I haven’t done a restaurant review in quite some time but I have been to a few as of late! Most recently I ate with some friends at Tavola. It’s a quaint little restaurant located on Water Street in St. John’s. Previously, I had heard …
Are pancakes not the ultimate comfort food?! Every Sunday my husband and I take time out to make breakfast (let me pause here to take a moment as writing husband is still exciting to me, only married a week here!). We love experimenting in the …
Wow, 2017 is here already! Where did the last year go?! I think a lot of people are happy to see 2016 in the rear view mirror. So say so long and get on with the plan for this fresh New Year! A lot of people tend to base their resolutions on healthy eating and weight loss. There are so many diets out there that promise massive weight loss and quick results…but are they healthy? Are they effective? Do they last long term? One of the answers to these questions is yes, these diets are effective but long term they aid in creating bad to worse eating habits and the effects are usually short lived. So…let’s set you up for a win, a triple win. You want a plan that is healthy, effective and creates long term habits to maintain your healthy new lifestyle. The most important thing you want to do is find your motivation. Sometimes making changes are hard so you need to remember why you’re doing this. Is it to better your health, help you feel more energetic, improve your self-confidence, maybe it’s to keep up with your kids. It doesn’t matter. Just remember you set out on this path for a reason, so stay focused on the end goal…a long healthy life!
Hopefully these 5 tips will start you on your way! AND, remember when I mentioned keeping your favorite treats? Enjoy those too, set aside a day of the week where you sit down and enjoy your treats with the family. You can’t maintain your new healthy life without being able to enjoy your favorite snacks! Good luck with your New Year’s resolutions. Reading this article is definitely the first step!
Signing off,
Adrianna Smallwood, Registered Dietitian and Nutrition Expert
The holidays are coming! It’s almost December and I bet most people are struggling between making a New Year’s resolution to eat healthier in some capacity and tallying up the calories of all the food they will eat over Christmas. I myself have made quite …
Fruits and vegetables are full of tons of nutrients! Here in Newfoundland we have some of the lowest rates of fruit and vegetable intake and for sure a lot of different options aren’t readily available on this wonderful island we call a rock…BUT there are …
Hey out there fellow Celiacs…or gluten intolerant readers as well! I have been baking gluten free for about 5 years now and I have had many successes…and failures…with my baking! I know it can be a struggle to find the perfect gluten free product that even closely measures up to the real thing and a lot of the commercially available products are super high in fat and sugar to try and replace those lovely textures that gluten provides…chewy, fluffy, soft, flaky…we miss those textures right?!
So here is my fool proof method for muffins, cookies and granola bars (I haven’t quite ventured in to those baking experiments that require yeast and the one time I did it was a complete flop…no pun intended ;). So stay tuned for future ideas!).
First there are a few things I keep in mind when experimenting with my gluten free recipes:
ferent properties and not 1 gluten free flour will provide all the properties of regular gluten containing flour so it’s always best to use more than 1 flour. I usually use half rice flour and half sorghum flour. I know a lot of gluten free recipes call for 3 and 4 but this can get pricey and a little annoying. This ratio always works for me so I tend to use it the most!
n gum….this is our gluten replacer to give us those textures we miss out on when we hold the gluten. The Xanthan gum package usually lists on the back how much you should use based on each cup of flour and if you are making cookies, muffins, cake, ect.So…let’s pick a regular ol’ recipe off Pinterest and change it to gluten free! Since its berry season I am going to go with a Blueberry Muffin! I simply just typed blueberry muffins in Pinterest and grabbed the first one that came up.
Ingredients:
Alright….this recipe calls for 1 ½ cups of flour. How does this balance out using my above techniques? Firstly we are going to replace some of the flour with ground flax. In this case we will use ¼ cup of ground flax so we are left with 1 ¼ cup of flour, half of which will be rice flour and the other half which will be sorghum flour. So you can use ½ + 1/8 of a cup of each for this recipe.
Next, we need to cut down on the sugar content. We can use 1/3 in this recipe if you want to sprinkle the extra on top like it suggests.
Leave out the salt!
Leave the baking powder (and/or baking soda, depending on the recipe), oil/butter, milk, vanilla extract and frozen berries the same. Make sure you are using a PURE vanilla extract and not an artificial one as most flavorings have gluten in them.
Lastly, add your Xanthan Gum. On the package it states that when making muffins you should add ¾ tsp of xanthan gum per 1 cup of flour. So in this case we are using 1 ½ cups of flour so we will use 1 1/8 tsp of Xanthan gum.
Voila, you made a gluten free recipe out of a regular ol’ recipe by holding the gluten. You also managed to create a lower sugar and higher fibre end product. So…gasp…a HEALTHY gluten free recipe!
Hope you enjoyed! Good luck with your experimenting!
Signing off,
Adrianna Smallwood, RD
Registered Dietitian and Nutrition Expert
Yikes!!! Did anyone see the new Newfoundland budget?! Probably a rhetorical question right? Here we are in Newfoundland trying to make the best of it. We’re already paying twice as much for food as most provinces and now we might have to pay more?! And …
I began reading this book lately, it’s called “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family. How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook.” I’ve heard so many great things about the author Ellyn Satter and this particular book has been on my reading …
It’s 2016 and I’m sure as soon as the clock struck midnight everyone was thinking about those little resolutions they were making the last few weeks of December. The new year always brings a fresh slate for me and I love thinking of all the possible things I can do to make life more fun…or as I’m getting older it seems to be more about healthy goals!
As I sit in coffee shops and in restaurants I’m surrounded by hopeful and anxious people talking about how this will be the year they will lose 25 pounds, or run the Tele 10 or cut “junk food” out of their diets completely….it inspired me to reflect on my year as an intern for Dietetics. I sat in a class and the instructor was talking about SMART goal setting and I thought…this is golden, more people should think about setting goals this way. So here it is. When you’re thinking about losing 25 pounds and running 16 km and right now you can’t run 1, you might be setting yourself up for failure. SMART goal setting is about making small, achievable goals and staying positive.
Steps To Goal Setting
Step 1: Identify Your Goals. What exactly would you like to accomplish?
Feeling better about yourself, Eating healthy, Becoming more active?
Consider the SMART Principle: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely
Step 2: What Is Important To You?
On a scale from 1 to 10, evaluate how important each of the goals are to you. The goals to focus on are those you score a 7 or higher. Pick which of the goals to tackle first. Try asking yourself which issues will make the biggest impact in your life and which goals are most relevant and positive.
For example: Goal 1: To eat 1 more piece of fruit and 1 veggie each day. Goal 2: Lose 25 pounds for a wedding your standing in (or your own wedding).
Which goal is more positive, relevant, attainable and long term? Goal 1 is simple and attainable and will certainly add more nutrients to your diet. Step 2 is more negative and stressful because you aren’t really trying to accomplish the goal for yourself or your health.
Step 3: Road Block Analysis
What road blocks stand in the way of you reaching your goals?
**Think of strategies to get through each of the road blocks you come up with.
For example:
Road Block: You are traveling a lot (job, travel)
Solution: Try shopping at a grocery store and keeping some fruit, veggies and nuts in your hotel room.
Road Block: You aren’t sure what you should be eating or how to go about preparing a healthy meal (lack of knowledge/skills)
Solution: Ask your Doctor about a referral to a Registered Dietitian.
Let’s bring it all together. We have thought about what goals to set, how important they are to us and how to effectively swerve around any road blocks that could get in our way to reaching this goal.
So, how do we use this strategy to make a SMART goal?
S-Specific, this is the what, where, how when and with whom part of the goal.
For example: I want to run the tele 10
M-Measurable, break down the goal into things you can measure. Quantity and time can be measured.
For example: I will run the tele 10 in July
A-Attainable: Is the goal attainable? Will you actually be able to accomplish this goal by the date you have set?
For example: Its June and you have never run before, will you be able to run 16km by July?
R-Relevant, is the goal relevant to you? Do you like running or would you rather get your cardio from joining a rec hockey or ultimate frisbee league?
T-Timely, set an end date for your goal.
For example: I will run 1 km EACH week.
Now that we have created a SMART goal together I hope you are feeling better about your goals. Its better to make a goal like, I will only eat “junk food” on Saturdays, rather than, I will NEVER eat “junk food” again. Set yourself up for a WIN! 2016 is your year!
I often tell people that of all the things they can do, increasing their daily fibre intake is probably one of the most important (and magical). A diet low in fibre can result in loose stool and diarrhea, slow digestion and constipation. Fibre is responsible …
