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Our arsenal of 30-minute meals is your ticket to getting a satisfying dinner on the table, fast. From stir-fries and curries to pastas and salads, here are 20 veggie-filled weeknight dinners you can get on the table in half an hour or less.
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When times are tough and stress is high, there are a number of things people rely on to relieve the tension. And it’s always nice to have an arsenal of things you can go to instead of just one. For some that means meditation or yoga, for others it might mean going for a run or taking a hot shower. But there’s one thing I imagine many of us do: lean on food for a little comfort.
Different stressful situations may elicit different types of comfort food, but I’m curious to know if there is a thread among our readers of similar foods or recipes they rely on no matter the situation. Care to share what you eat (or drink)?
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For my daughter’s first birthday party a few years ago, I went all out and made an entire multi-dish lunch and cake from scratch. It was super stressful and just not necessary. For her next two parties, I decided we would just get pizzas delivered and I would focus my attention on the cake instead, which was much more manageable and fun.
When ordering the pizzas for the parties, I asked the restaurant to do one extra thing for me, and it’s something that I highly recommend all parents do!
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In January we explored Whole30, the 30-day reset and refocus on whole foods. Whole30 isn’t a diet or a judgment of foods as “good and bad.” It’s actually a short-term reset that has helped many of our readers cook more and figure out the foods that make them feel their best. Here’s a final takeaway from Ariel, one of our editors, who went through the whole program — and cooked a lot more.
Before I embarked on Whole30 this past January, the only thing I could focus on were the things I wasn’t allowed to eat. No added sugar, no booze, no cheese, no bread — that will be the hard part, I thought. But after completing the program a couple weeks ago, I can say the biggest challenge (and also the biggest reward) was cooking every single meal.
What the books and the Whole30 website don’t emphasize for first-timers is just how much cooking is actually required for a successful 30 days. If you want to be super strict about the program — and I mean no added sugar or any trace of soy — then you really have to cook almost everything from scratch. I knew meal planning was important to the program, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of work it would take.
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For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering questions from the comment section of last week’s fasting post. You guys brought up some great points, and I’ll be addressing some of them. First up, do you need to follow a vegan diet to maintain the health benefits of long fasts? Second, I give a tip or two for appetite suppression during the fast. Then I discuss my definition of a long fast, the potential effect of fasting on gut bacteria (and whether we should consume prebiotics and probiotics while fasting), the reason why fasting makes some people have short fuses, and whether green tea k0mbucha breaks the fast.
Let’s go:
Mark–For the autoimmune case reports, you failed to mention that the patients preceded and followed the fast with a vegan diet, and that the authors conclude the paper by saying a vegan diet appears to be necessary to sustain the results.
Good catch, Margaret. I saw that, knew someone would mention it, and decided to address the inevitable query in a Dear Mark rather than drag it out in the middle of a post.
For one, these are case studies, and case studies notoriously lack the ability to imply causality or make conclusions. They are rigorously-recorded anecdotes containing a seed of a hypothesis for further, more serious study. So even though all the subjects followed a vegan diet, and the authors opine that such diets are necessary for long-term maintenance, we don’t have anything to compare it to. The same applies to the long fast, of course—the case studies can’t establish whether the fasts are actually responsible for the improvements.
Second, my guess is that they’re just assuming the validity of the conventional wisdom. “Of course, vegan diets are the healthiest, least inflammatory diet in the world, so let’s have these recovering fasters follow the healthiest diet in the world.” Is it really necessary?
Your “average” vegan gets more of certain nutrients than your average omnivore, particularly folate, magnesium, vitamins C and E, copper, and fiber. Your average omnivore gets more protein, vitamin D, vitamins B2 and B12, zinc, and iodine than everyone else. Fish eaters eat the most calcium and selenium.
Why not be all three?
There’s certainly strong evidence that healthy omnivorous diets aren’t any worse than plant-based ones for cancer risk, and sometimes they’re better.
Unless the contention is that the recommendations for adequate intake of vitamin D, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, protein, zinc, iodine, calcium, and selenium don’t apply to patients with autoimmune disease….
Lifelong vegetarianism has no effect on breast cancer risk, nor does it affect prostate, colorectal, or (again) breast cancer risk. If anything, “vegetarians” who eat fish have a lower risk of colorectal cancer than strict vegetarians.
For rheumatoid arthritis—the autoimmune disease featured most prominently among the case studies—removing gluten might be the crucial piece of these plant-based diets. A gluten-free vegetarian diet improved symptoms in RA patients, for example, and another gluten-free vegan diet reduced symptoms and improved biomarkers in RA patients. As immunoreactivity to dietary allergens reduced, so did RA symptoms.
Could you get the same results by keeping the gluten out and adding some wild caught salmon and pastured eggs to go with your “vegan” diet? I think so, and I hope we find out for sure some day.
I occasionally do a fast for 24 hours. For an appetite suppressant, I drink ginger tea made from boiling chopped ginger root. Do any of you have suggestions for other appetite suppressants?
Coffee is a good appetite suppressant. The literature is mixed, but caffeine seems to reduce food intake, probably due to increased lipolysis. With more body fat available for burning, you have less desire for food.
Staying active might be the best, though. Not active as in hiking the Appalachian trail or taking CrossFit classes. Active as in busy. Engaged. Walking, working, reading, creating, gardening. Keep mind and body busy, and your thoughts will be less likely to stray toward boredom-induced hunger.
What is considered a long fast. My usual is 36-45ish, that still be considered short?
In my book, a long fast lasts at least three days. But even two days is “long” for most people. Heck, skipping lunch is absolutely bonkers these days.
What’s the impact of extended fasting on gut flora (the microbiome)? Those lifeforms are obviously going to be stressed, perhaps to net benefit, but that would be conjecture.
And if there are hazards there, could they be mitigated by supplementing with probiotics and daily non-caloric prebiotic fiber to keep the critters happy?
Fasts can be good for us. Maybe a fast is good for those tiny guys living in your gut, too. They’ve co-evolved with humans, relying on us for food. We don’t always get food, so they must be adapted to occasional bouts of not getting any either. They may also be adapted to our current practice of perpetual snacking, given that bacterial generations can be as short as 20 minutes and evolution happens rapidly. (Although since bacterial generations can be as short as 15-20 minutes, perhaps they’ve adapted to the grazing.)
Also, many species of gut bacteria feed on mucin produced by the gut lining. This isn’t sustainable in perpetuity, as mucin maintains the integrity of the gut lining, but there’s no problem for a few days. They’re equipped for it. A 2015 study on “fasting”—mostly fasting with some low-calorie soups and juices—found big increases in mucin-degrading bacteria.
I’ve used a three days fast to clear up some pretty bad stomach issues. Whenever my dogs have diarrhea, I fast them for least a whole day and it always clears up. If “lack of diarrhea” indicates good gut health, I’d say fasting has a neutral or beneficial effect—at least if there’s an existing problem.
Hold off on the probiotics and prebiotics until you’re back. It probably wouldn’t hurt, but I’m interested in fasting the bugs, too.
One thing worth considering with longer fasts is the effect (or possible effect) on mood/personality… I saw Rachel Hunter (on her tv series Tour of Beauty) do a week or 2 fast and she admitted that she got very angry/aggressive/ easily annoyed etc… However she wasn’t primal/paleo to begin with so maybe someone who is already a fat-burning-beast wouldn’t have such side effects, and it was a “TV Series” so I’m not sure how much faith we can put in that, but she did seem genuinely irritable (maybe try meditation, yoga etc when doing longer faster for your family’s sake ?
That’s certainly possible, but I find—and the research backs this up—longer fasts imbue me with euphoria. It’s tough to get angry when the mundane suddenly seems profound. The most likely explanation is exactly your instinct: She wasn’t an effective fat burner. Fat-burners hit the ground running. They can tap into their fat stores and avoid the worst of it. Sugar-burners will go through major withdrawals and deal with a terrible case of low-carb flu.
My question is about the use of green tea Kombucha during an extended fast – would this be something you recommend as I have been using it for a while now and love it…?
Sure. As long as the kombucha culture has digested the majority of the sugar, and there’s not enough residual sugar to break your fast, it should be fine.
The green tea component of the kombucha could actually be really helpful. One study found that green tea protects against the fasting-induced damage to the intestinal lining during a 3-day fast.
Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!
The post Dear Mark: Fasting Followup appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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Oven roasting brings out the best in all vegetables, including Brussels sprouts. The oven’s heat caramelizes the Brussels sprout’s leaves, turning them lacy and crisp while tenderizing their tough core. And that’s just with a basic sprinkling of salt and pepper! Once roasted, Brussels sprouts can be served as a side straight from the oven, or you can toss them with a few other kitchen staples to turn them into a showy number studded with bacon and glazed with honey.
Oven-roasted Brussels sprouts require three things: a hot oven, halved and trimmed Brussels sprouts, and enough time for the sprouts to transform into tender, tasty morsels. You’ll need a good baking sheet and some oil, salt, and pepper, but anything else is superfluous. Here’s how to get the very best Brussels sprouts by oven roasting.
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Snow days with kids aren’t what you might call relaxing. In fact, some parents have been known to, shall we say, flip out over the prospect of holing up with their youngsters for umpteen hours of cartoons, Play-Doh crumbles all over the floor, and fights about how big so-and-so’s thumb is compared to his or her sibling’s.
We get it. It’s a lot.
That said, if you embrace the snowy weather with some indulgent, kid-approved snacks and food activities, you might enjoy your wintery sojurn a little more. At least until bedtime, when it’s cocktail time for parents.
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Okay, so a half hour might not be enough time to deep clean your entire kitchen. But when a full-blown, floor-to-ceiling cleaning session is out of the question, this 30-minute routine will keep your space tidy, sanitary, and usable. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a “nearly spotless” kitchen.
Set your timer and get going.
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Kids think it’s funny to mess with adults. It’s just the way of the world. They think it’s hysterical to prank call their parents, hide their grandparents’ remote controls, and hide from the teacher during roll call. They also think it’s adorable to not try new foods at the dinner table that they will willingly eat at the cafeteria at lunch.
So, how are you supposed to get your kids to eat new things? I have a slightly sneaky way that actually works.
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Sweet Chinese hoisin sauce makes a great pairing with chicken. Add in a few other pantry staples like honey, soy sauce, and a big pinch of black pepper, and it has an almost teriyaki-like flavor with no fuss. Cook everything together in a slow cooker, and you end up with tender chicken infused with that irresistible flavor. How you serve this chicken is up to you — in a rice bowl, on a tangle of noodles, on top of a salad, or wrapped in lettuce leaves are just a few options once your hoisin chicken comes out of the slow cooker. It’s really only here to help!
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