Your mission: Eat really well for one week and pay attention to how you feel

In the spirit of my last post about how pleasure reinforces good habits, this week's simple step to wellness is about focusing on enjoying eating well and the pleasure that brings.

For one week, eat food that is healthy, fresh, and delicious. Don't count calories or worry about portion sizes.  Just eat good food and enjoy it.




This includes:

lots of fresh vegetables and fruits

whole grains like quinoa, wild rice, millet

Eat protein with little or no processing.  If you eat meat, buy your meat at the farmer's market or from a butcher.  If you don't eat meat, eat fresh, clean dairy and eggs. Sprouted grains are the best way to get protein if you are vegan.  Stay clear of soy products unless they are fermeted (like tamari or tempeh).

Unsweetened (or very lightly sweetened) beverages

Lots of water

Homemade treats made with good ingredients   (now's the perfect time to experiment with that home made creme brule recipe you always wanted to try!)



For this week, notice how your body feels before, during, and after your meals made with whole foods.  As you eat, slow down.  Notice how good the food tastes and really ENJOY EATING.  If you need some recipe tips, check mine out here.

Try this for a week, and let me know how it goes.  Happy eating!

5 ways to reduce your wheat, gluten, and flour consumption

Nope. It really doesn't.

The science is still not complete on gluten, flour, and wheat. The gluten-free industry is huge right now, and there are always big food companies trying to make a buck on a new trend.  GF products are no exception.

What I will say is the following: the more research is done on the subject of food, the more we find that humans best digest the foods that we evolved WITH.  When we deviate far from these foods, we tend to get sick.

If you were to map out our history as a species, we really have only very recently started eating refined carbohydrates.  Incidence of digestive-based disease increased after the invention of steel-rolling mills, which greatly reduced the fiber content of the flours we were using, and also allowed us to invent white flour.

So, while I don't think that everyone should go flour, wheat, or gluten-free, I do think that most of us could stand to reduce our consumption of these things.  And if we go back to that concept of balancing your metabolism for optimal health, you'll find that refined carbohydrates cause large spikes in blood sugar, just like sugar does.

Here are some ways to reduce your consumption of refined carbohydrates.

1) Use vegetables instead of pasta
Admittedly, this takes a bit of experimentation, depending on the recipe.  My husband and I have gradually done this over time.  When we make shrimp scampi, we make it with kale instead of pasta.  We make meatballs with brussels sprouts instead of spaghetti.

2) Try sprouted bread
Sprouted grains are easier to digest and provide much more fiber than a bread made with flour.  I have friends who sprout their own grains (good for you guys), but I don't really have time for that.  I buy it instead frozen in the health food section my supermarket.  It can also be found at Trader Joe's, which is the cheapest I've found.

3)Stop buying cereal and try something new for breakfast
Cereal is made with processed wheat and corn, neither of which is particularly good for stabilizing your blood sugar.  Try some of these instead:  Yogurt and Fruit, Steel-cut oats or homemade oatmeal (buyer beware: most oatmeal bought out is full of sugar), Farm Fresh Eggs, Sprouted toast/english muffins/bagels, Sauteed Veggies, Roasted Veggies (I recommend making them in advance and keeping a pile in your fridge).  Here's a great recipe for homemade granola.

4) Experiment with more traditional flours
Again, this takes some trial and error.  I reduce refined carbs by replacing some of my regular wheat or white flour with unrefined flours, like Buckwheat, Spelt, GF flour, Coconut flour.  Because we're not gluten free in my home, I tend to mix these flours with the white or wheat flour in order to keep the original consistency of whatever I'm making. Folks who absolutely must go GF should know that spelt is not gluten-free.

5) Learn to cook with grains
If you've never tried cooking with quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, millet, barley, or wild rice, now is the time.  Barley does contain gluten, but is a good alternative to wheat and pasta for those of us who are not keeping a strict GF diet.   Here's an amazing quinoa recipe to try for dinner!

5 ways to eat more veggies

Everyone agrees that we should be eating plenty of vegetables, and that most of us do not get enough.  Here are five simple suggestions for eating more veggies.  Pick one that you think might work for you, try it for a week or two, and see what happens.

1) Make 2 veggies instead of 1
Most of us who cook make one vegetable to accompany our meal.  An easy way to add veggies to your diet is to make two instead.  One approach is to make two separate vegetable dishes, each with different seasonings and different tastes.  Another approach is to add a second vegetable to the dish you are already preparing.  (For Example:  If you are making sauteed broccoli, put in the amount of broccoli that you were planning to make, and then add cauliflower.)

2) Join a CSA or get vegetables delivered to your home/work
Joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is an excellent way to get a variety of fresh vegetables every week.  You get whatever veggies the farmer harvests that week, which means there are lots of opportunities to try new vegetables.  In urban areas, it is also possible to get weekly veggies delivered to your door.  An example in NYC is Urban Organic and its Boston equivalent is Boston Organics. If you have a fridge full of fresh produce, you're bound to eat more.

Single? Get it delivered to your workplace, and split it with a coworker.

3) Get experimental with salad
Many of us get tired with salad because we make it the same every time.  If you try some creative and funky salads, you'll have a lot more fun eating them.  Epicurious has some fun ones, and my favorite food writer, Mark Bittman, has created this list of 101 salads.

4) Roast a huge pile of veggies
Roast them in the oven with olive oil and some spices.  You can easily do this while you are watching TV or lounging around your house.  The majority of the work is really in chopping, and then you can do whatever you want while they roast.  When they're done, eat what you want, and then put the rest in the fridge for snacking throughout the week.

5) Just add bacon
If you're an omnivore, I'm pretty sure that you'd eat more veggies if they were cooked with bacon.  The key to this being a healthful choice is choosing really high quality bacon, so that you are getting the right proportion of omega-3 to omega-6 fats.  A pig raised on a pasture, eating food pigs are supposed to eat, will provide you with the kind of fat you need to stay healthy.  A pig raised in a pig factory that's been fed industrial corn and pumped with antibiotics will give you lots of things you don't need--unhealthy fat and an immune system that is resistant to antibiotics if you need them.  Check out my favorite bacon-veggie recipe here.


Good luck and happy vegging!