Baby Steps

First, a bit of housekeeping. You can now sign up to receive my posts via email. Look to the right - see the "Subscribe Via Email" widget below "About Me"? Just click on the link, fill out the form, and whenever I publish, the post will be delivered directly to your inbox. For you: no more checking the blog to see there's not been any activity. For me: no pressure to write just so my readers know my blog is still active.

For those of you who receive my monthly newsletter: I know this month's was scary. (Didn't get it? Find it here: Your Local Toxic Waste Site is Closer Than You Think.) BTW, it's not nearly as pretty reading it from that link as that's a preview site, so if you'd like to be on my mailing list, please go to my website, www.madlyhealthy.com, click on "Contact Me" and shoot me a message with your email and a brief note asking me to add you to my contact list. Just so's you know, I never, ever bug anyone to work with me, buy anything, etc. I send out one newsletter a month. I'm committed to only sending you information that has the potential to benefit you - that's what my work is all about.

Let's proceed with the assumption that you've all read my newsletter. There are a few tips there for protecting yourself from the onslaught of synthetic chemicals in our environment. But even dealing with that relatively short list can seem overwhelming.  So, what can you do to use this information without being discouraged or frightened by it?

As with any habit you're looking to change, take baby steps. Remember that childhood game. One person would tell the group what kind of steps and how many to take? Take 3 baby steps....or take 5 giant steps, etc.  Giant steps are tiring - if you take a bunch of them at once, you'll just want to stop. Baby steps are easy - take a couple and it doesn't feel like any work at all.

The first baby step I suggest is to breathe. And accept. This is the world we live in. It's impacting us but you're still here. As long as you're still here you can work with it. Acceptance doesn't mean you resign yourself to it - it means acknowledging that this is what is. Then you can take whatever action you choose - but first, you need to know what you're dealing with.

Now, educate yourself. I recommend the book I mentioned in the newsletter: The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health by Randall Fitzgerald. Another excellent book, is MAD COWBOY: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat by Howard Lyman which is specifically about the dangers of factory farming and is a compelling and fast read. If you don't like to read, Howard Lyman is a dynamic lecturer - see him when he comes to your town - I promise it will be a moving experience. BTW, Lyman was the man who's talk on Oprah let to her being sued by the cattle industry (she prevailed). If you don't want to learn more, just go with what you already know!

Next, choose one or two things to do to protect your health. Can you buy some glass jars to store your food in? Ball jars are great - they can even be kept in the freezer - I no longer freeze my soups in plastic containers, we've gone glass. Can you cook another one or two homemade meals each week (from scratch - no processed foods). Can you make your own granola?

Some of your baby steps may seem like they're just for you or you and your family. Some (like carrying canvas bags to the grocery store to reduce the plastic stream we all live with) will seem more global. However, they're all global and all for you at the same time! Any packaging/processing/synthetic chemicals you reduce in your life is a little bit less that's floating through the environment affecting everyone. Likewise, every step you take that feels altruistic, like reducing the toxic garbage you add to your landfill, is less pollution that eventually comes back to you and your family.

Whatever baby steps you take, appreciate them, give yourself a pat on the back. They're a start and when you're ready you can take another baby step...or two.

Death and Gratitude

"He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."  ~Clarence Budington Kelland


“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” — Denis Waitley


I realize that many of you who read this blog like the recipes. And I realize I haven't posted any in a while. Or posted anything in a while, for that matter. I'll try to post some recipes soon, or at least post my ideas about recipes (actually, I'm not a big fan of recipes and I'll soon explain why). But, today I have something different. Something you may not think is health-related, but everything is part of everything else.  This post which focuses death by necessity focuses on life as well and therefore, health. It also deals with gratitude, an attitude that makes everything, even grief, better.


Until today I've shared this story with only a few people. It's about my father's death and how my his death became his last great lesson to me. Or, the last time I was able to learn a great lesson from his example as my father was not a man of many words and everything I learned from him, I learned from observing how he lived.


My father died of kidney failure on November 20, 2009. He'd been on dialysis for over four years. My father never wanted to start dialysis - he'd had a brother go through it years ago and he knew what it entailed: four to five hours, three days a week hooked up to a machine. The process is exhausting. It left him drained but unable to sleep. It can can be painful and you really don't want to know how swollen and bruised his forearms were after years of having needles in them so many hours each week. There's never a vacation from dialysis and you never have the option of saying, "Nah, not today." 


My father only agreed to go on dialysis because my mother and I couldn't stand the idea of losing him. He stayed on dialysis as long as he could, waiting for our understanding to catch up to his own: that death is not always the worst part of life.


During the last few months of his life, Dad was failing. He had three hospitalizations for three different problems (a blood infection, fluid on the lungs, and pneumonia). On the morning of the last time he was admitted to the hospital, he'd told my mother he was too sick to go for dialysis, that she should call an ambulance. She did and one came. The paramedics took Dad's blood pressure and ran a few other tests. They said he wasn't sick enough to go to the hospital. So, off he went to dialysis, 89 years old and with pneumonia. He had hours of dialysis and only then was told to head off to the hospital. I can only imagine the strength it took for him to get through that - add to the normal exhaustion of his daily life, pneumonia, dialysis, his age...still he made it through. 


Dad wasn't strong enough to walk in the hospital and hallucinated much of the time. After dealing with the infection, the doctors told us to put him in a rehabilitation hospital, by which they meant a nursing home. They said it would take months of rehab before he'd walk again. They said he might never come back to his senses fully. We didn't have the heart to take Dad anywhere but where he wanted to be: home. 


He arrived home late in the evening - on the way home, this man who travelled the globe in his mind in the hospital started looking out the windows of the ambulette, tracking our progress, making sure the drivers knew the way. Arriving at his apartment building, he was dismayed to realize he didn't have his wallet - even when I assured him the bill was taken care of, he apologized to the driver that he didn't have money to give him a tip. That was Dad - always taking care of business, always thinking of other people, and always acting with generosity. As soon as he was home, his faculties all came back and he was walking within a day.


The week that my father had been in the hospital, my family and I realized it was time to release Dad from this world. It had been time for him for years - when visiting, I'd often catch him sitting on the couch, staring off somewhere so deeply that it seemed he wasn't even of this world anymore. I'd felt caught between a rock and a hard place for a long time: I knew it was time for him, but my mother was petrified of living without him - and my children loved him and I didn't know how to explain it to them if I told their beloved grandfather I gave him my permission to die. But that week, we agreed that should Dad make it home from the hospital, we'd tell him we'd all be fine if he chose to stop dialysis. Amazingly, his first morning home, before we had a chance to bring it up, Dad called us together and told us he wanted us to be strong, but he was done. He didn't want any more dialysis. Understand this: my father saved us from initiating the conversation with him - which was a huge gift. Another gift he gave us that day: he agreed to another week of dialysis so that his grandchildren, and son- and daughter-in-law could have time to travel to Florida and see him before the effects of being off dialysis took hold.


The next couple of weeks were amazing. Upon arriving home, Dad stopped taking his medication. It didn't seem to do him any harm. We were warned that without his blood pressure medication, he could get terrible headaches: they never came, his blood pressure never even went up. He stopped taking the antibiotics that were prescribed for the pneumonia yet he didn't get sicker. Once he stopped dialysis, his energy came back. He was his old self from years before, playing cards, making jokes. He stood straighter, he was happy again. He was relaxed and I'd say just a bit impatient, seemingly surprised from time to time when he awoke to find himself still alive.


The family came together - from various parts of New York State and California we came to be with Dad. You'd think those days would be hard and sad but there were smiles and laughter. Dad delighted in seeing everyone. Everyone delighted in being with Dad. Was there sadness? Of course. But love was the overriding emotion.


The best part for me those weeks was the radiance of my father's smile whenever he looked at my brother or me. His whole face lit up! My mother, noticing this, and noticing that he didn't have the same reaction to her became upset: she felt it meant he loved my brother and me but not her. I knew otherwise - first of all, because all Dad wanted to know in the days before hospice came was what they'd do to help my mother through the process of his death and with her grieving afterwards. And when he told us he was going to stop dialysis, his one request was that my brother and I take care of my mother. During that last week of dialysis, my father kept asking me, "What's going to happen?" I kept explaining the process of how his body would break down after he stopped having dialysis. He'd shake his head. Communicating was tough - he was mostly deaf and his vision had faded, too. I finally understood: he didn't care about what was going to happen to him - his only concern was who was going to help my mother. So why didn't he smile so for her? I think I know. My mother was my father's air - always there with him. It was special for him to have my brother and me around but it was business as usual for my mother to be there. Just as we go through our days trusting there'll be air for us to breathe, so too do I believe my father trusted my mother to be there for him. 


Dad stayed peaceful and serene through the last days of his life. He was kind to all the nurses that came and went. Those last days, I slept with my parents, my father in a hospital bed, my mother and me sharing the bed next to him. There was a hospice nurse around the clock, but still I'd awaken and check on Dad throughout the night. However, the last night of his life, whenever I'd awaken, I'd notice his breathing, how rattly it was. I'd think to get up and check on him, and wondered if the rattling meant that he was close to death. But each time this happened, I'd feel as if I were being gently pushed back down into sleep - as if something heavy were pushing me down under water. There was no fear or sadness for me, just this strange inability to get up. Just past dawn, the night nurse woke me - my father had died, apparently at dawn. The nurse sat at the bedroom doorway through the night and had checked on my father at just before dawn. Then he'd gone to the living room window to watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. When he returned to his post, my father was dead. 


My father was my hero. He was my guru - I adored him my whole life and learned my best lessons - about love, generosity, humility, and responsibility by watching him live. I assumed I'd be devastated by his death. But I wasn't. And, after this whole, long post - that's the message I'd like to pass on to you. We live. We die. It's not always a tragedy. Even when it is a tragedy, it's a part of life. A book that the hospice workers gave us likened death to a boat going over the horizon - the boat's still there but we can't see it. I like this image and I feel that my father's still here with me and for me. He's so deeply embedded in my heart and in my mind that when I need to know what he'd think or say about a given situation, I just have to think of him: I know what he'd say or do. 


Some family members were horrified that my father stopped dialysis. I understand their grief. But he'd protected them from his pain. In the end, it would have been selfish for anyone to ask him to stay. Modern medicine has found ways to prolong the body - but not in ways that necessarily allow people to live. At the end, on dialysis, my father was breathing, but he wasn't living.


For months afterwards, people offered me their condolences which was nice. But, I also felt that some people were waiting for me to fall apart, to be wracked by grief. I didn't fall apart, I wasn't wracked by grief and even during the weeks I watched my father die, I knew I wouldn't be. I neither denied my loss nor my love for my father. But we don't know how we'll react in any given situation until we're in it. Before this process began I thought I'd be devastated when the time came. But, in all honesty, I like to think that I got a glimpse into a different view of death - I got to experience the death of a loved-one when it came when it should. I would have been denying my true feelings about it had I pretended to more distressed just to fulfill a cultural norm. I'm grateful to my father for showing me that death can come peacefully and lovingly and for giving us so much love as he lay dying that it's enough to last me the rest of my life.


This story isn't complete without my adding another story. I got to know my friend Rosangel though the shared experience of our fathers' deaths (her father died 10 days before mine) But, Rosangel's loss was different than mine: she hadn't had the time I had to prepare herself or the time to say good-bye. Lost and surprised by her father's death, she looked to do something positive for herself and others as a way to deal with her grief. Rosangel decided to develop a gratitude practice and share it with the world. If you follow my tweets (madlyhealthy), my daily gratitude tweets were inspired by Rosangel and begun to support her efforts.  I'd already had a gratitude practice for a number of years when I started tweeting - it's easy and it's transformative. You see what you look for - there's nothing mystical or whoo-hoo about this. Look for bad and you'll find plenty. Look for good and you'll find that, too. The more time you spend appreciating your blessings, the happier you'll be. It's really that simple. Got 5 mins? is Rosangel's brand-new blog (which probably means she doesn't yammer on and on like I do). On it is an invitation to join a community group on facebook, The Gratitude Movement. Whatever losses or challenges you're facing, let's face them together with gratitude.

Sprout Surprise

My goal each evening is to put food on the table that's healthy and delicious. But, I'm not a planner - no weekly meal-plans for me and as I shop I look for what looks good, fresh, and local as much as I look for what's on my list. 

So, when I'm cooking, I'll often start with just a hint of an idea and go from there. 

Last night's idea was brussel sprouts. I often oven roast them (350 degrees, whole or halved, with a bit of olive oil on them) and I enjoy adding some pine nuts for the last 5 minutes they're in the oven.

Last night, inspiration hit and I took this simple recipe a bit further. I started by roasting the sprouts and sliced carrots. When I judged the dish to be five minutes from done (just taste if you're not sure), I added shredded kale (yup, I continue on my quest to add kale to almost everything) and raw walnuts. 

So, there you have it - and almost no-effort dish that cooked in just over 1/2 hour. Everyone loved it. The next time I might add whole garlic cloves. 


BTW, Cruciferous vegetables, like brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower have been shown to have anti-cancer, anti-diabetes, and anti-microbial effects.

Power Smoothie

There are a million ways to make a smoothie. Some good, some bad. Here's my favorite:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. water
1 T chia seeds (soaked, if possible)
1 T flax seeds (ground - I use a coffee grinder dedicated to this)
1 1/2 T cod liver oil
1/2 - 1 banana (frozen or not)
1/3 cup frozen peach slices
1/3 cup frozen pitted cherries, or any kind of berry (frozen or not)
2 or 3 ice cubes
optional: kefir, kale

This drink starts my day with many phytonutrients from the fruit (and kale), lots of fiber (fruit and seeds) and a good dose of Omega 3 fats (chia seeds, flax seeds, cod liver oil). Kefir is a cultured milk products. I use coconut kefir. Cultured foods contain many enzymes and are great for digestion.

I don't worry too much about protein since like most Americans, I'm probably getting more of this nutrient than I actually need. Too much protein is hard on the body, especially the kidneys. Studies have shown that except for professional athletes, no one needs to supplement their protein. Even professional athletes only need about 10% more protein than the average person. Serious amateurs do not need supplemental protein. If I'm hungry before lunch, I grab a hard boiled egg mid-morning. I trust the proteins and nutrients in a whole egg more than in something processed (and once open, who knows how much the nutrients in those powders actually last).



The only part of this that takes any time at all is soaking the chia seeds. If I were organized, I'd put the chia seeds in a cup of water and refrigerate them overnight. I'm not, so if I have time I put the water and chia seeds into my blender about 15 minutes before I want my smoothie and add the rest of the ingredients when I'm ready to make it. If I don't have the time, I just plow ahead and add everything at once.



I love a bit of kale in my smoothie, but this is not for the faint-of-heart nor for those who haven't yet gotten over an aversion to green food. Kale is a mild green and breaks down pretty well in a blender, but I won't lie - add it to your smoothie and you'll know it's there both because of "green" taste and the added fiber. Romaine would probably be an even gentler entre into greening your smoothies. Why greens? To jump-start your day with the under-eaten, but exceptionally healthful, nutrients in them. Americans eat too much protein but too few greens.


What's your favorite smoothie?

Cheap & Nutritious Foods, and more

Most everyone I work with wants to know how to eat well without spending too much money. Here's a nice article that will help you do just that: 12 Super Cheap, Super Nutritious Foods You Should Be Eating

While I have your attention, here are a couple sites I love: 

Mark and Angel Hack Life - how-to, for life. The most recent post (as I write this) is "60 Ways to Make Life Simple Again". Are any of us not looking for that?

Derek Sivers describes himself as an entrepreneur, programmer, and student of life. I found his work last year, through a Best of Youtube video I was so impressed by it that I googled Derek, found his website and immediately read most of his blog posts. They impressed me so much that I sent Derek and email. To my surprise and delight, he wrote back to me (after checking my brand new website which was listed under my signature) and asked what he could do for me! Wow! I wanted nothing but to thank him for his work, example, and ideas. I recommend you check out his posts and book reviews. I especially recommend, "Why I gave my company to dharity", "Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy", and "No More Yes. It's Either HELL YEAH! or NO".  I could go on and on but I won't.

And, a story from the NY Times about transforming hate.

Flow

I'm just back from a place I haven't been to in a long time. Today, I was in the flow. According to Wikipedia, flow is "the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity." 

Flow is incredibly relaxing, yet energizing at the same time. It creates a feeling of joy. I'm feeling all these things right now.

Although getting into a state of flow is a bit unpredictable, it can happen during almost any activity. I've gotten there during running, playing music, writing, and making art. Today, although I had a list of things to do, I decided that I had a big enough block of time to start working on a task that I'd already procrastinated for a number of years. 


The task is making Kit's Bat Mitzvah book. Years ago, when Harry (now 18) was celebrating Bar Mitzvah (at age 13), I'd come across a great idea: make a scrapbook of photos and "words of wisdom" collected from friends and family. I loved the idea but not the execution of it: choosing photos, deciding on an order, etc. All those decisions, though trivial, created stress and so I didn't work on the book. Time passed. I decided to change the book to a going-away-to-college present and then more time passed and Harry left for school.


Kit's still here though so, the new goal is to finish Kit's book before she leaves in just...ten short months.


Okay, back to flow. Generally, to get there you need three things.

1. An activity with direction and structure. I had that - the goal, of course, is a lovely book to give Kit to both remind her of her younger self and of the friends and family that have been a part of her life - and to give her words of wisdom, and maybe a laugh or two as she peruses it. 
2. The task must also have a balance between the challenge and skills one brings to it. The challenge for me is making all those darn decisions along with letting go and relaxing into believing I can make something that Kit will love to look at and find meaningful. The skills I bring are that I know how to cut and paste, have a treasure trove of quotes both collected for her and that I've been collecting my whole life. And...way back when, I used to take words and turn them into art.
3. The task must have clear and immediate feedback. Unfortunately, I can be my own worst enemy and this is probably what keeps me from achieving this state more often. However, today, I started working and immediately liked the results I was getting. This, of course, spurred me on to work more.


To keep a long story from getting too much longer, I looked up four hours later to find that it was...four hours later! I'd stopped, thinking it was time for lunch - though I wasn't hungry - and found it was hours past my usual lunch time.


So, why am I telling you this? Because I'm convinced that being in this state is one of the absolute best things you can do for yourself. Although I don't have the research to back it up, I believe that letting go of stress this completely, getting to this kind of deep relaxation paired with flow's energizing abilities has got to do wonders for the body, too (just like meditation does). And, why else? Because this kind of joy is what life's all about! I like to ask my clients why they're interested in having good health - of course, for most people it's so they can do the things they love to do (or do things for and with the people they love).


Have you gotten in the flow? What activities get you there?  Please let us know!

Rustic Garlic-Smashed Purple Potatoes

I made this dish on Halloween eve (it seemed appropriate) and I wish I'd taken a photo of it! I've already bought a new batch of purple potatoes and have no intention of only cooking them as a novelty dish - they were delicious.

Purple potatoes are an heirloom variety. I'm glad these luscious beauties are finding a market - like many other heirloom food plants, their benefits far exceed more commonly marketed food. Sadly, we've gotten used to produce whose main attributes are their ability to withstand transport without bruising and long shelf life. In many cases we've given up taste, texture, nutrition, and ecological diversity (which ensures sustainability for a whole web of life).

If you remember back to my post "Colors" every plant food has different nutrients based on their colors. Purple and blue plants have anthocyanin, a flavonoid that has anti-cancer, heart-protective, and immune enhancing effects as well as being protective against age-related memory loss. The USDA Agriculture Research Service has found that darkly colored potatoes have more than four times the antioxidant potential as light potatoes.

This recipe fed four which shocked even me - I suspect it's really enough for eight if those people don't happen to be the people living in my house! I kept the skin on the potatoes for added texture, nutrients, and to keep this dish rustic.

Ingredients:
10 purple potatoes
1 head of garlic
coconut kefir (or milk/milk substitute of your choice) - 1/2 cup or more
butter (or olive oil) - 2 T or so
Celtic sea salt (or other good salt)
Black pepper

- Heat oven to 375 F. Pierce potatoes with a fork so the steam can escape as they cook. Cut the top of the garlic bulb so each clove is missing its tip, remove most of the paperlike skin (leave bulb intact). Wrap garlic in aluminum foil. Bake potatoes and garlic for about an hour or until the potatoes are tender.
- Open the garlic packet and allow garlic to cool enough for handling.  
- Smash the potatoes with a fork or potato masher. Squeeze the garlic on top, add butter, kefir, salt, and pepper to taste.


Enjoy!

Potato Pizza, Really? Really.

Home-made pizza has been a staple here for years and we moved beyond tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese many years ago. I've come to think of pizza dough as just another base for a meal, sort of our modern take on the early Medieval trencher - bread used as a plate (minus the staleness and lack of hygiene). I've heaped any number of ingredients on our pizzas but our favorite has sliced and roasted potato as the main ingredient.

It sounds awful, doesn't it? This recipe is inspired by a pizza my carb-junkie son Harry ordered at our favorite pizza restaurant, Baba Louie's (Great Barrington and Pittsfield, MA and Hudson, NY).  I skeptically took a bite that first time and was immediately won over - it was delicious.

However, I could neither just replicate their recipe (that would be stealing, right?) nor remember it exactly. And, I like to pile our pizza with vegetables, so a new recipe, inspired by Baba Louie's evolved.

One last thing before the how-to's: ironically, back in the day when I still thought popping frozen foods in the oven constituted cooking, I made my own dough. Now that I make almost everything from scratch, I buy pre-made dough. Go figure. If you want to make your own dough, I encourage you to do so and to google a recipe - there are plenty out there. I also encourage you to look for one using whole grain flours, whatever the flour of your choice. We use either Berkshire Mountain Bakery's spelt, or Sami's millet and flax crust. I can buy these locally - you might find other good pre-made brands closer to your home. I urge you though, if you use a pre-made crust to find something both healthful (think only a few ingredients that you recognize, and whole grains) and delicious.

Without further ado, the recipe:

1 pizza crust

1 (or more, much more!) potato, sliced into 1/8 inch slices

olive oil

Emeril's Southwest Essence or herbs/spices to your liking (oregano, basil, paprika, perhaps)

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 onion thinly sliced

1/3 cup pesto (other options would be garlic-infused olive oil or tomato sauce)

1 tomato, thinly sliced

options: red or orange peppers, steamed kale (or spinach), roasted or minced garlic, parmesan or other cheese (goat's cheese works great), thinly sliced chicken, or...whatever else your heart desires.

- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

- After slicing the vegetables, I like to lay them on tea towels to dry - I find they roast better - they don't get soggy. However, this step is optional.

- Lightly coat the potato slices with olive oil. I find clean hands are the best tool for doing this. Season them with spices and lay them out on a baking dish. You can overlap them, but don't pile them too high or they won't cook well. Bake for 30 minutes or so until they're golden brown.

- Lightly oil the zucchini and onion and bake on a separate baking tray until soft - 20 minutes should do it.

- Once done, I usually let the vegetable sit for a bit so they're easier to handle, but this is optional. However, if I'm not building my pizza right away, I make sure to make extra potatoes as I find that if they're sitting around, too many people wander in and out of the kitchen taking "just one" and then there aren't enough left for the pizza. The last time I made pizza, I used six potatoes and I actually had enough left to use in a different dish the next day.

- Coat the pizza shell with pesto (or olive oil or tomato sauce)

- Layer on the potatoes, then the other vegetables, etc.

- Bake for 9 or 10 minutes until the crust is crunchy.

What do you think? You no longer have to sign in to comment, and I'd love to hear your reaction!

My Fave Soup - Yellow Split Pea and Yam

The leaves are lovely and are falling as the wind and rain knocks into them. As the weather changes so do the foods I crave. Cool summer salads and smoothies are far from my mind these days. Hearty soups and stews are what my body wants now.

Yellow Split Pea and Yam has been my favorite cold weather soup for many years. So much so that I've actually cooked it often enough to cause my family to get tired of eating it and I took all of last year off from making it. But, it's back in my repertoire this year and here's the recipe:

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 large onion, diced

4 medium carrots, sliced (about 2 cups)

8 cups water or vegetable broth

2 1/2 cups yellow split peas (about a pound), rinsed and picked over

2 yams (peeled and cut into chumks)

1 large red pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

In a stock pot, saute the onion and carrots in olive oil until the onion is translucent. Add the water or broth, yellow split peas, yams, and red pepper and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium, cover and simmer for 2 to 2/12 hours (until the peas are tender). Discard the bay leaf. Using a wooden spoon or hand blender, mash the vegetables lightly (I keep some chunks). Add garlic, salt, and pepper.

I served this last night with gluten-free biscuits, kale, and a wedge of Ibores - a sharp raw goat's milk cheese. We also had our first grapefruit of the season. It was a lovely, filling and warming fall meal.

This soup freezes well, so make a lot and have extra for quick lunches and dinners. Enjoy!

Brave Girl Eating

Fortunately, I turned on the car radio at just the right time. Harriet Brown was on, talking about her new book, Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia and the family-based approach she and her family used to help her daughter. I was so taken by her talk that I drove to a bookstore the next day and purchased two copies of the book and read onein just a couple of days.

I cannot state this more strongly: if you live with an anorexic, or know an anorexic, or know someone who knows someone who struggles with anorexia or disordered eating, please, please, please get and read this book.

Brave Girl Eating is a memoir of Brown's family's experience, but it also incorporates research on anorexia, and the history of its treatment. And it discusses a rather new treatment -- the Maudsley approach. This is the method that Brown used to help her daughter.

The Maudsley approach,  a "family-based therapy, in which parents of adolescents with anorexia nervosa are enlisted to interrupt their children's disordered behaviors, is twice as effective as individual psychotherapy at producing full remission of the disease," (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-10/sumc-ftf093010.php)

Need I say more?

Chocolate...Need I Say More?

I've been eating "earthy and crunchy" since high school and I don't mind foods that have a "health food" taste. But when my kids started eating Ghirardelli 100% cacao unsweetened chocolate, even I thought they'd lost their minds. I love chocolate more than your average person but chocolate without any kind of sugar whatsoever was just...well, not chocolate. However, when they started dipping pieces of this chocolate into raw honey, I realized I might be living with two culinary geniuses. This stuff tastes wickedly good! And, it's a treat I can't find a problem with, health-wise.

For the record, dark chocolate contains flavanoids (nutrients), including antioxidants (which protect the body from aging). Dark chocolate can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol. It also balances certain hormones. The reason people feel good after eating chocolate is that it stimulates the production of endorphins (which leads to feelings of pleasure) and it has serotonin (an anti-depressant agent). Chocolate also has caffeine, theobromine, and other stimulants, which is why last week, when my daughter first introduced me to dark chocolate dipped in honey, and I went a little crazy eating piece after piece after dinner, I didn't sleep very well. No matter - it was worth it.

As for raw honey, it's a powerhouse of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes. It reputedly boosts digestion, and has antibacterial and antiviral properties. However, honey that's been pasteurized does not have these properties. We're a culture that's become skeptical of raw foods (except for raw fruits and vegetables). However, we've done our health and our digestion a huge disservice by not eating other raw and fermented foods. We should eat foods whose calories are dense with nutrition and raw honey is one such food.

On top of everything else, 100% cacao unsweetened chocolate is the quickest and easiest desert around. 0 minutes to prep. 0 minutes to cook. That's the kind of recipe I like!

Quick Update

Gah! Obviously, I haven't felt like writing lately. Frankly, since graduating last month, I haven't felt like doing much of anything other than totally indulging my whims and going through the piles of papers, etc. that accumulated in my house this past year. However, it's time to get back to business, so here's an update on some threads I left hanging.

I would have been thrilled to finish the 4-day cleanse I did last month, except for that by the time it ended I felt too drained and sick to feel much of anything. However, a couple of days later, I realized that my sugar cravings were gone and that I was more able to eat until sated and stop. The latter is gone and I'm back to enjoying my food past the point of fullness, but I'm still not craving sugar and am still eating less of it than before. The next time I try a cleanse, it will be a simpler one - I suspect the negative reaction I had to this one had something to do with the herbs involved.

Harry's doing wonderfully at college. Food is an issue but we're making headway. I'm trying to bring him food on an almost-weekly basis because there are days he just can't find anything to eat at the cafeteria. He now has a pot so that he can make gluten-free cereal for breakfast or warm up soup, pasta, etc. that I bring from home. He now also has his bike on campus, which makes it easier for him to get to town to buy healthy food either at a restaurant or the health food store. He was planning on going to the Farmer's Market in town yesterday. When home last weekend, he ate a casserole that had egg in it, and a slightly more sugary desert than usual - both with no ill effect. He's also eating oatmeal lately with no reaction. I hope this means that even though he's not eating an optimal diet at school, the months of careful eating allowed his gut to heal, at least somewhat, so he can now tolerate more foods.

Hank suggested I write a recap of my year and what's changed in my life and our household since I started and finishing my coursework at IIN. I'll save that for another day or this won't be brief at all. What would you like to read about?

Still Here

Yesterday was quite a roller coaster! If you missed that post, I'm doing a 4-day Aryuvedic cleanse. Check out that post if you'd like the details.

After a slow and sluggish start, midday was wonderful. The sun was shining and I went outside with a book to soak up the rays. Sitting outside gave me energy and I decided to hand-water the garden, meaning, I watered using the watering can. It's a decent workout and, I thought, definitely qualified as a replacement for the Yoga practice I was just too tired to do earlier. As I watered my tiny vegetable patch I saw that I had quite a bumper crop of grape tomatoes and was rather sad that they were ripe on a day I couldn't eat them - usually, there's so few each day that there's only enough for me to scarf down as I water. 

"What the heck?" I thought. "One tomato can't ruin the whole cleanse." So I ate one. It was magnificent! The best tomato I ever ate in my life. I knew better than to eat another - you can't top or even repeat perfection. And I knew, since it tasted so much better than all the other grape tomatoes I've eaten off that plant this summer, that my appreciating its taste was enhanced by my mono-diet of kicharee. However, I'll long remember that burst of flavor - and also the lesson that it's better to limit a treat and pay attention when having it and really enjoy it than to overeat or mindlessly eat and miss the experience.

Ironically, later in the day, we had a long downpour, so aside from the benefits to me, my watering was wasted effort. And along with the rain, dark clouds engulfed me as well. I didn't eat enough during the day and found myself hungry by evening. I was out of kicharee and too tired to cook a new batch.  Reading over the directions for the cleanse I saw that I'm allowed four meals a day - I'd thought it was only three. Frankly, I'm not sure I can stomach the idea of kicharee four times a day so I'll probably try eating more at each meal today instead and see how that goes.

I had more energy yesterday. Ironically though, I got less done. This was probably due to my time outside and this is fine. The best way to do a cleanse is to focus on yourself. I also think that being outside, in the sun and nature, is always healing and definitely relaxing so it was a doubly good thing to do.

I am now cooking another batch of kicharee. I've doubled the herbs this time and hope that makes it more palatable. I also hope that this will be the last batch I'll need to cook. I'm looking forward to some "real" food on Sunday. 

Tomorrow, we're off to see Harry run at Bard College. That will be a challenge! I would have liked to go into Rhinebeck for a lovely lunch after his race, but because of the cleanse, we'll be heading back home. Today, I'm baking a batch of "Brownies for the Brave" (http://madlyhealthy.blogspot.com/2010/08/brownies-for-brave.html) for him - I'm sure they'll be quite tempting, even without sugar!

And Now For Something Different

I am on Day 2 of a four day cleanse. It's my first cleanse. The purpose of cleanses is pretty much what it sounds like - to clean your body. 

The cleanse I'm doing is designed to be a lymphatic system cleanse, which will, theoretically, remove the toxins from my body. This is be a good thing as no matter how carefully we eat and how carefully we dress, clean our homes, etc. we live in a world where toxins are unavoidable. Even if I chose to go "off the grid" and live in the wilderness, our polluted air and water circulates everywhere. That this happens is the best reason I know to be environmentally conscious: what we do affects everyone and everything.

Although this can be discouraging to think about, I strive to be pragmatic. It is what it is and given this is the world we're living in, I like to focus on what I can do to stay healthy and reduce the negative footprint I invariably leave on the world. 

But, back to the cleanse. The cleanse I'm doing is Aryuvedic - it's based on ancient Indian practices. I'm following guidelines established by Dr. John Douilliard, and Aryuvedic practitioner who is so good at what he does, he even explains the very complicated Aryuvedic principles simply and logically. 

This cleanse involves starting my day with a drink of melted ghee (clarified butter) - fortunately, not a cupful, but an increasing amount of teaspoons each day. All I'm eating is kicharee - an Indian dish made with white basmati rice, split moong beans, and a variety of herbs. I sip hot water all day long. To round out the cleanse, I'm to do Pranayama each day (controlled breath exercises), meditation, light exercise. I'm also supposed to have an Epsom salt bath each evening, followed by a self-massage. To cap off the cleanse, at the end of Day 4, I will drink a cup and a half of prune juice. Or I can drink some castor oil. I'm planning on the prune juice as I'm thinking that after four days of kicharee and ghee, the prune juice will taste like the best thing I've ever eaten. I think the castor oil would just feel like punishment. 
I'm also taking a variety of Indian herbs.  If you'd like more details on either Dr. Douilliard, Aryuveda, or the cleanse, you can find it all here: www.lifespa.com (to get to the information on the cleanse, type "home cleanse" in the search box at the site).

So far, all I can report is that I feel cranky. Very, very cranky and I hereby apologize to my family (and anyone foolish enough to call me by phone this week) for subjecting myself to them. Perhaps this will change - after all, what I didn't mention and goes without saying is that coffee is not a part of the cleanse. I generally have a 12 ounce cup each morning. I now realize that without coffee my interest in doing anything whatsoever is nil. This morning, Pranayama, which requires me to sit for eight minutes breathing in and out of my left nostril seemed like just too much work. Ditto for Yoga. Ditto for the bath, self-massage, and meditation last night. So much work! So much effort! Just the thought of doing any of those activities made me cranky, so I did the best thing possible for myself and my family - I went to sleep at 8:30. I slept great for a solid ten hours and could have slept longer if not for the pesky alarm clock.

So there you have it. I'll try reporting again tomorrow, assuming I'm not in too foul a mood, and too logy to do so!

Just in Time for the First Day of School: My Summer Vacation

I'm back from the most impromptu vacation of my life! I realized a week ago Friday that I was exhausted. It's not surprising - it's been quite a year. Just after I finished the course I've been taking at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition over the past year, I felt like a balloon that all the air was let out of. With school, starting my own business, packing my son off to college, the death of my father, and all the usuals in my life, it was a year that Zorba the Greek would have referred to as "the full catastrophe" - not that he'd have meant it as a disaster - just that it is life on it's own terms - with highs and lows, a full life. 


But everything has its opposite. And a full life needs quiet time, too. Since I had neither the opportunity nor the desire to actually go anywhere, I vacationed another way. I stopped checking email (ironically, I tried setting up an out-of-office message and succeeded only in swamping my own in-box!). I stopped surfing the web (also ironically, after posting on facebook that I was taking a break from using the computer, I had a couple of replies before I even had the chance to log off!). I stopped reading the newspaper.


So much of my work is done on computer and usually it's fine - even wonderful. My school has a very active message board where students share information, work together, form friendships even. The computer has allowed me to get back in touch with friends from my past and my life is richer having them back in it. And, having a son just off to college, how would I know he's okay without checking to see that he's posted something...anything...on facebook?


However, sitting in front of an electronic screen too much is not the stuff a healthy life is made of. And it's exhausting. Here's an interesting article about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

As for the newspaper, all that bad news is exhausting, too. My reading the news daily isn't going to make it better. My taking a week or two off from from it isn't going to make any of it worse. 

So, that's what I didn't do. But what did I do on vacation? I renewed my meditation practice had fallen by the wayside this year (another irony - that as I worked to center my work life around teaching people healthy living I dropped one of the healthiest practices I had). To jump-start my practice, I joined the Chopra Center 21 Day Meditation Challenge. If you'd like to try meditation (or renew your practice), I highly recommend this. It's free and it takes just twelve minutes a day. Each day you'll get a different lesson or approach to meditation. By the end of the challenge, you'll have a habit of meditation established and that's the only thing about meditation that's crucial - to do it consistently. To start, go here: http://www.chopra.com/meditationchallenge


I also renewed my Yoga practice (yes, more irony that in my pursuit of learning to be a health coach, I'd also dropped this). Each day I did a short Yoga routine using any one of a number of Yoga dvds I own. My favorites are by Rodney Yee. Find information about him and his products here: http://www.yeeyoga.com/

My dog's benefitted from my vacation, too,  as he's gotten more and longer walks. However, I'm not giving you the link to his website. 


Now that I've had my vacation, I'm more relaxed and happier and that's always a healthier way to be.


How do you renew your energy when you're running on empty?

What Do You Think?

Let's try an experiment... I say, "It's important to your health to buy organic food." 

You say....

Was it, "But it's so expensive?"

If you did, you're not alone. Practically everyone I talk to says this.  I've been wondering why.


If you think about it, it's not necessarily that much more money. I buy organic, free range eggs from a friend for $3.00 a dozen. Even if I didn't buy from her, I could buy similar eggs from my local food coop for $3.25 a dozen. Eggs from my local supermarket are $1.19 a dozen, which you could see as 1/3 of the price or you could see it as a 33 cent difference for the cost of a two egg omlette. The former makes it seem like a big deal, the latter not so much so.


Perhaps it's unfair of me to pick eggs this week when 1/2 billion supermarket eggs have been recalled. (I'm sorry, I suppose that was a low blow.)


Let's talk meat. I'm sure the meat I buy is way, way more expensive than what you're buying if you're not buying organic, grass-fed, free-range beef ($9.99 a pound for mine). I admit it, this would significantly raise my grocery bill if I cooked beef very often. But I don't. I use it the way it was used in generations past and the way it's used in most of the world: as an occasional meal or as a condiment. I don't base a meal around meat anymore. It's just clearly a major culprit in our health-care woes. The beans and whole grains I use instead are much less expensive (even buying organic) so cutting down on meat both allows me to eat more healthfully and have money in my budget to buy higher priced (organic) beans.


I'm not here to lecture, however. I'd like to start a dialog.  I'd love to know why you think buying organic, local, or small-batch food isn't worth the price. 

My best guess is that food seems to be gone once it's eaten. It seems to have no lasting value. Buy a couch and you sit on it in your living room every night. Take a vacation to Morocco and you have photos and memories forever. Eat breakfast and you've forgotten what you had by lunchtime. We don't really about how the food we eat builds our body and becomes our cells so it's easy to lose sight of the fact that good quality food really does keep us healthier. Or, maybe we all just don't know this or believe it.


What do you think? Am I on to something here? What's your theory? I'd love to know!

Brownies for the Brave

Many of us think our taste preferences are set - that we like what we like, dislike what we dislike and have no control over it. However, this is only so if you make it so. If you are determined to keep your tastes static, they will be. But, if you keep an open mind, you'll find your taste preferences will change depending on what you eat.

Processed food has altered our tastes. Many foods have both salt and sugar in them. The reason for this is pretty devious. If you eat foods containing one flavor at a time (i.e., sweet, salty, bitter, pungent, etc.) you'll eat a certain amount and then feel sated (satisfied). However, combine tastes and this process gets overridden and you'll keep eating and eating and eating. Food processors know this and have added salt and sugar (the major flavors that Americans eat) to all sorts of food.

Don't believe me? Then go into your kitchen - right now - and start checking labels. Sugar in soup? Yup! Salt in breakfast cereal? Uh-huh. Keep going. You'll find both in just about everything.

Not only that - let's take a step back to what you already know - that processed food has more sodium and sugar than unprocessed foods have. What? You didn't know? Oh, sorry, I assumed you did. They do, and more than they used to. Did you know that McDonald's and Kellogg's both process food for sale in England with much less sodium than the food they sell in the U.S.? (The reason, if you're wondering, is there are laws in England limiting how much sodium can be in processed food - no such laws exist yet in the U.S.)

All this sodium and sugar gets your taste buds used to foods made with a lot of sodium and sugar. So foods with less or none added at all taste bland - at first. But if you cut down or cut out the amount of sodium and sugar you use, you'll get used to it. And then, something truly interesting happens: you start to taste the flavor of the foods themselves. And they start to taste good!

I stopped adding table salt to my cooking years ago. We've all gotten to the point where food made with added salt tastes....salty. Not good salty, just salty.

Harry, my much-written-about-in-this-blog son, was a huge, and I mean huge sugar-junkie for years. This spring he finally agreed to let me rework his diet. I took out all added sugar. I even took dried fruit out of his diet. An interesting thing happened: he started eating fruit, willingly. Yesterday, a few months after his diet change, on our way to his first day of college, as I was doing my nervous mother routine of telling him everything I thought he needed to know to survive the next ten months without me (as if there are no cell phones in this strange new world he moved to), I begged him to take a piece of fruit out of the dining hall with him after each meal (this is allowed and encouraged by the school so the students have a healthy snack option between meals). "I plan on it, Mom, " Harry told me. "I love fruit." "What?" I said, almost crashing the car in shock. "Yes," he said, "I love the taste of fruit." Removing the added sugar from his diet achieved what I'd long given up on - that Harry would ever actually enjoy eating a piece of fruit. Without the added sugars, Harry can now taste and enjoy the natural sweetness of fruit.

Why take added sugar out of your diet? Not only because it can lead to weight gain but also because it fills you up with empty calories -- so instead of eating nutritious food, you're eating....nothing that's going to keep you healthy and energized. Also, sugar consumption speeds the aging process of your cells and organs. You don't have to give up all added sugars to reap benefits and taste more subtle flavors; just cutting down will help.

So, if you're ready for a challenge, I offer this recipe by my at-home personal healthy chef in residence: my dear, delightful, darling, and uber-talented daughter, Kit Collins. To be quite honest, my first reaction was, "Huh, where's the sweetness?" But, then I found myself being drawn back for another bite, and another, and another. They're really chocolaty, and chocolate without all the sugar is an antioxidant-rich treat. I know Harry would have loved these. He's missing out - that's what he gets for leaving for college!

Brownies for the Brave

Minimally sweet, these cakey brownies have a dense toothsomeness and delicious dark-chocolate flavor. 

10 pitted dates

Dash of water

1 1/2 c spelt flour

1 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 Tbs ground flax seeds

1 egg

1/2 c coconut oil, more for the pan

1 c applesauce

3/4 c rice milk

In a food processor, whirl dates with water until they reach a malleable, paste-y consistency. Combine flour, cocoa powder, and flax seeds in a medium bowl. Mix in egg, coconut oil, applesauce, rice milk, and date paste. Dough should be thick; mix with hands if needed. Place in 8"x8" glass baking pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let sit until cool to the touch; they won't crumble if you cut them before they're completely cooled. That's because they're delectably dense!  If you're not going to eat these up in a day (and I advice you don't!), store them in the fridge.

Colors!

A fun and easy way to eat healthfully is to choose foods by color and eat a rainbow everyday. Each color in plant food corresponds to different phytonutrients (the nutrients in plants). Phytonutrients are micronutrients (we need them in small amounts) that pack a big punch: we need them to maintain health and avoid disease. Most Americans are overnourished in macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) while being undernourished in micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients). That's why we look like we're getting enough nutrition yet the incidence of chronic, preventable disease is going up.

Here's what some of what the different colors contain:
Red: Lycopene - an antioxidant that is being shown to be protective against certain cancers.
Orange: Beta-carotene - this converts in the body to Vitamin A which as we all know is important for eye health.
Yellow: Carotenoids and Lutein - good for the eyes and also helps prevent certain cancers.
Green: Lutein and Zeaxanthin - antioxidants which are important to eyes, bones, and teeth; also protect against cancers.
Blue and Purple: Anthocyanins and Phenolics - these flavonoids are good for the brain, memory, and cardiovascular health.
White: Allicin and Selenium: good for the heart and are anti-cancer agents. And, just to be clear here, we're not talking white bread, pasta, or sugar. We're talking cauliflower, garlic, mushrooms, and potatoes (also bananas and brown pears, but that'll just confuse things).


Do you need to know all of the above information? Nah, I just thought the post needed some details. Actually, it's more complicated than what I wrote - many plant foods contain many phytonutrients and since the field of nutrition is a relatively new science, with phytonutrients having been discovered quite recently, there are surely many that haven't even been isolated yet - which is a very good reason for eating whole foods - since we still don't know all the nutrients in food, it's hubris to think that when we extract out parts we know we're not leaving a crucial part behind - or a part that works synergistically with the rest! 

All you really need to remember is to try to eat a wide variety of colors every day. A great way to find them is to shop at your local farmer's market. 

So, what's for dinner tonight? Here it's the purple potatoes (shown above), roasted in a light olive oil drizzle with carrots, sweet onion, garlic, and kale (thrown on in the last few minutes). I have a pot of black-eyed peas boiling to mix in as well. So, the colors on our plates tonight will be purple, orange, green, and white. I'll slice the tomatoes shown above as well, so add red and yellow and we get to eat a rainbow!

Beets

My daughter Kit had a hankering for beets which worked out well since they're in season. If you hate beets (as I thought I did), perhaps you've never tried them fresh. I grew up on canned beets and, as far I was concerned, they had no redeeming quality. Fresh beets, and I mean really fresh beets, are a whole other story. Buy them from a farmstand or farmer's market and cook them the same day, if at all possible.

The three best things about beets are:
1. The color: when else do you get to play with ruby red if you're not an artist?
2. You can cook the tops and bottoms. When my kids were little, we were fond of a picture book called Tops & Bottoms (Caldecott Honor Book) by Janet Stevens. In it, a crafty rabbit tricks his bear partner out of the best part of their harvest - taking the tops of leafy vegetables and the bottoms of root vegetables. With beets, no matter what trickster you run into, you'll still have a meal: you can eat the beet root (the beets) and the greens as well. Simple recipes for both are further down the post.
3. By the time I'm finished cooking, both my kitchen counter and my hands look like I've just committed a murder. Even so, clean-up's not nearly as scary as it looks like it'll be the first time you cook them.


As with any other deeply colored vegetable, beets are loaded with nutrients.

And, now, for the fun part - How To!

Boiled Beets:
I usually buy two bunches of beets because they're good cold so two bunches means we have enough for a few days (why go through the process if I'm only going to have one meal's worth?).  Cut off the greens about a 1/2 inch from the beet root and put aside. Keep the "tail" of the root attached. Wash the beets and put in a large pot of water (the water should cover the beets). Boil, covered, for 30 minutes or more until you can pierce them with a fork (I often boil them for an hour). Once cooked, put the beets in cold water to cool them off. When cool enough to handle, cut off the remaining stalk and "tail". The skin will slide off in your hands. Slice beets. That's it! You can get fancier if you like, but then you're on your own. I enjoy my veggies with their natural taste so I tend to leave them alone. However, for a change of pace, here's a recipe for:

Spicy Beet Greens:
Double or triple rinse the greens from your beets. Boil them in water for 2 minutes. Submerge them in cold water to stop the cooking process and then strain and squeeze out the liquid from them. Slice two garlic cloves and add them to 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan (or, if you're lazy like me, the pot you boiled the greens in). Also throw in 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Heat the garlic, pepper and oil for a minute, then sautee the greens in them for 3 minutes and you're done. If you have a lemon lying around, you can squeeze some lemon juice on them, too. Again, serve hot or cold.

Beet tops and bottoms. Add a whole grain and you've got dinner!

Salud!

Beyond Jello and Ice Cream

My kids are now down eight wisdom teeth. This happened the day after we returned from three days of freshman orientation, which were three days where Harry scrambled to eat well even though we'd forgotten to speak to the school's dietitian before arriving on campus. He came home anxious to start eating a better diet, and then we were left with first a liquid diet and then a soft foods diet. The oral surgeon mentioned jello and ice-cream. I'd have to turn in my business cards if I went that route! Aside from that when your body needs to heal, you need good nutrition, not empty calories To his credit, the doctor also mentioned soup - but most of us eat prepared soups, loaded with salt and flavor, but not loaded with nutrition.

So, what's a health coach and mom of a kid with multiple food allergies to do? Especially one who's active and needs a lot of calories to keep him going? Fortunately, my creativity was sparked by the challenge.

The night before the extractions I made vegetable soup. Veggies are packed with phytonutrients. Most Americans are overnourished when it comes to macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats) but undernourished when it comes to micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, antioxidents). Phytonutrients are the micronutrients that come from plants. I'd also laid in a supply of fruit. So far, so good, but I knew I'd need more.


Right after the extractions, the kids needed food, but their stomaches weren't ready for much. Clear vegetable broth did the trick. Later in the day, the soup with pureed vegetables added more fiber and was more filling. Still later, when they needed more calories, I pureed a can of Great Northern beans into the soup.


Smoothies were also in order and again I stepped them up. My usual smoothie recipe goes like this: 1 T chia seeds in 1 cup water (soaked for 15 minutes so the seeds gel - you want to do this step so the seeds aren't absorbing water while inside you) Chia seeds have a lot of ALA, a form of Omega 3's. Then I add 1 T of cod liver oil (for EPA and DHA, two other forms of Omega 3's, not present in plant sources). Omega 3's are essential fatty acids, meaning you have to eat them, your body has no way of making it (contrast that with Vitamin D which if you get enough sunlight, your body produces on it's own). Research is showing that most of the diseases in our country (heart disease, diabetes, cancer) are due to inflammation, Omega 3's are anti-inflammatory. Ok, back to the smoothie, I then add a T of either psyllium husk or freshly ground flax seeds (for fiber and flax has Omega 3's), a banana and either berries (which are a low sugar fruit) or cherries. I whip it all up in a blender. However, to fill Harry's stomach, I added almond butter. You could also add peanut butter. Some people even add avocado. I've been known to throw greens in my smoothies, but know that Harry prefers I not (I've been told that you won't even taste spinach in a smoothie, but haven't tried it yet).

I cranked out my juicer (Breville compact - an excellent, reasonably priced machine) and made carrot, kale, cucumber, celery, and green apple juice. 

By request, I made fresh apple sauce. This is the easiest thing in the world to make and is so much better than store bought. Peel and core as many apples as you like. Munch on peels as you go. Put cut up apples in a pot with 1/4 cup water. Cover and cook on medium low until the apples are soft and can be mashed with a fork. Depending on the type of apple the cooking time will vary. I use Macs and it's usually ready in 20 minutes. You can also add some cinnamon if you like. Added sugar of any type is totally unnecessary. Served warm it's the ultimate comfort food!


The next day, I made another soup, using different vegetables and lentils. But, by then, both kids were ready for soft food. They discovered that noodles and seaweed salad could be eaten without chewing - go figure! And now, much sooner than expected, they're back to eating almost anything they like (nothing really hard or cruncy yet) and I didn't even get to make chicken soup from the organic, ethically raised chicken I bought for the occasion!


I have nothing to prove it but I think it only makes sense that eating fresh, whole food, packed with nutrients, helped my kids heal so quickly. We tend to  discount or overlook the power of food, but really, you are what you eat - eat well and you're body will serve you well.

Sprouted Green Lentil and Wild Rice Pilaf

Sprouting lentils activates the enzymes in the seed which increases the bio-availability of the micro nutrients. In English, this means your body absorbs more of the nutrients when lentils are sprouted. With or without sprouting, lentils are a powerhouse of nutrition and an excellent way to get protein. I used truRoots brand dehydrated sprouted lentils. If you can't find sprouted lentils (and don't want to sprout your own), this recipe would work just as well with green lentils.

Hank, my hubby and main taste-tester declared this one of my all-time best vegetarian dishes, which was quite a compliment since I cook a lot of vegetarian food and he likes my cooking.

1 package (1 3/4 C) truRoots sprouted green lentils
3 C vegetable broth and 2 cups water
1 C wild rice
3 cups assorted vegetables (I used two kinds of yellow summer squash, carrots, onions)
oregano, basil, parsely
1 bunch of kale
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste.

Although the package said to boil the lentils (I boiled them in the broth/water mixture) for 5 mintues and then have them stand covered for another two, I found them still too crunchy for my taste at that point and boiled them for another 10 minutes or so. Wild rice cooks like brown rice: boil in almost 2 C water for 40 minutes. While the lentils and rice are cooking, chunk the vegetables (except the kale), coat with olive oil, sprinkle generously with herbs, and roast until just browning (about 40 minutes). Then I mixed the kale, torn into bite-sized pieces, into the rest of the veggies, and continued the roasting for about 5 minutes (until wilted the kale was wilted).
When the lentils and rice were cooked, I drained the extra liquid from them, mixed them together and stirred in olive oil. Then I mixed in the vegetables. Lastly, salt and pepper to taste (we didn't even bother).

If you try this, please let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Beat-the-Heat Gazpacho

In honor of the heat wave, I offer this cool red gazpacho. I promise, the effort required to make it, will not cause you to break a sweat. It's quick and easy to make and packed with phytonutrients.

1 small onion
1 t. cilantro (or 1/3 cup fresh - divided, use half for garnish
1 clove garlic
1 lb. tomatoes, cores and stems removed
1 peeled cucumber
1 red bell pepper (green or orange if that's what you have)
2 T. lime juice (lemon if you don't have lime)
1/4 t Tabasco sauce
1/2 t. iodized sea salt (or whatever salt you have)
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
1/2 jalapeno pepper (optional)
1 avocado, peeled and diced (but make the recipe anyway, even if you don't have one on hand)

Place onion, garlic and cilantro in food processor and run until garlic is finely minced. Add remaining ingredients (except avocado) and process until smooth. Taste and adjust spices as needed. Refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour. The avocado and remaining fresh cilantro can be used as a garnish.

Stay cool and enjoy!

There are greater lessons from food to be learned from food. It's been said that the way you do anything is the way you do everything. That said, I'm very proud of Harry today.

Harry spent the past week in a combination of celebration over his high school graduation and the start of his first (full-time) job. With it came days of eating the foods he's allergic or sensitive to for the following reasons:

- Celebrating: "I deserve this even though it makes me feel sick."
- Hunger: "I know this is going to make me feel sick, but I want it and I'm too hungry to resist it."
- Lack of choices: "Whoops, here I am at work, having not bothered to pack food and it's either go hungry or eat something that makes me feel sick."
- Habit: "Now that I've eaten poorly all week, I'm back on automatic, eating foods that make me feel badly."

However, Harry and I went to the chiropractor yesterday and when he asked Harry who's responsibility it was to eat well so that he'd feel well, Harry took full responsibility. It made my heart proud because if there's anything a mother wants it's for her kids to grow up and take responsibility for their actions.

And, because as any health coach who specializes in nutrition will tell you, the one thing we agonize over is watching people repeatedly eat food that's bad for them. And the vast majority of us (myself included) keep eating food that's bad for us over and over, no matter how much we know it's bad for us or even how rotten it makes us feel.

Even before getting to the chiro's office Harry knew it was time to get back on track. We were already talking strategies because with his new schedule, we need a new plan. The same goes for the rest of us: if your life changes, your plan will need to change, too.

Here's our top five strategies for helping Harry eat right this summer:

1. Eat before going out. This is probably the number one suggestion made in every women's magazine before the winter holidays set in. If you eat before leaving home, you won't be hungry when you're out and therefore, although you may have to deal with temptation to eat something you shouldn't, temptation alone is better than temptation coupled with hunger (which Harry, like most people, finds impossible to resist).
2. Party food especially is tempting. Food cravings are real. Acknowledging them, but when they hit, and remind yourself of how poorly the foods you're avoiding make you feel (or how overeating makes you feel poorly, gain weight, whatever).
3. Bring a healthy dish or a dish you can eat to share.
4. Pack your own. Harry's allergic to wheat, so packing his own bread means he can make a sandwich if that's what's being served. He's packing his own lunch and dinner before he goes to work. My husband who's also allergic to wheat sometimes brings his own crackers to restaurants so he has something to enjoy when the bread basket is placed on the table.
5. Speak up. At a few parties, the burgers and hot dogs were handed out already on buns. It's a small thing to ask to get the meat without the bread and this kind of small favor does not impose on your hosts.

As a Chinese proverb says, "Fall down seven times, get up eight", Harry may keep slipping up and eating what he shouldn't from time to time. Which is fine. As long as he keeps getting up again and getting back on his diet. He now recognizes the effect food has on his body and that his health is in his hands. Which is why I'm a proud, proud mom.

Do you have other ways to eat healthfully when you're out?

Housekeeping

I've let this blog languish for a couple of months now. I've missed it but it often seemed like a luxury to take the time to write for it. And it's sometimes overwhelming to think of a topic - not because there's nothing to write about but because in the field of health, there's too many topics to choose from!

However, the difference between aspiring writers and writers is writing. Since I'd like to move from being the former to being the latter, I have to write. This blog is as good a place as any to do that. Since my time, thoughts, and writing have lately been focused to a large extent on my older son, Harry, I'm going to continue to use him as a focus for this blog, at least for now.

If you're new to the blog, what makes Harry's story interesting is his background (see the previous post for that - "A Small Quiet Voice and How it Helped My Small Quiet Boy"), his recent food allergy/intolerance diagnosis along with his recent determination to take charge of his diet and health, and the fact that he'll soon be leaving for his first year of college.

As we all know, it's difficult to eat healthfully in our society: we're surrounded by unhealthy foods and a plethora of conflicting, confusing, and sometimes completely inaccurate nutritional advice. It's even harder for those who have specific dietary needs. And imagine being a teen who's sensitive to wheat, dairy, eggs, and sugar and is starting a summer full of graduation parties and work in a summer camp kitchen! I think I'll have material to write about.

I may also delve more into Harry's past as I hope to write a book about him and this is as good place for me to work on that. Those of us who are fortunate enough to be parents always learn from our kids, but because of the challenges Harry faced, especially as a small child, I've learned more and different lessons from him than I imagined - especially how far sheer determination can take you and how to be open-minded and kind in all situations (well, almost all situations - Harry's human after all and has a younger brother).

So, a request for help. If you read the blog and are inspired, moved, or have a critique of it, please let me know. Comments are lovely - it's encouraging for me to know that readers are out there. Comments can sometimes they can take a blog in a whole, new direction that's of more interest to the readers. If you'd like to comment, you'll need a google account. Of course, if you know me, and wish to keep emailing your comments, it's fine, too. You can also subscribe to the blog by clicking on the "subcribe to our posts" banner. That way, you'll be notified whenever I post.

Thanks and I hope you'll share and enjoy this journey with me.