How to Brush Your Teeth with Coconut Oil

I know this is so farfetched for some, but think about how we brushed our teeth before tooth paste was made. If you’re not into all the additives for shelf stability and massproducing here’s something to take a gander at!

How to Brush Your Teeth with Coconut Oil

By Renee Price, eHow Contributor

Make your own toothpaste from coconut oil.

Brush your teeth with coconut oil to prevent cavities, eliminate bad breath and reduce the risk of tooth decay and gum disease. Many people use coconut oil on the scalp to kill head lice bacteria and parasites, but coconut oil also works well at killing bad breath causing bacteria in the mouth. In fact, the glycerin in many commercial toothpastes derives from coconut oil. Read the label before you use a coconut oil product for your oral health to make sure it's fit for consumption because some coconut oil products are designated for hair or skincare. Learn how you can replace commercial toothpaste and use coconut oil for your dental health.

·          

Things You'll Need

·         Mixing bowl

·         Tablespoon

·         Fork

Show (2) More

Instructions

1.          

o    1

Combine 2 tbsp. of melted coconut oilwith 3 tbsp. of baking soda in a small bowl to make a paste. Blend the ingredients together with a fork until the paste resembles a regular toothpaste. In addition to turning the coconut oil into a paste, the baking soda contributes to the coconut oils effectiveness with its own teeth-whitening benefits.

o    2

Wet your tooth brush with warm water and place enough of the paste on your tooth brush to cover the brushing surface. Brush your teeth in a circular motion with the coconut and baking soda paste focusing on a small group of teeth at one time. Brush your tongue to distribute the paste and remove bacteria to freshen your breath.

o     

o    3

Rinse your mouth with a cup of water and avoid spitting out the water in the sink. Spit out the rinse outdoors or in a trash bag and discard. Coconut oil hardens at cold temperatures, so traces of the oil poured down your drain could clog your sink if rinsed with cold water.

o    4

Continue this process a few times a week to experience the benefits of brushing your teeth with coconut oil.

Tips & Warnings

·         Combine a packet of artificial sweetener and peppermint oil in your paste to add flavor.

·         Store your paste in the bathroom, not the refrigerator, to prevent the coconut oil content from hardening the paste.

·         Some vegetables are natural abrasives and eating them scrubs your teeth in a natural and harmless way. They act like toothbrushes. These vegetables include carrots, celery and cucumbers.

·         Baking soda is a classic amongst natural teeth whitening methods, and is indeed harmless. It is very effective in removing stains and killing plaque-causing bacteria, and it also reduces acids which harm your tooth enamel.

Monkeys Cupcakes

I made these yummy cupcakes for my son's birthday and I have been requested to post this recipe. They are so easy, super moist and of course scrumptious.

Ingredients:

1 Jar of salted almond butter (room temp)

1/2 cup agave or honey

2 eggs

2 large bananas (very ripe)

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup coco powder

preheat oven to 300 degrees.

First in a large bowl mash bananas to an even consistency; add the eggs, 1 jar of almond butter, agave or honey and baking soda. Lastly sift the coco powder in the bowl. Stir until evenly combined.

Place cupcake papers in the muffin tin of chose.

Fill the muffin tins about 1/8 of an inch to the top of the paper.

Bake for 15-20 or until a top pick runs clean.

Cool before you frost the cupcake.

Enjoy!

Coconut Oil Vanilla Frosting



   I have been working and looking for a recipe for frosting that was low in sugar and high in flavor for a long time. And I have found one form babycakes recipe book that I have made a little different. This is actually the best tasting frosting I have ever had. I made this recipe the day before my son’s birthday party and everyone loved it. This recipe is enough for 2 dozen cup cakes and it lasts for up to a month in the fridge. I made these with an almond butter banana chocolate cup cake. I’ll post that recipe when I have more time. Right now I’m thirty seven weeks and haven’t packed my hospital bag. I’ll be doing that today and shopping for whatever I don’t have on the list. I’m excited and nervous.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup milk (regular cow's milk)
• 1 cup dry milk powder
• 1/4 cup agave
• 1 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1tbsp coconut flour
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp of lemon juice

In a food processor or blender add the milk, dried milk, agave, coconut flour and vanilla and blend for 1 minute. Liquefy the oil (add to a sauce pan on low heat until it becomes liquid. make sure that the liquid amount adds up to 1 1/2 cups). While the food processor is on add the liquefied oil slowly. After you add the oil let blend for 30 more seconds. The frosting will be runny until the coconut oil cools by placing it in the fridge for 4 hours.

Pumpkin Pie Oat Meal

     

     I am so happy that we finally found a place to call home. I've been away from my blog because the house we were renting became inhabitable and unsafe for us to live in any longer. We stayed in my brothers RV for one month parked out in front of our local beaches on the central coast. Being by the beach definitely helped the sad feelings of not having a place to call home, especially because I was about 7 months pregnant and unable to get ready for the new baby. The kitchen in the RV was not suitable to experiment in (and really challenging to cook or bake anything at all!).  I was also very distracted by everything that was left to do in the middle of moving: storage for our five cars, where our dog was going to stay, storage for all of our stuff, and where we were going to live. Well, with much patience my husband I searched night and day to find this wonderful place we now call home. And the house is great; we live in a beautiful neighborhood on three acres that has tons of play area for the kids to frolic for hours. I haven’t even been to the park since we moved in because we've been here having so much fun.

            If you’re wondering how we’ve been settling in to our new place, well, its going ok…. Who am I kidding? We are still in boxes and my cravings and lack of a functional kitchen for a month has left me with some unique dinners to say the least. I know when my husband asks for the salsa or the cheese, I must be slacking on taste or spice.

            But, I have been making this pumpkin pie spice oat meal lately for the kids. Yesterday, when I went shopping for Thanksgiving kitchen supplies, my husband couldn’t figure out what to give the kids for a snack. So he called me and I told him to warm up the leftover pumpkin pie spiced oat meal. When I returned home a few hours later he told me that the cereal thing you made was so good and he would eat that for breakfast everyday if I made it for him to take to work. So I agreed with a big grin.

ingredients:

Water- 2 ½ cup

Old fashion oats- 1 cup

½ cup of almond meal

 Sea salt- 1/8 tsp

Pumpkin- fresh or canned – ¾ cup

Maple syrup – 4 tbsp

Vanilla – 1 tsp

Cinnamon – 1 ½ tsp or more

Pumpkin pie spice – ½ tsp or more

Milk of choice or half and half

Bring the water to a boil and add the oats. Cover and simmer on low (keeping a slight boil) for 5-10 minutes (depending on how soft you want the oats). Add the almond meal and cover and simmer for another 5 minutes. Stir in the sea salt pumpkin, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon and pumpkin spice. Then I cover and let stand with the heat off for a few minutes. Serve with milk or half and half.

Note: Leftovers will always need to be heated with extra milk. If you add extra pumpkin you’ll need to add more maple syrup because of the bitterness from the fruit.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

   Chocolate chip cookies are easy to make and traditional. When asked, most people would say chocolate chip cookies are their favorite cookie which makes them pretty much a crowd pleaser. At my houses we make them all the time – my boys love them! I was inspired by a recipe from http://www.elanaspantry.com/. Whenever I make these, I usually double up the batch stick them in the freezer and take them out whenever I need them. This recipe calls for butter… I love butter… I can give up gluten but I will never give up dairy. To me it’s like living without a toe, “you always think about it and wish it was there. Of course, I wish I could raise a cow off of nothing but grass and milk the cow myself and turn my own butter, but that’s not the case just quite yet! Until then I will buy organic. But, if you’re unable to use dairy, coconut oil is a great substitution. I hope you enjoy this recipe!

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups almond meal (almond flour works too)

½ teaspoon of sea salt

½ teaspoon of baking soda

½ cup of butter

¼ cup of agave nectar

¼ cup of apple sauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup of chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the almond meal/flour, sea salt, and baking soda.

Turn a burner on low heat. Place the butter in a medium sized sauce pan on the lit burner. Once the butter is melted take off the burner and add agave nectar, apple sauce and vanilla.

Mix the wet ingredients in to the dry.

Add half the chocolate chips (1/4 cup) to the dough and stir.

Cover and place in the freezer for 1 hour.

Remove from the freezer and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line a baking sheet or a pizza brick with parchment paper (I like to use a pizza brick).

Take a generous tablespoon size scoop the dough and roll it into a ball with the palm of your hands, then place it on baking sheet or pizza brick and press it down with your fingers or palm (important to press down or it will look like a cookie scone: ). 

Now add the rest of the chocolate chips on top. 

Place in the preheated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, until the top of the cookies is a light golden brown.

Easy BLT Wraps

   I love bacon as I’m sure most of the world does. This is a great recipe to make when it’s hot and you just want to sit outside and eat. Lately in the kitchen, I've been trying to make more "Dude Food" meals to make my husband excited when he sees what I made for dinner. And he did as soon as he saw the bacon and roasted potatoes. :)  Now, if I didn't make a starch with these wraps my husband and kids would keep asking for more food after dinner – not to say that these wraps aren't good by themselves.  As we sat down for dinner this evening, this meal sure kept us all quite for a good half an hour – with no after dinner munchies!

Ingredients:

1 pound of bacon cooked

Sliced provolone cheese

2 large tomatoes

2 avocadoes

Butter head lettuce or green leaf lettuce leaves

Tooth picks

• Slice up the tomatoes and avocadoes
• Make a little station to make assembly easier
• Lay a piece of lettuce then cheese, bacon, tomato and avocado
• Roll up and place a tooth pick in to keep in place and slice the lettuce rap in half or thirds
• Plate and serve with mustard dip and pickles

Mustard Dip

Ingredients:

½ cup of Greek yogurt (full fat works best or cheese yogurt)

1 tbsp of yellow mustard

1 tsp of Dijon mustard

1 tsp of agave nectar

A pinch of dried dill

Salt and pepper to taste

• Place the Greek yogurt in a measuring cup
• Add the yellow mustard, Dijon mustard, agave nectar and dill in the cup and mix
• Add salt and pepper to taste

Simple Roasted Potatoes

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
• Cut up 8 red potatoes into 1 inch cube
• Drizzle with olive oil and ½ tsp of sea salt
• Place on a pizza brick and bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown

   

Animal Cookie Recipe

    Yesterday we meet some friends at the park for a play date. The kids played together and we all had a good time. When it was time for a snack we sat down with our friends and shared what we brought to eat. The only thing we couldn't share was the animal cookies my friend brought (that are made with gluten). By the end of the snack I had to promise my older son that tomorrow I would make him some animal cookies. So this morning I took my cookie cutter recipe and added apple sauce instead of butter and used less syrup to make it more like animal cookie, which to me are lightly sweet and a little salty. The only thing this recipe is missing is the animal shaped cookie cutters which I’ll be looking for this weekend. I ended up using the rim of an apple sauce jar and the kids never noticed or asked about the animal shapes as they were shoving them down with milk. I want to make these again as soon as I get the little cookie cut-outs and I'll post the picture for you to see.

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup of almond meal

½ tsp of sea salt (fine ground)

2 tbsp of butter

4 tbsp of maple syrup

½ apple sauce

½ tsp of vanilla

·         In a large bowl combine almond meal and salt in a large bowl

·         In a sauce pan of low heat melt the butter and take of the burner. Add the maple syrup, apple sauce and vanilla

·         Mix wet ingredients into dry

·         Cut two pieces of parchment paper the size of a cookie sheet. Place one of the parchment papers on the cookie sheet and place the dough in the center. Take the other piece of parchment paper on top and roll out the dough to 1/8 inch in thickness. The dough will be sticky

·          Place in the freezer for 1 hour to set

·          Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

·         Use mini cookies cutter or use the rim of an apple sauce jar. You can use the left over dough to roll out again and place in the freezer to repeat

·         Place on a pizza brick or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

·         Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the rim of the cookie is golden brown

·         Cool and serve

These cookies are a balance of protein carbohydrates and fat, perfect for little ones or something light for you to enjoy!