My Idea of Happiness

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Unjunk Your Kid's Lunch Box: FREE eBook!

Hey friends! It's almost halfway through October: does that scare anyone else? (Scare... Halloween... no pun intended.)

For the parents of school-aged kids out there you're probably already on the edge of lunch packing boredom/psychosis. My little ones are only 2 yrs old & 6 month in-utero, and I already feel the lunch packing blues just from myself and the occasional lending of help to my husband.

The fact is: healthy school lunches are really important. Just ask Jamie Oliver. No really: I don't even want to give you more information about his passion - you should look it up yourself. He's an inspiration.

If you have the time (and desire to save money) to pack your children's lunches instead of having them buy them - you rock! And their nutrition will be better for it! Packed lunches are a better choice... most of the time.

We all know if school lunches are filled with packaged foods, loaded with garbage chemicals, they aren't much healthier than meat-surprise and slop in a caf. So here's an amazing resource to make your lunch packing skills healthy & top notch.

The amazing people (Andrea Donsky and Lisa Tsakos) at Naturally Savvy who brought you Unjunk your Junk Food (read my review here) now have a FREE eBook all about packing healthy school lunches. It's called Label Lessons: How to Unjunk your Kid's Lunch Box. From what ingredients to avoid on labels to which bread you should buy for sandwiches - it has it all!

Best of all: everytime someone reads it, $1 will be donated to the Holistic Moms Network which generates awareness, education and support for holistic/green parenting! Sweet!

Not to mention the book is full of printable coupons for the very foods you're learning about in it. Love that - just need new ink in my printer.

I totally suggest going to this link today and reading the book/ getting the coupons/ supporting an amazing cause.

Labels: book review, books, ebook, free, healthy, kids, lunch, nutrition, school, school lunches, school-age

Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Raw Food Diet

There are so many benefits to eating raw food. In fact, some people eat only raw food.

It sounds hard - and it absolutely can be - but you can actually eat more than you think. All seeds, nuts and fruits and most vegetables can be eaten raw. Whole grains can be soaked and sprouted, which gives added nutritional benefits. If you choose the right eggs, fish and meat they can be too. And there`s even raw milk (as well as cheese and yogurt) but you may need to break a few laws to get it. (Follow raw milk activist/farmer, Michael Schmidt's journey here.)

^{You can make alfredo sauce, cheesecake and so much more. It just takes a little learning -- and maybe the purchasing of some new equipment:}

^{A dehydrator cooks food at a temperature so low it's still considered uncooked. It takes a long time but the result is anything from meat jerky to crispy kale chips to delicious apple leather. As long as the food stays until 40 degrees - it's considered raw!}

^{A Vita-mix is the Cadillac of blenders and will help you to make raw soup, homemade nut milks and so much more.}

^{The main benefit is to digestion and nutrient absorption (which in turn benefits everything in your body) because the food's enzymes and healthy bacteria are left in tact. As well, these foods typically do not contain added preservatives or toxins, including the toxins that are created when you heat food, like oil.}

^{The foods typically included in a raw food diet are so inherently healthy (pasta made of zucchini, vegetable juices) that you can eat what you want and feel good about it.}

^{If you're looking to start a raw diet, I recommend trying to eat 75% raw, 25% usual for the first while to get used to it.}

^{There are tons of blogs that you can get RAWesome in no time. Here are my favourites:}
^{My pal, Raw Judita}
^{http://rawjudita.com/}
^{http://www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com/}
^{http://www.choosingraw.com/}
^{http://rawfullyorganic.com/blog/}
^{http://www.therawchef.com/blog/}
^{http://crazysexylife.com/}
^{http://giveittomeraw.com/}
^{http://www.juliesrawambition.com/}
^{http://www.rawmazing.com/}
^{http://thesunnyrawkitchen.blogspot.com/}
^{http://www.rawon10.com/}
^{http://rawloulou.blogspot.com/}
^{http://www.rawfamily.com/}

^{Also, read anything by David Wolfe. He's the man.}

^{Lastly, some awesome recipes to get you started:}