My Recent Experience with Juicing

Ok, I have a confession to make: the last couple weeks I’ve been eating a less than stellar diet.  Between birthday celebrations, dinners with the family, and going out of town, I’ve consumed more gluten and sugar than I like to.  In an effort to give my body a bit of a break, I did some juicing last week.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

My new homemade laundry detergent.

As you may have figured out by now, I’m a pretty frugal person.  If I can make a product at home and save money while not including any strange chemicals, I’m all about it.  I make my own lotion, lip balm, shampoo, hand soap, and body scrub, but one thing that had so far evaded me was laundry detergent.  

Recipe: Fish “en Papillote”

For months I tried to get my husband to like fish.  He’s an incredibly a bit of a picky eater, but I was determined to find a way to incorporate fish into our weekly menu in order to get some of the great health benefits of eating seafood.  I ttied lots of different recipes, from teriyaki salmon to tuna steaks and even homemade fish sticks.  He’d dutifully eat as much as he could, but he never really enjoyed any of the recipes.

Healing Diets

Since I wrote a couple of posts on autoimmunity and its link to gastrointestinal health, I’ve had a few readers contact me and ask what kinds of diets are good for healing the gut and reducing the development of autoimmune disease.  I figured it might be helpful to do a post on the subject, since I’m sure there are more people out there wondering the same thing.

Rome wasn’t built in a day…or…Change is hard, so take it slow.

I’ve been getting questions lately from my readers about how to actually transition to a real foods diet.  What does it actually look like, and where do you start?  It can sometimes be daunting, and even discouraging.  Different people say some foods are good while others say they’re bad.  There’s the fight between those who say local produce is better than organic produce, and more and more people talking about how our soils are depleted and we aren’t getting as many nutrients from fruits and vegetables as we used to.  Do you have to find a farmer in order to get quality meats?  What if there isn’t one near you?  Or you can’t afford it?  Today, I’d like to talk about some easy, practical steps to take on your health journey, and encourage you that you don’t have to totally revamp your diet overnight in order to reap the benefits.

Soak up the Sun

This week I took a couple days off work to relax, recharge my batteries, and catch up on some things I’d like to do.  I’ve been so busy this year with school, blogging, and now my externship, that I haven’t taken a whole lot of time for myself.  As I was planning what I wanted to do with my time, I tried to remember the last time I actually got outside and enjoyed the sun and the outdoors.  And you know what?  I couldn’t remember.

Avoiding the Drive Through: Make Ahead Meatballs

From the feedback I’m getting it seems you guys like the practical posts about avoiding the drive through, making your own self care products, etc.  I’ll try and include more of those in the weeks to come, so if you have any ideas of specific topics you’d like to see, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email!  Today I’m going to tell you about one of my favorite ways to avoid the drive through: make ahead meatballs.  I had just started making a batch of these the other day when I thought “this would be a great blog post!”  So, I whipped out my camera and decided to take some pictures.  Forgive my dirty food processor, I’d already used it!

Avoiding the Drive Through: Make Your Own Salad Bar

Creating your own salad bar is a great way to make sure you have lunches for work and the flexibility to throw together a quick meal at home.  It’s easy, and if you get a wide variety of toppings, can be quite filling!  It’s also a great way to cram a lot of veggies into your diet, which can sometimes be challenging if you have a picky spouse or kids that don’t eat a wide variety of vegetables.

How to Green Your Hair Care Routine: Homemade Shampoo and Eco Friendly Products

I’ve talked a lot about getting rid of toxins in the products you use in order to protect yourself from endocrine disrupting chemicals and restore your metabolism.  But sometimes that seems very difficult, as there are TONS of products out there that claim to be eco friendly, but really aren’t.  Not only are the ingredients hard to pronounce and unknown, but a lot of the organic products are very expensive!  If you’ve been reading here for any length of time you know that I’m very frugal, so when I started revamping my personal care routine, I tried lots of different ways to eliminate toxins without spending a fortune on products.  Here’s what I came up with.