The challenge continues.

As I open up the blog and check my last entry, I notice that I was then doing 140 burpees a day. Today I have 240 burpees to do. 240 burpees seemed impossible in the past, absolutely impossible. The thought of doing that many push ups and jumps every day, increasing one a day for a whole year, up to 365, seemed absurd. But it is not. The secret is to break it down.

The same holds true for food. The secret to eating well is merely breaking it down to many tiny tasks, instead of one overwhelming chunk of time that no one, including me at the moment, seems to have, or even want to have. I don't blame anyone. Why spend hours toiling in the kitchen when one can be outside enjoying the end of summer? Or studying, which is more like my own reality right now. 

But eating well is essential to keeping good health, and to not gain weight, which is another reality I face as a 42-year-old woman. There is no way around it. It does not matter how much I may exercise, if I don't eat well I will get sick, and/or gain weight, and break out into pimples on top of it. I say it, because I have experienced it. When I don't eat well, my face becomes oily, and I break out. Simple. I start to eat better, my face becomes clearer/cleaner, no pimples. And I fit into my pants. Easy to maintain, hard to fix. 

So how do I break down food? Cook in the morning. In the evening I am too tired to deal with anything except for what is absolutely necessary, which means the exam of the day that I am freaking about. Use the mornings! While I make coffee, I make brown rice. Or cook beans... or roast beets, eggplants, sweet potatoes, squash, cauliflower, garlic, onions... any hardy vegetable that I can coat with olive oil and sea salt, I will roast. I roast in my cast iron pan, so that way I don't have to worry about clean up and scrubbing. Just wipe it down with a paper towel when done cooking- courtesy tip from a climber who camps and cooks in his camper. And yes HE cooks. Don't have to be a woman to cook, or a housewife to cook- anyone can cook. A lot of it has to do with just getting into a habit, so that there is no thinking involved. Just doing...

What about all the chopping? The chopping... I do it while I heat up the food that I precooked in the morning. It takes about 5 to 15 minutes to heat up anything, so I use that time to chop: cabbage, red onions, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, parsley, cilantro, celery, tomatoes, green onions, peppers... any vegetable that can be eaten fresh. Or sautéed... kale, collards, chard, spinach, chinese cabbage, onions, mustard greens, turnip greens... 

I usually chop a little extra, so that I have some left over for the next day- call it a bonus. Have enough containers, even if they are yogurt containers, to keep the left overs. Good storage is important for eating well. Because there is always something in the fridge or freezer waiting for me at the end of the day... even if I am completely wiped out from a long school day, and don't feel like doing any extra work other than opening a beer. And studying some more, of course. 

But why go through all that trouble anyway? Cooking , chopping , storing... because I want to feel good everyday, because I want to have energy everyday. Because I want to stay lean and look good, and because I don't like to get sick. Simple. 

It is so easy, especially here in the south, to go and buy fried chicken, fried food, barbecue, go to Chick-fil-A... people: Chick-fil-A is JUNK FOOD!!!! eat chips, a cold cut sandwich, a snack, a bar... but remember, our bodies don't magically make vitamins. We need to eat them to have them. And we need to eat them in real food, not vitamin complexes that we buy at the store. That is processed food at its best. Eat food. Eat clean- less animal food, more grains, vegetables, beans, fruit, nuts, seeds. 

You will thank yourself years from now, when you are still active and well, instead of... insert your own future dream image of yourself, and how you want to look and live when you are older... and live to fulfill that dream.

2013 Food Challenge: Black Beans

Beans????

Why beans??? Isn't that super-hard to make??? Can't I just open a can???

If you are reading this post, you are probably trying to figure out how to eat better, and how to cook. So then why settle for mediocre with a can, when you can achieve greatness from scratch?

Canned beans have no flavor, and are usually too hard and watery. They are old (no nutrients), and most contain the BPA that leaches from the can lining. More on BPA and cans in this post: http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2010/03/just-say-no-to-cans.html

To get the most nutrients out of your beans, make them fresh, from scratch. Go to the supermarket, or natural food store, and look for the organic beans in bins (bulk) when possible. When you buy in bulk, the price for organic beans is minimally higher than that of regular beans. And when you choose organic, you choose beans that are free of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and radiation. Those 3 facts alone will make you not even blink about your couple extra dollars.

Why black beans? Because they are so practical. Once you have a pot of beans at hand, you can serve them with rice, or put them on top of a corn or wheat tortilla with melted cheese and /or chicken, meat, pork, fish... make burritos, tacos, eat them with fried eggs, with corn bread, with tomatoes, cabbage, any kind of greens, throw them on top of tortilla chips and make nachos, use them for soup... you can eat beans in a different way each day of the week. And if you finally are completely sick of them, you can toss them in the freezer, as they freeze beautifully. Finally, beans are a great source of iron- important for us women who tend to become anemic during pregnancy, or stressful times in life. I have found them to be an effective way to obtain iron without having to resort to pills, an excessive amount of meat, or bags and bags of spinach.

Think of beans just as brown rice with a little added soaking time, and you are set to cook them. This is a post that I made for a dear friend who wanted to learn how to make beans from scratch, and has since mastered the technique:  http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2012/04/beans.html.

2013 Food Challenge: Brown Rice

Yes, forget about white rice. No sugar-coating here, let's jump straight into brown rice. After all, why waste your own hard-earned money, or worse yet, your friend's or parent's money, on a food that has no nutrients, fiber or essential oils? Why eat fluff, and then have to take yet another trip to the store just to buy those incredibly expensive essential oils, vitamin pills and fiber? Think about it for a minute... it's nutty isn't it? Why not get all of it from the food in the first place, and in the balanced dosage that only nature knows how to make.

Here are two articles that give us a good idea of how much brown rice has... http://www.organicauthority.com/mojo-foods/brown-rice-vs-white-rice.html

and does... http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20100614/brown-rice-vs-white-rice-which-is-better

Brown rice was one of my very first posts when I started this blog. Here is a detailed description on how to make it: http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2010/03/how-to-make-brown-rice.html

If you decide to use a rice cooker, here is some very important info to consider when acquiring one, used or new:
http://www.freshfoodunderground.com/2010/09/not-all-rice-cookers-are-created-equal.html

If you are still doubtful about the taste of brown rice, add butter and salt to it when you cook it. Or olive oil and salt... I do it, and I love it. I also use Basmati Brown Rice, because I love its scent. For those that are concerned about the ''heaviness'' of brown rice... let it soak for an hour or longer (up to 12 hours) before cooking it (do not discard the soaking water, as it has all the nutrients in it). Soaking softens the rice, and makes it more digestible.

Please let me know if you have any questions and/or suggestions!