Living Simply Though Your Food part 3

Hi there!

Had to take a few day sabbatical of posts due to a sick little man, my 3 year old Sam, he went down for the count for two days but is back to asking me a million questions per day and bugging his Sister so I think we’re on the upswing!

On Sunday I chatted about simple strategies to get more vegetables into your everyday and today I am going to chat about Fruits, Nuts and Seeds.

For the most part everyone seems to enjoy fruit, mostly due to its juicey sweetness, but still many clients I meet with aren’t consuming enough of them or not as often as they should. They purchase them on grocery day and then toss them away one week later only to replace them on the next grocery day…sound familiar?

I recommend as a base, it may vary from person to person depending on their individual needs, 2-4 servings of fruit per day, so what would that look like?

                              Serving examples:

1 medium fruit (apple, pear, orange, grapefruit, small banana), 1 cup berries, 2 ½ tbsp. raisins, ¼ cup dried apricots

The morning is always your best bet at getting a good start on your fruit servings for the day; berries on top of a whole grain cereal, oatmeal, quinoa or millet, berries or banana on top of buckwheat waffles, spelt or gluten-free pancakes, fresh fruit bowl topped with Greek yogurt, FRESHLY juiced fruit/veg juice (general rule 2veg:1fruit), and HOMEMADE smoothies using a combination of fresh and frozen fruit for just the right consistency. (please refer to Sundays blog about veggies for a sample recipe).

If you are going to have fruit throughout the day as a snack you have two choices to make:

1) if you are working through some digestion issues please consume your fruit on its own either 20 minutes before other food or 3 hours after. This is to optimize digestion and decrease fermentation and putrification which lead to a five month prego belly and gas that will burn a hole in your pants and pretty much guarantee you will be eating ALONE!

or

2) Eat your fruit with a small amount of protein to help stabilize your blood sugar and keep you satisfied longer ex: apple and 2 oz cheese, banana with tbsp almond butter or a pear with 2 tbsp raw cashews.

As for these lovely, nutrient-packed little nuts and seeds here is what you need to know when buying, storing and eating them.

1) ALWAYS buy raw nuts and seeds, nothing roasted, toasted, flavored, crusted or coated. In order to preserve the amazing sources of fat, protein, zinc, vitamin E, selenium etc…that they are keep them raw and definitely keep them cold in either your fridge or freezer and preferably in glass mason jars.

2) Stay AWAY from peanuts and peanut butter, nothing good can come from these alfa-toxin, fungi legumes. Stick to almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, brazil nuts and hazelnuts as well as pumpkin seeds, sunflower, chia, hemp and flaxseed. A serving of these super-foods are 2 tbsp of both raw nuts and seeds and 1 tbsp of their butters.

3) Use them as toppers to any salad; green, bean or grain based, use them in yogurt, on top of cereal to add protein, over a pasta dish, in muffins, loaves, breads or make your own trailmix and store it in the fridge.

With so many amazing and easy ways to incorporate these three Super-Food-Categories there are no more excuses are there! The key thing to remember is that eating fruit is not going to make you FAT, eating fruit cups, fruitsation creations from McDonalds, Starbucks and the likes or chugging back juice everyday – now that will pack some extra junk in your trunk, but wholesome colorful, preferably organic fruit is only going to help satisfy your sweet tooth, keep your rear regular and your immune system boosted – but they will also give you energy not zap it away.

Same goes for your nuts and seeds. This kind of fat isn’t going to hang out on your butt or over your bra! It is going to be soaked up by your hair, skin, nails and sexy fat brain and cells:)

Enjoy the continual purge of your cupboards and your awesome next shopping adventure hanging out in the produce section and filling your jars with your nuts!!!

See you tomorrow for Grains, Lentils and Beans!

Chow for now:)

Jenn

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