How to Make a Nutritarian Breakfast

1. Buckwheat Granola 2. Fruit Burrito 3. Breakfast Sprouts

4. Faux Porridge 5. Fruit Soup 6. Cooked Rice with Berries

Veggies, veggies, veggies! Eating like a rabbit works for lunch, but what about breakfast? Aside from the obvious green smoothie, what else is there? LOTS!

Some of my favorites are:

• Fruit Soup or Fruity Salad - Combine all sorts of fresh fruits and serve atop a big bowl of salad greens or serve in a cup of juice with minced greens.
• Hot cereal - mix any cooked grain (I like rice and buckwheat as much as oats and cracked wheat) with fruit, cinnamon, and non-dairy milk, then top with chopped nuts, sprouts and seeds.
• Granola - try a healthy variation made from sprouted then dehydrated grains and seeds. Robyn Openshaw has a great buckwheat recipe in her Twelve Steps to Whole Foods.
  
• Faux Porridge - chop apples in a food processor until minced. Add banana and cinnamon, pulse to combine and serve with cinnamon (www.rawmom.com offers this recipe).
• Breakfast Sprouts - puree a soft fruit like banana or mango and top with a mix of sprouted grains and seeds. (see www.sproutpeople.com for grain combinations and products)
• Fruit burrito -spread a large salad leaf with nut butter; add banana slices (cut lengthwise), sprouts, and other fillings such as bell pepper slices. Roll and eat.

To your health and happiness,
Hailey

Zucchini Again!

Are you flooded with zucchini? Try these simple ideas:

Roasted Zucchini (left photo)
Toss slices with melted virgin coconut oil. Bake at 500 degrees until browned. Garnish with pico de gallo or pesto or your favorite healthy dressing.

Zucchini Slaw (right photo) Grate raw, peeled zucchini and combine with grated carrot. Toss with your favorite healthy dressing.

To your health and happiness,
Hailey

Bean Burgers

There are many recipes for garden burgers on the web, but you will not find any that are simpler or tastier.

In a food processor, blend until smooth: one 14-0z. can of chili beans, drained, 1 egg, and 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (more or less to get a consistency that can be formed into patties) until smooth. Add 1/2 tsp. onion powder and 1/4 tsp. garlic powder and pulse until uniformly mixed. Spoon into a heated, oiled skillet and flatten with the back of a spoon into patties. Fry each side on medium heat until browned and set. Serve with lettuce, tomato and jalapeno. Makes 2 -4 patties, depending on size.

Variations: use black beans and a dash of soy sauce, nama shoyu, or Braggs Liquid Aminoes in place of the chili beans (pictured). Add red pepper flakes if you like heat. Replace the egg with 1 Tb. ground flaxseed and 3 Tb. water if you prefer.

To your health and happiness,
Hailey

Losing Weight is Easy!

When I switched from healthy eating to a nutritarian lifestyle earlier this year, the pounds around my waist just vanished with almost no effort of my own! In 3 months I lost the 30 extra pounds I had carried for 10 years. It wasn't magic. There is a scientific basis for this loss. (Thanks to Healthy Girl's Kitchen blogspot for pointing out the work of Dr. Douglas Lisle to explain it.)

While eating all I could stuff in my mouth, I was still cutting calories, and getting full, yet not overeating. How does this work?

First let's look at calories. Typical American foods, meat, breads and starchy vegetables (i.e. potatoes), register at 1200 calories per pound, 1000 calories per pound and 500 calories per pound respectively. So an 8 oz steak, 2 slices of bread and a baked potato (with butter and sour cream of course), bring the tally to around 1500 calories just for ONE MEAL! And that doesn't count dessert or soft drinks with the meal. Is it any wonder Americans just keep getting fatter and the popular solution is to "cut back."

On the other hand, raw vegetables average 100 calories per pound; cooked vegetables, 200 calories per pound; fruits, 300 calories per pound, and grains 500 calories per pound. Bet you can't get a whole pound of salad down the hatch at one sitting! Yes, stuff yourself every meal, and you'll still lose weight - and be nutritionally richer for all the enzymes, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients you're getting.

But calories is only half of the story. The other half is volume. Take the following food pairs that are roughly equivalent in calories:

• 1 pint of ice cream versus 5 pounds of cooked carrots
• 1/4 of a pizza or 2 pounds of cooked broccoli
• 4 oz. of chocolate or 3 baked potatoes

It's easy to put away a small volume of food that is "calorie-dense" and not feel full because the stretch receptors in the stomach have not been affected. But try to put away a large volume of plant food with the same caloric content, and you will stop long before you clear the plate because no one's stomach can hold that much!

The bottom line is that we are used to eating "ultra" foods, like concentrated detergents - a lot of power in a little amount. Losing weight, then, isn't about sacrificing portions so much as it's about overturning the food pyramid. Eat your vegetables first! Get full on them. When you have eaten all the produce and legumes required by the Fuhrman food pyramid*, there won't be room for steak!

To your health and happiness,
Hailey

*See "What is Nutritarian?" tab

Lentils with Indian Spices

I've tried lentil "meatloaf," lentil tacos and lentil soup, but Indian Lentils are better than them all! Made with warm spices, the dish leaves you feeling satisfied and comforted. If you do not have the Garam Masala called for in the recipe, you can make your own with the instructions below.

Double, triple or quadruple the recipe if you like!
Simmer 1 cup lentils in 2 cups water with 2 teaspoons Garam Masala and 1/2 onion, chopped, until lentils are tender, about 40 minutes. Serve over brown rice.

GARAM MASALA (all spices listed below are ground)
1 Tb. cumin
1 1/2 tsp. coriander
1 1/2 tsp. cardamom
1 1/2 tsp. black pepper OR 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
Mix & store in an airtight container. Makes enough for 4 batches of Indian Lentils.

To your health and happiness,
Hailey

Too Hard? I think Not

I like to be challenged! You do too, believe it or not. You might think you are happier staying in your comfort zone. But then why do the gym classes that push your limits have higher enrollment than the ones that allow you slack off. Why do children languish when school is easy but thrive when they are at the edge of their abilities? Why do you feel so fulfilled when you have conquered a new skill?

When I talk to people who think a nutritarian diet is too hard, I want to remind them how exhilarated they felt when they climbed a summit and viewed the breathtaking scene below. I want to proclaim, "Take the pain up front! You'll be miserable if you don't make the climb." That's because in the long run, the more difficult path is staying on the standard American diet, which brings obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and auto-immune diseases.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman has an excellent post on his blog, Disease Proof, which reminds us that the challenge of nutritious eating is worth the effort. When someone says, "Oh, I could never do that," he says,

• I could never have rubber bands put on painful hemorrhoids by a rectal specialist.

• I could never worry about running to catch a bus, for fear of having a heart attack.

• I could never have such severe stomach cramps that emergency room personnel would assume it was a heart attack.

Catch the rest of the blog here: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/inspiration-i-could-never-do-that.html

To your health and happiness,
Hailey

Best Zucchini Soup Ever!

My friend Tracy Ward cooked a delicious pot of soup for me once when I was staying at her house. I have never found a better use for zucchini. You can find the recipe on her site: http://wetoatmealkisses.com/?p=703

To your health and happiness,
Hailey