Going Without Meat is Okay!

Here in Portland, we love our meat... but anyone who reads Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, or Grant Butler knows, you can have a terrifically healthy lifestyle, and a positive impact on our world by reducing the amount of meat you eat.

Lots of bloggers have been promoting Meatless Monday or Meat-Free Friday for a while now.  One of our favorite meat subs are lentils, which are a cheap and versatile protein source. On nights when you are pressed for time, just throw some lentils in a pot, along with a bunch of onion and garlic, and about twice as much broth as lentils... then just let the whole thing simmer for about 15 minutes. Add some aromatic spices, steam some veggies, heat up some rice, and you've got a tasty dinner on the table in less than 20 minutes! 


Most people limit lentils to lentil soup, but these legumes have a lengthy list of uses. Here are some other things to consider doing with them...

- Mix cooked lentils into meatballs, meatloaf or burgers. Add a cup of lentils and a cup of water when browning ground beef or turkey.
- Add pureed lentils to chili, soups or stews to thicken.
- Toss cooled French or green lentils with vinaigrette and some chopped peppers and onions for a quick salad. Or add lentils to your favorite pasta salad.
- S ubstitute lentils for half or all the ground beef in your favorite pasta dish. In meat sauce, lasagna or stuffed shells, the texture is the indistinguishable.

A half-cup of lentils have 115 calories, less than half a gram of fat, and 366 mg potassium. They contain 9 g each of protein and fiber (about a third of your recommended amount of fiber), and 45% of your Daily Value of folic acid. Lentils are frequently included on lists of the world's healthiest foods.

Check out this great recipe in the Oregonian's Mix Magazine for Lentil Stew with Cumin & Pomegranate Molasses.

Kenny & Zuke's Owner on Being Diabetic

If you have not yet encountered his weekly column, Ken Gordon, who we Portlanders know as Kenny (of Kenny & Zukes), has been writing about his diabetes and the healthy choices he has been making as a result.  What started as a short series has since become a monthly column filled with insightful lessons on how a smart diet and healthy diet can fit in with anyone's life... including the owner of a pastrami-centric (read calorie-centric) restaurant.

Today's column is particularly interesting and offers some advice that I simply love: Stop Eating Processed Stuff! Here's an excerpt: "The first thing I did when I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome was to stop eating refined carbohydrates -- white flour, white rice, white pasta, etc. -- and sugar-sweet drinks (including fruit juice), cake and cookies and the rest. As in right away and completely. No large orange juice in the morning, no root beer with lunch. No sugary desserts, or rice -- other than a small portion of the brown variety -- with my Kung Pao chicken. And though I wasn't consuming a whole lot before, no fast foods or convenience foods (you know, in packages with more than about six ingredients). One of the best things you can do to improve your diet immediately." 

One of the reasons that Dine In 2Nite exists is to help people who really crave those processed foods by providing a healthier version made with REAL FOOD, from scratch.  So the next time you think about eating convenience foods, fast foods, or frozen meals, think about giving us a call instead.

Spices Are Both Flavorful & Healthy

Spices provide an easy and tasty way to punch up your food's nutritional values and flavor profiles.
Here are five seasonings we love using at Dine In 2Nite:

Curcumin (found in turmeric)
Ginger
Garlic
Cayenne pepper
Onions

These taste enhancers are especially helpful in protecting your heart and blood pressure, as well as your overall health.

Curcumin

You may not have heard of curcumin before, but you probably have heard of turmeric, the spice that is best known as an ingredient in Indian curry and yellow mustard. Turmeric has been my number one cardiovascular spice for years, and its yellow color comes from curcumin—a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compound that's been found to combat tumors and reduce the excess platelet aggregation that occurs in sticky, clot-forming blood. Curcumin also helps keep NF-kappa B, a protein complex involved in the body's inflammatory reactions, in check. Elevated NF-kappa B production has been linked to cancer as well as inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

Curcumin has an impressive list of positive research findings. In fact, two intriguing animal studies from the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggest that curcumin may offer a good deal more cardiovascular protection than previously thought. In one study, researchers at the University of Toronto found that curcumin blocks a wide range of biochemical reactions involved in cardiac hypertrophy (enlargement of the heart chambers), inflammation, and fibrosis. These are undesirable developments associated with heart failure. In another study, investigators at Japan's Kyoto Medical Center found that curcumin helps support healthy blood pressure in addition to preventing cardiac hypertrophy. They concluded that curcumin "may provide a novel therapeutic strategy for heart failure in humans."

Ginger

Ginger is sometimes called the smart man's aspirin. It's a potent blood thinner and anti-inflammatory agent, and it's the main reason I drink ginger tea on a regular basis.

Ginger is also a handy natural anti-emetic agent, which means it's good for dealing with nausea. I used to always bring it along when my kids were younger and we went fishing out on the ocean, as it's great for motion sickness. I'd just cut up pieces of fresh ginger root and boil them. The boys would drink down the brew and keep seasickness at bay.

Clinically, ginger is a great aide for treating the nausea that accompanies certain types of heart attacks—usually those involving the back wall of the left ventricle (the part of the heart that is fed by the right coronary artery). During a heart attack, the weakened heart struggles to maintain blood pressure. Stress hormones spike, and patients experience dread, anxiety, and fear—all of which stirs up severe nausea in about half the cases.  Some doctors routinely prescribe ginger tea when trying to treat nausea. Patients who are administered codeine or morphine can also develop nausea. Ginger tea generally helps in those cases as well.

Garlic

Like ginger, garlic is an excellent natural blood thinner. Garlic is also a fabulous anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial agent with a long history in folk medicine. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Hippocrates recommended garlic for infections, wounds, cancer, leprosy, and digestive disorders. During World Wars I and II, Russian army physicians frequently used garlic to control infection, pus, and gastrointestinal disorders. The success they had gave rise to garlic's nickname as “Russian Penicillin.”
Garlic is powerful medicine indeed. It is also considered useful (either by eating a lot of it or taking 1,000 mg a day) to fight Lyme disease. 

This seasoning also has a favorable effect on blood pressure. A recent Australian review of 11 studies in which hypertensive patients were randomly given garlic or placebo found that garlic can lower blood pressure as effectively as some drugs. On average, the mega-analysis turned up blood pressure reductions of 8.4 systolic points, and 7.3 diastolic points. The higher a patient's blood pressure was at the beginning, the more it was lowered by taking garlic. Reducing blood pressure on this scale can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and heart disease-related death. Dosages taken by the subjects in the studies ranged from 600 to 900 mg over a period of three to six months.
Garlic is also a great vehicle for adding sulfur to the diet, an important and largely ignored mineral. Sulfur provides an essential raw material for muscle and connective tissue, enzymes that conduct countless chemical reactions, and compounds that protect us against toxicity and harmful oxidative stress.

Cayenne Pepper

Either as a powder or in its whole form, cayenne pepper is widely used to sharpen the taste of dishes (such as in Szechuan cuisine). However, it has also long been used as an herbal medication.
It can be ingested for relief from stomach aches and gas, and cayenne powder can be mixed with water and then gargled to combat sore throats. It can also be rubbed on the skin for temporary relief of arthritic pain or muscle aches.

The key compound in cayenne pepper is a pungent substance called capsaicin, which is the main active ingredient in a number of over-the-counter "hot creams" for joint and muscle pain. Capsaicin creates the sensation of heat through a thermogenic effect that raises body temperature and boosts circulation in the area where it's applied. Taken orally, it may help to burn calories and contribute to weight loss.
Over the years, patients have told me that capsaicin, available as a supplement, has helped alleviate angina and improve heart failure. I don't know the precise reason why, but I suspect it has vasodilating properties, which explains why it increases circulation (and temperature) wherever it's applied. It's also an antioxidant that is known to reduce lipid oxidation and decrease platelet stickiness.

Cayenne is a guaranteed winner to add to any recipe that needs a spicy pick-me-up. Just don't overdo it. Too much cayenne may be harmful to DNA.

Onions

Because they're in the same family as garlic, it's no surprise that onions have similar effects. They promote the dissolving of blood clots and also help normalize blood pressure. They're packed with sulfur and quercetin, two important flavonoid compounds.  The researchers suggested that quercetin may be worthwhile for people whose blood pressure is influenced by their salt intake.
Like cayenne, onions also have a thermogenic effect. And, while there aren't any studies to support it, that thermogenic effect may be why some patients have told me that eating a lot of salads with raw onions have helped them lose weight.

Cooking and Dining for Singles Can be Expensive

Living alone may have its benefits for some, but there are a lot of expenses that make it possible for a single person to spend around $350,000 more in their lifetime than if they were part of a couple or family.  While much of those expenses may be for big ticket items like housing & transportation, food costs can really add up too.

It's not that they are eating different amounts because they are single, but that the cost for smaller packages or portions is typically a much higher per unit cost.  There's no volume discount when it comes to eating for one.  Discount price club shopping rarely makes sense, and, to add insult to injury, the amount of time it takes to cook one meal or two is pretty much the same - so the "labor" or "time" cost is higher too.

That's what makes the idea of our Home Meal Replacement industry appealing to so many single diners.  There is a convenience factor as well as a reduction in waste - both on the financial and food sides.  Having meals delivered to their home, either in bulk for reheating, or via other efficient delivery systems that keep costs down, can be a fulfilling way take care of one self.

Another factor in single dining tends to be effectively skimping on quality and healthy food (which tends to cost more in most areas) and replacing it with cheaper, processed food, which rarely caries the same nutritional value or contains excess levels of sodium and lots of stabilizers and artificial stuff.  And we're not even talking about fast food or big chain restaurant food.

All of this makes our role as a personal chef dinner delivery service much easier when dealing with the enlightened, savvy single diner.

Ready Made Meals

I trust you've got an equivalent passion for connoisseur meals that I do. ready meals square measure a booming business because of the time-saving convenience they provide shoppers. Even throughout the our current/recent recession, restaurants did not experience a proportional slow-down as compared with the rest of the economy.

Yes, I might think about eating at a eating place as having a ready meal. However, ready meals show up all around America. Obviously, folks will notice frozen dinners within the food market, but several leading markets are adding slushy dinner solutions to their stores.

Why?

One recent study found that over 75% of operating professionals do not have a good handle on what they're getting to have for dinner as late as 4 p.m. that day.

If you've got ever stopped by the supermarket after work, you're seemingly likely to find long lines at the checkout proving this time. It appears we have less time and want to cook a meal, abundant less a healthy or nutritionally balanced meal.

The fast-food trade did not keep step with the eating place trade when it involves maintaining revenue throughout the recession.

Keeping Diabetes At Bay

At a routine doctor's visit 2 years agone, Atlanta healer Shane Blasko, now 37, got the news that some 1.9 million other U.S. adults hear once a year. "I was wasted," she said. "I was too embarrassed to tell anyone initially." Like most diabetes sufferers, Blasko was considerably overweight—at 5-foot-4, she weighed 260 pounds. Her doctor prescribed drugs to help management her glucose, and said, virtually flippantly, "You simply need to lose some weight." The doctor advised a class at an area hospital, but Blasko felt she required a lot of facilitate. "I'd been trying to turn on my own without obtaining anyplace."

After some false starts, she found Atlanta Endocrine Associates—part of Atlanta Center for medical specialty, Diabetes, Metabolism, and Nutrition. There, medical director Dr. Scott Isaacs, Associate in Nursing specialist and fleshiness specialist, offers Associate in Nursing intensive weight-loss program designed for folks with weight-related health problems, such as diabetes. In April 2010, Blasko started on the decision Free plan. She received low-calorie entrees and shakes, met weekly with nurses who helped her manage her medical problems and with nutritionists who schooled her a way to place together healthy meals, and she attended regular support groups.

The plan worked, big-time. By Feb, Blasko had lost 50 pounds. She no longer required meds to stabilize her glucose, or the drug she'd been on for top blood pressure; both were at traditional levels. "At my last checkup, my doctor told Pine Tree State I basically wasn't diabetic any longer," marveled Blasko, currently 100 pounds lighter than when she started. "I did not apprehend that was potential."
The end of diabetes?

You scan that right: Blasko basically reversed her diabetes. And, the general public with type a pair of diabetes—which afflicts 1 out of each ten ladies in the U.S.—could do the same, in line with Dr. Osama Hamdy, medical director of the fleshiness Clinical Program at the Joslin diabetes Center in Beantown. "We've been treating diabetes for forty years by adding a lot of and a lot of medications, with no huge improvements," Hamdy aforesaid. "But if you act early, keep the load off, and maintain a healthy fashion, you can place this disease in remission forever."

It's no secret that excess weight and diabetes go hand in hand, attributable to the powerful impact that pounds wear glucose. there is even a term for this unhealthy alliance: "diabesity." nonetheless the integrated focus on diabetes management and weight management found at centers like Isaacs's and Hamdy's is surprisingly rare.

"It's frustrating, Isaacs aforesaid. "Diabetes guidelines all say start with diet and exercise, but several treatment programs do not. Meanwhile, normal weight-loss programs ar utterly centered on diet and exercise, and no accommodations ar created for dynamic  medical conditions." when a diabetic loses weight, for example, her medication wants could change.

The cost of a cure

So why isn't medically supervised weight loss a key part of each diabetes program? For one factor, shedding pounds is hard; Isaacs aforesaid that many diabetes experts focus on meds because they do not see a lot of semipermanent success with weight management. Another major reason is value. "Insurance usually won't cover this sort of care, and lots of hospitals do not have the resources to supply it," Hamdy aforesaid.

Certainly, the value of treatment varies. Isaacs's program starts at $25 per week for classes, plus $80 to $100 weekly for food. The Joslin Center offers a 12-week program known as Why WAIT, that options a diet and exercise plan and prices $5,000. (YOU-Turn is a seven-day version followed by six months of weekly phone work and support.) typically these services ar covered by insurance, but that depends on the patient and her plan. Either way, the approach is definitely worth the cash, Hamdy said. "The prices of this condition ar huge. With the amount of individuals with diabetes approaching 20 million in the U.S., we'd save most if similar programs were enforced nationwide."

For former diabetics like Blasko, the payoff is obvious: "If not a penny of the program were covered, i might still say it was worthwhile. I most likely would have paid a lot of."