If you don't know what to have for dinner tonight ...

This is a delightfully easy, and refreshing way to serve carrots that complements many dishes. The pumpkin seeds add a wonderful texture and extra nutrition.

Prep and Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 6 medium sized carrots peeled and cut in turned pieces
• 1/2 TBS fresh chopped parsley
• 1 TBS fresh chopped mint
• 1 TBS coarsely chopped pumpkin seeds
• 2 TBS lemon juice
• extra virgin olive oil to taste
• salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Bring lightly salted water to a boil in steamer with a tight fitting lid.
2. Steam carrots in basket until slightly crunchy inside, (al dente).
3. Chop rest of ingredients and toss with carrots when done.
   Serves 6

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Daily Food Tip

If you could eat the perfect meal, what would it be?

First, we would insist that there is not such thing as "the perfect meal." The idea of a perfect meal simply does not fit with food or nourishment as we understand it. Nourishment always fits into a person's current state of health and place in life. Nourishment is dynamic, not static. A person's nutrient needs can change overnight, and they can change back and forth, sometimes dramatically. There is not one single food, or even combination of foods, that can provide optimal nourishment meal-by-meal, day-by-day, over any length of time. Nourishment simply does not work that way. Our nourishment goals are changing goals. They change as we change, and they always depend on a variety of foods that cannot be accomplished in any one meal. The seasons of the year, for example, can be an important backdrop for our food variety, and optimal nutrition can often mean seasonal eating that varies between winter, spring, summer, or fall.

Our perfect meal would actually not necessarily be one specific meal but one that meets certain criteria. It would be filled with an array of different colored vegetables, a dish made from whole grains and legumes, a small portion of a protein-rich food such as omega-3 rich fish (like salmon), lean meat or more legumes, with some nuts and seeds included in a dish. It would also feature fresh fruit for dessert. Ideally, since this is our perfect meal, all of the foods would be grown/raised organically, the fish would be wild-caught in a sustainable manner and the land animal would be humanely raised.