Eating & Drinking

Eating & Drinking / Health & Fitness / Uncategorized — 3 Comments
1
Mar 10

Secrets of Tea – Jill Sung

We love to drink tea at JUARA. Not a day goes by where the statement, “Who’s going to make tea today?” doesn’t find its way into office conversation. But tea wasn’t always our drink of choice. In the past, we survived off pots of coffee. But after several of us read “Skinny Bitch” (I’ll admit it), we had a cold turkey reckoning, and tea and water became our new best friend. (And Kombucha – but you’ve already been enlightened on our love of that healthy beverage.)

Although we had all grown up drinking different types of tea, few of us knew much about tea beyond the fact that it can have caffeine and has healthy antioxidants that help skin and body fight age-inducing free radicals. We’ve also all heard that tea can prevent cancer, calm the stomach, improve immune function, decrease cardiovascular risk, etc.

But did you know that tea comes from only 1 plant – the Camellia sinensis plant and that the different types of tea: White, Green, Black, Pu-erh, and Oolong differ based on the amount and type of processing each tea undergoes? All “teas” that come from other plants are “herbal teas” – but tasty nonetheless. Examples of the different types of teas:

  • White (air dried buds, natural oxidation): Silver needle
  • Green (air dried leaves processed by steam or wok-fire, natural oxidation): Hojicha, High mountain tea
  • Black (rolled leaves, fully oxidized): Keemun, Darjeeling, Pekoe, Ceylon, Breakfast
  • Oolong (partially oxidized by baking for different flavors): Tie Guan Yin, Oolong
  • Pu-erh (cave-aged large-leaf, better with time, classified by age and region – like wine!): sheng (green/raw) types, shu (ripened/cooked)

Something new I learned recently, the caffeine in tea doesn’t create that “crash” that so often happens with other caffeinated beverages, it’s a smooth and energy lifting awareness. Something I’ve experienced, but never realized. Also, I’ve always heard that green tea has more caffeine than coffee, but I didn’t realize that a typical serving has far less caffeine because tea is brewed more “weakly” than coffee.  Plus, color is NOT an indicator for caffeine content.

Other fun facts: you can brew tea with the same tea leaves multiple times, just add hot water. If you like it sweet, add agave or honey instead of sugar. Agave doesn’t spike your blood sugar levels (thus preventing the sugar high and crash) and honey is naturally immune-boosting. No milk? Try soy milk. And sometimes, when I’m tired of the millions of teas we have in our cupboard, I mix teas. Chai with herbal mint tea. Herbal antioxidant Rooibos with black tea. Choco-mint with Thai Chai. So let’s drink to your health!

Eating & Drinking / Health & Fitness — 1 Comment
13
Jan 10

My 5 New Year Resolutions – Yoshiko Roth-Hidalgo

Each year, I embark on my new year resolutions with fresh motivation.  My resolutions are never outlandish… the usual “eat healthier”, “exercise more” or “be a kinder person”… this year, it’s all about “can I really live up to my resolutions”.  We shall see in 3 months how I do.  My top 5 resolutions for 2010 are:

Keep healthy eating in perspective

We all know what’s bad, what’s good and what’s better.  I feel fortunate that I rarely crave junk food or soda, but what about that last mile of “goodness” where you have to choose between healthy and enjoyable?  For 2010, I will maintain good habits, but I draw the line where my pleasure in food is truly compromised.  Example:  Brown rice is better than white rice and brown rice tastes pretty good.  But do Sushi rolls with brown rice kind of miss the point?  I remember my mother’s horrified look when she saw brown rice sushi rolls at Wholefoods for the first time.  Japanese people are one of the healthiest people on earth with the highest life expectancy.  A lot of them still eat white rice instead of brown.  I’d say, it’s ok to eat white rice as part of a healthy diet, and let’s face it, it often tastes a lot better than brown rice.

Don’t exercise if it feels like a chore

I’ve tried many tricks to get motivated to hit the gym:  “Visualize a healthier, fitter self!”  Or “Imagine how GOOD you will feel after the work out.”  It may work a couple of times, but really, I think it’s torture to have to coax myself to exercise like that for a whole year, let alone the rest of my life.  My resolution:  I will only work out if I feel naturally excited or at least motivated to do so.  And to trick my mind, I will incorporate as much “accidental” or “hobby” exercise into my daily life as possible.  Take the stairs, walk to the subway, do the vacuum cleaning myself, run to make a light, go dancing.  No more blank stares on the treadmill in 2010!

Get more sleep

Healthy eating and sufficient exercise has become almost a question of social status these days.  People that live on junk food and are couch potatoes are considered… uncool!  That consciousness has not reached the topic of sleep yet, even though it’s been shown that chronic lack of sleep affects our health just as much as if not more than what we eat and how much we move.  Lack of sleep results in inflammation, messes with your blood sugar and your heart health.  In 2010, I will make sure I get enough sleep on the reg, yes, at the expense of work or exercise!

Keep in touch more

Feeling connected to people is a major source of peace and happiness in life.  It’s so easy to become consumed by work and your own life’s chores, so for 2010 I vow to keep in touch more with friends and family.  Yes, at the expense of work or exercise!

Keep it simple

This is less concrete but probably my most important resolution.  From the clothes I keep to the goals I set, I vow to keep my life simple and free of clutter, literally and metaphorically because simplicity is key to a serene mind, especially when you are about to embark on parenthood.

Let’s touch base in 3 months and see how I fared!

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31
Dec 09

New Decade. New You. New US. – Jill Sung

New Year’s is around the corner, and this time it’s the start of a New Decade.  2010.  This past year was a difficult year for almost everyone I know and tons of people I don’t know…so I’m hoping that 2010 will be amazing.  Trite, but you know what I mean. It’s a new decade, so it’s a double new beginning this January 1. I guess that means it carries twice the hope a normal new year brings.

I love “hope”. It’s what keeps people going.  There’s a million organizations with “hope” in their name. It springs eternal. Hope is in love, religion, relationships, work, and the self….and almost every novel or non-fiction book I’ve ever read speaks of hope to some degree. I read a social science study which found that Americans lead the world in having “hope”! How cool is that? But I digress.

With the hope that the new year brings, comes New Year’s Resolutions. We love to hate them, hate to love them, and can’t live with or without them. (I’ve made resolutions yearly, biannually, monthly, biweekly, weekly…you get the picture. I’m a fixer-upper =) The to do list that keeps on going and never ends. Resolution bunny.)  It’s a ritual that almost everyone around the world has performed. Every culture celebrates the new year – maybe not on this date, but it’s celebrated and looked on with hope and wishes for a better something.

Look back, evaluate, learn, look forward, improve, and repeat.

I looked around on the internet and even some top ten lists of resolutions exist.  The best list I found is on the usa.gov site (best because it has links to how and why (America has a vast amount of resources we can enjoy)…and who doesn’t want to send health-e-cards?):

All variations of be healthy, live healthy and the golden rule. I thought to try to improve upon this list, since it’s a new decade, but all mine still fit within the be and live healthy, golden rule paradigm, so I figured I’d stick with what seems to work. And I’ve decided for the new decade to also follow the rules on how to stick to resolutions. Write them down, make resolutions with small achievable goals, re-evaluate regularly/daily, post them somewhere you look daily, get other people involved.  That’s key – getting other people involved. Enlist help from family and friends. Make meaningful bets with someone with similar goals. Encourage each other. By having them help you, you help them. Community living in whatever community you live in. All of the old adages apply. Then pay it forward.

And although 2009 was a challenging year, I see positive changes all around. Here’s to a great 2010 and beyond!

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13
Dec 09

Healthy Holiday Sweets…Yum! – Jill Sung

carrot mini cupcake

Not into holiday weight gain, but love the holiday sweets? I don’t actually love eating sweets, but I love baking…  And it’s fun to bake for holiday parties or as gifts to friends.  My current favorite, carrot cake. It’s pretty healthy as cakes go, and I’ve melded together a few recipes to create a healthier version that tastes great and is really moist without making me or the gift recipient feel guilty about indulging. Makes about 20 servings. Per serving: Calories with frosting: 219.4; without the frosting: 152.8. (You can check nutritional info for almost anything you make with this recipe calculator: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp)

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 3/4  cup white sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup apple sauce, unsweetened
  • 3 egg, large
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups shredded carrots(fine grating disc of food processor works well)
  • 1/2 cup flaked coconut
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained

Frosting

  • 6 ounces, neufchatel cheese (lowfat cream cheese)
  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 teaspoons grated orange peel

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan.
  2. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Make a well in the center and add sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix with wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in carrots, coconut, walnuts and pineapple.
  3. Pour into 9×13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Allow to cool.
  4. Frosting: Cream the butter and neufchatel/low fat cream cheese until smooth. Add the confectioners sugar and beat until creamy.Mix in orange peel.

You’ll notice I replaced the vegetable oil with apple sauce and cut the sugar in more than half. Sometimes, people will partially replace the sugar with natural replacements like agave syrup (from the agave plant, doesn’t increase blood glucose levels) or xylitol (from birch tree – kills cavities)…but I haven’t tried these yet.

I love making this in mini-loaves, cupcakes, and mini-cupcakes (the smaller the size, the fewer the calories and sugars per serving – you’d be surprised, but people will eat less when things are served in smaller sizes). For Yoshiko’s baby shower, we combined a plate of mini-cupcakes, and decorated the icing with a crying baby (that’s Metta’s artwork above!). Hope you love the recipe. I’ve gotten rave reviews, over and over again. Let me know your secrets for healthy baking or just your favorite recipes!

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23
Nov 09

Healthy (and fun) Japanese snacks – Yoshiko Roth-Hidalgo

Almond Fish SnackI’ve always been a snacker (Japan is THE snack paradise on earth!), but with pregnancy, healthy snacking has developed into a passion for me.  When you’re in it for 9 months, day in day out, it’s not just about how much nutrition a snack packs, but how fun, tasty, and yet easy it is.  The good old healthy stand-byes of fruits, nuts and wholegrain crackers are always great, but here are some very cool (Japanese) alternatives that combine the healthful side of Japanese cuisine with fun and convenience:

1) Fried Hajiki Mame, a.k.a. Fava Beans or Broad Beans: Fried and packed for snacking, Hajiki Mame are super hearty and with a satisfying crunch.  Packed with protein, iron and fiber, they are also a good source of Vitamin A and potassium.  In addition, they are rich in L-dopa, a precursor of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in the brain for activities including memory and energy – crucial when you’re going through pregnancy-induced energy highs and lows.

2)      Almond plus dried fish, conveniently packaged into tiny little servings.  Three little packs make up one full serving that has only 130 calories but packs 18% of your calcium need, 6 grams of sugar and a whopping 13g of protein.  Even better:  Get the ones without added salt (water retention is a problem during pregnancy, so avoiding too much sodium is key!)

3) My absolute favorite:  “Pucchi Pori Natto”! If you’re familiar with Japanese food, you’ve probably heard of Natto, the fermented stinky soy beans served over hot rice that produce sticky strings and that most non-Japanese are a bit afraid of.  It’s an acquired taste, but it is ultra-ultra healthy (and actually very tasty).  Natto contains nattokinase, an enzyme which has been shown to promote healthy blood flow and helps prevent heart disease, amongst other wonders.  Because of its smell and texture, it’s not really suitable as a quick snack on–the-go, so there is dried Natto, which combines the pungent taste but has a reduced smelliness factor and none of the messiness.  In “Pucchi Pori Natto”, dried Natto is combined with dried fish and almonds and comes either in soy sauce flavor or ume flavor.  A healthy snack doesn’t get better than this!  A whole 19 g package contains only 110 calories, yet packs 6 grams of protein and only 5 grams of sugar.

Look for these snacks at your Japanese or Asian grocery store!

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19
Nov 09

Snack Food for the Busy! – Jill Sung

dried gooseberriesSometimes when my plate is full, and my schedule is too jam-packed, I want to snack, but don’t have the time to make anything. When heading to work, I just grab and go! I’ve done the old standbys like baby carrots (dipped in hummus is tasty), grapes, grape tomatoes, granola, etc. But lately, some nuts and new dried fruits have caught my eye…

“raw” cashews – full of  “good fats” with an optimal healthy fat ratio of 1:2:1 for saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats, they are less “fatty” than peanuts, walnuts, pecans, and almonds. Filled with phytosterols, copper and magnesium, cashews have been found in large health studies to kill bacteria often found in the mouth, decrease gallstone disease risk by 25% in women, lower the risk of developing type II diabetes and protect from diabetes complications by supporting healthy levels of triglycerides and HDL cholesterol.

Eat 1/4 cup, 1-4 times a week. Less than 200 calories.

gooseberries - each one of these sweet and tart berries has more antioxidant vitamin C than an entire orange! If you can take the tartness, eat alone, or mix with nuts, but these berries are filled with anti-inflammatory bioflavanoids, soluble dietary fiber-filled pectin, and vitamins A and C. I love that these Incan fruits are dried with no added sugar or juices.

Eat 1 oz, 1-4 times a week. ~80 calories per oz.

For other easy snacks, try yogurt with natural preserves or fruit and agave nectar. Until the next nibble! Enjoy!

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25
Mar 09

Are You Really Eating Healthy? – Jill Sung

It occurred to me recently that I might not be eating as healthily as I think I am. Random events with free cookies, the candy hand-out at work every now and then, and lattes pepper my diet occasionally…or at least I think they do. So I came up with the idea of keeping track of what I eat. I know a food diary is a pretty common idea for keeping track of what you eat if you’re trying to lose weight, but I never thought to use it just to double check that my eating habits really are as healthy as I think they are. I’ve been keeping my food diary as a spreadsheet on Google Documents (http://docs.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wo) – so that I can fill out the diary anywhere I have access to the internet (home, work, etc.). The beauty of it, I also keep track of my spending habits and exercise habits as well.
I’ve been keeping track for a month now, and sugar does tend to find its way into my diet more than I had thought. Now I know, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for sugar. I’ll check back in a month and see if I’ve improved. Or let me know if there’s any other bad habits you think I should keep track of!

- JILL SUNG

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