Green stuff

Green stuff
Originally uploaded by biowhalen

The Sweet Potato Recipe!!!

My apologies to my dear friend Dave - Here is the recipe for the "Chipotle smashed sweet potatoes"!! Also if you want to see Alton Brown, the ever-so-knowledgeable chef walk through the recipe there is a video clip of him here. I should add that I've made this twice and the pepper is seriously Caliente!! I like medium salsa - definately not the type to down a single habanero, but a little heat to my food is nice. I just don't like when the heat is so bad I can feel liquid pouring out of my eyes and nose because of it! Anyway, point is, I would try just half a pepper the first time and dice it up really well. Also, the sauce is pretty hot too so be gentle with that. You can always add more later if you like. Sweet potatoes are a great super food, and this is a pretty easy recipe. Oh, and it was somewhat dificult finding canned chipotles the first time - I picked them up at Whole Foods finally, but I think I have seen them at Wegmans since then.

As far as the picture of my green juice, well...I was running short on green leafy stuff as I was juicing this morning, so I put in a head of Radicchio (Dont ask why I had a head of radicchio) - 1. it turned the juice beet red 2. It turned the juice into the most bitter sludge I ever tasted. I choked down half a glass and ran out the door to get to work! Next time I think Ill just dump in some grass clippings from outside, it will probably tast better!

A New Approach - Raw Food

The "wrestlers" diet (basically not eating anything but a few rice cakes and water), The bodybuilders diet (LOTS of protein and LOTS of supplements), "Body for Life", "The South Beach Diet", "The Atkins Diet" and "You: on a diet" - I've tried all of these programs for varying amounts of time. I was very healthy growing up. I was active all the time and I ate a lot of healthy home-cooked meals. However my metabolism was that of a hummingbird on ritalin and I could afford to burn all the junk with the incendiary power of the sun. Now, however, I feel a little bit more like the comedian Kevin James, who states , "Its bad when you feel like you need to take a nap in the middle of eating your Big Mac".

So on to week, uhh , week 5? week 5! Holy crap, I better start actually losing some weight!!! I am attempting a type of diet I never thought I would even consider. Basically it is based on eating all raw foods (No not like Kevin Costner chomping on that Buffalo heart in "Dances with Wolves"). I started reading about the trend in Leo Babauta's excellent blog ZenHabits. That led to me reading The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. Its a radical change but one that I am committing to try for the remainder of this contest, at a minimum. To simplify the approach:

1. LOTS of fruits and vegetables

2. Cooked foods are allowed (meat is refferred to as FLESH in the book - YUM!!!) but are recommended to be limited to dinner time if possible.

3. Start the day with "Green Lemonade" - juice 1 head romaine, 5-6 stalks Kale, 1 Lemon and 1-2 apples. (Ill post a picture tomorrow)

4. Eat in groups that digest well together - Starches, Fresh Fruits, Nuts/Seeds/Dried Fruits and Fleshes.

5. Wine and Dark Chocolate are allowed!!!! (Yipee!!!)

The main idea in discerning what foods are allowed is how Natural they are - meaning, its better to eat an entire Avocado than eat a power bar - it is more recognizable to your body and thus is digested in a more efficient manner. When things are not digested well, they literally leave waste behind, polluting every cell in your body. This idea, enough to probably make many of my loyal readers turn tail and run screaming, as I know it sounds a bit like an invitation to come drink the blue Kool-Aid (Scratch that, organic blueberry juice!), is actually what peaked my interest. How much processed junk have I eaten that was literally engineered to taste good? What is that doing to my body? Doesn't it make sense to eat the most wholesome foods possible to become healthier? Now while I'm on this point I should add that the Ms. Rose actually states that the following foods are "Guaranteed to squash weight loss attempts and cause premature aging/cellular degeneration":

Fat free yogurt

Weight loss bars

Packaged Cold Cuts

All manufactured low-carb weight loss items

Crystal light

All diet sodas

ALL Milk

Sugar fee Jell-O and frozen desserts

"Light" white bread

Now Im sure many of you have experienced success with yogurt, crystal light or something else on the list - I know I have in the past. Regardless, it still kept me thinking about what these things might be doing on a cellular level (remember, I'm a biology teacher!). So I decided to dive in head-first and give it a shot. No meat except for fish a few times a week, lots of fruits and veggies and salads.

Now in addition to taking this on I also made to ludicrous decision to give up coffee!! When I think about my cup of coffee in the morning it makes waking up just worth it - especially on a laid back weekend morning. My standard cup of coffee however resembles an order placed by the beastie boys - "I like my sugar with coffee and cream!" I generally buy 1-2 large containers of Coffee Mate flavored creamers and fill up a 24 oz cup about 1/5 of the way with it for each cup I drink. And I generally have at least 2 24 ouncers a morning. I figured it out one summer to be about 350 calories a day just from the creamer. Thats in addition to the rampant addiction to caffeine that I have. So last Tuesday I said "Goodbye cup of joe, hello cup of green goop!" The first couple days were difficult but the psychologists assured me that my students should make a full recovery within 6 months. At this point, no more headaches and I actually look forward to my green juice right now!

Of course I had my cousin's daughters christening this past weekend and there was a LARGE very tasty sheet cake there. Thus my 3 pound gain this week. Oh well, salmon for dinner tonight and green juice in the morning.

For those of you in the contest, have you quit mentally? Are you getting lethargic about having to be so vigilent about what you eat? Change it up - look online for a new recipe or get outside and enjoy some fresh air. Its not easy but it is worth it. Remember - "YOU CAN DO IT!"