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Clean Eating

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Clean Eating

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My Garden Bounty

My son is 42 years old and recently was given a clean bill of health from his family doctor. His once high blood pressure has returned to normal and his life-long history of allergies have disappeared and he has the body of a 20 year old man. Two years ago he started a regime of eating clean. According to Fox News Health, “The primary principle of eating clean is to replace processed foods with fresh and natural foods. This means foods that haven’t had anything added to them, and haven’t had anything valuable taken away. “

“In addition to reading ingredient lists, so you can ditch products made with artificial additives, including flavors, sweeteners, colors, and preservatives, clean eating is about steering clear of foods made from genetically modified organisms, and those treated with hormones and antibiotics, and going organic when possible, to reduce foods grown with man-made pesticides and fertilizers,” writes Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian with master’s degrees in both nutrition science and public health.

She goes on to explain that clean eating is not a trend but a movement focusing on how food we eat affects our body as well as our planet. My son says he doesn’t “live to eat.” Instead he “eats to live.” He doesn’t eat clean to change or influence others but he is an inspiration. At the same time he began this way of life, he gave up alcohol and meat. He eats fish and sea food and eggs, but no dairy.

I do not eat clean totally, however I do read labels and try as much as possible to eat fresh organic foods especially ones I’ve grown myself. I do eat meat and drink a glass of red wine every day and I understand that high fiber foods that are good for me are also high in calorie. Combine that with the wine, odds are losing weight might not be in the picture.

However, like my son, I have the power to choose how I want to look, feel and weigh. When I turn to the Spiritual connection I have within I realize what a young girl suffering an eating disorder realized, “A turning point for me, I can remember,”  says Emily, “it was as if God was speaking to me directly, saying, ‘It’s not how you see yourself but how I see you that will heal you.’ And I started seeing more of what God sees. God doesn’t see imperfection, God sees good and only good.” And like my son, she went on to not only heal her eating disorder but also the need to wear glasses.

It occurred to me that if I combine my healthy eating habits with my connection to God and begin as Emily suggests: to see me as God sees me, I can then truly become the person I want to be.

Good Food, Good Drink, Good God, Let’s Eat!

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Bountiful Raised Garden

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vegetablesGone for five days and it rained for four of those days.  Lucky days for our garden (and for our son Brian who offered to water both our garden and his brother Daniel’s garden.)  We came home to brand new vegetables and an abundance of others that had already been producing.  Always grateful, we love sharing and my new neighbor mentioned she was a vegetarian (for 55 years now) and she got a large brown bag of assorted vegetables right after I cleaned them. Included in yesterday’s pickings were cucumbers, squash, zucchini, lettuce, beets, purple hull crowder peas, bell peppers, okra, and three varieties of heirloom cherry tomatoes.

Yesterday for lunch I made a green salad with three varieties of lettuce, the cherry tomatoes, avocado, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, boiled egg, chopped broccoli, cucumbers, and quinoa.  It was delicious.  We had a half a grilled cheese sandwich to top it off.  For dinner, I made cheese grits from organic polenta and because we do eat meat from time to time, I sautéed some chicken and then added a cold salad I made early in the day which had cucumber, tomato, and onion soaked in my homemade dressing of Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, olive oil, and honey.  For lunch today, I stir-fried slices of zucchini and veggie burger (which we split), deviled an egg for each of us, sliced some cold cumbers and tossed on a few cherry tomatoes and topped it all off with a couple of spoons of my homemade bread and butter pickles that I made last week.

Tonight I am making a zucchini risotto with sun-dried tomatoes and lots of other herbs and greens from our garden.  I’ll grill a slice of pork loin topped with garlic, grated lemon, red pepper flakes and some Louisiana seasoning.  And we will finish off our dinner with a flourless chocolate cFlourless-Chocolate-Chip-Banana-Muffinship almond butter muffin.  I found this recipe at the Huffington Taste website. Every once in a while it’s nice to not know the calorie count on something.  But eating healthy the majority of the time allows for a few hiccups and I do love chocolate chip anything!

But most of all, I enjoy taking advantage of the bounty from our raised gardens in our little back yard.  When I think about all the years we didn’t have one, I say a prayer of gratitude for what we have now.  Growing our own vegetables helps with our budget and it helps us know that what we are eating is organic and good for us.  And we get to enjoy new foods, create new recipes, and share our bounty with friends and family.

Go Green!

17 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Go Green!

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the-importance-of-green-drinksWhen I was a little girl my grandmother used to say, “Oh look Pris, it comes in green.”  Green was not her favorite color, but it was a close second to the color pink.  I used think that is why her daughter, my mother, pledged Delta Zeta as pink and green were its colors and so became my mother’s favorite colors.  And oddly enough, they are my favorite colors as well.  But when it came to green food growing up, they were on my “no way” list.  I did not like fruit or vegetables and was not afraid to say so.

Thank goodness I outgrew that stage of life and came to love all kinds of fruits and vegetables.  But drinking a green drink never crossed my mind until I started growing my own garden and investing in my health.  By taking into my own hands what foods I eat, I found that green smoothies heavy with garden greens, fresh (or frozen) fruits, coconut milk, chia and flax seeds make for a great snack or meal.

Many nutritionists encourage us to not ignore the importance of a daily green smoothie.  And with lots of varieties to choose from, one could never get bored.  I found a recipe the other day that was a mango-lime-banana-kale-coconut milk green smoothie at only 318 calories which is low for an entire meal.  I freeze my bananas and cut them up before putting in the blender to make for a cold smoothie.

Vernon Dassler, CN encourages us in his book, “Sick and Tire? Of Being Sick and Tired,” to make a change in our eating habits. He reminds us that only we have the power to make the changes.  “Each individual must make wise choices as to the method of instituting these changes. Some start with small steps in the plan but others may do better by making more radical changes all at once. Connect with the wiser part of yourself and consider which type of personality you are before jumping into any change,” writes Dassler.

Green smoothies are also ideal for weight-loss because they are an ideal fat burning food as well as nutrient-rich, loaded with fiber and low in fat. Of course one should avoid obvious things like dairy products, fats, sugars and artificial sweeteners, store-bought juices, canned foods and powders other than hemp or rice. According to Tracy Russell at Incredible Smoothies, “Green smoothies work best if they are part of a healthy, whole foods diet that helps you lose weight and maintain your ideal size and shape.”

Next time I’m in my backyard, I’ll pick some kale and dandelion greens and make me a smoothie and can say, “Oh look, it comes in green!”

My Leafy Green Garden

30 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in My Leafy Garden

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lettuce 1In the April 2015 publication of Spirituality and Health Magazine, Traci Pedersen writes about how eating leafy greens make for a sharper brain.  She states, “A new study has found that eating leafy green vegetables – such as spinach, kale and mustard greens – can have a dramatically positive effect on our thinking abilities. In fact, older people who eat one to two servings a day of leafy greens have the cognitive skills of a person over a decade younger.”  – See more at:  Spirituality and Health.

I am most pleased to be reading this.  My garden is based on the plants we like, and each year we add more raised beds and include new and different plants.  This year our son built raised beds in his backyard.  Being a vegetarian, he was most interested in choosing quality seeds and so ordered them online from Survival Essentials.  They claim that their seeds are, “the finest Non GMO, Non Hybrid Heirloom Seed Bank anywhere on the Earth!”  In fact these seeds, if placed in an airtight glass jar in a freezer, have an expected shelf life from 10 to 20 years.  And he got enough seeds to share with us.herbs

In addition to our kale which survived summer heat over 100 degrees and three snow storms and temperatures below 10 degrees this winter and our two rosemary bushes that never die, our flat leaf parsley, curly parsley, lavender, sage, and mint all came back or survived the winter.  We had to replace the spicy oregano and sweet basil in the herb garden and added amaranth; however we are now ready for our leafy greens to sprout.

Returning are Crowder peas, okra, cucumbers, yellow squash, green squash (zucchini), sweet bell peppers, tomato plants and lettuce.  But this year we planted red-tipped romaine, butter crunch, and Prizehead lettuce.  We also planted arugula, beets, radishes, and not just for the vegetable but also for the greens.

lettuce2For fun we created a corner for strawberries.  But the first rainfall we realize the runoff from the neighbor’s yard runs directly down the center of the strawberry patch.  We laid some small gravel and that didn’t work so added a stone wall to guide the water away from the strawberry plants; so far so good.

In total, we have sixteen raised beds.  Waiting for the ground to be warm enough to plant was hard because it was only a few weeks ago when it was close to freezing at night.  But having a garden filled with leafy greens is worth it.  I’m not sure if it is the work involved in taking care of a garden or if it is eating the leafy greens that keeps an older person young, but I’m willing to keep on enjoying our garden and all of its bounty.  Eating healthy and liking what I eat and having the cognitive skills of a person ten years younger sounds great to me!