Let's Get Fat!

Something very interesting has been happening to me over the past few months. I have been eating fat without getting fat. Let me explain. About a decade ago I along with most Americans began to fear FAT. As fat became the enemy and a swarm of low-fat and nonfat foods crowded grocery store shelves, something interesting happened––Americans got 30 percent bigger and mass confusion reigned. We started consuming highly processed goodies with wild abandon, unaware of or simply disregarding the fact that they have significantly more sugar and only slightly fewer calories that their original counterparts. I personally have spent most of my adult life buying no fat and low fat foods, counting fat grams all the while barely budging on the scale and for all intense purposes not really feeling any better for it. Here's what I have found through my research and work with my holistic counselor.
Fat is a wonderful source of energy and this is why our bodies are designed to store it easily. Ancestrally speaking, the goal was to have a stockpile of energy easily accessible when food was scarce. Also, when cold weather made activities like gathering roots a challenge, fat could be used as insulation. Also, we need fat to burn fat. That’s right. Fat balances blood sugar by slowing the release of carbohydrates into our system and levels the ratio of two hormones, insulin to glucagon, which is critical for giving stored fat the heave-ho.
The right kind of fat is an essential macro nutrient that our bodies need (the other two being protein and carbohydrates). There are two kinds of natural fats, saturated and non-saturated. Saturated fats are solid fats found in milk, cheese, meat, lard, and tropical oils such as palm kernel and coconut. Non-saturated fats are found in vegetable, fish, nut, and seed oils and are divided into two categories: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Monounsaturated fats include olives and olive oil, avocados, cashews, almonds, peanuts, and canola oil. Polyunsaturated fats are found in fish, vegetable oils (corn, sesame, sunflower, and safflower)
Saturated fats have been disparaged in the press as villainous foods that should be banished from the diet. According to Dr. Mary Enig, nutritionist and biochemist internationally renowned for her research on the nutritional aspects of fats and oils, “The idea that saturated fats cause heart disease is completely wrong, but the statement has been ‘published’ so many times…that it is very difficult to convince people otherwise unless they are willing to take the time to read and learn what all the economic and political factors were that produced the anti-saturated fat agenda.”According to Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., Clinical Nutritionist and Certified Nutritional Specialist, “Saturated fats play a positive role in the human body. They provide a good source of stored energy, they cushion the organs against shock, and they insulate vital tissues against the cold.”However, overindulging in saturated fats can adversely affect your health by blocking absorption of essential fatty acids found in non-saturated fats. It’s important to remember that eating out can contribute to a lot of hidden saturated fat. According to Ms. Gittleman, “We tend to overeat saturated fats not because we are eating too many fresh, thick steaks, but because we unwittingly eat fats that are separated from the original food sources and used in a variety of ways in commercial food production.”
So, you see, the answer is not to eat less fat. Have no fear; good fats are not the demise of our health and waistlines. Whether you’re trying to shed pounds or thwart heart disease, good quality fats should not be avoided and are critical for good health. Incorporating healthy fats like fish, nuts, quality dairy, avocados, and oils into your meals will help you eat less, lose weight, and feel great.
So tomorrow morning wake up and have a couple pieces of toast with some wonderful nut butter or for lunch a great fruit and cheese plate and tell yourself....I hope I'm getting FAT!

"Did you ever stop to taste a carrot? Not just eat it, but taste it? You can't taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie"
~Astrid Alauda

Has Inertia Set In?

I have had a blog post brewing in my mind for the last several weeks but it feels like wading through melting cheese to get it out of my mind and onto the blogsite. Come to think of it, it feels like wading through melting cheese to get anything going these days! What gives peeps? I'll tell you what gives.... It almost seems like the world around us and the world inside us is moving in slow motion. I've never been a napper but I am finding myself yearning for just that. My vocabulary has been reduced to single syllables. I don't want to get up in the morning. I don't feel like cooking. Left unchecked, this could be disastrous. Many holistic practioners emphasize embracing, not fighting, the natural swings of the seasons and seeking BALANCE in every area of our lives. So instead of a 2 hour nap, take the dog out for a brisk walk. Instead of grunting, sit down and write a blog entry or call an old friend. Instead of flipping around in bed feeling guilty in the morning, get up and drink a big glass of water and do some breathing exercises. Instead of eating another tortilla with butter, cut up some fruit. Of course this is a major oversimplification of the science of listening to your body and responding, merely a suggestion of where and how you might begin to look at how you're feeling.This is the challenge...when we are feeling imbalanced, rarely do we want to do that which would actually balance us! Often, the thing that would benefit us most, is the thing we're least inclined to do. How easily we forget that balance is what heals and that stepping off the track or hamster wheel we're spinning on may be just the thing to help us regain our center, even though it seems like plugging away on the grid is what will get us there. Or that any day now, we'll just spontaneously feel better. So if you've also recently slid into a pattern of stagnancy, or the flip side of that, a pattern of over-commiting followed by exhaustion, you might consider doing that which least appeals to you in the spirit of finding balance. Just experiment and see if it does in fact make you feel a little more balanced and then go from there...


Life is not merely to be alive, but to be well. ~Marcus Valerius Martial

My 1st Alternative Medicine Post

So I thought I would finally make my 1st post on alternative medicine. I used to think anything I didn't get from my Dr. or a pharmacist would never make me feel better but, over the years my view has changed...about 180 degrees. I won't go into my full rant about how our country is over medicated, especially our children but, I will say that for especially things like the common cold or sinus infections there is a whole world of natural alternatives especially to antibiotics.

I used to frequently get sinus infections and started reading the benefits of old fashioned garlic. Italians have been cooking with and using garlic to cure ales for centuries, being that I married an Italian I figured it could not hurt. So, when I feel a cold coming on, key word when you feel it coming on, I turn to my kyolic garlic extract. Medical studies have shown that garlic - the aromatic seasoning people either love or hate - can lower cholesterol, prevent dangerous blood clots, reduce blood pressure, prevent cancer, and protect against bacterial and fungal infections.
Just what makes garlic so good? Known scientifically as Allium sativum, garlic contains more than 100 biologically useful chemicals, including substances with such strange names as alliin, alliinase, allicin, S-allylcysteine, diallyl sulfide, allyl methyl trisulfide.
In fact, garlic has been used medicinally for at least 3,000 years, but until relatively recently its benefits were considered little more than folklore. According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Nov. 28, 1990;264:2614), the therapeutic roles of garlic have been described in more than 1,000 scientific studies. So when you feel that illness coming on start chopping up that garlic or better yet buy it in extract pill form at your natural market.

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." -Thomas Edison

Time for Another Recipe

I thought it was time to post another recipe here. In light of all of the wonderful produce at the farmers markets this one should be no problem. I did substitute whole wheat spaghetti but you don't have to.

Stir-Fry, Yield: 4

Ingredients:
2 tb sesame oil,
2 cm; (1 inch) piece fresh root ginger, grated,
1 clove garlic; crushed,
1 kohl rabi; peeled and cut -into thin sticks,
1 lg carrot; peeled and cut into thin sticks,
250 gram pac thread egg -noodles,
1 bn salad onions; diagonally-sliced,
125 g sugar snap peas; topped and tailed,
3 tb hoisin sauce;
2 tb soy sauce,
2 tb water,
1 ts peanut butter,
2 tb sesame seeds,
1 sliced radishes to garnish (optional)

Instructions: Heat the sesame oil in a large frying pan or wok. Add the ginger, garlic, kohlrabi and carrot and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes. Soak the noodles in boiling water to reconstitute, following instructions on the pack. Add the salad onions and sugar snap peas and stir-fry for a further 1-2 minutes. Stir in the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, water, peanut butter and half the sesame seeds. Stir in the reconstituted, drained noodles and serve immediately sprinkle with the remaining sesame seeds and garnish with radish slices.

When I talk about a great dish, I often get goose bumps. I'm like, whoa, I'll never forget that one. The Italians are just like that. It's not all about food. It's part of the memories.
Mario Batali

Eat like a local yocal!

So I really try on this blog not to bombard folks with my beliefs about food, the environment, etc...but I have decided that the following post must be shared so forgive me for yet another post on the benefits of eating organic and local food.
About a year ago, Tim and I stumbled upon the local food movement, specifically through the 100 mile diet challenge that was sweeping the country. When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles—call it "the SUV diet." On the first day of spring, 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon (bios) chose to confront this unsettling statistic with a simple experiment. For one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Since then, James and Alisa have gotten up-close-and-personal with issues ranging from the family-farm crisis to the environmental value of organic pears shipped across the globe. They reconsidered their vegetarianism and sunk their hands into community gardening.
Their 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted. Within weeks, reprints of their blog at thetyee.ca had appeared on sites across the Internet. Then came the media, from BBC Worldwide to Utne magazine. Dozens of individuals and grassroots groups have since launched their own 100-Mile Diet adventures. As we learned about this idea of eating local food grown close to home we thought hmmm how can we do this?? First there are the farmers markets during the summer which are amazing. There is no greater feeling than seeing the farmers week after week that provide the meals you will cook for your family. But we wanted even more, this is when we came across CSA's, community supporedt agriculture. Basically Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a partnership of consumers and farmers. The member shareholders provide a guaranteed market and income, as well as labor, to produce and distribute the food for a growing season. The farmers provide weekly shares of fresh, seasonal, certified organically grown vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Both partners share in the risks and rewards of small-scale farming: weather, insect damage, and bumper crops.
Families and individuals who join the CSA receive a share of produce every week during the growing season (mid-May through October). In exchange, members sign a contract for the season, agree to pay in advance, and help with some of the work of harvest and distribution of the food. This idea was exactly what we wanted as our long term goal is to someday have our own property with a farm of our own. So, we found a farm in Kearney, Mo called Fair Share Farm. We read the literature, got on the waiting list and in March paid our money for the growing season. We are now in our 5th week of the CSA growing season and we feel truly blessed. I'm not sure I have ever tasted produce like this in all my life. To me I can truly taste the love and care that has gone into growing these vegetables and every week is an adventure wondering what will be in our share that week.
I recommend this to anyone interested in eating more local food. The price evens out to about $12 a week if you were to go to say Price Chopper and buy your produce but I can guarantee it will not taste the same. I have several links on this blog to the local food challenge and also our CSA Fair Share Farm if you are interested. Perhaps we can join the KC 100 Mile Diet challenge this year!

When you understand where your food comes from, you look at the world in an entirely different way.
-Alice Waters-

Diary of a Coffee Connoisseurs Conscience

Anyone that knows Tim & I knows that we hold a special place in our hearts for good coffee. When we met we did and do still spend many hours talking over cups of coffee. We also got engaged at our favorite coffeehouse Broadway Cafe in Westport. But as we started to drink more and become more aware of where our food came from we became interested in the fair trade movement.
The United States consumes one-fifth of all the world's coffee, making it the largest consumer in the world. But few Americans realize that agriculture workers in the coffee industry often toil in what can be described as "sweatshops in the fields." Many small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the costs of production, forcing them into a cycle of poverty and debt.
Fair Trade is a viable solution to this crisis, assuring consumers that the coffee we drink was purchased under fair conditions. To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must meet stringent international criteria; paying a minimum price per pound of $1.26, providing much needed credit to farmers, and providing technical assistance such as help transitioning to organic farming. Fair Trade for coffee farmers means community development, health, education, and environmental stewardship.
We all have the opportunity to "vote with our dollar" but we all lead busy lives, and we want to do the right thing, but we're busy. What if we could make a positive impact just with the purchases we make every day? And not have to go out of our way to do this? That's the compelling proposition of Fair Trade. If you'd like more information on Fair Trade and where to buy not only fair trade coffee but other things like chocolate go to http://transfairusa.org/ and for household goods please visit a ten thousand villages in your area or on line http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/.

"We must build a new world, a far better world -- one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected." -- Harry S. Truman

Music To Your Ears

I thought I'd make a music post and pass along one of my favorite artists. If you like the sounds of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald you will love Madeleine Peyroux. Her music is the perfect compliment to a good read, and a cup of tea on a quiet evening. You can go to her website and listen to all of her songs on all 3 of her albums which is amazing.
Hope you enjoy, you deserve it!
http://www.madeleinepeyroux.com/flash_content/main.html

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”
- Victor Hugo-

New addition to the blog

Take note! I have added a new fun fact section on the blog, that's a fact located above the blog site picture. I will change it frequently with a fun factoid for your enjoyment!

Something Yummy

Well I think it is time to post another recipe here. Recently I've been researching and learning more about sugar in my families diet. It started when I decided to kick my coke (no not the drug although it was a drug for me) habit once and for all. I had made such strides in my diet and nutrition, making the move to all local and organic food in our house but for some reason I could no give up my coca cola. That was until I read and talked to folks who convinced me otherwise. The biggest factor was the sugar in the coke and all of our soft drinks now to be honest. I read that in the 1970s, food technologists dreamed up some new support for the sweet-tooth culture: High fructose corn syrup replaced sugar as the sweetening agent in soft drinks. Ounce for ounce, corn syrup is six times sweeter than sugar as well as a great deal cheaper. It was a gold mine for the soda pop titans. If you can believe it our American diet now floats on a flood of soda sweetened almost exclusively with fructose. Soda consumption, which averaged 22 gallons per person a year in 1970, reached 56 gallons per person a year by 1999. I was almost sick the more the thought about just how much sugar, therefore extra calories, I was taking in all throughout my day just from cola!
So, in light of that I have spent the last few months learning about sugar and sweetener alternatives. What I have found is amazing! Of course I had already been using honey and maple syrup in many things but little did I know there was a whole world of products people have been using for hundreds of years to sweeten their food.

Below I have added a recipe for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies. They have a few different ingredients whole wheat flour, a hint of molasses and date sugar. I actually substituted the whole wheat flour for spelt flour but if you are new to the world of baking using these type of ingredients I would go easy on your families and not introduce too many new ingredients all at once. However for children I think these are an amazing compromise for their sweet tooth. The whole wheat flour gives us the the good carbohydrates we need and the date sugar (you can find it at natural food stores) sweetens these cookies naturally. If you are unfamiliar with date sugar it is perfect for substituting sugar in baking. You can use it 1 to 1 ratio. It is more a food than a sweetener, as it's an unprocessed sugar made from dehydrated dates that are ground into small bits. It's high in fiber, and has a lot of vitamins and minerals, including iron.

With all that said these cookies were amazing. My all time favorite food is chocolate chip cookies so I would not steer you wrong. Best part is the batch was so large we made a few and froze the extra dough for those days when you just need some cookies and milk



Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you wish, you can substitute carob chips to make them even healthier.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups date sugar
1 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 tbsp. molasses
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour + 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 oz. (or less) chocolate or carob chips

"I am the best expert on my life and my health"