KevinsTeachingBlog

Quick and Easy Breakfast  I thought it would be a good idea to do a breakfast post. A major factor in controlling heart disease is controlling cholesterol, and Breakfast offers many options to be the biggest cholesterol-fighting meal of the day.  Of course, there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, you want to increase one and reduce the other.  Berries are really good for this, and Blueberries, in particular, are easy for me to eat by the handful. Whole grains are also great for both of these, but the time-honoured ingredient for scraping out the bad cholesterol is Whole Oats. It says so right on the front of the Cheerios box! Plain Cheerios, not the sugar-frosted kinds.  Easy breakfasts An aside about Cheerios, Multigrain Cheerios are about equal to Honey Nut Cheerios health-wise. Looking at the nutrition label, they're almost identical. That's because they're frosted with the same amount of sugar. Since my visit to the hospital I've learned how to enjoy plain...

Salmon I have always avoided cooking fish. Maybe I just haven't found good fish recipes, maybe I don't like getting that fishy funk out of my cast iron now and then. (Just need a little baking soda, it's not so bad). I do love sushi though. In my search for info about creating a heart-healthy menu, one thing that comes up over and over is the need to have at least one fish meal per week, but maybe two depending on which website you ask, including the Heart and Stroke Foundation.  Certain types of fish are very high in unsaturated fats known as Omega-3 fatty acids. In a previous post, I mentioned that there are good fats, not-so-good fats, and superbad fats. Good fats include mono and polyunsaturated fats, and this includes omega-3 fatty acids.  Omega-3s: Reduce inflammation Reduce blood pressure Controls clotting Decrease Triglycerides All together these benefits reduce your overall risk of strokes and heart attacks.  So Fish are our friends, as Bruce the Shark says in Fi...

Takeout Shawarma One of my favourite bad-for-me fast foods that I enjoyed before the heart attack is Shawarma, and Shawarma Poutine if I was feeling especially indulgent, but normally over turmeric rice with lots of garlic sauce and hot sauce. Early in the pandemic when we were still nervous about takeout, I found a recipe to make shawarma at home. It was as close to takeout as I could want; the turmeric rice was a little spicier than what I'd get normally, but it was good too.   However, chicken shawarma is made with chicken thigh mostly, one of the fattiest cuts. This helps keep it moist. I've been told by the heart people to stick to white meat, and no skin. It also has a pile of oils. The turmeric rice is full of butter. And all versions are quite high in sodium, which I also need to manage.  It's not the worst thing I could eat, but it's also not too great. So I was preparing to give up on shawarma.  But then I started this project and decided to start by huntin...

 I've decided to begin this heart healthy menu project by looking at specific ingredients, from which I can start to build a menu and understand why certain foods are included, and also adapt my existing recipes to include them. Also, just generally knowing about these items will help me make good snack choices and good ingredient shopping choices to start with in the future.   So here are awesome foods that can decrease blood pressure, improve arterial health, reduce cholesterol and more Thoughts on fats I have learned that there are different types of fats, some are good and some not so much. They are usually named in the nutritional information panel, which I've gotten into the habit of reading.  Trans fats: usually man-made. Avoid, avoid. Saturated fats: Not great, but hard to avoid. minimize as much as possible. Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats: These are the good fats, these are fine. They often are not named in the nutritional information panel th...

 Vaguely on topic: The Amazing Janis Joplin, take another piece of my heart:   

  Hello, and welcome to my teaching blog. I am currently a Teacher Candidate at Brock University.  I currently live with my family in Waterloo.  One thing I'm reasonably good at is cooking for my family, or at least they haven't asked me to stop. But I've not always worried too much about certain fats and sodium, and that along with too many chips and pepperettes is maybe part of the reason I had a heart attack in November.   That's not something I'm keen to do again, so my passion project goal is to develop a heart healthy meal plan.  I'm going to:  Research heart healthy foods that are good for reducing cholesterol and sodium Research different Fats and their problems/benefits Build confidence cooking foods I'm not used to cooking. Experiment with different recipes Present a monday to friday dinner menu of heart healthy meals that are easy to make from scratch, that I enjoy, as well as some snacks and breakfast ideas.  My Genius Hour question is...