Dairy-Free Banana Bread

My family absolutely loves banana bread, but it’s so difficult to find one that actually tastes good and has perfect texture. After some tweaking...  I’ve finally got the one! I made this recipe dairy-free, but it’s simple to change, just replace the coconut oil with butter and the coconut milk yogurt with sour cream. Play around with it to fit your specific desires… have fun BAKING!!

  Diary-Free Banana Bread

1 2/3 c. sugar

2/3 c. honey

1 c. coconut oil

3 eggs

½ c. applesauce

2 c coconut milk yogurt

3 tsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. cinnamon

4 c. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 ½ tsp. salt

2 c. ripe mashed bananas

1 c. chocolate chips (optional)

 1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

 

Preheat oven 325 degrees. In large bowl cream coconut oil, sugar, & honey. Then mix in eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, coconut milk yogurt,& applesauce. Whisk in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Fold in bananas, nuts, and chocolate chips. Pour into 3 loaf pans. Bake 45min - 1 hr. You want the bread to be slightly browned. Make sure toothpick comes out clean when inserted. When bread is cooked, remove from pan and place on a cooling rack.

Do Real Women Really Have Curves?

   First off I want to state that I’m all for women empowerment, but shouldn’t empowerment first start with us as women empowering each other? Meaning that shouldn’t we start accepting each woman as they are? One of my biggest pet peeves about this generation is the ad going around stating “real women have curves.” You all know which one I’m talking about, the one that states that all women aren’t stick perfect models who are 6 foot tall and have the figure of a little boy and “REAL WOMEN” have a butt, boobs, and a little cushion around their bones. I know the ad is meant to empower us women who may not have the “perfect” body to embrace it because model type women aren’t “real”.  Here’s my problem with it… all women are REAL women because they are all WOMEN! Now I’ll admit that for years I wished to have a stick figure body, but that’s just never going to happen with me. I was made with a 5’2” frame, a butt, and a body that tones to muscle not bone and no matter how much I denied it or put down another woman, I wasn’t going to grow 10 more inches and get the all too coveted thigh gap. It took me awhile to accept this, but when I appreciated that my body is MY body, flaws and all, it made proud of everything my body has been through and that’s what makes me unique. I think that the sooner we accept our bodies as OURS then the happier we will become and the real empowerment will begin.

  The phase the “grass is always greener on the other side” is a perfect quote for what us women really need to address. One of my best friends is the typical example of the 6 foot, model-like beauty, I was always jealous of her body and her ability to eat anything without it showing on her hips. One day she shocked me when we were hanging out, she told me “you know something? I’ve always been jealous of your petite body and wish I could shrink a few inches to be smaller” I couldn’t believe what I just heard come out of my model best friend’s mouth. She further explained that she hated being so freakishly tall and having a metabolism the speed of light because it was impossible for her to gain any weight and she wanted a butt or any curves for that matter.

  Going back to this “real women have curves” ad, what do you think it does to girls like my best friend, who were born with figures like little boys? If the ad is supposed to empower women, then why does it isolate a group of women who are just as “real” as the rest of us? The advertisement should say “real women are all women” because no matter what body you were born with, it’s just as real as the next girl’s body next to you. If we are so quick to blame our genes for making us fat then why can’t we accept the fact that some genes makes us naturally thin? Putting down other women who aren’t the same as us by saying things like:

“that’s not natural, she probably has an eating disorder”

“go eat a sandwich”

“no real man would want to date a twig”

“too skinny, obviously photo shopped”

  Nothing irks me more than women bashing other women. Isn’t the media hard enough on us as it is without the pressures of our peers? Although this ad was meant to be a positive thing, I think that it has done more harm than good. Who are we to use a catchphrase in order to make us feel more superior than another? I think that all women have their own ideal body, a body image which is usually the complete opposite of the one that we were born with. So who creates this “perfect” body and why is it shaped to be something that we can’t achieve? We are bombarded from little girl’s to adulthood of how our bodies should look and the ones we are usually attracted to are the ones that is impossible for us to become. For example what makes a 5’2” girl want to look like a runway model with boobs, when her best friend who could be the runway model want to look like the 5’2” girl next door?

 

 A REAL WOMAN

OH LOOK ANOTHER REAL WOMAN

 AND ANOTHER REAL WOMAN

YES VS SUPERMODELS ARE REAL WOMEN TOO

 

  The real empowerment for women should come from teaching girls that every single body is different and instead of putting down “skinny girls” as something disgusting and nothing to try and aspire to look like, we should teach young girls and all women for that matter to embrace the body we have and not compare it to others because we are all women and we are all REAL.

But what about Milk and Cookies ?

Last summer I made a life changing and at the time devastating discovery. Around June of last year I had to go on heavy antibiotics for MRSA that I had contracted from somewhere, after it was healed I realized that when I ate gluten my body was reacting to it very different than before. When I was consuming gluten my body would break out in folliculitis like symptoms which as you could imagine sent me into a slight panic. Around the same time I was developing an intolerance to lactose or milk sugar. Now if you are like me you know how many things in our daily food consumption include some type of dairy or wheat product. I started on my quest to a gluten-free/dairy-free lifestyle... I researched everything on substitution to recipes to remedies. The more I researched about gluten the more I found that I didn't even want to go back to eating wheat. Gluten sensitivity is actually very common in people today and it's very possible to develop a sensitivity to it. Gluten slowly causes damage to the small intestines. Some people have symptoms of gluten sensitivity and don't even realize that is what's causing it. Some symptoms include: Excessive fatigue, depression, weight gain, joint aches, body aches, abdominal pain, bloating, cramping, constipation, and diarrhea. Even if you don't have a major problem with gluten I suggest that everyone try and go 3weeks without gluten in their diet and see how they feel afterwards. During my gluten free journey I have come across recipe successes as well as a few failures... it can seem like a daunting challenge, but you get the hang of it after a bit. My favorite gluten free cookie recipe is posted below! Check it out!

2 cups almond or peanut butter

2/3 cup raw honey

2 large eggs

4 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup shredded coconut (do not pack down)

4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sea salt

1 1/2 cup raisins

Heat oven at 350 degrees. Mix almond/ peanut butter, honey, eggs, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed. Stir in coconut, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Add raisins.

Bake at 350 for 10-11 mins.

ENJOY

My Story !

I don't really like to talk about my personal side with people and here I am posting it for the world to see. I came to the realization that we are given hardships and struggles in our lives not to hide them and be embarrassed about them, but to share them with others so we can relate, encourage, and just possibly make life a little more variable. So here I am giving you a glimpse into the past, present, and future of myself. I have always struggled with weight management and always longed to be smaller, thinner, and perfect. My self esteem has been a constant battle in my life. I had to be the best at everything that I did and thought that people were judging me. This not only damaged relationships, I made myself a guarded person who learned it was easier to not let anyone in rather then open myself up to potential hurt. When I was in junior high I put on a lot of weight. I was the heaviest I had been my entire life. I found comfort in food, because people just tended to disappoint me. However, when I reached high school I found a new way to hide my feelings and that was though joining a competitive cheer team. I lost a lot of weight and got in shape. I grew to love working out! I loved how it made me feel and even more so look. However, I still wasn't happy with my life because there was still a lot of emotional scars that needed to be healed and personal acceptance to be done. Another thing that happened in high school was I got involved in a messed up relationship that really warped my sense of security. It became a toxic situation for the two of us. It was emotionally abusive and I learned to bury my feelings. This would lead to being ignored or getting a response that just left me with confusion and hurt. I found it was easier to hide emotions then deal with them. I also developed an eating disorder around this time, it was my way keeping myself in "control" of at least one thing in my life. I would starve myself as long as possible, end up binging on sugar, (because my body needed some type of fuel source) then I'd feel super guilty and purge it up in the toilet, shower, or anywhere I could hide it. I became so obsessed with it, that I literally could not even eat a full meal without feeling partly guilty. I couldn't focus unless I threw up and I knew I was a mess. Even though I tried to convince myself that I was in control I knew deep down that this disorder had complete control over me and it was affecting every aspect of my life (social, emotional, and physical. I never wanted to go anywhere social because that meant I might have to eat in front of people and heaven forbid it be something unhealthy, I was an emotional wreck, and physically drained because of limited calorie intake and crazy long exercise sessions. My saving grace was when I went to Africa for a summer, the year after I graduated high school. I learned so much about myself there and how much I take for granted in life. People in Africa literally have nothing and are still one of the happiest people I have ever met in my life. Swaziland, Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world. The death rate is so much higher then the birth rate that it is predicted to not even exists within 50 years. That's when it hit me, I don't know exactly when, probably sometime between taking water bottle showers and holding half naked orphans until they fell asleep in your arms. It hit me that we aren't put in this world for ourselves, but to help out others who are less fortunate or just plainly don't know how to help themselves. Through helping out others, it starts a circle of love that can turn this world into a beautiful place. I realized that life isn't meant to be controlled and that's what makes it beautiful. Being healthy isn't somethin

created by crazy diets and exercise routines, but it's a way of life. When I got home I started on a road to recovery. I started going to a nutrition school to learn the proper way to become healthy and recently became a certified AADP health coach and a certified NASM personal trainer. I can't wait to share my journey of health and wellness with you all! "Good things come to those who wait, but great things come to those who act." Your life is now... it's time to actually live it!