Have you been eating your greens lately? I really love greens, which is funny because my mom used to always try to get me to eat them more when I was a kid and I HATED them! I have had bouts of low iron throughout my lifetime and my mom would always tell me how much I needed greens. At that time, I really could have cared less about what my body 'needed'. Well, my mom was right. Spinach is a great source of iron along with many other benefits. In Jonny Bowden's book 'The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth', he says, "Calorie for calorie, green leafy vegetables like spinach provide more nutrients than almost any other food on the planet." It is also a good source of vitamins K and D which are important for strong bones. My all time favorite way to have spinach is to drink it! It is SO good blended with frozen banana and non-dairy milk! I am taking a break from bananas for a bit, so I won't be 'drinking' my spinach for a while. I had a whole bag of this gloriously green stuff in my fridge just waiting to be eaten. For lunch today I steamed a bunch with some purple onion and served it with tuna on top. Not too shabby! The only thing I hate about it is, when it looks like you are cooking a TON--it shrinks down to nothing. So, make sure you cook a bunch. Now, go eat your spinach:)
Now, onto my grains. I have slowly been adding a small amount of grains back into my diet over the last few days. I mentioned in my last post about some bread my hubby found that was egg, dairy and gluten free. What I seem to have overlooked was that it had corn and millet in it--both of which I can't eat. Thankfully, I hadn't eaten hardly any of it before I realized this. Anyway, so I was on a hunt for a good high quality, lower-carb, egg free, dairy free and gluten free bread. That's a pretty tall order for a loaf of humble bread. I know--man does not live by bread alone, but it sure is nice to have a piece every now and then:) Anyway, I found
this recipe on
Cheryl's blog and was so excited to make it. I did have to change a few things about it to meet my dietary restrictions but at least I had a good place to start. I made the bread and calculated away trying to figure out how many carbs etc. each piece had. I let the bread sit in the fridge(wrapped) over night so that it would slice easily. I sliced it pretty thin and got 27 pieces out of the loaf. Here are the 'stats' I came up with: 64 calories, 10.6 carbs, 1.5 fiber, 1.2 protein, 2.3 fat. It's not the fiber heavy weight I was hoping for, but I am pretty pleased with it overall. Below is the list of flours I used. See the original recipe for complete instructions.
1/4 c. rice bran(I may use more next time)
1/3 c. sorghum
1/2 c. quinoa
1/3 c. amaranth
1/3 c. buckwheat(nutritional powerhouse--may use more next time)
1/3 c. arrowroot
1/2 c. tapioca
I also left out the sesame seeds called for in the original recipe.
Have you been eating your greens lately? I really love greens, which is funny because my mom used to always try to get me to eat them more when I was a kid and I HATED them! I have had bouts of low iron throughout my lifetime and my mom would always tell me how much I needed greens. At that time, I really could have cared less about what my body 'needed'. Well, my mom was right. Spinach is a great source of iron along with many other benefits. In Jonny Bowden's book 'The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth', he says, "Calorie for calorie, green leafy vegetables like spinach provide more nutrients than almost any other food on the planet." It is also a good source of vitamins K and D which are important for strong bones. My all time favorite way to have spinach is to drink it! It is SO good blended with frozen banana and non-dairy milk! I am taking a break from bananas for a bit, so I won't be 'drinking' my spinach for a while. I had a whole bag of this gloriously green stuff in my fridge just waiting to be eaten. For lunch today I steamed a bunch with some purple onion and served it with tuna on top. Not too shabby! The only thing I hate about it is, when it looks like you are cooking a TON--it shrinks down to nothing. So, make sure you cook a bunch. Now, go eat your spinach:)
Now, onto my grains. I have slowly been adding a small amount of grains back into my diet over the last few days. I mentioned in my last post about some bread my hubby found that was egg, dairy and gluten free. What I seem to have overlooked was that it had corn and millet in it--both of which I can't eat. Thankfully, I hadn't eaten hardly any of it before I realized this. Anyway, so I was on a hunt for a good high quality, lower-carb, egg free, dairy free and gluten free bread. That's a pretty tall order for a loaf of humble bread. I know--man does not live by bread alone, but it sure is nice to have a piece every now and then:) Anyway, I found this recipe on Cheryl's blog and was so excited to make it. I did have to change a few things about it to meet my dietary restrictions but at least I had a good place to start. I made the bread and calculated away trying to figure out how many carbs etc. each piece had. I let the bread sit in the fridge(wrapped) over night so that it would slice easily. I sliced it pretty thin and got 27 pieces out of the loaf. Here are the 'stats' I came up with: 64 calories, 10.6 carbs, 1.5 fiber, 1.2 protein, 2.3 fat. It's not the fiber heavy weight I was hoping for, but I am pretty pleased with it overall. Below is the list of flours I used. See the original recipe for complete instructions.
1/4 c. rice bran(I may use more next time)
1/3 c. sorghum
1/2 c. quinoa
1/3 c. amaranth
1/3 c. buckwheat(nutritional powerhouse--may use more next time)
1/3 c. arrowroot
1/2 c. tapioca
I also left out the sesame seeds called for in the original recipe.