Most store-bought salad dressings have things like high fructose corn syrup (or even just sugar), thickeners, gums, preservatives, highly refined vegetable oils, and all kinds of other yucky, inflammatory ingredients. Luckily, there are options for making your own, and it doesn’t have to be difficult.
Recipe: Homemade Epic Bars (Low Sugar & Low Carb Meat Protein Bars)
John and I love Epic bars, but at anywhere from $2-3 a pop―not to mention the plastic packaging that comes with each individually wrapped bar―I wanted a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative.
If you’re not familiar with Epic bars, they taste like jerky. They’re basically a bar made of ground meat mixed with spices and fruit, and they’re a super convenient protein-and-fat snack when you’re on the go.
In the spirit of creating my own convenience, I decided to create these homemade low sugar protein bars that taste (in my humble opinion) even better than Epic bars. These are made with beef, but you could also probably do venison or bison. They are both keto and paleo friendly, and they’re excellent for anyone who eats low carb.
Myth: Red Meat Causes Cancer
For nearly two decades, we’ve been bombarded with sensationalist headlines claiming that “red meat causes cancer.” Terrified by the news, many people have significantly limited or completely given up their consumption of beef and other red meats, opting instead for chicken or fish. Some have decided to give up meat altogether, adopting vegetarian or vegan lifestyles they believe are better for their bodies and the planet. As you will see below, however, not only does red meat not cause cancer, it is in fact an extremely healthful, nutrient dense food that can help you avoid the very degenerative diseases it’s been claimed to cause.
Myth: Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease
Perhaps the biggest, most devastating myth to human health is the faulty notion that cholesterol causes heart disease. We have been told for decades there is incontrovertible proof that eating saturated fat and cholesterol raises cholesterol in the blood, and that in turn, excess serum cholesterol causes heart disease. You may be surprised to learn that this theory, known as the “Diet-Heart Hypothesis”, has never actually been proven despite numerous studies. But fueled by bias, vested interests, and institutional momentum, the complete lack of evidence has not stopped the media, health organizations, or pharmaceutical companies from continuing to tout their favored—albeit faulty—hypothesis as fact.
For New NTPs: How to Set up a WordPress Site & Make it Pretty
My boyfriend and fellow NTP, John Fotheringham, is a whiz at website design. He designed this very blog for me, our website for our practice together, Flourish Fundamentals, his own language-learning website, Language Mastery, and a ton others. If you’re a new NTP and you want to know some of the basic information you need to get a website started, here are the providers that he recommends.
5 Tips for Quitting Sugar
Doing a sugar detox can sound like it will be hard, and scary, and you feel like you don’t really know what to expect. In the past, I’ve had varied successes with quitting sugar through doing a three-week sugar detox process. Some have been wildly successful, with great weight loss and better skin and mood, and others, well… I fell off the wagon a few days in. The ones that have been more successful are the ones that incorporated the following tips! Learn from my failures, and know that these are the things that will make quitting sugar easier for you!