Lovely Recipes - Raw Kale & Avocado Salad

Whew! It has been an incredible couple of weeks filled with good and lousy news, highs and lows, friends and family all over the place, joy, tears and beauty. Honestly, I haven't really caught up yet. Y'all are amazing for hanging on and being here and taking care of yourselves. Please keep doing that. Hope is kinda everything right now and really feels like something to work at and do our best to share.

So, that said, I'm keeping this simple today and sharing one of my favorite, healthy, easy-to-personalize salads with you. I learned about this while taking classes with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Terry Walters did a presentation on clean eating and shared a very basic version of her favorite kale salad recipe. I never wrote it down, but just jumped in to make it my own. It's a bit different each time, but it's always amazing. As there isn't a written version for me, you may want to check out Terry's book, Clean Start, or Goggle "raw kale salad with avocado". Find your favorite place to start and give it a try. You can't mess this up. It's great for you and scrumptious eating year 'round.

My main ingredients for this most basic version are one bunch of organic kale (any type), juice of 1/2 organic lemon, approximately 1 teaspoon of garlic infused olive oil, a pinch of sea salt, 1/2 ripe, chunked avocado, about a tablespoon of roasted pumpkin seeds and, probably, two tablespoons of Parmesan cheese.

Make sure your hands are clean (i'm guessing you typically do this, but just checking!) as you are going to dive in to massage the kale and actually mix up your salad by hand! Remove the stalk and tear kale into bite sized pieces. Place in a large-ish bowl. Add your lemon juice and salt. Get your hands in there and mix, squeeze, massage that kale! Breaking it down like this makes it less bitter and easier to digest. Now add your olive oil and avocado. Massage/mix a bit more. Clean up your hands at this point, if you'd like, and add the pumpkin seeds and cheese. I use a couple forks to mix it from here and then sit down and enjoy.

Not only is this ridiculously delicious, it's also very good for you! Kale is high in fiber, has Vitamins A, C and K, antioxidants, protein, iron, calcium and magnesium. You're getting your good fats with the avocado and olive oil, and a little immune boost with the pumpkin seeds, lemon juice and garlic. Adding things like ginger root, quinoa, carrots, onions, or red pepper add layers to your flavor and boost the good-for-you-ness.

I highly recommend making the basic version early in the week and having fun adding to it over the course of the next couple days. It's good in your 'fridge for at least 3-4 days as the flavors continue to blend and it's a new adventure with every addition. I also enjoy adding it to cooked brown rice or throwing it over a small plate of nachos.

I hope this gets your New Year off to a healthy and playful start. Wishing you all kinds of good things in 2021. I so appreciate you checking in. Take care of you, yeah?

Lovely Facial Massage & Face Yoga

It's likely you're aware of the benefits of massage and yoga for your body. They ease tension, promote relaxation, improve sleep, enhance blood flow and circulation. Have you ever thought that, perhaps, your face could benefit from a little exercise as well?

According to Danielle Collins, in her book Danielle Collins' Face Yoga, the muscles in the face are composed differently to those in the body. They are all attached to each other, the bone or the skin and mostly controlled by the facial nerve (our body muscles, on the other hand, are usually controlled by our bones). So facial muscles need to be targeted differently. Relying on the movements of talking, expression and eating are quite different than exercising or relaxing the layers of skin and muscles together as a unit. This tends to be why the muscles become saggier. Face yoga helps the face regain strength, symmetry and improve blood flow to the skin and muscles. Facial massage plays an important role in face yoga.

If you're interested in learning more about face yoga, I highly recommend Danielle's book or checking out my friend Nicole on Instagram. She's a certified face yoga teacher and fabulous resource. Find her @faceyogarefresh. I've been practicing for a while now and have been happily surprised with the results.

I am also a huge fan of facial massage. Admittedly, it's a bit more relaxing as part of a fabulous facial, but with our current restrictions, now's the time to consider trying a do-it-yourself version. Start with clean hands and face. Warm an oil (jojoba or grapeseed are light and beautiful on the skin) or your favorite serum between your palms. Use gentle, but firm pressure to massage your face. Massage under ears and along the sides of the neck (lymph area). Knead the sides of your face. Smooth forehead lines by pressing fingers above brows and slowly sliding them upward. Gently press fingers under eyes and slide toward temples. Use light, vertical strokes to massage neck and decollete. I love wrapping it up with gentle tapping (let your fingertips dance gently around the eyes, over your cheeks and around your lips).

Facial massage is not only relaxing, it allows you to stop and focus on you. Practice while looking in the mirror saying and/or thinking kind thoughts about what you see. Know that this practice can improve your overall appearance, get your skin glowing, help with sinus pressure, and may even help with TMJ and acne issues. It's said this is also an anti-aging practice, but that's not my favorite way of looking at it. Do it for you and whatever reasons you find inspiring. Perhaps consider it a way, along with the food that you eat and other self-care practices, to simply age a bit more gracefully. Take care of you, yeah?

Lovely Digestion

As Jolene Hart states in her book, Eat Pretty, "If your eyes are windows to your soul, then your skin is a window to your digestive tract." If something's not right with your gut, you'll notice visible clues in your complexion: dullness; breakouts (especially around your chin and on your forehead); dry, itchy patches; redness; and dark, under-eye circles. You may also notice frequent colds, low moods, anxiety, and unending cravings.

Without proper digestion, all that work on delicious nutrition habits isn't likely to fully benefit your skin, hair, nails, brain, eyes, and all the other places that rely on it for beauty and vitality. Toxins that should be eliminated during digestion start to overstay their welcome when your digestion fails.

Please know that your lifestyle, your emotions, your food choices, and your eating habits all influence the state of your gut and its ability to perform properly. Better digestion means calmer, more radiant skin. It also means stronger immunity; better absorption of nutrients that give your hair and nails strength and resilience; healthy internal bacteria that help protect you from disease risk; and increased production of mood-boosting brain chemicals.

Stress is the single biggest obstacle to maintaining healthy digestion. Stressing out causes irritation of the intestinal walls, which results in intestinal inflammation. Inflammation can clog up your lymph drainage system. (Lymph is a detoxifying, waste-removing fluid that circulates throughout the body.) If you're not detoxing properly, you're likely to see skin issues like irritation and breakouts. When our digestion isn't running smoothly, our liver and skin shoulder too large a share of the waste removal burden. The result is a lackluster complexion, skin sensitivity, and probably breakouts.

So, how do you get more lovely digestion?

Avoiding cooked, bleached oils and trans fats are a good start. When these fats can't be efficiently filtered, they get dumped back into our bloodstream and compromise skin health. Eliminate or limit refined sugars as they provide a feast for the harmful bacteria that can wreak havoc on all your beautifying digestive duties.

A little extra focus and intention at mealtime helps you with one of the hardest tasks around good digestion: chewing. Digestion begins in your mouth, and chewing each bit twenty to thirty times is what we should shoot for to absorb more nutrients. In addition to physically breaking down your food, you stimulate the release of unique enzymes in your mouth that begin the digestive process. I know, you've heard this since you were a kid and it's still a tough practice. Just keep it in mind, do it when you can. It matters.

In addition to cutting down on sugar, allergens and processed foods that help unwanted bacteria set up shop in your gut, stock up on foods that encourage the growth of healthy flora. Consider eating more fermented foods, like miso, kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles and tempeh. Maybe give kefir and kombucha a try? You may also want to fill your spice rack with ginger, fennel, licorice, coriander, turmeric and peppermint. These flavor enhancers speed digestion, reduce inflammation, help relieve gas and bloating. Raw fruits and veggies are incredible sources of nutrition and contain living enzymes to help your body break down and assimilate their nutrient content. Some foods, like asparagus and leeks, have the added benefit of plant fiber that directly feed the good bacteria in your digestive tract. Raw plant foods are also important because they help keep elimination regular. I'd love to hear your delicious ways to incorporate some of these tummy-lovin' foods into your diet. (Honestly, I struggle a bit with this. Any help is appreciated.) Remember to chew. Breathe, and take care of you, yeah?

Lovely Sips

I am currently sipping one of the best cups of coffee I have had in a long time. The sun is shining, the sky is the perfect shade of blue and I'm surrounded by green while enjoying the birds at our porch feeder. I'm quite certain this lovely ambiance helps, but I think it's simply that I finally got into this whole pour-over thing. I will be forever grateful to the helpful coffee geek I spoke to yesterday at Herman's Boy for recommending the French Roast Indian Malabaar and for the great tips on how to make it perfectly in my new pour-over coffeemaker. Seriously, if you are a coffee fan, or even more of a coffee snob like me, please find your way to Herman's Boy Coffee Ranch in Rockford. The people really know their stuff and love to share.

Anyway, while enjoying deliciousness, I decided it might be interesting to delve into coffee's possible health benefits and maybe mix it up with a few tea facts as well.

According to Michael Sands in his blog on www.dermstore.com, both coffee and tea have their own unique set of health benefits for skin health. Both contain antioxidants. When ingested or absorbed through the skin, antioxidants are said to protect against free radicals (unstable molecules that have been linked to everything from cancer to cataracts). Tea contains catechins, a class of flavonoids acting as antioxidants. They have been shown to naturally reduce inflammation, improve blood circulation and combat free radicals. Those are the same free radicals that cause your skin to age, so green tea can actually help you keep your skin looking bright and fresh.

While tea tends to get most of the credit, coffee also contains plenty of antioxidants. The ones found in coffee are known as phenolic acids. They are a group of antioxidants that increase resistance of LDL to oxidation, thus reducing your risk of heart disease (as it's not just the presence of the bad LDL cholesterol that causes heart disease, but the oxidation of it).

Tea is one of the most widely consumed drinks in the world and is also one of the most versatile drinks for improving your personal wellness. Multiple studies suggest that green tea may be effective at preventing Alzheimer's, as well as reducing the risk of breast cancer in women. However, the tannins in tea may make it more difficult to absorb iron - so you may want to consider an iron supplement or consuming tea in between meals (as opposed to with your meal) if you are anemic or iron deficient. The tannins and caffeine in tea can also stain your teeth and dry out your mouth, so be sure to drink plenty of water and brush your teeth shortly after finishing.

Coffee's benefits reach beyond that extra push to help you get through a busy work day. According to a study in The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, coffee can also protect against diseases such as type two diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and neurodigestive diseases. On the flip side, coffee may also inhibit iron absorption, dry out your mouth and stain your teeth, so the same considerations for tea apply to coffee as well.

So, in terms of antioxidants, caffeine content, general health and skin care, both coffee and tea

have an impressive list of benefits. The choice is absolutely yours. If you are looking for an extra jolt of caffeine, coffee may be the better choice. Otherwise, both are good for your complexion and overall health. My general rule of thumb, is coffee in the morning and tea throughout the rest of the day. Herman's Boy has some excellent loose tea options, as well. Just sayin'.

Happy weekend. Take care and be kind to yourself, yeah?

A Lovely Time for Rest

Looks to be a beautiful January afternoon (you just don't hear that enough here in Michigan, really!). I hope you find your shades and get outside or make time to read and sip hot chocolate in that favorite chair by the window. 

Keep in mind that it is still winter, however, the season of rest. Short trips outdoors for fresh air and direct sunlight are best. Consider that leisurely stroll around the neighborhood, and then heading inside to enjoy a steamy cup of tea and just relaxing for a moment or two. Take a few deep breaths and ponder making some delicious soup or baking those healthy muffins you've been meaning to try. Catch up on your reading or maybe watch your favorite movies for the rest of afternoon. Call a friend and/or make time to write a heartfelt letter. It may not always be a possibility, of course, but please keep in mind that rest and relaxation aren't just luxuries, they are important to your overall health and well being.

There's also this thing called beauty sleep. As Jolene Hart reminds us, "Be sure to use this season of rest to renew your skin and boost your immunity with full nights of sleep. Research shows that the skin of women who sleep less is more prone to fine lines, less elasticity, and uneven pigmentation. But women who sleep more arm themselves w/stronger defenses against sun and environmental damage. During sleep, your body secretes human growth hormone (HGH), which increases skin cell production, collagen, and damage repair."

If you have trouble falling asleep, consider going to bed at the same time every night, getting plenty of aerobic activity throughout your day (but no work outs within hours of bedtime), cutting out foods that contain caffeine by mid-afternoon, making dinner your lightest meal and finishing it a few hours before you go to bed, turning off or walking away from your computer, television, video games and cell phone at least an hour before bedtime and making sure your room is as dark as possible when you finally crawl under the covers.

Let's make the most of our down time this winter by staying in touch with those who matter most, relaxing when possible, eating colorful and comforting foods, drinking plenty of water and hot tea and making sure we're getting at least seven hours of sleep as many nights as possible.

Take care of you, yeah?