Happy New Year with a Detox...

Happy New Year for 2011. I hope you're looking forward to a good thorough cleansing as much as I am. I'm starting gently so as not to send my system into toxic shock. Here's a few pointers I'm introducing to my daily routine now that I'm back at work and my day is more structured:

1. Kick start your digestive system each day with a hot water with a slice of lemon.
2. Flush those toxins out further and aim to drink 2 litres of filtered water through out the day. I try to have a 500ml bottle in my bag, and get through a 1 litre bottle when seated at my desk.
3. Increase the amount of fibre in your diet, by upping your vegetable and fruit intake. The high fibre content of fresh produce easily absorbs toxins from the digestive system and carries them out of our bodies more easily.

That's all for now...but keep a look out for my some detox recipe suggestions in the forth coming month.

Project Food Blog...

How amazing does the Project Food Blog Challenge sound? It's due to wrap up today, but I've joined the Food Buzz - Food Blog community to keep track of who wins and what other gimics the yanks are using in this fast spreading craze.

It's all so inspirational!

Pressing further ideas...

Have you come across Food Press.com? It even comes with instructions on how to get featured. Thinking of furthering my skills to promote NK - I'd love to get a great camera and some lessons on how to take fantastic food photos. Might ask for that for my 30th Birthday...or a video camera so I can start some online demos for the Nutrition Kitchen.

Lets make it snappy...

Led Ashtray...

Anyone else feeling led astray during this party season towards all things bad for us alcohol, cigarettes, sugary treats and stodgy comfort food? Well I shall be commencing another new year detox plan come January's new beginnings. In fact, the nutrition plan over Christmas is a busy one for the Nutrition Kitchen. Just a handful of projects planned:

• Design NK website
• Planning a daily diet for a team of cyclists travelling the width of the USA for Charity (one of whom is coeliac)
  
• Designing a detox programme for myself and others to follow
• Inviting friends to view and comment on detox programme cookery sessions in the Nutrition Kitchen

Important to have projects planned, if we are to be snowed in through out the festive season...come on snow!

A Week of Cousin Cleansing...

I'm currently cooking a weeks' worth of food for my cousin who is desperate to lose weight, spending a small fortune on a Personal Trainer and various supplements that don't seem to be having any effect. Quite the opposite - she's gained a stone in 6 months. Having said this, this could be muscle, but the calipers don't lie. So we're tackling her diet with a week of no carbs (apart from a few slices of rye bread and a handful of oats here and there), no sugar, no alcohol, and no meat. She's to drink 2 litres of water a day as well as a mid morning and mid afternoon juice. Day Example:

Breakfast - 1 slice of toasted Rye Bread with Almond Nut Butter and Orange slices
Mid Morning Juice - Kiwi, Apple, Pear and Broccoli Florets
Lunch - Red Cabbage with crumbled Feta Cheese, Apple and Sunflower Seeds with a Wholegrain Mustard and Lemon Juice dressing
Mid Afternoon Juice - Cranberries, Apple, Carrot and Ginger
Supper - Cauliflower and Red Lentil Dahl with Spinach and a sprinkling of Parsley

I do hope this works. Eating so many vegetables she can't not feel better, cleansed and with so much fibre she can surely only get rid of the toxins preventing her fat cells from breaking down...surely! Obviously I want this to work to prove to my loved ones that this really is the way to get results, but more than anything I want this to give her the happy boost she is so in need of right now. Keep you posted on her progress...

Raw Fairies - the experience...

So the first week back at work after the Christmas break meant detox time!

Little Sprouts Debut session...

Back in January, Little Sprouts ran its debut session in Wiltshire. What an eye opener into how not to do things next time! I learnt so much, and have still so much to learn. We ran two sessions back to back - error number one! There was too little time in between to clear up and offer mums and dads the opportunity to ask a few questions. We focused on carrots, apples and spinach. All the kids had their own carrot complete with green carrot top. We sang a song about picking carrots from the ground - hence the carrot top to pull up the carrot from the ground. I was so very nervous (of the Mums and Dads) that I forgot my words and had to refer to my notes - sooooo unprofessional Phili! We looked at all the different ways we can eat carrot - grated, batons and rounds...making a smiley face on paper plates with all three varieties. However, there wasn't sufficient quantities of each for the next session - error two. So improvisation came into the game, with more time singing songs about carrots!! Thank goodness I remembered the words the second time round. The second group was a wee bit older - they weren't buying into the fact that carrots can make you see in the dark, and too right too! The age spectrum was too broad and I was uncertain as to how much detail of nutritional facts I could launch into without receiving a glazed over expression from the younger ones and drawing the older ones (6 years old) into asking more questions - taking us off subject. Conclusion - 6 years old is too old for Little Sprouts.

Spinach was next on the menu - seeing how we could make teeth marks in the spinach, then cooking it up and seeing how it can reduce! Error three - hot steaming spinach is not ideal around little hands who want to grab and feel everything. No dramas, but the potential for disaster was something I'd wish to avoid in the future.

Apples for pud - using our 'pampered chef' children's chopping knives we cut into the apples to see what we could find inside...pips and a star shape if cut at the right angle. We explored the different colours of apples and rubbed them on our jumpers to see if we could make them shiny and see our faces!

and last but not least...the Nutrition Kitchen aspect came into full force - we made carrot and apple muffins. Yummy! Ideally there should have been 2 children to each batch - but instead numbers were so great that we had 2 batches and about 6 kids to each batch! Mess everywhere. But they were delighted with the result - the magic oven that takes seconds...otherwise known as here are some I made earlier.

Each kid delved into a bag of kiddies organic treats I'd picked up from Wholefoods, had a muffin 'they' had made and the parents got to take away a fact sheet of more fun things to do with carrots, apples and spinach...as well as the recipe for those delicious muffins!

A wonderful experience...that I truly hopes goes soooo much smoother next time. I'll keep you posted.