Kelly Frankson DOT COM

Anna Louise Turner was born7.77lbs, 20inches at 734pm on December 8th, 2010. Here are some pictures from Lexis visit:

Check out this great little video of Robb speaking about his book The Paleo Solution!

Its a great book, easy to read, written from the heart. Highly recommended!

Great post on Robbwolf.com about spices. I tend to get lazzy and cook my food way to plain, but here is an overview on some of Robbs favorites:

Cardamom-the spice of chai tea. It’s an essential spice in Indian cooking and some have called it the vanilla of Indian ice cream. Cardamom in it’s whole state is a pod with an outer shell (not much flavor there) filled with tiny seeds (which are intensely flavorful). Ground cardamom is what you likely want to use, and is commonly found in baking, where the powder provides a concentrated unique, smoky flavor. You also may have tasted cardamom in Indian meat dishes or Swedish meatballs. Yum.

My favorite use for cardamom when I’m not baking is with a sweet-ish vegetable, like carrots or a pea puree. Cardamom Carrots would be a good place to start with this spice. Substitute butternut squash or sweet potatoes for the carrots and you’d be happy too.

Chili Powder-One of my favorite reasons to use any spice is warm-you-up, clear-your-sinuses heat! Chili powder is an easy go-to spice for that. Everyone’s tasted chili powder in… well… a big pot of Chili. Paleo chefs would do well to remember the Texan saying, “If you know beans about chili, you know chili ain’t got no beans!” A big pot of Texas chili is a great way to get your meat in, and pack a ton of delicious spicy, heaty flavor. In my experience, finding grass-fed ground beef is pretty easy, and another go-to use for chili powder in my kitchen is to mix it with a little garlic powder, cumin and salt and add it to ground beef when you’re cooking it. Instant taco meat! Also known as a favorite breakfast of mine. Maybe a strange choice, but delicious nonetheless.

Cinnamon Ahhh, cinnamon. The smell of cinnamon is so reminiscent of a well-kept, welcoming home that many a fragrance company has tried to capture its essence in a candle or even a toilet bowl freshener. Besides its versatility in sweet and savory foods, cinnamon has been shown to have health benefits ranging from lowering cholesterol and blood sugar to preventing yeast infections. Nice spice! Cinnamon can be used in everything from a savory spice rub for slow-cooked meats to being a major player in Apple Crumble.

Try sprinkling cinnamon on your coffee, tea or baked sweet potato. Use a whole cinnamon stick as a straw for sipping hot cocoa. Make some apple cinnamon pancakes. Mix it with any root vegetable or winter squash along with some butter or coconut oil. With all its’ uses, you can easily see why cinnamon is a daily spice in my house!

Cumin is a pale green seed from a plant that’s actually related to parsley; it’s traditionally used in spicy Mexican dishes like chile con carne or hot tamales. It also has a ton of health benefits. You can easily find cumin seeds ground or whole, and there are good uses for both. You can add ground cumin (which is stronger than the whole seeds) to a citrus-based marinade for meat. I also love cumin in chili and spicy meat stews. An easy way to use the seeds is by toasting them in a skillet over medium heat (just add the dry seeds to the skillet, and make sure to keep an eye on them, they can burn quickly). Then add the toasted seeds to some olive oil and drizzle the mixture over roasted veggies. Cumin is great in taco seasoning. It’s easy to make your own, then just add it to ground beef or poultry while browning the meat. Serve in lettuce cups with lots of veggie fixings on the side for a super easy dinner.

Forms of Nutmeg – 485/365Nutmeg in its whole form is a smooth little nut about the size of a peach pit. Whole nuts are preferable to ground nutmeg, since the flavor of ground nutmeg quickly turns dust-like. Whole ones will keep forever and can be grated easily with a microplane grater. I got a bag of 50 or so from my Indian grocer for about 3 bucks! Nutmeg is usually associated with sweet baked goods, but goes surprisingly well in savory applications too. Back in my mac & cheese days, it was one of my favorite things to add to the sauce. It goes great in soups with tomatoes, chicken, egg dishes, or with green veggies like spinach, broccoli or cabbage. It’s traditionally paired with lamb in Middle Eastern dishes and used in Moroccan cooking frequently. My favorite use for nutmeg is similar to how I use cinnamon: sprinkled on sweet potatoes along with a pat of grass-fed butter.

Paprika is a fine powder ground from dried “pimento” peppers (yeah, the same ones used to stuff olives). It is a beautiful red color and although it comes from peppers, is milder than chili or cayenne pepper. You can find it in sweet, smoked, and hot forms (I think smoked tastes best no matter what the spicy factor). Paprika is associated with Hungarian cuisine (paprikash and goulash), but also is used to spice chorizo sausage, and is a natural partner for other spices to create a rub for meats. It imparts a beautiful color to meat when cooked (think of Tandoori chicken). Sprinkled, it can be a fun way to garnish foods (you’ve probably seen deviled eggs topped with it).

You could make a delicious drizzle for vegetables by heating a teaspoon of paprika with a couple cloves of minced garlic and a bay leaf in some olive oil, then adding in a splash of wine vinegar. It also goes great in a vinaigrette and emulsifies well with oil and vinegar. You can just rub it on a plain chicken (inside and out) before roasting for a delicious flavor and color. Experiment with this versatile spice. I haven’t tried it with a dish yet that I didn’t like.

Rosemary is a super-fragrant herb with needle-like leaves and a fresh evergreen, almost pine-y scent. Rosemary is super easy to grow and is drought-tolerant. It’s a tough little plant and easy to have on hand year-round since it can be grown in a pot or in the ground. Rosemary is a natural partner to garlic and olive oil and that trio is wonderful on everything from roast potatoes to lamb, pork or chicken. Whenever I make a pork roast, I like to make small incisions in the meat and stuff slivers of garlic with rosemary leaves inside. It imparts a wonderful flavor to the meat. Ditto chicken, just stuff some rosemary under the skin or even place a sprig or two in the cavity of the chicken before you roast it.

Thyme, along with rosemary, is a major player in the traditional bouquet garni, a bundle of herbs used in savory soups and stews such as Beef bourguignon or Pot au Feu. Thyme is also so easy to grow, it spread over my whole herb garden, and I hardly watered it at all this summer. It’s a perennial too, so it comes back every spring. Thyme is used to season savory soups and stews, but also goes really well with eggs, tomatoes, and lamb.

I love fresh thyme in an omelet along with some salt and pepper. It’s amazing in a make-your-own marinara sauce (which I love over green beans, spaghetti squash or zucchini). If you’re longing for tomatoes in the dead of winter, plum tomatoes at the grocery store can actually taste great if you roast them along with this versatile herb. Roasting concentrates the flavor and brings life to otherwise icky, pink, out of season tomatoes. Dried thyme will work in this case (bonus: it retains its flavor much better than most other dried herbs). Sprinkle the tomatoes (sliced in half) with thyme, salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil. Mix well with your (clean) hands. Roast at 450 degrees for 25-30 minutes until the tomatoes are starting to caramelize. Mmmmm.

Great post on Catalyst Athletics about how the start of days – the time immediately after we wake – changes our bodies chemically. It looks at what hormones are released or inhibited? How does breakfast impact these chemicals and hormones? How does our morning mindset affect the rest of our days? And, most importantly, how can we use all of this information to become better overall athletes?

The full article can be found here, but here are what I consider to be the highlights:

Fear is a powerful stressor, perhaps the most powerful stressor, and stress triggers the release of a powerful hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal gland. Many, many years ago, most human stress was followed by physical action – chasing an animal for food, building a better hut, gathering more berries, etc. The cortisol released then helped us better utilize the protein, fats and carbohydrates in our body so we could move…so we could survive. It allowed us to improve our memory, to reduce the sensation of pain and to help us use our food more efficiently so we could sustain our energy for longer periods of time (deer are fast, fish are agile, huts are fragile). Because we are groggy and therefore vulnerable in the mornings, our body’s cortisol levels are incredibly high upon waking.

The type of chronic stress we endure daily can mean chronically high-levels of cortisol throughout the body. This can lead to suppression of thyroid function, cognitive impairment, increased blood pressure, decreased bone density, blood sugar imbalances, a weakened immune system and inflammatory responses, as well as a slower wound healing process.1

For the athlete, this means it becomes easier to overtrain, to get sick, to make a technique mistake and become injured or even to suffer a stress fracture during training.

Chronically high cortisol levels not only contribute to osteoporosis, but they are toxic to brain cells and can lead to short-term memory loss.2

When we move beyond the brain and into the body, we find that because we no longer have immediate physical responses to our high cortisol levels, cortisol makes us…fatter. Cortisol breaks down adipose tissue and moves it into the bloodstream for energy, but what happens when energy isn’t needed? Well, research is finding that instead of burning the triglycerides, cortisol causes these unused fats to be re-deposited in the adipose tissues surrounding the belly.3

So, the start of days is awfully important. When we wake, blood glucose levels are very low and this is a primary fuel source for our brains and muscles. This begs the question: How can our clients best “break the fast” so that they refuel their glucose levels and tone down their fear-induced cortisol levels? Here are ten practical tips to share with them.

(1) Pop your fish oil pill first thing in the morning. Omega 3 fatty acids can lower cortisol levels that are released by mental stress.4

(2) Laugh early; laugh often. Laughter can reduce cortisol levels.5

(3) Eat citrus in the morning. The Vitamin C reduces cortisol levels, and the fructose will help quickly refuel those low blood sugar levels.6

(4) Protein, regardless of source, has the potential to significantly blunt the morning cortisol burst.7

(5) Get your Vitamin D – from pill or sun. According to Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., “Stress contributes to decreased Vitamin D production. The stress hormone cortisol is made from cholesterol. Therefore, a body experiencing any type of stress will, preferentially, use cholesterol to manufacture cortisol, depleting the amount left to make sufficient amounts of Vitamin D.”

(6) Focus on the “end of days.” A restful, uninterrupted night of sleep decreases cortisol levels and sets the stage for a better start to your day.8 50-year-olds have much higher nighttime cortisol levels (some estimate 30 times higher) than the average 30-year-old. The reason may be because the younger crowd has a body that affords them better sleep quality.

(7) Magnificent Magnesium. Like powdered Vitamin C, powdered magnesium has shown potential to reduce cortisol levels by supporting the adrenal gland.9 Stressful conditions force the adrenal gland to relentlessly produce cortisol. Side benefit: Because stressed adrenals may lead to depressive states, magnesium can serve as an anti-depressant. Natural Calm is a magnesium product highly recommended by many:

(8) Water. Simply put, a dehydrated body is a stressed body. Sleep and water work synergistically to reduce cortisol. Even slight dehydration before bed can cause the body to work harder to sleep better. Work equals stress and stress equals cortisol. Keep a glass of water by your bed and rather than waking up and sprinting to the sink in absolute cortisol-pumping dry-mouth panic, simply roll over, grab the cup, pound some water and get back to sleeping.

GIVE THE GIFT OF HEALTH THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

We have a couple holiday promotions on the go:

(1) The Guides have been updated (actually we-written to include a tone of new content!)  For the month of December if you buy one set of guides you can have another sent to an email address of your choice on Christmas day!

http://www.fit4younutrition.com/store.html

(2) The Fit4You Wellness Challenge is starting January 9th, 2011
Includes: Individual consultation, nutritional resources, weekly recipes and meal plan suggestions, feedback and prizes all for $169.95

http://www.fit4younutrition.com/

(3) Gift certificates are available so your loved ones can book consultations at their convenience!

http://www.fit4younutrition.com/store.html

Enjoy the holidays!

Kelly Frankson

Creating a healthy, lean body depends on how well your body copes with the demands made on it. Fit4youNutrition.com assesses these demands and tailors nutritional approaches specific to you.