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
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Raw Foods
July 18, 2010
The raw foods movement is an ideology – just as the vegetarian and vegan foods movements are. Fact is that we are omnivores. The length of our intestines, the shapes of our teeth, the hydrochloric acid produced in our stomachs, digestive enzymes produced in our pancreatic glands and our appetites – they all are witness to that fact.
We are omnivores because during evolutionary times, we did not have much choice in what we ate: we had to eat what was at hand, from roots to rabbits, from grubs to greens.
We need a diet that is mixed from raw foods and cooked foods. Recent research shows that mankind has had fire much longer than we thought; we used to think that fire came only about 100,000 years ago. Now the estimate goes to a million years, perhaps two million years. That time is long enough that our bodies have adjusted to cooked food.
The main advantage of cooked food is that we can get more nutrients out. Yes, a few vitamins get destroyed in the cooking process, but overall we gained.
Do we need a fixed ratio between cooked and raw foods? No. Naturally, we tend to prefer longer cooked foods in fall and winter, and raw foods in the summer. We eat more raw food in warmer climates. We are adaptable.
We also have different needs. A person who is warm, can take more uncooked food. A person who is always cold, can't digest raw foods well.
A raw or vegetarian or vegan diet is perfect to detoxify your body when you have lived too many years on too much meat and fast foods. People like to stay on a diet that made such a dramatic difference in their lives, and are often not aware that they might run into deficiencies after a while. I have seen too many patients on a vegetarian diet that consisted of pizza, donuts and ice cream.
After a month or so on a raw/vegetarian/vegan nutritional regimen, the body needs to go a bit more toward omnivore again – a little bit meat and fish, once to twice a week, if one wants to avoid too much meat for reasons of protecting animals and/or the Earth. To get protein and vitamin B12 from fish and/or eggs, it is sufficient to eat animal fare about once a week; more than twice a week might have negative outcomes. There is enough protein (not as perfect though) in nuts, grains and legumes to feed people most of the time.
The discussion raw vs commercial milk (or: a potentially infectious vs pasteurized, homogenized, fortified – adulterated foodstuff) should not be discussed with other raw food issues. But so much here: Dairy in any disguise is not healthy and not necessary - except in rare cases of non-thriving children. The two food groups you don’t need are dairy and white starch. Read More
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Harvesting Little Things
June 24, 2010
Fall is far away – but I did do my first harvesting yesterday: I got my peas off the vine, just in time before they would have been overripe and hard. Did I mention that this year I started vegetable gardening in pots on the terrace? Because I have crammed the garden so much with flowers and berries that not a speck of free soil was anywhere.
The pods yielded about a cup of peas – just enough for the two of us. I sautéed them very shortly with dill and a tad of ghee (butterfat). As you might have noticed, I usually shun dairy. Most dishes improve when you substitute with olive oil but occasionally a recipe calls for butter, and then I use ghee. In butter fat the proteins are skimmed off the melted butter. Since dairy proteins are the main culprits when it comes to inflammation, of all dairy products, ghee is the safest. I am not a purist – at times, I give in to an emotional need for comfort food. So it was yesterday, with the peas.
From the store, we also had dinosaur kale (also called lacinato kale, Tuscan kale) which is a swell way to introduce kids to greens. The kale has this puckered surface which really looks like dinosaur skin - just don’t tell them yet that researchers now discuss if dinosaurs had feathers. A friend had brought me a first bulb of garlic including greens from her garden, and I threw this, cut, into the kale, and added olive oil, some more garlic, pepper, salt.
Served this with red lentils with cumin, and fish with a bit of left-over green sauce from the freezer.
With it, we drank our garden tea, made from stinging nettles, dandelions, mallow, mints, rosemary, sage, chives, a bit of a young burdock leaf, and just a snippet of wormwood (it is toxic in greater amounts).
A simple, everyday meal – but oh, how sumptuous! Read More