Gluten intolerance as a diagnosis is now so widely used that it serves as the butt of jokes. But is it?
About 1 in 100 people have celiac disease – the genetic form. Many more have wheat allergies, and some suffer from the lectins (“anti-nutrients”) in wheat and other grains, seeds, and nuts. I won’t even mention the more than fifty percent of Americans who a seriously overweight, due to “our daily bread”.
Your health is important. When my daughter and I wandered the wild, lonely moors of Yorkshire this summer, every remote little inn and restaurant would carry gluten-free items. But we here still think it is a joke?
Yet – so many people have taken matters in their own hands, without waiting for the government to steps in and admit that not good fats are the culprits; wheat - and rye and barley and, sometimes, oats – are the offenders to our health.
Go on, people – own your health! Read More
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My Food Pyramid Is Topped By Freshness
February 20, 2011
If the Government would ask me for my opinion of redesigning the food pyramid – which they won't because they go the food industry – this single principle would guide my food choices: Freshness.
There actually is no other food than fresh food; everything processed, enriched, manipulated, enhanced, improved, ready-made is not food but inferior food substitute. “Food ersatz” cannot build and repair cells as fresh food can – the outcome is stunted development and disease in the long run.
If you think you are doing yourself a favor by eating, for instance an apple-flavored nutritional bar – think again. That bar has too much sugar and salt, to start with, promoting obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure – cornerstones of the metabolic syndrome. Its ingredients are made to have a long shelf-life. Why would you want to eat something even mold doesn’t want to touch? Its oils a hardened to make them not go rancid quickly – and in turn those hardened fats will harden your arteries. Its apple flavor is artificial and does not what a daily apple does so well: Keeping the doctor away.
Good health is very easy: Move a bit every day, eat well and get enough rest. Then, love a bit – and you are all set.
The devil of course is in the fine print. What does “eat well” mean? Your mind starts spinning if you listen to all the advice in books, online and on TV. But all you have to know is: freshness. Go to a supermarket aisle and buy four different vegetables. Preferably organic (But organic is second on the list; freshness is first). Prepare a meal today with two of the veggies; another meal tomorrow with the other two.
Here is what we had for dinner yesterday: red beet salad (made from scratch, of course), Chinese baby bok choy, cod with cilantro and dill, split peas; frozen blueberries for desert. Today we will have red chard with garlic and olive oil, butternut squash puree, hake fillet with green sauce, red quinoa; pineapple mousse for desert. Tomorrow I will slow braise grass-fed ribs and white cabbage and parsnips with caraway, and serve it with cauliflower and chana dal; for desert the rest of the pineapple.
None of this takes long cooking (the green sauce I have frozen from last time). But we will have a great dinner every single evening. Ordering a pizza would not give my family the same health benefits. Read More