Bake. Eat. Pose. Photo courtesy
TheKitchenYogi.com.

Yoga cookies, anyone?

Two entrepreneurs—one a certified yoga instructor and the other a marketer/package designer—have translated their love of yoga and healthy eating into The Kitchen Yogi. Their first products are cookie cutters in the shape of three yoga poses.

Each cookie cutter comes with a healthy cookie recipe and instructions for doing the pose (perhaps while the cookies are baking?).

The cookie cutters are $7.50 each or three for $20.00 (if you want one, you’ll want all three). Buy them online at TheKitchenYogi.com. Ten percent of profits go to animal welfare organizations.

You can make make healthy Valentine cookies for your yoga-enthusiast friends by adding a small candy Red Hot heart (available in bulk here) to each cookie.

If you don’t want to bake, BakedIdeas.com makes the cutest gingerbread people (year-round) performing 10 yoga poses: Down Dog, Lotus, Plow, Tree, Triangle, Savasana, Spinal Twist, Warrior I, Warrior III and Wheel. You never saw a happier bunch of cookies.

Baked Ideas also sells its cookie cuttters boxed with the gingerbread recipe for $32.50, in either the Down Dog Group or the Lotus Group.

Pose. Eat. Enjoy.

But with convenience comes salt, one thing that few people need more of.

The American Heart Association recommends 1,500 milligrams of sodium (salt) per day. But the average American’s salt intake is more than twice that: 3,436 mg sodium daily.

A single teaspoon of salt contains approximately 2,000 mg of sodium. If you think that this doesn’t apply to you since you don’t salt your food (or add just a slight shake of salt), it’s the processed food—canned, prepared and frozen meals or components—that make us consume more salt than deer at a salt lick.

Just look at the sodium content on the nutrition labels of big-sodium canned foods, which include such seemingly innocent products such as condiments, mixes, soups, tomato sauce and any prepared foods or meals.

If you’re using canned vegetables for
convenience (or preference), look for No
Salt Added and Low Sodium varieties.
Photo courtesy Del Monte Foods.

Single items sold by fast food restaurants can typically have 2,000 mg of sodium. And many other restaurant meals are also packed with hidden salt.

No matter how young and healthy you feel now, control your salt now and you won’t have to pay the piper later—in the form of hypertension (high blood pressure) and other conditions.

Del Monte Foods and Green Giant both have reduce-salt and no-salt-added options, as do many healthy and organic brands. If you can’t find enough reduced-salt options in your supermarket, check out the nearest natural foods store.

Here are sodium-level definitions from the American Heart Association:

 
Instead of salt, add flavor to foods with your favorite herbs or spices. The line of Mrs. Dash herb and spice blends makes it easy.

Here’s more useful sodium information from the American Heart Association.
  

The Twisted Swan, a layered cocktail from
Maestro Dobel Tequila.

Today, for your consideration, we present The Twisted Swan: a sinister and sexy layered cocktail from Maestro Dobel Tequila that evokes The Black Swan.

THE TWISTED SWAN

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 ounces black raspberry liqueur*
• 1 ounce premium blanco/silver tequila
• 1/2 ounce amaretto liqueur
• Chocolate drink rimmer (or pulverize chips or a semisweet chocolate bar in a spice grinder)

*Raspberry liqueur is also delicious with white wine and sparkling wine. Pour a bit in the bottom of the glass or flute before you add the wine.

2. Shake tequila and amaretto with ice. Strain into glass.

3. Shake vodka with ice and layer into glass. Serve.

We’ll have more cocktails that honor your favorite films in time for your Oscar party (February 27th—plan ahead).