Wholesome Media

There is a lot of misleading information regarding proper nutrition within the media, and major media journalists are using proper nutrition as their go to topic. It is great to see major media outlets, like the New York Times, have a blog dedicated to wellness. Their wellness blog focuses on the many things we can do to improve our overall health. Their blog offers up a decent amount of healthy recipes containing many nutritional ingredients. The New York Times and other major health-focused media outlets are great sources when trying to find good-clean recipes. These types of media outlets are typically focused on overall health which makes them a wonderful go-to health and nutrition source. These major media outlets do not look at nutrition as the forefront of media but they do recognize proper nutrition as an important and somewhat popular topic. When looking for proper guidance with nutrition make sure to research and read up on the foods that benefit our bodies.

Source:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/series/recipes_for_health/index.html

Moderate Media

The media outlets that do encourage proper nutrition refers to healthy eating as a "diet". Major media outlets need to start referring to these "diets" as lifestyles. That is the only way people will see any change with their weight or health, when they quit the diets and begin the lifestyle. Most of the big media outlets provide decent and adequate nutrition information and tips but they have yet to fully embrace nutrition as a major topic. Fox News has a good amount of nutrition focused articles. Their posts are great and provide wonderful diet and nutrition information, but they tend to be vague when more details can be provided. In their The Perfect Diet article, they focus on the proper balance of carbs, fats and proteins. While this article is great it could have held more water. Fox News, being one of the major-media outlets, is slowly beginning to draw attention to proper nutrition. They just need to start promoting the lifestyle rather-than the "diet".

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/03/perfect-diet/

Mistaken Media

Our lives revolve around social-media. Majority of people read and browse the local news-station websites as their go-to source of up-to-date and helpful information. It is sad to see journalists writing generic content that they do not even fully understand, and most of the time the content they are covering is nutrition. In recent years health and fitness has become somewhat of a trend, and finding accurate information through the internet is the hardest part. Many people do not even know where to begin so they turn to their local news station for health and diet tips. This can lead to mistaken health and diet tips because media has yet to turn the focus to proper nutrition segments. Even the Tampa Bay Times is guilty. In their 25 Healthy Lunch Ideas for Work they provide 25 "healthy" lunch ideas. This sounds great for that person on a budget or the busy business man that is trying to slim down, but there are far and few proper health and nutrition tips in this article. The article mentions juice or soda for some of the "healthy" drink choices. The article mentions chips, mayonnaise, baked potatoes and the list goes on. Plus there are no recipes provided so potion control is out the window. Sooner or later, proper nutrition is going to become a major forefront in people's lives. If the media does not change and improve their articles and segments focusing on nutrition they risk losing their audience.

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/features/food/cooking/25-healthy-lunch-ideas-for-work/1189972

Healthy Donuts?!

Everyone loves a donut, even if they do not go out of their way for one everyday, but when presented with a box of fresh donuts anyone would oblige. I personally love donuts but I cannot tell you the last time I had one. I cut donuts out of my everyday diet way before I began trying to loose weight, I knew donuts were one of the worst things to put into our body's so it was best to cut them out completely. The other day I was at Target and I stumbled across a donut-baking tray, almost like a cupcake tray but for donuts. I did not even hesitate, once I saw it I knew I had to have it. Of course I had to make donuts as soon as I got the chance because I was curious to see if this tray would even work.

Recipe:
1 tbp of coconut oil
1 tbs of cinnamon
3 tbs of truvia
3/4 tsp of baking powder
3/4 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt
1 tub of Greek yogurt
1 egg
1 cup of perfect fit (any protein powder will work)

You should get a fluffy constancy once you mixed all ingredients together.

Glaze:
1 tbs of honey
1/2 tbs of truvia
1/2 tbs of cinnamon
1 tsp of vanilla extract

These donuts are great for breakfast or a sweet afternoon pick-me-up. They have a bonus healthy factor by not being fried, so you do not have to feel guilty when reaching for seconds!

Healthy Fall Cocktails

Holiday cocktails are a must but healthy festive cocktails are always the better alternative. It's great to indulge in meals or drinks every now and then, but holidays seem to be the time of the year where people over-indulge with the meals and drinks. I like to maintain a happy medium-sized indulgence around the holidays. Here are some healthy holiday drink recipes that will warm any old scrooge up.

Whiskey Autumn Delight: *SERVED WARM OR CHILLED*
2 oz. of whiskey
6 oz. of organic apple cider (or apple juice if you're not a fan of cider)
A dash of cinnamon
Garnish with an apple slice or a cinnamon stick

Autumn Apple-tini: *SERVED CHILLED*
1 oz. vodka
1 oz. whiskey
1/2 oz. of grade A maple syrup
2 oz. organic apple juice (freshly juiced if you have a juicer)
Garnish with a dash on cinnamon on top

Sizzling Sangria: *SERVE CHILLED*
1 cup of brandy
1/3 cup of triple sec
1 cup of grand marnier
1 bottle of red wine
2 apples and 2 pears diced
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
*OPTIONAL* you can add club soda if you want the sangria to have a spritzer feel to it

Thanksgiving Cider: *SERVE OVER ICE*
2 oz. vodka
3 oz. apple cider
1/2 oz. of grade A maple syrup
Splash of club soda
Garnish with cinnamon or an apple slice

Pumpkin Delight: *SERVE CHILLED*
2 oz. of pumpkin puree
2 oz. of spiced rum
1/4 cup of milk
1/3 cup of half and half
Garnish with a dash of cinnamon
*If served in a martini glass, rim with brown sugar*

I hope some of these festive drink options will make the holidays more warm and enjoyable. Let me know if you will be giving any of these fall drink recipes a shot.

Healthy Thanksgiving Soup

I thought I would share some of my healthy thanksgiving recipes throughout this week just incase anyone wanted some healthy meal alternatives. Since the fall is here and winter is right around the corner, comfort food becomes essential during the cold months. A great comfort food for when it's cold is sweet potato and pumpkin soup. This soup is perfect because it is a blended soup, it is made with only vegetables and spices, and it's very nutritious. 

What you will need

• 1 Pie Pumpkin
• 1 Large Sweet Potato
• 1 Green Pepper
• Olive Oil
• 1 tbs of minced garlic
• 3 tsp of red pepper
• 2 tsp of pepper
• 1 tbs of ground coriander
• 3 tsp of oregano
• 1 pinch of salt

Start by setting your oven to 400 F degrees and begin washing and chopping up your pumpkin and sweet potato. 

Then you want to wrap the chunks in foil and drizzle on some olive oil and close the foil wrapping. Then place them in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, once they are tender you can remove them. While their baking start buy adding 1 table spoon of olive oil, 1 table spoon of minced garlic, 3 teaspoons of red pepper, 2 teaspoons of pepper, 1 table spoon of ground coriander, 3 teaspoons of oregano, and 1 pinch of salt to a medium sized soup pot. Let the spices simmer on low heat while you wait for the pumpkin and sweet potato.

You will then add your chopped green pepper and the chucks of pumpkin and sweet potatoes to a blender or food processor, blend till smooth. 

Once you have the soup pureed to your liking, you then want to add the puree to your soup pot that has been set to simmer.

Once you have added the puree you then want to mix the soup on low heat. If you prefer a creamier texture you can add in 1/2 cup of almond milk.

This is what the finished product should look like. It is a very tasty soup and it only took me a little over an hour to make. Be on the look out for more recipes this week!

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Being a girl, I am prone to spontaneous food cravings. When these cravings hit they are usually for something specific. I have a massive sweet tooth so if I get a craving it's typically for some type of dessert. This week I had a craving for carrot cake. I don't know why I had such a craving for it, because whenever I'm at a party and there is carrot cake for dessert I snub my nose to it. I found it quite odd that I had this craving, I thought maybe I was low on my vitamines A, E and K so I decided to get creative. Instead of buying an actual carrot cake I opted for the homemade protein pancake version. I talked about how I make my protein pancakes in an older post of mine. This recipe is basically the same but with carrot puree and carrot juice added.

The Recipe:

• 2 cups of egg whites
• 3 carrots (juiced or pureed) *you can use a blender for pureeing*
• 1 cup of oats
• 3/4 cup of muesli
• 1 scoop of protein powder of choice
• 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon of truvia sweetener

After your carrots are pureed, combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. I did not want to blend-up any of the ingredients because I like that carrot cake has a texture to it and I wanted these pancakes to have a simular texture. I then took a tablespoon of coconut oil and pan-fried the batter into pancakes. You do not have to use coconut oil and you also do not have to pan-fry like me, because these recipes are just here to encourage all the possibilities when it comes to healthy cooking. I also made so copy-cat healthy "frosting" for the pancakes because I just could not see syrup going well with these. I made the frosting with some plain greek yogurt and mixed in some cinnamon, truvia and almond extract. It was delicious and guilt-free so of course it made the meal exceptional.

These pancakes were great and took care on my unwanted craving for carrot cake. Like I have said before, all of these recipes can be tweaked. These recipes are here to show the ratio of proper ingredients and how to incorporate the beneficial food and ingredients into our daily meals. This coming week I will be share some deliciously healthy thanksgiving dishes so be on the lookout.