Category: nutrition

The Pillar of Relax

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Engaging in the habits outlined in the Pillar of Relax is imperative to our health.

In this go-go-go world we can have a breakdown. Our bodies are not machines. We’re human beings that need rest and recreation every day.

The strategy I employ is a simple one predicated on mindfulness: pay attention to what your body is telling you to do and how your body feels at any given time during the day.

One Sunday it was unseasonably colder. My body had gone on strike it seemed. There would be no going to the gym and no going outside.

Pushing yourself to do demanding activities is a mistake when your body is telling you to slow down and rest. Yet too often people think that being busy is a sign of health.

Being busy isn’t a sign of health. Being fit and active is the barometer of health.

You can do less every day and achieve more peace of mind and better health.

We should not be checking work e-mails from home. In my house I have the inviolable rule of not checking work e-mails when I’m on vacation.

The corollary to relaxing is the Pillar of Sleep. Dr. Chatterjee recommends establishing the 90-Minute Rule: shutting down all TV, cell phone, and tablet use 90 minutes before you go to bed.

Getting enough rest and recreation can absolutely halt disease from starting or progressing.

I’ll end this blog entry by saying that for years I was skeptical that a person’s behavior and lifestyle choices could cause disease.

Now I know without a doubt that the keys to unlocking optimal health are in our own hands. We are not passive victims of illness. Disease is not the natural outcome of getting older. It’s too often the result of inactivity and poor choices.

Breakfast Recipes

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You can’t go right with boxed cereal.

Most cereal has too much sugar and natural flavors which are really fake chemicals. The government allows companies to hide the chemical names of ingredients by using the term natural flavor or natural flavors on the food label on the product.

Remember: Natural flavors are fake chemicals. They’re no friend to your waistline or your health. It’s simple and quick to make healthful breakfast choices that don’t include chemical-laden frosted flakes or healthy-in-name-only cereals.

Remember: any product name that makes an emotional appeal to you as being healthy for you most likely has these chemicals and other not-good ingredients lurking in their contents.

Trust me: I’ve read an article in a women’s magazine that purported to give you quick-and-easy breakfast recipes. Only those recipes didn’t seem quick and easy to me when I read them.

Here’s the deal: eggs in moderation are OK. Avocados have heart-healthy fats. Allegedly people who eat a lot of avocados are skinnier if this is something that might interest you as some kind of fact. This seems far-fetched to me.

I’m going to give you here two recipes I found in reputable books.

Misty Copeland in her book Ballerina Body has a rolled oats snack recipe. I haven’t created this yet I’ve bought rolled oats to make for breakfast.

Instant oatmeal isn’t a healthful choice. It takes mere minutes to boil the water and seconds to swirl the water in the oatmeal. Yet it isn’t the greatest health option.

20-Minute Rolled Oats Breakfast Recipe:

Bob’s Red Mill Rolled Oats

Maple Syrup

Nuts or seeds like slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds

Boil 2 cups water.

Add 1  cup rolled oats.

Lower the flame.

Heat 10 to 20 minutes linked to your desired consistency (a little mushy or firmer).

Stir the oats as they’re being heated up.

Shut heat. Mix in maple syrup, nuts, seeds, cranberries, or diced dried apricots.

(I use Coombs organic dark amber maple syrup.)

The point is taking the time to have a good breakfast is worth the 20 minutes it will take.

Egg Muffins

Scramble four eggs in a bowl.

Stir in diced or slivered red pepper, onions, mushroom, broccoli, and fresh cheese.

I used red pepper and fresh grated parmesan cheese.

Pour into muffin pan slots.

Cook for 10 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

The tops will rise above the rim of the pan slots.

I heated my eggs for 15 minutes.

Understand:

Grating your own parmesan cheese wedge is preferably to buying any parmesan cheese in a plastic container or in a cardboard bottle. Those kinds of cheese have unnatural preservatives that people really don’t need to be ingesting.

Fresh Direct online food delivery service in New York City will grate for you for about sixty cents extra the fresh wedge of parmesan that you buy.

Voila:

Easy to cook breakfast recipes that are better than any boxed cereal and healthier I guarantee you.

Bon Apetit!

Eat Well to Be Well

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brussels sprouts scallops

Kettlebell Kitchen Brussels Sprouts with Scallops

Eating well is a form of self-nourishment. My ethic is to eat well to be well.

In New York City an online food ordering service has started up.

Kettlebell Kitchen markets to a health-conscious crowd.

That’s a slick marketing tool. You can pick up the meal packages in your gym or have them delivered to your house or apartment.

Beef is sold mostly as well as some chicken dishes and turkey dishes.

There’s not a lot of strictly vegetarian packages.

You can order an actual meal plan that is sent every week. Or you can go in and choose your own items as often as you want–every week, every other week, or twice a week and so on.

If you live in New York City and don’t like to cook using the Kettlebell Kitchen service can be cheaper and healthier than dining in restaurants all the time.

In the coming week I’ll be giving a healthful breakfast recipe.

 

The Myth of Meal Plans

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bucatinipad thai

FreshDirect Meal Kits Above: Bucatini with Tomato and Burratini – left. Pad Thai – right.

The first trainer I had at a gym left to open up his own boutique gym.

I subscribe to his newsletter. In it he bemoaned the fact that new members of his gym expect him to give them a meal plan. He frowns on this.

Quite simply: if you want to lose weight you have to change what you eat. It might not be as simple as calories in versus calories out either.

The type of food you eat matters. Merely eating less of unhealthful food isn’t going to get you fit for the long-term.

Eating mostly whole foods is the ticket. Eating a mostly plant-based diet.

I align withe Forks over Knives movement. I only eat chicken and turkey not any other kind of meat.

The FreshDirect online delivery service in New York City sells meal kits like the ones above. All the ingredients come in a box and you prepare the recipe on your own.

I have more to say about eating well to be well. I’ll talk about this Eat Well to Be Well philosophy in coming blog entries.

Meal Plan #2

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gran padano

I’ve become committed to eating more healthful food options and cutting out the junk.

I think that as a person gets older cutting out the junk food is imperative.

Our older bodies aren’t always as spry as we were in our twenties and thirties.

So it makes sense to cut out the junk. We can replace the junk with food that gives us energy and stamina throughout the day.

Here was yesterday’s meal plan:

Breakfast:

Purely Elizabeth Ancient Grains granola with skim milk

8 oz organic orange juice

A.M. Snack:

Plain yogurt (Greenmarket fare)

Lunch:

Caprese Salad

(Heirloom tomato slices layered with fresh mozzarella slices.)

P.M. Snack:

Plain yogurt

Dinner in photo above:
Organic zucchini stuffed with gran padano shredded cheese

Scoop out inside of zucchini. Sprinkle with parmesan or goat cheese.

Heat at 350 in oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

(I used gran padano because I didn’t have parmesan cheese.)

Night Snack:

1 organic Anjou pear

Meal Plan #1

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salad october 2017

Sunday, October 8 2017

Breakfast:

Cheerio’s with organic skim milk.

Lunch:

Amy’s Organic Minestrone soup.

Afternoon snack:

7 mini sweet peppers from CSA box.

1 container Horizon organic chocolate milk.

Dinner:

CSA salad with green leaf lettuce, hot pepper slices, shredded red cabbage, tomatoes, and carrots. Newman’s Own balsamic salad dressing.

Night snack:

Fage 0 percent fat plain yogurt.

4 squares organic chocolate 74 percent cacao.

I’m not keen to buy cans of soup that have natural flavor as an ingredient.

Natural flavor is a euphemism for chemicals whose actual names don’t have to be listed on the nutrition label.

Yet make no mistake you’re consuming chemicals.

I’ll report back here with a recipe I’m making for some kind of squash that arrived in the CSA too.  It’s a Gold Nugget personal-size Hubbard. Perfect for lunch.

More recipes to come here in the coming weeks along with some belated fitness inspiration or what’s call fitspo.

Every little bit of wellness counts:

Just walking five blocks or have a salad or whatever bits and bursts and sprints of doing that we can helps us get mentally and physically better.

Every little bit counts.

Food Spending Challenge

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Years ago Gwyneth Paltrow failed in living up to a food spending challenge.

She was allotted $29 dollars per week to buy food. It’s the amount of money the average SNAP or food stamps recipient gets to buy food.

The point is not that you should have to live on twenty-nine dollars each week. The point is that people who receive food stamps should get a livable benefit that’s bumped up to the cost of living.

You don’t say? Yes, I do. Give people collecting SNAP more money.

It’s unconscionable that Americans have to go hungry and without food.

I’ve said before in here that buying food at a Greenmarket and supplanting these items from a food pantry is nothing to be ashamed of.

I want to return to talking about nutrition and how to develop a healthy eating plan.

I’ve decide to chronicle three days worth of a nutrition plan and eating routine.

$175 dollars with a $5 delivery tip as part of this total cost bought me:

Lobster salad (not cheap because it’s real lobster)

One CSA Box (community-supported agriculture)

  • Contains green leaf lettuce, mini sweet peppers, five hot peppers, mint, thyme, and sage, red potatoes, head red cabbage, one carrot, 2 non-organic Empire apples, container of cherry tomatoes, and container of heirloom tomatoes

2 beefsteak tomatoes

2 containers organic blackberries

2 organic Bartlett pears

6 containers Fage (pronounced Fa-ye) fat-free plain yogurt

1 box Barbara’s crunchy oats cereal

1/2 gallon organic skim milk

58 oz bottle Evolution organic orange juice ( my go-to when oranges aren’t available)

2 bars organic 74 percent cacao dark chocolate

1/2 pound scallops

Earthbound Farms container organic spring mix salad

4 organic bananas (they often arrive green and need to ripen)
2 Amy’s Organic Lentil Soup
2 Amy’s Organic Minestrone Soup
2 Amy’s Organic Vegetable Barley Soup

In the next blog entry I’ll record the kinds of meals you can make that I made with these groceries.

I’d love to hear the kinds of recipes readers use to make meals.

 

Pizzoccheri

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pizzocheri

This time around I’ll use more cabbage.

The Pizzoccheri recipe is  from thekitchn.com. The link will take you to the recipe since it’s kind of long so I won’t repeat it here. The recipe might be copyrighted.

You can print the recipe up from thekitchn.com.

It calls for pasta, potatoes, and cabbage.

I used bionaturae organic 100% whole wheat chiocciole.

You shred the cabbage in strips.

I bought a mandoline–is that what it’s called–a kind of slicer in a housewares store years ago. This might help shredding the cabbage into strips.

There you have it: a tasty meal you can make year-round on weeknights.

Swiss Chard Dinner

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2017 swiss chard csa box

This was a weeknight dinner.

The Swiss chard arrived in a CSA box. I bought the chicken like that from an online grocer. The pepper jack cheese was accidentally packed in with the groceries.

The cheese slice is only 80 calories and has calcium and if I remember 9 gm of protein.

The chicken was precooked and arrived in a plastic container.

I sauteed the Swiss chard in olive oil until it was soft not totally wilted.

Perfetto: a summer dinner that takes only about 10 minutes to cook.

I will return early next week with a recipe for pizzocheri. It’s an Italian pasta dish you make with cabbage. I have a photo for that meal too.

Garlic Scape Dressing

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garlic scape dressing

I received another CSA box with an unusual produce item that looked like scallions with a tiny green bulb at the end.

It was fortuitous: at a Greenmarket I found the item featured in an egg frittata sample to taste. I brought home the one-page recipe for the garlic scape dressing.

The person I served the salad to claimed the dressing I created was the tastiest he’d ever tasted.

This recipe is from thespruce.com:

Garlic Scape Dressing

Ingredients:

2 garlic scapes, coarsely chopped

2 green onions, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon honey

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard or similar brown mustard

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

dash salt

1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Instructions (see my clarification below this):

In a blender, combine the garlic scapes, onions, honey, mustard, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth. With blender on low, slowly add the olive oil until well blended.

Makes 1 cup.

The trick is to add a little olive oil, PUT THE LID ON the blender, and turn the blender on low. REMOVE the lid, pour in a little more olive oil, put on the lid, and repeat.

I couldn’t figure out which button on my blender was the “low” option so I used the puree button to blend the olive oil into the mixture.

Listen: using lemon juice by squeezing real lemons is preferable to using the lemon juice in a plastic container. The store-bought lemon juice contains sulfur dioxide.

Real lemons are plentiful in produce departments at food markets so I recommend buying lemons instead of the juice in a plastic container.

This salad dressing recipe takes about five to seven minutes to create. It’s a quick and easy recipe for salad dressing you can use with summer salads.

I happen to think that red leaf lettuce is delicious. If you ask me it tastes better than the usual ho-hum spring mix salad greens.

Organic or not, I urge you to give red leaf lettuce a try in the summer. One head of lettuce can sometimes last a single person two days.

Forget iceberg lettuce.