Thursday and Eating Out Again

By some miracle we made it to the gym very early in the morning. I think I see a pattern developing …. maybe. *fingers crossed* ;-) The picture above was the sun coming up when we left the gym.

I look this picture of the moon when we were heading to the car because it made me smile. Looking at things bigger than humanity, like nature, always has a way of putting things into perspective for me.

When we came home from the gym I made Dan a big bowl of his favorite fruit and nut oatmeal which contained: oats, water, wheat germ, freshly ground flaxseed, cinnamon, powdered ginger, stevia, wild blueberries and walnuts.

Dan decided to wash this down with a cup of hot tea. This time I combined: sencha green, tulsi, dandelion root, chamomile and orange peel. Since it contained green tea I brewed it for 10 minutes (to extract the maximum EGCG) and finished by adding a little powdered ascorbate C (to enhance the absorption of the EGCG in the tea).

Once Dan was off to work I made myself a bowl of savory oatmeal for breakfast. This time I omitted the nutritional yeast to see how that would change the flavor. After my experiment I can safely say savory oatmeal is much better with the cheezy flavor of nutritional yeast than it is without out. This time my oatmeal contained: oats, water, cumin, no salt seasoning, wheat germ, freshly ground golden flaxseeds, frozen broccoli that I chopped, salsa, marinated sliced mushroom, roasted red peppers, and raw pumpkin seeds.

One of the things I like about savory oatmeal for breakfast is how filling it is. This bowl of oatmeal kept me satiated for hours. I love that it is low in calories, high in vegetables, and packed with nutrition. What more could you really want in a winter breakfast? What is your favorite healthy breakfast?

Knowing that we were going to go out dinner I had a simple snack for lunch of an orange and 2 Brazil nuts. I didn’t photograph it today because you have seen this many times. It looked like the photo above. ;-)

Our friend Phil is in town from Missouri for work. We had not seen him since September so I was really looking forward to dinner. Dan picked Phil up from the airport and then stopped for me and we dropped Phil at the hotel and went to the restaurant to chat with everyone while Phil checked his email and called the office.

Since it was Thursday it was wine tasting at the restaurant where we used to be regulars until we gave up drinking for health reasons. *sigh* While Dan was parking the car I said hello and talked for a few minutes and needed to hug a few people. Next I had to check in with Corey and hear all about his trip to San Francisco. He didn’t make it to Millennium but did have a great time. I loved hearing about his trip especially the food. He told me about a vegan flourless cake he had with cayenne and candied ginger that he thought was amazing. Needless to say I will be finding a way to make something with the same flavors that is also healthy. Corey kindly volunteered to be a taste tester. ;-)

When Dan arrived we chatted with Jen and got her caught on everything that had happened since we saw her last Saturday, LOL. Then we got to down to the business of food. Dan and I ordered a pot of green tea mixed with a strawberry, pear and hibiscus herbal blend. Phil had his usual Dewar’s on the rocks. Clearly there is consistency in the universe.

The guys had planned a few dishes for us so we started with the appetizer which included: roasted red peppers, orange and fennel salad, spicy chickpea salad, olives, marinated artichokes and cucumber slices. We had this with whole wheat flat bread and it was quite a treat since olive oil is verboten at our house. Phil had a similar appetizer plate but his also included house-made pickles, buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto di Parma.

Our next plate was another one of those dishes I would not have thought of on my own. This one was sautéed shitakes, criminis and leeks dressed with soy, mirin, rice wine, ginger and garlic. It was served on top of crispy flat bread and topped with baby arugula, red pepper and granny smith apple. The mushroom dish was very good; Phil had a taste and also enjoyed it. The mushrooms were chewy and meaty and the sauce wasn’t over powering. The green apple was a nice touch and added just the right amount of tartness to the dish.

Both Dan and I were full after sharing those two plates. We talked about getting a third one but decided that we would be stuffed if we did so we stopped eating. Besides we need to get up early Friday morning for the gym which meant we didn’t need to be overfull if you know what I mean.

Ian stopped by to chat before heading out for the evening. He is taking the weekend off to head to Philadelphia for a gymnastics meet with his little girl. Wasn’t it sweet of him to let us know he wouldn’t be around this weekend? Are we spoiled or what? LOL

Phil was slowing down fast and decided headed to the hotel before we were ready to leave which is to be expected given our restaurant staying power. Phil left Portland, Oregon this morning and stopped in Dallas before landing in Maryland. I am sure I would have been tired with that schedule too.

Here is a picture from our table as the evening was winding down. Ian had a good crowd tonight with the majority of the tables filled most of the night.

Making Dietary Changes Part 3:

I thought it was time to get back to the Dietary Changes section of the blog particularly since this one is about a week overdue. It was my intention to suggest two changes per month and I am a little behind schedule. Oops. ;-)

The first dietary change I proposed was eating breakfast. The second one was to reduce your intake of processed foods. Today I want to talk about drinking more water. I can almost hear the collective groans as I type this. I know what you are thinking water is bland, it is boring and you would rather have a diet soda right? The problem with diet soda is that it is nothing but a chemical concoction of nastiness. Have you ever read the ingredients in soda? Talk about nasty, bleh! :-P

Here is the ingredient panel from one brand of popular diet soda:

Carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate, natural flavors, citric acid and caffeine.

Doesn’t that just sound delicious? Obviously I am being sarcastic. Please ask yourself do you know what most of that even is or what it is doing in your body. At the very least I am confident you will agree that this doesn’t sound like food. Right?

When you put unnatural things full of chemicals into your body your liver and kidneys have to eliminate it before it causes trouble. My approach to health is to not put things like this into my body so that it has more time to focus on taking care of things that I can’t control like air pollution and free radicals. To me it makes no sense to ingest things like this that are nothing but nasty chemicals.

The reason that I recommend water is that most Americans are chronically dehydrated and this included me until not long ago. When I started adding more water to my diet I found many things improved for me. My skin was less dry, my eliminations were more predictable, my hunger seemed depressed, and I had more energy. It is amazing that something this simple and inexpensive can make a big difference but it did.

Why is water important? Your body is mostly water and your cells need water to function properly. Your cells use water to dissolve and transport vitamins, minerals, sugar and other phytochemicals. The average person loses 2% of their body weight every day through respiration, perspiration, urine, etc. If you are larger person, are physically active, are sick, over 55, drink a lot of caffeinated beverages or alcohol then you need more water than others. Additionally you can’t rely on your body to tell you it is thirsty because that mechanism doesn’t work as well as we age. Not drinking enough water can lead to kidney stones, constipation and fatigue. Water is critical for survival.

How much water do you need? That is an interesting question and one that there are many different opinions on. Some people say you need 64 ounces. Others say you should take you body weight divide it by 2 and drink that many ounces of water. The calculation would go like this: if you weight 150 pounds that divided by 2 is 75 which would be the number of ounces of water you should drink per day. I think how much water you need is much easier to determine. If the color of your urine is a very pale yellow almost clear then you have enough water. I use that gauge since it is easy to determine and you have constant reminders of how you are doing if you know what I mean. ;-)

If you don’t like the taste of plain water I have a few suggestions. Try adding slices of citrus or cucumber. Alternately you can add a splash of fruit juice (pomegranate would be my choice for health reasons). Another idea is make herbal tea since that isn’t a diuretic but does have more taste than plain water. I also like adding a few frozen blueberries that I muddle and a little fresh lemon juice. Fresh mint and lemon is also good in water. Once you start thinking about it there are many options for items you can add to make your water more flavorful. Do you have any favorite additions to make water more palatable for you? I would love to hear your suggestions as I am sure everyone else would as well.

Happy Thoughts:

It was been a hectic week but a good one. Here are my happy thoughts:

• Dan and I made it to the gym together Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning before he left for work. I have really enjoyed getting my exercise knocked out early in the morning. I hope we are back on track for making it to the gym every weekday morning. *fingers crossed*

• I have had a very busy week but I also got a lot accomplished and that is always something to be thankful for. All those years when I did nothing but work, eat and sleep are still very fresh in my mind. I realize how fortunate I am to have time to do things that most people can only do on the weekend.

• It was wonderful to see our friend Phil Thursday night for dinner. It is such a shame that he lives so far away. I always love talking to Phil. We spend some time last night talking about health, cancer, and nutrition. He has a cousin that he is going to get me into contact with that works in holistic nutrition. Sounds right up my alley does it? ;-)

• I loved hearing about the restaurant experiences Corey had in San Francisco. It is fascinating how he views things differently that I would since he has a background in the industry. I did get a few recipe ideas from Corey that I will be working on soon. I am such a food geek I love talking about food, can you tell?

• As crazy as this will sound I am thankful for my night guard that I picked up at the dentist earlier this week. The dentist told me I needed it because I was grinding my teeth at night and had worn them down a lot doing that. Since I don’t have TMJ I wasn’t sure I was grinding my teeth currently but if they were worn down I thought I would go ahead and get the night guard. Much to my surprise it wasn’t uncomfortable to wear and my jaw as very relaxed in the first two mornings after wearing it. I guess I have to say the dentist was right about the night guard. Since I was prepared to hate it I am very happy that things worked out better than I expected.

• Friday I had a chance to stop at my parents for my usual check in. It is nice to have time to look in on them and to make sure that they eat at least two healthy meals a week (Saturday and Sunday with us). I would love to convince them to eat more veggies and less meat but that isn’t going to happen. I have learned to be grateful for the small victories.

Signing out:

Friday has been a busy one for me but it was good. I found time to make a pot of marinara to have on hand for more pizza veggies. I also took time to pressure cook a pound of pinto beans to use of the never few days. While I was in the kitchen I made more walnut parmesan to use this week. I need to make a pot of soup but I haven’t decided what I am in the mood for yet. I would like to have that finished before Dan gets home so that we can relax this evening. Am I the only one that likes to spend the weekend relaxing and recharging my battery?

It is time for me to get a few more things done around here before my sweetie gets home from work. I am looking forward to spending the weekend with my hubby. Talk to you again tomorrow. Who knows I might even get inspired to make something interesting in the kitchen later today. I hope you are having a great Friday.

Winter Wonderland and My New Kitchen Toy Reviewed

Wow did we get hit with snow Wednesday evening. It was the craziest weather I have seen in a long time. Thunder and lightning during a snow storm is wrong and creepy. It came down so quickly that many people abandoned their cars on the expressway (83 North) heading out of town and walked out. However Thursday morning we were greeted with a beautiful winter wonderland effect of a foot of wet snow sticking to everything. It is gorgeous but I didn’t have to drive in it so that is easier for me to say than those who did have to come home in it. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Our breakfast Thursday morning contained: oatmeal, wild blueberries, cinnamon, powdered ginger, cardamom, freshly ground flaxseed, and walnuts. I made mine with water and Dan’s with soymilk.

My lunch was okara sliders I dipped in a quick sauce of salsa and bbq. I liked the sauce because it was less sweet than bbq but also had chunks of tomatoes and more heat. I am not sure what possessed me to combine them but I liked the way it turned out.

The first afternoon snack of the day was a navel orange and two Brazil nuts (for the selenium).

My second snack was frozen grapes and walnuts. In case you hadn’t noticed walnuts are my nuts of choice, other than my two daily Brazil nuts for the selenium. I tend to grab walnuts because they have the best omega 3 to omega 6 ratios of the tree nuts.

For some reason I was hungry today and my third snack was a small bowl of the curried red lentil and tomato soup with a few sliced almonds on top

New Sharper Image Oven:

I had not planned dinner tonight so I decided to make something simple and try out the halogen, convection and infrared oven I ordered last week. Thursday night seemed like a good time to try out the oven. I used it make BBQ tofu since I knew how long that should take in the oven. Here are the pros and cons of the oven:

Pros:

• It preheats very quickly; it took under 10 minutes to reach 350 degrees which is much quicker than my stove. It is also easy to tell when it has reached temperature because the light goes out.

• In 20 minutes the tofu was firm and chewy and that would take 45 minutes in my convection oven

• It has a self clean feature that worked extremely well. You put two inches of water in the base and a small amount of dish liquid and set it to self clean. I was skeptical this would work but it did very well. The steam generated even softened the BBQ sauce on the lid making it easy to wipe off with a damp towel.

• It draws no more power than my Vitamix and uses much less than my oven.

• No VOCs were generated by this machine. I had an air quality monitor set up with two foot of the machine to see what would happen. This is huge for me since I know the oven sets off the air quality monitor every time.

Cons:

• Takes up a large footprint on the counter when not in use. Additionally it requires space on either side so you have somewhere to set the lid down when flipping or removing the food.

• The light coming off and on attracted the cats which wasn’t good since the exterior gets hot. I will have to work on how to keep the felines away from it when it is on. Hopefully they will get used to it and stop being attracted to the light going off and on.

Overall, I am happy with the purchase. If you are someone who uses a toaster oven for a small meal this takes up about the same amount of room and is faster.

Dinner was the BBQ tofu from the little oven and frozen broccoli that I cooked until lightly tender and tossed with tomato and raisin pesto and topped with sliced almonds for crunch.

Carrageenan:

Jenny asked how dangerous carrageenan was in a prior post. I had read years ago that it was linked to cancer in lab animals and then eliminated it from our diet. When you read your ingredient lists I think you will be surprised how often this shows up in processed food, particularly non-dairy beverages, cheezes and frozen desserts. It is also called Irish moss and is used often in raw food. In case any of you wanted to read more on this here is what Dr. Weil has to say about carrageenan.

Vitamin Water and Soda with Vitamins:

These products make me crazy! Why would people what to get their artificial vitamins in water or soda? Does anyone actually think these are natural sources of vitamins? Seriously they are no different than taking a multivitamin only most people that drink them seem to do both as though more artificial vitamins are better than less. *sigh*

Studies are now showing that getting your vitamins from artificial sources (like supplements or beverages) does not have a positive impact on health and in some case can be harmful. If you want to do something healthy eat more fresh whole food because that contains natural vitamins that your body knows how to process and use. There really is no magic bullet you can use to overcome living a less than healthy life.

Sorry for the rant but whenever I see commercials for this junk I get annoyed. As you can guess I just saw that vitamin water is on sale at Whole Foods and it set me off. ;-) *ugh*

Making Dietary Changes Part 2:

Back to this section I started on January 15 with the idea of starting your morning with a healthy breakfast. I wanted to give you plenty of time to work that in before introducing another idea. After writing about carrageenan and vitamin water I think the next idea has to be to reduce the intake of processed food. I can almost hear the collective groaning as I type this. I know it isn’t the easiest thing to do but it will have a huge impact on your health. Don’t believe me? Pull something out of your refrigerator or pantry and read the ingredient list. I will almost guarantee it you includes some chemical word that you can’t pronounce and don’t know that it means (unless you are a chemist). I am not a medical professional but it can’t be good to ingest a chemical cocktail every day. Humans weren’t designed to consume artificial food.

Corporate America has taken something natural, food, and turned it into “food-like substances”. It looks like food, it smells like food but it has been chemically altered making it not natural. When we initially gave up processed food it was difficult mostly because I needed to make more things rather than buying them. However once you get into the habit it really isn’t that difficult. Also now when I take a bite or sip of something processed it takes like the chemical concoction that it is. It never tasted like that to me before, I suppose my taste buds were used to it. But now processed food tastes vile to me.

I would suggest you start by removing the processed food you consume the most and substitute something natural for it. If you are huge diet soda drinker switch to water or tea. If you eat a lot of processed faux meat switch to beans and tofu or learn to make your own veggie burgers or seitan. By removing the thing you consume the most you will have the biggest impact on your health.

Happy Thoughts:

With all the snow we had I spent Thursday at home as you might have guessed. It was a good a day for me and here is what I am thankful for today:

• Thursday was a mostly me type of day. Sometimes you need to pamper yourself to recharge your batteries. I had a relaxing day which included exercising, listening to instrumental jazz, talking on the phone with friends, and a nice long soak in a hot bath with sea salt and essential oils. Doesn’t it just sound like heaven? ;-)

• I loved playing with my new kitchen gadget. I am totally a gadget type of girl so anytime I get a new toy I am in heaven. I am very pleased by how well it worked and love the self clean feature which was a very pleasant surprise.

• I was grateful that Dan made it to work and back this week safely and without incident. There were many travel horror stories which made me very thankful he wasn’t one of them.

• It was also wonderful to be one of the homes that didn’t lose power in the storm. I heard Friday morning that 80,000 in DC are still without power. It made me appreciate that ours very rarely goes out.

• Dan liked the combination of BBQ and salsa that I sent in his lunch for dipping his okara and oat sliders into. This is probably our new favorite sauce of the moment. I love coming up with new sauce ideas especially one that is super quick like this one. *happy dance*

Signing out:

Friday was a busy day but also a good one. Dan even ended up coming home from work earlier than usual. We spent a nice relaxing evening catching up on season 6 of "Criminal Minds" that we had recorded but hadn’t watched. It was a good way to spend the evening.

Talk to you again tomorrow. I hope you are having a great start to the weekend.

Vegan Mofo 2.1: Exercise May Reduce Upper Respiratory Infections

This is an interesting article so I wanted to share it. It indicates that people who exercise 5 days a week have 43% fewer days with an upper respiratory infection. Of course this was only for that specific group of 1,002 people and over 12 weeks but it is still impressive.

Here are a few salient points from the article in case you don’t want to follow the link:

The findings are consistent with previous epidemiologic and randomized studies, they wrote. Although the underlying mechanism remains unclear, the relationship might be explained by the effect of exercise on the body's immune response.

"Each aerobic exercise bout causes a transient increase in the recirculation of immunoglobulins and neutrophils and natural killer cells, two cells involved in innate immune defenses. Animal data indicate that lung macrophages play an important role in mediating the beneficial effects of moderate exercise on lowered susceptibility to infection," Nieman and his colleagues wrote.

"Stress hormones, which can suppress immunity, and pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, indicative of intense metabolic activity, are not elevated during moderate aerobic exercise," they continued.

"Although the immune system returns to pre-exercise levels within a few hours after the exercise session is over, each session may improve immunosurveillance against pathogens that reduce overall upper respiratory tract infection incidence and symptomatology."

I underlined moderate exercise to make certain you didn’t miss that point. According to what I have read why moderate exercise increases the immune system strenuous exercise depresses it. I try to remember that moderate or strenuous is different for everyone depending on their level of conditioning.

I know personally that when I am exercising regularly I also get fewer colds. If exercise alone can have this much impact imagine what a combination of exercise and good nutrition (a healthy vegan diet obviously) can do. It may explain why I haven’t had a cold in the last couple of years.

Happy Tuesday:

It is a cold one this morning, 39 degrees Fahrenheit when I first looked. Clearly I need to wait for my hair to dry completely before walking to the polls this morning.  I haven't missed voting since I turned 18.

Last night I scheduled the first two fur babies for their dental procedures. One of the boys goes this Thursday and the other one next Thursday. Knowing there will be a week of antibiotics after the surgery we decided taking them a week apart was the best plan. For those of you that have cats you know the joys of trying to give them medication. I am really looking forward to that, NOT. ;-)

I will be back later with another post with a recipe. I hope everyone is staying warm.