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Wanted to update you on some of my other projects and where you can find me. For starters, I’ve been busy working on a book with Cooking Light based on the 12 Healthy Habits series that’s been featured in the magazine throughout 2011. The Food Lovers’ Healthy Habits Cookbook will be published in April 2012. You can find me blogging over at Cooking Light’s blog called The Twelve.



I’m also thrilled to be one of the bloggers for a new WebMD blog called Real Life Nutrition. Please come check us out. I’m joined by some other dynamite registered dietitians. Hope you’re following their blogs as well:

Carolyn Brown: One Smart Brownie
David Grotto: Nutrition Housecall
Maryann Jacobsen: Raise Healthy Eaters
Elizabeth Ward: Expect the Best

Something else I’m thrilled to let you know about is Healthy Aperture. This is a new food gallery site that focuses on healthy foods, featuring various categories like vegetables, whole grains, gluten-free. Please come check us out, and if you’re a blogger, we’d love to get your submissions. We have an editorial board of registered dietitians evaluating the submissions. The new site is something I helped create with RD colleague Regan Jones, author of The Professional Palate.

The other site I hope you’re familiar with now is the Nutrition Blog Network. This is another site I helped create that is the first aggregator of blogs written by registered dietitians. We now have more than 250 blogs featured on the site. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter too.

I think that’s all for now. Come back again soon.

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All eyes have been on front-of-package nutrition labeling recently, with the release of the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations to help bring some consistency to front-of-pack systems. That’s great if we can unify the various efforts that call out nutritional attributes on packaged foods. Not sure if these new recommendations totally nailed it, but this is certainly an issue worth tackling.

What you see on the front of the label, however, is never going to be the full story. It’s still important to turn the package around and look at the Nutrition Facts panel that provides more detailed data on what’s inside. Consumers say they’re reading these labels, but an interesting study published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association begs to differ. Researchers at the University of Minnesota used an eye-tracking device to see if shoppers were truly scouring those nutrition labels like they said they were.

The shoppers said one thing, but their eyes said another. Among the 203 study participants, 33% said they always look at the calories on the nutrition label, yet the eye-tracking tracking device found that only 9% actually checked the calories. Only 1% looked at other components on the label, even though they said they almost always look at total fat (31%), trans fat (20%), sugar (24%) and serving size (26%).

What shoppers do tend to look at are the nutrition claims on the front of a package. And that’s the topic of my latest post on the WebMD’s blog Real Life Nutrition.  I wrote about the 6 claims that need a second look before you toss the products into your shopping cart.

So what does this all mean? Go beyond the trendy words on the front of the package and check the nutrition facts and ingredients on the back to know what you’re really buying. Keep your eyes wide open when evaluating claims.

Image via libertygraceO on flickr

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Brussels sprouts are back.  Or maybe they were never really in vogue.  Whatever.  But now these humble little cabbage heads are red hot, and there’s no turning back. The James Beard Foundation predicted that Brussels sprouts would be a big food trend in 2010 and that’s proved to be true.

Brussels sprouts: Lately we’ve been noticing these studded stalks for sale in grocery stores, and more and more New York chefs are celebrating them on their menus. We especially like Jonathan Waxman’s mandoline-shaved Brussels sprouts “crudo,” accompanied by lemon, walnuts, and Pecorino; the Vanderbilt, a new eatery in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, dresses them in lime, honey, and sriracha.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, there’s no better time to try your hand at roasting Brussels sprouts.  If you’ve not eaten these emerald orbs roasted, then you haven’t really given Brussels sprouts a chance.

I made my case for Brussels sprouts in my latest post for WebMD’s blog Real Life Nutrition. Hope you’ll check it out, along with some of the recipes I featured from Kalyn’s Kitchen.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic, Parmesan and Pine Nuts

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pecans and Gorgonzola Cheese

Shredded and Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Almonds and Parmesan

You’ll also find some great recipes for Brussels sprouts on Healthy Aperture. If you haven’t checked out this new food photo gallery that I helped create with Regan Jones of The Professional Palate, you need to!

What’s your favorite way to enjoy Brussels sprouts?

[image sling@flickr]

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I just wrote about 2012 restaurant trends, but I’m back again.  My previous post was based on the predictions from Technomic.  This time the predictions are from Baum+Whiteman, international food and restaurant consultants in New York. They say the coming year will be all about “into the wild” as chefs go foraging for new ingredients and customers abandon comfort food for intense mix-and-match global flavors.  Korean and Peruvian cuisines will be big, and we’ll see a lot more meatballs, innards and odd parts (like tongue and beef heart), goat meat, house-made pickles, seaweed, craft beers and micro-distilleries. I pulled from their larger list of predictions to identify these 10 food and dining trends for restaurants and hotels in 2012:

1. Whole world on a plate. Look for a multi-ethnic, multi-sensory dining experience where flavors clash on purpose. Now it’s all about multi culti. A zucchini pizza dabbed with hummus and topped with crunchy wasabi peas is from nowhere geographically because it’s from everywhere. Cooking is at a crossroads where everything collides.



Fusion pizza:  Germany, Lebanon and Italy unite, by dhorst1 on flickr.

2. Korean food hits the charts. Thanks largely to food trucks, Korean food has entered the American lexicon.  Bulgogi, kimchee, kalbi, bibimbap are all the rage in Wednesday food sections, which means that shelter magazines will start featuring dumbed-down recipes in 2012.  Look for upscale places to serve items poached or braised in kimchee broth augmented with Asian and non-Asian flavors.  Showing up soon in your supermarket’s ethnic food sections will be kochujang ( red pepper paste).



Korean BBQ burger with braised short rib, kimchee ketchup and pickled vegetables by Nicknamemiket on flickr.

3. Peru gains momentum. Peru’s food is cross-pollinated by Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Italian and Andean flavors and cooking techniques. It’s the source of the world’s most exciting ceviches and tiraditos (another raw fish dish) and it is where pisco sours come from.  Look for causas, lomo saltado, aji amarillo, antichuchos, cuy (whole roast guinea pig, legs, head and all) and tiraditos, along with vibrant, acidic fruits and juices that go into their unique raw fish preparations.



Ceviche by extramsg on flickr.

4. Innards and odd parts. Tongue, gizzards and pigs ears are moving up from ethnic neighborhoods and onto menus of upscale restaurants.  In the year ahead, look for more “wobbly cuts,” such as tripe, chicken livers that are crunch-fried and beef heart (but not brains, yet), because customers are increasingly adventurous.



Grilled beef heart and french fries by Nicknamemiket on flickr.

5. In a pickle. House-made vegetables and fruit pickles will appear on more menus as chefs concoct ever more complex ways of making these preserves.   But they’re not your grandmother’s pickles:  chefs are going global with additions of Asian fish sauce, Mexican peppers, ginger, yuzu, smoked paprika and star anise.  Kimchee is at the sweet spot of the Korean and pickling trend.  In fact, Baum + Whiteman predicts kimchee may be the ingredient of the year.



House-made pickles by Law & Food Blog on flickr.

6. Instead of bread. Look for sandwiches piled on things other than bread:  arepas, flattened tostones, bao, waffles, rice cakes.



Bao by Dust Mason on flickr.

7. Forget skyscraper architecture. Chefs are shifting from stacking food as high as possible to stringing out ingredients in caterpillar-like lines along oblong or rectangular plates.  The technique is primarily used with ceviches, tartares, sushi and sashimi, with salads as the next frontier.

Tartares of Niman Ranch Beef and Watson Farm Lamb, and Monkfish Liver with Scallions and Sea Salt by Charles Haynes on flickr.

8. Comfort food hits the wall. When the recession hit three years ago, Americans gravitated to crisis food: homey roast chicken, soothing meat loaf, voluptous mac ‘n cheese and the holy cheeseburger.  Now we’re bored by gastro-nostalgia.  Instead, we’re demanding new taste thrills and culinary invention.  Plain old roast chicken is giving way to goosed-up fried renditions, such as highly spicy, crisp Korean fried chicken. Mac ‘n cheese is being reworked with pork rillettes or with chicharrones for crunch and braised pork necks for depth. Meatloaf has taken a dive as customers opt for all manner of meatballs at twice the price.  Hamburgers are going to new heights:  bone marrow, head cheese, pastrami-and-eggs, Cajun crawfish.

Ground beef and bone marrow and lamb and pickle cucumber sliders by justine.foong on flickr.com

9. Round things that go pop in the mouth. Hot sharable bar food includes kimchee- and parmesan-filled arancini, fried goat cheese balls, spherical falafel, meat balls of all kinds, bacalao croquettes, crispy oxtail risotto balls — all of them dropped briefly in the fryer and served with multi-ethnic sauces and dips. Other contemporary, drink-friendly finger food includes mini sandwiches with banh mi flavors, Korean meatball sliders, all sorts of global chicken lollypops, ceviches, flatbreads from everywhere and fried green tomatoes.



Tuna tartare and smoked gouda croquette by stu_spivack on flickr.

10. The foragers are coming. Upscale chefs are rushing to harvest dinner from the underbrush and under rocks — or assembling dishes that looked like they might be untamed gardens.  The horticultural landscapes are sent to tables on slabs of slate, miniature rock slides, primordial wood shapes and thrown glass instead of plates.  Watch for white acorns; tips of fir needles;”dirt” made of dried and crumbled mushrooms, black olives, bulgur or sprouting grains; eucalyptus leaves; chickweed; wild ginger; wood sorrel; yarrow and sumac slip onto upscale menus.



Atelier Crenn (”poetic culinaria”) by carendt242

Buzzwords for 2012

Fresh sardines. Uni. Yuzu. Tamarind. Kalbi. Bao. Bibambap. Bulgogi. Huacatay. Bone Marrow. Ox tail. Duck. Flowers. Hibiscus. Arepas. Coconut oil. Goat meat. Shiso. Green papaya. Seaweed.  Ultra-long dry aging of meat.  Lamb ribs and belly. Hand-made ricotta and burrata. Micro-distilleries. Exotic bitters on the bar.

Braised lamb belly, cilantro sauce and quinoa puree at Mo-Chica, a Peruvian restaurant in Los Angeles, by MyLastBite on flickr.

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I’m back with more trends.  I love this time of year because there are so many trend predictions from all sorts of folks (and sometimes they even agree!).  I’ve written about the 2012 food and dining trends from Technomic and Baum+Whiteman.  Now I’ve culled down some of the 2012 food trend lists from Andrew Freeman & Co. , Epicurious, the James Beard Foundation, Food Channel, National Restaurant Association, Phil Lempert, Huffington Post and Mintel. So here’s another look at 10 hot food and dining trends for the coming year.

1. 2012 will be the year of the potato.

I’m so glad to hear that since spuds have taken such a beating in the nutrition arena this year. Harvard abolished potatoes from their version of MyPlate and schools have banned them from lunch menus.  Thank goodness chefs have a different view.  Look for french fry menus that let guests choose the cut, crispness and sauce; make-your-own mashers with different mix-ins; or custom cut chips with dusts and dips to order.

(F)oxymoron on flickr

2. Grilled cheese is the new hamburger.

Restaurants are devoting special evenings or entire menus to this childhood favorite loved by kids of all ages.  There are grilled cheese food festivals, such as the Grilled Cheese Invitational in Los Angeles, and new restaurants that only sell grilled cheese sandwiches. From fast-casual and quick service (including Dunkin Donuts) to high end, expect more restaurants to develop their own signature grilled cheese sandwiches.

Sifu Renka on flickr

3. A forest of flavors.

Chefs are pine-ing for new flavors, and they’ve found it with new inspiration from the forest.  Expect to see  more flavors that use subtle infusions of pine needles, douglas fir and eucalyptus to flavor sauces, rubs, meats, jus and broths. The new Nordic pantry (inspired by Noma) includes wood sorrel, buckhorn (a tart orange berry), bark flour (made from real trees) and evergreens, including douglas fir.



Grilled steak of Berkshire Roe deer and douglas fir sausage with raw celeriac, spelt flatbread and field mushrooms at The Harwood Arms by  Purple Cloud on flickr.

4. Caneles are the new cupcakes.

Get ready for a new bakery item to replace cupcakes (well, maybe not at kids’ birthday parties).  The new hot baked good will the canele, a specialty of Bordeaux.  They’re made from an egg-yolk-enriched crepe-like batter that’s baked in copper molds lined with caramel and beeswax.  So move over cupcakes, pies and macarons, get ready for caneles to  make their mark.



Caneles by Emm Ess on flickr

5. Doughnuts get upgraded.

These irresistible fried treats have recently resurged in popularity.  Look for other regional and country-specific doughnuts, such as the Texan kolache, Turkish lokma or Portuguese malasada.  The fried sweet dough will also be showing up as churros (preferably with cajeta on the side), beignets, and koeksisters.

joyosity on flickr

6. Hand-pulled noodles.

Noodles may be nothing new, but innovative and exciting restaurants are highlighting this ancient art with glorified exhibition style hand-pulled noodles.  It’s dinner and a show.  One example includes Hand Pulled Noodles at Chef Martin Yan’s M.Y. China, which is opening Spring 2012 in San Francisco.



Hand-pulled noodles by Kattebelletje on flickr

7. Desserts veggie up.

Move over carrot cake, cutting edge pastry chefs are turning vegetables into sweet finales.  They’ll make you eat your veggies with sweet satisfaction.  This trend coincides with the wacky ice cream trend, including veggie-centric flavors like this beet ice cream.



Beet ice cream by shesimmers.com on flickr

8. Bloody good food.

I’ll admit that this one has me a bit squeamish.  The folks at James Beard believe it’s the natural step in the nose-to-tail movement (or maybe it’s our love for Twilight and all things vampires these days).  Whatever the reason, blood is appearing on menus more and more: Blood pancakes, blood pudding waffles, blood cups, sauces thickened with blood, blood ice cream.  In fact, bloody food was the cover story in the July issue of Food Arts magazine, written by Brad Farmerie of the Michelin awarded restaurant Public in NYC.  Public even featured a special bloody menu recently for an underground supper club that included Swedish blood bread, blood tofu, pig blood popsicles and horse pig blood brûlée.



Blood sausage crepes by Sifu Renka on flickr.

9. Fennel pollen

The latest in rare, must-have ingredients for chefs? An Italian favorite: fennel pollen. While Mario Batali extols its virtues, chefs far and wide are finding inventive uses for it, including Canlis in Seattle, where the powder dusts snapper sashimi. Where to get it? Try the Pollen Ranch.

 



Fennel pollen vinaigrette by Hawaiianbeeswax on flickr

 

10. Global cuisines

Previous trend reports said Korean and Peruvian cuisines will be big in 2012.  The latest lists predict a range of international cuisines:  modern Thai, fast casual Asian (like Shophouse Southeast Asian Kitchen from the folks behind Chipotle), Indian street foods, high-end Indian, Nordic, Czech, Hungarian and Eastern European.  Epicurious calls out  Singapore as one of the tastiest cities on Earth — the place to eat in 2012.

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Locally sourced meat, seafood and produce again top the list of hot menu trends as predicted by chefs surveyed by the National Restaurant Association.  Hyper-local items, such as ingredients from restaurants’ own gardens, rank fourth on the list, and a third of chefs at full-service restaurants who were surveyed said they had gardens on-site.



Here’s chef Rick Bayless giving a tour of his backyard garden at a Les Dames event I attended this summer.  In his three-city lot in Chicago, Rick grows an amazing amount of vegetables, salad micro-greens, peppers and herbs for his restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobambo.

The top 20 predicted hot menu trends identified by the 1,800 chefs who belong to the American Culinary Federation are:

1. Locally sourced meats and seafood
2. Locally grown produce
3. Healthful kids’ meals
4. Hyper-local sourcing (e.g., restaurant gardens)
5. Sustainability as a culinary theme
6. Children’s nutrition as a culinary theme
7. Gluten-free/food allergy-conscious items
8. Locally produced wine and beer
9. Sustainable seafood
10. Whole grain items in kids’ meals
11. Newly fabricated cuts of meat, such as the pork flat iron and the beef petit tender
12. Farm/estate-branded items
13. Food trucks/street food
14. Artisan spirits
15. House-made/artisan ice cream
16. Health/nutrition as a culinary theme
17. Non-traditional fish, such as branzino, barramundi, Arctic char
18. Fruit/vegetable kids’ side items
19. Children’s mini-meals (e.g. smaller versions of adult menu items)
20. Culinary cocktails (e.g., savory, fresh ingredients, herb-infused)

Nitro-scrambled egg at The Fat Duck by LarryHalff on flickr

The top five preparation trends:
1. Pickling
2. Fermenting
3. Sous vide
4. Liquid nitrogen chilling/freezing
5. Oil-poaching

Barramundi, squid and preserved lemon salad with black rice by al_again on flickr

Top five side dishes:
1. Non-wheat noodles/pasta, such as buckwheat
2. Black/forbidden rice
3. Quinoa
4. Red rice
5. Vegetable pickles



Lebneh by ShazzaKataya on flickr

Five hot ingredients
1. Artisan/specialty bacon
2. Artisan cheeses
3. Ancient grains (kamut, spelt, amanranth)
4. Greek yogurt
5. Ethnic cuisine cheeses (lebneh, paneer, halloumi, queso fresco)
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It is becoming common in the field of natural health remedies that massage therapy can help to improve one’s overall well being. According to the American Massage Therapy Association, research proves that massage therapy provides many important health benefits, including:

Improvement in blood circulation in the body, which aids in the recovery of muscle soreness due to physical activity.

Relaxation of muscles for an improved range of motion. Muscle relaxation also helps in the treatment of insomnia. The increase in endorphin levels is actually one of the greatest benefits of the massage therapy. Endorphins are body chemicals that lend a feel-good feeling, which is very effective in managing chronic pain.

It is important to ensure that precautions are exercised while receiving massage therapy. Your muscle should relax in response to the pressure applied by a massage therapist, in the absence of which, it is possible that muscles are inflamed. In such cases, you should not opt for back massages as a treatment option and consult his/her doctor for the treatment. A friend in the box cutters business told me that most muscle spasms require four massage treatments, usually spread over a six weeks period, to achieve best results. If muscle spasms do not respond to the neuromuscular therapy within two massages, try using another therapy.

If you have severe lower back pain, it is advisable that you undergo thorough medical checkup before commencing the massage therapy.

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Skin care, to be sure, is not just about beauty. It is about hygiene and safety. Unknown to many, all human beings, whether healthy or not, probably have some Staphylococcus aureus bacteria on their skin.

These bacteria, simply called staph, are usually found in your nose or throat and may not really cause much problems except for minor skin infections. The skin serves as the body’s first barrier against these bacterial infections. This is why it is important to have healthy skin in order to ward off bacterial infections. Once the skin is broken, cut or wounded, you are at risk for infection. Once these bacteria gets to burrow deeper into your skin and penetrates your body into the bloodstream, urinary tract, lungs, and heart, these seemingly harmless bacteria can become life-threatening. People with Travel Jobs who travel to some countries need to learn these facts well.

History showed that most cases of fatal staph infections in the past have occurred in people who have been in the hospital or those who are suffering from chronic illness and faltering immune system. However, recent development proves that an increasing number of otherwise healthy people who have never been in a hospital are also acquiring these lethal staph infections.
Moreover, the usually powerful antibiotics are no longer as highly effective as it used to in fighting against certain strain of these destructive bacteria. Most staph infections are still manageable and can be successfully treated. But sooner or later, there will come a time that a new and deadlier strain of these bacterial infections will become resistant to most currently available medications.

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Since asthma is related to inflammation of the lungs and constriction of the smooth involuntary bronchiole muscles, how can doing natural remedies such as breathing exercises help alleviate your symptoms?

For starters, it is estimated that about 30% of asthmatics suffer some degree of breathing dysfunction. Bad habits are easily learned when suffering from asthma symptoms and it is not uncommon for those habits to continue in between attacks ñ breathing through the mouth and short, shallow breaths for example.

This type of breathing deprives the lungs of their full potential to effectively exchange oxygen with carbon dioxide. Breathing exercises enforce good habits where the full range of lung function is used. Consequently, the body gets the oxygen it needs and you will feel better, particularly your energy levels. I met a group of wedding photographers raleigh nc recently and one of them was sharing with me about her experience with asthma.

And not only will it make the breathing process more efficient, there is evidence that breathing muscles (diaphragm and lung muscles) are strengthened. So even if breath training doesnít directly improve lung function, eliminating bad habits will improve overall health and quality of life. And this new energy level is important in getting stronger and finding the motivation to attack asthma with a total management plan that results in symptoms being completely controlled ñ with very little, if any, need for medications.

In addition to increased energy levels and stronger lung muscles, there is another benefit to breathing exercises ñeven if it doesnít directly result in increased lung function. And that is when actually enduring an asthma attack.

Anyone who has asthma knows what it is like to struggle for breath. You canít get enough air into your lungs and just as agonizing, you canít seem to get any air out. Asthmatics who practice correct breathing exercises are much more likely to be able to endure, in a controlled manner, an asthma attack than those that don’t.

Controlling asthma cannot be achieved by only using one tool. Multiple tools should be used ñ in addition to the control and relief medications prescribed by your physician. Diet, exercise, trigger controls are all essential components; and so is a good and consistent program of breathing exercises. Just one tool won’t get rid of your asthma symptoms. But using all the tools available to you can and there is no reason you can’t enjoy a symptom free lifestyle.

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The key to healthy eating is one little word: balance. You need to balance all the different food groups in your diet (thatís diet as in things you eat, not diet as in weight loss). That means carbohydrates, fats and proteins should all feature equally in each meal you eat. Start paying attention to the backs of labels, where it should be clearly marked how much of each nutrient your food contains, and steer clear of foods that are very high in any one thing unless you are planning to mix them with something else to make a meal.

The average person eats too much carbohydrate (in the form of sugar and pasta) and fat (unhealthy snacks), but nowhere near enough protein. If you want to balance your diet, in most cases, the first thing you should do is cut back on the sweets and snacks and eat more meat and dairy instead, it might sound obvious, but it is surprising how people will go out of their way to balance their meals and then ruin it all with snacks. Water is important for the wellbeing of any person and therefore, you should try to get pure water for the family. I recalled those days getting a good water pump and water filter for our household. It takes efforts but it pays off.

Apart from carbohydrates, proteins and fats, the other things you need to worry about are vitamins. Most vitamins are necessary in at least small quantities for your body to function properly.

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