Eat. Drink. Better.

Exploring Raw Food: Juices and Smoothies

Megan Prusynski — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:30:56 +0000

This year, one of my new year’s resolutions was to eat more raw and living foods. I recently started attending a monthly raw food potluck and have been inspired by all the delicious recipes and information. I have learned that eating uncooked plant foods is healthy for several reasons: raw fruits and veggies contain lots of fiber, are packed with nutrients, and also retain many useful enzymes that cooking destroys. Having a plot in my local community garden has definitely helped me eat more raw fresh produce as well as eat more sustainably.

As I try to add more living foods to my diet, I’ve tried eating salad with just about every meal, eating raw snacks like trail mixes and fresh fruit, and making more food from scratch. One way of incorporating raw foods into my diet that has been really easy is making fresh juices and smoothies. With the help of gadgets like my Green Star juicer and Vitamix blender, I’ve made many a healthy and scrumptious snack.

One word of juicing wisdom that I’ve learned is that you don’t want to overdo it with fruit juices. Because of their high sugar content, fruit juices can raise blood sugar levels. It’s healthier to drink vegetable juices, or a blend of fruit and vegetable juices. Juices are best in moderation because they deliver many nutrients but since the pulp is removed, they don’t have much fiber. Smoothies, on the other hand, use the entire fruit or vegetable, so the fiber is included. Both juices and smoothies are a great way to get digestible nutrients and add more raw fruits and vegetables to your diet.

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Have Your Health and Eat Your Cake, Too: Nutritionist Jodi Greebel Teaches You How to Splurge Responsibly

Gennefer Snowfield — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:08:03 +0000

For me, eating ‘healthy’ used to mean one stick of butter instead of two. But for the sake of my arteries (and wardrobe!), I decided to ditch fatty foods in favor of an all-natural diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and any other low calorie, high protein substance that typically had a distinct flavor, resembling cardboard.

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I returned to the comforts of creamy comestibles, luxuriously languishing in lardaceous liquids, where I’ve been happily indulging ever since. That is, until Behind the Burner nutrition expert and author of The Little Black Apron, Jodi Greebel, came along to open my eyes to a lifestyle of healthy — yet satisfying — morsels that don’t require me to go cold turkey on tempting treats.

So, when I had Jodi captive, I picked her brain about nutrition, dining out, being a vegetarian, and how to eat healthy and delicious.

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Distributor Sued for Selling Illegal Cane Sugar Sweetened Mexican Pepsi

Jennifer Lance — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:01:46 +0000

I don’t drink sodas primarily because they contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Apparently, I am not alone in my concern over HFCS, as cane sugar sweetened Pepsi and Coke from Mexico are desirable in the United States. I’m not sure I would risk Montezuma’s revenge from Mexican water to drink a sugar cane sweetened soda from south of the border; however, the long term negative effects of HFCS may be far worse. Unfortunately for natural soda lovers, Mexican Pepsi and Coke are illegal in the US.

PepsiCo has filed a lawsuit in federal court against Clayton Distributing Company in Georgia for violating trademark laws, committing fraud and engaging in deceptive, unfair trade practices by selling sugar cane sweetened, Mexican Pepsi in the United States.

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Living Ayurveda: A Medicine For Health And Sustainability

Reenita Malhotra — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:30:38 +0000

As much as people might recognize that Ayurveda is an ancient medicine from India and that it enhances positive health, most do not realize how intricately it is connected to sustainability.

Translated from Sanskrit as The Science of Life, Ayurveda is probably one of the oldest known systems of sustainable living. Given that it enhances longevity goes to show how important sustainability is…not just as a marketing or lifestyle trend but as a method of achieving long term health.

Ayurveda is the natural medicine of India, about 5,000 years old. It provides a system for maintaining the health of the mind-body via daily and seasonal self-care practices. Since disease begins with improper digestion, digestive health and healing lies at the core of Ayurvedic self care. Food preparation techniques, appropriate food selection and combination, proper eating habits all contribute to preventing ill health.

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Multi-purpose foods for health, happiness and planetary well-being: Chilli Crock-pot Soup

Kay Sexton — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:16:23 +0000

According to the American National Eating Disorders Association 91% of women surveyed on a college campus had previously or continually attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% of them said they dieted often or always. It’s not just women: 25% of men in the U.S. are said to be on a diet at any given time.

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World Peace and Chocolate: sweetriot creates morsels of goodness

Gennefer Snowfield — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:37:43 +0000

What if you could promote peace, foster a multicultural world, support local artists, help underdeveloped countries thrive and save the planet just by eating deliciously rich and organic chocolate candies?

Well, thanks to Sarah Endline, the creative genius and cacao bean extraordinaire behind sweetriot, you can. Oh, and did I mention that the chocolate candies are actually good for you, and rich in health benefits? I know it seems to good to be true, but Behind the Burner gave me the amazing chance to speak with Sarah who shows us how a sweet tooth and a passion for change can make anything possible.

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Good Luck Foods for the New Year

Stuart Stein — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:44:49 +0000

Having spent a number of years working in and enjoying Atlanta, Georgia, I developed an affinity for southern hospitality. After moving away, I would call directory assistance for the 404 area code occasionally just hear that distinctive and luring southern twang again. I really fell in love with the South when a girl I was dating at the time took me to her family’s home for a New Year’s Day meal. I could taste the customs and flavors that have been passed down for generations.

Though the foods may vary, New Years day has a number of good luck food traditions throughout the world. Some foods are said to bring luck or money; others safety and a good life. And some are just tasty.

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New Years Local Food Cheers: Ring in 2009 with a Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri

Lisa Kivirist — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:06:57 +0000

My roots and love for Wisconsin run deep, ever since we traded the Chicago urban corporate scene for organic farming and sustainable living on our rural acreage a dozen years ago. And at heart, I’m a four-season loving gal. But man, that fourth season of winter can run a bit long here – especially this year with record snowfall and low temperatures this past month.

So you have to develop a sense of humor as a Midwestern farmer to ride out the winter each year, latching on to whatever gets you through the bleak season. Cocktails, anyone? There’s something about frozen, fruity blender drinks – sipped slowly around the glow of the fiery woodstove – that for a brief, granted illusionary moment, transport us farming cheeseheads to another warmer place and time.

If you’re looking for something special to sip on tonight – a drink that reminds you of warm summer breezes and local June flavors gone by – look to your freezer for stockpiled strawberries and whip out the blender for Frozen Strawberry Daiquiris.

June of 2008 gifted our farm with a bumper crop of strawberries. So much so that we eventually maxed out on eating fresh and started freezing those little red gems. We “tray freeze” the berries – lining up clean, hulled berries on a flat cookie sheet, placing the tray in our chest freezer and packing them in freezer bags once hardened. While some strawberries eventually made their way into sauces and jams, the bulk of these frozen babies end up in cocktail glasses this time of year, as the snow piles and wind blows outside.

Here’s our house recipe – but feel free to adapt with ingredients you have around. Think about using some local spirits, when possible.

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Low Carbon New Year’s Dinner Party

Beth Bader — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:48:21 +0000

If your waistband permits, here is one more seasonal, sustainable menu for the last of the holiday parties ahead. This is an elegant, yet healthy sit-down dinner for New Year’s, just right after a season of perhaps too many cookies! It’s also one to bookmark for next year’s Thanksgiving menu.

Join in the feast for New Englanders with Bon Appetit Management’s Chef Kimberly Triplett. Triplett runs the kitchens for Goucher College in Towson, MD. Recipes follow the jump.

LOW CARBON HOLIDAY MENU

1. Local mesclun and arugula greens with toasted pumpkin seeds and crispy onions tossed in a roasted shallot oil (greens, shallots, crispy onion and pumpkin seeds are from Even Star organic farms, Lexington Maryland)

2. Roasted Brussels sprouts with apples, bacon in a grain mustard vinaigrette (Brussels sprouts, apples are from Licking Creek Bend Farm in Needmore, PA .Bacon is from Springfield Farms in Monkton, Maryland)

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Bringing Back Butterscotch in a Healthy, Organic, Low Calorie Pudding (that’s vegetarian and gluten-free, too!)

Gennefer Snowfield — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:33:23 +0000

One of the toughest parts of the holidays is indulging in rich, high calorie desserts. And you’ll be hard pressed to find a bakery with organic goodies on display. But the most difficult, for me, is baking at home where the temptation to voraciously consume an entire bowl of gooey batter is too much to resist — but far too gluttonous a proposition to consider.

So, to satisfy my need for sinful sweets sans the fat and calories, I embarked on a journey to create a healthy yet decadent delight that is as easy to make as it is on the waistline. It’s also no accident that it has a striking similarity in texture and taste to buttery cake batter. You’re welcome.

I also managed to resuscitate the vastly under used flavor of butterscotch in the process, which interestingly, contains neither butter nor scotch. Does anyone else find that puzzling?

You can ponder quandries like that while shoveling heaping spoonfuls of butterscotch goodness into your mouth but given the endorphin overload that will likely result from this delectable dietary dessert, you may only be able to muster mono-syllabic “Mmmm”s.

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