Happy Healthy Loving Life: World Chocolate Day 2022

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chocolate, Dark chocolate, Feeling energized, Health, Healthy Happy Loving Life, Kebba Buckley Button, UpBeat Living, World Chocolate Day July 7th

© 2022 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved. Happy World Chocolate Day! Today, July 7, is a special day to celebrate the tasty treats that contain chocolate in any of many forms– desserts, savory sauces (such as mole’), candies, dipped strawberries or apricots, smoothies, frozen goodies… The list is endless. And wonder of wonders, this substance is good for you– or can be, without too much added sugar or fat.

This practice– Healthy Happy and Loving Life^sm— emphasizes the positive in all possible ways.  And today, we celebrate the health benefits of chocolate!  Yes, it’s true!  When you think of chocolate, you can think of it—dark chocolate, anyway—as a health food.  Remember, the Inca Indians discovered it and drank it hot, without sweetening, hundreds of years ago.

A number of medical studies have shown that modern people can use it for health.  Without being too technical, here are some of the great ways dark chocolate serves the body:

• Provides antioxidant power, which gives you energy and fights free radicals, thus reducing risk of heart disease. Note that milk may interfere with the absorption of the antioxidants.
• Lowers mild high blood pressure.
• Cleans teeth well, when you brush with cocoa powder on your wet toothbrush.
• Is associated with drastically lower occurrence of major diseases, when consumed as natural hot cocoa. These diseases include: stroke, heart failure, cancer, and diabetes.  Natural cocoa, as cacao, has a very high level of epicatchin, a type of antioxidant that some believe should be classified as a vitamin.  Epicatachin is also found in some teas, wine, and some fruits and vegetables.
• Can strengthen tissue and help build muscle, due to the epicatachin.

You people who love white chocolate or milk chocolate can keep eating it as a treat.  Dark chocolate lovers, this is your time!  Snack on dark chocolate bars, especially organic,  and put dark chocolate chips in those cookies.  Stir natural cocoa powder, or cacao, into your smoothies, and make your own low-fat snack bars.  Look for chocolate-coated kale chips!  Enjoy your increased vitality!  Are you feeling energized now?  So what are you waiting for?  Go blend a smoothie with 2 tablespoons of high quality cacao powder!  Join with the World in celebrating this delicious food!

In my daily series this month, I hope to strongly convince you that positive living is the way to be, and it results in greater health and happiness and joy.  It’s more fun!  And that would be you, trying a few new things, ever more Healthy Happy and Loving Life^sm!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress/energy management expert, holistic healer, and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   They are also available in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Franciscan Renewal Center bookstore and at the bookstore at St. Barnabas on the Desert Episcopal Church. Or simply email us to order:  kebba@kebba.com .  Thank you!

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Healthy Happy Loving Life: Favorite Food Blogs

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at choice, Blogs, Celebrating the good, chocolate, free, GF, Happy Healthy Loving Life, Kebba Buckley Button, Theme song, UpBeat Living

© 2020 Kebba Buckley Button, M.S., O.M.  World Rights Reserved. 

In the last several days, I was asked both what I do in my “spare” time, and what my favorite blogs are.  And it just so happens that my favorite fun is creating delicious foods.  And two fantastic blogs definitely involve cooking, baking and often chocolate!  As a writer, I have seen hundreds of blogs, and for me, these two stand out as the most fun:  Gluten Free Homestead and Chocolate Covered Katie.

For me as a cook, I need to be able to prepare treats and meals that fit a lot of different diets and sensitivities, especially gluten-free.  These two favorite blogs are both about cooking and baking and treating for whatever factors.  I love that!

Today’s email from Gluten Free Homestead is, of course, another outstanding one.  Labeled simply, “New Recipe For You”, it offers an Easy Creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup, with video.  Created by Barbara Bianchi, this blog is also now offering  an ebook cookbook, with 50 low-carb and gluten-free recipes.  You can find the Gluten Free Homestead on Facebook and Instagram.  And you may want to subscribe.

My other favorite blog is Chocolate Covered Katie.  Katie is a baking genius who never stops experimenting.  She creates delicious treat recipes, most often chocolate, and often in small batches.  So you don’t have to have dozens of those gooey chocolate almond cream-filled cupcakes with something rich topping them…in your kitchen, tempting you until you’ve gained many pounds.  You can make a few.  Katie is kind.  She also gives you options with every recipe: which fat or oil works best, when to substitute in avocado or applesauce, what flour gives what results with this recipe, what “milk” to use, or whether this matters.  Today’s email features Low Fat Chocolate Muffins, together with links to recipes for Banana Muffins, Applesauce Muffins, Oatmeal Muffins, and Pineapple Muffins.  You can find this blog through her eponymous Facebook page, or through her website, http://www.chocolatecoveredkatie.com .

It’s important to have pleasure and fun in life, and I have fun just reading through these recipes, then pleasure eating my results!  I hope you’re having fun and pleasure, too.  I hope you’re entirely:  Healthy Happy Loving Loving Life^sm!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

Upbeat Living: Chocolate for Your Health!

Tags

chocolate, Dark chocolate, Feeling energized, Health, Kebba Buckley Button, UpBeat Living

© 2016 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved. In Upbeat Living^sm, we emphasize the positive in all possible ways; today, we celebrate the health benefits of chocolate!  Yes, it’s true.  When you think of chocolate, you can think of it—dark chocolate, anyway—as a health food.  Remember, the Inca Indians discovered it and drank it hot, without sweetening, hundreds of years ago.

A number of medical studies have shown that modern people can use it for health.  Without being too technical, here are some of the great ways dark chocolate serves the body:

• Provides antioxidant power, which fights free radicals, thus reducing risk of heart disease. Note that milk may interfere with the absorption of the antioxidants.
• Lowers mild high blood pressure.
• Is associated with drastically lower occurrence of major diseases, when consumed as natural hot cocoa. These diseases include: stroke, heart failure, cancer, and diabetes.  Natural cocoa has a very high level of epicatchin, a type of antioxidant that some believe should be classified as a vitamin.  Epicatachin is also found in some teas, wine, and some fruits and vegetables.
• Can strengthen tissue and help build muscle, due to the epicatachin.

You people who love white chocolate or milk chocolate can keep eating it as a treat.  Dark chocolate lovers, this is your time!  Snack on dark chocolate bars and put dark chocolate chips in those cookies.  Stir natural cocoa powder into your smoothies, and make your own low-fat snack bars.  Enjoy your increased vitality!  Are you feeling energized now?  That feeling is part of  Upbeat Living!

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• If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column! You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma! Due to a recent FB change, our “likes” look low.  Thanks for your help!

Energy – Peace – Meditation

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office.  Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com. 
• For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: calendar@kebba.com .

 

Deadline Stress: Three Brain Boosters to Beat It!

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author stress, brain boosts, chocolate, Coffee benefits, Deadline Stress, meditation, peace within, stress

©Berc-Fotolia

© 2015 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 It’s the dread Deadline Stress again!  With your deadline looming, you’re sitting at your computer or iPad or with your yellow pad, and the words aren’t coming.  You know your topic and everything about the piece.  But the moments are slipping away, and still the words aren’t getting into the article.  You’re really stuck!

Most advice about writers’ block is all about using your thoughts to control your thoughts. But that won’t work when your brain is stuck, and you can’t grasp your thoughts in order to control your thoughts!  Your brain is depleted right now.

So don’t use your mind!  Use these physical brain boosts to get yourself going.  Here are three of my favorites:

 

• The Shoulder Shift. Roll your shoulders up and forward, then around, slowly, stretching, for one minute.  Watch the clock.  No cheating.  Now roll the shoulders up and back and around, slowly, stretching, for one minute.  Notice the warming in your ankles and feet.  You have now opened up the circulation to the whole body, and you’ll feel it in the brain in one minute.  Notice a warming sensation flowing up the back of your neck.  This is energy, and it’s recharging your energy-starved brain.  You may notice your mood changing already, with positive emotions rising.  Cool, huh?
• The Chocolate Churnover. Earlier, were you craving chocolate?  Now is a great time to munch an ounce of dark chocolate to help your brain. The antioxidants and theobromine in the chocolate will lift your energy and metabolism.  Stimulating the tongue and mouth, by eating, lifts the energy of both the Fire- and Earth Meridians.  The bitter flavor in the chocolate stimulates the Fire Meridian, and the sweetness energizes the Earth Meridian.  If you heat your chocolate in almond- or dairy milk, the warm drink will raise the energy of the entire digestive system, which stimulates brain function, increasing clarity.  Also, the potassium in either form of milk will assist brain optimization.  Now you have churned your whole energy system, and it is pumping in support of you.
• The Latte Lift. If you love lattes, try this trick first.  Get your favorite latte and set a timer for 20 minutes.  Drink your delicious liquid, and lie down or relax in your recliner for those 20 minutes. You get a break, and as you’re rising again, the antioxidants and caffeine (or in tea lattes, L-Theanine, theobromine, and theophylline) are just hitting your  blood-brain barrier.  Now you’re rested and refreshed, yet your blood, oxygen, and energy are flowing well.

 

Now, your brain has what it needs, and your words will be flowing. You no longer have to dread Deadline Stress!  Play around with these brain boosting techniques and make them part of your regular writing practice.  You never need to be stuck again.  Now you’ll be beating all those deadlines and soaring as the writer you are meant to be.

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Energy – Peace – Meditation

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author.  She also is an ordained minister and has a natural healing practice. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br),and Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office.  Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com.   
• Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com.

Upbeat Living: Foods to Lift Your Moods!

Tags

Cathy Guisewite, chocolate, cravings, Eating right, energy foods, food, food and drink, foods and moods, glycemic index, green leafy vegetables, health food, kale, Kebba Buckley Button, stress, UpBeat Living

©2014 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

© Pamela Hodson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

When you feel stressed or depressed, do you reach for the snacks?  A lot of us do! Remember the cartoon strip, Cathy?  For over 30 years, we watched as Cathy ate an entire cake in one sitting, after her boyfriend did something puzzling or frustrating. After eating a cake, Cathy would be sprawled out on a couch, obviously sick and frazzled.  Did eating like that bring her joy and resolution?  No.  Eating an entire cake when she was stressed—just made her sick and stressed! It was not a successful strategy.  Maybe that’s the very reason award-winning cartoonist Cathy Guisewite made us laugh so much.  We understood.

 

However, there are successful ways to use foods to have the best moods.  Bear in mind that the body has about 70 trillion cells.  And your body has only what you put in your mouth—food and drink—from which to make new cells.  So does it make sense that your cells would function well on a diet of, for example, cake and diet soda?  A well-rounded diet of lean protein, dark green leafy vegetables, other non-starch vegetables, fresh fruits, and whole grains, will give you a baseline of great nutrition.  Switch to this simple list for a few days, to begin feeling strong and clear-minded.   Vegetarians can use organic beans, including garbanzos, instead of lean meats, in salads and stir-fry dishes.  Of course, coordinate with your doctor before making drastic changes.

 

 If we’re not supposed to have night-time snacks, then why is there a light in the fridge?

 ~Unknown

If you eat out a lot, order the whole grains, egg dishes, other lean proteins, and dark green salads every day.  Of course, gluten-free people, skip those grains!  Kale salad is a current fad food that is available in many restaurants and offers great nutrition.  Grilled chicken- or tuna- Caesar salad is another very nutritious, popular dish that is available at most restaurants.  These dishes will leave you feeling clear-minded and balanced.  And you will be, um, regular, which will also clear your emotions and mind.  Bean dishes contain a phenomenal amount of fiber, so if you like those, they can assist in cleansing your intestines and even help you lose weight.  In Chinese medicine, sadness or depression can be related to the energy of the large intestine.  See if your mood improves when you are eating a high-fiber, low-sugar diet.

 

The only time to eat diet food is when you’re waiting for the steak to cook.

~ Julia Child

Speaking of sugar, the more nutrition you can get for your calories, the better you will feel.  So reach for cherries, grapes, berries, a banana, or a peach.  On the run, keep packets of dried fruits with you.  There are many vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidant compounds in fruits.  Fruit without added sugar is now widely available in your grocer’s frozen food section.  And in the canned-food section, it is easy to find fruit in its own juice.  Health food stores even have fruit-sweetened waffles and other baked goods, plus powdered fruit sweeteners.  Switch to fruit and fruit-sweetened foods, and you will be eating at a lower glycemic index.  That index is a measure of how fast a food is metabolized, compared to glucose.  Many people feel better, have a flatter abdomen, and lose weight easily on a low glycemic index diet.

 

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button

For low-calorie snacks, veggie sticks—carrots, celery, jicama, green beans, cucumbers, Chinese pea pods—are very filling and massage your intestines from the inside out.  So, in addition to being satisfying, these leave you more relaxed.  For quick energy snacks, consider going nuts.  Yes, nuts!  Brazil nuts, pistachios, almonds, cashews, and hazelnuts are great for both giving you energy and supporting your health.  Brazil nuts are very high in protein and also contain selenium, a mineral linked to mood improvement.  Almonds are high in potassium, which is key for metabolic balance, mood and blood pressure regulation.  Almonds, cashews, and hazelnuts are all rich in magnesium, a vital mineral in converting blood sugar to muscle energy, via the Krebs Cycle process.  Low magnesium is also a cause for constipation; so nuts can help by contributing both magnesium and fiber.  When the intestines are well, you will be in a better mood.

 

 

New snack food technology is making some great new options available.  Now you can buy crunchy, flavored freeze-dried veggies in snack packs.  You can get rice-and-bean chips in the chips department. And my current favorite is crisp kale chips!  Perhaps the ultimate energy snack, chocolate covered kale chips, is now available. Just look around your health food store, or the health food section of your regular market, for some great, tasty surprises.

 

So experiment with less sugar and more taste satisfaction.  You’ll be less hungry and have fewer cravings.  Plus, your moods will even out, and your abdomen may flatten out!  Now that’s Upbeat Living!

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Please comment!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

 

UpBeat Living: Yummy Gluten-Free (GF) Desserts, Part 3

Tags

chocolate, GF, gluten-free, Health, UpBeat Living

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button.  World Rights Reserved.

The UpBeat Living philosophy is always to do what is best for your body-mind-heart-spirit system.  For those sensitive to wheat or gluten, it’s vital to moods and overall health, to eat gluten-free (GF).  Today’s recipes are for the chocolate lover!

Microsoft image

Easiest GF Brownies

• In a small microwaveable bowl, put:
  • 4 oz unsweetened GF chocolate
  • 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter

• Microwave the chocolate mixture 1 minute at a time, until it is liquid and can be stirred.
• Add, while stirring:  2 c. organic sugar, 3 beaten eggs, 1 T. vanilla extract, 1 T. espresso powder, 1 c. white rice flour, ½ t. sea salt.  Stir only until smooth.
• Spray a 9” x 13” pan with GF baking spray, or butter and flour the pan.  Pour the batter into the pan and jiggle the pan to even the level of the batter.  Try not to eat too much of the batter :-).

• Bake at 350 degrees (325 for pyrex pan) about 32 minutes.  Standard doneness tests do not apply.  Let the brownies cool completely before cutting, probably 25 minutes.
• These make a great base for brownie fudge sundaes, using the hot fudge sauce below.

Easiest GF Hot Fudge Sauce

• In a small saucepan, melt over medium heat:  2 c. less 2 T. GF chocolate chips, 1 oz unsweetened chocolate, 2 c. heavy cream or half n half.  Stir gently with a wire whisk until it suddenly turns into a light pudding-like texture.

• Make ice cream sundaes with: a brownie from the above recipe, GF ice cream, and the hot fudge sauce.

Enjoy!

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● Kebba Buckley Button is the author of the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition).   Keep this book with you constantly, to quickly recharge your Peace Within, with quotes, photos, and poems that take you directly there!  Kebba is a corporate stress management trainer, and she also has a holistic healing practice.

● Liked this blog?  Why not buy Kebba’s books?  Just click the links!

• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition)( http://perfectboundmarketing.gostorego.com/authors/kebba-buckley-button.html)
• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). ● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Your comments are welcome!

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .