Fiftysomething Diet: 6 Steps to a Healthier Fall Soup

Credit: Thinkstock

Our foolproof formula lets you cook and serve it in 30 minutes


By Maureen Callahan for Next Avenue

With nights turning cooler, it’s the perfect time for soup suppers, those big pots of warming goodness that fill you up with little fuss.

Forget store-bought varieties that tend to taste like a salt lick and can raise your blood pressure. We’re talking about simple homemade soups that are easy on cleanup (one pot) and offer a world of big, bold flavors.

Worried about spending too much time in the kitchen? Here’s our Fiftysomething formula that lets you simmer common pantry ingredients into satisfying soup in about 30 minutes. (Note: If you’re nervous about “winging it” with this loose six-step process, don’t worry. We’ve also provided links to step-by-step recipes from healthy cooking gurus Eating Well and Cooking Light.)

The Formula

1. Start with aromatics Building flavor into any soup starts first by sauteeing aromatic vegetables in small amounts of healthy oils such as olive or canola. One chopped onion and a few tablespoons of oil in a soup pot is a perfect soup starter. If time permits, add other aromatics such as chopped carrots, celery and garlic. Saute just one, or all the aromatics, over medium heat for four to five minutes.

2. Toast a few spices Next, stir 1 to 2 tablespoons of a favorite spice blend into the cooked aromatics and let the spices toast, over medium heat, for one to two minutes. Try a Mexican spice blend (chili powder, cumin and dried oregano) for chili-style soups. Or use curry powder or a curry spice blend (curry powder, turmeric, cinnamon) if you’re partial to Indian dishes like this Fall Vegetable Curry soup. The idea is to let spices toast into the oil to flavor the whole soup.

3. Add a low-salt broth Once the aromatics and spices are done, add a quart (4 cups) of stock to the soup pot and bring it to a boil. Homemade chicken and vegetable stocks are tastier, but the convenience factor of store-bought stock is a plus for quick soups. Just be sure to scan nutrient fact panels of packaged broths to find varieties with at least one-third less sodium.

4. Stir in lots of vegetables When the stock comes to a boil, stir in four cups (about one pound) of chopped assorted in-season vegetables. Choose from root vegetables like carrots and turnips. Or mix and match mild flavored fall favorites like sweet potatoes, butternut squash, cauliflower, spinach and tomatoes. Steer clear of anything with too strong a taste (broccoli, Brussels sprouts) that might overpower other flavors. Sometimes you might want to focus on one favorite vegetable, like sweet potatoes, for a healthy version of Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque.

5. Add small amounts of lean, quick-cook meats Stir in meats, if you are using them, at the same time as vegetables so they have plenty of time to cook through. Best choices are small quantities (one half to one pound of meat per pot of soup) of chopped healthier cuts like turkey tenderloins, low-fat sausages, or boneless skinless chicken thighs. Chopped pork tenderloin is a good bet too as you’ll see with this healthy Pork, White Bean & Kale Soup. Or try this Turkey & Squash Soup. Once you’ve added the vegetables and meats of your choice, simmer soup for 25 to 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and go to step six.

6. Stir in some complex carbs Boost the filling fiber of the soup you’re creating with a last minute addition of a cup of whole grains or legumes. To save time, opt for already cooked brown rice, wheat berries, canned beans or chickpeas, as in this Chickpea and Sausage Minestrone. As an alternative, go meatless on occasion and let complex carbs be the stars of your soup as with this Tomato and Lentil Soup or a classic Split Pea Soup with Rosemary.


© Twin Cities Public Television - 2017. All rights reserved.



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How to Go Gray Naturally

It’s not easy, but it is possible. These tips can break your cycle of monthly dye jobs.

By Mary Bemis for Next Avenue

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My friends tell me I should consider myself blessed, because at nearly 52 years of age, I’m just beginning to show my gray. And while it doesn't bother me — yet — I’m starting to think about color for the first time in my life.

The odds are, though, that I won’t go there, for a variety of practical reasons: the chemicals, the cost and the hassle of upkeep. But mostly I just don’t want to mess with Mother Nature.

I came close to coloring my hair last year, when my father passed away. My sisters and I contemplated dyeing our brunette hair red in solidarity: My father went into the great beyond at 84 with the same gorgeous copper-red hair with which he came into the world.

 

How Women Used to Grapple with Gray

Until recently, women fell into two basic camps: those who colored and set their hair until it didn’t, or couldn’t, move (think “helmet head”) and those who went gray naturally.

“Several decades ago, when women decided not to color their hair, they just grew it longer and pulled it back,” says Elizabeth Cunnane Phillips, a trichologist at Philip Kingsley salon in New York City. “You got away with having gray hair because that’s what the norm was — it was either done and colored or it wasn’t.”

Today, women who want to hide their grays have many options. There are demi- and semi-permanent hair color options that are ammonia-free, and therefore less damaging, as well as permanent color, a stronger cocktail of chemicals that keeps the color longer. (Semi-permanent color typically fades in about a dozen shampoos, while demi-permanent color lasts twice as long. These options are best for those whose head of hair is about one-quarter gray.)

Then there’s a completely different contingent of women ready to get their gray on but whose husbands don’t want them to. “I’m always intrigued by what dictates that,” Phillips says.

Either way, there’s no getting around the stereotype that gray is “distinguished” on gentlemen and “dowdy” on ladies. “The high-level women I consult with say, ‘I can’t let it grow out now. It won’t work in the boardroom,’” says Phillips. That’s true in reverse, too. “When the husband is in the boardroom and there’s a lot of social interaction, he often doesn’t want his wife to be gray,” she says.

Steps to a Color-Free Future

If you’ve been coloring your hair regularly but feel ready to take the gray plunge, realize that growing it out isn’t going to be a quick and easy process. First, get a consultation with a good colorist, preferably one who has helped a lot of women slide into silver. And then, because your look is going to be one of “transition” for a while, choose your timing carefully and plan to be patient. You don’t want to start growing out your color right before an important presentation or social event.

Tips for Going Gray

• Go shorter. A different cut helps to eliminate a bulk of the hair you’re trying to match or catch up to — it also introduces the element of new.
• Go lighter. Ease into gray by going lighter first, says Phillips, who recommends starting that process as early as possible. This eliminates and/or lessens the demarcation between regrowth and pigments that you’re applying.
• Add lowlights. Instead of doing a full base color, start doing lowlights — that is, instead of coloring all of the hair, re-pigment hair that’s your base color in strands as opposed to in full. “There are several benefits to this,” Phillips says. “It buys you more time between appointments and it can look very natural — not like you’ve gone gray overnight.”
• Temporarily cover new gray growth. Within five days, you start to see the shadow of roots; by week four, they’re obvious. In response, the hair-care industry has created a number of products to cover you up in between appointments. You can use a crayon-like cover-up stick from Roux; mascara wand–type color applicators, such as Generation Klean’s Gray Disappear; spray-on hair color powders, like Bumble and Bumble’s; and rinses and foams, including a line from British hair guru John Frieda.

How to Care for Gray Hair

Once you’ve grown out your gray, plan to put in a bit more effort to maintain it and keep it healthy. Step up your regular maintenance: Your old shampoo and conditioner won’t cut it anymore. Choose products that brighten and clarify the gray, like Blue Malva from Aveda, Pantene Pro-V Silver Expressions, Clairol Shimmer Lights and Pure Silver from Philip Kingsley.

Because gray and white hair is naturally more coarse, dry and brittle, you’ll want to give it special care, like having regular deep-conditioning, warm-oil scalp and restorative elasticizer treatments.

“In a perfect world, you should have an elasticizer treatment every two weeks,” Phillips says. “Or you can do it yourself at home.” This helps to bring moisture and elasticity back into the hair fibers to help reflect light and shine. She further stresses the importance of protecting your gray hair from oxidation and advises clients to stay out of direct sunshine, which can make hair dull-looking.

Refresh Your Face

When you do go gray or white, your skin can look a bit washed out. This is a perfect excuse to toss your old cosmetics and bring in some new, added color.

Choose hues that will brighten your complexion and not fight the gray. The right (and brighter) blush, for instance, becomes much more important now, as does a nude lip liner and a rich lipstick that’s just a few shades deeper than your natural color. But steer clear of black liner, face powder and smoky or dark eyeshadows. These will not only age you, but work against your gorgeous new gray.

Need a little more inspiration? Just think of all the beautiful gray-haired women out there, including Emmylou Harris, Jamie Lee Curtis, Helen Mirren, Annie Lennox and models Carmen Dell’orefice and Kristen McMenamy. And for camaraderie and more good tips, check out the upbeat blog Revolution Gray. Apparently gray isn’t just a hair color, it’s a lifestyle.

Copyright© 2014 Next Avenue, a division of Twin Cities Public Television, Inc.

Front Porch is a not-for-profit support system for a family of companies that serve individuals and families through full-service retirement, active adult communities, and affordable housing communities.

More information is available at www.frontporch.net.

The Joys of New Friends

5 ways to keep expanding your social network after age 50

By Linda Bernstein for Next Avenue

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I used to think that by the time your kids flew the nest, major opportunities for meeting new people you really like winged their way out the window as well. I expected that by the time I hit 50, I’d be singing about old acquaintances all the time, not just humming a nostalgic auld lang syne chorus on New Year’s Eve.

Sure colleges had "parent" committees, but rarely were there face-to-face meetings, given that those parents were flung all over the country. And the only "new" people in the professional arena tended to be, well, more my kids' age than my own.

Experts seem to propound this worldview. In a New York Times article, “Friends of a Certain Age: Why Is It Hard to Make Friends Over 30?” Laura L. Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity in California, argued that as people move toward midlife, they interact with fewer people. Hence, they make fewer friends.

Friends Keep Popping Up All Over

Well, Dr. Carstensen, here I am, old enough that people offer me their seat on the bus — and I’m meeting people I like all over the place. My social life is jacked up. Really. The other day my friend Yona came over for lunch. I know Yona through Diane, another recent friend I met through my friend Susan, who was once my boss. This morning Diane told me a silly joke that gave me a laugh exactly when I needed one. Yona recently offered needed emotional support when I made a "career" decision that some would have dubbed "unwise" but I felt relieved me of an unwanted burden. As the song says, “That’s what friends are for” — they make you laugh, and they have your back.

Then there’s my relatively new friend Amy. I sat next to her at a conference a year and a half ago, and she immediately started introducing me to everyone she knew there (a lot more people than I did), included me in her lunch plans, and has become a generous colleague and one of the people I love spending time with. The thing about Amy is that she’s not quite young enough to be my daughter, but almost. (If, like Loretta Lynn, I had been married off as a teen, she would be.)

Sure, there’s a bit of a generation gap between us: She has school-age kids, and mine are solidly in their 20s. But my “grandma” and “mom” poles seem to be demagnetized when she tells stories about her boys. I am amused or bemused — a friend response. When I worry out loud about my young adult offspring, she doesn’t overempathize with them; it’s me she relates to and cares about.

This is another surprise: New friends can be quite younger — and older — than I am. When you're 30, a 10-year age difference seems a chasm. It is, after all, one-third of your life. Now that I'm over 50, 40 seems not so far back; 65 not so far ahead. Ann, whom I met running around the reservoir in New York's Central Park, has grandchildren not so much younger than my kids, but she can run at my pace and keep up a conversation, largely recounting the previous night's comedic monologues. (Which means I have developed the capacity to laugh and run at the same time.)  

These new friends aren’t only of the female persuasion — though I believe that if you’re married and a new male friend isn’t part of a “friendship couple,” it may be harder for the two of you to hang out. Yet I can spend hours on Skype with Maxwell, who lives on the West Coast, without making my husband jealous because (a) Maxwell is all of 40, married to a dynamite woman and clearly not interested in me in “that way,” and (b) we talk about things like html code and subjects way too tech-geeky to enthrall the philosophy professor I married.

When Maxwell was in town recently and we met for a drink, my husband begged off, knowing he would be bored, bored, bored and confident that nothing would happen IRL.

Five Ways to Make New Friends

“All well and good, Linda,” you might be thinking, “but just how do you bring people into your life when, as the experts point out, your opportunities for social interactions are shrinking?”

Answer: Just cast your net—the wider the better. Here’s how I found new friends. And I should mention that I’m actually pretty shy, not a natural extrovert, so you can’t use that as an excuse.

1. Take classes. I am the type who looovvvees school. Still, continuing education classes aren’t quite “school” for those who didn’t like the classroom setting growing up. Mostly you sit around with other adults learning something interesting. You don’t have to do homework unless you want to. (But that’s the great thing: You’ll probably want to).

If there are any colleges or university extensions near you, do a Google search to see what’s on offer. Community centers, Ys and religious institutions also frequently host discussion groups and courses. Another place with new friendship possibilities, and don’t laugh: Weight Watchers meetings. In person. (Yes, those still happen.) Or spend a day with Habitat for Humanity or another volunteer organization. You’ll be exchanging phone numbers by cocktail hour.

2. Join Facebook and LinkedIn. I know: You already did. But are you using them to the max? Facebook is where you can find friends from high school and college with whom you’ve lost touch. Then, though comments, you meet their friends, whom you soon find yourself conversing. I have become friends, and now met in real life, the mother of a young woman about my daughter's age whom I met through work and who "friended" me on Facebook.

Twitter is a wonderful place to discover people you’d never meet otherwise (and sometimes probably will never see face-to-face because they live in, like, New Zealand).

A great thing that has come out of all these online networks is what Twitter folks call the "Tweet Up," but more generally could be simply dubbed a "get-together." People who live nearby but have so far only met online plan a get-together for coffee or a drink. Many times you’ll find yourself trying to pin many new faces to names. Other times it’s just you and one other person grabbing a cup of coffee. Once you’re face-to-face with an online friend, I’ve found, if you take a shine to each other, you’ll start conversing through email and even take it to the phone. If not too much travel is involved, you’ll find yourself seeing your new friends regularly.

What can be really fun is literally going the extra mile. A whole bunch of people I know online who live in the Southwest are converging on Phoenix next Saturday .… just because. Oh, and when you get social, you’ll also get to know friends-of-friends, which is more than a Facebook privacy setting. It’s in-real-life people added to your non-virtual social life.

3. Work out at the gym. True, it’s not easy having a conversation while you’re puffing away on the treadmill or swinging those kettle balls. But what I've found is that there are certain people you see time after time, especially if you take classes. First you start smiling at each other, then you say hi. Finally you have a real conversation in the locker room. Next thing you know, you’re grabbing a post-workout coffee with your new gym buddy.

4. Rediscover old friends. Not just online, either. There’s a woman who lives nearby whom I have kinda-sorta known for years. We were both active in our kids’ PTA and spent time together back then. But you know how things go. The kids grew up, and our contacts dwindled to saying “hi” at the supermarket.

Last summer we ran into each other on the block, and she suggested, totally impromptu, that I come and hang in her backyard. We sat around for hours — first bonding over an intense discussion of cleaning products. From there we went on to our kids, our husbands, Broadway shows and, finally, our hopes and dreams. We simply and magically clicked.  

Not too long ago I also connected with a woman I knew in college but we had totally lost touch. While talking at a party we discovered we’ve lived almost parallel lives since graduation. We know the same people, live close by, have children the same age. We even have the same make and model piano! To my good fortune, this re-acquaintance has become a good friend.

I remember having the thought when I was about 18 that as you got older, the people you met would be more interesting because they'd have so many more stories (i.e., experiences) to share. This indeed has proved true. Also, now that we're more comfortable in our own skins and past the age when we feel the need to impress, bonding comes more naturally. We might have more baggage, but it's easier to unpack.

5. Participate in Meet Ups. Just Google it. All over the world professional groups schedule meetings for casual conversation and networking. Sometimes a member gives a presentation; other times it's just drinks. Either way, discard your cloak-of-shyness and get out there. I know people who have garnered clients and secured job interviews at these kinds of gatherings. I recently found someone who told me that she'd look into some little quirky problems I'm having with my website — for free. Also Google "BNI" (Business Networking International) to find a nearby group (which you'll have to apply to join) or "Professional Networks."

Live Long and Prosper

Having great people to hang out with isn’t the only benefit to making friends as we get older. Social interactions actually help us live longer, say Brigham Young University professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith. “When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks," Holt-Lunstad explained. Watching out for our own well-being adds years to our lives. (Well, duh.)

This research and the joy my new friends bring reminds me of a camp song I learned long ago: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” Except what I’m finding is that new friends and old friends are both gold.

Copyright© 2014 Next Avenue, a division of Twin Cities Public Television, Inc.

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More information is available at www.frontporch.net.