Family Nutritionist

Why you eat but still don't have energy

2011-12-12T16:15:00.001-05:00

Of course, you should start by talking to your doctor. Rule out any serious medical reasons for low energy. Make sure your heart and lungs are OK, that your iron levels are good, that everything is where it should be. Then start to think about diet and exercise.

You know that, if you need to, you can get moving, and keep moving. You can walk around and around the mall for a couple of hours, Christmas shopping with your grandchildren. And the more often you get moving like that, the easier it will be. If you add some kind of activity choice to your routine 3 times a week, you'll get your heart, lungs, and muscles in better shape, and feel like you can burn that energy.

The other side of the equation is taking in the energy you need. If you aren't losing weight, it would seem you are taking in enough calories. If you've got body fat, you've got calories to burn. So why don't you feel like you have the energy to burn those calories? Calories ARE the energy, aren't they?...

Sometimes, though, the body does not seem so eager to "spend" calories. Sometimes it would rather save them. Everybody's body is different, but, in general, a high level of insulin in the blood will cause the body to start trying to store available calories as fat. Blood sugar is actually shunted off to where its calories can be used to produce fat, ready to be stored in your fat cells.

High levels of insulin have been linked to diabetes, heart disease, weight gain, high blood pressure, and low energy. Too much insulin can cause temporary hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which is accompanied by brain "fog", fatigue, temporary weakness, irritability, and headaches.

Insulin is not bad. It is necessary. The body releases it when blood sugar levels go up. It alerts the muscles and organs to take up the sugars they need for energy. But if you ring that "insulin alarm" hard, every day, the muscles start to ignore it. That's called insulin resistance. If the muscles don't take up the blood sugar, then the liver is going to use it to store fat in your fat cells. If you REALLY push things hard, then even the fat cells and liver stop listening to the insulin alarm after a while. Then you will be stuck with too much sugar in your blood. That's a form of diabetes.

If you don't actually have diabetes, you "only" have to worry about artery disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol, high triglycerides, strokes, and hypoglycemia.

You can read about the effects of insulin resistance in popular diet books like the South Beach diet, the Carbohydrate addict's diet, and many other low-carb or "good-carb" diets. What all these diets have in common is a way to combat the insulin problem by dealing with the blood sugar problem.

Remember -- generally -- insulin is produced when your blood sugar goes up. When you frequently spend time in the "high sugar" state, your body gets tired of you ringing the "insulin alarm". If this is your problem, simple changes to your diet and exercise might improve blood sugar levels and reduce insulin resistance. You won't know until you try.

But I don't have the energy to exercise

2011-12-12T15:53:00.000-05:00

Exercise is supposed to help lower your blood pressure. But what if you don't have the energy to exercise? Where does the energy come from?

Energy, in the form of calories, comes from the food we eat.
In addition to "burning" some of these food calories immediately, just to keep warm, and sending some off to the muscles and other organs to keep us breathing, thinking, and moving around, the body also stores some of the food calories as fat. If you've got body fat, you've got PLENTY of energy.

So why don't you FEEL LIKE you've got the energy to get outside and move around?

If your life were in danger, wouldn't you get up and take action? Wouldn't you run as hard and fast as you could, for as long as you could, to get away from the danger? Of course you would.

Suppose you have just had a mini-stroke. You know this means your well-being, and even your life, are in danger from a big stroke. You know you have a 40% chance of a major stroke in the next few months. Stroke is chasing you -- why don't you run?

Unless you can actually SEE the monster chasing you, you don't feel like you have the energy to get out and move around.

What can you do about it?

Tell Me What to Eat

2011-12-05T22:54:00.000-05:00

So you are looking for someone to tell you what to eat? I just ran across http://tellmewhattoeat.com, which redirects to drgourmet.com It's free. Sign up, pick a diet plan, provide more information about your dietary needs, and get two weeks of menues. The site appears to be supported by ads. I haven't looked at the menu plans.

Less salt, more potassium, calcium, and magnesium

2011-12-03T19:17:00.002-05:00

The 2010 USDA guidelines recommend 1500 mg or less of sodium each day for at least half the population -- including anyone over 51, with diabetes, high blood pressure, or kidney disease.

But have you ever looked at a can of soup? One half-cup serving of Campbell's condensed tomato soup has 710 mg of sodium -- that's half your daily allowance in a teacup. Or make a pot of Wegmans beef chili, and get 1600 mg in a single serving. Luckily, you can find a recipe for Wegmans turkey chili with only 440 mg in a serving.

One thing diet researchers have learned is that potassium, calcium, and magnesium pills don't do much for blood pressure. But eating foods high in potassium, calcium, and magnesium leads to dramatic changes in blood pressure. In the DASH study, researchers saw significant changes in blood pressure only days after study subjects started the DASH diet.

So eat fresh fruits and vegetables for potassium. Half of what you eat every day should be fruits annd vegetables. For calcium, eat kale and drink low-fat dairy products, eat low-fat cheeses and yogurts. For magnesium, eat beans and peas, nuts (walnuts or almonds), seeds, leafy green vegetables, and fish like halibut. You'll also get some magnesium in your dairy products. Potatoes, watermelon, and bananas also contain magnesium.

Kale is the super food of the day -- rich in calcium, magnesium, and potassium, low in calories, and high in other important nutrients like iron, vitamins A, B,and C. And low in carbs, fat, and total calories. It is also high in vitamin K, which could be an issue if you taking coumadin (warfarin).

Healthy hot cocoa

2011-12-02T09:29:00.001-05:00

Natural (not dutched, or processed with alkali) cocoa is chock full of antioxidants. Plenty of recent studies show that even moderate increases in cocoa consumption can reduce the risk of heart attacks and stroke.

But most of the ways of eating chocolate are full of sugar and fat. And the forms of chocolate and cocoa we like the best have been processed with alkali (dutched), to make them less bitter -- and that destroys some of the antioxidants.

But if you enjoy a cup of black coffee, you can enjoy a cup of black cocoa.

Just stir a tablespoon of natural unsweetened cocoa powder (Hershey's or Ghirardellis are easy to find) into eight ounces of warm water or warm milk. Add a little cinnamon if you like, up to 1/8 of a teaspoon, for an extra burst of sweet flavor, and even more antioxidants.

Too bitter? Add some of your favorite low-calorie sweetener, like stevia (truvia and other brands), or your favorite sweetener packet.

This warming drink won't throw off your calorie count or your blood sugar. In fact, it can help your body regulate its blood sugar, reduce inflammation, and help fight arterial disease.

Hello?

2011-12-02T07:54:00.000-05:00

Hello! You know who you are. You know I'm writing this blog just for you.
Just helping you find the information you want to prevent a stroke.

So shout back. Go ahead. Leave a comment -- just use the comment link below this post.

Thanks!

Get library books on your Kindle

2011-12-01T20:55:00.001-05:00

Plenty of books about diet and health are available for your Kindle. All you need is your library card number. For example, the Montgomery County library lends Kindle books at The Montgomery County Library Overdrive site.

Get Outside and Move Around in the Sun to keep your blood pressure low

2011-12-01T19:31:00.030-05:00

Today is going to be a beautiful sunny day in Pennsylvania. Put on a sweater and get out in the fresh air....

Exercise and vitamin D both help keep your blood pressure low. They also make your heart, lungs, and brain stronger, lose a couple of pounds, preserve bone density and help you sleep well at night. Just get outside in the sun and move around. Or move around inside and soak up the sun separately. You can take your activity level up a notch, 10 minutes at a time, 3 times a day.

Anyone who can go around and around the mall for Christmas shopping can manage a little physical activity every day.

Anything that gets you out of the house is good. If you decide to join a club, volunteer to read with second-graders, or take an art class, you can choose to park a little way from the best entrance, then take an indirect route through the building to give you 10 minutes of walking. Or you can walk around in the mall. Or even join an aerobics or aquasize class, to make exercise less boring.

And remember the sunlight. As little as 10 minutes a day in the sun can give you more vitamin D than you could ever get from a pill.

Keep the stroke away. Move around every day.

Preventing Strokes -- lowering your blood pressure

2011-11-30T07:00:00.008-05:00

High blood pressure is the leading risk factor for stroke. It increases your risk for hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke and for ischemic (blockage) stroke. It damages arteries throughout the body....

Over time, it can create weak places that rupture easily, or thin spots that balloon out from the artery wall. It can make the arteries stiffer, and less able to move blood well. It can accelerate the build-up of fatty plaques, causing narrowing of the arteries. This is why it is important to maintain a healthy blood pressure, day after day after day.

In the short term, sudden spikes in blood pressure can cause problems, too, especially when stroke risk factors are high.

When blood vessels are already weakened, high blood pressure can cause them to bleed
If you have unstable plaques on your artery walls, high blood pressure can dislodge them, and the particles can block a narrow place in a blood vessel

This is why it is a good idea to maintain healthy habits every day.

The good news is that high blood pressure can be controlled through diet and exercise, and with the help of blood pressure medications.

A plan for lowering blood pressure would include:

Becoming more Active
Getting enough Vitamin D from diet and, especially, from sunlight. Just 10 minutes of direct sun a day could be enough.
Maintaining a Healthy Weight through diet and exercise
Reducing salt in your diet, by reducing processed and canned foods, and choosing lower-salt versions of foods like tomatoes and beans
Getting more Potassium, Calcium, and Magnesium in your diet, by eating fresh fruits and vegetables, lowfat and nonfat dairy products, and beans, seeds, nuts, halibut, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, watermelon, and leafy green vegetables
Manage stress.

Preventing a Stroke

2011-11-29T13:43:00.001-05:00

If you've just had a mini-stroke, you have a 40% risk of having a big stroke eventually, and about a 10% chance of having that "big one" in the next three months.
You can't bring that risk down to 0 immediately, but you can dial it back considerably. Your doctor will probably recommend a lot of tests. It's hard to see excactly what's going on in every blood vessel in your body, so the doctor will order up blood tests. Blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, triglycerides, C-reactive protein (and A1C, if you are diabetic). The doctor might have something to say about your weight and your physical fitness level, too. Your doctor will set some goals about where all of these values should be, and when they should get there. And maybe even give you some tips on diet and exercise.
But every body is different. Your doctor may or may not have recommended a particular diet or excercise. You can find out about exercise and diet to meet your health goals and reduce the risk of stroke....

If you've read about strokes, you'll know that they can be caused by

blood vessels getting narrow from growing plaque deposits, and blocking blood flow
broken bits of blood clots or unstable plaques travelling to a narrow place in a blood vessel (maybe one narrowed by plaque) and blocking blood flow
damaged blood vessels breaking, causing reduced blood flow downstream, and pooling of blood in the brain at the break

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke says the most important treatable risk factors for stroke are

Lower your High Blood Pressure
- Increase potassium in your diet, and reduce salt
- Get enough vitamin D (10 minutes in the sun)
- Take medication to lower your blood pressure; avoid medications (like decongestants) that raise it
- Get more exercise
- Maintain proper weight
Quit Cigarette Smoking. It raises blood pressure, contributes to heart disease, thickens blood.
Treat Heart Disease
- lower your blood pressure (see above)
- if your doctor says so, take a blood thinner (like aspirin) to prevent clots
- improve your diet to slow plaque development
- get checked for coronary artery disease, valve defects, irregular heart beat, or enlargement of the heart, which can all lead to blood clots
Warning signs or history of TIA or stroke
- Learn the warning signs of a stroke and be prepared to call 911 early
- A second stroke could be twice as bad, if it affects a part of the brain doing double duty for the section damaged in an earlier stroke.
Blood sugar, insulin, and diabetes
- Reduce blood sugar and insulin to control blood pressure
- Reduce blood sugar and insulin to protect your blood vessels
- Reduce blood sugar and insulin to control heart disease
- reduce blood sugar to reduce the amount of brain damage during a stroke
Balance your Cholesterol
- Reduce your LDL to reduce plaque buildup, atherosclerosis, blood vessel narrowing
Increase your Physical Activity
- Inactivity is associated with hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes
- Aim for a good waist circumference to hip circumference ratio -- a high waist-to-hips ratio raises the ischemic stroke risk by 300%

References

Preventing Stroke: Treatable Risk Factors, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Vitamin D Levels Linked with Health of Blood Vessels, and Vitamin D status is associated with arterial stiffness and vascular dysfunction in healthy humans.

More about strokes

2011-11-29T11:57:00.001-05:00

Within three months of having a TIA [mini-stroke], about 10% to 15% of people will have an actual stroke." That means that, if you have had a mini-stroke in the fall, you have better than a 1 in 10 chance of having a big stroke before winter is over. Maybe just in time for Christmas....

The good news is that "chances of preventing a major stroke with the appropriate treatments following a TIA are excellent". But only if you seek medical attention right away, and follow through "with the treatments and recommendations" of your health care providers.

It means making extra trips to the doctor's office. As many as you need. It means making sure the doctor understands you. It means making sure you understand everything the doctor wants you to do.

It means getting exercise, getting out in the sunlight, and improving your diet.

It means doing your own reasearch, so you can understand what is going on in your body. You are in charge of your own health.

There is plenty of information available about strokes. For example, there is the WebMD Stroke Health Center. You can even find Stroke Risk Calculators online, like this one from the UCLA Stroke Center.

What is a mini-stroke?

2011-11-28T22:55:00.001-05:00

The biggest thing I've learned recently is that a mini-stroke is a warning that a big stroke is on the way...

A stroke is kind of like a heart attack, only in the brain instead of the heart. Here are some scary pictures

When you have a mini-stroke, an artery is blocked or partially blocked, or else it starts to bleed a little bit. You get symptoms that are like stroke symptoms, but usually milder. Then, when the blockage clears, or when the bleeding stops, the symptoms go away on their own. The symptoms depend on which part of the brain is affected. So you could experience anything from trouble talking to unexplained dizzyness to a sudden severe headache.

It's scary.

If you've had a mini-stroke in one part of your brain -- the next time, it could be in another part of your brain. It could be a real stroke next time.

Even scarier -- if you've noticed one mini-stroke, you may already have had several. And never noticed them. You could keep on having them. And never notice. Except that slowly, silently, they can kill a few brain cells at a time. And silently steal away your memories and your ability to think. This is called vascular dementia. Your doctor might talk about multi-infarct dementia, which is the most common form of vascular dementia.

If you are at immediate risk for another stroke, you probably want to take some immediate steps to decrease your risk.

Their are two main causes of stroke.

Ischemic stroke is cause by blockages, often blood clots, in small blood vessels, or in arteries already narrowed by plaque build-up
Hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke is caused by blood vessels bursting and bleeding, often because they have been weakened by high blood pressure over a long time

To prevent ischemic strokes, you want to decrease inflammation immediately and continue to make choices that will slow down or even reverse narrowing of your arteries. To prevent bleeding strokes, you want to get your blood pressure under control.

Sunshine, exercise, and a healthy diet will help with artery disease, blood pressure, and inflammation.

Diets high in refined carbohydrates and fats are unhealthy

2010-08-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

"Chronic consumption of a high-fat, refined-carbohydrate (HFS) diet causes hypertension." That's the first sentence of the abstract of a 2002 study. Diets high in refined carbohydrates and fats have been implicated in weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. No debate there. The question is -- what SHOULD you eat?...

Several approaches have been championed:

Cut back a little on the fats and refined carbohydrates; eat more "good carbs"

Go low-carb; Get most calories from fats; get carbs from green vegetables

Go low-carb; Get most calories from proteins; eat more vegetables; only eat "good carbs"

Go low-fat; Get most calories from carbohydrates; eat more vegetables; only eat "good carbs"

Option 1 is a modest approach, like the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association dietary recommendations. And those who follow these recommendations can expect to see modest improvements in the rate at which their health deteriorates. They might see some reduction in high blood pressure, some improvement in their cholesterol, some improvement in blood sugar control, and some weight loss. The big benefit of option 1 is that it is not so terribly different from what everyone around us is already eating. It's easy to find the recommended foods in restaurants and grocery stores, easy to eat a little less white bread, a little more brown rice, a smaller cut of steak, a little less potato, a little more salad.

The other approaches are a bit more radical. Low-carb approaches, from Atkins to South Beach to the Zone to Dr. Bernstein's prescription seek to eliminate the most obvious source of blood sugar -- sugars and easily-digested starches. Once after-meal blood sugar spikes are eliminated, insulin sensitivity improves. Lower blood sugar and lower insulin mean less inflammation, and less variation in blood sugar means fewer incidents of low blood sugar. Carbohydrate cravings sometimes taper off. Patients lose weight, and their cholesterol improves, even if they are eating a fatty diet. Many studies show that these high-protein and high-fat diets perform much better than ADA- or AHA-like diets.

High-carb approaches, like those from Dean Ornish or Neil Barnard, seek to eliminate blood sugar problems through the use of "slow-release" "good carbs" that are not quickly digested. At the same time, they improve insulin sensitivity by reducing the fat in the blood and in muscle cells. Lower blood sugar and lower insulin mean less inflammation, and less variation in blood sugar means fewer incidents of low blood sugar. Patients lose weight, and their cholesterol improves. Many studies show that these low-fat, good-carb diets perform much better than ADA- or AHA-like diets.

The problem with these types of diets is that they are big changes for most of the people who would benefit most from the switch. They involve unfamiliar foods, "weird" food substitutions (fake fats or fake carbs), and, sometimes, supplements to make up for eliminated food groups. An Atkins-like diet requires a lot of vitamin and mineral supplementation to make up for the missing fruits and grains. Barnard's vegan diet requires a B12 supplement to make up for the missing animal products.

The strange thing is, some high-fat foods like meats can raise insulin more than high-carbohydrate foods like popcorn. And high-fat diets can raise blood glucose more than high-carbohydrate diets. Low-Fat diets can do more for endothelial health than low-carbohydrate diets. All of these findings would sem to favor low-fat diets.

But the data is not all in. Studies by proponants of high-fat diets seem to favor high-fat diets, while studies by proponants of low-fat diets seem to favor low-fat diets. Things that most researchers seem to agree on are:

Diets that cause inflammation are bad

Foods that contain antioxidants are helpful.

Fiber is good

Bad Carbs are bad; low-glycemic-index carbs are the best carbs.

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are better than most Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Christian K. Roberts, Nosratola D. Vaziri, Ram K. Sindhu, and R. James Barnard A high-fat, refined-carbohydrate diet affects renal NO synthase protein expression and salt sensitivity. J Appl Physiol 94: 941-946, 2003. First published October 25, 2002; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00536.2002 8750-7587/03

Anthony Accurso,1 Richard K Bernstein et al. Dietary carbohydrate restriction in type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome: time for a critical appraisal. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2008; 5: 9. Published online 2008 April 8. doi: 10.1186/1743-7075-5-9.

Susanne HA Holt, Janette C Brand Miller, and Peter Petocz
An insulinindexof foods:the insulindemandgeneratedby
1000-kJ portions of common foods http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/66/5/1264.
Am J Clin Nutr 1997;66:1264

Caroline Vidon, Philippe Boucher, Ana Cachefo, Odile Peroni, Frédérique Diraison and Michel Beylot
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/73/5/878
Effects of isoenergetic high-carbohydrate compared with high-fat diets on human cholesterol synthesis and expression of key regulatory genes of cholesterol metabolism
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 73, No. 5, 878-884, May 2001

Shane A. Phillips; Jason W. Jurva; Amjad Q. Syed; Amina Q. Syed; Jacquelyn P. Kulinski; Joan Pleuss; Raymond G. Hoffmann; David D. Gutterman http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/51/2/376 Benefit of Low-Fat Over Low-Carbohydrate Diet on Endothelial Health in Obesity
Hypertension. 2008;51:376.)

Peruvian Beef and Squash Stew

2009-02-17T12:00:00.002-05:00

I love winter squash. Not everyone does. Including some members of my family. So I was interested when I saw a recipe in FoodontheFood, from a blogger who quit a CSA that gave her too much squash. But she enjoyed a squash dish made by her mother's Peruvian friend. So I thought my resident squash-haters might not hate it. And they didn't. Just like Tammy Donroe, they were suprised that there's nothing fancy in this dish hiding the squash flavor. Just plenty of garlic and a little bit of time....

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Peruvian Beef and Squash Stew 2

Chopping up all this squash takes some time, but you’ll make a major dent in your squash pile, and, really, isn’t that what matters?

Recipe By: http://foodonthefood.com
Serving Size: 8
Cuisine: Peruvian
Main Ingredient: Pumpkin
Categories: Winter, Fall, Braise, Vegetables, Main Dish

-= Ingredients =-
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions ; chopped
6 cloves garlic ; smashed
2 tablespoon paprika
2 pound Beef bottom round roast
8 cups Winter squash ; seeded and sliced in half
2 medium tomatoes ; chopped
1/8 teaspoon Pepper ; or to taste
1/4 pound Low Fat Cheddar cheese ; optional

-= Instructions =-
In a large braising pot, heat olive oil until shimmering. Brown meat on all sides. Sauté onions, garlic, and paprika over medium heat until soft.
Add tomatoes, lay pieces of squash over top, cover, and cook over low heat or in oven 30-45 minutes, until squash is soft.
Remove squash from pot, return pot to oven. Cool squash until you can handle it, then scrape it out of the rind. Return squash to pot, mash, stir, and return to heat.. Continue to cook over low heat until the squash cooks down into a thick sauce and meat is tender. Timing will depend on whether you cut meat into 1" stew chunks (15 more minutes) or left it in roast-sized chunks (another hour or so)

Optional: Sprinkle with cheese and cover until melted. Remove from heat and serve over rice.

Without Optional Cheese:
Serving: 1.67 cups (407g), Calories: 345: Fat: 14g : Sodium: 72mg
Protein: 27g, NetCarbs: 19, K: 1505mg
SatFat: 6g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 7g, Chol: 71mg
TotCarbs: 26g, Fiber: 7g, Sugars: 8g
Calories: 42.0% from fat, 22.0% from carbohydrates 31.3% from protein
RecipePoints: 6.67

DASH: Vegetables: 3.2: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 1.3: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.4: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.6: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 4.0: Fats: 0.4: Sweets: 0.0

With Optional Cheese:
Serving: 1.67 cups (421g), Calories: 380: Fat: 16g : Sodium: 158mg
Protein: 31g, NetCarbs: 19, K: 1505mg
SatFat: 7g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 7g, Chol: 79mg
TotCarbs: 26g, Fiber: 7g, Sugars: 8g
Calories: 43.0% from fat, 20.0% from carbohydrates 32.6% from protein
RecipePoints: 7.53

DASH: Vegetables: 3.2: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.5: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 1.3: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.4: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.6: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.5: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 4.0: Fats: 0.4: Sweets: 0.0

** This recipe can be pasted into BigOven without retyping. **
** Easy recipe software. Try it free at: http://www.bigoven.com **

How to Eat More Chocolate for your heart, part II

2009-02-03T13:05:00.003-05:00

I'm an avid read of Monica Reinegel's NutritionData Blog, because I love data about nutrition. As I was reading Eating chocolate for your heart, I noticed a comment from another of her readers, asking Monica for more information about which brand of chocolate is best for the heart. I had asked myself the same thing a few months back, so I posted my own comment, as chock full of references as cocoa is chock full of useful flavanols. Which the website immediately rejected as spam, on account of all those useful links. A comment like that probably belongs on my own blog. So here it is. In How to Eat More Chocolate for your heart, I decided the easiest way is simply to stir a tablespoon of unsweetened natural cocoa into a bowl of oatmeal or a mug of hot water or milk one to three times a day, for 200 to 600mg of cocoa flavanol (CF). This is because:

1 T (5g) Hershey unsweetened natural cocoa PROBABLY has about 200mg CF and 20 Cal, and you can drink it like coffee.
1/2 ounce of baking chocolate (100% cacao) PROBABLY has 230-300mg CF and 70 Cal, but it is not much fun to eat.
1 1/2 ounces of Ritter Sport Halbbitter (50% cacao) has 200mg CF and 200 Cal -- delicious, if you aren't worried about the extra sugar/fat calories.

I found this out by searching on "cocoa", and "antioxidant". I saw answers at the USDA, pubmed, the American Cocoa Research Institute, Hershey's, and Mars. I learned words like polyphenol, flavan-3-ol, flavanol (not to be confused with flavonol), and proanthocyanidin. I read chocolate-makers' websites, requested research papers they cited at their websites, and asked about the flavanol content of their products. And then I had to make some sense of it.

Hardly anybody will give you even an approximate flavanol content for their product if it isn't already on the package. It costs money to test flavanol content. It must cost even more to assure that a product always has a certain minimum flavanol content. It might cost them a lot to say a product usually has a certain flavanol content, then get sued when a certain batch had less.
A paper from Arkansas gave me my best rule of thumb -- as long as the cocoa isn't dutched, the content of antioxidants is proportional to the percentage of nonfat cocoa solids (NFCS) in the product. That's pretty simple. A Hershey PR rep. sent me a copy of the paper, and I found out how much NFCS and antioxidants were in a number of unidentified grocery-store products.
The USDA has produced a proanthocyanidin database, that shows that cinnamon, grape seeds, and cocoa are highest in proanthocyanidins
Ritter Sport shared the CF content of their Halbbitter bar with researchers in 2004 -- about 500mg CF per 100g.

How to Eat More Chocolate For Your Heart

Red wine with that burger, please -- study shows flavanols can neutralize some bad chemicals right in the stomach.

Edited 5 Feb 2009 to fix broken links

References

Gu et al. Concentrations of proanthocyanidins in common foods and estimations of normal consumption.J Nutr. 2004 Mar;134(3):613-7.
USDA Proanthocyanidin database http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=5843

The Hershey Company. Antioxidant activity and polyphenol and procyanidin contents of selected commercially available cocoa-containing and chocolate products in the United States. J Agric Food Chem. 2006 May 31;54(11):4062-8.
Gu et. al. Procyanidin and catechin contents and antioxidant capacity of cocoa and chocolate products. J Agric Food Chem. 2006 May 31;54(11):4057-61. Hershey emailed a copy on my request.
Taubert, et al. Chocolate and blood pressure in elderly individuals with isolated systolic hypertension. JAMA. 2003 Aug 27;290(8):1029-30. (Cocoa polyphenol content of Ritter Sport Halbbitter)
Taubert et al. Effect of cocoa and tea intake on blood pressure: a meta-analysis. Arch Intern Med. 2007 Apr 9;167(7):626-34
Aron, et al. Flavan-3-ols: Nature, occurrence and biological activity. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2008 Jan;52(1):79-104 -- A review of the chemistry and health effects of flavanols.

Baby Lima Beans

2009-01-15T17:16:00.003-05:00

My family doesn't like mashed cauliflower. We'd rather have it raw, or steamed with a sprinkling of cheese. It is definitely not a replacement for a big pile of mashed potatoes.
But we did find a "better carb choices" substitute. It's white, has a mild flavor, feels creamy in your mouth, and is popular with the kids. It's easy to cook. It goes well with a little bacon, and makes a nice side dish.

Baby Lima beans! This one is simple:

Cook one cup dried baby limas in enough broth to cover.
Simmer for one hour, adding additional water as necessary.
Season to taste.

Thanks to Mel at dietriffic for reminding me about the latest legume addition to my diet.

New USDA salmon figures based on too-few samples?

2009-01-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

Farm-raised salmon is cheap compared to fresh. You might find farm-raised for $9.00 a pound in the fresh case and $5.99 a pound in 2-pound package of individually-wrapped frozen fillets.

But farm-raised salmon has lately been known to have a lot of omega-6 fatty acids, making it very inflammatory -- just the sort of thing you DON'T want if you are looking for heart-healthy diet choices.

So I was surprised to read that they have suddenly gotten better. The newly-updated USDA database says that the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in farmed Atlantic Salmon is now a favorable 1:2.6 instead of the former, very unfavorable 7:1 (is that right? 7:1? Who's got a copy of the old database?). So a serving farm-raised salmon has gone from being highly inflammatory to being highly anti-inflammatory. The ratio is not quite as good as for wild Atlantic Salmon (1:12), but since the farm-raised salmon is nearly twice as fatty, you get a bigger anti-inflammatory dose per ounce.

Monica Reinagel proposed that big changes in aquaculture practices have accounted for this change. But I am not sure this change is universal. I quickly searched for "salmon USDA" and came up with a USDA poster presentation from Experimental Biology 2007 giving lipid figures for salmon. Turns out, only 2 samples of farm-raised Atlantic Salmon were tested, from shopping trips to 12 different US grocery stores.

Two samples? Is that representative of all the farmed Atlantic salmon available in the US? How can I know if the salmon I see in my grocery store more closely resembles the new farmed salmon or the old?

Is it normal for the USDA to "improve" its database with data from such a narrow sampling? What other USDA figures should I start distrusting?

The "old" farmed salmon: Quantitative Analysis of the Benefits and Risks of Consuming Farmed and Wild Salmon. J. Nutr. 135:2639-2643, November 2005

The "new" farmed salmon: Exler, J. 2007. Nutrient content and variability in newly obtained salmon data for USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. Experimental Biology, April 25, 2007, Washington, D.C. (abstract)

Christmas Traditions on a diet

2008-12-10T15:20:00.003-05:00

When you decide to change your diet during the holidays, you're in a bit of a pickle. There was just no way to make any changes at Thanksgiving. Potatatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pies. It's tradition!

Now Christmas is approaching. And guess what. Christmas cookies are a tradition. Lots of sugar, white flour, and saturated fats. I've got low-fat wheat-flour cookies, and sugary no-flour cookies, and sugary, buttery cookies. But I can't make anything decent that matches up with any sort of diet recommended for people watching their triglycerides. No. I don't quite have the hang of the Splenda meringue, so it's off the list for this year. We made the cookies already. And we're sending them to our families and friends. We call these little devils gifts. It's a tradition!

Neal Barnard's Meal Plan Anti-Inflammatory

2008-11-20T16:30:00.001-05:00

I know you've all been wondering about this, and couldn't wait for someone to hurry up and tackle the question. So I used the tools at Nutritiondata to work it out, (depending especially on Monica Reinagel's Inflammation Factor to estimate the inflammatory potential of foods) First I entered recipes for Barnard's Fruit Smoothie, Lebanese-Style Lentils and Pasta, Orange Applesauce Date Cake, Blackeyed Pea and Sweet Potato Soup, and Creamy Poppyseed Dressing. More or less. I got a little agitated with the interface and left out some of the seasonings. Next, I used these recipes to create Menues as Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner from Day 1 of his "7 Days of Healthful Meals". Barnard doesn't talk much about how many calories you should get in a day or what serving sizes to use to meet those requirements, so I guessed on how much oatmeal to serve myself for breakfast, how much soup to have for lunch, etc.

According to Nutritiondata, breakfast was mildly inflammatory, lunch was strongly anti-inflammatory, and dinner was mildly anti-inflamatory. When I added up all 3 meals and the smoothie, I wound up with 1704 calories for the day, an estimated glycemic load of 127, (which some diabetics might consider a tad high), and an inflammation factor of 82, which is mildly anti-inflammatory. That inflammation factor is a good feature. After-meal inflammation seems to be an important contributor to heart disease. It contributes to a whole cascade of bad things, from higher triglyceride levels to smaller cholesterol particles, to high blood pressure, to artery damage, fatty plaque deposits, plaque eruptions, and blood clotting. I was just reading about it all once again in a medscape article about triglycerides -- it's not a pretty picture.

All in all, it looks like Barnard's diet is good for the heart.

Melamine is still in our foods

2008-11-17T15:00:00.002-05:00

A year and a half ago, I said pretty much all I wanted to say about cheap imported food ingredients -- avoid them. It's too easy to sneak in powdered melamine scrap in place of vegetable protein powders, isolates, and concentrates, or powdered milk or eggs. Too easy to replace glycerine with antifreeze. This means avoiding all the processed foods made with these ingredients, too. You can't know where they came from. And the FDA has just blocked the import of all milk products from China, along with pet and laboratory animal feeds.

Hong Kong and South Korea are turning away eggs and egg products because they are contaminated. It isn't clear whether the powdered eggs rejected by South Korea were directly contaminated, or if they were simply came from chickens fed contaminated feed. The levels of melamine in the flesh, milk, or eggs of an animal fed contaminated feed are likely to be much less than the levels of food ingredients directly contaminated with melamine.

product	contamination level
Sanlu milk, reconstituted	~360 ppm
Recalled 2007 pet food	60-70 ppm
Recalled Chinese vegetable proteins	>70 ppm
Egg powder, South Korea	.1ppm - 4 ppm
Hong Kong eggs	3.5 ppm

The FDA says 2.5ppm is the level of concern, except for in baby formula where none (or 25ppb, the limit of detection) is tolerable. This is based on evidence that 50ppm is tolerable (from animal studies?), up from a 2007 LOC of 194ppb to 450ppb, based on a TDI of .63 mg/kg/day, with a "100-fold safety factor".

Using the EU's TDI of .5mg/kg/day, the WHO concludes that the LOC for milk is 25ppm -- 10 times as high as the FDA's LOC.

How about a nice home-made Chipotle-Squash soup instead?

FDA Melamine Contamination information page

Omega-3 and genetic engineering

2008-11-12T14:13:00.004-05:00

Those of us who eat a lot of grains and/or grain-fed livestock are always on the lookout for ways to get more omega-3 fatty acids. That's because grains are skewed toward the omega-6 fatty acids, which are inflammatory, and can contribute to heart disease.

But, wouldn't you know it, Monsanto has been working on the problem. They have developed a soybean that produces a lot of SDA, a compound that like ALA, humans can convert to omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, but which is much more shelf-stable than EPA or DHA. And the soy oil will taste better than fish oil. Their plan is to use it to create a high-omega-3 soybean oil, but perhaps it will find other uses as well. They've concluded their soy oil is safe for rats.

Will they try for a high-omega-3 corn next, for livestock feed to produce high-omega-3 meats?
Is this a good thing or not?

Monsanto and The Solae Company to Collaborate on Soy-based Omega-3 Portfolio

Safety assessment of SDA soybean oil: Results of a 28-day gavage study and a 90-day/one generation reproduction feeding study in rats. Fleeman et al. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2008 Aug 31

USDA Dietary Guidelines 2010

2008-11-11T13:44:00.003-05:00

The USDA and HHS has already empanelled a new committee for reviewing the US Food Pyramid, and they've already had their first meeting. Interesting, they are taking comments. Many of the earliest commenters are famous proponants of vegetarian diets, based on their analysis of clinical studies on diet and health. There were 10 comments from the National Dairy Council, but all but one have since been deleted. That's a little bit of a surprise. At least fifty-seven comments have been submitted, but only 30 remain.

Many of the commenters seem to feel the dietary guidelines committee might have some conflicts of interest, and might not adhere to the scientific evidence. Then again, there is scientfic evidence that our diet should be low in carbohydrates and high in protein, evidence that it should be high in carbohydrates and low in fat, or that it should have a "Zone" or "South Beach" balance of macronutrients.

It seems that "everyone" agrees that foods that don't raise the blood sugar and insulin too much are a good idea. Which means more green vegetables, less bread. Inflammation has recently been identified as a big problem for health, which means there is a lot of agreement that foods high in antioxidants are good, omega-6 fatty acids are not as good as omega-3 fatty acids, and that mono-unsaturated fatty acids might be the best. There are still some dissenters on the merits of saturated fats, though many researchers seem to agree they are inflammatory and promote heart disease, especially when combined with quick-digesting carbs. I think we all agree that croissants are not an ideal staple food.

There has been a lot of criticism of the 2005 dietary guidelines since it came out, not the least of which has been the emphasis on bread, pasta, and breakfast cereals as a source of carbohydrates for energy.

I'm a little confused myself. I've got Neal Barnard's book in one hand, and the South Beach diet in the other. The doctors behind both diets have done the studies to show that either diet will improve cholesterol and blood suger -- all the risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. Apparantly, either diet is better than the 2005 guidelines.

Which side up will they turn the pyramid in 2010, and will it make any difference at all?

Reducing the risk from C-Reactive Protein

2008-11-10T16:00:00.001-05:00

Today, statin drugs are in the news. The Jupiter study results, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says that patients with high C-reactive protein scores given Crestor "had a 45 percent reduction in serious heart problems and 20 percent reduction in death from all causes compared to those who received a placebo"[1]. The study participants were specially selected. They were all 50 or older, and chosen because they had high C-reactive protein scores, low to normal levels of LDL cholesterol, and did not have diabetes.[2] Many of them were overweight, had high LDL or triglycerides, or had metabolic syndrome.[3]

Crestor reduced the C-reactive protein of the Jupiter subjects by 37%, and their LDL by 50%. The earlier MERCURY trials of Crestor on high-risk patients with LDL cholesterol over 130 mg/dL, showed that Crestor could lower LDL cholesterol to below 70 in higher-risk patients,[4] but did not measure C-reactive protein.

So this study does not suggest that everyone can benefit from statins. It suggests that that the older, non-diabetic but perhaps pre-diabetic patients with high C-reactive protein levels may benefit from statins, whether or not they have high LDL cholesterol.

What is C-reactive protein?
C-reactive protein is related to inflammation in the body. It is very high following an injury (or surgery), and during a bacterial infection. C-reactive protein has been linked to heart disease, though it isn't clear just why. It doesn't seem to cause heart disease,[5] but it seems to be a good way to keep tabs on inflammation.

Inflammation, of course, is bad for the heart. Some foods cause inflammation. Body fat can cause inflammation. So anything that reduces inflammation seems like a good idea. Statin drugs appear to reduce inflammation while lowering LDL cholesterol. Of course, LDL cholesterol is not the best predictor of cardiovascular risk. The American College of Cardiology and the American Diabetic Association both recommend apoB and LDL particle concentration, or non-HDL cholesterol.[6]

C-reactive protein has also been associated with high triglycerides, coffee consumption, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, high protein diets, high fat diets[7], high glycemic index diets, inadequate sleep, too little exercise, depression, and age.

How to reduce C-reactive protein
Exercise, losing weight, reducing triglycerides, controlling blood pressure, getting enough sleep, eating a Mediterranean diet, eating antioxidant foods with meals, and cutting back on "bad" carbs like bread and pasta have all been recommended for reducing inflammation and C-reactive protein.

This is still a new area for medicine. If you get standard blood work done, you won't see C-reactive protin on the lab report. There seems to be evidence that reducing chronic inflammation through diet and exercise is a good idea. So where does that leave me? I'm going to rethink pancakes and muffins, change what I pack in our lunches, lean more towards bulgur and less toward rice, substitute sweet potatoes for potatoes whenever possible, suggest red wine instead of beer, and keep drinking unsweetened cocoa.

I've had a look at the South Beach diet and Neal Barnard's diet, and I'm wondering: what about Thanksgiving? And Christmas?

1. RPT-Crestor study seen changing preventive treatment. Bill Berkrot and Ransdell Pierson. Reuters
2. JUPITER - Crestor 20mg Versus Placebo in Prevention of Cardiovascular (CV) Events. Clinical Trial Registration.
3. Rosuvastatin to Prevent Vascular Events in Men and Women with Elevated C-Reactive Protein. Paul M Ridker, M.D. et al. WWW.NEJM.ORG. November 9, 2008 (10.1056/NEJMoa0807646)
4. Statin therapy alters the relationship between apolipoprotein B and low-density lipoprotein .... Ballantyne CM et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2008 Aug 19;52(8):626-32.
5. Genetically Elevated C-Reactive Protein and Ischemic Vascular Disease. Nordestgaard et al. New England Journal of Medicine. Volume 359:1897-1908 October 30, 2008.
6. CONSENSUS CONFERENCE REPORT: Lipoprotein Management in Patients With Cardiometabolic Risk. Witztum et al. Am Coll Cardiol, 2008; 51:1512-1524, doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2008.02.034 (Published online 27 March 2008).
7. Low Carbohydrate, High Fat Diet Increases C-Reactive Protein during Weight Loss. Turpyn et al. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 26, No. 2, 163-169 (2007).

internal link repaired on 27 Feb 2009

Insulin -- What it Does and Why

2008-11-06T11:04:00.004-05:00

In the past few years, we've heard a lot about the relationship of insulin and blood sugar, but there's a lot more to it. Insulin is a complicated hormone with a lot of effects on the metabolism and circulation.

What Insulin Does
When cells receive the insulin signal, they:

Take up glucose from the blood for fuel. Liver and muscle cells also make glycogen and store it for later in the day.
Take up fatty acids from the blood to make triglycerides (glycerine plus 3 fatty acids) for storage
Take up circulating amino acids from the blood to make more proteins
Take up potassium from the blood
Slow down the rate at which they break down proteins
Slow down the rate at which they convert triglycerides into fatty acids
Slow down the rate at which they convert protein and fat into sugar
Relax the arterial wall muscle, increasing blood flow, especially to smaller arteries, keeping blood pressure low.

Source: Wikipedia article on Insulin

Why Insulin is Released

When blood sugar rises, the beta cells that produce and store insulin take it up and use it to produce ATP, every cell's quick-energy source. When the level of ATP is high enough, the beta cells start releasing insulin.

But sugar is not the only source for ATP production. And a high-protein or high-fat meal can cause higher insulin than a high-starch meal can. Without even raising the blood sugar.

Insulin Release at Wikipedia

ATP at Wikipedia, Beta-Oxidation at Wikipedia,

An Insulin Index of Foods

Insulin Resistance

When cells encounter a lot of insulin a lot of the time, they start to ignore it. If the situation continues, they become insulin resistant. If the pancreas can manage it, it will release even more insulin. Some of the effects of insulin resistance are:

High blood sugar after meals, as the cells ignore the signal to take it up from the blood.
Low blood sugar between meals. The body does not release enough glucose from the previously-stored glycogen to supply the body's energy needs -- this can lead to mental "fogginess"
Higher levels of triglycerides in the blood
High blood pressure.
An increase in fat storage around the abdominal organs.

Source: Insulin Resistance at Wikipedia

Bulgur -- better than rice

2008-11-04T14:10:00.000-05:00

Bulgur wheat has a lower glycemic index than rice. NutritionData estimates the glycemic loads of 100g of brown or white rice at 11, while the glycemic load of bulgur is 7 for the same 100g. This means bulgur is somewhat better for blood sugar and causes less inflammation than rice, which makes bulgur a bit better than rice for preventing or controlling heart disease or diabetes. Every little bit helps.

You can cook whole wheat kernels, or berries, too. The nice thing about bulgur is that it is parboiled -- partially cooked and then dried. This means it cooks faster than raw wheat kernels -- as fast as or faster than rice. Medium or finer grind bulgurs don't even need to be boiled -- just bring to a boil, stir, and soak for 10 to 20 minutes (depending on the size of the cracked grain), then fluff with a fork and serve like rice.

Bulgur may have originated in Bulgaria, and has been eaten all around the Eastern Mediterranean for thousands of years. Some classic dishes are tabbouleh, a cold salad dressed with lemon and mint, and kibbe, a stuffed ball of bulgur.

In the bulk bins of health food stores and large supermarkets, bulgur may be twice the price of store-brand brown rice. In 18- to 24-ounce boxes on the "natural foods" aisle, it may be up to 4 times that price.

Bulgur is wheat. It may not be a good choice if you you suffer from celiac disease or wheat allergy.

A Better Breakfast

2008-11-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

Suppose you've been eating Cheerios for your cholesterol, with a quarter-cup of raisins to get some fruit, and yogurt because you are lactose-intolerant. Sound like a healthy breakfast? There are worse breakfasts, but if you are having trouble with your blood sugar or triglycerides, maybe you can fine-tune this breakfast a bit. Flavored yogurts are high in sugar, and so are raisins. And the starches in Cheerios are very easy to digest. All these foods have high glycemic indices. So what are you supposed to eat for breakfast? How about a nice bowl of cereal and a little fruit? Just make it a better bowl of cereal and a better fruit. All-Bran with unsweetened low-fat soymilk and blueberries certainly seems like an example of a better breakfast.

Cheerios yogurt raisins	All-Bran soymilk raisins	All-Bran soymilk blueberries
1 cup (30g) Cheerios 6 oz (184g) Vanilla low-fat yogurt 1/4 cup (41g) Seedless Raisins Calories: 390 Fat: 4g Carbohydrates: 80g Fiber: 5g Protein: 14g Est. Glycemic Load: 44 Inflammation Factor: -236	1/2 cup (31g) All-Bran cereal 1/2 cup (112 g) Soy Milk* 1/4 cup (41g) Seedless Raisins Calories: 237 Fat: 2g Carbohydrates: 60g Fiber: 11g Protein: 8g Est. Glycemic Load: 31 Inflammation Factor: -120	1/2 cup (31g) All-Bran cereal 1/2 cup (112 g) Soy Milk* 1/2 cup (77.5g) Blueberries** Calories: 153 Fat: 2g Carbohydrates: 37g Fiber: 11g Protein: 7g Est. Glycemic Load: 14 Inflammation Factor: 11

yogurt

soymilk

soymilk

1 cup (30g) Cheerios

6 oz (184g) Vanilla low-fat yogurt

1/4 cup (41g) Seedless Raisins

Calories: 390

Fat: 4g

Carbohydrates: 80g

Fiber: 5g

Protein: 14g

Est. Glycemic Load: 44

Inflammation Factor: -236

1/2 cup (31g) All-Bran cereal

1/2 cup (112 g) Soy Milk*

1/4 cup (41g) Seedless Raisins

Calories: 237

Fat: 2g

Carbohydrates: 60g

Fiber: 11g

Protein: 8g

Est. Glycemic Load: 31

Inflammation Factor: -120

1/2 cup (31g) All-Bran cereal

1/2 cup (112 g) Soy Milk*

1/2 cup (77.5g) Blueberries**

Calories: 153

Fat: 2g

Carbohydrates: 37g

Fiber: 11g

Protein: 7g

Est. Glycemic Load: 14

Inflammation Factor: 11

* WestSoy unsweetened low-fat
** Unsweetened, frozen.

Carbs don't tell the whole story

2008-10-30T13:43:00.002-04:00

According to a 2005 study, the OMNIheart study found a way to improve on the DASH diet -- cut the carbs. But you wouldn't know it from any of the DASH-related websites, which still recommend the same number of servings of grain per day. You might think that family doctors would start handing out prescriptions for OMNIheart instead of DASH to their patients with high blood pressure... But no. Maybe they're all on the South Beach diet now. Maybe the OMNIheart study was a waste of US taxpayer dollars.

According to the OmniHeart paper and the original DASH paper, the macronutrient profiles of the diets stacked up like this:

	Control	DASH	OMNI Carb	OMNI Protein	OMNI Fat	Barnard
Carbohydrates	48%	55%	58%	48%	48%	75%
Fat	37	27	27	27	37	10
Protein	15	18	15	25	15	15

DASH and OMNIheart diets were all markedly better for the heart than control, but the lower-carb Protein and Fat diets did significantly better. Protein was best. But wait! Fat looks like Control here. And it did better? Distribution of macronutrients must not tell the whole story. And then there's Neil Barnard's 2006 trial of a high-carb vegetarian diet that improved triglycerides much more than any of the OMNIheart diets. Of course, Barnard's trial started with diabetics with worse triglycerides, and ran three times as long as the OMNIheart trial. So comparing it to DASH and OMNIheart is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Still -- the very-high-carbohydrate diet is very effective at improving metabolic syndrome risk factors. It clearly does not cause the blood sugar, inflammation, and cholesterol problems that low-carbers have warned us about.

How can this be? If cutting carbs is a good idea, how can increasing carbs be a great idea? Which side is wrong? Maybe neither side -- there's more to the story. Barnard's diet has a lot of whole grains. And by whole, I mean entire. Not degermed, defatted, polished, ground, cut, rolled, folded, spindled, or mutilated in any way. His diet is very high in low-glycemic-index foods. It is very low in fats, and exceptionally low in saturated fats. He had to cut out animal foods entirely to get there.

It has been well-known for some time that the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of foods can predict their effect on blood sugar, cholesterol, inflammation, and heart health. But I didn't see any of this discussion in any of the studies. The two things the Barnard and OMNI Fat diets have in common are better carbs and less saturated fat than the Control diet.

Wouldn't you like to see these two diets in a cage match? Or else, can someone who has access to all of the data analyze the GIs of the meals and GLs of the diets to look for the correlation?

Glycemic index in chronic disease: a reviewL S Augustin et al. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2002) 56, 1049-1071. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601454
Effects of protein, monounsaturated fat, and carbohydrate intake on blood pressure and serum lipids: results of the OmniHeart randomized trial. Appel LJ et al. JAMA. 2005 Nov 16;294(19):2455-64
A clinical trial of the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure. DASH Collaborative Research Group.Appel LJ et al. N Engl J Med. 1997 Apr 17;336(16):1117-24.

Sweet Potatoes -- better than potatoes

2008-10-24T16:12:00.011-04:00

Sweet Potatoes: Japanese, Jewel, Okinawa, and Garnet

Sweet Potatoes are sweet. But they aren't potatoes. They're better. They raise your blood sugar and insulin a lot less than real potatoes do. Sweet potatoes have a low glycemic indexof 54, while baked potatoes have a high glycemic index of 85....

This can be important if you are diabetic or pre-diabetic, have heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or triglycerides. Because, as I've learned, a lot of damage to your heart happens right after a meal that raises your blood sugar too much. And Sweet Potatoes are good sources of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, B6, iron, potassium, and fiber.

Sweet potatoes are not yams, though orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are often called yams. Some people don't like the "pumpkin" flavor and moist, soft texture of orange sweet potatoes. Fortunately, there are other sweet potato choices, from the white-fleshed "Japanese" or "Kotobuki", to the pale yellow "Jersey", to the purple-fleshed "Okinawan". These all have a drier, fluffier flesh, with a mild to slightly nutty flavor.

Sweet potato muffins are still a big favorite of mine, but, more and more, I'm buying the Jerseys and the Japanese to replace baked or roasted potatoes at the dinner table. I think the Japanese "Kotobuki" would make a nice fluffy mash, but I haven't tried it yet.

A 100-gram serving of baked sweet potato has the same amount of carbohydrates (21g) as a 100g serving of baking potato. But the sweet potato has 3g of fiber, 6.5g of sugar, and 7g of starch (is it just me, or are there about 4g of carb missing from that equation?), while the baking potato has 2g of fiber, 1.2g of sugar, and 17.3g of starch.

Photo from Nakashima Farms, Ditty's Saturday Market, Livingston, CA.

Vitamin D, the Sun, and your Heart

2008-08-19T10:14:00.008-04:00

Vitamin D comes from the sun. Higher levels of Vitamin D go with lower blood pressure, better insulin and glucose regulation, a healthier immune system, stronger bones, and less chance of colon, breast, and prostate cancers. The US Food and Nutrition Board has recommended that 200IU (5 mcg) of vitamin D is adequate for young to middle-aged adults, but recent research indicates that might not be enough.

It's hard to get enough vitamin D from food. Fortified milk has less than 100IU per serving. Vitamins for adults usually contain 400IU. But, if you are not getting enough sunlight, a vitamin pill may not give you enough vitamin D...

The most important source for vitamin D is the sun. We can make all the vitamin D we need (up to about 20,000IU in less than an hour) if we get enough UVB rays on enough of our bare skin. A light-skinned person living near Boston can typically get enough vitamin D by going outside in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, without using sunscreen, 3 times every week from mid-March to mid-October for 5 to 10 minutes between 11AM and 2PM. And be able to store enough to last through the winter, when there is not enough UVB light for making vitamin D. Further north, the "vitamin D winter" lasts longer. Closer to the equator, a person needs less time in the sun. Sunscreen blocks UVB rays -- that's its job. Even an SPF8 sunscreen cuts production of vitamin D by 95%. Darker-skinned people may need 5 to 10 times longer in the sun, depending on the amount of melanin (the dark pigment) in their skin. Older people may not be able to make vitamin D in their skin as quickly. People with liver disease may not be able to produce enough of the provitamin-D₃ that the skin uses to make vitamin D. Obese people may need more vitamin D because so much of it gets stored in body fat. There are a lot of variables.

Exposing your arms and legs to the sun for 20 minutes at the right place and time could get you a dose of 20,000IU of vitamin D -- much higher than we get from food. This means food is not the most important source of vitamin D. Which makes it hard to calculate an RDA for vitamin D from food. But, if people spend more time inside and more of their outdoor time using sunscreen, they'll have to get it from foods and supplements, or risk their health.

So get a little noonday sun every day for as long as summer last. In the Northern hemisphere, Vitamin D summer lasts until October or November, depending on how far north you live. It has already already begun in the northern Australia, and continues all year long in the tropics.

How much vitamin D is too much? Vitamin D toxicity has never been observed in people getting their vitamin D from the sun. Most people are unlikely to have any problem from as much as 10,000 IU/day from supplements. But some medical conditions (lymphoma, sarcoidosis, tuberculosis, and primary hyperparathyroidism) can cause a bad reaction to vitamin D pills.

Obesity and Psychological Distress

2008-08-18T22:01:00.005-04:00

Incidence of Severe Psychological Distress in US, 2005-2006

Incidence of Obesity in US, 2006

Bix observed that certain parts of the country experience more Severe Psychological Distress than others. A commenter wondered if there was any correlation to obesity in those same states. I plotted Obesity vs Severe Psychological Stress, and it doesn't look to me like a strong correlation. So I would have to assume that other factors besides Obesity are related to Psychological Distress in the US.

A berry good snack for the kids

2008-08-14T16:08:00.003-04:00

At some point, the kids will get bored of even the most luscious farmstand peaches. Here's a quick, icy snack they'll love. Because the milk turns blue.

Icey Berry and Milk Snack
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/4 cup frozen Maine or wild blueberries
1/4 cup skim milk, or less if you run out of room in the bowl.

Surprisingly, this will all fit in the same 6-oz bowl.
Put about 1/2 cup large frozen strawberries in a bowl. This will only be 3 or 4, with a lot of empty space between. Pour in 1/4 cup frozen tiny Maine blueberries. They'll fit between the strawberries. Shake them down to the bottom of the bowl. Now add the milk.

Immediately, the milk will freeze into a skin around the berries. Cut or mash the strawberries with a spoon to expose new surfaces for the milk to freeze on. Explain that this is ice milk. Tell them the story about how, when your mother was little, the milkman left milk on the back porch every morning, how some winter mornings the cream floated up to the top of the milk bottle and froze, and how their grandmother's mother stirred it up with vanilla so they could have ice cream with breakfast. The kids will ooh and aah, splash purple milk on the kitchen table, and be perfectly delighted with their special afternoon snack. Notice how you haven't gotten out the sugar bowl. That was easy. Don't forget you need a snack, too.

Who taught Michael Phelps how to eat?

2008-08-14T09:13:00.004-04:00

12,000 calories and no fruit on the plate. As usual, Bix has made me think. Michael Phelps' diet doesn't seem to be hurting his Olympic performance. But it's surprising to see so little produce in his diet. I heard Bob Costas recite the breakfast menu, but I was surprised when I saw the full daily menu in print....

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese,
lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg
omelette. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered
sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of pasta. Two large ham and cheese
sandwiches with mayonnaise on white bread, plus 1,000 calories of energy drinks.

Dinner: One pound of pasta, an entire pizza and even more
energy drinks.

And, according to a 2005 IGN interview, a daily multivitamin.

As a parent, I spend time explaining to my kids why fruit and vegetables make better snacks than cookies, why we don't eat candy when we're hungry, how a sweet-potato muffin can be a better choice than a 4-oz bagel, and why we like to have lots of vegetables during dinner, not just a really big pizza. I explain to them that, if they want to grow up healthy and have the energy and strength to run around and have fun, they need to eat the way I've taught them. Apparantly, that's not strictly true. Michael Phelps' only vegetables come on his morning fried-egg sandwiches, and perhaps in the unspecified pasta sauce, and there's no fruit in his diet at all. Yet he seems to have grown up big, with plenty of strength and energy, and have no health problems -- at least nothing that would interfere with him swimming freestyle and butterfly faster than anyone else in the world.

Of course, even if his foods are low in certain nutrients, he's eating so much that he may be getting what he needs of A, B, C, D, and E and most of his minerals. But what about blood sugar spikes, oxidative stress, arterial plaques, risk of colon cancer, fiber, antioxidants, and omega-3 fatty acids? I didn't worry much about these things when I was 23, either. Even though I wasn't quite as focussed on school as Phelps is on swimming.

Until they ask, I'm not going to confuse the kids by explaining why Michael Phelps' diet is not designed for them -- they aren't 6'4" and 195 pounds, and don't swim 9 miles a day. So they don't eat unlimited "seconds", and are not going to substitute cookies for carrots. Even Michael Phelps doesn't eat cookies. Only chocolate-chip pancakes.

Sweet Potato Orange Muffins

2008-08-13T07:30:00.005-04:00

I'm not an advocate of hiding vegetables. Maybe I have more in common with the authors of "real food for healthy kids," who focus on teaching kids to enjoy filling their plates with healthy, nutritious foods. At the same time, I think it's a great idea to replace some refined or milled grains with fruits and vegetables. Especially after reading how meals high in refined grains cause a couple hours of inflammation that can damage your arteries, how high-fat meals meals cause insulin resistance, and how foods with the right carbohydrates can improve blood sugar, cholesterol, and inflammation.

I don't think that I and my family are ready to renounce ground grains (flours made from white and whole wheat, rye, rice, corn, even cornmeal). And I cannot convince them that a high-fiber orange sweet potato is more delicious than a starchy baking potato. But I can see the logic of replacing a bagel with something less inflammatory. Like a muffin. A muffin? Full of white flour, sugar, and saturated fat? I found a low-fat sweet potato orange muffin recipe from an old volume of Womans Day Low Fat Meals that was an almost perfect match for my fridge full of rejected sweet potatoes... Of course, I changed it up a little. I used 100% whole wheat flour, threw out the egg yolks, reduced the sugar, and increased the cinnamon (everybody loves cinnamon). And I used fresh sweet potato instead of canned. My first attempts had more sweet potato than the rest of my family could tolerate (how is that even possible?), and I learned that the potato ricer goes a long way toward creating a smooth and tolerable sweet potato puree. This newest version seems to be well-tolerated by everyone in the family, and it is my new favorite recipe. I've even tried substituting ground flaxseed for the eggs to turn the recipe vegan, and that works, too.

Sweet Potato Orange Muffins

A moist, rich muffin with a pumpkin-pie flavor

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Servings: 16

-= Ingredients =-
2 c Whole wheat flour
2 ts Low-sodium baking powder
2 ts Baking soda
1 1/2 ts Cinnamon
1/2 ts Nutmeg
1/2 ts Allspice
3/4 pound Sweet potatoes ; cooked, mashed/pureed
1/2 c Firmly packed brown sugar
4 large Egg whites
1 c Orange juice
1 medium Carrot ; shredded
1 ts Vanilla

-= Instructions =-
Lightly grease 16 muffin pan cups or line with paper liners. In a medium bowl, flours, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. In a large bowl, mash sweet potatoes. Add brown sugar, eggs, orange juice, carrot and vanilla. Mix well. Add dry ingredients to sweet potato mixture and stir until combined. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full with batter and bake at 400 F for 15 to 20 minutes or until tops are brown. Let cool slightly and remove from pan. Serve warm. Makes 16.

Serving: 1 muffin (77g), Calories: 113: Fat: 0g (4% of Cals): Sodium: 178mg
Protein: 3g, NetCarbs: 21, K: 242mg
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 0g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 24g, Fiber: 3g, Sugars: 9g

DASH: Vegetables: 0.2: Fruits/Juices: 0.1: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.9: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.5
USDA: Vegetables: 0.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.9: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.1: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.5

Based on a recipe by: Womans Day Low Fat Meals, June 1995

Antioxidant chocolate and cinnamon treats

2008-08-12T11:46:00.003-04:00

Blog posts are archived forever, but they seem ephemeral. So I wrote a knol encapsulating a lot of the thinking that went into developing the chocolate-cinnamon treats I posted about in June. Since I just figured out ensure these patties have a good texture, I also wrote a knol about keeping chocolate's temper. "Heat gently" means more gently than I had thought!

Carbohydrates or Fats, but not both for Diabetes?

2008-07-31T16:50:00.005-04:00

Barnard: low-fat

Bernstein: low-carb

Lately, I've been reading about high-carbohydrate diets that manage or reverse type-II diabetes. But there is another approach -- a low-carbohydrate diet. Both can cite studies that show the diets they've developed help patients much more than the standard ADA-recommended diet. Both diets show dramatic improvements in insulin sensitivity, blood sugar, blood lipids, and weight loss. As far as I can tell, the only thing they agree on is that diabetics should avoid sugar and white bread. How would a person choose between the two programs?

Diabetes, overstuffed cells, and changing the way you eat.

2008-07-31T11:43:00.006-04:00

I've just read Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes. His main argument starts with reasons why your cells start to resist insulin. Insulin is supposed to signal the cells to take in the sugar that is available in the blood. But, if muscle cells already have enough sugar, or are storing a lot of fat, they start to ignore insulin's signal. The blood sugar stays high for some time, (which can be very bad for the body), and then the energy in the sugar gets used to produce fat, which the body will store in case you need it later.

He decided that diabetes sufferers need to

Reduce the fat in their muscle cells to make them more sensitive to insulin's signals and
Reduce the amount of sugar in the blood so you need less insulin in the first place.

His solution is a low-fat, high-fiber diet wherein most of your energy comes from slower-release carbohydrate sources, like sweet potatoes, intact grains, legumes, as well as All-Bran cereal, al-dente pasta, and the like. To keep fats low, the diet is vegan. Fats should be "good" anti-inflammatory mono and poly-unsaturated fats. The diet has performed very well in clinical trials. It reads quite a bit like Dean Ornish's diet for reversing heart disease, at least as it appeared in his earlier Eat More, Weigh Less. Only, Dean Ornish was advocating a vegetarian, not vegan, diet. Both books (and their Amazon reviews) contain testimonials and case histories of people who started the diet because their physical condition was so poor they were frightened, and who had spectacular success.

The thing is, an awful lot of people are not going to renounce steak, eggs, milk, and even wild-caught Pacific salmon unless they are awfully scared. And maybe not even then. And, let's face it, while many women often crave carbs, it seems that many men crave meat. And some of Barnard's substitutes (vegetable broth thickened with cornstarch for olive oil on salads) sound time-consuming and simply hideous.

Studies show Barnard's diet is effective for managing glucose and, even reducing or eliminating insulin dependance in diabetics. And it can probably control and/or reverse heart disease as well. It could be promoted as a gold-standard intervention for diabetic and pre-diabetic patients. But if Barnard's diet were the only choice on the menu, I imagine a lot of patients would head for another restaurant.

Red wine with that burger, please

2008-06-30T20:50:00.005-04:00

A group of researchers in Israel discovered that a meal of grilled turkey burger resulted in a lot of oxidizing chemicals in rats' stomachs. But they could counteract that problem by feeding the rats some red wine concentrate with the meals. This concentrate was very high in catechins, the same anti-oxidants found in cocoa. They found that the antioxidants in food started doing their good work right in the stomach, and concluded that there is an "important benefit of consuming dietary polyphenols during the meal."

J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Jun 10. PMID: 18540628. The Stomach as a "Bioreactor": When Red Meat Meets Red Wine. Gorelik S, Ligumsky M, Kohen R, Kanner J.

Cocoa after every meal?

2008-06-30T20:40:00.006-04:00

As I learned while writing a post two weeks ago, a lot of damage to your arteries can get done right after a meal. When your blood sugar goes way up after a meal, the insulin level follows, and after that your triglycerides go up, and your blood gets "thicker". At the same time, free radicals form, which can cause cholesterol to oxidize, which can lead to arterial plaque. And inflammation can cause plaques to rupture. A ruptured plaque is what caused Tim Russert's heart attack. A ruptured plaque could just as well cause a blockage in an artery of the neck or head, which could cause a stroke...

So, to reduce the risk of a heart attack, it seems like it would be a good idea to reduce plaque formation, and reduce the risk. And, if a lot of this dangerous oxidation and inflammation is happening right after meals that cause a rise in insulin, it would seem that anything you could do to reduce blood sugar or insulin or high blood pressure or triglycerides or inflammation or oxidation would help you a lot. Which is why I wonder, when I read the abstracts of some of the clinical trials of cocoa, chocolate, and cinnamon, exactly when everyone is eating their chocolate. Because it seems to me that the time you need the anti-oxidant the most is when you've got the worst threat of oxidation. And the time you need the insulin mimetic in cinnamon the most is right when you're getting that spike in blood sugar. The time you need something to relax your blood vessels in just when they're getting tense. That seems like a fair series of hypotheses.

I'd like to see someone do a meta-analysis of the papers to see if there is any correlation between when the particiapants are consuming their cocoa or cinnamon supplements and how much effect they get from it. Maybe the difference wouldn't show up in a short-term study.

But, if bad metabolism after meals really increases the risk of coronary artery disease, then maybe a long-term study of coronary artery disease progression and cocoa consumption would turn something up. And, if a little red wine with a meal can counter the oxidation chemicals in a meal, then why not a cup of cocoa, containing 200mg polyphenols after the meal? And why not a little cinnamon after the meal?

I'd like to see a clinical study of the effect of having 200mg of polyphenols during or directly after each of the main meals of the day. Three meals, 600mg in a day. Still less than the Kuna people drink, but quite a lot none the less.

Makes me wish I lived near one of these groups doing cocoa or cinnamon studies. Wouldn't it something to get involved in designing one of those experiments?

Because either cocoa and cinnamon are the greatest discovery since sliced bread (and to be highly recommended to anyone who regularly eats bread or other easily-digested carbohydrates) or they aren't. And I'd really like to know which it's going to be.

J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Jun 10. PMID: 18540628. The Stomach as a "Bioreactor": When Red Meat Meets Red Wine. Gorelik S, Ligumsky M, Kohen R, Kanner J.

Good for your heart is good for your head

2008-06-17T15:00:00.002-04:00

Take care of your heart if you want to stay smart. Heart disease is bad for your brain. If you can reduce your risk of heart disease, you can reduce your risk of cognitive decline. I just figured that out this week. It was Bix's consideration of cognitive decline in heart disease patients that prompted me to put two and two together...

Lately, I've been focusing on how cinnamon, cocoa, and fish oil are good for the heart. I've been ignoring information about how they're supposed to help your brain stay sharp as you age. Is there a connection? Well, if your coronary arteries are clogging up, other arteries are probably clogging up, too. Like the ones in your head.

Bypass surgery can save your life, and the mild cognitive damage, it causes is usually temporary. But heart surgery can't fix the arteries in your brain. Researchers followed seniors with vascular disease for several years. They all showed cognitive decline over that time, whether or not they had surgery. Seniors with vascular disease all did worse than heart-healthy seniors.

So an anti-inflammatory diet full of choices that improve cholesterol and blood sugar isn't just good for your heart. It's good for your head, too.

Nature Clinical Practice Neurology (2006) 2, 538-547 (doi:10.1038/ncpneuro0294) Vascular cognitive impairment Ola A Selnes and Harry V Vinters.
Ann Thorac Surg. 2008 May;85(5):1571-8. Absence of cognitive decline one year after coronary bypass surgery: comparison to nonsurgical and healthy controls. Sweet JJ, Finnin E, Wolfe PL, Beaumont JL, Hahn E, Marymont J, Sanborn T, Rosengart TK.
Ann Neurol. 2008 May;63(5):581-90. Cognition 6 years after surgical or medical therapy for coronary artery disease. Selnes OA, Grega MA, Bailey MM, Pham LD, Zeger SL, Baumgartner WA, McKhann GM.

Cinnamon Chocolates for your heart

2008-06-16T19:40:00.003-04:00

Cassia Cinnamon is an even more concentrated source of flavanols than cocoa. So, if, like the Kuna, you wanted 900mg of flavanols to your diet, you could eat 2 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa. or only 3 teaspoons of cinnamon. But you shouldn't eat 3 teaspoons of cinnamon, because Cassia cinnamon contains coumarin. The German government has decided .1mg of coumarin per kg of body weight per day is safe. There are about 2.8mg of coumarin in every gram of Cassia Cinnamon. If you weigh over 124 pounds, you should be safe with 2g (1/2 tsp) of cinnamon per day, as long as you aren't eating any other foods with coumarin in them. If you weigh 185, you can tolerate 3 g (3/4 teaspoon)...

Here's a recipe that's not exactly haute cuisine. It makes four servings of a slightly sweet, strongly cinnamon/cocoa patty. It is not smooth like fine chocolate, because it is made with cocoa powder and cinnamon. All that conching destroys flavanols, anyway. One quarter of this recipe has about 500mg of flavanols, including 3/4 teaspoon of cinnnamon per serving, which provides over 200mg of flavanols and 8.4 mg of coumarin. It should be perfectly safe for someone weighing over 190 pounds who isn't eating other sources of coumarin or other blood thinners. If you weigh less, you can divide the recipe into more, smaller servings to get less cinnamon and flavanols. Of course, you would want to discuss this with your doctor. If you'd prefer to leave out the cinnamon altogether, try the recipe for Cocoa Chocolate Patties

Chocolate, Cocoa, and Cinnamon Patties

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 4
Cuisine:
Main Ingredient:

-= Ingredients =-
1 oz Baking chocolate ; 100% cacao, unsweetened
3 teaspoon Cinnamon
4 teaspoon Honey
3 tablespoon Cocoa powder

-= Instructions =-
Gently warm baking chocolate until you can stir it.
Stir in the cocoa, cinnamon and honey. Allow to cool to a dough, then divide into 4 pieces and form into balls or patties. Cool on the baking chocolate wrapper.

Do not take with milk, butter, or other dairy products.

Serving: .11 cups (24g), Calories: 81: Fat: 5g : Sodium: 3mg
Protein: 2g, NetCarbs: 9, K: 194mg
SatFat: 3g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 2g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 14g, Fiber: 5g, Sugars: 6g
Calories: 56.0% from fat, 69.1% from carbohydrates 02.5% from protein

NFCS: 6.54g Cinnamon: 3.0g : Fats: .84: Sweets: 0.4
PA: 512.35 mg, 1-3 mers: 128.45 mg

German government guidelines for safe daily consumption of Cassia Cinnamon, assuming no other sources of coumarin in the diet. Talk to your doctor to discuss what is safe for you.

Body Weight(pounds)	Cinnamon (g)	Cinnamon(tsp)	flavanols(mg)
60	0.97	0.24	78.97
61.6	1.00	0.25	81.08
110	1.79	0.45	144.79
123.2	2.00	0.50	162.16
130	2.11	0.53	171.11
184.8	3.00	0.75	243.24
190	3.08	0.77	250.08
200	3.25	0.81	263.25

Food Choices that improve cholesterol and blood sugar.

2008-06-16T16:30:00.006-04:00

A review of studies on how what we eat affects our bodies right after a meal says that, when you eat too much fat or highly-processed carbohydrates in one meal, your blood sugar and triglycerides go up quickly. Your body can't metabolize this excess very well, and you wind up with free radicals, oxidative stress, inflammation, and a stress response. You will have immediate increases in blood pressure, oxidation of LDL cholesterol, C-reactive protein production, and risk of blood clotting. This can go on for longer than four hours after a meal, at which time you'll be nearly ready for another meal....

Post-prandial "glucose excursions" are associated with risk of cardiovascular disease (atherosclerosis or hardening or narrowing of the arteries), which can lead to a heart attack, a stroke, or cognitive decline (where you have more and more trouble with memory and alertness, and become confused more often) -- all because of poor circulation to your heart and brain. On top of that, those spikes in blood sugar and insulin will lead to excess fat deep in your belly (called visceral fat), which increases your risk of diabetes and high blood pressure.

The good news is that most people can slow down the rate at which these bad things happen, or even stop them, just by making a few changes in how they eat. You can probably reduce your risk of heart disease or even lose belly fat.

Eat Better Carbs
Cut down on white bread, white rice, and white potatoes. Substitute pasta, whole unmilled grains (like brown rice and bulgar), and even pasta. Avoid highly-processed foods that have a lot of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, and processed starch. Then substitute more vegetables like broccoli and spinach for some of the grains and potatoes. Eat "good carb" fruits like citrus, cherries, and berries.

I tried this one out last Friday. I made a pasta salad, but added quite a lot of chopped vegetables. Little bits of leftover grilled asparagus, red peppers, broccoli, onion, some fresh herbs from the garden, a little carrot and celery, a few peas, and some small red beans. It was colorful and delicious, and there was less room in the bowl for pasta.

Eat better fats
Avoid trans fats and saturated fats. Use modest amounts of olive oil or nut oils, and get some fish oils for their omega-3 fatty acids. The omega-3 fatty acids improve the after-meal triglycerides and reduce inflammation and risk of heart disease.

I'm working on adding one meal of fish per week to my family's menu, and maybe working up to two meals a week. Tuna sandwiches and tuna in the pasta salad go over pretty well.

Eat foods that slow digestion
Like nuts, vinegar, and cinnamon, and high-fiber foods like lettuce, spinach, and broccoli. A nice big serving of green salad dressed with vinegar and a little olive oil can lower your after-meal blood sugar by 25% or more and help you to feel more full. And a very small serving of nuts gives you antioxidants and decreases after-meal oxidative damage.

So I've tried having a small handful of plain, unsalted almonds as an evening snack, as a substitute for a small snack of pretzels. I pack low-sugar fruit cups in the kids' lunches instead of pudding cups, and include a bundle of carrot sticks. I try to serve a green salad or (when I can get them) a fresh beet salad dressed in vinegar. I've also found the kids are less likely to make faces at cooked greens if I serve them with vinegar.

Eat a little lean protein
At each meal to keep your metabolism up. This includes egg whites, fish, game meat (and other very lean red meats), skinless poultry breast, and nonfat dairy protein. They can decrease after-meal inflammation and help with losing weight.

Does nonfat milk on the quick oats at breakfast count?

Eat modest-sized servings
So your body can handle the load. Foods that help you feel full will help. They authors recommend vinegar and high-fiber foods.

We actually bring measuring cups to the table to help with this.

Move
Get 30 minutes or more per day of moderate or stronger physical activity. Even light exercise, if you keep up with it daily, can help. 90 minutes of exercise within 2 hours before or after a meal can cut your after-meal blood sugar and triglycerides in half.

Here's where I could really help myself some more, although the rest of my family doesn't seem to have a lot of problem. I think I'm spending too much time looking for health information and writing about it, and need to spend more time weeding the garden.

Keep a Healthy Weight
Strive for a waist size less than half your height.

Foods that reduce inflammation include fish oil and other omega-3 fatty acid supplements (since they reduce blood triglycerides), deeply-colored fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and cinnamon.

I think I've been doing a pretty good job in the last couple of years improving my family's diet. In the next few months, I'm going to put some focus on continuing to improve our carbohydrates, since there's a big benefit there. And I'll continue exploring the anti-oxidants. I really like the idea of improving my health with cocoa and cinnamon.

J Am Coll Cardiol. 2008 Jan 22;51(3):249-55. Dietary strategies for improving post-prandial glucose, lipids, inflammation, and cardiovascular health. O'Keefe JH, Gheewala NM, O'Keefe JO. Summary or full article available from medscape.
Endocr Pract. 2008 Jan-Feb;14(1):112-24. Postprandial dysmetabolism: the missing link between diabetes and cardiovascular events?. Bell DS, O'Keefe JH, Jellinger P.

Last edited (corrected typos) 29 Oct 2008

Anti-Inflammatory Diet Good for the Heart

2008-06-13T11:30:00.003-04:00

An article featured in January's Journal of the American College of Cardiology says blood sugar spikes after a high-glycemic index meal causes a stress response, inflammation, raised triglycerides, blood thickening, and blood vessel tightening. This is called "postprandial dysmetabolism" and it isn't good for your heart. In fact, it's "predictor of future cardiovascular events". The authors of the paper suggest some dietary changes that will improve this situation right away. The PDF is available for download ($4.95) and a summary is available at Medscape.

Some of the highlights from the Medscape summary:

Eat high-fiber meals and whole grains; get some protein at each meal; avoid white flour
Avoid highly-processed foods and beverages containing sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour, or trans fats.
"Berries, dark chocolate, red wine, tea, and pomegranates" reduce inflammation after meals.
If you must eat a high-glycemic-index meal, seasoning it with "cinnamon slows gastric emptying and reduces [after-meal blood-sugar spikes]"
Eat nuts 5 times a week after meals
Season meals with vinegar to lower your blood sugar and feel more full.
While you are exercising, your blood sugar and triglycerides drop almost immediately.

The abstract also mentions fish oil, but the Medscape summary doesn't have anything more to say about it or omega-3 fatty acids...

J Am Coll Cardiol. 2008 Jan 22;51(3):249-55. Dietary strategies for improving post-prandial glucose, lipids, inflammation, and cardiovascular health. O'Keefe JH, Gheewala NM, O'Keefe JO. Summary or full article available from medscape.
Endocr Pract. 2008 Jan-Feb;14(1):112-24. Postprandial dysmetabolism: the missing link between diabetes and cardiovascular events?. Bell DS, O'Keefe JH, Jellinger P.

How Much Cocoa do the Kuna Drink?

2008-06-12T16:40:00.002-04:00

I finally came across a piece of information I've been looking for -- how much flavanoid do the Kuna get from their daily cocoa. Right in the abstract of a 2007 paper from NK Hollenberg (who has done a lot of cocoa research in conjunction with the MARS(TM) nutritional research team), it says that the Kuna living in the San Blas islands get more than 900 mg/day of flavonoids. So if cocoa flavanols really are the factor preventing hypertension, heart attacks, diabetes, and cancer in the San Blas, then the effective dose must be 900mg/day or less. That is potentially a lot of cocoa....

The researchers observed that Kuna populations living in the San Blas had strikingly lower incidence of death from heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes millitus than Kuna living on the Panama mainland.

Of course, cocoa consumption is not the only difference between the two Kuna populations and the information on their death certificates. The authors propose several other potential contributing factors:

Differential diagnosis -- medical care is not as good on the islands, so some cases of these diseases may have been missed on the islands furthest from hospitals and clinics
Stress is slightly lower in the islands
There might be other dietary differences besides cocoa between island and mainland Kuna
Island inhabitants may have a higher level of physical activity.
The air and water might be more polluted on the mainland, especially in and near the city.

How to eat more chocolate for your heart -- and how to drink cocoa black

Does Flavanol Intake Influence Mortality from Nitric Oxide-Dependent Processes? Ischemic Heart Disease, Stroke, Diabetes Mellitus, and Cancer in Panama. Vicente Bayard, Fermina Chamorro, Jorge Motta, and Norman K. Hollenberg. Int J Med Sci. 2007; 4(1): 53–58.

Any-bean hummus good for your heart

2008-06-10T21:06:00.004-04:00

Beans -- they're good for your heart. And they all make delicious hummus. Use Lima, kidney, or black beans to make hummus of many different colors and lots of soluble fiber for your heart. Even more soluble fiber than chickpeas.

Hummus makes a good dip for vegetables, and a great sandwich spread. Try a tablespoon or two in a whole wheat pita with some lettuce and tomato. I found a Black Bean hummus recipe in the bigoven archive. It features olive oil, high in mono-unsaturated fat. You could reduce the oil by half if you wished, and increase the lime juice to keep it moist...

Black Bean Hummus

Try this recipe with any kind of beans, canned or home-made in the pressure cooker.

Recipe By:
Serving Size: 8
Cuisine: Uncategorized
Main Ingredient: Beans
Categories: Vegetarian, Vegan, Summer, Boating, Appetizers

-= Ingredients =-
16 oz Black beans
1 tb Tahini
3 tb Olive oil
1 Lime juice
2 clove garlic
Salt & pepper ; to taste
1 ts Ground cumin

-= Instructions =-
In a food processor, combine all the ingredients & process till smooth. Cover & refrigerate till ready to use. Bring to room temperature before serving.
From Geminis MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

(Nutritional Analysis assumes beans cooked without salt, no additional salt added)
Serving: .27 cups (71g), Calories: 136: Fat: 6g : Sodium: 204mg
Protein: 6g, NetCarbs: 10, K: 227mg
SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 4g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 15g, Fiber: 5g, Sugars: 0g
Calories: 42.0% from fat, 29.4% from carbohydrates 04.4% from protein

DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.8: Fats: 1.1: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.8: Fats: 1.1: Sweets: 0.0

Does Chocolate Lower Blood Pressure?

2008-06-09T15:50:00.005-04:00

There has been so much attention paid lately to the effect of cocoa on blood pressure. These studies mostly seem to show a relationship between the consumption of cocoa flavanols and blood pressure. All except for one US study. Now, in a study with funding from Mars (maker of CocoaPro(TM) and CocoaVia(TM) products), researchers observed "blood pressure, heart rate, and glycemic control were unaffected", even at levels of 963mg of cocoa flavanol per day.

That would seem to be a disappointing result..., and you might wonder why the researchers would go to the trouble and expense to get it published. But actually, in this 10-subject "feasibility" study, the diabetic subjects experienced 30% improvement in Flow-Mediated Dialation. This means their arteries were more able to relax, according to a press release from Mars. And any improvement in blood vessel function is good news for diabetics, who are at high risk for heart attacks and strokes. And, according to a Science Daily Article, "blood vessel function went from severely impaired to normal." Which is an enormous improvement.

But why, since cocoa flavanols have been shown to cause blood vessels to relax, doesn't this study show improvements in blood pressure? And why have earlier studies (such as those I mentioned here) shown significant improvements in blood pressure? And why are the people of the autonomous Kuna comarcas of Panama apparantly immune to high blood pressure? Is it the 100% cacao beverage they drink all day long, or something else?

Is Cinnamon good for the heart?

2008-06-09T14:20:00.007-04:00

Cassia Cinnamon (the least expensive species of cinnamon sold in the US) like chocolate, is full of flavanols, which can lower blood pressure. In fact, Cassia has a lot of active compounds in it. Some are beneficial, while some are not. Some researchers have reported such dramatic results that you would certainly want to talk to your doctor before adding large quantities of cinnamon to your diet.

Water-soluble compounds: flavanols, proanthocyanidins and oxidized proanthocyanidins
- flavanols and proanthocyanidins found in cinnamon might lower blood pressure and improve circulation. (Or it might not)
- Proanthocyanidins, when mixed with water in a basic solution, will oxidize. Some of these oxidized proanthocyanidins might improve insulin sensitivity
- ~~methylhydroxychalcone polymer (MHCP)~~ one polyphenol compound, found in several cinnamon species, has stimulate insulin-like responses in living cell experiments.
- Some other water-soluble compounds could slow down the progression of alzheimer's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Alcohol-soluble compounds: estrogen-like compounds that might help prevent osteoporosis.
Oil-soluble compounds: coumarin and other essential oil componants

The big problem with cheap and tasty cassia cinnamon is... coumarin, a potent blood thinner, from which the prescription blood thinner Warfarin (known as Coumadin and by other brand names) was derived. In addition to thinning the blood, it can put a strain on the liver, even causing liver damage which is, fortunately, reversible. Coumarin has been used since the 1880's to give perfumes that "green" scent of new-mown hay, and it is found in other plants common around the world. Cassia Cinnamon contains 4% essential oil, of which 7% is coumarin. So it is .28% coumarin. If you eat 1 gram of cinnamon (1/4 teaspoon) of cassia a day, you would get 2.8mg of coumarin The German government recommends a tolerable daily input of no more than .1 mg Coumarin per kg bodyweight, so a person weighing 110 pounds (50 kg) could afford to eat 5mg Coumarin (1.78g of cassia) per day. It is probably a good idea to stay within this safe daily limit for powdered cinnamon.

Since coumarin is not soluble in water, scientist in the lab of leading cinnamon researcher Richard Anderson have made hot water extracts (tisanes) to leave the toxic coumarin behind. They used basic solutions to help dissolve ~~the compounds that help diabetics the most~~ MHCP. Then they found out a polyphenol is important for improving blood sugar. For lowering blood pressure, the flavanols and proanthocyanidins are most important. And these break down in a basic solution. So, for lowering blood pressure, plain hot water might be better. If you were to add 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon to 1 cup of hot water, and let it steep for a while before filtering through a coffee filter, you would get most of the polyphenols (these researchers, using grape powder, used a centrifuge to recover over 90% of polyphenols from their powdered sample; you'd probably get less through a coffee filter).

So -- is cinnamon good for your heart? The answer seems to be: yes and no. Up to 1/4 teaspoon daily of cassia cinnamon might be risk-free for most adults. It might or might not help bring down blood pressure and/or help improve cholesterol or diabetes. Larger amounts might be bad for you because of the coumarin. You might get the benefit of the flavanols by making tea from your cassia. Or you can use a water-extracted cinnamon extract, like those researchers did.

How to Eat More Chocolate for your heart

2008-06-08T22:00:00.002-04:00

"Eat more chocolate" sounds wonderful. But it's a bit vague. What kind? How much? When? With what? As the designated nutritional expert of the family, it's my job to figure this out.

I know how to eat chocolate. I know how to eat more chocolate. I know what happens if you eat an entire pound of chocolate the day after Valentine's day. And I know that the 100g (3.5 oz) candy bar used in the famous European cocoa studies contains 480 Calories (2008 kilojoules), mostly from sugar and cocoa fat. Not exactly what most of us need...

The Kuna people of the San Blas islands drink 5 8-oz cups a day of ground cacao boiled in water, which seems to make them immune to high blood pressure. But how much cacao? Nobody's saying. Maybe the answer is in this paper that I haven't paid to read because I'm not convinced it has what I'm looking for.

Three famous European studies used the Ritter Sport 100g Halbbitter bar, which contains 500mg of polyphenols. Younger hypertensives saw the most improvement on this diet -- an average of nearly 12 points systolic, 8 ½ points diastolic. Older hypertensives saw smaller improvements at the some dose. Other studies showed that less cocoa means less improvement. The one US study showed no improvement at a dose of 294mg per day. No clues why this study showed different results from all the others.

I figured 500mg of polyphenols seems like a good starting point. There are about 200mg of polyphenols in a half-ounce of 100% cacao (baking chocolate), and 74 calories (mostly from the cocoa butter). There are also about 200mg of polyphenols in a tablespoon of natural cocoa, and only about 12 to 20 calories, depending on the fat content of the cocoa.

Here are some ways to get more cocoa into your diet with out so much fat and sugar:

Stir a tablespoon of cocoa into boiling or near-boiling water. For a strong and bitter but muddy-looking drink, very different from Swiss Miss.
Substitute milk for some of the water (Recent studies suggest that milk does not affect the absorption of flavanols, though it might affect their metabolism).
Stir a tablespoon of cocoa into a bowl of oatmeal. The the carbohydrates may speed up flavanol absorption.
Or mix some cocoa with melted baking chocolate and a bit of honey to create a confection. The recipe below gives you 1/2 ounce cacoa and 1 1/2 tablespoons of cacao in every serving. Because it uses cocoa powder, it is not as creamy as chocolate, which is conched until very smooth (and lower in bitter flavanols).

Chocolate Cocoa Patties

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 4

-= Ingredients =-
1 oz Baking chocolate ; 100% cacao, unsweetened
4 teaspoon Honey
3 tablespoon Cocoa powder

-= Instructions =-
Gently warm baking chocolate until you can stir it. Stir in the cocoa and honey. Form into 4 balls or patties. Cool and eat one per day.

Serving: .1 cups (22g), Calories: 77: Fat: 5g : Sodium: 3mg
Protein: 2g, NetCarbs: 8, K: 186mg
SatFat: 3g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 2g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 12g, Fiber: 4g, Sugars: 6g
Calories: 57.0% from fat, 41.6% from carbohydrates 02.6% from protein

NFCS: 6.54g Cinnamon: 0.0g : Fats: 0.84: Sweets: 0.4
PA: 269.1 mg, 1-3 mers: 82.48 mg

The Right Chocolate for your heart

2008-06-04T10:30:00.005-04:00

Chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao tree. These seeds are rich in flavonoids (aka bioflavonoids), a class of antioxidant polyphenol. Along with some flavonols like quercetin, cacao seeds contain a lot of flavanols like catechin and short chains of flavanols called Proanthocyanidins (aka procyanidins).

Researchers soon concluded that cocoa flavanols (catechins and proanthocyanidins) are responsible for the Kuna peoples' apparant immunity to high blood pressure and began measuring the flavanol content of many foods. Cinnamon (8%), cocoa(.7%-5%), sorghum bran(4%), and grapeseed(3.5%) turn out to be the foods with the most flavanols, with baking chocolate(1.6%) not far behind. Dark (.2%) and milk (.1%) chocolate, with less than one tenth the flavanol content of cocoa, are a bit further down the list.

So it can matter which chocolate you choose.... Different varieties of cacao plant make beans with different amounts of flavanols. Cocoa flavanols are destroyed when the cacao beans are fermented, roasted, or processed with alkali (as in "dutched" cocoa), and when chocolate is "conched", or milled smooth. Some foods combined with cacao products might make it hard for you to absorb the flavanols. Natural cocoa powders contain 3-5% flavanol, while dutched cocoas are about 1% flavanol. Unsweetened (100% cacao) chocolates vary from about 1.9% to 2.5% flavanol, and are about 50% cocoa butter. Dark chocolates vary from about .85% to about 2.0% flavanols.

It is hard to know exactly what any off-the-shelf product contains, unless you happen to have access to some very expensive lab equipment and sophisticated software. Several chocolate companies supported studies to analyze their products via the American Cocoa Research Institute, but will not reveal which values belong to their products. Other companies, not part of the ACRI, may or may not have had their products analyzed, but are not supplying flavanol content information in any case. They may be trying to avoid making illegal health claims for their products.

I've contacted Hershey, Nestle, Baker's Chocolate, and Ghirardelli, asking if they can give minimum values for some products (natural cocoas and 100% cacao bars). The big companies simply chose to email me their answers to slightly different questions, while Ghirardelli told me plainly that they do not measure the flavanol content of their products. Mars promises a minimum of 200mg of flavonols per serving of its CocoaVia(TM) products, which contain proprietary high-flavanol CocoaPro(TM) process cocoa. Barry Callebaut has developed an ACTICOA(TM) process, which is said to preserve 70% of cocoa flavanols, but is not marketing any of its products directly to consumers.

Hollenberg et al. Cocoa, Flavanols and Cardiovascular Risk. Br J Cardiol 11(5):379-386, 2004
Liwei Gu et al. Concentrations of Proanthocyanidins in Common Foods and Estimations of Normal Consumption. J. Nutr. 134:613-617, March 2004

Gu, L et al. Procyanidin and catechin contents and antioxidant capacity of cocoa and chocolate products. J Agric Food Chem. 2006 May 31;54(11):4057-61.

Chocolate and Cinnamon are good for the heart

2008-06-02T15:40:00.002-04:00

Even a little bit of the right kind can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol. It works much better than tea. And a big piece of chocolate can improve your blood sugar, too. And cinnamon can improve your blood pressure and blood sugar. Cinnamon and cocoa seem to have fewer adverse side effects than prescription drugs.

In a recent Italian study, patients in their 30's reduced their high blood pressure an average of 11.9 points systolic and 8.9 points diastolic after eating a popular German candy bar for only two weeks. Several other chocolate studies are summarized here. And the Kuna people of the San Blas Islands of Panama seem to be immune to high blood pressure -- as long as they drink their cocoa.

With your doctor is monitoring you regularly, the best-case scenario would be a 10-point drop in systolic and 8-point drop in diastolic blood pressure in a couple weeks, putting a prehypertensive back into the normal range. Even a 5-point drop that showed up over a couple of months would be worth celebrating. The worst-case scenario is no change, in which case you've bought and enjoyed chocolate for several weeks, and are no worse off. Unless you have migraines or a chocolate allergy, there is very little risk.

You just need to choose the right chocolate.

1. Cocoa can cause allergic reactions or trigger migraines in some people. Children shouldn't eat too much cocoa or chocolate. Chocolate and cocoa might cause decreased bone density in older women. Or not.
2. Cinnamon rarely causes an allergic skin reaction. Cinnamon can thin the blood and might have an estrogenic effect.

Diabetes, Carbohydrates, Protein, and Fat

2008-05-30T17:15:00.003-04:00

If you wanted to lower your blood sugar and insulin, what would you do? Eat less sugar and starch? Sounds logical. That would mean you'd be getting more of your calories from protein and fat, since you wouldn't be getting as many of them from carbohydrates.

The interesting thing is that "Fish, beef, chicken, and eggs had larger insulin responses per gram than did many of the foods consisting predominantly of carbohydrate."¹. I was surprised when I read about this in the FanaticCook blog, written by an actual nutritionist. In later posts, she dug up more references to studies done on how eating fat affects insulin levels. Turns out, a high-carbohydrate diet was better for insulin levels than a high-fat diet.² And, as the FanaticCook pointed out, a low-fat vegan diet was better than the AHA-recommended diet for the blood glucose and blood lipids in a 100-patient study.³

The Atkins diet has also been shown to improve blood glucose compared to the average American diet. But studies indicate that the "good carb" diet might do an even better job.² It would be interesting to see the comparison in a long-term study.

1. An insulin index of foods:the insulin demand generated by 1000-kJ portions of common foods. Holt, et al. Am J Clin Nutr 1997;66:1264-76
2. Effects of isoenergetic high-carbohydrate compared with high-fat diets on human cholesterol synthesis and expression of key regulatory genes of cholesterol metabolism. Vidon et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 73, No. 5, 878-884, May 2001; High saturated fat and low starch and fibre are associated with hyperinsulinaemia in a non-diabetic population: the San Luis Valley Diabetes Study. Marshall et al. Diabetologia. 1997 Apr;40(4):430-8; Dietary Fat and Meat Intake in Relation to Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men. van Dam et al. Diabetes Care 25:417-424, 2002
3. A Low-Fat Vegan Diet Improves Glycemic Control and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in a Randomized Clinical Trial in Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes. Barnard et al. Diabetes Care 29:1777-1783, 2006

No-knead Bread Fifth Attempt -- qualified success

2008-05-13T12:35:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday, following my Fourth Attempt, which I'll call a qualified success (it had considerable sourdoughy character but was as heavy as a rock), I saved a 2-oz lump of the dough to try again. Based on my experience and that of others, I decided my dough was simply overproofed and overhandled. I'm a bit rough on the dough, and I don't think these slack doughs take particularly well to that. So I decided to make a less wet dough. I started with:

2 oz leftover from the fourth attempt
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour

and let it sit until it was bubbly, after which I added

3/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup King Arthur Bread Flour
1 1/4 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour

That's a total of 4 cups flour and 1 1/2 cups water, for a dough that was still quite slack but not nearly as wet as the no-kneads I have made so far. A bit later, I realized I had forgotten the salt..., so I added

1 teaspoon salt

And I had to knead that in. I did the kneading with a silicon spatula in the tupperware "rising bowl".

I IMMEDIATELY put the dough in a sealed tupperware in the refrigerator and ignored it until Sunday evening. By the time I had time to think about it, it was 8pm. The dough looked somewhat risen and bubbly, with a slightly leather skin. When I tipped it, it slid a little, displaying the strings in all of its bubbles. I used a tea towel in a bowl as a bread form, gently pulled the leather top skin of the dough all the way around the ball of dough, and formed a kind of seam at the bottom, which I gently nestled in the oat-strewn, tea towel-lined bottom of my bread form bowl, and covered it with a damp tea towel. By 10:30, the ball had risen, though it hadn't quite doubled. But I had to bake this thing so I could get to bed. Following Jim Lahey's advice, I dumped the thing into the preheated casserole (500F), seam side up, covered the casserole, baked, covered for 20 minutes, then uncovered and baked for 30 minutes more at 425F. I used a thermometer to tell me when the center was 205F, at which time I took it out and went to bed. I didn't stay around to listen to it crackling. And I didn't take any pictures.

This loaf was a success. In the oven it rose up in the casserole, pulled away from the sides, and developed a nice rustic crust. Monday morning, I used it for sandwiches. It had a nice sourdough flavor and a crunchy, chewy crust. I thought the interior was a little on the damp side, though the crust had gone slightly past medium brown.

I recrisped the bread in a 350F oven for 15 minutes to serve with soup Monday night, after which it was pretty much gone. Monday night, I made a loaf of my standby bread with buttermilk for the rest of the week.

What went well:

The slightly drier dough was easier to handle and harder to deflate
The cold, stiff dough was also less delicate than a warmer, softer dough
I saved a piece of the fragrant but over-proofed dough for its sourdough organisms.
I did all of the first rising in the refrigerator
I didn't try to make fiddly little rolls out of it

What I want to do differently next time

Add the salt before the final addition of flour
Allow more time for the dough to warm up so it can rise before baking
Remember to turn the oven down to 425 as soon as the bread goes in

Did you notice the part where I saved 2 oz of dough to start the next batch? Neither did I. So I started over, substituting a spoonful of plain yogurt for part of 3/4 cup of water, and a couple spoonfuls of rye flour for part of 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour, and adding just a pinch of yeast. After that began to bubble, I added 3/4 cup each of water and flour and put the starter in the fridge to fool with later. Next time, I might feel bold enough to try rolls again

No-Knead Bread Fourth Attempt: PostScript

2008-05-09T09:15:00.000-04:00

No-knead, no-rise bread

I finally baked this bread after a 7-hour rise. If you can call it a rise when the dough just sort of spreads sideways, wets its tea towel, and produces just one blistery bubble under the crust. And no oven spring. See those slash marks? No expansion at all. My verdict is: over-proofed and overworked.

When I started the dough Tuesday a week ago, with only 1 teaspoon of yeast to 6 1/2 cups of flour, fermentation took off like a shot. I should have put that thing right in the refrigerator instead of letting it sit out on the counter for so long. Only 3 days later, the yeast did not have the strength to raise the rolls I made from half of the dough. I figured it was just a case of over handling while I formed the rolls, and not having the time to wait for them to rise.

When I pulled the dough out of the refrigerator yesterday, though, the yeast had had it. The dough had started to separate, and had produced a watery goo at the bottom. I ignored the warning signs, however, and pressed ahead, remixing the dough and pressing out any remaining gas in the process. Which is what lead up to the seven-hour non-rise. Or was it nine hours? I don't recall.

So I saved 2 ounces of that dough, which had a very sour-doughy aroma, mixed it with 3/4 cup each of flour and water and let it sit until it was bubbly. Then I added the rest of my ingredients and I'm going to try it again. Only this time, I forgot the salt. I'll figure it out, and let the dough sit in my refrigerator until Monday at the earliest. Tune in next week for my fifth attempt at "so simple a 4-year old could do it" no-knead bread.

No-knead Bread Fourth Attempt

2008-05-08T15:53:00.001-04:00

I had been burping a Tupperware bowl in my refrigerator for the last 10 days. It's the dough left over from my previous attempt. After considering the advice of an anonymous commenter, I figured I'd minimize handling the dough this time, making a longish loaf instead of rolls. I opened the bowl, noting an appetizingly sourdough-ish aroma, and prepared to quickly and gently get it into a makeshift couche. But I could see that the dough had separated. Even though I'd kept it in a sealed Tupperware, the top was dried and leathery. Below that was a dough-like dough. At the bottom was a gooey batter. ...

I folded and kneaded the sticky mass in the bowl until it seemed homogeneous. So much for gentle handling. I quickly formed two loaves, putting one in a makeshift couche and the other on a teatowel on the counter. I covered them and left them to rise. Here's the one on the counter.


Before the Rise	After a 4-hour rise

As far as I can tell, the loaf has spread a bit in the middle, swallowed the oats, and wet the teatowel. I know the yeast is not completely dead -- the 2-ounce scrap of dough I saved to start my next batch is making the Tupperware lid bow up. At one time, the yeast was strong and active. That dough once bubbled up and tried to rise out of the bowl. Now, the yeast is feeble. And I squashed all the gas out of the dough just mixing it back together. Should I let it go another couple hours and hope, or put it out of my misery now?

No-Knead Bread Third Attempt

2008-05-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

This time, I decided to try the "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes". The dough is not as wet, so it should be easier to handle. And I wanted to try their approach to creating a more sour dough. After all, it was lacto-fermentation that got me interested in the no-knead breads. What I really wanted was crusty sandwich rolls. And, since my last attempt at sandwich rolls was not exactly what I wanted (extra-dense mini-rolls), I decided to try a different recipe.

So, based on the Artisan Bread In 5 minutes recipe, I tried this:
3 cups lukewarm water
1 teaspoon granulated yeast
2 teaspoons table salt
4 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour

I mixed the ingredients on a Tuesday morning, let the dough sit out all day in a loosely-covered Tupperware bowl, then refrigerated until Friday morning, when I let it warm up a bit.

Then I removed about half, which I then cut into 12 pieces, each just under 2.5 oz, and formed into little 5" loaves on a cornmeal-strewn cookie sheet that I intended to use as a peel, and let them rise for 2 hours.

Only, then didn't turn out looking much like the little loaves I expected. Instead of rising up, they spread out. They looked more like coccodrillo loaves. Only flatter. And, when it came time to slide them off the peel onto the baking stone, they wouldn't slide at all. So I put the entire cookie sheet on top of the baking stone, poured hot water in the brownie pan in the bottom of the oven, and baked them for 15 or 20 minutes, during which time they did not spring up....

They were even more stuck to the cookie sheet afterwards than they had been before. It was quite a job getting them off the cookie sheet. They did not crackle as they cooled. They were on the menu Saturday, when they disappeared quickly, as 2 rolls were required for every sandwich . That's 5 ounces of bread for every sandwich. Which is almost my entire RDA of grain, so it seems a bit inconvenient to eat it all in one meal. Especially after I've already eaten 2 slices of bread for breakfast.

Why don't my no-knead breads rise enough? Here are several possible reasons:

Not enough gluten in my flour mixture -- Unlikely. I use 2/3 King Arthur White Whole Wheat (13.2% protein) and 1/3 King Arthur bread flour (12.8%)
Gluten not well-enough developed. That goopy dough gets very stringy when I tip it. Doesn't that mean the gluten developed?
The slack dough is too soft and fragile. Sounds likely
I drive all the gas out while forming the loaf -- likely
The yeast has used up its food source and doesn't give me much during the final rise
The oven is too hot, preventing a good oven spring -- likely

I started with this comment from Alecto, who has taken to adding wheat gluten to Jim Lahy's no-knead recipe. But I wasn't paying attention. I read some comments at the Chocolate and Zucchini posting on no-knead bread, followed on to another discussion at chowhound, and looked up a lot of facts by searching for dough conditioners, rise, and oven spring. I found out:

People have widely-varying ideas of how heavy to make a cup of flour and
Some bakers like to use a dough enhancer like ascorbic acid
Too little kneading gives a weak and sticky dough, while overworking gives a strong but inelastic dough (Dough and Bread Conditioners); ascorbic acid causes oxidation, leading to more disulfide bonds between gluten molecules (Chemistry and Technology of Cereals )
Prevent sourdough from rising horizontally by kneading more, adding more flour, or adding ascorbic acid (baking911 bread problems)
lauralmay's blog pointed me to a "clarified" recipe for the Jim Lahey bread, in which the water weighs about 80% what the flour weighs, instead of the nearly 95% I had figured. That means that Jim Lahey's one cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 140g, not the 125g given in the USDA database
I figured out that I make a cup of flour a pretty consistent 5.3 oz -- 150g. So my really loose dough must be firmer than Jim Lahey intended.

I have a hard time beleiving I am using TOO MUCH flour. I can believe that I am not stirring enough to start the glutens developing.

Here's my plan for the next loaf (to be baked from the "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes" dough in my fridge)

Allow the dough to warm up before shaping it
Shape very gently
Try a loaf or boule, not rolls (too much handling!)
Bake at 425F
Slash the loaf

I haven't decided whether I'll bake in a casserole, on the stone, or in a bread pan in a large casserole.

No-Knead Bread Second Attempt

2008-04-29T13:30:00.005-04:00

Immediately after my first attempt at no-knead bread (in which I was somewhat disappointed), I decided to try again. Again, I started with Jim Lahey's recipe (1 1/2 cups of water, as recommended in the video). I used two cups of wheat flour and one cup of bread flour, and left out the yogurt this time. I didn't add any flour.

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups water

I made up the dough at 10 on Thursday morning, stirring it up until it was well-blended. Because of several interruptions, I am pretty sure I accidentally added the salt twice. But it's really hard to pick it all out again, and doesn't it seem wasteful to throw out all that dough and start over? It seemed a little moister then last time -- just a little too moist to be "shaggy". But I left it on the counter (I could not resist giving it a sort of kneading stir-down a couple of times) until bed time, then put it in the fridge...

At 7 on Friday morning, I pulled the dough out of the fridge. At 9 AM, I cut it into 12 pieces, formed each into a little round oat-studded sandwich-roll and set to rise on a tea-towel well-strewn with rolled oats, and covered them all with another tea towel. Most of the rolls weighed about 2.3 ounces, about the same as Amoroso's sandwich rolls. An hour and a half later, I preheated the bread stone to 500F. At 11, I lowered the oven temperature to 450 and lifted the tea towel. There were my rolls. They hadn't risen much. Maybe they would spring up in the oven? In any case, I didn't have time to mess around because I needed to get them in and out of the oven so I could get to the bus-stop at noon and continue packing for a weekend trip. So I popped the rolls onto the stone, poured some nearly-boiling water into the brownie pan on the shelf below, and baked those rolls for 20 minutes.

They were lovely little things, but really too small for a sandwich. If I hadn't been packing so frantically while also trying to eliminate ants, I would have photographed them for you. Apparently, they were quite popular -- there wasn't even one stale one left for pictures by the end of the weekend, even though had rushed out to buy a bag of Padinha sandwich rolls. Strangely, some family members chose them over another slice of home-made raisin bread. And my daughter actually made sandwiches on them, folding the ham and cheese slices over and over until they fit the tiny rolls.

Here are the problems I had with these rolls:

Last rise failed and no oven spring
Didn't have the crackly crust

Here's what went better than last time:

More flavorful (I probably doubled the salt!)
Uniform texture
Crust did not seem too tough for the roll.

Where did I go wrong? Did I overhandle the very wet dough, deflating the bubbles beyond what it was able to recover in the 2-hour rise?

So I am going to try another no-knead loaf. This time I will try one "Artisan Breads in 5 minutes" style, at least as far as the flour/water ratio goes. And I want to try the longer-term refrigerator storage. I don't want to double the salt for flavor. And I don't want a soupy dough or a wet loaf. I'll start with the recipe posted in the NY Times and wing it, using my usual 2/3 whole wheat to 1/3 bread flour blend. I made my usual sandwich loaf last night. This will make sandwiches for my family through Friday, so I'll be making bread Friday morning with a dough that's had a long, slow fermentation in the refrigerator. And I'll be wondering how, with every blogger in the US advertising it, the NY Times is suffering such financial hard times.

Edited on 5 May 2008 to correct spelling of Padinha

No-Knead Bread First attempt

2008-04-24T17:00:00.003-04:00

I'm only about 18 months late on this hot trend. I was completely aware of the hoopla about no-knead bread. First, it was Mark Bittman's NY Times article on Jim Lahey's no-knead bread from a Manhattan bakery. The food-blogosphere fairly exploded with no-knead covereage and home bakers in record numbers began destroying the knobs on their Le Creuset Dutch Ovens. Then, a year later, another NY Times article reviewed Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and the same bloggers said this bread was even easier.

Even one of my favorite food bloggers wrote about the joys of no-knead bread. But I was unmoved. All this time, I have had my own, reliable, slow-rise bread recipe. I've been making my bread machine knead the dough in the evening and rise all night until finally baking it early in the morning, finishing just in time to wake me to the smell of fresh-baked bread, ready to slice for sandwich. And I knew that making no-knead bread from a slack dough was not new. Some cooks even insist on kneading slack doughs. But I digress....

What really got me interested in making no-knead bread from a slack dough was a FoodontheFood entry on making sauerkraut at home. I'm not kidding. A discussion of lacto-fermentation ensued, and it got me to thinking about how those pictures of no-knead bread boules look like a really nice sourdough. And I really love sourdough. And I like the shatteringly flakey crust you get on a nice Parisian baguette. Or the flakey crust on a loaf from Sarcone's in Philadelphia. Or the chewy crust on the semi-sourdough loaf I get from Big Sky Bread Company at the West Chester Grower's
So I finally started my own no-knead loaf. I started with Jim Lahey's recipe from Mark Bittman's column. I made up the dough the night before last, substituting a tablespoon of plain yogurt for a tablespoon of water. For lacto-fermentation, of course. I thought the dough was soupy, rather than shaggy, so I added a bit more flour. I let the dough rise overnight, put it in the refrigerator in the morning, took it out again at dinner time and did the 15-second fold over. I baked the bread in a Corning ware casserole (30 minutes covered, 25 minutes uncovered) at 500F until its internal temperature was 205F -- I'm not much good at judging loaves by thumping.

The dough started out shaggy, then bubbly and stringy. Rolled oats kept it from sticking to the tea-towel during its final 2-hour rise. That worked well, but the tea towel really got damp. I plopped the bread into the preheated casserole. The loaf came out beautiful. And it crackled as it cooled, just like a bowl of Rice Crispies. Very exciting.

I cut a slice and it was beautiful -- all full of big holes. The crust was crunchy and crumbly. But not flaky -- it was kind of hard. And, when I got to the center of the loaf, I could see that the holes were much smaller. When I poked at it, the interior was harder, like it had a backbone. It was really moist, too. Not custardy or like a good, moist popover. Moister and tougher at the same time, which didn't seem like a good good.

And the loaf did not seem as tasty as my usual overnight bread machine loaf, which has olive oil and honey to liven it up. The tablespoon-full of yogurt definitely did not do anything for the loaf. Now I can see, among all the raves, some criticisms, adjustments, and rejiggerings of the no-knead recipes. I've even seen as assertion that Peter Reinhart's recipe for pain à l'ancienne is much tastier. Since it has exactly the same ingredients in similar proportions, I don't know why. But I would like to find out.

Here are the problems I had with this boule

Too moist
Hard, dense interior
Not very flavorful
Crust hard and brittle, not flakey and brittle

I think the first thing I need to do is lower the baking temperature. Maybe the outside of the loaf gets cooked before the interior has a chance to spring up in the oven. Probably making baguettes or rolls would have less of a problem. So now I am working on batch number two, which I will make into sandwich rolls. It is fermenting away on my counter right now. No yogurt this time., The dough seems just a tad moister than "shaggy". I'll see how it turns out.

Baked cod with garlic ginger oil

2008-04-04T20:00:00.002-04:00

Last night for dinner, I made a bunch of dishes "match", like they really belonged together in the same meal. Even though they were really just a bunch of things I pulled out because I decided they needed to be eaten.

1 pound of mahimahi fillets
1 spaghetti squash
1 pound of fresh broccoli
Leftover rice
A green salad

I started with an idea approximately like this recipe for baked fish, but didn't really feel like using jerk- or Cajun- style seasonings again. I knew the kids insist fish is only good with ponzu sauce, and that spaghetti squash always seems to come out too watery and crisp or else overcooked and mushy. I had a moment of discouragement and panicked. Some part of me reached about 20 years back, to a time when my only seasonings were powdered garlic, powdered ginger, and soy sauce. Since then, though, I've learned a few things....

You can finish baked spaghetti squash in a pan to drive out extra water and control how much it cooks. Lemon juice is really good on fish. Ponzu sauce has citrus and sweetness in it. You need oil to finish baked spaghetti squash in a skillet. You can use the same oil to dress the baked fish, and broccoli tastes good with a little bit of oil, too.

So I came to my senses and did something like this:

Split a spaghetti squash in half the long way, forced the halves, face-down, into a pretty baking dish with 1/4 cup of water, covered it, and microwaved for 10 minutes
Heated a large skillet, then added 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 huge clove of garlic (minced), and a small knob of fresh garlic (minced), left it cooking slowly over low heat for about 10 minutes, and then turned off the heat.
Cut up the broccoli crowns, put them in the steamer basket over water in the saucepan, ready to go.
Took the hot squash out of the microwave and dried the baking dish
Put the fish fillets in the same baking dish (this was my second-cleverest idea all evening), squirted them with lemon juice, spooned a tablespoon or less of the garlic-ginger oil on them, and sprinkled them with sugar and just a tiny bit of low-Sodium soy sauce.
Spooned a little bit of oil into a very small bowl, to save it for the broccoli
Scraped the spaghetti squash into the skillet with the rest of the seasoned oil, and gave it a good stir to break it up into strands and mix the oil around a bit.
Then I waited until twenty 'till dinner time and preheated the oven to 350°F
At quarter 'till dinner time, I put the baking dish in the oven.
At ten 'till, I turned on the heat under the broccoli (high) and the squash (medium). While the broccoli steamed, I stirred the squash strands as gently as I could with a pair of tongs to finish them cooking evenly, drive off the excess water, and make sure the flavor was evenly distributed. Then I turned off the heat and put the lid on the squash.
At 5 'till, I pulled leftover rice out of the refrigerator, and popped it into the microwave for 3 minutes.
At 3 'till, I took the broccoli out of the steamer and dressed it with the reserved oil and just a drop of soy sauce.
At dinner time I pulled the baking pan out of the oven and set it on a trivet on the table.
I added a tiny sprinkle of soy sauce to the squash and brought everything else to the table.

If that sounds too good to be true, it's the "something like" talking. Actually, I had already dressed the fish with powdered garlic and ginger before I realized flavored oil would be better and just as easy. The waiting in steps 8 and 9 was not as relaxing as you might think, as I spent the time shouting at the kids to clear and set the table instead of playing with the accumulated toys, newspapers, and junk mail. I didn't actually do step 6. Instead, I scraped the squash into a large bowl and left the oil in the skillet until the broccoli was ready. I had thought I might serve the squash in the bowl, but the bowl was cold by serving time and I served the squash in the skillet. It's a nice-looking skillet. Sometime during step 10, I checked the fish, panicked, and turned the oven up to 400°F. I didn't make the rice myself -- my husband had made it to go with his Red Stripe chili the night before. And did you notice the salad was MIA? I discovered a lettuce shortage during step 8. But it's the thought that counts. I chopped up extra broccoli.

Fish baked this way is just about foolproof (why did I panic?), and looks smashing on a bed of spaghetti squash. The kids didn't even complain about it (much). The spaghetti squash was seconds-worthy, the broccoli was just as good as always and maybe a little better. The rice was as good as it had been the night before, and nobody asked about the salad. This was a successful 50-minute weeknight meal. If I had known what I was doing, I probably could have done it more quickly, but I still would have had to allow time for the fish to thaw.

Baked Fish Dinner with Garlic Ginger Oil

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 4
Cuisine:
Main Ingredient:

-= Ingredients =-
3/4 pound raw fish fillets
1 teaspoon Lemon juice
2 tablespoon Olive oil
1 clove garlic
1/4 oz Fresh ginger
1/2 pound Spaghetti Squash
2 cups Broccoli florets
4 cups Romaine
1 tablespoon Low-sodium soy sauce
2 cups Cooked brown rice

Serving: 3 oz fish, 1/2 cup each broccoli, spaghetti squash, and rice, 1 cup romaine (346g), Calories: 279: Fat: 8g : Sodium: 208mg
Protein: 20g, NetCarbs: 28, K: 754mg
SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 5g, Chol: 37mg
TotCarbs: 31g, Fiber: 3g, Sugars: 1g
Calories: 28.0% from fat, 44.4% from carbohydrates 07.2% from protein

DASH: Vegetables: 3.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 1.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 1.5: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.5: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 1.5: Sweets: 0.0

Edited on 7 April 2008 to correct errors in nutritional information and to add the rice, which I had left out of the original posting.

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Caribbean Flavor: Jamaican-Style Jerk Ribs

2008-04-04T14:45:00.003-04:00

We were planning to have a few people over (11 or 14) to make some summer plans, it was March, and everyone was tired of winter. So something warm and cheery was in order. My husband wanted ribs. So I immediately thought of a Caribbean-inspired menu. Just as soon as I had stumbled across the Caribbean Getaway Menu on the Wegmans website. It was only a starting point. I made ribs instead of a roast, forgot about shrimp, decided on a straightforward Cuban black bean soup, made up my own recipe for greens, cut the desserts down to one, and decided on a blend of tropical fruit juices (with or without rum) instead of the Mojito.

I've done dry-rubbed pork loin short ribs before. They really take up the flavor of the rub well, so I made up a jerk-style dry rub based on several recipes I've read. We were lucky enough to get 90 minutes of good weather that day. The aroma and flavor were really wonderful. I made sure to have tangy barbecue sauce available, but I enjoyed the ribs just as they came off the grill, with mango rice and a side of greens. ...

Jamaican-Style Pork Spareribs

-= Ingredients =-
~~ Jerk Seasoning (see recipe) ~~
2 lb Pork spareribs

-= Instructions =-
Rub Jerk Seasoning onto all surfaces of ribs. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Place ribs in center of cooking grate. Grill (indirect, medium heat) 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until tender.

Cut ribs into 2 or 3-rib portions. Serve with warmed sauce.

Nutritional Information (not including rub or barbecue sauce):
Serving Size: 1/3 of rack ( 157g): Calories: 454: Fat(g): 32 (69%of Cals): Sodium (g): 117
Protein: 26g, NetCarbs: 4, K: 432mg
SatFat: 14g, PolyFat: 3g, MonoFat: 15g, Chol: 118mg
TotCarbs: 5g, Fiber: 1g, Sugars: 3g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 1.2: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 3.7: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

Jerk Rub for Jamaican Style Pork Spare Ribs

-= Ingredients =-
2 tablespoon Onion powder
1 tablespoon Sugar
1 tablespoon dried thyme
2 teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 teaspoon Allspice
1/2 teaspoon Ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon Cayenne

-= Instructions =-
In a small jar with tight-fitting lid, shake together all dry ingredients until well-blended. Rub dry mixture onto all surfaces of ribs. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Serving: 1 tsp (3g), Calories: 8: Fat: 0g (13% of Cals): Sodium: 278mg
Protein: 0g, NetCarbs: 2, K: 15mg
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 0g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 2g, Fiber: 0g, Sugars: 1g

Caribbean Flavor

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Caribbean Flavor: Coconutty Fruit Salad

2008-04-03T14:27:00.002-04:00

The sweetened, flaked coconut makes this fruit salad sweet enough for a light dessert, and is welcome after a filling meal of soup, rice, greens, a nice salad, and Jamaican-style Jerk Ribs, corn muffins, and appetizers.

Coconutty Fruit Salad

-= Ingredients =-
3/5 cup Sweetened Flaked coconut
1/3 pound mango
1/3 pound Pineapple
1/3 pound Papaya
3/10 Lime juice

-= Instructions =-
Toast coconut in dry pan on medium flame, about 10 minutes. Stir frequently, and watch carefully.
Combine fruits and lime juice with coconut in bowl. Garnish with mint leaves, if desired.

Serving Size: 1/2 cups( 86g): Calories: 75: Fat(g): 2 (31%of Cals): Sodium (g): 20
Protein: 1g, NetCarbs: 12, K: 159mg
SatFat: 2g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 0g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 14g, Fiber: 2g, Sugars: 11g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 1.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.3: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.2
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.5: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.3: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.2

Caribbean Flavor

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Caribbean Flavor: Mango Rice

2008-04-02T17:13:00.005-04:00

In a menu that's full of Caribbean flavor, plain rice just seems so plain. It doesn't take much to boost the flavor, though. In a pinch, you can skip the whole "broil the scallions" step.

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Mango Rice

Recipe By:
Serving Size: 8
Cuisine: Caribbean
Main Ingredient: Rice
Categories: Vegan, Steam, Side Dish

-= Ingredients =-
1 1/3 cup Long grain rice ; jasmine or doongara
1/2 tablespoon Vegetable oil ; or butter
3 medium Scallion
1 medium mango ; 1" dice
1/2 Lime juice

-= Instructions =-
Prepare rice according to package directions.

Toss green onions with olive oil; broil 4-5 minutes and slice into narrow rings.

Fluff rice in large bowl; toss with onions, mango, and Lime juice

Serving Size: .6 cup (132g) Calories: 297: Fat(g): 5 (16%of Cals): Sodium (g): 7
Protein: 3g, NetCarbs: 27, K: 127mg
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 1g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 29g, Fiber: 2g, Sugars: 4g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.25: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.2: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.1: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.2: Sweets: 0.0

** This recipe can be pasted into BigOven without retyping. **
** Easy recipe software. Try it free at: http://www.bigoven.com **

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Food Safety: Cutting out Cantaloupe Cross Contamination

2008-03-31T23:59:00.001-04:00

Here's the thing: I don't wash much produce. Not Bananas, oranges, apples, winter squash, zucchini, green peppers, or green beans. Not even broccoli or cantaloupe. Unless it seems dirty. I always wash leeks, lettuce, spinach, kale, collards because they always have silt or sand in them. I generally wash potatoes, carrots, and beets, because they grow underground and "might" be dirty. I don't wash waxed rutabagas before I peel them. I really don't obsess about whether food I am just about to cook might have a few invisible germs on it.

And my family is fine.

All the recent talk about how difficult it actually is to rinse, soak, wash, bleach, or scrub the germs off the surface of a cantaloupe got me wondering. The discussions at Fanatic Cook raise a lot of valid points about how hard it is to make sure you've gotten rid of something you can't even see. So I found this video from the International Food Safety Network refreshing. Instead of instruction in eliminating the invisible, it counsels cutting down on cross contamination. At six minutes, it seems a little long. So I'll summarize:

It is really hard to scrub the germs off a cantaloupe.

You might splash wash-water all over the place.

Instead, cut down contact between the outside and the inside

Cut the (unwashed) cantaloupe into quarters. You won't spread many bacteria to the flesh.

Now use a clean knife to separate the flesh from the rind.

Slide that flesh onto a clean cutting board. Wash your hands before you handle the flesh further.

Refrigerate the cut cantaloupe immediately.

Of course I routinely wash my hands before cooking, even thought they don't look dirty. But, for some reason, I just can't see doing the same with the produce, and this approach makes more sense to me.

Food Safety: Familiarity Breeds Fear

2008-03-28T14:00:00.002-04:00

In the US, we now keep track of more information about our food supply than we ever did before. Even eggs now have individual tracking codes. Bacteria can get their DNA fingerprints checked. This makes it possible to say that 50 gastroenteritis patients all carry the same strain of Salmonella, and all ate cantaloupes from a single farm in Honduras.

Lately, we hear more and more stories like this. We seem to hear more and more stories about how some food or food product is making people sick, and wonder: Is this a new threat to our food supply? I don't think so. But, then, I don't really know. I went looking for summaries of cases food-related illness, hoping to see some per-capita trends. But it wasn't that simple. Because it is really tough to get a handle on how many people are getting sick. Many of them don't go to the doctor. Many doctors don't take samples to be cultured. How many? Who can tell? Maybe the rate of "underreporting" as it is called is changing. How much? Who can tell? How many of these illnesses are caused by food we buy in the supermarkets? That's hard to tell, too. It is clear, though, that things are changing. Supermarkets, warehousers, shippers, packers, and farmers are all required to keep more comprehensive and elaborate records than they've ever kept before, and the CDC is working hard to get doctors to check more carefully for evidence of foodborne illnesses.

Just exactly how did the FDA link 50 cases of Salmonella in 16 states with cantaloupes from a single farm in Honduras?

"The CDC monitors the frequency of Salmonella ... and assists ... Health Departments".¹ The CDC had to recognize 50 or more Salmonella patients (0.000017% of the US population) as a significant increase in frequency, quite separate from gastroenteritis patients with E. Coli, Giardia, virus or other infections, or no infections at all. For each of those 50 or more patients, there was a physical examination, stool sample collection and culture, and an expensive DNA test to determine how many had the same strain of Salmonella. According to the CDC, the FDA collaborated with the CDC and state health officials to ask a lot of questions about everything the infected people had eaten recently. And compare that to everything a bunch of uninfected people had eaten recently. They would have had to consider all the eggs, milk, poultry, beef, and produce the patients had eaten, as well as any pet turtles or other domesticated or wild animals or animal poop they may have come in contact with. They needed to figure out if the infections came from restaurants or if the foods came from grocery stores. They studied data collected between January 18 and March 5, and concluded that "cantaloupe is the likely source of infections".²

At some point, the FDA started a "traceback investigation" in which they needed to figure out where every bite of cantaloupe had come from, and figure out how it had gotten there, long after the food itself was gone. They needed to figure out if the infections had come from restaurants or supermarkets, from delivery trucks, food warehouses, ships, or trains, a packing house, or a farm. There must have been a team assigned to build and use a database of information from infected and uninfected people, grocers and warehouses and shippers, following all the paths the cantaloupes might have followed. Eventually, they eliminated all other leads, reported that "[p]reliminary results ... indicate that cantaloupes consumed by ill persons were grown in Honduras,² and issued a statement that they all came from one farm.³

I can only guess about all the steps involved. Can you imagine the number of man-hours involved in this investigation? The medical and lab supplies used? Computer power required to build a database of every food the patients ate? Resources used by grocers, truckers, warehouse operators, and other shippers to maintain the records that made it possible to traceback all that food and determine that the only thing those 50 patients had in common was the farm their cantaloupes were grown on?

This kind of investigation simply was not possible even ten years ago. The pieces have only fallen into place recently -- you can see the evidence in the farmer's name on every piece of fruit, and the tracking code on every egg.

Ten or fifteen years ago, this outbreak might not have been recognized. Fifty cases out of 300 million is only 0.000017% of the US population. The CDC might not have been able to connect 2 cases of gastroenteritis in one state to 2 cases of Salmonellosis in another. And no-one could have traced individual pieces of produce back to the farm they grew on in another country. The records simply were not there. But now they are. Since it was established in 1996, FoodNet (a collaborative effort by the CDC, FDA, USDA and state health departments) has expanded to include 15% of the US population in 10 states.⁴

So expect more bad news about produce, simply because the news is available. FoodNet reports make clear that the incidence of laboratory-confirmed infections by commonly-foodborne pathogens has increased in the past couple of years after a few years of decreases. But FoodNet does not make it clear how much of this increase is due to an increase in reporting. Their 1999 discussion of assumptions made in surveillance of foodborne illness makes it clear that they don't have a handle on just how accurate these assumptions are.⁵But it is clear that as we become more and more familiar with stories of foodborne illnes, we are growing more and more fearful of our food supply.

And I still can't tell: Are things getting worse, or are we just better informed! As long as foodborne illness underreporting rates keep changing, it is going to be difficult to talk about the true rate of change in foodborne illnesses in this country. The CDC publishes weekly tables of the incidence of notifiable diseases in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. That's a lot of data! I certainly can't make sense of it in an afternoon. I don't have the knowledge and experience to make sense of it in a week or two. I don't even know what field I'd need to study in order to learn how to make sense of it, and what assumptions the experts make.

So I am going to wait for the experts to duke it out, knowing full well that the evidence will seem to point first in one direction and then in another. In the meantime, what am I going to eat?

1. Salmonellosis: What is the government doing, US Centers for Disease Control, as of March 28, 2008
2. Investigation of Outbreak of Infections Caused by Salmonella Litchfield US Centers for Disease Control, March 22, 2008
3. FDA Warns of Salmonella Risk with Cantaloupes from Agropecuaria Montelibano, US Food and Drug Administration, March 22, 2008
4. Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food --- 10 States, 2006, FoodNet, April 13, 2007
5. Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States, CDC FoodNet, Emerging Infections Diseases V5No5, September-October 1999

Red Lentils with Bengali Spices

2008-03-27T15:45:00.002-04:00

One day, when I had run out of dinner ideas, I decided to do something with the red lentils I'd had in my pantry for months. Of course I had no idea what to do with them, which is why they had been sitting for so long. But a quick online search turned up several recipes. Some call for cooking the lentils no more than 10 minutes, while others call for more than 30 minutes.

Red lentils, with their skin removed, split the way split peas are split. They cook very quickly. I concluded that, if you want the lentils whole, you should cook them for no more than 20 minutes. If you want a pureed texture, cook them for 30 minutes or more. They are also called pink lentils or masoor dal. They turn from red to yellow during cooking, which really surprised me.

I picked a recipe called Bengal Red Lentils with Spices, which called for Bengali Panch Phoron, a simple five-spice mix. I didn't have all the spices, but I didn't let that stop me. I substituted butter for usli ghee (clarified butter), and used a bit less. I substituted a little jalapeno for the green chilis, and cayenne powder for the dried red chilis. I left out the Nigella entirely. Instead of Fenugreek seeds, I added just a little imitation maple flavor (which is mostly fenugreek) to the finished dish.

From the moment I started frying onions, tomatoes, and ginger in a little butter, the kitchen filled with a wonderful smell. When I started frying my panch phoron substitute, the whole house became fragrant. My children asked me if I had some Indian food. Not quite, but something a little bit like it. What I came up with is not authentic Bengali cooking, but it is a quick, delicious dish that features some flavors from Bengal. If it becomes a regular on our menu, I may even buy some Nigella or Fenugreek for even more flavor. And the next time I visit an Indian Restaurant, I'll look for Bengali specialties like Red Lentils with Panch Phoron, to find out what I have been missing.

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Red Lentils with Bengali Spices

Based on a recipe from Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni, this recipe is adapted to use ingredients which are common in many parts of the US.

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 8
Cuisine: Indian
Main Ingredient: Lentils
Categories: Vegetarian, Advance, Vegetables, Side Dish, Main Dish

-= Ingredients =-
~~ Boiling the dal ~~
1 1/2 cup Red lentils (masar dal)
1/4 Jalapeno peppers
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric
4 1/2 cup Water
1/4 teaspoon Salt ; or to taste
~~ Tomato-Onion paste ~~
1 tablespoon Unsalted butter
1 cup Onion ; minced
1 cup Tomatoes
1 tablespoon Fresh ginger ; grated or crushed
~~ Perfumed Butter ~~
1 tablespoon Unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon Cumin seed
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon Fennel seed
1/2 teaspoon Nigella seed ; (also called onion seed, black sesame, black cumin, kalonji)
1/2 teaspoon Fenugreek seed ; (imitation maple flavor contains Fenugreek)
4 Bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne ; or crushed red pepper (piquin)
2 teaspoon garlic ; minced

-= Instructions =-
1. Pick, clean, and wash the red lentils. Add to a deep pot with chilies, turmeric, water, and salt.
and cook the red lentils, chilies, turmeric, salt and water. Put the ingredients in a deep pot; bring to boil. Stir often to make sure they do not lump together. Cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, or until tender. The lentils will turn yellow.

2.While the lentils are cooking, heat butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the onions and fry until golden brown (about 10 minutes). Add the tomatoes and continue frying until the tomatoes are cooked. Add the ginger, and continue cooking until the mix is a uniform thick pulp, about 8 minutes. Add the tomato-onion paste and salt to the cooked lentils.

Serving: 2/3 cups (215g), Calories: 167: Fat: 4g (21% of Cals): Sodium: 84mg
Protein: 10g, NetCarbs: 20, K: 304mg
SatFat: 2g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 1g, Chol: 8mg
TotCarbs: 25g, Fiber: 5g, Sugars: 1g

DASH: Vegetables: 0.5: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.9: Fats: 0.8: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.3: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.9: Fats: 0.8: Sweets: 0.0

** This recipe can be pasted into BigOven without retyping. **
** Easy recipe software. Try it free at: http://www.bigoven.com **

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Food Safety: When do you wash your produce?

2008-03-25T10:51:00.008-04:00

There's an interesting discussion going on at the Fanatic Cook blog. It began with Honduran cantaloupes that are associated with a Salmonella outbreak in the US.

Of course, produce grows outdoors in the dirt. Animals poop outdoors in the dirt. Contamination from passing birds, livestock, or vermin is always a possiblity. When I buy a melon directly from the farmer, it is dirty. Before I slice it, I give that melon a good rinse and scrub-down in the sink. Afterwards, I give the sink a soapy scrub-down to clean it. This keeps the dirt, and the germs in the dirt, off the counter, cutting board, and knife, and out of the food.

But when I buy a melon at the supermarket, it looks as clean as if I had just washed it myself. So I don't wash it. I rarely wash apples, oranges, or tomatoes. I have never washed a banana. Have you? Even though you know that, every time you grab a piece of produce, you could get invisible germs on your hands and spread them all over the kitchen? Why aren't you and your family sick every single day? Is this like playing Russian Roulette with vegetables?

Well, maybe. Most tragedies happen after a whole string of things has gone wrong. And there are many opportunities between the field and the plate to prevent a food-borne illness.

Most soil germs are not dangerous. But fertilizer/manure or irrigation water could be contaminated and spread germs in the field. The dirty-looking recirculated wash water they use in packing plants could be OK if they treat it properly, or it could be putting germs right back on the potatoes. Workers could be protecting the food, or contaminating it if they don't wash their hands. And you never know who has handled the produce in the grocery store.

Knowing all that, I'm responsible for the food I choose and how I handle it. I follow a few simple rules.

Vegetable washes haven't proven to be any more effective than plain, clean water at removing bacteria, so I stick with plain water, and scrub, rub, agitate, or spray.
Keep the sink and the scrubbers clean.
There is no way to remove 100% of the germs on foods. So try not to let the germs grow. Eat, cook, or refrigerate things soon after you cut them.
If those watermelon slices start to look "different", it's time to toss them. Avoid damaged produce. Don't eat rotten stuff.
This summer, I'm sure I'll still be eating unwashed vegetables straight off the vine.
I'm not going to start washing bananas.
I'll think again about prewashed mini-carrots, but I'll probably keep trusting the Jolly Green Giant, the distribution network, and my local grocery store.

FIT vegetable wash powder (Citric acid, sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium carbonate & magnesium carbonate, Grapefruit Oil extract) was developed by Proctor and Gamble, which then sold the license to Healthpro Brands. It is distributed to growers, packers, and shippers by Caruso Foods

According to the Cornell Department of Agriculture, no-one knows how much food-borne illness originates on the farm.

Bleaching produce is only recommeded in extreme situations, such as flooding. Leafy vegetables, fleshy vegetables (tomatoes, summer squash, peppers) and berries cannot be adequately disinfected. Other contaminated vegetables can be cleaned in fresh water and then soaked in a very weak chlorine solution for 15 to 20 minutes.

Did you hear A&P sued a couple of its former stock clerks for making a video in which they licked produce and put it back on the shelves?

Greens -- Spinach and Chard

2008-03-18T09:04:00.007-04:00

Spinach

Spinach was the only cooked leafy vegetable I'd had growing up. In the early seventies, apparantly, it was only available frozen -- precooked and compressed into a frozen brick. It cooked up so limp, slippery, and stringy it could slip down my throat while I was still chewing. It was not my favorite vegetable.

Chard

Then, one year, my mother planted chard. It was like spinach, but not really. It came straight out of the garden, fresh and green. Cooked, it was slightly sweet, something I could sink my teeth into. We ate a lot of it, too. I remember watching the stockpot lid slowly settle as the enormous pile of chard subsided under the influence of steam. And the tiny baby chard leaves oftened livened up our green salads.

Later, we had the chance to try fresh baby spinach, too. It was a novelty, and we always had it as a salad, with a slightly sweet dressing that featured bacon and chopped eggs.

Now, chard, triple-washed baby spinach are available every day at the grocery store, and (in season) at farmer's markets. Sometimes, I can even get great-looking beet greens. I've tried them all in salads, in soups, and as a vegetable side.

Spinach is so tender I still prefer it raw, quickly sautéed, or added to a soup. Chard can stand up to being served as a cooked vegetable, and my kids prefer it to Collards, Kale, Mustard, or Turnip greens.

Greens -- an introduction

2008-03-14T11:46:00.002-04:00

Fresh Greens

I was just reading 5 Super Ingredients by Melanie at dietriffic. She just discovered an Asian green called Choy Sum, and gave a stir-fry recipe. She says she means to add more greens to her diet. It's a good idea. People have been eating greens for a long time, but where meat and carbohydrates are cheap, people seem to start leaving greens off their plate, which is a shame. Greens are the green leaves of non-heading herbaceous plants, eaten as vegetables. They are generally rich in vitamins A, B (including folate), C, E, and K, as well as antioxidants and have varying amounts of the minerals magnesium, calcium, potassium, and iron. Heading cabbages (red and green), iceberg lettuce, and Belgian endive are pale by comparison and so are not treated as greens. They don't develop nearly as many nutrients.

Serving Size
Fresh raw greens, torn or sliced, are fluffy, but will compact when you cook it. To get a half-cup serving of spinach, you'll need to eat a full cup of raw spinach salad, or a quarter cup of well-cooked spinach. Collards, kale, and other, more sturdy greens, won't compact quite as much as spinach will.

Preparing Greens
Very young greens are tender and can be eaten with their ribs, veins, and stems. Sturdier and more mature greens may have tough or bitter stems and veins, which need to be torn or stripped out. Large Romaine lettuce can be torn away from the thickest, whitest portion of its stem. With sturdy collards, grab the stem with one hand, wrap your other hand around the leaf, and strip it right off the vein.

Greens grow close to the ground, so they can be sandy or muddy. If you've got just 4-5 leaves of Romaine for your salad, you can give them a quick "shower" under running water. If you've got a couple pounds of greens, give them a bath in a large bowl or your well-cleaned sink. Agitate the leaves, let the dirt settle, scoop out the leaves, rinse the sink, and do it again. Check the bottom of the sink for dirt and sand. If you got it all, you are done.

To quickly chop a big pile of greens, stack a few up, roll them around their central veins, and slice them into ribbons with a chef's knife. You can turn the mass of ribbons sideways if you like and slice them into rough rectangles.

Most types of greens don't need to cook long -- five minutes or less for very tender young greens, 10 minutes for most sturdy large-leafed greens, 20 minutes for really tough, mature leaves, and longer for certain greens that contain a lot of oxalic acid.

Photo Source: USDA

Lettuce is a members of the daisy family. Many Western varieties have been bred for mild flavor to be used in fresh salads, while many more bitter Asian varieties have been bred for use in cooking. They all belong to the same species. People have been eating lettuces for over 4000 years. The darker green loose-leaf lettuces have lots of vitamins and minerals and a mild flavor. A popular way to serve lettuce in the US is in a green salad.
Endives, Radicchio and Escarole are all related to chicory, another member of the daisy family. Most are more bitter than lettuces. While Radicchio and curly endive are used in fresh salads, escarole is usually served served as a cooked green or as a soup.

Photo Source: USDA

Spinach, Chard (Silverbeet), Beet Greens. Chard and Beets are different varieties of beet, while spinach is a close relative. These greens have a mild flavor. Young leaves are used fresh in salads while older leaves are cooked.
Amaranth Greens are related to spinach and chard, and are usually eaten cooked.
Spinach and Amaranth leaves contain a fair amount of oxalic acid, which can cause problems for people susceptible to gout or kidney stones

Photo Source: Whole Foods

Kole greens like collards, kale, turnip and mustard greens, rapini, Chinese mustard, choy sum, bok choy and kai lan are all the same species as turnips, and are closely related to cabbage and broccoli. Most of these are served cooked, although young mustard greens are can be eaten raw in salads.
Arugula or Rocket is in the same family as cabbages, has a peppery taste, and is often used like lettuce

Taro, Kalo, Dasheen, malanga, cocoyam -- varieties of colocasia and xanthosoma have been grown around the world for thousands of years. The greens contain needles of oxalic acid, and must be cooked for a long time before they can be eaten. These greens are popular in the Caribbean and Polynesia

Weeds or uncultivated greens Other greens, such as dandelion, lamb's quarters, miner's lettuce, and purslane, are collected wild and are not as likely to show up in the supermarket. Some of these greens contain even more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants than supermarket variety greens.

Fanatic Cook: Milking The Schedule

2008-03-10T14:48:00.000-04:00

Bix blogs about an NPR commentary I missed this morning: Fanatic Cook: Milking The Schedule. Apparantly, all the cows in the US are tired today, too, on account of being woken up an hour early.

Caribbean Flavor: A Big Pot of Greens

2008-03-10T13:19:00.005-04:00

A variety of greens are popular in the Caribbean, some of which actually require long cooking. But many greens can be cooked in 10 minutes.

While the Southern US pot of greens is often finished with vinegar, this version uses fresh lime juice and a little allspice for a bright, tropical flavor. Use chard (which is like a sturdier spinach leaf) or cruciferous greens such as kale (the sweetest), mustard or turnip (both of which have a mustardy snap that dissipates during cooking), or collard (which can be slightly bitter) for a hearty dish. Don't throw away the cooking liquid. That "pot liquor" is tasty and delicious.

This is my own interpretation of two tasty-sounding recipes -- Carribean style Greens and Island Collards. If you can't take the heat, leave out the jalapeño.

Caribbean-Inspired Greens

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist

-= Ingredients =-
2 lb Collard Greens ; (or kale, mustard, or turnip)
1/8 pound Bacon ; or other smoked meat
1 cup Onion ; finely chopped
1 small Jalapeno peppers ; (red) stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
1/8 teaspoon Allspice
1 tablespoon Water
1 dash Black pepper ; freshly ground
2 teaspoon Lime juice ; or lemon juice

-= Instructions =-
Wash the greens well in several changes of water. Remove the thick rib from the center of the leaves; chop coarsely.

Chop the bacon into small bits, add to a large pot, and cook 5 minutes. Pour off any excess fat. Sauté onion, pepper, and allspice until softened -- do not brown.

Add the damp greens to the pot. Cover and cook until wilted, about 10 minutes. Add a little additional water, if necessary. Stir often. Drain, if necessary.

Stir in the lime juice and serve.

Serving Size: 0.5 cups; (151g) Calories: 82: Fat(g): 4 (49%of Cals): Sodium (g): 75
Protein: 4g, NetCarbs: 5, K: 239mg
SatFat: 2g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g, Chol: 5mg
TotCarbs: 9g, Fiber: 4g, Sugars: 1g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 1.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.5: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Caribbean Flavor: Black Bean Soup

2008-03-07T10:47:00.006-05:00

The winter is coming to an end in the US mid-atlantic states. Even though this has been a mild winter, Spring fever has many people thinking of warmer weather and warmer climates. Caribbean-inspired dishes seem to hit the spot.

This dish is similar to what you can find in many Cuban restaurants in Florida. Even though it is eaten in warmer climates, it is warming enough for the tail-end of winter. Vary the seasoning with a little allspice if you want to bring to mind the flavors of some of the other islands.

This hearty vegan soup is low in fat and salt and a great favorite with the kids (if you go easy on the cayenne). Garnish with sour cream, if you like, and serve chopped onions and chilis on the side. Serve a large portion as a main course or a smaller portion as an appetizer.

You can use canned black beans, but you'll get a better flavor and avoid the salt if you cook them yourself. A pressure cooker gets the job done in 1/6 the time.

Cuban Black Bean Soup

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 15
Main Ingredient: Beans
Categories: Vegetarian, Vegan, Soup

-= Ingredients =-
7 1/2 cups Cooked Black Beans no na
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1/2 cup Onion ; chopped fine
1/2 Red bell pepper ; 1/4-inch dice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon Oregano
1/4 teaspoon Cayenne
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
4 cup Low-salt Vegetable Stock
1/2 teaspoon Salt ; and pepper to taste

-= Instructions =-
One pound of dry black beans (about 2 ½ cups dry), yields about 6 ¼ cups cooked.
Three cups yields 7 cups cooked; 6 cups yields about 15 cups cooked.
For each cup of dry beans: soak in 3 cups water overnight, then drain and simmer in 3 cups of water for 3 hours, adding water as necessary. Or cook in pressure cooker with 3 cups of water for 25 minutes. Drain.

Heat stockpot on Medium-high heat. Add oil. Cook onions and red pepper, for 3-4 minutes, until translucent. Add cumin, coriander, oregano, and cayenne and cook 1 more minute.

Add black beans and vegetable stock; stir. Bring to a boil on HIGH. Reduce heat to MEDIUM. Simmer 20 min; stir occasionally. Stir in vinegar. Adjust seasoning.

Servings: 30: Serving Size: 0.8 cups (161g) Calories: 130: Fat(g): 1 (10%of Cals): Sodium (g): 200
Protein: 9g, NetCarbs: 13, K: 325mg
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 1g, Chol: 0mg
TotCarbs: 21g, Fiber: 8g, Sugars: 0g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.2: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.2: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Article edited on 14 March 2008 -- I corrected my math on time savings with the pressure cooker. Thirty minutes is 1/6 of 3 hours.

Perfect Chipotle Meatloaf

2008-02-27T09:41:00.001-05:00

At The Perfect Pantry, Lydia writes about Dry bread crumbs, in chipotle meatloaf. I love chipotles, and meatloaf is always a favorite at our house, so this recipe sounds promising. Lydia's suggested serving, though, supplies more than we generally need -- 5 1/3 ounces of meat, 400 calories and 1037 mg of sodium (close to my daily limit of sodium). 581 mg of that sodium comes from the 1 1/2 teaspoons of added salt, 158 mg from the ketchup, 116 from the bread crumbs, 56g from the romano cheese (I assume 2 Tablespoons grated is a fluffy half an ounce), and only 27 mg from the chipotles in adobo sauce (assuming a tablespoon is 14mg of chipotle with adobo).

The recipe is still a good one, if I increase the servings to 10, eliminate the added salt, and switch to low-sodium kethup. Each portion now contains 3 1/3 ounces of lean meat, 240 calories, and 175 mg of sodium -- better for my family!

I compared Lydia's meatloaf to my standby recipe, which has 3 1/3 ounces of ground turkey, 195 calories and 99 mg of sodium. Adding a proportional half tablespoon of chipotles in adobo and one tablespoon of romano cheese would add 9 calories and 30 mg of sodium, for a total of 205 calories and 135 mg of sodium. My recipe is slightly lower in fat because turkey is a leaner meat, and lower in sodium because oats are less salty than breadcrumbs. Because I already have dried chipotles on hand, I'd be just as likely to use them, maybe adding a little cumin nad oregano as well. That would give me about 108 mg of sodium per serving. These small difference might not be important to you unless you are watching your blood pressure or coddling your kidneys.

Turkey Meatloaf

This tasty meatloaf is quick and easy to prepare and low in calories, fat, and sodium. The kids love it.
Recipe By: DASH Eating Plan fact sheet, 2003

-= Ingredients =-
1 pound ground turkey ; lean
1/2 cup Quick oats ; dry
1 large Egg ; whole
1 tablespoon dehydrated minced onion
1/4 cup Low-sodium catsup
2 teaspoon no-salt added Seasoning ; italian, curry powder, etc.

-= Instructions =-
Preheat oven to 375°F
Mix all ingredients together and bake in loaf pan for 30-40 minutes, or until internal temperature is 165°F
Cut into 5 slices.

Nutritional Summary
Each (1/5 of loaf; 123g) serving contains:
Cals: 194, FatCals: 100, TotFat: 3g
SatFat: 2g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 1g
Chol: 130mg, Na: 98mg, K: 116mg
TotCarbs: 10g, Fiber: 1g, Sugars: 3g
NetCarbs: 9g, Protein: 22g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.2: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 1.1: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.4
USDA: Vegetables: 0.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.2: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 3.4: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.4

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references. Nutritional Information for La Costena Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce from Wegman's online product catalog.

Wegman's -- great source for nutritional information

2008-02-26T14:34:00.002-05:00

Wegman's supermarket recently rolled out its new website, complete with nutritional data for every product they sell at every one of their stores. This means lots of information that you can't find even at nutritiondata.com.

For instance -- La Costena Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce provide, in a 3-pepper serving (6 servings in a 7 oz can), 380 mg of sodium. Salty.

Chipotle and Red Hubbard Squash Soup

2008-01-28T13:30:00.002-05:00

I picked up a beauty of a 2-pound red Hubbard squash in November, and it has been hanging around my kitchen ever since. Obviously, it's a good keeper, but Autumn is long gone, and I've been thinking about a smoky soup flavored with chipotles, those smoke-dried jalapeños I like to pick up at The Spice Corner in Philadelphia's Italian Market.

Red Hubbard Squash, center row

Hubbard squash has a tough shell of a skin, so I baked the squash at 350F for about an hour while I helped out with a science fair project. At that point, it was easy to cut the squash open (watch out for the escaping steam), scoop out the seeds and strings, and peel the skin. Maybe, if I had let it go longer, I could have scraped the flesh out of the skin.

I discovered that the red Hubbard squash has a very orange firm, mild-flavored flesh, not very pumpkiny at all, drier than most winter squashes, with a flavor something like roasted chestnuts, though not as sweet. Perfect for those family members who are not big winter-squash fans. That 2-pound Hubbard gave me about 4 cups of cubed squash, weighing 1 1/2 pounds. I modified a recipe for the Ritz-Carlton's Chipotle Carrot soup (from the Philadelphia Inquirer's former Sunday Magazine). I added white beans and a little bit of cumin.

The chipotles in their soaking water smelled like Lapsang Souchong in the kitchen. The squash and cumin added a warm note. The soup was delicious with a sides of cooked kale and vinegared red cabbage slaw. But I learned a lesson -- three chipotles is just a bit too much for the young children in the house. I served them emergency rations of cheese on bread, and ate their leftover soup myself. So the official version of this recipe now calls for only one chipotle. If I want more heat, there is always Bufalo.

Chipotle Squash Soup

This rich, smoky soup is made from mild-flavored Hubbard Squash, and is delicious served with cooked greens.

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist

-= Ingredients =-
1 whole Dried chipotle ; (3 if you can take the heat)
2 teaspoons Olive oil
1 medium Onion ; diced
1 teaspoon Cumin
1 1/2 pound red Hubbard squash, cubed
4 cups low-sodium Chicken broth ; warmed
15 1/2 fluid oz Canned White beans
pepper ; to taste

-= Instructions =-
Break stem(s) from pepper(s) and remove seeds. Soak dried peppers in enough warm water to cover.

For 1 1/2 pounds squash (about 4 pounds cubed), start with a 2-pound Hubbard squash. Bake squash in 350 degree oven for at least one hour, or until skin is tender . Halve squash, scrape out seeds, and peel with a paring knife or scrape flesh from skin.

Heat oil over medium heat and add onion, stirring frequently until caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add squash and peppers and their liquid. Add broth, bring to boil and reduce to simmer, covered for 30 minutes or until squash and onions are tender.

Drain beans. Add 1/3 to 1/2 to soup. Puree soup in until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Add remaining beans. Serve hot with cooked greens.

Quick-cooking variation:
Substitute 1 1/2 pounds of canned pumpkin or winter squash for the 1 1/2 pounds of Hubbard squash. Cook soup for 10 minutes before pureeing.

Nutritional Summary
Each (1 cup; 240g) serving contains:
Cals: 107, FatCals: 15, TotFat: 1g
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 1g
Chol: 0mg, Na: 207mg, K: 451mg
TotCarbs: 18g, Fiber: 4g, Sugars: 1g
NetCarbs: 14g, Protein: 7g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 1.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.1: Seeds: 0.1: Fats: 0.1: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.6: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.5: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional information in this post calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Healthier choices: Veggies need salsa

2008-01-25T16:16:00.000-05:00

Kids like to dip. And I don't like bottled ranch dressing. I hate to see them slurp it up as though it were a side dish. It makes me feel like a bad parent.

So I decided on a dip that, when I see them slurping it up, I can simply ask them to pretend to be civilized and use a spoon. Salsa. It's tomatoes and vegetables. Commercial salsas are often full of salt, but salsa is quick and easy to make. Use fresh or canned (no-salt added) tomatoes, any peppers (sweet to hot) you like, onions for flavor, a little lime (or lemon) juice, and cilantro, if you like it. Stir it up for a chunky salsa, or process in the blender for a smooth one. This will keep for a few days to a week in the refrigerator. Broccoli will do a really good job soaking up the tomato juice. Kids will probably prefer the onions chopped fine.

Salsa

Make this low-salt salsa from fresh tomatoes in season or canned tomatoes in the winter.

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist

-= Ingredients =-
15 ounces Tomatoes ; unsalted, petite diced
1/2 cup Onions ; chopped fine
1/4 cup Cilantro ; chopped
1 cup Peppers ; small dice
1 tablespoon Lime Juice ; or to taste

-= Instructions =-
If the tomatoes are too juicy, drain some of the juice.
Mix ingredients together in a bowl. For a smoother salsa, blend in a food processor.
Refrigerate for an hour. Add salt if you need it.
Serve with baked corn tortillas or vegetables

Nutritional Summary
Each (1/2 cup; 96g) serving contains:
Cals: 24, FatCals: 2, TotFat: 0g
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 0g, MonoFat: 0g
Chol: 0mg, Na: 7mg, K: 196mg
TotCarbs: 5g, Fiber: 1g, Sugars: 1g
NetCarbs: 4g, Protein: 1g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 1.1: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.5: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional information in this posting calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references

Food and Mood -- a followup

2008-01-24T15:55:00.000-05:00

So we tried the experiment two days in a row. Replace part of the morning serving of grain with an egg. Won't that stick with her longer? No, she says. She enjoyed having an egg for breakfast, but was famished by midmorning, whether or not she had her egg with a teaspoon of orange marmalade. She offered the rest of her hardboiled eggs to the rest of the family, and is now again happily eating a cereal-and-milk breakfast every morning.

Atkins adherents eat more vegetables?

2008-01-24T15:11:00.000-05:00

Robert Atkins did not base his diet on science. He read a bit, lost some weight, recommended it to his patients, and built an empire on books and supplements. But, twenty five years later, the science started to get done when a medical professor at Duke wrote Atkins asking him for data to back up his claims. Atkins began funding Westman and Yancy to do some studies. The results in these 4- to 6-month studies were encouraging. Participants lost weight. Triglycerides went down. HDL went up. Diabetics' blood sugar improved. When interviewed in 2004, one of the researchers had something interesting to say:

"We had people in our studies tell us that they are eating more vegetables on the Atkins diet," says Yancy. "It's because people have concentrated so much on starches and carbohydrates. When those are taken out of the picture, they have only meat, eggs, and vegetables as an option, and so they end up eating more vegetables."[1]

Eating more of the green, leafy, low-calorie vegetables seems to be one thing all the diets agree on.

_The skinny on the Low-Carb Craze Kim McDonald, Duke Magazine 2004 September;90(5)

Food and Mood

2008-01-21T20:56:00.000-05:00

What happens when a 9-year old eats a bowl of cereal, runs around for 2 hours in the snow, and then tries to tackle a science fair project? Sudden negativity. Ready to quit the science fair. Convinced that her hypothesis is stupid. Resistant to looking at the graphs we have just made in EXCEL. Refusing to paste the data into her science fair notebook. Contrary and combative. Angry and nearly in tears.

We slogged on like this for an hour before I said to myself "Blood sugar," and declared it to be lunch time. "It is not lunch time, and I am not hungry," she said, so I boiled her an egg, which, predictably, she complained about. But she ate it, with a little orange marmalade, and was soon all smiles and ready to finish her lunch. Afterwards, she had a good attitude, was able to draw some conclusions about the data, and made much better progress on her project.

No surprise, really. Food for thought, though. We've been in the habit of starting the day with grains. Cold cereal or oatmeal with 8 ounces of milk and perhaps a fruit or 6 ounces of orange juice. But, after running around for two hours in the cold, my daughter had run out of energy.

So this morning, I decided to change the balance a little. Add a boiled egg, reduce the oats a little, don't forget the fruit, lose some sugar. First thing in the morning, though, it seems a child's blood sugar is low. No honey? No marmalade? Contrary, combative, angry, and nearly in tears. Eventually, she ate the experimental breakfast, and had the energy to run errands all the way until lunch time, without even stopping for a snack, though she did say she was hungry. Not the same as running around for two hours in the snow and then tackling a science project, but worth thinking about, all the same. Tonight, She boiled 4 eggs, and intends to have one in the morning. With a little orange marmalade.

Of course, I never get grumpy when my blood sugar runs low. Never.

Oatmeal Breakfast	Oatmeal and Egg Breakfast
1/2 cup Quick oats, prepared with water 1/4 cup raisins 1 cup skim milk	1/4 cup Quick oats, prepared with water 1/4 cup Raisins 1 cup Skim milk 1 hard-boiled egg
Each 435g serving contains: Cals: 329, FatCals: 22, TotFat: 2g SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g Chol: 5mg, Na: 156mg, K: 856mg TotCarbs: 65g, Fiber: 5g, Sugars: 25g NetCarbs: 60g, Protein: 15g	Each 426g serving contains: Cals: 302, FatCals: 18, TotFat: 2g SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g Chol: 5mg, Na: 154mg, K: 828mg TotCarbs: 60g, Fiber: 4g, Sugars: 25g NetCarbs: 56g, Protein: 14g
Food Group Serving(s) DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 1.0: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0 USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.5: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0	Food Group Serving(s) DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 1.0: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 0.8: Meat/Fish: 0.3: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0 USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.5: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 0.8: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

Oatmeal Breakfast

Oatmeal and Egg Breakfast

1/2 cup Quick oats, prepared with water

1/4 cup raisins

1 cup skim milk

1/4 cup Quick oats, prepared with water

1/4 cup Raisins

1 cup Skim milk

1 hard-boiled egg

Each 435g serving contains:

Cals: 329, FatCals: 22, TotFat: 2g

SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g

Chol: 5mg, Na: 156mg, K: 856mg

TotCarbs: 65g, Fiber: 5g, Sugars: 25g

NetCarbs: 60g, Protein: 15g

Each 426g serving contains:

Cals: 302, FatCals: 18, TotFat: 2g

SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g

Chol: 5mg, Na: 154mg, K: 828mg

TotCarbs: 60g, Fiber: 4g, Sugars: 25g

NetCarbs: 56g, Protein: 14g

Food Group Serving(s)

DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 1.0: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.5: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

Food Group Serving(s)

DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 1.0: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 0.8: Meat/Fish: 0.3: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.5: Dairy: 1.0: Grains: 0.8: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional information in this posting calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references.

Lentil Soup with Saffron Yogurt

2008-01-17T09:26:00.001-05:00

I have a dollar bag of saffron that I picked up on a whim at The Spice Corner in Philadelphia's Italian Market. I tried a pinch in some recipe or another, but really couldn't taste the saffron. So I was intrigued by Heidi Swanson's Lively Up Yourself Lentil Soup recipe. It seems so plain, so unseasoned, except for a dollop of saffron-infused yogurt. I usually season lentil soup with hambone, celery, carrot, caraway, and cloves.

She suggests 6 to 8 servings from this soup. Six servings gives 288 calories (30 from fat) and 25g net carbs. You also get a total of 1 cup vegetable (onions, greens, and tomatoes) and 21g of protein, which is what you'd get in about 3.3 oz (uncooked weight) lean meat. Add a slice of whole grain bread to round things out and a couple more servings of vegetables, and it's a full meal. And it will fill you up. Depending on how much liquid you cook off, the serving size will be about 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 cups.

If you split the pot 10 ways, you'll get 173 calories (18 from fat), 15g net carbs, and 13g of protein, equivalent to about 2 oz (uncooked weight) lean meat, and about .6 cup of vegetables, from approximately 1 cup of soup, which is still nearly a main-dish sized portion.

Here's my version of Heidi Swanson's lentil soup, using diced tomatoes instead of crushed (which, in the US, is a puree).

Recipe By: http://HeidiSwanson.com
Serving Size: 12
Cuisine: American
Main Ingredient: Beans
Categories: Vegetarian, Meatless, Soup

-= Ingredients =-
2 cups Lentils ; (Black Beluga or green French), picked over and rinsed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion ; chopped
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
28 ounces Low-salt diced tomatoes
2 cup water
3 cups Chard ; or other leafy green (kale,etc.) rinsed well, deveined, finely chopped
~~ Saffron Yogurt ~~
1 pinch Saffron ; 30-40 threads
1 tablespoon water ; boiling
1/8 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup Plain low-fat yogurt ; Greek, if possible

-= Instructions =-
Add the lentils to 6 cups of boiling water. Simmer for 20 minutes. Drain.
Combine saffron with 1 tablespoon boiling water, soak for a few minutes, add a pinch of salt, and stir into the yogurt.
In a heavy soup pot, then saute onion in oil with salt until tender. Stir in lentils, tomatoes, and 2 cups water and heat to a simmer. Add the chopped greens and cook briefly.

Serve with saffron yogurt.

Heidi Swanson suggests: garnishing with crunchy fried shallots, pan-fried butternut squash, a poached egg or cooked whole grains; substituing chive-infused cream for the saffron yogurt; adding seasonings such as smoked paprika, toasted cumin, or crushed dried chilis to the soup.

Based on a recipe by Heidi Swanson at http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/lively-up-yourself-lentil-soup-recipe.html

Nutritional Summary
Each (1 1/2 cups; 347g) serving contains:
Cals: 288, FatCals: 30, TotFat: 3g
SatFat: 1g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g
Chol: 1mg, Na: 125mg, K: 1040mg
TotCarbs: 47g, Fiber: 22g, Sugars: 10g
NetCarbs: 25g, Protein: 21g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 2.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 1.7: Fats: 0.5: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 3.3: Fats: 0.5: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional Summary
Each (1 cup; 208g) serving contains:
Cals: 173, FatCals: 18, TotFat: 2g
SatFat: 0g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g
Chol: 1mg, Na: 193mg, K: 624mg
TotCarbs: 28g, Fiber: 13g, Sugars: 6g
NetCarbs: 15g, Protein: 13g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 1.2: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.3: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.6: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.3: Sweets: 0.0

Nutritional information in this posting calculated using bigoven. Food Group Servings calculated in EXCEL using http://www.mypyramid.gov/ and DASH diet references.

Healthier Choices: Adapting for diabetics

2008-01-16T08:09:00.000-05:00

What do you do when people you care about develop high blood sugar or diabetes? Invite them over for a meal of macaroni cheese, pierogies, and lima beans? Give them a gift basket full of your famous home-baked Christmas cookies and your home town's best artisan chocolates? Yes, I did serve them that high-carb meal, followed by cake and ice cream. It was my child's birthday dinner. I still feel guilty about it. At Christmas, though, I skipped the cookies and made them a nice basket of their favorite cheeses.

What should I serve the next time they are over? Surely, most of the things I've been eating for the last couple of years are pretty good. The DASH diet is pretty well balanced, not too high in blood-sugar boosting refined sugars and carbohydrates, right?

I asked some questions at the Diabetes discussion group at bigoven.com. What do you know? The very first recipe I posted here, a delicious, hearty, one-pot, balanced, healthy meal is not really so well balanced for diabetics. I was told the recipe was high in "net carbs" (total carbohydrates - fiber), because it has so many potatoes, and the serving size really represents an awful lot of food for one meal.

So I used an EXCEL spreadsheet to help me figure how many servings of what food groups I would get by fiddling with ingredients and quantities, and used to figure the nutritional information. I used the EXCEL spreadsheet to help me replace half of the potatoes with rutabaga, and then reduce the number of vegetable servings from 4 to 3 while leaving the meat unchanged. This took a little bit of fiddling and weighing of rutabagas. I used BigOven's nutritional links to help me get to and save information about how many cups of diced rutabaga I can get from half a large rutabaga.

After I was done fiddling with the quantities in the recipe, I updated my recipe in Bigoven to reflect the decisions I had made. Then I used Bigoven's nutritional calculator to tell me how I had done. Success! The original recipe had 367 calories in an enormous, 2-cup serving, and included 55g of carbs with 9g of fiber for a 46g of net carbs. The revised recipe has has 257 calories in a 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cup serving, features 3 half-cup servings of vegetables, 33g of carbs and 7g of fiber for 26g of net carbs. The group told me I was now on the right track.

Blackened Beef with Greens, Red Potatoes, and Rutabaga

2008-01-16T08:07:00.000-05:00

Here's the diabetic-friendly version of the Blackened Beef recipe I have been working on. If you use , you can download it.

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Blackened Beef with Greens, Red Potatoes, and Rutabaga

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 6
Cuisine: American
Main Ingredient: Beef
Categories: Diabetic, Low Fat, Saute, OnePot Meal, LOW SODIUM, DASH, Main Dish

-= Ingredients =-
1 pound lean top round of beef
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
2 medium red potatoes ; cut into quarters about 1 inch thick (about 2 cups)
1/2 medium Rutabaga
2 cups Onions ; finely chopped
1 1/2 cups low fat low salt beef broth
1 1/2 cups water
2 cloves garlic ; minced
2 large carrots ; cut into rounds about 1/4 inch thick (1 cup)
3 cups kale ; stems removed, coarsely torn into pieces

-= Instructions =-
Briefly put the beef in the freezer to freeze partially in preparation for slicing thinly.
Mix the paprika, oregano, chili powder, garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and dry mustard in a small container with a lid and set aside.
Thinly slice the beef across the grain into strips 1/8 inch thick. Sprinkle the strips liberally with the seasoning mix. (Save any leftover seasoning mix to use for other dishes.) Spray the bottom of a large skillet or stockpot with cooking spray and preheat over high heat. Add the meat and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.
Add the potatoes, onions, broth, water, and garlic to the skillet. The blackened spices will float to the top of the liquid as it heats. Cover and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes. Stir in the carrots and lay the kale on top. Cook, covered, until the carrots are tender, about 10 more minutes. Serve from the skillet or transfer to a large serving bowl. Serve with crusty bread for dunking.

Nutritional Summary
Each (1 1/2 cups; 441g) serving contains:
Cals: 258, FatCals: 55, TotFat: 5g
SatFat: 2g, PolyFat: 1g, MonoFat: 2g
Chol: 45mg, Na: 205mg, K: 1228mg
TotCarbs: 30g, Fiber: 6g, Sugars: 8g
NetCarbs: 24g, Protein: 22g

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 2.9: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.9: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.4: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 2.7: Fats: 0.0: Sweets: 0.0

I corrected this posting to reflect corrections I made to the recipe after making it this evening (17 Jan 2007)

Healthier Choices, step 3: take a little walk

2008-01-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

What does walking have to do with nutrition? Food contains energy. If you decide to lose weight, you could have a tough time taking in all the nutrients you need while restricting the calories. Exercise burns some of those calories, allowing you to lose weight while still getting enough to eat.

Even 5 minutes a day is better than no exercise at all!

Whole foods -- not a brand name

2008-01-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

Highly processed commodity foods and ingredients have been in the news, starting with all the bad news about Chinese food ingredients. At the same time, there is a debate going on about the advisability of concocting "functional" foods out of isolates, extracts, phytochemicals, and derivatives of foods. Many of these highly-processed foods are labelled "healthy" and even "organic".

At one time, eating organically was supposed to be the antidote to some bad food choices. Fresher, more nutritious, less tainted, grown in a way that is less depleting to farmland. Sounds good, right? But what's the point of eating "organic" versions of popular highly-processed foods?Is an organic Twinkie really what we are aiming for? If you can mix up some organic vegetable protein isolates with some natural flavoring extracts and beet juice concentrate for color, would the resulting organic meal replacement bar really be a good replacement for a meal?

What's wrong with red beans (30 minutes in the pressure cooker), brown rice (30 minutes on the stovetop), a side of carrots (20 minutes), or broccoli (10 minutes) and quick green salad with tomatoes, and maybe a nice little piece of blackened fish? For dessert, how about a nice piece of fruit or even an apple crisp (30 minutes in the oven). Now THAT sounds like a meal. It's the kind of food that, studies show, helps us stay healthy.

It is hard to substitute toxic chemical scrap for any of these foods -- you recognize these foods when you handle them. And you recognize them when you eat them. You don't need to add coloring or flavoring extracts (organic or pseudo-organic). You can cook it in quantity and freeze portions for your later convenience. You'll have something that tastes good, something you can take pride in preparing and enjoy sharing with other people.

Healthier Choices, step 2: eat lunch

2008-01-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here's a classic busy-day-at-work story. Skip Lunch. Low energy in the afternoon. Famished by dinner time. No time to make lunch in the morning? Start taking mini carrots and string cheese to work. Ten mini carrots and one string cheese is a half-cup of vegetables and a serving of dairy. It's easy to choose your portion size.
It's only a snack, hardly a whole meal, but it is a step in the right direction.

Healthier Choices, step 1: more vegetables

2007-06-14T19:19:00.000-04:00

B was a meat and potatoes eater. One day, B said "I'm eating a lot more vegetables now". And, at my house, I noticed B WAS eating more vegetables, and trying new ones, too. Beets, broccoli, beans. All in all, a better-balanced diet -- a better balance of nutrients. B is thinking about a balanced diet, not weight loss, but replacing some helpings of meat and potatoes with lower-carbohydrate vegetables means fewer calories, too.

Healthier Choices -- step by step

2007-06-14T10:16:00.000-04:00

When it comes to making dieting, some people like to go whole hog. Throw out the "bad food", get on the treadmill, buy a bunch of vegetables and a new cookbook, draw up a menu plan. Never look back. This worked so well for us, I highly recommend it. The parents lost a combined 75 pounds in a year (15 of those "accidentally"), while the kids are learning how to make up a balanced eating plan. Deciding "what to eat" got easier, and we learned a bunch of great new recipes. We cut back on salt and got more active (well, one of us did, anyway). It has been great. I cannot recommend the DASH Diet enough!

Dear B read the DASH book on our recommendation (and even read The DASH Diet Action Plan) but really didn't relish the idea of making such an abrupt change, eating so much more fiber, using new cooking techniques, and eating "weird food" while, at the same time, upping the exercise suddenly. It sounded like a recipe for pain and indigestion. Since the Dash Diet is just what B wants, I countered that it would be illogical NOT to make the change. B was merely amused by my Mr. Spock approach.

Then, B quite sensibly took a very different approach. B is aiming for more energy and improved health. And B will get there -- one step at a time.

Diet -- it's all in the portions

2007-06-13T14:07:00.000-04:00

Melanie, at dietriffic, recently offered some tips on making a weight-loss diet work. I know that keeping track of portion sizes really makes things easier. I actually bring measuring cups to the table. These stainless steel cups belong to our "for the table" set. They make it easier to serve everyone the right amount. One cup of rice, one half cup each of two vegetables, a 3-oz serving of meat, and one cup of salad on the side. That's two grains, 2 ½ cups of vegetables, and our evening protein portion. A handy chart on the 'fridge (see below) reminds us what we should be aiming for in a day. Using standard portion sizes makes it all "deal a meal" easy.

source: MyPyramid intake patterns, MyPyramid customized dietary guide, DASH diet guidelines

I know that my 8 year old has had 1 serving of grain at breakfast, two slices of bread at lunch, a granola bar for afternoon snack, and only needs 1/2 cup of rice at dinner. The four-year-old only had one slice of bread at lunch, and so might want a whole cup of rice at dinner (but will probably get full, so I'll start with half a cup). They both get 3 half-cup servings of vegetables at dinner, which is good since the 8-year-old had 10 mini carrots at lunch. The three (or fewer) ounces of meat they will eat with their dinner goes with the bologna or peanut butter they have already eaten today to give them the protein they need.

Beets are back down

2007-06-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

Just as quickly as the price went up, it went right back down. Beets are once again an unbelievable bargain at Wegmans, at 99 cents a pound. How long can they keep that up?

Green and Orange Ribbons with Fettucini

2007-05-31T21:00:00.000-04:00

I really love mustard greens. The young greens are sharp and snappy in salads. Cooked lightly, they retain their bright green color and snappy, mustardy, zing. They are sometimes very sandy, and may need to be rinsed twice in a couple inches of water in the sink. They can be roughly stacked up and sliced into ribbons with a chef's knife

Here's a favorite dish I haven't made in a while -- Green and Orange Ribbons with Fettucini. It's based on a recipe I found in a beautiful cookbook ("Healthy Vegetarian Cooking", published by Barnes and Noble). Strangely, the main ingredient was omitted. And the fat and sodium levels were too high for me. So I made a few changes.

This recipe, with garlic and mustard greens, has a lot of zing. It also has one cup of vegetables and two one-ounce servings of grain per serving. Decrease the sesame oil if you wish to reduce fat even further. A vegetable peeler, mandoline, or the "slicer" side of a vegetable grater can create carrot ribbons quickly. Once everything is sliced, it all cooks quickly, so this dish can hurry up and wait until the "main course" is ready.

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Green and Orange Ribbons with Fettucini

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 4
Cuisine: Asian
Main Ingredient:
Categories: Vegetarian, Saute, LOW SODIUM, DASH, Vegetables

-= Ingredients =-
8 ounce Fettucini
1/2 tablespoon Olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoon Sesame oil
3 cloves Garlic ; crushed
2 Carrots ; peeled and cut into ribbons
4 cup Mustard greens ; cut into ribbons
1 tablespoons Low-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons Sesame seeds

-= Instructions =-
Prepare fettucini according to package directions.
Toast sesame seeds in dry skillet as you heat it. Remove sesame seeds, add olive oil and garlic -- heat until you smell the garlic. Add carrot ribbons and sesame oil; saute until carrots are tender. Five minutes before serving, add mustard green ribbons and soy sauce. Cover tightly and steam over very low heat.
Toss vegetables to mix, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and serve over fettucini.

Nutritional Summary
Servings: 4: Serving Size: (203g): Calories: 363: Fat(g): 11: Sodium (g): 175

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 2.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 2.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.1: Fats: 1.5: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 2.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.1: Fats: 1.5: Sweets: 0.0
------------------------------------------

Beets are going up

2007-05-31T20:48:00.000-04:00

Here's a beet update: Recently, beets were 99 cents a pound at my local Wegman's. Now, they are up to $1.99 a pound! It's astounding! It makes me wonder how far those beets travelled. I'll be looking for a new source of beets!

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

2007-05-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

The Produce for Better Health Foundation has begun a new campaign, "fruits and veggies -- more matters" to promote produce consumption. Apparantly the "5 A Day THE COLOR WAY" message (also developed by the Produce for Better Health Foundation) was too complicated or too intimidating (what with all those capital letters and whatnot). Maybe the PBH feels the emphasis on more, rather than on 5 servings of produce daily causes less guilt or oppositional feelings, and will result in increased produce purchases.

Of course, "5" is the magic number only for those getting about 2,200 Calories per day. Most of us need less. It is pretty simple to find out what you need. The next step is just figuring out when to eat all that produce. Don't wait for dinner -- it will just be too much food. And the TOO MUCH FOOD diet gets old as quickly as any other fad diet.

Here's how my favorite 8-year-old typically gets 3 1/2 cups of fruit and vegetables in a day:

A banana at mid-morning snack
Half a cup of applesauce and 10 mini-carrots with lunch
Half a cup of broccoli, half a cup of spaghetti sauce, and one cup of salad at dinner.

I should get 4.5 cups a day, so I can add to this:

1/4 cup of raisins or 1/2 cup orange juice at breakfast, or half an orange after dinner
Increase broccoli to 1 cup, spaghetti sauce to 3/4 cup, salad to 1 1/2 cups.

This is all pretty easy to remember (even with little details like dried fruit counting twice as much and fluffy salad greens counting half as much), and even the 4-year-old is getting pretty good at food choices. Do we need more?

Of pyramids and potatoes

2007-05-23T08:55:00.001-04:00

For the past few years, I have been following the recommendations of the DASH diet developers, which are similar to the USDA recommendations. But I am always interested in other food pyramids. A British dietician, Melanie Thomassian, in her Dietriffic blog, presented the British food pyramid, which turns out to be more of a pie. Considering the popularity of savory pies in the UK, this seems appropriate. The UKFSA food pie groups fruits and vegetables together. The USDA and DASH food pyramids separate them, because they have different nutrient profiles. The UKFSA pie groups the potato with grains, presumably because they are similarly starchy. The USDA groups the potato with vegetables because, well, it is a vegetable, and (starchiness aside) is nutritionally most similar to other vegetables.

By putting the potato with grains, the UK food pie recognizes the potato's role as a staple food. The last time I visited (several years ago now), the potato was a part of "meat and three veg", a standard choice for the evening meal, highly desirable in a breakfast "fry-up", and often eaten at noon. In vast territories of the US, however, the potato fell out of favor during the low-carb craze. Grains are coming back into fashion, but the potato, excellent source of calcium though it is, is presented by the USDA as one of a "vary your veggies" menu. And, because it is not featured in the "eat more dark greens, orange, and dry beans and peas" advice, it is now pretty low in the vegetable rotation. Somewhere down there with kohlrabi and tomatoes, I suppose. But I suspect the potato is more popular than the USDA is letting on. Many restaurants still offer a choice of "potato, pasta, or rice" with the main course. McDonald's still sells a lot of fries. And Waffle House still offers hundreds of variations on the hash brown.

When I was growing up, there were only four food groups in the US. A potato was equivalent to a grain. These days, though, I am much more likely to have a grain (pasta, rice, biscuits, or bread) than a potato with the evening meal. Occasionally, I'll serve a grain AND a potato. It feels a little strange to me, but I do it any way. The DASH diet advises choosing tomatoes and dark green leafy vegetables for half of the weekly vegetable servings, and choosing a variety for the other half. I could still work a potato in there fairly often. Especially if it is a cold potato, which has "better carbs".

Fresh Beets, Simply

2007-05-22T14:31:00.001-04:00

Apparently, Beyoncé hates beets.[1] And so do a lot of other people. I suspect this is because they have been eating canned beets. Canned beets are pale and watery next to the real thing. Real beets are so much redder, sweeter, and more flavorful. And they are a hot new vegetable, being made popular in the US by four-star chefs at tony restaurants in DC and Manhattan. Who knew? At the supermarket, I never see them in anybody's basket but my own.

Why don't I see more people buying fresh beets? Do they not know what to do with them? Are they afraid they are too hard to prepare? Do they think they hate beets? I learned my mother-in-law thought she was not fond of beets when I served her a simple beet dish I learned from Julia Child ("Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home"). She had grown up on watery canned beets, and could only tolerate them prepared Harvard style -- plenty of sugar, vinegar, and cloves to make up for the missing flavors. She was amazed to find out how great beets can taste.

Most recipes begin by roasting the beets in a 350°F oven for an hour. And that is certainly delicious. The dry heat concentrates the flavor and the sweetness, and adds a little caramelization. But I don't always have the time, and, with the weather getting warmer, I don't always want to heat up my kitchen. So I follow Julia Child's advice -- I use the pressure cooker. A pressure cooker is a wonderful saucepot that speeds up cooking bean soups or whole hominy, but I use it much more these days for beets. Now that my grocery carries them all the time, I buy them practically every week. At 99 cents a pound, they are unbelievably cheap for something so delicious, so nutritious, and so beautiful. Pink fingertips seem a small price to pay.[2]

You will need a serving bowl, a dishwasher-safe cutting board, your favorite knife, and a pressure cooker. Bring home some fresh beets -- I like the 3 to 5 inch beets best because their skins slip off so easily after they cook. You'll need half an hour to cook the beets, 10 minutes to cool them, and another 5-10 minutes to prepare them for the table. You could start a day ahead of time, and refrigerate the beets as soon as you can get the cooker open.

Give the beets a quick rub-down in the sink. Cut off the greens just above the root. Save them to cook like chard. Snap off the tails. Don't cut into the beets -- they bleed. Add about an inch of water and a vegetable steamer to the bottom of the pressure cooker. Put the beets in, close up the pressure cooker, put the regulator on, and heat it up until the regulator starts regulating. Adjust the heat to keep the regulator happily spitting and hissing, cook for 30 minutes, then take the pot off the heat to cool down until the safety lock withdraws.

While the beets are cooking and cooling, prepare the rest of your meal. When practically everything else is ready for the table and the pressure cooker has cooled, open it and set up next to the sink. Get 3 or 4 beets out of the pot a time. They should be a little bit squishy. Slice off the tops, where the stems were attached. Trim out any hard spots and the edges of fissures. Using your fingertips, slip the skin right off into the bottom of the sink. It won't come off in one piece, but it should come off quickly. Underneath, the beet will look smoother and shinier than the dull skin. Slice the beets and tip them into the serving bowl.

I like a simple dressing, one that brings out the beet's natural sweetness and flavor. I have tried:

garlic and kosher salt crushed in olive oil (Julia Child's recipe)

olive oil and orange juice

olive oil, balsamic vinegar, allspice, and vanilla, and a tiny pinch of salt

The third is my current favorite. Vanilla and allspice, balanced by the vinegar acidity bring out the sweetness without hiding the beet flavor. A very light coating of olive oil pulls it all together and enhances the mouth feel. This is as kid-friendly as Harvard Beets, but without the sugary syrup.

Once you master the beet basics, try something more sophisticated. Try roast beet, jicama, and carrot salad, or drizzle sliced beets with a blue cheese sauce.[3] On a typical weeknight, though, I stick with my standby. The kids eat it up, courtesy of Julia Child. Make plenty of extra, so your spouse can make Harvard Beets -- a fond childhood memory.

[1] Scholastic Star Spotlight -- Beyoncé
[2] Well, pink fingertips and beeturia, a phenomenon you may never have observed if you have not eaten fresh beets. Do not be alarmed. It is merely the red beet color tinting your bodily fluids. I never see this when I eat canned beets, but I always see it when I eat fresh beets.
[3] NPR: The Beet Goes On

Chinese Ingredients -- Dangerously Unregulated

2007-05-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

It isn't just dangerous chemical scrap in pet foods¹. Chinese companies intentionally sold a poison in place of a common cold-medicine ingredient. At least 100 Panamanians died before the 260,000 bottles of medicine could be destroyed.² And China has become "the source of most of the world’s fake drugs."⁵

In the US, we have come to depend on the FDA to ensure that our foods and medicines actually contain the ingredients claimed on the labels, that they are free of dangerous levels of chemical or biological contamination. But now we are importing large quantities of commodity ingredients from countries that don't share our history or expectations -- China never prosecuted or even closely examined any of the glycerine companies for their role in the Panamanian deaths.² So we have to take action. The FDA has recommended drug makers to test every shipment of glycerine.⁶ A good idea.

In March, the FDA refused admissions for all vegetable protein products from China.³ One week later, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine promised to begin inspection of vegetable proteins for export.⁴. This could help pet food makers (and perhaps human food and dietary supplement makers) feel more confident that they are getting what they paid for. They still might need to pay for more expensive protein assays that won't be fooled by high-nitrogen, non-protein additives like melamine scrap in their low-cost imported ingredients.

According to counterfeiting experts, "no amount of enforcement is going to stop" the distribution of counterfeit prescription drugs.⁵

If we suddenly had to stop importing all Chinese food and medicine ingredients, we would be unhappy with the effect on the economy. But it does make you stop and think. Why are these commodity ingredients such a big part of the global economy? Glycerine, vegetable protein concentrates, amino acid supplement powders. These are not whole foods. How about a bowl of New Orleans red beans and rice instead of some highly processed snack made with TVP and rice gluten?

1. Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China, New York Times, April 30, 2007

2. From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Medicine, New York Times, May 6, 2007

3. IMPORT ALERT #99-29, "DETENTION WITHOUT PHYSICAL EXAMINATION OF ALL VEGETABLE PROTEIN PRODUCTS FROM CHINA FOR ANIMAL OR HUMAN FOOD USE DUE TO THE PRESENCE OF MELAMINE AND/OR MELAMINE ANALOGS", US FDA, 4/27/07

4. "2 companies blamed for tainted pet food", China Daily, 2007-05-08.

5. "In the World of Life-Saving Drugs, a Growing Epidemic of Deadly Fakes", New York Times, February 27, 2007.

6. "FDA Advises Manufacturers to Test Glycerin for Possible Contamination", US FDA, May 4, 2007.

More on Berries, Antioxidants and Alcohol

2007-04-26T14:02:00.000-04:00

Shelly Batts had the good sense to read the entire article instead of just the abstract. Her analysis in Retrospectacle is, therefore, much more valuable than mine. Turns out the berries are only exposed to the fumes of the tested compounds. Her summary of the article is an easy read, and includes a helpful chart and graph. She says 60% of untreated blackberries rotted, 47% of ethanol-trated blackberries rotted, and only 29% of allyl isothiocyanate-treated blackberries rotted.

What I have not seen is data comparing comparing antioxidant content of fresh berries (control and treated) to the 1 and 2-week old berries. If treatment with volatile compounds actually boosted antioxidant content (rather than simply protecting against decline), then there might be some merit in marinating the berries shortly before eating them. Though, of course, there is little benefit to the humans if they marinate themselves while eating berries.

The purpose of the study was to find ways to increase the shelf-life of berries. I don't really want to eat 2-week-old blackberries, even if less than a third of them are rotten. I prefer to buy them fresh locally or pick my own, and eat them within 3 days. They taste a lot better than berries picked for shipping from thousands of miles a way. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer food that tastes good. Even if that means I'm restricted to eating it in season.

Major News Outlets Misrepresent Food Study

2007-04-25T21:23:00.000-04:00

Well, that sounds sensationalist, doesn't it? As Five Wells pointed out, it all started with "Fruity cocktails count as health food, study finds" in Reuters' Oddly Enough section. No matter that the piece completely misrepresents research published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. It is merely entertainment on par with "Drunk deposits horse in bank for night."

The nonsense was picked up as "Cocktails are good for you!" in a Manchester Evening News blog. The blogger has got it as wrong as Reuters did, but it's still not hard news, so that doesn't really count, does it?

Somehow, though, this piece has been promoted from "a bit of a laugh" to "news"

CNN has it in Diet and Fitness as Fruity cocktails count as health food, study finds
MSNBC has it in Health and Fitness as Alcohol may make fruit more fruitful
Some NBC affiliates have run it as Alcohol-Soaked Strawberries Pass the Test
Even Medical News Today put it on their front page, as well as in Nutrition/Diet News as Are Strawberry Daiquiris The Extra-Healthy Cocktail?
A quick internet search on "fruit alcohol" will pull up more examples from US newspapers and television news websites than you can shake a stick at.

Anybody who had read the abstract of the research article would know that the researchers were investigating how various preparations, when applied to whole berries, can help prevent decay during storage at 10 °C (approximately 50 °F). After a week or two, treated fruits were in better shape than untreated fruits.

The conclusion seems to be that spraying berries with ethanol or one of several other anti-fungal preparations helps prevent decay. There is correlation with the fact that, after a week or two, these old but not-very-rotten fruits have higher levels of anti-oxidants than the untreated, rotten fruits.

At no time do the researchers compare just-treated berries with freshly-picked, untreated berries. They do not claim that dipping the berries in alcohol will instantly boost their antioxidants. They certainly do not advocate the drinking of strawberry daiquiri.

The earliest instance I have found of a news organization following up on the pros and cons of drinking alcoholic fruit drinks is Alcohol 'makes fruit healthier' from the BBC. They do repeat the nonsense that this study suggests that "having [berries] in a cocktail may make them even healthier", but did get a quote from a registered dietician pointing out that any health benefits would be outweighed by the damage done by drinking all that alcohol. Other news organizations, such as ChinaDaily (Fruit's healthier if you mix it with alcohol) and The Register (Alcohol boosts health benefit of fruit) seem to have picked up on the ever-so-slightly more nuanced BBC article.

When I do a web search for "fruit" or "strawberries" or "berry" paired with "alcohol" at nytimes.com, philly.com, or washingtonpost.com, I do not find this article. Are the journalists there better trained to check their sources, find experts to clarify confusing jargon, even email the principal contact listed right at the top of the article?

As for all of the other news organizations -- if we can't count on them to check for accuracy in reporting, aren't they just wasting our time?

A more balanced granola

2007-04-24T14:26:00.000-04:00

As I said in my last post, you have to beware of some of those "healthy" recipes, like the nutty high-fat granola recipe recently published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Why should you beware a recipe like this one? Because, even though the recipe is adapted from a book called "The Healthy Kitchen", each serving is high in calories, fat (including saturated fat) and sugar. For each serving of grain, the recipe provides 404 calories, including 21g (1.5 tablespoons; 6g saturated) of fat and 25 g (2 tablespoons) of sugar.

Looking for better alternatives, I consulted Alton Brown's Granola recipe. It provides 1 serving of grain for 353 calories, with 19 grams of fat and 25g of suger. A minor improvement. Surely, one could do better.

You could eat a Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bar, Oats and Honey flavor. That's 100 calories per bar (which come 2 to the pouch). Each bar has only 3g of fat (none of it saturated), 7 g of sugars. Eat the whole 2-bar pack, and you get close to 2 servings of grain, all for only 200 calories.

Or you could make your own. Most granola recipes taste like a very rich cookie. That's the sugar (white, brown, or honey, it's still a lot of sugar) and the oil talking. What you want to make at home will be closer to the Nature Valley product -- lower in sugars and oils.

What exactly is one serving of grain? According to mypyramid.gov, that is approximately 1 oz serving of bread, or the equivalent. How many cups of dry oatmeal is that? That's a little trickier to figure out. But http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov/ can help.

Log in to mypyramidtracker, select "proceed to food intake".
In the text box under "Enter Food Item", type "oats, raw", and click the search button. Under "Search results", click the "Add" button next to "oats, raw", and click the "Select Quantity" button in the other half of the screen.
Now you'll be able to select a serving size of "1 cup", a "Number of Servings" of 100 (yes, 100) and click "Save and Analyze".
On the "Analyze Your Food" display, scroll down and click on Calculate MyPyramid Stats to find out that 100 cups of oats is equivalent to 285.7 1-oz servings of grain.

Result: 0.35 cups (approximately a third of a cup) of rolled oats per serving. That's a hassle, isn't it? I keep the results in an EXCEL spreadsheet so I won't have to go through that again. Similarly, I searched on "wheat germ, crude" to find out that a serving of wheat germ is approximately a quarter of a cup. And a serving of wheat flour is approximately .128 cup (2 tablespoons). Why did I look these up? I was looking at a low-fat honey granola bar recipe

-- Low-Fat Honey Granola Bars (foodgeeks.com) --
12 servings
1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. honey
1/3 cup dark raisins
-------------

That's less than 4 servings of grain in the entire recipe, or just about a third of a serving of grain per serving of grain per bar. I scaled the recipe by 3 and gave it a try. Bah! An oatmeal cookie with a play-doh texture. Wheat flour + liquid (honey) without fat = playdoh.

I'll try to come up with something.

A crispy, crunchy granola bar that tastes good
Not much over 100 calories per serving of grain (remembering that a serving of rolled oats contains 110 calories)
Not overloaded with sugar or fat.

Beware the healthy granola recipe

2007-04-20T15:45:00.000-04:00

The Philadelphia Inquirer published an interesting article about how fast-food and convenience-food makers are vying for your breakfast dollar. It criticizes a few popular morning choices (McGriddles, McMuffins, and Starbucks' Venti Caffé Mocha with whipped cream), and offers a side bar (not available online) advocating more nutritionally balanced breakfasts you throw together at home in three minutes or less. Unfortunately, it also offers a Granola Recipe that (to quote the author) makes the denigrated 300-calorie McMuffin "look like diet fare".

Sure, the granola is chock full of natural, wholesome ingredients. But each serving (maybe 3/4 cup) provides over 400 calories. That's a nice snack if you are an iditarod musher, but a bit heavy in the cereal bowl for the rest of us.

By my calculations, each serving (maybe about 3/4 cup) amounts to about

1 serving of grain
about an ounce of nuts and seeds, which counts as 2 ounces of meat (http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/meat_counts.html)
21 grams (1 1/2 tablespoons) of fat, 5 grams of which is saturated
1 1/3 tablespoons of sugar
No dairy
No fruit or vegetables

I double-checked the weight per cup of the almonds, sunflower seeds, and coconut at the USDA and nutritiondata databases (just use this blog's nutrition data search bar to check for yourself).

Instead of this nutty, high-fat granola, I would choose:

1 serving of grain: 1/3 cup oatmeal (prepared with 1 cup of water), 1 slice of whole-grain bread, or 1 cup of cheerios (60 - 110 calories)
1 serving of dairy: 8 oz skim milk (93 calories)
1 serving of fruit: 1/2 cup fruit (40 to 80 calories)

Total: under 300 calories. Save the nuts for an afternoon snack (1/2 oz walnut halves is under 100 calories).

How many calories do you need a day? How many servings of which foods do you need? Find out at mypyramid.gov.

(correction to serving size of rolled oats 4/24/2007)

Do Frenchwomen Stay Thin?

2006-02-09T21:00:00.000-05:00

Clotilde DuSolier of Chocolate and Zucchini said in this blog entry that Frenchwomen generally stay thin by exercising portion control and doing a fair amount of walking. She does really seem to love her cakes, and she looks thin, so it must be working for her.

One of her favorites is Gâteau au Yaourt. The recipe doesn't read like a diet-book special, does it?

 Ingredients   Total
qty unit item prep type DASH servings

2.00 large eggs  meat 2
1.00 cup whole milk ygrt dairy 1
1.00 cup sugar  sweet 16
0.50 cup oil  fat 24
2.00 cups all-purps flour grain 15.625
1.00 Tbs baking powder   
1.00 tsp vanilla extract   
1.00 Tbs light rum   
----
1.00 cup whole milk ygrt fat 1.714285714
2.00 large eggs   fat 2

I've listed the yogurt and eggs twice, so I can count the extra bit of fat in the whole milk yogurt and whole eggs (instead of just the whites). It turns out to be a lot less than the 1/2 cup of oil, of course.

Mix it all up, bake it in a 10-inch cake pan, and cut it into 16 slices (59g or about 2oz each), and you get

Nutritional Summary
Servings: 16: Serving Size: 1/16 of cake: Calories: 187: Fat(g): 8: Sodium (g): 83

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 0.1: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 1.7: Sweets: 1.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.1: Fats: 1.7: Sweets: 1.0

Which is not too bad for a bite of a "fluffy, cloud-like and moist affair, not too sweet, and just perfect for any time of day". Imagine this cake as a substitute for a slice of toast (1 oz) with 2 teaspoons of butter and a tablespoon of jam. Unless the bread, jam, and butter are all truly exceptional, I think I might make the trade. Or step up the exercise.

Spaghetti with Mini Meatballs and Chunky Sauce

2006-02-09T09:48:00.000-05:00

I have settled on a hearty 2/3 cup helping of sauce, for a serving of 2 vegetables (plus one of oil). And meatballs. They always go over well with the kids. I form and freeze 3-oz patties of lean ground turkey, so I can pull out the right amount whenever I need it. These are better than the salty pre-made turkey burgers. If I don't think to defrost them the night before or in the morning, I can microwave-defrost while I chop the vegetables.

One ounce of dry spaghetti is a serving of grain, about the same as a slice of bread, and cooks up to about 1/2 cup. So I measure about 2 ounces of spaghetti per person. For a family of four, that's half a box. For 7, that's nearly the whole box. There might be some left over.

I like to serve this with a romaine salad or steamed broccoli.

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Spaghetti With Mini Meatballs And Chunky Sauce

Spaghetti with quick and easy meatballs and a hearty, chunky sauce

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 7
Cuisine: Italian American
Main Ingredient: Tomatoes
Categories: DASH, LOW SODIUM, Kid Friendly, Low Fat

-= Ingredients =-
~~ Mini Meatballs ~~
21 ounce Lean Ground turkey
1 tablespoon Fennel Seed
~~ Sauce ~~
2 small onions ; chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water
8 fluid oz no-salt-added tomato sauce ; (one small can)
6 fluid oz no-salt-added tomato paste ; (one can)
2 medium tomatoes ; chopped (1 1/3 cup total)
1 1/4 cups zucchini ; sliced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
~~ Pasta ~~
14 oz Spaghetti

-= Instructions =-
Combine ground turkey with fennel seeds. Form into small meatballs. Twenty-one 1-ounce meatballs means 3 per serving.

In a medium skillet or saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Sauté meatballs, turning as soon as they develop a firm "crust", until browned on all sides. Remove meatballs from pan.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in same pan. Sauté onions, garlic, and zucchini in oil for 5 minutes on medium heat.

Add one cup of water to the pan. Raise heat. Use spatula to loosen carmelized glaze from bottom of pan. Add remaining sauce ingredients and simmer covered for 45 minutes.

Return meatballs to pan for last 10 minutes of cooking.

Meanwhile, prepare pasta.

A serving of 1 cup cooked spaghetti, 2/3 cup sauce, and 3 oz of meatballs will provide:

Nutritional Summary
Servings: 7: Serving Size: 2/3 cup: Calories: 299: Fat(g): 14: Sodium (g): 166

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 1.9: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 1.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.0

** This recipe can be pasted into BigOven without retyping. BigOven.com ID= 160557 **
** Easy recipe software. Try it free at: http://www.bigoven.com **

How does your Spaghetti Sauce Serve You?

2006-02-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

Calculating USDA or DASH servings in a dish is not rocket science. For example, here's how I work through a recipe for an Italian-American style main-course pasta dish, full of chunky vegetables, accompanied by browned mini-meatballs. It is a hearty and satisfying dish.

Sounds like a good idea! But how many servings of meat, vegetables, grain, fat come in each serving? What size is a serving?

First, the sauce. The inspiration -- Vegetarian Spaghetti Sauce -- comes from the NIH's Heart Healthy Recipes pages and also appears in the DASH Diet book. I used the USDA National Nutrient Database for the "official" sizes of the whole onions and tomatoes, and to translate that into cups of chopped vegetables.

Vegetarian Spaghetti Sauce

2 small onions (2.5 oz each); chopped (7/8 cup total)
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces tomato sauce, no salt added ; (one small can)
6 ounces tomato paste, no salt added ; (one can)
2 medium tomatoes (2 3/5" dia, 1.6 oz each); chopped (1 1/3 cup total)
1 1/4 cups zucchini ; sliced
1 cup water
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil

Total Fat: 6 teaspoons -- 6 DASH servings
7/8 cup onions
3 tablespoons garlic
1 cup tomato sauce
3 x 3/4 cup tomato paste (because paste is 3 times as concentrated as sauce)
1 1/3 cup tomatoes
1 1/4 cup zucchini

Total Vegetables: 6.77 cups -- 13.54 DASH servings

By my reckoning, if we divide that 6 ways, everyone gets 2.3 half-cup servings of vegetables and 1 serving of fat. If we divide it 7 ways, It's still about 2 servings of vegetables and nearly 1 of fat.

But what size is that serving? According to the NIH recipe, that's about 4.5 cups (6 3/4 cup servings) after cooking. Considering there are 6.77 cups of vegetables and 1 cup of water in there, that might seem surprising, but there is an awful lot of empty space in a cup of chopped vegetables (see You CAN put 2 cups of vegetables in a 1 cup bag and How big is your head? for an example), and you can count on some of the water to evaporate during cooking. I have never actually measured the volume of the sauce after I've made it. It's messy and I don't have a measuring cup that big. For now, I'll stick with the published values.

Ricotta is Good

2006-02-06T18:37:00.000-05:00

.. and it is not as high in dairy fat. I am sure this recipe is not as smooth and buttery-luscious as the mascarpone version, but probably still delicious. It needs testing.

I could substititute 2 tablespoons of whole-milk ricotta for
Nutritional Summary
Servings: 4: Serving Size: 1/4 of total: Calories: 273: Fat(g): 4: Sodium (g): 35

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.6: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.9
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.3: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.9

Or two tablespoons of part-skim ricotta cheese for
Nutritional Summary
Servings: 4: Serving Size: 1/4 of total: Calories: 261: Fat(g): 3: Sodium (g): 48

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.6: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.5: Sweets: 0.9
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.3: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.5: Sweets: 0.9