pursuit of health and happiness
Most everyone has their own variable of a green smoothie recipe. This is mine. It’s super simple and one of my favorite snacks on the Big 6 Detox. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
1 frozen green tipped banana
1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk (without sugar and other funky ingredients, I like Malk)
2 tablespoons almond butter (without sugar or processed oils like canola or palm)
Handful of fresh spinach or baby kale
Directions: Blend everything together until smooth.
Every year all of my cousins get together around the holidays for “Cousin’s Dinner.” My brother hosts in his apartment in Chinatown that previously was my grandparents and this year Cousin’s Dinner was on New Year’s Eve.
We had lot’s of amazing Ruinart champagne to celebrate the new year. This is one of my favorites.
I made a beef tenderloin for the first time and it turned out delicious.
We also ate pizza, Popeye’s, and lots of snacks.
My younger (and only) brother helped me cook the beef tenderloin.
He went to the French Culinary Institute and even though he doesn’t cook professionally, he always makes my recipes taste a little bit better.
My little one was with us and she was the only kiddo so we kept her company along with the iPad.
I make everyone take a group photo. We take a proper photo and also a silly one. Can you tell which one this is?
We had a grand New Year’s toast at midnight.
Then pulled out the noise-makers.
My little one and cousin Karyn had fun blowing them into Grouchy Husband’s face.
And into his ears.
My newest cousin Nadya is from Russia and even though she wasn’t with us because she and my cousin were in Russia with her family, some of us followed her Russian custom of writing a wish on paper, burning it, and drinking the ashes.
It was fun. Some of the ashes were big to drink.
Another memorable Cousin’s Dinner in the books. Growing up I spent all holidays, Chinese New Year, Mother and Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc, with my cousins. It’s nice to add Cousin’s Dinner to the list.
Wishing You all a Happy and Healthy New Year,
Chrissy xo
It’s three days after Christmas and I’m still recovering from the lost of rest, slowing coming back to normal eating times and quantities, and went to the gym today for the first time in a week. Christmas is filled with a lot of time family. We celebrated with my husband’s family in the Berkshires, MA the weekend before Christmas and then out to Brooklyn to celebrate with my family on Christmas Day. My sister’s family and cousins come into town so there were many days of visiting.
This is a photo of all the little ones in my husband’s family. All dressed up in their matching pajamas ready to open their presents.
I love this picture of my husband’s aunt and her granddaughter in their curlers.
In Brooklyn, we took a cousins (and spouses) photo.
And here are all our kiddies.
The holidays are also all about food and fine wine. Opus One was one of my favorites.
I really wanted to learn to make a crown pork roast and enough people were around this holiday season for me to practice and eat this recipe from nom nom paleo. It’s a super easy and delicious recipe. I made it a couple of times and pretty close to making it perfect, maybe need one more practice, but my family is “porked-out” right now so I’ll have to wait a little bit.
I hope you are all enjoying your holidays,
Chrissy
Meat is one of our most controversial foods to eat because of warring nutritional theories, the rise of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases, the environmental impact of raising meat, and the unethical treatment of livestock. Does eating meat really clog your arteries, cause cancer and type 2 diabetes, and take years off our your life? The answer is absolutely not.
There are personal, religious, ethical, and environmental reasons to not eat meat. These guidelines are the scientific and health reasons to eat good-quality, organic, grass-fed, sustainably raised meat with plenty of plants and vegetables.
Humans started domesticating sheep, cows, and pigs as far back as 10,000 BC. We’ve been eating meat since our species existed. Scientists studying modern-day hunter-gatherers, people who live very similar to our ancestors from this time and also eat a meat-heavy, low-sugar diet, typically have no signs of heart disease, diabetes, or other chronic diseases. Animals have held a central place in the human diet. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s hard to believe that a food that has been part of human existence has been slowing killing us and the cause of the terrible state of our nation’s health.
Meat is the single best source of protein and other vitamins and minerals. The average person needs 60 to 90 grams of protein each day, an even more if you are active. Protein is required to maintain and build muscle. Protein helps us prevent disease and death and when we lose it, our bodies start age-related hormonal changes including pre-diabetes, higher levels of stress hormones like cortisol, and lower levels of anti-aging hormones. A piece of beef that is the size of the palm of your hand and the thickness of a deck of cards has 36 grams of protein. You might think beans and legumes have a lot of protein, but there are only 9 grams of protein in a half of cup (100 grams). You would need to eat 3.5 cups of beans to fulfill your daily protein requirement. That is a lot of beans and would require a lot of thought to prepare and consume this amount. Animal protein also contains all nine essential amino acids our bodies cannot make.
We have demonized meat and thought it was the cause of cancer and heart disease because of misinformation about saturated fat. In 1955 Ancel Keys, a scientist, introduced the “diet-heart” concept to the World Health Organization, a super important group that is the authority of international health to all the countries in the United Nations. His theory claimed when you raise cholesterol, you increase heart disease, and when you lower it, you reduce heart disease. Since saturated fat is a primary cause of high cholesterol and it is found primarily in animal foods, eating it would raise your cholesterol and increase heart disease. The American Heart Association supported his theory and named all saturated fat was “bad”, even fatty plant foods such as coconut, nuts, and avocados. Today, we know that thinking was completely oversimplified and wrong. Recent large research studies in the medical journals, BMJ in 2016 and Annals of Internal Medicine have found no link between saturated fat and heart disease. World-renowned and well-respected cardiologists, Steven Nissen and Salim Yusuf, have come out and said the current recommendations to reduce saturated fat have no scientific basis. Outdated ideas often take a long time to die which is why many medical and nutrition institutions refuse to change their thinking on saturated fat. In short, smart people don’t like to admit they are wrong. Even though saturated fat does not cause heart disease, it is not necessarily a health food and should be eaten in moderation until more information is available on the healthy amount to eat. Try to avoid the deadly combination of saturated fat and sugar or refined carbs.
Eat good-quality, organic, grass-fed or pasture-raised, sustainably raised meat. Grass-fed and pasture-raised meat is nutritionally superior to factory-farmed or conventional meat. Grass-fed and pasture-raised meat has better types of fat, more omega-3s, less inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, more CLA or conjucated linoleic acid. Cows, sheep, and goats are ruminarts, meaning they have a four chambered stomach to extract nutrients from grass, hay, and forage, and these animals are is the richest source of CLA. CLA is an unusually healthy, naturally occurring trans fat that’s great for you because it is a power antioxidant that slows down the growth of cancerous tumors, prevents plaque from forming in your arteries, reduces the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, helps to maintain weight and metabolism. Factory farming requires huge amounts of fuel, water, antibiotics to raise bigger and fatter animals in over-crowded pens and results in less nutritious meat. If you can’t find grass-fed meat, second best is organic meat. Organic beef can be raised on grain and corn, but the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic certification requires the animals be raised in living conditions that are similar to their natural behaviors so some of their lives must be spent grazing on grass. Local farms are great place to purchase meat because their farming practices are sustainable and humane to animals. They understand good grazing practices and the importance of soil farming.
Next time you are at the grocery store or restaurant, look for grass-fed or pasture-raised meat and know you are getting great nutrition in each mouthful.
Chrissy xo
Eggs are nutrient-dense, easy to eat and have built in portion control. There are a lot more choices in eggs besides the size. It can be overwhelming deciding between organic, free-range, and cage-free eggs. The type of eggs you buy are a personal choice so it’s best to choose based on your priorities. Here is a simple buying guide to help you buy the right egg for you:
Egg Nutrition Facts for one large egg
Conventional Eggs come from hens living in battery cages. These are cramped mesh cages that prevent the hens from stretching, nesting, spreading their wings, basically anything besides laying eggs. The cages are not electric, the name battery comes from hundreds and thousands of cages next to each other like a battery cell.
Natural Eggs means nothing. All eggs meet this USDA regulation because nothing is added to eggs.
Free-range Eggs means hens have shelter and also have access to the outdoors. There is no regulation on how much time the hens stay outside or if the area is covered with vegetation.
Cage-free Eggs means hens stay indoors but have unlimited access to food and water and do not live in a cage. The hens generally have space to walk and run, spread their wings, and actually lay their eggs in nests. While this is a very good environment, it doesn’t mean the hen lives a cruelty-free life and could have their beak burned off (a common practice), or transported long distances without food or water.
Pastured or Pasture-raised Eggs come from hens that are uncaged, free to walk around and nest, and given access to the outdoors. While this is a very good environment, it doesn’t mean the hen lives a cruelty-free life and could have their beak burned off (a common practice), or transported long distances without food or water. Pasture-raised hens were able to eat bugs and grass and likely richest in “omega-3s” then all other eggs.
Organic Eggs are raised at the same standards as pasture-raised hens. “USDA certified organic eggs” were produced without pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers and the hens were fed an organic diet without those substances or fed any animal by-products or antibiotics. Organic eggs are also non-GMO because the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) prohibits the use of GMOs.
Shop Local. The best way to find out how a hen is cared for is to learn about the company. This can easily be done by talking to your local farmers about how they raise their egg-laying hens.
My favorite eggs to buy are pasture-raised eggs. I prefer to buy them from a local farmer. If I can’t get pasture-raised eggs from a local farmer, I’ll order these.
Happy Shopping,
Chrissy xo
This is a picture from a Memorial Day weekend away with my family in Washington DC. The weekend after this trip I broke down from all of the stress in my life. Everyone breaks down differently. For me, it’s a feeling of being overwhelmed with life and losing control. It’s usually followed with uncontrollable crying. I have had less then a handful of breakdowns in my life. Sometimes a breakdown happens after a single stressful event. Like when my dad broke his leg skiing in Canada last year, and laid in the hospital for four days on a morphine drip while he waited for a surgeon to have enough time to perform emergency surgery. This time, I broke under a mountain of small stresses building up over time. I am an oldest child and Asian so not being able to control my life or emotions is not a place I feel comfortable. I am at my most vulnerable and a breakdown is my body’s way of crying out to start making changes in my life and get myself to feeling good.
We all have “baseline stress” in our life where we worry our kids will always be safe, deal with rush hour traffic, scramble to make our deadlines at work. Baseline stress is normal and ok. Occasionally, really stressful events will happen in our lives and our bodies have natural defense mechanisms to manage these circumstances. Over the last few months I’ve piled onto my body lots of small stresses from all the unexpected things that happen when building a house, living with my parents during construction, taking on a high profile project and working more hours, and launching a health coach practice. These were consistent every day stresses that were added to my “baseline stress”, and it was too much and my body broke. Our bodies were not made to be really stressed all the time and it tells us by having trouble sleeping, thinking, digesting. When things are really bad, they break down.
I’m slowly climbing my way back to feeling good. It hasn’t been easy because I’ve developed a lot of bad habits these past months and I need to replace them with good habits of health. Here are the habits I’m creating in my life to put my body back together and feel good:
Broken but going to be ok,
Chrissy xo
