Veg4Health

The Wonder of Chia Seeds

2011-03-30T16:58:00.000-04:00

Chia seeds are one of these foods that, if you talk about them with other people, you'll inevitably get a blank stare back at you. That's fine because that gives you the chance to tell people about what is thought to be one of the healthiest foods you can eat. The name chia comes from the Aztec word for 'oily', which is 'chian', and this explains well what one of the main benefits of chia is; it is very high in omega-3 acids, which are a type of unsaturated fats.

It's easy to get mixed up between omega-3 and omega-6; basically, omega-3 acids are the fats which are not so easy to come by. They're in fish oils, flax seeds, kiwi seeds, and chia seeds, amongst other things. Omega-6, on the other hand, is found almost everywhere you look: nuts, vegetable oils, avocadoes, etc. As important as omega-6 oils are to our health, the balance of omega-3 to omega-6 is equally important. As it is so easy to consume plenty of omega-6, it is very easy to end up with an unbalanced consumption of the two types of oils, which are also known as essential oils. When it comes to the amount of omega-3 oil in various seed oils, the chia seed has the highest content, just above kiwi seeds, perilla and flax.

Most health conscious people will be more familiar with linseeds than they will be with chia seeds. So, if you've ever put a spoon of linseed into some water and left it for thirty minutes, you would have returned to find a kind of glutinous solution, kind of like a gel. Well, the same thing happens with chia seeds, which is another reason that they are so good for you; they act the same way in your gut. This means that they are really good for your digestive system, providing both a high amount of fiber, and also this action of forming a gel like solution moves through your body and cleans up as it goes. It's also thought that this gel physically prevents the fast breaking down of carbohydrates in the body, by slowing down the action of the enzymes on the carbs.

The chia seed was once a staple food of the Aztecs, loved for its ability to sustain and to give endurance. Actually, you could live off chia almost entirely, because it has 19 amino acids, with all of the essential amino acids except taurine. It also has more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk (not that milk is any good for us anyway) and even more antioxidants than blueberries.

So, how do you consume it? Well, you can grind it up into a meal called 'pinole' and add it to just about anything. In Mexico, they mix the whole chia seeds with water or fruit juice to make something they call 'chia fresca' which translates as 'fresh chia'. You can also sprout them in much the same way as you sprout alfalfa seeds and use them in salads.

Reprinted from: www.naturalnews.com/025459_chia_seeds.html#ixzz1I706OZrC

Roasted Veggie Pasta Salad

2011-02-17T14:54:00.000-05:00

This recipe is a great recipe to play with and make your own favorite. We love to vary the vegetables, the pasta shapes and the dressings to make a different dish every time we prepare it.

Ingredients

3 bags (12 ounce) of Frozen Broccoli and/or Cauliflower Mix
2 T olive oil
Salt
2 tomatoes, diced
1/3 cup Kalamata Olives, chopped
8 ounces whole grain pasta
½ small purple onion, diced
Fat free salad dressing of your choice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Place vegetables in large bowl. Toss with olive oil until oil is well distributed.
Spread out coated vegetables on a large baking sheet. (For easy clean up, cover the sheet with aluminum foil first.) Sprinkle lightly with salt.
Place vegetables in oven and roast for approximately 15 – 20 minutes. You want the vegetables to become tender and slightly browned on the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Meanwhile, prepare the pasta according to directions and drain well.
Place all ingredients in a very large bowl and toss well with your choice of fat free salad dressing.
Serve warm or cold.

Variations:

Use Balsamic inegar instead of salad dressing.
Leave out the pasta for an even lower calorie treat.

Eat more fiber and you just may live longer.

2011-02-15T13:27:00.000-05:00

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson, Ap Medical Writer – Mon Feb 14, 4:35 pm ET

CHICAGO – Eat more fiber and you just may live longer.

That’s the message from the largest study of its kind to find a link between high-fiber diets and lower risks of death not only from heart disease, but from infectious and respiratory illnesses as well.

The government study also ties fiber with a lower risk of cancer deaths in men, but not women, possibly because men are more likely to die from cancers related to diet, like cancers of the esophagus. And it finds the overall benefit to be strongest for diets high in fiber from grains.

Most Americans aren’t getting enough roughage in their diets. The average American eats only about 15 grams of fiber each day, much less than the current daily recommendation of 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men, or 14 grams per 1,000 calories. For example, a slice of whole wheat bread contains 2 to 4 grams of fiber.

In the new study, the people who met the guidelines were less likely to die during a nine-year follow-up period.

The men and women who ate the highest amount of fiber were 22 percent less likely to die from any cause compared to those who ate the lowest amount, said lead author Dr. Yikyung Park of the National Cancer Institute.

The study, appearing in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine, included more than 388,000 adults, ages 50 to 71, who participated in a diet and health study conducted by the National Institutes of Health and AARP.

They filled out a questionnaire in 1995 or 1996 about their eating habits. It asked them to estimate how often they ate 124 food items. After nine years, more than 31,000 of the participants had died. National records were used to find out who died and the cause of death.

The researchers took into account other risk factors including weight, education level, smoking and health status and still saw lower risks of death in people who ate more fiber.

“The results suggest that the benefits of dietary fiber go beyond heart health,” said Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health, who wasn’t involved in the new research but co-authored an editorial in the journal.

The evidence for fiber’s benefits has been strongest in diabetes and heart disease, where it’s thought to improve cholesterol levels, blood pressure, inflammation and blood sugar levels. Fiber’s benefits also may come from its theorized ability to bind to toxins and move them out of the body quicker. High-fiber diets can promote weight loss by making people feel full, which has its own health-promoting effects.

However it works, fiber may offer a prevention benefit against killers like pneumonia and flu, the new study suggests. The cancer benefit may have shown up only in the men because they’re more likely than women to die from cancers related to diet, Park said.

Fiber is found in fruits, vegetables and beans. But fiber from grains was most strongly tied to the lowered risk in the study.

“That’s what seemed to be driving all these relationships,” said Lawrence de Koning of the Harvard School of Public Health, a co-author of the editorial.

Whole grains also contain vitamins and minerals, which may play a role in reducing risk, he said. For that reason, supplements may not be as effective.

“Nothing beats the original food,” he said. He suggested substituting whole wheat bread for white bread as a simple way to increase fiber from grains.

What does a high-fiber diet look like? A woman who wants to meet the 25 gram guidelines for daily fiber intake could eat one-third cup of bran cereal (9 grams), a half cup of cooked beans (10 grams), a small apple with skin (4 grams) and a half cup of mixed vegetables (4 grams).

To reach 38 grams, a man could eat all that — plus about 23 almonds (4 grams), a baked potato (3 grams), an oat bran muffin (3 grams) and an orange (3 grams).

Experts recommend adding fiber gradually to allow your digestive system time to get used to it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110214/ap_on_he_me/us_med_high_fiber_longer

“Pumpkin Pie” Waffles

2010-11-10T15:58:00.000-05:00

Want to enjoy dessert for breakfast without any guilt? Then these waffles are for you. YUMMY!

Ingredients:

1 cup pureed canned pumpkin
1/2 cup soy milk
3/4 to 1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar

Directions:

In a large bowl, add to pumpkin sugar and milk and mix well.
Sift onto wet mixture dry ingredients, mix in but do not over-mix.
Cook in waffle-iron. Serve with real maple syrup

Mediterranean Tomato Salad

2010-09-28T18:06:00.000-04:00

This easy to prepare Mediterranean-style salad complements almost any meal and with tomatoes in abundant supply right now, it makes it even tastier. Click here for the recipe.

Some Great New Recipes

2010-08-31T21:59:00.002-04:00

I've just posted some really great new recipes on my website. Click here for Greek Salad and Creamy Dill Dressing. Enjoy!

We're on Twitter

2010-08-31T21:55:00.003-04:00

If any of you are on Twitter, I'm still trying to figure it all out. Follow me at twitter.com/Veg4Health .

Can Obesity Steal Your Smarts?

2010-07-21T05:33:00.000-04:00

Older women hoping to keep their minds young should keep an eye on the scale—researchers have found a link between slowing down mentally and piling on the pounds.

For every extra point gained on a scale of obesity, scores in reasoning, memory and other mental skills fell, Dr. Diana Kerwin of Northwestern University in Chicago and colleagues found.

"What we found is that actually obesity in and of itself is an independent risk factor for declining cognitive performance," Kerwin said in a telephone interview.

She used data from the Women's Health Initiative, an ongoing national study of illness and death among older American women. She compared women's body mass index, or BMI, a measure of obesity commonly used by doctors and researchers, to their results on a test that measured their mental sharpness.

The test evaluated the memory, abstract reasoning, writing, and temporal and spatial orientation skills of the group of women ages 65 to 79. Among the 8,745 post-menopausal women who completed the test, for each point increase in the BMI scale, scores on the mental test went down by one point, Kerwin's team reported in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. Read more here.

Baba Ghanoush

2010-07-13T21:22:00.001-04:00

This is my favorite recipe in the whole world – at least for today – although I think it may be the best food God created! I just absolutely cannot get enough of it. I love to eat this on toasted pita chips, on pretzels, French bread and right off the spoon. If I could plant my whole garden with eggplant I would – just so I could eat this every day. And it's really low fat!

Ingredients:

2 whole eggplants
3 T Tahini
3 garlic cloves, minced
juice from 1 lemon
salt to taste

Click here to find out how to put it all together!

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

2010-07-09T21:10:00.001-04:00

This is one of our favorite afternoon snacks as well as a quick, easy breakfast food

Ingredients:

1-2 ripe bananas
1 C fresh or frozen strawberries
1 C Soy milk or almond milk or fruit juice
1 T ground flax seeds or chia seeds
1 T honey or sugar, if needed
spinach, as desired
1 C ice (approx)

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in Vita-Mix or high speed blender.

Play with the combinations to find out what works best for you. Add more or less ice, depending on the consistency that you prefer. Try to stay away from the extra sugar, if you can. The flax and chia seeds provide some essential fatty acids, and the spinach kicks the nutrient value up a notch, without adding much flavor. However, be forewarned, it will turn the smoothie from pink to brownish. A small price to pay!

For more recipes, click here.

‘Eat your vegetables’: For kids, it means fries

2010-07-08T21:32:00.001-04:00

Kids aren’t eating enough fruits and vegetables, and when they do consume produce, they are more likely to eat french fries than nutrient-rich dark green or orange vegetables, a study shows.That won’t surprise parents who have been trying to tempt their kids with better diets for years.

Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed government data on 6,500 children and teens, ages 2-18, and found that the children were consuming an average of 2 cups of fruits, vegetables and juice a day. Teens ate only slightly more than that.

The government nutritional guidelines base recommended produce intake on total calories consumed. The range is 2 to 6½ cups of fruits and vegetables each day, based on an intake of 1,000 to 3,200 calories a day. Someone consuming 2,000 calories a day should eat 2 cups of fruit and 2½ cups of vegetables a day. Read the rest of the story here.

Rick's Corner

2009-10-22T21:22:00.003-04:00

Month after month, I watch as Nancy writes the content for the web site and newsletter (I actually publish it - I'm her Webmaster, {and husband, among other things}), so we thought it would be interesting to give my perspective. Comments are often made after a cooking demonstration or entertaining guests about how fortunate I am to be married to someone who prepares such good, healthy food, and I couldn't agree more! I am no slouch in the kitchen, but I can't hold a candle to my wife. I have often told her, "You can never leave me or I'll starve" which is not too far from the truth.

As I talk to people who are looking to change to a healthier diet in order to lose weight, reverse or prevent disease or just because they're tired of poisoning their bodies with the standard American diet, I tell them to start with simple changes and build on them. That's what we did. Don't try to make the jump too fast because it usually won't stick. How many people do you know that have tried and failed to lose weight or eat healthier, only to fail and end up worse off than where they started? Lots of people don't stick with the changes because they don't lose 25 lbs the first month. What if they only lost a measly ½ pound per week, would it be worth it? That comes to about 50 pounds over 2 years! Definitely worth it! Point being, this is a lifelong journey and it's worth doing it right. I would strongly advise those of you who are new to use this site to learn the basics, start with some easy recipes and build on them. I think you'll be amazed at the changes you will see!

God has a funny way of getting my attention

2009-05-11T21:27:00.000-04:00

God has a funny way of getting my attention sometimes. Lately, it seems I have been hearing God chuckle at the lessons He has been teaching me through my little broken toe. Yes, that’s right – lessons from God in a little broken toe. It really didn’t start out as being a funny affair, but the longer I struggle through with taped toes, ugly shoes and a definite limp – I find myself chuckling with God. No one spends much time thinking about little toes, until they stick out a little too far and get caught on a bed post or a corner. Then, that seems to be all you can think about. It is amazing how many simple, daily activities are affected by a broken toe. Until it happens to you, it’s hard to imagine. I am amazed that a little toe is so useful while lifting small children, taking dinner out of the oven, shopping for groceries, taking the family on a long awaited camping trip when the bathroom is almost a half a mile away and sleeping with heavy covers on. That little toe has a way of making itself known and limiting my activities. Every day I am reminded of 1 Corinthians 12 where the apostle Paul describes how important all of us are to the body of Christ. In 1 Cor 12, verses 21-22 Paul states “The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…” So it is with little toes, and all of us who belong to the body of Christ. All of us are indispensable. We may feel like little toes, ugly little things without much purpose. But without us, the body of Christ will not function properly. We all have a purpose and when we are unable or unwilling to fulfill that purpose, the whole body suffers. We all can’t be the head, nor would we want to be. But it can be really hard to be a little toe most days of the week. It is hard to imagine that ministering to our family through cooking, cleaning and kissing small boo-boos is very important – but it is. We may not be teaching a class, evangelizing on a street corner, or traveling to the far corners of the world to reach the lost, but we are all where God has placed us. All of our daily lives are important and without us being faithful and diligent in all areas, the whole body suffers. So, the next time I feel ignored, unimportant and weak, I will remember my broken toe and thank God for being part of the bigger body of Christ.

"Crabbie" Patties

2009-03-28T20:47:00.004-04:00

I've tried this recipe for "crab" patties now a couple times and can't believe how much my kids love them. I intentionally made extra tonight with leftovers in mind. Unfortunately, no leftovers! They're so simple, yet they really "anchor" your plate nicely. See the recipe here.

Oh the Joys of Soymilk Making?

2009-02-15T14:30:00.003-05:00

Have you ever considered making your own soy milk and/or almond milk? Almost 9 years ago when I was pregnant with my second child, my husband had the grand idea of buying a soy milk maker and making it at home. The cost savings were just too great to pass up. Homemade soymilk costs pennies for a half gallon versus over $3 in the store. However, I was so sick during my second pregnancy that I couldn’t stand the smell of almost anything, and certainly not a soy milk maker. I banished my husband and the machine to the garage where he was more than happy to make all that we could use or drink. Once Andy was born and I was faced with 2 children under the age of 2. The smell of homemade soymilk no longer made me wretch, but the thought of taking on one more task was more than I could bear. The soymilk maker sat and gathered dust in the garage, and one day in a cleaning fit, I threw it away. I thought I would never again tackle homemade soy milk. That was, until the price of food began spiraling upwards over the last year. Besides the cost, I was tired of having to make a special trip to the store simply because I ran out of soymilk and I was tired of storing an extra half gallon or two in the refrigerator. After a quick search on ebay, we decided to purchase another soymilk maker. It has been wonderful! With the push of a button and a wait of about 15 minutes, I have freshly made soymilk ready to go. I add about ½ tspn of salt, 2 T of sugar or equivalent sweetener and for pennies I have the liquid I need for soups, muffins, cereals and all of my cooking needs. This week I am going to attempt almond milk in it and I can’t wait for the results. Now I know that when I add soymilk to something, exactly what ingredients I am adding.

Click here to search eBay for soy milk makers.

Don't Join the Army of the Overweight!

2008-11-16T20:47:00.002-05:00

Reading the following story has me shaking my head and feeling terribly sad at the same time. A town in West Virginia has the dubious honor of being named "the fattest city in America". The problem is that apparently most people living there don't care. According to the article, they're too concerned with the local economy to worry about treating or preventing diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It so clearly reminds me of the old Fram oil filter commercial of "You can pay me now or you can pay me later". If you choose later, I can guarantee the cost is not only going to exponentially higher but the resulting poor health will be far worse than most can imagine. And here's the kicker: it isn't that hard!!! It's not hard at all. It is simply a case of making a decision, then backing up the decision with action. That means doing whatever it takes - researching, reading, being willing to try new (healthier) things, failing and being willing to try again. When you read the article, see how your attitudes compare to those in the story. Then decide which side of the fence you're going to land on. I hope it's on the side of improving your health on a daily basis for the rest of your life

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_on_he_me/med_unhealthiest_city_2

White Sugar Now Coming From Genetically-Modified Sugar Beets

2008-10-08T20:38:00.004-04:00

One of the things that I try very hard to buy is non-genetically modified foods. A lot of foods are being altered for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything to do with being healthier for consumers. Big chemical companies push the "benefits" of plants that are resistant (read poisonous) to bugs and weeds. Sounds great for the farmers - less work tending their crops - but who knows what the long term health consequences may be. And now they go after sugar...

This year saw the first commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets in the United States, with that sugar to hit the food supply soon after. Farmers across the country will soon be planting Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beet, genetically engineered for resistance to Monsanto's herbicide glyphosate (marketed as Roundup). John Schorr, agriculture manager for Amalgamated Sugar, estimates that 95 percent of the sugar beet crop in Idaho will be of the new GM variety in 2008, or a total of 150,000 out of 167,000 acres. Finish the article here >

A little exercise goes a long way for severely obese

2008-10-08T20:28:00.003-04:00

I found an interesting article on exercise - every little bit helps. Even if you're not used to doing any exercise, there's no time like the present to get started!

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When it comes to exercise and physical activity, people who are severely obese often feel defeated and think -- why bother. But a new study shows why they should bother, according to the study team.

Even a little bit of exercise - as little as 1 hour a week - can boost their quality of life and ability to complete everyday tasks like getting dressed, tying shoes and simply moving around, the study found. "This study speaks to the importance of people who are overweight, even severely overweight, paying attention to the fact that increasing their activity even a little bit can make their day to day life better," Dr. Martin Binks told Reuters Health. Read the rest of the article >

Overboard with greens

2008-07-12T10:24:00.001-04:00

I came home from the coop Thursday with a mess of greens. The swiss chard and kale looked so wonderful that I just couldn’t resist. The only trouble was, it’s pretty hard to fit 5 bunches of chard and 4 bunches of kale in a refrigerator – loaded with a weeks worth of produce. So Thursday night, I prepared 2 of the chard for dinner that night, then set out chopping and bagging the remaining greens. For dinner, I simply sautéed a small diced onion until it was tender, then added two diced tomatoes. Next came a dollop of apple cider vinegar, a pinch or two of sugar, a twist of salt and two bunched of chopped chard. I didn’t even bother to remove the stems of the chard. Some cooks will tell you to do that – but the stems aren’t that tough, and I don’t mind a little crunch with my greens. Besides, I am just too lazy and time crunched to remove the stems if I don’t need to. I served the greens along side some leftover eggplant parmesan and everyone truly enjoyed the meal. For storing the remaining greens, I simply chopped the chard – stems and all – and stored them in a large plastic bag. The kale required a little more work because I really don’t like kale stems. The stems are incredibly tough and it seems they just won’t soften in the amount of time it takes to wilt the greens. Removing kale stems isn’t tough, just hold the kale leaves in your left hand, grab the stem in you right hand, and rip up. The stem should easily tear away from the greens and leave you with a handful of kale. It didn’t take long to destem 4 bunches of kale and chop the leaves. Again, I stored the kale in a large plastic bag. I did not wash the greens prior to storing since I didn’t want the added moisture in the plastic bags. In a matter of about 20 minutes, I was able to take all of my greens and fit them nicely in the refrigerator. Greens are so high in nutrients, low in calories, easy to prepare and so wonderful tasting that it’s hard for me to understand why more people don’t try them.

Zucchinni and Sun Dried Tomatoes

2008-05-10T20:22:00.001-04:00

Tonight I took dinner over to Nana’s house so that my wonderful husband could watch an NBA play-off game on TV. (We have the most basic cable channels you can get. They are a “package deal” with the high speed internet service we have.) Nana doesn’t cook very often since most nights she is eating at our house so I had to use my imagination to create a meal which required very few pans and/or spices. I decided tacos, refried beans and some stir fried zucchini would fit the bill – especially since I already had made guacamole and salsa. The trick was to figure out an appealing way to prepare the zucchini without any interesting spices. (Since Nana doesn’t cook, her selection of spices is not only VERY limited, it’s also VERY old – and probably not very tasty.) So, I quickly grabbed a yellow pepper, an onion, the zucchini and some sun-dried tomatoes that had been looking at me very accusingly for quite a while. I love sun dried tomatoes – just right out of the bag – and had bought some quite a few weeks ago at our old produce market. I had eaten a few and then forgot about them – until today. So, once at Nana’s I sliced the pepper and onion, water sautéed them until tender. Next, I added the zucchini and some salt and pepper. I occasionally stirred the zucchini until it just started to turn tender, and then I added the chopped sun dried tomatoes. Boy, not only was it delicious but it was also very colorful. Sometimes a little creative ingenuity is all that is needed to make a new dish that every one loves.

Yellow Squash Casserole - easy as pie!

2008-05-06T17:22:00.001-04:00

I just stepped out of the kitchen after preparing a wonderful yellow squash (crookneck squash) casserole. The whole house is full of the delicious smell of sautéed onions and mushrooms and Italian seasonings. Normally, I sauté all of the ingredients together in one pan, toss in the bread crumbs and vegan cheddar style cheese, mix and then slide it into another casserole dish to bake for a little while. Not tonight. I decided to use my largest cast iron skillet and bake it in the oven in the same pan I did all of the sautéing in. All of the taste, with less of the clean up. And, since the cast iron skillet is larger in diameter than my casserole dishes, it should bake in a fraction of the time. My children are already asking how long until daddy gets home. I think the smell has perked up their appetites as well – or it could be that my son just wants some help from dad with the capture and breeding of his favorite toads!

The casserole is really easy to prepare – simply sauté a sliced onion, add 8 ounces of mushrooms and sauté a little more. Then add sliced crookneck squash (about 3-4 medium sized ones). Let the ingredients cook for a few minutes until the squash softens up. Then, turn off the heat, add some Earth Balance (about 2-3 Tablespoons), ¼ cup of cheddar style vegan cheese, 1 teaspoon of Italian Seasoning and enough bread crumbs to make it all the right consistency. Top it with cracker crumbs or some more grated cheese and bake it in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Pretty easy – and the family will think you slaved over it for hours. I normally make it the center dish and tonight we are having spinach with garlic and speckled butter beans on the side. Should I dare say what we are having for dessert? Warm sautéed pears – my daughter’s absolute favorite!

The value of persistence and repetition!

2008-05-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

Last night we had our Pasta Fagioli that I made the day before. Some soups just really taste better when they sit for a day. I recently changed the recipe on the website to include directions for what I do when I am using my pressure cooker. It also makes enough for several meals. Remember, cook once, eat twice! I had planned on having a nice salad on the side but I had also just cut up a delicious cantaloupe. Yes, Florida Cantaloupes are just coming on the market and we are gorging ourselves on them. Right now, they are dropping in price and increasing in taste. There’s just something about getting a lope from the fields only 2 hours away, versus getting one from a country half a world away! You might not be near Florida but as the warmer weather spreads through the country, the fruits and vegetables make their march too. Soon, we will be enjoying Georgia fruits and veggies, and eventually by the end of the season, we will be munching our way through New Jersey produce. We always try to really enjoy and overly indulge in the fruits and veggies that are more local – somehow they just taste better. We also try to stock up and freeze what we can while the prices are lower. Frozen cantaloupes taste great in smoothies and as the price drops, we will be busy slicing and freezing. The funny thing is last night I served my darling daughter cantaloupe instead of a salad and she was rather disappointed – and I was rather surprised! It was just a few months ago that she would rather eat just about anything than a tossed salad. Then I discovered two things – the beauty of a chopped salad and how important it is to serve a dish MANY times before I expect the children to like it. Now, she likes salads. I guess I am never too old to learn the value of persistence and repetition!

Five minutes to spare!

2008-05-01T17:06:00.001-04:00

Wow – It’s almost 5 o’clock and I am actually getting to sit down at the desk for a couple of minutes! Today was a good day – actually got quite a bit done – including school with the children. I also made fresh bread (which is baking in the oven now) and Pasta Fagioli (for dinner tomorrow – it always tastes better after it sits for a day.) Tonight we are having some Tofukey bratwurst that I bought on sale and we all love. I’m also planning on some sweet and sour cabbage and some leftover lentils. We tend to eat quite a bit of cabbage – probably because it’s not only incredibly healthy, it’s also normally pretty inexpensive. Our local produce store normally sells cabbage for about 45 cents a pound or less – and that’s a great price for budget conscious healthy eaters. When shopping and planning for our meals, if I can find fruit or vegetables for 99 cents a pound or less – we get them. Just the other day we found D’Anjou pears for only 99 cents a pound. This has been a great year for tasty pears and we eat them plain, diced on our salads, sautéed with a tiny bit of Earth Balance and brown sugar, and we enjoy them in pies and cobblers. Cobblers are what I call desert when I am too lazy to make a crust and just top the pears with the crumbly topping I normally put on our pear pie. With my pressure cooker, I can get the sweet and sour cabbage ready for the table in less than 5 minutes. I don’t know what I would do without my pressure cooker – except not have time to sit and blog for 5 minutes so close to dinner time.

Sea Veggies in Pressure Cookers

2008-04-29T15:05:00.001-04:00

Pressure cookers are fun, easy and a real time saver. But they are also a wee bit persnickety! Tonight while making some fresh garbanzo beans, I decided to add a few sea vegetable flakes to them for extra seasoning. I have recently learned quite a bit about the importance of iodine in our diet and sea vegetables are an easy and tasty way to add a natural occurring source of iodine. (No, I am not really weird – just health conscious and if I can improve our diet and nutrition without spending much money – I do it. I don’t like supplements – I like getting what we need from whole foods. Besides, I love sea weed salads when I go out to eat and I love vegetarian sushi – although I can rarely afford it.) Anyway, so I tossed in the soaked beans, added the water and then added about a tablespoon of seaweed flakes. (Seaweed flakes are much less expensive than seaweed sheets and if you aren’t making sushi – go for the flakes!) Well, much to my surprise, my pressure cooker began to make some pretty strange noises. Just enough strange noises to make my children leave the kitchen in a real hurry – they are a little scared of my pressure cookers and convinced they are going to blow up some day. Quickly, I grabbed the jiggle valve and removed it from the cooker – only to see a lot of brown ooze coming out of the vent. Oh my! Sea Vegetables! I released the pressure, drained and rinsed the beans, cleaned the cooker and the pressure valve, and put the beans back on. Next time, I think I’ll pay a little extra for the sea weed sheets if I am going to use them in the pressure cooker!

Finally - they are eating salads!

2008-04-28T16:30:00.001-04:00

It’s only been recently that my son has started begging for a green salad. Oh – music to a mother’s ears. For years, I have tried to get my children to eat a nice green salad. I have tried plain salads, many different greens, a wide variety of toppings and an even greater variety of dressings. Anything to easily get nutrient dense, raw foods in my children. Although they have always had to eat what I have prepared – it kind of took the fun out of family dinners when I watch their faces as they eat. Then – I went to visit a friend of mine and watched how she served salads to her children. The lettuce and all of the ingredients were finely chopped or grated. My husband says I chop them so fine he almost doesn’t even have to chew. Although I don’t quite chop them that fine, I do chop, dice, grate, toss and mix so that the salads are easily eaten with a spoon (no more struggling to get them on a fork) and the texture is quite appealing to the children. I have also found that I use much less salad dressing when I chop the salad. Once the lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and bell peppers are mixed together, I add their favorite toppings – black olives and garbanzo beans. My daughter is still a little resistant, but my son now says salads are his favorite thing to eat and he even likes to eat them with no dressing. That’s pretty good coming from someone who would be happy to eat toast and rice krispies at almost every meal – if I let him. Now my biggest challenge is to keep his little hands from trying to grab handfuls of salad as I am mixing them up. Someday he just might just lose a finger if he isn’t careful.

Plate full of green tonight!

2008-04-27T21:39:00.000-04:00

We had a wonderful dinner tonight – full of green vegetables. Yesterday I stopped at the produce market and just couldn’t resist the first of the Florida okra. I had stopped for only some Kirby cucumbers, but ended up with a basketful of veggies – including some of the best okra I have seen in months. My kids love fresh okra. It wasn’t always that way. I have always loved fried okra and when we owned our own produce market, I finally started making it myself. Now, when I say fried – I don’t mean breaded and deep fried. I simply slice the okra and pan fry – without any breading – in a very hot cast iron skillet with a very small amount of oil. (I used to try breading the okra, but the breading always ended up in the bottom of the pan and my okra was naked. So, I started leaving off the breading and discovered how much we like it that way.) To make a long story short, my children’s love affair with okra took many, many, many meals before they became as enamored as I am. Now, I have to buy at least 2 pounds of okra to satisfy everyone’s appetite. I have found that quite a few of the vegetables and main dishes I serve the family take several presentations before they are well accepted. Taste buds can be trained and old unhealthy habits replaced with new ones, but it takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day – and neither was our overwhelming love of okra. I can’t wait for summer when fresh okra is available all the time!

Just returned from a week of fun camping!

2008-04-25T13:15:00.001-04:00

As many of you know, we just came back from a long week of camping. We had a wonderful time enjoying the spring weather in Florida and the beautiful sunny gulf coast beaches. We managed to squeeze all of our bicycles in the back of our van so we even managed to do quite a bit of bike riding at several state parks while on vacation. Camping is an activity everyone in our family loves. Although I still have to prepare all of the meals while we’re gone, it just doesn’t feel like work when it’s done outside while enjoying God’s marvelous creation. As we sat outside the camper enjoying our dinners – made all the more delicious by our camping appetites – we talked about how different our meals are than most people’s meals. But, boy, we do love ours! We really ate well on this camping trip without a lot of hassle. I brought some bags of frozen vegetables (just kept them cold until we ate them) and a wide variety of produce that didn’t require refrigeration. We feasted on sweet potatoes, white potatoes (both fried and baked), cabbage, corn on the cob, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, apples, pears, bananas and dried fruits and nuts. I also made some healthy muffins, bean spreads, spinach dip and salads before we left. A small investment in ice kept it all nice and cold and delicious. Last year I wrote an article on 10 Tips to Healthy Eating While Camping – which outlines a lot of what we do while on the road. The most important thing is that we had lots of fun and could have stayed another 7 nights!

What the world eats!

2008-01-22T21:45:00.000-05:00

Someone at work sent an email with pictures of what typical families from around the world eat in a week and how much they spend. It was really an eye-opener to see the differences between various cultures. I was amazed at how little produce there was on most people’s menus. (You can view the photo essay by clicking here http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html ) We are a blessed country in that we have a wide variety of foods available to us - so you won’t hear me complain at all. However, what a shame that there is so little recognizable food on most people’s dinner plates. No wonder we have such an epidemic of lifestyle diseases. Go green – eat fruits and veggies and leave the highly processed foods alone! Let’s try to make our menus look like a poster advertisement for farmers!

Delicious warm pears for dessert!

2008-01-21T11:45:00.001-05:00

We have really been enjoying the cooler weather. It has increased our appetites – especially for warm and tasty deserts. We have also been enjoying pears this season. We have had a hard time finding great apples this year – but the pears have been out of this world! While camping, we “discovered” a very easy, very delicious dessert made with fresh pears – although I would imagine canned pears would work also. We simply peel, or not depending on my mood, and slice pears. Slip them into a sauce pan with a tiny bit of Earth Balance and brown sugar and heat thoroughly. You want to make sure the pear does not lose its texture – but just heats nicely through. Walla! We scoop out the heated pears and their juice and enjoy. I guess if you wanted to be decadent, you could top with a soy vanilla ice cream – but so far, the pears have been so wonderful that we have not wanted to dilute their flavor with anything else! This has worked well with both Bartlett and D’anjou pears. We love to eat these two varieties of pears right off of the core, like an apple, so we always have them on hand. They are also a great addition to a tossed salad!

Buffets - Food everywhere but nothing good to eat!

2007-11-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

We went out to a buffet last night for dinner. It’s been a REAL long time since we’ve done that. As a matter of fact, the last time we did that was when we evacuated for the hurricanes in 2004. And now I remember WHY it has been so long since we’ve gone out to a buffet. Last night we abandoned the camper in freezing weather for the comfort of a heated hotel room. Since it was a little difficult to cook in a hotel room, we decided (on the advice of the friendly hotel clerk) to try a buffet for our dinner meal. We thought it would be fast, easy and convenient and would give us a good selection of fruits, vegetables and salads. Boy – were we ever wrong. There was indeed a wide variety of salad items and cooked vegetables – but nothing was what I would call good. All of the salad toppings were loaded with fat and cholesterol. And, after sampling most of the vegetable selection I now know why most people can’t understand how I can base my entire diet around fruits, vegetables and grains. All of the vegetables were completely overcooked and soggy – and if there was any flavoring added it was in the form of chopped meat or cheese products. Although my dinner was really quite horrible – I am very grateful for the experience for several reasons. It really opened my eyes to the struggles that most people face when making the transition to a plant-based diet. I can’t imagine eating a plant-based diet if it tasted like the foods I tried on the buffet. But there is hope! Vegetables don’t really taste like that! A few quick recipes, seasonings, and proper techniques and a plant-based, whole food diet is WONDERFUL! That is what my website is all about – empowering people to eat and truly ENJOY whole foods. Sampling the foods at the buffet also helped me see how easy it is for most people to inadvertently overeat. When we are hungry, what our body really wants is some high quality nutrients it can use for fuel. We will continue to eat and eat and eat to find those high nutrient dense foods. If none are available and all we have available is low nutrient, highly processed foods, our bodies will continue to search for a good fuel source. Junk foods and processed foods may be satisfying to our mouths, but not to our bodies. I sampled so many foods at the buffet trying desperately to find something satisfying that I felt totally stuffed when I left – yet not satisfied at all. That is also what my website is about. Whole foods are INCREDIBLY satisfying and appealing to our tastebuds and mouth – if we just give them a proper try.

Camping - at a Hampton Inn?

2007-11-07T20:52:00.000-05:00

Another camping blog – sort of….I am actually sitting in a Hampton Inn right now enjoying a warm room, soft bed, my own bathroom and wi-fi. Why you might ask. Well, a cold front came through and it is supposed to be near freezing tonight. We bailed! We woke up this morning to 38 degree weather, a stiff wind from the northwest and a son coming down with a bad cold. It was time to break camp and move on to another state park for the next 4 days. We were moving south, but not as fast as the cold front. The thought of another frigid night and day was a little too much for all of us. So, we packed up, drove to the next state park, dropped off the camper and went to the closest hotel for the night. Tomorrow we are planning on going back and finishing the camping trip as the warming trend sets in. It’s going to be hard to leave this great room with all of its amenities – but the call of the wild remains strong. We still have salamanders left to hunt and woods left to explore.

Hot fresh pears - campfire dessert!

2007-11-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

Camping and outdoor living are one of the things we like best. Sometimes our eating habits suffer when our routines are changed or we feel we are on vacation. They don’t have to though. This week we’ve managed to be fairly creative with our menu while still enjoying the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables. We have had our share of roasted marshmallows, but they weren’t the only sweet and hot desert item on our camping menu. I had brought along some nice pears to enjoy – ripe and sweet right off the core. However, the weather turned pretty chilly and I was really craving a nice hot dessert. Pears! All I did was chop the pears, with the skins on, and slightly cook them with a tiny bit of Earth Balance and a little brown sugar. We were all hooked! Sweet and warm and just what we needed around the campfire on a cold evening. Oftentimes I have overpacked for camping trips and not allowed my imagination and creativity to run wild with the foods I did bring. I’m still learning – and enjoying the process. Sometimes my creativity results in a miss and sometimes it results in a glorious hit. Basic foods with a minimum of preparation always seem to taste the best – even if you aren’t enjoying them out of doors.

Whole Grain bread - or not?

2007-11-07T20:40:00.000-05:00

They fooled me – didn’t think it was possible – but they did! Who? The bread manufacturers and labelers did. I couldn’t believe it!!!! What am I talking about? Well, last week, right before we left on an eight night camping trip, I taught a cooking class. One of the topics I covered was how to select whole grain breads and how easy it is to be fooled – especially if you believe what it says on the front label of the bread. For the class, I bought 8 loaves of bread – 7 of which were really whole grain or whole wheat and one was not. Without reading the ingredient labels and by going only by the front label, I had them try to discern which loaf was NOT whole grain. A few of them got it right, but most of them didn’t. The one loaf which wasn’t whole grain was labeled 7 Grain bread – all of which were seeds or berries sprinkled on the top of a healthy looking loaf of white bread. Boy, was everyone surprised. The least healthy looking loaf of bread, and the softest one, was probably the best. It contained whole wheat flour and NO high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – only brown sugar. I would much rather feed my family good old fashioned brown sugar than HFCS any day of the week. Brown sugar does not interfere with one of the body’s hormones called leptin. Leptin is the hormone which signals the brain that you’ve had enough to eat and are satiated. HFCS is one of the ingredients that block that hormone from reaching the brain – causing us to eat and eat and eat – without seeming to ever get full. Does that sound familiar? I certainly have struggled with that in the past, but switching to a whole food, plant-based diet with minimally processed foods has cured me – and it will you too. However, back to how I was fooled!!!! Getting ready for an 8 night camping trip in the same week I held a cooking class caused me to cut a few corners. Normally I bake a couple of loaves of bread a day or two before we leave- but not this last week. I decided that was one area that I could sacrifice home made – after all, I had just taught a room full of people how to select a loaf of healthy bread – certainly I could do the same. So, off I went to gather a few items at our local discount club – some apples, potatoes, grapes, maple syrup and bread. The store had two loaves of bread packaged into one bag, so the ingredient label was nearly impossible to read. So, I went on someone else’s recommendation, the labels on the front of the loaves and the healthy grains sprinkled all over the top of the lovely bread. I felt the bread and it felt a little stiffer than the soft whole wheat bread setting next to it. It looked healthier with all of those seeds on top. Someone had recommended it as a nice whole grain bread. The front label read like an honor roll of whole grain goodness – “low fat”, “heart healthy”, “American Heart Association recommended as part of a heart healthy diet”, “a diet high in whole grains can lower your risk of heart disease and certain cancers” and a plethora of other wonderful sounding, health enhancing goodness. WOW! Taking that short cut and not preparing homemade sounded great. What a better choice this stiff bread was than the Whole Wheat soft bread sitting beside it with no glowing endorsements on the front. WRONG!!!!!!! On the first day of our trip, as we sat at the table fixing our sandwiches, I read the ingredient label! OH MY! The number one ingredient was “enriched wheat flour”!!!! No Whole anything in the ingredient label. Boy did I feel rather schnookered that day. I had fallen for the oldest tricks in the book. Thank goodness noone but family was around to see it. Needless to say, the first trip we made to the grocers, I replaced that bread with a REAL whole grain bread. We are happy and so are the fish and turtles who are getting quite a nice handout of that “healthy bread”.

On the way to camping in Georgia

2007-11-07T20:37:00.000-05:00

Camping is so much fun for our family. There is just something about being outdoors in the beautiful weather that we all love. This is the time of year when we begin enjoying the great outdoors. In the summer, it’s a little too hot and humid to want to be outside all day. The fall, winter and spring are great times to soak in the glory and splendor of the day and night. Normally we stay in Florida but this year we decided to venture into Georgia – partly to see if we could see any leaves change before the weather got too cold to camp. We left on Saturday and enjoyed our 6 hour drive into the interior of Georgia. We were playing games in the car and got to laughing so hard at the unintentional humor of our soon to be 7 year old son. We were playing Brainquest as a type of trivia challenge – with homeschooling everything becomes a teachable moment. The question was if boots is the plural of boot – what is the plural of foot. I guess I worded it a little differently in an attempt to explain plural. I posed the question as if you have one boot it’s b-o-o-t, if you have two boots, its spelled b-o-o-t-s. So, if you have one foot it is spelled f-o-o-t, so if you had two, what would it be? In an attempt to answer before his sister, our son yells out shoes, s-h-o-e-s! He might not have given the answer we all expected, but he was right on track! We thought that started our trip out well – we haven’t stopped chuckling and enjoying our time together since. It’s wonderful to spend the time enjoying being a family – even when things aren’t quite what we expect. Often, the unexpected is much better than what we expected.

Fresh Brussel Sprouts - YUMMY!

2007-10-27T15:27:00.000-04:00

I broke my golden rule today and spent more than 30 minutes in the kitchen tonight making dinner. It wasn’t a complicated recipe but fresh Brussels sprouts that made me spend the extra time. I am a sucker for really fresh produce and today was no exception. I went to our old produce market to buy just a few things. My kids always laugh at that, they know I can NEVER buy just a few things at the produce store. Everything fresh and in season just naturally calls my name. Today, it was Brussels sprouts. It’s the right time of year for really fresh sprouts and the ones I saw were nice and green and small. No yellow spots or over-sized sprouts for me. Most people turn up their noses at Brussels sprouts – probably because they’ve only been served over-cooked and merely boiled sprouts. We love to take fresh Brussels sprouts, cut them in half, remove the inner v-shape and sauté them with lots of garlic. Yummy! Frozen ones just aren’t nearly as delicious – but it does take a while to prep the fresh sprouts – at least when you are prepping about 2 pounds. If there is one thing we don’t skimp on in our monthly budget, its fresh produce. There were only 4 of us at dinner, and there weren’t very many leftovers. When the vegetables become your main course, it’s amazing how much you can eat! Tonight we had baked eggplant slices, fresh and delicious corn-on-the-cob and Brussels sprouts and fresh raspberries for dessert. No processed foods on our plate – just a few tasty morsels of God’s grand garden.

It's Been A While!

2007-10-22T15:56:00.000-04:00

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sit down and write what is happening in our lives and hearts. I often think of all the things I want to share, and then get so involved in living, I hardly take a breath to pause and reflect. I am rethinking my family schedule and going to make sure there is more time for writing and sharing. There’s just something special about inviting others to join in and celebrate LIFE with us!

It was a great weekend this last Saturday and Sunday. The weather was a little gloomy, but we had a great time anyway. I held my first cooking class at Paradise Health and Nutrition on Minton Road. This was a new location for my cooking class, although I shop there frequently. The people who attended the class were wonderful and friendly and encouraging! We had a great time together learning how to cook Mushroom Stroganoff with Soy Curls, Vegetarian Chili and Tofu Cubes with Brown Gravy. (YUM,YUM,YUM!) Three dishes is less than an hour – we were cranking! I love talking about food almost as much as I love eating and preparing it – so I was in heaven – getting to combine two of my passions at once. The staff at Paradise was also incredibly accommodating and helpful. I love shopping there because I always leave feeling better than I did when I entered the store. There are VERY few stores you can say that about anymore.

Today, we are enjoying the sunshine – finally! The kids have been outside as much as I will let them chasing bugs, snacking on grapes and generally creating adventures of all kinds. We had a picnic for lunch, although it is still warm – much to my chagrin. Pretty soon we will be embarking on another camping trip – this time for 8 nights. We can all hardly wait to go north – to Georgia – and hopefully encounter some cooler weather. Last weekend we camped at Fort Clinch State Park. The park was absolutely gorgeous and the weather very pleasant. We were able to enjoy a half-mile long fishing pier, deserted pristine beaches, a Confederate army reenactment at the Fort and a relaxing family time together. I am so grateful to God that He has blessed us with health and vitality as we enjoy His creation and all of it’s majesty.

Three Sisters Stew

2007-09-12T17:13:00.000-04:00

It just seems to get longer and longer between blogs. Life has been busy between cooking classes, school, editing cookbooks, writing articles, videotaping cooking lessons, field trips, experimenting with new recipes and life! But without all of these activities, we’d be busy anyway. I just had to sit today and write briefly about our latest meal we invented. Okay, perhaps we didn’t invent it, but we modified a recipe to fit our own taste buds. The weather here has started to cool off – okay, drop about 2 degrees from our normal summer afternoon high – and we are thinking about autumn. We started making camping reservations and that is always our signal that summer is ending. We decided to start about a month early this year by heading north. We made reservations at Fort Clinch State Park in Florida for October and at two Georgia State Parks for November. Somehow, we are hoping that we just might find some autumn leaves in November in Georgia. In the meantime, we are busy decorating our house with harvest decorations. The children did find one red leaf today in the front yard, which they are ready to press and save. In preparation for Thanksgiving – you have to plan things REALLY early when you write for newsletters – we decided to experiment with a Thanksgiving stew. (Most of you who know me thought I would never get back to my original point!) We based our recipe on the Three Sisters from the Native American culture – corn, winter squash and beans. These items were grown together early in North American history because they are symbiotic – nourishing each other and the soil and making good use of cleared fields. Anyway, the stew turned out marvelous! So basic and easy to make that I am sure it will be a staple in our house every autumn – if not year round! It’s too good to make only during one part of the year. Click here for the recipe.

Emails from Friends!

2007-08-30T17:04:00.000-04:00

A good friend of mine sent me a funny email today and for the first time in a long time I took the time and answered it. In the past, I have gotten emails which ask a long list of questions about yourself to answer and pass on to friends. I’ve always loved everyone else’s responses, but never filled out one for me. Today was different. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was avoiding cleaning the bathrooms and making dinner. Any excuse to put off the inevitable seemed like a good idea. So I sat at the computer for about 15 minutes and totally indulged myself. Hopefully, it will brighten my friend’s lives too since I tried not to take myself too seriously. It’s been a rough couple of days trying to get it all done and keep everyone’s attitudes cheerful and joyful, including my own. Homeschooling requires me to sacrifice my self everyday, as do many other things in life. I love it, I wouldn’t change it, but I sure would create more hours in my day if I could. But of course, as soon as I created them, they would be filled up and I would be left desiring even more. I guess I’m that way about most things. There never seems to be enough. Although, perhaps that’s not really true. There are certainly some things I could do with less of – like sagging skin, hot flashes, summer heat and spelling questions from my children when I am trying to write. Oh well, off to the bathrooms and dinner – one can only put off the inevitable for so long!

The Science Experiment

2007-08-27T18:22:00.000-04:00

As a science experiment for my kids, we starting experimenting with sprouts. As a homeschool family, we experiment with lots of things – although I don’t think we’ve ever experimented with something so tasty before. Okay, I’ll admit it – I have NEVER been a big fan of sprouts. Alfalfa sprouts have always tasted too “green” to me and mung bean sprouts normally go bad before I can use them in our favorite stir frys. So, when Andy begged at the health food store for seeds and a sprouting lid, my husband thought it might be fun and educational. It has been, but I think Andy hasn’t gotten to experiment much with it – my husband has taken it over. If it’s a bean or a seed, he’s going to sprout it. Perhaps this is a phase that will pass, but we sure have been enjoying them. We started with mung beans which sprouted nicely. We used them in our smoothies and salads. They tasted quite good, and according to my husband and about 1,000 websites, they are incredibly good for us too. Next, we tried sprouting wheat berries. I wasn’t sure what to do with them at first. I searched around the internet and everything I found sounded way too difficult to try. So, I did my usual thing and decided to add them to a recipe I was already comfortable with. I threw them in the VitaMix and then added them to my regular bread recipe. The sprouts came out of the VitaMix like a glob of gooey glutenous mess – a perfect addition to bread dough, I hoped. And I was right! What a wonderful feeling! The bread rose higher than it had ever risen before and had a delightfully delicious taste and texture. WOW! Emily said it was the best bread I had ever made! It was good and I have more wheat berries sprouting right now in the kitchen. Sometimes experiments turn out really good – and sometimes they don’t. The key is to be willing to keep trying.

Click here for the recipe.

Dumplings!

2007-07-25T17:21:00.000-04:00

I’m trying a new recipe tonight. That’s not unusual for me, but I am experimenting with grains. I do a lot with vegetables, but have always stuck with wheat and rice. Every once in a while I feel bold and will put barley in my vegetable soup. Tonight I am making barley with broccoli and white beans. Sounds a little bland, but I’m hoping when it all cooks up we’ll have a new dish to add to our menus. I seem to go through phases where I cook the same 20 things over and over and over again. It’s hard to set aside some of our all time favorites to try something new. I do pretty good picking out recipes that end up tasting good, but I still have failures. It’s nice to have a sense of humor when sitting down at the table. I’ll never forget my first attempt at no-chicken and dumplings. (We use soy curls in place of the chicken and McKay’s seasoning for the “chicken” broth.) I should have paid more attention to the dumpling recipe. It looked a lot like my biscuit recipe, but with a lot more liquid. It was a REAL mess trying to form dumplings out of really wet dough. We ended up with little “matza ball” looking dumplings. The dumplings were….well, they just weren’t quite dumplings. My children were so gracious, telling me how great it was. Perhaps they were just trying to get an extra helping of dessert that night. We’re trying that dish again this Sunday night, and I plan to have an extra special dessert on hand just in case!

Rainy days!

2007-07-19T15:58:00.000-04:00

It's raining again this afternoon! In Florida, we relish these afternoon storms which really help cool things off. Once the storms pass through, we are often left with a wonderful evening. It’s even possible to sit out back after dinner and enjoy the fresh air. Often it’s a time we go fishing or play tag or simply chat about our day. It’s nice not to be tied to a full schedule. Don’t get me wrong, our days are full – very full. But our days are not overly scheduled. We love to own our days rather than be slaves to them. In the past, we may have been tempted to say yes to every opportunity that came our way. There are always so many good opportunities for field trips, visits, team sports, classes and hobbies that we often struggle with which to choose. But good opportunities aren’t always the BEST opportunities for us. We have found that through prayer and self control, we are often doing more by doing less. God has called us to serve Him in a variety of ways and the most important way we serve Him is by training and disciplining our children. That’s pretty hard to do when we are too busy running them from one activity to another, where other people train them instead of us. So, we’ve learned to say no to many things in order to say yes to a few things – which are the most important things in our life. Perhaps it’s not pure coincidence that often our first words in life are NO! Perhaps we need to remember how to say that word again – and use it to our and our children’s eternal benefit.

Easy and healthy recipes - without expensive cookbooks!

2007-07-13T14:21:00.000-04:00

Why do so many people make eating healthy so much work? I checked out a few new cookbooks from the library and sat down to peruse them. I was pretty disappointed by what I saw – a lot of work and a lot of special ingredients that not only do I not have in my house, I can’t even pronounce them. It didn’t take long to sort through the books and decide that there weren’t many items in them that I would be enjoying! Often times I do better taking simple, unhealthy recipes and modifying them for health. Soy milk, soy cheese and/or tofu work just as well as cholesterol laden animal products. Water sautéing works better than sautéing in oil – without having to be concerned about overheating the oil and making it rancid. Soy curls, TVP, seitain, mushrooms, tofu or Tempeh are fine substitutes for animal meats. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be hard. Take your old favorite recipes, make some minor modifications and you’re left with a wonderful new dish. But perhaps that doesn’t sell cookbooks as well as complicated and exotic recipes do.

If you need some help modifying a recipe, feel free to email me at nancy@veg4health.com.

2007-07-09T21:38:00.000-04:00

Okay, perhaps I am a little weird and perhaps I am a little too attached to my cooking – but I am so excited because I made bread today and the loaf turned out BEAUTIFUL! The loaf didn’t have one blemish on it. It wasn’t too dark or overcooked and the top hadn’t even begun to split because I had let it rise in an oven that was too warm. My husband came home talking about a gorgeous sunset and I keep talking about my perfect loaf of bread! But oh – it is beautiful and perfect. It’s so nice when that happens. When all of my effort not only tastes good, but looks good too! If you have ever made bread from scratch, you know what I am talking about. There is no sense of accomplishment which can replace the feel of a perfectly done loaf!

Water Basketball - Beating the Heat!

2007-07-08T19:36:00.000-04:00

It’s really hot in Florida right now! Unbearably hot in the middle of the day!. But I guess that is the price we pay for such mild winters. It’s normally not the heat in July that gets to me, but the heat in October. Although I have always lived in Florida, October seems to be a month when long sleeves and sweaters should start coming out of storage and the night air get crisp. October in Florida is never that way. It’s still 90 degrees and uncomfortably warm. However, I expect July to be hot. We just spend a lot of our late afternoons at Nana’s house, enjoying the pool and the shade. Today the four of us had a game of water basketball. Trying to arrange the rules so that the kids don’t get too rough with each other was a real challenge. We had a great time though swimming and tossing and dunking the ball. What a way to work up an appetite. It was a glorious day – enjoying the time we take on Sundays to slow down and truly enjoy our blessings!

Back from Vacation!

2007-07-05T08:55:00.001-04:00

Well, it seems it has been a while since I’ve taken the time to sit down and write. We’ve been a little busy – preparing and enjoying a wonderful vacation in the absolutely beautiful mountains of West Virginia. We went for the first family reunion in over 40 years. We had never thought about vacationing in West Virginia, although we do love to vacation in the mountains. (With all of the flat land and ocean around us, the mountains always seem like the perfect place to get away from the ordinary!) The scenery and the wildlife was especially beautiful and we truly had loads of fun! Of course, in our family, salamanders seem to be especially high on the must-do list and we were overwhelmed by the great number and variety of salamanders we found on this trip. (I often wonder if when my 6 y/o son grows up a little more, just what will we do on vacation to fill our time!) My husband and I have always loved to go hiking and our children have been full of whines whenever we attempt hiking! On this trip though, there were absolutely no whines! We took a 3 mile hike with a naturalist DOWN the mountain and across the Bluestone River. When we were finished, we took an aerial tram back up. Along the way, we found over 52 salamanders, 1 box turtle, 5 millipedes, 2 snails and numerous bids and deer. When we reached the Bluestone River and had to walk across, boy were we surprised! I had assured the children that the water would only be ankle deep or so. Boy, was I wrong. It was mid-thigh on the adults, which meant over the waist on our two children. It was a blast, and after the initial shock of the cold we had great fun trying to walk through the swift moving river without losing our balance on the rocky bottom and ending up swimming our way across. By the end of the day, both children told us that they were beginning to really like walking in the woods! There couldn’t be better music to our ears and there was never another complaint all week long. Of course, when your favorite past time is salamander hunting, it can take hours to hike even 1 mile through the mountains! So much for speed hiking! I am sure as the children get older and their legs get longer and their interest change, we can gradually increase speed and distance. For now, I am just thrilled that hikes in the woods are no longer a burden but a source of joy to all of us!

Summertime Monopoly

2007-05-30T12:02:00.000-04:00

It’s almost the end of the month and it’s hard to believe that summer is really here. It finally got warm enough that we had to shut up the house and turn on the air conditioner. I love the fresh air blowing through the windows and miss it during the summer. Don’t get me wrong, I am VERY grateful for air conditioning. When I grew up, we didn’t have air conditioning and our schools weren’t air conditioned either. It’s hard to believe that we didn’t completely melt into puddles during the summer months. But we survived and enjoyed our free time immensely. We used to sit in the breezeway to the house and play board games all during the long summer. I used to have the monopoly board memorized and knew the price of every house, rent and property in the game. I miss having all that free time. There is always something on my list to do these days. But, at least I’ve learned to use a list and make it my friend. I keep a daily, weekly and even monthly to do list. It’s where I park my brain so that I don’t have to keep it in drive. I schedule out my household chores, homeschooling tasks, menus and miscellaneous. It helps keep my mind uncluttered and gives me the ability to claim free time when I can. The bathrooms might be getting messy today, but tomorrow is my day to clean it. So, today, I can overlook the mess knowing that it will be clean tomorrow. It’s amazing the freedom it gives me to “goof off” when I can. I’m not an overly organized person, but having a schedule is freeing for me. Well, gotta run. It’s time to enjoy some of my free time and go have a game of tag with the kids. I love to do lists almost as much as margin!

Eat at Home!!!

2007-05-28T17:49:00.000-04:00

I was completely surprised yesterday while I was surfing the net collecting information for an article I wanted to write. I was looking up nutritional information on some restaurant and fast food items and was stunned, literally stunned, by what I found. I know that eating out is typically a very unhealthy choice both for the waistline and the wallet. However, I guess I never really took the time to quantify that knowledge before. But with our family’s new commitment to following a spending plan each month and our continued commitment to healthy eating, my eyes were suddenly opened. Everyone knows that eating at home is much less expensive than eating out. It takes a little bit of time to prepare and clean up and a little bit of water and energy to complete both, but it doesn’t cost that much. But cost is another story for another day. What really surprised me was the fat content of items most people don’t think twice about while consuming. It is so easy to prepare a meal for the whole family with less fat than one serving of food to go. When a frozen mocha latte has over 40 grams of fat and ONE donut has over 15 (and who eats just one donut anyway?) it is no wonder that we have an obesity problem in America. It doesn’t matter what type of diet you are on, the only thing that counts for weight control is the number of calories consumed versus the number of calories used. Since each fat gram contains over 9 calories and carbohydrates and protein grams contain only 4 calories, no matter how you slice it, fat grams count too. I can’t even imagine fixing a dinner with so much fat. It reaffirms my philosophy of eating at home. Unless the only thing you eat at home are prepackaged meals and convenience foods, whatever you cook is probably much healthier than almost anything you can eat outside of your home. Want to lose weight? EAT AT HOME! Try it for a week. Just a week. See if being hyper-vigilant for only 7 days makes a difference. I bet if you just REFUSED to eat ANYTHING you hadn’t prepared yourself for 7 days, you would lose weight – and feel better! TRY IT! Let me know what happens! And if you don’t need to lose weight, does someone in your family? Seven days can make all of the difference in the world!

Living in the moment - What a blessing!

2007-05-18T09:45:00.001-04:00

I’ve read a lot lately about decreasing your stress by living in the moment. Rather than physically doing one task while mentally doing 5 others, living in the moment means being truly present with the one task you are doing. I thought that was impossible and no one could live that way. I am always planning four or five things while doing what is at hand. Well, being sick has really opened my eyes to the importance of living in the moment. I am still recovering from pneumonia and trying to take it easier than normal. Yesterday seemed like a pretty relaxing day. I wasn’t stressed and I wasn’t overly tired by the end of the day. But then I reflected on what I did do yesterday and I was astounded. I had done 3 loads of wash (all folded and put away); homeschooled the children; prepared breakfast, lunch and homemade black bean soup for dinner; gone to the vet, the dollar store, the bank, the drug store, the post office, the library and the grocery store where I did my week’s worth of shopping; and returned home to unload and put all of the groceries away. I am not superwoman, but I was not overly fatigued. What was my secret yesterday? Besides relying totally on the Lord, I realized that I had also lived only in the moment. I knew I couldn’t do everything on my list, so I did what I could without beating myself up that I wasn’t doing more. I didn’t make phone calls while driving and I didn’t write blogs in my head while cooking and I didn’t plan cooking classes while homeschooling the children. I simply lived in the moment. I talked to the kids while driving and listened to them while we did our errands. I’m hooked – I hope! I never really knew how stressful and tiring it was to mentally be engaged somewhere else rather than in the present moment. And I never really knew how blessed I would feel to be recuperating and not at my fullest. I have really learned that God’s strength provides and he is always teaching me lessons – if I live in the moment enough to hear him!

It's tough being sick - but I'm glad I have margin!

2007-05-17T17:52:00.000-04:00

It’s tough being sick. Over the last month, I have been battling what I thought was a little cold that just wouldn’t go away. A dear friend of mine has been battling the same thing, except for three weeks longer than me. My cough continued to get worse and instead of slowly getting better, I was getting worse. Finally, I decided I had to go see a doctor. What I thought was a cold was actually a case of bronchitis with asthma and pneumonia thrown in for good measure. No wonder the day before I went to the doctor my morning work out was spent coughing as much as working out! So, Mother’s Day found me in a walk-in clinic after church. For someone who never takes medications, I walked out with four prescriptions and a promise to get a chest X-ray if I wasn’t markedly improved in 4 days. Needless to say, I found myself 4 days later getting a chest X-ray, coughing myself silly and with 2 more prescriptions. So, I am convalescing and learning how to let my husband, mother-in-law and children help out. I am also learning how to say no to certain activities and obligations and how to pace myself throughout the day. What is really amazing is that I have never felt short of breath and never really felt bad. A little more tired at the end of the day, but I was still working out almost everyday. My normal 4 mile walks were shortened slightly and my time was off a little – which I thought was due to my taking time to cough. I am now slowing down for a while and waiting to work out until my cough settles down. But I sure am glad that I have worked out and eaten right. It’s no guarantee that I don’t get sick, but it sure does help when I do. I may be slower this week, but I am not stopped. I still am able to take care of the house and kids without total fatigue and exhaustion. Maybe I would be better off if I needed some bed rest. Hmmmm…perhaps I need to think about that!

Fiber Rich Brownies

2007-05-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

I couldn’t believe what I saw tonight. I was going through a magazine about health and nutrition and I ran across an interesting ad which included a recipe for “Fiber –Rich Raspberry Brownies”. It was an advertisement for psyllium fiber which touted its ability to lower your cholesterol. Normally I don’t pay too much attention to ads but for some reason it caught my eye. As I examined it more closely, I couldn’t believe what I saw! Here was an advertisement for a product being promoted as heart healthy yet the recipe they included called for 6 large eggs and 3 cups of sugar! Oh, but it did have ½ cup of fiber powder! Color me silly, but I like to get my fiber the natural way – in the whole foods and grains I eat every day. As astounded as I was, it started to dawn on me that if the fiber product being advertised was paying for the advertisement, it must be profitable. People must actually believe this nonsense. Perhaps we’ve all just been lulled to sleep by the large pharmaceutical and supplement industry. Somehow we think true health comes out of a bottle, in a pill or somehow in our “magical” brownies which have 6 eggs, 3 cups of sugar, and ½ cup of fiber powder. We need to wake up and think. True health comes from a full spiritual life, fulfilling relationships, enjoyable recreation and proper care of our bodies through exercise and a diet based on whole foods. Don’t get me wrong. I love brownies too and think they can have a place in our diets. But mine won’t have 6 eggs and 3 cups of sugar. And they surely won’t have ½ cup of psyllium fiber!

Too Much Help in the Kitchen!

2007-05-06T19:22:00.000-04:00

We have a large black Labrador Retriever named Sharlotte which we all adore. She was a wonderful gift from some friends just as my daughter was praying and begging for a dog. God always provides! But that’s another story. Sharlotte has a slight drinking problem as most labs do. When she drinks she also deposits a large amount of water directly on my kitchen floor. We always keep a small towel by her bowl to wipe the floor with after she gets a drink. When not in use, it normally “hides” under my kitchen counter. Really, it helps keep my kitchen floor pretty clean because several times a day I find I am using it. But that’s another story too.

Today, I was busy in the kitchen after dinner cleaning the dishes. Normally I feel a little like an Egyptian. I am getting quite good at building small pyramids of clean dishes and pots in my sink to drip dry. But today, I was concerned that my 9th wonder of the world may collapse, spilling all of my clean kitchen utensils onto the floor. So, as my 6 year old son was walking by, I told him to get the towel and start drying my dishes. I probably should have been more specific when I unknowingly made what I thought was a simple request. Andy was quickly obedient and started taking layers off of my pyramid and drying them. We had a nice visit while he helped and the time and chores seemed to fly by. It was only after I finished putting away all of the washed and dried utensils did I turn around and begin to sense that perhaps things were not as they had seemed. I quickly called Andy and asked him to tell me which towel he had used to dry ALL of the pots, pans, dishes, silverware and assorted other kitchen utensils I had used to prepare dinner. Much to my belated surprise, he told me had picked the towel up off the floor and used that one. ARGH! Next time I guess I need to be slightly more specific in my directions and perhaps I may be a little slower asking for help. Sometimes, there IS such a thing as too much help in the kitchen!

Choose health over convenience!

2007-05-03T22:16:00.001-04:00

We had a good day today! We were supposed to spend the day doing ballet and early morning baking. However, ballet got cancelled so we spent the day together unwinding and enjoying each other’s company. After dinner we decided to go fishing in the St. John’s River from a local boat ramp. The kids both caught some good sized Bluegills and we enjoyed watching the alligators nearby. We made sure to keep the children away from the water’s edge and one of us always kept an eye on the water nearby. There would be no falling in today! Emily was completely grossed out by the wiggly worms we used for bait and could scarcely eat at home once she learned that the bait had been carefully stored in our refrigerator. Yet, what I really found interesting is that we had been fishing in almost the exact same spot my Grandpa used to take me when I was only 5 years old. Grandpa and I would head out to Camp Holly with our cane poles and worms and have a wonderful time fishing. Unfortunately, I did not get to repeat this adventure many times. Grandpa had diabetes and had died of complications from the disease by the time I was in Kindergarten. It’s nice to know that through exercise, keeping my weight down and eating a wide variety of plant based whole foods that I am significantly lowering my risk of developing diabetes. It’s also wonderful to be able to help others do the same thing. I love hearing from people about how they have overcome their health challenges and family history through adopting the same principles. I also love hearing people say that they never knew a healthy lifestyle would be so easy, fun and down right tasty! Healthy, vibrant living isn’t about giving up things; it’s about doing the right things. But I really love thinking about all those future children who will be able to build a lifetime of memories with their grandpa and grandma because they chose health over convenience.

Breakfast in Bed! What a treat!

2007-04-30T14:46:00.000-04:00

My kids brought us breakfast in bed on Saturday! WOW!!!! What a treat! We finally got our “new” dog to sleep in. She likes to get up at 5:30 and eat – but this Saturday we got her to let us all sleep until 7:30! YIPPEE! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen 7:30 from in my bed! The kids snuck in while Rick and I were chatting and enjoying the slow pace of Saturday morning. They were very excited about serving us. And so was I, until I thought about the clean up I would surely face later. But, there’s only one time which is the first time your children bring you breakfast – or anything other than nightmares – to bed. I had made whole wheat blueberry and banana muffins the previous day so I knew we had something in the kitchen they could handle. But, I really felt like fruit – not muffins. I suggested they peel some bananas, slice them in two bowls; add a little maple syrup and walnuts to mine and a few raisins and soy milk to Dad’s bowl. What a wonderful job they did and how exciting it was for me to realize they were slowly becoming self-sufficient! We only lost half of a banana to the floor and my banana chunks were floating in maple syrup and covered with pecans – but with great enthusiasm we cherished the moment!

Me and my cantaloupe!

2007-04-26T21:50:00.000-04:00

I went into my local produce market today and got really excited to see Florida cantaloupes! You don’t often see cantaloupes and excited in the same sentence but after a long winter of apples, bananas and pineapples I do get a little enthusiastic when spring and summer fruits begin appearing in the stores. I never really knew how much I liked cantaloupes until I tasted one which was grown right here in the good old USA. When we owned our own produce market we had a customer we called the cantaloupe guy. He would appear each year when cantaloupe season began. Every visit, he would buy 6 to 8 cantaloupes. I used to think he was odd, now I think I may be just like him!

Locally grown cantaloupes are nothing like their off shore counterparts. Fresh, local cantaloupes are often only 1 day from the vine when they appear in the produce market. How do I pick a cantaloupe? First, I look for a local melon with a nice round shape and no bruises or soft spots. (I NEVER shake a cantaloupe. Shaking a cantaloupe does nothing but loosens the seeds and causes the melon to ROT rather than ripen.) Depending on how long before I eat it, I choose a color. The greener the skin, the longer the melon will take to ripen. Then I take it home and let it ripen on my counter or even in my refrigerator. Once the skin begins to turn yellow and dimple I know the cantaloupe is ready to eat. I can even begin to taste it as I prepare to carve it. Take my advice and treat yourself to a locally grown cantaloupe and see if you don’t start using excited and cantaloupe in the same sentence!

OSSP Camping Trip

2007-04-21T20:37:00.000-04:00

We just got back from a week long family camping trip and what a wonderful time we had! We stayed on the west coast of Florida for 5 nights in Oscar Sheerer State Park. It was a beautiful campground with shady, private campsites. We saw cardinals, cat birds, owls, herons, egrets, raccoons, cotton tail rabbits, armadillos and alligators, to name a small portion of the abundant wildlife. We went canoeing, fishing, swimming, shell and fossilized shark tooth collecting, sunset watching, hiking and even on an airboat ride. To say that our week was full of adventure would be a slight understatement. I’m not sure what activities we liked the best. All of the adventures blended together into a family memory which will not soon be forgotten. It was wonderful to be able to indulge ourselves in full days without aches, pains or other ailments sometimes associated with active vacations. Having children later in life has been full of challenges, but because of our commitment to a healthy and vibrant lifestyle, none of the challenges have been related to those commonly associated with aging. Now that I’ve had a few moments to reflect, I think all of us would say that our favorite activity was tuning into an “oldies” radio station and dancing in the car to some songs that reminded us of our life long before children. Somehow, the songs seemed richer and certainly more memorable when shared with our children with great enthusiasm and vigor. I never knew a 6 year old and 8 year old could be so creative while “dancing” in their car seats!

Getting Ready to Podcast

2007-04-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

I am getting ready to start podcasting. At least I think I am. I tried tonight while cooking dinner to create a podcast about making dinner. It was a lot of fun. We’ll have to wait and see how it turned out. I was making stewed apples or what I sometimes call fried apples. It’s one of my kids’ favorite foods. We have friends whose kids love them too. Anyway, I had apples that we didn’t particularly care for, so we decided that they would taste great stewed. The apples were a little too tart. They were not as tart as a Granny Smith apple, but they were not as sweet as we like. So, while peeling and paring and stewing, I tried to teach a quick class on a wide variety of topics. I think I covered, or attempted to cover, the different types of common apples and what to use them for, the different types of vegan butter substitutes, the benefits of cast iron cooking, the types of vegetable/fruit peelers I like the best and how to thicken stewing juices quickly. Just a few topics to cover in less than 15 minutes, while preparing dinner and fielding requests from hungry children. Well, time will tell how it turned out. Not sure I am ready for the big time yet. But, hey, it’s always fun to gather in my kitchen and talk.

Check out my podcasts at Veg4health.libsyn.com.

The Joy of Pressure Cookers

2007-04-03T12:02:00.000-04:00

If I could only keep one pot in my whole kitchen, without a doubt, I would keep my Pressure cooker. I can’t imagine what it would be like to prepare a whole meal without it. It’s hard for me to believe that I was over 40 before I ever even heard of pressure cookers. We owned our own large produce market and the kindest old gentlemen in the world introduced me to the wonders of pressure cooking. Mr. Pierce had purchased some green peanuts from us, and had returned with a sample of his recently “boiled peanuts”. Whether you are a fan of boiled peanuts or not, suffice it to say that they were the best boiled peanuts I have ever eaten. At my delightful ravings, Mr. Pierce cheerfully shared his secret – the pressure cooker. Not only did he educate me about pressure cookers, but he returned once again with one of his pressure cookers for me to try. I have been hooked ever since. There are lots of reasons why I like my pressure cooker. Pressure cookers cook food incredibly fast, they do not heat up my Florida kitchen, they produce tastier dishes, they seal in the vitamins and minerals normally lost during prolonged cooking and they leave my stovetop neater and cleaner than normal cooking pots do.

How do pressure cookers work? Pressure cookers simply cook foods faster than normal pots by cooking under high pressure and high temperature. Pressure cookers have a more elaborate lid than most cooking pots which provide a complete seal to the pot. By completely sealing the pot with a gasket and locking mechanism, the steam created during heating in a pressure cooker is trapped. This trapped steam builds up pressure within the pot and thereby increases the temperature of boiling water from 212 degrees Fahrenheit to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Under this high pressure and temperature, the fiber in the food is tenderized and the food is cooked in record time with incredible flavor and with very little steam released into the kitchen. Once the food is done, the cooker is removed from the heat source and the steam must be released before the lid can be removed. The steam is released either through a quick release method (using the cooker’s special valve or placing in the sink under running water) or through the natural release method (the pressure eventually drops as the cooker cools). Once the pressure is released, unlock and open the pressure cooker. Read more about this wonderful tool here.

Frozen Mocha Frappuccino

2007-03-29T22:10:00.000-04:00

Frozen Mocha Frappuccino

What an unbelievably refreshing treat!!!

1 cup soymilk (regular or vanilla)
1 tbsp instant coffee crystals (regular or decaf)
squirt of Hershey's chocolate
2 tbsp sugar or honey
1 tbsp ground flax
handful of fresh spinach (optional) (You really can't taste the spinach)
2 cups ice

Combine all ingredients except ice and mix in blender or VitaMix for 1 minute.
Add ice and blend on high until ice turns to slush.
Makes 2 servings.

OK, so maybe it's not the MOST healthy thing you could drink, but it sure beats soda or iced tea!!

(whipped cream optional)

More recipes available at http://www.veg4health.com.

There were worms on my Baby Bok Choy!

2007-03-29T22:05:00.000-04:00

Last night I had my taste buds all prepared for a nice side dish of stir-fried baby bok choy. I could taste the sesame garlic bok choy already as I started to open my bags and clean it. I was quite surprised to find that I had unexpected guests in my baby bok choy who were quite happily indulging themselves in a fine feast. All of the inside leaves were covered with worm droppings and had quite a few holes nicely carved out. What’s a mom to do when faced with worms in her next side dish? Well, I have to admit that I was in too much of a hurry last night to face the daunting task of de-worming my baby bok choy; too concerned that my eight year old would happen into the kitchen and discover that we are not the only creatures of God who devour leafy greens; and too overwhelmed by the sheer number of tiny, happy, munching green worms. So, I tossed the bok choy, opened my freezer, grabbed the nearest green vegetable I could find and went back to finishing my dinner preparations.

What would you do if faced with worms on your fresh produce? Would you toss the produce or use it? Normally I just smile, feel blessed that my produce is not too drenched with pesticides to support life, quickly remove the worms, wash thoroughly and quietly use the vegetable. (I say quietly, because if my darling daughter who has an enormous aversion to worms ever found out that she has eaten a dish of raspberries that had once hosted a large green worm, she would never eat fruits or vegetables again!) Perhaps it seems a little odd to use food that once hosted other life forms, but it’s really quite natural and should be reassuring. Living food which is grown in living soil should not be devoid of insects and we shouldn’t be discouraged from using it. I have seen my share of insects and worms from having handled literally tons of produce every month when we owned a large produce business. What really bothers me is when I examine some really nice produce and find it completely devoid of any evidence of living creatures. Saturating a field with pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals may create a beautiful looking harvest, but is it really healthy? Perhaps a little worm isn’t a bad thing after all!

How to Make your Bread Machine More Useful in Your Kitchen than it is as a Boat Anchor or a Doorstop!

2007-03-18T19:39:00.000-04:00

I love my bread machine. I mean it – I really do LOVE it! That may be hard for some of you to believe – but I do. I am amazed at how often I talk to people who have given up on their bread machine and left it our for the garbage men or left it in their garage to collect dust. In our house, there is nothing like a nice warm loaf of fresh bread to fill out our dinner menu or to fill hungry tummies when the main course doesn’t appeal to everyone’s “delicately fine-tuned” taste buds. When I was growing up, there was always a jar of peanut butter and a plate of sliced bread on the table. We always had to try what was prepared, but bread and peanut butter were often what filled our tummies.

I used to make bread by hand – totally by hand. No mixer or food processor or bread machine – simply a big bowl and a large spatula. When we opened our produce store, I knew that homemade, handmade bread was no longer going to be an option. So for Christmas, my wonderful mother-in-law blessed me with a breadmaker. Wow, I thought! No more work, just wonderful bread, made hot and fresh daily! After my first two weeks of trying to produce an edible and attractive loaf of bread, I was ready to toss the breadmaker out with my Salton food dehydrator. (That’s another story for another day!) But, I persevered. I checked out bread books from the library, I visited hundreds of cooking websites, and I started my own science laboratory – all to discover how to have my life made easier with my bread machine. It was not love at first sight. It wasn’t even close. Annulment, divorce or permanent separation was looking like my only option. Thankfully, we made it work.

How? Go to http://www.veg4health.com/Articles/howtomakeyourbreadmachine.html for the rest of the story and my great bread recipe.

The "New" Fat

2007-03-11T11:55:00.000-04:00

As Trans-fats are systematically eliminated and outlawed, don’t expect processed foods and take-out to automatically get healthier. There is a new fat on the horizon which is worse than trans-fats. Manufacturers and food outlets love it, but the human body doesn’t. The new fat is call interesterified fat and recent research shows that it lowers insulin levels, raises blood glucose levels and adversely affects HDL levels. The Food and Drug Administration recently ruled that food companies can label products containing these new fats as "high stearate" or "stearic rich" fats, or as "interesterified fats," thus avoiding the politically negative buzz word, "hydrogenated," which is associated with transfats. What’s a person to do? I’m going to continue eating as many fruits and vegetables as I can, as close to how nature made them. I’m also going to continue to be very wary of all processed foods and most anything served at a restaurant which is fried.

Menu Planning 101

2007-03-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Trying to drive to Alaska from Florida without a road map is pretty impossible. Trying to eat healthy without a menu and a plan is pretty impossible also. After a busy day at work or field tripping with my children, I need to be able to come home and prepare dinner without having to think. I need to move quickly and with forethought in order to get a healthy and delicious meal on the table in 30 minutes. If I didn’t take the time earlier in the week to plan our meals, I would be lost and the quality of our food would suffer. Not just the taste, but the healthiness as well. If there was one thing I would strongly recommend it would be to make the time each week to sit down and develop a menu for the week. It doesn’t have to be rigid and inflexible and it doesn’t have to be elaborate. It just needs to take into account your family’s schedule, taste buds and budget.

Healthy eating doesn’t just happen. It does require some planning and forethought, but it doesn’t have to be complicated or boring. Often people ask me, “If you don’t eat eggs, meat or dairy, just what DO you eat?” My response is always the same. “There is not enough days in the year to make all of the delicious foods God’s provided for us.”

Go to http://www.veg4health.com/Articles/menuplanning101.html for 5 easy steps.

I was there when he died

2007-02-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

I was there when he died. It was an Easter Sunday, the day for bunny rabbits, Easter eggs and church. The day our Lord and Savior was raised from the dead. It was a day to rejoice, not a day to mourn. We were talking to him, all of his children, gathered around his bed, chatting about the grandchildren and Easter egg hunting. The doctors had just implanted a new pacemaker, and everyone believed he had received a new lease on life. We were smiling and laughing and rejoicing. And then it happened! The alarms went off, his face look startled and his eyes rolled up and back. The nurses came running, and the doctors came too. From every corner of the hospital the alarm was sounded. “Code Blue ICU, Code blue ICU.” Suddenly our joy was replaced with a wild flurry of activity, panic, fear, and anxiety. It had happened once before that week. Nurses and doctors scrambling to save his life; ventilators in place; momentarily stabilized. We could breathe again. But that was earlier. Now, it was happening again. But this time there was no happy ending. No rejoicing at a life momentarily stopped and restarted. No, it was just the end. I was left without a father, my mother without a husband, and the grandchildren without a grandpa. Heart disease had come and stolen my dad. MY DAD; the most precious person in a young girl’s life; the one who should be proud of you no matter how lopsided your kindergarten craft; the one who loves you no matter which boy rejects you and treats you poorly; the one you run to when our young heart is broken; the one who smiles as you run to him at the end of the day; the man with the big blue eyes that sparkle when you walk in; the one whose face, frozen in that moment between life and death, is forever etched in your mind; the one whose smile looks at your kids through the picture on the mantle because he didn’t live long enough to see them any other way. And people wonder why I eat a plant based diet, and why I take exercising so seriously. I remember how it felt to lose my dad and I don’t want my children to have to experience that either. Yes, someday the Lord will call me home, but until He does, I’m fighting. Fighting to have the healthiest life: fighting to be able to race my 6 year old son to the car without getting winded; fighting to see MY grandchildren be born; fighting to live life without hesitation; fighting to be able to serve the Lord with full capacities until the very day He calls me home.

Welcome to the "new" digital age

2007-01-30T15:13:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new digital age! Perhaps that seems a little dated, but for someone who just got their first PDA – it is new news! The PDA happens to be a hand-me-down from my older sister who has been in the digital age for years! But, at least I’ve arrived – it doesn’t really matter how I got here, just that I am here. Now, I just have to invest the time and energy to discover how to wisely use the PDA. I’ve used a paper planner system for over 20 years. Will I now be able to go paperless? Only time, coupled with perseverance and endurance, will tell. All I know is that my eyes have been opened, my horizon broadened, and my depth of befuddlement deepened.

Maybe I’m not too different from you. Have your eyes suddenly been opened to the need to move from the standard American diet and lifestyle to one of healthy eating and daily exercise? Perhaps you’ve been forced there by a confrontation with your current health status or perhaps you’ve seen a glimpse of what your future health, or lack thereof, will be like if you don’t begin to change. It is tough standing on a foreign shore and trying to decide what to do next. The language is different, the people have different customs and nothing feels quite right. All of sudden you are confronted with tofu, target heart rates, leafy greens, BMI, smoothies, biometrics, legumes and a wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables you’ve never really noticed before. The first thing to do is take stock of the land you’re in and RELAX. Once YOUR sense of befuddlement settles down, you’ll be able to see and act. Take a breath, sit for a spell and listen.

What is the real difference between a paperless world and a non-digital world? The data is the same, it’s just a matter of storage. Kind of like “paper or plastic” when you go to the grocery store. The difference between the standard American lifestyle and a healthy one is just a matter of 2 things, movement and whole foods. Make the decision to embrace the reality and necessity of these two things, and don’t look back.

I didn’t need anyone to convince me that the digital world was better, easier and offered more possibilities than remaining in bondage to paper and pen. I just needed someone to come along beside me and enable me to make the discovery myself. You already know that eating less processed food and getting more exercise is better. You’ve just been searching for someone to come along beside you and enable you to live healthier. So welcome aboard – our journey is just beginning and it’s going to be a fun and tasty ride.

Christmas in Florida

2007-01-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas in Florida is always an interesting experience. Two days before Christmas and it is sunny and warm – a perfect day for pleasant outdoor experiences. Now is the time of year when we all stop hibernating and start doing. Of course, the highways are totally crowded and the stores beyond description. We are going visiting today and taking our bicycles for some extra fun. Our eating – well, we are planning on using up some of our margin. But the extra activity will deposit into our margin account. So, it all balances out. And that is how we manage to have a life and truly enjoy it. We have become doers, not talkers. We don’t search for the illusive magic pill, fairy wand or pixie dust. Being healthy is truly a lifestyle, not something that happens to you when you take a pill, drink a particular juice or hope for health. It is an active, lifelong experience made up of choices that we make everyday and every hour of everyday. There is no fountain of youth which provides rejuvenation with a dip or a drink. And if we spend all of our time searching for it, we will fail to have the life we hope it would provide. And to be honest, we all know that. But moving from talking to doing can seem impossible when our easy chair seems so comfortable and relaxing. What do we do and how do we do it? The first thing we must do is look in the mirror and see who we are. Not who we want to be, not who we hope to be, but who we really are. When nobody is looking who are we? We can’t get anywhere if we don’t start where we are. The best navigational system in the world cannot take you to where you want to go if you don’t know where you are starting from. Next, set a long term goal – a picture of where you want to be. It’s a long term goal, so unlike others, I am prone to say it doesn’t have to be specific. I think a mental picture of the life you want to have is as good as specific biometrics. If need be, find some pictures for the internet or magazines of people who look like they are living the life you want to have. Post them on your fridge, your computer, your Treo or your phone. When tempted to go back to old lifestyle choices, look at the picture and think of what your life will be like.

Now that you know where you are and where you want to go, you need to allot time for the journey. How much time depends on you and the vehicle you are using. Traveling from Florida to Alaska can take anywhere from months to hours, depending on the mode of transportation you are taking. It would be silly to plan on being in Alaska in a day if you are planning on walking and it would be just as silly to think you can compete in your first triathlon next month if you not willing to make a major commitment to training and eating habits. My journey from a couch potato eating the standard American diet to an athlete eating primarily high nutrient-to-calorie ratio foods has taken years. I have greatly enjoyed the journey and am reveling in the beauty of my destination. Notice, it has taken me years to get here, and I still have a ways to go. I keep thinking about scheduling my first triathlon, but I’m not sure I’m willing to make that commitment, yet. It’s all part of realistic goal setting and life choices. But at least I’m making my own choices rather than letting ill health take over and dictate my style.

Another Camping Trip

2006-12-05T09:27:00.000-05:00

There’s nothing like sitting around the campfire while capturing your thoughts on your laptop. Camping in the 21st century is quite a bit different than it used to be. Next thing you know, not only will the State Parks provide water and electric at every capsite, they’ll add Wi-Fi as well. Things will never be the same – except that kids will still be kids. Our kids just love camping in the woods. There’s something about the freedom to explore all the God has created without any pressing timetable or agenda. Freedom to run and the freedom to sit and stare at a fire for hours is freedom for our soul.

It’s been a fun weekend. A little warmer than expected, but that’s Florida in December. While most of the country is ending their camping season, we are just starting ours. The migratory birds are taking up residence and the bugs are starting to hibernate. I can’t say we accomplished much this weekend, but that is what camping is about. We sketched the flowers and trees, dipped our fishing poles in the water and got lost in the woods. We headed straight out the back of our campsite, picked up a service road and followed the blazes on the trees for awhile. We saw a group of deers, including several fawns, and even found a baby ring neck snake. We turned around after a while, followed the blazes back to where we turn into our campsite, and it wasn’t there! We tried to find it, followed all the little foot paths, went in every possible direction, and couldn’t find it. What to do now? We hadn’t had breakfast yet, and everyone was beginning to whine, especially the adults who hadn’t had their coffee yet. We finally found another service road, and as my husband said, “If we just stay on this, it will lead us to another road, eventually.” It’s the eventually that always gets me. Eventually – that could mean minutes, or hours, or days. I wasn’t going to last very long without my cup of decaf. Luckily, it only took us a couple of minutes until we picked up the main camping loop road. Thank goodness! Within 30 minutes we back at our campsite, stuffed full of breakfast. Near tragedy was averted – thanks to a level headed husband, who got us lost in the first place, and well placed service roads.

Right now, we’re watching the turkeys come running into our campsite. We’re feeding them the leftover corn from last night’s corn on the cob. I think they rather prefer the junk food most people feed them to the corn we’re feeding them. Just like most of us, their taste buds have grown accustomed to salt, sugar and food additives. Not exactly the way God prepared it, but the way we’ve adulterated it. They’ve left our corn, looking for greener pastures. Just like us, they are ruled by their tastebuds. However, before they die of heart disease or cancer, they’ll probably end up on some hunter’s table.

Ballet-mania

2006-12-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

Ballet, ballet, ballet! My life is lately consumed by ballet! My daughter’s ballet, of course. Not mine. Three hour practices twice a week can drive anyone crazy. But she loves it, so we sacrifice. We gladly, on most days, give her our time and energy. Why? We do it so that she can twirl and leap and move about in graceful defiance of gravity and all that holds the rest of us firmly planted on the ground. The smile on her face, the bounce in her step and the joy she exhibits are things we wouldn’t trade for anything, even though it does make our days a little crazy lately. I’m getting a new appreciation for “fast food”. For us, fast food means a full meal of healthy food on the table in about 30 minutes. It means that I make sure we have a well stocked freezer full of veggies and meals I’ve cooked before. It means planning ahead, but being flexible enough to change our plans. It means serving a less traditional meal than most Americans do. Last night we had sweet potatoes, speckled butter beans, swiss chard and fresh whole wheat flax bread. Everyone was delightfully “stuffed” and quickly satisfied. How did we do all this so fast? Well, I have two “secrets” which I love to tell people about.

My first “secret” is always making more than you can possibly eat at one meal. Leftovers are a busy family’s best friend. Frozen, they last for months. Unfrozen, they make a great start for another recipe. Three nights previous, we had regular sweet potatoes baked in the oven. I just cooked twice as many as we would eat. That night, I scooped them out of their skin so that last night, I could use them for sweet potato casserole. We do lots of things that way. Mashed potatoes one night make a great topping for shepherd’s pie another night. Leftover rice becomes fried rice later in the week, or stuffing for a pepper.

My second “secret” is my pressure cooker. Oh, I just couldn’t possibly live without it. Pressure cookers are the fodder of lots old tales about exploding dinners in the kitchen. Created early in the 1900s, pressure cookers simply have locking lids which allow the steam from cooking to buildup pressure, which greatly decreases the amount of time it takes to cook foods. Pressure cookers make short work of all kinds of vegetables, beans and especially soups. Modern pressure cookers, unlike their ancient counterparts, are built with several safety valves and pressure locks which make them safe and easy. The only challenge I have found with using a pressure cooker is that it can cook vegetables so fast that I need to keep a careful eye on the clock. For instance, broccoli cooks within a minute and cauliflower within 2 minutes. So, timing is important, but even if the veggies get a little overcooked they can easily be salvaged by mashing with spices and/or a bit of cheese and bread crumbs. We love having fresh collards, which some people cook for hours with salt pork. We can cook collard greens in less than 5 minutes with a nice vegetable broth and seasoning.

So, ballet is still stressing our schedule, but with a little planning and preparation, we can still find lots of ways to create wonderfully tasty and health meals quickly.

Training Wheels

2006-11-30T21:21:00.000-05:00

What a fun time we had this weekend! Our youngest learned how to ride his bicycle without training wheels. Actually, what he really learned was how to stop – without letting go and leaping from the bicycle. Balance was not an issue for him. Knowing when to not let go and jump was his issue. If only that was the issue for all of us. Seldom do we walk through life with balance. And seldom do we let go with as much ease as my youngest son. We hold on to our bad habits, refusing to let go or stop. We continue to ride down life’s road regardless of the destination. Speed seems to be more important than destination or the scenery. We may know and see warning signs that we are headed for disaster, but letting go seems too hard or too scary. We need to slow down, put on the brakes and lean to the side. Then stopping isn’t hard. It’s natural.

Perhaps that’s the way we are with our eating habits. Life is just coming at us too fast it seems, to stop and assess. We begin to feel it’s either full steam ahead or dead stop. But that’s not the way it has to be. Incorporating healthier habits into our lives can be both natural and easy. Start with accepting that small changes tend to stick. Look at each meal and add or change one simple thing to make it more nutritionally sound. Perhaps it’s beginning to add more lettuce and tomatoes to your burgers, or perhaps it’s switching out that all beef patty for one made with vegetables. It might be as simple as just adding another vegetable or fruit side dish to your plate. Maybe removing a few things from your menu would be a good start. Give it time, concerted effort and consistency and you might be surprised at how easy it is. You’ll also likely be pleasantly surprised to see how much better you feel.

Just like riding a bicycle, permanent lifestyle changes take balance, patience, persistence and the ability to know how to stop when you need to. Oh, and my son? The smile on his face as he realized he knew how to ride all along was priceless.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-23T15:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another season come and gone – the beginning of another Christmas season. A time for families to unite and rejoice – yet at our table there are several empty spots. No grandpas and grandmas to tell stories of long ago to the grandchildren. Ones we’ve all heard a million times and wish we didn’t have to endure again. And then suddenly, they are gone. No more family stories or memories, except those that we can remember. Another generation lost to the next. Heart disease, obesity and diabetes are more than silent killers – they are family thieves. They come when we are too busy and too distracted to pay attention to our health, too lazy to get off the sofa and exercise and too stubborn to admit that our lifestyle choices are not healthy. This Thanksgiving, we are celebrating the life we have and the choices we’ve made. We have decided to take charge of our health – preventative health - and enjoy the fruit of our choices. Choices to liberate our taste buds to the wonderful flavor of unadulterated food and engage our minds in expanding activities and move through life with ease and flexibility that regular exercise affords us. In order to do that, we keep Thanksgiving joyful, stress-free, focused on the right things, simple and also delicious. We all snuggled in bed today - laughing and sipping our coffee. My 6 and 7 year old are so excited that they finally figured out how to make coffee for us – just the way we like it. I always dreamed about being served my first cup of coffee in bed and it’s finally come true – certainly in the way I never imagined. It was wonderful having everyone snuggled together on a cold day, laughing and talking and planning our activities for the day. We didn’t have to rush out of bed trying to get all of the preparations done. There is plenty of time for that today – and the memories we made this morning by making the time to relax and bond together as a family are priceless. They are certainly worth our decision to keep Thanksgiving dinner easy and tasty. Not that we don’t love elaborate and creative dishes some days- but it sure is nice having all of the comforts of down home cooking – with a really healthy twist. Like the pumpkin pie I fixed this morning. My 6 year old helped and just loved to lick all of the extra pie filling from the Vita-mix container. Yum, Yum! According to him, it’s the best pumpkin pie he has ever tasted.

Pie Crust:
Ingredients
1 ½ cup + 3 T flour (we use all whole wheat – but you can use whatever you like
1 ½ tspn sugar
¾ tspn salt
½ cup cold-pressed oil
3 T soy milk
Preparation
Mix dry ingredients together in pie plate.
Mix milk and oil together in measuring cup, until fully mixed.
Add oil/milk mixture to dry ingredients, blending with fork until crumbly and thoroughly mixed.
Press pie crust onto bottom and sides of pan.

Pumpkin Pie Filling
Ingredients
1 - 15 ounce can of pumpkin
1 package of extra firm tofu, well drained
½ cup sugar or natural sweetener
1 ½ tspn cinnamon
½ tspn ginger
¼ tspn all spice
¼ tspn nutmeg
1/8 tspn salt
1 T cornstarch
Preparation
Place all ingredients in blender or Vita-mix or food processor, processing until well blended
Pour filling into pie crust and bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.

I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving. Take some time for fun and laughs. Elaborate cooking is fun when you want to take the time, but it’s wonderful not to be held in bondage to it. And remember, eating healthy can be fun, fast, easy and most of all tasty.

Another Easy, Healthy Recipe - Portobello Sandwiches

2006-11-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

Portobello Sandwiches

Ingredients:
- 1 large Bell Pepper, sliced
- 2 medium fresh Portobello mushrooms (about 4 inches in diameter)
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 1 Tbsp dry mustard
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1/8 tsp salt
- whole grain bread or baguettes
- lettuce, sprouts, tomato, etc for serving on sandwiches

Preparation:
1. In a small mixing bowl, combine vinegar, oil, mustard, garlic, and salt.
2. Clean mushrooms; cut off stems even with caps. Discard stems.
3. Pour marinade mixture over mushrooms and pepper and allow to sit in closed
container in refrigerator overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
5. Spoon marinated mushrooms and pepper into a baking dish with sides to catch
the marinade mixture. Bake for 15 minutes.
6. Place baked Portobello and pepper on toasted whole grain bread or baguettes
and add lettuce, tomato and sprouts.
7. ENJOY!

Clogged Arteries Showing Up in Kids

2006-11-13T11:01:00.000-05:00

How early do the signs of heart disease begin to show up? Earlier than you may think. Review this article from Healthday News and possibly re-think what you're feeding your children.

SUNDAY, Nov. 12 -- Children with heart disease risk factors -- obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol -- already show indications of fatty build-up in their arteries that could cause heart attacks when they're adults, Canadian researchers report.

"Primary prevention of heart disease must start in childhood. We need to start looking at and treating risk factors for heart disease in children," researcher Dr. Sanaz Piran, an internal medicine resident at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., said in a prepared statement.
Piran and her colleagues reviewed data on 3,630 children, ages 5 to 18, who took part in 26 studies in Australia, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States. Those studies used noninvasive methods to measure arterial blood flow and the thickness of artery walls in children with and without heart disease risk factors.

In many cases, children with heart disease risk factors showed early signs of atherosclerosis.
The review was expected to presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, in Chicago. The findings highlight the need for parents and doctors to prevent and treat cardiovascular risk factors in children, the authors said.
"Diet and exercise are especially important to curb the escalating problem of childhood obesity," Piran said. "Obesity puts children at risk for high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol levels. Children's diets have changed dramatically, influenced by television commercials and the convenience of fast foods," she said. "Children are eating too much fatty and processed foods. Parents need to involve their kids in regular exercise activities and cut down on fatty meals, emphasizing healthy food such as vegetables."

Parents should not smoke in the presence of children and, if there's a family history of high cholesterol, children need to have their cholesterol levels checked, Piran said.
"The very things we recommend to adults should be recommended to parents for their children. There needs to be a family-oriented approach to cardiovascular prevention and to addressing these risk factors," she said.

Vegetables Are Good for the Brain

2006-10-26T12:17:00.000-04:00

A new study shows that eating vegetables protects brain function in aging adults. As part of the Chicago Health and Aging Project (CHAP), researchers at Rush University Medical Center examined the association between rates of cognitive change and dietary consumption of fruits and vegetables among 3,718 participants, aged 65 years and older. Those who consumed greater than 2.8 servings of vegetables per day had significantly slower rates of mental decline than those who ate fewer servings. Green leafy vegetables, in particular, were most strongly associated with a decreased rate of mental decline. Fruit consumption was not associated with cognitive change.

(from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)

Maid Service! (Slow Cooker Recipe)

2006-10-25T16:49:00.000-04:00

I just had to get to my computer to post another recipe. I get so excited when we try something new and we all LOVE it! And when the recipe is easy and inexpensive, it’s even better. And, just when I didn’t think a recipe could be any more desirable – I cooked it in the crock-pot while I was gone all day. When I came home, it was like coming home to maid service! We just added a nice loaf of fresh bread (thanks to my wonderful bread machine) and some sliced fruit to fill out our meal. I hope you enjoy the soup as much as we did.

Split-Pea and Parsnip Soup

Ingredients:

1 small onion, diced
2 parsnips, peeled and sliced into half moons
1 T olive oil
1 1-lb bag of dried split peas, rinsed and drained
6 C vegetable broth
1 tspn dried, ground thyme
1 bay leaf

Preparation:

In a small skillet, sauté the onion and parsnips in olive oil until the onion is soft – about 5 minutes.
Place all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.
Remove bay leaf before serving.

Our personal preference was to serve this with pumpernickel bread and fresh apples. It is such a nice time of year to eat apples and we are enjoying the bountiful varieties! I never knew an apple was actually juicy until we visited an orchard this autumn! What a difference it makes to eat them fresh off of the tree!

Canoeing - A Life-Affirming Journey!

2006-10-23T12:03:00.000-04:00

We had a wonderful time this weekend - laughing harder than I had in a LONG time! What were we doing? We went canoeing, my husband and I and two small children, along with my sister and her husband and two nephews. Normally canoeing doesn't lend itself to episodes of hilarity - but this one did! We found ourselves on a 7 mile run, called Rock Springs Run, part of the Wekiwa State Park. Normally a very placid endeavor, except on Saturday, we had to portage our canoes over 5 fallen trees and barely skim over the surface of hundreds of tree limbs along the way. A normal 3 hour canoe run stretched into 6 hours. As my brother-in-law stated, it was more like bumper cars than canoeing. We had many episodes of balancing on fallen logs, straddling branches, ducking under debris, avoiding a cotton mouth snake (yes, they are very poisonous), brushing against the remains of a dead wild animal, as well as viewing a wide variety of birds, turtles, butterflies, fish and a deer. What was so funny? Besides propelling a nephew into the river while trying to help push a canoe across a downed tree and watching that same nephew rebound out of the water faster than the speed of sound at the mention of "here comes the cotton mouth" and enjoying our children swimming in the crystal clear waters collecting mussel shells and other items and creating a family memory for all of us which will long outlive ourselves....the joy came from the life affirming ability to do what we never thought we could. It was wonderful to have the physical ability and agility to perform the task and fully enjoy the moment without concern over being able to finish, safely and easily. That's part of why I do what I do and eat they way I eat. I love knowing that at almost a half-a-century old (and a husband who is half-a-century old) I am stronger and healthier than I've ever been. It's what keeps me getting up in the morning every day to exercise and keeps me in the kitchen preparing wonderful healthy foods which build-up my body! Life's too short to not to be able to live it fully! (My only regret is that we didn't have a video of the adventure - and if I were the proprietors of the fine canoeing outpost, I would go mount remote video cameras at each of the portage sites - the extra money that could be made from America's Funniest Videos might help them keep their canoes from leaking so much!)

Toys are fun...doctors are not!

2006-10-23T07:33:00.000-04:00

We found this article over the weekend and it seems to sum up very nicely, the epidemic we are all facing. Personally, I want to stay fit until the day I die (hopefully in my sleep of just plain wearing out). I want to be able to continue what we did this weekend (see my entry on canoeing) for as long as I can. And quite frankly, I'd rather spend my hard-earned, uninsured money on things other than medical bills. Toys are fun....doctors are not!

Reprinted from Yahoo news:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AFP) - Obesity -- which affects one in every three Americans -- and the illnesses associated with it cost the United States some 90.7 billion dollars a year in health care costs, a University of Pennsylvania researcher said. Among developed countries, the United States has the most obese and overweight people, representing 66 percent of its overall population. Costs tied to excess pounds account for 5.04 percent of all US health care costs. The calculations by Professor Adam Gilden Tsai of the University of Pennsylvania, presented at a conference on obesity here Saturday, are based on a comparison of 30 previous studies on the cost of obesity for the US health care system.
An obese person racks up an additional 1,034 dollars (or 40 percent) in health care costs for doctors' visits, medications and medical procedures compared with a person of average weight. For someone who is overweight but not yet obese, the medical bills amount to 273 dollars more a year, or 9.3 percent more than those of an average-weight person. And obese patients over the age of 65 pay an additional 2,511 dollars in medical bills. Obesity often leads to other conditions, such as arthritis, asthma, breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

Pasta Fagioli Soup (Pasta & Bean Soup)

2006-10-22T19:34:00.000-04:00

This is a great, easy recipe that makes enough for leftovers or to freeze for another meal. My kids love it! My daughter the other day had this for breakfast, lunch and dinner! It's even faster and easier with a pressure cooker. (You know, one of those "old-fashioned" cookers you hear stories about! Like the time your great Aunt Ruth nearly blew up her kitchen when she forgot the pressure cooker was on and left it for an hour! Ah, but that's a subject for another blog!)

Pasta e Fagioli
Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 plum tomato, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
1 small carrot, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
2 fresh sage leaves, minced or ¼ tspn dried
3 c vegetable broth
1 16 oz can of white kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 c ditali or small shell pasta, cooked

Preparation

Braise the onion and garlic, in small amount of water until tender.
Add tomato, carrot, celery and sage. Sautee an additional 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add broth and beans and heat thoroughly.
Add the pasta, immediately before serving.
Sprinkle with soy, parmesan (optional).

ENJOY!

To Meat or Not to Meat!?!

2006-10-20T09:25:00.000-04:00

One of the hot topics of the day is whether meat (beef, pork, chicken, fish) should be part of a healthy diet or not. Evidence continues to stack up that the more animal products that we can remove from our diet, the better our overall health will become. But weren’t animals put on this earth to feed us? Perhaps, but perhaps not in the form that we eat them today. Howard Lyman, 4th generation cattle rancher from Montana, author of the book “Mad Cowboy”, describes how the feeding and care of livestock has adulterated our food supply. He describes (in great detail) in his book, how the parts of the animal that you would never think of as “food” are processed and fed BACK to the livestock. This includes their entrails, horns, brains, straw bedding, as well as animals that were put down as sick or diseased. Don’t forget all the antibiotics and growth hormones that they pump into animals now too.

Gives new meaning to, “You are what you eat”.

I think I’d rather be a carrot!

Great fall recipe!

2006-10-18T11:36:00.000-04:00

Here is a great recipe that is always a crowd pleaser! It is one of our favorites and with fresh rosemary growing in the backyard its even better. Rosemary is a plant that I just haven't been able to kill yet! All my other herb plants either die or set seed so fast, I lose them before I can use them. Not my little rosemary bush though! We love to use this recipe when the days are cooler so that the heat of the oven doesn't overpower our air conditioner or send our electric bills through the roof. And, sweet potatoes always seem to taste better this time of year. Serve these roasted potatoes with side dishes of fresh Brussels sprouts and butter beans for a real fall treat! ENJOY! (For more recipes and menus click here www.veg4health.com )

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Rosemary
Ingredients
3 or 4 sweet potatoes
2 T Earth Balance or Smart Balance
Bunch of fresh rosemary, stems removed and chopped
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven is preheating, place margarine in 13x9x2 pan in the oven, allowing the margarine to fully melt.
2. Peel and cut sweet potatoes into 1 inch cubes.
3. Place potatoes in the preheated pan with the margarine. Toss to coast sweet potatoes.
4. Sprinkle chopped rosemary over the sweet potatoes. Place in oven and roast for approximately 35 to 45 minutes, until potatoes are tender

Margin!

2006-10-16T13:19:00.000-04:00

As I was just in the kitchen making fresh banana bread for my children - one of whom is napping on the sofa - jut getting over the flu - I couldn't stop thinking about margin! Especially about margin versus bondage! What is margin? Well, for me, its just another reason that I do what I do! Margin to me is being flexible - it's about knowing that the vast majority of food that I serve my family, or eat myself, is so healthy that I don't mind - and in fact enjoy - being able to slip in a little less healthy food now and then! Margin is also about knowing how to cook almost anything from scratch, and having the basic ingredients on hand, that I can prepare almost anything we want without a special trip to the store. This allows us to entertain on a moments notice - or just be spontaneous! Margin is the opposite of bondage! Bondage is feeling trapped in having to eat a certain way all the time. Bondage is being forced, mostly from an internal enemy, to stick to a menu or prepared/packaged food all the time. Bondage is having to run to the grocery story all the time for special ingredients or packaged items. Bondage is being imprisoned in a disease-ravaged body - wishing that you had made different choices along your way. I love being able to please my tastebuds, my family, my health and my lifestyle. Excuse me, I hear the candy corn in the living room calling my name! Two little pieces won't hurt! I have margin in my life!

Great First Recipe!

2006-10-15T21:54:00.000-04:00

Ready to give something easy a try? I started with replacing one meal a week with something healthier. And, the more it tasted like "comfort food", the better it was. So, here is a great place to start!

Fajitas
Ingredients

2 colored bell peppers (your choice) - thinly sliced
1 medium onion - thinly sliced
2 Portabello mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 Tblspn canola oil
Salt, pepper, chili powder to taste
Whole wheat tortillas

Preparation

Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet
Add onions and peppers to hot skillet. Stir-fry for approximately 5 minutes.
Add mushrooms and stir until mushrooms begin to give off their water.
Add spices and stir.
Serve immediately with warm tortillas.

We love to add homemade guacamole to our fajitas. Not to brag, but people beg me for my guacamole recipe and/or to bring a big bowl of it whenever we can to get-togethers. For my recipe click here http://www.veg4health.com/guacamole.html

No Looking Back!

2006-10-15T20:18:00.000-04:00

Once we started making drastic changes in our diet, everything in our diets became negotiable. I read the book, The China Project by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Christine Cox - and what an eye-opener that was. There is never a point where the health gains are not worth the change in removing animal products from our diet. Let me re-state...There is never a point of diminishing return when it comes to switching from animal products and processed foods to whole, plant-based foods. We were hooked. I started experimenting with new fruits, vegetables and meat alternatives. My goal is not to convince anyone that non-processed, plant based foods are better for health than animal products, processed foods and the traditional American diet. (There are enough books and information on this. For recommendations click here http://www.veg4health.com/books.html ) My goal is to help those who are motivated to make changes be successful in implementing them - and have fun along the way. Eating healthy shouldn't be stressful, ill-tasting or boring.

Hurdle or stepping stone?

2006-10-10T20:18:00.000-04:00

When my daughter was 1 year old, and I was just pregnant with our second child, she was diagnosed as being allergic to dairy. If we had any hope of having her outgrow her allergy, we had to remove ALL dairy from our diet. NO Dairy!?! NONE!?! I thought we would die of starvation without any dairy. Cheese was an entire food group to me! What was I going to do? I was battling early pregnancy nausea and could not even begin to imagine giving up my cheese fries and nachos. But I knew I had to. It wasn't a noble venture to be healthier which got me started, but a desire to protect and care for my child. So, we started researching - an activity we were becoming increasingly familiar with after nearly losing our daughter to complications from her two month vaccinations. What we soon discovered was that food tasted good not smothered in cream of mushroom soup and piles of melted cheese. The biggest hurdle I had to cross was my inability to use processed foods of almost any kind. When I started REALLY reading ingredient lists, searching carefully for every way in which milk protein can be disguised, I discovered how horrible most packaged and processed food really is. And, since most processed foods contain dairy, I started cooking most things from scratch. That is when we really rediscovered how wonderful food tastes and how dead and lifeless most processed foods are. Little did we know that this was the beginning of our journey to improved health and fitness. What we thought was a major hurdle became a stepping stone to vitality and life. (For a great summary of all of the names milk hides under in our foods and a list of wonderful substitutes, click here http://www.veg4health.com/Articles/Hiddendairy.html .)

Why did I make a change?

2006-10-09T20:19:00.000-04:00

I've always known, somewhere in the back of my mind, that eating more fruits and vegetables, and fewer processed foods was a GREAT idea. But somehow, taking that ethereal knowledge and putting it into practice was incredibly difficult for me. Perhaps it was a lack of experience selecting and preparing fresh fruits and vegetables or perhaps it was a lack of motivation which kept me locked into the standard American diet where my only vegetable for most days were potato chips and french fries and my only fruit was either lemonade or orange juice. I had even managed to lose weight without improving my eating habits - I just changed the quantities of junk food. I looked good on the outside, but probably not on the inside. Then I had children! Besides permanently ruining my waistline, I discovered that I had the motivation I needed to get healthy and stay that way. It only took once trying to explain to my little girl what a grandparent was to get me moving. You see, both my parents had died early from heart disease and diabetes and all of its horrible complications. My children will never know what it is like to have Grandpa teach them how to fish or throw or football or curl up on Grandma's lap for bedtime stories. I wanted better for them and their children! If the generational curses of diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer were going to be broken, it was up to me! I had to do something!

Start Slowly - Finish Strong!

2006-10-08T22:35:00.000-04:00

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." This old Chinese proverb is my motto for change. When I look back at what I was eating 10 years ago, compared to what I am now eating, it's been more than a thousand mile trip - but never more than a step at a time. I was always the career woman who was totally incapable and over-challenged in the kitchen. My idea of great food was a basket of cheese fries followed by a chocolate shake. Now, I actually CRAVE collards, salads and creamed kale. Looking back, the journey was easy and wonderfully delicious….but I never would have believed it then. The best advice I have for people who truly want to improve their health through changing their eating habits, is to take it one step at a time. Don't even try going from take-out every night to raw/live foods every day of the week. Too big of a change is a recipe for disaster. My step-by-step plan for healthier eating can be read at www.veg4health.com. It's a great place to START! And starting the journey of a thousand miles is almost important as finishing it!

Welcome to Veg4Health

2006-10-08T22:32:00.000-04:00

People always ask me, "If you don't eat any eggs, meat or dairy…..just WHAT do you eat?" I always respond the same, "There is more wonderful, healthy and most importantly delicious food to eat than I would ever have time to fix." My goal is to help you get from wherever you are in your eating habits, to wherever you want to go…painlessly and deliciously! No, I am not an animal rights advocate, and no, I am not a "granola". I am an orphan who lost both parents too early to diabetes and heart disease, and have decided to do what I can to make sure I am around a long time and in great health for as long as I am here. I owe that to my children and their future children. So, let's have fun and let's get our taste buds geared up for some of the easiest and best tasting food there is. Your body will love you for it!