Category Archives:plant-based diet

20
Jan

Choosing Raw Foods + SUPERgreen Salad Recipe

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Choosing raw foods is a great way to improve your health. Whether you've made a resolution to eat healthier lunches, find more wholesome baked goods, or if you want to experiment with green juices, raw foods should be a foundation of your new healthy habits. Almost everyone can benefit from getting more raw, green energy into their diet!

If you are not sure exactly what it is, a raw foods diet focuses on eating exclusively (or mostly) raw foods and foods in their most natural state: fresh vegetables and fruits, sea vegetables, sprouted grains, nuts and seeds, fresh juices and more. Most food is consumed totally raw but other times it is cooked using a dehydrator, blended using a processor or blender, or fermented to bring out new, natural flavors. Cooking is not part of a raw food lifestyle. Most  raw foodists do not warm food beyond 104º or 118º, because they believe that heating food destroys vital enzymes found in foods. But don't think choosing a raw foods lifestyle dooms you to a lifetime of boring salads! You can enjoy a wide variety of foods like:

  • Sprouts! Grains, beans, seeds and nuts become more nutritious and digestible and more interesting. You can make raw crackers, raw breads even raw wraps for your snacks.
  • Fermented foods like miso, kefir, kombucha and sauerkraut have been ‘cooked’ using natural enzymatic processes and add variety and depth of nutrition to your diet.
  • Fresh smoothies and juices made from fresh, frozen and dried ingredients
  • Gourmet raw foods like lasagna, raw chocolate hazelnut cakes and energy bars.

Whether you choose to eat raw foods exclusively or occasionally, raw foods can help our bodies dramatically by increasing our intake of fiber. Fiber is often overlooked in our diets, but increasing your fiber is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body. A healthy digestive system with properly functioning bowels not only feel better, it is incredibly important for overall health. Fiber binds to toxins, cholesterol and hormones and literally flushes the bad stuff out of our bodies, acting like a little broom sweeping our body clean. When the bowels are not moving quickly, waste can stagnate inside our intestines. This can create discomfort, gas and bloating; long-term constipation can lead to damaged intestines and is frequently cited as a main cause of colon cancer. Research shows that a higher intake of fiber leads to lowered risk of many types of cancer3, heart disease, and diabetes. According to nutritionist Marion Nestle, most Americans get only HALF the amount of fiber that is needed daily (wondering how much do you need? Women need about 25 grams, for men about 38 grams daily).

And guess what? Fiber is found ONLY in plant foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and more, and it benefits the body in multiple ways. Adding in raw foods to your diet will immediately increase your fiber intake, leading to better digestive energy and more frequent bowel movements.

So even though you can eat more than salad on a raw foods diet, here is one SUPER salad that will have you craving more greens everyday. It features a variety of leafy greens and a bunch of other veggies to add fiber, high-quality plant protein and lots of superfoods into your day. Each ingredient is functionally nutritious and delicious.IMG_1582

SUPERgreen Salad with Acai Dressing

Acai Dressing
1 (100 gram) packet unsweetened acai, a room temperature
¼ cup coconut oil
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon chia seeds
1 teaspoon sea salt
Salad
2 cups thinly sliced kale
2 cups thinly sliced napa cabbage
1 cup thinly sliced dandelion greens
1 cup thinly sliced red cabbage
½ cup thinly sliced basil
½ cup shredded beets
½ cup shredded carrots
½ cup toasted pumpkin seeds
Sunflower sprouts

  1. To make the Acai Berry Dressing: Blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender until smooth.
  2. Place kale in to a large bowl. Drizzle a few Tablespoons onto kale and massage to coat. Add all other vegetables into bowl and drizzle with extra dressing as you like. Sprinkle on pumpkin seeds and sprouts and toss to combine. Enjoy the nutrition!

 

 

Posted:   |   Categories: fiber, Food+Drink, plant-based diet, raw foods, recipe, salad
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16
Dec

Book Review: The Beauty Detox Foods

detox9780373892648_TS_prdRecently one of my cooking class students gifted me a The Beauty Detox Foods: Discover the Top 50 Beauty Foods that will transform your body and Reveal a more Beautiful You book by Kimberly Snyder. My student said she loved the book, and thought that I would love it as well. But it's taken me a long time to write a review of this book, because even though I think it's interesting, there is something about the book that I just cannot buy into.

To start, let me make it clear that I think Synder has written a great book, full of helpful information about the natural healing power of foods. According to The Beauty Detox Foods, the basis of truly beautiful health is a focus on fresh, organic, raw fruits and vegetables. She recommends an unprocessed, gluten-free, dairy-free, and meat-free lifestyle that improves digestion, eliminates inflammation and helps us flush toxins from our body in a natural way. She especially encourages green drinks, like her signature Glowing Green Smoothie and including digestive enzymes and fermented foods everyday. Eating a diet like this, rich in plant foods, enzymes and high fiber content, helps us feel better and literally cleans out our systems each day. This glowing internal health manifests as glowing skin, healthy hair and a radiant beauty.

Each chapter is filled with information about foods that nourish our body from the inside out. She has chapters devoted to healthy skin, hair, eyes and 'inner glow,' and it's all great information. Did you know that one of the best solutions for dark under-eye circles is celery, with its balanced sodium-potassium ratio? And that bee pollen, sunflower seeds and sprouts, and microgreens like chlorella and spirulina can help bring out your brightest inner glow by bringing trace minerals and enzymes throughout your body? The nutrition information about each fruit, vegetable and supplement is rounded out with sidebar information from reputable sources, and it's clear that ample research grounds this book. There is also a whole chapter of recipes, featuring a host of delicious snacks and meals like green wraps, healhty versions of Sheppard's Pie and pasta, and desserts sweetened with coconut nectar and stevia. You can get four of her most popular recipes here (but you do have to sign up for her newsletter).

But here's the critique: there is something too perfect about Snyder that I just can't get my head around. In between the name-dropping of her celebrity client-friends like Drew Barrymore and Channing Tatum, there are dozens of pictures of Snyder, in full make up costume and looking like a pin-up version of a chef and yogi. There are no candid shots in the whole book, and it makes everything seem just too contrived. Her website and even her Instagram feed are similar- almost all the photos are over-the-top gorgeous. This reminds me a lot of Chef Chloe Coscarelli, who not only looks shockingly similar to Snyder, but whose cookbooks and websites feature so much over-the-top gorgeousness and perfectly photographed food that it seems totally fake.

It's hard to write a review like this and not seem just, well, bitchy. Both Snyder and Chef Chloe are incredibly gorgeous, and obviously they are smart business woman. And who can blame them for making the most of their fantastically proportioned attributes to further their career? But both are published authors and have made multiple appearances on television and have active websites and Facebook accounts. Snyder even has her own line of supplements available and is currently in Africa doing volunteer work, sharing gardens and green smoothies with Rwandan orphans. And upon further research it seems that Snyder's health plan is really real: here's her article about her personal transformation into her glowing self, which is amazing indeed. Though Snyder and her recipes may seem too-good-to-be-real, my guess is that with this honesty behind her story, the success of her health transformation and that of her friends, and her honest approach to eating, she's going to remain successful for a very long time. I look forward to seeing the next book!

 

 

 

Posted:   |   Categories: book review, Books, eating healthy, Food+Drink, health food, plant-based diet
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