I's apple time! One can buy a whole bag full for a dollar or two – or one just picks them up where they lie and rot otherwise. It is always amazing to me how little people care for food available for no money at all.
When I grew up in post-war Germany, we children were always hungry. The grown-ups probably too. But they didn’t let on. The best food we children could dream of was the hot chocolate pudding sauce served in school (thanks to the Marshall Plan, I think!). Most children had a military mess tin that at lunch break got filled with some indefinable soup. For many it was the only warm meal of the day.
My father did not allow his children to take part in school lunch. Number one, we were relatively well off – patients often paid in naturalia: a kilogram of butter here, a feathery chicken there. But my father also thought – far-sighted physician that he was – that the public lunch was not healthy.
We harvested berries and cherries and pears and apples from the garden. My grandfather made the most wonderful apple jelly each fall which we would eat all winter.
Here’s my favorite apple recipe. It’s very easy to do – and absolutely delicious:
Remove the apple cores - but not the skins. Cut the apples in slices and put them in an oven pan in two layers. Sprinkle nuts and raisins over each layer. Add a few dabs of ghee (butter fat) or a few drops of olive oil.
Bake on low for a long time – at least an hour.
For nuts, all of them work. Yesterday I used sunflower seeds on the first layer, walnuts on the second. Sliced almonds are good, too. Instead of raisins, you can use dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried cherries.
What do they say? Enjoy! Enjoy it often during the season! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Totally Unproven Pet Theories of Mine
September 9, 2010
Yesterday I refuted some of medicine’s pet tenets. Today I tell you some of my private unproven theories (hypotheses):
1. If you eat a lot of berries and cherries during the summer, it gears up your immune system and you make it through the winter healthier. - We know that berries are healthy because of their antioxidants – but as far as I know there has been no study done if the effect lasts for the whole next winter.
2. Similarly, if you smell a lot of roses (or other flowers) you get through the winter less depressed. No study here, either. But the nose and the olfactory part of the brain are closely linked to the “feelings” part of the brain (limbic system). – Besides, what other reasons would there be that we like so much to smell good things than to ward off depression? Aromatherapy uses that connection, too – but I am not sure there solid studies exist.
More to come! Read More
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Berries - Gift of Summer
July 26, 2010
You know by now that I don’t believe in super-foods. We are supposed to eat a variety of foods, always changing with the seasons. Now is berry time!
Not everything we call a berry is one in the narrow botanical sense. But I am talking about food here – so let’s take it loosely. This list is not exhaustive – just mouth-watering:
* Bilberry or whortleberry (Vaccinium spp.)
* Blackberry - many kinds: dewberry, boysenberry, olallieberry, and tayberry (Rubus spp.)
* Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.)
* Chokeberry (Aronia)
* Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus)
* Cranberry (Vaccinium spp.)
* Crowberry (Empetrum spp.)
* Currants: red, black, white (Ribes spp.),
* Elderberry (Sambucus - be careful: some are poisonous)
* Falberry (Vaccinium spp.)
* Gooseberry (Ribes spp.)
* Hackberry (Celtis spp.)
* Huckleberry (Vaccinium spp.)
* Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)
* Loganberry (Rubus loganobaccus)
* Mulberry - black and white (Morus spp.)
* Raspberry (Rubus spp.)
* Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
* Sea-buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)
* Serviceberry (Amelanchier)
* Strawberry (Fragaria spp.)
* Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus)
* Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolasius)
In summer, we have the duty – and the joy – of eating berries - I am eating fresh blueberries right now. Mentioning that berries are full of anti-oxidants might bore you to tears because you have heard it so often. But it’s the truth, nevertheless.
Health benefits of anti-oxidants:
• Anti-aging
• Protects the skin against sun damage. Yes you heard right: EATING stuff protects you against skin cancer … maybe better than slobbering sunscreen all over you. Best, of course, might be a combination of both. And even more important: sunhat and long sleeves.
• Anti-cancer
• Reduce high blood pressure.
• Anti-inflammatory (and as many diseases are mediated through inflammation, this is a godsend).
• Protects the liver (which is the organ that does all the work detoxifying your body).
• Anti-bacterial
• Immune-regulating
• Anti-diabetic
• Lower cholesterol
• Anti-depressant
And these are only a few of the benefits of eating berries. They are probably as true for eating your greens and other vegetables. But since berries are so much more delicious – just do your duty and eat them!
You can also plant some in your garden or on the balcony (I used to keep blueberries in containers). And go out for a long walk in the countryside, with a friend and a can, and pick berries for free. Because now is the time!
I think (and this now is totally subjective) that berries are sent to us so that we stock up on wholesome phyto-nutrients in order to survive the next winter better.
And since I am at it, I might as well mention that I believe smelling the roses (and other flowers) at this time of the year, will get us through the next winter without too much of the winter blues. Pure speculation, of course … but then again, the nose and the olfactory nerves are in the vicinity of our brain. Read More