If you’re going to turn the oven on to high temperatures for roasting, make sure to take advantage and roast as many vegetables as you can at the same time.

Place more delicate vegetables like zucchini, eggplant and summer squashes onto one sheet pan – these can be removed after about 20 minutes. Place heartier vegetables like chopped carrots, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash on another – remove after 45 minutes. Halved winter squashes and pumpkins will roast for 45-60 minutes.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

A good temperature for roasting is 400 degrees. Chop the vegetables and place them on a sheet pan that has a 1/2-inch side. Try to avoid casserole dishes, as the sides are too high and the food will steam more than it will roast. Toss with a touch of olive oil and fresh or dried herbs if desired. Salt after removing the veggies form the oven.

Copyright Alison Anton. All rights reserved. 2009.

If you think about it, seeds and sprouts rely on a ton of energy within them. The energy it takes to get them from where they are now into a full grown plant is enormous, and it’s right there inside them. If we eat them at this state of their growth, we ingest all the powerful nutrients (protein, phyto-chemicals, vitamins and minerals) which can be then utilized for our own bodies.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

Micro-greens (sprouts) can be purchased alive in their containers from most farmers markets. This is the best way to eat them, since they are alive and not losing nutrients as quickly as having already been cut from their roots. There’s also more variety at the farmers market: pictured above are arugula sprouts.

Micro-greens keep well on a plate of water right on the counter. Snip what you need into salads, sandwiches and smoothies, or use them as a “booster food” garnish. You’ll be done with a live box of micro-green sprouts before they can grow back, so regular purchasing is necessary.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

Eating becomes a mindless, unconscious act when we are multi-tasking, watching the road, or zoning out completely in front of the TV. Eating this way, we have little or no focus on how we are eating and how much we are eating… before we know it, a stomach ache is encroaching and the whole bag is gone.

Quick, convenient foods tend to be the choices here: snacks, crackers, chips, popcorn, candy. Sitting down helps us focus our attention on the food and company, and will naturally lead to more complex food choices.

A rice cooker allows for easy preparation that requires little (if any) attention. This makes it ideal for stress-free cooking. And it conveniently doesn’t take up any stovetop space.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

This handy kitchen appliance works by detecting the amount of liquid in the pot. When the water is evaporated, the grain is cooked and it will go from “cooking” mode to “warming” mode. The warming mode allows you to start the grain without having to worry about monitoring it. When you’re ready to eat, it’s warm and waiting.

My preferred brand is Zojirushi. It cooks grains evenly, quickly and is good quality.

How are we able to truly relax into the pleasure of eating if the dinner table is drop spot for unread mail, unpaid bills, newspapers and magazines? Having this kind of clutter around while eating subliminally reminds us of our unfinished business and can unconsciously put us into a stressful mode.

Make each meal at home a savored experience by keeping the dining table apart from daily living. Take the extra effort to set the table how you like it, even when you are not eating. This will make sitting down to eat an anticipated activity that is rejuvenating for body, mind and soul.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

Tablecloths and napkins are a good start. Embellish with flowers or candles, or any arrangement that brings you pleasure. You may want to set a goal to purchase a bouquet of flowers each week, or one new place setting every month to keep it looking fresh and new. Calling upon seasonal colors and items from nature can help you feel “in the flow”.

Are you treating your body like a master or a slave? Sometimes we drag our bodies around, telling them what to do, what to eat, what not to eat and how much to eat as if they have no say in the matter.

Being a mindful eater is not about a prescribed diet that we force upon our bodies, but an attitude of being open and receptive to the body’s signals. When we brush off our body’s innate cues of hunger, fullness or neediness, we stamp into our brains that the body is “less intelligent” than the mind. If we truly listen, we find that the human body is intelligent beyond measure, and knows exactly what we need at every given moment.

Sign up for Alison’s free Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

Savoy Cabbage

It’s easier than it seems to add these power-packed vegetables to your daily diet. I disguise them inside my morning green smoothies, make crunchy slaws, massage them with olive oil (to break down the thick fiber) throw them into salads, and braise them.

Cruciferous veggies are proven cancer-fighters and are needed to help the liver in its detoxification process. In this day and age, we can’t afford to mess around. Eat one a day and work up to two.

Cruciferous (brassica family) vegetables include: arugula, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, radishes, rutabagas, turnips, watercress.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

Read more about the health benefits of cruciferous vegetables in my article, Top 3 Reasons to Why Cruciferous Vegetables Are So Good For You

Shrek Shake and Fruit with Nut Cream

Drinking a smoothie is a great way to “check off the box” for one whole meal, without having to think about meal planning, cooking and clean-up.

BUT… if you’re going to use a smoothie as a meal replacement, it really has to be complete and balanced, other wise you’ll never last. Good quality protein powder is a must: If you can get your hands on a professional brand from a nutritionist or functional medicine doctor, this is preferred over store-bought brands. It should have at least 15 grams of good quality protein per serving.

Sign up for Alison’s Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

Your smoothie should also be green. Use a green powder and don’t be shy about adding fresh green veggies to the mix; they get disguised pretty easily. Triple-green it by adding fresh mint. You’ll also want some good fat in there to maintain energy for the long haul: Nuts, avocado and coconut oil are great solutions.

Carbohydrate will give you instant energy and is needed to feel satisfied in the short-term. Choose wisely and power-pack-it with frozen berries that are high in anti-oxidants rather than bananas, which are extra high in sugar. Use liquid stevia extract or xylitol for low-impact sweetness.

Strawberry-Apple Kanten

If you’re like most people, desserts are treated as the “grand finale”. Serving lighter, less sweet desserts right alongside the main course re-programs us to de-emphasize desserts instead of treating them as the part of a meal that everyone’s been waiting for. This way, the sweet taste can be used as they do in the East; to balance bitter, sour and salty flavors, rather than as a smorgasbord of sweet, sweet and more sweet all at the very end.

Sign up for Alison’s free Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

From a nutrition perspective, eat sweets with lunch instead of dinner, when digestive fire is stronger and the carbohydrate can be burned throughout the afternoon.

Try these healthy dessert recipes

Strawberry-Apple Kanten
Fruit Cup with Almond Butter Cream

Food photo by Jackson D. Carson

Protein Sources

Vegetarians and omnivores alike need protein throughout the day, especially at breakfast. Starting off right ensures steady energy all day, and lays the groundwork for better choices at lunch and dinner. My favorite breakfasts are high-protein super-green smoothies or left-overs from last night’s dinner. It may take a while for you to reprogram yourself away from the typical American high-carb breakfast, but once you feel the difference in energy, it’ll be hard to go back.

Sign up for Alison’s free Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

An adequate serving of protein is a piece of meat, fish, poultry or tempeh about the size of a deck of cards, a half a cup of yogurt, or a cup of grains and legumes. As long as you eat a variety of grains and beans throughout the day, these do not need to be eaten at the same meal.

The liver knows how to recycle protein, so vegetarians and raw foodists, who do not get protein from animal sources, should keep the liver in tip-top health to get as much from the “protein recycle program” as possible.

For detailed information on protein needs, read my blog article Protein: Quantity and Quality Both Count.

Most of my greens go into my morning smoothies — smoothies aren’t considered smoothies in my house unless they’re green — but I also braise them and throw them into salads. A spinner keeps the greens fresher longer, and is an easy way to grab what I need quickly.

Sign up for my free Natural Health and Cooking eLetter! Support your healthy lifestyle with delicious recipes and researched articles on the latest nutrition topics! Sign up… It’s good for you!

How it Works

• Toss the greens right into the colander inside the spinner bowl, fill with water and let sit a few minutes to let the grit settle to the bottom.
• Take the colander out, pour the water from the bowl and place the colander back inside.
• Put the top back on and spin the greens. This displaces any excess water and ensures the greens won’t go moldy before their time.

A large salad spinner runs about $30 and can be purchased at department stores, cookware stores or online.