Have a Happy, Healthy Valentine’s Day

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Holidays are the death of healthy eating. We’ve developed a habit of wanting to celebrate by eating sugary, fatty, unhealthy food—under the assumption that if it tastes good, it must not be good for you. Wrong! Some of my favorite foods are also incredibly healthy. Consider these fun Valentine’s Day themed food treats this year as an alternative to the traditional candy and sugar overload:

Smooties: Combine your favorite berries with yogurt to make a healthy treat. If it’s ice cream you’re craving, use frozen berries!

Fruit Bars: Blend together strawberries and bananas, then freeze them onto popsicle sticks. Give it a few hours, and then you’ll have a fresh, frozen treat!

Image from wholefoodsmarket.com

Fruit Kabobs: Pick out three or four of your favorite pink and red fruits, then cut them up and make kabobs out of them. If you’re feeling really indulgent, get some pure dark chocolate and melt it for dipping sauce.

Chocolate Avocado Pudding: Sounds strange, but I’ve heard nothing but good things. This recipe calls for avocado, banana, cocoa powder, dates, and vanilla extract—that’s it! Top with a few raspberries or strawberries to brighten it up.

Watermelon Hearts: Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut watermelon into tiny hearts or use a paring knife to do the same to strawberries. Serve with a tiny bit of fresh whipping cream.

Tomato Tarts: If you want something a bit more savory, try these heart-shaped tomato tarts. All you need is puff pastry, Dijon mustard, and tomatoes.

Image from uniqueandamazing.blogspot.com

Love Day Punch: To avoid sugary drinks, try making a healthier version using cranberry juice and seltzer water. You can even make heart-shaped ice cubes using pink lemonade or add fresh fruit.

Do you have any other healthy Valentine’s Day treats you’ll be trying at home this year? I plan on making the chocolate avocado pudding, hands down. If you have any other ideas or recipes, please feel free to share them here! Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

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Top 10 Foods to Buy Organic

Image from rsc.org
Do you really want THIS to be on your food?

Buying all organic can get expensive sometimes; at some stores it may even be impossible. If you fall into the same category as most Americans, you might need to pick and choose which foods you buy organic and which you don’t. These ten produce items have been found by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to be the most likely to contain pesticide contamination, which makes it a wise choice to buy organic:

Image from urbanext.illinois.edu
Best to buy your apples organic

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Peaches
5. Strawberries
6. Nectarines (imported)
7. Grapes
8. Spinach
9. Lettuce
10. Cucumbers

Green Beans, Kale, and collard greens were also listed as foods that contained pesticides of particular concern—they were commonly contaminated with “highly toxic organophosphate insecticides,” which are toxic to the nervous system. This information comes from the EWG’s 2012 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™.

Consumption of food with pesticides can cause serious health problems, such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and more. Of course, these effects directly relate to how much is consumed and how toxic that particular pesticide is. Children are especially sensitive to pesticides because their bodies are still developing and they eat a greater percentage of their body weight in food than adults do.

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Strawberries were among the most contaminated

While eating one strawberry with trace amounts of pesticide might not do much harm, constantly consuming contaminated foods could become a problem. Steering clear of non-organic brands of the above produce will help keep you and your family out of harm’s way. My next posting will continue this topic with a list of foods that have been found to contain the leastamount of pesticides.

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Juicers: Fab or Fad?

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I’ll admit: I’ve eyed them at the store. The only thing that’s stopped me from purchasing one myself is the cost. Even so, every once in a while I consider how long it would take me to pay one off if I bought it on my credit card. But I’ve also stopped to think about their sudden burst into popularity. Are they just a fad? Or are they really as great as they seem? I’m talking about juicers, of course.

Image from viatek.blogspot.com

There’s no question about it—Americans generally don’t get as many daily servings of fruits and veggies as they ought to. Even those of us who try to always eat healthy, balanced meals might have a hard time fitting five servings of each in a day’s time. Whether it’s because we don’t like the taste or it’s just too much trouble to prepare, many of us are lacking sufficient servings, causing a full array of problems.

Juicers offer the simple option of throwing fruits and veggies in whole and spitting out the liquid and nutrients, leaving a dry pulp behind. People are swearing by the machines, attributing weight loss, healthier skin, and more energy to the extra vitamins and minerals they’re now consuming. But how true are these claims?

Image from cltampa.com

As it turns out, they’re pretty legitimate. Adding servings of juice to a regular diet can add lots of nutritional value, especially when people use dark green and deep orange vegetables in their juices. Kale and carrots may not be an enjoyable taste for everyone, but many are finding that they can easily palate them when they’re mixed up with a few sweeter fruits like pineapple or apple.

Unfortunately, the method is not perfect and some nutritionists have urged people not to get too carried away. “You’re getting a higher quota of some nutrients, but not necessarily all of them,” cautioned Jennifer Nelson of the Mayo Clinic. Some nutrients can be lost in the process of juicing, so the practice shouldn’t necessarily completely replace regular, whole, fruits and veggies in meals.

Image from hungryhungryrunner.com

Juicers vary significantly in price, starting at about $50 for manual models that require chopping and produce very little juice and jumping to somewhere around $700 for more elaborate models. “Fast” Juicers produce juice in mere seconds, are generally loud, and get most moisture out of produce. “Slow” juicers take a few minutes to process but get more liquid out and don’t produce heat—which can deplete some nutritional value. “Whole food” juicers work much like a food processor or blender, grinding up the whole ingredient and leaving behind nothing.

Juicers jumped to popularity shortly after the release of“Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead,” produced by Australian filmmaker Joe Cross, who went on a 60-day juice fast and lost over 80 pounds, sending his autoimmune disease into remission. After it was released on Netflix, sales skyrocketed. Last year, sales hit about $215 million, a 71% growth over the year before. 

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