Bring more meaning to your chocolate

Anyone can buy a box of chocolate for their valentine, but that's overkill (for me, that would be overindulge). If not giving chocolate says 'Valentine dearest, you need to lose weight', here's a suggestion.

Give less chocolate but give chocolate with more meaning. And yes, this is going to take a lot of explaining to your true love so don't make chocolate your only Valentines gift. You have three choices.

1. I honestly don't believe the entire premise for Intentional Chocolate™ but their hearts are in the right place and it can open up communication channels for some great discussions with your loved one. The Chocolate maker donates 50 percent of net profits to organizations committed to the benefit of humankind. For the couple of weeks leading up to Valentines' Day, they gave 100 percent of profits to Haitian relief. These are nice people.
   
   According to their website, the driving belief behind the firm is that home cooked meals made with love and care (good intentions) are satisfying and healing. The firm infuses their chocolate with good intentions. Intentional Chocolate is 'intention-enhanced food' that delivers nourishment for both body and spirit.
   
   "The good intentions are infused into the chocolate from advanced mediators -- some who have trained with the Dalai Lama -- and is delivered with love to those who eat it."
   
   Intentional Chocolate says they are 'reintroducing the ancient concept of intentional eating to refocus our attention on the important relationship we have to food' which if the food industry would embrace this precept it would bring greater health and quality of life to all beings.
   
2. Taza Chocolate makes chocolate in a socially conscious and old fashioned - as in Mayan, who kicked off the whole chocolate craze - way. With minimal processing and a traditional method of stone grinding the beans, Taza Chocolate is surprisingly pleasing with a gritty texture. The ingredients are sourced directly from small farmers that are compensated fairly for their work. Each bar is dairy-,gluten- and soy-fee for any vegan on your Valentines' list.
   
3. If your valentine is an environmentalist, try Endangered Species Chocolate which is 100% ethically traded. The firm buys cacao from small family-owned properties, helping sustain the habitats and communities in which they exist. The chocolate and its wrappers increase awareness of species currently listed as threatened or endangered on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered Species List. 10 percent of this company's profits go to organizations that support cacao farming communities.

Supplements: insurance with a high deductible?

Some information and quotes are from an article in the Washington Post 2/9/10 by Melissa Bell

It's amazing what we'll pop into our mouths for the sake of health: fish oil, CoQ10 (whatever that is), folic acid and even charcoal. Taking a Flintstones multivitamin doesn't seem to be enough.

Some nutritionists and doctors say you shouldn't be taking supplements because there is no proof that they work.

Supplements try to reduce food to a single component, a nutrient or an anti-oxidant. No study or test has proven what exactly makes food, such as fruits and vegetables, so healthy. It may not be one thing; it may be the combination.

Personally, I see dietary supplements as insurance with a high deductible. I try to get the nutrients that I need from the food that I eat. However, I've had two bouts of melanoma, so I don't go in the sun without hat, long sleeves, pants and sunblock. I take vitamin D and yes I take calcium. Although the latter, I think I'm overdosing.

Certain medical conditions, such as diabetes, supplements are highly recommended. Benjamin Caballero, a professor at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said he does not think any "healthy person with a healthy diet should take dietary supplements, with a few exceptions: pregnant women; children under the age of 6 months who are being breast-fed (breast milk is not rich in vitamins A,C and D; and people with gastrointestinal problems."

As a whole, says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at NY University, Americans are not vitamin-deficient: these (supplements) are for the worried well."

Nutritionists and doctors emphasize that people concerned about their diet should vary their food, not their food supplements.

Nutrient recommended foods:

• Omega-3s: salmon, tilapia, tofu
• Calcium: milk, broccoli
• Potassium: bananas, shellfish, cucumbers
• Magnesium: red meat, citrus, apples
• Vitamin D: eggs
• Vitamin B-12: yogurt, scallops
• Folic acid: spinach, liver, grapefruit
• Antioxidants: cinnamon, pecans, cranberries
  

Make your refrigerator work harder for you

1. Is your refrigerator too warm? Set your fridge at 39 degrees to keep foods safe, according to Angela Fraser, associate professor at Clemson University. Warmer temps encourage faster spoilage. Time for a refrigerator thermometer.

2. Buy just what you need. If what's been wrapped on plastic little trays by the supermarket is too much, ask the person behind the meat/fish/deli counter to package what and only what you need.

Another key is to find a grocery store that sells 'bulk', you scoop out just what you need. You can buy nuts, cereals, candies, coffees and many more dry goods in bulk. Whole Foods has a great bulk section in their stores.

1. 3. Store leftovers and odds'n ends in clear plastic containers stored upside down (if the top isn't clear) in the front of the fridge, making contents easier to see and less easy to forget.

4. Reorganize the fridge. An orderly fridge doesn't have forgotten ingredients pushed to the back.
Shown in photo - my fridge with some great plastic organizers with handles. I wish all 3 were clear but the white holds my breakfast fruit and I don't need to see all the berries. I know they're there (I just shopped, that's why there's some berries out of the container). The container on the 2nd shelf holds my favorite salad ingredients while the 3rd container holds the vegetables I use for stir fry (a favorite that's easy to fix). These containers can be found at the Container Store.

5. Know label 'dates' "Sell-by" or "use-by" dates don't always mean "toss-by." The sell-by date is the last recommended day you should buy a product, but you can eat it several days to a week after. "Use-by" is the date through which the item will be top-quality. However, if stored properly, most foods stay fresh several days longer than the use-by date, even meat. Don't throw out good food, check out a handy food storage guide.

6. Clean it out once a week. Pick a day and stick to it, because the night before that day becomes...

7. 'Use up' meal -because Friday night leftovers sound horrendous. Bring all leftovers out and serve buffet style. Serve one extra special item that's not a leftover that your family will look forward to avoiding any negative feeling about it being 'Use up' night. For my family, it's Bisquick biscuits, yes those shapeless, hard as a brick, easy to make recipe right off the back of the box. It's the one time a week that I make these biscuits and the only time butter is placed on the dinner table.

New veggie options in the freezer

New packaging innovations for veggies may be worth a try. Steam-in-bag veggies hit the supermarket several years ago but new packaging technology has progressed allowing more gourmet vegetable dishes.

Vegetable steam-in-bags puff up under the pressure of steam created within the packaging. Veggies, seasonings and any sauces steam directly in the microwave without transferring to a cooking dish. Popular because they taste like side dishes you'd get in restaurants, they're also easy to fix.

Pre-seasoned vegetables are available from Birds Eye and Green Giant. Birds Eye's offerings add a cheese sauce to their broccoli/carrots/cauliflower combination and a butter sauce to their green beans. Way to knock out the pluses of eating your veggies.

Green Giant has a line of Health Blends designed to meet certain health goals. For example, "Digestive Health" blend includes carrots, navy beans and spinach in a garlic herb sauce and is high in fiber promoting a healthy digestive system.

More interestingly, Green Giant's Just for One single-serve frozen vegetables are endorsed by Weight Watchers touting a 0 point Broccoli and Cheese Sauce (40 calories) that comes in its own steam tray. Single servings are a way for a dieter to eat a vegetable dish that their family wouldn't.

Carrie Taylor, registered dietitian for Big Y's supermarkets says, "steamable veggies are an easy way to make a meal healthier." She's not a big fan of seasoned blends with even the lightly sauced having high salt, sugar and fat content. "I recommend that fruits and vegetables should stand on their own, without added sauces. If sauce is preferred, it's better for people to add the sauce themselves."

Excerpts from an article in Supermarket News 2/1/10 by Carol Angrisani

Get emotional over fruits

In the dreary months of winter, use produce and their bright colors and vibrant tastes to remind you that spring is around the corner. You can do, it the IFICF survey indicates that we do make emotional connections with what we eat. Why not find some positive emotional connections with food that's good for you.

Picking mulberries off a tree growing up always brings great memories of my sisters and I eating so many berries that our faces would be blue.

Living in Southern Florida, my beloved teenage church group would go strawberry picking on Saturday to sell on Sunday to raise funds for trips and other gatherings.

Eating Caribbean Red papayas to me will always bring that Caribbean cruise back front and center in my mind.

A crisp, tart apple floods my mind with autumn memories. Somehow I don't get that biting into an apple, but do when I slice a cold one.

Mangos, probably half of my lifetime ones were eaten under the tree with the warm and humind Miami breezes rifling through the leaves above.

What are your memories?

*International Food Information Council Foundation (IFICF)

Reading as a healthy living activity

Some interesting findings in the 2009 Food & Health Survey.* 42% of all consumers are bewildered by many of today's health messages. 67% are interested in reading or hearing about the relationship between food and health, but more importantly most are interested in hearing what to eat versus what not to eat!

Who knew reading this blog would be so good for your health.

*International Food Information Council Foundation (IFICF)

Party time

When your office has a lunch, does it look like this? Knowing I watch what I eat, one of the lunchtime revellers pointed out to me that one of the pizzas was vegetable. I had to look close to recognize the black, green and red chunks as olives, green peppers and tomatoes.

If pizza served with a side of greasy potato chips is your office's idea of a great lunch, don't go. It's time for an off-premise meeting.