Mark’s Daily Apple

Healthy Tastes Great!4

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Tired of the same old protein night after night? Maybe you eat fish regularly, but don’t often venture beyond your staples of salmon and tuna? Then give Mahi Mahi a try. It rarely disappoints.

Pan-seared Mahi Mahi with Sautéed Vegetables

Rinse and pat dry two fillets. Heat pan with dab of coconut oil. Pan sear fillets on medium-high heat and then cook until done (approximately 5 minutes a side) on medium heat.

In separate pan, use coconut oil or butter to sauté a mix of peapods, bell peppers, white onion, broccoli, and other veggies of choice with salt, pepper, garlic, a ½-1 tsp. fresh minced ginger and splash each of extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil and rice vinegar at end of cook time.

Heap veggies on fillet and let rest covered for 2-3 minutes.

Grilled Mahi Mahi

Marinade two fillets of Mahi Mahi fish for 1-2 hours in a mix of ½ cup lime juice, ½ cup coconut oil, 1 Tbsp. cumin, and 1 tsp. minced garlic. Prepare grill, placing rack 5-6 inches above coals.

Place fish on foil, skin side down and place on grill rack. For fillets an inch or less, grill for approximately 7-8 minutes. For fillets larger than an inch, 9-12 minutes are recommended. The fish is done when the middle is opaque but moist.

Grilled Mahi Mahi is a great quick and simple meal to serve with guacamole and cut veggies or a “salsa salad” of chopped tomato, red onion, avocado, and black beans if desired. Season salad with lime juice, cumin and salt and pepper.

Baked Mahi Mahi with Pesto and Tomatoes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Rinse fish fillets and dry with towel.

Finely chop a small bunch of fresh basil with several stems of parsley and three large cloves of garlic. Sauté in pan with coconut oil or clarified butter (melted with white milk solids skimmed off). If desired, after somewhat cooled, blend more completely in food processor.

Place fish in small baking dish, and “butter” fish with clarified butter or coconut oil. Set aside. Mix additional butter or coconut oil with mixture of water and fresh lemon juice. (You’ll need enough to not quite cover the fish in the pan.) Mix with liquid sauce chopped basil, parsley and garlic. Bake in the oven until the middle of the fish is opaque but still moist.

Discard liquid.

Sauté cherry tomatoes until softened and warmed. Serve immediately with fish, and drizzle pesto over both.

melodrama.ca, Chewy Chua, DR000 Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

More Recipe Ideas

Shellfish: Healthy or Not?

Imitation Crab: What is that Stuff?

Posted: Diet, Health, Healthy Tastes Great!, How To, Nutrition, Recipes

Smart Fuel: Mahi Mahi3

El Dorado

For years, those in the know – and we include ourselves in this category – have been harping on about the multiple health benefits associated with eating fish. But we haven’t written too much about which varieties are best, which pack the greatest nutritional punch, and, quite frankly, which are the most delicious.

Enter Mahi Mahi, or Dolphin fish or Dorado as it is often called. Although often thought of as native to Hawaii, this fish likes its vacation spots, cropping up in warm water locales such as Florida and areas off the Pacific coast. When in the water, Mahi Mahi can be easily recognized by its blunt head and vibrant blue-green and yellow scales. Once out of the water, a quality Mahi Mahi steak or fillet can be identified by its relative odorlessness as well as by the texture of its flesh, which should give slightly when you press it with a finger, and should be moist to the touch.

As with most fish varieties, correct storage is imperative for both taste and safety (not that food poisoning isn’t a riot!) To store, remove all packaging, rinse fish under cold water and pat dry with a paper towel or clean kitchen cloth. To avoid letting the fish sit in its own juices – which can promote deterioration – store the fish on a rack in a shallow tray filled with crushed ice. Cover completely with cling film and store for up to two days in the coldest part of the fridge. If freezing, invest in quality lined freezer paper and wrap the fish tightly and securely to create an airtight parcel. If these storage instructions are followed correctly, the fish will keep for up to two months.

One of the best things about Mahi Mahi is that it is available year round, in either fresh or frozen form, providing you, dear reader, with virtually endless culinary possibilities. In the winter, this mild-flavored fish is spectacular when brushed with oil, seasoned and baked with seasonal vegetables. In the warmer months, however, Mahi Mahi can add extra sizzle to summer barbeques when placed on a hot, greased grill and basted with butter, oil, lemon juice or marinade. Year round, one of our favorite methods is to poach the fish by bringing a mixture of water, broth, herbs and spices to a simmer and then adding the Mahi Mahi filets, covering, and cooking for roughly 8-10 minutes. Another popular preparation method – which is often done in restaurants but is easy to do at home – is to prepare Mahi Mahi with a crust. There are a number of potential “crust” toppings out there, but one particular recipe that caught our eye was one for macadamia crusted Mahi Mahi that required fillets to be dipped in milk then dredged in a mixture of 3 tbsp of finely chopped macadamia nuts, 1 tbsp coarsely chopped parsley, ½ tbsp of lemon zest, salt and pepper (to taste) and then placed on a rack in a baking pan and cooked at 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. In all cases, to prevent overcooking – which is easily the biggest mistake people make when cooking Mahi Mahi – cook only until the flesh becomes translucent but still appears moist in the center (kind of hard to see with the crusted variety, but works well with the others). (Mahi is a low fat fish, so most recipes include a good deal of added oil, butter or coconut milk. Check back later today for some delicious recipes.)

This being a health blog, we should probably talk nutrition: Like most fish, Mahi Mahi is an extremely good source of protein and contains healthy omega-3 fatty acids. In addition, Mahi Mahi is an excellent source of selenium, an antioxidant thought to have cancer protecting qualities, and vitamins B3 and B6. However, since Mahi Mahi can contain moderate levels of mercury (similar to that of tuna), it should be limited during pregnancy to about one serving per week.

Our verdict? Mahi Mahi is a versatile and healthy entrée option to add to your dinner repertoire!

antiguan life, super-structure Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

How to Eat Enough Protein

10 Ingredients that Will Make Your Meals Pop

Smart Fuel: Lamb

Posted: Diet, Health, Nutrition, Recipes, Smart Fuel

Washboard Abs on a High-Fat Diet, No Ab Workouts and No Cardio?42

Me (54) in my backyard this morning

Apologies in advance for the self-serving nature of this post, but I felt that it was time to answer more specifically many of your questions about my own program and to use myself as an example of how the Primal Blueprint works if you integrate all the elements.

As many of you know, I am coming off a three month rehab from knee surgery. I’m about 95% healed now and can even do my “Indigenous Peoples Stretch” (a full unloaded squat) – a sure sign that all is well. Throughout this time, I have maintained my usual diet and have done whatever upper-body lifting I could manage that didn’t also require substantial leg involvement (pushups, pull-ups, dips, cable-work, etc). Despite my (or should I say “because of my”) high-fat diet and doing pretty much zero cardio over the past four months (including a fair amount of down time before the knee surgery) my weight, my lean mass and my body fat have all remained steady.

I went on FitDay.com a few days ago (great site to reveal the truth about what you eat) and entered what was a typical full day of eating for me. The results were pretty much as I expected: 2,458 calories, 58% of which was from fat; 165 grams of protein (1 gram per pound of body weight) and 114 grams of carbs. Now some might say that eating less than 2500 calories is too low for a moderately active man, but there are two points to make here. First, I am never really hungry. On this Primal Blueprint eating style, I eat when I want to and stop when I no longer feel hungry. Pretty simple. If I skip meals, I don’t get light-headed or famished. I don’t ever feel like I need more calories or that I am missing out on anything or “sacrificing” some guilty pleasure. I get plenty of protein to spare muscle and add to protein turnover. I get plenty of fat for fuel – sometimes 65% of daily calories. Second - and this goes to the heart of the Primal concept – when you eat fewer carbs, your body readily accesses dietary and stored fat for fuel. Even at 8% body fat, I still have 46,000 calories of stored fat, at least 25,000 of which is available to use as fuel at any time. Theoretically, you could walk 250 miles on that. It’s a beautiful thing when you direct gene expression to “want” to burn fat instead of always storing it. You certainly don’t need cardio to produce the full effect (you can if you want, within guidelines). As we often say here “80% of your results come from how you eat.” Conversely, eating more carbs drives up insulin, drives carbs towards fat storage, decreases fat-burning by prompting fat cells to hold on to stored fat and makes you hungrier for more carbs. I could burn some or most of all that off again by doing tons of cardio, but that only makes me hungrier for more carbs and perpetuates the cycle. It’s like digging a hole to put the ladder in to wash the basement windows.

The other point I want to make is that I don’t do abs. By that I mean I don’t specifically do an ab routine or ab classes as any part of my workouts. On the other hand, I pretty much work my abs all day long without specifically focusing on them. And that’s an important distinction. Grok probably had a wicked set of abs. He had to. Abs are the center of the human movement universe. They are part of today’s “core”, the fulcrum, the key in Chi. But you don’t necessarily need to do endless crunches, sit-ups, roman chairs, leg raises or other isolation moves to strengthen them. Sure, you can if you want, but I think the best way to work your abs is involve them in almost every other movement you do. Every time you do it. When you do pushups, you should tighten your abs hard, likewise when you do pull-ups, squats, lunges, curls - you name it. And working your abs doesn’t stop in the gym. When you sit at your desk, you should take that opportunity to tighten your abs (and by abs, we mean the whole complex: rectis and transverse abdominus, internal and external obliques, and pyrimidalis).

Tighten that belly as if you are going to be punched in the gut while blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. Hold it for 10, 20 or more seconds a few times every hour. Now do it while slightly tilted to one side. Now the other. For even better results and a stronger core, you would simultaneously contract your buttock muscles like you are trying to hold in the bean dinner you had at Barry’s last night. Do these short exercise bursts while you are driving to pick up the kids or when stuck in traffic. Hell, I do some of my best ab work bent over doing sprint work on the stationary bike. It’s really all about squeezing, tightening and trying to shorten the distance between your sternum and you pubic bone. This is all considered isometric work, but the abs respond extremely well to it. Eat right and those well-worked abs will show!

High-fat diet, no cardio, no ab workouts. Talk about thumbing your nose at Conventional Wisdom!

Further Reading:

What is the Primal Blueprint?

My Knee is Killing Me… No, Really.

My Daily Salad

Are There Any Good Carbs?

What I Eat in a Day

My Weekly Workout Routine

My Sprint Routine Video

Chronic Cardio

If you like this post please share it with StumbleUpon.

Posted: Carbs, Diet, Fitness, Health, How To, Nutrition, Personal Improvement, Pictures, Primal Health, Sisson Said What?

Top 10 Junk Foods in Disguise25

Mr. Potatohead? Is that you?

Organic; low-carb; reduced sugar; preservative and chemical free; made from all natural ingredients; and now with special bacterial cultures designed to help you poop! Seriously, is there anything that “health” food can’t do (or fix, or correct, or modify, or prevent…)?

Uhh…yeah. Especially if it’s junk food masquerading as health food.

In recent years, food manufacturers have grown increasingly privy to the American public’s dietary whims. In the early 90s, they fell over themselves to cut the fat, replaced sugar with sugar alcohols to keep up with the low-carb dieters of the new millennium and are now plying us with promises of eco-chic or otherwise “green” food.

The bottom line is that selling health is a huge trend, and manufacturers will do just about anything to make sure their products fit into our definition – albeit fleeting – of what health food is. In fact, for many of these reformed foods, the only real changes that have been made are to the label to play up the positives (“now with whole grains”) and bury the negatives (“but we had to add 20 tbsp of sugar to make it even close to edible!”), leaving you, dear reader, with a product that is only nominally healthier than the original at best.

The following are a selection of ten food items that may be incrementally more healthy than their non-organic, fried-instead-of-baked, full-sugar vs. reduced-sugar peers. But, to us, they all still beg the question, What’s the point?

Nature’s Path Organic Strawberry Toaster Pastries

If the folks over at Nature’s Path didn’t have such a great PR team, chances are the tag line for this product would have been “Nature’s Path Organic Strawberry Toaster Pastries: So you can feel good about serving your kids junk food.” Harsh? Yes. True? Absolutely. In a side comparison between the “healthy” Organic pastries and Kellogg’s Pop Tarts (which we all know “good” parents don’t serve their kids), the pastries were about the same in terms of calories (210 vs. 205) and fat (3.5 grams vs. 4.5 grams) but the Kellogg brand actually had fewer carbohydrates (37.5 grams vs. 40 grams) and less sugar (17.5 grams vs. 19 grams). Although certain foodies suggest that the organic variety taste more “wholesome,” at the end of the day, a toaster pastry is a toaster pastry and it’s definitely not something that you (or your kids) should be eating to kick-start the day!

Dr. Oetker Organic Vanilla Cake

You attend farmers’ markets, you only buy organic, and, where possible, you do your best to eat healthy. But a birthday is a birthday and, as Homer from The Simpsons would say, “mmm…cake.” Unfortunately, however, Dr. Oetker’s Organic spin on vanilla cake is just plain laughable. Besides the fact that cake, in any shape or form, just isn’t healthy, this particular all-natural product contains gum acerbic arabic, the same food stabilizer (as in chemical) used in soda, M&M chocolate candies, gum drops, marshmallows, and many other candies. Still not convinced it’s bad for you? This same ingredient is also used in watercolor paints, shoe polish and other items that you wouldn’t normally consider ingesting. Gum arabic may not kill you, but it doesn’t scream organic either. And you call yourself a doctor, Dr. Oetker!

Annie’s Homegrown Certified Organic Canned Pasta Meals

Although, Annie, you seem so genuine with your homegrown canned pasta meals, we know that the product lurking beneath that metal can is nothing but low-grade slop. Let’s look at Annie’s Certified Organic All Stars pasta dinner (which, by the way, Annie is recommending for your toddler). The first four ingredients (by weight) are water, organic tomato puree, organic macaroni stars and organic evaporated cane juice. Uhh…Annie, sweetheart, stop being fancy and call a spade a spade: it’s sugar…and lots of it. So much so that the sugar is listed way before any mention of cheese (even though this particular “dish” is touted as pasta in a tomato and cheese sauce.) Sounds to us like Annie needs to spend a little more time in the kitchen (or possibly on some reputable nutrition sites) before she tries shilling this stuff as anything resembling healthy!

O Organics (Safeway Brand) Organic Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips

There’s simply no other way to put this: A chip is a chip is a chip. And what could make it worse? This chip (is a chip, is a chip…) is made of corn. Corn people. Need further proof to stay away? Uhh…they’re a chip…and they’re made of corn. Nuff said, we think!

Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs - Oreo Candy Bites

The whole 100 calorie serving size has become somewhat of an obsession in our culture as of late, with food manufacturers scrambling to get their newly downsized products stocked on supermarket shelves. On the plus side (see, where not all Debbie Downer here at Mark’s Daily Apple!), the products are all 100 calories, and yes, exercising portion control is always admirable, but at the end of the day, they’re still (pretty much) the same garbage in recycled packaging. Also, if we’re being honest here, have you seen how small those “sensible” serving sizes really are? Realistically, the only person that benefits from the smaller serving sizes is manufacturers, who are able to continue distributing the same food (using the same recipe, same manufacturing equipment, same factory, same workers, etc) while charging at least double the price.

Gatorade Tiger

You’ve just exercised, you’re worn out, you’re thirsty, you need to replenish, and what could be more refreshing than sucking down 25 grams of sugar. That’s right folks: Gatorade, the very drink developed by athletes for athletes is nothing more than sugar water. And other so-called health beverages aren’t really that healthy either: Odwalla, which touts itself as “nourishing the body whole,” contains about 30 grams per serving (which, it should be noted, is only half of the bottle) and we’d love to tell the folks over at Vitamin Water where they can stick their vitamins!

Activia

If you made your food purchasing decisions based on the quality of a product’s web site, one look at the Activia portal and you’d be convinced this is quite the super food! While the yogurt is by no means the worst thing in the world, it should be noted that those special little cultures are literally swimming in sugar… in fact, Activia contains 17 g of sugar per 4 oz. serving. Plus… did you see that Saturday Night Live skit? It’ll put you off for life!

Morningstar Farms Chik Patties

If you had to look on the menu, chances are you wouldn’t select a hunk of soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate and wheat gluten, or, in other words, one of Morningstar Farms’ Chik Patties. And it only gets worse with the addition of wheat flour, corn oil, yellow corn flour and corn starch. One question: is it possible they could squeeze any more corn into this single chicken patty? And also, the package touts 58% less fat, which would be important if this was uhh… 1984 and we still thought that fat was the devil incarnate.

Lean Pockets - Supreme Pizza

Look! It’s got whole grains! It’s lean! It’s got a whole lot of exclamation points and not much else going on, nutritionally speaking that is. Yes, we get it. A Lean Pocket is convenient. You can literally throw it in your pocket and go and, to be honest, they’ve come a long way from the early Hot Pockets. However, at the end of the day, they’re still a pastry, stuffed with mystery meat and plenty of chemical preservatives and they’re absolutely not something that should be considered even remotely healthy.

Healthy Choice Sweet and Sour Chicken

Frozen peach crisp, tempura battered chicken, sweet and sour sauce, what’s not to love about Healthy Choice’s Sweet and Sour Chicken? Yes, the packaging is green, and yes, there are little silhouettes of men running which suggests both that people who eat these exercise and that this meal would satisfy a grown adult (not likely!). However, it should be noted that this meal, in addition to a bunch of decidedly un-healthy chemicals, contains 69 grams of carbohydrates and a whopping 600 mg of sodium. Furthermore, this particular dish was almost universally panned among foodies, with one rather scathing critic noting that it was virtually impossible to mess up sweet and sour chicken but that healthy choice had “achieved the impossible.”

These marketing tricks are sly, but they aren’t fooling the MDA crowd. When you see the words organic, or lean, or whatever claim-du-jour is posted on the packaging approach it with skepticism and a critical eye! To make life even easier, why not just avoid processed and packaged foods altogether? And if you are going to eat a cake, fudge brownies, or toaster pastries, sure, pick the organic version, but at the end of the day you’ve got to remember you’re still eating a cake, fudge brownies or toaster pastries.

TWM tm Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

More Tuesday 10 Posts

The Sisson Spoof

The Fuming Fuji Fumes On

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Posted: Carbs, Diet, Health, Humor, Hype, Marketing, Pictures, The Tuesday 10

Dear Mark: Nuts15

Nutty

Dear Mark,

Can you give me more explanation about nuts and seeds? I eat a ton of them and am always confused about which ones are actually nuts and which are seeds and which are legumes. Does it make any difference if you eat them whole, roasted, raw or as nut butter?

Thanks to reader Charlotte for these questions in response to last week’s “Get Primal” post. The classification question does get tricky.

Nuts themselves are actually a kind of fruit, specifically “dried fruit.” But not everything we consider nuts are really nuts. Some are actually seeds, often within fruits or even legumes. A hazelnut is, indeed, a nut. An acorn is also a variety of “true” nut, as are pecans, walnuts and chestnuts. But an almond, for example, is a seed inside a fleshy fruit’s (a.k.a. drupe’s) pit. A pistachio is a seed within a fleshy fruit. Pine nuts are seeds. Cashews are seeds. Peanuts are the seeds of a legume. Technically speaking, all nuts are fruits, and a “true” nut is indehiscent (they don’t – by themselves – open to spread seeds), hard-shelled and generally one-seeded.

But let’s look at all this from a practical perspective: what’s good to eat? “Nuts” in the broad culinary classification contain protein. Big plus. They tend to be high in certain B-vitamins, vitamin E, and many minerals. Another plus. Low carb. Yet another plus. But not all “nuts” are created equal. Some, like peanuts, have high levels of omega-6. As we’ve said a lot lately, we moderns seem to get way more than enough of omega-6 in our diets. Walnuts, for example, offer a nice dose of omega-3. Almonds are a great source of phytochemicals, contain calcium, and are even lower in carbs than most.

And then there’s the issue of aflatoxins, dangerous metabolites produced by certain mold varieties. Aflatoxins are common in what we usually refer to as “tree” and “ground” nuts, including almonds, walnuts and pecans as well as peanuts and cashews. The toxin has been shown to have carcinogenic, mutagenic and immunosuppressive properties. While certain farming practices can reduce the problem, the aflatoxin related molds are considered at least somewhat inevitable. Peanuts are often said to have the highest concentration of aflatoxins, and they are among the most heavily (pesticide) sprayed food grown.

In terms of roasted versus raw, I’d recommend raw to avoid the oxidation that happens during heating. However, there are increasing challenges to the sale of truly raw (untreated) nuts. The Cornucopia Institute offers a great deal of information on the recent raw almond controversy, but all California grown almonds now have either chemical or high heat treatments. The change came after raw almonds were believed to be connected with two salmonella cases, although farming practices vary considerably and may have contributed to the problem. Regarding nut butter versus nuts themselves, it’s your choice. However, be sure to select nut butter (I recommend almond butter) without added ingredients, especially added sugars. And, again, I’d favor raw and organic over conventional and roasted.

Thanks for the questions, everyone!

steffenz, Marcio Cabral de Moura, sproutgrrl Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

Dear Mark: Beans/Legumes

Smart Fuel: Walnut Oil

Modern Forager: Ten Staples of a Well-Stocked Kitchen

Posted: Carbs, Dear Mark, Diet, Health, Nutrition