Eat the seasons - July.
(photo from here)
- Adzuki black bean burgers from The Simple Lens
- Double bean burgers with avocado basil cream from How Sweet It Is
- Cilantro-lime hummus with baked tortilla chips from Alaska From Scratch (pictured)
- Raw kale salad with garden vegetables and wild rice from Bev Cooks
- Whole grain, vegan “cosmic cookies” from Food Doodles
- Vegan red white and blue velvet cupcakes from The Sweet Life
Article excerpted from here. Written by Carrie Dennett from the Seattle Times.
Officially, there are three levels of preventive health: primary, secondary and tertiary.
- Primary prevention is when you are healthy and disease-free and want to stay that way. Your blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol are in the normal range, and you cultivate habits that will help keep them there. For example, eating nutritious food, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight.
- Secondary prevention is where screening tests and exams come in. They help you catch problems early when they are generally easier to treat. They may even be treatable with healthy lifestyle changes alone. It’s better to learn you have high blood sugar when it’s still classified as “pre-diabetes.” It’s better to catch a mass of cancer cells when it’s small and has not spread to other parts of your body.
- Tertiary prevention is what happens next if your doctor tells you something you don’t want to hear. You have diabetes. You have hypertension. That chest pain you felt was a heart attack. At this point, you’re trying to treat an established health problem and prevent serious complications.
- Primary - It looks just like a healthy diet. High on the list would be lots of vegetables and fruit. It would feature whole grains instead of refined grains, and healthy fats from nuts, avocados, olives and olive oil. A few servings of fish a week, especially oily fish like salmon, would further bump up the healthy fats. Moderate amounts of lean meat, poultry and low-fat dairy products — or vegetarian alternatives. Moderate alcohol, if you choose to consume it. When we fill our plate with those good foods, we have less room for foods that don’t contribute to good health. A health-promoting diet minimizes heavily processed foods, which are major sources of sodium, sugar, refined grains, unhealthy fats and artificial colors and other chemicals.
- Secondary/Tertiary - The optimal diet would look pretty much the same. Even after a full-blown diagnosis, diet remains important for managing disease and preventing complications. Medication is not a magic bullet; it may treat the immediate problem, but diet and activity will improve your overall health. In other words, statin drugs are not a free pass to eat as many cheeseburgers and fries as you want.
Superwoman Green Smoothie from Healthful Pursuit
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1 cup spinach
- 1 tbsp cacao powder
- 1 tbsp almond butter
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tbsp unpasteurized honey
- 1 tsp spirulina
- 1 cup frozen mixed berries
- 3-6 ice cubes
Potential changes:
- For additional fiber: add 1 tbsp coconut flour
- To make vegan: replace honey with 1 medjool date
- For additional protein: remove the cacao powder and replace with chocolate protein powder
Eat the seasons.
Photo and Recipe from naturallyella.com and userealbutter.com
Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Lärabar
- 2 1/2 cups medjool dates, pitted
- 3/4 cup almonds, toasted
- 3/4 cups hazelnuts, toasted
- 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate, finely chopped (optional)
To toast the almonds and hazelnuts, place them on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F for ten minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a bowl or plate to cool.
Place dates in a food processor and pulse until a gooey semi-paste has formed (you want some bits of fruit, but not huge pieces). Empty the dried fruit into a large mixing bowl. Put the almonds, hazelnuts and cocoa powder in the food processor and pulse to coarse bits. You don’t want to make this a powder. Empty into the mixing bowl with the dried fruit. Knead the dried fruit and nuts together until combined and evenly distributed. Mix in the dark chocolate. Press the mixture into the bottom of an 8-inch or 9-inch square pan to about 1/2-inch thickness. Refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes. Invert the pan’s contents onto a cutting board and slice to desired size. Makes about a dozen 1.5- x 3.5-inch bars with a few odd pieces leftover.
Healthy Recipes for your Memorial Day Celebration
Yoga is not simply a form of exercise; it is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline that aims to bring one to a state of spiritual insight and tranquility. It follows, then, that nutrition is a key part of the yoga philosophy—in order to reach a peak state of both mental and physical health, eating a fulfilling and energy-rich diet is crucial.(Keep in mind that while these guidelines are related to yoga, they also serve as general principles for good nutrition and maximum health and mirror the suggestions of many doctors and nutritionists today.)
Yogis have certain guidelines regarding healthy eating, but it is based around the principle of eating small quantities of very high quality food. Recommended foods to eat for a yoga-friendly diet include:
- Plenty of fresh vegetables (wheatgrass, barleygrass, sweet potatoes, broccoli, etc.)
- Fruit, especially when eaten raw, as this is the form that your body can most easily digest
- Whole grains
- Nuts
Most who practice yoga regularly recommend limiting consumption of the following foods:
- Meat, as it is believed to be toxic to our bodies and lower the vitality of those who eat it
- Refined white sugar
- Processed food
- Alcohol - Yogis believe alcohol consumption defeats the purpose of yoga by lowering the vibrations of their subtle (astral) body
- Added salt
Yogis generally recommend eating slowly to enable proper digestion and extraction of all available nutrients in one’s food. Also emphasized is the importance of eating fresh, raw food whenever possible and eating food that is neither too hot nor too cold.
Visit these InNetwork pages If you are interested in learning more aboutYoga or nutrition. You can also find many healthy recipe ideas on ourPinterest board.
Sources:
Yoga Online. http://yoga.org.nz/nutritional_information/nutrition.htm
