I received information from Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa to share with readers. This post will serve as a blogger entry for an all expenses 3-day/2-night trip toattend their 35th anniversary event in Miami, which is held Thursday, May 29th-Saturday, May 31st, 2014. Pritikin Longevity Center is recognized as one of the nation’s premier health and wellness centers, offering life-changing results in a luxury setting.
With Pritikin’s focus on health and wellness, I wanted to share a recipe I love, but would love it even more if Pritikin’s chef would “Pritikinize” it. It is called Seafood Lasagna, recipe courtesy of Taste of Home. This dish is tasty, rich, creamy, and smooth. Unfortunately, the recipe includes cream, butter, and 2% milk, which add a lot to the flavor, but also add lots of fat and cholesterol. The sodium is a bit high too.
Seafood Lasagna
This rich satisfying dish, adapted from a recipe given to me by a friend, is my husband’s favorite. I usually serve it on his birthday. It’s loaded with scallops, shrimp and crab in a creamy sauce. I consider this the “crown jewel” in my repertoire of recipes. —Elena Hansen, Ruidoso, New Mexico
Ingredients
- 1 green onion, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup butter, divided
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1 bottle (8 ounces) clam juice
- 1 pound bay scallops
- 1 pound uncooked small shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 package (8 ounces) imitation crabmeat, chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, divided
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1-1/2 cups 2% milk
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
- 9 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
Directions
In a large skillet, saute onion in oil and 2 tablespoons butter until
tender. Stir in broth and clam juice; bring to a boil. Add scallops,
shrimp, crab and 1/8 teaspoon pepper; return to a boil. Reduce heat;
simmer, uncovered, for 4-5 minutes or until shrimp turn pink and
scallops are firm and opaque, stirring gently. Drain, reserving
cooking liquid; set seafood mixture aside.
In a large saucepan, melt the remaining butter; stir in flour until
smooth. Combine milk and reserved cooking liquid; gradually add to
and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.
Remove from the heat; stir in cream and 1/4 cup cheese. Stir 3/4 cup
white sauce into the seafood mixture.
Preheat oven to 350°. Spread 1/2 cup white sauce in a greased
13×9-in. baking dish. Top with three noodles; spread with half of
the seafood mixture and 1-1/4 cups sauce. Repeat layers. Top with
remaining noodles, sauce and cheese.
Bake, uncovered, at for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Let
stand for 15 minutes before cutting. Yield: 12 servings.
About the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa:
Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa Website
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Pritikin Longevity Center + Spa is a 650-acre fully renovated private wellness spa and weight loss health program. Complete with exceptional fitness trainers, award winning chefs, nutritionists and renowned spa treatments. The center boosts tons of experts from health to nutrition and fitness to spa and wellness. People from all over the world travel to Pritikin to get their health back on track and get their bodies back in shape. For more information, please visitwww.pritikin.com.
PRITIKIN LONGEVITY CENTER & SPA EXPERTS
Danine Fruge M.D.
Associate Medical Director
To her patients at Pritikin, Dr. Fruge brings the enthusiasm and expertise of a doctor who walks the talk. Throughout her life she has enjoyed a diet abundant in natural, nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Dr. Fruge specializes in family and women’s health at Pritikin. She is an avid exerciser and athlete, and as an undergraduate received a full NCAA Division I tennis scholarship. She also runs marathons. Now she also spends a lot of time running after her three children.
Dr. Fruge loves working at Pritikin because “I truly believe that preventive medicine is the medicine of the future, and I intend to make it my life’s work. The Pritikin Longevity Center represents this work at its very best.” Like her colleagues at Pritikin, Dr. Fruge has been interviewed by national media as a leading expert on healthy living, nutrition, and fitness.
Scott Danberg
Director of Fitness
Scott Danberg is the director of Fitness at Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa. He is an avid athlete, fitness coach, wellness educator and designer of customized exercise programs, Danberg has inspired thousands of men and women to make exercise a part of their lives through his work as Director of Fitness at the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Miami, Fla. He has a master’s of kinesiology and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Leadership and Education, and he is an adjunct professor for Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Fla.
Gayl Canfield, RD
Director of Nutrition
Dr. Canfield has served as Nutrition Educator at the Pritikin Longevity Center since 2005. Pritikin’s residential program is based on daily exercise and natural, whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seafood, and limited lean meat. Since 1975, more than 100 studies in top medical journals have documented the Pritikin Program’s success in helping the Center’s 90,000+ guests achieve lifelong weight control, improve cholesterol levels, normalize blood pressure, decrease inflammatory markers, control blood sugar, avoid bypass surgery, and substantially reduce the risk of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and cancers of the breast, colon, and prostate.
Chef Anthony Stewart
Executive Chef
Chef Anthony Stewart has won accolades worldwide, including five gold medals in top culinary competitions, for his masterful use of foodstuffs like fresh seafood and tropical fruit from his native Jamaica. When not in the kitchen, he’s in the classroom, and has inspired thousands of Pritikin guests “to have some fun!”
Frank Musumeci, PT
Biomechanical and Musculoskeletal Director
A registered physical therapist for 20 years as well as certified personal trainer and senior strength training specialist, Frank Musumeci brings priceless skills to guests at Pritikin who want to get past pain, like knee and back pain, so that they can get back on the road to fitness and great health. “Pritikin is the first place in the United States to incorporate preventive orthopedic care with preventive cardiovascular care, and the results are amazing,” says Frank. “Just think about it. You can have all the motivation in the world to exercise daily, but how do you sustain it if you’re struggling with issues like shin splints and old injuries that flare up?” With comprehensive physical assessments and custom-designed exercise programs, Frank helps guests work through and beyond their limitations. Prior to Pritikin, Frank served as team physical therapist for NFL teams as well as Director of the Sports Clinic, a sports rehabilitation center in Miami.
Dr. Coral Arvon, PhD. LMFT, LCSW
Director of Behavioral Health & Wellness
Dr. Arvon has worked with thousands of guests at the Pritikin Center offering one on one sessions to find out the psychological aspects of their eating habits. Dr. Avon has earned a PhD in Psychology, a Masters degree in both Marriage and Family Therapy and clinical Social Work. She graduated from Boston University, Varry University and Columbia Pacific University. She is a sex therapist, Imago therapist, EMDR therapy, Cognitive Behavioral therapist and addictions specialist having advance training in all mentioned.
Vincenzo Della Polla
Sous Chef and Cooking School Instructor
With his down-to-earth, Philly-born style, Vince has since 2007 taught thousands in his cooking classes at Pritikin that healthy eating is not just delicious, it’s easy. “If you can chop, you can cook!” he encourages his students daily, and they all enjoy the results – dishes like Seared Salmon with Arugula, Mushrooms, and Balsamic Vinegar; Salad with Carrot, Pineapple, and Fresh Mint; and Mango Parfait. Though low in sodium, sugar, and fat, everything that comes out of Vince’s kitchen is bursting with deep rich flavor.
Vince honed his culinary skills at Johnson and Wales University as well as in several restaurants nationwide. From pizzerias to P.F. Chang’s to resorts, Vince has done it all. But what he loves most is his current work at Pritikin because “there’s nothing more rewarding than having our guests come up to me and say, ‘I can do this! I like what I’m eating! You’ve saved my life!’ I never get tired of hearing those words.”
Kimberly Gomer MS, RD, LDN
Registered Dietitian and Educator
In addition to her undergraduate degree in Dietetics/Nutrition and Masters in Public Health Nutrition, Kimberly brings to the Pritikin Longevity Center more than a decade of experience teaching and inspiring thousands nationwide to eat and live well.
At LIFE Saint Francis PACE Program in New Jersey, she provided medical nutrition therapy for individuals with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity. At community health centers throughout New Jersey, she developed and delivered several wellness programs, including individual and group weight-loss programs for a variety of ages, from students to seniors. And with a grant funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, Kimberly created and implemented a curriculum for children in elementary schools called SWEET (Successful Wellness By Eating and Exercising Together).
Kimberly has also served as Nutrition Consultant at the University of Pennsylvania Weight and Eating Disorders Research Group, and has worked as a Nutrition Professor in Ohio and New Jersey. In Ohio, she owned a private practice for 10 years where she specialized in weight management, diabetes, and heart disease. She provided medical nutrition therapy for clients of all ages.
Jay Kenney, PhD, RD
Director of Nutritional Research
For more than three decades, Dr. Kenney has traveled throughout the U.S., speaking at conferences for doctors, dietitians, and other health professionals on the relationship between diet and disease, and exposing the unscientific claims of many fad diets. He has published articles for scientific journals, including the Journal of Nutrition and the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, as well as popular magazines, such as Self, Shape, and City Sports. He has been interviewed on many television and radio media, most recently Frontline and CNN News, and provides continuing professional education courses for dietitians, nutritionists and other health professionals.
Ivan Ferran
Director of Clinical Exercise
Lean, muscled, and ever-positive, 56-year-old exercise leader Ivan Ferran is the “poster boy” at Pritikin for healthy aging at its best. Guests discover muscles they never knew they had – and a new love for exercise and feeling fit – in Ivan’s classes, which include cardiovascular training, strength workouts, and aquatics. Ivan holds bachelor of science degrees in both exercise physiology and dietetics/nutrition, and has been an inspiring force at Pritikin since 1988. Film crews worldwide, including most recently BBC News, have traveled to Pritikin to film Ivan’s classes, filled with his energetic booming voice, because nothing says “fitness is fantastic” better. “I love what I do,” says Ivan. “Every day I go home happy because the spirit at Pritikin is always about happiness and hope.”
Pedro Ali Penalver
Exercise Instructor and Personal Trainer
In one-on-one coaching and in his cardio, core-and-stretch, and strength classes, Pedro is a master at activating guests’ motivational engines. “When it comes to losing weight and getting fit, it all starts with the mind. When you get your mind in the right place, you get success.” In addition to degrees in physical education from his native Argentina, Pedro holds U.S. certification in personal training. His colorful, always positive coaching style at Pritikin has been filmed by film crews worldwide, including, most recently, Argentina’s wildly popular version of “The Big Loser.” At Pritikin, Pedro also spearheads specialty programs like the Pritikin Family Program, which every summer teaches children ages 8 to 17 all about healthy living and fitness. The results have been phenomenal. Within two weeks, overweight children in the Pritikin Family Program have been documented to decreased LDL bad cholesterol 25%, shed 9 pounds, lower triglyceride fats 39%, and substantially reduce key markers of inflammation, including C-reactive protein.
Ernesto Alonso
Sous Chef, Pritikin Longevity Center + Spa
As a child in Cuba, Chef Ernesto Alonso found his passion for cooking in his grandmother’s kitchen, where he embraced the irresistible mixture of flavors and scents of Cuban/Latin cuisine. Chef Alonso came to America in October 2007, and began work at the Pritikin Longevity Center + Spa, a company that promotes a healthy lifestyle with a low-calorie diet combined with physical exercise, medical care, and nutrition lectures and cooking classes. At Pritikin, the goal is to teach guests that a healthy, delicious meal nourishes not only the body but the senses as well. In July 2008, he continued my education at Le Cordon Bleu College in Miami, and received an Associate Degree in the Culinary Arts.
At Pritikin, every day is a new opportunity to learn more about the wonderful world of creating healthy, delicious cuisine and demonstrate to the guests that a nutritious diet, low in calories, and with no fat and salt, is extraordinarily effective at reducing the risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. As the Sous Chef, Chef Ernesto loves the opportunity to make his childhood dreams come true and help others live a healthier and happier life.
Ronald J. Scheib, MD
Medical Director
Dr. Ron Scheib brings to the Pritikin Longevity Center a vast and varied career in cardiology that spans four decades. After graduating from the University of Miami, School of Medicine Dr. Scheib served in the United States Air Force as the Chief of Hospital Services at England Air Force Base in Louisiana. Before joining the medical team at Pritikin, Dr. Scheib was in private practice, and held multiple positions at the Miami Heart Institute, including Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine, President of the Medical Staff and chairman of the hospital’s Board of Trust.
In 2006 Dr. Scheib joined Pritikin Longevity Center and shortly thereafter assumed the role of Medical Director. He finds it “fascinating” to be working at an organization that has been ahead of the standards in medicine for decades and “is only now being appreciated.” Until recently in the field of cardiology, he explains, “we were defined by our ability to identify and ‘fix’ things after they were broken. When the Pritikin Program first made national news in the late 1970s saying that perhaps you can prevent a heart attack, no one believed it. The results of the genetic predisposition to heart disease appeared, or so we thought, irrevocable and inalterable.”
But changing one’s life – developing healthy new eating habits, exercising daily, quitting smoking, and learning to quiet the mind with a healthy positive outlook – can be so enormously rewarding, Dr. Scheib has observed at Pritikin, that it’s unquestionably worth the effort. “It is altogether rewarding to watch the improvement, not only mentally but physically, in patients involved in the Pritikin Program. It is even more rewarding to understand we are dramatically improving quality of life and potential longevity.”
Hubert Wewer
General Manager
For more than 20 years, Hubert Wewer has garnered national praise as an expert hotelier for luxury properties from Laguna Niguel, California, to New York City to Miami. To his senior management posts over the last decade at the Pritikin Longevity Center, he has brought not only hospitality skills but years of experience as an accomplished European-trained chef, a talent that draws rave reviews nightly from the most discerning clientele of all – our guests at Pritikin.
Hubert’s talents could take him virtually anywhere in the world. He stays at Pritikin because “where else would a hotel management guy like me have guests coming up to him every day saying, ‘Thank you! You saved my life!’ It’s a great feeling to be part of a tremendous organization like Pritikin, to work every day with doctors, dietitians, and other lifestyle experts whose sole job is helping people feel better and live better. I love it. I wouldn’t work anywhere else.”
Disclosure: I received this information to share as part of a blogger entry to visit the Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa.
