Health

The belief I’m about to argue — that eating meat is ethical — has been, for me, 25 years in the making. For much of this time, paradoxically, I was a vegetarian because I thought eating animals was morally reprehensible.

What a self-righteous twit I was.

At my in-laws’ traditional Thanksgiving dinner, I recited graphic details about industrially raised turkey. (Do you know what debeaking is?) At the counter in a fast-food restaurant, I’d loudly order a cheeseburger with no meat. (I want a bun, cheese, pickles, lettuce and onions…but no meat!) At a neighborhood pig roast, I asked the host if he had ever read Charlotte’s Web. (You would never be able to eat pork if you had.)

This is part 2 of a piece of work about all things sprouting. Part 1 takes you through the basics of what you can sprout and how to sprout it. There are also guidelines for specific sprouts. Finally, Part 1 is also where you will find a list of sprouting resources and literature. Part 2 focuses on how to eat and cook with sprouts as well as many of the nutritional benefits of them.

How to Eat Sprouts

Feeling overindulgent after a season of weddings, BBQs and backyard parties last summer, I started working on my wife, trying to convince her to join me in cleansing through the month of October. I have cleansed with varying levels of success over the past decade, always learning something new about myself and my relationship with my food. After much cajoling she agreed and we harangued a few more friends into doing it with us – strength in numbers, you know?! Our plan was to eliminate animal products, caffeine, alcohol, processed foods, gluten-containing grains, sugar…all the good stuff. The goal was to get really simple and find the “reset” button on our eating habits. 

Spring is springing in northern lands. People are planting gardens and sauntering in sunny fields. Winter was filled with frozen and canned foods; robust root vegetables; and perhaps some wilted greens from faraway lands. We are hungry for fresh foods. If you are lucky, you may possess a garden stocked with asparagus, rhubarb, and other spring perennials. Or perhaps you are fortunate enough to live near a source of ramps, fiddlehead ferns, stinging nettles, or dandelions. Dandelions are much maligned but they offer a myriad of nutritional benefits. Even if you live in a high-rise apartment building with houseplants as your only companions from the kingdom Plantae, you can still grow great food.  

Recently, I had lunch out with a friend and in the course of our conversation I mentioned that I was trying a new recipe that week: quinoa-potato croquettes (from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone). “That sounds good,” my friend said. “Will you have that with some baked chicken or something?” No, I explained, it was one of our meatless meals. “But it’s not Monday,” my friend pointed out. 

I explained that Meatless Mondays don’t usually work for us – Monday is slow cooker day, due to work and school schedules. However, we try to have at least two or three meatless meals a week; just not on set days. 

This is part-three in a three-part series about fermentation. Part-one contains information related to the nutritional value of fermented foods. It also touches upon the role that fermentation might play in personal, societal, and ecological renewal. It concludes with recipes for fermented vegetables. Part-two deals with dairy products and their non-dairy counterparts. This section is devoted to fermented grain products.

"Wow, that pink blob is moving. You are not going to eat it, are you?" I glanced at the dosa batter which was bright pink because it contained red lentils. It was creeping dangerously close to the top of the container. "Oh yes," I replied. 

Vegetarian. Gluten Free. Heart Healthy. Often overlooked as an inexpensive source of protein and fiber, pulses can play an important part in your daily menu. Not familiar with the term? You may recognize them under their more common names: peas, lentils and chickpeas. Pulses are from the family Leguminosae, or legumes, which gets its name from the characteristic pod that protects the seed while it is forming. These tiny nuggets of nutrition have been grown around the world for thousands of years. There is even a non-profit organization, the Northern Pulse Growers Association, based in North Dakota and dedicated to the promotion and awareness of their nutritional benefits. Who knew? 

Perusing the array of exotic vegetables available at farmers’ markets and Asian groceries is a bit like meeting distant relatives at a family gathering – they look vaguely familiar, but you don’t know their names and aren’t quite sure if you’ll get along. With proper introductions, however, you just might end up bringing them home for dinner.

While Asian products like oyster sauce and rice noodles have become as familiar to non-Asian shoppers as tomato sauce and pasta, others such as the vegetables in the produce section are still a mystery. Leafy greens, for instance, are common in Far Eastern cookery, but the typical varieties differ from those found in Western cuisines and leave even the most adventurous cooks occasionally wondering how they are used.  

If you’re left limp by iceberg lettuce but still baffled by bok choy, let this quick market guide help you get acquainted with some tasty Asian greens:

This is part-two in a three-part series about fermentation. Part-one contains information related to the nutritional value of fermented foods. It also touches upon the role that fermentation might play in personal, societal, and ecological renewal. It concludes with recipes for fermented vegetables. This section deals with dairy products and their non-dairy counterparts. Part-three will be devoted to fermented grain products.

This is the second post in the series “Great Grains” highlighting unusual whole grains and easy ways to incorporate them into your diet. The first post in the series, “The Beat on Bulgur” can be found here. 

Struggling to decide what’s for dinner? How about a stop in the bird seed aisle on the way home? Tonight, millet is on the menu. 

What is millet?