Food for Thought or Thought for Food?

Have you ever finished a meal and noticed that the belly is full but the mouth is still hungry? Most likely you were not paying much attention to your meal while eating it. If the brain does not experience the pleasure of the eating through taste and smell, it will remain hungry, searching for that satisfaction by longing for more food.

Scientists estimate that 30-40% of our digestive response starts in the brain, and by putting our attention elsewhere, the digestive system does not receive the blood and energy it needs to properly assimilate food. This results in symptoms such as digestive upset, bowel disorders, fatigue, weight gain, or the inability to absorb vital nutrients.

Many people who describe themselves as having a problem with overeating actually have a problem of awareness; they don’t eat when they eat. While eating, their attention is on watching TV, reading, checking email, or perhaps driving.

To find the answer to “how much should I be eating?” change the question to “how am I eating?”

If you love food why do you rush through every eating experience?

Most people eat until they "feel full." To digest a big meal we must generate more metabolic force by pulling more blood and oxygen into the stomach. As a result, other parts of the body such the arms, legs and brain lose blood supply. This translates as a feeling of being tired and sluggish.

Instead of eating till full, eat until energized.

Estimate the point where you feel full of energy rather than full with food. At this point you will feel light and still a little hungry. This slight hunger leaves energy for you to carry into your next activity. It will ensure more blood flow to your brain to make you more alert. When you eat even one bite past the point of energy, you will feel heavier.

Begin your meal by setting an intention to eat to a point of energy. Observe your energy level several times through out your meal. Watch your sense of lightness, alertness and vibrancy. Ask yourself “How do I feel? How is my energy level? Do I still feel light? Am I starting to feel heavy?”* You will know you have gone past the peak energy point when you begin to feel sluggish and unfocused.

Put down your fork and take a moment of gratitude for the nourishment that you have received.

Try practicing this for a week and you will sharpen your ability to instinctively recognize when to stop.

It is my personal experience that as I have practiced this way of eating, I’ve become more intuitive in all areas of my life. After all, such awareness comes from the gut, not the brain. By giving our gut more attention, it becomes easier for us to connect to our “gut feeling”.

(*This exercise is inspired by Marc David, www.marcdavid.com)

Beets

Beets are in season from June to October. The deep red pigment is known as an anti-cancer agent. Beets can aid in strengthening the heart, improving circulation, purifying the blood and liver, and moistening the intestines. Beets can also treat nervousness and congestion of the vascular system.

Beet Salad with Fennel and Mint

(find similar recipes at www.integrativenutrition.com)

This is a great summer salad. The fennel and mint provide a fresh and cooling effect. For variety, try using different colored beets.

2 beets

1 small fennel bulb

1 bunch mint leaves

2 oranges

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

1. Place beets in a pot, cover with 1 inch with water and boil for 20-30 minutes, until a fork pierces easily through the middle of each beet.

2. While beets are cooking, wash fennel and slice very thin.

3. Chop mint into thin ribbons.

4. Zest oranges and juice them into a bowl.

5. When beets are cooked, drain them in the sink and rinse under cold water.

6. Peel the skin off beets with hands and chop beets into ¼-inch thick, quarter rounds.

7. Add all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well.

No Matter What You Eat, Choose the Highest Quality of that Food

Eating quality foods is the best strategy we can use to improve our health and lives as well as the health of our planet.

Endless nutritional studies have proven that the diets of cultures that keep traditional diets of fresh, whole, & local foods are dramatically healthier than diets of cultures relying on mostly refined or mass produced foods.

Quality can mean: fresh, organic, lovingly made, homemade, locally produced, free of pesticides and herbicides (these are anti-nutrients and disease agents), free of antibiotics and growth hormones, heirloom varieties, nutrient dense, free of artificial ingredients.

Higher quality food means greater nutritional value. Food provides your body with energy and information. When you eat a carrot, the Beta-carotene in the carrot tells the body how to see better at night, the antioxidants in blueberries demonstrate how to keep your blood healthy and flowing, the B vitamins in brown rice chat with the nervous system on how to relieve depression.

So if your food is telling you its story, don’t you want to hear a happy one?

If your tomato was grown in depleted soils, it doesn’t have much to tell about minerals and vitamins. Through its taste you learn the tale of high acidity rather than natural sweetness, and if it was sprayed with pesticides and herbicides, your body ingests carcinogenic information.

There is more than just nutritional value in your food. There is life experience.

If the chicken you eat was conventionally raised, she probably never saw sunlight, never stood up straight because her cage was too small and crowded, was never healthy enough to grow feathers, was heavily fed with antibiotics and growth hormones so that she could survive long enough, and was then killed in the most inhumane conditions. We all know what it feels like to hold stress and fear in our own bodies… so how much energy of stress, tension and fear do you think you will be digesting in that meal?! As best as you can, replace poor quality meats with ones labeled free range, organic, grass fed, antibiotic and hormone free.

If your tomato was mass produced, picked and packed by underpaid workers, chopped in a machine with a thousand other tomatoes and slapped onto your fast food bun, the cellular information it contains will not be too different form that of our poor chicken. All this information lives inside your food just as surely as you live inside your body.

If your food could verbalize a story about its journey from the seed to your palate, let it be as fairytale-like as possible, filled with care and consciousness.

Upgrade any way you can: whether through choosing higher quality, through adding some Vitamin L (love) to it by preparing the meal for you and your loved ones or by simply expressing gratitude by saying grace before you chow down.

If you want your food to help you feel healthy and happy, you have to start creating it in that image.

Brown Rice & Veggie Nori Rolls

Prep time: 10 minutes

Assembly: 5 minutes

This recipe is a great way to incorporate them into your diet. The rolls are easy to pack up for kid's lunches or to take with you where ever you go. Be creative and experiment with different ingredients like smoked salmon, tofu or other vegetables.

1 – 1½ cups cooked short grain brown rice

1 teaspoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 sheets roasted nori
½ seedless cucumber, cut into matchsticks
1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
½ peeled avocado, cut lengthwise into thin slices
Sushi mat (a thick but flexible piece of paper can work here as a substitute)

Rice:

* Place rice in a bowl.

* In a small bowl stir together vinegar and soy sauce.

* Pour vinegar mixture over rice, tossing gently with a large spoon to combine.

Sushi Roll:

* Place sushi mat on a work surface with slats running crosswise.

* Arrange 1 sheet nori, shiny side down, on mat, lining up a long edge of sheet with edge of mat nearest you.

* Using damp fingers gently press half of rice onto nori in 1 layer, leaving a 1 3/4-inch border on side farthest from you.

* Arrange half of cucumber in an even strip horizontally across rice, starting 1 inch from side nearest you.

* Stack half of carrot just above cucumber in same manner.

* Stack half of avocado over carrot in same manner.

* Beginning with edge nearest you, lift mat up with your thumbs, holding filling in place with your fingers and fold mat over so that you are rolling the nori away from you. Make sure to keep the ingredients in place and that the rice sticks together.

* Open mat and roll the nori log forward to seal with its border.

* Transfer roll, seam side down, to a cutting board and let it sit for a few minutes.

* Make second log in same manner, then cut each log crosswise into 6 pieces with a wet thin-bladed knife.

* Serve with wasabi paste, soy sauce and ginger

Spring Cleansing: Self-Maintenance Throughout the Year

It is not uncommon for medical test results to show nothing wrong despite the fact that you are not feeling well. No diagnosis and yet you are experiencing headaches, body pains, insomnia, dry skin, rashes, or fatigue. Better than no diagnosis, have you ever heard the not so helpful “it’s just stress…?”

Just as stress builds up in the body over time, so does toxicity. Stress wears down the tissues and impairs the kidneys and liver’s ability to filter and clean our body’s accumulation of daily toxins. This allows the toxins to flow freely through the bloodstream. Our body, which is cleverly trying to heal itself by finding ways to release these toxins, may begin to expel them through the skin. You may then find yourself wondering why “out of the blue” you are experiencing eczema or psoriasis. Without finding alternative ways of escape, toxicity can wear down the tissues of the digestive system, contribute to the creation of an autoimmune disease, or move up to the head manifesting as a migraine or unclear thinking.

Diet plays as a large part in the build-up or breakdown of toxins. Fueled by the correct foods that complement our bio-individuality, combined with the mindfulness of eating, our body is capable of performing a self-healing process.

Are you choosing foods that harm or foods that heal?

Are you eating too much? Overeating contributes to toxicity by preventing the digestive system from properly breaking down the food.

Are you eating too fast? Digestion begins in the mouth through the saliva. When we swallow our food whole, it makes it hard for the body to break it down. This causes the food to ferment in our systems. If you are experiencing gas, it is not necessarily due to the type of food but to the swallowing of air while shoveling it down.

Are you focused on eating when eating? Do you sit down in a calm environment for each meal or are you multi-tasking fighting traffic or sorting through e-mails? Let your body focus on digestion while you eat. A meal is a conversation between your body and the food. Multi-tasking while eating is like having two conversations at once; if two people are talking to you at the same time about two completely different matters, how much of each conversation are you going to process?! And if the larger portion of your energy is focused on the other thing you are doing, your body is not getting the message to activate the digestive system. Shocked to receive food, the body is unprepared to digest.

When are you eating? Just like the sun, the digestive heat is strongest during the earlier half of the day. If we race through our days too busy to eat right, our body will be starving by evening. Eating too much too late, the body ends up focusing on digestion instead of on detoxification. Thus, the following morning we are still carrying yesterday’s toxins in our system. It is time to take a look into what we are doing and how we are doing it.

Recipe for a Spring Diet: A cleansing Meal

As the seasons change, our needs change accordingly. Nutritionally, this is a good time of year to cleanse. Your diet should become lighter, with more foods like greens, sprouts, salads, fruits, nuts and seeds. Incorporate some grains and reduce heavier foods such as dairy and meat. Fried foods, foods containing chemicals, and alcohol should be avoided. Spring is an important time of year to develop a regular exercise program. Creating clarity and developing focus through mental relaxation is important during spring as this is a time of new beginnings. By eliminating excess and congestion, we create room for a brighter now.

Spring Salad:

All ingredients in this salad contain cleansing properties

Dandelion greens
Sprouts (mixes of sprouted beans, lentils, seeds and peas are available at your health food store)
Daikon Radish

Dressing:
Lemon juice (preferably freshly squeezed)
1 clove of garlic (optional)
Drizzle of olive oil (optional) 1 Tsp of Mustard (optional)

This salad can be either warm or cold:

Warm salad:
Sauté daikon radish and garlic in either a tablespoon of olive oil or a little bit of water, then add greens and sprouts for the last 2-3 minutes. Once it is done, season with lemon juice and mustard.

Cold salad:
Slice daikon into rings (as you would a carrot) and cook by either slightly sautéing or baking with olive oil at 375 until tender. Once cooked, mix daikon with raw dandelion, lemon juice and mustard.

Fire Your Metabolism with Breath:

We hear much talk of diet and how exercise burns calories. Yet many people starve themselves on low calorie diets and exercise like maniacs_and the weight refuses to come off. Obviously there must be more to the picture….

A calorie is simply a measure of heat that is released when something is burned.

The amount of energy, or heat, that is released from the foods we eat is the measurement of how many calories those foods contain.

To extract the energy from food, the body breaks it down and sends it to our cells where it combusts with oxygen, releasing the energy.

Our digestive system is like a fire: it needs food for fuel and the right amount of air to maintain its power. Without oxygen we are unable to utilize the energy in the foods we eat. In simple words: Calories need oxygen to burn. With food, quality is vital; with oxygen, quantity is what counts most.

Relaxed breathing during meals strengthens metabolism. If you eat when feeling tense, eat too fast, or are distracted by work, your breathing is shallow and your metabolism weak. The breath is a fundamental ingredient to our meal.

• Work towards a deeper breath that still feels natural and unforced.
• Have meals in an area richer in air when possible, such as in a room with an open window as opposed to one with circulated air, like a sealed office building.
• If dining out, choose a restaurant that has a relaxed atmosphere rather than large and noisy dining area.
• Dine with people who inspire you and keep conversation positive.
• Sitting up straight allows a fuller breath capacity.

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.