Enjoy A Cookout Without Guilt

Many Americans celebrate July 4th with cookouts and fireworks. Some eagerly anticipate these gatherings, while others may find the typical spread to be fraught with challenges.

Whether a basic or extravagant cookout, there are often healthy food choices to be found. Here are a few recommendations that are consistent with an anti-inflammatory diet. Read more

Eat Healthfully on a Budget

I delight in opportunities to teach about fueling the body and supporting its ability to heal itself. In that setting, I often hear questions about how to buy organic foods and others deemed most healthful when on a budget.

I understand such a question. It can certainly appear that eating healthful foods is costly — but after a bit of evaluating I trust you will realize that eating healthy is absolutely possible on a budget. In fact, once you get the hang of it, it can be quite simple!

I’m going to share some of my tried-and-true tips on how to eat healthy without breaking the bank. Read more

Dump the Vegetable Oil!

For the past four decades, the U.S. government has warned that eating cholesterol-rich foods and saturated fat would promote heart disease. In that time, low-fat and fat-free foods have become more prominent on the grocery shelves. But have these changes made a difference in our overall health?

Dr Christopher Ramsden, of the National Institute of Health, unearthed raw data from Keys’ largest, most rigorous trial of its kind. Analysis of the data clearly showed that lowering cholesterol by consuming vegetable oils instead of saturated fat actually raised the risk of death from cardio vascular events. Read more

Spice Up Your Holidays – and Your Health!

whole-spicesYou may consider this week as the home stretch for the holidays, or are you may just be getting warmed up with Christmas, New Years and then the buildup for Mardi Gras? How are you faring thus far? Remembering to care for yourself?

One way that you can care for yourself is to incorporate spices into your food, or even a cup of tea, to support your body with the benefits they offer. My list of possibilities is pretty long, but let me offer a few options to get you started. Read more

Strategies for a Healthful Holiday

holiday-partyAs you look over this month’s calendar are your weekends filling up with social events which will involve the gathering of friends and family, not to mention a variety of tasty morsels and assorted bubbly or creamy drinks.

Have past holiday seasons left you with extra pounds displayed on your scale, a pesky foggy brain, lagging energy, and a nagging sense of “oops, I’ve done it again”?

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Another Holiday Sugar High?

halloween-candyWhat scares you most about Halloween – images of scary costumes and horror movies, or the effect that the sugar overload will have on the children you know?

When I was a child decades ago, candy was a part of birthday parties and holidays scattered throughout the year, but it wasn’t a daily source of calories as it is for children today. Few children come home from school each day without having eaten some sort of chocolate, lollipop, or sugary substance. It may even have come to them as part of their school lunch in the form of fruit juice or chicken nuggets with ketchup, to name a few options. Read more

Stoke the Fire in Your Gut

stomach-acidIn prior articles, I have outlined the path that our food takes when we eat a bite. Starting with chewing, and then swallowing to send the food down the esophagus into the stomach, where it meets with stomach acid to aid in the next stages of digestion.

We aren’t aware of the intricate process that our food goes through once we swallow a bite. You may have heard the phrase “you are what you eat,” yet I would say that is not a complete statement. Simply eating doesn’t make the food become a part of you. It must be broken down into its constituent components – proteins into amino acids, carbohydrates into starches and glucose, and fats into fatty acids – in order for your body to absorb them. Read more

Edit Your Digestion – Chew!

digestion-chartDoes your day revolve around the meals you eat, or is your schedule so tight that you give food little thought? Whatever your situation, you don’t likely put much thought into what happens as you eat.

That bite you take is just the beginning of digestion. Chewing the bite not only breaks up the food but mixes it with digestive juices. Swallowing sends the food down your esophagus into your stomach where it meets highly acidic stomach acid to continue the process of breaking the food down into constituents that can eventually be absorbed. When liquefied, the food (now called chyme) passes into the small intestine where it is joined by digestive enzymes from the pancreas and bile from the gallbladder. The small intestine is where absorption begins, finishing in the colon before excretion of waste. Read more

Time to Change the Oil!

1415890We’ve lived with messages promoting eating low-fat or fat free foods for decades. Saturated fats seem to have drawn the majority of disparaging remarks, and many doctors continue to echo the theory that they should be avoided, despite many studies disproving the idea.

Would you like to feel free to consume foods containing fat without fear that you will get fat? Read on, and I will share what fat sources are beneficial, what to avoid, and how to ensure that they are able to be used properly for fuel in your body. Read more

Edit For Next Level Benefits

Clean MealIf you have been incorporating the edits that I have shared with you over the recent months, you are eating better and should be reaping the benefits. Are you satisfied where you are, or would you like more?

Let’s explore additional ways you can take the nutrition of your meals to the next level. Doing so will involve adjustments related to choosing, cooking and serving.

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