A Practical Guide To Healthy Living

It’s the dead of winter here in the Northeast, and maybe, just maybe you’re tiring of root vegetables?  Eating locally is one thing, constant deprivation is another.  Pooped out on parsnips? Need some green leafies?  Fresh fruits?  What to do?

I will admit to spending a fortune on organic blueberries and raspberries in the last few weeks (see yesterday’s “What I Ate” post) . . . they’re super-delicious and refreshing on salads and cereal, or just swimming in non-fat kefir “soup” with cinnamon.  And I do buy organic salad greens and baby spinach all year ’round.  A Semi-Sweet reader recently asked me: “What about buying produce from other (read: warm!) countries? Is that safe?”  Well Sweeties, you ask, I answer!

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Don’t you just want to put your face in it?  THIS is what healthy food looks like, and it’s EZ.  Baby spinach + blueberries + raspberries + this DELICIOUS and relatively LOW-CAL creamy balsamic dressing.  Get crazy and scatter a few sliced almonds on top.  Pair it up with a couple of Wasa crackers slathered with Laughing Cow Lite/goat cheese/little nut butter and you have a lunch (or dinner) you can be proud of.  Eat up!

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Did you eat Spaghetti-O’s as a kid? I did, once in a while. My parents weren’t keen on “junk food” like that, but every now and then my mother would indulge my needling and get a can or two. And I particularly liked the one with “meatballs.” Now I look at them and think they’re kinda gross – I mean, just look at the ingredients list for regular Spaghetti Os:

Water, Tomato purée (Water, Tomato Paste), Enriched Macaroni Product (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Contains Less than 2 % of: Salt, Enzyme Modified Cheddar Cheese (Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Water, Disodium phosphate), Vegetable Oil (Corn, Cottonseed, Canola and/or Soybean), Enzyme Modified Butter, Oleoresin Paprika, Spice Extract, Citric Acid and Nonfat Dry Milk.

Not to mention that the cans are lined w/BPA.  Wouldn’t it be nice to recreate the fun of the Spaghetti-O sans BPA, “enzyme Modified Cheddar Cheese” “Oleoresin paprika” and high-fructose corn syrup?

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So it’s the third week of the new year . . . how’re you doing on those resolutions?

One of my professional biggies for ’11 is to network more.  Since launching Semi-Sweet in August of ’09, I’ve read and admired so many fellow bloggers, many of them in Boston . . . but have I met any? Like, “in real life” (as L. would say)? Not until last night. [Read more →]

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Want more reasons to exercise?  Studies have shown that exercise can:

1. Give you better craving control: New research shoes that the brain chemicals that signal the body to stop eating rise after exercise, so you eat less.
2. Raise your IQ: All exercise helps your brain’s ability to absorb new info. more quickly.  One study showed that people who memorized vocabulary while riding a stationary bike had greater retention.
3. Better organizational skills:  Inactive adults who walked for 2 hours/week improved the connections in their brains that help with strategizing.

Stronger . . . faster . . . smarter?  Could be you!  Find something active you like to do (Wii Just Dance, anyone?) and get your body moving today.

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Hi Sweeties! I have an update on the slow cooker/lead front. [Read more →]

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Cabbage is humble food, no? It stands in stark contrast to all the fancy, fussy food we just finished eating for the holidays.  It’s cheap, it’s filling, but it’s also remarkably healthy.  I had two giant heads in the fridge, courtesy of my Shared Harvest CSA share – one green, one purple. [Read more →]

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So it’s the new year . . . and maybe you’re sportin’ a few extra lbs. from all that holiday hoopla . . . muffin tops are great for eating, not so much for wearing.  Time to get serious and get back on the health bandwagon, folks.  And we know that small changes can equal big results over time.  Try these quick ‘n’ easy tips for shaving 100 calories off your eats and start watching the needle move left on the scale.  Slow but steady wins this race – enjoy your food, just stop stuffing your face!

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