sesame seeds

Happy Meatless Monday! Whether you’re staying on track with good eating habits, feeding kids, or having a party, this versatile sweet potato fritter recipe will do the trick.

With the start of the new year, many of us shift our diets in favor of a clean lifestyle. But before you rearrange your plate, consider this: the season hasn’t changed. In Ayurveda, this means you need the same level of deep nourishment in January that you did before all those festive holiday parties. So, if you’re trying to give your body a break while still providing it with nourishing food, what are you supposed to eat?

If the changing seasons have you wondering what to eat, try this sesame milk smoothie with orange essential oil. For those of us who eat seasonally, September and October are transitional months. Depending on where we are in the northern hemisphere, the heat could still be holding on, or there might be a noticeable crispness in the air. Straddling seasons can leave us a little stumped in terms of what to eat.

Spring is always an exciting time of year, especially for the local food eater.

Popeye may have believed that the main health benefit of spinach was its iron content, but he would not have been able to flex his muscles as well if spinach was not so high in magnesium. That’s right – Popeye knows best. Eat your greens!

Do the gorgeous blooms of spring turn you into a sneezing, sniffling, itchy-eyed mess?  If so, food can help.

Tahini is ground sesame seeds – it’s a product which is rich in nutrients and has been used in recipes and as a healing agent for centuries. The sesame plant is native to India and was found growing naturally from northeastern Africa to the far east. The seeds were primarily used for their oil, as a base for perfumes and as a seasoning. The name sesame is derived from the ancient Egyptian word sesemt and later from the Greek word sesamon.

The options are endless when it comes to takeout, which makes it easy to rely on restaurants for your daily grub. Hey, sometimes you just need some hot, comforting noodles conveniently packed up in one of those cute cardboard containers. But if takeout becomes a daily habit, you could be heading for some problems.

A native of India, organic sesame seed is rich in vitamins and minerals and has been used as a healing herb for millennia. The plant is a tall annual of the Pedaliaceae family growing up to five feet and bearing pink-white foxglove-like flowers. The pods contain white, brown or black seeds arranged in vertical rows. The plant flourishes in well-drained sandy soil in a tropical climate and can be found throughout Asia and Africa. Though not used as extensively in Europe, the plant found its way to America with the slave traders and has been cultivated in the Carolinas.