Cravings Never Cease~

Eating a well balanced diet is a very diverse and flavorful adventure.  We are all on a diet, whether it's restrictive, plant based, meat packed, McDonald's infused or a combination of the lot.  A diet can work for you by delivering ample nutrients, a variety of flavors and textures, and excitement for for tastebuds, or a diet can make you feel deprived, frustrated and hungry.  Reader, if you are feeling deprived and frustrated so you can reach another notch on your belt, jump off the train at the next exit and begin anew (your cravings will eventually derail the train anyway).

Cravings are the directors of our tastebuds.  In the gut there are millions of bacteria (good and bad) that help digest our food.  The type of bacteria present depends largely on the choice of food delivered to the body.  There is direct correlation between the bacteria we house and the foods we crave because our bacteria conduct many of our cravings.  If many starchy, sugary, processed foods are the bulk of a diet, sugar-eating bacteria, fungi and parasites signal when supplies are low - and the cycle continues.  Undoing the cycle is easy, though it takes a plan.  Add whole foods, add cleansing herbs and spices, add good pro- and pre-biotics, add water and tea, add a bit of exercise and feel your cravings change.

Cravings also exist when nutrients are deficient.  I had an interesting conversation about this with my brother-in-law Paul;  hunger is in fact not the only reason we crave food.  Hunger signals a need for fuel, true, but cravings are separate from hunger.  Cravings are a signal sent to the brain with a direct food in mind:  spinach, chocolate, sugar, starch, mint, tomatoes, even allergens.  A craving is meant to satisfy a chemical process within the body or brain by feeding in a specific deficient nutrient, acid, or fat.  Fantastically enough, you have the power to satisfy those cravings with healthful foods instead of unworthy participants.

There are several ways to cope with cravings, all of which include eating.  Yes, eating.  In fact, if you take foods off the list of things you 'can' eat, the result will certainly lead to more or stronger cravings (again, we are back to addition).  Add something sweet, something salty, something green, something white, something rich and something spicy to your day and see how you feel after the day is done.  Write down how you feel.  Write down the foods you ate.  Write down the outcome of diversifying your diet.  Make no mistake, reader.  I am not suggesting you indulge in a glazed donut, a salted carmel donut, a green monster donut, a cream cheese frosted donut, a Big Mac, and a cinnamon donut --- I am suggesting you use whole foods to satisfy your cravings categorically and in response to your body without the words, "I can't eat that," on your lips.

Start today.  Find real foods that satisfy your cravings.  Eat them with consideration and enjoyment.  Eat often with a tall glass of water or a warm cup of tea.  Give your vitamins their vitamins and watch your cravings move from mischievous to manageable.  And because your hands go on your food and your food goes in your mouth, wash your hands of bacteria that can cause you harm; it'll do your body good!

Anna~

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~

Give your Vitamins their Vitamins!

At the bottom of every post I offer some very simple advice:  eat real food, drink plenty of water, give your vitamins their vitamins, and remember to wash your hands.   Offering advice and following advice are two very different animals.  Even I, the knower of many food-y, nutritional things, have trouble following simple, sound, sensical advice even though I know why I should.  I, just like all of you, only try to make today healthier than yesterday.  So, today I would like us all to take our vitamins!

No.  I don't mean wander out to Walmart to find cheaply made and nutritionally defunct vitamins in pill form.  Our bodies need dozens of vitamins and minerals to assist the vitamins we already make and to replace the vitamins our bodies continually use up.  Hormones, gastric juices, connective tissues, hair, teeth, gums, skin, and everything in between is made up or supported by the vitamins we eat.  If we loaded up the cart at wally world with all of the nutrients our bodies need we would be swallowing pills all day long~  multivitamins are none the wiser.

So how, then, do your give your vitamins their vitamins?  This may sound redundant, but the answer lives in real food!  The key is diversity and the clutch is we actually have to eat it.  Looking at great spinach recipes online for food inspiration is a fantastic way to diversify your diet, but if instead of spinach leaves wilted in clean, steamy water you use frozen spinach, thawed and drained, you are depleting the recipe of it's vitality.  Don't care for spinach?  Find foods that sound good to you and eat them~  but stick to the real version instead of the imitation, processed, fortified variety.

Why not fortified foods?  Fortification of food happens after a real food ingredient has been processed or heated in a way that diminishes its original nutrients.  The vitamins and minerals that are added back to the food are in lesser amounts, and typically of a man made or synthetic variety.  Vitamins are not regulated so if you are depending on a manufacturing company - that processes food in order to make a large profit and gain repeat customers - to ensure you are getting your vitamins, you will get less than you bargained for.

We all eat.  More importantly, we all eat differently.  Finding vitamins amongst the vast food markets we have at our fingertips is greatly more flavorful than fish oil capsules and vitamin tabs from manufacturers.  My advice?   Write down what you eat for a few days so you may easily identify which vitamins are in abundance and which are missing.  Find whole food recipes that supply those vitamins and follow the directions.  Remember to wash them in with water and, as always, remember to wash your hands.

Good advice?

Anna~