Superfood Substitutions
To preface this post, I’m not a weight loss expert and this isn’t a post about losing weight, though I do believe that substituting healthier choices in place of others can have an impact on your weight. You don’t have to eat differently than your partner or kids, you don’t count points or buy expensive, processed frozen food. Granted, I have been blessed with a pretty decent metabolism, but I don’t stay skinny just because of that. This is the book that changed our life, diet wise at least, which led to other things. Real Food by Nina Planck is a book about embracing whole foods and the fat that comes along with them. You can eat GOOD food that’s good for you if you can get past the multitude of aisles of processed food at the grocery store. I am not a cook, I hated cooking until a couple of years ago. Allrecipes.com helped with that. Even with those recipes though, it was hard finding “whole food” recipes. So now I make healthy substitutions for most recipes. Baking seems to be the easiest for me to make substitutions that don’t mess with the taste that drastically and it changes the nutritional content of the food by quite a bit.
I can write a whole post on coconut oil. Coconut oil can be substituted for butter or any other kind of vegetable oil. It is a very healthy alternative. Coconut oil is about 50% lauric acid. The only other abundant source found in nature is in human breast milk. "Approximately 50% of the fatty acids in coconut fat are lauric acid. Lauric acid is a medium chain fatty acid, which has the additional beneficial function of being formed into monolaurin in the human or animal body. Monolaurin is the antiviral, antibacterial, and antiprotozoal monoglyceride used by the human or animal to destroy lipid coated viruses such as HIV, herpes, cytomegalovirus, influenza, various pathogenic bacteria including listeria monocytogenes and heliobacter pylori, and protozoa such as giardia lamblia. Some studies have also shown some antimicrobial effects of the free lauric acid." -Dr. Mary Enig, a Ph.D. nutritionist/biochemist and one of the world's leading authorities on fats and oils. In a nutshell, coconut oil is really good for you regardless of its saturated fat content. Taken daily, it can actually help you lose weight and give you energy. One of the many other benefits of coconut oil is that you can use it as lotion, chapstick, hair conditioner, etc. Just google coconut oil uses. Applied daily, it helps eczema as well.
2 brands I recommend. This one* doesn’t have a coconut taste, my mom uses it in place of butter when cooking food she doesn’t want to taste like coconut.
This one, I use all the time. This price is amazing. You’ll pay this much for a jar less than half this size at walmart.
I use raw honey instead of white sugar, visit www.localharvest.org to find a source near you. I have used regular honey in the past and it works just fine, it’s usually not as sweet as local raw honey though, in my opinion. Raw honey is an anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal substance. It helps with allergies, heals cuts and scrapes quicker, helps coughs, among other things.
I use pure maple syrup in place of brown sugar. I get mine at Target. It’s Archer Farms brand and it’s $15 for 32 fl oz. We also use this in place of chocolate syrup in the kids milk. Maple syrup, is an excellent source of manganese and a good source of zinc. See this article for more benefits of pure maple syrup.
Instead of chocolate chips or cocoa powder, I use organic Cacao Powder or Cacao Nibs. This is raw, minimally processed chocolate and it is a super food. It contains antioxidants, diminishes appetite, it’s rich in magnesium and contains the amino acids, Tryptophan
and Arginine. These two products last me usually 6 months in the fridge.
When using the syrup and honey instead sugar, you're probably going to need to increase your flour some. We don't ever use white flour. We use 100% whole wheat and I've successfully used brown rice and oat flour as well to make gluten free recipes.
I know this is just a few ingredient substitutions, but I'm out of time and want to post this info. Hopefully I can move past baked goods next time. Thanks for reading.
*I buy all my supplements and a lot of groceries from Vitacost.com because they are half the price of health food stores and have a flat $5 shipping fee. You usually make up for shipping with one item.
I also want to add that I have an AWESOME hypnotherapist that has great success with weight loss if anyone is interested. If he can take away the pain of childbirth, I'm sure he can help you lose weight. :)
I can write a whole post on coconut oil. Coconut oil can be substituted for butter or any other kind of vegetable oil. It is a very healthy alternative. Coconut oil is about 50% lauric acid. The only other abundant source found in nature is in human breast milk. "Approximately 50% of the fatty acids in coconut fat are lauric acid. Lauric acid is a medium chain fatty acid, which has the additional beneficial function of being formed into monolaurin in the human or animal body. Monolaurin is the antiviral, antibacterial, and antiprotozoal monoglyceride used by the human or animal to destroy lipid coated viruses such as HIV, herpes, cytomegalovirus, influenza, various pathogenic bacteria including listeria monocytogenes and heliobacter pylori, and protozoa such as giardia lamblia. Some studies have also shown some antimicrobial effects of the free lauric acid." -Dr. Mary Enig, a Ph.D. nutritionist/biochemist and one of the world's leading authorities on fats and oils. In a nutshell, coconut oil is really good for you regardless of its saturated fat content. Taken daily, it can actually help you lose weight and give you energy. One of the many other benefits of coconut oil is that you can use it as lotion, chapstick, hair conditioner, etc. Just google coconut oil uses. Applied daily, it helps eczema as well.
2 brands I recommend. This one* doesn’t have a coconut taste, my mom uses it in place of butter when cooking food she doesn’t want to taste like coconut.
This one, I use all the time. This price is amazing. You’ll pay this much for a jar less than half this size at walmart.
I use raw honey instead of white sugar, visit www.localharvest.org to find a source near you. I have used regular honey in the past and it works just fine, it’s usually not as sweet as local raw honey though, in my opinion. Raw honey is an anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal substance. It helps with allergies, heals cuts and scrapes quicker, helps coughs, among other things.
and Arginine. These two products last me usually 6 months in the fridge.
When using the syrup and honey instead sugar, you're probably going to need to increase your flour some. We don't ever use white flour. We use 100% whole wheat and I've successfully used brown rice and oat flour as well to make gluten free recipes.
I know this is just a few ingredient substitutions, but I'm out of time and want to post this info. Hopefully I can move past baked goods next time. Thanks for reading.
*I buy all my supplements and a lot of groceries from Vitacost.com because they are half the price of health food stores and have a flat $5 shipping fee. You usually make up for shipping with one item.
I also want to add that I have an AWESOME hypnotherapist that has great success with weight loss if anyone is interested. If he can take away the pain of childbirth, I'm sure he can help you lose weight. :)
