And she's back!

Happy 2012 everyone! I hope you had a fabulous New Year, and holiday season.

Last year was awesome for my eating healthily goals...we managed to make our way through our organic fruit and veggie box every week, stuck with our no meat unless it was local and ethical (and from my friend's butcher shop, the Manotick Village Butcher), and we ate out far less. We incorporated more beans and legumes (are they the same thing?) into our diet, and stopped buying soda (for the most part).

This year I am tackling something slightly different. I have made a decision to be more environmentally conscientious this year. I've cleaned up my own toxic environment within my body...now it's time to focus on that outside of me.

Since I find chronicling my experiences really motivating, I'll blog about it here. Perhaps you'll find something interesting that is helpful to you and the environment.

Here's to a greener 2012...(and with the green theme in mind, here is a picture of a weed from my garden last year that took serious work to remove without herbicides! Beware the very, very noxious Colt's Foot weed)

A well overdue update

Spring is finally on us in full force and with spring, comes that desire to refresh one's commitment to health as well. At least that's how things seem to go for me.

This past week I made a goal to make sure to eat at least five servings of fruit and veg a day. I think I usually meet that, but I wanted to make a conscious comitment to it.

There is also an awesome song from Signing Time about it that I can't get out of my head (yes, it's a kid song). I particularly like the refrain where they have a "banana, apple, pea, carrot, potato day" or a "lettuce, banana, carrot, pear, apple day"

I should have taken notes and composed a song for you. However, I didn't and I know you're so sad. Most of my days were banana, lettuce and mixed veggies, apple, apple, random vegetable and maybe one more fruit days. Research shows that if you are trying to lose or maintain weight, eating bulky fruits and veg helps as they are less calorie dense (as compared simply to calorie restriction). Go go gadget fibre and water!

A really great salad is finely sliced fennel, over greens , with orange slices, red onion and sweet onion dressing. It was the best salad I had this week.

I also started drinking a daily dose of Greens plus. It has a few of the supplements I otherwise take, thus, decreasing my pill swallowing, and adds another dose of green food which is good for alkalinizing the body. Since Ive been a little inflammed lately, this seems sensible.

More musings on meat...

This has been the year of the carnivore for me. The more I have read, the more the research seems to support that eating a diet of primarily healthy meats and lots and lots of veggies, with healthy fats, some fruit and limited grains is health promoting. Because of this, I've eaten more meat this first quarter than likely in the previous year.


These types of dietary patterns are sometimes referred to as paleo diets or low carb. It's a really large adaptation for someone who at several points was vegetarian or mostly vegetarian.

A really nice meal now is a mega salad (yum, with homemade dressing - I forgot how good homemade mayonnaise is!) and some fresh roast chicken, and another serving of vegetables -- in this meal's case, organic green beans. There is something very comforting about having a whole roast chicken in the over after an afternoon of yard work.


If you look at the US Department of Agriculture food pyramid, they talk about increasing fruits and veg. They talk about replacing refined grains with whole grains, but in no way do they talk about increasing grains. As well, the old pyramid with grains on the bottom as the "base" for the American diet is no longer. Now there are vertical stripes. Interesting, n'est-ce pas? Because of the relationship between carbohydrate consumption and patterns of insulin response, being conscientious about carbs seems to be a good thing.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/guidelines/ExecSumm.pdf

Even in Health Canada's Food Guide, more portions of fruit and veg are to be consumed than grains (and a serving of grains is smaller than you think!)

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/quantit-eng.php

Epigenetics and you

Ughh...iPad ate my awesome post about the epiphany I had about exercise and epigenetics. I don't feel like re-writing right now, however here is the short version.

You get handed a set of genes ( thank you mom and dad) BUT how those genes are turned on and off are affected by what we do, eat, are exposed to, etc. So, exercise actually codifies how your genes express themselves. You can't change your genes, but you can change which ones are active. I didn't learn a out this in intro to genetics at York U back in 93!

Some links:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300691/

I like this one: Reported information about the impact of a behavior (exercise), inherently involved in the daily human routine, on the epigenome opens exciting new directions and therapeutic opportunities in the war against neurological and psychiatric disorders.

More here for technical geeks:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07508.x/full

Food, food and more food

So here's  a dilemna...

I love baking bread. I got a great book by Peter Reinhart "Baking Whole Grain Breads". The recipes are fabulous, and I have two starters in my fridges now. The cinnamon buns were to die for, and I think I'm getting closer to a good rise with the full whole grain recipes.

However, I'm flaring. My joints are unhappy joints, and my cheeks are always rosy but not in a good way (although my lovely husband thinks it's cute). I'm reading again about inflammation, and in addition to getting your Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio right (about 2:1), grains really seem like a no-go. They have a lot of components that promote inflammation and that aren't well digested, including lectins. They also promote increased insulin secretion, which is also proinflammatory.

So...I've been trying to eat mostly vegetables and healthy meats (and eggs), nuts, and some fruits. Which means not playing with my bread book. Very sad on the bread book front...

The good news is, that I get to go meat shopping more often. Sounds silly, but I'm enjoying learning to cook new meats. I've been mostly vegetarian for a lot of my life, and fully veg from time to time (although not recently, as elder son developed full blown allergies to all plant sources of protein about a decade ago --- hmmmm this maybe supports my new meat heavy diet).

Which means I have seen my friends at the Manotick Village Butcher more often (yay!). I have lamb shanks in the fridge now, and can't wait to braise them. Some chicken schnitzel transformed into chicken parmesan with some helpful advice from James earlier this week and the kids loved it. My meatballs with their ground beef are to die for.

It's strange moving from meat maybe three times a week at best to meat twice a day, everyday. However, everything I'm reading suggests that as long as I get healthy meat (read: grass fed) my essential fatty acids should rebalance, and my body should be happier.

Here are some great downloads of articles, for the evidence behind moving towards more meat and vegetables, and less grains.They are from Dr. Loren Cordain who coined the term "The Paleo Diet", and while I'm not going quite that far, there are some great pieces of evidence in there.

Enjoy!

Fresh bread, tasty chicken

Food seems to be my thing these days.

I found a book titled "Artisan bread in five minutes a day". I whipped up a batch of the dough, which you don't knead and can keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Monday it made pizza  for us. I was in the door at 5 and pizza was on the table at 5:30. It was delicious pizza, and barely cost anything. The crust was better than that from my favourite Ottawa pizza joints!

Last night I made a chicken stew out of two roast chicken breasts (again, from my friend's butcher shop since I'm on a strict local-ethical only diet of meat from their shop). We had a fresh, crusty, fragrant boule along with the succulent stew. Heaven! The little six year old who normally is picky had two servings of chicken. I was very, very impressed.

There is something very special about sitting around the dinner table as a family, with fresh bread and a tasty stew when it's frigid outside.

If you want to know more about Artisan bread in five minutes a day, here is their blog with the master recipe. I'm going to be trying the healthy, whole grain version next. I'm going to move from the volume measure method to the weight measure method since flour varies so much in its moisture content.

In pork chop heaven

I think I've just died and gone to pork chop heaven. I may never eat again, to keep its taste on my lips.

But really, I just had the perfect meal. I've had a day to myself, and between chores I had time to visit the Manotick Village Butcher again. The past two weeks since we've moved back to the area, I've been using up frozen meats before taking the local pledge and buying exclusively from them again. Yes, the owners are friends, but also they serve up awesome tasting, ethical, healthy, local meat. You can't beat that. *little happy dance*

I treated myself to a pork chop, since my lovely husband isn't home and he won't eat them. Also accompanying the seared chop were the sweetest little yellow potatoes ever from my weekly organic veggie box, and wilted spinach with local garlic. Perfect dinner.

I also picked up some local eggs, milk from Cochrane's dairy, lean ground beef (grass fed, so high in Omega-3s), and lard (yes lard!).

Lard? My dear husband is going to freak. The lard I picked up is a perfect translucent white, prepared from the healthy pork of the same kind I ate for dinner tonight. We've all been scared away from lard, but really, we need to brush up on our science. Lard really isn't so bad, and in fact we should use it more often. It contains only 40% saturated fat, as compared to coconut oil's 85% or butter's 63%. It also has 45% monounsaturated fat, and if you are concerned about weight loss, some research has shown that monounsaturated fatty acid's are associated with weight loss. Monounsaturated fat is a heart healthy fat as well, so next time you need to reach for a fat to make a pie crust with, or to fry your chicken in, pick up some lard and get cooking! (noting that perhaps, these foods should be consumed in moderation).

Anywho...for folks living in town who want to try the goods from the Butcher, I'm always willing to pick up orders and bring them to work with me. And if you're looking for Ostrich, they even have some in the freezer!