Dear eggs, I owe you the biggest apology for the years of questioning your virtue and beauty. You see, my culture taught me some things about you that eventually were proven to be all wrong. They told me that your cholesterol and fat were bad for me, that you would give me a heart attack or stroke, and that I should never eat you. I missed you and thought of you often (and even snuck you in a…
Those of you who know me are aware that I’m not a fan of using “paleo” to describe twenty-first century food. I mean, it’s like saying “human” to describe a very nuanced and sophisticated way of eating and taking care of ourselves. My soapbox aside, to pay homage to the many authors out there in virtual paleo-land, who have influenced the many iterations of my brownie recipe, I am calling them…
Many of us feel our energy and mood take a nose dive during the winter months. Yes, it’s cold outside and Nature is all but asleep, and perhaps we should take her cue to light our internal fires with cozy blankets, warm socks, and afternoon naps. But when winter brings suffering, we can rise above the darkness by supplementing with vitamin D–the nutrient of light.
Optimal vitamin D levels in…
Childhood nutrition is extremely important. Children, with their small size and rapid growth rate, need a particularly nutrient-dense diet, and their early foods may influence their food habits for many years.
Given the importance of early diet, what does a nutritionist feed her baby as a first food?
How about an Oreo cookie?
Yep, I did that.
Let me quickly say that perhaps I could have made a…
You’re using competition and comparisons as a tool to check out where you stand on the worthiness scale. There’s just one problem. Competition and comparisons are built on the assumptions we make about others and their lives–not the…
I was feeling mopey and weepy. Summer was coming to an end and it was almost time to say goodbye to my youngest son as he went off to college. Not only that, I would soon be saying goodbye to my oldest son…
“Our diets are better than they’ve ever been! Look how tall kids get today-it’s because we have such good nutrition in our country.”
I hear these statements regularly. It’s easy to think we eat well because food is so readily available. Especially for people who grew up with food insecurity, never knowing when a meal would be available, an abundance of food seems like it should guarantee…
Hi! I’m Lisa, a registered, licensed nutritionist (dietitian is the old-fashioned word!). I started working with Dr. Karyn Shanks at the Center for Medicine and Healing Arts in early 2016. My professional background is diverse-I’ve done everything from general hospital work to teaching college seminars to working for a high-risk pregnancy clinic. And I spent some years at home as CEO of a…
#1: There really are no rules.
#2: This is all just about getting quiet, turning down the noise of our lives.
#3: And not judging or being judged.
#4: It’s about…
Turmeric is one of the world’s powerhouse foods, used extensively as a spice, condiment, and medicine for thousands of years in Chinese and Indian traditions, and showing up more recently in the cuisine and healing practices of the western world. Knowing all that we do about the inflammation basis of most age-related health conditions, turmeric, one of the most anti-inflammatory foods on the…
I’m a food girl, first and foremost, however, there are important reasons for using supplements to augment the nutrition we receive from our food. In Functional Medicine, food and nutritional supplements are foundational tools for optimizing health and reversing troublesome health problems. Food is our foundation. Supplements are just that–they supplement what we eat.
I believe that it is the empathic connection that I’ve forged with my healthcare team that has ignited my own healing. While they may be smart and skilled and filled with great ideas, it has been their interest in me, in getting to know me, in hearing and understanding my story, in encouraging me and rooting me on, that has been the foundation and the power of our work together.…
You’ve gotten the word that fats are good now, right? How did we get so far off track with this vital aspect of our nutrition for so many years? I avoided fat for decades (eek!), thinking it would make me fat and clog my arteries. I’m convinced my behavior contributed to my own major health melt down, thankfully resolved with excellent nutrition, including lots of health fat.
I so miss the monarch butterflies. We used to have hundreds of them in our yard at any given time during the late summer, when milkweed was at its peak. Now, sadly, monarch sightings are a rarity. Something terrible has been happening. The monarch butterfly’s habitat has slowly been shrinking because of the extensive use of glyphosate, otherwise known as Roundup, the most popular herbicide on…
I used to not know how to say “no” to the people in my life–my clients, my family and friends. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I felt that to be the perfect everything (ha) and to earn the love and approval of the people in my life, I had to take care of everything, always be available, never ruffle feathers, and meet everyone’s demands and needs.…
My intuition is the voice within, the voice we all know, that tells us the truth. Time and time again my voice within is the strongest and the wisest. Not because I am a sage or have superior intelligence or am all knowing. It’s because I’ve learned that I have a higher self, a wise self, a self who knows what is best for me at all times, and who I can access if I just stay quiet and listen.…
So many rules, my goodness! For food, for behavior, for life!
So, let’s start this little lesson with a few deep breaths. It’s all okay. We don’t need to be perfect. But it’s good to be smart. The scientific literature has a few things to teach us about the amount of protein we need to consume in our diets to support robust health and what I have…