Summer Snacks

Summer = happiness for many reasons, not least of which is delicious summer snacks.  One of my favorite quintessential summer snacks is fresh cantaloupe.  It's sweet, easy to prepare, pretty and thirst-quenching all rolled into one!  Ahhh....

Upon arriving home from work this evening, tired and a little bit grumpy, I opened the fridge for a snack.  I'd totally forgotten about the melon we bought this weekend at the grocery store, so it was a *sweet* (pun intended!) surprise to discover it!  Tasty cantaloupe = tired and grumpy no longer!

Not only is cantaloupe tasty, but it's good for you, too!  Cantaloupe is a great source of Vitamin A, folate (a water-soluble B-vitamin), B3, B6, Vitamin C, Potassium, Fiber, Vitamin K and more!  The chart below lists the % Daily Value each serving of cantaloupe provides, courtesy of "the world's healthiest foods" website.

Source

This site states the benefits of cantaloupe as including: promoting the health of lungs, preventing cardiovascular disease and reducing stress! I'm no doctor, but I can tell you that cantaloupe cured my case of the Wednesdays! ;)

So eat up and enjoy!

What's your favorite summer snack?

Dinner is Served!

Those who know me know that I very rarely cook.  I can count on my own fingers (possibly on one hand) the number of complete meals I've made.  I'm lucky enough to have married a wonderful husband who enjoys cooking and I really don't mind cleaning up (call me crazy but I find dish-washing sort of relaxing) so we make a good team in the kitchen.  Well, tonight I got home first and was starving so I decided to make dinner for a change.  Want to see what I made?

Veggie burger on wheat bread (topped with mustard & bell peppers)

Steamed broccoli

Butternut squash souffle

Baked potato wedges

What do you think?  It's not the most elaborate meal, but it was easy to make, relatively healthy and pretty tasty!  Not too shabby for a Tuesday night dinner if I do say so myself!  ;)

Sugar... not so sweet after all??

I just watched a segment from a recent 60 Minutes episode that I had to share:

Oh how I love sugar!  Life at our home typically includes me eating sugar in some form or another (ice cream, applesauce, fruit chews, peanut butter granola bars).  But after watching this clip I might start thinking twice about my love affair with Nutella.  According to recent research studies:

• Sugar consumption is linked to 75% of preventable obesity, Type II diabetes, hypertension & heart disease.
• Americans consume 130 lbs of sugar per person per year (which is 1/3 lb per day - yikes!!)
• Sugar consumption increases LDL levels and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, after only 2 weeks of consumption.  When you consume too many sweets your liver gets overloaded with fructose so it converts some of the frucstose to fat.  The fat ends up in the blood stream, creates bad LDL, forms blocks in arteries and causes heart attacks.
• Sugar intake may also correlate with cancer development, due to spikes in insulin.  Insulin can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain cancer types.  Nearly 1/3 of some common cancers (incl. breast and colon) have insulin receptors that use glucose to grow.
• The brain responds to sugar in a similar way as it does to cocaine.  Like with drug use, we build up resistance to sugar so we need more and more over time to feel the same effects.
• Regular table sugar (and sugar in foods like bread and peanut butter) can be just as harmful as high fructose corn syrup.

 Now that I'm aware of how toxic sugar may be, I'm going to resurrect my new year's resolution of eating healthier.  Or at least I'll try.  ;)