Today's Afternoon Pick-Me-Up: The Muddy Banana

I joke that my husband likes to do yard work until "black dark" once spring and summer roll around, and because I'm a morning person in a household of night owls, I'm often ready for an early supper long before others are.  So a late-afternoon snack is a real boost to get me through to suppertime, usually 7 or later.  Today  I wanted a bit of stimulant as well, so I made up this blender drink:



The Muddy Banana

1 large banana, frozen
1 small handful of fresh kale (about one large leaf)
1 rounded tablespoon cocoa powder (I used the good stuff from Penzeys Spices.*)
1/2 - 1 cup water

Blend all ingredients in a Vita-Mix, ideally, and serve over ice with a straw.  It's a terrible shade of dark brown, sure to keep the kids away, but it's rich and satisfying, and only slightly sweet.  About 170 calories, with over 6 grams of fiber and almost 6 grams of protein.

Verdict: Very Good. I'd say Excellent except for the aesthetics. :-)

*The Penzeys store in the Strip District in Pittsburgh is a real joy to visit. I could spend a lot of money there fast.  I'm relishing their cardamom in my morning oatmeal with apples and walnuts and just gave someone one of their little gift boxes of four small jars of spices.

Gorgeous Chard

I don't have a photo of our own chard from the garden we had for lunch today, but it was gorgeous. Even cooked (chopped and sauteed with a squeeze of lemon) it was pretty, and the flavor was satisfying, too.

Two cups of raw chard have just under 14 calories--1 calorie from fat, the rest divided between carbs and protein, and as much fiber as protein. These 14 little calories give you 88% of the RDA of Vitamin A, 36% of Vitamin C, 15% of Magnesium, and 13% of Manganese, with 8% of Potassium. That's a lot of food value! Eat your rainbows!

Photo from 6 Foods You Should Be Eating--But Probably Aren't!

Swamp Salad

It doesn't sound too good, does it, "Swamp Salad?"  But that's really what it's like.  And like many nutritarian foods--think green smoothies and pureed bean dips--it can quickly become a favorite, a craving, even!  I was really hungry at lunch today, so I had more of this than I  usually would have--see the notes.

It started with a hankering for some Tasty Bite Madras Lentils I have had my eye on in the cabinet lately. (I used them in a previous post, too, as I have several Tasty Bite products.) I knew they'd be spicy and comfort-food-y with a lot of sauce for the amount of lentils. They do have a bit of oil and cream, but it's only 50 calories of fat per 150 calories (with 7 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber) of the product. My idea grew from there to the kind of salad I read of many nutritarians making--with soup on top instead of dressing. That's what makes it a swamp. :-)

SWAMP SALAD

About 4 cups chopped green leaf lettuce
1/2 small onion, minced
1/2 small bell pepper, minced
1 diced tomato
1/3 cup fresh corn kernels (optional)*
1 package (or 1/2 package if you're not as hungry as I was today) Tasty Bite Madras Lentils

*But then this salad is really a method suggestion, so everything is optional, interchangeable, inspirational

Toss together all the veggies, and pour the warmed pouch of lentils over the top. Stir, savor, and be satisfied!

Verdict:  Excellent!  Of course this salad has endless variations, limited only by what sort of soupy stuff you're willing to put over  your salad.  Or, think of it this way:  instead of topping pasta or rice or couscous or a tortilla with a savory (or any!) sauce, put that stuff over a salad and make it really nutritious.

Depressing, But I'm Not Giving Up!

Dr. Arya Sharma posts this:  "Why Diet and Exercise is Not a Treatment For Obesity."

It turns out that "keeping it off" is much harder for those of us who have had to lose it.  I'm almost 20% lighter than my highest weight, but I have a distance yet to go.  But like my dad always said, "Life is not fair."  :-)

Telling final quote:  "Whoever said that treating obesity was simply a matter of ‘eating less and moving more’ (ELMM) probably also believes that they [sic] can live forever by simply breathing less."

Resuming

Despite my silence here, I've been keeping daily food logs for months at drfuhrman.com . I've decided to post again here--if not every day, then when I have something interesting to share from a day's menu, in the way of a recipe or method. This is a summer endeavor--I may cave to time pressures again in the fall.

ITALIAN STIR-FRY

2 tsp olive oil
8 oz. bag frozen Italian-style green beans (the flat, diagonally-cut ones)
1 red bell pepper cut into strips (I used the delicious long "Ancient Sweets" in a plastic bag)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
big tablespoon pesto (mine is frozen homemade from last summer)
big handful (2 oz?) fresh spinach
grated asiago cheese to garnish

Heat the oil in a pan and add the green beans, stirring a bit before adding the pepper, onion, and garlic, then pesto, and finally spinach at the end to wilt it.  The idea is to leave the peppers and onion the slightest bit crunchy and colorful.  

Optional: I tossed my portion of this with whole grain penne and topped it with a little jarred marinara heated with a dash of wine

Verdict:  VERY GOOD.  I really enjoyed this satisfying recipe for supper. (I had about half of it with 2/3 cup pasta and a couple of tablespoons of marinara and a grating of asiago.) It's probably fine to omit the tiny bit of oil and the asiago, but you need something in the way of the pesto to perk it up, especially with no added salt. 

PEACHY-GREEN SMOOTHIE

1 peach and 1 nectarine, pits removed
1 navel orange, peeled
3 hand-sized leaves of kale
a tray of ice cubes and a cup or so of water

Combine in blender (Vita-Mix is best!) and whirl until smooth, with little flecks of nectarine skin.

Verdict:  VERY GOOD. It's good this way but has a slightly sulfur cast. I threw in a couple of chunks of fresh pineapple to improve the second glass. Lemon would probably fix it, too.  This makes over a quart, and I add a tablespoon of flax seed meal to my first glass.

Doesn't look like much for breakfast?  Remember it's over a quart of smoothie, sweet and refreshing, so it's satisfying and filling, for sure. I ran the nutrition on this recipe (including flax, not counting pineapple), and it's under 250 calories, with 7 grams of protein (about the same as a small egg), 4 grams of fat (mostly from the flax), and 10 grams of fiber. It has over twice the RDA of Vitamin C, almost all the RDA of Vitamin A, half the RDA of copper and manganese, and at least a quarter of the RDA of Vitamin B6, magnesium, phosophorus, thiamin, and niacin.  And it's all fresh ingredients, the flax seed meal the only processed item. Having this at 8 a.m. will have me properly hungry for lunch about noon.

Puny DiGiorno Personal Pizza vs. Powerful Pear Salad!

Today at lunchtime my 13yo asked if he could have a Digiorno Small Pizza. I looked at the label and said he could have half--390 calories!  It's a puny thing, about six inches in diameter, though the box indicates two servings (unlike the one 790-calorie serving labeled on the website).  His little puny half-pizza nets 390 calories, 18 grams fat (7 of those saturated), 16 grams protein, and 3 grams fiber, plus almost 750 mg sodium.

While that was cooking for him I made my lunch salad:

POWERFUL PEAR SALAD

4 cups torn leaf lettuce
1 diced bosc pear
2/3 cup broccoli slaw
1/2 cup matchstick carrots
1/2 cup navy beans
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 oz toasted sliced almonds
2 T. plain lowfat yogurt
1 T. light honey mustard salad dressing (25 cal, 1 g fat)
dash each of cinnamon and powdered ginger

Combine all vegetables and fruits, top with yogurt and dressing and spices, then toss. Top with almonds and eat right from the mixing bowl.

Verdict--EXCELLENT. This is a beautiful sunshiny salad with a bright, fresh flavor. I think some lemon juice in the dressing would be good in the future.

Here's the nutrition comparison (and I calculated mine in my head after I made it, figuring it was about the same as the little puny half pizza--I was right!):

Powerful Pear Salad
430 calories, 10 g fat (1 g saturated), 19 g protein, 22 g fiber, and 210 mg sodium (half of that from the tiny tablespoon of bottled salad dressing!)

Puny Personal Pizza
390 calories, 18 grams fat (7 of those saturated), 16 g protein, 3 g fiber, and almost 750 mg sodium.

The pizza serving weighs just 140 g. (about 4.7 oz.) and my salad weighs 650 g, about 22 oz., or 1-1/3 pounds!  Which is more satisfying, do you think? 

In other nutrients here's the score:

• Pizza has 13% of daily Vitamin A and 15% of calcium (all that cheese, don't you know?), plus 5% each of daily iron and Vitamin C.
• Salad has 147% of Vitamin A and 31% of calcium (only 1/6 of that from the yogurt), plus 36% iron and 234% of Vitamin C.

Everybody agrees that salad is more nutritious than pizza, but that much more?!  Yes, indeed.

I just told the pizza consumer to have an apple. That will give him 72 additional calories, double his lunchtime fiber intake, and triple the Vitamin C.

Another win for the nutritarian approach to eating.

Ginger-Apple Oatmeal and Three-Month Progress Report

This morning it was four degrees below zero and I wanted a warm and comforting breakfast, so I made this:

GINGER-APPLE OATMEAL
Serves 2


1 cup water
1 large Braeburn apple, cut into chunks
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
tiny sprinkle of salt

Start the water boiling in a small pot on the stove, and cut up the apple into the water, then add the oats and stir occasionally, cooking on low until the oats are the desired consistency.  Add ginger and spices near the end of cooking. 

Verdict: Very Good.  Simple, sweet, and ginger-spicy.  I topped mine with roasted unsalted pistachios.  I have oatmeal two or three times a week, usually. It's best fresh, but I often make extra and just reheat quickly for subsequent breakfasts.  This is typical of my usual method, though I have done variations with dried blueberries, dried peaches, fresh pears, frozen blueberries, frozen peaches, and occasionally some sliced banana. I change the spices to match the fruit--including the above seasonings as well as nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and occasionally a dash of vanilla.  For the top I try different nuts (cashews, pecans, walnuts, almonds), usually toasted, and usually about half an ounce.  Dr. Fuhrman counsels that those trying to lose weight have no more than a cup of grain and an ounce of nuts/seeds per day.  This breakfast (one serving) provides half of that allowance of each, leaving some leeway in the rest of my day to enjoy grain or nuts.

I've spent the last three months pursuing a nutritarian lifestyle based on these daily parameters outlined in Dr. Fuhrman's book (recently updated) Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss 

one ounce nuts or seeds
one cup (200 calories) whole grain or starchy vegetable
goal of one pound raw veggies
goal of one pound cooked veggies
goal of one cup beans
at least four fruits
1 T. flax seed meal

(I add 1-3 oz. animal product--usually fish or chicken--zero to three times a week, and though Dr. F. allows up to 2 oz. avocado per day,  I usually have only 1-2 oz. per week.)

No or absolutely minimal added oil, salt, sugar, white flour

I do still drink coffee (mostly decaf) with a little 1% milk in it, and I usually have 50-100 calories of "extras" in a day--a little feta cheese, a bit of ham in the beans I cooked for the family, a little jelly on a cracker, a dollop of lowfat plain yogurt on a curry dish.

I also had several weeks of indulgence--limited ones for a couple of days at Thanksgiving and more treats for a couple of weeks at Christmas/New Year's.  That stalled my progress in weight loss, but by a week into the New Year I was basically at the same point I'd been a few days before Christmas, and that was okay.

In three months of nutritarian eating, with reasonable deviations, I have lost 25 pounds. I have not felt uncomfortable hunger and always have the option to have more beans, greens, or fruit to help with that. I exercised regularly at the beginning of that time but schedule and weather have gotten me out of it lately. I look forward to more regular exercise in the weeks to come.  And I plan to keep losing weight, because I need to.

Clean-the-Kitchen Curry

Since October I have been living a pretty consistent nutritarian lifestyle, but I have also been quite busy. Many times the foods I have made have not really qualified as "recipes," and sometimes I have but I just haven't been able to post them.  I do keep this blog in mind and hope to begin posting more frequently.

For supper tonight I made a spectacular curry, if I do say so myself! :-)  I'm going to type up the recipe as I recall it, for posterity.

Clean-the-Kitchen Curry

2 teaspoons peanut oil (I actually used 1 T. but could have cut it)
3 cubed small potatoes
1/2 cup baby carrots
1/2 chopped onion
3 medium cloves garlic, sliced
12 oz. frozen green beans, chopped into one-inch pieces
1 cup cauliflower florets
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
2 cups stewed tomatoes (mine were from our garden, reduced, with basil)
1 teaspoon coriander
2 teaspoons cumin
1-2 T. red curry powder
small dried hot pepper
1/2 cup light coconut milk (75 calories -- I used 2/3 cup but could have cut it)

Saute potato, carrot, and then onion and garlic in oil, add green beans and cauliflower, then pepper, and when nearly tender add tomatoes with spices and hot pepper.  Near the end, taste and correct seasoning, then add coconut milk.

Serve over rice or lentils, with condiments like raisins, green onion, apple with lemon and fresh ginger, toasted coconut, toasted almonds, and diced tomatoes. (I had mine on lentils and offered the family a dish with roasted pork to add to theirs.)

Not counting the condiments or the base (rice or lentils), the recipe analyzes as follows:
1100 calories
41 grams fat (13 saturated, 11 polyunsaturated, 16 monounsaturated)
175 grams carbs (35 grams fiber)
26 grams protein

Per serving (1/4 of recipe makes a LARGE serving)
253 calories
10 grams fat
44 grams carbs (9 grams fiber)
7 grams protein

RDAs
Vitamin A - 40%
Vitamin B6 - 53%
Vitamin C - 106%
Vitamin E - 13%
Calcium - 9%
Copper - 45%
Iron - 11%
Manganese - 33%
Niacin - 23%
Pantothenic Acid - 21%
Phosphorus - 20%
Potassium - 23%
Riboflavin - 17%
Selenium - 2%
Thiamin - 23%
Zinc - 12%

Interesting that that serving also contributes 400 grams of water, or about 1-1/2 cups :-)

The 2/3 cup of lentils I had this on top of raises the one serving by
150 calories
1/2 gram fat
25 grams carbohydrate (10 from fiber)
12 grams protein

The lentils also add significant (more than 20% RDA of) potassium, phosphorus, iron, and manganese, with more than 10% of thiamin, vitamin B6, copper, magnesium, and zinc.

That's a pretty powerful supper!  400 calories, 10 grams fat, 70 grams carbs (19 from fiber), 14 grams protein

OK, I've analyzed that to death. I just have to do that from time to time. :-)

AWOL

Just wanted to note for those who read here that I'm going great guns with the Six-Week Holiday Challenge at drfuhrman.com .  I'm spending a lot of time posting there, especially my daily food lists, and though I'm trying some recipes, I just have too much else going on to put them in here.  Progress so far--in eight weeks of pretty dedicated nutritarian principles, I've lost 19 pounds, and that's a boost over Thanksgiving and leading up to Christmas! 

Last night I made a good salad dressing with a big over-ripe pear, 1/2 cup cashews, 1/3 cup Riesling vinegar, and a half a kumquat I threw in at the last second (a bit of lemon would do the trick, too, with rind).  It was very nice! And one quarter of the recipe is a good amount of dressing for less than an ounce of nuts.

In general I have the following:

Breakfast--green smoothie with about two fruits and a handful of kale or spinach OR a half cup of oatmeal with fruit and a few nuts

Lunch--big salad (six cups of greens and such) with  tahini-based dressing or a lowfat Italian or salsa for a Mexican bent, and with beans, or with bean soup on the side, and a piece of fruit

Snack--fruit with nuts

Supper--cooked veggies (usually two different ones, a cup or so each), more beans if needed, a couple of times a week a couple of ounces of fish or  chicken or even beef, and any fruit or nut or grain left for the day

Thai Curry With Bok Choy

Participants in Dr. Fuhrman's "Six-Week Holiday Challenge" receive daily recipes via email, and today's is for Thai Vegetable Curry. As I glanced over the ingredients I realized I had most of what the recipe calls for, but I'm never willing to just let things alone, so I created my own version.

Dr. F's recipe calls for basically boiling all the veggies in carrot juice for a while, then stirring in peanut butter, coconut milk, and so forth.  That just didn't inspire me, and I don't have any carrot juice nor any firm tofu (which the family wouldn't want anyway), so I made this variation:

THAI CURRY WITH BOK CHOY

1 T. peanut oil
1 cup diced carrots
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. grated fresh ginger
2 T. each, chopped fresh: mint, Thai basil, and cilantro
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 large eggplant, cubed
2-3 cups green beans, in pieces
3 cups sliced mushrooms
1 head bok choy, chopped
1-1/2 t. red curry powder (for a spicier dish, or yellow for milder)
2 T. natural peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut milk (didn't have the light called for in the original recipe)
1/3 cup peanuts
2 T. chopped dried mango

Heat oil in a wok or very large skillet and stir fry carrot and onion. When those begin to go tender, add peppers and green beans, then mushrooms, then bok choy, allowing five minutes or so between additions.  Cook until crisp-tender, adding garlic, ginger, chopped herbs, and curry powder between stirrings. Then add peanut butter, coconut milk, peanuts, and mango, plus up to a half cup or so of water if needed, covering pan to simmer a bit and combine flavors.  Serve alone or over brown basmati rice.  Serves 8 (or 4 very hungry nutritarians).

Verdict: Excellent. I don't know about the boiled carrot-juice original, but mine is wonderful! :-)  I had 1/4 of the recipe over a half cup of the recommended rice.  I think fresh bok choy is definitely superior to canned bamboo shoots and lots of watercress (though the watercress is nutritionally superior to bok choy, no doubt).  It's more fat than I'm used to having in a dish, but I cut back from the recommended amount of nuts while using full-fat coconut milk and that tablespoon of oil. I could have cut the oil back to 2 teaspoons easily, but I think it was a good first try. I estimate that my version is 150 calories per 1/8 of the recipe while the original is 200 calories for the same amount.  So my 1/4 of the recipe was 300 calories, plus the rice.

Warm and Creamy Winter Squash Soup and a Method for Broth

Another two down of our butternut squash inventory, but I'm adjusting the recipe to one squash, for normal people. :-)  The warmth in this comes from the fresh ginger and a little chile.


WARM AND CREAMY WINTER SQUASH SOUP

1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp olive oil
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 small chile pepper, minced
1 pint high-quality broth (see below)
1 sprig rosemary (optional--I just floated a stem sprig in the pot at the last minute)

Heat oil in a large saucepan and add onion, stirring occasionally to brown evenly while you're preparing the squash.   Use a potato peeler to take off the outer skin, then cube the squash with a heavy knife, removing seeds. Add squash cubes to onions and continue browning with occasional stirring while you prep and add the other ingredients.  Add water as needed to cover squash cubes. Simmer all for about thirty minutes, until squash is soft, then puree in batches and serve.

Verdict: Excellent.  Smooth and satisfying, with sweet body and a kick from the pepper. I didn't even notice the lack of salt (though my broth may have had some) I had two small bowls of this to start off my lunch, being willing to use up a significant portion of my starch allowance on it today.  The only disappointment about this squash is that it doesn't have any fiber!  But I get plenty of fiber elsewhere. :-)

I think I'm taking this to my sister's for Thanksgiving, with some fresh rosemary to decorate the top of custard-size bowls of soup.  

Inspiration for this recipe comes from my friend Renee and from The Joy of Cooking.

VEGETABLE BROTH

This is a method I am initiating this week, and I thought I'd record what I'm doing.  Beginning several days ago I started freezing a gallon zip-loc bag with vegetable trimmings (onion skins with some adhering onion, garlic peel, the rind of a lemon, several brussels sprouts bottoms, some bell and pimiento pepper stems, butternut squash peel and fiber and a few seeds, the butt of a bunch of celery, etc.), and today with a full bag I dumped the contents into a pot with some water and boiled it for about an hour, then drained it and had a beautiful brown broth which tastes a bit weak only because it doesn't have any salt.  I am freezing it in ice cube trays to then keep in a bag so I can pop a few cubes into a dish as I'm cooking later.

Two Wobblies and a Winner

The other day I tried a couple of recipes from my new Moosewood Lowfat Favorites book, and I'm sorry to say they're not that great, though I will make use of the leftovers of one when I'm hungry and need to fill up with "beans and greens," and the other was definitely better the next day.  I tend to find that with some of these nutritarian recipes--I don't enjoy them a lot the first day, but the leftovers are fine.  Maybe it's overexposure to all the ingredients while preparing the food, maybe it's a need for the flavors to meld . . .

Black-Eyed Peas 'N' Greens <--The discussion on the page where this recipe is linked pretty much explain the problem--dry and kind of bland.  Scallions on top and the malt vinegar I tried help somewhat.  But I think the real thing to do with the leftovers is to make this:  Black-Eyed Peas and Greens Soup.  In a nutshell, add water, tomatoes, and oregano and see where to go from there.

Baked Sweet Potato Salad  except that I used butternut squash, which has half the calories and none of the fiber of sweet potatoes--so pick your poison/magic. :-)  This is a beautiful salad and definitely better the next day, and the book suggests either the dressing on this link or a curried mango yogurt dressing, which would be sweeter but I'm not sure better.  It was just not too inspiring. The Cilantro Lime Yogurt Dressing is very promising for other purposes, too--I look forward to using it later.

But here's a real winner, thanks to my friend Marci:

McDougall's Curried Swiss Chard Soup
This quick soup of leek (or onion), broth, tomatoes, white beans, fresh ginger and curry powder (I used McCormick's red), and fresh Swiss chard (I used red) is really wonderful. Half the recipe is a BIG bowlful for a nutritarian lunch, including two cups of chard and 3/4 cup beans. EXCELLENT.

Dr. McDougall has a lot of the same approach as Dr. Fuhrman, except McDougall emphasizes using grains central to the diet and eliminating nuts and not allowing any animal products, if I've got that straight (and am not mixed up with Esselstyn) . So stricter in some ways, easier in some ways, but with a lot of overlap, so the recipes work well both ways.

Improving Canned Soup

Today I wanted a quick lunch and thought I'd just pop open a can of Progresso split pea soup. The can has two servings, each totaling something like 160 calories, 2 grams of fat, 4 grams of fiber--fine so far--but almost 700 grams of sodium!  I've gotten used to very little salt added to things, and when I tasted this soup I decided it was just too much for me.  So here's what I did to improve it, in the form of a recipe:


Super Split Pea Soup

1/2 cup shredded or matchstick carrots
1 small white potato, shredded
tablespoon dehydrated onion flakes
2 large kale leaves, snipped into shreds
water to cover veggies
1 can Progresso Green Split Pea Soup With Bacon

In a medium saucepan, combine veggies and water to cover and simmer for about ten minutes, until soft or tender-crisp (my choice). Then add the can of soup and heat to desired temperature.  Makes two large bowls (one sufficient for my lunch).

Verdict: Very Good.  This is a great improvement over the soup by itself.  And I'm not tempted to eat the whole can. And I have a nice lunch waiting for me in the fridge on another day. Instead of having a bowl of soup with almost 1400 mg sodium, I have a bigger bowl of much more interesting and healthy soup with less than 700 mg sodium. Yes, it's more than I want, but it's better than what I was going to do, and much better than a lot of other things I could have had for lunch. Win win all around. 

I use mostly fresh items, but there are times when the canned and frozen are a blessing. Now I'll be restocking my shelves with low-sodium versions of canned goods!

Nutritarianism Explained

Thanks to Darryl McCullough, a math professor at University of Oklahoma and a nutritarian, I would like to present a big one-page summary of nutritarian principles:

How to Eat

Darryl does a good job explaining the basics for those who want to understand the science of the nutrition. In my own "best practice,"* I have a few differences:

• occasional alcohol and the equivalent of one mug of caffeinated coffee per day
• use of 1% cow's milk or yogurt instead of soy or nut milks and soft tofu in small amounts in recipes
• use of "regular" vitamins (Costco Kirkland brand multi-vitamin/mineral) with a 2:1 calcium/magnesium supplement (Kirkland) for heart palpitations and a single D3 (Kirkland again) bead each day
• occasional tiny amounts of regular sugar (in amounts like a spice) and salt, though I'm getting away from any additional salt in my recipes
• with just a couple of animal product servings per week, I plan to make use of the grass-fed beef we're buying from friends soon, but for no more than one serving per week, carefully planned

I just don't see a need to be so ultimately purist. For example, this week I had some grapefruit in a smoothie and someone suggested that it's been associated with higher estrogen levels and strongly associated with breast cancer in post-menopausal women. I'm not there yet :-), but I passed on the article/study to hubby, who is a biophysicist who has studied some of these toxicology/metabolism issues. I take his counsel on things like this. Handy to have around!

*Note that "best practice" does not mean "what I do every day, without exception." It means what I do when I'm doing what I know I should be doing. :-)

Healthy Foods Myths?

Here is a good, sane article on the health effects of Raw Food Vegan Diets.  Too often I see folks in a vegan-type health lifestyle who fall prey to superstitions and pursue (usually expensive) purist paths of one sort or another.  In that light, I have a few questions. (Caveat: I am setting aside the "ethical vegetarian" concern about avoiding animal foods. That's a discussion of another sort--I'm thinking mostly about health.)

How are liquid aminos nutritionally superior to traditional soy sauce? I realize the sodium content is lower, but equivalent to lower-sodium soy sauce. Where do these aminos come from, besides the high-priced health-food store?

The article discusses raw food enzymes, but I wonder about how the process of long dehydration (even at low temperatures) really preserves any nutritional content better than other methods of cooking.

Are the fats in nuts and avocado SO superior to the fats in oils that a free hand with nut purees and such is really better for us than a bit of olive oil or other oil (or even butter!)?

The same goes for cheeses--recently I've seen on at least one blog that folks are excited about a new vegan cheez (great spelling!) that will make their meals look and taste just as cheesy as the SAD meals, but with nutritional superiority (I assume).  I wonder whether the intensive processing that goes into making such a product results in something that is inherently nutritionally superior to regular old cheese (or a lower-fat version)?

It seems to me that creating vegan versions of omni foods sometimes goes to the point of ridiculousness, especially for those vegans who aren't really watching the calories. It reminds me of the tradition I once heard of whereby strictly-vegetarian Buddhists create mostly tofu-based foods that mimic animal foods to the point of looking just like a fish on the plate, for example.

Is it REALLY that important to substitute stevia or a pureed date for a tiny half-teaspoon of sugar in my fresh-picked blackberries from the garden?

How much of the "current practice" of many vegans and vegetarians is powered by the marketing power of product manufacturers?

I won't even get into the "organic" thing, but that's a particular interest of those who really focus on whole foods. Seems like some marketing gets in there, too! My husband the scientist (with work in toxicology and DNA damage and repair) is not impressed with the superiority of organics in many cases, though he's happy to avoid treating things in our garden when possible!

I'm trying to eat nutritarian for health reasons, so my recipes often include small amounts of things many purists eschew (what a great word!) when I don't see a real advantage to the vegan alternative, though it's certainly others' prerogative to make those substitutions.  And I feel like a bit of a slacker when I post those ingredients, too! :-)

A Lecture that Might Change Your Life

I found this ninety minutes or so from Dr. Fuhrman very motivational:  2010 Health Getaway Presentation on Food Addictions.

If you have the time to spend on this video, you will learn . . .

• Why a "beans and greens" diet is optimal
• What "toxic hunger" is and how to beat it
• How diabetes really CAN be reversed, and who doesn't want you to know that
• Why those of us who naturally gain weight easily can have the MOST optimal mature years--can you believe we actually have an advantage somewhere?

(This is one of our basil plants -- wonderful addition to many nutritarian dishes!)

Why Drugs Won't Work in the Long Run

Thanks to Yoni Freedhoff of Weighty Matters (7-24-10), here is a sensible article about the drug approach to weight loss: "Weight Loss and Wonder Drugs: Something is Fishy."   Dr. David Katz says that when we gain weight on the diet and inactivity of our modern life our bodies are not betraying us but doing exactly what they were meant to do--storing up in time of abundance for a time of want.  The problem is that we never really come to that famine time so we just keep adding to our stores. It's a natural survival mechanism of the body, betrayed by our prosperity.

And when we turn to drugs--to raise our metabolism, to block our hunger, to control our insulin--of necessity we have to introduce powerful pharmaceutical changes to counteract the way our bodies are designed by God (or "Nature" or evolution) to function. And those drugs have potentially and have demonstrated repeatedly to cause very serious side effects. An excerpt:

When one considers that the problem we are asking weight control drugs to fix -- a body turning surplus calories into an energy reserve -- is normal human physiology, the conclusion that they may prove to be elusive not just now, but forever, is hard to avoid. . . .

None of this is to deny the important insights that will doubtless derive from the scrupulous pursuit of scientific details relating to weight control. Rather, it is to note we miss the forest- the fundamentals of human metabolism in native context -- for the densely clustered hormonal, neurochemical, and genetic trees- at our evident peril.

In a word, the ease with which many of us gain weight in our culture (I've noted a lot more heavy brides  lately than when I married 24 years ago, and though I was "overweight" at the time I was slimmer than most of the current chubby brides I'm thinking of.) has a lot to do with our individual responses to our culture. Advertising and abundance can suggest that we really do "deserve a break today" and need to "indulge" and luxuriate in the foods that only kings and queens could have had in years gone by--ice cream, for one! But I think our amazing prosperity can be used to benefit our health if we take advantage of the opportunity and learn to really value the rainbow of produce available at even a modest modern grocery store. I'm learning not to look at the prices of the upscale salads in fast food restaurants because I know that a couple of dollars more will get me a really healthy choice. I deserve THAT break today! And that is part of my survival strategy.

Super Foods

How many Super Foods do you eat in a week's time?

Read more here, at Wise Bread. 

Blueberries
Beans
Broccoli
Oats
Oranges
Pumpkin
Wild Salmon
Soy
Spinach
Tea (Green or Black)
Tomatoes
Turkey
Walnuts
Yogurt

This week I've had all the ones in bold. I usually have lots of dark leafy greens, but since we have so much fresh salad in the garden I haven't had spinach or kale or turnip/collard/mustard greens in the last couple of weeks. I've just finished a course of Cipro (antibiotic) and am having plain yogurt to try to build up my friendly organisms, but I don't usually have yogurt regularly.

Vegan Epicurean: Our Favorite Foods

Vegan Epicurean: Our Favorite Foods

View the amazing inspirations of my blog-friend Alicia. Her creations take a special genius and the time and diligence my own life and inclination do not allow. :-)

The Food Matters

This article (November 13 blog post), entitled "Gut Bugs Revisited" suggests that those who have difficulty maintaining a healthy weight may have different intestinal flora than do those who can maintain normal weight. The interesting thing to me was that mice with human "gut bugs" rapidly gained weight when switched from a low-fat high-veggie diet to a "Western diet" of high sugar and high fat, and that the metabolic pathway changed within just a day!

The good news is that though the study didn't investigate this, it seems to make sense that the changes can go the other way, as well! That's what I am discovering: a 1500-calorie day of "Western diet" leaves me feeling very deprived and doesn't lead to sustained weight loss, even when the regimen can be sustained; but a 1500-calorie day of nutritarian eating leaves me full and energetic, and I'm losing weight at over two pounds per week after over a month.

We'll see how the weeks and months to come turn out.

Scientific types who want to protest my conclusions, please recognize I'm just speculating and reading between the lines! :-)