I've Moved!!!

Hi Everyone!

I've moved across the nation and to another blog.

You can follow my adventures here:

http://peacefulportland.wordpress.com/

I'll be posting new recipes, sustainable home solutions, and many photos!

Papa Sprout's Super Sweet and Simple Juice

Carrots are health food superstars. They are packed with beta-carotene, antioxidants, and potassium, along with many other nutrients, making them a bargain at the grocery store! Carrots improve eyesight, promote healthy skin growth, and protect against cancer. Those are just some of the many jobs this small orange vegetable performs. 

Beets are amazingly healthy too. They improve memory, lower blood pressure, and improve liver function. I still have not brought myself to eat a beet in its purest form and I know I am not alone. By juicing beets you can still retain all of the benefits of the solid vegetable without the tough texture.

Together, beets and carrots create Papa Sprout’s Super Sweet and Simple Juice! The recipe for this juice is simpler than Papa Sprout’s Garden Green Ginger Juice, but still packed with nutrition. The next time you are ready to juice, but short on time, try this simple recipe that will keep you going for the whole day.

Papa Sprout’s Super Sweet and Simple Juice

Ingredients:

3 whole carrots peeled

2 beets peeled

*A Yankee cup was used in this post in honor of opening day. Go Yanks!

The Benefits of Homemade Iced Tea

Recently I wrote about all of the health benefits of tea.

Tea is always delicious, but with this gorgeous weather we have been so lucky to be enjoying, who wants hot tea? Iced tea is delicious and refreshing! The only problem? If you go to Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, or any other beverage store it can cost up to $3 for this treat. If you are ordering iced tea out it also tends to have additives like sugars and syrup.

Since the price is sky-high at these beverage centers you would expect that an iced tea maker is expensive AND time consuming. Nothing could be further from the truth!

I snagged my Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker off of Amazon for $20! In the morning I fill the base with water, add ice and tea to the pitcher and press a button. Within 5 minutes I have delicious and pure iced tea! You can add some sliced lemon to spice it up. 

Because it is so easy to use and iced tea is a great break from the regular hot beverages, I have found myself drinking multiple cups a day. It keeps you hydrated, delivers an antioxidant kick to your system, and tastes great! I do not like to have extra appliances around in the kitchen, but an iced tea maker is an essential tool! You will find yourself saving money and enjoying a healthy beverage everyday.

Get Your Sour Cream Fix!

I love sour cream! You can put in burritos, on top of soup, and in a taco salad. Sadly, sour cream is loaded with saturated fat. If you skip the fat for a low-fat or non-fat version, you are simply trading fat for carbohydrates, which may be even worse than just eating the fat.

With a wide list of foods that re enhanced from sour cream, what are we supposed to do? We certainly can’t eat these foods bare! Then one day, the perfect substitute was born! Not only is this substitute not bad for your health, it’s actually beneficial!

Plain Greek Yogurt is the unlikely substitute. The next time you want to throw a huge dollop of sour cream, think again. Non-fat plain Greek yogurt is creamy and thick and a bit sour. Beyond its strikingly similar taste is the fact that Greek yogurt is loaded with protein. One 6 oz serving contains 1/3 of your days protein needs! Greek yogurt contains less additives and sugar than yogurts like Yoplait or Dannon. 

The Greek yogurt flavor must be plain, the other varieties will not taste like sour cream, but they will taste great on their own! Chobani is my favorite brand partially due to my Upstate New York pride (it brought jobs to Upstate) and partially due to the fact it has the best ingredients. Brands like Trader Joe's add more sugar than Chobani. Lastly, they are a a business that treats their customers and employees well. Employees are given a case of Greek yogurt every week. They truly believe the "customer is always right" and often fix problems with free yogurt!

Tea: Our Old Friend

Tea has been around for over 12,000 years! The earliest record of tea takes us to China. It was not until the 17^th century that tea was even on the radar of our European ancestors. It would be another 200 years until afternoon tea became commonplace in Great Britain.  

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world (water is number 1). So why do most American adults prefer a cup of joe to a cup of antioxidants? Coffee has more caffeine and is more readily available in our culture, but lacks the health benefits of tea.

The antioxidants in tea help prevent against cancer, tumors, and genetic mutations. Wow! But that is not all! Tea has been shown to prevent heart disease (our nation’s number 1 killer), slow the affects of aging, improve and maintain cognitive brain functioning, improve immune system response, normalize blood pressure, promote dental health, and to prevent diabetes. You mean those tiny leaves can do ALL of that? Yes, and they’re still not done! Pick a cup of tea over coffee and you are offering your body more hydration. When we are dehydrated we get easily fatigued and can feel sick.

There is even more good news about tea: it comes in an absurdly large amount of flavors. Last night I was fortunate enough to be gallivanting around the West Village. The BF and I walked past McNulty’s Tea and Coffee Co., Inc., on our way back to the PATH station. We had walked passed it before many times on our way home from The Blind Tiger Ale House, but it was always closed (I guess most people don’t like buying tea at 1AM).  It is a small store filled with jars of every flavor of tea you could think of! And the staff knows their tea! After smelling a few dozen jars we settled on 4 flavors: blueberry, berry crème, apple mint, and blood orange. We’ve both had a lot of fun brewing the different teas and tasting them!

Don’t forget your honey! Honey is a great natural energy booster and can help cure a cough. More importantly it makes your tea taste like a little treat and is better for your health than the cream you add to coffee. 

Mrs. Meyer's Laundry Detergent

Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day has a wide variety of earth-friendly products. Mrs. Meyer’s crown jewel is their Laundry Detergent.

My Tide addiction began 4 years ago. Before I left for college a harsh reality overcame me: my mom would not be there to do the laundry! I searched my first semester for that familiar sent of clean and my love of Tide detergent was born. 

And 3 years later I began to think. Clothing is very intimate. Your shirt and pants are rubbing up against your skin all day long. Do you want chemicals coming into contact with your skin 24/7? With this questioning, the bond between Tide and me was broken forever.  I relapsed once or twice while I was using different kinds of natural laundry detergent. I am happy to report I have been clean for over 4 months now thanks to Mrs. Meyer’s!

The scent is fabulous and light. It is not as strong as Tide, but it is pleasant and never makes me question if my clothes are clean.  The actual cleaning power of Mrs. Meyer’s is immense! My clothes are stain- free! While the price may seem steep you use about 50% less in volume than you would for Tide because Mrs. Meyer’s is very concentrated.

Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Lavender Laundry Detergent: 5/5 

Earthworm Drain Cleaner

I love a clean home, but I do not love all the hazardous products that go into making a home clean.

I am always on the lookout for organic cleaning products that have the same power as their chemically composed counterparts. I want effective AND safe agents to aid me in the fight against dirt, grime, and dust. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to drain cleaners, I was very disappointed by Earthworm Drain Cleaner. My bathtub has been clogged for over a week. The Earthworm container looked promising and the smell was pleasant (fresh citrus and sage). The outcome was awful. I bought two 32 oz containers. A few days later and more than $10 poorer, I have learned my lesson, the organic community has yet to make a great drain cleaner. There was miniscule progress. After using two containers full (each container has 2 "treatments") I am ready to literally stop pouring money down the drain. 

My search will continue. For now, I will stick to what works: Drano. 

Earthworm Drain Cleaner: 1.5/ 5