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How to Spruce Up Your Garden—or Take a Break From It
Tweet Share on Facebook October 9, 2012 CommentDon't feel like reading about gardening after a failed effort to turn your yard into an Eden-like fantasy? Don't worry—you have a friend in me. I can guess the story, at least loosely.
You got all excited about gardening. Maybe you had a revelation on a trip somewhere, and you realized, from that hermetically-sealed cabin 30,000 feet up in the air, how disconnected from nature your life had become. Or maybe it was when you shelled out an obscene amount of cash yet again at the farmers market and wondered if you could grow your own food instead. So you built or purchased the beds, got good soil, planted seeds, and watered. Things went well. You felt great. Your coworkers got used to you showing pictures of your plants as if they were babies. But then the seasons changed. You got busy. You kind of stopped going out there to check on things. Weeds grew. It wasn't so pretty and fun anymore, and, by the way, you now take a spinning class on Saturdays, leaving you little to no time to garden. Let's just say, the project has become a thorn in your side
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Hungry Vs. Healthy: The School Lunch Controversy
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2012 CommentLast week, I was invited to be a guest on ABC's 20/20 to comment on a YouTube video depicting high schoolers expressing their dissatisfaction with the newest school lunch regulations. While it captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of viewers, the fact remains that although some students complain of going "hungry," boxes of food get tossed every day from school cafeterias across the country. Is it really that these kids are hungry or are they not used to foods that are healthy?
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Salad for Breakfast, 4 Ways
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2012 CommentMama was right—breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Studies have repeatedly shown that breakfast eaters tend to be leaner, eat healthier overall diets, and tend to do better at morning mental tasks. The other mantra that Mama is famous for is equally correct—you need to eat more vegetables. In fact, most Americans don't even come close to the recommended amount of vegetables in their diet; while most adults need at least 2 and a half cups of vegetables each day, many of us struggle to get one measly cup on any given day. This is bad news for our health and probably our waistline. Eating more plant-based foods, including vegetables, is at the top of almost every health professional's advice list and may well be the most commonly given nutrition advice of all time.
Enter the breakfast salad. Adding vegetables to breakfast simply does not happen in many American kitchens, but vegetables are a morning staple for many other cultures. In Turkey, a typical breakfast might be a dish of tomatoes, green peppers, olive oil, and eggs. In Japan, vegetables are often served as a side dish with breakfast. Fava beans dressed with lemon and olive oil are served all over Cairo as a common breakfast food.
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Apples for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2012 CommentIt's fall. What comes to your mind? Thin cashmere sweaters? Hot apple cider? Football? Halloween costumes? Apples! Whether you have cozied up with a warm mug of cider, been to an apple orchard, or brought one in for a teacher, apples have probably made an appearance in your life lately. It's no secret that apples are plenty healthy, and that stashing one in your desk drawer or in your bag makes for a good on-the-go snack. But what can you do with the rest of the lonely apples sitting in your fridge? This October, let's break away from Grandma's apple pie recipe and try out my apple-centric ideas for every part of the day.
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9 Ways to Knock Out Those Nighttime Munchies
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2012 CommentAs a registered dietitian, "Step away from the kitchen" isn't something I like to say often. Actually, I prefer for people to be in their kitchens, preparing lots and lots of healthy meals and snacks. But the truth is, many people are eating way too much after dinner. Maybe it's because they're bored, stressed from work, lonely, or simply do it out of habit. Either way, too many calories are being consumed, and the result is weight gain.
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Is Obesity Cultural?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2012 CommentWhen salmon swim against the current of a river, running a gauntlet of grizzlies, we are impressed by the fortitude nature endows. When many of them die trying, it's no great surprise. I can't recall ever hearing anyone suggest that the many salmon who die along the way lack the personal responsibility of those who make it. All are striving; some succeed, but most fail. The species survives (so far), but less than 5 percent of the fish overcome the obstacles. Things play out predictably: Overall, the current and the gauntlet prevail.
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Is 'Smellvertising' Sabotaging Your Diet?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2012 CommentBacon frying. Buttery popcorn. Warm brownies fresh from the oven. Many a healthy eating pledge has flown out the window at first whiff of one of these mouthwatering aromas. Of course, we saw—or rather, smelled—it coming.
But what about other, sneakier ways our sniffers might be leading us to indulge?
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How Being a Quitter Might Help You Lose Weight
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2012 CommentIt's drilled into our brains: "Nobody likes a quitter"; "Quitters never win"; "Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever." But could those sentiments be holding you back?
The world these days is a rapid-fire, crazy place. Smartphones keep us tethered to our offices 24/7. Our kids' after-school activities might lead us to spend nearly two decades of our lives as unpaid chauffeurs. Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere provide us with a constant feed of distraction. Downtime is rare if not nonexistent.
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Reducing the Rice in Your Diet
Tweet Share on Facebook October 1, 2012 CommentThe recent Consumer Reports article on the high content of inorganic arsenic in rice created quite an understandable stir. Inorganic arsenic is a known carcinogen (cancer-causing substance), and the possibility that we may be inadvertently consuming more of it than we realize is concerning.
Arsenic is a metal that occurs naturally in soil in trace amounts, but its concentration can be increased significantly from a variety of environmental pollutants. The use of arsenic-containing fertilizer, for example, can cause soil to have higher concentrations of arsenic, and adjacent groundwater can be contaminated with runoff from these soils. Here in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency sets limits for arsenic content in public water, but no government agency monitors or regulates arsenic content in food.
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How to Plant a Juice Garden
Tweet Share on Facebook October 1, 2012 CommentIf your day has you on the run (and whose doesn't?), you may have discovered that liquid lunches are the way to go—and I'm not talking martinis here. I'm talking kale, carrots, apples, and a whole slew of other healthy goodies pressed through a juicer or perhaps just blended, poured into a travel cup, and taken here, there, and everywhere. "Delicious, nutritious, and makes you feel ambitious," as the mother of a friend of mine likes to say.
However, it probably didn't take long before you realized that daily juices require a whole lot of inputs. Bags of apples. Piles of carrots. Armfuls of greens. Not only does this require frequent trips to the market, but also a whole lot of money. There has to be a better way, doesn't there?
