As January rolls to a close, millions of Americans are well underway on their fitness resolutions. Whether the goal is to lose weight, gain flexibility, train for a marathon or increase energy, sticking to a new regime can be challenging. One of the biggest difficulties? Fueling your body with healthy, tasty food, and avoiding the “I worked out so I’ve earned this bagel/pizza/etc.” Most health and fitness professionals agree that a meal containing healthy fat, protein, and carbs is ideal after a workout. To help you keep with it, I offer up one of my very favorite post-workout smoothies.

Containing anti-oxidant laden, low-carb berries and peaches, healthy-fat and magnesium rich almond butter, potassium rich coconut water, and vitamin-rich probiotic kefir, this smoothie will keep you going for hours while helping stave off dehydration and muscle cramps.

Serves 2

• ½ cup frozen (or fresh) blueberries
• ½ cup frozen (or fresh) raspberries
• 1/3 cup frozen (or fresh) peaches
• 2-3 tbsps. Organic almond butter
• ½ cup goat’s milk kefir
• ½ cup coconut water

Quick tip: If you are using frozen fruit and have a less-powerful blender, pour a small amount of room temperature water over the berries to soften them, and save yourself a few minutes. (Lastly, as always with berries, make sure you to check your teeth for seeds before heading out the door!)

Looking for something quick, tasty and easy to feed your hungry super bowl crowd? Look no further! I have 2 easy super bowl party apps that will knock your socks off.

It all starts with my original Best Black Bean Chili Recipe. You can make the chili now and freeze it, so all you have to do on game day is reheat and finish the appetizers. Could this get any easier?

Plus, this chili recipe is packed with healthy veggies, fiber, and can even be made meatless, so you can smile to yourself a little as your veggie-hating brother-in-law raves about it. Win-win.

2 Easy Super Bowl Party Apps

For each of these appetizer recipes, you’ll need about two cups of the Best Black Bean Chili. If you make it ahead and freeze it, you’ll need to take it out of the freezer the day before and allow it to thaw in the fridge. Heat the chili, on the stove or in the microwave until hot, before proceeding.

If you want, you can thicken the chili a bit before using it in these recipes, too. If you do, here’s how: Heat Best Black Bean Chili to boiling, then turn heat to simmer. Stir together 1/4 cup masa harina with 1/4 cup of the chili liquid. Stir with a fork until no lumps remain. Add masa harina mixture to hot chili and stir well to combine. Allow chili to simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until desired thickness. For even thicker chili, repeat procedure.

Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Potato Skins

Serves 6, doubles easily

You’ll need:

1-2 cups of Best Black Bean Chili, heated

3 small Idaho potatoes, scrubbed, baked, cooled (Bake the potatoes up to 3 days ahead and store in fridge until ready to use)

3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1-2 green onions, chopped

1/2 cup organic sour cream

1-2 tablespoons of fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon fresh lime zest

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl, mix together the sour cream, cilantro, lime juice and lime zest and set aside. Slice potatoes in half length-wise and scoop out some of the pulp from the middle, leaving a “shell” of potato with the skin attached. Sprinkle potatoes with a bit of salt and pepper, if desired. Reserve potato pulp for another use.

Put a few tablespoons of the Best Black Bean Chili into each of the potato skins. Top each potato skin evenly with the cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, or until potato is heated and cheese is melted. Top each potato skin with a dollop of the cilantro-lime sour cream and a sprinkle of green onion. Enjoy!

Hot 11 Layer 2 Bean Chili Dip

Serves 12

You’ll need:

About 2 cups of Best Black Bean Chili

2 cups of cornbread, crumbled (you can make the cornbread up to 2 days ahead and store in the fridge until ready to use)

1 can of organic refried beans such as Amy’s Vegetarian Organic Traditional Refried Beans

1-3 tablespoons water

3 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

1 cup Wild Oats Marketplace Organic Tequila Lime Salsa, or any salsa flavor you like

1 cup organic sour cream

2 cups shredded lettuce

1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes

1 cup diced avocado

1/4 cup each sliced black olives and green onions

Wild Oats Marketplace Organic Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips

Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl, stir together water and refrained beans, using just enough water to create a spreadable consistency, and set aside. Next, add crumbled cornbread to the bottom of a deep casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Top with chili. Dot refried bean mixture over chili mixture. Top all with about 2 cups of the cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, until mixture is bubbling and heated through and cheese is melted. Remove from oven and allow to stand for 10 minutes.

Top casserole with salsa, then dot with sour cream. Next, top with lettuce, tomato, remaining 1 cup shredded cheese, diced avocado, black olives and green onions. Serve with tortilla chips.

I am one of those people that always tries to buy the least processed version of whatever food I am purchasing. Seems like the healthiest and certainly the less toxic choice. That is probably true for most things, but maybe not when it comes to rice. If you have been following any of the current research on this versatile grain, you might be wondering what’s going on?

As a crop, the thing rice does best is take up water, and along with it any and all soluble elements in the soil. There is a certain amount of naturally occurring organic arsenic in almost all soil, and for most of the history of rice cultivation, that amount was insignificant. During the industrial revolution, big farming came into practice, and with it the heavy use of lead-arsenate pesticides on crops such as cotton. In areas of the US such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas, levels of inorganic arsenic in the soil began to rise. While these carcinogenic treatments were banned in the 80s, the components take around 45 years to begin to breakdown. Meanwhile the popularity and cultivation of rice, a well loved staple in the US and around the world, continues to grow, sucking up both inorganic and organic arsenic along with other nutrients just as it always has, finding its way onto our tables and into our food supply with greater and greater frequency. Hidden in things such as brown rice syrup, (a common replacement for high fructose corn syrup,) it is being ingested by adults and children alike, often without being recognized.

It’s especially important for parents of young children to be aware of the use of rice in snacks and cereals, since research has shown that children are far more susceptible to the impacts. High levels of arsenic exposure during childhood are associated with neurobehavioral problems as well as cancer and lung disease later in life. Is it really a problem? Well, you can decide for yourself, but the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry classifies inorganic arsenic (arsenic combined with an element other than carbon) as a “known human carcinogen.”

FDA recommends that children should avoid hot rice cereal, rice pasta, and rice drinks and that adults should stay away from brown rice, which on average has 80 percent more inorganic arsenic, the element’s more toxic form, than white rice.

In balance, it’s important to note that a little of anything (even arsenic) is ok.

If you are going to consume rice, you can minimize your risk by following these simple steps.

Wash your rice before cooking. Washing reduces the arsenic level in rice up to 30%. That’s a pretty significant reduction right there.

Buy white rather than Brown Rice. Brown Rice often has the highest levels of arsenic because the hull and bran are where toxins accumulate. In white rice that part is polished off during processing.

Look to see where your rice is grown. Rice grown in the Mississippi flood plains are as much as five times higher in arsenic than rice grown elsewhere in the US. Rice grown in Asia and India, also have higher levels.

White basmati rice from California, India, and Pakistan, and sushi rice from the U.S. on average has half of the inorganic-arsenic amount of most other types of rice.

More info:

Arsenic in rice- How concerned should you be?

Consumer reports – How much arsenic is in your rice?

NY Times – Deborah Bloom – The Trouble WIth Rice

Arsenic in rice, 11 facts you need to know

Arsenic in organic brown rice syrup

Mapping arsenic in groundwater

Sing this to the tune of “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”

You won’t get to bed with that iPad shining at your head!

That’s what some new research is telling us about taking that iPad, smart phone, Kindle or other bright-light e-readers to bed with us for nighttime reading.

While this isn’t totally brand new information, it does shine a light on exactly why these readers are keeping us from getting quality shut-eye.

And it all has to do with our body’s production of a “sleep” hormone called melatonin.

You can easily zap your melatonin production, and a good night’s sleep, by exposure to the wrong kind of light. And the perfect place to find that “wrong” light is what shines on your eyes from computers, phones and certain kinds of e-readers.

Especially in those valuable melatonin-producing hours before bedtime.

Researchers in this study gave volunteers either an iPad or a paper book to read for several hours before bedtime.

And the iPad users suffered a significant drop in melatonin production – they had up to 50 percent less of the hormone than those volunteers given the “real” paper books to read. But what was even more surprising, was how long that melatonin production got delayed in the iPad users – by over an hour and a half.

Neuroscientist Anne-Marie Chang, the study’s lead author from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, called that delay very significant, resulting in less REM sleep and feeling sleepy the next morning, even if you’ve had a full 8 hours.

Dr. Chang said her team wasn’t sure if the melatonin delay was caused by the brightness of the screen or the fact that some devices emit “blue light,” which is a known zapper of melatonin.

So if you want to sleep more soundly, and not give yourself a case of light-induced jet lag, here are some tips:

• If you must use an e-reader in the hours before bedtime, use one that doesn’t emit light (such as the original and least expensive Kindle.)
• If you have an iPad or other bright kind, turn the brightness down as far as possible.
• Try reading a real book on occasion – the one with the paper pages you turn!
• The same melatonin-disrupting light comes from your computer and smart phone, too. So try to not use those devices in the hours before bedtime.

And also remember that too much bright and blue light exposure at night can make you stay up way past bedtime as the light can “mask the sleepiness that your body may be feeling,” said Dr. Chang.

This should be one of the easiest, no brainer, decisions you can possibly make to keep yourself and your family healthy!  In a nutshell … if you will eat just one ounce of whole grains daily you will drop your risk of death by 5%!  One Ounce!

Whole grains are really good for you in so many ways.  We have talked about whole grains several times here at the Wild Oats Blog  –
●  Elizabeth gives you the basics of why the American Dietetic Association recommends whole grains.
●  Linda  gives you more information about determining how much whole grains you’ll find in different foods.

Plus, we have offered up many different blog posts that look at specific whole grains  …. oats, whole wheat, brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat and barley for sure.  We’ve even given you the list of whole grains that are also gluten free!

The new news?  In this month’s issue of JAMA, the Harvard School of Public Health published a study  looking specifically at mortality (death) in relationship to eating whole grains.  The study included 74,000 women and 44,000 men who were followed for over 20 years.  The study found that even one serving daily of whole grains decreased likelihood of death by 5%.  And, the “serving size” was only 1 ounce!

How easy is it to eat 1 ounce of whole grains daily?  Really easy!  Here are some examples:
●  2 tablespoons of oatmeal
●  2 tablespoons of brown rice
●  2 tablespoons of quinoa
●  2 tablespoons of buckwheat
●  a slice of rye bread
●  a slice of whole grain bread
●  2 tablespoons of Wild Oats Organic Quinoa and Brown Rice Blend which is super delicious!
●  1 individual cookie pack of Wild Oats Organic Oatmeal Cookies!

So, one serving a day for every member of your family (well, toddlers and older) of whole grains should fit easily and economically into your food plan.  Whole grains have extra benefits for heart health as well.  The same study showed a 9% decrease in risk of death from heart disease with the same one serving.

Oh, just to be clear  –  one serving daily is the “no brainer”.  Eating more than one is a perfectly fine, and healthy, idea.  Oatmeal cookies anyone?