Category Archives: healthy-cooking

Why avoid store-bought salad dressings

Salads are good for us. Actually, very good for us. But add a couple of tablespoons of store-bought dressing to a bowlful of fresh, organic ingredients, and the benefits are completely lost. Even if the bottle label says ‘Natural’ or something equally enticing.

Lets see why.

1. Pick up any salad dressing bottle and you’ll likely see canola oil, soybean oil, and/or vegetable oil as the main ingredients.  These oils are extremely processed, rich in inflammation-promoting Omega-6 fatty acids, and often contain trans fats due to how processed they are, that aren’t disclosed on the label.

“All-natural” salad dressing found in the refrigerated section aren’t much different.  You’ll still see these oils as the base of nearly all of those brands as well.  Why?  They’re cheap!

Also, don’t be fooled by labels that claim “Made with Extra Virgin Olive Oil”.  Sure, they’ll point that out on the front of the label because it sounds good and leads you to believe that it’s an extra virgin olive oil based dressing.  Instead, that only means that there is at least a drop of extra virgin olive oil in the bottle, and often times that’s all it has.  Flip the label over and you’ll see the same vegetable oils listed first and extra virgin olive oil way down on the list of ingredients.  Unethical? Yes.  Healthy? No.

2. More often than not, in addition to cheap, potentially harmful oils, store bought salad dressing is  loaded with sugar.  Even worse, it often comes in the form of high fructose corn syrup (the absolute worst form of sugar available).  Just check the label.

3.  To round off the trifecta of horrid ingredients contained in traditional salad dressings we have the long list of artificial additives and preservatives that often plague these products.  If you’re looking to avoid artificial chemicals in your food, simply put, you won’t have much luck with store bought salad dressing.


Its so simple to make your own, personalised dressing with REAL extra virgin olive and vinegar, and seasonings of your choice.

Be Informed. Stay Healthy.

dark chocolate coconut protein balls – to-go healthy recipe

Carrying along a healthy snack during the day is always a challenge. I came across this recipe which sounds very appealing both in taste and in health impact. Thanks, Kayla.

dark chocolate coconut protein balls

dark chocolate coconut protein balls | tinyinklings.com

Well, I’ve got a treat for you all today! It’s one that will leave you satisfied, calm that sweet craving, and contains protein and healthy fats to keep you energized and your metabolism up so you don’t go home and binge eat chips and salsa (c’mon, we’ve all been there). I bring you: dark chocolate coconut protein balls!

These little treats are raw, gluten free, and paleo….and delicious! I’ve made these twice in the past week, they are so good! You could even swap out the honey for agave nectar and they are vegan friendly, too.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Protein Balls
adapted from this recipe
makes about 9 balls

Ingredients

1/4 cup chia seeds
4 Tbsp. almond butter
3 Tbsp. protein powder (I used vanilla)
3 Tbsp. dark cocoa powder (or cacao powder to keep it raw)
1/8 tsp. sea salt
1 Tbsp. honey or agave nectar
1 Tbsp. coconut oil (melted, but not hot)
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Additional 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut for rolling

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients together, either by hand or in the food processor. Roll the dough into 1-1/2″ balls and then roll each ball in shredded coconut. Pop in the refrigerator to set up. These will keep covered in a Tupperware in the refrigerator for up to a week, but I doubt they will last that long. Enjoy!

*UPDATE* Some of you have asked for the nutritional info on these, so here it is!  Please keep in mind that the protein powder you use may alter the calories/carbs.

Per ball: Calories: 122 grams; Carbs: 5 grams; Fat: 9 grams; Protein: 4 grams; Sugar: 2 grams

*UPDATE* I made a lower calorie version of these this morning that I thought would be worth sharing.  Both versions are delish, but if you are really watching your calories, try the following instead:

Ingredients

3 Tbsp. protein powder (I used vanilla)
3 Tbsp. almond butter or peanut butter
3 Tbsp. dark cocoa powder (or cacao powder to keep it raw)
1 Tbsp. chia seeds
1 tsp. honey
dash of sea salt
1 tsp water

1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut for rolling

Preparation

Combine first 7 ingredients in a food processor and pulse until combined.  If the batter seems too dry, add more water 1/4 tsp at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Roll the dough into 1-1/2″ balls and then roll each ball in shredded coconut. Pop in the refrigerator to set up. Makes about 7 balls.

Per ball: Calories: 65 grams; Carbs: 4 grams; Fat: 5 grams; Protein: 2 grams; Sugar: 1 grams

My suggestion: To make peanut butter, just whiz up some peanuts till they release oil and become a smooth or chunky butter, as you prefer. Do not opt for commercial preparations, which normally contain large amounts of sugar. Same for any nut butter.

Be Healthy!

Gut bacteria affect our eating choices – how to outwit them

Gut bacteria are able to manipulate our eating behavior to help them multiply, sometimes at the expense of our fitness.

Microbes may do this by: (i) making us crave foods that they specialize on, or foods that suppress their competitors, or (ii) inducing unease until we eat foods that enhance their fitness.

So if we crave a certain food type, be aware that it’s these bacteria that are driving this behavior. Are we going to give in to them, or can we exercise our own will?

Because these bacteria can be easily manipulated by prebiotics, probiotics, antibiotics, fecal transplants, and dietary changes, changing them can help solve difficult problems of obesity and unhealthy eating.

Not able to lose weight? Depressed? It could be the gut bacteria which need adjusting. Not pharmaceutical drugs.

It is easy to Stay Healthy.

Saturated fat, cholesterol and heart health

The nutritional myth that saturated fat is bad, continues to fall apart as a steady stream of new books and studies on this topic hit the media. The latest work to challenge the old dogma is a book called The Big Fat Surprise by journalist Nina Teicholz.

She points out the flaws in the original Ancel Keys study; how saturated fat has been a healthy human staple for thousands of years, and how the low-fat craze has resulted in excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates, which has resulted in increased inflammation and disease.

In 2012, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology concluded that women with “high cholesterol” (greater than 270 mg/dl) had a 28 percent lower mortality risk than women with “low cholesterol” (less than 183 mg/dl).
Researchers also found that, if you’re a woman, your risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest, and stroke are higher with lower cholesterol levels.

In 2013, a prominent London cardiologist by the name of Aseem Malhotra argued in the British Medical Journal that you should ignore advice to reduce your saturated fat intake, because it’s actually increasing your risk for obesity and heart disease.

Fat Has Been Blamed for Sugar’s Evil Deeds

A high-sugar diet raises your risk for heart disease by promoting metabolic syndrome—a cluster of health conditions that includes high blood pressure, insulin and leptin resistance, high triglycerides, liver dysfunction, and visceral fat accumulation.

Cholesterol Is Not Only Beneficial for Your Body—It’s Absolutely Mandatory

Cholesterol plays important roles such as building your cell membranes, interacting with proteins inside your cells, and helping regulate protein pathways required for cell signaling. Having too little cholesterol may harm your brain health, hormone levels, heart disease risk, and more. Therefore, placing an upper limit on dietary cholesterol, especially such a LOW upper limit as is now recommended, is likely causing far more harm than good.

The Truth About Saturated Fats

Just as your body has requirements for cholesterol, it also needs saturated fats for proper function. One way to understand this is to consider what foods humans consumed during their evolution. Many experts believe that since the Paleolithic Era, we evolved as hunter-gatherers. Paleolithic nutrition states that we have eaten animal products for most of our existence on Earth. To suggest that saturated fats are suddenly harmful to us makes no sense, especially from an evolutionary perspective.

The latest science suggests healthy fats (saturated and unsaturated fats from whole food, animal, and plant sources) should comprise anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of your overall energy intake. Saturated fats provide a number of important health benefits, including the following:

  • Providing building blocks for cell membranes, hormones, and hormone-like substances
  • Mineral absorption, such as calcium
  • Carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.
  • Conversion of carotene into vitamin A.
  • Acts as antiviral agent.
  • Optimal fuel for the brain.
  • Provides satiety.
  • Modulates genetic regulation and helps prevent cancer.

What REALLY Constitutes a Heart-Healthy Diet?

A “heart-healthy diet,” is one which minimizes inflammation, reduces insulin resistance, and helps reduce risk for cardiovascular disease.

1. Limit or eliminate all processed foods
2. Eliminate all gluten and highly allergenic foods from your diet
3. Eat organic foods whenever possible to avoid exposure to harmful agricultural chemicals.
4. Avoid genetically modified ingredients (GMO), which are linked to abundant health problems, including chronic inflammation and heart disease
5. Eat at least one-third of your food uncooked (raw), or as much as you can manage; avoid cooking foods at high temperatures
6. Increase the amount of fresh vegetables in your diet, locally grown and organic if possible
7. Eat naturally fermented foods, which help optimize your gut bacteria and prevent inflammation- as well as providing valuable vitamin K2, B vitamins, and other nutrients
8. Avoid all artificial sweeteners.
9. Limit fructose to less than 25 grams per day from all sources, including whole fruits. If you have insulin resistance, diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease, you’d be well advised to keep your fructose consumption below 15 grams per day until your insulin resistance has normalized
10. Swap all trans fats (vegetable oils, margarine etc.) for healthy fats like avocado, raw butter, cheese, and coconut oil; avoid consuming oxidized cholesterol (cholesterol that has gone rancid, such as that from overcooked scrambled eggs)
11. To rebalance your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, take a high-quality animal-based omega-3 supplement, and avoid consumption of processed omega-6 fats from vegetable oils.
12. Drink plenty of pure water every day.

Heart-Healthy Moves

In addition to following the heart-healthy plan  above, there are several more strategies that can help in reducing chronic inflammation and lowering cardiovascular risk:

Exercise regularly. One of the primary benefits of exercise is that it helps normalize and maintain healthy insulin and leptin levels. Exercise also boosts HDL, increases growth hormone production, helps curb appetite, and improves mood and sleep.
Intermittent fasting. Fasting is an excellent way to “reboot” metabolism so that the body can relearn how to burn fat as its primary fuel, which helps shed those excess fat stores.
AVOID statin drugs. Statin drugs can reduce cholesterol to dangerously low levels, while doing nothing to modulate LDL particle size. Statin drugs may even accelerate heart disease.
AVOID chemicals. BPA, for example, has been linked to heart disease: adults with the highest levels of BPA in their urine are more than twice as likely to develop coronary artery disease as those with the lowest levels.

Be Healthy!

Egg white omelets?

You go to a restaurant and see people eating egg white omelets and feel guilty about ordering a regular egg preparation? No more fear, healthy egg is here!

So unappetizing!

The theory that egg yolk contains cholesterol which can raise blood cholesterol, which can in turn lead to heart disease, is OUTDATED!!!!!

Eggs are good for us. Whole eggs, yolk and all. Upto 3, even 6 eggs per day form part of a healthy eating plan.

Eggs contain lutein and zeaxanthin, both help lower the risk of developing cataracts.

One egg contains 6 grams of high-quality protein and all nine essential amino acids. And lots of vitamins.

According to a Harvard School of Public Health study, there is no significant link between egg consumption and heart disease. In fact, according to one study, regular consumption of eggs may help prevent blood clots, strokes and heart attacks.

One egg yolk has about 300 micrograms of choline, a nutrient that helps regulate the brain, nervous system and cardiovascular system.

The thing is, many studies show that eggs actually improve our cholesterol profile. One study discovered that 3 whole eggs per day reduced insulin resistance and raised HDL, which means reduced risk for heart attacks.

Eggs are one of the only foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin D. Eggs may prevent breast cancer. In one study, women who consumed at least six eggs per week lowered their risk of breast cancer by 44%. Eggs promote healthy hair and nails because of their high sulphur content and wide array of vitamins and minerals.

So ditch the guilt. And enjoy!