Mairlyn Smith2013-06-18T18:32:08-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=mairlyn-smithCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mairlyn SmithGood old fashioned elbow grease.Hate Grocery Shopping? Here's How to Love ittag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15010992012-05-09T11:36:44-04:002012-07-09T05:12:04-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mairlyn-smith/
If I were 5-foot-10, it wouldn't be too tough dressing the bigger parts of my body, but at 5-foot-3 I tend to look like a sack of potatoes. It is discouraging to say the least. Bathing suit shopping? I'd rather go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel.
Which leaves grocery shopping as my only excursion into retail therapy.
I love shopping for food, which could explain why nothing fits me when I go shopping for clothes. Hmmm, light bulb moment. Anyway, after many years of shopping when everyone in town plus their five kids are in the store, I have a couple of tips to help you survive the expedition:
• Pick a store that is close to you and that you love to shop at. Shopping at the same store will save time in the long run. Everytime I dash into a new store to pick up one thing I usually spend a ton of time trying to find it. Case in point: while I was creating the chocolate mousse for Healthy Starts Here I needed more silken tofu.
I was on my way to an appointment and in a different neck of the woods, I saw a big grocery store, so I thought I'll just dash in here, pick it up, and I'll be on my way. Well 20 minutes later I had three chocolate bars, a bag of onions, and no silken tofu. When I had finally found someone who worked in the store they told me they didn't carry silken tofu. Moral of the story: I was late for my appointment, the chocolate melted in the car and I now hate the big grocery store on Yonge Street.
• Plan out your groceries for the week around specials -- you'll save money and won't end up making the same thing week in, week out.
• Plan menus around recipes. If you're new to the cooking from scratch camp, look through some cookbooks and plan menus around recipes.
• Write a list. Sure, trying to remember what you need for the week is a great memory exercise, but driving back to the store because you forgot the eggs and are making omelettes for dinner is a waste of gas. Write a list, and then remember to take it with you, along with your reusable bags.
• Shopping around the edges of the store is where all the fresh foods are. If you love to cook and have your list, you probably won't end up in the chip aisle.
• I always start in the produce department. We eat a ton of fruits and veggies so my cart ends up looking like a rainbow, which is a good thing. Put your produce on the top shelf to avoid any of it getting squished.
• In my local store the bakery is right beside the produce department so I get my 100 per cent whole grain whole wheat bread and put it on top of my produce for the same reason -- don't want flattened bread when I get home.
• I like to shop the aisles next with my list. After I have my staples, I head over to the meat department -- use the plastic bags and put your meat, fish or poultry in them. Avoiding cross-contamination starts at the store. Place them in the bottom of the cart.
• I do the dairy department next getting eggs, milk, yogurt and juice.
• Then I head to the frozen foods for frozen veggies or not in season (hopefully local) frozen berries -- a better health choice than fresh not in season non-local berries.
• Once you head over to the cashier, your cart should be colourful and full of happy, healthy looking food, not like an ad for a fast food restaurant.
• Unless you love people crashing into your buggy, never shop on the weekend, unless it's really early on Sunday morning or Halloween. The best shopping day I had was Halloween night at 7 p.m. I needed a couple of ingredients so I left my husband home to hand out the treats while I shopped. There wasn't a soul in my store. It was awesome, slightly freaky, but incredible nonetheless.
• If someone does bump your cart do not ram theirs back. Just be a good Canadian and say, "I'm sorry." (Canadian custom and behaviour translation -- Canadians say, I'm sorry, even when it isn't their fault. We are incredibly polite which certain countries think is actually a bad case of low self-esteem, but no, we really are incredibly polite.)
• My favourite day to shop is early on either a Wednesday or a Friday. Wednesday still has the specials and no crowds; Friday has the new specials, great selection and not too many people.
• Never, ever shop when you're hungry. You'll buy stuff you wouldn't normally have bought. I still have a bag of rice crackers covered in seaweed in my pantry that I bought at a low blood sugar moment.
• Never, ever take a small, tired, crabby child shopping when all you've had is a large Tim Horton's coffee. It spells DISASTER. Been there, done that. Shop after naps and snacks.
• Watch the cash register. If the price is wrong, the law says it's free. YES, FREE. If you bought three bottles of natural apple juice and they rang in at $4.50 and the price was $3.25, the first one is free, the second and third are at the correct price. This only pertains to items under $10 so don't try to scam them on a new patio set.
• Don't go driving around looking for who-knows-what after you have your precious groceries packed into your car, get home and put the cold stuff into the fridge right away. Keeping cold foods cold and hot foods hot is an important food safety issue that we tend to forget about, so perishable foods should go into the fridge or freezer as soon as possible. In the heat of the summer it's wise to have a thermal shopping bag or a cooler in the car so that ice cream or salmon won't spoil on the way home.
In the middle of January in Winnipeg, you can drive around for days and the ice cream will never melt. August in Ottawa? Break out the cooler.]]>My All-Time Favourite Big F-Wordtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14288592012-04-17T09:26:07-04:002012-06-17T05:12:01-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mairlyn-smith/it.
And the bottom line is we need it in our lives.
As a matter of fact, most of us are getting so little of it, we're crabby, tense, and our health is suffering.
To make matters more complicated there are two types of it. One that keeps things moving and the other one that helps lower your blood pressure. Yup, you guessed it or not; good old reliable fibre is my all-time favourite Big F-word.
Fibre comes in two forms -- insoluble and soluble. Both play important roles in keeping your GI (gastrointestinal) tract and your heart happy campers. And trust me, an unhappy GI will make your life miserable, and an unhappy heart can kill you.
Insoluble fibre doesn't easily dissolved in water. It actually holds water keeping all that digested food moving through your GI, cleaning your colon on the way. Think whole grain whole wheat and wheat bran.
Soluble fibre does dissolve in water and as a result helps regulate digestion, helps lower cholesterol, and helps stabilize blood glucose levels. It's the reason that oatmeal is getting all the press these days -- whole oats has it, so does barley, apples, beans, and eggplant.
Most of us know that without enough fibre you can get constipated. Too much fibre without enough liquid and the end result is exactly the same, constipation. Aim for a balance of fibre plus enough liquids to keep everything moving. Throw in some exercise and you have the recipe for ARGBM success (acronym for A Really Good Bowel Movement).
If you're not eating seven to 10 servings of fruits and veggies every day, adding whole grains to your diet, and drinking enough liquids, you're heading for trouble.
Here are some fibre tips:
• Aim for seven to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. I like to eat three to four fruits, as in the whole fruit not the juice, and four to six servings of veggies, both raw and cooked every day.
• Eat oats -- better yet, try oat bran cereal. The soluble fibre can help lower your cholesterol. Here's a recipe that contains large flake oats, steel cut oats and oat bran that is great for breakfast the days you are rushing out the door.
• Try adding ground flaxseed or chai seeds to your yogurt, cereal, or mix with some peanut or other nut butter. Flaxseed has to be ground to get all the benefits it has to offer, chai seeds are porous enough so you don't have to grind them.
• For the equivalent of a fibre bomb, adding psyllium to your diet will really keep things moving and lower your cholesterol at the same time. Here's a recipe for high-fibre muffins that uses whole psyllium husks.
• Whole grains like barley, brown rice, kamut, spelt, and quinoa (which is a seed, not a whole grain) are all making comebacks, and for good reason. The people who eat whole grains instead of refined grains are usually healthier and thinner than refined grain eaters.
• Drink water. Bye-bye pop! The research is mixed on exactly how much water to drink, but the Mayo Clinic recommends drinking 8 glasses of combined liquids.
Bottom line, make nice with your colon and your colon will send you a very nice thank you note every day.
For more healthy info and recipes check out Mairlyn's website.
]]>How to Avoid Mindless Eatingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14154112012-04-11T09:38:57-04:002012-06-11T05:12:02-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mairlyn-smith/
Stumped? Can't remember every last morsel? You're in the majority.
All too often we sit in front of the TV, at our desks, in our cars, multitasking through our meals; not allowing our brains to become part of the eating process. It's called mindless eating and most of us are becoming pros at it. Coined by Cornell University food psychologist Brian Wansink, PhD, mindless eating is a contributing factor to our ever-expanding waistlines.
It takes at least 20 minutes for the brain and stomach to connect with the "I'm full signal." For the majority of North Americans, at 20 minutes, we've gone way past full and are headed full throttle for stuffed.
The French are known to eat slowly, making a meal, any meal, an occasion. The Pixar animated feature film Ratatouille was right bang on when the skinny rat with chef aspirations yelled at his fat rat brother after literally inhaling a cheese platter -- "Don't hork it down, savour." OK, I know I messed up the quote but the gist was: slow down and enjoy what you're eating.
By and large, Canadians are a society of rapid eaters. We power eat and then dash off, bypassing the time-consuming part of the meal: the enjoying of the flavours part. Dinner hour is melting down to dinner five minutes as our behinds get bigger and bigger.
Wansink asked 150 Parisians when dinner was over and they responded with, "When we're full." When he asked the same question to the same number of Chicagoans the answer was, "When the plate is empty."
Here's a plan -- let's slow down, stop eating when we're full and not when we've cleaned out plates; which, when compared to the 1950s dinner plates, are about four inches bigger. A bigger plate equals bigger portions equals more calories and yields bigger behinds.
Let's re-introduce ourselves to the piece of furniture formally known as the dining room table and have a sit down meal. No dining room table? The kitchen table totally works.
Just in case it's been a while, here are the sit down meal rules:
• Eat at the table, or anything that has four legs and isn't your desk or a TV table
• Grab placemats and lay out the eating areas
• Grab a plate one size smaller than what is normally used
• Place food on plate in the kitchen (that would be the room with the stove)
• Set the plated food on top of the placemats
• Take a long look at what you are about to eat -- ask everyone to do the same
• Be grateful for the food
• Pick up fork slowly and don't do anything but eat slowly. OK you can talk, but no reading or watching TV
• When you just start feeling full stop eating, put down your fork, back away from the table, and clean up
OK, I'm being flip. But the point is we need to sit down, slow down, and enjoy our meals.
6 Ways To Avoid Mindless Eating: ]]>This March Break, Invite Your Kids Into Your Kitchentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13282722012-03-09T09:41:48-05:002012-05-09T05:12:02-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mairlyn-smith/
Sure there are family field trips to go on, movies to watch, and adventures to take part in, but all too often by about Tuesday afternoon most parents are going to start hearing, "I'm bored!"
Why not invite them into your kitchen and start cooking with them? Okay, it may not be as exotic as flying somewhere warm for the week, but it's a cheap, cheerful, fun way to spend quality time with your children. A home-cooked staycation.
It's also a great time to teach your kids some life skills.
What can be learned in the kitchen:
• Conversation: When kids, or anyone for that matter, are working with their hands, they start talking. You can't play a video game, watch TV, tweet, or text a friend while you're chopping. My son always shared his day while we cooked. If I asked him how his day had gone in any other situation, all I usually got was a grunt of "Fine." Asked while chopping, I got the whole scoop, details included.
• Reading skills: Depending on their age and skill level, get your kids to read the recipe and instructions out loud.
• Science: Cooking and baking are all about science, math, and chemistry. Fractions come into play when measuring, science when you are boiling, frying or baking, and chemistry in all types of baking. How do cakes rise? Why does water boil? Why is it important to measure? If you don't know the answers, go search the Internet together.
• Life skill: Learning how to cook is a life skill that we all need. If you aren't all that great at cooking, go to the library or a book store and pick a book together and learn as a team. Learning something together is a great way to bond with your child.
• Team Play: Many hands make light work -- cooking together teaches teamwork. Each member takes an element of the project -- say dinner. Your youngest sets the table and washes the vegetables, your middle child makes the salad, and your oldest preps and helps you with the entrée. Assign age-appropriate skills. And don't criticize. Yes, your kitchen may end up looking like a bomb hit it, but getting everyone involved in the clean up is part of the learning experience.
• Padding your food repertoire: It has been shown over and over that if a child prepares or helps to prepare a meal, they are more apt to eat it. "If they make it, they will eat it." Works for all those picky eaters out there. Never had a sweet potato fry? Making them together is a great time to find out if they like them, chances are they will.
• Socialization: Kids who sit down to eat dinner with their families do better in school, are more social, and are less likely to use drugs and alcohol. Set the table, get out the pots and pans, and have dinner together more often.
As with any new habit, start off slowly.
If you haven't worked in the kitchen with your kids before, attempting dinner may be a bit too much the first go round. Baking cookies is a perfect way to start. Nothing beats warm cookies out of the oven served with a glass of milk.
For a great recipe that your kids will love try my Chewy Chocolate Chips Cookies. Click here for the recipe, or check out my latest cookbook Healthy Starts Here! ; its geared to both kitchen rookies and veterans alike.
Whatever you pick, cooking with your children is a wonderful thing.
]]>Spring Clean Your Fridgetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13130672012-03-01T21:17:43-05:002012-05-01T05:12:02-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mairlyn-smith/
At the very least you need to give your fridge the once-over every four months, but a weekly wipe down and a food inspection will give you a gold star.
The last time I cleaned out my parent's fridge, they had stuff in there that should've been in the Smithsonian Institute. I felt like I needed to be wearing a hazmat suit. It was bye-bye to the opened jar of jam, relish, mayo, and ketchup with dates stamped on them that were too old to make out. And au revoir to the stuff in the back that was beyond recognition.
The old adage "When in doubt, throw it out" rings true in your fridge. My dad always does the sniff test, but the problem is you can't smell bacteria when it first starts growing. When something starts to smell it's usually so far gone that it becomes a no- brainer to pitch it out. Don't even think about tasting it to see if it's gone bad; the last thing you want is a case of food poisoning all for the sack of a $2.99 bottle of salsa.
Get down to business:
• Clear off your counter, get out a bucket of warm water, clean cloths, your city composter or garbage bags and tackle the great unknown. (Check your fridge manual -- some state that warm water and baking soda is the best option for washing, while others say warm, soapy water. Don't guess -- read the manual.)
• Work on one shelf at a time. Take everything out. Check the label. Can't remember the last time you even used your giant bottle of creamy salad dressing? It might be a great idea to just chuck it. Clean it out into your city composter or garbage, rinse out the glass or plastic jar for recycling and buy a smaller bottle next time.
• Once you've gone through all jars, containers, and plastic bags filled with mystery foods, toss what needs tossing and wipe off the shelves. Let dry.
• Work your way through the fridge until you get to the meat drawer. Clean it out and then wash it in the sink with warm, soapy water and a mild disinfectant. Rinse with warm water and 1 tbsp (15 mL) vinegar and let air dry. Drain the water to make sure there isn't any cross contamination for the rest of the cleaning.
• Next thing is the crispers a.k.a. the slimmer drawer. Remove all produce, chuck out the slimy stuff and then wash the crisper in the sink with clean warm, soapy water. Rinse with warm water and 1 tbsp (15 mL) vinegar and let air dry.
• Work through the shelves on the door.
• If there are any stains in the fridge, sprinkle with some baking soda and use a clean, wet cloth to gently scrub. Rinse well with clean water.
• To help with odours, put some fresh baking soda in an open container at the back of the fridge. Change every four to six months.
You become responsible for the safe handling of food on the way home in your car. Do your shopping and then head straight home putting all perishable foods into the fridge or freezer right away. Make sure that your fridge is set for the correct temperature. Health Canada recommends that your fridge be set at or below 4°C (40°F) and recommends that you use a refrigerator thermometer to check the temperature. Don't overload your fridge. The cold air needs to circulate around the food.
]]>A Letter From Your Hearttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12910392012-02-21T12:27:22-05:002012-04-22T05:12:01-04:00Mairlyn Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mairlyn-smith/
Are you trying to kill me?
I'm beating over 100,000 times every single day to keep all systems going. I don't want to brag or anything, but without me you'd be dead. OK, I'll admit the brain is helpful but it has such a huge ego -- and I'm the one doing all of the work. I'm just not getting any respect.
You try pumping 1,900 gallons (7,200 L) of blood everyday and see how you do when all you're running on is a cup of coffee. Feed me! I need some energy.
The junk you do keep feeding me is clogging up my arteries and it's getting really hard to pump all of that blood around all of that guck. You call it plaque, I call it 911.
Eat more beans -- get over the farting thing and just eat them -- I love how they help me work more efficiently. Google Beano. It'll help you through those first couple of bean eating weeks.
Barley? Hello! Love it! Not only does it lower the cholesterol clogging me up it helps your GI (gastrointestinal tract).
Apples? One a day please! As a matter of fact, any food that's a source of soluble fibre is on my best friend list. So that goes for barley, peas, lentils, strawberries, beans, oats and oat bran. Feed me these beauties and keep my pipes clean. White fleshed fruits and veggies kick some royal plaque butt too. Pears, cucumbers, cauliflower -- aces!
Say bye-bye to white bread, white pasta, and white rice and a big howdy-do to whole grains like whole grain, whole wheat bread, whole grain pasta, and brown rice. Quinoa? It isn't a grain, it's a seed, but I love it too.
Fish? Salmon may be my favourite, but I love anchovies and other fatty fish -- those omega-3 fatty acids make me very happy.
Please let's stop snarfing down fast food. Would it kill you to eat some veggies? As a matter of fact, it could if you don't. I'm not playing hard ball here, just letting you in on the facts.
I've sent warnings. That rise in blood pressure, the breathless feeling you get after walking up the stairs, the whole tingling thing in your left arm; but so far nothing. Do not make me smite you.
How about riding a bike instead of the couch? Take me for a walk. Buy a dog and it's a two for one. Walk the dog, walk me and get unconditional doggie love to boot -- helps with my stress levels. Tai chi, yoga, meditation, or just remembering to take big deep breaths throughout the day helps my stress levels, too.
I just don't know how much longer I can keep doing my bit if you don't come on board. You need to try a little harder. Who am I kidding? You need to try a lot harder. Let's focus and make death wait!