Jump Ship!

Yesterday, not such a good day.  They say that moving is one of the top stressors as is buying a new house.    I guess making a film about Eatin like a Cretan is probably a big stressor as well.  Anyways, I went down the tubes last night and ate like, well probably like a fairly healthy American.  I probably ate too much cheese and popcorn, but it wasn't the worst example of poor eating I have ever done (not even close).  Well, the motto is "get back on the ship".  So here I am, recommitting.  I will let you know how it goes.  I am moving this weekend so it might be a bit sparse, but I will keep you informed.

Wanting to escape

Here I am at that place of one way or another.  I feel as lost as I just was walking in the woods.  It is the place of wanting to give up, to go out and eat some ice cream or to have a drink or whatever else I may do to leave my own body.  This is the thing though, my body is hurting and I need to take care of it.  I have had a pretty consistent pain in my gut all day today (for weeks actually).  I started to worry about it.  I got into a place of fear around it.  I have gastro reflux disease.  It means that the acid in my stomach comes back up.  It causes a lot of pain and guess what helps it?  Eating better, losing weight, exercising.  What a frickin surprise hey?  Well, there it is.
I just walked for an hour and a half in the woods.  It got dark along the way.  I was lighting my way with my iphone, but it died and then I was on this path in the woods in the pitch black of night.  I started hearing animals and even got to the point of making up an animal or two in my imagination.  As I walked, the path seemed to get narrower and narrower, branches hit my face increasing my fear level  even more.  I saw a blue light moving along the path ahead of me.  The unknown of it made me cringe, but instead of turning around or running up the side of the hill on my right I just kept going.  I made up my mind that whoever had the light was a good guy and it was going to be alright.
I said "hello" and a male voice said, "you scared us".  "You scared me too", I replied.  I told them that my light died and I was hoping that I was heading in the right direction.
"you are almost there", the voice said.
I am almost there.  I just need to stay on the path.

A delicious meal

My cousin and his wife are here from New Paltz, New York.  They are vegans and awesome cooks.  This is a good combo because the people of Crete are vegans half the year (they eat no animal products on religious holidays).  We just made one of the best tasting meals I have had in a long time and it was so quick, simple, and easy.  Here are the recipes:

Oven Fries with Olive Oil and Herbs
4 organic russet potatoes, sliced into steak size fry pieces
1/4 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2.  In a large bowl, drizzle olive oil onto the potatoes.
3.  Add all the spices to bowl and mix well with your hands so that spices and oil are on all the potatoes.
4.  Place potatoes single layered on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle any extra oil on potatoes.
5.  Cook potatoes for 30 - 40 minutes or until browned.
Save extra oil for bread.

Sauteed Kale with Garlic
1 large bunch of Kale, trimmed, cut and washed
1/4 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
3 large cloves garlic
Salt and pepper to taste


1.  Heat oil on medium heat.
2.  Add Kale and saute until wilted (or to taste)
3.  Add garlic near end of cooking and turn off stove.
4.  Salt and pepper to taste


A Recipe for a Delicious Meal
Crusty sourdough bread, sliced
Oven fries with olive oil and herbs
Sauteed kale with garlic
Red wine (no sulfates)


Pour extra olive oil from fries or kale onto bread.  Top bread with kale and garlic and eat!  Enjoy fries.  Drink wine.  Be happy.
Delicious!

Recipes by Casey Byrne and Bill Bradley.

Eating like a Cretan: The rollout: Step Two: Kermit is green and so should you

By the second day of my adventure in Crete I was introduced to the delicious and incredibly healthy horta (XOPTA in Greek). Horta is not one food, but a whole group of greens that are picked fresh in the mountains and eaten daily. Most of the horta I ate was cooked in olive oil either by itself or with potatoes and was served with fresh bread which I would dip in the oil swimming on the plate. It can also be blanched and put on salads or just eaten raw (although it tends to be somewhat on the bitter side. The amazing thing about horta is that it is revered in Crete and here in America we try to kill it every chance we get. You see, horta, for the most part are the weeds that drive us crazy in our gardens and yards. Some examples of horta include: wild mustard greens, chicory, and dandelion greens. Purslane is often thought of as horta, it isn't, yet it is also eaten in great quantities in Crete.

Horta is high in many nutrients including Omega-3 fatty acids. We will go into more detail about horta later, but first here is your challenge to add to the original challenge.

Challenge #2

Eat 5 fruits and vegetables per day with one serving of horta included. Every day.

Horta includes: Dandelion greens, mustard greens, kale, chicory, beet greens, spinach, collard greens, curly endive.

Recipes on their way!

Also, below is an article about horta from the L.A. times

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-calcook1-2009apr01,0,7805735.story?page=1

What is a Vegetable? Serving sizes

For those of you who don't have experience with servings of fruits and vegetables it goes like this:

One serving vegetables equals:

1/2 cup cooked veggies

or

1 cup raw (such as lettuce)

One serving of fruit equals:

1 piece of fruit (apple, orange, banana, peach, etc.)

1/2 cup of sliced fruit

We want to get a general idea of what 5 to 9 servings equals. We don't want to go crazy about it. In Crete, they don't measure anything.

Eating like a Cretan: The rollout: Step One

The next week is dedicated to moving towards the basics of the Mediterranean Diet. From there we will be getting more specifically into the Cretan diet. There are a number of pieces of the Cretan diet that make the folks of Crete healthier than people from other places in the Mediterranean. We will get to that. I will be following this diet for the next three months and I welcome any one who wants to follow it with me to do that.

So, let us begin with step one:

The majority of the food eaten is from fruits and vegetables.

The average American eats about 2 1/2 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. If you go from what the average American eats to 5 fruits and vegetables a day your risk of cancer drops 50%. As a matter of fact, the more fruits and vegetables you eat on a daily basis the less likely you are to get just about every disease known to man. One of the main reasons for this is that fruits and vegetables decrease inflammation in your body. The typical person in Crete eats at least 9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. We will get to that next week. The challenge for tomorrow will be to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables. With a little bit of pre-thinking it is not as hard as it may seem. Here are some suggestions:

Breakfast:

Yogurt Parfait

1 cup Greek yogurt (in Crete, they would eat full fat yogurt)

2 of your favorite fruits, sliced

1 teaspoon honey

1/4 cup of your favorite nuts

F/V (fruits and vegetables) tally: 2 fruits

Lunch:

Crunchy Greek Salad

2 large carrot, cut into small pieces

1/2 red onion, sliced thin

1 red pepper, cut into bite sized pieces

1 large cucumber, peeled and sliced

1 tomato, cut into bite sized pieces

3-4 sprigs parsley, stems removed

1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives

1/2 cup olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

4 ounces feta cheese

Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Mix all vegetables in a bowl with olive oil and lemon juice.

2. Top with crumbled feta cheese. Toss salad.

Serves 4 as main dish salad

Serves 6 as side salad

Recipe by Bill Bradley, R.D.

Eat salad with bread and olive oil (more about olive oil later)

F/V (fruits and vegetables) tally: 2 servings vegetables

Dinner:

By dinner time you already have 4 servings of fruits and vegetables so for the five a day challenge you only need one more serving.

It could be a half cup of broccoli or cooked spinach or any other cooked vegetable and you are there!

Good luck tomorrow!

Bill

Last Supper

I had my last supper last night. The American meal I feasted on was from Bub's Barbecue in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Bub's slogan is "Pig out in Style" and pig out we did. My dinner consisted of barbecued spare ribs, grilled corn on the cob, baked beans, collard greens cooked in ham hocks, french fries, cole slaw, spiced potatoes, sweet potato puree, and dirty rice all washed down with a couple of glasses of beer. I topped off this final gastronomic delight with the newest of the all American desserts: a deep fried twinkie covered with whipped cream and strawberry sauce washed down with yet more beer. I felt bloated and tired after my high fat, high sugar meal and the bottom of my esophagus felt like someone had placed a hot branding iron on it. I went home and couldn't fall asleep. This is a way of eating I have been accustomed to in my past although not so much recently. It is not the high road to health.