What's in Season

Here in Chicago, the farmer's market season is only a few weeks old. My small northside farmer's market doesn't yet have a wide variety of veggies (but lots of strawberries and cherries). But I'm not despairing. The season is young. If you're wondering when to expect what veggies this season and live in Illinois, wonder no more with these official and unofficial Illinois lists. Here are some additional lists for my friends in California, Washington, New York , and Massachusetts – and for my mother in New Hampshire. If anyone else has some good seasonality lists, feel free to share.

If you're also wondering what it's like to be a farmer's market farmer, I recommend reading It's a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life by Keith Stewart. I was initially drawn to the book by its premise of a middle-aged man quitting his NYC job to become a Hudson Valley organic veggie farmer. I love all tales of mid-life career changes, especially those involving food. What the book ends up being is a very balanced, thoughtful, and well-written depiction of what your farmer's market farmers go through to bring their tasty veggies to a market near you.

Veggie Log

Behold, the shiitake log. I was doing some research today on shiitake mushroom nutrition and came across this very informational web site for the Lost Creek Shiitake Mushroom Farm and they sell shiitake logs!!!!

I have to admit I'm intrigued. I'm not exactly known for my green thumb so I'm always happy to see something that looks difficult to kill. From the growing directions, it sounds like I could put this in my sun room and forget it -- until harvest time.

Supposedly, log-grown shiitake mushrooms are more nutritious than sawdust-grown shiitakes, which is what is typically sold in supermarkets. So if you know a shiitake lover, consider sending them a log as a gift.

If anyone has ever had a shiitake log, let me know how you liked it.

Cook It Up

The New York Times, hot on the heels of my lycopene post, has a good column today about how some veggies nutrients, like lycopene, become more bioavailable once veggies are cooked. You win some, you lose some nutrient-wise however you prepare your veggies so the nutritional solution is to just eat lots of veggies in different ways and it should all even out.

Today's column makes up for one earlier this week about organic baby formulas. I thought the issue the baby formula story raised was important – that just because a food product is labeled organic doesn't mean that all the ingredients are the healthiest.

What bothered me was the statement "All infant formulas contain added sugars, which babies need to digest the proteins in cow’s milk or soy." Sugars have nothing to do with the digestion of proteins. Protein digestion is facilitated by enzymes, produced by the digestive tract, specific to the digestion of protein. Infant formulas are modeled to be as close to human milk as possible and contain sugars, just as human milk does, as a source of carbohydrate energy.

So don't be using that old "I need the sugar to digest my protein" excuse to justify those extra cookies.

Supercharged Mutant

This weekend, I was in H Mart, a supersized Korean supermarket in Niles, IL, when I spotted orange cauliflowers and decided to bring one home. Orange cauliflowers are the tastier offspring of a mutant orange cauliflower found in a Canadian field 30 years ago. The mutant was smaller and less flavorful than regular cauliflower so food scientists labored to improve upon the mutation, a gene that causes the cauliflower to store more beta-carotene, to come up with an orange cauliflower as tasty as the white stuff. Because of the extra beta-carotene, orange cauliflower is much higher in provitamin A than white cauliflower.

Since the weather turned chilly yet again today, I was in the mood for soup. I started with a spicy cauliflower soup recipe in Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Cooking. The resulting soup lacked body so taking Julie’s Spinach Chickpea soup as my inspiration, I added a can of rinsed and drained chickpeas. Just what it needed. Now the soup is tastier and has more protein and fiber.

As you can see, the soup is a vibrant orange. Feel free to make it with white cauliflower. The soup will still be a light yellow from the added turmeric and carrot.

Spicy Cauliflower Chickpea Soup
Serves 4

Prep: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes

1 T olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 tsp chili powder
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp turmeric
1 large head of cauliflower, color of your choice, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ cups cooked or 1 15 ox can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups water

Optional garnishes: plain yogurt or low-fat sour cream, cilantro

Heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, and spices and sauté until onion is soft, about five minutes. Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes. With immersion blender, puree until coarsely smooth. Top with optional garnish. Serve immediately.

Nutrition Info (per serving): 182 calories, 30g carbohydrates, 11g fiber, 10g protein, 5g fat, 1g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 422mg sodium

High-Fiber Flamingo Protector

Did you know that lycopene, the red carotenoid found in tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruit, keeps pink flamingos pink? If they didn’t eat lycopene, they’d be white flamingos. Which begs the question, do flamingos eat tomato sauce?

In humans, lycopene is an antioxidant stored in our blood plasma, skin, and organs such as our liver, lungs, colon, adrenal glands, and, for those who have one, prostate gland. Studies are still ongoing but there is some evidence that lycopene may reduce our risk of vision loss, heart disease, and some cancers.

For reasons unknown, lycopene is best absorbed when we consume processed tomato products rather than raw tomatoes. One study showed 2.5 times higher lycopene absorption after eating tomato paste as compared to eating the equivalent amount of raw tomatoes.

Since it’s been kind of chilly here the last couple of days, chili is the best way I could think of consuming my lycopene this week. I like my chili vegetarian, yet meaty. I adapted this recipe from Robin Robertson’s Vegan Planet. She likes to use kidney beans but I prefer the pinto.

To supply the vegetarian meatiness, I used Lightlife Taco/Burrito Smart Ground, found in most major supermarkets.

Flamingo-Friendly Chili
Serves 6

Prep: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 45 minutes

1 T olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely diced
1-2 T chili powder
½ tsp oregano
½ tsp cayenne pepper
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
6 oz can tomato paste
2 cups water
2 cups soy veggie crumbles
3 cups cooked or two 15 oz cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large stockpot. Sauté onions for five minutes until soft. Add spices, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove cover, add veggie crumbles, beans and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

Chili also freezes well.

Nutrition Info (per serving): 282 calories, 45g carbohydrates, 13g fiber, 21g protein, 0g fat, 0g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 625mg sodium

Facing Your Veggie Fears

Despite the fact that many of my patients have told me they love them, I’d never eaten okra. No good excuse. The potential sliminess just scared me. So I brought in a special correspondent for this spring’s okra report. Citypixie lives in NYC but hails from Florida so she knows her southern veggies.

Okra is definitely worth a try nutritionally. It’s only 25 calories per ½ cup serving with 2g of fiber per serving. Part of that fiber is mucilage, a type of soluble fiber and the source of the potential slime. Mucilage (I cringe every time I type that) is also an effective thickener which is why okra is so essential in gumbo. In addition to the fiber, okra is a good source of vitamin B6 and folic acid.

Citypixie convinced me to buy okra and try her VERY simple recipe. It takes 30 seconds to prep (rinse okra – do not cut their tops off!!!!) and then ten minutes total on the grill (they'll give a little when you press them). The okra pictures you see are of my very first ever okra – and I loved them!!!!!!! Soaked in lime, I gobbled them all up. I always expected them to be bitter but they’re not. Okra has a very mild flavor with a little something different in the center.

Special NYC Veggie Report from Citypixie, Okra Guru

"FreshDirect has substantially streamlined my food procurement habits in NYC. If you're not familiar with it, FreshDirect is a fantastic NYC-based grocery-delivery service that offers New Yorkers just about everything they want in a slick click-and-buy environment. The only real downside to FreshDirect is that you're kind of on your own for meal-time inspiration as nothing can replace the sensory experience of wandering around the market and discovering something new and/or not generally a part of your standard grocery list. (The upside is that I can get my beer, juice and bottled water delivered to my door!)

This weekend I convinced my husband to take a trip to a real "brick and mortar" grocery store in Redhook, Brooklyn. Not just "a" grocery store, but the very beautiful and catacomb-like Fairway Market. For those of you not familiar with Fairway, Fairway appeals to foodie elites and local-yokels alike because of the sheer variety of offerings (there aren't many grocery stores that carry sea beans and saltines!) and totally reasonable prices. Fairway is piled high with a panoply of tempting seasonal vegetables and fruits. If you can't find inspiration here, you're in trouble.

Okra isn't exactly "off" my grocery list, as I grew up eating it, but it isn't firmly "on" it either. When I place my FreshDirect order, I tend to be a creature of habit, so once an ingredient finds itself out of rotation, I'm probably not going to be eating it for awhile! Luckily there was a boatload of fresh okra in the specialty produce section beckoning me at Fairway this weekend. It kind of cracks me up that okra is considered a specialty veg (or is it a fruit?) since it was such a staple of my Southern-style family supper, but everything is relative. I never heard of Fox's U-Bet soda until I moved north of the Mason-Dixon line, which apparently made me a food-philistine up until the point of that discovery!

As "specialty vegetables" go, okra is certainly an acquired taste. Most folks who've had and don't like it, have had their okra in a gooey (probably overcooked) stew with canned tomatoes. While this viscous texture is appealing in many non-western cuisines (i.e. the Japanese love their fermented soybean natto), it is understandably not so popular here in the states where "slime" doesn't conjure up the best images and experiences for most people. Honestly, I don't really care for stewed okra either. Fried okra is a different story, but I think a fried shoe (if it was fried and seasoned correctly) would probably be delicious. Indian and Southeast Asian cuisines incorporate okra into many of their dishes, and I'm thrilled to get my okra in a restaurant, but it isn't likely that I'll be whipping up a ghee, dal, naan or paneer at home anytime soon.

So what's a no-fuss cook to do when she finds a gorgeous pile of okra at the market? Grill it! I have to admit, I didn't come up with this concept on my own – I recently ordered the okra special at a quirky neighborhood Japanese-Vietnamese haunt, Hoi An. I was blown away with its simplicity and powerful unexpected flavor! Best of all, the gooeyness factor pretty low, which adds to the appeal.


Citypixie’s Grilled Okra
Serves 2

Prep time: 30 seconds
Grill time: 10 minutes

15-20 stalks of washed fresh okra
1 T canola oil
Sea salt (I like Halen Mon)
Fresh limes

Preheat a lightly-oiled cast-iron grill-pan. If not canola oil, be sure to use an oil with a high smoke-point. Get the grill hot, hot, hot, then place the okra on the grill. After about 5 minutes, turn the okra so that both sides get grilled. The okra should have grill marks, but still look vibrantly green and plump. Don't over-grill the okra or the okra will become a viscous gooey hot mess. Once the okra is cooked, plate it. Mix few pinches of sea salt with the juice of a lime. Dip the okra in the lime-salt mixture as you eat it.

Easy and yummy!"

Citypixie also recommends roasting the okra which I tried the next night. I tossed the okra with 1 T olive oil, sprinkled them with Aleppo pepper (pick whatever spice you like), spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet, and put them into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes. Just as tasty as the grilled okra.

I now crave okra and need to get more. I bought mine at the local Indian grocer for $1.34/lb. If your supermarket doesn't carry fresh okra, check out your closest ethnic grocer.

Edgy Veggies in a Bowl

Broccoli raab is broccoli with attitude. Easier to prep but with an edgier taste. Both are members of the Brassicus genus, meaning both are genetically inclined to provide some powerful health-protecting antioxidants.

While I’m a huge broccoli fan, one advantage of broccoli raab (also known as rapini) is that there's less fuss and muss prior to cooking. No peeling of the stems, no teasing apart of the florets. Just chop, chop, chop, go.

This has been yet another crazy week. I needed quick and satisfying veggies so I made an old comfort stand-by – Greens and Tortellini Soup. It’s hearty enough that I serve it as an entrée.


Greens and Tortellini Soup
Serves 3 adults or 2 adults and 2 kids

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

1 T olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves finely minced
1 lb broccoli raab chopped into approx 2” segments
6 cups vegetable stock
25-30 small tortellinis of your choice

Heat oil in large soup pot over medium high heat. Sauté garlic cloves for a minute and add chopped broccoli raab. Saute for another minute or two. Add stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add tortellini and simmer for another 8 minutes. Serve immediately.

Nutrition Info (per adult serving, reduce in half for kid serving): 320 calories, 36g carbohydrates, 8g fiber, 15g protein, 15g fat, 5g saturated fat, 80mg cholesterol, 654mg sodium

Notes:

• Broccoli also works well in this soup as do leafy greens. For leafy greens, like chard or spinach, add with tortellini.
  
• I use half a bag of Trader Joe’s Gorgonzola and Walnut Tortellini for this recipe.
  
• I also use a 4-quart container of Pacific Low-Sodium Vegetable Broth plus two cups of water.

Four-Minute Veggies

Tax season has drained me of any energy to make veggies but I needed something. So at lunchtime, I stopped at a nearby supermarket to check out the produce and saw asparagus on sale – the ultimate quickie veggie. And a tasty one too.

So tonight, I just rinsed them off, snapped off the tough ends, piled them into a microwave-safe glass casserole dish, tightly covered with plastic wrap, tossed them into the microwave oven – yes, microwave oven and yes, without water or anything else – and cooked them at 100% for three minutes. Done and done.

The asparagus came out bright green and not soggy. Total prep and cooking – 4 minutes total!!! Squeeze some lemon juice on top and they’re ready to serve.

Not only is microwave cooking quick and easy, it also helps preserve veggie nutrients.

Microwave times vary by oven but it's better to undercook than overcook since you can always add time if the veggie needs more cooking. In my 1000 watt microwave, one pound takes roughly three minutes. Reduce time for less than a pound; add time for more than a pound.

If you want more suggestions on using your microwave, Citypixie suggests checking out two recent NY Times articles by Mark Bittman and Harold McGee.

Nutrition Info (per pound of asparagus): 92 calories, 18g carbohydrate, 10g fiber, 10g protein, 1g fat, 0g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 9mg sodium

One pound can serve 2-4 people – or, in my case, one person since I just ate the entire pound as I wrote this. At 92 calories, it’s a veggie binge with few consequences (except for the grass-colored you-know-what).

Soft and Fluffy Vitamin K

You're thinking "What the heck is that?! That is just the oddest bowl of guacamole I've ever seen."

That, my friend, is a bowl of smooth and fluffy vitamin K goodness known as pureed broccoli. It may look strange but it's yummy - and easy to make.

It's a green base for flavor experimentation. I love my pureed broccoli with lots of garlic and hot red pepper flakes. But feel free to experiment. For instance, it's also yummy with grated parmesan cheese mixed in and melted throughout.

Its sheer fluffiness may induce texture adverse kids to eat broccoli.

It also freezes really well so I tend to make a lot of it at once to have more for later when I can’t be bothered to make a veggie side dish.

Pureed Broccoli
Serves 4

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

1 lb broccoli
1 T olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves, finely minced
½ tsp hot red pepper flakes
¼ tsp salt (approximate and optional)

Separate the broccoli stems from the broccoli florets. Peel the broccoli stems and chop into 1" or so cubes. Cut the broccoli florets into small florets.

Heat up a large pot of salted water. When it reaches the boiling point, toss in the chopped broccoli stems and florets and simmer for approximately 7 minutes until the broccoli is tender. Drain. Puree broccoli in a food processor.

In that same large pot, heat up a tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat. Sauté the garlic cloves and hot red pepper flakes for 30 seconds or so. Add the broccoli puree to blend and meld flavors, salt to taste, and sauté for another minute or two.

Serve immediately.

Nutritional Info (per serving): 69 calories, 8g carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 3g protein, 4g fat, 1g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 188mg sodium

Too Much of a Good Thing

The New York Times had a good article this week by Jane Brody on the dangers of high-dose nutritional supplements. The FDA does not regulate nutritional supplements which means they do not monitor the safety of certain dosages, the interactions between drugs and supplements, or whether supplements even contain what they claim to contain. Not only is too much of a good thing just wasteful, it can frequently be harmful.

Eating Green for Healthy Bones

Everyone knows that calcium is needed for healthy bones. You may even know that vitamin D is also needed. But did you know about vitamin K?

Keeping our bones healthy is a complex process. Bones not only hold us upright, they serve as calcium storage facilities. Calcium performs a number of functions including regulating our heart beat, contracting our muscles, and firing up our neurotransmitters. Since calcium is so important to our well being, our bodies have a lot of different ways of regulating where calcium ends up. How much calcium will be absorbed? Vitamin D regulates the creation of calcium receptors for absorption. Will calcium get added to our bones or go elsewhere? Vitamin K makes our bones receptive to incorporating calcium.

Our bones are constantly giving away and storing calcium. The bone cells that build up our bones are called osteoblasts and these bone-building osteoblasts secrete a noncollagen protein called osteocalcin. For calcium to be incorporated into our bones, it must first bind to osteocalcin and osteacalcin must first be modified to allow that binding to occur. The formal term for this modification is gamma-carboxylation. Vitamin K facilitates the gamma-carboxylation, or the modification, of the osteocalcin. Without vitamin K, no calcium can bind to the osteocalcin limiting the amount of calcium transported into the bone matrix.

Recent studies have shown that we may need to eat more vitamin K. Vitamin K is also made by our gut flora which takes care of part of our daily needs – and makes it difficult to estimate the additional amount needed from food.

To maximize vitamin K’s bone-building function, the adequate intake recommendation from food was recently increased to 90 µg (micrograms) per day for adult females and 120 µg per day for adult males. These recommendations may be revised as more data becomes available.

And what’s the best source of vitamin K? Green veggies.

While there is no known toxicity from eating too much vitamin K from foods, you can consume too much from supplements so never take supplements containing more than 1 mg of vitamin K, which is way more than you need anyways. FYI, one microgram = 1,000th of a milligram or 1,000,000th of a gram; 1 milligram = 1,000th of a gram.

To safely and enjoyably increase your vitamin K levels, eat lots of these:


Vitamin K is also vital for blood clotting. Newborns, who are born with sterile guts, are given vitamin K shots to ensure proper blood clotting. Adults on blood thinning medication, such as warfarin, need to consume consistent amounts of vitamin K so that their medication can be set at the most effective dosage.

Spicy Lutein

I love Indian food and I love one-pot veggie-protein entrees. Whatever reduces the number of pots on my stove is a good thing. One favorite easy entrée is Indian chicken with spinach and yogurt which I serve with brown rice. While this dish is spicy, it’s more spicy flavorful than spicy hot. It’s the kind of dish that 5 year-old Simon of Ginger Carrot fame may call spicy but not so spicy he couldn’t eat it.

For vegetarians and vegans, feel free to make the dish without the chicken and even without the yogurt and just reduce the cooking time to about 20 minutes. It still makes a tasty spinach dish that will go along well with rice and dal (Indian lentils such as this tasty version).

This recipe is adapted From Bengal to Punjab: The Cuisines of India by Smita Chandra.


Indian Chicken with Spinach and Yogurt
Serves 4

1 T canola oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1-inch stick cinnamon
3 cloves garlic crushed or 1 ½ tsp garlic paste
¾ -inch fresh ginger grated or 1 ½ tsp ginger paste
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ground coriander powder
½ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp cayenne powder
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
Pinch cloves
½ cup whole milk plain yogurt
20 ounces (2 packets) frozen spinach, defrosted and well drained
1 ½ lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs

Heat the canola oil in a large, wide saucepan over medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and cinnamon stick and stir for a couple of seconds. Add the garlic and ginger, stir for another 30 seconds or so. Add the onion and sauté until lightly brown, about five minutes. Add the coriander, turmeric, cayenne, cardamom, and cloves. Sauté for another minute and then add the yogurt, stirring constantly. Cook for another minute and then add the spinach, stirring to combine everything together for another minute. Add the chicken and mix together. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pan. Simmer the dish for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover after 40 minutes. If there is still a lot of liquid, turn the heat on high to boil some of the liquid away or skim it off. Remove the cinnamon stick and the dish is now ready to serve. The flavor of this dish improves on the second day.

Nutritional Info (per serving): 313 calories, 9g carbohydrates, 2g fiber, 38g protein, 11g fat, 3g saturated fat, 145mg cholesterol, 380mg sodium

Notes:

• Make sure you squeeze out as much of the water as you can from spinach or the dish will be too watery.
  
• Odd sized measuring spoons are useful for measuring odd amounts like 1/8 tsp and a pinch.
  
• Garlic paste can be purchased at most supermarkets. Ginger paste can be purchased at Indian speciality stores like Patel Brothers, 2610 W Devon Ave, Chicago, IL. I use the Swad brand pastes.
  
• I don’t use salt in this recipe since I don’t think it needs it but salt to taste if you feel the need.
  
• Unless a lot of fluid has accumulated, like with whole chickens, I don’t rinse chicken prior to cooking. Since the bacteria that I’m worried about will be killed during the cooking process, all I would be doing is spreading bacteria to my kitchen sink.

Internal Sunscreen

I’m not saying your sunscreen lotion is obsolete. Definitely slather it on. I am saying that even waterproof broad-spectrum SPF 45 may not be enough – that we need additional protection on the inside.

As with most things, light has its upsides and its downsides. To see, we need light. Light activates the rods and cones in the back of our retinas that allow us to see shapes and color. That area of the retina containing the rods and cones is called the macula.

Every time the light hits our eyes, it sets off photo-oxidation reactions, creating dangerous free radicals that over time can damage the macula, resulting in macular degeneration, a progressive loss of sight. Photo-oxidation can also damage the lenses over our eyes, resulting in cataracts, progressive lens clouding.

On our skin, sunlight initiates reactions that lead to the beneficial production of vitamin D. Unfortunately, it also causes skin tissue damage ranging from loss of elasticity and wrinkles to skin cancer.

Eating more veggies helps. Plants manufacture lutein and zeaxanthin as their own sunscreen and then pass the benefits along to us.

Lutein and zeaxanthin, which travel together, are fat-soluble nonprovitamin A carotenoids. In other words, they’re digested like fat and along with fat, aren’t used to make vitamin A, and are free-radical scavenging antioxidants contained in the yellow-orange pigments of green, yellow, and orange plants. And yes, I did say the yellow-orange pigment in green plants. Some plants just have so much green chlorophyll that the yellow-orange is hidden.

As with many fat-soluble nutrients, our bodies stores lutein and zeaxanthin primarily in our fat tissue and liver. They travel in our blood attached to HDL, also known as good cholesterol. They're also stored at high concentrations in the macula and lens of the eye and in the derma of the skin where they limit photo-oxidation damage by filtering blue UV rays.

In addition to the sunscreen protection, lutein and zeaxanthin's antioxidant abilities may also protect the lining of our blood vessels and help prevent some cancers.

The more lutein- and zeaxanthin-containing foods we eat, the more we store, the more we have in our blood, our eyes, and our skin, and the more internal sunscreen protection we have. There is no official recommended daily allowance (RDA) for lutein or zeaxanthin but some research indicates that we may want to aim for 6mg or more per day. There is no known toxicity from excess consumption from food so eat up.

Just as with beta-carotene, it may be safer to get lutein and zeaxanthin from food sources rather than supplements because of the inter-relationship of the various nutrients packaged in plants. Plus, the higher the vegetable and fruit consumption, the greater the bioavailability of lutein, zeaxanthin and vitamin C.

So eat these:

Also check out the USDA site for a more in-depth listing. Going beyond the pretty visual, other excellent sources of lutein and zeaxanthin include turnip greens, collard greens, beet greens, and Brussels sprouts.

Eat lots of veggies so that you can see lots of veggies well into your old age.

Kid-Friendly Carotenoids

Celia, 7, and Simon, 5, kid-tested some carotenoids this week. Good thing too since Celia had just returned from a play date and needed the immunity boost.

Like all kids, they’re hit or miss on the veggies. Their mother Ana, of Ana’s Asian Chicken fame, tries to get veggies in with every meal and is always looking for a kid-friendly veggie side dish.

Mind you, this test was kind of rigged since Simon’s favorite veggie is carrots. Celia’s is corn but she also enjoys carrots. Least favorite veggie? Simon is not fond of anything green and Celia is opposed to snap peas and mushrooms.

And the verdict:

Celia: “I like them. When I eat the carrots with milk, my mouth tastes like carrot cake.”
Simon: “They’re kind of spicy but not too spicy; just spicy enough so I can eat them.”

In other words, they ate them, which is always good.

Here's the kid-friendly recipe adapted from Where Flavor was Born by Andreas Viestad:

Soy-Ginger Carrots
Serves 4

1 T butter
1 lb carrots cut into 1/3-inch thick sticks or thickly grated
2 T finely chopped shallots
1 T finely chopped fresh ginger or ginger paste
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp honey
1/3 cup fresh tangerine or orange juice (the juice of approx. one tangerine)
1 T soy sauce
Chopped cilantro for garnish.

Heat butter in skillet or wok over medium high heat. Once the butter has melted, add carrots and shallots and sauté for two minutes. Add minced ginger or ginger paste, ground ginger, and honey. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for another two minutes, stirring constantly. Add juice and soy sauce, sauté for another three to four minutes until liquid syrupy and carrots glazed.

Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve.

Options for adults: Add 1-2 tsp coriander seed, slight crushed, at the same time as ginger. Also, add finely minced fresh garlic as a garnish.

Nutritional info (per serving): 83 calories, 13g carbohydrates, 3g fiber, 2g protein, 3g total fat, 2g saturated fat, 8mg cholesterol, 324mg sodium

Cats, Carotenoids, and Carrots

As gentle as Benjamin appears, he's a carnivore, not an omnivore like us. Blame it on vitamin A.

This is vitamin A:


Preformed vitamin A, which refers to retinol, retinaldehyde, and retinoic acid, can only be found in animal products. It’s not found in plants – but that doesn’t mean vegetarians lack vitamin A in their diets.

This is beta-carotene:


Cut it in half and you have two vitamin A units. Humans produce an enzyme called 15, 15’-dioxygenase which cuts the beta-carotene into two vitamin A units; therefore, beta-carotene can function as a provitamin, a precursor to a vitamin. Cats don’t have this enzyme so they can’t convert carotenoids into vitamin A. They have to eat preformed vitamin A, meaning they can’t remain healthy on plant foods alone.

Vitamin A is necessary for proper vision, cell growth and division, reproduction, and immunity. The RDA for Vitamin A is 700 RE (retinol equivalents) for women and 900 RE for men. When you see vitamin A on packaging for plant foods, it’s really a listing of the provitamin A content and the estimated conversion rate of the carotenoids to retinol.

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, which means we store it in our tissues, including in our liver. We can consume too much vitamin A, unlike carotenoids, and accumulate vitamin A in our bodies to toxic levels. In school, we read about a researcher who ate an entire polar bear liver (don't ask why) – and died from a vitamin A overdose!!!! Moral of that story is don’t eat polar bear liver.

What about those people who drink so much carrot juice that they turn orange? This condition called carotenodermia, which occurs after high consumption of carotene-rich foods, is non-toxic and goes away once consumption is reduced. In fact, it may be protective since the body has limited the conversion rate to vitamin A, preventing a toxic overdose.

Yes, carotenoids are named after carrots. And yes, carrots are high in beta-carotene. When I was a little girl, my mother told me eating carrots was good for my eyes. Every Saturday morning, I’d plant myself in front of the TV with a bag of carrots to watch Bugs Bunny. Every time Bugs ate a carrot, I ate a carrot. Today I am glasses-free as is Bugs.

There are approximately 600 types of carotenoids, a category of fat-soluble pigments found in veggies, fruits, and flowers. Of those, about 50 or so have some provitamin A activity with beta-carotene having the highest rate of conversion to vitamin A.

Carotenoids have benefits beyond conversion to vitamin A which may be why our bodies only convert so much of it. Carotenoids can act as powerful antioxidants in their original carotenoid configurations.

So eating colorful veggies gives you both vitamin A and carotenoid benefits. And get those carotenoids from food. Supplements may give you too much of a good thing at once, as demonstrated by a study showing higher rates of lung cancer in high-risk men given beta-carotene supplements. This may be because no antioxidant works in isolation. Antioxidants packaged in plants work with other substances in that same plant. When isolated in supplements, protective antioxidants may convert into destructive pro-oxidants since they are missing their yet unidentified nutrient partners. Plus veggies just taste good.

By the way, there are some vitamins that we have to eat whole that our pets don’t need. Dogs and guinea pigs make L-gulonolactone, an enzyme that allows their bodies to make vitamin C. We don’t have it so we have to eat vitamin C. Another good reason to eat your fruits and veggies.

Veggie Sleuthing

Can you name this veggie? According to my receipt from Tai Nam Market (4925 N Broadway St, Chicago), it’s called Ya Choy. Since that meant nothing to me, I looked through a couple Vietnamese and Chinese cookbooks. No mention of it. Thank heavens for Beyond Bok Choy by Rosa Lo San Ross with its clear four-color pictures, detailed veggie descriptions, and alternative names – including of the elusive Ya Choy.

Ya Choy is also called Yau Choy, You Cai, Yu Choy, Oil Seed Rape, or its Latin name Brassica rapa, Chinensis group, making it a sister to Bok Choy. There are probably additional aliases. More may be revealed.

According to Melissa’s Produce, the greens are 20 calories per cup (cooked, I’m assuming) and are extremely high in provitamin A. I’ve e-mailed Melissa’s to find out their nutrition analysis source since there’s nothing on this veggie in the USDA food database. We’ll see how Melissa’s responds.

What does Ya Choy taste like? Like a milder version of broccoli rabe, also known as rapini (so many veggies travel under an alias). Just a little bit of mustardy kick but not bitter.

How to cook them? Below is a basic stir-fry which is a good first taste for most mystery greens. Sesame oil, crushed red pepper flakes, garlic and ginger usually work well with greens.

Mystery Greens Stir Fry
Serves 4

1 T toasted sesame oil (dark, not pale, sesame oil)
¼ - ½ tsp hot crushed red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves minced or 1 tsp garlic puree
1 tsp minced ginger or ginger puree
1 lb Ya Choy or whatever Asian-esque leafy green you can find in the supermarket, well washed and chopped into 3” segments
Soy sauce (optional)

Heat oil in wok or skillet over a medium high heat. Add red pepper flakes; stir once. Add garlic and ginger; stir for 30 seconds. Add greens; cover wok/skillet for about three minutes until wilted. There should be enough water left on the leaves to steam the greens. Remove cover and stir until veggies are limp. Serve immediately. If you want more flavor, add more red pepper flakes or soy sauce.

Now what to eat with the greens? To accompany the Ya Choy, I made steamed brown rice and my friend Ana’s Asian Red-Simmered Slow Cooker Chicken. Yes, I’m still on a slow cooker kick.

Ana’s Asian Red-Simmered Slow Cooker Chicken
Use a 5-quart or larger oval cooker
Serves 4

1 3-4 lb chicken, rinsed and giblets removed
2 garlic cloves crushed or 1 tsp garlic puree
1 ½ tsp sugar
1 T cooking sherry
¼ c soy sauce
¼ c chicken stock or water
¼ tsp toasted sesame oil
3-4 points of star anise clove (optional)
Scallions with green tops cut into “brushes” (optional)

Place chicken in the slow cooker breast side up. Mix all of the other ingredients together, except for the scallions, and pour over the chicken. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours. During cooking time, turn over the chicken once or twice or baste bird with liquid. Chicken is done when meat is falling off the bone.

Which is why the chicken looks a little ragged – the bird is falling apart because it’s so tender!!!

Remove chicken from cooker and place on serving platter. Cut as desired.

Pour sauce into fat separator or skim chicken fat off with a spoon. Serve with chicken and scallion brushes. Sauce is excellent over mystery greens and brown rice too.

Can I Get That In Green Too?

Yes, I did cabbage last week. This time it’s green and it’s St. Patrick’s Day so I really don’t have a choice. Today, my only options are cabbage or potatoes. Since potatoes can conjure up some painful Irish historical memories, I’m going with cabbage.

Cabbage is a cruciferous veggie, in the same family as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower. Cruciferous veggies contain indoles, phytochemicals that may be protective against cancer and promote detoxification.

Of course, the classic dish for today is corned beef and cabbage but I’m just going with braised cabbage. I’ll let you pick the protein of your choice. I’m also going to continue braising my cabbage in the slow cooker since it’s just easier that way and the low heat keeps the cabbage from getting mushy.

Simple Braised Green Cabbage
Use a 4-quart or larger round or oval cooker
Serves 6

1 medium head green cabbage, cored and thickly sliced
4 medium carrots, thickly sliced
1 medium onion, thickly sliced
¼ cup chicken or veggie stock or water
¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
salt and ground pepper to taste
balsamic vinegar to taste

Put everything but the balsamic vinegar into the slow cooker and cook on low for 4-5 hours. If the cabbage looks like it’s sticking or browning, stir. Yes, you can do that with a slow cooker. Once completed, add balsamic vinegar to taste.

Nutritional Info (per serving): 54 calories, 13g carbohydrates, 4g fiber, 2g protein, 0g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 87mg sodium

If you do want to make corned beef and cabbage, you can place the corned beef in with the cabbage (although cut the cabbage into 8 thicker wedges to allow for the longer cooking time) and let it cook in the slow cooker on low for 8-10 hours. My mother (Happy Birthday, Mom!!!) likes to use a can of cream of celery in place of stock and doesn’t use any vinegar. While I admit her corned beef and cabbage is good, the stock adds fewer calories.

Healthy Red (or Purple)

Growing up, red cabbage made frequent appearances on our dinner table. My mother is German and red cabbage is definitely in the top five veggies of our people – although all veggies bow down to the German veggie queen, the potato. So I’m very fond of red cabbage (and potatoes).

In addition to being a tasty veggie, red cabbage has some health benefits including the antioxidant power of its red (or purple, as it appears to be in this picture) coloring provided by anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are flavonoids that color some fruits and veggies red, purple, or blue. Consuming these vibrant free-radical blockers may help to prevent cancer, improve brain function, and promote heart health.

Red cabbage is a great braised winter veggie, perfect for the slow cooker. I agree with Mark Bittman that a slow cooker is essentially a braiser that you can leave alone for long periods of time. To obtain red cabbage goodness straight from the slow cooker, try this tasty sweet, sour, and zesty braised red cabbage recipe.

Maple-Ginger Slow Cooked Red Cabbage
Use a 4-quart or larger round or oval slow cooker
Serves 6

1 medium-sized head of red cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored, and roughly diced
¼ cup cider vinegar
2 T maple syrup
1 tsp grated ginger (I use jarred ginger puree)

Place all of the ingredients into a slow cooker and mix together. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours.

Nutrition Info (per serving): 60 calories, 15g carbohydrates, 2g fiber, 1g protein, 0g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 30mg sodium

Not Salad

I have a confession to make, a confession that's difficult for a dietitian to make.

I don't care for salads. At least not salad made up primarily of salad greens. Green salads are dangerous. I've been a witness too many times to salads weighted down beneath mounds of cheese shreds, bacon bits, and croutons bobbing along in a sea of fatty salad dressing.

And I understand the need to bury that salad. Many times green salads can be bitter. While I vow one day to address my green salad aversion (I love other vegetable salads like cole slaw, beet salad, and tomato salad), for now, I'm green salad averse.

Still, I think a meal is more satisfying and filling if there are some veggies to start. Which is why I love soup. Soup is a fabulous way to start a meal and to get a good helping of veggies.

My friend Julie was kind enough to share with me the other day her very popular spinach-chickpea soup recipe. I love it. It's hearty, high in fiber, and easy to make. And it freezes well too.

Julie's Spinach-Chickpea Soup
Serves 6

1 T olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, pressed or finely minced
1 1" piece cinnamon stick
1 T cumin seeds, toasted and ground
Black pepper to taste
14 oz can low-sodium diced tomatoes
14 oz can chickpeas rinsed or 2 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
10 chopped dried apricots
5 cups vegetable or chicken stock
10 oz fresh or frozen chopped spinach
Cayenne pepper or hot pepper flakes to taste

In a five-quart or larger stock pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute onions and garlic until onions are limp.

Add all remaining ingredients except spinach and cayenne and simmer for 20 minutes after bringing to a boil. Add spinach (no need to defrost frozen spinach since it'll defrost in the pot) and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Turn off heat and remove cinnamon stick (very important!!!). Puree in the pot with an immersion blender or pour into blender or food processor to puree. Add cayenne or hot pepper flakes to taste.

Nutrition Info (per serving): 167 calories, 30g carbohydrates, 6g fiber, 7g protein, 2g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 575mg sodium. To reduce sodium further, use homecooked unsalted chickpeas and use homemade or store-bought low-sodium stock or water.

Since we're talking soups, I should mention that I'm a big fan of the Penzeys soup bases. Making your own stock is always best but not always possible. Penzeys soup bases taste great and cost less that the equivalent amount of store-bought liquid stocks.

Organic Food for Thought

Is it always best to eat local? It depends.

The New Yorker has an interesting article by Michael Specter this week about eating local and measuring the carbon footprint. He also gave an informative interview to Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air that's worth a listen.

Pepper Plaque Preventer

February is Heart Month.

One healthy-heart veggie is currently cheap, cheap, cheap here in Chicago. Red peppers were a mere $0.69/lb this Saturday at one of my favorite produce marts, Fresh Farms at 2626 W Devon Ave. At those prices, I had to stock up. They’re currently being stored in my refrigerator where they should keep for a week.

Not only are sweet bell peppers a great source of vitamins C and E, provitamin A, and carotenoids, one study showed that that the antioxidants in sweet bell peppers may reduce the build-up of plaque. How? When you cook foods containing cholesterol, like dairy, eggs, meat, poultry and fish, the cholesterol in these foods can oxidize, creating harmful by-products that may lead to the build up of plaque. Adding antioxidant-rich bell peppers to the mix reduced the creation of those harmful by-products.

Of all the bell peppers, red peppers appear to have the highest levels of the phenolic antioxidants beta-carotene, capsanthin, quercetin, and luteolin. To me, they're also the tastiest.

One lazy way to add red peppers to your diet is simply to slice them up and take them to work with you as a snack.

One fun way to add them to your diet is this red pepper shrimp recipe adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey. Serve with rice or other grain of your choice.

To make this recipe super fast, use frozen uncooked peeled and deveined shrimp. All you have to do is give the frozen shrimp a quick rinse to remove excess ice and then toss them into the pan. They'll defrost while sauteing.


Red Pepper Shrimp
Serves 4

1 ½ lb medium-sized shrimp, peeled, deveined, and rinsed
1 sweet red pepper, seeds and white pith removed, coarsely chopped
1 small onion, coarsely chopped
10 small raw cashews or 7 roasted macadamia nuts
1 T canola oil
1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
salt to taste
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika

Puree the red pepper, onion, and nuts in a food processor.

Heat 1 T oil in a wok or non-stick pan over a medium-high heat. When hot, put in the mustard seeds and cover (to prevent the seeds from flying all over your kitchen). Once they start popping, remove the cover and add the garlic. Stir once and add the shrimp. Saute until shrimp turns barely pink and remove, leaving oil behind.

Reheat the pan and put in red pepper paste. Saute for 4-5 minutes until paste appears dry. Add salt to season (about 1/4 tsp), cayenne, and paprika. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed. Stir once and then return the reserved shrimp with any liquied to the pan. Lower heat and cook for another minute. Serve immediately.

Enjoy the red pepper bounty.

Honorary Special Occasion Veggie

When you think of chocolate this Valentine’s Day, you may think of love and sweetness. You may even think of it as high in flavanols like catechin, epicatechin, and proanthocyanidin, antioxidants that may protect your blood vessels and reduce blood pressure.

But do you think of fiber?

Lindt’s Peruvian Extra Dark Chocolate, my current favorite, has 6g, yes 6g, of fiber per four square serving. And only 6g of sugar!!

For those of you counting carbs, if a serving has more than 5g of fiber, half the fiber grams are subtracted from the total carb grams. That means the Peruvian chocolate counts for only 6g of carbs per serving.

Chocolate may not be an all-you-can-eat indulgence but healthy eating doesn’t have to go completely out the window.

Simply read your nutrition labels carefully. Fiber and sugar content varies. While sugar on a nutrition label can include both naturally occurring and added mono- and disaccarrides, the sugar in chocolate is all added sucrose. In the case of chocolate, when you look at the amount of sugar on a label, divide the grams of sugar by four to visualize how many teaspoons of sugar it provides. Just something to ponder.

In any case, savor the flavor and enjoy responsibly.

Keeping Carbs Simple

Really simple -- only plant foods have carbs. Oh, and milk has carbs. Consider milk a secondary plant food since the cow makes it from the grass she eats.

Without glucose, a carbohydrate, we die. Our brains run on glucose.

Carbohydrates are sugars, fibers, and starches made up of hydrated carbons (get it? carbo-hydrates?) or carbons attached to water molecules.

The most basic carbs are single-unit sugar molecules called monosaccarides, such as glucose, fructose and galactose (and pictured below, mannose, a second-tier monosaccaride). They have the same chemical formulas but different arrangements, conformations, leading to different responses in our bodies.

The simple sugars, two-unit sugar compounds called disaccarides, include:

Sucrose (table sugar) = Glucose + Fructose
Lactose (milk sugar) = Glucose + Galactose
Maltose (grain sugar)= Glucose + Glucose

Starches are considered complex carbs because they contain more than two sugar units. Starches are essentially chains of glucose.

For us to use the energy in carbs, our digestive system breaks down carb compounds to their single-unit bases. Carbs enter our bloodstream as glucose, fructose, or galactose. When they're not broken down, carbs stay in our digestive system until we eliminate them. Sometimes that's good as with fiber. Sometimes that's bad as with lactose deficiency.

Why do you care? A lot of people talk about weight control connected to insulin and insulin resistance. To understand insulin and insulin resistance, you have to understand carbs. To understand veggies -- and all the other plants and how to eat a balanced diet, you have to understand carbs.

To keep it simple, different carbs are digested at different rates. This is the principle behind glycemic-based diets. Insulin is related to the amount of glucose, not galactose or fructose, in the blood. Increased insulin resistance is connected with increased waist circumference.

Stay tuned for more.

Mobile Dieting

One of my big pet peeves is having no idea how many calories are in the lunchtime sandwich I'm about to order. And asking the counterperson for nutritional information is like a bad scene out of Super Size Me.

Fortunately, a new service is bringing the info from the big chains directly to your cellphone. Test drive it for free. It's not perfect but what in life is. Plus, you'll see what happens when veggies go bad. Just enter artichoke and see what I mean.

If you need the comfort of a bigger computer screen and want to see all of your options at once, BD Diabetes has a great PDF fast food guide.

A Plate Half Full

The plate method was developed as a carb control system for people with diabetes. It's also an ideal diet planning tool for anyone else who wants to plan a balanced meal.

The plate method is all about the veggies. Veggies help increase the portion size of your meals without overloading the meal with carbs and calories.

People with diabetes control carbs by counting carb servings. A serving of carbohydrates equals 15g of carbohydrates.

Mind you, not all veggies are created equal within the plate method. For both carb and weight control, veggies are grouped into starchy veggies and watery veggies.

Starchy veggies include potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, parsnips, plantains, and yucca. These veggies are high in carbohydrates and calories so they need to be portion controlled. A single carb serving is 1/2 cup. Starchy veggies take up a quarter of a plate.

Winter squash and pumpkin are also starchy but still kind of watery so their carb portion size is one cup.

If you eat a starchy veggie, you shouldn't have any other starchy foods at that meal like bread, pasta, or rice.

Watery veggies are all the other veggies like greens, broccoli, carrots, beets, cauliflower, tomotoes, cucumbers, etc., etc. These veggies are low in carbs and calories and can essentially be eaten without restriction as long as they are not swimming in high-calorie fat-based sauces or dressing. You have to eat 1 1/2 cups of watery veggies to equal the carbs in 1/2 cup of starchy veggies.

Fill up half of your plate with these veggies. They'll fill you up while adding a lot of nutrients and very few calories.

The last quarter of your plate is your protein -- 3 oz of beef, chicken, or fish or one egg or vegetable protein like tofu, tempeh or legumes. If you have diabetes and need to watch your carbs, the vegetable protein also counts towards your carb total since all plant foods have carbs. 4 oz or 1/2 cup of each counts as one carb serving.

Outside the plate is a small portion of fruit or a glass of milk to round out the meal.

Click here to download a PDF version of the Plate Method, courtesy of Prescription Solutions. Prescription Solutions is an affiliate of United HealthCare Insurance Company.

Why Veggies?

As a registered dietitian, I counsel patients for weight loss. What's the key to weight loss? Eat less and exercise more.

Eating less. How awful does that sound? I became a dietitian so that I could discover a way to eat more and stay thin. Portion control is not my thing.

Turns out that the secret to eating more and weighing less -- and reducing blood pressure and heart disease, controlling blood sugar, reducing the risk of cancer, etc., etc. -- is eating more veggies.

Most veggies are low in calories and all veggies are high in nutrients. That's why the USDA recommends so many servings per day. My goal is to make eating a lot of veggies a way of life. I want to talk veggie nutrition and veggie cooking.

And I'm going to go beyond veggies too. Heck, I'm going to be writing about healthy eating in general. I love veggies -- and all the food that veggies can be served with too!!

Happy eating.