I was fiddling around in the kitchen the other day and came up with a new drink that I believe should be on everybody's lips. Move over Golden Mylk (as much as I love you)!  And make way for my Maca and Tahini Latte.

This creamy and warm concoction will support your immune system and revitalise your body, both mentally and physically. It’ll get your metabolism revving first thing in the morning, providing you with more get-up-and-go, reducing fatigue and ensuring your body is functioning at it’s best.

Today’s modern, hardworking men and women can often be seen multi-tasking in the centre of busy cities, hands clutching their morning caffeinated beverage, determined looks upon their faces. For decades caffeine has been viewed as a daily necessity to get you moving in the morning and to ‘switch on’ creativity.

But for many people, caffeine may be doing more harm than good. Overdoing caffeine can cause your blood pressure to swell, burdening your already hardworking heart!

Caffeine and other energy-enhancing supplements can also overload the endocrine system in the body. Since the endocrine system and the adrenal glands are responsible for the release of important hormones into the body, too much caffeine can result in an imbalance in hormones, such as oestrogen and testosterone. Plus I’m sure I don’t need to remind you about the relationship between hormone levels and mood swings. Eeek.

For someone aiming to maximise their gut health, caffeine can impede progress as it can cause indigestion and incontinence not ideal on a busy working day when you are trying your upmost to be fierce! Diuretics can hinder the absorption of vital nutrients by the gut and can lead to the unnecessary loss of healthy gut microbes.

What is maca powder?

Maca is grown in the Peruvian Andes and is packed with vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids and phytochemicals. It is the root of the Maca plant that is of the greatest nutritional value and it has been used by the Incas for centuries. Generally used to improve energy levels and revitalise the body it is nutrient dense and has a variety of beneficial uses. It can be ground into flour, added to smoothies and drinks and used in baking too.

What are the benefits of maca powder?

- It’s nutritious and is made up of protein, fibre, essential amino acids, vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C and D, iron, magnesium, copper, zinc, sodium, potassium and calcium – oh my!
- Helps to increase energy levels, without causing stress to the endocrine system and key organs in the body
- helps to reduce chronic fatigue
- balances hormones in men and women, as it contains amino acids which are the building blocks for hormones.
- Peps you up! Think elevated mood and a reduction in self perceived anxiety, stress and depression.

My Maca and Tahini latte contains no caffeine, no processed sugar and no pharmaceutical energy enhancers. And this frothy brew boosts energy levels in a balanced and sustainable way, with no stress on the body. Yay for that!

Recipe

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 cup coconut milk
2 tsp maca powder
1 tsp tahini sesame paste
1 tsp vanilla
To sweeten add 1 tsp rice malt syrup to taste (optional)

Method

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir, whisking until combined and just warm then pour into a heat proof blender and blend for a few seconds until frothy. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and a little cinnamon on top.

Enjoy!

Lee x

It’s hard to ignore the growing size of cupcakes and muffins at cafes, bakeries and supermarkets. It seems that many of us have adopted a ‘bigger is better’ attitude towards confectionary.

These monster muffins are often crammed with white flour, refined sugars and added preservatives. Processed carbohydrates and sugars are broken down quickly by the body, causing a rise and then sudden drop in sugar and insulin levels in the blood. This ultimately results in hunger pangs not too long after eating, and a massive drop in energy levels.

Let’s not forget that your gut microbiome isn’t the biggest fan of processing large amounts of sugar, and the outcome of your over-indulgence may linger with you longer than you anticipated.

Conventional sugar-laden treats are all too readily available, making it hard to avoid temptation when you’ve decided to embark on your journey to a healed gut and a zero muffin top.

So what makes my teacakes any different?

Well, I don’t want to burst your muffin bubble, but I do think it’s safe to assume that most muffin and cake recipes out there are more than likely recipes for weight gain! Think of my scrumptious teacakes as a gluten free, fructose free, tummy-loving alternative to those syrupy, lackluster store-bought muffins and ones that are gut health friendly.

Strawberry teacakes taste like the cross between a mini muffin and a scone and the strawberries give a beautiful "jammy" natural sweetness.  And just a note, as we head into berry season, I would recommend using fresh strawberries to give the teacakes a little more moisture if you can.

As a substitute for glutinous white flour, I’ve used almond meal and buckwheat flour, which are released into the blood slowly as an energy source, preventing that sudden peak and then drop in blood glucose levels. You can mix and match whatever flours you have available in this recipe but if you're subbing with coconut flour be sure to add a little more coconut milk.

To make this recipe gut friendly, I’ve popped in my special dinosaur powder, AKA Love Your Gut powder which gently cleanses and sweeps away plaque built up in your gut over time, resulting in reduced bloating and the perfect environment for healthy microbes to flourish.

You'll notice I've included a touch of rice malt syrup as a subtle sweetener as it doesn’t have an overwhelming sugary taste, but you can omit this altogether if you prefer or just use stevia instead.

Coupled with a warm mug of tea, my teacakes are the perfect treat when you’re entertaining guests. It's time to replace stale, greasy treats from the biscuit tin with these.  I guarantee that your friends and family won’t ever taste the difference.

Recipe
Makes 8

Ingredients 

• 50g/ 3.5 tbsp organic butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 4 tbsp rice malt syrup
• Alcohol free vanilla 
• 1 cup almond meal
• 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 2 TBS Love Your Gut powder 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• Pinch salt
• 1/2 cup coconut milk (or any milk)
• 1 cup Strawberries cut into quarters or eighths
• 180c for 18-20 mins

 Method

• Preheat oven to 180C 
• Whisk softened butter and rice malt syrup in a large bowl 
• Add eggs and vanilla and mix well
  Add to the bowl almond meal, buckwheat flour, LYG powder, salt and baking powder and stir until just combined
• Fold in coconut milk and strawberries, reserving some for toppings
• Spoon into muffin pan that has been greased with butter or coconut oil, or use paper muffin liners 
• Add extra sliced strawberries on top
• Bake for 18-20 mins
• Serve with nut butter/ coconut cream/ yogurt and cup or peppermint tea!

Happy gut-healing!

Lee x

When investing into quality food; organic and free of chemicals, it can unfortunately be quite a hit on the family food budget without some wallet friendly recipes up your sleeve.

If frugality is just as important to you as nourishment, then I have the perfect recipe for you. This tasty Mince and Pea dish, also known as Keema Matar is one of my favourite budget friendly Ayurvedic recipes from my book Eat Right For Your Shape, and is ultra wholesome and balancing for finance fearing Vatas who require affordable and grounding comfort food at the end of their day.

Keema is a traditional Indian meat dish, and it’s believed that the word may have been borrowed from Greece and originally meant ‘minced meat’. Traditionally, this dish uses minced mutton (lamb or goat) with peas or potatoes. Keema can be made from almost any meat, can be cooked by stewing or frying, and can be formed into kababs. Keema is also sometimes used as a filling for samosas or naan.

If you’re a Vata, it’s no wonder you have money worries. Vata’s are governed by the flighty element of air- naturally cold, light, dry, dynamic and ever changing. Complexities and changes in financial situations will stress you out, so when it comes to your food budget, you need a stable set of money saving recipes that you can rely on week in and week out. Your thoughts and your physical body are completely interlocked, so if money is a stress for you, it will manifest also in physical ailments like poor circulation, brittle nails, frizzy hair, dark eye circles, insomnia and muscular aches and pains.

As a Vata, you’ll definitely want to choose foods that are warming, oily, heavy, sweet and salty to help ground your anxious thoughts and bring a sense of stability to your body and mind. This scrumptious Keema Matar will tick all of these boxes:

WARMING- through the use of fiery grounding spices like chilli powder and ginger, which will rev up your sluggish digestion; a link to anxiousness.

OILY- through the use of gorgeous ghee. This nourishing golden oil is slightly sweet and lubricating for your dry and cold constitution.

HEAVY- through the keema (mince); lamb or beef will provide a heavy and earthing quality, igniting a sense of groundedness and pacifying the effects of worry and stress in your life.

SWEET- through the use of gorgeous green peas. These really are the lollies of the vegetable kingdom; reducing Vata which is typically sharp and cold.

All the ingredients in this dish are also super affordable. A pack of frozen peas, even in organic form will cost around two or three dollars, and mince is one of the most affordable animal proteins you can purchase.

This is a recipe I love to batch cook and freeze in single portions for those days when you’re really not in the mood for cooking but need a quick lunch to take to work, or a speedy dinner instead of spending on takeaway.

It's a true saviour!

Happy Cooking 🙂

Lee xo

The world is a sweeter place with ice cream in it. I must admit I find it very hard to say no to a bowl of that kind of deliciousness when I’m offered it, but a little scratch beneath the surface of what we currently accept as ice cream has turned the traditional version of this gorgeous treat into a colossal turn-off.

Ice cream originated back as far as the second century B.C, with speculation that Alexander the Great enjoyed snow and ice flavoured with honey and nectar. The bible speaks of King Solomon being a fan of iced drinks during harvesting. During the Roman Empire, Nero Claudius Caesar (A.D. 54-86) would send runners into the mountains to collect snow, which he would enjoy flavoured with fruits.

Historians estimate that the recipe evolved into the ice cream we understand today sometime in the 16th century. The Brits and the Italians seem to have discovered ice cream at around the same time. "Cream Ice," as it was called, would appear regularly at the table of Charles I during the 17th century, but it wasn't until 1660 that ice cream was made available to the general public, when the Sicilian Procopio introduced a recipe blending milk, cream, butter and eggs at Café Procope, the first café in Paris.

Until 1800, ice cream was a rare and exotic dessert only accessed by the elite classes. Around 1800, insulated ice houses were invented and the ice cream industry emerged in America where it was enjoyed by the masses and increased because of technological innovations, including steam power, mechanical refrigeration, the homogenizer, electric power and motors, packing machines, and new freezing processes and equipment.

After WW2, ice cream became a national symbol for the Americans, and the end to the war was celebrated with ice creams all around. As food technology increased and the supermarket emerged, more pre-packaged ice cream was sold through supermarkets after the 1970’s, and traditional ice cream parlours started to disappear.

These days, rather than the traditional use of cream, whole milk, sugar and egg yolks; ice cream has an ingredients list from another planet. Last time I checked in supermarket freezer section, here are some of the additives I discovered:

A popular vanilla ice cream ingredients label:

Reconstituted Low Fat Milk (56%), Glucose Syrup (Wheat), Sugar, Water, Milk Solids, Cream, Maltodextrin, Vegetable Origin Emulsifiers [477, 471 (Soy)], Vegetable Gum (412), Flavours, Colour (160b).

And a “raspberry” flavoured ice cream creation contained:

Reconstituted Low Fat Milk (53%), Glucose Syrup (Wheat), Water, Sugar, Milk Solids, Cream, Maltodextrin, Raspberry Juice (0.8%), Vegetable Origin Emulsifiers [477, 471 (Soy)], Vegetable Gums (412, 415, 440), Food Acids (330, 334, 331, 327, 260), Flavours, Colours (163, 120, 160b).

Is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with this picture? What have we done to this beloved sweet treat? With fandangle marketing suggesting green fields with cows, and “traditional” “pure” farm motifs, a quick look at an ingredients list on the current top selling supermarket ice creams show that they’re nothing more than a mix of trimmed, skimmed and adulterated ingredients and numbers formed in a chemical laboratory, not a kitchen!

With many people in the modern age struggling with wheat and even dairy intolerances, I’ve made it a bit of a mission to formulate a super speedy but delicious ice cream substitute that’s made from wholesome ingredients, and this is the next best thing to real ice cream prepared the traditional way with cream and full cream milk.

This is a family friendly ice cream recipe that all ages will adore, and is full of antioxidant rich blueberries, gut flora loving coconut milk and delectable creamy avocado which is high in lovely monounsaturated fats that will make your hair shine and your skin glow. It’s also free from sugar, making it a completely guilt free treat at the end of the night that won’t have any negative effects on your blood sugars, or cause any digestive troubles. You’ll just love its creamy sweetness, and trips to the supermarket for a quick sweet-tooth fix will be a thing of the past with this baby up your sleeve!

Here's a little video about how to make it and the recipe is below.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 TBS Love Your Gut Powder (optional)
• 155 g (51/2 oz/1 cup) frozen blueberries

• 60 ml (2 fl oz/ 1/4 cup) coconut milk
• 1/2 teaspoon alcohol-free vanilla extract

• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 
1/2 medium avocado, pitted and peeled

Method

Purée all the ingredients in a blender until smooth and creamy. Serve immediately. 

Enjoy! 

Hello pancake fans.

Need some motivation to get out of bed in the morning?  Today I'm sharing my favourite pancake recipe with a gut healthy twist.  It's my favourite weekend go-to breakfast.

Sometimes the flipside of pancakes is their unhealthy reputation, think refined white flour, white sugar, additives and homogenised milk.  I'm hoping you'll prefer my delicious fluffy, gut healing pancakes that use a secret weapon; my Love Your Gut dinosaur powder or diatomaceous earth, a raw whole-food which helps to cleanse the gut, allowing you to absorb your nutrients more effectively.  

Diatomaceous earth is also know as fossil shell flour, a stone-age natural food that has many healing qualities and is rich in silica so great for hair, skin and nails. You can watch a video about it here.

The pancake batter is very adaptable and stays fresh in the fridge for up to four days, you can freeze it too if needed for later usage.

When it comes to additions, the rice malt syrup can be replaced with stevia if you prefer and fruit can be swapped out with whatever you have in your nut stash.  Sprinkled on coconut flakes also add a nice crunch! 

I often serve mine with a dollop of chai spiced coconut whipped cream (recipe below).  Now here's a new reason to smile and jump out of bed in the morning.  Why not whip up a batch and let me know what you think in the comments section below? 

Gut Healing Pancakes

Serves 3

• 100g almond meal
• 1 tbs Love Your Gut Powder
• 2 tablespoons rice malt syrup, plus extra to serve
• ½ teaspoon Celtic or Himalayan sea salt
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon alcohol-free vanilla extract
• 125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) coconut, almond or rice milk
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil or butter
• 125 g (4½ oz/1 cup) mixed berries to serve (optional)


Place the almond meal, LYG powder, rice malt syrup, salt, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Gradually pour in the milk, whisking until smooth. Heat oil or butter in a frying pan until melted or brush the pan evenly to coat the surface.
Scoop or pour the batter into the pan to form pancakes to your liking. 
Cook the pancakes for about 1-2 mins until small bubbles appear on the surface and the undersides are nicely browned.
Flip the pancakes over and cook until the second sides are nicely browned, another minute or so. 
Transfer to warmed plates until all batter is used and then tumble on your favourite toppings.

Chai spiced coconut cream

• 1 can of coconut milk
• ½ tsp ground cardamom
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• stevia to taste

Place the can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight (or even up to 24 hours).  When you open the can, scoop out the thick layer of cream on top. Take only the cream and leave the coconut water (use in your next smoothie!)  Place the coconut cream in your blender or hand mixer and whip on high for 1 minute.  Add in cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla extract and stevia and whip for another couple of minutes or until you get a whipped cream consistency.

Want to improve your mood?  Did you know that food may be a significant piece of the puzzle?  

The science behind food's effect on mood comes down to chemical and physiological changes in our brain structure which can lead to altered behaviour. Today I'm sharing my favourite mood foods that have been proven to alter your metabolism and brain chemistry, ultimately affecting your energy level and mood.

There is so much hope for your mood in food! The science is showing that you can literally eat your way to happiness, so here are some of my top picks for foods that can boost your emotional health...

Fish oils

A 2012 study reveals that fish oil increases transmission of serotonin in the brain which controls emotion. Because of their ability to increase serotonin levels, fish oils are a lovely mood food to include in your diet. Sardines are my all time favourite source of omega-3 fatty acids and are an affordable and potent source of mood boosting fish oils. Try them in my smashed sardines with avocado on quinoa and flaxseed loaf for your next breakky option.

Brazil nuts

Did you know that brazil nuts are the richest source of the mineral selenium, which helps combat depression? Studies have shown that a small handful of brazil nuts everyday can help improve your emotional health. I like to enjoy them as an on-the-go snack, or chopped and sprinkled over yogurt with grated dark chocolate. Enjoy a hit of happiness by throwing some extra brazil nuts in these delightful Coconut and almond bliss balls.

Broccoli

Broccoli is a staple veg in my diet. It’s rich in B vitamin folate, which is essential for a healthy mood. Low intakes of the B vitamin folate has been linked to depression, and the great news is that Vitamin B also promotes healthy hair and skin, which boosts your self confidence as your complexion glows. I like to steam broccoli and enjoy with white fish, or in a risotto. I also adore cramming in this mood boosting green in my earthy Broccoli soup.

Ginger

Ginger is a gorgeous warming root that has been shown to increase neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are chemicals used by brain cells to communicate with each other. They control your ability to focus, concentrate, remember, and regulate mood, cravings, addictions and sleep.

Ginger increases levels of these important brain chemicals, including dopamine, which is considered the “motivation molecule” that helps you get focused and be productive. It’s also in charge of your pleasure-reward system. Fresh ginger root (especially when sliced into a mug with hot water) also assists in stabilising anxiety and panic. One of my favourite ways to enjoy ginger is in my Stir fried ginger beef; a super speedy and delicious dinner mid week.

Blueberries

Blueberries can help prevent the release of cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal gland during stressful situations, that travels to the hippocampus (a major portion of your brain) and provides emotional responses. Berries can help control and counter the effects of this hormone’s impact on your mood.

Berries are loaded with anthocyanidins, known to boost brain function and antioxidants, which promote brain and nervous system health. Berries are also low in sugar and calories, so pile them on! Enjoy a boost of blueberries in this super antioxidant filled Blueberry and Kakadu plum ice cream which will impress your guests with its unique blend of superfood flavours.

Here's to eating your way to a happy mood!