My NutriBullet Experience

A couple months ago, I wrote about how the NutriBullet was an awesome way to get your fruits and veggies in every day (especially if you hate grazing as much as I do 😜).

For my birthday, I that I wanted to try the NutriBullet for myself and I couldn’t be happier!!!

Here’s a couple of the nutriblasts I make regularly:
Mixed Berry kiwi:
*1/2 organic kiwi
*handful of organic blueberries
*handful of organic raspberries
*2 large organic strawberries
*2 or 3 organic baby carrots
*1 leaf of organic kale or lettuce
*a pinch of cinnamon and ginger
*1 scoop of soy protein powder
*6-8oz of water

Mango berry kiwi
*1/2 organic kiwi
*1/2 organic mango
*1 leaf of organic kale or lettuce
*handful of organic blueberries
*handful of organic raspberries
*pinch of cinnamon and ginger
*1 scoop of soy protein powder
*6-8oz of water

I’m sure you can tell I love organic foods, haha!! Seriously though, you don’t have to use organic, but I love how organic makes me feel and I encourage y’all to give it a shot! 😀

Every time I have my nutriblast, I know I’m doing right by my body now and in the long run. Over the past month and a half, I’ve noticed my sugar cravings decrease DRAMATICALLY!! To give you a sense of how bad my sugar addiction was, I bought a gallon of vanilla ice cream and a case of Mt. Dew every week when I went to the grocery store. Now, I can barely drink a can of soda without feeling my teeth rot.

A NutriBullet may not be the best option for you, but I just hope you’re willing to try it.

Remember, that all we have is our health and EVERY investment (whether you’re eating healthy once a month or every day) counts!!

Talk to y’all soon!! 💖

Aphrodite Attitude Redefined

Embracing your inner goddess means honestly contemplating whether all three parts of you (mind, body and spirit) are truly in harmony on a regular basis.

A few days ago I had a webinar from one of my business mentors playing while I was cooking my lunch and at the time I didn’t fully understand why. Then, just as I was starting to tune the audio out, she mentioned how she almost lost the rights to use one of her tag lines in a legal proceeding. The slogan she referred to reads as follows: “Remove your blocks so your business rocks!”

Unbeknownst to me, playing that webinar was the best thing I could have done for myself and for y’all. I’ve been pondering why the tag line resonated with me as much as it did, and I realized why: I’m ignoring a major block of my own!

While I absolutely LOVE helping y’all learn about the amazing healing properties of food, I understand now that that is not my only mission. To serve y’all to the best of my ability, I know that I have to stay true to myself and embrace EVERY aspect of a complete Aphrodite Attitude, especially the mental component! I could give you advice on infinite external tools you can use to improve your self-esteem, but if I continue to be negligent in acknowledging that we need to discuss the mental component as well, I am not fully honoring my mission.

From this point forward, I want to use this blog to help you embrace, develop and maintain your Aphrodite Attitude. In order to do that, you have to want to examine the following:

1. Your willingness to acknowledge that a HEALTHY state of mind allows you to admit you’re flawed (and that your flaws are just as beautiful as your strengths, just like Aphrodite),
2. Examples of strong, confident women who have the the courage to break down and eradicate the societal compulsion to force every aspect of your life into a perfect box, and
3. External tools that will reinforce our stronger senses of self-worth, including (but not limited to) balancing your psyche, proper nutrition (weight loss/gain is a bonus!!) & skin care/makeup.

Why I Want the NutriBullet

An easy way to harness the power of raw foods!

Over the past week, I’ve seen the infomercial for the NutriBullet System at least twice and I’ve seen it being presented on HSN. This product’s statements have always resonated with me for some reason (I guess it’s because I can hear my mom telling me to eat my vegetables) and today I realized why: it’s called bioavailability.

I know that that term sounds complicated, but it’s really very simple. Think about how many times you’ve needed a sponge to clean something up. When it’s just spilled milk, it takes very little effort to get the sponge to soak up the milk; dried ketchup, on the other hand, takes considerably more effort to scrub and wipe up. That’s exactly how our digestive system works. If you drink a glass of pulp-free orange juice, your body can soak up the nutrients like a sponge, whereas whole foods, like broccoli, spinach or blueberries or spinach, your body has to scrub the foods (break them down) before it can absorb those nutrients.

In the infomercials, longevity expert and master nutritionist, David Wolfe (who also appear in “Simply Raw”) explains that when we prepare our vegetables, fruits and nuts in the NutriBullet, they are are turned into super foods they call nutriblasts. Here’s a video of how the NutriBullet makes the foods we eat super foods.

One nutriblast each day is the perfect way to incorporate the raw foods diet lauded in “Simply Raw,” especially if you have an extremely hectic schedule.

Ginger is a KEY ingredient in Your Health

Tummy troubles? Give ginger a try!

Ginger has been revered for over two millennia for its unique combination of culinary and therapeutic properties.

My cabinet always has to have ginger in it because it works miracles on my menstrual pain – without ginger in my diet, I’m just counting down the days until my body puts me on involuntary bed rest.

Ginger works wonders on several ailments, ranging from hypertension to migraines. Here are the benefits that shocked me the most:

1. A study from the University of Michigan Medical School found that a daily ginger root supplement helped reduce the level of inflammation in participants’ colons in less than one month. This is crucial because inflammation in the colon is an indication of colon cancer.
2. Ginger has an uncanny ability to combat nausea in patients undergoing chemotherapy. Using ginger to alleviate the insanely damaging effects of chemotherapy is a great first step to making the transition into making homeopathic remedies the initial recourse for preventing and treating many major illnesses (I know I’m hoping for a little too much considering how much of a strangle-hold Big Pharma has on healthcare, but the growing interest in organic foods gives me hope 🙂 ).
3. Last, but definitely not least, a study, done between 2005 and 2006, from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center revealed that ginger can reverse ovarian cancer! To test their hypothesis, the researchers exposed ovarian cancer cells to a ginger powder solution and and the cancer cells started COMMITTING SUICIDE!!!

You’d think with astounding results like these, the medical community would be doing everything possible to ensure the world has this knowledge, but I guess it’s up to us to show the world why simple, natural foods like ginger are invaluable in reversing this insane trend of malnourishment, illness and obesity in the United States and around the world.

I would be remiss if I didn’t remind everyone that although ginger is a naturally wholesome spice, it can cause some side effects like diarrhea, upset stomach and heartburn. These side effects are rare occurrences and are frequently the result of using too much ginger at once. Another precaution relates to those who take blood thinners like Warfarin: because of its anticoagulant properties, ginger should be used under the guidance of your doctor.

In closing I want to make a recommendation for people who are on prescription blood thinners. Most doctors are over-burdened with the number of patients they have to see because of Big Pharma, so if they try to convince you that trying ginger instead of the pharmaceuticals isn’t worth the effort, GET A SECOND OPINION! Yes, doctors have advanced training in medicine, but YOU are the final authority as concerns what you put into your body. There are physicians who focus the core of their practice on fulfilling Hippocrates’ best quote: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food.” Dr. Joel Fuhrman is the perfect example; he does an excellent job of explaining why we need to incorporate as many colors of foods (and as simply prepared as possible) into our culinary repertoires.

My New Hamburger is a Salmon Burger

I loved hamburgers when I was a kid and I’ve been craving to have a burger for a couple weeks now. Knowing how bad red meat is for me, I saw something called salmon burgers in the grocery store and decided to give them a try. It’s a great way for  me to get my protein and omega-3 fatty acids.

I wasn’t sure what spices and/or herbs I should use, so I looked in my cabinet and found some garlic powder, ginger, black pepper and rosemary. After I mixed my herbs and spices together, I sprinkled it all over the salmon burger and put in a frying pan on medium heat for 4 minutes each side and this is what I had made:

As I was cooking the salmon burger, I remembered that I’d also bought some feta cheese, so I crumbled a few piece and made a nice little protein-packed salad. This was DELICIOUS!

A salmon burger flaked apart with some crumbled feta cheese.

I can’t wait to see how it’ll taste when I can get back to the grocery store and pick up some spinach, berries and quinoa.

The Natural Cure for Diabetes

Y’all know I love to give you the scoop on the incredible foods nature has to offer us, and I’ll continue to do so, but I think I’ll start finding other sources of evidence besides articles on the web.

Over the weekend, I went to a screening of a documentary called “Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days,” and to say was good is the understatement of the millennium! For the film, they found 5 subjects with Type 2 diabetes and 1 subject with Type 1.

All of the subjects met with a Dr. Cousens who introduced them to the raw food lifestyle and had them eat only raw for 30 days. As I’m sure you know, it wasn’t an easy thing to do because of all the sugar we Americans have in our diets: the average American consumes approximately 150 pounds of sugar per year!

One man’s story really made me want to break down in tears. Kirt was a 26-year-old African American man from Baltimore, Maryland. He shared a story about how one time he went to the emergency room and the doctors told him his blood sugar level was at 1200; the normal range for blood sugar is between 80-100!!

Kirt impressed me further when he adhered the most to the diet – he gave those 30 days 110% because he knew that that was what was required if he truly wanted to cure his diabetes.

On day one of the program, his blood sugar was about 346 and he was taking 4 to 6 insulin shots a day. By day 30, not only was he able to STOP his insulin, his blood sugar was down to 73! At the end of the movie, Kirt went to his doctor to get the results of some blood work and he was surprised to find that his doctor had reread his file and was going to rediagnose him as a type 1 diabetic and had plans to give him an insulin pump! I’m sure you all know that people with type 1 diabetes produce very little or no insulin – but after a strict 30-day diet of raw foods, his body was totally healed and started making its own insulin!

My moral of the story is, although many doctors mean well, they are definitely undereducated about the power of the food we have available to us. Granted, they take the Hippocratic Oath upon graduating from medical school, but the better musing from Hippocrates is “Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food.”

Awesome Oatmeal

From time to time I get into a food rut. Basically, this is when I’ve found healthy food options that I enjoy (and I’m pretty picky because I have a little bit of a sweet tooth) and I buy them on autopilot, I guess.

Lately, I’ve been having just French toast, pancakes and egg whites for breakfast. Then one day I remembered how my mom would make old-fashioned oatmeal (I thought instant oatmeal was all that and a bag of chips!). So I went to the grocery store and bought a big container of store-brand whole oats.

It could be the middle of the summer and my mom would still make oatmeal for breakfast. After doing a little research I completely understand why. According to Mother Earth Living, oatmeal can do incredible things such as lower cholesterol, stabilize blood sugar and lower the risk of you developing diabetes. These three attributes alone are worth all the diamonds in the world to me because both heart disease and diabetes run in my family.

It’s surprisingly easy to make, but what astonishes me even more is how I can add the most seemingly random ingredients and it always tastes incredible. At first, I only added spices like ginger and cinnamon; then I’d add honey. I can’t wait to go to the grocery store and get a bunch of raspberries, blueberries, cashews, pecan and almonds and see how they can make the oatmeal even better than it always is!

Good thing I listened to my gut and gave the old-fashioned oats a try 🙂

Scintillating Scallops

When I was a kid, my mother would make flounder and white rice for me. Unfortunately, I was an extremely picky eater back then and I’d refuse to try other kinds of seafood.

Now that I’m older, my desire to experiment has grown exponentially and I want to share with you one of my favorite recipes: Seared Scallops with Herb-Butter Sauce. I’ve tweaked the recipe slightly; you can find the original recipe here.

 For the scallops, you’ll need:

• 1 lb of dry, large sea scallops

• 1 Tbsp Smart Balance with Omega-3

• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil or flaxseed oil

• Fresh ground black pepper

For the sauce, you’ll need:

• 3 Tbsps Smart Balance with Omega-3

• 1 medium shallot, diced

• ¼ cup of herbs (I like chives, rosemary and parsley)

• ¼ cup of your favorite liqueur (I like Kahlúa)

• ¼ cup lime zest

• Fresh ground black pepper

Quick tip: Chop your herbs and the shallot for the sauce before you start cooking the scallops.

Cooking directions (scallops):

1. Rinse scallops in cold water then pat dry with paper towels

2. Warm a nonstick skillet on medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes

3. Add oil and Smart Balance to the pan → to test if the mixture is hot enough, run your fingers under some cold water then splash it into the oil and Smart Balance. When it’s hot enough, the cold water will instantly boil off

4. Pat scallops dry once more before placing them in the pan (spread them around the pan for best cooking results)

5. Season each scallop with your choice of spices and place in the pan to sear

6. Let each scallop cook for 2 to 4 minutes until nicely browned (you’ll know it’s ready when it’s mostly firm to the touch)

7. Flip with tongs and repeat searing on the other side

8. Transfer the scallops to a warm plate (turn the burner down to medium and let the pan cool for about 45 seconds before starting the sauce

Cooking directions (herb-butter sauce):

1. Melt 1 Tbsp of Smart Balance in the pan

2. Add shallots to the pan and sautee for 1-2 minutes

3. Pour Kahlúa and let it simmer for 1-2 minutes or until it reduces by ½

4. Mix in herbs and lime zest and reduce heat to low

5. Add the other 2 Tbsps of Smart Balance to mixture and whisk briskly until it melts completely

6. Return scallops to the pan and roll them in sauce until warmed through

7. Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

Savory and Heart-Healthy Alfredo Sauce

Every so often, I like to take a day off and unwind from the crazy journey we know as life. When I do, that’s typically when I see a sign that the passion I have for helping women learn to love their bodies and feed it right is what I need to be doing.

Yesterday, I was lounging around my apartment because we were having our umpteenth snow fall of the season and I tuned into Bethenny. One of her guests for the day was an AMAZING woman named Torrie who lost 148 pounds in 3 years. Torrie is amazing because she did it the right way: she healthified her favorite foods so she’d never have to deprive herself of anything.

I found this recipe a while back and it’s an incredible way I can keep one of my “guilty pleasure” – Alfredo sauce – in my culinary repertoire. Another great thing about this recipe is that it uses Greek yogurt so I get a nice dose of protein and keep my immune system in tip top shape!

Ingredients:

• 4oz plain non-fat Greek yogurt
• ¾ cup Silk soy milk
• 2Tbsp Smart Balance
• 2Tbsp flour
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper
• ¼ cup Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Warm a saucepan on medium heat
2. Melt the Smart Balance
3. Add your flour to create a paste
4. Stir in garlic powder, black pepper, yogurt and milk
5. Keep cooking on medium heat until the sauce thickens
6. Add Parmesan cheese and stil until melted
7. Pour over your favorite bowl of pasta and enjoy!

Healthy and Indulgent Brownies

Finally, some no-guilt brownies 🙂

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Greek yogurt is a fantastic substitute for other cooking fats like oils, lard, and so on.

I’ve been a chocoholic for as long as I can remember and I haven’t had brownies in a very long time because of the oil content. I decided to test how well Greek yogurt and I think I may have opened a portal to heaven!

I used the following ingredients for my brownies:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1⅓ cups Vanilla Greek yogurt (I used low fat)
• ½ cup white chocolate chips
• ¾ cup pecans

Directions:

1. Combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, pecans),
2. Blend all the wet ingredients – vanilla extract, Greek yogurt, chocolate chips (melt for 30s in a microwave safe bowl or in a small pot),
3. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients slowly (I did it a little too quickly and had one heck of a mess to clean up!),
4. After you’ve combined the wet and dry ingredients, pour the batter into a pan (8x8x2 lined with parchment paper and slightly covered in olive oil to help keep the brownies from sticking),
5. Bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean,
6. Let the brownies cool for about 15 minutes, and enjoy!