The Good Fat and Bad Fat Dilemma: the problem may just be too much food

 In a most recent food research study done by Martijn Katan ( Professor of Nutrition at the University of Amsterdam), suggests that saturated fat (fat found in meat, butter, and dairy) may not be as bad for your heath as you think. Of course, don’t go celebrating by eating a whole stick of butter. The whole purpose of the study was to challenge the idea that doctors have told us our whole lives to replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats, but after all the problem may not be the fat but how much we eat of it.  The problem with past studies is that they were unable to find the link between the bad fat (saturated fat) and the increase of cholesterol. Now, that both fats cause cholesterol to increase is beyond doubt. The study found that in the end the problem is not that fat itself, but how much we eat of it. Food is cheap and access to it is easy. Most of our important occasions or celebrations involve food. For many, food may even be used as a pastime. We are surrounded by food and tempted by it. That’s what is making us fat and our cholesterol high. So make the right choice and control your eating.

Here at Atlanta Personal Chef Service, we cook healthy and tasty meals. Quit going to restaurants every night. The amount of sodium that these places add to their food is in ridiculous amounts and they do that with reason. They must preserve the food and salt is the best way to do that. Here at Atlanta Personal Chef Service, our chefs go grocery shopping everyday in order to bring our clients fresh produce. We are here to help you maintain good heath without giving up on taste. Right now we serve cities around Atlanta including Marietta, Roswell, Buckhead, Dunwoody, Vinings, Brookhaven, and other cities surrounding Atlanta. We do weekly meals, dinner parties, cocktail parties, and more. So, contact us and find how we can help you eat right. Find us on Facebook.  

Three Great Power foods

Have you ever wondered which foods are the best for your heath and body? Well Atlanta Personal Chef Service has done the research for you and we came up with a simple list of some powerful food that you should integrate daily or weekly in your diet.

1. Eggs (over easy): Surprised? Some people think that eggs are bad for you due to high fat (cholesterol) contained in the yolk. They may be right depending on the how the eggs are cooked. The yolk must be running in order to be healthy for you. Eggs contain great vitamin amounts of B12, A, D, E and F. It also has many minerals such as folate, iron, zinc, and phosphorous. All this in one egg that contains 70 calories. Many physiologist recommend eggs for people that suffer from depression and anxiety. Eggs are great source of protein as well. You will feel less hungry eating fewer calories.

2. Spinach: It is basically a multivitamin in a single vegetable. It contains great amounts of vitamins C, K, A. B6, B2, and E. It also has magnesium, manganese, potassium, folate, Iron, Copper and other minerals. No wonder Popeye (the cartoon) eats spinach in order to become strong. This is a great vegetable that you should eat weekly at a minimum.

3. Salmon: It has great amounts of omega 3, vitamins B12 and D. Fish in general are very good for your heath. Some researchers even relate fish to slowing down the ageing process.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service cares about your health. Give us a try. We do weekly meals, dinner parties, cooking lessons, cocktail parties and other services. Contact us and I’m sure you will not regret it. Every day we serve families in Atlanta, Marietta, Vinnings, Decatur, Dunwoody, Buckhead, Roswell and other cities.

A Cup of Tea a Day, May Keep the Cancer Away

I’m not sure if you have noticed, but tea is making a comeback. If you go to the mall, there is a high percentage that you will see a store that only sells tea. It’s very impressive, since coffee still is the popular drink of choice. Perhaps, due to the heath factors that teas have or the less amount of caffeine (depending on the tea less, since some tea can have high levels of caffeine), more and more people are choosing tea or coffee.  Atlanta Personal Chef Service is here to help you understand how a cup of tea a day, may go a long way to improve your health.

There are many types of teas out there, but for the sake of simplicity we are just going to talk about the two most famous:

Green tea, perhaps, the most popular of tea, is made with steamed tea leaves. Green tea has a high amount of EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate), which is a powerful antioxidant.  Studies have showed that this antioxidant may prevent many types of cancer such as, stomach, bladder, breast and pancreatic cancers. EGCG is also in known to help with weight loss and brain heath. The caffeine amount is green tea is very low (about 25 mg for an eight oz cup).

Black tea is the tea that coffee drinkers might want to stick with. It has (about 47 mg for an eight oz cup compared to 95 mg in coffee). It is made with fermented teas leaves. Just like most teas, black teas have powerful antioxidants that may prevent many different types of cancers. However, the best benefit of black tea, according to research, is that prevents cancer from second hand smoking (being around smoke).

Atlanta Personal Chef Service cares about your health. We have chefs that serve weekly meals in Marietta, Kennesaw, Atlanta, Buck Head, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Roswell, Vinnings and other cities surrounding Atlanta. We also do dinner parties. Contact us and give us a try. We are here to help you making your life easier and healthier. 

Three Simple steps to Keep/Maintain a Healthy Brain

The brain is the most important organ of the human body and of all animals as well. In fact, the brain is so important that Doctors only declare when someone is dead when their brains are no longer working or considered “dead.” The brain is the pilot. It’s where all commands takes place. A person can live with an arm or a leg, but no one can live without a brain. Being the most important of all human organs, it would be wise to treat the brain with such importance.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service is here once again to teach you simple steps, so that you can maintain a healthy brain now as we age.

1. Exercise: Exercise should be of no surprise. Every study about maintaining a great heath, exercising is always one the most important things anyone can do. According to Laura Baker (Associate Professor of Internal Medicine-geriatrics at the Wake Forest University of Medicine in North Caroline), “Most studies find a lower risk of dementia over time for people who exercise or are lifelong exercisers versus those who don’t. If you are sedentary, blood doesn’t get to the far reaches of those small vessels. These are the areas that support the kind of executive function that’s vulnerable to aging.” What is great about exercising is that it improves your heath in many levels, including stress, blood flow, cholesterol and many more.

2. Keep an eye on your blood pressure. People that have high blood pressure have higher risk of having strokes (when the blood supply gets cut off, thus affecting the levels of oxygen that reaches your brain, which causes brain tissue to die). A few ways to lower the blood pressure is by exercising, maintaining healthy diet and medication if necessary.

3. Use your brains: Many studies have shown that there is lower risk of Alzheimer’s symptoms and dementia in people that have higher education, read books, work on professional occupations, and are involved with activities that stimulate the brain (puzzles, playing games, attend classes).

Other steps that it’s proven to help, but researchers are not 100% yet: Sleep, eating fish, drinking coffee, berries, and Vitamin D.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service is to help you maintain healthy diet, while eating tasty foods. Everyday our private chefs are cooking meals around Atlanta, Buckhead, Marietta, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Vinnings, and Roswell. We keep up with the latest in heath and always informing our clients. Try us out and I’m sure you will not regret it. Contact us!

Working As Personal Chef VS Working At A Restaurant

In a typical restaurant experience, a chef might emphasize bringing a different culture to the area, or some art form of flavor and aromas they might be trying to weave onto your dinner plate, but at the core of our business we are ultimately trying to serve dinner, and offer our clients a pleasant experience.  A typical restaurant has a team of professionals to work on the former, but rarely do we emphasize the latter, and when operating out of a client’s home, it is the execution of this facet of the job that really stands out.

Chef’s typically stop their art at the edge of their plate, sometimes venturing into the dinner table, or the space between courses, but our art form must extend to fill our client’s living space.  My commercial experience has given me habits of simply emptying a space.  I know that my focus will have to shift to beautifying what is left as well.  Rarely have I ever given thought to how to make the reheating of food seem inviting.

Working for Atlanta Personal chef Service it’s been great and I very much enjoy. In certain ways, the job is extremely simple.  Cooking for one family over the course of a few hours seems like light work for someone who is accustomed to the hustle of a busy dinner shift.  However, it requires the average restaurant worker to think differently, and that request is probably the most difficult thing someone can be asked to do.

At a restaurant, the demanding storm of tickets in a restaurant provides an easy access to stress relief.  Being knee deep in tickets is a daily occurrence, and tackling such a problem is a simple one - head down, focus, work hard, and work fast.  The task is very easy to accomplish, and the panic can easily be overcome.  Simply push that energy into your work, give it more effort, speed, gusto, and your coworkers look upon you with approval.  Honestly, adversity isn’t so scary when you can simply decide to work harder, in order to be more effective.

The job of a private chef is much different.  The difficulties don’t require effort; they require focus, and precision.  Developing those qualities isn't something that is learned on the fly, nor will you be inspired to because of an insurmountable list of tasks.  Our tasks aren't mountains, but many piles of dust.  Qualities like focus and precision simply need to be attained through dedicated practice.

The jobs are similar in some ways, but the two feel very different.  A good comparison might be a car mechanic, and watchmaker.

Our job comes down to getting all the little things right, and it simply has more delicate parts than a standard restaurant.  We walk the odd line of guest, friend, and employee.  Our line of work has no room for discourtesy, or ego.  The job is its own art, one of compassion, empathy, and of course, food.

What’s cooking this week at Atlanta Personal Chef Service?

It’s another busy week for Atlanta Personal Chef Service.  From Monday through Friday, our chefs are busy cooking for families and individuals around Atlanta, Marietta, Dunwoody, Buckhead, Sandy Springs, and Vinnings. One of our chefs is cooking the following menu this week:

Grilled BBQ Skirt Steak with Sweet Potato Puree,

Sauté cabbage, and Grilled Corn Salad

Wedge Salad Poached Tilapia in

Mussels Broth with Steam White Rice and Roasted Asparagus.

Baba Ghanoush Platter,

Thai Chicken Curry with Steam white rice and snap peas

Waldorf Salad,

Turkey Meatballs with Arrabiata sauce, roasted root vegetable puree and Sauté Zucchini.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service is here to help with your busy life. Our chefs cook fresh, delicious, and healthy meals every day. For more information about our services click here. Also, feel free to give us a call or send us an email by going to out “contact us” page. 

Atlanta Personal Chef Service warns about six common food misconceptions

   At Atlanta Personal Chef Service, cooking healthy is very important to us.  We know that it is possible to make great tasting food that is healthy too.  It's amazing the difference that fresh food with high quality ingredients can make on the taste of a dish.  Read below for some common misconceptions.  Our insider tips will help you keep it healthy when you do your own grocery shopping.

Lean meat: Meat labeled lean can be misleading. It doesn't matter if the label says lean, its the fat percentage that matters. When they advertise 80% lean meat, the fact is that its 20% fat, which is very high. 80% lean just sounds better, so that's how meat is labeled. Stick with meat that is lower in fat or ask the butcher from your local meat store to remove the fat (if possible) of whatever cut you buy.  Unless you're gunning for a nice, juicy burger, it generally stick to meat that's 90% lean or more.

If it’s organic than it must be healthy! That’s false! Organic food (or its ingredients) are grown without antibiotics, hormones, or pesticides. A cookie or ice cream brand may claim that they are organic (made with real sugar, farmed milked, and real flour), but they are still just as unhealthy as their non-organic friends. Just because its organic, it does not mean its healthier.

Its fat free and it has zero calories: Unless you are buying water, everything else has calories. Companies these days try everything to fool the customers to buy their product. A big example of this is Nestlé’s Fat Free Coffee Mate. Why are they are allowed to do that?  Because they decrease their serving size to ridiculously small amounts, such as one level tea spoon for Nestlé’s Fat Free Coffee Mate. That amount rounds down to zero, which why the FDA lets companies get away with such misleading statements.

It’s sugar free! If its sugar free and still tastes sweet, then there is probably high-fructose corn syrup present. Many food experts believe that high-fructose corn syrup or fructose in general has a strong link with America’s growing obesity. Try to minimize your sugar intake. If you can’t, than go for the real natural sugar and not processed ones.

Fruits or Vegetables in a bottle: Fruit juices that people buy in the stores are usually concentrated and filled with fructose or sugar. What about the ones that has different types fruits mixed together? Well, they are more likely using a variety of concentrated fruit juices, which are filled with fructose or sugar. What about vegetables juices? Well, they are mostly tomato, so you are not getting a variety of vegetables. Looking for fruits juices or vegetable juices? Buy them whole and blend them yourself at home.

Water with vitamins: If a company is advertising water with vitamins in it, it’s a probably telling the truth, but it comes with a calorie price (usually around 80 to 150). Also, the vitamins that are in it are C and B, which most of us get enough of in our regular diets if we're eating healthy.

      At Atlanta Personal Chef Service, we're helping families eat healthy week after week.  If you'd really like to maintain a healthy diet, you'll have to stay committed to it.  Once way that we help, is by creating customized menus for families around Atlanta, including in Buckhead, Marietta, Dunwoody, Vinings, Midtown, Decatur, and more.  Let a Personal Chef help keep you eating healthy, and still looking forward to dinners cooking right in your own home kitchen.  Contact us today for more information on our Personal Chef Services.