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    This mostly-raw blueberry pie is a snap to make and very versatile--the filling microwaves in a few minutes, and you don't even have to bake the zippy gingered graham cracker crust--perfect for a hot Fourth of July and all summer long.

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  • SlowFoodFast sometimes addresses general public health topics related to nutrition, heart disease, blood pressure, and diabetes. Because this is a blog with a personal point of view, my health and food politics entries often include my opinions on the trends I see, and I try to be as blatant as possible about that. None of these articles should be construed as specific medical advice for an individual case. I do try to keep to findings from well-vetted research sources and large, well-controlled studies, and I try not to sensationalize the science (though if they actually come up with a real cure for Type I diabetes in the next couple of years, I'm gonna be dancing in the streets with a hat that would put Carmen Miranda to shame. Consider yourself warned).

Taking on “Recipes for Health”

Posted on May 2, 2009 by DebbieN

Martha Rose Shulman’s “Recipes for Health” column in the New York Times typically offers quick stir-fry vegetarian fare that anyone can do at home. Shulman is a good and popular cookbook author, and I give her credit for her intentions. But the column reveals some serious flaws in her understanding when it comes to the actual healthiness of the recipes.

First, the recipes never include standard nutritional breakdowns. I wouldn’t expect that for glamor food magazines, but any major newspaper or magazine claiming “healthy” recipes should declare the nutrition stats per serving so people can gauge calories, fats, carbs, fiber, and especially, because we’re not used to thinking consciously about it these days, salt.

And salt is where Shulman’s recipes go seriously wrong. Time after time, they contain surprisingly and unnecessarily high salt per serving. Where does it come from? Take this week’s recipe, “Stir-Fried Snow Peas with Soba”. It’s basically Japanese whole-wheat noodles (soba) with snow peas and tofu in a peanut sauce, and serves four. Seems simple enough, but the ingredients Shulman chooses are hiding an awful lot of extra salt:

* You expect the soy sauce to contain salt. OK. It’s only a tablespoon. But it isn’t the reduced-sodium version–and why isn’t it?–so figure  1200 mg.
* Half a cup of vegetable or other broth–also not specified low-sodium. Figure 250-500 mg sodium; maybe even more.
* Salt “to taste”–TV chefs tend to sprinkle in a pinch or more. Figure 1/8-1/4 teaspoon, 300-600 mg, if you imitate them.
* Peanut butter. Not specified unsalted. Figure 1 tablespoon is 100 mg.
* And then there’s the soba itself. Ordinary Italian-style whole wheat spaghetti or fettucine has almost no sodium in it, just flour and water, but authentic Japanese soba dough contains quite a bit, 250 mg or so per serving. Times four is about 1000 mg.

Grand total for 4 servings: 2300-2800 mg, or 600-700 mg sodium per serving.

If that’s your whole dinner, ok, but most of that sodium could easily be cut without sacrificing taste. Plus, two ounces of snow peas per person isn’t enough to call it vegetabalia and get away with it in my book. You’ll notice that the glossy photo in Shulman’s article shows a generous two snow pea pods, a few slices of radish, and none of the promised cubes of tofu–her version’s a side dish, not a proper meal. Let’s revise this one.

Continue reading →

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High-speed soup–tomato vegetable

Posted on June 7, 2008 by DebbieN

This is something I came up with about 10 years ago. It’s disgustingly easy to make, dirt cheap, vibrant in flavor, filling, entirely real, salt-free, and completely microwaveable. Also diet-smart: eating this every day for lunch, along with a veggie burger or a half-cup of beans for protein, helped me lose 20 pounds in a couple of months. And I’m not naturally good at that.

This vegetable soup has no salt, but it has lots of flavor and lots of vegetables–not a coincidence. The flavor of the vegetables melds with the dill and pepper and garlic, and there’s no salt to drown it out. So instead of being insipid, it, like many homemade soups, gets better the next day. And it takes maybe 15 minutes from start to finish for about 2 quarts of soup, fully cooked.

The trick to getting the most flavor from the vegetables without salt? Wilt the “aromatics” (onion, celery, and carrots) together first, with a little olive oil and nothing else for a few minutes, and then add the liquids and herbs. The order really makes a difference: your aromatics will release a lot more flavor this way than if you added them raw to the liquid ingredients and cooked it all together from the start (see, sometimes the French are right). The small amount of olive oil also helps draw out and trap the flavors (some flavors are fat-soluble) without adding a lot of calories.

High-speed Tomato Vegetable Soup

  • 3 big carrots, peeled and chopped bite-size
  • 3 stalks celery in bite-size pieces
  • 1 big onion, diced
  • drizzle (1-2 T) olive oil
  • 1 28-oz can or 2 15-oz cans salt-free tomatoes in their own juice (e.g., Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods)
  • 1 big clove garlic, grated or minced
  • 2-3 T fresh chopped dill or 1 T dried dill
  • 12 or so whole black peppercorns

1. In 2.5 qt pyrex bowl (or the like), mix onions, carrots, and celery. Drizzle olive oil over and stir lightly to mix. Put the lid over (I use a Corelle dinner plate, how chic) and microwave 5 min. on HIGH.
2. Pour the tomatoes and juice over the wilted vegetables, and break up the tomatoes to bite-size pieces as best possible. Add water to within an inch of the top, stir.
3. Add garlic, dill, and peppercorns, cover and microwave 5 min. to heat through.
4. Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight to meld and sweeten the flavors.

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