Healthy Life Lessons

I have written many a post about how important I think it is to use your freezer to maintain a healthy diet and to reduce food waste. I don't mean buying processed frozen foods. I mean making food in big batches and freezing, freezing leftovers, etc. The one type of frozen food I buy often is frozen fruit. I buy a few types of frozen veggies too (green beans, peas, Brussels sprouts, etc.) but I buy a ton of frozen fruit. I use it for compotes, salads, and baking, and Adam and the girls use it for smoothies and snacking. It is particularly useful in the summer when a lot of the fruit we eat is not in season, and since frozen fruit (and veggies) is always picked fresh and ripe, its very nutritious (the same is not true for canned produce). So when  Nature's Touch  offered to send me samples of their products, I immediately jumped at the chance. They sent 2 of their newest products, Grapes-To-Go! and Strawberry-Rhubarb Harvest The grapes come as 5 individua...

A few years ago I reviewed a book, Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights? written by a high school classmate of Adam, physiologist and journalist, Alex Hutchinson . I very much liked that book so was eager to read his latest one, Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. Adam purchased it and read it first and after raving about how well it is written, gave it to me to read. This book is all about the factors that affect human physical performance. If you are an endurance athlete of any kind, either professionally or even just recreationally, than you must read this book. Even if you are not, in fact, even if you do no physical activity at all and the closest you get to sports is watching them on TV with beer in hand, you will still enjoy this book. That is what I liked best about Endure: Alex manages to make the science interesting and proves himself as a story teller. He weaves in engaging tales about arctic explorers from a century ago, elite ...

I have reviewed a number of Seabuck Wonders products over the past few years and am generally very impressed with them. This one is no exception. Ultimate Hair, Skin & Nails is a combination of Omega-7 from organic sea buckthorn berry oil and sea buckthorn seed oil plus biotin and vitamin E. As someone with weak fingernails that frequently snag and tear, and hair that has never really recovered from having 2 children (less shiny, drier, cowlicks that never used to exist, and hair loss), I was eager to see if this supplement could make a difference. Omega-7 is something I have tried before in their other products but I have never taken biotin. Biotin naturally occurs in small amounts in bananas, eggs and milk. Biotin is an important component of enzymes in the body that break down fats, carbohydrates, and other substances in our body. You can't really test for low biotin levels, but symptoms of a deficiency include thinning of the hair, red scaly rash around the eye...

As ya'll probably know, diabetes is a big freakin' problem in North America. Some people develop Type I, which is an autoimmune disease, during childhood, but you can develop this in adulthood too though rare (I have 2 clients who did). Type II diabetes can be genetic but more often than not it is a lifestyle disease brought on by a poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. While some people will have to eventually go on medication in order to manage it, others may be able to get in under control, or even into remission with lifestyle changes. The American Diabetes Association recently published Tex Mex Diabetes Cooking , written by author Kelley Cleary Coffeen, PhD . The concept is excellent because North Americans, especially folks south of the border in the US, love their Tex Mex food! Traditionally, Tex Mex can mean huge portions of rice, flour tortillas, meats, with everything smothered in cheese, guac and sour cream. But really, this cuisine can be lighter and very nutr...