Dairy health, myth or fact?

I am absolutely determined to have a better day today. Yes, it's early. A little too early but that's okay because Smiley Baby is still sleeping and Lovely Toddler is playing somewhat not-too-noisely by herself. Awesome. This is a really good start to my day. Yesterday was not so good. I woke up to two screaming kids wanting to get out of their jailhouse rooms. My god I can't stand that wake-up call. But today is better, I can feel it! I might take a day off of obsessing about food and just enjoy what the day has to offer. Hmmm. Now I have Lovely Toddler whining for my attention. Gotta go! So to write this up quickly:

Here's what I thought I should share with you today. The Big Milk Myth. I came across this and need to share it. Why? because I've been suspicious of milk pretty much my entire life. I never cared for it as a child, teen or adult. And as an adult who does research in the health food world you'll see that almost every single Naturopath and associated websites will say it's not good. Some people can tolerate it, but most of us can't. Research shows that countries who consume less milk than countries that do have less cases of osteoporosis. (Now that's a mouthful of consonants!) Also, if you've seen the movie Food Inc. you might want to think twice before drinking milk from those cows who just aren't in the best physical and mental shape. I've read a lot of supporting research but I never collected them so now I'm left with my opinion with no back-up ready for you, except for this one article linked below. It's easy to find information on the internet, but this is the one that I wanted to share with the skeptics..

I just never liked milk and I don't care to push it onto my children either. I much prefer to give them unsweetened Almond Milk, or water. I sometimes will buy organic Cow's milk, but not often. I tried to give Lovely Toddler some cold herbal tea but it didn't go over well but that was over a year ago so maybe I should try it again. Also, Trader Joe's also has a new coconut milk in carton so I will have to try it out (assuming other ingredients are healthy). And now that Lovely Toddler is growing up a little, I'm also starting to occasionaly give her some not-from-concentrate, no-sugar added,organic blueberry juice. I do give her lots of yogurt, yes, it's dairy, but it has loads of beneficial bacteria for the gut and a lot of people who are lactose intolerant can tolerate yogurt. And I love cheese. Damn it's so good. I wish it wasn't soooo tasty. I eat it. BUT, me and my hunky husband M are soon going on a 'leaky gut' diet to try to heal some of our symptoms so cheese will be cut right out as it should be but I do need to have that goal in order to sacrifice such a delicious food. I can cut out chocolate easy, but cheese and tomatoes are almost impossible! Anyway, to get back on track...

This is a huge topic and I know I'm not covering it well, but here's the article I wanted to highlight: http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/harvard-to-usda-check-out-the-healthy-eating-plate-201109143344

What I think is amazing is that there's someone credible out there ready to say "Milk is not necessary" for a healthy diet. Now I have to say, not everyone can tolerate all those grains either, but hey, it's a good start!




What do you think?

Deviled Easter Eggs and a Late Lunch

Deviled Easter Eggs

I love Easter but every year, a week before Easter, I forget that. Then about two nights before the Big Day, I'm reminded how I love to stuff plastic eggs with fun sugar-free treats, wrap them in crepe paper, tie and curl ribbon, stuff baskets and hide it all. It's sooo fun! And super rewarding. It might be a lot of work to wrap all 20 eggs, but hey, my kid is only going to be two years old once. I stuffed the eggs with what ALL toddlers adore: stickers. I also stuffed a few with strawberries and wrapped some dried fruit bites in coloured candy wrappers. I added markers and small toys in the baskets. My grandma and mother both sent a box of puzzles, cuddly toys and balls for the kids so I wrapped them up too and added it to the loot. (I'll post about alternative egg hunt ideas in further detail next year.)

After a super morning, my In-laws and friends (well my cousin and her boyfriend to be exact) all came over for a mid-late afternoon Easter Lunch. It was sooo much easier to prepare a cold lunch than hot turkey dinner, and almost just as enjoyable. I prepared my platters the day before except for my fruit and veggies. Not pictured are the sandwhiches and spreads I prepared. Here are a few pics of the days edibles:

Simple yet effective veggie and fruit platter.

Gluten-free Tinkyada Veggie Spiral Noodles in a Pasta Salad

Deviled Easter Eggs.

I was colouring eggs with my Lovely Toddler when this idea struck me, real easter eggs, deviled. How fun! These are coloured with natural dyes that you can buy at your local health food store or online. Follow your favourite deviled egg recipe and add colouring. Make sure to use white eggs instead of (healthy) Organic Free Run eggs for a whiter palate for your food colouring. This is a rare occasion where I suggest using a food that's not the best choice in order to achieve the look. I'm sure you could use the free run eggs, just note that the yolks will be darker so your end results will be darker. I love these! It's definitely a new party trick I'll be using more often.

I simply added about 1-2 big soup spoons full of mayonaise, a small squirt of mustard, one chopped green onion, salt and pepper. Easy.

Mmmm...I've also been tinkering in my kitchen with new raw chocolate recipes and decide to serve my guests with my latest test batch. I still haven't mastered my recipe yet so i'm not ready to share it but I will as soon as i'm confident in my experiment. It's been a real pleasure playing with chocolate, I mean a bad batch is never really THAT bad, all chocolate is edible after all :-)

I bought these cute molds at the chocolate shop and will keep using them all year. Chocolate bunnies are yummy and cute anytime of the year.

I also wrapped a few in colourful foil.

Again, Easter is fun!!

Hope you had a great one this year!

Suzanne

xo