Seasonal Eating

summereating
Photo owned by www.shelleygoldbeck.com

A healthy way to live is to eat “in season”.

That means eating foods that are at their peak of flavour and nutrients. This often happens only once per year, for a very short time, especially if eating locally is the goal.

Eating in season is also economical. Whatever is in season is usually cheaper than it will be any other time of the year.

In my opinion, food eaten in season tastes better. It’s usually fresher and more nutritious.

The best season of our food year is imminent. It starts with spring baby lettuce, baby spinach leaves, green onions and crisp, tangy radishes. All these are easy to grow at home. They like cool weather and can be seeded in Calgary anytime after mid-April.

If you’re really lucky, you have an asparagus patch. Their tender shoots magically appear overnight. Raw, they remind me of fresh raw peas. Lightly steamed until al dente and brushed with a teaspoon of butter or olive oil, they have their own unique flavour. Very yummy!

I get really excited about spring fruits. Early rhubarb always reminds me of my grandma, who made rhubarb “pudding”, a yellow cake batter poured over a pan of chopped rhubarb, baked and served warm with ice-cream.

Strawberries in June embody the spirit of summer! A touch of honey. A bit of cream. Fit for a queen!

The first cherries arrive in June. When their skins are crunchy and their flesh, sweet and juicy, I can eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I often do!

Picking berries was an integral part of my childhood summers. My siblings and I would mount our bikes or horses with our ice-cream pails and larger buckets. We headed home when the buckets were full. It could take all day: we spent more than half our time cramming berries into our mouths!

When the first peas are ready, I am at peace in the garden, splitting the warm pods to discover the sweet treasures inside. The best carrots are the true babies, (not the peeled to shape varieties) pulled, wiped on my pants, and crunched, soil granules and all, right there in the garden.

And potatoes! New potatoes stolen from the periphery of the plant are creamy and sweet. If I never ate another mature potato I wouldn’t care but new potatoes are a completely different animal!

In the old neighbourhood where I live many yards have raspberry patches. Kids love to stick a berry on each of their ten little fingers, wiggle them around, and then devour them one by one.

As summer wanes plums and peaches come into season. More feasting on fruit. And what to do with all that zucchini? (I like them baby so I don’t have that problem).

Alas! Our season is short! By fall, some vegetables are just coming into their prime. The brassicas like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, all like cool weather. Turnips and parsnips are sweeter if they’ve experienced frost.

Eating in season will bolster the total nutrients you take in, reduce your carbon footprint since it’s easier to eat locally, and likely give your pocketbook a break. I highly recommend it.

The Last Soup Recipe You’ll Ever Need

 

soupLearning to make homemade soups is one of the best investments in your healthy eating strategy. Soup making is more of an art than a science: there is no one right way to make a good soup. Yet many people are afraid to even try to make it.

 

Soup is comfort food. Chicken noodle soup alone is famous for its ability to soothe the sick.

 

Soup is filling. In fact, soup can be an effective weight loss tool as long as it’s made with whole real ingredients and not popping out of a can.

 

Soup starts with broth. Broth should be homemade because of the unnecessary chemicals and lack of real nutrients in packaged or canned broth.

 

Broth is easy to make. Simply submerge bones (beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, (I’ve even used ham bone)) in water, add sea salt, two TBSP vinegar (to leach the calcium from the bones into the broth) and boil for several hours.

 

You can add vegetable scraps and water from cooking vegetables. (Caution: Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts contain sulphur, which can make your broth bitter. But if I’m making cauliflower soup or broccoli soup, I use them). Leftover gravy goes into the broth pot and I usually add a couple bay leaves. I have also tossed in leftover mashed potatoes.

 

I freeze my broth in two-cup containers so I am always ready to make a soup. Sometimes I boil the bones again, especially a big turkey carcass. The second batch is not as strong but still tasty.

 

A good friend told me the one ingredient required for good soup is butter. I agree butter is nice but with dairy-free individuals in my family, I’ve had to try other oils. I have found equal success with coconut oil and olive oil.

 

Now for the recipe: Sautee a small chopped onion, two stalks chopped celery, a chopped carrot and a clove of minced garlic in your oil until the onion is translucent and the celery begins to soften. Add salt and pepper.

 

Now comes the fun part. With your broth and this soup starter you can make almost any flavour of soup you want.

 

The other day I had some leftover carrots, turnips and sweet potatoes along with some beef gravy. I began with my soup starter, heated the veggies, then pureed it with my stick blender. Then back into the pot to warm up. Served with popcorn (as crackers), my Root Soup was a hit with my granddaughters.

 

I love to make squash soup with fresh dill or basil, especially if I have turkey broth, my favourite. Sometimes I throw in green beans for colour, crunch and variety.

 

In the fall I make borscht by adding beets, cabbage, potatoes and dill to my basic beef broth soup recipe.

 

I like to make chicken/turkey noodle/vegetable soup, loaded with stuff so it eats like a meal. One day I made oxtail and butternut squash soup. Very yummy.

 

Mushroom soup is easy to make by adding a couple cups of various chopped mushrooms and sautéing before adding broth. Puree, a few spices and finished with cream: gourmet all the way!

 

My favourite soup is one I make by first taking a trip through the garden with my bowl. Baby carrots, fresh zucchini, green beans or summer peas lightly steeped in my soup starter make a lovely summer supper.

 

I make seafood chowder by adding bacon, potatoes, clams, shrimp, and other fish to the pot. Top it off with some red peppers, frozen peas, and cream (or coconut milk) moments before serving and we’ve got a hearty meal.

 

I pour hot leftover soup into jars and refrigerate. They keep for a long time (if they are sealed hot) and make lovely quick lunches and gifts to the sick and shut-in, all without BPA, table salt, and other harmful chemicals. To keep longer, freeze soup. It’s best if used within three months.

 

Warning: once you begin making your own soups you will never again be able to eat soup from a can or eat it in a restaurant. You will be able to smell the chemicals; it will taste too salty yet seem tasteless.

 

Making your own soup means you are in charge of the ingredients. You control the salt and sugar. (Sugar in soup? The canned stuff has it!) You control the kind and amount of fat. You control how long the vegetables cook. (Ideally they are not overcooked).

 

Most importantly, homemade soups have nutrients that canned and packaged soups simply don’t have. We eat to provide our bodies with nourishment so why would we eat soup from a can?

 

If you’re on a budget (and who isn’t?) homemade soup can be a very economical way to feed yourself and your family.

 

I hope you’ll try to make some soup. If you do, be sure to tell me about it.

 

As always I urge you to eat The Food. The Whole Food.  And Nothing but the Food.

 

Get Off the Diet Roller Coaster: Ten Tips for Achieving Your Ideal Weight

Roller CoasterAfter just two weeks the diet roller coaster has already ejected a good number of its riders.

Some of those didn’t even get on. The pull of holiday goodies was simply too strong.

Besides the festivities really weren’t over until seven days into the year. Well, that wrecks it for the whole year, so why bother?

Others jump on with great enthusiasm, strapping themselves in and throwing their arms up in the air with abandon. Many of these fall off rather early too: their arms quickly tire and they can only handle so much of the stress of the ups and downs.

Some make it through numerous hills and valleys, but find themselves frequently dizzy and nauseous.

And by mid January, most people have already lost their grip and tumbled to the ground.

Here’s a radical idea. Let’s get off the diet roller coaster forever. In fact, I propose we skip that area of the amusement park altogether.

Let’s not give our money to the hucksters selling us the illusion that this ride is taking us somewhere. The facts are:

FACT 1: Diets don’t work.  Once you get off the diet all the problems return. Diets often distract us from dealing with the real problems.

Fact 2: Follow the money. Diets have never worked but the diet industry (including physicians and pharmaceutical companies) makes billions of dollars every year perpetuating the myth. We foolishly keep getting back onto the ride that takes our money and makes us sick.

Fact 3: Governments, Big Agriculture, Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Health Care and Big Health Insurance industries DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU! I am saddened by the blind trust the average person has in the “system”.

Fact 4: You must take responsibility for yourself, for your own health and education.

Fact 5: Food does not have to be complicated. We simply need to reconnect to it.

So what can you do? How do you relinquish your lifetime pass on the diet roller coaster?

Here are just ten examples:

1. Learn more about food. Why is broccoli good for you?  Why should you be suspicious of GMOs?

2. Cook more of your own food. Food made with hands is better for us than factory food. By preparing your own food you can avoid the chemical poisons of food additives.

3. Grow some of your own food. Some herbs and a tomato in a pot on the patio. Turn a patch of lawn into a salad garden. Plant berry bushes that grow well in your area. (Turn children loose in a raspberry patch for a soul-filling event.)

4. Shop the periphery of the supermarket. The fresh real food is usually found around the outside and the junk is usually on the middle shelves, especially at the ends of the aisles. Even better, forego the supermarket for the farmer’s market.

5. Get to know your grower. When you learn about the inputs required for successful organic farming, you won’t mind paying a bit more at all. You will gain an appreciation for the resources required to feed you and perhaps you’ll stop taking the earth for granted.

6. Buy colourful foods. Fruits, vegetables, and berries come in a rainbow of colours. We are genetically programmed to associate bright colours with good nutrition. It’s no mistake that junk food is marketed with brightly coloured packaging and messaging (but the food itself is often bland and colourless). We are being misled.

7. Stop poisoning yourself. Avoid “unfoods”.  You know, they come in a colorful bag inside a colourful box wrapped in plastic, with a shelf-life of decades and a list of ingredients that sound like they could power a space station, er, I mean “look”, because they are invariably unpronounceable! Avoid factory food. Eat whole real food.

8. Stop counting calories. Yes, they matter to some degree but focusing solely on calories is dangerous. (That is how fats became villains, even though many are actually heroes). Nutrient density, the total nutrients per calorie, is what really matters. Micronutrients are probably more important than macronutrients (fat, protein, carbs). Choose foods that give you the most nutrient bang for the buck/calorie. Go for quality, not quantity.

9. Start paying attention to your body. My great-grandfather said your body will tell you whether you should eat it. I’m often chided for avoiding bread but it bloats me and adds up to eight pounds to my weight in one day. My body is telling me bread isn’t serving it. If you have inexplicable health problems try eliminating some of the worst offenders from your diet for a while. Wheat, soy and dairy are some of the common foods that cause mystery illnesses.

  1. Drink water. This one step, if practiced many times each day, can revolutionize your health.

Finally, remember this. There is evidence that we are not sick because we’re fat, we’re fat because we’re sick. Fat is a symptom. Treating symptoms doesn’t work. It only masks the problems.

The accumulation of fat can be the body’s way of defending itself from toxins. Those toxins can be emotional, from food or from industrial chemicals.

Therefore the goal to “lose weight” is off track. When we strive for optimum health the body will detoxify itself, heal itself and we achieve our goals.

We’ve been riding the wrong ride!

I am happy to point you in the direction of many good resources if you decide to stay off the diet roller coaster forever. Feel free to contact me.