Veggies as a Meal

Getting the recommended number of vegetables a day doesn’t have to be as hard as we think. If we make it a habit to enjoy some meals made only of veggies, it’s completely possible. A lot of people around the world just eat veggies for a meal. Not only do they live through the ordeal, but they really benefit! Here is a quote from our favorite chef-crush, Jamie Oliver:

"In Britain and the U.S., we tend not to eat enough veg, and when we do we always feel they need to be eaten with meat or fish. However, in Italy huge amounts of vegetables and greens are served… and the Italians are a damn sight healthier than us. So listen up. Let’s be like them and big up the greens. Cook them nicely, dress them with care and you’ll be laughing."

(I included his recipe below).

Think of the benefits...

• Save money because veggies (especially if seasonal) are cheaper than meat or processed food
• Become full faster due to the water and fiber content of the vegetables
• You can put some extremely healthy olive oil on it – so healthy and your body will love you forever
• A squeaky clean colon
• Lots of phytonutrients to boost your immune system, fight off nasty diseases, and keep your skin looking great.
• And my favorite benefit: A total superiority complex at the grocery store. Many times when I am in the check out line at the store, I look (in horror) at what other people have in their carts. Then I admire all the beautiful produce that I laid out on the rolling thingy and I know that I made much better food choices. While I imagine they are looking at my food in envy, WISHING they knew my secret to grocery shopping, they are probably just hoping I am not paying with change or something. But hey, it’s my twisted little game.

Jamie Oliver’s recipe:
Get a large pot of salted boiling water on the go, with a lid on. If you’re cooking Swiss chard, the stalks will need to be removed first and added to the water first. When they’ve softened you can add the leaves, which need only a minute or who in the boiling water. If you’re cooking broccoli, or Romanesco broccoli, don’t cook it al dente but don’t overcook it either – you want it somewhere in between. How do you check? Take a piece out of the water and eat it. You can also use asparagus, or cabbage leaves like Savoy Napa, or zucchini.

Cook the greens with your full attention, then drain them well in a colander and lay them paper towels to soak up any excess moisture. Leave them for a few minutes to let the steam escape. While they’re still warm, dress them like you would a salad, with lemon juice and 3x as much good extra virgin olive oil, and season carefully with salt and pepper to taste.

Rachael Ray’s recipes (I know…):

Spinach with Nutmeg and Garlic:

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 bag triple washed spinach (10 to 12 oz), stems trimmed
course salt and pepper, to taste
2 pinches ground nutmeg
Heat garlic over medium heat. Add spinach and turn in pan until leaves wilt. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a couple of pinches of nutmeg – it’s delicious with any dark green.

Swiss Chard with Golden Raisins:

½ medium white onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 bunches chard, red or green, stems trimmed away, tops roughly cut
¼ c golden raisin, left to soak in 1 c vegetable broth
salt, pepper, and ground nutmeg, to taste

Heat the biggest skillet you’ve got over medium heat and cook the onion and garlic in oil for a minute or two. Add the greens and turn in pan as they begin to wilt. Add raisins with broth, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove cover and turn greens out onto serving dish. Makes 2 meals or 6 side dishes.

My own fav:
½ pound of string beans, already cooked to a medium consistency, sauteed with olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes.

Calcium Info for the Ladeez

Some people have been asking me lately about the importance of calcium supplements. As young adult women, it is recommended that we consume 3 dairy products a day to meet our calcium needs of 1,000 mg. It is also recommended that if this amount dairy is not consumed we should take calcium supplements in order to protect ourselves from developing osteoporosis. Calcium supplements are one of the top selling mineral supplements in the U.S. But do we need them?

First of all, I don’t want to get too in depth about my feelings on dairy but there are many, many other ways to get dietary calcium. The dairy industry is like any other industry – it wants to sell its product so it uses good advertising. Sure, milk is a good source of calcium but I definitely would NOT recommend eating 3 servings of pasteurized dairy products per day as an adult. (I promise to eventually give a good explanation).

So as for the question of whether or not we need calcium supplements, the answer is that there is no definitive evidence that calcium supplements taken as pre-menopausal adults prevent osteoporosis. There are other more effective ways to protect your bones.

Our bones develop like this: as a kid and teen, you need lots of calcium (and other vitamins and minerals) from your diet to help build your bones because they are made up of mostly calcium. Then when we reach about age 25, our bones are as strong as they are ever going to be. You can’t build on them anymore. After menopause, the dip in estrogen causes demineralization of your bones and it is during this time that people experience a loss in bone mass of 3%-5% per year (at this point, studies show that supplements do help).

What seems to be more important than taking calcium supplements is to PREVENT bone loss during your young to middle adult years. This is relatively easy to do:

• Do get calcium through your diet to maintain a positive calcium balance. Dairy is not necessary. I’ll list some good alternative sources below.
• Make sure you get the recommended amount of vitamin D. The current recommendations are to get 400 IUs of the vitamin per day but evidence is beginning to mount that we actually need more, especially if we are dark skinned or don’t see the sun too often. Why vitamin D? You need it to absorb dietary calcium and other minerals. As it turns out, a vitamin D deficiency is the most common cause of secondary osteoporosis.
• Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They contain the vitamins and minerals needed to keep bones strong and they help create a friendly, harmonious environment in your body. An analogy – if your body were a party, the fruits and veggies would be the Libra guests.
• Cigarettes weaken your bones so don’t smoke.
• Don’t drink colas. The high phosphorus content sucks the calcium right out of your bones. BAD.
• Keep alcohol and caffeine consumption to a minimum
• Exercise. Weight bearing activities help prevent bone loss.
• Don’t get too skinny – if you are underweight, you are more likely to have bone loss later. You want to have a BMI of about 19%-24%.

Good non-dairy sources of calcium: almonds – 400 mg for ½ cup; cabbage – 426 mg for 1 head; mixed dried fruit – 111 mg for 1 ¼ cup; cooked spinach – 244 mg for 1 cup; blue crab meat – 136 mg for 1 cup; canned salmon – 880 mg for 1 can. Just some examples. Sometimes juices and bread products have calcium added to them also.

There is nothing wrong with calcium supplements but people should definitely not rely on them for ensuring strong bones. Studies don’t show that they are effective. Studies do show, however, that protecting the bones in the ways listed above are effective for preventing osteoporosis-related problems in the future.

If you are pregnant, a supplement is probably necessary. The parasitic little dude will leech all the calcium it needs from you whether you have enough for yourself or not!

The Mick Jagger Fitness Program

Can’t get no satisfaction with your current fitness program? Try Mick Jagger’s method! Turn on music and go BANANAS. NUTS. Don’t even hold back. Rhythm is not necessary and is actually discouraged. Use all of your limbs at the same time.

HIGHlights:
 One of the few fitness routines that can be performed while drunk
 Guaranteed to shed most of your body weight, unwanted or otherwise
 Flexible clothing options. Examples: feather coat, a national flag of your choice, knickers

This is NOT interval training, you’d be working at full intensity for the entire time. Calories burned per hour: 9,431.

For more inspiration, rent Shine a Light when it comes out which captures all of the Mick madness. It’s the Rolling Stones documentary by Martin Scorsese. (Not worth spending the $ to see it in the theater – has some pretty camera shots but otherwise not very interesting unless you are a diehard fan).

Weston Price

In the 1930s, there was an American dentist named Weston Price who started noticing a serious decline in dental health. He was perplexed and soon realized that not only were people’s mouths unhealthy, but there was a drastic spike in many chronic diseases that hadn’t previously presented much of a public health problem. These were diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, and cancer, for example. (All of the diseases that nowadays we expect to get as part of the natural aging process, for which there is no real cure, right?) He couldn’t understand what the problem was, why people’s teeth and bodies were breaking down at accelerated rates.

Dr. Price also noticed that a patient’s dental health correlated to his or her physical health. In other words, if someone had healthy teeth with few cavities, he or she was also generally healthy. If the mouth was filled with cavities, decaying gums and diseased roots, chances were that the patient was suffering from chronic or degenerative health problems.

Since he was already a gazillionaire from having a successful dental practice, Dr. Price and his wife set out for a tour that would last several years in which they would travel the world to observe and examine the eating and lifestyle habits of other populations. Were other populations experiencing the same decline in overall health?

Negative. In fact, the cultures that maintained their traditional eating habits had the fewest occurrences of chronic degenerative disease. They went everywhere – Europe, Africa, Alaska, the Pacific Islands – and it seemed as though the groups’ specific diet was less important than the fact that they consumed absolutely no processed foods. (It was during the early 1900s that processed food started making its way into everyday diets in the U.S.). For example, Swiss mountain people ate mostly full fat dairy products* like cheese and rye bread. Eskimos ate meat and fat, that’s pretty much it. A Gaelic group never had any dairy products but did eat a lot of fish, fish organs, and oats. Chronic disease was not an issue in any of these places and people’s teeth were immaculate even though brushing and flossing was not usually a part of their daily routines.

Despite the differences between diets, there were some similarities: Everyone ate meat to some extent, everyone had a fermented food as a staple, and nothing NOTHING was processed or treated with chemicals. Dr. Price’s point was that the health of Americans was in a downward spiral because these crazy new processed foods were replacing the natural healthy foods that have been eaten for centuries. By "crazy new processed foods" I mean refined grains, sugar, caffeine, pasteurized dairy and artificial preservatives and sweeteners, for example.

This research really hasn’t been given much attention because Dr. Price wasn’t a medical doctor or research scientist. His work just really consisted of reports, possibly biased, on his observations and the 18,000 photographs he took (really!). It is considered a politically incorrect topic, I guess because generalizations are made about populations of people.

Deciding what to make of this theory as a present day American is difficult. I suppose you can look at your ethnic roots and figure out what your ancestors ate and try to emulate that. But what if, for example, your mom is Japanese and your dad is Swiss? Most people have a complicated blend of ancestry. Besides, it’s hard to find time to hunt caribou these days, especially since the whole season of Gossip Girl is going to be replayed this summer (thanks for the tip, Alexis!). I don’t have the answer here but the obvious starting point is to make sure your food is not processed, chemically treated or refined.

Here is the website for the Weston A. Price Foundation – http://www.westonaprice.org/. I HIGHLY recommend it, it talks about so many important topics. I basically paraphrased an article from Dr. Stephen Byrnes for this post so I’m sure you could do an internet search on him and find some other good stuff.

*Unpasteurized. A topic for another day.

Grapefruit Juice - Not the Best Hangover Beverage

I used to drink a container of grapefruit juice if I was suffering after a late night. It was a favorite of mine because it was tasty, hydrating, and high in potassium which I would have depleted while drinking. Turns out that I might have been inhibiting my liver’s ability to detox.

Grapefruits naturally contain a significant amount of the flavanoid naringin. Naringin has been shown in numerous studies to reduce the activity of the cytochrome P450 system, the system responsible for cleaning out booze and medicine. The result is that the toxins stay in your body longer.

It is also important to realize that naringin interferes in the metabolism of 60% of currently marketed pharmaceutical drugs. Some examples of drugs are calcium channel blockers (for high blood pressure), statin drugs (for high cholesterol), and sedatives. If you currently are taking any medication you could go to http://www.drug-interactions.com/ to see if your drug is on the list.

I am a huge fan of grapefruits though and they are so healthy for lots of reasons. If I am having a rough morning now, though, I just drink another type of juice. Cheers!

A Thrilling Twist on Summer Pops

June’s issue of the magazine Body and Soul (http://www.wholeliving.com)/, had these three VERY EXCITING popsicle recipes. Besides the artificial colors and horrendous sweeteners you are avoiding, you are getting lots of vitamins and minerals. And the flavors are so odd!…aren’t you curious?

For each of these recipes below, combine the fruit, herb or spice, and a dash of salt in a blender on high for 30 seconds, until smooth. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for six hours.

Honeydew-Basil
Mix 4 cups of honeydew melon cubes with ¼ cup of chopped fresh basil and ½ cup organic frozen lemonade concentrate.

Pineapple-Cinnamon
3 cups of fresh pineapple chunks, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ cup fresh orange juice.

Mango-Parsley
Combine 1 ripe mango and ½ cup loosely packed chopped parsley. If the mango isn’t ripe, add ¼ cup organic frozen lemonade concentrate.
(I have a suggestion – use 2 mangos, same amount of parsley, and ¼ to ½ of the lemonade concentrate even if the mangos are ripe. This way the pops come out juicier rather than like a frozen mango.)

I tried the honeydew-basil pops which were my favorite. I also tried the pineapple-cinnamon flavor but my blender didn’t blend it properly so the texture was weird. The flavor was very nice though and I am sure they would have been delicious if my blender cooperated. The mango ones were interesting and I would change the recipe slightly like I mentioned above.

Avoid Smelling Like This Guy...

No one appreciates dog breath and Dentyne can only get you so far. Bad breath can result from many different things including:

• Bad oral hygiene
  
• Gum disease


• Gastrointestinal issues like constipation, indigestion, or too few "friendly bacteria" in the colon


• Dieting or fasting (body breaks down the fat and protein in your body where toxins are usually stored)


• Sinusitis
  

Assuming that the underlying reason for bad breath is not a serious health problem (such as kidney or liver disease), there are safe and easy ways to reduce your poisonous emissions.

Having regular dental cleanings and maintaining proper dental hygiene is a no brainer.

Maintain regular digestive function. This may require you to incorporate more fiber into your diet and to drink more water. This will help keep toxins from building up in your body. Any source of chlorophyll, such as wheatgrass or alfalfa liquid, will also help remove toxins.

Probiotic supplements will help restore the proper balance of good to bad bacteria in your intestines.

Zinc supplements (not exceeding 100 mg/day, read directions on label) has an antibacterial effect and can reduce sulfur compounds which often causes bad breath.

Eating herbs such as parsely, fennel, cloves, and anise after a meal can help.

And the very best way to help us all breathe easier is to incorporate more good quality, minimally cooked fruits and veggies into your diet. By doing so, you are guaranteeing that you are getting the vitamins and minerals needed to maintain healthy teeth and gums, the fiber to eliminate toxins, and the nutrients to keep up a healthy immune system.

A special thanx to Horatio the Pug! xo

Cooking with Coconut Oil

Many people consider coconut oil to be the black sheep in the cooking oil family. Coconut oil did not earn this reputation - it was just a victim of vicious lies and rumors (probably started by a vindictive cousin like walnut oil!). There are several good reasons to give coconut oil another chance and let it back into your kitchen cabinet.

Coconut oil is a saturated fat. We are told to avoid or limit saturated fats as much as possible. That warning refers to animal fats, however, not coconut oil. The reason is that animal fats are LONG CHAIN fatty acids, while coconut oil contains SHORT and MEDIUM CHAIN fatty acids. They are different and have a different effect on your body and your metabolism.

So yes it is true that coconut oil is a saturated fat, but not one you should necessarily avoid. Saturated fats (of all kinds) are more stable during the cooking process. This means that when cooked, less lipid peroxides are formed. (Lipid peroxides are toxins, like free radicals). Compared to an unsaturated fat that is commonly used for cooking – canola oil – coconut oil produces just a fourth of the lipid peroxides. Why is this important? Lipid peroxides are toxic and can lead to diseases like cancer. They also make your skin age faster, similar to the effect of sun exposure.

Going back to its effect on metabolism, since coconut oil is made up mostly of short and medium chain fatty acids, it is given preferential treatment by your liver for burning. In other words, it can actually help you burn fat. Here is a quote from the book The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods, "[Short and medium chain fatty acids] have actually been shown to promote weight loss by increasing the burning of calories (thermogenesis); some research suggests that they lower cholesterol as well".

Unsaturated fats, like olive oil, are still important. These oils, however, are better suited for salad dressing rather than being exposed to heat.

BE SURE YOU GET VIRGIN COCONUT OIL. Everything stated above refers to virgin coconut oil (that can be purchased at a Whole Foods store or similar). Hydrogenated coconut oil is very, very bad for you and is usually found in processed foods.

Finally, it is recommended that no matter what type of fat you choose to use, it should only make up about 30% of your total daily caloric intake.

Here is more interesting info on coconut oil and fats in general - http://products.mercola.com/coconut-oil/. This guy states it better than I ever could.

A Tie! Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest - Part 2 of 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvudKRzHQsQ

The excitement reached new heights yesterday at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. For the first time in Coney Island history, the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest went into overtime. Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi had a 5 dog eat-off after they each tied with 59 franks, leading Joey Chestnut to his second consecutive victory. Poor Koby’s mouth still hurts but he promises to be back next year in top form.

My girl "The Black Widow" finished in fifth place with 34 hot dogs.

We have to give props to these guys because they suffer after the event – but they do it for us anyway. According to AP writer Adam Goldman, the competitors will "likely suffer nausea, bloat, headache, and possibly high blood pressure for several days as the body slowly digests the food".

God Bless America. God Bless the Mustard Yellow Belt.

Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest - Part 1 of 2

The 4th of July – the day of our great nation’s independence – provokes memories of holidays past and makes us reel with anticipation of the annual traditions that make this day so special. Traditions are different for all of us. My friend Natalie likes to race two live lobsters across her floor before boiling them. I do my best to avoid fireworks but sob uncontrollably when avoidance fails. My family barbecues. No matter what makes this day different for each of us, there is one tie that binds us all as a nation – the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Last year proved to be a banner year for America, as Joey Chestnut claimed the Mustard Yellow Belt, winning it back from Takeru Kobayashi of Japan. Not only did Chestnut bring the title back to the U.S.A., he broke the world record by eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. (He is also the 3-time winner of the asparagus title.) Kobayashi (Koby) was the favorite to win but apparently succumbed to discomfort related to a jaw injury he suffered shortly before. Joey Chestnut and Koby will go head to head again today as they both qualified for the contest in first and second places, respectively.

A notable contestant, and one of my personal favorites, is 105-pound Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas (photo above). While never winning the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, she holds several world records including: Armour Vienna Sausage, cheesecake, hard-boiled eggs, and baked beans (the long course; apparently there was controversy during the short course with regards to the temperature of the beans). The Black Widow broke the female world record in hotdog eating in last year's Nathan's Hot Dog Contest with 59 hotdogs. This will be participating again today, having qualified in fifth place.

Techniques:

• Water dunking – dunking the food in a cup of water before eating it to soften and lubricate


• Breaking the food into small pieces which reduces necessary chewing time


• Solomon Technique or Japanesing – Koby’s technique of breaking the hotdog in half and eating both halves at the same time

Check back tomorrow for a run down of the 2008 highlights! (Due to the time difference between Zurich and Brooklyn, I won’t see results until the evening).

http://people.howstuffworks.com/competitive-eating1.htmhttp://www.ifoce.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonya_Thomas

Caffeine Makes You Tired

Wait, what? That makes no sense. Actually it does! It turns out that if you always feel tired, eliminating caffeine from your diet can significantly improve your energy levels. There is actually a medical condition called "caffeinism", characterized by symptoms of depression, nervousness, irritability, recurrent headaches, heart palpitations and insomnia. It can occur in people that ingest as little as 250 mg of caffeine per day (about the amount in 2 cups of coffee), but the amount can be higher or lower depending on the individual.

This means that for many people, drinking caffeine provides a short-term temporary zip with ugly long term consequences. Habitual caffeine intake stresses the adrenal system and can induce a situation of chronic fatigue. While it may seem insane to eliminate caffeine from your diet if you always feel exhausted, it has been shown to dramatically improve and stabilize energy levels.

There is a popular study involving mice that is always cited when this topic comes up: Mice were given a dose of caffeine and it improved their swimming capacity. After six weeks of receiving this same dose of caffeine, however, their swimming capacity was actually reduced. In other words, the long-term effects of caffeine are actually counterproductive to the reasons people drink it in the first place.

If you’re skeptical, just try it! See what happens. Make sure you gradually reduce your caffeine intake otherwise you will have a serious headache and a Frankenstein-like demeanor. After a few days or maybe a week, you should really start feeling good!

I just want to point out that caffeine isn’t ALL bad, it’s just bad for people who are always tired, who have high blood pressure, who may have depression or anxiety, or who get wicked PMS*.

Good things about caffeine (if ingested only on occasion):

• Really helps alleviate a migraine headache or hangover
• Comes in extremely tasty beverages
• Mildly stimulates the metabolism
• Helps flush out excess water if you’re bloated (which can also lead to dehydration, so be careful)

*Trust me on this one.