Easy, quick, healthy homemade mayo!

Hello blog readers! Today will be a short, easy blog post for you guys, but one that I hope will make you happy. One of the biggest changes I have made to my diet is to completely omit Canola oil from it (and other industrial seed oils: soy, safflower, etc). I am not going to get into the nitty gritty about why Canola oil is particularly bad for you (there is a lot of great, peer reviewed science based literature on the subject out there, this is a good starting point: http://chriskresser.com/9-steps-to-perfect-health-1-dont-eat-toxins), but if you are looking to reduce the inflammation in your body (and I bet almost all of you have quite a load of inflammation, even if you don't realize it), removing Canola oil from your pantry is a great way to do so. One of the few things that is hard to find without Canola oil in it is mayo. Now, mayo is a weird thing- I have always pretty much hated it. Hated the taste, the texture- it has just always struck me as really gross. I rarely ate it, and before my health issues and lifestyle changes had the impression that is was bad for you... because fat is across the board bad for you, right? The 80's and 90's were all about low fat, so that is probably where that impression comes from. Now that we realize that low fat is not the way to go (good fat is not the enemy!) and that whole, unprocessed foods are where it's at, homemade mayo has found a place back in my heart. I have experimented with a bunch of different oils for making healthy mayo (avocado, olive oil, hazelnut oil, walnut oil) and my favorite happens to be walnut oil. Not overwhelmingly walnut-y, but gives the mayo a nice nutty depth to it. All of the oils that I have tried are excellent for your health, and if you can find a great light tasting (not extra virgin) olive oil (which I haven't been able to find yet) that is probably your best bet- using normal olive oil will be way too overwhelming. Avocado is a great super duper healthy choice, but may make your mayo slightly green colored!

The first time I tried making homemade mayo, it was an EPIC fail. DO NOT use any recipe that tells you to "add in the oil drip by drip, whisking it in to the egg mixture..." or anything like that- I wasted a lot of good oil trying this, and it seriously does not work. Then one day I was catching up on a blog I like, and ran across this post: http://www.gaiahealthblog.com/2014/06/22/easy-peezie-healthy-homemade-mayo-that-puts-that-unhealthy-store-bought-mayo-to-shame/ ... this was the game changer. I tried his method immediately, and in about 3 minutes had homemade glorious beautiful whipped mayo ready to be devoured! Now I can whip it up anytime I need it, super quick, and it is SO GOOD. Trust me, so good (this from a used-to-be-mayo-hater!). I encourage all of you to give it a try, and if you don't have an immersion blender, go out and buy one because your life in the kitchen will change dramatically with one- they make so much stuff easier to do, and really has been a great tool in making quick healthy homemade meals around here.

So, you should go read Doug's post on this, he talks about why you should not eat Canola oil, and talks about his oil of choice (culinary Argan oil!), but I will put up the method for making mayo here for you too so you have it. Here you are:

What you need:
1 large egg. As fresh as possible, preferably free range and organic.
1 cup oil of choice (avo, walnut, hazelnut, sesame, almond, light tasting olive oil, etc- no industrial seed oils!)
Juice of half an organic lemon
Pinch of sea salt (Himalayan, Celtic, etc)
Mason jar (it will move up the side as the mayo blends so make sure you have a big enough one)
Immersion blender

How to do it:
Crack the egg into the mason jar.
Add the lemon juice and the salt.
Add the oil. Let the egg/oil settle for a bit, you want the egg at the bottom, nice and happy.
Insert the immersion blender all the way to the bottom.
Run the immersion blender without moving it, keeping it on the bottom, for 20 seconds. Seriously. Don't move it, it's that important. You will start to see it all whip together, and move up the sides of the jar. After the 20 seconds, it should be pretty much all emulsified, and look like mayo. I like to give it a good whir while moving the immersion blender around, to make sure everything got nice and whipped up together.

And that's it. You now have beautiful, homemade mayo. You rock.

You never have to buy weird "shelf stable" (read: preservative laden) bad for you mayo ever again.

If you have concerns about eating raw eggs (I don't, we raise our own chickens and I know how healthy they are- eating raw eggs yolks is a great way to get easily assimilated nutrients) I understand, but since we live in a world where you can get salmonella from peanut butter and lettuce,  I don't worry about it- buy the best quality eggs possible, always, for your health and the health of the chickens producing them. Also, all store bought mayo that is not vegan mayo (don't ever eat that, don't even get me started) has raw eggs in it, so... 

Please try it and let me know what you think. I could never go back to store bought mayo, and I hope once you taste the fresh yummy taste of your own homemade mayo you won't go back either.

I have gotten creative lately and just made a batch of herbed mayo, by adding a handful of dill/parsley/chives to the mayo and blended it- it is delish! Feel free to add garlic, mustard, herbs, anything that sounds good to make real "flavored" mayo!

Cheers to your health! let me know if you try the recipe and what you think!