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“What are we going to do today to cause ourselves pain?” I”™ve been asked this question daily in the past week by a visiting family member who is firmly convinced of his need for daily, strenuous exercise. At this point I am going to just take a bath in epsom salts and survive today”™s challenge, whatever it is. He and I are fortunate that he has caught me in a season where I am willing to be his training partner in torture because frankly, I don”™t always feel so agreeable about exercise. I get tired, schedule stressed, and completely disinterested for whole blocks of time. How can I protect my motivation, and what can you and I do to get out of an apathetic slump if we”™re in one? It is my conviction that our good health depends on it.

CONVICTION
Nursing mothers will endure the inconvenience and discomfort of breast pumps because they are sure that what they do is the best thing for their child. A teenager looks longingly at his bed but keeps tapping away at the keyboard because he is convinced that good grades are his ticket to college. Noah kept building the ark for a hundred years despite public ridicule because he was convinced that what God had told him would happen. Conviction is a powerful motivator which will carry you where you need to go. Are you convinced that you need to exercise for your health? If not then that is the place to start.

REFRESH YOUR MEMORY
Chances are you already know how good it is for you, but just in case you need to refresh your memory, just google “benefits of exercise for health” to get yourself started, or read one of the articles I posted for you below.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/HQ01676
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwfit/benefits.html
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/fitness/articles/2010/06/30/0630healthexercise
http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/health/index.html

I”™m begging you to read at least two of these, and I promise you will be more motivated to put on your walking shoes today!

DO WHAT YOU LOVE
It has to be fun to you! Out in the open air or inside a polished health club, with friends or alone, music or silence, routine or spontaneous”¦what will your exercise look like? Pay attention to what you enjoy and use that to inspire exercise. I love company and being outside so I plan consistent walking, running and outdoor crossfit workouts with friends. Because things I like are a part of my exercise routine, I do it. You may love music and dancing”¦so sign up for dance classes at your local studio, gym or recreation department. You may love solitude and routine”¦schedule weekly walks or runs with your ipod. JUST MAKE SURE YOU LOVE something about WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Just like healthy eating, healthy activity is driven by the inspiration of conviction, and you get conviction after you are sure something is true. How do you know something is true? Find reliable sources and do your research. Put your efforts where your mouth is and don’t just say, “I need to eat better, or exercise more, or lose some weight”. Rather, fill your mind with the facts, and then use the strategy of incorporating things you naturally love into your exercise routine as the final push to get yourself going.

CONVICTION MADE IT HAPPEN
The other day I was out of town for 24 hours and picked up groceries and my son from football practice on my way back to the house. I dumped bags in the kitchen, left a child I really wanted to talk to, laced up my shoes and went for a 15 minute power walk right before the sun completely settled in the horizon. It may seem like such a small thing, and when you consider all of the casual ways we use 15 minutes you know it is, but sometimes you just have to seize the moment and do something, because something is better than nothing. It refreshed my mind, caused me to breath more deeply, loosened up some sore muscles, and made me better ready to really get some good exercise in on another day. And yes, dinner and that converstaion were only a few minutes later than they would have been and I still got my exercise! My conviction grounded in adequate knowledge about how daily exercise is good for me is what got me out the door!

I would love to hear your stories too, so take a moment to let me know how you have been inspired to make a change in how you approach exercise.

Cheering you on,

PS- I also have a wonderful vegetarian guest this week and you will see that reflected in the menus. We should talk sometime about how powerful the effect of someone else’s conviction on your own life when you spend enough time with them. For this week, find friends who like to exercise and you will find yourself doing it more too.

Here is a test to determine if you are a nutrition nut like me. Did you get excited last week when you saw that one cup of kale provides 1,327% of your recommended daily allowance for vitamin K? If you did , we will likely be out there taking mountain hikes together in our seventies, so I need your phone number.

I thought about that number 1,327 all week; couldn”™t get it off my mind. Maybe it”™s because I constantly look up numbers like that for different foods and I have never come across one even close to that. So what will my body do with all of that abundance of vitamin K ingested when I eat fresh kale?

To begin with, the first shot you ever got was probably vitamin K1 because it is given routinely to babies at birth to help clot their blood. K1 is found abundantly in dark green vegetables like kale, collard greens, spinach, and to a lesser degree in parsley, broccoli, asparagus, and lettuce. It”™s contribution to blood clotting is pretty widely known, but vitamin K is being called the “forgotten vitamin” because science has been slower to look into it”™s many other important contributions to our health and life.

For instance, K2 made by bacteria and found in fermented foods like cheese, Japanese “natto”, organ meats and egg yolks, has been found to keep calcium in the bones and out of the arteries. You see, vitamin K is needed to get calcium into the bones, and then it also helps to keep it there so that it doesn”™t drift back out. Calcium that is consumed but not kept in the bones can settle in the lining of the arteries to your heart, making them stiff. (1)

A study of 4800 elderly Dutch citizens showed that “persons with the highest dietary intake of K2 (primarily originating in low fat Dutch cheeses Gouda and Edam) had the least evidence of calcification of the aorta.” (2) Another study sited in the Journal of Nutrition 2004 concludes that their “findings suggest a protective effect of (K2) intake against coronary heart disease, which could be mediated by inhibition of arterial calcification.” (3) Great sources of K2 are butter and meat from GRASS FED cows, hard and soft cheeses, patte, and good sources are egg yolk, organ meats in (nitrite free) salami, chicken and beef. (4) Take note also that K is a fat soluble vitamin and is much more efficiently used when served with some source of fat from plants or animals.

Honestly I never knew what vitamin K was growing up and we certainly didn’t eat any kale, although thanks to mom we did eat plenty of cooked spinach. Now I understand a little more why the makers of the Popeye cartoon chose to make him love cans of cooked spinach! I’ve also learned to use the bean balance in order to buy organic meat and butter from cows fed with grass. I hope you will join me in my quest to use K-rich cooking ingredients because I’m going to need some healthy walking buddies in the golden years.

I’ve made a way for you to include/hide kale or another dark green in every entree this week. For Beautiful Fruit Green Salad simply replace some of your lighter salad greens with some kale and marinate it in the dressing for 20 min. before adding all the rest. One Dish Tamale Pie hides an entire bunch and Spontaneous Black Bean Burritos have a place for any shredded green, so use all or part of a marinated (any dressing or oil and vinegar) dark green there.

Let me know how you liked the recipes! (You can respond right on the recipe at this site, or comment on the blog http://otlane.blogspot.com/ )

(1) http://www.naturalnews.com/031013_vitamin_K2_health.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11684396
(2) & (4) http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james59.html
(3) http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/11/3100.long

Extra Reading : http://www.westonaprice.org/fat-soluble-activators/on-the-trail-of-the-elusive-x-factor-a-sixty-two-year-old-mystery-finally-solved#foods

http://www.springboard4health.com/notebook/v_k2.html

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

(If you want to see my altered Walt Whitman ode first, it’s at the end.)

Let me tell you something easy to do, and then something hard to do. It”™s easy to go a whole week without buying or cooking a bundle of kale, collard, greens or spinach. The difficult thing to do is getting motivated to get a cutting board out to prepare leafy greens to eat. So why should we bother? You might be thinking “They”™re good for us”, “They have fiber”, or “They have lots of vitamins”. These answers are a good start, but I firmly believe that better understanding creates better motivation, so let”™s talk greens.

Dark green leafy vegetables (DGLV) are dark green like the color green on a dollar bill. Though similar, no two have the exact same nutritional resume, so let me just tell you about the kale served up in this week”™s Beef, Bean and Kale Sauce over Quinoa.

One cup of kale provides 1327% of your recommended daily allowance for vitamin K, 192% for vitamin A, and 88.8% for vitamin C. Following these amazing numbers are smaller but significant amounts of 17 other vitamins and minerals. (1)

Vitamin K is a commanding and absolutely essential player on the “building strong bones team” in your body. That makes 1,327% in one cup good news for babies, growing children, menopausal adults and the elderly.

Let”™s move on to it”™s role as a free radical fighter. “Forty five different antioxidant flavonoids are provided in measurable amounts by kale. This broad spectrum of flavonoid antioxidants is likely to be a key to kale’s cancer-preventive benefits and benefits that we expect to be documented for other health problems stemming from oxidative stress.” (2)

You will be 45, I am 45, and one day we will all hopefully be older than 45, so let that number come to your mind the next time you try to whiz by the DGLF section of the produce department. One simple serving of kale covers a sweeping spectrum of vitamins and minerals (20) as well as an astounding array of antioxidants (45). Maybe we should change the memory number to 65, and that is what you would call a nutrient dense food worth getting up off the couch for!

This week you will find kale in the meat sauce over quinoa, with another DGLF spinach in the Feta Chicken Pasta. . For even more ideas enter “kale” in the search box on the recipe archive page and you will find more Orange Tree Lane recipes which use this delicious and nutritious powerhouse.

There now, did I move you any closer to your cutting board?

PS- (Those beautiful DGLFs in the picture are presently growing in my friend’s garden and what inspired this ode to DGLFs and kale in particular.)

1) & (2) http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38

Another extremely thorough tribute to kale’s health benefits:

http://www.healthambition.com/benefits-kale-recipes/

Ok you wanted a real ode. Here you go…

ODE TO KALE

I celebrate dark green, leafy vegetables, and sing kale,
And what I know you now know,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

My taste buds, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I,now forty five years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not my health till death.

(Adapted very closely from Walt Whitman in “Song of Myself” http://library.thinkquest.org/3721/poems/forms/ode.html )

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

When I was young there were only two things I had ever encountered that I did not want to eat”¦eggplant and mushrooms. If you”™ve had both of these you might remember the spongy texture of both; euwh! (All of you Egglant Parmesan lovers out there will probably never understand, but I can assure you that my revulsion was very real.) A few light years forward into adulthood and this person who previously spent a sum total of hours picking mushrooms out of food is now posting two recipes that include a good number of mushrooms. What happened?

I haven”™t grown into eggplant yet, but the mushroom thing has definitely evolved in my life. I”™ve found that if they are cooked in something with lots of other flavors and textures, I barely even know they are there. It”™s much easier and more polite to just eat them too. I”™ve found them to be great fillers, and they are also well appreciated by my husband who has gone 20 years without seeing them in home cooked meals! To top it all off I was also pleasantly surprised when I discovered their significant vitamin and mineral content.

Whereas I used to see mushrooms as empty, squishy calories, the truth is they are good suppliers of a wide variety of nutrients such as selenium, niacin, potassium and folate. (1) In addition to all that, mushrooms, like the portobellos found in the Crock Pot Mexican Veggie Stuffed Peppers, are “one of the best sources of L-ergothioneine, a powerful antioxidant.”(2) As you may already know, antioxidants are specially designed proteins used to neutralize the damaging and aging effects of free radicals that occur naturally in our bodies, and even more so when we are exposed to toxins.

We”™ve also included a good dose of mushrooms in the Yummy Hamburgers, and though they lower the red meat count and raise that of the fungi, your eaters probably won’t even notice a difference!

Have you discovered the versatile mushroom?

http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=55
(1) http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/mighty-mushrooms.php
(2) http://www.livestrong.com/article/279766-portobello-mushroom-nutritional-value/#ixzz1SCdzQYAl

Vacation is not good for diets. It”™s good for relaxation, relationship building and memory making, but not diets. As a case in point, yesterday on a mini-motorcycle vacation with my husband I had the world”™s (my world) best cinnamon roll ever, followed by pizza for dinner and fresh apple topped French toast and homemade granola for breakfast. So are we going to sit here and cry about it? Absolutely not, because it”™s ok”¦it doesn”™t matter. The very nature of vacation is that it is special because it is the exception, not the rule. But if we”™re missing out on important nutrients, like fiber, all the time even outside of vacations, then there needs to be a big change, and fast!

I know you would rather hear more about my vacation than about fiber, but in the long run, an investment of your time and attention into how much you are consuming will pay big dividends for you later when you want to feel great and enjoy your own decadent vacation!

INSOLUBLE FIBER = BETTER ELIMINATION
Speaking of a fast change, fiber really does move things along in the digestive tract. Insoluble fiber, meaning it doesn”™t break down in water, adds no calories for us because it passes right through and sweeps toxins cleaned out by the liver along with it. This is the kind of fiber found in whole wheat and bran used to make this week”™s Bran Apple Muffins. If there is not enough of this kind of fiber in the diet then toxins have to dumped back into the bloodstream and re-filtered by the liver. That creates more work for your liver! Other good sources are cabbage (in the Spring Slaw), carrots, broccoli (in the Broccoli Cheddar Quiche) and fruit. (1) Most of the fiber is in the peel so peel as little as possible!

SOLUBLE FIBER = SUGAR DUMP
Soluble fiber soaks up water in the digestive track, which expands the food and makes you feel more full and eat less. The health benefit here is that eating less can help in losing weight, and losing weight is a powerful antidote to the ever increasing incidence of type 2 diabetes. This wonderful fiber also helps to protect our insulin sensitivity by slowing down the digestive process and the speed at which blood sugar is dumped into our bloodstream. This protects our ability to effectively produce and use insulin naturally and also protects from diabetes. (2) Beans are one of the best sources of this kind of fiber like in the black beans we used in the Chicken Tacos. Other great sources are fruit, oatmeal, root vegetables, and barley. (3)

TOXINS AND DIABETES
Toxic build-up and diabetes rob us of strength and vitality, and fiber wars against both. Look around you and find three objects close together. Now think about how two thirds of all Americans are eating about half of the recommended daily allowance for fiber. Are you one of them? Recommendations vary from 20-35 or more grams per day depending on your age and gender. Or you can try to eat 14 grams for every 1000 calories you eat each day. (4) See this chart to help you get an idea of you current intake of fiber.

Here’s to your future, healthy vacation!

(1) http://www.webmd.com/diet/fiber-health-benefits-11/insoluble-soluble-fiber

(2) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fiber-full-story/

(3) http://straighthealth.com/pages/five/solublesources.html

(4) http://www.livestrong.com/article/148178-how-to-remove-toxins-from-your-body-naturally/

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

Any restriction on food, whether its is my own doing or outward circumstances like camping, makes me want it all the more passionately. Therefore, simply restricting what I eat can be counter productive, and sometimes makes things worse than before.

Answer? I have started to think that it is more powerful to spend your time adding the things you should eat rather than trying to eliminate what you shouldn”™t. For instance, rather than trying not to eat refined carbohydrates like chips and bread, I will plan some healthy snacks for myself like cut up red bell peppers or carrot sticks dipped in my favorite dressing or hummus and make sure to have it on hand. I stop focusing on the “NO”s, like a diet does, and focus instead on the “YES”s.

With 2 year olds we call it diversion, and with older kids it”™s the wisdom that tells us to make mention of the things they are doing right rather than only focusing on what they do wrong. In both cases you could say there is great power to bring positive change when we focus on the positive rather than the negative.

It”™s a subtle attitude change, but I think a very important one. If weight, or healthy eating, is an issue for you right now, will you try taking one day and refusing to entertain thoughts of restriction and change them all to thoughts of incorporation. Take the thought, “I shouldn”™t have that piece of toast” and morph it into , “what fruit or vegetable do I like that I could eat with my eggs?” So a breakfast which would have been eggs and two pieces of toast becomes eggs, cantaloupe and apple wedges. This is how we get more fresh fruits and vegetables into our diets.

David Rawls wrote a guest blog on my friend”™s site showing a picture of himself at 380 pounds next to one sporting only 240 on his 6″™7″ frame.

“I was amazed that even after I lost 130 pounds and kept it off, I still consumed a lot of food. But the foods I consumed changed. You can eat a lot of veggies and fruits and still lose weight.” (1)

You too can eat plenty of food and maintain a healthy weight, but your food choice is crucial. Orange Tree Lane is not a diet, but we constantly strive to incorporate more fruits and vegetables in every meal, and I”™ll bet you will have a hard time finding a weight loss plan which doesn”™t do the same!

And rejoice with small victories. If you make one substitution today from something you know you shouldn”™t have to something fresh and healthy, then get excited. It’s like slowly changing the course of a little stream by piling rocks one by one to divert it rather than thinking that one day a bulldozer will come along and change the landscape in an instant. Habits, like revolutions, need time and persistence to bring about true change.

When those fireworks are going off, remember that great things come to those who won’t give up.

PS- Wondering about that picture? It’s a little, um, piece of a very small plant that actually won first place at the Del Mar Fair. I thought it was a great example of celebrating small victories. (smile)

(1) http://foodliesandtruth.blogspot.com/2010/11/guest-blogger-david-rawls-dont-ignore.html

AWWW! Peace turns to sudden movement and panic, repressed cries, screen door falling off the track and confusion. Someone has gotten a splinter. Trust me, I felt foolish entering “splinter” on the form at urgent care under the section “reason for visit”, but this wasn”™t just any splinter. Two hours of soaking in hot water, mini surgery at the kitchen table with flashlight, nail scissors, safety pin, tweezers and a very sharp pocket knife. By this time the little finger is puffy, red, swollen and tender to the touch from the lumber invasion and subsequent torture to remove it.

Inflammation is the body”™s natural response to invaders. Dangerous parasites, bacteria, and chunks of wood deeply inserted into appendages trigger the immune system to send in the warrior white blood cells, among others. The swelling tends to immobilize the injured area as an immediate form of first aid. And it usually goes away with the pain. But there is a swelling you and I never feel until it lingers long enough to cause damage rather than heal, and that is internal inflammation.

This particular splinter required the strong arm pull of a gentleman with 8 years of medical training, but he did exclaim over its size while the patient tried not to throw up. Problem solved in the finger, but how do we recognize and heal inflammation that we cannot see or feel?

It can go on unchanged for weeks, months and years without a stopping point, and this chronic condition of inflammation wears out the strength of the immune system, paving the way for many of the heart breaking maladies we endure”¦cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer”™s, Parkinson”™s, MS, rheumatoid arthritis, and many others. (1) For instance, low grade, internal inflammation causes otherwise benign fatty deposits (in the arteries) to rupture, and that rupture is what causes blockage and stroke. “Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability and remains the third cause of death in developed countries”. (2)

There are things you can actively do to minimize internal inflammation. In previous weekly specials I have discussed the extreme benefits of:

*omega 3 oil purified fish oil supplements
* the need to avoid environmental toxins which stimulate an immune response
*a diet rich in fruits and vegetable phytonutrients as an important part of the fight against inflammation.

This week I want to focus on spinach is a fantastic supplier of a newly discovered phytonutrient called glycoglycerolipid which is believed to reduce inflammation of the digestive system in particular. (3)

First spinach for the the bones, and now the stomach too! So go get some fresh, organic spinach and make the super easy D-licious Spinach Sausage Lasagna, drink it for breakfast in a Cranberry Breakfast Soup Shake, or add it to the Spicy Chicken Mango instead of kale like I did.

Tonight I’m thankful for doctors and spinach. How about you?

(1) http://www.jigsawhealth.com/resources/inflammation

(2) http://www.cardiovascular-medicine.ch/pdf/2009/2009-05/2009-05-077.PDF

(3) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/health/nutrition/25recipehealth.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=spinach+glycoglycerolipids&st=nyt

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.

This morning I compressed a week’s worth of self revealing statements and candidly bestowed them upon my dear husband as he was gulping down his last bites of breakfast while running out the door. Unfortunately, my disappointments, fears and concerns, which might have sounded okay with a few casual remarks thrown in between them, must have felt like a bite of food with way too much salt based on the look that came over his face.
So I worry too much, and I tend to look on the “but this could reasonably and possible happen” side rather than the bright side. Don’t go worrying about me now because, as usual, just talking about it to someone who isn’t concerned at all was very helpful. But now that you know me better, you might be surprised by the feelings that came over me while viewing my dilapidated garden later that day.

NO MEANS YES
The way I see it, every time you say no to one thing you say yes to another. All of those weeds and broken water lines mean YES to many other important things that take time, like teaching my 16 year old to drive a manual transmission (if you could only see my face), watching pet turtles navigate around an obstacle at eye level with my youngest, animal loving child, or putting together the details of a graduation trip for my recent high school graduate. Priorities change based on the ebb and flow of life. You see, a dear friend of mine is lucky enough to have her own mother tending to the family garden for hours each day. She has created a miniature, organic vegetable paradise that makes me green with envy. (See http://otlane.blogspot.com/ for pictures.) But the truth is, for this season of life I’m just tending to a different kind of garden and I am at peace with that.

A NON-NEGOTIABLE PRIORITY
I believe that some priorities are negotiable, like investing your time in a garden or not, but tending to your health should always be an important priority! In search of good quality food that I haven’t raised myself, I’ve grown to love the farmer’s market. I can’t wait to go this weekend and get my fresh arugula, cage free brown eggs, just picked, local strawberries, and spinach. I saved that for last because that is what I want to look at a little more closely today…spinach.

SPINACH BENEFITS
Did you know that a cup of spinach will give you almost 200% or your RDA for bone strengthening vitamin K? (It jumps to 1000% if you boil it for a minute.) (1)
And that is only the beginning for spinach, although if you think about it, if your own bones were brittle and weak then spinach at a few dollars a bunch would seem like gold to you. Do they need more advertising?

Spinach also lowers levels of homocysteine. High levels of homocysteine in the blood mean a greater danger of hardening of the arteries, leading to stroke and coronary heart disease. As you can see, the same generous amounts of folate in spinach which prevent spinal deformities in newborns is healing to our arteries as well. (2)

Starting to see the light? “Two of the carotenoids that are especially plentiful in spinach are lutein and zeaxanthin, the primary antioxidants in several regions of the eye, including the retina and the macula.” (3) And I haven’t even gotten to fiber, calcium, magnesium and vitamin C so richly provided by the humble spinach leaves.

HOW TO GET SOME IN YOUR DIET THIS WEEK
This week’s menu gives you three opportunities to enjoy generous portions of spinach. Mix spinach with other salad greens or have it alone with Chicken Corn Salad or in the greens nest of Tuna Salad Nicoise. Pesto Hummus Sandwiches can also be topped of with julienned spinach as well as any other favorite dark green.

I see my non-garden as a successful placing of priorities. Of all the worthy things that could top your priority list, don’t forget to include “tending to your health” somewhere in the lead so that you have energy and strength do all the rest!

(1) & (3) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/09/13/vitamin-k-linked-to-fewer-varicose-veins-better-vascular-health.aspx
(2) http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/07/5-foods-that-can-save-your-life/#ixzz1PZej0DPF

I met a nice woman on my walking trail early this morning who actually looked up and smiled when our paths crossed. “I”™ve lost 12 pounds lately”, she said, so I gave her a deserving high five. Apparently her motivation to start walking regularly came from a diagnosis of hypertension, and exercise became an important part of her “medicine” rather than the pills her doctor wanted to prescribe.

According to the American Diabetes Association, having hypertension, or high blood pressure, is something to be concerned about because it raises your risk for heart attack, the number one killer in the United States. Two of their recommendations for avoiding and healing this malady are more rigorous exercise, and increasing your produce consumption by always eating fruit with breakfast and 1-2 vegetables with both lunch and dinner.(1)

Oprah Winfrey”™s dietician agrees, “Eating more fruits and vegetables is one of the most important dietary habits you can adopt to prevent heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension and to manage your weight. Vegetables in particular will cost you little in the way of calories while offering huge health benefits.” (2)

So why is it so hard to get those vegetables in? Fruit at breakfast isn”™t too difficult because it is sweet and doesn”™t need to be cooked. But vegetables”¦ugh! At least I use to feel that way; that is until I bought a beautiful cutting board and decided that I would make using it a regular part of my life. After making that commitment and keeping it for awhile I discovered that what used to seem like such a big deal, getting the cutting board out, lost some of it”™s annoyance.

I propose that you adopt my new held conviction”¦if I don”™t get the cutting board out to cut something, then I automatically fell short of making a really great meal.

-When scrambling eggs I get out my littlest board and chop up something fresh to put in”¦spinach, onion, bell pepper, or all of them.
– Every sandwich or burrito that leaves the house in a lunch bag is stuffed with spinach or romaine and accompanied by fresh cold cuts like carrots, red bell pepper or English cucumber in addition to a piece of fruit.
-Dinner is the time for vegetables to shine because I will spend more time on it and it usually gets cooked. I choose and pass on to you entrees which are usually 50% or more vegetables, or include a way to add vegetables on as appetizers or a side dish to increase our intake.
– Learn to snack on vegetables when you just feel like chewing. Yesterday I cut an English cucumber, the kind with the edible rind, into disks and covered them with oil and vinegar. I topped that with diced olive and Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Feta would have been better, but it was good enough anyhow to eat in one sitting. Yum!

Like the lady I met walking this morning, change of any kind takes commitment and perseverance, but life is built on a framework of cause and effect. In this case, eating more fresh produce throughout the day will have very positive effects on our health both now and later. If you struggle in this area, check in every week so that I can keep brainwashing you slowly into thinking as I do. If you do this, I will give you a high five too!

(1) http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/high-blood-pressure-hypertension.html

(2) http://www.oprah.com/health/Four-Weeks-to-Healthy-Eating
http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/?page_id=10431

(Photo is Thai Chicken Salad on this week’s menu.)

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Caught your eye, didn”™t I? Are you dreading it or are you planning a crash diet? You know diets don”™t work, ever, because if you don”™t change your eating patterns forever then you will one day be back where you started, or even worse off. Here at Orange Tree Lane three of the five resident taste testers have been shedding a few extra pounds lately without dieting or any other drastic measures. Just taking a different perspective on food can be powerful! Let me share with you some of the perspective changes that have been making a difference for us.

1. Bread goes with some things, but not with everything. We”™ve cut down on the amount of bread we eat; extra fruit instead of another piece of toast, wrap the protein in lettuce instead of a bun, skip the sandwich and have a chicken or steak salad instead, replacing pasta with whole grain pasta and less of it in relation to amount of vegetables, a second vegetable like honey carrots instead of a loaf of bread or dinner rolls, etc.

2. We don”™t need as much food as we think we do. I would never suggest skipping a meal, but a “meal” doesn”™t have to be so extensive as we usually think it does. Reduce portion sizes even a little and it adds up over time. Not hungry but it”™s time for dinner? Have the vegetables you are serving and just a few bites of protein. Listen to your body and don”™t eat just because its there and everyone else is eating a lot of it.

3. Snacking should be something you do to help your body, not just take away hunger pangs. By help I mean that whatever you put in your mouth should have nutritional significance. A pretzel made with white flour, a sweetened coffee drink or chips might make you feel happy and less hungry, but are they helping you nutritionally? Refined and processed food and sugar are burdensome to your body, while healthy snacks are actually useful. Cut up vegetables like English cucumbers, carrots, sweet bell peppers, apples, bananas with peanut butter, pears, nuts, dried fruit, trail mix, yogurt with granola”¦these kinds of snacks do you good! I find that if I set out cut vegetables and have a healthy dip on hand like hummus or guacamole, the vegetables disappear. If I don”™t do that, snackers reach for corn chips, ice cream, and the like. Plan ahead by bringing healthy snacks with you wherever you are going, and especially if you are going to be tempted to eat junk when you get there. If you are just “in the mood to eat”, make sure you grab something that takes a lot of chewing like an apple or a large carrot. And finally, if you start your day off with a protein rich breakfast you will stay full much longer and be less anxious to snack on empty calories later in the day.

4. Don”™t focus on what you can”™t eat, but spend all of that mental energy pursuing what you can and should eat. The challenge is to find healthy food that you like, and the to start having it on hand, preparing it, and enjoying it. If you are eating the right things, you can eat a lot of food and you should never go hungry! The mission of Orange Tree Lane is to help you do this very thing and it is my way of sharing with you what I do for myself to keep focused on the good rather than trying to avoid the bad. If you are full of the good stuff, then you will have very little appetite for all the rest anyhow.

Is there something that has been working really well for you? Why don’t you share it by commenting on the side so that everyone can benefit?

Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Even if you’ve stopped walking for awhile, you can resume instantly in the right direction by making just one small change today. What will your step be?