Finally! It's the Start of Watermelon Season! Some Recipes and Why This Summer Favorite is So Nutritionally Good for You

The Florida watermelons are popping up all over grocery stores and farmer's markets as quickly as our late afternoon thunderstorms!  We are officially in summer here in The Sunshine State!  There is probably no other fruit that screams warm weather like a watermelon so I thought I would educate you a little on the amazing nutritional benefits of this summer favorite.

There is more to watermelon than its sweet taste.  This member of the Cucurbitaceae family (related to cantaloupe, squash, pumpkin, cucumber, and gourd) offers 20% of your daily intake of vitamin C and 17% vitamin A.  It's also right up there with tomatoes in its lycopene content.  Lycopene is a carotenoid phytonutrient that's especially important for our cardiovascular health, and an increasing number of scientists now believe that lycopene is important for bone health as well.

But what has been the most recent interest to health scientist is its citrulline content.  Citrulline is an amino acid that is commonly converted by our kidneys and other organ systems into arginine (another amino acid).  Higher levels of arginine can help improve blood flow and other aspects of our cardiovascular health (lowers blood pressure). This amino acid also seems to protect against muscle soreness.  A Spanish study showed that athletes who consumed a little more than 16 ounces of watermelon juice an hour before exercise had less muscle soreness and a lower heart rate within a day.

So the next time you have a grueling workout planned try The Whole Meal's easy and delicious Watermelon Cool Down, Heal Up drink:

Makes 2 (8-10 ounce) servings 

In a blender combine the following ingredients until well blended and frothy cold:

2 cups watermelon, cut into large chunks
1/2 cucumber, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 stevia packet (or 1 teaspoon of loose stevia) or 1 tablespoon honey or agave syrup
3 fresh basil leaves
Juice of 1 lime
Optional small nub of fresh peeled ginger if you like a ginger kick and its healing benefits
Enough ice cubes to make it frothy but not too frozen (about 1-2 cups)

Pour into glasses, insert straw and let the hydrating and healing begin!


Some Other Interesting Facts About Watermelon:

It's a fruit and a vegetable.  Like most fruits, watermelon is the product of a seed-producing plant and has a sweet taste but remember it's part of the Cucurbitaceae family (squash, pumpkin, and cucumber). The dual nature of watermelon makes it all edible, so there’s no excuse to leave any part behind.  

You can eat the rind and here is a great southern recipe from the Lee brothers (cookbook authors of  The Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook, one of my favorites on southern cooking) for Watermelon Rind Preserves.  

The seeds are also edible and they were one of my favorite things to eat when I was in Manila, Philippines recently. It is just as fun to eat roasted watermelon seeds as it is to spit them out.  Part of the fun is seeing if you can remove the exterior shell with just your teeth; no hands allowed (contest anyone?).  Here is a recipe to make them yourselves at home: Oven Roasted Watermelon Seeds

It's almost all water.   Watermelon is 91.5% water, according to the USDA. No wonder we are drawn to it's juicy, refreshing flesh in the hot months.  Being dehydrated is bad for your health; even mild dehydration can result in headaches, poor concentration, fatigue, and worse moods.  

There is a yellow variety.  It's known as Yellow Crimson and has a sunny interior and the flesh has a sweeter, honey-like taste. The two are nearly identical on the outside, so read the signs at your grocery store or farmers’ market to tell which is which.  I just saw them at my local Greenwise Publix.

Here are a few more watermelon recipes to try this summer from one of my favorite magazines, Southern Living.  23 Best Watermelon Recipes

Before you dig into these recipes check out how to choose a watermelon from The Kitchn.

Can't Forget Spirituality: A Woman's Book of Life by Joan Borysenko - A Must Read for ALL Women

While we tend to focus on maintaining ourselves on a more physical level, hence, the inception of The Whole Meal, an equally important component is our spirituality. Some of you may define this as religion, but I like to think of it as our inherent relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world. And as I have been awakened to my feminine self, and continue on this journey, I am always coming across interesting articles or books that are of interest and/or importance to ALL women, regardless of spirituality (or lack of).

So this month I am combining a book review with spirituality. A Woman's Book of Life; The Biology, Psychology, and Spirituality of the Feminine Life Cycle by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. is a must read for every woman. It is one of the few books written that relates how biology, psychology, and spirituality affect women at every life cycle. After the introduction, Borysenko divides the book into 12 chapters based on a woman's life cycle, 12 7-year periods, three in each quadrant of life- childhood and adolescence, young adulthood and, midlife and the elder years.

She specifically focuses on a feminine way of growth, as she herself points out, "...development of men, however, is a rich and detailed field that needs little recapitulation here since it is the subject of volumes of work extending over many centuries". The corresponding book of women's lives is nowhere near as studied, although with the advent of this book in 1996, we have seen this field of study expand greatly.

Now, I do not agree with everything she says but what stays with me most about this book is the scientific explanation of why women are the way we are. It is quite illuminating and life changing to understand that it is our biology that drives our psychology and spirituality.

Every woman should read this, and as quoted by Christine Northrup, M.D., and author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (also a must read!): "...book is so compelling, uplifting, and scientifically provacative that I could not put it down. It will change the way we think about ourselves as women and is destined to become a classic."

Musings on Mother's Day

My original intention for this blog post was to show you how to incorporate healthy cooking on Mother's Day by having your children prepare sweet intentions for you or cooking with them.  I realized, however, that it was becoming a mom that planted the seed that eventually blossomed into The Whole Meal and wow!  this holiday has much more significance for me than I realized.

When I found out I was pregnant with my first, I wanted to nutritionally nurture her beyond taking the obligatory prenatal vitamin; my path towards whole foods eating had begun.  I was no longer responsible for my own health but now someone else's who was truly at the mercy of my decisions.

I am lucky that my mom cultivated a love of real food for my brother and I since we've been young. My first baby food was soft cooked chicken and vegetables mashed up with rice (as I got older I realized it was Nilaga, the Filipino version of stewed chicken, potatoes and cabbage).  We always had a home cooked dinner- much of it Filipino, her heritage, and some of it American but not always healthy; i.e., I've had my fair share of Hamburger and Tuna Helper (which inspired me to recreate whole food verisons for TWM!).  The lesson learned:  the 80/20 rule- eat real food most of the time and you can fudge part of the time.

By the time my youngest hit preschool I was eating pretty clean (living by my 80/20 rule) and I had many moms asking me for recipe advice which culminated in a very specific request, "Can't you create a website with all the recipes you make for your family so we can have them too AND can you have a shopping list too so it makes it easy to get in and out of the store?".  And The Whole Meal was born.

I think all mothers have her own special "ah ha" moment of what it really means to be a mom and how much this role influences us in ways we may not even be aware of.  I also include all women in this category, as I feel all of us of the female persuasion "mother" someone in our lives.  This does not mean, however, that we just nurture, care, support and love but also includes strength, perseverance and commitment.

Come tomorrow I will wake to a very different attitude on Mother's Day as I have probably fallen into the category of those that saw this day as a "Hallmark Holiday".  So I refuse to see it as a fluff holiday filled with flowers, gifts, spa time, fancy restaurant brunches (although those are nice) rather I'll see it as a time for me to toast all women and the joys, challenges, and many roles that come our way.

Sunday has always been my favorite day of the week but now I'll feel incredibly blessed this Sunday to have a family that honors me for ALL my roles, filled with gratitude for the ways that being a mother has shaped me, as well as open my heart to immense respect to both my mother and mother-in-law for being the women that they are.

It's Spring! Grow Some Veggies: The Easiest Vegetables to Grow

I do not have a green thumb despite growing up with parents that did (and still do) but once the warm temperatures and low humidity of April and May hit Florida I wistfully think maybe this year will be the year I won't get blossom end rot on my tomatoes or have a leggy basil plant.

So this week's blog is selfishly inspired by my own (desperate) desires.   I hope I am in good company and there may be a few of you that need some basics on producing vegetables in your backyard.

During my research I liked the idea of having a theme and "Grow a Simple Salad" appealed to me most.  So this would include:

LETTUCES:  easy to grow, easy to harvest (snip tops off the plants or pick leaves as needed), they take up very little space and can grow in a container if need be.  Need more?  Then check out Mother Earth News' All About Growing Lettuce.

CUCUMBERS: Some sunshine, warm temperatures, something to climb and water and they'll grow like weeds.  Due to their vertical predisposition they can grow in containers too (bush rather than vine cucumbers grow best in containers or small spaces and are disease resistant).

TOMATOES: Smaller varieties have the best success and once they have lots of sun and something to stake them, they can be in containers, hanging ones too.  Unlike the larger varieties, you rarely have to worry about splitting or blossom end rot.  Buy the starter plants from your local garden center which are easiest to grow and look for "patio" type tomatoes (popular are Patio and Tiny Tim).  Tomatos can apparently take some neglect so if you forget to water them, they'll be fine (whew!).

Here is what else I found:

BASIL: Plant this fragrant herb (one of my favorites) next to those tomato plants and you'll naturally repel pests and even improve the flavor of the tomatoes!  I found this great link so I'll defer to 7 Tips for Grow Mad Giant Basil Plants 'cause that is so what I want!  Most herbs also fall into the easy category and are the most popular container plants.

ROOT VEGGIES:  These would include carrots, turnips and radishes which can be planted directly in the garden in the spring and left until fall.  The tops can be harvested too as these plants grow.  How appropriate that I found this tweet today from Rodale's Organic Life's 10 Ways to Eat Organic for Free (No Joke!); specifically #1: Harvest twice.

There are more easy-to-grow vegetables but I'll defer to this popular article on the 10 Easiest Vegetables to Grow for green beans, spinach, bell peppers and summer squashes, as well as more info on carrots, lettuces, radishes, basil, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

Now that I have an arsenal of vegetables to choose from (and just might garner me the status of "green thumb gardener" this season) I am off to ask my girls what they might want to plant as it's just as important to start a new generation off with a love of the earth and all that she can bless us with if we only take the time to partner with her.