Posts filed under 'Diet'
“Fat” vs “obese”
I wouldn’t want to be Anne Milton’s publicist. The public health minister for England recently gave her personal opinion that doctors and health professionals should call patients ”fat” instead of “obese” since the word “fat” is more likely to motivate them to lose weight.
2 comments July 30, 2010
Peachy keen
Peaches are in season–hallelujah! Why the excitement? I’ve anxiously been waiting for weeks to pick up a ripe batch of this fuzzy fruit as I’ve been seriously craving this salad. It’s from Jamie Oliver–I can’t find the exact recipe but you essentially just combine all of the ingredients and whisk up some balsalmic or lemon vinaigrette. Easy peasy, as Jamie would say.
The ingredients you need: peaches (sweet!), prosciutto (salty!), mint (adds a fresh, unexpected flavour), arugula (I adore this peppery green) and bocconcini (cheese makes everything better).
If you prefer your peaches in a more dessert-y form, you may enjoy this recipe for buttered crepes with caramel Ontario peaches from chef Marc Picone. I’m a savoury-brunch kinda girl myself, but with a side of bacon, I could probably be convinced to eat a plate of these crepes. :)
1 comment July 19, 2010
Refresh obsessed
The forecast for the weekend: hot and humid. My plans? Stay cool and refreshed–and one way I’m going to do that is to whip up a batch of this incredible cucumber ginger elixir that I discovered in Napa at Trefethen Vineyards.
Post-5k race at this lovely winery, the gracious Trefethen family hosted us runners, serving both some of their incredible wine and this delicious elixir (courtesy of chef Chris Aiken).
Making ginger syrup may seem a bit tedious, but the results are soo worth it!
CUCUMBER GINGER ELIXIR
1/2 cup cucumber juice
1 Tbsp ginger syrup
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 cup ginger ale
2 mint leaves, torn
For the cucumber juice: Peel and puree or blend 2 English cucumbers.
For the ginger syrup: Place equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan. Add 1 Tbsp of peeled and roughly cut ginger. Warm until sugar is dissolved. Let steep for 10 minutes. Remove ginger chunks. Cool
Assembly: In a mixing bowl or medium-sized pitcher, combine all of the ingredients. Whisk or stir until well incorporated. Serve over ice and garnish with a slice of cucumber, mint leaf, or lime, if desired.
Makes 4 pint-sized servings.
2 comments June 18, 2010
Twinkies turn-off
This may be enough to turn you off of Twinkies forever: Just discovered this on GOOD, some select shots from Dwight Eschliman’s book 37 or so Ingredients in which he photographs the ingredients of some packaged foods. Take a look.
Red 40 — yum!
Add comment June 11, 2010
Bite me
I’m just back from chillin’ in Napa, Calif., with Oakley ambassadors Katrina Hodgson and Karena Dawn and a bunch of other media and retail peeps. Well, that’s if you can call running a 5k race, hot-air ballooning, bicycling (granted, it only consisted of a few short rides–from one winery to the next) and hiking in Bothe-Napa Valley State Park “chilling.”
K & K have their own company, Tone It Up, in Manhattan Beach, Calif., where they work as personal trainers promoting a healthy, active lifestyle and the ladies could not be sweeter.
But I may have simply been swayed by their deelish Peanut Butter Bites, a raw snack they’d prepped for the group as pre-hike fuel–what the Bites lack in looks, they make up for in flavour, trust me.
Make up your own batch using the recipe from Katrina and Karena’s blog. And check out their travel workout (something I wish I’d been inspired by before my six-hour wait in Denver’s airport).
2 comments May 20, 2010
On the pulse
When a bag of chocolate chip cookies arrived at my door, my first thought?
“Score!”
It was as if the sweets gods had heard my grumbling belly.
And then I read on that package that these yummy looking cookies were made using beans…and I’ll admit it, the notion made me a tad queasy. (I don’t follow any type of restricted diet, so the idea of beans in cookies is a new one to me).
But I’ve eaten stranger things (I’d tried brains for the very first time at Buca restaurant–my new favourite restaurant btw–a few nights before). And so down the hatch one cookie went and it was soft and chewy and totally did not taste bean-y whatsoever) and it totally hit just the right sweet spot.
These gluten-free chocolate chip cookies were sent to me from Genuine Health. Their new Transform+ Pulse revolves around “pulse foods”–a term I’ve come to learn means beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas.
The beauty of pulse foods are that they’re way filling, as I was told by Bruce Krahn, Toronto-based personal trainer and author of the Fat Fighter Diet, given that they are high in fibre and protein. Which makes them a fantastic choice if you’re trying to get svelte for the beach as you can just have one cookie and feel full.
Even better, pulse foods have been shown to reduce risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
The downside? If you’re looking to get your pulse foods in cookie format, you’ll have to bake them up yourself. For a quickie hit of it, though, the Transform+ Pulse ($29.99 for 297-gram bottle) hits shelves in July.
7 comments May 18, 2010
Organic overload
When a snack’s labeled as organic, you may be underestimating the number of calories you’re consuming thanks to a “health halo” effect, says a study from Cornell University.
Add comment April 30, 2010
Burnin’ up
Eating hot, spicy foods helps you burn more calories? It may sound like an old wive’s tale, but new research from UCLA’s Center for Human Nutrition has found that consuming one meal containing the non-burning cousin of capsaicin (the substance in spicy foods that causes your body to heat up) does increase energy expenditure for several hours afterwards.
Add comment April 28, 2010
