http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

Pinterest is full of aspirational kids’ parties with themes like rainbows and Mickey Mouse, and those are darling. But to my mind, nothing is quite as cool or charming as a child’s birthday party with an utterly off-the-wall theme that the kid obviously came up with on their own.

I will never forget the kid whose birthday party theme was a local personal-injury lawyer. One boy even had a Geico Insurance-themed 4th birthday party. And last year a little girl had a Costco-themed birthday party, complete with all the free samples. (If adults can get married at Costco, kids’ birthday parties are fair game.)

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

My two kids go through the weirdest seasons with vegetables (currently we are living through a roasted broccoli and baby carrot season — if either of those appear on the table, they disappear quickly). But in an effort to beat my own dinner boredom and to keep them exposed to other vegetables, I’ve gathered up inspiration for 10 veggie-based sides that I’m sure they will love (and hopefully you and your kids will too!).

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

The Great British Bake Off can be a portal into a magical world of British food shows. My British television journey kicked off with years of Nigella and Sophie Dahl wandering through spiffy kitchens, making squidgy sweets, and introducing me to a universe of treacle and golden syrup and self-deprecating British humor.

Years later The Great British Bake Off stole my heart, and reminded me that there’s so much great British food programming that we don’t typically have access to on American TV. If you, like me, are done binge-watching GBBO and need a palate cleanser before you start it again (Netflix, we need more seasons, stat!), I’ve got the solution. Taste test these five completely scrumptious shows, where you’ll come across a few familiar faces.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

Fun fact of the day: Sur la Table is currently offering 20 percent off on products across its site (as well as free shipping if you spend $59 or more). The sale applies to just about everything you’d need in the kitchen — like prep tools, cookware, serving pieces, and even the food itself.

There’s a lot of stuff to sift through, so we decided to highlight our top picks to give you a head start. First, a little of the fine print: The sale excludes some full-priced items, as well as all sale and clearance items. To get the discount, you just have to use code “SPRING18” at checkout.

Got it? Now get shopping.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

As a parent, I love pasta more than I ever thought possible. I keep plenty in the pantry and it solves many dinner (and lunch, and occasionally breakfast) dilemmas. Got a picky eater? Pasta. Trying to introduce a new food? Pasta. Just need a dinner that everyone will love so the dinner table is quiet? Pasta!

There is a subtle art to making a pasta dinner that is tasty enough to satisfy grown-ups without alienating tiny diners. (I’m not saying we shouldn’t serve kiddos grown-up foods, but smaller palettes are more sensitive to taste, and even the most gregarious eaters can have picky seasons.)

So we asked some of our favorite foodie parents for their best pasta advice, and this is what they had to say about the art of serving pasta for dinner.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

If you get them, abbreviated summer hours are a great corporate perk; they offer you the chance to get out of the cubicle and kick off your weekend early to enjoy some of the great weather.

Or — hear me out on this — you could take advantage of the extra free time on a summer Friday to get a head start on housework.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

I hate to play favorites, but of all the things I make in the slow cooker, chicken dinners are tops. Whether you have a pack of bone-in or boneless thighs, lean breast, the whole bird, or even ground chicken, there’s a recipe to help you turn it into dinner.

From takeout favorites to meal prep miracles to comforting, wholesome dinners, these are our best slow cooker recipes for chicken.

READ MORE »

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

Every country has its own particular foods, and you can get as much of a local sampling by hitting the grocery store as you can from a street food vendor. I haven’t been to London in almost 10 years, but I remember the thrill of discovering that “crisps” were potato chips — and that they came in an array of flavors I’d never heard of before.

These days, you obviously don’t even have to take a flight if you want to try out the fun snacks from any given country. (Thanks, internet!) With that — and the royal wedding — in mind, I reached out to my friends here and across the pond to see what British snacks we should all be buying online. Order them today and enjoy them during the royal wedding or while the happy couple is off on their honeymoon.

READ MORE »

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Insulin does a lot of important things for us. It pulls glucose from the blood and fritters it away into our cells to be burned for energy or stored as glycogen. It prevents hyperglycemic toxicity to neurons, pancreatic cells, the arterial walls and the generation of excessive levels of reactive oxygen species. It even promotes muscle protein synthesis and helps augment muscular hypertrophy, especially following resistance training. Clearly, we need insulin. Without it, we’d die, as type 1 diabetics readily do without an exogenous source.

But this process goes off the rails when our cells become resistant to the effect of insulin over time. We secrete too much. Our levels remain elevated. It becomes harder to burn body fat. In fact, we end up in even more efficient fat storage mode.

I’ve shared about nutritional means to enhance insulin sensitivity in the past. What about other non-dietary strategies?

Lose Weight

Since insulin resistance is often the body’s response to energy excess (too much energy in), losing weight (increasing energy out) improves insulin sensitivity. Losing abdominal fat is particularly effective for increasing insulin sensitivity.

Lift Weights

Lifting heavy things, particularly with great intensity, improves insulin sensitivity by an interesting mechanism: non-insulin dependent glucose uptake happens immediately after the workout, which allows your muscles to replenish glycogen without insulin. According to some researchers, “the effect of exercise is similar to the action of insulin on glucose uptake.” I’d say not having to secrete any insulin makes you effectively insulin-sensitive.

Practice Sprint Intervals

An overloaded, energy-replete cell is an insulin resistant cell. An empty, “starving” cell is an insulin sensitive cell. Any exercise that burns glycogen and leaves your muscles empty and gaping for more will necessarily increase insulin sensitivity.

I can’t think of a faster way to burn through your glycogen than with a high intensity interval training session. Hill sprints or rower sprints are sufficiently intense and comprehensive.

Do Full Body, High Volume, High Intensity Training

Glycogen depletion occurs locally: high rep leg presses will deplete leg muscle glycogen, but they won’t touch glycogen in your arms, chest, and back. To fully deplete all the glycogen, you need to do full-body movements.

CrossFit WODs and other similar metcon workouts that have you doing pullups, squats, sprints, pushups, box jumps, and other compound movements—at high volume, in the same workout, and with minimal rest—will drain your glycogen stores and reduce the amount of insulin you need to replenish them.

Trigger Your Relaxation Response

Maybe it’s the quieting of the sympathetic nervous system, the “flight or flight” stress pathway. Maybe brief glimpses of bodhi reduce the amount of insulin required to dispose of glucose. Whatever’s going on, meditation (and likely other relaxation response inducing activities) improves insulin sensitivity.

Trigger Some Oxytocin

So, researchers might have used intranasal oxytocin for their purposes. But oxytocin is what we secrete in response to positive social interactions like sex, good conversation, dinner parties, breastfeeding, cuddling, and petting animals.

Ensure Adequate, Quality Sleep

If you’re coming from a place of already-adequate sleep, getting better sleep isn’t necessarily going to help your insulin sensitivity (although it might confer other benefits). It’s the absence of adequate sleep that destroys insulin sensitivity. By sleeping well, you’re restoring what was lost.

Train At Altitude

One study found that altitude hiking at 4500 meters improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. This isn’t feasible for everyone (4500 meters is really quite high, and not everyone lives near a suitable mountain). And, in truth, some people just aren’t ready to climb a mountain and hike around (in the study, some participants with low DHEA-S levels didn’t get the benefits), but it’s one way to improve it. Find the closest challenge you can in your region of the country.

Train In a Fasted State

While training of any kind promotes better insulin sensitivity, training in the fasted state enhances this effect. One study found that relatively high-intensity “cardio” performed while fasted increased subjects’ insulin sensitivity beyond the group who did the same training after a carb meal, even in the context of a normally obesogenic high-fat, high-carb diet.

Just Take a Walk

As the Primal Blueprint fitness concept of slow movement suggests, a simple walk can be quite powerful, particularly if you string them together to form a daily walking habit. A walk is good for glucose control after meals, but regular walking can have impressive effects on insulin sensitivity.

Never Stop Exercising

In other words, stay active for life. In a recent paper, both sprinters (aged 20-90 years) and endurance athletes (20-80 years) had far better insulin sensitivity than sedentary controls. Absorb this point: insulin sensitivity didn’t decrease with age in the two active groups. Even the 90-year-old sprinter retained good insulin sensitivity. The sedentary controls? Not so much. That says it all, I think.

Thanks for stopping by today, everyone. Let me know your thoughts, additions and questions below.

The post 11 (Non-Dietary) Actions That Enhance Insulin Sensitivity appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

With its sweet, delicate flavor of muscat, elderflower cordial is generally known as a mixer for refreshing spring and summer drinks. We also love using it in desserts, such as this lemony sponge cake infused with elderflower syrup and served with a dollop of sweet whipped cream.

READ MORE »