It’s the late afternoon and like clockwork, I start to get the need for a pick-me-up. This is the time when you need to be prepared.  If you’re not, you’ll find yourself reaching for that coffee or sugar-laden plastic-wrapped snack. Before you do, try to think about how glorious your skin will feel in a week’s time when you’ve managed to cut out sugar and refined foods…

Why Are Alkaline Bodies Healthier?

Up until this point, we haven’t chatted much about the importance of the body being in an alkaline state, but for both health and natural beauty reasons it is important to know (at least a little bit).  When we are trying to ward off aging and weight gain, keeping your body in a slightly alkaline pH is next to essential. How do we do it? Mainly through the foods we eat. Every food leaves in us a residue that is either Alkaline or Acidic. This, however, doesn’t relate to the taste of the food. For example, a lemon is seen to be acidic in taste, but it leaves an alkaline residue in our bodies, while dairy foods actually leave an acidic residue in our bodies.

So you might be wondering why is an acidic pH in our bodies bad? The Western diet is packed with acid-forming foods (dairy, animal protein, refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol, antibiotics etc.) so while we stock up on things that we think are healthy (for example lean animal protein or yogurt) we actually create an acidic-crisis in our body. To help neutralize the pH, our bodies leach out alkaline minerals from other tissues (think calcium from our bones as well as potassium and magnesium). So in some ways, eating dairy to get your calcium may actually be giving you some very undesirable results.

Why is Acidity in the Body Bad?

Having an acidic body relates to our health and beauty in a great many ways. For starters, acidity promotes aging, creates bloating, water-retention and tissue degeneration as well as inflammation and even worse…it leaves the body susceptible to disease (nothing pretty about that).  This is not to say that all acidic foods are bad, but we need to make sure we are eating within the 80-20 Ratio (80% Alkaline forming, 20% Acid forming). For a cheat sheet on what foods are in which category, check out the pH Diet Food Chart.

It’s not so difficult to keep things nice and alkaline in there – focus on eating loads of greens, other veggies, ripe fruits and sprouts. Start your day with a glass water with half the juice of a lemon, before anything else goes in your belly. This has a natural cleansing effect. When eating your acid-forming foods try to stick to things such as raw nuts, healthy starches (brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat etc.) and other non-animal protein sources as much as possible.

Easy Alkaline Snack Recipes

So, now that that’s out of the way, I want to give you some great snack recipes that are easy and quick and help contribute to keeping you on track to reaching your health and beauty goals naturally (and ward off the 3 o’clock slump).

Chia Seed Pudding – Sweet Fix

This one is quick and easy – literally preparing takes 30 seconds.

• Pour 1/4 cup of Organic Chia Sweeds into a Bowl
• Pour 1 cup of unsweetened organic almond milk on top
• Sprinkle 1/2 packet of Stevia (or 3 drops of liquid Stevia)
• Stir it up and let it sit for 10 minutes while the seeds expand into a pudding texture
• Enjoy!

Veggie Sticks with Quick & Easy Tahini – Salty Fix

Cut up your favorite veggies into sticks and then mix in a small bowl:

• 2 tbs of Raw organic tahini
• 1 squirt of Braggs Liquid Aminos
• 1 tsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Pinch of chilli powder
• Dip and enjoy

Kale Chips – Savoury Fix

• Wash and rip the leaves off of 5 organic kale stems
• Dry leaves and put in bowl
• Drizzle 1/2 tbs of coconut oil and some ground sea salt to taste (add other spices or nutritional yeast)
• Mix in bowl with hands so that all the kale is covered
• Place in roasting tin at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes (do not burn!)
• Cool & munch

Preparing snacks the day before or in the mornings is best, but if you’re in a real bind grab some raw nuts, a piece of fruit or a herbal tea and sweeten with stevia.

Happy snacking beauties!

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K