ANZAC Cookies - Healthy ones of course!

ANZAC day is coming up fast so its time to start thinking about getting your ingredients together for your ANZAC cookies.

These cookies are a hit in my house, really easy to make and totally delicious!

You will need:

• 1 cup almond meal
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• ½ cup coconut sugar
• ¼ cup coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons raw honey
• ½ teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1 tablespoon water

Method:

1. Combine almond meal, coconut, sugar and oats in a bowl.
2. In a small saucepan slowly heat and stir the oil and honey until melted.
3. Mix the bicarb soda and water in a small bowl, remove saucepan from heat and add the bicarb mixture to the saucepan. The mix will froth.
4. Pour the liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients and combine well.
5. I rolled mine into 20 cookies but could’ve made 2-3 more if my partner hadn’t been hovering around eating the raw mix!
6. Place on a cookie tray or baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake on 150 degrees C for 13-15 minutes or until golden.
7. Allow to cool

About the ingredients:

I've used Almond meal instead of flour to make these cookies a great wheat free option (please note they are not gluten-free due to the oats). It also makes them a fairly good protein snack - Yay!

Coconut oil is used instead of butter as it is high in medium chain fatty acids and will not raise blood cholesterol. In fact, it is good for heart health.

Coconut sugar has twice the iron, four times the magnesium and over ten times the zinc of brown sugar. It’s a great low GI alternative to cane sugar.

Honey is used instead of golden syrup. Golden syrup is made in the process of refining sugar cane juice into sugar, or by treatment of a sugar solution with acid. Honey is made by bees so is naturally a better choice and is full of antioxidants. I've used raw honey as its even more antibacterial and healthful!

These cookies are such a great Low GI, healthy oil, protein-full snack and they are very difficult to stop eating! Enjoy them on ANZAC day or any time of year!

Is your work place making you fat?

A friend emailed me this week telling me that this was happening to her. She said that she felt like people in her office were always pushing food on her like team lunches, birthday cakes etc. And that when she declines she feels like people are judging her when they say “Ohh you’re so good”.

It seems that this is a pretty common problem. You go to work and your colleagues are eating biscuits (the work place biscuit jar is a temptation I often hear about), drinking soft drink, having fast food lunches and trying to take you along for the ride. Well it’s time for it to stop! And I’m going to help you.

This is not just for people who are trying to lose weight or maintain their weight loss. This is for people who want to be healthy and nourish their bodies with high quality fuel that makes them feel vital and alive instead of filling it with rubbish that makes them feel tired and flat. But, it’s important to do this in a way that doesn’t make you the office outcast or make you feel deprived.

Here are some of my tips to help you along the way:

1. Educate yourself. If you know why you want to eat good food it makes eating good food a lot easier. Do some research into what goes into junk food and then read up on the health benefits of natural food. A good place to start are the DVD’s called Food Matters or Hungry for Change these movies will help to cement what food is all about. It’s meant to be our fuel but we’re generally guilty of using really poor quality fuel instead of what our bodies really need and want.

2. Accept that just because you are now enlightened and have a pretty good understanding of the evils of junk food, not everyone cares or is ready to change their eating habits. If you want to keep friends at work, don’t try and push your new habits on them. If they enquire or show interest then YES definitely tell them what you know and help them to achieve better health. But if they’re not interested, don’t waste your time. You’ll just end up feeling frustrated and disappointed.

3. Be prepared. This is such an important part of maintaining a healthy diet. If you prepare your lunch and snacks and take them to work with you then you will have everything you need to eat for the day and it is easy to eat well. If you get to work with no packed lunch then you will most likely forget to have your morning snack, feel hungry and tired by lunch time and reach for a ‘convenience’ food because your brain is too starved of nutrients to be able to clearly think of something nourishing to eat. Make yourself a nut and seed mix for morning snack or useharvest box and have a different mix delivered every week. Make salads the night before and put your dressing in a separate container so you don’t have to endure a soggy salad. And if you want a treat in the afternoon make a cake/biscuit/slice at home so that you can eat something that is preservative, additive and nasty free. There are a lot of yummy recipes available online.

4. If there is a work lunch or morning tea where everyone brings a plate bring something that is healthy but doesn’t look it. Like a raw cacao chocolate slice, or a beetroot chocolate cake or homemade hommous with MSG free rice crackers and vegetable sticks. Healthy doesn’t have to be boring and you don’t have to miss out.

5. Remember that people will always try to sabotage you but you don’t have to sabotage yourself. Like my friend who said that “ohh you’re so good” sounds like judgement to her rather than a true compliment. This is not your green light to stuff a cheese burger down your throat. If you have followed step one and educated yourself then hopefully you’ll be able to think ‘Yes, I am good’ and you’ll hear your body saying “THANK YOU!”