Category: Ingredients

Food Additives to Avoid

Food Additives to Avoid

Posted on by Lisa P

The vast majority of packaged foods have some kind of additive or preservative to give them a longer shelf life.  And I’m not even talking about the bad processed food that all of you know by now is unhealthy. I’m talking about pre-packaged food that you might think is “safe,” such as olives, cereal, spinach wraps, or canned tuna fish.

I challenge you to read the label and see if you can find a product that doesn’t have an ingredient that ends in -ate, -ite, -ade, or -ide.  Also anything with artificial colors, sweeteners (especially artificial), and BHA and BHT. These are all chemicals that are added to food to give them a longer shelf life.

But at what expense? Nitrates and nitrites have been linked to both cancer and Alzheimer’s. Bromide can build up in your central nervous system and cause mental health issues. Bromine depletes iodine which can damage your thyroid by affecting your T3 and T3 hormones.

Additives take many names and are used for many reasons. Not all of them are harmful to everyone, as each of our bodies have varying capacities to adapt to environmental factors. But unless you know what your body can and can’t fight off effectively, you’ll want to avoid these additives wherever you can.

Easy Garlic-Saving Trick

Posted on by Lisa P

Years ago I was in the habit of buying those tiny trays of frozen crushed garlic. They disappeared from the stores for a while, and I forgot about them. When I decided to write this post for you, I did some digging and found out they still exist (at least online), but the ingredient label shows they also contain canola oil and salt, neither of which I want in my garlic. (Here’s why you may not want to consume canola oil.)

Anyway, I want to share with you this great garlic-saving trick I’ve been using a lot lately. If you like fresh garlic in your food but don’t like the sticky painful mess of peeling and chopping, then check this out.

When a recipe you have calls for, say one or two cloves of chopped garlic, make a whole head of it. It takes a little extra time but you gain overall efficiency in “mass production.”

  1. Break up the whole head of garlic by rolling it firmly around in a kitchen towel (these are my favorite). Go ahead and be aggressive with it, you’re going to chop it up anyway!
  2. Take a small knife and start chopping off those hard stubby ends. When you’re all done, take a large knife and press-smash the garlic with the side of the knife. The peels will start to pull away and fall off.
  3. Pull out the raw garlic cloves and either put them in a mini-chopper or set them aside in a bowl. Discard the detritus. Chop the garlic to desired size either by hand or in the mini-chopper.
  4. Set aside however much you need for tonight. Put a scoops of chopped garlic into the cells of a small ice cube tray , then wrap the tray in plastic and freeze.
  5. Once  frozen, pop them out of the tray, and place in an air-tight container back in the freezer for later use.

Garlic’s health benefits are huge! A natural gut healer, anti-oxidant, and pre-biotic, you can’t go wrong with using a lot of garlic in your food.

Beets - A Lesson in Frugality

Beets – A Lesson in Frugality

Posted on by Lisa P

Whole Golden BeetsBeets are the ultimate in nutritional usefulness.  Each part of the beet is nutritionally useful, and even the few small parts you don’t want to eat can be fed to your garden in the form of compost.

Golden beets are beautiful and sweet, and according to some sources are much lower in starch than their red cousins.  So if you are reducing starch in your diet for health reasons, golden beets are OK!  Also, red beets are a pain with their sheer redness, which gets all over everything in your kitchen.  I’ve already got stains on everything from all the turmeric I’m consuming, and add the red “blood” from beets and I’ve got sunset-colored cutting boards and wood-handled knives, not to mention my hands…  Ah the price for health.  But I digress…

Beets can be divided into three uniquely useful parts: the roots, the stems, and the leaves.

Roots: The root bulb is the most deliciously sweet part of the plant.  The easiest way to cook the beet root is in foil packets on your grill (btw you can skip the peeling step and eat them with the peel on).  Another way is to simply peel them and steam them, then drizzle with a little olive oil and salt and serve warm. Continue reading “Beets – A Lesson in Frugality” →

Names of Hidden Sugars

Posted on by Lisa P

Barbados sugar
Barley malt
Beet sugar
Brown sugar
Buttered syrup
Cane juice
Cane sugar
Caramel
Carob syrup
Castor sugar
Confectioner’s sugar
Corn syrup
Corn syrup solids
Dehydrated cane juice
Demerara sugar
Dextran
Dextrose
Diastatic malt
Diatase
Erythritol
Erythrol
Erythrite
Erytghoglucin
Eryglucin
Erythromannite
Ethyl maltol
Fructose
Fruit juice
Fruit juice concentrate
Galactose
Golden sugar
Golden syrup
Grape sugar
High fructose corn syrup
Invert sugar
Lactose
Malt
Malt syrup
Maltodextrin
Maltose
Muscovado
Panocha
Phycite (erythritol)
Refiner’s syrup
Rice syrup
Sorbitol
Sorghum syrup
Sucrose
Sugar
Treacle

Freezing Rice and Other Grains

Posted on by Lisa P

Ever make more rice than you can eat? If you aren’t going to use it in the next few days, you can freeze it for later use.  Here’s how:

  1. Put 1-1/2 to 2 cups of plain cooked (cooled) brown rice in a quart-size, freezer-grade ziplock bag. Don’t seal it shut yet.
  2. Flatten the bag out, then gently roll from the bottom up to remove as much air as possible, and zip closed.
  3. Flatten it back out and freeze flat.

To thaw, simply massage the bag briefly to break up the frozen rice, then empty it into a microwave safe bowl, cover with a paper towel, and microwave for 30 seconds or so (depending on the wattage of your microwave).

This works for most other cooked whole grains as well. I used to buy frozen pre-cooked brown rice at Trader Joe’s, but this is more economical and tastes fresher.

How to Cook Whole Grains

Posted on by Lisa P

Barley

Barley is available pearled (the bran has been removed) or quick cooking (parboiled). Technically neither are whole grains but nutritionally speaking they count toward your whole-grain servings because of their high fiber content.

To Cook: Pearl barley Continue reading “How to Cook Whole Grains” →