Food
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Dairy vs Plant-Based Milk Alternatives: Which is Really Better?
Almost half of Americans drink a plant-based milk, or non-dairy milk alternative (NDMA) each day. Can you believe it?! If you would have told me that 20 years ago, I would have thought that was crazy. The non-dairy milk market has grown about 60% over the past five years, and could to reach $38B (as in billion) in sales by 2024. At the same time, we are drinking less dairy milk. US milk intake has gone down by over a third since 1970. Why Are We Drinking Less (Cow’s) Milk? Most people on the planet have some degree of lactose intolerance. Before plant-based milks were “a thing”, all these people…
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DIY Substitutes For Eggs, Milk, & Flour
Don’t you hate it when you’re making a recipe (let’s say, pancakes), and you open the fridge to find that your kids drank all the milk (and didn’t tell anyone)? Or, when your banana bread recipe calls for two eggs and you only have one? Here are some clever substitutions for kitchen staples – like eggs, milk, and flour – that you can literally whip up in a few minutes. Bonus: Read to the end for a clever avocado substitution and “mock”-amole recipe. A Note About Current Events As of March 31, 2020: The spread of the coronavirus has upended our lives in many ways. For example, grocery shopping was…
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Easiest, Juiciest Pork Chops Ever
I get excited about pork – it’s delicious, easy to cook, versatile, and more sustainable than beef (not to mention less expensive). According to research published by the National Academy of Sciences, pork uses 10% of the environmental resources to produce – on a per pound basis – than beef. That is shocking – and a relief – for me, because it gives me solid reasons for choosing pork over beef. And, who can resist the smell of fried bacon or a low-and-slow-cooked pork shoulder? Even when I was a vegan, I loved that aroma wafting through my neighborhood from someone else’s kitchen. Except for the two years of being…
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Turmeric and Curcumin: The Super Nutrient Spice?
How to know whether turmeric supplements are for you. If you live near a Natural Grocers (NG) health food store, you may be familiar with their regular publication, the “good4u Health Hotline Magazine”. This is a legit magazine that is part sales flyer, but also includes nutrition articles, recipes, and store events. I really get into reading these, especially the nutrition articles. They vary from the typical – “eat more organic vegetables” – to the obscure – “methylation adaptogens to restore methylation balance”. (What?! I’ll have to do some research on that one!) The January edition of good4u Health Hotline included the eye-catching article “Natural Grocers Top 10 Trends for…
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Three Reasons Noom is Not for Me
I was excited to try out Noom, a healthy-habit/weight loss app that’s been getting a ton of press recently. I dutifully entered all of my health info and stats as prompted and waited for my personalized recommendations. Imagine my surprise when Noom gleefully announced that I could lose 15 lbs by March! Surprised because, if I did lose 15 lbs, I’d weigh 100 lbs (I’m 5’6”), which would be unhealthy and darn near starvation. Noom. It’s an expensive app ($45/month at time of posting) designed by behavioral psychologists to help you lose weight. It’s targeted to millenials, because as stated by the app itself, millennials struggle to perform difficult tasks…
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Taste A Little Summer With Hawaiian-Inspired Ahi Tuna Poké
Fast, fresh, and super healthy I love pumpkin-spiced desserts and gravy-covered meats, and other fall and winter foods. However, after Christmas, I immediately look forward to temperatures above 32’F and days with more than nine hours of sunlight. That’s not happening anytime soon here in Central Oregon, so I wanted to find a way to bring a little summer into my diet. My husband Chris and I made a recent trip to Hawaii – in December. Yes, it was sublimely warm and sunny. After that experience, we wanted to have poké here on the mainland, as a reminder that it’s warm and sunny somewhere. A few of the most popular…
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10 Must-Have Foods for Healthy Eating
Ever think about overhauling your diet or just eating healthier, but then get overwhelmed with all the choices? It’s no wonder – the options are endless! The average supermarket now carries over 40,000 products, which is a 5x increase from the 1970s – so many choices [1, 2]!! When I talk about food and nutrition with friends and family, one of the most common questions I get is, “What do you eat?” I think to myself, “Yay – I’m so glad you want to chat about food!” because I could talk for days about it! Even though I think a lot about food and nutrition, the reality is that I…
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Are Free Days Good For You?
They Can Be – Here’s How Really, the only downside to healthy eating is not eating part – not eating mass quantities of just anything we want. Most of us would love to stuff our faces with ice cream and pizza every day … but then we’d be sick. What to do? Typical diets, especially fad-ish ones, require the elimination of your favorite treats (chocolate ice cream, I’m looking at you) or even entire food groups (I can’t live without dairy!!). Unless you’re allergic or have an intolerance to a food, there is no scientific reason to ban it from your life forever. Today I’d like to share with you…
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Is Shopping At Whole Foods Worth It?
Answer: It Depends … Part of me has always wanted to be a Whole Foods shopper – someone who “cared enough” for my family to shop at a grocery store that adhered to the highest environmental and quality standards. When money was tight, and I could not justify the higher price tag of Whole Foods (vs large supermarket next door). Fast forward to now: we can afford – and are willing – to pay more for responsibly and locally produced food. Another game-changer: Amazon purchased Whole Foods in 2017 and promptly started price promotions aimed at its own Amazon Prime members – like me. I asked myself: Is this the…
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7 Ways to Stop Eating So Much Sugar
Most of us realize that too much sugar is bad for our health – not only does sugar have no nutritional value (outside of calories), eating too much can lead to weight gain, type II diabetes, and other chronic health problems. The problem: sugar is wonderfully delicious! Case in point: the average American consumes more than ⅓ cup of added sugar daily – that’s 57 pounds per year! If you have a few minutes, this TEDx video does a great job of explaining why we looovve eating sugar: https://youtu.be/lEXBxijQREo Even though we humans are hard-wired to consume sweet foods, The American Heart Association recommends no more than 6 – 9…
