T'is the Season

It's that time of year. Everywhere you turn there is a party platter loaded with tempting delights and sugary treats... T'is the season of indulgence and decadence. Unfortunately, it often comes with strained family dynamics, loneliness, expectations and money pressures... and leads us to that all too common side dish: post-indulgence guilt.

Here are two articles I'd like to share with you. They are from slightly different angles but ultimately give the same message - EAT! Enjoy. Nourish yourself. Practice letting go of fears and shoulds and tuning into what you really, truly need. Celebrate! Here's to a supremely nourishing, decadent feast this Holiday season. Have fun, explore and send me a message about what you find out!


Marc David, The Institute for the Psychology of Eating

Every year since my first book came out in 1991, I am approached by at least one magazine to be interviewed on holiday eating. Generally, they're writing an article on how people binge and overeat and go crazy with food during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. "How to stop people from gorging themselves" is the basic theme. What are the tricks to harnessing our willpower, and preventing the horror of weight gain?

Every time an editor at some magazine or newspaper asks me these questions, they're so sincere, so looking for answers, and so dumbfounded as to why America can't seem to get it's collective appetite under control.

Truthfully, I'm absolutely finished answering such questions with "people need to eat more mindfully" or "put down your fork between bites" or "eat lots of fiber rich foods so you'll feel filled up."

Here's what I'd really like to say about holiday eating:

Go for it.

Eat, gorge, imbibe, let loose, express yourself, give in to your food fantasies, and let me know what happens.

The holidays are for celebrating. It's a time to open up. "The Feast" is a theme in life, and virtually every culture with a written record and a long history has its feast times when they celebrate full force with food, with music, with dance, with pleasure . . .
Oddly enough, without times in our year when we can "let go," it actually becomes more difficult for us to be "in control" during day-to-day life. Control and let go are two sides of the same coin, and each needs the other. For many people, once you give yourself the inner permission to feast, something can relax, and it's easier to feast in a "healthy" way.

The more we fear the gorging, the food, the pleasure of it all, the more we live in fear. And fear is perhaps the most unsavory and anti-nutritious ingredient in any meal.

Wishing you a relaxed, nourishing, and pleasure-filled Thanksgiving . . .

Enjoy the holidays,

~ Marc

Mindless Eating or Mindless Not Eating?

Nourishing Connections

Karin Kratina, PhD, RD, LD/N

Amy Tuttle, RD, LCSW

We've all heard about "mindless eating" and how it contributes to weight gain. But we don't often hear about mindless not eating and how it impacts our struggles with emotional eating. And yet for many of us, especially during this hectic time of the year, mindless not eating is one of the major reasons we end up eating past comfortable fullness.

Having too much to do and not enough time to do it, we find ourselves saying "yes" when we wish we had said "no," showing up when we really needed to lie down. As a result, we unintentionally ignore or delay meeting our needs. Though we are exquisitely tuned in and responsive to the needs of others, we become disconnected from the signals from our own body and spirit. We rush out of the house in the morning with no time for breakfast. We skip lunch to run errands. We get home later than usual, hours after our body has tried to tell us it needed fuel. Mindlessly not eating.

Inevitably, when we slow down after mindless not eating, and when we are no longer distracted by others' needs, our body naturally responds to our low blood glucose by letting us know, "Eat! Eat as fast as you can!"

When we combine this natural end result of mindless not eating with the challenges around this time of year that bring on emotional eating-missing loved ones, loneliness, worries about finances, and dysfunctional family dynamics, we increase the likelihood that we will end up eating emotionally.

It's easy to lose our mindfulness during the holidays and to mindlessly not eat. But if we can remember to include our needs on our "to do" list, stopping every couple of hours to eat, to breathe, to receive, to be, we allow ourselves the opportunity not only to avoid an emotional eating episode but also to be more fully present with the people we care about at this time of the year.

Stay Attuned Tip
Treat yourself like a little child. As you head out to each busy day this week, take time to prepare and pack meals and snacks. Stop to rest and feed yourself before you get cranky. Enjoy!

Don't save the good stuff!

I eat dark chocolate just about every day. I love it. Especially the way it melts into a creamy puddle on my mint tea-warmed tongue. Sometimes I eat a square. Sometimes 3 or 4, but rarely more than that. It's not a matter of willpower, but rather tuning in to when I feel satisfied vs. a little bit sick.

I follow a few simple quidelines when it comes to food and one of them is to choose the highest quality I can of the foods I enjoy.

My roommate found this one out the other day. She is young, on a working holiday visa from Germany and definitely a fan of chocolate. I find various wrappers around the house, usually of the sugary, milk chocolate, cornerstore variety (with very little actual chocolate in them). She was on a chocolate hunt the other night but the neighborhood corner store was closed so I handed her the remainder of a bar of Lindt 65% dark chocolate from my stash.

She walked in yesterday with her own bar in hand saying, " Wow - this stuff is amazing! I can only eat 1 or 2 squares, it's SO good! Normally I'd eat a whole chocolate bar but I only want a bit of this!"

So much for willpower and moderation. Here's to the power of pleasure.

Not only did she get more satisfaction from less, that little bit she did eat was packed with magnesium and antioxidants and lacking the additives and strangely processed milk ingredients and sweeteners of the convenience store variety. I appreciate getting some nutritional value along with some nourishing delight. Small acts add up after all.

Overeating - how we compensate naturally

One of the most fabulous things I've learned in my nutrition career so far: When you tune in and eat with awareness your food intake will naturally balance over time. Your body doesn't "forget" the calories you eat.

If you overeat at one meal - don't fret! Your body will naturally compensate at the next meal - you will be less hungry.

Tuning in is the best way to take advantage of this innate mechanism. Eating with awareness to the point when you are 'done' - when you feel satisfied and have had enough food vs. when you 'should' - is the key.

I used to eat 'quick and distracted' almost all the time. It felt great in the act but about 20 minutes later I would feel uncomfortably full and guilt would start to set in. Then strangely... that guilt would make me feel like there was no point in even trying to "eat healthy" that day because I had already "messed up", so I'd often eat again when I wasn't even hungry yet and eat more than I needed - again. This cycle of overeating and guilt and 'shoulds' continued and it was not fun. There was little pleasure here. I was forgetting something important - it's not one meal that dictates your entire diet. It all balances out over time, if you let it.

Guilt and judgment are the best ways to override those natural, intuitive signals from the body. Plus they just aren't all that fun to experience.

Through practicing eating with attention and trusting my body, I discovered that when I ate a rich meal or ate more than I "needed", I wouldn't be as hungry at the next meal or snack time. I noticed, (profoundly), that my body would just naturally regulate my hunger so that I always seemed to want just enough food. It's really fantastic. Whenever I feel "off track" with eating - I never think about what I should eat, I focus on relaxation and tuning it. It works.

Eat whatever you want, just eat it with attention. Seriously - anything you want.

It can be difficult to tune in and eat. It takes practice. But it is worth it. (Imagine eating and feeling good after, no matter what you eat..!). Taking a minute to calm down and relax and eating with pleasure all help tuning in happen naturally.

Try it out. Aim for two minutes of exquisite attention at each meal. Just two minutes. Be a hedonist. Relish every bite of that rainbow-sprinkled donut. It will likely taste better or perhaps you'll notice you'd actually rather save it for later. You'll also start to notice naturally when you feel like you've had enough.

Will power has nothing to do with it. Tuning in does.

For more information on eating with awareness - here is an article on mindful eating.

Sometimes we eat to cope with emotions (which is perfectly valid) - here is a great article from Ellyn Satter, RD discussing emotional eating and overeating.

I'd love to hear your experiences with tuning in!

Vegetarianism - with a side of meat.

If you choose to eat meat, adding it as a component of a dish instead of as the main course makes a lot of sense - nutritionally, economically and environmentally.

Meat is a nutrient rich food, containing heme iron and B vitamins as well as plenty of protein.

Meat has some fancy little tricks to it too - like MFP Factor (Meat, Fish, Poultry Factor). This compound is present in yes - meat, fish and poultry and actually makes non-heme iron (the kind of iron found in plant foods) more easy for the body to absorb and use. So not only does meat add some readily absorbable heme iron, it makes the non-heme iron in the rest of the dish more usable as well. Pretty neat.

Meat is a rich food that doesn't need to be eaten in large quantities, so adding a little bit to your meal adds a lot. In our culture, meat tends to push other foods off the plate. This is likely the reason that vegetarians do better on almost all health indicators. It's what they DO eat, not what they DON'T that is the key. Meat is missing a lot of the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and all of the fibre we get from whole grains and vegetables. Again, just another reason to enjoy lots of different foods, not to worry about what to eat.

Think of the cuisine of Thailand, Malaysia and China. Noodles with bits of shrimp and pork scattered throughout... Or Latin and Italian cooking, where small amounts of flavourful meats are added to bean dishes such as my favourite Kale and Chorizo soup (below). Just one or two sausages flavours and ups the nutritional value of an entire pot of soup. This is your varied diet in a bowl, and it's economical.

Adding something you LOVE to some foods you maybe aren't quite as jazzed about is a good strategy for increasing your variety but doing it from a place of enjoyment. Now THAT's sustainable.

Read more about choosing meat and how reducing your meat intake benefits the environment here.

What's your favourite "meat as a flavour component" dish?

Portuguese Kale Soup with Chorizo and White Beans

1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium sized carrot, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound chorizo or other smoked pork sausage**
8 cups chicken stock
2 cups diced Yukon Gold potatoes or waxy potatoes OR sweet potatoes
1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence or chop a handful of fresh rosemary, thyme and basil leaves
1 bunch kale
1 can (28 oz) tomatoes
2 cans (18oz) white beans such as cannellini, drained
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
fresh lemon

1) Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium low heat. Saute the onion and carrot until soften - 5 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chorizo and cook stirring frequently, about 2 minutes.
2) Add the stock, chorizo, herbs and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 15minutes.
3) Rinse the kale and lay leaves on top of one and other. Slice crosswise into 1 inch ribbons or tear into bite sized pieces. Add the kale, tomatoes and beans to the soup and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 5 to 10 minutes.
4) Season with salt and pepper and lemon to taste.

** for a vegetarian version - omit chorizo and add 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
This soup freezes well!

Recipe adapted from Myra Goodman's Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook: Food to Live By.

I hate strawberries

Ok not really - I love them - but I do dislike those monster sized, hard, white on the inside, strangely shaped, available all year round strawberries that get shipped in from California or wherever. But thankfully it is, (finally!) right now, in BC - strawberry season! Hooray!

That means perfect, little, juicy, red on the inside, strawberry shaped (yes! like in kids books!) gems - at affordable prices. sigh. Heaven. All they need is a little wash. Add some whipped cream to go over the top or my favourite - coconut milk ice cream or my new favourite - coconut sorbet! I've been buying BC strawberries almost daily because the season is short and I just can't bring myself to eat them at any other time of the year.

Strawberries are also one of the fruits with the greatest pesticide residue so buying local and organic is a good way to reduce your exposure. Both are more affordable now as well.

I think that a lot of people say they don't like fruits and vegetables because they have never tried them at the peak of their season, when they haven't traveled miles to their plate, haven't sat in storage, and haven't been picked way too early and under ripe so they never have a chance to develop their real flavour and texture.

Even me - who really dislikes raw tomatoes - actually enjoys a fresh tomato salad in the peak of summer when the tomatoes are vine ripened and bursting with sweetness. That gross, weird texture disappears and the pungent tomatoey-ness disappears under the juicy sweetness I just adore. I'm looking forward to August.

Why not check out your local farmers market and what's in season for a chance to try out what whole fresh foods really should taste like and then gorge on them while they are around?

Here is a very simple Italian recipe that highlights the extraordinary freshness of local strawberries.

Enjoy!

Positive Experiences

Here is a great article about how pleasure, enjoyment and positive associations create a healthy diet (by eating a wider variety of foods, especially whole ones).

It explains how our tastes are shaped initially, are very individual (by genes - i.e. the bitter "super taster", and exposure) and can change over time. I especially agree with the no-pressure approach mentioned - providing tastes but never insisting and the show-don't tell approach - if you truly enjoy fresh, whole and a variety of foods, your kids, spouse, friends etc. will be more comfortable trying them too.

I see this time and again in my kid's cooking classes with Sprouting Chefs. Just yesterday our 9 and 10 year olds cooked up a fabulous potato and arugula pizza and potato pancake lunch using spuds grown by Ms. Zimmerman's grade 4 class at Cherry Hill Elementary in Mission. One of the boys refused the potato pancakes, only to come back 10 minutes later claiming he "didn't get any potato pancakes". Watching his friends rave about them probably made him wonder what he was missing. He was the first to ask for seconds too. Positive peer pressure at it's finest.

I was also super impressed to see 90% of the kids eating their pizzas topped with the arugula - a peppery, slightly bitter green. Never assume kids will eat only "kid's food" - whatever that is. Kids are learning how to eat like adults - so let them have the experiences they need to do just that.

Here's the recipe for that fabulous potato pizza. You can use a store-bought base to save time. Look for a product with a short ingredients list. If you avoid gluten like me – try Pamela’s Gluten Free Pancake and Baking Mix. The bag has a recipe for pizza dough and makes 2 really delicious, chewy thin 6 to 8” crusts. You can freeze one for another day.

Finally - save prep time by using a mandoline. You can buy a cheap plastic one for around $10. I use mine all the time. It's super useful.

Rosemary Potato Pizza

Pizza Dough:

Starter

½ cup All purpose flour

2 cups Warm water

2 tsp Dry yeast

1 tbsp Honey

Combine the flour through honey in a bowl. When mixture begins to bubble move on to next step.

Dough

4 cups All purpose flour

1 cup Multi grain or whole grain or rye flour

1 tbsp Sea salt

4 tbsp Olive oil

In a large bowl measure flour and salt. Whisk to add air.

Add the starter to a large mixing bowl. Add the olive oil. Mix. Add dry ingredients 1 cup at a time and mix well with wooden spoon after each addition until mixture forms a ball and comes away from the bowl in a clean way. You may or may not need to add more flour depending on the weather (humidity)! When ball forms, take out of bowl and knead with the palms of your hands. Fold the dough in half towards you, press down with your palms away from you, fold over again, and repeat for 5 minutes. Add a bit of flour to keep the dough from sticking but do not add too much and make the dough too dry.

Let rest and rise until the dough is double in size. 1 to 3 hours.

Topping Ingredients:

2 handfuls Rocket or Arugula Leaves

50 Gr. Parmesan Cheese (optional)

4 stalks Rosemary

4 to 6 small New Potatoes

¼ cup Olive Oil

1 tsp Sea Salt

Ground Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 450F.

Rinse arugula and dry well in a salad spinner or roll up the leaves in a tea towel. Keep cold in a fridge until ready to use so they don’t wilt.

Meanwhile, prepare the toppings. Set out the cutting board. Shave pieces of parmesan cheese, using either a grater or peeler. Strip rosemary needles from stems and reserve leaves. Slice potatoes very thinly using a mandolin. Add sliced potatoes to large bowl with rosemary, olive oil, salt and paper. Toss and mix together with hands until lightly coated in oil. Oil the pizza pans with olive oil.

Press out the dough, 1 batch per tray until the dough reaches the edges and is all the same thickness. Arrange slices of potatoes on the dough overlapping as you go and sprinkling with grated parmesan (optional) leaving some for the end.

Drizzle the pizza with the last of the oil and place in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are very crusty and golden and the cheese is bubbling.

Once done, transfer the pizza onto a large cutting board and cut into 8 to 12 pieces.

Serve topped with a handful of the fresh arugula. Drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil if you like.

I promise you this combo is a million times better than it sounds! Amazing. Seriously. I know what I'm having for dinner.

Recipe: Stephanie Alexander: Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids

The French Paradox

Heard of the French Paradox? It goes something like this: The French eat a lot of rich foods - butter, cream, fatty meats and luxurious desserts - adding up to more dietary fat intake than the average North American. They drink and smoke more and exercise less BUT they also have lower rates of heart disease. How is that possible?

American scientists boiled it all down to a polyphenol called resveratrol found in red wine, a staple of the French diet. First newspaper headlines told us to drink more red wine then, lucky for us, scientists created little pills of resveratrol to save us the bother of actually having to drink a glass to get the heart protective effects.

I think they missed the point entirely.

The French have a completely different relationship with food. In a study conducted to test different nation's attitudes towards food, (sample question: "The word I most associate with ice cream is (a) fattening (b) delicious"), the French rated the highest in pleasure associations (i.e. ice cream = delicious). Americans associated food most with health outcomes (i.e. ice cream = fattening) but were also the least likely to rate their own diets as healthy! I imagine Canadians are not much better off.

We are a continent of worriers carrying a lot of guilt around food and eating. All that food knowledge and nutrition info and we still don't "eat well". The French eat and make food choices based on enjoyment AND they get lower heart disease risk while they're at it? Sold!

There's a little more. The French also take time to eat. Lunches are commonly a few hours long and tend to be the largest meal of the day (right when your metabolism is most active - i.e. you use vs. store what you eat). They eat in a more relaxed state vs. eating little bits here and there between meetings and phone calls or behind the wheel. Food and time together at meals is celebrated and cherished. They value the quality and freshness of their food above all. They didn't even have a term for "fast food" until recently. All that pleasure leads to a varied diet - about the only thing nutritional science can confidently say consistently leads to better health.

A two hour lunch may not be a possibility in our culture, but taking even an extra 10 minutes to eat away from your desk or just stopping the car to eat by the side of the road will help you to relax and really enjoy what you're eating. This simple shift will do wonders for both your digestion, your metabolism and your feeling of satisfaction from your meal - you may notice less desire for treats or snacks later on when you really tune in and relish your meal. But most important of all - eating will be more pleasurable.

Let's all be hedonists for lunch - for your health.

Want to read more re: how we eat is just as, if not more important than what we eat? Here's an article I wrote about bacon, and my sexy French Canadian neighbour last year.

And here is a deliciously decadent and relatively simple French recipe to enjoy:

Tarragon Chicken

serves 4

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 chicken (about 3 pounds/1.4 kg), cut into 8 pieces (a great how to video).
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup chicken stock
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 shallot, minced
1 cup crème fraîche (or full cream)
1/2 cup chopped fresh tarragon
Lemon juice to taste

Melt the butter with the oil in a large skillet over quite high heat. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and fry in batches until well browned, about 5 minutes per side.

Put all the chicken back in the pan, add chicken stock and reduce the heat to medium. Cover and cook until tender, about 30 minutes.

Remove the chicken to a plate and keep warm and reduce any leftover juices until sticky. Add the shallot and wine and reduce to a thickish sauce, about 5 minutes. Add the cream and half the tarragon. Boil down again to sauce consistency, 3 to 5 minutes.

Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Put back the chicken pieces, turning to coat, then transfer to a platter. Pour the sauce over, scatter over the remaining tarragon, and serve.

Recipe: Laura Calder, French Food at Home


Tarragon has a slightly peppery, mild licorice flavour and is extremely high in antioxidant activity - an added bonus. Fresh tarragon will keeps it flavour for 3 to 5 months if frozen in an air tight bag.

References:
Marc David - The Slow Down Diet
Ellyn Satter - Secrets to Feeding a Healthy Family

Fresh Herbs!

One of the things I love most about summer is effortless meals like BBQ chicken and simple salads packed with fresh herbs.

Herbs add lovely flavour and colour to easy dishes but they also add a surprising amount of nutritional value. Parsley contains 3 times more vitamin C than an orange! Herbs are dense in minerals too (like calcium and iron) and they top the charts in antioxidant activity, higher than any fruit or vegetable tested. Oregano has an antioxidant score 4 times higher than blueberries!

Herbs even contain potent phytochemicals shown to protect against cancer. For example, dill can help your liver detoxify carcinogens produced by charcoal grilling meats (as if my Ukrainian blood needed another reason to put a few handfuls of chopped fresh dill on my potato salad...).

Herbs have been used medicinally for centuries. Most act as digestive aids (mint, dill, basil) helping you get more from your meal. Others such as rosemary can reduce inflammation. The list goes on...

I always keep cilantro and flat leaf (Italian) parsley on hand. They will last for a week or more in the fridge if stored properly. Wash and dry, roll up in a dry tea towel or paper towel and pop into a plastic bag and seal. The goal is to control the moisture content. Herbs have all they need in their leaves already, so keep it there. Any extra moisture leads to decay.

Here's a great recipe from Jamie Oliver for trying your hand with fresh herb cooking.

And a great primer from Culinate.com on using and growing culinary herbs.

If you are looking for uncomplicated recipes using fresh herbs, one of my favourite cookbooks is The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor. Try the cinnamon basil chicken or the lavender lemonade!

For more information on using herbs as medicine, another favourite: Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health

Is this still ok to eat?

I live for leftovers. It's a smart way to feed yourself well, on a budget with a busy lifestyle. When I cook or eat out I want more than one meal for my efforts or my dollar, so I freeze portions and/or leave some in the fridge for another day's meal.

After a few days go by I start to wonder if that leftover shrimp fried rice is still ok to eat. I hate to throw out food but I'm not too keen on poisoning my friends (or myself) either...

If you often find yourself peering into the fridge wondering -- How long exactly does cooked rice keep? Is it safe to cook that chicken I defrosted on the weekend? Are those eggs really bad past the best before date? -- then check out this fabulous website:

http://stilltasty.com/

Type in an ingredient and choose a preparation technique (raw vs. cooked, egg salad vs. boiled eggs etc.) and you get a safe time frame for storing foods in the fridge or freezer plus great tips on how to do it.

What's Your Rat Park?

Rat park?? Yup. Reading an article recently, I came across this study by a researcher from SFU and it really hit home for me. The researcher noticed that lab rats almost always become addicted when exposed to drugs. Rather than assuming addiction was a predisposition in rats, he hypothesized that the rat's eagerness to indulge in morphine-laced sugar water had more to do with an attempt to 'escape' the miserable, boring, living conditions they endured.

To test this out, he created Rat Park - a rat paradise complete with toys, greenery, junk to explore and most importantly; other rats. When Rat Park residents were offered the same sugary-morphine solution, they were only mildly interested and most skipped it altogether.

Amazing no? Working on some non-nutrition work and sitting at my desk a lot more than usual this month, a very predictable thing happened to me: the cravings started. First it was chocolate and coffee then chips and salty snacks and crunchy things... edible stimulation.

Just as the Rat Park study suggests, this reaction from my body and brain is completely normal and expected. When life’s just not enough, when we aren’t getting enough stimulation, creative outlet, physical activity, fulfilling work, social interaction - whatever we need - we turn to ways we’ve learned to get that feeling of sensation and satisfaction quickly– food, caffeine, alcohol - you name it.

Food is an especially effective, available, and socially acceptable way to get that "ahhh" feeling.

Using food as a coping mechanism is completely valid and ok, but eating without awareness can be just like slapping a sugary band-aid over dissatisfaction because we aren't looking at what's bringing on the cravings in the first place.

When our lives are fulfilling and we're getting what we need (enough sleep, good food, sex, fun movement we enjoy, social time and ideally - work that energizes us etc.) we're much less likely to need a fix be it from morphine-laced sugar water, chocolate or chips.

So as much as those sugar cravings feel like an addiction, the remedy has nothing to do with willpower - it's all about loading up on pleasure (the inedible kind) and things that nourish and fulfill you.

What would your Rat Park be like? What can you do right now to make your life a bit more like it rather than slapping a sugary band-aid over your feelings of discontent?

Here's a simple recipe I made to feel nourished after that depressing first week...

Gingery Chicken Leek Soup

serves 2

3 cups chicken stock

1/4 of a yam (about 1/4 cup) - cut into cubes

1 leek

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1 inch piece of ginger - peeled and grated or minced (try scraping the skin off with the back of a spoon)

2 green onions - minced

Handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

Leftover cooked chicken breast, shredded (or poach one**)

1 cup cooked rice

Ume plum vinegar

Black pepper

Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan and add the yams. Simmer until the yams are tender, about 5 minutes (see ** below if poaching a chicken breast). Meanwhile, prepare the leek (check out this how-to video) trim the roots off the leek and cut off the darker green (tougher) top (great for stock - throw it in the freezer!), saving the lighter green and white parts. Slice lengthwise down the leek and rinse both halves under water to remove any sand and dirt that leeks are notorious for hiding in their leaves. Slice each half into 1/4 inch pieces or so.

Heat a frying pan with the olive oil and add the leeks and ginger. Saute over medium heat until the leeks are soft. Drizzle the sesame oil over the leeks. Add the leeks to the stock and yams.

Fill a bowl with half the cooked chicken and rice (preferably brown) and ladle the hot soup over top. Sprinkle with green onion and cilantro. Add ume vinegar - a delicious Japanese salty/sour condiment that is the leftovers from pickling plums - and some fresh ground black pepper, and extra sesame oil to taste.

Enjoy!

** - to poach a chicken breast - place the breast in a saucepan and cover with the chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat. Barely simmer (the top of the water should just "shimmer") for about 15 minutes (you can add the yams after 10 minutes). Remove the chicken from the pan, saving the stock and yams for the soup. Let the chicken cool enough to handle them pull it apart into shreds with a fork.

Eat Happy

If you're like me and your science-brain still craves some hard data to back up the fact that you feel better eating more real, vibrant food - here's a study out of Australia...

Researchers found that eating a traditional Western diet (high in processed foods, refined sugars, poor quality beef and animal foods (ie - factory farmed/corn fed)) lead to a 50% increased likelihood of depression vs. eating a whole foods based diet (including a good variety of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts/seeds, grass fed beef/dairy and free range chicken/eggs).

Read the article HERE.

So, as my brother likes to say: here's to feeling good all the time!
Try this simple, delicious way to get some of that variety onto your plate...

Honey Lime Roasted Butternut Squash

1 x 3lb butternut squash
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 lime***
1 tsp. honey, maple syrup or agave nectar
sea salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375F.

Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise. Scoop out and discard the seeds. Peel the squash - this is about the hardest part of this recipe. The safest way I have found to do this without dismembering yourself - is to take a chefs knife and cut each of the lengths into 4 pieces. Then take a piece and place firmly on the cutting board and slice down and away from you removing the skin and as little flesh (both yours and the squash's) as possible. Move around the piece until you've got all the skin off. Go slow and you'll get the hang of it. A vegetable peeler doesn't seem to work on that thick skin and a small paring knife felt treacherous to me.

Once the squash is peeled, dice into 1 or 2 inch cubes.

Grab a metal or pyrex baking dish big enough to spread the squash in one layer. Toss the squash with the olive oil, lime juice, honey/maple syrup or agave nectar, and add salt and pepper to taste. I gave some quantities as a starting point here, but I usually just eyeball it and taste as I go.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the squash is fork-tender, stirring once during baking.

Serve as a side dish, add to black beans and rice, or to top a spinach and quinoa salad, drizzled with lime/olive oil/garlic dressing with a pinch or two of ground cumin. Delicious...

** The juiciest limes and citrus fruits are the ones that are heavy for their size, glossy and vibrant in colour and still have the calyx (the little stem bit) attached to the end. When this is gone, the lime is older and likely dried out. Avoid limes with lots of dark patches, a few is fine but more can indicate an undesirable mouldy flavour. To juice a lime, first roll it back and forth on the counter while pushing down with the heel of your palm. This breaks up the tiny juice vessicles so you'll get way more juice out. Cut it in half crosswise (between the stem ends), push a fork into the cut side and twist it while squeezing the lime half against the fork.