Blog / Recipes

Get cooking for National Nutrition Month!

Posted on March 3, 2014

As the daughter of a Chinese chef, I’m a huge fan of cooking – and eating – delicious, wholesome meals! After all, when you cook from scratch, you can choose healthier ingredients and experiment with different flavours.
Get the kids involved too. Cooking helps to build their confidence in the kitchen and is an important life skill. Plus research shows that eating meals together as a family helps kids eat better and have healthier weights. So to celebrate Nutrition Month, here are some of my favourite tips to help you get creative in the kitchen.
• Pick a theme ingredient or cuisine for the month. Then flip through magazines, pick up a new cookbook or surf the Internet for recipe ideas. Me? I’m always looking for easy and nutritious fish recipes. So I’m planning to try this Becel Maple Mustard Salmon recipe. It uses ingredients that I always have on hand and it’s ready in less than 15 minutes – perfect for my busy weeknights!
• Stay organized. To save time, prep your ingredients in advance – chop the veggies, marinade the meat, and make the salad dressing the night before so that everything is ready to go as soon as you get home.
• Cook once, and eat it twice. I’m planning to take any salmon leftovers from tonight’s dinner and toss it into a salad with red onions, green leafy lettuce, orange peppers and avocado. Leftover cooked beans, meat or pasta will instantly perk up a soup or stir-fry.
• Make a few swaps. Do you love to bake? Use milk or yogurt instead of water to give muffins or banana bread a calcium and protein boost. Bake with an unsaturated fat such as soft non-hydrogenated margarine instead of butter, shortening or lard. Swap out some of the sugar with dried fruit or grated sweet veggies like carrots or beets – it’s a great way to add fibre to the recipe too.
• Share it. We eat with our eyes, so don’t forget to take a snapshot of your finished dish. Tweet it or post it on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook. Share the actual recipe too and give it a rating out of five stars. Who knows – you might just inspire someone else to get cooking too – and that would be a wonderful thing!

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Book Review: Grain Brain – by David Perlmutter, MD

Posted on January 13, 2014

Perlmutter, a neurologist in Naples, Florida claims that inflammation is the cause of many neurogenerative diseases and disorders such as dementia, diabetes, depression, ADHD, irritable bowel, and Alzheimer’s. The solution according to Perlmutter is to eliminate gluten, follow a low-carb diet and feed your brain a diet that’s high in fat. Fat, he claims will provide the nourishment that the brain needs. The diet involves restricting carbohydrates to 30 to 40 grams a day, followed by a maintenance phase of 60 grams of carbs.

Like most dietitians, I find this advice to be unsubstantiated at this time. Much of the evidence cited in the book is anecdotal and based on testimonials as well as the author’s own experience with his patients. The overpromise of health benefits from his diet plan raises another red flag. Plus, science tells us that carbs (more specifically glucose, and not fat) are the preferred fuel for our brain.

The author’s recommendation to increase our intake of fat to 80% of our daily calories warrants discussion. It’s a far cry from Health Canada’s fat recommendations of 20-35% of our daily calories. While it’s true that we could all stand to increase our consumption of healthy monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fats from foods such as fish, avocados and olive oil, it’s not advisable at this point to increase our intake of saturated fats because of their negative effect on heart health. What we also know is that swapping saturated fat for polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats is beneficial to our heart health.

Perlmutter does make some recommendations with which I whole-heartedly agree. For one thing, he recommends that we exercise more and more regularly (he recommends at least 30 minutes, five times a week). Secondly, he advises that we work on getting restful, routine sleep seven days a week. The bottom line though is that Grain Brain is a low-carb diet. Instead of cutting out carbs, my advice is to choose smart carbs like whole grains, vegetables and fruit as part of a balanced diet.

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