A Greens Perspective on Nutrition

Have you ever noticed that a great many different cuisines incorporate dishes that pair some type of green leafy ingredient with some type of fat-rich ingredient? In the Mediterrean it might be simply green leafy lettuce and olive oil, parsley salad with tahini dressing, or sauteed greens + pignola (pine) nuts, not to mention pesto itself (basil + pignolas, traditionally). In Northern or Eastern Europe you might find cabbage and mayonnaise (cole slaw), or spinach with bacon dressing. In the far East it might be deep-sea fatty fish and seaweed (sushi). If you take the time to look, you will find green leaves combined with fats over and over again in cuisines the world over. 

This cannot be a coincidence. I am going to predict that someday we will discover that eating greens with fat increases the availability, perhaps by gut absorption, of certain nutrients in the greens. Or maybe the fats. Or maybe both. Continue reading


YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Buddha Bowl

Here’s a really delicious, really simple, really elegant way to be kind to yourself when you’ve had a long day and there are little bits of this and that in the fridge. Seems like there are a lot of days like this lately — which makes it extra important to find easy ways to nourish yourself. The important things to remember here are, first, that you can make this a hundred times and you will never get tired of it because it will never be the same twice, and, second, that steps 5 and 6 are as important as the earlier steps for satisfying both your brain and your appetite. Continue reading


Winner by a Mile

Last year, an article entitled “Can We Say What Diet is Best for Health?” was published in the scientific literature, and James Hamblin wrote a story about it for the Atlantic. He called it “Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner is Real Food.” You know, I would have edited out the word “Real” and then called it, simply, “Food.” The original article was written by David Katz and Stephanie Meller, of Yale School of Public Health. Continue reading