Have you ever thought about the word “granola,” what it means, and where it came from? Some time back I decided it was time for me to find out exactly what “granola” really meant, and here’s what I learned. The word “granola” was appropriated in approximately 1870 by Dr. John Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Michigan. Dr. Kellogg ran a famous sanitarium to which patrons came to learn and practice healthy living. Among his recommendations was that people eat food that was prepared the old-fashioned way, with whole grains. Whole-grain bread was baked in large ovens located right on the grounds of the sanitarium. Dr. Kellogg recognized that large amounts of waste were being generated in the form of the crumbs that fell to the bottom of the ovens. He realized that he could collect these crumbs and place them in bowls to be served for breakfast. At first, he called his invention “gra-NU-la.” Continue reading
Author Archives: Dr. Sukol
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Salad Meets Pad Thai
This is the very best salad for a warm weather meal, and, besides that, there is a strong possibility that you could live on it. It is that good. Plus, it fills your belly and sticks to your ribs, so you won’t be hungry for a good long while. Notice one trick: cutting the vegetables very thinly increases the amount of surface area for the dressing to stick to, and that makes it so much tastier! So take your time, and don’t hurry through the prep. The right kind of cutting and chopping are the secret to this delicious salad. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Parsley Salad(s)!
There is an incredibly warm and cozy spot in my heart where the parsley goes. Parsley doesn’t usually get you riled up the same way that basil, thyme, and oregano do, but, if you ask me, it is absolutely its own kind of wonderful. What’s different about these recipes is that the parsley here serves as the green, the herb, the main event, the everything. It’s not a decoration or an herbal sprinkle or a garnish, it’s just the parsley, and it’s definitely meant to be eaten this way. No competition, no second fiddle. Continue reading
Hide ‘n’ Seek: The Sugar in Your Breakfast
Breakfast cereals have a more or less praiseworthy origin. Invented by a couple of resourceful health spa owners to offer an alternative to the usual breakfast of the time — eggs and coffee, plus beef, bacon or sausage — breakfast “cereal” not coincidentally also provided an economical use for the crumbs that fell to the bottom of the bread ovens at the spas. The word “cereal” is simply a synonym for grain, and it is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. We’ve come a long way from those origins, but unfortunately it’s been in the wrong direction. Continue reading
Fun is Fine, It’s Just Not Food
There is a very big difference between nutrition and entertainment. Food is nourishing. It’s what goes into our mouths when we choose stuff that’s loaded with fiber and color, like vegetables and beans, nuts, fruits, seeds, and whole grains. Fun, on the other hand, is nothing like food. Fun (which often goes by interesting names like “junk food” or “fast food” or “processed food”) is made with products like white flour, white rice, corn syrup, corn starch, commodity oils (soy, corn, cottonseed) and, of course, sugar, which you tend to find in items that are ultraprocessed. Food nourishes you. Fun entertains you. Sometimes you feel like a little entertainment. That’s fine. Go ahead and enjoy. But it doesn’t go in the plus category. It’s just for fun. Continue reading
Complementary Colors: Nourishing Yourself from the Inside Out (with recipe)
One thing you may not know about me is that one of my casual hobbies is interior decorating. I’ve picked out paint colors for my friends, rearranged their furniture, and weighed in on frame choices, picture positioning, and all kinds of related activities. Have you ever heard of decorating with complementary colors? Have you ever even heard of complementary colors? It’s when you choose two colors from opposite sides of the color wheel, like purple and yellow, orange and blue, or red and green. They usually clash just a little bit, which confers added visual interest. Here are some examples: A pink pillow that makes a pale green couch really SING! Or a wrapped bunch of lavender stalks in a pale yellow vase on a lemon-yellow tablecloth strewn with tiny purple violets. Or a ceramic bowl painted in stripes of turquoise and orange. And that brings me to sweet potatoes and kale. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini Dressing
The new normal has resulted in a number of changes in the way we purchase all kinds of things, and I thought I’d share a great new strategy (with recipe!) that my daughter taught to me a few weeks ago. Initially, in the first weeks of lockdown, she and my new son-in-law were placing orders for grocery deliveries about once a week. But, after a few weeks, they hit upon a strategy that cut the frequency of their orders by half. Continue reading
Is Morning Time the Best Time?
My sister told me the most interesting thing this week. She said that she prefers to prepare vegetables (like broccoli, for example) in the morning, when she has more energy, instead of leaving it to late afternoon, when she, along with the rest of her family, is hungry and running on fumes, as an old friend used to put it. She already buys her broccoli in bags of florets, so that part is done. Then she tosses a few handfuls into a steamer set in a pan containing a few inches of water, sprays them with olive oil, shakes on some salt and pepper plus Trader Joe umami seasoning (mushroom powder, onion powder, spices), and keeps layering until the bag is empty or the pot is full. Then she turns on the water to boil, and pretty soon the broccoli is bright green and ready to refrigerate, to be eaten later that day or the next. Single mom, super efficient. Say no more.
This story got me thinking about something else. Continue reading
Take Care of Yourselves, My Friends
This is not an easy time, no matter how much time you have, but we can all make a moment, or take a turn to take better care of ourselves. In hopes that we will have more moments to show up as our best version of our best self, or that we will have a little bit of ourselves to share with those, young and old, who might need them, a tiny bit of self-love goes a long, long way. Time is the ultimate resource, and no one gets more or less. Each day you get twenty-four hours, the same as everyone. You can’t create more out of thin air. But there is some very hopeful news to share. Continue reading
Early Spring’s Surprise
During the growing season, I have a few trusted sources for vegetables. Sometimes my husband buys them at the supermarket, sometimes we get them from the garden growing alongside my house, and sometimes we pick up a box of CSA (community-supported agriculture) vegetables. One thing I love about the CSA option is the surprise factor. There’s nothing like opening a box to discover something either I’ve never seen before, or whose name I don’t know, or that I would not otherwise have purchased. I have always felt like this, even before finding recipes was as simple as entering the name of an unfamiliar ingredient into a search bar and tapping “Enter.” Continue reading