After moving to Portland in 1991, I had time and resources to get a Holistic Nutritionist degree. During the years I studied nutrition on my own, I never wanted to be a dietitian because I didn’t agree with their overall philosophy. Knowing that Jell-O was a staple in hospitals convinced me that I didn’t want to learn what dietitians had to teach. Sadly, there are few medical schools that teach nutrition.

Over the years whenever I read about food served in public schools supervised by dietitians I get depressed. Where are the whole grains and produce I know to be the best for good health, especially for growing children? Don’t get me started on soda pop.

With my professional cooking experience, passion for nutrition, and desire to make a dent in hunger I volunteer as a chef instructor for Oregon Food Bank’s (OFB) Nutrition Education program. This program provides nutrition classes under a federal program called Cooking Matters. Based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) food pyramid, each of the six week classes focuses on a different topic including nutrients and budgeting. These classes, held once a week for six weeks, are hands-on for students. I usually teach at a local women’s shelter. Women of all ages and levels of cooking experience take the classes. Most are pretty vocal about what they will and will not eat. The ladies seriously critique some vegetables—“what is that?” “I don’t eat stuff like that.” I talk about the nutrition of various veggies—how color is an indicator of the nutrients it contains—as I demonstrate safe chopping, and the ladies pick up their knives and do their part for our communal meal.

The week of the protein demonstration we demo a whole chicken because it’s the most affordable meat. An assistant does the meat presentation as I make it clear to the students that I do not eat meat.

This brings up a lot of questions, and some resistance. I’ve not eaten meat for about four decades, and know some things to be true. Not only is a vegetarian diet more diverse, healthful, and better for the planet, it is also way cheaper. We do a scavenger hunt at a local grocery store for one of the OFB classes where we compare prices of various foods. When class participants see the huge cost difference between meat and beans, many are stunned, or mad. Mad because they don’t want to give up meat. I assure them that they don’t have to give it up entirely, but they can cut way back.

We talk about various ways to prepare beans. One of the favorites, and one I cook often at home, is a Lebanese dish called Mjaddrah a lentil dish with rice or bulgur. It’s a hit with most of the women. The people who participate in these classes get a binder covering all the topics we discuss that has a variety of non-meat recipes. Several years ago a recipe I created was included in this book.

I continue to teach OFB classes, and whole foods vegetarian classes, around Portland. Most of all I continue to learn about how food affects health. I mentioned at the beginning of my tale about the flip-flopping of nutrition advice in the popular press. The basis of my knowledge which I teach and practice myself is that a diet of whole real foods that you can see, smell, feel, and taste, is best for all of us.

This is the best time of year to me. Spring has sprung and my favorite food of all time is in abundance—strawberries. All my life strawberries have been my favorite food. I love everything about them—their alluring beauty, their captivating aroma, their compact design, their convenience, and their spectacular taste.

Oregon strawberries, where I live now, are as aromatic and flavorful as the Ohio strawberries of my childhood. In the intervening decades, I’ve tasted my share of bland berries that aren’t worth the money. And I don’t buy them in markets, natural or not, and never off-season since they have traveled who knows how far from where they were grown. They’ve probably traveled farther than I’ve ever been.

Grown to hold up during their voyage somewhere, picked before they are ripe, then packaged in environmentally questionable plastic boxes, these products are not healthful nor good for the environment. Seasonal fruits are not meant to be eaten out of their local season—they become common if they are easily available.

As I approach the Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings starting in early May my anticipation grows—will they have the season’s first berries yet? This year they arrived surprisingly early given our very cool spring. The first few weeks they were scarce. Finally, last week there were more berries than anyone could imagine and the price had lowered. I bought my first half crate. I froze two pints, made strawberry muffins and we eat the rest fresh out of the carton. I usually eat mine over yoghurt with some sprouted and roasted seeds: pumpkin and sunflower, and ground flax seeds. Yummy. Sometimes I slice some into a bowl and pour on heavy cream. Way yummy.

Strawberries are delicate—like any fruit bruised spots will mold and that mold will transfer to the rest of the container. So, I check all the berries as soon as I get them home. If they have some soft spots remove the spots and eat that berry right away. DO NOT wash them until you are ready to eat them, except if you are freezing them. Otherwise, store most in the refrigerator until ready to eat. The colder the fruit the less the luscious flavor comes through. I remove a pint from the refrigerator each morning to warm them before nibbling on them all day.

To Freeze: line baking sheets with waxed paper. Check your freezer for space to place the sheets flat. Rinse each berry, shaking off the water and patting it dry, then slice or cut each one into bite-sized pieces. Small berries can be left whole. Be sure to shake off as much water as possible so your berries aren’t water-logged when you thaw them. Place the cut pieces in a single layer on the baking sheets and put them in the freezer. These gems will freeze overnight. Place them into heavy plastic freezer bags (or doubled regular bags). They will keep this way for several months. They are perfect for smoothies in hot weather with a little milk (dairy, nut, or coconut, whichever you prefer), and some nutmeg. If you don’t add sugar you get a very nutritious drink with the rich taste of strawberries. When I have some that last into winter I’ll use them for muffins or in pancakes or pies. The frozen ones don’t work well for tarts or shortcake. Freezing breaks down cell walls making the fruit mushy so they aren’t so good uncooked.

Led by Ambassador Tony Hall, leaders of NGOs, religious leaders, and ordinary people all over the country began fasting last week to protest the immoral state of affairs in this country when our representatives in Washington D.C. continue to allow and encourage tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations while poor people starve. Right now they are debating which programs for the poor and middle class they will cut yet changing the tax break structure is not even being considered.

To learn more and to add your voice to the list of concerned citizens visit some Web sites I’ve cited below.

We can all be agents for change.

CREDO

http://www.communitychange.org/press-room/press-releases/deepak-bhargava-to-join-heads-of-major-progressive/view

Chart showing tax vs. budget cuts

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/tax_breaks_infographic.html

Mark Bittman column

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/why-were-fasting/

Center for Community Change

http://www.communitychange.org/press-room/press-releases/deepak-bhargava-to-join-heads-of-major-progressive/view

Sugar: the thing we hate to love.

By now we’ve gotten the message that sugar isn’t a health food, that most of us eat too much of it, and that many of us should not eat it at all.

But, there’s a reason for eating sugar besides that it tastes good. Our ancient ancestors used sweetness as a test for safety—foods that were poisonous were mostly bitter. If the plant they were testing was sweet, it was probably safe to eat. That Stone Age diet included tiny walnut-sized apples. The sweet juicy colorful fruit we know today were nonexistent in our distant past.

Luckily, or not, I became obsessed with learning about sugar while in grade school, because my grandparents had diabetes. In many parts of the Eastern U.S. diabetes mellitus was called “sugar.” In many other parts of the country, it was referred to as “sugar diabetes.” The name “sugar” itself tells you a lot about how I made the connection between a substance and a disease.

Many times during my childhood, I watched my grandmother inject both my grandfather and herself with insulin with huge scary-looking needles. When I was in junior high, my grandmother lost both of her legs, one at a time, due to complications from diabetes. Because my grandfather did not eat healthfully, he was grossly overweight.

I became convinced that in order not to suffer my grandparents’ misery, I had to figure out how to live without sugar. Of course, that had to wait until I was an adult, since I certainly wasn’t going to give up sugar as a kid.

Our love affair with sugar starts in childhood, and for some in babyhood. Baby food manufactures, like Gerber, used to put sugar into their products. They wanted their products to taste good to the people who were buying it—to Mom’s, not babies who have no purchasing power. In addition to commercial products, one of the first solid foods given to babies is bananas, because baby can’t choke on a mashed banana. Bananas are one of the sweetest fruits. Learning early to love the taste of sugar is a set up for disaster.

Though sugar was available in past millennia, it wasn’t until the 20^th century that such a high percentage of daily calories came from something with no nutritional value. Per capita consumption has increased at an alarming rate. In 1913, the average annual sugar consumption was 40 pounds per person. Today it has risen to 142 pounds. It’s easy to see that unnecessary extra weight on bodies all around us.

During the 1980s, many people believed that fat was responsible for people getting fatter. This led to companies cutting back on the fat in their products. Consequently, they loaded manufactured food with sugar because removing fat left cookies, or whatever, tasteless. Today boxes of dead sugar-laden foods pollute supermarket shelves.

Here are recommendations. Keep in mind that if you are healthy a fairly safe allowable intake of sugar is based on your total daily calorie consumption:

• 1600 calories per day—6 teaspoons sugar, or 22 grams
• 2200 calories per day—12 teaspoons sugar, or 44 grams
• 2800 calories per day—18 teaspoons sugar, or 66 grams

To put this in perspective:

A 12-ounce Coca Cola contains 39 grams of sugar as High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS);

a 20-ounce Coke contains 65 grams.

Don’t forget that drinking your sugar in fruit juices counts as sugar too—fruit juices don’t do well in the sugar debate. Twelve-ounce containers of juices range from 15 teaspoons of sugar for grape juices to 8 teaspoons of sugar for orange juice. A 12-ounce Coke has 10 teaspoons. The lesson is—don’t drink your sugar.

If you buy food in boxes, always read the label for sugar. Sugar comes in all kinds of disguises. Anything ending is –ose is a sugar as well as honey, maple syrup, agave, HFCS, and others. Ingredients are listed in the order of their percentage. The sugar content is listed on the dietary label as well.

When you consume sugar, appreciate it for the pleasure it gives and limit your intake to sugar you have personally put into the food.

Or eat a piece of fruit where the sugar is combined with healthy fiber and other nutrients.

Here is Web site about all the reasons not to eat sugar: http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/sugar.htm

Here is a really good site on the history of sugar http://www.globalissues.org/article/239/sugar

apple

Eating fresh produce seasonally is not difficult for people living in a warm or tropical climate where there is lots of variety year-round. I lived in San Diego for several years. I wandered wide-eyed from store to store marveling at the beauty and choices I had. I’d moved there from Ohio where choices were extremely limited in winter. I was so in love I thought I’d stay in California forever.

After San Diego, I lived in Alaska for over a decade.

The problems in Alaska were the same as Ohio—little or no local produce in winter. Food in Ohio came from Florida and California mostly by truck. In Alaska, food came by plane—making the cost of fresh food out of reach for a lot of people.

But the cost of food wasn’t the only problem; the quality was awful. Food grown for transport is not the same as food grown for local consumption. In order for food to be transported long distances, growers plant seeds bred to produce food that can survive a long trip, and harvested before they are ripe. Growing foods for transport does not encourage taste, or nutrition.

While my choices for fresh foods in Portland are not as limited as in Ohio or Alaska, there are no Farmers’ Markets in the dead of winter.

I usually limit my winter fresh produce to foods grown in Oregon, Washington, and California. This means no fresh tomatoes in January.

Tomatoes in stores during winter look and taste bland and boring. Today I am dreaming of pulling a warm tomato from the vine on a hot summer day and taking a big juicy bite. The anticipation of a fresh tomato is better than a poor imitation for instant gratification. I’m not into hardship or suffering, rather I strive to eat foods at their peak of flavor and nutrition and think the rewards are worth the wait. Besides, having a more limited palette in winter forces me to be creative.

Not so long ago, our ancestors had no choice but to eat food they processed themselves. They grew their food in summer; then canned and stored it for winter.

If you can’t grow and process your own food in summer to eat in winter, fermented and sprouted foods are a healthy delicious choice. Fermentation is easy—cabbage becomes sauerkraut in less than a week. Sprouting beans, grains and seeds is even easier. All you need are glass jars and some cheese cloth. Within 2 or 3 days you’ve got a lovely crop of crisp fresh veggies with an outstanding nutritional profile.

For a really well written, informative, and interesting book on the topic of eating locally get a copy of Paul Nabhan’s “Coming Home to Eat.”

And remember, spring is just around the corner.

Sprouting aduki and mung beans

Sprouting is one of the easiest and most economical things you can do to enhance your health. Of course you must eat the sprouts for the best benefit.

Sprouts are beans, grains, seeds, and nuts germinated in water.

Sprouting increases nutrients in plants by up to 600%. Sprouts are easily digested and spouting reduces phytates that interfere with absorption of minerals and other nutrients.

Sprouting is the best way to eat raw food in the winter when local veggies are scarce. Since ideally about 50% of your diet should be raw, eating sprouts is your gift to your family’s health for little effort. There are so many choices that finding seeds to sprout you and your family will enjoy is a fun activity to do with your kids.

While any bean, grain, nut, or seed can be sprouted, some sprout more easily than others. Mung beans, for example, send out shoots in a day or two; other seeds, like rice take forever.

My newest favorite grain is quinoa. It softens and starts to sprout in 2 days, and has a lovely semi-crunchy texture. It tops a bowl of soup or a sandwich nicely.

To sprout you need only some recycled glass jars, some squares of cheesecloth, and rubber bands. First, choose the seeds or beans you’d like to try. I recommend starting with mung beans because they sprout so easily. Put about a quarter cup of seeds into a jar and cover with water. Put a square of folded cheesecloth over the top and secure it with a rubber band. Let it sit overnight on your counter. The next morning, turn over the jars and drain the water—I use this water on my plants. Let the jar sit, upside down at an angle to drain off the water. Mine drain in the dish rack on my counter. Change this water several times each day.

Within a day or two you will see tiny sprouts starting on mung beans, other seeds will take longer—some up to 3 or 4 days. Once you’ve got sprouts showing, drain well and store in the refrigerator. The finished sprouts will double or triple in volume depending on the type of seed. That’s it.

Sprouts are to be eaten raw, so toss a handful on your soup after it’s in a bowl so the high temperature doesn’t destroy the enzymes you’ve just released. Sprouts are also great on sandwiches in winter when fresh greens are scarce.

A small book with all the information you need is “The Complete Sprouting Cookbook” by Karen Cross Whyte, published in 1973.

I can’t remember ever not loving peanut butter. We ate it a lot as kids. Because my family was Catholic and couldn’t eat meat on Fridays then, I always looked forward to Friday lunches. My favorite Friday lunch was a peanut spread my Mom made by grinding Planters cocktail peanuts and carrots with a hand grinder, mixing it with Kraft salad dressing then spreading it on white bread.

Today to save the grinding step, I keep a jar of organic sugar-free crunchy peanut butter in my refrigerator. I also slather peanut butter on my morning apple slices. Ymmm.

Peanut butter sandwiches are my go-to meal—easy to make, nutritious, and portable. Whenever I’m travelling I take along a sandwich with crunchy peanut butter, Umboshi plum paste, and grated carrot. This is my version of Mom’s peanut spread.

The first time I flew following September 11^th when airport security tightened, I was pulled aside after my back pack passed through the X-ray machine. The security agent asked me to remove my shoes which he carefully examined. Then he asked if he could look into my backpack. Of course. I was curious and nervous, as I removed everything from my back pack. He looked through what I had—the usual stuff: reading materials, water, and a peanut butter sandwich made from the heels of dense whole grain sprouted bread. He picked up my sandwich and gave me a puzzled look. I smiled politely and said, “It’s a peanut butter sandwich.” He handed it back, and sent me on my way.

After breathing a sigh of relief I found it hilarious that my peanut butter sandwich could set off a red flag for security agents. After that experience, I no longer make a sandwich from the heels of bread when I travel by air; I just use the regular inside slices. That seems to have solved the problem—no security agent has questioned me since then.

I travel through the Detroit airport fairly often. The last time I was there I found a food court shop on Concourse A called PB&J. They offer a choice of breads, peanut or cashew butter (smooth or chunky) and some kind of jam or honey. I watched a young woman make a humongous sandwich on thick slices of bread. I didn’t want anything that huge.  So I asked if I could get just one slice of bread, half a sandwich, and pay the full price ($4.49). After a discussion, the sandwich makers decided that would be OK. I got whole grain bread, and crunchy peanut butter, and that’s it. I’m not fond of jelly or anything sweet with my peanut butter. Later, when I got hungry on the flight back to Portland, I had mineral water, courtesy of the airline, with my peanut butter sandwich. I was happy to have something so easily portable that I could save until I was hungry. All airports should have a PB&J’s.

I wish I’d thought of the idea.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

~ Virginia Woolf

“Noncooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, well, so is ballet.”

~ Julia Child

“A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.”

~ Samuel Johnson

Saturday night I made a delicious and filling nutritious lentil soup.

Brown lentils

I like to eat lentils because they are local. Washington state, just north of me, is one of the biggest growers of lentils in the U.S.  I also like that lentils cook quickly, are versatile, and they taste great.

I started out with the idea earlier in the week of making a different dish so set about 1 ½ cups of lentils on the counter in a bowl to soak. When I was unable to fix the dish I planned, I put the bowl containing the soaking lentils in the refrigerator where they sat for 2 more days.

When I got ready to cook the recipe which had now changed to soup, the lentils were very soft and took only about 20 minutes to cook.

Soups aren’t about recipes. After you know the basics, just play.

To get started:

• Choose your bean/legume/dal and soak overnight
• Check your refrigerator for likely ingredients—anything you think sounds good to go in your soup. I go for veggies I have one or two left over from something else—mostly these will be roots that work well with a longer slower cooking dish
• Gather these basics that go into (almost) all soups: onions, carrots, celery or celeriac, garlic

Have everything ready, start to heat a heavy 5- to 6-quart pot or Dutch oven. Iron is good unless you plan to add tomatoes or other acid food.

Since my lentils were presoaked, this soup was ready in 45 minutes from start to table.

Measurements are not exact—remember you are experimenting. Add what you like in the amounts you like.

• Versatile Lentil Soup/Stew

2 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil

1 ½ cups (about) dry brown lentils, soaked

1 large red onion

8 ounces (about) mushrooms*

1 large carrot, diced or sliced

½ celeriac root, diced (about 1 cup)

1 -2 large garlic cloves, finely minced

Unrefined sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Red pepper seeds

Enough water to keep your lentils covered throughout cooking, or more if you prefer a more soupy soup.

1. Melt the coconut oil in the pot.
2. Add the onion, mushrooms, carrots, celeriac, and garlic as you have them ready in that order.
3. Stir well, let them cook together about 5 minutes.
4. Pour the water from the soaking lentils and add the lentils to the pot.
5. Add water to cover.
6. Stir well and bring to a boil.
7. Lower heat to simmer. Cover with a lid. Let cook about ten minutes.
8. Add the seasonings to taste. Stir well.
9. Cook another 10 to 15 minutes until everything is done to your liking. The beans need to be completely done all the way through.
10. Add more water if needed at any time during cooking.

*I used crimini and stems from 2 Portobello mushroom caps I grilled a few days before

With the soup I served a plate of various raw and fermented vegetables: pickles, black radish, watermelon radish, scallions, olives, and, always avocado.

We also had whole grain crackers with cheese.

Something I like to do when I eat soup is to put about ½ cup of my salad blend, which I usually have in the refrigerator, in the bottom of my soup bowl. Then ladle in a serving of soup—about ¾ cups. Yummy.

Slice Napa cabbage leaves—about 12 leaves are enough for 4 – 6 salads. Slice or dice or cut anyway that looks attractive and is easy to eat with a

Winter Salad Blend

fork, any or all of the following: sweet onion; radish: red, black, watermelon, daikon; carrot; jicama; red cabbage. These should be crunchy veggies everyone likes. Store this mix in a  covered glass bowl. When it’s time for dinner place in individual salad bowls or plates and add other, more fragile ingredients like sprouts or a leftover cooked veggie and avocado. This saves a lot of time when you’re trying to get dinner on the table. Dress with your favorite unsweetened dressing or any of mine.