Aside from drinking green juice daily, another drink I have almost daily is a chia seed drink. I came upon these at the health food store a few years back and thought they were so cool. Granted they were expensive, at $4-5 a bottle, but it seemed worth it for the flavor and nutrition. But it didn't take me long to say, "Wait a minute, I can make this myself!" And not long after I was making my own chia seed drinks as you can find in this post: "My Daily Chia Seed Drink" but as time went on I got a little bored with the same chia drink each day and so I started trying some new recipes. Here's my four favorite chia recipes right now that are quick, easy, delicious, and good for you too!
The four drinks are: a lemonade chia drink, an orange juice drink, a coconut drink, and even a chocolate milk one. Yum!
Why drink chia seeds? Chia seeds are little nutrition rock stars! The drinks below contain 3 Tablespoons of chia seeds. This brings the nutrition facts to: 15g of fiber (5g per Tbs.) and 9g of protein (3g per Tbs.). They also contain more potassium than bananas, more omega 3s than salmon, and more antioxidants than blueberries! Convinced? Here's some recipes to get you started:
1. Healthy Chocolate Chia Milk
2 cups organic rice milk or non dairy milk of choice
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2-3/4 tsp. organic stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps: 1. In a small sauce pan, combine the rice milk, cocoa powder and stevia.
2. Warm until all the ingredients have combined and it looks like hot chocolate.
3. Remove and from the heat and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.
4. Add in 3 Tbs. of chia seeds and stir it up.
5. Pour into a glass or mason jar with a lid.
6. Refrigerate for an hour or until it's cold.
7. When you are ready to drink it, just shake it up to get it mixed up once again and drink up!
2. Coconut Chia Drink
1 cup filtered water
1 cup Coconut Water (I like this C20 brand)
1/2 teaspoon stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps:
1. Add 1 cup of filtered water to your jar 2. Followed by 1 cup of coconut water 3. Then add the stevia and chia seeds 4. Put on your lid and shake it up 5. Allow it to sit for at least 15 minutes to gel up
3. Orange Juice Chia Drink
1 cup filtered water
1 cup Orange Juice (I like this organic, no-sugar added, Trader Joe's brand)
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps:
1. Add 1 cup of water to a jar 2. Followed by 1 cup of orange juice 3. And last the chia seeds 4. Put on your lid and shake it up 5. Allow it to sit for at least 15 minutes to gel up.
*For this recipe you can use any type of juice you would like, it doesn't have to just be orange juice. Just use the 1 cup of juice + 1 cup of water ratio.*
4. Lemonade Chia Drink
2 cups filtered water
1 lemon (juiced)
1/2 teaspoon stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps: 1. Juice your lemon and pour it into the jar 2. Add your 2 cups of filtered water 3. Followed by the stevia and chia seeds 4. Put on your lid and shake it up 5. Allow it to sit for at least 15 minutes to gel up.
So there you have it, my four favorite chia seed drinks!
Hope this helps add some variety to your chia seed drink routine! Post below if you've tried one of these recipes before or if you have a favorite chia recipe of your own.
Sometimes I get bored with the food I eat. The hardest part for me is with the things that are "healthy" for me. I think, "Oh no, I can't get bored with this! I have to have it every day to stay healthy." Well, I'm pretty sure that's the equation for instant boredom.
Enter my "Daily Chia Seed Drink". I love this drink and I've had it every day for several months. It's kind of like a healthier lemonade that I made with lemon juice, water, chia seeds, and stevia. It packs 15g of fiber (5g per Tbs.) and 9g of protein (3g per Tbs.). They also contain more potassium than bananas, more omega 3s than salmon, and more antioxidants than blueberries. Picture my tyep-A brain knowing all these facts: "Must keep drinking chia seeds! Must keep drinking!" But after a while, I found myself making this drink less and less, so I knew it was time time for a change.
With it being summertime, I was craving something cool, creamy and sweet...maybe chocolate milk? Not exactly the most common treat you think of when it comes to summer, but for some reason it sounds great for me. So here's how I've come up with a way to keep drinking my chia seeds daily while also satisfying my sweet tooth in a sugar-free, vegan kind of way.
For this chocolate milk we only need four ingredients, the first being chia seeds (here's where I get mine from) and here's the other three ingredients...
Flavoring of choice:Chatfields's Cocoa Powder. Anytime I've made chocolate milk or hot chocolate in the past I always use Ah!Laska Chocolate Syrup, but I've found it takes quite a bit of syrup to achieve the chocolate flavor I like, which means quite a bit of sugar too (since the syrup contains sugar). So when creating this recipe I wanted to find a cocoa-flavor without the sugar, so I turned to Chatfield's Cocoa Powder. This is my favorite cocoa powder, that's no-GMO, and unsweetened. You could use carob powder or raw cacao powder, but personally I've found I had to stop using raw cacao powder because the effect it was having on me (jittery, heart racing, trouble sleeping, etc.) I'll explain it more in a future video, but for now, I've been loving using cocoa powder instead.
Non-dairy milk of choice: I like rice milk for this recipe, but if you like coconut, almond, or cashew you can use those too. Try to find one that's low in sugar or no sugar added to keep the sugar content low. If you've got some homemade non-dairy milk that works fine too!
Sweetener of choice: Stevia! Because it doesn't bake well, stevia isn't often my go-to for replacing traditional sweeteners like cane sugar or coconut sugar, but it goes great in drinks. So anytime I want to make a lemonade or in this case chocolate milk, stevia is my sweeter of choice. I like this brand of SweetLeaf Stevia the best because it doesn't have any weird other ingredients and it's no-gmo.
Now you know the ingredients, let's make it!
Healthy Chocolate Chia Milk
2 cups organic rice milk or non dairy milk of choice
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2-3/4 tsp. organic stevia
3 Tbs. chia seeds
Steps: 1. In a small sauce pan, combine the rice milk, cocoa powder and stevia.
2. Warm until all the ingredients have combined and it looks like hot chocolate.
3. Remove and from the heat and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.
4. Add in 3 Tbs. of chia seeds and stir it up.
5. Pour into a glass or mason jar with a lid.
6. Refrigerate for an hour or until it's cold.
7. When you are ready to drink it, just shake it up to get it mixed up once again and drink up!
Getting my "chia drink on" while my girls nap... my favorite time of the day to have this!
If you're new to chia seeds and that seems like a lot of chia seeds to drink feel free to drop the amount down to 1-2 tsp. if you would like.
So that's how I'm changing my up chia seed routine. Obviously this version has a little more calories (from the rice milk) than the lemon+water version does, so I'll try to alternate them out from time to time, but at least I've got a little more variety, which is always nice.
Have you ever tried a chia seed drink? What's your favorite flavor or recipe with chia seeds? Or have you ever had to "revive" a healthy habit to keep it interesting? Share below!
So I might have fallen off the bandwagon for the month of May in keeping up with my "Vegan What I Ate Today" series (cue the crazy end of the school year for me), but I'm back and ready to share my vegan food for the day for the month of June.
So if you haven't seen the past two "What I Ate" posts you can check out "March" here or "April" here. Or you can jump right in to my gluten-free, vegan food for the day...and since it's summer I figured I would share a little bit about what I do with my girls now that I'm home with them for my summer break from teaching. So this post is a combo of "what I ate" and "a day in the life." Let's get started!
Now, you would think I'd be sleeping in on my day's off, and in the past I have, but now that I have my girls I need all the time to myself that I can get because once they are awake, they take a lot of my attention. With this is mind, I still get up at my usual "work day time" of 4:45 AM. This allows me to get up, workout, get some computer work done, shower, and get ready all before my girls wake up...which is a glorious thing to me. I think it's mainly because that's how it is during the school year, that's my routine, so to get up at the same time as them (7:15-7:30) I feel WAY behind already.
So here I am 5:00 AM with my warm lemon water: 8 oz. warm water + juice of 1 lemon
During this time I write in my little journal. This is where I keep track of my exercise from the previous day (that I was too tired to write the night before), how much sleep I got, my dreams if I can remember them, and any other thoughts I have right when I wake up. I track food symptoms, things to be grateful for, and ideas for posts and videos. Probably sounds like a lot to be writing first thing in the morning, but I don't write on all the topics each morning, just whatever comes to mind that particular day.
While eating my pre-workout snack, I do some social media time. This is where I reply to YouTube and blog comments, check email, and maybe edit a video if I have time. Usually I only have about 20-30 minutes max for this, so replying to comments is about all I get to. I've found I enjoy replying to comments much more in this small quantity (just a few a day) instead of waiting for them all to pile up and it taking me an hour or two once a week. I bet you all like hearing from me a little quicker too!
Replying to comments while eating my pre-workout snack.
Workout: 60 minutes Bethenny Frankel's Skinny Girl Yoga Workout. This is one of my favorite workouts to do to stretch and tone. As you'll see in the video, I love plan and come up with ideas for posts, videos, and even my finances (hence the planner I set down in front of my yoga mat). Something about exercise gives me the best ideas, so I'll stop a pose or wait for a break, jot something down, and then get right back into my workout. Can you tell I do a lot of thinking, planning, and writing in the morning? I seriously love my mornings to myself. The rest of my day gets so busy and crazy with kids, so I savor this early morning time to myself and use it to not only fuel my body, but also my mind.
I'm way happier with my girls once they get up too, since I know I've already had some time to myself to get my workout in, get some work done, get out all the thoughts and ideas I have floating around in my head, and take a shower. This way I feel refreshed and ready for them, not already behind and they are roaring and ready to go. Maybe it's just the little piece of "working mom" I still have left in me? To where even though I'm on summer break, I still like to have some routine/consistency/sense of productivity. Can anyone else relate?
Here's a preview of this DVD:
After my workout, I shower, get ready and then my girls usually start to wake up.
7:30 AM: Breakfast smoothie. I make one smoothie and share a portion with Mila (as Avery is not a fan).
Every morning Mila loves to push this Croods movie DVD case (not even the actual movie, just the case) around our kitchen counter in her stroller, it's hilarious.
She then has a small portion of my smoothie in her smoothie cup. Right when she gets up I nurse her, so she's not too hungry when we're all eating our smoothies/breakfast snacks.
9:00 AM: Morning snack #1: Fruit bowl, 1 banana + several organic strawberries. Other than my smoothie in the morning, this is the only fruit I eat all day as it seems to mess with my digestive system if I eat it later in the day and combine it with other food. As you can see from my bowls, we all have this for a snack. Usually I chop Mila's frozen grapes in half.
Finishing her KIND Bar on our way to Nana and Papa's house.
On this day we headed over to my parent's house to hang out. They are both teachers like me, and also off on summer vacation so it's fun to have the chance to spend more time with them.
As you can see, Avery caught on to me taking pictures of everything in our morning so far, so she was all about taking pictures too of her food and in this case of her sister's "cute feet"!
10:15 Morning Snack: "Quinoa Oatmeal" (actually no oats, just reminds me of oatmeal. I made this using rice milk, Lakanto Sweetener, and some Ancient Harvest Quinoa Hot Cereal Flakes.
Avery had a little of my "oatmeal" to snack on as well.
The girls lunch was a mix of leftovers with Field Day Gluten-Free Pasta with spaghetti sauce, some of my leftover veggie burger, and a little frozen mango. They also ended up with some of my peas as well.
Lunchtime with my girls.
For their dessert (which I use sometimes to motivate them to try healthy foods or eat a little more), they got a Lucy's Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie. Avery got a full one and Mila got half of one.
After lunch we head home and I put them down for a nap, which they take at the same time (thank you!). I then lay down and take a 15-20 minute nap to recharge a bit since I've been up since 4:45 AM. After I get up, I head downstairs to "work" and snack.
During this time I work on my writing blog posts, filming or editing YouTube videos, or when my eyes are tired from looking at a computer screen I do some cleaning and decluttering (one of my favorite things to do in the summer when I'm on break).
Then I usually hear this little sleepyhead whispering at me from the stairs, "Mom...I'm awake!" So she comes on down in her over-sized t-shirt (her favorite PJ attire at the moment) and gets a snack. Usually it's vegan yogurt or today she had a MamaChia Chia Squeeze.
"I'm awake and I'm hungry...and why is this camera tripod out?"
Shortly after that Mila wakes up and she likes to have a Trader Joe's Strawberry Fruit Squirter.
About an hour later, the girls (aka snacking machines) are hungry again, so they have some Lentil Snaps together.
4:45 PM Green Juice: 2-3 stalks of swiss chard, 1 gala apple, 1 knob of ginger 3 stalks of celery, 1/2 a lemon peeled, 1/2 a large cucumber *all organic
I like to wait at least 2 hours from the last meal/snack that I've eaten to have my green juice so it's easier for me to digest, instead of getting stuck behind tons of food. And tonight we were heading to our local pool, so I made a "green juice to-go" with this straw lid on my mason jar.
After playing at the pool for an hour, I "bribed" them with some Trader Joe's Organic Fruit Wraps, and we headed home to get ready for dinner.
Bikini Mila snacking on a fruit wrap.
Avery with my Dad.
6:30 PM: Dinner was Veggie Burritos. For mine I had a Food for Life Gluten-Free tortilla shellwith Dayia Cheddar Cheese, brown rice, organic fajita veggies (red pepper, green pepper, onion and spices), organic corn, salsa, and Trader Joe's guacamole...with a few organic corn chips on the side.
As you can see we make this like an assembly line with rice in the rice cooker, black beans, fajita veggies, guacamole, salsa, and corn. This way we can make our burritos specific to us. Personally I can't seem to handle beans lately so I avoid those, and Brandon seems to be allergic to whole corn, so he skips that one. I love buffet style meals. ( :
For my dessert: 1/8 cup of Lily's Sweets Baking Chips (stevia-sweetened) Sometimes I don't have the time or energy to cook a fancy dessert or even just a regular dessert, so I pour some chocolate chips into a measuring cup and eat those for my dessert. Quick, easy, and satisfies my sweet tooth. Anyone else like to eat just plain chocolate chips? ( :
So there you have my food for the day, and all the things I did on a typical day at home with my girls in the summer. Did you see any food you would like to try or do you have a special food you or your kids have been loving lately? Share it below! See you next month for the next "What I Ate" post.
