April 30, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC If you could grant yourself a wellness superpower, picking only the perfectly ripe avocados out of a stack and whipping up extraordinary matcha lattes at home would make your top five. (Same!) Well, good news and bad news: While you’re stuck with the luck of the draw in the avocado department, you’re golden on the matcha-latte front—because we’ve got the step-by-step, beginner’s guide to becoming a matcha whisperer, straight from wellness luminary Lily Kunin. As a Well+Good Council member and founder of Clean Market, a serene wellness haven for New Yorkers, Kunin slings tonics and specialized self-care services (IV drips, infrared saunas, and cryotherapy) to the masses. And a supercharged matcha is just the thing she needs to start her busy day. “My go-to matcha has matcha, collagen, coconut butter, Brain Octane, and cinnamon,” Kunin says (FYI, Brain Octane is basically fancy MCT oil, the beloved keto ingredient buzzed about for its energizing properties). “Besides being delicious, it’s a great way to fuel my morning (has over 10 grams of protein) and turn my brain back on.” To help you start an invigorating morning matcha routine, we teamed up with Reebok UNLOCKED (the wellness rewards program that hooks you up with exclusive Reebok offers plus beauty, food, and fitness bonuses curated by yours truly) to score Kunin’s personal recipe for mind-body domination. Scroll down for Lily Kunin’s handy GIF instructions to whip up the perfect cup of dairy-free matcha. https://content.jwplatform.com/players/n2JLV7Pz-dUl83MEz.js 1. Gather all the
Category: Keto
This new crop of keto 2.0 products proves we’ve reached peak healthy fat love
April 30, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC Love it or hate it, the buzz around the ketogenic diet has proved to have staying power. Last year, the eating plan dominated the wellness world, bringing the love for healthy fats back in a major way. Food brands of course took notice, brainstorming ways to capitalize on the trend and give consumers what they want. Now, practically any food that was once painful to give up in order to live the keto life—pancakes! potato chips! fruit smoothies!—have now been reformulated to be fully high fat and low carb. All the new innovation has made it easier (and tastier) than ever to go keto, if that’s your thing. I got a first look at some of the newest and most innovative keto products coming out later this year at ExpoWest, a.k.a. the world’s largest natural products convention. The intel is too good for me not to share, so I’m exposing it all here. Keep reading to see what to expect in the growing keto space. Keto for breakfast Breakfast is notoriously not keto-friendly because it tends to be, well, pretty carby. Pastries of any kind, cereals, oatmeal, toast, and fruit-based smoothies are all ketogenic no-nos. Yet there’s a limit to how many days in a row someone can look forward to eating eggs—which is why perhaps the biggest keto miracle of the year is Birch Benders’ new keto pancake mix and syrup. “It wasn’t easy to make a keto pancake,” says Lizzi Ackerman, the
Burger King is all-in on its Impossible Whopper with plans to launch nationwide this year
April 29, 2019 at 05:57AM by CWC Want it your way? If you stick to a plant-based diet, Burger King is ready to make that happen. According to USA Today, after a successful test-run in St. Louis, Burger King is gearing up to add the vegan Impossible Burger to its menus nationwide. (PSA: Just because you don’t eat meat doesn’t mean you want your food options to be relegated to the salad menu.) “The Impossible Whopper test in St. Louis went exceedingly well and as a result there are plans to extend testing into additional markets in the very near future,” the burger chain said in a statement to USA Today. This is simple supply and demand, friends. While the Impossible Burger’s new ubiquity is a clear sign plant-based eating is well on its way to becoming uber mainstream, the question becomes: Is the vegan patty really healthy? When we asked registered dietitian Joan Salge Blake, RDN, she felt lukewarm about its nutrition quality due to its high saturated fat content (14 grams). “A lot of these plant-based burgers are getting a lot of press, but I would prefer for people to find an alternative with less saturated fat,” she says. Besides being high in saturated fat, condiments like ketchup and mustard can be sneaky sources of added sugar. Dana Perls, a senior food and agriculture campaigner for the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth, also points out that the Impossible Burger has yet to be approved by the Food
8 keto-approved recipes you can make in your Instant Pot
April 27, 2019 at 08:00AM by CWC If you’re in a committed relationship with the ketogenic diet, chances are you’ve been eating a lot of salmon, eggs, and avocado. (Like, a lot.) The trio is tasty and nourishing, yes, but it can also get a little…well, boring. You know what you need to jazz up meal time? Your Instant Pot. There’s a reason why everyone is so obsessed with the kitchen tool: Not only does it cook foods quickly, you can throw essentially anything in there and out comes a delicious meal. (Magic!) If you’re looking for some guidance on what keto-approved ingredients to mix together, consider this your guide. Rounded up here are eight 100-percent ketogenic recipe ideas to get you cooking. Whether you’re looking for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert, this list has you covered. Keep reading for eight keto Instant Pot recipes for every single meal. Photo: Low-Carb Yum 1. Coconut low-carb porridge In your pre-keto life, your go-to breakfast may have been a big bowl of oatmeal. Thankfully, going low-carb doesn’t require giving up hot cereal—you just have to be game for a few tweaks. This high-fiber recipe from Low-Carb Yum is made with shredded coconut, coconut flour, coconut milk, water, psyllium husk, and a few key warming spices. Ten minutes in the Instant Pot transforms the ingredients into a hot breakfast that will hit the spot. Photo: The Keto Queens 2. Instant Pot keto cinnamon rolls Today is a special day because it’s the day
Skip the cleanup with 5 healthy one-pan dinner ideas under $20
April 25, 2019 at 09:57AM by CWC Some evenings, pouring a glass of wine and getting creative in the kitchen is the perfect way to relax. But when you get home late from work, or your attention is torn between helping with homework and getting laundry done, a one-pan dinner recipe can help get something on the table—and fast. No one is going to complain about an easy dinner that doesn’t leave the sink full of dishes. Each of these dinner recipes requires only a single pan (seriously, that’s it!) and the cost per serving is way cheaper than takeout. 5 healthy one-pan dinner ideas under $20 Photo: Holley Grainger 1. Pan-roasted chicken and vegetables Average price for ingredients: $20 Average price per serving: $4 Chicken and vegetables are the classic one-pan dinner. Everything can be thrown on there and roasted together. The best part of this meal is that you can use up anything in your crisper you want to get rid of. (It’s okay to deviate from the recipe!) If you have leftovers, just spritz some lemon on top the next night to make the dish seem just as fresh as it was the night you made it. Photo: Our Happy Mess 2. Fish and brown butter sauce Average price for ingredients: $17 (excluding pantry items) Average price per serving: $9 Excluding a handful of pantry items in the ingredients list, all you need to make this one-pan dinner is fish, green beans, and potatoes. It doesn’t get
The Well+Good Cookbook is officially here!
April 24, 2019 at 06:30PM by CWC After a year of vision-boarding, taste-testing, and tapping into the Well+Good community of healthy foodies, experts, and luminaries for their culinary know-how, it’s official: The Well+Good Cookbook is finally here! The goal? We wanted to find out what wellness gurus actually make on a regular weeknight—or day-time lunch, or rushed pre-office morning. The result is an eye-opening peek into the kitchens and recipe faves of some of the smartest people in wellness, with serious ease (and healthy benefits) at the center of every genius recipe. The Well+Good Cookbook is filled with go-to meals you can whip up in a pinch (like celeb nutritionist Kelly Leveque’s flaxseed chicken tenders), or roll out for a show-stopping Netflix night with friends (just throw an egg on Lea Michele’s shaved radicchio, Parmesan, and truffle pizza). And because there’s no better way to kick off a cookbook launch than with a cocktail party, we did just that on April 16, bringing together cookbook contributors over a few of the book’s standout recipes. Scroll down for a peek at some of the wellness luminaries and recipes you’ll find in the The Well+Good Cookbook. We took over Williamsburg’s Egg Shop (executive chef Nick Korbee’s Whitefish Niçoise Salad was selected for the book cover!) for an evening of drinks, Photobooth sessions, and taste testing of some of the book’s party-friendly apps. Speaking of party-friendly apps, Well+Good Council member McKel Hill’s Sweet Onion Dip was a hit. Well+Good co-founders Alexia Brue and
There are 5 different kinds of intermittent fasting—and not all of them are created equal
April 23, 2019 at 01:28PM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkGmfcg4Epc] If you had to describe my ideal food plan in two words, it would be: always eating. I am an all-day grazer; a person who excitedly thinks about her upcoming dinner while eating breakfast. Which is why one of the biggest trends in the wellness world, intermittent fasting, is hard for me to wrap my mind around. For the uninitiated: “Intermittent fasting is a diet in which people fast for a specific period of time at some point in their schedule,” says Tracy Lockwood Beckerman, RD, in the latest episode of You Versus Food, Well+Good’s YouTube series dedicated to answering your biggest questions about nutrition. Generally, the focus of IF is less on what you eat, she says, and more on when you’re eating. However, the term “intermittent fasting” doesn’t refer to one specific type of eating plan—there are actually several different iterations of intermittent fasting that people practice, Beckerman says. And they range from the somewhat restrictive to the extreme. Here’s your cheat sheet: 1. The 16:8 method: This is the most common type of intermittent fasting—and generally, the easiest to follow. Basically, it means that in a given day, a person eats during an eight-hour window and fasts the rest of the time. 2. The 5:2 method: You fast for two days of the week on this plan, says Beckerman. But it’s not a total fast: On the fasting days, you limit your calorie intake to 500 to 600
Yes, you can be keto AND eat chocolate cookies with this extremely easy recipe
April 23, 2019 at 08:06AM by CWC Photo: Fair Winds Two words that traditionally don’t go together: “keto” and “dessert.” Given the fact that just one serving of some fruits (although not all; TY, apricots!) can put a person over their daily carb count, it seems natural to assume that the strict eating plan isn’t exactly dessert-friendly. Wrong. The Keto For One Cookbook author Dana Carpender is here to tell you that being keto doesn’t mean saying bye to your sweet tooth. It just means doing a little experimentation. “Once you’re clear on the ingredients that work, it’s a matter of balancing something a little too high in carbs and low in fat, like cocoa powder, with something very low in carbs and high in fat, like coconut,” she says. As for adding sugary sweetness (you know, without actual sugar), Carpender says she turns to natural low-sugar sweeteners. “I keep stevia extract on hand, plain, of course, but also in a wide array of flavors: chocolate, vanilla, English toffee, lemon, orange, and hazelnut,” she says. For baking, she also likes erythritol-monk fruit blends, which she says add a bit of a sugar-like texture along with sweetness (but with no actual sugar or carbs). One recipe to try right now: Carpender’s chocolate peanut-butter no-bake cookies. They only have six ingredients, take just a few minutes to whip up, and are full of healthy fats. Get the recipe below. Chocolate peanut-butter no-bake cookies Ingredients: 2 Tbsp natural peanut butter, chunky or smooth 2
Accessibility and sustainability don’t have to be mutually exclusive when it comes to food
April 22, 2019 at 02:00AM by CWC If Earth Day has you brainstorming ways to reduce your environmental footprint—but you’ve already ditched plastics and ordered zero-carbon-impact sneakers—you might want to look at your diet. Consider this: According to the World Wildlife Federation, up to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide come from the food system, while 60 percent of forest loss is due to agriculture. If things don’t change, scientists predict that that the food industry’s ill effects on the planet could be up to 90 percent greater by 2050. Yikes. Of course, eating sustainably is easier said than done, especially if you don’t have unlimited funds. A 2014 study in the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health found that a basket of healthy, sustainable food costs about 30 percent more than a traditional basket. This amounts to about 48 percent of a low-income household’s weekly paycheck. While the study was specific to Australia, sustainably sourced meats, fish, and vegetables are generally perceived to be more expensive in other parts of the world as well. And then there’s the fact that eco-friendly food isn’t readily available in all parts of the country. “One of the biggest barriers to eating healthy, sustainable food is simply lack of access,” says Sam Polk, founder and CEO of Everytable—a fast-casual food company that brings these types of foods into underserved areas. “A food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food. According to the United States Department
If you aren’t using every lemon peel, you’re missing out on some surprising benefits
April 20, 2019 at 04:15AM by CWC Putting a slice of lemon in your water is hands down the easiest way to feel like a wellness rockstar. You could have spent the whole weekend eating double-stuffed Oreos and your sneakers could be gathering dust in the back of your closet, but put a little citrus in your H20 and boom—you feel healthier already. But while much talk is done around lemon water, the benefits of the lemon peel are pretty much ignored. Which is honestly too bad because they’re full of benefits just like the rest of the fruit. “Despite the fact that lemon peels are often discarded, they do have nutritional benefits,” says registered dietitian Katherine Brooking, RD. “The lemon peel is contains small amounts of calcium, vitamin C, and potassium, as well as fiber.” Considering you’re not exactly going to sit down and nosh on lemon peel, you might be wondering what the best way is to reap that stellar list of benefits. Well, keep reading my friend. Besides more details on the nutritional benefits, we’ve got some other surprising ways to put lemon peel to good use. Scroll down to see the nutritional benefits of lemon peel, how to consume them, and other ways to put them to good use. Nutritional benefits of lemon peel 1. Lemon peels contain calcium. As Brooking pointed out, lemon peels have a small amount of calcium, which is important for maintaining strong bones and cellular communication. Simply put, if you don’t get