Keenwah

Keenwah - is actually spelled quinoa. However, I know from experience that if I wrote that, some of you would be reading it as kwin-oh-ah, and who could blame you for that! Quinoa is my favorite grain. Why don't more people eat it? Maybe because most of us don't yet know how to pronounce it - who wants to eat stuff you can't even ask for in the supermarket? Hmm, actually most of the stuff in the foods we eat are things we can't pronounce, but I won't go into that now. That's for another post. Also, unless your local supermarket has a health or natural food section, you may even have to shop somewhere else to find some. Believe me, it's worth the trip.

I mostly love quinoa because it tastes good, it's easily digested so I feel good when I eat it, and it's quick and easy to cook. Quinoa is the most nutritious and quickest cooking of all the grains. It is a complete protein, has a protein content that equals milk, is high in B vitamins, calcium, iron, potassium, zinc, and vitamin E.

Quinoa is as easy to cook as rice. You should rinse it before cooking (as you should rice) by putting it in a fine gauge strainer (anything fine enough that the small grains don't fall through) and run water over it. Then put quinoa and twice it's amount of water (so, 1 cup quinoa, 2 cups water) in a pot and boil. Lower heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and fluff with a fork. If there's any more water in the pot the quinoa will absorb it in a few minutes. Voila! Easy, huh?

Now the fun begins. Most people find grains boring all by themselves. I understand! I'm boring when left alone, too. I like to mix caramelized onions (or, plain old sauteed onions if you're not a foodie) and sauteed greens in my quinoa. You can also mix in some tomato paste - or even tomato sauce and throw in some garbanzo beans, raisins, walnuts, diced squash, the list goes on and on. Play with herbs - parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme if you're in a Simon and Garfunkel mood.

If you really want to get fancy, dry roast the quinoa in a saucepan before adding the liquid. You can cook it with broth instead of water. Whatever you do with rice, try it with quinoa - you can't go wrong!

We also get quinoa flakes which makes a nice hot breakfast cereal - cook them like quick oatmeal. I also add the flakes when I'm baking breakfast bars, it lightens the batter.

Quinoa's been grown on the high plains of the Andes Mountains for about 8,000 years. It's believed that it's the food that allowed the Incas to be the powerful, long distance runners they were. So, if you want endurance, or the next best thing to a trip to South America, give it a try - you'll be glad you did!

If you want a more specific recipe for quinoa, post a comment and I'll get you an exact recipe. Exact recipes are not how I cook but it can be done!

Live and Learn

The bathtub's purple. The shower curtain and bath mats are purple. Ditto the toilet seat cover and our hands. Fortunately, we got the kittens out of the way before they were purpled. And even more fortunately, Shay's face is no longer purple. Sadly, his hair, the one thing that was supposed to be dyed purple, isn't, or at least isn't much (compared to everything else that is).

Today's hopefully helpful hint: toothpaste removes hair dye from skin, at least sometimes.

What, you may ask, does any of this have to do with health? (Shay already asked me that when I asked him if he'd mind if I posted about this - and attached the photo.) Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But when we spent the hour making this mess and cleaning up this mess, laughing, I felt we were on to some good health mojo.

Which is really quite good considering how many really toxic chemicals have to be in this hair dye to make it adhere so amazingly to everything (except hair). I advocate for clean living: healthy food, Tom's toothpaste, organic wine - but I also believe in flexibility. I'd told Shay this would be a one-shot deal - he could dye his hair with a toxic product exactly once.

Fortunately, he agrees.

Radical Self-Care

The kiss of death in blogging: not posting regularly. To post or not to post, that is the question. This post idea had been rumbling around my brain for a week. But how could I post about self-care when so many in Haiti (as elsewhere) are struggling just to survive? To say the least, it seemed frivolous.

But, just as when you fly, the flight attendant states that if the oxygen masks drop down you should put yours on before helping another, that's what self-care is in our everyday lives. If we take care of ourselves, we have the energy (and compassion) to help others. There's a ripple effect with self-care - when you take care of yourself you feel better and can take better care of those around you, they in turn feel better and take better care of those they're around. On and on it goes.

If you need to, think of the opposite, when you're stretched and stressed, it's hard to summon the energy to take care of anyone else either and you're probably also going to be more short-tempered and less loving and you spread that ill-humor wherever you go. Whoever you meet risks being infected with your toxic mood and on and on that goes.

Many (including me) believe that the world's problems will never be solved until each of us make our own peace and that peace will ripple out to the people we come in contact with, ultimately helping us all.

Why is self-care radical? Because our culture makes it so difficult to do. We're outwardly focused - aside from small bits of time spent for ourselves, we're seen as selfish, really, if we put ourselves first. We believe in "doing" - self-care often means just "being". I've noticed an almost one-upmanship among people I know - we all want to be percieved as the busiest person around. Busy enough to not have time to nurture ourselves. We pride ourselves on being too busy to attend to anything beyond the basics of self-care. We also have many experts telling us how to do self-care (everything from beer commercials to women's magazines to name just two) that may or may not work for us. Most of us live on metaphorical treadmills and have no idea how to get off them.

It seems quite paradoxical, but I'm proposing that if you take the time to find what really makes you feel good and spend some time every day doing it, you'll have more energy for all the other things in your life and more love for all the other people in your life, too (whether you've actually met them, or they're someplace far away from you - like in Haiti).

So, what's self-care and why is it radical? Self-care is what nourishes you and you have to find those things that really work for you. I love being home, staying in my pajamas, knowing I don't have to start the car. That kind of day sends my husband up the wall. I feel totally refreshed after staring at a blank wall. He thrives on early morning walks with the dog and jumps at the chance to go for a drive - anywhere! He loves massages. Thinking about them makes me cringe. We're all different. Look for things that nurture you regardless of what anyone else enjoys.

However (isn't there always a however?), be open to examining if what you think is nurturing really is. We all get stuck in patterns. They may work, they may work for a time, they may just be a habit we never really thought through and maybe they never worked at all. Television watching (or surfing the web) may be like that: you think you're relaxing, but you're really just in a holding pattern. Ditto eating your way to the bottom of the Ben & Jerry's container: you may think you're giving yourself a treat by indulging in your favorite ice cream, but the logy feeling you get from it may not really be worth the momentary enjoyment of the taste. This was a biggie for me - it took me years to wise up to the fact that since every time I ate sugar after dinner I didn't sleep well at night, I really wasn't treating myself well (and therefore doing self-care) by eating desert.

Which leads me to this point, sometimes self-care is counter-intuitive. Not eating sugary foods is self-care for me because I feel better all day and sleep better all night when I enjoy them. So, although I grew up with the idea that eating sweets is a way to treat myself, I now remind myself of the fallout and know it isn't. Likewise, getting things done and checking off items on my to-do list makes me feel productive, but the time I spend each morning sitting in meditation actually gives me the focus and energy to get through more work the rest of the day.

Do you practice self-care? What works for you? What are the obstacles that keep you from nourishing yourself. Please share! Let your ideas add to the ripple effect.

Tonight's Dinner

I'd been in Florida (freezing, I might add) all weekend. I meant to go grocery shopping today, but it never happened. So, I was left this evening wondering just what I could make. Scanning my pantry shelves, I thought a rice pilaf would be nice. I offer you this (almost) recipe because it turned out quite well and every ingredient is a staple in our home. It's not quite a recipe because, first of all, I only measure grains when I cook - the rest just gets thrown in as I judge by eye or by taste. Secondly, I'd be embarrassed to tell you how much food I cooked. Suffice it to say that four of us polished off the dish I thought I made enough of to have ample leftovers, and that three cups of uncooked rice was the starting point. There, I said it.

I leave it for you to figure out the amount of rice you or your family will eat. Here's the ingredient list for what I'll call, "Can't Make Enough of it Rice Pilaf": brown rice, wild rice, onion, dino-kale (any green will do), walnuts, a chopped apple, olive oil (to saute the veggies and sprinkled over the rice after cooking), balsamic vinegar, parsley, thyme, sea salt, pepper. Cook the rice (both can be cooked together), saute the veggies, and then mix the whole thing together. I also roasted some delicata squash, my favorite new winter vegetable - beloved by me because it tastes so darn good and it needs no more coddling than to roast in a pan with either water or some olive oil and it's a sweet, healthy treat. Voila! That was dinner. Unfortunately, dinner only, just one small bit of squash left for tomorrow's lunch. ;(

Tonight's question: One of the ingredients from the pilaf is new on our list of staples. Which one?

See Ya Next Week

I'm off for the weekend. Going to get some Vitamin D in the form of Florida sunshine. Going to the land of no internet connection however (my mother's apartment). Getting some sunshine, especially in the winter is health-promoting. So is getting a break from sitting in front of a computer.

In my absence, I leave my new friend, Geronimo - perhaps he'll post in my place.

In health,

Madelyn

The Energy Recipe

Here's my confession for today: I am a reformed slug. I've spent most of my life watching other people rush around (as perceived by my slow-motion eyes) getting things done as I inched along wondering why I couldn't do the same. Waking up was a slow and painful process, I managed to get myself out of bed only by force of will. I was ready for bed right after dinner, the dinner that cooking often seemed like too much bother to do. I didn't have much more energy during the day, either.

My thoughts varied between, "There's something wrong with me," and, "This is just who I am." I vacillated between resigned acceptance and resigned annoyance, with brief periods of hope between the two. I also trekked to a variety of doctors, complaining of my lack of energy. Blood tests were run, over and over again. Nothing was found. I was tested for sleep apnea. Again, negative. This went on for a good part of my life.

Like Dorothy learning that she's had the power to go back to Kansas all along, I now know that I had the power to have more energy all along, too. It's only somewhat more difficult than tapping my heels together three times.

The Madly Healthy Six Ingredient Recipe for Boosting Energy:

1. Keep weight optimal. I wish this were the only ingredient. I was thin until my thirties but this wasn't enough. My weight was great but I lacked energy.

2. Exercise regularly. This is #2 in the 1-2 punch for me. When my weight is optimal and I'm exercising regularly, I feel great. I've noticed that like weight, there's an optimal amount - too little exercise and I'm sluggish, too much and I'm exhausted. Right now, 45 minutes on the treadmill, breaking a sweat at least part of the time is working for me. I do this most days a week. I do some Yoga as well.

3. Eat healthy food. Real food. Whole food. Freshly cooked.

4. Get enough sleep. For me this means pretty close to 8 hours a night. Everyone's different, but studies show that if you're getting much less than that on a regular basis, no matter how much you tell yourself you're getting enough sleep, you're probably not. No matter how much you want to do and no matter how early or how late you want to do it, you still need adequate sleep.

5. Limit caffeine (and sugar). This probably looks oxymoronic (or, if you're addicted to coffee enough, it might just look moronic). However, if coffee's your pick-me-up, try cutting it back. I cut mine back to 12 ounces in the morning. I'd like to cut it down further, but....ah, well, some things are just too hard to give up all at one. Same thing if sugar's what you pump yourself up with...it's only giving you a temporary boost and then you'll crash. More on this in later posts.

6. Drink water. Lots of water all day long. If you find it boring, try it hot (it's actually very refreshing that way) or with lemon juice or pieces of fruit cut into it for flavor. Juice is not water. Water is water.

That's it! Once I started this I transformed my energy level in just weeks. I don't mean to bore you, but I want to emphasize that: it took only weeks to change a lifetime pattern of feeling tired almost all the time to feeling.....madly healthy.....by just following those six guidelines. No drugs, no doctors, no fancy tests.

How's your energy? What works for you? What doesn't?

The Madly Healthy Story

Julia Child advised one to never apologize, but I must. It feels very self-centered to write about how I came to be sitting here. But I suppose if I'm going to offer myself as any sort of advice-giver, you deserve to know from whence I came.

My interest in health and nutrition started when I was in high school, in Flushing, NY in the late 70's. I read Adelle Davis and Carlton Fredericks ("Who?," you may ask. They were big names back in the day.) I still have a journal with notes I carefully took from my readings (daily nutrients and where to get them included one quart of dairy, obtained from whole milk products, 2T dessicated liver concentrates). Oddly enough, as I just opened my notebook from back then, on the first page is the recommended daily allowance for women. I see the ideal weight on the chart I copied is 128 pounds. Odd because that's my exact weight now (and, believe me, it hasn't always been that). I still have my first vegetarian cookbook, "Cookbook for the New Age: Earth Water Fire Air" by Barbara Friedlander. I haven't cooked out of it in decades - I'm too afraid it will fall apart if I do. Ditto for Nikki and David Goldbeck's "The Supermarket Handbook." It lives on a high shelf where no one is likely to find it and cause its aged pages to break from the binding. I love few things, but I love these books because they remind me of who I was, who I lost, and now that I've found myself again, who I am.

Why the interest in healthy food when I was at an age when most kids are drinking soda (yes, I did, too) and eating cookies by the box? I have no idea. Perhaps it was yet another way to rebel against my mother. Her idea of a great cold remedy was hot jello. This infuriated me when I got to the age (13) where her mere breath infuriated me (poor Mom, I was such a surly teenager). I remember my righteous indignation when I learned that sugar was not only not a health remedy but was detrimental. Mom's calm response was, "What? You liked it! It made you feel better." I can admit now that Mom was right, I did like it and it did make me feel better (and the reason for this will probably come out in later posts).

Fast forward from high school about fifteen years. After I married and started a family, I found myself living with four food allergic people - my husband and three kids. Four people + four different sets of allergies = one wife and mother who shopped for and cooked a dizzying array of dishes each day. No wonder there are parts of my past that are a bit fuzzy.

Time kept marching on, I kept shopping, cooking, and miraculously and wonderfully the kids became able to eat anything and everything. My husband can now eat most of the foods he previously couldn't (which was a list so long that friends who'd invite us over for dinner would just throw their hands in the air as I went through it and beg me to just tell them what they could cook, not what they couldn't. It was a much shorter list indeed. Through it all, unbelievably perhaps, I still love to cook (although, admittedly, not every day) and as I looked for "what I'd be when I grew up" I realized that through the years, there have always been books and magazines about health, food, and nutrition close at hand. I've watched eggs fall in and out and in of favor. I've read about carbs and fats being good and bad (as have you, no doubt), and even recently read an article extolling the virtues of whitish bread (which just goes to show you can't believe everything you read).

So now I'm studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. It's where I've always meant to end up. I never knew where I was going, exactly, but when I found IIN and read about their program, I knew that this was the nutrition program of my dreams. Their philosophy is mine to a "T". But, as I've vowed to myself that my posts would not drag on too long, and this one probably has, more on IIN in the future.

New Year's Gratitude

I haven't made any New Year's resolutions this year. I entered 2010 feeling like I'm already doing what I mean to do at this point in my life. Anything else I could work on will just have to wait. I know I'll get to it all in due time. Truth be told, I never stuck to my New Year's resolutions anyway (who does?). I do have a new project for the New Year, though. It's to post one tweet a day about something I'm grateful for (follow madlyhealthy at Twitter.com if you're interested).

"Hold your horses," you may be thinking. This is supposed to be a blog about health. What's gratitude got to do with that? Quite a lot, actually. Keeping it strictly physical, for now, research has shown that people who are grateful take better care of themselves, exercising more regularly, eating a healthier diet, and getting regular physical exams more than those who don't look at life with gratitude. Compared to control groups, those who cultivated gratitude got sick less often, had more energy, and slept better. Stress is responsible for up to 90% of doctor visits and, you guessed it, those who practice gratitude have a better handle on stress.

But what to do if you don't naturally appreciate what life has to offer? It's really quite easy to develop that appreciation. One method is to keep a gratitude journal - which simply means that at the end of the day you write down five (or so) things that you're grateful for. The challenge (and fun) is to find new things every day. If you don't like to write, just think them. What many people find is that they start looking for things to be grateful for as they go about their day so they know they'll have their five things by nighttime. I believe it's that shift in your outlook that makes a profound difference in your life. I've also found that once you attune yourself to this attitude, you stop having to look for things to be grateful for, they just pop into your awareness.

Another practice is to write 100 things your are grateful for. You can also take a walk, paying attention to what you see, hear, smell, and feel - you will usually notice some wonderful things to be grateful for, even if you started the walk in a terrible mood.

I've been practicing gratitude for a couple of years now. At this point, I often think of what I'm grateful for as I go about my day, but I also more formally make sure to do this upon awakening, during my meditation, and before going to sleep. Frankly, physical benefits aside, I'd much rather live this way, pointing myself toward contentment and wonder, than not bothering to notice my blessings.

At first, I signed on for the twitter project as a way to support a fellow Integrative Nutrition student (even though I've never met her!) and because I thought it would be an interesting experiment. I started last week and I already see that going public with one thing I am grateful for each day is more interesting than I thought it would be. It gets me even more focused on what I'm grateful for since I know other people will be reading it. And Twitter's 140 character limit forces me to boil it down to its essence.

So, how 'bout you? Where are you on the gratitude scale? Does it come easily to you or do you have to work to feel grateful for things? Do you believe that simply feeling grateful can positively affect your health? I'd love to hear your experiences and views!