OK – this is a girly post. It’s about hair. :) As the temperature continues to increase, I’ve been needing to pull my hair up more and more. But I wanted something different than a regular pony tail. Here is a pretty and feminine hair style that I recently learned how to do. It’s a quick, easy, and cute messy bun. This style works best for medium (shoulder-length) or longer hair.

I love the “messy look”, but it’s harder for me because I have very straight hair. It’s easier to make starting with wet hair, but you can do make a messy bun with dry hair, too – just skip ahead to step 2. Here’s how to do it:

(1) If you have straight or wavy hair, scrunch a bit of curling gel into your wet hair. Blow dry your hair until it’s only damp.

(2) Gather your hair into a high pony tail, and start to tie off with a hair band, but don’t pull it all the way through. Leave it as a loop.

(3) Now here’s the fun part. “Mess” the loop of hair around the center into a bun. While holding the bun with one hand, insert bobby pins all around it.

Just mess around with it until it suits your taste. I’ve found it helpful to gently tug on the hair-bun to give it a fuller look. You may need a whole lot of bobby pins, or you might only need a few, depending on the thickness of your hair (I have thicker hair, so I use more).

This is a very fun style. Be creative! Adding a headband or a few flowers looks very feminine. You can pull a few strands out for a softer look.  After you’ve styled it to your taste, spray it with a bit with some hairspray to hold. This should last you all day, provided that you used enough bobby pins! :)

What about you girlies? What are your favorite summer hairstyles? I hope you all are having a great summer!

I am always on the hunt for a good chocolate chip cookie recipe. I have tried many recipes, and some of them turn out well, but only because they are made with white flour and lots of butter and sugar. When I switched gears and made whole wheat cookies with little or no sugar and some olive oil in place of butter, the results were often as flat as a pancake and not very tasty.

But then I tried this recipe made with 100% whole wheat flour, some sugar, stevia, and coconut oil. I was very pleased with how the cookies turned out. They puff up and are big, thick, and soft. They’re just what good ol’ chocolate chip cookies should be! :) I’ve found that using cold flour (verses warm, freshly ground flour) improves the texture quite a bit. We store our flour in the freezer, so it’s the perfect temperature.

Ingredients:

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup coconut oil, softened (make sure you don’t melt the coconut oil, just heat it for a few seconds so that it’s not too hard)
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon powdered stevia (optional, this just makes a sweeter cookie)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the coconut oil and sugars fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well. Beat in vanilla. Beat this mixture for 2-3 minutes, or until it is very light. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix just until incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Roll into large balls (about 2 Tablespoons) and arrange onto a baking sheet. Bake for about 9-10 minutes, or until the edges are just golden brown. Cool on a wire rack, and enjoy! This recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Thinking Beyond The Wrapper

And finally, we have come to our last topic of discussion, which is that of artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are cheap, many times sweeter than sugar, and contain zero calories! This sounds great, doesn’t it? It is not that simple. Probably the most common artificial sweetener is aspartame, also known as Equal, Spoonful, and NutraSweet.

Aspartame is another man-made substance (see a pattern here?) made of three chemicals: aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. It’s effects on the body are shockingly dangerous. Aspartic kills neurons in the brain, despite the protective blood brain barrier we have to shield our brain from harmful substances. Long-term exposure of the brain to this toxin can lead to migraines, memory and hearing loss, and vision problems, to name a few (Mercola).

Phenylalanine, which makes up 50% of aspartame, can also have negative effects on the brain. When aspartame is consumed, it raises the level of this phenylalanine in the blood, decreasing the amount of seratonin in the brain, which leads to emotional disorders, abnormal brain functions, and brain damage (Mercola).

And finally, methanol (which makes up 10% of aspartame) is, in fact, a deadly toxin to the body, and is certainly not fit to be ingested. An EPA assessment of methanol states that “methanol is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic.” Formaldehyde is a toxin which causes cancer, birth defects, among other diseases (Mercola).

The scary thing to consider is the sheer quantity of this toxic stuff (artificial sweeteners) that people consume on a daily basis. The EPA advised a limit of 7.8 mg of methanol each day. Only one liter (about four cups) of an aspartame-sweetened beverage contained a blistering 56 mg of methanol. So heavy diet-soda drinkers could very well exceed the limit by as many as 32 times, consuming an incredible 250 mg of methanol each day! The consequences wrought on the body are just unthinkable. Aspartame is only one classic example of the many types of artificial sweeteners which are consumed on a daily basis (Mercola). Is it truly worth it to drink a diet soda only to save a few calories? We are so tricked today in our culture, thinking that “zero calorie” or “low calorie” foods are healthier. Indeed, it is often completely the opposite!

You may have noticed that most of the chemicals covered today were carcinogenic (cancer-causing). Why is this such a noticeable trend? Because what cancer really is is the body’s attempt to “corral” all the toxins and poisons that it’s exposed to. Many times, toxic chemicals are found inside tumors. The body is simply trying to keep all of this toxic junk out of the bloodstream. This results in cancer. Remember the 3,000 “additives” mentioned at the beginning of this paper? Those 3,000 additives are one of the main causes of cancer today (Evans).

Even though these chemicals may be consumed in small quantities, add them up over a period of several years, and the effects could be and frequently are disease and death. And remember, we have covered only a few of the thousands of of toxic chemicals which most people consume on a daily basis.

Our bodies are simply not designed to handle chemicals. As the rate of cancer and other diseases continue to increase, we pay dearly for eating processed foods. Disease will not occur the second we eat a processed food, but over time, the chemicals that have constantly bombarded the body will run their course, bringing tragic consequences.

Most of the processed food offered to us in the grocery store has been stripped of its nutrition, colored, artificially sweetened, and contains artery-clogging fats. It is no longer nourishment to our bodies. It is a man-made substance which tastes good (sometimes!), is very convenient, and comes in attractive little packages. Considering all, one should come to the conclusion that it is just not worthputting processed foods into our bodies. They were not designed to deal with chemicals like these, and never will be. The body was made to handle food in its natural state. What a difference it would make if people started to consider more of what they’re using to fuel their bodies and began to “think beyond the wrapper”!

Do you remember the Twinkies mentioned at the beginning of this paper? It turns out that Twinkies contain coloring, preservatives, trans fats, and artificial sweeteners: everything that was covered in this paper! And not only Twinkies, but most other processed foods contain several, if not all, of the chemicals covered today. So now, as you stand educated about the truth of processed foods, please consider this question once again: would you rather eat a Twinkie or an apple?

(Dr.) Mercola. “Aspartame is, by far, the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to foods.” Mercola.com. 2011. Web. Accessed 16 Apr. 2012 from <http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/06/aspartame-most-dangerous- substance-added-to-food.aspx>

Evans, Kim. “ Take a Look at the Chemicals in Processed Foods.” NaturalNews.com.2010. Web.  Accessed 6 Apr. 2012 from <http://www.naturalnews.com/027969_processed_foods_chemicals.html>

***So thus concludes the series on “Thinking Beyond The Wrapper”. I hope you enjoyed it, and learned a thing or two about processed foods. I certainly did, and I would not have spent nearly the amount of time researching this if it hadn’t been a school assignment! :)

Have a wonderful Saturday!