One of my clients sent me this recipe, which also happens to be gluten-free. I'm thinking it could make a great Thanksgiving day breakfast, giving you a great Thanksgiving taste, fueling a great morning walk or workout, and keeping your appetite in check when the big meal is served. I removed the whipped cream and the sugar from the rims which you will see in the original recipe.
Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
Pumpkin Pie Smoothie (Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free + More Free)
1 cup pumpkin puree, chilled (fresh or canned)
½ cup full-fat coconut milk, chilled
½ cup filtered water
1 sliced, frozen ripe banana
1 tbsp almond flour (optional)
1 tbsp hemp seed (optional)
A tablespoon or two of honey, to taste
½ tsp pumpkin pie spice, or more to taste
Prepare glasses by dipping rims into shallow bowl of water and then cinnamon.
Combine all ingredients in blender. Cover and blend on high until smooth, about 30 to 60 seconds.
Pour into prepared glasses or pint-sized Mason jars as I did. Enjoy!
I know, I know. You may be asking,"What in the heck is that?!" At least that was my first thought.
I came across Piñalinaza product by chance, when in the midst of a bout of homesickness for the latin markets in my hometown of Miami, FL I decided to shop at a Food City in Chandler, AZ instead of my usual Fry's or Sprouts.
Sure there wasn't any salsa music playing, and the prepared foods and the marketing were more Mexican than Cuban, but it felt close enough to home. As I was grabbing a bag of onions and a few mangoes, I saw a little stand off to the side in the produce department. Always on the lookout for an"omega 3 boost," the packaging for the Piñalinaza caught my eye.
So what is it exactly? Simply put, it is flaxseed meal (ground flaxseed) with ground pineapple and prickly pear, as well as some other citrus fruits (orange and grapefruit). At plain sight it looks exactly like regular flaxseed meal. But it has a mild tropical scent to it. If you already use flaxseed meal, I imagine you could use it in the same way you use the regular stuff!
Flaxseed is an excellent source of fiber and omega-3 fats, and as you may have already read in this blog before, the best way to get the benefits of flaxseed is to grind the seeds instead of eating them whole.
How do I use it? Normally I might put a tablespoon or two of flaxseed meal into a smoothie/protein shake or sprinkle it into yogurt. When making a smoothie I tend to stick with a vanilla flavored based as it's the most versatile when adding other flavors to it. This didn't disappoint! I made a vanilla smoothie with unsweetened almond milk (Almond Breeze brand), vanilla flavored whey protein, 2 tablespoons of Piñalinaza and about 1 tablespoon of shredded coconut, the kind you might use in baking. A nice tropical deviation from my usual cinnamon-vanilla smoothie.
I also sprinkled it right into some plain Greek yogurt for a quick breakfast this weekend. One tablespoon and half a packet of Splenda (you can use whatever you like if you need the extra sweetness — Greek yogurt is a bit too tangy for me to eat it unsweetened!). I bet it would tasted even better if I'd had some fresh pineapple chunks to throw in there, maybe some other tropical fruits — papaya, or mango. Unsweetened dried fruit may work too. Hmmm… I may have to go back to Food City and pick up some other things!
By the way, the company (Ibitta) also makes a prickly pear version of the product called Nopalinaza, boasting 4 grams of omega-3 in one 15-gram serving.
If you run across one of these products and get to try it, come back and leave a comment. Tell us what you thought and what you did with it!
One of my litmus tests for how healthy a vegan's diet truly is, is to listen to how they describe what they eat. If they focus on telling me what they DON'T eat, and have a limited list of what they DO eat, I start to consider that what we're describing is an eating disorder, not a vegan eater.
Here's a challenge to encourage you to be more vegan and less disordered. It comes from the blog http://www.lunchboxbunch.com/., and it's a list of 100 vegan foods. I've been instructed to italicize foods I'd never try, and bold face foods I have eaten. And to encourage you to share the challenge on your own blogs.
I'm a pretty adventurous eater so there are no italics. I did better than I thought I would, actually, since I am not 100% vegan myself. I now have some great items to add to my own list!
Have fun! 1. Molasses
2. Cactus/Nopales 3. Scrambled Tofu 4. Grilled Portobella Caps 5. Fresh Ground Horseradish 6. Sweet Potato Biscuits 7. Arepa 8. Vegan Cole Slaw 9. Ginger Carrot Soup 10. Fiddlehead Ferns 11. Roasted Elephant Garlic 12. Umeboshi 13. Almond Butter Toast 14. Aloe Vera 15. H and H Bagel NYC 16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash 17. White truffle 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes 19. Freshly ground wasabi 20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream (not store bought) 21. Heirloom tomatoes 22. Orchard-fresh pressed apple cider 23. Organic California Mango (in season Sept-Oct only) 24. Quinoa 25. Papaya Smoothie 26. Raw Scotch Bonnet (habanero) pepper (just a bite!…hot! 27. Goji Berry Tea 28. Fennel 29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie 30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread 31. Starfruit 32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread 33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices 34. Sauerkraut 35. Acai Smoothie 36. Blue Foot Mushrooms 37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc 38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo 39. Falafel 40. Spelt Crust Pizza 41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms 42. Jicama Slaw 43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings 44. Hemp Milk 45. Rose Champagne 46. Fuyu 47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup 48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich 49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice…with Extra Ginger 50. Grilled Seitan 51. Prickly pear 52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk 53. Concord Grapes off the vine 54. Ramps 55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut 56. Organic Arugula 57. Vidalia Onion 58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics 59. Honeycrisp Apple 60. Poi 61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores 62. Grape seed Oil 63. Farm fresh-picked Peach 64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus 65. Chestnut Snack Packs 66. Fresh Guava 67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies 68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC 69. Fried plantains 70. Mache 71. Golden Beets 72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles 73. Liquid Smoke 74. Meyer Lemon 75. Veggie Paella 76. Vegan Lasagna (raw optional) 77. Kombucha 78. Homemade Soy Milk 79. Lapsang souchong 80. Lychee Bellini 81. Tempeh Bacon 82. Sprouted Grain Bread 83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh 84. Vanilla Bean 85. Watercress 86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself 87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie 88. Flowers 89. Corn Chowder 90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate 91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi 92. White Flesh Grapefruit 93. harissa 94. Coconut Oil 95. Jackfruit 96. Homemade Risotto 97. Spirulina 98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine 99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought 100. Fresh Plucked English Peas
For those of you who love green tea, you may wish to expand on your experiences with matcha. This version of tea is made by covering tea bushes before harvest, which causes them to turn a darker green. The biochemistry of this change gives matcha a sweeter flavor than traditional green tea.
This form of green tea is a super power house; gram for gram, it ranks higher in antioxidants than many of the foods consistently on health writers'"top ten supefoods" lists. In fact, researchers recently reported that the ECGC content of matcha can be up to 137 times higher than commercial green tea!
These leaves are then ground into a super-fine powder, which can be used in baking and cooking. If you've ever had green tea ice cream or a green tea smoothie, it is likely matcha that provided the flavor. I think it adds a beautiful color to whatever it is used in.
Most recipes on the Internet using matcha seem to be oriented toward sweets. However, if you look, there are some really interesting options in other categories. I've posted some of the most interesting below, along with links to the websites where I found theme so that you can be inspired in your own kitchen.
If you can't find match locally, consider visiting my friend Kerstin Wingert's online store. That is where I've found it and she is very popular in Phoenix because of her attention to quality in her products.
A storage note: Once opened, matcha does oxidize quickly so be sure to have a plan for using it, or share with friends and have fun tasting each others' creations!
One of the many smoothie recipes I found
Matcha Mango Smoothies
1 1/4 cups mango chunks 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk or low-fat milk 1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon matcha tea powder 1/2 cup ice cubes Honey or agave syrup (optional)
Add mango, soymilk, yogurt and matcha tea powder to blender container. Cover and blend until smooth. Add ice cubes; cover and blend until smooth. Taste for sweetness. Add honey or agave syrup if needed; cover and blend to combine. Pour into 2 glasses.
Makes 2 servings (1 1/4 cups each)
Tip: Adding too much matcha tea can result in a bitter flavor. Start with a small amount of matcha and adjust according to taste.
Here is the most interesting one I found. It is on my list to try!
Green Tea Fish Stew
5 Tbls. Olive oil 1 Clove garlic; peeled 4 medium Potatoes; peeled and diced 1 lb. Flounder, cod or red snapper fillets cut in chunks 2 bottles clam juice 2 cups water 16 ozs. diced or pureed tomatoes 1/2 cup dry white wine 1 Bay leaf 1 tsp. Salt 1/8 tsp. Crushed red pepper or to taste 3 Tbls. Chopped parsley 1 tsp. Matcha green tea powder
Heat oil in Dutch oven. Add garlic; sauté until well browned. Discard garlic. Add potatoes to Dutch oven, cook, stirring constantly, until lightly browned. Add fish, stock, tomatoes, wine, Matcha, bay leaf, salt, crushed red pepper, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until fish and potatoes are tender. Remove bay leaf. Serve sprinkled with parsley. Serves 4
You could probably cut the sugar in this one. Be sure to use dark, high quality chocolate. A great holiday treat!
Matcha Almonds 1/3 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar 8 ounces unblanched almonds 2 teaspoons butter 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken into small pieces 1/2 teaspoon matcha (powdered green tea) or more to taste
Preparation
1.Combine the sugar and 1/3 cup water in a saucepan and slowly heat to boiling, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook sugar syrup until it reaches 240 degrees, or to soft-ball stage. Add almonds and stir to coat. Add the butter and remove from the heat. Stir until the almonds are glazed with syrup. Cook over medium-low heat until little liquid is left in the pan.
2.Add the chocolate and heat until it melts and almonds are completely coated. Set aside to cool.
3.When almonds are cool, dust from on high with the matcha to coat evenly.
And just for a little fun, here is matcha martini recipe! Isn't this the most Christmasy looking beverage! The photo shows a strawberry garnish, the recipe suggests mint and cinnamon, but for this holiday in particular, garnished with a candy cane it would be so pretty!
Weiss, David J; Anderton, Christopher R (2003-09-05). Determination of catchins in matcha green ttea by micellar electrokinetic chromatography. Journal of Chromatography1011 (1-2): 173–180.
I live in a part of the country where palm trees are commonplace. I recently moved to a part of town where date farms used to fill the space. And it's not uncommon this time of year, to see fruit and yogurt stands advertising"date shakes".
I finally decided to learn more about the nutritional value of dates, and learned that they are one of the few food sources of choline. Choline is a building block for acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is very important for memory function. Many Alzheimer's medications are designed to help enhance acetylcholine metabolism.
One of the lesser known symptoms of PCOS is memory/concentration trouble and"brain fog". Diabetes and Alzheimer's disease have a strong metabolic connection. So it seems that women with a predisposition to diabetes should be paying attention to ways to get choline into their diet.
In addition, dates are a good source of fiber, iron, B vitamins, potassium, and magnesium.
And this one is fun! I'm giving you a healthy version of our local date shake to try, a banana-date smoothie.
Ingredients 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt 1/2 cup skim milk, 1% is fine too 1/2 cup dates, fresh, pitted and chopped 2 bananas, sliced 8 ice cubes Directions Place everything in blender and blend until the ice cubes are well incorporated. Serve! Source: www.recipezaar.com
If you are in Phoenix, this coming weekend is a date harvesting event on the Arizona State University Campus, which will include a lesson on harvesting, a cooking demonstration, and some tasting. Click here for more information.
Between the smoothie recipe and the cooking demo, here's hoping you remember to eat your dates…and in the process, encounter a few dates to remember!
One of the most frequently asked questions we get at inCYST, is whether or not a specific food raises blood glucose. It is understandable, given the fact that women with PCOS are insulin resistant and highly likely to develop diabetes, that this would be a concern.
And in response to that concern, it is understandable that nutrition and wellness experts often quote a list of foods to avoid in order to maintain a low-glycemic diet.
Did you know, this"low glycemic" list is highly variable? That even though there are trends, certain foods may affect one person more than another? and that a food that has a tendency to be"high glycemic" on its own…may be perfectly fine when eaten with a mixed meal?
Those high glycemic lists floating around the Internet tend to report the response of your body to a food when it is eaten by itself. So all of those people telling you not to eat carrots or bananas are not telling you the entire story. We rarely eat that way. If you dip carrots in hummus, or eat a banana in a smoothie with Greek yogurt, for example, your body will respond completely differently to that nutrient mix than it would eating either of those foods by themselves.
So when you ask us if a food raises blood sugar and whether or not you should eat it, unless someone has measured YOUR blood sugar two hours after you have eaten it, any advice they give you is pure surmising and not based on relevant factual information.
You can do these tests yourself, you know. All you have to do, is buy a glucose meter at your nearest drug store and test your blood sugar a couple of hours after eating a meal. And before you conclude whether or not a food doesn't work for you, you need to try it alone, in a mixed meal, and at different times of day in order to determine how your body interacts with it.
My point here is, a nutrition, fitness, or wellness expert who is merely parroting information he or she has read on another website and is not customizing that advice to YOU is doing you a disservice. You may be cutting out perfectly healthy foods that you could eat in the right situation. You may be dealing with a food sensitivity that is not going to respond to a low glycemic diet.
Why waste time on information anyone can Google when you can tailor information to your own personal situation?
We love to do this kind of detective work at inCYST, and our network members have taken a lot of time to learn how to interpret that kind of data and make specific recommendations based on how YOUR body works.
Listen to someone who doesn't know you and who may be misguiding you, for free…or get evidence-based, customized information with personal relevance. It may cost you in the short term but save you a lot of trouble in the end.
And that is because I'm a strawberry nut. It's my absolute favorite fruit. I learned while researching this blog post that the average American eats 156 lbs. of added sugar a year…and only 8 lbs. of strawberries in the same time period.
Of course, the fact that you all are not eating enough strawberries means there's more for ME! Ha!
Seriously, though, this fruit is a wonderfully easy food to add to any diet. Put them in your cereal. In a smoothie. On waffles or pancakes. On top of ricotta cheese, sprinkled with almonds, on a Bran Crispbread. On a salad. Freeze them to eat like candy on a hot summer night. (That last one is my favorite.)
Strawberries are high in vitamin C, which is an important antioxidant. It's also important for the production of collagen, which keeps your skin looking young. As far as antioxidants go, it's the third best source of antioxidants when compared to the same serving size of other fruits.
And…did you know…even though they contain sugar, strawberries can also help reduce blood sugar spikes caused by other foods? I wouldn't recommend eating strawberries to counter a carbohydrate binge, but you certainly may want to consider including more strawberries in your overall diet as a way to make it easier for your body to handle carbohydrates. If you're enjoying the sweetness of the berries, you are likely going to want to eat less sugary food anyway, reducing your insulin load even more.
For those of you with high cholesterol, strawberries have also been shown to decrease markers of atherosclerotic disease. The benefits these tasty fruits provide far outweigh the sugar content many of you are concerned about.
One last thing, a recent study reported that organic strawberries are actually higher in antioxidants. So it may be worth it to spend a little extra, avoid the pesticides, and get the extra metabolic boost. If you don't have access to a farmer's market, look for the Driscoll's brand in your grocery store.
Basu A, Fu DX, Wilkinson M, Simmons B, Wu M, Betts NM, Du M, Lyons TJ. Berries modify the postprandial plasma glucose response to sucrose in healthy subjects. Br J Nutr. 2010 Apr;103(8):1094-7. Epub 2009 Nov 24.
Törrönen R, Sarkkinen E, Tapola N, Hautaniemi E, Kilpi K, Niskanen L. Strawberries decrease atherosclerotic markers in subjects with metabolic syndrome. Nutr Res. 2010 Jul;30(7):462-9.
So many of you are artistic, and appreciative of color…it occurred to me while working on another project the other day, that perhaps thinking about food in a different way would work better with your creative brains.
We had a challenge recently at Chow Locally, we got a beautiful head of peacock kale. Many people who received it had questions about what to do with it, and when I looked online for recipes to share, I didn't find many. And that meant my weekend was going to be devoted to coming up with ways to use it that were easy to make and not too avant garde.
I went with my backup for greens, pesto, and came up with this really pretty final product! The recipe can be found here.
Another one of our customers, Barefeet in the Kitchen's Mary Younkin, also a food blogger, came up with this beautiful purple smoothie made from the same kale. She went with more of a fruity theme, which you can read about on her blog.
In recent weeks, I've also enjoyed some other colorful creations!
Here are some egg salad wraps. I used a simple egg salad recipe and added chopped spinach for color. And I saved a few leaves of a gorgeous head of Merlot lettuce for the wraps. Simple recipe, made exotic simply by switching out the colors!
We had a bunch of bright lights chard, so I made risotto, another one of my favorite ways to use greens. The stems are a beautiful array of reds and yellows, so instead of throwing them out, as many risotto recipes will tell you to do, I minced them, sauteed them, and added them in for a confetti effect.
This head of romanesco surprised me by turning fluorescent green while it slow roasted! I really didn't do much to this, it decorated itself in the oven. But I loved the surprise that came out of the oven!
And here is a Daikon radish slaw! I was really doubtful about this one since radishes are not my favorite veggie, but it was so colorful it enticed me to taste it, and I ended up loving it!
We're no different from Mother Nature's other creatures. We are attracted to foods for a variety of reasons. One of the most important ones is color. Fortunately, the foods that add color are usually the ones loaded with nutrition.
When you are in the kitchen, take off that healthy cooking hat and put on your creative"PCOS brain" hat. Ask yourself where the color is! If it's not inherently there, don't be afraid to deviate from the recipe. Create your work of art, and trust that if it's naturally colorful, something in that food is going to benefit your health.
Today I'm sharing a blog post from Dr. Susan Rubin. She talks about purslane, an omega-3 containing"weed" that also appears to have the ability to break down BPA.
If you aren't adventurous enough to try the salad, be sure to throw a handful in your next smoothie!
It's my absolute favorite time of year, when cherries are cheap. I wait all summer for July! Even though I usually eat all my cherries before I have a chance to do anything else with them, a few years ago I did find a cherry salsa recipe in a Costco cookbook that earns raves every time I take it to a party.
Cherries are a great anti-inflammatory, and they are also high in melatonin. So they do double duty in helping to balance hormones. Eat them plain…throw them in a smoothie…try this salsa…no matter how you pit 'em, you can't go wrong!
Well, it's not really a food, but it's one of the six essential nutrients and lack of it will kill a human much more quickly than lack of food. So I thought since the temperatures are climbing and we're all looking for something to keep us happily hydrated, that I'd talk about water today.
Did you know that the vast majority of your weight…is water? The less body fat you have the higher percentage of your total weight is water, but in general most people are about 65% water. If you do"quick fix" things to lose weight, and you lose pretty much anything measurable in the course of a day, the weight you lost is likely to be water.
A lot of times when you think you're hungry…you're actually thirsty. The body has the ability to do this, knowing that a lot of foods have water. I'm not a huge fan of the"drink water to ignore that you're truly hungry" school of nutrition, but I AM a huge fan of drinking a glass of water when you first feel you're hungry to see if the feeling goes away…or starts to drift back. If it went away, it was water that you needed. If it came back, you need to eat something.
A lot of times the energy low you feel mid-afternoon…is actually dehydration. Try keeping hydrated and see if it doesn't give you a brain boost and lessen your thoughts about getting your hands on something sweet. I was reminded of this a couple of days ago when I got busy, didn't pay attention to how much I was drinking, then spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how to get back into my condo that I'd locked myself out of in my water-deficient stupor. It's probably why water is on my mind today!
A really interesting behavior I see in my clients is that they have very stable habits when it comes to eating--healthy or not. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner tend to be pretty much the same thing, day after day. But when it comes to drinking water they complain that they don't like it because it gets boring and tedious to drink it!
I love plain water, if it is ice cold. I also freeze fruit juice into cubes to zest my water with a little bit of lime, orange, even strawberry flavor. And whenever the special essence-flavored waters go on sale, I grab a few bottles. A shot of lemon MetroMint in a plain glass of water can really add flavor.
Another important strategy that gets water into you is to eat more fruits and vegetables. One reason they are so low in calories for the volume is that they are very high in water content. Actually, any time you eat a food that is more liquid--smoothie, soup, etc., you increase your water content.
So one of the big reasons you get so much benefit from these foods is not just that they're low in calories, but they're high in water content, which keeps you from falsely craving food and seeking out the wrong things to get rid of the urge to eat a food that you thought you wanted, you ate, then realized you didn't feel any differently…except maybe wishing you hadn't eaten what you ate.
That's what I was thinking when one of my Southern cousins posted on Facebook last night that she had gallons and gallons of muscadines to give away.
Gotta love Google, within minutes I learned that a muscadine is a grape native to the Southern United States (while many grapes are"local", few are"native", having been brought to our continent by Europeans who apparently feared a New World without wine).
Scuppernongs are a type of muscadine that are bronze in color.
Southerners, take note: muscadines and scuppernongs contain more resveratrol than any other variety of grape! Resveratrol is an extremely powerful antioxidant that many people pay a pretty penny for if they don't have the luxury of having gallons and gallons growing in their yard. In addition, they are the only grape that contains ellaic acid, another powerful antioxidant.
I'd be throwing a handful into my morning smoothie as long as I had them to use…but for the more adventurous types, I found some fun and healthy recipes to try. They had me wishing I had a few gallons to work with myself!
Roast Carrot Salad with Muscadine Vinaigrette Southern Peach Scuppernong Salsa (I bet this would go great with grilled catfish!)
If eating native, local, and healthy, tastes like this…I'm sold on it!
We've got quite a few friends on our Facebook fan page from Trinidad and I've been promising them I'd give them some ideas for hormone-healthy foods available on their islands.
I ran across a couple of great drinks that our mainland friends should think about trying!
Peanut punch is somewhat like a smoothie. The original version uses sweetened condensed milk, but I found one made with plain milk that's been healthied up:
Peanut Punch
2 cups roasted and shelled peanuts 3 cups water 1 cup lowfat milk 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 3 tablespoons honey (I would start with 1 tablespoon and add as needed) 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Directions
1.Place the peanuts and water into a blender jar and blend until the peanuts are pulverized. Strain the liquid from the ground peanuts and put the liquid back into the blender jar along with the remaining ingredients. (Discard the ground peanuts.) Beat it until it is frothy. Serve it immediately or refrigerate (blend again before serving).
If you're in the United States and have access to a wider variety of ingredients, you could easily change out peanuts for any kind of nut, and you could use any kind of milk alternative. It will have more protein if you use milk, but there is flexibility here.
Place channa in blender with milk and condensed milk. This may be done in batches. Blend well. Strain into jug or pitcher. Add the bitters and essence. Stir. Taste and adjust sweetness if necessary. If too thick, a little water may be added
I like this one even better! Chickpeas are one of the lowest glycemic types of carbohydrate you can eat. You may need to add some sort of sweetener as I did remove the sweetened condensed milk and replace it with regular milk. Originally it was a 50--50 mix. You may want to experiment and add some of your wonderful island fruits to sweeten and mix up the flavor instead of plain sugar.
I was pretty fascinated reading about the foods our friends eat. Hopefully it will inspire more posts with ideas that work with your available foods and also encourage others to be adventurous in the kitchen!
I love bananas. They are one of my favorite fruits. My basic smoothie recipe is one cup of yogurt, a banana, and whatever fruit is in season. I put them on my oatmeal. I bake with them. I freeze them and eat them like ice cream. So it always bothers me to see nutrition and fitness experts steer people away from bananas. Apparently they are too high in carbohydrate. If you DO get permission to eat one…you have to cut it in half. (Like who is going to eat the other half the next day when it's all brown?) My theory has always been, if you eat a banana, you get fiber, and you get vitamins and minerals, so you get a whole lot more than carbohydrates. And if you eat a banana, it is filling enough that you are less likely to be hungry for other, less nutritious carbohydrates. So last week, when I saw bananas hit the newswires, for a good reason, I was excited! A new study tested the athletic performance of people eating bananas vs. those using sports drinks. And the bananas won out. Of course they did. Mother Nature designed them. There are people, a lot of them, who devote their lives to creating the ultimate nutrition supplement. There are labs with hundreds of thousands of dollars devoted to researching whether or not those supplements should contain vitamin M, mineral T, or antioxidant Y. And the banana, the fruit we've been telling people to stay away from, was the secret weapon all along. By the way, if you're like me and you like bananas when they're still a little green without any brown spots, you're getting an additional type of carbohydrate--resistant starch. This type of carbohydrate passes through the stomach undigested and is not processed until it ferments in the large intestine. The resulting byproduct is a prebiotic, meaning it feeds healthy bacteria and promotes calcium absorption. It may even promote weight loss, because carbohydrates your body uses as resistant starch yield fewer calories than calories that do not.
So before you take bananas out of your diet because a trainer who heard it from another trainer who heard it at the gym from someone who read it on a website told you not to eat them…take a look at the research. I think this guy knows a lot more than personal trainers who have nothing to gain and money to lose if you eat bananas instead of earning them commission and endorsement money on some artificial supplement. Has Mother Nature ever packaged anything with bad intent?
You know you're a little obsessed with omega-3's when the manager of your local TJ's recognizes you walking in the door and takes you to see a new product. That's ok, it's an obsession that seems to be helping others and it's fun to learn about new and fun ways to get back into nutritional balance!
This time, the product is Omega Orange Carrot Juice from Trader Joe's. It's actually a blend of several juices with the predominant flavor being carrot. One serving has 50 mg DHA. And, unbelievably, it comes from sardines!
I had to try it, so I brought some home. It was tasty! I asked a friend to try it, one whose tastes differ from mine, and it received a second thumbs up. We also tried it blended with 50% with orange juice and that was good as well. It looked kind of like a tequila sunrise as the two colors swirled around each other while we poured our drinks.
The manager who introduced me to this product told me he had a moment of panic when there was a shipping error and he had 100 cases of this juice on his hands. He was concerned people wouldn't want it. So he put his demo people to work concocting ways to serve it. He learned that no matter what they did, plain juice, or blended into a smoothie, it flew off the shelves. I am thinking for anyone doing any baking it would be a great thing to add to muffins or banana bread.
Of course, it's juice, which means it does have calories and carbohydrates, so you still have to watch the portions. But it's such a simple way to add more omega-3's to your diet, simply by switching out calories that were already there, with calories that add even more nutrition.
Give it a try, you might be surprised at how fishless this product actually tastes!
I gave this vitamin its nickname because its presence is needed in adequate quantities in order to have enough of many other compounds, such as niacin.
The most stable version of vitamin B6 is found in plant foods. Another reason to get more fruits and vegetables in your diet! For those of you who just don't like the dark green leafy options on the list, remember you can throw a handful into pretty much any kind of juice or smoothie and not notice the taste. You can also make your own vegetable broth and freeze it into cubes in your ice tray for future cooking. I'm not a big fan myself, but I've found when I include them in other dishes such as omelets, rather than trying to eat them alone where I'm 100% focused on the flavor, I can get them in more easily.
Here's the list, and the link to the PCOS Diva's vitamin B6 menus. Have a great week everyone!
I love to promote kale in my Whole Foods classes. It has omega-3's, trytophan (building block for serotonin), magnesium, iron, calcium, copper, and zinc, to name a few. It's also a member of the Brassica family, that cancer-fighting clan with more popular cousins named garlic, broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts.
But I always get the same response (see deer in the headlights graphic). I know what's pumping through those brains…"Kale? Isn't that the pretty curly stuff lining the fruit and veggie platter? You can eat that?"
Yes, you can…and should…eat kale.
Here's a trick for you kale virgins, if you're not quite up to the task. Next time you make a smoothie, of any flavor, throw in a handful of kale. You won't even taste it. You can also throw it into your juicer.
If you want to actually taste kale, your next best step is to head to your nearest Whole Foods and try the kale salad which is a staple in their ready-to-eat case. That's how kale is supposed to taste, and according to those who have been on my Whole Foods tours who are encouraged to try the salad, it's pretty good!
Here are some kale recipes for those of you who did so well with steps one and two that you're ready to strike out into the Adventurous World of Kale.
Here's a snack with potential benefit other than immediate gratification!
Dark chocolate covered tart cherries. Dark chocolate is a great antioxidant. So are tart cherries.
Of course, if you eat them by the bucketful the cost of the choice can begin to outweigh the benefit.
But in moderation--even a couple thrown into a smoothie--you're doing better than you might imagine.
You can even take the cue from the photo and make your own, which allows you to dip the cherries in more chocolate and less sugar than pre-prepared versions might contain.
Here's a link to an online cherry store where you can buy some, if you can't find them in your local market.
I'm still trying to figure out why my clients have trouble with healthy eating. It's so tasty when you do it well!
Hey, wait a minute! This is supposed to be a healthy blog…Girl Scout Cookies!?!?!
Let's start at the beginning. I have a pretty active group of Facebook friends, and many of them are Girl Scout moms. I started seeing status reports about what to do with the temptation of all those cookies sitting in the garage…coming in from points North, South, East, and West.
As a joke, I mentioned that I was going to start a support group especially for these moms.
At which point my college pal and wine aficionado Hank Zona chimed in, and we discussed which wines might go with which cookies. Hank is one of those guys who, I can honestly say, I've never seen without a smile on his face, and who finds fun in everything from food and wine to music, to the little things in life that he can pair with them. I found myself wishing I could replace the fear and anxiety in all those Girl Scout moms with some joie de Hank…and thought perhaps a blog post on the topic might be a start in that direction.
So here's the deal. I am a First Class Girl Scout and I strongly support their work with girls. But…I do not think Girl Scout cookies are a health food, and suffered a severe breakout once myself from eating an entire box of Samoas in a single sitting. I think the Girl Scouts would best consider a healthier fundraiser…but the reality is, they're part of our food world. Rather than let that fact control me and how I feel about food and myself…I want to share some ways we all might include Girl Scout cookies in our lives that have nothing to do with bingeing and everything to do with being a"little more Hank".
1. Eat a couple of cookies as part of a meal, at the end of the meal. By combining a small, moderate amount of them with other foods that have helped to fill you up first, you will (1) be less likely to binge and (2) help temper the blood sugar fluctuations they are sure to produce if eaten on their own.
2. Eat the cookies at your dinner table, not standing in the kitchen, driving in the car, sitting at your work desk, or any other place where you might easily lose track of what and how much you are eating. Better yet, eat them in the presence of others so you are accountable for what you do.
3. Challenge yourself to see how long it takes you to eat one cookie. Contrary to popular practice, Girl Scout cookies were not intended to be consumed by the sleeve or the box. Chances are, if you're gobbling them down, you're not even tasting them and you're already stressing about the future consequences of what you're doing right now. You may actually find, as many people do, when you allow yourself to eat something sweet, and take the time to taste it, a bite or two is all you really need.
4. Try a Girl Scout cookie smoothie! Put some Greek yogurt, a banana, and a couple of cookies in your blender for a tasty treat with healthier influences.
5. Again, I'm not saying wine and cookies are the ultimate health food combination, but there's an energy that goes with savoring a glass of wine and a sweet treat, in moderation, that could be used with all foods, in order to have healthier attitudes about those foods. Hank's wine pairings will be shared in Part Two of this topic.
6. Finally, if the combination of you in the house and boatloads of cookies in the garage is not working for you…then don't freaking do it!!!You're still a good mom, and you're still a Girl Scout supporter if you do not turn your garage into a glucose surplus warehouse for 6 weeks each year. Donate money…donate your time…the Girl Scouts will exist whether or not you eat, sell, or support their cookie fundraiser.
Finally, here's your litmus test. If you're squirming about my suggestions, looking for ways to interpret the wording for permission to eat more than one or two at a time…or even left this post mid-blog to go get a few cookies to munch while you read…be honest with yourself. Are you using Girl Scout cookies to augment a healthy diet? Or are you hoping that somehow, some way, you are going to discover a magical piece of advice that gives you permission to just read about, not act on, healther choices that you don't really have to enact?
If you truly try these suggestions and they didn't work…that's where inCYST can help. Our providers are trained in this very dilemma and have many great ideas for ways to de-slave yourself from trigger foods. Look to the side here, and find someone who can help you.
Since the beginning, flaxseed oil has been an important part of our protocol. It provides the helpful estrogenic benefits that soy does, but without the potential problems soy creates for thyroid function. The problem is, most flaxseed oil is not easy to take and therefore it isn't used as much as it could/should be.
Shape Foods has finally solved that problem with their new line of culinary flax oils. In the first picture you see the line of smoothie-friendly flavors: banana, coconut, chocolate, and caramel. I was skeptical, but they turned out to be yummy! These products are hot off the factory line and not easy to find. Be sure to ask for the Royal Harvest flavored flax at your favorite store to be sure the buyers know there is a demand. I did manage to find the Coconut and Banana flavored varieties on amazon.com if you're interested in ordering by mail.
If you're more of a savory person, you may be interested in their Heart Shape line of cultural cuisine adaptations: Szechuan, Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Italian. Salsas, bruschettas, pad thais, etc., will never be the same again!
This product line is slated to appear on grocery shelves this summer. I have no link to provide you. (That is, yet!) Again, be sure your local buyer knows you want to buy them!
This product line was by far one of my favorite finds at Natural Products Expo West. One of the most frequent questions I've had when teaching omega-3 chemistry was about how to cook with flax oil. I always hated answering the question because it hasn't really been a kitchen-friendly oil.
Now it is, and I'm excited to try them in my own kitchen!
