Avocado Be Kidding Me // Fast Food Done Powered by Greens Style

Avocado Toast: Simplicity at it's Best

Avocados contain loads of fiber and have great healthy fats, thus keeping our bodies healthy from hormone production and glowing with healthy skin, hair, and nails (amongst many, many, many other things). A great bread will give you a satisfying and beneficial carbohydrate source, more fiber, and depending on the nuts and seeds within, a varied nutritional profile. Pink Himalayan salt has been known to stabilize ph levels, blood sugar, and water levels in the body; detoxify your system; and promote good respiratory and vascular health. Hummus is filled with satisfying protein and nutrients for a happy tummy. Too good not to add, really.

When I'm in a rush and craving something yummy, nourishing, and energizing, I'm more than happy to toss these ingredients together, and hit the road. I hope you find this recipe easy and delicious.

Ingredients & Instructions

+ 1/4 - 1/2 Avocado

+ Slice of bread (I used an awesome gf & vegan bread from Sami's Bakery)

+ Pink Himalayan salt (regular salt works, too)

+ Pepper or other spices as desired

+ Variation: a tablespoon of hummus

Take your slice of bread -- toasted if desired, drop the avocado on top (for the variation, drop your hummus on there too), and with a fork mash it onto the bread. Top with salt and other spices if using, and take a huge bite. Enjoy! Seriously it's that easy.

+ have you tried avocado toast before? did you like it? comment below or on Facebook!

A Wild Idea: Treats, Not Cheats

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So next week, I (Emily) will break down how to spot the new eating disorder on the block, Orthorexia -- which isn't that new anyway except for it's name. This is something close to my heart, as you can read over onThere's Beauty in Recovery, a recovery blog that I contribute to regularly. But this week, I wanted to tackle society's concept of cheat meals or cheat times and how devastating they are to the psyche, the body, and ultimately, your life.

I was visiting The Balanced Blonde the other day and came across her piece 'Why I Don't Agree with Cheat Meals'. Before I even read it, I was ready to stand on my chair with both hands in the air and say, 'yes! me toooooooo!'. If you aren't familiar with the definition of a cheat meal or time, it is an allotted time of the day, week, year, or what have you, that gives 'permission' from the diet gods to eat whatever suits your fancy with the idea of no guilt during that time. An imaginary force has told us that outside of this cheat period, we must eat a fictitiously perfect diet where straying from it's plan equals uncontrollable gluttony and a need for resentment, guilt, and shame. Sound familiar? Have you told yourself that stuffing your face with that last piece of cake was delicious, but how could you, because you just threw your diet straight to hell? How great did that make you feel? I'm guessing not so hot.

Consider the once a week cheat meal. Instead of enjoying the approximate 30 meals a week (sometimes more, sometimes less; no right or wrong; only what works for your body) we convince ourselves that only one of those meals can taste amazing. The other 29 or so are meant to be gross, bland, boring, and a means to an imagined body. Whaaaaattttt?! Poor tastebuds, poor body, and most importantly, poor you!

Life is meant to be enjoyed with an unabashed pleasure from your very core. Life includes food. If it revolves around food, that's not enjoyment, that's torture. But it does include it. And the society we live in loves food. There's a reason we go on dates to restaurants or think its warm and cozy to wake up to pancakes and music on the radio. It's intimate and social and lovely when treated right. Now when you tell yourself its a cheat or a bad thing to have pleasure around something as innocent as food, you tell your brain that you aren't worthy. You tell yourself that in order to be desired, loved, enjoyed, or amazing, you must be perfect in your eating habits, and anything removed from that perfection is something to hold pain over. That, ladies and gents, is the start to an eating disorder. It's a disordered way of thinking about your eating habits. Every meal can taste great, feel good in your body, and make you want to dance. Bet your thinking, yeeeeeah okay Emily, sure. Listen, I'm not saying every meal is going to be a plate of pancakes stacked higher than Jack's beanstalk. Those are delicious treats -- treats, yes! Not cheats. Maybe your other breakfasts are smoothies or frittatas or huge bowls of fruit, but they too are delicious. They don't taste like cardboard, and they aren't measured out into perfectly calorie counted portions.

I don't call them cheats, because I'm not cheating on my life, I'm enjoying it.

We must escape this idea of what food is to our lives. I love food. Really. It's a huge part of my life, because I write about it on my blog, I love to read and create recipes, and I truly have healed from my disorder by falling back in love with how good food can be for the body and brain and spirit. Rich, decadent food is a treat in my eyes. It's a shared experience with those I love; it's a trip to the bakery and getting to look at all the goodies without longing or doubt; it's a freeing feeling to eat it when I want it and know that because of that, I'm never operating at a deficiency or a lack. I don't call them cheats, because I'm not cheating on my life, I'm enjoying it. And by doing that, I've found a more ideal weight for my body, a nicer train of thought in my mind, and relationships with others that aren't restricted or cut off, because their times to indulge are different than mine.

It's a treat, not a cheat. You aren't a bad person for wanting yummy food. You're amazing and incredible and deserve every meal to taste astoundingly, butt-wigglingly delicious.

+ I'm interested! Do you believe in cheat meals? What's your foodie lifestyle like? Comment below or on Facebook! xx

Forgood-for-the-body-and-soul foods or support around changing your mindset from cheat to treat, I invite you to get in touch with me.

The wonders of a CSA -- a love story.

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' Why do you use acronyms I don't know? '

Like text talk and everything technological, it's easy to become so familiar with a topic that it's second nature, and anyone who doesn't know what you're talking about has a third head. But that's not productive and certainly not what I (Emily) wish for anyone navigating this green and delicious world. So, what is a CSA? Well, if the above picture is no indication, a CSA is a Community Supported Agriculture. And it is ahhhhhmazing. How you ask? Well, a customer pays - normally a weekly amount or discounted bundle of weeks - and the CSA returns with delicious, locally grown (sometimes even organic if chosen) produce in abundance. The picture above is half of what my mom and I got in this week's box -- and it's a box for two! As the summer tumbles along, you'll see more squash, tomatoes, fresh blueberries, and all that seasonal produce we love to love. And normally, a good CSA goes all year round. Meaning that the freshest, most delicious and seasonally appropriate goodies are sitting in a box waiting for you to pick up (or have dropped off), ready to be made into delicious recipes.

BENNIES of a CSA BOX - some, not all. I don't have all day.

• budget friendly
• supports local business
• means less toxins and harmful preservatives in your body
• a surprise every week that tastes good and makes you feel great
• meeting new people when picking the box up having them recognize your face and give you things you love just for fun & free is the best feeling
• having a varied diet important for a great total nutrition profile - think: all your vitamins and minerals
• more and more every day as we learn that fresh is best and local is grand

Check with your local CSA, but boxes are usually a flat rate - read: not by pound - so you can get a heck of a lot of produce in the height of the season. I don't think we pay more than $30 for our box a week (even cheaper when we payed up front), and aside from my needs of bananas, almond butter, and chocolate, that's basically it for the week. So even if you spent an extra $20 on items of necessity for your body and nutrition satisfaction, you're only looking at around $50 a week. If that. How often do you eat out or order in? How much does that cost you typically? Do you really know how fresh those ingredients are when they arrive? The average American eats out 4-5 times a week and can spend $250 a month on those meals alone. Just those. That doesn't include the additional amount to make the 16 other meals. And if it's just refined and processed foods, they aren't really keeping you full and satisfied and are sucking your budget dry. Lose, lose.

My favorite part of getting a new CSA box is looking up fun new recipes to put all the produce to work. Sometimes I'll batch cook, prepping foods for the whole week by roasting or making large quantities of the same recipe, but most of the time, especially in the summer, I'll leave it fresh and waiting to be sliced and thrown into a yummy salad or stir-fry. Fresh fruits and veggies draw toxins out of the body, support a healthy metabolism and brain function, and help keep a nurtured and wholesome physique. Win, win, win! Find your local CSA, here. And if you live in Wilmington, check out the Veggie Wagon in Carolina Beach -- that's where I go, and I couldn't fangirl about them more.

If you're interested in support around a wholesome, natural, and plant-based lifestyle while finding foods that fuel you and keep you energized, I invite you to work with me and sign up for a free health consultation.