Monday Morning Mix-Up 1/2/2012

Good morning readers and Happy New Year!  I hope you had a fun, safe New Years Eve.  We went to Joe & Meg's and crashed their family party.  We played Just Dance, ping pong and foosball, what a blast!  I took grain-free blonde brownies and these baked crab rangoons and they were a hit again.  🙂

We rarely watch many movies around here, but we've seen three over Christmas break:  Planet of the Apes, which was OK, it had an interesting story line for sure; Mr. Poppers Penguins was very cute and good for a few belly laughs; and I took the kids to the theater to see We Bought a Zoo.  I absolutely loved the movie overall (some laughs, some tears, some romance), except for a couple MAJOR toe-curling moments as a parent there with young kids.  It really irritates me, because they could've changed ONE word in each instance and it wouldn't have changed the point they were making in ANY way.  How can a filmmaker do such a great job on a project like this and then blow it on something that would have been SO simple to avoid?!

• I always love hearing about your New Year's resolutions – will you share what your goals are for 2012?  For those of you who want to get fit again, here's my post with tips on getting exercise back into your life, including scoop on the Bowflex home gym that I love.  Not that I've been on the thing in a while, but I love knowing it's there for when I'm ready to get back into strength training.  (And it's a lot cheaper to have that waiting for me to use than a gym membership that I'm paying for monthly.)
  
• I want to make sure you saw this post from last week:  You MUST send this to that person you know who has cancer.  Also check out the first comment there and share your thoughts on the question, “Was the Stieler case really a victory?”
• Recently a new restaurant opened near us called, Green, and I'm excited to give it a try since they have mostly organic foods on the menu. But of course I first had to ask few questions on their FB page, which probably already has me on their ‘pain-in-the-butt-customers' list. I'm hoping I can convince them to use something besides canola oil in their fryer, but at least it wasn't soybean oil. (Read my post about why not to use canola oil.) I'm also still looking into the place where they source their meat from, I've contacted the company trying to find out if their animals are grass fed or not, because it wasn't clear on their site. In case you're wondering, yes, I do realize that all this puts me square in the category of these nerds:
  
• Here's a good back-to-the-basics video from Nina Planck that I shared on my Facebook wall last week.  Maybe you need a little basics refresher, or you might want to share this with your friends and family who think you're a little odd.
• This came to my inbox last week from Huffington Post, “11 Big Integrative Medicine Breakthroughs Of 2011” and when I read #6 I was really encouraged…until I got to #7, what a letdown!
• Speaking of organic food, a reader, Colleen, sent this frustrating article to me:  Warning:  think twice about buying organic food that contains DHA or ARA.
• Just in case any of you still feel tempted now and then to eat fast food, check this out, Oh man alive, you will not believe what's in the McRib.
  “Dude, there are over 70 ingredients in this supposed “rib” “sandwich”! That's ingredients listed on the website, not ingredients that some whole-foods advocate ginned up to sound worse than they are. And one of them's also an ingredient in SHOES. That has to give you pause.”The same could be said for every menu item at the fast food joints, so instead try some of these healthy fast food meal ideas.  That list is pretty much what I cook most nights, and if I want to make something that takes longer to whip up, I'll do it on the weekends, or just make it ahead on the weekends to eat during the week.  Most days are too jam-packed to be in the kitchen very long.
• Does anyone know anything about the following?  I received this email from a reader, Karen:  “Hi, I'm sending this because I know a lot of Real Food believers are not afraid to act.  This does not have to do with Real Food, but it does have to do with freedom… 
  The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison civilians anywhere in the world without charge or trial. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.”  Read more at this link.  UPDATE:  My husband, Kent, found this on Snopes (keep in mind that they can't always be trusted either),  but I'm not sure that it makes me feel much better.  Apparently Obama signed the bill in hopes that it would be interpreted correctly?????
• If you're still reading you get a gift!  I found this on my friend MacKenzie's Facebook wall and thought you'd want a good laugh: 
• HAPPY NEW YEAR, READER FRIENDS!  🙂

McRib photo