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Photo 12/18
The 'Victim': Sharon Y. -- Assistant Editor
The meal: Ox tail soup with tofu and seaweed. Rice, an over-hard egg, sauteed anchovies with green peppers, sesame leaves -- all mixed with chili paste.

Kimberly Snyder's assessment: "Well I�m happy to see something here in Sharon's lunch I don't see in a lot of lunches: seaweed! Seaweed, a.k.a. sea vegetables, is a very rich source of beta-carotene, chlorophyll, enzymes, amino acids, and fiber. They are one of the most nutritionally dense sources of vitamins and minerals of any food, much higher than land vegetables. They are high in thyroid-nourishing iodine, while being low in bloating sodium.

This is a wonderful form of green plant food, and I encourage her to keep it in her diet and in her lunches. If you are ever at a Japanese restaurant be sure to order the seaweed salad. Also, an easy way to incorporate sea vegetables into your diet is to visit the Asian section of your health market. You'll find nori (the flat black sheets they wrap sushi in), dulse flakes and kelp. Cut up or sprinkle these sea vegetables into your salads, to get a wonderful boost of beauty minerals. Start with small amounts especially if you are new to the taste. I personally try to incorporate some form of sea vegetable into my diet every day.

On the downside, there are many types of protein in this one meal: Ox tail (beef tails), tofu (soy), egg, anchovies (fish). Protein takes the most digestive work to break down, as the foods have to be broken down into amino acids first from complex chains. Each type of protein requires specific substrates to break it down, so to eat so many types of protein at the same time is exhausting to our digestive system, and our overall energy."

Next: See Snyder's changes/suggestions for Sharon

Photo 13/18
Changes/Suggestions:
"I would like to see Sharon pick one type of protein, and supplement the rest of the dish with more sea vegetables and more of the other vegetables.

If she could also choose between the rice or the one protein, to eat along with the veggies that would be best. Eating concentrated proteins and starches are a lot of digestive work as well and that takes away from our 'Beauty Energy,' which is energy that can be redirected away from digestion to repair the collagen in our skin, grow in thick, healthy hair, and clear up dark under eye circles, etc.

Also, note that chili pastes are typically made with oil (and not always the best quality oil) so remember to use them in moderation."

Next: Kimberly Snyder's suggestions for Project Manager, Jess..

Photo 14/18
The 'Victim': Jess A. -- Project Manager
The meal: Eat Right Macaroni and Cheese Frozen Meal, 1/2 cup of watermelon, 1/2 cup of mango, 1/2 cup of sugar snap peas, 2 Girl Scout cookies, 100 Calorie pack popcorn, nonfat blueberry yogurt, 1 whole tomato

Kimberly Snyder's assessment: "First of all, there are so many different foods in this lunch that it is mind-boggling (and definitely belly-boggling). Indiscriminately eating so many different kinds of food groups at once takes an enormous amount of work to digest.

My first piece of advice to Jess is simplify her meal into fewer food groups. A salad with different veggies in it is one thing, as the veggies digest easily and well, but here, there are a few different kinds of dairy (the cheese in the mac and cheese and yogurt), two different kinds of fruit, various forms of starches (in the cookies and popcorn), and a few veggies thrown in there (though none of them are dark, leafy veggies, which would be nice).

To be blunt, the "Eat Right Macaroni and Cheese Frozen Meal" should be called "Eat Wrong." Frozen mac and cheese contains three top inflammatory, allergenic foods: gluten, in the form of the flour for the macaroni, dairy, in the cheese, and most likely various forms of corn, in the form of corn starch, tapioca starch or one of the dozens of other aliases corn goes by.

On to the yogurt. To me, nonfat yogurt screams artificial and problematic sweeteners, and when I checked ingredient lists online I saw such products containing fructose and sucralose. Fructose has been shown to encourage weight gain in lab studies, and sucralose may be linked to numerous toxicity and health issues. I recommend never, ever putting either in your body. We need to avoid artificial sweeteners like the plague.

Then we get to the (seemingly healthy) fruit. The problem? Fruit shouldn't be mixed with the other foods, it should come at least 30 minutes before or 45 minutes after. Fruit digests very quickly in the stomach (around 25 minutes), and if we mix it with heavier foods which take a few hours to digest, it gets backed up in our system like a traffic jam and can ferment, leading to bloating and other issues, so it essentially rots before we can assimilate all of its nutrients."

Next: See Snyder's changes/suggestions for Jess

Photo 15/18
Changes/Suggestions:
"Let's get back to the frozen mac and cheese, I couldn't find an ingredient list online for this product, but I saw the box label, which boasted of high levels of protein and calcium.

The issue of dairy, which is made up of the highly controversial protein casein, and in this case is presented in a highly processed and ultra homogenized/pasteurized form, is it's full of highly problematic digestive and health issues. It is also up for contention as far as how much calcium is actually absorbed in the body from these processed dairy products, when one takes into account the acidic quality of dairy and how it may instead be causing calcium (an alkaline mineral, to balance the acidity) to be leached from the body in the form of urinary calcium.

This is way too big of an issue here, but I do discuss the detrimental beauty and health qualities of dairy in "The Beauty Detox Solution" or on my site, if you're interested in knowing more. But for now let's leave it at the fact that it's really highly processed, and I (again bluntly) urge Jess to stop eating this and all processed food! Especially on a daily basis.

Please try to find fresh options for lunch, that include salads and foods that don't have to be reheated in a microwave, after being laden with myriad preservatives, fillers and cheap salt. Please, please, no more microwaveable frozen lunches!"

Next: See what Kimberly Snyder has to say about Tracy's seemingly healthy lunch...

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The 'Victim': Tracy H., Social Marketing Coordinator
The meal: PB/J sandwich on whole grain bread, with Trader Joe's flax seed peanut butter and organic raspberry fruit preserve, organic fruit, hummus and dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt.

Kimberly Snyder's assessment: "I think it's great that Tracy starts with the organic fruit, and I would encourage her to make sure she is waiting at least 20 to 25 minutes before eating the other foods, or having the fruit as a late morning snack for optimal digestion of the fruit.

There are some good items in this lunch, but there are also a lot of different food groups jumbled together -- starch (whole grain bread), protein (peanut butter), protein and starch together (hummus, which contains chickpeas, has both). There is also an absence of dark leafy green vegetables, which are among our most important foods. We should ideally strive to incorporate them into every meal in some form."

Next: See Snyder's changes/suggestions for Tracy

At this time of year it seems like every woman is on a diet. Makes sense since summer's around the corner and we all want to be able to wear cute little sundresses, short(ish) shorts and, eek, perhaps even a swimsuit.

The thing is that a lot of us simply don't know how to eat healthily -- whether we're dieting or not. And, since a personal nutritionist is cost prohibitive for all but a lucky few of us, we're pretty much left to our own devices when it comes to figuring out what to eat. Even here at Total Beauty, where looking good and being fit is our business, most of us fall short in the "eating for optimum health" category.

That's why we thought it would be fun to enlist the help of celebrity nutritionist, and natural health/beauty expert Kimberly Snyder in making over our lunches. We asked Snyder, whose diet expertise has worked wonders on all sorts of celebs like Drew Barrymore, Fergie and Channing Tatum, to critique Total Beauty staffers' lunches. We wanted her honest (read: sometimes harsh) opinion on the choices we're making and her professional recommendations for what we should be eating instead.

See the dramatic lunchbox makeovers.

The result? Nine complete lunchbox makeovers. For the next couple of months, Tuesday will be "Lunchbox Makeover" day and you'll get to see what Snyder thought of an individual staffer's menu and find out her suggestions for making the meal more healthful. (She's the consummate pro at this as her new book, "The Beauty Detox" illustrates beyond the shadow of a doubt.)

Did our staffers take Snyder's advice to heart? You bet. Will they forever and always adhere to her every word and suggestion? Probably not, but knowledge, as they say, is power and we're all definitely wiser when it comes to nutrition now thanks to her frank assessments.

So, without any further ado, let's begin with the first "guinea pig"�
BY AUDREY FINE | SHARES
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