The Sacral Chakra is all about emotions and sensuality.  Well no where is that more tangled for me than with food…my drug of choice.   So this week has been about exploring that little chestnut.

Mandi of the past – An uncomfortable emotion would hit…I would hit the pantry.   Scarf something down barely conscious of doing it and certainly not tasting much of it except probably that first sugar hit then I would typically gork out like some slightly more feminine version of Homer Simpson with a box of doughnuts.

Two years ago I started this journey towards healing so slowly my food choices have gotten healthier and my palate has shifted towards more wholesome foods vs processed.

Mandi this week – Working on meditative eating and preparing of food.  In my reading I have come across some pretty enlightened food/eating guidelines and here is what I have been trying to be mindful to incorporate.

My Intentions around Food

1. Sit down and enjoy it, chewing slowly, really tasting what has been created not doing anything else but either enjoying family or meditating on the food itself.
2. Make our own food as much as possible from wholesome home grown or fresh locally sourced organic ingredients
3. Only eat when my belly fullness level is about a 2-3 (0 is starving for days – 10 is unbutton your pants uncomfortable).
4. Eat two fist fulls of food in size.
5. Eat foods that taste amazing and are densely nutritious.
6. Eat happy karma foods.
7. Because my weight is greater than is healthy for my body, I am trying address this by eating Kapha Pacifying foods (Aruvedic medicine concept)
8. Eat to this level 1/3 full of food, 1/3 full of liquid, and to leave 1/3 empty for optimal digestion

The challenge comes when I have full days of shooting.  I need a smoothie to get me through the morning and something that I can nibble on between my models outfit changes when my blood sugar is dropping and that hunger meter is dipping.  Usually around 2-3 in the afternoon.

So today I decided to make muffins.  But like amazaballs muffins.  Ones that were not guilt inducing but instead little health bombs…when I was making it it seemed that way but I think the sugar might be better tweaked down a bit.  ( I used a half a cup of coconut sugar for 12 muffins).

To me they seems about as healthy as I could make them.  I’m calling them

GF/DF Banana Coconut Power Up Muffins

Ingredients:

Dry Ingredients

1 tsp Baking Powder

.5 tsp Baking Soda

1 cup  Gluten Free baking mix

1 tsp Cinnamon, ground
.5 tsp Nutmeg, ground
1/4 cup Psyllium Husks you can replace this with GF oats but I was out.
1/4 cup Almond Flour (can replace with ground up oats instead)
2 tbsp *Flax Seed
8 date Dates chopped
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp Chia Seeds

1/2 cup coconut sugar
2 tbsp angel flake coconut

Wet Ingredients

1/2 cup Coconut Greek Yogurt

1 large egg white hopefully from very happy hens

1 serving 1 large egg

2 tbsp Olive Oil

2 medium (7″ to 7-7/8″ long) Banana, fresh mashed

Directions

Heat the oven to 400F or 205C Fan bake.

Spray muffin cups with cooking spray or rub with oil

Whip the egg white until frothy but not peaking.  Add the rest of the wet ingredients and mix well.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together.  You can skip the psyillium and almond meal and just use ground up oats if you have them but if you are gluten intolerant just make sure they are GF oats because most of them aren’t.

Add the two together and mix till all is moist and then spoon in to the 12 muffin tins.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy.

May want to make a double batch though because they got scarfed I think Craig has eaten 5 of them so far today.