Category Archives: All blog posts

Why eat artichokes?

When I’m taking someone through a Whole Foods or grocery store to teach them how to shop in a more healthful way, we almost always begin in the produce section. It seems we often kick off with a discussion of how bored the client is with broccoli and cauliflower and baby carrots! With that as context, we make our way from display to display, and talk about how to select a perfectly ripe specimen of a pear or a melon or a tomato. I explain how to make zucchini or rapini or portobello mushrooms as delicious as can be. We demystify crazy-looking vegetables like swiss chard or ginger root or daikon radish. And eventually, we come to the artichokes. That’s one pictured here, in case you’ve never seen one outside of its usual cheesy, creamy home, the beloved Spinach Artichoke Dip.

At this point I usually say, “Artichokes are sort of an advanced vegetable. They’re a lot of work for not a lot of payoff. And since you can readily find them canned or frozen, I don’t know many people who are willing to deal with them in their fresh state.” But after a one-two punch from articles in both Eating Well and Cooking Light magazines that featured artichokes this month,  I’m changing my tune just a bit.

In short, artichokes are packed with health benefits – one whole one delivers 25% of your daily folate needs and 10 grams of fiber! Ten grams! That’s 1/3 of your daily need. It also has more antioxidants than almost any other vegetable. That’s a lot of good reasons to do find a way to fit them into your diet. Here are two suggestions.

If you’d like to try a healthy makeover to Spinach Artichoke Dip, and want to avoid wrestling with whole artichokes (which, for the record, I still think is a fair amount of work) here’s one from Cooking Light that uses white beans instead of cream cheese. It’s called, aptly enough, Artichoke, Spinach, and White Bean Dip and has just 87 calories in a delicious 1/4 cup serving.

If, however,  you’re up for a little artichoke-wrestling, try this recipe for Steamed Artichokes with a Balsamic Dipping Sauce from Eating Well. You may want to double the sauce if you’re making all four artichokes as directed.

Either way, you’ll be getting a great dose of nutrients and fantastic flavor. Maybe a break from broccoli, cauliflower and baby carrots is just what you need to fall in love with vegetables again.

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How’s that working for you?

Last week, I enjoyed a visit from a dear friend I haven’t seen in a long while. I love this woman, for (among other things) her sharp wit, her abundant love for my children and our shared obsession with fabulous food…and champagne! Let’s call her “Beth.” As often happens these days when anyone spends more than ten minutes with me, we got into a discussion about food and health. Beth was lamenting her need to lose several pounds and noting that she had very little energy, especially early in the day.  I empathized with her….after all, these are things I hear fairly regularly from clients.

In the very next breath, perhaps to demonstrate that she’s not just passively accepting her fate, but rather is actively committed to achieving her goals, she began to rattle off a number of her eating habits, including always skipping breakfast “because she’s just not hungry in the morning” and often skipping lunch as well. It’s as if she were saying, “All this discipline and still no weight loss? The injustice of it all!”  Hmmm.

I’m sure on some level she wanted me to say, “Well good for you, my friend! Just keep doing what you’re doing and I’m sure the weight will  fall off any day now.” But, thinking back to how the conversation began, I simply asked, “Well, how is that working for you?”

And I was met with a surprised silence. Followed by a burst of laughter and the words “Well, I guess it’s NOT really, is it?!”

Remember? The whole conversation began with her talking about her discontent with the current state of affairs. With how desperately she wished she could look or feel better!

This disconnect between our perception of our behaviors and results those behaviors are actually giving us is really important. It’s where my work with clients often begins. Someone decides that a certain behavior (e.g. skipping breakfast) MUST be the way to lose weight. And she continues to repeat the behavior, even though it’s NOT delivering the results she wants, thinking that one day it will work!  But when what you’re doing isn’t getting you the results you want, one of two things is happening. Either:

1) Your perception of your behaviors is distorted, or

2) Your behaviors aren’t actually serving your goals.

Let’s use Beth as an example. If she skips breakfast every day to save the calories, but then succumbs to the donuts in the break room or the pastry at Panera at 10AM  because her body is literally starving, did she really skip breakfast? Or did she just delay it until she makes a convenient but unhealthy choice mid-morning?

Or, if she thinks that skipping breakfast is a good way to save calories, but doesn’t realize that this habit is putting her metabolism into a conservation mode and actually preventing her from burning calories (while robbing her of energy),  is the practice really serving her weight loss goals?

Here’s the bottom line. If you’re not getting the results you want, maybe it’s time to take a harder look at your behaviors.  Think about what you tell yourself you’re doing to be healthy. Then, look in the mirror and ask yourself, “How’s that working for you?”

 

PS – I’m happy to say that “Beth” reports she’s been eating breakfast every day since our visit, and she can’t believe how good it feels. She’s  beginning to reconnect to the feelings of both hunger and satisfaction – and is now actually looking forward to that morning meal! Bravo! One simple change at a time…

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Snack wars – Tortilla Chips vs. Pretzels

Yesterday, I was on a Grocery Store Training Field Trip with a client who had a big “Aha” moment that I thought was worth sharing in the blog.  During a training field trip, we spend about two hours in a grocery store or Whole Foods learning how to make healthier choices within each food category and discovering new foods to try at home. We usually spend most of our time in the produce, meat, organic, and dairy sections but we make our way up and down the center aisles as well.

When the “aha moment” occurred, we were walking through the Salty Snack aisle and she’d just told me she doesn’t often buy chips, but does buy pretzels. She was interested in knowing if I recommended a particular brand or variety. I think my answer surprised her!

I pulled a bag of pretzels (any brand will do) off the shelf and then a bag of tortilla chips. And we read the labels together.

And a one-ounce serving of pretzels provides:

  • 100 calories
  • 0 grams fat
  • 680 milligrams sodium

A one-ounce serving of tortilla chips adds up to:

  • 140 calories
  • 7 grams fat (1 gram saturated)
  • 125 milligrams sodium

If you grew up in the “Low Fat = Healthy” era like both of us did, you’d choose pretzels every time. Right? C’mon, you know you would! But that’s only a piece of the story. Reading the ingredient lists reveals the rest.

Pretzels are made of mostly white flour and a LOT of salt; plus the rather lengthy ingredient list also includes stabilizers and yeast and sugar. Pretzels, nutritionally speaking, are basically mini loaves of white bread.

Tortilla chips, by contrast,  have just three ingredients: corn, oil, and salt (and usually far less salt than pretzels). They are essentially vegetables cooked in oil.

Why does this matter? Because our bodies metabolize pretzels as white bread but we metabolize tortilla chips as vegetables (corn) cooked in oil. Which do you think is healthier?

Note that I did not say that tortilla chips are lower in CALORIES than pretzels. Ounce for ounce, they’re not. But the fat in them helps to create a feeling of fullness and satisfaction that naturally regulates appetite. Said another way, we’re satisfied with fewer chips because they contain some fat.  And we often eat them with salsa which really is health food –  it’s almost always made entirely of vegetables – low calorie and fat free.

So, while pretzels are a favorite snack in many homes, and most parents readily feed them to children thinking they’re a healthy choice, there are actually far better options in the snack aisle. Tortilla chips are one of them. And plain potato chips are another (three ingredients again – potatoes, oil and salt!)

I’m certainly not saying you should never eat a pretzel, but when you do choose them as a snack,  it’s best to combine them with something  that will provide a little protein or fat to help make them more satisfying (e.g. cheese, peanut butter, even sour cream).

The best news is that if you or your kids love chips and salsa, it’s a choice you can feel good about, as long as you keep portions within reason. Now go get busy making plans for tomorrow’s happy hour…

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