Here’s an easy recipe to turn Nutiva Coconut Manna into a delicious and healthy coconut milk which can be used in all recipes calling for coconut milk.  Hey look, no more cans!

Ingredients:
Nutiva Coconut Manna™
Water

First, put a sauce pan of water on your oven’s burner with enough water to half submerge your jar of manna and bring to a very low simmer.  Stir the manna until it is a nice, even, runny consistency.  (You can skip this step if it’s summer and your manna is already liquid…..just stir and measure as below)

NOTE: Be careful when heating up your Coconut Manna on the stovetop.  The idea is to warm it up enough to be able to mix and soften the Manna.  Be careful not to cook the manna!

For lite coconut milk: Add ¼ cup Manna and 1 Cup of water to a blender and blend on medium speed for 5 to 10 seconds until mixed.
For a richer coconut milk: use 1/3 cup Manna to 1 Cup of water.

Both of these milks are delicious and can be used as is.

For a smoother, silkier texture strain the Manna milk through a very fine sieve.  A nylon nut milk bag works very well for this.

You can also add a little sweetener (honey, maple syrup, agave, or coconut sugar) and some cacao powder or perhaps vanilla.  Yum!

Or use the richer coconut milk as a nondairy creamer for coffee or tea.  Use the coconut milk in soups, smoothies, over grains……..wherever coconut milk is desired.

It’s delicious in winter squash soups or try in a beet borsht instead of sour cream or on steamed veggies.

You can store the manna milk in the fridge for a day or two after making.  It will thicken a bit in the cold but is still exquisite.

Bon Appétit!

Recipe Credit:
This recipe comes to us from our own resident Customer Service Guru Mark Bielski!

“This not a place to cut corners, food is just too important…” – Michael Pollen

Here’s a great common sense interview from CBS Nightly News with Brian Williams.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

After the success of Food Inc. and Food Revolution, more celebrities are turning to organic foods and products as part of a healthier lifestyle.

Courtney Cox, star of Scream 4 and CougarTown, and her husband David Arquette, are buying organic, especially for their 6-year-old daughter Coco.

“I try to always be as green as possible,” the actress, 46, told US Magazine. ”For Coco, I got her Organic Matters [products] which Jen Meyer told me about.”

Organic Matters sells everything from bedding to beauty products and offers a wide assortment of organic, natural and recycled alternatives to many commercially manufactured goods. Meyer who is a jewelry designer who is married to Spiderman’s Tobey Maguire, inspired Courteney to switch to more eco-friendly beauty products.

“She told me about this one called Weleda,” Courteney says. “It’s this shampoo and body wash. It’s natural and great – I use it on Coco!”

Courteney is just one of the many celebrities that have jumped on the organic wagon.

HBO’s Entourage bombshell Emmanuelle Chriqui is very dedicated to the environment and organics. She serves as an ambassador to the Environmental Media Association, is involved with the Yes To Carrot Seed Fund, and Los Angeles Unified School District to support organic gardens in Los Angeles urban schools. Other celebs involved include Olivia Wilde, Rosario Dawson, Amy Smart, and Lance Bass.
Remember Jessica Simpson’s infamous “chicken or fish” moment? Recently Jessica has been on a vegan diet. She wrote on Twitter about her first experiences with tofu (which she dipped in ketchup), drinking Pu-erh tea, and natural healing through cupping with a teacher named Master Wang.

She also made clear that “this has NOTHING to do with weight! It is about understanding my body through hydration and alkalinity,” she wrote.

Kelly Osbourne is refusing to eat meat unless it is organic after hearing the shocking stories about the American meat industry and the terrible conditions facing some farm animals. The singer-turned-reality-TV-star went “fully green” by giving up bottled water and building a compost heap in her garden.

Kelly is also being more careful about what she eats. In her column for Britain’s Closer magazine, she wrote: “I’ve become increasingly aware of how disgusting the American meat industry can be – and it’s seriously put me off eating meat. I’ve heard that cows are fed through a hole in their stomach to make them get fatter quicker and I can’t believe some chicken producers inject them with water first so they’re heavier! “I don’t have a problem with people eating meat, but I am careful to only buy organic now.”

Convinced that you should switch to organic too? This Organic Food Buying Guide is a great place to start your journey to better health.

Photo: Lory Ayala/BuzzFoto/FilmMagic

To read the original article on Babble.com click HERE

(NaturalNews) Though hardly used in Western diets, lentils are perfect for high nutritional yields on a budget. They are so high in protein and energy producing nutrients that a Canadian firm is working on putting a lentil sports energy bar together. Canadian studies on athletes proved they performed better with more endurance after eating lentil dishes than pasta.

Lentils are legumes, which along with their related Dal, have provided millions in India and Central Asia with high protein sources for centuries. Combining brown rice and lentils is perfect for vegetarians concerned about protein intake. Both foods bought as dry bulk are very inexpensive and can be stored for long periods before preparing. Lentils are a delicious, nutritious tight times survival food indeed.

But There’s More to Lentils than High Protein

Dr. Perricone, an Oprah regular, ranks beans and lentils number four on his super food list, behind Acai, Allium foods such as garlic and onions, and Barley. This is not the same super food genre as chlorella and spirulina of course. These are actual edibles.

Lentils lack only two of the 20 available amino acids that combine for protein. And if the lentils are sprouted, those two missing amino acids appear, offering the complete package of 20 amino acids. Naturally high in fiber and low in fat, lentils aid digestion and elimination with a low glycemic index that stabilizes blood sugar and helps prevent diabetes.

An international study covering 25 years compared high dairy and meat eaters to legume consumers. The results published in the Archives of Internal Medicine confirm that diets high in fiber foods, such as lentils, help prevent heart disease by as much as 82%!

And there’s more to it than just fiber. The extremely rich folate content in lentils is a natural source of high folic acid or B6, without synthetic ingredients or processing involved. So even if Big Pharma and the FDA succeed with removing folic acid or B6 supplements from health food store shelves, you’ll be able to get yours from (gasp) food!

Lentils also contain the master mineral magnesium, which combined with B6 offers even more protection against heart disease. There is also a significant amount of B1 or thiamine in lentils. Other minerals in abundance are calcium, phosphorous, manganese, and iron.

Lentils contain a very high amount of tryptophan, an amino acid that helps combine the other amino acids to produce protein. It is also a precursor for serotonin and melatonin in the brain, both of which help you relax or sleep. Tryptophan also helps prevent depression.

Molybdenum is also very high in lentils. It is an essential trace element for virtually all life forms. It functions as a cofactor for a number of enzymes that catalyze important chemical reactions necessary for metabolizing food into energy.

Got the Idea? Now Let’s Eat

Unlike other dry bulk beans that need to be soaked for hours before cooking, lentils are ready to cook as-is. But it’s a good idea to sort them out on a flat pan to remove the few tiny pebbles that may come with the lentils. Cooking time is around 45 minutes with a low boil using a two to one ratio of water to lentils.

Lentil soups are easy to make. Or they can be eaten cold after cooking as part of a bean salad mix. An easy filling high protein high fiber main dish is lentils on brown rice, topped off with olive oil or an amino acid sauce.

Sources for more information:

Lentil nutrients article from World’s Healthiest Foods
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?…

Dr. Perricone’s No. 4 Superfood: Beans and Lentils
http://www.oprah.com/health/Beans-a…

Boring lentils touted as athletes super food

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstar…

About the author

Paul Fassa has managed to survive the Standard American Diet (SAD) and his youthful folly by deprogramming gradually from mainstream health ideology and studying holistic health matters informally with his wife while incorporating them into his lifestyle as a vegetarian.
He also practices Chi-Lel Chi Gong, and he is trained as a polarity therapy practitioner. He is dedicated to warning others of the corruption of food and medicine in our time, and guiding others toward a better direction for health. You can visit his blog at http://healthmaven.blogspot.com

Do you have a lentil recipe you’d like to share with us?  If so, put it in the comments section below, and we just might use it here on the Nutiva site, in the recipes section.

Dr. Suess books aren’t the only place you’d expect to find funny-colored foods.  We get these purple carrots from our home-delivered Organic Grocer service. I juice them, and slice them up for salads.  have you tried them?  What do recipes do YOU use them in?  Let us know in the comment section below.

by Kelsey Munro

THEY may sound like something out of Alice in Wonderland but purple carrots are not only real, they’re being positioned as the next superfood.

A new Australian study has shown the ancient carrot variety is high in anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants.

”They’re the original carrots, from ancient Persia,” explained the study author Lindsay Brown, professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Southern Queensland.

Like heirloom tomato varieties, purple carrots are one of a huge range of fruit and vegetables almost lost in the age of single supermarket varieties. Claims have long been made about purple carrots’ health benefits, but until recently these remained untested.

Professor Brown ran a pre-clinical trial on rats, using purple carrots grown in Queensland. For 16 weeks, the rats were fed a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet designed to mimic the effects of an unhealthy western diet.

The rats quickly grew fat, developed high blood pressure, became glucose intolerant (or pre-diabetic) and incurred liver and heart damage. Then, for the second eight weeks, the scientists added purple carrot juice to the rats’ food. The results, to be published tomorrow in the British Journal of Nutrition, surprised even the researchers.

”Everything went back to normal,” Professor Brown said. ”The blood pressure went down, the collagen in the heart was back to normal, the liver histology was back to normal, the liver enzymes, the glucose tolerance, the fat pads were all back to normal, despite continuing this … terrible diet.”

Professor Brown cautions that purple carrots should be consumed in combination with a moderate diet and exercise.

There are up to 28 times more anthocyanins – the antioxidant that creates the purple-red pigment in blueberries and raspberries – in purple carrots than there are in orange ones.

To read the original article at TheAge.com click HERE

Organic food is not a fad; it’s a phenomenon that’s here to stay. The principle goal of organic agriculture is to minimize soil degradation and erosion, decrease pollution while optimizing biological productivity in harmony with the environment. There is no disputing that organically grown produce is better for the environment and tastes better than soil grown crops that use polluting, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and systemic pesticides.

First let’s look briefly at some of the requirements and challenges organic growers must meet and overcome to be certified organic, then what it means to be organically grown, and finally why hydroponically grown produce is a healthy alternative to organically grown produce and possibly better for you.

A certified organic farm must incorporate time consuming, labor intensive weed controls, as synthetic herbicides are prohibited. Expensive alternatives to pest control like companion planting of non-profit, bug deterring plants is also a factor. Also to be certified organic, farmers pay an annual fee and undergo a yearly on-farm inspection to ensure that they adhere to the strict organic standards. All of these costs are factored into the price of organic produce available in the supermarkets.

To the farmer, the word “organic” means no pesticides or herbicides or potentially toxic or hazardous materials are to be used on crops to control bugs, weeds and diseases. To the hobby gardener, “organic” usually means all of these things, plus that no unnatural or manmade chemicals are to be used

To the chemist, “organic” means something totally different. Chemistry has two distinct branches: inorganic and organic. Inorganic chemistry deals with non-living materials. Organic chemistry focuses on carbon containing compounds associated with life and its decay to carbon matter in the form of decaying plant and animal matter.

Plants use inorganic minerals for nutrition, whether grown in the field or in a container on your back patio. Nature’s complex interactions involving weathering of rock minerals, decaying organic matter, bacterial decay of animals, and microbes take place to form inorganic mineral nutrients in the soil that the plant’s roots are able to then absorb as ions from the in soil water.

The minerals that a plant requires for growth are absorbed by the plant’s root system after they have been broken down into their basic elements and dissolved by water. By the time the plant ingests these mineral elements, they are no different from today’s prepared hydroponic nutrients. For example, nitrogen, an essential mineral element, whether derived from organic or inorganic matter, has the exact same molecular structure and appearance when observed under a microscope. Nature’s elements cannot be changed regardless of how they are obtained or processed. The same is true of the other two macro-nutrients; phosphorous and potassium and the micro-nutrients; calcium, sulfur, magnesium, iron, boron, manganese, zinc, copper, cobalt, chlorine, molybdenum, selenium and silicon.

All sixteen of these nature’s elements are required for a plant to grow to its optimum level of health whether you are growing organically or hydroponically. These minerals are provided to plants in the organic garden as they are released from organic matter by the action of microbes, worms and bacteria over an extended period of time. In hydroponics, these same elements are provided immediately by water soluble mineral salts; most of which are now in liquid form and many being certified organic.

The nutrients in a hydroponic system are mixed with the water and sent directly to the root system. The hydroponic plant does not have to search for nutrients like the one does in soil for the nutrients that it requires. Those nutrients are being delivered to the plant several times per day or constantly depending on the hydroponic method. The hydroponic plant requires very little energy to find and break down food. The plant then uses this saved energy to grow faster and to produce more fruit.

Hydroponics is a clean, safe horticulture technique that offers an economic, healthy alternative to organic soil gardening. A study comparing soil versus hydroponically grown tomatoes and sweet peppers was conducted by Plant Research Technologies Incorporated in San Jose, California. Their research documented a dramatic increase in vitamins and minerals in hydroponically grown produce; in some cases up to 50 percent higher in vitamin content.

Don and Sandy Landers are owners Dream Garden Hydroponics, LLC, 26380 State Route 7 Marietta. Columns on hydroponic gardening appear monthly on Monday’s life page.

To read this informative article from it’s original source at www.MariettaTimes.com click HERE

There’s DEFINITELY something wrong with this picture!

The latest news on the toxic chemical hexane is coming out of China this week with 4 workers reportedly died from work hexane exposure at the United Win iPod factory at which they worked.

Nutiva has been a leader in the organic food world alerting people to the dangers of hexane for both workers and consumers, and was one of the first brands to label its products non-hexane.  We look forward to a day when hexane is banned from food production altogether.

Many well-known food brands offer soy-based products that are processed with hexane.

Such brands include Clif, Luna, Kashi, Silk, Nature’s Way, Bragg’s,  and Genisoy, to name just a few.

Listen to this explosive YouTube Health Ranger Mike Adams  on hexane HERE.

From WIKIpedia: In the industry, hexanes are used in the formulation of glues for shoes, leather products, and roofing. They are also used to extract cooking oils from seeds, for cleansing and degreasing all sorts of items, and in textile manufacturing.

In in the news, from China Daily:

Workers protest over pay, toxic chemicals

Continue reading this important article at ChinaDaily

Help spread the word about this vital issue,  please Twitter, Blog, and Facebook this story and ask food suppliers their position on hexane in their foods.

Shoppers have the power to shift this debate and create a more healthy and sustainable world for all.

Remember Don’t Panic- Go Organic ~!

This article comes to us from The Star Tribune.com, and addresses an important issue for every household today.

Author Credit: Liza Schwab

Today’s blog came to me as I was making my weekly grocery list.  As a mom with not just 4 children but, 4 children with food issues, grocery shopping isn’t an easy task.  I have 3 children(plus a husband) who can’t do any dairy products, I have 3 children who can’t do any wheat products, and I can’t (or shouldn’t) eat sugar.   Add to that a son with Asperger’s who can only eat Organic fruits and veggies, Organic/free range meats, and no chemicals, preservatives, food colorings, soy, wheat/gluten, dairy/casein, sugar, or eggs and you have quite the interesting grocery list each week.

Not only do I have to be a very creative chef, after all, I am cooking dinner nightly for 6 people that all seem to have differently likes and dislikes and 4 of those people are children.  I am also usually shopping at 3-5 different grocery stores to find the foods my family can eat.  I also need to figure out how to do it all without coupons(as you rarely find coupons for organic, free range, or wheat free/dairy free items.) and without going over budget.  You would all cringe if you knew my monthly grocery bills, they are truly insane!

Not only are my lists long and descriptive, many of my cookbooks are now obsolete and I am fending for myself in cooking many of my meals.  Our family’s motto is, “If God made it, you can eat it.” That is how my children know if it is something they can eat or not.  Or course, they haven’t figured out that God didn’t make Hemp milk, Soy Milk, or rice cheese yet but, hey I am doing the best I can here.

My favorite question I get from people is, “What DO you eat?!”  Well, we eat pretty much the same things everyone else does but, I prepare ALL of it.   No boxed dinners, no takeout pizza, no fast food and no candy.   All of my recipes I have created or substituted ingredients as needed.  We still have pancakes, homemade bread, pasta, homemade pizza and mac and cheese.  The only difference is I make all of it from scratch and our ingredients are different.  We use gluten free/wheat free flour, Xantham gum(is our best friend for baking), egg replacer, soy or hemp milk(depending on if my son is eating it or not), blue agave(for sugar), organic rice pasta, and rice cheese just to mention a few.

The hardest part isn’t finding what the children can eat, it is finding the stores that carry what they can eat.  We go to Whole Foods in Uptown for our soy free/dairy free butter, hemp milk, rice cheese, Clif Organic/100% fruit snacks(for son’s lunches), and various fruits and veggies(all organic), they also are the only place I can find that sells the large multipacks of Silk chocolate soy milk in single serve for my daughter’s lunch!  I  head to Trader Joe’s in St. Louis Park to get our Organic rice pasta, rice noodle bowls(they are $.99 each compared to $2-3+ other places), Organic/100% fruit strips, 100% pure maple syrup.   I visit Costco(either SLP or EP)for our Organic/free range fryer chickens, Organic/free range chicken breasts, and Organic Blue Agave.  I then go to my store next door (truly is almost right next door) Cub in Edina for things like Organic salsa(they carry a brand that has no sugar in it), Organic tortilla chips, basics like brown rice, nitrate free bacon/pepperoni, soy yogurt and of course, Organic fruits and veggies.  Or there is also Super Target in Edina that carries the girls favorite wheat free donuts and nitrate free ham.  Last but, not least is our milkman, yes we have a milk man, he brings us our soy milk, eggs(for everyone but my son and I) and our OJ.    I know I could buy the soymilk anywhere but, after running to 3, 4, or 5 different grocery stores each week, it is nice just knowing someone is dropping off milk, eggs, and juice on my front step each week without fail.

Click HERE to continue reading.

Vanessa Barg is the head chocolatier for Gnosis Chocolate. She makes amazing raw chocolates my friends tell me. I will be getting to meet her and taste her yummy chocolates in October when I visit NYC.

Vanessa just ordered Nutiva organic hempseeds for some experimenting with Hemp Chocolate. Can’t wait to try these another organic hemp food delight.

Gnosis Chocolate is not just focused on purely the biz of making chocolates. In Vanessa’s words :

Gnosis means intuitive knowledge, knowledge of the heart and experiential knowledge. The company Gnosis Chocolate has really turned into so much more than a chocolate company. It’s turned into an opportunity to fill packaging and website and speeches full of knowledge about health, wellbeing, spirituality, social and environmental consciousness, and conscious commerce.

To learn more, visit
http://gnosischocolate.squarespace.com/chocolate-girl/