Salmon is a desirable food to eat for those living with multiple sclerosis because it is full of omega-3 fatty acids to help maintain and repair the nervous system.

Of course, this recipe is delicious for those not living with MS, too! Find the recipe on page 28 of the 2009 Glorious One-Pot Meals cookbook, or below.

Dill Salmon Serves 2
This is a great, light summer meal and is particularly great for filling your diet with omega 3s! Adding a thin coating of olive oil on top of the fish will result in a less-dense fillet. For an even richer flavor, place several pats of butter on the fish.

Olive oil spray
2 scallions, white and green parts, chopped
1/2 to 3/4 pound salmon fillet
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground white or black pepper
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
5 to 7 whole dill sprigs
5 or 6 red potatoes, thickly sliced
2 large carrots, cut into long strips
1/2 medium zucchini, cut into sticks
1 celery stalk, sliced
1/2 medium cucumber, cut into sticks

1.    Preheat the oven to 450F.
2.    Spray the inside and lid of a cast iron Dutch oven with olive oil.
3.    Scatter the scallions in the pot. Set the salmon on top of the scallions, skin-side down if not skinned, and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, followed by the garlic.
4.    Top fillets with the lemon slices and half the dill sprigs. Scatter potatoes around the fish. Add the carrots, zucchini, celery, and cucumber. Tuck more dill sprigs into crevices and lightly season again with salt and white pepper.
5.     Cover and bake for about 43 minutes, or until 3 minutes after the aroma of a fully cooked meal escapes the oven. Serve immediately.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Bloating, gassiness, explosive diarreah, constipation, headache… these can all be symptoms of lactose intolerance, particularly if they show up within 1- 12 hours of ingesting a dairy product.

Lactose intolerance is not fun, to say the least. It’s particularly common among Mediterranean, Asian, African and other dark-skinned people, but can affect almost anyone.

It’s worth noting that mammals didn’t evolve to digest dairy products after weaning, and the human mammal is the only one to continue to drink milk as an adult. Really, lactose intolerance should be no surprise to any of us.

Still, life without cheese makes me feel deprived. Evolution didn’t account for the development of cheese.

Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy

Most lactose intolerant people simply avoid dairy products whenever possible. We can also take the lactase enzyme to help digest milk products on a food-by-food basis, but for me, even though lactase will ease the discomfort of digestion, I don’t believe it does everything it needs to because I notice a direct  correlation between when I consume cow’s milk products and weight gain in my own body.

Not so with goat milk products. Go figure.

Although goat’s milk has only slightly less lactose then cow’s milk (4.1% to 4.7%), something is different enough that many lactose-intolerant people don’t have a problem digesting it. Hooray! This discovery has opened up a whole new world for me and my family because we can have cheese again!

Some cheeses from Mt. Sterling Co-Op Creamery

The coolest part is finding how many products are now made with goat milk. Besides the typical soft Chevre log, we’ve found excellent Cheddar, Country Jack, and Mozzarella. Even our local Costco carries slices of unnamed goat cheese. Look for yogurt made from goat’s milk, too.

Colorado alone has more than 50 goat farms, dairies, and creameries. One of my favorites is the Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy — their cheeses are so delicious and special. Here’s a fun article about a program that puts prisoners to work on goat farms and then the goat milk goes to Haystack.

Mt. Sterling Creamery out of Wisconsin has wonderful harder goat cheeses, too.

(Do you get my newsletter? I send out a new Glorious One-Pot Meal recipe every other week exclusively to subscribers, and today’s recipe includes goat cheese!)

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Ariana Huffington is on her own quest this month to get more sleep regularly, and one thing she has noticed is that she has more energy for her workouts. “Our sleep consultant, Dr. Michael Breus, has shown how getting more sleep can actually help you lose weight more effectively than exercise, but I’ve been finding the two are wonderfully compatible.”

I hadn’t connected the increased intensity of my workouts with more sleep, but now that I think about it, I think she has a point.

In January, 2009, I was content where I was, wearing my size 6 clothes. I’d certainly been much heavier in my life, and I was feeling pretty strong and fit and glad to be a size 6. I really wasn’t thinking much about my weight, which hovered on a plateau right around 134 lbs.

Our youngest had just turned four and life was getting easier all around because of it. Without so much energy needed to care for the kids, my husband and I were able to focus a bit more on our marriage, which had been on autopilot for the “dark years” of infancy and toddlerhood. My husband’s idea to help our marriage was for us to start going to bed at the same time, instead of him falling asleep at 9 or 10 so that he could leave for work at 6 am, and me working until 1 or 2 am every night.

By mid-January last year, I remember feeling more energetic in my regular workouts. I didn’t change my workout — I still went to Jazzercise three times each week, as I had been doing for two years — but I lifted my knees higher, caught a bit more air on the bounces, and generally pushed myself into a more intense workout.

I was no longer slogging through the workout at a low level. And it felt great.

At the time, I thought I had just randomly made the decision to work harder in my workouts, but in retrospect I can see that it was totally connected to getting more sleep every night.

In July I stepped on the scale at my mom’s house and saw 117 lbs. looking back at me. (I don’t keep a scale at my house to avoid obsession with weight. I really believe its more about how you feel than what you weigh. This is an unusual post for me to talk about weight so concretely, but it’s info I think a lot of people could use.)

Now, almost 6 months later, I still weigh 117-118 lbs., and I’m still working out at a high-intensity in my Jazzercise classes. I’m thinking maybe I’m going to be this weight now, for real. I’ve had to buy all new jeans (size 2 and 0!) and clear out my closet of things I used to squeeze into, even before I had kids. And I’m still getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night.

My workouts are more fun, my body looks better than it did in my 20s, and I feel strong and energetic. I’ve even been out dancing into the wee hours a few times in the last few months… I have a hard time believing that I’m going to be 41 next month.

Who would have thought that you could lose weight just by getting more sleep? It was a revelation to me. I have to say that I feel better all the way around because I’m getting more sleep.

Oh, and my marriage improved, too! 

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

You really need to average 7-8 hours/night of restful sleep for your body to fully recharge and take care of all the business that gets done while you sleep, namely digestion, stress-relief/relaxation, and healing.

Arianna Huffington, editor of the Huffington Post, has made sleep her number one priority this year. Arianna, a round-the-clock worker who prided herself on not needing very much sleep, got a rude awakening recently when she collapsed from exhaustion, fracturing her cheekbone and needing stitches on her face.

She and Glamour editor Cindi Lieve have begun a one-month “sleep challenge” that particularly targets those they say are the most sleep deprived in our country: single working women and moms with young children.

We can’t make our best decisions without enough sleep, they note. We will be better workers and parents if we get more sleep.

I totally agree. I remember realizing exactly why they use sleep deprivation as a Prisoner-of-War torture technique after my son was born. He was never a good sleeper and for the first year I’d be lucky if he went down for more than a 30-minute stretch. He was 4 before he slept through the night, which means  I didn’t get an uninterrupted night of sleep for four years, either.

The hardest times for me were when his little sister came along and the two of them would tag-team my husband and me all day and all night long. My son was sickly and vomiting sll the time (30+ times/week), and my baby girl nursed constantly and wouldn’t let anyone else hold her but me. I call those “the dark years.”

Because I was trying to work during these years, too, my emails often went out in the wee hours. Once my first book came out in 2005, midnight to 2 am became my time to fill orders and prepare shipments. By the end, when my first book went out of print in 2008, I was so tired that I accidently sent one Dutch oven order out by overnight mail — a $90 mistake that reflected on my bottom line.

Of course, the babies would still be up at 5 am, or 6 if I were lucky. They didn’t care that I had worked all night!

I remember being too tired to hold an intelligent conversation. While the babies always were clean and looked cute, a close look at me would have revealed stained clothes on an overweight body, no makeup, dirty hair in a ponytail. I was so tired I just didn’t care. I saw myself as slogging through it.

Funny how we value sleep deprivation in our society. We brag about how little we need, how much we work instead of sleep. In some ways, I felt virtuous for being able to function (albeit at a low level) with so little sleep.

Last December, my husband insisted we try to go to bed together, instead of him going to bed at 10 or 11 pm (he has to leave the house at 6 am for his job) while I worked for a few more hours. He thought it would be good for our marriage.

I was reluctant, at first. When was I supposed to get all the work done that I usually did at night? But he had a point. Now that the kids were sleeping on their own most nights, it was possible for me to get more sleep, too. And all those “dark years” had taken its toll on our relationship, too. For years we had been like ships that passed in the night. We needed to reconnect as more than just caretakers.

It was good to remind myself, too, that a body that is dealing with a chronic illness, as mine is, needs to have all its resources available to stay healthy. It is good advice for MS patients to get enough sleep — advice I often gave but rarely followed myself. Fatigue is a hallmark of MS to begin with, and a drained body must use all its resources just for living, leaving nothing for healing and recharging. Lack of sleep leads to adrenal overload, which can cause a cascade of other health issues.

So, I guess I’m actually one year ahead of Arianna and Cindi, in that I’ve been getting more sleep since December, 2008. Although I may not acheive the goal of 7-8 hours of blissful sleep every single night, I know that I feel better, look better, have lost weight, and am happier now that I’m getting more sleep.

Oh yes, and my marriage… well, let’s just say that getting enough sleep can rev up your sex drive, too! 

Consider taking Ariana and Cindi’s  sleep challenge yourself, and see if it doesn’t do everything from change your perspective to make you a safer driver.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

I turned 40 this year and dragged my feet into the imaging center to get my first mammogram last month.

What I really wanted was to find a thermogram and avoid the radiation from traditional mammography, but my ob/gyn/midwivery practice didn’t know of any thermogram centers, so I bit my tongue and went in for the radiation of a mammogram even though they are finding the radiation from medical screening procedures can contribute to cancer. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

What I really wanted was to not do this at all. I waited more than six months, until I was ever-so-gently prodded into going by my fabulous life coach, Rachelle Disbennett-Lee. She was right: it was time to go.

A clinical breast exam performed by highly trained fingers can identify 61% of tumors that turn out to be cancer.  Adding a mammogram, increases the ability to find a cancer to 84%.  Research done in Montreal in the mid-1990s demonstrated that adding a thermogram to breast exam and conventional mammogram increases the ability to find cancer early — and do something about it — to 95%. (Read more about breast exams.)

I figured I’d do the mammogram this time and keep trying to find a thermogram for next year. I guess I’m glad I did it, because they found something.

Some things, I should say. In my left breast.

They look like specks of dust on the original contact print, and more like jagged rice grains when magnified 90 times. But they’re definitely there, and there shouldn’t be anything there.

Crap.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Apparently so. We Americans love our soda pop.

Two weeks later, callers left testimonials for Oprah. “I’ve already lost 14 lbs.!” one caller reported excitedly. Others had similar stories.

I started to pay more attention to the soda drinkers around me and realized that some people start drinking soda pop first thing in the morning, instead of or right after coffee, and continue all day long. I counted more than three people I know who nurture a 6-pack-of-Diet Coke-a-day habit. I watched a 20/20 special on Appalacian Mouth, the high incidence of rotting teeth in Applacia due to high consumption of Mountain Dew.

Ugh.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy a good soda pop now and then myself. But there’s a lot of stuff in mainstream soda pop I don’t enjoy: high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors, and caffeine, not to mention other synthetic sweeteners like Aspertame in the diet or low-cal versions.

So I was excited to see Blue Sky soda
on sale recently at our local Vitamin Cottage natural grocery store. When I lived in Santa Fe in the early 90s, Blue Sky was the little local company; now you may find Blue Sky sodas almost anywhere that carries natural products.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Eating fewer refined foods and more natural, whole foods greatly improves health.  It’s not a new concept, but unfortunately our fast-paced, convenience-oriented, adulterated-taste-bud society requires that we need to be taught how to eat healthful foods.  Many people, especially in the west, do not understand that the foods they eat harm them.

Nature designs foods a certain way on purpose.  Whole foods contain numerous nutrients that work synergistically with each other to create a nutritive, healing affect in our bodies.  When we consume refined foods for several years, we deplete the natural stores of micronutrients in our bodies, and eventually symptoms develop.  However, restoring health can be easy, delicious, and inexpensive.

A whole food is one that has nothing removed.  When you peel a carrot, remove a potato skin, or remove bran from wheat, these foods become refined.  A limited amount of processing can take place, like grinding, mashing, or drying — as long as nothing is removed.  Carbohydrates are the most commonly altered foods and also the most offensive to our bodies when they are so altered.

The Perfectly Whole Foods Diet (PWFD) is one where all refined carbohydrates are avoided completely.  For the quickest and greatest results for any health issue, use the PWFD.  It is not hard to follow the PWFD and the advantages are huge.

The benefits of eating a whole foods diet, especially the Perfectly Whole Foods Diet, are wide ranging and can be dramatically positive.  Everything from physical illness to mental illness can be alleviated.  Chronic pain, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, gastrointestinal disorders, acid reflux, obesity, and allergies are just a few of the many physical ailments that will likely be aided, and possibly totally eliminated, by eating a whole foods diet.  Also, it is too seldom remembered that our mental health is directly linked to our physical health.  Research has shown that changes in diet have huge impact on ADD, autism, depression, PMS, and even serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.

The Stoll Foundation for Holistic Health is a non-profit organization that aims to reach people seeking alternatives to drugs and surgery to improve their health.  We improve the lives of people we connect with through health education, offering inexpensive solutions for disease reversal, and providing support for a healthy lifestyle.  To learn more, and if you or someone you know could use extra support in taking charge of their own health, please see our website at www.stollfoundation.org or email  info@stollfoundation.org.  We have compiled a list of resources covering everything from self-help wellness programs to resources for the uninsured.  We are here to help you help yourself to feel better.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

Yeah, you read that right: restaurants intentionally add things to their foods to make them craveable, so that you truly can’t eat just one. I’m sure you’re not completely surprised to learn this, but you may be surprised as to the extent.

In Kessler’s new book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, he describes dumpster-diving to rescue ingredient labels from popular chains like Chili’s, Bennigans, etc. to see just what is inside those mouthwatering dishes like Southwestern Eggrolls or Boneless Shanghai Wings. Ironically, it was Kessler when he was with the FDA who instituted the labeling of restaurant foods that travel across state lines to begin with, but as a citizen when he politely asked to see those labels he was flatly denied.

Dumpsters, though, are open to anyone who cares to take the plunge. We’re lucky Kessler decided to do just that.

The labels showed the foods were bathed in salt, fat and sugars, beyond what a diner might expect by reading the menu, Kessler said. The ingredient list for Southwestern Eggrolls mentioned salt eight different times; sugars showed up five times. The “egg rolls,” which are deep-fried in fat, contain chicken that has been chopped up like meatloaf to give it a “melt in the mouth” quality that also makes it faster to eat. By the time a diner has finished this appetizer, she has consumed 910 calories, 57 grams of fat and 1,960 milligrams of sodium. Yikes!

This is a salt-fat-sugar one-two-three-pow that make you crave more and more of it, leading to overeating.

Don’t assume that this practice is limited to Chili’s; you should assume that EVERY item on a restaurant menu contains more fat, salt, and sugar than it would if you were to re-create the dish at home. That’s how they make things so tasty, after all.

It’s a pretty good argument for cooking at home more often, where you have full control over what you and your family ingest. Not to mention the economics of eating out… Maybe this is why cookbook sales are up 9% while sales of other types of books are down?

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

What a great idea! Take the loss of a job as a gift of time to focus on your health! When else are you going to have as much free time to hang out at the gym? Think of all the benefits: lose weight, get more energy, enjoy a better outlook on life, live a longer life…

I recently read a fun novel where the main character took an early exit package from her company and discovered happiness by using the time to start exercising regularly (walking) and turning a hobby into a business. Along the way, she finds some new friends and expands her horizons. If you’re looking for a feel-good novel starring some uppity middle-aged women, this one was recommended by Barbara Kingsolver.

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.

My friend, the ArtBizCoach, alerted me to this great idea posted by Nikki Wright for those who have a little bit of artistic talents and are looking to try something a little unusual for Easter this year. The eggs are truly gorgeous and I love that she used things like onion peels and beets to make the natural colors.

I have nostalgic memories of blowing out eggs and painting them as a child. I wonder if it’s too soon to try this with my 6- and 4-year olds? So far, we’ve always dipped hard-boiled eggs in the Paas dyes for our Easter celebration (yes, we celebrate all holidays at our house!), mostly because of the fragility factor with little hands. I envision painstakingly blowing out each egg, only to have it grasped by enthusiastic fingers a little too exuberently…

Come to think of it, this might be a better project for when they are 6 and 8! I might have more sanity left afterwards…

©2010 Effortless Eating. All Rights Reserved.