Calories vs. Chemicals Part 1

Happy Monday everyone! Welcome to Calories vs. Chemicals part 1. 

In an effort to not gain the freshman 15 in college, I survived off of diet coke and lean pockets.  I thought diet coke was the most amazing thing since sliced bread and the lean pockets had way less calories than actual pizza... If I only knew what I was putting into my body! Once I stopped obsessing over calories and actually started to look at the ingredients in the food I was eating, (along with juicing) I then became successful in losing 30+lbs. 

 Throughout my year long journey as an avid juicer, I have learned so much about food and the myths behind what the food industry has had us eating up for years.  The biggest lesson learned has been that calories are not scary... the toxic chemical overload in food is.  Toxic chemicals are constantly accumulating in our bodies because the industry has had us obsessing over calories for years with labels like: "Low Calorie" "No Calorie" "100 Calories" 

Let me ask you a question... When you are purchasing your groceries and you turn your food or drink item over to check the calories, protein, fat etc.  How often are you checking the ingredients? 

   

When we focus only on the calories, we miss the fact that in exchange they are filling our food with toxic chemicals.  

& the scariest part about this is 

The more we fill our bodies with nutrient dense foods & empty calories, the harder we make it on ourselves to lose weight and the more we put our health at risk.  

Here is a short 2 minute video on chemicals in our food! I love this video and the way it describes what science and technogoly is doing to our food.

Let's take a look a protein bar.  Most of us think a protein bar is an optimal healthy snack.  They have protein, tons of delicious flavors, they're portable... something we can keep in our car or purse.  In hindsight, it's perfect! Not to mention that it comes off as a healthy alternative. 

At a first glance we see 20 grams of protein 

Flip it over and read

Calories: 280 

Fat: 10g 

Carb: 29g 

Protein: 20g 

Ingredients: 

Soy protein, isolate, beet juice concentrate, organic brown rice syrup, organic dried cane syrup, palm kernel oil, organic peanuts, cocoa, organic rolled oats, vegetable glycerin, soy protein concentrate, natural flavors, peanuts, peanut flour, rice starch, organic sunflower oil, unsweetened chocolate, inulin (chicory extract) sea salt, organic oat fiber, soy, lecithin, calcium carbonate, organic vanilla extract, cocoa butter, vanilla extract, natural vitamin E, calcium, carbonate, magnesium oxide, ascorbic acid, DL-Aplha tocopheryl acetate, thiamine monoitrate, beta carotene, niacin amide, D-Calcium pantothenate, riboflavin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, erocalciferol, cyanocobalamin, potassium iodide.  

Can you pronounce that last sentence?  I know I had a hard time with it.  I am not in any way trying to discredit protein bars or say that you should never eat them. I am just simply trying to bring awareness to the chemical overload in foods we think are better than others.  

3 Rules of Thumb

 If you can't pronounce it, Don't eat it 

Try to stick to prepackaged or frozen foods that have 10 ingredients or less 

If it has a long shelf life, put it down 

If anything, I encourage you to start reading the labels on the back of food.  When you can, buy local. Food should always come from the farm and go straight to your table.  Ditch the diet and just be the healthiest, happiest version of yourself that you can be! 

Stay tuned for part 2 later this week, where we will compare and decode labels! 

XoXo

-Ashley 

For Daily Tips and Recipes follow me on: 

Instagram: ashleynicolemora1 

Twitter: MissAshleyMoora 

JUICING 101

ITS TIME

It's time for us to take hold of our health.  It's time for us to learn how to say, "NO" to certain foods.  It's time for us to finally start turning our dreams into goals and achieving them once and for all! We must start taking responsibility in order to achieve our goals and by this I mean it's our own personal CHOICE to live a healthy life-style.... or not to.  No one is going to swat your hand when your office brings cookies, candies, and donuts on Valentines Day and tell you, "Excuse me, You can't eat that"... You have to make the concsious decision whether or not that cookie is worth it.

For those of you who are on this juicing journey with me, I wanted to do a little Juicing 101 for all my beginners.  Hopefully this provides a little more knowledge and few more tips and tricks! 

JUICING 101 

I love juicing because it provides me a way to add more fruits and vegetables into my diet which I have never been able to do before.  Previously, I would say that I ate the typical American diet.... I didn't get anywhere close to the recommended serving of fruits and veggies, I ate a lot of foods that were high in calories, sugars, and fats.  When I tried my first juice, I surprisingly loved it and I was amazed at how many vegetables were in the ingredients (and I wasn't able to taste any of them.) Once I started to do more research on the benefits of juicing, I finally went out and bought a juicer...needless to say I have been hooked ever since and my result have been more than amazing.  

So why juice? Our bodies actually naturally break down all of the food we eat anyways, when we are juicing it's kind of like letting our bodies skip a step which gives us more energy (because our body isn't having to work so hard to break down the food) and it gives our digestive system a break as well.  

I get asked alllllll the time, "Why don't you just blend instead of juice?" or someone will tell me, "I juiced this weekend with my blender"  Juicing and Blending are different.  Let me tell you why... when we are juicing we are separating the liquid of the produce from the pulp.  A juicer liquifies everything that goes into the juicer.  The juice part of the produce is what our cells absorb.  So when we make juice it's basically just a big glass of nutrients that goes straight to our cells.  When we are blending, yes we are still liquifying the produce and the fiber is important however it's the juice that our cells need desperately.  The nutrients in a smoothie are not separated like they are in juice.  I personally think juices and smoothies complement each other well and doing a mix of both is great. 

If you are juicing to lose weight, it's best to use produce that is HIGH in nutrients but low in calorie.  Here is a a good list to stick to. 

Bell Peppers 

Parsley 

Kale 

Broccoli 

Spinach 

Celery 

Brussels Sprouts 

Cauliflower 

Carrots 

Cabbage 

Beets (Very Earthy in Juices) 

Pineapple 

Cantaloupe 

Watermelon 

Tomatoes 

Apples 

Strawberries 

Pears 

Oranges 

Grapes 

Preparation

Juicing takes a lot of preparation.  I know when you think of "juicing" you probably think "sweet, now I can throw an entire orange into my juicer and not peel it" 

Ahhh! Please DO NOT DO THIS! You still have to prep your fruits and vegetables before throwing them into the juicer.   You cannot use frozen fruits... even after they have been thawed out (they are usually to squishy).  Bananas cannot go thru the juicer.  If you want to use bananas then you would have to create a juice and then throw the juice and the banana into a blender. 

Here are pictures from my Juicing session this Sunday! 

This one's called 

Fire Me Up! 

Carrot 

Orange 

Lime 

Jalapeno 

Get everything you will need out  (This serves 2)

 Wash your fruits and veggies

Cut off stems... They cannot go thru the juicer

I like to put a liner inside the "trash" bin of the juicer... especially when making multiple juices so that I don't have to clean it every single time it fills up

Assemble your juicer!

You MUST remove ALL peels.  It take less time to cut them off than sit down and peel each one, So typically I just cut off all my peels.

Once peeled, place fruit in the shooter.  Don't turn the juicer on until your shooter is filled with produce. (If you have a small juicer you might only be able to do one fruit at a time) 

I like to keep a grocery bag around that way I can throw all the peels and excess stuff in the bag immediately.  It keeps the kitchen a little more clean and it makes the final cleaning a lot easier.  It's better to keep it all in one place!

You don't need to do anything to carrots other than wash them.  Here is a picture of them going into the juicer. 

.... and coming out of the juicer

Oranges need to be peeled... it saves a lot of time to just cut the peels off. 

And into the juicer they go.....

The jalapeno's only require the stem being removed.  Other than that...it's good to go straight in!

End Product

STIR ALL INGREDIENTS TOGETHER 

Pour over ice and enjoy :)

 The Fire Me Up was delicious!!! A must try!

RECIPE: Hello Sunshine!

 Pineapple

Kale 

Orange

Kale only needs to be washed and then it can go straight in

Here are pictures of the Kale going in and out... Kale doesn't juice very well and by that I mean not a lot of juice comes out.... So it's better to throw in an orange or an apple first, then Kale, then another orange or apple after.  For some reason it helps the Kale juice better.  

 Remove the skin of the pineapple 

This is how I like to cut up the pineapple before placing it in the juicer

 Stir up!

 Pour and Enjoy! 

I made these for this upcoming week.  This recipe made two big juices and two small juices.

Apples... Makes sure you remove the sticker!

Wash Em'

Remove the stem

Cut em' up

And then they are ready to be liquified!

  Juicing is so much fun! I hope this helped some of you who have just recently started juicing! If there are any other types of fruits or vegetables you have questions about please leave me a comment so I can do a demo in an upcoming blog! 

If I can do it.....

Have a very blessed Sunday! 

Xoxo

-Ashley

For Daily Tips and Recipes follow me on: 

Instagram: ashleynicolemora1 

Twitter: MissAshleyMoora