Monday, June 27, 2011

Gluten-free: One month later

It was just about a month ago that I determined that I was what I'll call gluten-intolerant. So I've been living the gluten-free lifestyle for about four weeks or so now, more if you include the two- to three-week period that I was doing my elimination. So what have I learned?
  1. Brown rice pasta and noodles are delicious. I can't get enough and could eat it everyday.
  2. I miss toast with homemade jam on the weekends. Although I have a lead on a particular brand of gluten-free bread that might be good for toast.
  3. Gluten-free baking is easy and fun and makes you feel very creative.
  4. The internet is wonderful. While I do not have Celiac disease, it is more and more prevalent and there are so many lovely recipes and fantastic bloggers on the interwebs to keep me inspired.
  5. I miss a good sandwich. I will work on ways to reincorporate – I need to investigate gluten-free wraps.
  6. Best of all, I have learned that I feel fan-freakin-tastic! No more tummy pains, bloating, or gas for me!
Since January or so I have been eating real food, whole food, not packaged food, and along with some professional advice on adding some supplemental forms of vitamins and minerals I have never felt better. Pounds have literally melted off and my energy levels have soared. Eliminating gluten hasn't been a burden, but instead just one more small change that makes me feel fantastic.

And I for one will take feeling great over a slice of bread any day!

Friday, June 24, 2011

Organizing like my life depends on it

...because it does. Kinda. You see, my all-time best stress-reliever is tidying up and making sure everything has it's own place in my home, my office, my life! When I was a kid, I would clean and rearrange my bedroom every three months or so, so I could give new life to my belongings and re-organize everything.

Recently, I mentioned on my facebook feed that I was inspired to organize. You see, I found this little gem of a blog called IHeart Organizing and I just can't get enough. Such simple touches, to simple spaces to make them feel oh so much more pretty and organized. My dream... sigh...

Source

So I'm on a mission. My first space to tackle is my spare bedroom/office, for me and others I'm sure, this room is the room I spend the least amount of time in and so it becomes the room for everything that doesn't fit in the other main rooms of the house. I took on the bookcase earlier this week with vigour and managed to give the books some order. Hopefully in doing so I made some extra room for my ever-growing collection of nutrition books for school.

My goal is to make the room feel welcoming and inviting, not a catch-all room. I want guests to feel like it is a bedroom that will be restful and I want it to feel like a place I can go to get some work done without having to jump over three things to get in the door.

We'll see how it turns out. I'll try to remember to take some before and afters so we can see together if I've achieved my goal.

I'm so excited (and such a nerd!).

Monday, June 20, 2011

Summer!

Tomorrow is the first day of summer!
 My toes got a treat this weekend to celebrate.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Homemade gluten-free cupcakes, yum!

I finally made my cupcakes that I salivated about all week! YUM! The bf thought they weren't sweet enough; but to me, magnificent!

Visit Joy the Baker to find the recipe I followed (including the icing). 

Friday, June 3, 2011

Healthwashing - Have you heard of it?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of food labels. I've always been a food label reader, but I used to focus on the nutrition fact chart, you know this one, that's on everything. 

Source
But more and more at the grocery store, I've started looking at that ingredient list first, and the nutrition facts chart second, if at all. Marketing can be a mean game and more and more company's are trying to sell their products based on their "low-fat" or "low-calorie" or now more and more "gluten-free" or "organic" labels. These companies are trying to brainhealthwash you!

The very best example I have of this, comes from a fabulous nutrition blog I read daily, written by Meghan Telpner, a Toronto-area holistic nutritionist. In this post, she writes about guessing what the food is based on the ingredient list. You'll never guess. And furthermore, you'll never guess that this is being marketed to consumers as healthy! 

More and more we need to stop looking at the number of calories and pay a million times more time reading the ingredient list. If you find things on there that you don't know what they are, it's likely some sort of chemical that you really don't need in your body, let alone your child's. Just because something is "organic" or "gluten-free" doesn't equal healthy. Organic sugar is still sugar, for example, and hydrogenated oil of any kind is a trans-fat and should be avoided like the plague.

So all of this was brought on today, by a little visit into Shopper's Drug Mart. I was killing time out for a walk at lunch time and just popped in to see how much they charged for a particular item. While in the "Live well. Be well. Vitamins and Nutrition" section, I happened upon this:


 

What do you see? I see energy drinks and flavoured liquid marketed as water. Down in the corner just out of the frame are a few bottles of flax oil and 3 tubs of coconut oil – the only thing of value in the whole display.

Shameful... 

There are so many more examples of this everywhere. Got any good ones to share?

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

What will my little backyard grow

I have a teeny, tiny backyard. The joys of living in an urban townhouse setting (I'm not complaining). This summer will mark my sixth summer here. The first or second year I bought a few perennials that I planted along the patio stones and filled a few pots with colourful annuals. I've been buying new annuals year after year and keeping the same look to the backyard. I'm thinking something different this year. Something more useful -- edible stuff.

My first thought was vegetables. I love fresh garden vegetables. My parents have had a garden in their backyard for as long as I can remember. True signs of summer (or school being out) used to be the bean stalks and beet leaves poking out of dirt for the first time. However, I just don't think that is feasible in my tiny space... someday though.

Over the May long weekend I was in Vancouver and Victoria. While in Victoria I was staying with my friends Chris and Wendy. Now if you want to see a backyard vegetable oasis, check this out! I'm so jealous! And a couple months ago when he mentioned his "spring garden" was doing wonderfully, while my "garden" still had snow... well he heard about it! :)

Chris' beautiful garden

So instead of a bounty of fresh veggies in my backyard, which would likely just be food for the resident bunnies and squirels, I'll be planting an herb garden. Likely just in pots around the yard and balcony. Can't wait to taste some fresh basil, mint, cilantro, parsley, etc.

This is what I want!! (Source)  

If you're in the area over the summer, do stop by for a fresh mojito!

Let's recreate Mexico in my backyard this summer!