Real Food Friday Feast - Breakfast Smoothie

Doctors, dieticians and nutritionists have always maintained that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. While I think all meals are pretty important, I do agree that skipping breakfast leads to a lot more weight problems. I can't survive without breakfast. I open my eyes and my stomach literally yells for food;) But I struggled a bit with what to have for breakfast when I made a decision to cut out processed foods.

If you walk down the cereal aisle you are literally bombarded with every kind of cereal under the sun. The problem with those cereals is that 99% of them are loaded with sugar (usually GMO corn syrup), and ALL of them are grains with NO exceptions. They are rice-based, or maize-based or oat-based and the rest of the ingredients are sugar, sugar and more sugar, and then add a few of those nice coded foods that no-one understands like E61 and E500. I don't think that starting your day off with a carbo load of GMO grains and a whole bunch of other scientifically generated "foods", is a great way to start it.

I've cut most grains out of my life since I discovered they were largely responsible for my IBS flaring up. If I have them now, I'll make sure they're properly soaked and they must be organic obviously;) If you cut grains out of your life, that leaves very little for the "normal" breakfast options. I don't need to eat "normal" food so that doesn't bother me, but GLM is my little creature of habit and is not a fan of change;) There are some things she will go along with, but some things are just a no-go!

One breakfast meal that has always been a winner for her, however, is the breakfast smoothie. I have been making breakfast smoothies for years but, in the last year, the recipe has changed quite drastically. It used to be a very boring combination of banana, apple, almonds, protein shake and soya milk (Can't believe I bought into the propaganda and drank that poison! I'll blog on that at some point too but, take my word for it, avoid it. Especially if you are trying to have a baby. It's loaded with GMO and hormones.) So anyway, that smoothie was pretty average nutrition-wise but it didn't taste too bad.

Enter the organic, super, real food era and how things have changed;) GLM sometimes asks what happened to our "normal" smoothie? (Creature of habit;) You see, what I have realised is that a breakfast smoothie is the EASIEST and TASTIEST way to get most of your fruit and vegetable daily requirements into your body, in one go. Our breakfast smoothie has replaced our multivitamin because it is loaded with all the natural vitamins we need. It is a powerhouse of goodness all in one glass and it's so easy to make, and eat on the run. There are a lot of websites out there by people who have cured cancer with diet and most of them talk about smoothies and juicing. But these are not just any smoothies and juices, they are supercharged, power nutrition in a glass.

So I am going to give you my recipe, but please bear in mind that this is just ONE way to make it. You can add as much variety as you like, depending on your tastes. Don't be put off by the colour. That will depend on the colour of the food you use but it'll still taste amazing. The more different colours you use, the more nutrition you will get out of it. 

You will need a decent blender (a hand blender will work well too.) 

Power Breakfast Smoothie (feeds 2)

1 raw Banana (medium size)
1 raw baby marrow (medium size)
1 raw patty pan
2 tsp peeled ginger root (or just a nice size chunk)

4 Tbs paw paw
2 Tbs soaked organic chia seeds
1/4 avocado pear
2 tsp organic cocoa powder
4 eggs OR 2 eggs and 125ml organic plain yoghurt
2 Tbs dehydrated coconut
2 slices pineapple
Add water to get a nice consistency

Method

• Throw all ingredients into blender EXCEPT chia seeds, adding liquid last.
• Blend till smooth
• Pour into 2 separate glasses
• Add a tablespoon of chia seeds to each glass and mix in
• Drink!

As I said, these ingredients are not carved in stone. You can replace the fruits with other fruits and the veggies with other veggies. I recommend keeping the coconut, ginger, cocoa powder, avocado (it gives the smoothie a lovely, creamy consistency) and chia seeds, but play around with the rest depending on availability and taste preference. You CAN use milk instead of yogurt. Both are a good source of protein. You can even JUST use milk instead of the eggs. As long as you have some protein in there. Bear in mind that eggs are a GREAT source of nutrition (provided they are free range) and are NOT public enemy number one for those with high cholesterol as some people keep insisting. If you are a vegetarian you can leave out the eggs and milk and just use water but you will need a bit more protein in there so I would add a handful of properly soaked nuts and perhaps a scoop of vegetarian protein powder. 

Some of you may be wondering about chia seeds. These little seeds are like magic seeds;) They are so good for you! They contain your daily dose of Omegas all in one little tablespoon. You can buy them at dischem and all health shops as well. They look like this when they are dry:

And like this when you make them into gel:

Why would you want to make them into gel? Well, they go so much further and they're easier to work with. They are mostly tasteless little seeds but they are good for so many things. 

• Omega 3's - Help reduce inflammation, enhance cognitive performance and reduce high cholesterol
• Fibre - Reduces inflammation, lowers cholesterol and regulates bowel function
• Antioxidants - Help protect the body from free radicals, ageing and cancer
• Minerals - Two tablespoons of chia seeds contain 18% of the daily recommended intake for calcium, 35% for phosphorus, 24% for magnesium and about 50% for manganese
• Satiety - They make you feel full for longer
• They are gluten free
• They make a good egg replacer when baking for those who can't eat eggs
• Blood sugar regulation - They play an important role in regulating insulin levels and can reduce insulin resistance and decrease abnormally high levels of insulin in the blood.
• Raise energy levels

See why you would want to eat these? Making them into gel is really easy. Get a clean glass jar and place 3 tablespoons of seeds in the jar. Fill the jar up with filtered water, all the way to the top and stir with a fork. Leave for a few minutes and then stir again. You'll notice they will clump up a bit. That's because they absorb the water and start to swell. Leave for a bit and then stir again to break up the clumps. Eventually the jar will be filled with chia seed gel and no more clumps and then you simply add a tablespoon of those to each smoothie. You can add them to anything really. You won't notice the taste at all, but you'll feel the health benefits! And that jar will last a week or two in your fridge.

That's it! I recommend eating at least one of these smoothies a day, but you are welcome to have more!

Go on, eat that fat!

Winter seems like the worst time ever to try and overhaul your entire lifestyle, right? I disagree! And over the course of this post, I'll tell you why;)

If you were going to be following a "diet" where a meal consisted of 3 lettuce leaves, half a can of tuna and 5 almonds  then, yes, I'd say winter is a bad time to do that. In my opinion, ANYTIME is a bad time to do that! Winter is a time when all we want to do is hibernate, and EAT! You want soups and curries and stews and lots of hot, baked goods and snacky things and hot, sweet drinks. Sounds like a lot of things you can't eat if you are organic and healthy, doesn't it? Well, it's time we blew THAT mindset right out of the water!

Looks pretty fattening, right? WRONG!

I don't believe in diets. I don't believe in weighing your food and counting calories and depriving yourself of all the good things in life, just to lose a bit of body fat that will more than likely return the minute you start to eat "normally" again. Going organic and eating real food is not a diet, or a fad, or a quick fix to your fat loss issues. It's an entire mindset and lifestyle change. It's FOR LIFE. The fact that it has a sideline benefit of losing body fat is an added bonus, but it shouldn't be the only motivation or you probably will fall off the fruit box eventually.

I made a decision to start eating real, organic food about a year ago and it was just as winter started so I can vouch for winter being a good time to start the process;) I'd always considered myself to be very healthy up until then. As I mentioned in my first post, nutrition and health has always fascinated me. But, no matter how healthy I thought I was, my weight fluctuated and my stomach gave me grief a lot of the time. I was constantly on a learning curve and I loved learning but it was frustrating at times, knowing I wasn't quite getting it right!

WTF?!

Just over a year ago, a friend started mentioning organic and paleo eating to me. I knew nothing about all of that and so I decided to start researching it, as I do! I was astounded at how much information I found. It took me a few months to work my way through it and figure it all out for myself, but I began to realise just how wrong I had been for so long. There I was, dutifully cutting all the fat out of my diet, eating low fat this and fat free that, eating only egg whites, skinless chicken breasts, eating next to nothing, counting all my calories and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting it right.

Despite doing everything the "experts" told me to do, I still had to watch what I ate to avoid my body weight fluctuating too much and my stomach was still giving me grief despite me avoiding all the known aggravants.  I was also still catching every bug that came my way as well. I felt tired and unhealthy and permanently grumpy!

Blegh...

So basically, we have ascertained that I was NOT achieving my aim. It was time for a complete overhaul; a change in mindset and a change in lifestyle.

I'm not saying it was a fast process. I had spent the last 35 years of my life learning what to do and what not to do. Suddenly I felt like a child again because I had to start learning almost from scratch. 

Perhaps the hardest thing to get my head around was that I could eat fat! Now, most of us know that we need to eat some fat, like nuts and avocados and olive oil. But did you know your body also needs animal fat?

Altogether now... WHAAAAT?!

For decades, saturated fat has been utterly vilified. It's supposed to be the cause of obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol, it's been linked to cancer, it's a death sentence for diabetics and it's even been blamed for diabetes. It's pretty much to blame for EVERYTHING that humans have ever been afflicted with in the last 100 years. What's really interesting is that, in the last few decades, since scientists decided to blame all of these diseases on our saturated fat consumption, and told all of us to cut it out of our lives, all of those diseases have escalated to epic proportions. Even more interesting is that, while they were telling us to cut saturated fat out of our lives, they were telling us to start eating more grains, starches and vegetable oils. People started drinking skim milk and buying margarine by the truckload, instead of butter and yet they were still getting sick and gaining weight. It's no coincidence that heart disease has now become the number one killer, with cancer and diabetes running close seconds.

I'm going to blow your mind a bit now...

Saturated fat is NOT bad for you. In fact, it's ESSENTIAL for you. If you don't believe me, there is a lot of science behind it and if you are interested in the science, here is a great video that will give you all the stats. It's long and very thorough.

There is a BUT...

Unless you eat free range or organic saturated fat, you are not going to benefit from eating it. In fact, if you choose not to eat free range, it CAN be harmful. The reason why is because, animals that AREN'T allowed to range free and eat their natural food, are, quite literally, sick. These days, cattle are being fed huge piles of genetically modified grains because it's cheaper and it makes them grow big and fat so that they make the companies more money. They are also being injected with hormones to make them grow faster, and, because they are getting sick due to a shockingly bad diet, they are being pumped full of antibiotics. All of that bad stuff doesn't miraculously leave the cattle when they are slaughtered. So you end up with really poor quality meat full of hormones, antibiotics and disease from eating grain. Which means, if you have a grain intolerance, meat will not agree with you. Do I even need to spell out what the hormones and antibiotics are doing to you?

If the quality of your meat doesn't really bother you, how about what the poor cows go through? It's bad enough that their lives are going to be cut short so that we can have food on our table. Shouldn't we show our gratitude for such an amazing gift, by allowing them a happy, dignified short life? The same thing applies to every other animal who is kind enough to feed us.

Which life would YOU prefer? This?

Or this?

It's tough to get your head around isn't it? Eating fat... Boy did I struggle!

For christmas last year, I decided to roast a free range duck from Woolies and, because it was my first time ever, I had to turn to google to find out how to go about it! I had NO IDEA that a duck was so full of fat! Every method involved roasting it for many, many hours, poking it with a knife every few hours, to get rid of all the fat. By the time I was done, I had at least 1 cup full of duck fat, and a VERY small, skinny, crunchy duck. It didn't go very far on christmas day, needless to say!

2 months later, the cup of duck fat was still in my fridge... I knew I COULD eat it, but my mind just refused to allow it. I was SO brainwashed into believing it was bad for me. One day I finally broke through and I made myself a pot of popcorn using duck fat instead of oil. OH... MY... GREATNESS... It was the most delicious popcorn I have ever eaten! After that it wasn't hard to start cooking with it;)

These days I make my popcorn with raw farm butter or duck fat or even coconut oil, I cook things using all three as well. I (gasp) have butter on my banana bread! I drink a glass of full cream goat's milk every night (because I am lactose intolerant and can't digest cow's milk) I eat full cream goat's milk cheese, and full cream goat's milk yoghurt, DAILY. I eat egg yolks now too;) I never thought I'd see the day! I went about 15 years without eating butter and drinking milk! I honestly feel like I've died and gone to heaven;) And the interesting thing is, I have actually LOST body fat. I wasn't trying. That was just a side benefit of  going organic and free range AND eating fat again. I feel so energetic and healthy too; another side benefit.

So, back to why winter is a great time for a lifestyle change...

What could be better than a warm chicken curry full of delicious, healthy chicken fat, on a bed of brown rice, followed by a hot mug of organic hot chocolate sweetened with raw honey. (I'm not talking about the kind you get in a tin. I'm talking about a mug of organic hot milk with a chunk of dark chocolate melted into it. Have I got your attention now? How about a slice of warm banana bread smothered in a thick layer of butter? Still think you can't do this now?

That, my friends, is what eating real food is all about. It's about using all the real things that we were meant to eat, instead of going for the man-made, processed, canned and bottled rubbish that you find lining the shelves of all major grocery stores. The beauty of a lot of organic stuff is that it's actually not that hard to make yourself. So when they tell you how expensive it is, and how it's just "not do-able", don't believe it. I make my own yoghurt. It's so easy a child could do it. I make my own stock which I use to add flavour and goodness to all my stews, curries and soups. I grow my own vegetables. I save a fortune because I don't buy pre-packaged goods loaded with rubbish and, aside from saving money, our health has benefited.

This blog is going to be full of info to help you on your organic way, and it's going to include a lot of recipes and suggestions to save you money and make you healthier in the process. I get so excited just thinking about how much this will change your life for the better.

But that's enough for now. I'm off to make myself a mug of hot chocolate and eat a slice of my delicious homemade banana bread;)