To goji or not to goji?
Hmmm, what a question! We now have access to many super powders, seeds, nuts and berries that guarantee you will lose 5kg’s in half an hour, and enjoy everlasting inner peace and eternal youth.
If only.
So, is it all a sham? Are they really worth the bank-breaking investment? Well my view is, if you do a bit of research into each of their health benefits and nutrient content, why not give your body the extra vitamin kick delivered from a natural source rather than a synthetic, fowl smelling pill?
“Let food be thy medicine”
Hippocrates said that in 460BC so it’s a notion that has been around for a while. Why not add a nutritional turbo booster to your favourite meal, smoothie or snack? If you buy them in bulk it can be cost-manageable too, you don’t have to go nuts (pardon the pun). It’s not hard to sprinkle a few chia seeds on your morning oats. They don’t even taste of anything and they pack a power punch of Omega 3 which, I’m reliably informed, is pretty good for your brain – and quite frankly, I need all the help I can get with my overworked head organ.
Stay Organised
So what else can we do to make it easy on ourselves? It is rather exhausting being so bloody healthy, but also just as much fun!
Back in my first post I mentioned that being organised is key to being a successful clean eater. This is probably a slight understatement. It has been much publicised that men think about sex every 7 seconds, well that’s probably how often I think about food.
Not necessarily eating but cooking, ingredients, recipes, researching, sourcing and shopping. If you think that’s a little excessive, well I guess it’s only the thing that keeps us alive and if you eat the good stuff, it also helps to keep us healthy. Of course procreation should be up there in terms of importance too but I have a feeling that’s not what the statistic about men is referring to.
Anyway, I’m with Hippocrates. He’s the man, shame it’s only taken 2500 years for people to listen to him.
Back to some tips for being a super organised super clean eater
Here it goes:
- Shop at Farmer’s Markets to buy fresh, organic sustainable produce
- When home from the markets, chop up vegetable and salad items and store in reusable containers
- Think at least two meals ahead at all times
- Keep a well-stocked pantry with clear labelling including emergency items such as wild Alaskan tinned salmon and Slim Pasta
- Bulk buy dried berries such as Goji and Inca and seeds such as Sunflower and Chia
- Try and keep a few hours set aside on Sundays to ‘prepare’ and plan meals for the week
- If you can, soak your grains, nuts, seeds and legumes overnight in filtered water ,with a little acid such as apple cider vinegar to ‘activate’ them to be used for lunch or dinner the next day. This sounds really poncy but it actually removes phytic acid, which is bad (just ask a Paleo)
- Multi task – use baking times to prepare other snacks such as seed crackers or no bake balls (link to last month’s article)
- Download clean eating apps or bookmark clean eating websites for ideas and inspiration
- Do not ever walk into a supermarket starving hungry, which means you need to take special note of points 3, 4 and 8
- Finally, if you are short on time or can’t get to a Farmer’s Market, you can order organic vegetables and pastured (grass fed and finished) meat online – you can even have them delivered!
So for a recipe this month, I am going to share one of my favourite wholefood chefs’ creations. Janella Purcell is a naturopath, nutritionist, wellness coach, author, environmentalist and TV presenter and these seed crackers are full of wholefood awesomeness.
Seed Crackers (that don’t break the bank!)
Seed Crackers made by Sally Harding
Ingredients
1 cup of water
1 cup mixed seeds like hemp, chia, sunflower, poppy and sesame seeds
Flax meal and pepitas.
Method
- Preheat oven to 100oC.
- In a mixing bowl combine the ingredients well, then season with 1/2 tsp good salt. Leave to sit for about 10-30 minutes to allow the chia and flax to get gooey. This holds the cracker together.
- Line a baking tray and using wet hands or a spatula, evenly flatten the mixture – getting right into the corners. Make it about .5cm thick. So really thin.
- Score into rectangles (whatever size you want them) and bake for an hour, then turn them over & bake for another hour. Then turn the oven off and let them cool in the oven.
Check out Janella’s recipe here: http://janellapurcell.com/2014/04/hemp-crackers-for-protein-week-these-litt/