Cook Green, Love Yourself, Save the Earth

Clean Your Air with Air Purifier

greenwise12 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:00:41 +0000

Although “Clean Air” topic has little to do with green kitchen, I wanted to touch it anyway. After completing a research paper on carcinogenic pollutants for my college, I was shocked and outraged how little we know about the toxic air we breath, unfortunately media does not advertise it as often as they advertise asthma medications ☹! Air pollution and environmental toxins are huge concern today for green activists and health researchers and it should be for everyone who is thriving for optimal health or encountering health problems. A study that was conducted by Toronto Health Department acknowledged 4 human carcinogens and 27 possible carcinogens present in the air of urban areas. Many pollutants like chromium (IV) and benzene are in the outside air and indoor we are at risk of inhaling formaldehyde, radon and other harmful chemicals. Another scary fact I came across when doing my research was about radon gas polluting approx. 25% of all American homes. By the way, it also means that most likely the air in our offices and other work places is not clean either.

Definitely, there is not much we can do about the air pollution outside, but we can surely protect our children and ourselves with good, high-tech air purifiers and air filters. These devices do amazing job when it comes to cleaning the air and bringing relief to people who suffer with allergies and other breathing issues. Air purifiers are specifically designed to clear pollutants, such as pollen and other airborne irritants, as well as take the dust out of the air at the same time.

So I guess one of the steps we can do to stay healthy, is to get the best air purifier for our homes and offices.

Best Vegan Chocolate Cake

greenwise12 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:16:13 +0000

Happy Wednesday, Guys!

If you like chocolate or anything with cocoa, this is the cake for you. It’s easy to make and it has NO EGGS or DAIRY. Oh…and it’s cheap to make ☺ My daughter Katie and I – we love baking together and that’s what we baked today!

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Dry Ingredients
4 tbsp organic good quality cocoa (I prefer raw kind)
1 ½ cups of unbleached flour (I prefer whole wheat or whole wheat-barley flour mix)
1 cup raw organic sugar* (but you can use brown or any other sugar you have)
¼ tsp of salt
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of non-aluminum baking powder

Wet Ingredients
6 tbsp good cold-pressed olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
8oz filtered water at room temperature

Preparation:
1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Grease a bundt pan with little oil and sprinkle with flower
3. Mix all your dry ingredients in one bowl
4. Mix all your wet ingredients in another bowl
5. Incorporate your wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix well
6. Pour into bundt pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. Test with toothpick or bamboo skewer.
7. Enjoy and don’t tell anyone this cake has no dairy…they won’t believe anyway. ☺

* I’m not a big fan of white refined sugar, so raw sugar is my second recommendation, but I prefer to use combination of agave syrup, stevia and raw sugar instead of all sugar in this cake. This is what we used today: ½ cup agave syrup + 3 sachets stevia + 2 tbsp of raw sugar. In this case add another ¼ flour because your moisture content will increase with agave syrup. You may also add handful of frozen cherries or 1 sliced banana into the batter before baking for exotic twist ☺

Simple Steps to Greener and Healthier Kitchen

greenwise12 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:55:53 +0000

Couple of month ago I was watching a cooking show on TV and when I saw the amount of plastic wrap and plastic containers being used to store and prepare food, I was outraged! How are we going to make changes towards healthier lifestyle and greener planet, if we promote toxic materials through the most popular media source?! Seriously!
Almost all the plastic bottles, packages and containers release toxins into products they contain, especially water bottles. Should I mention that plastic is NOT biodegradable?!
So here’s what you can to reduce use of plastic in your kitchen.

1. Instead of buying plastic water bottles, invest into good water filter and buy yourself and your family stainless steel water bottles. They are safe to carry to places like community swimming pools and gyms where glass bottles are not allowed.
2. Store your food in glass containers instead of plastic ones. There are plenty glass containers on the market today, if you can find recycled glass products it’s even better, help the Earth while taking care of your health.
3. Use biodegradable trash bags for your trash containers; you can find those in natural food stores or online.
4. Wrap your sandwiches in brown wax paper sandwiches and secure it with rubber band instead of using plastic wrap or aluminum foil. I’ve been doing this for the last two years and it works great!
5. PLEASE DO NOT throw away any glass jars, instead use them to store any items that you buy in plastic packages like rice, beans, lentils etc. I also use these glass jars to store my homemade pesto sauce, jams and nut butters.
6. Try to buy less products in plastic packaging, yes it may cost a little more in a glass or carton box, but is there a price for our health?
7. Almost every conventional grocery store and even pharmacies started selling pretty looking, cloth shopping bags and the cost is less than a $1, so make your contribution to our planet and use these green bags.

What Milk Is In Your Glass?!

greenwise12 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:11:00 +0000

I received couple of comments about my yesterday’s post on “how calves do not drink human milk”

Let me share with you why I strongly believe that we can live a healthier life without dairy.
Many vegan-living advocates and many medical and nutritional experts support the idea that we are better off without dairy due to the following facts:
- conventional cattle farming exposes cows to heavy treatment with antibiotics and growth hormones.
- we can get all the calcium we need from a healthy, balanced plant-based diet
- homogenized milk has been associated with heart disease and cancer

Let’s take a brief look at homogenization process.

The homogenization process breaks up an enzyme in milk (xanthine oxidase), which in its altered (smaller) state can enter the bloodstream and react against arterial walls causing the body to protect the area with a layer of cholesterol. There is some very compelling research demonstrating clear associations with this absorbed enzyme and increased risks of heart disease.

Robert Cohen, Executive Director of the Dairy Education Board, wrote in his article “Homogenized Milk: Rocket Fuel for Cancer,” accessed Nov. 28, 2007.

“Homogenization is the worst thing that dairymen did to milk. Simple proteins rarely survive digestion in a balanced world. Milk is a hormonal delivery system. With homogenization, milk becomes a very powerful and efficient way of bypassing normal digestive processes and delivering steroid and protein hormones to the human body (both your hormones and the cow’s natural hormones and the ones they were injected with to produce more milk). Through homogenization, fat molecules in milk become smaller and become ‘capsules’ for substances that bypass digestion. Proteins that would normally be digested in the stomach or gut are not broken down, and are absorbed into the bloodstream…Homogenized milk, with its added hormones, is rocket fuel for cancer.”

Folks, let me tell you that there are SO MANY GOOD alternatives to dairy products! You will be amazed how easy it is to bake, cook and live without it! I love HEMP milk, it’s creamy and delicious; COCONUT milk will make any soup taste silky and exotic; RICE, HAZELNUT, ALMOND and SOY milk are all great alternatives to a healthier life and greener planet

Check out my Chocolate Cake Recipe, it will cost less to your wallet, your waste line and your doctors bill

Sunflower-Tahini Pate (Spread)

greenwise12 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:34:18 +0000

Guys, here’s another ENERGY SAVING recipe and no need to worry about meat or dairy substitutes in your sandwiches, because nut/seed butters are delicious on your toasts and sandwiches. Use only about 1 – 1.5 tablespoon of this spread for your meal, because even though it’s healthy but still loaded with calories. You may also add any nut butters to your salad dressing for extra protein supply.

Ingredients
· 1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked or rinsed
· 1/2 lemon or lime juice
· 3 tbsp raw or roasted tahini diluted with 4-5 tbsp of water
· couple pinches of sea salt or dash of soy sauce (optional)
· 1 tsp slices red onion (or double to taste), chopped
· 1 medium cloves garlic, chopped
· 5 tablespoons parsley or cilantro, chopped
· ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, (or more to taste)
You may also add 4-5 chopped black or green olives for taste variety

Preparation

1. In a food processor, process the sunflower seeds, lemon juice, onions, Tahini paste, salt, onion, parsley, garlic and cayenne until the mixture is a smooth paste. If it will become too thick add more Tahini paste diluted with water or only a little water.
2. When thoroughly blended taste and adjust the seasoning. This pate will develop a stronger garlic taste in a few hours, so use a small clove or none at all, especially if you’ll make this sandwich for your office lunch
3. Store 4-6 days in air tight container in the fridge.
4. Great on sandwiches with lettuce, avocado and cucumbers

*Sunfood.com carries one of the best raw Tahini pastes I’ve tried, they also have excellent selection of nut and seed butters & reasonable prices

Enjoy and stay healthy

Less animal food will help our planet!

greenwise12 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:19:39 +0000

Some of you probably wonder – what could “eating green,” mean? I think this expression speaks for itself, let’s eat to bring less harm to our exhausted and over polluted planet. First, why don’t we start by using less energy resources to cook our food. Second, let’s make wiser grocery list to create less supply and demand of animal produce. Third, cook using natural kitchen utensils. Naturally, list goes on with avoiding irradiated foods, recycling, throwing less trash away (using leftovers and veggie peels for compost in your garden) and even building a non-toxic kitchen for your family.
However, I’d like to show you how you can eat healthier, lose weight, prevent diseases and help our planet at the same time. Isn’t this a good deal for everyone?
I don’t want to bore you with numbers, but here’s an interesting fact from John Robbins’ book called “Diet for a New America” – animal farming uses approximately 50% of water resources in USA; not to mention that livestock produces much more waste than human population.
Vegetarianism has become very popular topic to achieve optimal health, prevent disease and even reach healthier emotional state. I have experienced it first hand!
Healthy, meatless, vegan cooking has been my passion for many years now, I’ve created many recipes that require no animal produce, are good for our health and taste amazing…well that’s what all my friends and guests have told me many times ☺
I’d like to encourage everyone who visits my blog to share any vegetarian transition experience and by any I mean vegetarian, vegan, raw, macrobiotic and any other cooking-eating approach that does not require animal products.

Less Meat means Less Arctic Ice Melting

greenwise12 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:52:25 +0000

Few weeks ago I was doing a research for my college paper, it was about transition from meat to plant based diet. There were many amazing facts and documents I came across, but one of them was an article published by medical writer Carla Johnson.
I’d like to share with you some interesting points she covered.
First, by all means, she talked about how excessive meat consumption leads to various and very serious diseases. I prefer to leave the details for another time when we’ll talk about health and diet related issues. What impressed me the most was the part where she describes how animal farming increases greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global warming! Isn’t this what we all afraid of?!! Arctic ice is melting, wild life is suffering, oceans getting warmer and we are still grilling steaks and stocking our fridges with bacon and sausages! Why?!!! Don’t we care what happens after we are gone and what kind of world our kids will inherit?!! My conclusion was that human nation should consider reducing animal farming and encourage vegetarian diet by providing nutritional and environmental education in schools to students and their parents! That will help us to slow down global warming process and make the change we all so desperately need.

Barry Popkin, director of the Interdisciplinary Obesity Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote that reducing meat intake would have benefits beyond improved health. “We’ve promoted a diet that has added excessively to global warming,” Popkin said in an interview.

“Successfully shifting away from red meat can be as easy as increasing fruits and vegetables in the diet”, said Elisabetta Politi of the Duke Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, N.C.

“I’m not saying everybody should turn into vegetarians,” Politi said. “Meat should be a supporting actor on the plate, not the main character.”

That’s why I’m a huge supporter of reducing and eventually eliminating animal products from our diet. Believe it or not, but it is possible to live and enjoy life without eating steaks and drinking gallons of milk! Who said we must drink cows’ milk?! Do the cows’ calves feed on human milk after they stop breastfeeding?!! That’s something I keep wondering about for a long time

Healthy Summer Recipe

greenwise12 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:39:34 +0000

Hey guys Here’s delicious summer frozen dessert recipe! I guarantee, you’ll spent less than 15 minutes making it and the best part is, it requires no cooking, whipping, baking or using complex ingredients Berries are packed with good fiber, vitamin C and antioxidants!

Summer Berry Home-Made Sorbet

Ingredients:
1 pack of organic frozen mixed berries
1.3 – 1/2 cup of raw organic agave syrup (depends how sweet you like it)
3 tbsp of fresh lemon juice
1/2 lemon zest

Put frozen berries into food processor or blender let it stand for 20-30 minutes at room temperature, add agave syrup, lemon zest and lemon juice.
Blend all the ingredients into smooth mass and spoon equal amount into portion dishes (like ramekins), place all of those into your freeze and eat whenever your heart desires. Leave sorbet to stand at room temperature for 5-8 minutes before eating.