Your complete guide to a healthy Easter

March 16, 2016 · 8 Comments

Your complete guide to a healthy Easter

Easter is early this year!

One thing I have noticed you all chatting about is how overwhelming all the chocolate is at Easter time. Well-meaning friends and family love to spoil our kids and it can all get a little crazy. It’s worthwhile establishing some boundaries around this if you feel uncomfortable. One of our gorgeous mums made a cute graphic saying ‘thank you but no gifts for Easter’ and shared it amongst her family and friends. Great idea!

There is also a huge amount of horrible chocolate out there – full of nasty additives, palm oil and fillers and produced in an unethical way. My thoughts are always quality over quantity! Get some really good, quality chocolate and just have a little amount. The same goes for hot cross buns – make them yourself with high quality ingredients and you will be less inclined to eat dozens of yucky supermarket ones.

Here are my top picks for Easter this year…..

♥ Healthier Chocolate

If you are after healthier or allergy friendly Easter Eggs and chocolate, check out the range at Biome.

I always recommend you look out for chocolate that is fair trade and free of palm oil. Unfortunately, chocolate production comes with issues such as deforestation, environmental pollution, child slave labour and unethical payment of workers. It pays to know where your chocolate is coming from and how it is produced.

♥ Cute Ideas for Easter Baskets

♥ I love the chocolate gingerbread bunny biscuits from Gingerbread Folk. They are individually wrapped so perfect for the Easter Egg Hunt too.

♥ Add in a cute bunny toothbrush to help get rid of all that sugar off the teeth! Find them here.

♥ I always used to include a book at Easter time when my kids were small! Check out the beautiful selection of Easter themed books here.

Homemade Chocolate, Buns and Bums.

♥ Special Easter Baking Pack. Cyndi at Changing Habits has put together an Easter baking pack filled with organic, whole foods that you can use to create your own healthy Easter Treats. She has also thrown in some freebies!! Woohoo. Check it out here.

♥ The BEST healthy hot cross bun recipes to suit any diet can be found here.

♥ Dairy Free Chocolate Cream Easter Eggs from Lisa at Happy Tummies.

♥ Paleo Creme Eggs from Hold the Grain.

♥ Bunny Butt Pancakes from Edible Life in YYC. Use a healthy pancake recipe like one of these.

♥ Sugar Free Easter Chocolates from Becomingness.

I would love to know what ideas and recipes you have lined up for a healthy Easter! Share with us!

Real Food Chocolate Drinks for Kids

June 5, 2013 · 60 Comments

You may have noticed an uproar on Facebook last week about these new Coco Pops chocolate drinks.

These drinks have made the ‘green light’ category for Australian school canteens. That means it’s classified as a healthy food. Ummmm…. right.

Here is what Kellogs have to say: “With over 400,000 Australian kids and one in four adolescents skipping breakfast, Kellogg’s breakfast drinks are the latest in a series of innovations by the company aimed at helping parents find a way to give their families breakfast. We know it’s hard for many Australian parents in the morning when you’ve got bags to pack, lunchboxes to fill and school buses that won’t wait,” said Kellogg marketing director John Broome. “We believe Kellogg’s breakfast drinks offer a quick and easy, mess-free solution that can be enjoyed at home or on-the-go. Both Kellogg’ breakfast drinks are low GI, high protein and high fibre and contain around 10% sugar with the majority of that coming from low-fat milk in which sugar is found naturally.”

Here are the ingredients of the Coco Pops drink: Reduced fat milk (90%), sugar, skim milk powder, vegetable fibre (inulin), cocoa, flavours, stabilisers (460, 466, 407), minerals (calcium carbonate, iron), acidity regulators (339, 332), vitamins (niacin, vitamin D, folate, vitamin B6, riboflavin, thiamin).

And here is the nutrition information:

	Per Serve 250 ml	Per 100 g
KilojoulesCalories	740176	30071
Protein, g	9.8	3.9
Total fat, gSaturated fat, g	3.22.2	1.30.9
Carbohydrate, gSugars, gLactose, g	24.524.513.8	9.89.85.5
Dietary fibre, g	4.5	1.8
Sodium, mg	150	60

There is so much wrong here I don’t really know where to start.

Okay, let’s do some quick dot points of what I take offence to as a natural, new age mum.

Get up earlier and eat breakfast. It’s that simple! You don’t need to drink your breakfast in the car.
At best this is a treat food for kids, not a breakfast food.
A mess-free solution? Really? We can’t wash up a few bowls and spoons now? We need a disposable solution?
This product is heat-treated milk (UHT – ultra high treated). I try to avoid UHT milk for these reasons.
Reduced-fat milk is not healthy! Kids should be having full fat milk.
Sugar is the second ingredient and comes in at a whopping 24.5g per serve. That is a lot of sugar for a little body to process.
Inulin is a questionable substance and one I am not too keen on.
Flavours! Right there – that could be anything and everything!
Lots of numbers! They may be listed as safe but I don’t like my kids eating lots of numbers.
Probably synthetic vitamins. Processed food usually contains synthetic vitamins added back in after all the goodness is stripped out of a food.
Cashing in on the ‘Coco Pops’ brand – there are no actual Coco Pops in this drink. Confusing for kids.
Expensive! Fruit, oats, eggs are all cheaper than this.

Okay, I had my rant. Whew! I feel better now! But, I won’t just leave it there, I have eight better options for you. Real food options. I mean, who doesn’t love a chocolately drink right? Just make a real food one.

NNAM Home-made Healthy Milo

Quirky Cooking’s Creamy Dairy Free Hot Chocolate

Quirky Cooking’s Green Chocolate Smoothie

Superfood for Kidz Choc Berry Chunk Powder in milk or milk substitute

Alexx Stuart’s Super Speedy Chocolate Breakfast Shake

Alexx Stuart’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Milo

Crio Bru – brewed organic cacao (hot or cold)

I would love to know what you think about the Coco Pops drinks and if you have any other links or ideas for a healthy chocolate drink.

Talk to me.

Seven Sensational Healthy Chocolate Recipes

March 18, 2013 · 13 Comments

I am obsessed with all things chocolate at the moment.

Because I am so lovely, I am sharing some more amazing healthy chocolate recipes with you. These wonderful women know how to have a good time with chocolate! Enjoy.

Almond Chocolate from Jess at The Wellness Warrior.

Healthier Home-Made Tim Tams from Michelle at Health Food Lover.

Superfood Nut Butter Cups from Sarah at My New Roots.

Healthy White Chocolate from Chocolate-Covered Katie.

Raw Dark Chocolate Bars with Lucuma “Fudge” Filling from Lou at Fridge Scrapings.

Chocolate Coated Coconut Balls from Iwa at Additive Free Bites.

Pure Home-made Chocolate from Kim at Like Chocolate for Women.

100g rapadura sugar
1/8 tsp salt
250g cacao wafers
50g coconut oil

Double Boiler Method

1. Place all basic chocolate ingredients into the double boiler, bring the water to boil in the bottom pan then simmer, stirring as the chocolate melts
2. Simmer for 10 minutes on as low a heat as possible, stirring continuously.
3. Pour immediately into prepared dish or moulds and place in fridge until set.
4. Cut or break into pieces store in fridge.

Thermomix Method

1. Combine the sugar and salt for 1min on speed 9.
2. Grind the cacao wafers for 4 seconds on speed 6
3. Add the coconut oil and cook at 37C for 20 minutes on speed 2.
4. Pour mixture into a chocolate mould and refrigerate until solid.

Kim also says you can add some of her fabulous Twenty 8 aromatherapy oils like orange, lime or peppermint as they are food grade and totally safe and yummy to use in cooking.

What are cacao wafers?

This is the cacao bean before the separation into cacao butter and cacao powder, there is nothing added It is 100% cacao conveniently made into small wafers so that you can use them easily for many of your chocolate recipes. You can get them online here.

You might also like to try some of the chocolate recipes on the blog:

Crio Mac – a chewy chocolate treat

Really Healthy Chocolate Crackles

How to make your own healthy chocolate

Healthy Raspberry Chocolate

all things chocolate

Crio Bru Brewed Cocoa

November 2, 2012 · 161 Comments

I have some exciting news to share! I have become an affiliate with Crio Brü. I love their product so much, I can’t help but recommend it to everyone and let you in on the deliciousness!

But first, what is Crio Brü brewed cocoa?

Crio Brü is a brewed drink made from 100% roasted and ground cacao beans! It is 100% natural and 100% pure.

Crio Brü is the ultimate superfood. It is low in calories and contains no sugar, no fat, no dairy, no sodium, no cholesterol and practically no caffeine, yet is extremely high in antioxidants, theobromine and a host of other vitamins and minerals.

It comes in different flavours, each with a unique taste. I love them all, but Vega Real is my favourite. It tastes like a hot chocolate, but with more complex and richer flavours and without being sickly sweet.

Everyone in the family loves it too and I am in trouble if I run out. It’s actually a chocolate drink I feel more than happy about my kids having.

How do you use it?

You can brew your Crio Bru in a plunger (or French press), in a drip coffee maker, in your thermomix or just simmer on the stove top and then strain. You can add milk and sweetener if you like. I like it with some rice milk and a tablespoon of coconut oil – I find I don’t need a sweetener. You can drink it hot or cold.

But wait, don’t throw away the grounds! You can use them in loads of different recipes. I freeze them until I am ready to use them.

You can make a really nice Crio Concentrate and keep it in the fridge to use in iced chocolate or over icecream.

You can also use the grounds as a lovely body scrub. I add them to a small handful of coconut oil. Sublime!

Is it good for me?

You may have heard that chocolate is full of antioxidants and you are right! But, when you eat chocolate with it’s added sugar and with all the processing, you add those negative elements. Crio Brü is pure cacoa, so you get all the benefits, without worrying about additives.

No chemicals are used in the processing – it’s just pure cacao beans.

It makes a perfect substitute for coffee, so if you are wanting to cut down or give up, replace it with some Crio ! You can even combine it with your ground coffee and make a mocha. Crio Bru is also a fantastic and yummy cure for chocolate or sweet cravings.

Many people are reporting huge health benefits, including weight loss. Dr Oz even recommends it. “This is a really cool idea. I think this is something really worth trying. Here’s what I love about it. It’s why it can help you burn fat faster. It has a natural stimulant, not caffeine, called theobromine that can boost your metabolism. It’s very safe. It also has a fat blocker. It helps get rid of the fat in your body by blocking an enzyme you need to digest fat, so you never absorb the fat into your body.” – Dr. Oz

In fact, I am going to test this theory as I would like to lose about 10 kilograms (that’s a whole other blog post!), so I am going to make sure I have a daily Crio Brü with a tablespoon of coconut oil. I do find when I have it around 3pm, it is an incredible pick me up and my appetite is satisfied until dinner time.

Does anyone want to join me?

There are so many other health benefits as well, but I will get you to have a look at those for yourself in a minute!

How do you buy it?

But it online, direct from Crio Brü. I get several bags at once to save on postage. It usually gets delivered within the week. It’s very affordable and a bag lasts me for ages. Go here to check it out.

I am thrilled to be working with Crio Brü and hope to bring you some recipes and more information in future blog posts. Who is already a Crio fan?