On Life As A Picky Foodie

Dear Friends --

Well it’s official – Spring has sprung; and with it -- alongside the flowers -- come bunches, bushels and forests of green.

Green, green and more green!

What do you think is the number one food missing in most people’s diets?

Yup, you guessed it – greens!!!

Green is the colour of spring, it is the colour of life, the colour of renewal.  The green in plants comes from chlorophyll – and the greener the plant, the greater the amount of chlorophyll.  Chlorophyll purifies, rejuvenates, it stops bacterial growth, eliminates odours and bad breath, and de-activates carcinogens, combats inflammation, builds blood, promotes a healthy gut, improves liver function, aids in the production of Vitamins E, A and K -- and that’s only a fraction of what Chlorophyll can do.

But mother nature ain’t no fool: every green plant offers its own unique range of benefits and properties.  In addition, all greens contain a minute amount of toxic alkaloids – and each green plant has its own variation.  So instead of having that same spinach salad for lunch every day, consider rotating your greens.  And there are so many to choose from!  Try some steamed chard, sautéed kale, tangy watercress with avocado, couscous and rocket, romaine on your sandwich. 

Still on the fence?  Well, one tried and tested way to get your greens is to blend them.  Combining greens and fruit can really help soften the blow for even the most reluctant green imbibers.

Need more proof of how amazing greens are?  My husband doesn’t need his cup of coffee on mornings when he has a green smoothie.  You may not know him, but trust me, that’s saying something. 

To get you inspired, here is my current favorite:

Blue Crush

(adapted from “Becoming Raw” by Brenda Davis, RD and Vesanto Melina, MS, RD with Rynn Berry)

1 ¼ cups water
1 tablespoon almond butter
2 tablespoons hemp seeds
1 cup frozen blueberries
½ bunch watercress or 1 bunch rocket
1 banana

Blend thoroughly and drink immediately.  

With love and crocuses,

Gabriela

P.S.  Have you secretly been lusting after a casserole for decades now?  Well lust no further!  That elusive nineteen fifties icon is back in style!  Check out my recipe for a white bean and parsnip version in this week's happily-ever-after Friday Night Dinner Blog.

P.P.S. Thanks to all of you who sent along friends.  Keep 'em coming!  The free Picky Foodie one-on-one counselling session offer is still valid for the next little while.  Here's a reminder of how it works: get five friends, co-workers, family members or strangers to sign up to the On Life As A Picky Foodie newsletter, and you will receive a free forty-five minute consultation with yours truly.  Simply ask anyone signing up to email me and let me know your name. 

Dear friends;

Last Sunday, we went to the School of Life to hear a sermon by Allegra McEvedy, one of the co-founders of Leon Restaurants and Chef in Residence at The Guardian newspaper. The subject was gluttony. In Picky Foodie terms, you must be wondering: where do gluttony and health intersect, if at all?

Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Health is not -- much as some would like it to be. 

Derived from the Latin gluttire, meaning to gulp down or swallow, gluttony (Latin, gula) is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste. (Wikipedia)

However, as Ms. McEvedy pointed out, when those Capital Vices were declared in early Christian times, things were different.  The gap between rich and poor was so large that it’s not hard to see how gluttony could be judged as evil in order to curb the hedonism of the wealthy. 

These days, while gluttony is no longer considered a Deadly Sin as such, it is still frowned upon in our society.  Women stare at one another at parties, counting the servings others heap onto their plates and many people only allow themselves to enjoy the occasional gluttonous meal – you can see them counting the minutes they will spend on the treadmill making up for it even before they have ordered!

What would happen if you ate everything you wanted?  I know for a fact that many people are afraid that if the rules were eased, if restrictions were removed, that they would consume the entire contents of their kitchen before heading out to the supermarket for more.  While that may to a certain extent be the case to begin with, is it not simply a backlash response to the fact that we have been restraining ourselves far too much for far too long?  Is it not simply a fear of losing control?

Gluttony these days is not so much about curbing abundance as it is about curbing pleasure, the ability to enjoy one’s food, to savour tastes and the sensual experiences of eating – at least in the Western hemisphere.  

Is it really such a sin to take pleasure in one’s food? 

And does exercising such restraint really lead to optimal health, optimal weight and optimal satisfaction, or does restriction only cause us to doubt our selves and our bodies? 

One consequence of that need for absolute control is that when we do fall off the wagon, we fall hard.  And then we retreat back into our “safety zone”– calorie counting, carb curbing, sugar prohibition -- after which we inevitably lose control again on a lonely Sunday afternoon, or at a co-worker’s birthday party.  And so the cycle continues. 

There is a better way -- a way that involves pleasure and enjoyment, acceptance and feeling good about our selves.  Try it!  Who knows, you might even come back for a second helping!

With love,

Gabriela

P.S. When our vegan superhero came to stay, DW and I decided to take advantage of her presence and take a break from animal protein for a few days.  And what a wonderful few days we had!  Check out this week’s Friday Night Dinner Blog for one vegan and one non-vegan recipe -- there’s something in it for everyone. 

P.P.S.  On Life As A Picky Foodie needs more readers. And we need your help in finding them – or rather in helping them find us.  For the next little while, I am offering a free Picky Foodie one-on-one counselling session to every person who refers five others.  It’s very easy: get five friends, co-workers, family members or strangers to sign up to the On Life As A Picky Foodie newsletter, and you will receive a free forty-five minute consultation with yours truly.  Simply ask anyone signing up to email me and let me know your name.  

Leftovers

Dear Friends –

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that you are not a bin, garbage can or waste paper basket. 

I know you know that, but how often have you ever eaten past the point of satiety in order to avoid having to throw out food?  How often have you finished that last little bit just so it won’t go to waste?

With option a. being throwing food away, and option b. being pouring it down your gullet, doesn’t that make both possibilities kind of the same thing?

While I’m not a fan of chucking perfectly good food, I think there’s a lot to be said for treating yourself better than that.  Think about it: the difference between a healthy, satisfying meal and one that makes you feel heavy, bloated and uncomfortable can often lie in those last few bites. 

Have you ever gotten stuck in a traffic jam in the burning-hot sunshine?  Well then you know what it’s like to sit waiting for your turn, feeling like you’re going to melt.  That’s pretty much what happens to the meals inside the body. And if the system is overloaded, the food in our bellies, which often starts to get digested in the mouth, can start to rot while it hangs around undigested.

Some people swear by three meals a day, others prefer constant snacking.  There are all kinds of people who resort to all kinds of tricks like smaller plates, half-portions, keeping track of time between meals, etc.  There is no right way, though I can assure you of two things: while not eating enough is neither healthy, nor helpful, eating past the point of fullness does nobody any favours either. 

Instead, consider investing in some good containers.  Or, better yet, reuse glass receptacles like jam jars, to store leftovers. Leftovers are a great way to start experimenting with food and a better way to keep eating the things that do you good.  That little bit of rice or pasta can be thrown on top of a salad or stir-fried.  My mother used to make omelettes with almost anything.  Bread can be chopped up and toasted into croutons.  Leftovers can be stuffed in a wrap, or combined with other bits to create innovative and interesting meals.   

How often is time the reason we don’t eat the meal we would like? 

Leftovers not only save time, they can also act as an insurance policy against grabbing random things on the go.  As the old saying goes: a good meal in the bag is worth 10 bad ones in the supermarket.   

Think about it.

With love,

Gabriela

P.S. What do you eat when you’re alone that you might not when you're breaking bread with others? I’d love to know.  In this week's Friday Night Dinner blog, I share some of my personal “alone meals and snacks” -- many of which are also great when combined with or eaten as leftovers J.  You can check it out by clicking here.

Is Free Ever Really Free?

When I was a child and I complained about something being unfair, the answer was oftentimes “Life is unfair.”  And while I don’t necessarily believe that anymore, what I do know is that very little in life is free -- at least when it comes to food and health.

Like when a product is advertised as being sugar free, or free from sodium.  The tricky part is that while the manufacturers may have removed one ingredient, they will invariably have had to make up for it in other ways.  So fat free might mean higher in sugar, salt, flavourings or other additives.  Sugar free might mean a higher proportion of artificial sweeteners.  No sodium might mean more fat, more sugar, more MSG. 

Because companies are interested in turning a profit, which can only happen if what they offer is tasty enough to get us coming back for more.

Food labels love to state two things: what “bad” things they don’t contain – like sugar, fat and salt – and what “good” things they are full of – like calcium, probiotics, iron, etc. But what about everything else that makes up said food?

When I watch television in the US, I often wonder whether it is the advertisements that are the filler in between the shows, or vice versa – well, the same question can be asked about foods: is it the ingredients that are plastered on the packaging in big letters and make all kinds of health claims that truly make up the candy bar, cereal, soup, or is it everything that remains in small print?

The easiest way to check for yourself is to simply compare two labels.  Take yoghurt, for example.  Yoghurt is touted as a good source of good bacteria and calcium. However, people have become afraid of eating too much fat in recent years, and so many have switched to low or no fat versions. 

I compared an original flavoured mainstream yoghurt in both the full and 0.1% fat version and came up with the following: 

In the original, the ingredients listed were as follows:

Yoghurt (skimmed milk concentrate, cream, yoghurt cultures), skimmed milk, liquid sugars (sucrose 7.3%), dextrose, L. Casei imunitass cultures.

The 0.1% contained:

Yoghurt (skimmed milk, skimmed milk concentrate, yoghurt cultures), water, skimmed milk, dextrose, stabilizer (pectin), L. Casei imunitass cultures, flavouring, sweeteners (aspartame, acesulfame K).

So what you’re saving in fat – 1.5 grams per 100 grams or per pot – you’re ingesting in stabilizer, flavourings (which is usually a legal way of saying “you don’t want to know”), aspartame (an artificial sweetener associated with close to 100 side-effects including personality changes, anxiety, palpitations, nausea, and seizures to name a few), and acesulfame K (also known as E950 in the EU, which may be carcinogenic as well as affect the thyroid).  In other words, is free from really free, or will we simply be paying the price elsewhere?

I have gotten fantastic feedback on this newsletter as well as the blog – much of it wonderfully informative and positive J 

The reaction that most puzzles me, however, are the readers who tell me simply that they don’t want to know, people who don’t want to spend the extra two minutes comparing labels, but will gladly sit in a doctor’s waiting room for an hour; people who don’t want to pay the extra money for fresh food but will spend thousands on antacids and pain relievers.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that pills are neither free from expense nor side-effects.  So why not try to start your journey to better health taking those few moments, spending those few cents?  It could save you a lot more in the long run.   

Maybe nothing in life is free, but I promise, it isn’t all such hard work either. 

With love,

Gabriela

P.S.  What do you get when you combine purple carrots, roasted fennel and crunchy radicchio?  Why don’t you find out in this week’s Friday Night Dinner blog?