I noticed a new vegan Strawberry coconut milk ice cream at Trader Joe's and tried it out. Oh yes, we have a winner.
Healthier Options
Nature's Candy Stand: Look At Dem Apples In A Rainbow of Colors
5 Ways To Avoid The Corporate 15 This Holiday
This is a guest post by Keas.com, an Employee Wellness Program that combines the best of social media and online games to create happier, healthier, more engaged employees.
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Ever heard of the freshmen 15? It’s a term coined for those first year college students who gain 15 pounds due to over-indulging.
How about the Corporate 15?
Same idea, except now we’re talking about your office instead of your dorm room. It’s really quite simple. One of your co-workers brings in a dozen donuts, and you have just one. The boss brings in a box of chocolates, and you have just one. Suzy in HR brings in her famous Double Dip Chocolate Carmel Cookies and you have…just one.
You keep telling yourself, “I’ll just eat one,” and quickly the calories add up. Before you know it, you’re 15 pounds heavier than you ever were before.
You’re not the only one. Eating too many “just ones” can happen to the best of us. To help you along the road of a happier, healthier you, here are 5 ways to avoid over-indulging at work:
- Take a walk during your lunch break.
- Drink a glass of water before you dive into any meal.
- Ask if your co-workers are willing to bring in fruit or nuts instead of calorie-loaded sweets.
- At those holiday parties, reach for the veggie platter instead of the cheesy casserole.
- Bring in a healthy appetizer, like some yummy cherry tomatoes topped with pesto crumbs (recipe here), to share and inspire your co-workers.
Happy Holidays and be well!
For more information about Keas, please visit our website and follow us on Facebook.
5 Ways To Eat Healthier In A Mall Food Court
Mall food courts are notorious for being fast food hubs which usually means lots of highly processed foods. But all is not lost. There are ways to find healthier options or minimize the nutritional overload. Here are some tips.
- Look for vegetables. In every Mall food court, there is always at least one Asian place like a Panda Express or Thai Now. The Asian places always have multiple dishes with vegetables in it like my meal above which is Thai food - broccoli beef with sriracha sauce, and eggplant with tofu over steamed rice.
- When ordering Asian food, get steamed rice over fried rice or noodles. Get a meat entree that is not breaded and fried like grilled Black Bean chicken with green beans versus Honey Lemon Chicken.
- For sandwiches, nix the mayo or any mayo-based spreads, and stick with mustard or vinaigrette as your spread. Eat your sandwich open-faced so that you are essentially only eating half the bun. Instead of cheese, get guacamole or avocado slices.
- Meal deals always sound great because you usually get three things for cheap like burger, fries and fountain drink, or taco, burrito, and fountain drink. The overall meal deal may be financially cheap, but it's nutritionally expensive denting your calories, fat, sodium, and sugar intake for the day.
Nix the meal deal and order two things a la carte. Thing one will be either a burger or a burrito, and thing two will be unsweetened iced tea or a bottle of water. Lemonade or juice is not necessarily healthier than soda because it has as much as and sometimes even more sugar than soda.
- Order small sizes of everything. Smaller portions mean you get to enjoy without overloading. Again, it's very tempting to buy the bigger sizes because the chains do that on purpose. They tempt you to buy the next bigger size for just 5o cents more, and it always seems like an easy sale at the time. Resist and stick with the smallest portion size available.
- Get your food in a to-go container. It's easy to overeat because you don't like to throw away food. I'm the same way. I don't like to waste. To solve that problem, get your food in a to-go container so that you can eat to satisfy your hunger and then take the rest home to eat later.
- If you are at the mall with a friend, order one meal that the two of you can split. Most food court portion sizes are big enough for 2-3 people. By splitting the meal, you save on both nutritional factors and cost.
What are some other ways you eat healthier at the mall?
Evolution Juice: The Cold-Pressed Difference Complemented With Healthy Food
One of my favorite bottled juices is Evolution Juice because I can literally feel the life force in the juice which makes me feel vibrant and fantastic, and there is a reason for that which I'll get into in a bit.
Their Pineapple Coconut Water is one of my favorite post workout drinks because I can replenish electrolytes with the light fruity goodness of pineapple. Here are seven health benefits of pineapple which includes strengthening of the bones. By the way, because of the electrolytes, coconut water is also excellent for hangover recovery in case you have one too many cocktails.
The Evolution green vegetable juices like Vital Greens and Essential Greens only has 2 - 3g of sugars which is wonderful because most bottled green juices average 28g of sugars per serving. I want to drink vegetables not sugar.
Evolution opened their first store in San Francisco, and Founder Jimmy Rosenberg gave us a preview of what the stores have to offer. There are two other Evolution stores in Washington state in Seattle and Bellevue where they are headquartered.
Of the samples we tried, my favorite juice was the Sweet Burn (the red juice in the photo) which has Coconut Water, Pineapple, Organic Apple, Beet, Cayenne, and Ginger. The kick of cayenne and ginger is a fun pick-me-up.
My favorite food was the Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Collard Wrap (in the photo) with Grilled zucchini, Kalamatas, oven-roasted tomatoes, sesame seeds, and fresh herbs. Using collards as the wrap is brilliant because it makes the wrap gluten-free, and collards are one of the most nutrient-packed foods you can eat.
One of the salads they offer is this Farmer's Garden salad with organic kale, baby spinach, julienned carrots, beets, snap peas, grape tomatoes, cucumber, pepitas, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds. In my book, this is a perfect post workout meal.
The overall food menu in the store is nutritionally impressive and very allergy-friendly. I loved seeing kale, quinoa, and collards on several of the menu items. They can make anything vegan, dairy, soy, or gluten-free. Meals include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks along with building your own bowls and salads. There is also a wonderful array of foods to-go which are nice small portions and make for great meals to take to work, a sporting event, plane rides, and road trips.
So, I mentioned that I can feel the life force in these juices. For some people that may sound woo-woo, but in actuality it isn't. What's going on here is the cold-pressed difference. Evolution juices are cold-pressed using High Pressure Processing which preserves the flavors, nutrients, and enzymes of the fruit and vegetables used in the juice.
Most bottled juices are heat pasteurized which robs the juice of all that goodness cold-pressing keeps. Cold-pressed bottled juices are as closest to raw juices as you'll get if you want convenience versus buying a juicer and making raw juices for yourself at home. Because of the cold-pressing, Evolution juices are a bit pricier than your mainstream juice brands, but to me it's worth it because you get raw juice-like benefits without the work or cleanup of doing your own juicing.
Here is a list of retailers that carry Evolution juices, and if you live or visit San Francisco, Seattle, or Bellevue be sure to stop by an Evolution store and try one of their meals with some vitalizing juice. Hopefully, you will love it as much as we did!
Burger Deconstructed: Example of an 80/20 Eating Cheeseburger
This is my idea of a cheeseburger! I know it looks nothing like your traditional American cheeseburger, but I deconstructed and modified. Do you notice how colorful this burger is? My dad even thought my burger looked cool, and he's a major meat eater.
This cheeseburger is 100% vegan, and almost no cooking was involved. I just pan-cooked the patty. I mostly assembled! Oh yes. My cheeseburger is not gluten-free because the patty has a little bulgar wheat in it. Using the arugula as a base and going bunless drops calories, carbs from a traditional cheeseburger.
The burger is Amy's California Veggie Burger.
The cheese is slices of Daiya Cheddar Wedge. Daiya's vegan cheddar is one of the best tasting and melting on the market today, in my humble opinion.
Arugula is Fresh Express Organic Baby Arugula.
I sauteed some white mushrooms and leeks I got at the farmer's market in some olive oil. The sliced tomato chunks came from this gorgeous blood red heirloom tomato I found from the same farmer's market. The purple cabbage and shredded carrot was left over from salad fixings I got at the Whole Foods salad bar.
As a condiment, I used Brianna's Dijon Honey Mustard dressing.
Alternative 80/20 Eating meat options:
- Ground turkey burger
- Ground bison burger for a beef-like experience. Bison is much lower in fat and thusly calories than beef, and in a burger tastes almost the same.
What is one way you healthify your cheeseburger?
Cool! No More Drowned Salad. Spray-on Olive Oil & Vinegar + Giveaway For Our September Love With Food Noshables Box
I love to put olive oil and vinegar on salad, but what happens most often is I end up drowning my greens with either too much oil or too much vinegar because I still haven't learned the delicate balance of lightly pouring. Maybe, it's because I'm too excited to eat my greens!
If you are like me, the problem is now solved. Gourme Mist is so cool! These misters put control back in your hands (literally) by letting you gently spray the oil and vinegar onto your salad. No more mess. No more pooling. Enjoy misty greens!
Besides avoiding mess, the other cool part I love is that misting cuts down on the fat and calories because you are using less oil. Misting compliments the flavors of your salad versus taking it over.
And you can mist other things besides salad. I had fun misting onto bread, onto vegetables for roasting, and onto fish for baking. Misting is quite addictive fun!
Gourme Mist is one of the featured items in our September Love With Food Noshables Box, and you will get to try a sample of the Gourme Mist Barrel Aged Balsamic Vinegar, Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar, and Pomegranate Balsamic Vinegar.
The samples won't come in a mister just a small flavor pack as seen inside the photo of the box. If you want the full-size mister, you can purchase them on the Love With Food site. And remember, a portion of any purchase you make goes to help feed a child in need. I partnered with Love With Food because I love the idea of discovering new foods plus helping someone else.
Discounts!
PLUS, Love With Food is so wonderful, they have also offered a $5 discount good until August 31 for Noshtopia readers for the purchase of our September box. The box is normally $10, so in essence, the $5 discount is 50% off. How cool is that! Use the promo code: SKINNYJEANS and your purchase must be made by/or on August 31.
Cool giveaway!
For fun, we're going to do a cool giveaway. In the comments below, tell me what your favorite salad is which you'd love to spray with Gourme Mist. Five random lucky winners will get our September Love With Food Box, and three random winners will win a copy of my new book, "Back in Skinny Jeans," which will help you lose weight, and get back into your skinny jeans through tiny acts of healthiness!
Comments will be open today through tomorrow, 8/30, at 8pm PST. Comment to enter to win!
Simple Chart: Understanding The Numbers On The Label Of Your Produce
Here is a great simple chart explaining what the numbers on your produce mean.
Since I promote 80/20 plant-based eating here, I recommend you eat as much number 9's as possible, get your 3 and 4's, and avoid the 8's whenever possible.
image via @wearpact
Simple Meal: Teriyaki Salmon On Top of Red Quinoa + Brown Rice With Arugula Salad
Talk about protein packed meals. Not only do you get lots of protein in this dish, you also get Omega-3s with the salmon, and nutrient-packed arugula. Quinoa is protein-rich and is a complete protein, meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids. Here are the many health benefits of Quinoa.
At Costco, I found this Red Quinoa + Brown Rice blend by Village Harvest. This blend is great for those who are new to Quinoa yet familiar with brown rice. Cooking is simple. Just pop into microwave, heat, and eat.
For the salmon, I simply baked a 1-1/2 serving size piece (about 5.5 oz) with some Soy Vay Veri Veri Teriyaki sauce at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Next time, I'd like to try Soy Vay's Wasabi Teriyaki. That would be a nice kick!
The arugula is from bagged organic arugula from Trader Joe's. I simply massaged the arugula with some of Brianna's Blush Vinaigrette.
There you go, a simple, fast protein and nutrient rich meal.
5 Min Recipe: Vegan Broccoli Coleslaw
Coleslaw is one of my favorite BBQ side dishes. In my pre-eating wellness days, I used to love KFC's coleslaw because of the sweetness.
I have figured out a healthier way to make a similar coleslaw that is also vegan so I can eat it. The best part is that this recipe takes 5 minutes to make.
Ingredients:
- 1 bag of Trader Joe's Organic Broccoli slaw
- 1 cup sliced red cabbage
- 1 tbsp chopped red onion
- 1 tbsp Grapeseed Vegenaise
- 2 tbsp Brianna's Poppyseed Dressing
In a small bowl, mix the Vegenaise and Poppyseed dressing together.
In a bigger bowl, mix 2 cups of the brocccoli slaw, the red cabbage, the red onion, and the vegenaise/dressing blend all together until the vegetables are well covered with dressing.
Done!
