UnDiet...Week 30

Hello UnDieters!


It's the lazy days of summer...I always feel that in August all motivation to expend serious energy on anything is lost. So this week, I will ask for a very simple but very powerful swap. Many weeks back, I asked you to add more seeds to your diet and this week I will ask you to start adding more nuts to your diet.


I have never been a fan of low fat diets but it can be easy to go overboard when our main sources of fat are added oils. However, we tend to overlook food sources of healthy fat, such as nuts. When we eat our fats in a package that includes protein and fibre and other vitamins you are getting more bang for your nutrition buck and they help to fill you up too. Nuts are also a great alternative to all those carb-based snacks that we tend to overeat. 


So this week, consider swapping one of your snacks for a 1/4 cup of raw nuts. For a higher protein nut, try almonds. To boost your omega 3 intake, try walnuts. To keep it local, go for hazelnuts. Whichever are your favourite, buy small amounts and keep them fresh in the refrigerator and enjoy daily. Nuts will help to fill you up and keep your energy up between meals without the blood sugar roller coaster of a granola bar. Need a bigger snack? Add a piece of fresh fruit. There are gorgeous BC plums out there right now!


Go nuts, folks.
Desiree

UnDiet...Week 26

Hello UnDieters!


Well, this is a special post: not only does it mark the halfway point in our UnDiet journey but it is also my 100th blog post on Eat Drink Be Happy! In just a year, this little blog has come a long way. From only a handful of my friends and family reading it to over a thousand of you checking it out every month. I can't wait to see it grow even more....and am eager to know what you would like to see here too. Feel free to send me an email or make a comment and let me know what kind of topics you are interested in seeing on Eat Drink Be Happy.


For this week on the UnDiet, I want us to explore our food choices by reading the ingredients on our food packages. I am not interested in having you "label reading" but INGREDIENT reading. There is an important distinction here; we can get caught up in the nutrients and become focused on eating more fibre, less salt etc. but these well intentioned goals can be co-opted by food manufacturers to make their processed, lifeless food seem healthier. Think Lucky Charms "made with 100% whole grain". "Cholesterol free!" potato chips. "Trans fat free" Oreos. 


While you can makeover a food with differing nutrient profiles, you can't hide what is in your food in terms of ingredients. Most of the packaged food we eat today is a combination of just a few ingredients: processed sugar, wheat, corn and soy in their many derivatives. These foods just kind of fill us up; they don't really nourish our body the way modern life demands.


This week, please choose at least two days to read the ingredients on each and every food you put in your mouth. If they don't have ingredients on the package, try the internet. Most food websites will offer this info. Then really think about what you are reading. Do you understand all the names on the ingredients list? Is it a mile long or is it simple? Are most of the foods you eat little more than sweetened, salted flour? Think about the foods you are putting into your body. Perhaps after taking a close look at the ingredients, you may shift towards foods with very different ingredients lists. Or better yet, foods without ingredients lists at all. Now there is a health goal that can't be messed with!


In Good Health,
Desiree

UnDiet...Week 21

Hello UnDieters,

I hope you are enjoying the summer sun. Did you get out to the farmers market today? My friends Heather, Melissa and I visited the Trout Lake market in Vancouver and I can't wait to show you the result of our trip. Hopefully in a week or two...

For today, however, let's talk UnDiet. With all that gorgeous summer produce out there, the same old crackers or pasta just won't cut it. You need a worthy grain to show off next to those heirloom tomatoes. So this week's challenge is to try a new whole grain. While some of us still might view grains as unneccessary carbs, let me differentiate a true whole grain from mere starch.

When research on the health benefits of whole grains started surfacing, manufacturers responded by adding "whole grains" to their products. Across the supermarket, "made with whole grain!" shouted at you from breads, granola bars, cereals and even yogurts. This marketing classic can be very deceptive: made WITH whole grain doesn't mean 100%. There is no guarantee how much whole grain you are getting. Technically, a product can be considered a whole grain if it contains all three parts of the original grain: the endosperm, the germ and the bran.Looking for a food made from 100% whole grains is a step in the right direction; however, eating intact whole grains is not the same as eating sugary cereals, aka candy, with added fibre.  However, you can then pulverize, gelatinize and puff up and sweeten the grain however you want to and still sell yourself as whole grain goodness. But whole grain Ritz crackers are not the same as cooking up some barley.

Intact, unprocessed whole grains are slowly digested, providing sustained energy that won't spike blood sugars. They are rich in minerals and vitamins and contain antioxidant phytochemicals. They also provide protein and fibre to help you feel satisfied. Most crackers, granola bars and pasta just spike your blood sugar and leave you hungry. Intact, unprocessed whole grains are a true superfood that are well worth the calories. They are also economical, great for any healthy eater on a budget.

For this week, go to your bulk bins or grains aisle and choose something you haven't cooked with before. Try barley as a base for risotto, black rice for a rich twist on traditional sushi, buckwheat toasted in a salad, amaranth sprinkled over berries and yogurt or even teff baked into a homemade granola bar. Teff??? Oh yes, get ready to be surprised by how many whole grains are out there that you haven't heard of before. Many grains cook up just like rice, but not all, so check out this cooking chart from dietitian Leslie Beck's website for water proportions and cooking time.

Note! Couscous is not a grain...it is a pasta. Ditto orzo. And buckwheat is not wheat.

I would love to hear how you used your grains this week....enjoy!
Desiree

UnDiet...Week 20

Hello UnDieters!


Into every life a little rain must fall...shall I blame the rain for my absence? Since you are all on the UnDiet path, I am sure that you can appreciate that not everyday is a "perfect" one on the path to health so let's consider the total absence of Week 19 my blip on the path to good bloggership :) It has been a crazy couple of weeks to say the least. 


But I now pick myself up and dust off a new challenge for week 20 of the UnDiet. This week, as the sun starts to remind us that summer is really here I want to challenge you to step outside of your normal routine and go find a farmer's market. 


Why is this important to your health? For several reasons, not the least of which that you will find the best quality food possible from the farmers who live within driving distance of you. Better quality food means a better quality you. In addition, you can often find wild and wonderful produce that you may not be used to seeing (or eating for that matter). Eating well is not just about healthy food but a healthy sense of adventure. 


Buying at the farmer's market also helps to support smaller family farms who typically farm in a more sustainable manner. And, since you are talking to the farmer themselves to purchase your produce, you can make sure that they have sustainable practices like organic farming or purchasing manure from a neighbour farm instead of shipping it long distances before you buy. You also help support agriculture in your area and ensure that those who work long hours to feed us get a reasonable price for their harvest.


So this week, get outside and find your nearest farmer's market and buy at least one item of produce, preferably one you have never tried before and then bring it home and cook something with it. I will be doing the same this Saturday with my friend Heather. We may just show you the results! Spoiler Alert!!


To help you, here are some resources on farmers markets near you:


Vancouver Farmers Markets
Farmers Markets in BC
Farmers Markets in Canada
Farmers Markets in the USA




In Good Health,
Desiree

Local, Fresh and Organic...Kauai

Tuesday Market...just west of Hanalei, Kauai

 No secret that I am a bit of a foodie...everywhere I travel, I want to taste whatever is local and special. So I was pretty excited to see that there were so many farmers markets all over Kauai. 

Check out the dude with the pineapple. That is local flavour.

I was amazed by the local food culture in Kauai specifically; a recent trip to Oahu certainly did not have the same local vibe. Hawaii has to ship so much of their food in and most supermarkets don't carry anything local so staples like tomatoes are incredibly expensive and usually kind of sad tasting. Farmers on Kauai have the ability to grow so much in their climate so I was excited to check out a farmers market or two. Who needs tomatoes when you have local taro, greens, papayas and passion fruit?

Apple bananas...sweet and firm fleshed.

 The pictures above are of the market recommended by the Lonely Planet, just west of gorgeous Hanalei on the north shore of the island. Edible Hawaiian Islands also has a great listing on their website here. They kindly offered the tip of "get there early". Do indeed. We showed up at 2:05 for the market in Hanalei, just 5 minutes after the opening. The field was already packed with cars and it was a literal feeding frenzy: stands were emptying fast. People snacked on chocolate covered frozen bananas while filling their baskets with local eggs, goat cheese and pineapples. We bought just a couple of things, including the apple bananas and mangosteen ( I LOVE mangosteen, what a treat!). 

Yummy mangosteen...

The markets are a bit smaller than we are used to here in the lower mainland but what an incredible community spirit. I couldn't think of a better way to get to know the local food culture than to feast on what is grown in their backyards.

Aloha...

Desiree

Eat...just like old times...part two

One of my grandfather's four apple trees

My grandparents’ garden, where I spent many a summer reading books and eating raspberries, is still producing in October. There are 4 apple and pear trees, grafted so many times that they form unusual shapes, that bear 20 different varieties for which my grandfather cannot offer names. The simple greenhouse still houses pimento peppers and pickling cucumbers. Portuguese winter kale, paler and softer and sweeter than that which you find in the grocery store, is flourishing and there are still plump blackberries on the (unthinkably smooth) vines. Pumpkins are hiding in tall grass.

The pumpkins in question

When I was little, this garden was my hideaway. I was always a bit of a loner, preferring to spend the long summer days reading books and stuffing my face by myself. The garden was the perfect spot to pass the time: I could sit undisturbed and enjoy the sun and whenever the urge struck, I would just reach up a grab a snack. Cherries, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries and green peas kept my belly full. I remember eating so many cherries that I would get a stomachache. I can also remember afternoons spent with my grandmother in the basement, fingers green from shelling peas to store in the freezer. I am not sure how many of my peas escaped my mouth, but I at least I though I had contributed.
 Pomace from wine making the week before my arrival is pungently fertilizing the resting soil. I am sorry I missed the crush. While many grandfathers make their own “two buck chuck” from commercial wine juice, my grandfather has grapes shipped here and actually crushes his own wine, which is then stored in oak barrels in the basement.

The seeds for this kale came directly from Portugal

Not that a touch of grandfatherly thrift isn’t present: instead of making wine from 17 cases of grapes, he learned that he can create it from fewer cases if he adds raisins. I just found this out. I had always wondered why it tastes like raisins…I guess my palette isn’t so useless after all. I remember as a child watching this process with an intensity befitting a future food geek. On tip toe, I would peek into the pungent barrels, frothy as the yeast did their business. When the barrels weren’t present, I would bound into the basement at speed. When it was winemaking time, some part of me expected that quiet and stealth were necessary so as not to disturb the alchemy at hand. The grapes are crushed via a small hand crank crush that sits on top of the barrels. I always wanted to try and crush the grapes myself and would attempt, each year, in vain to muster up the strength necessary to get the crank a full turn, always succeeding only when a strong hand came to my assistance. One turn, and my work was done. My little hands had made wine.


In this house, the next meal begins as soon as this one is done. Breakfast dishes cleared, one must set to marinating meat for dinner. There are ingredients to be defrosted. More food from the cold room brought up to be crammed, impossibly, into the overloaded fridge.


The basement in any Portuguese home is where the dirty work of feeding a family really happens. There is a second fridge, an area under the stairs that serves as a pantry, barrels for wine, a cold storage room, a deep freeze and of course, a bar where the men congregate to drink and gossip.

Taro...not just for poi...we fry it in the drippings left over from making linguica

In preparation for our arrival, linguiça, or Portuguese sausage, has been chopped, filled and cured in the basement. The cold room is filled with this fall’s harvest (and the surplus of shopping trips that could feed a small army). The a deep freeze is filled with blackberries, raspberries and rhubarb, beans and peas…but not cherries this year, as a late frost stunted the supply down to 15 pounds.


Having been a vegetarian for 14 years, my grandparents are still confounded by what I will eat. Not eating bacon (my childhood favourite) is suspicious. Actually, not eating meat at all is suspicious. The young me ate steak, bacon and chicken with vigor. My grandmother cannot reconcile that my tastes could have changed so dramatically. The first trip back to Terrace after changing my eating habits as a teenager, my grandmother was convinced that it was my mother who would not let me eat meat. She implored my mother at every meal to allow me to eat each dish, as it had once been a favourite.


My grandparents seem to be more accepting, or at least used to my unusual lifestyle choices. The first morning I was here, my grandfather took me to Save on Foods and instructed me to buy whatever I needed. At the checkout, the cashier saw my 82 year old grandfather and a basket full of tofu, plain yogurt, All Bran Buds, veggie burgers, sprouted grain bread and soy milk and astutely remarked that she didn’t think grandpa would be indulging in said delicacies.


This trip, I have initiated an even stranger habit: taking pictures and video of the everyday dishes that my grandmother has made for our family for years. I am actually shocked that she has allowed me to document her in the kitchen. Notoriously camera shy, I managed to convince her that I was not taking pictures of anything but the food and her hands (and if I caught a few of her in the process for my own memory books, no one needs to know).


Where my grandmother has been accommodating, my grandfather has been surprisingly enthusiastic. Each meal, he kept dreaming up new delicacies to document and stories from our food history to be shared. I wish I could document every last bit of this incredible knowledge because my grandmother famously refuses to write recipes. Hers is an expertise that doesn’t bother with such crude utility. For her, food is a living, breathing substance that needs to be expertly coaxed and crafted to perfection despite variations in weather, taste or texture. A recipe does not offer the subtlety required to produce such nourishing fare.

A few of said recipes are to come…stay tuned!
Desiree

Sweet Surprise?

Image from http://www.sweetsurprise.com/

Thanks to a coworker, I recently came across the website http://www.sweetsurprise.com/ which was developed by the Corn Refiners Association of America to educate consumers about "the facts about high fructose corn syrup". It has been a long time since I have been this shocked by corporate nutrition messaging. This website argues for the idea that high fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than regular sugar. I beg to differ...

The authors of the site have done their homework; they have listed every major argument against the consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and created a rebuttal. The website is an astounding feat of defense - obviously manufacturers are hearing the battle cry of consumers wanting to take back their food. Poor consumers, don't you realize that you are mistaken in thinking that completely novel products of technology shouldn't be a part of your diet?

Let's be honest...refined sugar isn't that great for you either. And the core argument of the website is that HFCS is nutritionally equivalent to refined sugar (way to aim low, guys!). But the process of obtaining juice from sugar cane is a pretty simple one that humans have been using for centuries. And evaporated cane juice is a fairly unprocessed sweetener that does not require chemical intervention. It contains sucrose, which is a naturally occurring molecule that consists of one glucose and one fructose, linked together.

HFCS starts out as corn...which becomes corn starch...which is then processed to convert the glucose to fructose. Then that high fructose (90%) product is cut with corn syrup until the desired level of fructose is reached. Boil corn...and you get cereal...not HFCS.

The site also offers plenty of research and expert opinion in favour of the idea that HFCS is no different than sugar. Buyer beware: there are new studies published every day to provide proof to either side of the HFCS debate. However, simply because a study gets published in a peer reviewed journal does not mean it was a high quality study. And scientific fact does not a single study make. Do a search on "high fructose corn syrup and obesity" on PubMed and you will see what I mean.

We need to take a step back and tap into some good old fashioned common sense: HFCS is the poster child for much larger problems. We are a society of hyper-processed starch junkies. So many of the foods we eat (breakfast cereals, baked goods, granola bars, crackers...) are simply a rearrangement of sugar, starch and artificial flavours and colours and texturizers. This is what is primarily responsible for our health woes. HFCS is also representative of a larger system of corporate domination of agriculture: from GM seeds that rob farmers of their autonomy to corporations benefiting from crop subsidies resulting in incredibly cheap ingredient components to make ridiculously unhealthy foods which they spend billions on advertising to ensure we fill our grocery cart with them. Many great documentaries and books exist on these topics filled with eloquent arguments which I couldn't possibly do justice.

Is HFCS a bad idea? Definitely. We will ever have unequivocal evidence of that fact? Maybe...maybe not.

So let's make a deal: avoid HFCS and foods that reek of processed sugars and starches in general and we will all be healthier, okay? Eat real food...and don't sweat the rest.

Time for you to weigh in on this juicy topic...
Desiree