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Posts tagged ‘low cal’

May 7

Think Thin Tuesday: Vegan Rice Crisp-easies

Do you burn potatoes in the microwave?  Do you know the difference between a rolling boil and a simmer?  Does even the act of cracking and separating an egg mystify you?  Is your idea of making breakfast putting the cereal box next to the milk?  Don’t worry.  It’s not your fault.  When women left the kitchen and entered the workforce we got fat, lazy and lost generations of cultural kitchen knowledge.

No I’m not currently the victim of an alien abduction.  I don’t actually mean to blame this epidemic of culinary ignorance on moms; certainly not with mother’s day approaching.  I once had a professor who blamed our overweight, convenience food culture on women’s lib.  This wasn’t a soapbox about forcing women back into the role of housewife mind you.  He was just trying to grab our attention and demonstrate how a shift in family structure created the opportunity for the fast food market, also known as the fat food market, to gain a stronghold.  Prior to the 40’s, women stayed at home and family meals were a daily job.  Food was made from scratch, at home, and generally was more nutritious as a result.  It wasn’t a matter of grabbing a box of processed junk from the drive thru window while juggling teleconference calls.    Don’t go rushing off thinking your shrink is right and that all your problems are rooted with dear old mom.  There’s no reason Dad can’t stay at home instead and make those meals for the kidlets.  Sadly in today’s world having either parent out of the workforce just isn’t really a possibility even when/if a parent wants to.

As a result we’ve got a whole generation to whom seeing Mom or Dad in the kitchen is an anomaly—and as a result we’ve got kids who aren’t learning how to cook at all.  Heck even stay-at-home moms are so busy with their kids overloaded schedules that cooking is still likely to fall by the wayside when we have so many convenient options for pre-made meals.  It’s all about prioritizing and if someone else can do it then delegate, delegate, delegate…right?

Never let it be said that I don’t try to accommodate even the busiest of lifestyles.  I have stretched myself even thinner than usual so I definitely understand the need for something easy to make that takes little time, little effort and little cleanup.  One party dessert popular amongst soccer moms for this reason is an American Classic: the Rice Krispy Treat.  You can make these with almost no kitchen training whatsoever.  The hardest part is melting the marshmallows and this can be done in a microwave—no stove needed!  They are also traditionally pretty low in calories and thus folks like them as a more diet friendly dessert.  The only problem?

Diet food that’s low on calories is usually low on nutrition too.  That’s because foods high in nutrition usually package those vitamins to be absorbed by our bodies—meaning fats or sugars.  My theory is that dieting isn’t really worth it when the calories you’re consuming are totally empty.  Since Rice Krispies are really just fat, sugar and empty carbohydrates I wondered: could I make these slightly healthier at all to justify them as a diet dessert?

The first step was to eliminate the “Crispy Rice” of a certain name brand cereal well all grew up snapping along with.  Instead of using fried bits of white rice, high in fat and low in nutrition, I went for air puffed brown rice instead.  You can buy for cheap at Whole Foods.  This substitution reduced the fat content of each square by 60% and introduced some fiber.  The benefit of airpuffing also means that the brown rice retains most of the vitamins and minerals; one cup has 1/3 of your daily B vitamins. I actually made these during my vegan week so in addition to being low calorie, gluten free they are also totally vegan…and yet still manage to taste like what they are.  Thus instead of using butter I used a flax based butter substitute which cut the calories from fat AND reduced the saturated fats.  As for the marshmallows…well you can’t replace that sugar but if this were 100% healthy I don’t think I could call it a proper dessert right?  Mine do have a little more sugar probably because of the brand of marshmallow but since they also have more B vitamins, zinc, potassium, fiber and less fat and fewer calories…I think I will let that slide.

One last tip: if you aren’t worried about gluten free try using puffed whole wheat, puffed kamut grains or puffed barley instead.  You’ll get even more vitamins and fiber from those!

Vegan Rice Krispeasies

An Olivia Original

  • 6 cups puffed brown rice cereal
  • 1 bag of vegan marshmallows (I used Dandies)
  • 3 Tbsp Smartbalance with Flax (this product does contain some soy)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or any flavored extract you like

Prep a 13×9 inch cake pan with lining or a small rubdown with buttery spread.

In a microwave safe bowl heat your marshmallows and butter substitute on high.  Watch these carefully and stop periodically to stir and continue heating.  Once entirely smooth remove from the microwave.  Stir in the extract if you want to add a little oomph of flavor to these treats.

Mix the puffed brown rice cereal into the melted marshmallows. Spread into your prepped pan and let cool for at least 1 hour before slicing and serving.

Vegan Rice Krispeasies: (1 serving – 12 total) 128 calories | 1g Fat (<0.5g Saturated) | 28 carbohydrates (17g sugar) | 1g protein

TraditionalL1 serving – 12 total) 140 calories | 4g Fat (2.5g Saturated) | 28g carbohydrates (14 sugar) | 1g protein

Apr 24

3 Comments

Vegan Stocks – A farmer’s market

Bad Olivia.  Bad.  I totally missed my post yesterday and I had a great recipe to share but alas my job has been ramping up and sore throats have been passing around…so I’ll keep the subject of yesterday’s post in my pocket for another time.  Today I really wanted to get into a cornerstone recipe that really anyone should have, but that will be especially useful in building vegan recipes: a beefy vegetable stock.  This is a great recipe to have because it’s full of flavor without any meat products and even the most carnivorous fiend could find uses for this.  I fully attribute the beef-like flavor to my trick, and not so secret, ingredient which I’ll reveal below. But before the recipe a little detour and there might even be a trivia question along the way.

What is this secret beefy flavoring?

I was researching the idea of being a social vegan and discovered a new breed of eater: the flexivore.  It turns out that there are other omnivores like myself who have looked around and decided to continue to eat meat, but make a conscious effort to reduce their consumption overall out of objection to how the meat industry is currently run.  I suspect this aligns a great deal with the publishing of Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma” which managed to really open my eyes to a variety of issues in the world of food—both exposing new problems and flushing out ones I was already familiar with.  I’ve read a lot on the topic of food (shocker!) but this is still one of my favorite books to hand off to friends because I think it manages to be both entertaining and compelling while being highly informative.  Plus it profiles my favorite farmer in the whole wide world.  No not McDonald – a libertarian hippie out of Virginia by the name of Joel Salatin.  (l)ibertarian hippies are the best and I’m probably just saying that because I am one *wink* Therefore I openly admit a little bit of a political bias to my love of this book.

But even with that in mind you can’t fight the facts.  My number one reason for eating vegan when I eat out is summed up in one, surprising word: Corn.  As it turns out that one word—corn—is synonymous with another word in our diets—Oil.  No not the kind you cook with.  The kind we drive and have land wars over.  Let me explain.  No there is too much.  Let me sum up.  **Name that movie for a prize!!** I know my readers have short attention spans so I’m not going to give you a detailed book report because really it would take pages so let me just explain my issue with meat and how it relates to corn and oil.

Why the scientist, nutritionist and health conscious me objects to the modern meat industry:

  • Stock base

    Agribusiness raises our meat on a diet of corn because corn is cheap and cows get nice and fat off it.  Fat means lots of saturated fats which taste good to the consumer and cheap corn feed for the cows means high profits.
  • Cows can’t digest corn properly.  It makes them sick.  So sick that we pump them full of antibiotics—not to cure the disease mind you because it’s not bacterial.  No we use the antibiotics to cure the symptoms of their gastrointestinal distress.  The antibiotics also make the cows bigger and fatter.  Win for agribusiness! 
  • But wait…doesn’t misuse of antibiotics mean resistant bugs?  You are a winner.  Yes it does.  And there’s more…see the antibiotics actually change the chemistry of a cow’s stomach.  A cow’s stomach is distinct from a human’s and should not normally incubate bacteria that can make us sick.  The antibiotics change that.  Now the cows harbor germs that can make us ill, and are breeding resistant version of them.  All this while they are kept in highly unsanitary conditions…like standing in 6 inches of cow poop all day instead of grazing.
  • Agriculture accounts for 60-70% of our antibiotics in this country and largely for these unwarranted applications.

But wait there’s more….why the economist, libertarian and peace loving hippie me object:

  • Corn is cheap to produce, the bulk of what we grow is inedible to humans as well as cows and gets sold at a loss to these big farms yet we grow more each year.  Why?
  • It all started with a post-world war 2 surplus of U.S. government owned ammonium nitrate for making bombs.  Ammonium also makes good fertilizer.  Since the government was out of the war business it went into the fertilizer making business instead.
  • Corn became King, or as Pollan puts it Queen (as in the Welfare Queen) since it was cheap to grow and could be converted to a number of things like high fructose corn sugar, ethanol and utilized as food for chickens and pigs who can digest it.  Excess fertilizer on the market meant cheap fertilizer and the advent of monoculture.  (Simplified definition: Monoculture refers to the practice of farming where fertilizer is used to replenish soil deprived of nutrients from over farming of a single crop)
  • Corn flooded the market because it was such a good seller…at first.  Then we had too much and prices went down.  Farmers started growing more to try to sell more to make up for previous year losses. 

  • Today the cost of producing corn is subsidized by 50%–that’s taxpayer money and translates to 6 billion a year.  And the cost keeps going down.  We’re investing in a loss year after year.  Why?  Because big agribusiness and Uncle Ronald McDonald depends on the stuff. 
  • ¼ of the goods you buy in a supermarket contain corn products.  A chicken nugget which is comprised of 38 ingredients is almost a third corn and no that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.  Sorry Dad.
  • Oh and by the way, the fertilizer to make that corn each year?  It requires oil.  That stuff we get from the middle east.  Conservative estimates show that 1 bushel of corn = ¼ gallon of oil.  How much corn do we produce in a year?  Well in 2007 we grew over 13 billion bushels.  The number has come down to closer to 12.5 in recent trends.  That’s still well over 3 billion gallons of oil in a year…to grow a crop we have too much of and lose money on.  And that doesn’t even account for the other hidden oil costs—like how much we need to run the plants that process that corn into things like corn syrup; the cost of the machines to farm it; the cost of healthcare as consumers eat excessive amounts of cheap sugars and get fat and sickly.
  • Don’t get me started on how this impacts our healthcare system.  I’m already at two pages.  But while the corn investment cost might not be much (6 billion is nothing compared to our military budget) if you consider the impact of cheap sugar/fat foods on health and our health care costs this becomes all the more shocking. 

And I’m still not getting into it all.  Now admittedly going vegan doesn’t really mean you stop supporting this overuse of oil for fertilizer since the other two gas guzzling crops are wheat and soy—a staple in most vegan diets.  It is however a start.  I also avoid soy as much as possible for other reasons I’ll explore on another day.  Tomorrow I’ll hopefully get into a little bit more of the environmental impact of factory farming, the meat industry and the corn connection but for now I’ll move onto this soup stock—something which is definitely worth investing a little thyme into.  Soup stock is essential not just for soups but as a way of adding a boost of flavor to an assortment of dishes.  It provides the backbone for a number of sauces and gravies.  A good stock is central to any kitchen pantry…or in my case a freezer.  You can make a huge batch of this stuff and then freeze it in various quantities. 

My favorite trick?  Ice cubes.  Pour this into an ice cube tray and then store into baggies once frozen.  This creates perfect 1-2 tbsp allotments that you can use in a pinch without having to thaw a huge batch or keep fresh stuff on hand all the time.  This is the only stock tip I’ve ever taken from Martha Stewart.  My ultimate vegan vegetable stock uses dried mushrooms–and don’t skimp on the porcini! No it doesn’t taste like mushroom soup thanks to the plethora of other vegetables but what the mushrooms do is impart an undeniable beef-y flavor quality which will leave your guests asking many questions.  Questions like “Who made this amazing soup/gravy?” and “You mean this is VEGAN?!” but never will you hear “where’s the beef?!”  Do not fear the fungi.  It’s your best friend in this recipe so even if you don’t normally like to eat mushrooms, try this out.  It might start to turn you….

Olivia’s Beefed up Vegan Broth

An Olivia Original – Makes about 8 to 10 cups Read more

Apr 16

Think Thin Tuesday: Getting Moussed on the Elkohol!

Girls like pretty things.  Guys stop asking me why girls like silly, pretty things.  Sometimes a rose is just a rose – and seeing something innocent, simple and beautiful can incredibly life affirming.  There are things girls love to think about and do purely because of the beauty of it.  I know you guys understand these fantasies more than you want to let on.  Barney Stinson and the popularity of Mad Men have proven that to me.  True your desires are a bit…smarmier than ours but regardless you are romanticizing those fantasies.  Why else would two of the most iconic womanizers of the decade be brandy swirling, suit wearing debonair dudes?  Admit it you kind of like getting dressed up once in a while too.

With summer finally starting to peek its head around the corner it’s time to start thinking about planning those wonderful summer cocktail parties.  Or at least in my imaginative world where I’m a Manhatten socialite I’m planning those parties.  You know the kind.  Music.  Women in summer dresses.  Men in linen suits.  China twinkling.  The sort of Audrey Hepburn fairytale life that a lot of silly girls like to daydream about.  I swear I never was one to imagine the details of my wedding but boy did I ever day dream about my ideal apartment and social gatherings in some upper-east side version of paradise.

I’d really love to have a place to host some sort of garden top party this summer.  It would just feel like the ultimate bucket list item.  OF course the problem is that I need money.  I need friends.  I need a life.  All of these things are kind of essential to this desire of mine.  I think if I were planning on for LA it would be easier since I know more people there who might enjoy an exercise in dressing up and getting all pretty just for the hell of it.

Only problem is that I don’t live in LA and I certainly wouldn’t be able to cater the affair which is half the fun of it for me.  Making appetizers and hors d’oeuvres is a lot of fun.  I love recipes like this one.  They are dainty, delicious and unfortunately oftentimes quite fattening too.  That’s why you have such little portions.  Hey we’ve gotta be able to fit in those fancy clothes we wear!  If the buttons are popping off and clothes exploding open it quickly becomes a different kind of party no?  And those little bites are pretty easy to start gulping down as the evening goes on…especially if you get the “drunchies” aka the drunken munchies. Since we all know the best garden party is a champagne fueled brunch at 11AM on a sunny Sunday…drunchies are sure to abound.

So if you are thinking of hosting any sort of party this summer—a wedding, a brunch for friends, a fundraiser with all your wealthy single bachelors for puppies (and hey invite me would you?) this is a great light recipe to whisk around on those serving platters or serve up as a dessert after a lavish dinner party.  Go ahead and “gazelle” it down because this recipe is deliciously, drunkenly de-lite-ful.  I have made this mousse several times over the last few summers and I don’t even really like melon all that much.  It’s sweet, it’s light and refreshing and hands down one of my FAVORITE drunken recipes.  The mousse itself is totally gluten free as well so if you have any celiac intolerant folks in the group you can just serve it in cups instead of pastry shells.  They will LOVE this…and then they’ll eat enough that they will “like oh my god you guys, you are the most awesome people ever and I really, really fucking love you.  Okay?  Let’s make this moment last forever okay?”  You know what I’m talking about.

Musk Melon Mousse Bites

Adapted from “The Boozy Baker”

  • ½ cup Muscat Wine
  • 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1 honeydew melon, sliced into chunks
  • ½ cup sugar, divided
  • ¼ cup lemon juice, divided
  • 2/3 cup fat free plain yogurt
  • 24 phyllo pastry shells
  • Sliced strawberries for topping

Pour the Muscat Sec into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top.  Let it soften for about 2 minutes and then cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin is dissolved.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

In a blend puree half the melon with ¼ cup of the sugar and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice.  With the blender running, slowly pour in half of the Muscat mixture.  Transfer the melon mixture to a large metal bowl set in a pan of ice water.  Repeat with the remaining melon, sugar, lemon juice and Muscat mixture and then add the second half of the melon mixture to the metal bowl.

Stir the melon mixture for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it begins to thicken slightly (its texture should be similar to that of maple syrup or raw egg whites.)  Remove the bowl from the ice water and stir in the yogurt.

Pour the mousse into a large glass bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Serve scoop spoonfuls into your pastry shells and top with some sliced strawberries.

Nutrition info per pastry shell: 66 calories | 14g carbohydrates (9g sugar) | 1 g fat | 2g protein

1 serving of 3 shells is still less than 200 calories.  Not a bad dessert.

Apr 9

Think Thin Tuesday: Avoiding Vegetative S(t)ouper

My number one piece of advice to someone looking to force themselves to get more active, and also save a little money, is this: cut the cable.  Do it. It’s scary I know and if you are a sports fan…well I can’t help you there as much but if you aren’t addicted to ESPN cut the damn cord.  Cable is expensive and with the myriad of online subscription options expanding every day you don’t need it.  Add them up and they are still cheaper than your hundred dollar plus Comcast bill.  Do you own a tablet of some sort that streams video?  Even more reason to get unhooked to the actual idiot box.  Not being stuck in front of the tv all night after work will get you moving and doing other things.  The advantage to streaming is that you can watch when you want—catch up on a day when you are genuinely immobile or commuting on the metro.  Take it with you on the plane.  When you don’t have a choice about being immobile, that’s a good time to watch.

But Olivia I don’t want to fall behind on my shows. In fact I like watching them LIVE when I can.  Fine you whiner I already thought of the solution to that AND it gets you moving.  Ready? Now here’s what you do with that money you saved: buy a gym membership.  There are a lot of cheap deals out there for 30-40 bucks a month.  Spend the money on online subscriptions and gym membership.  How does a gym membership help? Well with the exception of certain premium stations like HBO, big gyms with cheap fees like 24 hour fitness have cable subscriptions.  If you want to watch oh say, Glee on Thursday night at is actual broadcast time—go to the gym and use their television.  Hop on a treadmill and walk a light pace; you don’t have to break a sweat if you don’t want to.  3 miles an hour is fine—hell 2 if you’re really lazy and an annoying as fuck slow walker….  The point is you save money and instead of sitting on the couch eating, i.e. gaining weight while actively doing nothing; you can get a little bit of electrical activity in your legs and watch the show.  This way you aren’t munching away an entire bag of potato chips.  I mean we’ve all done it.  Instead you burn maybe 100 calories that hour, keep your metabolism awake and get to watch your favorite tv show for half the cost.

Genius no?

I think it is so shut up.  This plan works really well for people who just abhor cardio with a passion.  If you just can’t find the enjoyment in going for a run, cycling classes, aerobics or swimming and you need to distract your mind to get your body moving this is the perfect fix.  It’s not going to get you Spartan abs ala 300 and it won’t result in significant weight loss in the long run, but it will help you lose a few pounds or just avoid the late night vegetative stupor that comes with primetime tv.  If you hate gyms and can afford it then just buy a damn treadmill/bike/stair climber…whatever you prefer and put it in front of the tv but you better use it. Typically I see people buy equipment with this intent and get lured in by the seductive nature of their couches.  Just can’t resist those alluring fibers and springs….  I like the gym membership because it really forces you to go get moving.  You can’t sit on a couch and use the gym tv.  And for those channels that air our favorite shows but aren’t carried by the gym’s cable?  Well that’s where your PC tablet comes in handy.  I’m not going to tell you how to get ahold of Game of Thrones without a cable subscription but I know some of you have it so…get walking.

And for those nights when it’s cold, windy, and rainy and you just feel crummy and need to curl up on the couch…well how about a nice vegetable skinny soup?  It’ll fill your tummy without all the excess sodium and empty calories the bag of lays has AND it might be one of the few things that help you to avoid becoming what you eat.  Indulge in a sourdough roll with it since the soup is so light on calories and fat OR you can bulk it up a little more with rice or whole wheat pasta.  The choices are endless.

Italian Vegetable Soup

An Olivia Original Read more

Apr 2

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday: Angelicized Eggs

And so our Virtual Seder comes to a close on this last day of Pesach.  I hope you’ve learned a lot.  We talked about the 4 questions traditionally asked to guide each seder—after the last question there is an additional blessing of the matzah, the eating of the bitter herbs and then finally the move to the meal itself.  But wait…there’s one last item on the Seder plate before the meal!  I think this is officially the LONGEST seder I’ve ever attended and even with all this I still haven’t really explained all the proper procedures.  I didn’t realize how involved this holiday was until I started writing all this out for non-Jews.  No wonder you must get so confused about it.  Anyway on to the final piece of the traditional* seder plate: The final piece of the plate is….a hard-boiled egg – also known as the Beitzah.

Yup.  It’s not just an easter thing though I’m guessing some of you have leftover pastel colored eggs that you’ve got to use up dontcha?  Well let’s talk a wee bit about the significance of the egg in Judaism and then I’ll share with you a great skinny recipe for deviled eggs—half the calories!—that embraces all the delicious flavors of a good Jewish Deli.

After the story of Passover is told, hands are washed again, the Matzo is blessed, the Maror is eaten dipped in salt water and then in the Charoset only to finally be placed between two pieces of Matzo and eaten as a sandwich.  Then the hard-boiled egg is eaten and the meal can begin.  So what’s the significance of the Beitzah?  The egg in Judaism is a symbol of mourning—served at funerals.  I think this is because the egg is kind of the symbol of the opposite of death—new life and new beginning.  It is a reminder to be resilient and that life continues even in the face of the inevitable cold grasp of mortality.  Judaism is a very life affirming religion.  You might be familiar with “L’Chaim!” as the traditional toast offered up by your Hebrew friends.  This translates literally as “To Life!”  Life, and the protection of it, is the most sacred thing in Judaism—even if to defend it means to defy G-d.  That’s how important it is.

For Passover the egg as symbol of mourning ties back to the grief of loss of the Holy Temple.  The egg is also dipped in the salt water to mimic tears.  Such a happy holiday.  Anyway with this last piece we move onto the actual meal which is concluded with additional prayers, two more glasses of wine and the eating of the Afikomen—that last piece of Matza that gets hidden for the kidlets to find.  Between

the Matzo hunt, the paschal lamb and the eggs the holiday isn’t too far off from Easter after all is it?

My last piece to offer up is that the traditional seder plate contains all the items we discussed here but in recent years reform Jews have added a last element to the plate: an orange.    The orange symbolizes women, as well as homosexuals, in the Jewish faith and their fruitfulness.   Some families choose to incorporate this addition.  Others don’t—either because they are more Orthodox or just more traditional about their practices.  I’m not going to judge either way…at least not publicly.  Though I may have an orange Passover friendly recipe to toss up here this week just to be fair—almond cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting anyone?  Just depends on how much time I have and if I figure out something to do for SciFriday this week.  But enough public pontificating.  Mazel Tov!  You made it through our Virtual Seder.  Now use up those hardboiled eggs and join me for some pizza and beer when the sun goes down because DAMN I could use a beer.

Now onto the Deviled, or maybe in this case I should call them Heavenly Eggs because with a little thought and effort I managed to reduce the typical caloric content of one single serving by half.  I don’t know about you but I can never eat just ONE deviled egg and after four or five you’ve basically consumed an entire meal.  Not really the best nutrition option for something that’s traditionally an appetizer or Hors d’oeuvre right?

Pesach Heavenly Eggs

An Olivia Original

Makes 24 deviled egg halves from 1 dozen eggs Read more

Mar 19

Think Thin Tuesday: Get your Potassium, K?

Image courtesy VegaSport Website - I do not own

Image courtesy VegaSport Website – I do not own

I think only person out there might smirk at the joke in my title today.  Hurray for niche chemistry humor!

As most people who start exercise or dieting know, the key to staying healthy when exerting your body is to stay hydrated.  Exercise means sweat or at least it should.  If you aren’t breaking a sweat you are doing it wrong.  In my case I sweat buckets.  I’ve actually seen the scale dip down 4.5 pounds after one yoga class.  That’s a lot of water.  That’s also a lot of salts, i.e. electrolytes if you’re fancy.  Simply downing several liters of water isn’t going to rehydrate my body at that point.  Sure I’m putting in the good ol’ H2O but that’s not going to have the other things you need: NaCl K or Sodium, Chloride and Potassium.  Americans don’t have much of a struggle getting enough NaCl into their diets since it’s just common table salt.  I’m not really concerned about finding a source to replenish this stuff since almost any pre-packaged product is going to have more sodium than any human being should eat, though it would be nice to have it delivered in a healthy way and not a French fry.

No the bigger trick is finding a source of potassium for after a workout…or even to just maintain a healthy lifestyle.  Most people don’t get enough K in their diets and that’s even without exercise and water loss.  I challenge you this: name three foods that contain potassium.  K now name one.  If you answered Banana congrats, you still did better than most.  But Bananas are also high in sugar and hey, we get bored after a while don’t we?  Plus that Banana won’t have many other nutrients that are beneficial after a workout—things like calcium, zinc or magnesium.   There’s gotta be another way.

Image courtesy Readers Digest – I do not own

But wait, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here.  Why do we even need Potassium?  What does it do?  Potassium is also a salt, but not the kind you find in a shaker, and as a salt it functions to regulate electrical activity in the body.  To put it another way, potassium works with other salts to control your muscles and nerve functions.  This means you need potassium to:

  • Build muscle (which again, after a workout is something you want to do)VS-Product-Electrolyte-Hydrator
  • Breakdown and Store carbohydrates, aka glycogen, for fuel
  • Control the function of your heart

Oh it also slows down calcium loss which as I discussed previously is a very bad thing.

So today is a short little blurb to promote a product I’ve discovered that I am completely in love with for post-workout hydration.  I found it when I was looking for something to replace coconut water for after Bikram classes.  Coconut water is a fantastic source of potassium but I was getting sick of the same thing, it gets a little pricy and since I’m usually guzzling a gallon of liquid after class, the sugar in it does add up.  While I’m not in a zone where I need to lose weight but maintain it’s less of a concern for me but what about people who are trying to shed a few more pounds?  Was there anything on the market for them to replenish electrolytes that would be diet and budget friendly—anything that didn’t have aspartame in it?

Enter my favorite drink powder of all time: VegaSport Electrolyte Hydrator.  Vega sport is an entirely vegan line of products so anyone reading this should be able to use it.  They produce a range of energy bars, pre-workout energy drinks, endurance gel pastes for marathoners…you name it.  My favorite product is the powdered electrolyte packs.  They contain just as much potassium as a banana, almost as much as a small serving of coconut water; they taste delicious and are completely natural with 0 calories.  Yup you read that right.  0 calories but natural?  If you guessed STEVIA as a sweetener you’d be correct sir.  Stevia is a natural plant that tastes sweet but is comprised of inulin and other things our tummies don’t digest making it a natural, low calorie sugar alternative.  I’ll go into that another time if you’re interested.

Electrolyte_Hydrator_supplement_facts_0

These packs come in two flavors: Lemon-Lime and Pomberry.  I prefer tarter drinks so I go for the lemon lime everytime.  The best part?  You can order a box of 30 servings on amazon for under 30 bucks—less than a dollar a pack!  Heck even a bottle of water costs more than a dollar these days.

I could not believe my lucky stars when I found this at whole foods.  A fantastic post-workout hydration powder that is cheap, natural, low calorie and convenient?  Who says a girl can’t have everything.

Feb 26

1 Comment

Think Thin Tuesday: Salad for Bone-heads (shoulders, knees and toes!)

Do you ever have those moments of realizing something that shakes your world, makes you sit back and say “well, fuck.”

This summer I’ll be turning 25 which in all honesty is still a very young age.  My ovaries aren’t about to cough up their last egg.  My hair isn’t near turning grey though to be honest I’ll never know when it does thanks to an amazing hair stylist.  I may already have a few wrinkles from frowning too much but they aren’t age related…yet.  Aside from an old ankle injury and a bundle of tight nerves I am in pretty good physical health.

But 25 is ¼ of 100; even if I live to be 100, I will have lived a quarter of my life already.  That’s a bigger chunk of the pie chart than pac-man’s mouth.  PacMan has eaten 25% of my life.  Well, fuck.  Plus 25, well that’s when things really official start to slow down.  The metabolism of your youth is not going to be nearly as reliable when you eat that second donut.  Bones aren’t storing any additional calcium you get into your diet.  Your body in general is going to start losing that springy bounce-back-ability from nights of partying.  In short: it’s time to grow up kid and start thinking about making sure that you are able to enjoy the next 50 years in good health.

As a woman one of the things I need to worry about especially is the calcium issue.  A lot of us get the “Got Milk” message in our youth and there’s a lot of emphasis placed around getting calcium for growing bones.  Did you know that’s not JUST about the initial growth phase though?  True you need to make sure you have this vital nutrient to get big and strong but it’s actually also about making sure you get an influx of calcium to store in those bones—to last you the rest of your life.  Around your mid-twenties your body stops storing calcium in your bones.  Around your 30’s you start to lose bone density—you start losing calcium.  It’s caused by a lack of exercise (which reinforces and strengthens not only muscle but bone) and it is exacerbated by a lack of sufficient calcium absorption in your diet.

Oh and do you know what else studies are revealing causes a breakdown of bone density?  Soft drinks.  Soda.  The December 2008 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that long term soft drink consumption had a strong correlation with bone loss.  Mom thank you so much for keeping us from drinking coca-cola growing up.  I owe you.

The reason your body starts to lose calcium is because your heart needs calcium to work.  Calcium plays a pivotal role in some cellular functions and I will try not to bore you to tears with the details.  Basically in order to move certain chemicals in/out of your cells your body needs calcium to open a drawbridge of sorts.  If your body isn’t absorbing enough from your diet, which it gets worse and worse at doing as you age, it starts to seek elsewhere for this resource.  Guess where?  That’s right.  Your bones.  t, that big scary word that we always see old ladies talking about on TV is essentially the result of your body mining your bones for precious calcium and leaving them porous and weakened.  Women have it especially bad because the hormonal hell that is menopause also contributes to bone loss.

Thankfully there are a few things that really can help fight this off.  Regular exercise will keep your bones strong and encourage calcium uptake from your diet.  Running, hiking, weight lifting and anything that involves surface impact will help.  Unfortunately from what I’ve read activities that are better for the joints (i.e. swimming) are less helpful in this regard.  So try to vary your physical activity but ultimately any workout is better than none.  There are also foods you can eat to help you retain bone density.  Fermented foods and Fennel are especially good for you.  Of course getting calcium into your body isn’t about just eating calcium.  Our bodies usually require a delicate balance of various macro and micronutrients to successfully integrate the benefits from each.  Calcium is much better utilized for example, when your meal is also high in potassium, magnesium and vitamins D&K.  This is why it is still so, so much better to get nutrition from your food rather than a pill.  Nature has designed her vegetables and fruits with our bodies partly in mind.

So here is one of my favorite slaws to eat with a meal.  It’s got a ton of fiber and heart helping vegetables, in addition to being low calorie and full of healthy fats, and it tastes amazing.

Celery Root, Fennel Apple Salad

Adapted from a recipe published in Bon Apetit Feb2010 Read more

Feb 12

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Think Thin Tuesday: Horny as a Goat Tacos

It’s coming up on Valentine’s Day and that means two things: flowers and chocolate.  Past that it usually means an elaborate meal out with your honey that costs tons of money and usually leaves you full to the point of bursting.  Valentine’s day is the ultimate post-New Year’s diet trap for anyone trying to stay on track, or maybe get back on track, with a diet resolution.  Some of you might be ready to splurge on a nice fancy dinner after working hard the last 6 weeks since turning the corner on the fatty food trilogy that is Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas.  Some of you though, maybe haven’t been keeping it together so well and for you the thought of Valentine’s Day is “oh god here comes another holiday where I ‘m going to stuff my face and there’s going to be chocolate EVERYWHERE for days.”

That’s a big part of the problem with these holidays isn’t it?  If it were simply a single day out of  a month to celebrate that would be one thing.   Instead, in the wake of our consumerist culture and social obligations, these events really seem to stretch on for a week—at least!  There are office parties, friends parties, festivals, special events, shows, shopping deals and last but certainly not the last—the post-holiday clearance sale.   Halloween and Valentine’s Day definitely see weeks of lingering chocolates marked down 50% or more in drugstore bins nationwide and it can be so hard to resist a discount chocolate santa.  Soon enough this single holiday to reward yourself has turned into a smorgasbord that has undone the last month of hellish sacrifice and those five pounds just waddled back with their smiling, adiposian faces.

For someone like say, my mom, it’s always been a struggle.  My step-dad took a few years to learn that she really, truly does NOT want him to buy her chocolates on Valentine ’s Day.  Now what she means by this isn’t so much literally “I don’t want chocolates” but a general “I don’t want to be tempted by sweets or decadent meals, I’m trying to be good and stay on my diet and maintain willpower this year.”  I will always remember the infamous fortune cookie incident that I think finally hit home the request she makes year after year.  See my mom has unfortunately always struggled with her weight.  I have seen her on a perpetual diet since the day I was birthed into the world.  This is in part because she’s always had to work with a long commute and when she was a single mom forget it.  There was no time to exercise.  She also struggles with a metabolism problem that makes it harder for her to maintain a healthy figure and while many people I’ve known use that as an excuse, she legitimately does eat well and gain weight.  Carbs are not her friend even in the best of times.  So my mom routinely asks that for Valentine’s Day we avoid buying her chocolates.  My stepdad interpreted this after several years of buying chocolates anyway by buying my mom a GIGANTIC FORTUNE COOKIE that had been dipped in a candy shell.  We’re talking the size of a human head gigantic.  The rationale?  Well it wasn’t chocolate.  Cue the drama.  Anyway they laugh about it now, at least I hope they do, and in the years since he only buys my mom sugar free chocolates and only when she asks.  Not only does this help her manage her weight, but it demonstrates that he supports her efforts which makes her happy.

So if your honey is trying to stay good this year, but you want to still have a romantic meal, do yourself a favor and stay home.  Cook.  It’s easy and gives you complete control over the nutritional content of your food.  Plus it means so much when a meal is made for you by someone who loves you and men—if you are the one planning the menu get ready to be the talk of the town.  Every lady loves to brag when her man cooks for her and does it well.  So stay home and try this recipe that is high on flavor and low on guilt.  It’s got everything you could want: tortillas, cheese, red meat and pure deliciousness.  Oh and never fear, if you are looking for something completely sinful, I’ll be sharing several of those recipes in the days to come.

Goat meat is extremely lean, to the point that when it’s prepared improperly it can be gamey and unpleasant but when prepared correctly it has a very sweet and tender flavor.  That sweetness will get a boost from the citrus marinade and the meat will be perfectly cooked when you slice it thin and pan sear it just to barely cook.  The best part is that goat’s meat is lower in both fat and cholesterol than beef—in fact it’s lower in fat and cholesterol than chicken.  Meanwhile it’s almost double the iron content so you’re getting all the benefits of eating meat and reducing the bad.  Concerned about growth hormones?  Goat meat isn’t approved for hormone use so you don’t even have to worry about reading the package.  Not only will you steal your honey’s heart, you’ll be protecting it so that you can celebrate this holiday together 50 years down the road and feel just as young as you do today.

Foodies will be happy and delighted by the exotic element of this dish.  If your valentine is red-meating loving American he/she will love it too.  Buy some whole-wheat, low carb and high fiber wraps and you can be happy knowing that you are getting healthsome whole grains.  Finally a dollop of salted crème fraiche will add decadence and tang.  Why are these called horny as a goat tacos?  Well I don’t know about you but there are certain other things I associate with Valentine’s day.  Personally I can’t get very ardent about amorous activity when my stomach is weighing me down.  Plus, yes I’m being a girl here, but I don’t feel sexy after a super fat-laden meal.  Pair these with a nice salad, some strawberries and cinnamon spiced cream and a good Spanish wine and you will have a Latin meal that seduces through the stomach without weighing it down thus leaving room for *ahem* dessert.

Horny Goat Tacos

An Olivia Original Read more

Jan 15

Think Thin Tuesday: Dieting is like living in Purgatory….

Eggs in PurgatoryI don’t do breakfast meals enough on here so today in honor of waking up to a new year, I’m sharing a skinny wake up meal.  I know that usually most of us are running out the door in the morning so it might be something you do only on the weekends.  All things relative, this also doubles as a delicious weeknight dinner because it cooks up pretty quickly.  Just not quickly enough if you have to rush out to catch the subway train in ten minutes.

Time to admit it: raise your hand if one of your New Year’s resolutions was to lose weight.  Now raise your hand if you are already off or struggling to stay on your diet and exercise routine.  Seriously people?  It’s only halfway through the month!  Get it together.  No don’t go!  I didn’t mean it.  Jokes are so hard to convey via the internet….  Look if you are struggling or already broke that resolution it’s not the end of the world and it certainly doesn’t make you a bad person.  Of the top ten resolutions people make year after year, health focused concerns make up half the list.  Getting physical, eating better, losing weight, quitting smoking and reducing the alcohol.  These 5 goals are annual repeats and yet we so often set ourselves up to fail and make the resolutions again the following year only to fail once more.

Eggs in Purgatory 5

Meanwhile here is what really happens: on average, Americans gain 2 pounds a year.  Now that doesn’t sound like much at first but think about it this way.  That means that in 5 years, from say the age of 20 to 25, you will have gained ten pounds.  By the time you hit 30 you’ll be twenty pounds heavier.   That’s a LOT and this average has been going up rather than down.  Why?

Most people don’t know how to eat on a diet and still enjoy food.  It’s interpreted as rice cakes, cardboard, and plain lettuce, rabbit food, with tons of diet soda, artificial crap that leaves you feeling bloated.  Food on a diet doesn’t have to be bland or boring.  Take this recipe for example: Eggs in Purgatory.  It’s a classic but so few people have heard of it.  It’s full of spices that will delight your tastebuds and low in calories to the delight of your skinny jeans.

Eggs in Purgatory 3

How many of you skip breakfast as a way of cutting calories?  Yeah stop that.  Cut it out right now.  Breakfast isn’t something you ought to skip guys.  It also shouldn’t be waffles and syrup or bowls of most namebrand cereals.  Cereal is bad in my book for dieting unless you are eating it plain as a snack, which I do with my FiberOne cereal quite frequently.  I think it’s a great breakfast for kids—high metabolisms and usually five minutes to get to a school bus mean you need something with calories and convenience—but adults aren’t growing up, only out.  Cereal serving sizes are actually really quite small and I know I always go back for a second bowl or eat something else with it.  Plus the milk adds quite a bit more, especially if you use more than a cup which hey, most of us do.

Breakfast matters though because it replenishes your glycogen—stored carbohydrates—from the day before.  If you are following an ideal diet plan you should be eating your lightest meal at the end of the day rather than the start.  You want to fill your stomach before a day of activity not a night of sleep.  Thus breakfast should be when you eat a meal that has a good balance of protein, sugars and fiber to both get you going AND regulate your metabolism.  If you eat something balanced and leaving you just full enough to be sated but not stuffed, you should have more control during the day.  I know that on weekdays this can be tough.  I am not going to suggest we all have time to cook breakfast during the week so I know my recipe today isn’t going to be practical as much for M-F on a 9-5 schedule.

Eggs in Purgatory 4If you want some advice for that here’s what I do for those rushed mornings.  I keep some hardboiled eggs in the fridge, some fresh fruit on the counter and some pre-packed baggies of FiberOne cereal.  You can hardboil a half a dozen eggs every few days and eat two in the morning with some fruit on the way out the door.  Snack on the cereal throughout the morning if you sit at a desk like I do to keep you from going for donuts or pastries at that 10AM coffee break trap.  For fruit I always like to switch it up but if you want something you can buy and store over a long period of time go for classics: apples and oranges.   Apples and citrus keep the longest, especially if you store a bunch of them in the fridge and pull out one or two to keep on the counter each night for the next day.  I also am absolutely MAD for apricots.  They are low in sugar and because they are small you can eat a couple of them and feel like you are getting to eat more than you really are.

On mornings when you do have time to cook, like say a lazy Sunday brunch, this is a fantastically delicious recipe that will fill you up and won’t make you feel like you are suffering the blandness of a diet.   Serve these on top of whole wheat toast or an english muffin and your total breakfast stays under 400 calories!.  The more traditional version of this dish is loaded with more of a Spanish flavor profile in the spices and served on tortillas but I was feeling Italian today and craving a bowl of spaghetti.  Not on the diet of course so instead I turned to this dish. Plus like I said earlier, this doubles really well as a fast option for weeknight dinner.  You can serve it up with a bunch of steamed vegetables and make a very filling and healthy supper.   I particularly like to eat this with a few slices of roasted eggplant which is why I went Italian.  Mmmmmmmmm.

 Eggs in Roma Purgatory

makes 3 servings an Olivia Original Read more

Dec 4

Think Thin Tuesday: You’re looking slender Cookie!

anisecookies (11)I had written a fairly negative, ranty post the other day on an airplane.  While I tempered it at times and tried to blunt my tongue as often as possible, I am hesitant to share it for fear of offending many people I hold near and dear.  It’s so hard to know how honest you can be on the internet and not offend people.  I’m not attacking any person in particular with it but I am highly critical in it.  While I mull over what to do with a post like that I turn instead to happier things…like National Cookie Day!  Everyone loves a cookie right?

anisecookies (8)But wait…it’s Tuesday.  I should be posting a weekly skinny post for you.  Well here’s something you can love even more: a low calorie but all natural cookie.  How about that huh?  Huh?  Okay I admit I cheat a bit, they aren’t huge honkers and whenever you make a portion small enough it’s going to be low in calories, but these are delicious, chewy cookies great for sitting with a cuppa and pontificating.  Should I share some of my more unpopular thoughts with the world or are these kinds of harsher criticisms better kept to small company where my intentions and tone won’t possibly be misconstrued?  What would Georgia Mason do?  What would Tim Gunn advise?  Truth or tact?  Should I use my words for harsher truths or hold back and observe some level of societal kindness?  It’s so hard to know.

So for today at least let’s just talk about these cookies.  They are dainty in size but jam packed full of flavor thanks to a healthy, heaping few tablespoons of anise seed.  Oh don’t know what anise is do you?  It’s an herb from the carrot family that has a very similar flavor profile to licorice—though the two plants are totally unrelated.  Licorice is a member of the bean family and is considered to have more depth to its flavor—but it’s also more expensive, harder to find and unlike any documentation I’ve found about anise, has just as many health detractors as it does benefits.

anisecookies (10)

Licorice and anise are both naturally very sweet plants but where anise is 13 times sweeter than sugar, licorice is 50-100 times sweeter…so while it contains roughly the same number of calories per ounce, you can use a significantly smaller amount to sweeten something.  The problem with licorice the glycyrrhizin (the acid that provides the sweetness) has been shown to contribute to high blood pressure.  Studies have shown that consumption of as little as 2 oz a day over a two week period can significantly affect your blood pressure.  It’s a popular candy in Scandinavian culture and quite loved by a certain vegetable hating, hypertension suffering stepfather of mine who won’t be happy when Mom finds out that his favorite candy is so bad for him….  It has plenty of positive health applications as well—treatment for any number of stomach maladies and a promising anti-viral component that is of interest to hepatitis studies make it particularly of interest to researchers.  It also causes liver toxicity and ups cortisol production in the kidneys which lead to the aforementioned blood pressure problems…anisecookies (15)

Enter my anise seed cookies!  Anise seed gets its flavor from a different kind of chemical and has not turned up any significant health concerns in my searches.  Actually I have a sneaking suspicion that since both anise and licorice have phytoestrogen, both have this effect on blood pressure but the quantity in anise is much lower and so it is likely a safer choice to eat. It mimics the basic flavor of liquorices well enough and you can find it easily in most spice aisles.  It’s used more extensively in Greek cooking and it’s one of the primary components to flavor ouzo.  Star anise, which is a totally different herb of another color, also has a similar flavor and is cheaper to produce so you’ll see that in market even more than anise seed.  It’s used frequently in Asian (specifically Chinese) cooking but I don’t think it would work as well in this recipe.  Please don’t mistake the two.

Anise Chews

From King Arthur Flour’s Cookie Companion

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