Good Evening

(picture of a portion of the bean shelf in my pantry)

Sorry I went MIA on you today. I had to run my Friday errands and then finish up the final Cornell course for the plant based nutrition certification. If you left a comment that I have posted yet, and there are quite a few, I apologize. I only have a few minutes to spend on the computer this evening. I will get those comments posted along with my replies posted as soon as I can. Tomorrow is looking good for me in terms of available time.

Interesting item from this course regarding protein:

We all get that same question, “Where do you get your protein,” more often than any of us care to remember I bet. I must have answered that question 100 times in a last few years. Our society is so obsessed with protein consumption. This fact still fascinates me since I don’t see many Americans wasting away from inadequate protein consumption.

The fact that stood out to me in this course has to do with the composition of human breast milk. I think we would all agree that humans grow most quickly during the time when they are consuming breast milk. The human baby doubles in size rapidly as all parents know. Did you know that human breast milk only contains 5% protein? This was quite a shock to me. My first thought was if a baby which grows rapidly does so on a 5% protein diet what does that imply about the protein needs of adults that shouldn’t be doubling in size?

Additionally a whole food plant diet (no protein supplements) contains on average 10% protein. I wanted to share this information so that you could ponder it over the weekend. I will be writing a more detailed post on protein as time permits but I found this fascinating and wanted to share it before it fell out of my head.

If you have any particular questions about protein that you want me to cover in that post please comment here or send me an email in case I need to do a little research to do your question justice.

Fun Facts Friday:

For today’s fun facts Friday here are my questions for you and my answers:

1) Do you have any weird phobias? I am deathly afraid of sharks. After seeing the first Jaws movie when I was a young teen I have been terrified of sharks ever since. I used to love swimming in the ocean since we spent summers in South Carolina on the beach. After that movie I would not go in the water above my waist. Give me a pool any day. What are you irrationally afraid of?

2) Does your significant other have an embarrassing nickname for you or do you have one for them? I call my husband Boo Boo, which he doesn’t love but is now used to it. Thankfully he is much nicer than I am and calls me sweetumms. I clearly got the better end of this deal. What are your pet names?

3) What is your favorite food? This was the toughest question for me since I like almost everything. But if I had to pick just one thing based on taste only, not nutrition, it would be mushroom ragu over polenta. If nutrition is a factor then I would pick fresh fruit and veggie juice with beet, a new favorite.

I can’t wait to read your answers.

Unrelated note:

I need to go for now. But I will be back tomorrow and will be chattier. Happy Friday everyone!

TGIF, Quick Dinner and Fun Facts Friday

This has been a very long week and I will be happy to put it behind me. I am ready for a nice relaxing weekend. I hope you all had a more restful week than I have had. Here are some gratuitous feline photos just because I can.

This is a cute picture of our youngest feline, Nicco. He is curled up with his human father in chair in the family room. He likes to burrow into little places and be as close to his humans as possible. I think he has the most expressive little face and he loves to be center of attention which means he gladly poses for the camera. It is sometimes hard to believe he has a warning on his medical record at the vet. Who ever heard of a vicious 6 pound cat? I meant other than my vet of course.

His older brother Massimo on the other hand is not cooperative for the camera. He hates to have his picture taken and almost always manages to get his eyes closed in time for all pictures. Of the thousands of photos I have of him 95% are like this. I thought this one was funny since he appears to be sticking his tongue out saying, “Nanny nanny boo boo I ruined another picture. When are you going to stop trying mom?”

Our female feline, Luca Bella, is not cooperative, which is why you don’t often see pictures of her. She is a spoiled little diva and has no intention of doing anything she doesn’t want to do. Sounds just like a woman right?

After I ran my errands today and made caponata I kicked back for a while with another book. I needed a little time to recharge. While reading I decided to grab some frozen grapes. Have you tried them yet? They are like little frozen grape bon bons. I love the texture of frozen grapes cold but somehow not frozen solid. I buy large containers of grapes, clean them and toss them into the freezer in one cup servings. A cup of grapes is roughly 100 calories for those that are trying to keep track of that. They make a great warm weather snack that is also healthy. If they freeze together pour them into a colander and run cold water over them and they separate but don’t defrost. They have the added benefit of providing you with a little resveratrol.  It is odd, I am not much of grape fan unless they are frozen.

Since I made caponata today and really didn’t want to have lasagna with Dan for dinner tonight I made some quinoa and topped it with caponata, which I warmed. I used quinoa because it is a whole grain that is a decent source of protein. Each 1 cup serving of quinoa contains approximately 220 calories and 8 grams of protein. Caponata topped quinoa and a green salad and I had dinner. Quinoa is another grain that you can make in large batches and reheat in the microwave if you like to minimize your cooking time.

Fun Facts Friday:

My friend Heather has started doing a "fun facts Friday post" as a way to get to know her readers and I thought it was a brilliant idea. I decided I would start doing the same thing here so we could all get to know each other a little better. Here are my facts for this Friday:

• My birthday is coming up soon and I will be 48 years old. Shivers….. it hurts to “say” that out loud. I really hate the fact that I am getting SO old. But as my buddy Louis says, “It is better than the alternative.” Thanks Louis, I can’t argue with that logic as dark as it is. For the time being I still look younger than I am, which may not last forever so I am trying to appreciate it now, while it lasts. Lately I feel like I am aging every day.
• I am married to Dan, my best friend, and we have been together since 1987.
• Our favorite place to vacation is Italy.

How about you? How old are you, how long have you been with your significant other and where is your favorite vacation spot? I hope many of you will want to play along. I think it will be fun to get to know each other a little better.

Something interesting from the e-Cornell course:

One of the lectures from course two discussed the calorie density of food groups and separated food by broad categories as follows:

• Salad (raw salad veggies) – 100 calories per pound
• Vegetables (corn, carrots and broccoli) – 200 calories per pound
• Fruits – 300 calories per pound
• Starches (rice, potatoes, beans) – 500 calories per pound
• Beef tenderloin – 1,100 calories
• Cheese – 1,700 calories per pound
• Pure sugar – 1,800 calories per pound
• Nuts and Seeds – 2,000 to 2,500 calories per pound
• Chocolate – 2,500 calories per pound
• Potato Chips and French Fries – 2,500 calories per pound
• Pure fat (like oil) – 4,000 calories per pound

I found this to be really interesting. The foods that we all gravitate to are the more calorically dense ones. In the course we learned that we crave those high calorie foods because we are programmed to in order to survive. In times of feast or famine we needed to eat high calorie foods to survive the upcoming famine. In this age there is no famine coming which means that we all tend to gain weight because we still crave the high calorie foods.

Also I have heard many omnis comment on the calorie density of nuts that vegetarians eat. But when you compare the nuts and seeds to oil there is no question that nuts are a better choice than oil just from a calorie perspective. Not to mention the fact that nuts have micronutrients which have been stripped from the oils. Additionally when you compare nuts to meat or cheese, nuts are still a better choice since they are normally consumed in much smaller quantities than animal products.

I also found this list interesting from a meal planning perspective. Sometimes I make meals that need more calories. But looking at this list it is obvious that by including some heartier vegetables, starches and nuts and seeds I can built a substantial meal without needing to resort unhealthy foods or unhealthy preparations of otherwise healthy foods. I tend to fall into the trap of using a lot of “salad vegetables”  (for their nutrition)which results in dishes that don’t have many calories. This is fine when you are eating 5 or 6 times a day but if you follow a more traditional schedule of eating three times a day meals need to be more substantial.

I thought this concept was quite interesting. It gave me a lot to think about and I thought some of you may enjoy the presentation format like I did. What do you think was this enlightening or thought provoking for you?

Signing out:

That is going to be it for me today. I really need to relax and recharge tonight. I will be back tomorrow. Have a great evening!

E-Cornell: Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition

Not that this is the best timing in the world but tomorrow I have my first on-line course for a Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition. The certificate is based on the work that T. Colin Campbell did which later became “The China Study” as well as updates since it was published.  I enjoyed the book and have recommended it to many of my friends.  I thought this would be a great learning experience for me.

What am I going to do with this certificate? Nothing to speak of. I want the knowledge to make the best nutritional choices for my family. There is so much bad information about what is healthy or unhealthy that I am hoping to get some scientifically based information from a reputable source.

I don’t actually know that this will change anything that we are doing but you will all know if it does. I will absolutely let you all know what I think of this and if I recommend it. Wish me luck as this is my first on-line course which means I have no idea what to expect or how this is supposed to work.  If any of you have any guidance please share.  I would really appreciate any tips you have to offer. :-)