Fab Friday Tips, Tricks and Inspiration

Friday.  This one came around fast. I have been reading a lot of interesting news lately but I will try to restrain my reporting to my usual Friday themes.

Trying to change up your whole grain world?  Here's a tip, try red rice. If you don't know about red rice, this Fooducate article will enlighten you to this underutilized super food. But I have my own reasons: It's pretty.  I used both red and black rice with brown this week for our 6 Color Rice and it is so pretty. Best practice though? Cook the red rice separately, then add in if you are doing multi-colored rice; it bled a bit into my brown rice and darkened the whole delicious dish. (I haven't typed up the 6 Color Rice recipe yet, but my starting point was this 7 Color Inarizushi recipe.)

It turns out an apple a day not only keeps the doctor away, but also the hunger at bay. My friend Gina has a trick for eating less at meals, especially potlucks and parties. She eats an apple on her way to the table.  It also bears repeating that numerous studies have shown that diners who have soup as a first course eat significantly fewer calories in the meal than those who do not.

At work today, I checked someone's drivers license and could not help commenting that she must have lost a great deal of weight. She had, indeed; 168 pounds were "lost" and she was not trying to find them! The photo itself, though hugely, inspiring, was not the most inspirational part of this interaction. She mentioned that before losing the weight, she was a diabetic with high cholesterol and sky high triglycerides. All are under control now and she takes no medicine for any of it. Her enthusiasm for life and joy at what she'd done made my day.

That's it for me, folks. It's late and mama's tired. Have a fantastic and fit weekend!