General Article

Looking great doesn’t mean that you have to conform to the latest trends. In fact, it’s a holistic process involving bringing your authentic self into harmony with your appearance. It’s a lifelong adventure and shouldn’t feel like a burden. In fact, upleveling your look is a great way to uncover and appreciate your unique beauty and aesthetic. Here are a few ways to get started on the journey.

1. Care for Your Hair

Take a look at your hair. Chances are, it’s changed in texture over the years. Is it healthy and shiny? Or does it need a little extra TLC? Have an honest conversation with your stylist to determine a path forward. You may have issues with hair loss. If so, you’re not alone; try a search using terms such as hair restoration Westchester County NY to find a helpful, compassionate professional.

2. Care for Your Skin

Your skin is the largest organ of your body and a canvas for your entire look. Take good care of it by putting together a skincare routine that gently cleans, hydrates, and protects. Remember your SPF, too; sun damage is a major factor in skin irregularities.

3. Optimize Your Health

If you improve your overall health, it’ll give your appearance a boost. Eat a delicious, nutrient-dense diet with healthy fats, and be sure to exercise in a way that’s appropriate and sustainable. Make sure to get plenty of sleep, too.

4. Refine Your Wardrobe

Remove anything from your wardrobe that isn’t flattering or of sentimental value. Organize your closets and drawers, and determine what type of look sets off your individual style. Embrace it! Fill in the gaps with a few high-impact pieces.

Upleveling your look is simpler than you think. Keep these suggestions in mind as you care for your appearance.…

Vegan Recipes for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is quite a tough time for vegetarians and vegans. The festival being all about a turkey and other symbols of satisfying indulgence, vegans really struggle for a comparable sign of convivial indulgence that could satisfy their senses in a plant-based way. Let’s go over two vegan recipes for just such a situation now.

First on our list of vegan recipes is a dish of vegan rolls. Take up a large bowl and pour in a half cup of warm water, two packets of active dry yeast, and a touch of sugar, and stir until everything’s dissolved. In a few minutes, the yeast should make the whole mixture a bit frothy, and that’s what you’re waiting for. Take out a saucepan, heat a cup of milk and 3 tablespoons of butter in it over low heat until everything is nice, melted and warm. Throw in the milk-yeast mixture, a teaspoon of salt, 4 cups of all-purpose flour and mix in and knead until everything is nicely blended.

You’ll need to knead that dough for about 10 minutes until it’s nice, smooth and can be worked with. As you knead, add in as much as quarter cup of flour if the dough keeps sticking to your hands. Leave the dough to rise for about 45 minutes. It’ll probably kill you to do so once it’s risen, but you’ll need to flatten the dough a bit by hand to make it manageable. Roll it out into balls and place in a covered dish and leave to rise for another 10 minutes. Roll each ball out on a greased sheet, apply a little melted butter all over, and with a pizza wheel, cut each in the shape of a triangle. Roll each triangle up, brush it with a bit of melted butter, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and lay out on a greased baking sheet to bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees until everything is nice and golden brown.

Up next on our vegan recipes list is the vegetable letter. Take out five medium-sized bulbs fennel. Cut off the roots and the stalks, and quarter them. You’ll need to do the same with eight medium-sized yellow onions too. Of course, you’ll need to remember to peel the out a large pan, throw in the fennel and the onions with 2 tablespoons of salad oil and three pinches of salt. Take out 3 pounds of medium-sized acorn squash, dice, and carve out the seeds. Toss it all into a pan with a touch of oil and salt, and roast in the oven with the fennel and the onions for 40 minutes.

Peel and dice up 3 pounds of carrots, throw in a skillet and cook in 2 tablespoons of salad oil and a touch of salt until everything is nicely browned. Add a quarter cup of water, and boil everything for a few minutes. In a separate little pan, heat quarter cup of peach preserves and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice until all the preserves of melted. You’re now ready to arrange everything into place as you wish. You can garnish with sprigs of parsley. The aroma by itself should get your neighbors knocking on your door.…

How to Make Vegan Soap – It’s Easier Than You Think

Whether you’re a vegan or not, you might want to make your own soap that is free from animal products. With the increasing use of pesticides, unnecessary chemicals and toxins in soaps, it also makes a lot of sense to make them by yourself. Besides all of the health benefits, it’s also cheaper this way.

The basics of any type of soap making are the same. When you’re making vegan soap, you replace tallow, an animal product, with vegetable shortening, and you add cocoa butter. When shopping for the ingredients, make sure they are all marked organic, otherwise they might in fact contain animal products.

Soap is made by mixing fats and oils, in our case vegetable fats and oils, together with lye, which go through a chemical reaction called saponification. Before you begin, you have to make a lye water solution. Be extremely careful as lye can burn your skin. Wear eye goggles and elbow-length rubber gloves. When you do spill some on your skin, wash it off with lots of vinegar.

Once you’ve got the lye solution ready and it has cooled, you melt the fats and oils in a pot to a specified temperature. Then you add the lye and you stir it with a stick blender. Once the mixture reaches “trace”, meaning all the components have irreversibly mixed, you add in any additional ingredients, such as dried herbs, essential oils, or coloring.

Next, you pour the soap into a mold and let it set for 24 hours. After that, you cut it into blocks and set on a rack to cure for four weeks. Then you’re done and can enjoy using your vegan soaps!

Here’s a vegan recipe you can use:

Lye solution: 12 oz of distilled water, 4 oz of lye

Oils: 1 oz (or 3%) of pure cocoa butter, 7 oz (23%) of pure olive oil, 7 oz (23%) of pure white coconut oil, and 16 oz (51%) of pure vegetable shortening. Note: the percentages are used when you want to make a different amount of soap than the recipe prescribes. You can use a soap calculator to adjust the amounts accordingly.

Add in 2 tablespoons of dried herbs according to your own preference – basil or mint are great.…

Raw Almond Ice Cream – Homemade, Non-Dairy and Delicious

Last night I made my first batch of raw almond ice cream. It satisfies vegans, raw-foodies, superfoodies, and junk-foodies alike! The premise behind this tasty treat is that almonds, when blended with water, make a smooth and creamy milk-like liquid. It’s great in cereal or even in coffee, but also can be used in recipes where dairy products are called for. The trick is to be sure it is completely blended, (unless you like your “milk” chunky.) You can also strain the almond milk through cheesecloth or even a small strainer to eliminate any larger particles.

This delicious almond ice cream gives a fraction of the sugar and fat of real ice cream, contains the healthy omega fatty acids found in raw almonds, and can be flavored and added-to to  suit anyone’s tastes. Be sure to send in any creative recipes that have proven a success for your family!

Raw Almond Ice Cream

2 Cups Raw Almonds

4-5 Cups Water

2 Bananas

Agave Nectar to taste

A Pinch of Sea Salt

2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Blend together the almonds and the water. More water right be needed to get the best consistency. Blend until there are no large pieces left. I like to leave mine a little chunky, as I enjoy the nuttier texture of the ice cream. For perfectly smooth ice cream, however, strain through a cheesecloth. Set aside half of the almond milk.

Freeze the other half. The easiest way to do this is in ice cube trays, since it will go right back in the blender before eating. If not, freeze the almond milk in any container and just break it up before blending.

After it is frozen, return it to the blender and add the two bananas and vanilla extract. The agave nectar is used as a sweetener, but you can also use maple syrup if you don’t have the nectar. Some people add chopped dates as a sweet alternative. Add a pinch of sea salt (sounds weird, but it really makes it taste better!) As you blend, add some of the almond milk you set aside earlier. Keep adding until you get the ice cream consistency you desire.

You can now add all sorts of fun toppings or additives like fresh fruit, cocoa powder, or chopped nuts. Go easy on sprinkles or chocolate syrup as they are high fat/cal, low nutrient.

Good luck and have fun!…

The Healing Power of Sprouting Seeds

There are lots of options to go vegan and one of the most popular meat substitutes that you cannot afford to disregard is sprouting seed. These seeds are typical components of vegan diets and it became the preferred choice of many because of the numerous benefits that it can promise for optimum body condition.

As seeds start sprouting, more nutrients are developed to prepare for the maturation of the plant so you can be sure that once you consume sprouting seeds, you will be getting more than what you expect to get from it making the product worthy of the title “health food”. These vegan products are at its most powerful stage and its components like proteins, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other trace elements are expected to be 3 to 12 times higher.

Definitely, you will get higher health benefits by simply including these vegan meat substitutes in your diet but you will appreciate it even more and you will be encouraged to go high with such vegan product if you will also look into its healing power.

Studies show that there is more from sprouting seeds than simply providing adequate source of nutrition for the body because these seeds are also known to offer huge benefits for certain diseases to be avoided.

• Amino acids like canavanine can be found in sprouting seeds which Colon Cancer and Leukemia which can help in the prevention of leukemia and colon cancer.

• These vegan products are also rich in Saponins which is the element that aid in lowering the body’s bad cholesterol level while maintaining HDL and these compounds will surely help fight arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. Aside from that, Saponins are also immune system boosters by enhancing the activity of T-lymphocytes and interferon.

• Sprouting seeds are also rich in antioxidants that will protect you from the effects of aging and prevent DNA destruction as well. Studies show that compared to fruits and vegetables, the enzymes in sprouts are 10 to 100 times higher.

Nowadays, there are lots of options that will ensure greater benefits for people and most of the time it will just be a matter of making the best choice. For those who value what healthy living can guarantee, it will be best to take advantage of the benefits that come with sprouting seeds to be able to enjoy nutrients that are enhanced several times as compared with the other popular health choices to prevent diseases and maintain optimum body conditioning.…

Build Muscle Strength – With Proper Weight Lifting, Nutrition, Rest and Body Stretching

Weight Lifting

Strength training offers the best way to build muscle strength. Building muscle very effectively will require proper body condition and great care to avoid injury during the process. Your best posture for strength training would be to keep your head and neck relaxed, contract your stomach muscles toward your spine and keep your hips and shoulders in a stacked condition. While weight lifting ensures that you bend your elbows and knees, as you will need to lift sufficiently heavy weight to succeed in your efforts. Most people reach a level of stagnation by the ninth round of the repetition.

Nutrition

Most people tend to overlook the grave importance of nutrition in building up their stamina, vigor and fitness overall. Remember, nutrition has a major role in your overall health and body stability. How would you imagine that your body could build muscle mass without protein and burn calories and fat without carbohydrates after the workout? The best way to work for a lean body mass is to have your meal one hour before the workout and then again half an hour after the workout. At these times, the body hungrily converts the carbohydrates into energy without allowing it to build fat.

Rest and Relaxation

Most people are unaware how important rest and relaxation are in muscle-building. Between workouts, you must take a rest of at least 30 seconds to 1 minute between each set of exercises. It would be best for you to provide a 48 to 72 hour break after every full session of weight lifting to allow your damaged muscle tissues to repair and recuperate before you start on the next exercise session. Never make the mistakes of challenging the same muscle group twice in a row on consecutive days. However, give them sufficient time for self-recuperation. Sporadic rest periods and a good night’s sleep everyday are paramount to maintaining your overall health and gaining muscle strength. While lifting weights, you must develop a regime of going to bed early and getting that eight hours sleep that will stand you in good stead in the future.

Stretching

Most weight lifters never consider the relevance and importance of stretching their bodies after strenuous workout. Post workout, when your blood flow experiences maximum stimulation, the body flexibility is at its highest range. Stretching at this time will help in healing as well as in avoiding the muscle sores.

Worthwhile Supplements

While many of the supplements that are brazenly advertised, are spurious and offer no good solution to weightlifters for building muscle strength, some of the supplements that are worth considering are protein supplements in the form of snack bars or shakes. Glutamine is another amino acid supplement that has a positive result in bodybuilding.…

Delicious Vegan Chocolate Cake

The vegan diet — what a drastic diet, isn’t it? No animal products whatsoever permitted, including egg, milk, cream and butter also out of the menu. That leaves us with no much to make some appetising and tasty food and what about cakes or pastries. Imagination is really needed in this situation and imagination is certainly not missing around us judging from what those vegan addicts are able to produce from their kitchens.

With that in my mind and having had to deal a few times in the past with some very nice vegan customers, I came up with a real vegan recipe that I will share in this article. It is a nice and moist vegan chocolate cake that can be eaten on its own or with some sort of garnish like vegan chocolate or vanilla sauce or even raspberry jam:

Here below are the ingredients needed for around 4 to 5 cakes of this delicious recipe:

Light whole-wheat plain flour: 220g

Plain cake flour: 225g

Sweet potato flour: 100g (to keep the cake moist)

Baking powder: 18g

Bicarbonate soda: 10g

Cocoa powder: 165g

Salt: 5g

Soya milk: 500g (rice or oat milk can also be used instead)

Corn oil: 260g

Rice malt syrup: 1000g

Apple cider vinegar: 7g

Vanilla essence: 10g

Method:

First turn the oven on as always with the temperature dial set to 180A?C (356A?F). Spray-grease around 4 or 5 cake tins then place a round piece of grease-proof paper on the bottom of each of them. Then start by sifting the plain flour, potato flour, baking powder and bicarbonate soda together, then add the whole-meal plain four last without sifting it. Mix thoroughly. In a saucepan heat the soya milk on low heat. When it is slightly bubbling, add the sifted cocoa powder and whisk well until it is dissolved. Remove from the heat. Combine the other liquid ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Add the cocoa mixture and combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake moulds. Each cake mould should be filled to around 2/3 of their height. Insert into the pre-heated oven and bake for around 40 minutes. If your oven has a ventilation duct, keep it closed during the 1st half of the baking and then open it for the 2nd half. When a small knife inserted in the chocolate sponge comes out clean, take them out of the oven and let them cool down for a few minutes. When they have cooled down take them out of the tins and turn them over on cooling wire.

This cake can be eaten as it is or covered with a vegan chocolate icing, rendering it even more attractive and appetising. I really hope you enjoyed this delicious vegan chocolate cake recipe. If you need more information about other recipes do not hesitate to contact me.…