Category Archives: food

Wheat belly

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Modern wheat is not good for anyone, according to Dr. William Davis, author of Wheat Belly, a new book that differentiates the wheat of today from the wheat of yesterday.

In this article on BoingBoing, Davis outlines how modern wheat has been genetically modified even since 1960 into a product that may be the real cause of the surge in obesity and diabetes.

He recommends that not just people with celiac, gluten-intolerance, and wheat sensitivity give up wheat. He recommends that everyone do so. If you’re wondering why you can’t lose weight, look at your wheat consumption. Rather than being a “healthy whole grain,” it might be working against your health instead of for it.

I don’t know the science and haven’t read the book, but I gave up wheat about four years ago, and I can tell you that it’s getting easier as more people jump on the no-wheat bandwagon. More restaurants offer gluten-free menus, and grocery stores offer more gluten-free foods. Gluten-free bakeries are even opening and doing well. Bakers and chefs are experimenting with alternatives to wheat flour and creating good new recipes.

Here’s what Davis says:

It is therefore my contention that eliminating all wheat from the diet is a good idea not just for people with gluten sensitivity; it’s a smart decision for everybody. I have experience in my heart disease prevention practice, as well as my online program for heart disease prevention and reversal, with several thousand people who have done just that and the results are nothing short of astounding. Weight loss of 30, 50, even 70 pounds or more within the first six months; reversal of diabetes and pre-diabetic conditions; relief from edema, sinus congestion, and asthma; disappearance of acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome symptoms; increased energy, happier mood, better sleep. People feel better, look better, eat fewer calories, feel less hungry, are able to discontinue use of many medications — just by eliminating one food from their diet — ironically a food that they’ve been told to eat more of.

Davis recommends going without wheat for four weeks:

If the health benefits of a wheat-free diet sound hard to believe, why not conduct your own little experiment and see for yourself: simply eliminate all things made of wheat for four weeks — no bread, bagels, pizza, pretzels, rolls, donuts, breakfast cereals, pancakes, waffles, pasta, noodles, or processed foods containing wheat (and do be careful to read labels, as food manufacturers love to slip a little wheat gliadin into your food every chance they get to stimulate your appetite). That’s a lot to cut out, true, but there’s still plenty of real, nutrient-dense foods like vegetables, fruit, nuts, cheese and dairy products, meat, fish, soy foods, legumes, oils like olive oil, avocados, even dark chocolate that you can eat in their place. If after that 4-week period you discover new mental clarity, better sleep, relief from joint pain, happier intestines, and a looser waistband, you will have your answer.

Raspberry chocolate super-smoothie bliss

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I’ve made this smoothie twice now, and it’s definitely worth sharing. Raspberries and chocolate complement each other very, very well, and this smooth is loaded with nutrients from superfoods, keeping you hydrated and giving you energy.

I added measurements this time! Last time I just threw things together in the blender. Except for the first two packaged ingredients, these are not exact, just indicators. Use your own judgment.

  • 1 14-oz bottle Zico coconut water
  • 1 6-oz container of organic raspberries
  • 2 T dried goji berries
  • 1 T Cortas pomegranate molasses
  • 2 T Artisana organic coconut butter
  • 2 T organic raw cacao nibs
  • 1 T cacao powder
  • 1 T maca powder
  • 2 T chia seeds
  • 1 T ground flax seed meal
  • 1 T flax seed oil
  • peeled ginger root equal to about 1 T

I put everything in the blender and let it run on a high setting for a couple of minutes to pulverize the cacao nibs. It makes about 3 servings.

Coconut butter is a fairly new product on the shelves of health-oriented grocery stores. It uses both the coconut flesh and the oil, so you get fiber from the coconut, and not just the oil. You could even make it yourself. You can use it as a spread (like butter!). Apparently it makes a great match with maca powder.

That’s an area of food research where I’d love to see more work done — what food combinations boost each other. I’ve read that green tea and lemon work really well together too.

The chia seeds soak up liquid and expand, so the smoothie will gel after blending to a nice thick texture, very filling. Chia seeds are another recently “discovered” superfood from Mexico. They boost energy and keep you hydrated through the fluid they absorb. Long-distance runners often use them. They also provide calcium, boost brain functioning, contain anti-oxidants and omega-3s, lower bad cholesterol and raise the good, control high blood pressure, and do many other good things for the human biological machine.

Maca powder is made from a South American root with these properties:

Maca is a nutritionally dense super-food that contains high amounts of minerals, vitamins, enzymes and all of the essential amino acids. Maca root is rich in B-vitamins, which are the energy vitamins, and maca is a vegetarian source of B-12. To boot, maca has high levels of bioavailable calcium and magnesium and is great for remineralization.

Maca root helps balance our hormones and due to an over abundance of environmental estrogens, most people’s hormones are a bit out of whack. Maca stimulates and nourishes the hypothalamus and pituitary glands which are the “master glands” of the body. These glands actually regulate the other glands, so when in balance they can bring balance to the adrenal, thyroid, pancreas, ovarian and testicular glands.

Instead of providing hormones to the body, maca works as an adaptogen which means that it responds to different bodies’ needs individually. If you’re producing too much of a particular hormone, maca will regulate the production downward. However, if you’re producing too little, it’ll regulate the production upward.

You can google each of these ingredients to learn the health benefits, but this smoothie feels and tastes like an explosion of well-being from your tastebuds down to the cellular and energetic levels.

You could use frozen organic raspberries or any other kind of berry, but please do not use non-organic berries as their skins are thin, and pesticides are easily absorbed into the flesh. (That may not be scientific, but it makes sense to me.)

No particular reason for using both flax seed meal and flax seed oil except that I had both on hand!

Being blessed

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I feel a little guilty for not posting much recently. All is well! I am loving my life in so many ways, let me begin to count them.

I love being a massage therapy student, learning, practicing, integrating. I’m friends with several massage therapists and bodyworkers. It is so cool to hang out and talk shop with them now!

It’s wonderful to work on my friends, too. Even when I’m massaging them along with a video, I thank them for their patience, because every time I practice, I integrate more. My hands are becoming antennas!

Today it occurred to me that my trailer is like a really fun playhouse for a grownup. I didn’t have a playhouse when I was a little girl, and I’m enjoying the heck out of living in this trailer. My visitors yesterday, Katie and her dad, Don, noticed that it is just my size, and it does feel spacious enough to me at 5′ 1″ tall. Living here makes me smile. 

I’m still working on window covering decisions/installation and the sliding glass door/front deck entrance. I’m also testing 5 kinds of weatherstripping before settling on the best and longest-lasting. That’ll be a weekend chore to get done before the first cold front.

I was looking online today at chimeneas, imagining how awesome will it be, when it gets cold, to sit in my living room and watch a fire burning in a chimenea on my deck without the mess of having firewood, ash, or smoke inside. Looking forward to that fire trance…

The kale, chard, and collards I planted in September have grown large enough to start eating. The two inches of rain in Austin a couple of weekends ago was awesome. Plants love rainwater so much more than tap water.

There’s a mockingbird who lives near me who sings his heart out every day. I’m training my cat Mango to be an inside cat because he doesn’t behave well sometimes when I let him out. The monarchs are passing through.

I spent time last week updating my resume and making sure the same version appears on STCaustin.com, monster.com, LinkedIn, and so on. In other words, I got serious about sending a clear, consistent message out. The next morning, I got a call from a recruiter about a part-time technical writing job (very rare) at a really good company. I interviewed first (first or last are the best slots). By no means do I have the job, but it’s incredibly heartening to put my intent out there and get such a positive result so promptly. This has happened before. It’s almost scary.

I danced this morning at Ecstatic Dance of Austin. After several years of being away from dance, earlier this year I discovered this new group, whose energy feels clean, spacious, and not overshadowed by personalities competing for dominance. I feel that the bodywork, energy work, and awareness work I’ve been doing really shows up when I dance for over an hour with presence, pleasure, and skill.

My friend and fellow dancer Lakshmi Jackman says:

There is a shortcut to ecstasy. It’s called dancing.

Amen, sister!

I am feeling so grateful, lucky, and blessed to be connecting with some awesome people. New friends, old friends, family. People are showing me their awesomeness all the time now. Stunning, amazing awesomeness!

Is it because I’m in school learning how to do work I love?

Is it because the world is my mirror, and my happiness is being reflected back to me?

Is it because I’m finally getting the hang of managing my own life with skill?

Have I become more powerful than I believe I am?

I don’t know, but I am definitely feeling in love with my life.

Dare I wish for a couple of private yoga students? I love teaching, especially beginners, and miss it.

So that’s the news from Lake … hmm. Lake Well-Being. Thanks for reading. Blessings to you too.

There is a crack in everything

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Today I’m acknowledging the crack, still waiting for the light to get in.

I don’t know what’s going on astrologically, but since a couple of days ago I’ve felt a disturbance in my equanimity.

Anyone else feeling that way?

I hate naming names and casting blame, so I’ll just say that unknowingly, innocently, I subjected myself yesterday to an experience with another person that I never want to repeat. It threw me off, rattled me, and I’m still not centered.

A couple of other incidents before and after that have piled it on, that feeling of being uncentered.

One of them that I feel okay writing about here was listening to part of Fresh Air with Terry Gross this afternoon while running errands in my car. She was interviewing a writer on economics who said that Goldman Sachs helped Greece hide its debt in order to be admitted to the European Union.

Once admitted, Greece had access to very low interest rates and proceeded to borrow lots of money and do things like raise salaries without any accompanying rise in income.

Now Greece has no way of repaying its debt, and it could affect the European Union and the world economy, which as we know is already not in good shape.

“This was not a one-off situation,” he says. “You look at the financial crisis in Europe, and the fingerprints of American investment bankers are everywhere. The financial collapse encouraged the worst sort of behavior. At the same time they were making bad loans in the United States, they were encouraging the same sort of behavior at the government level in Europe. The basic problem was, historically the role of the financier was to vet risk and make sure risk was evaluated. That got perverted in recent times, and instead the financier helped disguise risk.”

I’m feeling a lot of empathy for the OccupyWallStreet movement. Most of us feel it, that “things aren’t right.” Corporations are not people. Best bumper-sticker I’ve seen recently:

I refuse to believe that corporations are people until Texas executes one.

I’ve felt for a while that I want to live sustainably on something close to a cash basis, with no mortgage and as little debt as possible.

I want to grow some of the fresh produce I eat, and I want to grow it organically from non-GMO seeds.

I want a skill I can barter.

Because I don’t know what’s coming, and it may get worse before it gets better.

That said, I’m going to meditate for a spell and get myself recentered.

Strawberry, pomegranate, and cacao breakfast smoothie

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Inspired by Patrice’s mango-cacao drink that she gave me a taste of on Friday (very yummy), today I made myself a fruit smoothie for breakfast.

I usually make green smoothies without fruit, so this is a special treat. I’ve felt in need of some self-nurturing. A bout of self-acceptance arose in the last couple of days that was a bit hard on my ego. Yesterday I had a sore throat, which seems to happen when “I” feel “under attack”. Unusual for me, I took a nap to give my immune system more resources and let my unconscious mind/inner healer do some amazing work. Today I’m better but still feeling the need to pull inward.

I happened to have a container of organic strawberries. I picked out the darkest, softest ones (more than half), pulled the stems off, washed them well, and added them to a can of 100% coconut water in my blender.

Strawberries are one of those produce items that are good to always buy organic. Every year, they are near the top of the Environmental Working Group’s list of the Dirty Dozen fruits and veggies.

(You can now download EWG’s Dirty Dozen app for your smart phone or iPad here. It’s free. No more wondering if it’s safe to buy nonorganic when you’re at the grocery or farmer’s market! I buy organic produce when it’s available. If organic is not available, I buy nonorganic if it’s on EWG’s Clean 15 list of produce. If not, I find something else that’s safe to eat.)

Also, more soapbox coming. Just because it’s sold at a farmer’s market doesn’t mean it’s organic. The majority of sellers that I’ve seen in the Austin area farmer’s markets are not organic-certified growers. Seek out organic growers and buy from them. You’ll encourage the rest to switch over.

Better yet, grow some of your own produce yourself. If you haven’t gardened before, it’s easy to start with herbs in pots. Next, try mixing in some greens like chard, kale, and collards into a nontoxic flower bed. Square foot gardening takes more effort to get started, but it’s really a fun way to garden and very low maintenance after your first planting.

Note: This applies to American readers. I presume that international readers have something like organic certification for growers. Not sure whether the EWG lists apply outside the U.S.???

Okay, soapbox off.

To the coconut water and strawberries, I added about 3 tablespoons of organic raw cacao nibs.

Then I put in a tablespoon or two of flax-seed meal, shelled hemp seeds, chia seeds, and maca powder.

Can’t forget a thumb-size chunk of peeled ginger. This is not an exact science here, more experimenting in the kitchen, which is much, much more fun once you learn basic principles than following a recipe exactly. But following recipes is how you learn.

Then I added about 3 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses. In Austin, you can get it at Fiesta and Phoenicia Bakery, stores that carry Middle Eastern brands. I use the Cortas brand, a product of Lebanon containing only natural pomegranate juice concentrate.

After adding all these ingredients, I ran my blender for a couple of minutes on the highest setting to really pulverize the cacao. When I can afford a VitaMix ($450-650 new), I’ll get one and wonder, I’m sure, how I ever managed to live without it. A VitaMix will pulverize the cacao quickly.

It was so delicious, it was hard not to drink it all in one sitting, but I managed to save some for tomorrow morning. Strawberries, cacao, and pomegranate make a great menage a trois!

Monkey tea

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A little fun Saturday morning in my new kitchen, making myself a cup of yerba mate. Found the monkey tea brewer at Wheatsville Coop in Austin, Texas.

I like monkeys.

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