Farm food!

A couple of weeks ago, 80+ kids along with some Advil-poppin’ parents and teachers (including me) trotted out to Underwood Family Farms for a little face time with some right-out-of-the-ground food. It was a long ride, but by the time we saw actual fields, the kids were getting rowdy with excitement. First they got a primer on fruits and vegetables (during which I heard more than one parent comment that they were learning something also).

Okay. A fruit is the actual reproductive part of a plant, complete with seeds. It’s very clever when you think about it. The plant can’t move, and if something doesn’t scatter the seeds, the new plants will be too crowded to survive. Here’s where the animals come in. Something eats the seed-bearing part (and sometimes the seeds too), and by tossing the core, or the seeds, or even pooping the whole seeds and the plant and the animal survive and go on to reproduce. (And plants make their own food, unlike us; they’re cleverer than you thought, huh?).

So a fruit bears the seeds. A tomato, a cucumber, zucchini, an avocado: Fruit, technically.

Er, then what is a vegetable? When you eat the leaves, stems, or flowers. The guy mentioned that cauliflower really is the flowering part of the plant. Really? Okay, I learned something too.

Gluten: Friend or foe?

Is gluten really bad for you?  Well, really, that all depends.  If you have a gluten sensitivity, or you have full-blown celiac sprue disease, you have a little problem there with the protein (gliadin and glutenin, to be specific) in all forms of wheat as well as barley and rye.  You also have to avoid all of the products that contain them, or are processed with them (like lots of oats and oatmeal).  Gluten, as you can see here, adds to the “stretchability” or pull of breads, cakes, etc.  In fact, the term “shortening” means that you add fat to shorten the gluten strands that form, say in cake or pie crust, making it tender or flaky (instead of bouncy like a ball) as a result.  This is also why baking gluten free can be quite a challenge (pile of dust/brick-like bread, anyone?).

Seems like gluten-free diets are all the rage, but how do you really know if you need to be on one?  Well diagnosing the full-blown, real deal would involve a biopsy of your intestines, because celiac disease flattens out the normally enormously absorptive villi that form the intestinal mucosa — a fancy way of saying the inner walls of your intestines.  Huh?  I mean it flattens out the finger-like projections in your intestines (the villi) that provide all those football-field references regarding the absorptive area there.  (Quick note: the majority of digestion and absorption occurs in the small intestine).

With gluten intolerance and celiac sprue, there are usually other signs of bodily unhappiness, and they usually involve bloating, constipation, diarrhea and other symptoms.  Or there may be none, which makes matters somewhat confusing.  A fine resource for the details: The Celiac Disease Foundation.  If you have had lifelong, or sudden but recurring digestive issues, have a peek.  You can experiment without all the medical intervention by going gluten free for a few weeks.  If your symptoms disappear and then reappear when you go back to your usual diet, there you go.

Eating gluten free is not easy.  It’s in a variety of things you wouldn’t suspect, ranging from soy sauce to beer.  Getting a cookie or a bagel made without gluten-containing ingredients but not tasting like a flavorless rock often becomes a serious life goal.

So why the trend?  Because people are becoming more aware, and it’s probable that people with lifelong digestive issues are finding that a gluten-free diet helps.

To that end, in L.A. there’s The Sensitive Baker in Culver City — a fabulous little place that is expensive but has gotten great reviews, including for the bagels, brownies, bread and cake we picked up for my gluten-sensitive mother-in-law (er, some of it freezes).   Watch those business hours — they’re closed Saturdays and open only a few hours on Sunday on a sleepy little stretch featuring about FIVE bakeries (one of them owned by my cousin Melissa — so if you’re not gluten sensitive, send off your loved one and hit Essential Chocolate Desserts a few doors down.  Shameless plug).

Another gluten-free haven is coming soon to Los Angeles, and is already a big deal in NYC: Babycakes.  Check out their site; there are also recipes to try in their new book.  Want to sample a couple?  Check out this link.

And what if you aren’t gluten sensitive?  Well, in service to you, you could go ahead and make your own seitan (pronounced like the nether-world reigning dude), or gluten balls (tastes/smells like chicken — why is that? — which is why vegetarians make stuff out of it).

Picking foods

In response to picky eater’s post:

I am underweight and a very picky eater I don’t like meats or baked vegetables. Kids at school comment about me being so skinny. I can’t help it. Another problem I have is Low Muscle Tone basically because I am 12 years old and I am starting to grow quickly my knees swell twice their usual size when I run even though there isn’t any problem with them. Please help me.

Hi there, Picky eater. Oh, you are not alone, however, you must search very quickly to resolve these eating issues because you are at a very important time in terms of growth (as you mention). You do not say if you are male or female. If you were female, you would be entering the time of greatest growth since infancy, and therefore some of the greatest dietary requirements you have ever needed since infancy. If you are male, your greatest growth period is approaching in the next few years but there will still be periods of rapid growth now. Either way, if you are undernourished during any growth period, you cannot make up the growth. This means you cannot go back and add an inch to your height that you missed when you weren’t getting enough food. Also,

Green bags: The fountain of fruit and vegetable youth?

I ran home last night with all my Thanksgiving ingredients, a night earlier than I’d planned to shop because of an early morning appointment, and my entire refrigerator is a sea of Debbie Meyer Green Bags.  The hardest part about Thanksgiving is doing the shopping early enough to avoid being caught in the vast human struggle that is acquiring groceries for the big event, but not so early that the wilted salad with aging cucumbers and overripe tomatoes actually implies that you may wish your family bodily harm.  Enter the miracle bags that could have kept grapes fresh from the Pharaoh’s tomb to the present day.   That might be a slight exaggeration.  But heck, I figure maybe the stuff will make it to Thursday looking like it was plucked from the very ground just minutes before.  And if it all works out, I can thank my mother.  Then Debbie Meyer.

My mother’s gone into late-night sponsor-mode for Green Bags.  She brought some over for us both to try, and gave me about half of them.  I tossed some grapes, in their protective plastic box, into a green bag.  Frighteningly, they lasted over 3 weeks.  My mother could make major commish on QVC she’s so excited about these bags.  If someone appears to be dying, they could probably be preserved in one until help arrived.

So the Green Bags do appear to work.  But how?  Are they safe?  They claim to be made with a “natural mineral” called “Oya®” – so what the heck is that?  It’s actually a form of mineral called zeolite.  Zeolite, according to my friends at Wikipedia, absorbs gases.  Which means it can absorb the ethylene gases given off by ripening fruits and vegetables.  (Yes, one bad apple will spoil the whole bunch, because it will give off lots of ethylene gas, pushing the rest from ripe to rotten.  Just saying.)  So the bags are sprayed with this stuff, and it absorbs the gases, preventing further ripening/rotting.  Very clever indeed.  You can rinse them, but not wash them with soap, and you can use them up to 8 times according the web site, so I’d recommend putting fruits and veggies in there in their original packaging so that you can reuse the bags without worrying about other microbes that can’t be washed away but that can cause food poisoning.  Also, the bags and produce have to be dry.

All this crazy comes at a price — something on the order of $9.99 for 20 bags.  Great for Thanksgiving, but I’m just going to be honest: I feel better about buying only what we can eat and buying more often than trying to preserve stuff forever.  But if you live alone, and food comes in large supply, this can be mighty helpful and might even save money in the end.  I’m a little hesitant about placing food directly onto this “natural mineral” – so be careful there.

As an alternative, there are also disks you can put into your produce drawer that will last a few months and also slow the path from ripe to rotten.  Here’s a link.

For the record, some of the other Debbie Meyer stuff makes me a little nervous, particularly the cold cut bags.  Don’t store cold cuts forever, then eat them, then reuse a bag you stored them in directly without washing it because you can’t use soap.  Just tell Debbie Meyer it makes me nervous and we just can’t have that.

But she is the mastermind behind the hilarious Buffet Genius, and make no mistake about it, I love her for it.

Soup on the fly

What happens when I have a child in the bath and I’m still thinking of what to whip up for dinner?  This is what happens: soup.  Our child loves soup, so on this night, when we were eating something she wouldn’t touch (Spanakopita; is she nuts? Her loss.) I whipped this up while she threw on some jammies.  Soup for one:

• Broth (we buy a carton for $1.99 at Trader Joes – chicken or veggie — we use veggie.  The following night/day it can be used to make some really excellent rice when it’s the cooking water, or cooking water for vegetables.  Adds flavor without much salt.
• Rotelle (spiral) pasta – always good to keep on hand.
• baby carrots
• frozen broccoli — just take out what you need
• ditto the frozen, sweet corn
• beans from a can, or leftover homemade, which was the case here

Microwave the broth with the rotelle pasta and carrots for 5 minutes.  Toss in the broccoli and corn, microwave for another 4 minutes.  Toss in the beans, 1 more minute.  Done!

Add a little bread and butter on the side and you’re good to go without having tons of soup left over.

Good snacking!

Well, we’re getting to that time of year where food and socializing are abundant, holiday celebrations at your kid’s school and at home abound, and many of us start the downward spiral that is the source of many lofty resolutions for the coming year.

This applies most of all to your children (if you have any lying around). Since our child entered public school this fall, I’ve been made aware of what many parents consider a proper snack for their child (mainly because my child relays this to me in a “why-can’t-I-have-

red-hot-cheetos-and-

Chips-Ahoy!-cookies for snack” diatribe). Let me just say that I’m not entirely against such foods on occasion, but they are not snacks; they are indulgences and should be treated that way.

The average child usually consumes between 1,000-1,400 calories a day (to find out what your child should be consuming, head on over to MyPyramid.gov and on the left, click the “For preschoolers” or “For Kids” link.  If you download MyPyramid plan for your kids and can’t read it, try opening it in Word.  Anyway, my point is that if you’re giving a kid a 200 calorie snack and it’s devoid of any meaningful nutrition, it wastes anywhere from 10-20% of their day’s calories.

So it’s good to find snacks that are healthy, fast and well accepted by your kids.  The ones we’ve been able to agree on: applesauce, carrots with dressing, celery with peanut butter, yogurt, grapes, nuts, bananas, cheese (not cheez whiz stuff, but real cheese) and whole grain crackers.  Buying a fancy little spoon for their lunchbox and a $1.79 refreezable ice (see the butterfly in the pic?) keeps everything cool and makes everything look more acceptable to both your child and their inquisitive friends.  I once made our child a pasta salad with chopped vegetables and a tiny bit of salad dressing.  She loved it, but her friends made fun of her (“what is that?” and that was the end of that).

Since we run out the door like lightning every morning, it helps if snacks are packaged and ready to go.  And cheap.  I know that.  For many people, that seems limited to 10-packs of chips or 100-calorie cookie packs.  These are not great snacks — they contain little if any vitamins and minerals, and they also disregard one very important point: children are a captive audience during snack time at school.  This means that they’re hungry, and whatever is packed (unless positively shameful) will be quickly consumed because it’s available.  Thus, it’s a great opportunity to get some veggies, fruits or other healthy snacks down the hatch.  A  4-pack of applesauce is about $2.00-$2.50, 3 packs of carrots and ranch, or celery with peanut butter are $2 at Trader Joe’s, little packs of Stoneyfield yogurt are about $3.50 for 6.  Motts makes a “natural” applesauce (avoid the original; it’s sweetened with high fructose corn syrup — and the natural costs the same – about $2.50 for 6 at Target).  Theoretically you can do healthy snacks for kids at well under $1 a day.  And that’s for high-end, organic good stuff.

As a rule, read the label for sodium and fat and avoid the product if either of those ingredients is listed as 20% or more of the Daily Value (that’s those percentages on the right).  That’s about 480 mg of sodium and (yikes) about 12 grams of fat.  Keep the cheese low fat; they won’t know if the difference.

All of this, of course, is good advice for you, too.  If you want to start the year healthier and wealthier, bypass that snack machine at work, bring your own snacks and eat just those (squirrel the money you would have spent at the vending machine or the coffeehouse — those frappucino dealies with whipped cream can kill anyone’s diet — into a jar and you’ll have some money for nice clothes during the holiday sales).  Bring a container to work to take home any especially fabulous goodies, but unless it’s the Christmas party, you really need to just say NO.  Try to remember that alcoholic beverages pack up to 200 calories a pop, so try to choose between one of those or dessert (um, and presumably we’re talking after work, unless things are really going downhill at the job!).  Save the snacking and grazing and enjoying for the social occasions when you’ll want to let go a little, and for the rest of the time, polish that halo!

Mmmm: parmesan pesto omelette

I have the advantage of working at home most of the time, which means I can make my lunch on the fly. The downside: I often end up standing in front of the open fridge wishing I had started some rice half an hour ago when I wasn’t starving. Or that someone would swing by and make me a meal.

So today I ended up whipping up one of my very favorite things: an omelette. Not just any, but an imitation of Le Pain Quotidien’s lovely, lovely parmesan pesto omelette, since I’m a lady who lunches…mostly at home. This is a fast, good, pretty low fat way of making an omelette that tastes as good or better than the kind made with plasticky drooling cheese. Wish I’d thought of taking a picture of it before the parmesan started to melt, but there you go.

You need:

* One small omelette pan (if you don’t have one I recommend the 8″ open skillet most manufacturers of expensive sets use as a “try me” pan: a good one is about $20 and for eggs, go non-stick).
* cheese slicer or grater (or sharp knife and patience)
* a carton of egg whites or perhaps 4 freshly cracked ones
* A block of parmesan cheese (get the real stuff)
* Trader Joe’s Pesto alla Genovese (basil pesto) (a dab will do ya, trust me)
* a tiny amount of butter or trans-fat free margarine like Earth Balance for the pan

All of the ingredients came from Trader Joe’s. The egg whites are good for at least 2 omelettes — use within the week, and the other stuff will last…a couple of months! All for about the cost of one omelette at a restaurant.

Slice yourself some cheese, very thin (I use the center slicer on an old grater).
Heat up the pan on low, toss in the butter/margarine (half a teaspoon will do) to coat. Pour in half a cup of egg or more when the pan is heated. Omelettes are supposed to be made on high heat, but I prefer a gentler heat and to wait so that there isn’t much “skin” formed around the omelette. If you prefer that, heat on high. After the egg turns white and starts to bubble around the edges, gently lift the sides with a spatula and tilt the pan, allowing the extra egg on top to flow underneath. When the top looks soft but not watery, add 1/2-1 teaspoon pesto, then fold to make the omelette. Gently heat for another 30 seconds to a minute, then plate and add the cheese over the top. Makes a good dinner with very little mess.

Le Pain Quotidien serves the omelette with artisan bread and a small salad of baby greens with vinaigrette, which is surprisingly perfect even in the morning. TJs sells bagged greens, vinaigrette and baguettes if you’re in the mood to go all European. And there you go.

CA finally bans trans fat. So…what IS trans fat again?!

Following legislation passed in New York City a year ago, California became the first state to ban artificial trans fat from foods served in restaurants. Assembly Bill 97 will ban all but half a gram of trans fat per serving in restaurant food by 1/1/2010 and in commercial bakeries by 1/1/2011.

I’ve read a lot of commentary and a lot of comments on-line, and many, many people seem agitated by the idea of legislating what we eat. I’m wondering, however, if many of them know what they’ve been eating, and that’s really the point of this law.

Artificial trans fat raises LDL levels in the blood — that’s the “bad” carrier of cholesterol, the plaque builder, while also lowering HDL — the “good” carrier of cholesterol that helps us rid ourselves of cholesterol and avoid plaque buildup that leads to inevitable heart disease. There’s really no debate about this, and there’s really not one redeemable quality about the stuff except that it extends the shelf life of foods and solidifies fat. And neither one of those things will extend your shelf life. Naturally occurring trans fat — the kind found in butter and meat fats — do not behave the same way and are not included in the ban.

Trans fat is essentially good fat with a twist. Manufacturers take a monounsaturated fat — the type that’s good to consume, and hydrogenate it (literally, adding hydrogen) — breaking the double bonds holding it together and changing its shape. Normally those “H”s, hydrogens, hang out on the same side: that’s a cis fat – the normal state of things. But then they flip and are diagonal from one another — the result of hydrogenation — they’re trans. That’s a chemistry term. And that little chemical change makes all the difference in the world.

On food labels, when you see hydrogenated, or partially hydrogenated, that’s a signal that there’s trans fat lurking in there. If there’s less than one-half gram of the stuff per serving, manufacturers can say there’s none in there on the food label. And none is the preferred amount — you want it as low as you can because there isn’t much that’s good about it, like I said.

So why not take it out of the stuff you eat out of the house? It’s difficult to tell when you’re getting it, and most people I’ve met are too afraid to ask how their food is prepared (they don’t want to seem like big fusspots).

For restaurants, it’s a matter of changing from hydrogenated cooking oil and shortening to unhydrogenated, and that’s nothing but good for you.

And where might you find this stuff in food? Cookies, snack foods (check the labels on those especially), the more solid margarines (check the label, go for the softer stuff because hydrogenation is used to solidify, and the softer it is, the less trans fat!), french fries, pie or anything with shortening (trans-fat-free shortening is now available, however), and icings.

Hungry for more? The FDA has a comprehensive page with all kinds of good information on trans fat right here.

Stop that salsa, right this minute!

Okay. I jumped the gun on the salsa.

The Salmonellosis continues, and now the FDA suspects jalapeno peppers or cilantro may be involved. And yet, I didn’t see anything on their site just yet (probably because they tanked the tomato crop, perhaps for nothing, and don’t want to affect any other crops until they know). The FDA does all that recalling, but the CDC — the Centers for Disease Control — well, they’re all over this thing now because they investigate this sort of trouble and love making cool multicolored maps. They also advise against fresh jalapeno or poblano peppers for the moment.

Stay tuned…

Tea!

My daughter and I were having some (hot, black) tea with milk to fend off the fatigue of the heat and now I feel like writing about it (and so I will!).

Most of the naturally occurring caffeine in tea leaves steeps into the water during the first 30 (give or take) seconds. So to make my daughter’s decaf brew, I steep the bag in my cup for about a minute and then steep hers. All the good stuff, none of the hyper. Teas marketed as decaf undergo one of two methods (ethyl acetate or CO2 for you tech nuts), it’s just as easy (and a bit tastier, actually) to do it my way. It’s always easier to do it my way, as my entire family will tell you.

Green tea and black tea (read: Lipton and such) come from the same plant (Camellia sinensis). All that differs is how they’re processed.

Tea leaves that are picked and immediately dried, or steamed and then dried, are green tea.  Because the leaves are undisturbed during the steaming/drying process, they retain many beneficial phytochemicals (phyto=plant), including those that contribute to green tea’s much-heralded antioxidant properties.

Tea leaves that are picked and then cut, bruised by beating or running them over (!) and then aged for a time before steaming and drying are black teas.  The process is called “fermenting,” though the tea is not fermented in the true sense.  In the true sense, the tea is oxidized, which depletes the naturally occurring antioxidants that protect the plant.  This is why black teas do not contain as many antioxidants as green tea.

Though they do contain some.  And that’s bully for me, because I really like mine with soy milk — a lactose-intolerant nod to my British heritage.  Americans usually think milk in tea is vile (a fact lost on me during my apparently insular, otherwise American childhood).  But here’s a tip, fellow Americans: British people will look at you as though you’ve ordered a fresh cup of vomit if you order iced tea.  Up to you.

So what about other teas?  Oolong is tea that’s partially oxidized.  White tea has a lot of antioxidants because it is brewed from very young tea leaves (but still from the same plant, the Camellia sinensis).  Ceylon and Darjeeling teas refer to a tea derived from one place, all the same type, while English Breakfast is usually from a mixture of tea leaves that may not be grown in the same place to create a unique blend of flavors.  Again, all the same type of plant.

Herbal teas are not from the Camellia sinensis plant.  They do not contain caffeine, but some, like Rooibos (red) tea, contain an abundance of antioxidants.  Herbal teas are usually referred to as infusions or tisanes. 

What of these antioxidants?  It’s very likely they’re there to protect the plant from oxidation produced by all that sunbathing they do.  We need antioxidants because our bodies have a love/hate relationship with oxygen, as well as a hate-hate relationship with all that pollution, cigarette smoke, overeating, etc.  We make some antioxidants in our bodies, but often we need more.  And that’s another story for another time, to quote my spouse.