5 fAVOURITE Gifts of conscious consumption + OTHER EXCITING NEWS
Becca Crawford
This Christmas, gift your loved ones and friends something that will make a truly positive impact on their lives. Set out below are my top 5 suggestions of gifts that embrace conscious consumption – gifts that are useful, inspiring, sustainable, nourishing and soul-enriching in some way.
1. Online cooking workshops
I am so excited to have been able to release my 2 new online workshops – Gluten Free Baked Cakes and Bone Broth - just before Xmas. Learning how to make and master guilt-free healthy cakes and a gelatinous nourishing bone broth are life changing skills that can (and should be) passed on from generation to generation.
Once purchased, you will receive an email containing a secure link to download and save a document containing both the video and the workshop booklet. Provided you download the link within 24 hours of receipt, you have lifetime access to the PDF and video with no time limit in which to view it by. If you are wanting to gift the online video to a friend, simply download and save the document on your system and forward the document to them as their gift.
You can purchase both workshops as a bundle for 25% off the retail price.
I have put a lot of love, time and energy into these first 2 online workshops to create as close an experience as possible as if you had attended the workshop in person. I have made them as thoroughly comprehensive as possible, jammed packed with recipes, nutritional theory, practical demos, and answers to frequently asked questions. For those of you who live outside of Sydney or for whatever reason could not make it to one of my bone broth or baked cakes workshops in person, I hope you love these online workshops as much I have enjoyed creating them for you!
2. gift vouchers
If you are struggling to decide what product your loved one might like best- let them choose!
Simply purchase a Star Anise Organic Wholefoods gift voucher to the amount of your choosing. Vouchers can be used towards our products, workshops (including online workshops) or a life-changing one on one health coaching session with me. To purchase a voucher simply contact one of our lovely staff at Broth Bar & Larder and they will take care of the rest.
3. ACTIVATED NUTS
Did you know that activated nuts and seeds are ranked 3rd on the Dr. Mat Lalonde nutrient-density scale? Yes, really. However, nuts and seeds contain these pesky things called phytates which are anti-nutrients that trap the vitamins and minerals inside the nuts and seeds. Phytates can also irritate the lining of the gut making it leaky and they also destroy enzymes needed to digest our food (gas and bloating are tell tale signs that your nuts and seeds are still raw and not properly prepared).
Fortunately, traditional societies discovered through trial and error over millennia that soaking nuts and seeds and then drying them breaks down much of the phytates and hence improves digestibility and bio-availability of the nutrients. Not to mention making them more delicious than raw nuts. Once you’ve eaten an activated nut there’s no going back!!
This proper preparation process is nowadays called “activating” nuts. It is a labour of love to get our nuts so ridiculously crispy and delicious as we do. I’m happy to be told otherwise, but I’m convinced that no one activates longer and with as much care and vigilance as we do. We soak raw organic nuts overnight in reverse osmosis filtered water, organic apple cider vinegar (with the mother), and unrefined salt then rinse them in filtered water and dust them with unrefined salt before popping them into dehydrator ovens. No short cuts, no expense spared. It takes up to a whole week to get those macadamias and cashews super crispy. And almost that long for the rest of our nuts.
For Xmas I recommend a gift of the Snack Mix which is very festive (with gojis, coconut flakes, figs and mixed nuts) – it’s the perfect blend of sweet and savoury.
You also can’t go past our activated macadamias (that have been described as “life-changing”) or almonds. The mixed nuts (which do not contain dried fruit) are also a good place to start for those who are not sure.
Our nuts are available in 3 sizes (120g, 300g, 500g) and some come in handy 30g snack packs. These are a nice addition to any hamper and make a lovely gift for a teacher, friend, household helper or someone who has enriched your life in some way.
4. artisan Xmas chocolate & other raw treats
Because we loooove chocolate so much, we have hand crafted a Xmas chocolate made with tangy incaberries, activated hazels and coconut flakes in our luscious organic raw dark chocolate base. Individually hand wrapped, these are available for sale at Broth Bar & Larder only.
And then we have a selection of our staple artisan raw treats: 4 flavours of raw dark chocolate, 2 flavours of power bars, 4 flavours of bliss balls, choc coated macadamias, raspberry gummies and totally unsweetened carob bears. These were crafted by me many moons ago after an exhaustive search of not being able to find anything that was remotely up to scratch in the market place. Made without any refined sugar, soy lecithins, emulsifiers, milk powders or other nasties whatsoever, these contain only pure certified organic ingredients. These are so pure that they must be refrigerated. We don’t see that as an inconvenience, but as a sign of purity and uncompromising standards.
5. Xmas stocking fillers
Here are some ideas for small gifts or gifts that make a nice addition to any Xmas stocking or hamper:
- Our 30g packets of activated nuts (sold at Broth Bar & Larder)
- Green Pastures Beauty Balm (the most nourishing edible lip balm on the market) (sold at Broth Bar & Larder)
- Home made ginger bread men (see my recipe here).
- A bottle of orange essential oil by Young Living. Find out more here on how to purchase these pure and potent essential oils from the world leaders in essential oils.
If you would like a selection of our products then feel free to bring in a hamper box for us to help you fill. In addition to all of the Star Anise Organic Wholefoods Products we also sell a beautiful selection of artisan third party products like Toscana extra virgin cold pressed olive oil, Jakemans pure maple syrup and Red Boat (sugar free) fish sauce. These are 3 staples in my pantry that I use regularly!
in Other news…
i) pecans back in stock!
After a world wide shortage for over a year, I am excited to announce that organic pecans are now available from our supplier and my staff have been busily activating them so that they are now back in stock both in the online store and at Broth Bar & Larder. You can order them here!
ii) we are now selling pastured eggs!
I’m delighted to announce that after researching egg farms for quite some time the search is over and I am now selling at Broth Bar & Larder Carbeen Pastured Eggs at $9/dz for the following reasons:
- The farm is run as a Joel Salatin holistic polyculture style farm in Manildra, NSW (cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks)
- They have the lowest stocking density of any farm that I know of at 3 hens per hectare! (Most organically raised farms average at 10,000 per ha!)
- They are rated No. 1 in Choice Magazine and the CluckAR app
- The hens are fed a natural diet of pasture, worms, veggie scraps, cow dung and grains. In terms of grains, in the words of the farmer "Our hens are fed a coarse mix feed that enables them free choice to determine exactly what feed they want at any given time/day. We also ferment our feed to remove the anti-nutritional enzymes that are present in dry seeds and it also promotes good gut health in our hens. The feed contains wheat and barley as well as canola meal (not the oil!) and lupin/field pea as the protein component. It also contains the vitamin premixes that are added to every chook feed as well as cal grit (provides slow release calcium and the grit for the chooks to grind grain in their crop). Our feed is not organic as the price of organic feed is cost prohibitive in our area (produced elsewhere and freighted in). Our feed is however GMO free and does not contain soybean meal (would be impossible to be GMO free otherwise as most soybean meal is shipped from US, where over 80% of Soy grown is GMO). Our hens are not drenched or given antibiotics. To promote health we instead use Apple Cider Vinegar in the water and also use Oregano Oil as a natural internal and external pest control.
iii) Xmas trading hours
Broth Bar & Larder will be closed for the public holidays only (25th, 26th December and 1st January) and will be otherwise open for trading every day 8am-6pm and Sundays 11am-4pm.
I will be available for health coaching sessions throughout the entire school holiday period both during the day and in the evenings (other than 11-18 December 2017). To book simply call/text me directly on 0407 871 884 or complete the online form here.
MY XMAS WISH LIST…
My wish for 2018 is a place where:
- School canteens offer healthy, nutritious and delicious food for growing bodies so our kids can function properly and perform their best
- Kids are not offered junk food as a reward or treat from teachers or well-meaning adults
- Kids are encouraged to spend their play-time outside in sunshine in nature (without a hat if their parents so choose)
- Hospitals offer nutritious food to enable speedy and robust recovery of patients
- Schools and workplaces offer the choice of standing or sitting at desks
- More people walk or cycle to school, work or shops
- People are fully aware of where their food comes from, what’s been done to it, and its affect on their body so that they can make an informed choice
- People understand that the health of our food starts with the health of our soil and oceans
- Farmers who are committed to ethical and sustainable farming practices are paid and revered like rock stars!
Yes, yes, I know the above is all but a pipe-dream that I probably won’t ever see realised in my life time let alone 2018… But! I like to dream BIG and maybe, just maybe, if we work together small yet meaningful increments can be made.
2018 is set to be an exciting year with the launch of some new products (stay tuned!!), the launch of more and more of my online workshops (as well as conducting weekly in-persons workshops here in Sydney), getting my cookbook off the ground (I know I’ve been saying that for years! It’s going to be a monster tome!), and continuing my one on one health coaching sessions which take up the majority of my days... oh, and did I hear someone say something about a trip to Greece mid year?!?! #pinchme…especially if I bring back a tall, dark, handsome Greek God who happens to be on the same lifestyle page ;-)
thank you for your overwhelming support!
What an incredible year! Broth Bar & Larder turned 2 and just like the mother of a toddler, it’s been quite a hair-raising and exhilarating journey (especially when you are juggling a retail store with 13 staff, a cooking school, a health coaching practice and 2 primary school aged kids!).
I take this opportunity to thank from the bottom of my heart all my clients, customers, staff, stockists, suppliers and followers of my blog and social pages for all your overwhelming support, loyalty, touching feedback, patience and advice over 2017. It has meant that I have been able follow my passion and do what I love to do: make nutritious and delicious food, share it, talk about it, show you how and why to make it, debunk the confusion surrounding nutrition, and help you on your journey towards vibrant and robust health. I am committed to constantly striving for excellence in all that we do at Star Anise Organic Wholefoods to ensure that our products and services remain at the highest unparalleled quality.
I hope your Xmas is delicious in every possible way!
Soulla x