Author Archives: Dr. Sukol

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Spicy Stuffed Peppers

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You may have noticed that I am working on providing you with a few recipes that warm you up through these winter months. I love heat, so this is a perfect recipe for me. But if your tastes tend more toward the gentle landing, I recommend skipping the jalapeño and reducing the red pepper flakes to 1/2 teaspoon. Or you can just forget both of them altogether. That’s because the chili powder will still provide some spicy excitement. For me though, I’m all in, which means that if my batch of jalapeños isn’t particularly hot, then I’ll happily add an extra one. So if you’re game, I’m going to recommend that you try letting this gorgeous fireworks of color land on your tongue all at once, because if you can tolerate the concert, your tastebuds will sing!

  • 2 tsp. olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 large yellow onion, diced
  • 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced
  • 3/4 c. quinoa, uncooked
  • 2 c. vegetable broth, divided
  • 1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 large sweet potato, baked, peeled and diced small
  • 3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 Tbsp. chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp. cumin
  • 1/2 tsp. fresh oregano
  • 1/2 c. cilantro, chopped
  • 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. salt to taste
  • 4 medium-large red bell peppers, seeded and with stems removed but otherwise left whole
  1. Preheat oven to 400F. Bake sweet potato for 1 hour until soft, and set aside to cool. It’s best to do this in advance, whether first thing in the morning, or even the day before. Once cool, peel and dice small with a sharp knife.
  1. Heat olive oil in sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic, onion, and jalapeño. Sauté 5 minutes until onion is turning translucent. Empty into a large bowl.
  1. Bring 1 1/2 cups of broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Rinse quinoa in cold water in a mesh strainer, add it to the broth, and return to a boil. Cover saucepan, reduce heat to low, and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat and fluff with fork. Stir the cooked quinoa into the garlic, onion, and jalapeño mixture. Add juice of one whole lemon.
  1. Add the black beans, tomatoes, remaining 1/2 cup of vegetable broth, herbs, spices, salt, and pepper. Stir well. Gently fold in the diced sweet potato.
  1. Stuff the 4 peppers with the quinoa mixture, divided evenly, and place side-by-side, vertically, in a bread pan. Cover lightly with foil and bake 25-30 minutes until the peppers are tender. Serves 4-6 generously.

Thank you to Monique at AmbitiousKitchen for a prior version of this recipe.

Ultraprocessing Hits the Popular Press

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I am thrilled to report that the discussion about ultraprocessed items has finally reached the popular press in a big way. This past week Jancee Dunn, a wellness columnist for the New York Times, wrote a week-long series about different aspects of ultra processing, beginning with her love of sprinkle-covered sheet cake. Then Reuters covered California governor Gavin Newsom’s recent executive order focusing on reducing consumption of packaged snacks and sugar-containing beverages, and investigating the effects of synthetic food dyes. This order cited a 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report showing that 73% of American adults aged 20 or older are overweight and/or obese, and 38% of children and youth aged 12-19 are pre-diabetic. 

These numbers have been breaking my heart for a long time, and so I am glad that they are finally being shared more broadly. 

Jancee Dunn defines ultraprocessed items as those which cannot be made in a home kitchen, whether due to a requirement for ingredients or machinery that are not normally found in the home kitchen. I have written about various definitions for ultra processed items, including this one, on many previous occasions.   

If your ancestors would not recognize a particular item as food (e.g., artificial sweetener), it probably isn’t. If your ancestors didn’t eat it, it is unlikely to be food (e.g., maltodextrin). If the edibles industry has to tell you what time to eat it or how to use it (e.g., breakfast syrup), it probably isn’t food.

Ms. Dunn reports that “these kinds of foods” have become ubiquitous in the United States, and states that “experts say they appear to be taking a toll on our health.” I would take issue with both of these statements. Firstly, as my regular readers know well, I have recommended for some time now that reporters, writers, journalists, editors, cooks, and other food professionals stop calling them food. Food nourishes. And secondly, at this point the research has shown unequivocally that they are taking a serious toll on our health. 

She reports that the journal Nature Communications estimates that close to three-quarters of the food supply in the U.S. is ultraprocessed. One study showed that individuals whose diets consisted primarily of ultraprocessed items (i.e., most Americans) consumed 500 more calories daily than those who ate a more nourishing diet. And an extensive study that I reviewed in these pages in the past year showed that a diet high in ultraprocessed items showed a strong connection to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and mental illness. 

In response to these efforts, I decided to send a letter to the editor:

“Dear Jancee Dunn — I am so glad to see this conversation entering the popular press. Ultraprocessed items are not “kinds of food,” and they do not “appear to be taking a toll.” The research shows that they are in fact taking an enormous toll. I would urge you to consider not calling them food at all. Food nourishes; manufactured calories entertain. 

I agree that it is not necessary to remove them all from our diets all at once, especially if they currently take up a large percentage of the calories you eat on a daily basis. Small changes are best, probably because they are likely to be more sustainable. And failure is stressful, which may end up erasing any progress you’ve made. 

So entertainment is fine. It’s just not food.”

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Anya’s Salmon Soup

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I published this recipe once many years ago, and haven’t made it in a long time. But Anya’s salmon soup is the perfect choice for this time of year, and I have all the ingredients I need to make some this week! It’s a beautiful color, exactly right for adding some brightness to your life as you start settling into the deepest part of winter. Also, the combination of ingredients is exactly right for bracing yourself for the coming Arctic temperatures. Continue reading →

My Favorite Topic: Real Food

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Almost all diets have one particular strategy in common, which is to increase the amount of real food that people are eating while simultaneously decreasing the amount of manufactured calories, including both stripped carbohydrates and the ultraprocessed oils invented in the 20th century.

Stripped carbohydrates are processed to remove the most nourishing parts, including the bran and germ. Other stripped carbohydrates include white rice, corn starch, corn syrup, and sugar. It is not a coincidence that white flour, corn starch and powdered sugar look exactly the same. We’ve removed the original identities of these products, so all that is left is a pile of white powder. Continue reading →

Self Care is Being Kind to Yourself, plus Lentil-Vegetable Soup

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I spent my days as a practicing physician teaching people to be kinder to themselves, and that kindness manifested itself in three spheres: 1) eating patterns, 2) activity patterns, and 3) rest & relaxation patterns. The goal is to make small, incremental changes that result in nourishing your heart and soul with better food, more movement, and quality rest and relaxation.  Continue reading →

A Menace to Satiety

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A member of my family texted me a few weeks ago: “Thinking of you as I’m watching CNN report on the effects of ultra processed foods… Followed by an ad on controlling diabetes numbers. (Did they consult you?)”. She knows how long I’ve been thinking about this.

So I decided to write about ultra processed “items” this week. The media has got to stop calling them food.

An old friend once came to visit, and she told me that she’d been discussing my dietary recommendations with her clever boyfriend. He spent some time mulling them over, and then said: “Processed food is a menace to satiety.” Ha. Indeed it is. Continue reading →

Your Health is in Your Heart

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Good morning, and happy Sunday. Today I am sharing a conversation I had with a patient once some years ago. She was someone I had never met before, and was, like many before her, completely flummoxed about what to try next. With a personal goal of weight loss, she had already done everything she could think of, and then some. I know you know this story. I myself have told it many times before. There is a good chance you may even have experienced it yourself. Maybe you have experimented with practically every diet, including the dreaded cabbage soup diet, denied yourself your favorite foods, carved out time you didn’t really have to get more exercise than was comfortable at the time. Of course none of this is sustainable. You can’t eat cabbage soup for breakfast forever. So what comes next?  Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Wintertime Oatmeal with Apples & Walnuts

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In view of the fact that I’ve been asked once again to repost this recipe, and since it’s autumn (the most glorious autumn I can remember in years), I am reposting this recipe for Apple-Walnut Oatmeal. I’ve adjusted the proportions to make enough for two. 

Looking out the dining room window as I write this, all I can see are dozens of cool, grey-brown branches against a pale blue, sun-lit sky. It’s beautifully stark, and riveting, calling me to the outdoors while the sun is still low in the eastern sky. But before I venture out into this beautiful day, I’m going to make this oatmeal recipe to warm me from the inside out. This recipe has a lot of flavor, with all the right kinds of yummy. You will probably smile while you’re eating it. I know I do. Continue reading →

Old-Fashioned Gratitude

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Many years ago, when I was eleven years old, my parents bought a Corning Cooktop stove, a fancy new appliance whose coils remained white even when they were hot. You simply had to take it on faith — or not. No matter how long I stared at that new stovetop, I could not convince myself that the white coils were hot. And that is why I still remember so clearly, this many years later, the perfectly oval burn on the tip of my right index finger. I touched it only once, but that was enough. It was all it took. I couldn’t take anyone else’s word for it.  Continue reading →

Ultraprocessed Breakfast Cereal

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From time to time I take an opportunity to post an entry about my disdain for breakfast cereal or, perhaps more aptly, breakfast candy. It was in the 1970’s that concerns began to arise about the sugar content in breakfast cereals. From my point of view, once this was brought to our attention as consumers, a reasonable response would have been to lower the sugar content in breakfast cereal products. But that is not what happened. Continue reading →