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
Category Archives: Breakfast
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
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
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Mom’s Rules plus A Sweet Little Recipe
In memory of my mother, my teacher, I am thinking about some bits of wisdom that I learned very early on. The values for which she stood were simple and elegant, and I carry them forever. Continue reading
Breakfasts That Stick to Your Ribs
This week I’m going to spend a minute talking about the typical American breakfast, namely toast, bagels, muffins, waffles, pancakes, breakfast cereal, biscuits, and bread, and then I’m going to talk about what else we can eat for breakfast. The typical American basically consists of just white flour and sugar. It’s all stripped carb. I put “cereal” in quotes because the word cereal really means grain (like oatmeal, millet, kasha, bulgur wheat), and not boxes of sweetened, dyed, highly processed products of limited nutritional value. Continue reading
Plums, Poetry, Public Transit, and William Carlos Williams
If you look up as you walk through the back door into my kitchen, you will see a poster written in Swedish, a translation of a poem written in 1934 by the great William Carlos Williams. In addition to being a pediatrician, Dr. Williams, from Rutherford, New Jersey, was a great poet. Here is the story of how the poster and poem, below in the original English, ended up in my kitchen. Continue reading
Toast and Jelly Waste Your Insulin
You probably already know that diabetes and obesity in the United States have reached epidemic proportions, but you may be surprised to learn that many, if not most, cases of diabetes are preventable. How? The best strategy for preventing diabetes and obesity is to learn how to conserve your body’s insulin supply. Continue reading
Insulin: A Very Good Place to Start
Here is why it’s important to use less insulin: The fact is that insulin is not your friend. You need it to live, but you want to use as little as possible. You want the levels of insulin in your bloodstream to stay as low as possible. Like sugar. The lower the better (within reason, say 80 to 99 for fasting blood sugars). When it comes to insulin, you want your levels to remain as low as necessary to do the job, not zero of course, but on the low side. Why is that? There are a number of reasons. Continue reading
The Origin of “Granola”
It will probably surprise you to learn that the term granola was coined way back in the 1870s by one Dr. John Kellogg, late of Battle Creek, Michigan, where he ran a famous health sanitarium to which patrons flocked in pursuit of health and wellness. Among his many prescient recommendations was one that should be familiar to you, dear reader — that food be prepared the old-fashioned way, using whole grains instead of stripped ones like white flour or corn syrup. Continue reading
The Miracle that is Yogurt
There’s more to yogurt than meets the mouth, and you sell yourself short when you limit your yogurt consumption to the commercially manufactured dessert-like versions that fill the shelves in supermarkets and cafeterias. Continue reading