Green Options

The holiday season is a time to celebrate with family and friends. Unfortunately, for many it also becomes a time for over-eating and weight gain. According to the National Institutes of Health, holiday eating can result in an extra pound or two every year. Over a lifetime, holiday weight gain can really add up. The holidays don’t have to mean gaining weight. Focus on a healthy balance of food, smart choices, activity, and fun. By implementing a few simple tips you can stay healthy through the holiday season.

With autumn upon us, our seasonal menu has already begun to change. At farmers markets in most areas of the country you can see the abundance of the Fall season. Hearty root vegetables are everywhere and can offer your body an array of healing benefits as prepare for the winter months ahead. The roots of any plant are its foundation; roots support and nourish the plant. Root vegetables offer you these same properties, making you feel grounded both emotionally and physically and increasing your stamina and endurance. Roots are a source of nutritious complex carbohydrates, providing long lasting energy and helping to regulate your blood sugar levels. Root vegetables also help us to absorb and assimilate the nutrients we eat, just as they absorb and assimilate vital nutrients for plants.

Long roots include carrots, parsnips, burdock and daikon radish. Some of these are excellent blood purifiers and can help improve circulation in the body and increase mental clarity. Round roots include turnips, radishes, beets and rutabagas. Round roots are nourishing to the stomach, spleen, pancreas and reproductive organs and can help regulate blood sugar, moods, and alleviate cravings.

Read more for a delicious Meatless Monday Vegan Roasted Root Vegetable recipe.

Breakfast time is usually a big deal at our house. I try to make sure the little guy gets a healthy nutritious meal to start the day.  I also try to stay away from cereals due to their high sugar content but occassionally a bowl of cereal makes it’s way onto the table.

Since having a child I’ve made breakfast important. I mostly make meals from scratch and make the best attempt to stay away from anything packaged. The chickens have been such a blessing. We’re able to cook eggs most days any which way you can think of and have them for breakfast or “breakie” (what we call it here).

Pancakes are the biggest hit for breakie…just ask my son, he’ll tell you he wants *pancakes*! Before I knew about this recipe I’m going to share; I’d always thought I was making pancakes from scratch.

As the dog days of summer come to an end, a 3 course, no cooking required meal sounds pretty good to me. Turn that stove off, shut down the oven, choose to go meatless this Monday and cool off with this appetizer, main course and dessert.

My daughter looks forward to shopping at the farmers’ market.  I think she’s excited because she never knows what will be there.  When one booth owner mentioned that he would have blackberries the next week, she talked about that to anyone who would listen and pestered me about it until we went back.  If my husband or I purchase a head of lettuce at the grocery store, even if she’s with us, she won’t eat it.  But she eats the lettuce she buys at the farmers’ market, just like she eats the lettuce she grows in her little garden.

I confess that I would do many things to get my daughter to eat her veggies – including eating vegetables I hate – but I, too, like gardening and going to farmers’ markets, so this one is no sacrifice. 

“The salad is bitter this year.”

My daughter is referring to the lambsquarter (Chenopodium album).  I pull a leaf from the waist-high plant and taste it.  She’s right; it’s bitter.  We usually eat the lambsquarter raw, but today I’ll need to cook it before she decides to never eat it again.

Sometimes referred to as goosefoot or pigweed (and sometimes spelled lamb’s quarter), this wild relative of spinach and quinoa has been eaten by people for thousands of years.  High in vitamins A and C, and with a sprinkling of B vitamins and several minerals, lambsquarter is an excellent green for the health-conscious  — and for growing kids.

The cover of Michael Pollan’s terrific book ‘In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto’ offers the tag line “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” With the help of the country’s leading food expert I am going to elaborate on that–although if you choose to only read this far, that tag line (if acted upon) will benefit you greatly.

What to Eat
1. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes (organic and/or local is best).
2. Eat whole (not refined) foods.
3. Eat food (real food). Not too much (don’t overeat). Mostly plants (mostly plants).

What NOT to Eat
1. Don’t eat anything with more than 5 ingredients or with ingredients you can’t pronounce.
2. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot (except honey).
3. Don’t eat meat–atleast, not too much (the environmental impact is alarming).

As Congress debates how to pay for national health care reform, here in California we are showing there are ways to make coverage both universal and affordable. In San Francisco, we are finding that one of the most effective reforms, and the most affordable by far, is simply using the purchasing and persuasive power of our city to promote the kind of healthy habits that keep residents away from costly medical interventions and prevent chronic diseases.

A health organization is criticizing celebrity mothers who come out weeks after baby is born looking fabulous. Such dramatic weight loss is unrealistic and even unnecessary, said the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care. The German group is warning new moms not to hold themselves to these hot-bod standards.

Very strenuous exercise programmes soon after childbirth did not lead to extra weight loss. This means that women do not need to have a bad conscience if they take it easy in the busy weeks after giving birth.

Of course, he also stresses the point that women should not “eat for two” during pregnancy.

But here’s the problem with the images in the media:

This post was originally posted at Nature’s Child, the site for sassy & sage natural parenting advice. And don’t forget to enter the Summer Essentials Contest while you’re there!

We all know someone who was thrilled when they learned they were pregnant. Yes, because they were bringing life into this world. But also because they could finally “eat for two” and let their diet go.

All of us with sense know that this is a pregnancy myth. You can’t actually eat for two and expect to lose the baby weight anytime in the next decade.

The eating “extra” may not be the best choice for every pregnant woman.

Pregnancy is not a time to eat twice as much, but twice as well.

Women who are already obese when they become pregnant may not need to gain “baby weight” as long as they and their care provider focus on a healthy diet.

Fast food isn’t only a dumb choice environmentally, it can actually harm kids’ test scores, too. Factory-farmed meat? All that packaging? No thanks.

But if living a greener life isn’t a good enough reason for you and your family to avoid the junk, perhaps this is: kids who regularly eat fast food score lower on tests. Some kids had their test scored drop on literacy and mathematical tests by 16 percent compared to the average.

Kerri Tobin, who oversaw the research, said,

It is possible that the types of food served at fast food restaurants cause cognitive difficulties that result in lower test scores.

Wow. Just can’t picture Mickey D’s using that in a marketing campaign anytime soon. But the corporate giant isn’t the only culprit…