We’ve all heard the rumors that the average woman eats something like 6 lbs of lipstick in her lifetime, something which has never swayed anyone I know from buying their favorite shade. But this is just that, a rumor. Snopes.com managed to bust this legend by calculating exactly how may tubes of lipstick a person would have to go through to ingest 6 lbs of the stuff, and it was a staggering 454 to 1,512 tubes a year, and that each tube would have to be consumed in it’s entirety. No lipstick blotting, no lipstick kisses, no coffee cup smudges. So, okay, we don’t eat nearly as much lipstick as we’ve thought, but does that mean it’s still safe for us to use?

The answer, like so many things I’m finding these days, is harder firmly establish. Like almost all of the personal care products in our daily lives… the shampoos, bath soaps, deodorants, perfumes, nail polishes, body lotions, self tanners… lipstick does contain harmful chemicals that scientists and medical professionals don’t know anything about, and that the personal care industry is not interested in testing. So where does that leave us? It leaves us with lead in our lipstick, neurotoxins in our shampoo, hormone distruptors in our sunscreens, and carcinogens in just about all of them. It’s an awful mess. We’re slowly waking up to the fact that we’ve been unwilling participants in what’s turning out to be a global human experiment with toxic chemicals. Parallel this with the USDA’s recent acknowledgement that the antibiotics that we pump into  industrial factory farm animals have been creating dangerous resistant strains of bacteria, for which we are essentially defenseless. Well done America.

As Annie Leonard says in her new short on the topic of chemicals in our personal care products - the choice we think we have in the stores when seeking out these goods doesn’t amount to much choice at all. If we’re only presented with option that are toxic, what kind of choice is that? Sure, there are 5 gazillion types of shampoo, body lotions and toothpastes on the market, and that might seem like a lot of choices, but it’s really not, when they’re all bad for us. The same applies to our food… when the majority of our food is controlled by a few multinational industrial ag companies, and our only choice is what they choose to sell us, how much of a choice is that??

But the first step to making better choices, is to know why the ones we have now aren’t that great. Turn over your shampoo bottle next time you take a shower and look carefully at the ingredients. Do you know what they are? If you google them, chances are you’ll be pretty horrified by not only where they come from, but what they have the potential to do to us. The industry who uses these chemicals argue that the levels to which we are being exposed to are tiny, and not worth worrying about. That would be a fine argument if we only used one single product a few times a year. We use dozens upon dozens of products every single day, year after year after year, and scientists aren’t sure what the cumulative effect of these chemicals are. Not to mention that the few chemicals that HAVE been tested have been tested in isolation, not along with the myriad of chemicals floating around inside us… scary interactions are bound to take place.

We seem to be on the cusp of an age of awareness. We learning more and more about how the things we use are made, and how it gets to us.  We get upset when we discover lead in our children’s toys, melamine in our baby formula, and BPA in our plastics. When presented with the frightening facts of the things we consume, we start to demand cleaner, safer options.  We’re fast approaching, and for many are already in, the age of real choice when it comes to our food. We can choose organic over non-organic. We can choose hormone free, pasture raised foods. Ten years ago these options did not exist.

Instead of lamenting the current, and still very toxic situation we’re living in, I’m inspired and enthusiastic about all the positive changes that ARE taking place. The organic movement is the largest growing sector of the foods industry by far. We have bills being introduced into Congress, like the Kid-Safe Chemical Act, that are making an effort to regulate what goes into the products we use every day. We have front page headlines proclaiming the public’s disapproval of antibiotics in our food supply. This is the era of the documentary film, where the truth behind our food industry is finally being revealed. It’s with this knowledge and understanding that we’ll demand, as a country, that the rules must change. No more BPA in anything. No more lead in anything. No melamine in our food - ever. No antibiotics or hormones in our foods. No harmful pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides on our crops. No factory farms, no ground water contamination…

Let’s consider the reality of the “choices” we currently have, and aim towards creating real choice. I don’t want to choose between bad and worse, I want to be able to chose between better and best!

For some, raw foods is a passing fad, and a quirky “look honey, I’m eating “raw” lasagna!!!” pit stop along the culinary highway. But for others, it’s a way of life. My mother, for one, has been eating and all raw, or mostly raw diet for 7 or 8 years now, and feels best when she’s eating totally raw foods. Out of necessity, and boredom from living off of salads and nut pates, she’s learned to create some pretty intricate, stunning, and most importantly, delicious dishes that have won rave reviews from her clients. Taking a look at some of the high-end raw food restaurants like Pure Food & Wine here in NY may leave you rubbing your eyes in disbelief that their food is totally vegan and raw.

Raw foodists believe that cooking food above 118 degrees kills off the live enzymes in our food, necessary for proper digestion and assimilation. Cooked food equals dead food in terms of vitamins too, so raw foodists make sure to consume all their foods in either whole, or very lightly processed forms (by processed I mean ground, chopped, dehydrated, etc.).

While there are plenty of people who pooh-pooh this diet and the “crazies” that eat this way, I do think this way of eating has many wonderful benefits, whether you eat 100% raw, or just partially raw,  and is something we should all do more of. But here’s the rub - this diet may be perfect, but only for a few months out of the year! As the seasons change around us, we should take care to change our diets too, and focus on those foods that are in season in our area. In the summertime when temperatures soar, as they have been lately, eating more raw fruits and vegetables is exactly what our bodies want us to do! These foods are water heavy and cooling, helping to combat the rising thermometer. Deep in the middle of January’s bitter cold weather, not many of us would take kindly to a dinner of salad greens, heirloom tomatoes, and zucchini ribbons (although give me a hot summer day and I’m ALL OVER that!). We want soups and stews and things that not only require cooking, but lots and lots of it. Not fruit smoothies.

So while it’s still hot out - looks like it’s going to be hot and then even hotter as we move through summer this year - following a raw, or even mostly raw diet is a pretty good thing. If you’re in NYC, check out some of the best raw food restaurants around (and in the case of Pure Food & Wine, best restaurants period!). Here’s a short list of some of NY’s most popular raw restaurants (I’ve not been to all of these, but have heard great things):

Pure Food & Wine
Caravan of Dreams (both raw & cooked options - all vegan)
Raw Soul
Bonobos
Quintessence
Candle 79 (raw options)
Rockin Raw

If you can’t make it to any of these, you can always seek out the raw food community and their passion for food on the good ole internet. Here are some great website that focus on raw food recipes:

Ani Phyo
Gone Raw
Rawmazing
Eat Dance Live
In the Raw
We Like it Raw

With salad recipes from Pure Food & Wine like this one:

Spring Salad of Mache, Shaved Fennel, Raspberries, and Toasted Almonds - dill and fennel pollen cashew cheese,  white truffle framboise vinaigrette

entrees like this:

Drunken Salsify Noodles in Spicy Almond Butter Sake Sauce - chili marinated king oyster mushroom scallops, baby bok choi, almond crumble

and most importantly, desserts:

Trio of Dark Chocolate Coated Indian Spiced Ice Cream Treats - chocolate cardamom coconut ice cream cone, pistachio gelato ice cream sandwich, and chai tea creamsicle

you absolutely cannot avoid this restaurant for fear of raw foods being boring! (ok, writing all that out just made me reaaaaly hungry!). While the weather is hot, make sure you stock up on fresh greens, fruits and veggies, and if you can, incorporate as many uncooked, or lightly cooked meals as possible.

Ayurvedic practitioners, masters of seasonal eating, have these recommendations for eating cooling, summer food:

1.  Favor foods that are cool and liquid. Minimize foods that are hot.

2.  Favor foods that are sweet, bitter or astringent. Minimize foods that create heat (spicy, salty or sour).

3.  Light proteins are best - if you eat meat - fish and white meats in small amounts are best. Otherwise, light protein rich grains like quinoa are ideal.

4.  Coriander, mint, cardamom, and fennel are nice summer spices that can make you feel cooler than you are.

In addition, making most of your meals quick-cooking or no cooking will help retain much of the water content of fresh fruits and veggies with the added bonus of keeping you out of a hot kitchen! This summer try adding more fresh, seasonal foods to your diet… just think of how “cool” you’ll be!

Here are some of the cooling summer foods on sale at the local greenmarket this month:

Peaches
Nectarines
Plums
Apricots
Blueberries
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Yellow Summer Squash
Cherries
Cucumbers
Melons
Kale
Chard
Cabbage

Everyone knows it’s healthy to eat fresh, uncooked fruits and vegetables every day.  Raw foodists take this way of eating to heart and base all their meals around different preparations of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. While some people debate the health merits of eating a totally raw food diet year round, it certainly it a great diet for the long, hot days of summer!

Raw foods, in addition to having abundant nutrients, are also high in water - something we need extra of during the summer months. Thankfully, nature knows this, and provides us with a bountiful harvest of foods that are easily eaten in their raw form (unlike fall vegetables like pumpkins, which are difficult to impossible to eat raw).

So when you’re out and about this month, make sure you get a good amount of your daily calories from fresh raw or lightly cooked fruits and vegetables!

Superfoods - foods with a extremely high phytonutrient profile, like blueberries, seaweeds, algae, sprouts, and cacao also play a prominent role in the raw foodists diet. Eating these superfoods can help ward off illnesses and disease and give your immune system a much needed boost! But the main reason to eat these foods is because they taste good! Here are some great reasons to eat more raw fruits and vegetables:

• Vitamins and micro-nutrients:  
Most vitamins and other micro-nutrients are damaged or destroyed at temperatures above 130 degrees. Many of these newly discovered micro-nutrients are thought help prevent cancer and other diseases.
• Enzymes:  
Enzymes are the most heat sensitive of all nutrients, and are damaged or destroyed at temperatures above 118 degrees. Raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds contain the necessary enzymes to make digestion easier on our bodies.
• Water:  
Our bodies are 70% water. Fruits and vegetables have a high water content, which will keep you well hydrated and cool, particularly in the summer heat.
• Good Fats:
  Natural fats are very sensitive to heat (think of avocadoes and flaxseed oil). Heated and processed fats no longer have antioxidant qualities, and can be carcinogenic. Cooked fats are also sticky (think of a lasagna pan), which can cause blockages in the arteries and digestive tract, inhibit the absorption of nutrients, and reduce the body’s ability to transport oxygen.
• Good Elimination:
  The soft, soluble fiber in fruits and tender green vegetables keeps you regular.
• Proper acid-alkaline balance:
  Processed food, cooked food diets, pollution, and stress leave most people too acidic, which prevents optimal immune system functions, and leaches alkaline minerals from the body. Fresh fruits and vegetables help keep you alkaline.

Both of these vine fruits are water heavy, and therefore cooling to our bodies - perfect in the scorching summer heat. While this is perfect as-is, it would also make a bright and fresh cocktail or even a great popsicle!

Ingredients:
4 cups chopped watermelon
2 cups peeled and chopped cucumber
2 cups water
4 teaspoons simple syrup or other liquid sweetener or more to taste
cucumber slices and mint leaves to garnish
Directions
Throw all ingredients, except for garnish into a blender and blend until completely smooth. Adjust sweetness if needed. Strain mixture through a fine sieve, pour into chilled glasses, and garnish with a slice of cucumber, and a sprig of mint.

My favorite question that I received from my June newsletter came from Stacey who asked:

“Which sunscreen is the safest for me and my kids? I just don’t trust what the packages say anymore!”

Stacy is right to be suspicious, as most sunscreens don’t actually do what they say on their packages. The Environmental Working Group has been studying sunscreen ingredients and label claims for a few years now and has found that most sunscreens on the market don’t actually do what they say, have misleading packages, and contain potentially toxic ingredients that have not been properly assessed. After careful analysis of over 500 beach and sport sunscreens the EWG was only able to safely recommend a small percentage of them.

While many of the top rated sunscreens are pricier than the standard drugstore options like Hawaiian Tropics, Coppertone, and Neutrogena, you can rest assured that they are free from harmful nano-particles, hormone disruptors, or petroleum based ingredients.

So which sunscreen is the safest for Stacey and her kids? Holding the top three spots on EWG’s list of the best sunscreens are Badger Sunscreens.

This is the sunscreen that I use at home, and while it does leave a very faint white cast on the skin, it smells nice, rubs in easily, and doesn’t feel waxy or sticky at all. I’m fair haired and fair skinned and I burn very very easily, so sunscreen is something that I take seriously. I’ve been outdoors more this summer than in summers past, and haven’t burned once yet (aside from the time I didn’t apply any sunscreen!).

I would tell Stacey, and anyone else using sunscreen out there, to splurge on a product that not only does what it says, but does it safetly. Other top rated sunscreens come from companies like California Baby, Soleo Organics, and Blue Lizard. Check the Environmental Working Group’s sunscreen database to check out how high or low your sunscreens rate!

A recent CBS News/NYTimes poll showed that 53% of people said they won’t buy food that has been genetically modified. Just the idea of GM foods can be pretty hair-raising… crossing strawberries and fish,  genetically altering rice to contain higher levels of Vitamin A, and of course, the most common use of genetic modification - plants that are resistant to Monsanto’s Round-Up pesticide (the pesticide kills all the bugs but leaves the plant “unharmed”). Almost 90% of all soybeans grown in the US are genetically modified, as are 60% of all corn, and 75% of canola or rapeseed oil. Corn and soy show up on just about every food label in the grocery store, and if it’s there, you can just about bet that it’s GM.

But the industry responsible for creating all these GM crops doesn’t want you to know that you’re eating them. They fought very hard to make sure that foods don’t need to be identified as containing GM ingredients, fearing that if we knew, we wouldn’t buy it.  So here we are, with 53% of people stating they won’t buy foods that have been modified, and having no clear way to identify them.

In the most recent Organic Consumers Association newsletter, a short article stated that Monsanto’s own website tells it’s employees to buy organic if they’re looking to avoid GM foods. But they certainly aren’t telling the general public that!

The best way to avoid GM foods? Eat organic foods of course, but more than anything, stay away from processed, packaged foods. These almost always contain GM ingredients and are almost always loaded down with excess fat, sugar, and salt, and loaded with preservatives and stabilizers that we really just don’t need. Shop from farmers you know, or get to know, at your local greenmarket. Don’t assume they’re organic or even using non-gm seeds. Ask them and be persistent.

“If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

- Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star, March 7, 1994

I know, I know, I probably sound all kinds of nerdy saying that my favorite thing to do in the summer is to go out and pick berries, and not say, hit the beach, catch a summer concert, or eat outdoors. But it’ okay, because I already know I’m a nerd when it comes to this kind of stuff… picking berries, making jam, cooking with new ingredients. For me, berry picking is calming, and meditative, while also being back breaking, sweat inducing, and greed generating. Ha!

Berry picking requires concentration and focus, as the search for the perfect, most ripe and beautiful unblemished fruit is never ending. Even when your baskets are full and you’re walking out of the field, you (or at least I do anyway) stop every 2 feet to keep picking. For me, it often becomes less of “oh, this fruit is so yummy, I’m going to go home and make 1 billion jars of jam” and more of “I’m going to pick more than you!!” A weird competitiveness, not really found anywhere else in my life, floods my whole being, and fuels the intensity with which I pick fruit. I’m an excellent berry picker (if I say so myself) and am full of boastful pride when I see I’ve picked more than my companion.

It dawned on me recently that this strange and out of place urgency and competitiveness likely stems from some deeply ingrained impulse going back to our hunter/gatherer days. At a time when food preservation didn’t exist, and we ate what we found or killed, collecting as much as we could carry, and sometimes more, was a way to ensure our survival. We were never sure when out next meal would be caught, or foraged, so when we found a good source of food, we basically picked for our lives. This point was hammered home for me when I was climbing a ladder, legs weak from a long run at the gym, to reach the best mulberries on the highest branches of the tree out back. I don’t even really LIKE mulberries that much… it was just that they were there, they were ripe, and they needed picking!

I build my summer weekends around which fruits are in season, what’s open for picking, and how far the farms are. Two weekends ago I picked strawberries with my dad on Father’s Day, and then picked some wild black raspberries from his back yard. This past weekend I picked blueberries and blackcurrants and next weekend hopefully more of the same with raspberries too. I love this stuff.

Its beautiful to be outside, in the quiet fields, with a friend or two, calmly and peacefully plucking sweet ripe fruits. Of course we eat as we pick (these are all organic orchards by the way… important to do your homework!), the best berries being the ones that have warmed in the sun. My arms usually get scratched up from the brambles, but it’s a labor of love so I ignore them. In my work with clients, I often spend a little time talking to people about spirituality - not in the religious sense necessarily (unless that’s their bend) but in a more basic, fundamental sense. I consider anything that really and truly lifts your spirit to be a spiritual experience, and without sounding corny or cheesy, that’s what berry picking is for me. Nature would be my “church” and my place of reverence, and is something that calms, relaxes, and recharges my body and mind (unless it’s been pretty vigorous berry picking… then my body is beat!!).

And the best part about all of it is, after all the hard work, the reflection, and the meditative act of picking fruit, is going home to make something special with them! Jams are the best, and easiest way to capture and prolong all the great feelings of summer and the outdoors in little pots to enjoy all year. This year is my first time picking blackcurrants (they are HORRIBLE tasting right off the bush, and like rhubarb, require a lot of sugar), and currently have them sitting in a jar of vodka, on their way to becoming Creme de Cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur. It will take 4-5 months before it’s really ready, but when it does, it will be summer, literally, in a bottle.

Since I’ve started learning about the ingredients and lack of regulation in the personal care products industry, I’ve been paying much closer attention to the things I put in my shopping basket. Because this industry is does not have strict regulation, companies often use highly toxic chemicals in their formulations. These products, be it make up, soap, shampoos, or lotions (the list goes on), all come in contact with our skin, our bodies largest organ, and make their way into our bloodstreams. Those with fragrance, and that’s most of them, also make their way into our lungs.  According to the Environmental Working Group - more than one-third of all personal care products contain at least one ingredient linked to cancer. Yikes!

That’s not even taking into account the neuro and developmental toxins they include either. Ninety - that’s 90%- of ingredients used in personal care products have not even been assessed for safety - even by the industry’s own safety panel! These ingredients create rich lathers, serve as emollients and emulsifiers, and a million other things I wouldn’t even begin to guess at. Even though the levels of these chemicals in personal care products are sometimes low, research shows that there may be long term, gradual effects of this kind of consistent, low-dose exposure. Some of the levels aren’t that low, as the ingredients make up the base of the entire formula - leaving us with much higher daily doses of these chemicals.

“An EWG analysis found that in its 30-year history, the CIR [Cosmetics Ingredients Review] has reviewed the safety of just 13% of the 10,500 ingredients used in personal care products. FDA does no systematic reviews of safety. That means that nearly 90% of ingredients used in personal care products have not been evaluated for safety by any publicly accountable institution. And as people apply an average of 126 unique ingredients on their skin daily, these chemicals are raising concerns, for their potential impacts to human health and to the environment” - Environmental Working Group - Skin Deep Database

In the United States we take the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ approach to the chemicals used in our everyday consumer products. But since there is so little testing, how are these ingredients ever going to be found “guilty”? The EU takes the opposite approach, requiring companies to prove that their ingredients are not toxic or harmful before the product reaches the consumer. Companies like Colgate-Palmolive (and all the other multi-nationals) have reformulated their products, eliminating the toxic ingredients from them… for the EU market only! That means that the same bottle of shampoo in the US is still filled with the toxic chemicals that are banned across the ocean. How is that right??

I’ve been relying on the Skin Deep database, run by the EWG for a little over a year now, looking up the products that I already have, and using it to help me find cleaner products going forward. Shampoo is a product that’s notorious for being chock-a-block with all kinds of badness - let’s look at one “luxury” brand shampoo - Fredrick Fekkai Protein Rx Reparative Shampoo, at a whopping $35 for a 16 oz bottle. The Skin Deep Database gives this product a 9 out of 10 rating, with 10 being the worst. This shampoo has an ingredient list about a mile long and has ingredients that are linked to cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity, allergies/immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, and organ system toxicity. Nice. Sadly they are not alone on the bottom of the list, as most of the shampoos on the shelves are full of the same chemicals. So what do we do, not wash our hair?!?

I’m not about to walk around with greasy, stringy hair, so I’ve been doing a little research of my own, testing out more natural shampoos and seeing how well they tackle my mophead without leaving me smelling like a hippy, or worse, exposing me to all kinds of crazy toxins.

At my local health food store I have access to a huge array of “natural” shampoos and conditioners. But I’ve come to learn that just because it’s in the health food store, doesn’t mean it’s not full of toxic ingredients. In March of 2008 The Organic Consumers Association released a study in which they found a unlabeled ingredient - 1,4 dioxane - a carcinogen and likely kidney toxicant- in dozens of leading “natural” and “organic” beauty products. Even in the health food store, you have to read labels!!

Over the past year, I’ve tried Aubrey Organics Shampoos - rated fairly low (meaning less toxic) in the Skin Deep Database, Burts Bees Raspberry & Brazil Nut Shampoo - also rated low, and a score of others that came and went pretty quickly. Both Aubrey’s and Burts Bees felt waxy and left me feeling less clean than when I went into the shower and sometimes with hair that looked like I hadn’t showered for days!  For a long time, I was kicking it old school… like 1800’s old, and was washing my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar, which surprisingly worked really really well. It was a little weird, and definitely annoying, but it was super cheap (box of baking soda is like $2!), and my hair was squeaky clean. (And no, I didn’t smell like vinegar! I mixed in a few drops of lavender essential oil, and since it rinses out clean, it didn’t smell at all. Over time I found that it left my hair a little too dry, so I set out to find something else.

Recently, I tried Earth Science Fragrance Free Shampoo & Conditioner, which are rated a 2 on EWG’s site. While they still contain a few ingredients I’m not totally stoked on, I’m happy to say that this duo work really well for me. Obviously everyone has different hair textures and thicknesses and different shampooing needs, but for me, this one is a keeper.

My quest for knowledge, and shampoo, will likely never end, so this is hardly the end of the line. After a bottle or two, I’ll tire of it, and will go out again in search of a less harmful product to wash my hair. Until conventional shampoos, and other beauty care products are made without toxic chemicals, and until they are free from petrochemicals (see this article by Organic Consumers Association head Ronnie Cummins on the link between the oil spill in the Gulf, and the products in our bathrooms!), I’ll have to do the research on my own, finding, by trial and error and safe, green, and clean shampoo that I’m proud to use.

No one like cooking over a hot stove when it’s 98 degrees and muggy, especially not me, but instead of eating out all the time, I simply change the way I use my kitchen. Instead of roasting and baking, and heavy stove-top use, I opt for less sweaty, and less energy intensive ways to feed myself.

Thankfully the foods of summer don’t require as much preparation as the heavy dense foods (think butternut squash, potatoes) of winter. When I do my Seasonal Eating workshop, I always include a visualization of being in sweltering humidity and heat reaching the 100 degree mark. No breeze, sweat on your brow and shirt clinging to your back. You’re hungry and thirsty so you sit down for lunch. You’re served a hot plate of mashed potatoes with gravy, and a heavy dense steak…. still hungry?? Yeah, I didn’t think so. The flip side of this would be to visit someone in the arctic circle - someone who dresses in layers and layers of seal skins and who eats a predominantly meat and fat based diet - and you introduce them to tropical fruit smoothies and nourishing leafy green salads. Brrrr!! I doubt they’d thrive for very long on those foods!

My point here is to illustrate that our bodies have been designed to adapt to the change of seasons. We’re better able to digest heavy, dense foods in the wintertime, and better able to digest light, watery foods in the heat of the summer. In my previous post about rethinking the summer barbecue, I talked a little about the seasonality of meat and that everything has it’s place. In the summer, fruits and vegetables take center stage, and when we’re ready to start making breakfast, lunch, or dinner, the spotlight should be on them.

The beauty of these foods is that they require much less cooking, if any at all! Here are some tips and suggestions to keeping your kitchen (and body) cool this summer while still eating from home:

* Use low to no-heat appliances like blenders, food processors, and toaster ovens to do your food prep.

* Make plenty of leafy green salads and quick cooking grains… think pasta salads, tabbouleh, farro and summer vegetables, Tuscan bread salads (my favorite), and quinoa.

* Increase the amount of raw foods in your diet. People make fun of carrot sticks and hummus, but it’s not only filling, but a quick and cool snack too.

* Start hot mornings with a substantial breakfast smoothie made with fresh fruit and almond milk. Make it a more decadent dessert by adding almond butter and cocoa powder!

* If you are going to cook, try to do it in the morning when it’s the coolest. Cook as much as you can and leave it in the fridge or freezer for use during the week. Make large batches of lentils, beans, and grains and toss them with a light dressing and some fresh greens and veggies for an instant meal.

* Make large pitchers of iced tea to keep in the fridge instead of dehydrating iced coffee.

* Make your pasta sauces raw! Simply chop or tear apart some fresh tomatoes and basil leaves, and top with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. Or go the no-cook pesto route instead!

Then there’s always cooking outside (see previous post) which can of course be very hot (it is FIRE after all), but is still better than being stuck indoors glued to your kitchen counter or stove! Plus, the company of friends while you’re grilling will always leave you feeling cool and content! Stay cool my friends!