HLife | Healthy Living Redefined

Image by Jesse Wight
Everything we do in life is a programation. Yes, you read it right – programs in our mind, about what we do, when we do it, how we do it, why, etc…How is this related to healthy tips for Thanksgiving? Well, here is your chance to reprogram your holiday eating and shopping habits. Stuffing your face with unhealthy food that lowers your immune system (an open invitation for viruses to enter your body) is a thing of the past. Welcome to the new world…

The following are some suggestions and alternatives for you to create new habits during the holidays. Or should I say, to reprogram yourself:

• - When shopping for food at a grocery store, try to shop around the walls of the market. That’s where they generally keep the freshest produce and whole foods, while the processed refrigerated stuff is in the middle of the store.

• - Whether at the store or preferably at the farmers market, be adventurous and load up on seasonal, locally grown organic vegetables, even if you’ve never had them before. Nature is wise and provides the right nutrients, antioxidants, and phytonutrients to keep us strong and healthy for the season.

• - Be sure to buy a good amount of dark greens. Having a variety of hearty salads and dark green side dishes will force you to eat more of these powerful and nutritious leaves – and your body will thank you for it. Instead of a bunch of sugar and starch for Thanksgiving, how about a rich dose of calcium and Vitamin C? We suggest kale, a superstar vegetable that will be featured on next week’s HFood. And check out a past HFood post on spinach to learn more about another nutritious leafy green veggie.

• - A great alternative for mashed potatoes is sweet potatoes (or yams.) With this vegetable, you will reap the benefits of the beta-carotene present in orange produce (beta-carotene gives carrots, pumpkins and other similarly colored vegetables their hue, and is metabolized into Vitamin A in the body.) You can bake sweet potatoes until they’re golden and sweet and serve them individually, or mash them and serve in a large bowl.

• - When cooking this holiday season, instead of using sugar as an ingredient for desserts or cranberry sauce, use agave nectar. Agave is a natural sweetener derived from the same plant used to make tequila, and it is really low on the glycemic index, which means that the carbohydrates it contains will not turn quickly into sugar and will have less impact on your blood sugar. Refined sugar lowers your immune system and agave is a great alternative that let’s you keep the flavor and avoid the harm.

• - Instead of making cranberry sauce chock-full of sugar or, worse, from a can, buy organic dried cranberries and toss them into a spinach or kale salad. Tasty and decorative at the same time.

• - Try our vegan tofurkey recipe and read our post for all the great reasons to eat it.

• - Have more vegetable dishes to choose from at the dining table, so you have no other choice but to eat healthy, delicious and conscious food. Some ideas: Sautéed green beans with lots of garlic; spinach/beet/avocado salad; kale/dried cranberries/almond salad; vegan pumpkin or squash risotto; vegan Russian salad (with Veganaise…let the beets and carrots rule over the potato!); steamed broccoli /cauliflower/Brussels sprout mixed with cashew cheese n top. I can go on for days…Getting hungry? I am.

• - Let the pumpkin pie be vegan and macrobiotic. (No refined sugars or dairy.)

• - One dessert for the family, not four different ones. (Have a little consideration for your immune system. Those T-cells fight for you, but don’t push it.)

• - Replace white grains with whole grains. This way you can reap the benefits of fiber, the almighty intestinal broom. Also, when it comes to bread, buy the hearty, fresh-out-of-the-oven kind, one with very few ingredients that you actually recognize. You do not need the extra sugar, a likely ingredient in very processed bread.

• - Switch from bread stuffing to organic corn bread stuffing. It has to be organic because corn is the number one genetically modified crop (read our Why Organic? post for more on this.) This vegan stuffing has veggies and nuts in it and it doesn’t even need to go inside an animal to be cooked! Corn has some protein, which is better than the white starch that will go right to your spare tire (yes, the mid section of your body, the stuff that likes to show up uninvited during the holidays. You can avoid it this year.)

• - Cook for ONE meal that day, not for three days of leftovers. Eating the same thing for days creates allergies. Also, if you haven’t made the switch to healthy living (the HLifestyle,) think about this: Loading your body with all the sugars, bad fats and cholesterol…and then usually getting sick right around the holidays. Do the math. There is a definite correlation there (a causation, actually,) and it ain’t some bug in the air.  It is said that your immune system is created in your intestines. Keep those puppies clean and ready to fight for your health.

Here at HLife, we wish you all, amazing beings, a happy, healthy and conscious holiday season, filled with Knowledge, Understanding and Love.