Forbidden Black Rice Pudding

This recipe is ABSOLUTELY delicious. I couldn't stop eating it. I really liked it for breakfast especially. It took me a minute to find black rice in the grocery store; actually, I had to go to Metropolitan Market (any fancy grocery store will do). The brand I bought is "Lundberg Black Japonica" a gourmet field blend of black and mahogany rice. Anyway, black rice is a purplish-black color that is an heirloom variety of rice that was revered in China and is supposedly "forbidden" because it was the Emporer's favorite and everyone else was forbidden to have it. It is also high in iron and bioactive compound anthocyanin.

I used this recipe from whole foods, and it turned out perfectly. It takes about an hour and one big pot and is totally worth the wait!



You need:
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 cups forbidden black rice
14oz can organic coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar (i used a bit less)






Bring the water and rice to a boil in a covered pot
Reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes (until the rice soaks up the water)
Stir in the coconut milk and sugar
Simmer uncovered for another 15 minutes until the fluid is absorbed.

If you serve this dish with some coconut shavings and fresh mango you will be happy forever. Enjoy!!

Everything I'm telling you...in 2 sentences!

"…the key dietary messages are stunningly simple: Eat less, move more, eat more fruits and vegetables, and don't eat too much junk food. It's no more complicated than that."

-Marion Nestle
(Professor at NYU and author Food Politics, What to Eat, and many more)


I have been a Marion Nestle fan since I read "What to Eat". I appreciate her approach to nutrition and how our culture interacts with food. I first consulted her book when doing a presentation on Splenda last year and found her take on alternative sweeteners very basic: there may be mixed messages on whether or not they are bad, but they definately aren't good! (in my own words)

This 2 sentence quote sums up the basic facts about healthy eating. But is it really that simple? I have a feeling that if it were, we would all be doing it. How can you incorporate this great advice more into your personal life?

hCG/HGH Diet - Dangerous or Delightful?

I, along with many colleagues from Bastyr University, have been appalled lately as we learn more about the fad that is "HCG" aka "HGH" (human chorionic gonadotropin/human growth hormone). While I understand they are not identical, the foundation is the same - hormone replacement for those who don't need it in an effort to lose fat. HCG is a pregnancy growth hormone that you inject into your body and HGH is a pill you can take orally. This diet is often prescribed and condoned by medical professionals, and there are claims that when on this formula, a person can lose pounds of fat and feel energetic and not hungry. If your doctor says its ok, is it? Can you trust this diet for safe and permanent weight loss?

Please see my friend Rebecca's blog for more great details about this product, but in a nutshell, on this diet you inject yourself with(or take orally)growth hormones produced during pregnancy while you consume only 500 calories a day. Because of the presence of this growth hormone, supposedly it blocks those pesky classic hunger/starvation side-effects (dizziness, irritability, low energy, hunger). You lose a lot of weight apparently. Are you surprised by that? If I ate 500 calories a day for any period of time, I would expect to lose a lot of weight. That part is obvious.

Further, there have been studies done comparing two groups: one on a 500 calorie diet and another on a 500 calorie diet plus HCG injections and guess what - surprise! - they lost the same amount of weight.

I am probably making some people mad right now. There are folks who swear by this diet. There is "scientific evidence"...it "changed my life"...However, you won't ever catch this Bastyr nutrition student supporting a very-low-calorie-diet that includes injections of a hormone you buy off the internet. Sorry.


Time for a little "Media-Literacy"
One more thing that inspired this post is an advertisement I found in a popular magazine on an airplane. I ripped it out and have been saving it for you. Instead of HCG injections, this is "HGH" pills. This is one of my favorite parts:

"It is now thought that HGH is so comprehensive in its healing and regenerative powers that it is today, where the computer industry was twenty years ago, that it will displace so many prescription and non-prescription drugs and health remedies that is staggering to think of"

First of all, this isn't even well written. Second of all, when you see something advertised as "The Reverse Aging Miracle" and will help you enjoy:

improved sleep and emotional stability, loss of body fat, increased bone density, controlled cholesterol, wrinkle disappearance, and heightened five senses awareness

Sound to good to be true? It likely is. Please run the other way, call you local RD to make an appointment, and ask how you can incorporate fresh, sustainably produced food with vitality into your life and balance it with physical activity and mindful practices.

Nutrition Education - Who can you Trust?

Last night a co-worker of mine announced, “I’m going to go on a 7 day fast starting tomorrow! My cousin is doing it and says it’s amazing. Fasting is REALLY good for you”.

Is it? For some reason, I’ve found that the population around me enjoys informing me about the amazing nutrition-related information they live by instead of asking me about the things they are ‘learning’. Usually, I let it go because it generally seems that people are so excited about their new fad that my advice would just bore them. How is it that people will rearrange their lives around someone without any credentials who wrote a book or was featured on TV, but won’t believe information presented by an RD or other highly educated or qualified person?

So, without being asked for my opinion, I went ahead and gave it. “Could someone please explain to me from a biologic standpoint why it would be REALLY good for you to stop eating?” No one had an answer.

A slide presented in Public Health class last week states that, according to the American Dietetic Association in 2009, 78% of people are interested in finding new, reliable sources of online nutrition information. 70% visit 2 to 3 sites when looking for said info. However, 99% believe the information they find on those sites are reliable and trustworthy.

I urge you; don’t listen to your “cousin”. Don’t base your nutrition education on someone that presented a 2 minute blurb on Good Morning America. Don’t immediately believe someone who is trying to sell you something, and don’t base your reality on one book, one article, or one opinion. Seek those who know – who have put in the time and gone to school and practice evidence based medical nutrition.

I know that it’s scary out there – some people are so desperate to lose weight or get “healthy” that they will spend thousands of dollars, inject themselves with hormones, starve themselves on fasts, or cut out entire food groups while seeking it. But before you being your 7 day fast please stop to consider – do I really have the knowledge to do this on my own? And if you meet a nutrition specialist, take the opportunity to learn from them. Listen with an open mind and spend less time trying to convince them that you have all the answers from the latest book you read.

FUNctional Fitness

So, in order to get to my 9 credits required to be full time at graduate school, I had to enroll in “Functional Fitness” this quarter; a 1 credit class offered through the Exercise Science department at school. I say had to because there was no other option for me that worked with my schedule and I was reluctant to take the class because I remember sitting at lunch in our cafeteria last year watching the class spring up hills in the mud for two hours. Now, that is me.

Its not that I’m afraid of physical fitness; of course I believe strongly in the benefits! I actually teach a fitness class of my own for a couple hours on Mondays currently at a private gym. However, I am a very nurturing and supportive instructor. I check in, “how are you doing?” “are you ok?” “work at your own level!”. Lets just say my first experience with functional fitness was not like that today….

My class consists of doing lunges across a field that is so muddy you sink to your ankles with each step. We spring UP hills and come back down to do plank on our elbows in the mud. We do sit-ups and push-ups on concrete. All the while, our teacher and 3 teaching assistants are LAUGHING at us all and yelling at us to “work harder!” “keep your belly tight!” “take bigger steps”. Not exactly what I’m used to.

I do not believe this is how fitness should be. Fitness should be joyful and fun. It is of course uncomfortable at times when you are pushing your limits, but I do think that it should be a fun experience. I found an article through WebMD about the benefits of functional fitness. The basic notion is utilizing real-life physical movements instead of isolating muscle groups (ie bicep curls) in order to make your body work as a unit. You don’t use any weight besides your own body and you also work on some balancing and stabilizing techniques. Worthwhile? Of course. Difficult? Definitely.

I did make it through my first class, but some did not. There were at least 2 classmates who left vomiting. My strategy was to basically turn my brain off, ignore the discomfort and “just do it”.

I encourage you to be physically active, enjoy yourself, and do make it a pillar in your life. There are many ways to achieve this and for now this is mine, mud and all.