Faaaa la la la la! Happy first day of Fall. It is 50 degrees in Denver as I write this post, so I am channeling all the fall vibes.

I know its turned into something to be made fun of for loving these days (why??) but I don’t care- I love all things fall! I adore the weather the most, but I also love the clothes (sweaters and leggings!), the food (slow cooker meals all day), the activities (like bonfires, Aspen mountain drives, apple orchards, football, and pumpkin patches), the holidays (my birthday + Thanksgiving)…I could go on and on and on!

One more thing I adore about fall is the aromas and flavors….but as someone who has read about the harmful effects of synthetic fragrances and always strives to consume real foods rather than chemical flavorings, this can put me in a really tough position!

Fragrance and Flavor Loop Hole

No matter who you are, striving to eat more whole foods and less processed foods is a good idea. Processed foods are designed to make us want more, without giving us nourishment. They are a major contribution to the fact that American’s are the most over-fed and undernourished nation in the world. Think about it, when you eat a bag of potato chips it’s so hard to stop eating them! But even if you eat an entire bag, do you walk away feeling satisfied and nourished?? No! Even healthier processed foods will make you want more. Generally speaking, processed foods are full of sodium, sugar additives, commodity crops, and other ingredients that harm the gut, cause dysregulated blood sugar, yet do not feed our cells anything they can use productively. Additionally, in both food and household items, there is a loop hole when it comes to fragrances and flavors. If you notice these words on an ingredients list, it is important to recognize there is a loop hole on these terms and companies can include anything they want to under these labels and not report it. Often times, the company making the product purchases the flavor/fragrance from a seller, so they do not even know what it contains. It can contain ingredients that have known harmful effects, it can contain parabens/pthalataes/gluten/soy or anything even if the label says its free of those things. Seeing this on a label does not necessarily mean there is definitely bad stuff hidden in the product, but it does mean we don’t actually know. If the company is transparent and honest, they will share what they use. Let’s normalize transparency in our spending.

Toxic Burden Bucket

I always love to go back to the analogy of the Toxic Burden Bucket. Imagine each person has a bucket. Anything that causes stress on the body ADDS to the bucket. This could include toxic products, overly processed foods, reactive foods, lack of sleep, stress, under eating, and more. Anything that supports the body REMOVES from the bucket. Some examples are getting plenty of sleep, eating whole foods, eating a diverse diet, daily stress relieving activities, getting outside, movement, drinking plenty of water, etc.
It is important to remember that we could never avoid all toxic exposure and stress on the body this side of heaven, but we can do our best to keep our Toxic Burden Bucket low. If we are supporting our body the best we can by adding in supportive habits and removing stressful habits, when we do encounter those toxins, our body is fully capable of handling it.
So, if you are regularly consuming things that put stress on the body, your body will have a harder time handling it all and you may start to experience symptoms. On the flip side, if you are on a fall mountain drive looking at Aspen trees, or on a road trip to celebrate Thanksgiving with family, and you need to add a warm fall beverage from a drive-through coffee spot, I understand and I will likely do the same at some point. Your body knows exactly what to do with it, friend.

Benefits of the Recipe

The benefits to making this beverage at home are many. For one, it is made of whole food ingredients. Real food has the components that feed our cells to perform their functions. The contrast of consuming processed foods is they take nutrients from our body. This recipe includes maple syrup for sugar…sugar is still a treat and will affect blood sugar, but it does not harm the body in the way that artificial sweeteners, corn syrup, etc do. With the addition of healthy fats, you enable the body to absorb the A and E vitamins present in the pumpkin, provide the brain with food, increase satiety, help create hormones, increase anti-inflammatory effects on the body, and slow the glucose spike that may come from the maple syrup. Ghee in particular increases the omega-3 count in the body which reduces inflammation. Contrary to popular belief, the conjugated linoleic acid in ghee can contribute to weight loss and actually help the body reduce excess weight gain. Ghee contains butyric acid which can promote gut health. The addition of real pumpkin adds antioxidants, fiber, and minerals. There is also an obvious financial benefit that comes from making these beverages at home!

Recipe Notes

I included ghee and collagen in this recipe. I definitely recommend them as they both provide wonderful benefits that support the body, however, the drink still turns out lovely without them. You can also substitute grass-fed butter for the ghee. Pumpkin pie spice is a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger so you can use a sprinkle of those spices individually if you do not have pumpkin pie spice. You can substitute any type of milk for the cashew milk, but please do not use skim milk or almond milk! Creamier = better. Lastly, it is important to use quality ingredients. Make sure you use pure pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling; pure maple syrup, not Aunt Jemima, pure vanilla syrup, and grass-fed ghee! This can be consumed iced, just melt the ghee first and use a blender as its a little more difficult to combine the ingredients cold. If you customize this in any way, let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear how it turned out!