the rules of vegan lent

1.  Regarding the contents of my fridge: anything already in the fridge is fair game (i.e.: the enormous tub of yogurt), but food in the house that will last until after lent is off-limits (canned tuna, for instance).

2.  Regarding ingredient pickiness:  if ever I dine out, I am not going to quiz the server on the exact vegan-ness content of say, the noodles, but I will not order a bagel with cream cheese and salmon.

wish me luck!

Protein in your diet

The nutrients that we take into our body are reflect by our outward appearace. If you indulge in a lot of healthy snacks and drink lots of water, more than likely you will have that healthy glow. However, if you take in a lot of junk....you get the picture.

Over the summer my husband and I began to workout and part of our work consisted of us drinking protein shakes. During this time I was also trying to discover the best hair care regimen for me. I began to look at different protein treatments and I am so glad that I did my research before I put one of those treatments on my hair. Too much protein will make your hair hard and brittle. Since I was drinking protein shakes daily, I was getting way more than my recommended daily value. When you intake too much of anything it gets absorbed into your body and/or excreted out. So basically, my hair got it's protein through my nutritional intake.

Hair is a protein so if your diet is rich in protein that will often result in better hair growth.

Protein Shakes:

1 Cup of fresh fruit (your choice)

1 Scoop of protein powder

1 squirt of lemon juice (optional)

1 tablespoon of honey (or more to taste)

1-2 cups of plain yogurt

Yummy quick delicious breakfast. There are many variations of making protein shakes but this is just how I preferred mine every morning. Now that it is getting cooler....I need to look into other options.

Tips for health and growth Part 3: Nutrition, Tools, and Styles

Proper Nutrition

Healthy hair grows at an average rate of about 1/2 inch per month. If you choose to take hair vitamins, Biotin and Folic Acid that make your hair grow faster. I don’t like to “pop pills” I love food so I would rather eat what I need. This is also why I don’t do protein treatments. I drink proteins shakes for a quick breakfast so I am sure that I am getting more than I need.

Using proper tools

Nighttime Care Satin pillowcase and scarves work wonders! Cotton can cause breakage and suck the oils out of our hair.

Wearing protective styles

They are great for minimizing breakage and retaining moisture. Protective styles are those which work to prevent snags and help maintain the overall healthiness of your hair. Protective styles fall into two categories: Complete and Low-manipulation protective styles.

Complete Protective Styles are styles that have the ends out of sight and are 100% protective. These styles include: all varieties of buns, chignons (French rolls), tucked styles, phonytails (phony-ponies), wigs, and sew-in type weaves.

Low-Manipulation Stylesare styles that do expose the ends to some degree, but are protective in that they drastically cut down on the manipulation (combing/handling) the hair experiences. These styles include: Rollersets, Braids, cornrows, some updo's or pinned up styles, braidouts and twistouts.

In the News: Food and Hair......my two fav loves!!

I was supposed to working on an assignment with school when I came across this:
Foods for Healthy Hair

Foods that can encourage hair growth....like I need an excuse to eat. I love food and now I think I love it even more, LOL. According to the article, there are foods that you can eat that will result in healthier longer hair. For those that want the important points, here is the cliff notes version:

"Your hair grows about 1/4 to 1/2 inch every month, and the foundation of all of our new hair, skin, and nail growth is the nutrients we eat," says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, a Chicago-based dietitian. "If you eat a healthy diet, you will grow stronger and healthier cells throughout your entire body -- inside and out." And beware of dietary supplements often marketed to thicken hair or make it grow faster. They may backfire.
Healthy Hair Food No. 1: Salmon
Healthy Hair Food No. 2: Dark Green Vegetables
Healthy Hair Food No. 3: Beans
Healthy Hair Food No. 4: Nuts
Healthy Hair Food No. 5: Poultry
Healthy Hair Food No. 6: Eggs
Healthy Hair Food No. 7: Whole Grains
Healthy Hair Food No. 8: Oysters
Healthy Hair Food No. 9: Low-Fat Dairy Products
Healthy Hair Food No. 10: Carrots
When it comes to foods for healthy hair and beauty, variety is the best way to go. "An overall balanced diet of lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fatty fish like salmon and low-fat dairy will help keep hair healthy," Giancoli says.

putting up pickles

After reading about just how easy it was to make homemade dill pickles (somehow I expected more steps than canning peaches) at Eating Locally in the Pacific Northwest, Eric, Finn and I went off to the Ballard Farmer's Market on Sunday for an armload of pickling cucumbers, to supplement the four we grew in the garden. That was the easy part. Finding alum was a bit harder. No luck at two grocery stores and one local hardware store with an extensive kitchen/canning section. Our last hope was the massive grocery/department/always-too-busy-to-be-sane store where I bought the canner last summer. We crossed our fingers, the angels sang, and we found the alum. Once home, we followed all the directions very carefully, and now we have seven quarts of these beauts to look forward to.... in about two months.

To celebrate, we had a dinner of brats, grilled peppers, grilled portabellas with pesto, garlic and feta, and grilled peaches, our new favorite food. If you have not tried this, and you're within driving distance to fresh peaches and a charcoal grill (I have a sneaking suspicion that they just wouldn't be the same over propane), try these. Simply cut the peach(es) in half, remove the stone, sprinkle the flesh with a pinch of sugar and grill, somewhere between the hottest and coolest parts of the grill, flesh-side down, for about two minutes, turn once, two minutes more, and serve warm. Oh. so. good.

I feel myself becoming one of those bloggers who always takes pictures of their food

...but I just had to show you the best pancakes ever.

Blueberry pancakes with blueberries from our garden. Eric mixed them in with some Snoqualmie Falls Pancake Mix.... yum!