So, how does food affect your life?

When I was growing up, my mom noticed my sister and I reacted poorly to artificial sweeteners and colors; this was the single best thing she ever did, in addition to stripping our diets to avoid those particular things. Consequently, we grew up not eating a lot of high-fructose corn syrup, saccharine, phenylalanine, or any of those red/yellow dye thingies. By reacting poorly, I mean to say that my sister would run in circles until she fell down and I would get mean, grouchy, and depressed to an extreme rather uncommon to a 5 year old female child. Because most sugary foods also contained some other unnatural ingredient, we didn't eat a lot of sugary foods either.... at least not until I was in my late teens...

After 4 long years of unhappiness, mood swings, angry depression, sinus problems, and general gastrointestinal discomfort, a friend who studied eastern medicine recommended I go on a candida diet. This means stripping sugars and fast-burning carbs to avoid exacerbating the normal yeast humans have in their gastrointestinal system. I played with this diet, and ultimately 'failed' at it for years. But I learned a lot about how food can produce adverse reactions to your system, and not all are noticeable within the same day of consumption -- and that's the big part...

If you truly want to experiment on yourself to know how you react to a diet or to a particular item of food, you need to monitor over at least 4 days after 'exposure.' The effects of excessive sugar-eating for one day can result in up to 3 days of withdrawal, culminating in severe moodiness on the 2nd and 3rd day. AND these are not simple cranky moods... these are fits of mood and depression that I've seen other people also do on a regular basis, and that can go on for days and weeks -- imagine if they had the presence of mind to know that it was all a reaction their body was having to something they ate a couple days ago.

So, how do I avoid sugar? I don't eat packaged foods! Read all ingredients labels! I avoid caffeine and alcohol, which disrupt the body's pH. I eat hardy, whole-grain breads with no added sugars if I eat bread at all, and less ripened fruits and vegetables with less natural sugar: berries, mangoes, avocados, zucchini, eggplant, greener bananas, red/purple potatoes, yams. I also need to (and am diversifying my diet enough to allow it) eat more raw veggies and nut-based meals with some good probiotics that will keep the yeast at bay.

Atop the Naan, recipe I

1 lb sunflower seeds (no salt, no shells)
¼ c cucumber, diced
½ c eggplant, diced
¼ c bell pepper, diced
¼ c onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 Tbsp Bragg's
½ lb sharp cheddar cheese (or any cheese)
several naan bread

Soak sunflower seeds for 6 hours, then strain. Combine seeds, cucumber, eggplant, bell pepper, onion, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and Bragg's in food processor and pulse until well ground. Heat skillet to medium heat, add ground seed mixture to pan and lightly brown. Meanwhile in (toaster) oven, toast naan covered with sliced cheese. Once cheese is just softened, remove and top with seed mix. Serve hot

Importance of Vegetables

I would generally consider myself the last person on earth to advocate eating a large percentage of vegetables... I don't subscribe to vegan or vegetarian lifestyles -- bacon doesn't grow on trees -- but from what I've learned on my own about food, my own personal trial and error, and the basics of how food affects your mental and physical state that I was taught growing up, I have a lot to say when it comes to the eating of vegetables.
There are a few things that need to be said first about 'Vegetables'

1. corn is not a vegetable - it is a grain, a grass, and from what I've seen in myself and animals, causes a whole lot of avoidable digestive problems (if you've noticed it often comes out whole... this is not a good thing) because as a seed it contains toxins that are designed to keep you from digesting it
2. Tomatoes, zucchini, squash, eggplant, avocados, etc are also not vegetables. They are very good fruits, but are not to be confused with what vegetables really are
3. Legumes and lentils are additionally not really vegetables, but I'll have a separate blog on them later, cuz they're complicated in the guise of the types of toxins they produce (seeds). For my purpose here, I will concede that the pod is veggie, and unquestionable if ingested before the seeds develop (I have a life-long hatred of legumes, as well as the filthy dirt-legumes known as peanuts)
4. Vegetables are the leaves, roots, stems, and maybe even buds of plants - the following are only a few of oh, so many
• spinach, chard, arugula, cabbage, lettuce, dandelion, water cress, sprouts, herbs
• yams, tubers, carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots
• rhubarb, celery, asparagus, bamboo
• broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, capers, brussels sprouts

Veggie need-to-knows:

• 50-80% of a human daily diet should be a RAW form of fruit and vegetable -- these contain micro-nutrients that a human body needs in order to repair and defend itself, and generally be healthy

• the more ripe the fruit/vegetable the higher the glycemic index (more sugars) and the lower the nutrient and enzyme content

• simply adding dark green vegetables to any diet (eating habit) can go a long way to improving health, metabolism and weight loss - and i don't mean a little... i mean like a cup of broccoli every meal...

• pasteurizing, though a saver of many lives in the pre-refrigeration age, kills necessary enzymes and breaks down nutrients

• most grocery store (aka non-organic, commercial farm-grown) vegetables are grown with fertilizers containing mostly only potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen... at the very least you should be getting calcium, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc - not to mention the 30+ other nutrients a human body needs

• any vegetable is better than none - if you have to cook it, steam it, bake it, frappé it, juice it, and all you have is the corner grocery: take it and run with it. Getting used to eating veggies is the first hurdle, experimentation is the second

• if you can keep the temp under 120°F or better yet 105°F, that's generally considered to be raw enough to not break down vital nutrients... but it's enough to warm up a raw veggie-frappé soup

• heat destroys vitamin C -- C is one of the vitamins that do so many things to support health in the body, but is also on of the most easily deficient... IT IS READILY AVAILABLE IN RAW FRUITS & VEGGIES... GET IT IN YOU! they say too much causes kidney stones, but there is not a single medical study that proves it does; it was used extensively in studies in the early 1900's to cure viral illnesses, and is currently being used outside of English-speaking countries as a part of nutritional therapy to let the body heal itself of cancer and other ailments -- with no side-effects

 ** I am not a medical doctor, nor am I stating that vitamin C cures cancer**
*** image above obtained from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%A9gumes_01.jpg***

Basic Knife Skills

Dani Spies offers awesome starter tips for those new to cutting up veggies
Good Housekeeping also offers several videos breaking down techniques such as mincing, dicing, and quick methods of chopping

Raw Veggies II : Zucchini

1-2 of your favorite kind of zucchini, sliced
1 lemon, juiced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil

Throw it all in a bowl and toss
stays fresh in the fridge, covered, for a week


Zucchini Rolls

1 zucchini
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic (or other aromatic)
fresh basil
fresh arrugula

Slice zucc lengthwise into strips, soak in lemon juice/oil/garlic.... [they say dehydrate, I think it's overrated]... just roll with basil and arugula and serve al fresco

Simple Naan

2.5- 3 cups flour (use gluten free if you like, and I like to add flax seed or flax seed meal)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
tumeric or herbs of choice (optional)
1 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp safflower oil

Sift together dry ingredients. Add yogurt and mix until doughy. Add more flour by Tbsp until dough just stops being sticky-wet, and knead, knead and knead. Form into round ball, place in a bowl, drizzle oil on top, cover with a towel and rest for 1 hour. Remove dough from bowl, separate into 8 sections. Roll each section flat (can stack using parchment or wax paper to separate). Heat 10" non-stick skillet to med, and turn oven to broiler setting, or heat broiler to 500°F. Gently place one piece into skillet - cook until bottom has brown spots, remove from pan, place on foil in broiler and brown for ~2 min (make sure rack is low and away from heat source). Once you see spots (as above) remove from broiler - repeat for each piece.

The thinner the dough is rolled, the crispier it will be (I like it crispy; it's easier to eat like a pizza)

Now that you've got naan... what do you do with it?
- substitute for tortillas or pita
- used for chips
- covered in homemade minced raw veggie mixes and cheese (recipes posted soon)
- Rachael Ray has an awesome Naan-cho recipe