Easy, Tasty Oatmeal

Oatmeal has a bad wrap! Most people view it as boring and bland.  Not only is oatmeal extremely healthy with loads of fiber but with the proper recipe it is easy to make and super yummy. I make a pot full and leave it in the fridge.  Then for breakfast in a rush, I just zap it in the microwave for a minute with a little milk and there you go, a healthy homemade breakfast in seconds.

Cooking Time: 15 minutes Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 cups 1% milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup pitted and chopped dates or 3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 cups old fashion oatmeal

 

Cooking Instructions

1.      Put milk, cinnamon and dates in a thick based pot turn heat on medium and bring milk to a boil.

 

 

 

2.    Add oatmeal, turn heat down to low and let oatmeal simmer for 10 minutes.

3.    Once oatmeal is at the desired texture remove from heat, let it cool for a couple minutes and serve.

  

Vegan Crockpot Chili

As a parents we are always busy, running from one obstacle to another.  Whether you are a stay-at-home dad, an executive mom, or a homeschooling parent; we just cannot keep up with all the demands and delights of parenthood, not to mention cook a decent meal.  So in an effort to provide my growing children with a healthy diet and appetizing food, I began to embrace my crockpot.  In effort to live up to my dreams of feeding my family a clean cuisine in the shortest amount of time possible I came up with this vegan recipe.  We couldn’t get enough of it, and I made extra so there was enough left over for lunch for a couple days too.  If you are using dried beans instead of canned remember to soak them 24 hours in advance.  Dried beans are cheaper with less salt, chemicals and preservatives than canned beans.

 

Vegan Crockpot Chili

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Servings: 10-12

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion chopped

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon flaked basil

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cups of dry kidney beans soaked overnight or 2 cans of organic PBA free kidney beans.

2 fifteen ounce cans low sodium tomato sauce

1 cup red or orange sweet peppers chopped (red or orange so the family will not know they are there)

Directions:

1.       Put olive oil in a skillet and sauté onions, garlic, cumin, basil and black pepper until onion start to lightly brown.

2.       In your crockpot, put the beans in first, then the tomato sauce and onion mixture then combine.  Finally put the peppers on top.  Cover the crockpot and turn to low if you want it to be ready in 8 hours or more.  Set to crockpot to high if you want it done in 4 hours.

3.       Once it is done, stir in the peppers and serve with a side of rice or crusted bread.  Most importantly, add a salad or some roasted vegetables as a healthy side.

 

Fruity Coleslaw

This recipes will fill your kids with fruits and vegetables without the complaining. Invite your kids to help prepare this kid-friendly recipe. Studies show children are more likely to try recipes they were included in the perpetration. But trust me, they will need no additional convincing to eat this creamy, healthier version to traditional coleslaw. 

Ingredients:

2 medium sized carrots

4 cups shredded cabbage

2 medium apples

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup plain yogurt

A dash of salt

1 tbsp chopped parsley (optional)

Directions:

Grate the apples and carrots after peeling them. Shred the cabbage. Add all the apple, carrots, and cabbage together in a big mixing bowl. Mix together with mayonnaise, yogurt and salt. Put the coleslaw in a serving dish and garnish with parsley. Enjoy! Makes 6 servings.  

Organic or not?

Should you pay extra for organic foods? Are they really worth the extra cost? Find out here on the Healthy Plate blog with the SkinLess Project http://skinlessproject.com/should-you-buy-organic/

Are you addicted to fat?

Every mother would be appalled at the idea of addicting her own child to drugs.  But in reality something very close may be happening.  According a study published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals, Nature, obese rats show the same changes in their brain receptors as humans addicted to heroin and cocaine.  These same obese rats participated in compulsive food seeking actions compared to their non obese counterparts. 

 

Scientists fed the rats three different diets, the first group ate regular laboratory chow, the second had limited access to high-fat cafeteria foods and the third group had unlimited access to the high-fat cafeteria foods; all three groups had 24 hour access to laboratory chow.  The cafeteria diet was of human grade, tasty and high in fat.  After 40 days the unlimited access rats became obese while the other two groups did not.  Additionally, after 40 days the unlimited access group was willing to withstand pain in order eat the cafeteria food while the other two groups were not.   Finally, from CT scans performed the rats’ brains; researchers found that changes in the brain chemistry of the rats with unlimited access to the high fat foods resembled the chemistry changes of drug addicts. New studies are finding similar changes in studies on humans.

This change in brain chemistry may explain why obese individuals feel helpless in front of food and are unable to control their compulsive eating even though they know it is detrimental to their health.  If the same changes that occurred in the rats’ brains occurs in human’s who eat a high-fat, high- calorie diet, then these individuals many literally be addicted to unhealthy foods.  This is very important to keep in mind when feeding children.  If they are constantly fed high calorie, high fat foods, these poor children are slowly becoming addicted to unhealthy junk food.  No wonder children are struggling with obesity at such young ages!  And no wonder children and adults are having such a hard time losing weight.  Not only do these individuals have the struggle of weight loss, but they may also be dealing with an addiction.

Let’s help our children stay healthy.  Try these small changes to encourage healthy eating and weight management:

1.       Provide children with healthy snacks like cheese sticks, apple pieces, grapes, or baby carrots and broccoli with ranch dressing. 

2.       Try to cook at home as much as possible even if it is something fast and easy like a stir fry.

3.       Give children a protein rich breakfast to get them through the morning.  Toast and Greek yogurt with olives, Cheerios and milk, and eggs with oven baked hash browns are all good choices. 

4.       Pack your child’s lunch for school and encourage the school system to provide healthy low fat meals and snacks to the students.

Every little step counts.  Stop our children from getting addicted to these harmful foods and teach them how to eat healthy.  This important lesson will last a lifetime and enable them to enjoy a healthy life.

Reference:

Johnson, P.M. and P.J. Kenny, Dopamine D2 receptors in addiction-like reward dysfunction and compulsive eating in obese rats. Nat Neurosci, 2010. advance online publication.

 

Teflon and Cancer

Health conscious individuals do their best to eat healthy, exercise, and cook at home.  But current research is showing what you cook in maybe as important as what you cook with.

There have been rumors about the safety of Teflon for a long time.  But the most stricking came out in 2006.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared one of the chemicals, PFOA, used to make Teflon a “likely human carcinogen.”  What makes PFOA even more dangerous is that it is an indestructible chemical so all the PFOA manufactured since 1950 will remain indefinitely in our soil, water and bodies [1].  PFOA can cross the maternal and fetal blood barrier which may increase the risk of birth defects [2].  All ten newborns tested by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) for PFOA had the pollutant in their blood.  A study conducted in 2007 in Demark found the higher the concentration of PFOA in the newborn’s blood the lower its birth weight [3].  This makes PFOA a significant public health concern [3]. Birth defects are not the only concern when it comes to PFOA, multiple animal studies have reported an increased risk of cancer, birth defects and other health problems [4].  In humans, PFOA has been found to increase cancer risk especially prostate cancer but these studies have been inconclusive [4]. Additionally, the American Council on Health and Science claims that the amounts of PFOA used in animal studies is much higher than what the general population is exposed to and research has not been able to make a definite link between humans and cancer induced by PFOA [2]. 

In short, PFOA is an everlasting, manmade chemical used in production of Teflon.  Although there are two sides to the argument both sides agree that PFOA has devastating effects on animals and may have side effects on humans.  More recent studies are showing that PFOA does have some negative impacts on human newborns but more research on cancer and other health problems is needed before any decisions can be made.

Teflon cooking ware is not a must in the kitchen.  Stainless steel, glassware, and iron pots and pans have with stood the test of time.  They are more expensive than Teflon but at least one can be sure they are safe for preparing food for family and friends.

 

1.            Environmental Working Group. EPA Science Panel Says Teflon Chemical 'Likely' Cause of Cancer.  2006  [cited 2009; Available from: http://www.ewg.org/node/21302.

2.            American Council on Health and Science. Teflon Contains a Cancer-Causing Chemical PFOA. Top Ten Unfolded Health Scares of 2006 # 6  2006  [cited 2010; Available from: http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.1438/pub_detail.asp.

3.            Fei, C., et al., Perfluorinated chemicals and fetal growth: a study within the Danish National Birth Cohort. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2007. 115(11): p. 1677.

4.            Steenland, K., et al., Predictors of PFOA levels in a community surrounding a chemical plant. 2009.

 

What is Clean Eating

When grocery shopping, the perimeter of the store is my comfort zone. I go down only a few isles: the frozen section for frozen veggies and ice cream (yes I do eat ice cream), the pasta isle, and the Mediterranean isle. But as I talk to more people and they learn I am a nutritionist, people have been asking me about numerous different products. So I decided to take a journey down the treacherous isles of the super market.

No goal in mind, I wondered around with my cart picking up different products and reading the ingredient; most of them looking like the chemical gibberish from my chemistry books. I kept asking myself why people intentionally ingest chemistry experiments. I am not alone with this thought. Many health conscious individuals share the same feeling. They do not want to eat chemicals, preservatives, food coloring and numerous other things added by manufacturers to the foods.

Clean eating is eating food that does not contain foreign substances. Ingredients for the products would be recognizable food names like olive oil, whole wheat flour, sugar and other whole foods. Food is prepared using only food grown by nature; this includes red meats, chicken, fish, shrimp and many other unprocessed meats.  Baloney, pepperoni and fish sticks are not on the menu at clean eating households. People eat foods with no artificial anything. This entails cooking from scratch sometimes but that does not mean it has to be a lengthy practice. You can find numerous clean eating recipes on the Healthy Plate 5 blog that take about 30 minutes to prepare.

 

Processed foods contain high quantities of hidden sugar, salt, high fructose sugar, saturated fats and other unhealthy substances.  Clean eating limits the amount of these unhealthy ingredients because you know what is in your food and you know how much of it you put in your meals. This aids in weight loss, diabetes, hypertension, renal disease, gluten free diets and numerous food intolerances people suffer from because the cook controls exactly what and how much goes into the meal.

Just like most other diet choices, clean eating does not have to be an all-or-nothing regime.  You can try to eat clean as much as possible but when you are traveling, sick, busy or just do not feel like cooking there are other options.  Making the change to eliminate as many chemicals possible is a healthy step that can benefit both you and your family.

 

Basil

Greek cuisine is known for being one of the healthiest, especially since hundreds of studies have been published about the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet [1].  One of the unique traits of the Mediterranean Diet is it’s richness in fresh herbs such as basil.  This amazing herb has been shown to be a potent antioxidant and an anti-carcinogen as it detoxifies mutations in the cell [2].  Basil also has antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antiviral properties [3].  That is not all; basil is also an anti-inflammatory and immunostimulating herb [3], which help induce cardiovascular health and rid the body of sickness respectively.  

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/healthy-basil

 

In order to harness all these health promoting properties, it is best to consume the basil leaves as soon as possible.  An easy, cheap way to do this is to grow your own basil plant. It can be grown in a pot in a sunny window or in the back yard.  You can grow it from seed or buy a potted plant at a local famer’s market.  Basil is easy to maintain and grows like a weed.  Just water it every day and make sure it gets adequate sun light.  Then when you need some fresh, fragrant basil just snip some off, chop it up and add it to the dish.

 

1.            Sofi, F., et al., Adherence to Mediterranean diet and health status: meta-analysis. British Medical Journal, 2008. 337(sep11 2): p. a1344.

2.            Tapsell, L., et al., Health benefits of herbs and spices: the past, the present, the future. Medical Journal of Australia, 2006. 185(4): p. S4-S24.

3.            Lee, J. and C.F. Scagel, Chicoric acid found in basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) leaves. Food Chemistry, 2009. 115(2): p. 650-656.