A food memoir of weight loss, family recipes, and strategies for staying healthy in your 70's and beyond
Public health researchers are beginning to see that changes in how you live are no guarantee of changes in your health.
Source: Your Healthy Lifestyle Won’t Necessarily Make You Healthier | WIRED
Understand there are limits. Kale, quinoa, and the latest antioxidant, anti-aging diet, exercise routine, hot sweaty yoga, mindfulness meditation, whatever only helps your health. There is no perfect diet. There is no perfect exercise regimen. There is no magic bullet.
 ‘Pulses’ like these may help dieters feel fuller and reduce food cravings, new analysis shows
Source: Beans, Chickpeas May Help With Weight Loss
I have two bean stories. I’ll start with my second favorite memory of beans.
I moved from NJ to Texas at the age of 25. Talk about culture shock. It was a big brand new world to explore. And if you enjoy ethnic cuisine you try to eat whatever the locals ate. I wasn’t quite sure what Texas cuisine was besides smoked brisket. On one day of exploration I passed a rather cheap and gaudy looking fast food joint that probably no longer exists.
“I wonder what this is?”
So I stopped, went in, stared at the menu and had absolutely no idea what anything was. So I ordered a bean burrito. It was your typical fast food burrito, thick brown paste, a little cheese, a little chili sauce, all wrapped up in a flour tortilla. This happened so long ago the only remaining memory was that I liked it. A lot.
So ends my second favorite bean story.
My problem is that with the two of us, I just need more people to feed. – Sue Lau
It took some time and effort but I think I’ve finally broken some old habits. When I shopped for groceries if I found something, anything on sale I’d buy it. Ten pounds of boneless chicken thighs at $1.77 a pound? Bought it. Organic carrots five pounds for $4.00? Bought it. Dried pasta on sale for $0.99 a pound? There was a time when I didn’t have to buy pasta for six months. I was particularly bad with fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy. But when I started tossing stuff in the garbage because it went bad before I could use it I knew I had to change.
The other habit (which was easier to break BTW) was making enough of one dish to feed eight or more. Gradually I reduced the quantities of the dishes I cooked so that the leftover collection in the freezer got to a manageable level. Besides, I got real tired of eating leftover leftovers.
I shop more frequently but buy less. I’m not wasting as much food due to spoilage. The cupboard remains well stocked but not overflowing. I have adjusted to just the two of us and it wasn’t easy.
The half and half in the fridge says use by February 26.
Unopened.
A recent study revealed that some young adults feel that eating cereal for breakfast is too much trouble.
Source: Will Millennials pass time crunch or breakfast munch on to their kids? – CSMonitor.com
Nearly 40% of the survey respondents stated cereal was a poor choice for breakfast because you had to clean up afterwards. Let me think about this. One bowl and one spoon.
This appears to be the Gladwell Tipping Point. We’re doomed.
http://nutritionstudies.org/top-10-plant-based-research-and-news-stories-of-2015/
For all of my veggie readers.
Yes, an online article from THE Mayo Clinic on going veggie.
Tofu fajitas???
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/LifestyleMedicine/55500
I have to admit as a child I rarely ate nuts. The closest I got to a nut was peanut butter…on pancakes. I added more tree nuts to my diet when I drank beer in bars. The good bars always had good nuts. That’s where I discovered my love for cashews. I would pick all of the cashews out of a bowl of mixed nuts. Still do.
This Medpage article offers up a short summary of the clinical evidence for higher nut consumption. I eat a small handful of nuts daily.
Cashews and peanuts.
I haven’t been a very good boy this year Santa. It seems every year is the same. I want to write more and dig some more recipes out of my brain but life gets in the way. This year was both good and bad for me. While I’d like to blame aging and memory loss, the truth behind the lack of words was something else. A child leaves the nest. My best friend died this year. Around the same time I was adjusting to additional hours needed for a second work project. I look back, especially at this online journal and can see when the writing stopped.
But as it always does we humans change and adapt. The words are flowing again. The recipes are popping up and asking “Did you write me down yet?” I’ve adjusted to my new normal and changed my shopping and cooking habits. There are more slimmed down recipes to serve two.
Santa, I will be a better person next year. I need to finish writing the book I promised the boys when they were in high school.
Lifestyle factors — including nutrition, physical activity and stress — are critical determinants of health and, when poorly managed, can cause a veritable pandemic of chronic disease and unsustainable health care costs. Yet despite overwhelming connections between lifestyle factors and disease, most medical schools lack a cohesive approach to helping students translate their basic science education into practical patient advice and care.
via Teaching Students to Cook Now Makes Them Better Doctors Later.
I’m not quite sure if I actually taught my offspring how to cook. But having a role model certainly helps. My father did all the cooking when I was a kid. One day I asked, “Why do you do all the cooking?” and his reply was,
“You’ve tasted your Mother’s cooking. Survival.”
I taught myself how to cook because I thought all Dads did the cooking. Don’t they?
Dean Ornish: Can Healthy Eating Reverse Some Cancers? : NPR.
At the grocery store the other day I was asked if I was a vegetarian. I said no. When I thought about the correct answer, I really had no answer. There’s not really a good word to describe my eating habits. Most weeks two thirds of my meals are meatless. I avoid processed foods and fast food restaurants. I guess I try to eat less bad food and more good health enhancing foods like whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, less animal products, and more craft beer.
I stumbled upon this old TED talk this morning. If you are not familiar with the work of Dr. Dean Ornish, this short video is a great place to start.
