Continuing my football frenzy I made these for Mexxxiiccoooo. Taco time!
From the bottom we have stacked:
* Sliced spinach
* Chilli brown rice with coriander (rice +passata+chilli+powder+garlic+
seasoning)
* sliced green pepper
* sliced avocado
Total score.
True, the taco is a bit junky, but fill it with all that good stuff and it’s hardly going to matter.
Hot banana oat bowls with raw cherry jam and shards of organic dark chocolate for my boys.
Things like jam and chocolate are never off the menu in our house and it makes me feel good to know we can enjoy those things in their natural, anti inflammatory form. The new government guidelines to halve the daily added sugar intake to just 25g is amazing. This breakfast has zero grams added sugar yet it’s still sweet and lovely (no, it isn’t Mr Kipling sweet. That’s not a natural taste I want to encourage my kids to look for).
The proposed guidelines have people wondering where they’ll get their sugar. We are a no added sugar household (90% of the time anyway) yet still enjoy “sweet” foods every day. Nature provides! Go back to the source, not to Mr. Coca Cola for your sugar fix.
Smoothies are a great, nutritious meal or snack and certainly should be included in the diet of anyone with diabetes. There are a few points to consider so let’s take a look at how to make diabetic appropriate smoothies:
References:
“Prescription for Nutritional Healing” Phyllis A. Bach. CNC. 2010.
Diabetes Care: Dietary Pectin & Glycemic Control in Diabetes.
Health the Tonic Nutrition way!
Peanut butter chocolate crunch ice cream, over maple overnight oats.
Sweet fat free/sugar free/dairy free creamy ice cream made from fruit?
Fruits that taste like decadent rich fudgey toffee?
Sugar free healthy chocolate that grows on trees?
It’s not Wonka Land…Welcome to planet earth. Mother nature provides all of these delicious foods in their healthiest form. Go back to the source instead of buying brands which have taken beautiful ingredients and made them inherently unhealthy and unnatural.
Just for you, because I love you, here’s the recipe. Enjoy!
Oats soaked in almond milk and maple syrup overnight
Banana ice cream – 2 ripe frozen bananas blended with 2 tbsp crunchy organic peanut butter and a little almond milk.
Scoop ice cream on top of the oats and put back in the freezer for 10 minutes while you’re melting the chocolate. I used pure dark organic. (I could have made it with coconut oil and raw cacao but I ran out)
Drizzle chocolate over your cold ice cream and top with peanuts.
The chocolate will cool and crisp up nicely.
As a so-called intelligent species you’d think we’d have better control over our wandering thoughts and tendency to stress about future events or everyday life. I think we can learn a lot from our animal cousins and try to take life as it comes. Easier said than done! I know all too well. It may help to bear in mind the effect that stress has on the brain:
It compromises the blood-brain barrier, which overstimulates neurons and actually kills brain cells
We develop less ability to form new brain connections
We find it more difficult to store new memories
Our immune system can be compromised by chronic stress too. Symptoms of this are fever, fatigue lack of energy, reduced or increased appetite. The stress hormone cortisol plays a part in weakening our immune system too.
How to beat stress naturally:
Progressive muscle relaxation
Meditation
Social support
Regular exercise
Natural, cleansing diet
Some excellent cleansing foods are root vegetables, sea vegetables, nuts, leafy greens like kale, spinach, spring cabbage and cavolo nero. Apples, pears and mixed berries are also great cleansers being packed with antioxidants. Eat avocados and bananas too. These potassium rich fruits help the brain to produce more serotonin (your happy hormone) and the essential fats from the avocado will provide the brain with what it needs to build new brain cells.
Stimulants like sugar, artificial sweeteners and caffeine also raise our stress levels….get in the zone with some camomile or chai instead.
Quick and easy processed sugar free and dairy free, strawberry smoothies for the boys. No preservatives, no E numbers, no artificial flavours.
Children are sensitive additives and sugars in food. They react through hyperactivity, low concentration, tearfulness, anger, inability to listen and low mood when the crash comes.
These things are not really normal behaviour on a daily basis. Their little bodies just can’t cope with the junk in processed foods.
Keep them eating, but fill them with nutrients their bodies can convert to sustainable energy.
These smoothies give them good quality calcium, protein and vitamin boost for brain function and bone development, muscle growth and repair and immune function. There’s also fibre for good digestion and plenty of hydration to push it all through.
2 large very ripe bananas
6 ripe strawberries
400ml unsweetened almond milk
This made 2 smoothies each.
Savoury herby courgette and sun dried tomato muffins. Gluten free, egg free, dairy free, soy free, nut free. I LOVE these. My baking doesn’t contain sugar anyway, but I’m definitely in favour of the savoury stuff.
3 cups gluten free flour
3 teaspoons gluten free baking soda
1 cup oat milk or other dairy free milk
2 chia eggs
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
Additional water to make a very thick batter
Filling:
Rosemary
Chives
2 tbsp dried mixed herbs
10 sun dried tomatoes
1 medium grated courgette
Sliced spinach
3 tbsp oil from the sun dried tomatoes
Bake at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. I use flexi muffin moulds, turn out and cool on a wire rack.
Repair cracked heels naturopathically!
Your skin is one of the most powerful indicators of your health. Conditions such as acne, rashes, inflammation and excessive wrinkles are all indicators of poor internal health.
Let’s take our feet for example. Who has cracked heels? This indicates a lack of Vitamin A, zinc, Vitamin C and essential fatty acids. It can also suggest excessive sugar consumption (processed sugars will age and dry out the skin very quickly).
Luckily I have a wonder medicine which is guaranteed to work if taken daily! I guarantee you’ll see an improvement in a few weeks. Ditch the processed sugars, cut down on the alcohol and up your water intake. A daily dose of the following will help repair your skin;
(this will also work for preventing other lines and wrinkles too…)
2 bowls of broccoli, lightly sautéed in lemon juice, herbs and spices
2 red peppers
2 handfuls kale or spinach
3 large tomatoes
1 tablespoon mixed seeds
2 teaspoons rapeseed oil or coconut oil
1 cup of mixed berries
This will:
1) Prevent free radical damage. Those free radicals attack your collagen! Not good! They also attack every other cell in your body causing mutations which lead to disease
2) Repair damaged cells and regenerate new, healthy ones
3) Maintain skin and protect from sun damage (of course still wear your sun protection cream)
There are of course other vegetables and fruits to consider, like sweet potato, carrots, beetroot, spring greens, turnip greens, squash, dried apricots and mango. A diet heavy in plant based foods will maintain and repair every cell and function in your body. Eat those greens! (and reds, and oranges and purples and yellows…)
More World Cup fever going on in our house! Well, when it comes to food anyway! We have Greece playing tonight so what better than a beautiful fresh, fragrant summer Greek salad?
I’m serving this with delicious savoury zucchini muffins. I’ll post the recipe for those tomorrow.
By the way, while I’m still working up the courage to do videos I’m just going to post pictures of me doing my biz around the kitchen instead. That’s way scary enough for the time being!
This dish is bursting with vitamins, especially vitamin A and C, fantastic skin repairers and free radical fighters! Free radicals destroy your collagen. That’s not good. They also destroy your other cells too, which can cause disease and illness. This is why a diet brimming with raw and cooked fruits and vegetables is so paramount to health. They help you regenerate and rebuild healthy cells.
Greek Salad:
Juice of 3 lemons & 1 lime
Genrous drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil
Plenty of good quality sea or rock salt, I use pink Himalayan
2 cups cherry tomatoes, chopped
2 cups cucumber, chopped
1.5 large red peppers and 1 yellow pepper
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup olives, roughly chopped
2 cans canelloni beans
1.5 tbsp dried mixed herbs
Black pepper
Until the 1st July I will be offering £10 off my detox and weight loss kickstart plan, Renew You. Usual price £35.
It’s a 4 week phased plan packed with delicious recipes. I’m always here for email support.
Contact me through Facebook to redeem, I’ll need your email address to send the plan to. Or email me at tonicnutrition@gmail.com.
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