You can pay a lot of money for turkey labeled as “organic” or “sustainable,” but there is no evidence this reduces the health risks of eating poultry
Chicken and Turkey Are Health Risks All Year Long
Turkeys are the routine centerpiece of many holiday meals, while chickens are a common “main course” for everyday dinners. Yet when you look closely at poultry, the health dangers may surprise you, and (more…)
Studies show that children who eat breakfast outperform their hungry school mates
Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Busy People
Skipping breakfast is tempting for time management, especially if you’re still sleepy, worried about arriving at a meeting on time, or getting children dressed and out the door with homework in tow. Yet years of research with both adults and children in the U.S., Europe, and Australia show that eating breakfast is important for health and energy levels. When you look at your productivity across (more…)
Never Too Late To Go Vegan is an inspiring book with an inspired title
A Truer Book Title Has Not Been Written
The over-50 crowd now has their own book on ditching animal foods. Never Too Late to Go Vegan is a comprehensive guide to adopting and staying on a plant-based diet for this age group.
The book covers all the “whys” of making this change, as well as what to eat, how to cook it, and how to stay the course while dealing with some social and logistical challenges that vegans may run into. Lists of tips cover everything from how to make the transition to a plant-based diet to taming stress to places to learn more. Stories from the three coauthors, Patti Breitman, Carol Adams, and Ginny Messina, bring the lessons alive, as do many other entertaining and inspiring stories from others who went vegan in the second half of life.
I was happy to have a chance to talk with Patti Breitman, who is now a neighbor. Coincidentally, when I lived in Marin County in the 1990s, I regularly attended potlucks held by Patti’s organization Marin Vegetarian Education Group. These gatherings were an important force leading to my own (more…)
More and more people are choosing veggie burgers over animal foods, for better health, superior taste, and kindness to animals and the planet
Three Simple Tips to Find the Best Ones
Veggies “meats” are plant-based versions of chicken, fish, burgers, and other animal foods. These foods are soaring in popularity, as more and more people are cutting way back on how much meat they eat, but are looking for convenient substitutes for their usual menu items.
The healthfulness of veggie meats depends on two things. The first is your point of view. Are you comparing these foods to (more…)
This cold-fighting soup is nourishing, delicious, and easy to prepare
This Soup Recipe Is Thick With Lightly Cooked Vegetables
In winter you may find yourself near people who are coughing and sniffling. You don’t want to be next. Or maybe you’re already fighting a nasty cold yourself or, even worse, in bed with achy flu. Is there a soup that can enhance your odds against the viruses that cause such misery, that may boost to your own immune system and quell symptoms if you’re infected?
Lucky for you, research indicates a yes answer. You might have heard the urban legend that chicken soup is the best soup for a cold. Scientists actually did a study on this. Their data indicated it was actually (more…)
Your health is the prize when you successfully step through the stages of change
How To Keep Going Until You Reach Your Goals
You likely already know a whole foods, plant-based diet is the healthiest and most compassionate way to eat, but perhaps you haven’t managed to make the transition despite good intentions. How can you commit to a diet built on vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices, with only a drop of processed foods – and make it work for you? A transformation in eating may appear (more…)
Better Than Vegan brings together Chef Del’s story of a lifelong struggle with weight, a philosophy of eating, and terrific recipes in one very nicely photographed book
Chef Del Sroufe Leads the Way to Health, One Recipe At a Time
Better Than Vegan, Chef Del Sroufe’s second cookbook, is a treasure trove of recipes, a philosophy of eating, and a compelling life story wrapped in with a stunning compilation of vibrant food photos. This book follows the author’s New York Times bestselling Forks Over Knives: The Cookbook, yet stands on its own as a guide to making delicious whole foods, plant-based recipes.
Instructions for recipes are straightforward and simple to follow. Full-color photos of the finished dishes are also useful guides to preparation. The ingredients are familiar and easy to find in any well-stocked grocery story. Many of the recipes have short ingredient lists, and the book gives practical advice on cookware and pantry basics. Chef Del invites you to use his recipes as springboards for your own ideas.
Better Than Vegan is also sprinkled with quiet humor. For example the recipe for Big Fat Breakfast Pizza contains the advice: “Do not share with anyone who criticizes you for making pizza for breakfast.” Even newcomers will be inspired to jump into the kitchen and start having fun.
The food spans a varieties of cultures. In each recipe, you can sense (more…)
John Pierre, a well-known health coach and trainer, shares the secrets he’s learned over the years to get you healthy
Do Good Deeds When You Are Done
John Pierre, the nutrition and fitness consultant who works with celebrities, the military, corporations, seniors, and children, challenges one-dimensional views of health in his book The Pillars of Health. He describes four categories of daily choices to cultivate to achieve lifelong well-being, fun, and a deep sense of satisfaction and purpose. Even more, this book is suffused with compassion and caring for readers. You will feel like John Pierre is your personal coach, cheering you on to make better choices without demanding perfection.
The essential pillars of health are nutrition, mind, motion, and compassion. Take away any one of these foundations, and support for your health is wobbly. Take away two or more, and you may end up coping with pain, illness, and disability.
The author’s solutions are infused with playfulness, delight, and delicious taste. John Pierre gives you hundreds of specific, practical steps, complete with photos, stories, and recipe ideas, to strengthen each of the pillars of health, rebuilding them from the ground up if you need to. You will find out about nourishing foods, creative (more…)
Dr. Ruth Heidrich, in one of her many adventures, runs through the Buddhist ruins in Borobudur, Indonesia
Lifelong Running, Dr. Dr. Ruth’s Latest Book, Will Get You Moving
In Lifelong Running, Dr. Ruth Heidrich observes that children begin to run as soon as they learn to walk, and “stop running” is a frequent refrain parents and teachers aim at children. Adults fall into sedentary habits, their nature to run stifled by myths about this activity.
Dr. Ruth is a well-known runner who has won numerous gold medals in her (more…)
Dave Simon’s book is full of shocking information on the economic damage caused by meat and dairy
Dave Simon’s Meatonomics Shows Compelling Economic Reasons to Go Plant-Based
You may be familiar with three major motives to ditch animal foods: your own health, the health of the planet, and animal suffering. To these, Dave Simon – author, lawyer, and animal advocate – adds a fourth powerful argument. His book Meatonomics builds an economic basis to move toward a plant-based diet by showing the high monetary cost to taxpayers of meat, fish, and dairy.
Meatonomics is clearly written, original, and compelling. As vegan choices become more popular and accepted, while the US economy languishes in a frail economic recovery with a dysfunctional government in Washington, Meatonomics is well-timed to ride the wave of plant-based awareness and show a $414 billion dollar hidden drain on economic activity.
If the true cost of animal foods were charged at the grocery store, the price of (more…)
