Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (44 page)

Fresh and organic seasonings are best, but dried herbs are fine, too. My staples are pretty simple: Celtic or Himalayan sea salt, Herbamare (sea salt and herbs), dulse flakes, wheat-free tamari, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, ginger powder, garlic powder, basil, parsley, cilantro, mint, dill, rosemary, thyme, black pepper, curry, turmeric, cinnamon, cayenne, mustard seeds, and wasabi. Spice Hunter (spicehunter.com) makes fun blends. My favorite is a peppy, salt-free mixture called Zip. Pumpkin spice and apple pie seasoning, vanilla bean, or alcohol-free vanilla extract are great to add to smoothies.

FERMENTED FOODS

Naturally fermented foods such as raw (vinegarfree) sauerkraut and kimchi are high in good bacteria; they’re also a good source of B vitamins. They must be raw, however. Pasteurization kills life (good and bad), destroys enzymes, and reduces the nutrient content. Another reason a plant-based diet loaded with complex carbs and raw fruits and veggies is so great for you is that their fibers act as prebiotics. Prebiotics are the food your probiotic bacteria dine on. This nourishment makes them strong and healthy, allowing them to multiply and keep their king-of-the-roost status in your colon. Valuable fermented foods include Bragg’s organic unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, tempeh, raw sauerkraut, and unpasteurized white miso (awesome in dressings, spreads, and soup). Nutritional yeast gives dishes a cheesy flavor—it’s a lovely substitute for Parmesan. Nutritional yeast is the only form of yeast that I use in cooking and prepping. It’s not the same as the yeast used to make bread and shouldn’t be a problem if you’re dealing with candida.

SEAWEED

Seaweed is loaded with minerals and flavor. I especially love to make raw or cooked nori rolls, a mouthwatering mineral delight. Here’s another great tip: Plop leftover veggies and grains on a nori sheet, wrap, and zoom. Popular seaweeds include dulse (great on top of salads), arame, hijiki, and wakame (add this one to miso soup).

DRINKS

My favorite replacements for soda, sugary pasteurized juices, coffee, and other drinks are purified water with lemon, herbal teas, green tea, white tea, yerba maté, kukicha, chai, kombucha, and coconut water. Fruit water is also delicious. Toss purified water and one piece of fruit with a dash of stevia in your blender. Blend and strain. Add ice. Yum! My favorite is strawberry with a mint sprig (sometimes I add a splash of sake—shhh, it’s our secret!).

You’ll be amazed
at all the great snack foods you can eat on the Crazy Sexy Diet. Stuff like brown rice cakes, flax crackers, fresh salsa (made with lemon or lime juice), hummus, guacamole, Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips, oil-cured olives, and air-popped popcorn are all easy to find in the supermarket or make yourself. For emergency snacking and last-minute meals, I like organic veggie burritos and cheese-free pizzas from Amy’s Kitchen (amyskitchen.com). Chocolate bars, anyone? Dagoba (dagobachocolate.com) and Green & Black’s (greenandblacks.com) are two high-quality, affordable, and tasty brands. Carob is also a terrific choice, especially because it doesn’t contain any caffeine. Goldie’s Carob Bars (goldies carobbars-ny.com) are my personal favorite. How about something creamy and dreamy like ice cream? Check out Turtle Mountain (turtlemountain.com) Purely Decadent coconut milk ice cream and Luna and Larry’s (
www.coconutbliss.com
) organic coconut bliss ice cream. They’re so good I could roar!

Once you start exploring raw foods, you’ll run across some really tasty raw snacks. For a good variety of fun raw food products, check out Lydia’s Organics, Foods Alive crackers, Lärabars, Just Tomatoes dehydrated veggies, and Ruth’s Hemp Foods (they make a great chia cereal, too). Products from Glaser Organic Farms are out of this world. I love their chickpea carrot croquettes and raw brownies. UliMana raw chocolate truffles (OMG!), Kookie Karma’s yummy raw cookies, and delish raw nut-based ice cream made by my pals at Organic Nectars are all a must!

Every woman I know
needs serious fat rehab. Fat is not the enemy, ladies (and gents). Sexy people eat healthy fats! The low-fat, fat-free craze made us rounder and turned fats into the Freddy Krueger of foods. Dump that nonsense and replace it with the mantra: Nothing tastes as good as healthy! And in order to be healthy, your sizzling body needs a moderate amount of good fats. (Just don’t go overboard.) Got it? Fantastic!

Good fats assist in the absorption and transport of vitamins. They increase your metabolism and can actually help us lose weight in the process! Good fats are necessary for a strong immune system, hormone production, strengthening cell walls, joint lubrication, organ protection, a healthy nervous system, and proper brain function. In fact, it’s hard to be a smarty-pants without good fats. A highfunctioning happy brain is partly a result of the quantity and quality of fat you eat.

Bad fats—saturated and partially hydrogenated or trans fats—are the hip and health busters. If you’d prefer to avoid clogged arteries and cottage cheese thighs, then stay away from bad fats, fried fats, and fake fats.

Read the label on a package of just about any processed food, even frozen pizza, and you’ll see something called partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Vegetable oil—that’s good, right? Not when it’s been heavily processed under high heat and pressure to make it partially hydrogenated, which is just another way of saying it’s been turned into trans fats.

When trans fats are manufactured, the fat molecules become distorted into shapes your body can’t even recognize as food. These nasty molecules create inflammation, cardiovascular harm, liver, kidney, and bowel stagnation, and an accelerated aging process. In short: Trans fats are a bitch. They’re so ugly that in 2006 New York City banned the use of trans fats in restaurants. Since then, many food manufacturers and restaurant chains have followed suit. Join them. Stay away from margarine and shortening (aka trans fats), commercial cooking sprays, and other heavily processed vegetable oils such as corn, canola, and peanut oil. They all wreak havoc on your system.

Be Italian! Match up organic cold-pressed extravirgin olive oil with your veggies and let them make love. Flaxseed oil, hemp seed oil, walnut oil, and Udo’s Choice (a blend of healthy oils) are sexy sweethearts, too. They’re loaded with healthy omega-3 fatty acids—important for memory, reducing inflammation, and lots of other good stuff. More great salad oils include macadamia nut oil and avocado oil.