Powerfood is food that has a positive effect on your body and your health. It’s food that your body truly deserves! No empty calories, only the healthy nutrients that you need in order to feel good and fit. It is food that gives your body the right kind of energy. Powerfood products are free from artificial coloring, toxins and other ingredients that increase a food’s shelf life and are preferably made or grown organically. Powerfood is all about food in its purest form. And you don’t even need to look very far for it; you can find Powerfood as close by as your local supermarket! Think broccoli, lemons, hemp seeds, apples and lentils…

Our Powerfood recipes are based on whole foods, are 100% nutritious, green and as often as possible, gluten-free and made without cow’s milk. In other words, fair, simple, nutritious, unprocessed and tasty food that makes your body sing!

Many people confuse Powerfood with ‘superfood’, but these are actually two different things. Superfood can be a component of Powerfood. Powerfoods are recipes and ingredients that are based on whole foods: products that are in their purest, least processed form to which nothing extra is added. The term ‘superfood’ is used to describe a host of plants and fruit that contain very high (super high) concentrations of essential nutrients. We use superfoods as supplements and as ingredients in our Powerfood lifestyle because they’re very healthy, but Powerfood is so much more that just that! Powerfood is all about pure food, becoming aware of your nutrition and the positive effect good nutrition has on your body and making healthy meals with love… As a result, it really does become a sort of lifestyle!

Yes, it does require a bit more of you it’s true. You’ll need to make sure you have a few more ingredients at home, you’ll need to work with more and different spices and herbs and there’s a lot more variation, which is without a doubt healthier! But it’s something you should look at a different way – aren’t those few extra minutes worth it? How long does it take to warm up a pre-packaged pizza or to go pick up some unhealthy fast food? Maybe in this amount of time you could do something that’s actually good for your body instead like cooking fresh food. 😉 It really is a lifestyle. Take it step by step and see what effect it has on your health. I’m certain you’ll feel better and that, slowly, but surely, you won’t want anything else anymore.

It’s not always easy to do, especially if you’re on the road a lot. If you are, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and prepare. To-go stores and restaurants don’t tend to sell the healthiest products. Make sure that you prepare your food at home. If you fly often, always bring a healthy bar with you or a homemade wrap and enough water. That way you won’t necessarily have to eat what they serve on the plane. (More tips this way: bon voyage ). Fortunately, our society has started to become more and more aware of Powerfood. Increasingly often to-go kiosks have started to sell more fresh (and organic) products, but still the vast majority of what’s out there is pre-packaged food. It’s all about making the right choices and I hope that my website and cookbooks help you to do that. Yes, it’s tough when you work 60 hours a week, I find it hard sometimes too, but it’s so worth it! You’ll have so much more energy and, as a result, you’ll feel better at work, at the gym and in the kitchen.

No, of course not! There are so many delicious Powerfoods, each with their own powerful qualities. This can make it interesting when you’re just starting out on your Powerfood lifestyle, as you might not always be familiar with everything right off the bat. This is one of the main reasons I wrote the Powerfood books: Powerfood and Powerfood: Van Friesland naar New York and created the recipes on this site and my blogs. This is how you’ll get to know my Powerfoods; because they’re so incredibly good for you, you’ll quickly learn how to use them to put delicious and easy meals on the table. In my first book, I provide a list of ingredients and information on each one. We also provide you with tips on the blog as often as we can. (e.g. GO POWERFOODS! and THUMBS UP VOOR GEELWORTEL So don’t worry if you don’t recognize everything from the get go. You’ll catch on quick!

Tip: start off by buying a handful of items. You don’t need to have a fully stocked pantry right away. Ingredients like coconut oil, buckwheat, mulberries and aluminum- free baking powder are important… And, most important of all, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. These are the basics in a Powerfood kitchen! Once you get to know these ingredients, you can move on to others and soon enough you won’t be able to do without anymore. That’s how you stock your cupboards over time, to make a happier and healthier you (I promise!). In my recipes, I also make sure that I indicate when and if alternatives can be used or if something is optional or can be left out – without compromising taste, of course!

Powerfood is pure, unprocessed, fresh food that makes your body happy. So you can really buy Powerfood almost anywhere, like the market, organic supermarkets, health food stores and local food stores. You can even grow it in your own garden. For certain recipes you might have to head to different stores when you need specific ingredients (for example, arrowroot, aluminum-free baking powder or chickpea flour), but scavenging to find the healthiest foods can be fun! And once you know where you need to go, it’s easy.

Read about the ‘craziest’ Powerfoods and where to buy them here .

You don’t need to break the bank to pay for healthy food, but unfortunately it does cost a bit more. Powerfood like fresh vegetables, fruit, brown rice etc. tend to be more expensive than canned vegetables, unidentifiable meatballs in sauce or white rice, but think of how much you’re getting back! You’ll feel fit, your body will be happy, which means you’ll be happy too! We’re willing to pay more for that. But where does that higher price come from? Price is often related to the degree of mass production and the way in which the product has been processed. You can read more about that here: (link naar blogje die dit allemaal uitlegt in de maak).

If you haven’t found the answer you’re looking for here, browse our website for more tips and tricks. And you can also always leave a comment on Instagram: @powerfoodies or Facebook. If we don’t answer straight away, there will likely be other Powerfoodies that will be happy to help you out! Still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Get in touch with us here.

You can store recipes like the breakfast muffins, breakfast cake and the almond-pumkin bread in an airtight container, unrefrigerated for three days. You can also freeze them and they will keep for a month or two. (Tip: if you’re going to freeze a cake or bread, make sure you freeze it sliced. That makes it easier to take out a piece at a time). You can keep your crunchy crackers in an airtight container, unrefrigerated for five days, but don’t freeze them. With the bread and muffins, make sure that you really do store them in an airtight container with a well-fitting lid.

The kickstart can be kept in the fridge for a maximum of two days. It isn’t unhealthy to eat this recipe a few days after making it, but the fresher it is, the better it is.

Most of the snacks can be kept for a maximum of two weeks in the fridge and four to six weeks in the freezer. Dry snacks (like muffins) are best kept unrefrigerated. The raw oreos are at their best when stored in the fridge. If you store them in the fridge in an airtight container, they’ll keep for about a week. You can also freeze them, in which case they’ll keep for up to six weeks.

The spreads and sauces can be kept refrigerated for five to seven days in an airtight container. If you pour a thin layer of olive oil on top of the pesto, it’ll keep for even longer. You can use sesame oil to ‘seal’ the yellow sambal in the same way. The sambal will keep for at least two months in the fridge like that. When you go to use it again after it’s been stored for a while, just be sure to give it a good stir. Nut butters don’t need to be kept in the fridge. You can just store them in an airtight jar in a dark place and they’ll stay good for at least a month. After a month, you can have a look/taste/smell to see if the taste and structure has changed. These butters stay good for quite a while, but they can get a little dry. And here’s a tip for the chocolate spread: store the jar upside down. This helps to distribute the fat evenly, which keeps it spreadable. If it gets a bit dry, add a splash of hazelnut oil and stir well.

Fresh soups can be kept for a maximum of four days in a closed container or pan with a lid in the fridge. The soups also freeze very well. If you do freeze them, be sure to use them within a month. Smoothies and juices need to be consumed within two days and should be kept in a closed bottle or container in the fridge. They will keep for a maximum of two weeks in the freezer. Fresh is always best in this case though.

This might have something to do with the type of oven you are using. Some ovens are more powerful than others.

With recipes like the breakfast muffins, the batter can get a bit heavier if you use two large bananas instead of two small ones. Adding less total banana will help make the batter lighter and should ensure that the cake rises properly.

With the almond-pumpkin bread you can try adding two teaspoons of aluminum-free baking powder instead of one. This bread rises best in a 15 cm cake or loaf tin, no larger. Tip: always have a quick look at your bread about 30 minutes into the baking time to see how it’s progressing. If the top is already beginning to brown, cover it with aluminum foil for the last 15 minutes.

Bananas are not easily replaced as they have a distinct flavor and structure. You can use bananas for many things in a recipe, so if you’re looking to replace them, it’s important to first identify their function in the recipe. A banana might be used as a sweetener or to bind the mixture or provide creaminess.

If you want to replace the banana in a smoothie, you can add nut butter. Use about two tablespoons of nut butter per replaced banana. Nut butter is less sweet than banana so you could add a teaspoon of honey to increase the sweetness if necessary. Replacing a banana with nut butter will also decrease the volume of the smoothie, so you might want to add a bit of (coconut) water, fresh juice or plant-based milk.

In baking (muffins, bread), you can replace banana with (homemade) applesauce. Keep in mind that applesauce is more liquid than banana purée so use a bit less of it than the recipe calls for, and think about adding finely chopped dates for added sweetness.

Nuts can always be replaced with seeds – pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and flax seeds are all good options.

(raw oreo) If the dough is too dry or granular, you can add a few tablespoons of plant-based milk or a teaspoon of melted coconut oil and stir well. Usually a splash of almond-, spelt- or rice milk is enough to moisten the dough.

You can use canned chickpeas for the chickpea snack. These do not require soaking. If you use dried chickpeas, you do need to pre-soak them for three to four hours. You would also use less of the dried variant (approx. 150 grams) than the recipe calls for as the chickpeas increase in weight as they soak.

Aluminum-free baking powder and black mulberries can be purchased at health-food stores. You can also order them online. If you’d like, you can also replace mulberries with other dried fruit like goji berries, cranberries, raisins, currants or apricots.

I made the conscious decision not to emphasize precise nutritional breakdowns specifying the exact amounts of carbohydrates and fats etc. in my recipes in order to avoid an unnecessary focus on these things. I feel that it’s most important to eat healthy, pure food and to enjoy mindful eating.

I don’t add calorie counts to my recipes, in spite of the fact that some of you have asked me to. Counting calories tends to give us a false sense of control and it has no bearing on learning to eat healthy. You could very well eat the ‘right’ number of calories per day just by eating sugar and unhealthy fat. It serves us much better to learn how to listen to our bodies: when do I feel full? What does my body need right now? Focus on eating healthy delicious meals and notice how much better you start to feel. And sometimes, listening to your body means eating those fries and having a cocktail. Go ahead and enjoy it, guilt free. The next day, just try to pick up where you left off.

It’s a lot of work, but if you’re keen to do it, you can calculate the nutritional breakdown of each recipe yourself using an online tool like this one.

A centrifugal juicer is made to produce perfect, filtered juices. You don’t need to peel the fruit first; you can even put an apple in with its core intact.

We are fans of the slow juicer. You can also put unpeeled fruit in a slow juicer, but because of the slowness of the juicing process, the temperature of the juice is kept low and as a result it retains more nutrients and vitamins (a normal juicer spins very quickly, which creates heat that damages these nutrients/vitamins). Slow juicers also produce more juice from fruit and vegetables you put in than centrifugal juicers do.

More information on the kitchen supplies we use can be found here.