Excuses, excuses, SOLUTIONS.

“Nature’s Original Fast Food”

Fruits and Veggies.

Friends or Foes?

I would like to call them my best friends. But sometimes we don’t give our best friends the respect they deserve. Why don’t we just eat more of these foods if we know they’re so good for us? Why not if we know is good for us? There are only like a-bajillion research studies done on the benefits these colorful wonders have on our bodies… “yea, I’ll take the fries as a side please but hold the tomatoes.”

I narrowed it down to three reasons why we consciously refuse to eat these babies, and then three amazingly easy solutions to these issues!

Excuse #1: It’s not convenient.

So most of you beautiful people reading this are students (and if not you are an on-the-go worker). So you might not have time to whip up some healthy meals right?

Wrong, so wrong, sweetie.

A few fruits and veggies you can carry in your purse/backpack:

· Carrot sticks

· Celery sticks (and natural peanut butter, yum!)

· Apples

· Red bell peppers (whole, not sliced so the vitamin C doesn’t oxidize. Eat it like an apple!)

· Oranges (whole)

· Bananas

· Berries

· Cherry tomatoes

· Cranberries (wait, those are berries)

· Raw zucchini (with yogurt dip)

· Guacamole (mashed avocado with spices, see recipe below)

· Kiwis

· Mangos

· Figs

· Apricots

· Plums

· Almonds (Okay, so not exactly a fruit, but it is the seed of a fruit and still an amazingly healthy snack! This isn't cheating, telling you dark chocolate is a smarter and more decadent choice over milk chocolate would be cheating...)

That’s more than a few, but it’s a thorough list you can pick and choose your favorites from! Even though there are a few you might not like, go ahead and be adventurous. (I might’ve cheated a little and had some help from this website.) You might like new veggies with a dip and can progress to eating them all by themselves. Go YOU!

Excuse #2: Bad Childood Memories

Your mom served you an ocean full of nasty greenish peas with a stench so nauseating your first instinct was to…cry. Now that you’re grown up you can take that tissue and tuck it into your shirt because you best believe you will be enjoying these delicious emeralds this time around. Not yo mama nor anyone else is going to force you to eat anything. You choose what you eat. So why don’t you give it a second try? Peas go well in chicken/tuna salad and you can barely taste them. Blend spinach into your breakfast shake with berries and the fruit will overpower any other taste. Why not quickly cook them with a bit of lemon, pepper, and garlic? Zesty and non-nightmare producing, eh?

Excuse #3: But the Doritos taste so much better!

So does the Chex Mix and the Pringles. What if I told you that we train our taste buds to like certain foods? Would that help us understand that we can actually train those suckers to enjoy Brussels sprouts? Heck-to-the-yes! Don’t do it from one day to the next though. Make it a goal to switch out a sugary or oily snack for a healthier version once a week, then twice, and so on until you’re on a full-blown Veggie Vogue! GO YOU!

Eating more fruits and veggies is a lifestyle you must adapt your mind and body to. If you try to make a whole bunch of sudden changes to your diet, the odds will not be in your favor of sticking to this new healthy regimen. Instead, take your time, explore what you like and add new options as you go along. Keep your purse/backpack stocked with a day’s full of good-for-you snacks (like the ones I listed), be willing, and be patient.

peanut butter jelly time! Na, I'd rather do VEGGIE TIME like this:

Luscious Guacamole

· 3 medium Haas avocados

· 1 lime (or 2, depending on how strong of Latin vibes you’re feeling)

· 2-3 cloves of garlic

· 1 small onion

· 2-3 tablespoons cilantro

· Sprinkle of salt

· 2 serrano chiles (they look like this)

Mash the avocados. Finely chop up the garlic, onion, cilantro, and chile. Squeeze some lime lovin, and sprinkle some salt. Make other people jealous and enjoy.

GO YOU!

Milking the Nutrition Cow

The more things change the more they stay the same, that can be said about the musical chair game of promoting whats best for us in the way of diet. If the FDA puts a stamp of approval on a product or tells us to avoid a product the food companies get busy perpetuating that concept. The purpose is of course to make money, the problem is whats good for you today may not be tomorrow. Without shouting from the mountain top my age I can take you back though some diet recommendation I remember that would be disturbing to say the least by today’s standards. The seventies and the eighties advertisements were riddled with making life easy through science and technology. With any mention of a food being good for you the market would go into a frenzy promoting that product, if the product could be altered and patented, well now not that's all the better! Yep putting big money into something like “I can't believe it's not butter” was at one time the way to go. Today to promote a food product as artificial would be advertisement suicide. The trans-fat ingredients found in margarine and frying products of the past are now are now being revamped with green labeling as products that carry zero trans-fats and all natural ingredients taken right from natures kitchen. However the fact still remains; millions of Americans bought into that claim literally and the affects have been devastating. Just Google the effects of trans-fats in the diet. I remember distinctly as a child watching television commercials with margarine talking on a kitchen table to butter, taunting butter about how bad it was. How many can finish the Advertisement jingle “Everything's better with......” I could mention other scenario's like promoting cows milk over mothers milk or saccharine and aspartame as great substitutes for sugar, however what's most important is to remember our health is worth making an inquiry about the product before feeding it to our families. With information at our finger tips we can research apposing views on any subject. NPeace

Promoting Nutrition in Wonderland.

Finding the true promoters of a natural way of eating (i.e. avoiding processed foods) in the U.S has become increasingly difficult. The emphases is on true promoters, not those just trying to make a buck on the latest popular trend of eating naturally or locally. Because mass communication has been upgraded to include everyone it's superficiality has also been upgraded. Sincerity is blurred into a greedy mist of money and politics. You can learn more about the concept of (everyone and the internet) by checking out Clay Shirky's book “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organization. The enticements of instant fame and money is an embracing seductress, turning even some of our principled and noble ones into money hounds. With basic knowledge of a PC, some charm and a bit of satire anyone can step out onto the world scene by way of the weird and wacky wonderland of the internet and take a financial bite out of the nutrition market. To my knowledge there is no internet God that monitors what some would call blatant highway robbery, and deception. Take a moment to search the USDA-FDA Organic site you might be surprised to learn what is considered organic, or what is considered local. I happen to believe false advertisement is more egregious when it's connected with health or misinformation that can kill us, even if it's a slow kill. What's most important is reader beware, some sites look legitimate and impressive. With a little legal representation a creative writer, some nutrition snake oil and abracadabra McGreedy PhD is born. Many believe the food and drug administration is watching over our well being, the more I read, the more I believe that's a unhealthy misconception, they can't do it alone, we must get involved. While it's true we are in need of healthy redirection and some counsel from the professionals, I would say before you jump down the rabbit hole of the internet information superhighway, look both ways for oncoming traffic. Dr. McGreedy may be driving and he has no regard for your health. NPeace

Hotels: Now have Gluten-Free Menus

Everybody loves to eat their favorites: cake, pizza, pasta, and potato chips.

But with the rise of celiac disease in individuals and as gluten free diets are gaining more popularity, Hotels are now coming out with innovative food options without the gluten baked into it. With many of Americans currently suffer from a scope of gluten-related disorders, it is fortunate that more and more restaurants in Hotels are accommodating menu options around this complicated dietary restriction. 

Not only is the number of gluten-free eateries expanding, so are the options within the menus. Hotel restaurants are serving now a broader selection, often including gluten-free cocktails, striped bass and chorizo, and they are certainly showing a higher level of understanding of special dietary needs.

Most recently, Kimpton's Hotel Palomar San Francisco are offering gluten free dishes including pretzel twists provided in their mini bars. Last year, the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts formulated a menu particularly for guests who have cardiovascular disease to gluten sensitivity. In addition, they have also created a new kid's menu that is composed of less calories than the regular counterparts. Correspondingly, Omni Hotels and Resorts have introduced a gluten-free breakfast buffet after research was evaluated on the demand for gluten-foods.

Many items on the menu are being formulated with substitutes for wheat and barley, making this industry a magnet for gluten free guests. Hotels are realizing the demand for gluten-free food and are trying to cater to the gluten-free market. Hotel owners are always looking for ways to drive in more traffic and they have found the most perfect way to attract more customers.

http://travel.usatoday.com/hotels/story/2012-02-05/Hotels-cater-to-special-diets-gluten-free-food-now-on-menus/52976352/1

The Problems with Processed Foods

While recently browsing through my Twitter I came upon a tweet titled “What happens to your body when you eat ramen and Gatorade?” My eyebrow rose slightly. I found my fingers double clicking the mouse. I was instantly directed to a video made by Stefani Bardin, and her colleague, about the effects processed foods have on the human body. Two people swallowed pill-sized cameras to make a side-by-side comparison between eating processed and whole foods. The difference was disturbing to say the least. It got me thinking about the food most of eat today and how we have let things come this far.

Walk into any local grocery store and you are sure to be surrounded with chemically enhanced food and beverages. Food processing began in the late nineteenth century with the age of industrialization. Factories were canning, processing, preserving and packaging food in large quantities. These foods were cheaper, could last longer and could travel long distances. Now our foods are filled with dyes, chemicals, additives, preservatives and refined you-name-its. The convenience and affordability of processed food has made it a staple in the American diet, but at what cost?

            In most cases processing food reduces nutrients or adds unhealthy ingredients. Our bodies often have a much more difficult time trying to digest all the man-made components of manufactured edible goods. High processed food often contain high amounts of the following:

·      Sugar

·      Salt

·      Fat

·      MSG

·      Calories

Health issues such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high plod pressure can all result from poor eating. Being young, busy, and often strapped for cash, it can be hard to make the change. Here are a few small ways to switch to whole foods:

·      Snack on raw nuts instead of roasted, salted nuts (less sodium and fat)

·      Eat bread that lists the first ingredient as 100% whole grain

·      Grab an apple and skip the juice

·      Buy natural peanut butters that don’t contain partially hydrogenated oils (aka trans fats).

The sooner we recognize the damage we are doing to our bodies the sooner we can make a change.

Callie Gilliland

Feeling Addicted?

Can exercising really be addicting? Researchers concluded that too much exercise may be similar to drug abuse and, in some cases, linked to eating disorders. In fact, nearly half of exercise addicts have reported having an eating disorder.

Just like an alcohol or drug addiction, there are health dangers to excessive exercise, such as repetitive stress injuries, heart problems and bone loss. And some suggest that more than an hour of exercise may not be good for the body, so there is no need to spend hours beating yourself up at the gym.

There are six warning signs to help determine how much is too much exercise, and to help diagnose addiction. The six warning signs include:

Tolerance – Where strenuous exercise is no longer challenging

Withdrawal – Felling anxious, moody, and hard to fall asleep at night if skipping a work out

Lack of control – Impossible to stay away from the gym

 Intention - Exceeding the workout time for the day

Time - Exercise takes away from relationships and obligations

 Continuance - Working out even after physical and emotional stress have hit

 You can read more about the six warning signs at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/exerciseaddiction_n_1250027.html?ref=healthandfitness&ir=Health%20and%20Fitness&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008 along with a video on our brain’s response to addictive behavior.

Some tips on helping an exercise addiction may be finding a happy medium and working out in moderation. Other tips may include swapping out running for swimming or swapping out heavy lifting for yoga some days. Remember to pay attention to recommended exercise amounts for adults, and recommendations for recovery. On a positive note, researchers found that even as little as 10 minutes of working up a sweat can help boost our mood, so no need to over due it!

by Krista Patient

Breakfast

This morning I woke up starving, thinking about food, and craving something delicious yet of course, healthy.  Again.  This is nothing new though.  Breakfast has always been the last thing I think about before I fall asleep and the first thing I think about when I wake up.  I never thought this was normal until I finally talked to a friend who was also getting her degree in nutrition and she totally knew the feeling.  Guess I’m not the only one who thinks about food on an hourly basis.  Anyways, I always wondered why it is I love breakfast so much and why I always wake up so immensely hungry every day.  Especially since most people dread the thought of putting anything in their mouth in the morning.  Well, as I sip my coffee and ponder my thoughts, I realize it is quite a simple answer.  I haven’t eaten in oh, say, 12 hours!  Of course I’m hungry!  My body has fasted for half of a day and now that I am awake, my stomach is screaming at me to eat!  Now, I understand that not everyone is lucky enough to enjoy the splendors of breakfast, but if you want to boost your metabolism, feel healthier, and just be happier (that is what breakfast does for me), then you should start attempting to eat something every day along with your morning coffee.  I won’t go into mind-numbing detail about the intricate health benefits of eating breakfast down to a cellular level, because really, as human beings, we just like to be told what to do to be healthier, right?  Well that is exactly what I am going to do, tell you what to eat for breakfast to feel good and start your day the right way.  I am even going to do you one better, post a picture of all the ingredients of my favorite breakfast, and show you what it looks like after the 5 minutes of preparation (no more excuses that you don’t have time to make breakfast, we all have an extra 5 minutes).  Try this breakfasts that I have created, and let me know what you think!  More importantly, let me know how you feel.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, your body needs it.  Also, check out this website, http://www.thedailymeal.com/10-reasons-eat-breakfast, it has great reasons why your body loves breakfast.  So help yourself feel better and start to THINK.EAT.LOVE.FOOD!

By Kelsey Eggleston