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Packing a Healthy Picnic for Your Fall Tailgating Party (With Tailgating Recipes)

Ahh,the joys of fall…with picnics, football games and tailgating parties it’s fun for the whole family! But don’t forget your health…here’s how to pack delicious AND nutritious picnics to boost immunity before cold and flu season.

Fall…the season of children peeping out from under piles of leaves, football games and the long-awaited tailgating parties!

Tailgating is a great American pre-game tradition, where fans create spontaneous parties in the stadium parking lot. This tradition centers around more than delicious picnic food…it’s a time to connect with family, friends and fans in the community.

So how did tailgating start?

Well, the stories vary from a Princeton-Rutgers game in 1869 to a Yale game in 1904. But nevertheless, we all know how much fun tailgating can be!

Typical Tailgating Picnic Fare

Tailgating meals can be simple, elaborate or anything in between. Everyone has different tastes when it comes to the types of foods you bring. But one thing’s for sure…most tailgating parties are packed with sugar and processed foods.

A typical tailgating meal might look like this:

  • Potato chips and/or potato salad
  • Barbecued meat or chicken
  • Hot dogs and hamburgers
  • Sauerkraut
  • Beer
  • Cookies, cake or donuts
  • Hot chocolate
  • Apple cider
  • Soda pop
  • Coffee

We agree that these processed foods probably taste good, but did you know that they also damage your health and immunity?

Processed foods, sugar and poor food combinations (like hamburgers or hot dogs on buns) all create an acidic condition in your blood that sets the stage for weight gain, illness and dis-eases, like cancer, osteoporosis, candida (systemic fungal infection that affects 70% of Americans!).

The fats in these foods are truly poisonous and lead to all kinds of problems including hormone imbalances, low libido, vision problems, old age brain issues like Alzheimer’s, heart problems, and infertility. Actually this list goes on and on.

You might be thinking, “well yes, but it’s only once in awhile.” We agree and yet, we can give you a tailgating picnic makeover that has all the great taste, but that also BOOSTS your energy, health and immunity!

Your Delicious Body Ecology Tailgating Picnic Makeover

Next time you go on a tailgating party, use this list (and our tailgating recipes!) to pack a healthy picnic for your family and friends.

Here is the tailgating picnic makeover:

  • Free range Turkey Burgers, turkey hot dogs, or organic beef hamburgers. Serve the burgers on a pretty serving dish without the buns. (See our popular recipe below.)
  • Sauerkraut and homemade Cultured Veggies or kimchi – but NOT the kind made with vinegar. Instead, you want to look for raw cultured vegetables that are fermented. These are delicious on top of the turkey hot dogs or burgers.
  • Big Green Salad – Romaine lettuce, cucumber slices, carrots, yellow summer squash and a little bit of red pepper for color.
  • Body Ecology Dressing (see tailgating recipes, below)
  • Eden Brown Mustard (this is made with apple cider vinegar and is much better than the processed mustard made with white vinegar).
  • InnergyBiotic – chilled and served in pretty champagne glasses. (A much better way to celebrate!)
  • Green Tea – full of antioxidants, green tea actually creates energy, helps your body deal with stress and has anti-aging properties!
  • Stevia – A natural sugar substitute, Stevia does not raise blood sugar or feed candida, has zero calories, is delicious and has medicinal properties. Use Stevia to sweeten your tea and probiotic liquids.
  • Coco-Biotic – full of probiotics Coco-Biotic is a great replacement for soda pop and energy drinks. As with all our probiotic liquids Coco-Biotic gives you a boost of energy by providing you with lots of B vitamins (made by the friendly microflora). It also nourishes your inner ecosystem and helps give your adrenals the boost of energy they need each day. Coco-Biotic’s powerful probiotics also help you digest your delicious tailgating lunch!
  • Sparkling mineral water – cut up lemons and limes and have your bottle of Body Ecology’s delicious-tasting stevia nearby to create a refreshing, lemon or lime-ade.

For a delicious drink that tastes like Sprite, but has whopping health benefits, use 2 oz. of Coco-Biotic, some sparkling water, lime and Stevia (see tailgating recipes, below). Just a little Coco-Biotic builds your immunity, helps you digest your food and gives you all the energy you’ll need to cheer for the big game. Say cheers to your health with Coco-Biotic!

This tailgating picnic makeover is a great example of food combining done properly. It also contains the kinds of foods that will have you feeling your best, so you can enjoy your food, the game and overall health!

Have fun and be creative with your tailgating meals! And for dessert ideas, there are plenty of options in The Body Ecology Diet book.

Tailgating Recipes

Here are some great tailgating recipes that are delicious, satisfying and healthy:

Turkey Burgers with Sweet Mustard Sauce

Yield: 4 Burgers

Burgers:

  • 1 pound ground turkey
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil or salted butter

Mustard Sauce:

  • 4 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 8 to 10 drops stevia liquid concentrate
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • ½ cup olive oil, or Essential Balance oil (or 1/4 cup each)
  • ½ cup chopped fresh dill, or 1 teaspoon dried

Instructions:
To make the mustard sauce, whisk the mustard, dry mustard, stevia and vinegar together in a medium-size bowl.

Slowly add the oil, continuing to whisk the mixture until it is thick and well blended. Stir in the dill. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour.

Place the turkey and salt in a medium-size bowl and mix well. Divide the mixture into four equal size patties.

Heat the coconut oil (or butter) in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the patties and cook for five to seven minutes. Turn the burgers over and continue to cook another five minutes, or until they are no longer pink inside when cut with a knife.

Serve the burgers hot, topped with sweet mustard sauce

Korean Kimchi

  • 2 heads of Napa cabbage (or another Chinese cabbage variety), shredded in a food processor
  • 5-10 scallions or spring onions (similar to scallions, only stronger and hotter in flavor), finely chopped
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 teaspoon crushed, fresh ginger or powdered ginger
  • 2 jalapeños, minced fine
  • 2 tablespoons crushed fresh red chili pepper
  • Half an onion (optional)
  • Culture Starter
  • 2 tablespoons of honey or 1-3 scoops of EcoBloom as food for the microflora (see below)

Instructions:

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. Remove several cups of this mixture and put into a blender.
  3. Add enough filtered water with the mixture in your blender to make a “brine” the consistency of a thick juice. Blend well and then add brine back into first mixture. Stir well.
  4. Pack mixture down into a 1½ quart glass or stainless steel container. Use your fist, a wooden dowel, or a potato masher to pack veggies tightly.
  5. Fill container almost full, but leave about 2 inches of room at the top for veggies to expand.
  6. Roll up several cabbage leaves into a tight “log” and place them on top to fill the remaining 2 inch space. Clamp jar closed or screw on air tight lid.
  7. Let veggies sit at about a 70-degree room temperature for at least three days. A week is even better. Refrigerate to slow down fermentation. Enjoy!

To use Body Ecology’s Culture Starter:

  1. Dissolve one or two packages of Culture Starter in 1½ cup warm (90°) water. Add some form of sugar to feed the starter (try Rapadura, Sucanat, honey, Agave, or EcoBloom).
  2. Let starter/sugar mixture sit for about 20 minutes or longer while the L. Plantarum and other bacteria wake up and begin enjoying the sugar. Add this starter culture to the brine (step 3 in the instructions, above).

A Note About Sugar, Salt and Spice

Are you wondering why honey or some type of sweetener would be used in this recipe?
The reason is that healthy microflora actually need food to grow, just like us. Microflora like sweets, like sugars, and they “eat” the sugar up in the fermentation process, leaving us with all the healthy benefits of fermented foods.

To learn more about feeding healthy microflora with prebiotics, read: How to Make Your Gut Most Inviting to Healthy Probiotics

Many kimchi recipes have large amounts of chili powder, salt and other spices that can inhibit the growth of healthy microflora in the initial stages of fermentation. At Body Ecology, we believe that the most potent method of fermenting foods is to use a starter culture. As for salt…we do love high quality sea salt – like the highly recommended Celtic Sea Salt — but we add it after the veggies are fermented and before eating them (if desired). The end product is teeming with the beneficial microflora that aids our health and vitality.

Easy Tailgating Dressing Recipe

1 cup organic extra virgin olive oil
½ cup unrefined apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. Dill
1 tsp. Sea Salt or Herbamare

Combine all ingredients and whisk together. This mixture can be made ahead of time and stored in your refrigerator until needed.

Coco-Biotic Energy Drink (makes 1 glass)
2 oz. Coco-Biotic
½ cup sparkling mineral water
Slice of lime
Stevia to taste

Combine all ingredients into one glass, squeeze the lime into your drink and start out with just two drops of Stevia. Taste and add more stevia, one drop at a time until you have an energizing drink with your desired level of sweetness!

Source:

Tailgating
http://www.tailgating.com/Trivia.htm

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