No matter how much weight loss help you need, a healthy breakfast recipe is always preferable. It helps, though, if your breakfast is tasty too. Gives you something to look forward to before going to bed.
Today's Banana Cacao Avocado Acai Bowl is definitely a meal to look forward to. It's sweet, scrumptious and nutritious. Got me drooling at first glance.
This is a sweet and tangy combination of fruits and vegetables. It's clean, juicy and delicious. Plus, it's easy to make.
Snack
Mandarin Oranges
Dinner
Baked Cod with Herbs
Cut cod into manageable pieces. Rub front and back with extra virgin olive oil, mixed dry herbs, red pepper flakes, black pepper, sea salt and a cooking wine of your choice. Broil til' each piece is thoroughly cooked.
This meal is low in fat and high in protein--and most of all, high in taste.
Enjoy with side of vegetables and whole grains.
Original article and pictures take dietmealplans.blogspot.com site
Whole wheat toast with all-natural peanut butter and fruits on top
Cucumber and homemade hummus dip
Love the combination of curry and Greek yogurt. Add peas to this dish for an even healthier take. Find recipe at Clean Eating Idea.
Of course, you can substitute lobster with shrimp or some other type of protein. Regardless, protein and vegetables always make a clean and delicious diet meal.
In stead of dipping bread in just eggs, dip in eggs and all-naturla shredded cheese (I used colby jack). Also, use whole wheat bread to make this clean eating.
Hard boiled eggs with paprika
A great alternative to traditional hamburger is tuna melt. It has less fat and is still full of flavor. Plus, it's rich in vitamins, minerals and protein. To make a tuna melt more enticing, I add all-naturla swiss and a load of veggies on top.
Tender pork slices cooked in all-natural maple sauce. On the side, I added sautéed rainbow slaw. This healthy dinner was a fantastic way to end the day.
Original article and pictures take dietmealplans.blogspot.com site
Welcome back to Positively Real Media’s Raising Healthy Families series! Today we’ll take another look at how to keep our families healthy in a not-so-healthy world. I’m thrilled to write today’s post about a topic so important to me.
Now that it’s finally feeling like spring, I’ve got an itch to clean. There’s just something about airing out my home and thoroughly cleaning each room once a year.
For most of my life, my spring cleaning involved toxic cleaning products – yet I didn’t know they were hazardous. Of course I noticed the warning labels, but never thought much about the danger.
Detoxing Your Cleaning Supplies/Accidentally Green
Today, consumers can get an idea of a cleaning product’s toxicity by EPA-regulated labels. “Danger” indicates the highest hazard, “Warning” indicates a moderate hazard, and “Caution” indicates the lowest hazard. The labeling severities are based on the amount of product needed to kill a person – or cause serious harm to eyes or skin.
Unfortunately, cleaning products in America are legally allowed to be toxic. Manufacturers are not required by law to list all the ingredients in their cleaning products. And they don’t have to report harmful ingredients or alert consumers to potential health hazards.
In the U.S., more than 80,000 chemicals have been manufactured and sold since World War II, yet less than twenty percent have been tested for toxicity.
Europe has more stringent laws about chemicals. In European cleaning products, more than 1,000 chemicals have been banned from use. The United States has banned fewer than ten.
Avoiding certain cleaners
I want a safe and clean home for my family. Because of this, I purposely avoid the most dangerous cleaning products:
Corrosive drain cleaners,
Oven cleaners,
Toilet bowl cleaners,
Bleach,
Ammonia.
I try to limit the use of aerosol disinfectants, cleaners, and sprays, too.
Many all-purpose cleaners, glass cleaners, floor cleaners, tub and tile cleaners, carpet cleaners, degreasers, stain removers, metal polishes, and floor strippers also contain toxic chemicals. These harmful products pose a real problem to families, because chemical residues are left on surfaces. The products also pollute the home with toxic odors – and because of these fumes, air inside a home is two to five times more polluted than air outside a home.
It’s actually quite easy to make your own cleaning products, and the financial savings are amazing. With just a few basic and affordable ingredients – soap, water, baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide, and salt – you can make just about any natural cleaner:
In my experience, baking soda works wonders. As a natural abrasive, it gently scrubs surfaces while deodorizing – sprinkle a little when cleaning your sinks, bathtubs, or toilets. You can make an effective scrubbing paste with a mixture of baking soda and lemon juice. And, you can clean your oven with baking soda and vinegar. (To easily remove crusty or burned foods stuck in pots, boil water in the pot along with baking soda; if all the food doesn’t come off the first time, try once more.)
Vinegar is incredibly effective as a disinfectant and deodorizer. Initially I had to get used to cleaning with a vinegar smell – and remind myself that other generations of hard-working clean freaks had different scents they associated with a true clean. Fortunately, the vinegar odor typically disappears once dry. You could add lemon juice to mask the vinegar smell – and to include another natural disinfectant.
Hydrogen peroxide is another non-toxic disinfectant. And it’s odor-free. Instead of wiping off a toilet with bleach, it’s just as easy – and so much safer – to wipe it off with hydrogen peroxide instead.
Castile soap is another great natural cleanser. I use it daily as gentle soap in the shower, but I also love to use it when cleaning my house. For starters, simply squirt a little bit of castile soap in your toilet, add some baking soda, scrub, and flush. If you opt for a scented castile soap, your bathroom will smell wonderful. Farewell harsh, chemical odors! (Make sure you don’t directly mix castile soap and vinegar or lemon juice while cleaning – castile soap shouldn’t be mixed with any kind of an acid.)
You also can scrub a dirty sink – or a pan with caked-on food – with salt.
When your cleaning products are all-natural, your children can help you clean without being exposed to a bunch of harmful chemicals.
What natural cleaning products do you typically make? I’d love to try your recipes!
In my journey toward making a more natural home, over two years ago I ditched using dryer sheets and started using wool dryer balls instead.
You see, regular dryer sheets contain chemicals and potential toxins. Sure, they may make your clothes smell pretty, but I can accomplish that with essential oils.
Wool dryer balls are 100% natural. They speed up drying time, soften clothes naturally and leave no toxic residue on your clothes, linens or cloth diapers.
(Speaking of cloth diapers, you canNOT use dryer sheets while drying diapers! You will ruin them!)
I bought my first dryer balls from a work-at-home mom. They worked, but I am LOVING my newest set, from Everday Willow Wool!
As you can see in the picture below, the Everday Willow Wool are bigger, and, to me, the quality of the wool just feels stronger.
Willow Store Wool Dryer Ball vs. Regular Wool Dryer Ball
Everday Willow Wool wool dryer balls (ball on left) are made from natural wool that has been hand felted. The no-name ball on the right looks like it may be knitted wool covering another fabric.
Besides helping to detox your laundry room, I personally believe that using wool dryer balls can help save you money. I have not had to buy dryer sheets in well over two years, and I will probably never buy them again. And using wool dryer balls can help cut the drying time almost in half for some loads of laundry!
To use, simply toss 2-3 balls in your wet dryer and start. There is no need to ever remove the balls from your dryer.
Original article and pictures take thehumbledhomemaker.com site
Although you wouldn’t be able to tell from the weather this week, the heat and humidity has already started where we live. We decided to move all 3 boys in one room for the summer months (maybe longer) in order to run only one air conditioner on the really humid evenings.
I had the urge and energy to declutter the two bedrooms last weekend and took advantage of it! Decluttering a lot of their toys before helped make the process a lot easier.
The nice thing about this time around was involving my sons in the process. My youngest son actually gets excited at the idea of cleaning up his bedroom. It’s pretty adorable – strange to me…but adorable.
The house is at a place where the clutter is not overwhelming me and I am trying to take the time now to declutter with my sons and model habits for them. When I started getting serious about decluttering the house, I went through their things and made executive decisions about whether it was leaving the house or not.
Before Pictures
Cleaning up the Legos and sliding the large plastic containers under the bed has an immediate and positive impact on the space. Legos storage will be another post – we’ve gone through many ways of storing the thousands of pieces and this is the most practical so far.
We’ve had these three bean bags for a while and they may go in the future, but for now they’re off the floor and on the top bunk bed which doesn’t get used for sleeping.
Decluttering with the Kids
I have been making piles of items that I wanted to go through with my sons to see if they wanted to hold onto the random items or trash or donate them. A lot of the items look like random parts to me that should be thrown out, but I’ve learned not to throw things out without asking. That thing that looks like junk could turn out to the be the pivotal piece that makes a particular toy complete.
My middle son, who tends to want to hold onto everything, went through his pile the second time and actually threw out more than half of the pile. He confirmed that most of the pieces WERE junk and could be thrown out!
I am seeing my children grow in clarity too. My son didn’t want to trash/donate any of his items before, but now that they have been sitting around for a couple of months, he can look at them now and evaluate if something is really worth keeping. That is progress!
Here are the after photos:
The whole room took about two hours from start to finish. We had a large trash bag of trash, and a trash bag of children’s clothes to be donated. Less clothes = less laundry!
Did you declutter anything this week? I would love to know!
Original article and pictures take settingmyintention.com site
