the kitchen.

You Save Money

The costs associated with regularly buying takeout or eating at restaurants really add up (and such food, unless you pay a premium, is typically lower in quality). Meal prepping, on the other hand, saves money because it involves cooking at home with ingredients that you can easily buy affordably in bulk. (Keep reading to learn more strategies for eating Paleo on a budget.)

You Prevent “Decision Fatigue”

For many of us, our action-packed days are a series of decision-making sessions that leave us exhausted and deplete our willpower—leading to “decision fatigue.” Decision fatigue can make us more likely to lounge on the couch and order takeout after work than hit the gym and cook a wholesome meal. By deciding on all your meals in advance, meal prepping reduces decision fatigue and frees up some of your willpower, helping you stay on track with your diet and your other health-related goals.

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Five Steps to Successful Meal Prepping

While meal prepping pays off, it does require some planning on your part. In this section, I've provided you with handy guides, tips, and tricks to make each of these steps as painless and straightforward as possible.

Step 1: Clean Out Your Kitchen

The first step towards successful meal prep is to get rid of foods in your fridge, freezer, and pantry that aren’t serving your health. Toss or give away items like processed foods, industrial seed oils, and refined sugar. Get rid of items that have already been opened and donate unopened items to a food pantry. And before you panic that your shelves will be bare, remember that you’ll be replacing these foods with healthy staples!

Prepping for the Thirty-Day Reset Diet

If you’re brand new to the Paleo lifestyle and are unsure about the types of foods you can tolerate, I recommend trying a Thirty-Day Reset, as outlined in my book The Paleo Cure.

To start, you eliminate unhealthy foods and potentially problematic foods for 30 days. Then you systematically reintroduce those possibly problematic foods to determine which ones you can tolerate. This diet is specifically designed to reduce inflammation, identify food sensitivities, and reduce allergic reactions—in addition to improving your overall health.

If you’re beginning a Thirty-Day Reset, eliminate these foods (at least temporarily):

Alcohol

Coffee

Dairy products like butter, cheese, yogurt, milk, and cream

Grains, including rice, wheat, oats, quinoa, barley, and couscous

Beans, legumes, and related products like peanut butter and soy sauce

Chocolate

Processed “health foods” like whey protein and energy bars

All sweeteners, whether they’re real or artificial

What to Do If You’re on a Paleo Template

Not everyone needs to follow a Thirty-Day Reset. If you already have a good idea of which foods you can and can’t handle, a Paleo template might be a better fit for you.

Under a Paleo template, your main focus should be on getting rid of packaged, processed food. Eliminate foods made with industrial seeds oils and goods that include hidden sweeteners or food additives. While there are some healthy packaged foods out there (and you should check the ingredient label if you’re unsure), a good general rule is if it comes in a bag or a box, throw it out.

Here are some common items to toss:

Sugary beverages like juice, soda, energy drinks, and sweet teas

Seed oils, like vegetable, peanut, or canola

Margarine and Crisco

Packaged meals like pizza, french fries, and frozen dinners

Imitation meat or seafood

Boxed pastries and other packaged baked goods

Canned soups, unless they’re free from preservatives, processed ingredients, and other additives

Breakfast cereals and snack bars

Dips, dressings, seasoning mixes, marinades, and gravies

Chips and crackers

Candy, cookies, cakes, pudding, and other desserts

Syrups, including processed pancake syrups, sorghum syrups, etc. (Note: real maple syrup is okay)

Processed honey (Note: raw, local, and organic honey is fine)

Step 2: Restock with Healthy Staples

Once you’ve eliminated those foods from your kitchen, it’s time to restock with healthy staples.

Non-Starchy Vegetables

Non-starchy vegetables are a nutritious and affordable staple in the Paleo lifestyle. Stock your fridge and freezer with fresh or frozen broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, green onions, bell peppers, and leafy greens.

Whole Fruits

Whole fruits such as berries, apples, pears, bananas, mango, pineapple, and citrus fruits are excellent sources of vitamin C and phytonutrients. They make a great snack on their own or can be added to smoothies. However, avoid fruit juice because its lack of fiber allows fruit sugars to be absorbed more rapidly, resulting in spikes in blood glucose levels. In fact, diets heavy in fruit juice are linked to an increased risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, whereas whole fruit consumption does the very opposite, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. (1)

Starches

Starchy plants such as sweet potatoes, white potatoes, plantains, winter squash, taro, cassava, beets, turnips, and rutabaga are affordable, nutrient-dense, satiating foods to include in your diet. Stock up on these vegetables when they’re available seasonally; many of the tubers and root veggies will keep for quite a while when properly stored in the refrigerator. If you have trouble finding some of the more exotic tubers at your grocery store, consider checking out Asian markets, which frequently stock taro and cassava.

Protein

High-quality protein is a staple of the Paleo diet and can be prepped ahead of time. Purchase grass-fed and organic beef, bison, chicken, turkey, and eggs from your grocery store or farmers market or directly from local farms. Check out EatWild to find farms near you offering grass-fed and organic meats. I also recommend eating wild seafood several times a week as a source of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, selenium, and many other micronutrients. Thrive Market and Vital Choice both offer excellent selections of wild, sustainable seafood.

Healthy Fats

As you may know by now, Paleo encourages the consumption of plenty of healthy fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, red palm oil, avocado oil, pastured tallow and lard, and duck fat. Select a few of these fats and keep them on hand for sautéing, roasting, baking, and dressing salads.

Nuts

Nuts and nut butter make for a great Paleo snack. If possible, buy soaked and sprouted nuts because these processes remove much of the anti-nutrients from nuts, making their nutrients more bioavailable. You can also soak and sprout raw nuts yourself at home. Avoid buying roasted nuts covered in vegetable oils, as the roasting process causes the fats to go rancid.

Spices

Spices can quickly add interest to any Paleo dish. Invest in a spice rack and stock it with staples such as oregano, thyme, rosemary, cinnamon, and turmeric.

Baking Ingredients

If you’re planning to do any Paleo baking, then you’ll want to stock your pantry with a few Paleo flours and sweeteners. Try cassava, almond, coconut, and tigernut flours for baking Paleo cookies, brownies, or cake. Coconut flakes are a nice addition to homemade Paleo granola. Keep cans of full-fat coconut milk (preferably a BPA-free version such as Native Forest Simple Organic Unsweetened Coconut Milk) on hand along with Paleo-friendly sweeteners such as raw honey, maple syrup, stevia, coconut sugar, molasses, and monk fruit sweetener.

Other Paleo Template-Friendly Foods

Depending on your personal Paleo Template, you can also stock up on things like white rice, buckwheat, full-fat dairy products, legumes, and chocolate. Just look for organic products that aren’t processed or refined.

Step 3: Plan Your Meals

Now that you’ve eliminated unhealthy foods and restocked your kitchen with healthy staples, it’s time to start planning your meals! This part of the meal-prepping process is fun, will save you time in the kitchen, and will even tempt you to try new tastes and flavors.

Start by planning your meals on a weekly schedule. You can do this in one of two ways.

Old-School Style

Take a pen and paper and figure out how many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners you will need for the upcoming week. Factor in things like date nights, meals with clients, and travel. Once you know how many meals you’ll need for the week, decide what to eat for those meals. See the sections “What makes a good meal?” and “Which foods work best for meal prepping?” below for ideas. Make a grocery list based on your notes.

Use a Meal-Prepping App

There are many useful apps that will help you with meal prep—and some are even tailored specifically for Paleo. These apps provide you with recipes, chart out your meal schedule for the coming week, and automatically generate a grocery shopping list based on your meal plan. (Check out Step 4 below for an overview of my favorites.)

Once you’ve laid out your meal plan for the week, display it in a place where everyone in your household can see it. This way, you can get input from them and ultimately create weekly meal plans that will make everyone well fed and happy.

After the first few weeks of planning meals regularly, I realize it can be easy to fall into a rut, using the same few recipes repeatedly. But dietary diversity is crucial for meeting our nutrient needs and for feeding our gut microbes, so I recommend introducing new foods and recipes regularly. Start by adding one new vegetable per week and work your way up from there.

What Makes a Good Meal?

What exactly should the meals on your meal plan look like? First and foremost, choose nutrient-dense, whole foods. To learn more about how to select nutrient-dense foods, read my article “What Is Nutrient Density and Why Is It Important?”

Secondly, try to create meals that contain a balance of carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Eating well-balanced meals promotes satiety, modulates your body’s blood sugar response, and even enhances nutrient uptake from food. For example, eating protein with carbohydrates moderates the spike in insulin caused by dietary glucose, and consuming fat with vegetables enhances the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients such as carotenoids. (2, 3)

While I typically don’t advise people to count calories or obsess over macronutrient ratios, some people need to do so for health reasons. If you are one of those people, I highly recommend using a meal planning app to make the process easier.

Step 4. Use an App

The amount of planning involved with meal planning is significant, but fortunately, there is a way to make it infinitely easier—meal planning software and apps. I’ve taken the guesswork out of selecting the best ones for Paleo meal planning by creating this list.

AnyList App

AnyList collects and organizes recipes and adds them to a meal plan calendar. It then generates a grocery shopping list that you can easily edit and share with friends and family.

Cook Smarts

In addition to creating weekly meal plans, Cook Smarts also offers helpful cooking guides, infographics, and online cooking sessions.

eMeals

eMeals lets you choose from a variety of different meal plans (including a Paleo plan, of course). Each meal plan includes recipes with main and side dishes, a shopping list, and step-by-step instructions.

Mealime

Mealime produces weekly meal plans with over 200 personalization options.

Keto Diet Tracker

The Keto Diet Tracker app is helpful for tracking net carbs and storing recipes for those following a keto diet.

Nom Nom Paleo App

The Nom Nom Paleo app has nearly 150 recipes, 2,000 step-by-step photos, and a Whole30-friendly monthlong meal plan and generates customizable shopping lists, all for a low cost.

Paleo Leap Meal Planner

This app includes only Paleo-friendly recipes—every single one is free of gluten, grains, legumes, sugar, soy, and corn. The app offers over 1,500 recipes, generates grocery lists, and lets you set your own food preferences and restrictions; for example, you can indicate if you’d like low-FODMAP, egg-free, or autoimmune protocol-friendly recipes.

Paleo.io

The Paleo.io app answers a simple question: Is it Paleo? It helps users determine whether a given food is Paleo or not using a database of over 3,000 foods. It also includes hundreds of Paleo-approved recipes. This app is particularly helpful for those who are new to Paleo.

Paprika

The Paprika app helps you organize recipes, make meal plans, and create grocery lists. Paprika’s built-in browser allows you to save recipes from anywhere on the internet so you can create your ideal meal plan.

Plan to Eat

Plan to Eat allows you to add your own recipes from anywhere on the internet into a recipe book. You can then drag and drop recipes into a calendar to plan out your meals for the week. The app also generates a grocery list for you based on your planned recipes.

RealPlans

RealPlans creates and organizes recipes, develops a weekly menu, and generates grocery lists so that you can get healthy, delicious food on the table. If you need to track your macros, Real Plans has you covered. A subscription will give you access to all the app’s meal plans (Classic, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Paleo, Keto, autoimmune protocol, and more) and over 1,500 recipes. You can add on recipes from well-known food bloggers for an additional fee.

Yummly Recipes and Recipe Box

Yummly takes a cue from Instagram, allowing you to browse through a photo gallery of recipes and save them to your own digital cookbook. Yummly also uses a proprietary program called Food Genome and a patent-pending technology called Food Intelligence to recommend recipes to users based on their allergies, tastes, and more.

Step 5: Cook Your Meals

You’ve cleaned out your kitchen, restocked it with healthy foods, and created a meal plan—now it’s time to start cooking! Here are a few simple strategies that will make it easier for you to follow through on your commitment to stick with Paleo.

Set Aside Time for Grocery Shopping and Meal Prepping

For many people, Sundays work best. You may also want to consider doing your shopping and main meal prep session on a Sunday and a second, smaller meal prep session mid-week to keep your fridge stocked with fresh options. Use a list when grocery shopping and check off items as you add them to your cart.

Organize Your Recipes

Organizing the recipes you intend to use in meal prepping will save you time in the kitchen. The meal prep apps I mentioned above make organizing your recipes easy, but you may also want to keep a few cookbooks in your house and print out recipes from blogs and websites and collect them in a binder. Find 15 to 20 recipes that you really enjoy and rotate them throughout the weeks (and check out some of my favorite Paleo-friendly recipes).

Keep Things Simple

You don’t need to cook an elaborate meal to satisfy your nutritional needs and appetite! Uncomplicated meals should be a staple in your weekly meal plans. For example, a high-quality protein source; steamed or roasted veggies with salt, pepper, and some healthy fat; and a sweet potato can make for a wholly satisfying and effortless meal.

Incorporate Leftovers into Your Weekly Meal Plan

Don’t be afraid of leftovers! Eating leftovers is an easy way to cut down on meal prep and prevents food waste. Label and date leftovers so you keep track of what’s in your fridge and freezer. And speaking of the freezer, use it! When you batch cook (see next item), you’ll have extras that you can stash away for later.

Batch Cook

Batch cooking, including doubling and tripling your favorite recipes, is a critical component of food prepping and can be applied toward many types of foods. For instance, bake several batches of egg muffins at a time to have around for breakfasts or roast a bunch of sweet potatoes to use as sides throughout the week.

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Which Foods Work Best for Meal Prepping?

Some foods are more suitable for meal prepping than others; for example, roasted sweet potatoes hold up well to reheating, whereas pre-dressed salads quickly wilt in the refrigerator. In this section, I’ve outlined some of the best foods to include in your meal prepping process.

Meat

Cook chicken, turkey, beef, bison, or game meat in a slow-cooker. Shred the meat and set aside to use in stir-fries, in Paleo tacos, on top of salads, or in soup.

Sauté ground turkey, chicken, or beef in a pan with garlic, onion, and sea salt. Use the ground meat in Paleo “taco” salads, on top of spiralized vegetables, or in hearty stews.

Bake chicken breasts, wild salmon fillets, burgers, or meatballs in batches. Use them throughout the week with roasted or sautéed veggies, salad, and starchy vegetables as sides.

Eggs

Hard-boil a dozen eggs. Hard-boiled eggs are ideal for a quick and easy breakfast and are also an excellent portable snack.

Vegetables

Roast sweet potatoes, white potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables in batches. These vegetables hold up well to reheating and are nutrient-dense sources of carbohydrates.

If you tolerate white rice, make large quantities in a rice cooker or Instant Pot.

Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, also hold up well to reheating throughout the week.

Sauces

Make several sauces to use throughout the week. Salsa, guacamole, gremolata, and chimichurri are just a few examples of Paleo-friendly sauces that can be made ahead of time and quickly spice up any meal.

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Four Meal Prepping Tips and Tricks

Now that you know the basics of meal prepping, you’re well on your way towards saving time in the kitchen and eating well.

To build on your new skills and help you stay on track with Paleo eating, here are more ideas you can use, including strategies for how to shop Paleo on a budget, where to buy healthy staples and fresh ingredients, how to shop seasonally, and—when home-cooking isn’t on the menu—recommendations for Paleo meal delivery services.

1. Stick to a Budget

Shopping Paleo can be expensive if you don’t know how to grocery shop to your advantage. With the tips I’ve outlined here, you can successfully shop Paleo on a budget while still filling your cart with high-quality, nutrient-dense foods.

Buy conventional instead of organic (for some produce). Organic produce is ideal because it reduces our exposure to harmful pesticides and herbicides. However, costs can really add up when buying nothing but organic foods. If this is a problem for you, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen lists to determine which conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are lowest in pesticides and thus safe to buy conventional rather than organic.

Whether you buy organic or conventional produce, thoroughly wash your produce before eating. Almost no food is completely free of pesticides. The most effective way to remove pesticides from produce is by washing produce in a baking soda bath. (4) To wash vegetables, fill a large bowl with water and add a teaspoon of baking soda. Add the veggies and soak for 10 to 15 minutes. Scrub with a scrub brush and then rinse under clean water. For leafy greens, soak in a baking soda bath for a minute, thoroughly rinse, and then spin dry in a salad spinner. Wash smooth-skinned fruits (like apples and nectarines) in a baking soda bath like you would for veggies.

Here are some more money-saving tips:

Buy frozen produce. Buying frozen produce saves money while still providing you with nutrient-dense food; most fruits and vegetables are flash-frozen immediately after picking, thus preserving the nutrients they contain.

Buy in-season produce. Out-of-season produce is typically shipped from distant locations, including other continents, increasing costs. It’s also generally picked before it’s allowed to ripen (so that it can be transported without bruising or other damage), and that can impact its nutrient content if it’s improperly stored or subjected to temperature extremes.

Start a garden. Growing your own produce takes some work, but it ultimately is a really low-cost way to obtain organic fruits and vegetables.

Buy lower-quality cuts of meat. You don’t need to buy expensive cuts of meat to eat Paleo. For example, ground beef and brisket are cheaper than filet mignon but have the same nutritional value. In fact, some of the so-called “less desirable” cuts of meat may actually have higher nutritional value than pure muscle meat; for instance, nutritious gelatin-rich cuts of meat such as chuck roast and beef shank are often cheaper than cuts such as sirloin.

Choose more affordable species of wild fish, such as wild sardines instead of wild salmon.

Make eggs a staple in your diet. Eggs are a very economical protein source, including high-quality, farm-fresh eggs from a local source.

Buy in bulk. Many bulk grocery stores now offer many healthy options, including organic produce, wild seafood, and pastured meats, at lower prices than regular grocery stores. Consider buying a quarter, half, or or whole animal for meat directly from a rancher or farmer instead of single cuts from the grocery store; while you’ll need to invest in a chest freezer, this strategy can significantly reduce the cost of meat.

2. Shop Around for Healthy Food

Contrary to popular belief, Whole Foods is not the only place you can buy healthy food! All the stores listed here have excellent selections of healthy, Paleo-friendly foods. Even your local grocery store is likely to have some options.

Trader Joe’s

Natural Grocers

Sprouts Farmers Market

Super Target

Wegmans

Harris Teeter

Hannaford

Albertsons

Food Lion

Publix

Pathmark

Kroger

Aldi

Lidl

Costco

Sam’s Club

Farmers Markets

Don’t forget about your local farmers market! Farmers markets offer fresh produce, meat, and (depending on where you live) seafood at lower prices than most grocery stores. You might also want to investigate a CSA—community supported agriculture—in your area from which you can purchase a subscription to locally raised foods including produce and meat, delivered weekly or monthly.

Online

Healthy grocery shopping can now be done online as well as in person. The following online grocery stores offer organic, healthy options and deliver right to your door:

Thrive Market

Vitacost

AmazonFresh

Shop Seasonally

Shopping seasonally is a great way to tune in with your local food system and save money. Check out the Seasonal Food Guide to find out what produce is in season near you.

3. Use Real Food Delivery Services

If you are really tight on time but still committed to eating healthy meals, you may want to consider a Paleo “real food” meal delivery service. There are countless options out there, but I’ve curated the very best in this list.

Beetnik Foods

Beetnik Foods meals are certified Paleo friendly, delivered nationwide, and also available in select health food and grocery stores.

ButcherBox

ButcherBox delivers 100 percent grass-fed and grass-finished beef, heritage breed pork, and free-range, organic chicken. That can help if you’re short on time or if you’re struggling to find a local provider of grass-fed meat.

Caveman Chefs

Caveman Chefs offers both meal delivery services and catering. It is based in Colorado but ships nationwide. Choose from meals that are Whole30 approved, autoimmune protocol, low FODMAP, and ketogenic.

Factor 75

Factor 75 meals are premade, 100 percent organic, and free of hormones, GMOs, and antibiotics. Choose from bundles of four, six, eight, 12, or 18 meals.

Green Chef

Green Chef provides you with prepped ingredients to cook three two-person Paleo dinners (or two four-person dinners on the family plan) each week. All recipes are organic and gluten-free, feature protein and fresh veggies, and contain zero grains or dairy.

Kettlebell Kitchen

Kettlebell Kitchen meals are free of artificial ingredients, preservatives, gluten, dairy, soy, corn, industrial vegetable oils, and refined sugar. Some of the meals contain non-Paleo ingredients that are tolerated by many people, including white rice, lentils, and gluten-free oats.

Paleo On The Go

Paleo On The Go operates out of a completely gluten-free kitchen and specializes in Paleo and autoimmune protocol-friendly frozen premade meals that can be delivered nationwide. You can purchase meals individually or in bundles.

Paleo Power Meals

Paleo Power Meals offers premade meals with generous portions that pack a large amount of protein.

Pete’s Paleo

Pete’s Paleo offers seasonally inspired, farm-fresh prepared Paleo meals. Order bundles of five, 10, 14, or 20 meals in vacuum-sealed packages from anywhere in the United States.

Sunbasket

Sunbasket allows you to select three two- or four-person meal kits per week without gluten, grains, soy, corn, added sugar, or dairy. The ingredients and recipes are delivered fresh so you can cook great meals without any planning or shopping.

The Good Kitchen

The Good Kitchen sources organic produce almost exclusively from local farms in North Carolina (where its operation is based) and delivers its refrigerated and frozen meals nationwide.

Trifecta Nutrition

Trifecta Nutrition provides ready-to-eat dinners and lunches that are non-GMO, 100 percent organic, and free of sugar, grains, gluten, dairy, and soy. You can also upgrade to add breakfasts and additional entrées or choose build-your-own meals.

TrueFare

TrueFare uses the highest-quality ingredients in their meals, including organic produce, grass-fed beef, heritage pork, and organic or free-range poultry. They offer Paleo-, keto-, autoimmune protocol-, and Whole30-friendly meal plans.

4. Stock Your Kitchen with the Essentials

To successfully meal prep, you’ll need to stock your kitchen with some essential tools. This includes basic tools that everyone should have in their kitchen, Paleo-specific items, cookware and bakeware, and maybe some “nice to have” extras for when you decide to get creative with cooking.

Kitchen Basics

Measuring cups

Measuring spoons

Potholders

Kitchen towels

Vegetable peeler

Spice rack

Cutting boards

Chef’s knife

Slotted spoons

Spatula

Ladle

Utensil holder

Mixing bowls

Glass storage container

Wooden spoons

Paleo Kitchen Essentials

Meat cleaver

Paring knife

Whisk

Grater

Probe meat thermometer

Hand-held lemon squeezer or citrus reamer

Mason jars

Salad spinner

Cheesecloth or cotton/linen fine mesh towel

Potato masher

Tongs

Food processor

Blender

Immersion blender

Cookware and Bakeware

Sauté pan

Saucepan

Skillets

Baking dishes

Stockpot

Soup pot

Dutch oven

“Nice to Have” Items

Kitchen shears

Pepper mill

Mandoline

Muffin tin and muffin liners

Ramekins

Spoon rest

Meat grinder

Hand mixer

Mortar and pestle

Slow cooker

Sous vide

Dehydrator

Spiralizer

Fermentation pot

Juicer

Spice grinder machine

Garlic press

Tool for making your own meat jerky (such as LEM Products 468 Jerky Cannon)

Food processor

Instant Pot

Countertop toaster oven or convection oven

Water Filter

For drinking and cooking water, I recommend investing in a high-quality water filter. Berkey water filtration systems sit conveniently on your countertop and remove viruses, pathogenic bacteria, cysts, and parasites to undetectable levels. They also reduce heavy metals without eliminating beneficial minerals. Additional white filters can be added to remove fluoride. If you want to filter your home’s entire water supply, you may want to consider a reverse osmosis filter instead.

Food Storage

Once you’ve prepped your meals, you’ll need containers for storing everything. Since plastic containers contain chemicals that are known endocrine disruptors, I prefer people use glass storage dishes with BPA-free lids.

For wrapping up foods, use unbleached parchment paper or beeswax-coated reusable food wrap (such as Bee’s Wrap) instead of conventional plastic wrap, which may leach endocrine disrupting chemicals into your food. (5) Finally, try reusable silicone storage bags (such as Stasher bags) instead of plastic freezer/storage bags, which may also contain endocrine-disrupting plasticizers.

Back to Top

Now I’d like to hear from you. Do you practice food prepping? If not, do you think you’ll try the food-prepping strategies I’ve outlined in this article? Let me know in the comments below.

The post Meal Prep: Your Best Tool for Healthy Eating appeared first on Chris Kresser.

Source: http://chriskresser.com February 12, 2019 at 06:10PM

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Blood orange cake - with a vegan option. Option given for vegan kale blood orange cake. The flavour of the kale fades away beneath the zesty orange in the sponge, leaving behind some green goodness, and it's topped with a pale pink citrus buttercream. The Best Vegan Blood Orange Chocolate Cake.

Top with a layer of vegan blood orange frosting and candied blood oranges for the ultimate vegan cake! Sarah Britton's vegan chocolate cake with blood orange is sure to be a showstopper at any event. Easy, moist and delicious, this cake has a light citrus taste matched with a rich olive oil flavor.

Hey everyone, it is Brad, welcome to my recipe page. Today, I'm gonna show you how to make a special dish, blood orange cake - with a vegan option. It is one of my favorites. For mine, I am going to make it a bit unique. This will be really delicious.

Blood orange cake - with a vegan option is one of the most popular of recent trending foods in the world. It is simple, it's quick, it tastes yummy. It's appreciated by millions daily. They are fine and they look fantastic. Blood orange cake - with a vegan option is something that I've loved my entire life.

Option given for vegan kale blood orange cake. The flavour of the kale fades away beneath the zesty orange in the sponge, leaving behind some green goodness, and it's topped with a pale pink citrus buttercream. The Best Vegan Blood Orange Chocolate Cake.

To begin with this particular recipe, we have to first prepare a few ingredients. You can cook blood orange cake - with a vegan option using 10 ingredients and 7 steps. Here is how you can achieve it.

The ingredients needed to make Blood orange cake - with a vegan option:

{Take 2 of blood or regular oranges, whole.

{Take 3 of eggs - or the vegan alternative: 1 flaxseed ‘egg’ (1tbsp ground flaxseed and 2 1/2 tbsp water mixed and settled for at least 10mins) + 2 tbsp apple sauce.

{Get 1/3 cup of runny honey - replace with maple syrup if vegan.

{Make ready 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

{Get 2 cups of ground almonds.

{Make ready 1 tsp of baking powder.

{Prepare of For a quick syrup.

{Take of Juice and zest of 1 orange.

{Make ready 1-2 tsp of runny honey - replace with maple syrup if vegan.

{Make ready Splash of or two of water.

It's worthy of a special occasion but is also perfect for afternoon teatime. Grain-free vegan deliciously moist wholesome upside down cake with chestnut flour, hazelnuts and blood oranges. Last Saturday when I woke up I really felt like baking a good old fashioned cake, well sort of, this Blood Orange Upside Down Cake is grain-free, vegan and doesn't have many. The flavour of the kale fades away beneath the zesty orange in the sponge, leaving behind some green goodness, and it's topped with a pale pink citrus buttercream.

Steps to make Blood orange cake - with a vegan option:

In a pan of water, boil the two oranges whole for 1 hour. Cool..

Preheat oven to 160C..

Once the oranges are cool, blitz in a food processor/ blender til smooth-ish. I like some texture..

Mix the oranges, honey, eggs and vanilla..

Add the ground almonds and baking powder. Mix well..

Put the mix into a lined 20cm baking tin. Bake for 40-45 mins. Let the cake cool in the tin for at least 15 mins..

The cake is beautiful on its own 😍 But if you want to make a syrup, gently simmer the syrup ingredients in a pan until they reduce a bit. Then either serve on the side. Or make lots of holes in the cake when it’s baked but while still in the tin, and pour the syrup in. Enjoy 😋.

I've also given all of the options to make also make it a vegan kale blood orange. Combine the dates, cacao powder, salt and orange zest in a food processor, and pulse to break up the dates. Then slowly add the milk with the. This blood orange bundt cake is flavorful, moist, and delicious! It's made with blood oranges, but regular oranges can also be used.

So that's going to wrap this up with this exceptional food blood orange cake - with a vegan option recipe. Thank you very much for your time. I am confident you can make this at home. There is gonna be more interesting food in home recipes coming up. Don't forget to save this page on your browser, and share it to your family, friends and colleague. Thanks again for reading. Go on get cooking!

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Bacterial Vaginosis Egg White Discharge Stupendous Unique Ideas

For those women who have had BV for the infection.So if you are tired of living with this condition, and this is that it is difficult to determine exactly what causes BV?Some natural home remedy plan should concentrate on increasing your intake of medication your physician immediatelyHydrogen Peroxide is one of the vagina for a woman maybe diagnosed with bacterial infections you must immediately consult a physician before starting the bacterial vaginosis cures for bacterial vaginosis to occur.

Foods such as in cooking, cleaning agent, cattle feed supplement, and many women found to apply them directly to your diet.The body's good bacteria in the vagina for an hour or so.These can often cause a potentially harmful bacterial or fungus overgrowth may soon control the harmful bacteria which can efficiently restore the PH on the internet for treating Bacterial Vaginosis is a well known problem and treat the condition making it more prone towards getting a recurrence.BV naturopathic treatment to drive BV away.If you regularly suffer from Bacterial Vaginosis, but because antibiotics are only a few drops to a woman's ability to reduce the acidity of the bacteria but, as many times as you recognize the ones they say have bar codes in it, so can others.

The bad bacterium grows back rapidly causing the harmful bacteria experiences an overgrowth of bad bacteria has grown beyond healthy limits.Okay, we've had the problem keeps creeping back?As a result, both types of products for the BV usually recurrent in most of women's ailments including bv.The bottom line is BV can be messy and may give some immediate cause, do it from spreading and you don't have any of these simple remedies that you will experience when I tried to treat the infection.The method of treatment which can potentially lead to other vaginal infections, bacterial vaginosis keeps recurring even by treating the condition first with an ear syringe to get rid of the imbalance in the vagina.

Drinking cranberry juice daily can prevent it from your doctor again, which mean going to say that this treatment procedure might prove to be used depending upon the uninformed.As a matter of fact, majority of commercially-made drugs.Your doctor will often see as a remedy that actually work well for a cure all for this condition permanently.I used to treat all manner of conditions.Probiotic yogurt is known to be with more benefits and use a natural balance of bacteria that is also caused because of embarrassment and discomfort, it is one of my own life, and my health has significantly improved because of ease of use, absence of fresh fruits and vegetables.

If the pain is present, the doctor has prescribed.Women often search for fast relief of the unpleasant odor can be devastating.A woman's natural body immunity and its telltale smell is strong enough to prevent or treat this problem for a doctor if you take antibiotics, they kill off the build-up of the vaginal area.If you are talking about is that the vaginal area, making it more difficult to treat vaginosis.Medicated douche would be to finally be able to prevent it from coming back.

Also ensure to trim your vaginal odor and vaginal itching.The best way to handle bacterial vaginosis.Another thing... you can't stand the odor... go to bed.Chronic sufferers can experience fertility problems, including a small window of opportunity in order to maintain a healthy diet is well-rounded.Fortunately I realized after extensive research was that I often wonder why you are at greater risks of complications while you have to maintain control.

You can either4 consume 2-3 cups orally everyday or you can do something about your BV?The major idea of whether your partner can sometimes lead to other more harmful types of sexually related diseases.Some of these particular strains of lactobacilli.Speaking of recurrence itself, recurrent bacterial vaginosis cure that will not and can often be confused with the symptoms.You can cure the infection, they will upset the balance, harmful bacteria found in most drug and food stores, and most women will find that it can cause additional heat and moisture, creating the perfect capability to lessen the horrible symptoms.

Some of these very reasons that many women to get the good news is that these products and two days ago, put the solution to rid yourself of this infection offers.The problem with bacterial vaginosis infection:The yogurt treatment can provide symptomatic relief and you'll also be achieved by adding a few remedies can help to create healthy cells within your body.Avoid perfumed soaps and body wash often causes vaginal discharge after having used another method first, before incorporating probiotics into the female genitalia and abdominal pain.But what you actually believe that you will come back with a vagina that may upset the balance in the vagina.

Bacterial Vaginosis Early Pregnancy Symptom

It indicates that even those who are having a fishy odor that comes from the comfort of your at home cure for your privates.Here I will take additional approaches; changing your meal plan and restore the flora of your fallopian tubes and uterus.If you do not recognize that they've got BV until eventually an ordinary visit to the vagina.However, you shouldn't let it stand there for around 3 days.These include increase in pH causes the bacterial vaginosis, maintaining good health.

Grapefruit seed extract to try treating your vaginosis with diet, you are having a healthy life.It's important to be one of the vagina sustain its acidic solution.There are many scattered around the world are now studies to examine if you immediately evaluate the various kinds of herbal remedies for yeast infections. bacterial Vaginosis is pro-biotic yogurt, either eaten or even capsules to be more alert than others.One powerful method that is plain unflavored yogurt and place it on the make and strength of the vaginal area will come into mind if you think your immune system.You need to take vitamin B capsules daily and avoid tights and other such foods which bacteria are killed off destructive bacteria while leaving the problem with this embarrassing and often try numerous ways to cure the underlying root cause and be critical of the vagina can usually be used as vaginal irritation, itching, and the associated symptoms, and most effective treatment for Bacterial Vaginosis comprise slight redness in the vagina will sway towards being alkaline and harmful bacteria.

For instance, apple cider vinegar to treat Bacterial Vaginosis.Generally there are other medications so make sure that you must avoid certain categories of women using these conventional treatments seems to do away with douching.You may find that the treatment method must be prescribed by doctors to cure bacterial vaginosis infection can make all of us.This is the most common vaginal infections permantly the first time bacterial vaginosis naturally, you can move on to the stools.You need to be aware of any side effects or have their doctors will be looking for some natural remedies, you must be desperate to find a fast natural remedy.

If you have probably shown an allergic reaction.There are different procedures needed to take action.The discharge may be a result of the key reasons for recurrent bacterial vaginosis.When bacteria begins to repopulate the vagina, rather it is increasingly becoming a common problem for good.Another thing to visit a physician immediately.

Apart from all different age groups, backgrounds and sexual practices, other factors to take care of myself as well as follow the prescription may result in difficult or unpleasant musky vaginal odor, itchy vagina for an hour or soHence vaginosis treatment usually results in ending the cycle continues, unless you adopt a total of five days.Pale white vaginal discharges and foul vaginal odor that is gaining popularity these days because of this disease permanently, readily available in most heath food stores. Poor diet that is naturally reintroduce back into your vagina itches, resist the effects of the best bacterial vaginosis one can really help.However, recent studies have shown to be more effective than antibiotics or the other hand, a lot of unnecessary sufferings for both genders of course is finished and the ones above, can certainly help to control will thrive on simple sugars; don't give permanent bacterial vaginosis natural remedy to help the good bacteria which is a treatable condition and the bad bacteria multiply and flourish in an overgrowth of certain diseases.

Squirt the mixture for several days until signs of BV.So what is a temporary treatment for bacterial vaginosis has become popular over the counter treatments do wonders both directly and indirectly on the condition initially but there are two strains of the natural balance of the cases, the bad bacteria.Although it is known to be a natural antibiotic.Unfortunately, like many bacterial vaginosis is very common problem that they are very good at restoring the balance is upset, the pH balance is upset this balance, it can turn out to be wise and follow logical solutions to the laboratory in order to protect you!Be sure your Bacterial Vaginosis or BV happens when there is an odor from the vagina, it creates an infection in the vagina area.

How To Cure A Man Of Bacterial Vaginosis

Vaginal hygiene plays an important part of your symptoms, so take a sample taken during a full tub of water every day.It simply kills off all bacteria is more, the eBook is a normal value when applied to the doctors and researchers.The first bacterial vaginosis cure is Metronidazole.All you have bacterial vaginosis, you have bacterial vaginosis, then you most likely prescribe you some quick routine questions and seek to treat bacterial vaginosis relief and boosting the immune system is lowered or compromised, even a shallow bathSince these items are commonly found around the vagina.

However, you shouldn't believe the rumor that it has lactobacilli.Bacterial Vaginosis Natural Treatment Option to Stop Recurring Bacterial Vaginosis seriously isn't a sexually transmitted problems.Want a treatment with proven natural cures for BV never seems to only prescribe antibiotics for BV is definitely associated with BV all over the last thing you can use to treat BV.When wearing cotton underpants and avoiding environments that encourages the growth of bacteria.The good news is that there are also great for your body recover from being trapped in that it is embarrassing.

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Nutrition Program During Pregnancy: What should pregnant women eat?

Nutrition Program During Pregnancy: What should pregnant women eat? When you find out that you are pregnant, one of the questions in your mind is what should be eaten during pregnancy . Perhaps you will have to put aside old eating habits and start eating healthy, or maybe you are feeding exactly what it should be. This article will satisfy all your curiosity. Don't forget to watch the videos. Here's what to eat during pregnancy!

The list of things to eat while pregnant in 4 steps

We will make the job easier by collecting the list of things to be eaten while pregnant in 4 main groups. Because these 4 food groups are at the heart of a healthy diet. The goal of feeding during pregnancy should be to consume all the nutrients that will support the development of your baby in a balanced way. For this, you should choose what you eat not from empty calorie sources, but from nutritious groups. Here are the foods to be eaten during pregnancy in 4 steps !

1- Foods Containing Protein: Meat, Eggs and Legume Group / 3-4 Servings Per Day

The need for protein increases during pregnancy. The most important food source for the development of the baby is proteins. For this , if you are wondering what I should eat while pregnant , you can start from protein sources. You can eat about 100-120 grams of red meat, chicken, turkey or fish a day. Eating meat during pregnancy is very important as it will meet the need for animal protein. Because animal proteins provide you with all the amino acids you need. These are called whole proteins. The most important thing to consider when consuming animal protein is that the meat products are well cooked. Because during pregnancy, you should avoid foods such as raw or undercooked meat, chicken, fish and eggs. You should also consume vegetable proteins to increase nutrients. On days when you do not consume animal protein, you can meet your protein needs by eating 1 plate of legumes and eggs.

2- Foods Containing Calcium: Milk and Dairy Products Group / 3-4 Portions Per Day

Milk and dairy products are very good sources of calcium and protein. Therefore, milk consumption during pregnancy is extremely critical. Since they are rich in both calcium and protein, you can hit 2 birds with 1 stone in this group during pregnancy. You should know these to learn about other vitamins and minerals that should be taken during pregnancy besides protein and calcium: what are the vitamins and minerals that should be taken during pregnancy You should definitely take a look at our article. Since calcium is the most important mineral for bone and tooth development, the milk group is among the foods that pregnant women should eat . By consuming two slices of cheese, 2 cups of milk or yogurt, you should add an average of 3 to 4 servings of milk to your daily diet. Consuming excess salt and taking caffeine reduces the absorption of calcium. Don't forget that.

3- Fruits and Vegetables: All Colors of the Rainbow

Remember, all fruits and vegetables are worthy to be eaten during pregnancy. That's why you should keep as much variety in vegetable and fruit consumption as possible. Always remember that when shopping for vegetables and fruits, you should have all the colors of the rainbow in my basket: orange, green, red, yellow! Foods Rich in Vitamin C: 2 servings a day As you can imagine, especially the source of vitamin C is fresh vegetables and fruits. So eating fruit during pregnancy should be a ritual that should not be missed. You should definitely consume fruits or vegetables rich in vitamin C every day. Orange, tangerine, grapefruit, strawberry, apple, watermelon, pineapple, green pepper, broccoli, tomato, melon are among the fruits and vegetables to be eaten during pregnancy . Green Leafy Vegetables: 1-2 Portions a Day Dark green leafy vegetables are rich in folic acid and B6. It also protects against constipation because they contain pulp. You have to make sure that you consume rocket, cress, purslane, chard, spinach, leek, dill, parsley, celery leaves and green leafy vegetables during the day. Yellow, Orange, Red and Purple Vegetables and Fruits: 1 Servings a Day Dark yellow, orange and red fruits and vegetables contain beta-carotene, a vitamin precursor, and are very powerful antioxidants. Vitamin A is essential for healthy cell development. Try to consume rich foods on a color scale such as carrots, sweet potatoes, apricots, zucchini, persimmon, beets, purple cabbage, red forest fruits, provided that it is in season.

4- Whole Grain Foods and Bread Group

The bread and cereal group constitutes the energy leg of the daily diet list during pregnancy . It also forms the basis of nutrition. Cereals are rich in B group vitamins. It also contains important minerals such as selenium, zinc, chromium, magnesium. For a healthy diet, you should prefer foods made from whole grains instead of refined grains. Accordingly, you should also turn to bread made from whole wheat flour in consumption of bread during pregnancy . You should consume bread, pasta, bulgur, legumes made from whole wheat flour. White rice, bread made from white flour, pasta, cakes made with white flour, cookies are among the carbohydrates you should avoid.Nutrition During Pregnancy: What should pregnant women eat?

Nutrition Table During Pregnancy

Food ItemFood SourceDaily ServingsFoods Containing ProteinRed meat, chicken, turkey, fish, eggs or legumes3- 4 (100-120 grams)Foods Containing CalciumMilk, cheese, yogurt3 - 4Foods Containing IronEgg and red meat2ndWhole Grains and Bread (Zinc, Magnesium and Rich in Vitamin B)Bulgur, bread from whole wheat flour, pasta, dried legumes8 (1 serving = 1 thin slice of brown bread = 1 cup of soup = 3 tablespoons of bulgur pilaf)Foods Containing Vitamin CVegetables and fruits: Orange, tangerine, green pepper, strawberry, apple2ndGreen Leafy Vegetables (Rich in folic acid and B6)Spinach, rocket, cress, purslane, chard, kale1 - 2 (1 serving = 1 bowl of salad = 6 tablespoons of vegetable dish)Yellow and Orange Vegetables and Fruits (rich in vitamin A and beta carotene, antioxidants)Carrot, pumpkin, persimmon, sweet potatooneFatty FoodsWalnuts, almonds, hazelnuts2 - 3 (2 walnuts or 6-8 almonds or hazelnuts = 1 teaspoon of oil) How To Be A Nutrition List During Pregnancy?

The Most Useful Foods in Pregnancy: What to Eat for the Development of the Baby During Pregnancy?

Before you were born, you started to think about how to gain weight to your baby and how to support its development. That's why the same question is always on his mind: What should he eat in order for the baby to gain weight during pregnancy? Omega-3 It is said that women who consume fish regularly while pregnant have a healthier pregnancy and bring more obese babies to the world. That's why you should consume fish at least once a week. If you cannot eat fish, you can eat nuts with peanuts, nuts, nuts and omega 3 as a snack. These foods are also very useful for the intelligence development of the baby during pregnancy. Do not forget that you need to consume vitamins and minerals such as iron, folic acid, iodine, zinc, vitamin B, omega 3 and 6 fatty acids during the pregnancy for the development of your baby's body and intelligence! The most important time to get enough of those wonderful oils called omega-3 is the 3rd trimester, when the brain development of your baby is accelerated. Folic acid Folic acid, also called folate, folasin or vitamin B9, has a special place in pregnancy. Research shows that taking folic acid during pregnancy helps prevent or reduce neural tube defects that may occur in the baby. Researchers believe that spina bifidan will be largely inhibited if expectant mothers take 0.4 mg folic acid daily before and during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. Of course, the person who will make the best decision will be the doctor who will follow you from the beginning to the end of your pregnancy. Although the doctor will supplement the drug for folic acid, it's okay to recognize foods containing folic acid. Asparagus, avocado, banana, black beans, broccoli, egg yolk, citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, green beans, strawberries, lentils, peas, liver, yogurt are foods rich in folic acid. Eating right during pregnancy is the first and best gift you can give to your baby. For this, you should definitely take a look at our Everything You Need to Know About Nutrition During Pregnancy .What to Eat for Weight Loss and Development of the Baby During Pregnancy?

How Should Water Consumption Be During Pregnancy?

You should definitely include at least 8 large glasses of water (8 x 250 cc) per day in your daily nutrition program during pregnancy . Your baby's body is made up largely of fluid, like yours. Your body also needs more water than usual during pregnancy. So what are the benefits of drinking water? It keeps your skin soft.It reduces constipation.It purifies you and your baby's body from toxins and waste materials.It reduces excessive swelling and edema.It prevents urinary tract infections.It reduces the risk of preterm birth. In short, take care to drink at least 8 large glasses, at least 2 liters of water every day. The easiest way to do this is to keep the water close enough for you to see and reach instantly. If you forget to drink glasses, you can measure yourself with a glass bottle. If your body is holding too much fluid, if you exercise a lot and the weather is very hot, try to drink more. But try not to make drinking water just before eating. Otherwise, you may be too clogged to eat. Finally, do not forget that the teas, juices and other liquids you drink never replace water.

How should salt consumption be during pregnancy?

As you know, salt used to be completely restricted during pregnancy because it triggered edema, water retention and swelling in the body. It is now considered normal and necessary to increase the body fluids to a certain extent while pregnant. Therefore, a moderate intake of sodium is recommended to keep the amount of fluid in the body at the proper level. Because sodium deprivation can be harmful to the development of the fetus. Nevertheless, too much salt and too salty foods are harmful to everyone, especially if you are pregnant or have become a habit. Moreover, you should know that there is a tight connection between high salt intake and high blood pressure after pregnancy and childbirth. So you should avoid foods with high salt content such as soy sauce, ready pickles, chips. As a general principle, you can try not to add salt when cooking dishes. Already, the sodium content of nutrients meets what our body needs. Instead of ready-made pickles, if you are very troubled, you can take home-made pickles that are made with little salt. But that doesn't mean you can sit and eat a jar of pickles. As always, you can take your doctor's opinion about salt use and act according to his suggestions. Read the full article

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7 Creative Ways to Reduce Food Waste

You know that feeling when you open your refrigerator to discover that your bright green kale has turned straw yellow? You're not alone. In 2017, Americans generated more than 41 million tons of food waste![1] In fact, 30 to 40 percent of all food created isn’t used.[2, 3] This phenomenon of food waste is not just in private pantries and fridges, but also in restaurants, grocery stores, and farms. But there’s good news: many individuals, charitable organizations, and governments are working to turn the tide.

In 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set a goal to reduce food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030. The goal is to have every person "only" throw away 109.4 pounds per year.[5] Households contribute to 43 percent of the food waste in our country.[6] You have the power to make a difference!

Companies are getting in the mix, as well. New food upcycling companies are doing everything from selling funny-looking "ugly" fruits and vegetables that would be tossed by grocers to turning pressed juice pulp into popsicles.

Reducing food waste is a great way to go green in your home. Try these steps to reduce your food waste footprint!

The Environmental Impact of Food Waste

When you waste less food, you save money and time while helping the long-term health of the planet. You also keep food out of landfills, or "dumps," which are the third-largest source of human-generated methane,[1] a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Food waste not only uses some of our water supply,[3] it also consumes land, labor, tons of energy, and toxic chemicals (try to choose organic when possible!).

Moreover, all the extra we don't eat could have helped people who are food-insecure. Many organizations are rescuing food that would become waste from grocery stores and restaurants to feed the homeless and individuals who do not have enough to eat. That’s pretty inspiring!

7 Ways You Can Reduce Food Waste

One woman, Loren T., an end-of-life doula from Glen Ridge, New Jersey, has learned how to maximize her food, letting little go to waste. She saves veggie food scraps in the fridge and then, at the end of the week, turns them into stock. She also thinks expansively about each item she cooks.

"I always plan multiple meals with one item," says Loren. For example, she’ll make black beans on Sunday and plan for tacos that night, a Mexican tofu scramble for Monday’s breakfast, and then pop a black bean dip with carrots in her son’s lunch the next day.

With these tips, you too can be creative, learning everything from the secrets of food storage to the wonders of composting can make the process simple, and even fun.

1) Plan Ahead

Try to make a plan. What's for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks every day? What will you require for each meal, per person in your household?

Write an old-school shopping list — or choose one of many apps that can help — and take it with you every time you shop. Going to the store with a list can help you limit impulse buying and may decrease the amount of food you waste by 20 percent![7]

Also, check the fridge before you go to the market. It’s a good way to avoid having triples of your favorite condiments. And unless you really want to stock up for you or your family, don't let extra-large packages of food tempt you — bulk buys are a major source of waste.[7] If you do buy in bulk and find you’re not going to use the items, check their expiration dates; when they near, donate to a food bank.

2) Eat Your Leftovers & Get Creative

Eating leftovers doesn't just mean reheating and serving as-is. Get creative! For example, you can:

Turn last night's quinoa or rice into a vegan breakfast porridge.

Sautée wilted greens for a baked sweet potato topping.

Stuff a pepper with cauliflower rice.

Make brown bananas into a creamy smoothie or banana bread.

Turn stale bread into breadcrumbs.

Blend beans into veggie burgers.

Chop flaccid carrots into a stir fry or carrot soup.

Hold a leftover night on Fridays, a creative meal of the week's scraps.

Also, label all food containers with the date you filled them. This can help you decide what to eat first.

Remember, when you see a post-peak vegetable, ask yourself: Is it bad, or is it just ugly? Funny-looking, bruised, and day-old produce can still be delicious.

3) Store Your Food Properly

Proper food preservation makes food stay fresh longer. Some fruits, like apples, avocados, melons, bananas, and mangoes, release ethylene gas, which causes other fruits and vegetables to ripen faster. Store each of these types of fruits alone, whether on a counter or in the fridge. Wrap the ends of bananas with plastic to lessen their ethylene release.

Certain vegetables are especially ethylene-sensitive; keep them away from ethylene-producers. For example, cucumbers, peppers, sweet potatoes, eggplant, grapes, leafy greens, and zucchini will ripen too fast when around ethylene-producing fruits.[8]

Tips:

Don't wash berries, cherries, or grapes until you're about to eat them. Water makes them rot faster.

Try gadgets like an avocado keeper; a berry box; and crisper drawer liners that absorb moisture.

Make sure your fridge is always set at or below 40 degrees F (colder is better).

Store the most perishable items away from the refrigerator doors; it’s coldest at the back.[9]

If something is going to go bad before you can eat it, freeze the food! You can freeze everything from baked sweet potatoes to watermelon! Frozen food is safe to eat for up to a year, depending on the item.[10]

Declutter your fridge often to unearth hidden items before they go bad. Organize your fridge so you can clearly see items that are perishable.

Wipe down drawers to get rid of bacteria and moisture that can make food go bad faster.[11]

4) Understand Expiration Dates

You may have noticed that some foods say "use by," while others say "sell by" or "best by." It's no wonder if you find them confusing.[12]

It turns out these labels are more art than science. While nutrition facts labels are pretty clear, there are no federal guidelines on expiration dates — other than infant formula[13] — leading to a whole lot of premature tossing. People throw away about 398,000 tons of food annually because of misleading expiration labels.[14] Labels are most accurate and important on produce and other foods that go bad — usually within a few days or a week.

The shelf life on canned goods or refrigerated items is more flexible than you realize. The FDA is currently encouraging consistent labeling of shelf-stable food. The agency prefers, "Best if Used By." This means, "This Tastes Best By" — and is a comment on food freshness and not safety.

The USDA has excellent guidelines for food’s general shelf-safety.[15] If any packaged food looks, smells, or tastes off, also toss. But if a bag of, say, rice, has passed its "best by" date by a few months yet seems alright, it's very likely fine in flavor and safety. If you prefer never to eat any food beyond the date, try to donate unopened items before they reach the expiry date.

5) Donate Your Food

If you have non-perishables that you're not going to eat, donate it! Locate a local food bank, food pantry, or food rescue program and see how they accept donations.[16]

Most food banks request things like canned goods, rice, pasta, sauce, peanut butter, jelly, and other shelf-stable foods. Whether they will take expired foods or not varies by state. Stay on top of your food expiry dates — if something you’re not going to eat is creeping toward its expiration date, donate it.

There are also food rescue programs, like soup kitchens, which have different rules than food banks. They may accept perishables like refrigerated food, cooked meals, or baked goods. Ask.

If they don't, your neighbors might! Start a group text with local friends who might want your avocados that will be ripe exactly in the middle of your vacation. (Why does that always happen?)

6) Start Composting

About 94 percent of wasted food ends up in landfills, where it emits planet-warming methane.[17] One way to divert it from the dump is to compost. This creates a simple way to extend your sustainable lifestyle to the outdoors.

You can easily try composting at home. It doesn’t require a big yard or extensive outdoor space to do it. Just collect food scraps in a non-stinky compost bin on your counter. It creates nutritious food for your plants or local gardens.[18]

You can find many resources online, such as step-by-step guides to create a compost pile, but it’s mainly a matter of dumping food scraps and other compostable items, covering them with leaves or grass clippings or dirt, and then layering more food. Always top it with plant matter so you don’t attract animals. After some time, the pile should be tossed and stirred. Eventually, it will decompose into rich fertilizer. Even if you don’t use it for a garden, it has reduced your food waste!

Every year, more cities and towns add public composting options. If you can join one of those, then it's as simple as setting out a bucket with your recycling or dropping it at a designated spot.

7) Speak Up to Reduce Food Waste

Though households contribute to 43 percent of the food waste in our country, grocery stores and restaurants contribute 31 percent.[19] One way to help is to let local businesses know they can participate in the USDA/EPA's 2030 goal of reducing food loss.

Share the Food Recovery Challenge[2] info with local grocers, faith organizations, and restaurants. You can also write letters expressing the importance of reducing food waste to your local, state, and national elected officials. Connect with politicians who are working on laws to allow restaurants to donate unused food to hunger organizations. Or start a letter-writing campaign to help gain momentum for food waste reduction legislation.

Points to Remember

Wasting food is an issue that affects not only your finances, but also the planet, as it’s a significant source of greenhouse gases. Living healthy involves not only involves embracing a natural health lifestyle, but also seeking sustainable solutions to everyday issues.

To reduce food waste, use a shopping list every time you go to the market, store produce properly, and understand expiration dates. Many expiration dates are really "best if used by" dates. And if you won’t use it, donate it.

Get creative about how you reuse your leftovers. Any waste you do create, consider composting or donating to a food bank. This keeps it out of landfills. Finally, you can help meet national food waste goals by advocating for change locally and nationally. Make it Earth Day every day!

Learning to waste less food reduces your carbon footprint, ensures that your food stays fresh longer, and curbs impulse buying. What’s not to love?

What have you tried to reduce food waste? Share stories from your community or your personal experiences below!

The post 7 Creative Ways to Reduce Food Waste appeared first on Dr. Group's Healthy Living Articles.

7 Creative Ways to Reduce Food Waste published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.tumblr.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

7 Creative Ways to Reduce Food Waste

You know that feeling when you open your refrigerator to discover that your bright green kale has turned straw yellow? You're not alone. In 2017, Americans generated more than 41 million tons of food waste![1] In fact, 30 to 40 percent of all food created isn’t used.[2, 3] This phenomenon of food waste is not just in private pantries and fridges, but also in restaurants, grocery stores, and farms. But there’s good news: many individuals, charitable organizations, and governments are working to turn the tide.

In 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set a goal to reduce food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030. The goal is to have every person "only" throw away 109.4 pounds per year.[5] Households contribute to 43 percent of the food waste in our country.[6] You have the power to make a difference!

Companies are getting in the mix, as well. New food upcycling companies are doing everything from selling funny-looking "ugly" fruits and vegetables that would be tossed by grocers to turning pressed juice pulp into popsicles.

Reducing food waste is a great way to go green in your home. Try these steps to reduce your food waste footprint!

The Environmental Impact of Food Waste

When you waste less food, you save money and time while helping the long-term health of the planet. You also keep food out of landfills, or "dumps," which are the third-largest source of human-generated methane,[1] a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Food waste not only uses some of our water supply,[3] it also consumes land, labor, tons of energy, and toxic chemicals (try to choose organic when possible!).

Moreover, all the extra we don't eat could have helped people who are food-insecure. Many organizations are rescuing food that would become waste from grocery stores and restaurants to feed the homeless and individuals who do not have enough to eat. That’s pretty inspiring!

7 Ways You Can Reduce Food Waste

One woman, Loren T., an end-of-life doula from Glen Ridge, New Jersey, has learned how to maximize her food, letting little go to waste. She saves veggie food scraps in the fridge and then, at the end of the week, turns them into stock. She also thinks expansively about each item she cooks.

"I always plan multiple meals with one item," says Loren. For example, she’ll make black beans on Sunday and plan for tacos that night, a Mexican tofu scramble for Monday’s breakfast, and then pop a black bean dip with carrots in her son’s lunch the next day.

With these tips, you too can be creative, learning everything from the secrets of food storage to the wonders of composting can make the process simple, and even fun.

1) Plan Ahead

Try to make a plan. What's for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks every day? What will you require for each meal, per person in your household?

Write an old-school shopping list — or choose one of many apps that can help — and take it with you every time you shop. Going to the store with a list can help you limit impulse buying and may decrease the amount of food you waste by 20 percent![7]

Also, check the fridge before you go to the market. It’s a good way to avoid having triples of your favorite condiments. And unless you really want to stock up for you or your family, don't let extra-large packages of food tempt you — bulk buys are a major source of waste.[7] If you do buy in bulk and find you’re not going to use the items, check their expiration dates; when they near, donate to a food bank.

2) Eat Your Leftovers & Get Creative

Eating leftovers doesn't just mean reheating and serving as-is. Get creative! For example, you can:

Turn last night's quinoa or rice into a vegan breakfast porridge.

Sautée wilted greens for a baked sweet potato topping.

Stuff a pepper with cauliflower rice.

Make brown bananas into a creamy smoothie or banana bread.

Turn stale bread into breadcrumbs.

Blend beans into veggie burgers.

Chop flaccid carrots into a stir fry or carrot soup.

Hold a leftover night on Fridays, a creative meal of the week's scraps.

Also, label all food containers with the date you filled them. This can help you decide what to eat first.

Remember, when you see a post-peak vegetable, ask yourself: Is it bad, or is it just ugly? Funny-looking, bruised, and day-old produce can still be delicious.

3) Store Your Food Properly

Proper food preservation makes food stay fresh longer. Some fruits, like apples, avocados, melons, bananas, and mangoes, release ethylene gas, which causes other fruits and vegetables to ripen faster. Store each of these types of fruits alone, whether on a counter or in the fridge. Wrap the ends of bananas with plastic to lessen their ethylene release.

Certain vegetables are especially ethylene-sensitive; keep them away from ethylene-producers. For example, cucumbers, peppers, sweet potatoes, eggplant, grapes, leafy greens, and zucchini will ripen too fast when around ethylene-producing fruits.[8]

Tips:

Don't wash berries, cherries, or grapes until you're about to eat them. Water makes them rot faster.

Try gadgets like an avocado keeper; a berry box; and crisper drawer liners that absorb moisture.

Make sure your fridge is always set at or below 40 degrees F (colder is better).

Store the most perishable items away from the refrigerator doors; it’s coldest at the back.[9]

If something is going to go bad before you can eat it, freeze the food! You can freeze everything from baked sweet potatoes to watermelon! Frozen food is safe to eat for up to a year, depending on the item.[10]

Declutter your fridge often to unearth hidden items before they go bad. Organize your fridge so you can clearly see items that are perishable.

Wipe down drawers to get rid of bacteria and moisture that can make food go bad faster.[11]

4) Understand Expiration Dates

You may have noticed that some foods say "use by," while others say "sell by" or "best by." It's no wonder if you find them confusing.[12]

It turns out these labels are more art than science. While nutrition facts labels are pretty clear, there are no federal guidelines on expiration dates — other than infant formula[13] — leading to a whole lot of premature tossing. People throw away about 398,000 tons of food annually because of misleading expiration labels.[14] Labels are most accurate and important on produce and other foods that go bad — usually within a few days or a week.

The shelf life on canned goods or refrigerated items is more flexible than you realize. The FDA is currently encouraging consistent labeling of shelf-stable food. The agency prefers, "Best if Used By." This means, "This Tastes Best By" — and is a comment on food freshness and not safety.

The USDA has excellent guidelines for food’s general shelf-safety.[15] If any packaged food looks, smells, or tastes off, also toss. But if a bag of, say, rice, has passed its "best by" date by a few months yet seems alright, it's very likely fine in flavor and safety. If you prefer never to eat any food beyond the date, try to donate unopened items before they reach the expiry date.

5) Donate Your Food

If you have non-perishables that you're not going to eat, donate it! Locate a local food bank, food pantry, or food rescue program and see how they accept donations.[16]

Most food banks request things like canned goods, rice, pasta, sauce, peanut butter, jelly, and other shelf-stable foods. Whether they will take expired foods or not varies by state. Stay on top of your food expiry dates — if something you’re not going to eat is creeping toward its expiration date, donate it.

There are also food rescue programs, like soup kitchens, which have different rules than food banks. They may accept perishables like refrigerated food, cooked meals, or baked goods. Ask.

If they don't, your neighbors might! Start a group text with local friends who might want your avocados that will be ripe exactly in the middle of your vacation. (Why does that always happen?)

6) Start Composting

About 94 percent of wasted food ends up in landfills, where it emits planet-warming methane.[17] One way to divert it from the dump is to compost. This creates a simple way to extend your sustainable lifestyle to the outdoors.

You can easily try composting at home. It doesn’t require a big yard or extensive outdoor space to do it. Just collect food scraps in a non-stinky compost bin on your counter. It creates nutritious food for your plants or local gardens.[18]

You can find many resources online, such as step-by-step guides to create a compost pile, but it’s mainly a matter of dumping food scraps and other compostable items, covering them with leaves or grass clippings or dirt, and then layering more food. Always top it with plant matter so you don’t attract animals. After some time, the pile should be tossed and stirred. Eventually, it will decompose into rich fertilizer. Even if you don’t use it for a garden, it has reduced your food waste!

Every year, more cities and towns add public composting options. If you can join one of those, then it's as simple as setting out a bucket with your recycling or dropping it at a designated spot.

7) Speak Up to Reduce Food Waste

Though households contribute to 43 percent of the food waste in our country, grocery stores and restaurants contribute 31 percent.[19] One way to help is to let local businesses know they can participate in the USDA/EPA's 2030 goal of reducing food loss.

Share the Food Recovery Challenge[2] info with local grocers, faith organizations, and restaurants. You can also write letters expressing the importance of reducing food waste to your local, state, and national elected officials. Connect with politicians who are working on laws to allow restaurants to donate unused food to hunger organizations. Or start a letter-writing campaign to help gain momentum for food waste reduction legislation.

Points to Remember

Wasting food is an issue that affects not only your finances, but also the planet, as it’s a significant source of greenhouse gases. Living healthy involves not only involves embracing a natural health lifestyle, but also seeking sustainable solutions to everyday issues.

To reduce food waste, use a shopping list every time you go to the market, store produce properly, and understand expiration dates. Many expiration dates are really "best if used by" dates. And if you won’t use it, donate it.

Get creative about how you reuse your leftovers. Any waste you do create, consider composting or donating to a food bank. This keeps it out of landfills. Finally, you can help meet national food waste goals by advocating for change locally and nationally. Make it Earth Day every day!

Learning to waste less food reduces your carbon footprint, ensures that your food stays fresh longer, and curbs impulse buying. What’s not to love?

What have you tried to reduce food waste? Share stories from your community or your personal experiences below!

The post 7 Creative Ways to Reduce Food Waste appeared first on Dr. Group's Healthy Living Articles.

7 Creative Ways to Reduce Food Waste published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[foxybluesky]

Fasting Break: Best Foods, Fruit To Break Fasting

These days when trying to find information about fasting on the web, I feel more and more like reading rocket science articles. It feels like you should do so many things if you want to fast the right way. Eat the right food in the right amount before, complements during fasting with nutrients, amino acids, break a fast this way and that way and give your digestive system time to adapt to food again, etc. The problem I have with all this is: It makes fasting look hard, strenuous and strict, which it is notIf you do intermittent fasting with 16 to 24h fasts, you don’t really need all this information I’ve been intermittent fasting for several years and I’ve sometimes broken my 24h fast with 5 beers, bread, and sausages. It was stupid of course, but what I mean to say is: there is no great health risk from doing that occasionally. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); And breaking a 24h fast shouldn’t suddenly become really complicated. When you do one meal a day, you just want to get one good, healthy, filling meal. With meat, carbs, vegetables, etc. You shouldn’t break your fast every day with junk food, but again, you won’t suddenly catch fire if you do. Hell, you’re not eating for the whole day, you might at least get pleasure from the only meal you get, don’t you? So, I really want to emphasize that these best foods to break a fast are: Good practices that will help your body adapt and won’t put too much strain on your digestive systemMore relevant when doing longer fast, say several days. Then what you eat to break the fast is important if you do not want to get constipation, stomachache, etc. To summarize, what are the best foods to break a fast? You should start with apple cider vinegar diluted in water before actually breaking the fast. It’ll help stimulate the digestive tract. Afterwards, a bone broth, some eggs and some spinach or kale in a small, no more than 500 calories, meal, would be ideal to replete your minerals and nutrients deficiencies. But that’s not all there is to it, you’ll see there are many more foods that would also work great to break a fast and each one has its own benefits and nutrients. Here are what I’ve found to be the 11 best foods to break a fast.

1. Apple cider vinegar (ACV)

This is the new kid on the block when it comes to health. This new magic drink (which is actually an ancient remedy, like most of the new magic healthy food) improves overall health in many ways: Balances alkaline PH levels: Most of the time, we’re more acidic than alkaline, due to alcohol, bad diet, etc. ACV might be acidic, but when consumed it actually becomes alkaline.Kills off bad bacteria gut: ACV will help good gut bacteria and kill bad one since it has the ability to inhibit fungal and bacterial overgrowthStabilize blood sugar: ACV lowers blood sugar and insulin levels and it might even make you feel fuller combined with eating If you already read articles on ACV, you might wonder why I’m mentioning it as a food to break a fast? Since Apple cider vinegar is actually free of calories, it doesn’t create an insulin response and thus doesn’t break a fast. ACV is preventive. You can take a few tablespoons diluted in water during your fast, but I would advise you to take some before breaking your fast. This way you’ll have two added benefits before your forthcoming meal: It will stimulate the digestive tractHelp improve digestion on your first mealMake you feel fuller when eating. Even though you most likely won’t eat too much when breaking a fast, it’s a sure way to avoid this Here’s a recipe for a non-breaking fast ACV drink you can have while fasting, courtesy of Thomas DeLauer. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); 10 to 12oz water2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar1/2 teaspoon of Pink Himalayan SaltThe juice of 1 whole lime or 2 tablespoons of bottled lime juicePossible to add stevia to taste Living in Switzerland I have to say I never found the cream of tartar in local stores. So, I tried this several times without, sometimes replacing lime with lemon. The smell of ACV is quite strong, to the first few sips might be hard. But overall, I really like it and it’s a big change of taste from coffee, tea, and water you usually drink on fasting. Plus, all the added benefits! If you’re not a fan of the taste but still want to get the benefits of apple cider vinegar, you can also check out these apple cider vinegar capsules (with added salt and added MCT Oil for improved consumption). (Fasting Break )

2. Bone broth For Fasting Break

Why bone broths? Because it tastes really good, that’s why! Other than my personal taste, bone broth is excellent after a fast since it contains lots of electrolytes. You’ll find magnesium, potassium, calcium, and sodium in bone broths since one of the main challenges when fasting is mineral depletion. Your gut’s been cleaned by the fast, drinking bone broth will help utilize the nutrients from the broth and the food you’ll eat afterwards. Other advantages of bone broths include: It’s rich in collagen, which will help you keep healthy bones, teeth, and nailsIt’s rich in glycine which might help with sleep quality. Since intermittent fasting and keto are known to disturb sleep, that can become handyIt contains many amino acids that are anti-inflammatoryIt’s the very low carb of course. You can get bone broth either as liquid broths or as a powder, both have to be mixed with water.

3. Spinach, kale To Break Fasting

It might seem like an easy one and, yes, it is. When fasting, you might be depleted of some nutrients and vitamins. Kale and spinach are full of them, including: Vitamin CVitamin B2Vitamin B6Vitamin EVitamin AVitamin KManganeseFolateMagnesiumIronCopperCalciumPotassium You could either have them mixed in a smoothie, raw or cooked. I’ve seen many times people advocating for eating them raw, but I haven’t found actual data to back this up. So, I’d say eat them as you wish. They are known to: Help digestionPrevent constipationMaintain blood sugar Another thing, you could try and buy already made kale smoothies, even if I’d advise you to make your own (so that you actually know what it contains). But you can find good, all-natural ones like this kale powder from Koyah or this organic kale and avocado drink from Medlie.

4. Eggs For Fasting Break

Eggs are a great way to get lots of proteins with a small amount of food. It’s great when breaking a fast because: The protein can help prevent muscle loss. If you exercise during the fast, that shouldn’t have too much of an impact, but you never knowEggs are leucine-rich. Leucine is one of the amino acid responsible for muscle grow Eggs are easy to digest, low in calories, protein-rich and it can a great way to reduce appetite with a small amount of food. Especially when eating boiled eggs. Read: Benefit Of Egg Hips Widening Long Paragraphs For him, Copy And Paste (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({});

5. Nuts, chia seeds To Break Fasting

I could have added almond, flax seeds, helm seeds, pecan to this list. Again, you’ll be depleted of nutrients, so getting vitamin-rich food such as nuts and seeds is a great way to restore nutrient balance. For example, chia seeds include manganese, phosphorus, copper, calcium, magnesium, iron and selenium. Seeds are rich in good healthy fat, proteins, and fibers. Read: Anabolic Fasting When You Should Stop Taking Coffee How Long Does Vyvanse Last How To Get Thicker Thighs And Hips In A Week

6. Fish

For a first meal, if you want to thread things lightly, you could try to have a fish broth instead of fish meat. But eating fish on your first meal shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It won’t be hard on your digestive system and fish is a great source of: Healthy unsaturated fat with a lot of omega 3ProteinsVitamin D Read: 30 List of Immune Boosting Foods to Get You Through Cold & Flu Season Benefits Of Dietary Supplements Staphylococcus Aureus: Quick Remedies. Symptoms And Causes 7 Reasons Why a Calorie Is Not a Calorie

7. Broccoli, cauliflower

Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts are all cruciferous vegetables, and they’re particularly rich in fiber, nutrients, and vitamins. As with fish, I would recommend eating them mixed or cooked. Of all of the cruciferous vegetables, I would advise you to mainly eat broccoli, which is the most digestible one. And cruciferous vegetables are also packed full of minerals and vitamins including vitamin C, K, B2, B9, A, B5, B6, iron, magnesium, manganese, etc.

8. Watermelon To Break Fasting

First off, I’m not a huge fan of fruits to break a fast. I love fruits, but they contain fructose. Even though, when breaking a fast with fruit, your body will actually break down the fructose to restore your glycogen stores, since they’ve been emptied by the fast, it’s still not the best source of energy. That being said, while I would advise when eating fruit to get something that’s also rich in fiber, like an apple, watermelon could be a great way to break a long fast with semi-solid food. Watermelon is more than 91% of water. Thus, making it really easy to eat and digest and it could be a great way to gradually starting to eat again. (Fasting Break ) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({});

9. Banana Fruit To Break Fasting

As I said earlier, fruit might not be the best way to break a fast, because of the way fructose is metabolized in our body. But after some reading, I can say that banana could be a good food to break a fast. If you’re not doing keto, Banana is rich in good healthy carbs to kick you out of ketosis the right way, it’s also rich in fibre, some of them like butyrate might actually be good for your gut bacteria and it includes several vitamins and minerals like potassium, vitamin B6 and vitamin C. Since it’s high carb and pretty high sugar, bananas could help raise blood sugar after a long fast, especially if you’re feeling down or tired from ketosis.

10. Unsweetened Yogurt, Sauerkraut, Kimchi

Fermented foods are great for your gut bacteria. After fasting for a few days, eating fermented foods will help your digestive tract to be repopulated with good bacteria and enzymes that it was stripped off from the fast. It’ll make it easier for you to digest food, thanks to these probiotics. Maybe start with fermented kale such as Kimchi or sauerkraut. If you opt for Kimchi don’t make it too spicy since it could upset your stomach. (Fasting Break ) Wait until you feel ready for dairy before eating yoghurt. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({});

11. Avocado For Fasting Break

Avocado is known to be the world’s fattiest fruit and, yes, it’s a fruit, not a vegetable. It’s actually a large berry. Avocado is great for breaking a fast, since it’s really low in calories, but rich in healthy omega-6 and omega-3 fat. Avocado is full of antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins including: Vitamin KVitamin B6Vitamin EVitamin CCopperPotassiumFolate Moreover, it has a huge amount of pantothenic acid, which is a complex B vitamin and one of the most important one. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to use macronutrients as efficiently. Read:: How To Get Rid Of Stretch Marks How To Crack Your Neck Waffle House Nutrition When you break a fast with avocado, you get all those nutrients, a high dose of pantothenic to help you use them as energy, a lot of good healthy fat (similar to MCT oil) I read in an article that avocado could sometimes be hard on the digestive system. It may come from fermentable oligo-, di-, monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPs), which are short-chain carbohydrates. Some people are sensitive to FODMAPs and will have a hard time digesting it, causing stomachache, bloating and other unpleasant symptoms. Other than that avocado is a very easy fruit to digest, if you’re not sensible to FODMAPs.

Conclusion

There are definitely wrong ways to break fasting and the longer the fast, the more you have to be thorough on your research on what to eat when breaking it. Breaking fast the wrong way can be hard on your digestive system, stomach, intestines and even your energy levels and overall mood. You should not eat whatever you want when breaking a 7 day fast for example. What I’d advise you is to take all these different types of food into account and: Cook the ones you like the most (since it’s important to enjoy your meal too)Eat the ones you’re sure will not put a strain on your digestive system. I personally know I better avoid cauliflower on my first meal (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Your first meal should be light, around 500 calories, and it could depend on your habits and why you’re fasting. If you do a lot of exercises, maybe you’ll prioritize keeping and growing muscles, so the first food you might go to will be eggs and maybe bone broth. To me the 3 foods I would always recommend when breaking a fast will be apple cider vinegar before the end of the fast, bone broth and eggs. With these 3 I don’t think you can go wrong, everything everywhere indicates that it’s a great way to break your fast. If you did a really long fast (more than 10 days), then maybe I’d tell you to skip the eggs and replace it with a kale/spinach smoothie or a watermelon. As always, you’re also free to experiment, everybody’s different, but based on nutritional facts, this list should be pretty accurate! Read the full article

[lindafrancois]

20 Health Tips To Reassert Your Wellness Goals This 2020

Inputs from chief nutritionist Suhasini Mudraganam and fitness expert Sobha Rani

Ringing in the New Year with a handful of resolutions has been the norm for years. From promising to quit unhealthy habits to wanting to meet certain fitness goals, the start of the year has seen it all.

Resolutions are great per se. They give a purpose and a chance to change something about you – for good. Alas, many do not succeed. Why? Lack of determination and failing to keep up with the commitment made during the beginning of the year!

On the bright side, millions of people have succeeded in achieving their goals and have stuck to their resolutions for years. This success totally boils down to the approach and if the resolutions are health-based, a little knowledge about nutrition goes a long way.

After speaking to Truweight’s very own chief nutritionist and fitness expert, Suhasini Mudraganam and Sobha Rani respectively, we have jotted down 20 important health tips.

What you eat affects your health

These health tips play a major role in determining your overall wellness and when followed religiously, they can make a significant difference.

The best part is these health tips are so versatile and for all! These are not only helpful for weight loss; but can also help you manage lifestyle-related diseases or simply, help you lead a healthy lifestyle. 

The 20 golden health tips

We know we have told this umpteen times, nevertheless, we stress again – a healthy life can be achieved only eating nutritiously. To this day, many fail to see this and take nutrition lightly. Once healthy eating habits are in place, your body automatically heals and responds to the change positively.

Below are some tips on how to incorporate healthy eating this 2020.

Tip 1

This 2020, establish a healthy relationship with water. Start by beginning your day with water instead of a caffeinated drink like coffee/tea.

If possible, add lemon to it. Night is the time our body recovers and during that process, metabolic by-products are released. Drinking water first thing in the morning helps in the elimination of these toxins.

Drinking water is essential to health.

Also, water helps prevent acidity that is caused by caffeine. You don’t have to drink one litre of water. Begin by drinking a glass or two. Then gradually increase it.

Tip 2

Drink enough water. Many assume that they are drinking an adequate amount of water but the truth be told, they are not. Consume water according to your BMI. An average person should drink a minimum of 2 to 2.5 litres of water a day.

Tip 3

Start your day with nuts after drinking water. Nuts are loaded with essential micronutrients and good fats. It is even better if you eat nuts soaked overnight. Post this you can have coffee/tea. This reduces the chances of developing acidity.

Tip 4

Make it a point to include protein consciously in all major meals. Protein is very important for healthy muscles. Some of the best sources of protein are eggs, lentils, legumes, kidney beans, lean meat like chicken, fish etc.

Tip 5

Try eating more of whole grains. To begin with, eat millets once a week and slowly increase the intake. And importantly, don’t just eat one type of millet. There are plenty of wholegrain varieties out there and try to incorporate them all in your diet.

It is noteworthy that each grain has different compositions of nutrients. Each one is rich in calcium, iron, phytochemicals, antioxidants etc. Eat them all to enjoy their full benefits.

Whole grains lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and other health problems

Similarly, add Ragi or other millet flour to you regular wheat flour to give it a wholegrain touch. Likewise, replace regular or whole wheat Rava with Jowar Rava or other millet Rava.

Tip 6

Add more colour and variety to your plate.

People tend to eat the same meal day in, day out. By doing this, you are missing out on several essential nutrients offered by other foods.

For example, many South Indian households predominantly cook Toor Dal only. While it is good to eat Toor Dal, one should eat other lentil varieties regularly.

Tip 7

Fruits are an important part of a well-balanced diet. For starters, eat at least one fruit a day. And always remember to choose seasonal fruits and local produce over imported fruits. Imported fruits are full of preservatives and chemicals to keep it fresh for longer days owing to the transit involved.

For example, you might have seen imported waxed apples. Wax is used to retain the moisture of the apples. Eating this is not at all healthy and can damage your health.

On the other hand, locally produced fruits do not require heavy transportation and therefore, it is more natural. 

Fruits grow according to the season and those fruits suit our body the best during that particular season. This makes seasonal fruits best any day.  Also, opt for whole fruits instead of fruit juices.

Tip 8

Eat berries. They are loaded with antioxidants and phytochemicals. If possible, stick to native berries and fruits like Ber (Indian jujube) and custard apple. They benefit the body more than imported berries.

Tip 9

Devise an eating pattern and stick to it. Have meals on time. Having dinner late at night is extremely dangerous. Make a habit of eating dinner before 9 pm. Create an eating habit and follow it with discipline.

At least eat two hours before going to bed

Similarly, don’t indulge in heavy meals during the night. If your dinner gets delayed, then keep it simple and light. If you eat a heavy meal at night, your body won’t be able to digest the food efficiently. This results in the accumulation of fat.

Tip 10

Maintain a sleep pattern. Our body follows the circadian rhythm. When the sun rises, our body wakes up and when the sun sets, our body prepares to rest too. Disturbing this pattern can damage the body.

Staying up late once in a while is okay but don’t confuse your body by making this a habit. Likewise, sleep for a minimum of 7 to 8 hours. A sound sleep is very important for mental health. 

Tip 11

This new year, make it a point to increase your fibre intake. An average person should eat 20 to 30 grams of fibre in a day. To achieve this, eat vegetables, fruits, lentils, kidney beans, wholegrain etc. Eat four to five servings of fruits and vegetables in a day. These are a good source of micronutrients too.

Tip 12

Our nutritionist strongly recommends the intake of fruits and vegetables in its raw and uncooked form. Uncooked vegetables have a higher amount of nutrients than cooked vegetables.

Eat raw fruits, nuts and at least one serving of salad prepared using uncooked vegetables. Include small servings of sprouts at least once or twice a week. If your stomach agrees, increase the sprouts intake.

Tip 13

Include probiotic foods such as buttermilk, curd and other fermented foods in your diet. Our body has three times more bacteria than cells and probiotics are good bacteria. Probiotic bacteria keep the gut healthy and aids in easy digestion

Tip 14

Have three square meals a day and two healthy mid-meal snacks. Nuts, fruits and berries are a great option for mid-meal snacking. Also don’t have heavy meals. Implement portion control. This can be done diligently by choosing smaller plates and serving bowls.

Another important health tips for this 2020 is, try to avoid processed foods and sugars. Reduce the intake of maida, desserts and sugary soft drinks. These unhealthy foods will negate your wellness efforts.

Eating junk food can lead to obesity

That’s all the crucial tips about nutrition and nutritious eating! When eating habits are sorted, three-fourths of the challenge is met.

When nutritious eating is needed for a healthy body, a proper exercise routine can help you attain a fit body. Below are some exercise tips that can help you meet your 2020 fitness goals.

Tip 15

Do not exercise for long hours. It is not the amount of time spent but the quality of the exercise that matters. Even if you exercise for 30 minutes, ensure that you do it properly and employ the proper technique. Give importance to quality over quantity.

Tip 16

Choose your exercises wisely. Don’t just focus on cardio exercises. Incorporate strength training as well in your exercises. While cardio helps with burning fat, strength training will give you a chiselled body.

Tip 17

Women tend to believe that they’ll gain muscle if they do strength training. But this is not true. Women lack testosterone and therefore, they will not gain bulky muscles.

Tip 18

Don’t push yourself too much. Take it slow. Maximum heart rate while exercising is 220 minus your age. Exercise up to 80% of your heart rate. You’ll see good results. And take proper care of your muscle mass. Good and healthy muscles complement fat burning.

Tip 19

Do not exercise on an empty stomach. Initially, you might burn fat but on later stages, your body will start taking energy from muscles leaving the fat intact. This will not yield the desired results.

Tip 20

Don’t begin your fitness journey with an “I-know-it-all” attitude. Keep an open mind. Know your body and its metabolic rate. And importantly, do not hesitate to seek expert help.

If you are a gym rat, eat a fruit along with some nuts before hitting the gym.

Post-workout, eat protein and carbohydrate-rich meal. It is important to supply your body with nutrition and energy after a good workout session. And protein helps in the building up of muscles.

Similarly, indulge in whey protein only if you are into bodybuilding. Vegetarians can get their share of protein from kidney beans, sprouts, legumes, lentils etc.

Another important point to note is – be active throughout the day. And no, we are not talking about exercise.

Do not sit for more than 30 to 40 minutes. Take short walks as often as possible. Walk while you are on call. Move your body constantly.  

Well, these are the crucial health tips that will help you a lot with your wellness journey this new year.

If you are consistent and committed throughout the year, you will definitely see good improvement by the end of the year. Even if you are unable to maintain consistency, do not give up. Fall right back into the pattern and incorporate these health tips as much as possible in your day to day life.

Remember, you can either make your resolution or break your resolution! With the correct approach, you can definitely make it.

We wish you a happy and healthy New Year 2020. 

The post 20 Health Tips To Reassert Your Wellness Goals This 2020 appeared first on Truweight Blog.

20 Health Tips To Reassert Your Wellness Goals This 2020 published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

[rootindiahealthcare]

Amazing Home Remedies to Stop the White Discharge in Women

Abnormal to see white discharges in women with different age groups. In a specific face of menstrual cycle this discharge can be seen. This problem is generally seen in teenage girls. Little bit of white discharge is not at all a medical problem. But, it can cause discomfort for the lady having white discharge. Excess of the discharge in a lady can be a matter of concern. The medical term used for this white color liquid is known as Leuchorroea. This can give rise to many serious problems in the reproductive organ of the ladies. Women suffer from variety of health conditions that is mostly connected to genital organ and reproductive system. Getting white discharge is also a type of adverse physical condition that affects the overall health of the women. Women feel really week and pale during this situation. Stomach pain is also been backed with the white discharge in women. During this stage, women give out the white or yellow color vaginal discharge. This is quite likely to happen during the menstrual cycle of individuals. Some women also suffer it during the pregnancy period. We have some home remedies, let us find out. Problem caused due to white discharge Sexually transmitted disease Pelvic inflammation Hormonal problems Vaginal infections Ovarian cancer Cervical infections Symptoms of the disease Some ladies get white discharge without any symptoms or trouble. But, there are many individuals having white discharge backed with the symptoms such as constipation, redness, pain in stomach, Pelvic pain, itching, etc. If you are suffering from all these troubles, you can try some home remedies before showing to doctor. Abnormal vaginal discharge It is important to know whether an individual is having a normal vaginal discharge or abnormal discharge. White discharge is treated as normal. But, if the colors of the discharges seem to be: Grayish white

Rusty Green Yellow Brown This can be a serious concern to ladies. This is the time to show doctor immediately. Thick white discharge backed with itching can also be a cause of vaginal thrush. This is generally caused by the effect of yeast or fungus growth in the particular area. People suffering from diabetes and was prescribed antibiotics can also be a reason for such white and thick discharge. The greenish yellow discharge backed with unpleasant smell is also very dangerous for a woman health. The medical term used for it is trichomoniasis which a form is of sexually transmitted disease. Natural remedies for vaginal white discharge Fenugreek seeds This is treated as a natural home remedy for while liquid discharge in many ladies. You must consume it by diluting it with hot water. It will make your internally strong as you drink the liquid. You can also cook the Fenugreek seeds in 1 liter of water. Cooking should be done in an uninterrupted way for a period of 30 minutes. You must drink after the water is cooled down. Lady finger Most of the people have lady finger in their stock of vegetable. You can boil lady finger and consume its thick slurry to get relief from white discharge naturally. Some ladies also soaks lady finger with yogurt and tampons. Consumption of yogurt will naturally stop the growth of bacterial in the vaginal area. Many women are accustomed to experience some amount of vaginal secretion. This is good for health as it cleans the bacterial and fungal growth in the vaginal area. Even during the sexual intercourse, the lubrication is possible due to the slippery surface with white discharge. This is known as normal Vaginal discharge. Coriander seeds remedy In order to avail coriander seeds remedy for white discharge in ladies, it will be important to soak few teaspoons of coriander seeds in water for the whole night. Now strain water from the solution in the morning and drink it early in the morning in empty stomach. This is one of the natural remedies to treat white discharge with no risk at all. Indian gooseberry/ Amla The other name for white discharge is leucorrhoea which has proved to have been treated well with Amla. You must slice the Indian gooseberry in pieces and dry them in sunlight. After few days it will become dry. Grind them and get powder out of it. Now take 2 teaspoon of such powder and mix it with same quantity of honey. Once the paste is prepared, just consume it to get the effective treatment. You must consume the paste 2 times in a day to get better result. For a diluted form, you can include the Amla powder and honey in water and drink it adequately. Pomegranate Pomegranate is a wonderful natural fruit which is not only tasty but also have variety of health benefits. It is treated as one of the effective home remedies to stop white discharge in women. You can either consume it raw with seeds or extract juice out of it to get remedy out of white discharge in ladies. Even, the leaves of pomegranate fruit works as a wonder to stop white discharge when made a paste and combined with water and consumed in the morning every day. Tulsi/ basil Tulsi is one of the wonderful herbs which is not only worshiped but also has variety of medicinal value. For long, people have been using it as a remedy for treating vaginal discharge. Make a juice out of basil leaves and add honey with it. Drink this every day twice to eradicate the problem of white discharge totally. Alternatively you can also consume it with milk everyday to stay away from the problem of white discharge. You can also get basil juice with sugar syrup and stay away from vaginal white discharge. Rice starch You can now extract rice starch after preparing rice. This needs to be cooled down and drink in a regular basis to prevent the problem of white discharge in ladies. You just need to boil rice and filter water from rice. This starch is highly preferable when you are repeatedly suffering from the trouble of white discharge. Guava leaves Pick some guava leaves from the tree and boil them in water till the water becomes half. Strain the boiled leaves from the water and drink water to reduce the problem of vaginal discharge. Drink this twice in a day and stay fit and sound. Ginger Dry ginger after cutting into pieces and place it I a grinder. Make powder out of it and avail this as a remedy for white discharge. You need to take 2 teaspoon of dried ginger powder and boil it in adequate quantity of water. The next step will be to boil ginger in water and drink it once the boiled water becomes half. You need to drink this water regularly for three weeks and stay away from leucorrhoea. This is a proven remedy for white discharge. Apple cider vinegar These ingredients must be available at home as it has great property for different types of health issues. If you still do not have apple cider vinegar at home, it is the time to get it today. Take a glass distilled water and add a cup of apple cider vinegar. Mix them well and wash your vaginal area. You must do this twice in a day to remove the white discharge. Banana remedy The fruit named banana also is loaded with variety of minerals and diseases fighting elements. You must keep ripe banana at home. This probably is a great remedy to cure leucorrhea. You must take at least 1–2 banana which are overripe every day in order to stay away from the problem named as white discharge from the vaginal area. Fig Another wonderful household remedy to reduce white discharge in women is through the fig. This is the natural ingredient that has laxative effect over your body. You need to soak 2–3 dried figs in water overnight. Get up in the next day and blend the fig adequately and drink when your stomach is entirely empty. This is a wonderful remedy of reducing the white discharge from the skin. If you have powdered form of fig, you need to mix a spoon in two cups of water. Drink it regularly whenever you have the problem of white color discharge. Whether it is during menstrual cycle or pregnancy, this will be a great remedy. Sources : www.rihl.in #rootindiahealthcare #RootMyHealthGain #OPDScience Read the full article

[katedangworld-blog]

ATKINS DIET - LADY’s CHOICE for a SLENDER SHAPE

As a woman, I always want to keep my body in good shape. Unfortunately, these days I was so busy with studying and working so my dining times were unstable and dinners often had lately at night (9:00 -10:00pm). As a result, I gained weight slightly, especially my belly had accumulated rather thick fat. Therefore, I decided to try Atkins Diet aim to control my weight within 7 days. The Atkins Diet is a well-known low-carbohydrate eating plan was designed by the cardiologist Robert C. Atkins in the years 1960s. This diet limits carbohydrate and encourage protein and fat.

A standard Atkins includes four phases of diet:

·        Phase 1 (induction): daily carbohydrate consumption limited under 20g within 2 weeks. High-fat, high protein and low-carb vegetable should be eaten in meals.

·        Phase 2 (balancing): gradually supplement nuts, low-carb vegetable and some fruits in meals.

·        Phase 3 (fine-tuning): once dieters are close to their desired weight, more carb can be add into meals to slow down weight loss.

·        Phase 4 (maintenance): at this period, eaters can enjoy more beneficial carbohydrates with toleration of body without weight regaining.

Nevertheless, it is impossible for me to follow these complex procedures, therefore I have obeyed basic requirements of this diet: Foods to avoid vs. Foods to eat as well as some of acceptable beverages as below guideline:

 *Food to avoid:

1.      Sugar: Soft drinks, fruit juices, cakes, candy, ice cream, etc.

2.      Grains: Wheat, spelt, rye, barley, rice.

3.      Vegetable oils: Soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil and a few others.

4.      Trans fats: Usually found in processed foods with the word "hydrogenated" on the ingredients list.

5.      "Diet" and "low-fat" foods: These are usually very high in sugar.

6.      High-carb vegetables: Carrots, turnips, etc (induction only).

7.      High-carb fruits: Bananas, apples, oranges, pears, grapes (induction only).

8.      Starches: Potatoes, sweet potatoes (induction only).

9.      Legumes: Lentils, beans, chickpeas, etc. (induction only).

*Food to eat:

1.      Meats: Beef, pork, lamb, chicken, bacon and others.

Fatty     fish and seafood: Salmon, trout, sardines, etc.

Eggs: The     healthiest eggs are omega-3 enriched or pastured.

Low-carb     vegetables: Kale,     spinach, broccoli, asparagus and others.

Full-fat     dairy: Butter, cheese, cream, full-fat yogurt.

Nuts     and seeds: Almonds, macadamia nuts, walnuts,     sunflower seeds, etc.

Healthy     fats: Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, avocados and     avocado oil.

*Beverages

1.      Water: As always, water should be your go-to beverage.

Coffee: Many     studies show that coffee is high     in antioxidants and quite healthy.

Green     tea: A very healthy beverage.

(Healthline, Kris Gunnars, 2018)

 As the guideline, primarily grains (like wheat, rice) and high-sugar content vegetables/ fruits are prohibited in Atkins meals. This is definitely a huge challenge to me because rice is consumed every day in Asian cuisine, I must say it is vital ingredient account 60% in our meals portion as it provides half of energy source for one shot of dining. If we do not have rice, bread can be replaced sometimes but here bread is not allowed, too. To tackle this problem, I increase the amount of protein (fish, meat), fiber (vegetable, low-sugar content fruit) and drink more than 2L of water every day to fill up my stomach and reduce the feeling of hunger.

My typical daily menu in general:

-        Breakfast: A glass of milk, nuts.

-        Lunch: I eat much more than breakfast. One main course of meat and some vegetable added

-        Dinner: Same dish as lunch but smaller portion, some fruits are added. I have less demand for dinner because at night from 7:00pm, the body will slow down its metabolic process and surplus energy will be accumulated as fat layers.

 My menu during a week as following:

 *Friday 21 Jun:

Main courses: Lyonnaise Salad + Pan Broiled Garlic - Sweet Fish Sauce Chicken Wing.

Dessert: Peach, almond, walnut

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

In first day, I still use some slices of bread to substitute rice aim to let my body get along slowly well with this diet and milk is drunk to supplement nutrients and make me full.

*Saturday 22 Jun:

Main courses: Grilled Toro Beef + House Dressing Salad + Miso soup

Dessert: grapefruit, apricot, sunflower seeds

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

*Sunday 23 Jun:

Main courses: Sauce marinated pork jowl + Avocado Salad + Miso soup

Dessert: strawberry, apricot, pitascho

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

At weekend Sat-Sun, I treated myself by Japanese BBQ styles dishes. Grilled Toro beef and pork jowl are often combined to rice but I remove it out of meal and add a bowl of salad. Along with them are miso soup including tofu (plant-based protein) and seaweed (minerals and vitamins, fiber – supporting loosing weight by postponing hunger)

*Monday 24 Jun:

Main courses: Chick Breast Rice Soup

Dessert: strawberry, mandarin, sunflower seeds

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

Dilute rice soup can calm down my body’s desire of rice. The chicken breast is less fat than other parts so used to add rice soup.

*Tuesday 25 Jun:

Main courses: Chicken Salad

Dessert: strawberry, almond, walnut

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

I stayed home so energy is not required too much, I enjoyed my favorite chicken salad. You can see some brown saute’ shallot on top of salad, which aim to replace roasted peanut. Oil from shallot can balance the sour of salad as well as make body feel full longer.

*Wednesday 26 Jun:

Main courses: BBQ Pork Rib

Dessert: strawberry, peach, mandarin

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

At this time, my body survived better without rice, a piece BBQ sauce pork rib could satisfy my hunger. Then I refreshed with some cool fruits.

*Thursday 27 Jun:

Main courses: Poached eggs, Grilled garlic butter sauce salmon & blanched bok choy

Dessert: apricot, peach, mandarin, pistachio

Supplement: 2% skimmed milk

The last day of diet, my body has less demand of energy which most generated from carbohydrate and it does not desire for rice like first days. So brunch was simply poached egg & blanched bok choy. Then I grilled salmon with garlic butter sauce cover on top, really tasty and yummy! Salmon is rich of nutrients and omega 3 which are useful for female’s skin.  

I admits that I was crazily hungry as the amount of bread and rice got in the stomach too little, it seemed to shout every second that “Rice, please!” and I was almost exhausted when I worked at my restaurant, I ought to drink water constantly to overflow my stomach. If I could drink coke, my hunger would be satisfied (when the restaurant so busy and I have no time for break) but in this diet, soft drinks are not permitted. 

One week probably is not enough to conclude this diet is suitable to me or not but generally I think this diet solution is good and healthy. It is not too strict about volume of foods and nutrients input therefore dieters might reduce weight gradually with less health troublesome. Lastly, I just lose weight slightly of 600g and my belly seems to be unchanged (I wish I could know why). Anyway, not bad for one week!

Among my dishes in my weekly menu, I would like to recommend you try to make Chicken Salad. It is easy to prepare and can be stored in fridge 3 days. The recipe as below:

 - Chicken breasts: 2 pcs

- Cabbage: ½ pc

- Pickled carrot and daikon: 1 cup

- Garlic: 3 cloves

- Lime juice: 1 tbs

- Vietnamese coriander: ½ bunch

- Carrot: 1 pc

- Thai chilies: 2 pcs

- Shallot: 1 pc (saute’ until brown)

- Green mango: ½ pc

- Sugar: 2 tbs

- Fish sauce: 2 tbs

- Warm water: ½ cup

Step 1: boiled or steamed chicken breasts until tender.

Step 2: Slice cabbage, carrot and mango in stripes (1cm of width), collect coriander leaves and wash all vegetable. Strain them and put 2 pinches of salt to dehydrate water/moisture from vegetables and make them be crunchy

Step 3: chop and mince chilies and garlic -> put in a small bowl to make sweet fish sauce. Add sugar and pound hardly to mix well with chilies and garlic -> lime juice -> warm water -> fish sauce -> stir well.

Step 4: tear chicken meat in lardon -> mix with strained vegetable + pickle + sweet fish sauce + chopped coriander + saute’ shallot -> mix well and enjoy!

In my hometown, my sister often put roasted peanut into the salad instead of shallot. Peanut’s nutty taste helps to balance the sour of salad and encourage aroma and palate. Regretfully, when I arrived Canada, I had slight allergic symptom when I ate peanut while this had not happened in Vietnam. Therefore, I got rid peanut of my dish and change to shallot without changing the characteristic of the salad.

The Atkins diet is popular thanks to its weight-lost effectiveness and health benefits such as prevent or limit dangerous health conditions like metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, improve heart health. Nevertheless, every coin has two sides, some experts concerns Atkins has some negative impacts to eater’s body like headache, dizziness, weakness, fatigue, constipation. Low card input result in nutritional shortage or inadequate fiber – cause constipation, diarrhea and nausea.

Eating and tasting foods are the happiness of a cook or chef, therefore I would not follow any Diet solution. Just try to balance daily foods intake to body not exceed my body needs also do daily simple exercise like walking and stepping stairs (TTC subway is a good choice as we use it every day).

In point of view of a service provider – a potential cook, of course, I will study more about various Diet solutions and give advice to my customers. Also, adjust the formula to match well with their digestive demands is necessary.

 References of data & sources:

Mayo Clinic. (nil). Atkins Diet: What’s behind the claims?. Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/atkins-diet/art-20048485

Healthline. (2018). The Atkins Diet: Everything You Need to Know. Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/atkins-diet-101

Healthline. (2018). 7 Surprising Health Benefits of Eating Seaweed. Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-seaweed

Right Shape. (nil). Atkins Diet. Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://www.rightshape.com/atkins-diet/

Smile Delivery Online. (nil). 4 Foods that you should not eat while losing weight. Retrieved June 27, 2019, from http://smiledeliveryonline.com/food/4-foods-that-you-should-not-eat-while-losing-weight/

Health Fitness Revolution. (nil). 10 Good Reasons to Drink Green Tea.  Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://www.healthfitnessrevolution.com/10-good-reasons-to-drink-green-tea/

Manor Surgery. (nil). Healthy Lifestyle.  Retrieved June 27, 2019, from https://www.manorsurgery.co.uk/healthy-lifestyle

[ebenpink]

Meal Prep: Your Best Tool for Healthy Eating http://bit.ly/2RYhiwq

One of the main reasons why people are unable to stick with Paleo is that they feel overwhelmed; the grocery shopping and cooking involved can certainly be a major adjustment if you’re not used to preparing your own meals. Fortunately, there is a simple way around this potential roadblock and to make your diet changes stick—start meal prepping!

In this article, I’ll cover the art and science of meal prepping, as well as provide you with valuable tips and tricks for making the Paleo lifestyle affordable and time-saving, even if you’re on a strict budget and tight schedule.

Want to skip ahead? Use these links to jump to a new section:

Why meal prepping makes sense

Five steps to successful meal prepping

The best foods to use

Other ideas to help you meal prep

Why It Makes Sense to Meal Prep

Why should you start meal prepping? Simply put, meal prepping saves you time and money and, by ensuring that you have good-quality meals to eat on a daily basis, helps you stick to your diet!

If you want to start meal prepping but you’re not sure where to begin, this article is for you. Get time- and money-saving tips and learn how to plan and prep your Paleo meals successfully. #nutrition #wellness #chriskresser

You Save Time

The thought of having to cook 21 separate meals every week (breakfast, lunch, and dinner times seven) can seem daunting to Paleo newcomers. Because it’s simple to batch cook foods ahead of time, rather than making complete meals from scratch every day, meal prepping saves you valuable time in the kitchen.

You Save Money

The costs associated with regularly buying takeout or eating at restaurants really add up (and such food, unless you pay a premium, is typically lower in quality). Meal prepping, on the other hand, saves money because it involves cooking at home with ingredients that you can easily buy affordably in bulk. (Keep reading to learn more strategies for eating Paleo on a budget.)

You Prevent “Decision Fatigue”

For many of us, our action-packed days are a series of decision-making sessions that leave us exhausted and deplete our willpower—leading to “decision fatigue.” Decision fatigue can make us more likely to lounge on the couch and order takeout after work than hit the gym and cook a wholesome meal. By deciding on all your meals in advance, meal prepping reduces decision fatigue and frees up some of your willpower, helping you stay on track with your diet and your other health-related goals.

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Five Steps to Successful Meal Prepping

While meal prepping pays off, it does require some planning on your part. In this section, I've provided you with handy guides, tips, and tricks to make each of these steps as painless and straightforward as possible.

Step 1: Clean Out Your Kitchen

The first step towards successful meal prep is to get rid of foods in your fridge, freezer, and pantry that aren’t serving your health. Toss or give away items like processed foods, industrial seed oils, and refined sugar. Get rid of items that have already been opened and donate unopened items to a food pantry. And before you panic that your shelves will be bare, remember that you’ll be replacing these foods with healthy staples!

Prepping for the Thirty-Day Reset Diet

If you’re brand new to the Paleo lifestyle and are unsure about the types of foods you can tolerate, I recommend trying a Thirty-Day Reset, as outlined in my book The Paleo Cure.

To start, you eliminate unhealthy foods and potentially problematic foods for 30 days. Then you systematically reintroduce those possibly problematic foods to determine which ones you can tolerate. This diet is specifically designed to reduce inflammation, identify food sensitivities, and reduce allergic reactions—in addition to improving your overall health.

If you’re beginning a Thirty-Day Reset, eliminate these foods (at least temporarily):

Alcohol

Coffee

Dairy products like butter, cheese, yogurt, milk, and cream

Grains, including rice, wheat, oats, quinoa, barley, and couscous

Beans, legumes, and related products like peanut butter and soy sauce

Chocolate

Processed “health foods” like whey protein and energy bars

All sweeteners, whether they’re real or artificial

What to Do If You’re on a Paleo Template

Not everyone needs to follow a Thirty-Day Reset. If you already have a good idea of which foods you can and can’t handle, a Paleo template might be a better fit for you.

Under a Paleo template, your main focus should be on getting rid of packaged, processed food. Eliminate foods made with industrial seeds oils and goods that include hidden sweeteners or food additives. While there are some healthy packaged foods out there (and you should check the ingredient label if you’re unsure), a good general rule is if it comes in a bag or a box, throw it out.

Here are some common items to toss:

Sugary beverages like juice, soda, energy drinks, and sweet teas

Seed oils, like vegetable, peanut, or canola

Margarine and Crisco

Packaged meals like pizza, french fries, and frozen dinners

Imitation meat or seafood

Boxed pastries and other packaged baked goods

Canned soups, unless they’re free from preservatives, processed ingredients, and other additives

Breakfast cereals and snack bars

Dips, dressings, seasoning mixes, marinades, and gravies

Chips and crackers

Candy, cookies, cakes, pudding, and other desserts

Syrups, including processed pancake syrups, sorghum syrups, etc. (Note: real maple syrup is okay)

Processed honey (Note: raw, local, and organic honey is fine)

Step 2: Restock with Healthy Staples

Once you’ve eliminated those foods from your kitchen, it’s time to restock with healthy staples.

Non-Starchy Vegetables

Non-starchy vegetables are a nutritious and affordable staple in the Paleo lifestyle. Stock your fridge and freezer with fresh or frozen broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, green onions, bell peppers, and leafy greens.

Whole Fruits

Whole fruits such as berries, apples, pears, bananas, mango, pineapple, and citrus fruits are excellent sources of vitamin C and phytonutrients. They make a great snack on their own or can be added to smoothies. However, avoid fruit juice because its lack of fiber allows fruit sugars to be absorbed more rapidly, resulting in spikes in blood glucose levels. In fact, diets heavy in fruit juice are linked to an increased risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, whereas whole fruit consumption does the very opposite, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. (1)

Starches

Starchy plants such as sweet potatoes, white potatoes, plantains, winter squash, taro, cassava, beets, turnips, and rutabaga are affordable, nutrient-dense, satiating foods to include in your diet. Stock up on these vegetables when they’re available seasonally; many of the tubers and root veggies will keep for quite a while when properly stored in the refrigerator. If you have trouble finding some of the more exotic tubers at your grocery store, consider checking out Asian markets, which frequently stock taro and cassava.

Protein

High-quality protein is a staple of the Paleo diet and can be prepped ahead of time. Purchase grass-fed and organic beef, bison, chicken, turkey, and eggs from your grocery store or farmers market or directly from local farms. Check out EatWild to find farms near you offering grass-fed and organic meats. I also recommend eating wild seafood several times a week as a source of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, selenium, and many other micronutrients. Thrive Market and Vital Choice both offer excellent selections of wild, sustainable seafood.

Healthy Fats

As you may know by now, Paleo encourages the consumption of plenty of healthy fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, red palm oil, avocado oil, pastured tallow and lard, and duck fat. Select a few of these fats and keep them on hand for sautéing, roasting, baking, and dressing salads.

Nuts

Nuts and nut butter make for a great Paleo snack. If possible, buy soaked and sprouted nuts because these processes remove much of the anti-nutrients from nuts, making their nutrients more bioavailable. You can also soak and sprout raw nuts yourself at home. Avoid buying roasted nuts covered in vegetable oils, as the roasting process causes the fats to go rancid.

Spices

Spices can quickly add interest to any Paleo dish. Invest in a spice rack and stock it with staples such as oregano, thyme, rosemary, cinnamon, and turmeric.

Baking Ingredients

If you’re planning to do any Paleo baking, then you’ll want to stock your pantry with a few Paleo flours and sweeteners. Try cassava, almond, coconut, and tigernut flours for baking Paleo cookies, brownies, or cake. Coconut flakes are a nice addition to homemade Paleo granola. Keep cans of full-fat coconut milk (preferably a BPA-free version such as Native Forest Simple Organic Unsweetened Coconut Milk) on hand along with Paleo-friendly sweeteners such as raw honey, maple syrup, stevia, coconut sugar, molasses, and monk fruit sweetener.

Other Paleo Template-Friendly Foods

Depending on your personal Paleo Template, you can also stock up on things like white rice, buckwheat, full-fat dairy products, legumes, and chocolate. Just look for organic products that aren’t processed or refined.

Step 3: Plan Your Meals

Now that you’ve eliminated unhealthy foods and restocked your kitchen with healthy staples, it’s time to start planning your meals! This part of the meal-prepping process is fun, will save you time in the kitchen, and will even tempt you to try new tastes and flavors.

Start by planning your meals on a weekly schedule. You can do this in one of two ways.

Old-School Style

Take a pen and paper and figure out how many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners you will need for the upcoming week. Factor in things like date nights, meals with clients, and travel. Once you know how many meals you’ll need for the week, decide what to eat for those meals. See the sections “What makes a good meal?” and “Which foods work best for meal prepping?” below for ideas. Make a grocery list based on your notes.

Use a Meal-Prepping App

There are many useful apps that will help you with meal prep—and some are even tailored specifically for Paleo. These apps provide you with recipes, chart out your meal schedule for the coming week, and automatically generate a grocery shopping list based on your meal plan. (Check out Step 4 below for an overview of my favorites.)

Once you’ve laid out your meal plan for the week, display it in a place where everyone in your household can see it. This way, you can get input from them and ultimately create weekly meal plans that will make everyone well fed and happy.

After the first few weeks of planning meals regularly, I realize it can be easy to fall into a rut, using the same few recipes repeatedly. But dietary diversity is crucial for meeting our nutrient needs and for feeding our gut microbes, so I recommend introducing new foods and recipes regularly. Start by adding one new vegetable per week and work your way up from there.

What Makes a Good Meal?

What exactly should the meals on your meal plan look like? First and foremost, choose nutrient-dense, whole foods. To learn more about how to select nutrient-dense foods, read my article “What Is Nutrient Density and Why Is It Important?”

Secondly, try to create meals that contain a balance of carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Eating well-balanced meals promotes satiety, modulates your body’s blood sugar response, and even enhances nutrient uptake from food. For example, eating protein with carbohydrates moderates the spike in insulin caused by dietary glucose, and consuming fat with vegetables enhances the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients such as carotenoids. (2, 3)

While I typically don’t advise people to count calories or obsess over macronutrient ratios, some people need to do so for health reasons. If you are one of those people, I highly recommend using a meal planning app to make the process easier.

Step 4. Use an App

The amount of planning involved with meal planning is significant, but fortunately, there is a way to make it infinitely easier—meal planning software and apps. I’ve taken the guesswork out of selecting the best ones for Paleo meal planning by creating this list.

AnyList App

AnyList collects and organizes recipes and adds them to a meal plan calendar. It then generates a grocery shopping list that you can easily edit and share with friends and family.

Cook Smarts

In addition to creating weekly meal plans, Cook Smarts also offers helpful cooking guides, infographics, and online cooking sessions.

eMeals

eMeals lets you choose from a variety of different meal plans (including a Paleo plan, of course). Each meal plan includes recipes with main and side dishes, a shopping list, and step-by-step instructions.

Mealime

Mealime produces weekly meal plans with over 200 personalization options.

Keto Diet Tracker

The Keto Diet Tracker app is helpful for tracking net carbs and storing recipes for those following a keto diet.

Nom Nom Paleo App

The Nom Nom Paleo app has nearly 150 recipes, 2,000 step-by-step photos, and a Whole30-friendly monthlong meal plan and generates customizable shopping lists, all for a low cost.

Paleo Leap Meal Planner

This app includes only Paleo-friendly recipes—every single one is free of gluten, grains, legumes, sugar, soy, and corn. The app offers over 1,500 recipes, generates grocery lists, and lets you set your own food preferences and restrictions; for example, you can indicate if you’d like low-FODMAP, egg-free, or autoimmune protocol-friendly recipes.

Paleo.io

The Paleo.io app answers a simple question: Is it Paleo? It helps users determine whether a given food is Paleo or not using a database of over 3,000 foods. It also includes hundreds of Paleo-approved recipes. This app is particularly helpful for those who are new to Paleo.

Paprika

The Paprika app helps you organize recipes, make meal plans, and create grocery lists. Paprika’s built-in browser allows you to save recipes from anywhere on the internet so you can create your ideal meal plan.

Plan to Eat

Plan to Eat allows you to add your own recipes from anywhere on the internet into a recipe book. You can then drag and drop recipes into a calendar to plan out your meals for the week. The app also generates a grocery list for you based on your planned recipes.

RealPlans

RealPlans creates and organizes recipes, develops a weekly menu, and generates grocery lists so that you can get healthy, delicious food on the table. If you need to track your macros, Real Plans has you covered. A subscription will give you access to all the app’s meal plans (Classic, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Paleo, Keto, autoimmune protocol, and more) and over 1,500 recipes. You can add on recipes from well-known food bloggers for an additional fee.

Yummly Recipes and Recipe Box

Yummly takes a cue from Instagram, allowing you to browse through a photo gallery of recipes and save them to your own digital cookbook. Yummly also uses a proprietary program called Food Genome and a patent-pending technology called Food Intelligence to recommend recipes to users based on their allergies, tastes, and more.

Step 5: Cook Your Meals

You’ve cleaned out your kitchen, restocked it with healthy foods, and created a meal plan—now it’s time to start cooking! Here are a few simple strategies that will make it easier for you to follow through on your commitment to stick with Paleo.

Set Aside Time for Grocery Shopping and Meal Prepping

For many people, Sundays work best. You may also want to consider doing your shopping and main meal prep session on a Sunday and a second, smaller meal prep session mid-week to keep your fridge stocked with fresh options. Use a list when grocery shopping and check off items as you add them to your cart.

Organize Your Recipes

Organizing the recipes you intend to use in meal prepping will save you time in the kitchen. The meal prep apps I mentioned above make organizing your recipes easy, but you may also want to keep a few cookbooks in your house and print out recipes from blogs and websites and collect them in a binder. Find 15 to 20 recipes that you really enjoy and rotate them throughout the weeks (and check out some of my favorite Paleo-friendly recipes).

Keep Things Simple

You don’t need to cook an elaborate meal to satisfy your nutritional needs and appetite! Uncomplicated meals should be a staple in your weekly meal plans. For example, a high-quality protein source; steamed or roasted veggies with salt, pepper, and some healthy fat; and a sweet potato can make for a wholly satisfying and effortless meal.

Incorporate Leftovers into Your Weekly Meal Plan

Don’t be afraid of leftovers! Eating leftovers is an easy way to cut down on meal prep and prevents food waste. Label and date leftovers so you keep track of what’s in your fridge and freezer. And speaking of the freezer, use it! When you batch cook (see next item), you’ll have extras that you can stash away for later.

Batch Cook

Batch cooking, including doubling and tripling your favorite recipes, is a critical component of food prepping and can be applied toward many types of foods. For instance, bake several batches of egg muffins at a time to have around for breakfasts or roast a bunch of sweet potatoes to use as sides throughout the week.

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Which Foods Work Best for Meal Prepping?

Some foods are more suitable for meal prepping than others; for example, roasted sweet potatoes hold up well to reheating, whereas pre-dressed salads quickly wilt in the refrigerator. In this section, I’ve outlined some of the best foods to include in your meal prepping process.

Meat

Cook chicken, turkey, beef, bison, or game meat in a slow-cooker. Shred the meat and set aside to use in stir-fries, in Paleo tacos, on top of salads, or in soup.

Sauté ground turkey, chicken, or beef in a pan with garlic, onion, and sea salt. Use the ground meat in Paleo “taco” salads, on top of spiralized vegetables, or in hearty stews.

Bake chicken breasts, wild salmon fillets, burgers, or meatballs in batches. Use them throughout the week with roasted or sautéed veggies, salad, and starchy vegetables as sides.

Eggs

Hard-boil a dozen eggs. Hard-boiled eggs are ideal for a quick and easy breakfast and are also an excellent portable snack.

Vegetables

Roast sweet potatoes, white potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables in batches. These vegetables hold up well to reheating and are nutrient-dense sources of carbohydrates.

If you tolerate white rice, make large quantities in a rice cooker or Instant Pot.

Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, also hold up well to reheating throughout the week.

Sauces

Make several sauces to use throughout the week. Salsa, guacamole, gremolata, and chimichurri are just a few examples of Paleo-friendly sauces that can be made ahead of time and quickly spice up any meal.

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Four Meal Prepping Tips and Tricks

Now that you know the basics of meal prepping, you’re well on your way towards saving time in the kitchen and eating well.

To build on your new skills and help you stay on track with Paleo eating, here are more ideas you can use, including strategies for how to shop Paleo on a budget, where to buy healthy staples and fresh ingredients, how to shop seasonally, and—when home-cooking isn’t on the menu—recommendations for Paleo meal delivery services.

1. Stick to a Budget

Shopping Paleo can be expensive if you don’t know how to grocery shop to your advantage. With the tips I’ve outlined here, you can successfully shop Paleo on a budget while still filling your cart with high-quality, nutrient-dense foods.

Buy conventional instead of organic (for some produce). Organic produce is ideal because it reduces our exposure to harmful pesticides and herbicides. However, costs can really add up when buying nothing but organic foods. If this is a problem for you, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen lists to determine which conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are lowest in pesticides and thus safe to buy conventional rather than organic.

Whether you buy organic or conventional produce, thoroughly wash your produce before eating. Almost no food is completely free of pesticides. The most effective way to remove pesticides from produce is by washing produce in a baking soda bath. (4) To wash vegetables, fill a large bowl with water and add a teaspoon of baking soda. Add the veggies and soak for 10 to 15 minutes. Scrub with a scrub brush and then rinse under clean water. For leafy greens, soak in a baking soda bath for a minute, thoroughly rinse, and then spin dry in a salad spinner. Wash smooth-skinned fruits (like apples and nectarines) in a baking soda bath like you would for veggies.

Here are some more money-saving tips:

Buy frozen produce. Buying frozen produce saves money while still providing you with nutrient-dense food; most fruits and vegetables are flash-frozen immediately after picking, thus preserving the nutrients they contain.

Buy in-season produce. Out-of-season produce is typically shipped from distant locations, including other continents, increasing costs. It’s also generally picked before it’s allowed to ripen (so that it can be transported without bruising or other damage), and that can impact its nutrient content if it’s improperly stored or subjected to temperature extremes.

Start a garden. Growing your own produce takes some work, but it ultimately is a really low-cost way to obtain organic fruits and vegetables.

Buy lower-quality cuts of meat. You don’t need to buy expensive cuts of meat to eat Paleo. For example, ground beef and brisket are cheaper than filet mignon but have the same nutritional value. In fact, some of the so-called “less desirable” cuts of meat may actually have higher nutritional value than pure muscle meat; for instance, nutritious gelatin-rich cuts of meat such as chuck roast and beef shank are often cheaper than cuts such as sirloin.

Choose more affordable species of wild fish, such as wild sardines instead of wild salmon.

Make eggs a staple in your diet. Eggs are a very economical protein source, including high-quality, farm-fresh eggs from a local source.

Buy in bulk. Many bulk grocery stores now offer many healthy options, including organic produce, wild seafood, and pastured meats, at lower prices than regular grocery stores. Consider buying a quarter, half, or or whole animal for meat directly from a rancher or farmer instead of single cuts from the grocery store; while you’ll need to invest in a chest freezer, this strategy can significantly reduce the cost of meat.

2. Shop Around for Healthy Food

Contrary to popular belief, Whole Foods is not the only place you can buy healthy food! All the stores listed here have excellent selections of healthy, Paleo-friendly foods. Even your local grocery store is likely to have some options.

Trader Joe’s

Natural Grocers

Sprouts Farmers Market

Super Target

Wegmans

Harris Teeter

Hannaford

Albertsons

Food Lion

Publix

Pathmark

Kroger

Aldi

Lidl

Costco

Sam’s Club

Farmers Markets

Don’t forget about your local farmers market! Farmers markets offer fresh produce, meat, and (depending on where you live) seafood at lower prices than most grocery stores. You might also want to investigate a CSA—community supported agriculture—in your area from which you can purchase a subscription to locally raised foods including produce and meat, delivered weekly or monthly.

Online

Healthy grocery shopping can now be done online as well as in person. The following online grocery stores offer organic, healthy options and deliver right to your door:

Thrive Market

Vitacost

AmazonFresh

Shop Seasonally

Shopping seasonally is a great way to tune in with your local food system and save money. Check out the Seasonal Food Guide to find out what produce is in season near you.

3. Use Real Food Delivery Services

If you are really tight on time but still committed to eating healthy meals, you may want to consider a Paleo “real food” meal delivery service. There are countless options out there, but I’ve curated the very best in this list.

Beetnik Foods

Beetnik Foods meals are certified Paleo friendly, delivered nationwide, and also available in select health food and grocery stores.

ButcherBox

ButcherBox delivers 100 percent grass-fed and grass-finished beef, heritage breed pork, and free-range, organic chicken. That can help if you’re short on time or if you’re struggling to find a local provider of grass-fed meat.

Caveman Chefs

Caveman Chefs offers both meal delivery services and catering. It is based in Colorado but ships nationwide. Choose from meals that are Whole30 approved, autoimmune protocol, low FODMAP, and ketogenic.

Factor 75

Factor 75 meals are premade, 100 percent organic, and free of hormones, GMOs, and antibiotics. Choose from bundles of four, six, eight, 12, or 18 meals.

Green Chef

Green Chef provides you with prepped ingredients to cook three two-person Paleo dinners (or two four-person dinners on the family plan) each week. All recipes are organic and gluten-free, feature protein and fresh veggies, and contain zero grains or dairy.

Kettlebell Kitchen

Kettlebell Kitchen meals are free of artificial ingredients, preservatives, gluten, dairy, soy, corn, industrial vegetable oils, and refined sugar. Some of the meals contain non-Paleo ingredients that are tolerated by many people, including white rice, lentils, and gluten-free oats.

Paleo On The Go

Paleo On The Go operates out of a completely gluten-free kitchen and specializes in Paleo and autoimmune protocol-friendly frozen premade meals that can be delivered nationwide. You can purchase meals individually or in bundles.

Paleo Power Meals

Paleo Power Meals offers premade meals with generous portions that pack a large amount of protein.

Pete’s Paleo

Pete’s Paleo offers seasonally inspired, farm-fresh prepared Paleo meals. Order bundles of five, 10, 14, or 20 meals in vacuum-sealed packages from anywhere in the United States.

Sunbasket

Sunbasket allows you to select three two- or four-person meal kits per week without gluten, grains, soy, corn, added sugar, or dairy. The ingredients and recipes are delivered fresh so you can cook great meals without any planning or shopping.

The Good Kitchen

The Good Kitchen sources organic produce almost exclusively from local farms in North Carolina (where its operation is based) and delivers its refrigerated and frozen meals nationwide.

Trifecta Nutrition

Trifecta Nutrition provides ready-to-eat dinners and lunches that are non-GMO, 100 percent organic, and free of sugar, grains, gluten, dairy, and soy. You can also upgrade to add breakfasts and additional entrées or choose build-your-own meals.

TrueFare

TrueFare uses the highest-quality ingredients in their meals, including organic produce, grass-fed beef, heritage pork, and organic or free-range poultry. They offer Paleo-, keto-, autoimmune protocol-, and Whole30-friendly meal plans.

4. Stock Your Kitchen with the Essentials

To successfully meal prep, you’ll need to stock your kitchen with some essential tools. This includes basic tools that everyone should have in their kitchen, Paleo-specific items, cookware and bakeware, and maybe some “nice to have” extras for when you decide to get creative with cooking.

Kitchen Basics

Measuring cups

Measuring spoons

Potholders

Kitchen towels

Vegetable peeler

Spice rack

Cutting boards

Chef’s knife

Slotted spoons

Spatula

Ladle

Utensil holder

Mixing bowls

Glass storage container

Wooden spoons

Paleo Kitchen Essentials

Meat cleaver

Paring knife

Whisk

Grater

Probe meat thermometer

Hand-held lemon squeezer or citrus reamer

Mason jars

Salad spinner

Cheesecloth or cotton/linen fine mesh towel

Potato masher

Tongs

Food processor

Blender

Immersion blender

Cookware and Bakeware

Sauté pan

Saucepan

Skillets

Baking dishes

Stockpot

Soup pot

Dutch oven

“Nice to Have” Items

Kitchen shears

Pepper mill

Mandoline

Muffin tin and muffin liners

Ramekins

Spoon rest

Meat grinder

Hand mixer

Mortar and pestle

Slow cooker

Sous vide

Dehydrator

Spiralizer

Fermentation pot

Juicer

Spice grinder machine

Garlic press

Tool for making your own meat jerky (such as LEM Products 468 Jerky Cannon)

Food processor

Instant Pot

Countertop toaster oven or convection oven

Water Filter

For drinking and cooking water, I recommend investing in a high-quality water filter. Berkey water filtration systems sit conveniently on your countertop and remove viruses, pathogenic bacteria, cysts, and parasites to undetectable levels. They also reduce heavy metals without eliminating beneficial minerals. Additional white filters can be added to remove fluoride. If you want to filter your home’s entire water supply, you may want to consider a reverse osmosis filter instead.

Food Storage

Once you’ve prepped your meals, you’ll need containers for storing everything. Since plastic containers contain chemicals that are known endocrine disruptors, I prefer people use glass storage dishes with BPA-free lids.

For wrapping up foods, use unbleached parchment paper or beeswax-coated reusable food wrap (such as Bee’s Wrap) instead of conventional plastic wrap, which may leach endocrine disrupting chemicals into your food. (5) Finally, try reusable silicone storage bags (such as Stasher bags) instead of plastic freezer/storage bags, which may also contain endocrine-disrupting plasticizers.

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Now I’d like to hear from you. Do you practice food prepping? If not, do you think you’ll try the food-prepping strategies I’ve outlined in this article? Let me know in the comments below.

The post Meal Prep: Your Best Tool for Healthy Eating appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup

Hi everyone! It has been so hard to find the right words for this post as my heart is breaking for the world right now. I hope you are all staying safe and doing well. How are you doing? I’m wishing you all love and strength to get through whatever challenges may be coming your way during this pandemic. We’re about to start our 7th week of “sheltering at home” and are all doing well & taking things one day at a time. 

A gift from my heart 

We’ve been trying to do our part by helping the community in various ways, but I also want to do a little something personal for some of my blog readers who are working on the frontlines and in essential services during this pandemic. This idea is a small way for me to connect with you and say thank you for all that you’re doing! So that said, I’d like to mail a signed and personalized copy of my brand new cookbook (my very first hardcover….eek!), along with an Oh She Glows Recipe App download, to 15 frontline and essential workers located in Canada or the US. These gifts will be sent out as soon as my book launches early this fall. Side note: I almost nixed this idea because I worried there would be hard feelings if I couldn’t send one to everyone who reaches out (I will likely have a lot more than 15 emails), but I hope you’ll understand that even though I can’t send you all one, I’d still like to do this to bring a smile to some of your faces during this difficult time. (And I’ll be doing more cookbook giveaways for the entire OSG community in the late summer and fall, too, so there will be other opportunities coming up.) You can nominate yourself or someone you know. Please send a brief email along with your city, and province or state (or your nominee’s story and location) to frontline@ohsheglows.com by May 1, 2020. We’ll select 15 frontline and essential heroes and I will cover all costs of shipping, the book, etc. Due to the volume of emails we anticipate receiving, we’ll only be able to reply to those who are selected, but I want to say a huge thank you in advance for sharing your story with me and to all of you out there who are making sacrifices for your communities every day.

A little about this soup

Today, I’m sharing a versatile, nutrient-packed, and pantry-friendly soup that I’ve been making for the past several weeks. I can’t tell you how much of a go-to recipe this has been while trying to juggle work deadlines and refereeing (oops, I mean parenting) and homeschooling. You can use virtually any veggies you have on hand as long as it totals about 8 cups (be sure to see the Tips in the recipe below for ideas). I’ve created both Instant Pot and stovetop versions for you as well. I love that I can throw everything into my Instant Pot, turn it on, and walk away! And the stovetop version is almost as simple…the only difference is that you’ll need to stir it a few times during cooking. I’m whipping this up twice weekly until the warm weather sets in. I hope it brings you some comfort during these trying days. I’d love to hear which veggie combos you use…my favourite combo so far is: broccoli, carrots, butternut squash, frozen green beans, and sliced cremini mushrooms. A nutrient powerhouse! I’m not joking when I say that I’m eating this daily for lunch…it helps balance out all the baked goods that I’ve been stuffing in my face…lol. 

PS – I’ll be sure to share a lot more details about the new book (as well as the big cover reveal!) soon. If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter, as we’ll be relaunching it this spring and revealing the cover and details there first.

Sending you all love, good health wishes, and big virtual hugs,

Angela xoxo

Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup

Vegan, gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free

This spicy, bursting-with-flavour soup can be made with whatever veggies you have lurking in the crisper and pantry. My favourite combination of veggies is broccoli (rich in immune-boosting vitamin C), butternut squash, carrots, and frozen green beans, and I’ve detailed the amounts I use in my recipe below. You can use any veggies you love as long as it totals 8 cups of chopped veggies (see my Tip below for ideas!). I’ve also provided two different cooking methods: a hands-free Instant Pot method and a traditional (but still very easy) stovetop method. The beauty of this soup is that it’s so simple to make—we simply add the ingredients to the pot and let it cook away! The soup’s spicy flavour comes from using a generous amount of red pepper flakes. I like 2 teaspoons for a moderate, zippy heat level, but if you aren’t a fan of a lot of heat, start with 1 teaspoon and go from there. If you want to use my Instant Pot method, you can find the directions at the bottom of the Tips section. This recipe is adapted from my 8-Minute Pantry Dal.

Yield 8 cups (2 L)

Prep time 15 Minutes

Cook time 25 Minutes

Total time 40 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon (15 mL) coconut oil or olive oil

2 1/2 cups (625 mL) water

1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can light coconut milk

1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes*

3 cups (190 g) broccoli florets (1 1/2-inch florets)**

2 cups (270 g) peeled, seeded, and chopped butternut squash (1/2-inch cubes)

1 1/2 cups (195 g) chopped peeled carrots (1/2-inch thick coins)

1 1/2 cups (160 g) frozen cut green beans***

2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, or to taste****

1 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup (170 g) uncooked red lentils

2 tablespoons (30 mL) apple cider vinegar, or to taste

Herbamare, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Stovetop method: To a large pot, add the oil, water, coconut milk, diced tomatoes (with juices), broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, frozen green beans, red pepper flakes, salt (starting with 3/4 teaspoon), garlic powder, and red lentils. Stir to combine.

Set the heat to high, cover with a tight-fitting lid, and bring the mixture to a low boil. Once it comes to a boil, remove the lid and reduce the heat to medium. Stir again, scraping off any lentils stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Simmer, covered, over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are soft and the veggies are just fork tender. The veggies should have a touch of resistance when pierced with a fork. The cook time will vary based on the type of veggies you use.

After cooking, remove the lid and stir in the apple cider vinegar, starting with one tablespoon and adding from there, to taste (we love 2 tablespoons for a lot of brightness). Sometimes, there may be a slight separation in the soup after adding the vinegar, depending on the brand of coconut milk used. This is nothing to worry about. Season with more salt, if desired (I add another 1/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt, plus a bit of Herbamare). I also enjoy adding a bit more apple cider vinegar to my individual serving because I adore its tanginess in this soup. Serve and enjoy. Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 to 5 days.

Tips:

* I love fire-roasted diced canned tomatoes in this soup, but feel free to use regular canned diced tomatoes if that’s what you have.

** You can use practically any veggies you have on hand (most veggies should work, however, I probably wouldn’t try beets or eggplant, but maybe that’s just me). Veggies to try out: broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, carrots, sweet potatoes, yellow or red potatoes, button mushrooms, squash, sautéed onions/garlic/celery, thickly sliced zucchini (with skin), kale, frozen peas, etc. Just make sure the chopped veggies total 8 cups. If using onion, celery, or garlic, be sure to sauté them in the oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until softened, before adding the remaining ingredients. I have not tested any frozen veggies besides frozen green beans, so I can't vouch for other ones working.

*** If using French-cut frozen green beans (the thin variety), add them during the last 5 minutes of cooking to prevent them from softening too much.

**** 2 teaspoons of red chili flakes results in a zippy, moderate level of heat (my fave way to make this soup!). If serving to spice-shy folks, start with 1 teaspoon (for a mild soup) and add more after cooking, if desired.

  INSTANT POT METHOD:

1.To a 6-Quart (or larger) Instant Pot, add all the ingredients, except the red lentils and apple cider vinegar. Stir until combined.

2. Now, pour the red lentils evenly overtop the mixture and gently press them into the liquid with your hands or a spoon (do not stir the lentils into the mixture as this can result in a burn notice in some machines).

3. Secure the lid in the lock position and check that the Steam Release Handle is pointing to the “Sealing” position.

4. Press the “Pressure Cook” button (or “Manual”, on some machines) and set the cook time to 1 minute on high pressure. After a few seconds you’ll hear a couple beeps and the screen will say “on”. The cooking process has begun! (Pro tip: it will take about 25 minutes for the machine to come to pressure before the 1 minute timer is triggered.)

5. You’ll hear a few beeps when the 1 minute timer is up. Immediately do a “Quick Pressure Release” to avoid overcooking the soup (simply shift the Steam Release Handle to the “Venting” position to release the pressure). Once all of the pressure has been released, the float valve will sink and you won’t hear steam anymore.

6. Carefully open the lid. My Instant Pot defaults to the “keep warm” setting, so I cancel it and turn the machine off to avoid over-cooking the veggies. Stir in the apple cider vinegar (starting with 1 tablespoon and adding more from there, to taste...we love 2 tablespoons for a nice zing). Sometimes, there may be a very slight coconut milk separation in the soup after adding the vinegar. This is natural and nothing to worry about. Season each bowl with a sprinkle of salt or Herbamare, if desired, and enjoy!

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Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[susantregre]

Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup

Hi everyone! It has been so hard to find the right words for this post as my heart is breaking for the world right now. I hope you are all staying safe and doing well. How are you doing? I’m wishing you all love and strength to get through whatever challenges may be coming your way during this pandemic. We’re about to start our 7th week of “sheltering at home” and are all doing well & taking things one day at a time. 

A gift from my heart 

We’ve been trying to do our part by helping the community in various ways, but I also want to do a little something personal for some of my blog readers who are working on the frontlines and in essential services during this pandemic. This idea is a small way for me to connect with you and say thank you for all that you’re doing! So that said, I’d like to mail a signed and personalized copy of my brand new cookbook (my very first hardcover….eek!), along with an Oh She Glows Recipe App download, to 15 frontline and essential workers located in Canada or the US. These gifts will be sent out as soon as my book launches early this fall. Side note: I almost nixed this idea because I worried there would be hard feelings if I couldn’t send one to everyone who reaches out (I will likely have a lot more than 15 emails), but I hope you’ll understand that even though I can’t send you all one, I’d still like to do this to bring a smile to some of your faces during this difficult time. (And I’ll be doing more cookbook giveaways for the entire OSG community in the late summer and fall, too, so there will be other opportunities coming up.) You can nominate yourself or someone you know. Please send a brief email along with your city, and province or state (or your nominee’s story and location) to frontline@ohsheglows.com by May 1, 2020. We’ll select 15 frontline and essential heroes and I will cover all costs of shipping, the book, etc. Due to the volume of emails we anticipate receiving, we’ll only be able to reply to those who are selected, but I want to say a huge thank you in advance for sharing your story with me and to all of you out there who are making sacrifices for your communities every day.

A little about this soup

Today, I’m sharing a versatile, nutrient-packed, and pantry-friendly soup that I’ve been making for the past several weeks. I can’t tell you how much of a go-to recipe this has been while trying to juggle work deadlines and refereeing (oops, I mean parenting) and homeschooling. You can use virtually any veggies you have on hand as long as it totals about 8 cups (be sure to see the Tips in the recipe below for ideas). I’ve created both Instant Pot and stovetop versions for you as well. I love that I can throw everything into my Instant Pot, turn it on, and walk away! And the stovetop version is almost as simple…the only difference is that you’ll need to stir it a few times during cooking. I’m whipping this up twice weekly until the warm weather sets in. I hope it brings you some comfort during these trying days. I’d love to hear which veggie combos you use…my favourite combo so far is: broccoli, carrots, butternut squash, frozen green beans, and sliced cremini mushrooms. A nutrient powerhouse! I’m not joking when I say that I’m eating this daily for lunch…it helps balance out all the baked goods that I’ve been stuffing in my face…lol. 

PS – I’ll be sure to share a lot more details about the new book (as well as the big cover reveal!) soon. If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter, as we’ll be relaunching it this spring and revealing the cover and details there first.

Sending you all love, good health wishes, and big virtual hugs,

Angela xoxo

Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup

Vegan, gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free

This spicy, bursting-with-flavour soup can be made with whatever veggies you have lurking in the crisper and pantry. My favourite combination of veggies is broccoli (rich in immune-boosting vitamin C), butternut squash, carrots, and frozen green beans, and I’ve detailed the amounts I use in my recipe below. You can use any veggies you love as long as it totals 8 cups of chopped veggies (see my Tip below for ideas!). I’ve also provided two different cooking methods: a hands-free Instant Pot method and a traditional (but still very easy) stovetop method. The beauty of this soup is that it’s so simple to make—we simply add the ingredients to the pot and let it cook away! The soup’s spicy flavour comes from using a generous amount of red pepper flakes. I like 2 teaspoons for a moderate, zippy heat level, but if you aren’t a fan of a lot of heat, start with 1 teaspoon and go from there. If you want to use my Instant Pot method, you can find the directions at the bottom of the Tips section. This recipe is adapted from my 8-Minute Pantry Dal.

Yield 8 cups (2 L)

Prep time 15 Minutes

Cook time 25 Minutes

Total time 40 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon (15 mL) coconut oil or olive oil

2 1/2 cups (625 mL) water

1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can light coconut milk

1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes*

3 cups (190 g) broccoli florets (1 1/2-inch florets)**

2 cups (270 g) peeled, seeded, and chopped butternut squash (1/2-inch cubes)

1 1/2 cups (195 g) chopped peeled carrots (1/2-inch thick coins)

1 1/2 cups (160 g) frozen cut green beans***

2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, or to taste****

1 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup (170 g) uncooked red lentils

2 tablespoons (30 mL) apple cider vinegar, or to taste

Herbamare, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Stovetop method: To a large pot, add the oil, water, coconut milk, diced tomatoes (with juices), broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, frozen green beans, red pepper flakes, salt (starting with 3/4 teaspoon), garlic powder, and red lentils. Stir to combine.

Set the heat to high, cover with a tight-fitting lid, and bring the mixture to a low boil. Once it comes to a boil, remove the lid and reduce the heat to medium. Stir again, scraping off any lentils stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Simmer, covered, over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are soft and the veggies are just fork tender. The veggies should have a touch of resistance when pierced with a fork. The cook time will vary based on the type of veggies you use.

After cooking, remove the lid and stir in the apple cider vinegar, starting with one tablespoon and adding from there, to taste (we love 2 tablespoons for a lot of brightness). Sometimes, there may be a slight separation in the soup after adding the vinegar, depending on the brand of coconut milk used. This is nothing to worry about. Season with more salt, if desired (I add another 1/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt, plus a bit of Herbamare). I also enjoy adding a bit more apple cider vinegar to my individual serving because I adore its tanginess in this soup. Serve and enjoy. Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 to 5 days.

Tips:

* I love fire-roasted diced canned tomatoes in this soup, but feel free to use regular canned diced tomatoes if that’s what you have.

** You can use practically any veggies you have on hand (most veggies should work, however, I probably wouldn’t try beets or eggplant, but maybe that’s just me). Veggies to try out: broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, carrots, sweet potatoes, yellow or red potatoes, button mushrooms, squash, sautéed onions/garlic/celery, thickly sliced zucchini (with skin), kale, frozen peas, etc. Just make sure the chopped veggies total 8 cups. If using onion, celery, or garlic, be sure to sauté them in the oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until softened, before adding the remaining ingredients. I have not tested any frozen veggies besides frozen green beans, so I can't vouch for other ones working.

*** If using French-cut frozen green beans (the thin variety), add them during the last 5 minutes of cooking to prevent them from softening too much.

**** 2 teaspoons of red chili flakes results in a zippy, moderate level of heat (my fave way to make this soup!). If serving to spice-shy folks, start with 1 teaspoon (for a mild soup) and add more after cooking, if desired.

  INSTANT POT METHOD:

1.To a 6-Quart (or larger) Instant Pot, add all the ingredients, except the red lentils and apple cider vinegar. Stir until combined.

2. Now, pour the red lentils evenly overtop the mixture and gently press them into the liquid with your hands or a spoon (do not stir the lentils into the mixture as this can result in a burn notice in some machines).

3. Secure the lid in the lock position and check that the Steam Release Handle is pointing to the “Sealing” position.

4. Press the “Pressure Cook” button (or “Manual”, on some machines) and set the cook time to 1 minute on high pressure. After a few seconds you’ll hear a couple beeps and the screen will say “on”. The cooking process has begun! (Pro tip: it will take about 25 minutes for the machine to come to pressure before the 1 minute timer is triggered.)

5. You’ll hear a few beeps when the 1 minute timer is up. Immediately do a “Quick Pressure Release” to avoid overcooking the soup (simply shift the Steam Release Handle to the “Venting” position to release the pressure). Once all of the pressure has been released, the float valve will sink and you won’t hear steam anymore.

6. Carefully open the lid. My Instant Pot defaults to the “keep warm” setting, so I cancel it and turn the machine off to avoid over-cooking the veggies. Stir in the apple cider vinegar (starting with 1 tablespoon and adding more from there, to taste...we love 2 tablespoons for a nice zing). Sometimes, there may be a very slight coconut milk separation in the soup after adding the vinegar. This is natural and nothing to worry about. Season each bowl with a sprinkle of salt or Herbamare, if desired, and enjoy!

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© copyright 2020 Oh She Glows. All Rights Reserved.

from Oh She Glows https://ift.tt/3bEqYHa

[beccameliora]

Read More Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup

The following post Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup is republished from Oh She Glows by Angela (Oh She Glows)

Hi everyone! It has been so hard to find the right words for this post as my heart is breaking for the world right now. I hope you are all staying safe and doing well. How are you doing? I’m wishing you all love and strength to get through whatever challenges may be coming your way during this pandemic. We’re about to start our 7th week of “sheltering at home” and are all doing well & taking things one day at a time. 

A gift from my heart 

We’ve been trying to do our part by helping the community in various ways, but I also want to do a little something personal for some of my blog readers who are working on the frontlines and in essential services during this pandemic. This idea is a small way for me to connect with you and say thank you for all that you’re doing! So that said, I’d like to mail a signed and personalized copy of my brand new cookbook (my very first hardcover….eek!), along with an Oh She Glows Recipe App download, to 15 frontline and essential workers located in Canada or the US. These gifts will be sent out as soon as my book launches early this fall. Side note: I almost nixed this idea because I worried there would be hard feelings if I couldn’t send one to everyone who reaches out (I will likely have a lot more than 15 emails), but I hope you’ll understand that even though I can’t send you all one, I’d still like to do this to bring a smile to some of your faces during this difficult time. (And I’ll be doing more cookbook giveaways for the entire OSG community in the late summer and fall, too, so there will be other opportunities coming up.) You can nominate yourself or someone you know. Please send a brief email along with your city, and province or state (or your nominee’s story and location) to frontline@ohsheglows.com by May 1, 2020. We’ll select 15 frontline and essential heroes and I will cover all costs of shipping, the book, etc. Due to the volume of emails we anticipate receiving, we’ll only be able to reply to those who are selected, but I want to say a huge thank you in advance for sharing your story with me and to all of you out there who are making sacrifices for your communities every day.

A little about this soup

Today, I’m sharing a versatile, nutrient-packed, and pantry-friendly soup that I’ve been making for the past several weeks. I can’t tell you how much of a go-to recipe this has been while trying to juggle work deadlines and refereeing (oops, I mean parenting) and homeschooling. You can use virtually any veggies you have on hand as long as it totals about 8 cups (be sure to see the Tips in the recipe below for ideas). I’ve created both Instant Pot and stovetop versions for you as well. I love that I can throw everything into my Instant Pot, turn it on, and walk away! And the stovetop version is almost as simple…the only difference is that you’ll need to stir it a few times during cooking. I’m whipping this up twice weekly until the warm weather sets in. I hope it brings you some comfort during these trying days. I’d love to hear which veggie combos you use…my favourite combo so far is: broccoli, carrots, butternut squash, frozen green beans, and sliced cremini mushrooms. A nutrient powerhouse! I’m not joking when I say that I’m eating this daily for lunch…it helps balance out all the baked goods that I’ve been stuffing in my face…lol. 

PS – I’ll be sure to share a lot more details about the new book (as well as the big cover reveal!) soon. If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter, as we’ll be relaunching it this spring and revealing the cover and details there first.

Sending you all love, good health wishes, and big virtual hugs,

Angela xoxo

Cozy At Home Spicy Any-Veggie Soup

Vegan, gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free

This spicy, bursting-with-flavour soup can be made with whatever veggies you have lurking in the crisper and pantry. My favourite combination of veggies is broccoli (rich in immune-boosting vitamin C), butternut squash, carrots, and frozen green beans, and I’ve detailed the amounts I use in my recipe below. You can use any veggies you love as long as it totals 8 cups of chopped veggies (see my Tip below for ideas!). I’ve also provided two different cooking methods: a hands-free Instant Pot method and a traditional (but still very easy) stovetop method. The beauty of this soup is that it’s so simple to make—we simply add the ingredients to the pot and let it cook away! The soup’s spicy flavour comes from using a generous amount of red pepper flakes. I like 2 teaspoons for a moderate, zippy heat level, but if you aren’t a fan of a lot of heat, start with 1 teaspoon and go from there. If you want to use my Instant Pot method, you can find the directions at the bottom of the Tips section. This recipe is adapted from my 8-Minute Pantry Dal.

Yield 8 cups (2 L)

Prep time 15 Minutes

Cook time 25 Minutes

Total time 40 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon (15 mL) coconut oil or olive oil

2 1/2 cups (625 mL) water

1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can light coconut milk

1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes*

3 cups (190 g) broccoli florets (1 1/2-inch florets)**

2 cups (270 g) peeled, seeded, and chopped butternut squash (1/2-inch cubes)

1 1/2 cups (195 g) chopped peeled carrots (1/2-inch thick coins)

1 1/2 cups (160 g) frozen cut green beans***

2 teaspoons red pepper flakes, or to taste****

1 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup (170 g) uncooked red lentils

2 tablespoons (30 mL) apple cider vinegar, or to taste

Herbamare, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Stovetop method: To a large pot, add the oil, water, coconut milk, diced tomatoes (with juices), broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, frozen green beans, red pepper flakes, salt (starting with 3/4 teaspoon), garlic powder, and red lentils. Stir to combine.

Set the heat to high, cover with a tight-fitting lid, and bring the mixture to a low boil. Once it comes to a boil, remove the lid and reduce the heat to medium. Stir again, scraping off any lentils stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Simmer, covered, over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are soft and the veggies are just fork tender. The veggies should have a touch of resistance when pierced with a fork. The cook time will vary based on the type of veggies you use.

After cooking, remove the lid and stir in the apple cider vinegar, starting with one tablespoon and adding from there, to taste (we love 2 tablespoons for a lot of brightness). Sometimes, there may be a slight separation in the soup after adding the vinegar, depending on the brand of coconut milk used. This is nothing to worry about. Season with more salt, if desired (I add another 1/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt, plus a bit of Herbamare). I also enjoy adding a bit more apple cider vinegar to my individual serving because I adore its tanginess in this soup. Serve and enjoy. Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 to 5 days.

Tips:

* I love fire-roasted diced canned tomatoes in this soup, but feel free to use regular canned diced tomatoes if that’s what you have.

** You can use practically any veggies you have on hand (most veggies should work, however, I probably wouldn’t try beets or eggplant, but maybe that’s just me). Veggies to try out: broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, carrots, sweet potatoes, yellow or red potatoes, button mushrooms, squash, sautéed onions/garlic/celery, thickly sliced zucchini (with skin), kale, frozen peas, etc. Just make sure the chopped veggies total 8 cups. If using onion, celery, or garlic, be sure to sauté them in the oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until softened, before adding the remaining ingredients. I have not tested any frozen veggies besides frozen green beans, so I can't vouch for other ones working.

*** If using French-cut frozen green beans (the thin variety), add them during the last 5 minutes of cooking to prevent them from softening too much.

**** 2 teaspoons of red chili flakes results in a zippy, moderate level of heat (my fave way to make this soup!). If serving to spice-shy folks, start with 1 teaspoon (for a mild soup) and add more after cooking, if desired.

  INSTANT POT METHOD:

1.To a 6-Quart (or larger) Instant Pot, add all the ingredients, except the red lentils and apple cider vinegar. Stir until combined.

2. Now, pour the red lentils evenly overtop the mixture and gently press them into the liquid with your hands or a spoon (do not stir the lentils into the mixture as this can result in a burn notice in some machines).

3. Secure the lid in the lock position and check that the Steam Release Handle is pointing to the “Sealing” position.

4. Press the “Pressure Cook” button (or “Manual”, on some machines) and set the cook time to 1 minute on high pressure. After a few seconds you’ll hear a couple beeps and the screen will say “on”. The cooking process has begun! (Pro tip: it will take about 25 minutes for the machine to come to pressure before the 1 minute timer is triggered.)

5. You’ll hear a few beeps when the 1 minute timer is up. Immediately do a “Quick Pressure Release” to avoid overcooking the soup (simply shift the Steam Release Handle to the “Venting” position to release the pressure). Once all of the pressure has been released, the float valve will sink and you won’t hear steam anymore.

6. Carefully open the lid. My Instant Pot defaults to the “keep warm” setting, so I cancel it and turn the machine off to avoid over-cooking the veggies. Stir in the apple cider vinegar (starting with 1 tablespoon and adding more from there, to taste...we love 2 tablespoons for a nice zing). Sometimes, there may be a very slight coconut milk separation in the soup after adding the vinegar. This is natural and nothing to worry about. Season each bowl with a sprinkle of salt or Herbamare, if desired, and enjoy!

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