Everything works better when you drink enough water: your brain, your heart, your skin, your immune system, your liver, etc. It’s easier to make hydration a habit if you make it beautiful and delicious, too. Try a few of these flavor combos, and let me know what you think! 
Healthy Vitality
Because you want to squeeze every bit of vitality you can out of the one-and-only body you get in this lifetime! 
The Problem with “Moderation”
I’ve lost count of how many times people (not the healthy ones), have tried to dismiss health information by saying, “I just believe in moderation,” or “everything in moderation.” The problem with “moderation” is that what is considered “moderate” keeps getting pushed farther and farther out by our food marketers, whose job it is to sell us more and more food. (And don’t even get me started with the “everything” in “everything in moderation” – really, poisons, too?) I don’t need to say much here – the numbers from the USDA, below, tell the story.
EAT your labels!
Food labels are a hot topic – nutritionists and the FDA urge us to read them, know the ingredients, and use that knowledge to make healthy choices. But who (other than food scientists) actually knows what common ingredients like Sodium Benzoate (linked to thyroid damage) or Butylated Hydroxyanisole (serious endocrine disrupter) actually are, anyway? And as reported by the Journal of Food Additives and Contaminents, over 175 damaging chemicals are found in food packaging itself – many transferring into foods while on the shelf.
Instead, avoid foods with labels altogether, and instead choose organic foods with edible labels :-).
SO many things are more fun to count than calories …
And when you count enough servings of fresh fruits, veggies, herbs, and spices, you really don’t need to count calories!
Bold Winter Greens Salad
Bold Winter Greens Salad
This bold winter salad pairs well with hearty but simple winter soups like white bean, or veggie chilis. I usually find myself going back for second and third helpings – and it actually holds well in the fridge as well – so I make a LOT of this salad at a time.
Dressing:
1/3 C tablespoons olive oil
1/4 C tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon raw honey (or regular if raw is not available)
1 tablespoon oregano, dried
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black peppercorns
Vegetables/Fruits:
4 – 6 collard leaves, trimmed and finely chopped
1 bunch kale, with stems removed, then rolled (like a cigar) and thinly sliced into ribbons
1 head romaine lettuce, diced
1/4 small head red cabbage, diced
Optional: other winter greens, like escarole, chicory, or endive, sliced
1 apple, cored and thinly sliced – no need to peel
1/2 yellow onion, finely diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
1 avocado – peeled, pitted, and diced
1 large carrot, sliced horizontally using vegetable peeler
Optional: walnuts, crushed
Directions
Mix all dressing ingredients in a mason jar or similar, shake well, and sit aside to let flavors blend. Salt can be reduced a bit if needed, but not eliminated entirely, or the ingredients will not mix properly.
Chop all vegetables per ingredient instructions. This salad is MUCH better if the thicker greens, like collard and kale, are properly prepared by being thinly sliced!
Place all veggies in a large bowl, and toss with about half of the dressing. Let sit for at least 15 minutes, and then serve with remaining dressing added to taste. Top with walnuts, if desired.
Healing Herbs and Spices
Check out the fabulous health benefits associated with these healing herbs and spices! Of course, never discontinue use of medications without conferring with your doctor, but do help your body stay healthy and strong through the bounty of nature. For myself, I’ve learned that mixing clove and sage oils into coconut oil as a mouth-healthy “mouthwash” for oil pulling keeps tooth decay at bay – I’ve had no cavities for years, after decades of tough dentist visits!
Let me know what you find in your experience!
Healthy Food Pyramid
Found this and LOVE it … can’t find the original post so don’t know how to credit it (please let me know if it’s yours, and I’ll add the credit!). Anyway, this is MUCH better than the other pyramids around that put processed foods and processed sugars in, as if they are necessary/desirable parts of a diet!
Instead, eat this way – as much as you like – and you’ll be overwhelmed with the health and vibrant energy you’ll enjoy!
For Lasting Health: Change “Default” Eating Behavior the Easy Way
Article reposted with the permission of the author.
Jennifer Silverberg, owner of the popular Facebook page and healthy eating blog, Eat Yourself Well, has spent years inspiring others to make healthy lifestyle changes. As our guest today, she identifies the biggest barrier to change, and the key to breaking through the barrier and creating successful, stress-free long-term health.
“Our culture makes unhealthy decisions the easy, ‘default’ choice, virtually 24/7,” she says. “That means that most people, when they’re hungry, have to navigate around at least a dozen junk food opportunities before they get to a good choice. That is a tremendous strain on your willpower, at the times where you are most vulnerable. Food marketers take full advantage of this.”
Jennifer says that the key to successfully building new, healthy habits is deliberately creating a space where you make healthy habits the “default,” easy choices. “I like to think of it as an arms-reach life preserver floating around my clients, made up of real food choices that support their health,” she says.
This requires a little pre-planning, and offers the following three top tips.
1. “Think of the places where you spend the most time, particularly the spots where you are when you become hungry, or bored: your desk, your bedroom, your car. Make sure that the easiest foods for you to get to in these places are the ones that you want yourself to choose.”
2. “If meals are a hassle, and you find yourself ‘making do’ with last-minute pizza delivery or similar, consider meal services that deliver fully-cooked, healthy meals to your home. For one to three weeks, put the ‘what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner’ choice in the hands of an expert. But don’t compromise with fake packaged foods, insist on real food beautifully prepared,” she says. She recommends services like Real Food Works, a healthy meal delivery service out of Philadelphia.
3. Use the marketer’s trick in reverse: Make it least convenient to get the foods you least want yourself to choose. Rather than making foods “off-limits” and thereby turning them into obsessions (yes, we’ve all done that), Jennifer recommends “leaving the ice cream at the grocery store, so it’s always a car ride away.” You may find yourself “settling up” for a little plain yogurt with some fruit instead.
Think about the 4-6 “life preserver” changes you can make this week, to make healthy eating easier than making poor choices. Let us know what changes made the biggest difference, in the comments below.
Jennifer Silverberg, Eat Yourself Well
Jennifer has over 20 years experience as a Marketing executive, consultant and entrepreneur across multiple industries including adult and child nutrition, packaged foods, and much more. Her experience has given her unique insights into the methods used by food marketers and other influencers to erode the very meaning of the word “food” … resulting in blind consumer acceptance of what constitutes an “acceptable,” or “normal” diet, and “acceptable” or “normal” health. Today, she turns those principles on their heads to help clients regain vibrant health as easily and naturally as they once gained weight. Jennifer’s dream: that one day it will be as socially unacceptable to give a child lab-created-sugar-and-chemically-filled-junk-food as it is today to hand them a cigarette.
The Most Delicious Anti-Inflammatory Herbs and Spices
Inflammation is healthy when it’s a response to a specific threat – it’s the body’s healing response to injuries and some illnesses. But our modern diets and lifestyles introduce persistent stressors, including emotional stress, environmental toxins, and foodborne chemicals, that can keep our bodies chronically inflamed.
Chronic inflammation is increasingly being implicated in studies as the root cause of many serious illnesses – including heart disease, many cancers, memory diseases like Alzheimers, and autoimmune diseases … as well as being seriously taxing on our energy levels and mood.
A diet rich in fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables, especially when combined with anti-inflammatory herbs and spices like the ones shown above, can help heal your body, and help it preserve your inflammation response for those times when it is needed to fight specific, acute, stressors like injuries.
And – it’s a delicious way to eat … notice that you have all the spices for a pumpkin pie in this chart! Need a recipe? Try this one: Pumpkin Pie Baked in the Pumpkin.
