I know, I know, I say this all the time, but really … this may be the best recipe I’ve offered you yet! Ha! My Spicy Citrus Kale Chips are off-the-charts, over-the-top, crazy delicious … and so good for you! Light and Bright. Spicy and Cheezy. Purely addictive and purely healthy. I safely suggest to double this recipe! You will love this kale chip recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 bunches of kale, deveined and broken into 3 square in pieces
• 3 limes, juice
• 1 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 Tablespoon Coconut Aminos
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon Chipotle powder, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon Cayenne, or to taste
• 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil, EVOO

Wash, dry and break kale pieces into 3 inch pieces. Dry thoroughly.

Blend all ingredients except kale until smooth and creamy.

In large bowl, toss kale with mixture and massage through each leaf.

 

Dehydrate for 12 – 18 hours on 105 degrees, or bake until crispy on the lowest setting your oven offers to retain the most nutritional value the kale offers, while raw!

Buono appetito! 

 

After talking with my client’s 12-year old daughter about the importance of eating healthy, especially that she trains daily to be a world-class gymnast, especially because she has diabetes, I looked at her and asked, “Did you ever consider that your diabetes might actually be a present, a gift to becoming a better gymnast than you ever thought possible?”

Perked up in her seat. Head cocked to the right. Eyes opened wider … Olivia looked up at me inquisitively and replied, “What do you mean?”

I responded with more questions, “Do you have any friends who talk to a health coach about why it is important to eat healthy?” “What would it be like in your performance as an athlete if you could harness your peak energy, strength and aptitude?” “Do you think you would eat as healthy as you do now, because of your diagnosis, or do you think you would eat like your friends?” “Do you think you can be your very best in life, if your diabetes goes unchecked without this conversation?”

We most often deem an uncomfortable experience or a challenging diagnosis as a bad thing, but when I look back over the course of my life, one of the best things that ever happened to me was getting sick.

Getting sick invited me to think in new and very different ways about health and wellness, about disease and symptoms, about what makes sense to me, and what does not … and especially about what it means to look and feel my very best self!

Like a chain reaction, one breakthrough with my health led to one breakthrough in my life, which led to a one breakthrough in my education, which set in motion a complete and utter paradigm shift about what really matters to me.

As young as she is, Olivia understood what I was saying. She connected the dots.

After I left her mother called me, to tell me she heard Olivia telling her friend that her diabetes was a gift, and that she was thankful she got it, and that she wanted to teach her friend about how eating healthy could help her too.

A change in perspective. A small ‘turn of the dial.’ New ways of seeing things leads to new ways of doing things.

Perhaps you're ready to shift your perspective, ready to look and feel your very best, ready to see things differently, to do things differently. If so, let’s have a conversation to see if coaching might make sense for you. Email me at: carol@carol-egan.com

Jamu. An ancient Indonesian healing elixir.

Encode this recipe to memory. Seriously. Drink it everyday.

It tastes so good and it is so good for you!

I was introduced to this drink last year by a local health merchant near a yoga teacher training I attended in Rhode Island. After my first taste I giggled and new that this would be a new mainstay for me.

I offer you this oh-so delicious recipe, but must offer you exactly what the healer who gave me this recipe offered me — the suggestion to be creative with this recipe. Use a chai tea bag, or another that you love. Play with the measurements of the turmeric and ginger to your personal preferences. Omit the sweetener, or bump it up. Essentially, use the recipe I offer you only as a guide. From what she described, Jamu is open to interpretation and adaptation, as I did by using almond milk.

Your body will love this powerfully healing, anti-inflammatory and oh-so delicious drink!

My vegan spin on this ancient healing elixir:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups almond milk
• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
• 2 inches fresh grated turmeric
• 2 inches fresh grated ginger
• 2 teaspoons fresh vanilla (extract OK)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• Stevia to taste

Blend all ingredients. Warm through and serve.

Enjoy … and Cheers to you! 

 

I recently read, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,” by Marie Kondo. This #1 New York Times best-selling book to declutter your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes us step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing … and it is nothing short of revolutionary in so many ways.

Kondo suggests that we first take all our clothes out of our closets, out of our drawers, out of any place we store them and create a giant heap, as one example. And then one by one she directs us to pick up each piece of clothing to ask, does this bring me joy? Joy? Yes, we only keep that which brings us joy!

At first I found the exercise challenging, like, gosh, I spent so much money on this item, or that item … I can’t just give it away. But as I made my way through the heap of clothing, and shoes, and handbags, and coats … I got really good at letting go of ‘stuff’ that no longer brought me joy!

It was such an awesome experience that is reaping benefits I never expected, like this ginormous feeling of freedom and lightness, way cool organization and … oh yes, joy!

I packed up 10 bags of clothes, plus shoes, plus coats and handbags to deliver to a local women’s shelter today … and I feel so good about it! Someone out in the world is going to soon reap the benefits of the gorgeous things I packed up, but no longer serve me in a joyful way! This feels really, really good! PLUS, Kondo offers an amazing way to organize and store what I did choose to keep, so my closets and drawers look so gorgeous and organized!

It’s like a new lease on life! Really.

And since I am all about sharing tools that create more healthy vibrancy in life, I’d be sorely remiss by not sharing this book title with you! If you buy the book and integrate the “KonMari Method” please leave a comment below I’d love to hear about ‘the magic’ you experience from this life-changing book!

Okay … I’m off to tackle my desk and bathroom now! Yep, Kondo offers tidying guidance for every area of life!

Glow

Fresh juices are my number one recommendation to bring vitality, vibrance and a youthful glow back to your skin with the most direct and healing benefits. Fresh juices offer you pure vitamin and mineral rich water from the vegetables and fruits you use, with all their co-factors, enzymes and organic, chemical elements your body needs to process the nutrition of each ingredient … and Glow is a special fusion of vegetables loaded with an array of phytochemical and antioxidants to bring radiance back to you skin!

This ‘plant potion’ is packed with vitamins and minerals, antioxidants and phytochemical that cleanse your liver, boost your immune system and purify your blood, which directly brightens your eyes and skin!

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:
2 handfuls dandelion
1 handful parsley
1 small handful mint
6 carrots
1 beets
1 inch turmeric
1 green apple
2 lemons (leave peel on if organic)
1 tsp cayenne

Cheers! 

Do you know that 90% of the cells in your body are bacterial and that those bacteria are actually good for you?

Do you know that those bacteria help you maintain a healthy gut terrain and that an imbalance of the ‘friendly bacteria’ versus the ‘bad bacteria,’ has everything to do with how good or how bad you feel?

Do you know that the common root cause for all disease is a breakdown in your gut wall, and that the first line of defense in your gut is actually bacterial — your friendly flora?

So what does it mean to you if your gut wall breaks down? (Think gluten, sugar, alcohol, prescription drugs like antibiotics and birth-control pills, heavy and hard to digest foods like animal protein and stress from the modern diet and lifestyle.)

Your body can no longer produce Vitamin B-12 or the enzymes that would normally destroy harmful bacteria in a healthy body. Your body can no longer fight off bad bacteria, yeasts, mold and fungi. Your body can no longer digest properly. And to boot? If these bacteria pass through your irritated and broken digestive wall and enter your bloodstream, they can induce strong inflammatory responses by your immune and nervous systems.

Think imbalance. Inflammation. Overproduction of mucous. Poor to zero absorption of nutrients and depression. Think toxic waster matter backing up in your cells and tissues. For example.

Think breakdown at the foundational level of your whole body.

Consequently, as a result of this breakdown, you may suffer from symptoms ranging from the everyday, seemingly common, seemingly trivial allergies to digestive symptoms, to auto-immunity to more serious chronic and degenerative diseases, which is why I always recommend taking a probiotic everyday.

Probiotics, the good bacteria, boost your immune system, increase absorption and assimilation of the nutrients in your food, and even impact your cognitive and emotional wellbeing.

Without a healthy balance of friendly flora in your gut, your body is at risk of poor absorption and poor assimilation of all the good nutrition you are eating.

Yes, if your gut health is off, you might not even be absorbing the nutrition from the very best organic produce you buy!

With today’s modern diet and modern lifestyle, a probiotic is non-negotiable to create a healthy inner-terrain. 

I also highly recommend including fermented vegetables in your diet everyday, like raw-fermented sauerkraut and kimchee to inoculate the gut with food-grade probiotics. While pill-form supplements are very useful in rebalancing your health, your body will recognize the food-grade probiotics in fermented vegetables much more readily. You can buy raw-fermented veggies at Whole Foods Market or natural health food store, or you can make them yourself.

If you’re ready to start healing your gut, seriously, you’ve must know that my first recommendation will always be, you’ve got to remove inflammatory foods from your diet.

Then, to start healing your gut, click here for a very high-grade probiotic, and if your ready to whip up batches of live-fermented veggies yourself, grab  a copy of the quintessential book on fermentation, Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz.

Start supporting friendly-flora growth by one, eating whole foods, and two taking probiotics and you’ll see them return the favor manifold!

Only Dead Fish Go With The Flow

I recently read a quote that caused me to laugh out loud, on the spot, “Only dead fish go with the flow.”

With a slightly different angle, it reminded me of a quote I had on a poster years back from the Book of Paul, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.”

Both quotes remind me of the larger ‘get healthy’ conversation that I am so committed to because of the transformative benefits I experienced from going against the flow of common thoughts and ideas about to heal a sick body, my sick body.

I never knew anyone who went to an alternative doctor or healer — c’mon, I was an Irish-Catholic, middle-America, roast beef and mashed potatoes suburbia-girl!

But my doctor’s advice just didn’t make sense to me. Like taking a Zanax 3 times per day to stop the chronic anxiety and IBS symptoms I experienced. So agreeing to eating ‘weird’ food, read as unprocessed, nutrient-dense, live foods didn’t require a second thought.

Living life like a “dead fish,” going with the flow, not breaking from mainstream medical diagnosis and treatments didn’t make sense to me one bit. It was an easy decision to break from ‘the pack.’ I was sick and the symptoms I was experiencing were taking over my life. But know fully well, things like plant-based, high-raw, eating in ways to heal and nourish my body were as remote to me as the planet Pluto is to Earth.

In the spirit of breaking from the pack, and even more, in the spirit of discovering if there is a blind spot, a thing that you do not know you do not know blocking your understanding of what is really best for you, I offer you these questions to consider:

• Do you eat in ways, do you do ‘things’ in ways that are familiar, comfortable and more in line with what everyone else in your world does, yet you intuitively know does not work for you?
• Do you indulge in eating foods that you know are too heavy or just flat-out not good for you, but breaking the habituated patterns of ‘this is how everyone eats,’ is just too daunting for you?
• Are you sick more often than you’re willing to deal with now? More tired than you know is ‘normal?’ Symptoms and care-for-symptoms more a prevalent than “seizing the day” mode of operandi?
• What impact do you think avoiding these sorts of questions has on the your quality of life?

If you want to break from the pack, break from unhealthy and addictive eating habits, to look and feel your very best, to revel in all the benefits that are part-in-parcel with feeling best, you’ve got to, we’ve all got to,  challenge why we do what we do.

Is ‘it’ the best choice for you? Or is ‘it’ the choice everyone else is making?

Breaking from the pack, breaking from familiar ways of doing things, breaking from all that felt safe and sure to me at one time in my life was the best thing I could have ever done for myself.  Indeed, it was in those scary moments of uncertainty and change that I began to heal my body, and as I healed my body, a whole new world of possibility began to rise …

Only Dead fish go with the flow. Is that the best posture for you?