Recipe Wednesday - Lizzie Symon's Granola

Chef Michael Symon raves about his wife, Lizzie's, granola, and apparently he got a lot of requests for the recipe, so he posted it recently on The Chew's facebook page. I've always liked granola, especially on yogurt, but I've never really loved granola. Typically, granola's very fattening and heavy-handed in the calorie area, so I've avoided eating much of it. Lizzie's recipe does contain a bit of fat, in the form of nuts and olive oil, but it's all very heart-healthy fats, and since breakfast should be a hearty combination of all of the macronutrients (fat, protein and carbs) this recipe is a great way to start your day! Just don't overdo it. It's very filling, so a cup of granola with a little skim milk is surprisingly satisfying. Plus, the flavor is awesome. It's the perfect mix of sweet and salty. I'll give you fair warning though - it's extremely addicting!

Lizzie Symon's Homemade Granola

Ingredients:
4 cups rolled oats
2 cups unsweetened coconut
2 cups almonds
1 cup cashews
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp kosher salt

Toss together to coat and bake on sheetray at 350 for 30 minutes or until golden. Let cool completely in pan. Add 2 cups of dates and dried cherries & serve or store in airtight container and add dried fruit to order.

NEW - Just announced today, (05/22/12) you can pre-order Michael's new book, "Carnivore" for almost 1/2 off! 

Don't forget to check out my entertaining new ebook, "What Does That Even Mean?!: A Navigational Guide to Understanding the Health Hype" - available at the Kindle Market for just $3.99! 

Purchase it HERE 

The Joy of Shopping

Ok, time for a personal confession. I've always hated shopping for clothes. Take all of the angst we women all feel during that dreaded time of year when we have to go swimsuit shopping, and just imagine feeling it every time you go shopping for clothes in general. Like a lot of people, I held on to clothes for years longer than I should have, just because I didn't want to have to suffer through the depression of buying new ones. Since high school, every time I entered a store, I wondered if anything was going to fit. Then, I just started shopping at stores that offered bigger sizes (but were definitely lower quality) just to avoid the embarassing moment when I found out that they did not. And I wore clothes that were too small, just because I didn't want to go stores like Lane Bryant and have to admit my real size to myself. I never even tried clothes on until I got home, because I'd go to a dressing room, I'd imagine that some security officer was watching their camera and throwing up in their mouth a little. I didn't want to be responsible for the retinal scarring of any innocent store employees.

Up until today, I was still wearing oversized clothes and workout gear because I was afraid that if I went shopping, I'd discover that I still couldn't shop at the stores I wanted to. But, I'd been feeling kind of down on myself lately, feeling kind of frumpy and ugly, so I decided to brave it. I needed a pick-me-up and the mall usually does it. So, I did, and I have an announcement to make. I can officially shop in any store I want! Even my boobs, which I was convinced would never fit into normal shirts, have gotten small enough to wear a Large. It's a glorious day! I even bought my first pair of skinny jeans. They're cropped, but I have freaky short legs, so they sit just above high-water length, and I have to roll them up a little extra.

Today feels good. I'm glad I made my shopping trip. It was just the morale boost that I needed. I'm back to feeling like my usual pretty, confident self. Thanks for that, new clothes! :)

The Paleolithic Diet

I'll take a break from vitamin month, because I've had a special request for a blog entry. My husband has started a diet that he's wanted to do for ages, but never bitten the bullet, the Paleolithic Diet (AKA Paleo Diet, Hunter-gatherer Diet or Caveman Diet). He asked me to do a little write-up on it. The basic premise is that your diet should consist of the same foods that the cavemen ate, fruits, vegetables, nuts, meat and eggs. You don't eat anything that was introduced during the neolithic age, like grains, dairy, salt or legumes, or the industrial era, which added things like oils and processed sugars to our diets. The main arguement for the paleo diet is that our bodies have not evolved to process anything other than completely natural foods, and that all of the diseases we experience come from the changes in our diets. By eliminating these changes, we eliminate the negative effects. Of course, as some experts point out, cavemen lived to be... what, like 30? Hardcore paleo dieters think that cooking your food is a cop-out, and that the body isn't designed to eat food cooked. They believe that all foods should be consumed raw, which is typically called "raw dieting" and I call "disgusting." People opposed to the paleo-style of dieting say that it's impossible to know for sure what the paleolithic man actually ate, and the best means that we have to determine that is by watching chimpanzees in the wild. While the paleo diet encourages eating plenty of meat, chimps only eat meat (and vegetables) when they are readily available, as our cavemen ancestors would have. Their normal diet would have actually consisted of about 95% fruit.

Nate isn't doing the diet to eliminate disease, since I'm almost certain he doesn't have any, but to lose some unwanted "getting older and lazier" fat. Plus, I think he likes the idea of being a caveman. The diet he's following is kind of a mix between the paleo diet and a diet designed more for fat loss, the Green-Faces Diet. The green-faces diet allows you to eat as much as you want as long as you follow a few simple rules. If it's green, you can eat. If it has a face, or theoretically would have had a face, like eggs, (I say theoretically, because as much as some people seem to think otherwise, eggs from the store are unfertilized. A chicken could sit on one until his butt went numb, and that egg will never be a baby chicken.), you can eat it. If it's not green and didn't have a face, you can't have it. Since green vegetables are low in calories and high in fiber, you can consume as much as you want with relatively low calorie consumption, and although certain meats are high in fat and calories, the protein payoff is worth it for someone who is physically active, and you'll end up losing fat, while building muscle, which is his ultimate goal. Advocates of this style of dieting say that 70% of the calories we consume come from forbidden items dairy, cereals, processed oil and processed sugars. The green-faces diet is used not only for shedding pudge, but many use it as an "elimination diet." By removing all common food allergies, things like gluten, dairy or peanuts, from your diet, you assess how you feel and determine if you have any allergies. You may not even realize that you have a food allergy until you eliminate it and then notice that you feel better. When the diet's over, you can reintroduce foods, one-at-a-time to find out what you were allergic to.

My husband's diet consist of fruits, veggies, nuts, meat and eggs, and he eats as much as he wants, which, if you know Nate, the dude can pack it away. He can only drink water and he can't have anything alcoholic, dairy-based, high carb-y or starchy. If you ask me, he's giving it a pretty weak effort, since he had me make meatballs yesterday (with breadcrumbs) and I'm pretty sure the cavemen didn't have ketchup. I mean, if you're going to do a "diet", you should man-up and go balls to the wall, right? At least that's my opinion. ;)

One last thing, if it sounds like I'm taking a firm anti-caveman diet stance, I am. Most of it sounds fine, but I object to any diet that calls for the voluntary elimination of carbs. If you tell me you don't eat carbs, you might as well just be telling me that your favorite pasttime is kicking puppies. That's how much it breaks my heart. But, best of luck to Nate on his diet, and I'll let everyone know how it works out for him!

Recipe Wednesday - Chicken Paillard

The other day I was flipping through my cookbooks, looking for something new to make, and I came across a recipe for chicken paillard in Tyler Florence's "Family Meal". I like it because it's very simple to make, is absolutely delicious and if you throw some gravy or marinera and cheese on it, you've got chicken fried chicken or chicken parm.

Now you're probably thinking, "I thought these recipes were supposed to be healthy. Fried chicken's not healthy!" You're right, but when you're craving fried chicken, baked just doesn't do it, and fried chicken can be healthier. Frankly, as long you eat right normally, you can enjoy a little fried food without throwing everything off. The good thing about paillard, is that you pound the meat thin before you pan-fry it, so it cooks faster and spends less time in the oil. And the lemon juice on top adds a ton of flavor, without any fat. My husband prefers it with marinera, so I just heat up a little sauce for him and pour it on his before I serve it. He says, and I quote, "This is the best chicken parmesan I've ever had. I feel like I could eat this every day." He likes it because it doesn't come out greasy and he doesn't feel like he's just eaten a heavy fatty meal. If I serve it with salad, he feels like he ate so healthy that he makes himself a batch of cinnamon rolls for dessert. (He's not the healthiest guy.)

Chicken Paillard

4 3oz boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded to an even 1/2" thickness

1 c whole wheat flour
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c panko bread crumbs
salt and pepper
vegetable oil
3 lemons, cut into wedges

Note on pounding chicken - if you cut a slit in the underside of the thickest part of the breast, it will help it to flatten when you pound it. To pound out chicken, place each chicken breast between two large sheets of plastic wrap and hit with a meat mallet (or if you're like me and don't own a meat mallet, use a rolling pin... or wine bottle.)

Set up a breading station:

1 bowl with flour. Add enough salt and pepper so that you can see the pepper in the flour and taste the seasonings.

1 bowl with beaten eggs

1 bowl with panko bread crumbs. Again, add enough salt and pepper to see and taste it in the crumbs.

Take each pounded chicken breast and first coat in flour, shaking off the excess, then in egg, and lastly in bread crumbs. Place on a plate. Repeat with remaining breasts. Refrigerate the plate of breaded chicken for ten minutes, so the breading will adhere better when fried.

While chicken is chilling, fill a large skillet with 1 1/2" oil. Heat on med-high until oil pops with a drop of water hits it. Fry each chicken breast, one at a time, in the oil for 2-3 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Remove fried chicken from the oil and place on a paper towel-lined plate. Cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.

Serve with lemon wedges to squeeze over chicken.

Vitamin Month - Vitamin D

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is only found naturally in a few foods, like the flesh of fatty fish, such as catfish, tuna, salmon and mackerel. Small amounts are also found in beef liver, cheese and egg yolks. Most of the Vitamin D we consume comes from products that have been Vitamin D "fortified", like milk, breakfast cereals, yogurt and margarine. Although Vitamin D fortification in milk is not required in the United States, as it is in Canada, most milk is voluntarily fortified with 100 IU per cup, a process which began in the 1930s to combat rickets, a major health risk for children at the time.

Vitamin D can also be gained through sun exposure. When the UV rays from the sun hit the skin, vitamin D is synthesized.

Vitamin D is necessary for proper bone growth. Without it, your bones would become brittle, thin and misshapen. Sufficient intake of vitamin D prevents rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults.

Recommended Daily Intake -
Age 1-70 = 600 IU/day
70+ = 800 IU/day

Vitamin Month - Vitamin C

Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is probably the most preached about vitamin. People take Vitamin C for everything from preventing or beating colds to curing cancer, when in actuality, studies haven't been able to prove that it helps with any of those things. Over 30 clinical trials of more than 10,000 participants have shown that people who take Vitamin C for cold symptoms see little to no improvement. Of course, I still do it. Whenever I get a cold, I immediately down 2 quarts of Dole pineapple-orange-banana juice to try and blast it away. And I always swear that it works, although I'm probably just drunk on juice and forgot about my cold. :)

What they do know is that Vitamin C is necessary to build collagen in your bones, cartilage, muscles and blood vessels, and it aids in the absorption of iron.

Vitamin C deficiency causes the disease, scurvy, which I always thought was a disease that only pirates got. While it's rare nowadays, scurvy was very common hundreds of years ago. Any place that lacked access to fresh fruits and vegetables was susceptible, especially sailors, who would be out to sea for months or years at a time. The first recorded case of scurvy was by the Greek doctor, Hippocrates in 400 BC. Centuries later, people suspected the lack of fresh food to be the cause, however, the first study to determine this wasn't until 1747, by British Royal Navy surgeon, Jonathan Lind. While out at sea, he gave some sailors on the ship two lemons and an orange everyday, in addition to their normal diet and compared them to those who hadn't had the citrus. He noticed a dramatic decrease in scurvy symptoms by those sailors who had consumed the citrus fruits. By 1795, it was common practice for the British Navy to give it's sailors lime juice to prevent the disease.

*Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin

SOURCES: chili peppers, guava, parsley, kiwi, broccoli, brussels sprouts, papaya, strawberries, oranges, lemon, kale, cauliflower, canteloupe, garlic, grapefruit, tangerines, raspberries, spinach, lime, mango, blackberries

The US National Academy of Sciences recommends 60-95 mg/day of Vitamin C

Vitamin Month - Vitamin B Complex

Vitamin B isn't actually a single vitamin, but a collection of 8 different vitamins known as the Vitamin B Complex that coexist and are found in the same sources. Alone, they go by one of two names, either their B name (like B6 or B12) or their unique name:

B1 - thiamine

B2 - riboflavin

B3 - niacin

B5 - pantothenic acid

B6 - pyridoxine

B7 - biotin

B9 - folic acid

B12 - cobalamin

All 8 of the B vitamins are water-soluble, so they break down and are absorbed through water in the body.

B Vitamins are necessary to support and speed up the metabolism, maintain healthy skin and muscle tone, enhance immune and nervous system function, promote cell growth and division and reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer, although only when consumed in food form, not when taken as a vitamin tablet.

B vitamins are also believed to improve the symptoms of ADHD.

B Vitamins are found in whole, unprocessed, foods, and in their highest concentration in meats, especially turkey and tuna. Other good sources are whole grains, banana, lentils, chili peppers, tempeh, beans, molasses and yeast. Since B vitamins are food in brewer's yeast, even beer is a source of B vitamins, however, the ethanol in beer inhibits the absorption of most of the vitamins.

B12 is an important vitamin to note, because it is not found in plant products, so vegans are at risk for B12 deficiency, which can result in a few forms of anemia, memory loss and can even cause symptoms of mania and psychosis. Luckily, most B vitamins are available in injection form or dietary supplements for people at risk of deficiency.

Vitamin B12 is great for extra energy, so you'll find it added to a lot of energy drinks. You can also get B12 shots from a doctor which give you a few weeks worth of added energy. I used to have a friend who go a B12 shot once a month, and I could always tell when she'd just gotten it. She'd come into work looking clammy, hair all crazy and pupils dialated. She looked like a meth addict for a week. Then she'd balance out and just be peppy for a couple more weeks until her next shot. I personally would have just stuck with coffee, but if you need a real pick-me-up, they definitely work.



Vitamin Month - Vitamin A

I thought I'd devote a whole month to talking about different vitamins, so I am hereby dubbing July, VITAMIN MONTH! All month, we'll talk about the different vitamins, what they do and where to find them. Just a little FYI about vitamins, they are absorbed into the body two different ways. Water-soluble vitamins dissolve in water and are absorbed by the body, while fat-soluble vitamins are dissolved in fatty acids before being absorbed. If you take vitamin supplements, make sure you read the directions. If your vitamins say "take with food," they are fat-soluble and must be taken in conjunction with fat to be absorbed. If you take them with only a glass of water or a fat-free food, then they'll be wasted because your body won't absorb them and you won't be reaping any benefits.

Ok, the first vitamin of Vitamin Month will be Vitamin A. (Might as well start at the beginning of the alphabet, right?)

VITAMIN A

* Fat-soluble

* Vitamin A is derived from two sources in food. Retinol, which is essential to the functioning the the retina in the eye. Retinol is important for low-light and color vision. As a matter of fact, long-term Vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness. Carotenes, like beta-carotene, also provide Vitamin A, because separate enzymes in the body convert the carotenes into retinol.

* The recommended daily intake of Vitamin A for adults is 700mg/day for women and 900mg/day for men.

* Vitamin A plays a role in a variety of functions in the body. Besides vision, it's needed for gene transcription, immune function, embryonic development and reproduction, skin and cellular health, bone metabolism and antioxidant activity.

* Vitamin A deficiency is rare in developed nations, however in developing nations, it's quite prevalent, especially among children. Approximately 1/3 of children under the age of 5 in these nations suffer from a Vitamin A deficiency and it's estimated that it's responsible for the deaths of 670,000 children under 5 each year, with another 250,000-500,000 struck with blindness. Vitamin A deficiency is most prevalent in Southeast Asia and Africa.

* Excessive amounts if Vitamin A can lead to toxicity, and can cause nausea, irritability, anorexia, vomiting, blurry vision, muscle and abdominal pain, headaches and hair loss.

Best sources for Vitamin A:

Liver, carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, butter, kale, spinach, pumpkin, cantaloupe, cheddar cheese, eggs, apricots, collard greens, papaya, mango, peas and milk.