This week is exciting.
It's one of my favorite holidays, the Truvani Black Friday sale starts tomorrow and I get to cook with my family all week long!
Back in the day, when Thanksgiving rolled around I’d pick up these products at the last minute: Stove Top stuffing, boxed potatoes, and canned cranberry sauce. Boy, how things have changed! I never buy these products today and here’s why…
Kraft’s Stove Top Stuffing isn’t worth the convenience because it’s made with ingredients that can be detrimental to your health, like Interesterified Soybean Oil that has been shown to promote weight gain, impair glucose tolerance and increase liver cellular stress markers in the body. It’s also preserved with BHT and BHA, which are both linked to cancer.
Hungry Jack Boxed Potatoes are preserved with BHA linked to cancer - and are also made with conventional potatoes. Potatoes are known to be one of the most Pesticide-Contaminated Crops in the U.S. with up to 35 different pesticides, which are known carcinogens, suspected hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, or reproductive toxins. It’s much safer to buy organic potatoes and mash them yourself with grass-fed butter.
Canned cranberry sauce contains a TON of sugar in the form of High Fructose Corn Syrup and more Corn Syrup. This is the worst sugar you can eat as it’s heavily processed from GMO corn and contributes more to obesity than just plain sugar. It also might contain BPA - which is linked to birth defects, cancers, and neurological disorders. It’s added to the can liner, but not found on the label.
Serving my loved ones dishes full of processed ingredients like this feels like saying: “I give thanks to you – here’s to having a shorter disease filled life!”
Although the holidays are a busy time, it’s well worth my time to make dishes from scratch with simple recipes that allow me to control the ingredients that I’m putting into my own body and also feeding my family.
It doesn’t take a chef to make Thanksgiving staples from scratch, you just need to have the right ingredients and you are good to go.
Here's a round-up of my family’s favorite Thanksgiving recipes:
Sweet Potato Casserole: Almost like dessert (but healthy!)
Cornbread Stuffing: Vegan, organic, and absolutely delicious.
Stove Top Stuffing: Frees up your oven for other dishes like the turkey and sweet potatoes.
Spaghetti Squash Casserole: Incredible creamy and savory side dish.
Raw Stuffing: The crunch of the pecans and savory cauliflower, celery, onions and carrots is just dynamite!
Cranberry Sauce: Sweetened with fresh squeezed orange juice and honey.
Pumpkin Pie With Coconut Whipped Cream: Without refined sugar!
These recipes are a major hit with my family – thank goodness for that! I hope you enjoy them as much as we all do.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones. I’m so thankful that you’re part of the Food Babe Army!
Xo,
Vani
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