Whew! I just returned from Walt Disney World. The family had a great time but dining was always a burden. It seems to me that there are not a lot of CM-LO friendly options at the resort’s numerous restaurants. Many times a certain seafood dish had mixes of meat and or meat sauces. Especially on last Friday, the first Friday of Lent, extra caution had to be taken. I had to ask for substitute preparation for the food so that I could be completely meatless. It is tough to dine out unless you see a vegetarian dish listed. But you also need to ask what the components of the sauce are as well. A great percentage of chefs will use chicken broth in lieu of plain water or milk for many of their sauces. This as you know is not a CM-LO food. Vegetarian stock should be used. If you make a chicken dish use chicken broth. If you are cooking fish or seafood, then make a stock with just the fish and no meats. I was floored to see a clams and mussels dish with sausage buried in the stock. Always beware and ask! If your waiter doesn’t know then ask the cook! By the way, the Disney waiters are well informed and will tell you the specifics of the dishes if asked! Food for thought and food for Lent. CertifiedMeatless is the best! Make it a CM-LO day!

How did it go yesterday? Ash Wednesday is the first day to become CertifiedMeatless? If you had trouble finding food choices, then you did not consult the experts at CM-LO! Take a look today to plan your meals for the next 40 days and beyond!

Hello, Here is an excerpt from the Harvard Medical Journal. It shows good health habits for a healty hear! Remember today is Ash Wednesday so make your protein choices meatless for meatless Wednesday and a meatless Ash Wednesday! For further information go to http://CM-LO.com

A Heart-Smart Diet
The right diet can help prevent some forms of heart disease. To stay healthy, your body needs the right balance of foods. A “heart-smart” diet means:

Keeping your total calories under control
Eating as much vegetables as you want (at least several servings per day)
Eating more fruits
Replacing butter and margarine with mono-saturated and polyunsaturated oils
Avoiding trans fats and saturated fats
Eating whole grain foods instead of refined carbohydrates and potatoes
Getting your protein from fish, egg whites, legumes, beans, nuts and seeds.
Increasing your physical activity and trying to dedicate time for exercise every day

It is Friday and it is once again a day of reflection and abstinence. Not only good as a mortification, eating fish,seafood, and vegetables is a way of cleansing the body and allowing the body to obtain useful chemical components. Omega 3’s which are found in seafood has many properties that lead to better health. I am enclosing an excerpt from a study conducted by the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine published a few days ago. Please read and absorb the information. One note about fish oil and Omega 3 supplements: Many over the counter supplements are encased in geletin which is a meat derivative and therefore non CMLO. Choose carefully and choose supplements encased in dextrose or other CMLO acceptable capsules. More infomation at http://CM-LO.com.
Here is the excerpt and have a Certified Meatless Friday!

About Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Omega-3 fatty acids—also known as n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)—are important for a number of bodily functions, including the relaxation and contraction of muscles, blood clotting, digestion, fertility, cell division, growth, and movement of calcium and other substances in and out of cells.

The three major types of omega-3 fatty acids are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). ALA is found in seeds, vegetable oils (canola, flaxseed, and soybean), green leafy vegetables, nuts, and beans. ALA is converted, usually in small amounts, into EPA and DHA, after it is ingested. Fish oil and fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring, and tuna are the primary sources of EPA and DHA. Algae oils are a vegetarian source of DHA. Omega-3s are available as dietary supplements, usually in the form of capsules or oils. Commonly used supplements include fish oil, flaxseed oil, and walnut oil.

Most American diets provide at least 10 times more omega-6 than omega-3 fatty acids. Scientists generally agree that people should consume less omega-6s and more omega-3s for good health; however, the best ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s has not been determined.

Welcome back to our blog and site! We at CertifiedMeatless are continuing our series on the Mediterranean Diet. It seems that eating in this manner may lead to a longer shelf life for your brain! For more information on the Mediterranean Diet, go to our blog at http://CertifiedMeatless.com/blog and click on “Mediterranean Diet”. We think you will find the articles quite fascinating! Here is our excerpt:

Study finds less damage to brain tissue when the regimen is followed
By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) — Eating a Mediterranean-style diet — one rich in olive oil, whole grains, fish and fruit — may protect aging brains from damage linked to cognitive problems, a new study finds
Other studies have already found that such diets also lower risks for depression, cancer, heart disease and premature death.
The latest study was led by Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, and involved 712 men and women averaging 80 years of age. All of the participants had no history of stroke and received MRIs to look for brain infarcts — tissues that have died because of reduced or cut-off blood supply.
Though the infarcts are true strokes, Scarmeas said, they are so small that they escape notice.
In all, 238 people had at least one area of brain damage, he said.
The researchers also looked at how well the participants had followed a Mediterranean-style diet for the six years before the MRI.
“What we found was, those people who were following a healthier diet, more Mediterranean-like, had fewer brain infarcts, strokes, on the MRI,” Scarmeas said. Their risk for having such damage was lowered by up to 36 percent, he said.
The reduced risk was linked to the type of diet eaten, the study found. “We broke the diet adherence into three groups: those who adhered very, very little [to the Mediterranean plan], those who adhered to a moderate degree and those adhering to a high degree,” he said.
People in the middle — those who followed the diet moderately well — were 21 percent less likely to have brain damage than people in the lowest adherence group. Those who followed it most closely had a 36 percent reduced risk compared with those who followed it the least.
The effect of the diet on brain health that they found was about the same as the effect that not having high blood pressure has on the brain, Scarmeas said.
In earlier studies, Scarmeas and his colleagues have shown that a Mediterranean diet could help lower the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and might lengthen the life of those who have the disease. Now, he said, the new findings may help explain the reason for this — that those who eat the healthiest have the fewest number of brain infarcts associated with cognitive decline.
Scarmeas is expected to present the findings to the American Academy of Neurology at its annual meeting in April in Toronto. The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis, said the finding expressed in the study’s abstract “gives strength to the message of the importance of plant foods, and healthy oils, to overall health.”
“Boosting plant food intake can improve heart health and reduce body weight, but now it appears it may [also] aid brain health,” she said.

Hello all. Today is the First Friday of the month. It is a special day of mortification and prayer. Remember Lent is coming soon so it is good to get into that mode of thinking and action! Today should be a day of abstinence from slaughtered landed meats and their by-products. Choose from hundreds of products listed on our web-site http://CertifiedMeatless.com . Need some ideas? Look at our newly updated recipes link. You will find wonderful vegetarian and seafood recipes from all over the world.

Just when you thought……
We often strive to knock down the calorie count to get into better physical shape. I came across this article from a month ago and was not really surprised. Nonetheless, it just goes to show you that you need to take a common sense approach towards your eating habits. Eat the right foods, but not too much,and balance your diet with a consistent approach to exercise. Below is an article which you may find rather surprising!

By Robert Preidt

THURSDAY, Jan. 7 (HealthDay News) — Many reduced-calorie restaurant and packaged foods in the United States have more calories than indicated on their nutritional labeling, a new study reports.

Tufts University researchers analyzed 29 quick-serve and sit-down restaurant foods and found they contained an average of 18 percent more calories than the stated values. The team also checked 10 frozen meals bought from supermarkets and found they had an average of 8 percent more calories than what was printed on the label.

Three of the supermarket-purchased meals and seven restaurant foods contained up to twice their stated amount of calories.

An added complication was identified with some restaurant meals. Five restaurants provided side dishes at no extra cost, and the average amount of calories in the side dishes was greater than for the entrees they accompanied, the researchers reported.

The study appears in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

“These findings suggest that stated energy contents of reduced energy meals obtained from restaurants and supermarkets are not consistently accurate and, in this study, average more than measured values, especially when free side dishes were taken into account, which on average contained more energy than the entrees alone,” wrote the researchers, led by Susan B. Roberts, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at Tufts’ Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging.

They noted that a “positive energy balance of only 5 percent per day for an individual requiring 2,000 kcal/day could lead to a 10-pound weight gain in a single year.”

Not only could this hamper people’s attempts to control their weight, the researchers wrote, but it also could “reduce the potential benefit of recent policy initiatives to disseminate information on food energy content at the point of purchase.”

SOURCE: American Dietetic Association, news release, Jan. 5, 2010

Wow! January just flew by under the radar. But now we are starting February 2010 and its starts perfectly on the first day of the week! It is a great day to start up the meatless monday with CertifiedMeatless once again. I know that a lot of you had those new year’s resolutions which went by the way-side. But, everyone can keep trying again. Sometimes the habit is hard to kick start but when you feel the need for the routine, then the magic can start. So lets try and go meatless today. When you are done reading this blog and some of the others, go to http:CM-LO.com for more information on being meatless and CertifiedMeatless! Make it a CM-LO day!

Remember when CertifiedMeatless announced its series on the Mediterranean Diet? Well here is another article on our series. To refresh, the Mediterranean Diet is high on fish and vegetarian products. It frowns upon red meats. So since it is Friday, make it a CM-LO, Certified Meatless Friday! Check our previous posts for Mediterranean Diet ideas. The article below is a study from the American Journal of Epidemiology as reported by Reuters:

New research from Spain confirms the benefit of a Mediterranean diet to a healthy heart.

In an analysis of more than 40,000 Spanish adults followed for an average of 10 years, researchers found that sticking to a Mediterranean diet significantly reduced the risk of a first heart attack or other heart disease-related event.

Specific components of a Mediterranean diet differ from region to region but, generally, the key features include high consumption of olive oil, plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole-grain cereals, nuts and seeds. Fish is favored over other meat sources with relatively low consumption of red meat. Alcohol, especially red wine, and dairy products are used in moderation.

For years, evidence has been accumulating regarding the protective effects of a Mediterranean diet against heart disease, Genevieve Buckland and associates at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Studies of varying sizes and designs have shown that a Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of death in people who’ve had a heart attack, curb the risk of stroke, and boost survival in people living with heart disease, they note.

However, Buckland and associates were concerned that weaknesses in previous research limited the strength of conclusions. To investigate further, they used data collected between 1992 and 2004 from 41,078 healthy men and women from five Spanish centers involved in the 10-country European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, or EPIC, study.

The participants, whose average age was 49 at enrollment, provided information on what and how much they ate. The researchers also took body measurements, asked about behaviors such as smoking and physical activity, and medical history.

Each participant was given a score on an 18-point scale based on how closely their diet adhered to the Mediterranean ideal; the higher the score, the higher the adherence.

During an average follow-up of 10.4 years, 609 of the study participants suffered a heart attack or severe chest pain called unstable angina requiring intervention. Nine of them died.

When the researchers compared these heart events with Mediterranean diet scores and adjusted for confounding factors, they found that the higher the score (and adherence to the Mediterranean diet) the lower the risk of heart disease.

Specifically, high adherence, compared with low adherence, to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a 40 percent reduced risk of a first heart disease-related event, they report.

Heart disease is a top killer worldwide, accounting for roughly 30 percent of all deaths, equal to approximately 17 million deaths annually, the investigators note. Nearly half of these deaths are due to heart disease.

It’s thought that 80 percent of heart attacks and related events could be prevented by modifying behaviors — like adopting a healthy diet. And the current study suggests that drastic diet changes may not be necessary.

Each 1-unit increase in the Mediterranean diet score was associated with a 6 percent reduced risk of heart disease, Buckland and colleagues report. Even a 2-unit increase in Mediterranean score, “which required less drastic and more feasible dietary changes, has a protective effect,” they report.

The researchers say more study is needed to pinpoint key protective components of the Mediterranean diet and how these components confer their protective effects.

In the meantime, however, their results add to a growing body of evidence pointing to the heart health benefits of a diet rich in olive oil, plant-based foods, and fresh fish and low in red meats.

SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, December 15, 2009.

Reuters Health

Great tasty recipe for the day: Use enough pizza dough to fill a round 12″ diameter baking stone.Sprinkle flour on the stone and roll the dough. Any good vegetarian tomato sauce will do but I used the “B” brand tomato with chopped garlic sauce. Ladle the sauce onto the dough. Take a good helping of chopped onions, peppers, and mushrooms and sprinkle all around. Top off with a good mozzarella which does not contain enzymes. Bake at 410 degrees Farenheit for 14 minutes. Wonderful, crisp, and delicious!