Shop and Save -- Your Money AND Health!

Let your little ones help so they'll want to eat what you guys buy!

Grocery Shopping Tips

PLAN

Keep a running list of things you need to buy, so you don’t have to think of it all at once. Plan some meals or even just meal options, depending on what is on sale. For example, this week I will make Easy Eggplant Parmesan OR Vegetable Lasagna (recipe from the Engine 2 Diet), depending on what produce is on sale, or looks better. Be FLEXIBLE!

COUPONS

Surprise! Avoid COUPONS! Are coupons saving you money? Often, we buy coupon items we wouldn’t normally, never have before, or don’t actually need or want! Of course, use them if it’s something you DO normally eat, want, or need!

SCHEDULE

Shop on Wednesday nights to save the most! According to www.lifehacker.com many stores start sales on Wednesday, and still honor previous week’s sales. Stores often restock early in the week, so shelves are PLUMP on Wednesdays. EVENINGS offer less crowded aisles, shorter lines, and potential markdowns to get rid of excess! Ask your store about previous week’s sales, stocking days, rain checks, and other store rules (BOGO, etc).

WHOLE FOODS

Avoid packaged, prepared items. While they save valuable time, they often have a nutritional cost: added sugars, salts, and unhealthy fats, and reduced nutrients. Recently, I saw this product: hummus, crackers, dark chocolate, and dried fruit, all in one box. The price wasn’t even displayed! I bet it was at least four dollars!  You could certainly make it at home for under a dollar!

SAFE

Check dates on perishables. If food goes rotten it’s worth $0, or worse if it makes you sick! Frozen fruits and veggies are awesome since they are frozen at peak ripeness, and won’t go bad (easily). Just cook what you’ll eat during a given meal to retain maximal nutrients (repeated heating and cooling promotes bacterial growth). Check out We Gotta Chill! and Some Like it Hot!

BONUS: Look at items that are high and low, since the biggest companies can afford (yes, manufacturers actually buy space on grocery shelves!) to buy the eye level shelf space!  In the cereal and snack aisles, the most sought after level is kid-eye level. Sneaky companies!

More from me here: Sassy Shopping Tips!

PLUS
Check out Darya Rose's How to Get Started Eating Healthy: Seasonal Shopping and The 7 Essential Steps to Get Healthy and Lose Weight (a download at the bottom of the link).

The awesome blog called 100 Days of Real Food completed 100 Days on a Budget and here are Lisa's picks "best of" posts during that time. There are lots of super ideas and tips there!

Sally, another dietitian, writes the helpful and fun Real Mom Nutrition blog! She is changing the world of soccer snacks; I'll post about that some day! Check out her post Coupon Queen :)

This Dude is Awesome!

I love how science and research can answer many questions, and I base my nutrition, fitness, and wellness advice on hard data! Dr Michael Greger, MD, of www.nutritionfacts.org is AWESOME! Dr Greger concisely and visually convinces his viewers of the often fabulous benefits of whole foods, and also dispels harmful, and often all too common myths about health and nutrition.

Here are Dr Greger's more than 1500 health topics! Watch some videos and be motivated to make some changes! Enjoy! And thank you kindly, Dr Greger!

Beans are super-nutritious!

This video explains one more awesome benefit of BEANS!

Check out the awesomeness of dates (a key nutrient in many Laraball recipes!)!

Watch this one and I bet you'll start drinking a glass of water, first thing in the morning, as well as teaching the habit to each of your kiddos!

More on HYDRATION here :)

COMMENTS: What did you learn from one of Dr Greger's videos? There are so many that I still want to watch and learn from!

Fun Foods from Costco!

While WHOLE foods are always best, here are three awesome items from Costco!  
I'll share a bit about each, and nutrition labels are included too.

Delicious VEGGIE PATTIES!

• Heat in the microwave in less than a minute
• Remind me a lot of Indian samosas, a savory fried potato pastry!
• The first ingredient is spinach and their aren't a lot mysterious ingredients.
• To kids, they are kind of like nuggets!
• They are only 120 calories each with 5 grams of fiber!

Veggie Patch Mediterranean Spinach and Chickpea Patties

Tangy GRAPEFRUIT CUPS!

• Sweetened with grape juice, rather than sugar!
• 100 calories, and 4 grams of fiber!
• BONUS: did you know that grapefruit enhances the energizing effects of caffeine?!
• Note: remember to keep them in your fridge!

Kirkland Signature Red Grapefruit

Addicting CHOCOLATE-COVERED Pretzel Crisps!

• These rock!
• You get 5 crisps for one 130-calorie serving
• It would be wonderful if the pretzels were whole grain or you knew the percentage of cocoa in the chocolate, but really these are just a delicious treat!
• So it's a lesson on being picky about your treats -- finding things you really love and ENJOYING them!

We ENJOY these! For more on SAVORING, click HERE or HERE for the many benefits of chocolate!

Snack Factory Dark Chocolate Crunch Pretzel Crisps

 

Duck Tape to the Rescue!

This is a quick one about the latest DUCK TAPE miracle!

This photo is by Travis Kincaid Photography (www.traviskincaid.com)  Thank you Travis!

My grandpa who used Duck Tape for EVERYTHING would be so proud of my new trick! It provides protection from blisters, calluses, and other foot cuts during exercise, or anytime!

The SHORT of it:

Put some tape over any area that may become irritated and off you go!

The LONG of it:

I used to put several Band-Aids on my feet to avoid predictable CUTS during long runs wearing barefoot shoes (Vibram KSOs)  -- I'll spare you a pic! As soon as I came across the tape idea I had to try it! After a 16-mile run, I am happy to report completely unharmed feet! AMAZING!

Second successful use! After a 3-year hiatus from playing SOCCER (for good reasons, but boy have I missed it!), I finally jumping back in! I got blood blisters where I used to have CALLUSES. The next week, I applied some Duck Tape to the non-callused area, and viola, my feet were perfectly unharmed after 90 minutes of soccer!

I totally trust it will work, though I haven't tested this one. Makes me a tiny bit excited to get a BLISTER! Cut a piece of paper to cover the blister (so tape doesn't break blister) and then attach with Duck Tape. Apparently, this relieves blister pain immediately!

BONUS: you can make an agility latter with Duck Tape and save $50! Don't have enough pockets in your running shorts? Tape endurance gel packs wherever you want for a long run! Plus, 99 other ways to use duct tape from the Marine Corps Times!

BONUS BONUS: both names (duck and duct) are used, and have been for ages! Duct refers to its most common use as a sort of "tubing tape". Duck refers originally to the tape's water-resistance like on a duck's feet, and currently the brand of tape called DucK Tape (from Cleveland, OH!).

COMMENTS: What are your best duct tape uses? Do you ever use the color and patterned varieties? I once made some pretty red flowers with my daughters :) I stick to plain black for my feet, and save the interesting patterns for my kids!

Summertime Eggplant Pizza

This Eggplant Parm Pizza makes a wonderful meal, snack, or appetizer! Everybody loves it, and you can easily pack it for a family outing! Tastes great warm or cold!

Eggplant Parmesan Pizza

Prepare fresh-you Easy Eggplant Parm. Then, use prepared whole wheat pizza crust, such as Mama Mary's, Trader Joe's, or Boboli. OR make Basil Pizza Dough! (coming soon in another post)

Once you've cooked your eggplant for 45 min to an hour, remove from oven and cover pizza dough with eggplant, about 2-3 slices thick of eggplant. Use about half the pan off eggplant per pizza pie.

Follow baking instructions. OR for homemade dough, bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Basil dough recipe will make two pizzas.

Enjoy immediately hot, and leftovers cold!

The pizza dough replaces the pasta.

What a great meatless meal!

We love pizza!

Guacamole Pizza

Barbecue Pizza

Artichoke Pizza (coming soon)

Pesto Pizza

Fantastic Feelings From Forgiveness

What can reduce anxiety and increase happiness and PEACE? Surprise, it's forgiveness!

Here are some benefits straight from the Mayo Clinic:

• Healthier relationships
• Greater spiritual and psychological well-being
• Less anxiety, stress, and hostility
• Lower blood pressure
• Fewer Symptoms of depression
• Lower risk of alcohol and substance abuse

Forgiveness for inner peace.

What does it mean? LET GO of a resentment, grudge, or bitterness toward someone who has hurt you. You are NOT justifying actions.

Think of a resentment as a HEAVY ROCK pressing down on your chest. Imagine how wonderful it will feel to let that rock fall away from you. Holding on to a resentment is hurting YOU more than the other person, or certainly the situation which you resent.

Forgiving helps YOU feel better, inside and out!
Forgiving frees YOUR time.
Forgiving helps YOUR heart, health, and mind.

In fact, the Mayo Clinic even has an informative article all about forgiveness, including how to reach a state of forgiveness, and more!

Other habits that can help you in similar ways include:

Simplifying

Mindfulness 

Daily exercise

Meditation

Yoga

Nose breathing

BONUS QUOTE: Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it.  -- Mark Twain

Want to Lose Weight? Ice Cream Cone Awesomeness!

Ice cream cones are far from a whole food, void of nutrients, and lack even a bit of fiber! So what is so great about them?

Ice Cream Cones are an awesome tool for PORTION CONTROL and FUN (for kids, AND adults!), with a cost of very few calories!

Chocolate Covered Katie's Cherry Garcia!

Consider single serving cheeses (Babybel and Laughing Cow) and these cookie packets (Almond Addictives)! Similar to these products, you can have a "cone" of ice cream and be done! You can actually eat the "half-cup" serving suggested on food labels without it looking like a pea in a jar.

You can also use a SMALLER DISH for meals; you need less food to fill your plate -- fool yourself into satisfaction after eating less :)  Check out this video if you could use a laugh :)

Homemade ice cream is often very healthy, so you won't even have to worry about portion control!  No matter what, you're going to have very few ingredients, and it's likely that most ingredients will be very healthy :)

Chocolate Covered Katie and Melissa of My Whole Food Life have some great recipes! Yikes!  Check out Katie's Frozen Treats! and ice cream recipes under Melissa's Dessert Recipes!

Here is a machine you can try for making ice cream from fruit the Yonanas Ice Cream Treat Maker (also available at Target)!

Try raspberry sorbet! or make it with frozen mango!

Maybe some day I will get an ice cream maker!

If you're CHOOSING an ice cream to buy, look for few ingredients, look for wholesome sounding ingredients, choose something delicious, and just eat, ENJOY a half-cup serving in (or out of) a cone, and be done!  NO GUILT, please.

COMMENTS: What is your favorite part of summer?  You don't have to pick just one thing!  I love the warm weather, relaxing pool days, the beach!, less schedule, ...can't think of anything I DON'T like about summer!  Though it's not my favorite!  Fall wins, but it is a photo finish!  ...ok I'll stop :~ Your turn!

Homemade Peanut Butter! OMG! Why Did I Wait?!

We love peanut butter in my house, and why shouldn't we? It's nutritious AND delicious! This homemade peanut butter may be responsible for a name change to our food processor; it will now be called OUR NUT BUTTER MAKER!

Nut Butters are Neat-O! (some ideas of what to do with your PB!)

Crunchy Homemade Peanut Butter

Crunchy Homemade Peanut Butter

1 pound peanuts
3 dates (optional...adds a bit of sweetness)

Puree in food processor for three minutes or so, until you have peanut butter!  That's it!

I am going to give a big thank you to Melissa of My Whole Food Life (here is a link to some awesome blueberry jam with chia!) for her comments about just how easy this is! As I shared with her, I tried making peanut butter several years ago with a Vitamix and it didn't go well. This one experience, along with lots of time, led me to feel that making peanut (or almond, or cashew, or probably any kind of nut) butter would be so much more difficult than buying.

When I finally decided to go for it, I was astounded at how quickly I had MADE my own delicious peanut butter! It's just like (even MUCH better!) the kind you get from Whole Foods or Heinen's or at a Farmer's Market (we get Sirina's Almond Butter at Crocker Park in Westlake, OH)!

On the other hand, like LARABARS, I was reassured of the value of fresh-ground nut butters at most of these stores...it takes a lot (around a pound) of nuts to fill a pint-sized container. P.S. Our container IS ALREADY just about gone!

So, I will buy NO more peanut butter from Costco! The evolution of peanut butter from Costco has been disappointing :( Over the last 5 years, Costco has gone from offering Kirkland Organic Natural Peanut Butter (basically, nuts and salt, awesome!), to a non-organic Kirkland natural variety (such a bummer not to have organic!), to Skippy Natural (omits hydrogenated oils, adds sugar!), and yesterday, there was only traditional peanut butter (made with hydrogenated oils, i.e. TRANS FAT, and probably sugar!, and WHY is it even still on the market?!). YUCK!

Other simple food tasks that took me a while to try:

a) making bread (from a bread maker, for me!), and
b) using dried beans! Lucky Seven Sweet Things about Dried Beans, and More!

Sometimes, even though I KNOW how easy doing it may be, it still takes takes motivation to try something new! I guess we really are creatures of habit :)

COMMENTS: What food habit do you do now, but it took you a while to start?

Cool Off with Iced Green Tea!

Iced GREEN TEA is a wonderful way to cool off, HYDRATE, energize, and get HEALTHY!

I love the slow caffeine infusion that comes from green tea!
It's naturally lower in caffeine than other teas, so you have to drink more (better hydration!) to get more caffeine :)

It gives STEADY ENERGY ALL DAY!

For some caffeine comparison see chart below :)

This generally what I do with some notes!

Iced Green Tea

• Boil some water in a kettle.
• Wait a few minutes (green tea steeps and tastes best with hot, not boiling, water).
• I use the brand Costco carries (Kirkland Signature Ito En Matcha Blend) which gets super reviews from amazon.com for authenticity, which I think is lucky for me, and other Costco shoppers!)
• Add 4-6 tea bags to a mug of water to steep for 30 seconds! (another bit that's different for green tea).
• Most other teas are best with a steep time of around 3 min.
• Do not discard tea pouches.
• Prepare a pitcher of ice water, lots of ice, about a quart of water, AND the powder remaining in each of the tea bag pouches.
• Add hot tea to pitcher, and enjoy!

Update: An even easier way!

• Empty the powder from the tea pouch and the tea bag into a large cup - I find an old sauce jar makes a nice drinking glass; great to REUSE things!
• Fill the glass with 24oz cold water
• Your cold green tea will be ready shortly; I don't even set a timer, though it's one of the first things I do in the morning, so it's sitting there ready to drink. My son will often drink a cup if it is there! So, I usually make two each day.
• I drink it once, and then fill again with water, for a second weaker serving of green tea.

Click on image below for BENEFITS of GREEN TEA.

Caffeine is so helpful to our bodies in MANY WAYS! Here is a look at how much caffeine you get from different sources :)

Caffeine Content

RELATED POSTS
Wrinkle Free? Green Tea Please!
3 Bountiful Benefits of Coffee and Caffeine [and tea]
Hydration!
Lucky 7 Sipping Suggestions (tea is among these healthy drinking ideas)
Five Coffee Tricks [to decrease caffeine intake BESIDES switching to green tea!]

BONUS TIP from the Dr Oz Show: if you're interested in humidity, key in on DEW POINT (at 70 degrees or higher, it will feel really humid) during weather reports. Humidity is NOT the number to look for, since it varies quite a bit depending on temperature and precipitation. Therefore, there isn't an ideal percentage to hope for if you prefer less sticky days.  In Cleveland, OH, we're very familiar with sticky days!

Berry Berry Brownies

Who doesn't love BERRIES and BROWNIES? Well, actually, my hubby.  But I think he is in the minority! As you can see, I love this combo: All Things Chocolate and Berry! These are so yummy that I am having trouble catching them on camera! That's ok because they taste MUCH better than they look!

Berry Brownies

(Brownie Bites + strawberries)

1/2 c pecans

1/3 c dates

1/4 c unsweetened cocoa

dash of salt

4 fresh strawberries

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until it forms a "brownie batter" consistency. For each "brownie", just put a spoonful on a microwaveable dish and heat for 15 seconds. Hot berry brownie is ready to enjoy!

BONUS: your house will smell amazing!

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE these Laraball and fruit/veg combos: Sweetened Celery, Best Banana Bites, or Choco-Candy Apple Parfait!

Simple Spicy Slow Cooker Indian Chili

Here is a simple, healthy, vegetarian, TASTY option for when you're short on time in the kitchen!

Have you heard me go on about the amazing-ness of dried beans in the slow cooker?!

I love it for so MANY REASONS!

This dish can warm you up on a COLD SPRING DAY!

Simple Spicy Slow Cooker Indian Chili

1.5 cups dried beans, rinsed (I used adzuki beans) ...anything but kidney beans

1 large onion, chopped

1 jar Trader Joe's Masala Simmer Sauce

2 or 3 jar-fulls of water

Fill your slow cooker with all ingredients to cook on HIGH, overnight, or all day. If awake, stir occasionally, but no worries if you're asleep! When beans are soft, and the chili is at your desired thickness, fill up your bowl, and enjoy!

Might taste great with a dollop of plain Greek or regular non-dairy YOGURT swirled in, on top, or to the side!

Simple Spicy Slow Cooker Indian Chili delicious and wholesome with just the above listed ingredients! Plus, you can certainly add as many other veggies as you'd like!

Check out MASALA SIMMER SAUCE INGREDIENTS: tomato puree, tomatoes, light cream, onions, ginger, garlic, canola oil, lemon juice concentrate, sea salt, coriander, cumin, fenugreek leaves, turmeric, paprika, red pepper, cinnamon, cloves.

Not too bad for less than $3 and so much convenience!

BONUS TIP: ADZUKI beans have much MORE FIBER than most other beans that people eat today!

RELATED POSTS
Benefits of Kefir [and yogurt!] ...you could probably swirl some plain non-dairy kefir into this recipe!
BEANS!  Read here for a) benefits of dried beans, b) homemade refried beans, and c) dried-canned bean conversions
Trader Joe's Treasures (Indian simmering sauces are on the list!)
Other Healthy Packaged Indian Food

Plus, Dr Oz lists ADZUKI beans as one of 5 Cheapest Health Foods Under $1!

The New Nutella (Homemade)! YUM!

Nutella, oh Nutella, how you "seem" so very wholesome and healthy! Why does your first ingredient have to be sugar?!?! Well, here is a delicious solution!

Homemade Nutella!

This recipe came from www.mywholefoodlife.com -- THANK YOU Melissa!...with a little input from Chocolate Covered Katie's recipe!

Homemade Nutella!

3/4 c hazelnuts, toasted at 375 for 10 min

2 Tbsp date paste

2 Tbsp almond milk

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa

2 tsp vanilla

Combine everything in a food processor until smooth, and enjoy!  YUM!

Homemade Nutella

COMMENTS: How do you like your Nutella?  Toast, spoonfuls, on ice cream, in a tortilla?

3 Tasty, Cheap, and Nutritious Reasons to Stop at Gordon Food Service!

Greaaaat Gordon Foods! These are three products that make my trip to Gordon Food Service worthwhile! Each will save you lots of $$$$$$$$$!

Canned Roasted Red Peppers

I divide this huge quantity into smaller portions. I use for recipes such as: "Chicken" Artichoke Casserole! RED peppers have the most vitamin C of all the bell peppers!

(compared to green, yellow, and orange :)

Frozen Dark Tart Cherries

Another bright color -- those bright colors are very nutritious! They'll help you sleep! Frozen fruits and veggies are packaged at their perfectly ripened peak -- maximal nutrition!

Corn Tortillas

They are super thin, so one tortilla is only 35 CALORIES! There are definitely brands available with many fewer ingredients, but these are still great to have on hand. Plus, they freeze perfectly! ...handy since you get 120 of them! Try these Awesome Avocado Quesadillas!

COMMENTS: What are your favorite bargains from Gordon Food Service, or any other food store?!