Saturday, February 23, 2013

Heart Healthy Snacks

Love Yourself With
Heart Healthy Snacks

Eating for heart health is easy when you know a few tricks. This list includes easy, cheap, and delicious snacks that are healthful for your heart. They will all give you fiber, phytonutrients (plant nutrients), vitamins, minerals, and sustained lasting energy that will make you feel good now and keep your heart healthy for life.

1) Fruit is the ultimate fast food. It is loaded with fiber and phytonutrients that have multiple synergistic beneficial effects for the body.

2) Veggie sticks with peanut/almond/sunflower seed butter or hummus.

3) Avocado toast: Smash one avocado (loaded with heart healthy fats, potassium, and fiber) on a slice of whole wheat toast. Add a sprinkle of salt if you like. Enjoy!

4) Trail mix with potassium-rich raisins( Raisins have been shown to have a beneficial effect on blood pressure in research studies), walnuts (Omega-3 superstar), and fiber and mineral-rich seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, etc.

5) Kale chips! There are a plethora of recipes online for these tasty treats. Kale packs a huge nutritional punch delivering fiber, vitamins, minerals, and a satisfying crunch without the saturated or trans fat of chips. Kale truly is a superfood.

6) No-Bake Energy Balls (Simply Mix peanut butter, whole rolled oats, flax meal, honey, raisins, chopped nuts together and form into small balls. Place in fridge and grab when you need a quick energy boost. The oats are are high in fiber as are the raisins, and nuts. Flax meal provides a dose of heart-healthy Omega-3s, and honey is a natural sweetener) These are great when you need a sweeter treat that also contains fiber and lasting energy to sustain you.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Best Chocolate Shake EVER. *Dairy-free, Vegan, No Sugar Added


Best Chocolate Shake I Ever Had (Recipe)

**vegan, no sugar added, and dairy-free!

Backstory: I love me a good milkshake. But I don't do dairy anymore and I am trying to avoid added sugar as much as possible. I concocted this yesterday and I have to say that although it was healthy (just look at that ingredient list!), it was amazingly thick, frosty, rich, and delicious. Mmmmm, trying not to make it again right now is very hard. :)

This is for those times when you are craving a rich dessert. It is so hard for me to believe that this is actually healthy, too- but it is! Raw vegan cacao powder is high in iron, magnesium, and fiber. Almond milk is high in calcium. Cashews have protein, dates have fiber, flax has lignans and fiber, bananas have potassium...etc. Can you imagine seeing a side by side comparison between this and a McD's shake?

Best Chocolate Shake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 frozen banana
1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup ice
1/4 cup raw cashews
3 whole medjool dates
1 TBS Cacao powder
optional: 1 TBS flax meal

Directions: Blend in high speed blender and freak out on how amazing this is!