Superfood Blackcurrant Smoothie Bowls

Talented family all around! Forget Acai bowls, this morning mama and I had delicious and absolutely nutritious superfood ViBERi (my auntie and uncle’s business) smoothies in cosy and beautiful Miami Valley Pottery (Soroosh’s cousin’s business) bowls xx
Superfood Blackcurrant Smoothie Bowls
Serves two 

2 frozen bananas (using frozen bananas gives them a delicious ice-cream consistency)
3/4 cup milk of choice (I used unsweetened almond milk)
1/4 unsweetened yoghurt of choice (I used coconut yoghurt)
2 heaped tsp ViBERi freeze-dried blackcurrant powder

Whizz together in a high-powered blender (might take a bit of patience if using frozen bananas) then top with favourites (I used Ceres Organics Paleo Breakfast Mix) xx

“Write It On Your Heart…

…that every day is the best day in the year.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)



“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” (John Wesley)

“May I share with you a formula that in my judgment will help you and help me to journey well through mortality… First, fill your mind with truth; second, fill your life with service; and third, fill your heart with love.” (Thomas S. Monson)


“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)


“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” (John Wooden)

Make A List

If you haven’t heard of Dallas Clayton, you’re missing out (big time!) so please check him out here right NOW!

Welcome back! Isn’t he an unfairly talented guy? To me, he is a huge inspiration. I only wish to inspire like he does. Last night, when I was pondering my new found smile, I came across Clayton’s latest work of art:

How could I have missed something so simple? I mean, I was trying my best to live a good life, the countryside was so beautiful. I’d started new hobbies including cycling and yoga and made unexpected friends like this ojichan (old man) and yasu. But that didn’t mean I was actively engaging in activities I knew I loved. I know this sounds vain, I really do, but in this city, I am happy because I am filling my day with activities I know that I like. I am exercising (not sitting on my bottom for 8 hours straight in a suffocating room), walking walking walking (not driving for one hour to get groceries, alone), eating healthy, dressing pretty, writing in artsy cafes, appreciating diversity, purchasing freshly-made green smoothies and enjoying the odd glance from a boy. My new life makes me feel alive and it makes me feel young!

So how about you? What makes you happy? Painting? Drawing? The ocean? Cooking? Dining out? Road-trips? Building Lego? Dancing to the Beatles? Collecting fruit-stamps, watching old movies?

Are you doing it? Could you be doing it more?

The World Needs More Of You In It

During my year and a bit here, it has been extremely difficult to pursue my passion for healthy eating when the notion of healthy food is so scarce in the Japanese countryside. However, I have preserved. Through “bird” and “rabbit” nicknames from my colleagues for eating nuts, seeds and raw vegetables. Through lack of brown bread. And through unbelievably dare fruit prices. Often, I have made my friends and colleagues healthy cakes explaining that they’re free of gluten, dairy and sugar only to be looked at with wide eyes and responded to by: “but why?! are you on a diet?” Don’t worry I’m not blaming them, I mean, it’s not like I myself came out of my mother’s womb screaming: “quinoa”!

So, as hard as it has been, I have stuck to doing what I love. It has’t been easy and I haven’t had access to the majority of things (both ingredients and cooking materials) that I had back at home but, I have not given up.

Kate Borstein says, “Your life’s work beings when your great joy meets the world’s great hunger.” Taking that literally, my great passion does exactly that. Am I right? (Haha) but really, I know healthy food/mindfulness isn’t the answer to Trump, poverty, terrorism and homophobia but it is still something. My little something to the world.

I would like to think I have had many successes here, in changing attitudes to food (and other) but here are three recent examples of them. First, a picture sent by my neighbour who made the same vegan eggplant and tomato spaghetti that I made her, for her daughter. Next, my friend’s smoothie-bowl attempt after eating two or three in my kitchen. Last but not least, do you remember the burger place in Tottori I posted? Well, I added the chef on Facebook (because I’m creepy like that) and begged the poor dude to make me a vegan burger. Being Japan where customer service is beyond immaculate, he dutifully delivered. The patty was delicious, a little too wide and a little too flat but it was his first try and he promises to work on it.

 

Making Japanese Poop One Smoothie Bowl At A Time

Anisa sensei, English sensei by day, nutrition sensei by night, fighting (most-likely induced by over consumption of white rice) constipation (sorry) one green smoothie at a time. Different women, same bowel movements.

Food Presentation And Why I Do It

Ever wonder why there’s food in my flowers? Sorry I mean flowers in my food? Dear reader/random passerby, wonder no more. Read about it on my new Savvy Tokyo article, HERE. Oh, and share it with your family and friends, and neighbors, and students, and pets, and keep me on their popular page.

Wholewheat organic bread from iyouwaie.

Summer Eaaats

Early summer in Japan is brilliant because the weather is dry and the mornings and evenings, cool. It’s mid summer when things go to shit and the insects come out and the weather enters humid hell. Anyways, believe it or not, I have started eating less and lighter and feeling as radiant as summer itself.

From top to bottom: granola (ft. Wild Friends almond butter and ViBERi freeze-dried blackcurrants), BBQ (a common Japanese summer event always ft. fireworks), the vegan nacho salad I made to take to it (the BBQ – with chia-seed chips), more granola this time with passion-fruit (if only you could have shared my excitement when I found the thing in a Japanese supermarket!), wholewheat pasta salad with cherry tomatoes and blue cheese stuffed olives alongside mix seed crackers from The Breadman Organic Bakery all the way from Christchurch (NZ), a simple kidney bean, cougette, cucumber and chickpea salad dressed only in lemon juice with a side of my zucchini banana cake, pay-day treats, vegan black rice sushi and last but not least, today’s bento: asian-style salad of carrot, cucumber, capsicum (red and yellow), peanuts and black sesame seeds dressed with a little soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil next to a humble free-range boiled egg and two purely-decorative flowers which have no reason to be there.

Picture Diary

Love is what comforts you, frees you up inside, makes you laugh. -Bell Hooks
Yes is the answer and you know that for sure. -John Lennon

Meaning is rooted in the willingness to continue, to hold dear that nothing you hold dear lasts, to let it be. -Stephen Jenkinson
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. -Rumi

The intellect is good but until it has become the servant of the heart, it is of little avail. ―Abdu’l-Bahá
You are terrifying and strange and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.
-Warsan Shire


Stay close to anything that makes you glad you’re alive. -Hafiz
Arrange whatever pieces come your way. – Virginia Woolf
Be who you were meant to be, and you will set the world on fire. -Catherine of Seina

Four Top Tips For Travelling Healthy

Eating healthy when travelling is hard, right? Wrong. You can travel healthy just like you can be healthy in any situation if you really want to. Here are my top four tips or my four top tips.

1. Scroggin.
Make a bag of scroggin or trail mix for snacking. To be honest, I always do this anyway not just for travelling. There’s always a bag of mixed raw nuts, seeds and natural dried fruit in my handbag for in case I get hungry.. or have a sweet craving. This way, there’s always something else for me to have in place of that naughty/unhealthy/excessively sugary thing. The important thing here is to make your own. Already mixed nuts, unless otherwise stated, usually have preservatives and additives like excess oil salt and/or sugar.

2. Request a special meal. 
You can do this when booking your ticket. Even if you’re a meat lover, just for this one trip, request a vegetarian or vegan meal. Why? Because special meals are ALWAYS ALWAYS better than what everyone else gets. They’re not mass produced and guaranteed to be fresh. Special, just for you! So I had this delicious stir-fry with broccoli, shiitake mushroom, corn, capsicum, peas, green beans and celery and a wholemeal seeded bun when the dude next to me had a gross looking “beef” curry with 2 pieces of carrot and a white bun. I also had “fancy” fruit when everyone else had “boring” apple and mandarin. And, I got my special meal first. For breakfast, I was given porridge, fancy fruit again and HOT wholemeal bread from a picnic basket (the same as the people in first class) whilst the lady next to me ate a watery looking pale yellow omelette, processed sausage and a white bun wrapped in plastic.

3. Request an isle seat
Yikes, you’re being such a difficult customer! Ha, but it’s ok. You can do this. It’s free to request! Worst-case, you don’t get it. Again, you can do this when you buy your ticket or else, at the check-in counter. So why an isle seat? Yes, you miss out on taking that iconic instagram shot of the airplane wing and watching the clouds turn romantic orange but you are free, FREE I say, to walk up and down and down and up and up and wherever. Especially after eating. You know t’s not good to eat and sit.

4. Hydrate like a mothetrucker. 
We all know the benefits of drinking water. Or if we don’t know, just take my word for it.There are a billion toilets in an airport and in an airplane. So take advantage, dink up, Hydrate.

Mindful Eating For Dummies

Are you constantly hangry? Are you constantly craving EVERYTHING?

STOP! Don’t exit. This is not some generic ad for an ab-machine.

What this is, is a few simple steps in winning this seemingly impossible hunger game we, the wealthy 21st century humans, all seem to be playing.


1. CHEW
Remember my post about the health benefits of smoothie bowls? The more we chew, the more our stomachs signal our brains that we’re full. Apparently, we’re supposed to chew our food 20-30 times before swallowing. I hear ya! Ain’t no body got time for that. Well, I ain’t got time to buy new jeans either.

2. USE A PLATE
Try to do this even when you’re feeling angry or upset. No doubt, you’re less likely to eat a whole packet of Oreos if you see them on a plate. This visual reality check will instantly show you that the portion is too big.

3. EAT AWAY FROM THE SCREEN
Checking the number of likes on your new profile picture can wait. Experts caution that eating meals or snacking while distracted by our cellphones and/or computers makes our food seem less satisfying. Dissatisfaction will most likely cause us to seek out more snacks later. This concept also applies to eating food “on the go”: driving/studying/etc/etc. So like, don’t eat a muesli bar with one hand and hold the steering wheel with the other. Instead, pull over and smell the roses. This means focusing on the taste, texture and aroma of each and every mouthful. Remember, we are among the very few privileged individuals of this day and age who actually have access to such an abundance of food. Which means we are seriously obliged to give our food time, energy and respect.

4. PRIORITISE SLEEP
Lack of sleep can mess with our moods, food cravings and even cause our skin to breakout. It does this by increasing our levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that causes inflammation and turns on our oil-producing glands. In addition, insufficient sleep causes hormonal changes that decrease our satiety after eating, lower the calories we burn during the day, and turn on obesity-promoting genes. BRB snoozing!

5. BEWARE OF OTHER HUMANS (A tad OTT, but true.)
Other people can hugely influence our food choices. When US researchers looked at groups of three people for the 2012 Friends Don’t Let Friends Eat Cookies study, they found that if two friends restricted their intake of biscuits, the third friend followed suit, NOT ONLY when with the group but also when alone! On the other hand, when two friends ate more biscuits, the third friend also tucked into more, and again, ate more when alone. In short, pick healthy friends. Or, be that healthy friend. Let’s do this together <3