An app for health

Love your iPad, iPad mini, Samsung Galaxy, iPhone 4, 5, 6 (I lost count), Kindle Fire, and the rest of the gadgets?  Here are 5 reasons to love them more!

My favorite apps for food and health are:

Foodle- Loooove this app! You search a food (whole and even some processed) and it gives you the nutrition facts for the particular food.  For example, search “broccoli” (by the way, it gives you variations like, raw, cooked, leaves, stalks, which I think it’s awesome!) and there: “Nutrition Facts” for 1 cup chopped. (Vitamin C- 135% whoah! gonna get me some broccoli today!) 

You can also search foods by nutrient. Say you’ve been told to eat more “selenium” just search by “selenium” and it will list the foods in order of highest to lowest and how much per serving.  

Price: $6.99- A bit overpriced but…I find it VERY helpful!

Fooducate- this one is great to have on your phone.  You can scan a product’s barcode in the grocery store (or anywhere, of course) and it will give it a health grade (A, B, C…), explain what's really inside each product, pros and cons, and offer healthier alternatives. Don’t see a specific food? submit it for analysis. You can also share your feedback with the community, which is always great fun to read! Additionally, It has a feature to track your diet, calorie quality, and exercise.

Price: Free… No brainer!

Superfood- this one is neat; not as great, but interesting and educational.  It lists what the author calls “super foods” and gives you a description of what it is and why they are good. I personally don’t like the word “super food” and don’t believe any food is really “super” or “superior” but…I’ll leave that for a later blog post.  In any case, when you hear about a certain “super food” (you know, the weird stuff like spirulina, wheatgrass, noni, maca, nettles, etc..) you can search here and it will say what it is and its health benefits.

Price: $0.99- Priced right!

Healing Foods- this comes from the book “Encyclopedia of Healing Foods” by Michael T. Murray. It lists hundreds of foods (whole, that is) in alphabetical order and will tell you its health benefits, nutritional highlights, preparation etc..  It also has a tab for common ailments and will give you “healing foods” for the specific ailment as well as signs, symptoms, causes…  Informative on a basic level but very nicely done!

Price: $1.99

Yoga Studio- I’ve been looking for a good yoga app for years, and I finally found it! It has ready-made studio classes in different categories (beginner, intermediate, relaxing, balancing, etc..) so you can find one right for you! Or you can search for classes by ability, focus, intensity, and duration.  You can schedule your classes and transfer to your calendar so you hold yourself accountable! It also has a “poses library” with detailed instructions on how to do the poses and practice safety. The instructor’s voice and the instrumental music are relaxing, which I appreciate, it is what yoga should be- (no, we are not supposed to be doing yoga while listening to Rihanna!) and instructions are simple but good.   You can do these classes at home, travelling, and with or without your Lululemon clothes! Completely non-competitive as well. Price: $2.99 of free classes forever?!? Awesome deal!

Do you know any good health, wellness, recipe, or fitness apps?? Share with us, please!

Ribollita Toscana Recipe

Sounds fancy, right? Well... it's not. Ribollita (reboiled) is a famous Tuscan soup, a hearty potage made with beans and vegetables. Like most Tuscan cuisine, the soup has peasant origins. It was originally made by reheating (reboiling) the leftover minestrone or vegetable soup from the previous day.

A Fabulous Trip
I learned this recipe in 2007 while on a fantastic mother/daughter(s) trip to the countryside of Tuscany.  We stayed in a farmhouse in a small village called Chianciano Terme to learn Italian cooking.  A week there and the best lesson I learned (and one that still resonates with me) was: “keep cooking simple, its ALL about the ingredients”. The Italian chef and farmer were so proud of their beautiful vegetables, homemade wine, and fresh olive oil. They even took us to see the “happy pigs”, as they like to call them, that we would be eating that week. (and by the way.. they did look happy, free, and healthy!)

A Delicious, Easy, Healthy Soup
I make this soup probably every other week in the fall and winter.  It is easy and incredibly versatile-  you can change up the veggies to whatever is in season, use whatever herbs and greens you have on hand, perhaps add some quinoa for extra protein, and spice it up to your tasting- it will be good any way, and even better… GREAT for you! 

My husband and I call it the "detox soup" because it feels soooo good eating all those vegetables and greens in a warming and comforting soup, that you feel like your body is thanking you! 
And as a bonus? it brings me fond memories of a lovely time with my mom and sister!

The Recipe

5 Servings (or double the recipe to freeze and "reboil" later!)

Ingredients:

Extra virgin olive oil

½  onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic

2 carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 zucchini, sliced

1/4 head of cabbage (Savoy), chopped

Red hot pepper flakes to taste

Dried thyme and/or oregano to taste

1 14 oz (BPA free) can Cannellini beans or ½ cup dried beans*

2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth

16 oz diced tomatoes (BPA-free “canned”, like Pomí)

1 tbs tomato paste

Bunch of Swiss chard or kale (cut out stems)

10 oz spinach

Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Clean all vegetables well and slice them.
2. Place 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil into a Dutch oven or pot large enough to hold all the vegetables and heat to medium-high; brown the onion, then the garlic on top. Add the carrots, then the celery, and the zucchini.
3. Add salt and pepper and cover the pot. Cook for 10 minutes.
4. Add the cabbage, the pepper flakes, herbs, and the beans. Stir and cook for another 5 minutes.
5. Add the vegetable broth, depending on the consistency you want the soup to have, put less or more broth.
6. Add the tomatoes and the paste. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.
7. Now add the kale and spinach and simmer for about 10 more minutes.
8. When done, serve in earthenware bowls, add some grated Parmesan cheese, and drizzle some extra virgin olive oil.

*If using dried beans, make sure to soak in cold water for about 6 hours (no need for more).  Discard the water it soaked on and add to soup in step #2 along with other vegetables.  With dried beans cooking might take a bit longer, so taste throughout the cooking and add greens once beans are to your liking.

And the perfect diet is... (drum roll, please...)

There is no perfect diet. What??? Nope. Not Paleo, not South Beach, not Zone, not Macrobiotic...

The thing is: there's no "one-size-fits-all" diet. Each person is unique, with highly individualized nutritional requirements. This is called bio-individuality and it is the basis for (and why I love) my health coach training and my nutrition philosophy.

I felt the need to start this blog with this post because I get the question all too often: "what diet do you follow?" And I want to make clear from the get-go that what one eats is not necessarily what you should or shouldn't. Getting to know your own body is an essential step in staying healthy! 

What affects your personal diet?

Anatomy

Metabolism

Body composition

Cell structure

Age

Lifestyle....and of course...

Genetics
If many generations of your ancestors from Scandinavia were accustomed to eating dairy on a daily basis, it’s natural that your body will be able to assimilate dairy foods. Most traditional African communities did not regularly consume milk products, by contrast, so it makes sense that a lot of people of African descent today are lactose intolerant.

Is there a diet that works for you?? foods that you are sensitive to?? foods that are great for you? 
I'd love to hear from you! Comment below and let me know.

***And come back on Thursday for my all time favorite, delicious, (detoxifying) soup recipe!***

Welcome to my healthy bytes!

Hello everybody

Finally, my first blog post... woo hoo!! It's been too long that I've been flooding many of you in your Facebook newsfeed with all my "healthy living" posts. Many of you have been liking it and requesting more information so... here it is! I would also love to spread the word out to new friends out there, so please share away!

What will I write about?

Mostly nutrition + food stuff...
...including some of my favorite, delicious, healthy recipes...
...a little bit of organic farming and gardening experiences...

...a tiny bit of "natural mommyhood"...
...sprinkled with some yoga teachings!

Why? Who am I anyway?

Wife. Yogini. Nutritionist. Farmer. Mama... Offering revelations about everything healthy.

My heritage: I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and have been living in Chicago for the last 14 years. My "past life" original career was Accounting and Finance- I am actually a Certified Public Accountant (eeeekkk!) but had a fantastic revelation 13 years ago after my first yoga class... they had me at "namaste"...

My Awakening: I became a Registered Yoga Teacher in 2004 and started teaching and immersing myself in further yoga studies and trainings. The inherent self-discovery of yoga led me to increased awareness of my body's feelings and reactions, an improvement in my eating habits, and a keen interest in all things related to nutrition. During this time I had a difficult fertility journey that resulted in a successful pregnancy through alternative methods of Chinese medicine; diet and nutrition; and other natural modalities. This provided me with the concrete evidence that I had discovered my intended path...

My Passion: Today, after studying nutrition for 4+ years I finally became a Nutrition Therapy Practitioner and I am excited about embarking upon my career and passion for healthy and natural living by becoming a Certified Health Coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2014. 

Welcome to the blog, enjoy the healthy bytes coming up, and stay tuned for Cooking classes, Group Detox programs, and Health Coaching Sessions coming in 2014!!! :)