A Balance of Vegetables and Common Sense

Friday; the day of the week following Thursday falling before Saturday. (I love literal definitions of words.) On Thursday I clean, on Friday I plan, on the weekend I play... Today, sitting in a tidy living room, I planned the next seven days of food.  Here's what is on our menu:

Chicken Caesar Wraps with Grapes.     
Hamburgers and Dogs with Pasta Salad
Basil Chicken over Rice with Broccoli 
Ham with Roast Potatoes, Asparagus and Burst Tomatoes
Fried Chicken with Corn, Peas, Slaw and Baked Beans
Beef Roast and Tomatoes with Carrots over Rice
Corn Chowder with Crisp Romaine Green Leafy Salad

The kids entertained me this morning with their requests and I listened to every word.  "Fried Chicken?  Sure, but you have to choose something healthy to go with it."
"Baked Beans?  Yes, but I am going to make them; we aren't eating them from a tin can."
"Corn Chowder?  Okay, but choose a veggie to eat along side so it's not so heavy," to which I got the reply, "How about we use up the caesar salad from the wraps?"  Smart kids.  Each menu selection was balanced with vegetables and common sense; a delicious combination.

There's a theory out there that eating food should be an enjoyable experience.  I love that theory~

Eat real food, drink plenty of water, give your vitamins their vitamins and, as always, remember to wash your hands, especially after you eat fried chicken. ;)

The Lunch Bunch~

Lunch; the Western idea of a mid-day meal.  While lunch should be the largest, most substantial meal of the day, lunch is typically glanced over, purchased at fast food restaurants and taken from vending machines.  Lunch should be more than take-out and frozen cuisine for it has to replace energy and nutrients used during active morning hours, and has to provide fuel and nutrients needed for a productive, positive afternoon.  Is lunch the most important meal of the day?  Just incase the answer is yes, let's bring this lunch bunch to the table to ensure good nutrition.

Let's start with rice.  Brown rice; a whole grain providing fiber, manganese, tryptophan, B vitamins, magnesium, selenium and it's versatile.  One cup of brown rice in your lunch box works well with berries and dried fruit, plant and animal protein, roast root vegetables, sprouts, shrooms, condiments, or all by itself.  On Sunday afternoon prepare eight or 10 cups of brown rice; warm gently on the stove top to reheat.  Before you run to work, grab a mason jar (a thermos works well, too), fill with warm rice and preferred accompaniments, wrap in a towel for insulation and lunch is served.

Next, real fruit salad.  On Sunday, while your rice is cooking, call the family to the table to cut up apples, a cantaloupe and a pineapple.  Add a bunch of grapes, raspberries or blackberries, and blueberries to the bowl.  Peel and separate three tangerines to finish.  Vitamins, phytonutrients, antioxidants, water, enzymes, fiber, and healthy sugars are all present and accounted for.  Fruit salad is an essential lunch staple; select as a side, use as a main dish over cottage cheese on a hot day, blend into a protein smoothie for 'no time for lunch' days, or simply nibble on it at your desk (wherever that may be).

Now, add a bowl of vegetable things!  Spinach, carrots, celery, lil' tomatoes, broccoli, red onion, any cabbage, asparagus, cauliflower, peas, peppers, cucumbers, herbs and garlic play nicely in a large bowl in your refrigerator.  When the fruit salad is finished, take seven more minutes to get these guys together.  Salads mean very little waste, very good, whole food nutrition, and, again, they are versatile.  Even better, line a 13x9 (or larger) tray with your cuts of choice and use them for soups, green smoothies, even dinner prep throughout the week.  It'll start like this:

Because health is as individual as its beholder, coming up with universal nutrition suggestions is no easy task.  I do hours of reading and research and always arrive back at my simple yet holistic motto:  Eat real food, drink plenty of clean water, give your vitamins their vitamins, and, as always, remember to wash your hands.  This lunch bunch satisfies the body's need for whole foods and vitamins, all you have to do is add water and wash...  health may actually be just that simple!

Anna~

A Juice, a Smoothy and a Soup!

Friday is a fantastic day for Girl's Night Out, Saturday is great for  'guys night in', Sunday is football and beer and wings and chips and salt and salt, where's the gol'darn salt? By Sunday night you're bloated, full, tired, constipated ... and left hungry to boot~  Here are three recipes to help get you through your weekend without assaulting your body.  

Juice.  I don't mean 'apple' and 'orange', I mean gather a colorful blend of fruits and veggies and juice them.  If you don't have a juicer, don't worry;  plop the blender on the counter, add the ingredients, blend with clean water (non-chlorinated, chemical-ized) and strain the concoction through a cheese cloth or fine strainer.  Try an Apple Crisp for breakfast:

Apple Crisp

Ingredients:

Apples - 5 medium (3" dia) 910g
Celery - 2 stalk, large (11"-12" long) 128g
Oranges (peeled) - 2 fruit (2-5/8" dia) 262g

Directions:

Process all ingredients in a juicer, shake or stir and serve.  

From  http://juicerecipes.com/recipes/apple-crisp-84

Smoothies are instant sources of nutrients, energy and nourishment.  Saturday morning is a great time to reboot your system, add some hydration, replace lost nutrients and balance your electrolytes.  Try this recipe on for size:

Green Smoothie Monster 

Victoria Boutenko 

4 leaves kale, stems removed 

4 leaves chard, stems removed 

½ bunch fresh parsley 

1 leaf aloe vera 

½ bunch dandelion greens 

3 pears 

1 banana 

3 cups water 

Yields 2 quarts - 

See more at: 

http://www.rawfamily.com/recipes#sthash.WgxvytkH.dpuf

By Sunday night your body has had enough; enough salt, enough meat, enough fat, enough sugar, enough calories.  To satisfy leftover hunger, enjoy a nice, quiet bowl of nourishing soup.  It's hydrating, healing, balancing and delicious.

Spicy Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1-3 teaspoons hot paprika, or to taste
2 14-ounce cans vegetable broth
4 medium plum tomatoes, diced
1 medium yellow summer squash, diced
2 cups diced cooked potatoes, (see Ingredient note)
1 1/2 cups green beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 cups frozen spinach, (5 ounces)
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, or red-wine vinegar
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, or prepared pesto

Preparation:

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, about 6 minutes. Add paprika and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add broth, tomatoes, squash, potatoes and beans; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are just tender, about 12 minutes. Stir in spinach and vinegar; continue cooking until heated through, 2 to 4 minutes more. Ladle soup into bowls and top with fresh basil or a dollop of pesto.

All of these are made with real, naturally occurring foods.  Wash them in with water, give your vitamins their vitamins, and remember to wash your hands.  Monday morning will not feel so thick after a juice, a smoothy and a nice, spicy bowl of soup~  Have a Great Weekend!

Anna~

Your favorite weekend recipes are welcome!

5 Underestimated Super Foods

A few weeks ago I touched on typical Western diet staples:  pasta in the pantry, butter in the fridge, flour in the canister, oranges in the 'other' drawer.  Staples make up large portions of prepared meals while main ingredients change;  instead of chicken it's beef, instead of pork it's fish, instead of salad it's sauce.  As the food on the table are given a value, each food typically fills one or two main nutritional requirements- that valuation process is how the many variations of the very flawed food pyramid came to balance the American diet for us. To reach optimal nutrient intake with typical American foods, too much of the wrong foods need to be consumed.

Some foods, coined 'super foods', pack a greater all-around punch to the nutrients the body uses in abundance.  Some of these super foods may even be on your table but you may have underestimated their value.  The first of which is broccoli - one of the worlds healthiest foods!  Vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, calcium, protein, tryptophan, etc.  Steamed or raw broccoli supports vitamin D, K and A in balance, can help manage allergies, and can help lower cholesterol in the blood.  Add some to your dinner tonight!

Another underestimated super food is spinach!  This little leaf is full of phytonutrients, vitamin K, calcium, glycoglycerolipids, and a potent list of vital vitamins and minerals.  Eating spinach raw in a salad or wilted in a soup or even dip can boost your immune system, balance your nutrients, and fight off fatigue.  Spinach is not just 'good for you', it's a super food!

An unlikely super food duo, so you may think, is the avocado and the garlic bulb.  (Guacamole anyone?)  Avocados have been spread upon the news lately for their 'good fats' and their 'healthy oils' but avocados offer much more than that.  Fiber, potassium, vitamins C, B and K, monounsaturated fatty acids, polyhydroxylated fatty alcohols (PFA's) and carotenoids.  Pair it with garlic, another superfood often only looked at as a spice, and you have a powerhouse blend.  The combined benefits of avocados and garlic will go straight to your heart!

Fifth in today's superfood list is Celery, an appropriate food for this time of year.  "In addition to well-known antioxidants like vitamin C and flavonoids, scientists have now identified at least a dozen other types of antioxidant nutrients in celery" WHFoods.com.  Chop it up, stick it up, slice it up, snack it up, but don't underestimate it's ability to boost you up!  

Eat real food, drink plenty of water, give your vitamins their vitamins, and remember to wash your hands~  

Anna~

What is Affordable?

Winter is fast approaching and farmer's markets in the north are beginning to dwindle.  Gardens are beginning to freeze and will soon be swept under blankets of snow.  Community garden centers, who offer seasonal produce, will soon only have kale and potatoes on their roster.  If you live in the south your available produce may be greater in numbers and longer in season, but winter crops are volatile and greatly supported by the global, or at least, continental market.  Supply and demand, subsidies and season all effect the price of food (another post completely), and, for some, seeking out farmer's markets to shop for daily goods is an expense that cannot be made.

The alternative to fresh food is processed impostors.  Let's take Mac n Cheese, a classic American favorite, to the table.  Where authentic whole grain pasta can run between $3 and $4 a pound, Prince pasta (enriched) runs between a buck and a buck and a half.  Where real cheddar cheese can run between $4 and $6 dollars a pound, Velveeta is half that and has coupons to boot.  So if you want Mac n' Cheese for dinner you might spend between $12 and $16 dollars on great, wholesome ingredients or you might spend $9 or $10 on more processed alternatives, or you might just buy 3 boxes of Kraft and spend $4.  Food companies make it very easy for us to afford a greater amount in processed alternatives, but the cost is much greater than that.

Let's go back to the beginning of my investigation for a moment:  You are what you eat; Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.  If food is the foundation of health and if you choose the food you eat, then it is a reasonable idea that you choose your health.  Your body can only make the things your body can make, but without the right food, the right nutrients, the right fats, the right minerals, the right fuel, your body will fail at even it's basic functions.

If you choose whole wheat pasta and aged cheese made from good quality milk taken from a grass fed cow, when you make your mac n' cheese you're adding wholesome calcium, complex carbohydrates, good protein, lasting fuel and needed calories to your body.  Pairing it with a steamed organic vegetable or crisp salad can fortify the meal with plentiful vitamins, photochemical and antioxidants.  If you choose the box you get chemically made cheese, enriched, processed pasta, chemical or synthetic vitamins, very little fuel, simple carbohydrates, a few more dollars in your wallet, and hunger soon to follow.

Does this answer the question?  Where can Affordable food be found?  No.  Maybe I need to take another approach.  Until I figure out how to illuminate affordability in five paragraphs or less I will just encourage you to eat real, naturally occurring food.  While you plan your meals against your budget, calm yourself with cool, clean water.  Remember to give your vitamins their vitamins, and, as always, remember to wash your hands.  Bear with me and my passion, dear reader, for affordability does not only apply to the grocery cart~

Anna~

What Does it Cost?

Mixed among the staples in the refrigerator and pantry are hidden treasures and poisonous gems.  A grand bowl of seasonal greens and nuts are more valuable than gold, while the tub of spreadable margarine isn't worth the plastic it comes in.  The loaf of whole wheat manufactured bread is a mediocre source of whole grains, and the condensed soup and its round bottom can can be a sodium and sugar pitfall.  We all know white bread is not made of whole grains, that condensed soup is a poor excuse for soup, and we even know margarine is a poor choice of added fat but we purchase the little bastards anyway.  Why?  Say it with me, readers...  "They are cheap!"

Shopping for real food is not only time consuming, but costly.  Real butter is more expensive than margarine.  Making chicken stock is time consuming and the soups on the shelves are cheap and ready made.  Organic is more costly than conventionally grown produce; frozen is less expensive than fresh; canned is less expensive than frozen.  Hormone free milk is more expensive, and grass fed beef can break the bank when feeding more than one.  To add insult to injury, there aren't very many coupons for fresh produce and cage free chickens.

So what can be done?  First, it takes a plan.  What days of the week are you going to be home?  How many meals do you anticipate eating out?  How much money can be allotted for food?  How many people are at your table?  What season is it?  Knowing the answers to these questions can help you realistically shop and can eliminate wasted or unused produce.  I shop for 5-7 days at a time for 5 (including growing children) so I understand that it is no delightful task, but throwing away something that costs more to buy fresh is even less enjoyable.  Fruits and veggies are necessary staples in any diet; the benefits of fresh certainly outweigh the cost.

Take it one step further and plan for multipurpose meals.  Roast a great looking' chicken on Monday and use it for chicken soup, quesadillas, enchiladas or on a garden salad throughout the week.  A good roaster can cost anywhere from 8 to 20 bucks~  use every bit!  Boil the carcass with onions, garlic, celery, carrots, salt and herbs and freeze the yield so when a recipe calls for chicken stock/bouillon you have it on hand.  The same with pork roast; roast and root vegetables on Tuesday, bbq pork sandies and coleslaw on Thursday.  Beef roast on Wednesday with tomatoes and wild rice, then beef and broccoli over egg noodles on Saturday afternoon.  Utilize leftovers by repurposing the main dish!  If the budget doesn't support the grass fed varieties, choose good quality meats that fit your budget. Remember, you don't need meat at every meal.

Another tip?  Make some bread.  This week I made bread with my daughter via my mother's 'beginner's' recipe.  Whole wheat and white flour, milk, yeast, water, sugar, real butter, a bit of olive oil and a little bit of time produced great bread and much fun.  Because I had all of the ingredients and because I purchased all of the ingredients to support other recipes, the bread didn't really cost us a thing!  I encourage you all to eat as much real food as you can, to wash it in with water, to give your vitamins their vitamins, and to remember to wash your hands (especially if you are going to make bread).

Anna~

Go! Eat! Skip Dessert!

To finish up this week's theme, lacking inspiration to finding motivation, I would like to talk about food.  Surprised, right?  The weekend is coming, Summer dawns tomorrow and the kids, spouses, dogs, cats, neighbors, relatives, golf buddies or book club'ers are in the kitchen;  three to five meals a day must be prepared and enthusiastically enjoyed by all.  Instead of toast and coffee for breakfast, in place of ham'n'cheese for lunch, may these foods inspire you to fill your table with guests and sink with dishes~

Enjoy an impromptu brunch:  Call three friends and assign a dish (Lisa, anything fruity; Dan, anything mixed with an egg; Carla, something French) and you provide coffee, mimosas, bacon and the table.  You can be creative and assign a country instead of a dish and let your guests surprise you!  Brunch is a meal that can last an hour or three while nourishing your body with great, fresh food and conversation.  Pump music through the speakers, fill some water balloons for the kids (water guns work, too) and enjoy a long morning or early afternoon full of fellowship.

Do not make something familiar for dinner!  We all have googled recipes that look delicious, clipped a magazine of it's scrumptious shrimp instructions, or drooled over a dish in a restaurant too expensive to frequent.  Make those recipes!!!  When you shop, buy fresh, buy whole, buy good quality ingredients.   Invite your guests to bring a bottle of wine to share, make sure to allow enough time for conversation and maybe top the night off with a game of charades.  If guests aren't available, substitute a romantic dinner for two~

Don't eat dessert.  If you are brunching with champagne and dining with wine, dessert is the last thing you need.  Alcohol packs 7 calories per gram (2 less than fat, 3 more than protein).  Enjoying a long brunch, indulging in a sensational dinner and sipping cocktails and wine is replenishing in an immeasurable way.  Don't ruin it with a heavy, creamy, sugar storm.   You can place a plate piled full of grapes, pineapple and raspberries in the center of your table and pick away.  Grapes are low in sugar but high in phytochemicals and antioxidants.  Pineapple has fantastic digestive properties.  Raspberries add dietary fiber to dessert.   If you must, bits of dark chocolate are perfectly acceptable.

No go!  Eat real, delicious, naturally occurring foods.  Remember to give your vitamins their vitamins.  Make sure water is present at all times.  And, as always, remember to wash your hands.  I will see you all here next week~

Anna