Awesome roasted nuts and seeds

Nuts and seeds are great. But I noticed that I was not feeling very well after eating them straight from the bag. So I decided to find the way how to eat nuts and keep my tummy happy at the same time. Maybe this post will be helpful for you too!? Let me know what do you think!

4 signs that you are not processing nuts well:

• Heavy feeling in your lower stomach after eating nuts
• Stomach pain
• Heartburn
• You can literally see bits of them in your poo (SORRY! I have no idea how to write about this indirectly 🙂 )

I remembered that during my Nutritional Therapy lectures in BCNH we studied that nuts&seeds contain  lectins, phytates, and enzyme inhibitors (I will call this bunch LPEs), which may be one of the causes of the above mentioned conditions. I must mention, that “enzyme inhibitors” are good nature’s way of “protecting” them from heat, etc. before “right”conditions come (eg. rain) for the nuts to grow into trees.

By soaking nuts you can not only minimise the impact of LPEs, but also enhance the flavour of nuts!In a way, you are “tricking” the nature, by providing conditions when nuts&seeds may “relax” and start releasing all good minerals and micronutrients.

Also, you need to remember that roasted nuts from the shop are most likely not soaked first which means they still have LPEs. There are a few brands though which actually soak the nuts before they roast or dehydrate them, check out LivingRaw nuts, or Raw Ecstasy but they are not very cheap.

So, why not to try to prepare and “activate” your nuts yourself, it is super easy! Let me show it to you 🙂

 Easy process for soaking nuts

• Rinse nuts/seeds with fresh water (better purified water, not from the tap)
• Put them in a bowl (better in a glass or ceramic bowl)
• Cover nuts with water (2 cups water/ 1 cup nuts) and put smth breathable on top (paper towel or tea towel)
• Let them stand for a few hours (during the night/day/ or 24 hours). If you have time or you are around, change the water a few times. If not, don’t worry about it 🙂
• Drain the water (which will look very dirty)
• Rinse again with fresh water (the water contains all those LPE which are acidic to the body, so rinse well!)
• Dry your clean and beautiful nuts on a sheet of paper towel or dehydrator (if you have one)
• Put in a bag or a glass bowl and keep in refrigerator for 3-4 days

Check out timings for each type of nut/seed here. But! Just not to overcomplicate things too much, a few hours would be good. For example, arrange all in the morning and it is ready for the evening or make preparations in the evening and the nuts are ready for breakfast!

And finally a recipe!!! 🙂

Soaked and roasted walnuts and pumpkin seeds

• Soaked pumpkin seeds (I made them overnight)
• Soaked walnuts (I made them overnight)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp rosmarin
• Pinch of dry basil
• Pinch of dry coriander
• Pinch of pepper
• Optional: 1 tbs bee polen

Preheat the oven for 200 C, mix all the spices and nuts in a dry bowl and put the mixture to the baking sheet. In 25-30 min the AWSOME nuts are ready to eat! 🙂

Note! It is better to add bee polen 10 min before the nuts are ready, so it doesn’t burn 🙂

Awesome Roasted nuts and seeds

 

Norice-salad “sushi”

Salads are awesome – a lot of vitamins, phytonutrients and fibre. But seriously, eating a salad every day CAN become boring. And then…and then you need to make Norice-salad sushi! 🙂

This is what I have done today to perk things up a bit:

Norice-salad sushi

-100g cucumber grated
-2 beetroots grated
-1 parsnip grated
-bunch of dill
-2 Yaki Nori sheets (bought in a Korean store)

In big bowl mix all ingredients and add any dressing (I have added: 1 tbs Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp apple vinegar, 1 tbs hemp oil). Prepare sushi mat (also could be bought in a Korean store) by putting 1 Yaki Nori sheet.

 

Then squeeze the juice from the salad – otherwise you are going to get a “sushi ocean” on your plate:)

Place the salad on the sheet, BUT make sure that you have left 2 cm (1 inch) from the top of the sheet – to avoid salad “jumping” from the sheet while you are rolling a sushi roll.

Roll and enjoy! SUPER easy and fast! :)…and OMGsoTASTY!!!! 🙂

Healthy Bars Review – Vol.1

I love tasty snacks. To be honest I am obsessed with snacks 🙂 I love cool packaging, good recipes and creative claims. It is super great when people do staff like that and actually create business with the goal to help people to eat and live better. Also, after over 9 years in FMCG marketing I truly appreciate great products. So I can never pass by without tasting (or maybe it is an excuse to try cool things?? hehehe)

Anyway, this is the first post about healthy packaged snacks which I LOVED.

Lets’ start from a few key points. In my opinion, its better to eat raw or just cooked, BUT when you are on the go and simply didn’t have time to prepare your snack than its ok to buy a packaged one 🙂

My criteria for assessing healthy snacks:

1) It must be OMGsoTASTY
2) It should have NO added sugars
3) It should have well balanced ratio: protein/carbs/fat
4) Packaging should be good looking 🙂 (Its always nice to have a nice thing from a nice pack, right? 🙂 )
5) Claims should be interesting and really appealing
6) It should not cost a fortune

The First review is of the FRANK bar.

It is very recently on the market in UK (guys on the website said that they started in 2012).  There are a few flavour available, check out here more info.

1) FRANK bar would score super good on OMGsoTASTY scale, its rich and chocolaty and not to sweet but very nice. And you would not want to have 5 to feel like you have eaten enough, you would be happy with just one, which is cool, and exactly what you want when you are running somewhere!! It tasted a bit like chocolate brownie, soft and chewy and chocolaty. Nice!

2) Ingredients of the Chocolate&Blueberry flavour:
Dried Fruit 49.8% (Dates 36.2%, Plums 13.6%), Fruit Juice Concentrates (Concentrated Apple, Grape and Pear Juices, Rice Starch), Gluten Free Oatmeal 10.9%, Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder 9.2%, Chocolate with Coconut Cream 7.4% (Cocoa Mass 47%, Coconut Blossom Sugar, Coconut Cream, Cocoa Butter 4.3%, Ground Vanilla Pods), Pea Protein, Pea fibre, Freeze Dried Natural Blueberry Powder 0.9%, Natural Blueberry flavour.

Well, there are a LOT of ingredients:) In my opinion it is better to try to have no concentrated fruit juices or coconut sugar, but it is maybe something FRANK guys gonna do in the future.

3)Nutrition Value (per 100g…one bar is 35g)
Energy 333kcal
Protein 11g
Carbohydrates 65g (Of Which Sugars) 41g
Fibre 11g
Fat 5g (Of Which Saturates) 3g

Well, this is quite a snack for a quick BOOST of energy (4:1 ration of carbs to protein), and for people who move a lot, as it has a lot of simple carbs in it (65g per 100g, or per one bar 22.7g).  Or maybe a good option after a run? when you just need to fuel up with simple carbs to replenish the energy. Some more interesting facts about running and cacao could be found here 

4) Packaging is super nice. Its colourful and really fun to hold in hand:) It has its kind super feel good factor:)

5) Simple and really engaging claims:
Gluten, Nut and Dairy Free
Source of protein (well…it is a source, but I wouldn’t say it is a lot in there:))
With energysmart – really cool, FRANK has even registered a trademark name for a claim! awesome! Its really hard to do it usually, so well done guys!

6) Frank bars do not cost a fortune:) You can check on their website

And one additional comment, this year on Gluten&Allergy free show in Olympia, London they were very friendly and nice. Which make a huge impact! And its great to see nice people behind nice products!

So if you are after a treat with chocolate and some “OMGsoTASTY” factor get yourself a FRANK bar! (Oh, by the way, try crashing FRANK’s bar on top of your morning cereal or yogurt  – it is super tasty!!)

x

Lazy weekend place near Portobello road? – Tom’s cafe!

Another great “new” place in Notting Hill…reopened just a few weeks ago and now has super chilled modern trendy feel to it. Great menu, tasty food and nice people. What more would you want on a weekend? Ah yes, a nice hidden garden! so you enjoy the summer weather without the crowds of portobello road. Fantastic!

Tom’s Menu is just simply nice:) And cool thing is that you could choose various sizes for your dish – so you can take a few smaller portions and taste a different dishes, fab! When I say smaller btw I dont mean tuataras-like size, Its like a “double tapa”;)

Food is very delicious, it is probably the first time in a few month when I couldn’t leave anything on the plate. I mean literally the plate looked so clean after I finished that you could barely say someone has eaten from it:)

I have been there with a friend of mine and we have tried a few very nice dishes…Must say that very thorough testing/questioning the staff regarding ingredients/origin  of ingredients didn’t “freak” them out, and we even got quate a lot of answers…cool!

Ta-da-m! here are the dishes which we have tried:

“Ceviche” from Tuna and scallops…well, not really a ceviche:) but! raw Tuna with marinated veggies, but very tasty fish and veggies! Plus in the centre of the plate was a frozen cucumber coolis…it was yummy and look how great  this looks on the plate? Right?

 

Then there was a very tasty looking Roast salmon with a LOT of veggies…

 

and absolutely awesome salad with avocado pure and tomatoes. So simple, but so incredibly tasty!

 

Atmosphere: lazy, cosy, friendly, bright and light – great for breakfast and lunch.
Menu: loads of tasty dishes and amazing, simple but very modern presentation – just right!
People: Great, smily, knowledgeable very nice people serving food
Price: from £7 for sides and higher. And you can choose if you want the whole portion or just half of it. 
Occasion: kids friendly, family friendly

I am definitely coming back – great place!! 🙂

Check out the website: www.newtoms.co.uk