Can you believe it’s already 2014? I swear the years seem to be flying by faster the older I get.
The great thing I love about the New Year is that feeling of having a fresh slate, from which you can devise a whole new set of goals and resolutions to launch into. Now before you get too hard on yourself and write a list of 50 things you ‘need’ to get done in 2014, why not just pick 5 key areas that you want to improve. One might be your health, one might be trying to incorporate more plant-based food in your diet and less animal products, one might be reducing, reusing and recycling things to lessen your impact on our environment, or making more time for family and friends.
To get the creative juices flowing, I wanted to share with you today 10 of our most popular articles and recipes from the past 12 months. They’re sure to inspire you with some great ideas for your positive goals for 2014.
Top 3 Reasons You Should Switch To Organic Now
I never used to buy organic. Too expensive, too hard to find, too time-consuming. Why would I need to anyway, weren’t normal products perfectly safe and fine?
I’d toddle off to the fruit and vege section of the supermarket and not think twice about whether there had been chemicals sprayed on the produce. I wouldn’t even wash my veges when I got home (not enough time, again). And i’d slap on any old moisturiser as long as there was a promise of me looking like Miranda Kerr the next morning. I was totally unaware.
I modelled this Raw Carrot Cake on a delicious one I tried at one of my favourite raw plant-based cafes in Auckland. There’s nothing quite like a delicious moist carrot cake with a lemony cream cheese icing. However if you’re reducing the amount of animal products in your diet, such a cake ordinarily comes with a stack load of butter, eggs, and cream cheese (mmm, cream cheese…).
Goji berries are one of my favourite superfoods. They’ve been used for over 5000 years in Chinese medicine to boost vital life-force or “chi” energy. I’ve whipped these out in front of Chinese friends before, and every time am greeted with a smile of delight and surprise.
One thing you may not know about me, is just over a year and a half ago I got diagnosed with Graves disease. Graves is an autoimmune disease, where the immune system attacks itself and causes the thyroid gland (a small butterfly shaped organ in front of your throat) to enlarge and become overactive, or “hyperthyroid”. It’s also an endocrine/hormonal disease, as the thyroid controls the hormonal system (hard to imagine given it’s up by your throat).
This is the most delicious alternative to yoghurt or cream. Once I decided to try wean myself off dairy somewhat after learning the plight of the dairy cow, there was a rather large gaping hole in my food repertoire. Thankfully, I recently whipped together this recipe which is an absolutely superb substitute for greek yoghurt, regular yoghurt, thick cream, pouring cream, mascarpone, creme anglais, even milk.
Summer is just around the corner here in the Southern Hemisphere. Which means legs and arms are being bared, bikinis and swimmers are being dusted off, and the beaches are starting to pad out on the weekends. So I thought it perfect timing to share with you ten of my top tips for making sure you’ve got your best ever super sexy, but also safe and healthy, summer skin.
This is a delicious raw dessert to whip together for a shared lunch or dinner. I love to have something sweet like this or my bliss balls in the freezer at all times, to have for dessert with a cup of herbal camomile/sleep tea. Raw, organic, dairy free, vegan, paleo, gluten free… it doesn’t get much better than this! Good for your body and good for your soul too.
Cacao: 5 Little Known Benefits of This Amazonian Superfood
One question I get a lot is – what is a superfood? Why should I bother eating them? Surely they’re just hyped up versions of regular food. Right…?
Well, not quite… Superfoods are just that – foods that contain significantly higher quantities of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and other health-boosting, anti-aging, disease-fighting goodies. Some are every day whole foods that you’ll likely have tried before (think brocolli, blueberries; even the humble spud). Others are more exotic, grown in the rainforests of Peru and picked by Amazonian warriors (ok maybe not quite).
Today I’m sharing with you one of my all time favourite kitchen staple recipes, a Creamy Cashew Aioli. When I decided to try bypass dairy for ethical reasons (you can read more about that here), I struggled for a while to replace the delicious creamy addiction I had acquired. However then I met the humble cashew, and voila, entered dairy free, eco-friendly, plant-powered creamy heaven.
Chia Seeds are one of my favourite superfoods. “Super” meaning that gram for gram they contain more nutrients and minerals than your average food. Chia seeds originate from South America, and have been grown and eaten by the Mayans and Aztecs since as early as 3500BC. Aztec warriors and running messengers would use them as a high-energy food to maintain their strength and endurance in battle. That’s why they were called ‘Chia’, which in fact means ‘strength’ in Mayan.
