Category Archives: Fiber

Popcorn Fail

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Those of you who already bought my new cookbook (thanks!) might have seen waaaay in the back my efforts at a recipe for DIY microwave popcorn.

I love popcorn and it’s a whole grain, but it loses its health benefits when you cook it in a ton of oil and smother it with salt and butter. So I put myself on a quest to figure it out. After all the turmoil, failed experiments, and hot kernels in my eye, I finally succeeded, so YAY me.

And then one day (about 47 seconds after my cookbook was published) I was walking through Target and saw this for $8.99 …

popcorn bowl

The Nordic Ware Microwave Popcorn Popper.

In 3 minutes it makes enough popcorn for hubs and myself. No oil, no mess, no fuss.

D’oh.

No, they aren’t paying me to pitch it, but if they wanted me to, I could do it in my sleep. That’s how much I love it. Perhaps I’ll shoot a hot kernel in my eye, though, for old times sake.

Are there any other secrets you people are keeping from me??

Why You Should Love Fiber If You Want To Lose Weight

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Fiber — or what Grandma called roughage — is found in fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. It’s the stuff your body can’t digest. It passes through your body mostly intact and helps you poop.

As important as that is, eating enough fiber can also help you lose weight.

High fiber foods take longer to eat, allowing your brain to catch up with your stomach and know when you’re full. That means you’re less likely to overeat. They also give you more bang for your calorie buck … they have fewer calories for the same amount of less fiber-y foods.

When you eat high fiber foods, you tend to stay full longer, so you don’t eat as much.

Another benefit of high fiber foods is that they tend to be more natural and less processed than many other foods.

I’m guessing you already knew all that. So now I want to give you a list of good sources of fiber. Even the laziest among us can eat from this list every day. Aim for between 30-40 grams of fiber every day, but if you haven’t been eating much fiber lately, you might want to take it a bit slowly. You don’t want your plan to, ahem, backfire. Increase your water, too, as you increase your fiber.

The average American only eats about 15g of fiber every day. If you’re not sure how much you eat, track your normal diet for a week and see. It’s hard to get too much fiber from food (and that’s where you should get it, not from supplements). Fiber is like exercise — some days you get a little more, some days a little less. Average it over a week and see where you are, then act accordingly.

 

 

Day One:

11g Breakfast — smoothie: almond milk, blueberries, strawberries, pumpkin, cranberries

4g Snack — apple

13g Lunch — salad: broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, spinach

3g Snack — handful of nuts

5g Dinner — have baked beans with your burger

BLAM … 36g of fiber

Day Two:

10g Breakfast — oatmeal with blueberries, and toast with peanut butter

1g Snack — popcorn

10g Lunch — burrito with refried beans, spinach and guacamole

2g Snack — vegetable juice

11g Dinner — baked potato with black beans

POW … 34g of fiber

Day Three:

11g Breakfast — Grape Nuts with almond milk and a banana

3g Snack — prunes

8g Lunch — peanut butter sandwich

1g Snack — carrot

14g Dinner — bowl of chili with 2 Wasa crackers

ZOUNDS … 37g of fiber

Holy simplicity, Batman!

Take a tour of your pantry and read some labels. What high fiber foods do you have? Add your stuff to this list then post it on your fridge to remind you to eat more fiber. It’s such an easy, healthy thing to do.

Next time you’re at the grocery store, pick a couple items from your list and check labels to find the brand with the highest fiber. Tortillas, pasta, crackers and cereals are great places to start.

Maybe I’ll eat my morning bowl of Grape-Nuts with beans, carrots and strawberries so I’m fibertastic all day. I can’t see any flaw in THAT plan!

What’s your favorite high fiber food?

 

Edible Cactus, Part 2

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Previously, I talked about tiny bananas and tunas, the fruit of the prickly pear cactus.

Today, I’ll share my adventure with the cactus leaves. These are, obviously, the leaves or paddles from the prickly pear cactus. Sometimes they’re called “cactus paddles,” “cactus pads,” or “nopales.”

The vendors scrape the worst of the pricklys off these, but definitely not all of them. I used tongs to hold them while I scraped both sides clean with a knife.

Then I used a vegetable peeler to clean the edges.

These are very sticky — like okra — so rinse your utensils sooner rather than later. As careful as I was, I still got jabbed by invisible pricklys so I used a pumice stone and nail brush to get them all off my hands afterward.

When I felt confident they — and me — were devoid of all pricklys, I experimented with cooking them.

I diced one paddle and sautéed it without oil in my ceramic pan for about 5 minutes over medium heat. They started to stick a bit so I added a tablespoon or so of water. They were delicious. They tasted like a combination of green beans and bell peppers with a hint of lime. They were a bit crunchy, too.

Another paddle I brushed with olive oil and broiled for about 8 or 10 minutes. I figured it was done when it started squealing at me. This one was also delicious but it tasted like asparagus.

I sautéed a diced paddle in oil, but that was my least favorite. It absorbed too much of the oil and combined with the already extra-stickiness, it was just too much.

You can also steam whole paddles, but I didn’t ty that. We already had more nopale than we knew what to do with. I added some of the sautéed-without-oil nopales to my scrambled eggs and tossed some into soup, both equally delicious.

Nopales have about 60 calories in 1 cup, as well as about 5g of fiber and lots of vitamin C.

If you ever see these, pick some up. At the farmer’s market where I found these, they were selling stacks of 6 cactus leaves for just a couple of bucks.

Have you ever had nopales? How did you prepare them? Did you like them?

Low Cal, High Protein, Low Carb, High Fiber, Low Sugar Breakfasts

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Everyone seems to have their own idea of what constitutes “low” and “high” values within their diet. All the dietary guidelines vary based on a person’s weight, gender, health, and activity level. I’m about 140 pounds, in excellent health and I exercise at least thirty minutes almost every day.

I eat about 1800 calories per day divided between six small meals so I eat about 300 calories per meal. I’ve been told to shoot for about 90 grams of protein per day. Here’s a calculator you can play with to figure out your protein needs, if you want to do some math.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine recommends a minimum intake of 130 grams of carbohydrate per day, so if you divide that by my six meals, you get an average of 21 grams of carb per meal.

Fiber is a specific type of carbohydrate that comes only from fruits, vegetables and grains. Soluble fiber controls blood sugar and may also lower cholesterol. Non-soluble fiber doesn’t appear to lower blood sugar or cholesterol but helps your bowels function, ahem, smoothly. According to the American Dietetic Association, adults need between 20 and 35 grams of fiber every day. Again, dividing by my six small meals, I should average about 6 grams/meal.

There is no daily requirement for sugar, but I read one of Jorge Cruse’s books where he says to try to stick to less than 15 grams of sugar per day. I don’t eat any refined sugar and most of my sugar comes from fruits and veggies, but I am consistently well over 15 grams every day. I don’t worry too much about it since it occurs naturally in my healthy food, but it is interesting to see which vegetables have sugar (onions and bell peppers, for instance). If you are concerned about sugar, watch out for yogurt. It has a ton. I’ve switched to Greek yogurt which has much less sugar.

Based on the above guidelines, the following breakfasts all fall into the low cal, high protein, low carb, high fiber, and low sugar parameters. Plus, they’re quick and easy. Enjoy!

• Spinach and Veggie Omelette

Sauté fresh spinach, onions, bell peppers, and/or celery in a teaspoon of olive oil. After the spinach is wilted, pour 1 whole egg + 2 egg whites, beaten, over it. Cover until it’s set then turn it when it’s cooked to your liking. Spread with 1T Wholly Guacamole and/or salsa. Also have 4-oz V8 juice

• BLT Wrap

Wash 2 or 3 large Romaine lettuce leaves. Spread with 1 wedge Laughing Cow cheese and 2T Wholly Guacamole. Roll up with 2 slices crispy microwave bacon and sliced tomato. You can also add sliced olives, onions, and/or bell peppers. Have 4-oz V8 juice, too.

• Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

In blender, combine 8 oz unsweetened chocolate almond milk, 1T cocoa powder, 1t vanilla, and 2T natural peanut butter (the kind with only peanuts and salt as ingredients). Also have 1 whole grain Wasa cracker spread with 1T peanut butter.

• Greek Yogurt Parfait

Top 4oz non-fat plain Greek yogurt with 1C sliced strawberries. (You can mix in 1 packet of stevia to the yogurt, if you like it a bit sweeter.) Sprinkle with 2T sunflower seeds, and 2T dark chocolate chips (at least 60% cacao), too.

• Ham and Egg Scramble

Chop 4 thin slices of deli ham and add it to 1 whole egg + 2 egg whites. Add some chopped onions and bell peppers and season as you like. Scramble it all together and cook until done in nonstick skillet sprayed with 0-calorie nonstick spray. Also have 4-oz V8 juice.

Click for more low calorie menus and be sure to check out the Lazy Low Cal Lifestyle Cookbook for more recipes!