Repost: Fresh and far away

 

 

We are so far removed from our food and its sources. A lot of our food, so-called food is made from a slew of hard to pronounce ingredients, in far away factories, packaged, and then shipped to the grocery store.

Animals no longer graze their natural habitat. Instead, they are confined and slaughtered in giant factories, known as feedlots. It’s very rare to have seen or known the animal that we prepare and eat. Most of us would prefer not to see Emily the cow get electrocuted and then have her throat slit. We cringe at the thought. We don’t even want to be bothered with the skin or bones anymore. Hence, skinless, boneless chicken breast. Think about it…If you had to hunt, kill, and clean the animal…How much meat would you eat?

Fruits and vegetables are grown in massive fields and sprayed with gross amounts of pesticides. We’ve never touched the soil, or pulled up the roots. Some of our fruits and vegetables travel thousands of miles before they make it to the grocery store. That’s how we can enjoy strawberries in the dead of the winter. Such an oddity, we all know strawberries are the taste of summer. Or do we?

We are so very disconnected from our food. As we evolve, we try to do things more efficiently, but along the way we’ve created quite a mess with our industrialized food system. It’s all convenient. It’s all nicely packaged. It’s all wrong.

I’m just one gal on a mission to create a healthier lifestyle for myself.  Along the way, I’ve done a lot of reading, viewing of films, and realize that a healthy lifestyle begins with the food that I eat. I want to share what I learned with others. I hope I don’t come off as a pretentious, know-it-all. I'm not. I really just want to help you make better informed decisions.

Originally posted April 16, 2012.

Week 4 - Learn to Shop, Cook, Eat: Outside of the Box w/Chrisetta Mosley

Another week nourishing the desert...This week's session was all about fresh fruits and veggies!

On the menu: Fresh Vegetable Kebabs, Fresh Fruit Cups, and Quinoa Spinach Salad. 

Next week: OUTSIDE of the Box Healthy Snacks

 

Week 3: Learn to Shop, Cook, Eat: Outside of the Box w/Chrisetta Mosley

Tonight marked my third session with the group at Fruit Valley Elementary School. The first two weeks of the program we've been covering the basics -- how to plan and grocery SHOP. This session we started with a brief introduction on Beans & Whole Grains and then the fun part COOKing and EATing.

On the menu: 

Hummus served with crudités
Fruit Seed Wheat Berry Bowl
Brown Bag Popcorn with Honey Butter

The ladies enjoyed all the recipes. And music to my ears: They said they could and would make the recipes at home.  I love what I do!

Next week: Fresh Produce -- Fruits & Vegetables.

We passed!

 

The importance of a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables was the topic of our “5 or 50″ Women’s Sustainable Weight Loss & Healthy Lifestyle Group meeting last night. As you know, I’m a huge advocate of a mostly plant based diet. So, no surprise, it’s a topic our group has explored more than once. I’m proud to say the ladies have taken heed to our conversations.

Our guest speakers Greg and Keith (our first time having guys at the meeting) are reps from Monavie. Monavie has this cool new VIEW scanner or what the fellas call the “Fruit/Vegetable Lie Detector.”  The Monavie VIEW scanner helps determine if you are getting enough antioxidants. After scanning the ladies in our group, the entire group (even the newcomer) scored with medium to high levels of antioxidants. Yes! We passed with flying colors. The fellas said it was the first time ever that they had a group collectively score this high. Yes! Yes! Yes!

 

 

I say it again,  Eat Your Colors.

 

--

Life Scores from our group: Four scored purple including myself, three scored green, and one scored blue. Read more about the VIEW scanner and Life Score here.

See a recent blog post on the importance of fruits, veggies, and antioxidants here.

Prep time

I’ll be honest, shopping, cooking, and eating “Outside of the Box” requires a commitment. Having a plan of action will save time and ultimately make the days easier.

For most folks, one of the biggest challenges to eating and living “Outside of the Box” is being prepared. On the food front: Being prepared means of course grocery shopping, but it also means once home with the goods taking it one step further — prepping. Slicing and chopping the fresh produce, hard-boiling eggs, making side dishes, making a pot of beans and/or grains, packaging up nuts and grains, etc.

Though, I am fortunate to work for myself from home or near home. I still benefit and stay on track better when I am prepared.  I dedicated part of my Saturday to prep time. So, this week when I'm blogging and my stomach starts grumbling I can just go grab a quick snack. Or after a day of talks and presentations I can come home and reheat with ease.

I prepped fresh veggies (carrots, cucumbers, and mushrooms), made a pot of wheat berries, and three side dishes (Sautéed Collard Greens with Garlic, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower).

Prepping tips:

Fresh produce always takes a little prep time. Do it in bulk right when you get home from the grocery store that way you'll be prepared throughout the week.

1. Pull out a cutting board, a colander, knife, produce peeler.
2. Rinse and/or peel produce. Get to slicing.
3. As you're slicing, put on the pot of beans, grains, eggs (cook as directed).
4. After vegetables are sliced either place in storage bags/containers or prepare as side dishes.
6. Once beans, grains, or eggs are finished cooking.  Allow to cool slightly and then store in fridge.

There you have it, prep time made easy. Happy Shopping, Prepping, Cooking, and Eating! 

A peek at the side dishes I whipped up:

Eat Your Colors

I love the produce section in all its splendor. All the rich, vibrant colors: Greens, oranges, reds, yellows, purples, on and on. Not only are fruits and vegetables a beautiful sight, but those colors actually play a role in our overall health. There are a number of reasons to eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

1. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with good stuff, phtyonutrients and antioxidants. Phytyonutrients are important because they may prevent illness, disease, and keep your body working properly. Antioxidants are vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that protect and repair cells from damage caused by free radicals. A diet rich in antioxidants can help you fight off colds, flu, and other infections.

The more and more research and reading I've done, the more convinced I am that a plant based diet is the way to go. I still haven't cut meat completely out of my diet and honestly probably won't, but I've decreased the amount of meat I eat and I make sure the meat I'm buying is good quality, lean cuts, and of course, over the last year I've upped the fruits and vegetables considerably. I'm proud to say, due to my high fruit and vegetable intake this was the first winter that I did not get a cold, or the flu.

2. Fruits and vegetables are low in calories (See a great visual below) and provide satiety. Depending on how you prepare your fruits and vegetables you can fill up on them guilt free. Raw with no additives is always the best.

3. Fruits and vegetables are a natural source of fiber. Fiber aids in a healthy digestive tract.  A high-fiber diet may also help reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

So, there you have it, three good reasons why you should eat your colors.  At the very basic level, just think about it -- fruits and vegetables are of the earth, they're nature's goods -- eat up!

My suggestions on how to sneak in more fruits and vegetables:

-Serve fruit/vegetables at breakfast. Add fruit to your breakfast cereal or yogurt. Add vegetables to omelets.

  

- Make a salad into a meal. Add a few ounces of chicken, turkey, fish, or beans a top

spinach leaves or romaine lettuce. Easy on the salad dressing it can add calories

quickly.

- Drink your fruits/vegetables. Add berries or a banana along with kale to yogurt and juice to make a smoothie. 


- Don't over think this...Just return to the basics: Oranges, apples, bananas, carrots, celery, cucumbers, etc.

Looks can be deceiving

I’m instantly attracted. What’s not to like? It’s bright, shiny, and beautifully orange. I place it in a bag. Then, I smugly, pick a few more with similar qualities. I have the pick of the batch. I can’t wait to get a taste. Once home, I peel one. To my dismay, the orange is pithy, tasteless, and dry. I’ve had one too many bad experiences with selecting the best looking piece of fruit to discover that it’s not the best.

I started a little experiment. I chose oranges and grapefruits that aren’t particularly the best looking and have a few minor blemishes. Surprisingly, I’ve had some really good luck with these picks. I read somewhere that oranges are sometimes sprayed with color. Spraying the oranges with color makes them more attractive. When consumers think of an orange, they typically think it should be deeply orange and shiny. But, that’s not always the case.  For a number or reasons, oranges don’t always have a deep orange hue. Since most consumers haven’t seen oranges straight from the tree or very closely thereafter -- we’re clueless on what a freshly picked orange looks like. Our notions are preconceived.

Our notion of food comes from perfect packages and boxes. Those Nabisco snack crackers were manufactured, and always have the same shape and taste. So, it’s a little understandable, but unrealistic to expect fresh fruit to have the same perfect, appealing look. Fruit is a product of nature: Each piece, each berry has grown in soil and under different conditions.  It’s especially hard to pick fruit now-a-days because it's shipped from far away and seasons don’t really matter much. Which alters the appearance and even the smell of the fruit. Sure, we can expect the taste will seemingly be the same, but you just never know when choosing fruit.

In putting together my upcoming cookbook, I asked an outside contributor for her Berry Freezer Jam recipe. She obliged and even added this nice anecdote: "It goes without saying (but perhaps you should add it anyway) that fresh, ripe, in-season fruit is the best way to go here. And usually the berries that are the most hideous looking taste the best. The big red strawberries at the grocery store pale next to the tiny, bright red misshapen yet perfectly flavored berry farm berries. It's not all about looks on the berry farm."

Caution: When selecting fruit. It's not about the looks. Looks can be deceiving.