Photo by AmandaBreann

When I was 18 few things were further from my mind than health. Sure I enjoyed my status as a thin, relatively fit teenager, but there was virtually no connection in my brain between what I put in my body and how long or happily I would live.

At that time I saw healthy eating as a fringe activity, for granola crunching hippies or men over 60 with beer bellies. I had no reason to worry about heart disease at my age and organic food was way more expensive, so why bother?

But that wasn’t the only reason I avoided the issue. As a self-conscious girl from Southern California, I was very concerned with my weight. People considered me thin, and I had every intention of staying that way. I knew that my obsession with my body image and constant dieting was considered “unhealthy,” but I didn’t care.

From my perspective the message from the media was clear: healthy is the opposite of thin. And when you’re young and think you’re invincible, the choice is obvious. Getting kids to worry about something in the distant future is difficult enough, but when you set it up as the antithesis of their immediate goals you make it nearly impossible.

It wasn’t until years later that I started to appreciate the value of health as an objective. I now understand that healthy is beautiful, and that thin and healthy are not mutually exclusive. Your ideal size is determined largely by genetics, but if you eat well, exercise and take care of yourself not only will your body look the way you want, you’ll also have nicer hair, a clear complexion and brighter eyes. You’ll likely have more energy and feel happier as well.

Sadly, body size is still the focus when most people talk about health. When you’re “too thin,” healthy means eating more regardless of quality. When you’re overweight, healthy means losing weight no matter how you accomplish it. But in the long term health is a reflection of your daily habits and is determined by things like the quality and diversity of your diet, how often and vigorously you exercise, exposure to environmental toxins and other factors.

While body weight can certainly be an indicator of health problems and sometimes reflect improvements, it’s important to understand that the message we send about health can backfire if these two things are inextricably linked.

How do you define health?

Red Flame Grapes

Today’s guest post is by Jyoti Mishra Ramanathan, a fellow UCSF neuroscientist who studies attention and distraction in the human mind. In her article Jyoti reveals how attention impacts our experience of food and how we can harness this power to help us eat less without feeling deprived.

Learning to be a mindful eater will permanently change your relationship with food and is essential for upgrading your healthstyle.

Mindful Eating and Portion Control

by Jyoti Mishra Ramanathan

I grew up in India where life revolves around food. One wakes up to plan breakfast and as soon as that is over plans lunch, then immediately prepares for a typical 3-4 course dinner. When I visit aunts or my grandma, I’m barraged with food at every moment: eat this, eat that! Oh! You aren’t eating enough! Oh! Do you not like my dishes?

If you don’t accept all or any food that comes your way, it is seen as a sign of disrespect. And if this isn’t enough to make you over-eat, remember too that food is sacred in India. How could one waste the grains on one’s plate when there are millions around us suffering from hunger? Consequently, I grew up believing it is normal to forever be bursting at my seams–to eat to the point where taking another bite might even make me sick.

But a few years ago my eating habits changed.

I was at a meditation workshop and one evening we were told we’d be given one grape for dinner. This sounded impossible. However, I obediently sat cross-legged with the other attendees and was handed my single juicy purple grape.

As I popped it in my mouth, I was told to shut my eyes and sense the grape in its totality: I rolled my tongue around it becoming aware of the soft and smooth exterior of the tiny fruit, I imagined its rich purple color, and then as I slowly bit into it, I savored every trickle of juice that I could extract from the grape.

The process took me a full five minutes and never in my life have I remembered eating such a delicious grape, although it was from no extraordinary vine. Miraculously, I felt full as well.

Try the grape exercise. I do not promise the satisfaction of a full meal, but it is a beautiful exemplar of mindful eating that consequently taught me portion control.

4 Simple mindful eating tips

1. Never eat distracted, i.e. while watching TV or running to catch the bus. Observe the deliciousness on the plate, the colors, textures, flavors and smells, savoring each bite. As the meal makes its way to the stomach, start to notice the fullness in your tummy. I found that there is an initial satiation simply from this sensory overload of observant eating.

One could stop here, but this is not enough nourishment and hunger tugs again relatively soon. But as you slowly chew on your food and enjoy each bite, you experience a real fullness that completely satisfies your hunger. This sensation precedes the contentment of the taste buds, which may still desire a few extra bites of that rich chocolate cake. But as I learned to identify the hunger satiety point at each meal, I found I could also control the desires of my taste buds.

2. Do not visit a restaurant starving. It is harder to control how much you eat when faced with novel delicacies at a restaurant, especially when you get there on an empty stomach. My best defense against this is to eat a small snack right before. My favorite is a quick salad.

At home I always keep miscellaneous salad ingredients on hand: mixed greens, cheese, raisins, walnuts, candied almonds, grains like quinoa, blueberries, avocado, sundried or cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, figs, grilled chicken strips, smoked salmon, etc. Mix-and-match any of these in varying proportions and add some homemade dressing. Each time you will have a novel salad that never gets boring. After a light snack it is much easier to have restraint while ordering and eating, keeping both waistline and budget in check.

3. Share a meal. My husband and I more often than not share an appetizer, entrée and dessert at a restaurant. This is not because we can’t afford more. We simply enjoy sharing–describing the new tastes to each other, immersing ourselves in the experience and appreciating new food. In these happy moments satiety emerges effortlessly.

Try this even when out with a group of friends: order for 3 with a group of 4 and share. If there is still food left over and there are no pets or family at home, I offer my extras to the homeless. I just gave away a carrot cake a couple of nights ago and the delight in those eyes was like someone who had just found a treasure!

4. Don’t aim for 100% full. Hara Hachi Bu is Japanese for eating until 80% full. Okinawan islanders practice this and are known to be one of the longest living people on the planet. Their longevity is attributed to this moderate calorie restriction in combination with consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables, which protect against free radicals that damage your body’s cells.

Conclusion

In summary, there are many benefits to portion control: feeling better right after a meal, long-term health, weight management, saving cash by eating less and perhaps even living longer.

Practice mindful eating to make portion control a reality for you.

How do you control your portion sizes?

Originally published September 2, 2009.

American Cheese Facts

Over the years I’ve had a few people ask me why I don’t include calorie counts on the recipes I share. Isn’t this website supposed to help people eat healthier and lose weight?

You can imagine their surprise when I tell them that the reason I don’t post calories is because I want to help them eat healthier and lose weight. (Zing!) And calorie counts don’t contribute to that goal.

I’m not disputing the notion that eating less promotes weight loss. I’ve tried it and it works. The problem with posting calorie counts is it doesn’t give you any information about whether or not you’re making a good food decision, which is all most of us need to worry about.

You might think that calorie counts can help dieters monitor their food intake and lose weight, but when you stop and think about what this entails it’s easy to see how ridiculous it is.

It takes extreme skill and dedication to accurately tally your calorie intake every day, if it is even possible. As we saw yesterday, calorie counts at restaurants can be off by over a hundred calories, and packaged foods are legally allowed to be 20% higher than their labels claims. You may have better luck with home cooked meals, but it requires the detailed weighing, researching and recording of every ingredient you use.

And toward what goal?

Very few people have been tested and know their resting metabolic rate (how many calories you burn while doing nothing). To balance your energy expenditure you’d also need to account for your physical activity each day (dream on if you think the machines at the gym, or even your heart rate monitor, are giving you accurate calorie expenditures).

Theoretically you could just set a very low calorie goal and hope for the best, but that is essentially a semi-starvation diet and if that’s all you want to achieve then why bother counting?

If you really want to know if a recipe (or packaged food, for that matter) is healthy, skip the calorie counts and look at the ingredients. Do they consist of natural foods that grow from the earth or have they been processed beyond recognition?

Make better food decisions based on quality, unprocessed ingredients and you will be healthier and likely lose weight. Your food will be more satisfying (you’ll naturally eat less), you’ll have more energy (exercise is easier) and you’ll look better (positive reinforcement). If you’re already making excellent food decisions and still need to lose more weight, eating less using mindful eating and other tricks is very effective. Counting calories isn’t necessary.

In other words, I don’t post calorie counts because they distract you from what actually matters: eating real food.

All ingredients are proudly displayed on Summer Tomato recipes.

Foodie Inspiration

Healthy eating and cooking for yourself go hand in hand. If you have the resources it is possible to eat healthy while dining out, but restaurants that don’t use processed foods can be difficult to find and tend to be pricey. They also limit you to a handful of different dishes that can become monotonous if you rely on them for most of your meals.

But keeping your healthstyle interesting can be a challenge even if you cook for yourself. Although shopping in season inevitably rotates you through new ingredients over the course of the year, we can still slip into the pattern of making the same dishes over and over again. And while repetition can be easy and comforting, it can also be problematic.

Monotony and boredom are your enemies if you are trying to make healthy eating a way of life; junk food will be extra tempting simply because it’s more interesting than the same boring meal you’ve had 10 times before.

To keep yourself from getting in a cooking rut you must actively seek inspiration for new dishes and flavor combinations. This is true for both kitchen newbies and seasoned chefs, and it gets easier with practice. The more you learn to outsource your creativity and experiment, the better you get at finding meal ideas in your daily life.

Inspiration can come from anywhere. These are some places I often find new ideas, but you are only limited by your imagination.

8 Places To Cook Up Recipe Inspiration

1. Farmers markets

My number one source of inspiration is always the beautiful produce and other goodies I find each week at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Not only do I often find interesting new ingredients to experiment with, I also find familiar foods that look so fresh and delicious I can’t help but buy them and turn them into something wonderful.

If you are thinking about buying something but do not know how to cook it, ask the vendor for ideas or common preparations. I recommend you get anything that looks new and interesting, since most vegetables are relatively cheap and Google puts a universe of recipes at your fingertips.

2. Restaurants

Most major cities (San Francisco especially) are home to amazingly talented and innovative chefs of all different styles and flavors. Steal their ideas! If you have a memorable meal while out on the town, take mental notes on the flavors and textures that capture its essence. You don’t have to be able to recreate it exactly at home, but you can definitely borrow the concept, simplify it and adapt it to your own skills and needs.

For example, I was recently struck by a dish at a spectacular restaurant that was composed of beets with dill–a flavor combination I had never tried. The dish was technically complicated and I wouldn’t bother attempting to make it the same way, but later that week I did roast some beets and change up my usual recipe to include dill instead of mint (sans chèvre). Turned out fantastic.

3. Food blogs

The number of outstanding food blogs today on the interwebs is staggering, and I love to skim through them looking for wonderful recipe ideas. I can’t even begin to list all my favorite sites here, but I try to highlight at least one mouthwatering recipe each week in For The Love of Food posts.

4. Travel

Nothing inspires enthusiasm for new flavors and recipes like traveling to a different locale. Eating traditional cuisines–the way they are supposed to be made–is one of the most intimate and meaningful ways to engage with a culture. Learn a few of the cuisine’s basic ingredients and cooking techniques and you can bring a tiny bit of your experience home with you. Think of this process as a procedural photograph you can use to remember your trip.

Again, you don’t have to recreate dishes exactly the same way in your own kitchen. Sometimes just a single special ingredient can evoke an entire cultural experience.

5. Friends

We all have that friend who is an amazing cook (love you guys!). Not only does this person sometimes hook you up with delicious treats, chances are your foodie friend also loves to talk about food and cooking. This is a goldmine for new ideas and sometimes even a little help and guidance. Maintain a healthy, food-centric relationship with this person and watch the inspiration roll in.

(Hint: If you don’t have a friend like this come hang out with me on Twitter @summertomato)

6. Books

Cookbooks are wonderful but, to be honest, I rarely use them. The reason is that I’m usually too busy to bother lugging the giant things off the shelf and thumbing through them for something specific. I usually either wing it in the kitchen or search online for what I need.

Literature, however, can be a huge inspiration for me to try out new things in the kitchen. It wasn’t until I read The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie that I really started exploring Indian cooking. The Last Chinese Chef helped me learn to appreciate the depth of Chinese cuisine. And I cannot eat enough Spanish tapas when I’m reading Hemingway.

7. Podcasts and radio

I love Mondays because all my favorite food podcasts are waiting on my iPhone for me to listen to on my commute. Both entertaining and educational, foodie podcasts never fail to inspire me to try new foods and cooking methods. They also make me a better cook by describing tips and techniques I am unfamiliar with.

8. TV

Although I do not watch TV regularly, there was a time when I would catch a periodic episode of Top Chef or other foodie show. What I enjoyed most about these programs was the times they would explain the decision making process that goes into creating a dish. But even if culinary improvisation isn’t in your cards, you can at least borrow their ideas (just like at a restaurant) and make similar meals for yourself at home. The recipes used are often posted online.

You can also get meal ideas from TV dramas and sitcoms. Remember Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi? That’s where I first learned about mulligatawny.

Recipe inspiration can come from anywhere, but if you aren’t looking for it a stroke of genius may pass you by.

Where do you get your inspiration in the kitchen?

Originally published February 24, 2010.

Photo by Andrew Feinberg

Caveman Bob: Wow I’m starving, wanna grab some grub?

Vegan Kate: Sounds great, I wonder if this place has quinoa…

Caveman Bob: What the hell is keen-wah? We don’t have that where I’m from.

Vegan Kate: No way! It’s so awesome, plus it’s a complete protein so if you can’t find beans it’s no problem.

Caveman Bob: Beans? Complete protein? Stop talking crazy. If you want protein why don’t you just eat some delicious cow? Cow is delicious. And it’s chock full of lysine. Beans-shmeans.

Vegan Kate: Oh no, no no no. I could never eat an animal or animal product. Not only is it cruel, it’s unhealthy. Animal fat causes heart disease and animal protein causes cancer. Everyone knows that.

Caveman Bob: That’s silly. I don’t have heart disease or cancer and I eat animals for a living. You should see my blood work, it’s pristine.

Besides, I haven’t even evolved to eat those weird cereals and beans you speak of. I’ve been told they’re the reason people have all these crazy diseases of civilization. Thanks, but I’ll pass.

Vegan Kate: What do you mean you haven’t evolved to eat them? We’re physiologically the same and I eat them all the time. I don’t have any of those diseases either, and my blood is also impeccable.

I’m certain it’s because I don’t eat animals.

Caveman Bob: Well I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.

Vegan Kate: And I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.

Caveman Bob: Hmm. Sounds like at least one of us is wrong. Can I get you a drink?

What don’t you eat?

By woodleywonderworks

Abandoning the idea of “going on a diet” is one of the most difficult and important adjustments to make when you are trying to lose weight and improve your health. To achieve and maintain your fitness goals, learning to think in the long-term instead of the short-term is a necessity.

We’ve been conditioned to think about our health as a temporary endeavor. When we find ourselves getting a bit out of shape we assume we need to start a new diet plan and maybe join a gym or cardio class.

“But, you know, things are busy right now and I’ll get to it in a couple weeks when I have more time.”

Even if we do start the plan and lose some weight, how long will it be before we slip back into our old routine and the pounds creep back on?

If you learn only one thing from Summer Tomato I hope it’s that diets don’t work. Calorie restriction in any form can induce temporary weight loss, but the vast majority of people emerge worse off than before they subjected themselves to the difficult and demoralizing task of losing weight and inevitably gaining it (plus a little extra) back.

The science is painfully clear that only long-term and consistent healthy lifestyle choices result in permanent weight loss and improved health.

To really win this war you need to shift your focus from short-term diets and weight loss goals to lifelong habits that promote good nutrition and a healthy metabolism–changes that, in my opinion, should be welcome and enjoyable.

It is never too late (or too early) to get started on your upgrade.

But once you’ve made the commitment to a better healthstyle, how do you know you are making progress without the specific goals and endpoints you get from a temporary diet plan?

This is an excellent question and something worth taking a minute to think about. The answer will be different for everyone and depend substantially on where you start and how you define success.

An example of a fantastic healthstyle goal would be getting off cholesterol, blood pressure or diabetes medication, something attainable by the majority of people taking them. For others the goal may be avoiding meds in the first place by reaching a healthy body mass index (BMI). Health goals like these are obviously a first priority for anyone facing them.

But healthstyle is not just for people with serious health problems. After all, the “normal” BMI range is pretty lenient and you may still have the goal of fitting back into a certain pant size or reaching a specific body fat percentage. These are certainly reasonable goals, especially when you are not approaching them from an all-or-none, feast or famine mentality.

But in my experience, specific number-oriented goals have little stay power when health is your top priority.

When you focus on eating delicious, healthy foods and getting regular exercise (in any form), as the months and years pass goals like reaching a certain body weight or jeans size start to feel a bit contrived. This isn’t because physical appearance or achievements aren’t important, but as your metabolism changes and your body gets healthier it becomes clear that you can feel and look a lot better than you ever really imagined.

What exactly defines the perfect weight or size anyway?

I am not trying to trivialize specific fitness goals nor the effort required to attain them. If you’ve read my diet history you know that I am not immune to aspirations like these. But over time feeling good becomes a more meaningful and satisfying goal than fitting into your jeans. And in my experience, the more energy I put into being healthy and living well, the smaller my jeans get anyway.

For awhile now my healthstyle goals have had little to do with body weight. Instead I choose to focus on habits I can develop that will improve my life and health overall. These include cultivating my cooking skills, learning to eat mindfully and figuring out the best lunch for an awesome afternoon workout.

Here are some of my recent healthstyle goals, which are changing constantly.

This article was originally published Oct 26, 2009, and I have left the original goals intact. However I have added my new list of 2010 goals below so you can see how my healthstyle has evolved. I’m happy to see that I’ve made progress on many of my goals from last year, and most of my new goals reflect bigger life changes that have occurred in the past year.

Healthstyle Goals 2009

• Experiment with new vegetables
• Recreate favorite restaurant dishes at home
• Get enough sleep
• Try new spices
• Eat slowly and mindfully
• Find great foodie resources in my neighborhood
• Get away from my computer at least twice per day
• Make friends with farmers
• Seek new challenges at the gym
• Take the stairs even when I don’t feel like it
• Learn new cooking techniques
• Get new pans
• Discover fabulous restaurants
• Recognize and avoid overeating cues
• Take advantage of seasonal produce
• Eat more legumes
• Prevent food cravings with good nutrition
• Eat more fish
• Take more walks
• Use usual ingredients in unusual ways
• Eat better when out of town
• Cook more ethnic cuisines
• Get more sun
• Develop a taste for my least favorite foods
• Make more soup
• Cook more for friends
• Eat out less than twice per week

Healthstyle Goals 2010

• Adjust to more frequent dining out
• Cook more at home (this is harder these days)
• Improve at cooking for two
• Buy more cookbooks
• Drink less alcohol
• Get better sleep
• Explore tea
• Cook more soup
• Eat slowly, even when very hungry
• Optimize food storage
• Practice meditation
• Cook more for friends
• Eat well and exercise while traveling
• Share great food discoveries
• Make friends with more farmers

What are your healthstyle goals?

Photo by massless

The relationship between food and health is undeniable, and usually my favorite topic. But while health is essential, it rarely gets people excited. (At least not for very long.)

Food, however, is easy to get excited about. And the value of food in our lives extends greatly beyond its nutritional components.

While food provides nourishment, it also brings us pleasure and has a powerful impact on our relationships with other people–an attribute we often overlook. In an era where efficiency and individualism are a way of life, it is easy to forget that we have three opportunities each day to sit down and connect with someone over an intimate and enjoyable experience: our daily bread.

This lesson was not lost on Google.

Last week I had the privilege of attending the Tahoe Tech Talk, a forum where influential tech angel investors shared their insights and advice on new startups. One of my favorite talks was by Chris Sacca, former Head of Special Initiatives at Google. Sacca noted that Google’s now famous gourmet cafeteria was intended as more than a perk for talented employees, it was designed to foster collaboration.

Sitting down to a communal meal encourages mingling of both people and ideas. Employees from different departments that normally have little reason for interacting are more likely to strike up conversation while in line for lasagna than at any other time of day. Likewise, sharing meals builds a sense of camaraderie and community–a feeling of working together toward a common goal–where people at every level in the company rub elbows and break bread.

The food culture at Google makes it more than a fun place to work, it makes it a better company.

Sacca’s message to new startups:

“Feed talent: both figuratively and literally.”

Of course this lesson applies to more than just tech startups. All of us can add value to our lives by using meals to build relationships with friends, family and colleagues.

The promise of productivity is alluring, but your lunch hour isn’t necessarily better spent at your computer with a sandwich in one hand a mouse in the other.

Whom do you eat with?

Photo by h.koppdelaney

It always helps to start off the week with the right frame of mind. Huge thanks to Cathryn for sending in today’s guest post!

Cathryn Johnson is self proclaimed health-nut and a content writer for Online MBA Rankings who gives advice on the education, pursuing an online mba and living a healthy life. In her free time she enjoys travel, theater and having fun in the sun.

Great Thinkers – The Benefits of Good Health

by Cathryn Johnson

Many of us, when we think of weight loss, exercise and living a healthy lifestyle, we think like Mark Twain:

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

We focus on the negatives. We think about how hard it will be and all that we will be missing. But the real joy and benefit of good health comes from focusing on the positives of health, what we gain through living well.

Here are ten quotes from great thinkers to challenge, motivate and inspire us to exercise, eat right and live healthier lives:

10 Inspiring Quotes For Healthy Living

1. Buddha (c. 563 BC to 483 BC) – a spiritual teacher from ancient India who founded Buddhism

To keep the body in good health is a duty, otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

2. Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial) (circa 40 AD – 103 AD) – a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) best known for his twelve books of Epigrams

Life is not merely being alive, but being well.

3. Edward Smith-Stanley (1752-1834) – English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness.

4. Paul Dudley White (1886 – 1973) – an American physician and cardiologist

A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.

5. Henry Ward Beecher (1813 – 1887) – a prominent, Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker

The body is like a piano, and happiness is like music. It is needful to have the instrument in good order.

6. James Leigh Hunt (1784 – 1859) – an English critic, essayist, poet and writer

The groundwork of all happiness is health.

7. Francois Rabelais (c. 1494 – 1553) – a major French Renaissance writer, doctor and Renaissance humanist

Without health, life is not life; it is only a state of languor and suffering.

8. Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) – an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist and author

A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison.

9. Persius (34 AD -62 AD) – a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin

You pray for good health and a body that will be strong in old age. Good — but your rich foods block the gods’ answer and tie Jupiter’s hands.

10. Menander (ca. 342–291 BC) – Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy

Health and intellect are the two blessings of life.

What inspires you to live healthy?

Cauliflower

People sometimes ask me how I am able to constantly write about healthy food. It’s a valid question, in a little over a year I’ve published nearly 400 articles on the subject. How do I have so much to say? Don’t I ever get bored? Don’t my poor readers and fellow eaters get tired of hearing the same thing?

Diet (a word I can’t stand to use) often gets lumped into the same category as fitness and exercise. And in many people’s minds the associations are not pleasant. Healthy eating means plain boring salads, steamed vegetables, flabby chicken and no fun whatsoever. Exercise means slaving away on a treadmill getting nowhere.

Only crazy people like to talk about this stuff all the time, right? I think so. But of course that is not what I’m talking about.

There is a huge difference between exercise and sports. Sports are fun, they are goal oriented. They are social, build friendships and self-esteem. People in every part of the world enjoy both watching and playing sports in some form or another. Sports are even fun to talk about.

When’s the last time you got into a long discussion at a bar about your bicep workout?

A similar difference can be pointed out between fresh, seasonal foods and flavorless diet foods (or even typical processed foods and chain restaurants). While steamed broccoli and grilled chicken can get old in a hurry, the changing seasons brings us a non-stop assortment of the freshest, most delicious foods in the world. It’s impossible to get bored when cherry season only lasts a few weeks and asparagus is gone before you know it.

Not only does the changing seasons mix up our plates and inspire new kitchen experiments, but the seasons are different year to year. Just like wine vintages fluctuate in quality depending on weather, so do all other crops. The cool thing about food though, is different plants flourish under different conditions. So each year brings new highlights and surprises.

Food is by far one of the most interesting, dynamic and pleasurable aspects of life. It brings us joy, makes us healthy, builds friendships and strengthens our community.

This food is worth talking about.

Photo by ginnerobot

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you had a happy and safe time yesterday and a wonderful 2009!

Thank you all for helping Summer Tomato grow, it has been a pleasure getting to know you the past 9 months.

Today I want to share some highlights from 2009. My greatest hope is that each of you find value in what I write here at Summer Tomato. These are the posts you “voted” for with your comments and retweets, thank you dearly for your support.

Best of Summer Tomato 2009

1. Better Than Pasta Subtitutes: Summer Squash Noodle Recipe

This recipe and video where I show how to easily make noodles out of zucchini in less than 5 minutes got featured on Lifehacker, making it the most popular post of 2009. It was delicious too 🙂

2. Should I Buy Whole Grain Pasta?

Distinguishing between real healthy food and fake “health food” is not as straight forward as it should be. Whole grain pasta is a perfect example.

3. Mindful Eating And Portion Control

A brilliant guest post by neuroscientist Jyoti Mishra Ramanathan about the importance of mindful eating and how a single grape can change your life.

4. Don’t Eat This, Don’t Eat That: Why Fast Food Is Never Healthy

Eating slightly-less-bad fast food is not a winning strategy for health. It also tastes disgusting. Treat yourself to a better life and learn to eat decent food.

5. 10 People You Can’t Trust For Diet Advice

Snake oil comes in many forms. Think you can trust the government or doctors for diet advice? Think again.

6. 10 Reasons To Never Eat Free Food

Just because it’s free doesn’t mean you have to eat it. Learn to recognize real value and real cost when you see it.

7. How To Eat In Restaurants: Healthy advice from SF food critic Michael Bauer

Usually eating out makes it more difficult to maintain a healthy weight, but renowned San Francisco food critic Michael Bauer says otherwise. I learned his secret in an interview last summer.

8. How I Lost 20 Pounds In 9 Months Without Dieting

Losing 2 lbs a month may not seem like a huge success, but that is only because you are used to those pounds coming back. Would you feel the same if they stay off? This Summer Tomato success story is amazingly simple, and an impressive update is on its way….

9. Automatic Health: Lessons From Personal Finance

My favorite analogy for health and weight loss has always been finance. Why do people feel strongly enough to devote their lives to a secure financial future while ignoring their personal health? Does one really matter without the other? The principles are the same, and you can approach them in the same way.

10. How To Become A Slow Eater

How you eat can be just as important as what you eat. Learn to eat slowly and appreciate flavors and textures, your life will be better for it.

11. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis – It’s NEAT!

Even if you don’t have time to make it to the gym, regular physical activity can be part of your life. Learn all about getting exercise without going to the gym by exercise physiologist and scientist, Travis Saunders.

12. Are You Eating In The Matrix?

Do you know what you are eating? Is it really food? This isn’t a joke, it is time to consider what is and isn’t food.

13. 30 Ways To Slow and Prevent Aging

I turned 30 in 2009, but am often mistaken as being younger than my 23-year-old brother. Woohoo! This year I spilled all my secrets.

14. Orthorexia, Bacon Worship And The Power of Food Culture

How is it that we live in a society where both obesity and anorexia are more prevalent than ever? The breakdown of food culture may be the cause, and may also point to the solution.

15. Learning To Love Foods You Don’t Like

Can you name one way you are a happier person because you hate Brussels sprouts? If you can, please email me. If you can’t, please read this article and consider expanding your palate (and your mind). Who knows, you might actually enjoy it….

Thanks again for all your contributions this year. I’ve learned as much from you all as you’ve learned from me. You guys rock!!