Agave Nector- A natural Sugar alternative.

Agave nector is a product that I have been using for a few years now. It is a great alternative to sugar and I have found nothing that I can not use it in. As a person who is watching their weight, intake of processed foods, and trying to cut out sugar I have found Agave to be a great additive to my food pantery.

The Glycemic index for Agave is between 30-39 and had about 60 Calories per Serving: A serving (1 tablespoon). depending on the brand. This is a great alternative for persons watching thier sugar intake or a diabetic.

I have used 2 brands of Agave,

Wholesome

and Madhava, 

 both of which I have no complaints about. I usually purchase which ever one is on sale when I go in. They are both found in my local gorcerie stores, whole foods, and health food stores.

To me they taste like a split between honey and maple syrup. I have used them for baking, in tea and coffee, and in cooking that has called for sugar and no one knows the difference. If you have never experienced agave I hope that this inspires you to go out and have a try and if you have tried it I hope that this makes you giggle that someone else knows the secret and is using the wonderful product.

Bread Success!!! Finally! And Recpie to share.

I finally found a bread machine recipe that WORKED. I am way excited, (if you had not caught on yet), this is my, ok I won't even try to count how many, attempts at making bread.


I guess I should start from the beginning. I once feel in love with a bread machine, that in the end I never used, and it finally founds it way to a garage sell. Well the tide turned and I found my way back to baking but decided I could do it myself, like by hand. Let's just say that I never quite got the hang of that. In fact to put it like my hubby did, The bread was only good in case a robber came into the home and we needed to defend ourselves. The poor robber might have ended up with a concussions.... now with that in mind I lost faith in my bread making skills.. for a VERY short period of time. One thing I can say about myself is that I am tenacious and when I have my mind set to make a change said change will be made. Bread not being purchased at the store any longer was my mission. Much to my families dislike there were many days there was NO bread in the house because I could not make it myself. Every now and again I would find bread that did not contain ingredients I could not pronounce and I would purchase them much to their pleasure but not often.


Then it happened I was "thrifting" which is my term for shopping at thrift stores, Goodwill's, and stores along those lines, when I found "it"! I bread machines!! Yeah baby! It was cheap and in working order and my quest to bake bread was renewed.


The issue from there was to find a whole wheat bread that the family would eat, that did not look to healthy and did not taste awful. Let's just say I failed a few times... Ok more than a few but I kept on going.

My first deal was finding flour that I felt was worth eating and after much searching I found my gold mine.


King Arthur Flour Company- 100% White Whole Wheat Flour

(I'll write about the flour in another post)

100% Whole Wheat Bread

The following recipe is one we worked out for the Zojirushi. It makes a firm, sweet loaf of golden bread. It shouldn't be hard adapting it to your own machine; all you need to know is what proportion of flour/liquid/yeast your machine functions best with. Take a look at the dough after it's kneaded for about 10 to 12 minutes or so; it should be smooth, not sticky (too little flour) or lumpy (too little liquid), forming a nice ball. If the dough looks good at this point, you're probably all set.

For 1 1/2 lb. bread machine



1 1/4 cups water (I used all Milk)



2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil (I used Olive oil)



1/4 cup honey or maple syrup ( I used Agave Nectar)



3 to 3 1/2 cups King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat or Traditional Whole Wheat Flour (I used 3 1/2 cups White whole wheat flour)



1/4 cup sunflower, sesame or flax seeds, or a combination (optional) ( I used 2 tab flax seed meal)



1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten (omitted as I did not have any on hand)



1 1/2 teaspoons salt



1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast ( I used 2 tp)



Put all of the ingredients into the bread pan in the order listed. Program for basic white bread, and press Start.



I was beyond pleased to see this loaf in my bread machine. It is moist and soft, the texture is wonderful and all of my kids and hubby have eaten it and enjoyed. I feel great about feeding it to them and this will become our staple bread! Woooohoooo for not giving in! Success tastes so wonderful.

Fun with Flax.. YES really....

This was my first experience with Flax Seed Meal. Bob's Red Mill. Just a side note. I have found that the Red Mill products are vast and easily found in many stores. They are very inexpensive and often extensive in the variety of  products they offer. Now having said that back to the original slated program.

I have seen flaxseed meal as I do buy the Red Mill products but I had NO idea what to do with it. That was until I found a recommendation on its usages through a blog that I read. It was enough motivation for me to take a plunge and experience flax meal.

So before I begin to tell you all the ways I have used Flax let me tell you WHAT flax is and its benefits!

• 2 Tb of flax equates to 60-70 calories depending on the brand I have purchased
• Flax can be used a replacement for eggs
• Flax can be used as a replacement for oil or butter
• Flaxseed meal has 2400mg of omega-3 
• 0 Trans fat 
• 0 Cholesterol
• 4g or more of Fiber per serving (depending on the brand)
• 3g or of Protein per serving 
• It is an Antioxidant
• Flaxseed can help prevent and control High Blood Pressure
• FlaxSeed can help protect against heart disease, Cancer and Diabetes
• Gluten Free product

I have found that Flaxseed is a great additive to many food items to boots their nutritional values.

Now here is a list the things I have thus far added flaxseeds to or have found to use flaxseed in.

• Oatmeal
• Smoothies
• Yogurt
• Meat Loaf
• Hamburgers or any ground meat
• Breads or any baked good
• Sauces (anything dark)
• Pasta and Sauces 
• Pancakes and Waffles
• Eggs
• Chili
• Any bean dish
• Soups
• Casseroles
• Bbq sauce or ketchup.

Honestly you cant taste it and my family has no idea that I have been adding it to their food. LOL. It was easy after the first few times and in fact now I make it a game to see how many places I can stick a tsp or 2 into the foods that we are eating. I am on the road to a healthier me and I am taking them along for the ride, I am sure their bodies are thanking me!

I hope you are motivated or at least intrigued enough to step out and research or even try this great food additive that will help bring added nutritional benefits to your diet in a simple and easy way. 

Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment!

Natural Resolution and how I came about the name.

Thanks to my bff, my high school runnen mate, and friend for life. We have been friends sense my freshmen year of high school. Needless to say we have been there for the ever so clever climb up in the scales of weight gain as well as the well placed attempts to loss that ever so relentless gain.

As I have gained weight and gotten older and then been challenged with the health issues that come with said weight gain I have taken the steps to understand food and how I interact with it.

What I have learned from the experiences of learning food is that MOST of the food I ate often was NOT good for me, at all.  For me it was a process to look back at life. When was I my healthiest and for those in my family the same question was applied. What I learned was astoundingly simple. REAL food is healthy.

Natural foods as close to how they are grown or live is best. I was my healthiest when I cooked almost every day or at foods that someone cooked. I was healthiest when I was not consuming foods and products that I could not even begin to imagine where they came from.

I began to ask myself, if a food will last on a shelf for 3 years how is it affecting my body? If a piece of fruit is for gotten in the outside fridge and 2 months later I find it and it is NOT molded or decomposing what happens to it in my body. A preservative is to preserve, I don't think a preservative can tell the difference between my body or the food item it is first located in.

I kept thinking about it and researching it and in the end I convinced my GF and hopefully some of my other fiends, and maybe even you.. QUESTION what you eat.

And that began my journey on the road to a natural resolution to a healthier life. Each day I take it one day at a time. I make 1 better choice everyday and I stick with it until it becomes habit. I began and still work on reading labels. I work hard at making better food choices and places to buy the food we consume. Its not easy but it is the beginning of a life time journey to a healthier and more natural me.