This week’s post is about the glycemic index (GI).  Many people have heard of the GI, but they are not sure what it means, or how to apply it for their own benefit.  Several lines of scientific evidence have shown that individuals who followed a low-GI diet over many years significantly lowered their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease and even certain kinds of cancer, compared with those who did not.

The glycemic index was developed at the University of Toronto (my daughter’s alma mater) to provide researchers with a way to compare the rates at which various foods, primarily carbohydrates, raise blood sugar.  Because the GI measures how quickly a fixed portion of food is absorbed into the bloodstream, it therefore correlates with the amount of insulin required.  As we have discussed, the faster you absorb a food, the more insulin you need to catch it and escort it to the cells.  So if your goal is to conserve insulin to the greatest extent possible, the glycemic index provides a way to compare foods, and to select ones with lower ratings.  I would arbitrarily rate a low glycemic index value as below 40, a high GI value as above 70, and 40-70 as mid-range.

Let’s look at some actual ratings at http://www.glycemicedge.com/glycemic-index-chart/.  In the “beans & vegetables” category, most beans are rated low.  No beans are rated higher than 48.  Baked beans are rated that high only because they are prepared with a lot of sugar.  So it isn’t the beans themselves that raise the glycemic index to 48.

Most green (broccoli, celery) and white (cauliflower, mushrooms) vegetables are rated below 25.  Red, yellow and orange vegetables are generally in or near the mid-range.  Instant mashed potatoes are a whopping 74.  Why?  Mashing potatoes begins the mechanical process of breaking down food in preparation for its absorption.  Any time we decrease our body’s work of digestion, we increase the rate of absorption.  The more broken down a food prior to eating it, the less work the stomach has to do, and so the more rapidly the food is absorbed. 

In the breads category, whole-grain breads are the lowest (40) and white breads range around 60-70.  French baguettes are extremely high (94).  Most cereals are in the 70-80 range, except for a few whole-grain products in the 50’s.  Rice chex are 89.  Among grains, instant rice is rated as 87 (consider it pre-digested).  Most pasta is in the low mid-range.  Why is steamed brown rice rated at 50, and boiled brown rice at 72?  I suspect that the increased mechanical action of boiling causes more fiber to break down during the cooking process.  I’d be interested to hear from other readers with ideas about this. 

Crackers (67-82) and cookies (vanilla wafers and graham crackers-mid 70’s) are high because they are generally made from white flour with little or no fiber to decrease absorption.  Oatmeal cookies (55) are better.  Most fruits are in the 30-50 range, with a few higher and a few lower. 

It is very interesting to note that the section with the highest glycemic index values overall is “Snacks & Chips,” including poptarts (72) and french fries (75), neither of which, by the way, would be classified as a snack or chip by me.  I thought poptarts were marketed as a breakfast substitute.  More truth in advertising.   Substitutes are not food.  That makes me wonder if perhaps it is the types of snacks, more than snacking itself, that contribute to our obesity epidemic.  Drinks, predictably, range from tomato juice (38) to gatorade (78).  Overall, the lowest glycemic index sections are dairy, beans, and vegetables.  The worst surprises on the list are the tofu frozen dessert (115) and pretzels (83).  The best surprise is the dairy section in general, and yogurt in particular (14).  Here is more evidence that, in fact, Grains are not Beans are not Fruit are not Vegetables: All Carbohydrates are not Created Equal .

The GI depends not only on the particular food being consumed, nor on associated foods eaten at the same time, but on preparation methods as well.  We can manipulate, to a certain extent, the rate at which we absorb various foods, even those with a higher GI.  Basically, whatever increases the work of breaking down food will lower the GI and, conversely, whatever decreases the work of breaking down food will raise the GI.  The longer it takes to break down food, whether mechanically or chemically, the longer it takes to absorb that food.  It takes time to tease apart the strands of a fiber-rich food to get at what’s inside.  This is why whole-grain breads, with higher amounts of fiber, generally have a lower GI value than white breads.  But, as usual, the buyer must beware.  Many brown breads are treated with enzymes that break down fiber and soften the crust.  This has the effect of raising the GI to levels comparable to those of white bread.  So don’t assume simply that switching to brown-colored bread is worth it.  First, check to be sure that the first ingredient is whole-grain flour.  Secondly, check to see if there are 3 grams of fiber per serving.  It’s no guarantee, but it certainly improves your chances of getting what you think you are paying for.

What else lowers the GI?  Fiber, fat and protein all slow gastric emptying (which means that they make a meal sit in the stomach longer), which reduces a food’s GI.  What else?  Acids like vinegar and lemon juice appear to lower gastric emptying.  And, according to one study, alcohol (though not beer), reduced the GI of a meal by 15%.  

So how best to use this information?  Compare the glycemic indexes of the foods you are considering, and choose the lower.  This approach is similar to that of  “Eat This, Not That,” by David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine and author of the Abs Diet series, and Matt Goulding, the magazine’s food and nutrition editor.  If you compare the GI values of the recommendations, you will see that in virtually all cases, a lower GI food is recommended as the preferred choice.  It’s not just about calories. 

What are the limitations of the glycemic index?  First, it measures only glucose, and not fructose, a major cause of insulin resistance, high triglycerides, and non-alcoholic hepatitis.  (See Fructose, Fiber, and High Fructose Corn Syrup .)  Secondly, the GI measures the intake of a 50-gram load of a food, even if the usual serving of that food is much smaller.  Despite these two major limitations, it is useful for our purposes. 

From time to time, I get to recommend to a motivated new patient with mildly elevated blood pressure that he or she try the “DASH” diet prior to considering medication.  The DASH diet, which stands for “Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension,” and has been recommended by the National Institutes for Health, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the American Heart Association, lowers blood pressure within 2 weeks.  You can check it out yourself at dashdiet.org.

The DASH diet is based on 1) increasing fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and dairy; and 2) decreasing fat and sugar.  Specifically recommended for lowering blood pressure, it also lowers weight, and the risk of stroke and heart disease.  Combined with exercise, it improves insulin resistance, which decreases your risk of developing diabetes.  The benefits have been seen in people of all ages, from teens to the elderly.

You can see that there is significant crossover between my four recommendations and the DASH diet, although we do part company on the amount of grain it recommends and the preference for low-fat dairy.  Let’s just say I respect the fact that everyone is different, and that some folks seem to tolerate grain (whole-grain only) better than others.  If the low-fat dairy recommendation confuses you, I recommend that you do your own little experiment:  Follow the DASH diet as written for a month or two, and then switch to full-fat dairy.  If your pants get tight or your weight (or blood pressure) rises, then you’ll have your answer.  But just for the record, I don’t believe that will happen.  I don’t believe that the fat in dairy and meats is unhealthy.  In fact, I believe those fats are nutritious.  It’s the fats in fast food, snack foods, and commercial baked goods that are the big problem.  All fats are not the same (see “Butter is better.”)

A new study shows that the DASH diet plus regular exercise improves not only blood pressure, but brain power as well.  In a March 2010 study published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, 124 men and women were divided into 3 groups.  Over 4 months, one group followed the DASH diet and exercised for 30 minutes three times a week, a second group followed the DASH diet without exercise, and a third group changed neither their eating patterns nor their level of activity. At the beginning and end of the study, participants underwent a series of tests that assessed mental skills such as manipulation of ideas, concepts, and planning.  The people who combined aerobic exercise with the DASH diet experienced a 30% improvement in brain function, improved their cardiovascular fitness, lost 19 pounds on average, and lowered their systolic blood pressure (top number) by 16 points and diastolic blood pressure (bottom number) by 10 points.  Wow.  That’s the group I want to be in.

High blood pressure is epidemic in our country.  It affects at least one-half of adults aged 60 and older and increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, and dementia.  So why don’t we all eat the DASH diet?  Why don’t all newly diagnosed hypertension patients get referred to a nutritionist to learn to eat this way?  Come to think of it, why should you have to wait until you’re diagnosed with high blood pressure?  Why aren’t school lunch programs based on the DASH diet?  And why don’t children learn these basics in their science and nutrition classes?  I am more than ready to spend my days teaching people how not to become hypertensive and diabetic.  Any takers?

How to start improving your nutrition?  Since the average American gets only 2-3 servings of fruits and vegetables each day in total, the DASH diet involves a significant increase in the amount of produce consumed.  As usual, I don’t recommend jumping in all at once.  Instead, pick something from the list below.  In a few weeks, add another choice, and then another a few weeks later.  At some point, you will notice that you feel a lot better.  Then, if you’re like most people, you’ll go back to your old habits.  Don’t worry, it’s temporary.  You just need to see if it’s really the dietary changes that are responsible for the fact that you feel better.  That’s human nature, and it’s how we convince ourselves which investments are worth it.  Don’t take my word for it — take all the time you need, and figure it out for yourself.

Here are some ways to get started:
.Add a serving of vegetables to lunch and dinner.
.Bring a piece of fresh fruit to work for midday snack.
.Switch to butter, and make your own salad dressing (see “What’s in that salad dressing?”).
.Use vinegar, herbs, and spices instead of salt.
.Have a glass of milk or a piece of cheese or a serving of yogurt three times a day.
.Limit meat to 6 ounces a day.  Be aware of portion size; we all need to know what an appropriate serving size looks like.
.Change from white rice and conventional pasta to brown rice and whole-grain pasta.
.Eat more beans (see “The Lovely but Lowly Bean“).
.Choose cheese sticks, nuts and nut butters, raisins and other dried fruits, yogurt (see “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Yogurt But Were Afraid to Ask“), fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks.

Bon appetit!

Many commercial salad dressings drown your fresh, delicious and nutritious food in water and corn syrup.  Not only do they waste your money, but they convert your salad to a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

This morning, I stopped at the local supermarket to look at the ingredient lists on four popular brands of salad dressing.  You will be very interested to learn what I discovered.  The first product I picked up was Wishbone Italian dressing.  Its first ingredient is water.  Seems like a very expensive way to buy water.  And surprising, too, given that Italian dressing is traditionally made from olive oil and vinegar.  Not this Italian dressing, though.  After the water, its ingredient list contains soybean and canola oil, distilled vinegar, sugar, salt, dehydrated garlic and onion and red bell pepper, maltodextrin, xantham gum, spices, autolyzed yeast extract, EDTA, natural flavor, lemon juice concentrate, caramel color, and annatto, which colors the dressing yellow, more like olive oil, which it does not contain.

The second product I picked up was Hidden Valley Fat-Free Ranch.  Like the Wishbone Italian, the ingredient list starts with water, followed by corn syrup, maltodextrin, sugar, and modified food starch (usually made from corn or wheat, whichever is cheaper at the time of purchase).  These are four different ways to say “sugar,” which, of course, significantly raises the amount of insulin required to metabolize your food.  The 6th ingredient is protein-rich buttermilk, of which there must be very little since the nutrition information lists 0 grams of protein.

Next I checked Kraft Catalina, a sweet, French-style dressing.  The first ingredient was high-fructose corn syrup, followed by water and tomato paste (called “tomato puree”), soybean oil, vinegar, salt and 12 more ingredients that constitute less than 2% of the total.  These include red dye 40, yellow dye 6, and blue dye 1, which probably account for the unusually deep orange color of the product.  Two tablespoons of Catalina salad dressing contain 10 grams of carbohydrate, most of which (9 grams) is sugar.  It’s a lot like pouring pancake syrup on your salad.

The last dressing I examined was Kraft Balsamic Vinegar.  Once again, the first ingredient was water.  Then came “vegetable oils” (further defined as “canola, soybean, extra virgin olive oil”),  followed by “balsamic vinegar” (wine vinegar, grape juice, water), and the usual long list of ingredients each of which constitutes less than 2% of the total.  I  have a much better, simpler recipe.  Mix 3 tbsp. of olive oil with 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar.  Toss over washed lettuce greens just before serving.

So what’s the alternative?  I picked out a few of my favorite salad dressing recipes for you to try.  The directions for all of them are the same:  Combine ingredients in a small bowl, mix or whisk until blended, and refrigerate.  All of these dressings are flavorful and nutritious.  If you are sensitive to salt, just skip it.  There is plenty of flavor with or without the salt.

1) Balsamic Vinaigrette (a bit more involved than the very simple recipe above) is made with 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tsp soy sauce, and 3 garlic cloves mashed to a pulp with 1/2 tsp coarse salt (use a fork or a mortar & pestle), and fresh ground pepper to taste.

2) Tahini Salad Dressing (one of my long-time favorite salad dressings, and really delicious on a Lebanese salad composed of 2 small diced cucumbers, 2 small diced tomatoes, 3 diced radishes, 1 sliced green onion, 10 sliced mint leaves, and 1/3 bunch parsley, chopped) is made with 1 minced clove of garlic, 3/4 cup tahini (sesame seed paste, available everywhere), 1/4 cup lemon juice, and 2 tbsp olive oil, with salt to taste.  This dressing will only stay fresh for a few days.

3) Classic French Vinaigrette is made with 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp prepared Dijon-style mustard, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp minced garlic, and 1 cup olive oil.  Adding 2-4 drops hot sauce is also an option, although it will no longer be a classic french vinaigrette.

Try one or more of these and let me know what you think.

Last summer, egg production was way down.  Soon after our 3 beautiful Hamburg chickens arrived, we went from 1 or 2 eggs a day to maybe 1 egg a day to sometimes no eggs.  Then a whole week went by without a single egg.  It soon became clear that something was not right.  They looked okay, at least at first.  Friendly, healthy, happy.  The dappled sun shone down through the leaves of the oak tree under which their coop was situated, and flattered their beautiful black and white feathers.  Every morning they looked forward to the delivery of their breakfast, and they chirped eagerly as I crossed the lawn to the coop.  But there were no eggs. 

I checked the inventory:  fresh water, laying mash, oyster shell, plenty of leftover fresh produce.  What was missing?  The girls’ feathers were starting to fall out.  And their bright red combs were starting to fade.  They were starting to look a little drawn.  Now what?

Whereas I usually take to the books for answers, my husband takes to the road.  Sure enough, in short order he had made a new friend, an elderly gentleman who had spent decades raising racing pigeons in, of all places, the same town we live in!  His flock had once numbered upwards of 300 birds, and he had had ducks and chickens as well.  He knew his birds, and he was pleased to help.  He emphasized that he would have to see the coop. 

The following Sunday the birdman and his young assistant pulled up in a small truck.  The assistant hopped out, leaving the knowledgeable birder in the driver’s seat.  From his truck’s location at the bottom of our driveway, the birder could just barely see the corner of the coop peaking out from behind the great oak.  He explained that the weather had kicked his arthritis into high gear, so he would have to stay put while his assistant took a look around.  The assistant returned to report that the coop itself looked great.  Our carpenter’s father-in-law’s old clothes pole made a perfect roosting post.  The nesting boxes were just right.  The water was clean.  So what was the problem?

The birder listened to his assistant, nodding carefully, and then leaned forward.  He raised up his nose, and drew his eyes in toward the center of his face as he focused in the direction of the birds.  He could not actually see them from where he sat.  We waited.  I didn’t breathe for a few seconds.  Then he delivered the verdict :  There’s not enough light.  That perfectly protected little spot under the oak was not so perfect after all. 

We spent a few days assessing our options.  We let the girls out to run around and hoped they would stay near the coop.  They did not.  We admitted the obvious, and drove to Lowe’s.  Twenty-one metal stakes and 150 feet of chicken wire later, we had expanded the girls’ playground into the bright sun.  We flung open the coop door, and they jumped out, eager to explore their newly extended surroundings.

So here is what we learned:  Chickens need sunlight.  This makes me think about the epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency in Cleveland and elsewhere.  I read once that Nordic moms bundle their infants and place their carriages outside while they sleep so their tiny pink faces are exposed to the sun.  I already knew that people and vegetables need sun to grow.  I didn’t realize that birds need sun, too.  Vitamin D isn’t just good for your bones.  It strengthens your immune system.  It makes your insulin work more efficiently.  Make your insulin work better, and you will lower your risk of becoming diabetic.

I belong to a terrific gym, and I really enjoy going there with my family.  But it does not take the place of a walk in the light of the day, even if it isn’t exactly sunny.  Barring blizzards, floods, tornadoes, and temperatures in the single digits, I try to get out for a walk every day.  It makes an enormous difference in my waistline, my outlook, and my overall health. 

I encourage patients to commit to a 5-minute walk every day, outside if at all possible.  Maybe 10 minutes, depending on how sedentary they are — the last thing I want is for folks to start walking 30 minutes a day, get shin splints, and then have to sit still and heal for 3 months.  So I say, “Start slow.”  Maybe in a month or two you can increase to 7 minutes, or 15, depending.  If the weather is not to your liking, walk in hallways, or at the mall, if there is one nearby.  The closest mall to where I live is filled with brisk walkers every morning. 

The key to exercising is to do it at the same time every day.  To illustrate why, allow me to ask you a couple of silly questions:  “Do you brush your teeth?”  Of course you do.  “What time?”  “In the morning,” or “Morning and night.”  So now we’ve established that you brush your teeth every day at the same time. 

What if I were to tell you that the research now shows that you get the same benefit if you brush your teeth just 3 times a week (not true, but stick with me…)?  But here’s the rub — it has to be on Tuesdays at 10 am, Thursdays at 7:30 pm, and Saturdays at 4 pm.  We would never brush our teeth!  But that’s how we expect ourselves to exercise, and then we get frustrated with ourselves when we don’t.  So the key is to exercise at the same time every day, seven days a week.  Then you don’t have to think about it.  You just do it. 

Next scoop:  Golden Buffs arrive to share the coop, grow up, and start laying eggs.

     Recently, my old friends and neighbors, Marc & Suzanne, sent me this note about the blog:  “We love it!  Thank you for sending it.  We are not doing so well, weight wise.  We cook the healthy food, eat it, eat it again, eat it all, and then have dessert.”  This week’s post is about portion control.

     Yesterday I sat on a cozy couch with a group of friends, and we worked on a few recommendations to help people with portion control.  The first recommendation was to divide food into single-size portions right when you bring it home from the store.  In my house, I empty 2 large bags of peanuts into a bowl, then measure 1/4 cup of peanuts into each of about 18 baggies, knot each one, and then toss them all into a tin can for retrieval later, one at a time.  I am not a big fan of pre-portioned foods like granola bars and cereal bars, because they contain way too much refined carbohydrate and way too little nutrition.  If the ingredient list contains items not normally found in my kitchen, it’s not really food.  If it’s something my great-grandparents would not have recognized as food, it’s not.  But slicing up an apple or a grapefruit in advance, or grabbing a bag of nuts, ready to eat, is a great idea.

     Recommendation #2 was to serve meals on smaller plates.  Dinner plates, like our expectations about the size of a normal portion, have gotten larger over the past few decades.  You can fix that simply by using plates that are called “salad size.”  Or you can cover that large dinner plate (formerly the size of a typical serving plate) with a large amount of greens or salad, and place your other delights on top.  Of all the commercial diet programs, Weight Watchers does the best job helping adherents to learn to eat appropriate amounts of food.  In part, this is because they teach people to eat real food, and not prepackaged foods and supplements.  Teaching portion control is Weight Watchers’ greatest strength.

     Recommendation #3 was to serve food plated instead of family-style, and even to place the leftovers in the refrigerator before the meal begins.  A related recommendation, one that I’ve seen in action especially in my skinny friends’ homes, is to serve buffet style in the kitchen while guests eat in the dining room, necessitating that the diner rise and leave the table to get a second or third helping.  One variation on this theme would be to bring items like salad, pickles, and olives and so forth to the table, but to keep the other foods on the buffet. 

     Recommendation #4 was to savor the flavor, let chocolate melt on our tongues, eat at the table instead of in front of the television set, and be “in the moment.”  My friend Joe calls this “food consciousness.”  This morning for breakfast, I cracked a golden-orange yolked egg into hot butter, cooked it “sunny-side-upside-down,” slid it onto a small plate, and carried it to the kitchen table to be eaten in the light of the early morning sun.  I made sure to appreciate and enjoy the flavor of each bite.  I allowed nothing to disturb my concentration.  The egg was delicious.  How do I know?  I tasted every bit.   

     Recommendation #5 was to serve soup first.  It’s satisfying and flavorful, fills the belly with a volume of liquid, and gives the brain time to receive the message of satisfaction.  That way, hopefully, you will be less likely to overeat the next course.

    There are any number of reasons why people overeat.  The first and most obvious reason is hunger.  After we eat, it takes about 20 minutes for the signal to reach our brains.  So that’s how much time you need to wait to know if you are satisfied.  Before 20 minutes goes by, you can’t tell if you have had enough to eat.  So if you keep eating during those 20 minutes, you will end up feeling uncomfortably full.  Assuming your insulin levels are normal, that is.  Remember that high insulin levels coat the satiety centers in your brain and make it very difficult to tell whether or not you are full. 

     All kinds of cultural rules have evolved to help individuals regulate their appetites.  The French generally do not take seconds, nor do they snack between meals.  That’s much easier when you’ve eaten a tasty, satisfying, and enjoyable meal.  Parents in a community in the southeast Pacific teach their children to stop eating when they are 80% full.  That gives their brains time to catch up with their stomachs. 
 
     My friend asked me to talk about emotional eating, especially after dinner.  Oprah says that stopping eating at 7 p.m. each night was the single most constructive improvement she made to her eating patterns.  The importance of eating breakfast in this situation cannot be overemphasized.  If you have not eaten the amount of fuel (i.e., food) you need by the time you get up from the dinner table, you will eat the rest after dinner.  And then you won’t be hungry when you wake up in the morning.  To help you out of this vicious cycle, eat some protein for breakfast.  Cereal does not count.  This may not solve the problem entirely, but it will help.  For more help with emotional eating, read Dr. Sara Stein’s very special new book, Obese From The Heart.

     We are programmed to eat when there is food.  Only recently, evolutionarily speaking, have we become absolutely sure when we will be eating our next meal.  Only recently have large numbers of people found themselves in the midst of endless plenty.  So only recently have we needed to learn how to stop eating.  It goes against our natures, and this is why it is so challenging.  Nevertheless, I strongly believe that if we work WITH our metabolism, instead of AGAINST it, we will find it much easier to defer that second helping until it’s time for our next meal.  Then it won’t be a second helping.  It will be dinner.
 
     At the end of the meal comes dessert.  Dessert in our home consists of fruit.  Not fruit cups, or fruit roll-ups, or Fig Newtons.  Fruit.  A bowl of blueberries or strawberries.  Sliced kiwi or oranges.  Sometimes with a few squares of dark chocolate.  When company comes, we may go all out and serve ice cream, or my husband’s delicious banana-chocolate-chip cake.  Or both.  One serving, for special occasions.  Eaten slowly and savored for its unbelievably satisfying flavor.  Then I carefully wrap and freeze the remainder for another special day.  There will always be another special day, and another opportunity to enjoy a treat.  I promise.

“We know there is a deep reservoir of food wisdom out there, or else humans would not have survived to the extent we have.  Much of this food wisdom is worth preserving and reviving and heeding.”  
                                   — Michael Pollan in Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.  

    It occurs to me that there is a great deal of wisdom in the advice we receive at the dinner table, and I’ve been collecting it for years.  I heard some of these aphorisms at home, and I heard others elsewhere: “Eat your vegetables,”  “Chew your food,”  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” “Eat slowly,” “Don’t eat standing up,” and — my favorite —  “The more colors on your plate, the better.” 

    There is more to these sayings than meets the eye.  We have a lot of innate knowledge about food.  For example, it now appears that chicken fat has antiviral properties.  That makes a lot of sense to me.  Why else would my medical school classmate, Xenia, have brought me chicken soup when I had a cold?  Everyone knows that you’re supposed to drink chicken soup when you’re sick.  Now it turns out that it’s not just about the steam. 

    Then there are beans.  Beans are the only food in the universe that are high in both protein and fiber, and that makes them delicious, nutritious, and satisfying.  We teach our children that beans are magic.  Every culture has its “Jack & the Beanstalk” story.  Beans are on the list of foods that prevent diabetes and obesity.  Yet considering they’re so good for us, we don’t eat very many.  People aren’t even sure what to do with them anymore.  Over the past 100 years, home-based food wisdom has been a major casualty of the industrialization of food, and beans are a good example.  

    Recently, I found a 1991 article from the NYTimes, “To Reclaim Their Health and Heritage, Arizona Indians Reclaim Ancient Foods,”  http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/21/science/to-preserve-their-health-and-heritage-arizona-indians-reclaim-ancient-foods.html?scp=2&sq=chia+seeds&st=nyt about native Americans learning methods of food preparation traditionally used by their ancestors.  A return to a diet consisting primarily of beans, greens, whole grains, and high-fiber plant foods will normalize digestion, hunger, blood sugar, and weight.  For all of us.  Beans can be grown, soaked, sprouted, slow-cooked, and dried. 

    I’ve collected a few beanpot recipes for you to try.  They all have in common the same approach.  Collect a bunch of ingredients, throw them into a covered pot, and cook them over low heat for a pretty long time.  You will not be sorry.  These recipes are delicious.  If you’d like to add a meat bone or a piece of flank steak as well, then go right ahead.  And if you have another favorite recipe, please send it in.  We can start a collection.

1. Black-eyed peas with vegetables and pasta

Ingredients:  1/2 lb. dry black-eyed peas; 1 large onion, finely chopped; 2 large carrots, finely chopped; 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped; 1/4 c. tomato paste dissolved in 1/2 c. water; 4 garlic cloves, minced; 1 bay leaf; 1 dried hot pepper or 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes; 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil; 1/2 c. elbow macaroni or small square Greek egg noodles; 1 c. chopped cooked spinach or greens; 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar.

Directions:  On the stove, boil the black-eyed peas in a large soup pot for 5 minutes, and drain.  Add onion, carrots, pepper, pasta, tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf, hot pepper and 1/4 cup olive oil to soup pot.  Cover with water by 2 inches, cover the pot, and place it in a 300 degree oven for 2-3 hours.  Taste and adjust seasoning.  Stir in the greens, 2 more tbsp. olive oil if desired, and vinegar.  Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

2. White baked beans

Ingredients: 1 heaping c. dry white navy beans, 1/4 c. dry chick peas, 1 large onion, chopped; 4 carrots, peeled and sliced in small rounds; 3 tbsp. hot sauce; 2 tbsp. brown sugar, 1 t. salt, 4-5 c. water, and  4 whole raw eggs, in the shell.

Directions:  Start this the night before, if you plan to eat it for lunch.  Or before 8 a.m. if it’s going to be dinner.  Place ingredients in a deep casserole dish.  Add enough water to cover the ingredients by two or three inches.  Cover the bean pot and place into a 250 degree oven.  Turn it down to 200 degrees after a few hours.  Check it a few times to make sure there is enough water just to cover the beans.  The eggs absorb flavor across the shell and become the most amazing hard-boiled eggs you’ve ever eaten. 

3. Exotic white beans (Thank you, Jean!)

Ingredients: 1 c. dry white beans; 1 large red onion, chopped; ¼ c. sundried tomatoes; 2 tbsp. brown sugar; 1 t. salt, 1 tbsp. thai roasted red chili paste, 5 c. water.  Directions identical to #2, although Jean said that somehow she cooked the beans at 350 for 3 hours, and then 250 for a couple more hours, and then accidentally turned off the oven overnight.  The beans were soft and delicious anyway.  These recipes are very forgiving.

4. Black beans

Ingredients: 1 c. dry black beans; 1 large onion, chopped; 4 cloves garlic; 3 tomatoes; 2 oranges, peeled and chopped into small pieces; 1/2 t. red pepper flakes; 3 tbsp. molasses; 1 t. salt; 5 c. water.  Directions identical to #2.

    Many years ago, my then-vegetarian sister had a boyfriend whose mother served her “bean loaf” on her first visit to their home.  Its dreadfully unappetizing name was nothing like its flavor.  We renamed it “chickpea pie,” and it stuck around for much longer than the vegetarianism (and the boyfriend).  Here’s to the lowly but lovely bean.  And here are a few more of my favorite sayings.  “Eat close to the garden.”  “Don’t buy products whose ingredients you can’t pronounce.”  “Don’t buy products with more than four ingredients.”  “Choose foods that have been through as few machines as possible.”  These are all different ways of saying the same thing: Eat food, not manufactured calories.