Happy Belated Birthday to Me: Cake and Resolution

When my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday, the only thing I could think of was cake.

I'm a little cake obsessed, which is not a good thing. As the day drew nearer and I could get some distance from my cravings, I decided that the best thing for me to do was bake a Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Chocolate Cake (you can get that recipe here). I even turned down my extremely thoughtful sister-in-law Kathy's offer to purchase a cake from a local vegan bake shop, because as we all know, just because it's vegan, doesn't mean it's healthy! In the end, I'm really glad  I did.

  

My 41st birthday fell smack in between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). I spent a great deal of time thinking about the things that I could do better and the ways that I needed to improve. And chewing my food more topped my list.

I'm not a good chewer.

There, I said it.

So what's my deal with chewing? I think I'm kind of always in a rush, and it takes a long time to really chew your food. I also don't like the way my jaw feels after spending a lot of time chewing. It hurts. It's probably a muscle I need to develop just like my flabby abs.

Chewing is important. It slows down the eating process. Which I need to do because overeating is one of my habits. If I chew well and slowly, chances are I would become bored with chewing and stop eating as soon as I felt sated, a great way to not overindulge. 

Chewing well is essential to good digestion and absorption of nutrients. Chewing your food helps break it down before it heads south to your stomach, and the time your food spends in your mouth is valuable for a few reasons.

Your saliva is a powerful weapon when it comes to digestion. It contains enzymes that break down fats and starches that can only go to work if your food is chewed, thus letting your saliva cover more surface area of what you're trying to consume. If you don't chew as well, these enzymes don't have the ability to break down starches (providing you with energy) or start digesting fats (leaving them partially unprocessed). You'll receive less energy and feel more sluggish as a result.

Saliva also helps relax your stomach muscles, allowing pieces of food to pass along the digestive track and without enough mouth juice, things get a little cramped and painful. So next time you think you had too many lentils, maybe you just didn't chew them long enough?

If your food isn't chewed well enough, your body as a result can feel a little bloated and gassy. This can result from large food particles that aren't digested fully and pass through our colon where they become little floating islands for growing bacteria, which creates the smell and bloating on the other end of your meal.

Though it seems like anything we put in our bodies should be fully digested in our stomach and taken care of, that's not always the case. Though it might be processed by our tummies and the rest of the works from there on out, it doesn't mean our bodies are able to extract all that they could from the food. It doesn't do you any good to make healthy eating choices and not be able to receive all the benefits from it. It would be like going to a spa and paying for a full afternoon if bliss and only getting a pedicure.

As a result, it means that each piece of food we put in our bodies should be chewed well. The amount of chews differs for different foods, and whole, real food takes a decent amount of chews. Make sure you take the time to savor what you eat, allowing your body to extract all it can to better itself, while you max out on all that yummy flavor!

Here are some suggestions for improving our chewing: 

1. The first tip, if you tend to be a quick eater, it is for you to try to remember, just slow yourself down. So, if you can put up a little sign where you eat that literally slows you down and chew, that will help you because chewing is such an automatic response that unless we remind it, will go into our natural habits.
2. Another thing that you can do is to take a few relaxing breaths. By that I mean when you are sitting before your food, typically we dive right in and start to eat it. When you are sitting there, take a moment, relax, feel yourself sitting in your chair and take a breath to about three quarters full, hold it for just a moment and then exhale. If you do that three or four times, it will relax your body, it will slow you down and it will give you time to reprogram your mind to chew that food.
3. You don't have to count your chews, since this could interfere with your ability to participate in mealtime conversation, but break down your food with your teeth until it is easily swallowed. If you are very disciplined you might try counting. Give yourself 15 or 22s or if you can get up to 25 even while you are practicing that would be great.
4. Don't put another bite in your mouth until you have chewed the one currently in your mouth � a great habit to prevent mindless overeating.
5. It's easier to completely chew your food if you take smaller bites, so don't shovel mouthfuls in.
6. If you need to use water to wash your bite down, chances are high you didn't completely chew your food. So sip in between bites, not during.
7. Put your fork down in between bites. This simple action helps you slow down and truly focus on the food that is in your mouth. Instead of shoveling, take a bite put it down and spend some time.  

 

Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Chocolate Cake

Full of veggies and fruit, it takes a bit of time and effort to make it, but it is oh-so-worth-it. The taste gets even better as it develops it's flavor over time, so make it a few days in advance and refrigerate. How do I know this? Because I've been eating the leftovers since Saturday.

Even Max (3) and Maya (6) like Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Chocolate Cake when they aren't given the choice of this treat versus some sweet processed crap or something full of white sugar and butter.

Where do you fall? Slow chewer or fast eater??

Have you ever tried to slow your eating down and chew more fully? What was the result?

Super Immunity by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, The Review and GIVEAWAY!

The people over at PEERtrainer beat me to it. They wrote an amazingly comprehensive review of Super Immunity, the new book by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I highly recommend reading their summary if you are interested in some of the incredible nutritional information that is packed into this work.

What's left for me to tell you?

This: everyone should read this book.

It's not a book about weight loss, although that could be the natural result of eating loads of vegetables. It's a book about our health and the medical establishment. About why doctors and pharmacutical companies should not be relied upon for health. We need to take responsibility for our own health, and eating the right food everyday makes a huge impact on our bodys' ability to be disease-resistant.

I thought I knew about food.

I for sure knew nothing about medicine.

Now I know something about both.

Of particular interest to me was the argument that instead of treating colds, fevers, coughs and flus with remedies, that is, after the fact, we can improve our nutrition to the point that these sickness occur far less frequently and when they do occur, with far less severity. Personally, living with three young children, Chapter Four, "Colds and Flu--What We Need to Know" was hugely eye-opening. Fuhrman reviewed the science on what works, what doesn't work and why. And do you know what I am left feeling?

Empowered.

It's just what I needed. I was really struggling with "pushing" vegetables on my kids. My eleven year old eats lots of cooked vegetables, but nothing raw. My six year old will eat raw carrots and that's all. And forget about my three year old.

I didn't know how to make them eat the food that I wanted them to eat. I figured they would learn to love vegetables, just like I did, when they got older. I figured there was still time. I didn't realize the impact it was having on their health right now.

And as if that weren't enough, the back of the book is full of delicious Nutritarian recipes like this, this and this:

Just when you thought you had seen the last of the days of enjoying rice pudding! This can be devoured for breakfast or dessert, even topped off with a little frozen banana soft serve. It's soooooooo good.

Forbidden Rice Pudding
adapted from a recipe from Super Immunity by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

2 cups cooked black (Forbidden) rice (I used a rice cooker or you can follow the package instructions)
2 cups unsweetened almond or soy milk
1/2 cup dried apricots, diced
1 cup frozen blueberries
2 large or 4 small dates, pitted and chopped
1 Tbsp currants
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp chia seed

Place all ingredients, except chia seed, in a medium-sided pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat then reduce heat and simmer on low for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the chia seed, stir well, cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

The kind people over at Dr. Fuhrman are providing one copy of Super Immunity for HGK to give away. How nice is that? Here are the rules for the giveaway:

One lucky winner will be chosen at random. All you have to do is this:

Leave a comment with your name and the answer to the following question:

Name one whole food item that you keep in your kitchen that 5 years ago, you had never heard of, let alone enjoyed eating on a regular basis.

Contest ends Tuesday, September 26, 2011 at 11:59 pm PST. One winner will be chosen at random and announced on Wednesday, September 27, 2011.

Super Immunity Sneak Preview: Super Seed Oatmeal

Hi everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Labor Day Weekend. Sorry I've been so MIA lately. Between my oldest daughter's pneumonia and my family and I taking a short road trip to Buffalo, New York for a wedding, blogging was no where in my days.

The wedding was lovely, the bride and groom so in love. It has been my first venture into standard American food in quite a long, long time. Food was pretty out of my control, but I know how to handle that. Find out who is in charge and ask them for all of the veggies on the menu and none of the other stuff! A lot of the food tasted to me the way I remember airline food tasting. Could it be that the food was that bad? Or is it just that my taste buds have changed so dramatically over the past two years?

White bread tastes remarkably similar to cardboard.

As usual, I did my best to remain Plant-strong, only indulging in the dessert. And it was really, really good dessert. There were no cardboard tasting red velvet cupcakes.

The other thing that has been keeping me so busy is making my way through a new book that I agreed to review. I was contacted by the kind people over at HarperCollinsPublishers and asked to review Dr. Fuhrman's Super Immunity, which hits bookstores on September 20th.  Read it and test recipes I figure, what could be more fun than that?

And I was right!

So before I present you with the full review (and I have to do that by September 26th), here's a sneak preview of one of the recipes, tweaked a bit by me. Super Immunity does not have a lot of recipes, so I'm guessing that the recipes in the book are really special. If this recipe is any indication, we are in for a lot of great food. I give this oatmeal an A+! Positively addictive.

Super Seed Oatmeal

based on a recipe from Super Immunity by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or other nut milk of your choice, can be vanilla flavored)

1/2 cup steel cut oats

1 apple, diced small

1 cup frozen mixed berries

1/4 cup currants

1 tbsp raw sunflower seeds

1 tbsp ground flax seeds

1 tbsp ground hemp seeds

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a larger pot than you think you need (otherwise this will boil over), bring nut milk to a simmer. Add oats and stir. Simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes, checking on it and stirring every once in a while. (I don't walk away from the pot for very long, I have a history of oatmeal messes.)

Meanwhile, as the oats are cooking, place all of the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl. When oats are ready, pour on top and fold well.

Divide into two bowls. Eat one now and refrigerate the other for tomorrow's breakfast.

This recipe is so spectacular, I have already made it a second time. I have a feeling that I am going to be presenting you with a lot of sneak previews.

Have you tasted hotel/catered food lately? What was your impression?

Dr. Neal Barnard Comes to Cleveland, Part II and a Chef A.j. Inspired Quinoa Salad

Here I am at work today, enjoying my variation on Chef A.j.'s Quinoa Salad with Pistachios and Currants, for BREAKFAST. Not my usual fare, but sometimes I just can't eat the same green smoothie again.

I'm still thinking about some of the things I learned at Dr. Barnard's lecture on Tuesday evening.  Here are a few more of the highlights:

1) Even non vegans should be taking a B12 supplement, especially after age 50. There just isn't enough of it in any food for anyone to get enough of it, whether they eat cow or not.

2) Why a low fat diet works so well for weight loss. There are two components to the lean vegan effect. First, because a low fat vegan diet is so high in fiber (plant roughage, fruit and beans), your appetite never gets out of control and you are so much less likely to overeat, a.k.a. "Volumetrics." I have found this to be miraculously true. And second, the thermic effect of food is at work. Also termed "the after meal calorie burn," the following is an explanation of this mechanism:

"Contrary to many popular diet books, Dr. Barnard says: 'Insulin is your best friend when it is working properly.' What�s more, 'Carbohydrates are not the enemy,' says Dr. Barnard. 'They are, in fact, our natural energy source.' Insulin, made by a gene on chromosome 11, can stimulate calorie burn. The problem is it can also shut down fat burn. The trick of is finding a proper balance between the two functions. Again, according to Dr. Barnard, the key is the type of food you eat.

The job of insulin is to push the proteins and sugars we eat into our cells to build body parts and provide fuel (glycogen) for our movements. 'Insulin travels to your muscles, liver, and fat tissues, where it pushes proteins and sugars into your cells,' says Dr. Barnard. 'As it does so, it temporarily shuts down your fat burning machinery,' he adds. That makes sense, of course, because there�s no need to burn fat when food is being pushed into the cells.

Happily, the building process inside the cells speeds up the metabolism and burns calories. '[It�s] is a big job, causing your cells to actually release calories in the form of heat,' says Dr. Barnard. This after-meal metabolism boost is called the thermic effect of food (TEF). 'It�s a nice way to burn calories,' says Barnard. 'All you do is eat, and your body does the rest. These calories are gone forever � they never even get a chance to turn into fat.'

The foods with the biggest TEF are those containing plenty of complex carbohydrates or a mixture of carbs and protein. 'For example, broccoli and other vegetables are about 50 percent complex carbs and 40 percent protein, a mix for a good burn,' says Dr. Barnard. 'On the other hand, butter, chicken grease, and [egg yoke] are just fat, and deliver a much poorer burn.' Again, plant foods win out over animal foods.

Under normal circumstances, the interruption in fat burning is brief. A problem arises if you become flabby and out of shape, however, because your insulin doesn�t work as well. The extra fat on your body requires more insulin and your calorie-burning system becomes sluggish. 'The body produces more and more insulin, and it shuts off fat burning more effectively than it should,' says Dr. Barnard.

You�re insulin also works overtime if you snack constantly. An endless stream of junk food never gives your insulin a chance to rest. 'If you have a constant supply of snacks, your body has no need to use its fat, and insulin keeps your fat-burning processes slower than they would normally be,' Dr. Barnard writes.

A lack of fiber is also a problem. 'Normally, fiber � plant roughage � helps keep insulin levels in check by slowing the release of sugars from the food you eat,' Dr. Barnard counsels.

To keep your after-meal calorie burn up and minimize fat-burn stoppage Dr. Barnard suggests a diet high in healthy carbohydrates and fiber, and low in fat." http://www.cbass.com/FatGenes.htm

3) It's never too late to undo the damage done by years of poor eating. Have you ever cut your finger? Did it heal? Of course it did! The same goes for your internal parts . . .the human body will heal if given a chance!

Dr. Barnard would love this quinoa salad that I'm eating as I type this. I threw it together last night and didn't have all of the ingredients that Chef A.j. called for, but it was outstanding nonetheless!

Simple Quinoa Salad with Currants and Pistachios
based on a recipe from Unprocessed by Chef A.j.

8 cups cooked quinoa
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (the juice of 3 lemons)
3/4 cup pistachios
1 cup currants
1 cup finely chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and toss. Enjoy!

?