Awesome link. I wanted to read the whole site at one sitting. :)

If t has an ingredient list it should not be eaten in most cases.

I love my veggies and fresh fruit... I avoid drinking my calories (ie. fruit juice).

I disagree with the broad generalizations in the Canadian and Australian food guides that say to limit saturated fat in that those healthy vegetables get even better when they have added fat, research backs up the fact that the vitamins and minerals in vegetables are fat soluble and without added fat (like butter or olive oil) the absorption rates drop considerably.

On fat... it isn't the boogeyman people make it out to be as long as it is consumed in moderation and that the sources are good.

Coconut, Avocado, and Olive oil are all excellent, coconut oil is one of the healthiest sources of fat and it is saturated.

I know many vegetarians who have greatly increased their fat consumption because of the added benefits and caloric density of fats compared to vegetables.

Canadian Diabetes Association
 

This is the website for the Canadian Diabetes Association
Home | Canadian Diabetes Association

And this is their diet and nutrition page ...
Diet & Nutrition | Canadian Diabetes Association

In their “Just the Basics” page, they recommend limiting sugar, limiting high fat foods, and eating more high-fibre foods like whole grains and vegetables ...
Just the Basics | Canadian Diabetes Association

Their suggested food plan follows Canada’s Food Guide, but looks like this ...

http://www.diabetes.ca/CDA/media/ima...ate-method.jpg


They have an interesting page on portion sizes, using your hands as a guide ...
Portion Guide | Canadian Diabetes Association

They also have a section on the Glycemic Index ...
The Glycemic Index | Canadian Diabetes Association

And recipes, of course!
Recipes | Canadian Diabetes Association

Dietitians of Canada
 

Dietitians of Canada
Dietitians of Canada - Home
“Dietitians of Canada (DC) is the national professional association for dietitians, representing almost 6000 members at the local, provincial and national levels. DC is one of the largest organizations of dietetic professionals in the world.”

Just generally, this link provides lots of advice regarding nutrition and health, meal tips, self-assessments, recipes, etc.
Dietitians of Canada - Your Health

There’s a Nutrition A-Z … “These nutrition resources covering topics from Active Living to Zinc will help you make the right choices for your individual health needs.”
Dietitians of Canada - Nutrition A-Z

[HR][/HR]
And they’ve got a meal tracker, which I might try to see how it compares with other meal trackers I’ve tried. I’ve yet to find one that’s really easy to use.
eaTracker
I’ve just had a quick look at the calories burned for cycling at a moderate effort, and it seems reasonable.

[HR][/HR]
This link talks about using Canada’s Food Guide as a vegetarian … I sort of lean toward the vegetarian end of the scale as that seems to be what works best for me for several reasons.
Dietitians of Canada - Eating Guidelines for Vegans


I need to figure out a way to add quiet vegetables to my lunches. I’d love to crunch noisily away on raw carrots, snow peas, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. but we all eat at our desks here, and the office is so quiet. Really incredibly quiet. You can hear someone eating an apple clear across the building. So I’ve taken to eating quiet, soft foods like brown rice with a little bit of chicken mixed in, which is good … but I’d like more veggies.

When I was able to go home for lunch, I used to cook up a pot of frozen veggies of various sorts (just bring them to the boil … not overcook), and that was my lunch. I felt great and lost weight. But that’s a bit more difficult to do in an office setting with limited kitchen facilities.

^^Where do you live Machka?

I know in the states we have lots of steamable veggies that come in bags. I used to get a mixed veggie bag and eat it with my lunch fairly often.
Another option is a small salad in addition to your lunch every day. You get your veggies, stay "regular", and it's quiet unless you load it with croutons.

I live in Tasmania ... Australia.

I'd like the bags of steamable veggies, and it seems to me I could get them in Canada, but they're not as common here. I did a quick check in the downtown grocery store a few days ago, and didn't see anything, but I might take a more thorough look.

I've added spinach, thin radish slices, and cucumber to sandwiches ... but even that's noisy. I think lettuce would be noisy in my office. I've never been in an office so quiet!! However, I might try salads now and then.

You've got to eat, even if it is a bit loud.
While I understand that you probably shouldn't be snacking on a bag of potato chips and moaning about how good they taste, if your coworkers have a problem with you eating a salad they need to relax. haha

I thought you Aussie's were all wild and stuff anyway :beer:

Not this bunch of them! It's the most silent office I've ever worked in!!

No one complains about eating noises ... no one says much of anything ... some guy, some distance away did eat an apple today and probably half the office heard him crunching away.

But it would be sort of like ... where's quiet these days? ... like munching a celery stick in the middle of silent prayers at church, or in one of those art galleries where everyone moves through in silence or murmuring in hushed tones, or what libraries used to be like. Any noise almost echoes around and seems louder than it might normally.

It's my own embarrassment ... but then I've never seen such a collection of soft foods being consumed, as I have in that office. Soup, yogurt, pastas, rice, soft sandwiches. So I am guessing I'm not the only one who feel uncomfortable crunching and munching away.

However, I have also thought about taking a baggie of raw carrots or something with me when I go for a walk outside at lunch. That might work some days.

Are you allowed to go outside?

We're pretty loud around here and I don't mind crunching on carrots and being offensive. I actually have on coworker who is so obnoxious he clips his fingernails at his desk. I almost threw a stapler at him.

But I have another coworker who just likes to go sit outside to get away from everyone and have a bit of peace.

Absolutely! We're encouraged to go outside for as much as an hour or so.

I usually walk for all/most of that partly because finding a place to sit can be a bit of a challenge some days ... fighting the tourists for bench space in the parks or along the waterfront ... and partly because I like walking for an hour or so in the middle of the day. :)

It's a good way to incorporate more exercise into my day.

And our department encourages things like that. Some employees walk at lunch, some go for a jog, others use the gym in the basement. Very few don't do anything.

My youngest daughter will eat Greek salad every day and it is her favourite lunch... it is quick and easy to make (and she makes it herself) and because she is a little nerd she did the nutritional breakdown and deemed it a nearly perfect meal. The fridge is always stocked with the ingredients for this as we also eat a lot of this and vegetarians can skip the feta cheese.

She has oatmeal for breakfast nearly every day.

Nice to have one kid who is a vegetable fiend who is also really aware of what is good for her... she reads every label when we shop and it was pretty amusing when she was smaller and would loudly return packages to the shelf with the comment, "that's full of crap". If it has added sugar or a list of unpronounceable ingredients it does not make her list.

A recent study in the UK says to eat more veggies: Study: Eat 7 servings of fruit, veggies daily ? The Chart - CNN.com Blogs

I have lost 80 pounds in the last year. I am off all my diabetes meds with my glucose number between 70 and 80 on a fasting. I am off all my depression meds also. My blood pressure varies from normal to slightly elevated. Here is my opinion of it all. The obesity epidemic comes more from portion size then what we eat. Yes, cut out the sugar and the starches but above all eat less. I use a small saucer for my dinner plate. I can pile that saucer full and in my head I have a massive amount of food but in reality there isn't a whole lot of food on the plate.

Diabetes plain and simple comes from the obesity. If you are severely overweight you will have diabetes. Plain and simple. Lose the weight and it will be kept in check. Fitness is also a huge key in weight and diabetes management. A body that is being worked will use the glucose and not store it. In the end it is just common sense and what works for you. And that is the final key. You have to find what works for you and something that you can follow for the rest of your life. That may not be what is suggested but if it works then do it.

Here is something I saw a year ago that set me on my way. It is very informative and will open your eyes to a lot. Its a very long watch as it was showed on HBO over several months but well worth it.

HBO: The Weight of the Nation: Films: Main

@Machka, chew away and make noise. Everyone else is just waiting for someone to do it so they can too. There is zero chance I'd let a quiet office deprive me of my lunch salad.

H

Sesame-Glazed Baby Bok Choy

Make a sauce of:
2T soy sauce
2T chicken broth
1T rice wine vinegar
2t toasted sesame oil
1t granulated sugar

Prep the following and place in a small bowl:
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
2 scallions, sliced thinly

Optional: Toast 1T sesame seeds in a dry skillet until lightly browned, then set aside

Heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat until very hot. Take 4 baby bok choy, about 1 pound total, and halve them lengthwise. When the skillet is very hot, add 1T peanut oil. Add bok choy in a single layer and cook without moving about 2 min, then turn and cook 1 min longer. Remove bok choy to a platter and add garlic, ginger and scallion to skillet along with 1T more peanut oil. Cook 20 seconds, add soy sauce mixture and cook 20 sec more, until sauce is thickened. Remove pan from heat, place bok choy back into pan and turn to coat with glaze. Serve immediately.

Eating healthy and finding the right diet for you is not something one or a handful of sites is going to be able to answer. Just try to always be learning about different foods, try new things and listen to your body. Takes years of practice to really find out what works best.

No one will have a firm answer for what will work for you. Asking questions and continual learning is helpful, but don't be afraid to try new things, or break out of a diet plan that you read about.

I found some veggies that will work. There aren't many individual serving, steamed vegetable options, but there is one that should work. I can take a package to work and heat it in the microwave.

My boss (a competitive bodybuilder) eats asparagus and snow peas which he puts into a microwaveable container with a little bit of water and pops into the microwave for a minute or so. So that's an option too. :) Way back when, I used to do broccoli and cauliflower that way.

Tomorrow... Come in early and bring in apples and carrot sticks and place a few on each person's desk. That place is broken and needs to be fixed! ;)

This is the ticket really. Get outside and munch to your heart's content. When traveling with work I end up working with several other guys in a small office. I go outside and eat my lunch salad. They whinge about the smell (I usually put tuna or salmon on it) if I eat at my desk. Outside, no one cares about noise, smell or anything else. I can go sardines without a complaint. The fresh air and vitamin D dose is a good enough reason on it's own.

Re: the noise issue - What about making green smoothies and taking those to work with you, assuming you can stash them in the fridge until you want them. Using a Magic Bullet or something similar is easy since you blend and drink from the same cup, though I just make a large one in my substantially more powerful blender and bring it with me in a 1litre nalgene bottle. Usually a mix of spinach or kale, cucumber, pineapple, blue berries, macha powder, chia, and sometimes a vegan protein powder as well. I just use whatever I have on hand, so it changes up quite frequently based on what is in season, and what is on sale. I eat FAR more leafy greens since I turned to smoothies ... you can blend just about anything and it tastes great.

Those veggie packages work really well. Quick and easy ... and 2 servings of veggies in each package. :)

And, as the years go by (and the chronic diseases start to kick in), the differences will become increasingly greater...

As a home health health nurse I saw that happening: a sedentary life style and unhealthy diet led to other things (such as obesity, arthritis, debilitation, and lack of flexibility) -- and that in turn led to other things such as poor circulation, diabetes, heart failure and the like...

It has been estimated that 80% of the health care spending that is driving this country and its citizens into bankruptcy goes to treat chronic diseases that many believe could have been prevented by a simple healthy life style -- a lifestyle that is not only cheap, it's free!
... (well, it's free unless you like to cycle -- and then it's anything BUT free! ;))

The steamed veggies have been a very tasty and filling addition to my lunches. Lunch is often brown rice, a little bit of chicken, and now 2 servings of veggies. :)

And paying a bit more attention to my diet ... eating less, but increasing the amount of veggies (again) seems to be paying off. I've lost 3.5 kg in the last couple months.

I've also been exercising more ... trying to be active on average at least 90 minutes a day.


Now can anyone tell me a bit about quinoa? Turns out I can't eat tree nuts, so I'm looking for another non-meat, low-fat protein source.

Quinoa is one of the few plant sources (besides soy) of complete plant proteins. I like it when cooked with one cup of quinoa to two cups of vege broth (of course I could say that about brown rice too!).

But, aside from the one-stop source of "Complete" or some say "Quality" protein (which includes all 9 amino acids your body does not manufacture on its on), there is no nutritional advantage to the grain over say brown rice. Or, if you add some peas and corn in with the brown rice (or at any point during the day), you are getting that same "Complete" / "Quality" protein -- so it has no nutritional advantage at all that way...

So, eat it if you like it - and if you are a meat eater, then the only reason to eat it is if you like it.

For myself, each day I have a couple cups of soy milk (one in the morning and one in the evening) and some legumes and whole grains in between -- and get all the protein I need each day (about 60-65grams).

BTW, I have heard it is a good idea to spread your protein intake throughout the day -- rather than ingesting it as one big clump throughout the day. The body processes it better...