September Newsletter from Your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Greetings to everyone. Hope you had a great summer. I had a very restful, reflective time away from writing. In pursuit of my annual new skill (useful or otherwise) I began studying website design and writing and am eager to get back to publishing the monthly newsletter. As those skills improve, we can all look forward to a better looking publication.

Work.  Love It. Hate It. Tolerate It.  Be inspired by it?

Of the four pillars of holistic health maintenance (diet/nutrition/exercise, spiritual life, and quality of relationships), work tends to get short shrift.  Work is often viewed as a necessary evil to be approached with any combination of wariness, resignation, numbness, and even dread.  Dr. King’s quote above might be seem a bit overblown, but does provide a way to think about how we approach what we do for a living, wherever we fit on the org chart.  A job well done can create an interesting feedback loop.  You do an outstanding job on a seemingly trivial task for someone else, they gratefully thank you, you feel good, repeat.  A bit of Googling on “how to love your job” results in a much advice on how to love the job you have while you look for/create the job you love, much of which might not seem applicable to your own situation.  However, many of those articles have suggestions that could be useful to you and your situation.

If you’re lucky enough to genuinely love your job, doing something you love, many congratulations.  Maybe you have an intellectually interesting job that pays you well but is still unsatisfying.  Perhaps you are working in a job for which you feel over qualified, under appreciated, or stifled in some way.  Or maybe your convinced your co-workers and management woke up today with the specific goal of making your life miserable.  While bits and pieces of all of the above might be true on any given day, the one thing you do have control of is your response to all of the above.

In addition to the good feelings we get from a job well done, as indicated in Dr. King’s quote, here are a few suggestions on how to change the relationship you have with your job.  

 

1. One of the pillars of health maintenance is high quality, supportive relationships.  Rather than focus on the silliness inherent in most jobs, perhaps we can focus on improving the quality of your relationships with some of your co-workers, clients, and management, especially the ones that didn’t wake up to make your life miserable.  Seek out those co-workers who share and complement your professional and personal interests.  Sharing the trials and triumphs with friends can make a less than perfect job tolerable while creating great friends.
2. In Buddhism and some types of yoga, there is a greeting, Namaste, defined by Mahatma Gandi as “I honor the place within you where the entire Universe resides, I honor the place within you of love, of light, of truth, of peace; I honor the place within you, where, when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.”  This greeting applies equally to your best work buddy as well as the cranky boss.  Might this notion also be applied to your job or company?  Your company and boss might very well be trying to do good in society, but happen to be grumbly when demanding you do a menial task.  While this notion is not to let the grumbly one off the hook, it gently thickens your skin a bit to not take the grumbles personally and perhaps even, by example, improve the grumbly behavior of others.  It will also keep you in a better frame of mind to change your situation, if that is indeed what needs to happen.
3. Are you working a stress inducing because the money is too good to pass up?  We can all agree that a certain level of income is necessary for the basic necessities of food, shelter, and clothing and that higher levels of income provide more opportunity for leisure and fulfillment.  In addition to your tax returns, there are other measures of wealth available to any of us at any income level.  As already mentioned the quality of your relationships provides a large measure of wealth.  Do you have adequate time and headspace for outside interests (i.e. fun skills, useful or otherwise)?  Time for your family?  Sure, you might be able to make more money doing something else, but time developing aspects of your life measured by something other than income can create a greater sense of wealth.  If you’re lucky enough to have a high paying job, make sure to develop interests and relationships with those that have no interest in your productivity and only interested if you are happy and how they can help.

Food Focus: Grain salads

Grain salads are one of my favorite ways to eat.  It’s easy and quick to make a lot for a crowd in for dinner or a week’s worth of eating for yourself.  There are also infinite variations of grain, veggies, protein, and a bit of dressing.  They can be served cold or room temperature over a bed of hot or cold greens, tossed in soup stock for a quick meal, tossed in a sauté pan with an egg, or made into croquettes with the addition of an egg and a little flour.

Almost any grain will work.  Cook as necessary, rinse and dress while still warm.  It’s important to think about the textures of the veggies.  It’s also time to practice chopping as everything wants to be sort of the same size.  Here are one of my favorites, inspired by a salad bar find somewhere in Connecticut.

Wheatberry, Dried Cranberry, and Walnut Salad

Ingredients
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
3/4 c. olive oil
handful of chopped parsley
touch of mustard to taste
1 cup cooked, wheatberries (1 part dried wheatberries to 3 parts boiling water for an hour.  Berries can be soaked overnight to reduce cooking time a bit)
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2 bunch of cooked, chopped kale
1/2 c. toasted chopped walnuts
1/2 c. minced Bermuda onions
1/2 c. minced celery
1/2 c. shredded carrot

Directions

 

1. Combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl to stir or in a jar to shake up.  If the wheatberries are hot, dress them first with a quarter of the dressing so they soak up the dressing, while your chopping the rest of the ingredients.  If not add them with everything else in step 2.
2. Combine the rest of the ingredients as well as anything else you find interesting, perhaps a hearty chopped protein, smoked tofu, cooked chicken, or pork. Combine everything, add dressing, and toss.  If time allows, let the salad sit out for awhile for flavors to come together.

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.

Happy June from Your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. – Michael Pollan

Actually, this month’s quote is from one of Michael Pollan’s readers, in response to a request for haikus on how to eat. In addition to how to eat, it can also be read as a suggestion to keep things simple, especially in the heat of the summer. Now is the time for high quality, simply prepared food, as well as high quality easy relationships with friends, family, & colleagues.

What Food Path Are You Taking?

I just finished Michael Pollan’s Ominvore’s Dilemma, based on preparing or purchasing 4 different meals based on 4 different food path, i.e. supply chain, a fancy term for how all of the stuff associated with any particular meal arrives at the same time on your plate. An industrial, corn and petroleum based, highly subsidized resulting in a McDonald’s meal. A dinner based on organic grocery store, discovered to be highly petroleum dependent. Locally grown, grass based, closed loop farming, which doesn’t bill itself as organic, but meets several of the criteria. And hunted and gathered.

While he is neutral on the idea of vegetarian vs. meat eating, noting that most people can live on almost anything, assuming it’s a whole food in the proper quantities, he comes down heavily against the industrialized food chain. The advent of which corresponds directly with the appearance of many food based illnesses of the west. He basically advocates eating as close to the source as possible with few intermediaries or additives. Some of the more interesting ideas to come from the book is that the closer you get to the source of your food, the entire life/death/waste cycle becomes apparent, putting doubt behind the intellectual underpinnings of die hard vegans everywhere. Small animals are killed during the harvesting of the organic vegetables hard core vegan and raw food advocates eat. The ecosystem management of closed loop grass farming is dependent upon everything anything produces in the form of waste is turned into some type of energy unit, otherwise known as a calorie. Locally grown closed loop grass farming is dependent upon the right amount of naturally occurring grass acreage managed for just the right numbers of grazing cattle, pigs, and chicken, providing the right amount of natural fertilizer (yes, that type of fertilizer) for the right number of acres of vegetable produce. The trick is keeping everything balanced by incredibly smart farmers.

Each food path has it’s own unique good/bad ideas as well as those that are more doable than others. The secret is not to stress over perfection, and realizing you can only do your best to take advantage of the best solution at the time, looking for opportunities in being adventurous. If that means McDonalds is your only option, enjoy it with a clear conscience, noting the extra time in the gym and extra water to alleviate the possible effect. If that mean’s highly processed, prepackaged stuff from the grocery store (regular or organic), add fresh veggies from the salad bar and enjoy that. When and where you can, choose seasonal locally grown from the farmer’s market. I’ve only had limited offerings of hunted or gathered food as a kid (easier to do in early childhood in rural Missouri) but I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to do a little of both and respectfully feast on the results.

Food Focus: Uncooked Soups

In the heat of summer and in the spirit of keeping things simple by eating food, not too much, mostly plants, there’s nothing quite like uncooked soups (veggie & fruit) of any kind. All that is needed is raw vegetables, usually some type of liquid. Avocado, cucumber, and tomatoes show up in a lot of uncooked soups. They also often have another liquid in the form of some type of broth, yougurt, sour cream, fruit and/or vegetable juices. They can almost be considered a variation of a smoothy to be used as a soup and perhaps a sauce.

This month’s recipe is a pungent, uncooked soup, which can be served with a cold protein, deviled eggs, poached chicken or fish. While it might seem like a long list of ingredients, tiny amounts of more robust seasoning adds a lot of flavor. Of course modifications in amounts of the shallot, jalapeño, and ginger can be made to spice things up even more or cool things off.

Recipe of the Month: Raw Cream of Spinach Soup

www.Epicurious.com (with modifications)
2 cups fresh tomato and/or carrot juice (juiced from about 1 lb vegetables or from your local juice stand)
2 cups of plain yogurt or sour cream (optional)
1 bunch chopped spinach leaves
2 tablespoons chopped escarole leaves (optional)
1 medium California avocado, pitted and peeled
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup packed fresh cilantro
1/4 cup Nama Shoyu* (unpasteurized soy sauce) or 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt (preferably Celtic)
1/4 cup finely chopped shallot
2 tablespoons chopped scallion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon minced fresh jalapeño, including seeds
1 teaspoon minced peeled fresh ginger

Garnish: 1 small portabella mushroom cap, halved and thinly sliced

Purée vegetable juice, spinach, and escarole (if using) in a blender until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and pulse to combine, leaving some texture.

Feel free to add or delete things to taste.

Chill soup, covered, until cold, about 1 hour.

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

May 2008 From Your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

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

April Newsletter from your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

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/

 

 

February 2008 Newsletter from your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. – Henry David Thoreau

So, what (or who) is your drummer? We’re all very good at being responsive to the needs and interests of others, but how are we at responding to our own? Maybe you can suffer with good humor the country music karaoke scene with your niece, knowing that you have tickets to the philharmonic the next night, where your soul will be rebalanced. Rather than going on the big flashy vacation so you can have stories to tell upon your return, maybe you stay home for the week to focus on your painting, thus nourishing your soul to take bigger creative risks. While you can enjoy time with your niece and the flashy vacation, listen closely for your personal drummer to ensure that you are truly nourished on all levels.

Soul Food

While it’s been a relatively mild winter so far, February still feels like a long awkward month. The good thing about it is that the days are a bit longer, though not long enough to fend off the gray introverted feeling of “will it ever end?”. In other words, a perfect time for soul food. As our diet improves, your definition of soul food will vary with the season & your frame of mind. At this time of year, soups & stews are the thing, creamy is the favored texture. In the spring & summer, lighter, fresher, crunchy is the thing.

Soul food, aka comfort food, is unique to each of us and our upbringing. It fends off the chill of winter, reconnects us with our heritage and childhood. It just makes us feel better, usually in the short term. It also tends to be high fat and heavy on the carbs. It can also lead to feelings of lethargy, especially if you wanted to take that Saturday afternoon nap anyway. Comfort food is usually an indulgence. Be it mashed potatos and gravy, beans and rice, meatloaf or fried plantains. Assuming your exercising sufficiently, and mostly eating healthy, go ahead and savor the preparation and partaking of whatever your personal soul food. Notice how it feels to prepare it and the memories invoked. My grandmother taught me to bake break and to this day, I’ll cut off a heal fresh out of the oven, drown it in butter and salute my grandmother who started the tradition. Also notice how you feel afterwards, comfortably sluggish, restful, perhaps uncomfortable if you over did it. Notice and fully experience the whole process, whatever it is. If you’ve overdone it, get back on your plan the next day, confident that you’re taking care of your primary food* needs sufficiently that you can get back on track easily without feeling deprived.

* Primary food are those aspects of wellbeing that don’t include food, satisfying relationships, healthy spiritual life, and enjoying your work. More later on that in the upcoming months.

Food Focus: Protein in Whole Grains, specifically Quinoa

Whole grains (with as little processing as possible) are a great source of protein as are legumes & soy. All of these served in combination with a broad range of vegetables provide all of the amino acids for complete protein, easily accessible to your body. While the range of grains is truly staggering, this month’s focus in on quinoa, a Peruvian seed related to spinach. Of the grains, it has one of the only complete proteins, cooks relatively quickly, and mixes very well with other things and is full of all of the minerals and phytochemicals needed for easy digestion. It has a slightly nutty flavor and crunchy texture. Being gluten free, quinoa is a perfect alternative for those with celiac disease (you don’t tolerate wheat). It can be found in health food stores and online.

It’s an easy grain to work with. There are some that think it needs to be rinsed 3 times before use to clean away naturally occurring residue. With modern processing, there are those who dispense with this step to no effect. It cooks in about 15 minutes, though you can soak it to speed that up a bit. Quinoa works well in most everything, soups, salads, stuffings, sweet & savory puddings, and some baked goods.

Risotto, usually made with Arborio rice is a favorite comfort food with its creamy texture made up of the starch from the rice interacting with the liquid stirred in slowly. Quinoa reacts in a similar way (as does barley). Any variation of risotto can be added to the comfort food category while still fitting easily into your regular health maintenance routine.

Recipe of the Month: Quinoa Risotto with Arugula and Parmesan
http://www.healthyworld.com

2 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped (any kind will do and will change the flavor slightly)
2 garlic clove, minced
2 cup quinoa, well rinsed and dried by toasting in skillet a few minutes before cooking.
5 cups of any combination of vegetable or chicken stock and white wine (drinkable, not the “cooking” wine).
4 cups chopped, stemmed arugula (or any other tender bitter green, i.e. dandelion, endive, chard, spinach)
2 small carrot, peeled and finely shredded
1 cup thinly sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms (or your favorite mushroom)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or to taste)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and quinoa and cook for about 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Don’t let the garlic brown.

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the quinoa is almost tender to the bite but slightly hard in the center, about 12 minutes. The mixture will be brothy. Stir in the arugula, carrot and mushrooms and simmer until the quinoa grains have turned from white to translucent, about 2 minutes longer.

Stir in the cheese and season with the salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

The technique of risotto (with quinoa or Arborio) lends itself to experimentation. Play around with adding pine nuts, a mix of greens and/or mushrooms. If adding meat stick w/ Arborio risotto, as quinoa is a bit delicate and overpowered by animal proteins.

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@hotmail.com
http://www.integrativenutrition.com/graduates/ttaylor.aspx

January 2008 Newsletter from your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

To insure good health: Eat Lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life. – William Louden

With apologies for being late w/ the January newsletter . . . . . .

What with the post holiday, winter time sluggishness, this month’s quote is a good reminder of how to get back on track after the holidays, especially the cultivate cheerfulness part. At times there’s an argument for faking it until you make it. Assuming nothing of any importance is wrong, faking a bit of cheerfulness (especially in the midst of a grey winter afternoon) some how changes the chemical relationship of the body with itself that you might find yourself genuinely feeling cheerful and interested in life.

Getting back on track after the holiday season ? The pros and cons of fasting and cleansing diets.

After the diet excesses of the holidays, there might be some thought of some type of cleansing diet or fast. Cleansing & fasting are related though different exercises both needing to be approached with much thought. As there is much detailed information available on both topics, I’ll focus on the high level designations of both.

For centuries, most religious practices have included fasting to various degrees as a spiritual practice. These can vary 24 hour water fasts to 3 week water and juice fasts. Generally speaking a 24-48 hour water fast can be approached with a sense of adventure, of course assuming your overall health is good. As anything more than a 48 hour fast should only be conducted with the assistance of a medical professional, I’ll only discuss 24-48 hour fasts. The purpose of fasts is not specifically to lose weight, though that might happen in the short term. Some find that occasional fasts help clear their systems after a bout of illness and nutritional indulgence. Thought and preparation need to go into the pre-fast stage, the fast itself, and the post fast stage. Pre-fast preparation includes a diet of high quality fruit and vegetables with little if any meat consumption. Use this time to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies that can be juiced and to clear your calendar and clean your house, so there will be nothing to induce any sense of stress or the “I should be doing .. . . . .” Fasting is not the time to catch up on your to-do list. It’s a time to indulge in gentle reading, resting, & meditation. This allows your body to focus it’s energies on clearing your system of built up toxins. The 2 – 3 days after a fast should include very simple, basic fruit & vegetables, ideally raw but perhaps steamed, slowly introducing back into your diet protein (animal or otherwise). Some benefits some find with fasting is recalibrating their tastes to simple foods, losing or lessening their taste for sugar, salt, fat, & caffeine. Some allergies might disappear as will some respiratory issues. Others find a spiritual rejuvenation with a short fast. Some practice water fasts, though much of the literatures cautions against it.

Cleansing diets are similar to the pre & post fast diet, high quality, fresh vegetables & fruit for a prescribed amount of time. While cleansing might not have the same level of spiritual satisfaction, it serves a similar purpose as fasting. They should also be approached with a similar sense of caution. Though they can last a bit longer (no more than 2 weeks) augmented with more water than ususal, a similar level of preparation is required. You might not need to completely clear your calendar, but you still need to clear your calendar of anything too stressful and prepare your family and friends for the fact that you will need a bit more down time than usual. Gentle exercise in the form of easy yoga, tai chi, and perhaps strolling can be beneficial.

Most western medical professionals advise against fasting or cleansing for anything except spiritual purposes as their view is that the body is self cleaning and regulating requiring nothing in the way of extra cleansing. Some with specific medical conditions shouldn’t consider it (diabetes, pregnant, any type of eating disorder, etc.) I’m of the opinion that an occasional well planned; well executed; 24-48 hour can have some benefit for a general healthy person. But it isn’t something to take lightly and should only be undertaken if all preparations can be made. Feel free to check in with your doctor before undertaking either a fast or cleansing diet. To re-iterate, if you’re curious about a lengthier fast, only do so under licensed, medical guidance. Fasting is definitely not for everyone, but some might find an occasional gentle fast good for their body and soul.

Easy to Digest Foods
In the spirit of easing your digestive system out of the holiday excesses, this month’s recipe is very simple with simple ingredients. While OK before going into a fast, this recipe would be better on day 3 or 4 after your fast, as the first few days should be a gentle easing into your diet with raw or gently steamed vegetables.

Feel free to leave out any of the spices as need be. This and a serving of steamed vegetables would be a complete meal.

Baked Curried Brown Rice & Lentil Pilaf

recipe is ready in 1-2 hrs Ready in: 1-2 hrs (mostly unattended)
Serves/Makes: 6
1 table spoon butter
1 cup brown basmati or brown jasmine rice
4 1/4 cups water
1 cup brown lentils
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 cinnamon stick
4 slices (1/4-inch-thick) peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons red curry paste
OR
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
4 scallions, sliced

Directions:

Place rack in lower third of oven; preheat to 350°F.

Melt butter over medium-high heat in a large ovenproof Dutch oven; add rice and cook, stirring, until lightly toasted, about 1 1/2 minutes. (If using curry powder, add it now and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 15 seconds.)

Add water. Stir in lentils, garlic cloves, cinnamon stick, ginger, curry paste, if using, and salt; bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the curry paste.

Cover the pot tightly with a lid or foil. Transfer to the oven and bake until the rice and lentils are tender and all the water is absorbed, 50 to 55 minutes.

Fluff with a fork, removing the cinnamon stick and ginger slices. Serve garnished with scallions.

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

December 2007 Newsletter from your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

If you focus on the possible when you experience difficult situations you can positively change your outlook, reduce your stress, and concentrate on achieving things that otherwise may not have been possible. Catherine Pulsifer

Being in the midst of the usual holiday bustle, Pulsifer’s quote encourages us to focus on the doable. For our purposes, doable can be defined as what we can do to create a great holiday season for ourselves and others while maintaining our sanity. Everyone will probably be just fine with fewer, but more thoughtful gifts. Perhaps holiday cards only go to your closest family and friends. Perhaps only 2 sides with dinner rather than 4 will do the trick. Choose your invitations in a way that energizes rather than exhausts you. As each doable task is completed, might the positive energy from a task well completed, provide the energy for doing one more thing, such as sitting quietly being thankful of the abundance of friends, family, and sense of plenty we share?

All the best wishes for happy & healthy holidays to you and your family. I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation about health and wellbeing in the New Year!

Heading off Holiday Stress

Holiday stress is a normal part of the year. While our daily responsibilities remain constant, the extra work (which we’re happy to do) of thinking about and giving the perfect gifts to friends, family, & colleagues can be overwhelming. While Pulsifer’s quote above provides an overarching theme, specific things to alleviate holiday stress could include some combination of the following.

While being a particular challenge at this time of year, stick to you health maintenance routine as much as possible. Being cooler, it’s normal to crave fats and sweets and can be satisfying. But too much of both, leads to feelings of lethargy, followed by abandoning your health maintenance plan, resulting in the downward spiral of eating badly to feel better, to only feel worse, thus generating stress.

Other suggestions include, being realistic with your expectations. If this is your busy time at work, consider practicing the less is more idea. Less stuff of higher quality will likely be just as appreciated. Enjoy your friends, family, and colleagues, recognizing that long brewing relationship issues won’t be solved while opening gifts or over your holiday dinner. Party only enough to energize and reconnect you with others, not to the point of exhaustion. With all of the “doing” make sure to take some time for yourself by actively doing nothing to reconnect with yourself to assure yourself you’re doing things you truly want to do.

Food Focus: Foods to Counteract Effects of Holiday Eating

With all of the heavy eating and imbibing at this time of year, you’ll likely feel the need for a bit of cleansing simple food. Before going to the party, have a simple snack of simply cooked or even raw vegetable. I’m experimenting with keeping my frig & pantry stocked with small servings of vegetable soups, which can be heated up and eaten before going out for the evening to head off the lethargy of overindulgence. Lots of green veggies, are especially good at cleaning out your digestive track of fats inherent to more meat & dairy that tends to be consumed at this time of year. If all you can manage is the pre-cut veggies from the grocery, be grateful for them, and enjoy them in peace knowing they will help you stick to your health game plan.

The best vegetable to clean dietary fat out of your system is daikon radish. This grated daikon salad can help balance all the foods you will be eating this holiday season. Daikon is a deep cleanser that stimulates digestion, especially for rich foods. Parsley, an ingredient in the salad, has high levels of vitamin C along with many other nutrients and also improves digestion.

Recipe of the Month: Grated Daikon Salad
Prep Time: 5 minutes + 20 minutes to chill
Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:
1- 6 inch piece daikon
1/2 bunch washed flat leaf parsley
4 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds
3 tablespoons umboshi plum vinegar (or any kind of vinegar)
1 tablespoon walnut oil (or any kind of unprocessed pure oil)
Directions:

1. Grate daikon and place in a salad bowl.
2. Blend remaining ingredients, serve or allow to chill in fridge for 10-20 minutes.

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

November 2007 Newsletter from Your Favorite Holistic Health Counselor

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” Anne Bradstreet

Hmmm, might you not enjoy spring as much as you do if you didn’t have to go through winter? To get that delicious sensation of being warmed through to your bones, requires getting really cold first. Jumping from the cold shower to the sauna & back into to the cold shower & back into the steam room & back into the cold shower. Doing this often enough while drinking plenty of water will eliminate any stress you might be feeling. It will also leave you so relaxed the only option is a cup of something warm & bed for a truly restful night of sleep.

Moving through Fall & Winter

Bradstreet’s quote could be considered an encouragement to keep ourselves physically active in the colder months. For those of you who spend all year too hot, you’re reveling in the cold weather. The rest of us are thinking the bears might be onto something with the whole hibernation thing. While it is completely normal to want to eat more heavier, warming food & shiver under the covers with a cup of something warm, it makes for an awfully long winter. You might find yourself getting fidgety, impatient along with fearing the winter time weight gain.

With proper preparation, any physical activity that happens during the warmer months, can happen during cooler months. Walking, hiking, jogging are still good ideas in the cold. With the proper clothes, a fairly tropical environment can develop inside your clothes, keeping you nice & toasty. Layers is the key with natural fibers & something to wik away moisture close to the skin with a substantial outer layer to break the wind. Fill in the gaps with hats, scarves, and gloves and make sure boots don’t leak and you have good socks. Now that you’re wrapped up well, get outside. Walking in snow burns more calories than on flat surfaces. You’ll also be exposed to sunlight, needed to generate vitamin D. The best part of getting exercise out in the cold is, as Bradstreet points out, that delicious sensation of getting warm when you come in.

Indulge that luxurious feel of being cold & tired, moving into a cozy warm place with a warm cup of something & feel the stress of the day vanish.

Food Focus – One Pot Meals

It’s normal to want to eat more in this time of year, because eating & digesting generate heat. Getting yourself out and about during this time of year will help fend off boredom based snacking by burning off the extra calories your body craves now. Soups and stews are perfect because they are filling, but not in a high calorie way, and warming. In addition to helping with that cozy transition from cold to warm, the aroma of a pot of soup on the stove is very comforting.

This month’s recipe is good, it makes a lot & can be frozen. Yes it takes awhile to prepare, but it’s the unattended kind of cooking, some of which make your apartment smell particularly soothing. Soaking beans can be done while you sleep. Simmering can be done while you’re puttering around your apartment on a weekend. The smell of simmering vegetables in stock with our without a ham hock is a great aroma to greet you when coming in from a bit of outdoor exercise.

Recipe of the Month: White Bean, Wheat Berry, and Escarole Soup
www.epicurious.com
Prep time: 20 minutes (not including pre-soaking beans)
Cooking time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Serves: 8-10

Ingredients:
1 pound dried baby lima beans or other dried white beans, picked over for stones or anything you don’t like the look of
2 ham hocks (optional)
2/3 cup wheat berries* (substitute brown rice & add with beans rather than ham hock, if using)
8 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
2 medium onions, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled
1 head escarole (about 1 pound), chopped coarse
3 garlic cloves, minced

*available at natural foods stores and some specialty foods shops
Directions:
In a bowl soak beans in water to cover by 2 inches overnight or quick-soak (procedure follows) and drain.

In a heavy kettle (at least 5 quarts) simmer ham hocks and wheat berries in water and broth, covered, 1 hour. Add drained beans and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and skim froth. Add onions, carrots, celery, bay leaf, and rosemary and simmer, covered, until beans are tender, about 1 hour.

Transfer ham hocks with a slotted spoon to a cutting board. Discard fat and bones and chop meat.

In a blender or food processor purée 3 cups soup. Stir purée into soup with chopped meat and escarole and simmer, uncovered, 15 minutes. Stir in garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Soup may be made 4 days ahead (cool uncovered before chilling covered.)

To quick-soak dried beans:
In a large saucepan combine dried beans, picked over and rinsed, with triple, their volume of cold water. Bring the water to a boil and cook beans, uncovered, over moderate heat 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let beans soak 1 hour.

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

Toni Taylor, Holistic Health Counselor

<>Greetings,

Welcome to my blog on holistic health & custom physical training. I’m an certified holistic health counselor focusing on stress reduction and overall health. In addition to health counseling and with over 25 years of experience as a professional dancer and choreographer, I’m uniquely qualified to help you design a custom exercise program that can be integrated into your health maintenance regimen, injury free. I’ll be posting a monthly newsletter & look forward to your comments on the topics under discussion.

October, 2007

<>Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded. – Goethe

Taking care of oneself with Goethe’s “steadfast fidelity” also includes your emotional & spiritual health. We see the world with our eyes and what we see is is interpreted through our spiritual & social prisms. If we’re feeling overwrought or overwhelmed because our spiritual exercise has lapsed, our interpretation of what we see can be dimmed with impatience. If we’ve allowed our good nutritional practices to slip, we might view the world with selfishness. The queasy thing about both of those interpretations is that they can easily spiral into self perpetuating cycles brought about because we’ve neglected our physical, spiritual & emotional wellbeing. Eeeek! See clearly, take care of all aspects of your body and well being.

Deconstructing Cravings

True or false (or perhaps something in between), caving into cravings is a character flaw. I vote for false. For most of us, our bodies tend to crave some combination of sugar, salt, and fat at various times. As our body’s sole purpose is to keep going, cravings could be the signal that you’re depriving it of something it needs. If it needs rest & you miss the signal, you’ll crave caffeine. If it needs sweet, it might not specifically be prompting you for refined white sugar, but perhaps that it needs its blood sugar regulated with regular helpings of fruits and veggies. If you’re dabbling with a high protein, low carbohydrate diet, you will suddenly crave carbs in any form, lots of bagels & waffles, when what might really be needed to head off the craving is a steady supply of unrefined carbs in the form of whole grains and almost all fruit and vegetable sources. Sudden cravings for alcohol might your body’s way of telling you that its stressed. What it won’t tell you is that regular stress reduction activities such as meditation, candle lit baths, being in nature, or whatever works for you done regularly could head off that sudden urge for a drink.

As our body’s sole purpose is to keep going, it also changes from moment to moment. Even if you’re diligent in your health maintenance routines, something will throw you out of balance, creating the possibilities of unhelpful cravings. These can be good things, moving to a bigger apartment or not so good, losing a job. Isn’t it funny how our response to both types of events tend to lead to too much indulgence and cravings.

There are many ways to deal with cravings. First, try to determine what triggers them and see what you can change to head them off. Some things you can address, stress, boredom, or sleep deprivation; others not so much, menstruation and outside environmental changes. Though we can control our response to the last two. The easiest way to head off a craving is to drown in by drinking a lot of water. Distracting yourself with meditation or some other peaceful, but stimulating activity will sometime do the trick. There is also a school of thought that advises to meditate and focus on the feeling of the craving as it arises, how it feels, and it recedes. All are valid, as is maintaining your health maintenance routine to fend them off as best as possible.

All of this said, the occasional indulgence (in moderation) of your craving isn’t bad. Doing so in extreme might be ill advised, but even that won’t do irreparable harm, only if indulging to that degree doesn’t initiate a cycle of bouncing between good & bad health habits. Depending upon the thing you most often crave, it might be helpful to indulge in a little bit of your favorite thing a day, to head off the need to do the whole package/pint at some point in the future. So the upshot is that cravings aren’t a character flaw, but your body’s signaling mechanism. Responding to our cravings from a point of view of being informed of the options and knowing ourselves very well are what will help us weather them well.

Food Focus: Root Vegetables

Carrots, beets, parsnips, burdok root, sweet potatoes, turnips, celery root, yucca; seems every culture has roots in its cuisine. Good thing, because many of them have great nutritional value. Like most veggies, they have high fiber content as well as vitamins A & C as well as many of the B vitamins, beta carotene, potassium, magnesium, copper, and phosphorus can also be found in roots. In addition, root vegetables, especially those deeper in color, contain health-promoting antioxidants known as phytochemicals; examples of which are beta carotene in deep-orange carrots, and anthocyanins in purple potatoes.

Root vegetables are often a good economic value as well, in that they are usually inexpensive & can last a very long time if stored properly. They keep forever in a cool dark place, yes that’s where the term “root cellar” came from, a place to store the fall’s harvest of roots through the winter.

You can do almost anything to almost all root vegetables. They can be boiled, roasted, sautéed, pureed, & grated . Many can have a sweet taste, especially if roasted, that plays well with bitter greens, such as kale, collard greens & cabbage.

In Chinese medicine, root vegetables have warming qualities that prepare us for the upcoming cold weather. If you’re trying to eat seasonally, this is the season for root vegetables..

Recipe of the Month: Steamed Root Vegetables And Cabbage With Dill
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 25-35 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
1/2 of small head of cabbage cut into 1/8 inch shreads
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into fine julienne
1 pound turnips, peeled and cut into fine julienne
1 pound parsnips, peeled and cut into fine julienne
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced fresh dill plus dill sprigs for garnish

Directions:
In a large steamer set over boiling water arrange in order the carrots, the turnips, the parsnips, and the shredded cabbage, steam the vegetables, covered, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are just tender. Transfer to a heated bowl to toss them with the butter, the vinegar, the minced dill, and salt and pepper to taste. Feel free to add things to the steaming liquid, such as chicken stock, white wine, bay leaves. To make for a complete, one pot meal, experiment with adding a protein, perhaps a firm tofu or tender, mild fish, such as scrod, trout, or perhaps scallops. If you don’t have an official steamer, one can be rigged with a combination of a metal colandar or some type of large strainer that fits in your biggest soup pot. Use another pot or cookie sheet for a lid.

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

October, 2007 Holistic Health Newsletter

Hello,

Welcome to my initial blog entry as a holistic health counselor.  I look forward to providing you topics on health, wellbeing, & nutrition.  I also look forward to hearing from you with questions and comments.

<>October, 2007

<>Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded. – Goethe

Taking care of oneself with Goethe’s “steadfast fidelity” also includes your emotional & spiritual health.  We see the world with our eyes and what we see is is interpreted through our spiritual & social prisms.  If we’re feeling overwrought or overwhelmed because our spiritual exercise has lapsed, our interpretation of what we see can be dimmed with impatience.  If we’ve allowed our good nutritional practices to slip, we might view the world with selfishness.  The queasy thing about both of those interpretations is that they can easily spiral into self perpetuating cycles brought about because we’ve neglected our physical, spiritual & emotional wellbeing.  Eeeek!  See clearly, take care of all aspects of your body and well being.

Deconstructing Cravings

True or false (or perhaps something in between), caving into cravings is a character flaw.  I vote for false.   For most of us, our bodies tend to crave some combination of sugar, salt, and fat at various times.  As our body’s sole purpose is to keep going, cravings could be the signal that you’re depriving it of something it needs.  If it needs rest & you miss the signal, you’ll crave caffeine.  If it needs sweet, it might not specifically be prompting you for refined white sugar, but perhaps that it needs its blood sugar regulated with regular helpings of fruits and veggies.  If you’re dabbling with a high protein, low carbohydrate diet, you will suddenly crave carbs in any form, lots of bagels & waffles, when what might really be needed to head off the craving is a steady supply of unrefined carbs in the form of whole grains and almost all fruit and vegetable sources.  Sudden cravings for alcohol might your body’s way of telling you that its stressed.  What it won’t tell you is that regular stress reduction activities such as meditation, candle lit baths, being in nature, or whatever works for you done regularly could head off that sudden urge for a drink.

As our body’s sole purpose is to keep going, it also changes from moment to moment.  Even if you’re diligent in your health maintenance routines, something will throw you out of balance, creating the possibilities of unhelpful cravings.  These can be good things, moving to a bigger apartment or not so good, losing a job.  Isn’t it funny how our response to both types of events tend to lead to too much indulgence and cravings.

There are many ways to deal with cravings.  First, try to determine what triggers them and see what you can change to head them off.  Some things you can address, stress, boredom, or sleep deprivation; others not so much, menstruation and outside environmental changes.  Though we can control our response to the last two.  The easiest way to head off a craving is to drown in by drinking a lot of water.  Distracting yourself with meditation or some other peaceful, but stimulating activity will sometime do the trick.  There is also a school of thought that advises to meditate and focus on the feeling of the craving as it arises, how it feels, and it recedes.  All are valid, as is maintaining your health maintenance routine to fend them off as best as possible.

All of this said, the occasional indulgence (in moderation) of your craving isn’t bad.  Doing so in extreme might be ill advised, but even that won’t do irreparable harm, only if indulging to that degree doesn’t initiate a cycle of bouncing between good & bad health habits.  Depending upon the thing you most often crave, it might be helpful to indulge in a little bit of your favorite thing a day, to head off the need to do the whole package/pint at some point in the future.  So the upshot is that cravings aren’t a character flaw, but your body’s signaling mechanism.  Responding to our cravings from a point of view of being informed of the options and knowing ourselves very well are what will help us weather them well.

Food Focus: Root Vegetables

Carrots, beets, parsnips, burdok root, sweet potatoes, turnips, celery root, yucca;  seems every culture has roots in its cuisine.  Good thing, because many of them have great nutritional value. Like most veggies, they have high fiber content as well as vitamins A & C as well as many of the B vitamins, beta carotene, potassium, magnesium, copper, and phosphorus can also be found in roots. In addition, root vegetables, especially those deeper in color, contain health-promoting antioxidants known as phytochemicals; examples of which are beta carotene in deep-orange carrots, and anthocyanins in purple potatoes.

Root vegetables are often a good economic value as well, in that they are usually inexpensive & can last a very long time if stored properly. They keep forever in a cool dark place, yes that’s where the term “root cellar” came from, a place to store the fall’s harvest of roots through the winter.

You can do almost anything to almost all root vegetables.  They can be boiled, roasted, sautéed, pureed, & grated .  Many can have a sweet taste, especially if roasted, that plays well with bitter greens, such as kale, collard greens & cabbage.

In Chinese medicine, root vegetables have warming qualities that prepare us for the upcoming cold weather.  If you’re trying to eat seasonally, this is the season for root vegetables..

Recipe of the Month: Steamed Root Vegetables And Cabbage With Dill
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 25-35 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
1/2 of  small head of cabbage cut into 1/8 inch shreads
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into fine julienne
1 pound turnips, peeled and cut into fine julienne
1 pound parsnips, peeled and cut into fine julienne
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons minced fresh dill plus dill sprigs for garnish

Directions:
In a large steamer set over boiling water arrange in order the carrots, the turnips, the parsnips, and the shredded cabbage, steam the vegetables, covered, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are just tender.  Transfer to a heated bowl to toss them with the butter, the vinegar, the minced dill, and salt and pepper to taste.  Feel free to add things to the steaming liquid, such as chicken stock, white wine, bay leaves.  To make for a complete, one pot meal, experiment with adding a protein, perhaps a firm tofu or tender, mild fish, such as scrod, trout, or perhaps scallops.  If you don’t have an official steamer, one can be rigged with a combination of a metal colandar or some type of large strainer that fits in your biggest soup pot.  Use another pot or cookie sheet for a lid.

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