Editors Note: This post is written by contributor Gina Ryan. Gina is a licensed nutritionist and Wellness coach from Hawaii. Read her Bio on the About page or visit her blog Lunch Without Ed.

Depending where you live in the world you may be swimming in tomatoes right now. Traditionally the overabundance of tomatoes leads to the process of cooking sauce and canning it for the months to come. When the more intricate process of canning is not available it is perfectly fine to freeze your sauce and enjoy it just the same. This post explores the health benefits of tomatoes and shows you how to make your own tomato based sauce from scratch.

If you don’t have a favorite sauce recipe or if this is the first time you may be considering this delightful kitchen project here is a great marina sauce recipe. It even has instructions on how to take out the seeds if this is your first attempt.

Cooked Tomatoes Powerful Benefits

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Tagged As: antioxidants, diet, Health, nutrition, tomatoes

Editors Note: This post is written by contributor Gina Ryan. Gina is a licensed nutritionist and Wellness coach from Hawaii. Read her Bio on the About page or visit her blog Lunch Without Ed.

Much of the to do list of eating and living healthy can be achieved by simply using awareness. Paying attention to food and life style choices and actions made daily can simplify the sometimes confusing and contradictory health advice that is available on the Internet and elsewhere. Mindfulness puts the locust of control with you and your body.

What is ‘Mindfullness?’

It is with an understanding of what is meant by mindfulness when we speak of it in terms of eating. Mindfulness is clearly non-judgmental paying attention. Sounds simple and clear enough and this is a great place to stop and do it! Pay attention to what you are doing right now, do it with a noticing, a curious awareness and with out labeling it good or bad -simply notice. Yes, and then if the judgmental thoughts come up… notice that! Being aware of what is present for you in each moment physically, emotionally and physically can free you from reactive patterns and unhealthy habits. Being aware of what is actually happening right now gives you freedom of choice and a sense of balance. Read more…..

Tagged As: diet, eating, meditation, nutrition, Weight loss

Editors Note: This post is written by contributor Gina Ryan. Gina is a licensed nutritionist and Wellness coach from Hawaii. Read her Bio on the About page or visit her blog Lunch Without Ed.

Herbs (grown naturally in temperate regions) and spices (grown in tropic and subtropic regions) are an incredible and simple way to add flavor and powerful nutrients to your meals. Notice when foods are cooking and the delicious aromas fill the kitchen? The mixture of herbs and spices are releasing some of their aromatic oils to the air exciting the palate and preparing your body for digestion.

The Joy of Herbs and Spices

One of the easiest ways to get involved in your food from the ground up is to grow a simple herb garden. Food takes on a whole new and exciting feel when we have had our hands in the earth in which it was grown. Clipping your home grown dill for lunches cottage cheese or cutting basil for dinners. Pesto makes even the most resistant cook feel more like a creative chef and when we feel good and creative about preparing our food we make better food choices -naturally.
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Tagged As: diet, herbs, nutrition

Editors Note: This post is written by weight loss expert (and former couch potato) Meg McFarlane. Meg has experienced the weight loss journey first hand and has chronicled this in her blog, Spud On The Run.  She has a Bachelor of Science from Sydney University is currently working in IT.

You can read Megs full Bio on the About page or visit her blog http://spudontherun.wordpress.com

Would you like a quick fix on your diet? A few additions that will make a big impact to your energy levels? Add at least one of these in every day and watch your health levels jump up a notch or two!

1. Avocadoes

Every diet should contain healthy fats and avocadoes are one of the best sources of monounsaturated fat out there, plus they have the added benefit of helping lower your cholesterol as well.  Avocadoes are also rich in vitamin K, vitamin C and potassium. Current research has shown that the nutrients in avocados help lower blood pressure and protect you against breast and prostate cancer, so you definitely should be adding a few slices of avocado to your lunchtime salad.

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Tagged As: diet, nutrition, superfood, Weight loss

Editors Note: This post is written by contributor Gina Ryan. Gina is a licensed nutritionist and Wellness coach from Hawaii. Read her Bio on the About page or visit her blog Lunch without Ed.

What should I eat?

As a nutritionist this has to be the most common question I encounter and on the other hand the answer I am about to share with you is commonly the most ignored. Why? Because it is so easy and people believe healthy changes have to be difficult.

Let me begin by putting you the eater in the seat of authority. You are your own best expert and I trust you will not only hear what the answer to “what should I eat?” but will run it through your own filter of being. Only when you use your own mind-body as a filter do you ultimately make healthy decisions for your own body.

Step up the quality of your food

Yes that’s it in a nutshell. I use the term step up because it is not usually possible to make all the changes you may desire all at once. In stepping up the quality you will lose the need to make a perfect change and thus eliminate falling into good/bad or black/white thinking. Perfectionism will undermine even your best efforts because there is no perfect and you will never reach the goal of being perfect so just let go of perfect right now and enjoy stepping up.

Some step up quality clues

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Tagged As: food, healthy eating, nutrition, Weight loss

Do you ever feel tired, dizzy, have shortness of breath, heart palpations (awareness of your heart beat), headaches, or leg pains? These are all symptoms of Anemia which is one of the most common ailments affecting humans. It mainly affects women of child bearing age, intense exercisers, teenagers and young children, however all age groups are susceptible. Here are some important tips to ensure you are eating enough iron, and absorbing it properly.

Heme iron is a lot more absorbable than non heme iron:

There are two types of iron. Heme iron is derived from animal sources such as red meat, where as non heme iron comes from plant sources such as chickpeas. Heme iron is more easily absorbed by the human body. You can affect the absorbability of iron by eating it with other vitamins, for example eating foods that contain vitamin C with iron, increases its absorbability. However eating calcium with iron decreases its absorbability.  Having some heme iron with your vegetables will increase the absorption of the non heme iron (For example you will absorb more iron from your spinach if you have some red meat with it).
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Tagged As: diet, energy, Iron, Meat, nutrition

Eating fish is good for you. But when Jeremy Piven (Ari from Entourage) suddenly left his broadway show due to high mercury levels from fish, questions have been raised about which fish are best to eat.

In my recent article on the best meats to eat, white fish came in second on the list, with salmon fairing quite poorly due to its high fat content. Salmon, however contains a lot more essential Omega-3 fatty acids, so how do we choose which fish to feast on?

What are the considerations when choosing a fish to eat?

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Tagged As: diet, Fish, mercury, nutrition, omega 3, Weight loss

When you are rushing through the supermarket trying to decide what meat to cook for dinner, do you really know what you are looking for? I’m sure you know what tastes great, or what you are comfortable cooking, but what about the health benefits? It is possible your habitual choices could be damaging your health and waistline. I have examined our most popular (and some less popular) meats, and you might find the results surprising!

And the winner is…

Kangaroo meat!!!  For the Aussie readers out there, we grew up watching ‘Skippy’, so now it can be hard to come to terms with eating him! Kangaroo meat has less calories and fat per serve than white fish yet as much iron as red meat and almost as much protein. Skippy really packs a punch in the nutrition stakes! Click here for a Bill Granger marinated kangaroo recipe. They say to treat it as you would beef, however I prefer stews, casseroles and marinades to plain steaks.

Second Place:

White fish. Also extremely low in fat and high in protein, white fish will provide you with some iron, minimal cholesterol and lots of healthy omega 3 fatty acids.

Third and fourth place:

Ostrich, closely followed by chicken breast. I’d like you to note on the chart the vast difference in nutritional value of chicken breasts without the skin versus a BBQ chicken. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just because it’s chicken, that it’s good for you!

The Healthiest Meats (Best to Worst)

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Tagged As: beef, chicken, cholesterol, diet, lamb, Meat, nutrition, pork, Weight gain, Weight loss

Editors Note: This post is written by weight loss expert (and former couch potato) Meg McFarlane. Meg has experienced the weight loss journey first hand and has chronicled this in her blog, Spud On The Run.  She has a Bachelor of Science from Sydney University is currently working in IT.

You have decided that you need to lose weight, but with the hundreds of diets out there, how do you choose the one that is right for you?

If you are like me than you have probably tried hundreds of “fad diets” which were successful until you started eating normally again and then the kilos piled back on and brought a few of their friends with them.  If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to choose a diet that you can stick to long-term.  Think of it more like healthy eating rather than a “diet”.  Therefore, you need to stay away from diets that have you eating only soup or fruit for a period of time and diets that involve meal replacements.  Yes, you will lose weight on these diets but as soon as you go back to eating normally, that weight will return.
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Tagged As: diet, diets, nutrition, Weight loss

Editors Note: This post is written by contributor Gina Ryan. Gina is a licensed nutritionist and Wellness coach from Hawaii. Read her full Bio on the About page or visit her blog http://www.lunchwithouted.wordpress.com.

Looking at the metabolic flame most of us are aware of exercise and the increased oxygen it brings to the body and increasing metabolism. Yet not so many are aware of the same oxygen advantage during relaxation, deep breathing and eating.

Most of the energy produced by the body comes from the simple combination of oxygen and food. Look at it as when you breathe more you burn more. So while running while eating is counterproductive, breathing deeply and consciously while eating will increase your metabolic speed, ease digestion and relax you simultaneously.

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Tagged As: exercise, metabolism, nutrition, Weight loss