Is fat a four-Letter word?

It’s confusing about fats—what’s in, what’s out, and what’s okay today.  Want some lasting advice?  Eat what your great-grandmother ate.  Butter, olive oil, and lard—that’s likely what she had in her pantry.  For millennia butter was churned from the cream of pasture-fed cows.  The French not only enjoyed rich buttery sauces, they also had low rates of heart disease.  Butter makes everything taste better.

Olive oil, much mentioned in the scriptures, is another ancient food.   Unlike vegetable oils, which are chemically extracted from seeds, olive oil is pressed from the flesh surrounding the seed. The trees that provide olives may live for centuries and a branch is traditionally used as sign of goodwill.

Lard is also a traditional cooking fat.  After a century of slander, top chefs have rediscovered its merits especially as a shortening, and public interest is spreading.  Maybe your great-grandmother left piecrust tips behind, or a recipe for her lard-roasted potatoes.  Butter, olive oil, and lard—what more do you need?

In the last century each of these traditional fats fell from favor and then was rediscovered.  How did we go so wrong?  Well, when food becomes a big business, the consumer can get lost in the process.  It makes me think of the bon mot, “’Every man for himself’, called the elephant as he danced among the chickens.”  

Take soybean oil, for example.  Soybean oil is our #1 food oil; it accounts for 2/3 of the vegetable-sourced oil we eat.  It’s an ingredient in just about every processed food.  We eat more than we think, about 25 lbs. a year, or an ounce each day.   For years essentially all soybean oil was hydrogenated to remove the omega-3 fats, which extended shelf life.  Hydrogenation creates trans fats and we all grew up unaware we were eating a toxic man-made fat (plus being deprived of needed omega-3s).  Voices of protest were raised—the work of Dr. Mary Enig comes to mind—but they were ignored and even harassed.

The evidence against trans fat finally became so impossible to ignore that the FDA—rather than simply ban them as the Institute of Medicine advised—required the industry to disclose trans fats on the nutrition panel, effective 2006.  (Though they gave them a little wiggle room by allowing food with less than 0.5 grams to be labeled as zero trans fats.  So in the way that language is misused in advertising, we don’t actually know if zero really means zero without searching for the word “hydrogenated” on the ingredient list.) 

Eliminating trans fats from our diet was the goal of our second Healthy Change. To remind, trans fats move LDL and HDL cholesterol and inflammation in the unhealthy direction and are a cause of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. 

The food industry, once the defender of trans fat, is now racing to replace them with some new man-made fat.  Genetically modified soybeans with reduced polyunsaturated oils (less omega-3) have been introduced.  If you check the chip aisle in your grocery store, you’ll find that most chips now claim, “zero trans fats”.  Are these genetically modified oils healthy?  We don’t know for sure.  Concerned scientists have voiced concern but it will take time before any harm can be proven.

Likewise with margarine and shortenings, new methods of processing soybean oil are being developed.  Hydrogenation is being replaced, for example, with the hard-to-pronounce process of interesterification.  Are products with these new man-made fats healthy?  Same answer: We don’t know for sure.  It will take time before any long-term harm can be proven. 

Here is a food rule to consider:  Allow a century of use before assuming a new man-made food is healthy.  All this brings us to this week’s change:

In a future post we’ll share what we learned on a walk through the butter and margarine aisle at the local grocery.  Please share your experience with fats.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

what if there isn't a cure?

One of the things I admire most about women is the way you rush to support a friend (or a stranger, even) in distress.  Take breast cancer.  I’m moved when I see a picture of a woman who has lost her hair to chemotherapy surrounded by friends who have shaved their heads in support.  I think you would do anything for your sisters.  You walk, run, and ride bikes in the race for the cure. 

But what if there isn’t a cure? 

The portrait above was taken in the heroic style popular after World War II.  It’s a most American picture.  You see a young couple holding their children, framed against the sky in a way that makes them seem a little bigger than life, bravely striding into a promising future.  The Quonset hut (a low-cost portable building left over from the war) is their home.  Who are they?  I remember them as Uncle Glen and Aunt Adele; they’ve been gone a long time.

Glen was a war hero in my mind, a Marine who fought in the terrible WWII battle for Okinawa.  Adele was an unusually intelligent woman; her home was always extra nice.  She likely planted and cared for the sweet peas in the corner of the picture.  The children are my cousins Linda and Vicki; later there was a son, Rick. 

And the future they were striding into?  It was brief—each died in their early thirties.  Glen in an accident; Adele of breast cancer, an unusual case, given her youth.  Perhaps the sudden loss of her husband was a factor.  As a young boy I was a spectator to the tragedy of their deaths.  Their orphaned children, Linda, Vicki and Rick, were taken into our home, so I was also witness to how hard it is for young children to lose their parents. 

This childhood memory is my only qualification to write about breast cancer; maybe it’s enough.  So I repeat the question, “What if there isn’t a cure?”  In a caring way, I sometimes ask women, “What should you do to prevent breast cancer?”  The most frequent response is to get regular mammograms.  Then I point out that a mammogram is for when you already have cancer and repeat the question.  Most women are unsure; a few know a preventative measure or two.  But that’s about it. 

So in memory of my Aunt Adele, and with the hope of not adding to the burden of the breast cancer survivors in our audience, I offer ten steps to reduce a woman’s risk to breast cancer.  This is not my work; it is based on a 2007 meta-study done by experts working for the American Institute for Cancer Research.  I have added guidance from work by other scientists.  With time this list should get better, but it’s the best I could find. (If you've been following our weekly Healthy Changes since January, you'll see that you are already doing many of these steps.)

1. Avoid alcohol.  If you choose to drink, limit alcohol to one drink per day. (It’s presumed you are avoiding tobacco.)

2. Stay lean.  As lean as possible within the healthy weight range.  (Elevated body fat is a risk factor after the teen years.)

3. Be physically active.  Every day, for at least 30 minutes. 

4. Have children early (in your adult years) and as often as you choose.  Breast-feed infants at least six months.

5. Limit sugar to the AHA daily guideline of 6 tsp. for women and 9 for men.  Avoid sugary drinks and limit consumption of candy as well as sugary breakfast cereals and bread products.  Less is better.

6. Limit intake of red meats and dairy; avoid all processed meats. 

7. Eat a varied diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.  (These foods are an excellent source of protective antioxidants including vitamins A and C.)

8. Eat food, not pills (unless prescribed by your doctor).  Avoid the use of multivitamin pills, or supplements to reduce cancer risk.  (See AJCN March 24, 2010, “Multivitamin use and breast cancer incidence in a prospective cohort of Swedish women”.)  Hormone replacement therapy is also a risk factor for breast cancer.

9. Maintain a healthy level of vitamin D with moderate sunshine where possible.

10. Eat healthy fats.  Avoid all trans fats (noted by the word hydrogenated in the ingredient list).  Eat natural fats like olive oil and butter in moderation and minimize vegetable oil products.  (Limiting food with vegetable oils like chips, will improve the important ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats as well as reduce salt intake.)

The AICR recommends that cancer survivors—after receiving treatment—also follow their preventative steps.  Readers are invited to share their experience or any other guidance on how to prevent breast cancer.

Aging With Grace

If the body’s old cells are constantly being replaced with new cells, why do people get old?  In 1956 a brilliant scientist proposed an answer—the Free Radical Theory of Aging.  Free radicals are byproducts created when fuel and oxygen are burned within our cells to make energy.  Basically, the free radical is a molecule that lost an electron in the process and is aggressively seeking to replace it.  (This is referred to as oxidative stress.)  If the electron is not replaced within a certain time, damage is done to the cell and its DNA.  The accumulation of this damage ages the cell, as well as the replacement cell created with the damaged DNA.  Besides aging, free radical harm is linked to chronic illness like heart disease and cancer.

Nature offers a solution to the free radical problem:  Antioxidants in food supply the missing electron.  Therefore, the theory posits, a diet rich in antioxidants will slow down the aging process.  The ultimate expression of this is the girl who goes to her 50^th high school reunion and looks young enough to be the daughter of the other people.  They’ll hate you, but what could be more fun?

Natural foods are loaded with antioxidants.  There are thousands of types of antioxidants, which suggests they each may have a unique function.  The vitamins A (beta-carotene), C, and E are antioxidants.  Minerals like selenium are potent antioxidants.  Antioxidants have a function in plants also—they protect the plant from sunlight, a little like sunscreen.  It is important, therefore, to eat the edible skins of plants.  Because much of the mass is skin, the small, colorful berries are packed with antioxidants. 

Research indicates that different food groups provide different kinds of antioxidants.  Fruits, vegetables and whole grains each help, but in different ways.  There also seems to be a synergistic effect: eating a variety of foods gives a greater protection than just the sum of the ingredients.  There was unforeseen wisdom in the W of W guidance to eat from the varied herbs, fruits, and grains.

Besides the antioxidants in food, the body also produces antioxidants.  Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant and is produced when we sleep in the dark.  If you don’t sleep in a dark room, you reduce the production of protective melatonin.  Sometimes we think it a sign of our dedication if we get insufficient sleep—bad idea.  Prolong your youthfulness with adequate sleep.

The allure of eternal youthfulness is behind the recent fad of taking vitamin E supplements.  Scientists who encouraged this should have known better.  Because there are so many thousands of different antioxidants, it was highly unlikely that taking a concentrated dose of one would be healthful.  In fact, studies searching for a benefit from taking the antioxidant vitamins A, or C, or E in pill form, have each failed and some have found harm in this practice.  (See, for example, “The Antioxidant Myth: a medical fairy tale”, by L. Melton, 2006.)

The Breakfast Compote recipe provides a fabulous mix of antioxidants from berries, apples, orange juice, dried cranberries, whole grains, ground flaxseed, and pecans.  Salads, thanks to the synergy of variety, are also a good antioxidant source.  Meals that are rich in natural foods of different colors and varied food groups, slow aging, protect health, and comply with our next healthy change:

In closing, a word about cancer:  we noted above that free radical generation was linked to oxidative stress, which the body resolves with antioxidants.  Studies have linked low levels of antioxidants to a greater risk for cancer, including breast cancer.  For example a low blood level of vitamin A doubled the risk of breast cancer.  Women with low vitamin E had triple the risk.  In addition, elevated markers of oxidative stress are an independent risk factor for breast cancer.  In our next post on Thursday, we will address the tragedy of breast cancer. 

Please share what you do to provide adequate antioxidants in your diet.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Waking Up in the Bread Aisle

In the last post we promised to check our local supermarket for breads that met Healthy Change #9:  Your daily bread must be whole grain, with more grams of natural fiber than added sugar.  To do this we spent a Friday evening studying the labels of 70 different breads; the short answer is just two bakeries met the rule and one came close (their fiber wasn’t all natural):

• Food For Life offers their Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted-grain breads, named after the Bible scripture with a bread recipe.  A slice typically contains 3 grams of fiber and no sugar—the only company we found that doesn’t add sweeteners.  Price $4.49; on sale for $3.99.  (In some stores their bread is kept in the frozen food section to preserve freshness.)

• Oroweat offers bread at all the quality levels (but watch the sugar in some of their whole wheat breads, it's often equal to the fiber). Their Healthfull brand (Nutty Grain, 10-Grain, and Hearty Wheat) had 4 grams of fiber and 2 grams sugar.  Price $4.59; on sale for $2.99 

• Milton’s Whole Grain Plus had 5 grams of fiber and 3 grams of sugar per slice.  (Three grams of fiber are all you can usually get from a slice of whole wheat; breads offering more may not meet the natural fiber requirement.)  The sugar was a combination of brown sugar and honey, so give them a point for slightly better sugars.  Price $4.59; on sale for $3.49.

The bread companies are in a difficult place; people generally have a dim view of store-bought bread and the low-carb diet folks think bread is unhealthy.  The store manager approached me in one store (after all, I was standing there looking at his goods and making notes in a black notebook).  “I’m looking for your healthiest bread,” I told him.  His response was interesting: “Is any bread healthy?”  I laughed with him but answered, “Yes, a few are”. 

I asked him how they decide which breads get the best shelf space and he answered, “Simple, slotting fees.  I think we make more on renting out the shelf space than we do selling the bread”.   I looked down the aisle and saw Oroweat had the biggest space followed by the store brand and then Sara Lee.  There was a small section for Wonder bread on the lowest shelf, a sign of its fall from grace.

The bread aisle is a strange place.  First, it doesn’t smell like bread, it smells chemical, kind of like plastic.  Second, in a desperate attempt to get our attention over 70 different kinds of bread are offered, each with the most extravagant label claims the FDA will allow.  Labels that say “100% wheat” aren’t actually whole wheat.  And the label that says “With Whole Wheat” may only have a little whole grain mixed in with the refined grains.  Third, there is the issue of past fibs, like Wonder bread building strong bodies, 8, 10, then 12 different ways.  Is it any surprise the public is properly skeptical?

Here’s another issue:  Is there a premium for healthy bread?  The answer is “Yes”.  The healthiest breads were the highest priced, around $4.59 unless on sale, though the difference in ingredients only makes a slight difference in material costs.  Is the cheapest bread the least healthy?  Again, the answer is “Yes”.  The cheapest bread was sold under the Supervalu label, price $1.39 but on sale for $.99.  It’s not actually that much cheaper per pound because the loaf is lighter.  And it has the worst ingredients, including high fructose corn syrup.  (The store manager whispered in my ear that Supervalu was controlled by the store—they just didn’t want their name on the worst bread.) 

Would you want to eat 99-cent bread?  It’s a trick question, because you can bake your own perfectly healthful bread for about this price, not counting the cost of firing of the oven.  Yes, I know what you’re thinking—this presumes the cook isn’t getting paid for her hour of work.  But we know the answer to that—the pay she (or he) receives is dearer than money.  In a later post we’ll share our favorite of the bread recipes you submitted. 

For the times when it’s not possible to bake your own bread, here are my personal favorites, though they’re not available where I live:  One is Great Harvest, which sells through franchise stores.  Prairie Grain Bread Co. is the other.  The whole wheat breads meet the fiber rule and have just five or six ingredients.  (The typical store-bought breads have 12-20 ingredients, many of them chemicals.) 

A last comment from the store manager on slotting fees:  “If you really want to see how these fees work, visit the chip aisle.”  So on my way out I visited the chip aisle—I’ll save what I learned for the next (and last) post on converting our diet to whole grains. 

If this post is helpful, would you please share it with your friends?  It’s a way to thank my wife for spending her Friday night in the bread aisle.

A Few Good Women

Here’s an observation: Though men mainly invent and manufacture (unhealthy) factory foods, women most often protect us from the consequences.  I keep a list of heroines of nutrition—women who challenged the established but erroneous beliefs of their day.  (There are a few good men on the list also.)  Although science is about the search for knowledge, reformers fighting for a new truth must endure the wrath of those invested in the old truth.  So it’s good to remember those who struggled to improve the world of nutrition—like May Yates (1850-1938).  To appreciate the story of this good woman, we need a bit of history:

In the 1870s a new process for making flour that used steel rollers instead of the traditional millstone was invented.  This new method also separated the bran and germ from the endosperm, making flour that was finer and cheaper.  (The lost bran and germ was fed to farm animals, lucky creatures.)  The new flour, pleasingly white and modern, quickly dominated the market—out with the old, in with the new.  This was a critical change because grains provide more of mankind’s daily energy than any other food group.

Food innovations often have unintended consequences and this was the case with the roller mill.  It took time to understand what had been thrown out with the bran and germ.  Vitamins had not yet been discovered, that was a generation off.  The function of the missing minerals was unknown.  And the importance of fiber and antioxidants was also a mystery.  By the time these things became known eating habits had changed and we, like the sheep who lost their way, were caught in history’s biggest food experiment:  “What happens to a civilization if the vital nutrients in grains are removed from the diet?” 

The harm was hard to measure as it happened before public health data was kept, and modern flour was only one of three food disasters:

•  Cheap sugar following the Civil War,

•  Refined white flour in the late 1800s, and

•  Trans fats in the early 1900s (via hydrogenated margarine and shortenings like Crisco)

Now back to our heroine.  May Yates was a society artist who lived in England after the consumption of refined flour was well established.  She took a vacation trip to Sicily, where people were still eating traditional whole grains.  Yates noted the robust physical condition of the Italians and contrasted this to the poor health of the English.  It was concluded that a primary cause of England’s declining health was the use of modern refined flour.  Yates was so moved by this tragedy that she returned home determined to return whole grains to the diet.  She devoted her life to this new cause, selling her jewelry to finance her crusade, and founding the Bread Reform League.  In 1909 the league successfully established ”standard bread”—made with 80% whole grains—as the norm in England.

Americans eat their weight (more or less) in grains each year, but 90% of the grains are not whole.  That’s a lot of lost nutrients—our goal is to reverse that ratio.  We started with breakfast cereal, this post is about bread, a future post will address the other grains in our diet. 

The other night we went through the bread aisle of the local grocery store, comparing the healthiness of a confusing number of breads.  We’ll report the findings in our next post.  In the kitchen we’ve been experimenting with bread recipes using whole grains—do you have one you like?  Also, please share your ideas for restoring whole grains to the American diet.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

The Skinny on Overweight

I’m moved by the genuineness of our readers.  A bit overweight?  Well, it’s right out there in your comments.  Summer is coming—school will be out in about 100 days and swimming suit season follows.  Thinking about dieting?  Forget it.  Diets are temporary and Word of Wisdom Living is about permanent, healthful change.  Fortunately, a healthy lifestyle usually leads to a healthy body.  I say usually because we’re all different, but eating right is the place to start.   

A heavy guilt trip has been put on the overweight and obese in our society.  This is counterproductive; it just doesn’t work, as evidenced by the continuing national weight gain.  So lets do something smarter.  The common wisdom says weight gain occurs because we eat too much and move too little—excess calories become excess fat.  So, shame on the overweight?  Maybe not.   

W of W Living suggests a different theory:

This theory removes self-starvation—but not a little self-discipline—from the cure for overweight.  The hunger impulse is too strong to ignore for long, so we need a better strategy.  Here’s a new plan, based on the sugar-insulin theory of weight control: Simply eat a reasonable amount of healthy food and you’re on your way to a good weight.  Real food is rich in nutrients and filling fiber, but low in calories.  And don’t forget to exercise, get plenty of sleep, enjoy a little sunshine, and deal with whatever stress is making you snack.

Lest you credit me with too much genius, I must acknowledge the sugar-insulin theory has been around for a while.  Unfortunately, society tends to solutions that place guilt rather than enlighten—so the worn-out “eat less, move more” mantra persists in the media.  We’ll deal more thoroughly with being overweight in a later post, but here are a couple of suggestions from the Word of Wisdom on eating:

1. Lower your blood sugar and insulin levels by avoiding factory food.  Factory food is high in refined carbs (the white stuff—sugar, flour, white rice, plus HFCS) that raise your blood sugar and insulin levels.  Insulin moves the excess blood sugar into our fat cells and keeps it there.  If you don’t significantly reduce the refined carbs in your diet your waistline will keep growing.

2. Farm food has a low glycemic index (G.I.)—a measure of its ability to spike your blood sugar level.  A diet with a low G.I. lowers your insulin level and results in smaller fat cells.  Smaller fat cells mean a smaller waistline.  So enjoy some fruit and nuts along with lots of vegetables, whole grains, legumes, with a little meat and dairy.

3. If you buy factory food you’ll eat it.  So avoid the center aisles in the grocery store that offer sugary drinks, cookies, candy, chips, and bakery goods.  (Ever noticed that the baked goods in stores don't even taste that good?  If you're really craving apple pie, make your own!)

4. Life is to be enjoyed, but get your guilty pleasures in the smallest possible dose.  I like See’s candy, but I follow Healthy Change #8.  If I see a store in the mall I get my favorite piece.  But we don’t bring boxes or bags of candy into the house.  Sad experience has taught that if it’s in the house it’ll get eaten.

5. Besides sugary drinks, avoid diet drinks too.  They’re less healthy than water for a number of reasons, but there is another problem:  Studies show that diet drinks DO NOT result in you eating less sugar.  In fact, they seem to reinforce the infantile desire for sugar so you get extra sugar in other forms (more to come on this topic).  Per Healthy Change #6, drink lots of water.

Lifestyle change works best if your friends join in, so pass the word.  And please share your weight loss experience by adding a comment, so we can learn together. 

Sugar: Love Gone Bad

Unless you live in a cave, you know about the diet-related surge in overweight and obesity in America.  What one thing has done the most damage to our diet?  After much pondering, my answer is “sugar”.  Better said, the problem is that sugar is the #1 additive in processed foods.  The experts don’t agree on how much sugar the average American is eating, but a good estimate is 30 teaspoons a day.  You don’t put that much sugar in your food?  You don’t have to; it’s already there.  A large bowl of ready-to-eat breakfast cereal, an 18 oz. soda and candy bar for snacks during the day, and a slice of cake after dinner adds up to 30 tsp of sugar.  And that’s just a fraction of what we eat in a day.  The foods in our diet are ever changing, but sugar is a constant.

My engineering career was in the medical device field.  During those years I gained an appreciation for the limits (and cost) of therapy for the chronic diseases.  I learned one big lesson:  Because these diseases generally aren’t curable, prevention is much better than treatment.  We were always looking for the next new application of technology for treatment.  I was fortunate to be part of a start-up company with a revolutionary treatment for brain aneurysms—for someone with a treatable aneurysm, this was a big deal.  If I were to invest in the next “big thing” today, I would put my money in companies working on diabetes.  

Although overweight and obesity are risk factors for diabertes, no one sets out to get diabetes—the diagnosis usually comes as a surprise.  Like high blood pressure, diabetes is a silent killer; a person is typically diabetic for seven years before the symptoms bring them to a doctor.  Some 24 million Americans are diabetic; six million don’t know they have the disease.  Most people have type 2 diabetes—mainly caused by too much sugar in the diet—which is usually preventable.  (Not so with Type 1, a tragic autoimmune disease typically diagnosed in childhood.) 

Our high sugar intake doesn’t just ruin our figure; it ruins our health.  Sugar is linked to a host of diseases besides diabetes, including atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, some cancers (including breast and prostate cancer), autoimmune diseases like arthritis and Parkinson’s disease, kidney disease, and so on.  I forgot to mention dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  And the meanest cut of all—accelerated aging. 

Later this week we’ll post a review of the best book about dietary sugar.  There’s also an upcoming post on Word of Wisdom Living as a protection against breast cancer.

Of the 52 Healthy Changes, five address the problem of too much sugar in our diet.   We previously addressed the problem of sugary drinks and candy-like breakfast cereals.  The next biggest source of sugar is candy.  Walk through your grocery store and observe the space dedicated to candy, including the treats conveniently located by the cash register.  Though this candy is sweet, have you noticed that much of it doesn’t even taste good?  We all enjoy an occasional treat; the goal of this change is focused on the word occasional:

This is a change you can live with.  Remember there isn’t a limit on the sugars in fruits and other natural foods, which come with a host of protective nutrients.  And if you’re baking a homemade chocolate cake, feel free to bring a piece by my house. 

There will be two more Healthy Changes about sugar; one will address diet drinks and how they actually cause us to eat more sugar.  The goal of these changes is to bring our intake below the American Heart Association recommendation of 6 teaspoons (25 grams) daily for women, and 9 tsp. (37 grams) for men.  Yes, the guys are allowed a little more; the rule is based on average body weight. 

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

beth's vegetarian enchiladas

We take no credit for this recipe; a good cook passed it along as her adaptation of a Martha Stewart Everyday Food recipe.  We liked it and added it to our recipe box.  The recipe makes enough for leftovers another night, unless your family is large.  When I cook I add half a can of pitted black olives around the enchiladas.  If you are short of ingredients, simply add finely diced bell pepper, zucchini, or whatever vegetable you have on hand, it all works.  Rolling the tortillas is neater if a helper can measure out the filling while you roll.  You can also use this as a “make ahead” recipe, by freezing the sauce and enchiladas separately.  With a simple spinach salad, this makes a dinner that is tasty, healthy, and economical.  If we had guests coming and there was time, I would make flan for dessert.

Ingredients:

Sauce: 

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp cumin, ground

¼ cup flour

¼ cup tomato paste

14.5 oz. vegetable broth

Salt and pepper        

Enchiladas:

3 cups (12 oz.) pepper-jack cheese, grated

12 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 carton (10 oz.) frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed

11 oz. can corn kernels, drained

6 green onions, thinly sliced

1 tsp cumin, ground

16 corn tortillas (6” size)

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil and add cumin, flour, and tomato paste.  Cook 1 minute, whisking. 

2. Whisk in broth and ¾ cup water.  Bring to boil and then simmer until slightly thickened (5-8 min.).  Salt and pepper, then set aside.

3. For filling, combine in a large bowl 2 cups cheese (saving 1 cup for topping), beans, thawed spinach, corn, half of green onions, cumin, plus salt and pepper.

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

5. Lightly oil a 9x13 baking dish.

6. Stack tortillas in a damp paper towel and warm 1 min. in microwave.

7. One-by-one, fill tortillas with about 1/3 cup filling, roll tightly, and arrange in baking dish, seam down.

8. Cover enchiladas with the sauce and top with remaining cheese.

9. Bake 15-20 minutes, until sauce is bubbly. 

10. Remove and let cool five minutes.  Top with remaining green onions and serve.

Enjoy.

Hate vegetables?

The nutritionist David Ludwig commented on our aversion to vegetables: “In my experience, hating vegetables is essentially an American trait.  I never saw anything close to it during my travels through Asia, Europe, and South America.”  It’s true, unless you count the American love for the unhealthiest vegetable concoction: French fries.  Hating what’s good, loving what’s bad—what gives?

In the vegetable wars we’ve each made our separate peace.  We listen to the food nannies carry on about five daily servings of vegetables and nod our heads in agreement.  Then we eat French fries.  (We eat less than two daily servings of vegetables, excluding French fries and ketchup.)  Is our vegetable avoidance due to lack of information?  Check this scientist’s summary:

One of the most remarkable surprises in nutrition studies in the last few years was the discovery of the remarkable dietary qualities possessed by the edible leaves of plants.  Among vegetable foods, only the leaf is rich in calcium, and is also rich in vitamins A, B and C, as well as fiber.

Recent news?  No, this is from a 1925 book, Food, Nutrition and Health!  So three generations have passed and little has changed—except more discoveries about the merits of vegetables, like their rich supply of the antioxidants that slow down aging.  Vegetables are the opposite of today’s highly processed foods—veggies are rich in nutrients, sparse in calories, and healthy. 

Vegetables come in colors and three colors are of special value.  They also come in botanical families; two are extra healthy—cruciferous and allium:

• Dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, broccoli, etc.) contain vitamins A, C, K, and folate.  Greens also contain minerals like magnesium, potassium, calcium, and iron, as well as lutein and fiber. 

• Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and kale) are potent cancer fighters, some studies suggest.

• Orange vegetables (sweet potato, carrots, banana squash, pumpkin, etc.) are rich in carotenoids. 

• Red vegetables (beets, red cabbage, red pepper, and tomato—borrowed from the fruit family) contain beneficial lycopenes, and anthrocyanins.

• Allium (garlic, onions, leeks, chives and shallots) family by tradition is prized for healthiness.  Alliums are high in flavonoids, polyphenolic compounds that stimulate the production of potent antioxidants.  Alliums help produce the “natural killer” cells that fight infection and cancer too.

Want to look better?  There’s an additional benefit to eating yellow, orange and red vegetables.  Scientists in Great Britain found a salutary improvement on skin color among people who ate the orange and red vegetables.  They had better skin color, looked healthier, and were judged even more attractive than those whose skin color came from suntan induced melanin.  Drop those French fries and grab a sweet potato, or some carrots, to get that healthy glow.

You Do the Math
If vegetables aren’t in the house, you can’t eat them.  So the key is to get them on your weekly menu and shopping list.  How much to buy?  Five daily servings for the average adult add up to about five pounds of vegetables a week.  Allow for waste and round off to six pounds.  Adjust this for children in the family on the basis of their weight and appetite and write down your weekly target.  When writing your menu, divide the pounds between the groups mentioned above.  Be sure to include the veggies your kids like.  As I child I didn’t like cooked carrots, but I did like my Mom’s carrot-raisin salad.  And I didn’t mind the cooked carrots in her tasty stews. 

Start where you are, but each week move one step closer to consuming five daily servings.  Be creative and make it fun.  (Later this week we’ll post a great recipe for vegetarian enchiladas.)  We’ll keep returning to vegetables in our Healthy Changes (four more).  By the end of the year your family will be cruising through their five daily servings and not even know it... and friends will be wondering about your skin’s healthy glow.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

To Your Health!

We passed the 10% milestone last week, by introducing the fifth of the fifty-two Healthy Changes for 2011.   If you’ve done all five, you should be feeling the benefits.  Each change addressed a serious lifestyle problem for Americans:

1. Sugar reduction: To beat the AHA ceiling for added sugars (25 grams or 6 tsp. daily for women, 37 grams or 9 tsp. for men), reduce sugary drinks to one (12 oz.) per week.  A future post will tell why this rule should also apply to diet drinks.

2. Trans fat elimination: To remove trans fats from the diet, stop buying all deep fat fried foods.

3. Whole grains:  To gain the health benefits of whole grains, only eat cereals a) made from whole grains and b) with more natural fiber than added sugar.

4. Vitamin D:  Reach optimum blood levels of vitamin D by including a little midday sunshine most days, weather permitting.  (People in the northern latitudes, intolerant of sunlight, or just worried about vitamin D should consult a doctor.)

5. Exercise:  For full health and fitness, get at least 30 minutes of exercise most days.  More is better, especially if you sweat.  Do it midday to top off your vitamin D.

Drinks are important—what you drink, because of the daily volume, can greatly affect your health.  Healthy Change #1 took away nearly all your sugary drinks (and it was suggested to apply the 1/week limit to diet sodas also).  So what can you drink? 

The short answer is “water”.  The experts say about eight cups a day, depending on size and activity.  I doubted I was drinking that much so I measured water into a pitcher and used it for 24 hours.  I was drinking less than I thought—I keep a glass of water handy now.  I drink it cold as tests show this improves metabolism and weight loss.  Drink two glasses before meals and you’ll improve weight loss by another 30%, according to one study.

Are you often tired?  Do you regularly need an energy boost?  One theory of why we’re all consuming so many sugary drinks and other addicting stimulants is that poor lifestyle habits leave us perpetually tired.  We eat foods high in sugar and that puts us on the sugar roller coaster—needing a sugar fix every couple hours.  Maybe we don’t get enough sleep so start the day tired.  Or perhaps we’re living with an overload of stress and never really relax.  There are other causes of tiredness, including chronic dehydration from insufficient water.  Fatigue is a common problem judging by the popularity of unhealthy energy drinks, or the more recent use of power shots.  If you frequently need a drink to pick you up, talk it over with your doctor.

Do you sometimes tire of water and just crave variety?  I do, about once a day. Here are some ideas that will help meet your fruit and vegetable goal:

• Homemade smoothies are great because you can put the whole fruit in along with the healthy ingredients you enjoy.  (I’ll share my recipe in a later post.)  You can even slip in some vegetables.  The green drinks are great for getting your veggies.

• Herbal teas are my wife’s preferred evening drink, especially when it’s cold out.

• Homemade fruit juices are best though easier if you have a juice extractor.  The store-bought juices are invariably processed from concentrates and often shipped 1000s of miles, so vitamin content suffers.

• Orange juice is refreshing, especially if you squeeze the oranges yourself.  Using oranges from Costco I can make a 6 oz. drink for $.58 (two oranges).  Store-bought O.J. costs about 50% more.  Grapefruit juice is good too; I dilute it with lots of ice.

• Lacking both an apple tree and a press, I buy my apple juice.  Everyone likes apple juice; it’s the cheapest fruit juice though the high level of natural sugars can be a problem for the diabetic.

• If you purchase drinks, look for the 100% berry juices rich in antioxidants, like blueberry, pomegranate, or cranberry.  A disadvantage is these drinks must be pasteurized for safety.  

• The 100% fruit juices can be extended by following the European custom of mixing them 50/50 with sparkling water, or use tap water with ice.

Oh, I forgot milk.  I like milk, though I don’t care for the way it’s produced or processed.  We’ll come back to milk in a future post.

Please comment with your own favorite drinks and we’ll share them in a follow-up post.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.