If you have the problem many Americans do veggies are dying in your kitchen — bags of stinky peppers lurking in the back of the fridge under that old container of yogurt, or worse carrots that bend from tip to tip.  Don’t let it happen!  Don’t let your fruits and veggies go bad!

I’m gonna go all Health Coach on you. Besides the fact that fruits and vegetables are the healthiest food you can eat, they are loaded with fiber making them great for weight loss, contain tons of vitamins and minerals, taste superb.  It has been proven time and time again that eating more fruits and vegetables can decrease your risk for diabetes, cancer and heart disease — If that’s not enough, I am going to ask you to change your ways, don’t be a Vegetable KillerI  In these difficult economic times just think of all the people struggling.  Some of them might even be your neighbors and friends.  They can’t always buy enough food or any fruits and vegetables and we are letting them rot in the back of the fridge.  Seems kinda selfish, doesn’t it?

So here are a few tips to make your veggies last longer.

Always separate out any bad produce. One bad apple can ruin the bunch. Same is true for storing other vegetables.

Keep carrots, celery, parsnips and radishes in a covered container with water in the fridge.  I rinse them and cut them in slices to reduce my cooking time when I’m ready to use them. They will stay crispy and fresh up to two weeks in the fridge.

Keep leafy greens and lettuce wrapped in a kitchen towel in the crisper in your fridge.  This will keep them fresh longer.  Up to a few days.  If they need a little pepping up coming out of the fridge rinse cold water on them.

Don’t suffocate your vegetables.  Let them breathe. Keeping them wrapped up tightly in a plastic bag is often the worst thing you can do.  Open the plastic bag and leave the veggies in the crisper drawer in your fridge until ready to use. Even better leave a paper bag in your crisper drawer and put them in there until you are ready to cook them.

Apples are tricky. They give off a gas that helps ripen other fruit and can over ripen other fruits and vegetables if stored together.  If you have a lot of apples you can store them in an open plastic bag in the fridge but separate from other loose vegetables.  Apples speed up the ripening time of produce such as avocados, peaches, bananas, apricots, plums, and pears.  Place an apple into a paper or plastic bag with the fruit you want to ripen faster.

Root vegetables like beets, potatoes, celery root and squash are best stored in a cool dark place. If you have a garage or cellar that’s perfect. If you are a city girl like me store them in a paper bag, yes, in the back of your crisper.

If you see your fruit is starting to get brown or too soft throw it in a pot with some water sugar and salt and make it into a compote or apple sauce. Or rinse and slice your fruit and store it in an air tight container in the freezer for use on fruit shakes or pies.  Same idea holds true for carrots or zucchini that is on it’s last legs.  You can make some fast carrot or zucchini muffins, eat some fresh and put others double wrapped in a plastic container in the freezer for months.

So my friends, love your veggies — don’t be a vegetable killer.

All over the country it will be raining this week. Here on the East Coast it’s cool and rainy. Which can bring on cold and damp conditions in the body if not treated correctly.  Foods to avoid when it feels cold and damp are yogurt, tofu, cold wet cheeses like cottage cheese and cream cheese, oatmeal, soy milk, and milk.  All of these foods cause cool damp conditions in the body. They may weigh you down and make you feel slow and sluggish in the cool damp weather.

Food that are good to eat are ramps, onions and garlic, sauteed greens, citrus fruits, whole grain toast, stir fry vegetables, rice milks are better than soy.  Dry quick cooking grains like quinoa and polenta.  Eat dry crunchy foods like crackers.  Use warming spices in your recipes like paprika and ginger.  These foods help to cause warm and dry conditions in the body helping to fight colds and wet chest conditions.

Spring Cleaning

It’s around this time when the days are getting longer and the weather FINALLY starts getting a bit warmer that I start to get our of bed with a bit more energy ready to start my day. This weekend was no exception.  In our house, it was time to start Spring Cleaning.  As much as I think I have whittled my closet down and removed every last thing that hasn’t been touched, it seems like each Spring there is more stuff to give away.

This year my home is feeling heavy.  As I look around my living room the stuff is starting to close in on me. One too many book shelves crowding our open space.  My husband and I have made a pact to get rid of enough stuff so that we can remove one of our book shelves to make more room.  We are doing quite well, I must say.

I have a theory around getting rid of old stuff… whether that stuff is books and old picture frames, excess weight, unworn clothes or bad habits.  The theory is that they all hold energy. That energy holds space whether that space is on your bookshelf or in your body. When you remove some of that energy you are making things lighter.  Lighter things have a tendency to float, to move easier, more gracefully, with more precision — to flow.

I was told once in a class by someone for whom English was not their first language that I had ‘flow’.  It was one of the biggest compliments anyone has ever paid me.  It stuck with me and changed me.  I strive for flow now. It’s a hard one to explain because really it’s a feeling that causes things to happen.  It goes with another of my sayings that when you are doing what you are supposed to be doing things just work out.  Well that’s it.  When you are in your flow things just come out of nowhere and work out.  For me the feeling is almost like floating. Like I am effortlessly moving along, almost like I’m being pushed in the right direction to have things work out.  It’s a really cool feeling.

Flow is my word.  My feeling.  Feel free to borrow it.  Try it on to see if it’s a fit for you. You may have your own word that demonstrates and celebrates how it feels for you when it’s all working out.  While you are Spring cleaning maybe it’s time to take out that word and dust it off.  As you let go of that old set of silverware taking up space in the closet, or give away those fantastic shoes you only wore once because they cut up your toes — focus on your word, get into your flow.  P.S. You get an extra dose of great karma knowing that your donations will go to someone who will use them with joy.

So this year celebrate the opportunity to Spring Clean, Get rid of the old and invite in your flow.

On the reunion show there was some talk about a scandal between the Top Chef Head Judge, Tom Colicchio, and one of the chef contestants, Elia, who was sent home on the first episode.  Apparently she had visited Craft, Tom Colicchio’s restaurant in Las Vegas and was told by the kitchen that the meat was corn fed. That just appalled her and she reacted by speaking out against Tom Colicchio– saying something along the lines of he’s not about the food anymore; he’s about high fructose corn syrup.  (Tom Colicchio had recently appeared in a Diet Pepsi commercial.)

Elia vs Tom Colicchio

Watch the video: Elia vs Tom Colicchio

Colicchio’s response on the show went something like this: I have supported the local food movement for over 17 years– even before it was the thing to do. I have always bought from local farmers.  There is no way to run a steak house without having some corn fed beef. Much of my beef at that restaurant is grass fed.  To the point about appearing in a Diet Pepsi commercial: I drink Diet Pepsi, I sell it in my stores. I like it.  Elia then fought back trying to reiterate her point that all of this was just to say that she thinks he could cause a shift in the food industry if he were to only serve grass-fed beef. I believe there was something in there about it being his responsibility because he is a celebrity chef.

I bring this up because it shines a light on what is not only a very important issue in the food industry– supporting local farmers– but because it also asks a question, where is your ethical line in the sand?  I think where the conversation went flat for me was when Elia was pushing her values on Colicchio.  She wanted him to choose not to be in a Diet Coke commercial because it’s a bad product. Bad meaning a highly processed food which is bad for your health and bad for the environment.  Certainly not local or sustainable.  I can tell her from my own experience that pushing your agenda on someone else just doesn’t work.  She has every right to disagree with his choices, but they just that– her choices. Not his.

I am a Health Coach. I support people in making changes in their lives so they can live a healthier life.  That takes shape differently for each and every person because we are all unique.  What I eat to feel healthy and the choices I make in support of a healthy world are different than someone else’s choices because we are all different.

In the past week I have been told what to eat by several different people.  All nice people, all wanting to share their success with me. Where the advice fell flat for me was exactly at the point they said “you should” eat this way, or “what you have to do” is eat that way.  How do they know?  I was so shocked that I, a health coach and more importantly, someone who is probably healthier at this point in my life than i have ever been– not asking for any advice whatsoever– was suddenly being told what I had to do and how I had to eat.

I think we humans do this a lot.  We want to help other people, we want to share our successes and show the world we did it! Especially us New Yorkers, we love to dole out advice.  My education at the Institute for Integrated Nutrition was fantastic.  I had the opportunity to learn from leading experts in the health and food industry. When I think back on it now I can see that many of them came before us, armed with studies and statistics, waving books and products to show us about how their way was “the way”.  We heard it all: Animal products are good, eat only vegetables, eat in the zone, don’t eat fruit, eat lots of fruit. We could have easily lined up behind our gurus who were standing on the stage waving their books.  In fact we pretty much did.

I took away much larger lessons.  We are in deep shit if we don’t start eating healthier and losing weight. Our nation is in deep shit because health care costs are rising due to the cost of treating curable conditions like heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer.  Our planet is in deep shit if we don’t start taking care of her, supporting local farmers, using fewer plastic bags, using and buying less in general — and becoming more educated consumers.  Food has become an industry that is closely linked with our health care industry.  Keeping people sick benefits big business.  We can improve our health by eating more whole foods, eat more fruit, vegetables and whole grains, eat less meat, drink more water and move our bodies more. But being sick is good for business.

Change is good, my friends, and it doesn’t work when you push your ideas on someone else. So if Tom Colicchio wants to drink Diet Coke he has a right to do it.  Do I love the fact that he got paid to tell the world about Diet Coke?  No. And if he asked me how it was affecting his health I would be happy to tell him there are many far better choices.  But– and this is a big but– the choice has to be his.  I am here to ask people to think differently, to ask questions that get people started thinking about their own health and the health of the planet– and to provide support to those people want to make changes that support them.

The article shows that most major food chains are serving portions that are 3x the recommended daily portion size.  For example a Starbucks chocolate chip cookie is really 3 servings, not one.  If you were to add up the calories of the food in the article, which many people consider a normal day of caloric intake – a muffin for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, a cookie for a snack and a steak for dinner it would have totaled over 2,000 calories. That’s not counting the chips with the sandwich at lunch, what ever else was served with the steak for dinner, probably french fries and creamed spinach, and the beverages — probably soda and mixed coffee drinks throughout the day.

Big Enough For Three

America, this is why we won’t ever run out of contestants for The Biggest Loser.  We HAVE to change. I know this sounds radical and that change can be difficult but I know it can be done.  So what does our nation do?  We are surrounded by big food companies who want us to be fat? Pushing their triple latte iced high fructose corn syrup gunk?

We have to fight back, because the next article I read was the worst of them all — Obese is becoming the new norm.  And let’s not talk about the article that’s yet to come — the one about how big food companies are actually the one’s behind the bee collapse disorder. Which they actually might be — consider this it’s the pesticides that Monsanto is dishing out that are being used on crops all across the nation that are killing the bees. There is nothing Monsanto would like more than to have their “crops” become the norm turning our food system into a bio engineered food system where organic farmers don’t exist and everyone has to eat “big company, man made food”.

Okay now I am steaming mad.

So what can the “average” person do to take back their life?  Choose to eat differently. I think the first two things that people can do to make a major impact on their weight and over eating is to stop drinking soda, or fake sugary coffee like drinks and to cut their portion sizes in half. Wait I have a third!  Replacing one snack, or breakfast with fruit or oatmeal. That alone would save a person hundreds of calories a day and start them eating and drinking whole foods instead of processed foods.

My list of suggestions goes on from there. The basics of which are start changing over from a highly processed diet to whole grains, you know good old rice, quinoa, oats, bulgur wheat.  Eat some vegetables not potato chips or french fries — and I promise for those of you who say I don’t like vegetables — your taste buds are so damaged you don’t know what a vegetable really tastes like.  Eat fruit, consume less meat, drink water, move your body, take the stairs, go for a walk.  I’m not the first to say this stuff and I know I’m not the last. But folks, this is truly a matter of life and death.

The weekend included the opportunity to take mini “courses” if you will.  Nature walks, bird classes, and an old forest walk. The Saturday afternoon event featured a group who rescued and rehabilitated birds of prey. Just the idea of a group that rescues and rehabilitates any living creature, especially since that’s what my husband’s work is all about, warms my heart.  We all sat in the giant tent and learned about owls, what they eat, how many feathers they have .. and then out came the owl. My jaw dropped open. It was stunning.  It had piercing eyes, amazing color, a HUGE wing span and attitude.  I was in love.   I realized I had never seen an owl up close.  I mean really where in my every day life would I see an owl?  Meet Borris the Barred Owl

Borris the Barred Owl

Fast forward, I’m sitting at work.  I get an invitation to visit the Deepak Learning Room at ABC Carpet and Home for a special event of Wind Over Wings a non-profit group that rescues birds of prey. They were bringing them right here to New York City. I almost fell off my chair.  Done.  I was like a kid in the candy stor counting down the hours from the time I woke up on Sunday to the event.

It was there I met Sassafras. Sitting about 10″ high and perfect in every way.  Enjoy, celebrate seeing different things!

Perfection

Bloomberg has done some rearranging in that part of the city to allow for a bike path, and some “hanging out spaces”.  I rounded the corner and nearly bumped into this:

Andy

At first i thought it was a performance artist. I thought really well done.  I was in a rush and couldn’t stop to really appreciate it until the following day.  When I saw it from the front it made perfect sense, Andy Warhol — of course. It was magnificent.  I think he would have liked it.  It’s in Union Square because that’s where his “Factory” was. It put a smile on my face. What a better way to celebrate Thinking Differently than Andy Warhol?  An artist who was responsible for forcing people to think differently.  He is an icon, changed the art world forever.  He represented a movement and caused change.  In fact he embodied change and seemed to reinvent himself every step of the way.

Andy Warhol was famous for taking every day objects and turning them on their head, causing people to look at them differently.  It’s a simple idea that can really shift the way you see things.  Is there something “every day” in your life that you would like to see differently?  An old chair in the corner of your bedroom?  The pile of books next to the bed? Or maybe the extra bit of grab on your belly?  Shift the way you look at something and it will change the way you see it.

For more about the Andy Warhol Statue go here: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/andy-warhol-commemorated-in-chrome-on-union-square/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Become Your Dream

Have you noticed the street vendor from the East Village has made his way up town. He’s been around the Upper East Side making his mark on the pavement, piles of boxes,  and old couches lining the street on garbage pick up day. I find it refreshing. i think the Upper East Side could use a bit of inspiration – with a downtown style.  The latest, pictured above, got me thinking. I’ve been having a tough time lately figuring out my purpose in life. You know my calling.  Being off from work for so long making my own path made going back to work — the structure, the rules and well just the work, a bit difficult for me.  I’ve fallen into a routine and for me as comforting as a routine can be it’s deadly.

Which is why I am dedicating my site to CHANGE – doing things differently.  Come visit my site for a dose of change.  Tips about how to embody change in order to cause a different result.

That really struck me. Was it American society that had gotten so screwed up or living in New York, always trying to do more, get more?  An older man by any standard who had just been in the hospital for three days wasn’t comfortable taking a seat on the subway from a young woman. Now I’m all for chivalry but this was clearly something else?

I also recently heard that hours after the disaster in Japan the US offered it’s nuclear experts to Japan to help with the situation with the nuclear reactors. Japan said no. Then the US pushed warning them of the possible impending loss of life if the situation wasn’t contained. Then, they said yes. Now I know eastern cultures can be proud. I won’t pretend to understand that culture. But It does seem to me that one of the worst earthquakes in Japan causing an enormous unexpected tsunami resulting in what could be the worst disaster in history warrants the help of outside experts.

I mean let’s face it people. With global warming natural disaster and man made disasters it’s time for the world to start working together, to put aside egos and pride and learn to work together to find solutions.

Back to my elderly gentleman friend with an ego too big to take a seat on the subway.  You have lived a long life that I know, I can’t say whether it was good my any measure or what you have achieved in your life, but in this case we can borrow from the Eastern culture and give respect to our elderly — grant them permission to take a seat on the subway and leave their ego in tact.

I never really know who is reading this stuff anyway. I get lots of comments on some of my blog posts, mostly spammers trying to get their SEO rankings.  With that said, along with my blogging I noticed a few other things out of balance in my life.

Taking a new job takes up a lot of energy, both mentally and physically. So while clearly there wasn’t as much time to blog, there also hasn’t been as much focus on living healthy.  I think I have pretty high standards for myself in this area. For me living healthy isn’t just about eating healthy. Which by the way I could write a whole separate blog post about because “eating healthy” means something different for every person.  For me living healthy is about treating the environment well, and being a conscience shopper, buying local as often as possible, reducing one’s excess.

Back to my balance. When you get involved in a new job, and learning a whole new set of computer systems, and people, and how things work — when you go back to waking up early and getting to work on time,  and spending all day in an office what gets lost for me is my ability to focus on healthy living. Is it a Farmer’s Market day and therefore should I bring my green bag so I don’t have to use plastic bags?  How often am I ordering lunch which therefore means a plastic container goes in the garbage?  These are all things I think about and feel badly about.  I measure my success as a “healthy person” not only on whether or not I’m eating well,  loving my job, happy with my relationships but also about how well I’m treating the earth and since I’ve gone back to work it hasn’t been so good.

I haven’t even touched on the fact that being in an office all day makes you want to take a break. Which for me means going for a walk.  Once you go outside the urge to buy something is huge, it’s everywhere.  Going for a walk in Manhattan can be like a massive showing of all the things you must have.

So I’m making my New Year’s Resolution a bit late this year. Yes, yes I am the one who said feh to new Year’s Resolutions. I will stand by that because I’m noticing a change in the way I’m living and choosing to change it.  I am going to be more mindful of my impact on the earth and my wasteometer.  I am going to do my best to bring reusable bags so I don’t have to waste and not take a bag when I don’t need one, and get my iced tea in some sort of a container I can re-use or bring back to the store instead of throwing it away.  I pledge to be a greener person — let’s call it my way of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.