Tuesday, October 30, 2012

In the Mood of the Season


This picture was taken in the Yummy House – a small Asian place at 1725 Haggerty Rd, Commerce Township, MI 48390. It came as a little pleasant surprise to us and our friends.

The food tasted as good as it looks, if not better. The nicest thing about it was freshness of everything we tried and a really light feeling in our stomachs after the meal. Please notice that their pickled ginger (bottom right) is not dyed artificial red as it is done practically everywhere else. And of course, presentation! It seems that being recently open their owners make a real effort to offer good-quality Asian food for a moderate price. We just hope they stay this way in spite of all the challenges of the business. They are really small: 3 booths, one larger table and a bar.

And here is another picture taken recently by our friend Marina Holkin http://www.facebook.com/yacht.delma#. I think it is very much in the mood of the season.
Organic Apple Cider to celebrate the season
 
Enjoy!

Monday, October 1, 2012

Almost Raw Pumpkin

Currently we have 2 old friends all the way from Russia visiting with us. It just happened that they are also into vegetarian and organic food. So here is the pumpkin recipe that we half-checked on the Internet and half-improvised.

We bought 4 small pie pumpkins, because they are the cutest of them all. We cut them around the stem to make lids and scraped out all the seeds from inside to make 4 little edible pots. We actually scraped some more flesh from inside to make the walls thinner. Whatever pumpkin flesh we got, was cut in smaller pieces and started our stuffing.

I think that stuffing can be made of all sorts of things (vegetables, grain, even meat). Ours included cabbage thinly sliced (arpx. 1/4 of a small head), 1 sweet pepper, 3 celery stalks, 1 large yellow onion, a cup of frozen corn, 2-3 table spoons of olive oil, 4-5 generous drops of apple cider vinegar, allspice, salt, pepper and whatever other spice you like. Our choice was a Mediterranean mix that included cumin. Oh, and we put some fennel seeds as well.

We then stirred the stuffing with our bare hands (a habit that I quite forgot lately) and then stuffed our orange jolly pots by pressing the stuffing in as hard as we could. A little-bit of stuffing that was left we just ate as it was. This gives me the right to say that it can be eaten raw. It seems that all the range of cooking fits this recipe and depends entirely on your taste and convictions.

We baked our pumpkins with lids on at 450 F (just keep in mind that my stove is old and might not heat too well). It was ready in 45 min, or we just were too curious to let it stay in the oven for more.
This is the result

It tasted great - hot, though stuffing was still crunchy. I tried it with goat yogurt and chopped dill, my friends preferred sour cream instead. I think preparation time is about 30 min. If you like to make a use of the seeds, you will need additional time to rinse them and spread on a paper towel to dry.
From our husbands we've received rave reviews.
 
And I wish all my friends to have a wonderful season!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Synthetic Vs. Real


In the Experience Life magazine I leisurely browsed through a discussion on advantages of vegan and paleo diets (Paleo Vs. Vegan). Frankly, both diets seem a bit extreme to me. When you live long enough you eventually see many fads disappoint and their enthusiasts impacted in regretful way. 
However one remark caught my attention. It was by Mark Hyman, MD, a family physician, the author of four New York Times bestsellers, and chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine,
‘I think the Paleo argument of no grains is interesting and has some merit. If you go with traditional grains, such as buckwheat, quinoa and millet, which have been around for 10,000 years, you’re better off. But gluten-containing refined grains, and modern dwarf wheat full of super-starch and super-gluten, can be problematic.’
Mentioning of dwarf wheat and its properties struck me in correlation with gluten-intolerance epidemic that I hear about all too often lately. My parents (and grandparents) had no such concept. There is another new and mysterious diagnosis out there – the Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). This one becomes popular in cases when a digestion problem is not exactly understood.
Though we are fairly informed on the controversy of genetically modified (GM) grain, no one seems connecting the dots:
We are sensitive (allergic, intolerant…) not to wheat per se, but to its genetic mutants that bring havoc into our bodies.
I say ‘we’ because stats indicate 30% of gluten-related diagnoses, and they are on the rise; also because, we still recognize very few effects of GM foods besides the most immediate.
Meanwhile mainstream media is comfortably dwelling on the absence of clear evidence against GM grains – i.e., they are safe.
‘A scientist examines a GM crop’ (this is the original comment from a pro-GM article)

My first afterthought was: well, I try to protect my family by buying mostly organic wheat products. How safe are we?



To assess the level of our vulnerability, I started researching the issue and here are my findings:
First of all the impact of mutated wheat is not limited to compromised digestion. As Dr. Mark Hyman said in ‘Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat’:
…The first major difference of this dwarf wheat is that it contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A…
… We know that foods with a high glycemic index make people store belly fat, trigger hidden fires of inflammation in the body, and give you a fatty liver leading the whole cascade of obesity, pre-diabetes and diabetes.
…Not only does this dwarf, FrankenWheat, contain the super starch, but it also contains super gluten which is much more likely to create inflammation in the body…
… wheat products, not just gluten (along with sugar in all its forms) is the major contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and so many other modern ills.
http://drhyman.com/blog/2012/02/13/three-hidden-ways-wheat-makes-you-fat/

And did you know that GM wheat already ousted the real one IN MOST PARTS OF THE WORLD?
Frankly, I didn’t.
For the vast expansion of GM wheat we have to thank, in particular, Norman Ernest Borlaug, an American agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate.
Borlaug received his Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties. Borlaug led the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India.
As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India.  Later in his life, he helped apply these methods of increasing food production to Asia and Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
The scientist had great intentions to feed the starving world. It worked short-term but also contaminated farming lands making them barren; destroyed traditional agricultural communities and made people sick. 
As a result the old-fashioned –i.e. real wheat became an exotic rarity. And therefore today, many nutritionists recommend to exclude gluten-containing products altogether without even explaining to their patients  that the problem is not with the food staple but with its industrial imposter. 
This simplification agrees perfectly with GM seed producers: they are not afraid to lose customers because not too many people are capable of rejecting wheat entirely.
I looked through several discussions on going gluten-free. Among a steam of enthusiastic confessions I noticed quite a few laments on difficulty adjusting to such a diet. The reasons are objective:
The modern dwarf mutant variant of Triticum aestivum (that our USDA urges us to eat more of) contains greater proportions of gluten proteins compared to wheat pre-1970.
Glutens are the source of wheat-derived exorphins. Beyond removing an exceptionally digestible carbohydrate that yields blood sugar rises higher than nearly any other known food (due to the unique amylopectin structure of wheat-derived carbohydrate), wheat withdrawal is a form of opiate withdrawal, somewhat like stopping heroin, Oxycontin, and other opiates. Stop eating whole wheat toast for breakfast, whole grain sandwiches for lunch, or whole grain pasta for dinner, and the flow of exorphins, i.e., exogenous morphine-like compounds, stops. You experience dysphoria (sadness, unhappiness), mental "fog," inability to concentrate, fatigue, and decreased capacity to exercise.
Heroin, Oxycontin, and a whole wheat bagelBy Dr. William Davis:
http://www.medpedia.com/news_analysis/68-The-Heart-Scan-Blog/entries/62642-Heroin-Oxycontin-and-a-whole-wheat-bagel
So, mutant wheat makes us specifically addictive to it, which justifies the title of the above article 100%. 
The information regarding genetic status of organic wheat that is now available on the market is quite confusing as well. Some experts say that often wheat is called organic, but it is the same mutant (because old-fashioned grain is hard to find), just grown without pesticides.
The only reassurance I found on the following site:
http://www.worc.org/userfiles/OrganicWheatProduction8-04.pdf 
They say:
In order to advertise their crops as (USDA) certified organic, farmers must show that their crops are free of chemicals and genetically modified material.
My relief was unfortunately short-lived, because they also say:
Complete segregation of GM crops from conventional and organic crops cannot be guaranteed, so the introduction of a new GM crop could contaminate the organic food supply.
So, here we are:
  •     Organic farmers straggle to give us wholesome food
  •     Industrial giants make it difficult in ways more than one. Even if you plant organic, your crop can be contaminated by neighboring  ‘conventional’ fields.
The entire situation reminds me of science fiction stories I read in my youth (Ray Bradbury? Isaac Asimov?) : An elite group of world rulers have captured all the real food and keep it away from the rest of the population. These less fortunate are fed artificially created synthetic products. To avoid unrest the rulers convince people that synthetic food was totally superior to the dirty, rotting and stinking natural produce.
By the way, Norman Borlaug’s contribution to the world food supply was called ‘Green Revolution’.
I wish it was fiction.






Monday, April 2, 2012

Finding information you can trust




To make a good health-related decision nowadays one needs thorough and extensive research. But with modern unprecedented access to information the issue of its reliability becomes critical. Plainly speaking it is not easy to find information you can really trust.




Traditional criteria, like 'provided by reputable government agency or academic institution' do not guarantee you an honest answer to your question.

As it was already mentioned regarding sun block, some government agencies prefer to vocalize 'legally safe' opinions - i.e., the most conservative and mainstream-science-approved. These opinions may be ineffective or simply wrong - it doesn't matter. What matters is that no one can accuse an organization or individual for promoting them. 

In couple of years these highly regarded agencies and institutions might change their recommendations, but we must keep in mind that nobody ever said 'O-ops, sorry!' to people who already took another controversial pill.  

The referrals to a 'scientific study' also do not guarantee you truth, because depending on financial backing of the study, its interpretations may be more favorable to a certain drug producer.

And then there are honest mistakes, simplistic approaches and unwarranted conclusions...  

We also tend to trust general statements like 'scientifically proven' or 'FDA approved'. Unfortunately, the first can be groundless while the second - only relevant to immediate side-effects.

And one must always be very careful with a statement made by people intending to sell you something.  

I usually do my research in circles, refining key words in the process and providing comparative analysis to selected pieces of information. I also try to evaluate possible motives of their authors. Eventually this helps me to formulate the working assumption, and then I am looking for evidence proving or refuting it.  

My professional skills and knowledge in the areas of patent analysis and Anticipatory Failure Determination [1] come handy here by providing variety of tools for the purpose of revealing underlying root-causes and motives. But for those who are not familiar with any of these I would rather recommend listening to their gut feeling and common sense than mindlessly following any 'professional' advice.

In this free, abundant and challenging modern world no stranger is responsible for our well-being and pursuit of happiness.  










[1] Anticipatory Failure Determination approach (AFD) – the methodology of revealing root-causes and predicting potential negative events. AFD is the part of the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ).