Hydration & nutritional morning smoothie

This smoothie recipe is eclectic, but for those who acquire the taste, it's a great way to rehydrate after a morning workout while putting great nutrients into your system, too.

The recipe makes enough smoothie for two servings. You can save a serving in a shaker jar and keep it in the refrigerator for a day to drink later, but consume promptly as there are no preservatives.

Note: If you have sensitivity to any of the spices or ingredients, adapt accordingly.

Ingredients

1/2 diced fresh apple (can include the skin, too)

1 peeled & diced banana

1/2 t peeled & chopped fresh ginger (optional)

1 scoop pea (or other) protein powder

1/4 t bee pollen (optional)

4 pitted prunes (slice to blend easier and to confirm pits aren't present)

1/8 t ground cinnamon

1/8 t ground cardamom

1/8 t ground allspice

1/8 t ground turmeric

1/8 t ground cloves

1/8 t ground black pepper (necessary to activate the turmeric's curcumin)

1 T flax or chia seeds (optional)

Pineapple, pineapple-mango-orange juice, or coconut water

1c crushed ice or ice cubes

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a VitaMix, Ninja, or other high power blender. Add sufficient juice to cover. Top with the ice (adding more ice results in a thicker and colder smoothie). Blend on the "Smoothie" cycle until done; pour and enjoy!

Options

If you want greens add some fresh, de-veined, and chopped kale or a "Super Greens" mix from the store.

Comparing Monk Fruit & Stevia

Interesting article in Medical News Today comparing Monk Fruit and Stevia as table sugar alternatives.

Protein Griddle Cakes

 

I made Protein Cakes this morning. There's a lot of flavors going on, but these babies will stick to your ribs for a while 🙂👍

Dry Ingredients

1 C Whole Wheat or Oat Flour

1 C Kamut™ Flour

1 C General Purpose Flour

3 T Coconut Sugar

1 T Brown Sugar

1 T Ground Flax Seed (optional)

1 scoop Pea Protein powder (optional)

1 t Salt

4 t Bob's Red Mill Baking Powder

Wet Ingredients

2 Eggs

4 T Cooking Oil

3 C Soy Milk or 2% Milk + a little more to adjust consistency as necessary (batter will be thick.)

Instructions

• Mix dry ingredients together.
• Separately beat eggs, add oil, one cup milk, and mix well.
• Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients then mix in the remaining milk.
• Don’t over-mix the batter. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk to adjust.
• Cook on an oiled griddle at medium heat until cooked through and brown on both sides.

Serve with Ginger People™ ginger syrup or Maple syrup.

Strength Training Important Throughout Life

I've known this intuitively for some time. So, it's nice to see it validated by a recent statistical study. Just some routine strength-training exercises done consistently every week will make for an improved and healthier life. See the study summary article.

Easy and Tasty Summer Sandwich

This is my take on my brother's creation - a simple mayo, tomato, and basil / lettuce sandwich!

Ingredients (makes one sandwich)

• Two slices, Purple Cherokee Heirloom tomato
• Some fresh basil leaves
• Some fresh green leaf lettuce (optional)
• Sea or Kosher salt, for sprinkling
• Some mayo
• Two slices, sourdough or a complementary bread (optionally toasted.) Shown below: Homemade sourdough with 60% commercial bread flour, 30% self-milled Kamut® wheat flour.

Instructions

• Lightly spread the mayo on both slices of the bread.
• Place a bed of basil on one of the slices.
• Place a tomato slice on each piece of bread.
• Sprinkle the tomato slices with a dash of salt.

Add the lettuce, if desired, and serve! Goes great with some dry white wine, too.

The finished result (yum!)

All About Mangoes!

I didn't acquire a taste for mangoes until well into my adult years - and only after sampling them more often with Indian cuisine. But I already knew there were special benefits from the mango fruit, which made it worthwhile getting to like. This article by Ocean Robbins, from Food Revolution Network, is a great overview of a fruit to come to know and enjoy!

Best Black Beans Yet

Sometimes ad-hoc recipes are the best. I brought this together without following a recipe and it was yummy! Makes enough to serve two people or for one person with left-overs.

Because the recipe starts with dried beans, it will take two days - hydrate the beans the first day and put the recipe together the second. If you want to speed it up, use canned black beans that are rinsed as a short-cut and reduce the cooking time.

Ingredients

Basics

• 1/2 cup dried organic black beans
• Juice of 1/2 fresh lemon
• 1 Tbs. butter
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth (Pacific Foods brand works well, regular or low-salt)

Veggies

• 1 small carrot, peeled & chopped
• 1 shallot, chopped

Spices

• Six leaves fresh sage, chopped
• One tsp. fresh ginger, chopped
• The leaves from three fresh thyme sprigs
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/8 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/8 tsp ground allspice
• Salt & ground pepper to taste (approx. 1/4 tsp each)

Directions

Using a colander, rinse the dried beans with water. Place the beans in a medium-sized plastic container, cover with two cups water and the juice of 1/2 lemon. Let the beans hydrate over-night.

Next day, in a deep pan with the butter and olive oil over medium heat, sauté the chopped carrot, ginger, and shallot.

Drain the hydrated beans in a colander and rinse with fresh water. Add them to the pan.

Add the veggie broth and bring up the heat until the liquid is simmering (but not to a rolling boil.)

Add the spices, stir, and lightly simmer covered over low heat for 45 min to one hour. Stir the mixture occasionally, and watch that the pan doesn't dry out!

When the time is done, if the mixture is too watery, leave it simmer without the top on until the liquid is reduced to where you prefer. Watch that it doesn't dry out and burn!

That's it! Enjoy as a side dish, as the base for burritos or veggie tacos, or emulsify in a blender and thin with a little veggie broth if necessary to make a black bean soup.

Turmeric rice

I wanted to cook some saffron rice but I didn't have saffron on-hand. So, I decided to "get creative" and try with turmeric instead. What resulted was a simple and tasty rice that you may want to try, too. Here's the recipe (yields enough cooked rice for 2 - 3 healthy servings).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup basmati rice
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t sugar
• 1/4 t turmeric
• 1/4 t ground cloves
• 1 T EVOO

Instructions:

• Wash the basmati rice in warm water and drain. Repeat, until the water is clear.
• Put the basmati rice in a rice-cooker and add two cups water.
• Add the salt, sugar, turmeric and cloves.
• Add the EVOO.
• Cook on the "Quick cook" setting.

After the cooking cycle completes then open, let stand for a few minutes, stir, and serve or save for later. Tasty!

Best organic poultry brands

If you eat poultry, then take a little time to check out Cornucopia.org's scorecard on the brands. While the emphasis is on Organic, there's good information here for everyone to be aware of!

Bob Quinn - Organic Farmer & American Hero - Grain By Grain

Bob Quinn is one of my heroes and he should be one of yours, too! He's an awesome agricultural scientist, organic farmer, and nutritional advocate who's making a major impact on global food production.

Check out his recent book, "Grain by Grain" for his inspiring story and forward-thinking perspectives for U.S. and global organic farming. A totally inspiring discussion; let's DO IT!

What "stuff" is in your toothpaste?

Check out the toothpaste ratings from Cornucopia.org. Although most people probably don't care if their toothpaste is certified Organic or Not, the list still gives good guidance on which brands include questionable ingredients like Triclosan (for example, Colgate does 👎; Crest doesn't 👍) and others.

Natural alternatives to DEET-based insect repellents

When I was up in Alaska in the 1990s, my very survival depended on liberal applications of DEET-based insect repellent, as it was high-season for mosquitoes and they were BIG, plentiful, and constantly present! However, the stuff is quite gnarly to your body and tough on synthetic fibers, too! There are more natural-based alternatives available, per this article from Sierra Club. Check it out and perhaps you will experience effective results without the DEET nastiness and issues!

Neti Pot best practice

Using a neti pot for sinus rinsing has some benefit for people who routinely suffer from allergies or other congestive conditions. However, while rare, there have been fatal infections reported when using even filtered tap water with the neti pot. Therefore, pay attention to the CDC's recommendations and use distilled water - or cooled, boiled water - for proper safety. Most over-the-counter kits advise such precautions as well, so "pay attention".

Comparing Meat & Legumes

Here's an interesting article from SF Gate comparing Meat and Legumes. Basically, legumes are "heart healthy" although some amino acids aren't present in legumes alone, so including other vegetable sources such as nuts and grains are important to make up for it.

The Holy Grail of Sweeteners

Stepping back and taking a look at the big picture, it appears that all sweeteners have upsides and downsides. For some time, like many others, I believed that agave syrup was a healthy, low glycemic alternative to sucrose / white table sugar. However, recent discussions indicate that agave has a bothersome issue, because it substitutes glucose / sucrose with high levels of fructose, which aren't digestible by the body and end up being removed by the liver. Therefore, completely replacing sucrose with agave likely isn't a good dietary strategy. And like the Holy Grail, "The Perfect Sweetener" may be unattainable. So, we have to understand the advantages and disadvantages of any sweeteners we use and maintain an intake level and variety that works best for us. 😉

Carrageenan: An undesirable or benign additive?

Carrageenan is derived from red seaweed and is often used as a gelling, thickening and stabilizing agent in dairy, liquid, and prepared-food products. It's a controversial additive, since nutritional purists claim it causes intestinal inflammation and isn't well-tolerated by the body, while advocates say it's a natural ingredient and of no undue concern. If you're concerned about carrageenan it's best to read the labels on food products and find out which use it. Here's a useful list from Cornucopia Institute for organic-certified products that add or omit carrageenan. The results are often surprising; with some companies appearing on both sides of the list within the same product category!

Great Pasta!

Here's a nice pasta product: Barilla ProteinPLUS® Rotini, with all ingredients that you can understand and pronounce and 12% protein, too! 😊

A veggie meal that lasts!

Some concerns with a veg* diet often are, "I need to feel satisfied and to have a meal that lasts!" or "I can't get as much protein with a vegetarian diet as I can with meat!" Considering I'm 6' 2" and 220 lbs, and I can gain or lose weight as I please, "Wait a minute, Yes you can!" For example, doing some quick research on Wikipedia shows the following protein content for 100g (grams) of the following foods:

• Potato: 2g
• Quinoa: 4g (after cooking)
• Firm Tofu: 10.7g (10.7% protein content)
• Edamame: 10.88g
• Tempeh: 20.29g
• French Lentils: 22g
  

A balanced veg* diet will include food sources that are substantial in protein, beyond small amounts (like the potato, which is included for comparison's sake). And if you include two significant protein sources in a meal, even better! For example, lentils and quinoa, tofu and quinoa, beans and lentils, nuts with chickpeas in a salad, etc. There are many ways to get creative with multiple protein sources plus it will result in a more satisfying and lasting meal, too!

Tofu and Tempeh are both high-protein sources, effectively the equivalent of meat. Tempeh is robust when sauteed in olive oil and simmered with some soy sauce, and a great alternative for folks who aren't keen on tofu.

It isn't necessary to have the same protein source all the time! Mix them up: Beans, lentils, nuts, edamame, tofu, tempeh, etc.

Finally, taking a multi-vitamin supplement is recommended for a veg* or low-dairy diet, to provide sufficient calcium and B vitamins.

Packaged Tempeh from the Grocery Store

Firm Tofu produced in Oakland, CA

Add Pulses to your diet!

The pulses.org website is a great resource to learn more about the many benefits of Pulses and how to include them into your diet easily. Check it out!

Image attribution: pulses.org

Tasty Armenian Tagine

Over the Independence Day holiday, I tried this Armenian Tagine recipe from Timeless Foods. It was really good! See the picture below, shown with a side of Cous Cous 😋