Hearty Breakfast

Turkey fat, Irish butter and olive oil sautee of onions, green zucchini, baby broccoli, some leftover bison crumbles. We used ancho, habanero and chipotle. We mixed our farm fresh eggs with a bit of Organic Pastures whole raw milk, and then we sprinkled peppercorn goat cheese on the top. This took less than 10 minutes, but even if you're not great in the kitchen, it wouldn't take much longer. You could have breakfast for four days ready in 20 minutes. Of course, the great thing about egg dishes is their versatility. Ingredients and seasonings are almost unlimited.

Two pics - one in the pan, one over greens.

Yes, They're Trying to Make You Eat More Than You Need

New research on how sugar, salt and fat affect the brain. More evidence suggesting that you should NEVER eat processed food products.

Prop 65 and Food

Proponents of food safety and people who want more regulation of the food industry are using California's Prop 65 to go after food companies. I'm torn on the subject because there is a lot of truth in the argument that this just makes money for lawyers, but food safety activists don't have a lot of choice. I've found many many websites in favor of industry and only a little information that seems balanced or even in favor of regulation.

I will update this info if I find more.

Women and Healthy Fats

Many of my new clients are surprised at how much fat I encourage them to eat, of course at the same time urging them to reduce refined carbohydrates. There are several really good reasons why I recommend plenty of healthy fats in our meal workouts. One is that the right fats help you produce the right hormones, testosterone in particular. Women have small amounts of testosterone in their bodies and among other things, it helps regulate sex drive and muscle mass.

Sleep and Overweight Kids

There is new evidence that kids who sleep in more on the weekends have a smaller chance of becoming obese than kids who don't.

Nature's Candy

I made dried persimmons for my BF who lives in Michigan. I simply sliced the fruit and left it in a 250 oven until dried out.

This food is not for people who want to lose weight!

I'm going to try to make zucchini chips next weekend.

Prepared for the Week?

Living in California affords us all kinds of fresh local produce every week. Purple and red radishes are the bottom pic, and on top you see the last of the grapefruit, some avocados from Nandor's client's tree, limes, a butternut squash, and a variety of onions. Also picked up:

variety of lettuces like romaine, mizuna and arugula
three kinds of zucchini
cucumbers
green beans
farm fresh eggs
garlic
broccoli
cauliflower
Brussels sprouts
lemons
celery
daikon
cabbage
sprouts
raw whole milk

Guest Stars Dave and Colleen do Seafood

Dave cooked up some shrimp with coconut oil and some spices - we put them over an easy salad (lemon juice, spices, and unfiltered EVOO). The other dish was a pan fried piece of silver salmon w/ some spices - we used half and chopped it into tiny pieces, the other half we saved (for eggs this morning!). The salmon was mixed with some spelt penne pasta, capers, and a light cream sauce made with Organic Valley brand heavy cream - he heated the cream in the pan using the drippings from the shrimp (coconut oil, EVOO, and the spices). Topped w/ some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Heavenly!!
Shrimp and salmon purchased at SM FIsh Market - love that place.

Dave and Colleen have taken Nandor's Bootcamp for quite a while, taken cooking lessons from Nandor and nutritional counseling from Leah, so we're very proud of how clean they're eating nowadays even if Dave was already pretty good in the kitchen.

Chipotle Mustard Chicken

Just got a new mortar and pestle and trying to use different flavor combinations, so made a garlic paste with a bit of oil, dry mustard and chipotle flakes. Marinated chicken legs with lemon and lime juice, plus the paste. Treating you to a picture even though they look remarkably similar to the chipotle lime legs I made not too long ago.

Sleep News - Get Your ZZZZZZZs

In a nutshell, you're aging faster, you're increasing your disease risk factors, and you're getting fatter if you're not sleeping enough.

There is a lot of debate about whether or not it makes a difference if you eat late at night. Some have argued that it doesn't matter as long as you are eating well and not too much. Recent research, though, is showing that we shouldn't be eating when we should be sleeping - in the dark. This intuitively makes a lot of sense to me.

Your Raw Almonds May NOT be Raw!

I was about to do a post about why I recommend raw unsalted nuts and seeds when I came upon this article about pasteurization. Turns out you can only truly buy raw almonds online or in farmers markets. Money trumps telling us the truth again, and there's always an excuse - two cases of salmonella.

OK, the FDA isn't ALL bad

I'm always harping on how our food safety and information system isn't designed to protect consumers, and then here the FDA goes and surprises me. Recently, some companies have designed laughable label markers that say their products are "healthy." Article from USA Today describes how the FDA is looking into it.

You Should Pass Up that Drink!

Every now and again, people will remind me that red wine has health benefits when I advise them not to drink. I'm still not convinced it has a place, though. A new article goes over the pros and cons. To me, the most compelling argument to avoid alcohol is that you are controlling your disease risk factors. At the same time, any health benefits from antioxidants or other substances may be found in other healthy foods - like greens!

Food Diary Monday Oct 19

7:20 2 eggs, broccoli, yellow and green zucchini, 5 cherry tomatoes, all cooked in olive oil, sprinkle of Israeli sheep milk feta, served over spicy mix from Brentwood farmers market

10:00 1/2 cup Voskos whole milk, 12 raw almonds, cinnamon

12:10 one California Chicken Cafe drumstick, sauteed veggies from breakfast

2:30 ground turkey with onions and garlic, 3 Persian cucumbers, large handful raw green beans

5:30 bit of ground turkey

7:15 salad with greens and homemade sauerkraut, turkey wing

Orange Roughy with Mustard

I was looking for a way to use mustard powder besides egg salad, so I tried it as a seasoning for orange roughy along with some garlic, onions and cumin. Came out nicely with lemon juice, which made a delicious dressing for the salad.

Rosemary Turkey Pintos

Started out with intent to make white chili with canellini or Great Northern beans, but couldn't find any without MSG ingredients. Pinto sounded nice, so I sauteed garlic and shallots with chipotle flakes and fresh rosemary, then added ground turkey, finally rinsed and drained pintos. As always with beans, this dish was better the next day. Nandor then had some with eggs over some "hay" he got from Maggie's Farms.

Fast Dinner

When time is of the essence but you're sticking to your goals, I like shabu meat from the Japanese market. It is sliced thin, so it cooks faster than you can chop onions and garlic and wash your Chinese broccoli.

Cranberries are here!

I like my sauce tart, as you might imagine. My favorite is cranberry sauce with lime, but any citrus works. Tangerines are nice if your family needs a little sweetness. I often add cinnamon. Other nice additions would be grated persimmons, pears or apples.

Book Review - Atkins for Life Low-Carb Cookbook

I got Atkins for Life Low-Carb Cookbook (Atkins et al, 2004) on half.com for less than six bucks. It is a large hardcover book with lots of pictures and recipes, good sidebars on techniques and lots of cool recipes with variations. It definitely falls short in that it offers plenty of recipes made with low-carb mixes (Frankenfoods), but I've tried three recipes and been inspired.

Nandor's Bedtime Snack

Nandor has special needs as he's trying to keep muscle on, so he has to eat over and over again. Right before bed he had about 3/4 cup of Fage 2%, 1.25 cups of frozen apricots, hemp seed, walnuts, and raw honey from the Hollywood Farmers Market.

Spicy Rockfish with Salad

Frozen fish from Trader Joe's, a very mild, non-fishy fish that looks a lot like snapper. Seasoned rather heavily to give it some oomph and served over greens for my favorite lean dinner - fish and salad.

Chipotle Lime Garlic Drumsticks in Coconut Oil

Baked uncovered at 350 for a little over an hour, turning once to brown on both sides. Tropical spicy heaven.

New York Strip from Trader Joe's

We're lucky enough to have a gas stove, so using a stovetop grill is really fun. This steak had a minimal seasoning of pepper. The meat tasted great.

Reasons to Eat Organic Meat

Organically produced meat uses less antibiotics because the animals get sick less. MSRA is a somewhat antibiotic-resistant organism that has become common in hospitals, and is found more on conventional farms than organic. Read more.

Refrigerator Shot this Week

zucchini
walnuts
jicama
cabbage
cucumbers
collard greens
bison
raw milk
oranges
broccoli
onions
garlic
lemons
limes
figs
yellow watermelon
baby arugula
baby romaine
maiche (lambs' lettuce)
cottage cheese
yogurt
sprouts of all kinds
farm fresh eggs
albacore tuna
oranges

Have fun!

Fall Bounty from Farmers Market

Grilled marinated zucchini in a foggy glass bowl, mushrooms, wire bin with butternut squash, garlic, sweet onions, ginger, lime, avocado, lemon, orange and shallot. The Old Man from the Andes is the larger white cactus, with cabbage and jicama in front.

Crunchy Spicy Garbanzos

Made from dried beans but can also be made from canned, rinsed. Use a bit of unrefined sea salt at end if from dried. I used chili sesame oil, cayenne, ancho and ground black pepper. 350 oven for about 90 minutes, shaking pan occasionally. Store in glass. Flavor combinations would be endless.

Baked Butternut Squash Two Ways

Nandor split a butternut in half and seeded it. He sprinkled cinnamon on one side and added some slivers of pasture butter. The other side got the Garlic Herb Sensation grinder and Cajun seasoning, both from Spice World. Then he baked them at 375 until soft - pretty easy.

Rosemary Wings

First squeeze blood orange (or orange, grapefruit, lemon) on wings. Then sprinkle with Greek seasoning (Spicely), 21 Seasoning Salute (TJ’s), and Garlic Herb Sensation grinder (Spice World). Substitute any dried herb blend with lots of rosemary and it will be lovely. Tiny bit of paprika, fresh rosemary and garlic. Oven at 375 for 20 minutes, then broiler for 5 minutes with another spritz of blood orange.

Oven Full of Goodness

The Battle of the Yogurts

My yogurt of choice is Voskos whole milk. I find it very tasty and I love the creamy thick texture. This article continues my love affair with food coverage from slate.com. Now I'm curious to try the Icelandic product.

Your Colon is NOT DIRTY

There's (almost) nothing that drives me more crazy than the advertising for "colon cleanses" that preys on the insecurities of misinformed consumers, especially women. People do not have tons of impacted fecal matter or whatever, and it can be dangerous even to use "natural" cleanse ingredients because of their high concentrations.

Shitting out your guts is not a healthy or effective way to get skinny, everyone! This article offers some sensible solutions - eat right and drink water among them.

My Brother is a Forager

and this sounds like a kind of cool book.

Pesticides

This post is a kind of follow-up to the one about whether or not to choose organic produce. While the recent research may not prove a “nutritional” benefit, there are many other very compelling reasons to choose organic, not the least of which is the protection of our lovely planet. We are part of a huge system.
Like mercury is stored in the fatty parts of the fish, pesticides appear to be stored in our body fat. What’s really scary is that pesticides are found in mothers’ milk (comes from continuously fatty tissue) quite a bit, and our scientists generally have no idea how these substances affect the various stages of development in our sweet little babies.
In our scientific system’s ridiculously fragmented view, many pesticides are classified GRAS (generally recognized as safe) without much testing. Most of the testing that is done is performed on a single substance, but just about everyone is exposed to many different toxins, probably at low levels, at once. The buildup or the combination of toxic pesticides isn’t studied very much because it is impractical in our system: no one would have the same combination.

More later.

Question from Reader - Is Kosher Meat Raised More Humanely?

Question:
Maybe you have the answer to this... I've kept kosher my whole life, and was always told that the slaughter/care process of animals for kosher meat was a lot more humane. There was one case a few years ago that a meat producer that was kosher lost their kosher license because of unfair labor practices. Anyways, do you know if the animals they slaughter are kept more humanely - I know they're not being slaughtered/packed by the major manufacturers (because of the extra expense of making things kosher) but don't know if its really as humane as people like to think.

Answer:
I’m finding some vegan websites that say that kosher meat comes from the same slaughterhouses with the same abuses as non-kosher. Others say that of course slaughterhouses are nasty brutish places, but that schechita (kosher slaughter) is one of the most painless killing methods, as it uses a very sharp knife to sever the trachea and esophagus, which almost always results in an animal losing consciousness in about five seconds. By contrast, the captive bolt method in most non-kosher killings sometimes has to be repeated up to five times.

Unfortunately it appears that most of the sources are in agreement that no matter how the animals are killed, their lives are played out in much the same way: crowded, unsanitary and fed the same crap. This is not true at smaller farms that supply specialized markets, which would probably mean pretty high prices.

As I’m coming to expect, our government fails us over and over again. The USDA is supposed to act under a Humane Slaughter Act, but doesn’t enforce it.

To wrap it up, it appears that the answer is SOMETIMES YES SOMETIMES NO.

Cheese Bombs

Yes boy food! These stuffed peppers were parboiled first like the other stuffed peppers, and as you can see, one of them is the traditional chile relleno pepper, the pasilla. Then they were baked with a combination of goat feta and Oaxacan white cheese and Italian seasonings. The final product was quite heavy, but reminiscent of pizza. I'm going to experiment with a little less cheese and some of my favorite pizza toppings.

How are You Planning to Live the Next Few Days?

I plan to live lean and happy! Pic of my fridge after market day:

pea shoots
peppers
cucumbers
rosemary
farm fresh eggs
Chinese broccoli
Greek style yogurt
organic chicken drums
garlic
onions
Brazil nuts
red and green cabbage
broccoli
cauliflower
goat cheese
cilantro
bison steak
green beans
spicy salad mix
mizuna
arugula
tatsoi
homemade sauerkraut
zucchini

For a man who needs to hold his weight:
real chocolate
Ezekiel sprouted wraps
dates

We also got a couple of Spicely packs, sesame seeds, and my favorite whole milk Voskos yogurt, spent about $120 for two people.

Locally Caught Tuna with Red Chard

Are you surprised? If you want to be lean, it is fish and greens. I am a lucky girl because Nandor's friend and client Eddie again supplied us with some locally caught tuna. Shallots and chopped garlic in olive oil with cumin and turmeric, then put in the fish, added pepper and cayenne and squeezed lemon. Cooked red chard with garlic and pasture butter.

Stuffed Peppers

All of the sudden, stuffed peppers are all the rage at my house because we went to Sabina's European Restaurant in Hollywood and I can't have the stuffed peppers with white rice. First we boiled the pepper "cups" for about five minutes. Then we filled them with mostly-cooked bison and onions. Baked for about 40 minutes at 350, they were delicious and a perfect serving size.

Mommas Don't Feed Your Kids Candy

Researchers think that kids who get candy become violent later.

Awesome Breakfast

Caramelized red and white onions, broccoli, onions, eggs, and lots and lots of cheese. Don't forget the avocado.