Who else is happy to see it’s already Wednesday? I know I am. The three-day weekends are my favorite.
I’m checking in today with recent meals (in no particular order), my most recent Trader Joe’s shop, and some info about blood oranges.
Okay, so, just call me the pizza bagel queen. I mean, how delicious does my whole wheat pizza bagel look?!
In other news, we went to Emilio’s for a late lunch, which turned into my dinner, over the weekend. Even though I browse the menu, I still go with the chopped vegetable salad. They pile it together so nicely every time.
I made it to Panera again last Friday afternoon again to work and have lunch. I’m going to aim to go to Panera every Friday as that’s the best day in my week to work uninterrupted by conference calls, but I know this won’t happen on a regular basis. I enjoyed my custom salad again – seasonal greens + hummus +avocado.
And here’s a Chopt salad! In the mix were romaine, spinach, quinoa, avocado, corn, beets, and hearts of palm with tahini dressing on the side, plus bread. A salad and some sort of bread is basically my diet these days.
Trader Joe’s
A cart was what I should have used on this particular day at Trader Joe’s but it was so crowded that I couldn’t even find one. I was there on Saturday which was the day it snowed here in New York. I just needed a few random things but it seems everyone else did too before it snowed so Trader Joe’s was a madhouse.
In my basket at Trader Joe’s:
- Frozen Blueberries
- Frozen Asparagus
- Power Crunch Protein Bars (my son loves these to take with him to school)
- Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
- Organic Salted Creamy Peanut Butter (usually go with crunchy, went creamy for a change)
- Raisins
- Chocolate Chips
- Feta Cheese
- Skim Milk (I usually buy Horizon Organic at Target but they were out of it, so this was a last-minute grab out of necessity for some sort of milk for my coffee)
- Cowboy Caviar
- Blood Oranges
Let’s talk about Blood Oranges for a minute — do you eat them? You should, they are so incredibly sweet AND incredibly healthy. Blood oranges offer crazy nutritional benefits and the most benefits of any other orange. You can tell they are healthy just by their blood orange color. When my son and I were peeling the blood oranges open and the bright red color got everywhere, I wasn’t even upset. I was actually excited to tell him that the color contained the anthocyanins which are really powerful antioxidants, like the kind found in berries.
A little bit about Blood Oranges. Blood oranges are a good source of:
- Anthocyanins
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin A
- Folic acid
- Calcium
According to this article, one blood orange has the equivalent antioxidant quenching capacity of over 4 lbs of navel oranges. Blood oranges help fight off free radical damage and oxidative stress and play a part in preventing heart disease, diabetes, some types of cancers and help to lower the bad cholesterol levels.
It’s worth noting that sometimes I forget that I did complete the Professional Certificate For Sports Nutrition And Performance when I first started my blog, seven years ago now! I learned an incredible amount of valuable information about nutrient-dense functional foods, nutrition, and how a properly balanced diet helps us not only for sports performance but overall health. What I learned in those four courses stays with me, and if I forget minor details about specific foods (like the blood orange), I am able to go back to my notes to pull up the information. 🙂
The Cookie ChRUNicles 