Flax joy

Another thing to add to your list to purchase while at your local bulk/health food store!  Flax. 

I add flax to most of the things I make, especially any of the breads or smoothies that I make, it has very high nutritional value and can benefit your life, and may even help you get those nutrients you currently think you need to take supplements to get! 

What is Flax?

Flax comes from a beautiful flower and is grown in Canada (yay!).  It is awesome because we can grow it in our temperate climate, and the cold weather here actually favors this nutritious crop! It contains healthy good fats that tend to be lacking in the general public diet, and has a lot of the up and coming healthy parts that are often suggested to be part of a diet that keeps you healthy and well. 

Omega-3, Protein & Fibres

 Omega-3, for those who don't know, is getting a lot of press in the nutrition field.  It has been attributed to many health benefits including heart disease reduction, aiding in prevention of diabetes, and the use of it for arthritis to reduce inflammation.  Omega-3 are indeed fats, but what makes them different from other other fats that you may be seeing in your ice cream or dairy, if that these fats cannot be made in the body, making them essential, we get them only from the diets.  

Our bodies are great wonderful systems that has an amazing ability to create what it needs from the foods we eat.  When we consume protein, it comes in the form of long chains, our body breaks it own and remakes it into what we need, this is true, somewhat, for fats too.  The exception though, is the Omega-3 & 6 fatty acids.  We get lots of omega-6 fatty acids in our diet, and the ratio between the amount of omega-3 and omega-6 is important to maintain to get the benefits (Having too much omega-6, like may people do, can be problematic for health issues).  Eggs, poultry, and wheat products contain omega-6 and ironically, this can cause inflammation problems, this would mean joint issues and more!  Omega-3 increase has been suggested and I know from watching Dr. Oz he sugggests taking a supplement containing the omega-3, I do not do this, because you cna get wonderful benefits from Flax!  Ground flax allows your body to take in the most benefits, including the omega-3.  

Protein is a wonderful thing to keep you feeling full, and are needed for the body, especially perhaps if you consume minimal animal products like I do.  Although protein is not a main amazingness of flax, it is a nice additional quality to increase the nutritional punch of this Canadian crop!

Fibre!  I have yet to do a post about fibre, but stay tuned!  It is a non-digestible carbohydrate and keeps your digestion system happy by helping to remove build up in the intestine, increasing stool excretion, making it a must have in your diet!

What to do with it!

Add it to many things!  This includes smoothies, and salads, and adding it to your breads and cereals too.  This helps to make sure that foods you like are giving you more than just taste.  

Here are a couple Recipes!

Zucchini Sweet Potato Flax Bread (modified from Finding Joy In My Kitchen)

2 C wheat flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 C applesauce

1 eggs

1 Tbsp of stevia powder

1 Tbsp of flax mixed with 1 Tbsp of water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C sweet potato puree
1 1/2 C shredded zucchini

3-5 Tbsp ground flax seeds

2-3 Tbsp of whole flax seeds and any other bread seeds, like sesame.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and make sure they are mixed well.

Next, mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and combine well.

All that is left to do is mix them together!  Mix until they are just combined, making sure you don’t over mix the batter.  Put it into a well-greased loaf pan.  Sprinkle extra seeds on top of the bread before putting it in the oven for 45-50 minutes (time may vary depending on the oven you use!)  It will be done when you can put in a wooden object like a toothpick and can remove it cleanly.

This bread turns out rather dark, more than I was expecting, but don’t get worried, it was still soft and fresh throughout the week.  I always make tomato and red pepper soup and this went so well with that! It was really tasty too when I toasted it and put some creamy butter on it.

Add flax to your smoothies!  Here is a super tasty interesting one I made up recently!

Chocolate fruit flax glory

Blend together:

Handful of Spinach

Handful of Kale

couple oranges

cup of berries, frozen

teaspoon of cacao

teaspoon of lemon juice

enough water to get it to your preferred consistency!

Blend this until you can blend no more!  Then, add in the flax, about a tablespoon, give yourself that extra nutritional kick to this already high fibre tasty morning treat! 

ENJOY YOUR FLAX PEOPLE!

 

update on changes!

I read a book by Kimberly Snyder when I came back from my reading week.  She is a clinical nutritionist and I decided I was going to learn more about my health and try to put together pieces of things I know to actually come up with a diet that will be good for my lifestyle!  I have also falling IN LOVE with Healthful Pursuit which is a blog composed by this Canadian holistic nutritionist!  She went to the school I plan on attending next spring, how awesome!  Her site it full of great ideas and best of all, her advice and knowledge fits in with anyone’s life and she has great recipes that will tempt anyone who doesn’t believe in being vegetarian or health foods!  Check it out for yourself!

One thing that seems to be in common with these two resources I have been looking through, is that it is important to respect your GI tract!  Digestion can cause problems for everyone, heart burn, upset stomach, gas, bloating, constipation.. etc, the list goes on, can all come from having poor digestion.   I have always thought I was lactose sensitive, saying lactose intolerant would be a bit too severe, so I have decided to remove most dairy form my diet and it has made a huge difference!  Another thing that has changed greatly for me is my breakfasts and my coffee consumption. 

Dairy!

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 I removed dairy by simply replacing my milk consumption with almond milk!  I made my own almond milk (see recipe below) and loved it, so did my boyfriend, which was another win!  I started buying it at the store to help cut some costs because it can be pricey to make enough to satisfy the great need I have for it now.   I gave my leftover yogurt to my boy too and he gobbled it up, he is a struggling college student so I felt it to be a nice gesture to give him some nice food that was better than him eating chips with his cereal!  I also have some cheese and I figured I couldn’t cut everything out right away completely, so I have been easing into it, once this block of cheese is gone though, that is it, no more cheese for me.  I have felt awesome too, I had some cheese the other day and felt awful after, so I think that not having it has been wonderful.

Of course this meant that I was struggling to get my calcium, so I am picking up a supplement this weekend to make sure I can have strong bones (ladies especially, this is super important and I will post on calcium later)!!

Nut Milk! (I have made almond milk!)

Ingredients

2 cups of  raw nuts

2.5 cups of water

Directions

Soak the nuts for at least 24 hours, this allows them to be easily blended.  Blend the soaked nuts with the 2.5 cups of water, make sure you are using fresh water.  When we soak nuts not only does it make them softer for blending, but this can make the enzymes more active (which is why we use raw nuts, blanched ones don’t have nearly as many health benefits) and removed tannins and other things which can cause unpleasant tastes.  Put the water and the nuts into a blender and pulverize the nuts until you get a pulp filled mixture.  Add more water if you like less intense taste, and you can also add stevia, which is a natural sweetener to your milk if you want to add sweetness. 

Remove from the blender and strain through a nut bag if possible, if not, feel free to use anything that has small enough holes for removing the pulp.  Use the pulp for another recipe or just composts it.  Enjoy your milk!  Yumm, you can add it to smoothies or any recipe as a milk replacement or just drink it up. 

Breakfast..

I have seriously changed my breakfast, I often find that I am so hungry in the mornings and generally, before my diet change, I had cereal each and every day!  This is okay but then I saw that I was not really able to get enough fruits and vegetables into my diet to get the amount that would keep me healthy!

My solution came from both, drinking delicious smoothies in the morning!  YUM!  This was awesome because I love smoothies and they are jammed full of vegetables and fruits and taste awesome!

Smoothies are super easy to make of course, you simply just need a blender and food!  Combining spinach with another lettuce and some cucumber or celery with an apple, pear and a banana, you can have wonderful healthy smoothies that will give you up to 3 servings of vegetables and fruit, what great way to start the day! 

Why a smoothie?  Well not only is it a great way to combine many different fruits and vegetables in a way other than a salad (for breakfast?), it is great because it allows your bodies digestion to start up nice and slowly without doing very much work.  Eating something that is hard to digest right when you wake up can start your body off the wrong way making it difficult to get digestion right for the rest of the day, it is kind of like stretching before a workout!

Smoothies are wonderful because you can make them taste however you want and change up the ingredients whenever depending on what you have left over or what may be going bad in your fridge!  I have roommates who dislike lots of noise in the morning so they can even be made before bed and then just shake them up before you want to eat them!

I love berries so much, so when frozen berries go on sale at the store, my dad (and me) stock up so I can survive with my yummy smoothies.  I often have two a day, and I change the content depending on how heavy a day I have eaten and also if I am going to the gym, if I am, I make the second one more hardy with a scoop of protein powder or extra seeds to give a kick of nutrition!

With the change in breakfast came a reduction in my coffee intake, now I must admit, when I go to classes on Tuesday and Thursday I do have a cup after my morning class, but every other day of the week  I have remained coffee free, as in I stopped making my own coffee at home!  There are many varying coffee views that should be saved for another blog entry!

Hints for smoothies!  Looking for good fats?  Try coconut oil or avocado, avocado is a great fat and has minimal taste especially when added to a smoothie or chocolate.  It also makes a wonderful creamy texture that can delight anyone!  To bulk up the nutritional content, you should always have a  fruit and vegetable in the smoothie.  Fruits are strong flavours so something like a bananas, can over power any other tastes of spinach you may not like.  Berries are great too, and instead of adding sweeter, add a fruit to give it a sweetness.  If you are craving more then just a sweet apple taste, dates are a great option. 

Don’t forget to use flax or chia or even hemp to beef up the content in your smoothie.  Incorporating these health explosion seeds can help make sure you are getting your omega 3s and chia has a bunch of other benefits.  Make sure to only add about a tablespoon, seeds can make your smoothie a bit gritty and can change texture if use too much making your smoothie harder to enjoy.  \

Be creative!  Think about your favorite flavours and make a healthy smoothie option.  Almond butter with banana and almond milk can make a yummy combination.  Adding cocoa can change the whole vibe of the dish too, just be careful as it is super strong, but when mixed with banana or strawberries, it can be heaven, healthy heaven!

Do you have any favourite smoothies you like to eat?  What goals have you made to change your health?

Got any suggestions for topics or questions? Comment and I will get back to you or make a post about it!