Deanna Simone

I’m so excited that soon we are going to have lots of local fruits and vegetables available. The beauty of eating locally and seasonally is that our fruits and vegetables are not harvested early and left to ripen in transit. They get optimal growing time which means their nutrients are plentiful. You can most definitely taste the local difference. I can’t wait to stock my fridge in the coming months!

With Easter weekend behind us and warmer weather ahead, it’s time for Spring Cleaning!
Danielle shares some great Power Up Tips for organizing your kitchen, starting with the pantry.

Trying to find the “perfect gift” can be daunting. I like to give my clients and friends who I see over the holidays a little something to say I’m grateful. With that train of thought I decided to simplify the art of gift giving by doing something I loved and sharing it with the ones I love: baking delicious cookies!

It’s pretty clear that choosing locally grown and seasonal foods is a smart choice when trying to eat healthy. Optimal nutrients, great flavour and minimal preservatives are a few good reasons why we do so. But what about homemade variations of your favourite fast foods? Can we still get the great taste and convenience of fast food but with the healthy and fresh ingredients from our fridge and pantry?

Are homemade foods, like muffins and hamburgers, really healthier than conveniently prepared foods?

It seems that the ideal body becomes ever more elusive the harder we try to achieve it. The potential is there, we just can’t figure out the magic formula or diet. The odds are that 98% of dieters will fail at sustaining weight loss while only 2% of dieters will succeed. Even more discouraging is the post diet weight gain after the valiant effort to get the excess weight off fails.

Eating is a natural, healthy, and enjoyable activity for satisfying hunger. However, in our diet obsessed, food-abundant culture, eating is often mindless, consuming, and guilt-inducing instead. We can avoid the cyclical pattern of over eating throughout the holiday season and dieting to prepare for the summer by practicing mindful eating all year round.

If you’re not keen on foods naturally high in fiber such as legumes, oats, fruits, and vegetables, you may be tempted to choose fiber-fortified foods to help you reach your daily requirements. Manufacturers are putting isolated fibers in foods like yogurt, sugary cereals, energy bars, and even juices in order to make “high fiber” claims, but are they really the same thing?