Green Foods For Spring

The spring season is a time of renewal. It's a time for spring cleaning, also for the body. Leafy greens are some of the easiest and most beneficial vegetables to incorporate into your daily routine, and provide the materials for a thorough cleansing.

Greens aid in purifying the blood, strengthening the immune system, improving liver, gall bladder and kidney function, fighting depression, clearing congestion, improving circulation and keeping your skin clear and blemish free.

Think of these foods as another way of adding that oxygen into your diet: isn’t that what they produce?!

They are very high in calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorous and zinc, and are a powerhouse for vitamins A, C, E and K. They are crammed full of fiber, folic acid, chlorophyll, and many other micronutrients and phytochemicals.

Members of this royal green family include kale, collard greens, swiss chard, mustard greens, arugula, dandelion greens, broccoli rabe, watercress, beet greens, bok choy, napa cabbage, green cabbage, spinach and broccoli.

Recipe: Simply Boiled Kale

Step one:

• Boil water in a pot.
• Remove leaves from stems and cut or tear leaves in any size you like. Chop the stems into ½-inch pieces, discarding the bottom as it tends to be tough.
• Add Kale to boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. By the end the leaves should be slightly wilted yet bright green.
• Strain the kale and keep the water

Note: The water you boiled the kale in has taken on a sweet flavor. Sip it as a tea, use it in your next broth or soup, or let it cool and water your plants with it.

Step Two:
Choose one of the following variations:
o Toss with lemon juice and salt
o Toss with a dash of tamari/ soy sauce
o Toss with balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar
o Sautee garlic in olive oil and mix kale in on the last minute.
o Top with nutritional yeast
o Drizzle a few drops of sesame oil
o Sauté onions, mushrooms, red peppers, leeks, corn… whatever sounds or looks appealing to you and mix in the greens for the last minute of the Sautéing
o Add some chopped walnuts to one of the variations above
o Toast pine nuts on a cookie sheet in a 325-degree oven for 5 minutes. Then toss with greens, some raisins, and a squeeze of lemon juice

Published in Martha Stewart!

In the News:

Max sense of self is proud to be featured in what we consider to be one of the top and best health magazines available today; Martha Stewart's Body & Soul Magazine, the April addition. In this Article we recommend a simple yoga posture that calms the mind, relieves stress, aids in adrenal fatigue and in optimal digestion. The article is featured on page 88.

Metabolize Your Life

The definition of metabolism is the sum total of ALL chemical reactions in the body.

With the understanding that our thoughts also create a physiological chemical reaction, we might say that metabolism is not tied purely to the physical body, but plays a part at a mental and emotional level as well.

Food that is not properly metabolized and digested may be stored in our bodies as fat or will cause other toxic reactions. Similarly, if we rush through our life experiences and miss the lesson, we do not properly process and digest each situation. Unresolved experiences and emotions may accumulate as tension in the muscles and other tissues of the body.

Racing through life and rushing through our meals puts our body into a stress-response mode rather than a state of rest-and-digest.

If we continue to approach each of our experiences in a fight or flight response, we are expending more energy then we are creating. Our digestive system and metabolism weaken, our breath shortens, and our muscles chronically tighten.

Accumulating energy and bringing metabolism back to its optimal functioning level will happen by finding ways to slow down: achieving more by doing less.

What you eat is only half of the equation; how you eat is the other half.
Let’s work toward stopping the fight. When we love, we are receptive and open to receiving our food and our experiences. By embracing these things, we correctly metabolize because the body wants to integrate them rather than see them as an enemy that it needs to restrict. Can you start to relax enough to choose healthy pleasure over fighting the pain? Life is not working against us and food is not an evil culprit.

It is my personal belief that one of the biggest keys to a strong metabolic rate is feeling personal empowerment. When we feel self-empowered we receive a sudden huge surge of natural energy. When we feel strong, our body feels strong.

Simple first steps toward introducing mindfulness while eating:

* Eat with chopsticks.
* Eat with your non-dominant hand.
* Chew your food 30 to 50 times per bite.
* Eat without TV, newspaper or computer.
* Eat sitting down.
* Put the proper portions of food on your plate and try to make the meal last at least 20 minutes.

Oils and Fats

Not all oils and fats are created equal. Heavily processed, hydrogenated, “trans” fats and oils that are used in prepared, packaged foods can be extremely damaging to the body. However, fats and oils from whole foods and other high-quality sources can steady our metabolism, keep hormone levels even, nourish our skin, hair and nails and provide lubrication to keep the body functioning fluidly. Our bodies also need fat for insulation and to protect and hold our organs in place.

A healthy percentage of high-quality fat in a meal satisfies and leaves feelings of energy, fulfillment and warmth. When there are excess fats and oils in the diet, especially heavily processed fats, symptoms can include weight gain, skin breakouts, high blood pressure, liver strain and an overall feeling of mental, physical and emotional heaviness. Signs of insufficient high-quality fats are brittle hair and nails, dry skin, hunger after meals and feeling cold.

There are many sources of healthy fats and oils. Oils higher in saturated fat such as high quality butter, ghee (clarified butter) or coconut oil hold better at high temperatures. When sautéing and stovetop cooking at moderate temperatures, try organic extra virgin olive oil. Any vegetable oil is best when unrefined. Oils like flaxseed, sesame, walnut and pumpkin seed are best used unheated. Try using less oil with cooking and then add it unheated in sauces or dressings, on top of salads, veggies or grains. Other healthy fats are found in whole nuts and seeds and in their butters like almond butter or tahini. Whole foods such as avocados, olives and coconuts are great sources of healthy fat, along with wild salmon and omega-3 and omega-6 organic eggs. Experiment with these healthy fat sources and see which agree with you and leave you satisfied.

Choose UNREFINED oils.

When selecting oils, buy the highest quality organic products you can afford, since cooking oils are the backbone of so many dishes. Good words to look for on the label are organic, first-pressed, cold-pressed, extra-virgin and unrefined. Words to avoid are expeller-pressed, refined and solvent extracted.
Oil is sensitive to light and heat so those that come in plastic clear bottles are usually oils of a lower quality.

Recipe: Savory Tahini Sauce

Prep time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 cup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup tahini
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons tamari
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
pinch of cayenne (to your taste)

Directions:
1. In a bowl briskly whisk together the tahini and water until combined. It will look separated at first: just keep whisking!
2. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until combined.
3. Adjust flavors to your taste. Add additional water if you want it thinner.
4. Serve over grains and greens.
Note: Tahini sauce keeps refrigerated for up to one week.

Soul Food

Think for a moment of a food from your past…one that for no specific reason makes you feel great after eating it. Maybe it is macaroni and cheese, mom’s stuffing or potato pancakes. Eating food like this (every now and then) can be incredibly healing, even though rationally you consider it is not nutritious.

Food has the power to impact us on a level deeper than just our physical well-being. What we eat can reconnect us to precious memories, like childhood playtimes, holidays, our grandmother’s cooking or our country of ancestry. Our bodies remember foods from the past on an emotional and cellular level. Eating this food connects us to our roots and its comforting and nurturing effects reach far beyond the food’s biochemical make-up.

Lily, a client of mine, came to me a few months back wanting to wean herself from her addiction to sugar. She consumed candy, pastries and ice cream on a daily basis. Once we added the foods and lifestyle choices that satiated and balanced her needs, her sugar cravings subsided.

For her daughter’s birthday, Lily baked a cake. As everyone was enjoying the cake she too craved a piece. If she ate it, would she be consumed with guilt? If she didn’t eat it, would she be thinking about it all week? Through our work together, Lily had gained an understanding of how to read into the cause of her cravings. When she asked herself why she wanted the cake, she immediately knew that it wasn’t her old sugar craving but a desire to share in the experience of eating something she had so lovingly made for her daughter. There was more love than sugar in that one piece of cake. Eating it made her feel alive rather than ashamed. It was delicious and she did not crave an additional piece.

The guilt or shame that we consume with certain foods is far worse than the food itself. If we eat food we consider bad for us, we are sending a message to our body that there is something harmful entering the body. This prevents us from digesting our foods correctly, causing havoc to the digestive system, preventing the assimilation of nutrients or creating an accumulation of fat.

Acknowledging what different foods mean to us is an important part of cultivating a good relationship with food. This month when we celebrate love and relationships, it is important to notice that we each have a relationship with food—and that this relationship is often far from loving. Many of us restrict food, attempting to control our weight. We often abuse food, substituting it for emotional well-being. Some ignore food, swallowing it whole without even tasting it.

What would your life be like if you treated food and your body the same way you would treat your beloved? With gentleness, playfulness, communication, honesty, respect and love? The next time you eat your soul food, do so with awareness and without guilt, and enjoy all the healing and nourishment it brings you.

Cacao Beans:

Cacao beans are a fantastic food source for Magnesium and antioxidants. These beans can help us stay focused due to their source of PEA, a chemical that increases the activity of certain neurotransmitters (brain chemicals). Cocoa also contains Anandamine, a lipid (fat) known as "the bliss chemical", because it is released while we are feeling great. It supplies serotonin, dopamine, and phenylethylamine, three well-studied neurotransmitters, which help alleviate depression and are associated with feelings of well being.

It is best to have chocolate with no added dairy products/milk or refined sugar. Some studies show that the additions of dairy products block the absorption of all the great antioxidants in chocolate! Allergies to chocolate which were thought to be common have recently been linked more to the milk rather than the cocoa content.
Even better than dark chocolates are raw cacao beans which possess all the magical properties of chocolate without any adulteration or processing!
Power the body by adding cocoa nibs (crushed cacao beans) to your favorite dessert, shake, or cereal.

When giving a Valentine’s gift of Chocolates, make sure the chocolate you choose contains a high content of cocoa. Most fine quality chocolates will list the percentage of cocoa. Check the ingredients and see if cocoa or sugar is the first ingredient listed. Give the gift of health to your loved ones.

Home Made Molded Chocolates:

Basic ingredients:

Unsweetened dark chocolate (100% cocoa bars)
Agave nectar

Choose one of the following additions:
Organic unsweetened peanut butter/ almond butter
Chopped nuts
Plain brown rice cereal
Peppermint extract

Melt chocolate down over low heat (preferably in a double boiler, but a small pot works just as well) and sweeten to taste with agave nectar. Mix in extract, cereal or nuts if desired.

Spoon the melted chocolate into little candy cups.
If you choose to add nut butter; fill the cup half way with chocolate, add a dollop of nut butter and then fill the cup to the top with more chocolate.

Place the cups on a wax-paper-covered cookie tray and place in freezer until chocolates are set.

For gift-giving, you can put these in boxes or use decorative mini Chinese food cartons--I love those! Almost everyone I know is THRILLED to receive chocolate, especially the kind that you put your love and time into creating for them...