A Fervor for Fungi: Mushrooms Cover the Health Bases

As Greg Marley, Maine forager and author of Mushrooms for Health: Medical Secrets of Northeastern Fungi can tell you, mushroom poisoning should not be taken lightly. Many experienced foragers have found out the hard way that mushrooms found in the wild can harbor dangerous secrets that lead to illness, even death.

But those funny little growths popping up around the yard and along woodsy trails creating a showcase of colors, shapes, and tastes could be trying to tell you something, Alice. Commercial mushrooms hide some healthy secrets, too, and even if you aren’t an experienced forager, you can still put the many benefits of mushrooms into your diet.

The Mushroom’s Major Health Benefits 

Virtually all edible mushrooms are low in calories and high in proteins and vitamins, and the most common varieties can be easy on the budget. But beyond just a healthy low-cal food, mushrooms are lauded as having medicinal superpowers. They are used in alternative medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and are credited with promoting adaptive abilities in the body— they fight illness, restore balance, and provide resistance to disease. Some mushrooms are considered “probiotic” and are said to provide a powerful boost to the immune system.

While North America rarely recognizes these medicinal benefits (with the exception of herbalists and some researchers) studies have supported their positive effects on fighting some cancers. Many consider mushrooms an untapped resource, one of Asia’s several underutilized but recently discovered foods such as green tea and soy.

Foraging for Fun (Not for Eating): Mushroom varieties from the author’s back yard.

Even the button mushroom – the small, white staple of produce aisles, salad bars, and pizzas – is a representative of this healthy, inexpensive food that you can eat a lot of. They are low in calories and have a light, earthy taste that is universally enjoyable (despite a lack of respect in culinary circles).

Also, mushrooms provide an excellent opportunity to cut back on meat, if that’s one of your dietary goals. Many mushrooms can have meat-like texture that can satisfy a need for protein. Portobellas, for example, taste very similar to meat and can act as an excellent substitute for a number of meat-centered recipes (such as burgers, below).

Some Kind of Mushroom

Many mushroom varieties are revered for their health benefits. Here are a few worth knowing about:

The chaga, which looks like a lumpy hunk of burned wood, is often made into a tea as a way to provide a plethora of immune boosting and anti-inflammatory benefits. 

Shiitakes are known as a delicacy, and they are used in soups and vegetarian dishes; they can also be found dried. Their rich lentinan content makes them popular for their effect on preventing some cancers, and they are also an important source of antioxidants.

Portobellas grow longer and larger, and are known for their wide circular cap. They are full of vitamins and minerals, including a variety of B complex vitamins.

Buttons are perhaps the easiest and cheapest mushroom to obtain, and while they may be ordinary, new research indicates they can help lower cholesterol and prevent chronic diseases, and they may have all the antioxidant properties of the more expensive varieties.

The reishi is a red mushroom that is credited, along with maitake and shiitake, as being a true medicinal mushroom. Research indicates they boost heart health, lower the risk of cancer, and promote immune function, among other benefits. They are grown in China and parts of Asia, and they aren’t readily available in the states, though many companies offer supplements claiming to offer similar healing benefits.

Portobello – Welcome to Your New Favorite Burger

Portobello mushrooms, with their meaty texture and perfect burger-patty roundness, offer a perfect substitute for the hamburger. They are low in calories, low in fat (about 30 calories, compared to a 3-ounce burger patty, which has abut 235 calories), and high in fiber, and they deliver big doses of potassium, vitamin B and selenium for optimal antioxidant activity.

Look for smooth, firm caps when shopping for the portobello, and avoid any soft and slimy areas – the rule of thumb for shopping for any mushroom. Store them in the fridge in a loosely closed paper bag, or wrapped inside a dampened cloth.

Start with these Portobello Burger recipes:

Mediterranean Portobello Burger from FoodNetwork.

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Burger from Recipetips.

Eating Well’s take on the Mediterranean Portobello Burger.

Get a fervor for fungi! Find more information about the heath benefits of mushrooms at Fungus Among Us, and discover mushroom clubs, journals and newsletters.

Dave Lieberman Does Lemon Blueberry Poundcake

We can talk about healthy food all we want, but it doesn’t do any good unless we’re eating it. Dave Lieberman, known for his Food Network shows Good Deal and Eat This draws from his book 10 Things You Need to Eat for this fast and easy recipe for Lemon Blueberry Poundcake. His book presents 10 important foods that provide powerful health benefits, and it gives readers plenty of ideas for how to incorporate those foods into recipes. This irresistible dessert features the undeniably great-for-you antioxidant-rich blueberries.

This and other fun, healthy-food related video clips can be found at WildBluerries.com. Get quick recipe tips for Wild Blueberry Grahttps://www.wildblueberries.comnola French Toast and Venison Loin with Wild Blueberry sauce with Jonathan Cartwright, and view Mariel Hemingway sharing her approach to healthy eating from her book Mariel’s Kitchen, among others. Eat and be healthy!

At Risk for Diabetes? Be Your Own Breakthrough

Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, affects millions of Americans. As waistlines increase and diets degrade, the Type 2 diabetes diagnosis rate continues to grow in this country. And, it is being diagnosed at unprecedented and alarming rates in children. This chronic disease, marked by high levels of glucose in the blood, puts those who have it at lifelong risk of heart disease, stroke and other serious complications including eye, skin, and kidney disease.

Is managing this disease in our hands? 

Recently, research published in The Archives of Internal Medicine concluded that intensive lifestyle changes, which include significant modifications in diet and exercise, can improve blood sugar levels in those with diabetes risk. Healthy eating, it implied, including eating foods high in nutrients and antioxidants, can assuage symptoms and reduce risk factors. Those reporting on the study have gone so far as to say that diet and exercise trump diabetes drugs.

People who live with diabetes often require insulin (or the increasingly popular pills) to control the disease, and no one should forgo doctor-prescribed medication whether for diabetes, high blood pressure, or cardiovascular disease. At the same time, a recent editorial in Boston Globe tells it like it is when it comes to the degree to which we are helping ourselves prevent disease. We know about the need for fruits and veggies to maintain health, prolong life, and reduce obesity that puts us at risk for diseases like diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers, it says. But we simply aren’t listening.

Despite our crumbling health, we are eating fewer fruits and vegetables now than we were ten years ago, and no state is achieving the nation’s dietary goals. 

What will it take for us to help ourselves?

It’s time to get serious and forgo the enticing taste combinations, colorful packaging, and convenience of processed foods and fast foods. It’s time to eat life-giving, disease-preventing fruits and vegetables.

Blueberries & Diabetes

In October’s issue of The Journal of Nutrition, exciting new research concerning blueberries and their impact on risk for Type 2 diabetes was published. The study found that daily consumption of whole blueberries helped people with a high risk for Type 2 diabetes reduce that risk. It was the bioactives in blueberries that made the difference—those chemical food compounds that have a health effect on our bodies. They increased the participants’ insulin sensitivity, a key factor in preventing the disease.

This research contributes to a body of growing evidence that supports the idea that adding this powerful fruit to our diet can have significant positive health effects. Even more exciting is what the subjects of this study did.  

They drank a smoothie every day.

No injections, no unreasonable fruit intake – just a smoothie. As Nutrition Advisor Susan Davis, MS, RD points out, it’s something that is easily replicated every day by anyone with access to basic smoothie ingredients. There are myriad combinations that quickly and easily make super-palatable snacks, breakfasts or meals. What could be better news for those struggling with strict dietary requirements or just looking to enhance health through food?

Diabetes Superfoods

The American Diabetes Association has valuable news and research about diabetes, including diabetes basics, information on living with the disease, and help in figuring out what you can eat if you are at risk or have the disease. They also list their top Diabetes Superfoods.

While these foods often appear on healthy food lists for anyone looking to invigorate their health through food, they are particularly powerful and work well with a diabetes meal plan. They have a low glycemic index and provide key nutrients often missing in the diets of those who have diabetes (and any American consumer for that matter). Berries are touted here (all types, though we know that blues have more nutrient-rich skin per serving) – along with leafy greens, nuts, and yogurt.

If you, like millions of Americans, are at risk for diabetes, there’s only one thing to do: throw on your lab coat and put yourself under the microscope. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to have your own personal health breakthrough. 

Drink to your health! 

Enjoy these super-powerful, super-delicious smoothie ideas:  Try a fresh Apple Smoothie, indulge in good fat with an Avocado Smoothie, or combine blueberries with bananas with this classic Banana Smoothie. This Coconut Smoothie captures a favorite flavor, and Wild Blueberry Soy Shake is good health in a glass. Mix up some good health! Enjoy!

High Fructose Corn Syrup: Bumpy Ride for a Fraught Sugar

High fructose corn syrup has been on a roller coaster ride over the last few years, and the fun isn’t over. Its ups are marked by big agriculture subsidies, and a starring role in everything from wheat crackers to cranberry juice. Today, the obesity epidemic has changed the way we perceive this mercurial ingredient, resulting in a precipitous down. Foods in restaurants and store shelves are shunning it – wheat crackers and cranberry juice included. Has this ingredient been rightfully snubbed? Why do we love it? And will changing its name and the public’s perception help us or hurt us?

What is HFCS?

It’s no surprise that high fructose corn syrup is made from corn. Kernels of corn are soaked to extract their starch, and enzymes are used to turn the glucose in the starch into fructose. The result is an ingredient that is part fructose and part glucose, where the fructose portion can range from 42% to 90% depending on the application. It differs from the white crystals that we know as table sugar, which comes from either sugar cane or sugar beets, and is pure glucose.

Food producers fell instantly in love with HFCS, and as a result, it is used as a sweetener in many foods. Part of its appeal is that it’s cheaper (the corn crop in the U.S. is heavily subsidized). It’s also perfect for processed foods – it extends shelf life, retains moisture, and doesn’t mask flavors. Looking for HFCS? Look no further than most any grocery store shelf. It’s in fruit drinks, sodas, crackers, breads…the list of processed foods that have HFCS is long, which means it’s a major source for calories in the American diet.

The Allure of Sweet

We love sweet food. While the salt-sugar-fat combos can send our taste buds and brains into heavenly overload, it doesn’t take a food engineer to create new ways for us to reach sweet nirvana (although it helps). We have simply evolved to love sweet, sugary food, no tampering required.

Foods that are sweet provide energy, and they release endorphins in the brain. And, natural sugars, like those our ancestors would have eaten, contain necessary nutrients. But those we consume today often have had their nutritional value refined away. Our body still works like the body of a caveman, and we are living in a very modern world, where food is abundant and we no longer must run for our lives from tigers. The fact is, it’s not our fault – our love affair with sweet is only human. It’s just that our physiology is in the Stone Age.

Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Evil?

Studies have reported that the combination of fructose and glucose has more negative health consequences than glucose sugars. Some studies show high fructose corn syrup contributes to obesity more than other sugars, it disrupts metabolic function, and it could contribute to diabetes and liver disease. This speculation about its evils has had major implications in the industry, and when First Lady Michelle Obama said she won’t feed her daughters HFCS, it virtually completed the journey of the falling gauntlet. Now, more and more products on grocery store shelves and food chains have publicized their elimination of the ingredient from their food to appease the public, replacing it instead with cane or beet sugar.

However, the results of the negative effects are not confirmed by researchers. Some studies have reported that HFCS is no more a contributor to obesity and disease than any sugar, be it from a cane, a beet or a maple. Some say that blaming the ingredient for the cause of the country’s ills is simplistic. According to Elizabeth Abbot, author of Sugar: A Bittersweet History, the debate about which sugar is worse is a false debate: HFCS and sugar from cane or beets are equally bad, she says. Why blame one and let the other off the hook?

Bad Rap or Re-Wrap?

Regardless of whether high fructose corn syrup is to blame for America’s health woes, The Corn Refiners Association wants to give it a makeover. Now, ad campaigns promote it as a natural ingredient (it’s made from a benevolent veggie) not a black hat food responsible for the global health crisis. The association is also pushing the FDA for a name change, from HFCS to “corn sugar”.  The High Fructose Corn Syrup website, SweetSurprise.com, uses both “HFCS” and “corn sugar”. The site promotes research from the American Diabetes Association, the American Medical Association and other sources that support the fact that high fructose corn syrup is the same as table sugar – in its calorie content, its chemical composition, and the way it gets metabolized.

While The Corn Refiners Association states its intention is to eliminate confusion for consumers by naming the ingredient in a way that better represents what it is, detractors say that adding to the confusion is really the motivation: the name change is just an effort at whitewashing by Big Food in order to lift sagging profits. FDA-sanctioned name changes for well-known foods are fairly uncommon, but prunes were given the OK to become dried plums, and products like canola oil started out as low erucic acid rapeseed oil. While these name changes enhance a brand that may have received a bad rap or simply improves a name that sounds unappealing, the act of renaming also brings to mind companies that rename in order to remove an ugly history from of the public’s mind. Phillip Morris’ bid to become Altria, for example, was done to distance itself from negative publicity, and in some ways, it follows the trajectory of HFCS. Rightly or wrongly, HFCS’s reputation has been similarly stained.

The Big Picture on Sweet

If you have decided to avoid HFCS or sugar altogether, sugar alternatives present options on our quest for sweet. Organic Authority reminds us of some less familiar foods that invigorate taste buds with superior sweetness. They include brown rice syrup, for instance, which contains complex carbs and is a less-sweet cooking alternative, and good old honey – it contains nutrients, so you are not consuming considered empty calories, and it’s super sweet, so you won’t need nearly as much.

In the end, the best way to avoid the health dangers from HFCS and other sugars is to avoid health-sabotaging foods like soda, and trade processed indulgences for naturally sweet fruits – those odd-looking things encased in their own colorful, natural packaging, just like they were for our ancestral caveman.

Read more about agriculture subsidies from Michael Pollan and why HFCS hides dangers that don’t only have to do with human health.

Remember the search engine called BackRub? Ever wonder what happened to Datsun? Explore these and other Famous Name Changes. 

Fruit & Veggie Slackers – Are You One?

We’ve said it here before. Most Americans are not eating their daily requirement of disease preventing, health boosting, weight managing fruits and veggies. A new report from the CDC this month says as much – only 33% of adults consumed two or more fruits a day, while just 26% consume three or more veggies.

More bad news? Who needs it. It used to be that avoiding being force-fed Brussels sprouts at dinner time was worth a little bad health. Better to live it up and enjoy life. But those days are over – enjoying nature’s bounty does mean living it up. First, it’s easier than ever – frozen fruits and veggies are always available and have just as much of the taste and nutrition as fresh. And, eating colorful foods from the rainbow means eating sweet, crunchy delicious foods that offer a bang to your brain and energize your body in the short term. In the long term, they offer powerful anti-aging nutrients, cancer prevention, and heart disease prevention. There’s simply no reason not to commit to getting your daily dose.

The wild blueberry lovers at Facebook got hip to the news and started fighting back by putting their own ways they defy the odds on the wall. Veggie smoothies, raw food munching, juices…how do you get your daily dose? Join the conversation (and pick up on some yummy recipes that make nutrition irresistible while you’re there). Or, if you’re feeling serving-impaired, put a few of these ideas to help you get fruits and vegetables into your diet on your own wall.

Stop undercutting your health. Longevity, wellness, and weight management is right there in your freezer, in your fridge, in your fruit bowl and on your plate. Don’t be a fruit and veggie slacker – dig in!

Plate of Prevention: Should Your Food Be Treating You?

Scientists and researchers around the world are engaged in finding cures for disease. They are isolating components in food that could help prevent cancers and diseases of aging, they are engaged in clinic trials of pharmaceuticals, and they are studying the mechanisms of the body to discover how and why diseases occur to make strides toward prevention.

While this worthwhile research persists, the irony is that every day we can be part of treatment and prevention of disease. After all, we eat at least three times a day. Why wouldn’t we be using that opportunity to do what thousands of researchers are in their labs trying to do?

Since the late eighties we’ve heard the term “functional food” – food with health-promoting or disease-preventing property. More recently were introduced to the concept of superfoods – foods like blueberries with a particularly high concentration of phytonutrients. But we often think of those foods as isolated and special, categorized as such for their unique nutritional power.

Instead, perhaps we should be viewing all our food as poised to improve or deteriorate our health. Do you see your meals as disease preventing measures, or simply sustenance and enjoyment?

How We View Food

A recent report from the Hartman Group, a research and marketing firm that focuses on health and wellness, sheds a little light on our views about wellness, including how we view food when it comes to treatment and prevention. According to the report, consumers are more apt to see foods as useful in preventing health issues rather than treating problems. The report includes the following data:

  • 56% use foods to prevent high cholesterol; 30% to treat it.
  • 46% use food to prevent cancer; 10% to treat it.
  • 41% use food to prevent high blood pressure; 15% to treat it.
  • 27% use food to treat osteoporosis; 10% to treat it.

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, when it comes to being overweight or obese, it’s the exception to the rule of prevention-not-treatment. Nearly equal numbers of respondents said they’re using foods to prevent excessive weight or treat it.

Food as Treatment

There are plenty of authors and nutritionists that advocate the use of food (whole foods that are readily available, not herbs and tinctures) as treatment for disease and ailments by urging us to choose the right foods or food combinations. From white turnip fasts for fibroids to cabbage for depression, advocates say we can prevent addiction, allergies, even ADD, in addition to cancers and heart disease.

There are undisputed ways of treating disease with food as well. Celiac disease is treated by adopting a gluten-free lifestyle, for example. Diabetes has long been known to be a nutritional disease despite non-food treatments. A recent follow-up study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health
indicates that people with metabolic syndrome may be able to reverse symptoms (in as sense, treat them) through diet. The potential of reversing cognitive ability and other diseases of aging are currently being researched as well and hold fascinating potential for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, age-related memory loss, even neurodengenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.

We also tend to see aging as a disease to be treated. According to the Hartman group study, older people are most likely to be concerned with “treating” aging, while younger people use foods more for energy or stress reduction without concern about anti-aging. While the two are likely to intersect, it may be one example of having the disease before we treat it rather than relying on prevention.

But beyond these food treatments, a shift in views about all foods that go into our mouths is brewing. Talk to nutritionist and laypersons alike, and you’ll likely find them say that they are seeing their food differently – as something that will be incorporated into their body to promote general health and well-being as opposed to seeing it as something tasty, filling, indulgent or fast. They look at their plate and they see medicine.

Food as Prevention

Termed “defensive eating” by the American Dietetic Association, eating for prevention means harnessing the power of vitamins and minerals in food and extracting an aggressively protective, or “anti” effect. For example, because wild blueberries contain nearly 100 phytochemicals, and phytochemicals they are agents of protection: they are antibacterial, antiinflammtory and anitoxdant among a host of other “antis”. Getting “anti” on your diet means you are eating for prevention.

While using food to prevent disease is more common than using food as treatment, sometimes treatment can just be prevention that’s happening too late. Consider those who have experienced cardiovascular events and subsequent operations who use diet as compulsory treatment when prevention could have lessened the chances of having the event in the first place.

But evidence suggests food-as-medicine is intensifying, and not at the grass roots – it may be happening from the top down. Recently, doctors have actually begun prescribing healthy foods to patients. As part of an initiative taking place at three Massachusetts health centers, doctors have been giving out free passes to farmer’s markets to those who need them. It should come as no surprise: for years some doctors have advocated going to the fruit and vegetable aisle in order to avoid going to the medicine cabinet. Here is The Color Code author Jim Joseph on prevention:

“By changing what you eat, you can reduce your blood pressure, lower your blood sugar, and diminish the risks of cancer, heart disease and macular degeneration. You can do all these things without pricey pharmaceuticals, just be adopting a more healthy, semi-vegetarian diet—one loaded with dark leafy greens, deep organ vegetables and vibrant red and blue fruits. […] As a Greek adage says, ‘It is the function of medicine to help people die young as late a possible.’  Food is precisely the medicine that let’s you do that. Colorful food that is.”


What’s Your Treatment Plan?

Do you view your food as treatment, prevention or something else entirely? Today, if you’re not viewing what’s on your plate as your three-times-daily “dose” rather than just a palliative for hunger, give it a try. Try seeing everything that goes into your mouth as part of your Rx. It might give you a very different view of how you are “treating” your body and your health.

Want more information? The USDA has information about diet and disease.

Can You Clean Your Brain? New Research Shows Berries Can Eliminate Brain “Debris”

It sounds as wonderful as it does impossible: that our brain can be cleaned, restored, and refreshed by eliminating harmful clutter. There’s some brand new research indicating that this clean sweep is no new age fantasy, and it may be achieved by what we eat.

The latest scientific research reveals that what is cluttering up the brain and leaving us susceptible to its diseases of aging such as Azhiemer’s and memory loss can be tidied up through berries – specifically blueberries, strawberries and acai berries, frozen or fresh. The concept marks a leap in a compelling area of science focused on maintaining the health of the brain. It also strengthens an already compelling link between diet and prevention.

The study was presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, and it showed that berries (and possibly walnuts), activate the brain’s natural “housekeeper” mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline.

If all this talk of garbage and recycling sounds more like working at a landfill than working on your health, here’s some new concepts to start thinking about:

Brain “Debris”

Previous research has suggested that one factor involved in aging is a steady decline in the body’s ability to protect itself against inflammation and oxidative damage. This damage results when normally protective cells become overactivated to the point that they damage healthy cells. This is, in a sense, the origin of brain debris, or the buildup of biochemical waste. This waste of the nervous system collects during aging, essentially gumming up the works. Without a little cleanup, this can prevent the brain from working the way it should.

Brain “Cleansing”

Now that we have the dirt, we need the broom. Enter cells called microglia. They are the housekeepers of the brain that in normal functioning collect, remove, and actually “recycle” the biochemical debris in a process called autophagy.

This process can be hindered as we get older, and without this “sweeping” process, we are left with the buildup. As a result of this slowing of the natural protective process, we are left vulnerable to degenerative brain diseases, heart disease, cancer, and other age-related disorders.

Restoring a Cluttered Brain

We know that natural compounds called polyphenolics found in fruits and vegetables have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect that may protect against age-associated decline. Shibu Poulose, Ph.D. and James Joseph, Ph.D., (Joseph passed away in June; you can read our rememberance of Jim Joseph here) did the latest research that takes these details and ties them directly to the berries in question.

The research by Poulose and Joseph suggests that the berries’ polyphonolics are responsible for what they call a “rescuing effect”.  They restore the housekeeping action – the normal function of sweeping away debris – that hinders the function of the brain.

 
A Growing Area of Study

While we are already aware of the disease preventing effects of polyphenols, this “rescuing” process has been previously unrecognized by researchers. It furthers the science behind an important link between diet and maintaining healthy brain aging.

Keeping diseases of the brain at bay seems to be more and more within reach by accessing the great foods that surround us. As research into the astonishing benefits of berries continues, researchers continue to provide compelling data about their disease preventing power  – and that means hope for all of our aging, cluttered brains.

A Passion for the Pancake (And Why Not?)

Why celebrate this fluffy disc of delish? Any food with the versatility of the pancake deserves a fête in its honor! First, pancakes are quintessential breakfast – a comfort food to sink into, which combines home cooking with the feeling of a special day. Pancake breakfasts mean conviviality – it’s the perfect food for fundraisers, fairs and churches. It’s the food you turn to to celebrate Christmas morning or the first day of school. In fact, the pancake breakfast is so iconic, it even serves as a popular gift that comes with an unspoken message of extravagance.

But there’s a lot more to the pancake than AM fare. Pancakes are a dinnertime pleasure as well, thanks to their ability to serve as the perfect foil for veggies as well as fruit, and combinations can be both lip-smacking and healthy. It’s true — “healthy pancake” is no oxymoron. If you are thinking of the ‘cake as a delivery system for butter and maple syrup, get pancake-savvy. It can actually be the foundation for many healthy ingredients!

For example, it’s a shoe-in for incorporating copious amounts of wild blueberries. Blueberry pancakes are a classic, and it’s easy to forget that sumptuous pile of mottled blue heaven is providing big health benefits and powerful antioxidants. By incorporating such tasty possibilities, it’s easy to take a break from syrup-lathering. Instead, use low fat sour cream and walnuts along with your blueberries. Or, go a different way, and improvise with spinach, oatmeal, cinnamon, peanut butter or coconut.

Some people have such a passion for the pancake, it’s no surprise there is a blog devoted solely to the pancake’s virtues, or that they show up on magazine covers in all their photogenic glory.

So join the fun and show the pancake some love. Here are some ways to revisit the delightful, unique, versatile pancake.

Creating the Foundation

Creating a well-cooked pancake is crucial to the experience – dry cakes often lead to compensating with too much butter and syrup. But when they are perfectly rendered, such less-than-healthy dolloping is unnecessary.

  • Easy on the stirring: slightly lumpy batter makes a tender cake.
  • Have patience and get the griddle up to temp first.
  • Cook half way, then flip only once.
  • Add berries to the pancake on the griddle, not the batter.
  • The first pancake never comes out well. Give it to Fido.

Kenny Shopsin on Pancakes

If you don’t know Shopsin‘s in New York, you’re missing out. Kenny Shopsin has a love-hate relationship with the pancake (and with everything, really) but deigns to offer this advice.

  • Heat the griddle until a drop of water bounces off the surface.
  • If the pancake puffs out and doesn’t spread, it’s the right temperature.
  • Think of the pancake as a record album, with an A side and a B side. The A side is the side that cooks first. Serve plain pancakes or pancakes with ingredients in the batter A-side-up. Serve pancakes that you’ve sprinkled ingredients on B-side, or topping side, up.

Mike & Mode offers up Shopsin’s Pumpkin Pancake Recipe.

Pancakes for Dinner

One of the best things about pancakes for dinner is that they are cheap and easy to assemble when there’s nothing else in the house. Got a bowl? A spatula? Eggs, flour & milk? Then you’ve got dinner.

Feeling plucky? Try Chicken-Pot Pancakes tonight.

The Unique Pancake

When it’s the season for zucchini, there are simply not enough ways to slip this veggie into unsuspecting foods. Give Zucchini Feta Pancakes a try while you can.

The Classic Pancake

Classic buttermilk pancakes provide the peak experience of pancake eating. They are light, they have a complex flavor, and because the buttermilk acts as a leavening agent when combined with baking soda, they achieve an elegant fluffiness. Martha ought to know – here’s her best buttermilk pancake.

The Healthy Pancake

Add ½ cup of wild blueberries, and you are getting your daily dose of a powerful antioxidant. Nutrition can be delicious!  In addition to the beloved blueberry pancake, try this brilliant vegetable pancake, or go for a complete fruit explosion.

OMG! Pancakes

Killer pancakes and syrup featuring blueberry cassis relish and blueberry syrup. OMG.

The Once a Year (Uh, max) Pancake

You know they are out there—and they’re good. Just go easy.

Syrup – A Great Way to Go Local

Pure, raw, maple syrup is nature’s gift to local eating, and it’s a healthy alternative as well. In addition to a pancake pour, it can also be substituted for granulated sugar in most recipes. Honey, especially fresh honey from local farms, can be delicious with pancakes used sparingly, and jellies and jams are a perfect way to avoid sugar.

Other options to top your ‘cake include nut butter such as soy nut, cashew or almond (think omega-3s). Or make your own scrumptious topper with these ideas:

These syrup alternatives provide healthy options.

Cooks.com has maple syrup made simple.

Syrup gets daring with mango and ginger mint.

Mulled maple syrup makes a simple, golden cap to any ‘cake.

Nutrition, pleasure, contentment, local eating, and ease. This underrated sphere of delight really does have it all!  Fire up the fry pan, pile on some healthy ingredients, and keep your PJs on a while. See you at breakfast.

Suffering From Too Much? 6 Foods That Will Simplify Your Life

Be honest. Does your kitchen need a pare down? It’s easy to accumulate too much these days: too much health information, too much “healthy” food, and just too much stuff. (Do you really need an egg to be scrambled inside the shell?) If you have cartons of low fat this and lite that sitting around on your shelves and you still don’t seem to be able to fill that nutritional void, it may be that you need less, not more.

Instead, try a simpler view of nutrition: focus on how just a few things can keep you healthy — simple whole foods, simple preparations, and simple principles of nutrition that you know intuitively make sense on your plate and in your body. WebMD has isolated their own super six that stand out particularly for women, and we think they are worth repeating. Here’s our simplified version of their list of foods, along with their most significant benefits, that provide super nutrition and don’t require elaborate supplements, eating schemes, or strange kitchen instruments.

While it’s important to point out that these foods don’t provide everything you need, the nutritional protection is wide ranging, and it’s a great start toward paring down the complicated messages of good health that we are exposed to.

So start thinking of your kitchen as a desert island where you can only bring a few of the most important nutritional foods. These foods ought to be on that list. We’ve also provided a Keep it Simple tip that will help you stay on track without complicating your new super-simple life.

Now, about that popcorn grabber you’ve got on order….

1. Low-fat yogurt
Low fat yogurt offers protection from digestive problems, and evidence suggests it could decrease breast cancer risk. It covers you for servings of low fat dairy and is high in necessary calcium.

Keep it Simple Tip: Forget those with added fruit. You’ll just be adding sugar and convince yourself that, as WebMD nutritionist points out, “those two blueberries in the bottom constitute a serving.”

2. Fatty fish
Fatty fish such like salmon provide omega-3 fatty acids that are a dietary must and help protect against major health threats such as stroke, heart disease –even arthritis and joint pain.

Keep it Simple Tip: Only DHA or EPA forms of omega-3 can be directly used by the body. The simplest thing to do is go with the fish source and not those found in mayonnaise.

3. Beans
Beans are great source of protein and fiber, and lentils may protect against some cancers and heart disease.

Keep it Simple Tip: Beans get a bad rap for being boring and pedestrian, but their diversity is no snore: if you think refried with cheese when you think bean, instead think red clover, kudzu, mung beans, alfalfa sprouts, black cohosh, or chickpeas.

4. Tomatoes
Tomatoes have lycopene, and lycopene is a powerful antioxidant. It can also help fight heart disease and protect against UV damage, naturally.

Keep it Simple Tip: Having sauce? Making pizza? Try tomatoes and olive oil and get the wonderful taste of the season. If you are addicted to jars with happy chefs on the label, let them go for your own stripped-down concoction.
 

5. Vitamin D
Ok, it’s not a food. But you can get it easily through fortified low fat milk, fortified orange juice, or fish, such as salmon and tuna. It facilitates the absorption of calcium and reduces risks of diseases that women are particularly prone to, such as osteoporosis.

Keep it Simple Tip: The simplest Vitamin D supplement? The sun. How’s that for simple? You can actually absorb this vitamin through any exposed skin on any cloudless day. Shrouding ourselves in SPF may have been the prescription for health in years gone by, but in moderation, sun provides an excellent source of your D.

6.  Berries
You know we love ’em: wild blueberries have major cancer fighting antioxidants. There’s simply no reason not to be getting this powerful protection for your cells, heart, and skin every day.

Keep It Simple Tip: Lug that enormous frozen resealable package of wild blueberries through the checkout and into your freezer. Now, lavish your breakfasts, salads, entrees and desserts with them every chance you get. It’s the most convenient, simplest way to get your daily servings.

Happy Simplifying!

Apps for Healthy Kids: Bridging the Nutrition Gap with Innovative Tech Tools

When it comes to kids, what’s not to love about technology?

Wait, that was a rhetorical question.

Sure, there’s the hours of inactivity, the distractions of texting, the exposure to negative content…but there’s also the powerful way it exposes kids to positive messages in fun, innovative ways.

That’s the thinking behind the initiative from the First Lady and the USDA. They are inspiring developers to make games and apps that are truly useful (and truly cool) when it comes to health, and kids are getting the benefit.

Apps for Healthy Kids is part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. The goal of Let’s Move! is to make a dent in the startling obesity rates of today’s kids – rates that have tripled in the past 30 years and are threatening the latest generation’s health and longevity.  The Apps for Healthy Kids competition hits kids where they live – smack dab in the world of phone apps and computer games. By creating apps and tools, developers and aspiring developers from all around the country are delivering the major concepts of health in a way that’s tech- fabulous.

It’s been called a “web-based intervention” – inspiring behavioral change through interactive content and social media. Submissions must incorporate certain concepts that will further this entertaining education, including things like increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, making food group education fun, and understanding calories. Through these colorful, whiz-bang, superfast tools and games, the message of health is expected to reach the ears of those who need to hear it.

Lots of people with a penchant for creating interactive tools (and a passion for health and nutrition) have gotten their game on. It’s worth it: there’s a $10,000 prize in it for the grand prize winners in both the Tools and Apps categories, and other cash prizes for honorable mentions and most popular, and some specifically for students. Judges are experts in the software and gaming fields, and winners get a trip to the White House as well!

The submission deadline has passed, but voting is in full swing until August 14th, so even if your app isn’t in the running, voting for your favorite is just as much fun. Simply browse through the robust selection of submissions, and cast your vote while the competition is hot.

Here are some apps and tools in competition that we think sound particularly downloadable:

“Habit Changer”

This tool makes you aware of your daily habits and guides you through change. It gives you experiences – your choice of email, web, or text – that lead you through the skills you need to solve the issues you face (like changing eating habits or incorporating good food and activity).

“Chef Solus”

This talking food label game brings the food label to life for kids. Kids scroll over different parts of the food label while Chef Solus talks (along with written text) to teach them how each part of the food label helps them make healthier choices.

“Smash Your Food™”

A realistic and surprising guessing game that lets children see and hear foods like a milkshake, or a burger, explode – while learning how much sugar, salt and oil their favorite foods are hiding.

“Work It Off!”

This mobile application for Android phones teaches children the correlation between the calories they eat and the calories they burn. The user verbally speaks a food name into the phone and is given options to “work it off”.

“Lunch Line”

This game mimics a real-life school lunch-line with a fast pace, categorized layout, and dozens of food choices, empowering children to increase their nutritional savvy as they play. Kids ultimately learn to choose foods quickly and intelligently and apply their knowledge to their daily life.

“Revolting Vegetables”

In this veggies-attack-themed game, episode 1 features The Uneatables: The villianous mobster, Al Capoche, has caused the farmers’ vegetables to come to life.  Now Capoche and his vegetable mob threaten to overrun the whole town.

“Balanced Meal”

In this app, kids enter information like age and gender, and then drag food around to put it on the scale and then see if you have the right amount of calories for the day, creating a great way to visualize a “balanced” meal.

Go ahead – embrace technology for health’s sake! Check out the apps, view the video, vote and show support at Apps for Healthy Kids.