To get as much benefit from the whole foods you eat its important to buy fruits and vegetables grown locally and in season.  Here a some healthy and nutritious spring and summer picnic recipes you can make for your friends and family to enjoy in the park.  You can try them on Memorial weekend or Fourth of July.

Spring and Summer Recipe with Baby Artichokes with Garlic and Oranges

Ingredients:

• 16 baby artichokes (about 2 pounds)
• 4 – 5  tbsp olive oil
• 3 -4  garlic cloves, chopped
• ½ tbsp turmeric
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tbsp sour cream or yogurt
• 1 tbsp dill chopped
• 1 tbsp parsley chopped
• salt and black pepper to taste
• orange wedges

Directions:

Trim baby artichokes and cook in boiling water for 5 minutes. Sautee onion and cook in olive oil for 5-7 minutes, add garlic and cook for more 2 minutes or until garlic gets brown. Add artichokes, stir in salt, pepper, 1/2 cup water, 2 tbsp sour cream, ½ tbsp turmeric. Cook, covered, until artichokes are tender, about 5 minutes longer or until knife inserted in bottom of artichoke goes through easily. Serve, warm, garnish with orange wedges, dill and parsley.

Spring and Summer Asparagus with Turmeric Dressing and Almond Butter Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup onions chopped
• 1 bunch asparagus spears
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Weight Loss Detox Turmeric Dressing
• 1 tsp almond butter
• 2 tbsp parsley or dill chopped
• salt to taste

Directions:

Steam asparagus spears (or cook in boiled water) for 5-8  minutes or until tender.  Sautee onions in olive oil for 10 minutes. Make Turmeric Dressing in a bowl, add almond butter and onions and mix thoroughly. Place the asparagus spears on the plate and coat with the new mix of turmeric dressing, almond butter and sautéed onions. Garnish with parsley or dill.

Summer and Spring Mushroom and Quinoa Salad

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp ghee or organic raw butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 8 mushrooms
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 4 cups spring greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula)
• 1/2 cup spring green onions chopped
• 3 cloves garlic chopped
• 6-8 radishes, sliced
• 1 cup cooked quinoa (or barley or wheat berries) chilled
• 1/2 cup grated Goat cheese
• 2 tbsp dried cranberries
• 2 tbsp prunes
• 2 tbsp pine nuts
• 1tbsp parsley chopped
• 2 tbsp Apple cider vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Sautee mushrooms in olive oil for about 5 minutes, add garlic and cook for more 2 minutes; add sour cream, season with salt and pepper, stir thoroughly and set aside. Place all the remaining ingredients into a large salad bowl and sprinkle with Apple cider vinegar. Just before serving, pour the warm mushrooms in sour cream over the salad.

Bon Appetit!

Don’t forget to breathe, smile and be happy.

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition Counselor and Coach

NaturalCounselor.com

To look fabulous in Summer, we need to eat more lycopene rich foods, such as cooked tomatoes, apricots, pink grapefruit, papaya, water melon in order to protect our skin from sun damage.

New studies show that lycopene in our diet can help our skin block UV rays and that there is a connection between lycopene and skin cancer.  Because our body doesn’t produce this antioxidant,  we should incorporate more lycopene rich foods in our diet, to protect ourselves from skin cancer.

Try these three healthy simple and easy summer recipes to keep your skin sun damage free.

1. Grapefruit and Walnuts Salad Easy Summer Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 medium grapefruits
• 1 avocado
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• juice of ½ lemon
• 1/2 cup Immunity Boosting Turmeric Dressing

Directions:

Peel grapefruits and section. Peel avocado and remove pit, cut into chunks. Place avocado and grapefruit into the bowl and gently toss. Drizzle lemon’s juice. Add nuts and drizzle with Turmeric dressing.

2. Spaghetti Sauce Easy Summer Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 medium onions chopped
• 2 Portobello (or 1 cup shitake) mushrooms sliced
• 4 tomatoes chopped or 2 tbsp tomato paste (for paste you need 1/3 cup water)
• 2 clove garlic minced
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped
• salt and fresh grounded pepper to taste
• 8 ounces spaghetti or angel hair pasta

Directions:

Sautee onions in olive oil for 10 min., add mushrooms and cook for 5-7 minutes. Add tomatoes (if you use tomato paste, add some water), parsley, salt and pepper.

Drain pasta. Toss with tomato sauce and serve.

3. Papaya Fruit Salad Easy Summer Recipe

This recipe is from one of my favorite books Eating for Beauty by David Wolfe:

Eating this fruit salad is a great way to begin the morning. The cinnamon contains the mineral chromium, a great blood sugar balancer, this fruit salad is loaded with enzymes to help stimulate elimination in the morning.

Ingredients:

• 1papaya
• ½ avocado
• 6 fresh figs
• 2 nectarines
• ½ tbsp Cinnamon
• 1 lemon juice
• 1 tbsp raw honey

Directions:

Chop all ingredients, mix and serve.

Bon Appetit!

Breathe, smile and be happy.

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Coach and Counselor

So how good are your eating habits?  Do you eat while reading, watching TV, looking at your computer, talking over the phone, etc.?

Have you ever noticed when you multitask you can eat a lot without noticing what you are actually eating? Even when you have dinner with your friends or coworkers, as soon as the conversation starts, the control of how much you eat ends..

As a Holistic Health and Nutrition Coach and Counselor, I always remind my clients that if you eat while multitasking, you will give your brain the wrong signals. You can call this mindless eating.  If your brain is thinking of work, it isn’t thinking of eating and won’t tell your body to stop eating .

If you focus your mind on your eating you will:

• eat less,
• be full faster,
• digest your food properly,
• absorb all nutrients
• lose weight

Here are some healthy tips and ideas to help focus your brain for mindful eating:

• Take a couple of deep breathes to slow down before your meal.
• Bless your food, or at least give thanks – it will help you feel gratitude, which by itself a powerful stress relief technique to help your digestion.
• Try to enjoy what you eat by noticing the food, smelling and savoring it.
• Chew properly – it helps enzymes from your pancreas and other organs get into your stomach and small intestines.
• Eat slower to feel full faster.
• Have a quiet happy family dinner at least twice a week instead of eating on the go.
• Chant “Sat Nam” five times.( Sat Nam is a healing sound or meditation mantra).
• Say Bon Appetit before every meal even if you eat alone. It will help you set your mood for eating and enjoying the food.

Establish these stress free eating habits to maintain your weight more easily and feel and look fabulous, shall we?

Breathe, smile and be happy.

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health and Nutrition Coach and Counselor

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Summer is here; are you ready to go to the beach and get a suntan to feel and look fabulous?  Before you do, don’t forget that there is no such thing as a safe tan, and before you think there is a totally safe sunscreen for sun protection from sunburn, consider that numerous studies show that there is as well no such thing as a best sunscreen lotion.

You might think that sunscreens prevent skin cancer. Well, they can protect against sunburn and reduce sun damage to skin, but as for protection against sun induced cancer … the connection between sunscreen and cancer may not be what you would expect.

 Everything we eat goes to our bloodstream, everything we apply to our skin is also absorbed into our bloodstream. Have you noticed how many chemicals are included in the list of sunscreen ingredients? Studies show that the longer sunscreen lotion and creams are left on the skin, the more they will be absorbed into the body. A super simple detox may help, but why not try some healthy tips and natural sunburn remedies to protect your skin from sun damage.

Natural Beauty Remedies to Protect Your Skin From Sun Damage

1. When looking for sunscreen products, look for better and healthier uv natural sunscreen alternatives. Two nontoxic solutions are the sun blocking minerals zinc oxide (studies show that only sunblock clothing and zinc oxide sunblock totally block UVB and UVA rays) and titanium dioxide; they are supposed to ingredients in sunscreeen that are safer to use. Also investigate UVA sunscreen products with micronized zinc oxide as the only active ingredient as sunscreen protection to reduce sun damage of face and skin.

Check the Cosmetic Safety Database on my References Page

2. Don’t use skin-care products that contain citrus essential oils, especially bergamot (Citrus bergamia). They might increase the skin’s sensitivity to light and cause skin discoloration or rashes.

3. We can use our kitchen oils such as Sesame Oil, Coconut Oil, Olive and Peanut oils as well as rich in cinnamic acid, Walnut Oil, Raspberry Oil, Avocado Oil, Pomegranate Oil, Jojoba Oil, Pumpkin Seed Oil, Aloe Vera Oil, Coffee Butter, Shea Butter. They all provide uv natural sunscreen protection from the sun. You can find many uva sunscreen products that incorporate many of these oils and butters.

4. Don’t eat carrots, celery, parsley, parsnips and limes before you go to the beach. Studies show that these vegetables contain psoralens, chemicals that may make you unusually sensitive to the sun.

5. Incorporate more lycopene rich foods, such as cooked tomatoes, apricots, papaya, pink grapefruit, watermelon into your diet to block UV damaging rays.

6. Apply a thin coat of yogurt, sour cream, kefir or aloe-vera gel to reddened areas to help reduce inflammation and cool and moisturize your skin if you get sunburned.

7. Don’t take your babies to the beach! Your child or baby sun protection motto should be “no sun.”  Why take the risk!

Studies show that even if you use a sunscreen and don’t get burned, there is may still be enough ultraviolet light that does get through to suppress your immune system.

Choose the right sunscreen product by using common sense and exploring your options – the one that offers least harm is the best.

As for me, I don’t use sunscreens because I try to stay out of sun from 11:00 am till 4:00 pm and I wear sun protection hats and try to be in the shade as much as possible. And don’t forget that baby sun sunscreeen protection is also important to think about. When my son was old enough, we would go to the beach only in the early morning so not to be in the direct summer sun.  Also, people don’t realize that even if they use sunscreen at the beach, they still need to worry about  over-exposure to the sun in other situations - everything in moderation is the best policy.

So let us be sun smart this summer, shall we?

P.S. Don’t forget to listen to my radio show for women “Feel and Look Fabulous with Irina“ for more healthy tips and ideas on how to feel and look fabulous this summer.

Breathe, smile and be happy.

© Irina Wardas, HHC

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition and Relationship Counselor and Coach