Have you ever thought about why we might call potatoes “organic,” oats “old-fashioned,” cereal “whole-grain,” flour “whole-wheat,” or strawberries “pesticide-free”? What about “wild salmon,” “free-range chicken,” “pastured lamb,” and “hormone-free milk”? Our food supply has undergone any number of unprecedented changes in the past 100 years, and one of them is the words we use to describe that food. Basically since words that once meant food staples now refer to corresponding inventions of the 20th century, we’ve had to come up with new ones to describe the things those words once meant. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Turkey Chili
Ready for turkey season? We eat turkey year-round at our house, and nobody is complaining! My favorite way to make this is in the crockpot. Toss everything in, turn it on low, and walk out the door. Ten minutes to organize, 10 hours to heaven. Thank you to KitchenStewardship.com for the original version of this wonderful recipe.
On White Flour and Sugar
Let’s take another look at an important subject:
Have you ever heard anyone say that all you need to do to eat a more nutritious diet is to get rid of the white flour and sugar? That seems pretty radical to most people. What’s the point? What’s wrong with white flour and sugar? And what would such a change accomplish?
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Maple Baked Apples
This recipe is pretty close to the one that Chief Cook-and-Bottle-Washer made for us this past Friday night. With currants instead of raisins, and a drizzle of particularly fruity olive oil, oh boy, were they great!
Food with a Capital F
Let’s take another look at one of my favorites:
I’ve been thinking for a while about how better to talk about, refer to, differentiate or invoke real food, as opposed to the “not-food” that is driving the epidemic of chronic disease we doctors see in our offices day after day.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Red Lentil Soup with Lemon & Cilantro
Love, love lentils! They’re beautiful (and cheap) bought in bulk and stored in glass jars in the cabinet. They cook fast, compared to all the other beans, and you never need to soak them. The red ones cook quickest of all, so don’t be afraid to make this if you’ve got just one-half hour to get soup on the table. I’ve shared some of Mark Bittman’s recipes in the past. This one’s from his Kitchen Express–quick and easy. If you already pulverized some cilantro (or basil) a few weeks ago, and stuck it in the freezer for safekeeping, pull it out now — this is the recipe to use it on! I guessed at the quantities as it is written as a narrative. Continue reading
Understanding Your Cholesterol Profile
Several times a month or more, a friend thrusts their latest cholesterol results in front of me and asks for an explanation. “What do you think of these results?” “Are they okay?” “My doctor said the HDL is too low.” “Why are my triglycerides so high?” “What should the LDL be?” “Why is the total cholesterol number high if all the individual numbers are good?” This week I’m talking about what your cholesterol results mean, and how to make them better.
First, let’s discuss how the total cholesterol is computed. Simple. Add the LDL to the HDL, and then add one-fifth of the triglycerides. That’s your answer. So if the LDL is 100, HDL is 50, and triglycerides (TG) are 100, the total cholesterol number will be the sum of 100 (LDL) + 50 (HDL) + 100/5 (TG) = 100 + 50 + 20 = 170. Very good. Here’s a second example: If the LDL is 150, HDL is 50, and triglycerides are 500, the total cholesterol will be the sum of 150 (LDL) + 50 (HDL) + 500/5 (TG) = 150 + 50 + 100, or 300. Not good. You want your total cholesterol below 200 or so, unless the HDL is high, in which case the total may be higher than 200, but that’s good. High HDL levels are beneficial; they lower your risk of coronary artery disease. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Butternut-Apple Soup
Here’s a little bit of autumn heaven, my favorite season of the year since absolutely forever. It’s adapted from the newsletters of a terrific local CSA, Geauga Family Farms.
The Primacy of Prevention
Today I spend a few minutes on the topic of prevention, to which I have devoted my entire professional career.
Early on, it became abundantly clear to me that I could have a more significant impact preventing many of the problems that presented themselves in my office than chasing after them with treatments that did nothing, after all, to prevent them. Americans are not strangers to successful disease prevention. Over the past century, death rates in the United States from malaria, cholera, TB (tuberculosis), scurvy, pellagra, and typhoid, not to mention scarlet fever and rheumatic heart disease, have all plummeted. Illness and injury generally fall into a few major categories: microbial infections, nutritional deficiencies, toxins, and traumatic accidents.
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Vegan Ceviche
Ceviche is a dish consisting of seafood that actually cooks in acid instead of heat. Yes, that is true. It’s slow cooking of an entirely different kind. The lime juice “cooks” the fish until it is light, flaky, and flavorful, with a satisfying flash of sour. I had never considered that there could be a vegan version until I saw this gorgeous recipe, which comes to YHIOYP from “Peas and Thank You.”