In a country where the kitchens all look like out of the movies, and people read cookbooks like mysteries, few actually cook a warm meal every day, and some have not even the most basic of cooking skills. If you can’t cook but have resolved for the New Year to eat healthier - here is your mini-cooking course, easy as 1-2-3:
1. Vegetable: Go to the supermarket and look which vegetable is affordable, looks very fresh, and is organic (in that order!): Buy it.
What you need also for a vegetable dish: a mid-sized skillet with lid, olive oil, pepper and salt, dry minced or fresh garlic (if you have never cooked, take dry garlic – it is no fuss at all). Don’t opt for garlic already minced/peeled in a jar – it spoils fast.
Say you bought kale. Cut in broad stripes, wash it fast, put in skillet. Add about a finger or two deep water, olive oil, pepper, salt, garlic. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low, until the kale starts looking like wilting – takes about 30 to 45 minutes.
Eat and enjoy! If you really can’t cook, making a beginning with a single vegetable dish and experiencing the different flavors, will get you hooked. Nearly all vegetables are good with garlic and olive oil. In the future, I will post some more very easy recipes.
After you have tried several different vegetables, you graduate to fish and/or meat.
2. Fish or meat: Buy a filet of fish (about half a pound per person) that looks fresh or a small piece of meat for pan-frying, for instance: a lamb chop, a thin pork cutlet, some sirloin stripes.
What you need for fish/meat: A small frying pan with lid, some fresh or dried herbs (like dill for fish, oregano for meat), coconut oil, pepper and salt.
Say you bought a piece of hake: Melt a teaspoon of coconut oil in the frying pan. Wash the fish, dry it with a paper towel, put it into the pan. Cover it with dill that you have finely chopped, or with dry dill (don’t be a miser!). Heat until you hear it sizzling, then turn to low heat, and let simmer for about ten to twenty minutes, depending on the size of the piece of fish. It should easily break apart when you probe with a fork.
In fish and meat, salt should always be added AFTER cooking. Pepper can go in whenever you want it.
Frying meat is a bit more tricky – do you like your meat more raw or more done? Usually, when blood seeps up to the surface, it is time to turn the meat and fry from the other side.
Don’t be afraid of frying! Coconut oil can stand heating better than olive oil. And what kills us in the Standard American Diet (SAD) is not this little bit of meat but sugars (especially High Fructose Corn Syrup ((HFCS)), white starches, dairy (especially cheese) and hardened fats (which are used in processed foods to increase shelf-life).
3. Ready for a side dish? They are easiest! Rice and lentil leftovers also make a wonderful breakfast the next day. For breakfast, warm the grains/legumes amd add some olive oil – that way you get hungrier later. A handful fresh (or dried) herbs makes it a rounded breakfast.
Grains/legumes: You need a small skillet with lid. You also need brown rice or dry lentils, and salt.
Say you bought small green lentils (also called French lentils, Champagne lentils). Take one cup of dry lentils and add two cups of water. Plus a pinch of salt. Here I publicly admit to that I never wash lentils and rice. It might be better – but then the ratio of water is not that simple 1 to 2. So I don’t wash - I seem to be less worried by germs and crud than other people; a certain amount might even strengthen our immune system. Bring to a boil, then put the lid on and simmer on low, until all water is gone. For French lentils it takes roughly 45 minutes.
Red lentils (same recipe, same grain/water ratio) cook must faster – they are done in about twenty minutes. I always add cumin to red lentils, for a great taste.
“Normal” lentils, the plain old variety, cook the same. Only they taste a bit boring. To vamp them up, add a small onion and/or a carrot, or both, finely chopped. The cooking time for normal lentils is somewhere between green and red lentils. You don’t have to worry about cooking times: Grains and legumes are always done when the water is gone.
Now you can make a whole meal! Everything else will be just variations on the themes.
P.S. If you live in the Boston area, and like to hear me speak, see the calendar on "events" for a January 30th event. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Soy - The Tainted Miracle Food
August 12, 2010
Soy is the new wonder food - sooo healthy! Drinking soymilk is a nice first step to get away with the ubiquitous milk and dairy. But there are problems with soy. But what with all the health claims?
Many people get allergies to soy. I observe it in my patients that, roughly after five years, the soy problems are starting – indigestion, joint and skin problems. But during those five years, people get out of the milk habit – and that is a good thing in my eyes. After soy, there is still rice milk and almond milk. And after those, there is always water.
Soy’s estrogenic effects are well-known. Less well-known is that all legumes (beans, lentils, garbanzos) contain estrogenic-like compounds: phyto-estrogens. Yes, soy is highest – but by now we could have learned that bigger is not always better. Especially not, when it is non-organic and gene-manipulated (the verdict on that is still out - until then, I prefer to be on the safe side). Avoid soy as a powder and filler. Especially, avoid it in so-called health bars which contain soy for a sole purpose: That you might think it is healthy and buy it.
New studies have shown that the marvelous properties of soy do not apply across the board; they only happen with fermented soy products – like miso or tempeh – but not with unfermented soy products. I think of soy as one of the beans. Not as a miracle food.
Soy has become the next super mono crop, with agricultural subsidizing, big time. And with all the ensuing problems: depletion of soils, over-fertilizing, and susceptibility to pests. Not to mention massive destruction of the Amazon rainforest to accommodate this new hyped-up crop. We need don’t more soy; we need a few healthy soy food items: Edamame (the young, tender soybeans still in the pod, often steamed with soy sauce. Miso: Use the fermented paste, not the dried stuff from a package. Tempeh, the Indonesian pressed and fermented soybeans. Delicious in all kinds of stir-fries - way better than tofu if you ask me. Tofu is a highly processed thing, coming in a perfect block. Once in a while, of course, you may indulge min tofu. But stop thinking about tofu as health food. Nothing in nature comes in a block. Read More
Soaking and Sprouting
August 2, 2010
“Give us our daily bread” is a prayer. If somebody is out there to listen to this prayer, He seems to prefer to listen to First-World supplicants; the Third World does not need to apply, apparently.
World hunger is appalling, but perhaps it is beneficial that not all people get to have their daily bread. Because our staple bread, surprisingly, contains ingredients that might hurt you.
All seeds – including grains, legumes and nuts – contain indigestible parts. It is a survival strategy for seeds: They don’t want to be eaten, they want to germinate and build new life.
About five to ten thousand (depending on where people lived) years ago, the agricultural revolution happened. Suddenly we were eating grains (the other part of the agricultural revolution was coaxing cows into give up their milk for human consumption). When people still were hunters and gatherers, grains barely ever showed up in their meals – grains then were trifling kernels, not worth the effort. Cavemen ate greens, roots, nuts, small fruit (big fruit are the result of modern hybridization), game, fowl and grubs – whatever was available. Not much was available, so famines and starvation were frequent – especially after mankind had successfully hunted to extinction the huge animals that populated the world in prehistoric times: huge deer, woolly mammoths, giants pigs, and so on.
Agriculture was a step forward. It provided more calories, and reliably so. More children could survive; populations slowly increased.
But grains come with a price: They contain antinutrients (such as lectins, phytates, protease inhibitors) that have negative health consequences. These ingredients interfere with the successful uptake of important molecules – mostly minerals, like calcium – and they are harsh on the gastro-intestinal tract. As they are indigestible, eating them can lead to upset stomach, bloating, diarrhea, even colitis.
But things are never easy: Polyphenols and flavonoids are also antinutrients, and we surely want those in our daily fare (though not in overdose).
Antinutrients can be destroyed or at least reduced by cooking, sprouting and fermentation. About fermentation and its benefits we have already talked. We also discussed raw foods-only diets, and that cooking makes more nutritional components available.
Soaking and sprouting is a method still not used widely enough. I can't marvel enough that the simple fact of adding water to a seed will make it easier to digest (be aware that for some people it is not enough to eliminate the digestive problems). Store-bought sprouts in the past have occasional had problems with germs, alfalfa and soy bean sprouts, for instance - a good reason to do it at home. Just keep your (simple) equipment clean. There are a few tricks for different sprouts from amaranth to Brazil nuts, from mung beans to lentils which I don’t want to discuss here – information is easily found on the Internet.
This is my stress-free methods: Soak in clean water overnight. There are plastic jars available at health food stores with sieves of different sized hole, for small and bigger seeds. One can also just (and perhaps healthier without plastics leaching out) use glass jars and paper towels and/or cheese cloth for straining.
Pour off the water next morning, rinse in clean water (repeatedly, if the water is cloudy) and let stand for sprouting (or beginning to sprout). Eat your sprouts during this day. For me it works – without being too meticulous about it. I like sunflower, flax, sesame, almonds. Make sure you start with seeds that have not been irradiated, roasted, salted or processed in any way; organic is preferable. Make sure you don’t let them sprout for too long, they might get bitter. Experiment with different soaking/sprouting times. Anything longer than two, utmost three days can lead to mold – discard it. Always clean jars and sieves thoroughly.
Add sprouted seeds and nuts to bean dishes, leftovers and as snacks.
If you seem to have “allergies” to every single nut or seed there is, try removing antinutrients by soaking and sprouting. After all, yours might not be a real allergy, you might just not be able to digest certain indigestible food ingredients. Which is determined by genetics. Read More