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The whole Truth

Words from a Holistic Health Counselor and Natural Chef

by Eating Bird Food on October 15, 2010

Happy Friday friends. The conference is officially over and I’m flying home as I type this. I’m super pumped to get to see Isaac and Olive tonight – I’ve missed my two amigos.

I took photos of my convention center eats on Wednesday to share with you all, but the quality is awful (in more ways than one) and I wasn’t sure how interested you’d be in seeing them. Let me know and I’ll post them if your interested, but skip them if you’re not. Anyhow, yesterday I was able to head to Los Angeles after the convention ended and spend time with my friend Laurel. She took me to an organic cafe called Green Peas for dinner and of course, I loved it! She knows my tastes well!

If you’re ever in the L.A. area, I highly recommend Green Peas – we spilt a vegan mushroom pizza with Daiya cheese and a raw kale salad with tomato basil soup! Everything was so delicious! I loved the kale salad and I hadn’t ever had Daiya cheese before! Now I see what all the hype is about – it melted just as a normal cheese would and tasted like the real thing. The only issue we had is that it sticks to your teeth, but that’s not a deal breaker because the taste is spot on. If you’re dairy free and haven’t tried it yet, I’d definitely recommend it.

Later we went for fancy pants drinks at a bar called Big Foot Lodge. Drinks we tried included the Blackberry Pepper Bramble, a unique pepper infused gin coupled with blackberry liqueur, lemon juice and soda water and Violet Vapor, a drink with creme de violet liqueur and champagne with a lemon twist.

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Dinner and drinks with a good friend turned out to be a perfect way to end the trip.

In others news, I want to share with you all an interview I was able to conduct recently with Andrea Beaman. I know I’ve mentioned Andrea and her book, The Whole Truth Eating and Recipe Guide several times, but just to reiterate, she is a Holistic Health Counselor and Natural Chef with a radiating passion for healthy eating.

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I feel very lucky to have had the pleasure of interviewing Andrea and I’m excited to share her thoughts with you all!

So without further ado…

1.) You’re now an author, the star of a t.v. show, a holistic health counselor and also teach cooking classes! How and when did you get involved with this career and were you doing something else previously? If so, what?
Prior to taking on my health, I was working at MTV Networks. I loved my job. It was fun. But, when thyroid disease appeared in my life, it brought me to a higher calling – “Healer/Teacher.”

2.) You have what I would consider a “dream job.” Tell me, what exactly does your typical work day look like?
I certainly do not have a “typical” work day! Everyday there is something new to work on. I am my own boss and have been self-employed since I quit my corporate job over 10 years ago. My day always starts with stretching (yoga or Chinese meridian stretches) and meditation. After that, I am ready for work. My daily work can consist of many things: Answering email questions from clients, answering website inquiries, one on one health coaching with clients or biz-coaching with students, editing my 3rd book, editing/creating video blogs for my website, business Meetings (usually via phone), creating new recipes for websites/classes.

3.) I remember seeing you on the First Season of Top Chef back in 2006. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience as a natural chef on a mainstream cooking show?

My experience on Top Chef was awesome. I’m home-schooled and my approach to food is via health first. I loved working with the other chefs and watching how they create things (making plates look appealing, techniques, styles). Being on Top Chef solidified for me what I already know… I have zero desire to work in a restaurant kitchen. My passion lies in teaching people how and why to cook wholesome meals.

4.) What is your food philosophy?

Eat food that is local, seasonal, naturally raised and lovingly prepared. Eat what your body tells you it needs, not what your head says you need. Get your head out of the diet/philosophy books and get your body into the kitchen.

5.) When someone is just getting started with eating healthy what do you recommend as the first step?

The first step is always to clean up the quality of your food. Get rid of the highly processed, chemical-laden crap and start eating real food that looks like food. Examples… eat a piece of fruit instead of a fruit roll up, eat a potato instead of potato chips.

6.) What is your argument when someone says eating healthy is too expensive?

When someone tells me that eating healthy is too expensive I tell them they are worth it! And, then I ask them to look at the clothes and shoes they are wearing. Focus on making the internal body look as good as the external body.

7.) Do you exercise? If so, what’s your normal routine like?

Yoga or stretching in the AM. Daily walk (40-50 minutes) and jog 1-2x per week.

8.) I have your book The Whole Truth and really enjoy it. When is your newest book Health is Wealth due out?

My next book is due out before the holidays! It would make a great Holiday gift

9.) Will you share one of your favorite recipes?

My favorite recipes change all year round. As the seasons change so does the food I eat. Right now it is fall in NY. Squash Season. Here is one of my faves – Creamy Squash Ginger Soup (And as the weather gets colder I would change the “water” in the recipe to “chicken stock”)

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10.) Do you have any other information you would like to share with EatingBirdFood readers?
Eat food that is delicious and nourishing. You are worth it!

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I hope you all enjoyed learning more about Andrea and what it’s like to be a full-time health counselor and chef. Be sure to check out her website and books if you are interested in learning how she healed herself through healthy eating. And, I can attest to the fact that her recipes are super tasty so be sure to check those out as well!

I was particularly excited about interviewing her because I’ve always been interested in having a career based around nutrition, health and wellness. I even enrolled in a local ADA accredited program last summer and took a couple courses before realizing that getting an RD license didn’t fully align with my goals. However, I found out about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN), which is the school Andrea received her certification through. I’m now connected with many IIN students and graduates who have throughly enjoyed their experience with the school, including Isaac’s mom!

And, DRUM ROLL please…. I have enrolled myself in their distance education program!!! Classes actually start next Monday, October 18! I’ll be learning everything about nutrition and health and when I graduate, I will be a certified holistic health counselor with the credentials to coach clients on how to take control of their health, cook delicious and healthy meals and lose weight! What I love about that program is that I can already tell from reading over the materials that it aligns perfectly with my thoughts on food and eating. One of the main principals is bio-individually and the fact that we are all different and what works for one person may not work for another. I’ve always been drawn to holistic (natural) practices and think that it’s the best approach to take in all aspects of health and wellness, including the way we eat. Overall, I’m just really excited about this journey and I can’t wait to share it with you all!!

Have a spectacular Friday and enjoy your weekend.

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Another Weekend, Another Wedding

by eatingbirdfood on August 2, 2009

Until this year I hadn’t been to a wedding in quite some time, but now it seems like every weekend someone else is either having their wedding, getting engaged, hosting a shower/bachelorette, or talking about their wedding. Saturday Isaac’s cousins got hitched in Norfolk on the water. We decided to head up early to get a little beach (bay) time in before all the shenanigans started at 6:00.

After hitting up the gym, packing, and dropping off Olive at a friends and then we were on our way. I still haven’t eaten a full breakfast (just a slice of toast) so I brought some greens in a cup along for the ride.

I got these samples from the nice folks at Amazing Grass a while ago. I tried the All Natural Green SuperFood mixed with water and to put it frankly, it wasn’t my cup of tea. It simply didn’t taste good. Even if something is really healthy, it has to taste good or else I’m not going to eat it – end of story. There are way too many healthy foods that taste good to eat foods that don’t So, I put the rest of the samples in a kitchen draw and kind of forgot about them. Yesterday I was getting ready to make a smoothie for breakfast and realized I was out of chocolate protein powde r so I thought I would give the Amazing Grass Chocolate GREEN SuperFood a try.

I made a purple smoothie.

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup of frozen blueberries
1 frozen banana
1 tablespoon chia seeds
3 pieces of ice
Amazing Grass Chocolate GREEN SuperFood

The smoothie ended up kind of looking like tar but I was okay with it because it tasted awesome. I could taste the SuperFood powder, but it wasn’t over powering and the sweetness of the smoothie worked to my advantage. I think I found a good way to put my Amazing Grass samples to use. Score!

I also packed some good reading material. Oxygen, a cookbook Isaac bought for me from an auction at school, and The Whole Truth – an awesome book/cookbook Isaac’s mom gave me this autographed copy after receiving it at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.

The Whole Truth is probably one of my top 3 cookbooks. I’ve had this two part eating guide and cookbook for over 2 years now and I absolutely love it. Andrea Beaman, a graduate from IIN and the Kushi Institue, is both a Holistic Health Counselor and a natural chef. She sums up in about 100 pages how to eat for your health. Her eating guide is a quick read with brief chapters like Seasonal Sustenance, Sugar Plum Fairies, Pickle-licious Food and The Sea Inside. She explains why each each category of food is important and ends the chapter with Tasty Tidbits, the key points to take away. These are quite helpful because without rereading the book you can easily remind yourself of the key points again. There’s literally so much good information in the book and all the recipes I have tried were easy to make and have turned out great. A few the recipes I have posted on my blog have been inspired by this cookbook- off the top of my head I know that the Brown Rice Porridge and the Brown Rice Krispiees were. PLUS, there’s even a recipe for a banana icecream with walnuts, very similar to the recipe for the banana softserve that Gena made famous.

After some quality car time, we finally arrived to the hotel, lounged around and then got ready for the wedding.

Here we are, all dolled up before the wedding. It was a Jewish influenced ceremony (the Bride is Jewish) with a Chuppah and the breaking of the wine glass- simply beautiful. The groom was a big softy and was crying even before the bride walked down the aisle- so sweet. I can’t say anything because I was crying too.

After the ceremony, the party begin with cocktail hour. I had a glass of pinot noir before being seated and then moved on to black russians (kahula and vodka) for the rest of the night. These are so good. Almost too good, considering I can’t remember how many I had….

The reception was very well planned and the food came out soon after cocktail hour.

To start- a house salad with raspberry vinegarette.

The entree had both salmon and spinach stuffed chicken, roasted potatoes and green beans. I gave my chicken to Isaac and ate the rest and it was quite delicious.

For dessert, of course there was cake. I’m not a huge cake person, more of an ice cream girl really, but I was feeling the cake last night so I snagged a piece. So glad I did, it was super moist yellow cake with raspberry filling- awesome!

Here’s one of the bride (Isaac’s cousin, Rachel) and the Groom (Daniel) cutting the cake.

There was also a groom’s cake, which is too cute not to share. This cake sums up the groom very well- he is German and loves all things technical, namely computer programming (notice the linux penguin) “Ich Lieve Dich” is I love you in German.

They had a really great band so Isaac and I spend most of the time on the dance floor, only breaking for crazy pictures like this.

It was a lovely night! We woke up this morning and my tummy wasn’t feeling so good from all the drinks. I hit up the hotel gym for some detox. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill and about 15 minutes of arms. It felt good to sweat out some of the alcohol still in my system- gross!

We ate brunch at the hotel and then hopped back in the car for the drive home. And now, we’re home sweet home with Ms. Olive.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

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Brown Rice Crispy Balls

May 4, 2008

I went over an hung out with Isaac’s mom last night… such a cool lady btw. She and I decided to make a treat for dessert from Andrea Beaman’s The Whole Truth. We modified the recipe because we thought we had brown rice syrup but couldn’t find it anywhere in the kitchen after searching high [...]