Mindful Eats

Quash Your Cold with Zinc

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. ~Oprah Winfrey

Rapid weather changes always seem to give people the sniffles. Our recent 30F to 60F to 40F degree temperature swings probably didn't help. Fortunately, there are some tried and true ways to ward off or shorten a cold, and a new study has added another weapon to the pantheon: ZINC!

MindfulEats is a fervent believer in the power of Vitamin C and chicken noodle soup. We kind of poo-poohed zinc, but maybe it's time to check it out.

A review on the medical research on zinc shows that if you take zinc within 24 hours of the first runny nose or sore throat, it can reduce the length of a cold by an average of a day and severely reduce symptoms. We're convinced that Vitamin C does the same thing, so maybe it's time to double up with zinc. Anyway, if you're as annoyingly whiny about being sick as we are, it's something to try. The recommended zinc dosage is 13 milligrams every three to four hours for four days, which results in 50-65 milligrams a day. If it works for you, then you've got a new tool in your arsenal!

What to do - Quash a Cold (Revised from first Quash Your Cold post)

1. Admit you have a cold. This is the first and most important step. Don't lie to yourself and pretend you don't. If you have a slight sore throat or sniffles, that's not normal - it's an incoming cold. You can't prevent it if you don't admit it.
2. Load up on Vitamin C. 2,000 mg after breakfast, lunch, dinner and before bed. Yup, that's 8,000 mg a day. And as much citrus as possible on top of the vitamins. C has fervent advocates (Linus Pauling took 6,000-18,000 mg per day) and ballyhooers. It's necessary for your body's function and is essential for healing wounds. There are many C skeptics that do not think it helps colds and think high doses are toxic. Vitamin C is water soluble, which means your body eliminates what it does not use through urine. C works for us and is the most important part of our regimen for killing a cold. We take megadoses when I'm sick, but don't take it as a supplement otherwise. 
3. Try zinc. Have 13 milligrams on the same schedule as the Vitamin C, for a total of 50-65 milligrams a day. Lots of Vitamin C tablets include zinc, or you can try lozenges or syrups.
4. Eat chicken soup. It works. The University of Nebraska published a study in 2000 that demonstrated efficacy. Even out of a can. 
5. Drink lots of water. You're getting dehydrated, so drink up.
6. Make hot herbal tea with lots of lemon and honey. You can also try the Taiwanese remedy of just hot water, lots of lemon and honey. 
7. Exercise. You might be fatigued, but we find moderate exercise seems to clear the congestion. So do these studies.  
8. Go to bed early. Your body needs the rest.
9. Figure out what works best for you, and use it as a blueprint everytime you sense a cold coming on.

Want to learn more?

• The NYT article on zinc that inspired this post. 
• Original MindfulEats post on quashing colds.

What I ate: 1 latte, grapefruit, steel cut oatmeal + ground flaxseeds + milk + blueberries, 1 pot green tea, 1 financier, dried squid, 1 square dark chocolate, noodles + tofu + swiss chard + 1 egg + 2 quail eggs, 1 cup banana yogurt, 2 hot chocolate, 36 oz water

Exercise: 5 mile jog, 50 min yoga

 

 

Benefits of Massage Therapy

Listen to all, plucking a feather from every passing goose, but follow no one absolutely. ~Chinese Proverb

Have you ever had a really great massage that leaves you feeling fabulous for days? That's because it fixed something that was tweaked - muscles, fascia or energy. My first massage was from Madonna's massage therapist. Susan was a friend of a friend, and though I felt good, I didn't feel amazing. Maybe because I was new to massage and it made me a little nervous. Still, I kept hearing that massage is amazing for your health so I kept trying. Since then, I've gotten massages around the world from Hungary to Cambodia. I've had some great ones (the best ever was by my surf instructor Kim) and lots of mediocre ones. But in the last two years, I've found an amazing massage therapist who is priced right so I try to go every other week.

Massage is an ancient form of therapy that has been around for thousands of years. Today it is recommended by doctors, and can be reimbursed by insurance. It can help relieve pain, increase immunity, reduce stress, improve your energy flow and leave you feeling more energetic and relaxed. The benefits of a few treatments can last up to a year, according to Partap Khalsa, PhD at the National Institutes of Health.

There are many different types of massage, but they spring from two "schools" or modalities - western and eastern. Western massage (e.g. Swedish, deep tissue, sports) is more focused on the body, and Eastern techniques tend to be more physically vigorous and focused on improving energy flow (e.g. shiatsu, acupressure, tui na). I started out getting fancy spa massages in Western modalities. They were very relaxing, and always left me feeling heavy and ready for a big nap. The effects never seemed to last - the next day it was back to usual.

Then a couple years ago, a friend recommended shiatsu at Fishion in NYC Chinatown. It was different in all ways. It was extremely painful - nothing relaxing about it. I could barely take it. But 2/3 of the way through, I realized that my body felt light. When I got up, I felt light and energetic, and this amazing feeling lasted for days. The massage actually felt therapeutic - almost medicinal. The actual facilities were bare bones - the private "rooms" weren't really rooms, rolls of paper towels subbed as cushions, and there was no aromatherapy. You could hear the person next door. It didn't faze me since I was all about the massage, and the lack of decor contributes to the very reasonable price ($40/hour). I tried out different massage therapists and found three that are absolutely amazing that I recommend to everyone: Jessica (my regular therapist), Janet and Fang. If you're in NYC, Fishion is at 107 Mott Street. Make sure to tip your therapist well for the magic she/he provides.

What to do - Get a Massage

1. Find a great massage therapist. Massage is only as good as the person giving it. Ask for recommendations, or go online and read reviews for different places. Try different massage therapists until you find one that works wonders for you.
2. Get a series of massages. To get better value, you can sometimes prepay for a series of sessions. Ask. If you're looking for more affordable massages, you can try a local massage school.
3. Once you find a massage therapist, note how you feel before and after the massage. Be mindful of the effects.
4. First timer? Relax. Let the massage therapist know. You can undress to your undershorts or be fully naked as you will be under a sheet. If you are doing acupressure or shiatsu, you can wear a t-shirt and shorts if you would like.
5. Try self-massage. You can always give yourself spot relief (see the link below).

Want to learn more?

• Massage: It's Real Medicine, CNN 
• Benefits of Massage, Newsweek
• How to do self-massage

What I ate: large vegetable juice, 1 pint blueberries, 1 coffee, hardboiled egg, whole wheat pasta + tomatoes + basic + olive oil + garlic, salmon, Mindful Mix (macadamias, almonds, walnuts, goji berries, cranberries), dried mangos, 6 vegetable dumplings, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip cookie dough ice cream (bad but it's super hot out!), 40 oz. water

Exercise: jogged 4 miles

Reduce Chemicals to Reduce Cancer?

Everyone likes a little validation every once in a while. Well, Mindful Readers, you are so justified! Our principles are simple and not unique: 

 

• Eat whole unprocessed foods
• Drink lots of clean water
• Exercise regularly
• Get enough sleep
• Stay away from chemicals whenever you can since you get more then enough of them in everyday life

We don't need any medical studies to prove that. But, in April 2010, the President's Cancer Panel linked cancer to chemicals and made all the same recommendations that MindfulEats does. The Panel was established in 1971 to report directly to the President of the U.S., and they report their findings at least once a year. Their last report states that more than 80,000 chemicals are in use in the U.S., and only a few hundred have been tested for safety.

The Panel is not a research study - it receives cancer testimonials and suggests future research and practical recommendations. 41% of people living in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer - much of it is genetic, but some of it is due to environmental causes (stuff that we are exposed to). Cancer is devastating, and the Panel makes the following recommendations to lower your chance of getting it (we've linked to relevant MindfulEats posts, just in case you haven't memorized them and want more detail):

What to do: Reduce Environmental Cancer

1. Be especially vigilant keeping toxins away from children. They are far more susceptible to damage from environmental carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting compounds since their little systems aren't fully developed. All the following recommendations are especially important for kids and pregnant women.
2. Remove shoes before entering your house and wash work clothes separately if you are exposed to chemicals at work.
3. Drink filtered tap water instead of bottled unless your tap water is known to be contaminated.
4. Store or carry water in stainless steel, glass, or BPA- and phthalate-free containers.
5. Microwave in ceramic or glass containers instead of plastic.
6. Eat organically grown food to avoid pesticides, herbicides and antibiotics. We aren't convinced the regulation of organically-labelled food is all that great, so it's best to buy direct from a trusted farmer if possible. If you can't buy organic, you are getting all the nutritional value from whole, non-processed foods anyway. Roger that.
7. Use green cleaners. Or check them out in the Household Products Database to get less toxic ones.
8. Dispose of pharmaceuticals, household chemicals, paint, and other chemicals properly so they don't leach into our water and soil.
9. Turn off lights and electrical items to reduce exposure to petroleum combustion by-products.
10. Take public transportation, bike or walk when possible, or drive a fuel-efficient car to reduce the amount of toxic auto exhaust. Or car-pool - it's social and green!
11. Don't smoke and avoid second-hand smoke.

Want more info?

• The actual 2008-2009 Cancer Panel report
• Nicholas Kristoff column that tipped us off
• Mindful Eats manifesto (kinda)

For a blog festival on real foods, visit Food Renegade.

What I ate: latte, Fage yogurt + Sarabeth's Strawberry Peach jam + flaxseeds, 3.25 oz macadamia nuts, Mindful Mix, 2 slices grandma's cheese pizza + 1 slice vodka sauce pizza (work lunch), 1 hard-boiled egg, NYcheese Pepper Jack, whole wheat spaghetti + boiled asparagus + spinach + soy sauce + sesame oil + ground flaxseeds + nutritional yeast, dried mango slices, pineapple, hot chocolate, 50 oz. water

Exercise: Ran 7 miles

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

Feed Your Brain

So much to learn: World History, New York Times, Vogue, The Economist, Ken Ken, Geographical Expeditions Travel

My body is tired, but my spirit does soar/ if not to work hard than what is this body for? ~Cory Booker

Smartypants, you are so clever to be getting healthier. We know you are (getting healthier), otherwise you wouldn't be here. We also know you're looking good... but what are you doing with all the extra energy and vitality? Feed your brain! Not only does it make you scintillating, it also makes you smarter. 

Sure, you can spend your extra energy at work or at the bar, but be sure to indulge your other passions. Even if you're one of the lucky people who managed to combine work with what you love, you can still nurse your other interests. Inspiration often strikes when you've veered from the normal routine, so if you're a workaholic, you'll be even better at your job. Developing your multiple facets also makes you an even more fascinating person AND a better role model for your kids. Then there are all the other benefits of exercising your brain - you stay sharp, slow memory loss and help ward off potential senility and Alzheimer's. It's just like your body - use it or lose it! 

What to do - Feed Your Brain

1. Stay informed. Get a subscription to your local newspaper or a great magazine (it's ok to read things offline. By reading a paper newspaper, we find that we often end up reading articles we would have never read online). We recommend the New York Times or the Economist for general current events. 
2. Dive into your passions. What interests you? Your passions may be long-standing, but they don't have to be. They can even be temporary. Make a list of everything that you are curious about or wish you had time for. Look at it and see what floats to the top. Start playing soccer again, memorize that Shakespeare sonnet, take a cooking class, travel, research the difference between European swords and Japanese swords. Become an expert. There's so much to do! As Martin Scorsese notes in Raging Bull, we're only here (on Earth) for 20 minutes, so relax and have a good time.
3. Learn something new. Learn a new language, a new physical skill, how to act, or that thing you've been putting off. Take that sailing or painting class. Do some new sudoku or crosswords. It's a big world.
4. Show off. There's so much to learn and do, we can't possibly do it all. So indulge your passion and share all that knowledge with someone else. We're dying to know! Seriously. What is it that makes you your quirky self? What are you passionate about? Leave a comment or send an email.

What I ate: vegetable juice, 2 coffees, Barbara's Bakery Shredded Oat cereal + ground flax seeds + milk, 6 squares dark chocolate, sauteed scallops + whole wheat spaghetti, dried mango slices, LifeThyme Market Raw Vegan Pizza, macadamia nuts, hot chocolate, 50 oz. water

Exercise: 15 min stationary bike, 20 min weights

Marathon Daze - Obsessing Mindfully

Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory. ~George S. Patton

One of the main tenets behind MindfulEats is moderation. Moderation in what you eat and drink, and moderation in your habits. 

However, I am spending six weeks obsessed with the marathon. I'm training for NYC, and the countdown has started. So now I'm either running or worrying about not running. When I'm not stressing about training, I worry about staying healthy, how painful the race will be, and if I'll have a meltdown during the race, in addition to a whole slew of other running-related issues. 

I have no doubt that I'm not going to win (or even be in the top 10,000), but I'd like to do well for me. Last year I got hit with a huge wave of nausea at mile 16 which never let up, and it killed my performance. So now I have to run it again this year.  

The marathon obsession is taking a big toll in other areas of my life. When I trained for it last year, I became very resentful of the time it took. I often had to skip out on fun evenings so I could get up early to go for a run. (Right now it's Saturday evening, and I'm staying in so I can get up to run 20 miles at 7.) It seemed unfair and I whined a lot about it, but then a wise friend asked me if I wanted to go through life without ever sacrificing to accomplish anything. I paraphrase poorly, but you get the gist.

Mindful obsessions and passions are what life is about, as long as they are healthy.

What to do - Be Mindful About Your Obsessions

1. Is your obsession hurting you or anyone else?
2. Does your obsession prevent you from enjoying other priorities? (Can you still balance other people and fun things?)
3. Are you shirking your responsibilities for your obsession? (e.g. work, kids, exercise, cleaning, your health, etc.)
4. Is your obsession the only thing you talk about?
5. Is there a finite time box for your obsession - when will it be over? If not, figure out how to work it into the rest of your life without having it take over.

If you answer yes to any of the first 4 questions, your obsession is unhealthy. Figure out what you need to do to make it work. Talk to a trusted confidante or a professional.

As for me, I can't wait until November 1. There's a huge list of things I've been waiting to do:

1. Have a party  
2. Go on vacation
3. Clean my apartment
4. Get a hair cut
5. Go to the dry cleaner
6. Revamp MindfulEats
7. Write overdue letters
8. Catch up on the Economist
9. Find another obsession

What are you obsessed with? Another obsession I have is the book I'm reading: The Blind Side by Michael Lewis. I can't stop reading it and don't want it to end. It's inspiring, thought-provoking and fun.

What I ate: 1 hard boiled egg, 1 latte, 1 banana, goat cheese, 10 macadamia nuts, pear cider, dried mango slices, seaweed rice ball, miso soup + tofu + seaweed, 1 clementine, rotisserie chicken, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's Siciliana + parmesan cheese + spinach, GT's Kombucha, hot chocolate, water

Exercise: jogged 4 miles, 30 minutes lifting, 70 min. yoga

How to Know When You're Healthy: Develop a Mind-Body Connection

This unicyclist at the NYC Dance Parade feels great!

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time. ~Elbert Hubble

You want to be healthier. Yay! We want you to be healthier. But what does healthier mean? How will you know when you are?

There are certain physical measures you can look at like cholesterol and glucose levels, weight lost, or number of workouts per week. These are all good, but not necessarily readily available. One indicator that you can always check in on is how you feel. Develop a mind-body connection, and you can check yourself at any time - you don't need to find a scale or have your blood drawn. You can even do it right now while you're reading this.

Think of a time when you felt fabulous (altered states of consciousness don't count). Maybe it's right now. How did you feel? Energetic, engaged, on top of it, smart?

It's important to be mindful of your mind-body connection (sounds New Agey, but it's true). The healthier you are, the better your body feels, and the better you feel. 

A mind-body connection comes naturally to some people while others have to develop it. Personally, I've only recently started to develop one. I used to push myself to the limit and as a result, I'd fall asleep wherever I was. Sometimes I would walk in my door and fall asleep on the carpet (not being able to make it to bed). After a close friend told me that this was abnormal, I started noticing where my physical limits were. This has been great for me since I feel noticeably better as I add healthy habits, and I'm more on top of it than not. It's also good for those around me since they don't have to deal with the fall-out of my being unaware. Once, in college, I went to Hong Kong with my cousin, and tried to fit everything in by getting minimal sleep. I also tried to save money by eating minimal food. This seemed like a great plan until I collapsed on the Star Ferry which scared us both. Not fun.

Be mindful of how you feel, and you will reap the reward as you get healthier.

What to do - Develop your Mind-Body Connection

1. Remember a time when you felt great. How did that feel? What was your energy level like? Your clarity? How engaged with your surroundings were you?
2. Focus your attention on yourself right now, and be mindful of how you feel - energy level, mood, awareness. Are you fully engaged?
3. Check in with yourself regularly - after exercise, after eating, anytime. How do you feel? How is it related to your habits? The beautiful thing is that you can always improve how you feel by following the Mindful Eats Map. If you feel sluggish and bad, make a note of what caused it.
4. If you can't tell how you feel, stick with it. Keep trying and checking in with yourself. You'll start to develop your awareness.
5. Try exercises that actively develop a mind-body connection. Meditation, yoga and qi gong help.

What I ate: hardboiled egg, Barbara's Bakery Puffin cereal + strawberries + milk, 24 oz. Gatorade, spaghetti + squash + goat cheese, latte, Fage Greek yogurt + strawberries, rotisserie chicken, ingari, Pirate's Booty, Ike & Sam's kettle corn, Bar Breton: foie gras, warm green bean salad, crab and parmesan crepe, spinach + goat cheese crepe, lemon + sugar crepe, chai, cider, 70 oz. water

Exercise: ran 20 miles (last few weeks before NYC marathon)

Handy List of Healthy Resources and Tools

Have you ever noticed how many great health resources there are on the web? Do you ever wish you could go to just one spot for really great health resources? We do! So we've consolidated useful information like calorie charts, sustainable seafood list, foods with high amounts of pesticides, and other stuff into one page.  It's over on the left-hand side of the page. Or here:

Handy List Of Healthy Resources

If you have others that you really like, share it with us in the comments!

What I ate: vegetable juice, sauteed swiss chard, 2 scrambled eggs, Oikos yogurt + strawberries + ground flax seed + wheat germ, Swedish potato chips, swedish fish (OK I went to Ikea and was curious about Swedish chips - they're like American ones), hummus + carrots, Mindful Mix, 2 lattes, cherries, 2 shell peas, strawberries, small original Red Mango yogurt + blueberries + pineapple + raspberries, 1 apple, boiled shrimp + red leaf lettuce + radishes + goat cheese, Mike's pickled sugar snaps, 1 hot chocolate, 1 coconut water, water

Exercise: 75 min yoga

Greenmarket Tour and Taste with Michael Anthony

Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern in the Union Square Greenmarket, NYC, 6/5/09

"Be the change you want to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi

Inspired. Delighted. Grateful. That's how I felt after spending a Saturday afternoon with Chef Michael Anthony, courtesy of the Council on the Environment of NYC (CENYC)'s Taste and Tours Program. I ended up on the tour randomly, and it ended up being one of my top 10 experiences. Ever. 

Michael is the Executive Chef of Gramercy Tavern, one of the best U.S. restaurants (awarded James Beard 2008 Outstanding Restaurant and consistently ranked by Zagats as NYC's most popular restaurant, among other honors). He is undisputedly a star chef. Yet, yet, YET, he spent an afternoon providing a tour of Union Square Greenmarket followed by an amazing lunch of locally sourced food to a motley group of 20 (including me). Accompanying him were Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director of CENYC and Arun Gupta, a line chef at Gramercy.

I was hooked the moment Michael started talking. This low-key chef has a clear vision of how food should fit in our lives. From the start, he had us all seeing his vision, but the surprise was that we were living it by the end. He started the tour by telling us he was going to highlight some of his favorite farmers, talk about how we could maximize the bounty we bought at market, and then finish at Gramercy Tavern to look at the kitchen and dine in the private dining room on a 4-course lunch prepared from market foods (and paired with local wines). I congratulated myself on hitting the jackpot.

The Greenmarket

Michael's passion and knowledge of responsibly farmed, local food is contagious. I learned so much that market specifics are in this post. Michael talks the talk AND he walks the walk. He walked us through the market, feeding us tidbits on the rich soil west of the Hudson River ("black gold") and the length of strawberry season, finding us garlic scapes to try, and pointing out the pasture-fed Angus farmer's son, who had recently come back from his tours in Iraq. He introduced us to farmers and had them teach us about the food they were growing.

Locally grown food is more than nourishment to him. It provides a sense of context and connection. As we looked at strawberries, he observed that out-of-season produce bought in grocery stores and imported from other areas "doesn't taste the same and doesn't feel the same." Michael spent his early time as a chef in Japan, and was deeply moved by the connection the Japanese had to their locally grown foods and the anticipation people had for the seasonal offerings. We learned that Gramercy Tavern takes meticulous daily notes on the market's offerings, and that strawberries came in 3 weeks later this year as opposed to last year when they arrived on May 2nd.

No Need to Hoard: Enough is Enough

The education of the will is the object of our existence. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you ever eaten something so good that you couldn't stop, even though you weren't really hungry? Then if you're at all like me, you staggered off, found some place to lie down and promised not to gorge again. Why isn't it enough to taste something, be delighted with it, and move on?

There's a human urge to hoard. Maybe we're afraid that it's our one shot at happiness, and if one cookie made us happy, surely six more will make us six times happier. Or if we find one pair of jeans that makes us look good, 20 more will make us beautiful.

It doesn't work that way! Hoarding is a highway to fat, clutter and waste (on your body and in your environment). We all know people that have closets stuffed full of clothes, and yet they keep buying more. Still they never look fabulous. It's better to have a few things you love rather than lots of stuff. A friend asked me if the shriveled up berries he always had in his refrigerator were edible. I asked him why he had them, and he said he bought large lots since they were cheaper, but he could never eat them all before they dried out. Hello? Buy less since that's not really saving money, or give some of them to the homeless guy on the street.