Scary Soda Facts

I have written about this before but as if one article is enough. Sodas are a scary thing these days. I do limit my soda consumption (no regular soda at all and diet soda on special occasions) but even one glass is too much.

Check out this very informative yet scary article from the Daily Mail on why soda is terrible for you.

Banana Ice Cream Sundae

A banana split you won't feel guilty about eating! This sundae has a base of banana ice cream and topped with hard-shell dark chocolate. This recipe yields around four one-cup servings and the process is simple but does require some freeze time which needs to be planned for in advance. For those who enjoy a cool dessert on a muggy night this is sure to please the palate.

Not only is this sundae great for a summer night, but it is actually quite healthy and filling. By including a peanut butter spread, a banana and fruits you're actually looking at a sustainable snack instead of just a simply delicious dessert! You're looking at most all of the sugars coming from natural sources in addition to this recipe being gluten-free and vegan!

Ingredients:

5 Yellow bananas
1/2 Cup of Earth Balance Coconut and Peanut Spread


Directions:

1. Peel and slice bananas to place in your blender
2. Whip until smooth
3. Add coconut and peanut spread and whip until smooth
4. Place in freezer-safe container and freeze several hours or overnight

Enjoy!


Servings: 4
Nutrition Information:
Calories: 179  |  Fat: 4.5 g  |  Sodium: 25 mg  |  Carbs: 35.5 g  |  Fiber: 4.3 g  |  Sugar: 18.6 g  |  Protein: 3.1 g

This recipe yields two servings.

Additional calories:
--> With chocolate sauce: 137
--> With strawberries: 1/4 cup = 12 calories
--> With blueberries: 1/4 cup = 21 calories


Below is a comparison of an original banana split versus my homemade banana ice cream sundae.

Hope you enjoy the healthy banana ice cream sundae!

Beat The Sugar Cravings

As most of you know I love desserts and I love to hate them also. No one really needs desserts and that is the problem because, just like me, so many of us love to crave and indulge in desserts. Of course, with desserts comes sugar and a lot of it.

I can go into this article giving you a lot of facts, conversions, statistics and this and that but I am not. I am a regular overweight woman who counts my calories, exercises daily and also struggles with my cravings. When I have a larger dinner I often times want a dessert to top it off. I am that typical person who craves a nice slice of chocolate cake or a delectable brownie around 8 p.m. on a Tuesday after dinner and that's not good.

Now, we all know that sugar is bad for us and that most all desserts have lots of sugar (and that kind of sugar we really don't need), but hey, what will one brownie or one slice of cheesecake hurt? Right? Well, if you're watching your sugar intake it could really do some damage to your day.

I will start of by giving you some basics.

1. There are simple sugars which occur naturally in your fruits
    A. These are common to most healthy diets and aren't normally a hazard if eaten in moderation.

2. Then there are added simple sugars which come in most of your desserts, cereals, juice drinks, etc.
     A. These sugars actually make you want more sugar and induce cravings which makes us eat more.

As I was doing some research on how much sugar an adult female should consume a day I came across a lot of answers given in teaspoon measurements. If you are like me though, I don't measure my sugar consumption out by the teaspoon, down it and know that my daily intake has occurred. I eat my sugars by the food I take in. So, my charts are based on grams because on nutritional labels where it has the sugar labeled, it isn't in teaspoons, so neither should my advice to you. But, for kicks I will give you a little trivia.

Do you know how much sugar a female and male should take in daily?
Females should take in no more than 6 teaspoons and males should take in no more than 9 teaspoons of sugar a day. OK, so do you know how many grams that is without Googling it? Me either, so check below for the conversions and shocking facts about some food you may eat daily!

Each day I start my morning with a bowl of oatmeal (1/2 cup of oats, a banana and two tablespoons of sunflower butter). I add no sugar besides what's in my sunflower butter and banana. Something that floored me once I started paying more attention to my sugar was how much I was eating just by having this, seemingly, healthy breakfast. Just by having this breakfast every morning I was taking in 18.4 grams of sugar! That's almost 77 percent of my daily intake, just in breakfast alone! It seems like a healthy breakfast, right? Lets see if you're able to guess which breakfast item in my bowl has the most grams of sugar.

Oats: 1 gram
Sunflower Butter: 3 grams
Banana: 14.4 grams

If you pair this with an 8-ounce glass of orange juice (and it must be 8 ounces none over) you would be over your daily intake of sugar by a whopping 15.2 grams! If you're a mathematician then you now know a glass of orange juice will set you back 20.8 grams of sugar, or well over 3/4 your daily intake. With that being said, I want to take this opportunity to remind you that if you ate an orange the sugar you took in would be less hazardous than the "added simple sugar" in the orange juice.

Is it starting to make more sense now? Most of us get an outrageous amount of sugar without even knowing it because we don't realize how "added simple sugar" is in the food items we eat. I made a chart of some of the fruits I eat the most of and how many grams of sugar each contain. If you'd like for me to create a chart of your fruits then let me know in the comment section below!

What I want you to gather from reading this article is that we all need to be more conscious of what we are putting into our bodies, feeding our family and our children. It isn't about cutting out all sugars, fruits, desserts, cereals, juices, etc., but being aware of what we are eating and whether we are consuming more simple sugars or "added simple sugars." So next time instead of having that big slice of cherry cheesecake switch it to some heart healthy fruit such as the antioxidant blueberries and some Greek Yogurt.

Having a healthy lifestyle isn't about blocking out a dessert on a night out or not having that soda every blue moon, but it is about making the small changes as much as possible in order for us to live a happier, healthier life. Constantly choosing soda, cheesecake, sugary cereals and sugary juices will only lead you to craving more sugary foods and ultimately result in weight gain.

Be good to your heart and choose foods that make you and your heart function to its longest and best life!

If you have any questions please feel free to comment below!

Snow Day or Feast Day?

So this post is a mixture of great grocery deals, my inability to do nothing all day and how it affected my first snow day in Charleston.

1. Let me just share my love of Harris Teeter. I signed up for a VIC-Card (their store card) and saved $200+ last year. I wasn't one to bounce from store-to-store for great deals, especially in college, but I am now. I finally realized Wal*Mart isn't always the cheapest place (obviously) but growing up in a rural part of Alabama left a scarce amount of options growing up. As I moved to college I realized that actually going to a grocery store for groceries could be your best bet. Who would've thought, huh? I could make a whole post simply related to the fact that grocery stores in low-income communities are more-often terrible than not. Even though you go to grocery stores that are tailored to lower-income families they aren't always the best which is appalling. Not to mention the food desert issue.

---> So to actually get to my point Harris Teeter ran a sale last week for a dozen large-white eggs for .99 and I couldn't pass it up; therefore, I bought five dozen and that leads me to my next point. I think I am incapable of doing absolutely nothing all day unless I am sick. I never really thought about it until one day I told Nick I was going to do nothing all day and finally caved about five hours later. His response was exactly this, "Baby, is there just one day you don't do anything?" Yeah, he got me so with my now-recognized inability to relax, last night I prepped for our first snow day in Charleston. I took the deal I got at Harris Teeter and the other great deal I got at Food Lion (12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries for .50) and made a feast for the entire village.

I decided to use up one of the four bags of cranberries I bought and made homemade cranberry sauce for the first time! I know, it is crazy but I have alway used Ocean Spray canned sauce. In case you want the recipe it is ridiculously simple and can be found right here!

12-ounces of cranberries, washed
1-cup of granulated sugar
1-cup water
---> 1. Bring to a boil the water and sugar. Once boiling, pour the cranberries in and continue to boil while stirring occasionally until the skins pop off.
---> 2. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Once cooled store in fridge until ready to serve.
Of course I have to include a picture of my final product!

So to finish out this blog post my inability to relax, my great grocery deals and my choice to prepare for any potential snow day concerns led me to this feast.

1 dish of beef stroganoff
1 bowl of homemade cranberry sauce
1 casserole dish of cornbread dressing
10 hard-boiled eggs
16 oatmeal cinnamon cookie bars

Yeah, I went to the extreme for us not to lose power or get snowed in, but now I have dinner and lunch for several days! Hooray for snow days where I lounge, try to do nothing and feast all day. This is like Christmas all over again. Enjoy your snow day Charleston because I sure am.