hee hee

Can you find the picture of me in this post from diseaseproof?

I'll give an update this weekend about how my meal prep is going with my new gone-all-day-and-night schedule. I just had to make a few tweaks to the plan.

battle of the milks

[sorry if this post appeared 2x..I love technology].
My sister is visiting this weekend! So far we’ve hit the beach, picked pails of blueberries, run the flat and gorgeous MI territory, roasted marshmallows over our fire pit, and day tripped to St. Joseph.
     
Allison recently commented: I'm so glad you brought up Almond Milk! Can you tell me, as a dietitian, why almond milk is a better choice than soy milk? Is it a good alternative to cow’s milk or soy milk for children?
vsvs   
Here’s a nutritional breakdown:

	Almond Milk (Almond Breeze, vanilla); 1 cup	Soy Milk (Silk, vanilla); 1 cup	Cow’s Milk; (1% milk fat) 1 cup
Calories	90 calories	100 calories	102 calories
Fat	2.5 grams	3.5 grams	2.4 grams
Sodium	150 mg	95 mg	107 mg
Sugars	15 grams	8 grams	12.7 grams
Protein	1 gram	6 grams	8.2 grams
Vitamin A	10%	10%	10%
Calcium	20%	30%	29%
Iron	2%	6%	0%
Vitamin D	25%	30%	32%

For adults:

• If you have a milk protein or soy allergy and need to find an alternative, almond milk is a delicious substitute.
• Note that almond milk is very protein poor (1 g) compared to soy milk (6 g) and cow’s milk (8.2 g).
• Almond milk does not contain phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) like soy milk does, but I have yet to see research that concludes drinking soy milk is harmful.
• Caution is warranted for those who have a history of breast cancer or thyroid disorders-eat a moderate amount of dietary soy (25 grams/day of soy protein may reduce the risk of heart disease; Harvard School of Public Health advises limiting consumption to 2-4 servings/wk of dietary soy).

For infants/children*:

• The World Health Organization, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Dietetic Association recommend exclusive breast feeding for the first six months of life and support breastfeeding for at least 12 months (AAP, ADA) or up to 2 + yrs (WHO) with appropriate supplementation of complementary foods (iron fortified after 6 months).
• Soy milk or almond milk should never be used as alternatives to breastmilk or formula.
• Once old enough to drink cow’s milk, remember that 25-60% of those with milk protein allergy will also react to soy.
• Keep in mind that almond milk has less protein, fat, calcium, and vitamin D than cow’s milk or soy milk when considering your child’s nutritional needs.

* information from WHO, AAP, ADA, and lectures from Karen Steitz’s Pediatric Nutrition class, 2010
While I do believe that some people may best achieve optimal health by consuming a vegan diet, I can’t conclude that this diet is beneficial for all people in all situations. When making the choice to go vegan, you must determine if consuming dairy or animal products adversely affects your personal health. I’m continually researching this subject and will keep you posted as I learn more.
Happy {last day of the} weekend!


This is your last chance to vote for Donate Life America! Almond Breeze is dividing 25k between the charity organizations listed on the widget to the right of my blog (refresh the page if you can’t see the widget or click here to vote). Voting ends today-Sunday at 11:59 pm ET!

the truth about those annoying commercials

This morning started with a non-typical breakfast. It’s been hot, and I just couldn’t take normal oatmeal for one more day. Enter this muesli mix of yogurt, peaches, oatmeal, walnuts, and cinnamon.

The only thing I’d change is to use non-dairy yogurt. I really want to try to make yogurt using Almond Breeze. Has anyone tried and had success with making non-dairy yogurt? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

One of the advantages (?) of being unemployed is that I actually have time to watch tv. However,the number of commercials for unhealthy, quick fixes drives me insane; no wonder people are so confused about nutrition.

Here are some of the commercials I’ve seen lately and their flaws:

Nutella

• [Disclaimer: I LOVE Nutella, but their latest commercial makes me cringe].
• Nutella’s commercial claims that combining the rich hazelnut butter with whole grain toast is a balanced breakfast. Their website adds this qualifier: when used in moderation with complementary foods. I doubt many people visit the website to see this little statement.
• How does Nutella stack up against peanut butter?

	Jif natural 2 T	Nutella 2 T
calories	190 calories	200 calories
fat	16 grams (3 g saturated)	11 grams (3.5 g saturated)
sodium	75 mg	15 mg
fiber	2 grams	1 gram
sugar	3 grams	21 grams
protein	7 grams	3 grams
calcium	2%	4%
iron	4%	4%

• Nutella has more calories, saturated fat, and 7x the sugar as Jif Natural peanut butter, but it does have less sodium and more calcium.
• Because of the sugar content, Nutella should not be standard breakfast fare. It definitely fits more appropriately into the dessert category!

Kashi GoLean Cereal

• I really do like Kashi’s products, so I’m not bashing the company in any way. However, I do think that their latest commercial is misleading.
• The commercial states that Kashi Go-Lean Crunch contains “as much protein as an egg.” What they don’t mention is that egg protein and cereal protein are not equal. Egg protein is high biological value protein (HBV) and contains more essential amino acids than cereal protein.
• Animal products typically contain HBV protein, while plants, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds and vegetables contain low biological value protein.
• Note: this doesn’t mean that vegetarians are protein deficient, it just means that they need to focus on eating a varied and balanced diet in order to receive an adequate combo of amino acids.

Motts’ Medleys Juices

• Supposedly, this juice contains two fruit and veggie servings magically hidden in every 8 oz glass

	whole apple (med)	Motts’ Medleys Juice (8 oz)
calories	~95 calories	140 calories
sugar	~19 grams	22-30 grams
fiber	~ 4 grams	0 grams

• While this may sound fantastic, I don’t buy it. This juice doesn’t contain any fiber and is loaded with calories…it’s not a great substitute for a whole apple or fresh veggies.
• It may take 10-15 tries before a child will accept a food. It may take even longer for some of us adults, whose taste buds have been ruined by eating high fat, sugar, and sodium diets. Work on developing a healthy palate before you resort to drinking juice.

Has anyone else seen similar commercials (or these commercials) lately? So many Americans watch tv, and I really wish that the government would put money into nutrition education via positive media messages…can’t remember when I last saw a commercial encouraging kids to eat their veggies!

weekend cooking

I started a new job on campus (doing the same thing as before, just not working from home anymore); and I'm gone from 7 am until 9 pm every weekday. yikes! (Don't worry, that includes fun in addition to work). So I'm trying to work out my food prep. I think it involves a lot of weekend cooking. Here's what I tried out this weekend.

First I had a snack because I was hungry after yoga:

These are some of my favorite foods: frozen mangos, romaine lettuce, carrots, and sugar snap peas.

Then I made housemate's smoothies. Here's a gigantic bowl of fruit, mostly frozen, with a bunch of fresh grapes. I kinda went overboard on the fruit but that's okay, it just turned into 13 smoothies instead of 10. We have a visitor coming this week so I made extra.

Next I assembled yummy beans in carrot juice. I tried out my new juicer. Housemate was irritated with me for getting a new juicer since I already had a good one. But I sure like this one. It's easy to use, smaller than the old one, and easy to clean up. Here's the juicer in action:

Then I couldn't resist playing some more so I tried out an apple. First slice (using an apple corer/slicer):

Then juice. Here's the juice from one apple. The apples are local, fresh, and yummy:

This is just a treat. Whole apples are healthier because they have all the fiber.

Okay, that was Saturday. Sunday morning I put the beans on to cook and went to church. Sunday afternoon, the weather was too nice, so I went biking. Then Sunday night it was time to make the veggies. The garden is overflowing with collards so that was the main ingredient, but it also included kale, swiss chard, eggplant, lots of herbs, onion, and garlic. Here's some of the produce left, after most was processed in the food processor:

I seriously used a ton of collards, so the only way to fit them in was to chop them tiny with the food processor. I just chopped everything with the food processor, because it was fast and it compressed the food more. This was a ton of veggies! At left is my big pot and at right is housemate's---she has much fewer veggies, and some potatoes added in. Oh, and this was before all the greens were added to my pot:

While these were cooking I made tomorrow's salads. I forgot to take a picture: romaine lettuce, yummy fresh strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and kiwi, and a few pumpkin seeds. I'll add D'angou pear vinegar when I'm ready to eat them.

Now time to assemble the veggies: the cooked greens&veggies, the cooked beans, some canned tomatoes (from the garden), and just a bit of date syrup (leftover from the smoothies):

Put them in the freezer (joining the smoothies):

Here's tomorrow's food in the fridge:

oh yeah, that's housemate's spritzer in the back. Ignore that. For brekky and lunch I'll have salad, cooked greens, and my favorite raw veggies: carrots, sugar snap peas, and kohlrabi. For dinner, sweet corn & mashed avocado and salad. I'll have something similar every day. The salads and raw veggies I'll prepare every night for the next day, and the cooked stuff will come out of the freezer. We'll see how this works.

high-calorie foods

I had a guest stay with me for a week, and he's a skinny young guy, and I worried I wasn't feeding him enough. I realized I wasn't giving him any grains so I went and bought some manna bread (sprout wheat grains with raisin and carrots to sweeten it up). This is rich and sweet and delicious---it's like a muffin or cake only better (at least to a nutritarian). Here's what the package looks like:

I thought this would be good with a nut butter of some sort but I didn't have any, so I tried my hand at making some out of walnuts. I used the "dry-blender" container that goes with my vita-mix blender. It looks like a regular container but the blades are backwards so it blends the stuff upward rather than downward. That seems to work pretty well for nuts along with the plunger. I found I needed to add a lot of nuts to make it blend well. I used 2 cups of walnuts. This compacted down to probably only 1/2 cup of walnut butter! Talk about calorie-dense! It was a bit crunchy but I actually liked that. Here's the nut butter:

As it gets ground up, the oils release and it becomes, well nut butter.

It was great on the toasted manna bread. I also made this fun treat to take to work with me:

That's a banana walnut-butter sandwich! ha. it was yummy. and the peel keeps it protected until ready for eating.

The nut butter was also really good on (sweet) corn on the cob. Oh my gosh. decadent.

But now my guest is gone and the nut butter won't re-appear for a while because that is some rich food.

summer meals

We have this every day from about July 4 - Sept. 4. We get it fresh picked from a local farm, and they are nice enough to locate their stand a few blocks from our house.

I am sorry to have to tell you that there is nothing better than Wisconsin sweet corn. I'm sorry you don't get to experience it. We don't eat much else at this meal since the corn is filling and we require two ears to satisfy our desires. We might have some cooked veggies with it. Notice the avocado at upper right in the picture. That is a mashed avocado, nothing else. It is our "butter", only better. Our SAD (Standard American Diet) guests agree. The tomato is fresh picked from the garden. I also make a rockin' collards dish from the garden too. I'll post that soon. And oh my god, the eggplant from our garden is fabulous. It's our first time for eggplant. When you pick it fairly small, it is almost sweet. There is no bitter taste! Yes, we are enjoying our summer produce!

quick meals

This took all of 5 minutes to make:

Notice I hardly even chopped the lettuce. I ate a lot of it with my fingers, heh heh. The ingredients were: whatever was in the fridge, which was lettuce, cabbage, orange bell pepper, musk melon (local version of cantaloupe), blackberries, pumpkin seeds, and D'angou pear vinegar (my absolute favorite).

I must have liked it because I had a similar one a few days later. This time I chopped the lettuce. I must have decided the previous one was a bit messy with the fingers. The musk melon was gone, but kiwi arrived on the scene to replace it. yum.

no-coffee no-cream yummy "latte"

Okay, anyone want to come up with a name for this? It's really good. You do need a high-speed blender, sorry. Okay, it's not so good that you will be missing it if you can't make it. It's just an occasional psychological-mostly treat.

Ingredients:

few tsp Chicory root (ground)

1 Tbsp hemp seeds

1 date, pitted (optional)

I get my chicory root from the herbal section at my co-op. any of those coffee-substitude drinks would probably work too. Teeccino makes one.

I steep the chicory root for a minute or less, just like tea. Here's the chicory root and the tea bags I use:

Here it is after steeping. I'm not sure how long 30 sec, 1 minute. It gets strong fast.

Next, remove the tea bag, put everything in the blender and blend on high, for 30-60 seconds. This makes a smooth drink with a nice froth, just like a latte or espresso. I usually don't have dates, but I tried one today and it was good. It tastes good either way.

spontaneity & sandwiches

Sometimes you just want to make peanut butter cookies at 11:30 pm after an exciting episode of hgtv design star {anyone else hooked?!}…even though you are a dietitian. Hey, I used whole wheat and spelt flour…that counts for something, right?!

    

I’ve always promoted moderation, and I think that an almost-midnight batch of cookies is worth it.

I think the same rule of spontaneity applies when you return to a mysterious bag of basil on your front porch. I guess it’s pesto night.

Did you know you can also make pesto from fresh asparagus?

I went running in the humid 80 degree weather and almost died. Everyone I ran by was biking, which was probably a much smarter idea. I’m so jealous of those people who actually run better in the heat and humidity. Maybe I should take up bikram yoga?

:: building a better sandwich ::

To everyone who claims that a sandwich just doesn’t do the job at lunch…maybe you need to reassess your building skills? A few tips to help your sandwich tide you through more than a couple hours:

Make sure to include a protein source. Protein takes longer to digest and will provide longer lasting energy. This sandwich is protein packed with tofu and eggs + cukes and pickles. Try hummus or beans for other vegetarian source of protein.

Use whole wheat bread or wraps. Extra fiber = more complete satiation. Try this combo: hummus, sprouts, lettuce, cukes, and tomato.

   

Add veggies for crunch and fiber. Eating more slowly leads to better digestion [check out Kim Snyder’s post on digestion here]. Try starchy vegetables like sweet potato or some of my faves: cukes, zukes, and sprouts.

What are your winning sandwich combos? I find that eating fresh vegetables at lunch translates into feeling better and more energized throughout the rest of the day.

Job interviewing in Kath’s neighborhood this week!

berry heaven

My mom and I picked a mountain of blueberries this week…so far, we’ve frozen 7 pints! We’re lucky to have some friends who have more blueberries than they can pick and do not sell their produce; this means free blueberries for us.

  

nutritional benefits of blueberries

• contain anthocynanins [colored pigment], which serve as antioxidants; may assist in brain health
• contain ellagic acid, which is cancer preventative
• contain pectin, a form of soluble fiber
• contain tannins, which may reduce inflammation
• 1 cup contains about 81 calories and is considered a very good source of vitamin C, manganese, and dietary fiber and a good source of vitamin E

We bought these blackberries at the farmers’ market, but they were really sour. Once rinsed, they tasted a little bit better but still not fantastic.

Naturally, the only thing to do was to make blackberry sauce. Just add a little water and sweetener of your choice and cook down [you can even do this in the microwave].

Blackberry sauce tastes pretty great on top of oatmeal waffles. I like to use whole wheat flour and brush coconut oil on my waffle iron before cooking each waffle. I actually made 2 separate batches today, one for my parents and me and one for my brother, who stopped home from camp {he’s working as a counselor this summer} this afternoon.

I’ve noticed quite a few berry recipes popping up in the blog world lately. Check these out for more ideas [photos courtesy of the blogs below]:

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• blueberry crumb bars {The Sweets Life}
• berry apple grunt {Dreena Burton}
• 2 minute microwave crisp {Live, Laugh, Eat}
• mixed berry compote {Hungry Like the Wolf}

Any other berry fanatics out there?