Category — Healthy Living

January’s not over yet, how are your goals and resolutions coming along?  Are you making progress?  As my trainer likes to say “progress, not perfection!”  She’s on to something . . . if we strive for perfection, we set ourselves up for disappointment.  If we seek to progress, then we allow ourselves to celebrate each small step on the way to our ultimate goal. 

On this theme, here’s a list of 10 ways you can healthy-up your life in 2010 -  some small changes to set you on a path to better living in the new year.

1.  Ease up on animal fats. Animal products can contain synthetic hormones, antibiotics and chemicals such as dioxin, DDT and other pesticides, which concentrate in animal fat. The chemicals that accumulate in animal fats are transferred to our bodies when we eat them. When buying meat, poultry or dairy, look for low fat options. You can also do your body a favor by reducing how much meat you eat. Making even one vegetarian meal a week can make a big difference.

2.  Go organic where you can. According to the Environmental Working Group, you can lower your pesticide exposure by 90% by avoiding the most contaminated conventionally grown produce: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears. You can download the EWG pocket guide to fruits and veggies here.

3.  Ban the can. Canned foods and beverages are lined with a resin that contains bisphenol-A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical that’s building up in our environment and our bodies. The FDA is investigating as we speak, and most manufacturers are beginning to explore safer alternatives, but in the meantime you should choose foods that are fresh, dried, frozen or packaged in glass jars or tetra packs.

4.  Read food labels – for real. Ever stop to read the ingredients label on packaged, processed foods?  Learn which food additives are safer by visiting The Center for Science in the Public Interest’s food safety guide. Remember this:  The shorter the list of ingredients, the less processed the food, and the less processed the food, the better it is for your body.

5.  Wet your whistle with water. Americans drink an overwhelming amount of soda, sports drinks, energy boosters, juices and other bottled beverages. Many of these drinks are loaded with sweeteners and artificial flavors and colors.  They’re also often bottled in plastic, which can leach additional chemicals into your drink.  Make an investment in a reusable stainless steel bottle, and get in the habit of filling it with water before you leave the house.

6.  Eat-in more often. When you eat at a restaurant or stop for take-out, you have very little control over what you’re eating. Save money, protect your health, and trim your waistline by cooking at home. Look for inspiration here at Semi-Sweet, and also check out my links for fast and flavorful recipes that’ll ease your dependence on take-out and increase your intake of whole foods, fruits and veggies.

7.  Use fewer personal care products and use them less often.  Our government doesn’t currently require health studies or pre-market testing for personal-care products before they’re sold. Nearly 90% of ingredients used in personal care products haven’t been evaluated for safety by any publicly accountable institution. Nearly all these chemicals can penetrate the skin, and some we ingest directly from our lips or hands.  Visit the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics  to learn more and to see what’s really in those products you use every day.

8.  Kick the non-stick. Non-stick pans are coated with synthetic chemicals, and when the cook-surface gets scratched, tiny, yet toxic bits of inert plastic and leached aluminum cling to your food.  What’s more, these pans emit toxic fumes when overheated. The safest alternatives are cast iron, stainless steel and oven-safe glass.  If you have unscratched non-stick cookware and can’t afford to replace it right now, you can reduce the possibility of toxic fumes by cooking smart: never preheat nonstick cookware at high heat, don’t put it in an oven hotter than 500 degrees and use an exhaust fan over the stove.

9.  Store & reheat leftovers safely.  Avoid plastic when storing and re-heating leftovers. We know that chemicals routinely migrate into food and liquid placed in plastic containers and that heat accelerates the process. Use a paper towel instead of plastic wrap to cover food in the microwave, and use glass or ceramic food storage containers. 

10.  Clean greener.  Our homes aren’t safe and clean if the air inside is polluted with chemicals from household cleaners. It’s pretty easy: Try natural alternatives (vinegar, baking soda and water); avoid anti-bacterials; and avoid the biggest hazards (acidic toilet bowl cleaners, air fresheners, oven cleaners, and corrosive drain openers). 

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Happy Friday morning, all!  We had a great time at Healthy Habits Kitchen last night – thanks to Sue for hosting us (and for providing tasty treats!) and to Liz Ward for giving us all great advice on how to make nutrition a family affair.  I think we all came away with some great ideas for how to feed our families (and ourselves) a little bit better. 

Liz’s advice was balanced and practical – and comes from a place of inclusion rather than exclusion of specific foods.  This anti-deprivation message works well for us and for our kids:  Instead of thinking of all the foods you “can’t” have (i.e., chips, cookies, Goldfish, Cheetos, etc.), think of all the nutrient rich-foods you can have (whole fruits, vegetables, whole-grain breads, low-fat milk, lean sources of beef, fish, chicken, nuts, etc. etc.).  These whole foods add value to your diet.  At our house, we call them “grow foods,”  as distinguished from “treats,” which taste great and are fun to eat, but which we eat occasionally, not regularly.  We let L. pick, choose, and eat as many “grow foods” as she likes, while we seek to limit (and have her self-limit) her intake of treats.

My #1 revelatory idea from the night was that it’s not a great idea to try to introduce new foods to your child when s/he is tired, overstimulated, etc.  This was a lightbulb moment for me because I realized that we most often try to get L. to try new things at dinnertime – a time of, well, bonkers behavior most nights.  So I’m going to try more during a weekend lunch, the afternoons or mornings on weekends, etc.

Another important take-away for parents is to try to manage your own anxiety about your child’s eating habits . . . let your desire for them to eat a balanced diet come from a place of love and interest, rather than a place of fear . . . because as Liz said, when fear takes over, all you-know-what can break loose.  Or, as I say, kids can smell fear – and boy, do they capitalize on it!

I hope you all have a great, healthy weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

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‘Tis the season for re-evaluating our weight and nutrition goals, no?  The gyms are packed, the diet center ads are running constantly, and around this time, people generally resolve to “lose weight” and/or “get healthy,” once and for all . . . .

There are lots of obstacles to losing weight and eating healthily – you probably know what they are for you.  But have you thought about why you eat in the first place?   We generally have two reasons for eating:  hunger and appetite.  The two are completely different, and keying into which is motivating you at any given moment may help you push away from the table or avoid foods that might sabotage your healthful eating efforts.

What is Hunger?

Hunger is the ‘need for food’. Your body lets you know you’re running low on fuel and that food’s needed to give your body the energy it needs to perform an activity. Hunger instinctively protects the body from depleting energy reserves.

What is Appetite?

Appetite, on the other hand, is described as the desire, or craving for food.  It might be prompted by the sight or smell of food. Passing a bakery and smelling fresh baked goods is an example. Your stomach may be full because you’ve just eaten, but the smell and sight of the bread and desserts stimulates your appetite. 

Habits and moods affect our appetite, too.  Many of us eat out of habit (i.e. noon=lunchtime regardless of whether you’re actually hungry), or in response to various moods like sadness, anger, anxiety or boredom. Habits and emotional stimuli can be very powerful cues to eat, and very often, to overeat.

How to Tell Them Apart?

Knowing the difference between hunger and appetite is half the battle when it comes to weight loss. Tune in to your body before you start eating and ask yourself whether you’re truly hungry, or whether there’s something else going on.

For some people, an effective way to get at this is to keep a journal for a week or two.  For every time you eat, write down (1) what you ate, and (2) the circumstances of your eating – meaning, what caused you to eat, how you felt when you ate.  I’ve never incorporated emotions/circumstances into my food diary, but I know that it can be enormously powerful for some people – if you have any interest in doing this, I’d go for it.  It can’t hurt and it could provide some valuable insight.

I have to confess, I only started thinking of the distinction between my hunger and my appetite recently.  I know that in the past I ate when I was sad or depressed, and now I know that boredom is a trigger for me to munch, but I had never really thought about the technical definitions of hunger and appetite.  Since I have been, I realize that my appetite is also stimulated by reading and writing about food – which I of course do for a few hours every day.  I now realize that I have a huge appetite, but my actual hunger level is often fairly low.  If I take a minute and wait before heading to the fridge or cabinet, I can often derail eating based on merely appetite, and not hunger.

This is all best boiled down to Emma Fogt’s “food rule,” submitted to Michael Pollan when he solicited readers’ tips for eating healthfully.  It bears repeating to yourself when you’re going for that handful of Cheez-its:  “If you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry.”

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Folks, it’s nuts out there.  I’ve been out and about all a.m. and it’s not pretty.  Big snow predicted for the Boston area, plus Christmas around the corner = madness on the roads, in the stores, etc.  As I headed out to the supermarket at 8:30 this morning, I said to myself “it might be bonkers out there, but today you’re going to remember all the joy in your life, and you’re going to be nice and friendly.”  Sound crazy?  Many of you haven’t driven with me before, but let me assure you, I’m Boston-born and bred, and I drive like hellfire and I swear like a sailor (if my youngest Midwestern cousin is reading this, he will remember a little incident many years ago that involved, I think, a rotary, a stick-shift, some yelling and some graphic hand gesturing).  So this little pep-talk was necessary.

And it worked out OK, but I was, shall I say, tested.  I’m home now, fed and ready to start prepping food for a very fun annual Festivus gathering tonight, and checking Google Reader – I came across this post from the Crazy Sexy Life Blog.  Not sure how much you can use suggestion #1 at this late date, but the rest is so good and such a good reminder that I’m breaking tradition and blogging on the weekend.

My favorite quotation is:  ”you are the architect of all of your life experiences.”  Take that one along in your back pocket for the next week or so.  And further indulge me as I plug in another great reminder about being in the moment, from Pema Chodron:

“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.”

Good luck this weekend, everyone, snow or no snow, Christmas prepping or not.  Breathe deep, be present, eat well, and I’ll see you back here on Monday morning.

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I know it’s not local, but of all the citrus fruits, my favorite is grapefruit. Every winter, I look forward to seeing the first grapefruit at the market, and I eat a grapefruit every day.  I love it at breakfast time, for an afternoon snack or as dessert after dinner.  This girl cannot live by root vegetables alone.  Especially since I’m still makin’ my way through my all-local Moroccan Veggie Stew . . . .

Grapefruit has a lot of vitamins C and A. The pink and red kinds have more phytonutrients than the white – they’ve got lycopene, which may help to protect against certain forms of cancer (see also, tomatoes and watermelon).  Both blond and red grapefruit can reduce blood levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, and a recent study showed that red grapefruit can lower triglycerides too.  And at about 50 calories per half grapefruit, it’s a great way to eat for your health.

Is there a downside to grapefruit?  Yes, grapefruit and/or its juice may interact with certain medications (statins among them), so if you eat the fruit or drink the juice regularly be sure to ask your doc if it could affect any medications you are taking.  And also concerning:  A 2007 study suggested a link between grapefruit consumption and breast cancer in post-menopausal women.  There’s conflicting evidence on this, though – in ’08, the Nurses’ Health Study found the opposite. 

Ways to eat your grapefruit:

• Plain
• With a sprinkle of granulated sugar or a drizzle of honey on top
• On a green or spinach salad
• Juice in a juicer
• Add a little to perk up your green monster smoothie – a green apple, a few handfuls of spinach, and some grapefruit is  really refreshing
• Dip it in melted dark chocolate
• Add it to fruit salads
• Squeeze a wedge into a glass of water for a refreshing hydrator
• Blend with olive oil, herbs and spices for a delicious salad dressing
• Combine with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper as a marinade for chicken
• Top grapefruit halves with a little cinnamon and honey and broil for a couple of minutes

For a regional citrus resource – check out this post from Eat Local, Boston about a winter citrus CSA share comin’ up the East Coast versus from overseas or the West Coast . . . . orders have to be in by the 14th of this month – and if you choose to partake, let me know what you think, will you?

I leave you with grapefruit trivia:  Do you why a grapefruit is called grapefruit?  I just learned this – maybe I’m the last to know!? 

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L. was sick for 5 days straight – some dumbed-down version of the swine flu, maybe, or maybe just some other pesky virus. She recovered Monday night, but I felt like I was going down. So I reluctantly cancelled plans to see “Precious” with “the girls,” and went foraging in the fridge for dinner. In my mish-mash-hodge-podge of items was a favorite: Kimchi.  ‘Cause as you may remember, when the chips are down for me health-wise, I like to treat my body as best I can . . . and kimchi is pretty much as healthy as it gets.

So . . . what is it?  Kimchi is Korea’s most representative food – served at pretty much every meal.  Essentially, it’s fermented vegetables – often made with cabbage, radishes, garlic, scallions and leeks, each with its own health benefits.  But because it’s fermented, kimchi provides the health benefits of the veggies, plus, it can lower cholesterol, improve digestion, provide essential vitamins and minerals and provide a great, non-dairy source of live probiotics.  

You’ve probably heard about probiotics – they’ve been in the news a lot lately.  You mostly hear about supplements and yogurt.  Probiotics are the beneficial bacteria that aid in maintaining the balance of microorganisms in your body’s intestinal tract. On average, the human digestive system contains more than 400 types of probiotic bacteria. These all serve to inhibit the growth of dangerous bacteria by promoting the health of the digestive system.  And did you know that kimchi has more lactic acid bacteria than yogurt?  It does! 

What can kimchi do for you?

• Kimchi helps reduce indigestion and gas. Excess bad bacteria causes irritation leading to indigestion, gas and fluid retention.
• Kimchi may help you feel less hungry. Lactobacillus, one common strain of good bacteria, has been linked to appetite control. Good bacteria helps stabilize blood-sugar levels which means less frequent and less intense hunger.
• Some studies have shown that kimchi can shorten the duration of a cold.
• The juice and salt from kimchi helps to keep the intestines clean.
• The chili peppers and garlic help to lower blood cholesterol and are an aid in blood-clotting.

How do you eat kimchi?  Really, any way you like.  The other night, I had it with chicken tenders and roasted root veggies.  But in addition to eating kimchi as a side dish, it’s also served as kimchi stew, kimchi soup, kimchi dumplings, kimchi stir fried rice, etc. etc. etc.

You can make your own kimchi, but I’m lazy.  I get my everyday kimchi at Whole Foods, but if you’re in the area and want an adventure, the new HMart in Burlington has an entire wall of kimchi . . . so you can sample different varieties, with absolutely NO health-downside to your nibbling.  What could be better?

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You’ve heard it over and over and over again:  Breakfast is “the most important meal of the day.”  Maybe you’re like me, and you make time to eat breakfast every day . . . I can’t imagine getting up and out without putting something in my belly.  But maybe you’re one of “those people” who doesn’t like to eat in the a.m.  If you don’t eat breakfast at all, I urge you to try to eat a little something – you might find these two bits of new research encouraging.  In one, UK researchers found that when they gave thirty-two volunteers breakfast, or made them skip breakfast, the ones who ate did better on a memory test.  In another, a University of Georgia study found that eating breakfast along with 200 mg. of caffeine improves cognitive performance and mood.  Now, who among us doesn’t want to be smarter and happier?   [Read more →]

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We’re going to start the week on a healthy note.  Let’s take a little break from Thanksgiving prep to talk about a new adition to my diet, chia seeds.  Have you heard of chia? You might remember Chia Pets, the cute little terracotta figurines you smear with seeds to help them grow “fur.”  These are the same seeds, but don’t pilfer your pet’s stash – those seeds aren’t consumption grade.  The ancient seeds are actually packed with rich nutrients. Chia seeds are a genus of the mint family, originating in Mexico’s central valley and were widely cultivated by Aztec cultures in pre-Hispanic times.  Chia seeds were often used as currency for tax payments to nobility and as offerings for the Priesthood. They’re so nutritious that one tablespoon of seeds was believed to sustain an individual for 24 hours!

Chia is gluten-free, with very high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids (ALA), significant levels of antioxidants, dietary fiber, oil, protein, calcium, phosphorous, and potassium.  Two tablespoons of my Navitas Naturals chia powder have 70 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 6 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein.

So, why would a person choose chia over flax, another vegetarian source of omega-3′s?  Chia actually has a slightly higher concentration of omega-3 fatty acids than flax. Another advantage of chia over flax is that chia is so rich in antioxidants that the seeds don’t deteriorate, so they can be stored for long periods without becoming rancid. And, unlike flax, chia doesn’t have to be ground to make its nutrients available to the body.

Another big reason to choose chia over flax is phytoestrogens.  Are your eyes glazing over?  Stick with me here!  Those of you who’re living with breast cancer probably are already aware of phytoestrogens – they’re plant-based estrogens that may or may not mimic the natural estrogens in our body and therefore raise our estrogen levels.  You can also find ‘em in soy, which is why a lot of women who’ve had breast cancer avoid or limit their soy consumption.  Whether or not phytoestrogens raise your natural estrogen levels is still controversial, and I’ve heard differing opinions from reputable sources. So what’s the best alternative? Chia seed.  Chia contains no phytoestrogens. And since it’s just as good, if not better source of ALA, why not use chia instead?

Another note – you can’t compare the omega-3 fatty acids in chia (or flax, for that matter) to the omega 3’s you get from salmon. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The type of omega 3 in chia (and flax) is alpha-Linolenic acid, or ALA, which is different from the omega 3’s in fish – DHA and EPA – needed for optimal health. ALA must be converted in the body to DHA and EPA – so you need to eat seven times the amount of ALA to get 1 gram of DHA.  That’s a helluva lot of chia.  The bottom line here is that chia is a nutritious whole food and a good addition to a healthy diet.  For a great all-around, but easy to understand primer on omega 3′s, take a look at this great post from Foodicate.

Whaddaya do with chia, anyway?  Chia has a nutty, but unobtrusive flavor. You can mix the whole seeds in water and add lime or lemon juice and sugar to make a drink known in Mexico and Central America as “chia fresca.” As with ground flax, you can sprinkle ground or whole chia seeds on cereal, in yogurt or salads, or grind them and mix them with flour for making muffins or other baked goods.  I’ve only tried them in smoothies, so far, and I will admit that I don’t foresee making baked goods with chia . . . I think that all the butter and sugar I use would negate any health benefit of the chia, frankly!

How ‘bout you?  Have you tried chia?  How do you incorporate these super-seeds into your diet?

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