Are you getting enough protein?  Most people aren't.  You should be getting up to 80% of your body weight in ounces in protein. So, if you weigh 150 lbs, you should be getting a maximum of 120g of protein each day.  

Why do we need so much protein?  Our bodies are made primarily of protein.  Carbs and sugars are our fuel and fats grease the wheels of our metabolism and provide a cushion between structures in the body like bones or between organs or cells.  Protein is what our muscles and organs are made of.  Getting enough protein is good not only for weight management but also for concentration, memory, mood, and energy.

Protein comes in a variety of sources from meat and eggs, to nuts and seeds, beans and lentils and legumes, dairy sources like milk and yogurt, and dark green veggies like broccoli. Even some grains have tons of protein in them like quinoa.  Unfortunately, the body can only digest 20-25g of protein per meal, so you must get protein at every meal and in every snack.  Fortunately, if you focus on eating only food that you can grow or raise or pick or make yourself then you will be getting plenty of protein.  



A sample daily menu:


Breakfast- eggs with veggies in an omelette or scrambled, pancakes and sausage/ham, toast or an english muffin with peanut butter or eggs and sausage/ham, Chinese fried rice (fried with eggs and veggies), or hot cereal/porridge mixed with quinoa

Snacks- roasted soynuts or chickpeas, trail mix (nut and seeds based), yogurt or cottage cheese, protein bars, hard boiled eggs, hummus or bean dip, lunch meat rolls, "ants on a log" (celery and nut butters with raisins on top), cheese sticks or cubes, avocado, or sushi/sashimi.  

Lunch- soups made with chicken, beef, or fish broth or beans or lentils or protein heavy veggies like peas and broccoli, open faced sandwhiches with tuna or chicken or egg salad or lunch meats and cheese, sushi/sashimi, or a garden salad with lots of nuts or meat and/or avocados on top

Dinner- Meat, poultry, fish, or beans and lentils.  Serve with lots of dark green veggies.



Eat your protein! If you aren't getting enough in your food.... try protein shakes. You can use the powdered protein in other ways too.... like your sauces, mix in with yogurt, or bake into cookies and pancakes.

Vinegar (Rice, Apple Cider, Balsamic, etc) or Citrus Juice (limes, lemons, oranges, grapefruit)
Oil (Olive, Safflower, Rice, Avocado, etc)
Salt
Honey or agave or your favorite jam

1) Mix 1 part oil to two parts vinegar/citrus juice and beat with a fork until blended together.

2) Add a small pinch salt and sweetener to taste.  If the oil is not well blended into the vinegar, it will be harder to trial taste.

****For a unique and exciting variation of above... add herbs or spices to taste (such as fennel, parsley, chopped onion, Italian spices, or cumin, pomegranate syrup, mustard, etc)

Bodies.  Our bodies define us in so many ways, yet we disown them in so many more.  Our uniforms, our haircuts, our styles and the way we showcase ourselves signify everything from socio-economic class and race, to gender identity, to the community we identify with and our "tribe".  At the same time, we disown our bodies and disconnect with them in profound and sometimes abusive ways.  Our relationships and experiences with our bodies, whether it is dragging them around and making them wait while we think or learn, or taking them out for a walk, or getting frustrated when they get sick or break out in hives or whatever, define our core experience.  We struggle each day to feed them the right way, rest them enough, and exercise them enough.  We become so shameful about them that we try and force our bodies to conform to an ideal, and we get frustrated that they can't keep up with us.  


We tend to treat our bodies as something separate from our "self".  We are embarrassed by them, dress them up, hide them, sculpt them with weights and dumbbells or plastic surgery, ink them, mutilate them, starve them, or overfeed them.  At the same time, they are what make us and helps define us as "who I am".  It is exactly the way we dress them up, or hide them, or sculpt them, or ink them, mutilate, starve, or overfeed them that sends a message about "this is who I am".  


Underneath all of that, though, is another dialectic.  We insist that our bodies are different than our minds and in many ways they most definitively are.  You can't think up E=mc2 by putting your body in a pink tutu or running around a tree (although you might be able to do those simultaneously), yet our bodies also create and define how our minds function.... and vice versa.  There is a connection between our minds and bodies that is so profound that we get pits and butterflies in our stomachs or feel like our hearts are breaking.  When we get angry, we clench our fists and when we get scared we lock our knees.  There is an intricate connection between mind and body that is so obvious that we often deny it exists at all.  In fact, the concept of separating our bodies so much as to talk about taking them for a walk or making them wait around while we learn seems ludicrous.  We are fundamentally intertwined with our bodies.


What happens when things go catastrophically wrong with that connection and we are left wondering what is wrong with us?  How do you heal from a disconnection when we never acknowledged there was a connection, or even recognize that the problem is the actual connection?  What does a disconnection look like?


These are the people that don't know they have a body, change it in ways to fit into an ideal image, or abuse it in ways that poses a threat their own health.   


Stay tuned for tomorrow on "Thoughts on Bodies- Part 2: Catastrophic Disconnection".  

Ingredient amounts per person
1-2 medium white Sweet Potato
1/4 cup diced pineapple chunks
1/4 cup chopped protein (chicken, tofu, etc)
T chopped onions and/or garlic 
1 cup chopped or bite-size vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, peas, or red peppers
Handful dark leafy vegetables such as kale or spinach
T tomato sauce (or butternut-tomato sauce blend)
Tsp whole aromatic spices such as coriander, cumin, cardamon, turmeric, cloves, and allspice, sesame seeds, etc
1/2 tsp ground aromatic spices such as coriander, cumin, cardamon, turmeric, cloves, and allspice, sesame seeds, etc
small splash of soy sauce or fish sauce
Herbs such as parsley or cilantro


1) Dice potatoes and blanch in boiling water until just barely soft.  Remove and drain.

2) Heat pan on medium with oil.  When hot, place any whole aromatic spices in the oil until they start popping, which should only take 10-30 seconds.  Immediately add onions/garlic and turn down heat and cook until just barely soft, then add blanched potatoes and vegetables.  Add a bit more oil and allow to cook, stirring only occasionally to prevent burning but to allow the potatoes to brown a bit and the vegetables to soften.  

3) Add pineapple chunks, any additional ground aromatic spices, soy sauce or fish sauce, and protein.  Heat until pineapple and protein are warm.  

4) Add tomato sauce and cook until absorbed by potatoes. 

5) Turn off heat and toss in dark leafy vegetables and any herbs.  Allow to sit for up to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally so that they wilt slightly.  Serve immediately.  

Just two months ago, I came upon an article in the New York Times in my Twitter feed called The Science of Junk Food.  It was a 14 page article and there was no way I was going to read yet ANOTHER rant about the evils of our food supply.  It was old news to me.  As someone with a long and vested history in the food supply, being allergic to just about the world, I skipped it.  Just the previous week my roommate was telling me about some guy that changed the food industry by conducting an experiment to see what kind of flavors people liked best.  It had opened the door to companies such as Ragu to recreate their entire line of food to offer a plethora of options.  I thought that was kind of cool.  I loved Ragu sauce growing up!  I went on with my Twitter scan and moved on to my daily Facebook newsfeed scan.  Then, in an attempt to procrastinate, I went back to Twitter and saw that article again.  I opened up the link and thought, I'll just scan it to see if there is anything interesting.  Its a 14 page article and I got to get ready for work soon anyway but I still have some extra time.

I started reading it, and it was unlike any food article I have ever read.  It wasn't about the evil of our food supply.  No PETA pictures.  It read like a book I had read about the financial crash from the perspective of the exec's on the inside.  It was full of politics and intrigue and manipulation and injustice..... but not the abstract kind of statistics that usually get thrown out there about obesity rates and the like.  No, the politics and injustice of CEO's vying for power, manipulation of scientists and marketing campaign managers wanting to do the right thing, and whistleblowers being screwed over.  

I got through about half and I stopped. This was describing a version of our food supply that was different than I had ever heard of, and I thought I had seen and heard it all.  I started thinking about my own relationship with the food industry.

Growing up, I LOVED hotdogs, chips, cottage cheese, cereals, McDonalds, etc, etc.  When I visited my grandparents during the holidays it perplexed me why my grandmother would not keep things like hotdogs and cottage cheese in the house.  Each time I brought it up, my Grandmother would describe to me the horror of visiting a factory as a child for a school trip where they made hot dogs and cottage cheese.  I saw images of pink slime and the smell of oozing, rotting dairy just like the glasses of milk I sometimes forgot about in the basement mixed with Mr. Rogers footage .  It didn't deter me (much), but the images still stuck in my mind.  

In 10th grade chemistry class, we had a guest presenter from the local Kraft factory who was a food scientist.  My mother had worked at the Kraft factory where they made Cool-Whip long before I was born.  He showed us what he did for a living by mixing chemicals to make food last longer, taste better, and look prettier.  While part of me was horrified, for the most part I thought it was kind of ingenious that food could be made better.  Hey, I loved cool-whip on my hot chocolate!

After high school I did an exchange program in Germany where I lived out in the country.  My neighbors had an industrial cow farm and not too far away was a chicken farm.  They were small scale, so for the most part all I saw was the milking barns, the stench of chickens from down the road, and trails in the dirt where I supposed they peacefully grazed all day when I was out at school or traveling.  At night, the bright lights of the distant barn would reflect on my walls.  Neighbors warned me to stay away from the chicken farm but never really said why.  I envisioned clouds of nasty dried chicken poop and a deadly stench with the occasional PETA image of crowed coops, but this was Germany.... not the USA, so there was no need to worry.

I went to college to study the sciences and worked in the Chemistry lab one summer.  I learned all about how the chemical structure of anything was identical, no matter if I created it or nature did.  Sodium Chloride is salt, whether it comes out of the ocean, or out of my test tube.  What is "natural"?  ALL things are "natural".  In biology labs, we tested corn products to identify GMO contamination and see if they actually held up to industry labeling and then MADE genetically modified organisms.  GMO crops and animals, I learned, were saving lives.  In fact, I knew this first hand because I spent spring break among the starving Oaxacan people of central-west Mexico on medical mission where they were barely eating 2 meals a day of beans and any vegetables that could be salvaged from the semi-arid terrain.  They were running away illegally across the border to the USA to send home money to families because they couldn't afford flour or corn.  We recommended that they boil rusty nails with their beans to make sure they were getting iron in their diets.  


What has been your relationship or prior knowledge of our food supply?  Next week in Part 2, I will discuss the second half of the New York Times article "The Science of Junk Food" and the nutritional content of of our food.