Why are we doing this – we ‘healthy living’ folk? Why don’t we just eat whatever the *!@# we want?
I think we have different reasons. Some people want to lose weight. Others want to have a lot of energy. Some want to be in peak athletic shape, to participate in their favorite sport. Still others want to live a long, radiant life.
Today I visited the page of one of my favorite DJs from NYC – the great John Bell, who was unfortunately laid off from a radio show he helped to make great. John Bell has taken to posting on this page since then, and I enjoy checking his posts a few times a week. Today, I was surprised to see that none of the usual updates were there – instead John Bell had a dedication post. Today is the day when TV works for good, as advertised in this post – when TV people group together to help fight the battle against cancer.
My father passed away from cancer, when I was still in high school. Cancer doesn’t just strike elderly people, as I’m sure you’ve seen. I’m sure many or most of you reading this know someone that was affected by cancer who was middle-aged.
Study after study has pointed to the fact that a healthy diet can help people to live longer, healthier lives. I don’t really need any more studies to convince me to avoid chemicals, preservatives, and pesticides in food. It makes sense. It’s not really that difficult to realize that things you ingest will have a drastic effect on your well-being.
Of course, food is only one piece in the puzzle. If you eat healthy foods, but are too stressed to properly digest your food – getting digestive disturbances due to mental distress, the healthy foods can’t work their full magic. Nothing can work its full magic when its under stress. So much stress is pointless, too – feelings of tension over fleeting things that won’t amount to anything. When that stress builds and turns into a stress mountain, it’s dangerous. It’s not worth it.
Anyway – on a different subject…
For dinner tonight, I tried one of the Ezekial Sprouted Tortillas for the first time. I assembled some black bean salad to go inside the tortilla, with beans that had been soaking along with kombu the whole day in the refrigerator. Kombu is supposed to improve the digestibility of beans, along with adding some great nutrients. After I cooked the beans, I added some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, cilantro and yellow tomato – which together had a nice zing. To add some texture and flavor inside of the tortilla, I crumbled some feta cheese. On the side was a fresh spinach salad with Caesar dressing.
Dessert was blog-inspired: Vegan Spiced Pumpkin Pie Glo Bites. I made a few alterations, which included 1) not using a muffin pan, 2) using spelt flour for the filling, 3) using regular milk instead of almond, 4) using ‘pumpkin pie spice’ in lieu of the cinnamon and nutmeg, 5) not using vanilla, 6) using honey instead of sugar in the filling. Basically – I didn’t have some of the ingredients, so I figured I could substitute.
These were super tasty. Angela always has such great recipes. And even better – the recipes on her blog are presented in a context of truly caring about and nurturing oneself. They’re about taking the time to use the best kind of ingredients to truly help your body + mind thrive.
Long post I have here. I guess that for me, Fridays are about processing ideas.
I hope that you have a great weekend and – enjoy each moment!
Crisp and Verdant 