Looks like after this morning’s barfing episode after my Jackie Warner Xtreme Time Saver routine,
the vigorous weight lifting is off the table. Nothing like a little bile early in the morning to start the
day off right. I think I’ll stick to running and bicycling and a little old school weight lifting. ugh.
Recently while strolling through Whole Foods with my mother we both complained about how dry our skin is this time of year. Not to mention that I’ve been plagued with black heads again and I felt like it was related to my lotion. The helpful lady in the skin section overheard my mom mention that she uses Pond’s and made a noise that sounded a lot like pearl clutching. She expressed that with all of the petro-chemicals that she would never put anything like that on her face. I whole-heartedly agreed and she then made us some lovely samples of face products to try. Some cream for my mother’s face and some oil for me. She also indicated that a woman should never moisturize at night. Something about your face going through a cleaning cycle, etc… For my overly sensitive and uber oily acne prone skin she recommended Sea Buckthorn oil. She said that oil counteracts oil and would clear my skin right up. Having tried the olive oil experiment before and deciding that for my skin it really is best used only as eye make-up remover and under eye moisturizer due to the clogged pores that quickly developed I expressed my concern. She reassured me and noted that Dr. Oz said it’s just fine. She gave me a sample and I tried it out. The first day or two it did seem to make my skin soft, smooth and moisturized. However, again the build up began. Within a week I had oily clogged pores all over my face. Then the irritated white heads grew. My pores increased in size and my face powder began to look dirty and feel like sludge by noon. So, after three weeks I have given up. It wasn’t a costly experiment (only about $13 for a bottle), but unfortunately another failed attempt at using oil as moisturizer. I’m sure for some women this is just the natural product they’ve been looking for, but for my skin it just doesn’t work. I love that it’s cruelty-free, organic and natural, but none of that matters if it doesn’t work. I’ve given the bottle to my husband to use on his painful eczema as the Sea Buckthorn Berry has been traditionally used on many skin conditions throughout the Himalayas. I’ll report back on whether or not he has any better experiences with this wonder fruit. Have you tried the newest organic cosmetic sensation? If so, what was your experience?
Hector Thunderstorm Project from Murray Fredericks on Vimeo.
I’ve been attending teachings offered by my local Buddhist meditation center (Kadampa Meditation Center Maryland) and their branch classes for about a year now. I can say that over the last year I’ve learned a number of wonderful ways to combat the stresses of daily life and have really begun to change how I relate to the people around me. I’ve found my days to gradually become more peaceful and my fuse longer. I was finally able to quit smoking “cold turkey” and I’m happier and healthier for it. There are many benefits to meditation and I would encourage you to try it whatever your religious (or non-religious) orientation may be. One of the first meditations that I learned and began to put into practice is a meditation where you imagine your mind to be like the vast, clear blue sky and your thoughts arising and disappearing like clouds. It’s a simple, beautiful and effective meditation and a quick and easy way to calm your mind when you find yourself stressed and mentally exhausted. I stumbled across a website with some beautiful photography of clouds today and I saw this time lapse video of clouds forming and dissipating and it immediately brought to mind the relaxing and peaceful feeling that I develop during the meditation on clarity of mind. I wanted to share this beautiful video and I encourage you to view it and then imagine that your mind is as clear as this blue sky and that your thoughts simply and arise and then disappear, just like these clouds. You can learn to watch your thoughts pass by peacefully without having to engage them. If an unpeaceful state of mind arises, you can learn to simply let it pass quietly without acting on it. If you would like to learn more about meditation there are some informative videos here, including one titled, “The Benefits of Meditation” that ends with an introductory guided meditation. So, remember to take a few moments for yourself today to relax and enjoy the spaciousness and clarity of your mind.
I'm the diminutive runner #10282
Last year I began training to run my very first foot race. I ran in the Race for the Cure 5k on October 23, 2010. My friends and family really helped to support my cause by donating to the event. My husband came out to wait for me at the finish line and photograph my triumph as I, along with many others, panted to our final steps of victory. Unlike training by myself around the neighborhood, where I am often exhausted, miserable and ready to throw in the towel, on the day of the race I really ran for it. Nevermind that I was hungover, dehydrated and experiencing some distress prior to the race. When it came down to it, I felt amazing. I had energy that I didn’t even know was possible as I ran with the crowd. Everyone pushed together and as I sprinted over the finish line I felt like I had really conquered the world. The sense of accomplishment stayed with me long after the muscle aches and foot pain had faded.
This year I’ll be running in another 5k, but under slightly different circumstances. When a coworker announced that he had been diagnosed with ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease, and that he would be participating in the Fiesta 5k, may of us decided we would do it to. The Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins is hosting the race this Sunday, May 7, 2011. Starting at 8am we’ll be running from the Power Plant Live area of the Baltimore City Inner Harbor. I’ll be running as a member of Team Nelly along with my friends and coworkers. I hope that you will be inspired to lace up your sneakers and come run for a good cause. If you’d like to donate or join the team, just follow the link to my page. It would even be great if you could come out and cheer us along as we pound the pavement, a wave of runners rushing toward the tape. If you do make it out, be sure to take a few photos of me making funny and embarrassing faces as I jog out of the gate, slog through the midway point or even make a triumphant sprint for the finish. With no training this year for an unplanned foot race, it should be entertaining at the least, truly moving and inspirational at it’s best. See you Saturday!
I am happy to report on the results of my changes in diet, exercise and getting rid of a few unhealthy habits. My friends and family have been familiar with my ongoing battle with cigarettes through the years. As my husband liked to proclaim, “She’s the best quitter I know!” Unfortunately, what was meant by that was that I quit almost weekly, and then would cheat and smoke cigarettes and then renew my aim again. It was a long, hard and painful process but while I’m not yet to proclaim myself victorious, I can say that I have been doing sufficiently well to feel good about it. You can never really let your guard down with nicotine; it’s just waiting there for you to slip up. Fortunately I discovered the link between alcohol and cigarettes for me. It stared as me having a beer or a glass of wine and then wanting a cigarette. Somehow my twisted little brain decided that it was OK to just enjoy a beer or wine and cigarette on a Friday night after a tough week of work. And then Saturday…and maybe Sunday too, but I had to get it together by Monday. Then, at some crazy point I decided that if I had glass of alcohol, that a cigarette made perfect sense. Somehow this insanity escalated to the point that I would always have a beer on Friday night, just to justify my cigarette smoking. Now I had taken up regular imbibing as an opportunity to smoke? Fortunately I realized this and put a stop to this nonsensical, addicted mind and got it together. I decided that I was not allowed to smoke and for that fact, I really couldn’t drink either. I also didn’t want to gain weight when I quit smoking, so I started really pushing myself to work out regularly and watch my caloric intake as well. There are good and bad things about weighing yourself daily. The benefits are that you can track your progress on a chart that can be reviewed over a long period of time and also see how your diet is affecting you (eating too much salt causes water retention, etc). The bad is that your body weight can fluctuate by up to 5 lbs. per day. If you aren’t expecting this kind of change it can cause you to feel as if you aren’t progressing and really set you back mentally. As an example, each time I’ve lost weight, I’ve gained a significant amount in the 48 hours before. I almost always see a spike of 2-3 pounds of weight gain on a Friday morning after a week of working out, and then a dramatic drop on the following Monday as I let my body rest and burn calories.
I purchased a scale that measures body fat percentage, water percentage and weight so that I could be sure to measure the fat loss. This allowed me to have the comfort of knowing that I wasn’t just losing a little water weight or wasting away my muscles instead of getting the fat deposits that I was seeking to search and destroy. I started out above 24% body fat earlier this year and I’m happy to report that today I weighed in and had achieved 22.7% body fat. Body fat is an excellent measurement and I set my sights on losing .5 lbs per week (to set my caloric limits) and .5% body fat per month. While you can lose up to 2lbs of week safely and a full percent of body fat, I’m just not that ambitious and I know that I am not likely to to do the recommended 60-90 minutes of exercise 5 days per week recommended by The American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association. Those are certainly great to aspire to, but I work, cook meditate and occasionally like to spend time with my family. The CDC has some pretty flexible guidelines though and my exercise level does meet these guidelines. On days that I don’t work out to a video in the morning I’m committing to taking a brisk 10 minute walk at lunch to at least get my body moving. Occasionally I even climb the 14 flights of steps to my office to help wake me up during that 3 o’clock afternoon slump. In the end, even though I don’t work out as much as I should and I still eat more sugar than is really good for me, by maintaining a healthy diet and trying to stay as close to vegan as I can stand and being sure to move around as much as possible and really getting at least one serious workout in a week over time; the proof is in the pudding after all. I zoomed out on that daily weight chart, with all of it’s crazy fluctuations, and here’s what I found:
I’ve maintained a steady downward trend on my weight and achieved a healthy body fat percentage of 22.7%! I’m going to continue to push myself because my Lose It! app assures me that I will reach my goal in June. I’m not as concerned about when I reach my goal, but I will continue to push until I reach a healthy, but athletic body fat percentage that will allow me to feel good, strong, healthy and ready to compete in my favorite sports (running and downhill mountain biking). I’ve got my Lose It! motivators configured to push to my Twitter feed, so if you want to get training with me we can help to push each other and track our results, so join me on my quest to become a lean, mean, meditating machine. Here’s to a fit and healthy summer!
Bad Cupcake by knitmotorcycle on Etsy.com
I like to fancy myself a pretty healthy person. I try to eat well (as close to vegan as I can muster), I exercise (not as often as I should, but I do), I gave up smoking and I meditate. I am currently following the Mahayana Buddhist path which encourages a healthy lifestyle and finding balance, all things that are good for me. It seems that I have a real issue with balance in my life. Luckily, nothing that’s caused me too much long term damage and I’ve always been able to pull myself back from the brink before I’ve completely gone over the edge. As mentioned, I gave up smoking after 20 years and it feels wonderful. I’ve significantly cut back on my drinking with the intention to eliminate that as well. I have one last major obstacle…sugar. I love, love, love sugar. As a young girl I would hide under my grandmother’s table and eat directly out of the sugar bowl. As a teenager I would eat packets of the stuff that I grabbed at McDonald’s and carried with me everywhere. As an adult my relationship with sugar has gotten even less healthy, if that’s possible. I love sweet, so I’ve tried replacing it with Coke Zero and stevia, which is all well and good until I get my hand’s on the real stuff and go completely insane. At work, I’ve made what is known as “cup cake”. That is to say that I take a huge cup and fill it with cake and then eat it with a spoon. I never really buy or make sweets at home, but I frequently run into them at the office or parties and go bonkers. I think to myself, you’ve been such a good girl with your healthy living, you deserve an enormous piece of cake…and then comes the guilt. Yesterday I actually ate two donuts, a sugar cookie, and handfuls of Easter candy followed up with a home made mango sticky rice. Seriously? Who does that?!? Anyway, I’ve decided that I have an unhealthy relationship with sugar. It’s time to go cold turkey and get myself under control. So, starting today…that’s it. No sugar until I can learn to live without it and then I’ll think about letting it come to the party every now and then.
To get me motivated I’ve done a bit of reading about sugar and it’s effects as a reminder to what I already know, eating sugar isn’t very healthy. Also, the adorable Bad Cupcake image above from Knitmotorcycle on Etsy is a delicious reminder of the danger of that hot looking cupcake over there. “Here is the “Bad Cupcake”. You know the type; creamy good looks, wavy frosting and sprinkles, with a badboy gleam in his eye. Who can resist? You know he is bad for you, but he looks so good.”
Here’s a few helpful strategies that I’m going to try to get my sugar addicted mind on the wagon:
Top Ten Sugar Craving Strategies by Verne Varona
The following could be individual or collective reasons for sugar cravings. Read each suggestion and notice how it applies to your eating or lifestyle. Reducing your desire or addiction for sugar should not require Herculean will power. Becoming conscious of the physiological and lifestyle factors that stimulate sugar cravings should make taming your sweet tooth a piece of cake–so to speak.
1. REDUCE SALT & PRODUCTS WITH SALT
The need for dietary salt from natural sources (sun-dried sea salt) is dependent on several factors; a lack of salt can cause fatigue, stimulate a desire to overeat and often result in a craving or animal protein. However, with the availability of good quality sea salt, miso paste, tamari soy sauce and natural pickles, it’s quite easy to overdose. Thirst and a craving for sweet foods is one of the most reliable indicators of excess dietary salt.
The standard four basic food group propaganda was force-fed to the American public along with the myth that animal protein should be a dietary staple. The meat and potatoes mentality has to re-think its philosophy since established research shows excess animal protein can lead to colon and prostate cancer. If this applies to you eat less in volume (2 to 4 ounce servings) and limit it to three to four times per week (maximum), as opposed to daily.
Overeating leads to fatigue and sluggishness. This makes a stimulant like sugar (or coffee) more appealing. Eating more frequently will allow you to reduce overeating with a minimum of effort.
One of the most common reasons for sugar cravings–especially at night. By skipping meals or waiting long periods you stop supplying your blood with glucose. The blood sugar drops and by the time you finally get around to eating, you’re going nuts for simple sugar. You’re also likely to end up overeating or craving something fatty as a compensation for sugar. Initially, don’t wait more than 31/2 to 4 hours between meals.
If your body’s digesting when it requires much needed rest, you’ll require more sleep, dream excessively and find it difficult awakening with alertness. Good deep sleep will result in wide-awake days. Eating to close to bedtime creates a groggy awakening craving the stimulation of sugar (or caffeine) the following morning. Eat a light evening dinner at least 21/2 to three hours before retiring.
This might sound obvious, however, continuing to eat simple sugars results in a falling blood sugar. This stimulates a need for more sugar and the cycle continues. Even though fruit is a simple sugar, switching to fruit instead of sugar is a good first step. Eat the skin of the fruit as well since fiber slows blood sugar elevation.
Daily aerobic exercise will increase circulation and strengthen will power. Brisk walking, biking, light jogging, etc. naturally increases sensitivity to the effects of sugar. Try to get 20 to 30 minutes of some type of pleasurable exercise at least 5 times per week. Enjoy this. It should not be a chore.
If your daily diet is includes whole grains (brown rice, oats, millet, barley, etc.), vegetables (roots, greens and round vegetables such as squashes, cabbages, etc.) as a primary fuel, you’ll find you automatically crave less sugar. Emphasizing sweet vegetables such as carrots, cooked onions, corn, cabbage, parsnips, squashes, etc., adds a natural sweetness to meals. Introduce some sea vegetables (aka “seaweeds”) for much needed minerals to enrich blood.
This doesn’t mean you have to broadcast every feeling–only those that matter and to those who really matter to you. Food indulgence, especially with sweets, is a convenient way to anesthetize feelings. Sugar can consume you with sensory pleasure, temporarily providing mental relief from whatever might be stressful. However, sweets can hinder energy levels and mental clarity so in the long run your emotional coping ability becomes compromised.
The many psychological associations we connect with food have a powerful influence. Beware of family associations, movie rituals, familiar restaurants, childhood habits, etc.
Verne Varona
Author of “Nature’s Cancer-Fighting Foods”- www.vernevarona.com
After reading that, I realize that I am soooo guilty of so many of those. I definitely overindulge in salt. I have low blood pressure, so I’ve used this as an excuse to crank out the sea salt on everything I eat from salad to pizza. I should cut that out anyway. Easy enough, I’ll start applying these tactics today. In case you ask, why is sugar so bad for you? Here’s some more information that I came across to arm myself with as I prepare for my sugar withdraw. A few excerpts from, The Dangers of Sugar by Paulette Mills:
Sugar is qualified as an addictive substance by the following two responses: 1) Eating even a small amount of sugar, for example, one candy or one bit of cake, creates such a desire in some people that they can’t stop; 2) When one quits sugar cold turkey, withdrawal symptoms appear, for example, strong cravings, depression, fatigue, mood swings, and possibly headaches.
Uh, oh…that definitely does not sound good. But it gets worse:
Excessive sugar consumption is believed to be involved in many common health problems: hypoglycemia, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, obesity, indigestion, myopia, seborrheic dermatitis, gout, hyperactivity, lack of concentration, depression, anxiety, and more.
Yikes! As if that weren’t enough the recent article “Is Sugar Toxic?” which appeared in the New York Times earlier this month sealed the deal. I, like many others, had viewed high fructose corn syrup (hfcs) as the enemy, assuming that plain old sugar was a healthful alternative, but according the article, “marketing aside, the two sweeteners are effectively identical in their biological effects. “High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference,” is how Lustig put it in a lecture that I attended in San Francisco last December. “The point is they’re each bad — equally bad, equally poisonous.” The article and researches have clarified that sugar in the types and quantities at which many of us, myself included, are consuming is going to us. Either through obesity, diabetes or cancer. “In animals, or at least in laboratory rats and mice, it’s clear that if the fructose hits the liver in sufficient quantity and with sufficient speed, the liver will convert much of it to fat. This apparently induces a condition known as insulin resistance, which is now considered the fundamental problem in obesity, and the underlying defect in heart disease and in the type of diabetes, type 2, that is common to obese and overweight individuals. It might also be the underlying defect in many cancers.
If what happens in laboratory rodents also happens in humans, and if we are eating enough sugar to make it happen, then we are in trouble.”
So that’s it folks. I’m off to eliminate added sugar from my diet wherever I can. I’ll continue to eat fruits and vegetables that contain sugar, but I’m going to have to learn to let the rest go. My unhealthy attachment to cookies has finally bested me and I want to get off the treadmill (quite literally). I’ll try to tweet and post up my progress. Wish me luck kids, because this may be my toughest battle yet.
Well, my husband is smart. Or at least kind of a smart alec. So, imagine my surprise when I excitedly bounced up behind him on the steps and said, “Guess what?” and unapologetic he replied, “Vinegar or Duct Tape?” Wow. That really took the wind out of my sails and gave me a darn good nasal snorty chortle. Ok, so at the end of the world it will likely be me attempting to build a shelter out of duct tape and stockpiling vinegar, but I’m sorta ok with that. But, I digress….here is my latest use for apple cider vinegar, my favorite natural health care tonic. You may recall my previous post where I used apple cider vinegar (ACV) to relieve perioral dermatitis. Well, I’ve done it again! This time, when my dandruff/seborrheic dermatitis became totally unmanageable, I turned to the vinegar. My daughter and I both suffer with it and it’s itchy, burning and embarrassing. My former stylist had recommended a dandruff shampoo to keep it under control and for a few years, it did a pretty good job. However, I had to use the shampoo religiously or risk looking like a snow globe. Eventually though, my daughter began to notice that her hair was getting more and more oily and the flakes were getting worse. I had the opposite experience. My scalp was getting drier and more itchy and the flakes were getting larger. I had burning red patches at my temples that were causing my hair to thin and I constantly had disgusting scalpy bits all over my shoulders and occasionally even stuck in my hair. It was awful… I tried tea tree oil shampoo and just straight tea tree oil, but no luck. The, while researching I red somewhere that it runs in families and people with acne were prone to have it, but that also, someone once again thought it might be yeast. Just like my perioral dermatitis (POD)! What?!? Apple Cider Vinegar to the rescue! I whipped out an old shampoo bottle and filled it with ACV and kept it in the shower. Then, I doused my head in the smelly stuff and let it soak. I gave my scalp a good massage and let it just sort of hang out while I did the rest of my washing up. After about five minutes and some tingling/burning I gave it a good rinse, then used my normal shampoo and conditioner and styled my hair. No flakes! Not a single one. In fact, my head felt refreshed, less itchy and my hair was soft and full of body. Since I used my strongly scented coconut conditioner, I didn’t notice any after smells. My ears continued to have some itchy peely bits though in the top inside flap and at the back of my ear so the very next day I carefully gave my ears a good wash while I let the vinegar set. I’m down to using the vinegar two or three days a week now (on the mornings that I work out actually) and I’ve noticed a complete improvement. The best part is that previously I was paying about $20 for little bottle of fancy dandruff shampoo, but I can get an entire jug of apple cider vinegar for just a few bucks. So, in the end I have to say that it works spectacular, it’s inexpensive and all natural. I think that just maybe, vinegar and duct tape can save the world.
Spring has sprung and it’s time to prep for swimsuit season (kill.me.now.) Also, after coming off of a foot injury I’ve been getting my buns back into gear. It’s darn near racing season and I’m in no shape to take on the challenge of the Gravity East Series. So, to get motivated and track my progress I purchased a new scale Escali High-Capacity Bathroom Scale with Body Fat/Body Water Monitoring (440lb / 200kg)
In the end, while they both have great features and a few minor drawbacks I finally stopped using tracknburn and moved exclusively to Lose It! because it allowed me to review charts and track my progress easily on line or on my phone, connect with friends and quickly and easily log my activities. After a month of use I am also happy to report that while I haven’t really lost any weight (it fluctuates within 2lbs on any given day), I have lost a full % of body fat down to today’s 23.2%. Having to track my calories is often enough of a deterrent to keep me from overindulging and helps me to really gauge how much time I devote to working out. While I may not ever look like a Victoria’s secret model, I know that I am healthy, happy and fit. If you are concerned about getting into shape and staying there I highly recommend tracking your progress and the Lose It! iPhone app is a wonderful, free and easy way to do that.
Here’s a sample of the online reports availabe on Lose It!
I love to eat. I do not, however, like the calories in a bagel, the sugar in cereal or taking the time to cook my own breakfast unless it involves the microwave. I love oatmeal packets, but there is so much sugar that over time I stopped using them. I started buying quick cooking oats and adding my own dried and fresh fruit or nuts and spices. I did notice that I wasn’t feeling full for very long and after a while the texture got pretty boring. Then, as I was shopping around in my local grocery store, I saw Raw, a multi-grain hot cereal. It looked healthy, in that I recognized all of the ingredents and it didn’t have a load of sugar added to it. I also like that it’s plain so I can flavor it myslef based on my mood. Even better, the packaging was pretty a convenient size/shape. You can almost never go wrong by picking things based on good design, it’s a sign that they care about quality. Luckily for me it was buy one get one free, so I stocked up on four boxes. Here’s some information from the website that I found intriguing:
As I was strolling through the freezer section of my local grocery store I looked up and saw a stash of bread and bagels and thought to myself that it was a bit odd and because I’m me, I immediately decided to investigate. As I craned my neck to see this unusual bread in the freezer I noticed that it was made from sprouted grains and flourless. Now I was really intrigued. I had never heard of flourless bread. I know that I’ve read that sprouted grains are good for you. In fact I have a friend and co-worker who eats sprouted brown rice on the regular, and she seems to like it. Well, this seemed like an excellent opportunity to try the sprouted grain bread and see if it actually tastes like real bread. The bread and English muffins were both made by a company called Food for Life. What was most interesting though was that the packaging made reference and was named after Bible verses. It reminded me a bit of Dr. Bronner’s soap when I saw it. I grabbed both books of the Bible, I mean types of bread: “Ezekiel 4:9® Organic Sprouted Whole Grain” and the “Genesis 1:29 Sprouted Grain & Seed Bread”. I got one bag of muffins and one loaf of bread. I took them home and put them in the refrigerator as instructed and the very next morning popped out a muffin, toasted it and put a little pear spread. OMG, it was delicious! I can’t say that it tasted significantly different from your standard English muffin, but I do love English muffins. It tasted a bit more like wheat or other whole grain breads. It was hearty, a bit chewy, a little earthy and little bits that had a tiny pop when you chew. Overall I’d say that I really enjoyed it and I’ve had one every monring for breakfast for the last week and I’m just as happy with them today as I was the very first morning. The best part is that it leaves me feeling very full for the entire morning. I must insert here that I eat like a teenage boy, despite the fact that I am a 33-year old mother. However, in my defense, I do work out regularly, race mountain bikes and generally stay pretty active about town in a variety of pursuits. Typically I eat breakfast around 9am and then am looking for a snack somewhere around 10:30 before diving into lunch at 11:30. I’ve noticed that I’ve been holding off for lunch until closer to 12:30 and not even noticing my hunger. Even better, I haven’t been getting all shaky and weird like I do when I have a bagel for breakfast and then eat lunch later in the afternoon. Here’s a description of the muffin straight from the company website:
Ezekiel 4:9® Organic Sprouted Whole Grain Products truly the Staff of Life!
Ezekiel 4:9® Organic Sprouted Whole Grain Products are inspired by the Holy Scripture verse: “Take also unto thee Wheat, and Barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and Spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it…” Ez 4:9
We discovered when six grains and legumes are sprouted and combined, an amazing thing happens: a complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs. There are 18 amino acids present in Ezekiel 4:9® Organic Sprouted Whole Grain bread. Made from freshly sprouted organically grown grains, Ezekiel 4:9® Organic Sprouted Whole Grain bread is naturally flavorful and bursting with nutrients and is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals and natural fiber with no added fat. Try it served warm to release its exceptionally rich nutty flavor.
A WORLD OF NUTRITION IN EVERY SLICE!™ 19 Grains & Seeds from 13 lands, there is nothing like this English Muffin! Moist, nutty, delicious and satisfying. Inspired by the Holy Scripture verse “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yeilding seed; to you it shall be for meat.’”-GENESIS 1:29
INGREDIENTS: Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat, Filtered Water , Organic Malted Barley, Organic Pumpkin Seeds, Organic Sunflower Seeds, Organic Unhulled Sesame Seeds, Organic Unprocessed Wheat Bran, Organic Sprouted Whole Spelt, Organic Sprouted Whole Kernel Corn, Organic Sprouted Whole Soybeans, Sprouted Whole Chia Seeds, Organic Sprouted Whole Barley, Organic Sprouted Whole Millet, Organic Sprouted Whole Rye, Organic Sprouted Whole Brown Rice, Variety 5-Grain & Seed Blend: (Organic Sprouted Whole Flax Seed, Organic Sprouted Whole Sorghum, Organic Whole Quinoa, Organic Sprouted Whole Teff, Organic Sprouted Whole Amaranth), Organic Wheat Gluten, Fresh Yeast, Sea Salt.
For lunch yesterday I was finally able to get around to trying the sandwhich bread. I enjoyed a vegan bologna and cheese sandwhich on sprouted grain bread. Did you hear that? I ENJOYED it. I know, it’s crazy. I sound like some kind of new-age hippie. I find it hilarious, but it truly was a darn good sandwhich. If you have good bread and enough dijon mustard, I feel like you could put shoe leather on there and I’d love it so the middle bits of the sandwhich are hardly the important part. The sprouted bread however was again, very, very tasty. It was nutty and flavorful, chewy, hearty and darn good bread. Here’s a description of the bread from the Food for Life website:
Genesis 1:29 Sprouted Grain & Seed Bread
Based on the Holy Scripture verse Genesis 1:29, Food for Life brings you Genesis 1:29™ Sprouted Grain & Seed Bread. Made from exotic grains and seeds from around the world and baked into one extraordinarily nutritious loaf.
Teff from the highlands of Ethiopia, Black Quinoa from the mountainous regions of Peru, Barley from the ancient Holy Land, Brown Rice and Spelt from the Far East, Amaranth and Chia from Central and South America, Soy from China’s past, Flax and Rye from Northern Europe, Corn from Old Mexico, Kamut from Ancient Egypt, Millet and Sorghum from the plains of Africa, Sesame Seeds from the Near East, Pumpkin Seeds from the Mediterranean, Spring Wheat and Unprocessed Bran from Montana and Sunflower Seeds from the Dakotas. Food for Life understands few have access to these super nutritious grains from all over the world, so we offer you Genesis 1:29™Sprouted Grain and Seed Bread. We use only the highest quality organically grown grains and seeds and sprout them to maximize nutrition through enzymatic action and germination. The unique combination of seeds in Genesis 1:29™ Sprouted Grains and Seeds Bread and English Muffins provides a naturally good source of nutrition not found in ordinary breads.
So, I can say without a doubt that I really like this flourless, sprouted grain stuff. If it’s more nutritious than that’s an added bonus. Mostly I like that it leaves me feeling more full for longer periods of time, so super duper. I’ll definitely be adding this to my regular grocery list. My local Safeway carries it, but you can search for a local store right from the company website.
Have you ever tried sprouted grains, or sprouted your own grains? Tell me more about your experience with flourless bread below. Thanks and Enjoy!
