Wow! Here is another recipe I tried from the agave cookbook (you can find the book on my web site – and for all my Nashville friends you can save on shipping). When I went to our “pot-luck” I doubled it so that I would have some to bring home to have the next day…Haahhh! I was out of luck - gone!

I didn’t have all the ingredients below so followed most of it but I substituted a few things:

For the dressing I substituted:
Healthy coconut oil for the vegetable oil.
I didn’t have rice vinegar so I used Bragg’s apple cider vinegar
I didn’t have fresh ginger so I used sushi pickled ginger and diced it

For the salad I used:
Shredded carrots (food processor)
Shredded cabbage
Onion – yellow and green
Cucumbers- julieanned

I don’t like hot foods – and this had a little heat from the chili-oil but it was hot and sweet and you just couldn’t stop eating it. Which is exactly what you want in a healthy recipe.


Asian Cabbage and Sprout with Ginger Dressing

Serves: 6 - 8

Description:

This is a delicious salad that can be used as a side dish or as a main course (just by adding chicken). The dressing has a wonderful Asian flavor and can be used as a dressing on mixed greens as well.

Ingredients:

Salad:
1/2 head green cabbage
1/2 head red cabbage
2 carrots, julienned
2 cups bean sprouts
2 cups snow peas
1 red pepper, diced
2 grilled chicken breasts, cubed (optional)

Dressing:
1/3 cup Xagave
1/3 cup white rice vinegar (unsweetened)
1/3 cup soy sauce*
1 tsp. fresh chopped garlic
1 tsp. fresh chopped ginger root
1 tsp. hot chile oil
1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
Garnish:
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

Steps:
Combine all salad ingredients in a bowl and mix. Combine all dressing ingredients in a blender and blend. Pour dressing over salad mix, toss and sprinkle sesame seeds over top.


Tips and Notes:
This salad and dressing will taste delicious for several days.
*May substitute Braggs for soy sauce. (dilute 1 part Braggs to 1 part water).

Thank you Stephen Richards!

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes… (oh, that was the 70’s – and you had to be there...oh, never mind)


The Big Three Major Diet Changes that will Alter Your Body and Probably make you Loose Weight, Too.

I really believe that God designed our bodies to protect us from disease, create all the energy we need, and even store reserves for emergencies. If we eat well and our environments are clean, our immune systems usually do a pretty good job of protecting us from diseases as well as systematically work toward self-healing, replenishing and rebuilding.


Rule of thumb - if you can’t understand the “laboratory tech-talk” on the label it is probably not good for your body.

Lets Get Real - The main mission of most large food corporations is not your health and healing; it is the bottom line - profit. Most food corporations assign a primary mandate to their food development departments that their products have 1. maximum shelf life and 2. maximum taste thrill in order to achieve the greatest profit margin. They accomplish this with long lasting product and repeat purchases. Many companies justify peddling their health damaging fun foods by telling themselves they are "just giving the public what it wants". Few have the goal of your optimum health and healing in mind.

Our friend, Dr. Josh Axe of Maximized Living here in Nashville, Tennessee advises us to make three major healthy changes in our diets.

They are:

1. Replace the bad fats with good fats
2. Change the meat we eat
3. Remove refined Sugars

1. Replacing the bad fats with good fats – Why? Good fats are essential to hormone production, cancer prevention, brain development, weight loss, cellular healing and anti-inflammation. Hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated oils, trans-fats, and rancid vegetable oils are connected with inflammation which is the root cause of heart disease, cancer, and stroke, as well as other inflammatory health issues.

No-No’s – Hydrogenated and Partially Hydrogenated oils like cottonseed oil, soybean oil, and vegetable oils (yes, vegetable oil like canola which quickly turns rancid. This really surprised me because I always thought it was a “healthy oil”! ) – This change alone will help you loose weight because almost every bread, cracker, cookie, and boxed food on the market is filled with this stuff.

Good Fats: Cold Water fish, olive oil (not heated), olives, avocado, coconut milk, unrefined coconut oil, coconut flakes, grape seed oil, full fat plain yogurt, cod-liver oil, krill oil, canned sardines, flax seed oil, butter, hemp oil, almond butter, raw (unpasteurized) cheese, eggs, cashew butter.

I cook in a taste-less, cold pressed coconut oil or grape seed oil (cheapest at Trader Joe’s Grocery Store). Good fats can become bad when you cook with them so when cooking with high heat – use only coconut oil or grape seed oil. Olive oil becomes a bad fat when heated above 120°.

2. Changing the meats you eat – Why? When an animal that was designed to eat grass is given a grain diet to fatten it up for the market, (remember the “This little piggy” toe song?) it changes the fatty acid ratios and denatures the good fats which when eaten causes imbalances in our bodies. Also the commercial pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and hormones in meats are higher than any vegetable we eat.

Replace with: grass fed, free range meats. Also, eat more veggies than meat – sorry guys and Dr. Atkins – that diet is not healthy. A good rule of thumb for meats is to buy locally raised organic meats when possible. You can find a local farmer through Local Harvest - www.localharvest.org - plus buying locally will help support community agriculture and keep farmers (your neighbors) in business.

3. The Biggie – Replacing Refined sugars - Notice the key word in the article title is change - not eliminate. If you tell a chocoholic like me or the ordinary American sugar addict that we can no longer have sugar – well we just can’t/won’t do it. That is what an addiction is – something that we became a slave to. Some of us can’t shake it even if threatened by a miserable disease.

Why replace the sugar? You know most of the reasons, but some important ones are sugar:

• Suppress the immune system-this means you are more prone to all kinds of nasty energy and quality of life stealing diseases because your body’s ability to fight them off is weakened
  
  
• Makes your body acidic- Your body needs to be balanced or on the alkaline side because cancer grows in an acidic environments not alkaline ones.


• Causes a loss of tissue elasticity – that means it makes you start to look older than Granny Clampett.
  
  
• Stresses out your (Irreplaceable) pancreas
  
  
• Spikes your insulin production – so what? I can handle the highs and lows. Well…that’s not all…
• Raises Insulin levels:
  
  
• Causes rapid weight gain – (The good news is we no longer have to buy a ticket to see the fat lady at the freak show)
  
  
• Depletes you vitamin and mineral storage- Refined Sugar is an anti-nutrient it contains no vitamins or minerals (empty calorie) so in order for sugar to be metabolized it must tap the body’s reserve of vitamins and minerals. That means “five-a-day” turns into fifteen-a-day to make up for the sugar that is taxing your supply
  
  
• Increases bad cholesterol - A depletion of vitamins and minerals impairs the metabolization of cholesterol and fatty acids, contributing to higher blood serum triglycerides, cholesterol – translation: Doctors tell us this increases chances of heart problems and stoke
  And on and on and on...

So, what’s an addict to do?

Stevia is a 100% natural, Calorie Free, Sugar Free, sweetener – and a lot of people like it. It is also suitable to bake with. I don’t care for it because it has a bitter after taste to me. Trader Joe’s Grocery store has a brand they sell in packets that is a blend of Stevia and maltodextrin (a product derived from starch) which is the best I have tried. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s and are desperate enough to pay for packing and shipping I will buy some from my Trader Joe's and mail it to you. NuNaturals Stevia is another good brand available at most Whole Foods markets.

*Maple Syrup- Grade A- light, mild, and more delicate maple flavor. This is the best grade for making maple candy and maple cream. It is the most popular grade sold because it’s closest to the artificial supermarket pancake syrup we grew up with.
Grade B- is sometimes called Cooking Syrup, is made later in the season. It is darker, with a strong maple and caramel flavor. Although some people use this for table syrup it's often used for cooking, baking and as a flavoring agent. Grade B less-widely-available but many enjoy more pronounced maple taste and use it as a part of a seasonal cleansing fast.

*Honey- Local and raw is the best. It is thought that honey derived from local flowers helps reduce seasonal allergies.

Fruit sugars like date sugar – watch out for the calories.

*Warning: High GI foods such as refined sugar, honey, maple syrup and corn syrup require little processing by your digestive system so if the body does not hand an immediate need for the energy, it stores that energy as fat.

Drum roll please…
My all time favorite sweetener and healthy sugar substitute is….and I love it so much that I sell it on my web site…

Agave – pronounced (Uh-gah-vay) is an all natural, low glycemic, plant juice that is sweeter than sugar. It looks like bottled honey, except not as thick. It is organic and kosher. It is even diabetic user friendly because it is low glycemic.

To be continued… Tomorrow, I will tell you more about this wonderful product, Agave.

Let Them Eat Cake!

Hey girls and boys, do I have a great cake recipe for you! We made this cake for our family and for an office party birthday and it magically disappeared almost instantly. I got so many requests for the recipe I decided to post it. The crazy thing is (and don’t tell anybody this until there are only crumbs left on the plate because they will never know) beside being -lick the plate delicious- it is TOTALLY HEALTHY! It is whole wheat and there is no refined sugar in it – only healthy agave sweetener.

(Note: Whole Wheat Pastry Flour which is white in color and light. It is different than brown Whole Wheat Bread Flour)

You can buy the cookbook that this and many more great recipes come from our web site at: www.zoeway.com– we are in the process of getting it online - so if you can't get on quite yet, please check back in a few days). This cookbook is a little on the expensive side but is well worth it (full color pictures on every page and chock full of good info). It is not like some other Agave cookbooks that I've reviewed. Other popular Agave cookbooks ask you to buy a list of weird ingredients that you will probably never use again or have recipes that are unappealing. This great cookbook is filled with family favorites that have been converted to be healthy and delicious as well as new recipes that are bound to become family favorites. You can also buy the Agave at our site in various sizes. I buy the gallon size because I bake with it and use it to refill my smaller size that is more handy for adding Agave in my tea or coffee.

Whole Wheat Agave Carrot Pineapple Cake

This is a super moist and delicious carrot cake. The Cream Cheese Frosting, which is incredible, can be made in minutes and only uses 2/3 cup agave vs. 6 cups of powdered sugar, saving you over 3,000 calories!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 virgin cold pressed coconut oil - warmed to liquefy (or 1 ½ cups canola oil)
1 1/2 cups agave
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup unsweetened coconut
2 cups grated carrots
2 cups crushed pineapple (with juice)
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I grind my own in my Vitamix)

Steps:

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grind Flour. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth. Pour into greased 9 x 13 inch pan.

Bake at 325°F for 50 - 60 minutes. Let cool and frost with Cream Cheese Frosting. This cake tastes better on day two!

Cream Cheese Frosting:
This delicious frosting is easy to make and saves you 3,000 calories over the sugar equivalent and tastes better.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick) at room temperature
8 oz. cream cheese at room temperature (I use organic dairy)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2/3 cup agave

Steps:

Put all ingredients into a large bowl and blend until smooth with an electric mixer. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Tips and Notes: Use as a frosting on carrot cake, chocolate cake, brownies, zucchini bread, banana bread, etc.

Southern Fried Health Food

My food philosophy in a nutshell: It must taste good! – Or you can vibrate the air with useless sound waves about a product and it's health benefits – and it will take up permanent residence in the fridge, growing penicillin like some abandoned lab experiment. However, my real maniacal hidden agenda is that our food be clean, healthy food that TASTES GOOD.

Who am I? I am a recent “true believer”. Yes, I have known, studied, and even taught the benefits of healthy eating and exercise for decades. Heck, we were even full blown vegetarians for a while and felt great. But one summer afternoon the perfumed aroma of a neighbor’s sizzling steak grilling in the distance wafted into our backyard. Like some giggling high school kids with fake IDs we snuck to the grocery store for the contraband. We grilled the most delicious juicy perfectly marbled stake and for a brief moment we experienced carnivore’s heaven. We looked at each other and agreed that we had been way overboard on this "vegetarian thing" – only to feel occasional buyer’s remorse, sugar coated and not nearly as healthy – but hey, it’s the American way. Besides, how can a chocolaholic truly be a health nut?

Well, as they sing, "The times they are a changin’ ", and actions have consequence. What we can get away with in our youth will beat us bloody later. It is funny how that works. It seems like you can get away with living an unhealthy life choice without paying the consequences just about as long as it takes to develop into a habit then “Its time to pay the piper” (as the old timers say) – I think that means by that time, you're pretty much screwed to the wall.

What is a true believer? Well I am not on a sticks and berries diet …yet – My whole life I have been a "from scratch", southern fried, cheese biscuit, real potatoes and gravy, dessert with every meal, dipped in chocolate cook. I still have a family to feed and all food must pass muster on the delicious scale. However, I have slowly converting us all to a healthy alternative diet and we will share the trickery on this blog. I would love for you to join our adventure and to hear your tips and suggestions. We have already seen tremendous life changing and even miraculous health benefits this year!

Coming Tomorrow:

My New Favorite Carrot Cake Recipe (don't tell them until after it has been devoured that it was healthy and actually good for them!)

In the meantime, be sure to visit (and bookmark) our website at http://www.zoeway.com - and keep checking back for more great tasting, healthy products coming soon!

Welcome!

Thank you for stopping at our blog! Please bookmark this page, because the way we've been talking amongst ourselves, this will be a really great blog filled with vital information on healthy eating and healthy living. It'll be so great you'll have a hard time staying away! So, be patient - we're hard at work trying to figure out new and innovative ways to make your wildest dreams come true... not really. We're just working on some recipes for you.

See you again soon!

Blessings - Zoe Way