Sleep tight

“If you want to lose weight, before you change a thing regarding your exercise or eating habits, focus on getting QUALITY sleep for at least 2 weeks.”  This was one of many attention grabbing phrases I heard on Friday at a fascinating seminar I attended.   I know this is not going to be very “foodie” of me, but I’d love to share a few tidbits from my notes about the importance of sleep in reaching and maintaining a healthy weight.

It turns out there are several diet/health related consequences when you are not sleeping well on a chronic basis.  You are at increased risk for obesity, (MI’s) heart attacks, arrythmias, and higher blood pressure–these problems are directly related to the fact that sleep deprivation compromises thryroid function, increases production of ghrelin and stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, and decreases levels of growth hormone, insulin and leptin.

What does all that mean in plain english?  Well, ghrelin is a hormone that increases appetite, and leptin is involved with appetite suppression.  If the absence of quality sleep means that ghrelin levels go up and leptin levels go down, we are going to eat more.  Then we have chronically elevated levels of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol which promotes storage of fat (especially around the belly area because there are more receptors).  If our levels of growth hormone drop, so does the building of muscle mass on our bodies–so now we have more body fat and less muscle.  That means higher BMI, and a slower, less efficient metabolism which will make shedding extra pounds difficult.

There are 5 stages of sleep in a 90 minute cycle.  The first two stages are more involved with falling asleep, and if you find that you are easily awakened or have sleep that is fragmented all night long, chances are that you don’t spend much time in stages 3-5.  Before you rush off to the nearest sleep clinic to have yourself analyzed, start with some basic good sleep habits including keeping a regular bedtime, limiting caffeine and alchohol and not getting overstimulated by TV or the computer in the evening.

Smoothie Recipe

Let me explain how I came up with this one.  One of my clients was looking for ways to include more veggies in his diet throughout the day, not just at dinner or lunch.  I started with the idea that smoothies are a convenient, portable way to accomplish this, so we brainstormed about what veggies might work in a smoothie.  Obviously, a strong tasting veggie like onions or broccoli would taste wierd, so we turned to veggies that are neutral or slightly sweet.  Here is what we started with:

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup pomegranate juice

1 cup milk or yogurt

1 cup frozen dark berries

1 cup baby spinach

1/2 cup shredded carrots (or orange-vanilla-sweet potatoes, recipe below)

Blend and enjoy.  This recipe fills my 20 ounce water bottle and is perfect for my mid-morning snack, or late afternoon if I have evening clients or am planning to run in the evening before dinner.

So what do you get with this concoction?  Well, the cup of juice = 1 cup of fruit; the cup of milk or yogurt = 1 cup of dairy; the cup of dark berries = 1 cup of fruit (which takes care of my fruit needs for the day); the cup of baby spinach = 1/2 cup of veggies AND I’m making progress in the quest for 3 cups of green veggies each week; the 1/2 cup of shredded carrot = 1/2 cup of veggies, which brings the total for veggies in this recipe to 1 cup out of the 3 that I need each day, AND I’m also getting in some of the 2 cups of orange veggies I need per week.  You are also getting the colors red, blue/purple, orange and green.  Go you!

I’ve made this a few times, but always think it is funny that I end up chewing the carrot bits after each sip.  So then I asked myself “I wonder what would happen if I used mashed sweet potatoes instead of shredded carrots?”  I figured the smoothie would be thicker and I wouldn’t have to chew anything.  This is what I did:  peeled and large diced 1 sweet potato, a little smaller than a softball.  I cooked it in a small covered sauce pan with about 1 cup of orange juice and checked after about 10 minutes–it depends on how big or small the pieces of sweet potato are, mine were about 2 inch cubes.  They are done when you can mash them up and whip into a smooth puree.  I added about 1 teaspoon of vanilla and put it in the fridge for later in the week when I’d need to make a smoothie.  I ended up with a little over a cup of puree.

The smoothie ROCKED using this latest version.  You could also substitute canned, unflavored pumpkin and adding about 1/2 tsp to your blender when you make the smoothie–I haven’t tried this yet, but I bet the outcome would be similar.  Another sweet vegetable that might work is beets–the color alone would be worth trying it!  Enjoy!

Signs of Spring

I’ve been eagerly checking out my garden for early signs of life:  shoots from the bulbs I planted in the fall, baby perennials, leaf buds on trees and shrubs.  Well, here is one more:  The Farmer’s market is waking up!!

This winter has felt long and grey and cold, and after months of QUICK trips through the market on blustery Saturday mornings–quick because there have been only about three vendors there since the holiday hub-bub died down–yesterday there were easily 10 vendors!!  The egg guy, who is usually sold out and gone by 8am was still there at 9:30!  Instead of an occasional stall selling salad greens, there were 3 or 4!  I saw plants for the garden–flowers and herbs!  Needless to say, for this weekly customer at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market, it was a welcome sight after a long winter.

Soon, I’ll start to see other signs of spring–Asparagus and peas to name a few!  I’m also looking forward to seeing some of my favorite farmers.

In this category, I hope to encourage readers to consider a few things in addition to nutrition and yummy flavors–where has your food come from?  Who grew it?  How much time has elapsed from harvest to your plate?  How many gallons of gasoline went into its journey from farm to your fridge?  Are there any harmful pesticides?  Weird antibiotics or growth hormones?  Aside from its cost to you personally, what is the cost it has on the environment?  These are all important questions to ask yourself because they are all things that affect your quality of life.

If one of your goals is to have a healthier lifestyle, I can’t think of a better way to start than by encouraging you to become a regular customer at your local farmer’s market.  Dare yourself to try a new veggie every week.  If you don’t know how to prepare it–ask the person who grew it.  This is a great way to get to know the folks who feed you, get a variety of fruits and veggies in your diet, eat produce at the height of ripeness (and nutritional value), support the local economy (badly needed right now in SE Michigan…), reduce your carbon footprint, and your inner Foodie will love it too.

“The Ideal Meal”: Defined

With this category, my hope is to look at meals (and the components that make up these meals) we see in restaurants, frozen dinners or ones we cook ourselves; and hold them up to a standard that supports a balanced way of eating.  A common misconception people have when they decide to start “eating healthy” is that they need to completely renovate their current menu, never to have any of the current favorites again.  While in extreme cases (ie. someone who eats every meal from a vending machine or fast food joint) this may be true, often it is much more realistic to take a look at your current diet and make a few small changes, additions or subtractions.

Let me illustrate this point with a story:  I recently saw a commercial for a chicken dinner chain-type place.  The meal they were selling as “complete” had chicken, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese and a fountain drink.  Oh, and maybe a dinner roll.  My jaw dropped.  They call that a meal?!?  For starters, everything on the plate was the same color; there were at least 6 ounces of meat (more than I need PER DAY), and 2-3 different starchy side dishes.  In my mind, eating a balanced diet is best broken down meal by meal.  A simple way to get what you need each day from each food group is to include a variety of them at every meal.  So how would I change the meal on my TV screen to fit this approach?   Let’s first define what I mean by an “Ideal Meal”.

Start with at least 1 cup of veggies, with bonus points for at least 3 different colors of veggies.  Then add some sort of complex carbohydrate (starch with fiber).  This is anything from the grain group (bonus points for whole grain products), or starchy vegetables (like corn, potatoes or winter squash, to name a few).  Next is a lean protein source like skinless chicken breast, fish, lean red meats or vegetarian choices like dry beans or soy products.  The amounts from each component depend on what your daily needs are from this group, and how much you’ve already had.  If you get creative with marinates, rubs, vegetable based sauces, spices, herbs and other aromatics, the possibilities are virtually endless with this basic formula.

So, what would I change about the meal I saw on TV?  Well, I would decide between EITHER the mashed potatoes OR the macaroni and cheese.  Then I would add a mixture of non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, purple cabbage and carrots (because I love how green, purple and orange look together, AND they are all very powerful colors from an antioxidant perspective), steamed in chicken stock,  sprinkled with minced garlic and zest some fresh lemon over all.  Then I would ask myself if I was in the mood for a chicken thigh, breast or leg?  And then I would pick one, not all three.  In reality, I’m about 100% more likely to just prepare that meal myself, sharing any veggie scraps with our dog Otto (kale stems are an enthusiastic favorite crunchy treat of his, followed closely by carrot peelings).  I enjoy the process of dreaming up and cooking meals from scratch far too much to let someone else have all the fun…

Are you getting what you need?

Whenever I start working with a new client, I gather the information I’ll need at www.mypyramid.gov to come up with a starting place in determining their calorie needs.  I encourage them to visit the same site and follow their curiosity around it, answering questions they might have about such things as portion size–what counts as an ounce of grains??–what fits into which food group–are beans a ‘meat’ or a ‘vegetable’?–and on…

In addition to breaking daily calorie needs down into how much is needed from each food group, your plan will show you how many cups per week of green and orange vegetables you need, and how many cups of beans and starchy vegetables a week you need.  I have to admit that it took me a while to consider these “extra” recommendations and incorporate them into my own life, but the more I learned about their role in supporting a healthy lifestyle and efficient metabolism, the more motivated I was to incorporate the routines and new habits that would set me up for success.

I’ll be the first to admit that some weeks, for example, I’ll focus on getting the ideal amount of dry beans in my diet so much so that I come up short on my orange veggie intake.  It is not easy to keep all of these nutrition balls in the air, so I have decided to look at it this way:  If each week I focus on not only getting what I need on a daily basis from each food group, and one of the weekly goals is accomplished, I’m doing pretty good.  And if those weekly goals keep rotating, I’m doing even better.

Kurt’s Pizza Dough

I thought I’d share the recipe Kurt uses each week to make the pizza dough (I checked with him first, he said it was OK).  Last week, he let the dough rise again in a warm oven after he’d rolled it out and put it on the pizza pan.  The result was a more “bready” pizza, less “thin crusty” but still delicious!  Enjoy…

First you make happy little yeasts:

1 - package yeast (I use standard rise)

1 cup nice hot water (but not too hot, it kills the

little yeasts)

3/4 teaspoon sugar

Stir together and let it rise for 10 minutes, I

normally cover it with the bowl for the flour.

 

Turn oven on to “warm”

2-1/2 cups of flour into a medium heat resistant

mixing bowl.  We use a mix of 1-3/4 whole wheat and

3/4 white flour

Take the cup of happy yeast and add:

3/4 teaspoon salt, this slows the yeast down

2-1/4 teaspoons olive oil, this is to help their tan

Blend and knead the liquid into the flour

Coat the dough ball in olive oil

Cover the ball in the mixing bowl with aluminum foil

and place in warm oven to rise (30min to 1 hour)

 

Take dough out, turn oven to 425

Work the dough as little as possible (the more you

work it, the more it is like cardboard)

Roll it out into and place on pizza pan

Coat with olive oil

Put in oven for ~10 minutes or until it smells great

and has browned nicely.

 

Things I've learned:

1. Coat counter well with flour

2. Don't overwork dough

3. Add water if dough is too dry

4. Some days the little yeasts just die, try again and

mourn them later...

Pizza Mondays

On Mondays, I’m the envy of the lunchroom at work as I heat up and enjoy my pizza from our weekly Sunday night pizza. This used to be one of those $5 deals from a chain pizza joint, until my father lovingly pointed out that as a dietitian, I should be ashamed of myself, eating fast food…

Of course, (as always ) he was right. So, my husband and I decided it was time to start using one of our wedding presents, a perforated 15 3/4″ pizza pan (available at Target for about $15). The perforated surface promises a nice crispy crust and the nonstick finish means you can slide your pie onto a cutting board and divvy it up. I have to confess that aside from occasionally helping with the chopping of the various toppings, Kurt is the master of pizza night.

He is the one who researched online recipes for whole wheat pizza crust (I put in the request for the whole wheat part), and every Sunday night he gets the party going by starting the yeast. Fast forward to about 1 hour and fifteen minutes later, and our house smells like the best pizzeria in town. He is also the one who, a few weeks ago, wondered aloud about making his own pizza sauce…so off he went and managed to find a recipe that makes enough for two pizzas (we freeze half for next week). It is the best pizza I’ve ever had–and I spent a year of my life in Italy, so that is a high compliment!!

In any case, Pizza Mondays are a great example of the idea behind the Lunchbox Chronicles: make enough for dinner one night to take for lunch the next day! The only things I miss as I sit in the lunchroom eating my Monday Pizza are Kurt, our dog Otto and a nice glass of red wine…

Coconut Oil

I’m always amazed at how much I learn from my public speaking engagements as well as private clients.  Recently I spoke at a school, and afterward had a fascinating conversation which led me to seek out my latest ingredient of choice:  Coconut oil.

I had learned that coconut oil was the only plant source of dietary cholesterol–not true!  Not only is coconut oil cholesterol free, but it is made up of Medium Chain Triglycerides or MCT’s, which make a bee-line from our GI tract to our liver, requiring no bile salts to digest them, and are used as energy.  According to some brief research, coconut oil appears to be protective of liver health, boosts our immune system and increases the efficiency of our metabolism.  All good things!

As often is the case when I learn about an unfamiliar ingredient, especially if it has numerous health benefits, I start thinking of ways to use it.  Anyway I was sold, not to mention curious, so I picked up a jar of the stuff the next time I went grocery shopping.  It has the lovely and delicate aroma of fresh coconuts and a pearly white appearance.  I’ve been experimenting with it when I make anything from Brownies (check out the recipe I’ve posted!) to sauteed shrimp and haven’t been disappointed so far.  If anything, I’ve been inspired to continue experimenting!  On this cold night in Southeast Michigan, I’m tempted to see what happens when I use it to make popcorn.  I’ll let you know how it turns out…

Black Bean Brownies

Black Bean Brownies

½ cup Cocoa Powder

½ cup Butter or Margarine

2 cups White sugar

1 cup Black beans, cooked and pureed

4 ea Eggs

2/3 cup All purpose flour

¼ Tbs Salt

½ tsp Baking powder

Mix first 5 ingredients until well blended. Sift together the next three ingredients and stir into mixture. Grease a 9×13 inch sized sheet pan and pour the batter into the pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (320 if using a convection oven) for 25 minutes or until done (toothpick inserted into the middle should come out clean).

If you divide the baked brownies into 12 equal pieces, the nutrition per serving is:

274 calories, 10 g Fat; 6 g saturated fat; 91 mg cholesterol; 244 mg sodium; 44g carbohydrates; 3 g fiber; 5 g Protein.

Notes from Karin’s kitchen:

These are really good. The texture is somewhere between cakey and fudgey, and they are about 1-2 inches thick, but nice and chocolatey and moist. I pureed the heck out of the black beans to make sure I didn’t have any whole beans left, and it was very smooth, like the consistency of hummous. To help make a smooth puree, I added two of the four eggs to the food processor. I also tried this recipe using coconut oil in place of the butter to reduce the cholesterol amount, and it had a slight coconut flavor but not overwhelmingly so.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog!  As a trained chef, I’m a foodie and can’t think of many experiences more heavenly than enjoying the kind of meal that puts a smile on my face and throughout my soul.  As a dietitian, I am in awe of the power that food has–if chosen wisely–in increasing our chances that we will live vibrant, healthy, long lives.  I strongly believe that the kind of food that makes your soul smile, can also make your heart, brain and the rest of your body smile too!  My goal for this blog is to help its readers blend these two worlds by sharing the ideas, tips, strategies and information which I’ve found to be useful in everyday, busy life.  I’m just getting started, but have already set up a few categories that I hope to fill with such tidbits before long…stay tuned and enjoy!