Really I think there are only 4  things that can be done when you have a bug/bacteria like the one we got.

1. Let it pass
2. Stay hydrated
3. Listen to your body – if something doesn’t feel right, DON’T eat it. Your body knows best what you need.
4. Rest

I was told at the hospital to stay hydrated with fluids such as gatorade. But when I spoke to my Guru Doctor, he explained that Gatorade has way too much sugar and chemicals and is not the best hydrant. The best hydrant is coconut water and it is pure. The vomiting also gave me severe heartburn and he suggested some aloe water also to coat my stomach.

Note: before I spoke to him, I was drinking the gatorade suggested at the hospital and I noticed that every time I drank a little cup, my heartburn would kick in again. I don’t really know why but it wasn’t helping. When I switched to the aloe water it soothed me much more. My doctor had also told me that I should replenish my body with a little protein. He suggested that I drink a tiny cup of (quarter cup) warm grass-fed milk with a little bit of raw protein powder. I plan to interview him soon so he can explain why he suggested this for me. But in any event I listened to him and it was what soothed my heartburn the most.

My mother came over as soon as I got home from the hospital and did the best thing she could ever do for my husband and I…she took care of the kids so we could sleep! My body really needed to recover and we slept and slept. She also made us some soothing chicken soup.

I got sick on Saturday evening. On Sunday I only had liquids…I didn’t feel my body was ready even for the chicken soup yet, so I sipped a little of the broth and put it away. On Monday, my vomiting and diarreah were gone but my stomach remained weak and vulnerable (as did Orlando’s). We both had some of my mom’s chicken soup for lunch and  stayed hydrated with coconut water and aloe water throughout the day.

I also passed by a great little place I love www.lifefoodgourmet.com and got myself a Wugup shake. I did this based on the assumption that I needed to replenish my body (and the baby) with protein and good stuff. This shake has protein, mamey, cacao, spirulina….all great ingredients that are mild enough for my stomach to tolerate a couple of days after the bug. I drank it with lots of caution and sip by sip but my body told me it was okay and slowly I started to recover.

By the end of the day, I had only had a little bit of that shake and chicken soup and Orlando had only had some soup. We both felt we needed vegetables at dinnertime but couldn’t imagine eating actual food. We wanted a creamy, silky kind of soup that would restore our bodies.

Something that came to mind was a potato leek soup because it had the consistency we were looking for…but Orlando wanted it to have more than just potatoes and leeks. He wanted lots of good stuff. So out of this virus was born Orlando’s Potato Leek Soup version which was exactly what we needed to get us back on track.

Here is the recipe: (This makes a huge crock pot of soup so if you don’t want to make too much, you may want to cut your quantities in half – but we’re a family of four so we make big portions)

• 1 head of Broccoli
• 5 medium Yukon gold potatoes
• 2 extra large leeks (or 3-4 small leeks)
• 2 large carrots sliced
• 1 basket of mushrooms chopped
• 1 inch of grated ginger
• 1 head of roasted garlic
• 1 stick of celery
• 1/2 onion
• 1/4 stick of organic unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup of organic grassfed buttermilk
• 1/2 cream of whipping cream
• 1 quart of vegetable stock (about 48 ounces)
• dash of cumin
• powder ginger
• kosher salt
• black pepper
• chives
• thyme

• Chop up leeks, carrots, celery, and onion- sautee in a large crock pot with a little salt and olive oil.
• After those are cooked through, rough chop the mushrooms and toss them in there with a little spray of olive oil and salt to coat them.
• Cube the potatoes and toss in with the broccoli – continue to sautee
• Add vegetable stock, bring to boil, and reduce to simmer, cover for 45 minutes.
• throw in about 6 cloves of roasted garlic, heavy cream and buttermilk. – dash of salt
• cover and cook for another 5 minutes.
• Blend the soup with a hand blender.
• Serve and sprinkle with chives

My dear friends,

What a terrible experience I went through this weekend. My husband and I took the boys to the falls to get their haircuts and decided to stop at Los Ranchos for dinner. I ordered the mini churrasco (steak) because I don’t eat red meat very often. I figured it would be a nice treat. My husband ordered chicken fajitas. When the meal came, I asked if they could give me some black or red beans alone with the meat. I was told they only serve “gallo pinto” (rice with beans). I don’t eat rice so already I was disappointed. I decided to eat the steak alone with some of the vegetables my kids got and plantains. The moment my tongue touched the steak, I felt uncomfortable. The steak didn’t taste good to me. It was tough, super hard to chew, and I didn’t like it. I expressed this to my husband and he tasted it and told me it was fine. I started to complain to him. I wasn’t happy with the steak. Orlando, in an effort to make me happy, offered to make me a fajita with his steak. He put some guacamole and sour cream and put it in a fajita. I ate it but I wasn’t happy or pleased. That experience got me thinking about the last couple of days (since Thanksgiving) and I realized I just wasn’t eating as clean as I’m used to. The holidays are a happy, lovely, time but they sneak in a host of temptations and deviations from your regular lifestyle that can really creep up on you if you’re not careful. I didn’t have this problem last year, I seemed to be more well centered. But maybe because of my grandmother’s passing, and my pregnancy, I have been more out of whack this time around and so have my decisions.

I digress… in order not to be a total downer, I ate the steak and the fajita but I was down about the whole thing. When we left the restaurant at around 6:30pm I turned to my husband and said, “I don’t like this place, I don’t like that food, I just don’t feel well about how I ate.” We went home, I bathed the kids, put them to bed, and by 7pm I was feeling a little queezy.  I laid down to rest, and by 8pm I was vomiting. To spare you of the horrible details, I will fast forward to 3:30am when I called my father to drive me to the hospital so my husband can stay with the children and avoid waking them up. By the time I arrived at the hospital I had lost about 5lbs, was severely dehydrated, and was having contractions. I had food poisoning. I’m 30 weeks pregnant now and my main concern was the health of the baby. Luckily he was unharmed by my sickness and a few iv’s stopped my contractions and made me feel better.

So the bottom line? I was right about the steak. It was bad. Orlando tried my steak- didn’t eat the whole thing just a few pieces. As I returned from the hospital he entered the bathroom with a milder version of my symptoms. My children did not eat the steak and thankfully did not get sick. We were contaminated on Saturday. On Monday we still could not eat.

So the reason I opted to title this post “Follow Your Gut” is because I learned quite a lesson from this experience. My body was telling me not to eat the steak. My tongue knew something was wrong. Its not like I could taste the bacteria but I just knew. And instead of returning it or not eating anymore, what did I do…I put it in a fajita to disguise it. I’m the one to blame! We need to trust ourselves.

I think this food poisoning was actually a blessing in disguise for both Orlando and I. I’ve said this before, but I can’t help to reiterate it because this is all part of our journey… sometimes we forget why we eat healthy. Its so incredibly easy to start making exceptions to your lifestyle because of the food culture we live in. This experience threw both of us in recovery mode and re-centered us. It made us realize why we eat the way we eat…because it makes us feel good!!!!!!!!! And to be honest, being sick isn’t fun. And I don’t only mean being sick to the extreme like I was. I also mean the general ill feeling that often accompanies eating poorly. Feeling stuffed, lethargic, loss of energy, overweight, headaches, body aches, depression, fatigue…a lot of our symptoms are related to food and we don’t realize it.

Inevitably, the Holidays will lead to some dietary exceptions but hopefully my experience will make you think twice before you eat something that you know is not good for you. Just ask yourself the question… is this worth it? You’d be shocked how many things you’d normally eat that you really don’t care to eat.

As for us…we are on the road to recovery again and tomorrow I will post some recipes that helped us get there.

Every once in a while, parents have an aha moment where all their efforts seem to be paying off. It doesn’t happen all the time, and you never really know with these kids what’s sinking in and what’s not…so if you have this moment, relish it! I had such a moment today when I picked up my kids from school. As I walked down the hall with a boy on each hand, the principle called out to me from her office and told me she wanted to speak to me about my son Orly. There was a group of teachers in the room and by the way the principle looked at me, I got the sense she was going to tell me Orly had misbehaved in some way, but luckily that was not the case!  She started telling us all the story of how she went into Orly’s class today for observations and they were serving Thanksgiving Lunch. On the plate, they served Turkey, Broccoli florets, Corn on the cob, and applesauce. She said that most of the kids stared at the food and refused to eat it. But she couldn’t believe it when she saw Orly say to his friends…Oh, I LOVE Broccoli! She said he ate his floret and another child gave him her piece of broccoli. She said he then took that floret and dipped it in his applesauce and proudly took a big bite.

So she felt compelled to call me into her office and let me know how impressed she was that my son ate so well. She said most of the kids would not even try the corn, much less the broccoli. And she couldn’t believe how open he was about how much he liked broccoli and corn and how he dipped the broccoli in the apple sauce. I felt so proud that he ate his food but most of all I felt proud that he admitted he liked the broccoli even when his friends didn’t. I have always wondered how my children will react when they start getting older and their friends don’t eat the same way they do. I am fully aware that the next time this happens Orly may succumb to the peer pressure or maybe at some point he will reject certain foods because his friends do also. But TODAY I am thankful that he didn’t.  I am thankful that I have the opportunity to teach him things that about food and nutrition that I didn’t grow up knowing about. I am thankful that I have my husband’s full support and that we’ve made eating healthy a family journey.

As the principle shared this story with me, Orly and Justin both had lolipops in their mouths that they got after the Thanksgiving lunch; at that very moment I felt a sense of balance in our lives. Sure they love their lolipops and sweets…but they love their broccoli too…and I pray that positive balance carries with them into their adult lives and spreads into all areas of their beings. What a blessing that would be.

So I love having Tilapia at the house because its so easy to cook. But speaking with my doctor once he had mentioned to me that Tilapia was  a vulnerable fish that had Omega 6 fatty acids and those fatty acids become inflammatory instead of “anti-inflammatory”when exposed to hight heat.

I did some research of my own and have not found too much but did find that these Omega 6 fatty acids are found in the farm-raised Tilapia based on what the tilapia is fed in order to raise it cheap and make Tilapia inexpensive.

The doc did tell me that in order to protect the Tilapia and get the most health benefits from it, the best way to cook it is wrapped in aluminum foil, baked and preserved in lemon and onions. As opposed to one of my favorite methods…cooked in high heat until crispy- Yummy!

As a result of this conversation, I have eliminated Tilapia as a staple in our family’s diet. We eat plenty of salmon and tuna and we all take omega 3 supplements a few times a week (more on supplements another day). But the other day, I was in a rush to make food for the boys and I happened to have some Tilapia in the freezer.  I decided to give this new cooking method a try and see how it worked out for the kids…and I was PLEASANTLY SURPRISED!!!!

This is what I did…

• I put the tilapia on a sheet of aluminum foil
• I seasoned it with Herbamare

• drizzled a generous amount of lemon on top
• chopped up some onions and leeks and placed them on top of the fish
• closed up the aluminum foil
• baked at 350 for about 15 minutes or so.

I also made some Quinoa with frozen green peas and frozen green beans inside and when the tilapia was done I laid it on top of the quinoa so the whole meal could have a lemony flavor. The kids LOVED It. The fish was so soft and flaky – perfect texture for small children.

And it tasted quite delicious, despite my alternate cooking method. I would highly recommend you to try this dish as a quick and easy meal to whip up for dinner.

Have a wonderful week!!!

Hi all! Just thought I’d share this great smoothie I made yesterday, since smoothies might be the one thing you can preserve during this Halloween holiday for yourself and the kids.

Blueberry Smoothie

• 2 cups of Blueberries
• 2 cups of Kale
• 1 cup of Parsley
• 1 Pear
• 1 Kiwi
• 1 Banana
• 2 cups of water

Blend.

A couple of things… I only added the kiwi because I noticed it came very soft from the store and I didn’t want it to spoil – so its not really necessary for the recipe.

Also, at first when I made it, my son Orly didn’t like the consistency of the parsley in there. But I noticed after I left it in the blender for a while and then gave it a quick stir, it the consistency changed on it its own and was quite tasty. This might be the kind of smoothie best made the night before or first thing in the morning before everyone gets dressed so it has time to settle. Just food for thought. 🙂

Enjoy!!!!

Halloween is quickly approaching and if you’re like most people, you probably already have your house stocked up with candy. To me, Halloween marks the beginning of a very difficult time for most adults  – yes adults…kids are governed by us!!!!! It starts off with binging on candy and works its way into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Halloween is the first of the ticking time bomb we all know as… THE HOLIDAYS!!!!!

These are tough times for everyone. There are parties at work, at home, family reunions, gift exchanges, and on and  on and on. And everywhere you turn there are delicious, unhealthy treats just taunting us from every direction. It is very difficult to sustain a diet during these times. And often people find themselves throwing in the towel and giving up until January where they feel they can have more control.

So how do we handle these times for ourselves and our children? Here are some of the tricks I use on Halloween and I believe we can apply this throughout the holiday season.

I do let my children indulge on Candy at Halloween but I do try to take this opportunity to educate them about healthy eating habits.

• Load up on green smoothies. Breakfast is the one meal that your children will not be exposed to any candy unless its sitting on your countertop. So take advantage of the morning to even out the score. Make a healthy, generous sized smoothie for breakfast for the whole family and load up on some greens. The beauty of a smoothie is that you really aren’t limited to any recipe. You can put in there anything you want. For some examples, visit our smoothie page.
• Limit juice. I do not offer my kids juice ever but if you do give them juice with their meals – even if its organic or 100% pure juice, I would opt out of it this week. Juice has sugar, and they will be getting enough sugar throughout the day at school, parties, or trick or treating – so drinking plenty of water will be good to keep them hydrated and cleansing their little bodies.
• Replace dessert. I offer my kids a little piece of chocolate after their dinner every evening. Its either a small piece of york peppermint patty or a small piece of dark chocolate. They love it and always request it. But if they’ve been eating candy all day I will likely skip the little piece of chocolate…or if they are still asking for candy when we’re eating dinner at home, I offer them one piece of their stash instead of the chocolate. I’ve done this before after a birthday party or something and sometimes they’ll choose a lolipop instead of the chocolate, but other times they will choose their little piece of dark chocolate instead of the candy. I love those times!
• Let them indulge…but not binge. I don’t want my kids to feel that they have to eat every single piece of candy that is offered to them at that moment for fear that I am not going to let them have it again until next year! I think that process of depriving and then treating is one of the habits that gets us all in trouble with our lifestyles. So instead, I let them have their candy – a few pieces, something reasonable. And then I explain that they can’t have any more because I don’t want them to get sick. But I reassure them they can have another piece tomorrow after lunch or dinner. And I give them a couple of pieces of candy every day for a few days until gradually I disappear it and go back to their york peppermint patty.
• Talk about it. I talk to my kids about food ALL the time. I talk to them about the importance of vegetables and healthy food and how it makes our bones and muscles stronger, etc. And likewise I talk to them about candy and sugar and how it tastes good but in excess can make us gain weight and not feel so great. I talk to them about special occasions and daily life and try to teach them balance and control.

During these times we all have to make choices. Make your choices wisely and teach your kids to do that also. Don’t indulge on everything but make choices to indulge on your favorite treats. If soda is not your thing, skip the soda and drink water with your meal if you’re already eating something you don’t usually eat. Or maybe your aunt made your favorite mashed potatoes, so skip the rice and eat the potatoes. Limit your portion size. If you’re participating in a pot luck,  make your contribution a delicious veggie side if you know that your family is already bringing 10 different desserts and carby side-dishes. Remember this is not a diet…this is a lifestyle. Enjoy this holiday season, but never stop

PILING ON THE GREENS!!!!!

I am 25 weeks this week and its time for my glucose test. I am getting tested for gestational diabetes. Although this is my third time around, this test has been a little more difficult for me this time than the last 2. I had to drink this orange drink which i guess is like Sunkist. It’s the most sugar I’ve ingested in one sitting in over a year! It’s been about 15 minutes and I’m already feeling queezy and gross. This is not fun. Hopefully it’ll all be over soon

A conversation with a friend of mine struck my curiosity and made me do some research on whether frozen vegetables lose their nutritional value. To be completely honest with you, I thought Fresh is best always without exception. But every day is an opportunity to learn something new and I definitely learned something new today!

As it turns out… Here’s the deal with frozen veggies.

Vegetables are blanched in hot water or steamed prior to being frozen- so they do lose a few nutrients in that process…but then they are “flash-frozen” which keeps them in their nutrient-rich state. But here’s the important piece of information… they are allowed to ripen prior to freezing, so they are being frozen at their peak nutrient state.

Fresh vegetables are usually transported and in order to avoid being spoiled by the time they get to the fresh produce aisle, they are taken off the vine prior to being ripe. So they never actually get to their peak nutrient state on the vine. Then they are exposed to outdoor whether conditions in transit from Farm to Store so they encounter a loss of nutrients in that process. So the longer they travel, the more nutrients they lose. And the longer they sit on that aisle waiting for someone to scoop them up…the more nutrients they lose as well.

So what’s the conclusion:  Move to a farm!!!! 

Just kidding- some nutrient value is going to be lost whether you purchase fresh or frozen vegetables, but the recommendation is the following:

1. If you are buying local, in season vegetables – your best bet is FRESH.

2. If you are buying vegetables that are not in season and not locally grown – your best bet is actually FROZEN!

You can also gage how quickly you intend to use those veggies – if you’re making dinner that night and want some fresh delicious vegetables, go ahead and enjoy. But if you just want to have them available at home for later in the week, you may want to try some frozen ones and see how it goes.

NOTE: One additional comment; frozen vegetables do start to lose nutritional value if they are stored for an extended period of time. So I highly recommend buying what you need and using even your frozen vegetables on a regular basis. Don’t leave them in the freezer for months because then you are not getting their full benefit.

OH, and for cooking – avoid boiling – that causes the water soluble nutrients like vitamin b and c to leach out into the water. (Although if you’re making a mash you can pour the very same water back into the blender to mash the vegetables and keep the nutrients.)

SO MUCH TO LEARN AND EXPLORE!