Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. – Theodore N. Vail
Vail’s quote about difficulties, real and imagined, can be considered in light of this month’s topic of snacking. As detailed below, snacking isn’t a weakness of character that you might imagine it to be. Rather than an unconquerable imaginary problem, might it be thought to be a, real, solveable one with a few simple changes of the content and context of the snack?
Snack Attack
Why Snack
We are lead to snack, wisely or otherwise, for various reasons. Busy-ness leads to forgetting to eat, which leads to making hurried choices from a selection of convenient, though low quality food. There is some research from UCSF finding that eating food with sugar & fat appear to calm the body’s hormonal response to stress. Appropriate snacking can act as binge control. Or perhaps your more comfortable with more smaller meals rather than fewer larger ones. The choices you make and the context in which you make them, can either support or undermine your health goals. Supportive snacking includes, you’re being so fascinated with the task at hand that you forget to drink enough water, so you have water with a piece of fruit. Unsupportive might be you’re over stressed, and the only solution is a lot of cheap chocolate from the newsstand. Perhaps addressing the stress in other ways would be a wiser choice, supported by a piece of chocolate.
What to Snack On
Snacking options will vary, but prepare for the inevitable & prep/locate health supportive options. If you’re home, have on hand pre-made/packaged grab-&-go combinations a protein and a carb: any combination of pre-cut fresh and dried fruit & nuts, fresh veggies and dips on hand. When planning these options, think of mini meal combinations that can satisfy you like a regular meal can, just on a smaller scale.
How to Redirect Focus to Healthier Choices
Mindfulness/savoring. If you’re snacking out of boredom, stress or fear, take a few moments in a restful place (even if only in your mind’s eye) to just breath through the stress. Focus all of your attention on only one thing. Take the bite, savor the qualities, chew well, swallow, wash down with water, feeling the different sensations of each gesture.
Healthy substitutions might include:
Salt: popcorn/veggie chips vs. potato chips
Sweet: fruit/dried & otherwise vs. low quality processed sweets
Chocolate: a little good choc vs. a lot of low quality
Fat: avocado and/or olive oil on w/w toast/cracker vs. French fries
For those times that when re-directing your focus isn’t an option, go ahead and have the indulgence. The stress from denying yourself can be more damaging. If you’ve overdone it, take countermeasures, such as drink more water, exercise a little longer than usual and better plan your snacking requirements.
Food Focus: Turning Healthy Snacks into Meals
Assuming we’re talking about healthy snacking as discussed above, consider the myriad snack options that can be turned into a meal. The pureed vegetable dips below are perfect as a dip for vegetables and various types of chips or toast. Also consider that they can be paired with any combination of protein, grain, or soup base to create a quick meal. Consider serving them on toast with a salad for a light lunch or dinner.
Bean Dip
(Don’t be fooled by the generic title, feel free to experiment with different types of onions, beans, and herbs for an infinite number of variations)
1⁄2 a medium onion sliced
1 clove of garlic minced (or to taste)
1⁄4 cup cilantro, chopped
1 1⁄2 cups of cooked beans (ideally homemade from dry beans, a can of beans drained and rinsed can be substituted.)
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
fresh squeezed lemon juice to taste
olive oil as needed
Saute the onions & garlic in a bit of olive oil over medium heat until slightly caramelized (browned). Toss the onion/garlic mixture, cilantro and beans into a food processor to puree. If too thick, dribble olive oil into the processor while going to achieve desired consistency. When that point is reached, move into a bowl to season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.
This can be served as a dip for a snack, on toast for a light lunch/dinner, or added to a soup stock for a quick soup. Can also be heated gently to be served with as a side dish.
Kale Walnut Pesto
1 bunch of fresh kale, trimmed of center stems & washed.
2 cloves garlic, (or to taste) chopped
1⁄2 cup walnuts
1 cup walnut oil (olive oil can be substituted)
1⁄2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
Blanch the kale in boiling water for 7- 9 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water to stop cooking. Toast the walnuts in a dry skillet over medium heat for a few minutes until you can smell the walnuts, 2 or 3 minutes. Put the kale, garlic, and walnuts into a food processor. While processor is going, slowly dribble oil through spout until the desired consistency is reached. Place in bowl and add parmesan cheese, salt, & pepper. As there is a bit of salt in the cheese, you might use less salt than usual.
This can also be served as a dip for a snack, on toast for a light lunch/dinner, or added to a soup stock for a quick soup. Can also be heated gently to be served with as a side dish.
Send This On!
I hope you have found this newsletter to be as informative and inspiring to read as it has been for me to share it with you. Please feel free to forward it to those friends, family and colleagues in your life that you think might also be interested and inspired by it. If you refer someone who signs up, it?s $100 in your pocket or a free exercise session.
Toni Taylor
Holistic Nutritional & Exercise Consultant
212-586-0681
ttatpdt@mac.com
Out of clutter, find simplicity. – Albert Einstein
Apologies for missing the March newsletter and in being late in posting the April edition in early May. Was in the usual pre-production chaos for the dance company’s performance the first weekend of April.
Einstein’s quote is sets us up nicely for this month’s topics of spring cleaning and sloth, or more precisely spring cleaning that allows time and head space for guilt free sloth. After spending a weekend tidying up my apartment after performance production chaos (and before a lovely couple of days in San Juan), I could relax mentally and physically to actually enjoy the spring sunshine coming in the window. Who knew sloth could be a well deserved, delicious sensation rather than the usual guilt inducing exercise. All of this made room for the initial stirrings of future creative projects.
Spring Cleaning and Sloth
After a long dark winter indoors and hibernation like energy levels, spring is the time of year for cleaning of home, palate, fridge, and psyche. Completing the first three (or at least making small steps towards completion), allows you the downtime, (i.e. sloth) required to consider the last one. Something about this time of year suddenly gives us the energy to get these tasks done, or at the very least get them well started. Let the extended daylight hours provide the bit of energy required to get started by doing one more thing to what you’re already doing. If you’re washing dishes, clean out a shelf of the fridge. As you’re putting away the laundry, pack up a drawer’s worth of winter clothes. When grocery shopping, you can stock up on fruits and vegetables to satisfy the seasonal cravings for lighter textures and flavors. Use the tactics that work best for you in getting things done, keeping in mind they might change to suit your mood. Notice if a sense of lightness begins spreading about your being. Some feel like they’ve lost 5 pounds for every bag of old clothes and books they donate to charity. Consider this a version of “lightening the soil” so the seed can grow.
Once progress on all of the above is noticeable, mental space is created so the psychic spring cleaning can begin. The darkness of winter can sometimes bring a darkness of thought and emotion, leaving us with a sense of being stopped or perhaps isolated. These might include making people wrong, thinking everyone around you is an idiot (except you of course), and being excessively risk averse. Let the expansive energy of spring expand your notion of life’s possibilities. Consider that others might be right about some things and that, ultimately it might not be terribly important who’s right or wrong. Rather than be plagued by the idea that everyone else is an idiot, experiment with the idea that they might be just as smart as you in different ways. Also consider that because it’s exhausting being the only smart person in the room, that the fact that others might be right about some things could provide you the “sloth” to just be. Most things we do, or risk doing, won’t result in death or bankruptcy for you or anyone else. So go ahead, paint the bathroom lime rickey green if you want to, dabble in butoh, or cook your rice in red wide. Worst thing that can happen is that you change your mind to bordello red and square dancing, while enjoying your pink rice. All are lovely, harmless ways of taking a risk.
While lounging in sun with a cool spring breeze, see if you have a similar sense of lightness after psychic spring cleaning that you do after giving a bag of clothes to the Goodwill. Being slothful in sun is an interesting contradiction in energy. Sunlight makes you feel energetic, yet being warmed to the bone makes lounging (with plenty of sun screen) such a good idea, while you enjoy the simplicity of spring after cleaning out the complexity of accumulations of stuff and negative energy built up over the winter.
Happy Spring!
Food Focus: String Beans
They’re ubiquitous. When was the last time you gave them any thought as you munch away on them? One of my favorite things about them is that when prepared as they are almost always prepared, steamed or blanched, the gestures of eating string beans can be the same as eating French fries, dipping them in a bit of mayo rather than ketchup. Aside from that, as with all fresh vegetables, greens beans are one of the healthiest and easiest things to eat. Besides being an excellent source of protein, vitamins C and K a whole host of minerals and micronutrients. As they have such a high volume of fiber they are excellent at lowering cholesterol.
They come in a few varieties and colors, all with similar nutritional profiles and for the most part interchangeable with only slight variations in cooking times depending upon size. Look for firm beans with no brown or faded spots. They are generally available year round. If you’re trying to eat locally, seasonally, April through October is their best season in the Northeast. Once cleaned, they can last in the fridge for about a week before preparation. If you’re so inclined they also can very easily canned.
The recipe below is a nice way to take the last of the spring chill out of your apartment with slow
(slothful?) cooking of a very spring like vegetable.
Recipe of the Month: Spicy Slow-Cooked Green Beans
www.foodandwine.com
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Serves: 6
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons Tabil (see note below)
1 tablespoon hot paprika
2 cups packed chopped flat-leaf parsley (1/2 pound)
2 cups packed thinly sliced spinach leaves (4 ounces)
1 1/2 pounds green beans
Salt & pepper to taste
2 cups water
Directions
In a large enameled cast-iron casserole, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, Tabil and paprika and cook over low heat, stirring, until fragrant, about 4 minutes. Add the parsley, spinach, green beans and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring once or twice, until the green beans start to soften, about 15 minutes. Add 1 cup of water, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Add the remaining 1 cup of water, cover and simmer until the beans are very tender, about 20 minutes longer. Season with salt and serve.
MAKE AHEAD The beans can be refrigerated overnight.
NOTE: Tabil is made with onions and garlic dried in the strong Tunisian sun. For a close approximation, toast 3 tablespoons of caraway seeds, 1/2 cup of coriander seeds and 3 seeded dried red chiles in a large skillet over low heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Let cool, then grind the mixture to a powder. Store the tabil in a jar in a cool, dry place for up to 2 weeks.
Send This On!
I hope you have found this newsletter to be as informative and inspiring to read as it has been for me to share it with you. Please feel free to forward it to those friends, family and colleagues in your life that you think might also be interested and inspired by it. If you refer someone who signs up, it’s $100 in your pocket or a free exercise session.
Toni Taylor
Holistic Nutritional and Exercise Consultant
212-586-0681
ttatpdt@mac.com
http://tonitaylorholistichealth.wordpress.com/
