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.

Pantry Basics: Real Ingredients for cooking success

pantryIf diets don’t work, what ARE we supposed to eat?

The answer is simple.

Whole. Real. Food.

Prepared with human hands.

With the intent to nourish.

If you’re accustomed to eating out of a box, preparing food can be daunting. I suggest cooking classes, tutoring from a chef or a good cook you know or even watching people cook on TV or You Tube.

Cooking isn’t even the best description of the process. Ideally half your diet comes from raw foods. I generally begin my day with fruit. I picked that up from the Diamonds, authors of Fit for Life. It works for me.

Fruit is simple to prepare. It often comes with its own package/protection so it’s easy to carry. Most fruit can be eaten out of hand, with no cutting. Even though some fruit requires cutting, that’s usually the end of the preparation.

Vegetables are also an important part of your raw food intake. That’s easy too. Salads are easy to make. Wash veggies; chop veggies; toss veggies.  To save time and effort tossing, you can make platters of veggies for dipping. Making fresh dips is easy. Throw stuff in blender; blend; dip veggies in dip. All easy.

If you decide you want cooked veggies, there is another step: put in pot; steam. None of this is hard.

Of course you can juice all these fruits and veggies, but I’m pretty lazy about cleaning the juicer so I just eat the whole fruit and the whole vegetables. Also easy.

To eat healthy, it helps to start with a pantry of essentials. Over the years my pantry has changed considerably. I gradually shed the processed unfoods and replaced them with real ingredients that show themselves useful in many recipes.

Here are some of my pantry essentials and what I do with them:

  1. Lemons: I drink lemon water in the mornings to prime my digestive system. Lemon is an ingredient in my favourite salad dressings and veggie dips: hummus, babaganouj, and guacamole. Lemon complements lamb and fish.
  2. Garlic: in salad dressings, soups, stews, main dishes, spaghetti sauce; roasted with crackers and veggies; raw, sliced as medicine for warding off colds or poultice for healing wounds.
  3. Onions: in some form in almost all salads and main dishes. Green, red, white and yellow onions. Easy to grow.
  4. Olive oil, extra virgin: for salad dressings, dips, sautéing (at low temps). Buy from reputable company as olive oil is often diluted with cheaper oils. It should harden when refrigerated.
  5. Coconut oil, extra virgin: use for frying, baking oven fries, in place of butter or shortening in any recipe. Also use it for skin/hair, and teeth (oil pulling).
  6. Greens and Herbs, variety: spinach, arugula, mesclun (mixed greens), kale, baby lettuces, red leaf, green leaf, butter and romaine lettuces, fresh parsley, basil, oregano, mint. They all add crunch, enzymes and vital nutrients to any dish.
  7. Other fresh veggies: mushrooms, celery, carrots, with garlic and onion form the base of many soups, stews and main dishes. Broccoli, turnip, tomato, cauliflower, asparagus, cabbage are other favourites. I especially seek out local seasonal vegetables.
  8. Fruit, variety. Bananas are the perfect fast food. “An apple a day…” is proven to be more than just a nice quote. Organic berries are some of the world’s most nutritious foods and can be incorporated into any meal in any course.
  9. Avocado: great source of healthy fat. I use in guacamole, salads and desserts like “chocomole” See link.
  10.  Nuts and nut milk. Use raw cashews to thicken salad dressings, desserts and non-  dairy sauces. Nuts transform gluten-free desserts. Nut milk is a great dairy substitute that serves well in most recipes that call for milk.

By no means is this list exhaustive but most of these ingredients are valuable in my kitchen because they serve many purposes. I don’t have room in my small kitchen for too many one trick ponies.

I also must have in my kitchen at least one Aloe Vera plant, vital for treating burns. I must have baking soda, which I use to clean pots and pans and sinks, to prevent boiling eggs from cracking, and to brush my teeth. Vinegar is another multi purpose item in my pantry, mostly for cleaning inexpensively and safely.

Banishing all packaged food from your pantry might be too big a step for you. I certainly didn’t purge my pantry overnight. After decades of conscious purging, there are still a few items that are yet to be banished.

I suggest working on one thing at a time. When you run out of something, replace it with something from this list. For example when your cooking oil runs out, replace it with olive and/or coconut oil. When your salad dressings are gone, start making your own.

By taking these small steps eventually your pantry will serve your goal of eating for optimum health.

Safe Food Handling: 13 Tips to Ensure Your Food Doesn’t Make You Sick

turkeyTurkey Day is fast approaching. Many people get “the flu” around holidays. In truths these flus are often cases of food poisoning from unsafe food handling practices. Adopt these 13 habits to avoid being sick on Thanksgiving and everyday.

There has been some talk of governments mandating the irradiation of food to prevent food-borne illnesses. We should all cry out against this ill-advised policy mainly because irradiation not only kills pathogens it also destroys vital nutrients. Our food supply is already nutritionally compromised from being grown in nutrient depleted soils, sprayed with a myriad of chemicals, and being bred for aesthetics and the ability to travel long distances.

In an effort to be healthy I try to choose as many fresh foods as possible. Irradiation will destroy the last life that’s left and it simply isn’t necessary. Despite occasional concerns, Canada has a safe food supply, much safer than almost anywhere else in the world, but food handling naturally comes with risks because what is food for us is also food for other creatures.

There is much the consumer can do to minimize risks of food spoilage, which leads to food-born illness. Fortunately, one of my high school jobs was in a hospital kitchen. They took safe food handling very seriously. I received training on everything from personal hygiene to storage and safe preparation of food. I take these things for granted now but I realize not everyone had the benefit of this training. Here are some ways we can minimize our risks.

1) Buy fresh food and be aware of the length of the shelf-life. For example, don’t buy ground beef Monday to eat on Saturday; it should be eaten within a couple days.
2) Use plastic bags to wrap meat so juices don’t contaminate other foods in transit.
3) Schedule your errands so groceries are last. That way cold items are less likely to begin brewing bacteria. I throw my cooler into my trunk for meats and dairy products if I know I can’t go straight home.
4) Put groceries away immediately. Now is a good time to remove any science experiments from the back of the fridge, throw away leftovers that are more than a day or two old (depending on the item) and wipe up any fridge-dried spills and debris.
5) Wash produce thoroughly, even if it says on the package that is has been washed. Many products are packed in the field by workers, who don’t have access to proper bathroom and washing facilities.
6) Always store meat at the proper temperatures. Marinate meats in the fridge rather than on the kitchen counter. Use meats within one or two days or freeze them immediately for later consumption.
7) While cooking and preparing, wash your hands frequently to interrupt germ highways.
8) Be aware of cross-contamination scenarios. Don’t use the same knife to cut vegetables after slicing a chicken breast. Cutting boards are germ playgrounds and should be sanitized between food groups. I prefer glass or plastic boards that can be washed in the dishwasher.
9) Cook foods to safe temperatures. It varies with the product so find out and use thermometers to check before serving. Serve immediately or hold at prescribed temperatures.
10) Leftovers should be packaged (air tight to prevent fridge tastes) and refrigerated immediately. Granted, nobody wants to move from the table after turkey, but there will be a lot fewer Christmas “flu”s from the mandatory midnight turkey bun if the turkey flies into the fridge after the last bite is swallowed. The same goes for the stuffing as soon as its presence is no longer required at the table and for goodness sake, don’t leave it inside the bird!
11) Kitchen surfaces and sinks should be cleaned with soap (not antibacterial) and dried to remove germs. Otherwise your kitchen is nothing more than a giant Petri dish.
12) Change your dishcloth regularly; I wash mine daily. Don’t use a sponge as there are many nooks and crannies for germs to hide. I often toss my brushes, cleaning pads, and sink stoppers into the dishwasher to be sanitized, especially if the machine isn’t quite full.
13) Finally, practice good personal hygiene. Cooking is physical and in many ways, intimate. It involves touching, massaging and tasting. And if you’re not clean yourself, your food will be contaminated.

Practice these easy steps to ensure your meals won’t make your friends and family sick.

Change Your Oil Revised July 2013

oilchangeMany people think “healthy fats” is an oxymoron largely because fat was demonized in the eighties by many health professionals. Food manufacturers were quick to recognize opportunities to make huge profits and “low-fat” foods were created. The vilification of dietary fat is now suspected of contributing to the obesity epidemic partially because food manufacturers replaced fat with sugar, which comes with its own issues.

Furthermore, saturated fats were once believed to cause heart disease, thanks to a faulty study by Dr. Ancel Keyes, which was adopted by most health professionals as the word of dietary law.  This motivated health conscious people to switch to vegetable oils. Now there is evidence that switching from saturated fats to polyunsaturated fats, common in processed vegetable oils, has contributed to higher rates of cancer.

 

One reason is that polyunsaturated oils are highly unstable and vulnerable to oxidation and turning rancid.  Oxidation causes cancer. Oils that are rancid are highly toxic to humans (and pets. Sadly, most pet food is made using rancid fats).

 

To add to the danger, conventionally produced vegetable oils are processed using toxic chemicals like hexane, heptane, caustic soda, and other chemicals, the safety of which is unproven, to mask the rancid smell of processed oils.

In addition to the dangers of oxidation and rancidity, there are also concerns about the omega-6 content of polyunsaturated oils. A recent San Francisco study demonstrated that under laboratory conditions, omega-6 fatty acids could accelerate the growth of prostate tumor cells.  They are also suspected of contributing to breast cancer in post-menopausal women.

 

Other studies show that improving the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio can lower the risk of certain cancers. Specific recommendations vary, but most experts suggest a ratio of between 1:1 and 1:4 at most. The average modern diet has an omega-3 to omega-6 ratio of 1:20 or more!

 

The rapid increase of vegetable oils in our diets during the past century is largely responsible for this imbalance. While some vegetable oils do contain small amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, for the most part, they consist of omega-6. Some experts recommend increasing omega-3 consumption, but it is more effective to reduce omega-6 intake, by eliminating or drastically decreasing polyunsaturated oil consumption, including canola, soy, corn, and sunflower oils.

 

Further compounding the unhealthy fat issue is the hydrogenation of vegetable oils.  Hydrogenated oils and any foods made with them are the leading cause of heart disease and a major contributor to neurological disorders. Simply put, hydrogenated oils (or trans fats) are poison in the human body. They accelerate the buildup of plaque in the arteries and are suspected of causing cancer.

Food producers create hydrogenated oils for the convenience of food producers, primarily so that those foods taste good and can sit on the shelf for months without going bad. Therefore they significantly contribute to profits.

High-fat, low-fat, saturated fat, hydrogenated fats, polyunsaturated fats, omega 3, omega 6; it’s all very confusing. So what are we supposed to do?

 

First we need to recognize that healthy fats are an integral part of a complete diet. Avoiding fats actually causes chronic disease. Your brain is made of fat and it needs saturated fat. Even brain-friendly omega-3 fatty acids can’t be utilized without ample saturated fat. In addition, saturated fat facilitates nerve signals and hormone production. All of these systems rely on saturated fat to function, and to keep you healthy and ultimately, alive.

 

A diet rich in saturated fats protects your heart. Saturated fat reduces Lp(a), which is associated with increased risk for heart disease, and contributes to higher levels of HDL (good) cholesterol, which keep your heart healthy. In traditional cultures saturated fat was revered and even coveted as a source of vital energy.

Many nutrients are fat-soluble and failure to include healthy fats in meals results in many of the nutrients consumed not being absorbed by the body. Beta carotene, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E are three nutrients that require fat in order to be absorbed and used by the human body.  We need saturated fat to transport calcium to our bones, which is why dairy products naturally contain both calcium and saturated fat. Calcium supplements don’t do much good if saturated fat is lacking in our diet. By consuming fats with nutritional supplements, the effectiveness of the phytonutrients in supplements multiplies.

It doesn’t take much fat to aid the absorption of important vitamins and nutrients. Eating just five or ten nuts, or one-fourth of an avocado, provides plenty of dietary fat for transporting nutrients and aiding their absorption.

Saturated fats also boost our immune systems because they contain specialized fatty acids, which are naturally antifungal, antimicrobial and antiviral. These important fatty acids include lauric acid, myristic acid and caprylic acid. A diet rich in these beneficial fats provides the body with essential building blocks to fight pathogenic substances.

 

It is vitally important to choose the right kind of fats for your diet and the right amount because fats are high in calories. Healthy fats include real butter, (ideally from grass-fed cows), virgin (meaning cold-pressed) coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, flax seed oil, hemp-seed oil and other fats from plant sources such as nuts, seeds, and avocados. These healthy fats should be consumed with every meal. Oils from fatty fish like wild salmon are also beneficial. Even the fat in beef can be called healthy if eaten in moderation and if those animals were grass-fed, not grain-fed.

It is advisable to give up cheap fats such as low-cost vegetable oils. To do so requires the abandonment of most processed foods as they are almost always made with cheap, usually hydrogenated, vegetable oils. Say good-bye to crackers, deep-fried foods, baked goods, indeed, the entire snack aisle of your local grocery store.

Healthy fats are more expensive than unhealthy fats but this is one case where spending extra money significantly protects your health.

Finally, use oils appropriately. For example, extra-virgin olive oil is ideal for salad dressings and dishes that will simmer because it has a low flash point (or temperature at which it begins to burn). Flax oil should never be heated. Butter, coconut oil and peanut oil can stand higher temperatures and are more appropriate for cooking at high temperatures. Ideally, it is best to give up fried foods, because all fried fats contain trans fatty acids.

Sadly most people are more careful about the condition of the oil in the engines of their cars than about the oils they consume to fuel their bodies.  Changing your oil is an integral part of maintaining good health.

Sources for this article include: www.NaturalNews.com, www.Wikipedia.com, www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com, www.alive.com

Eggs: Eggscelent or Evil?

chickens

Photo from ShelleyGoldbeck.com

Are you confused about whether you should eat eggs?

Your confusion is justified.

Eggs have been called ‘the perfect food”. Although, so has milk.

When Ancel Keyes’ flawed hypothesis that cholesterol causes heart disease became “common knowledge” in the medical community, eggs became villains.  Too much cholesterol.

Doctors warned their patients off eggs, despite their having other essential nutrients like protein, omega 3 fats, and various vitamins and minerals. To learn more about egg nutrients see: http://www.eggs.ca/eggs101/view/22/egg-nutrition and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_(food)

It was a sad time when the doctor insisted my grandma eat no more than three eggs each week. She had eaten a boiled egg nearly every day of her life, at that point, over eight decades.

I told her that eggs have components to help the body metabolize cholesterol. They have other beneficial nutrients. There was as much reason to eat them as not.

But who was I? The doctor surely knew better than I did.

Recently I found out she didn’t even have a cholesterol problem. It turns out she never fasted before her lipids blood test. To Grandma, skipping breakfast was intolerable. She needed to eat!

And of course eating an egg an hour before the test will skew the results.

When the lodge withheld her breakfast before the tests, all was normal.

She deprived herself of her morning egg for many years for nothing!

That’s not the end of the egg debate.

You see, the egg you eat today is not the same egg she ate.

Hers came from a family farm, where the chickens have access to grass everyday. They have fresh air and sunshine.

They exercise, poking around looking for insects. They fly up in terror when a fox strolls by their secure enclosure.

They have nest boxes so they can lay their eggs in privacy; (they seem to like that).

They aren’t confined to a space smaller than a sheet of paper, with their coop mates in their faces 24 hours a day.

Their feed consists of grain, lots of green grass and weeds, the odd insect, and plenty of assorted kitchen scraps.

My grandma would say that they are happy chickens. She believed happiness was a vital condition for healthy chickens.

The egg she ate was fresh, perhaps two days old. It had a golden yolk with a firm, jelly-like white that didn’t cover the entire frying pan when cracked. The egg she ate may have been fertile. It most certainly had more nutrients than the anemic orbs in the grocery stores today.

The eggs we buy in supermarkets are up to two months old before we buy them.  The Egg Marketing Board says it’s okay. The egg white is almost liquid, the yolk is anemic, and it just doesn’t taste fresh.

The conditions in which factory farm hens live are appalling. Their diets are garbage: waste from food processors, the carcasses of their colleagues, antibiotics, arsenic, and other unnatural substances. There is no happiness. There is much illness and despair.

Lately I’ve noticed commercials on TV for egg farmers. They have a catchy tune, “I’m an egg-man….” And they show pictures: a farming family, bucolic pastures, red barns, soft morning light dancing through the leaves.

Not once do they show a chicken.

They know we wouldn’t be singing the happy tune if we saw the chickens.

It’s like almost everything else on TV. It’s not real.

The reality is the commercial egg business has such slim margins that farmers are cornered into factory farming and its accompanying tortures.

Besides being cruel, the end product is inferior. Sick animals produce sick food. It’s that simple.

Even so-called Omega 3 or Organic eggs are suspicious products. I recently helped an elderly friend with her grocery shopping. She wanted organic eggs. I opened the carton to check them for cracks. They looked like they had been dyed. The shells were an unnatural, almost glowing orange. I would be leery of eating those eggs, despite their organic label.

Ideally, you have a few chickens in your backyard coop. It’s legal in some jurisdictions.  Before Calgary changed their by-laws I had a backyard coop with three little red hens.

We had the freshest eggs possible plus the enjoyment of caring for other creatures, observing their habits, and being connected to our food. My hens composted my kitchen scraps faster than any compost system. They provided hours of entertainment for the dog, the grandchildren, and even the grandpa to those children. He loved checking for eggs as much as they did.

If you can’t manage having your own chickens, find a neighbour or a farmer with a few.

If you have access to healthy eggs from happy chickens, I recommend you eat eggs. In moderation, like everything.

If you can’t get real eggs, I suggest you eat them sparingly or not at all.

 

Breaking news: The US FDA is campaigning to outlaw organic eggs. See:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/no-more-organic-eggs-zw0z1309ztri.aspx#axzz2epVodpjP

Another article to read here