As a nutritionist, and food-loving human, it is my job to lend a voice to the innocent ingredients that are commonly used as diet-shaming clickbait. As nutritional science can get drier than cereal without milk, I’m sprucing up the conversation by turning it into a lively courtroom drama. Welcome to Raw & Disorder, let’s begin.
In the nutritional justice system, dietary based offenses do not sustain us. In this article, a whimsical nutritionist lends her platform to vilified food stuffs. These are their stories. *Dun, Dun*.
I am currently obsessed with ginger. So besotted by this spicy root that I am eating her raw off the knob. Dirty stuff, right?
I’m a redhead. In other words, a ginger nut. On an auburn level does this make me a cannibal? Hmm, a hairy dilemma indeed. I digress.
I could rave for days about how amazing raw ginger tastes with raisins and peanut butter or how when you put her in your mouth at the same time as roasted sweet potato and creamy almond butter you land yourself in a ‘foodie dream team’ version of heaven.
But I’ll do you one better. I’ve invited Miss Ginger Root herself on to talk about why she’s so fabulous. Welcome Ginger.
Spirulina is a blue green algae with perhaps one of the most elegant sounding names in the foodie world. I reckon the name alone is reason enough to give this funky green character a whirl. If you start small and build your dose up over time, Spirulina is a delightful and mega-nutritious addition to your morning smoothie.
Reasons I Have a Weak Spot For Spirulina
It’s rich in protein, containing 67g per 100g. That might not sound like much, but compare it gram for gram to most other protein rich foods and you’ll notice that it contains more than double the amount of protein. I realise that we aren’t likely to eat 100g blue-green algae in one sitting – what an adventure for the bowels that would be! That said, even 15g (3 teaspoons) contains 10g protein and is easily added to a smoothie for a gorgeous green hue.
It is loaded with Beta-carotene which is converted to active Vitamin A by clever enzymes in our glorious livers. Vitamin A is an antioxidant vitamin that is vital for cellular repair, immune function and tip-top cognitive health. Put simply, we love Vitamin A.
It can create an anti-inflammatory terrain in our gastrointestinal environment. We know on a common sensical level that gastrointestinal inflammation feels unpleasant and research is now indicating that when the gut is inflamed, the brain, endocrine organs, liver and immune systems tend to follow suit. This ain’t a groovy state of affairs! My Motto? Spirulina the eff up.
Spirulina contributes to our daily iron needs offering 6.6g in 3 teaspoons. I know, I know. It doesn’t compare to grass-fed lamb or beef or – dare I say it – organ meats such as liver and heart. Whether you agree with meat abstinence or not, vegetarians and Vegans exist and the likes of Spirulina can help them meet their iron quota. They may need to consider iron supplementation as well but that’s a discussion for them to have with their doctor and/or nutritionist.
Spirulina has an earthy flavour that pairs well with creamy, sweet flavours and is a beaut addition to your favourite smoothie. I don’t crush on green smoothies that are all veg, zero sweetness. I like them to still taste indulgent. I suggest adding Spirulina to a creamy salted caramel smoothie (dates providing the caramel) or a raw cacao and coconut milk shake. The dream! The Green Ecstasy Smoothie in Periods, Poo & A Glorious You is my all time fave Spirulina recipe, but if you’re yet to adopt this hilarious paperback companion, the number below has got you sorted.
Salted Caramel Dream Team
Ingredients
1 banana, peeled and frozen
2 pitted Medjool Dates
1-3 tsp Spirulina (start small and build up tolerance over time)
1 cup organic baby spinach
1 zucchini, sliced (optional but recommended for extra fibre, vitamins and hydration)
Pinch of Himalayan Pink Salt or Sea Salt
1 Cup Coconut, Cashew or Almond milk
A handful Ice Cubes, to thicken (optional)
Add all ingredients in a high speed blender. I love my Vitamix, but do the best you can with what you have. Even a regular blender will do. Maybe skip the ice cubes if your blender is on the cheaper side. I’ve actually destroyed a cheap blender by trying to crush ice in it.
Blend on the highest setting until smooth, thick and frothy. This will take about 1 minute. Pour into a glass and enjoy this super-nourishing and orgasmic-tasting creation.
Notes
For a probiotic boost, use half coconut milk and half coconut yoghurt. For a chocolate or carob variation, follow the recipe above and add 3 teaspoons raw cacao or pure carob powder.
My favourite brand is Green Nutritionals. This isn’t sponsored – I just reckon their Spirulina tastes the best of all the brands I’ve tried.
Where to buy
Organic spirulina is available at all health and bulk food stores and most organic shops. It is also to to order online if you simply google ‘buy organic spirulina online’.
In this post, we talked rituals that nourish the skin from the outside in. Now we flip the bird. Not literally – keep those middle fingers in check. Let’s go from the outside in to the inside out.
Here’s a budget-friendly truth bomb; as fun as face masks, naked backyard body scrubs and pissing your cat off by taking the time to cleanse your face before you feed them brekkie can be, the simplest way to foster glowing skin is to up the antioxidants and beneficial fatty acids in the diet.
That said, I like to whip things up in a jiffy, especially if I get home-mid-arvo and haven’t eaten lunch, or get home from work after 8 and want dinner pronto.
Last year I was doing 18 hours of placement a week in a nutrition clinic, teaching yoges 7 days a week – sometimes multiple classes daily – and editing my book ready for publishing.
A sneak peak at the glorious cover art for my book baby – set for release Mid March 2019
If I desired regular fuel, I needed to embrace super-human organisation. Not once did I succumb to takeaway – I must be the only spud muffin on the planet who is yet to use Uber Eats. Nor purchase pre-prepared meals from the supermarket – too much plastic packaging and usually cooked in canola oil. How could I even entertain skipping a meal – did I mention how much I like eating?
I may have eaten homemade cupcakes, self-saucing chocolate pudding and chocolate-chip cookie dough for dinner a few times, but that was for ‘work’. I was recipe testing.
These days I work from home or at least close to home and have more leeway when it comes to foodie organisation. That said, I still love meal prepping on Weekends so that I have easy options at the ready for the first half of the week.
Below are some of my fridge and pantry staples and how I use them.
Happy Pantry Perving – may you find inspiration amongst my cluttered shelves and random culinary pairings.
My pantry; a sea of seasonings, raw cacao, carob, matcha, maple syrup, green stevia, oats, banana flour and other bits and bobs. Organically sourced where possible.
My Pantry
Smoothie Staples
I love to have a range of powders and spices on hand for my smoothies. Think cinnamon, vanilla bean, raw cacao (raw chocolate powder is stupendously high in magnesium – very important for a yoga teacher), matcha (green tea) powder, green stevia (a sugar-free, ridiculously sweet-tasting herb), cardamom pods, Spirulina (pictured below) and novel items here and there to change things up. At the moment I’m loving red velvet latte powder (beetroot-based), maca powder, carob and blue Butterly pea powder. Then all I have to do is add filtered water ice cubes, coconut water, frozen organic spinach, fresh zucchini and sliced ginger and whizz – smoothie magic a-go-go.
I love organic spirulina for it’s earthy taste and rich vitamin and protein content. I find Green Nutritionals is the best tasting brand (not sponsored by the way). I also use Changing Habits greens powder (unpictured) as an alternative and like to mix and match the two. I’ll also add Changing Habits probiotics (unpictured) to my smoothies for a gut-loving act of self-care.
Oats and Banana Flour
Man I love working with organic oats and green banana flour. I use them to make these bread roll muffins, and pretty much all other baked goods, including the chocolate cupcakes and self-saucing pudding in my upcoming book baby ‘Periods, Poo & A Glorious You’.
I also use oats to make savoury risottos, chickpea-based cookie dough (also in my book baby) and stirred through coconut yoghurt that had been blended with banana and vanilla and layered with crunchy ground flax seed. Yummers. Me gut says Hells to the Yeah!
Aussie Olive Oil and Organic Coconut oil. I use them both internally (in recipes) and topically as moisturisers or in homemade body scrubs alongside rapadura sugar and essential oils.
Aussie Olive and Organic Coconut Oil
My fam and I can’t do without these two beauties. I love olive oil for dressing veggies and risottos and coconut oil in my nut butters. I also love the flavour of coconut oil with roasted veggies.
Homemade Nut and Seed Butters in recycled jars to skip wastage. Clearly I’m also a fan of Kehoe’s Kitchen Ferments (not sponsored).
Homemade Nut and Seed Butters
Nut and seed butters changed my life. I’m not being dramatic spud muffins. I mean it. You can add them to just about everything and they’ll provide protein (see-ya animal flesh), creaminess (so-long moo-juice), vitamins and minerals (move over chicken embryos) and fibre (your welcome bowels). Here’s how I nut (and seed) butter;
Inca inchi seed butter mixed with turmeric, pepper and salt for a creamy dressing for steamed greens
Pecan Cashew butter with baked sweet spuds (all three colours; red (white flesh), orange (amber flesh) and white (purple flesh)
Hazelnut butter with roasted pumpkin
Tahini – black tahini is my fave – in this recipe. I buy this one from The Source Bulk Foods (not sponsored).
My Fridge
My crisper looking a little bare. It did contain lots of pumpkin, ripe avocado, fresh herbs and extra apples but I ate them. I have fresh blueberries and spinach frozen in the freezer alongside a loaf of organic sourdough oat flour bread. I source all fresh produce organically where possible.
Fresh Fruits, Veggies and Ginger
With help from your pals nut (or seed) butter, seasonings, olive oil, ferments (see below) and either a muffin (see below) or serve of resistant starch rice (cooked and cooled rice – for a specific recipe check out the Poop-promoting Resistant Starch Rice in my upcoming book baby) you can easily make a meal of veggies.
On nights that I teach a yoga class from 7-8pm, I like to enjoy a muffin (below) with 3-4 Brazil nuts plus a generous tablespoon (HEAPED) of nut or seed butter with a simple serving or fresh fruit such as an apple or berries. This makes a light yet satisfying dinner if you eat later than usual – like I do several evenings a week.
Fresh ginger, zucchini and spinach are a dream base for an easy smoothie. Just add ice cubes, coconut water and all of your favourite shelf-stable powers i.e. raw cacao, carob, Spirulina, cinnamon etc. and you have yourself a meal. This works well as a standalone brekkie or as a ‘starter’ before a ‘second course’ of apple or banana with homemade nut or seed butter. I’ve been know to have a snacky smoothie dinner like this when I arrive home late feeling thirsty, hungry and in need of both hydration and easily-digestible energy.
Not sponsored I swear. I just really love Kehoe’s kitchen because the sauerkraut flavours are the bomb diggity bomb bomb! These two are my special faves; fennel & garlic and spiced carrots.
Ferments
These take any savoury meal to the next level and deliver digestive-aiding enzymes to boot. They also offer a whopper dose of friendly probiotics to supplement the ‘forest in our gut’. A little goes a long way. I stir a dollop though veggie and salad creations or eat with ripe avocado and turmeric resistant starch rice for a colourful meal.
Coconut oil roasted pumpkin. It gets even sweeter when refrigerated. All the drools!
Roasted Veggies
Another bomb diggity bomb bomb. Add roast veggies – think pumpkin or sweet spud, regular spud, capsicum, red onion, eggplant, zucchini, beets … WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR GROOVY BOAT – to salads or steamed veggies with freshly cooked chickpeas (see below). It’s also no secret that I love pumpkin and sweet spud with nut/seed butters. You can even snack on roasted veggies. Add homemade guacamole and ferments to make a light meal. Drooling!
Local organic chickpeas striking a pose. Aren’t they little beauties? Proud chickpea mamma!
Slow Cooker Chickpeas
I buy chickpeas dirt cheap at the local bulk store and soak them overnight in salted water. Then I drain, rinse and pop in the slow cooker covered with more water. They cook on high for 4 hours. Then I drain and rinse again. Once cooled, they keep for 5 days in the fridge in an airtight container. I use them in salads, veggie creations, this bowl and Orgasmic Cookie Dough (recipe in my book baby).
When I die this recipe will appear on my tombstone. I’m kidding of course, but Holy Heck!. My bowel flora (yes, my dear, sweet colon bugs) love these bubsy boos so effing muchies!
Profound Plantain Muffins
Forget the infamous Fat Bomb Muffins of best-selling cookbooks gone by, these muffins are their plant-based, fibre-bomb cousins. They add satisfaction and loads of gut-soothing fibre (nothing harsh about these intestinal brooms) to any meal and because they are the best-ever vehicle for homemade nut butter, they make upping proteins and fats in the diet a cinch. In my nut butter-obsessed opinion it would be a crime to eat these babies without nut or seed butter. Or at the very least creamy coconut butter if nuts and seeds send your immune system haywire. To be truthful, I often make these delights with green bananas, as I don’t always get to the markets to snag a bunch of plantains. They still work out swell.
This is how my glorious gut bugs respond to my happy lifestyle of muffins and yoges.
There you have it kiddlets. This is why I’m such a happy banana. Look at all the delicious and soooooo freakin easy peasy lemon squeezy foods I get to enjoy. I hope you’ve found inspiration in all, some or a humble few of my everyday suggestions.
If you’re wanting even more foodie inspiration, kitchen clarity or nutritional coaching, check out my list of services to see if working together sounds like something that would make you happier than a bright little Vegemite. I am a qualified nutritionist who acts more like a foodie fairy godmother than a white coat health professional.
Well not actually, though I have been known to make suggestive noises when I bite into sumptuous preparations, I do not, repeat DO NOT, make love to my food. Hopefully, however, I grabbed your attention with the title, and now you’re thinking; hmmm orgasmic dinner bowl … I’m intrigued.
This tasty bowl is …
Addictive – I’m warning you now
A complete source of protein – all essential amino acids are represented
Rich in nourishing fatty acids – may your skin, brains, gonads (I’m serious) and hormones drink them in. Cheers.
Poop-producing fibre – so much roughage. Glorious!
Easily prepared in advance – busy beavers rejoice!
It’s been a while since my last “a day on my plate” post and I figured, I’ve actually got time to do a blog post (this chicken is up-to-date with her uni assignments). Let’s take a peek at my veg-a-licious eats.
