Healthy Meal Diet

I will be adding my favorite recipes as I use or create them. Here is the first one. I had this for dinner last night and it was excellent!

Kale With Mushrooms, Onions & Garlic

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 2
Kale is my new favorite food. It is perfect for the GOMBS diet, and tastes delicious. It is one of the most nutritious green leafy vegetables in the world. It is high in the antioxidant vitamins, A, C and K and a great source of fiber.
We grew it in our backyard this year, and it grew very well in a shadier part of the garden. For this recipe, it was fun to walk out to the backyard to harvest dinner!

Ingredients:

brown rice
1 pound mushrooms, white or brown, sliced thin
1 bunch of kale (I picked my own, but one bundle from the grocery store is the right amount)
1 large onion
1.5 cups stock or broth
5 cloves of garlic
1 Tablespoon sage
1 Tablespoon thyme
splash of cooking wine
butter
olive oil
salt
a little parmesan (optional)
pepper
cornstarch
water (1/4 cup or so)

First cook up the brown rice, separately.
Then chop the garlic and onion finely.
In a large pan or skillet melt one tablespoon of butter with a dollop of olive oil, add in the onion and saute on medium heat the cooking onions start just start to turn golden.
Add the chopped sage and thyme and salt and fresh-ground pepper.
Add the sliced mushrooms and saute, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are soft.
Then add in a splash of cooking wine and softly scrape the pan to get the juices mixed in (i.e reduce the pan drippings).
Then add your broth or stock and reduce the heat slightly, add the kale, cover and cook until kale starts to become soft.
Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water, and then stir it into the kale mixture. Stir and heat until the remaining juices have thickened to a gravy like consistency.
Serve in a bowl poured over the brown rice. Top with grated fresh Parmesan cheese, if desired.

This is a great recipe that fits perfectly into a healthy meal plan for your active and fit lifestyle. Let me know if you have tried it and like it!

“GOMBBS” is an acronym you can use to remember the most nutrient-dense, health-promoting foods on the planet. These are the foods you should eat every day, and they should make up a significant proportion of your diet — these foods can be effective at preventing chronic disease and promoting health and longevity.

You can learn more about the health benefits of GOMBBS in Joel Fuhrman’s new book “Super Immunity,” a guide to naturally strengthening the immune system against everything from the common cold to cancer.

Dr. Fuhrman is a New York Times best-selling author, nutritional researcher and board certified family physician specializing in nutritional medicine. Learn more by visiting his informative website at DrFuhrman.com and his blog at Diseaseproof.com, and following Dr. Fuhrman on Facebook and Twitter.

This is a great healthy meal: Chicken with Lemon and Tarragon, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onion, brown and wild rice and fresh green beans.

Here is a great recipe for a healthy meal from Jackie Stone. I tried this the other day and it was delicious. I have always been a big fan of mushrooms and I am so thrilled to learn that they are good for you too! Look into the GOMBS diet for more information about the health benefits of mushrooms.  The Mediteraanean diet focuses on lean meats, fresh vegetables and greens, healthy fats in moderation and complex carbohydrates in moderation.

Here she shows us how to make a fantastic mushroom side dish.  She uses Crimini and baby Portobello Mushrooms in this recipe because they are heartier and flavorful as well as having have nice firm textures.

First thing you want to do is to saute up one or two cloves of garlic in about a tablespoon of olive oil.  Once they are soft, add in two cups of cut up mushrooms.  Season with garlic salt and a bit of pepper.  Add one to two cups of chopped fresh Italian parsley and reduce that down till the parsley softens.

For the chicken dish, get the oil hot and put boneless skinless chicken breasts in the hot pan to give the chicken a nice golden finish to it.  Then after turning the heat down some, cover each piece of chicken with fresh squeezed lemon juice.  Then put fresh tarragon over each piece of chicken. Add mixture over some brown and wild rice and Opa! What a delicious and healthy Mediterranean feast!

Thanks Jackie!

It can be said that the nurturing aspect of cooking brings relaxation to both body and mind. Today’s world is quite hectic and it is more important than ever for us to prepare meals and dishes rich in nutritional value and balanced so we can keep ourselves healthy and feeling good.  It used to be the mindset that to be tasty and gourmet, you needed to cook with lots of fats and rich foods. This is just a myth.  A healthy diet can be satisfying and delicious and still not take their toll on your waistline.

One thing to do is to make sure that your kitchen is ready for a good start. A good non stick pan is an essential piece of kitchen equipment.  With the right pan you will not need to add much oil to keep food from sticking. Use olive oil instead as it improves the taste and is also healthier. Use only a teaspoon of oil for sautéing.

Spicy foods are great for getting your metabolism going, so don’t be afraid of adding hot spices to your food.  It is generally shown that Cayenne improves the circulation and digestion.  It has a thermogenic effect which speeds up the  rate at which calories are burned off.  In one study it was shown that cayenne increased core body temperature, which in turn increased the metabolism and caused the participants to lose more weight then the group not taking cayenne.

Do you know how to read a food label? I thought I did until I watched this video and saw how much I have been mislead into buying “fat free” or “low fat” products that were not more low fat than their fat version!  How can this be?

The guy in this video used to work for Kraft Foods and now is blowing the lid off of how food labels are manipulated to make consumers think they are getting healthy food, when really they are not. For example, a vegetable broth, whose label says it is 99% fat free, and actually.

I was blown away when I watched this. There are two different systems of measurement that allow for very confusing and contradictory information. This is a very interesting video that gets into details about how to read a food label and really understand what it is you are getting when you buy the product. Take the time to watch this, and let everyone you know have this information!

OK, I have been a long time Sesame Street admirer, dating back to when my brother was young and my heart was opened up by Kermit the Frog singing, “It isn’t easy being green.” Here is this 2011 Sesame Street song, Cookie Monster gives us a fun rendition of “Healthy Foods,” for us all to learn what a good foods to eat for a healthy diet. Enjoy!

Last March, he was a coronary waiting to happen. His poor eating habits and lack of exercise had caught up with him, his family was thinking of doing an intervention to wake him up to his health problems, and he knew he just had to make some changes. Now, five months later he is 55 pounds lighter and in the best shape of his life.

“It’s not a diet,” Chef Mark Stark, said, “It’s just about making healthy eating choices. You start cutting back a little at a time and after awhile, your body loses that craving.” Stark, who lost 55 pound over a six month period, is the owner of four restaurants, and had a pattern of eating at one of them late in the evening after finishing up work, then heading to bed a few hours later. “The food didn’t have a chance to digest in my stomach, it just sat there and turned to fat.” Now after slimming down by cutting out potatoes and bread, and making healthy choices for his meals, Stark says, “what’s better than losing the weight is that I have 10 times the energy as when I was carrying the excess weight.”

He also began a boxing program to keep him interested in moving around and getting fit. “I just couldn’t get motivated doing an exercise program on machines.” So he discovered a boxing program that keeps him interested with different routines and a great coach that keeps things interesting for him. Exercise should be fun and satisfying, and sometimes what works for one person doesn’t work for another. For Mark Stark, the boxing was the key. “I like to hear that pop of my glove hitting a target,” he said about the satisfaction of his choice of exercise.

While it’s not really a secret that eating healthy meals, making healthy food choices, and getting good heart pumping exercise is the best way to lose weight, sometimes we need to hear some weight loss success stories that really inspire us. Speaking for myself, when I read the article in my local paper about this chef, I was inspired and renewed in my own commitment to take on living a healthy life. What choices with I make today that lead me in a healthy direction? What new exercise can you put into your life today that will bring pleasure, vitality and health into your life? What can we do today to take a step closer to gaining more energy, lightening up our bodies and creating healthy vibrant lives? It all starts today. Thanks to: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110827/NEWS/110829561

Meal replacement bars are certainly handly for when you are on the go and need a meal quickly. But when you look closely are they healthy enough to replace a meal? With the advertisments that promote these quick fix meals, one would think that they are the best thing since sliced bread (which we all know may not actually be a great thing after all). But what are they really? Are they a good choice, or are they just a gimmick to get you to buy food you really are not benefitting from? With many brands on the market, it must be that there are different levels of healthy food in different bars. Let’s take a look and see.

Are they healthy or are they just another candy bar in disguise? A good helathy meal with have need to meet certain qualifications. We will look at them in terms of: calories, caloric density, saturated fats, trans fats, protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals.

Calories – There need to be enough calories, and fiber and caloric density to be satisfying, otherwise you will just find yourself grabbing something else shortly after eating it, so that you won’t be so hungry. Alos a bit of fat satisfies and is good, but not it they are trans fats and not if there are too many fats. Are there enough vitamins and minerals that we need to stay healthy in the bar to warrent replacing a meal?

These five bars are rated from better to wrost:

Of the ones that diet.com tested the better is the Balance Gold bar with a high calorie density, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of fiber, not a wise choice.

Go Lean Chocolat Almond Toffee – the biggest bar no added vitamins or minerals, missing alot of nutrients that you should have 290 calories.

Powerbar energize- 240 calories, and 3 grams of fat. Came in last in a taste test and people reported being hungry shortly after eating.

Special K Protein Bar 190 calories, not satisfyling – 4.5 2 grams of fiber, not filling, no added vitamins.

Slim Fast Optima – 220 calories, big volume 6 grams of fat 4 sat

If you do fruit, vegtable, hadful of nuts or yogurt along with your bar to get all the nutrition you need.

I have been hearing about the paleo diet and wanted to check into it to learn more. What is the Paleo Diet?

The originator of this diet, Dr. Loren Cordain, is on the faculty Colorado State University in the dept. of Health and Exercise Science. He has been at work for 20 years looking at the effects of diet on human health and specifically working to examine links between modern day eating habits and disease. He is the author of the three books, The Paleo Diet, The Paleo Diet for Athletes, and The Dietary Cure for Acne.

Paleo Diet Basics:

The main premise of the Paleo Diet is to mimics the kinds of food that people ate before the Agricultural Revolution. Specifically , this consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and seafood. These healthy foods tend to be high in soluble fiber, antioxidant vitamins, phytochemicals, omega-3 and monounsaturated fats, and low-glycemic carbohydrates. These foods also promote good health by not having the refined sugars and grains, saturated and trans fats, salt, high-glycemic carbohydrates, and processed foods that frequently cause weight gain, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many additional health problems that people suffer with today. In essence The Paleo Diet replaces dairy and grain products with nutrient rich fresh fruits and vegetables.

Weight Loss Diets

Let’s look at a couple of models for weight loss that are popular and have molded the way we think about losing weight.

Low Fat/High Carb

Burning more calories than we take in is a standard formula for weight loss as we all seem to know, but conventionally it has been assumed that the best way to accomplish this is to eat a plant-dominated, low-fat, and high-carbohydrate diet. Well, that calorie part of this is true, a net caloric decrease must take place in order to lose weigh. But when Cordain looked at the experience that most people have when they are on a low-calorie, high-carbohydrate diet he found that mostly it is unpleasant and unsatisfying. People on this type of diet experience being hungry all the time, and for most people, any weight they do lose they regain right away or within a few months of the initial loss.

Low Carb/ High Fat

On the other hand, diets that promote low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets also offer us a way to lose weight, but only for the short term, and in the long run they promote an unhealthy diet because of the reliance on fats (butter, fatty meats, bacon, cheeses, etc.) at the expense of healthful and nutrient rich fruits and vegetables.

In the end both of these ways of dieting have proven to be ineffective and unsatisfying, to say nothing of being unhealthy. Cordain’s premise is that when the agricultural revolution occurred about 10,000 years ago, a dramatic change took place in human nutrition. Now in our modern diet, cereal grains, legumes, dairy, vegetable oils, salt, alcohol, and refined sugars comprise 72% of the nutrition in western cultures. These foods contain harmful substances that are associated with many of the “diseases of civilization”, including diabetes, celiac disease and other autoimmune diseases, obesity, hypertension, certain cancers, acne, polycistic ovary syndrome, myopia, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and more.

The Paleo Diet offers an alternative. This is a diet that matches what our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. They ate a high-protein, high-fruit and veggie diet with moderate amounts of fat, that was bountiful in healthful omega-3 and monounsaturated fats. Why protein is good for you: It has two to three times the thermic effect of either fat or carbohydrate, meaning that it gets your metabolism going, which speeds up weight loss. Also protein fills you up more than either fats or carbohydrates, so it has the effect of more easily controlling your appetite. Lastly, according to Cordain, three recent clinical trials have concluded that high-protein diets are more effective than low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets in promoting weight loss.

Basically the Paleo diet is about eating lean meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, and nuts and not eating grains and sugars.

http://thepaleodiet.com/