Disclaimer I am not a doctor. I am not a nutritionist. I am not a dietician. I am not a tax-preparer, a lawyer, a scientist, a phlebotomist, a bassoonist, a balloonist or a cop.
If you need medical or nutritional advice, please seek it out from a qualified professional. Because that's not me -- I am simply a curious and opinionated woman who loves butter.
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Braving the impending snow, I trekked to Alexandria on Saturday morning for the Northern Virginia Whole Food Nutrition Meetup. And although the drive back home took about three times longer than it normally would, the trip was worth it.
The meet-up was held at Food Matters, a restaurant in the Cameron Station section of Alexandria, and whose motto is “eat, drink, shop & learn.” The restaurant serves local, in season food and was the perfect setting for a group whose focus is on better living through . . .
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Salad, with lots of fat!
Watercress, avocado, prosciutto, Boursin cheese and pistachio nuts. With so many good flavors, all I needed was lemon juice as dressing. A live cultured cheese made from yogurt or buttermilk would have been better, but hey this is the real world and I didn’t have any in the fridge. The avocado, cheese, prosciutto and pistachios all provided much needed and wonderful saturated fat to make me full and healthy and watercress is a super food.
Watercress packs a lot into those tiny leaves. Gram for gram, . . .
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Today I heard an interesting woman talking about animals on NPR’s Diane Rehm show. Clearly an animal lover, Barbara King, a biological anthropologist and professor of anthropology at The College of William and Mary, was speaking about her new book: Being With Animals. Among the topics she touched on was the idea that animals have benefited from us as well as we from them. Dogs, for instance, have not only survived as a species but thrived because of their relationship with humans. A long time ago, she . . .
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U.S. Wellness Meats, a Missouri farm that I have ordered delicious grass-fed beef and lamb from, is holding a drawing for a cookbook giveaway.
The cookbook is Garden of Eating and was written by Don Matesz and his wife Rachel. Don also writes a blog called “Primal Wisdom” that I find really interesting and enlightening, even though I don’t follow the strict Paleo diet he promotes. It was one of the first blogs I came across that led to my radical change in thinking about nutrition . . .
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Today’s Washington Post had a story in the Health & Science section entitled: “Multivitamins: Why? Why not?” The link on the website has this headline “Evidence is thin that multivitamins are beneficial, but they seem benign” and the headline on the jump of the newsprint version is “Supplements provide an extra dose of protection.”
Hmm . . . which is it? Are they not beneficial, but benign or do they provide an extra degree of protection? There is little consistency between the headlines and content of this story so . . .
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This is a tough one.
Good food costs more money. Not in the long run, when you factor in doctor visits, drugs and stents, but at the grocery store organic eggs cost more than conventional ones and grass-fed beef costs more than corn-fed beef. Why this is so is a subject for another post. But it is a reality that keeps many people from eating a healthier diet.
I have gone through periods where I try to save my family money by practicing the uniquely American hobby of cutting coupons and combining . . .
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Guiding principles: We should strive to produce & eat food that is:
Organic
Humanely raised (animals on pasture, not in factories)
Grown locally when possible
Whole and unrefined (real maple syrup instead of high-fructose corn syrup)
Processed as little as possible (raw milk instead of pasteurized and homogenized)
Nutrient-dense (enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and probiotics)
Free of additives and preservatives
Free of synthetic and chemical ingredients
Not genetically modified
Traditionally produced and prepared
Myth Buster Myth: Saturated fat (animal fat) is bad for you.
Truth: Saturated fats are necessary for health. It's polyunsaturated fats (most vegetable oils) and hydrogenated fats that cause disease.
Myth: Fat makes you fat.
Truth: Sugar makes you fat -- whether it comes in the form of table sugar, grains or starches.
Quote of the week: I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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