healthy_eating | hey everybody! let's get things going again, shall we?

panda posting in

Life has been crazy for me for the past 3 months, and I obviously haven't been paying attention to this comm. But I'm realizing more and more that if I want to be healthy and successful in school, a good diet is a necessary foundation. I'm on spring break right now, so I'm using the extra time to give my diet a little jump start. Doing daily posts to this comm again will help, I think.

I wanted to get us started back up again in a fun way, so how about in the comments people recommend something tasty they've eaten recently? Give a recipe, if you want, or just wax poetic about some really delicious food ;)

Also thank you very much to those of you who did check in posts over the past couple months. I really appreciate it ♥

As always, please warn for triggers and be respectful of your fellow community members!

Current Mood: cheerful

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From:

panda

I recently discovered Amy's brand frozen dinners, which are fantastic for when I don't have the spoons to cook.

Their rice-crust pizza was so-so, but I've yet to meet a rice-crust pizza that works well. But everything else I have tried so far has been good.

My absolute favorite tho has to be the vegan black bean tamale verde. I swear when I ate it my tummy did a happy, happy dance.

They're kind of expensive-they cost around $5 per box where I shop, but that's still cheaper than eating out. If you can afford it and are in need of healthy, tasty, no-cook meals, I recommend them.

From:

thegorgon

Amy's cheese enchiladas are one of my favorite freezer foods, seriously. So tasty. The black bean and tofu ones are alright too, but they're better if after they've cooked in the oven for however long you grate some cheese on top and stir it in, if cheese is a thing you do. It helps with the texture, mostly. But basically: they are really tasty.

From:

panda

I'm starting a no-dairy elimination diet, so the cheese is a no go. The tamale verdes are cheese-less tho, and they are subliiiiiime.

From:

panda

Recently I've fallen in love with brown rice, which is fantastic because a. it's a whole grain, and b. I can make a large pot of it and then use it in many different ways, which makes enough food for several days.

You can't put brown rice in a rice cooker, because it takes longer to cook than white rice, but it should come with instructions on the package, which are pretty easy to follow.

Recipe: easy "Mexican" brown rice

ingredients:
-cooked brown rice
-can of refried beans
-salsa
-shredded cheese
-whatever veggies you like in your Mexican: I do canned corn and sliced black olives, but you can add canned tomatoes, mushrooms, whatever else you want.

directions:
1. put equal parts brown rice and refried beans in a bowl. 1/4 cup of each is a good place to start, but you can do more if you're hungry.
2. add some shredded cheese. If you like cheesy things, add more, if you don't like cheese, you can leave it out. You can use whatever cheese you like- I use mild cheddar because it's what we always have in our fridge.
3. add a couple spoon fulls of salsa. You can use whatever your favorite kind of salsa is- corn salsa, salsa verde, roasted red pepper salsa- it's all good. I just use whatever kind I happen to have in my fridge atm.
4. add whatever veggies you want. Canned veggies are easiest. If you're gonna use frozen veggies, warm them up in the microwave first.
5. you should have a nice full bowl of food now. Mix it all together!
6. pop it in the microwave. Cooking time will depend on how powerful your microwave is. Mine is super-powerful, so I would start at 20 seconds and add time as needed. You will probably have to heat it for a while and then mix it up more to make sure it heats evenly. Once the cheese is melted and everything is heated through, it's ready to eat. Dig in!

If you don't like refried beans, you can use black beans or whatever type of beans you like. Alternately you can leave the beans out and let the cheese provide the protein. If you want you can add guacamole, sour cream, or plain yogurt as a topping once it's done microwaving. Plain greek yogurt would be a good protein rich substitute for sour cream.

Basically this is a very easy very flexible recipe. If you have canned enchilada sauce, you can use that instead of the salsa for flavoring, though don't add too much or it will get soupy. (Unless soupy sounds good to you, in which case knock yourself out!) If you prefer simplicity, just plain refried beans and brown rice mixed together is also good. Plain brown rice mixed with shredded cheese is also good. If you want to serve more than one person, just double the recipe.

My main advice is to start out with a small amount of brown rice and refried beans. Otherwise, it's very easy to end up with a giant bowl of food, more than you can eat in one sitting. Of course, it's also easy to pop in the fridge and re-heat later as a second meal, so maybe you want to make a large serving to save you time.

If you want to get fancy, you can add fresh veggies, lime juice, hot sauce, chili powder, jalapenos, fresh cilantro (/after/ you microwave it) ... basically you can make it as simple or as fancy as you have time/spoons/ingredients. Nom nom nom!

From:

panda

I've been doing a lot of easy cooking lately because I've been low on spoons, so here's another tasty, quick brown rice recipe.

The joy of this recipe is it doesn't require any cooking, not even microwaving, unless you pick a protein that needs to be cooked.

ingredients:
-cooked brown rice
-protein of your choice: canned black beans, diced tofu, canned tuna, cooked chicken/beef, etc
-sweet bell pepper, color of your choice
-ripe avocado
-soy sauce (I use gluten free tamari)
-pickled ginger
-wasabi (optional)

directions:
1. put some brown rice in a bowl. At least 1/2 a cup is a good amount, if you need measurements.
2. add your protein of choice. If it's canned beans or tuna, just open and drain the can and add some in. If it's tofu, drain and dice it. If you want chicken or beef or something, you'll need to cook it first. Again, if you need a measurement, 1/3-1/2 of a cup would be fine.
3. Take at least a quarter of your bell pepper, wash it, seed it, dice it up and add it to the bowl.
4. peel, dice and add the avocado. If you don't like avocado, you can skip it, but I'm aiming here for the flavor combination of a California sushi roll. In my opinion, avocado and rice go together really well.
5. take some pickled ginger from the jar, coarsely mince it, and add it too. Add some of the pickle juice from the jar as well, if you like the vinegar flavor. 1-2 tsps should be fine. Note: the rice they use to make sushi rolls has vinegar added to it, so this isn't as weird as it might seem.
6. add some soy sauce. Add as much as you want, but 1-3 tsps is a good starting place.
7. if you like wasabi, add some wasabi.
8. mix it all together, and you're done!

Again, like the "Mexican" brown rice, this recipe is infinitely customizable. If you don't like bell peppers, or don't have any on hand, substitute some other veggie. Diced cucumber would be a good choice, or diced carrot if you don't mind a stronger crunch. (Shredded carrot would also work well.) Frozen peas (heated up, of course) would probably even work alright. Some kinds of fruit would even been good, such as diced mango, peach, or orange. If you like canned baby corn or watercress, they are also good options. Chopped green onion would also go well, if you like green onion.

You can change up the flavors too. If you don't like pickled ginger, leave it out. There are lots of pre-made sauce options, such as teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce (I recommend Ty Ling Naturals sweet & sour sauce because it isn't made with HFCS), hosin sauce, etc. Or if you want a more Thai flavor, you can use peanut sauce and cilantro, plus bean sprouts. Adding 1-2 tsp of sesame seeds would also be nice.

You can pop leftovers in the fridge, and you don't even need to re-heat them. I just had this for dinner, and it was really good!

Edited Date: 2012-03-15 08:09 pm (UTC)

From:

thegorgon

I recently tried these... um, I have no idea what they're called, they're these breaded-spinach-chickpea patties that you can buy at costco and then bake for about 10 minutes, and eat with greek cucumber and dill yogurt. (Also tasty with good potato chips.)

Anyway, they are amazing, and basically what I am planning on eating this weekend.

Also fake chicken nuggets with honey mustard dipping sauce, some cherry vanilla yogurts, some delicious beer and a lot of iced lattes. I cannot cook but for the weekend I have a well stocked fridge. Something to look forward to!

From:

panda

\o/ food!

fried chickpea spinach things sound good.

From:

claire_chan

As I had written in the more recent post, the most monumental thing I remember eating was last Friday's lunch, when I had gone to the Burrito Loco in celebration of the spring break's beginning.
I had ordered the biggest chicken burrito available (labelled something in Spanish I don't remember - Guido? Or was that an 11th-century composer?)!

I don't know how they make those burritos - but I recall requesting no beans and no other yucky stuff. If I had STAYED in the restaurant I could have gotten on the wall since I DID eat the whole thing in one sitting, but alas, I had not - I had wanted to get better utensils so had waited to eat.

From:

panda

I looooooove giant burritos, esp when they make the tortilla fresh! soooo good.

unforch, they are wheat tortillas, so I can't eat them :( but I'm glad you enjoyed! \o/

From:

claire_chan

Very good!

:[ Could you ask for non-wheat?

From:

panda

they have 'burrito bowls' which are the fillings of a burrito in a plastic bowl without the tortilla. they are pretty good, but the best part of my local burrito joint is the fresh made wheat tortillas. corn tortillas just can't compare.

From:

claire_chan

Wow O_o Hmm. I'll have to ask them next time about burrito bowls!

From:

panda

I dunno if they have them other places- the burrito place I go to is a local place only in my home town. but they started carrying burrito bowls to cash in on the low-carb thing, so it's quite possible other burrito places have them too.

From:

claire_chan

Worth asking, though! Maybe they could open something new around me.

(I shy away from low-carb stuff - when I eat, I'm trying to get back the carbohydrates I've lost throughout the day. @_@ Although I don't know officially what's going on - I'm not much of a dietician past the sense "eat what tastes good and doesn't make you vomit".)

From:

panda

well, they make the burritos with rice, so it's not actually very low carb at all ;)

your brain gets sugar from carbs to use as energy, so it's very important to have enough carbs! also if you eat more complex carbs, like whole grains, your blood sugar will stay more level, so you'll fee better.

note: i'm not a dietitian either, these are just things i have read over and over again on various health and nutrition sites. if everyone agrees, it's a good bet it's probably true.

Edited Date: 2012-03-15 08:18 pm (UTC)

From:

claire_chan

Hahaha ;P

So that's why eating whole grain cereal is so important.

if everyone agrees, it's a good bet it's probably true.
Good rule of thumb, but not always the case! Have to be careful about that.

From:

panda

You can ask them to leave the rice out, but then your "burrito" bowl is going to be some meat, beans, salsa and cheese ... which isn't really a meal at all. I think most people get burrito bowls because it's much more convenient to carry around a sealable container, than to carry around a wrapped burrito which can start to leak etc.

The very simplified explanation, as I understand it, is if you eat simple carbs, such as refined sugar, HFCS, white flour etc, your body breaks them down into sugar very quickly. that is why they are "simple" because it doesn't take many steps to convert them into the kind of sugar your body can use. So you eat some simple carbs (a can of Pepsi, a cookie, white bread) and then a bunch of sugar hits your blood stream very quickly. This gives you a "sugar rush" but because all of the sugar hit your blood stream at once, you use it up very fast. Then you get a "sugar crash," which you probably know what that feels like. Suddenly you have no energy and you feel like shit.

If you eat complex carbs, like whole grains or things with lots of fiber, it takes the body longer to break them down into sugar because they are more "complex." Thus sugar gets released into the blood stream more gradually, and continues to be released for a longer time, as your body continues to break down the food. You don't get the same "sugar high" that you get from something like a high-refined sugar food like a cookie or a Pepsi, but you also don't get a "crash" either.

Here is a pretty long article that explains what carbs are and how your body uses them. I think it's worth reading because it explains the science of what a carb actually is, and how you digest it and use the energy. It has a lot of scientific terms and stuff, which aren't my favorite, but I think if you get a good understanding of how your body converts food into the energy you need, it will help you make better food choices. It might take you a couple sittings to read the whole thing (at least I know I couldn't read the entire thing in one go!) but I think it's worth it to read all the way to the very end.

if everyone agrees, it's a good bet it's probably true.
Good rule of thumb, but not always the case! Have to be careful about that.

This is very true! 15-20 years ago, nearly everyone agreed that fat was bad bad bad, but now we know certain kinds of fat are very good for us.

I know the thing about simple vs complex carbs is true tho, because my mom is a type 1 diabetic (her body doesn't produce insulin so she has to give herself insulin shots). So she has to watch how many simple carbs vs complex carbs she eats carefully, because they require her to take different amounts of insulin. Sher has to be very educated about how her body digests food to stay healthy.

Here's another link about carbs and whole grains you might find informative too.

From:

claire_chan

You can ask them to leave the rice out, but then your "burrito" bowl is going to be some meat, beans, salsa and cheese ... which isn't really a meal at all.
You don't know some college kids, the ones who have just gotten out of a strictly-regimented life.

*nodnodnod*

You don't get the same "sugar high" that you get from something like a high-refined sugar food like a cookie or a Pepsi, but you also don't get a "crash" either.
So that's why it feels better to eat THOSE kinds of foods... *srsly learning!*

Thanks for both links! The first looks like stuff I've had to read for uni. Second easier.

~~I don't think any of my relatives are diabetic...~~

From:

panda

Aha, true! It's been so long I forgot what I sometimes ate like when I was 19 XD

Yep! It really does make a difference. I'm glad it's informative.

Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease where the pancreas doesn't work right. Type 2 diabetes isn't good either. It's good if none of your relatives have either kind.