Avocados are our friends.

Monounsaturated Fatty Acids Melt Belly Fat

A diet that is rich with MUFAs (monounsaturated fatty acids) can help reduce belly fat. Belly fat can enhance the chances of having a cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. MUFAs are found in oils, nuts, seeds, olives, avocados, and even dark chocolate. You want to incorporate these into every meal you consume. They are considered a good fat. You still need to eat a healthy calorie enriched diet in order to loose the weight, but consuming mufas will help reduce your belly fat.
When you are cooking choose oil that is rich with monounsaturated fatty acids. You can use any of the following in your meals to help aid in burning your belly fat such as; olive oil, canola oil, flax seed oil, safflower oil, sesame oil, walnut oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, and also pesto sauce.
You can eat any of the following as a snack or even add them into your meals; almond butter, smooth and crunch natural peanut butter, dry roasted cashews, cashew butter, dry roasted sun flower seeds, roasted pumpkin seeds, dry roasted peanuts, brazil nuts, walnuts, pine nuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and sesame seed paste. You might want to add avocados into your meal to burn belly fat. Try eating lots of olives, you can choose from green olives, black olives, black olive tapenade, or green olive tapenade.
For the chocolate lover you want to choose from semisweet chocolate and dark chocolate. Add the chips or shavings for an added treat plus the benefits of belly fat burning.
There is no set limit on how much or how little monounsaturated fatty acids you should consume on a daily basis. You want to try and have at least one MUFA in every meal. Instead of cooking with butter use oil with MUFAs in it, put it on salads, or in marinades, 1 tablespoon is a serving. Incorporate nuts and seeds as a snack, dress up a salad, crush them up and use as a breading for meats, spread nut butters on fruit, crackers, and bread. Two tablespoons of nuts or seeds equals to one serving of monounsaturated fatty acids.
The two avocados to choose from are Florida or Hass. You can put these in with a salad, mix into a salsa or a dip, and eat them as is. You will need to eat ¼ cup of avocado to get a full serving of MUFAs. Olives can be eaten as a snack, on top pizzas, in salads or pastas. Tapenade can be spread on crackers or a slice of bread when eating a sandwich, or even put it in stuffed chicken or on fish fillets.
You need to eat 10 large olives or two tablespoons to get a serving of monounsaturated fatty acid. You can eat the chocolate any way you like it; ¼ cup gives you a full serving of MUFAs.
http://www.momswhothink.com

Eat Your Veggies!

Mother always said to eat your vegetables…here’s  why.

Here is a list of the healthiest vegetables and why.

Cruciferous Vegetables

Are filled with anti-aging, cancer fighting, immune boosting phytonutrients, plus vitamins  C, K, potassium, calcium, iron and folic acid.

·         Broccoli

·         Cauliflower

·         Brussels Sprouts

·         Green and Red Cabbage

Carrots- protect against cancer, improve eyesight, high levels of carotenoids and vitamin A, B, C, and K (when raw)

Dark green leafy

Most nutritious eaten raw, contain iron, potassium, calcium, carotenoids, vitamins B, C, E and K.

·         Kale

·         Spinach

·         Swiss Chard

·         Collard greens

·         Parsley

·         Red and green lettuce

·         Mustard and turnip greens

Tomatoes- high in lycopene carotenoids and vitamin C

Beans and Peas

High in protein, fiber, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium

·         Peas

·         Lentils

·         Soybeans

·         Lima beans

·         Kidney beans

·         Garbanzo beans

Quest for a Vegetarian Sloppy Joe

I have been on a quest for sometime to make the perfect vegetarian sloppy joe.  I think this is the best recipe so far.

4 Amy'sVeggie Patties
red and yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup of vegan barbecue sauce
1 Tsp of ketchup
1 tsp of Louisiana Hot sauce
1/2 tsp of brown sugar
1/2 tsp olive oil

Defrost veggie patties in microwave and the crumble until it resembles ground meat, set aside. Saute bell peppers in olive oil until soft, add veggie crumbles and heat through, in a bowl add barbecue sauce, ketchup, hot sauce and brown sugar whisk together and pour over the veggie crumbles and stir continue cooking until the mixture simmers.  Pile of a bun or fresh Kaiser roll with your favorite cheese.

Mindful Eating

We are all so busy in the world today.  It makes the practice of mindfulness very difficult, this is especially true in my life right now, in fact I decided to post this while I ate my dinner (peanut butter sandwich) last night from a napkin, as I stood over the sink in the kitchen.  I was the only one home and it seemed silly to mess up a dish, or even sit down and enjoy my food, I simply inhaled it and went back to the paper I was working on.  This attitude has contributed to the rampant obesity we have come to accept in this country.  Like in meditation, we must sit and develop awareness regarding our bodies and it's basic need for nourishment in our daily lives.  Here is a wonderful description by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Mindful Eating

 

Mindful eating is very pleasant. We sit beautifully. We are aware of the people that are sitting around us. We are aware of the food on our plates. This is a deep practice. Each morsel of food is an ambassador from the cosmos. When we pick up a piece of a vegetable, we look at it for half a second. We look mindfully to really recognize the piece of food, the piece of carrot or string bean. We should know that this is a piece of carrot or a string bean. We identify it with our mindfulness: "I know this is a piece of carrot. This is a piece of string bean." It only takes a fraction of a second.

When we are mindful, we recognize what we are picking up. When we put it into our mouth, we know what we are putting into our mouth. When we chew it, we know what we are chewing. It's very simple.

Some of us, while looking at a piece of carrot, can see the whole cosmos in it, can see the sunshine in it, can see the earth in it. It has come from the whole cosmos for our nourishment.

You may like to smile to it before you put it in your mouth. When you chew it, you are aware that you are chewing a piece of carrot. Don't put anything else into your mouth, like your projects, your worries, your fear, just put the carrot in.

And when you chew, chew only the carrot, not your projects or your ideas. You are capable of living in the present moment, in the here and the now. It is simple, but you need some training to just enjoy the piece of carrot. This is a miracle.

I often teach "orange meditation" to my students. We spend time sitting together, each enjoying an orange. Placing the orange on the palm of our hand, we look at it while breathing in and out, so that the orange becomes a reality. If we are not here, totally present, the orange isn't here either.

There are some people who eat an orange but don't really eat it. They eat their sorrow, fear, anger, past, and future. They are not really present, with body and mind united.

When you practice mindful breathing, you become truly present. If you are here, life is also here. The orange is the ambassador of life. When you look at the orange, you discover that it is nothing less than fruit growing, turning yellow, becoming orange, the acid becoming sugar. The orange tree took time to create this masterpiece.

When you are truly here, contemplating the orange, breathing and smiling, the orange becomes a miracle. It is enough to bring you a lot of happiness. You peel the orange, smell it, take a section, and put it in your mouth mindfully, fully aware of the juice on your tongue. This is eating an orange in mindfulness. It makes the miracle of life possible. It makes joy possible.


from the website: http://chetday.com/mindfuleating.htm

Thich Nhat Hanh was born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo in Thừa Thiên (Central Vietnam) in 1926. At the age of 16 he entered the monastery at Từ Hiếu Temple near Huế, Vietnam, where his primary teacher was Dhyana (meditation Zen) Master Thanh Quý Chân Thật .A graduate of Bao Quoc Buddhist Academy in Central Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh received training in Zen and the Mahayana school of Buddhism and was ordained as a monk in 1949.