Category: Food

Fat Complexity

There are certain types of saturated fat that are harmful, because they reduce the LDL receptors on the liver, and so cause an increase in blood cholesterol because the HDL returning LDL to the liver to be disposed of can’t get in. This causes a buildup of blood cholesterol in the blood vessels.

On the other hand, there are certain types of saturated fat — like that found in dark chocolate — that don’t have this effect, and so do not pose a threat to promoting clogged arteries.

Sorry, but nutrition is complicated.

Nutrition and Health

Recipes

The trick to putting together delicious and nutritious recipes is knowing one’s own particular tastes. Most people have a vague sense of the tastes they like, but if you have a very detailed sense of the tastes that please you, you are in a much better position to put together ingredients in a dish that ultimately will be very pleasing.

For instance, I’ve discovered that I really really like the following: garlic, onion, slight and subtle curry, fennel, sour/sweet combinations, cooked tomato, walnut/almond/pecan, lemon juice on leafy greens, mint, basil, vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon.

Before I got into learning how to cook, I had no idea that these are the tastes that I crave, so that eating various dishes was at best a haphazard experience.

But now, I can use this self-knowledge to create recipes that, generally speaking, will be outstanding from a taste perspective — not because I got this outstanding recipe from a book but because I created a recipe that matches my personal taste profile.

Favorite Recipes

Never Forget

Never forget that all modern “medicine” — pills — are to some degree toxins, foreign to the body, with the potential for a litany of unhealthy outcomes.

Always ask yourself whether this miracle pill is actually a modern version of medieval medicine where they bled people with leeches as the principal “cure”. Yeah, right.

The main cause for all disease — including heart disease and cancer and all the modern autoimmune diseases — is a poor diet; and the only real cure for disease is a healthy, nutritious diet. Food causes the problem but can also fix it.

When you turn to medicine as the cure, you are turning toward voodoo. For instance, look at what they are now saying about the consequences of taking statin drugs or the use of stents in blocked arteries. Both are now thought to be equivalent to the medieval bleed with leeches — AGAIN!

Don’t trust “miracle” medicine; trust healthy whole food. Hippocrates understood this 2400 years ago.

Weight Loss Tricks

Quinoa and Buckwheat

These are not grains but seeds, and so can be sprouted. Put them in water for 24 hours, then thoroughly rinse the sprouted seeds. To cook, bring the water or vegetable broth to a boil, then on low heat for 20 minutes. 

The thorough washing and then the sprouting process does two things — minimizes or eliminates the antinutrients and massively increases the nutritional value of both seeds. 

This combination is a very healthy addition to a salad or can be used to make bread or pancakes.

First Pie Attempt

First Pie Attempt

My first attempt at a purple sweet potato pie was absolutely delish — I could have eaten the whole thing at one go, it was so tasty — but it hardly look anything like a pie. The crust part was a complete disaster. But I am undaunted. Next time, the crust will really resemble a pie crust. I’m furiously reviewing youtube videos on how to make a pie crust.

I didn’t have the right equipment for doing the pie crust. My roller pin was way too small and never got to use it because I didn’t have a suitable surface for rolling and powdering the dough. So the dough ended up this gooey mess that I spooned into the glass pie dish. The only thing that worked was the sweet potato filling with a heavy dose of cinnamon and some stevia. That worked perfectly. The filling tasted like cake, not potato.

I want to make a pie crust with a mixture of various non-wheat flours (oat, chickpea, walnut, quinoa, lentil) that are held together with the gel formed by chia seeds and almond milk, plus baking powder and arrowroot powder. I want to make it so that the crust is thicker and a more substantial part of the pie, as these flours have excellent nutritional value. 

Sugar and Salt

Sugar and Salt

I’ve been reading John McDougall’s book The Starch Solution. He’s definitely in the low-fat camp of vegans, and does point out that starchy vegetables, by and large, are very low in fat, which is one reason one can eat a lot of such foods because they tend to be low in calories with such low-fat content.

He surprised me with his comments about sugar and salt. Most of these nutrition gurus condemn both. Sugar because of the empty calories and salt because of its impact on blood pressure — not McDougall. He says go ahead and add a little sugar or salt to the starchy foods if that makes them more palatable for you. He doesn’t see the harm in doing that at all.

Beneficial Algae