Today’s random stumble is all about oatmeal.

I absolutely love oatmeal. My Nan used to make me the yummiest oatmeal ever. As a child I was fortunate enough to spend quite a few nights over each week at my grandparents house. Every morning I would wake to the smell of the oatmeal cooking and the sound of my Nan dutifully stirring it.
I would jump out of bed and run to the kitchen. Nan would pick me up and put me on a high chair and serve me breakfast. The oatmeal looked creamy and beautiful. To that Nan would stir in cream, sugar and a dollop of butter. It was amazing! Also incredibly fattening but amazing!

I don’t add cream, sugar or butter these days but it is still my all time favorite breakfast. I really like honey as a substitute for sugar and will sometimes sprinkle some cinnamon just for added flavor.

Today’s stumble lists 5 reasons you should be eating oatmeal for breakfast.

Check out: 5 Reasons Oatmeal Is The Perfect Breakfast for a Long Day

I have always had trouble working out correct portion sizes for various foods so I was really pleased to find this very handy portion guide over at webmd.com

It uses everyday items as a comparison, for instance 3 oz of lean cooked beef is roughly the size of a deck of cards. You can use their online tool to find the most common foods or download a chart for either your wallet or fridge.

The baseball is quite often as a comparison which is a bit challenging for me as they are not all that common in Australia but I get the idea.

Check it out by visiting: Webmd.com Portion Size Plate

Here’s an interesting article from cnn.com that has a list of America’s healthiest grocery stores.

Let’s face it: Your weekly (or daily!) run to the grocery store is the foundation for your good health. So it’s thrilling news that the supermarket industry is on a health kick — these days you’ll most likely find organic produce and “natural” packaged foods at almost any store you go to. But which chains are outdoing themselves to deliver the freshest and healthiest foods to you? And which ones provide the best tools to help you make smart choices? We asked six prominent health experts to help us pick the top 10 healthiest grocery stores out of the nation’s largest chains.

A panel of nutritionists ranked Whole Foods Market as the top grocery store for healthy foods.

Here are the true standouts.

1. Whole Foods

279 stores in 38 states and Washington, D.C.

We figured this natural-foods chain would make the list, but who knew it would hands-down top it? “It’s the Rolls Royce of healthy eating,” says Kate Geagan, a nutritionist in Park City, Utah, and one of our judges.

Whole Foods has the whole package — from an extraordinary selection of fresh conventional and organic fruit and vegetables to delicious prepared foods with healthy ingredients and clear labeling. (Most other stores offer mystery meals that may very well be loaded with butter.)

And Whole Foods puts a premium on products that are grown or produced locally. There’s also hard-to-find grass-fed meats, ready-to-cook organic and free-range chicken, and a well-stocked selection of just-caught seafood. The desserts are pretty good for you: Every item in the bakery is free of artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, preservatives, and trans fats.

Continue reading the full article

I am a big fan of the sweet potato, it’s a versatile vegetable and packed full of goodness.

Facts:
They are a great source of folate, vitamins A, B-6, C and E, potassium and fiber.
Sweet potatoes can be baked, boiled, fried, broiled, canned or frozen. They can also be cooked in the microwave oven.

Better still, they are very low in Saturated Fat, Sodium and Cholesterol.

Recipe:

Grilled fish with chickpea salad

Ingredients (serves 4)

* 300g orange sweet potato, peeled, chopped into 2cm cubes
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 garlic clove, crushed
* olive oil cooking spray
* 250g cherry tomatoes
* 600g firm white fish fillets (such as snapper or barramundi)
* 40g low-fat feta cheese, crumbled
* 1/2 cup canned chickpeas, drained, rinsed
* 100g baby spinach

Yoghurt dressing
* 1/2 cup low-fat yoghurt
* 1/2 lemon, juiced
* 1 small garlic clove, crushed
* 2 tablespoons coriander leaves,
* finely chopped

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (Aus) or 400°F (US). Combine sweet potato, cumin and garlic in a large roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper. Spray with oil. Toss to coat. Roast for 30 minutes. Add tomatoes. Roast for a further 15 to 20 minutes or until sweet potato is tender. Set aside.
2. Make yoghurt dressing: Combine yoghurt, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, garlic, coriander and salt and pepper in a bowl.
3. Preheat barbecue plate on high heat. Season fish with salt and pepper. Spray lightly with oil. Barbecue for 4 to 5 minutes each side or until just cooked through.
4. Crumble feta over warm vegetables. Add chickpeas and spinach. Toss to combine. Spoon salad onto plates. Top with fish. Serve with yoghurt dressing.

Notes & tips

* When barbecuing fish fillets, pat fish surface dry with paper towel before spraying with oil and seasoning. This will help prevent fish sticking to the barbecue plate during cooking.

Source: Taste.com.au

I have always been fascinated by raw diets, mostly because I can’t imagine that I could be disciplined enough to commit to it.

I think that one reason for my hesitation is that socially it would be quite difficult especially when it comes to dining out and meals with family and friends. Perhaps if I had people around me who were vegan or living by the raw diet principle it might be easier but I can’t see myself doing this.

That being said, the woman in this video looks amazing and appears to be a very healthy and happy person.

You can also read the full article: Woman goes raw, loses more than half herself

We all know how important it is to eat foods that keep your body and mind healthy. But it’s quite easy to focus on your body and forget about the importance of keeping your brain as healthy as possible.

One excellent food you can include in your diet to improve brain function is fatty fish. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in a variety of seafood including sardines, salmon, mackerel and herring. Sardines are actually one of the highest sources of Omega-3 so if you can include in your diet you will be helping out your brain along with your heart and eye health.

A recent study has found that people who eat omega-3 rich fish three or more times per week are at a lower risk of developing memory issues including dementia.

It should be pointed out that fried fish does not appear to offer the same health benefits.

So tell me something I didn’t already know.

Researchers have reviewed almost 200 sausages including bread and sauce from your local supermarket shelves and found that one sandwich contains your daily recommended dose of salt, double for a child.

I am pretty sure that most people already know that having a sausage in a white roll with onions, mustard, ketchup or tomato sauce probably isn’t a healthy snack.
Look at any sausage sizzle run at local sporting events these days and you can see from just looking at the BBQ that it isn’t healthy.

However, the smell of those snags and onions cooking is hard to resist.

I can remember growing up that we would have one on the weekend watching our local football clubs play. The weather was so cold you could barely feel your fingers. You would buy your sausage and immediately start to drool staring at the steaming pile of snag, onion and sauce. Your first bite creating a stream of warm mixed sauce that would run down your arms. I always managed to get some on my jumper, face, hair and so on. Oh how I loved the simple sausage sizzle.

With this new found knowledge will I stop indulging from time to time? Probably not. What is life without a little indulgence after all :)