What’s Up in Food & Wellness
Marian Nestle comments on new study from the International Food Information Council
NYTimes: World’s Poor Pay as Food Research is Cut
The Veggie Queen Vegetarian Recipes
Archive forWellness
Physical Activity for All that Ails - NYT Update
For decades, Jane Brody of the New York Times has been a bit of an idle of mine (and of most of my nutrition-communications colleagues). Here’s a great update she did today on moderate exercise - the closest thing we have to a magic bullet for chronic disease.
Jane Brody Moderate Physical Activity Update - NY Times Article
Here Come Lots of Health-rating Systems, and More Confusion
Get ready for lots of new signage in your local grocery store - as reported in a NYTimes Article earlier this week, there are at least three rating systems under development to help consumers sift the wheat from the chaff as far as healthy choices go. The problem being that from what I can see, they only include packaged food. So, the healthiest foods in the grocery store - fresh fruits and vegetables - won’t be included. Why can I see how these undertakings will add to the confusion, while the smarties leading these efforts don’t?
Only when the healthiest foods -fruits and vegetables - are included, and the rating systems truly take into account all the aspects of what makes a food healthy - nutrient density, fiber, and freedom from chemical additives - only then will your best supermarket choices be obvious from a rating system. Until then, weighing brands of processed food will only add to the confusion and foster more unhealthy choices.
And until the day that your produce section is filled with gold stars, regardless of what these rating systems say, eating as many fresh unprocessed colorful fruits and vegetables as you possibly can is a great start. It’s as simple as that.
Warm Regards,
Annie
PS - I just heard from Dr. Katz that the system he’s working on, the Overall Nutrition Quality Index WILL include fresh fruits and veggies. All right!
Boston Area October Workshops
I’m on tour in and around Boston in late October, and I hope to see those of you who’ve read the book and are interested in doing some of the exercises, and some exploring together.
On Thursday eve 10/25, I’ll be at The Bookstore of Gloucester, a funky little place that I believe serves food in addition to serving up books. 7pm Reading, Free.
Fri eve 10/26, it’s off the The Arlington Center - a wonderful group of yogis and yoginis exploring the deeper aspects of yoga and health. I’ll be doing an evening talk - a taste of blending the science of weight with the spirit of yoga.
Sat and Sun 10/27-8, I’m back in Gloucester at a great yoga center - Yoga for Health. We’ll be doing two sessions inquiring deeper into nurturing body and soul. Come for both days!
Get more information on these appearances and other things I’m up on the events page of this blog.
Regards,
Annie
The Growing Sustainable Food Community - part 1
Green is definitely the new black. But is going green a shopping fad or the seed of a deepening conscious movement? SUV hybrids? In my mind, it’s all good - the more people become aware of the issues and alternatives, the more people will realize that every choice they make initiates a ripple ’round the world. There are a growing number of high quality and inspirational sources for those who love great food but wonder if the American food-industrial-complex is the chemical cocktail it at times appears.
For starters, if you haven’t seen 
films, take a look. A funny, goofy presentation of an underlying truth in our modern food system. In addition to the films, they’ll link you in to resources for finding sustainable meats and other foods in your community through the Eating Well Guide, a comprehensive listing of sources for sustainable whole foods suppliers, chefs, restaurants, and farms.
What’s in that blue pill, anyway?
May you be healthy, happy and stand in the light of your own truest self.
Annie
Is Your Lifestyle Keeping You Young (or not)?
Here’s a neat free assessment. You can do a lifestyle questionnaire at Real Age (the website of Oprah darling Dr. Oz and his partner Dr. Roizen), that will tell you what your body’s age is based on things like your diet, how often you exercises, your stress management, health history and on and on. It takes 10-15 minutes to do. You’ll get a pitch to sign up for their program once you’ve completed the assessment. But, just for the assessment information, it’s worth the time, and maybe you’ll learn a little something.
New Stuff from BEA
I’m home from BEA (and from a quickie follow up to Harvard graduation – my smarty nieces & nephews all graduated the same year – 4 of them!).
While traveling to NYC can be stressful, if you’re braced for it, there’s just no other place to get a great overview of trends in the world of books and publishing. It’s a big circus of the latest & greatest, and a marketing extravaganza.
One trend that I was delighted to see was that there is a growing collection of authors excavating the topic of mind-body eating with a nod to yogic and spiritual principles, the laws of attraction, and the gut brain-head brain relationship. If you’ve read my book, you know that’s my approach, so I felt that I found some dietary family members there.
One discovery was Pierre Pallardy, who has a book out from Rodale has called Gut Instinct. He is a French osteopath/dietitian who has been working the two-brain theory (that we have a second brain center in the abdomen, and through relaxation and other techniques we can improve digestion) for decades. His method entails belly breathing, abdominal massage (it reminded me of Japanese Do-in massage), abdominal meditations, mindful eating (eating slowing and in a relaxed way, enjoying your food– in essence the way you’d envision they eat in France!). Nutritionally, I like his approach too – he abhors reducing diets, fasting, or other manipulations to the diet, and just goes for balanced normal eating. He’s not into a vegan diet, which is one area that I disagree – I think vegans can be very healthy if they take their diet in wholesome, hearty way.
If you are dietitian exploring how the recent science on the gut brain may impact daily lifestyle, this is a great book for you – you won’t agree with every nutritional guideline, but Pallardy gives us lots to think about, and has a truly innovative approach that has merit.
If you are a yoga teacher, this book illustrates how desperately those who struggle with weight and eating (in essence the entire US population) need yoga. And it will give you some new tools for your therapeutic yoga toolbox.
Enjoy!
The Veggie Queen and other Inspirations for Great Vegan Cooking
I’ve been fortunate to have experienced lots of great vegetarian cookbooks this winter. The raw-foods movement has fascinated me, and there are flurry of beautiful books that inspire. I also love books by dietitians. RDs, in my opinion are well-educated and underappreciated, and while our professional organization tends to sell our collective souls too easily to the processed food industry and big pharma, please don’t let that detract from the wisdom you’ll often find among this crew - like anything, you need to find the good eggs. With RDs, they’re are lots of them.
One good egg I’ve been blessed with connecting with this winter is Jill Nussinow, MS RD, “The Veggie Queen”. She’s a California-based nutritionist, and I’ve found her cookbook an inspiring one for the everyday cook (which, for the most part, I am). Jill is a fan of mushrooms, as am I, and she’s into her pressure-cooker. The appeal of a 12-minute soup, or 5-minute mashed potatoes tell me that last year when someone left this cute little pressure-cooker in our house (long story) that I was right to keep it. Now I have some coaching about how to use it and why to pull it out from the back of that bottom kitchen drawer. Her cookbooks is lovely to hold, and features culinary tips as well as a view into her Farmer’s market lifestyle. Jill illustrates, I think, the degree to which sustainable eating really is a lifestyle.
Find out more about Jill and her book The Veggie Queen, at www.theveggiequeen.com.
Another recent entree in the vegan cookbook genre that I’ve been having a good time with this winter is Blossoming Lotus’ World Fusion Cookbook. This is another beautiful book - this one in full Technicolor, high production value loveliness. Healthy cats in Kauai know Blossoming Lotus well - and if you ever make it to the north shore here, a meal at the restaurant is a must. It’s a great place to bring your non-veggie friends to see just how delicious and refined vegan cuisine can be.
So I’ve been cooking from this book through the winter, and the one drawback for really wide appeal is that it’s very Hawaii-centric. Many ingredients just aren’t available or as good off-island. And, the secret to many BL dishes is pureed macadamia nuts! Heavy cream it isn’t, and I suppose if you are living the vegan lifestyle you can boost the healthy fat a bit, but for those who must be weight conscious, just know that you’ll need to be conscious of how much of those fab rich sauces you slather on you veggies.
Another small detraction is the cutesy recipe names. Now, just being in Hawaii tends to make the most hard-nosed Easterner a little whimsical. But I think the book would be stronger if it settled down in that area a bit.
Overall, it’s an inspiration. A beautiful book to hold, and some great ideas that really could be modified to accommodate the possibility that not everyone can live in paradise.
Find out more about the book and their very cool scene at www.blossominglotus.com/about_book.htm
Happy healthy eating.
Every Bite Is Divine: a Nautilus Book Awards Finalist
I’m happy to share that Every Bite Is Divine was selected as a finalist for the 2007 Nautilus Book Awards! I’m particularly excited about this one, because the Nautilus honors books that help people live consciously and promote positive social change. Since my mission is to help those struggling with weight and eating to release some of their suffering around these issues, I’m jazzed.
The winners will be announced on June 2, 2007 at Book Expo America, the annual extravaganza for the book industry, held this year in New York City.
Therapeutic Yoga’s Organic Evolutions
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The first Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research (SYTAR), organized by the International Association of Yoga Therapy (IAYT), was held January 18-21 in Los Angeles. It was a gathering of yogis and yoginis, medical professionals, researchers, and those who develop and sell products to the aforementioned groups.
First off, by any measure, this conference was a great success. It sold out very quickly - I spoke to many yogis who’d wanted to go but hadn’t acted quickly enough. I believe that many yoga teachers across the country are witnessing the therapeutic possibilities of yoga in their own clientele. So the topic is ripe for discussion. And, I believe the organizers of the conference approached the frankly impossible task of finding common ground between the scientific community (the quantifiers), and the yogic spiritual practitioners and teachers (the revelers in the unknowable).
I love yoga conferences. I love to be around dedicated yoga teacher-practitioners. They put out a great vibe - as one woman said to me in the bathroom “who ARE you people? - it feels so good to be around you!” (she was attending a community college meeting in the same hotel). I was moved and ticked to attend scientific sessions that were launched with the chanting of ohm. Somehow, that both made the information presented resonate, and reminded me not to take it too seriously.
Many of the presenters provided outlines of their talks, and some of these may be helpful to yoga practitioners who were not able to attend. You can find a range of download able pdf-outlines of sessions and of breakouts at the IAYT website. You can find additional information from some of the presenters websites - those I attended who’s website info was helpful to me include Matthew Taylor PhD, PT, Amy Weintraub, Leslie Kaminoff who’s an impressively active blogger and Larry Payne PhD. Another blog that would be of interest to those of you thinking about the integrative therapies like yoga is The Integrator, John Week’s blog. I’ll do more features on some of these and other excellent practitioners I met at SYTAR.
I’ve been back from the conference for a couple weeks now, and the initial impressions have ruminated a bit. There has also been some rumblings and feedback from other attendees of the conference. A feast for thought came out of this meeting. A natural topic for this group was the development of standards for yoga therapists, and moving toward reimbursement and licensure. There were a number of warnings from clinicians (Chiropractors, PTs, RNs) that moving in that way will definitely result in more oversight, less creativity and time per client, and probably a reduction in pay scale for the yoga provider. Even as a clinician myself (I’m a Registered Dietitian), I came away thinking that perhaps moving toward licensure and reimbursement was not a good idea for the yoga community.
Feedback from the conference which I found fascinating was Megan McDonough’s observation that while most of the attendees were female, most of the presenters were male. The Kripalu Yoga Teacher’s Association listserv had a richer discussion, but you can get the cliffnotes on eSutra. It was a very male-dominated meeting, which I at first thought was indicative of more linear scientific nature of the topic. But then I thought perhaps it was because of the clique of PdD male yoga teachers who seem to have dominated the conversation - there are definitely master level, PhD-level yoga teacher/researchers out there, so yep, this should change next year. And it seems that feedback has been received by the organizers too.
All in all, a great effort, a beautiful dialogue. I’ll go to SYTAR next year.