YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: End-of-Vacation Salad

This recipe reminds me of a tiny little funky restaurant that I once stopped in on my way home from southern Florida, headed home to the Great Lakes.

It was so refreshing and delicious to feel the different textures and flavors of this inspired salad in my mouth after having taken the trouble to uncurl myself from the back of an SUV where I’d sat, folded and crumpled, in a tiny little corner under an ever-shifting pile of boxes, suitcases and children, all of us trying hard not to think about the fact that we had come to the end of a long and happy vacation.

We had been driving all day. Maybe we were in Tennessee, or it might have been West Virginia. A college town clearly on break. It was almost sundown and the streets were mostly empty. Continue reading


Take Back Your Sugar Bowl

Did you know that most sodas are sweetened with a teaspoon of sugar per ounce? That means the average 12-oz. can of soda (pop) contains the equivalent of 12 teaspoons of sugar. Excessive, to say the least.

Would you ever consider adding 12 teaspoons of sugar to your glass of iced tea? It seems absurd when asked this way, but people do it all the time when they choose a can of soda. So what’s the issue? We’re talking here about the crazy amounts of hidden sugar in processed items.

To me, it’s not necessarily the amount of sugar that people add themselves to the foods they eat, but rather the amount of sugar consumed inadvertently when eating something prepared by someone else, in this case something else, that something being the soft drink arm of the beverage industry. It appears that your sugar bowl has gotten into somebody else’s hands. Continue reading


Local Beekeeper Has Honey 4 You!

My friend, Amalia Haas, is an organic beekeeper who works at the intersection of sustainability, health, beekeeping and Judaism. Learn more about her work as an educator, entrepreneur and environmental activist here at MommyBlogExpert.

And click on this link to see an astonishingly inspiring video of a recent honey bee colony rescue in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

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A Novel Approach to Epic-Sized Portions

Most of us keep a budget of some kind; limits keep us on track. It may be tight and to the penny, or it may be simply a rough idea of what’s available. Whether you are used to flying commercial or private, eating off paper plates or porcelain, keeping your accounts flush and staying within a budget helps to avert disaster and to achieve long-term goals for yourself and your family. Continue reading