Author Archives: Dr. Sukol

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Red Lentil Soup for Rosh Hashanah

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Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tonight at sundown. High Holiday foods tend toward the sweet and the circular: sweet to represent our wishes for a sweet new year, and circular to symbolize the seasons that run one into the next, round and round, year after year.

So it is traditional to eat many different kinds of fruits, especially apples, prunes, pomegranates, dates and apricots; and sweet vegetables such as beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, and leeks (sliced into rounds, of course), as well as black-eyed peas and lentils. And lots of honey, especially for dipping bread and apples. Continue reading →

Grandma Rosie Hits a Home Run (the holidays are coming!)

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Today I want to share a recipe that is a wellspring of memories. The women, the teamwork, the heavenly aromas, the busy kitchen, the arriving family, the great big table, the special dishes, the silver. And the food. Simple recipes with amazing flavor. Here is my Grandma Rosie’s recipe for vegetarian chopped liver, which she made the way her own grandma did, with a wooden bowl and mezzaluna. If you’ll be using a food processor instead, which is probably the case, read to the very end for those instructions.

I have exceptionally fond memories of sitting at the kitchen table with the grownups while they worked to prepare the food, listening wide-eyed as they debated the relative merits of various ingredients and their provenance, chattered about errant siblings, and bragged about their above-average children and grandchildren. I remember feeling very grown up when I was finally old enough to take a place in the lineup. When my chopping arm got too tired to continue, I would pass the bowl, usually to my mother, an aunt, or one of my grandmothers. Continue reading →

Commercial Salad Dressings Are Not What You Think

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Many, if not most, commercial salad dressings drown your fresh, delicious, nourishing vegetables in water and corn syrup. These products are not food, and they do not nourish you. Instead, they waste your money, and they markedly reduce the nutritional value of your salad. A while back I decided to stop at the supermarket to check the ingredient lists on four popular salad dressing brands. I think you will be very interested in what I discovered. Continue reading →

Lovely Legumes

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Today, I would like to talk about the wisdom of beans. When I say beans, I am not talking just about kidney beans, black beans, red beans, or lima beans. I am also talking about hummus (made from chick peas), edamame (fresh soybeans), lentils, and peanuts, to name a few more. There are hundreds and hundreds of kinds of beans, and they all have their own shape, color, texture, and flavor. There are dozens of types of lentils, too, each with their own distinctive colors and flavors and uses. Continue reading →

A New Patient Gets a New Perspective

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A few months ago I saw a new patient and she had a good deal in common with many other new patients I see. Even though she knew that her excess weight was doing her no good, and that it raised her risk of many chronic diseases, like breast cancer, for example, and diabetes and high blood pressure and colon cancer, she was unable to do anything about it. She was also really tired of doctors telling her that she should lose weight. Really, really tired. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said to me. So I did. Continue reading →

Salads To Go

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Today we are making a trip to visit our family on the East Coast, a trip we’ve made so many times over the decades. But this time it’s for such an extra-special wonderfully-wonderful reason. By the time you read this we’ll be getting dressed for our niece’s wedding! In point of fact the festivities will have begun on Friday night, and that’s why we headed out on on Friday morning.

I used to go over to the Wellness store at work and buy a bunch of snacks for the road. But I didn’t have time yesterday, and anyway those snacks are starting to get a little less inspiring to me than they used to be. I was going to say they’re getting a little stale, but not in the “sell by” sort of way. So i thought I’d try something new — I packed up two salads in Ball jars early this morning, and when we get hungry we’ll empty them out into a couple of bowls, stir, and dig in! Continue reading →

Back to the Basics

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Lately I’ve been feeling a desire to return to talking about the basics. The question of how I personally began thinking about wellness, prevention and nutrition is as basic a place to start as any. And while it is very true that my own parents’ commitment to nourishing food, their common sense approach to life, and the fact that they lived their values for almost 45 years on their farm in the New Jersey’s Watchung Mountains set a sure foundation for my interest in fresh food and good health, today’s post is the story of how I made these passions my own. Continue reading →

Small Steps

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Some time ago, Gene the computer guy showed up at my office for the first time in a while. Right away, I knew something had changed. I said, “Gene, how are you? You’re looking very well!” He responded with an uncharacteristic grin, and answered by telling me one thing all of us know, but few believe (despite numerous confirmatory personal experiences!). I sat up fast when he said, “Diets don’t work.” Continue reading →

Whole, Intact Carbohydrates

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I’ve been thinking about the fact that carbohydrate virtually never grows in nature without the fiber attached. Think about meadows, gardens, and orchards — all the vegetables, beans, fruit, and grains that grow in these places grow with their fiber matrix intact.

Why is flour that’s been stripped of its fiber and germ called “refined?” What’s refined about flour? If you look up “refined” in the dictionary you discover that to refine is to remove the course impurities. And that got me thinking.

Why would anyone want to imply that the oil-rich germ and fiber-rich bran are coarse impurities? Continue reading →

YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Parsley Pesto

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I am a diehard waste-not-want-not kind of girl from way back. In the past, I tended to make a lot of surprises from whatever was left in the kitchen, and they could either be great or they could turn out as what my kids used to call “refrigerator soup.”

But every once in a while, I hit the jackpot.  Continue reading →