Mindful Eats

Updated Green Juice Recipe and Juicer Cleaning Hack

Courtesy Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

I was delighted to wake up to an email from Today wishing me Happy National Green Juice Day. There's a day for everything! Let's celebrate vegetable juice since it's loaded with vitamin goodness. Starting your day with green juice drenches your body with goodness and gives you a head start in getting in your vegetables. Last year I found a brilliant juice hack that makes juicing TWICE as easy, so I dusted off my post on vegetable juicing (from 2009), and am updating it, along with my hack.

First - the hack. It took me 10 years to figure this out. It is so obvious that it's also possible that everyone but me has already been doing it. The thing about juicing is that it takes effort. You have to juice and clean up the juicer, which takes me 10 minutes when I'm being uber efficient. So last year, I started making TWO days of juice. That's right, twice as much juice with only half the cleaning. Now I can drink 4 days of juice with just two days juicing. So blindingly obvious - why did it take me so long to learn this?! The problem is that the nutrients start to degrade as soon as the juice starts oxidizing, but honestly, who cares? You're still getting great nutrition on the second day even if its less than the day before, and you're gaining extra juice days that you wouldn't have had. It's a win/win. If you're firing up the juicer, give yourself that extra day!

The updated post from May 2009 (it's actually a classic so there are minimal changes. I've become a little more hardcore since then, so I'm updating the recipe a little for less sugar). For another recipe, here is Martha Stewart's recipe from Today:

What to do - Juice Vegetables

1. Start off by buying fresh vegetable juice at health food stores or juice bars. Try different varieties, but make sure there is no added sugar or dairy. Just vegetables and maybe a little fruit. The easiest juices for people to start off with are cucumber and celery. However, the dark green vegetables like kale and collard greens have the most benefits.
2. Invest in a juicer. To get the maximum benefits of juice, it has to be fresh (not stored). It can save you money to buy a juicer and juice yourself, and you can juice whatever you feel like. I'm on my third Breville Juice Fountain in 11 years. There are lots of different types, so visit stores and ask questions or do your research online to find one that will work for you. Slow juicers may have more health benefits, but the Breville is convenient for my lifestyle. You have to go with what you are going to use.
   
3. Stock up on your juicing vegetables once a week. The darker greens like kale, mustard greens and collard greens have the most nutrients. You can juice anything though. We save the vegetable parts we don't cook like broccolli skin and asparagus stems to juice. Garlic is good for you. If you want to cut the "green" taste, add 1/2 lemon (you can throw the whole thing in, skin and all). To make it sweeter, add an apple, carrots or grapes. Oh, one thing NOT to juice is the top of leeks. We found out the hard way that they can make you sick.
4. Juice often. You can juice several times a week to several times a day. To increase the amount of juice per effort, you can make two days of juice at each go. Be aware that the nutrients do starts to degrade immediately, so if you're going to save some for tomorrow, fill a glass container up to the rim and put a lid on it so it doesn't oxidize.
5. Clean your juicer meticulously. Clean it as soon as you're done, and make sure the filter is scrubbed. Soak the filter in white vinegar every month or two to dissolve some of the food debris. If it gets really bad, soak the filter in bleach and then clean carefully.
6. Recycle the fiber. Some people add it to meals and eat it. It also makes great compost.
7. You don't need to juice only organic vegetables, though you may head in that direction.
   

MindfulEats Green Juice Recipe (for 2 days)

1. 10-15 leaves of kale
2. 2 stalks celery or 2/3 cucumber during the summer (the cucumber is much better!)
3. 2-4 carrots
4. 1.5" - 2" chunk of ginger
5. 1" - 2" chunk of tumeric
6. 1 whole lemon, rind and all
7. Veggie scraps from yesterday's meals
8. optional: 1 apple or pear if you are new to juicing
   

What I ate: 12 oz. water with Welleco Green Elixir, 16 oz latte, 2 oz assorted cheese, 1/2 cup nuts, 4 c. Pop Karma olive oil and cheddar popcorn, 1 orange, 23 clementines, 2 fruit rollups, 1 c. brown rice, 2 c. steamed broccoli + tofu + mushrooms, roasted seaweed, kimchi, 6 squares dark chocolate. 1 c. hot chocolate, 16 oz water

Exercise: 45 minutes spinning, 5 min stretch, 5 min core

Green Household Cleaners

Biokleen Automatic Dish Powder, Mrs. Meyer's Lavender All-Purpose Cleaner refill, white vinegar

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. ~PJ O'Rourke

My parents visit me every year during tax season, and their visit throws me into a spring cleaning tizzy. Last year when they were here, I woke up and found my mother cleaning my already-spotless bathroom floor. So this week I spent a few days deep cleaning for their visit -- floor scrubbing, sweater folding, window washing type cleaning. 

Household cleaning is a gazillion dollar industry. Just go to a store and look at the tremendous amount of real estate allotted to cleaning products - they promise to bomb germs and grime to kingdom come. You probably have an extensive selection of cleaners. Do we really need that many? We probably need fewer than we think.

My philosophy of avoiding chemicals in my food and personal products whenever possible is pretty much the same with cleaners. This stuff can be toxic - take one whiff and let your eyes water. Cleaners work their way into your body through multiple channels - you inhale them as you are scrubbing, you absorb them through touch (even if its just walking into your recently Tilexed bathtub), and you eat them when you put food on your recently sprayed counter or just on your plates. You also drink them as cleaners get absorbed into the ground and contaminate our water sources.

Have cleaners been proven to be toxic? Some of them have, but I don't really care. There is a strong dose of unpronounceable chemicals in those bottles, and I'm not going to wait around for a medical study to tell me that a specific cleaner is linked to a chronic condition. This stuff is clearly not good for my health or the environment. 

I started looking for less-toxic, greener alternatives a few years ago. It's hard! You can whip up your own natural cleaners with lemons, vinegar, baking soda and water, which is pretty cool, but I'm too lazy to do that, so I buy commercial items. It's pricier than making my own, but at least the "natural" alternatives leave a fresh, nice smelling house instead of a light head like the conventional stuff. I even look forward to using it - it's the only nice thing about cleaning. 

What to do - Mindfully Green Your Cleaners

Simplify your cleaning needs in zones (in bold below), and begin greening your supplies gradually or all at once. There's an ever-growing world of green cleaners out there - from the granddaddies of green brands like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Biokleen to higher end Caldrea to the widely distributed Method. Check out your household products at this National Institute of Health database. Do you really need all those supplies? See if you can narrow what you need down to an all-purpose cleaner and a few specialists.

1. Read the ingredients lists of your cleaners. Like food, make sure the lists aren't long and/or toxic sounding. If you are motivated to make your own cleaners from household ingredients, you are awesome. Search the internet for recipes or check out these by Real Simple magazine. 
2. Experiment to see what works best. Then share your results with us! I like products that don't require a lot of elbow grease. The easiest way to avoid heavy scrubbing is to clean regularly. When Silda Wall Spitzer was in the governor's mansion, they tried a lot of green cleaners and ended up primarily using Ecover, Seventh Generation and Biokleen.
3. Buy large quantities of cleaner to refill your smaller bottles with. It's easier on your wallet and the environment! Most of the green cleaners make large refill sizes.
4. Glass. Glass cleaner is actually easy and cheap to make. Real Simple says to mix ¼ cup vinegar, 2 cups water, and a squirt of liquid Castile soap in a spray bottle, then spritz windows and wipe with a sheet of newspaper. The now defunct Domino Magazine recommended Biokleen Glass Cleaner in 2008.
5. Floors. I use Mrs. Meyer's All-Purpose Lavender Cleaner for non-wood floors. According to Real Simple, you can mop almost any type of floor with a solution of ¼ cup liquid Castile soap and 2 gallons warm water. If the floors are greasy, add ¼ cup distilled white vinegar to the bucket.
6. Bathrooms. I use Mrs. Meyer's All-Purpose Lavender Cleaner ($7.99 for large 32 oz that can be cut into spray bottles) on everything in the bathroom. Domino Magazine crowned Solay Simple (7.95 for large 32 oz) their 2008 Green winner, and I'm planning on trying it. I have to admit, I don't always clean my bathtub as regularly as I should, and as a result, I had to bomb it with Tilex Mold and Mildew Remover for my parents. That stuff works wonders, but it smells like you need a hazmat. I'm going to stick to using my all-purpose more frequently from now on. 
7. Kitchens. I use the all-purpose cleaner for all surfaces in here as well. Some people want a disinfectant, which used to be hard to find green, but fortunately Seventh Generation has a new line of EPA registered disinfectants. Conventional dishwashing detergents are icky. Mine is from Williams Sonoma (works great on grease - I use it to clean off my stovetop when it's greasy), and I love my Biokleen Automatic Dish Powder. It's effective and concentrated so you don't need that much. One of the most common cleaning mistakes is using too much cleaner in the dishwasher, so be careful!
8. Laundry. Domino Magazine crowned Shaklee "Get Clean Fresh Laundry" their 2008 Green winner. I haven't tried it but it's on my list. This is the other most common cleaning mistake - too much laundry detergent, so go light. It's good for your clothes and the environment.
9. Wood furniture. My furniture store recommended Guardsman Furniture Polish, but I have a feeling it's not too green since it doesn't list the ingredients. Domino Magazine put Timothy Corrigan Home ($12.50 for 12 oz.) on their list.

Resources:

• Debra's List of Green Cleaners - an extensive brand list from Debra Lynn Dadd, who was dubbed the Queen of Green by the New York Times
• Household Products Database - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - check out household cleaners here
• Mindful Gear - you can buy many green cleaners from our Amazon store if you can't find it locally. They can also make a nice present for an eco-minded person that has everything.

What I ate: 1/2 sweet potato, lots of macadamia nuts, 1/2 avocado, 1 c. steel cut oatmeal + milk + ground flaxseeds, scrambled eggs + ground flaxseeds, Mindful Mix, 1 apple, 1 cup steamed broccoli, Mike & Sam's cheese popcorn, cheddar cheese, 1 piece duck, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's Siciliana sauce + parmesan + ground flaxseeds, dried mango slices, hot chocolate, 50 oz. water

Exercise: 2 mile jog + 4 mile race, 25 minutes weights

Is Soy/Tofu Good or Bad for You?

Sampling of soy products: tofu, tempeh and miso

You can't change the past, but every day is an opportunity to rewrite your future. ~Tony Hsia

You may not know this, but soy foods are controversial. Some people think tofu is abominable because of the way it tastes, but if you look around on the internet, there are sources that think it is evil and "life-endangering". I had to investigate since I love tofu and don't want to endanger my life. After all, I gave up Cheetos and processed foods (which I love much more than tofu) because they're unhealthy. There's no way I'm going to endanger my life over tofu.

Traditionally, foods made from soybeans - tofu, soy milk, miso, tempeh, etc. - have been considered low-fat, protein-rich health foods. However, if you search the web, you will find several articles that say soy is an unhealthy (if not downright evil) food. What's up with that? Let's look at the evidence on both sides. First, the facts:

Soy foods are considered good protein and calcium sources, so a lot of vegetarians and lactose-intolerant people turn to them for those nutrients. For a 3.5 oz serving (same size as a serving of meat), the organic tofu in my fridge provides 5 gm fat (7.5% DV or daily recommended value on a 2000 calorie diet), 10 gm protein (18.75% DV), 2.5 gm total carbohydrates (1.25% DV), 7.5% DV of calcium, 7.5% of DV iron, and 100 calories.

Why people are proponents of soy as a healthy food:

• Non-meat protein and calcium source 
• Lowers LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol), 2007 study from National Institute of Health and Nutrition, Tokyo, Japan
• Isoflavones (compound in soy), reduces the risk of initial and recurring breast cancer, Wall Street Journal

Why people think soy is unhealthy:

• It impairs thyroid function (unlike the others, there is some basis for this one - soy may impact you if you have a thyroid dysfunction - so avoid)
• Unfermented soy prevents protein and nutritional absorption due to phytic acid and trypsin inhibitors
• It causes mental degradation due to aluminum absorbed in soy 
• Phytoestrogens add hormones (plant version of the female hormone estrogen) 

Weston A. Price and Dr. Mercola are main proponents of the soy is evil thinking. The studies above, Harvard Medical School and Dr. Weil make these people seem wacko. 

What to believe? I looked deep inside myself (not usually a source of answers), but I found some in my genetics. I am Taiwanese, and my people have been eating tofu, soy milk, and miso for centuries.

The anti-soy articles (like this one by Nourished Magazine which is particularly nuts) just don't seem to have a grasp on reality. They often state:

• Asians eat very little soy products (7 grams a day), and if so, it is always fermented. Have any of these people lived in an Asian home? Do they know any Asians? I happen to know a lot of Asians that I'm related to, but I know even more than that of all types. Soy products are pounded on a regular basis. Bowls of hot soy milk are served for breakfast in Taiwan. Koreans have stews that are tofu stews. No one I know has a tiny 7 grams a sitting. This is bogus.
• Phytoestrogens will lower sperm count and feminize boys. And 100 gms of soy protein have the equivalent of one contraceptive pill. Last time I checked, Asia was being accused of overpopulation - China even enacted a one child rule. There doesn't seem to be any low sperm count there. I don't think a feminized male could have kids. And I dare you to use soy protein as a contraceptive (not really, that would just be stupid). If soy was superfeminizing, you would think that the average Asian women would have the figure of Pamela Anderson Lee (post-surgery). Riiiight. There are more real hormones fed to industrial cattle than the tiny amount of plant hormones in soy.
• Soy causes Alzheimers and dementia, and causes you to die earlier. After centuries of eating lots of soy, there is no evidence of any of those things in Asia, and the population with the highest longevity is the Japanese.

So, after filtering the evidence through common sense and empirical evidence, MindfulEats will confidently say soy (femented or not) is good for you as long as you're not allergic to it or have a thyroid disorder.

What to do - Eat Soy in Moderation

1. Some people should avoid soy. If you have a soy allergy, a thyroid disorder, iodine deficiency (very rare) or hate the taste, then avoid it. If your body doesn't react well to it, avoid it. In terms of taste, I love tofu and can't abide the taste of soy milk. My brother likes soy milk but can't stand tofu.
2. Buy only organic and non-genetically modified (GMO) soy products. Actually, a food that is certified organic is not supposed to be GMO so you're getting both. Soy is a large industrial crop that is heavily treated, which is why you want organic.
3. Soy products (except for edamame) are processed foods. So you may want to go light on them. The anti-soy contingent is generally ok with fermented soy foods like tempeh and miso, but they're wacky.
4. Use soy as a protein source, but like everything else, make sure you not eating it to the exclusion of other foods. Eat a WIDE variety of whole foods to get a full range of nutrition.

Pro-soy Contingent: Harvard Medical School, Dr. Weil, clinical research above

Anti-soy Contingent:Weston A. Price, Dr. Mercola, Nourished Magazine

For posts on SOLE food (sustainable, organic, local and ethical), go to Food Renegade.

Updated: 12/11/2020

What I ate: cottage cheese + ground flax seeds, 1 butter croissant, 28 oz. cafe au lait, brown rice + steamed broccoli + tofu, 5 squares dark chocolate, 1 banana, spinach + red cabbage + shiitake mushroom risotto, hot chocolate, water

Exercise: none

Experts Choose What Not to Eat

 Root vegetables in Union Square Greenmarket

Make visible what without you, might perhaps have never been seen. ~Robert Bresson

Our friend Dave passed along a great article on foods to avoid that was on msn.com. This was superhelpful because 1) no one reads msn, and 2) the article is really interesting. It's so interesting, we're going to summarize it. 

The author, Anne Underwood, asked seven experts who spend their time thinking about what is safe to eat, "what foods do you avoid?" The answers are interesting and right in line with MindfulEats - avoid processed and industrial foods. Of course, it's not always so easy, so we've added a little commentary. Without further ado - top picks of foods to avoid:

1. Farmed Salmon. MindfulEats has railed against farmed salmon. It's bad for you and the environment. Fishery expert, David Carpenter, M.D., director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany won't eat it. He published a major study in the journal Science on contamination in fish. Like land-based industrial farming, farmed fish are crammed into pens and fed odd things, so they are weaker than their wild brethren. They are loaded with antibiotics and contaminants, and like beef, they have less nutrition. Pound for pound, you are getting less nutritional value with farmed salmon. Switch to wild alaskan salmon. According to Carpenter, the most contaminated fish is from Northern Europe. Any fresh Atlantic salmon is farmed. Learn more about why seafood is controversial.
2. Corn-fed beef. Farmer and writer Joel Salatin steers clear of anything but grass-fed beef. Industrial farmers raise their cattle on corn and soybeans since it fattens them up quicker for a fast profit. That meat is not as nutritious as naturally raised, grass-fed beef. You'd have to eat more of it to get the same value, and who wants to be fat? Not you. A recent study conducted by the USDA and Clemson University found that grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. Pound for pound, you're getting more value with the grass-fed beef.
3. Milk produced with hormones. Cancer researcher Rick North won't drink it. The former CEO of the Oregon division of the American Cancer Society notes that recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) increases udder infections and even pus in the milk. It also leads to higher levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor in milk. Life is hard enough when you're hormonal - why drink it? If you can afford grass-fed milk, opt for it. Like meat, milk is better from happier, heathier cows.
4. Canned tomatoes. Endocrinologist Fredrick Vom Saal, Ph.D., at the University of Missouri studies bisphenol-A (BPA) and he won't go near canned tomatoes. Cans are often lined with resin that contains BPA, and acidity (which tomatoes are) causes the BPA to leach. You can find tomatoes packed in glass or tetrapaks. These brands include Bionature, Coluccio, Trader Joe's and Pomi.
5. Microwave popcorn. Toxoligist Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group avoids microwave popcorn since chemicals in the lining of the bag, especially perfluorooctanoic acid, are linked to infertility. Microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize and migrate into your popcorn. "They stay in your body for years and accumulate there," says Naidenko. Yuck. Popcorn flavoring is also associated with lung disease (known as popcorn workers lung) for workers of microwave popcorn factories. Pop your own popcorn the old fashioned way - in a skillet. It's really cheap!
6. Nonorganic potatoes. Jeffrey Moyer, the chair of the Organic Standards Board, won't eat non-organic potatoes. Apparently, root vegetables absorb all the chemicals (pesticides, fertilizer, fungicides, etc) in soil (yikes, I guess that means the other root vegetables are better organic too). Then on top of that, potatoes get sprayed with extra chemicals while growing, during harvesting and after they've been dug up. Moyer says "I've talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals."
7. Conventional apples. We all know that apples are one of the Dirty Dozen. Mark Kastel, a former executive for agribusiness, currently codirector of the Cornucopia Institute, won't eat nonorganic apples. Apples have lower resistance to pests, so they are doused regularly. If you can't buy organic, wash and peel your apples.

The original article we cribbed this from is awesome, so read it here.

What I ate: 1 grapefruit, 1 orange, 1 cup McCann's steel-cut oatmeal + ground flaxseeds + dried cranberries + milk, Stilton cheese, dried mango slices, 3/4 cup brown rice, 1 avocado, 3 stalks broccolini, 2 hot chocolates, 40 oz. water 

Exercise: Ran 7 miles, 90 min yoga

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

Local Winter Seasonal Foods

Paffenroth Farms stand at Union Square Greenmarket, NYC, 1/30/10

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

MindfulEats is celebrating our first year anniversary, and we are very grateful to have you with us. We were founded last January during a particularly inspirational time - New Year Resolutions were swirling, Obama had just been inaugurated and the Steelers were on the way to the Super Bowl. 

It was also the middle of winter, and food choices were more limited than during the summer. Root vegetables dominated over fruit. If you haven't noticed a difference, you probably live in a warm and sunny area. Those of us in cold, wintry climates are fortunate that we can take advantage of delicious seasonal specialties. The interest in local foods seem to be increasing (yay!) and we've recently fielded several questions on what's in season - so Bill, Jon and Kaitlyn, this post is for you.  

It's possible to deny winter with food that's been shipped from warmer areas, but that stuff isn't great. It was picked days before it had a chance to ripen naturally, and it's been sitting around for a while. It also cost a lot of carbon to ship. Use it as a supplement to the bonanza of hearty winter foods easily available: cabbage, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, brussel sprouts, dried beans, eggs, meat. There may not be as wide a selection as the summer, but this is definitely a season to take advantage of. (And do it while you can - the winter season is short!) Eating seasonally provides you with:

• Food that makes sense. It's cold out there, and filling your tummy with roasted sweet potatoes and a heart-warming stew or cassoulet makes more sense than eating a tomato and mozzarella sandwich with strawberries. You'll be in sync with nature!
• Cheaper and tastier food. Produce that's in season and local tastes better. Parsnips and turnips in the NYC greenmarket are $1 a pound. That's a lot less than the small bundles of spinach from California.

The hardest thing about adding seasonal foods is knowing what's in season, so:

What to do - Eat Seasonally (and Locally)

1. Bundle up and go to the farmer's market. The selection is more sparse than during the summer, but you'll quickly see what's in season and you'll be able to buy the freshest. Besides, this is when your local farmers need the most support. They get a lot less traffic and they're cold too.
2. Use this great site from Natural Resources Defense Council and check out what's in season.
3. Learn how to cook root vegetables and meat. Most any winter food can be roasted or turned into stew. Your slow cooker is perfect for this season, and we roast veggies at least once a week.
4. If you're in the NYC or SF area, buy this clever and beautifully illustrated Local Foods Wheel from Chelsea Green to always see what's in season. It makes a great gift too! It was our favorite item in a gift bag.

What I ate: City Bakery hot chocolate shot, 1 cup plain yogurt + 1T Sarabeth's peach-strawberry jam + flaxseeds, 1 cup McCann's steel-cut oatmeal + dried cranberries + ground flax seeds, cheddar cheese, macadamia nuts, 1 grapefruit, 1 large latte, 1 cup tea, Trader Joe's dried mangos, Tazo white apricot tea, whole wheat fusilli, roasted eggplant + portobello mushrooms + parsnips + turnips, hot chocolate, New Chapter multivitamin, water

Exercise: 30 min run, 60 min yoga

What is Conventionally-Grown, Industrial Food?

Grocery shopping in Aleppo, Syria. 

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made. ~William Dyer

Have you ever noticed that hippies, yuppies and environmental folk love farmer's markets and sustainably grown, organic food? What's up with that? Is it better for you? And why are people making such a fuss over conventional, industrially grown food? Read on for most of the answers...

If MindfulEats were to draw a bright line in the world of food, the first and most important cut would be between processed and non-processed foods. Eating non-processed food is the best thing you can do for you and those you love. But you already knew that.

The second cut would be within the non-processed food world, between 1) conventional, industrially grown food and 2) locally, sustainably grown food. 

Conventional, industrially grown food is quickly becoming the villain in movies and popular press. But like processed food, the reason it came into being wasn't to be evil - the idea was to make farming more efficient to provide more and cheaper food for everyone. Not a bad idea. It's the actual production and execution that is the problem.

To understand the issue, let's take a look at the way food has traditionally been grown. Food (plant and animal) is grown on land. Like you, land gets tired and less productive when it is worked hard and without rest (which is what farming does). Different plants take different nutrients from the soil, and leave different types of waste. The traditional farmer had to be smart about raising multiple types of crops so he didn't strip the soil of all nutrients, and leave himself with dead fields in a few years. He also had to rest plots of land so the soil could enrich itself. 

Likewise, he had to grow different animals to be efficient. Cows would graze on grass and poop in the fields. Chickens would peck through the poop for food, scattering the manure for more efficient fertilizer as they pecked. Pigs ate leftovers and rooted through fields, helping to aerate the soil and creating more poop for chickens to peck through. Farms were an ecosystem of their own, growing food for the farmer and a few others, and being carefully managed so the farm would exist for generations.

Industrialization came along and decided traditional farms were inefficient. Like factories, industrialists thought they could increase production. Instead of planting different kinds of crops, they thought they'd just plant one type (corn, for example) on a large tract and be super efficient about it. They added chemical fertilizers to make the crops grow faster, and herbicides/insecticides to reduce pests. The problem is, the chemicals and just the one crop stripped the soil of its nutrients, so even more chemicals had to be added to make the same land grow as much. This creates a huge environmental problem with all the chemicals, and lots of people don't want to eat those chemicals. It's gross. Enter the growing demand for organic, unchemically grown food.

Meat production went through the same process. Industrial farmers figured they could produce more meat if they raised mass amounts of one type of animal. So each farm focuses on one type - beef, pork, chicken, etc. To grow more meat, they jam as many animals as possible on a plot of land. This means the animals don't have room to exercise, stand around in lots of poop, and are prone to getting sick (that's what happens with poor quality food and lack of exercise). Since they are so close to each other, disease sweeps through quickly. Hello antibiotics. To counteract potential disease, 70% of the antibiotics produced in the U.S. is fed to animals, as stated by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in her statement to the Agriculture Subcommittee. So when you eat industrial meat, you are eating sickly animals that are filled with artificial hormones and antibiotics so they will grow more quickly and not get diseased. All those drugs and waste leach into the environment and water supply, which causes a big environmental issue that will have to get cleaned up some day.

Sure, cooking helps kill the additives, but that animal you're eating is pretty sickly and unhappy. Yuck. It's bad karma. Pigs are smarter than dogs, and those industrially grown pigs get so depressed they put antidepressants in their feed along with antibiotics. If you took two kids, and raised one so that he played outdoors and ate healthy food, he'd have a good shot at being happy and hale. If you forced the other kid to spend all his time in a closet eating nothing but cereal, you'd have a kid with lots of issues. That's industrial farming.

So the theory behind industrial farming isn't a bad one, but the practice of it is terrible in terms of:

1. the environment - a massive amount of chemicals and waste is being offloaded into the environment, without any kind of replenishing
2. your health - you and your family get lots more chemicals into your food, and you eat sickly depressed animals. It hasn't been proven to be harmful yet, but do you really want to wait for that proof?

That's why people like farmer's markets - it provides a direct connection to food grown the traditional, sustainable way, as do responsible retailers and grocery stores.

What to do - Eat Sustainably

1. Eat less processed food.
2. Buy organic and locally produced food if you have the means. You're getting a bigger bang for your buck than you are when you spend your moolah on designer clothes.
3. Ask your restaurants about their food, and patronize the ones that buy responsibly.
4. Share your philosophy with others.

Want to learn more?

• Watch the movie Food, Inc.
• Read Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma
• Read Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's Statement On Agriculture Subcommittee Hearing on Animal Health, Antibiotics

For articles on SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) food, go to Food Renegade.

What I ate: macadamia nuts, large latte, 3 clementines, 1 banana, dried mangos, cheese, baby carrots, babaganoush, whole wheat spaghetti, roasted eggplant + portobello mushrooms + zucchini + yellow squash + grape tomatoes, 2 cups hot chocolate, water

Exercise: 90 min. vinyassa yoga, 30 min. lifting

Food Portions and Serving Sizes

 Peppers at a Green Bay Farmer's Market ©Michelle Correa Photography

Your body is the baggage you must carry through life. The more excess the baggage, the shorter the trip. ~Arnold H. Glasgow

I have a colleague that's frustrated with her diet. She started eating healthier, but she still wants to lose 10 pounds. Sometimes that happens. Getting rid of processed foods is a fabulous start for losing weight, but you still need to be mindful of how much food you're eating. Learning serving sizes will also help you keep a better food log, which is key to weight loss.

American portions keep getting supersized. You can blow a whole day's worth of calories on a restaurant meal. If you want to lose weight, you need to know what a proper serving looks like, so check out the MindfulEats Food Portion Chart below (based on this SparkPeople article). It's shocking how much smaller a portion should be than what we're used to.

Just so you know - a serving is the amount that food experts recommend you eat, and a portion is what you actually eat. For example, experts recommend that you eat 6-11 servings of grains per day. So if you don't snack on grains, you may want to eat two servings per meal.

MindfulEats Food Portion Chart

 
 

American PLATES are also getting bigger, which sneaks in more calories. Use a smaller luncheon size plate (9"-10") for your dinner, and fill it with 1/2 veggies, 1/4 whole grains and 1/4 protein. If you need a visual reminder, you can buy a portion-control plate here, or one of the more stylish plates featured on the Today Show.

What to do - Lose Weight through Proper Portions

1. Memorize serving sizes. Or print out the above chart, cut it out, and put it in your wallet for easy referral.
2. Pack away your dinner plates and only use luncheon plates (9"-10"). Make sure your plate is filled with 50% veggie/fruit, 25% whole grains, and 25% protein.
3. Stick to recommended serving sizes. It's great you're eating healthier, but that doesn't mean you can eat massive amounts!
4. Throw away extra food, or wrap it up for later. We're giving you permission not to clean your plates. You didn't ask for that huge portion, did you? Eat a healthy portion and leave the rest, or have it wrapped. You're also probably getting a lot of cookies, chocolates and sweets for the holidays. We give you permission to eat one and throw the rest away (don't worry, they'll never know).
5. Look at what 300-450 calorie meals look like.
6. Check out the Cool Resources page for more ideas.

Want to learn more?

• SparkPeople article on Portion Sizes and Serving Sizes
• Web MD's Portion Tool and Simple Secrets to Portion Control and Healthy Eating
• How to Lose Weight

What I ate: (horrible day of holiday parties) 1/2 c. couscous, 1 small potato pancake, lox, smoked trout, food, mixed nuts, 1 slice ham, shrimp cocktail, lots of cheese and crackers, 1 small crab cake, carrots + hummus, whole wheat spaghetti + egg + spinach, 1 hot chocolate, water

Exercise: 15 min stationary bike, weights

Sustainable Seafood - the Controversy

Panama City Beach, FL

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. ~Mother Teresa

My family hails from an island of fisherman, so I grew up eating seafood. I didn't really think about it, it was just a staple. I ate anything as a kid (except for cilantro and onions, yuck), but at some point, stymied by animal farming practices, I stopped eating meat and relied on seafood and plant sources for protein. At that time, the oceans were teeming, and it was the sustainable choice.

Now that it's become fairly easy to find small production, humanely grown animals, I started eating meat again and cut way back on my seafood consumption. Things have flipped, and its now seafood that has become a thorny, complicated issue. 

Demand for seafood has soared as more people choose it for health benefits and the global population increases. But all this seafood love is unsustainable - our oceans are being killed through overfishing and environmental damage. Mark Bittman wrote a great article on the issues confronting seafood.

Why is seafood so controversial? Catching and eating seafood causes several issues:

1. Catching seafood damages the environment. Most seafood is trawled for or dragged. This means huge nets are weighted down (often to the sea floor), and dragged. This is bad for two reasons: 
   • It hurts the seabed and crushes a living habitat that takes years to regenerate
   • Lots of animals are captured and killed as bycatch - according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 25% of the sea animals accidentally caught are discarded. This includes sea turtles, dolphins, seals and whales. 
2. We are overfishing several popular species of fish, causing fisheries to collapse. This means that we are catching fish faster than they can reproduce. Not good. Populations are getting smaller, and we start catching the fish even younger, which doesn't give them a chance to recover. Once the populations are gone, it's forever. Cod, bluefin tuna, Chilean seabass are examples of overfished populations. Check out our resources page for lists of sustainable seafood.
3. Farmed seafood can be unhealthy and unenvironmental. Just as industrial animal farming produces chemically produced meat, aquaculture often produces weaker, chemical-ridden seafood. Many fish (like salmon) eat other fish, and when they're farmed, thousands are penned into small spaces so they don't get the chance to grow strong as they would in the wild. Antibiotics are used to keep disease down (large numbers breed disease), and tons of fecal matter harms the environment. Sometimes these substandard fish escape and breed with wild fish, lowering the quality of wildlife. When you buy these fish, their meat is usually paler in color so they are injected with dye to make them look more appetizing. Yuck. Shrimp farming is also an ecological disaster. Mangrove forests are cut down to make way for shrimp, and when the area stops being productive, the farm moves to cut down another forest. HOWEVER, some seafood that can be environmentally farmed like mussels, clams, oysters and vegetarian fish like tilapia. 

Our oceans are under direct threat, but you can have a positive impact on our oceans by being mindful about seafood.

What to do: Choose Seafood Mindfully

1. Cut down on your seafood consumption. There are lots of artisan farmers now, so if you have a hankering for flesh, you can choose humanely and happily grown meat.
2. Be mindful and choose sustainable seafood. Our resources page has lists of sustainable seafood. When you find a seafood that is sustainable, ask how it was caught. Trawling or dragging are bad, longlining, hook and line fishing, and trap fishing are better. Buy the fish that is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (Whole Foods now has some MSC-certified fish).
3. Ask questions at your seafood restaurant. Check that the seafood is sustainable and ask about it. Is it wild or farmed?  How was it caught?
4. Replace seafood with easily farmed fish like tilapia or mussels.
5. Are you looking for Omega-3's? Eat walnuts, flaxseeds, eggs, etc.
6. Enjoy the ocean and learn more about it. Go to the beach and catch some waves. Learn to sail or scuba dive. Snorkel. There's a whole world in there, and your kids will love it!

Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

• Mark Bittman, Loving Fish, this Time with the Fish in Mind 
• The Slow Cook on seafood
• Monterey Bay Aquarium on Ocean Issues

What I ate: 14 oz. coconut water, 14 oz. vegetable juice, 1 handful Mindful Mix, Whole Foods plain yogurt + flaxseeds + strawberries + blueberries, 2 handfuls blueberries, 2 handfuls cherries, 1 large latte, cantalope, 2 hardboiled eggs, Thai dinner: Pad See-Ew, fried tilapia, sticky rice

Exercise: ran 6 miles

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