But It's Not Berry Season

Today we have a guest blogger, Chris Rosenbruch. Chris is a client of mine and during a recent session we were discussing the perception that it is hard to eat fruits and vegetables during the "off-season". I quickly realized that Chris is an expert in this area. Here is her advice for buying produce over the winter months. Also, check out the resources she lists at the end of the article. 

BUT IT’S NOT BERRY SEASON!

Last week I stopped in the local supermarket.  It was a clear, crisp fall day.  As I approached the store, I admired the colorful display of some of nature’s bounty of the traditional autumn harvest; pumpkins, gourds, and cabbages surrounded by chrysanthemums. My expectation was to find the continuation of that bounty inside.  Instead, front and center of the store’s produce section, I found….Berries? Yes, a full display of strawberries, blackberries, and red raspberries! They were labeled, ‘Made in USA’. Well, at least they didn’t say ‘Made in China’.  Even though the presentation was beautiful, I was suspect. How would they taste? After all, it isn’t berry season.  Not here anyway, in Bucks County. As it turns out, they had been shipped from California so there really was no telling just how fresh they were.  I hesitated only long enough to consider that their purchase wasn’t worth it.  I was confident that they wouldn’t taste like the ripe, sweet berries I had eaten this past June when they were abundant at the local farmer’s market.

The new government food pyramid guidelines suggest we now load our plates half with fresh fruits and vegetables…preferably locally grown. Why? Mainly, because fresh picked produce means the fruit or vegetable is ripe and ready for eating.  Ripe means not only will it taste and smell good, it also means that the plant food, picked at its peak, is the most nutrient dense.  

We now have access to a global multitude of produce. ‘Variety’ has greatly expanded to the point where we need a mobile dictionary to identify some of the uniquely shaped and textured food forms with the gourmet names found in the produce section of our supermarkets. It’s easy to get lost in the ‘cornfield’.

We live in an agriculturally rich area with an abundance of fresh, ready-to-eat produce grown by farmers who are happy to share their knowledge of each variety of fruit and vegetable. In our area, there are over 60 farms, orchards, and markets cultivating more than 45 different plant foods!

Even though we’re nearing the end of the 7-month fresh fruit and vegetable growing season here in the Northeast, don’t panic.  There are still plenty of choices.   Here are some of the delicious options:

Fruit:  Apples, Cranberries, Grapes, and Pears

Vegetables:  Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage (including Brussels Sprouts), Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Kale, , Mushrooms, Onions, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Spinach, Squash (including Butternut, Buttercup, Delicata, Kaboucha), Swiss Chard, and Turnips (including Rutabaga).

ENJOY!

Sources:

USDA’s MyPlate – www.mypyramid.gov

BucksCountyTaste.com – great website for foodies interested in supporting local businesses

Fresh from Bucks County Farms- A guide to roadside Markets and PYO Farms – call 215-345-3283 for your free brochure.

Winter Sun Farms CSA – offers frozen produce during the 5-month winter season. www.wintersunfarmsgp.com

Cascadian Farms organic frozen produce – www.cascadianfarms.com.  Their produce is frozen 3 hours after it’s been picked!

In Defense of Food – an eater’s manifesto – Michael Pollan

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – a year of food life – Barbara Kingsolver

The First 5 Bites

Dining out can be a pleasurable experience. No preparation, no cleanup, wonderful food prepared in ways you've never considered. Throw in good conversation and the night is perfect.

A recent trend in dining out can tell us a lot about how we should eat. Tapas-style eateries are increasingly popular. Featuring small plates of creative dishes, these restaurants deliver amazing combinations of foods in small quantities to satisfied patrons. It is common in these popular places to share 4 or 5 dishes with friends over a long, slow eating experience.

So what does this tell us about how we should eat? Grant Achatz, chef at America's best new restaurant Alinea in Chicago, built his restaurant based on "the flavor of the first 5 bites." Research tells us that after the first 5 bites of a food we experience a diminishing taste sensation. Your taste buds grow numb to the flavor you are experiencing. Your food physiologically doesn't taste as good after the first 5 bites. Beginning on bite number 6 you are simply eating for calories, not for flavor and enjoyment.

Lessons for You

• Eat smaller portion sizes and savor the flavor of the 5 bites
• Eat a variety of foods within one meal but only a small amount of each
• Use fresh spices and rubs to bring your food to life with flavor without adding additional calories.
• Eat with family or friends sitting around a table (not on a couch), without a tv blaring in the background and converse. It will slow down your eating and promote proper portion control.
• Learn to cook even if it is just 3 or 4 dishes. It is very hard to lose weight when you are not responsible for the food preparation.

Be well,

Paul

Paul Dziewisz

Active Personal Fitness

www.ActivePersonalFitness.com

267.626.7478

"You give us the effort...we'll get you the results."

Why we really don't know what to eat

Why can I eat 3,800 calories a day, workout 4 times a week for 30 minutes each and not gain any weight? And then turn around and train for a marathon, eating less calories and working out more and not lose any weight. Why am I always between 205 and 210 lbs no matter what? For years I have been trying to understand how to eat and how it will effect me.

The most important book you can read this year is Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food". But you don't even have to read the whole thing. Pick it up and turn right to the chapter entitled Bad Science (part 1, chapter 9). (The link will take you to the chapter available on Google books.) These 10 pages succinctly sum up the problems with the science of nutrition in a way I have been trying to articulate for several years.

The fundamental issue according to Pollan is that nutrition science, and all science for that matter, must isolate a variable to determine how changes to that variable impact the subject of the research. Nutritional scientists isolate the nutrient. Unfortunately, that approach "takes the nutrient out of the context of the food, the food out of the context of the diet, and the diet out of the context of the lifestyle."

Isolating the nutrient ignores its interplay with other nutrients, chemical compounds, and the human body that is processing it. All of which can create subtle or not so subtle changes in the nutrient's behavior.

Are you familiar with the glycemic index? Many popular diets are based on the principle that some foods have high impact on blood sugar levels than others. In isolation, that is true. A banana will spike your blood sugar level higher than a carrot. But when we start to combine foods (after all, we rarely eat one food at a time) some of the glycemic index science gets blurry. Eat a bagel by itself and those carbs will be processed quickly. Spread some peanut butter on that bagel and the absorption of carbs slows dramatically. The bagels glycemic index number has been altered by the peanut butter.

The supplement industry regularly claims they have "isolated" the enzyme or anti-oxidant responsible for preventing this or that disease. The problem is when the chemical or compound is extracted from the FOOD it rarely has the same impact has when it is left in the food. The reason, the interplay of all the elements of the food is erased when the chemical is processed into a supplement, AND THE INTERPLAY MATTERS. In a test tube, the science works. Beta-carotene in its native food source eats up free radicals. When beta is extracted and placed in a supplement, it just doesn't act the same way.

We don't understand these food interactions very well because our nutrition science doesn't look at food as a whole and doesn't address the uniqueness of our bodies. Eat a steak and you will absorb its iron. Drink coffee when you eat that steak and you won't get much of the iron.

What we do know is that eating real foods in their whole form will provide us with nutrients that help our body function. Continue to eat fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry. Choose organic if you so desire. But be ware of claims about how some part of that food will make you bigger, smaller, taller or smarter. Food is way more than the sum of its parts.

Be well,

Paul

Paul Dziewisz

Active Personal Fitness

www.ActivePersonalFitness.com

267.626.7478

"You give us the effort...we'll get you the results."