OM in the news this week! Check it out!
National Nutrition Month is wrapping up, but your healthy choices don’t have to! Wanting to ditch those carbs? Try substituting zucchini ribbons, instead of regular pasta noodles for your next pasta dish. In Chinese medicine, zucchini helps reduce heat in the body. It’s also a great source of fiber and protein. Check out this recipe from Yummy Supper:
Ingredients
- 4 large (or 6-8 small) zucchini
- 1 large or 2 small lemons, juice and zest
- 1/4 cup feta
- olive oil
- sea salt
- 1 bunch fresh mint
Directions
- Scrub lemons. Grate the zest and set aside. Slice lemon in half and remove seeds. Set aside for juicing later.
- Wash, dry and trim mint leaves and set aside.
- Wash zucchini. Cut off the stem and base ends. Using a mandolin, or simple vegetable peeler, cut thin strips - ribbons - of zucchini. Slice 3 or 4 strips on a side, and then rotate the zucchini and continue slicing. Then rotate again. Keep working your way around the zucchini until you get to the seedy middle. Discard the core.
- Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, though not smoking, add 1/3 to 1/2 of the zucchini ribbons. Toss to coat with olive oil. Add a pinch or two of sea salt. Cover the pan for a minute or so allowing the zucchini to steam a bit. Uncover and continue to saute until tender and just cooked through - al dente. If sliced thin, the zucchini really only needs a few minutes to cook. Give a generous squeeze of lemon juice to the cooked zucchini so that the citrus can blend with the warm oil. Set aside the cooked veg as you continue to saute zucchini in batches until done. Don’t worry about the zucchini cooling down, this dish should be served warm or even room-temp.
- Heap zucchini ribbons onto individual plates. Sprinkle with finely crumbled feta, lemon zest, and mint leaves. Add a little more sea salt if desired, though this usually isn’t necessary with the salty feta and flavorful lemon juice.
Let us know what you think and check out more healthy substitutes here!
Healthy Substitution of the Week! Get a load of these fiber rich black bean brownies (you’d never guess they were made with black beans and coconut oil instead of butter and eggs). Oriental medicine teaches that black beans are a warming food that help with lower back pain, infertility, and more. Black beans, along with coconut oil are also great for you heart. All you need is brownie mix (we chose Trader Joe’s yummy Truffle Brownie Mix), 1 can of black beans, and coconut oil.
- Rinse and drain 1 can of black beans. Puree the black beans in a food processor (a blender also works). You may want to add a little bit of water to make the pureeing easier.
- Mix the black bean puree with 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil, and brownie mix.
- Follow the baking instructions on your brownie mix. We baked our brownies for 25 minutes on 350 degrees.
- Let cool, and enjoy a surprisingly healthy treat :)
Check out our Healthy Substitution Infographic for more ideas and check back next week for our next special healthy substitution recipe!
March is National Nutrition Month! Celebrate by substituting some of these yummy ingredients into your favorite recipes. Need some suggestions? Check back each week for one of our recipes to give a whirl!
Have a big test coming up? We know some of our Pacific College acupuncturists are going to be busy taking the CALE today, so make sure your brain is functioning at its best with these Brain Food Snacks:
What do you get when you mix chia, oats, coconut, and chocolate all together??
Heart Happy Valentine’s Day Delights of course! Chia, oats, coconut, and chocolate all have rockin’ health benefits for your heart and they taste great too…mmm…
Ok, after you bake them they may not look so much like hearts anymore…
But presentation is everything right? :) Happy Valentine’s Day!
Wanna know my secret recipe? Leave us a Valentine’s Day wish and I’ll share it with you…:)
Enjoy Valentine’s Week (not just the day), and encourage your acupuncture & massage patients to drink more tea by giving them one of these DIY Valentine tea bags. It’s easy, creative, and your patients will feel appreciated and loved this Valentine’s week. :)
Download the FREE templates here.
The New Year is now in full swing. It’s that time when New Year’s resolutions are beginning to taper off and be relegated to the back of your mind. Gyms were packed the first two weeks of January, but as we near the close the month there is a noticeable slimming of the crowd (no pun intended!). Oriental medicine (OM) values the connection between the body, mind, and spirit. OM holds the belief that exercise and an active lifestyle is imperative to feel and operate at your best. So why do most of us lose focus on a goal we were so excited about a mere few weeks ago? What can we do to stay the course? And perhaps most importantly, should we? Maybe the goal itself was part of a larger thought pattern that needs some working out.
Now, before you begin excusing yourself from all the goals you set for 2013, don’t mistake the value of goal making. Goals are empowering. They are also the kick-in-the-pants and form of self discipline that get many of us to where we want to be in life: from careers to relationships to health, goals are good. But they must be realistic.
For example, if you started 2013 off with “Get in better shape” as your goal—that’s great! And vague. If a goal is too broad, it can spread so thin that it disappears from your schedule. Instead of “Get in better shape”, try creating something more specific like “Lose 10 pounds by March 15th.” This is sets a goal and a date to accomplish it by, holding you more accountable. You can’t avoid going to the gym for three weeks in a row if you want to make that March deadline.
Allow yourself to make slip-ups or challenges positive. If you realize you can’t keep eating your health shakes for dinner because you cook for your kids and you want to eat with them, that doesn’t have to mean you have to throw out your goal. It just needs to be reworked. Notice when you’re slipping and reevaluate your course of action.
Perfectionism can actually work against you here. We tend to create elaborate fitness plans for ourselves and then if we can’t stick to them exactly as planned, there is an urge to toss out the entire plan. John Lennon famously said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.” Fitness can be that way too. Make your goals specific. Work your plan into your lifestyle. Got kids? Make your workout for the day involve them. Persevere but don’t be a perfectionist. Technology is one way to customize your fitness to your lifestyle. Using technology you already use every day and are familiar with can help you get active about your action plan. We’ve put together a list of some awesome apps and products that are affordable and accessible.
Ithlete App for iPhones and iPads
This handy app tracks your heart-rate variability, which measures the time in between each heartbeat while you’re resting. This will prevent you from overtraining, and will enable you to get the max benefits out of each workout. Plus, it includes awesome facts about your heart. Did you know that your heart speeds up when you inhale but slows down as you exhale?
Read more
Try a few of these tips from Whole Living, many of which are derived from Chinese medicine techniques!
- Sip Oolong Tea
Research suggests that people with mild eczema who drink oolong tea three times a day may show improvement in itching and other symptoms. Compounds in the tea called polyphenols appear to be responsible.
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For varicose veins, try horse chestnut, an herbal extract that’s been shown in studies to strengthen veins and reduce swelling. The herb is also available in topical creams, though there’s not as much evidence for these.
Ginger has been used in OM for thousands of years and is probably most well known for it’s digestive health properties. Working ginger into your morning breakfast is a great and healthy start to the day! Check out this smoothie recipe from SkinnyMs.com.
Ingredients
1 frozen banana, pre-slice before freezing
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt, fat-free
- Ginger Root, 1/4” of a knuckle (knuckle = length of finger joint)
- 1 cup pure pomegranate juice, no added sugar
- 4-5 ice cubes
Directions
Blend all ingredients until smooth.
