As part of my 2009 New Year’s resolution, I have started to make more vegetable and fruit based meals and less animal-centered dishes. Since adopting this new way of cooking and preparing foods, I have relied heavily on one particular excellent cooking website, 101cookbooks.com. Heidi Swanson, the creator and author of the website, explains that she designed the website in 2003 because she felt overwhelmed and bored with her current collection of 100+ cookbooks. And she wanted to expand her repertoire of recipes and cooking techniques and inspire others. Focusing primarily on natural, whole foods and ingredients, the recipes from this website have repeatedly produced fabulous food in my kitchen - and believe me when I say that many recipes do not turn out fabulously in my rookie chef hands!

I know a lot of other people are also trying to cook healthier and look for more nutritious recipes this year, but few of us understand how to build your kitchen around this improved way of eating. Heidi offers a great section on how to "build a natural foods pantry," providing excellent food selection tips. And she describes many of her favorite whole food ingredients in detail, outlining the pros and cons of each one.

Furthermore, you can search recipes by category (appetizer, soup, main course, etc.) or you can find recipes by ingredient name. Personally speaking, I frequently have a bunch of leftover spinach or kale at the end of the week and struggle to find a creative way to cook it. At these times, I would click on my leftover ingredient recipes and discover that I can whip up some hummus and incorporate spinach into it.

And if you want one recipe to start off baking healthy treats for everyone in your family, these cookies are a must-try. So nutritious and delicious! (If you like how those cookies turn out, do a search for the peanut butter cookies under Vegan Recipes for another yummy and easy dessert!)

The website is also greatly enhanced by the beautiful food photography, also Heidi's. To fully appreciate this website, the fabulous recipes and the colorful photographs of food, you'll just have to visit it. And please let me know how your next dish turns out!

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about my favorite healthy eating books of 2008. Based on some of the new information that I uncovered in these delicious books, I dreamt up some New Year’s resolutions for 2009. I decided that each resolution would encourage my own personal growth and well-being, but I also wanted each resolution to have a longer lasting and friendly effect on my community and the environment.

1. Grow a garden. Okay, let me rephrase that - currently, I can barely keep my bamboo plant alive, which only requires 1x/month watering. But I really want to grow at least one plant in my kitchen, patio or backyard, keep it alive as long as possible and then hopefully eat it. I am finished buying overpriced and over-packaged basil and dill at the local grocery store. I really want to see the beautiful and fresh stuff blossoming in my home, reminding me to whip up some delicious pasta or homemade salad dressing.



2. Read more produce labels at the grocery store and be mindful of the agricultural seasons. Last winter, I bought strawberries in December and blueberries in February, not paying an ounce of attention to the million mile commute the berries had to make to my dinner table. And I hope to buy almost 100% locally grown produce at farmer’s markets next summer here in Colorado.



3. Support local shops. In the past, I have been a total Starbucks addict, supporting the corporate world and selfishly negating my hometown of 100,000 folks in Westminster, CO who always need local support. I have decided to search out a locally owned coffee shop to buy my ground beans and yummy frappucino-like summer drinks. Wish me luck.



4. Get creative with fruits and vegetables. Every week, I get a beautiful box of fruits and vegetables delivered to my doorstep from a local, organic produce delivery service. The box is filled with dirt-covered carrots and fresh out of the ground collard greens. I am giddy with excitement when I open the box every Thursday. But despite my excitement on delivery day, I always end up wasting a head of greens or a few apples. This year, I want to find some new fruit and vegetable recipes - so far, I made “lettuce wraps” this week with my collard greens (similar to the ones you can order at PF Chang’s Restaurant). They were so delicious, and I had no idea those greens could be so crunchy and delicious with a fun surprise inside!

So there you have it, my goals for 2009. As the months go by this year, I will keep you informed of my progress. Do you have any ambitious New Year’s resolutions? Share them and let’s get inspired together!

You are standing in the produce section at the grocery store in front of the popular and seemingly fresh berry stand, and there are so many choices - organic blueberries from Maine, conventional raspberries from Mexico and strawberries from an unlabeled origin. Finding the time to shop for groceries is hard enough, and nobody wants to spend 10 minutes of their day belaboring over the healthiest berry for their family. And organic fruits and vegetables may cost 50-100% more than their conventional counterparts. So when it comes to produce, what is the best choice from a health perspective?

Organic fruits and vegetables are farmed with botanical or primarily non-synthetic pesticides instead of long-lasting synthetic chemicals. Conventionally-grown produce utilizes potentially harmful chemicals that can be ingested by consumers but also cause environmental problems when they run off into watersheds, affecting wildlife populations, other plants, and the ecosystem as a whole. We ingest pesticides not just from the food we eat, but "secondhand," in water, meat, and consumer products. Choosing organic means contributing a bit less to the earth's "chemical load" and reducing the impact on the environment and on human populations.

As far as the nutritional superiority of organic produce, this question is still debatable. But in March 2008, the State of Science Review published the first major, in-depth review of published scientific literature, and concluded that organic produce are nutritionally superior. You can check out the paper and draw your own conclusions.

As with all topics in nutrition science, it is extremely difficult to measure a single variable such as a fruit pesticide, and then try to determine the possible effects of this variable on the human body. So naturally, many studies show that pesticides do not appear to cause harm but some have shown that pesticides may be dangerous in higher amounts. Again, the jury is out.

My advice to you is, there is no such thing as a perfect diet. No one should panic if they eat a conventional berry. But it's a good habit to get into to consume fewer pesticides, and to help your children to do the same. This would be a good goal for 2009 - you might just boost the nutritional quality of your foods and help the environment at the same time.

There is a list of produce, often called the “dirty dozen” fruits and vegetables, that contain the highest number of pesticides, according to the USDA lab tests. When buying these fruits and vegetables, choose organic:

• apples


• bell peppers


• celery


• cherries


• imported grapes


• nectarines


• peaches


• pears


• potatoes


• red raspberries


• spinach


• strawberries

Can’t remember this list? Look at the skin of your produce in question - if the skin is thick like an avocado, the pesticides are not easily absorbed and consumed by you. But grapes, strawberries and spinach have thin and edible skins, which absorb the pesticides. Washing and rinsing will reduce pesticides, but it will not eliminate them.

And yes, organic will usually cost more. But if you can buy organic produce at a farmer’s market or directly from local supplier while in season, you can often avoid paying the extra. I live in Denver, Colorado, and we have a great organic produce delivery service and they deliver organic, mostly local fruits and vegetables to my front door every week! Try a Google search to check for similar services in your area.

I'll discuss organic vs. non-organic meats and dairy products in a future post.

Thumbnail on zrecs.com by karimian, sharved via Flickr.