Strawberry watermelon popsicles (sugar free!)

Strawberry watermelon popsicles (sugar free!)

It's almost summer where I live, and with that comes ALL the treats! Campfires with s'mores, festivals with kettle corn and cotton candy, ice cream galore, and for my 5 1/2 year old son, popsicles. He's been obsessed with them since he was a baby, and most summer mornings he wakes up asking for one (he'll even do this in winter because he's crazy like that!). But I just can't turn a blind eye to how much sugar is in most store-bought popsicles!

I'm not going to beat a dead horse with all the scary details of sugar (you can click here to read my post about it), but no matter if they're "100% fruit" or not, I wanted to be able to make my own popsicles with whole fruits, fibre and all. The fibre slows down the sugar high, and makes sure my boy who tends towards getting hangry often (he totally takes after me!) can feel fuller, longer, and have less mood swings.

The thing with food labels is that what's on the label isn't always what's in the box. I know, how frustrating! Let's look at a real-world example.

Below are my son's favourite popsicles before we started making them at home (I'll share his favourite recipe below and how to make them in 10 minutes or less!).

Craving busting gelatin gummies

Craving busting gelatin gummies

We've all been there: 9 pm, watching Netflix, kids are in bed, kitchen is clean, it's finally time to relax ... and then, bam! Craving city. You know you're not even hungry, but you just have to eat something. Well, have I got a craving busting recipe for you!

This recipe was born from necessity, mainly from my 9 pm craving for carbs and sugary treats. I've struggled with acid reflux since I was 14 (Zantac was the reason I learned how to swallow pills), and when I eat carbs anytime after dinner, I'm guaranteed to feel acid coming up my throat about an hour later, just in time for bed!

Then, I don't sleep well (some nights it's so bad that I even sleep on the couch, just so that I can sit up more and let gravity do some of the work) and I feel like crap the next day, which just leads me to crave more sugary carbs late at night as a pick me up. Plus, I need caffeine to get through the day, which can trigger my anxiety and make my acid reflux worse. It's a vicious cycle.

I know that I should just stop eating after 8 pm, but most nights I just can't stop myself. Welcome to the club, right?

So, instead of beating myself up for having the cravings in the first place, or instead of eating what I know will just cause me acid reflux and keep me up all night, I decided to get proactive and make some snacks that will actually satisfy my cravings AND help heal my digestive system: gelatin gummies.

Yes, my solution is to make a healthy, adult version of gummy bears. Hear me out!

How to make a tea latte

How to make a tea latte

You might have heard about the whole Bulletproof Coffee trend that’s been happening for the past few years. You know, the one that blends butter and a coconut oil like product into your coffee before you drink it? I find that people fall into one of two camps: 1) they drink it every morning and love it OR 2) they’ve never heard of it and think that blending butter into coffee sounds crazy. I used to be the second one before I actually tried it, and let me tell you, blending butter into any hot drink is the epitome of deliciousness!

We’ll get into the how below, where I’ll show you that you don’t even have to use coffee to get all the benefits of the fat-fueled movement, but first let’s talk about the why.

Why in the world would blending butter into coffee or tea be one of the healthiest breakfasts you can drink? It all comes down to starting your day with healthy fats as opposed to carbohydrates (found in cereal, toast, and other pastries, and even your favourite smoothies).

Healthy sugar substitutes

Healthy sugar substitutes

Picture this:

- from the age of 6 months, babies are given cocaine on a daily basis.

- the brain becomes addicted, so it keeps asking for more and more.

- a few years later, a teenager is taking up to 26 hits of cocaine each day. 

- pharmacies start offering cocaine flavoured drinks, snacks, and pretty much every single other packaged food, which is perfectly socially acceptable.

- companies start realizing that foods with added cocaine sell better, so they start making more and more, having to off.

- set the cocaine with another drug because the taste starts being affected.

- the same companies develop a formula called "the sweet spot", where they know exactly the balance between cocaine, this off-setting drug, and other ingredients in food that make become the most addicting.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, yeah! Who would want to become addicted to cocaine if they had the choice?

Well, this exists in our society today, and it's called the sugar industry ...

Natural remedies for coughs and colds

Natural remedies for coughs and colds

Can I just put out there what everyone already knows? Being sick with a cough or cold (or the dreaded flu) totally sucks, but especially when you're a mom. Oh, your entire body aches, your head feels like it's going to explode, and you're hacking up a lung? Yeah, well someone needs their butt wiped, which apparently takes precedence over everything else including the fact that you feel like you're dying.

Well, what if I told you that there are some kick-ass natural remedies for colds and coughs that work within minutes PLUS are way cheaper than dropping $20 on some over-the-counter cold medicine or cough syrup (that doesn't even work and you can't use on children anyways!).

I mean, yeah, in a perfect world we wouldn't be getting sick in the first place because we'd be eating whole foods, resting as much as our body was telling us to, and not drinking that rewarding glass of wine every night. But that's not real life! Well there's a natural remedy for preventing colds and coughs before they even start, but that's a whole other blog post.

Here's are my tried-and-true, tested on my family natural remedies for colds and coughs (including my 5-year-old who is usually patient zero for most of our sicknesses):

 
 
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