Greenmarket Loot:

broccoli, carrots, and Brussels sprouts

fresh mozzarella and Jersey beefsteak tomatoes

zucchini

organic whole wheat bread and a chocolate croissant.

tomato sauce

Total cost: $36. What it covers: two lunches and two dinners and sauce for a third pasta dinner. This seems to be a viable expense and saner than buying $36 worth of meat.

If you’re eating mostly a vegetarian diet you can afford to buy organic food simply because you’re not spending money on meat and potatoes.

I remember months ago Gwyneth Paltrow was given $200/for two weeks and asked to buy what an ordinary person collecting food stamps would buy to cook with.

You could get only two or three meals for only one or two people for $200.

It is unconscionable that the SNAP–food stamps program–benefits are being cut down drastically.

I see a person begging for change on October 30 and think: “It’s the end of the month. They must be waiting on a November SSI check.”

No one in America should have to go to bed hungry. No one in America should be discarded and left to fend for themselves.

In New York you can use food stamps to buy food at a Greenmarket. A significant number of food stamp dollars are spent at our Greenmarkets. If I remember upwards of over $500,000 is spent at Greenmarkets with food stamps in New York. I heartily endorse doing this along with using a food pantry if you have to.

No one wants to beg for change. No one wants to be poor. No one wants others to judge them because of this.

Who gives a shit if a poor person buys food at a Greenmarket. They deserve to be healthy too.

I’m a big fan of frequenting a Greenmarket. This is because I don’t take this for granted.

I remember living in a residence and having only $70 to spend for one week in 1989 to buy groceries for two people. No wonder some of us existed on hot dogs and Velveeta shells-and-cheese.

My contention is that there’s no shame if you have to use the service of a food pantry to obtain food.

The U.S. government is doing absolutely nothing to help average Americans exist on wages that have been stagnant for decades and haven’t kept up with the cost of living. No kidding.

As this is true I make the case for eating mostly vegetarian food.

Shopping at a Greenmarket and obtaining staples from a food pantry?

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

Layne Lieberman’s Beyond the Mediterranean Diet is my new number-one favorite nutrition book. Buy it or check it out of the library to see the changes you can make in how and what you eat to promote optimal mental and physical health.

The author is an international expert on nutrition who deserves to be viewed as an international expert. She is one expert whose wisdom I can totally parrot unlike that of other alleged “experts” who hang out a shingle and are taken seriously because of their toxic mouthfeel they spew out that doesn’t help anyone at all.

As an Italian I liked the section on Italy and the Slow Food Movement founded there the best of all the chapters. The book also details the secrets of the Super-Healthy citizens of France and Greece too.

I recommend you buy this book to have on hand to refer to often. It’s a short book and the writing is not dense it’s light and practical.

I’m gathering product boxes up to examine so that I can write about the products I think are good and healthful to consider buying and using.

My contention is that everyone should be cooking most of their own meals. And when you’re too tired to cook you should buy healthier prepared frozen meals instead of Lean Cuisine type meals.

Amy’s Organic company offers low-calorie healthful frozen dinners that weigh in under 650 calories–the average number of calories thought to be acceptable for a meal is 650.

I buy the Amy’s Organic Light-n-Lean black beans-and-quinoa salad; the Amy’s Organic vegetable lasagna; and the Amy’s Organic tofu scramble. One or two nights a week I cook a pasta recipe. Two nights I have fish.

These are the products I wanted to talk about. It appears there are no “natural flavors” in Amy’s Organic. I also cook the Amy’s organic low-sodium lentil soup for lunch once a week.

Progresso Soups and Campbell’s soups have natural flavors so there you go not a healthful option.

I will report back in here next week on two recipes I’m going to create: cream of tomato soup and gnocchi (pasta version not potato).

Buying a Kind bar is not an act of kindness when you read the ingredient label. Using your intelligence to make better decisions about what to eat is the true act of kindness.

I’ll end here by saying that I might be Italian however everyone should cook for themselves not just Italians. You can become a good cook even though you’re not Italian.

The last time I had a hot dog was in 1992.

As soon as I read the label and saw a hot dog was 100 calories and 90 calories were fat I thought: this can’t be good.

I used to exist on real poverty food when I lived in the residence: I’d buy Velveeta shells-and-cheese that I marginally improved by mixing broccoli into it.

I rarely eat bagels anymore because I don’t want my belly to resemble a bagel.

The change-over started right when I was about to turn 50. I consciously choose not to drink Snapple and other sugary drinks. Not only not every week: I chose not to drink them at all. I drink only water now and occasionally a 4 oz glass of organic orange juice when the market is out of oranges.

One way to combat the insidious positioning of products in a supermarket is to buy groceries online from FreshDirect in New York City and Philadelphia or from PeaPod elsewhere if it’s available where you live.

The benefit with FreshDirect is that you can simply order on autopilot by logging into your account choosing to submit a new order using a previous order.

You don’t even have to think about it and you can add new items to the order as well. This is great when you don’t have the energy or think you don’t have the time to create a brand new order.

Not needing a car to travel to buy groceries also cuts down on your dependence on foreign oil. It also saves time and saves your sanity.

One woman I met told me about going to a local food market that she “goes in like a lady and comes out like a bull.” Dealing with crowds and waiting on long lines isn’t the way to spend two hours every week.

Years ago too I stopped eating a lot of dairy except for string cheese and drinking the skim milk I use in my cereal. I do eat cheese every so often though only every two or three months or so.

The benefit of watching what you eat is that you’re then free every so often to indulge guilt-free in a chocolate croissant or whatever is heaven to you.

I’m fond of the macarons at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that opened up. The owner is a young guy and I’d rather give him the money than Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks.

I’m going to try to scoop products in here in the coming months that I think are better alternatives to the ubiquitous garbage attractively packaged to seduce our eyes and mouths.

I recommend the Mark Bittman book A Bone to Pick that collects his columns and essays on food and agriculture.

He should win a Nobel Prize for his rigorous intelligent and rational thinking on the topic.

My contention is that a person should stay away from chemical-laden processed foods and foods with sugar and added sugars. If you do that you’re well on your way to being in better health. Plus not eating meat is also a better option for our health and for the planet.

Pesticides contaminate groundwater. They cause cancer. Industrial agriculture is far from sustainable even though Monsanto is now claiming it is in magazine and TV advertisements. Or was it DuPont or Synerga claiming industrial agriculture is sustainable. Either way those claims are false.

Kind bars I found out have “natural flavors” that are actually fake chemicals.

The equation is simple: garbage in equals garbage out. I care too much for the planet and for everyone living on it to advocate for “business as usual” in farming practices.

If you live in New York City or Philadelphia I recommend shopping online from FreshDirect because you have tons of healthful food choices like Amy’s Organic. Amy’s offers black beans and quinoa, lentil soup with low sodium, tofu and hash browns, and vegetable lasagna. All these prepackaged healthful food are perfect to heat in the oven when you come home from the gym and are too tired to cook. Or when you simply don’t have the energy to cook.

I do not recommend a “garbage in, garbage out” lifestyle or way of thinking.

At HealthCentral I will continue to write about strategies for living a full and robust life when you have a diagnosis. Stay tuned there for new news articles I have planned through January.

March is National Nutrition Month as well as Women’s History Month.

I have an ongoing interest in clean living and will offer some information I’ve read in at least two places.

Divide your weight in half to arrive at the number of ounces of water you should drink each day.

Divide your weight in half to arrive at the grams of protein you should eat each day.

I’ll keep this blog entry short with a recommendation that Tera’s Whey Protein organic whey protein bourbon vanilla version tastes okay and has 20 grams or so of protein in a scoop.

Pour a cup of skim milk into a blender and add a scoop of the bourbon vanilla whey protein. “Blend” for about 30 seconds or so.

Voila: a cheaper post-workout shake you can make on your own in your apartment instead of paying $3.50/per pop for a shake at the gym.

Dr. Phil has published another weight loss book. I checked it out of the library only to read the section on the Top 20 Food Choices to eat.

1. Coconut oil (virgin) is a fit fat.
2. Green Tea
3. Mustard (yellow or Dijon)
4. Walnuts
5. Olive oil (extra virgin) is a fit fat.
6. Almonds, unsalted raw or dry roasted
7. Apples
8. Chickpeas / garbanzo beans
9. Dried plums / prunes
10. Greens – any kind of leafy green -e.g. arugula, baby mixed greens, bok choy, collard greens, endive, field greens, kale, radicchio, red leaf lettuce, romaine, baby spinach, watercress, etc.
11. Lentils
12. Peanut butter (natural) – get the kind with no added sugar.
13. Pistachios (roasted, unsalted)
14. Raisins
15. Yogurt (nonfat, nothing added)
16. Eggs
17. Cod
18. Rye
19. Tofu
20. Whey protein, unsweetened.

This is going to be tooting my own horn however I can vouch for eating these Top 20 Food Choices. Along with my strength training routine for the last four years I have adhered to an eating plan that is comprised of a lot of these food choices.

It can’t be a coincidence that I’m in peak condition and fitness at the same time I’ve been eating these food choices.

If you think you can be helped by following Dr. Phil’s diet plan to the letter, by all means buy his book or check it out of the library.

In my estimation simply eating healthful food 80 percent of the time and incorporating these food choices will be sufficient to see long-term benefits.

Years ago at HealthCentral I wrote about promoting health and wellness by eating certain foods. Now Dr. Phil has come out with a list of 20 kinds of food to eat to promote weight loss.

Our daily needs according to the workshop I attended years ago are comprised of: whole grains, Omega 3 essential fatty acids, low fat dairy, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, beans and protein.

According to research at Penn State, dieters who ate lots of whole grains lost more belly fat and improved their levels of an inflammatory marker that is linked to diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

In my estimation getting 20 to 35 gm fiber per day is beneficial. Two servings of whole grains a day before the afternoon is what Pamela Peeke, MD recommends.

Benefits of Omega 3 are improved lipid profile reducing cardiovascular risk, improved diabetes outcome,improved neurotransmission stimulation improving depression, reducing suicide and hostility and improved memory function. The American Heart Association recommends that all adults eat fish at least two times per week.

No-fat dairy is better than low-fat dairy in my estimation. Research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital of 30,000 women in the Women’s Health Study found that an increased intake of low fat dairy products reduced women’s risk of developing hypertension. Some research points to a weight reduction benefit of dairy calcium showing it to trigger the body to burn more fat, particularly around the waistline.

Benefits of eating vegetables include reduced cance3r risk, reduced risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure, diabetes prevention, and help with weight control. Benefits of fruits are similar to vegetables.

The recommend serving of nuts and seeds per day is 1/4 cup no more. Walnuts are the most nutrient packed of the nuts and seeds, and contain plant Omega 3-fatty acids, vitamins E and B6, magnesium, protein, fiber, potassium and polyphenols.

Beans contain low fat protein, fiber, B vitamins, iron, folate, potassium, magnesium, and phytonutrients.

Protein comes from meat,beans, seeds, nuts and fish. I’ve heard that you should divide your weight in half to get the number of milligrams of protein you should have per day. I would clock in at 61 gm.

In the next blog entry I will list Dr. Phil’s Top 20 Foods.