Day 37 Thanks and Welcome, and Catabolic Foods

First off, I want to thank Patrick, over at responsibility199 for the shout-out, and subsequent new followers! I appreciate the vote of confidence in choosing to follow my blog. I hope to not disappoint!

Second, I want to welcome all my followers. This is exciting for me, as you are my first-ever blog followers! Again, i hope you all find something of value in what I post.

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Have you heard the term "catabolic food"?  I first ran across the term a few years ago. It refers to food that supposedly burns more calories in digestion than the food itself actually contains, resulting in a "negative calorie" net intake.

I'll admit it. I'm a bit skeptical. But I do find it intriguing, and am currently looking for more supporting information from reliable sources. Meanwhile there are dozens of sites out there that have lists of these so-called negative calorie foods. As might be expected, nearly all of the foods are fruits and vegetables, with a bit of seafood thrown in to cover the protein area.

 What I find comforting about this list is that its consistent with other diet food lists: a large variety of fruits & veggies, and no demand for some off-the-wall quantity of one particular food.

What's really going through my head is how to cross-reference all these lists and find "super-foods" that offer the most in healthful benefits. Just adding a few of these to any diet can't help but be an improvement, right?

One food that keeps popping up is hot peppers. So far, I find them to be negative-calorie, anti-inflammatory, and loaded with anti-oxidants. Seranno chiles, which fall at the top of the anti-inflammatory scale, look sorta like a skinny jalapeno, a bit longer, and sometimes varied in color. They are typically hotter than jalapenos, so if you are unaccustomed to spicy food, you should go a bit easy on these. I love to put them in a pot of chili. But I think I'm going to look for some new recipes that use them, to add to our menu (besides the obvious salsa).

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OOH!! OOH!!! I just found one that sounds awesome! Tequila Lime Shrimp

Ingredients:

1 bag of frozen uncooked extra-large shrimp (about 25 shrimp)
juice of 2 limes
1 tsp lime zest
1 tbs chili powder
2 oz of premium tequila
1/2 red onion, chopped fine
4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 small stalk celery, chopped fine
2 bay leaves
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
2 serrano peppers, seeded and chopped fine
1 cup chicken broth
1 tsp cilantro
2 tbs olive oil
1 cup raw long-grain rice

Directions:
1) Defrost shrimp by running under cold water for 5 minutes.
2) Prepare rice.
3) Heat olive oil in 4-qt skillet on medium, saute the onion, celery, garlic until soft.
4) Add shrimp, salt and pepper, saute 5 minutes until shells are pink.
5) Stir in remaining ingredients, cover, simmer for 15 minutes.
6) Makes 4 servings of about 6 shrimp with sauce over rice

This is going on the menu for Wednesday! I'll let you know how it goes!

Days 35 & 36 Inflammation and Health

First of all, my update/check in.

Didn't get on the scale yesterday or today, but I'll recap my intake: yesterday I had two chicken soft tacos made with flour tortillas, refried beans, a tablespoon of rice, cheese, salsa and guacamole, a handful of corn chips with guacamole and salsa mixed, two Bud Light Limes,  two forks full of lemon cake, coffee with creamer (in the morning), and a glass of riesling wine (before bed). I have to add that the food/beer was at a graduation party, and other than the tiny bit of cake, I completely avoided the ridiculous amount fo cookies and sweets.

Today, in order to combat yesterday's not-so-great diet, I had a bowl of the squash soup I made the other day, two pieces of whole grain seeded bread, coffee, and water. Really wasn't all the hungry today. I also went for a two mile brisk walk this evening with the hubby.

Eh, tomorrow will be a good day!

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Now on to the topic of the day: Inflammation and Health

We've all heard many times that increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables in our diet is a good start to getting healthier. Likewise, we all know that decreasing the amount of saturated fats is also a good thing.

But one thing we don't hear much about is inflammation and how it is linked to our health and diet.

Chronic inflammation that occurs throughout the body is associated with 4 of the leading causes of disease and death for both men and women in the US: heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. The reasons are becoming clear as researchers discover that this systemic inflammation, linked to the foods we eat, produces a certain protein, called C-reactive protein, that is produced by the liver during periods of inflammation. Having an elevated level of this protein in the blood stream for prolonged periods of time is what researchers believe is a contributing factor to disease.

Ok, so that's a lot of nebulous scientific jargon that sounds a bit interesting, but how do I relate that to my diet? How do I use that info to help me make better choices in my life? Eat more veggies. Yeah, got that. But which ones? Are some better than others? Do some actually cause inflammation? How do I choose?

Well, one tool I've found to help me make better choices is NutritionData.com. Its a great website for checking out the foods I eat for things like calories, fat content, protein content, etc. But it also has additional indicators that show things like Inflammation Factor, Estimated Glycemic Load, Nutrient Balance and Protein Quality.

So this Inflammation Factor is a rating system that indicates a food's tendency to induce inflammation in the body. The higher, or more positive, the number, the better the food is for you because it is anti-inflammatory. While it may be difficult, if not impossible to eat only foods that are positive, NutritionData's website states that the goal should be to balance out the lower (negative) numbers with the higher positive numbers, with a net positive number being the goal.

Well, now I at least have a tool that will help me, but how do I find these anti-inflammatory foods?  You can find an extensive list here. There are pages and pages of foods listed that have very high anti-inflammatory qualities, some of the highest being hot peppers, ginger root, garlic, fish oil from salmon, dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, and onions.

The reason I'm excited about this website (besides being free) is that my process of changing my diet and lifestyle is intended to be gradual and sustainable, and any tool I find to help me with that will just make things that much easier. I really want my changes to involve things that I like, that my family likes, and that I can continue to do without causing major disruptions in "how we do things". Basically, I want to "switch things out", one bad thing for one good thing.

Small, steady changes.

That being said, my plan is to incorporate one additional highly anti-inflammatory food into each meal for the next week. This will be my test period to see how things go over with the troupes.

By the way, olive oil is a positive (anti-inflammatory) food. YAY!!! That goes along with my earlier post on switching fats to lose fat.

I'll let you know what changes I make and how well they go over.