Best of the Blogosphere From the Last Week!! Tons of PARTY RECIPES for The Super Bowl Party, Diabetes & Vitamin D, Small Town Living & MORE!

Well it looks like everyone in the blogosphere is gearing up for the big day:  The Super Bowl!!  We're off to Florida for vacation next week (thank goodness!!!) and Sunday is my husband's birthday so the Super Bowl action has been a bit off my radar!  Still, any party is a challenge food-wise if you are a compulsive overeater OR someone with food restrictions (i.e. vegan, gluten, sugar, etc).  So thank you thank you thank you fellow bloggers for giving us all some fantastic healthy ideas to make a party weekend fun and delicious!!  Below, I have a list of some great Super Bowl or snack related blog posts, but first, a caveat:

If you are worried about maintaining your healthy eating habits during a social event, I encourage you to check out my blog post Holiday Survival Tips.  Here are the party tips in a nutshell (I explain the tips in the post):

1) Use the "One Plate Method" of eating at all events involving food

2) Call ahead to events so you can plan your food strategy & if appropriate, offer to bring a dish

3) Talk about "allergies"

4) Make sure to have a lot of yummy meals on hand at home (your FAVORITES) throughout this season so you never feel deprived.

5)  Eat at home before food events and eat the foods from Tip #4!

6) Become willing to believe that there is NO SUCH THING as "one bite" or "just a little taste" or "just this one time" or "I don't want to offend anyone by not eating this lovely meal."

7)  Use your resources

8)  Remember the point of a party

9)  Leave

10) If you slip once, get right back up and march on as if it didn't happen!

11) Make new traditions that don't involve food

12) Be realistic

OK, moving on.....

The Best of the Vegan Super Bowl Party Blogosphere:

• Susan Voisin from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen shares a fantastic CHILI recipe and some wonderful tips on staying healthy during the Big Game :-)
• Angela Liddon from Oh She Glows shares a yummy recipe for Easy Black Bean Chili Dip!
• Forks Over Knives shared this recipe for "Dirty Rice" by Meg Wolff in the Huffington Post.  Sounds delicious!
• The Happy Herbivore shared this great "Super Bowl Party" menu!
• Robin Robertson's book "Party Vegan" has an awesome Super Bowl menu in it, but here is her blog post on it.  She also has a fantastic selection of vegan dips on this blog post about the Super Bowl!  
• This isn't a Super Bowl specific post but Post Punk Kitchen posted a yummy looking recipe for "Baked Garlic Curry Fries" that sounds like some awesome Super Bowl finger food to me!

and now non-Super Bowl, my favorite blog posts for the week:

• Awesome post from The Healthy Librarian on Type 2 Diabetes:  How Exercise Intensity, Meat & Fat Consumption, Vitamin D, Body Weight, & Muscles All Affect Type-2 Diabetes. Vitamin D is my research area--I just completed a study Vitamin D's effect on falls--many people are not aware how important this Vitamin is for a number of body functions.  I feel the current RDA for Vitamin D is incorrectly low--for folks over the age of 65, 2000IU daily is a much better dose (if you don't have hypercalcemia or renal disease).  That said, I do not believe loading folks with high dose Vitamin D (50,000 units etc) is safe with regards to bone metabolism!  And on a funnier note, OH MY GOSH I SOOOOO want to put this cartoon that she shared in the story on a t-shirt and wear it every day!  
• Ok this is technically from last week but its too good to pass up mentioning!  This blog post on the Nutrition Facts blog is a fantastic way to learn more about which foods are dense in anti-oxidants:  Acai to Zucchini: antioxidant food rankings
• If you live in a small town than definitely don't pass up this Engine 2 Diet blog "The Daily Beet" post:  5 Tips for Small Town Living.  I did part of my medical training in a very rural area and we are considering returning to a rural area to practice in the next few years so I found this post to be an awesome guide!

Well thats a sample of MY favorites!  What were YOUR favorite posts this week?!

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