Sometimes I see a recipe with odd ingredients and think “Yeah, right.  That’ll taste good?”  Well, when a recipe for one of my favorite foods, especially one containing chocolate, comes across my desk or email, I take a second look.

This past week, I received a recipe for Fudgy Black Bean Brownies.  Yes, you read that right – Black Bean Brownies.  I made them earlier this week and hid the recipe from my in house taste tester (John my hubby).  After they came out of the oven and cooled a bit, I cut them up and gave him one.  He was not able to identify the “secret ingredient.”  And, yes – they are GOOD!  This recipe has demonstrated again that some unconventional, and healthy, foods can be substituted into recipe with good results.  The one modification I made was to use dark chocolate chunks rather than chocolate chips.

Give it a try, and let me know what you think!

My thanks go out to Renata Mangrum, MPH, RD, CLT for sending this recipe along.

Fudgy Black Bean Brownies
Makes 16 Servings

Ingredients:

• One 15 ½-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed very well
• 3 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, divided

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray an 8 X 8-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. Place the black beans in the bowl of a food processor; process until smooth and creamy.  Add the eggs, oil, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt and process until smooth.  Add ¼ cup of the chips and pulse a few times until the chips are broken up a bit.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the top with the remaining ¼ cup chocolate chips.
4. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until the edges start to pull away from the sides and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan before slicing.

Nutrition Information per Serving: 120 calories, 5g fat (1.5g saturated, 0.3g omega-3), 95mg sodium, 18g carbohydrate, 2g fiber, 3g protein

Notes:

• A recent University of Tennessee study found that draining and rinsing canned beans washes away 41% of the sodium.  A good thing to do whenever you use canned beans.
• If you like nuts, you could add half a cup of walnuts or pecans, chopped.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the scale. In the past few years, I’ve convinced myself it doesn’t tell me my body composition but is just a number I can use as a benchmark. However, it is still frustrating to be told I look like I’m “losing weight” when the scale hasn’t moved or actually gone up. My body composition can change without my weight changing. This is just something I’m learning to live with.

A year or so ago, I started looking at intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is a process where you reconnect with your body’s hunger and satiety signals learning to eat when you are hungry and stop when satisfied. Sounds simple doesn’t it. However, this is one of those areas where theory and practice are not the same. In theory, it sounds simple; in practice it can be quite a challenge. Theory: I’m not hungry. Practice: Boy, that chocolate covered donut looks amazing! Maybe I’ll have just a bite.

I attended a series of webinars by Bob Seebohar this week on weight loss for athletes. Bob recommends following an intuitive eating approach with a twist – using his FoodTarget to assist with food selection. Basically, food selections focus on lean meats and proteins, fruits and vegetables, with limited carbohydrate choices (whole grains, etc.). This combination can help with weight loss. He doesn’t like to set weight or quantitative goals. He doesn’t like athletes to weigh. This combined approach HAS helped with weight loss and maintenance in many athletes with whom Bob has worked.

I’m intrigued. This seems to bring together what I’ve been thinking about with my own weight management and counseling with clients. I’m starting to tinker with it to see how I do. I started by not stepping on the scale this morning. We’ll see how it goes as the days and weeks progress.

We have five tastes available on our tongues: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami.  Combinations of these make up all the wonder flavors we experience when we eat.  However, I often think that one dominates – sweet.  Have you ever noticed how much sweet stuff you eat on a daily basis?  A while back, I started noticing how many sweet things I ate every day – tea with a sweetener, sweet snacks, fruit, etc.  The list goes on and on.  After I started paying attention to it, I realized how much I was looking for sweetness in my foods.  Then, I started reading David Kessler’s book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.

In his book, Kessler proposes that there are certain things that drive us to eat more – primarily sugar, salt, and fat.  And, it makes sense.  Just look at how many foods that we eat which contain sugar, salt, and fat.  French fries for example – salty from the salt on them, sweet from the catsup, and fat from the frying.  No wonder you (or at least I) can’t eat just one.  Next time you start to eat a food with a wrapper, take a look at the ingredient list and see where in the list a sweetener and/or salt (including MSG) falls.  Traditionally, if a sugar is in the first three ingredients that food is considered a “high sugar” food.  Food manufacturers and restaurants use these three items to drive us to eat more.  The more we eat, the more we have to buy, the greater their profits.

I do not like to label foods “good” and “bad.”  And, I’m not proposing that you stop eating things that contain sugar, salt, and fat.  Rather, I’d like you to be aware of this combination.  The next time you eat stop and ask yourself does it have sugar, salt, and fat.  If so, ask yourself how you feel after eating it – immediately after and again later.  Do you feel energized or run down?  How does your stomach feel?  Like it has a rock in it or satisfied?  Do you like how you and your stomach feels?  Given this, would you eat it again?  If not, what would you choose next time?

Each time we eat is an opportunity to learn what works for our bodies and what does not.  If you put regular gas in a high performance car, it is going to run well?  Probably not.  Same idea with your body and the food (or fuel) you put in it.  One way to get your body to run well and feel great is to learn what foods it does and does not like.  If your body does not like a food, it may be best to avoid it – even if it tastes great.  Just ask yourself “Do I want to feel like I did last time after eating that?”  And, this works for beverages too.

I have cut out a lot of the sweets I used to eat.  Yes, there were some cravings at first but after a few days they were gone.  And, now I do not like the super-sweet treats I used to love.

Let me know what you think about how sweet your food is!

“What do you mean ‘backload my calories?’” I hear you asking.  Backloading calories is when you consume most of your calories at the end of the day.  Calorie backloading can happen for a number of reasons including dieting or just a lack of time to eat in the morning.  Often, when people are trying to lose weight, they will start of by “being good” and either not eating breakfast or only having a tiny breakfast.  Then, they may be “good” and have a small lunch.  But, by the end of the day they are STARVING and eat everything in sight during the evening.  This undermines the calorie deficit they’ve built during the day and, potentially, caused them to consume more calories than if they had eaten a reasonable breakfast and lunch.

One way to avoid a calorie backload is to reverse your meals.  Most of us grew up with a small breakfast, medium sized lunch and large dinner.  Why not switch it around so breakfast is the main meal of your day, have a medium sized lunch and a small dinner?  This is frontloading calories.  For some people, this can help with weight loss because they consume fewer calories throughout the day.

Interesting?  Give it a try for a few days and see what you and your body think.  Then, let me know how it goes

Seafood can be one of the best protein choices you can make.  They are typically low in fat, and those that are higher in fat such as salmon and tuna are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids which have been shown to help reduce serum triglyceride levels, potentially reduce the risk of heart disease, and help with chronic dry eye.  There is a huge variety of fish available, and the choices can be overwhelming.  How seafood are raised and caught is causing environmental concerns because these methods may damage the habitat the fish rely on to survive.  There are also concerns about heavy metal and other types of contamination in seafood.  If seafood is such a great food but there are all these concerns, how do you know which ones to choose?

I heard about a great tool recently to help choose fish – Fish Phone by the Blue Ocean Institute.  You have a couple of ways to use it.  The first is by text from your cell phone.  Text “FISH” and the type of fish to 30644 and you will get a text message(s) back with information about the fish and whether or not they recommend choosing/consuming it (regular text message rates apply).  When I texted “FISH TUNA” I got two messages that said, “Pole or troll caught (GREEN) very few environmental concerns; purse seine or longline caught (YELLOW) some env concerns, HEALTH ADVISORY; high mercury; bluefin tuna (RED) significant env problems, HEALTH ADVISORY; high mercury.”  What does all this mean?  Well, if I were eating out or buying tuna at the store, I’d ask how the tuna was caught.  If it were bluefin, I wouldn’t eat it.  If it were purse seine or longline caught, I would probably go ahead and have it as long as I’m only eating it once or twice a month.  You can also go to the Blue Ocean Institute’s web site and look up fish there.  They also have guides you can download and wallet sized guides you can order.  Are you a sushi fan?  Here’s a link to their sushi guide.

Another great resource for determining fish to buy and consume is Seafood Watch by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  On their web site, they have education information as well as seafood recommendations.  You can also load up their iPhone application (if you have an iPhone) so you always have their information handy.  They also have pocket guides (if you don’t have an iPhone) to keep with you to assist your seafood selection.

Finally, the Environmental Defense Fund has a seafood selector.  And, they have a great chart showing, based on health risks (such as PCBs or mercury) how many servings should be eaten per month for women, men, younger kids and older kids.

Now, next time your choosing seafood, you can choose one that is both good for you, and good for the environment.

Enjoy!

Last blog post I talked about ways to get food locally through farmer’s markets and pick your own.  There is another way to be a Localtarian – to patronize restaurants that use local and seasonal ingredients.  There are some great restaurants in Houston that use local and seasonal restaurants – like t’afia by Monica Pope.  Epicurious has a nice article on the Top 10 Farm-to-Table Restaurants in the US that shows that this type of restaurants are not just “nuts and berries” but have chefs who are incredibly creative at using local ingredients.  Some chefs even grow their own ingredients.

We recently got back from a trip to Coeur d’Alane, Idaho and Spokane, Washington.  Luckily, a friend’s father lives in the area and provided some recommendations for restaurants that use local ingredients and grow their own.  These were some of the best meals we have had in a long time.  Two of our favorites were Mizuna and Sante.  It is always a lot of fun to try local restaurants and those that use local ingredients.  Want to find restaurants that cook local in your area? Just google “local ingredients” +restaurants.

Another option is to patronize restaurants that use organic ingredients and minimize their footprint.  An example in the Houston area is Ruggles Green.  Ruggles Green is a Certified Organic Restaurant – the first in Houston.  Want to find an organic restaurant in your area?  Search at the Green Restaurant Association and at organic restaurants at Local Harvest.

Next time you head out to dinner, take a minute and see if there is a local and/or organic restaurant in your area.  And, let me know what you discover.