Happy Valentine’s Day!

Why not start your Valentine’s Day with a beautiful and healthy meal that will be sure to leave you with plenty of extra room for some Chocolate Covered Strawberries later in the day?!

Often times when a holiday of any type rolls around, we use it as an excuse to give ourselves mental permission to throw off an entire day of eating (which we all know ends up spiraling into a few days and sometimes even weeks).  SO I wanted to give you an example of how you can take some Valentine inspired ingredients and still stay on your path of healthy eating this year!!

So, what exactly makes an ingredient Valentines worthy?  Ultimately, this will depend on the individual but for me, I’m thinking it’s a texture… a color… a memory.  Things that make me think of love.   And of course, chocolate!

Now, “don’t-nobody-do-it-like-mother-nature-do-it” when it comes to colors and textures, so it’s easy to pick from a palette of natural foods in order to create a d’lishes and nutritious Valentines meal!  You just have to figure out what rings true for you when it comes to picking your ingredients.

When I was growing up, not a year passed by when my parents didn’t give my sister and I a box of chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day.  So I wanted to play off the chocolate-berry theme when I was whipping up this quick breakfast/snack.

I went with some ripe, red raspberries, rich-antioxidant-packed-cacao-nibs, and some creamy bananas mixed into a nice big bowl of low-fat, organic cottage cheese!   And c’mon, how pretty is it?  A simple and beautiful dish that reminds me of Valentine’s Day and I can feel good about eating:).

So this Valentine’s Day, why not put a little extra love into your meals and skip the temptation of over eating just because “it’s a holiday” by choosing some-feel-good-ingredients to base your meal around.  Besides, we all need to keep our meals a little lighter so we have plenty of room for a Chocolate Covered Strawberry or some Super-Foods Chocolate Bark .

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Ingredients

¾ cup organic, low fat cottage cheese
¼ banana, chopped up
1/3 cup raspberries
1 tbsp cacao nibs

Directions

Combine cottage cheese, banana, half the raspberries and cacao nibs in a small bowl.
Top with the rest of the raspberries and enjoy!!

Serves 1.

Nutritional Analysis

Calories: 238; Total Fat: 8.3g; Saturated Fat: 4.6g; Cholesterol: 7mg; Sodium: 688mg; Carbohydrate: 21.4g; Dietary Fiber: 7.9g; Sugars: 9.9g; Protein: 23.8g

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