Chia Seeds

I've recently learned of a superfood that is gaining in popularity-Chia Seeds! One of the best things I can say about Chia Seeds is that they're a great source of Omega-3's.

---A quick note on Omega-3's-they're an essential fatty acid found in fish, avocado, and more. They regulate blood sugar level, suppress the appetite, and burn fat.

Chia seeds also have high amounts complete proteins, antioxidants, vitamin B(s), fiber and minerals. They're low in calories and easy to digest. Chia seeds are awesome and contain both soluble and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber adds bulk and keeps things moving along, speeding along the digestive process. Soluble fiber aids in food movement and keeps the colon hydrated. It moves through slowly making you feel more full, forming a gel during the digestive process that carries cholesterol out of your body. Also since it moves more slowly it assists in regulating blood sugar levels.

Here are a few of the consumer reported health benefits: increased energy, improved mood, better concentration and clearer thinking, decrease in food cravings, decrease in aches and pains, better regularity, improved hair, skin & nails and more!

To use chia seeds, try  putting it in your oatmeal, smoothies, & yogurt. Since it forms a gel around the seed when mixed with liquid, you can use it as a thickener in your soup. You can add it to bread and salads. You can add it to juice or water to make a fun jello-type drink. Toss it in stir fry, eggs, cake and more. You can use it for dressings, sauces, marinades, even on ice cream! For somethings you'll want to soak it in milk or eggs, but I'm not even convinced it's necessary unless you want to use it as a binder (like eggs for turkey burgers).

I hope you give chia seeds a try today!

"To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art."

-La Rochefoucauld

Utah County Shopping List

Since I started my hunt for real food, the most stressful thing has been actually FINDING the real food at the best prices in the places I shop. I like how Christine Avanti puts it in her book Skinny Chicks Eat Real Food; "In a way, we've come full circle. Our earliest ancestors had to gather, forage and even experiment to find nutrients in their uncertain environment, and that's similar to the adventure you're embarking on."

So for your reference (if your in the Utah County area) as well as my own, here's my list of foods, where to get them, links, and possibly costs.

Bread: 100% Whole Wheat Bread from Prairie Grains Bread Co. 5 ingredient bread with 10% Stoneground Whole Wheat including Raisin Juice Concentrate as the sweeter-which leads to only 2g of sugar per piece! Made in SLC, UT. Macey's for about $3.69, possibly WalMart. Click here for nutritional information.

My second choice would be Aspen Mills Honey Whole Wheat Bread, which is made in Ogden, UT. You can find this at Costco or Sunflower Market. This has 100% Stoneground Whole Wheat Flour with a total of 5 ingredients. The only thing I didn't like about this bread is there was 6g of sugar per piece because of the honey. While I was okay with some sugar of course, 12 g of sugar for a sandwich felt like too much for me-especially for something that I really don't care if it's sweet or not. I'd rather have a cupcake.

A third option, in case you need another, is the Honey Whole Wheat from Great Harvest. This bread also has only 5 ingredients with 100% whole wheat. The awesome thing about this bread is they grind the wheat every morning in the bakery so it's completely fresh the day you pick it up. The others may as well, but it also takes time to get to the store and then time for you to buy it. The downside is it has 7g of sugar per piece.

Eggs: Oakdell Organic Eggs (farmed in Lewiston, UT). These are "cage free" and organic. I called the farm and they explained that there is an outdoor patio with wood chips over cement that they can go out to all day. They are fed organic soy and corn feed (non-GMO) and are not given antibiotics. Click here for more information. I get these at Macey's for $3.99/dz or Costco for $6.99/2dz.

I would like free range, organic eggs, but I haven't found any in a supermarket yet-so I'll keep searching. There is Roberts Ranch & Gardens in Spanish Fork that sells a dozen for $3.00. It's a little out of the way, but could be worth it.

Chicken: I'm not entirely happy with my chicken findings yet. I'll keep searching. For now, I found the frozen chicken from Perdue sold at Costco. It is USDA Process certified-??. They only feed the chickens a vegetarian diet and they're cage free, but in a chicken house-so not outdoors. They of course eat soy and corn (I don't believe it's organic or GMO free). They say that they DO use antibiotics, but only under the instruction of a veterinarian and it's not every day use. I guess it's better than others. I'm not sure about steroids or other additives. I'll keep looking for sure.

I also like the chicken at Sunflower Market. The butcher said it's 'all natural' and 'antibiotic free'. The antibiotic free claim isn't on the label, so I'm not too sure. I want to do some more research on it.

Tortillas: This has been a hard category for me. Almost every "whole wheat" tortilla I've looked at has at least 40 ingredients. So I've had to use the 80/20 rule on this a little. The best tortilla I've found so far is at Macey's. Maya's Tortillas from Papa Pita has about 12-19 ingredients (I never know if I should include the ingredients in the parenthesis.) They claim 100% whole wheat, and the first ingredient is Whole Wheat Flour, however the fiber includes Oat. This also has canola oil which is a GMO. There's zero grams of sugar, however added sugar IS in the ingredient list, but pretty far down. I've chosen this purely because it has mainly whole wheat and the ingredient list is much much shorter than the rest. It is also made in West Jordan, UT-so it's local. Click here for nutritional information.

I'll continue to update this post as I have more information-which will be a lifelong process!

The Real Deal On Sugar

I promised a post about sugar in one of my last confession posts. I've been procrastinating because it feels so big. I feel that once I post the information, and it goes from my books and my research to my blog-it's for real. Hopefully this will help the information to go from my head to my heart (i.e. stomach and taste buds) and really sink in.

As I said before, eating sugars causes our bodies to release the hormones opioids and dopamine. For this reason, sugar is actually addicting. It's either a comforting thought (I'm not a pig!) or a scary thought (I have no hope!). Hopefully it's the first. However my point to telling you this isn't to give you an excuse to move ahead with eating as much sugar as you want. It's to understand. once you understand the root of a problem, it's easier to find a solution. That, the solution, is my goal.

Okay, so sugar is addicting. So what? Well, when you're addicted to something, you have a hard time not consuming it, right? This leads to over-eating of those sugary substances and that can create a lot of issues.

Here are the problems I find with sugar. Most processed sugars (table sugar) have no nutritional value. We need to change our perception on what eating is for. It's for giving our bodies the nutrients it needs to live. We eat to live, not live to eat. Of course, we can enjoy eating. Especially a sugary treat every once in a while-but our main purpose should be to give our bodies the best food we can. That's one of my number one goals-to change my reason for eating. Remembering that what we put in our mouth effects more than just our hips (or muffin top) & taste buds is important. We need nutrients from our food. If we're eating mainly sugary, fatty foods-most likely we're skipping the nutrient, vitamin, mineral rich foods our body needs.

So to get a little scientific, our brain needs sugar(glucose). Our body craves it. So when those cravings begin-we don't usually think of whole fruits and vegetables. We think of sweets. There's natural fructose in vegetables and fruits-that's the sugar our body wants. Those are great to eat because they're paired with the vitamins, minerals, and fiber that is used to slow down absorption of the sugars and metabolize it properly. When we take out a macro-nutrient from a real food. It becomes a processed food, and it's not in the natural state God intended.

Another problem is portion size. We eat so much sugar. It's in everything! This is another great reason to stay away from processed foods. It's ridiculous the food they add sugar too. Between the years 1950 and 2000 America's sugar intake increased about 39%! That's 43 pounds of sugar per year per person more what people ate in 1950. I would guess this is attributed to the processed foods we eat. Biologically, we're not made to eat this much sugar-which is why we get so many health problems from it. Our body doesn't know what to do with it all! We're supposed to eat the whole package mentioned above (whole fruits & veges).

The scariest thing about sugar is the health issues that arise from eating too much sugar. As I said above, by eating something sweet with no nutrition your denying your body healthy food. It can cause bone loss, tooth decay, worsen your asthma, cause mood unbalances, depletes antibodies that fight viruses and bacteria, and much more. Because we're addicted to it (most of us) it causes us to overeat which in turn can cause us to be overweight, obese, and have high levels of stomach fat. The biggest health risk I see is spiking our blood sugar which can cause Type 2 Diabetes.

Now what about 'natural' sugars? Sugar in the raw, cane juice, agave nectar or honey? Aren't these healthier for us? Here's my take: It depends on what you mean by healthy. Sugar is sugar. Whether it's glucose or fructose, our body see's it as sugar. It processes it the same. It will spike your blood sugar if it's not taken with other nutrients that will slow down the absorption. Now if your goal is to eat more REAL, unprocessed foods. As close to their natural state as possible, and you need to eat sugar (hopefully as a natural ingredient in a recipe), then by all means use agave nectar or the like. In the non processed sense, yes it is better for you. However if your goal is to lose weight and fat and give your body the nutrients it needs then I would remember that your body sees it the same as any other sugar.

Here's a good thing to remember. 4 grams of sugar is equal to 1 teaspoon of sugar. That puts it in perspective for me. It's suggested that if you want to lose weight, not to have more than 5t/20g of sugar per day. Also, the USDA suggest that the average person with a 1200-1600 calorie diet (most people trying to lose fat are in this category) should eat only 4-5 t. per day.

So my game plan? Ha, I'm not sure. I think arming myself with this information is a good first step. Two, cut out as many processed foods as possible (even that chocolate chip cookie dough in my fridge). Be aware of added sugar in foods. Be a label detective. Here are a list of added sugars1. One or two isn't too bad (as long as it isn't one of the first 3 ingredients listed). More than that I would avoid it.

• Agave nectar; brown sugar, can crystals, cane sugar, corn sweetener; corn syrup or corn syrup solids; crystallized fructose; dehydrated can juice; dextrin; dextrose; evaporated cane juice; fructose; fruit juice concentrate; glucose; high-fructose corn syrup; honey; invert sugar; lactose; maltodextrin; malt syrup; maltose; maple syrup; molasses; raw sugar; rice syrup; saccharose; sorghum; sucrose; syrup; treacle; turbinado sugar; xylose.

1.U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005. Chapter 7: Carbohydrates. Accessed on April 5, 2009.