Our nutrition expert, Amie Valpone, recommends the following eight versatile superfoods as a starting point. Stock your kitchen with these basics, get creative with your preparations, and enjoy the benefits of a healthy, balanced diet all year long.

1. Leafy Greens

Leafy green superfoods, such as Swiss chard, kale, spinach, and dandelion greens, are rich in vitamins A, C, and K. They also contain the minerals iron and calcium, so if you’re lactose intolerant or avoid dairy because of digestive issues, consider loading up on leafy greens to help get your calcium fix.

To prepare, add a single tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil to a large skillet and heat over medium heat. Add 1 clove of minced garlic and cook for 1 minute or until golden brown. Then add 1 head of finely chopped leafy greens and cover. Cook for 2 minutes, then stir until the greens are wilted. Season to taste with ½ teaspoon sea salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper and serve. Leftover sautéed leafy greens keep in a sealed container for up to two days in the refrigerator.

2. Beans, Legumes, Grass-Fed Beef, or Organic Poultry

Beans and legumes are excellent sources of fiber and protein. For examples, versatile chickpeas contain about 12 grams of fiber per cup, which is almost 50 percent of the daily recommended intake for women. They’re also a great source of iron, zinc and copper. Beans and legumes are a great choice if you are vegetarian or vegan, or if you don’t easily digest animal protein.

If you feel more energized eating meat or beans make you bloated and gassy, organic animal proteins such as lamb, grass-fed beef, bison, and chicken are a great options. Choose organic to avoid growth hormones and antibiotics, and select grass-fed beef, which has more heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids than other beef.

Beans and legumes are delicious served in salads, soups, or even spread on toast. Enjoy grilled or roasted beef and chicken, or add meat to stews, soups, and stir-fries.

3. Nuts and Seeds

Nuts and seeds are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids, which may help fight inflammation and ward off diseases. The healthy fats, protein, and fiber in nuts helps you feel full and satisfied. And certain nuts, such as walnuts, are also loaded with antioxidants, which help protect your body from cellular damage and premature aging. When buying nuts, steer clear of the bulk bins. Many are dirty, making the nuts prone to mold.

Eat nuts and seeds as a snack or tossed into a meal. You can also make your own nut or seed butter: In a mini food processor, blend 2 cups of nuts with ½ teaspoon sea salt until it forms a peanut butter consistency. Scrape down the sides as needed to blend, then transfer to a serving bowl and serve atop whole-grain toast or with sliced apples. Leftover nut butter keeps in a sealed container for up to three weeks in the refrigerator.

4. Gluten-Free Whole Grains

Whole grains are packed with fiber and other nutrients such as the minerals copper, phosphorus, manganese, and magnesium. Millet, quinoa, and wild rice are some of my favorite choices because they have loads more flavor compared to white rice. These grains are also easy to batch cook on a Sunday night; refrigerate the cooked grain in a sealed container to use throughout the week in lettuce wraps, soups, and salads.

To eat, cook ½ cup of any gluten-free whole grain according to the package directions in a medium pot with water or vegetable or organic chicken broth for extra flavor. Remove from the heat and toss in a few tablespoons of your favorite herbs, fruit, and nuts, then toss with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Leftover gluten-free whole grains keep in a sealed container for up to four days in the refrigerator.

Related: Grain-Free Lemon Almond Crackers

5. Fresh Herbs

Fresh herbs contain vitamin C and are loaded with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds. When you purchase fresh herbs, look at the roots to make sure they still look bright green and fresh.

Parsley, basil, and dill are versatile options that work well in salads, while rosemary and thyme are good for seasoning vegetables or roasted meat. You can also add finely chop herbs to scrambled eggs. Store fresh herbs in the fridge in a jar of water like you would flowers to keep them perky.

6. Berries

Scientists have discovered that berries—blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries—have some of the highest antioxidant levels of any fresh fruit. They are also a good source of fiber, phytochemicals, and vitamin C. In fact, a cup of strawberries has more vitamin C than a medium orange. They also add a touch of natural sweetness to any recipe without having to use added sugar.

Add fresh berries to yogurt parfaits, as a topping for ice cream, or dip them into creamy almond butter for a sweet treat. Or toss 1 cup frozen berries into your favorite smoothie, and you can forgo adding ice cubes and other sweetener.

7. Avocado

In addition to being addictively delicious, avocados contain more potassium than bananas, and they’re loaded with heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids. They also are full of fiber, which helps boost satiety.

To eat, slice a large (and very ripe) avocado in half lengthwise and discard the pit. Serve with a salad of greens or whole grains, on the side of eggs, mashed on toast, or prepared as guacamole.

Related: The Creamiest Avocado Aioli Sauce

8. Citrus

Citrus is often thought of as a powerful source of vitamin C, however, citrus fruits also contain potassium, calcium, and antioxidants to protect our bodies from oxidative stress and free radicals.

Citrus is at its peak ripeness this time of year, and the fruit makes a satisfying sweet and tangy snack. Lemon juice, lime juice, and orange juice are also fantastic used in salad dressings, marinades, or simply squeezed on fresh vegetables or roasted meat or fish.

>>Amie Valpone is the founder of The Healthy Apple and best-selling author of the cookbook Eating Clean: The 21-Day Plan to Detox, Fight Inflammation, and Reset Your Body.

The post 8 Must-Eat Foods for a Balanced Diet appeared first on Sonima.

In the August issue of the journal Circulation, researchers reviewed 17 years of human observational and intervention nutrition studies. They found that more diverse diets were associated with higher intakes of less-healthy foods, such as refined grains, sugar-sweetened beverages, and processed foods. These diets were also associated with lower intakes of healthy foods, such as vegetables and fruit. Beyond what people were eating, more diverse diets were linked to weight gain and obesity in adults.

They conclude that, rather than focusing on diversity, it’s better to focus on consuming a diet that’s founded on plant foods, protein, low-fat dairy, vegetable oils, and nuts, plus low in sweets, sugar-sweetened beverages, and red meats.

This isn’t the first time experts have questioned the “everything in moderation” notion. A study published in PLOS One in October 2015 came to similar conclusions. When scientists assessed the diets of more than 5,000 adults of various ethnicities, they found that diversity in food consumption was associated with increased waist circumferences.

Overall, I agree with the new AHA statement. It seems that the more diverse your diet is, the more you eat of both healthy and less healthy foods. If you are eating plenty of plant-based foods as well as high amounts of refined carbs, trans fats, sodium, and processed red meat, the benefits of the healthy foods cannot undo the negative impact of the unhealthy foods. Plus, greater variety of foods is often associated with unhealthy snacking and can cause you to consume more calories, which can obviously lead to weight gain.

Beyond health, trying to include too many foods in your diet can feel overwhelming. Many of us have been in the situation where we’ve been inspired to go on a fresh produce buying spree, only to bring home our bounty and not know what to do with it all. Inevitably, some (or perhaps most) of it ends up going bad before we can use it. Wasting time, money and food can, ultimately, discourage you from cooking at home.

Related: 4 Healthy Foods with Surprisingly Wasteful Side Effects

So rather than thinking about eating everything in moderation, I recommend focusing on consuming a nutritious diverse diet. That is likely what the authors behind this original recommendation had in mind, however, in today’s world of processed and fast foods, there is more of “everything” at our fingertips, leading to the modern, less-healthy interpretation.

A nutritious diverse diet provides a mix of macronutrients and micronutrients to help you feel your best. It also gives you enough variety so that you’re not eating the same thing every single meal, but enough restriction so you’re not overwhelmed with options. After all, a diet of only spinach and chicken breasts gets super boring pretty quickly, and can make you tempted to head to the drive-thru or turn to Seamless.

Less nutritious options are not completely off limits. Attempting to entirely deprive yourself of foods that you enjoy often backfires. Also, I believe a healthy life is an enjoyable life. If, overall, the vast majority of your diet is unprocessed and whole plant foods, then you can have the occasional cheeseburger or small dessert when you want it. Plus, since many times these foods are eaten during social gatherings, you get the added benefit of spending time with others.

So what is a nutritious diverse diet? It’s one rich in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes and may include lean animal proteins such as poultry, fish, and small amounts of grass-fed meat. The choice of adding dairy is very personal and also based on your genetics. If you can digest it and wish to include it, the most healthful dairy is grass-fed and organic.

Aim to include a rainbow of colorful vegetables and fruits at each meal, as each color indicates a different phytonutrient. This is a good practice to help ensure that you are getting a variety of vitamins and minerals to support your health. Along with the produce, have a mix of healthy protein, fat, and carbs, which will also support your health and help you stay fuller longer. Some example meals include broiled salmon with mint chimichurri, mung bean noodle salad with seared tofu and mushrooms, and cucumber tomato salad with crispy chickpeas and feta.

When you eat this way and also with the seasons, diversity will naturally happen. Pick the ripest vegetables and fruit (adding frozen organic vegetables in the winter, when it can be harder to find a range of fresh produce) and mix up your proteins and carbs. If you prefer to cook a different dish for every meal each day, go for it, but you don’t need to. It’s OK to take a salad to the office for lunch most days, just try to mix up the proteins and fats. Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with properly saving leftovers from dinner and having them another night later in the week.

This can make cooking easier since you don’t need an entire farmer’s market of produce, plus you can stick to some staple recipes for most meals and mix in new recipes when you have the time to experiment. You’ll also likely save more money since you’re only buying what you need. And, according to the AHA statement, a high-quality diet like this is associated with lower risk of chronic diseases. So rather than eating literally anything and everything, stick to a variety of healthy foods.

The post What It Really Means to Have a Diverse Diet appeared first on Sonima.

Researchers at Loughborough University studied healthy, college-aged women on a calorie-restricted diet and discovered that they ate an additional 300 calories, on average, at dinner compared to the control group, who ate three standard meals. The reason for consuming more may be because they had higher levels of ghrelin (a hormone that makes you feel hungry), and lower levels of peptide YY (a hormone that suppresses appetite). Odds are, if you’re feeling ravenous, you will go hog wild when it’s finally time to chow down.

Related: Is Your Relationship with Food Actually Harmful?

Another study published in Cognitive Neuroscience examined the brains of chronic dieters, and found that those with higher body fat percentages had a weaker connection between two areas in the brain: the part that manages executive control, and the reward region. They concluded that it may be harder for people to override temptations, making them at a greater risk of becoming obese. Some other studies, however, have shown that you can develop greater self-control through practice. Willpower, like any form of strength, must be developed over time. But rather than put all your efforts in your willpower to get healthy, consider focusing on a nutrition strategy designed to help you “reset.”

A reset is a new beginning—one that gets your digestive system and your body’s “clearing house” (the liver) in tip-top shape. Your liver is your body’s largest solid organ, and it’s chiefly responsible for eliminating toxins that can pollute your system and erode your health and well-being. All day, every day, food, stress, pollutants, and other toxins accumulate in your body. Although your liver is built to handle this, sometimes it gets behind schedule (like when you eat too much junk food or are under extreme stress), which causes inflammation in our body. This inflammation puts a strain on your metabolism and leads to weight gain, especially around your belly. The best way to reduce the inflammation and help your liver function at its best is to give the digestive tract a bit of a vacation—like this five-day reset.

The good news about this meal plan is that it’s just five days long. It won’t leave you hungry, and it will set you up to continue eating right because it helps reset your tastebuds, too. When you enjoy fresh vegetables seasoned with spices and herbs, you learn to appreciate their flavors more and no longer desire as much excessive sugar or salt. The meals in this plan also leave you feeling lighter, yet still satisfied, so you feel energized and not in a food coma. Many people who have tried this reset also say they feel less stressed. One remarkable thing about the body is that as our digestion rests and relaxes, so does our mind. During these five days, I recommend you try meditation, too. Here are a few guided meditations to get started.

This five-day reset plan below includes lots of fresh vegetables―full of the vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, and polyphenols your body needs to perform at its best. Choose organic produce when possible to avoid harmful herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. Also, be sure to drink water throughout the day to stay properly hydrated and curb cravings. We often confuse dehydration with hunger, so drinking more H2O may help keep you out of the kitchen at odd hours. You can flavor your water with fresh lemon juice and also enjoy lemon balm, green, and oolong tea as often as you’d like it. If you feel like noshing between meals, be sure to add light, easily digested proteins to help keep you fuller for longer. Soft-boiled eggs, poached chicken and fish, or cooked lentils are good options. Try not to eat too much at any one time, however, because the goal of this reset is to clear out your digestive system.

DAY 1

Blended Vegetable Soup

Start to reset by enjoying a blended soup of zucchini, parsley, celery, green beans, and any green leafy vegetables you enjoy three to four times a day. This simple soup, called Bieler’s soup after the doctor who created the recipe, is incredibly nourishing. Unlike juicing, which removes fiber, blending lightly steamed vegetables retains the fiber, so you feel fuller longer. Fiber also keeps your digestive track running smoothly. Between meals, snack on bone broth or, if you’re feeling hungry, more Bieler’s soup.

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Ingredients

3 medium zucchini, sliced
1 handful (1/3 pound) green beans, ends trimmed
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
1 bunch parsley, tough stems removed
2 cups water
1-2 teaspoons olive oil or 1/2 teaspoon grass-fed butter
Himalayan or preferred salt
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
Spices: granulated garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, and/or cayenne (optional)

Directions

1. Place the vegetables and water in a pot and bring to a boil. Skim any foam on the surface.
2. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.
3. Puree soup in the pot with a handheld blender or in standalone blender in batches.
4. Serve with olive oil or butter, salt, pepper, and spices to taste.

Yield

2-4 servings

DAY 2

Mixed Steamed Vegetables

Use your bone broth and blended vegetable soup as snacks, and begin eating meals of steamed vegetables, such as zucchini, broccoli, onion, cauliflower, and leafy greens—pick your favorites. Lightly steaming vegetables helps retain their nutrients and is easy and fast. Serve your vegetables drizzled with olive oil to taste. Healthy fats helps you absorb more vitamins and minerals from the vegetables.

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Ingredients

1+ cups mixed vegetables, chopped
1-2 teaspoon(s) olive oil
Himalayan salt
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
Spices of choosing (optional)

Directions

1. Steam vegetables for about 5 to 8 minutes, until soft.
2. Serve drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with seasonings to taste.

Yield

1 serving

DAY 3

Lemony Fish

Add lighter proteins such as steamed, poached chicken breast or cold-water white fish or wild salmon to your steamed vegetables and continue with the same snacks. The protein will help you feel more satisfied and is essential for maintaining muscle, which helps you burn more calories. Season your protein with herbs and spices for a boost of flavor as well as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory benefits. I like AllRecipes.com’s take on Lemony Steamed Fish (make it tonight!).

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DAY 4

Quinoa Pilaf

Today, you can repeat Day 3’s meals, or enjoy complex carbs such as quinoa, organic brown rice, or wild rice as part of your evening meal. Complex carbs have more vitamins, minerals, and fiber than refined carbohydrates such as sugar, white pasta, and white bread.

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Close-up of healthy quinoa salad with goat cheese, olives, goat cheese dressed with olive oil on desk in office.

Ingredients

1/4 cup quinoa
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
Himalayan salt
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
Herbs and spices of choosing (optional)

Directions

1. Prepare quinoa according to package directions.
2. Drizzle with olive oil and add seasonings to taste.
3. Serve with your protein and steamed vegetables of choice.

Yield

1 serving

DAY 5

Colorful Salad

Start today’s his meal plan with the blended vegetable soup and hot tea for breakfast. Follow this up, with soup or salad and a two- to four-ounce grilled, steamed, or poached chicken or fish for lunch and dinner. To switch things up at the end of the day, swap out the last meal for quinoa and steamed vegetables. Snack on bone broth when you feel hungry between meals.

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Ingredients

Mixed lettuce (the more color, the more nutrition)
Any raw vegetables you enjoy
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
Fresh lemon juice
Herbs and spices
2-4 ounce chicken or fish, grilled, steamed or poached (optional)

Directions

1. Combine lettuce and vegetables.
2. Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice, and herbs and spices to taste.

Yield

1 serving

The post Reset Your Body with this Easy 5-Day Eating Plan appeared first on Sonima.

Over 30 million Americans meet the criteria for clinically diagnosable eating disorders. But those who do not are still at psychological, physical, and emotional risk. It is common—and dangerous—to minimize the consequences of obsessive calorie counting, rigid or excessive exercise routines, anxieties about certain foods and eating, restriction, binging, purging, inflexibility around eating, and distorted body image—all of which constitute disordered eating.

While cultural pressures to achieve an ideal body are rampant, most people struggling with eating are not, at their core, driven by dissatisfaction with their appearance. Saturated with the stressors of modern life, we crave comfort and control. We seek resolution through food—the most primal source of comfort—and our bodies—the most accessible and consistent thing in our daily lives that we can attempt to control.

Unmet emotional needs and negative self-perceptions influence how people treat their bodies and interact with food—from restriction and over-exercising, to food rules and judgments, to binging and purging. But attempts to soothe inner pain by taking “control” of the body ultimately backfire, throwing lives into greater chaos. What percentage of your mental space is taken up thinking about, fearing, obsessing over, or calculating food? If this type of thinking takes up more space than you would like it to, consider trying the strategies described in this article and/or partnering with a wellness coach, dietitian, or therapist to free yourself from these draining thought patterns.

Understanding Your Dynamic Relationship with Food

Kim Wyman, R.D., a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders, believes that “how you feed yourself is a direct demonstration of what you feel about yourself.” When people use disordered behaviors, Wyman observes, the “relationship between self and care is distorted and mutates into a punitive dynamic.” The body becomes the target. Ramifications can be immediate or long-term, and include physical and mental depletion, emotional imbalance, interference in daily activities, financial losses, social disconnect, and interpersonal conflict. Over time, you lose your sense of self and your true values.

How can we begin to examine and change our relationship with ourselves, and thereby with our food?

It helps to appreciate that we are more than physical creatures; we are also spiritual and emotional beings. Wyman explains: “We all start out in an organic state of seeking pleasure, attachment, and love.” Over the course our lives, challenging experiences and traumas disconnect us from our original self. We often respond to these challenges by punishing, neglecting, and abandoning ourselves. To heal, we must revive our original self by appropriately meeting our needs. It can help to inquire, with gentle curiosity: “What would it look like if compassion, instead of criticism, fueled my food choices?”

Related: A Colorful Guide to Healthy Eating

Needs are often disparaged in our culture; being “needy” is considered a weakness. But as human beings, we have both physical and emotional needs. Flourishing depends upon embracing these needs. Wyman encourages people not to deny or even just tolerate needs, but to “take pleasure in your relationship to needs, develop intimacy, so that (meeting your needs) is an act of cherishing and loving self.”

Wyman defines emotional needs as “being seen, heard, witnessed, and acknowledged.” When these needs are not met appropriately, wounds develop. We then try to soothe these emotional wounds through actions taken out on our bodies: eating more when lonely, less when anxious, etc. In small degrees, these are natural and normal responses. But sometimes they go too far. And ultimately, emotional needs cannot be adequately met through physical need outlets. We simply must respond kindly to all needs as they arise. Mattrioti observes: “When we meet our needs with a loving and compassionate touch, our bodies will respond and feel cared for.”

Meeting our emotional and physical needs requires ongoing self-inquiry and a courageous commitment to change. It’s normal to resist change—particularly in food patterns. We may feel daunted, frustrated, scared, or ashamed. But to break a cycle of self-abusive behaviors and cultivate self-love, taking radically different actions than we have been taking is necessary. For example: prepare a nourishing meal for yourself with feelings of generosity and appreciation, instead of anxiety or judgment. It helps to start by acknowledging where we are and imagine where we’d like to go. To start, ask yourself, with gentle curiosity, “What is my current relationship with food? How would I like it to be?”

5 Ways to Foster a Harmonious Relationship with Food and Self

These five evidence-based approaches to cultivating well-being are drawn from traditional Western therapeutic models, groundbreaking integrative healing practices, and contemplative traditions.

1. Narrative

The stories we tell ourselves, and thereby live in, either harm or support us. It’s important to become aware of the stories we’re telling about food, body, and self. If we find we are living a harmful or limiting story we want to revise, we can imagine what alternative storylines we’d prefer living. Once we acquire understanding and appreciation of our food stories—either independently, among peers, or with a professional guide—we can better tend to our bodies. But just how can we tune into our body, after it’s been muted for years?

2. Embodiment

Matthew Sanford, founder of Mind Body Solutions, considers disordered eating a “fundamental mind-body disconnection.” He believes healing cannot happen solely in the brain through cognitive-based treatments such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical-behavior therapy, and nutritional education, because these approaches operate “right in the web of the disorder.” Instead, he suggests changing the mind-body interaction: “How can the body become part of the solution?”

Sanford has successfully used body-based practices to treat women struggling with anorexia. He has learned: “You cannot just educate (people). You have to experientially show them.” He encourages starting with a gentle exploration of embodiment through yoga therapy.

3. Mindfulness

Research indicates mindfulness practice significantly benefits mental and physical health. Pioneering mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

When healing disordered eating, mindfulness is essential. Our physical body takes in life through the senses. When we cultivate attentive, nonjudgmental presence—instead of spinning in negative feelings and thoughts about the past or future—we can contact beauty surrounding us, and hold suffering with compassion.

To shift out of a stress-based relationship with food, try activating the senses through mindful eating practices. Tuning in to taste, sight, smell, touch, and breath brings us into a present moment relationship with food and body. In addition to mindful eating, Wyman believes that in cooking—a practice of self-love—“there’s activation of the self, and bliss and contentment in the moment. Take the time to make a meal!”

Related: A Meditation for Mindful Eating

4. Connection

Connection as a practice for healing our relationship with food takes two forms: connecting with self, and connecting with others.

To self-connect, Wyman advises, “befriend, witness, and acknowledge yourself.” Try articulating emotions and experiences in writing, either with a narrative coach or independently. Or foster friendliness with self through self-compassion meditation, which has been proven to improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Related: A Loving-Kindness Meditation for Self-Acceptance

Next, break out of the secrecy in which disordered eating thrives. When we share our stories, we realize our interconnectedness. Seeing ourselves in each other’s stories, we realize we’re part of something larger. Consider calling a friend, or working with a professional guide like a wellness coach, recovery specialist, somatic practitioner, or a dietitian. Authentic, vulnerable, and nourishing relationships with people can replace depleting relationships with disordered behaviors.

Social experiences with food can also be healing. For those who experience food anxiety, breaking bread with others can “take the focus off the food by making it about relationships,” Mattrioti explains. Perhaps schedule monthly dinner parties with friends, or weekly family meals.

5. Gratitude

One of the primary ways humans connect with self, food, and others is through gratitude. Gratitude is acknowledging and expressing thanks for goodness. Research consistently affirms its correlation with positive emotions, physical and mental health, resilience, strong relationships, and overall happiness.

Gratitude can be offered before, during, and after a meal, aloud or silently. It can be offered to our body, the company we keep, the sensory delights of the food, and everything that contributed to the meal—the sun, plants, animals, farmers, transporters, and cooks.

The Journey Forward

We crave sweeping, seismic, and rapid change. But realistically, change happens by taking tiny steps over and over. Mattrioti reminds clients that the slow and imperfect nature of this process is “not a failure—it’s transformation, beauty, and goodness.” Mattrioti recommends: “Hold a lot of patience and space. This is not about achieving a goal perfectly. This is a journey.”

To minimize the bumps along the way, try reframing what’s possible, instead of only seeing all-or-nothing options. Consider creating small rituals that bring present-moment awareness into decision-making, perhaps by inquiring: “What’s happening inside of me, right now?”

Patience, practical action, persistence, and believing change is possible are key ingredients to a nourishing relationship with food and self. With realistic expectations and compassionate support, we can explore our current relationship with food, envision how we might prefer it to be, gradually implement the practices that lead to change, and experience peace and pleasure in all of our relationships.

The post Is Your Relationship with Food Actually Harmful? appeared first on Sonima.

Historically, sulfites have been used since ancient Roman times to sanitize wine vessels and were introduced as a food preservative in the 1600s. Sulfites are often added to wines to protect them against oxidation and microbial growth. “Without them, [long-term] preservation of wine would be impossible,” says Jeremy Fisher, sommelier at The Frog and the Peach in New Brunswick, NJ. “A 1961 Bordeaux would taste like vinegar.” The fermentation process produces small amounts of sulfites—not enough to preserve wine indefinitely. “Transporting wines around the world without sulfites would be impossible, according to most winemakers,” says Fisher.

In addition to wine and dried fruit, you’ll find sulfites added to many foods, such as some canned seafood and white potatoes meant for frying. You might also see them in dried vegetables, pickled onions, fruit juice, vinegar, lemon and lime juice, fruit bars, gravy, pizza dough, deli meat, shrimp, lobster, and gelatin. In cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, they may turn up in hair dye, tanning lotion, anti-aging cream, bath gel, perfume, blush, and certain medication such as anti-fungal and corticosteroid creams and some antibiotics. Some people say that sulfites impart a bitter taste to food and drink, but that’s up for debate.

Sulfites occur naturally at low concentrations in some foods, such as grapes. If the sulfites occur or are added in excess of 10 or more parts per million (ppm) in a finished product, you’ll see a “contains sulfites” label on the package—a mandate by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because sulfites are a known allergen.

How Do Sulfites Affect Your Health?

You may have heard that the sulfites in red wine can make your head pound. But there’s no verdict on whether red-wine-related headaches are due to sulfites or other compounds. What we do know: Sulfites can cause itchy skin, low blood pressure, abdominal pain, and diarrhea—as well as life-threatening anaphylactic shock and asthma attacks.

However, you have to be sensitive to sulfites to see these reactions. About 1 percent of people have a sulfite sensitivity. “This sounds like a little—but in the U.S. alone, this would amount to more than 3 million people,” says Vincent Pedre, M.D., author of Happy Gut and an internist at Concierge Choice Physicians in Rockville Centre, New York. When you’re considering asthma suffers, between three and 10 percent are sensitive. “Sulfites are only bad for people that have a known sensitivity, because of the uncomfortable feelings they will develop,” says Pedre.

Related: What Does It Mean to Have Food Sensitivities?

Aren’t sure if you’re sensitive to sulfites? You can visit an allergist for a skin prick test or blood test. The Mediator Release Test is one recommended blood test that can determine food sensitivities. If you’re not an asthmatic, you can try the DIY test. Pedre suggests avoiding wine for a month, then having wine with a significant amount of sulfites. If you notice any unusual symptoms after drinking the wine, you might have a sulfite sensitivity.

Measuring Your Exposure to Sulfites

Sulfite-free wine doesn’t actually exist, since all wines contain at least some sulfites. If you see a “contains no detectable sulfites” on the label, that means it has less than 10 ppm sulfites. In this case, “there are still some sulfites present, although in minimal amounts that are deemed incapable of causing an allergic reaction of any kind,” notes Fisher.

How many sulfites does your glass of wine contain? U.S. wine isn’t allowed to contain more than 350 ppm, and most wines end up with less than 150 ppm. Italian and French varieties tend to contain fewer sulfites and typically max out at 250 parts per million.

Red wines generally contain fewer sulfites than whites and roses. While sulfites help preserve light colors, the natural tannins in red wines also do this. Sweet dessert wines have a much higher sulfite level, up to 500 ppm, to stop the sugars from continuing to ferment in the bottle.

Organic wines contain fewer sulfites than conventional, but the distinction in labeling is important: U.S. labeled organic wine must contain less than 10 ppm added sulfites—and wine labeled “made with organic grapes” needs to have 100 ppm or less sulfites. Estate-bottled wines and biodynamic ones are likely to have lower sulfite levels, too.

Even though wine gets a bad rap when it comes to sulfites, many foods have much higher levels. “Sulfite levels are much higher in food than wine, up to ten times higher,” says Fisher. Foods that have more than 100 ppm sulfites include bottled lemon juice, dried fruit other than raisins and prunes, sauerkraut, and molasses. If you’re sensitive to sulfites, you might be better off dehydrating your own fruit and squeezing fresh lemon juice.

While fresh green and fruit salads are no longer allowed to contain added sulfites, all grapes contain some naturally occurring sulfites. The organic version should contain less, as conventional ones are treated with sulfites to prevent fungus growth.

You can also reduce sulfites by filtering them out. Products like Ullo act as a wine purifier to remove sulfites from drinks (but aren’t recommended for champagne, since they remove some carbonation, too). They’re expensive, running around $80 for a purifier and four single-use filters. “That seems like a lot of money to spend,” says Fisher. When it comes to removing sulfites from produce, you can attempt this yourself: Soak vegetables or fruit that might contain sulfites in electrolyzed water that has a pH between 9 and 11, such as AQUAhydrate. “Alkaline water is very effective in removing pesticides and additives,” says Pedre.

The post Are Sulfites Bad for Your Health? appeared first on Sonima.

In the past, the only vegan cheeses on the market were the equivalent of celebrity impersonators—a sad, disappointing excuse. Most had a rubbery texture and plastic taste, and they were made from ingredients like palm oil, starches, and gums. But today there’s an increasing number of artisanal non-dairy cheeses on the market. Ones that, if you served them at a wine tasting and didn’t tell your friends, they might not even realize they’re eating vegan.

“More people than ever want to reduce their intake of animal products,” says Michael Schwarz, founder of Treeline Cheese, which produces cheeses made from cashews. “I think it’s due to a combination of the revelation of what does on in dairy industry, health issues, and climate change. But they still want to be satisfied in having a really nice thing to eat instead of dairy cheese.” Enter nut cheeses.

Related: How to Make Vegan Zucchini Lasagna

Each company makes their cheeses slightly differently, but most start with fresh or soaked nuts because their high fat content results in a creamy, cheese-like consistency. They break the nuts down until they resemble a cream. Then the cream is cultured with good bacteria (probiotics), which interacts with the nuts and produces lactic acid. This lends a cheesy flavor and makes the cream firmer. Some cheeses are then aged for a few weeks for an even firmer texture. “It’s a fairly simple process, but the devil is in details. You have to pay attention to how it’s cultured. It’s a live product and requires great care,” Schwarz says. Several companies also add herbs or spices to naturally flavor their products.

So what do they actually taste like? Schwarz says to keep one thing in mind: “People who make brie are not claiming to make Camembert—they make brie. Similarly, we don’t sell ‘vegan cheese.’ We sell ‘nut cheese,’ which stands on its own merit. Don’t think these cheeses will taste exactly like a cheese you’ve have before.” Kaitlyn Misheff, director of education for Matthew Kenney Culinary, says even people who eat dairy enjoy the treenut cheeses served at Matthew Kenney restaurants. “It’s just really good.”

To see how good nut cheese really is, we asked a few non-vegans, including Yuri Weber, cheese buyer for Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, New York, to sample a few artisanal vegan cheeses. Below are Weber’s reviews of the top picks. (If your local natural foods store or Whole Foods doesn’t carry these cheeses, you can buy them all online at VeganEssentials.com.)

Dr. Cow Tree Nut Cheese Aged Cashew Nut & Hemp Seed Cheese

Made from just four ingredients—organic cashews, organic hemp seeds, acidophilus (bacteria), and Himalayan pink sea salt—Weber said this cheese tasted the most like dairy cheese out of the 14 we taste tested. “It has a mouthfeel similar to real cheese,” he said. Eat it with crackers and a tart jam, like red currant, he suggests.

Punk Rawk Labs Dairy Free Nacho Nutmilk Cheese

If you like a little heat, try this cashew-based cheese. It also has carrots, to naturally give it an orange color as well as some nice crunchy texture, chili pepper for spice, and green onions. Make a roux and add this to create a sauce or dip (after all, it is nacho flavored).

Treeline Treenut Cheese Classic Aged Artisanal Nut Cheese

Hickory smoked salt adds a subtle smokiness to this cashew cheese. Weber found it to be very nutty and silkier in texture than the Dr. Cow, and he suggests eating it with something sweet, like chestnut honey.

Miyoko’s Kitchen Aged English Smoked Farmhouse

Miyoko’s adds chickpea miso to most of its cheeses, and the flavor is quite pronounced in this tart, richly flavored cashew cheese. The smoke flavor is much stronger than in other cheeses because the cheese is smoked, rather than having flavors added to it. Add it to chili or a sandwich.

Kite Hill Soft Ripened

This cheese fooled many non-vegans it’s so close to a brie. Made from almond milk, salt, enzymes, and cultures, this aged cheese even has a soft rind (which is edible). Kite Hill says it’s best served out of the fridge, but one vegan tester said she’d bake it.

Of course, you can also make your own nut cheese at home. Cashews are a common base since they have a subtle flavor, but Misheff says macadamias are also great because they’re harder, which adds body. “Or use a 50-50 combination for a firm cheese that’s bit creamy in center,” she suggests. Soak your nuts overnight to soften them, then rinse and drain before processing. A high-speed blender is best for making nut cheese, because the machine needs to be strong enough to chop your nuts into a cream.

If you’re making a fermented cheese, Misheff stresses to be sure everything is sterile—so follow common sense and be sure your hands and all equipment are clean. This way you won’t get any mold on your cheese. “Mold will only happen if there’s bad bacteria [i.e. something other than the probiotic] in the environment,” she explains. And be sure you’re fermenting in a spot in your home where the temperature is pretty consistent.

Give it a go with this recipe from Misheff for macadamia chevre. You can serve this on crackers, or make beet carpaccio by slicing beets super thin and marinating in a mix of olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Then top with the cheese. (If you don’t want to try fermenting, simply blend the nuts, water, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and salt for a ricotta-like cheese.)

Ingredients
2 cups macadamia, soaked, drained, and rinsed
1/4-1/2 cup water (use more or less as needed)
2 capsules acidophilus powder (find this in health food stores)
1/2 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh herbs (such as rosemary and thyme), minced
1 teaspoon spices, ground or whole (optional)

Directions
1. Blend macadamias, water, and acidophilus powder in a food processor until completely smooth. Place mixture in a square of cheesecloth and tie up the ends of the cheesecloth. Place cheese in a strainer, and set over a small bowl to drain. Check cheese after 24 hours. If you live in a humid environment, it may be ready. If it doesn’t smell sour enough yet, let it go another 24 hours.

2. After cheese has fermented, fold in nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and salt, adjusting seasoning as desired. Form mixture into a log shape using parchment paper, twist the ends tight to form a tight cylindrical shape, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 2 days or until firm. Once cheese is firm, remove from parchment, and roll in minced herbs or spices of your choosing to form a layer around the outside of the cheese. Place macadamia chevre in a fresh piece of parchment, wrap tightly, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

The post 6 Vegan Cheeses So Good You Won’t Miss the Real Thing appeared first on Sonima.

Food sensitivities are different from food allergies and intolerances. Both food allergies and sensitivities are overreactions of the body’s immune system. “But that’s where the similarities end and the differences begin,” says Ryan Whitcomb, R.D., C.L.T., a dietitian in Jersey City, New Jersey. Whereas food allergies involve immunoglobin E (IgE) antibodies, which your body produces in excess when it overreacts to an allergen, food sensitivities involve overreactions to several types of antibodies, including immunoglobin G (igG) and/or immunoglobin M (igM). The immune system’s T cells or complement proteins may be involved. When an overreaction happens, it can cause inflammation in your body and symptoms such as migraines, congestion, or diarrhea. And food intolerances have nothing to do with the immune system—they happen when your body is missing a specific enzyme needed to process a food.

Food sensitivities are typically caused by exposure—often overexposure—to a food or chemical. But it could have nothing to do with what you eat. “It may be caused by the mother’s microbiotia during pregnancy,” says Patenaude. Some experts believe that certain cases of infant eczema may be caused by food sensitivities.

While food allergies may be life threatening, food sensitivities aren’t. They are, on the other hand, annoying and can significantly decrease quality of life by causing symptoms like headaches, abdominal pain, and brain fog. “Over time, people learn to cope with their issues—whether a stuffy nose, a funny stomach, or fatigue—because they’ve had them for as long as they can remember,” notes Whitcomb. These symptoms can take anywhere from 45 minutes to three days to show up. And then there’s the chance that you might not have any symptoms if you eat a small amount of a food. “If you’re sensitive to apples, the apple juice in the granola bar you eat might not cause an adverse reaction, but eating an entire apple might,” says Whitcomb.

Food sensitivities may be to blame, at least partially, on technology. “The technical and agricultural revolution is definitely [moving] too fast for our body’s evolution,” says Mark Pasula, Ph.D., an immunologist who created two of the major food sensitivity tests. “Our immune system is not evolving as fast as technology.”

How to Get Tested for Food Sensitivities

There are a handful of food sensitivity blood tests out there, including the IgG Food Antibodies Assessment, the Antigen Leukocyte Antibody Test (ALCAT), and the MRT. The latter is considered the best of these tests.

Several decades ago, Pasula moved from Poland to the United States. “After a few years of living here, I developed very strange allergy-like symptoms that were very, very difficult for me to cope with,” he says. “I decided to help myself and create a test that would identify my problems.” After years of experimentation, Pasula patented his first test, the ALCAT, in 1982. That test worked by identifying white cell reactions to food extracts. But Pasula calls it a “first attempt,” noting it worked decently but not as well as the next generation, the MRT, which tests not just if the blood reacts to a food or chemical—but how and to what degree the body dislikes the food. “The ALCAT test is still around, but it represents very old technology, versus today’s test,” says Pasula.

As for the IgG test, Pasula says it shouldn’t even be on your radar. “The IgG test is generally tells you which foods you consume,” he says. “If you, for instance, eat beef every day, the test very likely will show a high level of IgG to beef.” Authors of a position paper in the journal Allergy agree with this, stating that IgG testing is not helpful for determining food sensitivities.

Related: Is Personalized Nutrition the Future of Dieting?

Depending on where you live, testing with nutritional counseling could cost a few hundred dollars or more—and sometimes will be covered partially or fully by insurance. Anyone who can order blood tests, including doctors and some dietitians, can order the MRT test.

The MRT test assesses 120 common foods and 30 chemicals. It might grow to include more foods and chemicals—but adding an item will cost at least $30,000 on the development side, says Patenaude, so growth will be slow. If you’re looking to get tested, you can search the database on HealthProfs.com to find a dietitian licensed to treat sensitivities.

However, some health professionals have doubts about the accuracy of food sensitivity testing. “There is no validated test for food sensitivities,” says Julie Kuriakose, M.D., founder of Hudson Allergy in New York City. “By validated, I mean the test should have documented evidence that provides a high degree of assurance that a specific test will consistently produce a result. The tests can yield false negatives and false positives.”

If you decide to get tested, Patenaude suggests doing so through a certified LEAP therapist (CLT), as anyone with this credential has gone through advanced training on managing adverse food reactions and sensitivities. LEAP is an acronym for Lifestyle, Eating, and Performance, a nutrition therapy that involves eating a restricted diet sans any foods the MRT test shows you’re sensitive to. “[Other professionals] will not understand the diet protocol based on the results,” says Patenaude.

If you don’t want to get tested, you can try a simpler, much slower road. “Food diaries are useful to narrow a list of offending foods,” says Sezelle Gereau M.D., an integrative otolaryngologist at the Blum Center for Health in Rye Brook, New York. “The best and gold standard way to determine if one has a food allergy or sensitivity is to eliminate the foods strictly for three to six weeks and then reintroduce them in small amounts, one by one over a series of days and observe for reactivity.”

How to Treat Food Sensitivities

Because food sensitivities develop slowly over time, it also takes time for them to resolve. And not all of them do resolve. With nutrition therapy based on the MRT test, dietitians help patients with food sensitivities lose their defenses to certain sensitivities. “Think of the immune system as the bouncer at a swanky night club,” says Whitcomb. “Overexposure to a food or chemical can cause the bouncer to think that a food or food chemical is no longer safe, which is what causes the symptoms.”

Using the LEAP protocol, a dietitian will create an elimination diet based on your test results. You’ll start with a small number of foods, then add new foods slowly to make sure you don’t react to foods for which you didn’t get tested. Such elimination diets are shown to be helpful with conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), found a review study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Several months down the road, you’ll be able to reintroduce foods you test sensitive to back into your diet. If you have a reaction, you might need to avoid the food for several more months—or much longer. “The immune system has memory, and each white blood cell has a different span of memory,” says Whitcomb. “Depending on the cell or cells that are reacting, you might be able to get one food back in a few months, a few years, or never.”  Whitcomb, for example, tested sensitive to wheat, chocolate, and peanuts. By avoiding those foods for a year, he was able to get them all back. But his sensitivity to soy and chicken remained unchanged. “With chronic sensitivities, specific types of cells called lymphocytes get involved that are long-living cells and can cause sensitivities that can last for years,” explains Pasula.

While you may outgrow a food allergy, you won’t outgrow a food sensitivity. You might, however, regain tolerance to some of the foods you’re sensitive to—meaning you can have some, but you run the risk of having symptoms when eating the food if you overdo it.

The post What Does It Mean to Have Food Sensitivities? appeared first on Sonima.

Bill 746 tightly regulates the definition of what constitutes a bioengineered food. For example, foods derived from animals fed GMO crops would be exempt from this labeling requirement. Moreover, it may be difficult to label bioengineered animals if they do make it to market, as the methods used to engineer them may fall outside of the scope of the current GMO definition (as of now, salmon is the only genetically modified meat approved for sale, although it has not made it to market yet).

Another major controversy of the DARK Act is that labels do not have to clearly state that a given product contains GMOs. Alternatively, food manufacturers will be allowed to print either a 1-800 number for a consumer to call, or a QR code to be scanned with a smartphone in order to inquire about the ingredients within the package. Critics of this act argue that a large segment of the population (such as the elderly, poor, and rural-dwelling Americans), will find it difficult to access this data. And of course, it will be highly inconvenient for even the most technologically savvy individual to call a 1-800 number or scan a code for every food item purchased at the grocery store.

Related: The Next Big Food Trend? Paying Attention

The enforcement of this law will commence in two years for large food manufacturers, while smaller companies will benefit from a three-year grace period. During this time, the Secretary of Agriculture will establish the mandatory bioengineered food disclosure standards as well as the corresponding requirements (the law as it is remains vague in this regard). In the meantime, if you remain passionate about avoiding GMOs, below are a few steps you can take to ensure that your meals are GMO-free:

1. Buy organic

Organic foods cannot contain genetically modified ingredients, and so the easiest means of avoiding GMOs is simply to shop organic. Federal regulations state that in order for a product to carry the organic label, methods “used to genetically modify organisms or influence their growth and development by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes” are prohibited. These methods include “cell fusion, microencapsulation and macroencapsulation, and recombinant DNA technology (including gene deletion, gene doubling, introducing a foreign gene, and changing the positions of genes when achieved by recombinant DNA technology).”

2. Purchase the Non-GMO Project verified foods

Foods that display the Non-GMO Project butterfly label have been verified to be free of genetically modified ingredients. An increasing number of food manufacturers and retailers have gone through their rigorous verification system, and carry the project’s logo. According to the Non-GMO Project website, this new law does not affect their GMO-free verification system or prohibit these companies from placing the logo on their packaging.

Related: 8 Wild Foods That Are Healthier Than Conventional

3. Avoid packaged foods

A staggering 70 percent of packaged foods contain genetically modified ingredients! One of the easiest means of avoiding GMOs is to simply purchase fresh foods and produce which are naturally free of ingredients such as corn syrup and corn starch, canola oil, sugar beets, cottonseed and soy in the form of hydrolyzed vegetable protein, all of which are likely genetically modified. With the exception of papaya, edamame, zucchini and yellow summer squash, which are approved to be genetically engineered and are widely sold in stores, buying fresh produce and enjoying a home-cooked meal is healthier for you and the environment, and increases the likelihood that your food is GMO-free.

4. Know thy farmer

Many farms are in fact small businesses that might not be able to shoulder the expense or administrative burden of the above noted certifications. Shopping at your local farmers market will allow you to not only enjoy fresh produce at peak flavor, but also provide you with the opportunity to speak with the farmers about their growing practices. You can ask questions about whether or not they use genetically modified seeds, if and how they avoid cross-contamination, their policies regarding the use of pesticides and herbicides, and more.

5. Choose your meats and animal products wisely

Although salmon is the only meat that has been approved to be genetically modified, much of the the animal feed used today contains genetically modified ingredients such as corn, soy, and alfalfa. The new law would not require the disclosure of this information. The best way to avoid meats and animal products (such as eggs, butter, milk, cheese, etc.) that may have been contaminated by GMOs is to look for products with the organic or Non-GMO Project label. When it comes to fish, purchasing wild caught varieties is the easiest way to avoid GMOs (farm-raised fish may have been raised on feed containing genetically modified ingredients).

6. …and in two years, prepare to shop with your smartphone!

Once this law is implemented, you can likely expect to use your smartphone to scan QR codes to learn more about what is in your food, in addition to the above methods.

The post 6 Smart Ways to Avoid Genetically Modified Foods appeared first on Sonima.

Curious to know what nutritious foods people will be going nuts for next? Chances are they’re already in your supermarket, you just haven’t discovered them yet. I asked my nutrition pro colleagues to weigh in on the items you are bound to be seeing (and eating) a lot more of soon.

Puffed Amaranth

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Amaranth is an ancient grain that’s been around forever, but not many people know you can “pop” it like popcorn in a covered pan over medium-high to high heat. Amaranth packs a hefty dose of protein and fiber, in addition to calcium phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium. And, it’s the only whole grain known to contain vitamin C. You can eat it plain, top it like a cereal with yogurt, or use it to make your own granola or dark chocolate bark!”
—Elizabeth Ann Shaw, MS, RDN, CLT of Shaw’s Simple Swaps

Jackfruit

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This tropical fruit is native to Southeast Asia but it’s also commonly grown in parts of Africa and South America. In the U.S. it’s typically sold canned or vacuum-packed, though the fruit may also be found whole in ethnic grocery stores. It has a subtly sweet flavor but mainly picks up on the flavors of whatever you cook it with, and because of its taste and texture the fruit is best known as an all-natural meat substitute for pulled chicken or pork dishes, like barbecue sandwiches. Jackfruit is a good source of iron, calcium, and B vitamins, and using it as a replacement for meat helps you cut calories and saturated fat from your diet. However, it should be noted that jackfruit has a much lower protein content compared to meat, at 2.8 grams per serving versus around 21 grams, as well as 31 grams of sugar per cup, sliced.
—Diana Rice, RD, staff dietitian and recipe editor for Meatless Monday

Sorghum

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This is the year sorghum will take off. The nutrient-rich ancient grain is grown in the U.S. and is known for being sustainable as it requires less water than other grains to grow, plus it’s gluten-free. Sorghum is a good source of protein, fiber, B vitamins, and potassium, and it’s extremely versatile: you can cook it like a whole grain, use it as a flour, pop it, and even use it as a sweetener (when boiled down). Try it as a substitute in recipes for brown rice or quinoa.
—Sharon Palmer, RDN, The Plant-Powered Dietitian, author of Plant-Powered for Life

Freekeh

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Freekeh is a young green wheat that has a just-right chewiness and an intriguing, slightly smoky flavor. Although somewhat new to American cuisine, this ancient whole grain has historically played a role in Middle Eastern diets. Freekeh is nutrient-rich, packed with both protein and fiber, and works as a prebiotic to boost good bacteria in the gut. You can find it at natural food stores, like Whole Foods Market, and you can serve it as you would generally eat rice, quinoa, or bulgur wheat. One inventive way to prepare freekeh is shown in this recipe for vegetarian Italian freekeh “meatballs.” 
—Jackie Newgent, RDN, culinary nutritionist and author of The All-Natural Diabetes Cookbook

Jicama

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Jicama looks like a big, bulbous brown root vegetable, but inside the tan skin is a crunchy, creamy, juicy white flesh. Jicama is grown in California and Mexico in the fall months, and it contains about 40 percent of the calories and carbs of a potato, yet it’s rich in filling fiber. It’s a prebiotic, which helps stimulate the growth of ‘good’ bacteria in the gut, and jicama also contains potassium, a nutrient 97 percent of us don’t get enough of, as well as vitamin C. Jicama “chips” are on the rise as the next kale chip, as are jicama fries. Jicama can also be eaten raw in a salad or by itself (it’s sweet like an apple) or she turns jicama sticks into fries as a super side dish.
—Lindsey Pine MS, RDN, CSSD, CLT, owner of Tastybalancenutrition.com
—Natalie Rizzo, MS, RD of Nutrition à la Natalie

The post These 5 Foods Are the Next Big Health Superstars appeared first on Sonima.

Sounds lovely, right? So why aren’t more of us engaging in this beautiful behavior? A recent episode of “The Muppets” reboot (the classic children’s series made a comeback in 2015) sums up the issue perfectly. Kermit, who plays a stressed-out producer struggling to keep a madcap late-night show together, goes on a mindfulness retreat. He and the other attendees sit in front of plates holding what looks like a single soybean. When the frog has a side conversation with actor Jason Bateman, the retreat’s leader admonishes them for not being “present.” She then instructs the class to, “Sit, [and] feel your bottom against the chair…”

To many watching at home, this mindful eating exercise must have looked insane, from the tiny portions to the silence to the spacey (and judge-y) instructor offering ridiculous cues. But for those of us who have dabbled in mindful eating, it also felt kind of familiar.

Related: A Unique Approach to Mindful Eating

My first time trying a mindful eating exercise, I spent nearly half an hour eating a single clementine. Consuming the fruit so slowly and deliberately definitely gave me a better appreciation for its taste and texture. But it also left me feeling like, “Welp, there’s no way I’ll be able to do this on a normal day.” I’m a working parent of two, which means breakfast is something I often consume standing up, usually while I simultaneously try to fill bowls of oatmeal for my wife and daughter, quell toddler tantrums before they become baby-waking meltdowns, and unload a dishwasher.

“Your morning sounds a lot like mine,” says Mark Muesse, an associate professor of religious studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, when I described the scene to him. Muesse is the creator of a “Great Courses” lecture series that first introduced me to guided mindful eating—the one with the 30-minute clementine. As a fellow working parent with a wife and young daughter, Muesse quickly disabused me of the idea that mindful eating means using that painstaking, time-consuming approach at every meal.

“There’s no criteria that has to be fulfilled [in order to eat mindfully],” Muesse says. “It is not necessary to do it in silence. And it is not necessary to eat slowly. Those are just training techniques. I think it depends on whether or not there is attention. And certainly, you can have attention even when things are hectic and chaotic.”

To those of us who don’t often eat alone or won’t ever have the time to “wash each dish with the same care as we would use if we were bathing a baby” (a suggestion from Hanh), this is great news. Here are seven mindful eating exercises Muesse and others recommend you try in real-world situations.

1. Choose healthy, not convenient, foods. Give some thought to what you’re putting into your body and how it will affect you, rather than defaulting to the most convenient option, Muesse advises. “Eating is very important aspect of our overall interaction with the world,” he says. “The Buddha advocated the idea that we eat in order to sustain our bodies for the benefit of other people and our own enlightenment.”

2. Say grace. Or have a moment of silence. Do whatever best aligns with your beliefs and traditions and acknowledges the work that went into creating the meal before you. “I think about where the food comes from. How it gets there. All the individuals and other beings that have been involved in bringing to my place and time the food that is going to become a part of me,” Muesse says. “So I reflect on this process of eating and how it is that the different elements of the universe have come together and now have become a part of who I am.”

Related: A Guided Meditation for Mindful Eating

3. When in a group, try a small dose of silence. Some mindful eating exercises ask people to eat an entire meal in silence so each person can better appreciate the experience of eating. But for many families, mealtimes are also a chance for people to connect with each other. “At my house, we’ll just take the first five minutes and eat in silence. Then the rest of the meal we have conversation,” Muesse says. “It doesn’t have to be five minutes. It can just be one minute or two minutes. But it sort of sets the tone. It’s exactly what Buddhist monasteries do. They take about 15 minutes of silence [at the beginning of meals] and then they have conversation.”

4. To slow things down, count your chews. You probably already know some of the basic practices of mindful eating include removing distractions like TV or smartphones, putting down your fork between bites, and eating slowly. But what does “slow” mean? For Hanh, the suggestion means chewing more—probably much more than you do currently. “Chew each bite until the food is liquefied in your mouth,” he writes in Savor. “That may be twenty to forty times, depending on what you are eating.” In case you need extra motivation to up your mastication, know that science supports Hanh’s idea. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that when people chewed almonds at least 25 times or more, their bodies absorbed more of the healthy fats contained by the nuts than other test subjects who chewed only 10 times.

5. Portion your meal based on the time you have to consume it. Another mindful eating exercise Hanh employs to avoid feeling hurried is to size his plate based on the time available for consuming it. “If your mealtime is short—for example, during your lunch break at work—plan on a smaller meal rather than just cramming down a large meal quickly,” he writes.

6. Avoid skipping meals. “Skipping meals can make it harder to make mindful choices,” Hanh explains. It’s easy to see why. When you’re hungry like the wolf, you’re a lot more likely to devour whatever is in your path (i.e., vending machine goodies). This is why it’s so easy to pass over healthier options like fruits and vegetables that might not be as readily accessible or need preparation for consumption.

Related: The Surprising New Thinking on Processed Foods

7. If you do have a spare hour, try this. A technique Muesse uses to show his students the power of mindful eating is to take an entire hour to eat dinner. “I prepare dinner, set a timer and say, ‘You are going to stay here for an hour. You can’t leave. It’s part of the exercise. You finish your meal in 15 minutes, you are going to be sitting here for 45 minutes.’ Knowing that they have to be there for an hour really slows them down and makes them deliberately savor the experience,” Muesse says. “They love it. It’s plain food, nothing fancy, but they come out of it saying things like, ‘Gosh, I didn’t know food could taste so good.’ Maybe that’s because they have never really tasted it.”

The post 7 Realistic Ways to Approach Mindful Eating appeared first on Sonima.

“A salt-sensitive person will lower his or her blood pressure if he or she eats more potassium and/or less sodium,” says Jerry Yee, M.D., division head of nephrology at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. “[These minerals] may be equally important, but society is concentrating on the sodium side right now. If too much dietary sodium is taken in, the blood pressure increases [for salt-sensitive people]. Salt sensitivity is greater in Asian populations and African Americans.”

Most potassium in the body is located within the cells. A small amount takes residence outside of those cells and is influenced by the potassium you get in foods, hormones such as insulin, and excretion from the kidneys. Eating foods rich in potassium may have a greater impact in regulating blood pressure when consumed with sodium. In a 2014 study published in the Clinical Journal of American Society of Nephrology, subjects with hypertension who increased their potassium intake and also ate a diet rich in salt saw a drop of 9.5 mmHg for systolic blood pressure (top number) and a decrease of 6.4 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure.

Related: 50 Healthy Foods to Add to Your Grocery List

In addition to regulating blood pressure, potassium intake may also help improve exercise performance. Potassium is an electrolyte, which means it has the ability to break apart into charged molecules, resulting in the electrical surges that help power the body. Its role as an electrolyte is what helps it move into the interstitial space of the skeletal muscle during exercise. Potassium is the major charged molecule within the cells while sodium is the major one outside of the cells. The relationship between the two minerals is maintained by something called the sodium-potassium pump, occurring in all cells. The pump moves sodium out of the cell while simultaneously bringing potassium into the cell. When the body’s potassium levels are depleted, blood pressure increases.

“Populations that ingest more potassium-rich diets of fresh fruits and vegetables have, on average, lower blood pressures,” Yee says. “Some populations were almost devoid of hypertension, even among the elderly, until their diets were Westernized and saltier.” Getting enough potassium could lower incidence of high blood pressure in Americans by 17 percent—and increase life expectancy by more than five years, estimates the American Heart Association.

How much potassium do you need to stay healthy? The Institute of Medicine recommends taking in 4,700 milligrams of potassium daily. Of that amount, the average American only gets 3 percent per day. Here are some easy ways to up your daily intake of potassium. One thing to keep in mind: Eating more potassium doesn’t give you the green light to overdo it in on salt.

The post The Important Nutrient Nobody Is Talking About appeared first on Sonima.

According to a new study published in the American College of Sport Medicine’s monthly journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, British researchers discovered that working out is an effective way to make you feel less hungry and even encourage you to take in fewer calories. What’s even more surprising is the types of exercise that may work best for appetite control.

“We’ve found that vigorous exercise suppresses appetite while people are exercising and for a short while afterward, about 30 to 60 minutes,” says David Stensel, Ph.D., associate dean of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, and prominent researcher in exercise metabolism. That means that the hardest workouts you do—such as boot camp classes and never-ending hill sprints—may be doubly good for weight loss. You burn a ton of calories while working out and may be less inclined to binge after.

Related: Are You Eating Enough for Your Workout?

The benefits don’t end when your urge to eat comes back an hour or so later. “When people’s hunger returns, it is normally not any higher than that of those who are just resting,” explains Stensel. In other words, you won’t feel ravenous and ready to inhale an entire pizza in maybe eight bites.

“In the short term, for the average person, it does not appear to be true that exercise makes people hungrier,” Stensel says. “In the longer term—after repeated days or weeks of exercise—people’s hunger and food intake probably does increase, but in most cases this is not sufficient to match the energy expended during exercise.” In layman’s terms, even if you work out regularly, which reduces the appetite-suppressing effects of exercise over time, you probably still won’t be inclined to go hog-wild at a buffet after a workout.

Part of the reason for this self-control may be pride in your work. Feeling a sense of accomplishment from your fitness routine might override thoughts of food. It’s also biological. Stensel’s research measured the amount of ghrelin (an appetite hormone) in the blood after exercise and found that the dial hadn’t moved much from before the workout. However, when the same people ate a restricted diet (eliminating from their meals the same amount of calories they had burned via exercise) ghrelin increased, as did their feelings of hunger. In fact, the test subjects felt so starved when dieting that they ate a third more at the end of the study, taking in 900+ calories after a dieting compared to only 600+ calories after exercising.

The bottom line: Exercise may be a better way to encourage eating less rather than focusing on diet alone. For the best weight-loss results, focus on high-intensity exercise, making sure you reach around 70 percent or higher of maximum aerobic capacity. That includes running, swimming, jumping rope, cycling, or doing any form of cardio, such as intervals, or simply working at a hard intensity. The longer your workout, the longer the appetite suppression lasts, Stensel says. Low-intensity workouts such as walking don’t appear to suppress hunger though they may distract a person from food (if you’re outside in the park, you’re not in your kitchen, right?), thereby, educing caloric intake. Weightlifting also seems to curb craving, at least while people are exercising, but the effects do not seem to be as strong as high intensity cardio, according to Stensel’s work.

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While researchers have proven over the last two decades through 6000+ studies (60 percent of which were published in the last five years) that these invisible-to-the-naked-eye organisms are good for your health, it’s still unclear which probiotics to consume to reap the most rewards. Though fermented foods are nothing new—they’ve been around for more than 7,000 years, starting with fermented fruits, milk (aka kefir), meats, pickled vegetables, bread, beer, and wine —which are the best is still a mystery. What’s more confusing is that shelves are being stocked with more probiotics-infused products—including frozen burritos, cold-brewed coffee, even protein powder—plus supplements than ever before.

Related: Should You Be Eating More Fermented Foods?

“With food sources versus supplements, there’s more potential to buy a product that doesn’t contain probiotics—or if it does, those probiotics may not be viable,” says Lynne V. McFarland, Ph.D., affiliate associate professor in the department of medicinal chemistry at the University of Washington and co-author of The Power of Probiotics: Improving Your Health with Beneficial Microbes. “There is no quality control for the efficacy of probiotic strains in most grocery store foods.”

This is exactly why experts say it’s important to choose a brand that’s transparent about any probiotic strains present. “It takes a great deal of product development to ensure the survival of probiotics in processed foods, but it has been done successfully,” says Wendy J. Dahl, Ph.D., associate professor of food science and human nutrition at University of Florida. “Some processed foods have quite ingenious ways of probiotic administration—for example, probiotics in the straw of a beverage and probiotics in yogurt-flavored balls in breakfast cereals.” When foods are pasteurized, as with yogurt or baked, the probiotic would have been killed due to heat, but may have been added back in after heating. This is possibly the case with foods such as the aforementioned burrito.

“Even established food manufacturers often do not have the quality control to ensure consumers that the probiotic strain listed on the label is really in their food product,” McFarland says. For example, some yogurts that use live cultures of bacteria in the fermentation process may not actually contain probiotics. “Typically yogurts only contain Streptococcus thermophilus or Lactobacilli bulgaricus strains used to start the fermentation of yogurt,” McFarland says. “These two strains do not have any probiotic properties and are not probiotics.”

As a general rule of thumb, if the yogurt label lists strains other than the starter bacteria, it may contain probiotics. Dairy brands that do feature probiotics, like the yogurt Activia and dairy drink Yakult, have proven to help with constipation. The drink DanActive also contains probiotics that may prevent pediatric diarrhea.

As for probiotic supplements, only go with brands that have passed stability tests. “Clinical trials have shown effective results for some specific strains regardless if they are given in yogurt, fermented beverages, or in capsules,” McFarland says. “If stability tests prove that the dose of required probiotic strains survive the shelf-life of the food or yogurt, then these products are as good as probiotic strains in pills or capsules.” (Check out this review of 42 probiotic products on ConsumerLab.com).

The tricky part with these pricey pills is that you’ve got to take many probiotics with food to protect them from being destroyed by stomach acid. Also, you have no way of knowing if the probiotics in the supplement are potent. “Supplements can be fine, but there is a risk they were not shipped or stored properly,” says Tod Cooperman, M.D., president of ConsumerLab.com. “This risk is much lower with yogurts and kefirs, since they are required to be kept refrigerated.”

Bottom line: You may be better off eating probiotic-containing foods and skipping the supplements. “[Foods containing probiotics] last through the entire digestive system and do not get killed off in the stomach,” says Rebecca Lee, R.N., founder of the natural-healing website RemediesforMe.com.

Learn more about the benefits of probiotics in the video below.

The post Do Probiotic Products Live Up to Their Promises? appeared first on Sonima.

“No matter what kind of manufacturing you do, there’s always a waste stream. Sometimes it’s hidden away, but if you pull back the curtain on the food industry, and start to look, there is an awful lot of waste,” says Dan Belliveau, a former Starbucks employee and founder of CoffeeFlour, a flavorful, gluten-free flour alternative made from often discarded coffee cherries (more on how below) in Hawaii, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, and Vietnam.

If only other food brands could take a cue from CoffeeFlour’s innovative and eco-friendly way to turn trash into treasure. They’re are still so many popular food items—probably a few in your kitchen right now—that are contributing to America’s major food waste problem. According to a 2012 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 percent of our food supply (about 20 pounds per person a month) ends up in the landfill along with $165 billion dollars each year. Among the worst offenders in food waste are these four favorites that you might want to hold off consuming until strides in solutions are made.

1. Almond Milk

Visit any coffee shop in America and dairy-free milk is almost always an option. But the nut milk isn’t without its criticism: While it’s been well-reported that one almond could take 1.1 gallons of water to grow, many people don’t realize that the drink also leaves a heavier footprint than that. It all comes down to how the milk is made: After the soaked nuts are blended with water to make your drink du jour, a whole lot of (fairly flavorless) almond pulp finds itself in the trash.

“For every cup of almonds you use, you end up with almost a cup and a half of almond pulp,” says says Keith Kantor, Ph.D., an advocate of natural food and author of What Matters: Leadership Values that Just Might Save America. And until recently, restaurants, food companies, and at-home cooks alike have struggled to find a way to use this pulp.

One option: Make your own milk and convert the pulp to almond flour. “If you use the almond pulp for almond flour, you will only waste one-fourth a cup of almond pulp, cutting down the waste by 75 percent and leaving a healthy byproduct instead of waste,” Kantor says. Try these five recipes from TheKitchn.com for your leftover pulp.

Related: How to Make Fresh Almond Milk

2. Coffee

Your cup of joe has its own pile of waste. And that’s just the issue Belliveau and his team at CoffeeFlour aim to tackle with their new product, available at Marx Foods. To understand how CoffeeFlour solves a food waste issue, however, you must first know how the morning must-have is harvested. Ripe coffee cherries are collected from trees and brought to coffee mills for processing. There, the red fruit, which has a skin and a seed inside, is separated. The seeds end up being your beans that are exported and roasted to become coffee, and the edible, nutritious cherry pulp is leftover.

“Effectively what you have is a big, rotting pile of pulp,” says Belliveau. Up to 15 percent can be used as a low-grade fertilizer, he says, but for the most part, 85 to 90 percent is wasted. The other downside: Once the fruit starts to rot, it grows yeast, mold, and bacteria that turns toxic, seeping into ground water, becoming a major pollutant, he adds.

This is where the CoffeeFlour team comes in. They collect the cherries immediately after they’re discarded, making them into a fruit-like powder with a citrusy cherry taste. Belliveau recommends using CoffeeFlour as a semi-substitute (25 to 30 percent) in a flour recipe. For example, if a recipe calls for a cup of flour, replace a quarter or so with CoffeeFlour for an extra health boost. “CoffeeFlour is high in fiber, 10 to 12 percent protein, and a good source of vitamin A and antioxidants,” Belliveau says.

3. Greek Yogurt

It seems as though everyone has gone Greek: The probiotic-rich yogurt has grown to a $2 billion a year industry, according to a 2013 article in The New York Times. But most of us are blind to the fact that making the good-for-your-gut food also creates an ecological disaster. “To produce one ounce of Greek yogurt, three to four ounces of milk is used,” Kantor says. The byproduct, called acidic whey, is so acidic it’s considered toxic. Even more: It’s illegal to dump this stuff. “When this acidic liquid is released into the waterways, it decreases the oxygen level in the water killing fish and other wildlife.”

Isolating the good parts of acidic whey, like lactose (the main sugar in milk), may be one way around producing this lethal liquid, and thankfully, scientists are hot on the case. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently pioneered technology that will separate lactose for potential use in food products. A number of companies have already jumped on it, implementing the technology at their commercial plants.

4. Cashews

Fun fact: What we know as a ‘nut’ is actually the seed of an apple, says Belliveau. As promising as that sounds (who doesn’t love a good apple?), the bad news is the fruit is largely waste. It’s almost always left on the ground after the cashew itself is harvested. On the bright side, in 2014, Pepsi announced a plan to incorporate the unused fruit into drinks across India. They’re hoping the tangy, sweet beverage could be the next coconut water or açaí juice. One big issue they face, however, will be changing people’s mindsets on the topic of ‘waste’, Belliveau says. Since many byproducts, including fruit, can go bad within hours if not utilized correctly, there is a much-needed education process to all of this, he says: Convincing people that byproducts shouldn’t be considered garbage but rather potential food sources down the road.

The post 4 Healthy Foods with Surprisingly Wasteful Side Effects appeared first on Sonima.

“There is no evidence suggesting that cutting out any of the fat is beneficial,” says Mario Kratz, Ph.D., associate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and co-author of a major study that sheds light on possible benefits of full-fat dairy. “I argue that we never had sufficient evidence to recommend low-fat or non-fat dairy products and should have been recommending full-fat dairy products all this time.”

When exactly did Americans make the switch from full to low-fat? The battle against the bulge began in the 1950s when Ancel Keys, an American physiologist who is considered as the “father of the fight on fat”, came out with research that revolutionized the nation’s viewpoint on this topic. Keys and colleagues ran a series of studies on men in seven countries and found that Americans and Finnish consumed the most fat. These same people had the highest blood cholesterol levels and death rates from heart attacks, which led Keys to conclude that saturated fat intake might be linked to heart disease.

A New Era of Research

For the last six decades, the connection between high-fat dairy and weight gain was a given. But several new studies reveal that full-fat dairy may, in fact, be beneficial for weight loss. One review of 16 studies by Kratz and colleagues shows that eating dairy fat alongside a healthful diet may actually help you shed a few pounds.

“We found that consumption of full-fat dairy products is pretty consistently associated with lower body weight, less weight gain over time, and a lower risk of obesity,” says Kratz who published his findings in the European Journal of Nutrition. “The same has very rarely been shown for low-fat dairy products.” Similarly, data does not support a tie between full-fat dairy intake and a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease or metabolic disease, such as type-2 diabetes, he says.

Kratz and his team aren’t the only ones challenging popular belief. A 2013 study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care reported that men consuming high-fat dairy are at lower risk for abdominal obesity, the most harmful type of obesity. Another 2013 study from Harvard published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that whole-fat dairy and butter intakes were associated with lower rates of cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease.

A more recent study published last year in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition further supports that a diet containing full-fat dairy is good for the heart. In the three-week trial, researchers compared people on a low-fat-dairy diet to those on a high-fat one. The high-fat group experienced a decrease in triglyceride levels, and the low-fat group experienced a drop in “bad” LDL cholesterol. However, people eating full-fat dairy didn’t experience a rise in LDL cholesterol, and the low-fat group noticed a drop in beneficial HDL cholesterol.

The Skinny on Full-Fat Dairy

Full-fat dairy tends to be more satiating than the low-fat variety. Feeling satisfied may, in turn, lead to eating less (or fewer calories) overall. In other words, a glass of full-fat milk is better for you than a cup of fat-free milk with chocolate-chip cookies.

“Many clients who eat diet foods such as fat-free yogurt tend to eat larger portions because they’re less satisfying and [supposedly] guilt-free,” says Lisa Rutledge, R.D., a nutritionist based in Montreal who recommends full-fat dairy to clients.

The other thing to consider with low-fat foods is that the trade off for fat is often more sugar. Take full-fat Stonyfield Organic yogurt, for instance. It contains 12 grams of sugar per eight-ounce serving while the fat-free version has 16 grams of sugar.

“There is a lot of sugar in yogurt, and the full-fat versions help to slow digestion, lessening the insulin response,” says Danielle Omar, MS, R.D., an integrative dietitian in Fairfax, Virginia. Additionally, the fat in dairy may help you absorb fat-soluble vitamins in fruits and vegetables that they’re paired with.

Dairy fat likely has many more benefits that need to be explored. “Several fatty acids in dairy fat are known or suspected to stimulate the burning of fat in the liver, likely a pretty good thing,” Kratz says. “This may explain potential effects on body weight and glucose metabolism.” Needless to say, dairy itself is packed with a myriad of health perks, from bone-boosting calcium to muscle-building protein to blood-pressure-lowering potassium, plus many other vitamins and minerals.

Work Full-Fat into Your Diet Again

“If we keep dairy consumption low to moderate, the fat is not a serious issue,” says Walter Willett, M.D., professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Yogurt and kefir contain probiotics, which has shown to help not only immunity but also gut health and eczema. “The main justification for high dairy intake is to meet calcium requirements. However, high RDAs are based on very short-term studies that are misleading. We don’t really need calcium intakes that are so high,” he adds. The USDA recommends between 1,000 and 1,200 mg calcium and 3 cups of dairy daily for the average adult. Willett suggests following the milder 500 mg daily recommendation set by the World Health Organization.

Related: The Profound Health Benefits of Probiotics

If you’re ready to make the switch to full-fat, Willett advises capping intake at two or less servings per day. Keep milk intake to a minimum and opt for yogurt. He also recommends swapping out some dairy for foods rich in unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, olives, and avocado. “If unsaturated fats replace dairy fat, this will lower the risk of heart disease and probably diabetes as well,” he says.

As for ice cream and butter? That’s where Kratz draws the line. “I don’t see any evidence suggesting that consuming large quantities of butter or ice cream is beneficial for anything,” he says. “They are simply too energy dense and yummy, which may cause overeating.”

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