Abbreviated Post

This is going to be a shorter post than I have been writing recently because we are going out to dinner tonight with my girlfriend Deirdre. I will post a quick entry about dinner out either late tonight or tomorrow morning.

We are having yet another gray day today. No rain, but also no sun. Maybe tomorrow we will get a little sunlight. Gray weather always means a slow start for me. After I spent some time on the computer I got down to business and did my workout and started my day.

After a quick shower I made another batch of reduced fat peanut butter for Dan’s cocoa, peanut butter and banana smoothie he has every night. For those of you that haven’t tried the reduced fat peanut butter idea from Mary McDougall I am a convert. It tastes much less fatty to me. Both Dan and I are really sold on it. I have not made used the same trick on almond butter, but I will soon and will share what we find.

Since we are going out for dinner I need to make something today so that I can pack Dan’s lunch tomorrow morning. I opted to make something easy and went with my gazpacho with avocado (no olive oil garnish) and a big chopped vegetable salad topped with lemon flavored quinoa.

Food for Thought:

I have gotten interesting email and comments about yesterday's post under Food for Thought. Some of them have been very positive and really made my day. Others not as much, but that was not completely unexpected. I wanted to clarify my reason for the rant yesterday in case it wasn’t clear. Food is something that we can control. We can choose to eat or not eat whatever we please. There aren’t many things in life that we have as much control over as food. The problem is that most information that we receive is biased and distorted. Food lobbyists exert power to affect the USDA food pyramid. Large food companies fund studies which show that their products are good for people when they may not be. How is anyone supposed to know what to eat?

Science is starting to show that eating a whole foods plant based diet results in a lower probability of chronic disease so shouldn’t we all know this and strive for the healthiest diet possible? I also believe that everyone’s diet (mine included) could stand a few changes to become both more nutritious and healthy. Nutrition is a process. For some of us (me included) change is slow. But I find that the more I learn about nutrition the easier it is to make better food choices. My intention for writing about this was to get people thinking about their choices. Awareness is the first step in the process, if we aren’t open to new information or ideas change is probably not going to happen.

I fully realize that is easier for me to keep my thoughts to myself and not share them. Keeping things to myself doesn't do anyone else any good. As I said yesterday I know my food consumption patterns go against society and that we eat a more whole food diet than most people. These choices were made consciously and after much research. I hope some of you will do a little research of your own on this topic. I would love to hear what you find if you want to share. :-)

Cancer:

Are you aware that the average person will have cancer for 10 years before blood tests and diagnostic radiology can detect it? I didn’t know this until not long ago. It has to do with the doubling rate of the cancer cells. By the time anyone is diagnosed they have had the cancer for years. During that period of time you can dramtically slow the rate of doubling by eating a healthy plant based diet, getting moderate exercise and reducing your stress. This has been proven with prostate cancer and is used for those that don’t want to or can't undergo surgery. Studies have shown that “watchful waiting” (which they call it) results in lower PSA scores. In my opinion it is never too soon to consider making changes that could extend your life. But I am radical that way. ;-)

Interesting Health Article:

I have mentioned this article before but since there are new readers now I wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention. The bottom line is that plant based foods are higher in antioxidants than animal based foods. At the end of the article there is a link to the table containing the antioxidant values on 3100 foods. I hope some of you will take a look. I found the data to be fascinating. One of the items that jumped out at me today when I looked at the table while writing this post is that Crystal Light Lemonade has zero antioxidants. How many glasses and bottles of that stuff have I had in my life? Ugh! Before anyone asks of course I down loaded the table to my computer so I can refer to it when needed.

Other info:

Since Brigid makes jewelry and is going to Venice this fall I said I would post the Venetian glass necklace Dan bought me as part of my b’day presents.  Here it is.  Brigid if you want to see some of the other pieces of Murano glass jewelry I have send me an email and I will take pics and send them to you.

For now I have to go so I can finish a few things before I need to get ready for dinner. I will talk to you later tonight with a dinner update. I know there will be some recipe ideas to share.