Wellness Rounds

I’m always looking for good websites for recipes that are healthy, simple and easy to make.  In other words, the kind of food that makes it easy to avoid eating fast food when you are on call.   Kalyn’s Kitchen is a fabulous website for delicious, healthy, and often low calorie recipes that meet the “pizza rule” for medical students and residents (i.e. recipes that take less time to prepare than it takes to order a pizza). She also really goes out of her way to teach each step in the recipe, so if you are new in the kitchen, this is a fabulous website for you!

 

Tuna Salad Lettuce Wraps with Capers and Tomatoes

Not-so-Dumb Salad with Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Onions, Avocado, and Balsamic Vinegar

Mediterranean Tostadas with Hummus, Feta, and Kalamata Olives

Crockpot Double Lentil, Sausage, Brown Rice, and Spinach Soup

 

The Gracious Pantry is written by a full time student who “creates simple, clean eating recipes with everyday ingredients.”  The recipes are healthy, simple and beat eating fast food when you are on call.   This website has a lot of delicious looking, healthy recipes that meet the “pizza rule” for medical students and residents (i.e. recipes that take less time to prepare than it takes to order a pizza).

 

Butternut Squash Soup with Coconut Milk and Cilantro

 

Southwest Breakfast Muffins

Weeknight Spaghetti

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to come up with monthly “resolutions” for myself and for anyone who follows this blog.  Cooking Light magazine (which is one of my favorite sources of recipes and ideas for healthy living) had the same idea, so I am shamelessly borrowing their healthy habits!  So, for August, think about setting a goal to go meatless one day a week.

It’s impressive to me how many of my colleagues, students and friends have become vegetarians.  They have different reasons, from ethical concerns for how animals are treated to issues with their health.  If you’ve thought about trying a vegetarian diet, this is a good month to experiment by going meatless one day a week.

What are the advantages of a vegetarian diet?

• There is growing evidence that vegetarian diets can help with preventing or even treating a variety of disease states “such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, renal disease and dementia, as well as diverticular disease, gallstones and rheumatoid arthritis.”

• You’ll save money.  Meat costs more than fruits, vegetables, beans and grains.

• It will be easier to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight.

• You’ll help the environment by decreasing the “carbon footprint” related to your food choices.

• Here’s a list of 22 reasons to consider becoming a vegetarian

Photo source

What are the different kinds of vegetarian diets?

From Wikipedia: “An ovo-vegetarian diet includes eggs but not dairy products, a lacto-vegetarian diet includes dairy products but not eggs, and an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet includes both eggs and dairy products. A vegan diet excludes all animal products, such as eggs, dairy, and honey.”

How do you make sure you get adequate nutrients if you are not eating animal protein?

If you are going meatless a day or two every week, none of this will apply to you.  If you are thinking about a completely vegetarian diet you may want to look at the the USDA resource page on Vegetarian Nutrition.  The four nutrients that may be deficient in some vegetarian diets are:

• Protein.  If you include eggs and dairy products, it’s realtively easy to get enough protein in a vegetarian diet.  Good protein sources include beans, soy products (tofu has 20gm of protein per cup) and nuts.  In the past, people who ate a vegetarian diet were told to combine food to make sure they got complete proteins. Current thinking is a little different – as long as you are eating a variety of proteins during the day, you’ll be fine.  Women need about 50 gm of protein a day, men a little over 60 (unless you are an endurance athlete, pregnant or nursing). Here’s a list of protein sources from SportsMed Web.

• Calcium. If you include dairy products, calcium is not usually a problem.  For vegans, it’s important to include calcium rich foods or consider a supplement.

• B12 is only present in animal sources.  For that reason, vegans are particularly at risk for B12 deficiency.

• Iron Most vegetarians get enough iron if they eat a variety of foods, but a supplement may be necessary for some people.

 

Photo source

Where can I get good vegetarian recipes?

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day

Vegetarian Times

Vegetarian recipes from Epicurious.com

Vegetarian recipes from allrecipes.com

Food Network vegetarian recipes

 

 

 

 

 

I found another great recipe site to share – Stone Soup.  Jules Clancey, who developed her blog to share recipes, also runs a cooking school and has authored an ecookbook.  The site has a great collection of recipes with only 5 ingredients – and that are usually well within the parameters of the “pizza rule”.

Zucchini “surprise” pasta

Chickpea and Rosemary Fritatta

Simple Salmon Kedgeree

Super moist carrot cake

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to come up with monthly “resolutions” for myself and for anyone who follows this blog.  Cooking Light magazine (which is one of my favorite sources of recipes and ideas for healthy living) had the same idea, so I am shamelessly borrowing their healthy habits!

Cooking Light’s 12 Healthy Habits

Last week I had a fairly common conversation with one of my residents.  She told me that with her schedule it’s almost impossible for either parent to cook for the family.  Secondly, she said when she does shop for food, she buys everything she thinks she might need… and half of it goes bad in the refrigerator.   They have resorted to picking up take-out as their solution to the problem.  There are at least two major problems with this strategy (and a lot of other minor problems): 1)  It costs a LOT more and 2) It is clearly not going to be as healthy.

I know this is a common scenario, hence why this month’s resolution is to cook at least 3 meals a week at home.  It’s doable!  Here’s how to get started:

Change your mindset about cooking.

Cooking is not hard and it doesn’t take as long as you think.  There are some basic skills you have to know, but you can start small and add new skills one at a time.  Make up your mind that you are going to acquire this important skill and practice!  Start with one simple act – sautéing an onion.  Here’s how to cut up an onion and how to sauté.  If you get this one simple skill down, you’ve learned the beginning of many, many recipes!

Make a plan

Decide ahead of time what you are going to cook and write it down. You can map out the whole week if you are a “gunner” – but,  at a minimum a) find 3 recipes for the week b) make a shopping list for the ingredients in those three recipes and c) go shopping.  If you plan ahead, you’ll have everything you need – but not a lot more (so no more growing interesting molds in the back of the refrigerator).  You’ll also be able to really eat well when you are on call (which is the hardest day to plan for).

Remember the pizza rule.

No one who is really busy has time to do fussy cooking.  You should look for recipes that take less than 30 minutes (the time it takes to order a pizza).  I’ve posted a lot of recipes that meet this requirement (use the tag marked “recipes” to the left of this web page).  Another strategy is to pick a cookbook, one issue of a magazine, or a website (some of my favorites are listed below) to choose the week’s recipes.  Another option is to subscribe to a site that will send you weekly menus (and will also automatically make your shopping list) – like Six O’Clock Scramble ($54.50/year) , Send Me Recipes ($65/year), Dinner Planner, ($60/year), or Make Dinner Easy (free).

Cook ahead for the week

It’s boring to eat the same thing over and over… but it beats buying fast food on the way home.  If you cook a big casserole or stew on the weekend, you’ll have it for meals on call, late at night or lunches.  If you really want to cook just once for the entire week, you can double the recipe or make two different dishes at the same time, and freeze portions for later in the week.

Supplement your main dish with lots of fruits and vegetables

If you don’t have a steamer basket, this is a cheap piece of kitchen equipment that is really worth having.  Almost any vegetable can be sautéed or steamed and it’s really easy to do.  Buy vegetables fresh, wash them, dry them and then store (clean) in the refrigerator (one less thing to do when you are tired). Refrigerator to plate will be less than 10 minutes for most veggies. (Here’s a table of cooking times for vegetables.)  Leftover steamed vegetables make a great “salad” by themselves (just add some olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper) or as an addition to other salads.  You can also toss them into scrambled eggs or an omelet.  Having steamed potatoes in the refrigerator is particularly helpful – they are great in salads, with eggs, or just as a snack.  Frozen vegetables are more expensive, but are perfectly fine, too.

Make a list of  “emergency” meals (<5 minutes) for nights you are completely exhausted and really, really don’t want to cook. (And keep these items in your pantry and/or refrigerator.)

Here are some ideas to get you started:

1.    Scrambled eggs or egg whites (with leftover veggies and/or cheese if you have them) with toast.

2.    Angel hair pasta (takes 3-5 minutes) with bottled spaghetti sauce with a green salad

3.    Veggie (or regular) hamburgers (from the freezer) with a green salad

4.    Couscous with canned beans, canned tomatoes and any leftover (or frozen) vegetables you have

5.    Sandwiches

6.    Pancakes

Websites for “pizza rule” recipes

eatingwell.com

cookinglight.com

myrecipes.com

foodnetwork.com

My favorite magazines to cook from

Cooking Light

Bon Appetit

Clean Eating

Vegetarian Times

Cookbooks worth buying

How To Cook Everything

Joy of Cooking

The Silver Palate Cookbook

The Art of Simple Food

The Moosewood Cookbook

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I had already decided that I would propose a “resolution” every month this year for myself and anyone who follows this blog when I came across Cooking Light’s 12 healthy habits.  Cooking Light is one of my favorite magazines, so I’m going to take their idea and run with it!

It just makes sense to spend 30 days working on a single habit to change, rather than creating a long list of resolutions without an endpoint. If this idea works for you, take these habits (one at a time) and work on them for a month.

Here is January’s healthy habit:

Add at least 3 servings of vegetables and fruit to your daily diet

Here’s some suggestions for how to accomplish this goal.  These are some of my ideas and other ideas compiled from suggestions on thedietchannel.com, nutrition.about.com, cancer.org, and health.harvard.edu

• Take fresh fruit or veggies with you to work to eat as a morning and afternoon snack.  The best fruit for your pocket are apples, clementines carrot and celery sticks, cherry tomatoes (in a Ziplock bag), and grapes (in a Ziplock bag).
• Cut-up celery, carrots, bell pepper, cucumber, etc and keep them front and center in your refrigerator for snacking.   If you don’t like them plain, dip them in hummus or ranch dressing.  They’ll be fresher if you do this yourself, but if you need to, buy them already cut up in the grocery store.
• Add fruit like berries, a banana or a cut up peach to your cereal in the morning.
• When you shop, buy the ingredients to make a mirepoix, chop them up and store them in the refrigerator.  A classic mirepoix is carrots, celery and onion.  The Cajun “trinity” is a variation – celery, onion and bell pepper.  Pick anything that can be cooked (mushrooms, bell peppers,  are a good addition), and chop them up when you get home.  Grab a handful for stir-fries, salads, omelettes or soup.
• Steaming vegetables is really easy and very fast.  If you don’t have fresh vegetables (or don’t want to take the time to steam them), make sure you keep steam and serve frozen vegetables in your freezer as an easy way to add vegetables to your meals at home.
• Keep frozen fruit in your freezer to throw in a blender with yogurt or milk to make smoothies.
• Dried fruit is a good occasional substitute for fresh fruit, but beware – it’s very caloric!
• If you are making a sandwich to take to work, pile on veggies – spinach, shredded carrots, cucumbers etc.  Use avocado instead of mayonnaise.
• Fruit or vegetable juice is not a great substitute, but will do in a pinch.  Most fruit juices are high in calories.  It’s always better to eat the fruit if you can so you get the fiber and other nutrients, but if there are no other options, juice is better than nothing!
• Applesauce and canned fruit (in water) can be bought in single serving portions, or you can share larger portions!
• If you are buying food for lunch in a cafeteria or fast food restaurant, look for vegetable soup or a salad bar than lets you pile on the veggies.
• Sweet potatoes can be microwaved in 10-12 minutes and make a great meal when paired with a salad or some frozen veggies.
• Choose desserts that are fruit based – and have as much fruit as possible.  Chocolate dipped strawberries or a berry cobbler are better than cheesecake!

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight, or just to eat “better” you might want to consider looking into the concept of “clean eating”.

Although eating clean works to lose weight, it’s not really a “diet” in the usual sense of the word. Clean eating is a lifestyle and way of eating that is medically very sound.  It’s getting rid of the junk food, eating often enough to maintain your energy and  “shopping the periphery” of the grocery store.  (Think about it – the food being sold on the periphery of the grocery store is mostly non-processed.)

Everyone has had the (horrible) experience during a call day of not eating anything all day, having a big meal in the evening  (often McDonald’s or an equivalent) and then being brain-dead from lethargy for 2-3 hours. In addition to helping you control your weight (and preventing weight gain during medical school and residency),  “eating clean” will prevent the on-call lethargy you get from eating junk food and can give you sustained energy during long work days.

In a nutshell, here are the “rules” for eating clean (Revised from lists published on ehow.com , eatingcleanworks.com and cleaneatingonline.com)

How to Eat Clean

1. Eat 5-6 small meals a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2-3 snacks – and don’t skip meals! This means taking a cooler with you to work and/or having choices like meal replacement bars in your pocket. It’s important to eat every 3-4 hours to keep your insulin levels (and energy levels) from waxing and waning too much. It’s really important to never skip breakfast!

2. Eat a serving of complex carbohydrates at every meal (about the size of your fist). Grains should be unprocessed as much as possible (more fiber = more satiety) like brown rice or quinoa .

3. Minimize or (preferably) completely eliminate processed food, soft drinks and alcohol.

4. Eat fruits and/or vegetables at every meal.

5. Eat a serving (about the size of your palm) of lean meat, chicken or fish at (almost) every meal. Vegetarian options are fine, too (beans, tofu, etc).

6. Read labels. Try to avoid foods with white flour, sugar and sugar substitutes, saturated fats and trans-fats.

7. Take good snacks (like premeasured servings of nuts) with you to work so you don’t get tempted by vending machines and breakroom junk food.

8. Don’t beat yourself up if you cheat – in fact, you’ll probably need to have a cheat day (on purpose) every once in a while. But recognize it’s a cheat day and not a permanent change from your new way of eating.

9. Keep things interesting by checking out recipes and cooking for yourself. You can subscribe to Clean Eating Magazine or at least pick up an issue to check it out.  The Diet Rebels Cookbook: Eating Clean and Green, Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source with More Than 200 Recipes for a Healthy and Sustainable You and Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Cookbook: Delicious Recipes That Will Burn Fat and Re-Shape Your Body! are cookbooks with good recipes for clean eating. Here’s some websites with recipes, too: cleaneatingonline, cleaneatingclub, eatcleandiet, cleaneatingmag

I just got back from the farmer’s market and decided to add to my previous thoughts about buying your food locally.

Houston is a little bizarre when it comes to produce.  Our growing season has a real lull in the summer when it gets so hot.  As the weather cools in October, the plants perk up again and we start seeing great produce reappear.

I’ve become convinced that food bought from local farmers usually has less contaminants, more nutrients and just tastes better.  It’s also clear that you are doing a good deed for the environment if you buy food that doesn’t have to be shipped to you.  But there is another intangible benefit of shopping at the farmer’s market for people who spend their days in intense work – it’s a social event that is very grounding (no pun intended).  It’s outside, it’s beautiful and – at least in Houston – there is good music, good coffee and a crowd of smiling people.

Take care of yourself by buying food that’s good for you.  If you are trying to follow Michael Pollan’s advise on how to eat well (i.e. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” ) you can’t do better than buying your food at the farmer’s market.

I love when I find new websites that provide great “pizza rule” recipes (recipes that take less time to prepare than it takes to order a pizza).  I just discovered Keep Your Diet Real, a site run by Corrine E. Fischer, MS, RD, LDN.  She’s not only a dietician, but she’s a professional food photographer, so the site is beautiful.  Her recipes are healthy, straight-forward and are great for the busy life of docs, medical students and residents.

Ten Healthy Breakfasts in Ten Minutes or Less

Spring Roll Soup

Wheatberry and Edamame Salad

In keeping with the “pizza rule” (everything we cook needs to take less time than it takes to order a pizza) and the hot weather…. Here’s some new recipes from a site I just discovered www.danispies.com.

Some of you don’t cook or, put more positively, are learning how to cook.   Dani Spies not only has fabulous, healthy and easy recipes but has also posted “Cooking 101” videos like this one called Egg 101.  These are a great resource if you are trying to learn the basics.

Here’s three recipes that meet the “pizza rule” and will make great dinners or on call lunches.

Chunky Greek Salad Topped with Sardines

Clean and Simple Asparagus Pasta

So, so Simple Shrimp Tacos