Beet, Carrot & Avocado Salad

I'm addicted to this salad.  Sometimes it starts the meal, sometimes it is the meal.  It’s quick to prepare, it tastes great, and I always feel fantastic after eating it.   

Ingredients:

• Green or red leaf lettuce (organic)
• Carrots
• Beets
• Avocado
• Spicy & sweet roasted almonds

Dressing:

• Tahini, 1 Tbsp.
• Extra virgin olive oil, 3Tbsp. 
• Garlic clove, 1 
• Salt & pepper, to taste 
• Honey, 1tsp.

1. Prepare the dressing by combining ingredients in a large container and blending with emersion blender, or in a regular blender.
2. Wash up your lettuce, carrots and beets. 
3. Shred the beets and carrots on grater.  Slice up the avocados
4. Plate the lettuce first, top with beets, carrots & avocado, then finish with almonds (recipe below) and dressing.

Spicy & Sweet Almonds recipe
Ingredients:

• Almonds, 3 c
• Cayenne, 2tsp.
• Sugar (brown, raw, coconut…you choose!), 2tbsp
• Salt 1/2 tsp.
• Egg white, 1

1. Beat the egg white until foamy, and coat almonds with it in a large mixing bowl.
2. Mix cayenne, sugar, salt together and then mix with egg white coated almonds.
3. Place on a baking tray, and bake at 350F for 25-30min.

Polpette di Melanzane

This is a classic Italian recipe for eggplant patties.  The only change I have made to the traditional recipe is to bake them instead of frying (my dad would be furious!), so I can enjoy them more often. 

Ingredients
Eggplants patties:

• 3 medium Italian eggplants or 5-6 Asian eggplants
• 2 free range eggs (whisked)
• 2 cups bread crumbs
• 1 cup parmigiano cheese (shredded)
• 1 cup parsley (fine chopped)
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil

Sauce:

• 1 bottle of crushed tomatoes
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 3 cloves garlic (minced)
• Dried basil, oregano
• 4Tbsp Olive oil
• Salt

1. Prepare the eggplant in the morning or night before by peeling and cutting into one inch slices, and steaming them for 10 minutes. Squish and drain the excess water from the eggplants and then place them into a colander lined with paper towel and place in the fridge.  This will pull most of the water out of the eggplant which will help when forming the patties.   If you are unable to do this step, just ensure that after you steam the eggplant try to drain as much water out of them as possible.
2. Start the sauce by pouring olive oil into a sauce pot and heating on low medium heat.  Place the onions and the garlic into the pot and sauté on low heat until translucent (~8min).  Pour in the crushed tomatoes and cook on medium heat for ~30mins.   Add in the salt, dried/fresh basil and oregano to taste.
3. Turn the oven on to 400F. 
4. Place the eggplants into a mixing bowl with parmesan, whisked eggs, breadcrumbs, salt and parsley.  Mix well. 
5. Form the patties from the mixture and place into a baking dish coated with 1 tbsp. of olive oil, and place in the oven for ~30 min.  To brown the top of the patties, place the oven on broil for the last 5 min.

     6. Cover the eggplant with the tomato sauce.  Finito! 

Food Bloggers Against Hunger

Food insecurity exists for millions of North Americans, and a new movement is being sparked by The giving table in the US after the film A Place at the Table was released and The No Kid Hungry Campaign started a petition to Congress to protect the Federal Nutrition Programs.  Poverty comes in many forms but in a time of abundance it seems absurd that many people in Canada and the U.S. are unable to afford nutritious food on a daily basis.  It is hard to imagine trying to navigate what to buy on a food budget of $3-5 a day.  Food security is defined as “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” by the WHO.

One of the major roots of food insecurity is the blatant government subsidization of the food industries precious ingredients: corn, soya, wheat, and sugar.    We subsidize these crops with our tax dollars, thus making highly processed (dead) food cheap and whole (alive) food expensive.   On a limited budget there is little choice but to choose the cheapest item that provides the most amount of calories, these processed calories keep us alive while starving us of our health; leading to the extremely rapid increase of chronic disease in low income populations as well as the population at whole.

To increase food security:

1. This issue is about poverty first and foremost. Increase the minimum wage to a living wage, which would take into account food security; especially important in the United States.   And contrary to popular belief increasing minimum wage will not bring the country to its’ knees and send inflation skyrocketing; read here.  “A 10% US minimum wage increase [may] raise food prices by no more than 4% and overall prices by no more than 0.4%." This would mean at maximum an extra 20 cents for every five dollars spent on food, again at maximum. 

2.  Start subsidizing vegetables!  This is a no brainer, but the lobbying from the food industry is fierce.

3.  Increase access to vegetables! Urban edible gardens people!  Using public and private land for edible plants instead of ornamental wherever space is available would increase access to FREE vegetables and fruit; a win-win for all.  Read here for more. 

These changes won’t come fast, so in the meantime let’s keep supporting food assistance programs that help provide access to healthy food like SNAP, WIC (in the U.S.), food banks, and missions; let’s not leave those in need without access to healthy food.  Cutting access to these programs is like cutting access to shelter and clean water.  Again, for those in the U.S. click here to sign the petition now.

Take part at a place at the table

Sign the petition

Promoting Moderation

This month will mark Dietitians Day in both the US (13th) and Canada (20th).   As dietitian’s one of our main objectives is to promote healthy living, but the obstacles to achieve this objective have never been greater. 

First, dietitian’s are near the bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to health care in the western world which makes our voice faint.  This is mainly because money is spent treating diseases instead of preventing them, and most dietitian’s are best equipped for the latter.  
Second, our ties to the food industry have become so entwined that our message becomes confusing to the general public; prime example, PepsiCo has been a close affiliate to Dietitians of Canada for years.  If we are sitting at the same table as PepsiCo does that not mean we endorse their products?  This practice needs to stop, and for more on this follow the newly formed Dietitian’s for Professional Integrity online; congrats to all the great people advocating for this.
Finally, and the most important and toughest to swallow is that we are entrenched in a system that by its’ very nature demands excess.  From marketing to our built environment by the time one is in their teens it is hard not to believe that they are nothing but consumers, and the more they consume the more they contribute to the “economy”, society, and their happiness.  The perfect example of this came just two days ago when Mayor Bloomberg's ban on large soda was denied by a New York state judge, after months of lobbying by industry to twist public perception.   The message, if you advocate for consuming moderately or knowledgeably you are a problem and you will be stopped, and that is exactly what many of us “try” to do everyday.  The old go-to saying “everything in moderation”is just not cutting it anymore, we need to re-frame our approach. 
We are the advocates of moderation in a time of excess.
What can Dietitian’s of Canada and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics do?  Withdraw all ties to the food industry; promotion via association is unavoidable and too powerful a message, so we need to keep distance to reduce confusion.  Also, if the food industry is cut out we eliminate the possibility of them influencing our organizations' policies and procedures.  I also believe that we need to stop pretending that processed food can be enjoyed in moderation by everyone; it clearly cannot.  Individually we all react to processed food differently, and moderating intake of these food items is designed to be difficult. The food industry has worked hard to successfully make their food products addictive, and they need to be exposed by dietitians, not embraced.  

Diet Soda – Can We Fool Human Biology?

A recently published paper, a counter paper and some researchers are eyeing diet soda (and of course regular) with respect to its’ link to weight gain, type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance.  If you have read my blog before you will know my stance on sugar sweetened beverages (SSB’s) stemming from researching the links between SSB’s diabetes and weight extensively during my masters.  Here are some of my findings, as well as some follow up discussion from the same publication [1,2].  That said, I have yet to express my ongoing concerns with artificially sweetened beverages.

Remember tab?!

Artificial sweeteners in beverages these days tend to come from aspartame or sucralose, and the exhaustive body of research concerning their safety in terms of toxicity shows that in moderation  they appear to be okay.  However, maybe it is not toxicity that we should be concerned with.  Artificial sweeteners may have other side effects such as possibly increasing our cravings for sweet foods leading regular drinkers to eat more highly concentrated/processed and sweeter sources of food throughout the day, and thus more calories.  The second side effect to be concerned about is artificial sweeteners possible effects on our metabolic response to food.  Artificial sweeteners cannot be used for energy but still may cause a natural biological reaction of increased insulin when ingested as would any carbohydrate rich food.  After repeated use the theory is that eventually the insulin response to ingested carbohydrate response becomes impaired. 

Keep in mind these are only theories, and we need more research to make any clear associations.  My recommendation, don’t consume either on a regular basis or in large amounts.

Side note: Water and coffee are fantastic beverages :)

Exercise Resolutions

It’s a new year, and resolutions are plenty; most likely losing weight is among the most popular.  The first seemingly logical step is to join a gym and start working out like wild because more activity means automatic weight loss right?…unfortunately no.  I am not a kinesiologist or exercise physiologist but from the research it seems that exercise plays only a small role in weight loss.  Don’t get me wrong, daily exercise is useful for weight management but increasing exercise should not be fuelled solely by weight loss goals.

In my everyday practice I try my best to disassociate exercise with weight because 1) we do not have direct control of our weight, 2) weight is by no means an accurate measure of health, and 3) tying exercise with weight loss often leads to disappointment.  In addition, using exercise as a crutch to increase  your daily caloric intake can be a slippery slope because we often overestimate calories burned and underestimate calories eaten.  Example, running for 25 minutes can burn roughly 300 calories, equal to one café mocha, add a muffin and you will have to run for another 35 minutes.   Consistent and healthy eating patterns are always the first strategy for weight management, so it’s often best to keep exercise out of the equation.

More exercise is a great new year resolution simply because it is most likely the single most important daily habit you can do to improve your overall health! 

Exercise can:

• Help lower cholesterol
• Help reduce stress
• Increase bone mass, and decrease risk of osteoporosis
• Decrease risk of chronic diseases as well as help manage living with a chronic disease
• Increase mental clarity and well being
• Promote better sleep
• Helps us maintain mobility while aging
• Decrease risk of heart disease
• …and the list goes on

Food Rights

I have been thinking a lot about organic food.

Food can be expensive.  Why would we spend more on food if we don’t have to?  I personally don’t buy food that is local/organic exclusively because sometimes it just feels too damn expensive and justifying not buying local/organic means cheaper groceries!  So as soon as any article casts even the slightest doubt on organic/small scale farming we and the media jump all over it!  “ Damn hippies have been ripping me off!”  Even though intuitively we may know that organic farming practices are the clear choice for our environment and our health.

However, this choice is bigger than "organic", it’s about access to healthy and nutritious food and basic food security.  Because excess pesticides, monocultures and an abundance of antibiotics in our food system as the status quo is just the tip of the iceberg.  Everyday we are assaulted by food multinationals justifying and normalizing that processed/packaged food is just as healthy as whole food.  Our government’s also increasingly subsidize the ingredients in these processed food items (corn, soy, wheat) and not vegetables.  So we face an odd choice every time we are at the market, can I afford to buy fresh vegetables, fruit, and lean meat/legumes or should I just skip them and get a frozen meal, canned food, or fast food.  The result is a multi-tiered food system; those that can afford organic/local food/farmers markets, those who can afford whole conventional food(fresh veg, fruit,etc.) and those who may only be able to afford highly processed subsidized/”cheap” food.

Here are a couple of things to think about:

1. Our food system is inequitable and down right immoral.  We need to advocate at all levels of government to subsidize healthy food (vegetables!) and not just cash/commodity crops.
2. If we can truly afford it we should never feel guilty about buying fresh healthy whole food instead of saving a few bucks and opting for the cheaper processed variety at the grocery store.  Similarly, if we can afford local food/farmers markets/organic, do it! Vote with your dollars; it makes a difference. 

Mr. Petrini explains why we should choose food over everything else very well!