ArcaMax

I was one of seven children. I was fifth in line, so I was sort of buried in the middle of the gang.

When I was a little kid, our dental appointments were prompted by our birthday. If you turned a year older, it meant it was time for a dental appointment.

I can vaguely remember that when I was six, the family dentist died about 2 weeks before my birthday. The system fell apart. My dental appointment was never scheduled.

It wasn’t until six years later that I brought it up. When I turned 13, I decided I wanted braces, so I went to my mother to bring up the subject of going to the dentist. Until then I sort of avoided the whole issue.

Well, I got that dental appointment. I was told I didn’t need braces for anything other than cosmetic reasons, so they were not going to happen. I was also told I had 12 cavities that had to be fixed!

Horrors!

What ensued after that was the endless summer of riding my bike to early dental appointments....

Read the full column at PlanZDiet.com

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Strawberry Smoosh

This is a ZReduction recipe.

Strawberry Smoosh is my husband’s FAVORITE ZReduction dessert. It’s light, refreshing and delicious. Here’s the recipe for all to enjoy!

Servings: Serves 2

Ingredients:

20 frozen strawberries of various sizes (you can get unsweetened ones in bags in the grocery store)
1 tsp of organic vanilla extract
1 packet of Truvia (stevia)
Up to one cup of water

Instructions:

This recipe requires a food processor. I’m afraid unless you have a really strong blender that it would kill it.

Put the berries and the vanilla and Truvia into your food processor. Pulse the berries to break them up into small chunks. It will look sort of like red, chunky slush. Open your processor and scrape down the sides. Put the top back on and add a ½ cup of water. Pulse some more to get it softer. Scrape again. Then add the last of the water and continue to blend until it’s smooth and moves around the inside of your processor like frozen slush.

Each portion is a half cup. You can eat it right away. It does freeze well in a container. When you take it out of the freezer plan to leave it on the counter for a bit to soften up. Unlike ice cream, it will freeze into solid and will be a bear to scoop out unless you let it soften up some. This never lasts long at my house.

Serving Suggestions:

You can use raspberries for this recipe as well. In ZReboot you can use fruits like mango or papaya.

I haven’t tried blueberry or blackberry yet but I’m confident they would work pretty well too.

One of our dieters, Michael, uses a few drops of the chocolate flavored liquid stevia drops in this recipe. Yum.