Blending my way to a healthier me
I was so delighted and relieved that Dr. X agreed to take on my family after our beloved Dr. Y retired that I didn’t mind when she told me, on our first meeting, that my blood pressure was high. It meant she was paying attention, no? Nor did I hold it against her when she said losing 25 pounds would probably help it go down. Why shoot the messenger?
Instead, I had a long-overdue epiphany that the path to better health and a slimmer silhouette is more fruits, vegetables and activity.
The Canada Food Guide recommends seven to 10 servings of fruit and veg daily for adults. I wasn’t getting enough. I’m not alone; a recent survey by the Heart and Stroke Foundation (heartandstroke.com) revealed that almost half (49 per cent) of adults don’t get enough each day.
And, in a stroke of serendipity, I’ve also become acquainted with several tools that make it easy and quite fast to fit into my life more of the healthy stuff. Trudeau has a new polypropylene cutting board with pull-out drawers that you slide the chopped food into, ready to carry to the bowl or stove. A small channel drains off liquids. Drawers lock in under the board, making it easy to store and giving you one less excuse not to add chopped veggies to everything. About $25. Go to trudeau.ca for availability. I’ve always prided myself on exclusively using knives for chopping, dicing and slicing. Not for me the space-hogging, hard-to-clean food processor. I have, however, fallen for the Fresh Express from T-fal (tfal.ca), which has a small footprint and comes in five colour-coded metal cones for slicing, shredding and grating. I tested it while making vegetable soup (recipe on thestar.blogs.com/onthehouse). Before long, I was firing off shredded carrots, or thinly sliced cucumbers, for a quick snack in a flash several times a day. I also used it on cheddar cheese, beets and ginger. The only veg it didn’t do a great job on was peppers, which could have been a bit flaccid to start.
The chute and pusher components are dishwasher safe. When not in use, they nestle in the chopper casing that fits onto the machine. Terrifically clever.
A little tip, however. The Fresh Express on/off switch is on the top of the motor case, which is a natural place to rest your hand while inserting the chopping cone. If you do this, the cone could start to spin before you’re expecting it. You do not want this to happen. It’s about $120 and in stores across Canada.
In other veggie news, there’s Joe Cross, the Australian businessman who went on a 60-day juice fast to lose weight, reduce cholesterol and blood pressure, turn around a pre-diabetic condition and rid himself of a persistent rash.
While doing so, Cross travelled across the U.S., recording himself and his conversations with Americans about weight, health and food in the self-produced documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.
Eighty pounds lighter, Cross is now something of a veggie evangelist, making the case that the Western diet is out of whack, and that 35 to 50 per cent of one’s daily calorie intake should come from fruits and veggies.
Cross may have lost girth, but he’s
Joe Cross’s loss was actually his gain when he lost 80 lbs. and got his health back
gained a wellness business (rebootwithjoe.com) that promotes juicing as part of the answer, as it allows multiple servings of raw produce to be consumed in one serving — with no loss of nutrients.
What about the loss of insoluble fibre that goes with the process? Cross acknowledges fibre is important, but says that removing it increases absorption of nutrients for people who don’t consistently eat large amounts of veggies.
Cross is a fan of juicers made by Breville, which hosted his recent Canadian tour.
Since the stop in Toronto, I’ve been testing Breville’s Juice Fountain Plus (JE98XL, around $200, breville.ca). It does take up some space on the counter, as do the piles of fruit and veggies. But it’s worth it.
Two speeds let me power through beets, kale, carrots, green apples, fennel and ginger. I thought I would hate the taste of vegetable juice; now I know I’d never really lived until I’d tasted kale/celery/ ginger/lemon/apple juice. It’s now my daily breakfast — a meal I’ve always rather despised.
The machine is easy to clean as long as you do it very soon after use and before the fruit and veg gets dry and stuck. Ditto for the Fresh Express.
Blessedly, Cross — or for that matter, Dr. X — is not a food dictator, demanding a diet exclusively of organic kale chips and filtered dewdrops.
Because, if I can never have stilton cheese and port at Christmas again, I reckon I may as well shake off this mortal coil.
Besides, as my dear mother says, “a little of what you fancy does you good.”