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FEB 13, 2023

Top Healthy Recipes to Break Your Fast in Ramadan

In Ramadan, it is critical to drink plenty of water, eat a good blend of protein, carbohydrates, and essential fat. There are two meals in Ramadan: Suhoor (The pre-dawn meal) and Iftar (The meal to break the Fast). There are few things to keep in mind in order to have a healthy Ramadan.  1. Remember when breaking your fast, it's about rehydration. Consuming dates with water is a better way to recover than drinking water alone.  This is a key time for rehydration. The wisdom in Islam is never ending. We break our fast with dates and water but if you investigate this nutritionally, you will see that dates are very unique in their nutrient content. They contain very high levels of potassium (much more than a banana), a key re-hydration mineral and a special carbohydrate blend that enhances hydration above and beyond water alone.-Rehan Jalali  2. Have a high quality protein when breaking your fast and beginning your fast. Having high quality protein is the most single important thing you can do be healthy.  Every day your body must build and replace millions of cells—an impossible job without proteins. In Ramadan, your body is counting on you to eat the proteins it needs to maximize fitness, boost your immune system, sustain you while your are fasting. It's essential, it has to be high quality protein like collagen or whey protein. You should also eat some quality protein at iftar time as well.....Then 1-1.5 hours later have a food meal .-Rehan Jalali For Iftar and suhoor, a smart approach is to eat a meal that combines hydration and protein together like protein date balls or a collagen smoothie. The combination type foods will be a healthy way to avoid eating all those processed foods full of sodium and oils. Try a date whey protein smoothie, chocolate collagen smoothie, chia-seed colostrum smoothie, cinnamon collagen smoothies, banana date collagen smoothies, almond butter colostrum and whey protein.  Use any milk of your choice plant or dairy.  We recommend the following recipes.   Ramadan Recipe  1. Whey Protein Date Coconut Balls 2. Matcha Banana Collagen Smoothie 3. Cinnamon Roll Truffles (No Bake) 4. Savory Pancakes Made with Yellow Split Flour: So Delicious!  5. Panna Cotta Recipe where You Will Lick the Plate! 6. Easy Red Lentil Flour Pakoras (Fritters) 7. Bone Broth Shakshuka Recipe that is Bursting of Flavor 8.Healthy Acai Bowl with Collagen (9 Grams of Protein Per Serving!) 9. Green Eggs & Gruyere Cheese Breakfast Bits with Collagen! 10. Tiramisu Mousse With Collagen!   All the recipes are available in the recipe section of hearthy foods website.   

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JAN 25, 2023

The Dangers of Sugar, Stevia and Artificial Sweeteners- A Must Read

      If you have realized sugar is slowly destroying your body then you’ve come to the right place. Over half of Americans live with a chronic illness and forty percent suffer from obesity, primarily due to the overconsumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates. Hearthy Foods has many products to help you get off sugar and carbohydrates providing you with a day-by-day plan to wean your body off these addictive products and regain your health. These changes in your eating habits will kickstart your lifestyle journey to good health, instead of a life filled with disease and poor health. Stevia and Artificial Sweeteners Through the power of persuasive advertising and clever marketing, we’ve been sold on the idea that stevia is a natural herbal sweetener that is not only harmless but even health-promoting. As such, it is promoted as a better choice over sugar or other low-calorie sweeteners. Stevia has rapidly become a multimillion dollar industry. Despite all of the marketing hype, stevia is not the innocent little herb it is made out to be and it is not harmless. The stevia sweetener you purchase at the store is a highly refined, purified chemical that is little different from any other artificial sweetener, with many of the same drawbacks and dangers. Many university studies have shown you should never use stevia if you want to lose excess weight or control diabetes. In addition, low-calorie sweeteners are potentially dangerous for hearing loss (USC October 25, 2022  https://scitechdaily.com/horrifying-new-study-indicates-that-popular-sugar-substitutes-worsen-your-memory/). Sugar Sugar is something that we can find everywhere around us. It is present in fruits, processed food, beverages, candies and more. Just about anyone can easily overload their systems with any of these. In fact, many people have become addicted to sugar without even knowing it. Now we know fruit in moderation can be good for us, however, the added sugar, processed sugar and things like ‘Fructose Syrup’ certainly aren’t what nature intended us to eat. The key is really simple- awareness.   Things to Avoid Recognize, identify, and eliminate from your diet the most harmful ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, aluminum, carrageenan and more. Harmful ingredients that you never knew you were consuming every day! These days, the food on our tables is a far cry from what our grandparents ate. While it may look and taste the same and is often marketed under familiar brand names, our food has slowly but surely morphed into something entirely different and a lot less benign. Here is a list of our no added sugar and sweetener free options: Hearthy No sugar products: New Whey Protein powder, collagen, gelatin, colostrum, apple muffin mix, all of our flours, bone broth, Hearthy all purpose gluten free flours, gluten free atta, vitamins and pet products.  Low sugar options: marshmallow, cookie mix, brownie mix, banana muffin mix and pumpkin muffin mix, kids vitamins. 

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AUG 03, 2022

Apple Cider Vinegar Powder is Better Than Liquid & Pill Form. Here's Why?

Apple Cider Vinegar in powder form is better than the liquid and pill form. Here's Why?  Simply put, you are getting a better value in powder form. One of the world's most renowned home remedies, vinegar has always been praised for its powerful antioxidants and incredible antiseptic power. Now you can get it in powder form. Apple cider vinegar in powder form is better than the liquid and pill form because it's a good value and has a lot more different types of applications. Apple cider vinegar powder is an excellent product that can help you solve more than 100 health problems. It is also perfect for a weight loss program. Learning how to combine apple cider vinegar powder so much easier with other ingredients will help you lose so much fat within a short period. The beauty of apple cider vinegar is that it leaves you with no side effects. It becomes a better value because you are not paying for water; it is more concentrated, easier to travel, and has more applications like turning into a paste to be used as a mask,  in your smoothies and a seasoning rub. What is Apple Cider Vinegar? Apple cider vinegar is mostly juice from apples; when you combine it with yeast, it turns the carbohydrate (sugar) in the juice into alcohol. The process whereby yeast is turned into sugar is referred to as fermentation. Further action by bacteria turns the alcohol into ethanoic acid. It is this ethanoic acid that produces a strong, pungent smell and a sour taste in the vinegar. Apple cider vinegar contains some vitamins and minerals, including fiber found in the diet. It also contains acetic acid (ethanoic acid) and citric acid (citrate).  

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JUL 28, 2022

Why Halal Collagen?

Today, interest in dietary halal collagen is growing at an astoundingly rate, and with good reason. People are beginning to be aware the importance of animal welfare in their meats. The reason is that a distress animal will have an affect on the consumer. The benefits of a halal meat and in particular halal collagen-rich diet are remarkable, ranging from better weight control to enhanced digestion, clearer skin, reduced inflammation, and improved immune function. The best way to harness the power of collagen begins with animal safety, proper slaughter and proper feeding like grass fed. Dietary halal collagen provides a unique blend of amino acids and other compounds, making it critical for everyone, including infants, young children, the elderly, athletes, pregnant women, new mothers, and adult men and women. Simply put: When we don't get enough of the beneficial compounds found in halal collagen-rich foods, we experience more injuries, chronic aches and pain, digestive issues, and other symptoms associated with aging. And most people don't get enough. Halal Collagen is the missing ingredient that can help us live longer, healthier, more vital lives. Halal is the approach that keep this in consideration.   What is halal slaughter? Halal is the way animal are slaughters and treated. Here are the requirements for halal:   1. Animal should not be slaughtered in front of other animals. In a practical sense, animal should not be stage near the slaughter area.  2. Animals should not be stunned while slaughtering.  3. The slaughter should be done by a Muslim. Although there is one school of thought that makes allowance for a Christian or Jewish person. 4. A prayer should be prayed on each animal when it is slaughtered.  5.  Three of the four parts of the neck must severed in order to be properly slaughtered (at least three of the four-two jugulars, esophagus and/or larynx).  6. Animals must be given vegetarian feed like grass.  7. Must be in lawful possession of the animal. In other words, cant be stolen animals.  8. The slaughter should be facing Mecca. 9. Modern bovine slaughter house should have a kosher pen to properly slaughter in a safe way.  10. Only poultry, lamb, sheep, and bovine can be halal. Most seafood is automatically halal. Pork is not halal.  The formation of halal collagen by your body is absolutely essential for the rejuvenation of skin, hair, nails, bones and joints. More importantly, halal collagen gives these tissues the youthful elasticity, flexibility and strength needed to ward off degeneration before it begins. Always go for halal collagen. 

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APR 27, 2022

Hearthy Foods Marshmallow Package Design Competition Winner Alexa Olmos

In an effort to bring more heart into the world we reached out to Michele Bury of California State Dominguez Hills to give their graduating art design class an opportunity to get real world experience by redesigning the packaging for our Grass Fed Marshmallows. Our in-house designer Rudy Iñiguez created the design brief for the designers and curated the competition along the way, giving regular feedback sessions with Michele to help guide the students on their design journeys. The competition took place over the span of 4 weeks going over the varying steps in the design process from brand analysis to design implementation. All their hard work led to a final presentation where the students were able to tell us their story and how their packaging was filled with heart. After all the presentations it was a tough choice selecting only one design from all the amazing talent. We would like to mention our runner ups Ceirra Lark, Sophia Tobin, Erin Alvarado, Louie Alcazar, Bryan Macz who while were not our final choice we were thoroughly challenged to pick from. Ultimately we decided on our winner with Alexa Olmos. Her presentation showed us an individual who resonated on a personal level to Hearthy Foods own mission through her personal experience with finding fun and passionate food brands for healthy living. She set out to create a fun package for people of varying age ranges to find food that sparks onder and fun no matter what health issues you may be going through, similar to the struggles that began Hearthy Foods origins. We are glad to have had the students of California State Dominguez Hills participate in sharing their personal styles and works and we are glad to have been a stop on their design journeys. We are hopeful that this is a start to more ways Hearthy Foods will engage in the communities we serve and are looking forward to showing the world more things made with Heart.  

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APR 22, 2022

How To Use Our Prebiotic Fibers For Your Probiotic Community (pt 1)

We are a mobile zoo made up of thousands of microbial species. Are you a good caregiver?   We have about 100 trillion microbes which inhabit our body. In and on our body– mostly in our body– and in our gut, specifically. They aren’t here to harm, weaken, or take over but support us, keep our body in balance and, ultimately, maintain a homeostatic life. How we eat plays a pivotal role in helping our microbial community do its job. Eating poor foods stresses, taxes, and affects our microbial efforts. How many people make food choices keeping this in mind? Bringing awareness to this tiny nano community of microbes which inhabits us will be the key to better overall health. One might ask, what are some easy ways to accomplish this? Have you ever wondered why we say, “soluble and insoluble fiber?” Firstly, fiber is from plants. It’s a non-digestible carbohydrate, also known as a prebiotic. Prebiotics are pretty much in any food which has plant fiber. We have certain microbial species in our guts which utilize some fibers by fermenting them, which in turn helps our body maintain a healthy gut lining and immune health. Other roles which our microbes play in our health are weight management, brain health, and controlling blood sugar levels. If you don’t feel like eating fiber for yourself, at least consider feeding your bacteria. Let’s be good stewards. This helps the bacteria to survive and have enough energy to help us stay healthy. Hearthy foods have a long list of soluble and insoluble fibers which come naturally in our foods. Why go out and buy a small bottle of prebiotics, when you can buy our one-ingredient fruit and nut flours, which not only provide prebiotics but other healthy, tasteful ingredients to add to your recipes? Our flours contain both soluble and insoluble prebiotic fiber: banana, Sweet potato, broccoli, carrots, apples, hemp, pumpkin, kombucha squash, butternut squash, baobab, mango, cacao and oats to name a few.     By Stephanie Erichsen Executive Chef at Hearthy Foods, Wu Wei Coach  

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