Friday Favourites – High Net Gain Ingredients

In partnership with Nourish Melbourne, on the 22^nd September 2016 I presented an evening at Shoku Iku, Planted. An evening focusing on the core values of the Tarian Pantry business; FOOD + FITNESS.

Shoku Iku, is a organic raw vegan café in Northcote specialising in living food cuisine. From smoothies with superfoods and super herbs, tonic teas, elixirs, freshly made salads and raw desserts the meals are always nurturing and loving to your body. The perfect match you could say for Tarian Pantry.

Today’s Friday favourites focuses on five high net gain ingredients that are essential for a Tarian fitness Pantry. Some of these ingredients were lovingly raw ‘baked’ into the meal by Yoko proving you can have your cake and eat it too.

PLANTED menu

Course One

• Pumpkin and sunflower ‘bake’
• Beet salad
• Miso sesame paste
• Caramelised activated cashew

Course Two

• Spirulina, cacao and nutella cake with beetroot syrup

 

Top Five Tarian Fitness Ingredients

Beetroot

Nature’s EPO. Lance Armstrong had it all wrong when he used the banned EPO, he should have been using natures blood doping food instead!

Beetroot has an earthy charm that can only be enjoyed from the real thing. Forget canned beetroot, you need to taste beetroot in its purest form to truly understand the distinctive flavour and gain the nutritional benefits that are touting this as the new superfood.

Belonging to the same family as chard and spinach both the leaves and roots can be eaten but the root is certainly the sweeter tasting of the two. Beetroots are of exceptional nutitional value and are rich in calcium, iron and vitamins A and C. Beetroots strengthen the heart, improve circulation and help purify the blood.

Tahini

Tahini is a paste made from ground sesame seeds and is a very versatile ingredient used in both sweet and savoury dishes. Tahini is packed with essential vitamins and minerals and a must in a fitness pantry.

There are two main types of tahini: hulled and unhulled. Unhulled is best as it’s made from the whole sesame seed leaving its complete nutritional value intact.

Traditionally tahini made using white sesame seeds which is whitish in colour with a creamy milk flavour. However you can source black tahini which is made from black sesame seeds and is a charcoal grey to black colour and very similar in taste to the hulled white tahini but maybe a little stronger and more intense. The nutritional profile is the same.

Tahini’s nutritional profile include:

• Rich in minerals such as magnesium, potassium and iron
• High in vitamin E and Vitamins B1, B2, B3 B5 and B15
• One of the best sources of calcium available
• Helps to maintain healthy skin and muscle tone
• High in unsaturated fat (good fat!)

Spirulina

In short spirulina is incredibly good for you, why? It’s loaded with nutrients.

Spirulina is a blue-green algae sourced from nature. A highly nutritious microscopic fresh water plant with a profile looking something like this:

• High in protein, 60-70% of its weight
• Rich in iron (58x richer than spinach)
• Nature’s richest source of Vitamin B12
• High in Chlorophyll
• Rich in antioxidants

Its been said “gram for gram, spirulina may literally be the single most nutritious food on the planet.”

From a health point of view, Spirulina can help lower cholesterol, appears to have anti-cancer properties, may reduce blood pressure, may be effective against anemia and for a individual who works out, can help muscle strength and endurance by preventing the onset of muscle fatigue.

Cacao

Is cacao a superfood? Superfoods are foods that contain higher quantities of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and other health boosting, anti-aging and disease fighting goodness. Is we look at the nutritional profile of cacao we can see:

• Has 40x the antioxidants than blueberries protecting the body from aging and disease
• Highest plant-based source of iron
• Packed with magnesium
• Has more calcium than cow’s milk

Cacao is also a mood enhancer…no wonder we feel so happy after we eat raw chocolate or a raw dessert.

Kombucha

Not technically an ingredient there are a few other ingredients that make up the end product of Kombucha but it’s a product that is essential in any fitness pantry (or fridge).

When you hear people talking about Kombucha you will often hear the words; fermented food, gut health not to mention bacteria and the mother culture, scoby (symbiotic culture of bateria and yeast).

Kombucha is a fermented tea-based beverage that uses a starter culture (scoby) to produce a probiotic and gut-healing beverage.

The benefits of Kombucah include:

• It helps detoxify the body
• Helps maintain healthly gut flora by increasing the number of beneficial organisms
• Contains beneficial compounds of B vitamins supporting the nervous system
• Helps enhance the absorption of minerals including calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium

Kombucha also contains glucosamines, which are vital for the treatment and prevention of arthritis, a profile any runner wants to read!

In a Tarian Pantry food is the fuel needed for performance, endurance and recovery and all of the above help with just that.

How to stock your Tarian Fitness Pantry

If you have any questions about today’s Friday favourites and want to know how to incorporate these ingredients into your pantry and your meals, don’t hesitate to contact me via my food coaching services.

In food and fitness.