1. Find and substitute with healthier alternatives In Singapore, there are so many delicious, yummy cuisines and foods to eat out there at the hawker centres, restaurants and eating places. So prepare yourself for a gastronomical adventure to discover new, exciting and healthier alternatives to the foods you have been eating. Make a list of common food items which has high calories or considered not-so-healthy which you want to change. The key is to start easy by changing one food item at a time.

Once you’ve substituted and is comfortable with the new healthier version, move on to conquer the next item on your food list. Here are some examples. You may like to eat pisang goreng or fried banana. But it is definitely not healthy eating due to the deep frying. You can replace pisang goreng with eating fresh bananas instead. For drinks, you may be taking pasteurized carrot juice filled with artificial sweeteners. Why not replace it with fresh carrot juice or eating raw carrots? Instead of taking carbonated drinks or carton-juice from the supermarket, why not buy a good juicer and start making fresh fruit drinks? Start to get creative and prepare some nourishing healthy recipes that your family may like. Feel confident about your healthy food choices and enthusiastic about the adventure you’ve embarked. Get out there and introduce the healthier food versions to your friends and family members. Know that healthy food can taste good and that will make you feel good too. So get started and make it happen.

2. Take some raw foods during each meal Make it a point to add some healthy option during each meal by adding some raw vegetables and fruits. When you are eating out, ask for more vegetables in the dish you order. Ensure you take fresh fruits for desserts or snacks. You can either take raw veggies (as salads) and fruits or you can drink them as delicious juices. Organise and plan your meals to save time. For example, you can plan and prepare some healthy food like salads to last a few days so there is less work for you. Organise your weekly healthy eating plans so you don’t have to think the next time you go for grocery shopping.

3. Keep trying and changing your healthy food choices Be willing to experiment and keep trying out new recipes of healthier option. For example, instead of wrapping tuna with white bread, try to use greens such as cabbage as wraps. The only way to break out of the junk food trap is through the fresh food way. Know in yourself you have so much to gain by being persistent. Do not compromise on your own health and well-being just because your friends or family may not understand or are not interested to follow. Ultimately, they will when they can see the results you’ve achieved. In the meantime, keep them interested by discovering new healthier foods that they may like to eat.

4. Allow old treats occasionally Besides taking easy slow steps to change your eating habits, the trick to successfully switch to healthy eating habit is to still allow yourself some old treats during the transition. If you cut off totally from eating the foods you’ve come to know and love all these years, you may find yourself back to where you started. This is because the harder you try to avoid those old treats, the harder to avoid and you’ll end up wanting more of it!

Therefore, you can still allow yourself some old treats during special occasions or during weekends. It is not necessary to have a total ban as your body is able to handle an occasional intake of high calories or unhealthy foods. The most effective way is to go slow and keep to your plan to transition to healthy food for the long haul. Make the transition to healthy foods fun and appealing for you and your family. Understand that the transition will take time and people’s habits and cravings will change over time. Over time, the senses can be improve to crave for and enjoy healthier foods. Do you have any difficulties when you transition to health food versions and how do you overcome the challenges?

Choosing what you include in your diet daily is crucial especially if it is a well balanced, composed of; proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, fibers, roughage and the adequate amount of water to guarantee you get back your health. Most people tend to rely on refined foods known commonly as junk foods to give them the adequate amount of nutritional needs they desire as well as value. Moreover most people based on inadequate information take shortcuts by purchasing foods that are low in nutritional value and high in cholesterol, oils and low in fibers.

It is essential to know that natural foods do possess natural healing powers especially vegetables and plant foods to help prevent against diseases such as diabetes, chronic hypertension, coronary heart failure, arteriosclerosis associated with eating foods that are not healthy. Why Are We Not Taking Enough Healthy Food? The lifestyles we lead contribute to our failure in taking healthy food. Based on the busy lives we lead and the need for quick fixed foods for lunch to save time is a contributory factor to our declining healthy lives. One needs to be conscious about the food they take and ensure you also have time to make your own healthy meal to guarantee you stay in good health and shape.

Taking healthy food alone is not a solution to health problems but other factors such as exercises do go a long way in enhancing your health. The quantity and quality of the healthy food we take daily is also important based on the high nutritional value it has in terms of giving energy to the body. Notably we do forget the common adage that we are what we eat and a bad diet does lead to low intelligence, reduced alertness and performance in terms of our daily work output. Deciding to get a good diet will reduce your visit to the doctor and enrich your life daily with energy and vigor. Benefits of Eating Healthy Food The best thing to avoid is foods that are considered harmful to our health.

Such foods do lower our immune system; make people prone to infections and leads to eating disorders. It is crucial to note that the human body is able to adequately adapt to eating almost anything whether mineral, vegetable or animal but it does not mean that just because anything can be eaten, it cannot risk our health. Eating healthy will not harm you but will see you get better, energy filled, happy, contended, improve your performance, protect you from diseases and keep the doctor away. Choosing to have a healthy life today, does not involve shortcuts but taking the right kind of healthy food.

That recipe was one that I had made years ago and thought it was good at the time.  Semi sweet chocolate chips provide the chocolate flavor and it just isn’t enough.  I am going to try it again sometime and use a better type of chocolate- that will be it’s last chance!

I am going to post both of the other two chocolate cookie recipes because my neighbors who tasted both of the cookies were divided on which they preferred.  Here is the second recipe- Cocoa Shortbread Cookies

The cookies in this first post are called Chocolate Sweet Hearts and I got the original recipe recently from www.delish.com.  It is actually a Martha Stewart recipe.

I converted the recipe to gluten free by just switching out the 1 cup of flour for a cup of my GF flour mix.( If you don’t have issues with gluten, just use “regular” flour.) The recipe called for cocoa, so I used Droste cocoa.  It called for 4 oz of bittersweet or semisweet chocolate and I used a 3.5 oz box of Droste Extra Dark Chocolate Pastilles instead.  That is the same chocolate that I use in my Chocolate Mousse, so I always have some around.

I used a more expensive cut of beef and it made all of the difference in the flavor.  I used beef chuck boneless country style ribs that I got at my Safeway store.  I think it was $5.69 a pound which is a crazy price for something you are making soup out of but the recipe makes about 10 cups which should serve 6-8.

I spent some time trimming all of the gristle and pieces of fat off of the meat before cutting it into chunks but it was the nicest marbled beef that I have seen at Safeway in months.

Besides fresh mushrooms, this soup has dried wild mushrooms, leeks and a few carrots.I bought the big container of dried mixed wild mushrooms at Costco.  I have to tell you that I hesitated buying them there for several months because the mushrooms are sourced from China.  No offense to China, but their track record has not been very good the last few years!

These muffins start with homemade applesauce that still has some small chunks of apple in it.  I used Granny Smith apples with just a little bit of cinnamon and brown sugar.  I didn’t want the applesauce to be too sweet.

I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Oatmeal, plus my usual flaxseed meal, almond meal and GF Flour Mix.  There is a little bit of apple juice in these muffins just to add a little more apple flavor.

If you do not have issues with gluten, you can just replace the GF Flour Mix with regular flour- that’s the only change.

This recipe makes 36 mini muffins, which is the size that I always make for all of my muffins.  I usually bake 2 or 3 kinds of muffins at once, and when you make the mini size you don’t have to feel guilty for having a couple at a time!

I’m sure this recipe would be the right amount for 12 regular size muffins if you would rather make that size.

Last weekend I made these muffins, plus Zucchini which I’ve already posted and also Banana Chocolate Chip which have a little bit of almond butter in them.  The 2 neighbor families that I gave samples of all of these muffins to liked the Apple ones the best!  I liked them a lot too.

Richard and Susan Burchiel have a small family owned farm called Birch-Hill Organics in Atascadero California, which is on the Central Coast midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The photos below show Richard and Susan, and Winston who is their chief lemon retriever!  Truly a small family farm!

The Burchiels started their farm in 1998 and have been committed to organic and sustainable farming practices since the beginning.

Birch-Hill organics has 5 acres of Meyer Lemons under cultivation and they also raise and sell kiwis.  In addition, the Burchiels grow a miniature Meyer Lemon.  The wedges from these miniature lemons are perfect for garnish for cocktails or desserts.  The price per pound is the same as the regular size Meyer Lemons

My jewelry features semi-precious stones combined with hand made beads and pendants created by artists from all over the USA.

To enter, simply subscribe to Andreas Kitchen and then leave a comment at the bottom of this post saying that you are a subscriber and would like to enter the drawing.

Steve at Authentic Foods has graciously allowed me to select the items in this giveaway.  Included are:  a 3 pound bag of AF Classic Flour Blend (this is the same blend that I use for my baking), a 3 pound bag of AF Sorghum Flour, AF Xanthan Gum, AF Guar Gum, plus 3 baking mixes that Authentic Foods has developed: Double Chocolate Brownie Mix, Vanilla Bean Cake Mix and Blueberry Muffin Mix.

The retail value for this great Authentic Foods giveaway is over $50.00 (more than that if you count what you would spend for shipping!)

This drawing is open to residents of the United States only.  The Gluten Free Giveaway will end October 22, 2010.  One winner will be chosen on October 23, 2010.  I will contact the winner via email and the winners name will be posted on my blog

This salad is made with fresh steamed green beans and fennel.  If you don’t care for fennel, you can just double the amount of green beans and/or use some fresh or canned yellow wax beans for more color.

This salad has dried blueberries, pecans and a touch of blue cheese for flavor.

If you are very allergic to gluten you should not use blue cheese because the mold in it is started with flour (sorry!).  You can substitute any other cheese that works for you or no cheese at all- this salad will still be great!

I hope that you can find really fresh fennel bulbs because the flavor is much better.  They get bitter as they age but it is hard to find them really fresh because a lot of stores don’t sell them fast enough.

If you are not going to serve this salad right after making it, wait to add the blue cheese and olive oil.  Add those ingredients right before you serve the salad and don’t stir too much, otherwise it will look “oily” from the blue cheese.

I got the idea for this method from a cake recipe that Elana of Elanas Pantry posted.  Thank you Elana!  I love browsing recipes for time saving easy methods that I can tweak into my own recipe vision!