Sweet Potatoes are Really Sweeties!

On my Facebook post this week I promised a sweet potato recipe. Before I get into though I want to talk just a little bit about the health benefits of sweet potatoes. They are a favorite food of mine and I gather a favorite for you too. They are a beautiful orange in color root vegetable. They are naturally sweet, extremely nutritious, and ver versatile. You can use them for savory or sweet dishes, the sky is the limit.

Sweet potatoes are root vegetables, so they are a very grounding food, warming food. I am a huge fan of seasonal eating. Our Creator is incredible because he made certain crops to grow when we need them, like these bronze colored gems in cooler weather. He is so good to us!

Sweet potatoes are rich in B6 otherwise known as niacin. They have been studies done that people suffering from depression are usually very deficient in niacin. High does of niacin have been proven to be very effective in allowing the chemicals in the brain to balance. Niacin is also great for helping with lowering homocysteine levels in our body, which work the arteries in our hearts.

They are full of antioxidants, specifically C and E to fight free radicals for cancer. They are an abundant source potassium, which is important for lowering and regulating blood pressure.

Okay so here is the recipe I promised:

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burritos

Sauce (You will have some left over)

2 Cups of organic plain strained tomatoes
1 Cup of vegetable stock
1 Tsp of paprika
4 Tsp of chili powder
1 Tsp of garlic powder
1 Tsp of dry minced onion
2 Tbsp of nutritional yeast

Put everything in a small pot on low heat

Filling

1-2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 cup of diced red onion
3 cups of diced and peeled sweet potatoes
4 cups of diced tomatoes
2 cups of diced green bell peppers
2 minced cloves of garlic
2 cups of cooked black beans (soak them the night before, cook them in the morning)
6 oz of goat cheese

Sauté all of first six these ingredients on the stove top under everything is soft.
Mash sweet potatoes with a masher in the pan. Pour some sauce into the mixture. Then mix in the black beans and the cheese. Put filling into your favorite lettuce leaf, swiss chard leaf, or organic corn tortilla, roll it up, and enjoy!

Almost Raw Chia Seed Brownies

I am often exploring for new recipes, and I like to pop them up here to give you some healthy options. I was browsing some blogs and recipe sites. After looking at some ingredients, and just knowing what goes well together with my own personal explorations in the kitchen here is what I came up, and I hope you like them.

I really like having bars around for snacks for the kids. The great thing about bars for snacks is that you can put a whole bunch of healthy ingredients into them and the kids don't even know!  Unless of course they were in the kitchen right along side you making them. That's okay too because did you know that children are more likely to eat something that they've made with their own hands? Children enjoy spending time with their parents in the kitchen, its great bonding time, and its an opportunity to teach math, science, history, nutrition, and even the bible without them realizing that they are getting a lesson. I homeschool my children, so I take every opportunity to teach them something new if possible :)

I love raw foods for so many reasons. I opted to make raw bars today because well quite frankly I am low on eggs, and most bar recipes for the oven call for them. Its also important to me to have enzymatic rich foods. You may at this point be saying really, what, could I just have the recipe please, enzy...what? Raw foods are fantastic because they have a rich supply of enzymes. Enzymes are super important. Think of an enzyme as a catalyst for digestion. Our bodies have limited supplies of them. Some are in our saliva. We need enzymes to properly digest our food.

The only place to get enzymes are in living foods. Another word for living foods is raw foods. Enzymes live in living cells. Cells are alive in our foods until we cook them past 118 degrees. In most modern cooking we cook foods at 350 degrees or higher. The nutrition is still in our foods, but the enzymes die. That puts our digestion system in a world of hurt. As I mentioned before our bodies have limited stores of enzymes. Those enzymes are for  other systems in our body to use though. We were designed to get enzymes from our foods for digestion. When we eat cooked foods, our bodies steal from our enzyme stores. Over times when we steal from our bank, our bodies go bankrupted. Then illness starts to set in. So to avoid that illness the key is to integrate as many raw foods as possible.

Here is the recipe:

1/3 Cup Chia Seed (white or black)
1/3 Cup Carob Powder (raw or roasted)
1 1/2-2 Cups Chopped Medjool Dates
1 Tbsp Maple Syrup or Raw Honey
2 Tbsp Organic Unsweetened Dry Shredded Coconut
1/3 Cup Organic Coconut Oil
1 Cup of Raw Almonds (any raw nut would work)

Put everything into the food processor and process well. Take mixture and press with fingers well into a glass 8x8 dish. Place in fridge for about 4 hours. Cut into bars when serving. If you make this in the morning it makes a great after school snack! 

Heavy Metal Toxicity: Rage Against the Machine of the Human Body

Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made as said in Psalm 139. We also live in a fallen world, and our bodies are also fallen. There is so much sickness and disease covering the Earth. The sad part is most of it could have been avoided if wiser precautions and practices were made. Today I'd like to touch on something that isn't talked about often, but is getting more coverage, heavy metal toxicity. It is the root or large contributor to many illnesses we deal with in the world today.

Illnesses like: periodontal disease, immune system problems, allergies, asthma, multiple chemical sensitivities, epilepsy, blood conditions, stomach pain, multiple sclerosis, ALS (also know as Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s disease, lupus, Parkinson’s disease, depression, mental confusion, infertility, tourettes, chronic fatigue syndrome, arthritis, tachycardia, schizophrenia, chlamydia trachoma, and a host of viral herpes infections can all stem from too many heavy metals.

Toxic levels can be just above normal level. Each metal is different and how it effects the body. There are some metals that prove very beneficial, these are called trace minerals. Trace minerals allow our bodies to absorb certain minerals and vitamins. Our bodies work synergystically with many factors for proper function. Some trace minerals are boron, iron, manganese, silver, zinc, silica, selenium, and several others. Trace minerals are found in our soil, in fact the soil used to be full of over 70 of them. Due to modern farming methods the mineral counts have been severely depleted.  We only need small amounts of these 
minerals.

Unfortunately our bodies are exposed to toxic metals much too often. Mercury being one of the most toxic heavy metals is widely available through vaccines, certain fish, and dental fillings. Mercury is a neurotoxin that affects the brain. It is especially dangerous to infants and children. It impairs mental, visual, and spatial skills. 

Another highly poisonous metal is aluminum. Aluminum exposure has been directly linked to 
mental diseases such as Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. City water has extremely high levels of aluminum. Other places high counts of aluminum can be found are in certain foods, especially packaged processed foods, deodorant, and baking powder. There is no functional use in the body for aluminum. Accumulations of it in the body get deposited in tissues, brain, heart, bones, liver, spleen, and muscles. Cooking with aluminum pots, pans, and utensils also causes exposure. 

So one might ask what can I do for my family? Simple things you can do are replacing cookware, using an aluminum free deodorant, using aluminum free baking powder, aluminum free cosmetics, and getting a good water filter at home. A little bit more drastic, but something definitely to consider and worthwhile is getting any amalgam filings removed from a well trained dentist. Two promising foods based  on cures for mentally related illness and detoxing has been coconut oil and chlorella. Another consideration is chelation therapy. 

 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/22/toxic-metals-the-reason-you-still-feel-sick.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/03/chlorella-shown-to-remove-mercury-in-mice.aspx

 http://www.naturalnews.com/030919_coconut_oil_Alzheimers.html

http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/coconut-oil-and-alzheimer

’s-disease-the-news-is-spreading/

http://www.naturalnews.com/027361_chlorella_natural_detox.html