Speaking of Sprouts

Sprouts. Today I wanted to talk to you about sprouts and their benefits to your diet. They are an amazing type of food and their benefits are great.

When you eat food there are quite a few things you are looking to get from it. Sprouts have pretty much all of these things. I was reading a couple of weeks ago that you could get all of your daily nutrients from 6 cups of sprouts (different types of course). This means everything you need. This is not to say that I recommend you give up your normal diet and only eat sprouts, it's just to give an illustration of how great sprouts are. Most people don't get enough of their daily nutrients at all.

A sprouted seed or grain is much higher in vitamins and minerals than the seed itself. When sprouting occurs, the seed/grain digests itself and releases all it's nutrients for growth. (FYI...I am not an expert, so I could be a little off. If you want to look into it you can check my good friend Google.) I do know that some sprouts have a vitamin content up to 500% more than the full grown version. No I didn't accidentally get an extra 0 in there. Most are at least 3-6 times higher.

As you probably already know, getting your nutrients in live form is way healthier for you than a supplement. When you are eating live foods it gives you chlorophyll, and enzymes that clear your body of the toxins it produces. Sprouts are extremely easy to digest because the plant has already done the work for you. They also contain high concentrations of RNA, DNA, protien and essential nutrients which you can only get from living cells. It seems that because of this, sprouts may be a little tiny fountain of youth =).

Here is another awesome thing about sprouts, they grow in any climate at any time of year and only take a couple of days from start to harvest. AND...they actually grow further in nutrients after harvest as opposed to other fruits and vegetables that start losing nutrients as soon as they are picked.

In the future (read- when I get my rear in gear and take some pictures of the process from start to finish), I will post on the process of sprouting at home. I just might start that tonight. In the mean time, you should check out the benefits of sprouts for yourself. Just go and Google health benefits of sprouts or something like that. You will be amazed at what you find.

How do you use them? You can just add them in to your other foods. My favorite is to LOAD them up on my sandwiches instead of lettuce. They taste awesome (in my opinion) and they are wonderful for you. My current favorite is a sandwich with avocado, tomato, broccoli sprouts, and alfalfa sprouts on a wrap (Ezekiel 4:9 wraps are really good or just some form of whole grain tortilla) and add a little mayo and Goulden's mustard. You won't be sorry you tried that my friend. If you want to skip out on the mayo it's still great with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar. I like to shake things up a bit sometimes.

Now get to sprouting!

On an update note, I was doing very well with my healthy eating and my energy levels were higher than I can remember them being in years. This is just from a few weeks of healthy improvements starting back at the end of January. Due to Curly's birthday, I ate some irregular food like cupcakes and sugar laden things, as well as going out to eat at Red Robin. I am now sick...pretty darn sick. I would say they are related because before we changed our eating habits we were sick quite a few times as well. I think that had we made it farther before having a birthday set back it wouldn't have made a very big difference, but since we are early in our journey of changing our eating habits our bodies are still getting rid of many years of bad eating toxins.

What's Smiles Eating?

I make most of the baby food that Smiles eats around here. We do buy jar food for him when we are going out somewhere and we keep rice cereal around, but that's about it. It's much healthier and cheaper to do this (it's like buying in bulk) so I thought that I would share with you the simplicity of my methods.

We will go with his current favorite for now.

Take one avocado and cut it in half. Remove the pit from the center.

Cut strips from one end to the other length wise. (YES. I admit that I bought my knives on TV. But I will have you know that they are the best knives I have ever used and my mom has some pretty nice ones. That Ronco guy is not kidding when he says all that good stuff and they were VERY cheap. You can make fun of me all you want.)

Now repeat in the opposite direction. This will form small squares.

Remove the meat from the skin of the avocado.

Use a fork to smash the pieces of avocado.

Smash them a little more, until you form a consistency that you think your baby can handle. Smiles likes some chunk in his food these days.

He thinks chewing is cool.

Feed to baby.

Mmmm. Yummy! He likes to be messy, he is a boy you know.

Just be careful not to put the bowl too close to the baby if you don't want a mess.

Some kids like to assert their independence really early.

Avocados make Smiles smile.

...but then again, what doesn't?

Next week if I'm feeling really nice, I will teach you how to make bananas for baby. Aren't you excited!?! No? Oh. You picked up on a hint of sarcasm in that post...?

Okay, well in all honesty it is easy to make your own food for baby and you don't need a food processor. We mush up bananas, avocados, pears, and mangoes just like that. Smiles isn't a big fan of the mango. It's too much for his palate. Other foods take a smidge more work, but it's really not that hard to do that either. Carrots are easy, you just boil them for a long time. Sweet potatoes we just cook for us and then mash some up for him. Brown rice (which is just like giving him rice cereal except better) is just cooked longer and I give it a little extra water when mushing. Usually Smiles has a similar food to what we are having. I just alter it a little so that he isn't getting the salty and spicy.

I had to get some pictures of the kid up for Gramps. He was getting a little edgy.

You know how those old farts get.

Ooops...I meant to say that Gramps is smitten and needs to have some cuteness in his week. He doesn't get the joy of wee ones in his daily life unless I share them here. See Gramps, we are still having fun even if Mom is a bit on the contemplative side. That's really always going on, I just don't always blog about it. I will get back to the deep stuff tomorrow.

My Favorite Grocery Store

When you are trying to buy more healthy foods, I recommend Fred Meyer if they have one near you. The bulk section is great when you want to buy things that might otherwise be expensive. I buy things like nuts, organic evaporated cane syrup, whole grains, beans, and I love to buy spices there. Actually, if you are going to buy spices- DON'T buy anywhere else. They are very cheap and much more fresh this way.


They also have an awesome selection of natural foods, supplements, and organic options. I find that I spend less when I shop there too. Often it will look cheaper to shop at another store because of sales and other things, but when I look at the bill each time it's always cheaper when I shop there.

The other one I recommend, Trader Joe's. Now, I do have a complaint about them. They don't have one close to my home and I have to travel a bit to get there, but it's a great store. Good prices, good healthy selection. I dig Joe's Trader style.

Don't Get Confused on Those Organics

There are a lot of strange ways that a mind can be deceived. Since I have been trying to be more healthy, I wanted to share a thing or two that I am learning or have learned.

One way that we can trick ourselves is with Organics. Organic is a good thing. Very true. But there are a couple of ways a brain can be twisted with the "organic" label.

Organic means that something was grown or raised with out chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics if we are referring to an animal. Animals (or their meat rather) labeled organic are fed differently than those that are not. That's really all it means when you buy something organic, I'm sure you already knew that but I wanted to remind you. That's a good thing, don't misunderstand.

Oh yeah, and the way the food is processed is better for the environment. I guess that's part of it too. I just don't know that much about that part, so if you want to know about that I am not your girl.

Sometimes when you see that label though, your mind might deceive you and insert "healthy" where "organic" is written. Just be careful not to let your mind do that and you are good in this department. Now, I am not saying it is bad to have some organic cookies or chips or anything like that. It is always better to be chemical free, just be aware of the choice you are making and the fact that it's still junk food.


It's just chemical free junk food.



Also, know this. There is this little tricky thing they do with the label. When you are buying organic, check the label for anything that says "added". If it's added to the organic food post organic process...do you see where it gets tricky? For example, there is a certain grocery store that has a line of organic products that I decided to buy some yogurt from a little while back. Only problem was it said "natural flavors added". Did I mention that they also fool you sometimes with the word natural? No? Well, they do. Natural doesn't mean jack diddly. It's not regulated at all. Usually natural is something I run from depending on what the rest of the label says...it seems to be a favorite trick of those food selling folks. Natural flavors are a large number of additives. If possible, don't buy stuff that says natural flavors on the ingredients list.

If you try that, be warned, you will find it's sometimes hard to find things that do not have those pesky natural flavors.

"And that's all I have to say about that." -Forrest Gump

Honor God With Your Body

Honor God with your body.

Read it one more time up there...

That is something that was said two weeks ago in church. Sure, it was referring to sexual immorality, but it's been on my mind in a different way this week. I was thinking- I don't take care to eat as healthy as I know that I should. Some people think they are eating healthy and really are not because they are not aware of what healthy eating actually is. Unfortunately for me (okay, it's actually probably fortunate...just not my favorite) I have learned what it means to eat well. A couple years back I was on a healthy eating kick and learned a little bit about what to eat in order to get the nutrients you need and all that good stuff. I am not extremely knowledgeable, I just know enough to know enough that I am not doing things the way I should.

Then comes Mom. Stink on you Mom! She just has to show me this book she is reading, which I find out later is marketed as a diet type book, but really it's a nutritionist that is sharing how to change your lifestyle diet in a healthy way. I just thought it was about nutritious eating in the first place, so it was no surprise to me that she is wanting you to make some changes for life. Not just to lose pounds. I am not the type to "diet" anyway. Ever. I think it's silly and unhealthy and also not being happy with who you are. We won't get me started on diets. Nutrition though, nutrition is different.

Yes, I have known that my body is screaming for help. There are lots of issues that are showing me I need some help. I just didn't exactly know what it was saying. So, now the issue of whether or not to choose to make that change. Goodness knows I like my sugar. I like my chocolate, bread, and dairy products. Then come flowing back the words of two weeks ago Sunday, honor God with your body. Then remember the other words that he is working on for me, "All that I am and all that I have belongs to God." Okay. I know. I need to be healthy.

I then thought about when I turn to God with health issues. Heal this please Lord. I thought about my children and how I have to teach them by allowing the natural consequences to happen sometimes. Sometimes if Curly is making a bad decision and not listening to my counsel, I will have to give her consequences, or allow the natural ones to take place. She has to learn. It's true that our kids like to tune our voices out. It's just in the breeding. I am the same way with the Lord at times. I believe that He has to allow me to have my natural consequences from time to time as well. He can heal my issues even if I eat c-r-a-p all the time, but would it be good parenting? Perhaps not.

I have to learn to take care of my body. There are all kinds of examples of how diet effects the body. We pump so much junk into the foods we eat, even the ones that people don't think are bad for them, that we are trashing our bodies. I know this and the funny thing is that I am passionate about it in word and thought, but when it comes to taking action...

I AM AWFUL.

I won't lie to you and tell you that I am saying this so you can keep me accountable. Um, you are easily lied to since you are on the other end of a screen. I am accountable to you in no way. I am just sharing what is going on in my life 'cause that is what blogging is about. Just wanting to be honest with ya. I might fail at changes that I want to make. I'm not claiming that it's gonna go well at all. Just sharing what I'm living.

Take that.

...what that is I couldn't tell you though...