When I think of greens for health, right away leafy vegetables come to mind. One way of getting raw, dark, leafy vegetables into my diet is by making a vegetable smoothie with a healthy Vitamix recipe. Recently, I purchased a Vitamix. I am really excited about the endless possibilities of combinations for smoothies, nut butters, raw milks, hummus, and soups. Prior to my Vitamix purchase, I used a blender. Blenders seemed to have limitations on what they can do. The Vitamix makes smoothies very creamy, fast, and doesn’t leave lumps, like blenders do. My video shows how to make a raw, nutritious smoothie that consists of green vegetables, fruit, protein, and healthy fats for a complete meal. An added plus, when considering the benefits of green smoothies, is that it’s easy to hide vegetables that may not be your favorite (i.e., I don’t care for lima beans; so, a handful gets thrown into the Vitamix).

Conclusion:

When it comes to health, it’s hard to put a price tag on a Vita mix. I contend that Vitamix is the ultimate appliance that delivers the healthy raw foods in a variety of ways. No other appliance is quite like it.

What foods are super foods and where did they come from? Everyday there’s a new super food born whether it comes from the media, TV show, or some website’s top choices. On browsing the Internet for super foods, I’m more confused now than ever before. I’ve found somebody’s top 10, top 12, top 20 and a top 44 list of super foods. Welcome to the age of super foods and where they all of a sudden came from.

When looking at lists upon lists of super foods, they all seem like they have been around since the beginning of time. What foods are super foods? The list is simply huge and they include whole grains, seeds, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and also healthy fats. I don’t think anybody can argue the fact that these are real foods that keep our weight in check, contain the daily recommended amount of fiber, essential vitamins, nutrients and anti-oxidants to keep our bodies healthy from disease.

What foods are super foods and why are we labeling normal foods as super foods? Is it possible that we didn’t know the harmful effects coming from boxed and canned foods known as processed food? Peoples’ lives have become so busy that this way of processed eating has been the norm for years. I don’t think we had realized that this cheap attempt of artificial food that contains fillers and harmful chemicals would make us obese and lead to so many diseases. It’s really too bad that these artificial foods get us hooked with sugar and sodium to the point where it’s hard to avoid them.

Conclusion:

I think that by labeling good healthy wholesome foods in their raw form as super foods, we can get people to change their eating habits. Maybe, we should start to eat foods that are grown and harvested from natural plants and avoid eating processed foods from manufacturing plants.

When shopping with coupons at your neighborhood supermarket, eating healthy just might be impossible. One of the biggest beefs that people have with healthy foods is that they’re just too expensive for their budget. While coupons seem like a great way to save a tremendous amount of money, I have to ask myself, maybe it’s probable that coupons are going to cost us more in the long run by using them. This might be a little puzzling to you at first; but coupon manufacturers make our highly processed foods. A lot of these foods are simple carbohydrates that use enriched white and wheat flours, which not only pack on the pounds but cause us to become hungrier. Other processed foods tend to get us hooked on sugar and sodium and use similar inexpensive ingredients that are also unhealthy for us. While most of us rationalize eating processed foods that we have become accustomed to by using the phrase “eating in moderation”, we need to be honest with ourselves and avoid such unhealthy foods at all times. Below is a brief list of ingredients and foods that must be avoided in an attempt to reach optimum health.

1. enriched white and wheat flour products
2. products using white salt and high amounts of sodium
3. white and brown sugar and all substitute sugars, including high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
4. white rice
5. saturated fats, including hydrogenated oils

While this is just a small list of ingredients that we need to avoid, it is necessary to avoid all processed foods that we may come across. One question remains: How can we afford to consume these types of foods if they lead to obesity, which can ultimately lead to diabetes, heart disease, and various forms of cancers? I have a short video of interest for your viewing.

Conclusion:

Can healthy eating be expensive? Do complex carbohydrates, like vegetables, beans and whole grains leave us feeling fuller longer periods of time? We need to consider probable health issues that may develop over time, such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers due to eating processed foods. Is the savings earned from coupon shopping worth taking a chance on our health?

Chocolate brownies are one of my family’s favorite desserts. Brownies even top desserts, like cakes, cookies, and pies. I ask the question, “Are brownies healthy?” When you think of brownies, don’t sugar, enriched flour, and partially hydrogenated oils come to mind? I received a book a few years back called,  Now Eat This!: 150 of America’s Favorite Comfort Foods, All Under 350 Calories. One recipe that caught my attention in the book was healthier brownies, which calls for black beans that replace enriched white flour, among other ingredients. This is one that allows for calories and fat to be lowered.

Another recipe that allows for calories and fat to be cut is Butt-Busting Brownies, revealed by Dr. Oz this past week. His Butt-Busting Brownies use oats, cacao powder, and cinnamon that deliver a scrumptious, raw brownie dessert. I searched the World Wide Web to look for similar healthy, chocolate brownies. To my surprise, most so-called healthy brownie recipes use enriched flours, unhealthy sugars, and fat. Finally, I found a very popular raw vegan brownie recipe that consists of healthy raw ingredients. I assembled a short video that explains what types of ingredients to avoid when making raw brownies, which take less than minutes to make.

Conclusion:

To answer my question,” Are brownies healthy?” we can certainly substitute alternative ingredients for a healthy nutritious dessert. When looking for brownie recipes, enriched flour, sugar, and hydrogenated fats should be avoided. These ingredients can easily be substituted with healthy ingredient options.

Last week, I was watching The Dr. Oz Show. One particular show that I viewed was The 100 Foods Dr. Oz Wants in Your Shopping Cart. I loved the show and, overall, I think we are very lucky to have such an icon bring us the cutting edge technology in health. In the health field, it has always been controversial as to what constitutes a healthy food diet. Several diet plans turn out to be unsuccessful, including vegetarian diet and raw food diets. For example, we err and forget that people are different and can’t always adapt to these types of diets. With these thoughts in mind, immediately, I was in disagreement with some of Dr. Oz’s food choices. We apt to think food at the local supermarket as being nutritious for us to consume or else why would it sell as a food?

Years ago, when I started to eat healthier foods, it was a struggle to decipher healthy food choices verses unhealthy food choices. Statistically, more people are becoming overweight and facing health issues and diseases. It seems quite apparent that many people are struggling with deciding what to eat. Dr. Oz’s 100 food choices is an excellent tool for people to gauge a healthier eating style. This list appears to be more of a complete list of good foods that is able to be incorporated by every type of food eater. With adapting to eating these healthier foods; maintaining a routine exercise program; ensuring that we get the proper sleep and relieving stress; weight loss with reducing illnesses and diseases can be a very realistic goal.

Conclusion:

I think The 100 Foods Dr. Oz Wants in Your Shopping Cart is a very doable list for everybody to incorporate into their diet. I see a few food areas that, in time, could be improved upon even more. How many of you agree with Dr. Oz’s 100 food choices? Do you think that these healthier food choices are realistically attainable? Which areas or groups of foods would you like to make healthier or perhaps eliminate for a healthier way of eating?

Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest holidays for unhealthy sweets but what about cacao chocolates? Everybody’s heard about the nutritional facts on chocolate. Can we think of dark chocolate and health benefits in the same sentence? We have all heard about health benefits from dark chocolate from the media over and over again. Surprisingly, without really thinking about the other ingredients that make up dark chocolate, most of us consider cacao chocolates a super food with an enormous amount of antioxidants. What ingredients make dark chocolate so unhealthy? The two main ingredients of dark chocolate are saturated fats and sugars. A few of the major health risks stemming from saturated fats and sugars are obesity, diabetes and cancer. So, again how can dark chocolate be healthy when it causes health issues and diseases? I think a lot of us are so infatuated with antioxidants from certain foods that we sometimes forget about other possible health risks that the foods pose.

When we look at raw cacao powder, it is the true antioxidant powerhouse. It isn’t contaminated with unhealthy saturated fats and sugars. Nevertheless, how do we use raw cacao powder, cacao nibs, and even cacao beans? I think a lot of use would use raw cacao powder in recipes that call for enriched white or wheat flours, margarine, butter and Crisco, and white or brown sugars. So, what happens to the health benefits from raw cacao once we add it to a host of known unhealthy ingredients? What happens when we take raw cacao and add healthy fats, such as raw nuts, raw nut butters, and coconut butter? Maybe, we can add raw cacao to healthy natural sweeteners like raw honey, natural maple syrup, dates, agave nector or even brown rice syrup. Listed below are raw cacao and cacao chocolate ideas, recipes, and sources.

1. Making raw chocolate almond milk
2. Is hot chocolate healthy?
3. Making dark chocolate sauce and raw cacao fudge.
4. Chocolate avocado ice cream using raw cacao powder.
5. Raw chocolate mouse cake and brownies.
6. Cacao chocolates like truffles and turtles.
7. Naked chocolate
8. Raw cacao cookies, shakes, and dipping sauces.

Conclusion:

Don’t associate the true antioxidants that come from raw cacao powder, cacao nibs, and cacao beans from that of processed, dark chocolate. Make your own nutritious recipes using chocolate and create your own raw cacao powder treat or dessert. Desserts using raw cacao powder can be just as nutritious as they are tasteful.

Resources:

http://www.beliefnet.com/Health/2005/10/Raw-Cacao-Recipes.aspx

http://thesunnyrawkitchen.blogspot.com/2007/04/all-things-chocolate-or-celebrating.html

http://www.navitasnaturals.com/recipes/cacao-recipes.html

http://smcaudi.food.officelive.com/Recipes.aspx

http://www.naked-chocolate.com/

http://healthfoodlover.com/hfl/

http://evolvingwellness.com/topics/food/recipes/

When I look at the statement, “Is hot chocolate healthy,” I have to wonder how the media was able to find any health benefits of cocoa “hot”. Just a few weeks ago, on the news, I heard about the amazing health benefits of hot chocolate. A study was done from a university claiming that hot chocolate had more antioxidants than wine and tea. Now, not all hot chocolate, and I know what your thinking, is the same. For most of us, we tend to buy the more popular brands at our local food marts. Let’s look at the nutritional facts.

Ingredient label:

When looking at a couple of our more popular hot chocolates, the first ingredient was simply unhealthy sugar; the next ingredient was corn syrup, followed by processed cocoa; then,  hydrogenated coconut oil. There isn’t a need to look at any other ingredients because the first few are very unhealthy. So, is hot chocolate healthy?

Nutritional Facts:

 If we were to make our “healthy” hot chocolate with water, we consume 150 calories, 3g saturated fat, 170mg of sodium, and a whopping 18g of sugar. If we substituted 2% pasteurized milk for water our nutritional value declines. Our calories jump to 240 followed with 5g of saturated fat, 16mg cholesterol, 250mg sodium, and 27g of sugar. So, I guess I’m still looking for a health benefit of hot cocoa.

 Making our own health benefits of cocoa “Hot”:

 1.  In the past, I talked about how every kitchen should have a soy milk maker. I have made outstanding raw milks from seeds, nuts, and beans (most notably being soy milk and almond milk).

2.  I have also looked at the amazing health benefits of raw cacao powder and why dark chocolate isn’t the super food power house that we were led to believe. Considering that cacao is reputable for containing powerful antioxidants and notoriously referred to as the real super food, why not use it in making a healthy hot chocolate?

3. Every brand of hot chocolate requires sugar as a main ingredient since raw cacao powder is quite bitter. As a sugar, I suggest Medjool dates, which is a great natural sugar. Medjool dates contain significant amounts of potassium and dietary fiber. Another favorite sugar substitute of people is agave nector. I invite you to watch my video as I try to show that hot chocolate is healthy. United With Earth Medjool Dates, 16-Ounce Containers (Pack of 4)

Conclusion:

Do you think we can alter an old fashioned favorite beverage, such as hot chocolate, into a healthier cold weather drink? Can hot chocolate, actually, be healthy? Keeping in mind the idea that many health benefits originate from raw almonds, cacao powder and dates, we need to ask ourselves, “What are the health benefits of hot cocoa?”

My blog was hand-delivered by the USPS a few days ago. I happened to fit right in with the millions, if not billions, of people that receive daily mail trying to sell some type of insurance. Oh, believe me; it’s overwhelming on the types of insurances and the number of things that could be insured. I, myself, always file all of my mail concerning insurance quotes and sale pitches in its own special box. You really never know when you might need it. Unfortunately, my special box of mail, containing trying to sell insurance gets delivered to our recyclable container. To my amazement, the people who sort through the recyclable items at the recyclable plant send my unopened insurance sales’ pitches right back to me, figuring that I threw it out by mistake. I, personally, think insurance has gotten way out of hand and a good portion is probably not needed. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes; insurance turns out to be your best friend. Now, let’s talk more about my mail. This one particular piece of mail concerning insurance really caught my eye and I decided to open it for a change. It came with big huge letters “Supplemental Cancer Insurance Coverage.”

Supplemental Cancer Insurance Coverage is probably a good idea for those with no motivation to exercise or the discipline to change their unhealthy eating habits. Maybe, you were already dealt a bad hand and have a family history of cancer. The statistics are overwhelming that cancer is a major part of our lives today and people are fearful that they will get some type of cancer during their lifetime. Today, 1 out of 3 Americans are expected to get cancer and those numbers are expected to continually rise annually. Men are already approaching a 40% cancer rate, which is scary.

I have my own policy for cancer and it differs from Supplemental Cancer Insurance Coverage. Now, we need to cut down on the amount of television we watch and, instead, take some of our valuable time and set it aside for exercise. Really, we need to make some achievable goals and develop some motivating skills for exercise that can help with weight loss, cardio, and toning. As you are aware, obesity causes many types of cancer and exercise can surely help. The second part of my cancer policy is the toughest. Since we have become a fast-paced society, unlike a couple of generations ago, we rely way too heavily on processed foods. Who has the time to eat healthy when we have to take our kids to their extra-curricular activities, such as soccer games, baseball games or dance recitals? We don’t have the time; therefore, we don’t hesitate to zap a box in the microwave. We already know the damaging effects of highly processed foods. Processed foods are very damaging to our bodies since they contain high amounts of sugar, sodium and unhealthy fats. Besides, no one is quite sure how damaging the other unpronounceable chemical additives are. We can classify these as dead foods, meaning they carry very little nutritional value to nourish our bodies, which create and feed cancer cells. John Hopkins Hospital explains that sugar is a major contributor in feeding cancer along with other cancer problems pertaining to highly processed foods. Now, we need to change our diet to more of a raw, healthy, and wholesome group of foods that contain antioxidants are that are proven to not only starve cancer but to fight it as well. We can consider these foods as live foods, which include vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and beans, seeds, and nuts.

Conclusion:

What do you think about your chances of getting cancer? Can we be more responsible for living a healthier lifestyle to possibly prevent and fight cancer?  Which option fits your lifestyle the best: Supplemental Cancer Protection, which pays for preventative screening and testing and many other aspects after getting cancer or making a solid attempt to prevent cancer by including exercise into your daily routine and raw and whole foods into your diet? What do you think of my cancer policy? Do you think we can prolong or reduce our odds of getting cancer with changing to a healthier lifestyle of exercise and eating raw, natural foods?

Whether we’re hiking alone or hiking as a family activity, it can be enjoyed by everybody. There are many types of trails ranging from easy, moderate, and rugged for every type of hiker. Several national, state, county and city parks have a wide variety of hiking trails to be enjoyed. One park that has some really outstanding hiking trails is the Holden Arboretum, which is located in Lake and Geauga Counties in Ohio.

The Holden Arboretum has a wide array of hiking trails for some invigorating exercise. Easy trails include the Conifer Collection, Blueberry Pond, Rhododendron Garden, Display Garden and Highlight Trails for the beginner. Holden’s more moderate trails for hikers include Bole Woods, Corning Lake and the Woodland Trails. The experienced hiker may enjoy more rugged trails, like Pierson’s Creek, Old Valley and Strong Acres Trail. Holden offers special guided hikes through streams and mountains, such as Stebbins Gluch and Little Mountain.

When we look at the question, “Is hiking healthy?” we can also look at the different types of hikes that are fun. Many types of hiking can touch the interests of everyone. Some include bird and duck migratory hikes and night hikes, which require calling and listening for owls. Some parks offer winter hikes with snowshoes. Maybe, we might consider a backpacking hike, looking for wildlife and wildflowers while trodding through streams, valleys and mountains. Please, watch as I’m hiking The Pierson’s Creek, looking for birds located at the Holden Arboretum. I also explain some of the different types of items we should take on a variety of hikes.

Conclusion:

If you’re looking to incorporate different activities for exercise, I think hiking is the way to break up the monotony of your typical daily exercise routines. Hiking is a good way to get the whole family to enjoy exercise while enjoying the many types of hikes that are available. What do you think? Is it time for a pair of hiking boots?

On my never ending journey of crunching my health, one important area to keep in mind is the continuum of eating healthy. A concern of mine is the consumption of dairy products, in particular, pasteurized milk. I love milk but in view of some negative facts about milk (i.e., acidity, pasteurized, allergic reactions, lactose intolerance) and not to mention allergies I decided to seek milk alternatives. I thought it would be a good idea to make my own raw milks from seeds, nuts, and beans. Last year, for a gift, I received a Soya Milk Maker. I made a lot of different combinations of delicious raw milks, including my favorite, almond milk. The fact that I was already hooked on dark chocolate almond milk that came from the local supermarket, prior to starting making my own milk, posed an issue. I fell for the slick marketing tactics of chocolate almond milk not only having almond benefits but it also provides health benefits from dark chocolate. One particular brand of dark chocolate almond milk tasted great and had a smooth thick dark chocolate taste. How’s that for sounding delicious? I was so infatuated with the health benefit possibilities that I obliviously overlooked the 23 grams of sugar!

I thought to myself, how can a product boast about being healthy with almond benefits and health benefits from dark chocolate but, in reality, has become such an unhealthy food choice packed with loads of sugar. I wondered, if I experimented, how close could I come to making my own healthy chocolate almond milk? It was rather an easy task. First, I made almond milk in my Soya Milk Maker. After filtering my raw almond milk, I placed it in a blender with raw organic cacao powder. Then, I added Medjool dates and sometimes Agave Nectar to sweeten my chocolate almond milk. Last, I added 1/8 tsp of Xanthan gum to create a thick, creamy taste. Keep in mind, a Soya Milk Maker does heat the almond milk up, which helps dissolve the raw organic cacao powder and helps the xanthan gum to thicken the milk. Please, take a brief moment to view my video on making raw chocolate almond milk.

Conclusion:

What do you think about the possibilities of making your own healthy milks? There are many benefits to making your own healthy milks. One benefit of making milk is that the process is very simple when using a Soya Milk Maker. Another benefit is that we can be selective by choosing natural raw organic foods that we prefer opposed to the processed ingredients that manufacturers use to cheapen their products. Last, we can enjoy the true powerful antioxidants that come from raw organic cacao powder along with Medjool dates and almond benefits.