Came across this awesome nail polish set today and had to share. Nail polish is IMO one of the nastiest products you can buy but several companies are now marketing non toxic nail polish and this is good news for moms of little girls who love to wear nail polish. This particular nail polish is made by one of those companies (Keeki Pure and Simple) and I LOVE that they have bundled Halloween sets, the Franken-Keeki Gift Pack. I want one for myself! The green is awesome although they call it Sour Apple Slushie and the black is Midnight Snack. My daughter can testify to the fact that the name is just as important as the color. ;) Although not in the Halloween pack, the Sugar Plum Nail Polish is an awesome purple color that would be great for Halloween too.

The Candy Corn Gift Pack has Lemonade, Marshmallow, and Orange Sorbet.

These nail colors have no parabens, phthalates and other nasty ingredients. They are also gluten-free, toluene-free, vegan, made here in the US, and never tested on animals.

Anxious for Halloween yet?

Related: Ditch the Nail Polish Nasties

Awhile back I asked the Natural Family Living Facebook fans what their favorite cookbook was. I am ALWAYS in the market for something new and tasty to cook and the answers provided an excellent mix of real foods and nourishing foods cookbooks. There were also some specialty cookbooks that came highly recommended. Here are the cookbooks that ranked the highest. Enjoy and comment below if you have any suggestions to add!

First on the list was Nourishing Traditions. This was to be expected. I don’t know many real foods enthusiasts that don’t have a copy. It is on my bookshelf as well. Written by Sally Fallon of WAPF fame, it is full of traditional recipes that are nourishing and nutrient dense. It is so well accepted because it challenges the rather modern idea that we need to eat low fat diets. Rather fats and cholesterol are vital to normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. If you love your pastured butter and cream you will likely love this book.

Also highly rated was The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. Alice is a chef and a food activist who has spent years trying to bring fresh, local, sustainable foods back to our plates. She has even been called the mother of American Food. Her cookbook is full of simple, seasonal recipes that are simply delicious. In my opinion it is like The Joy of Cooking for real food cooks. 4 ingredient soda bread, onion custard pie, nectarine and blueberry crisp… YUM!

The Blue Heron Cookbook (pictured above) is a cookbook full of recipes that are served at the Blue Heron Zen Retreat Center. It is just a fascinating cookbook and the hand drawn pictures just give it such a dreamy, whimsical feel. Recipes we particularly liked where the Banana Bread (which uses whole wheat flour and honey), the Sunday Pancakes, and the Simply Miso Soup. If you have a cook in the family, they would be delighted to get this unique book as a gift.

The Moosewood Cookbook is a classic and one of the best selling cookbooks of all time. Even better it has lots of healthy, real food recipes. Hand-drawn pictures and handwritten recipes make it feel like Grandma’s secret recipe book.

Feeding the Whole Family concentrates on healthy, organic, whole foods meals that everyone in the family will enjoy. Many times it can be tempting to make one dish for the grown ups and something else for the kids but these meals are designed to be healthy and savory while appealing to all family members.

Mediterranean food is considered by many to be one of the healthiest cuisines around. I also happen to think it is the tastiest as well so those that recommended Mediterranean Harvest are gals after my own heart. It has 500 vegetarian recipes from this region. Olive oil and garlic, herbs and spices, tomatoes and eggplants, peppers and squash, figs and peaches, seasonal produce, crusty bread, local cheese, the freshest yogurt, and wine. Yep, this one is a winner.

One of my fave cookbooks that seems to be well received everywhere is A Spoonful of Ginger – Irresistible, health-giving, recipes from Asian kitchens. I love Asian cuisine so any cookbook that helps me replicate some of their most flavorful dishes while keeping it real and healthy gets an A+ in my book. LOVE the sweet and sour soup!

On my wish list is a newer cookbook called Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen.

Hungry yet?

This time of year many people love to smell cinnamon and eat dishes that use this aromatic spice. We use it to bake apples, apple pies, pumpkin pies, etc. A house that smells of cinnamon makes us feel warm and content. It has a long history of use in baking yummy desserts and it is one of the oldest known spices. It has a long history as an herbal remedy for colds, flu, and digestive issues. I don’t think it is a coincidence that we gravitate towards foods with cinnamon as temperatures dip and the chance for exposure to colds and illnesses increases.

Cinnamon oil is 90% comprised of a pale yellow oily liquid called eugenol. This makes it antiseptic and antibacterial. This is also what is responsible for its reviving effects and immune boosting properties. The peppery, spicy aroma of cinnamon is perfect for helping to restore anyone who is feeling cold, weak, or tired. It has a stimulating effect on our mind and body and is thus effective in treating stress too. So how can you go beyond using cinnamon in your apple recipe to using it therapeutically?

Cinnamon oil is the most common way to utilize cinnamon but you might want to test a small section of your skin before you go whole hog, because it is some strong stuff and can cause irritation. You also should not use it while pregnant.

The essential oil can be placed in a carrier oil and then be massaged into the skin for help with digestive problems like irritable bowel syndrome, constipation and diarrhea. You can also put it on a warm compress for the abdomen. Since it is stimulating it can also be used on the extremities to improve circulation. Put some in a foot bath to revive tired or numb feet.

Use it as a room fragrance for a mood boost and to fumigate the room against infectants and illnesses. Cinnamon paired with a citrus scent like lemon or sweet orange smells divine! Cinnamon oil, tea tree oil, and lemon oil would make a great antiviral combo to go inside your vaporizer and hep fight against germs and bugs.

Inevitably when the germs start to make thier way into the house this fall and winter think about giving this medicinal herb a try. Enjoy!

Related: The Healing Power of Cloves

One of the most important places that we can make an impact in child nutrition is the school lunch. Have you seen what is on school menus these days? Chicken nuggets, pizzas, burgers, mac and cheese, sugar laden drinks, and french fries are what is passing for veggies these days. It is truly sad that often times it is cheaper for parents to let their kids eat at school rather than to pack a lunch. This may be why @DrPraegers had designated each Wednesday as Healthy Lunchbox Day and parents are encouraged to pack a veggie rich, healthy lunch for the day. The idea that we might need to completely overhaul our kids diet can seem daunting, especially if your kids have been raised on the Standard American Diet (SAD). Healthy Lunchbox Day breaks this into an achievable goal… make Wednesday the day you give your child’s lunchbox a makeover and work from there. Baby steps right? Start small and help your kids establish healthy eating habits for life.

Here are some quickie lunchbox makeover tips:

• Use sprouted whole wheat bread instead the “white stuff”.
• Blend veggies into a hearty soup and send your child to school with a thermos.
• Add greens like spinach to fruit muffins. They won’t even know they are there!
• Use nori sheets to add funny faces to fruits and veggies.
• Sprinkle veggies with Parmesan cheese.
• Add snap peas to their lunch and almond butter or peanut butter for dipping.
• Instead of plain old carrot sticks pack some jicama sticks for variety.
• Sliced cucumbers go well with rice wine vinegar.
• Grated carrots can be hidden in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as well as grilled cheese sandwiches.
• Hide broccoli sprouts or bean sprouts in the bottom of a pita.
• Make a chocolate pudding with avocado.
• Finely chopped veggies can be disguised in egg salad sandwiches.
• Sprinkle sesame seeds, sunflower seeds or flax seeds on top of salads and sandwiches.

Dr. Praeger’s is a company that makes healthier food options for kids including nuggets that have spinach, sweet potatoes, and other healthy ingredients. Their all-natural, delicious and nutrient-rich options that are a great way to help kids eat sensibly, maintain a healthy lifestyle and make smart food choices. Whether you serve their line of foods or you cook from scratch the goal is shine the spotlight on healthy foods and start those healthy eating habits early.

Any way you slice it, it is a monumental job in this age of sugary, processed, chemical laden food. Do you have any secret tips to share that have worked in your family?

This is part of a campaign sponsored by Dr.Praeger’s that I have been participating in for the month of September.

If you have ever embraced a plant based or raw foods diet then you have likely heard of Brendan Brazier.  He is an Ironman Triathlete who also happens to be vegan. I have read about him in various raw foods books since he is quite the fan of raw foods but mostly I knew of him from his product Vega, which I have used in smoothies. Even if you are not raw it is beneficial IMO to look to raw supplement powders because they always tend to be made from whole, organic, healthy foods that are as close to their natural state as you can get. Despite being a fan of his product and admiring his achievements I never picked up any of his books. I guess I figured they were geared towards athletes and that did not interest me much. But after reading Thrive Foods I am thinking I should reserve some of his other books at my local library because this book at least, was very relevant to my life and to anyone concerned with healthy foods I suspect.

The concept behind it is very near and dear to my heart since I call myself a nourished vegetarian. That primarily means that I subscribe to WAPF ideas while maintaining a vegetarian diet. More specifically it means I try to eat a nutrient dense veggie diet. Thrive Foods is one of the best books I have read though that explains exactly what that means.

It was Brazier’s search for foods that would help him recover fast and make the greatest gains in his athletic training that lead him to the ideas in this book. He figured that if he wanted to keep improving his body and performance then he needed to concentrate on the regeneration process our bodies go through after we exercise. How well and how fast we regenerate depends on our cells – the biological building blocks. If our cells do not have everything they need to function they experience what he calls nutritional stress. At first Brazier did what most athletes do… consume mass quantities of food thereby consuming mass quantities of nutrients. When he didn’t get his desired results he decided to analyze his food choices more carefully and realized that being fed is not the same as being nourished.

He discovered that macronutrients is what he needed to be looking for. Foods that had the most bang for their buck or the most maronutrutrients per calorie, ie nutrient density. What amazed me was the idea that is our body’s search for missing nutrients is what causes us to feel hungry and not a need for more fuel (calories). I always thought  that when we felt hunger pangs it is was calories to keep the home fires burning that we needed. But after reading this book it was a light bulb moment for me because true enough if I eat a big handful of pretzels/crackers I will be hungry literally 5 minutes later. If I eat a banana though, I am satiated for awhile, even if it had less calories in it. It is in fact nutrients our body is asking for and here I thought my ravenous hunger of late meant I was not eating enough calories to support my increased exercise and weight lifting activities. For the past week or so I have been very mindful of nutrient density when choosing foods and have experienced almost no hunger even though I ate less calories than previous weeks. Whether that will mean more muscle remains to be seen but I am pretty convinced.

Where this book differs from WAPF ideas on nourishing foods is obviously the fact that it encourages plant based foods above animal products. While it is true that animal products may actually be more nutrient dense there are still rampant problems with them. Brazier goes into a step by step comparison of how efficient it is to eat animals versus eating select plants and when you consider all the resources used to grow feed crops and raise animals it is simply more efficient and less of a strain on our planet to go with plant based foods, even when considering shipping of more exotic varieties. The book even addresses grass fed and pastured animal products and does not dispute that they are favorable to other animal products for a variety of reasons. But he makes a convincing arguement for why these types of products could never be available to the whole planet. There simply would not be enough to feed everyone and that makes it unsustainable in the long run. I read the chapters that discuss this with great interest and I have read opposing ideas as well (ala The Vegetarian Myth) and Brazier definitely makes the most compelling and researched case.

The second half of his book goes through a variety of foods, page by page, highlighting why they are nutrient dense, healthy food choices. Then it concludes with 200 recipes. Many of the recipes came from celebrated chefs who specialize in plant based cuisine and this was done so we would get an amazing array of tried and true dishes that taste good. I plan on making many of them myself but I started with the Parsnip Oven Fries. I wanted an after school snack for my kids and this french fry look alike hit the spot. They cooked up nice and crispy but a bit too dark and that was my fault for gabbing on the phone while they were baking. Served them up with some catsup and the kids thought they were regular old fries (which excited them because I never make fries) with just a bit of an “off” taste. Plus they were full of healthy fats via coconut oil.

Will be trying some of the other recipes soon. I already see improvement in energy levels since reading Thrive Foods. It just makes you all that more aware of the nutrient density of the foods you are choosing and when I am aware I make better choices and get more nutrition out of my food overall. At the very least it has spurred me into eating more fresh fruit throughout the day, which has done wonders for the skin. LOVE the title too… it is about being nourished instead of just fed and it is about thriving instead of just getting by.

“Like” Brendan Brazier’s Facebook page for some free recipes from the book. Enjoy!