Eat these foods to keep eating in check Memorial Day weekend

Me/laptop and bulletin board (why crop)

 Thank goodness there’s a shift away from tiresome calorie counting. If you counted the calories in your breakfast, step away from My Fitness Pal. it’s not a real pal. Instead, think about the quality of your food. What your food to do for you (as always it’s all about you). Do you need more energy? Maybe some “GI” assistance, I discussed a reliable remedy for that in Tuesday. Or are you hungry all the time? Do you you overeat? Often want something more after a meal?  I hear you.

Last week, I sat down with CBS at the beautiful, new Madison Square location for Dig Inn. The topic? Foods that cut your cravings, at Foodtrainers we dubbed these foods Full Foods.

Here are five foods to keep you satisfied longer:

1. Yogurt- yogurt is a fermented or probiotic food. Greek yogurt or Siggi’s Skyr is also higher in protein. Fermented foods improve appetite signals to the brain (shortens that lag between eating and realizing you ate) and protein at breakfast results in eating less later in the day.
2. Raspberries- every food group has a hierarchy. For fullness, raspberries are on top. They are the highest fiber fruit, 8 grams per cup, and they’re also in season (if you’ve read Little Book of Thin you know that I warn about overfruiting so stick to that cup of raspberries). And I’m not lying when I say some (favorite) clients reported rereading LBT as a refresher. Swear. Try it while you eat your raspberries.
3. Avocado- full disclosure the avocado people are involved in these avo-studies I reference but I don’t care. Half an avocado at lunch reduces snacking later in the day and makes lunch worthwhile. So long snack monster. And potassium in avocados is a “delicious debloater”. Pack avocados in your overnight bag, snap a photo if you do. 
4. Eggs- eggs may be the numero uno Full Food even though I’m listing it forth for no reason. Eggs decrease ghrelin (horrible hunger hormone, I always envision Little Shop of Horrors “feed me Seymour feed me all night long”). Boil half a dozen eggs and use them on salads or as snacks.
5. Beans- I said during filming no bean jokes. If you’re worried about “beaniness” at the beach stick to mung beans- the gas free bean. After eating beany meals people reported they were 30% more satisfied than similarly composed bean free entrees. Not legume-inclined? Try these bean pastas I mention in the segment.

Have a great weekend. No need to be hangry (or gorging), got it?

What are your “Full Foods” that satisfy you most? Are these five a part of your diet? Do you calorie count?

Corn Doody

I swear, I didn’t invent the term Corn Doody but according to the highly reputable Urban Dictionary it’s “what you find in the bowl the morning after eating corn”. And to be clear, we’re not talking a bowl bowl. It’s corn season, clients ask the darndest things and lately I’m fielding numerous corn doody queries. I always chalked this occurrence up to insufficient chewing but is there more to it with corn? After all, not all foods come out whole.

The outer hull of corn is made of cellulose that is indigestible to humans; we do not have the necessary enzymes to break it down. Even when you chew a kernel (we can’t all be inhaling our corn) it’s mainly the inner portion that’s digested. The cellulosey outer layer remains, one website likened it to an empty sleeve.

I know what you’re thinking, I do. How come what’s in the “bowl” doesn’t look like an empty, flattened sleeve but a full or whole sleeve? It’s because WARNING GROSSNESS as corn makes its way from top to bottom, it is refilled (nasty I know). So there you have it.

And though corn doody may be a seasonal concern, don’t be alarmed by quinoa, beans or flax doody either. While odd this isn’t usually a problem unless accompanied by other GI symptoms that I’ll refrain from discussing today, enough is enough.

Have you, you can admit it, experienced corn doody? Have you wondered why? Are their other foods that seem to "pass through" whole? Are you wondering if I've lost it?

Who's Afraid of Soaking Beans?

A few couple months ago I assigned Cooking Homework. November’s homework was to start slow cooking. I did and use our slow cooker every weekend. I don’t love chopping onions with my morning coffee but a few minutes of work and you have chili, soup or a delicious stew waiting for you. Last month, I vowed to embrace my neglected juicer and to break out unused cookbooks.  I’ve definitely juiced more this month. I would encourage fellow juicers reading this to consider using parsnips, papaya is good too, oh and young coconuts. I’m happy to talk juicing because I didn’t cook anything from Healthy Hedonist or Appetite for Reduction. Nada.

I read something over at Verging on Serious that may explain my partial failure. Cameo wrote a great post on making changes and listed these facts from a video series she watched:

Adoption of one new habit at a time- 85% chance of success

Adoption of two new habits at once- 35% chance of success

Adopting of three new habits at once- 10% chance of success.

In my assignment I did something I urge clients not to, I tried to do too much at once thus I’m in the 65% failure faction. So this month, there’s only one assignment I’m throwing out there, beans. Beans would probably make my list of the top 10 healthiest foods; I love Mexican-inspired dishes, bean dips and bean salads. I’m not fond of canned foods so I’ve been using the Fig Food boxed beans. I really should soak and cook my own beans (less packaging, less salt, less expensive) but I don’t. It could be that I lived on black beans and brown rice in college and when I say lived on I mean it.  As scarring as this repetitive eating was the reason I don’t soak beans is really that I’m too lazy. You may have sniffed out that I use lentils and split peas often; they are lazy person’s legumes (no soaking required).

I decided it was time to change my ways reading about bean soaking on More than Cereal. Adele jokes that she used to think of soaking beans as only something a “special” type of person does. However, like other commonly circumvented cooking chores, it’s really not that involved. I did it at 18, in college, and I assure you I wasn’t capable of doing much else at the time.

If you’re contemplating beak soakage, here’s what you do:

Initiate the process the night before (or morning) you plan to cook beans.  Put beans in a large pot, under a few inches of water, and refrigerate. Remove any floating beans as this indicates they’re old. No senior beans allowed. Drain the water (important as you are draining out gassiness), cover with fresh water and cook. I love this slideshow from Serious Eats. Adele and S.E.. concur that cooked beans can be frozen for later use. Love that.

So we have good odds, an 85% chance of soaking success, are you with me? If you’re sitting back a smug soaker, I’m sure there’s something else you been putting off.  What's something you buy that you can make at home or DIY? You have until April.