Like everyone, I tend to get in food ruts. Once a month I like to shake things up by broadening my culinary creativity.

A standard monthly visit to the local Asian grocery store is always exciting. Having been raised in Western culture, many of the fruits, vegetables, and packaged goods are new and mysterious. So on every visit I pick a vegetable I am unfamiliar with.

Last month I chose lotus root. It was crispy like water chestnut, but lovely in shape and added a touch of elegance and sophistication to my Sea Goddess Saute’. This month I’ve chosen bac ha. I’ve never seen it or heard of it before. It is a stalk like celery or bok choy but has a spongy looking interior, like bone matrix or your bathroom sponge. It is a green vegetable. I’ve brought it home and googled it’s name. From this I have discovered that it is known as taro stem and elephant ear. I’ve also managed to take home a vegetable that must be cooked, lest microcrystals of calcium oxalate irritate my mucous membranes.

Never a dull moment in my kitchen!

What I’ll do next is find a recipe that uses this vegetable, further expanding my culinary horizons and adding a new recipe to my ever-growing list. It seems most common in Vietnamese food, and you’ll be certain that whatever the winning recipe is, it will be posted here!

This method of exploring new foods also works well to get children to eat produce. Bring them to the grocery store and have them each pick out a fruit or vegetable to try. Have them help prepare the produce as age appropriate and they will be more likely to try it!

Why wait for the weather to change? Planting an indoor herb garden can be an easy way to introduce yourself to the joys of gardening and is a wonderful way for gardeners to get their gardening-fix even during darker, colder months. Tending to plants can be very relaxing, therapeutic, and rewarding. Harvesting fresh herbs for spaghetti sauce, stews, and broiled meats gives your food a flavor which rivals your favorite restaurants! It is far less expensive than buying herbs in the store, and since it is a living plant, you never have to worry about the excess rotting in the fridge!

What You Will Need:

• A Window – ideally with Southern exposure in winter. If you live in a dark place, you can use full-spectrum lamps to keep your plants happy!
• Herbs – choose plants which you will actually use (I rarely use marjoram, even though it grows easily). My favorites – basil, thai basil, lemongrass (not an easy one to grow), cilantro, and oregano. You can start from seed if you wish, or purchase starter plants from your nursery.
• Several small pots with holes for drainage – individual pots will allow you to keep an easier eye on each plant and its needs. If space is of concern, you can group them in one container, but growth may be compromised if your herb choices have differing needs.
• Organic Soil – Choose organic, compost-rich soil for your plants. It contains a wider spectrum of nutrients and beneficial organisms than standard potting soil.
• Plant food — worm castings, worm tea, PlanTea, or fish emulsion among others to give your herbs once a week.

For actual planting, this video is a basic how-to.

For some medicinal qualities of common herbs and spices we use in cooking, check out this blog post!

This post is part of FoodRenegade’s Fight Back Fridays, a blog carnival promoting the Real Food Revolution

Herbs have been used for centuries to not only flavor our meals, but to provide powerful medicine to keep the body healthy and strong. Below are some of the medicinal properties of herbs commonly used in cooking. Growing fresh herbs in your home is a wonderful way to not only give your food spectacular flavor, but boost your immune system, prevent food poisoning, and give your body powerful plant medicine!

Bon appetite!

Oregano: oregano is a strong antimicrobial, antiviral and antifungal. The aromatic oils in this herb offer natural food preservation due to these qualities, and have been used for thousands of years to treat bad breath, arthritis, cough, wounds, and bacterial & fungal infections. Oregano also has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant qualities as well and may prevent cellular damage.

Basil: Basil is great for cardiovascular health, promoting lowering of cholesterol, stable blood sugar, and supporting the body’s ability to cope with stress. It contains triterpenoids (similar to ginseng, eleuthero) giving the body resistance to internal and external stressors. It has sedative, calming qualities and is often prescribed to alleviate anxiety (Holy Basil specifically is renowned for this). Traditionally it has been used for stomach aches, nausea, mouthwash, headaches, urinary complaints, and healing infection. Like oregano, it contains many antimicrobial properties and has powerful amounts of antioxidants.

Rosemary: a natural mood booster and energizer, rosemary has been used in aromatherapy for centuries to facilitate memory and boost mood. Medicinally, this herb have been used to soothe and facilitate the digestive tract and reduce anxiety. In ancient times, many Western cultures wrapped their meat in rosemary to retard spoilage. Rosemary can also be added to oils and used to massage achiness out of sore muscles.

Sage: Crushed leaves can be applied to wounds to speed healing. Sage is also reputed to be a powerful antiperspirant. It is the sacred cleansing herb of the Native Americans and is used to cleanse both body and environment of physical and spiritual impurities. Sage tea helps regulate menses and the herb in cooking helps reduce inflammatory conditions (arthritis, asthma, arterial damage). It also has been shown to improve brain function (citation)

Cayenne: as anyone who has tasted it knows, cayenne is potent! It has a strong ability to bring circulation and movement to the body, benefiting the joints (it’s an ingredient in many arthritis creams), heart, and speeding healing. Cayenne can be sprinkled in your socks on a cold day to keep your feet warm and is an essential addition to natural cold and flu therapies. It helps expel mucus from the body, kill infections and stimulates saliva and stomach secretions to improve overall digestion.

Cilantro: this herb is commonly seen in salsas and guacamole. Like the other medicinal plants listed here, cilantro is a great digestive assistant and reduces gas. It has been used traditionally to ease anxiety and (for what it is worth) one study with mice supports this. (Can we rule out the placebo effect here?) In the United States, the leaves of this plant are known as cilantro, its seeds are known as coriander.  Dodecenal, a compound found in the fresh leaves, is shown to kill the Salmonella bacteria. It seems logical that its popularity occurs in regions where heat (Mexico, India) cause rapid spoilage.

To get started on your own indoor herb garden, click here!

It’s playtime in the Dream Kitchen!

On April 25th, VIBRANCE Nutrition and Fitness teamed up with Design Kompany to do a educational lunch and work party for solopreneurs. Design Kompany provided the space and I came in and demonstrated how easy it is to make a quick, healthy lunch in under 20 minutes. Here is shortened video footage of the event: (more…)

TheDailyGreen.com offers a beautiful pictorial of the top 12 foods to purchase organic.

Click here to find out which foods are best purchased organic.

On the flip side, if availability or costs are a concern and it is difficult for you to purchase organic foods, you can still minimize your exposure to pesticide residues by focusing on the following:

My favorite holiday food growing up was my mother’s sweet potatoes. The recipe had been passed down from my great-grandmother and unlike most family’s marshmallow-laden recipe, ours was studded with pecans and brown sugar. Often called yams, the dark orange fleshy tubers we enjoy every holiday (canned, marshmallow-laden or otherwise) are actually sweet potatoes.

These foods come into season November and December, but are available year round for our enjoyment. They are an ideal winter food – heavy and warming with a sweet taste that satisfies cravings that peak during dark months. Rich in beta-carotene, sweet potatoes give us the precursor to Vitamin A that is essential for night vision. They are a perfect example of how nature gives us the appropriate foods at the appropriate time of year.
Sweet Potatoes, despite their candy-like flavor (which is enhanced by roasting or broiling) are low in the glycemic index and do not cause the spike in blood sugar white baking potatoes can, making them a preferred food of bodybuilders, diabetics, and those following a low glycemic diet. They are rich in soluble fiber, B6 and potassium, all heart healthy compounds which protect against heart disease. The sweet potato is also rich in powerful antioxidants which protect against inflammation and certain cancers.

This wonderful whole food is a great way to get healthy, nutrient rich carbohydrates that will not adversely affect your blood sugar or weight. For the next few months, replace steak fries with baked sweet potato fries and white rice or mashed Russets with mashed sweet potatoes. Enjoy them in savory and sweet dishes!

Below is a recipe for Sweet Potato Fries. I encourage you to give them a try for dinner one night. If you have a favorite sweet potato recipe you’d like to share, I’d love to see it!

Sweet Potato Fries

• 6 Sweet Potatoes, cut like steak fries
• 2 tbsp. Coconut Oil, warmed, or grapeseed, sesame, or peanut oil (these do well under higher heat)
• 2 tsp. sea salt
• 3 TB. Mexican seasoning, Cajun seasoning, or spices of choice
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (220 degrees Celsius). In a mixing bowl, toss sweet potatoes with oil and spices. Place potato wedges evenly on a baking sheet with enough space between each wedge to allow them to get crispy. Bake for 10-30 minutes (depending on size), flipping the over halfway through to brown all sides. When finished, they should be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Leafy greens are some of the easiest and most beneficial vegetables to incorporate into your daily routine. Densely packed with energy and nutrients, they grow upwards to the sky, absorbing the sun’s light while producing oxygen. Members of this royal green family include kale, collard greens, swiss chard, mustard greens, arugula, dandelion greens, broccoli rabe, watercress, beet greens, bok choy, napa cabbage, green cabbage, spinach and broccoli.

How do greens benefit our bodies? They are very high in calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorous and zinc, and are a powerhouse for vitamins A, C, E and K. They are crammed full of fiber, folic acid, chlorophyll, and many other micronutrients and phytochemicals. Their color is associated with spring, which is a time of renewal and refreshing, vital energy. In traditional Asian medicine, the color green is related to the liver, emotional stability and creativity. Greens aid in purifying the blood, strengthening the immune system, improving liver, gall bladder and kidney function, fighting depression, clearing congestion, improving circulation and keeping your skin clear and blemish free.

Leafy greens are the vegetables most missing from the American diet, and many of us never learned how to prepare them. Start with the very simple recipe below. Then each time you go to the market, pick up a new green to try. Soon you’ll find your favorite greens and wonder how you ever lived without them.

Vegetables can be washed in the following solutions:

• a solution of vinegar and water (one part vinegar to twelve parts water – rinse in cold water to remove the ‘vinegar odor’)
• The juice of half a lemon and 1 teaspoon of sea salt to a small basin of water. These provide a mildly acidic solution that may remove a greater percentage of bacteria and contaminants than just water alone.

Washing in bleach or detergent is not recommended because vegetable skins are porous and improper rinsing may lead to illness.
Do not soak delicate leafy greens for long periods of time (> 2 min) as vitamins can begin to leach out into the water. Hardier produce such as melons and squashes will welcome a good scrubbing to remove superficial contaminants.

For cooking, the key is to cook as little as possible. Al dente vegetables retain greater nutrients than veggies which have been boiled, roasted or fried to death. Cut vegetables into small, uniform chunks to minimize the amount of time the vegetable is exposed to heat. This will allow for even cooking and minimal nutrient loss.

It’s harvest time!
The local markets have been bursting with ripe local produce. We’ve had a beautiful berry season, and heading into fall our focus turns to the hearty vegetables that carry us into the winter. This month many wonderful vegetables are in season; squashes, carrots, potatoes, greens such as escarole, bok choy, collards, kale and beet greens, and we still have corn available at some markets!
Vegetables can be somewhat intimidating to manyof us, especially those we did not grow up eating. Being raised in Alaska meant families relied heavily on heartier and more processed vegetables. I remember the first time I tasted “real” corn on the cob and when I moved down here only to discover not all tomatoes bounced when you dropped them! A friend of mine in high school had never had fresh pineapple and had no idea she would like it. The same can be said for the more exotic vegetables you may not be comfortable with: dinosaur kale, bok choy, delicata squash, and fresh beets are some of the favorites I have discovered as an adult.

This month we’ll talk veg: how to choose, store, prepare and cook them; and why they are so essential to a vibrant, abundantly healthy life.
I’m also going to encourage you to go out on a limb and explore with a new vegetable. Head to your nearest farmer’s market (many will remain open throughout the month) or grocery store and pick something new. You can bring it home and search for a recipe, or ask the produce person how to prepare it. Extra points for locally grown choices!

Please let me know what you choose, how you prepare it, and forward any recipes that you would love to share with others. The healthiest, most captivating recipe will be featured in a future newsletter, and the contest winner will receive a little gift on behalf of VIBRANCE Nutrition and Fitness!

To Your Health!

Aimee Gallo

Vegetables are critical components of a healthy diet, yet in our rushed, convenient-valued society they are often left out. Vegetables contain an incredible amount of nutrients – A, C, and B vitamins, minerals, fiber, and hundreds of known and unknown antioxidants and phytonutrients that protect our cells against disease and damage. They are the most “nutrient dense” of all foods, meaning they provide the most beneficial nutrition for the least amount of calories.

Obviously, we can survive for quite some time without them – most Americans do. But the deleterious effects of vegetable-neglect are subtle and far-reaching. Without adequate nutrients from vegetables we create a body susceptible to low energy, weakened immune system, and a wide range of degenerative diseases. The nutrients found in vegetables have been scientifically proven to be protective against heart disease, many forms of cancer, macular degeneration, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Studies conducted over populations consistently demonstrate that societies which consume the most vegetables live the longest and healthiest of all nations.

When choosing your vegetables, you want to reach for the highest quality produce available. This will greatly increase the available nutrients found in the plant, and consequently, available to you. Many studies have demonstrated that organically grown produce contains higher concentrations of nutrients and antioxidants than conventionally grown produce. There is also no reason to willingly encourage pesticide and herbicide consumption. These toxic chemicals accumulate in our fatty tissue and have widely unknown consequences, especially when they can potentially react with other chemicals and medications introduced into the human body.

Secondly
, local produce has been known to have higher nutrient levels than non-local produce. The reasons here are simple. When faced with a long transport, produce is often picked under ripe so that it can reach its destination with minimal damage. Being picked before peak ripeness limits the potential nutrition that a plant can create. Also, as soon as a vegetable is picked, it no longer is on “life support”. Unlike fruit, vegetables do not continue to ripen after harvest; vitamins and other sensitive nutrients begin to break down after picking. Choosing locally grown, especially at the height of season, maximizes use of nutrition found in produce.

Finally, the maturity level of a vegetable is important. Young, tender vegetables have maximum nutrition. A plant with woody stalks, tough leaves and showing signs of decay is well past its prime and is on a nutrient descent. Look for vibrant colors, tender leaves, and lack of decay when choosing your vegetables. Produce staff are well trained in recognizing ideal produce – ask them for advice on any specific vegetables you are uncertain of.

Once picked, vegetables are increasingly sensitive to nutrient breakdown because they no longer have incoming nourishment from the soil and root system. How we store our vegetables have a great influence on how well they retain their existing nutrient levels.
Different vegetables spoil at different rates (potatoes versus chard, for instance) and therefore have different needs. Generally speaking, cooler temperatures are best. The more sensitive members – leafy greens, green beans, etc. are best kept in the refrigerator. Washing vegetables before refrigerating encourages spoiling, even if wrapped in a paper towel to reduce moisture condensation. It is best to store them in a tight-fitting glass or plastic container or a plastic vegetable storage bag (these are very effective at prolonging shelf life) and wash them right before use.

Vegetables such as potatoes, garlic, onions, winter squash, sweet potatoes, avocados and eggplants react negatively to refrigeration. These are best kept in a “root cellar” environment – a cool dark area where temperatures are 50-60 degrees (garages are wonderful). These vegetables should only be refrigerated after they have been cut or cooked.

Vegetables get a horrifically bad rap in taste tests because the traditional American way of cooking them isn’t much different than our British ancestors, who learned the best way to avoid disease was to boil everything into an unrecognizable state of mush. When cooked properly, vegetables have an amazing array of flavors and textures that can be quite delightful to even the pickiest of palates. Ideally, you want your vegetables cooked until just crisp-tender (al dente) so they are full of flavor, color-rich, and nutrient dense. Below are some cooking methods which achieve just that:

1. Quick Sauté: Bring a little bit of oil and ¼ cup water or broth to a steam and add vegetables. Cover (this prevents nutrient loss through steam and light and quickens cooking time) and “sauté” for 3-7 minutes, depending on vegetable.




2. Steaming: place 2” of water in the bottom of a pot. Place a steamer basket in the pot. Bring to a boil. Add vegetables only after the water has come to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cover tightly. Steam vegetables until brightly colored and crisp-tender – 2 to 7 minutes.




3. Blanching: this is great for tougher greens such as chard and beet greens, as well as asparagus, which is easy to overcook. Bring a pot filled ¾ full with water to a boil. Drop in vegetables and let boil for 1-3 minutes (that brightening of color is a sign the vegetables are done). Remove from heat, immediately draining the pot and rinsing the veggies under cold water to halt the cooking process. Some nutrients will be lost in the water with this process. It can be “recycled” in soup stock, or given to your plants.

Key things to remember when cooking vegetables: the shorter the cooking time, the better. Avoid microwaving, which destroys a significant percentage of antioxidants in the vegetable. Keep it crisp-tender to maximize flavor and nutrition!

The World’s Healthiest Foods, Essential Guide for the Healthiest Way of Eating by George Mateljan

Asami, D.K., et al. Comparison of the Total Phenolic and Ascorbic Acid Content of Freeze-Dried and Air-Dried Marionberry, Strawberry, and Corn Grown Using Conventional, Organic, and Sustainable Agricultural Practices J. Agric. Food Chem., 51 (5), 1237 -1241, 2003. 10.1021/jf020635c S0021-8561(02)00635-0