BY ELIZABETH FIEND

Category: Vegan, Vegetarian Recipe

This is one of the recipes I made when I was a guest on the Food Network’s “ROKER ON THE ROAD” TV show starring weather man Al Roker.

I developed this recipe to not only give you the health benefits of turmeric (to learn more about turmeric click here), but the added benefits of another “warming” spice, cayenne pepper.

This recipe packs even more of a punch with the vitamins and antioxidants found in red cabbage and carrots and the minerals found in seeds.

It’s also low-cal and it tastes so refreshing!

VEGAN COLE SLAW with Honey-Lime Dressing (and turmeric)
GOES GREAT WITH BBQ!!!!!

Serves 4, Time: 15 minutes

Dressing Ingredients:
1/2 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt

Slaw Ingredients:
2 carrots, grated
1/4 head red cabbage, grated
4 teaspoons sunflower seeds

Directions, Easy as 1-2-3:
1.) Mix up dressing (use a container with a lid and
shake it up baby)
2.) Pour dressing over grated carrots and red
cabbage
3.) Top with sunflower seeds right before serving

Bookmark to:

By Gina Kolata
New York Times, May 13, 2008

DR. PAUL D. THOMPSON, a 60-year-old marathon runner and chief of cardiology at Hartford Hospital, stood in front of a medical audience recently and began his talk with a story about himself.

“I’ve been lifting weights since I was 12 years old and look at me,” he said. Dr. Thompson is small and wiry with not a bulging muscle on him. He speculated that he must have a genetic inability to build muscles, no matter how hard he works at it.

But are his muscles healthy?

It is not the kind of question most people ask themselves. But muscle researchers say it is important because muscle health is emerging as an important part of overall health. And, they say, when it comes to muscles, bulk does not matter. How big they can become depends on your sex as well as genetics. What matters for health is whether, like Dr. Thompson, you use them.

Healthy muscles, researchers say, are those that have been worked, stressed and pushed to their limit so that they have enough power and strength to get you through life, especially as you grow older. And keeping muscles fit takes effort, which means regular training with weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise even if the results are not a sculptured look, these experts add.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

The Glycemic Index

By ELIZABETH FIEND

The Glycemic Index could save your life — literally. It could make living with diabetes easier. Or prevent diabetes in the first place. It can reduce your risk of heart disease. It will lower your cholesterol. It will make you thinner. It might even get you laid.

The Glycemic Index is a scientific measurement of how rapidly foods release their sugars into your blood. It’s an invaluable, easy-to-use tool for maintaining or getting to a proper weight. Forget diets. Get jiggy wit’ the GI instead.

Research on the Glycemic Index originally began as a way to pin-point the best foods choices for diabetics; to help them better control their blood sugar and therefore insulin production. But soon it became apparent that the Glycemic Index was a great tool for people to use to control their weight.

The concept was popularized in diets like Atkins, The Zone and The South Beach Diet which center around the philosophy of low-carb/high protein. The problem with these diets is that they rely on too much protein and not enough fruits and vegetables to keep you healthy in the long run. Carbohydrates are found in foods like bread, pasta, cake and fruit as these foods contain sugars. Foods that are low in carbs are fish, meat, cheese; these foods contain fat and protein.

The Glycemic Index was built by sitting down 10 people and measuring their blood sugar after feeding them a specific food — and then measuring their blood sugar again two hours later. Days later, the process was repeated and the numbers were combined and averaged. So yeah, they made a list checked it twice, and found out which foods were naughty or nice.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

“Join [Organic Consumers Association] in celebrating Fair Trade on May 10, 2008!

Fair Trade means a fair price for farmers and artisans, a better future for our planet, and a tastier, higher quality product for you.

On Saturday, May 10, Organic Consumers Association will join with people from 70 countries worldwide to celebrate World Fair Trade Day and highlight the importance and benefits of Fair Trade.

Fair Trade enthusiasts worldwide will host Fair Trade food tastings, house parties, speakers, festivals, concerts, and fashion shows.

We’re trying to set the World Record for the World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break: At 3pm Eastern/Noon Pacific, Fair Trade supporters around the world will take a break to enjoy a cup of Fair Trade coffee.

Go to your Organic Consumers Association state events page to find Fair Trade events near you.” (Presented by VaLerie K)

Bookmark to:

Source: The New York Times
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN

XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents.

The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer.

Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse.

Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer.

Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture.

Some kinds of fertilizer have nearly tripled in price in the last year, keeping farmers from buying all they need. That is one of many factors contributing to a rise in food prices that, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program, threatens to push tens of millions of poor people into malnutrition.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

BY ELIZABETH FIEND

You wait and wait, eagerly anticipating your favorite time of the year, and suddenly, it’s here! April is National Soy Month, the most delicious month of the year!

Soy is one hell of an amazing plant, one that’s been part of the human diet for over 5,000 years. But it’s much, much more than just veggie burgers. The soybean is also used as food for livestock and it has all the properties of petroleum — except unlike petrol, soy is biodegradable.

Wow, doesn’t knowing that you could fuel up your car or feed your cow with it make soy even more mouth-watering, appetizing and desirable to you?

This bean’s potential is astounding.

Ben Franklin was so intrigued by the story of a “cheese” made from a bean he acquired some seeds, soybeans actually, and sent them to his West Philly homey John Bartram’s estate. Ben also sent along directions on how to turn the beans into curds, aka tofu.

Despite Ben’s efforts, soy never really caught on in Ye Olde America, and was primarily grown for livestock feed and oil until food shortages during WWII stimulated interest in the plant as a source of food for human beans.

Tofu, which had Ben so jazzed up, wasn’t sold in an American supermarket until 1958. Not coincidentally, I made my own debut that year.

Franklin was only one great thinker (and eater) who was intrigued by the potential of the plant from Asia. Both George Washington Carver and Henry Ford donated a great deal of their lives to this marvelous bean.

Carver, the African-American educator and agricultural genius, began investigating soy in hopes it would become a crop newly-emancipated slaves might use to gain financial independence. His soy products include candles, soups, coffee, cheeses, ice cream, flour and oil. (Click to see my in-depth article on GW Carver.)

Henry Ford also had a million projects going on involving soy and dedicated the last two decades of his life to the bean. Among other things, he unveiled a car made with soy-composite body parts in 1941 and was known to be out and about town in a suit spun out of soy.

As a food, soy can’t be beat. It’s packed with more protein than any other bean. In fact, the soybean is the only plant food source that contains ALL of the nine essential amino acids, making it equal to the protein from animal sources. But unlike animal products, soy has no cholesterol and is much lower in saturated fat.

(more…)

Bookmark to:

BY ELIZABETH FIEND 5/8

What do vaginal dryness, lousy driving, methamphetamine, cocaine, steroids and Kleenex all have in common? You guessed it: this article is going to be all about seasonal allergies.

Allergies are caused by a body’s misplaced, overblown reaction to something that in reality isn’t harmful. When this happens the culprit is called an allergen. Pollen is an allergen, though it’s a harmless substance, not poisonous in any way to humans. But for a growing number of people, pollen, mold, animal fur and dust mites trigger an unnecessary, and unfortunate, attack by their immune system. The result of this attack is an allergic reaction — nasal secretion, itchy throat, eyes, and ear canals, sneezing, tearing eyes, stuffy nose and ears. Allergies also make some people tired, cranky, impair memory and concentration and prevent sleep.

More and more people are becoming allergic, to food, pollen and — crazy as it sounds — there’s currently a boom in allergies to ladybugs! As for hayfever, at least one in 10 people will suffer from hay fever at some point, and that number is growing.

If one of your parents has allergies you’re at a 50 percent risk of developing allergies yourself. If both of your parents have allergies, you’re screwed — there’s a 70 percent chance you will, too. Strangely enough, even birth order seems to have an influence on who develops allergies: If you have three or more older siblings, you might get off Scot free (presumably due to the fact that your parents gave up by the time you came along and you were exposed to more immune system-building germs than your sibs). Breastfeeding also gives a child an edge over allergies. Allergies can get worse as you age because your system is more easily traumatized and overreacts, even more, to allergens.

(more…)

Bookmark to: