It’s that time again, Tribe. Spring is in the air, we’re just under 80 days away from Memorial Day Weekend and it seems like everyone’s really digging into those three-month-old, health-driven New Year’s resolutions.

We’d like to introduce you to something that, we think, will help you in those ‘wait, it’s already March?’ wellness (ahem, bikini prep) endeavors.

Meet the newest member in our Bari Apotheke family: the 5 Day Bari Detox. If you’ve been with us for a while, you know that this isn’t our first stab at bringing you a detox. Around this time last year, we rolled out our very first 7 Day Detox program. You guys embraced it. We all detoxed together during BariPEEL. And we all learned a lot about where our eating habits stood, our aspirations for how they would evolve and, also, how instrumental detoxing — when done responsibly — is to turning over a new leaf with our food habits.

We also walked away from the detox with mounds of amazing feedback from you. You unabashedly professed which recipes you loved and which you would’ve loved to do without. We may have also received a few death threats about the fact that a seven day detox includes Saturday and Sunday; we learned that, to our very New York Tribe, eating quinoa at home alone on a Saturday is unacceptable.

We heard you (especially on that last one). And in going into round two of detox development, our main takeaways for the components we wanted to tweak were:

1. We can do this in 5 days. We tested this theory more times than we would have liked to. We compared detoxing for seven days to five, and, each time, we learned that we felt just as good - if not better - when we capped the experience on Day 5. As for weight loss, the results were the same. So, enjoy your weekend, Tribe.
2. The food has to taste good. We’re all food lovers, and, even when we’re trying to reboot our systems, we want to enjoy what we’re eating. We worked hard to develop recipes that maintained their nutritional integrity (and met all of our detox requirements) but also tasted really good. We’re confident you’ll look forward to your meals during your experience and walk away with a mini-arsenal of go-to healthy recipes that taste amazing.

The details:

• The 5 Day Bari Detox is a whole foods-based, do-it-yourself meal plan, jam packed with nutrition information, motivational guidance and ingredient highlights.
• Our detox program is meant to serve as a nutritional detox button. You know that sluggish feeling that tends to follow a long weekend out of town/Restaurant Week/a visit to your hometown? Rather than allow poor eating choices to spiral into poor eating habits — our detox does wonders for resetting your taste buds and cravings and getting you back in the swing of eating well.
• We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, the recipes are delicious.
• Not thrilled about making all of your meals at home? We’re working with our chef to take some of the work off your plate. We already have the Butternut Squash Soup available at Bari Tribeca, and we’re open to requests for which other detox meals you’d like us to carry.
• We’ll be detoxing together on April 15th to kick off this year’s BariPEEL, if you’d like some team support during your detox.

So, who’s with us? We’re already three months into 2013 (!) - so if you haven’t put a dent in those healthy eating new year’s resolutions, now is the time! You can pick up your copy of the 5 Day Bari Detox ($40) at Bari Tribeca or order it online from BariMARKET.

It’s that time again, Tribe. Spring is in the air, we’re just under 80 days away from Memorial Day Weekend and it seems like everyone’s really digging into those three-month-old, health-driven New Year’s resolutions.

We’d like to introduce you to something that, we think, will help you in those ‘wait, it’s already March?’ wellness (ahem, bikini prep) endeavors.

Meet the newest member in our Bari Apotheke family: the 5 Day Bari Detox. If you’ve been with us for a while, you know that this isn’t our first stab at bringing you a detox. Around this time last year, we rolled out our very first 7 Day Detox program. You guys embraced it. We all detoxed together during BariPEEL. And we all learned a lot about where our eating habits stood, our aspirations for how they would evolve and, also, how instrumental detoxing — when done responsibly — is to turning over a new leaf with our food habits.

We also walked away from the detox with mounds of amazing feedback from you. You unabashedly professed which recipes you loved and which you would’ve loved to do without. We may have also received a few death threats about the fact that a seven day detox includes Saturday and Sunday; we learned that, to our very New York Tribe, eating quinoa at home alone on a Saturday is unacceptable.

We heard you (especially on that last one). And in going into round two of detox development, our main takeaways for the components we wanted to tweak were:

1. We can do this in 5 days. We tested this theory more times than we would have liked to. We compared detoxing for seven days to five, and, each time, we learned that we felt just as good - if not better - when we capped the experience on Day 5. As for weight loss, the results were the same. So, enjoy your weekend, Tribe.
2. The food has to taste good. We’re all food lovers, and, even when we’re trying to reboot our systems, we want to enjoy what we’re eating. We worked hard to develop recipes that maintained their nutritional integrity (and met all of our detox requirements) but also tasted really good. We’re confident you’ll look forward to your meals during your experience and walk away with a mini-arsenal of go-to healthy recipes that taste amazing.

The details:

• The 5 Day Bari Detox is a whole foods-based, do-it-yourself meal plan, jam packed with nutrition information, motivational guidance and ingredient highlights.
• Our detox program is meant to serve as a nutritional detox button. You know that sluggish feeling that tends to follow a long weekend out of town/Restaurant Week/a visit to your hometown? Rather than allow poor eating choices to spiral into poor eating habits — our detox does wonders for resetting your taste buds and cravings and getting you back in the swing of eating well.
• We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, the recipes are delicious.
• Not thrilled about making all of your meals at home? We’re working with our chef to take some of the work off your plate. We already have the Butternut Squash Soup available at Bari Tribeca, and we’re open to requests for which other detox meals you’d like us to carry.
• We’ll be detoxing together on April 15th to kick off this year’s BariPEEL, if you’d like some team support during your detox.

So, who’s with us? We’re already three months into 2013 (!) - so if you haven’t put a dent in those healthy eating new year’s resolutions, now is the time! You can pick up your copy of the 5 Day Bari Detox ($40) at Bari Tribeca or order it online from BariMARKET.

Let’s talk produce labels. We love the fact that produce doesn’t have full-blown nutrition labels. (This means we’re dealing with real food without an FDA-mandated ingredient list!) But it’s worth discussing those number-clad stickers that you’ve likely noticed (or bitten into) on your fruits and vegetables.

Here’s what those sticky number codes mean:

Now that you know your numbers, let’s dig into what they mean. Here’s a quick breakdown of the above growing processes:

• Conventionally grown produceis grown with chemical fertilizers, herbicides and/or insecticides.
• Organically grown produce is grown without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, GMOs or ionizing radiation. The primary downside to organic produce is that it often costs more than conventionally grown produce.
• If produce has been categorized as a GMO (genetically modified organism), this means that its genes have been altered to do any of the following: increase size, dictate nutrient content and make it resistant to disease. (Want to learn more about GMOs and the political fight to mandate GMO labeling? Visit Just Label It.

How bad for you are non-organic growing processes? While research hasn’t been conclusive on whether or not organic produce is healthier than non-organic, we follow the EWG’s Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen guide so that we purchase organic when necessary and don’t bother when not.

Let’s talk produce labels. We love the fact that produce doesn’t have full-blown nutrition labels. (This means we’re dealing with real food without an FDA-mandated ingredient list!) But it’s worth discussing those number-clad stickers that you’ve likely noticed (or bitten into) on your fruits and vegetables.

Here’s what those sticky number codes mean:

Now that you know your numbers, let’s dig into what they mean. Here’s a quick breakdown of the above growing processes:

• Conventionally grown produceis grown with chemical fertilizers, herbicides and/or insecticides.
• Organically grown produce is grown without pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, GMOs or ionizing radiation. The primary downside to organic produce is that it often costs more than conventionally grown produce.
• If produce has been categorized as a GMO (genetically modified organism), this means that its genes have been altered to do any of the following: increase size, dictate nutrient content and make it resistant to disease. (Want to learn more about GMOs and the political fight to mandate GMO labeling? Visit Just Label It.

How bad for you are non-organic growing processes? While research hasn’t been conclusive on whether or not organic produce is healthier than non-organic, we follow the EWG’s Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen guide so that we purchase organic when necessary and don’t bother when not.

Are you ready to detox?

The answer is yes, if…

• you just realized we’re three days away from March, and you still have yet to put a dent in your New Year’s resolutions
• Valentine’s Day left you in a sugar coma, which has yet to cease (probably because you haven’t stopped eating leftover chocolate)
• you’re ready to get a head start on Memorial Day prep. (Remember when you waited until May 1st last year? That sort of anxiety does not do the body good.)
• you feel like you need a healthy eating jumpstart, and you’d like some prescribed (and delicious!) recipes to get you on your way

Bari’s 5 Day Detox is set to arrive at our TriBeCa HQ in less than a week, and we’re so excited to share this wealth of nutritional knowledge and feel-good recipes with you! We’ve gone through countless rounds of trials (we bet you’ve seen us chugging cayenne-spiked Barilixir fairly regularly!) to ensure that we’re handing you the best tasting, most energizing and, paramount to all of this, most effectively detoxing meal plan possible.

To whet your appetite for the arrival of the detox, we’d like to share a detox recipe that’s become a staple at the Bari HQ, even when we’re not detoxing. Whenever you feel like your system needs a reboot, this grounding squash-based soup is sweet enough to quell sugar cravings and satiating enough to keep your hunger at bay.

So what if it’s 57 degrees out in the middle of January? We’re still going to eat soup like it’s going out of season. (Plus, mother nature is bringing us back down to 40 degrees tomorrow.) Making soup has become a Sunday night ritual for quite a few of us on the Bari team. We’re pretty sure this started when our in-house nutritionist, Sarah, told us that she caps off every week - and gears up for the next - by making a big pot of quinoa and a big pot of soup.

Having both of these on hand makes throwing together healthy lunches quick and simple. This soup quickly became a team favorite because it’s light enough to eat before working out - yet deceivingly creamy (cauliflower is magic), filling and indulgent-tasting enough to ensure we’re excited when lunch time rolls around.

Spicy Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 small bird’s eye chilis, de-seeded and chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 inch piece ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds
• 1 tsp. coriander
• 2 small heads of cauliflower, chopped into florets
• 1 Japanese sweet potato, chopped
• 8 cups of vegetable broth
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Directions:

• Heat olive oil in a large pot, and saute onions until soft and translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in chilis, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin seeds and coriander, and toast spices for just under a minute.
• Add cauliflower and Japanese sweet potato, along with vegetable broth and bring to a boil.
• Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Add salt and nutritional yeast.
• Puree with an immersion blender (or by transferring to a standard blender in small batches). Taste and adjust salt and spices if necessary.

Why celebratory? Because (if you haven’t heard) our SoHo and Murray Hill Pop Ups open TODAY!

If you’re as excited as we are, raise your glass and toast to new beginnings, new stomping grounds and new Bari addicts. If you’re not excited (don’t make us cry), drink this green smoothie anyway and keep that 2013 healthy eating momentum strong.

Celebratory Ginger Pear Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1/2 frozen banana
• 1 pear, cored and chopped
• 1/2 to 1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 date, pit removed
• 2 large handfuls of baby spinach
• 1 cup almond milk or coconut water
• 2 tbsp. ground flaxseed

Photo via Bari Studio - Instagram

The title of this post is, of course, intended to be sung to the tune of Alicia Keys’ ‘Girl On Fire.’

Last week, I was sick. For an entire week. And for that entire week, vegetables were the last thing I wanted to eat. (The horror, I know.) Obviously, swearing off vegetables for a week was not an option (especially since I was trying to get well as quickly as possible - vitamins needed!). So, I made a smoothie.

When I’m under the weather, I crave spicy… anything. Usually, this comes in the form of Tom Yum soup from my favorite local Thai restaurant. But, since greens were the goal here, I infused my smoothie with some spice. And, by some, I mean a lot. If you have fiery taste buds like I do - you can double the amount of jalapeno and keep the seeds. But, I’ll warn you, your smoothie will make you sweat, which I suppose isn’t the worst thing if you’re drinking a smoothie in December.

‘These Greens Are On Fire’ Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1/4 jalapeno, sliced and de-seeded for milder heat
• 1/2 banana, frozen
• 1 pear, cored and chopped
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 3/4 to 1 cup water, coconut water or almond milk
• 1 tbsp. chia seeds (optional)

Directions:

• Place all ingredients - except chia seeds - in a blender (in the order listed above) and puree until smooth.
• Stir in chia seeds and pulse once to combine. Let sit for several minutes to allow chia seeds to absorb liquid. Drink!

We’re one week away from Halloween, and as downtown New Yorkers, we’re half excited and half terrified of the chaos that ensues every October 31st. While we’re not yet sure what we’re dressing up as or how we’ll be celebrating, we do know that we’ll be tricking our treats (sorry, we had to) by healthifying them. If you’d rather your children not overdose on high fructose corn syrup, involve them in some homemade Halloween kitchen endeavors.

Here’s our round up of our favorite healthy Halloween recipes.

1. These ghost pops call on all natural ingredients - coconut and bananas being the highlights - and are super simple and fun for kids to make. Nothing scary here.

2. Vegan brown rice crispy treats? Made with almond butter? Sold. Ditch Snap, Crackle and Pop - and opt for this whole grain, marshmallow - free take on the old classic. Did we mention they’re no bake and come together in 15 minutes? Perfection.

3. Caramel apples are one of the trickiest treats because the presence of apples can almost lead us to believe that they’re a healthy option. That, or they just make it really easy for us to pretend we’re eating something quasi-healthy. Lose the ruse this year, and make these raw caramel apples that use dates as the ‘caramel’ base.

4. This one may be more for the adults. Or for the kids who already drink green juice. These three recipes for toasted pumpkin seeds all sound incredible, and if having your hand in the pumpkin seed bowl will keep it out of the candy bowl, we’re all for it.

5. This ‘treat’ blew our mind. Pun totally intended. The fact that the only ingredient is a seedless melon, and that your kids will still think it’s the coolest thing ever? Bonus points. For more amazingly creative healthy Halloween treats, check out the rest of Spoonful’s ideas.