Mindful Eats

Eat Whole Foods: Organic OR Conventional

Blueberries, strawberries and cherries

Live each season as it passes; breath the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influences of each. -Henry David Thoreau

Summer harvest is on! There's a bounty of fruit and vegetables in the farmer's markets and grocery stores that isn't available the rest of the year. My stove has gone OFF, except for the occasional wild-caught salmon and hard-boiled eggs.

I find myself getting caught up in looking for local and organic offerings. Earlier in the season I was obsessed with delicious organic blueberries at their peak. Then they disappeared. Blueberries are one of my favorite foods, yet I almost stopped eating them because the most delicious organic ones seemed to disappear earlier in the season. Then I remembered that eating seasonal, fresh food is the best food to be eating. Even if it's not organic. Organically farmed produce is better for the environment, and I'd prefer to eat chemical free food, but sometimes it's just not available. Or sometimes you've lost your job, and you can't quite afford to buy organic food. It's OKAY. Here's your free pass to not feeling guilty (if you do). You're doing the right thing for the health of you and your loved ones by supplying them with fresh whole foods. Conventional fresh food is in a completely superior league to processed foods, even if they are organic processed foods. So keep filling your cart with conventional zucchini, apples and cherries.

And I'll keep eating New Jersey conventional blueberries. I'd rather buy them organic, but well-washed conventional blueberries at the peak of deliciousness are a happy alternative.

Want to learn more?

• What is processed food?
• What is conventionally grown, industrial food?

What I ate: 2 lattes, 1 banana, Hawthorne Valley yogurt + blueberries + strawberries + ground flaxseed, blueberries, donut peach, 4 slices When Pigs Fly multigrain bread with pumpkin seeds, 2 with Jason's Hazelnut spread, 1 avocado, 1 heirloom tomato, 1 handful Herbert's spelt sticks, Cambodian sauteed tofu + broccoli, brown rice, cherries, 16 oz milk, water

Exercise: exercised the puppy - jogged 1.5 miles, walked 4 miles

 

Snack Review: Trader Joe's Crunchy Green Beans and Snapea Crisps

You can complain that roses have thorns. Or you can rejoice that thorns have roses. ~Ziggy

Who doesn't love a salty, crunchy snack? I do! Apparently, I can't help it since it might be genetic, but it also might be a superpower. If you love salty snacks too, you might be a supertaster.

Anyway, as a potato chip addict, I'm on the perennial search for an alternative, unprocessed snack. The green bean/snap pea (snapea) snacks caught my eye since they are recognizable vegetables in snack form. Of course, they were processed to get them crunchy and in the bag, but they seemed like a reasonable alternative.

I found two different snacks: Trader Joe's Green Beans and Calbee Snapea Crisps. They are recognizable green beans and snow peas, which is encouraging, and they both have minimal ingredients, but they are very different. Trader Joe's Green Beans are very crunchy, oddly sweet (sugar isn't an ingredient), salty and made in Vietnam. Calbee Snapeas are crunchy, not very memorable in taste, and most of the snow peas are from Canada. Let's take a closer look:

• Trader Joe's Green Beans. 130 calories per 28 gram serving. These are unexpectedly sweet, definitely crunchy and salty. I don't like the sweetness, but I can see how they would be addictive. They are made of green beans, canola oil, dextrin (tapioca starch), and salt. Total fat 4.5g, Sodium 160mg, Total Carbohydrate 20g, Dietary Fiber 4g, Sugars 5g, Protein 2g. Why are these from Vietnam? That's halfway around the world, which makes the farming practices unregulated. I guarantee that unless you live in Vietnam, people grow green beans closer to you then that! I'm not saying that these beans aren't farmed in a sustainable, nonchemical way, but I don't know and that bugs me.
• Calbee Snapea Crisps Original Flavor. 150 calories per 28 gram serving. Crunchy, but not that memorable. They are made from green peas, corn oil, rice, salt, calcium carbonate, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Total fat 8g, Sodium 160mg, Total Carbohydrate 14g, Dietary Fiber 2g, Sugars less than 1g, Protein 5g. The company says that they mainly use snow peas grown in Canada, which is much closer and has stricter farming standards than the U.S.  

While the nutritionals of both these snacks are better for you than most of the snack foods in a bag, neither of them are as delicious as fresh green beans or peas, which you can buy at the farmer's market and eat raw. The fresh alternative tastes better, is more nutritious, and it's better for you. As a bonus, you can ask the farmer what kind of growing practices they used.

Bottom Line: if you are desperate for a salty snack, these options are fine, but MindfulEats gives the nod to Snapeas, which are grown in Canada. Best of all, buy a bag of fresh snap peas at the farmer's market for your next snack urge.

What I ate: 1 radish, one hard boiled egg, 4 strawberries, 1 large cafe au lait, 1 latte, 3 pineapple pieces, Fage strawberry yogurt, baby spinach + cremini mushrooms + 1 tomato + 4 oz burrata, 3 Ranier cherries, Trader Joe's Green Beans, hamburger + salad, 45 oz water

Exercise: 2 mile warmup, 4x1 mile repeats, 2 mile cooldown

 

Sustainable Sushi

School of fish off Bonaire 

History, despire its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. ~Maya Angelou

For a long time I ate seafood and avoided meat, but last year I reversed the situation since seafood has become overfished, and there are more and more responsible meat producers. This leaves me feeling conflicted over sushi, a former meal staple, especially during the summer when the last thing I want is hot food. I've been avoiding sushi, but there are times when I end up at a Japanese restaurant. Happily I found some great resources to help me order sustainable sushi, with simple principles like the 4 S's.

What to do - Order Sustainable Sushi

1. Download this pocket-sized sushi guide from Monterey Bay Aquarium that you can keep in your wallet, or download the iPhone application. 
2. Order vegetable sushi. I am partial to avocado and mushroom rolls.
3. Talk to your server/sushi chef and ask where the fish is from, how it was raised, and how it was caught. Order the sushi that is a "Best Choice" from the sushi guide in step 1.
4. Order with the 4-S rules in mind. I found 4-S from fish guru Casson Trenor, and they are awesome and simple.  
5. • SMALL - order small fish since they are more resilient to overfishing. These include sardines (iwashi), skipjack tuna (katsuo), horse mackeral (aji).
   • SEASONAL - fish are seasonal, and it's best to order off the specials list.
   • SILVER - you know the sushi that still has silver skin on it? Order that. It's high in omega-3s and tasty. This includes mackeral (saba and sawara) and Pacific saury (sanma).
   • SHELLFISH - foods like oysters, mussels and clams are easy and environmental to farm.
6. Avoid tuna. Especially blue-fin tuna, which is endangered. 

Want to learn more? 

• Issues around seafood and overfishing
• Sustainable sushi - website and book from Casson Trenor
• Monterey Bay Aquarium sushi guide

What I ate: 16 oz. chocolate milk, brown rice + tofu salad, 12 oz. hemp milk, 1 handful Mindful Mix, 1 pint blueberries, 2 handfuls cherries, 1 mango, 1 large latte, 1 hardboiled egg, Pirate's Booty, dried sliced mangos, cheddar cheese Del Posto dinner: 4 risotto balls, 2 prosciutto balls, 2 parmesan + balsamic vinegar, veal meatball in pastry, lobster salad, 3 steak tartare on crackers, bread + butter + lardo, shrimp salad, garganelli + bolognese, lamb chops, chocolate tartuffo, 60 oz water

Exercise: ran 8 miles

nycheese in Whole Foods

NYcheese hits Union Square Whole Foods

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow ~M.A. Radmacher

Great news! Our friends at NYcheese, the little organic dairy coop that could, has hit the shelves of Whole Foods stores in NY, NJ and CT. Congratulations to Dean, Dan and crew.

If you can afford to go organic, dairy and meat are the places to start. These basic organic cheeses serve your snacking needs - they aren't fancy, but they're good and tasty (and kids love them). They are similar to what you get from Organic Valley, but they are local - check out the nifty cloud logo in the shape of New York State. This means you get great quality for less ($3.99 for 8 oz) while supporting local dairies. The cheese is probably in the dairy section of the stores (where Cabot and 365 cheese is) rather than the cheese section. 

NYcheese and NYmilk will follow up with nyeggs and nyicecream and nyogurt.

If you aren't in the area, check out the local organic coops in your area. Organic Valley is also a good option - they try to use local dairies, but since they are a national brand, you may be paying more for their marketing.

Read about the amazing story of NYcheese directly from Dean.  Additional info on nymilk and organic dairies and the lowdown on organics.

If you're on Twitter, you can follow nymilk @OrganicNYmilk1. And you can always follow me @MindfulEats - just click the bird on the left of the page!

What I ate: 12 oz. cafe au lait, 1 small madeleine, 12 oz coffee, Mindful Mix, brown rice, stir-fried tofu + spinach + chinese cabbage, 6 squares of dark chocolate, dried mango slices, pineapple, 1/2 pork chop + lima beans (Little Owl), 6 vegetable dumplings, hot chocolate, 45 oz. water

Exercise: 30 min stationary bike, 30 min weights

Dried Mango Slices

Never, never, never quit. ~Winston Churchill

I gave up the little fat bombs known as macadamia nuts for Lent. Though I'm not in the habit of giving things up for Lent, I felt like it was time for a challenge. And besides, I was getting obsessive about macadamia nuts, which is never good. So now, I'm firmly on the dried mango bandwagon.

Dried mango slices are a fairly new addition to my snack pantheon. They are awesome. I'd been scared off them before, but I realize now that it was because they had added sugar, which makes them way too sweet. I recently tried pure unsweetened mango slices, and they are delicious! Naturally sweet, chewy and tart all at the same time, they're also portable. And they actually fill you up. Almost perfect. The only reason they're not perfect is because they're still processed since they've been sliced and dried. But they're more "naturally" processed - they haven't been destroyed into an unrecognizable food form.

Like all dried fruit, dried mangos have lower nutritional value than the fresh version. They don't have the water soluble vitamins, and the calories and carbohydrates are much more concentrated (but they are easier to eat in the office). Buy them unsulfered and unsweetened (a 6 oz bag at Trader Joe's is $3.99). There should only be one ingredient on the ingredients list: dried mangos.

Nutrition wise, 1 serving equals 4 pieces.

• Calories: 120
• Total fat: 0
• Cholesterol: 0
• Sodium: 0
• Total Carbohydrate: 28g (10% daily value)
• Dietary Fiber: 2g (8% daily value)
• Sugars: 20g
• Protein: 2g
• Vitamin A: 80% daily value
• Vitamin C: 10% daily value
• Calcium: 2% daily value
• Iron: 10% daily value

Not bad. If you're watching calories, be careful about the number of servings.

What I ate: 1 pear, 1 cafe au lait, 1 grapefruit, 1 yogurt + Sarabeth's strawberry jam + ground flaxseeds, dried mango slices, 3/4 cup brown rice, roasted brussel sprouts + cauliflower, 3 squares chocolate, 3 oz. Chex mix, quinoa + seaweed, 1 hot chocolates, 40 oz. water

Exercise: none

popchips - a Healthier Potato Chip?

 popchips

In giving advice, seek to help, not please, your friend. ~Solon

popchips have been blitzing NYC, seemingly intent on establishing a beachhead. As a former junk food junkie, I couldn't help but notice the chip and it's seductive message of healthier snacking. Then last month I was at my friend Kristina's superfun wedding, and one of the fellow guests happened to work at popchips. She kindly sent me a box. So, dear Mindful Eater, that is the story of how MindfulEats came to receive its first swag.

 

Naturally, I ate them. And there within lies a couple lessons.

1. MindfulEats does not advocate processed foods. Only whole snacks like nuts, fruit and vegetables. So chips, pretzels, and Cheetos don't count - no matter how healthy the claim on the bag.
2. Everything in moderation. If you love junk food, cutting it out entirely will only make you miserable (and isn't entirely possible). Moderate your urge, and only buy the smallest possible bag on occasion. Take it from me - I had been eating mindfully for a while, but then this box of chips showed up on my doorstep so I had to sample them for MindfulEats. Fine. But I had an entire box, and as a junk food junkie, I couldn't keep myself from eating one bag a day, and sometimes two. I felt suboptimal and tired all week (even though I tried to lie to myself and pretend it had nothing to do with junk food. But then I felt better after a few days junk-food free. What can you do?). If you can't help yourself, do yourself a favor and keep it out of the house!

Here's the popchips rundown:

• Taste - they are tasty, no doubt about it. They have a fun, lighter texture than chips - kinda like Munchos. They come in a huge variety of flavors for all types of tastes, but my favorite is Original.
• Ingredients - popchips are a processed food, but they use relatively few and all-"natural" ingredients. The Original flavor has five ingredients. No transfats here. The largest ingredient is "natural potato ingredients" (predominately potato flour and potato starch). As we know, flour is processed. Good potato chips are made of sliced potatos. 
• Healthy - popchips are not fried, so they have fewer calories than potato chips (120 total calories, about 30 less per serving). This isn't going to make much of a difference unless you are being excessive and eating a boatload. The big difference is in fat. popchips have 4g of total fat (less than half the fat of chips), and 0 grams of saturated fat. So how are these chips popped? According to them, "popping is a way of cooking our all-natural ingredients using heat, pressure, and a little snack magic to burst the ingredients into the shape of a chip before we season it." OK then.
• Style - the bag is nice looking and hip - but hey, the fact they come in a bag and have more than one ingredient means they're processed!

Bottom Line: if you don't eat junk food, you are awesome so stay away from popchips. If you are a potato chip eater, popchips are a good alternative - they are tasty, fun to eat, have less fat, and have lots of flavors. Just be moderate - only small individual bags on occasion, and don't store them in the house! I'll look for them the next time I have a craving - the smallest size!

What I ate: vegetable juice, 1 radish, two hard boiled eggs,1 pint blueberries, 3 strawberries, 1 banana, 1 large cafe au lait, quinoa, microwaved broccoli + tofu + soy sauce + sesame oil, 1 pear, 1 coffee, turkey, Mindful Mix, raw cauliflower, soba noodles + soup, milk, hot chocolate

 

Exercise: Ran 5 miles, light weights

Is Frozen Yogurt - Pinkberry and Red Mango - Healthy?

"What is Pinkberry anyway?" ~Brandi

5/19/11 Update: Carageenan, which is used as a thickener in a lot of products (including frozen yogurt and ice cream) has been linked to GI ulcerations and cancer. Dr. Weil recommends avoiding it completely if you have IBS.

Summer. The days get longer and lazier, and temperatures rise. Hot food becomes unappetizing, and thoughts turn to... frozen yogurt! The Pinkberry/ Red Mango/ Yolato trend of the last few years is reminiscent of the TCBY craze in the 90's. What's better than a frozen, tangy treat to relieve the heat? And what if it's good for you on top of being low-calorie? We succumbed to this trend hook, line and sinker a couple years ago, even subbing it in as a meal replacement. When we started going to Pinkberry, they didn't have the ingredients listed - it was a secret. And the store sign said it was only 25 calories. We wanted to believe. The fun boppy music and colorful interiors had us in their thrall. (It's actually 25 calories an ounce, duh, which makes a small serving 150 calories.) 

After a while, we couldn't force ourselves to believe in this alternate reality of fro-yo bliss anymore. Pinkberry was being sued (they settled and paid into a fund for nutritional education), and nutritional information was much more forthcoming. So, we looked at the ingredients labels. You can too - it's on all the websites. Bummer. All the plain flavors have over 10 ingredients, and sugar is a top ingredient. Red Mango and Pinkberry are about even. Just for kicks, compare it to the Whole Foods plain yogurt. Five ingredients - none of which are sugar. Why are there so many ingredients in frozen yogurt? To improve mouth feel and texture. (If you're improving mouth feel and texture, it's processed food). We think the texture of regular yogurt is just fine, thank you.

We're not saying you can't have frozen yogurt, but have it as a treat (and definitely not as a meal). It can be refreshing, and combined with nuts and fruit, it can be a healthier alternative than other desserts.

  

Bottom Line: You can spend your calories better elsewhere than on this processed food. Moderate your intake of commercial fro-yo. If you want a yogurty treat, check out these alternatives:

How to Read Food Labels for Your Health

Cheddar Cheese Cracker Combos

"The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life." - Plato

The best kind of foods are whole foods that come without labels (like apples, broccoli, cabbage, etc.) However, it is nearly impossible to avoid all processed foods. So, eventually, sadly, you will probably eat food that comes out of a container. Out of all the shelves of packaged foods out there, which food should you eat?

The good news is that all packaged food comes with food labels, so you have the information you need to make smart decisions. It's actually fun to look at food labels to see what you're eating. Read them and make mindful choices!

Healthy Snacks for the Day - Pack It In

Deanna's Snack Drawer - Fruit Bowl, pumpkin seed, walnuts, almonds, prunes, dried apricots, organic no-butter popcorn

"Always plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark." - Robert C. Cushing

I don't know about you, but sitting down for hours at a time makes me ravenous.  That means that work is a danger zone for me.  If there's any time that I'm going to be mindless about eating, it's during those 9+ hours at the office.  To make it even worse, there's always a ton of fatty food sitting around (though there's a lot less of it now since we've in a recession) - doughnuts, bagels, cookies, pizza.  How does one make it through the day without gaining a couple pounds? It took me a long time to figure it out. It's all about planning, and packing it in.  

What to do: Create a Snack Strategy

1. Know your weaknesses. Look at your Mindful Battle Plan. You know when your meals are. What is your snack pattern? Mine is mid-morning, followed by a shameful feeding frenzy that starts at 4.
2. Plan the snack strategy around the weakness. I have a mid-morning snack, and then to prevent the 4pm food frenzy, I eat at 2 and 4pm.  The 2pm snack stems the frenzy.
3. Pack it in. It's easy to stuff your face with the easiest alternative when work gets crazy or you're bored. Now that you know which snacks you have to plan for, figure out what they are going to be and pack in the whole foods - Mindful Mix, a Fruit Bowl, nuts, dried fruit, popcorn.  Keeping these things in stock will keep you away from the junk food around the office.
4. Pick your schlep.  My friend Deanna (one of the most mindful eaters I know), brings a week's supply of food in on Monday. I don't like to schlep, so I bring food in every day. I've also found that the downstairs drug store is a good source in a pinch. You're going to have to keep your inventory continuously replenished, so figure out what works for you. Experiment. When you find something that works, keep doing it.

What I ate: 1 banana, 1 coffee, 2 clementines, turnip/collard green soup, 1/2 c. pistachios, pumpkin seeds, tomato/cucumber salad, eggplant caponata, orzo salad, smoked salmon, 1 cracker + cheese spread (it's gross but I love it - and I only had 1!), pasta alfredo (so rich, very bad - but I had a moderate, mindful portion), chocolate Mousse + whipped cream (another mindful portion), Bengal Spice tea, 55 oz. water, 1 multivitamin

Exercise: 1 hour yoga,weight lifting (lower body)

Your Snacks are Killing You - Here's the Solution, Part 2

My winter fruit bowl 

"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy." -Albert Einstein

Everyone needs to snack.  In Part I you threw away your nasty processed junk food and learned how to make your own Mindful Mix.  If you still held on to a couple bags of snacks, throw them away now.  The first law of food is: if it's in your house, you will eat it. Don't forget a snack strategy for work too.

Your second snack is a Fruit Bowl.  It is simple to make, and doubles as a pretty tableau for your table.  

What you do - Make a Fruit Bowl

1. Go the market and buy enough seasonal fruit for the week.  In the winter you can load up on citrus, apples, pears and bananas.  In the summer your options open up to include peaches, plums, nectarines, etc.  You can also create a berry bowl that you keep in your refrigerator.  If you can afford it, you can support sustainable agriculture by buying organic.  If you are prioritizing your organic purchases, start with no-peel fruit that is more difficult to wash (berries).  Peelable fruit (like oranges) is more protected from pesticides.
2. Find a beautiful bowl that makes you smile.  Arrange the fruit, leave it somewhere convenient, and enjoy.