We’re focusing on getting in shape around here, integrating that into our unstructured unschooling. So when I saw a cookbook author’s top ten food tips for a healthy life, I noticed that it read an awful lot like a healthy learning lifestyle, too.
Changing only a few words can re-purpose the whole thing — here, I’ll show you what I mean.
First her food-lover list, then JJ’s recipe conversion into healthy food-for-thought tips:
“Ellie’s Top 10 Food Lover’s Tips for a Healthy Life”
by Ellie Krieger, author of “The Food You Crave”
1. Savor the Flavor
To experience your food fully, slow down. Take the time to appreciate how beautiful it looks on your plate, inhale its aroma and chew well to release every bit of the food’s flavor. Eating this way will not only help you enjoy your food more, but you will likely need less to feel satisfied, so it could prevent overeating.
2. Eat Seasonally and Locally
Enjoying produce in season is a delicious, healthy and economical way to get variety into your life. Locally grown foods in season usually taste better and have more nutrients because they are picked at the peak of ripeness and don’t have to travel for days to get to the market or spend time in storage. They are also a bargain because they are so plentiful for a short time. Plus, since various fruits and vegetables are harvested at different times, eating seasonally means you’ll never get stuck in a food rut. So pay regular visits to your local farm stand or farmer’s market, and look for a local food second at your grocery store.
3. Eat the Rainbow
One of the things that makes food so appealing and enticing is also one of the things that makes it good for you: color. Different health-protective antioxidants impart different colors to food. Beta-carotene gives an orange-yellow hue as in mangos and carrots, lycopene makes tomatoes red and anthocyanins make blueberries blue and cherries red. But you don’t have to remember any of those complicated names to be healthy. All you need to do is eat the rainbow in produce each day.
4. Get Moving
Do some kind of physical activity each day, whether it is walking, biking, playing catch with your kids or dancing around your living room—even if it is just for 15 or 20 minutes. Being active is key to enjoying life. It is energizing, invigorating and it keeps you fit so you feel and look your best. It can also help you enjoy food more since nothing makes food taste better than working up a good appetite.
5. Be Picky
True food lovers can stay slim by only indulging in the best. If you refuse to settle for second-rate cookies, processed cheese, or soggy fries you will eat fewer unhealthy foods. When you decide an indulgence is top notch and you go for it, you will enjoy it all the more.
6. Stop Before You Are Full
Keep your meal energizing and satisfying without weighing you down, by avoiding overeating. An easy, intuitive way to do that is to put your fork down when you are at a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 (1= famished and 10= painfully stuffed.) You may feel like you could still fill up more at that point, but after 20 minutes, the time it takes your stomach to tell your brain it is full, you will be comfortably content.
7. Use Fresh Herbs
Fresh herbs like basil, parsley, cilantro, mint and thyme add more than just freshness, fragrance and flavor to dishes. They are also packed with nutrients like the essential vitamins A and K as well as healthy protective antioxidants. Use fresh herbs whenever possible to amp up salads, sandwiches, soups, stews or marinades.
8. Take an Active Vacation
Next time you go on vacation get out of the car and take a walk or hike, rent kayaks or bicycles or get on a pair of cross country skis. You will experience a new place on a whole other level, have a blast and keep fit.
9. Skip Sugary Drinks
One 12 ounce can of regular soda packs an astounding 10 teaspoons of sugar—that’s 150 empty calories! Sweetened teas and lemonades have nearly as much. So skip the sugary drinks in favor or plain or sparkling water, spiked with some lemon or orange slices or a splash of fruit juice for flavor. If you cut back by 2 cans of regular soda a day you could lose 25 pounds by the end of the year!
10. Tweak Your Recipes
Making small changes to your usual recipe repertoire can make a huge difference in your health. For example, choose leaner meats, like 90% lean ground beef instead of 80% lean, substitute low-fat milk for regular and amp up portions by sneaking more vegetables and beans in soups, chilis and stews. These little tweaks yield delicious food that’s lower in bad fat and calories and higher in nutrients. With just a few small changes you’ll see you can have the food you crave in a healthier way.
Copyright © 2008 by Ellie Krieger.
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“JJ’s Top 10 Food-for-Thought Lover’s Tips for a Learning Life”
by JJ Ross, Ed.D., education blogger at “Cocking a Snook!”
1. Savor the Flavor
To experience food for thought most healthfully, slow down. Take the time to appreciate how beautiful a thought is as it blossoms and then ripens in a riotous garden of ideas, inhale its aroma and chew well to release every bit of its flavor. Thinking and learning this way will not only help you enjoy your food more, but you will likely need less to feel satisfied, so it could prevent overachieving as well as gold-star and grade addiction, test stress fractures, vision loss and the systemic malaise of malnourished minds.
2. Think Seasonally and Locally
Enjoying experiences in season is a delicious, healthy and economical way to get variety into your learning lifestyle. Locally grown food for thought, in season, usually tastes better with more nutrients, picked at the peak of ripeness for your enjoyment without mass marketing, canning or cold storage. They are also a bargain because they are so plentiful for a short time. Plus, since various sweet and savory ideas ripen for harvesting at different times, learning seasonally means you’ll never get stuck in a food for thought rut. So pay regular visits to the reliably fresh free marketplaces of ideas you’ve discovered in your fields of interest, and relegate generic schooling and texts to a final stop when nothing better is available to satisfy your appetites.
3. Eat the Rainbow
One of the things that makes food for thought so appealing and enticing is also one of the things that makes it good for you: COLOR! Different health-protective antioxidants impart different colors to food for thought. . . but you don’t have to remember any of those complicated names to be healthy. All you need to do is munch your way across the whole spectrum of ideas and back, each day, and enjoy the journey rather than staking out one colored crop and fighting turf wars to plant more and more of it.
4. Get Your Mind Moving
Do some kind of idea exploration each day, whether it is research, playing catch with your kids or dancing around your living room—even if it is just for 15 or 20 minutes. Being active is key to enjoying life. It is energizing, invigorating and it keeps you fit so you feel and look your best. It can also help you enjoy food for thought more, since nothing makes ideas taste better than working up a good appetite.
5. Be Picky
True food-for-thought and learning lovers can stay slim by only indulging in the best. Challenge sources and wash thoroughly to remove political contaminants. If you refuse to settle for second-rate stereotypes, processed rationalizations, or soggy scholarship, you will eat fewer unhealthy ideas. When you decide an intellectual indulgence is top notch and you go for it, you will enjoy it all the more.
6. Stop Before You Are Full, and Long Before You Are Sick!
Keep your learning energizing and satisfying without weighing you down, by avoiding assignments, scheduling, and NCLB syndrome. An easy, intuitive way to do that is to put your calendar and to-do lists down when you are at a 5 or 6 planned activities on a scale of 1 to 10 (1= starved for stimulation; 10= painfully regimented, stuffed with standard fare.) You may feel like you could still fill up more at that point, but after 20 minutes, the time it takes your brain to wish it had stayed home with a good book or game, you will be comfortably content.
7. Use Fresh Herbs
Movies, music, comedy, computers and tv add more than just freshness, fragrance and flavor to dishes. They are also packed with nutrients like the essential vitamins A(ttitude) and K(nowledge) as well as healthy protective antioxidants for your brain cells. Use fresh herbs whenever possible to amp up meals, snacks, celebrations and well, everything on your mental menu.
8. Take an Active Vacation
Next time you go on vacation from schooling, don’t go back! You will experience a new place on a whole other level, have a blast and keep fit.
9. Skip Sugary Syrups
One canned community of “nice” education smalltalk packs an astounding 10 teaspoons of sugar—that’s 150 empty calories eating away at your brain tissue! Sweetened email lists and “learning circles” have nearly as much. So skip the sugary, syrupy goo in favor of plain or sparkling ideas, spiked with some lemon or orange slices or a splash of fruit juice for flavor. If you cut back by 2 gooey, canned conversations a day you could lose 25 pounds of soft flabby notions by the end of the year! And keep them gone for good. . .
10. Tweak Your Recipes
Making small changes to your standard food for thought repertoire can make a huge difference in your flexibility and strength of mind. Choose quirky concepts over convention, substitute deviant thinking for regular and amp up portions by sneaking in more questions than answers. These little tweaks yield delicious food for thought that’s lower in bad fat and calories and higher in knowledge nutrients. With just a few small changes you’ll see you can enjoy healthy, feel-good habits of mind within a rich (if not downright decadent!) lifestyle of ideas and learning.
Copyright © 2008 by JJ Ross, Ed.D.
Cocking A Snook! 
That’s great JJ. I love it! 🙂
Colleen, I’m glad someone “got” it and that it was you, and especially pleased you took the time to say so, while you should be packing for your FABULOUS trip!
I once wrote a Culture Kitchen blog essay about playing with my food: 🙂
“The Pasta God, Blind Faith in School and Juicy-Fruit Holiday Slobbers”
Then I connected it to “Taking Food Seriously” (you know, like Taking Children Seriously?)
I went on from there to liken The Unschooler’s Dilemma to the Omnivore’s Dilemma:
[…] Healthier kid foods weren’t mandated by government or public action, nor Wonder Bread and Twinkies banned. We as independent individuals over time collectively determined as community, that we should change family by family; each of us remains free in the so-called free market to decide what we think about Twinkies and Wonder Bread, and to spend our own money as we choose, but that’s not the whole story. […]