Posts by Emily

Pick-Me Ups: Morning Foods

Posted by Emily on Apr 10, 2012 in Meal Tips | 0 comments

There are plenty of reasons out there as to why it is difficult to wake up. Maybe you did not get to bed until late the night before, you could be overcoming some illness, or maybe you have a bad hangover. Any of these can make waking up a very difficult thing to do. Here are some foods and such that can take a little bit of the sting out of the morning melancholy.

Ginger is a bitter root that is a very powerful antioxidant. You have probably had it with sushi or as a tea. When ingested in large quantities, it can be quite shocking to the senses. It is very good at helping your digestive system and keeps everything down there functioning properly. It helps you to minimize acid reflux or heart burn in your system. Make sure that when you have this, you are consuming it in either tea form or mixed with other foods because it is not as effective on an empty stomach.

Honey also contains many antioxidants that are good for you and help you to wake up and function properly. Some people in Poland use honey mixed with pickle juice as a hangover remedy. While it may sound a bit distasteful, they swear by it. If that is not quite up your alley, just a few spoonfuls of the golden nectar should be enough to give you a healing kick.

The prickly pear cactus has also been revered as a wake-up food. It reduces nausea, fixes dry mouth, and restores appetites. It is an extract that can be taken in supplement form or you can purchase the fruit in a local asian market and cook it up in some recipes or just drinking the extract.

Eggs are especially good for hangovers. They contain an amino acid called cysteine, which aids in the body’s detoxification after consuming alcohol. Specifically, cysteine targets acetaldehyde which is the product of the oxidation of ethanol which is a part of alcohol. Acetaldehyde is what causes you to have that headache and loss of appetite. Once you wake up and knock down a cup of ginger tea, scramble yourself an egg or two and you are well on your way to feeling better.

Pho is a type of Vietnamese noodle that is served in beef broth. Typically, the soup consists of beef, tripe, onions, and bean sprouts. It is a very warm dish and is just the thing to fill you up. It is a wonderful meal when you are feeling sick or out of sorts. If your stomach is a bit upset, this is also the perfect meal for you. You can add lime juice or some sweet Hoison sauce to make it fit your taste. This is better than a bowl of chicken noodle soup and is healthier and more filling as well.

If a meal does not quite sound like what you want, then go for a small can of tomato juice. There is some salt in there that makes it a bit bold, but it also has so many nutrients in it that you cannot help but feel better after drinking it.

You Are What You Eat

Posted by Emily on Mar 29, 2012 in Healthy Foods | 0 comments

I am certain that at some point in your life that you heard this saying. Maybe your mom said it to you as you started on your third cup of root beer and fourth piece of pizza, if not then that was an experience that must be unique to my family. But you know what I am trying to say here. I was always curious about the origin, because I was convinced that this was true when I was young and was terrified of actually turning into Cheerios and mac ‘n cheese. For those of you also wondering about the origin of this statement, here is some history.

The message behind this statement is that when you want to be healthy and fit, then you need to eat good foods and not those laden in sugars and fats. The phrase was used at various times before it made it to the United States. A french author, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, wrote a book that contained the phrase [translated into English]: “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” That is pretty darn close to the modern colloquialism. His book was published in the summer of 1826.

The next mention of something close to this is by Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach. He wrote an essay that was all about materialism and how it relates to religion and spiritualism. In the translated version of that essay, Feuerbach says that “man is what he eats”. That was around forty years after Brillat-Savarin wrote his book.

This phrase ended up catching fire in Britain and was monopolized on by Victor Lindlahr, who was a nutritionist in the late 1920s. He used the phrase “you are what you eat” in an article that he wrote for a local newspaper. The article receives so much attention that he ended up using it as the baseline for a book that he was writing about dieting and nutritional stuff.

The final phase of this phrase was during the hippy era in the ‘60s. During this era, whole foods and healthy eating become very popular. There was a belief among some people that eating unhealthily leads to cancer and other bodily issues.

Another origin for this phrase comes from the Catholic church, and their administration of the sacrament. The sacrament is bread and wine that symbolize the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ and by eating and drinking of it, they believe that you are partaking of the mercy of Christ and becoming more like him.

Whichever origin makes sense to you, then by all means go with that one. These are just a few options to pick from so that you can better understand what this phrase means and that there is a small amount of truth in it.

Surprising Uses for Lemon Peels

Posted by Emily on Mar 15, 2012 in Meal Tips | 0 comments

There are plenty of uses for common household items that you probably never knew about. Did you know that the best way to remove soap scum is to scrape it with an old credit card? The best way to make your entire bathroom shine is to use a mixture of vinegar and water? Also, did you know that lemon peels are incredibly useful around the house? Here are just a few obscure, but helpful uses for lemon peels in your everyday cleaning.

They clean up the grease like nothing else. If you have grease on your counters, then just spread a little bit of salt over it and take half of a juiced lemon and then rub it on that area. When you are done all you have to do is wipe it up with a paper or cloth towel and you are done. It also takes care of grease in the microwave. Put some lemon rinds in a bowl and fill it halfway with water. Leave it in there while you run the microwave on high for about five minutes. This causes the water to boil and then the steam and acid from the lemons takes care of the grease. When you are done, carefully remove the bowl (it is HOT), and then take a towel and wipe the microwave out.

Lemons are good for polishing various metals around the home. If you have some chrome, for example it would be on faucets or other such surfaces, then you just rub with half of a squeezed lemon. Make sure you get all the nooks and crannies where minerals deposit themselves. Then rinse it off and buff with a fabric towel or cloth. This same method works when you are polishing a stainless steel sink, it takes care of all those nasty spots on it as well.

Believe it or not, lemon works as a beauty product as well as just a helpful home cleaner. If you have age spots, then the lemon peel can help to diminish them. Simply place the peel on the spot and leave it on for an hour. When you are done, rinse off the spot and repeat as often as you like. Be careful because the lemon can cause your skin to dry out and flake. What causes the age spot to get lighter is the acid within the peel, it works as a sort of bleach. It also is a great skin tonic for your face, if you rub it on your face and then rinse off.

More uses for lemon peels can be found here.

Related articles

• Homemade Cleaning Solutions (wholefoodsmarket.com)
• 8 Other Green Cleaners Already in Your House (wisebread.com)

Eating Foods in Season

Posted by Emily on Feb 15, 2012 in Healthy Foods | 0 comments

When you go to the grocery store, you might notice that some of the fruits and vegetables are more expensive at different times of the year. This is because they are in season only at certain times, and in season means that they are grown naturally without certain exceptions being made. People have said that it is better to eat fruits and vegetables when they are in season, you might be wondering what the logic is behind this. Here are a few reasons why in-season fruits and vegetables are the best.

They make it better for your wallet. Fruits grown out of season require more work and they are less abundant, therefore the suppliers charge more per fruit than they do otherwise. The farmer’s market is THE best place to buy produce. The fruit sold there is in season, fresh, and local. You really cannot do much better than that. Also, the herbs there are so much better. At the grocery store in the winter there is a nasty selection of limp sprigs and they do not have the nutritional quality that they do at other times of the year. So, moral of that story: buy local and buy fresh.

The taste of food when it is in season is so much better. Imagine the difference between a snap-pea right off the plant and a snap pea that came in a frozen bag, packaged in plastic. I hope that you could imagine the difference and know that the fresh pea pod tastes much better than the alternative. The sun is what is used for the summer plants and the other plants are not able to harness that full power. Also, the flavor tends to go out of fruits the longer they sit around and are not eaten. Fruits at farmer’s markets are right out of the field as opposed to fruits in grocery stores off season because they are transported there and have periods of waiting before they reach the shelves.

When you buy the same fruits and veggies all year, then you are not being exposed the the huge variety of produce that is out there. There are some veggies and fruits that are only available in the winter that are incredibly delicious. Things like turnips, kale, and various citrus fruits.

It is a little hard, though, to remember what is in season and what is not. If you are not a gardener, then there is little reason that you would know how plants grow and which ones are in season during the various times of the year. There is a website out there, link is here, that can help you know what is in season during the month and season you are in.

Try eating fresh fruits and vegetables because they are healthier for you overall and decrease the amount of money that you spend on produce.

A Very Vegan Diet

Posted by Emily on Jan 31, 2012 in Healthy Foods | 0 comments

As the whole world begins to ‘go green’, becoming vegan is an ever more popular diet choice for people to make. Some reasons that vegans cite for becoming so are: it saves money, “thou shalt not kill” applies to animals, it is more environmentally friendly, and it reduces the National debt. While some of these may seem a little ridiculous (such as the reason of National debt), they are turning many people away from meat.

Before we go any further, let us define the term vegan. For a person to be vegan means that they do not partake in any animal product. This means they do not eat fish, milk, dairy, eggs, and honey on top of not eating meat. I am sure that you know someone that is vegan or at least thinking about becoming so. However, if you do not then here are some famous people that are either vegan or vegetarian. Some famous Americans that have become vegan are: Alec Baldwin, Ellen DeGeneres, Lea Michele, Jason Mraz, Brad Pitt, Olivia Wilde, and Mike Tyson just to name a few. They do not all choose to be vegan because they believe that eating animals is cruel and in violation of the Ten Commandments. That view is only held by a few, and it is a very relative idea.

Many of these stars and many people who do decide to become vegan do so because of the health benefits. The effects a vegan diet has on a person’s health are incredible and are often overlooked or pushed to the side. When you eat vegan, you eat less saturated fats and just fats in general. People generally receive the fat that they ingest through dairy products and meat. This means that your cardiovascular health will be much better as well as your overall well-being. You also receive larger amount of the vitamins that your body needs to function at optimum levels. There is more vitamin C and vitamin E as well as other antioxidants in your diet when you eat vegan. These antioxidants help your immune system become stronger as well as allowing your body to heal faster when it is sick or hurt.

As you become more healthy, you are able to prevent a variety of diseases. These diseases range from heart illness to diabetes and cataracts to cancer. You body is much better equipped to handle these illnesses and diseases when you are eating vegan. If you are worried about not eating things that you like, or things that taste good, then you are wrong. Here are some examples of sample vegan recipes: spinach linguine with pesto, Chipotle chili with sweet potatoes, mushroom stroganoff, and raspberry truffle brownies. These are all things that you can fix and make yourself that keep you healthy and following a vegan diet.

If the vegan diet is not for you, that is fine. It takes a huge amount of commitment and dedication to make sure that you do it all the way. I would recommend that you still take a look at the vegan recipes because you might be able to find some that you like that you can cook so that you can avoid meat as much as possible.