Victoria Day BBQ Recipes

Victoria Day BBQ Recipes

It’s that time of year! Summer Barbecue season is here and it’s time to fire up the grill!! But with so many choices of what to cook, it’s easy to get stuck in a hot dogs and hamburgers rut that don’t offer many nutrients.

Here are some taste-bud blowing recipes that will make your mouth water, but are also packed with nutrients to fuel your body for summer fun!

Zucchini halves stuffed with minced meat and vegetable

Zucchini Boats

Find the largest zucchinis that you can. Slice longways down the middle and scoop out the largest seeds.

Cook hamburger meat in skillet.

Cook onions, garlic, peppers and mushrooms in another skillet and add 2 handfuls of spinach when it’s almost done cooking. Add hamburger meat to skillet once it is cooked and mix together.

Fill zucchini boats with mixture and barbecue until the zucchinis are softened. Top with your favourite herbs and spices.

Chicken Kabobs

Chicken Kabobs

Slice free range, organic (if possible) chicken breast into chunks fit for a kabob skewer. Keep them fairly small so they don’t take a lot longer to cook than the vegetables also on the grill. Slide the chunks onto the skewer and sprinkle with pepper.

To other skewers, add a mixture of fresh mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, chunks of pepper, celery, zucchini, onion and pineapple. Add a very light brushing of extra virgin olive oil before they go on the grill to help them get a bit crispy.

(I like to keep the meat and veggie skewers separate due to raw meat juice contamination, and they tend to cook at different speeds).

Grill and Enjoy!

Grilled Corn on the Cob

Grilled Corn on the Cob

There are two ways to do this, so experiment and see what you like best…

#1 – Grill with the husk on – just throw it on the barbecue and turn it often. The result is more of a steamed corn and just a little grilled-ness. Should be cooked in 10-15 minutes, or when you feel that a knife easily pierces the kernels.

#2 – Husk the Corn and then grill it. This creates a much more grilled effect, where the kernels become darkened and absorb more of the grilled flavour. Turn them often, and they are cooked in about 10 minutes.

You can drizzle with a little bit of garlic butter and salt for added flavour. Or lime and hot sauce. Or your favourite topping!

Refreshing LemonadeRefreshing Lemonade

Grab your high speed blender and fill with 1 L of water.

Cut the rind off of a lemon, leaving the white pith. Put the whole lemon into the blender and blend until smooth.

Strain the lemon-water mixture with tiny mesh strainer into a pitcher. This will catch the small pieces of seeds, etc that didn’t break down in the blender.

You don’t need to add anything to sweeten it, it is not sour, just pure flavour! Serve over ice and enjoy! 

What is a Meal Replacement Shake and Why are they Pushed on the Elderly?

What is a Meal Replacement Shake?

You’ve seen them advertised on tv. Boost. Ensure. Those meal replacements in a bottle, with elderly ladies jumping on a trampoline or elderly men finishing what looks to have been a marathon, who are just overjoyed with happiness, radiant health and physical activity.

Cut to…. having these shakes be recommended by doctors for patients who are suffering the effects of chemotherapy, and are not hungry due to the poisons being pumped into them, who have no energy to exist, due to the poisons being pumped into them (a topic explored in another blog here!), or for those people living in a nursing home who maybe struggle to eat properly due to denture issues, decreased appetite or various other health issues.

First of all, what is in those meal replacement shakes? Can it even be called food?

It is definitely not food. It is a chemical concoction of food-like substances created in the lab with a whole lot of sugar added to it. They are marketed (very well) to medical doctors, nurses and health aids to recommend to their patients, but it seems the ingredient list is lost in translation.

Here, we break it down. Can you even recognize any of these ingredients as real food?

Ensure Plus® Milk Chocolate

Water, Corn Maltodextrin, Sugar, Blend of Vegetable Oils (Canola, Corn), Milk Protein Concentrate, Soy Protein Isolate, Cocoa Powder (Processed with Alkali).

Less than 0.5% of: Nonfat Milk, Magnesium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate, Soy Lecithin, Natural & Artificial Flavor, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Cellulose Gum, Potassium Citrate, Choline Chloride, Ascorbic Acid, Cellulose Gel, Carrageenan, Salt, Ferric Phosphate, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Zinc Sulfate, Niacinamide, Manganese Sulfate, Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Sulfate, Thiamine Chloride Hydrochloride, Vitamin A Palmitate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Biotin, Chromium Chloride, Sodium Molybdate, Sodium Selenate, Potassium Iodide, Vitamin B12, Phylloquinone, and Vitamin D3.

There are 22 grams of processed sugar in one 250mL bottle.
Processed sugar FEEDS cancer cells. Yet they are highly recommended to everyone who has chosen to take chemotherapy because they HAVE CANCER. Too much sugar can also destabilize blood sugar, lead to sugar spikes and crashes and cause moodiness.

There is also less than 1 gram of fibre in the entire bottle, which is an essential piece of our nutritional needs. It helps to move things through the digestive system and sweeps up toxins as it goes.

The canola or corn oil are both extremely inflammatory compounds and cause a great deal of havoc in the body.

All of the vitamins and minerals that are in the bottle are synthetic, and your body really has no idea what to do with them. Your body likes natural vitamins and minerals from real food, as they are synergistically available to work together in the body. There are many vitamins/minerals that need others to be fully utilized by the body, and Mother Nature provides this for us in REAL FOOD.

There are many artificial ingredients in this bottle which help to create flavour, thickness,  colour and preservatives to let it sit on the shelf for months. All of which cause a host of inflammatory responses in the body.

What should you eat instead?

For people who are suffering ill effects from chemotherapy, or have decreased appetites, or anyone who needs to eat when they may not feel like it, a simple smoothie is the best recommendation.

For example, you could blend up a bit of frozen banana and strawberries with almond milk and that would be a perfectly healing meal (that needs no replacement!)

Or raspberries, blueberries and peaches.

Or strawberries, kiwi and natural peanut butter.

It does not matter what the combination is, as long as the person enjoys the ingredients. There is a much higher chance of them drinking something fruity and palatable than blended green vegetables to start. Meet them where they are at, and if it is a plant based, whole food – throw it in that blender and I really hope they enjoy it!

With Sources from:

https://ensure.com/nutrition-products/ensure-plus#milk-chocolate
https://draxe.com/meal-replacement-shakes/

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