Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

The other night we had our cleanse-friendly community dinner at Zeal and we met a young woman who had severe eczema. Allergy tests confirmed several food intolerances, chocolate being one of them. As diehard chocolate lovers, of course, we gasped. Allergic to chocolate? What could be worse? True to form, we started to dig deeper. This young woman, all of 13 years of age, wasn’t allergic to chocolate, she was allergic to dairy! So we asked her if she had ever tried cacao. Not to be confused with cocoa (or cocoa powder), cacao is the purest form of chocolate you can eat. Bitter in taste, cacao beans look a lot like coffee beans. All chocolate and cocoa is made by heating cacao beans, so the raw, less processed version, cacao is always our first go-to choice when living our 80:20 lifestyle.

Coffee seems to be one of those foods that’s either vilified or celebrated in the media. Since having my daughter, I am on Team Celebrate Coffee, but it seems most important to determine what works for your personal constitution. You can certainly make this smoothie without the coffee component. Between the coffee, the raw cacao, and the cinnamon, this is a smoothie that’s packed with antioxidants.

It’s refreshing, energizing, and the perfect way to start downshifting from daily rocket fuel to the more mellow and metabolism-boosting green tea.

When coming up with new recipes we often draw on inspiration from the places we visit on a regular basis. One of our favorite all-time salads is the Superfood Salad with Acai Dressing from Whole Foods. This week we decided to take all the things we love about that salad and put a Conscious Cleanse spin on it!