Making the Healthy Switch to Olive Oil

Have you ever found yourself eating too much of something like cake and then when the scale shows those extra pounds declaring to yourself that you are never going to eat cake again.  No matter how much you really want to give up eating cake most people that make declarations like that never make it very far.  One of the reasons why you fail when you say that you'll never to do something again is because it is too extreme of a jump.  Because there is no instant gratification for giving it up, you don't all of a sudden lose all of the weight you gained by quitting eating cake.  So in a society driven by instant gratification it is too big of a temptation to get frustrated and give up and continue with our bad habits.  I have been guilty of being a yo-yo dieter for so much of my adult life often going to extreme measures of preventing myself from eating my favorite foods will forcing myself to eat terrible things like those awful prepackaged meals from NutriSystem.  But nothing ever worked because I couldn't stick to it.  But a year and a half ago my husband and I talked about how we needed to make some real changes to our diet and lifestyle other wise, so we decided to make some smaller more realistic goals.  Small things like, I started buying brown rice and whole wheat pasta.  We stopped keeping the house stocked with chips and instead got granola bars and trail mix.  We didn't make all of the changes at once but over time we added and took away more things, and over time we turned our changes  into habits.  We don't even think about the changes any more they are so apart of our life that it feels normal.

Another of the small changes was I switched to Olive Oil, like Olivari Olive Oil, for almost all of my cooking, from everything from baking to frying.  Some people feel that the taste of olive oil isn't good for certain foods but what I found was that I am so use to it that I don't notice it.  Olive oil has the lowest amount of saturated fat and contains more monosaturated fat a healthier type of fat that can lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in your blood, it is considered the healthiest oil to cook with. Substituting olive oil was a small change but one that has reduced the calorie count and fat count of every dish I make.  Just another of the small changes that made a big difference in mine and my husband's life.

If you want more information about the benefits of olive oil and other facts you can check out this article. 

How to spend under $20 on a perfect romantic Valentines dinner

Funny thing about holidays like Valentines day it is a holiday created by retailers to sell their products and we accept it as a social norm to treat it as the day we celebrate the ones we love.  Now don't get me wrong, I think it is wonderful to set aside a day to celebrate those we love.  I just think it is silly that we buy into this strange list of rules that says we must do it on this day and we must do it in a particular way.  Buying your significant other a gift, or telling them that you love them with a card shouldn't be limited to one holiday in the year.  My husband and I have never celebrated Valentines day and as I am reading more about how much people spend every year I must say we will probably continue not celebrating it.  Retailers and restaurants push for higher sales on this day through almost guilt like advertisements.  And restaurants, well don't expect that to be the highlight of your night if you don't like waiting.  The average restaurant sees its dinner rush swell to over double and will leave you and your significant other waiting a long time to even just sit down.  Again I will say there is nothing wrong if you want to choose to celebrate Valentines day, I think it is just also important to not get so caught up in the marketing that you feel you have to spend a lot of money.  Instead of an expensive dinner try cooking up a private romantic dinner at home.  If you have kids arrange with either a family member to watch them or if you have friends with kids arrange to watch their kids for one evening in exchange for them to watch yours.  This will give you both the opportunity to have a quiet moment alone.  For my husband and myself we choose a day last week to celebrate, we just found out that we are going to be having a little girl so our day was a celebration of our love and what that love created.  For under $20 we had an incredible dinner that we would have had to pay at least $40 dollars for at a restaurant.  Just remember saying I love you doesn't have to be through spending a lot of money, it is those quiet unexpected moments that speak the loudest.  Offer to be the one that cleans up the kitchen while your spouse sits down with a glass of wine.  Or secretly arranging for a kid free evening just with the two of you.  And don't forget the other 364 days of the year.

What is that? And what am I meant to do with it: Rutabaga

Have you ever walked into a grocery store and seen something that you had no clue what it was, let alone what you are meant to do with it?  The average person doesn't have the time or money to waste buy something that they are unfamiliar with.  But I want to share with you the amazing flavors of some of these things because I believe they can and should be more familiar in our kitchens.

The first food item I would like to share with you is the Rutabaga, also known as Swede.  This wonderful root vegetable is often neglected and is so filled with wonderful nutritional value and a sweet, delicious taste that I think people are missing out on.  They are a very good source of vitamin C, have no cholesterol, very little calories and have less starch and carbohydrates then white potatoes.  They can be steamed, boiled and mashed, sauteed, baked or roasted.