Thanksgiving Foodstuffs - Marcella

I spent aalll day cooking yesterday:

Clockwise from top left: Green Bean Casserole, Whole Wheat and Teff Chive Mini-Biscuits, Crustless Pumpkin Pie, Potato-Spinach Crustless Knishes, Roasted Root Vegetables, and Gardein Stuffed Turkey Roasts (which I did not make, of course).

The green bean casserole is an old standby that I make every year in a slow-cooker, and I'll be posting the recipe shortly.

The mini-biscuits were the only real indulgence, as they have a small amount of vegetable shortening (NON hydrogenated)...and they were probably my favorite part of the meal. The teff flour gave them a nice toasty flavor.

The knish-like potato and spinach wedges were a close second, though - my favorite sort of food ever is the savory pastry, from empanadas, to pierogies, to knishes. My concession in this case is the crustless-ness.

Yum!

Finally, the pie. We love pie, and Derek can tell you of a time when I'd bake him a pie at least once a week. In Washington one of the upsides to the constant rainy weather is the insane profusion of produce - we could go outside and pick all the cherries or plums we wanted. And then make pie.

And, as desserts go, pies don't HAVE to be too unhealthy...it's really the crust and excess sugar. I happened to find an awesome CRUSTLESS pumpkin pie recipe here that has the texture of pie, cake, and custard rolled into one.

My only alterations to the recipe were: I used 2 x (1 tsp Baking Powder, 1/2 tsp Baking Soda, 2 Tbsp Flour, 2 Tbsp Water) as egg replacer, 1 1/4 cups soymilk instead of 1 1/2 cups, brown rice flour instead of white rice flour, and, in order to avoid the granulated sugar, a can of Whole Foods organic pumpkin pie mix with evaporated cane juice + 1/4 cup agave nectar instead of the pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.


I'll post a few of the recipes later today...don't forget to vote for Derek, he was 27th out of 200 or so competitors for the BodySpace Spokesmodel competition last time they posted rankings...and he only needs top 20 to be a finalist!!!

A Week of Work Lunches - Marcella

Working a white-collar job involves the constant presence of donuts, cakes, pizza, candy dishes...My colleagues always express sympathy for me and/or wonder at the discipline I must be exercising when I can't partake but the truth is that I consider myself so so lucky that my principles prevent willpower from ever needing to enter into it. That food never registers in my brain as edible. I work out during lunch, and then eat my container of one of the recipes below, plus a salad and am content.

The only difficulty in having a healthy lunch at work could be prep time, so I thought I'd share some ways to prepare easy lunches in advance. Even simpler than the recipes below: you can always buy some cans of various beans and make about 2.5 cups of brown rice or quinoa over the weekend. Then every day, combine 1/2 can of beans and 1/2 cup of rice or quinoa OR a microwaved sweet potato. Have with a side of spinach leaves and grape tomatoes. Pretty easy.

I'm going to post on a few recipes that you can make on the weekend in one big batch that'll last 4-5 days for one person. Just add a side salad and you'll be set. Here's the first:

Black Beans + Quinoa with Pumpkin Seeds and Cilantro
protein-rich and filling

• 1.5 c water
• 1 c quinoa
• 1/2 c raw pumpkin seeds
• 1 c fresh cilantro OR 1 cube frozen (can be found at Trader Joe's)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 3 cans low-sodium black beans
  

In a small pot, combine water and quinoa and bring to a boil. Cover, turn heat down to medium-low, and simmer for 15 minutes then remove from heat.

Dry-toast the pumpkin seeds over high heat til they pop or are a little darker in color - not burnt.

Combine with the garlic, cumin, cilantro and salt in a food processor and process til well minced.

Stir into the quinoa.

Rinse and drain the black beans and combine with the quinoa.

Principles of Nutrition Part 2 - Derek

I hope everyone out there is still voting. Only 10 days to go! Thank you all again for the support!

To continue with Dr. Campbell's Principles of Nutrition as outlined in my most recent certification, I will give a brief overview of his next 2 points. Keep in mind these Principles were explained at length during the course lectures, so what I'm providing here is just a brief explanation.

4.) Genes do not determine disease on their own. Genes function only by being activated or expressed, and nutrition controls which genes, good or bad, are expressed.

I think this is an extremely important point. The modern rise of genetic research for combating chronic disease has been fruitless. Mainstream tabloids would lead one to believe that simply identifying a gene that causes disease, then making a drug to control said gene, will be the end of poor health as we know it. Things just aren't that simple. Each disease is the product of actions by potentially hundreds of genes, and no single gene only has one job. So, expecting a single desirable effect from the chemical control of a single gene is very unrealistic.

Whats worse, the belief that your health is controlled entirely by your genes leaves you in a helpless position. Why bother taking care of yourself if it all comes down to your genes? In actuality, eating a whole plant-based diet goes extremely far in giving you the most beneficial possible gene expressions, putting you back in control, and all without any fancy research or drugs required.

5.) Nutrition can substantially control the adverse effects of noxious chemicals.

Another very important point. Similarly to controlling your genes to your greatest benefit, nutrition also greatly improves your body's ability to handle nasty chemicals that could potentially do a lot of harm. Take Aflatoxin as an example. Aflatoxin is among the most toxic and carcinogenic chemicals ever discovered, and in Dr. Campbell's own lab he was able to keep rats on an aflatoxin-laced diet completely healthy and cancer free just by controlling their nutrition. 0% of the animals on high protein plant-based diet developed cancer, while 100% of animals on a high protein milk protein-based diet developed cancer. Results don't get much clearer than that.

For a human example, studies following heavy smokers who practice a whole plant based diet have shown that they have lung cancer rates almost as low as typical non-smokers!

I will post again soon on the final 3 principles. If you have any questions or input, comment away! And feel encouraged to learn more for yourself by picking up a copy of The China Study or signing up for the plant based nutrition courses!

As an aside, my friend and disciple/poster-boy/victim Jeff Kroll of Crossroads Coffee recently pointed out the article below to me, and I think it goes very well with what I've been discussing, so thanks Jeff! Check it out:

Why Plants are (Usually) Better than Drugs

Protein Bars - Marcella

In most cases, you may as well eat a Mars Bar as eat a commercial protein bar. They have - as we used to say in high school - a metric butt-ton of fat and sugar. Derek and I used to order PureFit bars from Amazon.com as they seemed to have the best stats we could find: 230 calories, 6g fat, 15g sugar, and 18g protein. But for the two of us that's around $85 a month of processed protein bar...it all seemed excessive. So I decided to experiment and see how close I could get to the PureFit bars in stats - knowing of course that these were not going to be on the tastier side. Homemade "protein" bar recipes usually have things like chocolate chips and coconut oil and lots of sugar; my opinion is that if I'm going to make and eat something of that sort it will be in cookie or brownie form and that a protein bar's primary function is to get a large amount of protein into you with a minimum of fuss.




These bars contain around 15g protein, 3.7g fat, 12g sugar, and 189 calories per bar, assuming that you cut one batch into 12 bars and that you use similar ingredients. They are best kept frozen or refrigerated until eaten - due to the large amount of protein powder and the lack of preservatives they can get mushy if left out for a while.




Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp DEFATTED peanut butter (I used Bettern Peanut Butter)
• 1 ripe banana
• 6 Tbsp agave nectar
• 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
• 1/8 cup flax seeds
• 1 1/2 cups oats
• 4 scoops of protein powder (mine has 25g per scoop)

Mash the banana. Add peanut butter, agave, and all the seeds and mix. Next, incorporate protein powder one scoop at a time, mixing thoroughly between scoops as it's rather a lot to get in there. Finally, mix in the oats.

Line a rectangular container or baking dish with plastic wrap...try to eyeball a size that will give you 12 bars that are about 1/2 inch thick or so and of the shape you want. Dump your bar mix in and press it onto the container like so:
Put it in the freezer for a few hours to harden, then upend onto a cutting board - tap the container until the sheet of bar slides out - and peel off the wrap. Cut into pieces, wrapping individually for convenience if you like, and store in the freezer or fridge.

They're not covered in chocolate, but I think they're alright...sort of like healthy peanut butter banana oatmeal cookies. SORT of.

BodySpace Spokesmodel Contest, and Principles of Nutrition - Derek

I have recently entered a competition through bodybuilding.com for a chance to become the BodySpace Spokesmodel of 2011! If I win I will get a chance to be on the cover of Iron Man Magazine and attend the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia contests. A great opportunity, and extra motivation to get well and get back to training. To win I need the most votes on my photos, so check them out Here and vote! You can vote once per day for the month of November so repeats are especially appreciated! (my screen name is Treesize and contestants are listed alphabetically).

I also wanted to go into a little more depth on some highlights from my Plant Based Nutrition certification. Dr. T Colin Campbell outlined his lessons in nutrition with 8 Nutrition Principles. While nutrition is an extremely complex and integrative topic, these 8 principles were designed to answer many fundamental questions about nutrition and to provide a simple guide to healthy eating. I want to cover the first three here:

1. Nutrition represents the combined activities of countless food substances, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

When you consider that each whole food has literally thousands of compounds within it, many of which are unknown and/or unstudied, imagine the possibilities for beneficial synergistic effects when many whole foods are eaten together. I talked about this when I discussed phytochemicals in an older post.

2. Vitamin supplements are not a panacea for good health.

In other words, eating terribly can not be made up for by taking some isolated vitamins. Dr. Campbell describes nutrition as operating as an infinitely complex biochemical system involving thousands of chemicals and thousands of effects. Isolated nutrients cannot substitute for whole foods and may have dangerous side effects. Studies cited in the course described Vitamin A and E supplementations as being associated with an increased incidence of caner - something to think about!

3. There are no nutrients in animal foods that are not better provided by plant foods.

Animals products across the board are rich sources of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol (which is only present in animal foods). Plant foods, on the other hand, are good sources of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants (with the last two only being present in plant foods). Many indicative charts were presented that showed the striking distinctions between these two categories, but plain and simple: Plants have more nutrients and less calories, while animal products offer the exact opposite.

I will follow up with more nutritional principles soon. So, in the meantime make sure you check out my pictures and vote, and eat your Beans & Greens!