Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

You know those family recipes with that one “secret” or unexpected ingredient, like grandma’s chocolate cake recipe that calls for mayonnaise or tomato juice? This smoothie is our version of that recipe. When you think about making a smoothie, you’re probably thinking, fresh greens, fruit or berries, maybe a booster like chia seeds or hemp seeds, and water or a nut milk. We’re guessing that a root vegetable doesn’t immediately come to mind. Well, we’re here to change your perspective! This smoothie has an extra-special secret ingredient – beets! Beets are a secret superfood powerhouse and are actually sweeter in flavor than most people think.

Today we want to share a healthy holiday recipe that you can whip up for a holiday party or just sip on in front of a warm crackling fire – eggnog! Our version is a vegan eggnog, free of eggs and dairy, but before you freak out, don’t worry – we’ve made sure this recipe just as creamy and delicious as the holiday original. Not only is this recipe tasty, but it’s also chock full of healthy ingredients that will help you keep your glow this holiday season in the face of too much sugar, stress and spirits. Maca reduces symptoms associated with adrenal fatigue, and can also help to alleviate stress, anxiety and depression. Cinnamon stabilizes blood sugar and reduces LDL cholesterol, while nutmeg calms nerves and helps with sleep. Cashews are a good source of bioavailable iron and tryptophan, which can help boost natural serotonin levels. We hope you enjoy this healthy holiday drink! If you want to turn this recipe into a Conscious Cocktail, add 1-2 oz. of brandy, bourbon, or dark rum to each glass, depending on how strong you like it. This time of year, it can be easy to overdo all the sweet treats, drinks, and rich food, so bear in mind one of the central questions of the Conscious Cleanse before indulging in each and every holiday treat and ask yourself, “how will this food make me feel?”

The holiday season can be tricky to navigate as a Conscious eater when faced with the temptation to overeat or skip meals in preparation for the big healthy family feast. That’s where this recipe comes in! During the holidays, we often eat around 4 or 5 pm, so it’s nice to have something light earlier in the day. This way you avoid being too full for the family meal and you don’t make the mistake of skipping lunch and then binging at dinner because you haven’t eaten all day. This soup is packed with nutrients and high in protein to help you power through your holiday meal prep without weighing you down. It’s super easy to make and eat; if you’re pressed for time, you can make it ahead of time and freeze it until you’re ready to eat, and since it’s puréed, you can even sip it from a mug to make it more convenient.

Scalloped potatoes are a classic Thanksgiving dish, but are traditionally loaded with heavy cream, cheese, and flour. Our recipe is an up-leveled version that tastes just as good as you remember grandma making. This recipe falls under our 80:20 eating, as we keep potatoes, yeast, and goat cheese off our plates while cleansing. However, this recipe could be easily modified to be more cleanse-friendly by leaving out the yeast, substituting our Vegan Cashew Cheese for the goat cheese, and swapping out the potatoes for another tender root veggie, like rutabaga, turnips, parsnips, or even golden beets – or mix it up with a combo of your favorites! Do you have a favorite holiday recipe you’d like us to give a Conscious Cleanse makeover? Let us know in the comments below. We love hearing from our community!

One of the foods our cleansers struggle with giving up most is SUGAR. Added sugar is everywhere, even hidden in your favorite salad dressings or condiments, which makes it particularly hard to avoid, and the more you eat it, the more you become reliant on it. Sugar can lead to health issues such as chronic weight gain, an overgrowth of candida, blood sugar imbalance, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and more. It’s also been linked to an increased risk for more serious health concerns like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. During the Conscious Cleanse, you’ll give up added and refined sugars completely, but if you think you might have a sugar sensitivity, you may need to do even more to tame your sugar cravings (take our Sugar Sensitivity Quiz here). Many fruits, grains, and other healthy foods still have naturally occurring sugars that can sabotage your health if you’re sensitive to sugar.

We thought this was the perfect time to share a Conscious Cocktail recipe! Since we eliminate alcohol during the cleanse, this recipe is a great way to transition into your 80:20 eating plan. For more information about our 80:20 Lifestyle Program, click here. This recipe features a spirit that got a lot of attention this summer – mezcal! Mezcal, like tequila, is a distilled spirit made from the agave plant. While tequila is only made from blue agave plants, mezcal can be made from any agave plant. When making mezcal, instead of steaming the agave before distilling as is customary for tequila production, the agave is cooked in large earthen ovens with charcoal and lava rocks. This is what gives mezcal its signature smoky taste.

The mornings are getting cooler here in Colorado, the leaves are changing up in the mountains, and the Fall Equinox is less than a week away (where did the summer go?!). The change of season always brings a new crop of fruits and veggies into season which makes it that much more exciting. Apples are one of our favorite autumn fruits, so we wanted to share a smoothie recipe we’ve been loving lately – Apple Pie Smoothie! This smoothie tastes like fall in a glass, and gives you all the apple pie flavor you love without all the added sugar. Apples a great source of fiber, plus they’re rich in immune-boosting vitamin C and antioxidants. Even though they contain naturally occurring sugars, they have a low glycemic index because of their high fiber content, making them a great low sugar option. Besides adding great flavor, Ceylon cinnamon helps to regulate blood sugar levels, making this the perfect smoothie to enjoy when you’re craving something sweet but want to avoid the mid-morning crash. As the mornings get colder, you can make this a warm smoothie by heating up the almond milk in a saucepan over low to medium heat. What’s your favorite fall treat?

Ah, summertime here in Colorado – the weather is beautiful, the kids are out of school, and fun in the sun is the name of the game. But with all the fun, free time, summer can also be hard for us moms trying to keep our kids eating healthy. Sometimes the break from school just turns into one long holiday of eating less healthy options – hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, soda – until your kiddos are left jacked up on sugar, experiencing frequent bellyaches, having meltdowns from sugar crashes, and more. What’s a healthy mom to do? As working moms in the wellness industry, we know how important it is to keep your kids eating healthy without depriving them of all the fun they see their friends having. So we go for a happy medium: healthy sweet treats! And this recipe is one of our all-time favorites. Our Chewy Dark Chocolate Cookie Bites are the perfect balance between sweet treat and healthy snack.

Here in Colorado we’re rapidly entering the dog days of summer – and it’s hot, hot, HOT outside. And when the weather gets this warm, we love to cool off with a refreshing chilled beverage. That’s where this recipe comes in! Our Vegan Mango Lassi is a dairy-free spin on the traditional drink you know from your local Indian restaurant. This recipe is a great alternative for those who are sensitive to dairy or vegan, since yogurt is the main ingredient in a traditional mango lassi. We like to use homemade coconut or cashew milk in ours, but you can use any non-dairy milk (think hemp, almond, or even macadamia nut).

We L-O-V-E summer here at the Conscious Cleanse – the weather is beautiful, the best fruits and veggies are in season, and our local farmers market always has a great selection to choose from. It’s also a great time to gather in the backyard with friends or family and enjoy some food fresh off the grill. Unfortunately, most of the go-to grilling options are highly processed (lookin’ at you, hot dogs) or served up in a gluten-bomb bun. And if you’re a veggie eater like Jules, the options get even worse: imitation meat is frequently packed with artificial additives and preservatives, allergens like gluten or soy, and highly processed – not exactly a “health” food. So we wanted to share one of our favorite grilled veggie recipes: Cauliflower Steak!

We love a fresh start. Any chance we can get to clear out the old and bring in the new is an opportunity to celebrate. After all, that’s what cleansing is all about, isn’t it? Recently I’ve found myself organizing and refreshing just about everything I can get my hands on…all my tax receipts are all in order (hooray!), my kitchen knives are all sharpened, I’ve donated a large box of toys and books that my kids are no longer interested in, I bought a bunch of new bins and have taken charge of a messy closet…and let me tell you, it feels good! Really good!

Summer is here and we’re well into the growing season here in Colorado, and we LOVE all the amazing fresh veggies we can find locally at our farmer’s market and CSA. Signing up for a CSA (community-supported agriculture) is a great way to eat based on what’s in season and try new fruits and veggies you might not be familiar with. Most CSAs provide their members with a weekly or bi-weekly selection of their most recent harvests, so you know you’re getting the freshest veggies available. Plus, the selections are solely based on what’s in season right now, so you might discover a new favorite veggie! That’s how we ended up creating this recipe! Our most recent CSA box included these beautiful Japanese Hakurei turnips, and we knew we needed to come up with a recipe to feature them.

Happy (almost) summer for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere! We’re so excited for the sunny weather and all the fresh veggies coming into season this time of year. One of our favorite warm-weather treats is sushi, so we’ve made a cleanse-friendly version to share with you all! People ask us all the time what kinds of foods they’ll be able to eat on the Conscious Cleanse. The answer is lots and lots! We have a wide variety of recipes you can enjoy while cleansing, from bison burgers to vegan curry, and even dairy-free, egg-free gelato if you want dessert. The possibilities are endless! This vegan sushi hand roll is the perfect recipe to switch up your menu this week.

As you probably know by now, we at the Conscious Cleanse L-O-V-E green smoothies. They’re the perfect, nutritionally-dense breakfast that takes less than 5 minutes to make and can even be enjoyed on the go! For a collection of our favorite green smoothie recipes, be sure to grab our Green Smoothies eCookbook here. Part of what make green smoothies so amazing is they can be easily customized to fit your individual health needs by adding superfood boosters! Whether you need to add extra protein and healthy fats to your diet, or you’re looking for help with detoxification or blood sugar regulation, we’ve got a booster for you! Check out our list below for some of our top superfood picks to boost the health value of your green smoothie.

The weather is warming up here in Colorado, and with it comes a new crop of fresh veggies! We love using seasonal veggies in our recipes, and what better way to enjoy nature’s spring bounty than with a meal-sized salad with fresh, homemade salad dressing? That’s where this recipe comes in! This rich and yummy salad dressing is the perfect complement to all those fresh spring veggies. Our Sweet Basil Salad Dressing is thick and creamy, adding heartiness to any salad that will help you feel fuller longer. Plus, it can double as a tasty dip for fresh cut carrots, cucumbers, or celery. You could even drizzle it over grilled chicken or your favorite gluten-free pasta. In addition to being delicious, this dressing also boasts a number of health benefits.

Spring has sprung here in Colorado, and we are thrilled at the start of the growing season! Yay local veggies! This week, we’re sharing a recipe that features one of our favorite spring veggies: Asparagus! This quick and easy curry takes less than 20 minutes to whip up and is the perfect way to use that beautiful asparagus that’s popping up in your grocery stores or local farmers markets. Plus, it’s cleanse-friendly and packed with a bunch of bonus health benefits! In addition to being a delicious spring veggie, asparagus is also a nutritional powerhouse. It’s rich in vitamin A, folate, which supports healthy prenatal development during pregnancy, and vitamin K, which supports bone health and strength. It’s a great source of antioxidants to help defend the body from free radicals, and is high in fiber to help aid digestion and gut health.

Spring Break is this week for us in Colorado, so we were thinking about how difficult it can be to find healthy eating options when you’re traveling. Whether you’re driving or flying to your vacation destination, it can be difficult to find the clean-eating options in a sea of fast food joints. So we’ve put together a guide for all our tried and true tips and tricks for staying healthy while on the road, including our favorite recipe for on-the-go snacking: Easy Trail Mix! Here are our top 3 tips for healthy traveling: Plan Ahead: Plan, plan, plan.

With our modern busy lives, it’s easy to let even the simplest self-care go out the window. It can be tough to find the time to look after ourselves when we’re juggling lots of different priorities. This can leave our own needs at the bottom of the list, and we all know it's hard to get around to those items last on the to-do list. And we’re talking about the regular, day to day self-care, not the lavish ‘treat-yourself’ social outings, appointments and pamper days that come to mind when you think self-care. If you don’t take the time to look after yourself, you can start to feel very stressed and unfulfilled as well as overwhelmed. But to improve ourselves we must take care of our minds and bodies. Here’s our tips to create a self-care routine, and ways you can stick to it! 1. Do self-care that works for you

Winter is (finally) coming to an end, and if you’re like us, you might be looking for new recipes to get out of a meal-planning rut. This time of year, it can be easy to fall into a routine of go-to meals and start craving some variety in your diet. We’ve got a perfect recipe for you! This dish is warming, nourishing, full of flavor, and stars a fish high in nutritional value – Halibut! Halibut is high in brain-boosting omega-3 fatty acids, plus it’s a great source of essential vitamins and minerals including magnesium, selenium, phosphorous, and vitamin B. As for taste, halibut is a tender and neutral white fish that is delicious when paired with this flavorful, warming sauce. You can pair this dish with roasted vegetables like carrots or cauliflower or over an abundant pile of fresh or sautéed greens (our personal favorite!). Because we keep winter squash off our plates during the cleanse, this recipe is part of our 80:20 Lifestyle Program. To learn more about the 80:20 and how to get access to exclusive recipes and more healthy lifestyle content, click here.

While the pressure of the New Year can be needlessly intimidating, it’s still as good a time as any to make healthier choices. The sad fact is that we tend to associate healthy changes with deprivation and there’s really no need for that! At the Conscious Cleanse, we know that even a slight shift in perception is enough to help us embrace change, not with fear, but with excitement. And that’s where our featured recipe of the week comes in. Many of our cleansers absolutely L-O-V-E cheese and can’t imagine going a single day without it! That is before they found the Conscious Cleanse. Sound familiar?

Since it’s been so cold and snowy lately, we wanted to share a recipe bursting with color and flavor to remind you that spring is just around the corner! Our beet hummus not only looks like veggie vibrancy in a bowl, it’s also packed with health benefits! Beets are a great way to check in on how smoothly our digestive tract is running (for more on that topic see my post called “The Beetroot Test”), plus they’re also filled with many health-boosting nutrients like folate, vitamin C, and manganese. Beets have anti-inflammatory and detoxification properties, and they’re also known to boost stamina, lower blood pressure, and strengthen the immune system.

As I was cruising around the Farmer’s Market last Saturday I noticed these beautiful bright yellow and orange flower-like veggies at one of the stands. Upon further investigation, I realized that these beauties were squash blossoms! I’ve never eaten squash blossoms before and I always love expanding my veggie repertoire, so my blog mission for the week became crystal clear! To my new discovery, squash blossoms can be found on any variety of squash, zucchini or pumpkin plant, making these varieties “double agent” veggies. We love any veggie that can be enjoyed “root-to-tip” and our recipe today is the perfect way to turn part of the “leftover” squash plant into a delectable and gourmet-looking vegan appetizer! Today’s recipe for Cashew Cheese Stuffed Squash Blossoms comes from our friend and natural food chef extraordinaire (seriously, she’s a genius!), Casey Easton.

These are the most decadent, mind-blowing, make you giddy with endorphins, heaven on earth, chocolate coconut truffles we’ve have ever tasted! And trust me, we’ve had our share of chocolate. We love traditional chocolatey treats as much as the next person, but what we don’t love is the nasty sugar crash, hangover and the compromised immune system that they leave us with. These sugar-free chocolate truffles are guilt-free and won’t leave you with a sugar crash. Raw cacao is a great source of natural energy and antioxidants, and coconut contains beneficial healthy fat. Did you also know that coconut oil can help to improve heart health and thyroid function? It also supports your immune system, boosts the metabolism, and can promote weight loss. Now that’s a dessert that loves you back!

It’s Conscious Cocktail time! We’ve just wrapped up another Conscious Cleanse and one thing we hear a lot of towards the end is that people are ready to enjoy an adult beverage! Anyone ready for a little detox retox? Giving up alcohol for two weeks is a big deal for many, especially if it’s something that’s habitually been a part of your lifestyle. So how do you incorporate alcohol back into your diet and 80:20 lifestyle in the healthiest way possible? This is where the Conscious Cocktail comes in! A conscious cocktail is one that upgrades your usual alcoholic beverage to one that is allergen-free, spiked with a healthy dose of non-artificial sugar-free ingredients in your cocktail.

We’re just wrapping up our Group Cleanse and as we transition into our 80:20 eating, we know we’re not the only ones looking forward to reintroducing a warming caffeinated beverage into our morning routines. Our morning cup of coffee is one of the hardest things for many of us to give up during the 14-day cleanse, so we wanted to create a healthy take on this beloved energizing drink. We’ve come up with the perfect way to up-level your morning cup of joe – Adaptogenic Coffee Creamer! This creamer is packed with superfood properties and adds the perfect amount of creamy goodness to your favorite coffee. The real star of this recipe is Lion’s Mane – an adaptogenic mushroom that can help support memory and brain function, helps mental sharpness and clarity, and according to some studies, it might help prevent dementia or alzheimers. We recommend the organic Om Mushrooms brand. MCT oil provides extra energy and helps stabilize blood sugar.