Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Breakfast: Don't Make it More Complicated Than it Needs to Be
Friday, June 25, 2010
Invite the Italians over for Dinner
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Upcoming Event!
Hi everyone!
What are you up to next Tuesday? I just wanted to let you know that I'll be hosting a seminar (click here for details) where I'll be sharing my top solutions for problems that keep us in a rut and prevent us from adding healthier habits to our busy lifestyles! In fact, for a sneak peak I'll share one of those solutions with you right now...
"I Need My Sweets!"
We all know that decreasing sweets and sugary treats would probably benefit our health, not to mention our waistlines, right? But does this ever happen to you: you have the intention to eat perfectly well, have a lovely balanced meal, then the moment dinner is over you say , "where in the heck is my [insert sugary treat - chocolate, bon bons, cookie, etc.]?" This was me after every lunch and dinner for basically the first 26 years of my life. It's also certainly something that every single one of my clients have struggled with at one point or another.
Our bodies crave that sweet taste because we need it - sweet tasting foods help build tissues, calm nerves, and provide us with energy. In traditional Asian nutrition theories, the sweet flavor strengthens the spleen-pancreas and can soothe the liver. However, too much sweet, especially in the form of refined sugar can wreak havoc on the immune system, liver and kidneys and create deficiencies.
The solution to your sweet cravings? More natural foods with a sweet taste - especially fruits and sweet-tasting vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and cooked onions. Try adding in one or more of these items and see what happens to your cravings. On the days I have sweet potatoes, I don't even think about chocolate. No joke.
Recipe: Baked Sweet Potato Fries
2 sweet potatoes or yams
Olive oil
Sea salt
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Slice sweet potatoes about 1/4-inch thick. I like to cut mine into little disks or coins instead of lengthwise - they get crispier.
Toss sweet potato slices in large bowl with just enough olive oil to lightly coat them. Layer on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake for about 20 minutes, turning once. Enjoy!
Event Next Week!
Want to hear more tips? If you're in the area, stop by my event next week and sample homemade healthy desserts!
When: Tuesday April 27th 7:00PM - 8:30PM or Wednesday April 28th 10:00AM - 11:30AM
Where: The Life Solution Center of Darien, 36 Old Kings Highway South click here for map
Thursday, March 11, 2010
My Favorite Grain: Amaranth!
I’d like you meet one of my new favorite whole grains: amaranth. Although I had been hearing about it for a while, I tried it for the first time only a couple of months ago. Now I'm hooked! For those of you who, like many people I have shared my affinity for this ancient grain with, have not heard of amaranth before, here's a little background:
- Super high in protein - similar to quinoa, amaranth has a very high protein content for a grain - about 15-18% compared to about 8% in rice. They are both considered complete proteins which make them a great option for vegetarians concerned with getting enough protein.
- Great source of fiber
- High in vitamin C
- Contains more calcium, magnesium, and silicon than cow's milk!
- Gluten-free and easy to digest
For more of a meal, cook simple amaranth below as a side dish or even turn it into breakfast by adding a little more water at the end of cooking, along with raisins, walnuts and a little bit of butter.
Simple Amaranth
1 cup amaranth
1 teaspoon butter or extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups water
Place amaranth, butter, garlic and salt in a small pot, add water to just barely cover the amaranth. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, lower heat to a simmer and cook for until the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to steam, covered, for about 5 minutes.Monday, February 1, 2010
Warming & Satisfying Soup
What’s better in the heart of winter than a nice hearty bowl of soup? It’s warming, calming, relatively inexpensive, and contributes to our daily intake of water! Even better, soups tend to help satisfy hunger and make you feel full more quickly. Trying to lose weight? Try starting with a bowl of soup and see how much less food you need to eat to feel physically satisfied.
As mentioned in the previous article, eating heavy meals at night can disrupt a good night’s sleep. Soup, is generally easy to digest and is full of essential nutrients, which makes it a great choice for dinner or when recuperating from being sick. We have all heard about the healing powers of chicken soup; mineral-rich bone broths have played an integral role in the cuisines of all traditional cultures for centuries. Studies have shown that consumption of miso soup can help cut the risk of certain cancers. Any soup you choose, unless it’s cheddar bacon twinkie soup, will no doubt be nice to your body.
Making homemade soup can take a lot less time than you would think and it’s one of the most simple and flexible things you can cook. Try one of my favorite recipes below or improvise your own soup with help from these simple steps from my trusty Mark Bittman cookbook:
- Start with a little fat and a lot of flavor. Sauté one or two aromatic vegetables, like garlic, ginger, onions, or shallots, in a little olive oil or butter.
- Add seasonings. This can be as basic as salt in pepper or as complex as dried herbs and spices or as simple as a dried bay leaf. Lightly heat until you can smell their fragrance. Note: add fresh herbs at the end of cooking for most impact.
- Stir in the liquid. Add stock, water, wine, a combination of these or anything that best compliments the other ingredients.
- Add main ingredients in order of longest cooking time to shortest cooking time. Example: dried beans or uncooked grains, then tomatoes, then spinach; or first mushrooms, then carrots, then kale, then cooked noodles. Add cooked leftovers at the very end.
- Continue to taste as you go along and adjust the seasonings as you go. Relax. As Bittman says “It’s only soup.”
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Get Some Sleep!
Ahhh sleep. Just the word “sleep” makes you feel all cozy, doesn’t it? A good night’s sleep is something we all need but for many of us it feels like more of a privilege than a right. Not sure if you’re getting enough? Here are some signs that you are sleep deprived:
- Absolutely need an alarm to get up
- Difficulty waking up in the morning
- Poor performance at work or school
- Clumsiness
- Difficult decision making
- Moody or irritable
Just because you go to bed every night does it mean you’re really getting the kind of sleep that your body depends on? What many of us don’t realize is that it’s the quality and the timing of our sleep that really make a difference.
What is a good night’s sleep? You many know that your sleep cycles are made up of stages. In the first two stages you become drowsy and your body prepares itself for deep sleep – your body temperature goes down and heart rate slows. The next two stages are considered deep sleep. At these stages, the blood flow to the brain decreases as it redirects to the muscles to restore physical energy and immune functions. About 70-90 minutes after falling asleep we go into rapid eye movement (“REM”) or dream sleep and then hit this phase three to five times during the night. This stage is responsible for processing emotions, retaining memories, and relieving stress. If you are constantly being woken up by a snoring bed partner, the TV, or nature calling, you will have trouble getting to this stage – where the real restoration happens.
What time is bedtime? Every creature within nature, including human beings, operates according to what are known as circadian rhythms – patterns of physiological functioning that repeat every 24 hours. Think about it: animals wake up with the sun and sleep when it sets. Some flowers open their petals in daylight and close them at dusk. It is no different for us, though the changes in our bodies are harder for us to notice. For example, the production of the stress-fighting hormone cortisol increases early in the morning to help us fight through the stress of our day and the decreases at night. As mentioned earlier, when we sleep our blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature decrease and then rise again in the morning. Unfortunately things like electric light and the graveyard shift have created a disconnection between us and these natural cycles.
- Listen to relaxation cd’s or white noise
- Avoid eating a big dinner or right before bed, especially sugars and grains
- Sleep in complete darkness
- Don’t drink too many fluids a few hours before bed
- Don’t watch TV before bed or while in bed – it disrupts sleep
- Don’t read something too stimulating before bed, like my newsletters
- Write in a journal to get all your crazy thoughts out
- Avoid caffeine, especially in the afternoon
- Take a hot bath or shower before bed, try adding lavender
- Drink chamomile or lavender tea
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Food Rules
My hero, Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food", has just come out with a new book "Food Rules - An Eater's Manual". It's a mini-manual of 64 eating rules that he gathered from not only doctors and scientists but also chefs and his own readers. I know you might be thinking, "please no more rules!", but from what I have already heard about it, these are straightforward, intuitive, and rather amusing rules that will certainly stick in your memory, such as "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of your milk". My absolute favorite so far is "The whiter the bread, the sooner you will be dead."
- Don't Eat Anything Your Great Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food. Think yogurt versus "Go-Gurt" (which still makes me cringe by the way).
- Avoid Food Products Containing Ingredients that are a) Unfamiliar, b) Unpronounceable, c) More than five in number or that include d) High fructose corn syrup. Take a look at what's in your refrigerator. What passes the test?
- Avoid Food Products that Make Health Claims. Sounds counter intuitive, but does a carrot really need to convince you that its good for you? Of course not! According to Pollan, margarine was one of the first industrial foods to claim it was healthier than the traditional food it replaced and what did it turn out to do? Give people heart attacks!
- Shop the Peripheries of the Supermarket and Stay Out of the Middle. You are much more likely to get real food by shopping this way as the peripheries tend to contain the fruits, vegetables, meats, and some quality dairy and the middle aisles contain overly processed food-like substances. However, this is not entirely fool-proof.
- Get out of the Supermarket Whenever Possible. This means get as much as possible from the Farmer's Market or join a CSA. By doing this you are guaranteed to eat in season and will be supporting your local community. I know, I know, for those of you who live in the Northeast there isn't much available but there are certainly some winter farmer's markets and just get yourself pumped for the abundance of them once Spring and Summer hits!