How to Find Olive Oils You Love and Can Trust

In the U.S., the standards for extra virgin olive oil are so lax that many inferior products — lacking in the healthful properties of olive oil — and even old and rancid products — can be found lurking under the label of “extra virgin olive oil.”

But you don’t have to buy inferior olive oils! You can buy the finest olive oils (without paying a fortune). Here’s how:

• First, take ten minutes to read the Buyer’s Guide to Olive Oil in North America from the website, Truth in Olive Oil, by Tom Mueller, the author of the book, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive oil.

• Then go to a specialty store where you can taste many different olive oils and get detailed information about each oil, as  shown here (scroll down for chemical composition related to freshness and nutrition).  After tasting many distinct olive oils, you will discover your favorites.

If you live in the DC area, you are fortunate, because you can easily stop in for a visit at Under the Olive Tree, a “delicious” store located in the Tyson’s Corner Mall. Here you can sample carefully selected, top-quality, single variety, extra virgin olive oils, including those that have been certified by the new Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil certification program (UP). The oils certified by this program are the best of the best and only available currently in 15 stores nationwide.

And while you are at  Under the Olive Tree, you will probably meet and talk with at least one of the owners of this family business, a charming couple and their daughters who are friendly, knowledgeable, and passionate about olive oil — and on a mission to offer products you can trust and an experience you will enjoy.

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

Homemade Garlicky Olive Oil

Is there a food or recipe doesn’t benefit from some garlic? OK, maybe that dessert you’re dreaming about. But just about everything else is enhanced by garlic! So I keep Homemade Garlicky Olive Oil in my refrigerator at all times. It’s easy to make; just takes three common ingredients to make garlic flavored olive oil safely – without creating a medium for botulism to grow.

INGREDIENTS

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Garlic
• Fresh lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

Peel the garlic and trim off the end close to the root where bacteria are likely to hide.

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process the garlic until it’s very finely minced.

Pour some olive oil into a glass dish (not plastic). Then pour some water into a slightly larger glass dish. Take the dish with the olive oil and place it into the dish with the water. Now you have a water bath for gently heating your olive oil! Note: The water in the larger dish should reach only up to the the level of the olive oil (in order to keep the water from sloshing into the oil when you move the dishes).

Place the olive oil in its water bath and then into your microwave; heat it on the medium or high setting. Let it get hot, but do not let it boil. The amount of time time it took at the high setting to heat the small amount of olive oil that you see in the photo was 30-40 seconds.

Put a few spoonfuls of the finely minced garlic into the hot oil; mix.

Add the lemon juice; mix.

Let the garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice mixture sit in the water bath for 10 – 15 minutes.

STORAGE

Store in refrigerator for up to a week.

FOOD SAFETY TIP –  Before you head to your kitchen, please read this Food Safety Tip!

When you combine garlic and oil, you create an environment in which botulism (a deadly food-born bacteria) can grow. According to the University of Colorado Extension Service, to prevent the possible growth of botulism when mixing oil and garlic, you should always “add an acidifying agent such as lemon juice or vinegar to the recipe at the rate of one tablespoon per cup of oil.” Also you should “discard infusions after one week, or sooner if apparent cloudiness, gas bubbles, or foul odor develop.

USES FOR HOMEMADE GARLICKY OLIVE OIL

I reach in my refrigerator for this wonderful Homemade Garlicky Olive Oil whenever I want to:

• Add both garlic and oil to a recipe, for example, when making a Fresh Herb Sauce.
• Add flavor to a simple sautéed food, for example, a piece of fish or a vegetable, such as Beet Greens. Just top the sautéed beet (or other) greens with Homemade Garlicky Olive Oil. And..by adding the garlic to your food AFTER cooking, you can’t burn the garlic ᕙ(`▽´)ᕗ!

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OLIVE OIL

• How to Find Olive Oils You Love and Can Trust 

Enjoy and be healthy!

Peace,

~Leni

Collard Greens (Collards)

Collard greens – like all greens – are among the most nutrient-dense foods. Collards are loaded with vitamins, minerals (including calcium), and phytochemicals that help our bodies fight cancer.

This table gives the USDA National Nutrient Database values for calcium in collards, kale, and milk. Look! Collards are a great source of calcium!

Note: It’s hard to understand why the calcium in frozen/cooked collards and kale are higher than the calcium in fresh/cooked collards and kale. (I wrote to the USDA and asked them. I am waiting for an answer. When I find out, I’ll post the response here.)

COLLARDS, KALE, MILK – Calcium content

Food	Portion size	Calcium (mg)
Collards, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 cup – 190 grams	266
Collards, frozen, chopped, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 cup – 170 grams	357
Kale, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 cup – 130 grams	94
Kale, frozen, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt	1 cup – 130 grams	179
Milk, lowfat, fluid, 1% milkfat, with added vitamin A and vitamin D	1 cup — 244 grams	305

Note re lowfat milk: I put lowfat milk in this table because it tends to be higher in calcium than whole milk. That’s because manufacturers add milk solids (dry skim milk) to low fat milk in order to make it taste creamier.

ORGANIC
I always buy organic collards (and kale), and that’s because these two veggies are listed on the Environmental Working Group’s list of the 12 most contaminated fruits and veggies.

LIGHTLY STEAMED COLLARD GREENS

I make a batch of collard greens at least twice a week. In fact, they’re one of my go-to vegetables for lunch or dinner AND breakfast – where I serve collards along with scrambled eggs, made with with fresh turmeric and black pepper!

This recipe for lightly steamed collard greens is as simple as it gets – just a few pointers on technique!

Directions:
Roll the collard leaves lengthwise tightly. Slice the leaves crosswise into rolls of ribbons about 1/2-inch wide and slice the stems into 1/4-1/2-inch pieces. Cut the ribbon rolls in half, and then in half again, if desired. Wash the cut pieces by putting them into a bowl of water and swishing them around; drain off the water and repeat washing with fresh water once or twice more.

Take a large pot with a large steamer basked (a pasta pot, for example) and place the washed and drained collards into the steamer section. Pour 2 cups of boiling water over the collards in the pot. (This helps cook the collards evenly as the collards on top of the steamer basket are touched by the boiling water that you pour on, and the collards on the bottom of the steamer basket are more directly in contact with the boiling water below the basket.)

Let the collards steam, covered, for 1-2 minutes. Use a pair of tongs and toss the collards; replace the lid; continue to steam the collards for another 30 seconds to a minute. The collards should be bright green when cooked!

Save the nutrient-rich liquid at the bottom of the steamer pot and use it in cooking, for example in making soups!

More information about collard greens and nutrition, including a few cautions about oxalates and calcium absorption:

• World’s Healthiest Foods re collard greens.
• National Osteoporosis Foundation re calcium.
• EatToDefeat (cancer) - See the videos and check out the database about foods that prevent cancer through anti-angiogensis! THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE SITE about foods to prevent cancer!!!! Check it out!!!!

Collards like all green leafy vegetables are high in nitrates.

Learn about the nutritional importance of nitrates (and the cancer causing problems of certain nitrates/nitrosamines).

Nutrients important in bone health…

An excellent overview of the the the role of nutrition in bone health: from the Melio Guide website: Nutrition for Bone Health: There’s More Than Just Calcium 

Bone Architect’s blog gives entire article from Journal of Environmental and Public Health, October 2011 . Definitely worth reading if you are concerned about osteoporosis!

By the way, the beautiful photos in this post were taken by Jillian Lopina of Secondhand Exposure Photography (found here on Facebook  and a blog).

THANK YOU, Jillian!

STOCK – Made with Chicken and Beef Bones and More

I woke up this morning to the wonderful aroma of stock simmering on the stove. It’s been simmering for 14 hours and I intend to let it do so for another 5 or 6 hours. After a total of 19 or 20 hours, great flavor and lots of bone-building minerals and collagen will have leached out of the bones and into the stock.

I’m really obsessed with making stock making these days! It’s so healthy! And it brings me back to the days when my mom made stock in the “deep well” in our gas stove and my grandmother made a clear chicken soup (stock) flavored with dill for every family gathering.

I am excited to share with you my basic bone stock recipe and and a few tips that I have picked up from reading and experimenting these past few weeks.

RECIPE FOR STOCK

• 1 part bones
• 1 part vegetable “formula” (shown below)
• A few additions (shown below)
• Cold filtered tap water to cover contents of pot with 2 inches of water

Note: I use a mixture of bones. In the stock pictured below, I had beef marrow bones, oxtails, chicken backs, and chicken necks. In the future, I would like to add knuckle bones and also chicken feet because they are excellent sources of collagen (which my doctor who is an expert in osteoporosis says is good for bones, though I have not found much literature on this yet). And, if available, I get bones from grass-fed beef and the most humanely raised chickens that have not been given antibiotics or hormones.

For 16 cups of finished stock, I used: 1.5 pounds chicken backs and necks, 1.5 pounds beef marrow bones, and 1 pound oxtails.

Beef marrow bone

VEGETABLE FORMULA

2 parts yellow organic onions
Note: I remove and discard the first layer of the brownish onion peel. Then I remove the inner layer(s) of the brownish onion peel and toss those into my stock pot. Next, cut off the two ends of the peeled onion, and then roughly chop the onion.
1 part carrot, sliced
1 part celery (including the flavorful leaves), sliced

For 16 cups of finished stock, I used: 1 large onion, 3 medium carrots, 2 stalks celery.

Onion skin goes in too!

ADDITIONS
The amounts of these additional ingredients should be proportional to the quantity of stock you are making.

Bay leaves
Whole black peppercorns
Organic lemon, cut in half with seeds removed. Squeeze the juice into the pot, and toss the remaining lemon halves into the pot. Lemon peel is nutritious and flavorful! If you do not have an organic lemon, you can use apple cider vinegar. Note: The lemon (or vinegar) adds acid which helps leech the calcium and other minerals out of the bones – and does not give a lemony or vinegary flavor – unless you use too much.

For 16 cups of finished stock, I used: 1 fresh organic lemon (and next time I’ll try 2 lemons), 2 large bay leaves, and 6 whole peppercorns.

Lemon helps to leech minerals from bones!

DIRECTIONS for making stock — could not be easier — all you need is a big pot and patience

• Bring the contents of the pot to a boil.
• Turn the heat down to a simmer and let the pot simmer, covered, for about 20 hours.  Note: If you do not want to leave the pot simmering on the stove, you can always put it in the oven. For a discussion on the correct oven temperature for simmering stock, see Chowhound. Or if you prefer, use a slow cooker as they do for this chicken stock recipe.
• When the stock has been simmering for hours and the marrow bones will give up their marrow easily, insert a chopstick or blunt knife into the marrow and let the marrow slide out and into the stock.
• When the cooking time is up, remove the bones, most of which will not have much meat on them anymore. I used a pair of thin tongs to remove the dainty chicken bones, but next time I might just tie the chicken (or at least the chicken necks) up in cheesecloth so I would not have to fish out all those little neck bones.
• Pick the remaining meat off the bones and add it back to the pot, or if you wish, reserve the meat for another use.
• Remove the bay leaves, lemon halves, and onion peel, and discard after you have squeezed the stock out of the lemon halves. (See tip below.)
• In the interest of food safety, cool the stock down as quickly as possible (See “Cool Your Stock” shown below.)
• Refrigerate the stock in glass containers, for no more than 2 or 3 days. For longer storage, freeze.
• Right before you are ready to use the stock, remove the layer of fat on top of the stock. (If stock is frozen, warm it just a little in microwave so you can remove the fat.)

The stock making directions in this post do NOT make a clear stock. If you want a clear stock, you need to modify the directions so that you:
SKIM THE FOAM(scum) that forms at the top of the simmering soup and discard the foam. (I read that contrary to wham a lot of chefs say, the foam doesn’t have an affect on the flavor…and since I can’t find any effect, I don’t skim it off.)
Simmer stock UNCOVERED and add water as needed.
STRAIN OUT all the vegetables and REMOVE the meat.

DIRECTIONS FOR COOLING AND STORING STOCK – be sure to read!
Since stock is a nutrient rich medium (a great place for bacteria to flourish), so it’s important to cool your stock quickly.

COOL YOUR STOCK
For food safety reasons, cool your stock quickly! To do this, I  put empty glass storage bowls into a big pan. Then I add ice cubes to the pan scattering them around the bowls. Next I ladle the hot soup into the bowls. Then, I pour cold water over the ice to make an ice-water bath that the bowls with the soup sit in.  After about 1 minute, I stir the stock. After another minute or two, I stir it again, and let it sit until it’s cool enough to refrigerate or freeze.

And when I make a lot of stock at one time – and I mean a lot (about 10 quarts), putting even warm stock into the refrigerator and freezer, is not that great for the refrigerator or freezer ,and it will temporarily raise the temperature of the refrigerator so it’s a bit higher than the safe temperature (40 degrees F and under). That’s not a great idea. So what to do?

So here’s a nifty trick: Throw a few ice cubes of frozen stock from your freezer into each bowl of your freshly made stock that’s been cooled by the method I’ve just described. And, if you are making stock for the first time, use ice cubes of store-bought chicken or beef broth. This ice cube trick helps bring the stock temperature down even more before you freeze it. Just one word of caution about this ice cube trick… For food safety: Always make your ice cubes out of a fresh batch of your homemade stock or an unopened container of store bought broth!

Cool hot food QUICKLY for food safety!

STORE STOCK IN REFRIGERATOR OR FREEZER
Cover the cooled stock and and refrigerate the stock, for no more than 2 or 3 days.
For longer storage, freeze.

I like to have small portions of stock available for later – to use in cooking or as a base for making a single serving of soup. So I always freeze some of the stock in silicone muffin pans. Details of how I do this are given in the post, Silicone Muffin Pans – A Kitchen Staple – But Not For Baking!

NOTES

• Remove the layer of fat on top of your stock right before you are ready to consume the stock as is or use it in cooking.
• Some people make stock in a slow cooker (crock pot) and others make it in a pressure cooker.

MORE INFORMATION

• Chowhound discussion board:  information about making chicken stock ,  making chicken broth from bones ,and beef bones used for stock.
• International variations on chicken stock recipes: whats4eats.
• Tips on making chicken stock, see About.com.
• Chicken feet – for making stock that’s full of gelatin and extra delicious. Here’s how to prep chicken feet for your stock pot.
• Beef – recipe based on Michael Ruhlman’s stock recipe as given in his book, Ratio.

WHAT CAN I DO WITH STOCK?
Just about everything! In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you what I’m doing with mine…

Note to my regular readers – What’s Cooking with the Monamifood Blog

I have not been posting much for a while and that’s because I have been devoting a lot of my “spare” time to reading* and thinking about nutrition. What have I learned? For starters, that a healthy diet is plant based (with an emphasis on whole lower carbohydrate foods) but also with adequate amounts of meat, fish, chicken, and eggs.

In other words, I think it’s healthy to eat eat lots of low carbohydrate veggies and some low carb fruits (especially berries) and to put meat, fish, chicken, and eggs back on the plate in reasonable amounts.

So on the continuum of veg and non-veg, mine is a “hedge your bets” style of healthy eating. I think this makes good common sense. After all, the science of nutrition is constantly changing and evolving. In addition the official doctrines put out by the government (any government) and American Association of This or That are by their very nature influenced by special interest groups. And…even the scientific research published on the pages of prestigious journals depends, at least in part, on the currently held doctrines of the field (as expressed by the editorial boards).

So…making all the right food choices is impossible because we don’t have, and can’t possibly have, all the information we need to choose the most wisely.

In addition we are all genetically different, so there is no one-size-fits all diet.

Still I think there are a few absolutes to guide food choices today:

• Many whole foods are very healthy (especially vegetables) and we should eat more of them.
• Some things we think of as foods are not foods at all – just packages of refined junk with advertising to make us want what’s not good for us.

In the future on this blog you will find some delicious and easy to make veggie and non-veggie recipes that are nutritious – at least for most people given what I understand of what we know today about nutrition.

I can’t wait to share the next post I’m working  on — about making delicious and nutritious stock. It’s a winner of a recipe! Coming soon! I promise!

* If you are interested to read the book that turned my mind around and convinced me that a vegetarian diet is not ideal, read The New Atkins for a New You by Eric Westman, MD, MHS, (associate professor of medicine at Duke University Health System and director the Duke Lifesytle Medicine Clinic), Stephen D. Phinney, MD, PhD, (professor of medicine emeritus at the University of California Davis School of Medicine), Jeff S. Volek, PhD, RD, (associate professor and exercise and nutrition researchers in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Connecticut).

* If you are interested to know more about choosing healthier carbohydrates (lower in glycemic index and high in nutrients), check out  the information contained in the website for the GI Database hosted by the U of Sydney Australia. Also, I highly recommend you listen to two People’s Pharmacy podcasts which feature Jennie Brand-Miller’s (known for her work with GI index) and Dariush Mozaffarian (author of recent study on diet and weight gain published in The New England Journal of Medicine). 

 

Thyme and Lime Flavored Blueberries with Tofu Avocado Cream

Blueberries are BEAUTIFUL…DELICIOUS…and HEALTHY! No wonder they are one of my favorite foods!

For a comprehensive and authoritative summary of the many health benefits of blueberries, see the excellent Huffington Post article (published online in 2011) by Leo Galland MD.

This post is about an awesome blueberry dessert — one that reminds me of a mixture of blueberry pie and key lime pie – but guilt-free! And, yes, this recipe involves parchment paper, which might make it seem difficult and complicated, but trust me, working with parchment paper is easier than wrapping a present! And the results are dramatic and delicious! This dessert will delight you and wow your guests! I guarantee it!

And…if you have kids at home…you might want to ask them to help you — or let them make it all by themselves. This recipe is really EASY and FUN to make!

So let’s get cooking!

Thyme and Lime Flavored Blueberries with Tofu Avocado Cream

Serves 4

Ingredients
4 cups fresh (or frozen) blueberries
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons honey
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons cold tap water
3 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped

1, 10-ounce block of firm tofu
1/2 medium-size, ripe Hass avocado
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

For garnish: fresh blueberries and fresh thyme leaves

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut 4 pieces of parchment paper, each 12 x 12 inches. Place each square of parchment paper over a small bowl (for example, a cereal bowl). Carefully place 1 cup of the blueberries into the center of each piece of parchment paper. (Note: This takes two hands, because with one hand you need to make a well in the center of the paper for the blueberries.) Set bowls with blueberries aside.

In a cup (or small bowl), mix lime juice, honey and water until fully mixed. Spoon 2 tablespoons of this mixture over each serving of blueberries. Then sprinkle the fresh thyme leaves evenly over the blueberries.

Using 4, 18-inch pieces of raffia or kitchen twine, tie each bundle of blueberries tightly and finish it off with a little bow.

Place the 4 packets of blueberries onto a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F. (Note: I tested the time with frozen blueberries, and it was the same!)

While the blueberries cook, place tofu, avocado, honey, vanilla extract, salt, and thyme leaves (2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves) into the work bowl of the food processor fitted with the metal blade. Process for 30 seconds; scrape down the sides with a spatula; process again for 30 seconds to 1 minute; scrape again, and process again if needed, until fully blended and smooth. Using a spatula, remove the tofu avocado cream from the food processor and place the cream in a small bowl. Garnish with fresh blueberries and a sprinkling of fresh thyme leaves.

When the blueberry packets have finished baking, remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the packets of blueberries cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes.

To serve, place each packet of blueberries in a small shallow bowl and then place each bowl on a plate. As you can see, the packets are very dramatic and beautiful! So this is how I like to serve them at the table. But to make it easier to eat, it’s good to trim the packets to within about an inch of the tie. So I pass a pair of scissors around the table and let everyone do their own trimming.

After a little trimming — and a lot of laughing about how this reminds everyone of kindergarten — it’s time to open the packets. (Be prepared for “oohs” and “ahs”!) Then pass the bowl of Tofu Avocado Cream so everyone can top their blueberries with a dollop or two.

Ingredient notes

• Blueberries –  This recipe should be made with highbush (cultivated) blueberries (not the small wild blueberries).
• Lime juice – If you don’t have fresh limes, use store-bought organic lime juice which comes packed in glass jars. A really nice product to have on hand!
• Thyme leaves – You can store fresh thyme leaves (on stems) in your freezer so it’s ready when you need it.
• Tofu – For this recipe, use the tofu that comes packed in water and found in the refrigerated section.

Equipment notes

• Parchment paper – The unbleached parchment paper (kraft or light brown color) can be found at health food stores and it is a much better choice than the bleached (white) parchment paper. Who wants bleach leaching into their food?!
• Raffia – I like the look of raffia (what you see in the photos) but plain kitchen twine will do. If you choose raffia, make sure it’s the natural raffia – not plastic. Plastic will melt in the oven.

Recipe note

• I have entered this recipe into the “Make It – Blog It – Win It! Blueberry Recipe Contest for Bloggers.” Results will be announced on or before 20 September! (I will let you know how it turns out…) Meanwhile, if you would like to leave a message about this recipe, please do. I’m sure the contest judges would like to know what you think!

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

How to cook chana dal

General directions for cooking chana dal
- just plain chana dal to use in recipes that call for cooked chana dal

This recipe is for 3 cups of uncooked (about 8 cups of cooked) chana dal. I like to make a lot of chana dal at one time and freeze what I don’t use right away.

Ingredients
3 cups uncooked chana dal
cold tap water (for rinsing)
6 cups cold tap water (for cooking)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bircarbonate)

Step I: Inspect and pick over chana dal
Inspect the chana dal for foreign matter. Discard foreign matter and grey shriveled-looking chana dal, if any.

Step II: Rinse chana dal
Place the chana dal into a strainer (or small collander) and place the strainer into a large bowl. Fill the bowl with cold tap water and, using your hands, mix the dal around; discard the rinse water. Repeat this rinsing process 3 or 4 times until the water runs almost clear. Discard the final rinse water out of the bowl.

Rinsed and drained chana dal – ready for cooking

Step III: Soak chana dal
Place the strainer with the rinsed chana dal back into the empty bowl and add cold tap water to cover the chana dal with 2 – 3 inches of water. Let the chana dal soak at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours.  Then remove the strainer with the dal from the water in which it was soaking. Discard the water.

Step IV: Add water, baking soda and cook
Place the chana dal that has been soaked and drained into a large pot, and add 6 cups of cold tap water to the pot. Add the baking soda and mix it around with a large spoon.

Bring the water to a boil and then turn the heat down to gentle boil (almost a simmer). Gently boil for 10-12 minutes, uncovered, or until the chana dal is cooked through but not mushy.  Note: While cooking the chana dal and water mixture will froth quite a bit, but that’s OK.

Chana dal cooking – lots of froth at first

Chana dal cooking – less froth later

Yeild: About 8 cups cooked chana dal and some liquid you can use in cooking or making soups.

Storage: Store your cooked chana dal in your refrigerator or in freezer.

Why baking soda?
Adding some baking soda when cooking beans or dal (split beans) is traditional in many South Asian recipes. It helps soften the bean/dal in less time than it would take without the baking soda. In my experience, the baking soda cuts the cooking time in half. Also adding baking soda, makes the resulting food more alkaline-producing and there is scientific evidence that this is good for bones.  I am NOT saying that you should start ingesting baking soda to help prevent osteoporosis! But it you are interested to learn more about an alkaline- vs. acid- producing diet and its effect on bones, see:  Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. Starting on page 349 of this American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article, you will find a short discussion of the health implications of an acid- vs. alkaline-producing diet.

A recipe for chana dal: Mark Bittman of the New York Times offers this recipe for chana dal.  I would make this recipe by first soaking the chana as mentioned above. Soaked chana  will take less time to cook than chana that’s not soaked, so you will want to adjust the cooking time. Also, you can always add a little baking soda to Bittman’s recipe if you like. And I would use olive oil instead of the oils he has suggested.

Enjoy and be healthy!
~Leni

Check it out! Listen! Two fantastic one-hour presentations!

Brenda Davis, R.D.

In her one-hour presentation, “Designing an Optimal Plant-based Diet,” Brenda Davis (a registered dietitian who works in nutrition research) puts it all together — the BIG picture — the many things we need to consider in order to eat for optimal health. While she does not talk about diet and cancer prevention per se, she talks about the key features of an optimal plant-based diet. And, bottom line, a healthy anti-cancer diet is a plant-based (or mostly plant-based) diet that’s provides all the nutrients we need, and within that context, specifically incorporates foods known to have anticancer properties and avoids foods and cooking methods that promote carcinogenesis.

The key points from Brenda Davis’ talk, “Designing and Optimal Plant-bassed Diet,” are given in her slides and are posted on her website! The slides for her other presentations, can be found there too!

While those of you who visited this blog earlier know that I planned to post the key points of her talk here, I see now that there is no need for me to do so. It is far ar better for  you to get the key points from Brenda herself!

Video of another great presentation by Brenda Davis: Reclaiming Your Health: Lessons from the Marshall Islands. This video focuses on how diet has been shown to prevent and even reverse type II diabetes!

To learn more, check out Brenda Davis’ website and books….

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To find all of Monamifood’s “Check it out!” posts (and the great video and audio programs that these posts point to), just go to the search box and enter “Check it out!”

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

Hot and Sour Soup with Extra Veggies

Hot and Soup Soup with Extra Veggies

Here’s one of my favorite – easy to make soup meals. It’s so easy you don’t need a recipe!

Start with hot and sour soup from a Chinese restaurant that makes good quality soup (not loaded with corn starch and msg).

Then at home, add plenty of vegetables plus some tofu — and you have a great, light soup meal!

So this is how I made our soup tonight…

I put the hot and sour soup from the restaurant into a pot on the stove over medium heat. (Our microwave is broken or I could have done this in the microwave in either one big bowl or in individual soup bowls.)

To the soup in the pot or bowl, add:

• thinly sliced green or red cabbage
• lightly sautéd sliced mushrooms
• lightly sautéd (still crispy) diced onions
• tofu, cut into bite-size cubes

Heat the soup until the cabbage is tender crisp.

Top each serving with:

• thinly sliced green onions
• chopped fresh cilantro

If you add a lot of veggies and tofu like I do, then the resulting soup will be like a bowl of veggies in a little broth – a nice light meal!

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

Check it out! – Listen! TED Talk – Anti-angiogenic foods!

List of anti-angiogenic foods from Dr. Li's TED Talk presentation

I just listened to a MOST INTERESTING 20-minute TED Talks presentation by William Li, MD, CEO and Scientific Director of the Angiogenesis Foundation. In this talk, “Can we Eat to Starve Cancer?”, Dr. Li highlights the compelling new frontier of research about food and angiogenesis — the process by which the body grows new blood vessels.

He explains that our dietary choices can tamp down angiogenesis around cancer cells (good: starve cancer cells because they don’t have a good blood supply by which to get the nutrients and other substances they need to grow) or rev up angiogenisis (bad: promote the growth of cancer cells because they have a good blood supply). In addition, a diet that tamps down angiogenisis (an anti-angiogenic diet) not only helps to prevent cancer or a recurrence of cancer, but also helps to prevent Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and obesity! The thinking is that the same mechanism contributes to all of these disease processes.

On this blog page are two slides from Dr. Li’s presentation. The first slide gives a list of foods (not complete list) that appear to have anti-angiogenic properties. If you have read the book, Anti-Cancer – A New Way of Life, by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., PhD, you will note that Dr. Li’s list of foods in this slide and Dr. Servan-Screiber’s lists of foods in his book and on his website are not exactly the same. I think that this is at least in part because Dr. Servan-Schreiber does not focus ONLY on the cancer-inhibiting mechanism of anti-angiogenisis. Dr. Servan-Schreiber concludes his chapter, “Cancer’s Weaknesses”, (about how to fight cancer by attacking cancer’s vulnerabilities), by stating: “All the facts bear out this conclusion; everything that strengthens our precious immune cells also impedes the growth of cancers. All in all, by stimulating our immune cells, fighting inflammation (with nutrition, physical exercise, and emotional balance), and fighting angiogenisis, we undercut cancer’s spread.” (Anti Cancer, 2nd edition, page 53).

It is currently understood that inflammation in the body promotes angiogenesis. So foods that promote inflammation AND foods that promote angiogenesis itself are BOTH thought to promote the development and progression of cancer. And, angiogenesis is not the only mechanism that affects the development of cancer in the body. The point is that to prevent help cancer you need to provide your body with a wide VARIETY of anti-cancer foods that go after cancer cells in many different ways. So choosing a diet that contains many DIFFERENT anti-cancer foods — and very few cancer promoting-foods — is the best way to tip the balance in YOUR body toward good health!

In addition, as both Drs. Li and Servan-Screiber point out: The COMBINATION of healthful foods (at a meal or eaten closely in time) appear to produce a SYNERGY that’s more anti-angiogenic (or more broadly, anti-cancer) than the individual foods alone!

So…here’s how I decided to apply this information about synergy to my diet: At breakfast, I just started adding canned pumpkin (not canned pumpkin pie filling) to my oatmeal (and I have added that suggestion to the my earlier post about oatmeal). I also realized that for more variety, I could add frozen organic strawberries to my green tea, not just the frozen organic blueberries and raspberries I usually use. And…like I used to do, I could add a squirt of lemon juice to my tea, too. So now at breakfast when I have a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of tea, I’m getting LOTS of DIFFERENT anti-cancer foods and the assumption is that the synergy of all these foods working together helps makes my diet even more anti-cancer than the individual foods alone.  I hope so! And…besides, it all tastes GREAT!

Slide from presentation by Dr. Li at TED Talks

OK….now back to Dr. Li…. I was so impressed by Dr. Li’s talk that I listened to it three times (while exercising : – )), I joined the Angiogenisis Foundation (free to join), and I plan to go back to the Foundation’s website to learn more!

And…by the way…whenever my enthusiasm for the anti-cancer way of eating wanes, I re-listen to the talks/videos I have posted on this blog under the heading, “Check it out!”. It helps a lot!

NEW in 2012! EatToDefeat  - See more videos that will convince you that the anti-angiogenic properties of food have POWERFUL anti-cancer  effects!  Also, at the eattodeat.org site, you can access a growing database of foods that fight cancer and recipes using these foods – and more! 

To find all of the “Check it out!” posts (and the great video and audio programs that these posts point to), just go to the search box on this blog and enter the words “Check it out!”

Happy listening! Happy, healthy eating!

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni