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We love green pancakes (aka spinach crêpes) in our family and are constantly exploring more ways to incorporate them into various meals. We have got lots of examples and ideas in our cookbooks but here are three new favorites:
1. Add mustard, lentils, sliced tomato and cheese to you pancakes. Fold them up, bake them quickly until the cheese melts and serve with a fresh lentil and melon salad.
2. Fill them with sweet potato, spinach, feta, yogurt and za’atar. Then roll them up and slice them into picnic rolls.
3. Make a banana split pancake bowl with some whipped cream, yogurt, raspberries, nut butter and chocolate.

We are sharing all of these recipes below. You can either make the pancakes from scratch or use fridge cold leftover pancakes for these recipes. They are not vegan but if you use our vegan chickpea pancakes as base, you can easily modify the fillings to suit a vegan diet. Hummus, pesto, ajvar or coconut yogurt are excellent creamy toppings on vegan pancakes instead of yogurt and cheese.

The recipe for the batter comes from our Green Kitchen at Home cookbook and we have included it in the bottom of this post. They are the most easy flippable gluten free pancakes we know. Pancakes work as a quick dinner in our family as the batter literally takes 30 seconds to mix together so we can have the first pancakes on the table within 5 minutes (admittedly I don’t always let the batter rest even if I recommend it).

Gruyere, Mustard & Lentil Pancake Melt
Serves 4 as a lunch

This is the pancake equivalent to melted cheese sandwiches. It’s a great way to give old pancakes new life. We love it with lots of mustard (obviously use less for kids) and a crunchy salad for balance.

4 green pancakes (see recipe below)
8 slices gruyere cheese (or another cheese)
4 large teaspoons mustard
8 cherry tomatoes
200 g / 1 cup cooked lentils (store bought are fine)
1 bag mixed lettuce
1 avocado
1 galia melon (or other melon)
10 cm / 4 inches cucumber
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper

Make the batter and fry the pancakes if you haven’t done so already. Place two slices cheese in the middle of each pancake. Spread a layer of mustard on the cheese, slice the tomatoes thinly and lay them on top of the mustard along with a small handful lentils. Fold the pancakes into quarters and place in a baking dish with a drizzle of olive oil on top. Bake at 200°C/400°F for 10-12 minutes or until the cheese has melted. Meanwhile, chop up lettuce, avocado, melon and cucumber and place in a salad bowl. Add the remaining lentils. Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and toss. Serve the pancake warm with salad on the side.

Sweet Potato & Za’atar Pancake Picnic Rolls
Makes 20 rolls

You can use almost any veggies in pancake rolls. Just make sure you have something creamy and sticky as base to bind them together. For a vegan version, use hummus instead of yogurt and tofu instead of feta cheese and sprinkle with nutritional yeast.
Next time, we’ll add some crushed walnuts for crunch, pomegranate seeds for extra tanginess and maybe a couple of mint leaves for a fresh flavor twist.

4 green pancakes (see recipe below)
1 large sweet potato
cinnamon
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup full-fat Turkish yogurt
200 g feta cheese
2 handfuls spinach, chopped
1 cup cooked chickpeas
2 tbsp za’atar (an awesome spice blend that you can find in Middle Eastern stores)
2 tsp chili flakes (optional)

Set the oven at 200°C/400°F. Cut a sweet potato in half lengthwise, brush each cut side with a little oil and cinnamon. Place on a tray and bake for 40 minutes or until the flesh is soft and golden. If you haven’t prepared the batter and fried the pancakes, now is the time to do so. When the sweet potato is ready, use a fork to mash the flesh (you can mash it in its own skin to save some dishes). Squeeze over lemon juice and extra cinnamon while mashing.

Spread out sweet potato mash on one half of each pancake and thick yogurt on the other half. Cut the feta cheese into 1 cm / 1/3 inch thick sticks and place them in the centre of each pancake. Add a small handful chopped spinach, a couple of chickpeas, a generous drizzle za’atar and some chili flakes (if using). Roll up the pancakes as tightly as possible and slice into 2 inch / 5 cm rolls.

Sweet Pancake Banana Split
Serves 4

4 green pancakes (see recipe below)
1 cup whipped cream
1 cup greek yogurt
4 bananas
1 cup raspberries
4 tbsp nut butter
4 tsp honey
30 g / 1 oz dark chocolate
1 handful hemp seeds or slivered almonds

Place each pancake in the bottom of a small bowl. Add dollops of whipped cream and yogurt. Cut the bananas into bite-sized pieces and spread out in the bowl. Add raspberries and drizzle with peanut butter and honey. Sprinkle with finely chopped dark chocolate, hemp seeds and top with a few mint leaves.

Spinach Crêpes (in our house they are know as Green Pancakes)
Makes 10-14, depending on the size of your pan and thickness of your pancakes

5 eggs
150 g / 1 cup rice flour (both light or wholegrain works, as does spelt flour)
500 ml / 2 cups oat milk, or milk of choice
a large handful spinach
a small handful herbs (basil, mint or parsley)
sea salt

Crack the eggs into a blender or food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend on high speed until smooth. Leave to rest for 20 minutes before starting to fry them (you can fry them right away but they will be a little harder to flip). For frying, add a little butter or coconut oil to a 20 cm / 8 inch non-stick frying pan/skillet on medium heat. Once hot (this is important or else it will stick), whisk the batter then ladle 80 ml / 1/3 cup into the pan. Let fry for 1-2 minutes or until small bubbles form on the surface and the base is golden. Run a spatula around the edges to make sure it has detached from the pan, before carefully flipping it over and frying the other side for another minute. Transfer to a plate and repeat with the rest of the batter (you may need to reduce the heat slightly after the first crêpes).

To store the crêpes, keep them in an air-tight wrap in the fridge and they will be good for 3-4 days.

These 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies have a rich peanut butter flavor and are SO EASY to make. I love that they’re naturally gluten-free, and can be made vegan, too!

How to Make 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

These cookies are made with just 4 ingredients you probably already have on hand. I use coconut sugar as a low-glycemic option compared to white sugar, and all-natural peanut butter for maximum peanut butter flavor, but you can use any variety you happen to have.

Pair those two ingredients with an egg and baking soda, and you’ve got the easiest cookies ever. I also recommend adding an extra pinch of salt, especially if you’re using unsalted peanut butter, but that’s optional.

Peanut Butter Cookies without Eggs

If you are vegan or have an egg allergy, you can also make these 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies without using eggs. You can use a flax egg instead!

To make a flax egg, simply stir together 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseeds with 3 tablespoons of water. The mixture will begin to “gel” and thicken up in about 10 minutes, and then you can use it in place of an egg in this recipe. The resulting cookies are a little softer and more fragile, but that’s exactly how I like my cookies.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you like the combination of peanut butter + chocolate (like my husband does!) you can also add a few dark chocolate chips to this recipe, if you like. I just press the chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies, right before baking.

Recipe Notes:

• To make these cookies egg-free, use a flax egg. (Or chia egg!) Combine 1 tablespoon of ground seeds with 3 tablespoons of water, and let them “gel” for about 10 minutes before using in this recipe.
• You can use any other nut-butter you like for this recipe, such as almond butter or sunflower seed butter. (Sunflower butter might turn green in the center, as a result of a safe chemical reaction with baking soda.)
• Prefer to use another sweetener? Try my Flourless Peanut Butter Honey Cookies or Date-Sweetened Peanut Butter Cookies instead.

–

Reader Feedback: Have you tried these cookies? Let me know what you think about them in the comments below! And if you make any modifications, please let us know how that worked out for you, too. We can all benefit from your experience.

The Trump administration released more details on its proposed budget, in language straight out of George Orwell’s 1984.

Framed as “savings and reform,” the proposal is to move the USDA’s Economic Research Service out of Washington DC.   Although this proposal says the purpose is to bring the ERS closer to rural America, its real purpose is to put the ERS out of business.

Why do I say this?  Because this proposal comes with a $26 million budget cut.   I also hear rumors that ERS research staff are being offered retirement options.

ERS is the jewel in USDA’s crown, nothing less than a national treasure, not only worth preserving but worth extolling for its truly important contributions to society.

I’ve long said that ERS was the best kept secret in government.  Its researchers worked tirelessly to provide real data on America’s food production and what it means for health.

Here, for example, is its latest report on how the U.S. food dollar is spent.

The best thing I can say about this budget is that it is unlikely to pass.  Members of Congress have been trying to put a stop to this move.  Let’s hope they succeed.

This may be a small piece of what’s happening, but in my field it is essential.

Please tell your congressional representatives to restore ERS’s budget and keep it in Washington, DC.

How?

Continuing on the theme of childhood neglect, my nonscientific gut-check tells me that if people were mean or indifferent or unable to care for you while you were a kid, you might lack the skills to care for yourself as an adult.

This can lead to a place of acute suffering. It can also make you feel like something is fundamentally wrong with you, instead of understanding that your suffering is the result of something that happened (or didn’t happen when you needed it to), and not something you are.

Which can obscure the fact that these skills are, in fact, learned — people aren’t just born with them.

When you’re suffering, and you suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with you, it can be very difficult to find effective help. If you struggle to find effective help, and you also don’t know the basics of how to care for yourself, it can feel like falling into a very deep pit where every attempt to dig yourself out crashes in on you.

The thing that lifts you out of the pit is taking care of yourself, first, and understanding that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you, second. Your experiences are proof of your humanness, not your brokenness.

Even when you’re in pain, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you.

Even when you’re sick, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you.

Humans get sick and feel pain.

Guess what you are? I’ll give you one guess.

Even if you didn’t learn to take care of yourself as a kid, it is something you can easily learn as an adult. At the same time, being nice to yourself can be surprisingly difficult to master, thanks in large part to our weird and often dysfunctional culture. But I have some thoughts.

First of all, you won’t suddenly become a molten sloth if you start being nice to yourself. That’s a myth, and it’s part of that thing I just said about our dysfunctional culture. If anything, learning to be nice to yourself helps you to build resilience, so the next time some crappy thing happens in life, you have a bit more stamina to get through it. It makes life a tiny bit less scary since you know that, even if things get really bad, you’ve got yourself in your corner, doing nice things for you.

Second, being nice to yourself involves both doing things that you want, and doing things that you need to do. It is not all one or the other. In fact, the quickest way to be super mean to yourself is to pick one and avoid the other.

Only doing the things that need to be done ends in a super clean house, glowing reports from your boss, and all your bills paid on time…but also burnout, sadness, and no time for yourself.

Only doing the things you want to do feels really, really good…for a while. It also ends in sadness, feeling sick or groggy, and often having waaaaaay too much time on your hands.

So how do you start this incredibly, strangely difficult process of being nice to yourself? I’ll give you some pointers.

Take Breaks

You would be shocked at the number of people I talk to who simply…don’t…ever…take breaks. It actually boggles my mind. Sure, a lot of them goof off, at some point, sneaking stolen moments of time to look at Facebook, or guiltily wresting an hour to do something other than work-work. All of them collapse, at some point, in the evening when they are incapable of doing any more.

In my mind, none of that really counts as a proper break. First of all, it’s usually not planned or intentional — it often only happens once the person is up against the wall of their own exhaustion and has no other choice but to stop for a while. Or it’s completely spoiled by guilt. Too little, too late.

What I’m suggesting, instead, is that you plan, on purpose, to take regular, restorative breaks throughout the day. For me, a fully restorative break requires: knowing what time it’s coming, getting up from my desk (not just sitting in the same spot and looking at the same screen), and preferably having a change of scenery, even if just means the next room or a different part of the room. And then some kind of reward, whether it’s a snack, a beverage, a book, music, doodling, or petting a cat.

Most jurisdictions have some law on the books about legal break times. If you possibly can, find out what breaks you’re entitled to and take them. On purpose.

Comfort Yourself

Do small physical things that are comforting and distracting. Especially when stressed, this can be very useful. Doing small physical things helps to keep your mind occupied while feels (of any variety) run their course.

Small physical things I like to do can depend on which emotion I’m feeling (sad vs. angry, for example.) If I’m anxious or angry, sometimes a small bit of exercise, like even a few wall pushups or a brief walk, followed by taking a break is the key. When I’m sad, usually something very comforting, like a very hot shower, fuzzy pajamas, and then getting in bed early with a heating pad and a book and a cat, is the most helpful. Sometimes I’ll eat a particularly nice snack while paying close attention to how it tastes.

For some people, music is helpful, or something nice-smelling. Think of each of the five senses and try to make a list of things you find comforting. Hand lotion? Cuticle oil? Warm socks? Pretty pictures? Perfume? Videos of people jumping off a rope swing at the place where you used to go camping as a kid (warning: heights)?

Get Some Rest

Set yourself up to get enough rest. Even if you’re having trouble sleeping, lying down to rest can be useful. I read somewhere that you receive 70% of the benefit of sleeping just from laying down, awake. I have no idea whether this is true, and I don’t want to verify it because it is such a useful fiction when I’m lying there, fretting about not sleeping.

I also find that when I do all of my get-ready-for-bed tasks right after dinner, instead of waiting for Late O’Clock, it’s easier to fall in bed when I’m tired and actually sleep. When I’m particularly stressed, letting myself lie in bed early, even when I have no intention of sleeping yet, helps me wind down until I just fall asleep on my own, usually at an earlier time than I otherwise would. A Kindle loaded with a bunch of extremely silly books is indispensable for this.

And if I really can’t sleep, getting up to read in a comfy chair until I’m sleepy helps too. I know this breaks a lot of sleep hygiene rules, but you can experiment.

Give Your Feelings Some Credit

When you feel sad or anxious or angry, don’t try to talk yourself out of it. Acknowledge that your feelings make sense, even if the thoughts that go with them don’t always. Feelings are allowed to be there, even when you don’t act on them. The best way of acting on them is usually by taking care of yourself, not by acting out.

Get Out of the House

Especially if you work from home, or have an irregular schedule and a tendency to cocoon — get out of the house once per day. Even if it’s just to take out garbage or stand on your stoop for five minutes. On days when I am just slammed and have no time, I will often just stand on my balcony and stare, slack-jawed, at trees for five minutes. It helps. The fresh air, the change of scenery, getting out of your head for a bit…it helps.

Feed and Water Yourself

Offer yourself food and fluids at least three times a day. I had a period of time where I noticed, on weekends, I would often just abandon any pretense of structure with my eating. You know what happened? Rather than experiencing the joys of a free-wheeling, zero-responsibilities, foodless existence, I laid around and felt like death. It reliably destroyed my mood, my energy levels, and basically my entire weekend.

Once I realized what I was doing, I made a deal with myself: I didn’t have to eat meals AND regular snacks the way I often do on weekdays, when my schedule is more structured and I’m expending more energy and thus feel hungrier, but I was going to make an effort to put something breakfast-like, something lunch-like, and something dinner-like in front of myself three times a day.

When I got into the habit of doing it (it did require a bit of clock-watching at first), it became very natural. Now I get reliably hungry at those times, even on weekends, and it’s easy to remember. Plus I don’t feel like a zombie. My weekends are saved.

Get a Tiny Thing Done

Do one thing each day that makes you feel a sense of accomplishment. If you’re really in the hole, it can be something small, like unloading the dishwasher or opening one piece of mail. Once you’re somewhat out of the hole, it can be doing a few hours of work-work, or responding to emails, or cleaning the bathroom. Just one thing, each day, that gives you a sense of “I got something done.”

Your Brain Will Try to Talk You Out of It

What will get in the way? Mostly, a lot of internalized messages about how doing nice things for yourself is lazy or self-indulgent or frivolous or selfish. Which, yes, true, if you stopped to do any of these things while a house was on fire in front of you, they might be. But most of us are not in such urgent situations, at least not all of the time. Somewhere, at some point in the day, most of us do have time that could be devoted to the care and feeding of ourselves.

It is tempting to think of all of this as optional, nice-to-have-but-not-necessary, to which I respectfully say — especially if you’re dealing with any symptoms of depression or anxiety or going through a stressful time — bullshit. This stuff is not optional. It is basic maintenance to remain a functional human being. If you don’t want to function at all, that’s your call, because I promise that will eventually happen if you don’t start taking a tiny sliver of time to reward yourself for not imploding.

Another thing that will get in the way is feeling that you don’t deserve it. That other people, sure, should take breaks and eat food and sleep as part of basic mammal maintenance, but that you, you, are set apart from them in a special category reserved for the most intense self-loathing and the least pressing creature needs.

I mean, if people treated you like you didn’t deserve basic care as a child, that none of your needs were valid, why wouldn’t you go on to believe that and treat yourself that was as an adult? You would! It’s perfectly understandable!

It’s just completely wrong.

You are just as valuable as anyone else, and you deserve just as much care-taking as anyone else. This is how you should have been cared for all along. You can’t go back in time and erase the past, but you can make the effort to place your feet on a different path right now.

Even if your past involved neglect, your future doesn’t have to. You need care, and you deserve it. You can do this.

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Q: There seems to be a lot of controversy lately about what I thought were foundational supplements such as fish oil, vitamin D, and probiotics. What’s up with that? 

—Stephon W., San Jose, Calif.

A: The more “we the people” take responsibility for our health, the more likely we are to live healthy, vibrant lives. It may sound cynical, but pharmaceutical companies, with their profit motives and lobbyists, need us to be chronically unwell. I believe they go to disturbing lengths to discredit so-called “alternative” medicine. The level of misrepresentation in the headlines is shocking sometimes. It’s crucial to look at the actual studies before making any judgements

Life on planet Earth is not what it used to be. Less than 100 years ago, there were no prescription antibiotics. Potent, natural antimicrobials (which still work today) came from minerals (especially sulfur) and plant medicines, including goldenseal, osha, and thyme. While antibiotics have prevented many fatalities—from septic war wounds to ulcers to myriad bacterial infections—there are inherent problems with them. First, within 10 years of the production of any antibiotic (penicillin was the first), resistant strains of bacteria emerge. Second, taking a broad-spectrum antibiotic (which indiscriminately kills all microbes) wrecks the body’s gut flora.

Did You Know?

It’s important to look at the actual studies, rather than just the headlines. To find full studies, try PubMed: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed. 

Are probiotics helpful or harmful?

Let’s look at two recent studies that cast doubt on probiotics. One study (not in people, but on a gut “chip,” which is lined with living human cells) showed that inflammation in the gut causes intestinal permeability (leaky gut). The researchers, whose findings were published in the journal PNAS, theorized that leaky gut could allow probiotics into the bloodstream, causing more harm than good. I disagree. For example, in cases of C. difficile (a hard-to-treat, hospital-acquired infection in the colon caused by antibiotics), pouring billions of good bacteria into a damaged gut often resolves the infection. Also, research has shown that taking probiotic sachets (with 450 billion CFUs) three times daily for 6–18 weeks significantly helps people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

A study published in Cell tracked around 20 people on antibiotics. Researchers divided participants into three groups: one took nothing after their course of antibiotics; the second group got a fecal transplant with their own stool, which was collected prior to antibiotic treatment; and the third group was given a commercial probiotic strain that had never been scientifically studied. The folks who got their own fecal transplant had the quickest return to a “normal” microbiome; those who took only antibiotics returned to normal next; and the probiotic group had the slowest recovery.

We have abundant proof that probiotics can reduce and cure post-antibiotic diarrhea; therefore, this one study does not invalidate using probiotics after antibiotics. Further, folks who need antibiotics are probably not particularly healthy, so returning their guts to their pre-antibiotic state may not be a good thing. It’s unnecessarily premature to take one negative probiotic study and make it the new norm, especially given that there are hundreds of positive studies on probiotics, not to mention entire conferences dedicated to studying different strains of beneficial bacteria.

It’s unnecessarily premature to take one negative study on probiotics and make it the new norm, especially given that there are hundreds of positive studies on probiotics.

The bottom line: Trust your own experience. My favorite way to help improve your gut flora is to eat fermented foods and a high-fiber diet. Fiber is the main “prebiotic” that good bugs need to flourish.

Do you need to take a vitamin D supplement?

Next, let’s look at the vitamin D kerfuffle set off by the VITAL study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital that involved nearly 26,000 patients. One of the emerging “issues” with vitamin D supplementation concerns Michael Holick, PhD, MD, of Boston University, an ardent proponent of vitamin D supplements. He’s recently been accused of profit-mongering. He helped Quest Labs develop a test for serum vitamin D (which many other labs have since started using), and he receives a consulting fee of $1,000 per month from Quest.

That’s nice, but it’s hardly extravagant. Being a consultant for a large, nationwide lab using a test that you developed doesn’t invalidate the test—or vitamin D supplementation. It is intuitively obvious in our sun-averse culture that we would be deficient in a vitamin that requires exposure to sunlight for the body to produce.

In the VITAL study, the so-called “high-dose” vitamin D amount was 2,000 IUs daily. I generally recommend my patients take 5,000 IUs, and if their serum levels are below 40, I’ll have them take 10,000 IUs daily (in 2 divided doses for better absorption, and always with food) to approach the optimal serum levels of 60–90 ng/mL.

Even with a relatively low dose, the rate of death was significantly lower with vitamin D supplementation than with a placebo (if you exclude the first two years after the trial). If someone has an aggressive form of cancer, then starting a vitamin D regimen wouldn’t save them. But it can help prolong the lives of otherwise healthy folks. In this study, the vitamin D group had 25–37 percent lower death rates. That’s impressive.

The fact is, we have become an indoor-living species. Most of us are deficient in vitamin D (and melatonin, thanks to artificial lighting). And studies show that adequate vitamin D supplementation reduces influenza A (over 60 percent better than the flu shot). It also reduces asthma incidence and MS flare-ups, and, along with weight-bearing exercise, helps maintain bone density.

Do fish oils protect your heart?

As for fish oil, the recent VITAL study also assessed the impact of Omacor (840 mg of marine omega-3 fatty acids) on cardiovascular disease. “Fish Oil Has No Impact on Strokes” and similar headlines spread over the Internet after the study results were released. But, according to the study’s website (vitalstudy.org), “The omega-3 fatty acid intervention lowered the risk of heart attack by 28 percent and the risk of fatal heart attack by 50 percent, but had no benefit on stroke or cardiovascular deaths not related to heart disease. Additionally, omega-3 fatty acids reduced the rate of angioplasty procedures by 22 percent.” So, “Fish Oil Has No Impact”? Lowering rates of fatal heart attacks and angioplasty certainly qualifies as a significant impact in my book.

Vitalstudy.org also notes, “In participants with low fish consumption (less than 1.5 servings, 3–4 ounces, per week), omega-3 supplementation led to a 19 percent reduction in major cardiovascular events, including a 40 percent reduction in heart attack, as well as a trend toward a reduction in death from any cause. Among African-Americans, omega-3 supplementation led to a 77 percent reduction in heart attacks, and a benefit was observed regardless of fish intake.” African-Americans, a high-risk group for premature death from heart disease, take note! No drug—ever—has given this kind of hope. Please, take your fish oil. Or at least eat wild salmon and small tinned fatty fish regularly.

A lack of sunshine during the Great British Winter isn't just problematic for your skin (patchy dry spots anyone?) or for your tolerance of others on the tube.

It can also be responsible for long-term health problems such as a vitamin deficiency, which can lead to bigger problems later on. Not ideal.

According to national surveys, a fifth of adults in the UK have a Vitamin D deficiency, and if that's not a sign to go on holiday, what is?

Also known as the 'sunshine vitamin', as it is best absorbed through the skin from exposure to sunlight, vitamin D is essential for calcium absorption and for strong bones as we age. Oh, and science shows this affects women in particular as our bones degrade quicker than men's. Also brilliant news.

Andrew Thomas, founder and managing director at BetterYou, said: 'Our modern indoor lifestyles, processed foods and the overuse of sun creams in the Northern Hemisphere are resulting in a dramatic rise in vitamin D deficiency, which can cause fatigue, aches and pains, and frequent infections.' Not good.

Five signs to look out for that could mean you have a vitamin D deficiency:

1. You feel sad

Serotonin is the hormone is your brain that is associated with mood elevation, it has been found to raise with exposure to bright light and lessen with decreased sun exposure. According to a study by the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, participants with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to depression.

2. You have stomach troubles

Vitamin D is fat soluble so if you have issues in your gut, you may have a limited ability to absorb vitamin D.

3. Your bones ache

A deficiency of Vitamin D can result in osteoporosis and weakened bones. Therefore feelings of aching bones is commonly associated with this deficiency.

4. You feel weak

Researchers at Harvard have linked vitamin D supplementation with increased muscle control. Vitamin D helps you to maintain control of your muscles.

5. You are sweating more than usual

A sweaty head has been reported to be one of the first signs of a vitamin D deficiency. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic report this to be one of the first ways to spot this in babies.

How can you keep your vitamin D levels in check?

Go on a sunny holiday! Most of our vitamin D comes from direct contact with sunlight on our skin. We don't need to be told twice.

Take a supplement. Experts from the Science Advisory Committee on Nutrition, who led a five-year study into vitamin D absorption, concluded that vitamin D rich foods and supplements are beneficial.

The NHS recommends looking out for a supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D. There are a number of vitamin D supplements on the market which come in capsule form or you can opt for a oral spray such as BetterYou Dlux 3000 Vitamin D Oral Spray - £7.99 SHOP

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Ensure you include good sources of vitamin D in your diet. The best sources are oily fish and red meat – yet another argument for making room for more protein in your diet. Vegetarians can look to eggs and fortified cereals and breads to (literally) fortify your bones.

As vitamin D is fat soluble, getting your fix alongside high-fat foods will further support your bone health. That means eating both the egg whites and the yolks, and mixing your cereals with good fats.

Skip the skimmed milk and go for minimum 2%, or tuck into your fortified toast with a healthy dollop of smashed avocado.

Source: https://www.elle.com/uk/beauty/skin/a29336/5-signs-you-could-be-low-in-vitamin-d/

Sheila Dillon questions whether the government's Eatwell Plate that's issued to the medical profession and used as public guidance for a balanced diet could actually be harming us. An increasing number of medics are abandoning the plate because they say it still promotes dangerously high levels of starchy carbohydrates and processed foods that contain high levels of the sugars that cause many of today's chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra author of the Pioppi diet is campaigning to change the official advice and says that a healthy diet and lifestyle are the key to reducing disease and the need for medication, but he says that vested interests from the food and pharmaceutical industries make some of these healthier choices more difficult to achieve. Dr David Unwin is a GP who has seen a huge spike in patients presenting with Type 2 Diabetes since he began practicing forty years ago. He advises lifestyle changes that include abandoning the Eatwell Guide and cutting out the starchy carbohydrates, processed foods and sugars and has seen a reversal of the disease in a significant number of patients.
Sheila also visits Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester which is overhauling its canteen food and vending machine produce to reduce processed carbohydrates and sugary drinks and snacks. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the NHS the hospital will go completely sugar free on July 4th.
Is it time to revise the Eatwell Guide and what will it take to do so?

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

Chef John Fraser brings a whole complex of new dining options to Times Square this week, starting with an all-day American brasserie located inside the luxe new Edition Hotel. The revered chef behind Michelin-starred Nix will oversee the several food and beverage options within the 43-story hotel, including the Terrace Restaurant and Outdoor Gardens opening on the ninth floor today.

The restaurant was inspired by French brasseries and American chophouses, and is meant to be the hotel’s everyday dining option, with pastas and steaks on the menu. Appetizers like a bass crudo, mushroom carpaccio, and grilled octopus will also be available, the Post reports. Other dishes include broiled lobster and baked cauliflower parmesan.

It’ll be a 14,000-square-foot space; the main dining room will seat 85, not including a 30-seat bar, while an outdoor restaurant bar area will seat 65. Another 50 or so people can fit on the restaurant’s terrace, a space that’s supposed to imitate an outdoor garden with plants, trees, and ivy throughout. Plus, a 5,800-square-foot beer garden is included in the layout.

But this is just one of several restaurant concepts Fraser is charged with overseeing in the new hotel, located at 701 Seventh Ave. on 47th Street. Developed by Ian Schrager, the co-creator of famed 70s nightclub Studio 54, the hotel will also be home to a fine-dining restaurant called 701 West and a cabaret venue called Paradise Club starting next month.

Fraser will focus on French, Asian, and Latin fare at the upscale 701 West, which is set to open in March, according to a statement from the hotel. The space will seat up to 166 people within a dining room, a bar room, and a terrace.

He’ll get most creative with the menu at the 5,000-square-foot Paradise Club, which will serve everything from hot dogs to caviar, according to the hotel. The event space will include a main dining room, two private rooms, a bar, and terrace that can seat over 200 people.

The chef will also be charged with the food and drink offerings at the hotel’s 10th floor lobby bar and lounge. The hotel officially opens today, although it’ll only begin welcoming guests on March 12. In addition to all the different food and drink concepts, the Edition Hotel will also bring 76,000 square feet of retail space to Times Square. The Edition brand, a partnership between Schrager and Marriott International, is known for its upscale dining and luxuriously hip atmospheres in its existing locations in Miami Beach and New York’s Flatiron.

Fraser — who made his name at the now-shuttered Upper West Side restaurant Dovetail — brings previous hotel experience from the East Village’s Standard East, where he created the critically acclaimed Narcissa and the more casual Narcbar. He stepped away from those ventures last year to focus on the Edition, and he’s kept busy since. Earlier this month, he also introduced a new menu at the Met.

Towards the end of 2018, I met with an inspiring individual that I met shortly after we moved back to Indianapolis after living in Denver. We talked about many things, but something that stuck out to me was the idea of living intentionally.

Not that I thought I wasn’t living intentionally, but truthfully I hadn’t given the idea much thought.  This friend challenged me to journal for 30 days to see what thoughts, ideas and values came up.  At first, I found it a bit challenging and didn’t know what to write about.  It wasn’t long after starting the exercise that I found my rhythm and had more thoughts to pour onto paper than I knew what to do with.  The common and resounding theme of my writing, goals, values, and dreams was to be more intentional. 

Since then, the theme of intentionality has been popping up everywhere in my world – on book covers, magazine articles, instagram posts, in conversations with friends and family…literally everywhere.

My word for 2019 is:

Intentional

In honor of being more “intentional in 2019, I have set four overall intentions to help guide me to live the life I want to live.

While this is how I am choosing to be more intentional, there are SO many ways you can add a little more intentional living into your day:

• Planning meals for the week before creating a grocery list
• Limiting screen time during meals or when with loved ones
• Establishing a morning or bed time routine
• Planning get-togethers with friends or family
• Talking with friends or family on the phone rather than texting

Those are a few ideas to get your juices flowing, and here are my four intentions for 2019 and how I plan to work on each one.

Be Intentional

• Start most mornings with a 5 minute meditation.
• Continue working through Duolingo to learn French (I’ve been working on this inconsistently over the past year and have made quite a bit of progress, but want to make even more progress!)
• Put my phone away during meal times, especially when dining with others.
• Work on listening when conversing with other people, a skill I really have to be mindful at!
• Spending time with friends and loved ones.  It’s easy to say “let’s get together!” but with the way life is, if we don’t actually put a date on the calendar plans don’t actually happen.  This is another thing Brian and I have been working on over the past year or so, and we want to continue to improve in this area.
• Being more present and a little more go with the flow.  I’m a pretty structured and disciplined person, but this year (and every year) I am working on being in the moment.

Be Thankful

• Tell someone I love them every day.
• Tell those around me thank you and that I am thankful for them.
• Focus on the things I have rather than what I don’t have yet or what I want (I am thankful Brian and I can live with his parents while our home is being renovated!)
• Write another list of things that make me thankful at Thanksgiving time.

Be Rested

• Be in bed and resting my 9pm at the latest.  I am an early to bed, early to rise girl and always feel my best when I keep this habit.
• Limit phone time in the evenings and in bed.  I am setting up the new time settings on my phone to give me some limits here.
• Listen to my body and sleep in when necessary.  
• Remember that periods of rest are just as important as periods of hustle and grind. Neither can be done 100% of the time.

Be Inspired

• Cook from my favorite cookbooks and blogs.  This includes checking books out from the library, especially while we are living with my in-laws and many of my personal favorites are currently stored in a pod.
• Meet with people who are new and interesting to me in person.
• Enjoy trying new foods and flavor combinations while traveling and at restaurants.
• Read! Books, articles, magazines, anything I find interesting.  My personal goal is to attempt to read 10 pages a day of something.
• Practice my music – I studied vocal performance in my undergraduate degree and singing just makes me feel GOOD!
• Listen to podcasts that inspire me while walking the dogs, cleaning, driving, running, etc.

Your Turn!

• Do you set intentions, goals or a word for the new year?
• Share something you want to work on or accomplish!