on holiday

***Blogger has had some major hiccups recently. You should now be able to comment on posts; sorry for any confusion.

I spent most of the holiday weekend outside, which made me incredibly happy. On Saturday, the farmers’ market was busier than I’ve ever seen it, which was weird because we don’t even have that much produce out yet. Mostly root veggies and plants. I bought basil plants and local eggs.

     

I left the basil for my mom to take care of…we all know that I’d probably kill it. I’m hoping it will grow a lot in the next couple of weeks, so I can make pesto when I visit again.

Visited Oddside Ales. a tiny brewery in Grand Haven, MI. Coffeehouse feel, good selection of craft beer (I sampled a raspberry wheat), and good company. I would definitely visit again.

Monday was pretty much the only nice day out of the holiday weekend, and at 82 (heat index of 90), this called for ice cream.

We also took a family outing to the driving range. Let it be known that I have no patience for golf. I can drive decently but not always straight, and my putting skills are more appropriate for miniature golf.

Also, it should be noted that I don’t even remember the last time I swung a golf club, and today my back and shoulders feel like an elephant crushed them. Yoga is probably in order.

So sad that the holiday weekend had to end…it’s back to the grind but thankfully only a 4 day week.

What did you do this weekend?

It’s 91 in Ann Arbor today…time to get out my best salad recipes.

Disease Proof

Here's a great post by Emily on the Disease Proof blog, about the "lifestyle" of a nutritarian vs the lifestyle of disease.

today's "salads"

I'm trying a new schedule that allows me to do my food prep in the morning.  I think this will let me be more creative and actually do some real cooking on weekdays.  I just didn't have the energy when I was prepping all my meals at 9 pm the night before.   Today I decided to enjoy my fruit separately from my salads and to cook my veggies.  Here's what I came up with:

Breakfast:  1 lb strawberries.  yum!

Lunch and Dinner:
I cooked up in the pressure cooker:  broccoli, onions, red cabbage, and mushrooms; and 1 tsp each of dried oregano and basil (didn't have any fresh herbs on hand).  Added 2 cans of (homemade) tomatoes, 1 cup of beans, 1 oz of seed mixture, and 3 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar.   This fit into two 4-cup containers.  Then I filled two 8 cup containers with a chopped head of lettuce and about 4 oz of chopped spinach.  Poured the veggies on top of the greens when I was ready to eat.  Yum!

Dessert:
1 lb of fresh cherries.  fantastic!

Wow.  This food is so much better than anything I ever ate in the "Standard American Diet."

a conglomeration of randomness

First of all, thanks for the bday wishes! I now have high expectations that 26 will be even more fantastic than 25…

At the farmers’ market this past weekend, there was definitely a musician with a parrot roost attached to his bicycle. And said parrot danced to the music.

 

There were so many plants and vegetables seeds that I got kind of sad because I really have no space to grow anything…and then I remembered that I kill plants anyway.

 

We ate black bean burgers and drank local beer at the Upland Brewing Company. I’ve had a lot of veggie burgers, but the best ever award goes to the Northstar Cafe in Columbus, OH.

 

It has rained pretty much everysingleday this month, which is awesome for white noise but not so awesome for being productive. It makes me want to drink coffee and sleep, which really don’t go together?

You might be curious about what a clinical dietitian does all day…we usually don’t set foot in a kitchen, which is a shocker to some.

A lot of my nutrition interventions involve nutrition support, which includes enteral (tube feedings into the stomach or small intestine) or parenteral nutrition (nutrition into the veins).

Examples of situations where enteral nutrition would be used include: a patient who can’t eat enough by mouth to meet his or her caloric needs (failure to thrive, prematurity, cardiopulmonary disorders, etc.), has problems digesting regular food, or has a neuromuscular disorder that prevents safe swallowing.

First, we calculate estimated calorie, protein, and fluid needs. We then choose a formula based on the patient’s age and medical condition.  Next, we determine if we will feed continuously or do several bolus feeds over the course of the day. We figure out the rate per hour for the tube feeding and feeding volume.

Once these things have been decided, we monitor our patients closely to ensure they tolerate the feeds. We start off at a slower rate and gradually increase to full feeds to avoid gastrointestinal upset. Things get trickier when we have to add electrolyte supplements (sodium bicarbonate, sodium chloride, etc) to the formula and adjust based on laboratory results. Being a dietitian actually involves a lot of math!

So that’s a little slice of my day…different than what you visualized a dietitian doing in the hospital setting? Are there things about your job that people find surprising?

my salads

I'm in Palmdale California resting up before my all-night flight on SOFIA.  Take-off will be 7:40 pm, landing 5:45 am.   Here's what I ate yesterday:

I try to get only organic produce so my choices are limited at Trader Joe's but it makes it kind of fun to get things I don't always get at home.  Bottom layer is watermelon and blackberries; then romaine lettuce, herb salad mix, mushrooms (cooked in microwave), cherry tomatoes, and broccoli.  Topped with balsamic vinegar.  Yummy.  Note:  when the fruit is on bottom and the veggies on top, I like to wait to put on the vinegar so it doesn't all go down to the bottom.  I like the vinegar best on the veggies.  I would put the fruit on top but I like to eat it last.  I ate 3 of those babies, a banana, cucumber, and lots of carrots and sugar snap peas.  And I mean lots.   Here's a side viewing showing the treasures that await me for dessert, at bottom.  There's the Dr. fuhrman forums in the background, heh heh.

Today's salad has strawberries, blackberries and banana on bottom, topped with romaine lettuce, herb salad mix, mushrooms, broccoli, and for breakfast I included a generous serving of edamame.  

I decided to lay off the edamame for lunch and dinner since I'll be on an airplane all night and don't want to have to expell gas in close quarters, heh heh.   I'm bringing carrots, sugar snap peas, and an apple on the plane ride tonight.   Expert nutritarians may have noticed I didn't mention nuts and seeds.  I forgot them!   I could have bought some but the bags were way bigger than the amount I wanted.  That's okay, I'll have an extra treat when I get home.

Oh, what the heck, here's an airplane picture, NOT the one we'll be flying tonight.   At left is an SR-71.  At right is an A-12.  My dad was flight engineer for A-12s from 1965-1968.  He had a fun job!

After tonight's flight I'll rush off to LAX and hope to get there in time to catch my flight to Wisconsin.  Funnily enough, we will fly over Wisconsin tonight on Sofia.  So hopefully I'll go there twice in one day.  I'll be pointing the telescope to a massive star forming region and collecting infrared photons and turning them into images that will hopefully tell us about the nature of the source--how the outflows are shaping the envelope cavity for one thing.  And by combining these data with those at other wavelengths, we'll understand better the evolutionary stage of this source and add to our knowledge of the processes that form very massive stars.

For tomorrow I have carrots, sugar snap peas, and an apple to get me home.  Then I'll probably buy some luscious berries and local spinach for dinner, oh yeah, and maybe some brazil nuts!  I'm hoping that eating carrots on the way to LAX will keep me awake.  I will try to drive very carefully!

How do you like that mixture of food and astronomy?  ha.

Traveling again

This trip is easy so far as a nutritarian.  I didn't check baggage, so this is all the eating utensils I brought:

I rented a car, brought my GPS, went to Trader Joes, got prepackaged food, went to my hotel, and put it in the nice fridge:

It should only take a few minutes to assemble my salads tomorrow.  Of course I did plan this all in advance, finding the Trader Joes, bringing the GPS, and finding a hotel with a fridge.   The fridge has a freezer so I can buy some frozen edamame tomorrow.   I was disappointed that Trader Joe's didn't have organic strawberries.  They are grown right here in California!  I guess I'll have to wait until I get back to Wisconsin to have some.  How silly is that?  Oh well, I got some watermelon and organic blackberries which will be yummy.  

Instant banana bread

I didn't snap a picture.  This was just fun to do and tasted good.

Ingredients:

1 piece of manna bread

a few slices of a ripe banana

That's the minimum amount of ingredients.  If you want it more rich-tasting, you can add one or all of these things:

small amount of chopped date or date syrup

small amount of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans, or some other nut/seed

Mash everything together.  Reshape into a piece of bread.  Enjoy.  You might have to eat it with a spoon.  I just thought of something--you could toast it in the oven for a few minutes.  It tastes like banana bread to me!  

pineapple sorbet on manna bread

This was good!   The ingredients were

about 1 cups fresh pineapple

1 small banana

2 pieces of dried sliced mango

2 medjool dates

a piece of manna bread

I think that was all.  Afterwards I wondered if dried coconut shavings would have been a good addition. Here's what I did:  Peeled the banana, broke into pieces, put in freezer.  throw the pineapple in the freezer.  soak the dates and mango.  Go mountain biking for a few hours (what else?!).   Throw everything but the manna bread in the blender and blend until smooth.  place over a piece of manna bread (optional).  The manna bread tastes like cake to me.

Tilling the garden!

This is my main job besides harvesting, so I have it pretty easy.  But it was very hard work for my weak arms, after breaking my elbow 4 months ago!  Wowsa.  But the arm came through and I got the garden and flower beds ready for planting!   Marilyn planted yesterday and today.  I can't wait to see it.  I'm out of town.

Still more on the Grand Canyon Salads

I got requests to post some more pictures so here they are.  This is what I made tonight for tomorrow's final day of vacation.  This is my favorite as it is topped with strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.

These are 8 oz containers!

  

The layers are

bottom:  broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage topped with 1 Tbsp vinegar (in each bowl):

This is black cherry infused balsamic vinegar, very good!

Then spinach, romaine lettuce, and seed mixture topped with another Tbsp of vinegar.  I would have put in mushrooms but I forgot to get them at the store. 

Then 1 can of chickpeas, 16 oz box of strawberries, 6 oz box of blueberries, 6 oz box of blackberries.  The organic berries taste better than conventional, especially the blackberries.



To eat the salad, I think the best way would be to put a plate over the bowl and turn it over so it's upside down, and you can eat the veggies first.  But I don't have a plate so I just stir it up with a spoon and dig down to the bottom to eat my marinated veggies first, then my lettuce, then my fruit and beans.  But of course, you can eat it however you want!



Oh, you can also cook the veggies a bit if you'd like.  A couple of days I got tired of raw veggies, so I microwaved the cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli so they were slightly cooked.  That was good.  I'd probably do that more often but it takes more time and if I had to choose between that and longer rides mountain biking, I will choose the mountain biking (which means getting to the hotel later).

Here was today's salad as described in yesterday's post:

This had asparagus, broccoli and cauliflower on the bottom, 1 Tbsp vinegar

bok choy, romaine lettuce, spinach, 1 Tbsp vinegar

seed mixture, mushrooms

small red beans, apple, and orange on top.

Here is my work surface, a hotel bathroom:

 When done, I clean up everything including the floor so it is spotless.  We nutritarians don't want to get a bad reputation.



Here are some of the other vinegars I tried.  One of them I don't like as well but I'm not sure which one.

Ramps

For a few weeks in the spring we get ramps appearing in our co-op.  They grow in the wild.  Here's a description of them from wikipedia.  The onion part tastes kind of like scallion, and the green leafy part has a distinctive, strong peppery taste.  I put them on my salad today.  I really like them.  Caution:  don't use too much as they can overpower all the other things in your salad.

[time]

Time is the biggest issue most people have when it comes to cooking and eating healthfully. It’s even hard for dietitians, who deal with early mornings and long days, to be excited about cooking a meal after work. I try to do most of my meal prep during the weekend, to save time (and energy) during the week.

Dave (who is now famous) is more of a kitchen adventurer than I am these days and recently recommended this lentil dish. I have to admit that my fave part was actually the lentils + cinnamon and cumin. And you probably shouldn’t make this unless you like onions…or have an intense fear of vampires (6, count ‘em, 6 cloves of garlic in this dish!).

   

Super easy to make, but you should plan to get at least 3 pans dirty, spill rice (or quinoa in my case) on the floor multiple times, and end up with tomato sauce in your hair. Or maybe I’m just talented like that…

Is it ironic that a plate of non vegan cookies (so, sometimes I bring cookies to work. newsflash: dietitians eat cookies) are sitting next to JSF’s Eating Animals? Still digesting bits and pieces of this gem…ethical eating for me is (and probably always will be) a process. I’ve had a lot of convos about this recently, and it’s always interesting to hear responses to questions like, “what are your thoughts on GMO crops?”

Mini SLU dietetic intern reunion slash wedding this past weekend (congrats R & J!). I honestly cannot believe it’s been almost a year since I finished my dietetic internship. Crazy. It so was good to catch up with these ladies, who are all now dietitians and colleagues.  I promise my hair looked halfway decent before all of the dancing started.

And…I just got back from a rain run. In St. Louis, it rained so often in the spring that I promised myself I’d never use rain as an excuse not to run. It’s funny, but I actually like running in the rain now…as much as I’m addicted to my ipod, sometimes it’s nice to take a break and run without.

Speaking of time…this is my last post as a 25 year old!

munchies

This was kind of pretty actually.  I cut off the end of a head of Romaine, put it in a bowl and sprinkled on some cherry balsamic vinegar.  Then just munched on it.

Still more on the Grand Canyon Salads

I got requests to post some more pictures so here they are.  This is what I made tonight for tomorrow's final day of vacation.  This is my favorite as it is topped with strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.
These are 8 cup containers!
  

The layers are

bottom:  broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage topped with 1 Tbsp vinegar (in each bowl):

This is black cherry infused balsamic vinegar, very good!

Then spinach, romaine lettuce, and seed mixture topped with another Tbsp of vinegar.  I would have put in mushrooms but I forgot to get them at the store. 

Then 1 can of chickpeas, 16 oz box of strawberries, 6 oz box of blueberries, 6 oz box of blackberries.  The organic berries taste better than conventional, especially the blackberries.

To eat the salad, I think the best way would be to put a plate over the bowl and turn it over so it's upside down, and you can eat the veggies first.  But I don't have a plate so I just stir it up with a spoon and dig down to the bottom to eat my marinated veggies first, then my lettuce, then my fruit and beans.  But of course, you can eat it however you want!

Oh, you can also cook the veggies a bit if you'd like.  A couple of days I got tired of raw veggies, so I microwaved the cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli so they were slightly cooked.  That was good.  I'd probably do that more often but it takes more time and if I had to choose between that and longer rides mountain biking, I will choose the mountain biking (which means getting to the hotel later).

Here was today's salad as described in yesterday's post:

This had asparagus, broccoli and cauliflower on the bottom, 1 Tbsp vinegar

bok choy, romaine lettuce, spinach, 1 Tbsp vinegar

seed mixture, mushrooms

small red beans, apple, and orange on top.

Here is my work surface, a hotel bathroom:

 When done, I clean up everything including the floor so it is spotless.  We nutritarians don't want to get a bad reputation.

Here are some of the other vinegars I tried.  One of them I don't like as well but I'm not sure which one.

Clarification on Grand Canyon Salads

I've been getting a fair number of questions about the Grand Canyon Salads.  Thanks for your interest!  Here are some of my answers, as well as questions for you:

1)  Should I cook the mushrooms?  Yes, to kill some of the toxins.  1 minute in the microwave is sufficient.  And it tastes better!   Though when I'm traveling and don't always have a microwave, I've eaten them raw.  I'm hoping my nutritarian immune system can handle it.
2)  What size container do you use?  8 cup.  I've accidentally said 8 oz here and there, sorry about mis-speaking.  8 cup.  big.
3)  Do you eat all three in one day?  (are you crazy?)  Yes.  (yes).  :)   I go for simplicity and ease and don't seem to mind repetition.   For me the variation is day-to-day with the ingredients (the veggies and fruit), and the repetition is 3 meals in one day.   I'm gone from 8 am until 9 pm every day.  I prepare my food the night before and take it with me during the day.  You should do what works for you!  If you want to have this at lunch only, just make a smaller batch to fit one bowl for lunch.  Then have what something else for breakfast and dinner.
4)  How long will these keep?  24 hours.  I could probably push it to 36 hours if I skip a meal and still have one left the next day for breakfast.  But I don't think I'd do that on a regular basis.
5)  Do you cook the veggies?  I've done it both ways, cooked and raw.  Both ways are good.
6)  What do you do in between your salads?  Is that all you eat?  I usually have a few hundred extra calories to play with.  I fill it with favorite veggies in season.  Right now my favorites are usually carrots, sweet potato, sweet corn, and/or sugar snap peas.

I have questions for you all:  I'm surprised at the interest in these salads.  I was just going after an easy way to prepare food that tastes good and satisfies Dr. Fuhrman's 6-week plan.  Is this what appeals to you too?  Or do you just think the salads are good?

Let me know if you have any more questions or answers!

today's quick but substantial brunch

Yesterday I knew the fridge would be almost empty today if I didn't go grocery shopping but I also knew there was just enough for a big brunch before going out for several hours and skipping lunch.  I'll go grocery shopping on the way home.  So here's what I made.

I chopped up 1/3 of a red cabbage, about 1/2 lb broccoli, and one bunch of kale, and cooked those up in the pressure cooker,

and thawed 2 cups of Dr. Fuhrman's Anti-cancer soup from the freezer:

That's the anti-cancer soup on the far right in 1-cup containers.   Note, if you don't have frozen soup available, no problem!  Just add a half-can of beans or 1 cup of beans you've cooked up yourself, and some herbs or no-salt seasoning, some ground up seeds or nuts, and some flavored vinegar (also, onion and mushrooms if you have it, any other veggie you have on hand) and you'll be set!

Here's the result:

This ought to hold me.  Actually it's only 523 calories, but I'm told the nutritarians are going to be awarded some raw carrots at the meeting while others are awarded cookies (I've converted a few people to my surprise), so that will tide me over.  :)   It was very yummy.  later...

We are Food Artists

I heard this concept today from a nutritarian.  She said our palette is all the wonderful produce and we make great creations from this.  I love this idea.  People often say they would be deprived eating this way as there is so much we don't get to eat.  True but most people eat pretty much the same thing:  meat, dairy, fat, oil, white flour, and lots of sugar and salt and pepper.   Especially the salt and sugar deadens your taste buds.  Have you noticed lots of "foodies" like really hot and spicy food?  That's because they need the stimulation.  Once you regain your sensitivity after giving up salt and sugar, you taste the sweetness in spinach and broccoli stems and cooked cauliflower, and the different flavors of lettuce.  It's pretty amazing.  And we work with nature's raw ingredients to produce our art, not processed food.  It's a great place to be.

I heard a nice quote today:  "There are many things you can't do in life for reasons beyond your control; so get busy doing the things you CAN do."  Applying that to eating, yes, there are many foods we can't eat, especially in modern American society.  So get busy preparing the delicious healthy food that awaits you!

Yesterday's Grand Canyon Salad

After 2 weeks on the road, I was in the mood for some cooked vegetables, but I was on the same kind of schedule, preparing food at night for the next day (on weekdays, I'm gone from 8 am until 9 pm usually).  My go-to meals right now are the Grand Canyon Salads, also known as, 6-Week Plan in a bowl (Dr. Fuhrman's recommendations for a healthy diet, p. 216 of Eat to Live, 2nd edition, p. 179 in the 1st edition).

So here's what I did with my full kitchen and stove:

Bottom layer:  strawberries and blackberries.  The organic strawberries are on sale now and are fantastic.  This is the time of year to gobble them up!  I meant to add the beans here but forgot so they ended up in an upper layer.

Next:  romaine lettuce, spinach, 1 Tbsp strawberry balsamic vinegar, 1 Tbsp seed mixture (in each bowl).  The spinach is local and it tastes sweet.  I am surprised at how delicious and how much better it is than the California variety we usually get--that tastes salty and stale in comparison.

Next:  cooked vegetables:  cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, ramps (yum!  local and grown wild), and mushrooms.  Top this with another Tbsp of vinegar in each bowl.  I cooked in the pressure cooker for 30 seconds, let sit for several minutes, then had to put them into the freezer to cool. 

Now I remembered the beans, and added 1 can of black beans divided into the 3 bowls.

Next, a treat:  toasted spiralized sweet potatoes!  I got this idea from someone on the Fuhrman forums.  Spiralize the sweet potato, then cook in the oven for about 10-15 minutes at 350 F, stirring occasionally. Here's my spiralizer in action:

The sweet potatoes out of the oven:

The views of the salad, top:

and side:

Total calories:  1241.  That wasn't enough, so I had some carrots and corn and tomatoes when I got home.  That increased my calories to 1500.  That still wasn't enough as I woke up at 5 am hungry this morning.  I hate when that happens.  Now that I'm back up to my pre-injury exercise levels, my caloric needs have jumped up.  I will have to increase my calorie intake to match.  I might post about that when I settle on a good average daily intake.

Verdict on the salad:  it was very good.  You can't beat the berries this time of year.  The cooked veggies were a nice change and the sweet potatoes were nice.  On the other hand, I think I might prefer just eating a baked sweet potato all on its own.  I love baked sweet potatoes and can savor the flavors more.  Cooking and cooling the veggies took too much time.  I want to start playing my flute again so will be even more pressed for time on weeknights.  However, I think I can compromise and partially cook them in the microwave, and let them continue to cook internally while they cool in the bowl.  So I'll try that next week.  Several people have asked, should they cook the mushrooms?  YES, to kill some fungus or toxin.   That's what Dr. Fuhrman recommends.   I usually slice or chop them, then put them in the microwave for 1-2 minutes.  That's all it needs.  I think they taste better cooked too.  On my trip I didn't always have a microwave so didn't cook them all the time, but in general I do.

magical fat burning foods

The week is more than halfway over, but I still haven’t blogged about last weekend! Yes, things are still a little crazy around here.

Anyway, my sister visited Ann Arbor for the first time, and it was good to catch up on life in person. She just finished year 2/3 of her MFA in poetry at Indiana University and writes super cool stuff that I am not good at interpreting.

Banana pancakes from scratch are the perfect start to the weekend.

Find of the weekend: 2 vintage Nancy Drew books at a tiny, extremely cluttered bookstore in Kerrytown. I was pretty obsessed with becoming a detective when I was 10 and read every single book in our library.

 

We saw Jane Eyre (pretty sure I read it in high school British Lit) with a friend, and it was kind of depressing but also refreshingly not completely cliché. And eating delicious Mediterranean food made things slightly better.

Saw these gorgeous tulips on the way to the farmers’ market. Probably my fave flowers. Things are definitely starting to warm up around here, so I’m crossing my fingers for no more snow.

Recently the NY times ran this article about foods that can serve as appetite suppressants. Researchers found that adding 1 gram of chili pepper (I’m guessing this is just over half a teaspoon) to soup caused subjects to burn 10 extra calories. [Whoop de whoop.] The effect appeared to be greater for those who didn’t regularly consume spicy foods. Subjects not accustomed to consuming spicy foods also ate fewer calories (mean reduction = 143 calorie) after receiving a dose of red pepper.

My opinion: I don’t really like spicy foods, so why would I purposely eat them to burn an extra 10 calories? I think going for a run sounds like a much more enjoyable idea. Also, the study found that the calorie burning effect was lesser in subjects who already regularly consumed spicy food, meaning there is a chance you could develop a tolerance and consequently not burn as many calories (as if 10 is a huge number, anyway). I did think it was interesting that subjects ate fewer calories 4.5 hrs after consuming a spicy meal. Heartburn, maybe?

The article mentioned another study which found that adding vegetable puree to recipes (see 2 of their sample recipes here) caused subjects to consume 200-350 fewer calories per meal.

My opinion: Subjects likely consumed more calories because a) vegetables are low calorie, so they naturally displace higher calorie ingredients when using them as substitutes. b) vegetables contain fiber, which increases satiation. I also appreciated how one of the study authors mentioned that it is important to offer whole vegetables on the side to children, so they learn to develop a taste for them.

So all this to say…I don’t believe in magical fat burning foods.

Thoughts?