Why The Nuts?

Why do most of us immediately reach for the raw nuts and seeds when we switch to a raw diet?

1. We want to feel full.

Since nuts are solid, crunchy, and filling, we have a tendency to use them as a replacement for cooked food. For example, when I first went raw, I would still feel “hungry” after eating a generous salad. I’d eat a handful or two of nuts to get that semi-drowsy feeling I was missing.

2. Nuts are crunchy.

Of course another reason why we might overeat nuts at the beginning is that we miss that crunchy yummy sort of salty feeling. Nuts make a natural replacement for chips, popcorn, crackers, and other snacks. Here’s a quick tip if that’s why you’re reaching for the nuts: try crunching on some celery, or make kale chips!

3. It’s an easy snack food.

You don’t need to wash, cut, or blend anything to eat nuts. If you’re in a hurry or feeling tired, you can just open a jar or reach for a container of nuts and enjoy. There’s nothing wrong with this behavior, but if you’re overeating nuts you will want to prepare adequate snack foods in advance.

Remember that being prepared is half the battle when it comes to eating healthy foods.

Nuts: The Good and The Bad

On the one hand, nuts make us feel full because our body is expending energy trying to digest them. Nuts are harder to digest than fresh fruits and vegetables. In reality we probably wouldn’t be eating tons of nuts in nature, unless they were fresh and in season. How many of us live next to a Brazil nut tree? That’s what I thought.

Nuts have tons of great nutritious qualities, and I don’t think we should shun them entirely. The healthy oils found in nuts are full of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are great for the brain, and for keeping your stress levels under control. Alternative sources of omega-3 fatty acids include chia seeds and flax seeds.

Most people have an easier time digesting seeds than they do digesting nuts. Also, the reason why more people are allergic to nuts than seeds is that nuts tend to go rancid if kept on a shelf for too long a time.

The Nutty Conclusion

So what’s the verdict? No, you won’t go insane if you eat too many nuts. But try to limit yourself to one handful per day, since they are hard to digest. If you feel bloated or gassy after eating nuts, cut down.

Also, you should avoid eating nuts with fresh fruits since that will definitely cause some discomforts and gas!

Other than that, go nuts. :D

Photo by Luke Robinson

Unfortunately, one of the reasons people don’t enjoy fruit as much as they could is they haven’t learned how to pick the freshest, ripest fruit.

With most fruit you can smell it, touch it and check for firmness… but with watermelon there’s another trick – tapping it like a drum. Basically what you’re doing is checking to see the water content of the melon: the higher the better.

So if the sound you get from lightly tapping a watermelon is deep, then you know it’s a good one. If you don’t hear much then move on to the next one.

Another good thing to check is how heavy the watermelon is. A heavier melon will have more water and that’s what you’re looking for!

My Watermelon Gum Story

A few months after I went raw, I remember having a conversation with a colleague about watermelon.

His stance was that watermelon had “no substance” and that you could just as easily chew a piece of watermelon gum and drink a glass of water, and get the same benefits as eating watermelon.

I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t the time or place, but my mind was screaming at the fallacy of this proposition.

There’s no way that chewing gum and drinking a glass of water has the same affect as eating watermelon.

I just know that intuitively, but let’s look at some hard data.

Photo by Sydney Marie

Watermelon has fiber and tons of nutrients that we just don’t appreciate at first glance.

Watermelon Nutritional Information

Here are just a few of the things that watermelon has going for it…

• Good source of Vitamins C and A
• Helps reduce inflammation
• High in antioxidants that fight free radicals
• Contains more lycopene than most fruits and veggies, including tomatoes
• Provides the body with potassium and magnesium
• Very cleansing, alkalinizing, and mineralizing food

Many fruits have a lot of nutrition in the skin or rind, and it’s no different for watermelon… so don’t feel weird eating the white stuff, or juicing the rinds in your morning juice.

Enjoy the seasonal fruit!

Here’s to fresh, tasty, and juicy watermelon! Enjoy the seasonal fruit when it’s here, yum yum!

Your snack should be easy to digest

If you’re going to have a snack between meals, make sure it’s easy to digest and that it will not cause any “stomach traffic jams”. Find out more about food combining in this video.

Eat a snack only if you’ve got time between meals

What I mean by this is that you should try to eat one meal and then give your stomach time to digest before adding something else on top of that. So if you ate lunch 30 minutes ago, don’t snack right away.

A snack should really be like an island to rest on before you next destination. I think having a healthy snack is important if you’re going to have a late dinner, since it stops you from overeating at dinner.

Eat snacks mindfully

Another trick to having a healthy snack time is to make your snack a mindful activity. Don’t just eat while you’re at your computer or focused on something else. Take a few minutes to unwind while you’re eating your snack, and you’ll find you don’t need to eat as much… and you’ll feel a whole lot better when you get back to your work!

Be prepared with a healthy snack

The problem with snacking is that we usually reach for an instant food when we’re under pressure. Instead of going to the vending machine or stopping by the corner store, bring your own snacks.

Try this healthy raw cashew snack…

Healthy Cashew Snack Video Recipe

(Click here to watch the video.)

What are your snacking tips?

I’m sure you’ve got some awesome snacking tips up your sleeves… please share them with us in the comments below!

I am super excited to announce the release of my latest recipe book!

It’s called “11 Snacks to Silence Your Stomach“.

I’ve been working hard preparing, measuring, and photographing each of these recipes. These are all tried and true recipes that I make regularly.

They’ve even got my boyfriend Robin’s seal of approval. If you know him or how he likes to eat then you’ll understand that he is very picky. ;)

Why Free?

Why am I giving this delicious snack recipe book away, you ask?

Because I believe it’s great to give back to every one of you who have made my business what it is today.

But I’m also releasing it to give you a taste of what kind of recipes I like to put together. Because once you know how great tasting some of these raw recipes can be, you’re a lot more likely to sign up for my latest project when I unveil it. ;)

More Recipes and Menu Plans

After you’ve devoured the deliciousness which is the “11 Snacks to Silence Your Stomach” ebook… make sure you keep an eye out for my future emails and videos.

I’ll be announcing and unveiling my latest project – code named The Magick Menu!

Lots of love and snackish goodness!

Photo by Klaus Post

Somehow we inherently know that eating too many desserts and sweets is not good for us. Either we’ve been told this growing up, or we just don’t feel so good after we overindulge our sweet tooth.

Why do we crave sweets and desserts?

Since I’ve got a wicked sweet tooth, I thought it would be interesting to investigate why it is that we crave sweets and desserts. (Or at least some of us.)

Sweetness is an Indication that Food is Edible

I was speaking to my dad about this the other day and he mentioned reading an article about sweets that said sugar is an indication that food is not a poison.

This made sense to me, if something tastes sweet then it is probably safe to eat. Think of eating bitter unripe fruit, you immediately get a bad taste in your mouth and push it away. However if the fruit is ripe, it is sweet and edible.

I’m sure this doesn’t apply across the board, and that there are exceptions to this rule. But I can accept the fact that we use our taste-buds and the sweetness factor of a food to determine whether to eat it or not.

The Bacteria/Yeast Connection

Another reason I believe we are big on eating sugar and sweets is the connection between bacteria and yeast. I don’t want to get too deep into this topic, but I have observed it in my own body.

At one point the balance of beneficial bacteria in my gut had been broken and there was an overgrowth of yeast. I’m not talking about female yeast infections here, because anyone can have too much yeast and not enough beneficial bacteria.

I noticed that whenever I ate lots of sugar, I had a huge rash on my stomach. That was the yeast flourishing. Yuck much? Luckily, I knew there were alternatives to traditionally high sugar sweets and desserts.

Can Healthy Desserts Really Exist?

The short answer is yes! Why else would I “give up” my old favorites, if I couldn’t have something equally delicious?

Healthy Desserts That Taste Good

Healthy desserts get a bad rap. Think of desserts made without any sugar, and these seem bland, granola, a little boring.

But what if you could get the richest, most decadent of desserts without all the junk that most processed desserts come with? It’s totally possible with raw, naturally sweetened desserts.

A Healthy Dessert Doesn’t Mean Just Fruit

Okay, you might be thinking that the only thing raw foodies can eat for dessert is fruit. Fortunately, there’s a lot more to raw desserts than fruit.

Take a look at these:

• raw chocolate puddings
• raw apple pies
• raw fudge
• raw ice cream
• raw cup cakes
• raw brownies

28 Desserts You Can Eat Every Day

I’ve put together free a downloadable ebook called “28 Desserts You Can Eat Every Day”. Yep, that’s right I’m giving it away for free!

Grab your free copy of the 28 Desserts You Can Eat Every Day ebook now.

Feel free to share this ebook with all of your friends and family. I really want as many people as possible to experience these healthy desserts.

Because it’s time for us have our cake and eat it too. After all, health is wealth and what would our life be without a little treat now and then?

Get your dessert fix here.

One of the reasons people turn to raw food is because they are looking to eat more healthy food. That’s definitely one of my main reasons for giving raw food a try. (Remember that when I say raw food, I don’t necessarily mean 100% raw.)

Lately, I found myself giving out this little piece of advice: eating raw food doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthier than other ways of eating.

Hear me out…

There are a lot of other things that go into your health, other than just the “label” you apply to your food. Maintaining healthy diets, for most of us can be tricky. So for instance, you might be eating raw food, but eating too much of it. Or you might be eating raw food, but eating too much of one category and not enough of another.

Neither of these scenarios is very healthy.

Or, you might be eating raw food but not drinking enough water, sleeping enough, or exercising enough. And then there’s your emotional and mental well being, all of which play into your overall health.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what healthy foods are.

The Healthy Foods List

Here is a basic list of healthy foods that most people can agree on:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Fresh leafy greens
• Cold pressed extra virgin oils
• Raw nuts and seeds
• Sprouts
• Seaweeds and sea vegetables

Now we can split hairs and argue that we should include other foods, depending on what lifestyle you follow. For instance some may want to add superfoods, others may want to add in raw dairy or meat, you get the idea.

But I think we can all agree that these are basically healthy foods. Especially fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Unhealthy Foods List

• Processed “white” foods like white breads, white pastas, etc.
• Refined white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame
• Addictive substances like MSG, and other “taste enhancing” chemicals
• Processed, denatured fats and oils that the body cannot deal with

Alright, so the unhealthy foods list is incomplete. That’s partly because it would take too long to include everything that might potentially be unhealthy. But it’s also because we don’t all agree on what’s unhealthy.

Some people go around telling themselves that they’ll be healthy if they eat “Everything in Moderation“. And while the adage that eating everything in moderation probably held true 100 years ago, it certainly doesn’t hold today.

There are more chemicals and ingredients that I can’t pronounce on a label for dried raisins than ever before. Dried raisins!

Imagine what’s in super processed junk foods for a minute. It’s not pretty.

How to Include More Healthy Foods and Less Unhealthy Foods

I honestly believe that in order to eat more healthy foods we need to leave some of the unhealthy foods behind. If you’re too full from eating an entire bag of chips and a 1L bottle of Coke, then you’re not going to be inspired to eat an apple. Let alone a salad.

Letting go of foods that aren’t good for you is a lot more complex than it might seem at first. Why? Cravings. That’s why.

I’ve been eating healthy foods for over 3 years now, and I’ve learned a thing or two about cravings. Get on The Cue list, and you’ll be the first know about my cravings busting techniques.