The cheapest, healthiest + most delicious way to make popcorn at home

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A movie without popcorn can be an incomplete experience.  I went to see the movie 'Chef' last night (yeah for date night!) but ended up being super bummed because I couldn't have popcorn!

Yes they said there was 'nothing' on the popcorn (so at first I was quite excited) however they pop it in oil and add salt.  

Adding oil (or butter) to your popcorn adds an excessive amount of fat calories to a hearty and healthy whole-grain food.

One cup of air-popped popcorn without oil contains 31 calories with 10% of these calories coming from fat (1).

One cup of air-popped popcorn with oil contains 55 calories with 50% of calories coming from fat (2).

It's the same amount of popcorn, but the popcorn with oil is 24 calories more!  But no one eats just 1 cup of popcorn.  

According to the New York Times, 1 large bucket of popcorn holds 20 cups (3)!  If you're eating oil on the popcorn, that's 1,100 calories versus 620 calories if that large bucket wouldn't have oil.  Plus, most people add butter adding even more calories and fat!  Aye!

Instead of fattening up your waistline and dulling your taste-buds with traditional popcorn, try this cheap, simple, delicious and nutritious way to make popcorn at home.

The easiest, healthiest and cheapest way to make popcorn at home

1.  Buy popcorn.  Check out the bulk section of your supermarket or a simple bag of just popcorn.  This normally runs between .50 and $1 per pound.  Cheap!  Or, try an organic, heirloom variety at your local farmer's market (not so cheap, but tasty!)

* I purchased Dakota Black organic, heirloom popcorn from Lonesome Whistle Farm, at the Corvallis farmer's market.  It's dee-lish!

2. Place popcorn (1/4-1/2 C) in a small paper bag (like the one your grandmother use to pack lunches in).

3. Fold top the of the bag over a few times and put in the microwave for one minute (no longer than one minute or the bag could catch on fire!)

3. Take the bag out, remove any popped pieces and return to the microwave for another minute.

4.  Repeat this process until popcorn is all popped.

5.  Eat it!

How to spice up your popcorn w/o oil or butter

  • Spray with Bragg's liquid amino acids (tastes similar to soy sauce).  Heads up: kids LOVE spraying (and eating!) this popcorn (it was our 5th grade classroom's daily snack when I ran the R.I.S.E. with Healthy Food Program in the McMinnville School District).
  • Add hot sauce and or nutritional yeast (my students called this fairy dust).  Nutritional yeast has a cheesy flavor but doesn't contain saturated fat or cholesterol like cheese.
  • Add your favorite spices such as chili powder, cajun seasoning or garlic power.
  • Or, just eat it plain!  It tastes great!

Now I'd love to hear from you.  Help yourself put this information into action by answering Today's Take Control Now question.  Put your answer in the comments section below.  And likewise, if you enjoyed this article, please share it with a friend <3.

Take Control Now

How can you enjoy popcorn without butter or oil?  How could you spruce it up?  Other thoughts?

What I Eat in a Day on a Plant-Based Diet

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Many people are surprised by how much I eat and what I eat.  "But you're so skinny!" some will say as I'm eating the largest bowl of potatoes and veggies they've ever seen.  (I personally prefer lean (and strong!) over skinny).

I eat a large volume of food everyday and I love it!  I love not being afraid of eating too much or gaining weight.  I know that the food I eat is helping me not only stay lean, but energetic, incredibly healthy and this, makes me very happy and in control of my body.

So what do I eat to feel and look this way?

Currently, I'm working 10 hours/day, 50 hours a week (at least) on an organic vegetable farm, burning calories (and needing more food) than if I was working an office job.  Keeping that in mind, this is what a regular day looks like for me.

My Typical Daily Eats

Breakfast (5:30 am):

I always eat breakfast.  Every single day.  If I don't, I'll faint in a few hours.  

Regular or thick rolled oats with ground flax seed, cinnamon and fruit is what I eat for breakfast 95% of my mornings.  It's filling, keeps me energized for 3-4 hours easily and it's cheap!

Today I topped my oats with a small banana, blueberries and half a peach.  

I rarely get tired of eating oatmeal everyday.  Changing the fruit with the seasons keeps my oatmeal feeling new everyday.  

However, when I do urge for something different, pancakes typically call to me.  I'll make whole wheat pancakes with banana and blueberries or banana with dark chocolate nibs if it's a treat.

Mini-Meal (snack) (9 am):

Multiple days each week I'll eat half of a large sweet potato for a snack.  Or a salad with plenty of beans (I love garbanzos right now) with 100% whole-grain toast or a smaller amount of left-over dinner.

I prefer to call snacks mini-meals because people tend to eat healthier when they eat a meal versus a snack like pretzels or chips.  

Lunch (12:30 pm): 

Lunches are always something filling (I don't want to feel hungry out in the field!), highly nutritious and are typically left-overs from last night's dinner.  We always cook large batches during dinner so both my boyfriend and I have lunches for the next day.  

The base of the meals are always either beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, rice or other whole-grains like corn, quinoa, farro or 100% whole-grain pasta.

These filling starchy (yes starchy!) whole plant foods, are always topped with a variety of different vegetables and sauce for a complete meal.  

This may look like corn tortillas with rice, black beans and corn with grilled zucchini, onion, peppers, spinach and salsa on-top.

Mexican burrito bowl lunch -- rice, beans, shredded jicama, corn, salsa, cilantro and lime juice.

Mexican burrito bowl lunch -- rice, beans, shredded jicama, corn, salsa, cilantro and lime juice.

Or, lunch may be vegetable curry over rice, vegetable lasagna and salad or a thick veggie burger patty with sweet potato fries.  

If I didn't have time to cook, I'll just eat 2 sweet potatoes and a large salad with a lot of beans on-top and it tastes delicious!

Mini-Meal (snack) (3-4 pm):

Depending on how full I feel, I'll eat another small snack in the field around 3 or lately, I've been eating banana ice-cream when I get home around 4:15 to hold me over until dinner.  

Dinner (7 or 8 pm-ish):

I'm either making dinner at home similar to lunch OR going out to eat, especially now when I'm working so much.  When we go out to eat our favorite locations are Laughing Planet, Nearly Normals and Block 15 in Corvallis, Oregon.

I'm lucky there are so many restaurants where I live that offer vegan and plant-based options.  So when I go out to eat I can eat an oil-free burrito at Laughing Planet -- rice, beans, salsa, spinach and kale with their hole mole sauce.  Yum!  

Or, at Nearly Normal's I'll frequently get the Peanut Pad Thai which is not sautéed in oil with a salad with their oil-free tahini dressing.  

Peanut Pad Thai from Nearly Normal's

Peanut Pad Thai from Nearly Normal's

Sweet Potato Enchilada from Nearly Normal's

Sweet Potato Enchilada from Nearly Normal's

At Block 15, I order their home-made Black Bean Burger (It's huge and delicious!) with their oil-free honey mustard dressing.  

Block 15's house made Black Bean Burger with oil-free honey mustard dressing

Block 15's house made Black Bean Burger with oil-free honey mustard dressing

(Haha whose coming to visit to go out to eat with me? Seriously!)

Take Away Tips

These are the important notes I want you to take away from what I eat on a regular basis.

1.  In my home, I don't cook with oil (it's not even in the house), sugar (again, not in the house) and we don't eat dairy or meat in the house as well.  Any of these rare 'treats' are saved for special occasions outside of the house.  

2.  When I go out to eat (yes you can do this!) I always order as healthy and filling meals as possible without oil and animal foods.  Sometimes it's not always possible to get completely oil-free, but I go for the best possible option.  (Please note I'm also at my ideal weight and disease free. Depending on your situation, I may be tougher with you here ;-).

3.  Nut, seeds and other high-fat foods are used as condiments.  I don't eat an entire avocado as a snack, eat peanut butter out of the jar or snack on hand fulls of nuts.  I wouldn't lose or maintain my current weight if I did!  To get the nutritional benefits of high-fat plant foods without gaining weight, sprinkle nuts on-top of a larger dish like salad or oatmeal or spread one slice of avocado on a veggie burger.

Now I'd LOVE to hear from you!  Please share your thoughts in the comments section below by answering today's Take Control Now Question.

Take Control Now

What's one improvement you can make to your daily diet based on my daily eats and the info shared in this week's Take Control Tuesday episode?

Will Dairy Help You Lose Weight? A Review of the Evidence

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Have you been told that dairy products like yogurt will help you lose weight?  Just search 'dairy and weight loss' online and you'll find a myriad of websites stating dairy aids in weight loss.  Women frequently consume yogurt, calcium supplements and dairy products assuming these dietary practices will help them stay slim and lean.

But what does the evidence state?  What do researchers find when they observe large groups of people consuming dairy products over a period of time (longitudinal studies) or when scientists test the difference between one group consuming dairy and calcium and the other group isn't (controlled trials)?  More importantly when we put all of these findings together (meta-analysis), what kind of picture is painted for the dairy and weight loss hypothesis?

To help answer this question, today I'm reviewing a meta-analysis of 49 randomized trials (1) to help us understand if dairy and calcium products assist in weight loss.

Click the picture/video below to watch this week's episode.

Amy Lanou, PhD, Chair and associate professor in the Department of Health and Wellness at Univeristy of North Carolina and Neal Barnard, MD, President of the Physician's Committee of Responsible Medicine, published a review 49 randomized, clinical trials in the journal 'Nutrition Reviews.'

Based on inconclusive results of longitudinal studies, the authors reviewed clinical trials to further assess the evidence on dairy, calcium and weight loss with and without calorie restricted diets.  Additionally, this review took into account which of the included studies used calorie-restrictive diets in conjunction with the dairy or calcium interventions.  Other meta-anlysises of clinical trials have failed to do (2).

The author's search revealed 49 studies.  Here's what the results found...

"Forty-one trials showed no significant effect of dairy or calcium on body weight, with or without energy restriction.  
Two demonstrated an increase in body weight with a dairy treatment; (9,10) four small trials demonstrated a differential weight loss with calcium supplements and dairy products when paired with a calorie-restricted diet (46,70,71)  and another showed a greater rate of weight loss with supplemental calcium in the absence of caloric restriction (38)."

Contrary to popular belief, the totality of evidence shows dairy and calcium have no effect on weight loss.  

Take Control Now

What do you think of these findings?  Are you surprised?  Please share your thoughts.

Type your answers in the comments section below.  

1.  Lanou, A.J. and Barnard, N.D. 'Dairy and weight loss hypothesis: an evaluation of the clinical trials', Nutrition Reviews, Vol. 66 (5), pp. 272-279.

2.  Winzenberg T, Shaw K, Fryer J, Jones G. Calcium supplements in healthy children do not affect weight gain, height, or body composition. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2007 Jul;15(7):1789-98. Review. PubMed PMID: 17636098.

How to Freeze Blueberries

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One of my favorite things about summer is the blueberries.  From July to September blueberries are freshly picked in Oregon and I eat them on everything.  I go into complete berry overload!

I put blueberries on my oatmeal in the morning, on salads for lunch and dinner, in my banana ice-cream for a summer cool-down treat, in my blueberry breakfast crisp or just plain as a snack.  

Blueberries are soo good for you too!  They've been shown to improve memory in humans (1), protect against the progression of cancer (2), atherosclerosis, ischemic stroke and neurodegenerative diseases of aging (2).  

Blueberries are so wondrous for our health because there are so many health promoting compounds in blueberries.  Blueberries contain (3)...

  • fiber
  • calcium
  • magnesium
  • phosphorous
  • potassium
  • vitamin C
  • folate
  • choline
  • vitamin A
  • beta carotene
  • lutein + zeaxanthin (carotenoids)
  • vitamin K
  • a ton of flavonoids and proanthocyanidin (disease fighting compounds)

The list doesn't stop here.  Blueberries also contain many trace amounts of additional vitamins and minerals that are not included in this list (3). 

One way to get a lot of blueberries in your diet, is to always have them around.  However, they can be expensive, so the least expensive way to have blueberries year round is to freeze them.    

How to Freeze Blueberries

1.  Buy freshly picked blueberries.  You can buy them in the store, however, they will cost less if you buy them directly from a farmer, especially in large batches or even better, if you pick them yourself (find your local U-Pick blueberries).  I prefer organic blueberries but if you can't find or afford organic, non-organic is better than not eating blueberries at all!

2.  Spread the berries evenly as one layer onto a cookie sheet or pie pan.  Don't pile blueberries on-top of each other.  They'll freeze together in clumps this way.  Pick out any stems or leaves.  Don't rinse the berries before you freeze them.  This will make the skins tough and not as tasty.  

3.  Place in the freezer for at least 3 hours or until hard.   

4.  Remove blueberries from freezer, remove any additional stems and store in plastic sealed containers or zip lock bags.  Write the date you froze them on the bag or container (you can also use a piece of tape).  This way you'll know how old they are when you find them years later in the back of your freezer!

5.  When you're ready to eat your frozen blueberries, rinse them, and then cook!

Top left: packaged frozen berries, Top right: berries about to go in the freezer, Bottom left: picking stems off berries post freezing, Bottom right: berries on my oatmeal this morning

Take Control Now

How do you freeze blueberries?  Have a different method you'd like to share?  Or, what's your favorite way to eat blueberries?

Put your answer in the comments section below.  I'd love to hear from you.  And please like this article or pass it on if it was of any use to you!

How to Make Blueberry Breakfast Crisp

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It's berry season in Oregon which is the perfect time to make cobbler or crisps.  Crisps that are  so delicious and nutritious, you can even eat it for breakfast... or dinner!  I made this Berry Breakfast Crisp for meat lovers this 4th of July weekend and they loved it!  

Click the below video to learn how to make the crisp or just keep reading on!

Most crisps and cobblers contain white flour, butter and loads of sugar -- foods that will not help you lose weight (and keep it off) and will not help your family members struggling with diabetes or heart disease.  In order to stop the progression of chronic diseases and help you lose weight permanently, it's imperative you begin to incorporate whole, plant-based meals into your daily diet.

This includes desserts as well.  Just because plant-based desserts don't (or shouldn't) include a lot of fat; animal products like butter and eggs; and refined foods such as white flour, oil and sugar; this doesn't mean dessert won't taste amazing (or sweet!) as you'll find out with today's Blueberry Breakfast Crisp.    

I adapted this recipe from Cathy Fisher's Apple-Pineapple Crisp.  She's an amazing chef that makes plant-based meals without added salt, sugar or oil.  

Here's what you'll need for my Blueberry Breakfast Crisp.

Ingredients, Crisp Filling:

  • 3 cups blueberries (rinsed)
  • 1 cup blackberries (rinsed)
  • 9 dates, chopped
  • 3/4 cup water (or 100% juice of your liking)
  • 3 TB freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients, Topping:

  • 1 1/4 cups rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 6 dates, chopped
  • 2 TB water
  • 1/2 ripe banana, diced

Directions:

Turn the oven to 375 degrees.  Add all 'filling' ingredients into a bow and mix gently.  Pour into a pie pan or baking dish.  Place topping ingredients into a blender or a food processor and pulse only a few times just until the mixture is blended together (you don't want the oats to turn into flour).  Spread the topping mixture over the filling evenly and press down gently.  Cook for 30 minutes (when the topping is slightly brown).  Let the crisp sit for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Recipe extras:

- I drizzled honey on top of the crisp fresh out of the oven.

- You can save and store the crisp for up to 5 days in the fridge.  

- This tastes delicious with my banana ice-cream on top!  

- Eat for breakfast, dinner or dessert.

I'd love to hear from you about this Breakfast Blueberry Crisp.  Type your feedback in the comments section below.

Take Control Now

Would you make this recipe?  Ever eaten a healthy plant-based dessert?  Does this crisp look yummy?  Even better -- make it and let me know what you think!

 
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