The Doctor Cooks

Spicy Thai Lettuce Wraps

We ate our way through New York City this past weekend.  On our way to the airport, we stopped at Pure Juice and Take Away, the take out version of our favorite raw food restaurant, Pure Food and Wine.  These lettuce wraps were simply amazing and easy to prepare--chop, whrrrr and roll! 

Here are a few notes on the recipe.  Nama Shoyu is a raw soy sauce.  Unless you are a committed raw foodist, plain shoyu or tamari will do the trick.  I didn't care for the tamarind sauce these were served with.  They were great dipped in shoyu.

The Balanced Plate: Nutritional Cross-Training

The Balanced Plate is a new cookbook from Renée Loux, raw foods chef and green living consultant in Maui. Her mouth-watering recipes draw from three traditions, Ayurveda, macrobiotics and the raw food movement, to provide the best flavors and healing properties of each. Read more about her approach to "nutritional cross-training".

Eating Healthy from Ground Zero

The upside of having a spouse who travels to make his living is meeting him for a weekend of fun in a really cool place.  This weekend we will be eating our way through the Big Apple.  We plan to go back to Pure Food and Wine, the raw food restaurant I wrote about in the April 2007 issue of the Kansas City Wellness Magazine.  Please enjoy my account of that visit and I'll have more to share when I return!

New York City is a food lover’s paradise, and lower Manhattan is a health food lover’s paradise!  My husband and I experienced raw food for the first time in February at Pure Food and Wine.  For those who don’t keep up on food trends, this isn’t Cole slaw.  Neither the ingredients nor the food is heated beyond 115 degrees Fahrenheit.  The food was beautiful, immensely flavorful and left us feeling energized despite the wind chill in the teens.  It also left me inspired.  I purchased the restaurant’s cookbook, Raw Food, Real World, to see how it was done.

USDA, Dairy Industry End Weight Loss Ads

Thousands of Americans were duped into thinking that dairy product consumption is associated with weight loss by a slick multimillion-dollar advertising campaign. However, in response to a petition filed by PCRM with the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the dairy industry agreed to halt this deceptive advertising. Read more >>

Dr. Klug notes:  This was a sham study from the get go. The participants ate larger amounts of dairy prior to the study than during the study.  They lost weight because the ate fewer calories, less saturated fat and less sugar (from lactose) than before the study.

Taste a Real Radish

The sound of air conditioners humming means it's officially hot outside. I'm turning to food that requires little or no cooking, using the seasonal produce available from my CSA and my local organic market.  A fellow CSA member tells me her family enjoys this no-cook recipe for radish tartines.  Her husband says of CSA radishes,"I had been years since I tasted a real radish," confirming my suspicion that Americans avoid vegetables because they have no taste.  Her boys look forward to vegetables from our CSA in the spring.  What a legacy to leave to her children!  So what are you waiting for?  Taste a real radish!  Join a CSA or shop at your local organic market.

Chef Michael Turner from the Classic Cup Cafe, demonstrated this recipe for radish tartines a few years ago at our organic market.  He serves it on buttered French bread.  We just eat it as a side salad.  I’ve also used other herbs besides parsley and mint with yummy results. 

Study Finds Soy Nuts Lower Blood Pressure

Soy nuts may reduce blood pressure in postmenopausal women, a small study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine concludes.

The randomized crossover study included 60 women. It investigated the effects of including unsalted soy nuts containing 25 g of soy protein in the National Cholesterol Education Program's Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes diet.

Compared with a diet without the nuts, adding soy nuts lowered systolic BP 9.9% and diastolic BP 6.8% in hypertensive women. The decline was a more modest 5.2% systolic and 2.9% diastolic in normotensive women.

The diet with nuts also lowered LDL 11% and apolipoprotein B 8% in hypertensive women but had no effect on these measures in normotensive women.

The authors said dietary soy "may be a practical, safe and inexpensive modality to reduce BP." They characterize the effects as being "comparable with those seen with antihypertensive drugs."

Dr. Klug notes that other beans likely have this effect too.  Conclusion:  Eat more beans and a variety of them!

The Three Awarenesses of Food Revisited

Many of you were moved by the Three Awarenesses of Food, published last September in my Kansas City Wellness Magazine column Meat is Not the Question.  I appreciate the positive feedback.  I did however receive some criticism from readers concerned about animal rights, disputing my statement about the dilemma of humanity:  we must consume the earth's beings to live.

The article reflects as much my own process as it does an invitation for readers to engage their own.  In the article I say, “Our lives depend on all the other beings on this planet, animals, plants and minerals.”  Many people think of animate beings as divine.  It’s a big shift to think of a grain of wheat as divine and even more so to think of limestone as such. 

Kansas City Urban Farm Showcase--Don't Miss It!

The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture is showcasing some of the amazing urban farms that are popping up all over the KC metro area.  Their Second Biennial Urban Farms Tour takes place Sunday, June 24, from noon to 5. Eleven unique farms all over the metro area will be featured, along with great music, kids’ activities, cooking demonstrations, and plenty of fresh produce!

From Lew Edmister’s art-filled farm on the Westside; to Ericka Wright’s Troostwood Gardens in midtown Kansas City, where neighborhood youth are growing food and learning valuable work skills; to Paul Huns’ KCK farm that specializes in Asian vegetables and herbs with medicinal benefits; to Bev Pender’s seven lots of vegetables and fruit in KCK; these farms and seven others reflect the unique vision and specialties of each farmer.

Tickets are $5 per person or $12 for families and may be purchased at the Farmers’ Community Market at Brookside, the 39th Street, City Market, Minor Park or KCK farmers markets or at the tour the day of. For more information and a description of the farms, see www.kccua.org or call 913-831-2444.

Vegetarian Chili Keeps the Moss Away

It’s been raining almost daily for a few weeks now, typical for late spring in Kansas City.  Last Saturday morning the moisture was hanging thick in the air.  An antidote was needed before moss started growing behind our ears.  Chili, yes, chili would keep us dry.  Here’s what I whipped up.  Back in the 1980’s, I often made a terrific chicken chili from the Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook by Rosso and Lukins.   Inspired by Mexican mole sauce, they added cinnamon and chocolate to it.  Here’s my vegetarian version.  We served it with steamed kale from our CSA bag and corn tortillas.  Yum!  Stay dry and enjoy!