Upbeat Living: Happy National Cheesecake Day!

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cheesecake, Health, health food, Kebba Buckley Button, National Cheesecake Day, pleasure, Relax, stress, UpBeat Living

© 2016 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

In recent years, health pundits would not have called cheesecake a “health food”; but today is National Cheesecake Day!  So relax and take a time-out from worrying about fats, and celebrate the pure pleasure of this family of deserts.  In fact, cream cheese is loaded with Vitamin A and fatty acids that help our health.  And a key dimension of Upbeat Living is enjoying your life!

Want to make your own cheesecake? Here is my own recipe for an Irish Cream Cheesecake, no technical skills required.

KEBBA’S IRISH CREAM CHEESECAKE

For filling:

3 x 8-oz. bricks of cream cheese, room temperature
½ c Irish Cream liqueur (Kebba’s favorite: Carolan’s, available at Trader Joe’s)
½ c heavy cream
3 eggs
3 T flour (GF if you like, rice flour or oat flour if you like)
1 c organic sugar
1 t vanilla or almond extract
1/8 t sea salt

For crust:

1 ¼ c graham crumbs + 3 T butter + 3 T organic sugar + 1/8 t sea salt
OR use 1 2/3 c honey corn chex crumbs + ¼ c butter + ¼ c organic sugar
OR use 2 frozen GF pie crusts, following package directions

If making your own crust, blend the ingredients with a fork and press into an 8” springform pan, pressing up sides.  The Chex formula can fit a 9” springform pan. (Ever try to buy an 8” springform pan?)  This may sound dumb, but wrap the bottom of the springform pan firmly with foil, as the melted butter may leak.  Now put the cheesecake on a cookie sheet.

Blend the filling ingredients.  In springform pan or pie crusts, bake at 425 for 25 minutes.  Take it out for 10 minutes and finish baking at 350 for 15 more minutes. In the pie crusts, test for firmness after 5 more minutes. Of course, note variations needed with your stove.

Chill the cake/s before serving, for 2 hours or even overnight.  Dust lightly with cocoa powder and drizzle with favorite fudge sauce, just before serving.  Next time, make 2 and freeze some.

Now sit down with your cheesecake and enjoy every bite slowly.  Savoring causes a food to fill us up sooner.  And relaxing with a pleasure is also stress-dissolving.

So Happy National Cheesecake Day, my friends!  Enjoy, and let me know how you like this cheesecake!  And that’s Upbeat Living.

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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 .

Upbeat Living: Foods to Lift Your Moods!

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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.

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