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For my LA readers who are looking for another great lunch place to add to their repertoire, I recommend Café Flourish on Wilshire Blvd along the Miracle Mile. They serve amazing organic plant-based (e.g., vegan) cuisine. Some people hear ‘vegan’ and they get scared away. Well, this place has got it down right — (and I’m not even a vegan).

I had the‘Hooray for burritos’ dish there (meat/dairy free burrito) – and honestly, you could have swapped it with something from a taco place and have not known the difference…except this burrito is actually good for you! This place would turn meat-eaters into believers. An added bonus? A locally-owned business with really cool people who work there.

Check it out: www.cafeflourish.com

There are so many benefits to buying products at Farmer’s Markets. One of the biggest advantages that I see is that I can support local farmers and buy organic produce at a very reasonable cost. But there are those weekends that are really busy when I can’t make it to the Farmer’s Market. And I know there are a lot of people out there in other parts of the U.S. that can’t access Farmers Markets at all.

Which brings me to the produce section of the grocery story, scratching my head with confusion. The latest buzz words in the supermarkets (from Whole Foods to Conventional Grocery stores) is “Local.” But what’s better, organic or local? I wanted to boil the pros and cons down in an easy way.

Organic pros: nutritionally and environmentally sound (no pesticides are better for everyone involved – from the farmers to you, the consumer). The biggest weakness? Trucking products around the world to meet the demand.

‘Local’ pros: eating locally often means you’re eating a more nutritionally dense food since produce is most nutritious within 3 days of harvest. The biggest weakness? Synthetic fertilizers and chemicals.

So, what’s a shopper to do, especially those of us that don’t have that much time to think about it with crazy-busy schedules? Just do your best. That’s what I try to do, and I’m by no means perfect when it comes to this stuff. I strive to buy produce in this order…

1. Local Organic Produce
2. Organic (from anywhere)
3. Local Produce
4. Produce (from anywhere)

Hope this helps! More to come on this subject as I learn more. Currently reading the book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year Of Food For Life by Barbara Kingsolver.

I’ve got a recipe that’s been passed down in my family for years. It’s so passed down, that the recipe (which is extremely simple, by the way), is embedded in my memory, as well as the memories of my family members. It’s sort of like an heirloom, but in the form of food (obviously not the type of heirloom I could sell on eBay!) Every time I see an Italian restaurant that serves escarole, I know it’s a legit one.

I’ve blogged about clean, ‘whole-food’ eating, and this recipe is the epitome of that style. Serve alone or over whole wheat pasta – both will be delicious. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 head of escarole, chopped*
• 1 can organic cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tbsp. Extra-virgin olive oil
• Parmesan cheese (sprinkled or grated)
• 2 cups water

* note that escarole looks a lot like lettuce – so make sure to ask the produce person to point you in the right direction. If you’re at a Farmer’s Market, you can probably find organic or pesticide-free escarole. Also, make sure to wash escarole really well, otherwise you run the risk of it being sandy…yuck!

Recipe yields 2 dinner servings or 4 appetizer servings.

In large saucepan, sauté garlic in oil until it is slightly browned (not burned!) on medium-high heat. Add cannellini beans, continuing to sauté until their soft, about 5-7 minutes (feel free to add another teaspoon of oil if the saucepan is dry). Add chopped escarole and 2 cups of water, lower heat to medium-low and cover (you might want to add a little more water, this is dependent upon the size of your saucepan). Let escarole steam down until it is fully cooked, stirring occasionally. This will take about 15 – 20 minutes. You’ll know when it’s fully cooked because it will be completely saturated and steamed down.

Serve alone or over pasta with parmesan cheese. Enjoy knowing you’re doing something healthy for your body.

This weekend, I was visiting my family. Which meant that I was eating white pasta, full-fat cheese, bagels, pizza and summer bbq stuff (and the list could go on and on). It was delicious! But not without feeling it: since I normally don’t eat that stuff, my body actually felt different, and not in a good way. I felt tired and I even gained a couple of pounds. Now that I’m back in town, I’ve been eating ‘cleaner’ and exercising (and feeling normal again). Which lead me to write about eating clean.

I’m a big fan of this style of eating because it’s not a fad diet, so you can just make it a part of your life. According to Answer Fitness, the Clean Eating philosophy is really based on the natural health food movement of the 1960s, which then got transformed into the “whole foods” approach to eating, which emphasizes consuming foods (preferably organic) that are unprocessed or refined as little as possible before consumption. 

Here are the basics of clean eating.  If you follow this philosophy of eating and exercise regularly, you’ll definitely see a difference in the way you look and feel.

• Eat a wide-variety of whole, unrefined and unprocessed foods in a form that’s as close as possible to how the foods appear in nature
• Avoid processed sugars, especially sugary beverages like soda
• Avoid saturated fat and trans fats, and instead substitute healthy, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats
• Always combine complex carbohydrates with lean protein and some healthy fats at every meal
• Spread your food out over 5-6 smaller meals, consumed every 2-3 hours
• Eat for maximum nutrient density. In other words, avoid “empty” calories found in fast food, soda, snacks, cakes and cookies, and substitute in nutrient-dense snacks.
• Pay attention to proper portions and practice portion control
• Drink lots of water (at least 8 cups a day.)

By the way, it’s okay to splurge every now and then to stay sane!

Here’s the link to the full article that explains each of those points in greater detail:

http://www.answerfitness.com/204/clean-eating-eating-clean-answer-fitness/