Nia emphasizes balance. Balance between yin and yang. Balance between feminine and masculine. Balance between strength and flexibility. Our bodies systems work to keep balance. I found this video extreme enlightening. Even though the title makes it sound like it is all about how diet soda causes weight gain, it is not.
The video says our bodies have to have the right pH level, which is the acid/alkaline balance. It explains that the body will keep the balance with several mechanism. The body must be in balance or we will die. What it goes on to explain is that the typical American Diet and life style has a tendency to make our bodies work really hard to keep that balance. We eat too many acid producing foods and beverages and have fast pace lives that cause unhealthy stress.
It points out some of the foods that are acid forming and the ones that are not. There are also examples of beverages given. It goes onto explain that what happens to the body when it becomes to acidic is that is uses minerals to put the body back in balance. The minerals are taken away from the other functions that the body needs them for. The video points out that while the United States has a high consumption of calcium rich foods, we have the worst bone health, because one of the minerals used to balance the body when it becomes to acidic is calcium. Hmmm? I wonder if that is why a lot of antacids have calcium in them.
The last minute or so is where they explain how diet soda causes weight gain.
In my next post I will share with you how this video came to me at the perfect time. In the meantime leave a comment telling me what you think of this video. I learned a lot from it. Did you learn anything? Did you find it interesting?
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cherries. How about you? My husband came home recently (can you tell he does the grocery shopping? Awesome, huh?) with a 3 pound container of cherries. Oh my! I love cherries. I think they are beautiful.
I had a difficult time photographing them though because they kept disappearing. Okay, I admit, they disappeared into my mouth. YUM!
I was curious about cherries so I went looking around and I found out that tart cherries help relieve gout pain. They have compounds that help with the inflammation, the vitamin C and potassium help with lowering the uric acid levels.
Each place I looked had slightly different numbers on a cup of cherries, so here is what I ended up with
Calories: Between 75 and 100
Fat: Between 0 and 1.5 grams
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Carbohydrates: Between 18.73 and 23.2 grams
Fiber: Between 2 and 3 grams
Sugars: Between 15 and 18.6 grams
Protein: Between 1.24 and 1.5 grams
I would think it depends on the sweetness. The sweeter they are the higher the calories, carbs, and sugar. These numbers are based on raw cherries, not ones cooked into a pie or a cobbler. While I LOVE cherries, I do not like them cooked or dried. Do you?
Some places list cherries on the same list as blueberries and cranberries, you know, the “Superfruits”, but some do not. I guess we will see as more research is done.
Beautiful and sweet. I could have sworn the tag said lemon tomato. I don’t think we saved the tag. As you may know I just started eating tomatoes within the past couple of years. My mother-in-law grew Zebra Tomatoes and I started my tomato journey with them.
I have come to realize that I do not care for mushy tomatoes. I like them firm, maybe even on the just-before-ripe side. Also, I like them raw not cooked. So I was watching the tomatoes my Wonder-Hubby planted very carefully. Now, you also may know that I don’t know the first thing about gardening and ripe or not so I rely on my hubby to tell me. He is a fantastic gardener when he has time. He can make on-the-brink-of-death plants come back to life. I was watching the one tomato that was yellow very closely. But obviously not close enough. One afternoon while I was doing Nia in my living room I glanced outside and I noticed the tomato looked odd. I went to investigate, something had tasted our tomato. I was very sad.
I was wondering if taking it and cutting off the “tasted” portion was too gross. I hadn’t examined it to see how much damage had been done. I posted my sadness (either on FaceBook or Twitter) and other people said that they would eat it as long as you were able to cut off all the evidence of “tasting”. Once I assessed the damage and I concluded that whatever tasted it just peeled and poked a little so I cut the fruit in half making sure there was nothing on the half I was planning on eating. Then I cut it up and shared it with my hubby. It was sweet. I was surprised.
I looked online to see if I could find some information about them to post, but there are a lot more than I realized and now I am not sure which ones we have. They kind of look like Lemon Boy but I am not sure because they are much smaller. What do they look like to you? Do you know tomatoes? Whatever they are, they are very tasty. They are somewhat sweet and really taste more like fruit to me.
We wanted to grow Zebras but couldn’t find them. Which is somewhat good because now we have tried a new (to us) tomato. So many people grow tomatoes. Do you? What kind?
On the way home from a little Nia class / meeting in Danville I starting craving a salad. All the way home to San Jose (its about an hour) I kept thinking of what ingredients I would need. I didn’t have the recipe with me, but since it is so easy I remembered the few things I needed to get. Recently I went to a little party where the hostess had made a bean salad. It had two things in it I REALLY don’t like, one thing I don’t like, one thing I love in teeny tiny pieces, and one thing I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (not including the spices). So on my quest to learn how to like bean and get some legumes in my diet I decided to make my friend’s TWO bean salad recipe.
1 can kidney beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 large red pepper – chopped (big or small, you decide)
½ large sweet onion – cut small square sizes
¼ to ½ bunch cilantro – cut ½ inch size
½ to 1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon fine ground black pepper
1 ½ teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
3 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
Drain the beans, mix everything together. Like most salads it is better when the flavors have mixed so wait an hour or so, then eat. Yum!
I adjusted the recipe to have MORE bell pepper (can you tell which ingredient I love, love, love?), I used a little more salt because I bought these really low sodium beans. I mean compared to the other two brands I looked at these had about one third of the sodium. I like that idea, but I also know that if it doesn’t have a good enough flavor for me I won’t eat it, so I actually put in 1 teaspoon plus two sprinkles. I didn’t have granulated garlic so I used garlic powder and I probably put in more than 2 teaspoons. I cannot tolerate pepper, but I loved her salad and she said she put in a lot of pepper so I sprinkled pepper in. I also used 2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar.
I am sure this is an easy thing for people to make, but I have NEVER, EVER, EVER liked a bean salad before so this recipe just thrilled me. Ya see, I REALLY don’t like cilantro either, but I think the kidney beans and the cilantro work to “cancel” each other out. Ha! I don’t know, but I like this salad. I hope you do too.
Since I am on a quest to learn to eat (and like) beans, do you have a recipe that you would like to share to help me out?
Beans are so good for you. I don’t like beans. Well, I like green beans. I like hummus. I can sometimes tolerate garbanzo beans in a green salad, but if there are too many, I push them off to the side. I don’t like legumes.
According to all the information I have seen in my fact finding mission for this post: beans help lower “bad cholesterol” by helping it out of the body. Beans have an excellent amount of fiber (really excellent amount fiber). Beans have a lot of protein. The ratio of fat to proteis is awesome. These are some of the reasons I think I need to learn like beans.
Let’s look at two examples the kidney bean and the garbanzo bean (also known as chickpeas)
Kidney beans – 1 cup has
Calories: 225
Protein: 15.3g
Carbohydrate: 40.4g
Total Fat: 0.88g
Fiber: 11.3g
Iron: 5.2 mg
Magnesium: 80 my
Folate: 229 mcg*
So you might think this post is about chocolate and bacon–that is what the title might lead you to believe. That is because I could not bring myself to state the truth; chocolate COVERED bacon. Just the thought of it makes my stomach kind of contract. I will be honest, I LOVE bacon. I really do. One time I was making something for a party that required bacon and I was jumping up and down saying to my husband, “Do you know what this means? It means we have bacon!” Ya see I don’t eat bacon that often because it is just not something I consider needed to be a part of a healthy diet. So I was very excited to have to cook it for a recipe which would mean there would be at least a piece left. After I cooked it and gave him some my husband realized why I was so excited. It is yummy, but we don’t eat it often.
Chocolate, I am ok with. I am not a chocoholic and I can live without it. And some chocolate is DEFINITELY better than others.
I was talking with my friend about chocolate covered bacon and I was saying how disgusting I thought the thought of it was. So, being an evil person disguised as a great person (ha, ha!) she bought me a piece. She was walking down the street and was overwhelmed by the smell of bacon and realized it was coming from a candy shop. So she bought me one.
She gave it to me and I just couldn’t eat it. Just the THOUGHT of it grossed me out. I put it away and forgot about it. When I remembered it, my stomach did a cramping like flip-flop. Ewwww. Just the thought of it grosses me out. What a horrendously unhealthy combination.
No, yes, however you say that, I am NOT the epitome of healthy eating, but I try to avoid the things I feel are the really glaringly obvious unhealthy stuff. So my tummy was NOT wanting to try it.
As I was taking it out of the bag to take picture I noticed a piece broken off. I tasted it. It really doesn’t taste like anything but salty chocolate. After I took the pictures I ate the small piece and let hubby have the other one. This chocolate happens to be one of the ones I think it better than others. But I couldn’t really taste the bacon as bacon.
To me, if I am going to eat bacon and have those calories and fat I want to eat the bacon and taste the bacon and enjoy the bacon. Eating it covered in chocolate is a waste to me . . . but that is just me. Everyone eats how they want and this is not how I choose to eat. So chocolate covered bacon will not be one of the foods I have as a treat.
What about you? Have you tried it? Do you like it? What chocolate covered salty food (or?) have you tried as a treat?
Typically when I think of salad I think of a GREEN salad, a salad with lettuce. Salad, however can be made up of a variety of things. I am in the habit of saying “salad” for green salad and vegetables then saying “pasta salad”, “fruit salad”, “potato salad”, etc. for other salads. We have a salad every night when we eat at home. If we dinner at home 25 nights out of the month 20 of them will be with salad.
But sometimes I don’t have lettuce. So I do on occasion just make a veggie salad. Basically the same things I would put in a green salad but without the green of the lettuce. Here in this picture, there are cucumbers, red and green bell peppers, onions, and it looks like a little feta cheese. Maybe it could be considered a Greek Salad. I didn’t think to put olives in it. But it was good anyway.
Do you eat salad? What kind? What is your favorite? What do you like to put in your Green Salad?
I like to cook. I like to go into the kitchen, have some ingredients, put them together and have something to eat. I like that. I think it is cool. But cooking is not like Nia in the sense that: Nia I like to do every day, cooking I do not. When I cook, I like to cook in a way that leaves us with leftovers. I know a lot of people that won’t eat leftovers and I kinda don’t understand that, but . . . to each their own. I LOVE leftovers. Some, like pasta, are even better the next day.
My husband doesn’t mind leftovers. That makes him really easy to cook for. But at the same time I don’t want him to have to eat the EXACT same thing a few nights in a row. So one thing I do to allow me to cook once but not leave us eating the EXACT same thing for a few days is I cook chicken in foil packets. Yup, just like those aluminum foil ladies on TV showed us.
This also enables me to get one more servings out our a “two serving” bag of chicken. (From Costco the boneless, skinless Foster Farm Chicken Breasts are packaged in twos—-hmmmmm . . . . ? . . . ) I separate the chicken onto foil pieces then I just put whatever seasonings, spices, fruit, sauces, veggies I want in each package. I have to label them because my husband is not a fan of teriyaki and I am. Plus he likes spicy hot and I don’t.
So then I cook them up and we have chicken for a few days. Even though it is chicken it is not that same flavor chicken every night. Then each night I can cook up different veggies, and either rice or pasta. Or we might throw the chicken in or on a tortilla, or maybe even on some bread. Either way it makes making dinner that night much easier and faster. I love it.
Come join me for a Nia class in San Jose and see why I like to do it every day. And here, share with me your thoughts on cooking every day or leftovers. Do you like leftovers? Do you cook every day?
Is San Jose a good place to grow nectarines? I love nectarines. I just decided I want a nectarine tree. My hubby knows I love nectarines so he came home with a container of them. YES! For three days I would walk into the kitchen and touch every one to see if they were ripe yet. Let me rephrase that: for three days EVERY TIME I walked into the kitchen I would touch every one to see if one was ripe. I stood there at one point wanting to eat one, but knowing that if it wasn’t ready it would ruin the joy of it. So I waited.
Now, they are ripe. Yesterday I ate two because if you don’t eat them fast they will go bad. These ones are the eat-it-over-the-sink-because-it-is-really-juicy type of fruit. Confession: I stopped at this point in my writing because thinking about them made me want one. LOVE THEM. So good.
I was going to post about the nutrition value of nectarines, but I learned something new as I researched how to grow nectarines. I thought I would share.
I had always thought of peaches and nectarines as being similar but not the same fruit, but the information I am seeing is that a nectarine IS a peach, but with smooth, non-fuzzy skin. But I don’t think they taste the same. Do you? But alas, according to what I am reading, there aren’t really nectarine trees, they are only peach trees that produce a mutated variety of peach. Dang, I learn a lot writing a blog. Did YOU know that, Dear Reader? Did you know that a nectarine is a peach? That explains why people always have peach trees and not nectarine trees. But that actually makes me laugh because if it is a peach tree with a mutation, it is a nectarine tree. Odd. It must be the way “they” classify things. Everything I look up for nectarine comes up peach.
A nectarine is in the group of peaches, but it is two peach trees with the recessive “fuzzy” gene that produce a nectarine tree.
I am sure there are plenty of you who knew that a nectarine was a peach. Quite honestly, I don’t need to know, but I am kind of surprised by it. I thought a peach was a peach and a nectarine was a nectarine, and it is, but it isn’t. And no, I am not going to compare this to anything and get all philosophical on you because, well, I am just stuck on the nectarine being a peach. I just find it fascinating. I love when I am looking for something and I discover something entirely new to me.
Did you know that nectarines were peaches? Do you like nectarines? Do you like peaches?
I had a lunch date after teaching my Nia class on Wednesday. I had mentioned, in a previous post that I wanted to cook more with fruit since we had a large amount of plums. So, I was happy to try the mango and chicken kabob. Obviously, I can’t take credit for cooking and/or preparing this. I did not cook this kabob. Worse, I took the picture with my iPhone so it is — well, the quality of an iPhone picture (it was actually so blurry I had to “sharpen” it with Photoshop). As the waiter was setting the plate down, I thought, “Oh, I need to take a picture.” But I forgot when the waiter brought another plate of kabobs that we did not order. I think he just didn’t want her to feel left out. I remember after I ate one!
Anyway . . . .GREAT way to cook with fruit. I don’t think I would have thought to put mango on a skewer with chicken, but it actually works perfect because it cooks great. I have determined a long time ago that it is too difficult to cook meat and veggies on the same skewer because in order to get the meat cooked properly the veggies get too done. Or vice-versa, depending on the meat and the veggies. So it is best–for us–to do them separate. Plus separate allows for different seasonings and it keeps the meat separate from the vegetables in case there are persons who are not eating meat.
The mangos were cooked with the skin on and for the most part that made the skin very edible. I didn’t even notice the skin until I got to a particularly tough one that was green.
So, yay! A way to cook with fruit AND another way to use mangos. I normally only use them in the cucumber mango salad. I would have thought to make a salsa, but not to put them on a skewer especially WITH the chicken. You might have noticed that this kabob has onions, red peppers, and tomatoes too. I even ate the tomatoes (big deal for loath-tomatoes-girl), even though they were cooked.
Do you cook with mangos? Do you make kabobs? Kabobs are a nice way to serve food for a cook out, huh? Have you managed to perfect cooking vegetables AND meat on the same skewer?
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