Of all the outrageous food holidays (National Catfish Month? National Root Beer Float Day?), a month devoted to salads may seem on the surface to be the most unnecessary. We are more than versed in the cafeteria or grocery store salad bar, after all. Salads are a ubiquitous side dish, and they are even a popular fast food option. But if you are doing your level best to get your fruit and veggie servings every day, putting the spotlight on the salad may be just what you need to raise your servings quotient and rediscover what salad has to offer.
The Salad Advantage
Besides incorporating large amounts of veggies and fruit, salads arrive on the scene with their own built-in advantages. They are filling and fibrous, they are interesting to eat, and they provide variety that makes it almost impossible not to eat from the rainbow. Salads also come with their own deep history that makes them a surprisingly good fit as comfort food – fix a Cobb salad, a Waldorf salad or a little lime Jell-O and you’re instantly transported to the early 20th century. What’s more, salads deliver on a budget: salad-making is the stone soup of the American kitchen due to their uncanny ability to incorporate a fridge’s odds and ends and stretch a single chicken thigh or a sole carrot into a eight-serving dish.
So why not a month that pays homage to the ultimate vegetable delivery system? This May, get creative and make salad the meal, or decide that a salad dish will accompany every dinner plate. You might even take the opportunity to plan a salad-centric garden by experimenting with interesting greens that will inspire your salad days in the months to come.
In May, It’s Easy Being Green
Whether your penchant is to toss or to spin, here are three basic principles to live by as you embark on a month devoted to a pastiche of produce.
Know your greens. If you are still rocking the iceberg, it’s time to dump the colorless crunch and embrace dark leafies. Romaine or spinach provide the deep colors that indicate they are a food full of powerful antioxidants, for instance. You can also opt for no greens at all. Europeans are notorious for salads that use tomatoes or bell peppers as the under layer – tomato and mozzarella caprese salad is a beloved meal accompaniment, no greens necessary.
Make your own dressing. It’s a well-known salad trap: you start with a dish of healthy, and then ruin a good thing with fattening salad dressing. The solution? Forgo the supermarket bottles and take matters into your own hands so you have full control over your ingredients. Opt for basic vinaigrette, or make your own Russian by using low-fat yogurt. HuffPost’s Kitchen Daily covers the spread of DIY dressing, and Real Simple’s Simplystated.com has 6 Ridiculously Easy Homemade Salad Dressings including Creamy Tarragon and Avocado and a simple Thousand Island that kids will love.
Eat what you love. Silly for avocados? Think wild blueberries are the bomb? Can’t resist pasta? They are all ingredients that make salad sensational. If your salad seems a little dull, include a favorite topping that makes it delectable, whether it’s homemade croutons like these corn bread croutons that add killer crunch, or a sprinkle of parmesan. And don’t stint on the protein. Chicken, eggs or tofu can make a side into an instant meal. A part of using high-calorie foods moderately, decide to opt for the exciting flavor or olives instead of bacon, for example, and if you are cutting calories, a dash of Kosher salt might be enough to make dull different.
Salad Sensational
Cooking Light has 5-Ingredient Salads that run the gamut from Chicken and Spring Greens with Açai Dressing to Steak Salad with Creamy Horseradish Dressing.
Health and nutrition can be confusing. We are bombarded with marketing messages, inundated with confusing food labels, and assailed with scientific research and multi-syllabic names for compounds and nutrients.
The Wild About Health Made Simple Series explains health and nutrition as simply as possible. The easier it is to understand, the easier it is to have a longer, healthier life.
Nutrition: Good vs. Bad
Q: Are you eating well?
We’re told by our doctors, by our leaders, and by countless talking heads to eat well and maintain our health; we’re urged to “get healthy” in order to maintain our weight, our heart, our brain, and our longevity. It sounds simple, and in some ways, it is. But how do we accomplish it?
Here, we dump the science and the complex guidelines and strategies, and break down good nutrition in simple terms so you can start today moving the needle toward healthy.
Eating Well: 5 Simple Steps
1. Fruits & Vegetables, Every Day
A healthy diet emphasizes fruits and vegetables. Need a visual? Use the MyPlate guidelines. The new “plate” version of the old pyramid presents the general guideline of how much of each food group we should be eating.
You can eat seasonal food, organic food, or local food – if it’s available and affordable, then that’s great. You can eat across the rainbow and make an effort to get important phytochemicals that provide some fruits’ deep color. But the most important principle is this: fill you plate to half with fruits and vegetables every time you eat.
2. Know the Basics
Keeping nutrition simple means knowing about a few hot button healthy eating issues. Good nutrition emphasizes dietary fiber and cuts salt, saturated and trans fats, and added sugar. Unless you are dealing with specific dietary needs, as a general rule, you can maintain a healthier diet by doing the following:
Reducing sodium
Getting more fiber
Drinking more water
Reducing saturated fat
3. Shrink Your Portions
In order to maintain a healthy diet, many Americans must cut calories. Our health is often associated with our weight. Being overweight contributes to diabetes and heart disease and can shorten our life, and it’s as simple as that.
According to the Lempert Report, portion size is linked to plate size. (Surprisingly, it is also linked to plate color!) If you love numbers, counting calories might help. (Realizing that a bowl or chips and french onion dip will take up at least half your day’s calories helps their importance sink in.) But the easiest thing you can do is shrink your meal. Get a smaller plate, cut portions in half to eat later, or get rid of family-style eating. Whatever you do, aim to get the most nutrition you can from the calories you eat, and eat only the calories you need.
4. Cook For Yourself
Why cook for yourself? It’s simple: You’ll know what’s in your food. You’ll eat more whole, unprocessed ingredients. You’ll be better able to control your sodium, sugar, and fat. It’s more economical. It’s tastier. And, cooking your own meals is almost always lighter. Start cooking: it’s one of the best things you can do for your health.
Is your goal to eat better? Get these four simple principles under you belt. You can start understanding the benefits or pterostilebene and the best superfoods for optimum disease prevention later – it will come naturally. For now, start simple, and change the way you eat and how much. Then, if someone asks if you have a healthy diet, the answer will be simple: Yes.
More on the Web
What is a healthy diet? Get a simple definition at Choosemyplate.gov.
Give your diet some digital help. This article has 5 Apps for Eating Better that will help you find fruits and veggies, locate local, seasonal foods, and give you a fun way to track of your servings.
Break it down.Fruits & Veggies More Matters takes the confusion out of healthy eating and provides nuts and bolts advice about calories, food groups, and what you should know.
The popular “4-hour Body” originator Tim Ferriss says that setting one day aside to totally indulge when you are dieting is the key to staying motivated and maintaining your metabolism. Is a “cheat day” necessary to achieve a healthy weight? Or does planning for a Saturday splurge just mean we’re cheating ourselves?
While some evidence suggests this metabolic boost does help spur on weight loss, the idea is dogged by a few good-health disconnects. The need for a cheat day automatically implies a regimen of food restriction. Dieting, characterized by short-term, sometimes tortuous limitations of food – and often nutrition – is no fix for bad eating habits. The road to long-term weight maintenance and disease prevention involves embracing consistent habits that incorporate new, better ways of eating every day.
Ways to Keep Your Cheat
Are you are born cheater? When it comes to eating healthy, some people are just meant to break the rules. If walking the line of healthy eating sounds like a stone cold bore, here are a few ways to get your cheat on, in a good way.
The Good Cheat. When you cheat, indulge in foods that you love and are good for you. Love the sweet extravagance of strawberry pie? Always had a soft spot for sauces, dips and melty things? Don’t deny your desire to indulge. Healthy eating is a rainbow of opportunities to love real food again. Start cooking, choose foods you love, eschew processed salt-sugar-fat non-foods and find recipes that capitalize on nutrition while still keeping the delish. The Lite Cheat. Incorporate the cheat by regularly eating things you love as one part of an overall healthy diet. One of the myths of healthy eating is that it’s bland, boring, and repetitive. That’s just old school thinking. Sure, a constant diet of carrot sticks can set you up to fail. Instead, use fruit and veggie servings to your benefit. How? We talk about delicious, nutritious food here all the time. Join us, buy a good cookbook, and learn about how to capitalize on foods that have a potent nutrition-to-calorie ratio, and start cheating your way to health, weight maintenance, and disease prevention.
The Unnecessary Cheat. Change your taste for processed foods and eliminate the need to cheat. Our desire for fat, sugar, and salt only increases the more we subject our bodies and our minds to it. David Kessler, in his book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, explains that foods created with a magical recipe of high fat, high salt, and high sugar alters the brain’s chemistry in ways that compel us to overeat. They override our body’s signals that tell us we’re full, and they trigger cravings. Administered in intermittent doses, this combination can have a powerful affect on the brain that can mimic addiction. But you can break the chain. Stop the regular intake of this dangerous combination and you’ll lose the taste for it, Kessler says. Given a little time, you can start craving the nutrition your body really needs instead.
The Bigger is Better Cheat.Often, cheats are cheats not because of what we eat, but how much. There’s nothing more indulgent than simply putting away a whole lot of food. But here’s something we tend to forget: while 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, a 1/2 cup of spinach is only 15 calories. That’s why a diet can make us feel like we aren’t getting enough food and energy. If you are switching from a poor diet marked by processed, fatty foods to a diet of nutrient-rich foods, you aren’t – and you need to eat more. So, give yourself license to chew: eat as many of the good, healthy foods on your list as you want. Bulk up on frozen fruit and wild blueberries, shovel on the greens, go crazy with beans, and heap on the lean proteins.
Cheat-worthy Recipes
Remember your ace in the hole is always a food that is full of high-powered health and disease prevention and is also terrifically tasty. Wild blueberries are an ideal case in point. You can pretend you’re cheating when you eat them, but in fact, wild blueberries are a complexly delicious, nutritious, antioxidant-rich, low-calorie stand-in for a favorite forbidden food.
Need more?Epicurious plays “splurge day” recipes against “every day” recipes that include healthy comfort foods that you can incorporate into your healthy eating plan, including Mac and Cheese and Pizza. And, WebMD has Turkey Tamale Pie that is hearty and veggie-heavy.
Thanksgiving…the ultimate cheat. From creamy onion tart to coconut butternut soup, New York Times Well blog says forgo the bird and indulge in wonderful flavors of veggies.
Is a truckload of veggies as desirable as a truckload of flat screen TVs?
Skyrocketing food prices, a difficult economy, and lifestyles that depends on good nutrition may have created a perfect atmosphere for these produce thieves who stole a truckload of tomatoes and cucumbers valued at $42,000. The veggie heist comes on the heels of a similar incident in Florida last month in which a $300,000 worth of vegetable and frozen meat was stolen.
Such high-nutrition hi jinx may be the result of yet another mixed societal message. As a country, we get the blame for eating poorly while at the same time we are virtually enclosed by a ring of processed food; we are urged to buy fresh, whole, organic food while living in a dire economic downturn where household budgets are continually squeezed. It’s no wonder a truckload of fresh food is a precious commodity.
The Costs of Poor Nutrition
If your slip at the supermarket register is telling you food prices are rising, you’re right. According to the U.S. government’s Consumer Price Index, food prices in January rose 1.8% from the prior year, which is the fastest pace since 2009. Basic commodities have risen in price, and average nationwide vegetable prices rose 9.8% in March compared to the same month in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Consumer Price Index reported this month.
At the same time, according to the USDA., the cost of food for the average U.S. household makes up a lower percentage of income than almost any other nation – just 6.9% of the average American household’s expenses. Generally speaking, even while food prices inch up, food is available to the majority of middle class Americans at low costs. But is it the right food? Why does food availability seem to parallel our poor eating habits?
Despite the ubiquity of low-priced drive-thrus and cheap bulk snack food, we can eat well for less money—we must. And in the long run, we can’t afford to do otherwise. The treatment of diseases preventable with good nutrition is raising health care costs and sabotaging our health and longevity. As American consumers, we must find a way to eat good food affordably.
Cut the Waste
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that Americans waste about 20% of their food. It’s a statistic that speaks to our world of food plenty. Wasted food means we expend enormous amounts of manufacturing energy unnecessarily and watch nutrients and dollars go down the drain. A University of Arizona study estimates that the amount of waste from a typical household that shops for four adds up to $40 each week.
While bulk purchases can make budgetary sense, stocking up on perishables like fruit and vegetables is a recipe for filling the trash. How do we start cutting our waste? One European government has considering ridding labels of “best before” dates in order to curb our tossing habit. Websites like Allrecipes.com and the FoodNetwork.com can help us search out dishes based on the ingredients hanging around the house. We can shop with lists; we can organize our kitchens so we know what we have and use it. And, when we must throw out food, we can compost to give food trash a new use.
We can also loosen our standards of perfection when it comes to food. According to New York Times contributor Tara Parker Pope, the trouble with having plenty of food means we can often confuse spoilage for mere less-than-perfect. Brown spots on the lettuce? Cut it off. Not sure about that ice cream? It’s probably fine. Down to the end of that ketchup? Use it up before popping open a new bottle.
Stretch Your Food
As any good restaurant chef knows, the most efficient way to run a kitchen is to use up the food you have: yesterday’s entrée becomes tomorrow’s Soup of the Day. Start thinking like a restaurant chef and you’ll see food costs plummet. Using your ingredients takes a little creativity and a pinch of culinary acumen, but it’s a habit that will stick.
Use leftovers to make delicious soups or to fill a healthy burrito, and embrace foods like chili, shepherd’s pie and quiche to revisit ingredients and take a “stone soup” approach to make ingredients go further. This simplebites.com article called Eat Well, Spend Less offers up five frugal meals to stretch your dollar, including black bean burgers and crustless quiche that uses that scrap of ham and random cup of mushrooms and turns it into something to rave about.
Shop Locally
Supermarkets may have some price points licked, but local markets can come out on top for some important budget-busting items. Check out local Asian markets for good prices on produce and rice, and you’ll likely find budget-friendly spices, meats, cheeses and items like olive oil at your local Italian grocer. As Livestrong.com points out in Cheap Ways to Eat Healthy, shopping at the local farmer’s markets is no luxury—they provide cheap, fresh goods that cut out middleman costs, and allow you to choose amounts based on your needs, whether that’s 1 or 8.
Make Convenience the Enemy
The myth that fast food is easy on the wallet is just that – a myth. According to Michele Hiatt, a registered dietitian at St. John Medical Center, the least-processed foods are the least expensive as well as the healthiest. Yes, you can supersize your meal for a mere dollar, but convenience food is, in general, not good economics. Making food from real ingredients is better on the wallet and the calories, and eliminates unhealthy ingredients that go into processing like those unusually high sugars, salts, and fats.
It’s just that…convenience is so convenient. But a recently article in the Atlantic Monthly called the Joy of Not Cooking points out the irony that surrounds the age of food preoccupation. We obsess over the newest ceramic kitchen knife and spend big for a tricked-out high end stove, but for all its equipment, we actually spend less time in the kitchen than ever before. For example, women who work outside the home log an average of 5.5 hours per week in the kitchen—that’s food preparation and cleanup included. Compare that to our grandmothers, who either ran or grew up in households with women who spent 30 hours a week on food preparation. If it doesn’t motivate us to add a little more preparation time, it at least puts convenience into perspective.
Hiatt discusses her “Top 5 Food Savers” in a recent article and recommends a shopping list which targets fruits and veggies in season, dried beans/legumes, frozen produce on sale, potatoes, lean protein on sale, skim milk and yogurt, and store brand rice, pasta, oatmeal, barley and grits for budget stretching.
Tap into the Season
You can keep good food on your plate and pennies in your pocket by taking local to the next level. Growing your own vegetables at home is a budget-conscious strategy, not just a hobby. According to the National Gardening Association home gardens are up from 27 million households in 2005 to about 31 million households last year. The main reasons? Better tasting food, higher quality food and saving on the grocery bill. According to Michael Pollan, any amount of land will do to start a home garden. Even his own self-described postage-stamp-sized yard with three raised beds provides him with enough to add to dinner most nights, and the price is right.
If you are looking for home farming resources, start with Brett L. Markham’s Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on Acre, or reveal your green thumb by using it to thumb through Lisa Taylor’s Your Farm in the City, which provides a complete look at the trend of urban farming.
Other ways to take advantage of the season include picking your own fruits and veggies. Farms that offer this labor-intensive shopping experience can give you bulk produce for a low price: find farms at pickyourown.com. Find other ways to buy fresh on a budget on eHow.com.
Finally, Make Use of Frozen
Frozen is part of any discussion devoted to nutrition and stretching dollars. It can be your secret weapon when it comes to budget cutting. Frozen fruits and veggies offer economy because of their bulk sizes and because they eliminate costly waste that gnaws at the household food budget. There’s also no competing with frozen when it comes to off-season prices and availability. Besides, having at-the-ready daily servings is incentive enough to use frozen – accessible nutrition that is just a good as fresh is worth a truckload of flat screens to any family.
Go forth and eat healthy! You can’t put a price on good health, disease prevention and longevity, so don’t let a tightening budget squeeze the nutrition off your plate. You know fruits and vegetables are the best way to get the most from your dollar when it comes to nutrition – armed with a few dollar-stretching strategies you won’t have to sacrifice good health for their powerful nutritional value.
Not sure what’s in season? Coupons are fine for boxes and cans, but for produce, taking advantage of low prices means homing in on what’s inexpensive in any given time of year. About.com’s Frugal Living
section provides an easy month-to-month reference perfect for posting on the fridge. This month, go for pineapples and artichokes; in May head toward asparagus and okra.
Go Frugal! Forward this post to start a trend in saving money and preserving health!
Last Minute Favorites for a Healthy, Delicious Thanksgiving
There’s simply no excuse for not incorporating sweet, delicious, healthy foods into your holiday meal this year. Sure, plenty of Thanksgiving recipes pack in the calories, but forking up some lesser-known ingredients and unsung vegetables could be worth it if it helps you expand your food relationships all year. Besides, there IS a way to enjoy this food-infused celebration and maintain your health goals.
We don’t expect you to strip all the skin off your turkey, or forgo your favorite pie. But while you’re gearing up for the onslaught of food, you can keep your head. Here’s our favorite nuggets of (realistic) advice to keep your health on the front burner during for the big day, and some great recipe ideas to have steaming on the side.
Mind your substitutes. Use canola or olive oil instead of butter, herbs and spices instead of salt, and reduced vegetable stock instead of gravy while you’re cooking in an effort to make fatty foods a little healthier and save yourself some of the calories and the guilt. It’s your year-round cooking rule anyway, so why stop know? (Health Castle can help with some common substitutions.)
Get active. You know you’ll be invigorated with a pre-meal or post-meal walk – don’t let the exhaustion of cooking and company get you down. It’s the perfect way to burn a few calories, take a breather, and keep your exercise regime intact even on your day off.
Drink water. This is the best, simplest tip you’ll come across. They’ll be plenty of coffee during the early morning food prep, and plenty of holiday cocktail opportunities. Water is your best defense to keep empty calories down, and keep alcohol intake on the down-low.
Don’t starve. It’s tempting: save up your calories so you can enjoy the holiday party or have the extras. Unfortunately, it’s almost always bad advice: skipping meals to save calories backfires by causing you to overeat and head toward the carbs. Being consistent with your meals will help you moderate during party time and make good decisions when you’re smack dab in front of the spread.
Consider your plate. Keeping food groups in mind is some of our favorite advice: Think of your plate as one third protein, one-third vegetable and one third “other”, and that includes stuffing or pie. You’ll be more likely to eat across the rainbow and get all your food groups, not just one.
Remember you’ll survive. One gooey dessert does not mean you’ll gain five pounds. If you are blaming Aunt Hazel’s insistence on having that second serving of sweet potato pie, remember that you’ll need to eat an extra piece of pie every day for the next two months to gain those 5 pounds. So, don’t throw in the towel so fast. Indulge, be conscious, give thanks and enjoy.
Let the Cooking Begin!
Thanks again to Amanda & Merrill at food52.com for giving us the gift of wonderful holiday food in all its incarnations. They offer vouched-for favorites such as Parsnip Potato Mash, exquisite starters like Butternut Cider Soup, and lots of fantastic sides like Ciabatta Stuffing, and Gingered Cranberry & Fig Chutney. Need dessert? Here’s 12 options whether your penchant is for crust or no crust. A delight!
Eat Well With Janel generously offers up a vegan twist to a not-exactly traditional dish. Her Vegan Pumpkin Alfredo is a unique take on some leftover pie ingredients and a way to incorporate tofu with creativity. Thanks, Janel!
Serious Eats can help with the perennial Thanksgiving conundrum: how do you get a little color into the drab tans and whites on your plate? With green bean casserole, of course. It’s a classic, and with this Ultimate Homemade Green Bean Casserole they’ve upgraded mom’s version to incorporate some homemade ingredients that separate your greens from the pack.
Let’s not forget to give thanks to Martha for the opportunity to be beneficiaries of her always flawless holiday advice. She’s got you covered from Mushroom Walnut Gravy to Roasted Peaches with Sweet Onions. She has plenty of ideas if you are stumped on desserts as well – Pumpkin Chocolate Tiramisu is definitely a good thing. Find them all at Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Recipes: Turkey, Stuffing, Side Dishes & Desserts.
A healthy and delicious Thanksgiving? Yes, you can have both! Give thanks to your health and longevity this year. Cheers!
Why It’s Finally Time to Learn A Crucial Food Lesson
Blogger Pooja Mottl made a pointed observation about our collective health recently in the Huffington Post. Mottl says that despite supermarket recipe cards and countless blogs and articles about food and food preparation, “it’s not happening — we aren’t getting this ‘healthy food’ into our mouths.” Why? Simple, she says. We don’t know how to cook.
It seems like a bizarre assertion that with the last decade’s renaissance of food TV and food-themed media, Americans would still not be cooking. Could it be that many of us are involved in a grand food delusion in which we know the names of all the celebrity chefs but don’t ever pick up a spatula? Could it be that all of this food information is sliding right past us like the egg off of a McMuffin?
It could. The decline in cooking for ourselves continues despite rumblings that the recession has brought some families back to the kitchen. The fact is, everyone is working, and food companies are selling the antidote to our time-crunched lives. And it seems those food shows may be doing very little to actually help our skills – they just serve as more passive entertainment. Restaurant food sales continue to soar and packaged food companies thrive, and no one is donning an apron to pass down those valuable cooking skills to the next generation.
As Mottl points out, the consequence of not knowing basic cooking skills is relying on others to do our cooking for us. When our meals come from restaurants, prepared food shelves, and grocery store buffets, it heightens our intake of fat, salt and calories. The bottom line is that we can read this blog or any other blog, we can read articles or magazine tip lists about the benefits of wild blueberries and leafy greens, or the disease preventing properties of fruits and vegetables, or how to incorporate omega-3s into our diet. We can watch top chefs battle it out using fresh, exotic ingredients. None of this will help our health if we aren’t cooking for ourselves.
It’s Time: Learn How to Cook
Yes, Chef, cooking is power, and it’s time we rouse ourselves from the learned helplessness that is nurtured by the prepared food options that orbit around us. It’s time to learn the fundamentals of cooking our own food. Here’s why:
Cooking is an expression of creativity.
Cooking will give you a feeling of satisfaction.
Cooking will save you money.
If you cook, your kids will learn good habits.
Cooking means you’ll have control over what your kids eat.
If you cook, you and your family will be healthier, have fewer diseases, and live longer.
Here’s how to begin.
Buy some tools.
Stock up on some staples. Do you have a good knife? A saucepan? Getting the tools of the trade is an inspiring and necessary first step. Go on a culinary shopping spree, or collect them little at a time. If you are still using your grandmother’s rusty old baking pan, replace it for something new. You can always keep the old one – for posterity.
Make space in the kitchen.
Tell the microwave to shove over and find your go-to space to set up your mise en place. If you’re struggling space-wise, consider investing in a moveable cooking counter. Or install shelves to move some of what’s on the counter up.
Stock the basics.
If there are no new edibles making their way into your house tonight, you’ll need to make something out of nothing, and that requires having the basics. Stock up on necessary spices. Keep rice and stock in the cupboard. Store frozen wild blueberries in the fridge. Can you make a family-sized frittata with nothing but eggs and a few random leftovers? Then you’ve arrived.
Learn the moves.
There is alchemy to food, and having the basic cooking techniques under your belt is a skill that will serve you beyond the recipe card. Know how to sauté, bake, braise, brown, chop, and mince. Learn from a friend, a book, a video or a class. Call your mom, or call your co-worker who’s a whiz with a spatula—they’ll be charmed by the compliment.
Save time to shop.
Cooking begins with groceries. Buying fresh daily may become an enjoyable new habit, but you know your schedule—if evenings disappear in a puff of Ramen noodle smoke, planning ahead is crucial.
Make cooking a ritual. It’s not always possible to spend hours cooking a meal every night, and chopping onions may be Martha Stewart’s idea of relaxing, not yours. But if cooking is part of your life, the preparation that precedes it is part of the ritual of eating. Talk to the kids, catch up on the news…this is your life, and cooking is part of it. Enjoy.
Buy a book, subscribe to a magazine, or take a class.
You don’t have to cook your way though Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If you love pasta, start with a book about pasta. Stir fry sound like fun? Start with a book about Asian cooking. Or, subscribe to a real cooking periodical so the new ideas keep coming to your doorstep. If classes sound like too much of a time investment, cooking classes are available online.
Share the love.
It’s a brand new day—and everyone can share in the glories of cooking. Take the burden off you and put it on another family member at least once a week, kids included.
Take it on the road.
Put your cooking to the test with a cooking group. Invite a family, some neighbors, or your yoga buddies over once a month and put your skills to work. Then, reciprocate by heading to their house the next month, where all you have to do is taste.
Create your own cooking “Couch to 5K”.
Call it the McChicken to Chicken Stew—give yourself six weeks to become someone who cooks. Create a schedule, walk before you run, and meet your goals. Your family and your body will thank you.
As Greg Marley, Maine forager and author of Mushrooms for Health: Medical Secrets of Northeastern Fungi can tell you, mushroom poisoning should not be taken lightly. Many experienced foragers have found out the hard way that mushrooms found in the wild can harbor dangerous secrets that lead to illness, even death.
But those funny little growths popping up around the yard and along woodsy trails creating a showcase of colors, shapes, and tastes could be trying to tell you something, Alice. Commercial mushrooms hide some healthy secrets, too, and even if you aren’t an experienced forager, you can still put the many benefits of mushrooms into your diet.
The Mushroom’s Major Health Benefits
Virtually all edible mushrooms are low in calories and high in proteins and vitamins, and the most common varieties can be easy on the budget. But beyond just a healthy low-cal food, mushrooms are lauded as having medicinal superpowers. They are used in alternative medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and are credited with promoting adaptive abilities in the body— they fight illness, restore balance, and provide resistance to disease. Some mushrooms are considered “probiotic” and are said to provide a powerful boost to the immune system.
While North America rarely recognizes these medicinal benefits (with the exception of herbalists and some researchers) studies have supported their positive effects on fighting some cancers. Many consider mushrooms an untapped resource, one of Asia’s several underutilized but recently discovered foods such as green tea and soy.
Foraging for Fun (Not for Eating): Mushroom varieties from the author’s back yard.
Even the button mushroom – the small, white staple of produce aisles, salad bars, and pizzas – is a representative of this healthy, inexpensive food that you can eat a lot of. They are low in calories and have a light, earthy taste that is universally enjoyable (despite a lack of respect in culinary circles).
Also, mushrooms provide an excellent opportunity to cut back on meat, if that’s one of your dietary goals. Many mushrooms can have meat-like texture that can satisfy a need for protein. Portobellas, for example, taste very similar to meat and can act as an excellent substitute for a number of meat-centered recipes (such as burgers, below).
Some Kind of Mushroom
Many mushroom varieties are revered for their health benefits. Here are a few worth knowing about:
The chaga, which looks like a lumpy hunk of burned wood, is often made into a tea as a way to provide a plethora of immune boosting and anti-inflammatory benefits.
Shiitakes are known as a delicacy, and they are used in soups and vegetarian dishes; they can also be found dried. Their rich lentinan content makes them popular for their effect on preventing some cancers, and they are also an important source of antioxidants.
Portobellas grow longer and larger, and are known for their wide circular cap. They are full of vitamins and minerals, including a variety of B complex vitamins.
Buttons are perhaps the easiest and cheapest mushroom to obtain, and while they may be ordinary, new research indicates they can help lower cholesterol and prevent chronic diseases, and they may have all the antioxidant properties of the more expensive varieties.
The reishi is a red mushroom that is credited, along with maitake and shiitake, as being a true medicinal mushroom. Research indicates they boost heart health, lower the risk of cancer, and promote immune function, among other benefits. They are grown in China and parts of Asia, and they aren’t readily available in the states, though many companies offer supplements claiming to offer similar healing benefits.
Portobello – Welcome to Your New Favorite Burger
Portobello mushrooms, with their meaty texture and perfect burger-patty roundness, offer a perfect substitute for the hamburger. They are low in calories, low in fat (about 30 calories, compared to a 3-ounce burger patty, which has abut 235 calories), and high in fiber, and they deliver big doses of potassium, vitamin B and selenium for optimal antioxidant activity.
Look for smooth, firm caps when shopping for the portobello, and avoid any soft and slimy areas – the rule of thumb for shopping for any mushroom. Store them in the fridge in a loosely closed paper bag, or wrapped inside a dampened cloth.
We can talk about healthy food all we want, but it doesn’t do any good unless we’re eating it. Dave Lieberman, known for his Food Network shows Good Deal and Eat This draws from his book 10 Things You Need to Eat for this fast and easy recipe for Lemon Blueberry Poundcake. His book presents 10 important foods that provide powerful health benefits, and it gives readers plenty of ideas for how to incorporate those foods into recipes. This irresistible dessert features the undeniably great-for-you antioxidant-rich blueberries.
This and other fun, healthy-food related video clips can be found at WildBluerries.com. Get quick recipe tips for Wild Blueberry Grahttps://www.wildblueberries.comnola French Toast and Venison Loin with Wild Blueberry sauce with Jonathan Cartwright, and view Mariel Hemingway sharing her approach to healthy eating from her book Mariel’s Kitchen, among others. Eat and be healthy!
by L. Marie 
So why not a month that pays homage to the ultimate vegetable delivery system? This May, get creative and make salad the meal, or decide that a salad dish will accompany every dinner plate. You might even take the opportunity to plan a salad-centric garden by experimenting with interesting greens that will inspire your salad days in the months to come.
Eat what you love. Silly for avocados? Think wild blueberries are the bomb? Can’t resist pasta? They are all ingredients that make salad sensational. If your salad seems a little dull, include a favorite topping that makes it delectable, whether it’s homemade croutons like these corn bread croutons that add killer crunch, or a sprinkle of parmesan. And don’t stint on the protein. Chicken, eggs or tofu can make a side into an instant meal. A part of using high-calorie foods moderately, decide to opt for the exciting flavor or olives instead of bacon, for example, and if you are cutting calories, a dash of Kosher salt might be enough to make dull different.
Salad Sensational
