Healthy Yogurt Popsicles

Photo credit: It's Your Life

For a while now I have been wanting to make some healthy Popsicles. I have been browsing recipes, and have seen a variety which include yogurt. Well, this is something else I want to make on my own, but can not get what I want to do so until next month. I had looked at a variety of stores for a yogurt that contained the most natural ingredients, and had a hard time with that. Finally I found Yotastic from Supervalu Inc, so today I made some homemade yogurt Popsicle.

I did find a recipe, but if you know me, I didn't use it except for the ingredients. The recipe I did find was very easy, 1 cup of plain yogurt and mixed seasonal fruits, 1 Tbsp organic honey. Okay the recipe did not call for organic honey, just honey, but I must say organic is so much better. I also used a mix of berries, I had purchased a bag of a three berry mixture from Sam's Club just for smoothies and juices.

I love that it was so easy to make, and I made just enough to fill my Popsicle holders, and a small cup for the hubby to try. You could easily use paper cups and a craft stick to make some, if you want to make more. While my boys are a little old for our Popsicle holders, I love that they have a built in straw, and so do they. Please do not ask me where I got them, I did not even know we had them until my 15 year old found them one day.

So, it said to let them sit in the freezer for 3 hours, we will see what happens.

Do you make homemade Popsicle?  If you do drop me a link for the recipe.

Aspartame

Photo credit:

My 15 year old is visiting his grandparents in Upper Michigan for a week. He has been calling me letting me know how things are going. The first call I got from him, he told me the only thing they had to drink, outside of water, contains aspartame. My children were taught at a young age that this sugar substitute is harmful, and we will not ingest it. Aspartame is used in the majority of sugar free foods, and drinks.

While I tried to educate someone else about the negative side effects of aspartame, a deaf ear was turned on me. I get this actually very often, especially when I start talking about mercury poisoning. Why is it that people do not want to know the truth about what is being done to us by those who are supposed to be protecting us?

Back to aspartame, the ingredient which causes all the damage is called methanol. Methanol is used for the following: industrial solvent for inks, resins, adhesives, and dyes, antifreeze, an ingredient of gasoline, fuel for picnic stoves, an ingredient in paint and varnish removers, an alternative motor fuel, a solvent in the manufacture of cholesterol, streptomycin, vitamins, hormones, and other pharmaceuticals,  Wow!!! The same stuff contained in paint, antifreeze, and gasoline is not only contained in the majority of sugar free products, but also in vitamins, and pharmaceuticals. Gee makes me think someone wants us all dead.

Want to see what it can do to you? I retrieved this list from a government site, that is right a government site.

Symptoms may include:

• Airway and lungs
  • Breathing difficulty
  • No breathing
• Eyes
  • Blindness
  • Blurred vision
  • Dilation of the pupils
• Heart and blood
  • Convulsions
  • Low blood pressure
• Nervous system
  • Agitated behavior
  • Coma
  • Dizziness
  • Headache
  • Seizures
• Skin and nails
  • Bluish-colored lips and fingernails
• Stomach and intestines
  • Abdominal pain (severe)
  • Diarrhea
  • Liver function problems
  • Nausea
  • Pancreatitis
  • Vomiting
• Other
  • Fatigue
  • Leg cramps
  • Weakness
  
  

  Aspartame is, by Far, the Most Dangerous Substance on the Market that is Added To Foods 

   The Aspartame Poisoning Conspiracy

   On the link above there are too many articles on the topic to ignore. Oh and I recently found out that the big food industry got them selves involved in the organic world and have something worse than aspartame, called neotame. Educate your selves, but except for a handful of individuals like myself and others the government and other offices will not.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Lemon Water

Photo credit: Tumbler dot com

Okay it is confession time, I love pop, there I said, the most unhealthy beverage in the world. You would think once I found out it takes 30 gallons of water to wash out all the toxins from pop, I would stop drinking it. Nope, I do not drink coffee, and for me there is nothing better first thing in the morning than a cold cup of bubbling pop goodness. However, I can drink it all day long, and that is not good.

Water, water, water, you hear it all the time, and I know it is true, and everything about it, but I do not like water, I do not like it Sam I am. I know I need to drink it, and more of it. So, I bought a new pitcher, and dedicated it to lemon water, Water is bland, and I don't care what they say, leaves me feeling empty. But add some lemons to it, and it tastes cool, and refreshing.

Plus there are a lot of health benefits to drinking lemon water. Not only do I get the water my body needs, but it gets a whole lot more also. Here is a list of the benefits your body and mine receives from drinking lemon water.

Cleanse your system

Aids in various stomach issues

Stimulates the liver

Aids in weight loss

Builds the immune system up

Great for the skin

Great for your teeth, rub on bleeding gums to stop bleeding, or tooth ache for pain relief

Aids in controlling high blood pressure

Good for the respiratory system

Reduces fever

Great for sore throats

Natural blood purifier

Blood sugar stabilizer

Fights bad breath

Helps rheumatism
 
Regulates the metabolism and absorbs sugar

Aids in the absorption of calcium

Natural diuretic 

Full of vitamin C
 

It is said that drinking a warm glass of lemon juice first thing in the morning is a great way to start the day, and aids in the weight loss process. While drinking warm lemon water appears to be the best way to drink it, I like it cold, very cold.

My pitcher holds one gallon, if you can find organic lemons great for you. I get mine at the local produce store, be sure to take a vegetable brush and scrub under hot water to remove any pesticides. I like to use the whole lemon in my water, I feel you get more of the vitamins and minerals which are also contained in the rind. I wash two lemons and slice them up, stick them in the water, add some ice, and into the fridge it goes. When I drink it I add ice to my cup, I am so glad I received this revelation, now I am drinking water.

 So, when life hands you lemons, skip the lemonade and make lemon water.

If you drink lemon water, what health benefits have you seen?
After reading this will join me in drinking lemon water?

 

Crock Pot Cooking

Photo credit: Bed Bath and Beyond

I love my crock pot, especially down here in Louisiana where cold weather nearly exists. Yesterday my husband was going to bake some chicken, but decided to use the crock pot instead. We recently purchased a new crock pot from Bed Bath and Beyond. You see we used the other one so much it was falling apart, although it did still work.

Before we had a round one which made it a little difficult to stuff a nice roast or whole chicken in. We wanted an oval one along with one that had a touch features, was stainless steel and had a timer. After searching we decided on the Crock Pot Stainless Steel 6 Quart Countdown Oval Slow Cooker with Dipper, which we have not used to date.

 I also purchased one for daughter's birthday, which just passed. She has PCOS, Polycystic ovary syndrome, which causes her to be tired along with carrying some extra weight. Trying to eat healthy has been a struggle for her, so when she said she wanted to start cooking from scratch to get healthy I knew she was setting her self up to fail. Cooking from scratch takes time, she works a lot and with PCOS I knew she would quickly go back to fast food or frozen foods. With a crock pot she can just throw whatever she wants in there set the timer, go off to work, and come home to a healthy home cooked meal.

Photo credit: Cooking dot com

The up points are she can do like I did with the chicken, love chicken so versatile. First off I saved the broth, many vitamins and nutrients get left behind when boiling or slow cooking. I have a set metal strainer I use to get out anything I might not want. In this case I knew I was going to use the broth with chicken, so there really was nothing to strain, it was all boneless, skinless chicken breast.

Photo credit: It's Your Life

So, my husband used some of the chicken for his lunch combining it with brown rice and cauliflower, my 15 year old ate some by it self, I made a gravy with the broth, and put over some of the chicken and cauliflower, and I made the 15 year old an omelet with the chicken and three Mexican cheese, see recipes. My husband will use the gravy over the same lunch combination tomorrow.

So, all together we have gotten four meals out of eat, plus the one for tomorrow, and there will still be chicken, and broth left. Yes, we could have done the same thing in the oven, but the house would have been hotter than it already is. Plus the chicken has more flavor when done in the crock pot because it is submerged in the water and seasonings.

Some crock pot recipes I would like to make.

10 Easy Breakfast Crock Pot Recipes 

3 Summer Crock Pot Recipes I'm interested in the bread


Homemade Crock Pot Yogurt I will be changing some ingredients

Juicing

Photo credit: It's Your Life

Juicing is a great way to make sure you are getting all the vitamins and nutrition you need from vegetables and fruits. While I do eat vegetables, I hardly eat any fruit, not because I don't like it, I just don't.To be honest I am a total carnivore, I have to have my meat which is either fish, chicken, or turkey. However, I must admit I do love a good steak now and then.

One day at the gym I saw Montel Williams on the TV talking about his Health Master, which creates both hot and cold foods. Anyway I had heard about juicing, but watching him throw all these vegetables and fruits into the machine, and come out with an awesome drink intrigued me. I also learned that Montel dealt with MS, and it was his motivation for juicing. I decided that while I am a totally meat eater I do need more vitamins that I can only get from vegetables and fruits.

So, I decided to create my first juice, I used two fruits, and two vegetables. I felt this was a good balance, so some spinach leaves, a cucumber, some honey dew melon, and a golden delicious apple were my choices. Now I don't have a heavy duty blender like Montel's just any every day blender. I knew I was going to have to use smaller pieces of apple, so I cut cored it, and cut it up, adding it little by little, so I would not overwhelm my blender.

I did it a beautiful green juice which tasted very much like cucumber, which I love, but my husband did not. I also created another juice using tomatoes, spinach leaves, and a mix of frozen berries I purchased at Sam's club. The tomato was very predominant in the taste, so I need to experiment some to find the right combination of vegetables.I want to add that I did add some ice to the first juice I made, and also that I need to work on serving size, so none of it goes to waste. 

Not only is juicing very healthy for you, but a great way to get those vitamins you might be missing out on all in one drink.  It is also a great way to help regulate your bowel movements if this is an issue. Plus kids love them too, great way to get those veggies and fruits into a picky eater.

Are you a juicer? What health benefits have you seen?

Share your favorite juicing recipe, I would love to try it, and blog on it.

Free Stuff 4 Your Health

Photo credit: Serious Seats

I want to make homemade yogurt, but every thing I see you need actual yogurt to get started. While I was searching around I found this site called "Cultures for Health." If you sign up for their newsletter you can get three free ebooks for making yogurt, kefir, and kombucha.

Okay sooooo I know what yogurt is, but what is kefir, and kombucha? After reading through the ebooks on the two, it turns out that kefir is similar to yogurt, but more probiotic. Kombucha is a combination of bacterias and yeasts which has been used to make an elixir for years. It is said to have many health benefits, others may say otherwise, which is always the case.

I also visited another site called "Body Ecology," where I was able to obtain a free audio book on probiotics. Further research of probiotics lead me to Dr. Mercola's site, which further explains about fermented foods like those mentioned above, and probiotics along with supplements.

I have learned that in order to make yogurt, kefir and kombucha, you need to have a cultural starter. A cultural starter is needed when first making the homemade fermented foods, once that is done you can use a portion of the finished product to make the next batch.

The Liver & Eyes

Photo credit: Natural Healing with Herbs

I have been researching today on herbs for healthier eyes, but learned a lot more than I bargained for. I have worn glasses/contacts since I was in third grade, but within the last three years I have noticed changes. Thus was my reason for seeking out herbs for the eyes.

If you have eye problems it could be because your liver is unable to do it's job. There are three types of issues some individuals may experience with their eyes, liver blood deficiency, liver heat, or internal liver wind. All three of these play a role with our vision.

Liver blood deficiency - blurry vision, myopia, floaters, color blindness, or dry eyes. Liver blood deficiency is believed to be caused by anemia, or scarring of the liver which reduces the blood flow through the liver.

Liver heat - Believed to be caused by a local inflammation can cause eyes to be blood shot, painful or burning sensation.

Internal liver wind - May cause eye balls to turn upwards and move involuntarily. The medical proffesion believes this can be associated with those who experience high blood pressure and/or high levels of emotional stress.

I found a great list for the Top Herbs for Vision and Eye Health however, a closer look at each of these herbs shows they may not be for everyone. While they may all be great for our vision some of them are also a diuretics, appetite stimulants, and the majority of the antioxidants I have found are known to relieve constipation and/or cause diarrhea. Personally I believe this is to aid in eliminating the toxins which are in our bodies. My personal suggestion is to start slow when detoxifying.

One article I read was from an individual who had a hormonal issues, when she used certain herbs they had a negative effect on this. While I seek to educate you I also seek to educate my self further on this topic. I will blog some time this week about the herbs mentioned on the site above, or you can do it your self and hopefully you will share your findings with the rest of us.

Printable Recipes

Photo credit: It's Your Life

I have learned how to make my recipes printable, so no more copy and paste. Just go to the recipe section, and at the top of each recipe there is a link for printable version, just click and print.

While I found information for doing this two different ways I opted for a Google web site, because I thought it would be the easiest. Well, it would have been had the bloggers given all of the instructions needed to be able to make a nice print out of the recipe. Instead I had to play with it. Not being a techy at all this was a little time consuming, more because I was not familiar with using Google's sites.

So, if you want to know how to do it, just go to Google, click more or sites, create new site, use the blank template. After that go to the More button, and click on page settings, unchecking all the boxes will remove the page title and other buttons from the left side of the page. Don't forget to save after each step, I have not figured out how to remove the buttons on the bottom, but do not feel like it is a big issue.You will need to uncheck the boxes each time you create a new page, so don't forget that. Check the site as you go along by going to the More button and clicking on Preview page as a viewer, this allows you to see what your visitors will see.

You can now create a new page, this will be done for each recipe, you will be able to see all of the items when you click edit sidebar, and than pages. So, if you want to delete something or add to it you can. Oh you also do not want to forget to put your web address at the bottom of the recipe so if someone forgets where they got it from, it is right there.

So, now all you have to do is link the recipe page to your blog or web site. Go back to the more button and click on Preview page as viewer, copy the link than paste it on to your blog or web site.