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Tastes of Africa: some of the foods I’m eating here in South Africa

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papaya
Delicious pawpaw from tropical Durban, South Africa

I’m visiting my family in South Africa and it’s been lovely catching up, laughing, hugging and eating some really good food! One night we had roast lamb, steamed Brussel’s sprouts and baby marrow (zucchini) and a delicious creamy cauliflower dish.

The other night we had a yummy Paleo-type pasta-free lasagna from the new Tim Noake’s book “The Real Meal Revolution.” I’ve also been eating lots of paw paw/papaya – my favorite fruit!

I even managed to fit in some work and loved having the opportunity to present at my sister’s Stroke Support Group. There is a big connection between stress/anxiety and heart disease/stroke.

We ended up having a healthy discussion about real food and how far off track we’ve gone:

  • We fondly remembered having real full-fat milk being delivered to our doorstep – milk with thick cream on top!
  • We also talked about buying good quality meat from a butcher we knew.
  • Many of them remembered eating liver as kids and their moms cooking with lard!
  • I remembered the vegetable/fruit truck driving around the neighborhood selling fresh produce

We need to get back to basics and eating like we ate as kids and how our grandparents ate.

I’ve been eating plenty of avocados, biltong/jerky, and butter, and drinking rooibos tea

Avocados after a trip to the beach – big ones!
Avocados after a trip to the beach – big ones!

 

Beef biltong/jerky hanging to dry Chopped beef biltong/jerky
Beef biltong/jerky hanging to dry                                         Chopped beef biltong/jerky

 

Rooibos herbal tea
Rooibos herbal tea

 

Cultured butter
Cultured butter

There is a food revolution happening here in South Africa right now and it’s wonderful! Before I leave I promise I’ll share a recipe or two.

Gratitude: more optimism, more happiness and less anxiety

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Husky Service dog who helps veterans
Husky Service dog who helps veterans

Here is a great description of gratitude from Psychology Today:

“Gratitude is an emotion expressing appreciation for what one has—as opposed to a consumer-oriented emphasis on what one wants or needs. Gratitude is getting a great deal of attention as a facet of positive psychology: Studies show that we can deliberately cultivate gratitude, and can increase our well-being and happiness by doing so. In addition, grateful thinking—and especially expression of it to others—is associated with increased levels of energy, optimism, and empathy.”

Gratitude also helps reduce anxiety. A 2014 paper in Aging and Mental Health discusses a program which consists of training based on autobiographical memory, forgiveness and gratitude.

“The results revealed that participants who followed the program (experimental group) showed a significant decrease in state anxiety and depression as well as an increase in specific memories, life satisfaction and subjective happiness, compared with the placebo group.”

I’m in South Africa visiting my family and feel so much gratitude despite a few setbacks that almost prevented me from being here. I was in Palm Springs the weekend before my departure and missed my connecting flight back to Sacramento but I am grateful for:

  • having the Phoenix hotel night paid for and for not paying two bag fees
  • meeting a lovely woman from Oakland, CA who gave up her seat on the flight so someone could get home to the funeral of a loved one
  • “meeting” a beautiful huskie Service dog in the hotel elevator and finding out from his owner that his job was to be petted by veterans – to help lower blood pressure and to calm them down and make them happy. A 2012 paper discusses how a Service dog training program benefits the treatment of posttraumatic stress in service members and how it “enhances the sense of wellness.”
  • having travel food with me so I could stay nourished until I got home. I tucked in to apples, sardines, oysters, pemmican, a boiled egg and yummy coconut wraps

travel-food

  • making it back in time on Tuesday morning in order to catch my New York flight that very same evening!
  • getting to South Africa and spending quality time with my wonderful family, enjoying good food with them (one night we had roast lamb, steamed Brussel’s sprouts and baby marrow/zucchini and a delicious creamy cauliflower dish; and last night we had a yummy Paleo-type pasta-free lasagna from the new Tim Noake’s book “The Real Meal Revolution”), reminiscing, laughing, and getting and giving lots of hugs!

trudy-and-family

Let’s end with this great quote by Zig Ziglar:

The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more things you’ll have to express gratitude for.

What are you grateful for today? And how does it make you feel when you express your gratitude?

Do you eat mindfully and truly savor your food?

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infographicofmindfuleating-318x1024

Put simply, mindful eating is about eating with more awareness. This method of eating aims to stop mindless eating behaviors like unconsciously popping food into your mouth while watching TV or devouring a carton of ice cream to ease stress.

Studies show that reducing these behaviors can have a significant impact on improving your health, weight, and reducing stress, anxiety and depression.

A 2010 study “Pilot Study: Mindful Eating and Living (MEAL): Weight, Eating Behavior, and Psychological Outcomes Associated with a Mindfulness-Based Intervention for People with Obesity” had participants do 6 weeks of training in mindfulness meditation and mindful eating. The obese individuals who participated in the study “showed statistically significant increases in measures of mindfulness and cognitive restraint around eating, and statistically significant decreases in weight, eating disinhibition, binge eating, depression, perceived stress, physical symptoms, negative affect, and C-reactive protein.”

Here are some tips for mindful eating and what to do if mindful eating isn’t quite enough.

Give thanks for your food, savor the meal, and be mindful.

  • Give thanks, say a prayer, or do a blessing.
  • Slow down and savor the flavors, the textures, the aromas, and the experience of eating.
  • Be mindful and think about the food you’re eating. I once did a mindfulness exercise where we were guided through the experience of eating a single raisin over the course of five minutes. It is something that will stay with me always. First we looked at the raisin, then we touched it and smelled it. Then we put it in our mouths and very, very slowly chewed it, attending to its texture, juices, and sweetness. This is such a contrast to the way we usually gulp our food down.

Sit down to eat and make it a family gathering

  • Sit down to eat, and eat at the table with family and friends, not in front of the TV.
  • Keep the conversation positive and light.
  • I love this idea offered by fellow nutritionist and good friend Robin Nielsen: She suggests that just lighting a candle can be calming and put you in a digestive mode.

Don’t eat when you’re highly stressed or anxious

  • Chronic stress, anxiety, and depression reduces your production of hydrochloric acid and lowers levels of secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), an antibody that plays a critical role in immunity in the gastrointestinal tract. This will impair your digestion. And because poor digestion leads to nutrient depletions that make it more difficult to handle stress, it creates a vicious cycle.

Address possible neurotransmitter deficiencies

If you’ve tried all of the above and are still finding it challenging to stay on track then the next step is to address possible neurotransmitter deficiencies.

  • If you have afternoon or evening cravings for carbohydrates and gluten-containing grains, you may have low serotonin. Tryptophan or 5-hydroxytryptophan may help.
  • If you crave comfort foods like bread, cookies, or ice cream, they may be providing an endorphin rush. Taking D-phenylalanine (DPA) may help.
  • If you overeat bread, cereal, pasta, or dairy to calm down, or drink wine to de-stress you may have low levels of GABA. Taking supplemental GABA may help you relax and experience fewer anxiety-related cravings.
  • If you’re prone to low blood sugar and have intense cravings for something sweet or starchy, glutamine really helps, as it plays a role in moderating blood sugar levels.
  • If you crave something sweet for a quick energy fix, you may have low levels of catecholamines. Taking supplemental tyrosine may help.

The amino acid questionnaire from The Antianxiety Food Solution can help you figure out which area to focus on.

Do you want to learn more about mindful eating? Join us on the Mindful Eating Summit

Join me and 20 other speakers on the Eating Mindfully Summit August 21-28 with my friend and colleague, Dr. Susan Albers, author of “Eating Mindfully” and Cleveland Clinic psychologist. This summit will teach you how to boost your nutrition, end mindless overeating and stop feeling guilty when you eat!

Here are just a few of the presenters, all of whom offer their own rich, in-depth perspective on health, wellness and mindfulness:

  • Dr. Brian Wansink Director of Cornell Food & Brand Lab and best-selling author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
  • Evelyn Tribole Award-winning registered dietitian and author of Intuitive Eating
  • Dr. Jim Painter Producer of Portion Size Me, a documentary about fast food and health and featured on CBS’s Early Show
  • Dr. Katz, author of Disease Proof and contributor to O, the Oprah Magazine
  • Dr. Daniel Siegel, Professor of at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center
  • Dr. Alan Christianson, specialist in natural endocrinology with a focus on thyroid disorders
  • Jonathan Bailor, author of The Calorie Myth

I am also presenting on this summit. The topic of my talk is “The amazing amino acids for eliminating anxiety and emotional eating.”

So do join us on the Eating Mindfully Summit August 21-28 with host Susan Albers. You can sign up here:
http://mindfuleatingsummit.com?orid=6083&opid=4

 

 

What’s lurking in your food: book review of The Pantry Principle

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mira-exhibittable
The fun and enlightening quiz Mira did at the Weston A. Price conference

There is so much lurking in our food and The Pantry Principle: How to Read the Label and Understand What’s Really in Your Food does a wonderful job educating us about all the nasty stuff that can make us anxious and sad, affect our digestion, give us ADHD symptoms and so much more.

Mira Dessy is a certified food educator, is known as the Food Ingredient Guru and is a Real Food Advocate. We are colleagues and I was honored to have been asked to do an advance review of her book for inclusion on the book cover. This is what I said:

“Mira Dessy’s book, The Pantry Principle is a real gem! If you eat, this book is a must-read – so you really know what’s in your food. It is a user-friendly, comprehensive, well-researched and eye-opening resource. I look forward to recommending it to all my clients!”

I work with anxious, stressed, overwhelmed women and I do now recommend it to my clients. It’s a perfect companion to my book The Antianxiety Food Solution for taking shopping and eating to the next level.

Initially I wondered how relevant it may be since I recommend real whole food to my clients, rather than packaged foods. I found out very quickly that is it very relevant!

Here is a great example of the relevance even when you are eating real whole foods:

  • a possible new coating for bananas which will delay the ripening process by up to two weeks
  • the product is made from chitosan, which is in turn made from shrimp and crab shells.
  • as Mira says: “this could present serious problems for those with high-level seafood allergies.”

I really do like that it contains the most current information. The banana coating information is from a 2012 report. I also really like that I learned about things I had not heard of before!  I’m a nutritionist and I learned new facts!

And Mira keeps us up to date with this ever-changing world via social media and her great blog called Grains and More.

It is also quite provocative. Just wait until you read about castoreum and other surprises you will find in your food! Mira mentions castoreum in this blog post about shellac and candy: shellac is:

“confectioner’s glaze,” “confectioner’s resin,” “candy glaze,” or even simply “natural glaze.”

It’s essentially the insect version of castoreum. Harvested from trees where the female lac bug lays down cocoon-like secretions, it is scraped off the trees (often along with bark and insect parts) and heated until it liquifies. It’s strained and then allowed to cool in thin sheets. This is then reconstituted with denatured alcohol when manufacturers are ready to use it to give foods that shiny coating.

Here is a sampling of what Mira covers in the book:

  • How to read a nutrition label
  • Understanding Additives
  • Artificial colors
  • Sugar and where it’s lurking
  • Fake fats
  • Packaging
  • A GMO ingredients list and much more

 You can see the complete table of contents via the Amazon preview and buy your copy of The Pantry Principle via my Amazon link.

pantry-principle-book-cover

Mira will be exhibiting with me at the upcoming Integrative Medicine for Mental Health conference next month so if you’re at the event come on by and meet her and get a signed copy of the book.

Mira was also one of the guest experts on the recent Anxiety Summit. Her topic was “How Additives in Your Food Can Make You Anxious” and it was a great interview (you can check out the other speakers here.

Please ask questions below. If you have already read this book do share some of your favorite tips in the comments below.