Tag Archives: nutrition

July 4 Picnic Tips from Chef Lula

Let Food be Your Medicine, ,

Note: I am largely off the internet at the moment. Guests have graciously offered blog posts that I believe will be of interest. Today’s post is by Chef Lori Pierce (Lula) of Cincinnati, OH. With July 4 gatherings on the horizon, she offers these tips for enhancing your picnics. Lula has contributed to recipe development for companies such as Kraft, Nestle, Unilever and McCormick. Check out her blog here: http://lulasforlunch.com/blog/

By Chef Lori Pierce (Lula)

How to Pick a Pineapple

How do you pick a pineapple in a store? I always pluck out a center leaf – if it comes out quite easily the pineapple is ripe. Now that I’ve let the cat out of the bag, though, I guess everyone else will do the same and when I get there, maybe that’s not such a good test anymore. So, I’ll smell it at the stem end. The stronger and sweeter it smells (it should reek of pineapple), the riper it is. If you need a pineapple and they are all giving off only faint smells, buy one and let it sit on the counter for a couple of days ‘till the aroma develops. Then slice into that juicy bad boy.

How to Keep Your Guacamole Green 

I hate it when my beautiful avocado stuff starts to turn dull and brown. Lula’s for Lunch…and More! Catering has to make a pretty large volume upon occasion and sometimes it has to sit in the fridge for a couple of days – and there’s just not enough acid in the recipe to keep it in the “Kermit” family, so… I cover the surface with a thin film of water. The guac is dense enough (and fatty enough) that it won’t absorb the water – so when I’m ready to use it I just tilt the container and pour the water off and voila! it’s just as vibrant as when I made it.

Sugarplums Dancing in my Bowl

Let Food be Your Medicine, ,

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, / While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads

“A Visit from St. Nicholas,” by either Henry Livingston Jr. or Clement Moore

 

The children in this poem dreamed of sugarplums. What are sugarplums? I was amazed to learn in May that they were growing in my front yard.

In June 2016, I watched each morning as a robin picked all the little fruit from my serviceberry tree. During this past May, I read about these edible, nutritious delicacies. They have many names, including June, Saskatoon, prairie, shadbush, and pigeon berries, along with wild plum and chuckley pear.

And sugarplum.

This summer birds squawked nearby each morning as I picked the berries while red, because the fruit would not last long enough on the shrub to turn a darker shade.

They are shaped like small blueberries yet are more related to the apple family. Their mildly sweet, almondish flavor contribute plenty of fiber, protein, antioxidants, and nutrients to my breakfast.

They go great with diluted coconut butter, chia seeds, and soaked/dehydrated raw pecans. Maybe this coming Christmas, long after these berries are consumed, I’ll be dreaming of sugarplums dancing in my breakfast bowl.

Thriver Soup Ingredient

More than 50,000 plants species—and possibly more than 80,000–on our planet are edible. Only about 3,000 of these species are regularly used as food. 103 species make up 90 percent of our plant food supply.

That’s paltry.

By expanding the types of foods we eat, we can expand the nutrients available to us. Perhaps check out #WholeFoods, #JungleJim’s, and some farmers’ markets this summer to discover some new tastes and textures.

Sources:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/26719/mystery-behind-worlds-most-famous-christmas-poem

Nutritional resource: http://saskatoonberryinstitute.org/saskatoons/

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=101333

https://www.quora.com/How-many-different-plants-do-humans-eat

The ABCs of Creating Conditions for Healing

Complementary Therapies, Conventional Companions, Events, Let Food be Your Medicine, Mapping the Emotions, Mending the Mind, Minding the Body, Soaring with Spirit, ,

Please join me

Sunday, May 7, 1-3 pm
250 East Main Street, Batavia, OH  45103

Your Take-aways

+ Consider how to transform attitudes to support healing
+ Learn how to reconstruct behaviors and make better choices to support your body’s efforts to create health
+ Gain your own insights through a guided visualization that will involve exploring any dis-eased part of the body

Feedback:

Thanks for a most thought-provoking talk. I’ve done little else but think since we were together. Who am I? What matters most to me? What do I hope to be when I grow up? How big is my part in the scheme of things?… The talk was a wonderful thing for me.

The ABCs of healing was eye-opening and can help with my health issues.

Beautiful, heartfelt, easy. I gained an understanding of the power of healing through all modalities.

How to Make Smart Choices in a World of Dumb Nutrition Fads

Events, ,

Remember hearing that to lose weight you need to eat a low-fat diet? Or that it was fine to eat a fake sweetener?

Did you try doing the right thing by eating lots of salads, only find out later that your favorite dressing consisted of unhealthy soybean oil and high-fructose corn syrup?

Now you can make smart choices in a world of dumb nutrition fads.

Please join me Saturday from 1:30-4pm to hear top nutrition hacks from local experts. Find out

  • How to determine your current nutritional status;
  • How to feel better now by reducing inflammation; and
  • How to select nutritious, whole foods.

When: Saturday from 1:30-4pm

Where: Grace Tree Yoga & Growth Studio, 8933 Cincinnati Dayton Rd, West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio 45069.

Tickets Available
you_are_what_you_eat_registration.eventbrite.com

Also, Cancer Treatment SOS is live TODAY at 2pm EST. Learn how to thrive beyond end-stage cancer! Author and speaker Joni Aldrich will be in conversation with #ThriverSoup. Please join me.

7 Tips for Reducing Pain Perception

Complementary Therapies, Let Food be Your Medicine, Minding the Body, Softening Surgery, , , , , ,

CureToday magazine posted this article as my story. Note that it is best to talk to a health care provider before making changes based on these 7 tips.
If you click on the link and look at the article, that will help prompt CureToday to invite me to write more articles. It also will be helpful for getting the word out. Even better if you share the link. Thank you!
http://www.curetoday.com/share-your-story/7-tips-for-reducing-pain-perception

Weed Smoothies: No Greens Left Behind

Complementary Therapies, Let Food be Your Medicine, , , , ,
Garlic mustard, an edible brassica weed
Garlic mustard, an edible brassica weed

“I have no wrath. Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle, Then I would step on them, I would burn them completely.”

Isaiah 27:4, New American Standard Bible®

 

Did you ever wish your weeds would just disappear?

Even the Hebrew Bible describes the Divine as one who would step on and completely burn up weeds.

I get even better revenge on my weeds. I eat the ones I recognize.

Some weeds provide wild, natural, bitterly nutritious greens that can be added to salads or smoothies. I prefer smoothies so I can gulp them down rather than taste the bitterness.

During this past weekend I went on an edible weed walk at Turner Farm in Indian Hill, Ohio. Nancy Ogg from Shady Grove Farm in Kentucky provided expert guidance for what common weeds could be eaten.

Please do not pick weeds without knowing exactly what they are and what parts are safe to consume.

I asked if dandelion flower stems were edible. Nancy said yes, though they are quite bitter, probably because they are the most nutritious part of the plant. Smoothie filler for me.

Apparently violet blossoms are safe, because they can be added to salads for color. At the end of the class each of us took home a small jar of violet jelly. Delicious!

We found three black mustard plants growing in the compost heap. I brought them home because I love stir-fried black mustard seeds with fresh radishes, a great anti-inflammatory meal for cancer thrivers. I planted the foot-tall weeds in my compost bed.

Because weeds resist cultivation, my friend Kathleen suggested I threaten the plants periodically by waving and whirring a weed wacker over them so they’ll think they are wild and free.

In the meantime, I forage on my property, adding a little variety beyond dandelions with hairy bittercress and garlic mustard. No recognized weed will be left behind.

Thriver Soup Ingredient:

Here is the recipe I use for my mustard seed stir-fry, using black mustard seeds:

https://giniann.wordpress.com/2006/12/23/radish-curry-saute-with-onions-garlic-and-chili/

Here is the recipe for violet jelly using half the normal amount of sugar:

http://www.healthygreenkitchen.com/violet-jelly.html

Source:

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®,

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,

1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission.” (www.Lockman.org)