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Chocolate Orange Cashew Bark

So I got to thinking one day, I bet there are other combinations I could try with my dark chocolate bark.   One combo we have always enjoyed is chocolate and orange.  Each year at Christmas my husband and I would find one of those Terry brand chocolate oranges, literally in the shape of an orange, wedges and all, in our stockings.  He would get the dark chocolate, me the milk chocolate.  The idea is that you hit it on a solid surface and it breaks into the little sections, hence their slogan, whack and unwrap.  Anyway, we loved them and it's been a tradition of ours for close to a decade.  Even though they were split into single serving sections, they had no shot at still being around by New Years.  Now that we are Paleo, we obviously avoid all that processed, refined garbage, so I thought of a way to still indulge in our little tradition.  I threw in the raw cashews for some cruch and because it's one of our favorite nuts.  I honestly never cared for packaged, roasted, (over) salted cashews pre-paleo, but raw cashews are so buttery and delicious that I can't get enough of them!  I recently took this bark to a gathering and everyone that tried it seemed fond of it too.

Ingredients:

10oz bittersweet baking chocolate

1/4 c coconut oil

1/4 c raw honey

1 c raw cashews

Zest from one orange (organic is recommended since you'll be eating the peel)

1/2 tsp Orange extract

Sea salt

You must give the chocolate your undivided attention once it's over heat, so do all your prep work beforehand.  Zest the orange, crush the sea salt if needed, chop the cashews if necessary, measure your ingredients, and lay out the wax paper on a cookie sheet.

Over very low heat, melt your chocolate, stirring constantly to avoid scalding.  Add the oil and honey, and keep stirring until combined and smooth.  Remove from heat and add the orange extract.

Then add about 2/3 of the cashews (you'll want the rest for garnishing the top) and 2/3 of the orange zest, reserving some for garnishing the top as well.  Pour out onto your lined cookie sheet and garnish as desired.  Refrigerate (or set outside if you live in the Midwest ;)) until set and cut into pieces.

* Cook's Tip:  If you set a timer for a few minutes after you begin chilling, you can add the garnish then, and it won't disappear into the chocolate and should still stick, as long as it's still somewhat shiny.  

I am also thinking now that if you try less chocolate or more nuts, you could make it chunkier and use a cookie scoop and do individual servings in a lined mini muffin pan.  Hmm, ideas abound.

You can vary this recipe in many ways, by changing the nut, the fruit, or the extracts.  You're really only limited by your imagination!

Winter Soup

I don't know if it's cold where you are, but it sure is chilly in Chicago!  And there's nothing I love more than soup on a cold winter night.  Plus, it doesn't get much easier than this soup, which is a total bonus if you're in a rush or don't feel like cooking and dirtying a bunch of dishes.  We used to regularly eat tomato basil soup from a can filled with sugar, preservatives, and ingredients we couldn't pronounce, not to mention BPA.  Here's Progresso's:

Ingredients: Tomato Puree (water, tomato paste), Water, Sugar. Contains less than 2% of: Corn Syrup Solids, Wheat Flour Bleached, Soybean Oil, Modified Food Starch, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Garlic Powder, Dried Parsley, Basil, Ascorbic Acid, Citric Acid, Natural Flavor.

Yuck!  Why is all that necessary?!  Such a simple soup to make yourself with just some basic ingredients.

Tomato Basil Soup

1 jar (25oz) crushed tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

1 can full fat coconut milk

1 small bunch fresh basil

Pinch Himalayan sea salt

*organic and fresh is always healthiest, but if you don't have access, that's ok, just do the best you can.  It's too cold to grow basil here right now so I use dried from my summer harvest or fresh from the store.

Wash and chop the basil.  I like to add the leaves to a small prep bowl and use kitchen shears to chop into small pieces.  It's faster and I am much less likely to cut off a fingertip.  ;)

Add the tomato products to a pot over medium heat.  Add the basil and the flavors infuse and simmer about 10 minutes.  Add the coconut milk and salt and combine until smooth and creamy.  Heat through and you are ready to serve.  Great with a small side salad, too!  Enjoy!

Mmm...  homemade tomato basil soup!  Waaay better than canned!

Sugar Babies

Everything in moderation, right?!  Here's the problem with this logic.  IT'S SUBJECTIVE!  For example, to someone that eats fast food every single day of their life, the person that consumes it once a week would be in moderation, right?  If you know someone that has one glass of wine every day and someone that has twelve beers every evening, the wine drinker would be practicing moderation right?  What about the person that has one drink per month? Maybe that's moderation.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  How do you know what's "in moderation" for you?  Well when it comes to refined sugar, no amount is in moderation.

When I was brainstorming for this post I wrote the word sugar on a piece of paper and used a spider diagram with ways and events we (and our children) are constantly bombarded with sugar.  Here's what I came up with:  Holidays (Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween & Christmas), school (all the same holiday parties, classmates birthday celebrations, extra curricular activities), family (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousin parties), friends (birthday parties outside of school),  Doctor and sometimes even Dentist office visits (lolly pops usually) and milestones / life happenings (good report cards, promotions/raises, vacations, etc).  For most people, all these events are celebrated with FOOD or SUGAR.  Hey, you got straight A's?  Let's go get Dairy Queen!  In for a big raise at work?  Let's go out for a steak dinner!  Sadly, these are real life examples, and I am sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.  Even if you just look at the school branch of this picture, your child probably has somewhere between 18-25 classmates.  Which means, that many birthday treats throughout the nine months of school, plus probably four holiday parties, and however else food rewards are used, a good grade on a paper, doing something nice, answering a question correctly in class.  Is that moderation???  Add to that, grandparents maybe taking your child to the movies (my grandparents house was nicknamed the Sugar Shack, and with good reason, donuts, money bread, cakes, candy, and ice cream was a regular occurance) where they binge on candy, the weekend friend birthday party where there's cupcakes and maybe a treat bag for the road, the sucker they get at the doctor for sitting through the exam, oh and don't forget all the candy and chocolate in the Christmas stocking coming up.  I used to make crazy treats at Christmas time, I had things stashed all over the house.  We would be on a constant sugar high for the 31 days of December! All these things, spread out over the course of the year, that is a LOT of sugar.  TOO much sugar.  And it literally begins at birth.  Would it even surprise you to know that the FIRST ingredient in several popular infant formulas is SUGAR?  See a photo/article of label here.  Why don't we just put coca cola in their bottles?!  And what do babies typically get after formula, apple juice, aka sugar.  Without the fiber in the whole food, it's just sugar.  You may as well hand them 10 teaspoons of table sugar.  The toll this takes on your body and pancreas, while may be invisible from the outside, is accumulating on the inside.  That's also why we have mood swings and temper tantrums, we're on an internal roller coaster!  We cannot stress enough, the changes we've seen in our boys since cleaning up their diet.  They no longer suffer from allergies, asthma, eczema, they don't get sick anymore, and they get along better!  I used to be so stressed out hollering at them for fighting and arguing, but now they're more like best friends.  They whisper and giggle and I honestly don't have to intervene, but maybe once per week anymore.  Imagine!!

The candy collection began August 1, not including Trick or Treating or all the other Twinkies we experimented with.
A humorous post about the sugar gaunlet that begins at Halloween.

All of that refined, and likely genetically modified, sugar promotes systemic inflammation, which we should all know by now, is bad news and leads to chronic illness and metabolic disease.  It also creates insulin resistance.  And every time you consume sugar (in all forms) you tax that pancreas, and it can only keep up for so long.  With all those sugar spikes over the course of several years, you will develop some level of insulin resistance and possibly even diabetes.  I think everyone knows that with diabetes comes pills, injections, neuropathy, vision complications, higher risk for heart disease and stroke, maybe even amputation.  Think of it like this:  If you continually treat your morning commute like a series of drag races, those frequent and sudden speed changes will be very taxing on your drivetrain and brakes.  Your car may look fine on the outside, but on the inside it's dying a slow death.   As much fun as all that sounds, we think we'll stick with prevention!  Benjamin Franklin once said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

If you're trying to lose weight, refined sugar should definitely be avoided!  Don't be fooled by "low fat" schemes.  While some candy and even "healthy" things like yogurt can have NO fat, they are full of sugar (a.k.a. Corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, doesn't matter, it's all sugar) and if you don't burn it off, guess what, it's stored as fat.  Yep, all that cellulite you see in the mirror, thank all those low fat foods!  Did you know that to burn the calories from ONE m&m candy (not one bag), you would have to walk the length of a football field.  And who eats just ONE?!  That's why even the smallest splurge will make you pack on the pounds.  Check out what researchers found when they fed mice a healthy diet, with only modest amounts of sugar.  In this day and age, we maintain so many things and yet, we fail to take care of our most value piece of equipment, the body we carry around.  We pay to maintain (or have someone else maintain) our cars, our lawn mower, our furnace, our air conditioner, appliances, but we shovel sugar into our bodies in massive quantities and think nothing of it.  And you'll find sugar hiding in the most surprising places if you look:  condiments, cereals, alcoholic beverages, sauces & dressings, breads/buns, etc.  Pretty much every item on a fast food menu has some form of sugar in it, take a look.  You could feel so much better if you just choose more wisely.  So the next time you see that triple layer cake on Pinterest, just keep scrolling and find a better option, perhaps something sweetened with raw honey, bananas, or dates.  If you're currently a sugar fiend, start small.  Maybe go one day per week where you have no sugar at all.  After a couple weeks of success at that, make it two days in a row, and so on. Still for others, going cold turkey may be the best option.  Get through the withdrawal and never look back.  Set small, attainable goals.  It will be tough, but you can do it and it is well worth it.  It won't be easy, there may be times that you're tempted or feel pressured into indulging, just remember why you're doing it and focus on how good you feel. It's best to limit the big sugar splurges to once or twice a year, say your birthday or anniversary, then by all means, enjoy that piece of cake.  It just shouldn't be twelve times a month, if you're truly seeking the best overall health.  And who wouldn't like to be the best version of themselves?

And maybe instead of going for ice cream when your kids bring home good grades or your spouse gets a promotion, replace it with something non-food related, maybe even something physically active.  Perhaps a family activity like going on a hike and picnic, or a bike ride.  If geography or weather doesn't permit that, maybe an indoor gym where you could rock climb or play tennis.  Or there's always bowling and arcades.  If you've got a whole weekend and the funds, plan a short trip somewhere.   See something you've never seen!  Anything that doesn't revolve around food!  Experiences are always better than food.  I promise you, no one will remember that sundae they devoured months down the road, but I'll bet they'll remember the family bonding and the laughs they had while watching mom try to rollerskate.  Plus, your pancreas will thank you!

The Traveling Caveman

Since making this change to my dietary lifestyle, I have been on a few business trips that required me to make choices.  For those of you who follow the 80:20 rule (80% Healthy, 20% Whatever), this really wouldn't be much of an issue for you if you only traveled occasionally.  But, what about the hard-core Paleo enthusiast or the road warrior who travels much more than 20% of the time?  There were three options that I went with while on the road, but the first thing you must do before you are sitting down looking over the menu, is determine:

What Are My Non-Negotiable Menu Items?

That is going to be vastly different from one person to another.  One may have a gluten intolerance that doesn't allow him/her to eat it at all.  Another may have a CAFO hatred so severe, that he/she would NEVER eat meat that is not grass-fed.  However you determine your non-negotiable items, it doesn't matter.  That is a personal choice that should have zero outside influence.  My non-negotiable items are:

1.  Wheat - I will not consume any wheat/gluten knowingly.  The main reason is that I just don't like the the way I feel when eating it.

2.  Refined Sugar - I will avoid all items I believe to be sweetened with sugar.  If it happens to be and I didn't know it, I won't stress, but I do my best to avoid it.

That's it for me!  I travel so infrequently, that I don't feel the list needs to be any longer.  If I ever start to travel more, I think the list may grow, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.  Once you have your travel plans made, you will then be able to determine if you can...

Buy Your Own Food

On one trip, I stopped at Trader Joe's and grabbed some healthy options that were Paleo friendly and made my own food at the hotel.  Now, this will only work if you are traveling alone and if you are lucky enough to be staying in an extended stay hotel.  I purchased organic free-range eggs, uncured pastured bacon, organic spinach, organic cheese and some raw nuts.  I made myself some eggs and bacon with sauteed spinach in the hotel before going out for the day.  That beats the pastries and dry cereal you get in the hotel lobby.  At minimum, you can start your day well.  This is the least likely option, but, it is an option that I have exercised and felt good about.  If you can't make your own food, another option is to...

Fast

This one can be a slippery slope!  Again, opportunity is key here.  If you are in an all-day meeting and/or you are out with a group of people and they are serving boxed lunches or pizza, fasting may be your only option depending on your non-negotiable menu items.  Don't draw attention to yourself and politely decline food that is offered to you when people notice you aren't eating.  This is not the time to talk about why.  If you want to tell them you are fasting for personal reasons, you could do that.  Most people will avoid extending that conversation any further knowing the potential religious consequences.  This option only works for "working" lunches where you have access to your laptop or tablet to conduct work while the rest are eating.  You can also leave the room to "make a phone call" and just avoid it altogether.  Just remember, you may be missing out on some networking opportunities any time you skip a meal.  If you don't want to miss out, you should...

Get What You Can And Don't Stress

The quickest way to make a bad impression on a business trip is to be a damper on the mood.  Most of the people who are traveling for business are looking to enjoy themselves because it takes them away from the stress of everyday work and, for some, the stresses from home.  Not only that, it's a chance to socialize.  Let's face it, once the real world rears it's ugly head, socializing is at a bare minimum compared to the time period immediately before!

Actually, CAFO meat will kill you!

So, don't stress about your food choices and be a "Debbie Downer" for the rest of the group.  Take your non-negotiable list with you (in your head, of course) and make smart decisions.  Don't talk about how 90% of the menu items are crap.  Don't gross people out with facts about CAFO's and what that food is doing to their bodies.  Just order food you know you can live with and have a good time!  If you want to have a drink or two, please do!  Since one of my non-negotiable menu items is wheat, I chose wine over beer.  It's really that simple.  Nobody is going to judge you except for the meat-heads at the table who think they still are in college.  That's fine!  Smile and shrug it off and have a good time anyway.  They are the ones making a bad impression, not you.

Conclusion

Traveling for business usually accomplishes one or more of three things: 1) Networking, 2) Professional Development, 3) Business Development.  None of those can be accomplished with a bad attitude.  Remember why you are there and get the most out of your time.  Acting too good for everyone around you and/or climbing into a Paleo shell will only cause you grief in the end.  You never know who will be making decisions about your next promotion/job opportunity.  Do you think they will promote/hire a mopey introvert who can't make personal connections with people, or the person who is confident in their choices and takes the opportunity at hand to network and have a good time?

The only time to talk about why you make the choices you make is if someone asks.  If you are passionate like me, this will open the flood gates.  Keep the conversation simple and leave the door open for them to conduct their own research.  In the end, you will not convert them with your words.  They must convert themselves.  Don't be a Paleo evangelist.  Evangelists are annoying!  Just give facts and talk about how it changed your life.  You will be respected for making such a tough decision for your future.  And, respect is always an important thing.

All Aboard...

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride on this coaster!  I have struggled with my weight my ENTIRE life.  I can very vividly remember coming home from school in the fourth grade, in tears, because the school nurse came around and weighed everyone and I had hit 100 pounds, at 10 years old.  Not good.  My son is about to turn eleven and he weighs 72 pounds.  But I can remember being mortified that I weighed more than the boys in my class.  It wasn't a good feeling and I always thought it was my fault for eating frozen pizza and Little Debbie's and not moving enough, even though I played basketball, volleyball and softball.  Junior high came and was brutal.  I was still overweight.  My home life sucked, I stress ate, boredom ate, and ate emotionally to fill voids.  High school wasn't much better, never had a boyfriend and it seemed no matter what I did, I could never look like the popular girls.  What was I doing wrong?  I have no idea how much I weighed because I never got on the scale, too depressing, but I hated being a size 14, however, it would get much, much worse.

My senior year of high school and freshman year of college was my smallest.  Why?  I took up smoking.  I have no other explanation because what I ate never changed, but I found myself fitting into a size 10 jean (maybe 160lbs) and loved it.  The added attention from college guys didn't hurt either.  ;)

[Side bar -- I am not a petite woman, nor will I ever be.  I am about 5'9", relatively muscular and pretty average frame.]

My freshman year of college, this was December of 1999, my parents announced their divorce and I had just started dating my husband, so over the next year, my weight crept up quickly.  

Fast forward to March of 2002, found out we were expecting our first son.  At my six week appointment, I tipped the scale at 244 pounds and a size 18/20.  Even now, it's hard to admit that number.  A far cry from that size 14 I was complaining about!  I feel bad for that person that ate her feelings and didn't know any better.  I would tell her so many things if I could.  I gained 11 pounds with that pregnancy, bringing me up to 255 pounds by the end of it.  Gave birth, via c-section, to a 10 pound 7 ounce baby boy (at 41.5 weeks) so I weighed less than my starting weight!  Baby weight, what baby weight?!

Me at my heaviest (outside of pregnancy), 240lbs.

Sept 2004

When my son turned one, I decided to get serious about losing weight because I didn't want to be a lazy couch potato, and wanted to have the energy to get out and do things with him!  So in the first three months of 2004, I dropped 50 pounds, by walking and eating better (got down to 178 pounds).  BUT I didn't learn anything so as soon as I went off my 'diet' I put the weight right back on.

October 2006, still overweight.

In 2005, I got pregnant with baby number two and at that six week appointment I was 202 pounds.  I gained about 25 pounds with that pregnancy and gave birth to a 9 pound 4 ounce baby boy (at 39 weeks) via repeat c-section.  After that I think I maintained between 210-215 pounds for awhile.

Family Vacation, July 2008.  Yep, STILL overweight.

In 2008, my weight was creeping up again, as I had some traumatic events going on in my personal life and was not eating very well.  I was back up to 225/230 pounds and at the start of 2009 once again, hopped on that coaster of trying to lose it again for my 10 year high school reunion.  Which, I did succeed at doing, by September of 2009 I was back down to 180 pounds.

10yr HS reunion - SKINNY, but not healthy.  September 2009

I struggled to keep it off the next year and when I celebrated my 30th birthday in 2010, I was at 190 pounds.

December 2010, on my way back up.

April 2012

July 2012

Then, fast forward to summer of 2012, I had packed on another 20 and was about 210 pounds.  And I thought I ate pretty good, drank diet soda...  We had some very bad days, of course, but it didn't seem like that could cause such an overall gain!  It was depressing, and I hated what I saw in the mirror.  I had resigned to the fact that I would never wear a two piece bathing suit and that I couldn't sustain any kind of real weight loss.  I despised clothes shopping.  Bathing suits, bras, pants, nothing cute ever fit.  And of course, I blamed myself.  Surely it was a matter of will power, right?  I was just as brainwashed as the next person, that low fat was how you lost weight.  Eat less and exercise more.

I have been paleo for seven months now and have been maintaining 170 pounds for the last five!  If you look back, that's the lowest I've weighed since college!  But the best part is, I am off that roller coaster!  Heck, I'm not even inside the theme park anymore.  I know now!  I know what to eat, I know how to keep the weight off, I know what I will never eat again and I know what makes me healthier.  I have educated myself and I can never be obese again and it feels really good to say that.  Plus, I am never hungry!  By filling up on healthy fats and proteins, you stay fuller much longer than if you're eating empty sugar carbs.  Boy, did I put my body through the ringer all those years of yo-yo dieting.  Losing and gaining weight like that is not healthy for your body!

Summer 2013

Fall 2013

It's not really a secret, the key is really just eating real food.  REAL food, not fake food.  Not stuff in cans, cartons and boxes.  Food that grows, food without labels.  The food we were meant to eat.  If you can't grow it yourself or kill it yourself, you shouldn't be eating it.  Period.  If you eat crap, you're going to look like crap.  Are there times I want to eat that Licorice or Milky Way?  Absolutely, I would be lying if I said I wasn't sometimes tempted.  But it's so easy to resist, because I have educated myself.  So when I am craving something sweet, we have dark chocolate (quality ingredients and at least 85% cocoa) or I make a paleo friendly treat.  I have a much healthier relationship with food now.  I eat to live, I don't live to eat.  Food isn't constantly on my mind, my stomach isn't always growling and I am nourishing my body with excellent nutrition.  I eat things like pastured eggs, kale, avocado, carrots, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts and grass fed beef, and I love every bite of it!  When you know better, you chose better.  I cannot say this enough - educate yourself.  It makes it so much easier to maintain your weight loss.  And it's also important to find your own balance, whether it's 80/20 or 90/10, whatever fits your lifestyle and gets you to where you want to be.  Everyone can do it.  You don't have to spend another day being overweight!  Learn from me and get off that ride.  Take control of your life and your health!  And say good-bye to your fat pants!!

Now my size 12 pants have to be held up with belts!  And for spring break in March, we are taking the kids to Disney, and I just may be buying a two piece to pack.  :)

Hippocrates: Let food be thy medicine

I have debated back and forth about whether or not to do this post.  First and foremost, know that I am not looking for anything.  This is only to shed light on where I am coming from.  Second, I will never apologize for things that I have posted, because like it or not, they are true.  What I will apologize for is how things may have come across.  While I may have put things bluntly or been brutally honest, I realize not everyone can handle that.  And at times, my sarcasm may not have come across as such.  However, I will not sugar-coat the truth.  Please understand it was never my intent to hurt feelings or jeopardize friendships.

That being said, here is my story...

In 2005, my grandfather, with whom I was extremely close, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and given 3-6 months to live.  He chose not to do surgery to remove the tumor, but went ahead with chemo treatments.  Amazingly, he survived until 2009, but not without setbacks and bumps along the way.  Since the tumor was growing on his pancreas, it affected his liver and stomach functions as well as inducing diabetes.  His bile duct had been pinched off by the tumor and he had to have a stent put in, which helped with the jaundice.  At the time, we lived about an hour and forty-five minutes away from them, so with two little kids (age 2 and expecting, in 2005), it was never easy to make the trip.  There were times I went by myself.  There were times I stayed overnight with him in the hospital, and plenty of hours spent waiting on him hand and foot.  It was stressful on my grandmother, and it was stressful on me, with my desire to be in two places at once, and it was stressful on our family, because with no one to watch the kids, my husband had to take time off work for me/us to make trips.

The truth is, in times of need, you do whatever you have to do to be there for your family.  Losing my grandfather was not only life-altering, but I see now that it kind of redefined me in a way.  Seeing someone you love go through chemo, drop a ton of weight, get fragile and eventually bed-ridden, changes you.  Watching them vomit (without warning) the foulest black liquid because of a blockage, time and time again.  Hearing him cry out in pain, or holler at someone for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Having to say goodbye to the most influencial man in my life and knowing I would never hear his lectures or reassurance again.  Then after slipping into a coma, spending four days by his bedside...  Feeling his limbs get cold, his nail beds turn blue, and watching him take his last breath and knowing his heart had finally taken all it could.  It was torture.  Literally Hell on Earth.  And I remember every detail very vividly to this day, and probably will for the rest of my life.

I don't want to go through that again.  And I don't think there's anyone that would willingly choose to do so.  And I certainly wouldn't want to put my family through that either, if I could help it.  Well guess what, I (and you, too) can.  There is a way.  The first part of it is, CHANGING THE FOOD YOU PUT ON YOUR PLATE.  This is straight from the CDC website, regarding cancer,

"A person's cancer risk can be reduced in other ways by receiving regular medical care, avoiding tobacco, limiting alcohol use, avoiding excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun and tanning beds, eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, and being physically active."

And buried in the cancer.org website, I found this: 

"A substantial proportion of cancers could be prevented. All cancers caused by cigarette smoking and heavy use of alcohol could be prevented completely. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2013 about 174,100 cancer deaths will be caused by tobacco use. The World Cancer Research Fund estimates that about one-quarter to one-third of the new cancer cases expected to occur in the US in 2013 will be related to overweight or obesity, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition, and thus could also be prevented."

I have done a significant amount of reading in my journey to health, books, blogs, documentaries, you name it.  I have learned a lot.  In June of this year, I even saw a genetic counselor to assess my risk for breast cancer (before I had learned very much about it) and dicuss being tested for the BRCA1/2 genes.  We all have cancer cells in our body.  Right now.  You do, I do, all of us.  Cancer is not just something that happens or doesn't happen,  it's not the cancer lottery!  Cancer is a symptom that the body is under-nourished and overloaded with toxins.  Period.  And I don't want to hear the GENE excuse. You may have a predisposition for certain diseases , but your lifestyle choices determine which of those get turned on.  A great analogy from the book I just read, It Starts With Food by Dallas & Melissa Hartwig, really put it into perspective: "Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger."  Very powerful words.

When I learned all of this, many emotions came flooding through me.  I felt upset, outraged, I felt betrayed and disappointed.  Could my grandfather, who really was more of a father to me, have prevented this and everything we all went through with him?  Could he still be here today if he had??  If only.  If only I had had this knowledge eight years ago.  Then I had to come to my own realizations.  I cannot change the past, but I can shape my future.  I can learn and do better for myself and my kids.  Would I love to help other people, ie: extended family and friends, sure!  But will they be open minded and accepting of the things I have learned? I have found out that no, they are not.  Which is very sad for me, because even though it came from a place of love, it was looked at as an attack or judgement of them.  So I am back to the stance that I never should have left, I can only change myself and do better for my family.  I cannot change others and trying to will only leave me feeling stressed and frustrated.  So I urge you to READ.  Don't take my word for it, read!!  There are so many books and websites out there, all of which will reiterate what I have said.  It is true.  You can prevent (and often cure) diseases, and yes, even cancer, with nutrition.  All you have to do is make better choices.  Instead of the nutrient-void products in the center isles of the grocery store, (you know what I'm talking about, the fake foods with the expiration date in the next century), opt for produce!  And even better than that, grow your own!!  Support a farmer, educate yourself, know why you want to make changes in your life.  And email us or comment below if you have any other questions!!!

And, my apologies to anyone that may have been offended by something I said or posted, by taking it in a manner other than intended, which is and always has been, to help.  If you've never experienced a loved one's ordeal with cancer/treatments, you are lucky, as I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.  And if you could prevent that for yourself or your loved ones to have to live through, would you?  I know I'm sure going to try.  REAL food is powerful medicine!

Whole 30

I recently read It Starts With Food, by Dallas & Melissa Hartwig.  I first decided to borrow it from the library, but after reading it, purchased my very own copy that I am still in the process of highlighting.  Awesome, awesome book!  It is basically paleo-in-a-nutshell and scrapes the surface of all the important topics and the science behind them.  They promote their Whole30 program, which basically is one month straight, clean eating, full-paleo, ZERO cheating.  This means: lots of vegetables, grass fed/pastured meats and eggs, some fruit, some nuts, and plenty of healthy fats.  Absolutely NO: grains, legumes, dairy, alcohol, sweeteners (artificial or otherwise).  I also threw in for myself, no dark chocolate and no coffee.  I wanted to break the caffeine addiction, but not only that, I cannot drink my coffee black, which means the inclusion of dairy, a no-no.  They go into the reasons why these things are not healthy for you, so if you are interested, I highly recommend the book or doing your own research, as this post is not about the specifics.  :)

Ryan and I decided to do a Whole 30 for the month of October!  We already eat VERY clean, but had become a little too dependent on coffee, wine, and cheese.  We did very well at only having one glass of wine once per week before, but had somehow gradually increased to 3-4 glasses per week.  And our once considered occasional cheat, cheese, had become way to mainstream in our diet.  Who can have wine without cheese?!  But then we found ourselves having hunks of it here and there without the wine.

Coffee.  That warm, delicious, temptress in the chilly waking hours.  Eek.  Clearly I have a problem.  Dallas and Melissa hit on why addictions are so unhealthy for us, with regard to altering our state of mind and making us crave more.  Caffeine is a drug and it is addictive.  As was our wine and cheese habit.  The more we had, it seemed the more we wanted.  Very unhealthy.  So our goal is to get back to a place where wine/cheese is a special occasion treat and not a weekly Costco size bottle and brick that we devour.  Because let's face it, we are human (and we can fully admit that it won't make us healthier but that it tastes good and we deserve a treat every now and again).  I got some sage advice from my uncle (which now I wish I had taken), who weaned himself off his coffee habit very gradually and suffered no ill effects.  What did I do?  Well,  instead of my two cups in the morning, I decided to have 3-4 in the days leading up to our Whole30.  I wasn't going to have coffee for a whole month and I would miss it, of course!  Boy, did I regret that decision.  On the first day, I was so tired, crabby and my head pounded for 24hrs straight.  It literally hurt to laugh.  The second day was better in the morning and I thought I was home free, but the headache returned that afternoon.  Third day was the same as the second.  On the fourth day I was home free.  Whew!  I am still missing it (obviously), but I am unsure if it is the ritual or the caffeine hit that I was addicted to more.  Perhaps both.  And I am not unrealistic, I know I will have coffee again, but I would like to take a different approach.  Whatever it takes to not be addicted, so I will have to do some experimenting with frequency of days per week, amount, etc.  And whenever I find myself desiring to increasing that amount, I will do another Whole30.

So here are the four basic guidelines of the Whole30 Program:

1. Eat foods that make you more healthy - meat, seafood and eggs, lots of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of healthy fats.

2. Do NOT consume any added sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, or dairy.

3. Do NOT attempt to recreate junk foods or desserts by using "approved" ingredients.

4. Do NOT step on the scale for the entirety of your program.

We are currently half way through!  We have been very good and have not fallen off track.  Like I said, we pretty much eat this way every day, so it wasn't that challenging.  We would only have small amounts of raw honey or pure maple syrup once in awhile.  The only real change has been cutting out the cheese (rBST free), wine, and coffee (for me).  And although we have been tempted, neither of us has step foot on the bathroom scale!  Because it's not about the number -- it's about truly eating for health and nourishment and acquiring a better relationship with food.  Another couple of weeks and we will weigh in and post about the end of our Whole30 and how we feel, what we accomplished, and what, if anything, we will add back into our diets.  However, I think I can say with certainty, that I will be enjoying a cup of coffee just as SOON as humanly possible!

Hit by Bus!

This may be the most frustrating, disheartening excuse I hear from people.  It goes something like this: I could eat as healthy as possible and get hit by a bus and killed the following day.  While I agree that, any of us could die in a tragic accident at any time, it's not an excuse to justify eating like shit.  It's not fair to yourself or those around you.  We can't plan for accidents, nor should we gorge on junk food just BECAUSE we may or may not be hit by a bus.  Imagine if I used this excuse on my family in this scenario:  the husband/kids are out of clean underwear.  They come to me asking for clean laundry.  Well, sorry kids, mom might get hit by a bus tomorrow so I didn't want to spend today doing laundry!  Guess they're going to school commando.  While this might work once in a while for choosing to play with my kids over say, running errands or something, sooner or later, chores have to get done.

We spent a lot of time being ignorant about our food choices.  We spent many days scarfing Doritos, Diet Coke and candy.  Quite the example we were setting, eh?  Education was our salvation.  I encourage you to learn. LEARN.  You're never too old to learn something new!!  When you learn why the food you're currently eating is SO bad and what it does inside your body and what it does TO it, it's a lot more difficult to justify eating junk.  For example, did you know that grains and legumes are actually ANTI-nutrients?  They actually prevent your body from absorbing the nutrients it does need.  I was a person that never thought I could even try a low carb diet (when it was all the rage), because I loved bread too much.  Had I ever tried?  No.  Did I know why bread was bad for me?  No.  Did I try to find out?  No!   I am not sure if it's because I am a parent now, or just older and wiser, but I research everything before deciding one way or the other.  I don't just take people's word for it!  We've only got ONE life.  And ONE body.  And we just realized that we need to do everything humanly possible to take care of it.

Real food can and does taste good. We are not depriving ourselves!  Our bodies are getting the nutrition they need to fight illness, prevent disease, and be happy and truly healthy.  We opened up a world of adventure in trying new and different vegetables, even ones us adults had never had before.  Instead of craving greasy fast-food or Twizzlers, now I crave kale and macadamia nuts!!  We are literally walking billboards for a healthy lifestyle.  We walk barefoot in the grass, soak up sunshine for vitamin D, get exercise by playing outside games or bike riding as a family, and enjoy a healthy dinner of vegetables and grass fed meats.  And you know what?  My kids ask for more vegetables EVERY time!  Life is so good!

If you take anything from this post, please let it be to not make excuses.  Because if you eat that nasty KFC thinking you might not be around tomorrow, think instead, what if I am?  Will you regret it?  Let's face it, we are adults, we're not kids anymore and shouldn't act like it all the time.  We choose to make better choices now for ourselves and our kids.  Because you know what -- if I do get hit by that bus tomorrow, at least I will rest easy in my urn knowing I taught my children how to eat REAL food that nourishes their bodies.  And that, THAT is more important to me than anything and is my true legacy.

The "Diet and Exercise" Myth

Ask any well-meaning person what it takes to lose weight/fat and the most common answer is:  "Diet and exercise" or some variation of that answer.  If only it were that simple.  Anyone, myself included, who has struggled with even moderate (10-15 lbs) weight loss has experienced the yo-yo affect of this conventional wisdom.  After reading up on why this happens and then fully experiencing both sides of the argument of calories in, calories out; I discovered that the human body cannot be tricked into burning fat by simply reducing your caloric intake and increasing your activity.  It goes far deeper than that and requires much less work and far greater understanding of the physiology that happens inside the body.

Diet (Caloric Deprivation)

First, let me explain to you what happens when you deprive your body of the calories it needs to thrive.  We will keep nutrients out of the conversation for now.  For the sake of argument, let's assume you are currently eating a typical american "My Plate" diet consisting of refined grains, dairy, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and occasional desserts to the tune of about 2000 calories a day.  Right now, your body is just chugging along digesting the food you are giving it, burning the copious amount of energy you are giving it in the form of about 200-300 carbs (or more!), 25 grams of fat and 50-100 grams of protien.  You think you have been eating healthy, but you can't seem to lose that "last" 15 pounds.  So, you decide to "go on a diet" and drop about 500 calories from your caloric intake.  In most cases, those calories are in the form of fat, because that is what you are told to avoid.  Where do you get fat?  Usually, it is in the meat you eat or what you cook your vegetables in.  So, what do you do?  You steam your veggies and swap your beef or pork for chicken or turkey breast and bake/grill it with no added fat.  This is all assuming you are cooking your own food.  If you don't cook your own food, you probably have a lot more weight to lose.  For now, let's focus on the "final fifteen" of people who have tried everything!

This is what your supposed to eat for optimal health, right?

In my experience, this is how the typical day goes when you diet:

7:30 AM

You eat a bowl of whole grain cereal (oats, bran, etc.) that tastes like cardboard with a light coating of "honey" that is sprayed on at the factory and a glass of OJ.  You convince yourself that it tastes good because you are going to "stick to it" this time.  If the powers of pursuasion aren't working on yourself today, you might put some strawberries or blueberries on this cereal and then pour some skim milk over top of it.  This probably amounts to about 300 calories. Great start, right?  You strap up your shoes feeling fulfilled, energetic and proud that you started the day in such a healthy manner!

9:00 AM

You rocked out some serious work this morning because you are feeling good about yourself.  Your life is about to change, giving you more energy, motivation, and positivity!  You promise that you will stay motivated all day and be the best employee this company has ever had.  Wait, what's that feeling?  "I'm kinda hungry", you think.  "But, I only have 1200 calories to consume the rest of the day and I was planning some grilled chicken breasts, couscous and broccoli for dinner."  So, you try to push it to lunchtime.

9:30 AM

Ok, now you are starving and feeling pretty run down.  You pull out the box of Trisquits you brought for a healthy snack and pull out five crackers and place them on a napkin, again proud you didn't eat from the box.  You eat those and go back to work feeling moderately satisfied.  You are still able to convince yourself that you doing the right thing, so you try to distract yourself with some more work.

11:30 AM

You wanted to wait until noon, but if you do, nobody is safe from your ravenous hunger.  You pull out your packed lunch from the fridge.  It consists of a tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat bread made with light mayo, a bag of baked Veggie Crisps, a banana and a Diet Coke.  You lay it out in front of you and think, "This ought to be just what I need to get through the rest of the day!"

You scarf the food down and almost instantly get a rush of energy and feel refreshed.  At this point, you are at about 750 calories and you feel good because you still have 750 calories left for your delicious grilled chicken!

2:00 PM

It's still about three hours from the end of your day and you feel good because you knocked out an important task this afternoon.  You start a new task and you start to feel a little tired again.  Your stomach starts to rumble and you suddenly realize that you are getting hungry.  Time for another handful of Trisquits!

4:30 PM

At this point, everything you see reminds you of food.  Your focus is gone.  You can't concentrate on any work whatsoever.  The stale donuts that have been out since 8:00 AM are taunting you.  You decide to just call it a day and head home.

5:30 PM

Made it!  At this point, you are nervously opening and closing the refrigerator and pantry doors in sequence to find something you could eat.  You are about 1000 calories into your day and basically only have room for dinner, but boy, those granola bars look tasty!  This is your first day, so you fight it off and just wait until dinner.

6:00 PM

Dinner time!  You sit down to a beautiful, juicy boneless/skinless chicken breast straight off the grill with  a side of steamed broccoli, flavored couscous and a tall glass of skim milk.  Finally, a nice big meal to fill you up for the rest of the day.  You've reached paydirt and can give yourself a pat on the back for having willpower!  Now it's time to enjoy your biggest meal of the day.

8:30 PM

The kids are in bed.  You are getting ready to sit down for some primetime TV and you're starting to feel a little "snacky!"  A handful of nuts and a Diet Coke won't kill me, right!  So, you have that nightcap and sit down to count up the calories for the day.  1,547 calories!  Sa-weet!  You can't wait to step on the scale tomorrow morning!

Sound familiar?!  This is the anecdotal description of what happens.  Now, let's get into the biological reasons for this roller coaster and why it just isn't sustainable, thus impossible to maintain a healthy weight while doing it.

"I Just Got Sick of Being Tired/Hungry All The Time"

Most people who have dieted and failed to sustain a healthy weight in the past have said this in some form or another.  The problem with the typical diet advice is that you are told to cut calories instead of refined, sugary, starchy carbs; but your body needs calories to function.  If you deprive your body of the amount of calories it needs to help you through your daily activities, you will find that your body will just run out of gas.  Think of it this way: If you plan to drive from Indianapolis to Chicago and you start with one gallon of gas in the tank, do you think you will make it to Chicago without having to stop for gas?

Quite simply, 1500 calories is not enough for a moderately active person to sustain a high energy level throughout the day.  When those calories are primarily processed carbohydrates, that's just a double whammy!  Did you know that your body can and will use fat as a source of energy if given the chance?  The problem is that the process is highly inefficient.  When you keep pumping your blood full of glucose, your body will burn off the glucose first, then give you a feeling of hunger while it tries to burn fat to sustain itself.  It is highly likely that you will start eating more carbs to fulfill the cravings you are feeling as a result of the drop in blood glucose.  The body wants a quick "fix" of sugar to keep going instead of getting off its lazy behind to use the fat.  We don't let that happen because the body literally goes into withdrawal from the carbs and nobody is going to put up with symptoms of withdrawl if they don't have to.  Eventually, you will cave and wolf down calories that are not on the approved 1500 calorie plan and gorge on some nasty stuff like a donut, granola bar, or cookies.

The Role of Insulin in Fat Loss/Gain

Insulin is released into the body in response to a number of things, most importantly is the entry of carbohydrates in the many forms of sugar.  As you can see from my example day of someone eating "healthy" on the Standard American Diet (SAD), there are plenty of carbs being consumed by the typical person.  Insulin in the system does one important thing that most people don't know.  It causes you to store fat.  Not just fat that you eat, but it actually causes you to store carbs as fat!  Insulin wants so badly to reduce the blood sugar levels (since high blood sugar can kill you), it will do what it has to do to reduce those levels.  First, you will use what you need to sustain energy levels.  The rest gets converted to, you guessed it, FAT...fat in the form of Triglycerides, which is the most difficult to get rid of!

"I Want To Be Happy, So I Don't Diet"

I hear this from most detractors of the lifestyle I lead.  Anyone who has failed on a diet has felt the subequent feeling of depression, shame, low energy, etc. that inevitably comes from such a failure.  After all, it's all your fault for failing, right?!?!  YOU were the one who couldn't stay away from the donuts.  YOU were the one who couldn't finish the workouts or motivate yourself to go back to the gym.  YOU were the one who ate too many calories and didn't exercies enough!  No wonder you don't want to try.  I have a secret for you:  It's not your fault!  You didn't fail your diet.  Your diet failed you!  Get it out of your head that eating healthy is miserable.  To the contrary, it is quite liberating!

Conclusion (My Advice)

I'm not going to go into a whole diatribe of why I love what I have done.  All I can tell you is that you need to give it a try.  Start by cutting out all processed carbs and eating as many whole foods as possible.  Do it for two weeks, at minimum.  I'm not talking about half-assing it.  I want you to give me two whole weeks of a strict whole food diet and tell me how you feel afterward.  Sure, you will suffer through withdrawl as I mentioned in a previous post, but you have to push through and you will come out on the other side feeling better than you have in a very long time!  The good news is that you don't have to count anything.  That's right, I'm not even asking you to count carbs.  Just switch to whole foods: fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, and small amounts of nuts/seeds.  Don't even weigh yourself!  Just eat until you are full of good wholesome foods.  When you get hungry, eat again.  It's that simple.  When it is all said and done, you will not even miss the sugary, starchy, grainy stuff that has been causing you to store fat all these years!  Give it a chance!  Other than nasty jiggly fat, what do you have to lose?

Back-to-school

Packing Healthier Choices

We have two very active boys, currently in grades 5 & 2.  The first two years that our oldest attended school, I packed his lunch, not because I believed the school options to be unhealthy, but because he was stubborn and was fearful of going through the hot lunch line.  So I would pack him the same thing day in and day out; sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds due to his peanut allergy) and jelly sandwiches, chips, a fruit cup, sometimes a dessert, and a capri sun or Kool-Aid Jammer.  I would shop at Aldi and buy the big box of individual servings of chips, cheetos and corn chips, and fruit cups of mandarine orange segments or applesauce.  My kids have always eaten whole wheat bread, so I never thought twice about serving him a lunch like this, at least it came from home, right?  Looking back at this typical lunch now, all I see is sugar between slices of sugar, corn and Omega 6's, fruit swimming in sugar, more sugar, oh and to drink - SUGAR!  Not much better than what the school serves, although don't get me started on that.  Kind of turns my stomach now.

Cucumber 'Sandwiches' with smoked turkey breast, celery & homemade almond butter and grapefruit sections.

This one has raw veggies, black olives, peaches from the organic farmers market and a date ball.

The Paleo lifestyle is all about eating unprocessed, whole foods.  Not the adulterated, chemically enhanced, preservative filled, 'fake' junk that we grew up on, and were raising our children on.  Processed foods that come in boxes, and wrappers and cute little pouches are nothing short of GARBAGE!  The food industry has taken whole foods, sucked out the fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other important nutrients, cooked them in unhealthy, astronomically high Omega 6 oils, added more chemicals that you can count, and put the creation down a conveyor belt to have punched out into nice little shapes for you.  Now I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very appetizing to me.

Kale Salad, raw veggies, HB egg, banana & mock Larabar Bite.

Raw Veggies with red pepper dip, fresh raspberries that we picked and a piece of smoked (wild caught) fish.

So knowing what I know now, about our food system, I was not willing to allow my children to eat this junk on a regular basis anymore.  It seemed they had some version of the same four staples every day at school, and a lot of times, got the same thing at home!  Chicken nuggets, spaghetti, pizza, and hot dogs.  Not to mention sides of macaroni and cheese, roll and whipped potatoes.  It's no wonder so many children are overweight in this country.  Something has gone seriously wrong with our government, and we need to start caring about this!

Kale salad & HB egg, carrots, watermelon and date ball.

Raw veggies, black olives and an apple.

For the first several days of school, I documented what I sent for lunch, basically for when I get in a rut or not sure what to pack.  I can then go back and reference what they hadn't had in awhile.  It is always vegetable based, some fruit and some nuts.  I like to alternate proteins in the form of meat, hard-boiled eggs, and nuts.  And if I do pack a meat, then most times we eat a meat-less dinner.  We eat VERY little processed anything, but occasionally you'll see some nitrate-free, antibiotic free, lunchmeat.  And I recently received some beef sticks from our grass-fed beef farmer.  Again, this is a once-per-week kind of a thing, not something they eat regularly and I consider it to be the best of the worst.

Kale salads, raw, fresh veggies, nitrate-free beef stick from local, humane farmer, Mock Larabar bites, and organic applesauce.

Grapes, celery & homemade almond butter, and HB egg.

I try to use what's currently in season and what I get from the organic vendor at the farmer's market.  When I'm short on time, it's a banana or organic apple sauce.  You'll never see drinks in these photos because my kids never get juice anymore.  Why?  It's pure sugar.  Don't be fooled by "no sugar added" claims or "100% juice".  It's just sugar, a.k.a. fructose that metabolizes quickly into sugar in the bloodstream.  At least with a whole fruit, the fructose is in combination with fiber, which slows the process and you don't get the drastic spikes in blood sugar.  Same goes with chocolate milk, probably consumed by 90% of kids that eat hot lunch at school.  Fruit juices and flavored milks can have upwards of 20-30 grams of sugar, that's as much as some energy drinks or sodas!  My boys get a 12 hour insulated thermos with filtered water each day.  Water is WAY better for the body!

http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm

Something you will also never see in my kids lunches is dairy.  Did you know that you get more calcium per serving in Kale or Almonds than you do with dairy milk?  If you ever wonder if you or your kids' nutritional needs are being met, enter what they eat in a typical day into http://www.cronometer.com/  or other food app and see.  I think you'll be surprised!  Plus, my youngest son's eczema cleared up within 5 days of cutting out dairy.  Dairy also creates inflammation in the body and exacerbates inflammatory conditions like arthritis, allergies, Crohn's, Psoriasis, Multiple Sclerosis, even Alzheimer's, heart disease and stroke.  Besides dairy, other contributors to inflammation are: 

• Sugar - in all forms.  Best to limit consumption.
• Cooking Oils - Sunflower, corn, vegetable, safflower & cottonseed
• Trans Fats
• Legumes - beans, peanuts etc.
• CAFO meat - found in grocery stores, restaurants & processed meats
• Alcohol
• Refined Grains - flour, bread, pasta, pastries, etc
• Artificial Additives - Aspartame, MSG, and packaged foods

That's not to say we don't occasionally enjoy a glass of wine and an ounce of rBST free, organic cheddar.  ;)

I feel so much better about what my kids are eating now!  And they, for the most part, eat everything every day.  When they don't have time to finish something, they eat it once they get home as their snack.  NOT ONCE have I gotten one complaint from either of them.  They know why we eat this way now and they LIKE it -- they choose it!  And when they are surrounded by other kids at lunch eating trays of processed, brown, fake foods all the time, they don't mind sharing their story and kids are just shocked that they like vegetables!  My hope is that more of you educate yourselves and know what real, whole foods actually are.

Look how colorful and nutricious meals can be!  And it really doesn't take that much time in the morning.  When something is truly important to you (and what should be more important than your health, right?), you make the time.  Healthy eating can be fun, beautiful, delicious, and rewarding!!

Homemade Almond Milk

How to Make your own Almond Milk

About a month ago, after learning about all the additives and preservatives in store bought brands of almond milk, I took the plunge into making it myself.  It really is not difficult to do, just a little time consuming, but I think I will get more efficient each time I make it.  I get about two gallons from 2lbs of raw almonds.  Plus, you get the added bonus of almond meal as a by-product for use in Paleo crackers, breads or pancakes!

Step 1:  Soak your almonds in water overnight.  After dinner is cleaned up, I pour two bags of raw almonds into a big bowl and cover with water.  Make sure there is a little room for expansion!  Depending on how much almond milk your family goes through, you can soak more or less almonds.

Step 2:  Drain and Rinse.  The next morning, when you are ready to make your milk, drain your almonds and rinse well with water.

Step 3:  Add new water and blend.  In your blender, add 1 cup of soaked almonds and 4 cups filtered water from your fridge or you could use bottled.  Blend until it looks white and your almonds are ground into small chunks.  I usually let it settle and run it again for a minute.

Step 4:  Strain into large bowl.  Using a sieve, resting on a small bowl, strain your almond milk.  I like to double up with cheese cloth to make sure I don't get any grit in the milk.  It's is super cheap and can be found in the kitchen section of most department stores.  You may have to press the last of it through, with the back of a spoon, to make sure you get every last ounce of the good stuff.

Step 5:  Add extracts.  This is the point that you would add pure vanilla extract, almond extract, or raw cacao powder (will need a little sweetener for this option).  You could also add fresh strawberry purée, but be sure to use within a day or two.  I add about 1 tsp vanilla extract to each batch and then pour into jars and refrigerate.  I stretch mine to about 10 days and its still delicious.

Step 6:  Bake your pulp.  Now with the leftover pulp in your sieve, dump it out on a cookie sheet, spread out, and bake at 300 degrees, until it dries out and starts to brown.  It takes maybe 90 minutes for each sheet and I get about four cookie sheets full.  I stagger them and try to remember which tray went in first, but it's pretty easy to tell which ones are done and which aren't.  Allow to cool on cookie sheets, then scrape off with spatula and spoon into food processor or magic bullet.  Pulse until nice and fine.  You may have to put through sieve again, but by this time you will have your almond milk mess cleaned up and can reuse your sieve.  Just make sure it's dry.

Step 7:  Repeat process.  Repeat the process for almond milk using the 1:4 ratio, until you are out of almonds.

Enjoy knowing you are cutting down on the chemicals and synthetic vitamins that you and your families are ingesting!  My goal was to cut back to 50% store bought and 50% homemade, but I haven't bought store bought since!  When we get low, I just soak more almonds and plan to spend the next morning making milk.  No more carrageenan!  That makes me one happy momma!