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.