St. Patrick's Day Smoothie

Image via Vitamix.com

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we're offering up a few tasty additions to your smoothie that all happen to be green. Bonus: green smoothies make amazing hangover cures. Really. The electrolytes and water in the fruits and veggies will keep you hydrated, and the fiber will decrease the irritation on your digestive system from the alcohol.

Spirulina
Spirulina is chock full of B Vitamins for energy, Vitamin C, protein and iron. It's a blue-green algae that's often sold in powder form and has a mild, grassy flavor. Add a spoonful to your smoothie for an extra burst of vitamins and energy.

Wheatgrass
Wheatgrass has a great vitamin profile and is also a wonderful source of potassium, which helps relieve muscle cramps. A serving of dried wheatgrass is the same nutritional content as about 3-4 servings of leafy green vegetables. It's fairly easy to sprout wheatgrass at home, but you can buy it powdered or frozen for convenience too.

Avocado
Avocado is a healthy source of saturated fat, is great for cardiovascular health and is an anti-inflammatory food. It's also a great source of Vitamin E, which promotes silky soft skin and hair. Use avocado in place of milk or yogurt in your smoothies to make it thick and creamy.

image via FoodandStyle.com

Baby Greens
Of course, there's always the classic method of greening your smoothie with leafy greens. Baby greens are harvested early in life and are small and tender, but still chock full of nutrition. Because of their tenderness they're smoother in smoothies than when they're full-grown. You can find baby spinach, baby kale, baby collards, or baby green mixes at most grocery stores. A serving size is about one handful.

Have fun with the St. Paddy's festivities, and let us know how your green smoothie works for you. Until next time, keep it clean!

The Incredible Healing Power of the Mushroom

You may already know that mushrooms come in all sorts of edible shapes and flavors. But did you know that they're an incredibly powerful weapon in nature's arsenal to heal you and itself? Here are a few amazing things that mushrooms can do.

Cancer Prevention
A recent study has shown that as little as one mushroom per day can cut the chances of getting breast cancer by two-thirds. When combined with regular consumption of green tea, it cuts your chances by 90%! Those are unbelievably high numbers.

Creating livable, farmable land
Polluted and irradiated soil would be considered unusable until the radiation and pollution dissipate enough to make it usable again. This can take decades, and even then, once farmed again the pollution can rise up and contaminate your crops later, as evidenced by our recent problem with arsenic-contaminated rice. Mushrooms can remove pollutants and radiation in a surprisingly short period of time. In eight weeks, this mycologist turned a pile of land saturated with oil and diesel into an oasis teeming with life, all by just leaving mushrooms to do their business!

Recovery after radiation exposure
Mushrooms are regularly recommended as holistic medicine in assisting treatment for radiation exposure and cancer treatment. Mushrooms contain enzymes that break down chemicals that would otherwise be harmful to the body, helping to slow down and even arrest tumor growth.

Not used to adding mushrooms to your diet? You can slice them up raw over a salad, saute with vegetables or even eat them as your main course. Here's a quick and easy recipe to try. These are great served as a meal over noodles, over brussels sprouts or even as a dressing for a heartier veggie burger.

Glazed Mushrooms
2 portabella mushrooms
1 cup shiitake mushrooms
1/2 large sweet onion
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
coconut oil
1/4 cup vegetarian "beef" broth

Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet. Slice the onion into thin half-rings so they're long strands. Toss in the onions and coat with the melted oil, then allow them to sit for 5 minutes to caramelize. Stir them around and let sit for another 2-3 minutes. Cut the mushrooms into thin slices and throw them in the pan with the onions. Add balsamic vinegar and broth. Loosely cover the pan for 5 more minutes to allow mushrooms to get soft and most of the liquid to evaporate. Mushrooms should have a nice thick, dark, salty-sweet glaze.

Until next time, keep it clean!

The Value of Keeping Health Simple

When navigating the health world, there are all sorts of suggestions, plans, programs and pitfalls. A simple journey to living a healthier lifestyle can become a mind-numbing mess of gadgets, apps, calorie counting, restrictions, 5AM trips to the gym and endless label-scrutinizing that would send any person back to bed to avoid all the work. It's no fun being healthy when you're constantly monitoring every thing you do! Here are a few absolutes that every expert can agree on to help you simplify things.

Enjoy life and the body you were given to live it in.
It's fine to set goals for yourself and have things to aspire to, but focusing too much on the end product will often result in endlessly beating yourself up if you don't get there and frustration. One Ayurvedic lesson is to treat your body like your friend. If your friend was sick or struggling, or if something was clearly wrong, you wouldn't belittle her or get angry at her for not being perfect. Listen to your body and identify what you struggle with and try to work with that. And celebrate and work on improving your inherent strengths.

There isn't one single life plan for everyone.
There are certainly things that will universally help your health and make you look better in the process, but remember too that each body is a unique biological organism. Real lasting change takes a lot of time. Depending on your habits, medical history, genetics and what you've been eating all your life, your metabolism could function completely differently from the next person. What works for one person may not necessarily work for you. What one person enjoys eating or doing may not be what makes you passionate about being healthy. You may look great at 140 pounds while someone else does better carrying 110. That is completely normal and okay.

Eat your vegetables.
Even if you eat vegetables at every meal, you could probably still eat more of them. Everyone agrees and the science overwhelmingly backs it: there is nothing more super and more nutritious for your health than veggies! Eating fruit or a multivitamin or a "superfood" is NOT a substitute! Avoid peas, corn and potatoes and go for nutritional powerhouses, especially leafy greens like spinach and collards, and cruciferous vegetables like kale, broccoli and cauliflower. Eat huge salads for lunch, wilt spinach in your breakfast scramble, throw a few handfuls of raw spinach into your smoothie. They will make you feel full, boost your energy and keep you young. No pill, powder or any amount of exercise can replace that.

Don't go crazy with supplements.
There isn't any herb or pill that you can take that will alter your health more than being active and eating well. Some things certainly help. If you're a vegetarian, it's probably a good idea to take a B-complex. To boost your metabolism, you may want to consider drinking more green and herbal teas. Coconut and flax oil is certainly good for you, but there's no reason to go out of your way to eat a tablespoon of it every day if you're already preparing your meals with it. Anything a superfood or supplement has can probably already be found in the foods you're eating daily. What you should do is probably what you already know: Avoid packaged and sugary foods and eat a natural diet of vegetables, lean protein, fruit, nuts and seeds to get your nutrition. Focus on the food and staying active and save your money for better things.

Strength is not complicated.
There's no such thing as "muscle confusion" or shrinking your muscle mass to look long and lean. Your muscle size is determined mostly by genetics and how much weight you lift. That's pretty much it. Doing 100 crunches a day or complex reverse interval training will not give you abs. Do exercises you like to stay active, like yoga, swimming, riding your bike, playing with your kids, taking walks with your significant other, or playing sports. Make sure you  move around regularly instead of sitting at your desk or on your couch all day. If you really want to build muscle, look into doing deep muscle training twice a week (slow, heavy reverse weight lifting until your body can't lift anymore). But beyond that, you don't have to do anything weird to stay fit. Your body doesn't know the difference, and your brain will appreciate the break.

Keeping things simple gives you more time to focus on what matters to you. Instead of making your health the center of your life when life is already short, use that time to enjoy who you are, build your relationships and your talents, and have fun! Until next time, keep it clean!

The Surprising Benefits of Green Tea

You've probably heard before about green tea being good for you. Aside from being a lovely beverage, green tea has a host of health benefits. However, you need to drink a LOT of tea to reap them. Rather than water, I sometimes make a big pot of tea and keep it iced in the fridge for drinking throughout the day. Some people will make a super-infused cup of tea by placing several bags in a cup and drinking it in one go. Others still will add tea to their smoothies or just drink a cup here and there throughout the day. Probably the easiest way to get in all your tea is with an extract in a supplement form. Instant green tea is also available in powdered form in the grocery store. To see benefits, you need to consume about 100mg of tea per kilogram of body weight. For most people, that's about 6 to 10 cups of tea per day. Why go through all this trouble and all this tea? Here are a few great reasons.

Morning Wake-Up without the Jitters
Green tea does contain caffeine, but it also contains a compound called L-theanine which naturally calms you, so you can stay awake yet focused and at ease.

Metabolism Boost
People who drink green tea, especially before a work out, are more efficient at burning fat and less likely to store fat. Simple as that!

Super Dose of Antioxidants
Antioxidants are the molecules that prevent the oxidation, or breakdown, of your cells. Antioxidants are found in abundance in plants, and in abundance in green tea. Preventing the breakdown of your cells helps you recover quicker from a workout and keeps you looking younger longer by staving off the effects of aging.

Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Green tea has been shown to keep you at a calmer, more even state of mind. This can help you to focus and rationally respond to stressors throughout the day. Lowered stress can also help prevent weight gain by reducing high-stress hormones in the body and reducing the likelihood of habits like stress-eating.

If you haven't already, try adding green tea to your diet. If you already drink green tea, try increasing the amount you drink. Enjoy! And until next time, keep it clean!

Pumping Up Your Meals with Nutrition

Last week we talked about amping up your nutrition by filling out your meals with vegetables on the side. But what about those of us with family, significant others or children who think vegetables are kind of icky? Here's a few creative ways to get extra servings in painlessly, sometimes without them ever knowing!

Burgers and Meatballs

Whether you use ground meat or a meatless protein for your meatballs, it's easy to hide a few extra servings of veggies in these. Use a food processor to grind up onions and whole tomatoes to a fine paste, and swap some of the meat for ground up zucchini, yellow squash or even cauliflower. Mushrooms will make your meat even more savory. Mix these in with your meat and spices, form into balls and cook as usual. This meat mixture also works great in lasagna, and leftover "burgers" are good to put on a nice plain bed of lettuce with dressing for those who usually pick out everything but the meat.

Soups

Add extra nutrition to your broth by adding steamed and pureed vegetables like carrots, butternut squash and eggplant. The blended veggies will add a creamy texture and loads of extra fiber.

Baking

Swap out some or all of your flour in cookie and cracker recipes with almond flour, brown rice protein, pea protein, coconut flour or cashew flour. If you make your own nut milk, you can dry the leftover ground nuts you strain from the milk in the oven and use it in place of flour. You can also buy flours in bulk online or at your local market (though online is usually cheaper).

Batter

Lots of veggies are great breaded and baked or fried, my favorites being zucchini and broccoli. To eschew the eggs in the batter, combine one tablespoon of ground flaxseed with 3 tablespoons cold water for every egg you need to replace and stir. Let this mixture sit and stir occasionally while you're preparing the rest of your food, and in a few minutes you'll have a gel with the same texture and binding qualities of an egg. Use coconut or cashew flour in place of wheat flour in your recipe and you have a much more nutritious meal.

Smoothies

Adding an avocado or fresh coconut to the base of your smoothie instead of a banana makes for a creamy and rich start to your day (or after meal dessert!). A couple handfuls of fresh sweet romaine lettuce or spinach, or even steamed vegetables like carrots or cauliflower will bulk up a smoothie while still leaving it tasting fruity.

Chips

Baked vegetables seasoned just right will come out crispy and delicious like chips. For kale, remove the middle stem and break into chip-sized pieces. For zucchini or squash, slice thinly. For a simple chip, marinate the "chips" lightly in coconut or olive oil, place evenly on a cookie sheet, dust with your favorite seasonings and bake. For more robust chips, marinate in salad dressings like tahini and soy sauce, lemon and orange, salt and vinegar, or even a cheesy dressing. Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes or until crispy. And remember to flip them!

Dips

For creamy dips like ranch or yogurt, squash and cucumbers blend nicely and add a crisp fresh flavor. For salsas, try something with more crunch like celery or bell peppers.

Adding in and replacing your traditional ingredients with veggies, fruit, nuts and seeds will help immensely in making you and your family healthier. After they eat it and see how delicious it is, teach them about what ingredients you're using next time they cook with you. Trying new colorful fruits and vegetables will be much easier for them to swallow. And until next time, keep it clean!

Loading up on the right Carbs

We've all heard about "carb loading" from our athlete friends. Carbohydrates are the first source of energy that our body burns, so often before a big race or sporting event athletes will eat a ton of grains like spaghetti to give them an extra energy boost. The way we burn carbohydrates is the reason sugary candy and sodas give us a quick buzz followed by a quick drop in energy. However, carbohydrates for the rest of us can also mean poor digestion, a spike in blood sugar and weight gain.

When breaking down the nutrition profile of complex carbs, you find that you get a lot of energy (calories) and very little nutrition per calorie. This was great when food was scarce as we could store grains for long periods of time and get the energy we needed from fairly little grain. However, now that we've streamlined our crops and food is abundant, many people in the first world battle weight gain and obesity. We have the same appetite we've always had, but we're filling ourselves with non-nutritious foods. This makes us remain hungry but gain weight from all the extra energy found in carbs. Potatoes and corn have had a bad rap for causing weight gain for years. But even whole grains like brown rice and quinoa are still far less nutritious per calorie than other carbs.

So what are the right carbs? Veggies! Vegetables have lots of fiber and water and tons and tons of nutrition. With the exception of cauliflower, the more rich and colorful the veggie the more nutrition you're getting. It's easy to pack away big fluffy slices of bread and bowls of pasta, but swap the spaghetti for thinly sliced zucchini or switch out your potatoes for a big bowl of broccoli and you'll be full in no time. All the water and hard to digest fiber will slowly move through you, keeping you fuller longer and satisfying your nutritional needs. Whole fruits (not fruit juices) are a great carb source too, but the more veggies the better.

Removing poor sources of energy from your diet can be a little difficult to get used to, but once you try it you'll wonder why you let yourself stay hungry for so long. Start by substituting one meal a day with veggies instead of the grain. Have extra veggies with your stir-fry instead of rice. Turn that burrito into a burrito bowl. Make that sandwich or burger into an interesting salad. Raw vegan and paleo diet websites are great sources for recipes that cut out complex carbs. Then watch your energy go up, your health improve from all that nutritional goodness, and your waistline shrink. Until next time, keep it clean!

Gentle and Rejuvenating Ginger!

  The root of the ginger plant was used by ancient healers in Southeast Asia who utilized it's healing properties to cure indigestion and joint pain nearly 5,000 years ago. Today, many of the same benefits are being procured by this magical plant. It is top on my list of medicinal herbs because of the vast array of ailments it is proven to treat or cure. I'd like to show you a few of these marvelous benefits and give you some ideas on how to incorporate ginger into your daily life!
 
Ginger for Inflammation

   Ginger root contains powerful anti-inflammatory compounds called gingerols. These substances can cause a reduction of pain and increased mobility for people who suffer from rheumatoid and osteo-arthritis when they consume the plant regularly. Other anti-inflammatory benefits (if you aren't quite to the arthritis stage in life) include helping to clear skin of acne and other related outbreaks. I personally have found a few slices of ginger added to green tea and drank daily can help clear your skin almost completely! I have also experimented with using ginger as a topical acne treatment by rubbing the cut end of the root directly on a blemish, which was noticeably lessened the next morning.

Ginger as Cancer Treatment/Prevention

   Those very same gingerols that help to reduce inflammation may also be cancer fighting and killing machines! Studies have shown that the compounds, which also give ginger it's distinct spicy flavor, could inhibit the growth of human colorectal cancer cells and even induce death in ovarian cancer cells! A pro-inflammatory state is thought to be a contributing factor in the development of ovarian cancer, therefore, by reducing inflammation you are greatly reducing your risk! Ways to incorporate these cancer-fighting benefits including drinking ginger tea and eating foods spiced with ginger.

Ginger for Increased Immunity

   You may have heard that drinking ginger tea can help fight off a cold or flu. That is entirely true and I have used this many times to beat or prevent illness. Ginger is extremely warming and can even cause you to produce sweat on a cold day. By causing your body to sweat, you are increasing detoxification, which is exactly what you want when you are sick! Also, ginger can help an upset stomach and is a natural pain-killer. I find that drinking several cups of fresh ginger root tea with lots of lemon and local honey helps to kick illness faster than any commercial medicine I've ever tried. Give it a shot next time you're under the weather!!

   I hope you have learned a little bit about my favorite medicinal herb ginger. Not only is it delicious (especially combined with cinnamon in tea), but it has many disease fighting properties as well. I encourage you to try it out and see what ginger can do for you! Until next time, stay clean and healthy!!! :)