Ashlee will be a new vendor at our market this year, making wonderful mueslis, lemon muesli bars, nut butters, fruit spreads and seedy crackers. In this blog post, she shares her passion and her knowledge of healthy eating. In one month, you'll be able to try her products for yourself!
Natural. Healthy. Delicious. Those are three most important things for me when it comes to deciding what food to put in my body.
Natural. Healthy. Delicious. Those are three most important things for me when it comes to deciding what food to put in my body.
Having a
deep interest in vegan and vegetarian cooking, as well as a passion for healthy
eating, I started to develop a few different recipes for vegan friendly muesli,
jams, nut butters, crackers, and muesli bars. I found it hard to find good
quality products in grocery stores that didn’t have an
outrageous amount of refined sugar or unnatural ingredients so I thought, why
not try my hand at making them myself! After a lot of trial and error, I feel
like I’ve developed a lot of really tasty, natural food products
that people can feel good about eating.
A lot of my products contain different
seeds, such as chia seeds in the jams and crackers. Chia seeds are high in
iron, folate, calcium, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids and soluble fibre, making
them what some would say is a ‘superfood’! Since I didn’t
want to use any pectin or gelatine, after a bit of research I discovered that
soaking chia seeds creates a gelatine like substance. Not only does that have
the same affect as gelatine or pectin, but it is also a very healthy
alternative.
My ‘Bird’s Seed’ Muesli
contains a couple of different types of seeds as well as oats so it’s
great energy food to start your day with. My older brother has made fun of me
for calling it ‘Bird’s Seed’ but
I once heard a woman say, regarding eating seeds like a bird, ‘Have
you ever seen a tired bird? I rest my case’.
I should also mention that I do have an addiction. An addiction
to nuts. Almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, and the list goes on. I also
love toast…and the combination of my love for those two things has
brought me to invest some serious time in creating the most delicious of nut butters.
The nice thing about my nut butters, is that I don’t use any oils.
Nuts produce a lot of natural oil once you start the process of turning it into
a butter so any extra oils are not necessary. I think it’s nature’s
way of telling me to eat more nuts. ;)
A common thing I hear when people are looking for
granolas/muesli, granola/muesli bars, nut butters, or jams, is that they can
never find products that don’t have a lot of refined sugars in
them. Sugar intake is a huge problem in our culture, especially when we are
using refined or artificial sweeteners. My goal with my products is to only
use small amounts of natural sweeteners that were also vegan. That’s
why in my ingredients lists, you will only find maple syrup or agave nectar
being used. Maple syrup has an abundance of trace minerals that are essential
to good nutrition: potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, zinc,
copper and tin, as well as calcium in concentrations 15 times higher than
honey! Agave nectar is also a great natural sweetener to use since it is low on
the glycemic scale…making it not only a nice option for
vegans, but also anyone who is watching their sugar intake.
SWEFM Guest Blogger-Ashlee Roger
Owner/Operator
Better Than Your Nan’s
Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
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Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Write a review of us on Trip Advisor: SWEFM on Trip Advisor
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