January 29, 2013

Breakfast: "Food for Life" Gluten-free rice tortilla with sliced half a banana with 3 tsp of peanut butter and 1 tsp sugar-free jam.
Snack: 1/2 cup of fresh pineapple
Lunch: baked salmon with half an avocado, homemade vegetable soup, handful mixed deluxe nuts
Snack: 2 fibre bars and half a bottle Naked Green Machine juice
Dinner: 2 slices gluten-free salami, 3 ounces havarti cheese, 5 brown rice tortilla chips, green side salad with cucumbers, pistachios

Jan 27, 2013

After last night's nausea-inducing meal, I decided to eat mostly fruits and veggies today, and choose lighter meals.
Breakfast: 1 banana with 1 teaspoon almond butter, 4 strawberries.
Lunch: mixed veggie soup, 1 slice turkey
Snack: smoothie 1/2 banana, 1/2 c blueberries, 1 c flax milk, 1 tsp honey, 1 large leaf kale
Dinner: Baked rainbow trout, boiled kale and rapini drizzled with olive oil, brown rice

Jan 26, 2013

Breakfast: despite the cold, decided to eat a cold breakfast of plain yogurt with 1/2 banana sliced, 2 spoonfuls pecans, sliced dried pear. 1 oatcake with slice of cheddar cheese
Snack: Active Greens food bar, a great snack but for the sugar from the agave syrup. Would have been sweet enough with just the date paste...
Lunch: babybel cheese, 1/2 gluten free sausage, fresh green salad with leftover broccoli and whole pistachios.
Dinner at "Au Pied de Cochon" was lovely on so many levels but very very bad for my digestion. Red wine accompanied a butternut squash soup thick with cream and laden with cheese. Took 5 bites of foie gras poutine smothered in some very creamy gravy. At this point I was full,  up the main course arrived. Boar spare ribs on a bed of roasted vegetables (spinach, cauliflower, eggplant and carrots) sprinkled with sea salt.  I ate almost half and felt horrible, like the snake that opened its jaws too wide to swallow a large rodent. Needless to say, no room for dessert.

Foxes in the henhouse: toxic chemicals in our environment affecting your health

If I had a dollar for every time I read an article that included the line "organic foods are no healthier than conventional", I'd be rich. If you know how studies work, you know they are the stuff of big business. They are very complicated and costly to run. Depending on how they are structured, they may not show clear proof of anything. I'm also taken aback at the very idea that such studies need to be held. Organic farming puts fewer chemicals into the earth, our general environment, and the mouths of those who eat their yields. Not to mention, fewer chemicals is a better choice for those who touch, tend to and harvest the produce. Organic animal farming practices benefit the animal and those who consume it later. Running a study to prove that organic farming doesn't result in foods with more nutrients seems besides the point. Kind of like doing a study to prove that treating people politely doesn't make anyone live longer. Does that therefore mean we should immediately stop being polite?

Furthermore, who are these folks paying for the expensive studies to find out if organic is "better" for us? They're not my local organic farmer that's for sure; he's not rich enough. I wonder though, might a corporate giant like McCain Foods have the money for that sort of thing, especially if it showed that its products are no different from organic products? But I digress...

Take a look at Nicholas Kristof's article about some fat mice who helped scientists understand that some of the typical toxins in our environment are wreaking havoc with our immune systems and potentially contributing to obesity. "Among chemical disruptors identified as 'obesogens' are materials in plastics, canned foods, foam cushions and jet fuel." Take note: we're not talking about industrial chemicals that normal people aren't exposed to. Rather these are chemicals present in our every day life. As for their effects, they are numerous, for example: "women with a pesticide residue in their blood bore babies who were more likely to be overweight at 14 months of age".

When I say that I think we should choose organic foods more often, I'm not suggesting that doing so will stave off cancer or make you live longer.  However, when you understand that today's non-organic farming practices are so focussed on increasing production and maximising profits, you realize that you cannot depend on conventional grocery store food to keep you healthy. To the contrary, most of that food is exposing you - and thousands of poor migrant workers - to potentially harmful chemicals. It's a much better solution to give your money to folks who are doing what's right for the environment and our collective health: the small-scale organic farmers. They're not doing anything extraordinary; just farming the way it used to be before profit became the main criteria for success. But I'm betting that our local organic farmers will be the ones to bring us all back to health.

Jan 23, 2013

Breakfast: gluten-free toast with peanut butter and half a banana. 1/2 cup blueberries
Snack: mixed salted nuts (2 Tbsp)
Lunch: homemade cabbage soup, liver pâté with 10 rice crackers
Snack: 1 mandarin orange, 2 squares 70% dark chocolate
Dinner: 1/2 cup brown rice with tomato sauce, fried egg, 1 sliced avocado and cucumber spears

Assorted meals for week of Jan 14-18

Breakfasts: toast with egg, fruit and veggie smoothies
Lunches: Palak Paneer* (spinach and cheese) with brown rice tortilla chips, sushi and Japanese salmon salad (brought my own gluten-free tamari sauce), leftover soups with crackers and gluten-free sausages.
Dinners: Baked trout with butter and herbs with side of brown rice and broccoli, Angus beef meatballs in spaghetti sauce

* For convenient lunches, Indian prepackaged meals are a great option. Most do not contain gluten.  Choices that include chick peas or cheese have a good serving of protein as well. Check the label on the "heat and serve" meals at your local grocery store.

January 15, 2013

Breakfast: plain yogurt with 5 drops liquid stevia, homemade granola, 1/3 cup frozen blueberries
Lunch: corn pasta, meatballs and chopped cooked kale, 1 square 85% Lindt chocolate
Snack: mandarin orange
Dinner: meatballs in sauce, steamed broccoli

January 13, 2013

Breakfast: Glutino gluten-free pancakes with blueberries and bacon
Lunch: free-range chicken sausage, carrot soup
Snack: handful of cashews
Dinner: beef meatballs with sautéed kale and brown rice crackers

January 11, 2013

Breakfast: Poached egg on Food For Life gluten-free English muffin
Snack: Handful of raspberries
Lunch: Green smoothie (kale, pineapple, banana), salmon and 10 rice crackers
Dinner: Cauliflower-leek soup, slices of turkey and cheese
Snack: Fibre bars

MMMmmm Smoothie

Been suffering from a lack of appetite lately and smoothies do just the trick! They are a great way to easily get an additional serving or two of veggies - not to mention extra calories - into my diet. But, yes, folks, you heard that right. If you are trying to lose weight, understand that drinking anything other than water or plain coffee or tea is a great way to take in additional calories. This is why we counsel weight loss clients to be very careful about what they drink because the odd juice here, milk in the coffee there, do add up to many extra calories at the end of the day.

Back to smoothies though...I always try to put kale in my smoothie as it's a vitamin and mineral powerhouse! I just recently discovered that pineapple and kale go very well together. This smoothie pictured contains:
- 1 banana
- 1 giant leaf of fresh kale
- 1/2 cup fresh pineapple
- 1/2 cup Arthur's green energy smoothie drink
- 1/3 cup lactose-free milk

Very delicious and fast and easy to make.

January 10, 2013

Breakfast: plain 3% fat yogurt with one teaspoon sugar-free jam, homemade granola. The plethora of low-fat, no-fat yogurts on the market drive me crazy. Take a look at the ingredient: there are many. The manufacturers take out the fat and then they have to put int the flavour: sugar, artificial flavours, gelatins and other thickeners. I always try to find natural yogurt, and natural means not made from skim milk.
Snack: large latte from Starbucks
Lunch: just soup, due to a dental visit in the morning
Snack: fresh pineapple, fibre bars
Dinner: baked salmon brushed with mayonnaise and fine herbs, boiled kale, brown rice

January 9, 2013

Breakfast: two toasted slices of Glutino frozen corn bread (tasteless yuck!) with cheese slices on one, almond butter and 4 small banana slices on the other
Snack: fresh strawberries
Lunch: Kale smoothie made with banana, lactose-reduced 2% milk, 1 large leaf of chopped fresh kale, 1/2 cup blueberries and 1/3 cup sugar-free berry juice. Leftover turkey and cheese slices.
Dinner: creamy cauliflower and roasted garlic soup. Slices of ham, carrot and cucumber sticks.

Evolutionary link to sugar cravings

We are decidedly past the holiday season so I hope I ruffle no feathers by taking a jab at sugar, my favourite villain. Do you have a sweet tooth? It may help to understand that this is a biological imperative. Craving sweets was once a way to keep ourselves alive when we lived off the land. If we came upon a tree ripe with fruits, for example, this desire for sweetness would lead us to gorge ourselves. Eating far more carbohydrates than we needed at one meal would fatten us up thereby protecting us in times of possible famine. Of course, with prepackaged food around us North Americans at all times now and no famines in sight, this sweet tooth doesn't lead to self-preservation, it leads to obesity.

For more information, read this article from the New York Times' science pages.

January 8, 2013

Breakfast: bacon and scrambled eggs preceded by 1/2 cup fresh pineapple
Tip: eat fruit away from other types of food for optimal digestion. It's best eaten on an empty stomach, 20-30 minutes before eating other foods.
Lunch: carrot cumin soup, organic, gluten-free pork sausage from local small farmer, 10 rice chips
Snack: 2 fibre bars
Dinner: turkey diced with mayonnaise with sliced avocado and side green salad

January 6, 2013

Breakfast: the Elaine Gotschall banana pancake (1 very ripe banana mashed with a whipped egg and poured into a frying pan like pancake batter; makes three small "cakes"), drizzled with honey, topped with raspberries
Lunch: leftover quiche, 12 plantain chips, carrot-cumin soup
Snack: cashews and leftover broccoli
Dinner: Tinkyada brown rice pasta with peas and leeks, 1/2 a chicken sausage on the side

Why the War on Wheat?

I've written before that I'm not the best person to explain why many of us should reduce the amount of certain complex carbohydrates in our diets. That's a task better relegated to more qualified people than me. My nutrition training led me to eliminate many processed foods from my own diet as a way to achieve optimal health and gave me many sources to back up such a "revolutionary" dietary approach. Revolutionary in this age of fast food, convenience and mass globalization. I simply choose to do what is best for me. I publish this information so that people like you can find ideas and inspiration for how to eat gluten-free and restrict your carbohydrates, if you so choose!

If you are looking for more information on the above topics, please do check out the following sources:
A recent book, called Wheat Belly
The very excellent Specific Carbohydrate Diet website, for more information on how to eliminate Crohns, colitis and other digestive disorders through diet management.
Gary Taubes's website; a scientific journalist who has documented hundreds of studies linking obesity, diabetes, and more to overconsumption of starches and sugars.
If you're interested in where most supermarket food comes from - and we should be - try to find a copy of Food Inc, a documentary about the terrifying reality of mass-production of food.
And there are numerous other bloggers touting the many advantages of eating fewer starchy carbohydrates; simply Google Paeleo Diet or Caveman Diet and you'll find hundreds of resources online.

As for me, well, I'm just going to keep my head down, keep eating, and keep on writing it down.

Jan 5, 2013

Breakfast: plain yogurt, stevia, homemade granola
Snack: cashews and fresh fruit
Lunch: tuna with mayo and capers, 10 corn tortilla chips, green salad
Snack: homemade peanut butter cookies (from the specific carbohydrate diet book)
Dinner: quiche Lorraine with sautéed kale and garlic

Jan 4, 2013

Breakfast: poached egg on Linda's gluten free cheese bread, piece of white cheddar, one Walker's oatcake with peanut butter and honey on it.
Snack: fruit smoothie containing banana, raspberries, orange juice, lactose-free milk, frozen blueberries and kale
Lunch: Schneider's natural gluten-free ham, 10 plantain chips and green salad with mango vinaigrette
Snack:  two squares 85% chocolate, three slices fresh pineapple
Dinner: gluten-free chicken sausage and homemade butternut squash soup
Snack: Smart Food popcorn

Happy New Year 2013

Took me four tries to type that year correctly, and not type 2012. Why is change so difficult? Human nature, perhaps? I know many people who would like very much to change their eating habits for the better, and yet they have a very hard time achieving this change. Particularly with food, we have a very deep and ingrained routine that is extremely difficult to change. As adults, we have all been eating in a certain way for years. We have developed certain tastes (favourite foods, serious dislikes) and routines (eating past feeling full, eating while bored), not to mention some seriously emotional ties to what we put in our mouths.

This time of year is when people often try to instigate a new routine. If you are looking to eat food that will make make your tummy happy, will not play havoc with your blood sugar levels and will ensure you get all your daily requirements of nutrients, you have come to the right place! I eat - and post - about foods that are gluten-free, low in carbohydrates and good for celiac diets because that is what works for me. Experience has shown me that this can also work nicely for many of us. Please browse the previous posts or search for a food by its name using the search tool located just under the raspberries.

I'll endeavor to report regularly on various ways to quickly and easily feed yourself healthy nutrients: fish, nuts, lean meats, vegetables and fruits of all colours. All you have to do is give it a try. Try eating this way for a month and I think you will find it is easy and makes you feel healthy and happy. And that's is how new patterns are begun: one day at a time, repeated day after day. Sustainable change starts slowly, and changes eventually take hold over time when they become the new norm.

Good luck to you and your plans for a Happy Healthy 2013!