Ask Calli January Style

First off a big CONGRATS to my friend Calli who graduated from ASU! Sionara maroon and gold.





Being the first of the year, I asked Calli for her best tips. So here you go:



Calli’s Top 10 for 2010!!

1) Think before you eat. Before shoving something in your mouth, think “Is this benefiting my body in some way?” If the answer is NO, then put it down and move on.

2) Move more. If you have no time to exercise, then make time! If that is difficult too, then do the easy things like choosing the farthest parking spot in the lot or doing jumping jacks in the commercials of your favorite show, or do active things on the weekends instead of dinner and a movie which is sit, eat, then sit some more.

3) Produce over package. When doing the grocery shopping, spend more time in the produce section gathering fruits and vegetables. Don’t even waste your time in the cookie, cracker, and Pop-tart isles. Not all packaged foods are bad, but they take more time and investigation on your part. You can’t go wrong with fresh produce!

4) Be adventurous. The American diet of steak and potatoes has given us some bad health statistics. Be adventurous and try Thai, Greek or fresh Mexican food. Different cuisines usually offer more vegetables and colors in the meal, which always a plus! These are great places to try. Pita Jungle YC’s Mongolian Grill, Wild Thaiger

5) Eat more fish. It is tough living in a land locked state, but fish is the bomb. Some fish offer super lean protein, others offer essential fats that improve our health. Try to eat fish 3 times or more a week. You will notice a difference! Learn how to buy and cook fish here!

6) Don’t go nuts! Just eat more of them…Don’t rely on peanuts and peanut butter to fulfill this. Eat more almonds, walnuts, cashews, and pecans. One handful everyday!

7) Count your colors. The best way to achieve a healthier lifestyle, weight loss goal, or improve a health condition is to load up on the vegetables and fruits. Try to eat 3 or more different colors at each meal. Here are some great recipes! Breakfast Smoothie Vegetable Fajitas Bean and Corn Salsa

8) Cut out sugar. Banning sugar all together forever is pretty much unrealistic for most people, but cutting it out the majority of the time or cutting down is doable. If you have a sweet tooth regularly, try using Stevia. It is a natural sweetener from the stevia leaf and it is becoming more and more mainstream. You can purchase it at any grocery store. It has no calories, no glycemic load, and is sweet like sugar.

9) Frozen is Fabulous. Stock your freezer with frozen vegetable medleys and fruit/berry medleys. There is no chopping, washing, or cleaning required so a meal can be whipped up super fast using a veggie medley. Fruit or berry medleys make an effortless dessert or breakfast smoothie. Did I mention how cheap they are?

10) Set a goal and get motivated. If improving your health is not enough motivation to start making better choices then choose something to work toward. Train for a run that benefits cancer, have a competition with friends or family, or have a person close to you be your motivator or partner in your journey.

If you have a request for tips, tricks or recipe makeovers just e-mail me! Nutritionbycalli@gmail.com

Ask Calli

Q: Butter or Margarine?


P.S. Regardless of what you say, I'm sticking with butter.


A: This is easy,

BUTTER

Anything that has been chemically altered or processed extensively should be avoided. Butter is good. It is an all-natural form of fat. Margarine came out when people (nutrition researchers) thought fat was bad and it was giving people heart disease and high cholesterol. There is more evidence everyday that fat is good, especially from nuts, seeds, fish, and vegetables. Sure, butter, cheese, and other dairy-based fats should be treated as a condiment or occasional dessert, but overall, fat is essential. Fake, processed, chemically altered fat, like Margarine, is not. Go Butter!
www.foodnerdaz.blogspot.com

Ask Calli

Today I'm inaugurating a new blog post idea that I've wanted to do for a long time. This is my friend Calli,(and her husband), I stole the picture of her blog. Anyhow, she graduates in December from ASU in nutrition. She has a blog FOOD NERD. I ALWAYS have questions about what I eat, so she has obliged to be a guest poster on my blog. I writer her a question, she answers it, I post it.

So first question:

Q: Are potatoes good for anything? Or are they just good tasting?

A:I love this question. I am all about eating anything natural that grows out of the ground, but the WHITE potato is a different case. Here is my list of pros and cons.

Pros:
They contain a lot potassium
They provide satiety rather quickly
They are relatively cheap
There are so many different ways to prepare them, and most are easy

Cons:
Besides potassium, they aren't very nutrient dense
They are very starchy and have a big glycemic load (this means eating a white potato can have the same, if not worse effect on the body as table sugar because they are absorbed into the blood stream very fast)
They are very high in carbohydrates- Carbohydrates aren't bad, but carbohydrate-dense foods should be avoided unless you are extremely active
The cooking methods and serving styles are usually dangerous to our bodies (potato chips, french fries, coated in salt, hash-browns ect.)
Some studies have shown that societies with higher consumption of potatoes have a higher risk of diabetes.
The skin is the best part, but most people discard the skin or peel the potato as part of the recipe

Me personally, I do not eat white potatoes. I may have a couple french fries every now and again, but the cons out weigh the pros for me. There are 2 cases where potatoes (baked) would be good for me to eat.
1) In a time of famine
2) If I were a marathon runner training for 2+ hours a day

America is known as the meat and potato country. America is also demonstrating the fastest rise in obesity ever. My advice to all those white potato-aholics would be to get to know the sweet potato. They are more tasty, have more nutrients, and ranked most nutritious vegetable in 1992 in a study by the The Center for Science in the Public Interest. Here is a recipe for honey roasted sweet potatoes (I leave skins on) that I love to make and it can't get much easier! I hope this was educational, persuasive, and useful!

Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes


Thanks Calli!