Erin Alderson is one of those bloggers that you can’t help but imagine rummaging through her abundant garden on Sunday mornings, cooking away a hearty stew on a cold winter day, and spending her nights cozied up to a cup of tea, dreaming up amazing, seasonal and healthy vegetarian recipes for the enjoyment of her readers.

I don’t know how accurate of a picture that really is, but based on the beautiful and healthy recipes that flow from her blog Naturally Ella, I can’t imagine she spends her time doing much else.

Erin has been one of my favorite bloggers for the last year or so as I seek to eat more whole, honest-to-goodness real foods for the betterment of my health. If you visit her site, I know she can help you do the same.

I recently had the extreme pleasure of chit-chatting with Erin about her blog and her approach to health. Here’s what she had to say.
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Melissa Dunn, 35, of Park Hills, Missouri has seemingly always been overweight. She developed much faster than girls her age, which spurred a binge-purge routine to try and stay as slim as her peers. But each attempt only left her heavier than before, and Melissa eventually turned to yo yo dieting to try and lose the weight.

Compound those struggles with emotional scars from abuse she faced as a child and Melissa began using her weight as a shield to avoid getting hurt by others. “I found the bigger I got the less happy I was, and the less people wanted to be around me,” she said.

Two things eventually caused Melissa to change. First, her dad had grown so heavy that his doctors told him to lose weight or face death, and Melissa wanted to support him. And Melissa had gotten so heavy herself that she struggled to even walk through the store without getting swollen ankles which left her in too much pain to move for hours afterwards.

Out of these struggles came Melissa’s decision to change her health and ultimately her life, and no longer exist in a state of depression.
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If I told you that you could have big salads tossed with a creamy dressing and it would be fat free, would you believe me? Not only fat free, but extremely low calorie, fresh flavor, and maybe the best dressing you’ve ever had. Let me show you the way.

I prepare a big entree salad for dinner for my family once or twice a week. I swore off grocery store salad dressings years ago because they’re terrible, and frankly, I can whip up a vinaigrette on demand with a flavor that perfectly complements my meal. But I recently grew tired of the vinegar and oil and craved the creamier variety I used to douse my salads in. Inspiration struck.

Picking through the refrigerator, I found feta crumbles, Greek yogurt, and the strawberries and basil I usually add to vinaigrette. These were blended together, without the oil, and the sweetest pink dressing adorned our salads that night. And with that, my creamy feta dressing fixation began.
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I love food, so I find myself naturally drawn to other people who think like me, cook like me and eat like me. Oftentimes, though, I find people who eat drastically different than me and inspire me to eat better, healthier. One of those people is Sara Forte, author of the blog Sprouted Kitchen.

At Sprouted Kitchen Sara shares a “tastier take on whole foods,” and she delivers on that promise with every recipe she creates. After discovering her blog last fall I quickly snagged her Sprouted Kitchen Cookbook and haven’t put it down since. I find myself poring over it on weekends while meal planning, looking for snip-pits of healthy inspiration and meal ideas and I never come up short.

Sara’s husband Hugh captures all of the images for the blog, and each one in itself is a work of art. Go see for yourself. A delicata squash has never been so stunning.

We recently had the pleasure of picking Sara’s brain on her whole foods approach and her blog. Here’s what she had to say. 
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Calling all chocolate lovers! We have the perfect Valentine’s dessert for you and it just so happens to be healthy, decadent and loaded with antioxidants. Finally, a Valentine treat we can actually feel good about.

Inspired by our editor, I created this beautiful bark last week in preparation for Valentine’s Day. Just because we operate a health and diet website doesn’t mean we don’t crave chocolate once in a while (or every day).

The entire time I was prepping the ingredients I couldn’t wait to take a sample bite of the finished product. The luscious dark chocolate, the salty pistachios and the sweet, crisp pomegranates were sure to be a stellar flavor combination. Sure enough, my suspicions were right.
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