Clean Eating and Candice Kumai

When I was a pre-teen I was diagnosed with PCOS or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It’s a nasty health issue to deal with, and if you want to learn more follow this link.

I refused to spend my life taking countless pills and struggling to feel normal when all my friends were enjoying pre-teen life. I learned about blood sugar, macrobiotic eating, alkalizing your body, and a host of other healthy living topics. I’ve always had a fascination with holistic living. To be completely honest, my parents let my have a holistic living coach when I was 13, who also acted as my spiritual shaman, because I refused to take adderall after a teacher’s recommendation. I shopped at Whole Foods when it was still fresh fields, and I used to eat birthday carrots instead of cake…by choice (geez no wonder I had a hard time making friends).

It wasn’t until college that I started trading my raw vegan chocolate balls for chocolate cookies.

Now my body is so sensitive to clean eating that I can feel the imbalance coming. I swear if I get “cute” and binge on sugar I can legit feel the insulin pouring out of my eyeballs.

I’m always experimenting with how to enjoy food and feed my body properly. There are a host of chefs and cookbooks that do a solid job of helping to find that balance (shoutout to Rocco Di Spirito and Goop.com)…but my favorite and #WCW is Candice Kumai. Kumai is a former Top Chef contestant, Bar Method enthusiast, road runner, amazing chef, and all around badass.

This past Lent session I gave myself a Julie/Julia style challenge of cooking one recipe daily from her cookbooks: Cook Yourself Sexy, Pretty Delicious and Clean Green Drinks.

So Cali Nicoise

Zoodles and Noodles with Nutritional Yeast

Chinese food, green juice, smoothies, veggies, and yummy pineapple upsidedown cake

I cooked up a storm, made amazing things from scratch, tried new ingredients, and every day was a new culinary adventure. My real test was if my dad would eat it, I knew I was on to something…and he loved every bite.

I think the most daunting thing about changing your eating habits is the fear of deprivation, at least for me. I find that all of Candice’s recipes are bursting with flavor, and they even inspired me to create my own healthy swaps (I’ll share those another time).

But seriously, how could you not want to listen to this woman, look at her…

Candice has a new cookbook out called, Clean Green Eats. I can not wait to work my way through the recipes in that book (when I moved to Manhattan one of the only boxes I cared about had all my healthy eating cookbooks).

XOXO,

MacKenzie