My Herbs Are Growing Well Too!

Basil, sage, and thyme. All good and organic except there is something that is liking the sage as well as I do. Little jerks! 

A Ripe Tomato - Finally!

So...yesterday was the first day of summer and I finally had a cherry tomato starting to turn red. It took long enough! Seems like I planted the seed for this plant months ago. Oh wait, I did. That's okay. I'll gladly wait.

Fast Food - Quinoa With Tomato Vodka Sauce

So...I often get up at 4:30 a.m. in order to teach bootcamp classes. That's 4:30-A-M. I'm not looking for sympathy, it's just a fact. Many times I will often end my day at 9 p.m. or after. Again, it's just a fact, and if I'm traveling between this city and that, I might go to a drive through but you know what they have? If you look on the bottom of the menu board most every place will have 'side salad' listed right there. You really have to look because there's no big splashy picture of it but it's there and it's cheaper than the huge double burger you were contemplating ordering, and they're usually delicious! I'm bringing this up because I hear a lot of excuses from people that they 'just don't have time to eat right sometimes'. My apologies, but I'm calling BS on that. As I've said before, you can splurge once in a while but a garden variety Tuesday is not that time so if you do eat something you know you shouldn't just take ownership of it. Admit it but don't look me in the eye and tell me you didn't have time. That may happen once in a very blue moon. I'm also lucky enough to be able to go home during the day many times a week but am often pressed for time but with a little planning I've found you can make meals in a snap. This bowl of healthful deliciousness literally took about 12 minutes start to finish and only about 2 minutes of that required any actual work on my part. Very simple - put 1/2 cup quinoa in a saucepan with 1 cup of water and turn on high heat. I went to pick a few basil leaves from my pot of herbs and washed them. Turned heat down to simmer and covered for ten minutes. Put in bowl, opened a bottle of Trader Joe's Tomato Vodka Sauce and put about 3/4 of a cup on top, added some pepper, a dash of salt, garnished with basil leaves - done! 13 grams of quality protein, lycopene, fiber, vitamins A and C and only 5 grams of fat, Excuses are really just that. You can eat healthy if you choose to, you just have a plan ahead and have healthy things on hand.

Green Coffee and Weight Loss

Weight loss in a bottle. People have been searching for that as long as there have been bottles and something to put in them. The Phen/Fen craze from years ago seemed to be such a panacea but that fell apart with its harmful side effects. In our 24 hour a day, all news all the time world sometimes even facts don't mean that you should be impressed by them. People need to dig deeper and get the whole story. Case in point - a client told me about the early '90s when it was clinically proven that zinc and chromium helped build muscle and reduce fat. Clinically proven as a fact! As a result, supplements for those products went though the roof. The problem was their contribution was such a tiny percentage of cause that it became a waste of money scenario. The added weight loss was about 5% and the added muscle gain was about 3%. That means someone working out hard who had lost 10 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle would have lost an additional 8 ounces of fat and gained an additional 5 ounces of muscle. Seems like a lot of money wasted to me. My advice - keep working out hard and those extra results would have come anyway. That said, there has been a small study that seems to show that green coffee extract may be an aid in assisting with weight loss. It has received national attention and was even featured on the Dr. Oz show. (However, even Dr. Oz said during that show that there is no substitute for great nutrition and continuous exercise so I don't want my clients cancelling on me just yet). In a study done that was presented at the National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in March of this year a very small experimental group (16 people) seemed to have significant weight loss when taking over 1,000 mg. of green coffee extract daily over a five month period of time. The amount of loss averaged ten percent of body weight per person. The effects are believed to be the result of a substance called chlorogenic acid that is present in raw coffee beans before they are roasted. While more studies need to be done, it appears that it is safe with no side effects and may be used as a part of a healthy nutrition / exercise program. As was cautioned by Dr. Oz - make sure you get a supplement that is pure from a reputable manufacturer.

Spice It Up! - Turmeric

Just as all whole foods probably have numerous phytochemicals that benefit and protect health, the same goes for spices, just as there are some foods that are a level above the rest, so too that goes for spices. Turmeric is a super star. Turmeric is the stuff in curry powder that gives it its vibrant color. The main compound in turmeric is curcumin and numerous studies being conducted across the world are finding that curcumin could be something of a wonder chemical in helping to fight everything from obesity to diabetes to Alzheimer's. It is especially being explored for its cancer prevention and even possible cancer killing properties. (1, 2) The trouble with turmeric is that most people don't eat a lot of curry dishes, not many times a week anyway and many people don't even like curry. Even people like me who do like it may only eat it a couple of times a month - (the beef curry and brown rice at the Curry House in downtown LA is great should you ever get the urge). And I have to admit I haven't branched out in my cooking enough to be throwing together curry dishes on a weekly basis. To get a regular dose of curcumin it may be one of those times where I would suggest supplementing with capsules of curcumin. It's fairly inexpensive and is a known anti-inflammatory so may help your muscles after those hard workouts.
1) S.A. Shah, S.Prasad, K.E.Knudsen. Targeting pioneering factor and hormone receptor cooperative pathways to suppress tumor progression. Cancer Research, 2012
2) S.G.Kim, M.S.Veena, et al. Curcumin Treatment Supresses IKK Kinase Activity of Salivary Cells of Patients with Head and Neck Cancer: A Pilot Study. Clincal Cancer Research, 2011

Rant of the Week - Soda

A week ago today mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed that my beloved NYC ban all sugared drinks over 16 ounces in an effort to fight the obesity epidemic. It caused a lot of emotion on both sides and when interviewed about it later he did not back down, saying it was a huge problem. While I haven't fully formed my own opinion about the government telling people what to eat (and in this case how much to eat) I did have my own little Bloomberg moment the day after that announcement. I try to be a thrifty shopper. I'd rather spend my money on air fair going somewhere than on a designer bag. Because of that I find the bargain places to shop including the local market where there is everything under the sun for a buck or under - from tube socks to bell peppers. Let me also say, on the side, that I'm not one of "those" trainers. You know, the ones who are going to look down their nose at you if you don't spend eight hours a day at the gym and if you don't eat anything but wheat grass and protein shakes. I have my normal side - I like my wine, I like the four cheese pizza at Trupiano's and I sometimes get a six pack of my favorite full sugared ginger ale from Trader Joe's. But I was in this discount store last week and wanted to pick up a two liter of diet soda; I don't drink diet soda, I just had a craving I couldn't shake. When I turned down the soda aisle (and I do mean the entire aisle was soda) you think that would have been an easy task. But I searched, and searched, and searched. Out of the entire aisle there was one little section with a grand total of two choices. Seriously??? There is a need in people's lives that they must consume massive amounts of flavored sugar water on a daily basis?  I don't blame the store, they're just selling what the people are buying but they are obviously buying sugared soda about twenty to one over diet, at this store anyway. (I'll save the diet soda addiction rant for another time). I get people caving to their junk food cravings. It's food after all and you can rationalize to yourself that "you have to eat". No, it's not healthy but it does fill you up.  But soda is just liquid sugar and we really do need to take a serious look a this as a national health issue. I'm sure I won't be the last person to write something on the subject.

Fresh Tomato Soup

We're in that weird time of year in the coastal counties of Southern California; a time called June Gloom. It's usually overcast and sometimes even foggy until noon or even later into the afternoon, when the sun finally comes out. But it's also the first part of summer when fresh tomatoes start to become available! And that means having my last hot soup of the year (at least until November when things cool down again. It's just a thing, don't ask). June is about the only time of year I can have this because it's a hot soup that needs fresh tomatoes, canned will just not do for this, and you cannot use store bought tomatoes for this. They need to be off someone's vine; hopefully yours or something from a local farmers market. And I'm all about people putting their own twists on things, I know I do it, but do not add any milk or cream to this - please. You want to taste those awesome fresh tomatoes while getting your vitamin A, vitamin C and that great phytochemical lycopene. Peel the tomatoes by placing in boiling water for about twenty seconds - the skins slip right off.

3 cups peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup healthy margarine (like Smart Balance)
1 small chopped onion
1 peeled carrot, chopped
1 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup flour
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (fresh basil and tomatoes just go together)
4 cups chicken broth (yes, you can make a stock if you want but I don't have the time)
salt
pepper

In a 2 quart sauce pan saute the carrots, celery and onion for 5 to 7 minutes on medium heat. Stir in the stock, herbs, flour, bay leaf and tomatoes. Turn the heat down to simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes. Stir every ten minutes or so. Put into blender or food processor for about 30 seconds. Ladle out a nice big bowl and season with salt and pepper. Yum!

Another Reason to Exercise - #3

Increasing your muscle mass at any age may lower a person's risk of having insulin resistance and subsequently developing type 2 diabetes according to a published study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Type 2 diabetes is becoming an epidemic in our society with it now occurring in teenagers when it previously only commonly struck people in middle age and older. It's a chronic disease that over time can damage virtually every organ system in the body. It begins with insulin resistance - the body's inability to utilize the hormone insulin properly. The study involving over 13,000 participants showed that those with higher muscle mass (in relation to body size) have a better level of insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism than higher risk individuals.* So whether you pack some on with weight work or some great boot camp workouts, do your body a favor and add some muscle.
*P. Srikanthan, A.S. Karlamangla. Relative Muscle Mass is Inversely Associated with Insulin Resistance and Prediabetes; Findings from The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2011.

Thank You Uncle Ray

My uncle Raymond passed away last Thursday. He was 87 and had some serious health issues but it was still a shock. By anyone's account, Raymond was a character. One minute he was the gruff talking, swearing Italian - the next minute the sweetest person you could know. He fought in WWII, was a teacher and later school principal for twenty plus years. He was a long time city councilman and the mayor of Saginaw, Michigan for most of the '70s. When I was young he and Aunt Sis moved to California. For years, she fed us gourmet meals while he griped to me about drinking my milk and doing well in school and always continuing to learn. The last time I saw him some weeks back, he told me all about his high school and growing up in New York City. Maybe because of the war, but whatever reason, he was famously hard of hearing and you almost always had to repeat things twice. That led to some hilarious stories of him taking a wild guess at what you just said. Thank you for all of that uncle Ray. His passing makes me think of all the others in my life who have also gone. For today, I'm just going to be sad.