Answer Fitness®: Practical Fitness Advice for Everyone

True Lemon®: Get Real Lemon In a Powder … With No Rind! | Healthy Food of The Day

True Lemon has everything you’d want in a lemon juice … sans the juicer or rind. Learn why True Lemon deserves to be in every Clean Eating pantry.

A question for you: What food has zero calories, zero fat, zero sugar, less than one gram of carbs and 25% of your U.S. recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C?

If you answered lemons (which I bet you didn’t), you’d be only partially right.

It’s called True Lemon® , and it’s one of those foods that once you discover it, you can’t really imagine not always having some of it around.

Not only is it a healthy way to make plain old water taste better, but you can use it in place of fresh lemon juice in things like tea and healthy recipes (for example vinaigrettes for dressing your salad.)

The best part? True Lemon is the ultimate portable flavor-enhancer. While carting around a whole lemon to add to your tea isn’t really practical for most people, a packet of True Lemon can accomplish the same thing with less effort.  And because it’s crystallized, the True Lemon people can put it in tiny, 0.8 gram packets that you can litter around the places where you’d need it the most, like the car glove box, your laptop bag, your desk drawer and even your coat pocket.

In other words, True Lemon is like carrying a fresh lemon with you in your pocket — without the bulk, rind, and lemon juicer implement to contend with.

What Is True Lemon? And is it Real Lemon?

True Lemon is real lemon — it’s made from lemon juices and the volatile oils in lemon rinds which give lemons their fragrance, vitamins and sour “punch” that we all love in drinks, teas and recipes. The difference between real lemons and the bag of lemons in the green or yellow mesh pouch that you buy at the grocery store has to do with the portability of it.

The folks at Real Lemon have developed a way to take lemon juice from whole lemons, as well as the oils from the lemon’s rind, and crystallize it in a way that preserves the natural flavor, tartness and properties of lemon juice. They then wrap it up in a tiny package that is more economical and convenient than carrying around a bag of lemons (or grabbing one of those possibly unsanitary lemon wedges off from the drink station at a restaurant.)

Want a little lemon kick to your iced tea or sparkling water? No problem. Just pull out a packet of Real Lemon, tear it open, and dump it in. Honestly, I’d challenge anyone to tell the difference between Real Lemon and the “real” stuff in the heavy yellow rind.  I know a bunch of “lemon-in-my -tea” fanatics who have switched to Real Lemon because they can control the tartness, and add lemon flavor, even when a restaurant doesn’t have fresh lemon wedges available.

True Lemon and Recipes and Baking

True Lemon is also a great stand-in for fresh lemon juice in things like marinades, coating or salad dressings.

Case in Point: While I always try to keep some fresh lemons on hand, a few nights ago, I ran short when I was whipping together a vinaigrettes.  I was actually a bit apprehensive about substituting Real Lemon powder in for the fresh stuff, but really didn’t have much choice. In the end, I was surprised at what a great stand-in Real Lemon was for fresh lemon juice. I have a suspicion that most people, including myself, would never be able to tell the difference.

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Avocado Oil | Healthy Food of the Day

Avocados Aren’t Just For Guacamole Anymore. The Next Time You Reach for a Healthy Fat, Think Avocado Oil.

When you think of avocados, you typically think of guacamole. Or, if you are me, you think of Kriste at the office who (in her own words) is “totally obsessed” with avocados and will eat them sliced, diced or on the “half-shell” when given the chance.

Once shunned because of their high fat content, avocados have been elevated to fitness food chic over the past few years, thanks to a growing body of research showing that eating more healthy fats from things like avocados, nuts and olive oil doesn’t necessarily translate into more body fat. In fact, studies have shown exactly the opposite: People who eat healthy fats seem to actually be less fat, have lower bad cholesterol levels and triglycerides and are less prone to heart disease and developing certain kinds of cancers.

And that’s great news for avocado lovers, since not only are avocados filled with healthy fats, but they are also loaded with fiber and vitamins and minerals. And, of course, they taste fantastic on everything from healthy tacos to sandwiches to straight out of the shell, like my friend Kriste prefers.

But what most people don’t realize is that avocados can also be pressed to make a delicious, mild vegetable oil that’s among nature’s richest sources of healthy, monounsaturated fatty acids (also known as MUFAs).  Even better, if you’re getting bored with the usual olive oil on your salads and crave something a little different, you might consider swapping in some avocado oil.

What Is Avocado Oil and Avocado Oil Extraction?

Avocado oil is pressed or extracted from either the fresh flesh or dried pulp of avocados. 

The best culinary grade avocado oil is produced by cold-pressing the oil from the fresh flesh of avocados, in a manner similar to how cold pressed olive oil is produced.  Avocado oil can also be extracted from the dehydrated pulp of avocados, either through pressing or chemical/solvent extraction (which is typically employed for avocado oil used as a base in cosmetics.)

The vegetable oil in culinary avocado oil typically comes in one of two forms: refined or unrefined.

Refined avocado oils will have a lighter color and a more mild flavor with a very high smoke point that makes it ideal not only for salads, but especially for light frying or sautéing.

The unrefined versions of avocado oil will be more cloudy, have a deeper green color and a deeper, more intense avocado flavor. Because unrefined avocado oils have more solids in them, they also have lower smoking points than refined avocado oils. This makes them ideal for salad dressings where a more intense flavor is desired or around other uses that don’t involve heating the oil — for instance as a dip for bread or as a finishing oil vegetables.  

Avocado oil has a mild, subtle scent that some people have described as similar to artichokes and celery, with the rich, persistent flavor — not surprisingly — of avocados. Again, the less refined the oil is, the more intense and deep the avocado flavor will be.

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Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread | Healthy Food of The Day

Food For Life’s Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread Is A Crunchy, Healthy, Protein-Balanced Slice of Organic Goodness

Bread made without flour? Out of sprouted grains, legumes and seeds? This couldn’t possibly taste good, could it?

In the past, I’ve sung the praises of Food for Life’s Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain cereal.

Based loosely on a Biblical recipe culled from the Book of Ezekiel, Food for Life (the company that makes Ezekiel bread) has introduced a whole line of sprouted grain foods that run the gamut from Cereal, to bread to pasta and even tortillas. 

Regardless of how you feel about the scriptural roots of these foods (or even your interpretation of the related Biblical passages — and there are many), the folks who make Ezekiel 4:9 bread and cereal are on to something. At the end of the day, you could be a pagan and still benefit from this bread.

While it seems inconceivable that you could make a crunchy cereal or fluffy, light loaf of bread out of sprouted grains and beans, Food for Life has figured out how to do it.

And even better, they’ve done it without sacrificing nutrition, flavor or using preservatives or sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup.

In the case of Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread, the result is an organic, nutritionally-dense, high fiber bread that also is a complete protein — one of the few breads on the market that contain all 9 essential amino acids, is low in fat, has no Trans Fats or cholesterol and is generally low in sodium. 

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Herbs and Spices: The Secret Spice To Clean Eating | Fitness Food

Learn how picking the right herbs and spices can make eating clean go from dull to delicious 

Healthy, whole foods get a bad rap when it comes to flavor.

“Eating clean” often gets associated with eating “bland” — especially among fitness buffs, bodybuilders and athletes who think that a good “training diet” consists of meal-after-repetitive-meal of oatmeal, boiled chicken breast, yams, steamed broccoli and green side salads with some kind of fat-free liquid on top that calls itself “dressing.”

The good news is that there is actually a simple solution to making clean eating not just tolerable, but enjoyable — and it’s as close as your grocer’s baking isle: Herbs and spices.

Herbs and Spices: The Key To Making Clean Eating Enjoyable

Any cook worth their salt knows that a recipe or dish isn’t complete until it’s been seasoned.

“Seasoning” could simply mean adding some salt and ground pepper, but more often than not, it includes the use of all kinds of other herbs or spices to either layer additional flavor on top of a food, enhance or complement an existing flavor, or provide a contrast.

While it’s pretty hard to screw up a dish or recipe by adding the wrong herb or spice, it does pay to know your seasonings ahead of time to avoid some funky combinations that might send that brown rice to your dog’s bowl, versus your plate.

Herbs and Spices: Not Just For Flavor, But Also Healthy 

Herbs and spices also have an additional role in healthy, clean eating beyond simply seasoning foods, recipes or dishes.

Nearly all herbs and spices have very high concentrations of healthy phytochemicals and antioxidants. Scientists believe that these naturally-occurring plant compounds work together in the body to protect tissues and cells from damage and may help prevent diseases like cancer and heart disease. 

When you combine herbs and spices with other antioxidant-rich foods like fruits and vegetables, their protective properties may be enhanced even more, similar to The Portfolio Diet approach to cholesterol-reduction observed by researchers like David Jenkins at the University of Toronto.

Just how much antioxidant punch do certain herbs and spice have? Plenty.  

In fact, oregano, that ubiquitous herb found in nearly every batch of pizza or spaghetti sauce is one of nature’s most concentrated sources of antioxidants, having four times more antioxidants than blueberries. Just one tablespoon of dried oregano has the antioxidant content of a large apple.

Herbs and spices can also have beneficial medicinal uses, in addition to simply making your food taste better.

For instance, ginger aids digestion and can calm nausea and even alleviate motion sickness. Fennel and juniper berries can help with fat digestion, and cinnamon has been shown to help reduce cholesterol and increase insulin sensitivity, helping people better digest sugar. It also may lessen the symptoms of certain inflammatory diseases like arthritis.

So herbs and spices don’t just make your food taste better, they’re good for you as well.

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Clean Eating: Why Eating Clean Is The Unfad Diet That Works

Clean Eating Isn’t a Fad Diet …. It’s The Real Deal. Learn the Basics of Eating Clean and Reap The Health, Weight-Loss and Fitness Rewards.

At any given time, more than two-thirds of Americans are “on a diet.” Yet only 5 percent will experience lasting weight or fat loss.  We’re a nation on a perpetual diet, yet America continues to lead the world in obesity, heart disease, Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome — a combination of risk factors that predispose people to developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Here’s the irony: Even though American’s are “dieting” more, we’re getting fatter each day.  

Enter “Clean Eating” — a simple, common-sense approach to diet and nutrition that ditches the complicated menu plans of dieting gurus; avoids the single-food focus of the worst fad diets; eschews the loopy pseudo-scientific underpinnings of “Detox Diets” and instead emphasizes sensible, nutritious eating.

In other words, follow this approach and you’ll be less hungry, more satisfied, healthier, and slimmer … for good.

Clean Eating is the ultimate “un-fad” diet. And once you get the hang of it, you’ll never be able to imagine that you thought eating cabbage soup everyday was the key to getting lean.

The Origins of Clean Eating

The concept of “clean eating” isn’t new.

While it’s a phrase you’ll hear tossed around a lot by bodybuilders, athletes and fitness models, the Clean Eating philosophy has its original roots not in the bodybuilding and fitness communities, but rather in the co-op-shopping-Birkenstock-and-granola-crowd.

That’s right, thousands of buff beach bodies can thank tofu-eating, Deadheads for helping them shape better abs, drop body fat and improve their cholesterol profile to boot.  

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. 

Canadian fitness model and author Tosca Reno is often credited with popularizing this approach to eating with her series of Clean Eating cookbooks, but the basics of this diet have been around for decades. Fitness trainer, natural bodybuilder and Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle author Tom Venuto has been talking about “eating clean” for years, and makes it a central part of his fat-loss and muscle gain plan. 

At it’s root, the diet is so common-sense and back-to-basics, that no one really can take credit for developing this approach to diet and nutrition. 

In fact, all of the recipes and nutrition articles on Answer Fitness are been based on the Clean Eating philosophy. Until recently, I wasn’t even aware that there was an “official” Clean Eating movement out there … it was just a term that I and a lot of others had been using for years to describe healthy eating habits.

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Five Low Fat, Great Tasting, Mexican Food Toppings: Healthy Food of The Day

Try one or all of these tasty low-fat, low-calorie toppings on your next taco or burrito

So you think eating clean and healthy means you can’t enjoy Mexican food? Think again. These five toppings for Mexican food not only taste great, but they’re also excellent, nutrient-packed additions to any healthy diet.
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Low Fat Ranch Dip | Healthy Recipes and Snacks

Try this low-fat, high-protein ranch dip recipe to help you get your daily vegetables

Eating your five servings of vegetables each day is easier when you have a great, low-fat dip recipe. This recipe is even better because it contains only two ingredients and can be prepared in less than 2 minutes start-to-finish.  The best part, however, is the taste.

Low Fat Ranch Dip 

Ingredients

1 16 oz container of Quark (or substitute low-fat Greek Yogurt or a similar strained yogurt product)
1 packet Hidden Valley® Ranch Dip Mix (or Fiesta Ranch Dip Mix)

Directions

1.  Mix the Hidden Valley® Ranch Dip Mix and quark or greek yogurt in a medium sized bowl. For best results, let chill for 1 hour prior to serving.  Serves eight.  Serving size is 1/4 cup of dip. Use as a dip for broccoli, carrots, celery sticks, and cauliflower.

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