Friday, March 29, 2013

Ditch Dairy



Enough Said. This infographic thoroughly disgusted me. Seriously, this covers all the pro-dairy arguments I've ever come across. I'd say this is pretty convincing. Who ever made this is pure genius. This has a creative commons license, so you can share it with all your friends and family who haven't cut milk out of their diets. The best part of getting rid of milk is the substitutions you can use. There is such an amazing variety of substitution products. I will be posting about my favorite dairy substitutes soon.

Any Comments? Thoughts? Leave a comment!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Quick, Good-For-You Breakfast

It's been awhile since I've posted much of anything, but here's an original recipe that's cheap, vegan, and allergy friendly. No gluten, soy, corn, peanuts, etc. Now, before you turn your nose up at oatmeal for being boring, old-people food, let me tell you this is one of my favorite morning recipes. So yes. Oatmeal.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of oats
1 tablespoon of milled flaxseed
1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
8 oz of very strong brewed tea (flavor variable)
Sweetner to taste (typically 1 packet of 0 calorie stevia sweetner)

Instructions: mix all dry ingredients together in a microwavable bowl. Add tea to bowl, and microwave for 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 seconds. Stir and allow oatmeal to cool enough to eat. Enjoy!

Nearly all of the ingredients can be bought in bulk. Oatmeal, flaxseed, cinnamon, and sweetners can be purchased at stores like Costco. Oats and flaxseed can be bought in bulk from specialty grocery stores. Buying larger quantities reduces the cost significantly.

The oatmeal base has fiber and protein, flaxseed has protein and omega-3, cinnamon has Antioxidants, and tea has vitamins and caffeine in addition to Antioxidants. All of these are essential to a balanced diet and help kick start your day.

Now, my favorite part about this recipe is how variable you can make it. The variation is in the tea. Using a variety of flavors helps to keep this basic food from getting boring. I prefer to steep my tea overnight for oatmeal to get the maximum amount of flavor from the tea. Because it is a morning food, I would suggest black tea because it contains more caffeine than other blends. Some of my favorite teas to make oatmeal with are black chai, black apple chai, black vanilla chai, morning thunder (a black matcha tea,) black Madagascar vanilla, nutcracker sweet (a holiday tea,) and orange black teas. Other non-black teas that are good include sugar cookie sleigh ride (a holiday tea,) green chai, green tea with red Antioxidants (strawberry and orange,) spiced apple herbal tea, raspberry herbal tea and others.

The best part of this easy breakfast is that it is filling; high in protein and fiber; omega-3 rich; full of caffeine, vitamins, and Antioxidants (depending on the tea you use;) and only 100 Calories!