Chew What!

I read recently that most people have given up their New Year's resolutions by the first of part of February. I'm not a big resolutions person as I try to always be striving towards some goal or another, but this year I decided to work  on something that seems so simple, but still haven't mastered. That's right, the headline gives it away, I'm working towards chewing my food. Go ahead laugh, your thinking, well aren't you already doing that? And the answer is sort of.

My friend, who is an integrative nutritionist, and I were talking about food as we frequently do and the conversation turned towards school lunches and my pet peeve, the approximately 25 minutes most kids have to go from their classroom, buy lunch, find a place to sit, (unpack lunch if they are bringing) eat, and then get ready for recess. My kids complain that they don't have enough time to eat frequently. I was sharing with her that for the most part we eat dinner together every night and that dinner could be an hour, if we had time and that I knew we ate slowly and actually chewed our food.

There is silence and then I hear, "You know you should chew each bite 30 times?" What? 30 times, well sure I did that, we were slow eaters after all. We took the time to enjoy our meals. I had never thought about how much I or my family chewed, so I thought I would start counting. That night I'm all excited, we're going to count our chews and we'll be at 30 chews in no time. We counted and we were all at 3-5 chews..practically gulping our bites.

Why is chewing so important? Believe it or not the process of digestion starts in your mouth, not your stomach. Your saliva contains enzymes that help break down your food. Some of those enzymes help break down starches to give you more energy and others break down fats that are consumed.
 
Additionally, mindfully chewing your food helps you eat more slowly and prevents overeating. Not overeating means less chance for gaining unwanted pounds, and, you will even taste more of your food.

How much should your really chew your food? It depends on what your eating. Obviously a piece of lettuce will take fewer chews than say a piece of steak. To try this, I suggest you start with taking smaller bites and work on chewing each bite until you can't what the food by it's texture.

Give it a try and see how many chews you can do. 

Recipe of the Week: Golden Harvest Muffins

I started making these when Brian was a toddler...an eternity ago. I love the muffins because they are relatively healthy and my kids and all their like minded non-vegetable eating friends (back when Brian only ate yogurt and frozen tortellini)  love these muffins.

It has been a while since I made these and I'm thrilled that I found this recipe when I was looking for something different to have for dinner. I'll be making them this weekend in a triple batch and freezing most of them for the boys to eat later. I'll post a picture after I make them!

Here is the recipe:

1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Granny Smith (or any other type of apple), peeled, cored and shredded
2 medium carrots, shredded
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar

Optional - Include any of the following to mix and match for whatever suits your taste:
1/2 shredded coconut
1/2 raisins, currents or dried cranberries
1/2 chopped walnuts, cashews, almonds or pecans
1/4 cup shredded zucchini or summer squash

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease muffin pans with olive oil
• Stir together all dry ingredients
• Shred apple, carrot and squash if adding, into a separate bowl
• In large mixing bowl combine oil. milk, vanilla and eggs. Beat for 1 minute, then add sugar and beat for an additional minute. 
• Add half of dry ingredients, and then add apple carrot and squash (if using) mixture. Stir
•  Add the rest of the dry ingredients
• Add nuts, raisins and/or coconut
• Mix to combine and drop into muffin pans
• Bake for 20-25 minutes. 

Enjoy! And keep eating real food!

Turkey and Black Bean Soup

I posted this last year at about this time and since it is so cold, and all I really want to do is hibernate, I thought I would re-post it. I made the soup this evening and added a parsnip and a little chipotle pepper. Everyone was happy at my house

Turkey and Black Bean Soup: This is a staple at our house. It's easy to make, you can double recipe, it freezes and frequently it's something I give as a gift. Even Brian, my oldest and my sister, who claim they don't like beans, love this. The original recipe is from Cooking.com, but I have changed enough to call it my own.

The Recipe:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion chopped

1 lb ground turkey

1 tablespoon chilipowder

1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons oregano

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

several dashes tabasco

1 15oz can diced tomatoes

1 15oz can black beans

1 quart chick stock

10oz spinach, kale or other steaming greens, washed, stems removed

1. In a large stock pot or dutch oven add olive oil and ground turkey. Brown turkey until completely cooked. Remove turkey.
2. Add onion and saute over medium heat until translucent
3. Add turkey back to pot and add spices. Let cook for several minutes to allow flavors to blend
4. Add chicken stock, tomatoes and beans. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer for 15 minutes
5. Add spinach or kale. Cook until wilted and serve.

Serve with at little parmesean as garnish.

Note:

I prefer Kale when I know I'm going to freeze this. The kale holds up better and doesn't get mushy.

What We Had for Dinner

The fall back to school schedule is a bit full this year, I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow the boys have at least one commitment most weekdays. Tuesdays are my favorite, there is cross country, intramural sports, baseball and piano, and Tuesdays happen to be the day that I have most of my networking events too. Finding the time to make dinner, never mind something that everyone likes and is healthy seems like an impossible feat. This last week we have had the following:

Lemon Garlic Braised Chicken: I made this last Sunday and while it does take a while to make, about one hour of cooking time, I made a lot of extra brown rice which I used later in the week. For this dish, you place whole cloves of garlic in 2 cups of chicken broth and simmer for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, place the chicken thighs a saute pan and brown. When the chicken is done add 1 tablespoon of flour and make a roux with the fat. Slowly add about 2/3 cup of white wine, stirring constantly. Pour the chicken broth in the saute pan and continue to stir until slightly thickened. Place chicken, sliced lemon, and liquid into oven-proof dish and cook for about 45 minutes on 350. I served with local green beans, beets and shitake mushrooms, but you can serve with whatever makes you happy. While it does take a while to make, I love this dish because I can double or even triple it and we have leftovers or I can freeze it for dinner another week.


Fried Rice: With the left-over rice from the Lemon Garlic Braised Chicken I made what we call "Fried Rice" Not exactly Asian, our Fried Rice includes whatever vegetables are on hand at the moment. For this I scrambled 2 eggs and then sauteed, onions, carrots, swiss chard,  and mushrooms. I add the cold rice to the pan and let it heat through, not stirring too often. Once heated I add mixture of tamari, minced ginger, fish sauce and rice vinegar. Toss gently until mixed through. Serve with cashew if you like. Oh, and make sure you stir the ginger in thoroughly. I got sidetracked and we had a lot of ginger in one area.

Stuffed Pumpkins: I made this Saturday with the local Sweet Italian Sausage, red quinoa, and lentils as the base. Again I cooked extra lentils to use in soup later. For this I sauteed onions, garlic, carrots, sweet potatoes and one beet. Mix everything together and stuff your pumpkin. Cooking time is about one hour, but at least you can do something else while it's in the oven.

Lentil Soup:  We'll be having this on Tuesday! I made this on Sunday, while I was making a bunch of other things. Sauteed onions, carrot and sweet potatoes, added the lentils in and the broth that was left over from cooking them. Next add one 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes and I had some broccoli left over from something else so I put that in too. When I reheat I'm going to add some baby spinach and serve with a loaf of this amazing bread I bought from Sweetwater Baking Co. http://www.sweetwaterbakingcompany.com/index.html

Enjoy and try something new

Healthy, Easy Dinner Salad

We haven't had summer squash or zucchini since the zucchini cakes about a month ago, but I saw this recipe from Clean Eating and had to try it. The local zucchini/summer squash season is pretty much over, but I was lucky to find a few at my favorite farmers market. I added mushrooms and substituted the champagne vinegar for rice vinegar and fresh mozzarella for the feta, because I forgot to pick up feta at the farmers market. The feta would only make this dish even better than it was.

http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/downloads/ce32_harvest_salad.pdf

enjoy and eat real!

Silly Putty and Petroleum in Chicken McNuggets?

 For those of you who still, on occasion visit McDonalds, I thought I would share this article with you. We stopped going after I read Fast Food Nation and after a couple of occurrences where McDonald's went into Brian (at age 2 1/2) and came flying back out the other end about 30 minutes later. I know, gross, but I presume you have had a similar experience. Last time I knew food wasn't supposed to do that, but as you will read, a Chicken McNugget has 37 ingredients. I have made baked chicken fingers in the past, I only needed a few ingredients: chicken, bread crumbs, egg, flour, salt and pepper. I froze them and the chicken fingers lasted for several months in the freezer.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/a-little-silicone-and-petrol-in-your-mcnuggets/

Nutrient Dense Foods

I see, and I presume you do too, lists of foods to eat all the time. Most of the time they are pretty similar. I liked this one from Delicious Living as it encompasses vegetables, fruits, legumes and beans, and nuts and seeds. Each section lists the top fruit, vegetable  etc, why it is important, and has links to recipes for each food that is listed. Check it out and I hope you try one of the recipes. I have made several of the recipes from the site and they have all been pretty good.Click on the title to go to the article.


http://deliciouslivingmag.com/health/nutrition/0727-nutrient-dense-diet/index.html

Eat Your Way to Health

• One third of all children are overweight or obese. 
• The number of people who have Type 2 Diabetes has doubled over the last 10 years. 

Are you aware  that diabetes practically didn't exist 100 years ago? That the average doctor could work his or her entire career and not treat one single case of diabetes. I have read that this is a "life style" disease. And it is. We as a society don't eat well. We love quick and convenient, more is better.  All you can eat means you should arrive as hungry as you can and stuff as much food into yourself, because some how that is "value." It doesn't matter that you just consumed enough calories for 3 days because it was all fried.
It concerns me that we, as a society, are eating ourselves into disease. That we will spend an enormous amount of time and money at doctor's offices, on prescriptions, and tests that we could have spent on a vacation. That we will be sick and not feel well all for the sake of a cheap, easy meal.

I hear people say that buying organic or locally produced food is too expensive. That they don't like vegetables. And yes in some cases the up front cost is a little more (and even then not always) but the back end cost is lower... you are healthier, with a lower risk of cancer, heart disease, and arthritis. You are out doing what you love and less likely to be driving to a multitude of doctor's offices and taking expensive medications.  You are living!

I listen to Pete Dominick on POTUS, Sirus/XM a lot. His show focuses on whatever the political hot topics are, but what I like about him, is not only is he well researched, but he encourages everyone to do the same. He believes that in order to make smart decisions we all have to know the facts, and that comes from reading multiple view points.  I encourage you to do the same when it comes to your food. Read what is out there, check out my reading list if you want. OR to get started read Dr. Oz and Michael Roizen's book, YOU: Staying Young  or Wired Magazine's article about Google's Sergey Brin and how he is reducing his risk for Parkinson's Disease through diet and exercise. http://www.wired.com/magazine/?intcid=gnav

Food Labeling - Does it Help?

I have read in several food magazines about the ongoing dilemma over the benefits (or not) of labeling food products in more detail. Even Philly has an ordinance, that I believe was delayed until the fall, written that will require restaurant chains (more than 15 stores) to provide labeling for most menu items. Do you think this will help? When you go to the grocery store to you look at the label or read the ingredients. I would really like to know who is adding up the vitamin B12 they consume every day. Do you really want to know the nutritional value of Rita's water ice?  Please let me know what you think, write a comment. I would love some feedback.

I am all for more information when it's helpful, but in this case the only part of the label I read is the ingredients list. If it's not all real food, for the most part, I don't buy it. A quick scan at the ingredients will tell you how good something is. If it sounds like a real food, and is recognizable as one, then most of the time you should be ok. If you don't read ingredient list, I ask to you to check it out the next time you are at the grocery store. You will be surprised at what you are not putting in your body. And yes that would be real food. You are consuming lot's of preservatives, chemicals, extra sugar and fat. All stuff designed to make you want more, so you buy more.

So, if you have been thinking about trying to eat more healthy food try this:

1. Eat more veggies
2. Read the ingredients

Small changes will make a difference

And, by the way, that "natural flavor" that is in so many things, it comes from corn.