Given the fact that the employees at my local grocery store see me more than my own family does, it’s safe to say that I have quite a bit of experience pushing a full cart around.
While I generally enjoy the experience because a) I love finding and ch…
It turns out you can cook that frozen seafood right now. Plus, four more clever ways to get dinner on the table faster.
By Lynn Andriani
Don’t Defrost the Fish
Waiting for frozen seafood to thaw can be a drag—which is why chef Jesse Cool of the Flea Street café in Menlo Park, California, skips that step. She sautés, broils and roasts fillets directly from frozen, just adding a few minutes to the usual cooking time. As the fish thaws, its juices infuse the pan sauce.
Get the recipe: Cod with Lemon, Olives and Capers
Toss Tacos Like Salad
DIY tacos are great. Filling 14 bowls of fixings and arranging them on the table, not so much. This throw-everything-in-a-bowl version is a major time-saver; think of it as moo shu pork, but Mexican. You mix all the taco fillings together on the table, place them on a serving platter and let everyone fill their own tortilla.
Get the recipe: Shrimp Tacos
Let Hot Water Do All the Work
A rich-tasting bowl of homemade noodle soup with vegetables is a dependable and healthy meal, but it isn’t usually the speediest dinner, which is why we were thrilled to learn this shortcut: All you need to do is place thin egg noodles, powdered vegetable bouillon, a pinch of sugar and some shredded or chopped carrot, scallion, bok choy, garlic and chili into a container. Pour boiling water over everything and let stand 10 to 15 minutes. The noodles and vegetables will become soft and tender, and the water will turn into a delicious savory broth.
Get the recipe: Noodle Bowl
Freeze Beef for Just a Moment
Whether you’re making fajitas, a stir-fry or some other dish that involves thin slices of beef, cutting the meat into a uniform size can be frustratingly time-consuming. The trick to getting the job done in a flash is to partially freeze the uncooked steak first. Place it in the freezer for 20 minutes, while preparing the rest of the ingredients; when you take it out, you should have no trouble slicing the beef into perfect, quick-cooking bite-size pieces.
Get the recipe: Stir-Fried Orange Beef with Sesame Seeds
Don’t Just Preheat the Oven
The recent popularity of cast-iron skillets makes sense for so many reasons: The pans are a great value, incredibly durable and, as time-pressed cooks know, excellent conductors of heat. But a cast-iron skillet can be even handier if you stick it in the oven to preheat while the oven warms up. It doesn’t matter if you’re cooking chicken or potatoes; adding the ingredient to an already-hot pan will not only shave your overall cooking time but will also give the food a nice browned edge.
Get the recipe: Cast Iron-Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary and Onion
Gone are all signs of the roach- and rodent-plagued Mid City Deli. The prime corner on 14th and P streets NW has been completely transformed as the sixth gelateria and cafe from Dolcezza. New to this location is a to-go window on 14th Street, where customers will be able to order from the sidewalk. The Logan Circle […]
When it comes to getting kids excited about food that doesn’t involve shiny wrappers or fish-shaped crackers, I say bring on the cute. With four kids, ages 5 and under, I have only one rule in the kitchen: All ideas must be doable. (Do you hear me, Pin…
Evaporated cane juice, fructose, sea salt, tapioca syrup, unsweetened chocolate, invert sugar syrup, cocoa powder, sucrose, confectioner’s glaze.
The ingredients in some of the most popular energy gels and chews for endurance athletes may seem surprisingly familiar (and perhaps not in a good way): They’re awfully similar to candy, with perhaps the occasional electrolyte or amino acid thrown in. But believe it or not, there’s a reason for the marked similarities, and it’s not necessarily a bad one.
Why gummy candy and a marathoner’s fuel share so many common ingredients boils down to what happens in the gut when you eat these types of products. Sugar, in its various forms, is an easily digestible source of the carbohydrates the brain and body need to sustain physical activity. Before these types of products were available, long-distance runners and cyclists really did take candy along for the ride, explains Liz Applegate, Ph.D., director of sports nutrition at the University of California, Davis.
When you exercise, “you’re using up your stores of glycogen, your body’s stores of carbohydrates,” Applegate tells HuffPost. The body replenishes these stores with glucose, some of which is naturally floating around in your bloodstream, but more of which you need to ingest in “whatever simple form of sugary carbohydrates will keep you feeling good,” she says.
But that is by no means permission to fuel every three-mile jog with a Snickers bar. Athletes typically don’t need to refuel during exercise that lasts less than an hour, says Susan M. Kleiner, Ph.D., RD, of High Performance Nutrition, LLC. (Water will work just fine for those activities, she notes.) The American College of Sports Medicine and the National Academy of Sports Medicine recommend getting 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour of physical activity. And that even includes weightlifting, as long as it’s high-intensity, since “the higher the intensity, the more carbohydrate you’re burning,” she says.
Athletes competing in even longer events — say, something lasting three to five hours, or more — can benefit from 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour of activity, says Applegate.
Aside from their simple carbohydrates, chews and gels are also convenient to transport for athletes who, understandably, don’t want to carry around extra bulk while competing. These products also aim to taste good: Manufacturers put effort into concocting the perfect “mouthfeel”, says Kleiner, who is involved in developing a new sports nutrition product for women. Most product lines on the market boast six to 10 flavor varieties, from citrus and berry to chocolate and peanut butter.
“Some of the strategy [for manufacturers] is that the athlete is looking for a reward,” Kleiner says. “These things play a role in helping you get the mental motivation to keep going.” Sports drinks don’t always have the same effect, she says, as many of the athletes she’s worked with express a desire to chew their sustenance.
Not that race day is the time to first bite into an endurance-boosting morsel. “People have to experiment with it,” says Applegate. “They need to be training with it.” At first, athletes may experience some stomach upset as they get used to eating while exercising, but the gut’s response — just like that of the heart, lungs and muscles — is trainable, she says.
Thinking about trying out gels or chews? Keep in mind that you probably won’t even need them until your training plan calls for workouts lasting around 75 minutes, says Pamela Nisevich Bede, MS, RD, CSSD, LD, of SwimBikeRunEat.com. And don’t be afraid to go through some trial and error with different products until you find a brand you feel good with. Then experiment with different flavors within that brand, she suggests. If you’re training for an upcoming race, investigate what kinds of fuel the race will offer along the course, and see how your body responds to that during training. “On race day, if you can stomach that, you don’t have to carry as much with you,” she says.
So what should you look for in an endurance product? First things first: “It’s best to pick a product that shows multiple sources of carbohydrates,” says Applegate. “You’re able to uptake a bit more carbohydrate per minute and that really makes a difference in longer events.” On labels, that might look like the starch maltodextrin and fructose, or evaporated cane juice and fruit juice, or honey and tapioca syrup.
The problem, however, is that manufacturers don’t always have research to back up their products’ claims, Kleiner says. They may borrow science on just one of the ingredients and promote that ingredient’s benefits as perks of the product as a whole, when in a particular combination, that ingredient may not work the same. “To think about how much real science is behind a lot of these products … there’s often not,” she says.
Many also have incredibly long ingredients lists that contain more than just simple carbs and electrolyte-replacing salt, making it hard to decipher what it really is you’re eating. We looked at the ingredients lists of a handful of the most popular endurance products and asked the experts to put some of the most confusing contents into categories we can understand.
(Click to enlarge)
While typically here at Healthy Living we’d advise avoiding processed foods with more than five ingredients, the experts say ingredients lists in this scenario should not be a source of stress.
For one thing, some of the ingredients you might typically shy away from do still offer some benefits. Potassium sorbate, for example, is is a preservative. But it’s also a source of potassium, an electrolyte lost through sweat during exercise. Not to mention, “you do want to prevent the product from breaking down on the shelf or while you’re jogging,” says Bede.
For those who would still prefer something less processed, honey can do the trick, as can dried, or even fresh, fruit, says Applegate. (Though these may be a bit more challenging to transport, and fruit can be tougher on the intestinal tract.) “Definitely work on getting [processed] foods out of your diet the rest of the days of the week,” Bede says, “but when it comes to fueling when you’re 20 miles from home, I say go with what’s easy and convenient.”
As the summer sizzles, Drs. Brian and Anna Marie Clement have a prescription to put some sizzle in your sex life, too — eat watermelon, eat kale.
The Clements run Hippocrates Health Institute, a pioneer in natural wellness for over half a century. “What draws people here is its historic reputation, tens and tens of thousands who’ve reversed disease and premature aging,” says Brian. So who are these people? “Every person, every age. It’s like your neighborhood.”
Most people come for Hippocrates Health’s three-week intensive wellness program. Brian, who’s directed the facility for over 30 years, says, “We watch people come back to life.” And back to lust. “One thing we hear constantly and consistently is, ‘Yes, my cancer went into remission, but my God, my sex life has never been as good as this.'” That led him and his wife to write “7 Keys to Lifelong Sexual Vitality: The Hippocrates Institute Guide to Sex, Health, and Happiness,” published by New World Library.
The Clements are big into sex. We all are. “This biological force governs every choice we make until the day we die. Even when you comb your hair, or doll up, that’s sex hormones still working for you,” says Brian. The Clements want to keep them working. An active sex life ups your immunity, energy and emotional happiness. Plus, it’s fun.
None of those seven keys to sexual vitality involves popping a pill. “It’s a journey of consciousness,” says Anna Maria. “Your kindness, your compassion, your awareness, it’s determined by what we consume.”
Their book contains sections on tantric exercises, fantasy and adult films, but central to the book and to the Clements are foods designed to rev your libido — we’re talking nature’s aphrodisiacs like kale, rich in vitamin A, B complex, calcium, choline and zinc.
The book’s dozen recipes are vegan and raw, the Clements just don’t make a big deal about it. What is a big deal are the results. They cite the 2008 Texas A&M study showing watermelon delivers “Viagra-like effects to the human body’s blood vessels and could even help to increase libido.” Does it really work? “Absolutely. I’m buying watermelon left and right, eating the rind and seeds,” Brian jokes.
Back in the 1960s, he was less into eating watermelon, more into fried bologna. “I was obese and smoking three packs a day and plenty of grass.” In college, he met a guy who practiced yoga and didn’t eat meat. While Clement was slightly weirded out, “something resonated.” He gave up meat, then dairy, and credits it with saving his life. “I was lucky.”
His wife Anna Maria grew up in Sweden, where “there’s a healthiness, an openness” about sexuality. The average Swedish diet, though? Not so much. “Meat, gravy potatoes, dessert,” says Anna Maria, who, with her whole family, went vegetarian when she was young.
The Clements met on the job at Hippocrates Health. They’ve stayed there — and stayed together — for decades. “There’s nothing like having a relationship that goes on and on and on, it’s the best,” says Anna Maria. “There’s so much memory, you’ve been through so much together, you grew up together and supported each other.”
“We’re grandparents, we’re best friends, we want to hang out together and make love,” says Brian.
The Clements are calling for more and better sex for all, including what Brian calls the Boomer Sexual Liberation Front. “Let our generation lead the way to healthier sex, less guilt and shame, and much longer, more fulfilling lives.” Better stock up on watermelon.
Hippocrates Melon Soup
Easy, bright and refreshing, this chilled soup recipe, used and adapted with permission from Hippocrates Health Institute, is just the thing for summer. Make it with your favorite type of melon. However, given its naughty-making possibilities, watermelon’s a pretty strong contender.
1/2 melon, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon fresh herbs, such as tarragon, basil or mint or 1/4 teaspoon warming spice like cinnamon or ginger
juice of 1 lemon or lime, if desiredIn a food processor blender, blend the melon for about a minute or until it reaches smoothness. Add the herb or spice, optional squeeze of citrus and a little water to thin, if desired. Process again briefly until well combined.
Serves 2.
An earlier version of this post first ran on February 4, 2013.
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