So Fire Me; I Need More of This Spice
Last night I cooked one of my less than stellar dinners. These pork kebabs had potential with a nice Greek marinade, yogurt dressing, and good Greek salad. Unfortunately, we were running late for dinner, and I was rushing around so much that I neglected the kebabs on the grill and they were overcooked. I should have known better because this wasn’t the first time I’ve overcooked kebabs. Do you have any recipes that you chronically mess up?
Advice for the Day….Eat More Turmeric, I Know that I Should
I know that sometime recently I was discussing with someone the fact that turmeric is a really healthy spice. Sadly, I can’t remember the who or where, so when I just read this refresher on the spice, I thought it was worth sharing. Turmeric is the spice that gives curry its deep yellow color, but we Americans find it in our yellow mustard. Its anti-inflammatory properties help medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel conditions such as Crohn’s disease, and possibly Alzheimer’s disease – the reason I appear to need a little more mustard in my diet. This superstar spice also gives promise in recent studies with mice to have potential as an anti-cancer agent. The only warning I have about this spice is to be careful when you use it because it will stain clothing. A small price to pay for all of its potential.
Did I Find Anything Good to Eat?
As the tagline of this blog says, I’m always looking for something good to eat. I often share stories with you, my readers, about food that scientists discover are good or not so good for you to eat. Sometimes I talk about food we’ve cooked at home that’s really good or really bad to eat. And sometimes I’ve shared my adventures in eating food on the road. Since it’s time for spring cleaning and refreshing our homes, minds, and blogs, I’ve decided to add a new feature to this blog. Each day I’m going to highlight something I’ve eaten the previous day in my attempt to find something good to eat. There will be days when there was nothing good, and maybe then I’ll share the worst of it. But don’t fear, longtime readers, I’m going to continue to highlight food in the news when there’s something worth reporting.
So, did I find anything good to eat yesterday? Yep. Here it is:
In case you had a hard time making it out because it’s so black, it’s a werewolf cupcake. Yesterday Annie and Louisa baked up a box mix of cupcakes, and then worked very carefully to decorate them with marshmallows, tinted frosting, and candies to look like werewolves. It was so good to eat because it embodied all the creative energy and attention the girls put into making them. Love, creativity, and energy go a long way into making something good to eat in my book.
And in food news… Oat O’s May Not Be the Miracle Food
The LA Times recently reported that to get the desired and reported soluble fiber benefit from eating oat o’s like Cheerios, you’d need three servings per day. And while you’d be gaining the cholesterol lowering benefits, you’d be taking in more calories and sugars than would be desirable. Now, that’s not to say that they aren’t a good piece of the puzzle, but they can’t do all the work on their own. They need to be part of an overall healthy diet and lifestyle to truly improve your heart health. So what else is new?
I’ll Take My Persuasion with a Pinch of Respect
Let me decide how much salt I want in my food!
I’ve seen many signs in the media that we are becoming a food and health conscious society. You can see it in the growth of CSA memberships (Community Supported Agriculture), production of movies like “Food Inc.”, and the success of shows like Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. There’s now rumors of a television show featuring food pioneer Alice Waters, where she would talk about the importance of eating fresh, locally grown food and supporting local farmers. The message is out there, loud and clear, that we should be thinking about what we put on our tables and in the bellies of our children. This all adds up to a strong, compelling message of persuasion.
There’s a different kind of persuasion brewing at the FDA. For the past few days the big food story has been that the FDA is seeking to regulate the amount of salt in processed and prepared foods. Here’s my problem with this. This is persuasion of the mandatory kind. As in we know what’s good for you and will make you do it because we don’t respect your intelligence. Nope, we aren’t convinced that we can make a persuasive enough case against salt for you to follow our guidelines, so we’re going to demonize the essential spice of life.
I will agree that for those with hypertension, or even prehypertension salt may be a dangerous health risk. But for the rest of the population without that health risk, there’s no good reason to mandate salt restrictions. While I applaud all the efforts of those food crusaders on a mission to convince the public we should be cooking our own food more often, choosing whole, unprocessed ingredients and eating a more healthy diet, I don’t trust government health czars. Given their track record of health mandates – consider the flip flop arguments on margarine and eggs; or how about the flip flop on exposure to sun? many of us are now deficient in Vitamin D to our detriment – you’ll know that if they seek to take away all of our salt today, some scientist will discover tomorrow that the 90% of us without hypertension now have our own set of health issues because we’re salt deficient. As I said, persuasion is a good thing, but mandates are not.