A couple of weeks ago, I pulled a mostly empty jar of creamy peanut butter (organic and natural) out of the refrigerator. I looked at it upside down and sideways. I could almost hear it begging me to turn it into something snazzy. In a very lucky moment of inspiration, here’s what the doctor (me) ordered: Continue reading
Author Archives: Dr. Sukol
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Zucchini & Dill Soup
This is such a good project for the abundance of zucchini in your friends’, neighbors’ and coworkers’ gardens! You can make the soup now, with fresh zucchini, or you can make it in a few more months with frozen zucchini. Then again you can make soup now, and freeze that instead of raw cubes of zucchini. If you use frozen zucchini, remember to saute it a little bit longer. Continue reading
A Good Week Gets Better With Intention
It has been a busy week! I was interviewed for a piece in U.S. News & World Report about my favorite topic: real food! Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Best Gazpacho I’ve Ever Made
August means it’s –YES — gazpacho time! I think of gazpacho as soup and salad, both at the same time. Chief Cook-and-Bottle-Washer brought home a tray of golden, acid-free tomatoes last Friday, and (I admit it) I had my coveting eye on them from the minute they entered the house. We ate a few on Friday night, and more on Saturday. Couldn’t resist, so I swooped in on Sunday morning to pulverize the rest! Chief C&BW said it was okay, he would go buy more. Thank you, Chief. Continue reading
Be Kind to Yourself
It just came to me that I spend my days teaching people how to be kinder to themselves, and that this kindness is designed to manifest itself in three major spheres: 1) eating patterns, 2) activity patterns, and 3) rest & relaxation patterns. It’s all about being kind to yourself, about nourishing your heart and soul with better food, more movement, and quality rest. It will be so good for you. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Adzuki Sprouts Salad
Why is it that the likelihood of requests for a recipe is usually in direct proportion to the rapidity with which you threw it together!? Last week we had a potluck at work, and I threw together a little “early morning salad.” Don’t judge me!! for having this spectacular constellation of ingredients at hand, just in case, you know, I had to throw together an impressive, last-minute salad! Sometimes the stars just line up. Sometimes, on the other hand, Mercury is in retrograde. Okay, let’s give it a shot. Continue reading
United We Continue to Stand
When I cared for adults in an internal medicine practice in suburban Cleveland, I frequently observed a wonderful phenomenon. It was not at all unusual for patients to bring along their children and grandchildren, fresh from a prior appointment across the hall with their pediatrician. Beautiful, bright-faced, fresh-scrubbed, engaging, chubby, usually well-behaved, American children. The pediatricians’ well-intended recommendations on reducing the rate of weight gain continued to be unsuccessful, and my patients’ faces told me that the ongoing exhortations had become tiresome. If they knew how to fix this problem, they told me, they already would have. Continue reading
The Message
Today I’d like to speak about something that has been on my mind all week, and that something is “the message.”
As we all know, over the past 100 years the processed food industry has developed ever more sophisticated strategies for influencing the public to purchase an ever-growing proportion of processed edibles to replace real food. And the industry has been so successful in this endeavor, if you want to call it that, that ⅔ of Americans are now overweight, and 50 percent are expected to carry a diagnosis of diabetes by age 65. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Jason’s Kale Chips
This recipe for kale chips is a little treat from a friend down the street. He says that he doesn’t actually measure, but just eyeballs everything. Other than the first two ingredients, therefore, you should consider the amounts listed below as suggestions only, and feel free to make it your own. Kale chips are a really great option with a sandwich, or instead of a bowl of popcorn, or for an afternoon snack.
Lucky Enough
An old friend of mine is lucky enough to live at the confluence of two small lakes. I hope I’m using that word right — what I mean to say is that if you look out the windows of his home toward the east you see one lake; and if you look toward the north you see a different one. Can you picture it? On the little spit of land that juts into the space between the two lakes, right next to where families of ducks and swans cross all the day long in a patient parade of parenting, sits a small cabin. And in the front window of that cabin rests a sign:
“If you’re lucky enough to live on the water, you’re lucky enough.” Continue reading