Nutrition for Heart Health- Keeping it Practical

Nutrition for heart health simply comes down to incorporating some basic diet and lifestyle practices to your day, that anyone can do...
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You have a very loyal friend that you may be taking for granted. This friend works tirelessly for you, 24/7, never stopping to take a break, in order to make sure your body has everything it needs to be healthy and happy. This friend is your heart! The heart, our body’s powerhouse, tirelessly pumps blood, delivering essential nutrients and oxygen to every cell in the body. Understanding some basics of how to optimize your nutrition for heart health can go a long way in giving that loyal friend a boost of support, and living a long, healthy life.

Our hearts are amazing, muscular organs.  But they do have vulnerabilities. Cardiovascular diseases, such as coronary artery disease, heart attacks, and strokes, are among the leading causes of death globally. Several risk factors contribute to these conditions, including high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, obesity, diabetes, consuming alcohol, and smoking. While genetics do play a role in one’s predisposition to developing a heart related illness, lifestyle choices and behaviors, with nutrition being the most important, can make a significant difference in how your body will fare. According to leading medical experts, ninety percent of the nearly 18 million heart disease cases worldwide could be prevented by people adopting healthier eating, exercise, and other lifestyle habits.

Nutrition for Heart Health, an Introduction

Before I dive into nutrition for heart health, I want to make clear that adopting heart healthy eating habits does not have to mean turning your life upside down, or giving up your favorite foods. By simply augmenting your choices to include 1) fewer foods that harm your heart, and 2) more foods that support your heart, you can begin to make a meaningful difference in not only the health of your heart, but also your overall long-term health. A balanced diet rich in nutrient-dense foods can help manage risk factors, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, reduce inflammation, and maintain a healthy weight and body composition. Conversely, diets high in saturated and trans fats, sodium, refined sugars, and processed foods can increase the likelihood of developing heart disease. So it really just comes down to doing what you can to design meals that take these factors into consideration.

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Huevos Con Nopalitos

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Whatever
you call it, that ubiquitous cactus that is probably hanging out in more back
yards than many of us realize, is packed with superfood nutrition. The leaf
or “pad” of the
nopale is believed to
support many aspects of health and well being such as weight loss, blood
purification, maintaining blood sugar balance, and more. My personal
philosophy is that nature designed the nopale to provide good, somewhat
complete nutrition in climates where growing and cultivating food, and
finding an abundant water source may be a challenge. In any case, I feel
extremely lucky to have two nopale trees in my food garden. They are going
crazy right now producing more nopales than we can keep up with. In the
spirit of water conservation, food sustainability, and good health, why not
explore how many accessible nopales are growing in your world? Here is a
simple, very traditional egg recipe for enjoying fresh nopales from
your garden. Be sure to cut the nopale when the leaf is still young and the
thorns are still soft to the touch. Once the thorns have become wooody and
hard, the nopale leaf is too mature for culinary enjoyment. You can cut
nopales, clean, and cut into “nopalitos,” basically cleaned and cut
up nopales, and store them in an air tight bag or container for up to a week
or two. Read More

“Chicken” Fried Tofu Steak

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We are having a rainy weekend
here in Los Angeles. With rain comes that urge to cook and enjoy traditional
comfort food. Typically that would lead to chicken and dumplings, pot pie, or
something along those lines. All I had to make this happen was a block of
organic sprouted tofu, so I gave this a whirl. The secret to making tofu
taste great lies in two simple steps: 1) You need to press the tofu, and 2)
you need to marinate it. The marinade should always have an acidic base with
flavors that compliment whatever theme you are going for. You should never
use oil in your tofu marinade. Since tofu contains a lot of water, and is
packed in water, it will naturally repel anything that has oil mixed into it.
My experience has been that oil free marinades absorb into tofu the best,
resulting in a variety of uses. In this case, I used vegan chicken flavoring
to conjure up the experience of eating a chicken fried steak. It came out
delicious, tender on the inside, crispy on the outside. This is easy to make,
but you need to allow for about 90 minutes to press and marinate the
tofu.

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Does the Paleo Diet Work? An Objective Review

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Occasionally someone will ask
me, “Does the Paleo diet work?” And my answer is usually the same
answer I give to any question of this nature: It depends on the person and
the way the diet is implemented.  I have several clients whose current
approach to eating appears to come very close to what would be considered a
Paleo or Paleo-type diet. So, I decided to try the diet out for myself, for a
trial run, and share a review of my experience.

What Exactly Is the
Paleo diet?

I guess there are two answers to that question. There is the
concept of the diet, where you basically match your eating habits to that of
someone who would have lived in Paleolithic times. Then, there is the diet
itself from a nutrition science point of view.

Eat like a Paleolithic person? Like, chomp down on big wooly
mammoth legs wearing a leopard skin Read More

Why Diets Don’t Work- 5 Possible Reasons

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Are you contemplating a diet, or currently dieting? Or, have you tried several diets only to find yourself back to your old unhealthy or overweight self after a couple months? Do you ever start to wonder why diets don’t work? There is a statistic flying around that 95% of all diets fail. I honestly had to search, a lot, to try to find the origin of this statistic. I could only find one article, The 95% Myth, that referenced a 40 year old study of just 100 participants. What I did find, however, is an overwhelming consensus

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Vegan Grilled Gouda & Portobello Sandwich

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I couldn’t decide whether
throwing together a list of somewhat obscure plant based stabilizers and
coconut milk would appeal to any readers. But if you know how awesome it is
to find a vegan cheese that is easy to make, and has a really wonderful MELT,
you can understand why I had to finally break down and share this. Factor in
the current chilly wet weather we have been having, and well, there you
go!

The cheese recipe is a slight adaptation from a quick cheese
recipe found on one of
my favorite plant- based living blogs. The obscure ingredients can
be found at a mom and pop health market, Sprouts, or Whole
Foods.

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Fig & Shiitake Bacon Bites

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Here is a fun and extremely easy
variation on the bacon-wrapped fig. Actually, I wanted to see if I could
wrap a fig in a shiitake bacon, but the bacon pieces aren’t quite big or
flexible enough. Next time I will try making a portobello bacon. In the
meantime, this is what I ended up with, and to my delight, it came out
very tasty. Try this as a snack, or a vegan and Paleo-friendly summer hors
d’oeuvre, if you go with the vegan cheese, or I would imagine that
goat cheese would be equally amazing. You can google shiitake bacon
recipes and experiment, or just use the one I came up with here. Making
shiitake bacon is much easier than it sounds if you use this quick
method.

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Spaghetti with Calabrese Broccoli, Green Garlic & Nasturtium Blossoms

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We all know broccoli is good for
us. But one has to admit that the same “commercial” broccoli that
we are relentlessly exposed to can get a little tiring. That is why I always
get a little excited whenever I see less ubiquitous varieties of broccoli at
the market. The particular calabrese in this recipe was small and tender,
making it a great, quickly seared pasta stir fry. In retrospect, I wish I had
taken a photo of it at the market, but the finished dish gives you a good
sense of the anatomy of this broccoli. The green garlic adds a spring
time garlic kick, and the nasturtium adds a slight peppery essence, for an
uncomplicated, light springtime meal. By the way, if you are wondering where
to find nasturtiums, they grow like crazy everywhere, so just tap into your
“inner hunter-gatherer” and you should be okay. You might even have
some growing in your own yard! Read More

Niçoise Tuna Salad Finger Sandwiches

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Used to be that tuna salad was
considered the “healthy choice.” But now who knows? Is the tuna
wild? Is the mayo used to make the salad healthy? What about the bread for
the sandwich? Is it gluten free? We can drive ourselves bonkers trying to
keep up with all the information. And, this may  be part of the reason
why tuna salad has lost popularity lately.  So, if you ever just get a
taste for a tuna salad sandwich, why not just try it from a different angle?
This recipe combines a dairy-egg free variation of tuna salad with Life
Changing Bread, to bring you a clean(er) nutritional powerhouse of
a tuna sandwich, with fiber, complete proteins from the fish and also
plants, healthy fats, and other vitamins and minerals.

So, forget about “whether a tuna sandwich is okay”
and dig in!

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Korean Daikon Radish Wrap with Vegetables

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So, I guess I have thought in
the past about slicing a daikon radish thin to use as a wrap. But for some
reason, when my airbnb guests from Korea introduced this dish to me, it
seemed like a totally groovy new thing. I think what did it was the fact that
the daikon radish came already sliced into perfect round sheets, and
packaged. At first, I thought it was a gyoza (pot sticker) wrapper, but when
I saw that it was radish, I was pleasantly surprised. So, today we have a
couple of unwitting guest bloggers,  Hyoungwoo & Silhui
from Seol, Korea, and their super simple, daikon veggie rolls. I see these
being very versatile, stuffed with shrimp, seared tofu, smoked mushrooms, all
sorts of things. This recipe is just a basic veggie roll, just like the ones
that were prepared in my home the other day. The pickled radish has sugar, so
if you want to avoid that, make your own and use a healthier substitute for
the sugar, like stevia, or jaggery sugar. Besides that though, this is a great
way to get some raw, nutrient density into your body in a very simple and
delicious way. Read More