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.