I was a little uninspired for this weekly feature until I made breakfast. Oatmeal is such a staple for me, it hadn't even occurred to me that I could talk about it here. It's not fancy, it's not expensive, it's not glamorous…it's just oatmeal. But it's filling, and it can be dressed up in so many different ways that, at least for me, it never feels like the same breakfast twice.
I like to put nuts, raisins, and dried fruit on my oatmeal. I also add my Omega 3 Brain Booster powder as a way to boost the nutritional content. I bought a bunch of glass canisters at IKEA, and I use them to store/display my oatmeal and all my different fixins'. They look so pretty and healthy it makes me want to use them, which is exactly the point!
Oatmeal has a great glycemic index, meaning it won't wreak havoc on your blood sugar. And that means you're less likely to be hungry in the morning because your blood sugar dropped at a time when lunch was still a ways away and there were donuts sitting in the break room.
A special oatmeal note for you frequent flyers. The international terminal at JFK airport (New York) has a wonderful oatmeal bar! You can fix it with just about anything you would want. I was so thrilled to find this, since much airport food can't even really be thought of as food. Check it out and enjoy!
We know you all love recipes and inspiration, so we are excited to be joining a group of bloggers that will provide you even more of what you're looking for!
Recipe Redux is a monthly blogfest showcasing the creativity of registered dietitians who love to cook. At the beginning of the month we are each given a theme to work with, and on the 21st of each month, our creation relating to that challenge is posted, along with links to all of the other recipes our colleagues have provided.
Dietitians participating in this club agree to focus on at least one of the following in their recipes.
reduction in overall calories and/or sugar
increase in fiber
lowering of saturated fat and/or increase in mono- or poly-unsaturated fats
reduction in sodium/salt from processed foods
showcases at least one food group mentioned by the Dietary Guidelines as the basis of a healthy diet: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, seafood and beans
I encourage you to peruse the links at the bottom of this post, learn, and collect…since all the recipes are from registered dietitians, you can be reasonably confident that most of them will be healthier than what you might find on other websites. (I say that because we dietitians love the occasional indulgence as well, so you will find some dreamy fun entries in the collection!)
Our challenge this month was to create something using either maple syrup or honey. I decided to use one of my favorite treats on a cold night, champurrado, as the basis for which to create Mexican Oatmeal. Champurrado is a hot drink traditionally made with masa (the cornmeal you use to make tortillas), flavored with all of the spices native to Mexico (chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, fennel seed, and some type of sweetener). All of these are beneficial for inflammation and insulin resistance, so adding them to oatmeal makes a perfect hormone-friendly breakfast! I simply took those spices, switched out the masa for oatmeal and created the following breakfast you can make in your microwave. Think Mexican Hot Chocolate and oatmeal all mixed together…yummy, healthy, and full of energy to get you through to lunch!
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Remove, stir until chocolate is completely dissoved, and microwave for one minute more.
*You can use any dark chocolate, really, I just chose this one because it's what I keep around to make Mexican hot chocolate. The darker the chocolate the better…vegan chocolates will give you more antioxidant power as milk tends to bind the beneficial compounds and render them metabolically unavailable.
I'm not at all a fan of the Food Guide Pyramid or the new My Pyramid. I know too much about the politics of how each food got its position in the diagram. And I know that the concept is promoted by the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Health and Human Services. So it's really about marketing commodities at least as much, if not more than, promoting healthy eating.
Last year at this time it occurred to me that eating patriotically (if you are a citizen of the United States, France, Chile, Czechoslovakia, and the United Kingdom, to name a few), is a fun way to think about what constitutes a healthy choice.
So I went to Google to see if there was anything under the term,"food flag". I found this:
Sausage and pasta were not really what I had in mind, so I scrolled further, and found this:
Absolutely not what I wanted to communicate!
So…I had a little fun and I made my own. I hope you like it!
I posted a bigger version on my website, feel free to use it as long as you keep the copyright notice intact in the lower righthand corner. You can find it at www.afterthediet.com/foodflag.htm.
