Good Food!

On the busiest, most stressful days, when I most need good nutrition, I’m more likely to eat something quick – like a pre-made Trader Joe’s Indian dinner or some other pre-packaged meal.  This Christmas brought me a Slow Cooker which allows me to eat whole, unprocessed food with very little prep time even on a busy day.  I add ingredients to the Slow Cooker in the morning while my tea water is boiling, hit “Go” and 8-10 hours later I have something delicious to eat that is completely made out of fresh ingredients.

Whole foods, by the way, is my favorite subject and I am very, very into it for good reasons.  I feel dramatically better when I eat unprocessed organic food and since I switched to this diet my health has improved radically.  In fact, I first started with the diet when I was very sick – and what the doctors could not do with their prednisone and other wacky chemical cures – my diet did for me.  I have been very healthy and mostly happy since I started migrating towards this diet years ago.

My friend and hair cutter, Liz Gingerich, calls this food “real food” and describes it as “Nothing from a jar, box, or wrapper!”   That means eating food left in the same state that it arrived on the Earth from the diety or scientific power of your choice (however you explain the miracle that is food!).  Foods that have been flash frozen, pre-cooked or have additives, preservatives, stabilizers etc. are not eaten.  Those processing methods and additives may make the food last longer or speed up preparation but they also take away alot from the inherent wisdom of untouched foods nutritional patterns.  I can’t recommend this diet highly enough whether you are vegetarian or not, especially if you don’t feel that great – tired, sick, depressed etc.

Back to Slow Cookers: slow cooking can help those most likely to eat fast junk food – the busy and stressed – to eat healthy, good tasting food without having to spend time they don’t have preparing it.  As an added benefit the slow, low heat cooking of a Slow Cooker helps food retain it’s naturally healthful profile which can be damaged by high heat.   I’m happy with my Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker.

The only thing that I wasn’t crazy about – was all the recipes provided were for meat – not interesting for me being a vegetarian.  This is not a terribly big deal since any recipe that has a somewhat liquid base should work.  I’ve made Cuban Black Beans, Corn Chowder and other soups using my standard recipes.

I also just got the cookbook “Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker” by Robin Robertson.  I’m trying my first recipe right now and some very tantalizing smells are coming from the kitchen so it looks promising.

This is a super low calorie dessert – and while it might not be Tiramisu – it is a lovely sweet treat you can eat while remaining faithfully on your diet!

Summary: Low Calorie but delicious dessert

Most people think of salt as simply salt but the table salt you buy at the store is heavily refined.  Refined table salt is of chemical, inorganic origin and has gunk in it -  the base is chemical sodium chloride and added to it are anti-caking chemicals, inorganic potassium iodide, and sugar (dextrose).

“Modern salt reminds one of the state of such other highly processed substances as refined white sugar and the white breads, pastas and pastries.  Unfortunately relatively few people are informed about the denaturing of real salt.”

Paul Pitchford – Healings with Whole Foods

So what’s real salt?  Whole natural sea salt, also called solar salt, is just evaporated sea water….brine of the sea that has been dried by the sun.  Nothing’s been added and nothing’s been taken out.

Often it is lightly colored due to the geology of the area where the salt is farmed.  Hence, Celtic Salt is slightly grey from the clay in the area where it is collected on the coast of France.  Himalayan Pink Salt is harvested from ancient beds with sea salt deposits in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains.  The slight pink color is due to the presence of iron.

Paul Pitchford, a respected teacher of Chinese medicine, believes people often crave salt and take in excessive amounts of it because they want the trace minerals found in real salt.  Refined, processed table salt doesn’t contain those minerals so the craving goes unsatisfied leading the person to take more and more salt.

I switched to Celtic Salt several years ago and I find myself using far less salt and enjoying food more than I did with regular table salt.  Every geographical area creates a salt that tastes a bit different than the others so it’s good to buy small amounts in bulk if you can and find out which sea salt you like.  Even Celtic Grey Salts vary from one brand to another.

There are intriguing salts I have yet to try:  Portuguese “Salt Cream” Sea Salt and Hawaiian Black Lava Red Alea Clay Sea Salts…I’m sure there are many others.

I just bought some Pink Himalayan Salt at Trader Joes for just $1.99 and it is very nice!  I also recently bought some black salt or Kala Namak at the local international grocers.  If you’re  like me, once you start tasting these salts and adding them to your diet, this once boring condiment will become very interesting.   Even simple foods come alive by adding a dash of real sea salt containing naturally occurring minerals.  Salt craving also diminishes significantly with use of real salt. Most Westerners are said to take in far too much salt – six times more than the current guidelines for daily salt consumption, which can lead to a series of health ailments.

Naturally mineralized salts are a great way to add zest to all kinds of food and to cut down on salt intake.