Easy Healthy Recipes: Healthy Eating in College, Part 2

There is a wonderful article on Easy Healthy Recipes in college from the Cooking Light Magazine. It is a worthy read.

However, I suggest two wonderful books for any college students who want to enjoy delicious meals. The book offers easy way to cook, save money, and your friends will beg you to cook again. This is a great way to take good care of yourself and impress anybody.

You can get it at Amazon.com. The book is The Healthy College Cookbook and Cooking Outside the Pizza Box.

From my experience, I buy bag of almonds and sneak the fruits out of the cafeteria every time. From time to time, I buy hummus and multi-grain crackers. It is appetizing and you don't feel stuffed. It is always in my room and when I get hungry I eat nuts and fruits. It prevent me from binging out of snack machine or order in. It also save money that way, too.

Have a pitcher of water is also great way to keep yourself hydrate. It beat buying bottled water. Read Fast Company magazine report on the bottled water. It is a great article about bottled water. You will be surprise when you read about the Fiji water. Now, I have no problem drinking water from the tap.

Read first part of Eating Healthy in College.

Apple Spice-Raisin Snack Mix

Ingredients

3 cups whole grain oat cereal squares
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons apple pie spice
no-stick cooking spray
1 (11.5-ounce) can dry-roasted mixed nuts
1 cup raisins

Preparation

Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium bowl. Coat cereal mixture evenly with cooking spray. Transfer to an aluminum foil-lined jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 350° for 7 minutes. Stir mixture, and coat evenly with cooking spray. Bake 7 more minutes. Stir in nuts and raisins. Cool. Store mixture in an airtight container.

Courtesy of Southern Living magazine

Toasted Hazelnut and Shredded Carrot Salad

Ingredients

1/2 cup peeled hazelnuts, roughly chopped
1 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, eyeball it
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound shredded carrots
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup currants or black raisins
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, a couple of handfuls

Preparation

Place a small skillet over medium heat, add the
chopped hazelnuts and toast until golden, stirring and flipping them about for
about 5 minutes. While the nuts are toasting, juice the lemon into a salad bowl
and add the mustard and some salt and pepper. Whisk in the extra-virgin olive oil
in a slow steady stream. Add the shredded carrots, red onion, currants and
parsley. Toss to coat in the dressing and sprinkle with the toasted hazelnuts

Courtesy of Rachael Ray and the

Easy Healthy Recipes - Organic Foods Explained

Redux

The organic food is not new. It is more of a new realization in 1990s. We came to a better knowledge of how conventional food differs. It all start in 1940s during the World War II period when the armed force used the chemical such as ammonium nitrate use for explosive has found that it help fertilize the crops. The variety chemicals using by armed force shift to the use for agricultural. The conventional food transform our life because of wonderful discover that chemicals increase the production capability. It elevate our ability to do more than what traditional life has offer over slow, manual, and the timing of seasonal replace with fast, automatic and demand on time.

Definition

By definition, organic food is category as produced without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, genetic engineering, growth hormones, irradiations, and antibiotics. In groceries, the organic food can be misleading by the brand packing. The "100% organic" on the package means that the produces and meats use all organic ingredients. "Made with organic ingredients" use 70% of organic ingredients. The "organic" on the package mean there are 95% of organic ingredients. Seldom, you will see a package with word, transitional, is the business that communicate that the organization and the farmer has a 3 years planning of going from conventional to organic in farming. It is always good to follow "USDA Organic" on the package. The government has a role in organic produces and meat also impose the standard for the farmer to abide in develop an organic food.

Changes

The conventional food has raise our knowledge of potential risks it may cause by synthetic fertilizer and pesticide thus the organic farmer has take a closer look and reinvent the better way to grow their produces through innovation biology. The farmers have replaced the conventional method by using natural fertilizer to feed the soil. Bring in the insect predator such as bee to prevent the other insects attacking the crops and promote pollinating. The farmer invests more energy to understand the science of cropping. With better knowledge of farming, the farmer use crop rotation, mechanical tillage, and management is more manual by hand pulling the weeds.

The assets of organic farming has contribution to restore an ecological balance that help conserve energy and protect the environment as result of prevent soil fertility or pest problems. Through ecological conscious, it improves biodiversity by having better genetic pool to increase the plants and animal species. The reduce of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides usage, the agriculture is up-bring naturally that it help prevent the nutrient losses and it also reduce the greenhouse effect that cause the global warming.

Drawbacks

We acknowledge that organic produces and meat has play a great health role in assisting our body by provide quality nutrients that is free of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides which is known cause cancer risks. On other side of coin, organic produce and meats have its own drawback. Since the organic farmer has decide to use natural fertilizer. One of natural fertilizer is using the manure. The use of manure may spread the contaminants if mishandled. Fungicides are not allowed since it is chemical treatment approach and we may risk getting mycotoxins from molds in foods. The meat may have E. coli bacteria since the animal are to be free of antibiotic. Bioengineering such as genetic manipulation in produces and meats are considered conventional. The bioengineering aims to solve world hunger problems and be able to grow anytime and anywhere with higher quality of nutrients packed in food. The resist of conventional method may affect the demand for food. Also by not allowing the chemical treatment to be used and the chance of shelf life of food life shortens. Organic food is expensive since the supply is small that create higher demand. The labor for organic food is greater thus it increase the production costs.

Changing and Growing

The increase of obesity and the knowledge of healthy responsible has drive us to take care of ourselves better by exercise and proper eating. The countries are already facing the threats of global warming that force us to change the way we do with our daily living such as recycling, reduce the transportation that use fuel, and conserve the water. Our knowledge are better than ever and the procedure of organic farming has got better and is oversee under strict standard. This has reduce the downside of organic farming and put the conventional farming to a shame.

Closing

In order to create a easy healthy recipes, the quality of nutrients we get are important in create a gourmet and healthy meal. The advance of knowledge and technological has make our cooking easy. Healthy recipes has grown daily due to the demand to living a higher and better quality of life. The preparation of meal has got better because it is free of synthetic chemical that may has damage the natural flavoring. We are shift to natural living and to live to its simple ingredients at its finest.

Hawaiian Chicken Kabobs

Ingredients

* 3 tablespoons soy sauce
* 2 tablespoons sherry
* 1 tablespoon sesame oil
* 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
* 8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 2 inch pieces
* 1 (20 ounce) can pineapple chunks, drained (in natural juice or water)
* skewers


Directions

1. In a shallow glass dish, mix the soy sauce, sherry, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic powder. Stir the chicken pieces and pineapple into the marinade until well coated. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours.
2. Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Thread chicken and pineapple alternately onto skewers. Grill 15 to 20 minutes, turning occasionally, or until chicken juices run clear.

Recipe courtesy of allrecipes.

*This recipe has been modified to match the Easy Healthy Recipes criteria

Easy Healthy Recipes Criteria

Criteria for Easy Healthy Recipes

1. It will be easy to prepare
2. It will be healthy which are free of trans fatty acid and high fructose sugar
3. It will take protein and complex carbohydrate in considerate
4. It will be sensitive for those who are conscious about the budget
5. It will taste great
5. Easy Healthy Recipes will be exciting and fun