Experience Nutrition

Tag: Intuitive Eating

Experience Nutrition: Arizona Summer Plant-Based Flatbread. Edible Flowers.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Upon returning to Phoenix after traveling the last few weeks to my niece, Mallory’s wedding in Massachusetts, visiting with my parents in Cocoa Beach, and scouting villas for retreats in Barbados, I’m getting back into my local farm-to-table shopping and cooking rhythm.

This week I visited my farmer friend, Billy Anthony Lead Grower at the Soil & Seed Garden at Farm at South Mountain, in Phoenix, to catch up and see what was growing in our 100 degree weather. I was especially happy to see hundreds or thousands of beautiful tomatoes, zucchini, and edible flowers.

Inspired by the tomatoes, I intuitively created a Summer Flatbread with other veggies purchased from local Arizona farmers at the Downtown Phoenix Public Market. I purchased beautiful baby arugula and carrots from Blue Sky Organic Farms in Litchfield Park and Matt’s tomatoes from the Community Exchange.

Let’s take a look at The Farm at South Mountain, at the beginning of our hot Arizona Summer.

RECIPE: Arizona Summer Plant-Based Flatbread. Edible Flowers.

The Summer Flatbread highlights our local Arizona tomatoes, zucchini, arugula, and carrots, and also features one of my favorite roasted veggies, Brussels sprouts, plus red peppers for flavor and color. The yeast-free flatbread is a quick recipe to prepare when your time is limited as we do not need to wait hours for the dough to rise. The cashew cream is a very simple raw nut cream that works well as a cheesy taste in the flatbread. Finally, the beautiful, colorful edible flowers bring life to the dish.

QUICK AND SIMPLE ROASTED VEGGIES

Simple Ingredients
- 1 large tomato (The Farm at South Mountain)
- 2 cups Brussels sprouts
- 1 small zucchini (The Farm at South Mountain)
- 1 carrot (Blue Sky Organic Farms)
- 5-6 small red peppers
- 2 green onions
- 2-3 tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil (Hatun Oregano Olive Oil)
- 1 tsp sea salt
Simple Steps
- Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Slice all veggies.
- Place all veggies into roasting pans.
- Drizzle with olive oil.
- Sprinkle on sea salt.
- Roast for 12 minutes.
- Stir veggies.
- Roast for another 12 minutes.
- Use veggies as flatbread toppings.
CASHEW CREAM

Simple Ingredients
- 1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water 2-4 hours
- 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- Pinch sea salt
- ¼ cup water, adjust for desired creaminess.
Simple Steps
- Rinse and drain the soaked cashews.
- Pour all ingredients into a blender.
- Blend to desired smoothness.
EXPERIENCE NUTRITIONTM Yeast-Free Quick Flatbread

Simple Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups sprouted spelt flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 ½ tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil (dough)
- ½ cup water
- 1 tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil (spread on dough prior to baking)
Garnish Ingredients
- 1 cup arugula (Blue Sky Organic Farms)
- Matt’s tomatoes (Community Exchange, Downtown Phoenix Public Market)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Pinch sea salt
- Edible Flowers (The Farm at South Mountain)
Simple Steps
- Place pizza stone into oven. Pre-heat oven to 390 degrees F. Pre-bake the stone for about 5 minutes.
- In large glass bowl, with a fork mix dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, olive oil, salt.
- Add 3/8 cup water and oil until dough forms a ball. Add additional water, as needed.
- Knead on a lightly floured surface for 3-4 minutes.
- Flatten out the dough on floured parchment-paper.
- With parchment paper on top of the dough, roll thinly with a rolling pin.
- Carefully move flatbread to pre-heated pizza stone.
- Spread 1 tbsp of olive oil onto the flatbread.
- Bake flatbread for 5 minutes.
- Remove stone from oven.
- Spread cashew cream on the top of the flatbread.
- Add tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, zucchini, Brussels sprouts, and onions to the top of the flatbread.
- Cook for about 8 minutes.
- Garnish with arugula, drizzle of olive oil, and edible flowers.
Mindful garnishing of the flatbread.
- Enjoy. Enjoy the beauty. Enjoy the tasty.
- Pause and enjoy the flatbread creation.
- My simple plate…
2019 Local First Arizona Independents Week: June 29 – July 6, 2019

One-time Local Special: Save 20%. Sedona Plant-Based Culinary Retreat, September 13-16, 2019.

Join us for a Memorable Plant-Based Cooking Retreat in Sedona, Arizona, September 13-16, 2019
- Learn simple, easy plant-based cooking techniques.
- View food differently with mindful cooking and eating.
- Enjoy urban farm-to-table cooking experience.
- Experience self-care with hiking and yoga.
- Take home retreat experiences to be healthier & make positive long-term lifestyle changes.
During our Sedona Plant-Based Cooking Fall 2019 Retreat, you’ll experience several days of hands-on, simple plant-based cooking with organic food, mindfulness in the kitchen and eating. We’ll enjoy a farm-to-table cooking experience at a local urban farm. You’ll experience self-care with hiking and yoga in the beauty of Sedona.

In the memorable life-changing retreat, our intention is for you to enjoy the cooking and self-care experiences during the retreat and then most importantly take home the experiences and plant-based cooking learning from the retreat to make positive lifestyle changes in your lives.

Click to learn more about the retreat on our website.

Or, contact, Melanie Albert (Mel@MelanieAlbert.com or 602.615.2486) to answer your questions and to reserve your spot!
June 22, 2019
A New View of Healthy Eating: Daily Healthy Recipes by Melanie Albert: Two Veggies and Quinoa Beautiful Lunch
by Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, speaker, retreat host, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLCs
This morning, listening to my body, I noticed that I was quite hungry way before my typical lunch time, was prepping for a meeting, and wanted to make something really quick, healthy and delicious.

During the Christmas holidays in Cocoa Beach, I showed my 91-year old Dad how to roast sweet potatoes with a really easy method, and I had a beautiful Romanesco broccoli from one of our local Arizona farmers, Steadfast Farm. Since I knew I was hungry, I decided to also cook a batch of quinoa.

I only have a few photos from today, as I was not intending to blog about this dish. However, the final plating is so beautiful and delicious, I’m sharing today.

2 Veggie Lunch: Romanesco & Sweet Potatoes

SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
- 2-3 sweet potatoes
- 1 small Romanesco
- Pinch sea salt or a blend of spices. Today, I used Penzeys Spices Fox Point blend: salt, shallots, chives, garlic, onion, and green pepper corns
- 2-3 tbsp organic extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp basil olive oil
- 1 cup quinoa
SIMPLE STEPS

Quinoa
- Rinse quinoa in a strainer.
- Pour quinoa into a small pot.
- Add 2 cups liquid, water or veggie stock.
- Cover pot, bring to a boil.
- Simmer for about 15 minutes, with lid tight.
- Sit for about 10 minutes.
- With a fork, fluff around the edges of the quinoa.
Simple Steps to Roast Veggies, Excerpt from “A New View of Healthy Eating”

Sweet & Rich Roasted Roots

Roasted roots are beautiful, flavorful, and sweet, as well as a rich, colorful complement to any meal. The roasting culinary technique is a dry heat cooking method that intensifies and concentrates the flavor of vegetables. When roasted properly, the natural sugars in the vegetables brown or caramelize to create a deep, rich flavor. When visiting your farmers’ market, buy a few roots even if you don’t recognize them, and roast them with this simple, quick culinary technique. Enjoy roasted roots as a side dish, to create soup, with hummus, or in a raw kale salad or veggie wrap.

SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
- 10-12 of your favorite roots: carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, golden beets, red beets, and radishes
- Approximately ¼ cup organic extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp dry herbs (Choose a few: basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, or thyme)
- ½ tsp sea salt
SIMPLE STEPS
1. Pre-heat oven to 475 degrees F.
2. Scrub roots under running water to clean the outside.
3. Let sit for about 10 minutes to dry.
4. Slice roots into even, bite-size pieces.
5. Mix olive oil, herbs, and sea salt in a bowl to make the dressing.
6. Add root vegetables to the bowl and toss to evenly coat with the dressing.
7. Carefully lay the roots on parchment paper in a heavy-duty flat baking sheet pan. Place roots flat side down in a single layer, making sure the vegetables do not touch.
8. Place baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven.
9. Roast roots in the oven for about 20 minutes, then turn vegetables.
10. Cook another 15 minutes, until fork tender.
11. Plate vegetables. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.
12. Enjoy!
Have Fun Plating your Veggies and Quinoa
- Spoon quinoa, then sweet potatoes, then Romanesco on the plate.
- Add a few of your favorite extras. Today, I added rough chopped pistachio nuts and capers.
- Drizzle with oil. Today, I drizzled with Hutun Basil Extra Virgin Olive oil.
ACTION: Roast a few veggies, cook a whole grain, plate, and enjoy. Share your creations with us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating or tag #NewViewHealthyEating

Melanie’s book, “A New View of Healthy Eating” is available to ship to you, or see you at an upcoming event in the Phoenix area.

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February 5, 2018
A New View of Healthy Eating: Sweet & Rich Roasted Roots
by Melanie A. Albert, Intuitive Cooking Expert, Author, Speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
A few of my friends have been asking for some of the culinary techniques and recipes in my new book, A New View of Healthy Eating. I’m excited to share one of my very favorite simple techniques to enjoy all kinds of root vegetables. With these simple steps, you can create delicious roasted roots every time you cook them. Have fun with the roots that are in season at farmers’ markets in your area.

Roasted roots are beautiful, flavorful, and sweet, as well as a rich, colorful complement to any meal. The roasting culinary technique is a dry heat cooking method that intensifies and concentrates the flavor of vegetables. When roasted properly, the natural sugars in the vegetables brown or caramelize to create a deep, rich flavor. When visiting your farmers’ market, buy a few roots even if you don’t recognize them, and roast them with this simple, quick culinary technique. Enjoy roasted roots as a side dish, to create soup, with hummus, or in a raw kale salad or veggie wrap.

SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
- 10-12 of your favorite roots: carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, golden beets, red beets, and radishes
- Approximately ¼ cup organic extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp dry herbs (Choose a few: basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, or thyme)
- ½ tsp sea salt
SIMPLE STEPS
1. Pre-heat oven to 475 degrees F.
2. Scrub roots under running water to clean the outside.
3. Let sit for about 10 minutes to dry.
4. Slice roots into even, bite-size pieces.
5. Mix olive oil, herbs, and sea salt in a bowl to make the dressing.
6. Add root vegetables to the bowl and toss to evenly coat with the dressing.
7. Carefully lay the roots on parchment paper in a heavy-duty flat baking sheet pan. Place roots flat side down in a single layer, making sure the vegetables do not touch.
8. Place baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven.
9. Roast roots in the oven for about 20 minutes, then turn vegetables.
10. Cook another 15 minutes, until fork tender.
11. Plate vegetables. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.
12. Enjoy!
“In my public and private hands-on cooking classes, I encourage participants to experiment with different herbs and spices for roasted roots. A fun way to intuitively choose herbs is to close your eyes, smell different herbs, and intuitively decide which to use when flavoring the root vegetables. Have fun and be creative.”

Roots are Good for Us! Roots are nutrient-dense, grounding, and sweet. Enjoy experimenting with the many different types of roots, such as carrots, celery root, golden beets, red beets, parsnips, sweet potatoes, turnips, and radishes. Root vegetables are:
- Nutrient-dense with calcium, iron, beta carotene, and vitamins A, C, and E.
- Energetically grounding, as roots grow in the earth.
- Naturally sweet when cooked, thus helping reduce sugar cravings.
Roast a Radish. If you’ve never roasted a radish, try a few and notice the difference between a spicy raw radish and a sweet roasted radish.

Simple Veggie Stir-fry….from A New View of Healthy Eating

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Share your roasted roots photos with us on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating
August 2, 2016
A New View of Healthy Eating: Always Make Your Own Salad Dresssing: Book Excerpt
by Melanie Albert, Food and nutrition expert, author and speaker. Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
For several years I’ve been guiding clients, from young golfers, to holistic practitioners, to former NFL players, to seniors to create a raw kale salad. The key is a simple-to-prepare salad dressing. In my next book to be released in April 2016, “A New View of Healthy Eating,” I share simple culinary techniques. Once you learn the techniques, you can intuitively create your own dishes.

How to make a basic salad dressing is one of those simple culinary techniques. I’m sharing the draft from the book around creating salad dressings and look forward your feedback when you experiment with your own salad dressings.

Come and share your photos with us on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

Excerpt from “A New View of Healthy Eating”

EXPERIENCE NUTRITION SIGNATURE RAW MASSAGED KALE SALAD
Make your own gourmet raw kale salad with your favorite fruit, berries, nuts and seeds. Learn how to make a simple salad dressing, massage your kale, and add-in your favorite seasonal fruit and berries, and nuts and seeds.

“The key to a tender kale salad is a simple dressing and massaging the kale. And, the fun is in creating a beautiful, tasty kale salad is the seasonal fruit and berries. One of my very favorite add-ins in a kale salad is local Arizona organic pomegranate seeds.” Melanie Albert

Basic Salad Dressing: 3 Ingredients. That’s It
Three key ingredients for a salad dressing include a fat, acid and salt. Optional add-ins include aromatics (such as garlic and onions), fresh herbs and sweeteners like raw local honey and fresh dates. To make your initial dressing for a kale salad, start with fresh lemon, organic extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and garlic. Once you have learned how to prepare a dressing with this technique, you can use this method to create your own unique salad dressings for a raw kale salad or other fresh salads.

Simple Ingredients
- 1 fresh lemon, squeezed, approximately ¼ cup
- Organic extra virgin olive oil, twice as much as the lemon juice, approximately ½ cup
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
Simple Steps
- Squeeze a fresh organic lemon into a pint-size Mason jar
- Pour in twice as much olive oil as the lemon
- Sprinkle in sea salt and minced garlic
- Shake the jar
- Taste and notice if your dressing seems too oily, acidy or too little or too much salt. This is a great place to mindfully use your cooking intuition. Add-in ingredients until the dressing tastes great to you.
A New View of Healthy Eating: Basic Salad Dressing

Create Your Own Salad Dressing

Learn the simple salad dressing technique and then create your own with different fats, different acids, and add-ins, such as sweeteners or freshly minced herbs or sweeteners. Sweeteners such as honey, can be used to balance a dressing that seems too acid tasting.
- Fats: Olive oil, grape seed oil, nut oils, such as walnut oil
- Acid: Citrus (Lemon, limes, oranges); Vinegars (Balsamic, rice red or white wine), stone-ground mustard
- Salt: Your choice of sea salt or Himalayan salt
- Optional Sweeteners: Raw honey or dates
- Optional Aromatics: Garlic, green onions, shallots, red onions
- Optional Freshly Minced Herbs: Basil, cilantro, oregano, parsley
Our new “A New View of Healthy Eating, A 55-Card Deck” is NOW available to purchase. Get inspirational shopping, culinary, mindful eating, self care messages to add to your life! CLICK to PURCHASE

“A New View of Healthy Eating, A 55-Card Deck”
January 30, 2016
A New View of Healthy Eating: Philosophies Part 3: Eat Mindfully
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition Group, LLC, Phoenix, AZ. Nutrition and food expert, author and speaker. Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Holistic Nutrition and Whole Food Cooking Instructor at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts.
A New View of Healthy Eating begins with the food we choose to eat, and extends to our shopping, cooking and eating experiences.

The key philosophies are:
• Eat real whole foods
• Shop local and in season
• Enjoy intuitive shopping
• Cook with intuition
• Eat mindfully
• Enjoy life

Today, we focus on Eat Mindfully

A New View of Healthy Eating: I Commit to Mindful Eating

When we eat, this is the time to enjoy our food, the beauty of our food, and to enjoy our family and friends in a beautiful environment. Enjoy the social time to connect with your family or friends. Or, if eating alone, take the time to pause and enjoy the quiet meditative time for yourself.

A few ideas to add mindful eating to your life:
- Set your table with a pleasing environment, using real plates and silverware and perhaps flowers and music.
- When you eat, pause and enjoy the beauty and aroma of the food that was grown and lovingly prepared for you.
- Really mindfully eat. Pause, chew, place your fork down, and pause again.
- Enjoy your meal with all your senses.
“The key to mindful eating is to pause and enjoy your food and the connections with yourself, your family and friends. “ Melanie Albert

This week, I invite you to pause when you are eating and notice if you are eating mindfully.

If you are not eating very mindfully, I invite you to add one mindful eating idea to your meal. Come over and share your experience with us on Facebook.

And, enjoy!

Click to Purchase: If you are interested in my “A New View of Healthy Eating, A 55-Card Deck” for your personal inspiration around farmers market shopping, simple culinary skills, quick whole food recipes, intuitive cooking, mindful eating and self care.

A New View of Healthy Eating: Set your table with a pleasing environment.
January 18, 2016
A New View of Healthy Eating: Philosophies: Part 3: Cook with Intuition
by Melanie Albert, Food & nutrition author and speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC, Phoenix, AZ
“A New View of Healthy Eating” begins with the food we choose to eat, and extends to our shopping, cooking and eating experiences.

Key philosophies of “A New View of Healthy Eating”
- Eat real whole foods
- Shop local and in season
- Enjoy intuitive shopping
- Cook with intuition
- Eat mindfully
- Enjoy life
Today’s Focus: Cooking with Intuition

When we cook with intuition, we first use recipes as guides, learn simple culinary cooking techniques, and then intuitively create beautiful, tasty meals with real whole foods.

A New View of Healthy Eating: Intuitive Cooking: Farmers’ Market Organic Stir-fry

With intuitive cooking we use recipes as guides. We first learn simple basic culinary methods and techniques (such as raw, steaming, roasting) to prepare real whole foods with recipes as our guide. Naturally, over time, we learn to trust our own intuition to cook foods we desire using cooking techniques we have learned.

Overtime, we do not need to rely on recipes. We trust ourselves and our culinary skills to create our own healthy dishes. For instance, we learn the culinary technique to steam carrots in a bamboo steamer and use our recipe to finish the carrots with walnut oil, toasted cumin, fresh lemon juice and parsley and a pinch of sea salt. After learning the bamboo steamer technique to quickly steam veggies, we create other steamed veggies (such as broccoli and cauliflower) and finish them with different oils, spices and herbs.

Cook Mindfully. With intuitive cooking we also naturally cook more mindfully, meditatively enjoying the rhythm of chopping veggies or the mindfulness of massaging kale or grating fresh spices.

Share your Intuitive Cooking experiences with us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

Purchase “A New View of Healthy Eating, A 55-Card Deck” at www.EXPNutrition.com for motivational messages around healthy eating, culinary skills, simple recipes, mindful eating and self care.
December 22, 2015
A New View of Healthy Eating: Eat What You Love
by Melanie Albert, Food and nutrition expert, author, speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC.

Our card today from my new “A New View of Healthy Eating, A 55-Card Deck”:

Eat What You Love

A New View of Healthy Eating, A 55-Card Deck: Eat What You Love

I was very excited about his message today, as I have one of my favorite foods in my home right now, organic dark chocolate, which I will definitely enjoy.

To me, the message around this card is to give ourselves permission to eat and enjoy foods that we may have deprived ourselves from eating in our past or even today.

I invite you, right now, to grab a piece of paper and pencil and do the following exercise:
- Step 1: Write down all of the foods that you absolutely love. Be creative. Write down all of the foods, even from spices, to olive oil, to fruits, to veggies, to snacks, to beverages.
- Step 2: Now, draw a circle around 5 of those foods that you generally deprive yourself of. That is, you love the food, but you do not eat that food.
- Step 3: Draw another circle around one of those 5 foods that you commit to eat this week. Choose your food that you will, right now, give yourself unconditional permission to eat. Unconditional permission to eat with joy!
- Step 4: Say out loud with passion: “I love my life and I give myself unconditional permission to eat_________________” (fill in your food)
- Step 5: Go out and purchase your food or go out to a restaurant and enjoy your food with a friend.
- Step 6: Share your experiences with us on Facebook. Would love to see your photos of you enjoying your “eat what you love food” and how this experience was for you.
Often when we do this “eat what you love” exercise in classes and workshops, people give themselves permission to eat chocolate cake. Pizza is always on the top of the list. Many love ice cream. Do you relate?

Have fun and really enjoy your food this week!
December 9, 2015
A New View of Healthy Eating: Intuitive Cooking with Culinary & a Taste of Yoga
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition Group, LLC, Phoenix, AZ. Nutrition and food expert, author and speaker. Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Holistic Nutrition and Whole Food Cooking Instructor at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts.
I am excited to share that I’m working on my new book, pulling together my new thoughts, approaches to cooking and eating over the last few years. I started teaching simple cooking with small groups in 2007 and in 2008 I began teaching former NFLplayers and their families, kids , seniors, and holistic practitioners (such as yoga teachers, life coaches). Since my early work, my work has evolved.

I noticed that my way of teaching simple healthy cooking that works, is fun, and creative, blends several different methods or concepts:
- Shopping. Cooking and eating intuitively.
- Using simple professional culinary methods to prepare and cook food.
- Using beautiful farmers market-fresh local, organic food, as much as possible and eating with the season.
- Bringing mindfullness and intuitiveness to enjoying eating.
I have now worked with 1,000s of people, guiding them to cook; Completed a Professional Plant-based Culinary Course with Rouxbe in early 2015; completed a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification with Southwest Institute of Healing Arts in 2015 and am now a 200 hour registered yoga teacher; and I have had the honor to teach Whole Food Cooking and Conscious Eating courses at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts since March 2014 and have reached hundreds of students and their families.

As a result of my new experiences , I have come to writing this new book with a new view, with such new knowledge, skills and awareness, that I want to share it with the world to guide and encourage others to really enjoy shopping, cooking and eating food with family and friends; and to add-in some self care, such as yoga each and every day. Combining the enjoyment of food and life.

I am very excited and will share with you my ideas, writing, photos along the way in my writing process and look forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Please visit us on Facebook and share your new ways of cooking and enjoying food.

EXPERIENCE NUTRITION: Bamboo Steamer Organic Rainbow Carrots
November 9, 2015
Experience Nutrition: Intuitive Cooking & Eating for Self Care

By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition Group, LLC, Phoenix, AZ. Nutrition and food expert, author and speaker. Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Holistic Nutrition and Whole Food Cooking Instructor at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts.
I love self care! And, I’ve been practicing and advocating self care for decades. Self care is vital for life. Self care experiences are activities we enjoy for our own pleasure. My personal self care menu includes:
• Practicing yoga
• Receiving a massage
• Cooking with my niece
• Going to an NFL football game or the Super Bowl
• Walking on my golf course

Within the last few years, I’ve added Intuitive Cooking & Eating to my self care menu. As part of this self care experience within my life, I begin by going to local Arizona farmers markets and farms to shop. I intuitively browse the market and enjoy seeing the foods that are in season; their beauty, colors and textures. And, I purchase fresh, vibrant produce that I’m most attracted to and excited about. To me self care is eating whole foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. Buying food from local farmers allows us to purchase fresh food that has not traveled across our country or from other parts of the world, which add to the carbon footprint of food.

In addition to local farmers market fresh produce, and whole foods, eating organic is vital to my self care. I intuitively started eating organic 20 years ago, way before organic was trendy and in the news. I intuitively “knew” that I did not want to eat food grown with pesticides or herbicides, or genetically modified (GMO) food. When I eat local, organic foods I feel as though I am putting the highest quality food into my body.

Singh Farms, Scottsdale, Arizona

Preparing and cooking meals has also become one of my favorite self care experiences. I enjoy choosing all of the ingredients for my culinary creations, again intuitively. By looking at the beauty of the food and mindfully paying attention to what I’m craving or desiring to eat, I begin meal preparation.

It could be a fresh fruit smoothie with coconut water, hemp seeds, raw cacao and goji berries for breakfast. Or it may be a simple avocado wrap for lunch with local Arizona tomatoes, cucumbers, rainbow carrots, fresh garlic, and just picked Meyer lemons and fresh basil. Often the self care experience extends to the aroma of produce, such as the zesty lemons and sweet basil.

Intuitive Super Food Smoothie

The mindful chopping of the veggies, as I prepare my beautiful meals is an enjoyable part of my self care experience. I love taking the time to mindfully enjoy the calming, rhythm of cutting the beautiful veggies. And, as many of my students know, I love the ritual of mise en place, getting all of my ingredients in place, for easy organization, as I prepare to cook.

For dinner, one of my very favorite self care cooking and eating experiences is a simple, beautiful veggie stir-fry with the fresh local Arizona produce from the farmers market. Will post this healthy organic recipe soon.

I invite you to practice Intuitive Cooking Experience as part of your own self care and share your experiences with us on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/experience.nutrition.now

Melanie Albert’s book, Enjoy Food & Life, is available as an e-book on www.EXPNutrition.com and you can join her on Twitter @NutritionAuthor She is available for speaking engagements, cooking workshops and retreats.

October 15, 2015
9 Ways 90 Days: Favorite Food Quotes: Alice Waters

Love this quote from author, restauranteer, and activist Alice Waters, who has been a “healthy food” leader and innovator for decades. Her perpective captures the concept of Intutive Eating & Cooking…
9 Ways 90 Days Favorite Food Quote

Enjoy your Intuitive shopping, cooking and mindful eating today!

Click here to learn more about how to intuitively shop, cook & eat to reach your 2015 Goals.

January 2, 2015
9 Ways 90 Days: Intuitive Eating Guided Visualization: What are Your Childhood Eating Memories?

By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition. Nutrition and food expert, author and speaker. Certified Health Coach.
I’d like to share with you a guided visualization with intuitive eating that I recently shared in our Feel Fit Yoga class at Spirit of Yoga in Tempe, Arizona. After 90 minutes of a beautiful yoga practice with Will Zecco, full of pranayama, asana including lots of warriors, our Hindu squats and closing with singing bowl and gong savasana, I guided the students through a guided visualization inviting them to go back to their early eating memories.

Melanie Albert: Intuitive Eating at Spirit of Yoga in Tempe, Arizona

Intuitive Eating Childhood Memories
I invite you to sit quietly, close your eyes, take a deep inhale and deeply exhale out through your mouth a few times. Now, quietly read and visualize your own eating memories.

I invite you to go back to your very first memory of eating. What did you eat? Where were you? Who were you eating with? Who prepared the food? How did the food taste? How did it smell? What were the textures of the food? How did you feel when eating the food? Was the food hot? Warm? Cold? How did your body feel? How did you feel while eating your food?

Now, take a few minute to journal or reflect on your memories and come on over to our Facebook page and share with us.

Early Eating Memories
Some of the early memories of eating of the yoga students in the class include:
• When I was a child, we didn’t have a lot of money, so my mom always made grains and beans for breakfast. We were very satisfied and happy.
• My Great Grandmother cooked Swedish pancakes, with a lot of butter and sugar. Now, after all these decades, I see why I love and crave sugar.
• I remember the ice cream truck bell and running out in the street to buy my frozen treat. Today, ice cream is still one of my favorite snacks.
• We lived on a farm in the mid-West and most of our food came from our huge garden. I especially remember my mom cooking and our family eating purple beets.
• I remember making pancakes that looked like snowmen with my Grandmom. I can still see her teaching me how to cook the pancakes with lots of bubbles, and I remember the sweet, yummy thick syrup.
• I was 5 years old and I was baking a cake with my Grandmother. It was an amazing chocolate cake made by scratch.

Back to the Basics
It’s so interesting to reflect on our childhood eating memories. Not only do they affect our eating habits as adults, but they are also very significant in our lives. We very clearly remember our cooking and eating experiences, the aroma, who we were with, the tastes and the enjoyment of eating.

It’s also interesting that we have really come full circle. 360 degrees. Today, I teach basic whole foods intuitive cooking, like our Grandmom’s and Mom’s did. In my writings and cooking classes we focus on real whole foods that are minimally processed, including grains, beans, fruit and vegetables. And, I love to encourage the enjoyment of cooking and eating.

I invite you to visit our Facebook page and share your early eating memories. Enjoy!

September 18, 2014