Covey’s Habit #3 is to Put First Things First.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reminds us of this, if you’ve ever studied psychology.  At the bottom of the pyramid is water, air, and food.  If we don’t have these things, we can’t go higher up the hierarchy towards more refined, complex things that make us happy: meaningful relationships with others, for instance, or the ideal of self-actualization.  Good food is foundational to health, positive mood, good relationships with nature, God, and others, and finding meaning and purpose in life.

Covey makes a quadrant, a square divided into four parts.

Most people spend too much time in Square 1 (things urgent and important) and Square 3 (things urgent and unimportant).  We have to plan and focus in order to spend more time on Square 2, things nonurgent and important.  Eating right is Square 2 material!

Habit #7 is to Sharpen the Saw.  A lumberjack is furiously sawing wood in the forest with a dull saw, and another man comes by and says, “You could do that a lot more efficiently if you’d sharpen your saw.”  The lumberjack says, “I don’t have time—I have all this wood to saw!”

Isn’t this just like life?  We’re killing ourselves by not renewing.  Low-calorie, high-nutrition, whole plant foods like vegetables, fruits, and legumes regenerate every cell in your body so you have more energy and enthusiasm when you wake up to “saw” tomorrow.

Seven habits of highly healthy people . . . part I

You probably know Stephen Covey’s landslide bestseller, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  You can relate some of his very true principles to Highly Healthy People, and people who are highly effective tend to be physically healthy more than the general population.  (For instance, did you know that Tony Robbins was so amazed by the dramatic improvement in his health eating an alkaline diet that he now preaches it for a day at his seminars?)

For instance, Habit #1 is to Be Proactive.  Does your life run you, or do you run your life?  With food, we can let it just kinda happen to us, or we can engage in a bit of planning to have food that we both enjoy and that nourishes us well.  If we take no thought for food and just wait till we’re ravenous, well, Taco Bell is right across the street.  But if we do even a bit of planning and preparation, we have the potential to be the healthiest people on the planet, since we have available to us a huge variety of fresh produce from all over the globe.

Habit #2 is to Begin With the End In Mind.  Picture yourself at 70.  Do you want to go out like a light switch at 95, having enjoyed the company of your great-grandchildren and travelled the world?  Or do you want to go out like a dimmer switch, spending the last 25 years of your life pinned to a chair because of health problems?  Too many of us are spending the last decades of our life doing the latter.

If we envision being a spry, mentally sharp 90-year old (like one of my heroes, Gordon B. Hinckley, who lived to 96 traveling the world and serving others), we’re going to have to make choices TODAY that lead to that destination.

Two more Covey habits and what they have to do with the GreenSmoothieGirl mission, tomorrow.

I read a post by a 12 Stepper on the other blog on this site, expressing her frustration about the expense of non-organic food and even wondering if it’s worth it to eat a plant-based diet, with all the pesticides on vegetables and fruits.

Dr. McDougall says in The McDougall Program for Women (1999) that animals trap environmental pesticides and other chemicals in their flesh, organs, and milk.  Consequently, animal products are MUCH more concentrated with chemicals than the plant food sources they consume. 

He cites a study that women who eat animal products have 70 percent higher DDT concentrations (DDT being a particularly deadly pesticide known to cause birth defects in humans) in their breast milk compared to vegetarian women.

Young moms, I hope this is encouragement to you, to buy conventional produce if organic is cost-prohibitive to you, wash it well, and rest assured that what you’re doing for yourself and your children is good and right, because the alternatives are unacceptable.

Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: what’s good, better, and best for CHEESE?

Answer: Some people think soy cheese is a good alternative. I think it’s highly processed and not worth the expense. Also, it tastes yucky.  :-)

Good: cheese made from organic, no-hormones or –antibiotics-added milk

Better: raw, organic cheese, no salt added or sea salt added

Best: chervil made from goat milk, which is not mucous forming like dairy (lovely spread on crackers)

I would just like to take a minute at the end of this Mother’s Day to honor my own mother who is halfway across the world in Milan, Italy, serving and teaching people there, with my dad.  My mom and dad are the epitome of health and work long days doing meaningful things they love, not slowing down a bit just because they’ve retired.  My mom is always learning and growing.  Last year, she digested 17 books on the pharmaceutical industry and the way it has controlled and harmed the public’s health.  Then she went on radio shows and presented to community groups to teach people to put their faith somewhere else besides mainstream medicine.  She is an incredible reader, teacher, and presenter.  I wish you could hear her speak: before she left for Italy, she studied Italian on her own so intensively that she gave part of her farewell speech in Italian!

My dad can (and has!) beat me running races, despite the fact that he is 64 years old.  He owes my mom a big thank you for helping him be so healthy, feeding him a plant-based diet for the 43 years they’ve been married.  He has plenty of risk factors, including having worked as a young adult spraying Malathion in his grandfather’s cherry orchards, not even wearing a face mask.  But he is crazy healthy, and his love of running and his good diet must be the reasons!

I want to be like them when I grow up, I want to make them proud, and I want to raise my children to be worthy of the great legacy they’ve given us.  Thanks for setting a great example to me, Mom!  Happy Mother’s Day!

Robyn

Yesterday I went running on the jr. high school track by my home, which I often do.  I saw the most astonishing thing—and unfortunately, it’s the second time I’ve seen it.  The kids came out to play flag football, followed slowly by their P.E. teacher.  Think about your own P.E. teacher when you were a kid.  This one was not like yours, I can almost guarantee you.  He had a kid carrying a chair for him, and he proceeded to sit in it, on the football field, and remain seated throughout the breakout games of football.  He was obese and had difficulty walking up to the field.

Last year, I saw an obese female P.E. teacher at the same school do the same thing (but the kids were running sprints).  About that same time, I sat on the founding board of a charter high school, and we were looking to hire a P.E. teacher.  An experienced applicant came to interview us who confessed to severe cardiac disease and was clearly going to be the chair-sitting variety of teacher/coach.  After he left, I informed my colleagues that I do not want to hire an obese P.E. teacher.  They seemed offended and one told me that is “discriminatory.”

I said, “If we were hiring an English teacher who hasn’t read the classics and can’t write, I’d ‘discriminate’ against her, too.  I’m going to resist hiring a math teacher who can’t calculate algebraic equations.  So why is it too much to ask that the P.E. teacher be able to jog a lap, or do a layup?”

We are setting such a bad example for our kids.  If they look around them, they could easily get the idea that life is more or less over by the age of 40 for the majority of us.  How many of their teachers (P.E. or otherwise) are teaching from their chairs?  This is a travesty.  Even if we’re okay with our virtually chair-bound lives limiting us from doing much of anything fun by the time we hit 40, we should make massive lifestyle changes even for just the ONE REASON of setting a better example.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again here.  You moms and dads reading this who are willing to buck the larger culture, you are CHANGING THE WORLD for the better, one green smoothie at a time!  Obesity and heart disease will be a thing of the past when we return to a whole-foods diet, and we get out and enjoy moving around.

Locals only: please email me (robyn@greensmoothiegirl.com) if you want to be on my group buy email list and you’re not already on it.  Today I’ve just sent out an email with a group buy on RAW ALMONDS (took me months to figure out a plan to get raw almonds since the CA mandatory pasteurization law went into effect 9/1/07) and RAW/ORGANIC AGAVE.

These are important items for food storage if that’s a priority for you, and having raw almonds on hand is really helpful if you’re in my 12 Steps to Whole Foods program.  Almonds won’t germinate and become phenomenal nutritional powerhouses unless they are RAW.  Pickup is at my home, so this buy is for locals only (willing to drive to Lindon, Utah).   Thanks,

Robyn

Brigham Young University’s alumni magazine just ran a story on some researchers who are distributing quinoa cookies to starving populations.  The idea is that quinoa is a very nutritious food that is high in protein, important for people in third-world countries.  12 Stepper Kris and I have altered the recipe that ran in that publication to be much more healthy, so you can enjoy it.  You could give these cookies along with with a big baggie of fruits and veggies to your kids for a school lunch that has plenty of protein and is low in sugar but feels like a “treat.”  If you like them and want to save time on school lunches, make and freeze a lot of them!

Kris also tells me that she often cooks up some quinoa (which takes only 10-15 mins.!) and puts any of the dressings in Ch. 3 of 12 Steps on it.  She says she’s found every dressing she’s put on the quinoa to be yummy.  I also recommend tossing in lots of your favorite raw veggies for a complete dinner that’s quick and easy.

Tip: If you are a vegan and don’t want to use an egg, instead put 1 Tbsp. of ground flax seed in 2 Tbsp. of water for a few minutes until it gels.

QUINOA COOKIES

1 cup quinoa flour (blend quinoa in BlendTec)

1 cup finely ground whole wheat flour

¼ cup Sucanat or honey

1 Tbsp. aluminum-free baking powder

½ cup coconut oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 organic, free-range egg

Add 1 tsp. at a time of water if needed for mixing.  Mix all ingredients well and bake at 350 degrees for 8 mins.

A few days ago, I referenced a sprouted quinoa salad I made that my family loved, which I’ve typed for you here.  Our next chapter is PLANT-BASED MAIN DISHES . . . to be released June 1 to the January 12 Steps subscribers.  And in it, I introduce you to quinoa (pronounced keen-wah), one of my favorite whole plant foods of all time.  It’s high in protein, yummy, ultra-quick to prepare.  For this recipe, sprout it by just leaving the soaked/drained quinoa in a fine mesh strainer, and rinse it twice a day.

Sprouted Quinoa Salad

2 cups quinoa, rinsed well, soaked several hours, drained, and sprouted 1-2 days

Juice of 3 small or 2 large limes

1 small apple (pink lady, fuji, jonagold)

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 ½ tsp. dried mint leaves (or ¼ cup fresh, chopped)

1 ½ tsp. sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

3 cups sliced red grapes

6 stalks celery, diced

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

½ cup basil leaves, chopped

3 green onions, sliced (include most of the green part)

2 cups diced broccoli or 2 red peppers, diced

1 cup raw cashews, chopped

In BlendTec, puree lime juice, apple, olive oil, mint leaves, salt, and pepper.  Toss dressing with all ingredients except cashews.  Marinate a few hours in the fridge if time allows.  Add cashews right before serving.