The argument most often used why people eat take-out food, TV dinners and in restaurants, is that they have no time to cook.
Once you understand that you cannot be healthy on ready-made foods, you will want to cook for yourself and your family. Contrary to popular belief, it does not take much time to cook.
As an example, let’s look at our dinner last night. This is what we had:
Fish filet with green sauce
Red kale in olive oil and garlic
Parisian carrots
Red lentils with cumin.
Sounds like an outlandish dish for you? For us, it is pretty much every-day fare. It did not take me more than half an hour to bring this fresh meal on the table.
Fish filet: We had cod, but any filet would do. – The green sauce is the tricky part; in this case it was a frozen leftover from when we last had guests. Melt some virgin coconut fat in a frying pan (no microwaving!), add frozen green sauce, wait until thawed before adding the fish. Fry on low until done (a few minutes). Instead of green sauce, I could have sprinkled the fish with dried dill, or fresh herbs from the garden.
Red kale: Cut in stripes, wash quickly in cold water. Add dried or fresh garlic (I used dried), olive oil, pepper and salt (I prefer an herbed salt). Sautee in little water until done (about twenty minutes). - Most vegetables taste delicious with just olive oil and garlic - try!
Red lentils: One cup of red lentils to two cups of water (this is the ratio for most grains and lentils). Add salt and ground cumin. Bring to a boil. Simmer until done (about twenty minutes).
Carrots: Wash carrots, cut in bite-sized pieces. Add parsley (dried or fresh; the original recipe asks for parsley; I had run out of it and used dried cilantro instead – you make do with what you have), white pepper, salt and a teaspoon full of honey. Butter or, better, ghee (clarified butter) is optional. Sautee in little water. Takes about twenty minutes.
Serve and, as they say, enjoy!
Green sauce recipe: You need a kitchen machine for this – a blender will not do: Chop a small onion, a few baby carrots and a few cloves of garlic in the machine. Add as many washed and coarsely cut herbs as you can put your hands on: Basil, parsley, cilantro, dill are my staples. Water cress, thyme, sage, rosemary and others are optional. Blend with olive oil, pepper and salt until smooth. Fill up with plenty of olive oil until frothy. Freeze leftovers in small tupperwares.
You might notice that I use a lot of healthy fats (coconut oil for frying, olive oil, ghee). They don’t make your cholesterol go up – cheese and meats will do that. My husband’s cholesterol hovers around 110 – enviably. Good fats lower inflammation in the body. AND you leave the table satisfied. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Aches and Pains
May 11, 2010
In my twenties doctors had different explanations about the weird aches and pains I complained of. They were either from aging (in my twenties!!), or they were all in my head, or – poor redheads all over the world! – it was just that redheads had lower pain thresholds.
Research meanwhile has confirmed that redheads have actually higher pain thresholds. Besides, I had a whopping but unrecognized case of gluten intolerance, probably since birth. Took me many years to figure it out.
You, too, might have gluten intolerance. Estimates go that one of one-hundred-five people has, most of them not yet diagnosed. Most of them are blond and blue-eyed – but not all of them (otherwise the diagnosis would be easy!).
Of course, aches and pains can have other causes than celiac disease (another word for gluten intolerance; as is non-tropical sprue). But food is often the culprit - dairy, in my opinion, the worst since it is highly inflammatory (besides fattening). If you have arthritis, tendinitis, bursitis, fasciitis – or any “…itis" in your body, leave out milk and milk products for at least a month, and see if you get better.
Other suspicious foods are nuts (which, on the other hand, are very wholesome if you can tolerate them), nightshades (tomato, potato, eggplant, bell and hot peppers). Food additives can give bad reactions (and should not be in your food in the first place). Food intolerances can be very individual – for some it is an innocuous apple, for others shrimp or peanut or banana. By keeping a food journal you might find out – or help your doctor to find out.
Finding the cause and avoiding the offender, is the first step. On top of it, there are many herbs that reduce inflammation, like turmeric, garlic, rosemary. In fact, so many plants contain inflammation-dousing phyto-nutrients that eating more vegetables and herbs already might give you relief. If you want an herbal preparation, I usually recommend Zyflamend (be sure you have no allergy to any individual herb in there).
A good fish oil (you should not burp up fish!) has excellent anti-inflammatory action. As does olive-oil (unheated) in your salads. And lastly, a good probiotic, to quench the fire in your belly: Most inflammation originates in an inflamed bowel. Read More
A Tea From Your Garden
April 30, 2010
Green is the color of life, and green herbs keep us healthy.
From April to November, I find things growing in my garden that go into my daily garden tea. Only one question asked of that green thing: Is it edible? If it is not, forget it! If you don’t know, don’t even touch it – what you don’t know can kill you when you put it into your tea!
Today, this is what I gathered: Dandelion leaves and flowers, stinging nettle leaves, feverfew leaves, young burdock shoots. Pine needles (make sure you can identify them because hemlock and yew would be deadly!), rose leaves, raspberry leaves. And from my herb garden: rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley, chives (including their fat purple buds), sage, cilantro. I also started a vegetable garden in big pots on the terrace and I snipped off a few leaves off lettuce and broccoli.
These green things contain small molecules - phyto-nutrients - which we are not getting easily from our modern food. But our ancient bodies need them to function.
Nature gives me these green gifts every morning, and I breathe in the beauty of my garden (which is, admittedly, an unkempt jungle – but never touched by pesticides, herbicides, and the like!). When I come into the kitchen I feel as if I have meditated (I have meditated!). I throw my big handful of greens into a cup, pour boiling water over it and start my day in beauty, contemplation – and health.
And it tastes good, too. Read More