Apple – Celeriac and Strawberry Salad

What you’ll need:

• 1 celeriac root
• 1 apple
• 3 medium carrots
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
• 5 strawberries
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 lemon
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• little mint

Put it all together:

1. peel the celeriac root and carrot
2. grate celeriac, carrot and apple in the food processor
3. set it aside
4. in a bowl, mix the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil together
5. mix the vegetables with the dressing
6. cut the strawberries into slices
7. mince the mint
8. mix the rest of the ingredients
9. you can garnish each serving with more mint leaves, pumpkin seeds or more strawberries

Enjoy!

Stay Healthy!

Monika Baechler

Cert. Nutrition Specialist

Monika’s Wakame Salad – How to make Seaweed Salad at home

If you love Sushi as much as I do and Millions of North Americans as well as Millions around the world, then you must know the bright green colored wakame salad.

My family always ends up fighting over the little wakame salad box because it’s so darn tasty! You probably wondered why you can’t find wakame seaweed in the Asian grocery stores to make your own seaweed salad at home.

What is Wakame?

Sea farmer in Japan and Korea have grown this healthy treat for hundred of years. Wakame is a sea vegetable which is mostly used in soups and salads.

It’s a bit tricky to find things at the Asian markets and grocery stores, everything is written in Japanese or Chinese. There is no sign on the wakame seaweed stating “This is the thing you need to make your own seaweed salad you like out of the sushi case”! And, they don’t tell you, that they mix the wakame with some Agar Agar. The chewy more translucent strand in your wakame salad are agar agar strands. Agar-Agar is a natural vegetable gelatin counterpart. White and semi-translucent, it is sold in packages as washed and dried strips or in powdered form. Agar Agar is made up of 80% fiber so it makes a wonderful intestinal cleanser and regulator. Most Asian gelatin desserts are made with Agar Agar.

Now that you know that seaweed comes in a dehydrated form, you’re ready to find the right kind of product.

You’ll go “Wakame” for this seaweed salad recipe!

What you’ll need:

• 1/2 of the 2oz pack of Wakame (dehydrated sold in bags in the nori section)
• 2 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp of vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup less 1 tsp Rice Wine Vinegar
• 2 tbsp Toasted Sesame
• little Red Pepper Flakes (optional)
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1 tsp or to taste Sea Salt
• Agar Agar (optional)

Prepare your salad:

1. soak your Wakame in some warm water (please use drinking water, not tap)
2. keep the wakame submerged in water for about 5 -6 minutes, the seaweed will expand enormously
3. meanwhile, prepare your dressing
4. mix the rice vinegar, oils, salt, sugar, sesame seeds (red pepper flakes optional) and set aside
5. drain the wakame and press the water out.
6. take the drained wakame and cut into strips with a very sharp knife.
7. mix with the prepared dressing and let it cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
8. adjust your dressing to taste, more sugar or more sesame seeds or oil…

Wakame Salad is perfectly fine on its own or with lunch or dinner and sushi of course. It keeps in the fridge for 3-4 days and freezes well too.

Stay Healthy and Enjoy!

Monika Baechler

P.S. Let me know how your wakame salad turned out and what you pared it with, thanks.

Strawberry-Banana-Apple Smoothie

Start your day with a delicious fruit smoothie!

It’s fast, easy and oh so good for you! Children in particular love anything that can be “consumed” with a straw, it’s a fact! Drinking smoothies is also sweet, why would you start your day with a horrible bitter black liquid that turns your stomach acidic? Just wondering sometimes about the choices people make.

Now to our fruity glass of deliciousness. What you will need for this particular recipe is:

• 2 ripe bananas
• 4-7 strawberries
• 1 small cup of organic apple sauce
• some organic soy milk (original, not sweetened)

Put everything in the blender and mix. You can even add raspberries or leave the applesauce and add instead some frozen peaches. It’s all up to you. This recipe is just a suggestion because everybody has their own favorite fruits, milks and juices they like to add. No matter what you put in your smoothie it’s going to be a delight every time you drink it.

Now go and make yourself a nice fruity smoothie! Enjoy.

Monika Baechler

“Sticking With It in 2010″ The New Years Resolution Help book

“Sticking With It in  2010″

How can you be successful and stick with your New Years Resolution past January?

8-week program to help you develop positive habits and sticking with them for life – starting today!

This is a FREE gift to you, no kidding, this 8-week program to help you with your resolutions this year is a FREE gift to you for the New Year, enjoy!

By Monika Baechler

Download for FREE

Get Rid of Funky Spunk Once and For All

This is more and more a problem among men. They don’t understand why it happens to them, worse, men (and women) actually think it’s normal. Let me tell you one thing: It is absolutely not normal and definitely not healthy.

It is easier to say,”I don’t like doing that”, then saying,” you have a funky tasting spunk.”

Could you be to Acidic?

Your body should be at a healthy PH-level between 7,37 – 7,45. The lower your personal Ph-level the more acidic you are. Personal acidity comes not only from bad food, alcohol, smoking and junk food, our body’s PH-level gets affected by stress as well. You can download my “Acidic Foods, the good, the bad and the ugly” here in a couple of days.

What are the obvious symptoms of acidity?

Well, there are a couple but the most important signs are change in color of the whites of the eye (grey, yellowish), bad breath, digestive problems like acid reflux and heart burn, weak immunsystem, rashes, funky spunk, weight issues and more… These are some important signs to look for but you don’t have to have all of them to be acidic. If you have one of these symptoms then you are most likely too acidic and need a change of diet and lifestyle.

What can you do today to turn it all around?

It’s quite easy.

• Stop drinking alcohol
• Stop eating lots of meat and milk products
• Stop drinking pop/sodas
• Stop smoking
• Stop eating only fast foods
• less sugar, less pastries
• less bread
• less coffee
• less chocolate
• less stress
• more exercise
• more veg
• more fruit
• more water
• more juicing
• more water (I know I said that already but it is really important)
• more herbal tea

If you can incorporate the changes into your lifestyle then your lady is going to be –  how can I put this – very appreciative?! You know what I mean. Now go on and make yourself a juice. By the way, eating some pineapple or drinking pineapple juice once in a blue moon is not going to turn the wheel around. Put in more effort – and I guaranty you – she will too!

Don’t forget to visit my sister site, 30dayjuicefast.com, which is a great place for detailed information on detox and  juicing for better health. If you guys want to be a “human lollipop”, juicing is the way to go.

It comes down to this,  take care of yourself, eat healthy, exercise more and you can start enjoying the “REWARDS”!

If you are a women, please print this article and give it to your men!

For your entertainment I included the very funny and “open” Samantha from the Hip TV Show, Sex and the City. Enjoy! Episode Segment “Funky Spunk.

Free Radicals and why do we rust?

Did you know that we rust? Yes, it’s true! The same air that provides us with life also causes the iron in our bodies to rust.

Have your ever seen a cut apple turn brown within seconds? That is the same effect how our cells break down and rust, age. It’s a bit complicated but here is the rundown how that happens. Through a couple of chemical changes, oxygen molecules in our bodies lose electrons and making the oxygen molecules unstable. The unstable molecules are called free radicals. Let’s just say, this is a bad thing. To stabilize themselves, free radicals steal electrons from our healthy cells everywhere in the body. So, every time this happens, a healthy molecule is damaged and even more free radicals are created every time.

Now you can see that not having enough antioxidants to come to the unstable molecules rescue, is a bad thing. Nature is abundant with all kinds of antioxidants ready to be eaten by us. The antioxidants are like little super heroes coming to the rescue to save your healthy cells. Stuffing yourself with antioxidants will not guaranty a healthy life or old age. Make sure you clean out your colon first and start building up your health from “colon” up.

I hope you have a chance to read “A Step by Step Guido to Optimum Health and Relief from Catastrophic Illness, by Jon Barron” you can download it here for free!

Currants stop Cancer before it starts?

It’s not the high value of vitamin C that excited researchers. Gary D. Stoner, Ph.D., director of the cancer chemo-prevention program at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus says, ellagic acid is a member of a disease-fighting family of compounds know as polyphenols. Raspberries, strawberries, and grapes also contain polyphenols. In laboratory studies, ellagic acid has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant, meaning that it helps neutralize free radicals, harmful oxygen molecules that are missing one electron.

What are free radicals? Well, free radicals are harmful oxygen molecules which are missing an electron. So they try to replace it with one from your healthy cells, therefore causing cellular changes which could lead to cancer. Ellagic acid has also been shown to block the effects of cancer-causing chemicals in the body at the same time it stimulates the activity of enzymes that fight cancer growth. Because of these two reasons, ellagic acid in currants, make it a powerful ally for blocking cancer.

Doctors are not really sure how much currants you would have to eat to get the cancer fighting effect. Dr. Stoner speculates that four to six servings of fruits (including currants) and vegetables a day is enough to substantially lower your risk of developing cancer.

Please be smart, only if you eat healthy whole foods like fruits and vegetables plus follow a exercise program can you prevent degenerative deseases. But including cancer-fighting foods like currants you could enhance the effect!

How to look 10 or 15 years younger without surgery?

You probably think, yeah right Monika, what kind of snakes oil are you selling? I’m not selling you anything but you probably spend to much on anti aging creams already, am I right? It’s the same thing in every commercial, buy our cream and you will look younger.

Yes it is true, you can make a little change with creams and serums but is it really going to make you look 10 to 15 years younger? Not very likely.

One thing I can bet my shirt on is this. Change your lifestyle and see the result. What would you pay to look 10 to 15 years younger without creams, gimmicks and no pain or recovery? To see real changes, all you need is 8 – 12 weeks. In the summer, you could be looking in the mirror and see your younger sister or your baby brother.

How am I going to do that, you ask? It is soooo easy if you follow this rule! “Don’t live life like a young person, love your life like a smart and mature one!” Now you think, how does that make sense? Let me explain. Most young people eat like crap, smoke, don’t care about their health and go party all night and stay up all night. Now the smart mature people who love themselves, will start respecting their bodies. Respecting your body and loving your life means eating nutritious food, not smoking, little or no alcohol, exercise and lots of sleep. If you can add a healthy relationship, you are set.

If you are interested in a detailed outline of the program, please let me know!

If this or an other article helped you and you enjoyed it, please donate to monikabaechler.com, thank you!

The Potato conspiracy?

Why do we always hear only the bad side of the potato. Everything “they” tell you is, it makes you fat, high glycemic index, to much sugar…! What happened with all the healing properties and vitamins and minerals of the potato?

Potatoes help you to keep your acidic body in check. The Potato is a very low calorie food, high in nutrients and starch. What do you think how the potato measures up compared with fresh soft cheese, eggs and cheese if it come to vegetarian protein? Actually, the potato has more vegetarian protein than any of these choices. Only meat exceeds the potato in their bio availability of protein, but it does not attack your arteries!

Most of the vitamins and minerals are right under the skin, so if possible, get young organic potatoes and do not peel them. The best way is to bake or steam the potatoes to keep most of the vitamin C and minerals inside.

Warning about the green spots on Potatoes, they contain solanin, which is not good for our bodies. You can get head aches, sore throat, stomach aches and diarrhea. Please make sure to cut around green spots and discard it.

Monika

If this or an other article helped you and you enjoyed it, please donate to monikabaechler.com, thank you!