A Bride Worth Billions (57 page)

If breakfast is the day’s fuel food, lunch serves as the balancing act. The fact that this meal falls on midday (or early afternoon for some people) means that it is intended to be the part of the day that will help you re-fuel without weighing you down.

What does this mean? Lunch is all about keeping you recharged and “well-functioning” while maintaining your stability. If you notice, eating too much during lunch (particularly food that’s high in added sugars) can lead you to bouts of drowsiness in the afternoon. Though there is nothing wrong with taking an afternoon nap as the body is programmed to be that way, lunch shouldn’t be the reason why your body and mind feel feeble. In fact, it should be the one that recharges and strengthens you further.

Eating unhealthy food for lunch can cause sugar spikes and crashes, therefore making you feel drowsy or sleepy come afternoon. In contrast, eating organic, whole foods for this recharging meal will keep you going and revitalized.

With the demands of today’s lifestyles and careers, it can be tempting to grab something from some fast food chain, gobble up a burger, fries, and a large soda, and resume working. Stop. That’s the last thing you want to do if you want to stay healthy.

There’s no need to rush, as it
is
possible to eat healthy, organic lunch meals that are easy to prepare and tastes great, serving to refuel you, your mind, and body.

Here are organic lunch meal recipes that you can try and modify to suit your preference and lifestyle.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 pieces whole fish fillets, patted dry

¼ cup organic butter

¼ cup organic cream

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons stock from organic chicken

Sea salt and pepper

Instructions:

Season fish fillets with sea salt and pepper. Over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of organic butter in a frying pan. Fry the fish fillets until both sides are golden brown. Put aside. Over low heat, melt the remaining butter. Put in lemon juice, organic cream, organic chicken stock, and cilantro. Stir and cook until heated. Make sure not to boil. Remove from heat immediately and pour over fried fish. Garnish with some cilantro.

Makes 6 Servings

Ingredients:

400 grams wheat penne pasta

184 grams tuna

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

5 cups mashed organic tomatoes

½ cup chopped pitted olives

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup organic fresh basil leaves

Instructions:

Cook wheat penne pasta according to package instructions. In a saucepot, heat tuna and crushed red pepper in olive oil for 2 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add in mashed tomatoes, olives, and sea salt. Cook for 5 minutes while stirring occasionally. Once heated through, add cooked pasta and fresh basil leaves. Toss and stir to coat pasta with sauce. Garnish with basil.

Makes 4 Servings

Ingredients:

4 boneless organic pork loin chops

2 teaspoons organic wheat flour

3 teaspoons olive oil

550 grams baby spinach

2 cloves crushed garlic

¼ cup fresh parsley leaves (flat leaf)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons chopped capers, drained

Salt and pepper

½ cup dry white wine

Instructions:

Sprinkle salt and pepper on the pork and add flour. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a skillet on medium high. Wait until hot then place pork in the skillet, cooking each side for 4 minutes. Set aside. Put spinach in boiling water, then drain. In a bowl, mix pepper with oil then add spinach. Using the same skillet where pork was cooked, add garlic and dry white wine. Simmer and wait for 2 minutes. Scrape off skillet and remove from heat. Stir in lemon juice, parsley, and capers. Put back the pork chops in the skillet, coating them with the sauce.

If breakfast is fuel food and lunch is revitalizing food, dinner is the meal that caps the day.

If you are like most people who work during the day and rest at night, you most likely look forward to having dinner with friends or family, or in your own peaceful solitude. The point is, dinner is often spent in a leisurely fashion, and it should be.

The mind and body, active for hours on end, need to slow down at this time as you prepare to end your day. This implies that dinner should not stuff you too much to keep you weighed down, but it shouldn’t spike up your sugar levels as well. The best meals for dinner are filling and substantial yet nourishing. Treat dinner as if it’s the food to soothe you, much like a therapeutic experience.

However, “therapeutic” doesn’t mean eating whatever you want and stuffing yourself with “comfort food” such as pizza and beer. Dinner time as a soothing, toned down experience involves food that makes up for the day’s lapses and fills you up with nutrition. After all, food eaten during dinner is digested fully during sleep. Sleep is when the body is restoring itself, so what you put in your body during dinner greatly affects how the body and mind heal and replenish.

To make the most out of this rejuvenating experience, eat dinner meals that are organic and beneficial to the health.

Listed here are organic recipes for dinner that will no doubt contribute to your overall health and vitality.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup vegetable broth

1 cup couscous

2 teaspoons olive oil

227 grams chopped zucchini

1 cup shredded carrots

4 green onions

1/3 cup raisins

1 teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon pie spice

1 can stewed tomatoes

2 teaspoons hot sauce

1 can chickpeas, drained

Instructions:

In a saucepan, heat 1 cup vegetable broth. Wait until it boils, then remove from heat and add 1 cup couscous. Cover saucepan and leave for 5 minutes. As this simmers, heat olive oil in a pan. Heat should be on medium. Put in zucchini then cook for 6 minutes. Stir. Add carrots, raisins, green onions, pie spice, and ground cumin. Cook for 2 minutes while stirring. Add the remaining ½ cup of vegetable broth, the can of chickpeas, stewed tomatoes, and hot sauce. Allow to simmer for 6 minutes then pour over couscous.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 pcs medium-sized fish

1 lemon

1 green bell pepper, sliced horizontally and stem removed

1 red bell pepper, sliced horizontally and stem removed

2 inches ginger, peeled and sliced

1 onion, sliced into rings

chopped scallions

2 tablespoons organic soy sauce

½ cup water

Sea salt and ground black pepper

Instructions:

Line a baking pan with foil and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice lemon into circles and place into the fish together with the ginger slices. Spread out onions and bell pepper in the pan, and the remaining lemon slices. Place fish on the pan over the vegetables. Squeeze some lemon juice over the fish, drizzle organic soy sauce all over, and add more flavor with sea salt and pepper as desired. Cover baking pan with foil and seal the edges. Bake for around 30 minutes. Fish should be thoroughly cooked and flakey. Remove from oven. This dish is best served with steamed rice.

Now that you have recipes of organic food, the next step is to know how to adjust your lifestyle as you open up to this new healthy opportunity.

Going organic and eating healthier are best done in a holistic approach. Your new meal choices come with changes in your overall lifestyle, from shopping to managing your expenses. “Organic” is not just food but a lifestyle as well.

Going organic doesn’t have to be a burden on your wallet. In fact, there are various ways to follow an organic diet and live an organic lifestyle while cutting down on costs effectively.

Minimalism is the key. There are a growing number of people who promote a minimalist yet healthy lifestyle. This means that while they go all-out in their health and the food choices they make, they are also conscious of their other purchases. A minimalist lifestyle aims to focus on the
essentials
rather than what convention and consumerism dictate. For instance, instead of spending some bucks on soda that are clearly not good for you, you could have allotted that money to upgrade your usual food purchase to a better-quality, organic one.

Going organic is really all about prioritizing and knowing the best sources of food.

Here are ways on how you can cut down on costs and save money while eating organic food and living a healthier life:

1. Buy from farmer’s markets.
   The rule of thumb in making your organic purchases is to get them from the source, or at least as close to the source as possible. More and more farmer’s markets are emerging nowadays due to the increasing demand for healthier food choices. Not only is it cheaper to buy directly from the source, it also guarantees fresh produce. Organic food and products are not cultivated with any artificial supplements, chemicals, and preservatives, so buying them fresh is the best way to go. Farmer’s markets and exhibits often have regular schedules in town, so be sure to update yourself.
   
2. Join groups or communities specializing on organic food.
   If you are just starting to transition to an organic food diet, there’s a need to do some research and reading about this type of lifestyle. The overflow of information you may encounter can be a bit overwhelming, which might eventually result to confusion and demotivation. The best way to help you familiarize yourself with the organic lifestyle is to join a community or group advocating and specializing on this. There are a variety of such groups and communities both online and offline. Online groups are all over the internet, so make sure to join one that suits you best and if possible, most relevant to your location. Eating habits, produce, and the general culture vary from one place to another, so picking a community or group that jives with your context will thoroughly help you in adjusting to an organic lifestyle. Joining such groups will help keep you updated on events and trade fairs, farmer’s markets, organic food bazaars and exhibits, and even workshops and seminars that can provide more information on organic food and lifestyle. The added information and resources you can get out of joining these groups can help you save money while staying true to an organic diet and lifestyle.
   
3. Grow your own food.
   The best way to make sure that your food is uncontaminated, pure, and organic is to grow it yourself. Why not grow your own vegetables and fruit? You don’t need to have hectares of land to create a vegetable garden. A small patch in your backyard is enough. Better yet, trends such as vertical farming and gardening are sprouting in urban locations. Vertical gardening makes the most out of limited space by utilizing gardening pots or recycled materials and arranging them vertically, much like a hanging garden. This is particularly suitable for people living in small spaces or apartments. Quite a number of organic gardening resources are available online, complete with videos and step-by-step guides. Growing your own food is a much cheaper option compared to purchasing them. It also assures you that what you eat was grown without the use of any harmful pesticides and chemicals.
   
4. Learn to make food and ingredients from scratch.
   You might go organic in your food choices, but keep in mind that this also includes choosing organic ingredients. Much of the ingredients used in conventional food preparation contain harmful properties. It’s convenient to buy things like packaged white bread in a supermarket, but in fact, most of these are made with bleached flour. Most types of conventionally-produced bread also contain synthetic vitamins. The effects of eating this can be detrimental to your health in the long run. The best way is to really go organic in your food choices. However, buying certain organic food products and ingredients can be costly, especially those that are only available in specialty stores and whole food shops. To cut down on expenses, learn how to make some ingredients from scratch. For instance, home-made bread is something you can try making, and this only requires a few ingredients and an oven. Also, instead of buying packs of organic pasta, why not make your own from raw ingredients? There are variations of sun-dried pasta that you can make at home. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try out different recipes.
   
5. Be creative with leftovers.
   Organic food preparation is all about creativity and resourcefulness. There may be times when food is left over and refrigerated, and sometimes forgotten. Before you throw away those untouched leftovers, why not save them for another meal? The beauty of organic food is that there are no limits to food and recipe possibilities. Always be on the lookout for ways to maximize leftovers and organic ingredients which you have lying around your kitchen. This also applies to fruits and vegetables. If certain fruits have gone a bit overripe, why not make them into a smoothie? Meanwhile, vegetables past their period of freshness can be used to concoct green juices. There are so many ways to make the most out of what you have in your fridge and in your cupboard. Simply be open to trying out new ideas and methods, and you will no doubt save money while eating a healthy, organic diet and living a full, happy life.
   

Enjoy Going Organic

As mentioned, going organic is a holistic experience that not only affects your eating habits but your overall lifestyle as well. This holistic approach comes with an open, positive attitude towards food, health, and purchasing practices.

Living a minimalist life, or at least one that focuses on the essentials, will no doubt result to better health and more savings. Saving money is just one of the many benefits you can get from going minimal on unnecessary purchases and prioritizing healthy ones, such as organic food.

Most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy the experience of going organic. Some people think of it as a chore; a requirement they need to fulfill to acquire a sexier or fit body and to stay away from disease. Though there is no problem with that, there’s really more to organic food than meets the eye. Going organic means you care not only for yourself, but also for the environment, and for a better life for everyone. The benefits of eating organic food and products are not only reflected upon you, but to the rest of the community as well.

Going organic supports local farmers, shop owners, and local businesses. Going organic is great for the environment because its production does not involve harmful chemicals that in turn get broken down back unto the earth. Going organic is the way to go.

Enjoy your organic lifestyle and its benefits as you contribute to the world in a positive way!