• 24Jun

    5 Tips for Shopping at a Farmers Market

    Shopping at a farmer’s market is very different from shopping at a grocery store. The whole experience can be intimidating and unpredictable. It helps to treat the idea of shopping at a farmers market just like any new experience –practice makes perfect and the more that you go to the market the easier it will be and the more pleasure you’ll find from eating very fresh, seasonal produce from local farms.

    Prepare for the trip with these 5 tips:

    1. Arrive early – Farmers and vendors usually sell out of their produce and products by the end of the market so the sooner you arrive the better the selection. Also, outdoor markets will heat up after the morning hours, which can cause lettuce and other delicate produce like herbs to wilt.
    2. Make a flexible shopping list – Don’t let the list dictate your purchases. Wait to see what’s freshest when you get there and be flexible with the seasonal offerings. There are many cookbooks that are organized by produce and season – these will help to give you some ideas for combining flavors and vegetables that you may not be used to using in the kitchen.
    3. Talk to the farmers, your neighbors and people in your community – Not sure how to prepare a particular vegetable? Ask folks at the market including the farmers. You can also use your shopping time to socialize with your neighbors and people in your community.
    4. Try something new – variety is the spice of life and you’re likely to see many varieties of produce at a farmers market that can’t be found in a grocery store – duck eggs, kohlrabi, fresh shell beans, and garlic scapes. These foods will surely add a unique variety of nutrients and taste experiences to your meals.
    5. Bring bags and a cooler with an ice pack – Reusable bags save plastic and are usually easier to carry. A cooler with ice packs will help your food purchases stay cool while you shop and socialize.

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  • 23Jun

    GMM Explores the Social Media Landscape with the Help of Our Customers

    When you’re a social enterprise like Good Measure Meals™ — one which donates 100% of your proceeds to our nonprofit parent organization — you understandably keep your marketing expenses to a minimum. Instead, you focus even more intently on enagaging customers in a conversation — whether real or virtual — so that you can provide them with a better, more personalized level of service and support.

    That works to our advantage, since no other gourmet meal provider is fortunate enough to be powered by individuals who are passionately dedicated to promoting health and wellness for everyone in our community. And no other gourmet meal provider makes such a concerted effort to listen to our customers so that we can support you and constantly adapt to your evolving needs.

    While Philip, Harmony and Katherine in Customer Service are only a phone call or an email away, many times our customers prefer to communicate with us in other ways. Whether it’s simply by posting on our Facebook page, taking one of our weekly online menu surveys, or commenting on an article in our online newsletter — EVERY customer interraction is invaluable to us. So it’s important that we continue to search for new ways to get your feedback and provide you with the most relevant information possible to help you to live a healthier life.

    And what better way to do that than to ask you to consider taking a very brief survey about your use (or non-use) of social media?

    We understand that it’s not for everyone, but it’s become an increasingly convenient and cost-effective way for GMM to provide our customers a higher level of support. Even if Facebook isn’t your thing, there may be a great blog about exercise or nutrition that you follow. Or if you don’t give a tweet about Twitter, but love watching cooking demos on YouTube, you know more about social media than you may think.

    We sincerely hope you’re take a few minutes to complete our survey. We’re not necessarily interested in what is cheap or cool, but we are definitely interested in being relevant to you and finding out more about how you’d like to interact with us. After all, your satisfaction is our number one priority!

     

     

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  • 13Jun

    Desk-ercise: A Guide to Workouts at Work! – Part 1

    Feeling antsy in the office? Want to be in better shape after you leave your 9-to-5 than when you started your workday?
    Last week, VP Jess Parsons introduced the GMM staff to a series she titled “Desk-ercise.” Her 30-minute lunch session detailed many simple moves geared toward toning your upper body, lower body, core, and even increasing your cardio capacity.
    And all in a day’s work!

    Part 1: Upper Body Exercises

    What you’ll need: Swivel Desk Chair, Desk, Water Bottle, Resistance Band
    Bicep Curls: biceps
    Sitting in your chair, hold a water bottle in your right hand, and, with abs in and spine straight, curl bottle towards shoulder for 16 reps. Repeat with your left hand. Do 2-3 sets.

    Harmony deskercises with bicep curls.

    Chair Dips: triceps, chest and deltoids
    Make sure chair is stable and place hands next to hips or on arm rests. Move hips in front of chair and bend the elbows, lowering the body until the elbows are at 90 degrees. Push back up and repeat for 16 reps. Complete 2 sets.

    A tip (in hindsight): Secure rolling chairs against a wall before trying this exercise.

    Front Raise to Triceps Press: triceps & shoulders
    Sit tall with the abs in and hold a full water bottle in the left hand. Lift the bottle up to shoulder level, pause, and then continue lifting all the way up over the head. When the arm is next to the ear, bend the elbow, taking the water bottle behind you and contracting the triceps. Straighten the arm and lower down, repeating for 12 reps on each arm for 2 sets.

    Water: not just for drinking.

    Desk/Wall Press: chest, shoulders, arms & back
    Stand about three feet from a wall, and place your hands flush against the wall, about shoulder-width apart. Slowly lower your body toward the wall by flexing your elbows. When your elbows are aligned with your torso, push back up. Do 10 repetitions.

    Philip and Harmony team up for some Wall Presses

    Single Arm Row with Band: biceps, shoulders, & back
    Have a seat in your chair. Tie one end of the resistance band on a door knob, or handle of a locked drawer. Make sure that the secure end is level or lower than chest level. Take the other end of the band and wrap once around your right hand. Without Moving your torso, pull the band towards your abs so that your fist is touching your side with elbow bent. Pause, then slowly extend arm back to starting position. Do 2 sets of 16 reps with each arm.

    Philip was not harmed in the shooting of this Seated Arm Row.

    Stay tuned in the next few days/weeks for more installments of the Desk-ercise series!

    Permalink Filed under: Corporate Wellness, Fitness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
  • 02Jun

    Exotic Tropical Fruits

    Chef Rich LaMarita of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts took a group of culinary students and alumni on a food tour of Chinatown in New York City. The trip was so much fun. Some of the most notable foods that we encountered were assortments of common Asian semitropical and tropical fruits – Longan, Lychee, Rambutan, Durian, Jackfruit, Guava and Dragon Fruit. These fruits were sold by many of the vendors in boxes on the street. I was really impressed by the variety and quality of these fruits. I’ve eaten a few of them, but most of these fruits are very foreign to me. I decided to do some of my own research to learn more. This is what I found out along with some pictures that I snapped:

     

    Longan

    Longan – Eat this fruit raw by peeling it and placing the fruit in your mouth to extract the seed. It’s juicy and has a sweet tropical flavor and musky aroma. The fruit benefits the spleen, enriches the blood, eases tension; the seed is used in herbal medicine to halt bleeding, relieve pain, regulate energy, treat hernia, tuberculosis and eczema.

     

    Lychee

    Lychee – It’s grown in the US, in Florida and California. This fruit should be enjoyed just like the longan – raw, peeled and deseeded. Its fruit is smooth, milky, and juicy. The flavor is sweet and floral. In Chinese medicine, the fruit is recommended for the spleen, liver, and stomach meridians. The fruit contains Vitamins B and C as well as folic acid, malic acid and arginine.

     

    Rambutan

    Rambutan – A relative of the lychee, this fruit should be enjoyed in the same way – raw peeled, and deseeded. It is also tastes good when stewed or pureed and can be used in jam, jellies or sorbet. The seeds can be roasted and eaten as a snack.

     

    Durian

    Durian – The aroma of durian has been compared to sewage gas! It has a sulfurous perfume that is often hard to get past. The flavor is like an overripe banana, mango, pineapple, pawpaw and vanilla combined. Durians have about five segments, each contain several seeds that are surrounded by the juicy custard like flesh.

     

    Jackfruit

    Jackfruit – Grown in Florida! When immature, the jackfruit is cooked and used like a vegetable or in chutneys. When mature, it’s eaten raw as a fruit, juiced or added to salads and has a banana-pineapple-like flavor.  The seeds are considered a cooling food that helps counteract the influence of alcohol. The fruit is used to treat constipation because of its laxative properties.

     

    Guava

    Guava – This fruit has a floral aroma and a yellow or green skin with white, salmon or crimson colored flesh. There are many species, which range in size and flavor. It’s known for its astringent and laxative properties and is an excellent source of Vitamin C and potassium.

     

    Dragon Fruit

    Dragon Fruit- It has a pink and whitish pulp that is textured like a grainy kiwi and is filled with tiny black edible seeds. It can be enjoyed raw by slicing lengthwise and scooping out the pulp from the skin (similar to eating a kiwi). It is traditionally used in Asian cultures to relieve constipation, lung congestion, and endocrine problems, and to treat diabetes and high blood pressure and cholesterol.

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  • 01Jun

    App Update from Philip: Fooducate

    by Philip Neikro, Customer Service Manager

    About two weeks ago, someone gave me a box of a popular brand of energy bars.  For the last 4 or 5 days, I have been eating one each morning for breakfast.  (When you are running late, sometime you have to eat on the fly!)  And I’m sure I’m not the only one who grabs something convenient like this for a quick breakfast.

    For this posting, I decided to review another smart phone app that I have used in the past, but, to be honest, had kind of forgotten about.  The app is called “Fooducate,” and is available for both iPhone and Android formats.

    This amazing app is basically a food analysis tool for when you are deciding on something to eat or choosing to purchase at the grocery store.  This is how it works:  when you are at the grocery store and you are thinking about purchasing a product, you use your phone’s camera to scan the item’s barcode.  The app then looks up the item from its database and displays an analysis of the item’s nutritional information.  The app displays the product’s calorie content, gives the product a rating from A to D, lists some information that would be associated with the product that you might not have known about, and gives you a list of healthier alternative products that are available.

    For example, this particular energy bar contains 5.5 teaspoons of sugar.  That’s more than 5 times more than I put in my morning coffee!  I can’t even imagine putting 4 more teaspoons in my coffee, it would be way too sweet, but I had no problem eating a breakfast bar that was that sweet!

    The app also gives the item a “FoodPoints” value.  The app states that this point system isn’t associated with any other company, but the number it gives is still based on fats, carbs, fiber, and protein.  (I’m sure that this point system would be a helpful accompaniment to other “food point” diets.  The app mentions that this product is heavily processed, explains that many energy bars should really be considered meal replacement bars instead of snack bars, gives info about different types of sugars listed in the bar, and, I think the coolest feature…gives me a recipe for a Vegan granola bar, a healthier alternative, by far!

    I am so amazed by this app.  We tend to “mindlessly” shop for our food.  We might look at the nutritional information on the side of the box, but do we really understand what it means?  By having other types of product information and a product “health-rating,” we would be better armed at making better choices for ourselves and our families.  Next time you see me at the grocery store, be assured that I will be scanning my items with this app first, before I place them in my shopping cart!

    Here’s to Healthy Living!

    Philip B. Niekro

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