Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Here's a quick and easy recipe for a healthy and delicious vegan quinoa salad that can be made in just 20 minutes. It's perfect for a quick lunch or a light dinner. This quinoa salad is crisp, delicious, and refreshing. It’s made simply with fresh cucumber, red bell pepper, red onion, chickpeas, fresh parsley and a honey-cumin olive oil and lemon dressing.

Did you know that the average distance your food travels to get to your plate in the United States is 1500 miles? Often times, it’s much more when you get your fruit from other continents. Admittedly, I can’t live without my lemons, but I try to really stock up on the freshest foods when they're in season. I like to buy extra blueberries, peaches, and raspberries so that I can freeze them and use these delicious, out-of-season fruits during the winter months for my smoothies. Although, I’m not complaining about the abundance of local food, sometimes I find myself saying, “what do I do with that zucchini blossom?” I also like to have a variety of recipes up my sleeve for simple foods like cauliflower, which to be honest I don’t love raw because it’s too harsh on my stomach. My favorite recipe for this sometimes gas producing food is Cauliflower Mashers! Maybe I shouldn’t be using the word gas and cauliflower in the same sentence to make this recipe look enticing. But, it’s delicious and almost reminds me of mashed potatoes, I swear!

If you’re an SNL fan, you probably can’t talk about one of our cleanser’s all-time favorite bite-size snacks without busting up laughing. To get the inside joke, be sure to check out SNL’s Sweddy Balls skit. Our beloved Joy Balls (recipe in our book, page 260) have been known not only as a life-saving snack during the cleanse, but also a source of ongoing office humor, banter, and silly text messages between cleansers. Is it us or do the words “nut balls” just make you smile? Our ball obsession has led us to make several incarnations of the original Joy Balls. Protein-Packed Almond Butter Balls (in our book page 261) Nut Free Joy Balls (get the recipe here) And new today…Amazeballs!

It’s time to start planning holiday meals! While pumpkin pie is usually a Thanksgiving thing, people love it for celebrations any time of year, so I decided to do a healthy twist on this classic favorite. I must admit, I’m not much of a pumpkin pie girl, I much prefer chocolate, but this nearly raw variation is heavenly. It’s an amazing 80:20 dessert. It’s silky, creamy, rich and decadent, free from sugar, dairy, eggs and gluten. And best of all, it tastes just like the real thing! Enjoy and be sure to whip up some homemade vegan coconut whipped cream to go on top.

Temperatures have started to dip in the northern hemisphere the past few weeks, causing us to crave warm soups and other fall favorites. Today we have a recipe that is the epitome of comfort food. It’s the perfect meal that the entire family will enjoy. But it’s also a labor of love and tends to be one those childhood favorites that just don’t work in our Conscious Cleanse lifestyle. That is until today! Our Vegetable Lasagna with non-dairy ricotta “cheese” is a simple, gluten free, vegan lasagna. And it tastes delicious. Now your Italian granny might turn over in her grave but believe us our vegan cashew “cheese” is so tasty you will never miss the real stuff. As for the noodles? Gluten be gone. These “noodles” are made from veggies sliced thinly and roasted until caramelized and sweet. A real excellent substitution in the flavor department. Layer it all up with a high quality can of organic crushed tomatoes and you have a healthy and warming dinner.

Get your zoodle on with our no cook, no bake, all flavorful Fiesta-style Zoodles. You can make this dish in a flash all without heating up your kitchen. And, you’ll get your fair share of delightfully fresh, crisp veggies without the typical green salad. Make it for your next potluck or have it in the fridge for a go-to snack. Cheers!

Salads don’t have to be boring. In fact, they should blow your socks off and keep you coming back for more. With all the textures, flavors and hardiness of a full meal, this salad puts all other salads to shame. It’s packed with protein from the hemp hearts, chickpeas and quinoa; loaded with phytonutrients and crunch from the leafy greens and veggies; and just the right amount of flavor from the crispy, spicy, tangy Buffalo cauliflower. Cheers!

This post will be a savory one, and its a damn good savory one at that. I hadn't planned on posting this recipe on my blog, in fact I didn't even know what this dish was going to turn out like until it was finished. I decided this morning, it was time to give myself a bit of a cleanse (and no I'm not talking about a juice cleanse, fasting, or anything like that). Rather it's purely about filling my body with really great wholesome food, cutting out refined sugars, reducing the amount of processed food I eat, drinking a heap of water, and getting enough sleep.

Raw, vegetarian, 80/10/10, paleo, pescetarian- call it what you want, it seems there’s always a new diet to jump on board with that will ‘change your life.’ These innovative ways to eat have revolutionized the way that we live. From sourcing our ingredients locally, choosing organic or abstaining from meat, every day we make a choice about what to put in our bodies regardless of the label.

I'm going to take you back to an Italian-American family on the east coast (mine) in the 1980s…those were the days when carbs where king and fat was the enemy. What did we eat back in those days? Do you remember the nation’s obsession with Snackwells and pasta? Well, we ate lots and lots of pasta.

I love all kind of condiment, I'm talking sauces, pickles, chutneys you name it. I feel like it's those kinds of things that take dishes to the next level. I've made pickled vegetables before, but have yet to create a recipe that I think really stands out from the rest. I never made a chutney until a few days ago. After throwing in seemingly random quantities of each ingredient, I ended up with (what I honestly believe) is the best tomato chutney I've ever had.

So summer is officially over (sadness) and autumn is upon on us, given that that is the usual order of the seasons, and the weather has already begun cooling down (sadness x2). However, the positive here is that soups and deliciously comforting foods begin to become a regular in the kitchen again. Today while looking in the fridge I couldn't help but notice an incredibly lovely looking whole pumpkin staring back at me - so naturally, I decided to chop it up, roast it and then zhoozh it up.

This delicious recipe combines Jason’s love for chocolate with everyone’s love for the peanut butter cups of our youth. Instead of peanut butter, they’re made with almond butter. Instead of sugar, they’re sweetened with agave. Boom! You’ve got a recipe makeover you never knew you needed, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Hello my name is Jo and I’m a Chocoholic. I’m not ashamed to say that I walk down the chocolate aisle pacing and drooling on a very regular basis.