Weekend Link Love – 02.21.2011

Food and Recipe Links

Health Links

Butternut Kale Salad (Whole Foods Inspired Recipe)

I made this salad ages ago (early January) and almost forgot to post, but it was so good that I just had to. It’s a Whole Foods-inspired recipe and it’s quite good. Back in January I was in a kale phase so I made this several times and each time it did not disappoint.

Butternut Kale Salad (Whole Foods Inspired Recipe)

Ingredients

  • 1 bunch of kale
  • 1/4 cup water + 1/2 veggie boullion cube (or vegetable broth)
  • 2 teaspoons honey
  • 2 teaspoons rice vinegar
  • 10 ounces chopped butternut squash
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • salt + pepper
  • chopped romaine lettuce (optional)

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 400F. Toss the chopped squash with the olive oil and a little salt. Roast for 30 minutes, or until it’s done to your liking.
  2. Rip up the kale into pieces, removing the stems.
  3. Heat the water in a sauce pan over medium-high heat; add the veggie cube, honey, and vinegar. Mix until dissolved.
  4. Add the kale pieces to the broth and cook briefly, while stirring (30 seconds to a minute) until the kale begins to wilt. Remove from heat immediately.
  5. Mix together the roasted squash and the kale; add salt and pepper as desired.
  6. Optionally, serve over chopped romaine lettuce – a salad on a salad!

I served this with my Indian brown rice, which you can see in the picture. Recently, my squash consumption has mostly been kabocha squash, but I see some kale/butternut creations in my future.

What’s your favorite way to eat kale? To eat squash?

My favorite way to eat kale is in a massaged kale salad. My favorite squash/way to eat it is – chop a very ripe kabocha and steam it for about 5 minutes. Freeze it for 5 minutes so it cools to room temp. Enjoy plain 🙂

P.S. I’m definitely going to write a followup to Sunday’s post – got some great comments and did some more research.

Big Fat Video Links – Weekend Link Love

I watched 3 really interesting videos in the last 3 days. The first was a documentary on Hulu called Fat Head. Here’s the summary:

Have you seen the news stories about the obesity epidemic? Did you see Super Size Me? Then guess what? … You’ve been fed a load of bologna.

Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald’s crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we’ve been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me, Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity “epidemic” has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as “overweight” have longer lifespans than people classified as “normal weight.” Having low cholesterol is unhealthy. Lowfat diets can lead to depression and type II diabetes. Saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease — but sugars, starches and processed vegetable oils do.

Fat Head Video Link Here.

The second was a talk/lecture by Gary Taubes (author of Good Calories, Bad Calories – now I must read this book) called Big Fat Lies. He has a second book that just came out entitled Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It, which may be more appealing – it’s less scientific and includes explanations designed for lay-people.

The last video I watched was called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. It became somewhat of an internet sensation back in 2009 but I guess I missed it. It’s a 1.5 hour lecture on why fructose is a toxin. (I’m sold.) The lecturer is a doctor by the name of Robert H. Lustig.

If you have some time (each video is over an hour) I highly recommend them. The gist of all of them is that the obesity epidemic is caused, not by fat/saturated fat/meat, but by too much sugar and too many carbohydrates. My take on them:

Fat Head

The first link (Fat Head) “proves” that a high-fat diet is good for you. Um, duh. Tom Naughton’s high-fat diet consists of a lot of meat; I am still kind of undecided on the meat issue. Two more of his points are that 1) grains are doing a lot of damage (he does go into detail but I don’t want to right now) and 2) processed vegetable oils (corn oil, soybean oil, etc… – and not just he partially hydrogenated trans fat ones) are also killing us. Humans are not used to eating either of those things.

Now – I like meat, and I would eat it, but I am morally opposed to the way meat is produced in our country, and I can’t bring myself to eat it anymore. If meat were truly ethically raised? I’m still unsure nowadays. I’m getting off topic, but my takeaway from this one – fat is good. Eat more of it. Eat veggies too, though. It may be possible to have a semi-healthful fast food diet, but it’s probably better to just be more primal.

Mmm… bacon and eggs and butter.

Personal side notes:

  • My “Bring on the Fat” post from last year (one year ago – to the day). Sadly I didn’t keep up with this as much as I’d have liked. Now that I’m a veggie I need to get my animal fat from butter, ghee, eggs (with yolk), and dairy (goat’s and sheep’s milk yogurts are my faves; regular ol’ organic whole cow’s milk for my coffee). Since I went veggie I have been eating too many carbs and not enough fats.
  • The Great Fat Animal Experiment. This was from a year and 3 days ago; it was an intro to my passion for animal fat. I still do love animal fat; again, I’m just going to try to get it from non-meat sources.
  • Way back in July 2009 (4 days before I got engaged… can’t believe I am married now!) was one of the first times I started trying to eat more fat. I didn’t really follow through, at least not to the extent that I should have. I have come a long way since then.

Big Fat Lies

The second link (Big Fat Lies) discusses the matter of why people are getting fat; is it simply that we eat too much and sit on our asses? Gary Taubes seems to think that it’s because we have too much insulin (I’m leaning towards agreeing with him, but I think the reason we have too much insulin is because we… eat too much). He basically says that we aren’t getting fat because we’re eating more; we’re eating more because we’re getting fat. He debunks Ancel Keys’ Lipid Hypothesis/Seven Countries Study which states that:

  1. Saturated fat increases cholesterol. (If A then B.)
  2. High cholesterol associated with heart disease. (B associated with C.)
  3. Saturated fat must cause heart disease! (If A then C.)

What a load of bologna! Ugh, too much to say about this horrible study, will post about this later (if I don’t remind me). I tend to agree with Taubes’ conclusions, but I think that there are a lot of people out there who do simply “eat too much” for probably mental reasons. It’s not just hormones that are making us fat. We have issues that also make us eat too much which starts the vicious cycle of greedy fat cells –> eat more –> greedier fat cells –> eat even more –> also be lazy because we’re too fat.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

The last link, Sugar: The Bitter Truth, Robert H. Lustig discusses how fructose is metabolized in the body. It turns out that fructose is very similar to ethanol, which is a toxin. He also debunks the Seven Countries Study (though for different reasons than Taubes does). He’s not a low-carb advocate (unlike the other two); he thinks we just have to eat the right carbs, which does not include sugar at all. His diet prescriptions for his patients (mostly kids) are (this is around the 1:10 mark):

  • Only beverages should be water and milk
  • Eat carbs with fiber (ex: fruit is fructose but has fiber built in)
  • Wait 20 minutes for second portions
  • If you’re gonna stare at a screen (tv/video games) you have to do equal amounts of activity (playing outside)

His prescriptions are probably easier and more reasonable to follow than what Taubes thinks we should do (low-carb, lots of meat); they’re also probably more sustainable (we can’t all live on steak due to overpopulation). I’m still on the fence about carbs though. I love ’em, but they make me feel like shit. Maybe I’m just more sensitive than some people; my husband could probably live on just carbs and get along fine. (Though he did lose 10 pounds in the last month from being vegetarian – 10 pounds he did not need to lose and he is worried about. He’s practically as skinny as I am.)

What are your thoughts? On grains? On carbs? On sugar? On fructose? On saturated fats? On animal fats? On “healthy” fats? On a low-fat diet? On a low-carb diet? On Tom Naughton/Gary Taubes/Robert Lustig?

Or, if you wanna stop with the heavy topics…

What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?

Bobby got us reservations as a restaurant we haven’t been to yet but that I hear great things about.

Purple Cleansing Simple Miso Soup

My tum has been troubling me as of late and I needed something simple to calm it down and get things moving. Miso soup it was! I used to have miso soup every morning when I was more macrobiotic and I think it’s time I started up that habit again.

Purple Cleansing Simple Miso Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 cup finely chopped cabbage (red/purple)
  • 1/2 medium white onion, finely sliced
  • 3ish tablespoons dried wakame
  • 3ish tablespoons miso (red)
  • 4ish cups water

Method

  1. Toss everything in a pot. Bring the water to a boil. Mix a few times, then reduce heat to low and cover.
  2. Simmer for 20 minutes on low heat, allowing the veggies to fully cook through.
  3. Enjoy for breakfast or anytime really 🙂

Looks gross but it really is delicious (this is the broth).

The last time I made a cleansing veggie soup was almost 2 years ago!

If you ever wanted to hear more about my macrobiotic trials…

Just one more day to get through and then it’s the weekend. Do you have any plans?

My plans are up in the air; Valentine’s day is Monday but maybe we will celebrate early. I think it also might be time for me to do some shopping. I am sorely lacking in style as of late.

P.S. Please check out Clare’s post on chair pose about me!

Indian Brown Rice Recipe (Whole Foods-Inspired Recipe)

The other weekend Bobby and I made it out of the house early enough on a Sunday to go to meeting. Usually we stay in on weekend mornings, choosing to clean (me), sleep (him), eat (both of us), or do other fun things to pass the time. That one Sunday that we made it out though, we were quite hungry by the end of our Sunday morning silence. (For more info on meeting/Quakers click here.) We headed to Whole Foods for brunch where I stumbled upon one of my new favorite simple recipes.

Indian Brown Rice Recipe (Whole Foods-Inspired Recipe)

I made sure to go back to the hot food bar and copy down the ingredients. Which I will now share with you.

Ingredients

  • 1 rice cooker cup brown rice (I used brown basmati) (1 rice cooker cup ~ 3/4 of a regular cup. I don’t know why the cup is a different size.)
  • 2 rice cooker cups of water (or amount required by your rice cooker / rice packaging)
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1.5 teaspoons ghee or butter*
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried dill (or other green spice – a bayleaf maybe, or oregano, etc…)

*Vegans can substitute oil instead of butter/ghee.

Method

    1. Toss everything in your rice cooker. Mix. Press “start”.

    1. Wait until rice is done. Mix again, and eat.

It’s a very simple recipe with great results. I hope you enjoy it.

Do you like basmati rice? Do you like Indian food?

I generally don’t like Indian food, but I do love basmati rice. My friend recently made mutter paneer that I *did* actually like though, so maybe I am coming around.

Did you watch the superbowl?

I did! I couldn’t follow it at all, but I thought that one of the coaches looked like Foreman (from House) and I thought the Black Eyed Peas were absolutely horrible.