Riley and Root Veggies

Today I am honored and humbled to have longtime friend and colleague Jennifer Freese share her healthstyle transition from not-so-healthy scientist to thriving new mother.

Jennifer was blessed (cursed?) with the gift of proximity. She sat in the desk and worked at the lab bench directly adjacent to mine for four years at UCSF. As a result she saw firsthand how I gleefully integrate healthy living into my freakishly busy schedule.

Jennifer’s story is the perfect example of how small, gradual and customized changes can transform your life. She started shopping at the farmers market so she could bring fresh produce to make beautiful salads at work (I’m famous for this in the lab). She started jogging regularly, although she swore she could never be a runner. She even switched a few meals a week from red meat to fish, despite her Midwestern roots!

Last year Jennifer had her first child, and is now imparting her healthy lifestyle to her new daughter. I’m thrilled to have her share her story with you.

Homemade Healthstyle: Lessons In Making Baby Food

by Jennifer Freese

I was lucky enough to work with Darya in the Pleasure Lab for four years. It’s hard not to be influenced by her passion for food and a healthy lifestyle. Not just the book recommendations and exercise tips, but watching her effortlessly practice habits which to me seemed impossible. Seeing her live and eat changed how I think about food.

Darya taught me about healthy eating and how to really integrate it into my life. I now love shopping at my local farmers’ market almost every Saturday. I fill my plate with vegetables and eat whole grains I had never even heard of before. Since I do the grocery shopping and a majority of the cooking for the house, my husband has necessarily upgraded his healthstyle as well. And now I’m passing this lifestyle on to the newest member of our family, my daughter Riley.

When my daughter was a few months old we went over to a friend’s house for dinner. I was stunned to see my friend whip open the cabinet and presented her toddler with mac n’ cheese (pop off the top and serve), a handful of yogurt melts (freeze dried yogurt), a banana, and toddler formula.

It was the most highly processed, colorless meal I’d ever seen.

That evening, I thought about how easy it is to go from the jarred pureed baby foods to the now popular grab-and-go toddler foods to adult TV dinners and fast foods. I vowed that when my daughter started solid foods I would do things very differently. I’d already toyed with the idea of making my own baby foods, but it seemed like a lot of work. However, I decided that shaping her tastes early with fresh foods was worth the effort.

Learning to cook for a baby required some research and planning. There are many opinions on how to introduce solid foods to babies and as a scientist I was compelled to read up on all the theories. I am happy to say that Riley enjoys most of the foods I’ve presented to her. In hindsight I think all the time I spent deciding what should come first–pears or peas–wasn’t worth the worry.

Most of the recipes for first foods for babies are the same: steam the fruit or vegetable until very tender, blend and serve. My husband gave me a fantastic gift for my 1^st Mother’s Day: the Beaba Babycook and the Cooking for Baby cookbook. The Babycook is a steamer/blender/defroster all in one that I use almost daily. The cookbook has given me recipe ideas beyond simple pureed foods, suggestions for tasty combinations and flavoring with spices and herbs.

Obviously making baby food takes more time than cracking open a jar. I have to plan ahead and make sure I’ve started steaming long before mealtime. Hungry babies do not wait patiently for dinner! I always make large quantities and put some in the fridge for the next few days and freeze the rest. I was surprised at how long it takes to measure out all those 2 oz portions. But once I make that time investment, my freezer is stocked and I have food ready to serve in the future.

Making my own baby food allows me to serve Riley a greater variety of foods and flavors. Roasted red peppers, cilantro and amaranth are not typical on the ingredients list of jarred baby foods. My hope is that this early exposure to a greater variety of foods will help her keep an open mind about food in the future (although I’m sure she’ll go through picky phases like all kids). For now she is growing and thriving and that tells me my time is well spent.

The affirmation that I was doing the right thing came on a camping trip when Riley was 8 months old. I brought some homemade food, but I also took along a few commercial jars. Yes, sometime convenience is really nice, especially in the woods without my Babycook!

It seemed like a good idea until I opened the jar of peas. Unlike my vibrantly colored homemade peas, these were gray and didn’t smell right. Not wanting to influence Riley I disguised my doubts and put a spoonful in her mouth. She completely rejected them.

Not only would she not eat the jarred peas, she wouldn’t eat fresh peas for two weeks. I guess they had lost her trust.

I have since tried some other jarred foods (now I sample everything before I give it to her) and truth is, they just don’t taste like their fresh counterparts. How can we expect a toddler to enjoy fresh green beans when all they’ve had is processed pureed green beans that taste nothing like the real thing?

My experience with Riley is that she enjoys what is served but is reluctant to accept change. I’d much rather she enjoy freshly prepared fruits and veggies and reject the processed food.

Don’t get me wrong though, we’re not only about healthy eating. For Riley’s first birthday I plan to stick an entire mini cake in front of her and let her go at it. But since I will make the cake myself, I feel better knowing every ingredient that is going in her mouth, on her face, in her hair, and on the floor!

Tags: baby food, guests

Blue Bottle Coffee

I’m thrilled to have Allison Arevalo from Local Lemons representing today from across the bay in Berkeley.

The Berkeley farmers market on Center street downtown is one of my old stomping grounds. Though there is a lot of overlap in products between Berkeley and SF, the vibe is completely different. This synopsis has definitely inspired me to head back sometime soon.

Allison is a Brooklyn girl who escaped New York for the sunny skies and year-round produce of Berkeley, California. Local Lemons is a collection of original, all-natural recipes designed to give you a taste of local, sustainable living in the East Bay.

Farmers Market Update: Berkeley

by Allison Arevalo

Days like this make it easy to forget winter. While most of the world hides beneath down comforters and behind woolen scarves, in Berkeley I saunter slowly around the farmers’ market, sun warm on my back. And while I am grateful to breath summer air in January, I feel most fortunate to enjoy vibrant greens of winter produce – something I was deprived of living in New York.

My day at the Berkeley market began with a hug from Denise (Chez Us) and a steaming cup of Bella Donovan from Blue Bottle coffee. From there we walked the length of the market, taking it in before making all-important decisions. The Berkeley market is often a sea of green, but today the emerald hues were as varied as the vegetables themselves. Kale, chard, romanesco, broccoli, arugula, spinach, leeks and other greens flourish during the temperate, wet Bay Area winters, making it the ideal time of year to indulge in their nutrients.

Celery

Romanesco

Green garlic recently made its yearly market debut, and oh, how I love the mild bite of green garlic. Cook with it, use it as a garnish, stir it into soups or puree it for dips. A favorite recipe of mine uses sautéed green garlic mixed with smashed cannellini beans, a drizzle of olio nuevo and a pinch of flaky pink salt. I grabbed a few stocks from Riverdog farms, where I also purchased plump, stout carrots, so sweet they taste candied.

Phoenix Bread

Green Garlic

Our next stop was Phoenix Pastificio. The Phoenix makes a rainbow of fresh pastas–porcini, squid ink, meyor lemon, saffron–homemade sauces, cookies and their famous rustic olive bread. I have yet to leave the market without touting a loaf of the cushy artisanal bread, brimming with tangy kalamatas.

Watermelon Radish

Butternut Squash

Among mountains of butternut squash, baskets of sweet lettuce, piles of watermelon radishes and stacks of fresh cheese, Berkeley market is a community; a gathering of locals who come to chat up the virtues of purple carrots, or sample green olive and potato tamales wrapped in banana leaves. I am particularly fond of the white-haired, dreaded beatnik, who reminds me what I love about Berkeley as he strums and sings nostalgic tunes from Bob Dylan.

Today’s Purchases:

Sweet Lettuce: Happy Boy Farms

Arugula: Happy Boy Farms

Rustic Olive Bread: Phoenix Pastificio

Green Garlic: Riverdog Farm

Carrots: Riverdog Farms

Romanesco: Riverdog Farms

Fresh Local Prawns: Hudson Seafood

Bella Donavan: Blue Bottle Coffee

Tags: Allison Arevalo, Berkeley, guests, Local Lemons

Winter Salads

Today Nathalie Lussier is sharing her secret tips for making tough winter greens soft enough to eat in salads. Winter salads are a perfect use for all the lovely radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, beets and other sweet vegetables available this season at the farmers market.

Top off your salad with hazelnuts, grapefruit and some shaved cheese for a satisfying winter meal or side dish.

Nathalie Lussier helps people overcome unhealthy food cravings so they can eat more fruits and vegetables, and experience the magick of raw foods. She’s known as The Raw Foods Witch.

How To Use Winter Greens In A Salad

by Nathalie Lussier

Winter might not strike you as salad season, but there are plenty of delicious hearty greens to be had this time of year. One trick is to marinate the leaves so they soften and are easier to chew.

Here’s how to prepare some of these tougher greens and enjoy rich, satisfying salads year round.

Choosing Hearty Greens

The foundation of any good salad is the green component. Usually we think of lettuce, but there is a world of other greens to explore.

So what options do we have when it comes to hearty greens?

1. Kale: Kale is a tough vegetable that can handle the cold. It has a strong taste, but with a little bit of massaging it can make a really satisfying salad green. There are a few varieties, from the most common curly green to the spotty dinosaur (aka Tuscan) and beautiful purple kales. They are each slightly different and you should experiment with them all.

2. Cabbage: Cabbage is a tried and true winter veggie, but we can go beyond the usual coleslaw, saurkraut and cooked cabbage. Different colored cabbage adds beauty and variety to your salads, as well as sweetness and a crispy texture.

3. Swiss Chard: A relative of spinach, Swiss chard has a thick midrib that comes in a rainbow of colors like green, white, red, pink, and yellow. Swiss chard is great in salads and can be easier to chew than some of the others.

Washing & Cutting The Greens

De-stemming Tuscan Kale

Wash the greens thoroughly, you never know when a caterpillar will decide to make her home in a leaf of kale.

The way you cut the greens is important because you want them to absorb the marinade and soften.

Cutting Kale and Swiss Chard

For both kale and Swiss chard, you need to remove the stems by using a knife and slicing them out vertically. You can then chop up the stems and add them back to the salad like you would celery or other hard vegetables.

After you’ve removed the stems, slice the kale and chard horizontally into 1 inch strips. Put the sliced greens in a large bowl.

Don’t worry if you think you sliced up too much, it will shrink down in size as it marinates.

Cutting Cabbage

If you’re using cabbage, cut the cabbage in half and then use a knife to cut thin strips. These should look like coleslaw slices. You may have to cut them lengthwise if they are too long.

I recommend you cut the whole cabbage and make a big batch, unless you have something else planned for the other half. Making large batches at once makes future healthy meals that much easier.

Massaging & Marinating The Greens

This is the magic part that will take regular tough greens and turn them into the perfect salad.

Ingredients

• Your chosen greens or a combination of them (1 bunch)
• 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil or more as needed
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• Pinch of Celtic sea salt

Now it’s time to get your hands dirty! Add the ingredients into your mixing bowl and massage them into the greens with your hands.

You really want to squeeze the oils and juices into the greens, because that’s what will make them truly mouthwatering.

The Final Touches

After you’ve thoroughly massaged your winter green salad, add any other chopped vegetables you like, or any of these salad toppings.

Dress the greens and veggies for a hearty, satisfying winter salad!

Don’t let tough winter greens turn you off salads. Once you know how to make those winter greens more palatable, you’ll be eating delicious raw salads all year round!

Do you have any winter salad tips?

Tags: cabbage, chard, guests, kale, Nathalie Lussier, salad

Dupont Circle Farmers Market

This week our featured Farmers Market Update is from Washington DC!

Olga Berman spends her free time cooking, salsa dancing and traveling. She believes cooking for one can be as rewarding as cooking for company, and doesn’t need to involve a lot of time or ingredients.

Olga’s recipes are inspired by her memories of growing up in Russia, her travels and what’s available in her fridge at any given time. Check out more recipes from Olga’s collection at Mango & Tomato, follow her on Twitter (@mangotomato).

Farmers Market Update: Dupont Circle in DC

by Olga Berman

If you think cold weather means no more farmers markets, don’t give up quite yet.

The Dupont Circle Farmers Market in Washington DC is open year round, rain or shine, on Sundays from 9 am to 1 pm. I visited the market on December 6th and found an abundant amount of produce, flowers, holiday gifts and even a sample of potato soup from Jaleo, Jose Andres’ restaurant.

I first stopped at the Sunnyside Farm & Orchard to check out the fresh onions, radishes, beets, and greens. All these winter vegetables are not only full of nutrients, but are also beautiful (see above photo-).

My next stop was Black Rock Orchard. Here you could pick up several varieties of apples and pears, green onions, and three varieties of turnips.

Apples

Turnips

At the New Morning Farm, I found two types of vegetables that I’ve never seen before: watermelon radishes and tat soi. Watermelon radishes are larger in size than a typical radish and have a pretty pink color inside. They can be used in salads, roasted, or sautéed in butter. Tat soi, I was told, should be cooked similar to bok choy.

Tatsoi

Watermelon Radish

Next was Twin Spring Fruit Farm. I was happy to see that they still had tomatoes available. Surprisingly, tomatoes smelled and tasted as if they were picked in August. The farm also had what you would typically consider a late fall/early winter produce: sweet potatoes and carrots.

Sweet Potatoes & Carrots

Winter Tomatoes

For those of you who are not tired of pumpkin, you can find it and other winter squash at Gardeners’ Gourmet. I especially liked the multi-colored and odd-shaped pumpkins. And speaking of multi-colored, Gardener’s Gourmet had white, yellow and purple cauliflower. Unfortunately, the color of the cauliflower doesn’t add anything special to the taste.

Colorful Cauliflower

Winter Squash

All in all, it is definitely worth it to bundle up in your warm clothes, get a cup of coffee and stroll through a winter farmers’ market. You are bound to find delicious apples and discover a few new produce items. Not only will you be supporting your local farming community, but you might learn a new recipe or two.

What did you find at your market this week?

Tags: guests, Mango & Tomato, Washington DC

Photo by laurenatclemson

I’m thrilled to have JC, author of JCDFitness for today’s guest post. I don’t read many exercise blogs, but JC has such a refreshing approach to fitness and exercise I can’t help but love it. I asked him if he would share some of his wisdom with us here at Summer Tomato.

JC writes about fat loss, building muscle and everything else fitness related at JCDFitness.  He takes a No-BS approach to the health and fitness lifestyle and prides himself on his relaxed, comfortable approach. Check out his free ebook, A No-BS Approach to Looking Great Naked and follow him on Twitter (@JCDFitness), if you’re into that sort of thing.

Increase Your Activity, Improve Your Life

by JC

If there is anything I am truly, madly in love with, it’s food. So you might guess that I was once a chubby kid; okay, a really chubby kid.

But I am not here to tell you how or what to eat. If you’ve been hanging out on Summer Tomato for more than a few minutes, you already know how.

So, while I trust you are eating all the unprocessed foods and in-season produce available, how are you doing with the other part of the healthstyle equation? What does your daily physical activity look like?

If you live in America, chances are your life is busier than ever, even more so now that the holidays are upon us.

Here is a simple plan to increase your physical activity, which will greatly improve your quality of life.

Exercising is Fun, Taking the Stairs is NEAT

First off, we have two ways to get active and expend more energy throughout the day. The first one is deliberate exercise, which I will cover in a bit.

The second way to increase activity is through something called NEAT. This little acronym stands for Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Basically, NEAT is everything you do outside of deliberate exercise; it’s the energy you expend at your occupation, while doing household chores, picking up the kids, bathing your boa constrictor or painting your grass during the winter season.

Unfortunately, sometimes things are not so neat for a person who works at a desk and gets a slap on the wrist every time they move an inch away from their computer screen. So, if your current occupation or daily duties do not include much movement and you want to incorporate some extra activity into your daily routine, it’s time to get creative.

If you work on the 85^th floor in the office building downtown, I don’t expect you to take the stairs all the way to the top. However, you can take a few flights before getting in the elevator and, when you come down for the day, you can do the same. Over time, you should aim to increase a flight or two every so often. Ideally you will be able to do all 85 flights within a month.

I kid.

But taking the stairs is a great way to get extra exercise if you can’t do a formal workout.

Another option is to walk instead of drive to your next destination. I know this is not possible for everyone, but once in a while if I want to increase my NEAT I will simply walk to school. I, however, only live 1.5 miles away from the farthest part of campus, so this is very easy for me.

If you take a train or bus, walk to the station if it’s not too far from your home.

When you do your grocery shopping, park in the very back of the lot; this way you’re forced into some extra activity. If it’s the only exercise you get outside of pecking the keys 8 hours per day, it’s definitely better than nothing.

For more NEAT tips check out: 6 Ways To Get More NEAT

Benefits of Strength Training (Deliberate Exercise)

The benefits of strength training could be an entire article in itself, as there are many positives I could ramble on about. For the sake of not boring you to death, I will hit the highlights.

The person who incorporates some form of resistance training a few times per week is going to be far better off than those who do not.

Now don’t get this confused with going to the gym and working out with all of the meathead bodybuilders. You can practice resistance training in the comfort of your own casa if you wish. You really don’t need a whole lot of equipment, if any at all. Heck, if you’ve never trained before, all you need to be doing is body weight exercises anyway, at least to get you started.

So give me some benefits!

• Increased bone density
• Increase in lean body mass
• Improved appearance
• Boost in confidence
• Injury prevention due to joint stabilization through increased strength/muscle mass

Think of strength training as an insurance policy. It’s usually not much fun paying your dues and putting in the extra hard work, but you will be thankful later on in life as the rewards are great in terms of health and longevity.

As we age, our bone density diminishes; our muscles lose their tone and become weak. As a result, our chances of injury later in life increase exponentially. On another note, setting strength goals and achieving them will do wonders for our confidence and self-image.

So how might we put it all together?

Keep It Simple, Please

A strength training routine should never take up all of your time. In fact, it can (and should) be rather quick, unlike training for a marathon.

All you need is a few non-consecutive days per week to train; any more is likely unnecessary.

Keep in mind, I am writing for the general population here, so the guidelines are amendable and should be altered to suit your needs. However, here is a sample, full-body routine to get you going in the right direction.

Sample weekly exercise program

Training frequency is 2 times per week: Monday and Thursday morning before work (pick the days best for you, it’s just an example).

You will do the same routine each training day and increase weight and reps whenever possible.

The guidelines are to pick 1 exercise for chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps and 1-2 exercises for legs.

If you have access to a gym, your routine would look like this:

• Chest Movement (bench or machine press) 2 x 10-12
• Back Movement (lat pulldown, chin up, rows) 2 x 10-12
• Shoulder Movement (vertical barbell press, DB press, lateral raises) 2 x 10-12
• Bicep Movement (curls with barbell, dumbbells or resistance bands) 2 x 10-12
• Tricep Movement (extension with dumbbells, machine or bands) 2 x 10-12
• Leg movement (squat or leg press) 2 x 10-12
• 2^nd Leg Movement (leg curl or straight leg deadlift) 2 x 10-12
• Abdominal Movement (crunches, planks) 2 x 10-12

If you do not have access to a gym and want to work out at home doing body weight only exercises, do 4 sets of 12 of the following:

• Push ups
• Chin-ups
• Chair dips
• Squats
• Lunges

As you progress, the exercises will become less challenging, so eventually, you may need to move onto free weight/machine exercises or make your body weight work more difficult. This can be done by adding bands for resistance or making each movement more challenging.

For instance, if you want to make body weight squats more difficult, do a 1 legged squat or use dumbbells for extra resistance. Instead of regular push ups, do handstand push ups. You must get creative if you plan on doing body weight exercises only.

Cardio, Anyone?

On top of the strength training, some low to moderate intensity cardio is perfectly fine to do as well. I encourage those with sedentary lifestyles to incorporate 2-3 days of cardio into their weekly routine. My reasoning is, the more exercise we get, the more likely we are to maintain a healthy weight.

Examples of simple cardio workouts are walking the dogs when you get home from work, riding your bike through the trails, jogging in the morning before class, etc. Of course, you can use a treadmill, but I despise them; they are boring and usually inside a smelly, uncomfortable building. I prefer to do my cardio in the fresh air whenever possible.

So there you have it: a perfectly sensible plan to get active, improve your fitness and increase your quality of life.

What does your current exercise routine consist of? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: cardio, fitness, guests, gym, JCDFitness, NEAT, strength training, workout