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Burdock

July 12, 2010 in Medicinal, Personal Health by bursty | 1 comment

burdock

The first time I’d ever heard of burdock was in the Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics - which introduced me to the root.  To be honest, I think since then we’ve only had burdock a few times in various dishes - but I do like it - it’s got a sweet flavor, kind of like a parsnip.  Well, I’ve since been getting more into natural healing, and have been learning the AMAZING benefits of this plant, which is found nearly ANYWHERE throughout Europe, Asia, and North America.  The WHOLE PLANT is medicinal, not just the root!

Burdock root itself is very high in chromium, iron, magnesium, silicon, thiamine, and inulin.  It’s also high in cobalt, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, tin, zinc, carotenes / vitamin A, protein, fiber and mucilage.  It also supplies calcium!  Medicinally, burdock root is good for clearing the skin (using applications of root oil or freshly grated roots) and pulling fluid from swollen joints (try baths and soaks of burdock root infusion). 

It’s also amazing for the digestive track — it nourishes the mucus surfaces of the intestines, absorbs chemical residues and metabolic break-down byprodcts (as well as metal contaminants) and binds them to escort them out of the large intestine!  So, try the infusion or tincture when fasting to maintain intestinal peristalis and prevent ketosis / acidic overload in the blood.  When you’re not fasting, use fresh burdock root as a cooked vegetable or as a fresh tincture.

Burdock root is also a good friend of your lymphatic system, energizing and organizing it - it works with your kidneys, liver and sweat glands to help clean the blood and strengthen the immunen system.  According to Susan Weed (author of Healing Wise), Native women in the Cherokee and Meskawaki nations used burdock root to strengthen their wombs before and after birth, to give stamina in birth, and to nourish their ability to be stable yet still flexible and available to birthing energy.  In addition, burdock can efficiently and effectively lower blood sugar levels in diabetics!

Beyond the root, the seeds are full of medicinal properties, especially for the kidneys and urinary system.  The leaves are also great for healing wounds!  I think sometime in the near future I’m going on a Weed Walk, as described by Ms. Weed in Healing Wise.  I’ll, of course, report my journey here!  Happy healing :)

earth balance, and peach pie

June 28, 2010 in Recipes, Reviews by bursty | 2 comments

earth_balance

Generally I’m not a big fan of the vegan substitutes for various products.  I typically just use applesauce and a little olive oil, for example, rather than a vegan-substitute-for-butter type of thing.  But lately I’ve been trying out the various earth balance products in my baking.  And, just for full disclosure - I haven’t received any earth balance products from them.  I’ve been buying them at the co-op in all of their rather-high-priced glory.

Thought I’d share my results thus far, and ask you what YOU usually use for baking in the vegan style…  I like the sticks of earth balance vegan butter for cookies.  I made a variation on this new york times chocolate chip cookie recipe, vegan style - using earth balance, and they were AMAZING.  I’ll post the recipe after it’s been perfected.  Because, you see - I tried them again using the earth balance shortening stick, and they were a total flop.  All puddles of cookie dough, scorching on my cookie sheet.  Plus they didn’t taste good.  Recipe needs some tweaking.  (This is what coming up with recipes is all about though, right!?  They can’t all turn out perfect). 

The earth balance shortening for PIE CRUSTS, however - is a whole different story.  Made a vegan peach pie last night that is TO-DIE-FOR, using earth balance shortening for the crust, and it’s fantastic.  Here’s the recipe (makes one crust, top and bottom, of one standard pie):

  • 1/2 cup earth balance vegan shortening
  • 1 1/4 cup spelt flour
  • 1/4 cup luke warm water
  • 1 t. salt

Cut the shortening into the flour, then add water and salt - mix it with your hands until it forms a good dough - then break it in half and roll into two pie-size circles…  Fill with your choice of fruit!  I used peaches (about 7 small peaches, sliced, mixed with about 1 T. of cornstarch and 1 T. of spelt flour, with honey to taste).  Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for another 50 minutes or so.

Anyway — what do you, dear readers, like to use for baking, in place of butter or shortening (or lard, as my grandma uses)???

Smooth

May 26, 2010 in Recipes, Seasonal Eating by bursty | 2 comments

buds2

So last night I came up with another great “humidity food” — and as we were sipping them, we realized just how much nutrition you can pack into one of these babies — SMOOTHIES!  We were blessed with a kickass blender as a wedding gift which makes ALL the difference.  Last night we went the banana / blueberry route, added a little Rice Dream, berry juice, and green kale.  It was so tasty!  And, with all of those goodies, it was packed with calcium, B-12, vitamin C, iron, folate, potassium, fiber, and antioxidants.  I promptly declared 2010 the “summer of smoothies”.  What are some of your favorite smoothie combinations!?

Humidity Food

May 24, 2010 in News, Seasonal Eating by bursty | No comments

hearts3

Minnesota’s got some major humidity going on the past few days.  The kind of humidity that makes you feel like you’re swimming through the air, makes you catch your breath when you step outside into it, and makes me just a touch cranky!  So - in honor of that, I thought I’d explore some ways to combat the humidity with food. 

One of the reasons humidity affects us so much is that it has a big impact on our body’s ability to maintain a regular body temperature.  The body is absolutely AMAZING in its ability to maintain body temperature normally through hormones, sweat, increased respiration, etc.  High humidity prevents sweat from cooling and evaporating on our skin, which alters the body’s ability to cool us off.  Further, the blood flow to the skin increases when humidity is high, which decreases blood flow to vital organs in the body.  So, we become more tired.

Taking all of this into account - what are some foods you like to eat during humid times!?  I love a good lentil salad on a hot humid day — not only is it cool and refreshing, but it’s also packed with nutrients and protein to help sustain you when you’re likely to get tired.  I’m also thinking of nice, crisp salad greens from the garden with roasted and cooled beets, as well as some thinly sliced green apple.  Macrobiotics is SO much easier for me during the summer months, because my body naturally wants to eat light healthy food, and tends to reject heavy sludgey stuff.  Hooray for summer!

A little avocado makes all the difference

May 5, 2010 in Recipes, Seasonal Eating by cooljuice | 3 comments

avocadoWe recently returned from a trip to the San Francisco Avocado Area. I mean Bay Avocado. I mean Bay Area. Ain’t not avocado like a Bay Area avocado ‘cuz a Bay Area avocado don’t quit!

So, when we got home to Minnesota and were in “vacation from our vacation” mode and sauteed tempeh over rice, although delicious in its own rite, looked kind of old hat, I plopped some avocado slices on top. It was sensational. It was fireworks. It was bathing nude in the hot springs. It was everything you hoped it would be.

Renewal and cycles are everywhere. Of course, I always have avocados available to me at our local food co-op, but now this spring I was seeing them again, rediscovering them, tasting them with intention.

It got me thinking that there must be hundreds of foods that our eyes slide past or our minds forget about, or our stomachs can’t remember. And that’s part of the reason we started the glossary section of AGAD. Put some of your favorite ingredients in the comments below that we don’t already have in the glossary and let’s breathe some new life into our food!

Lemon-Olive Seitan Cutlets

April 16, 2010 in Recipes by cooljuice | 4 comments

This seitan meal is one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. I’m serious. I wanted to let it run down my chin and let my skin absorb the flavors. Try it out. Here’s what you do:

  • 1 pound of homemade seitan
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup of basil leaves, chopped
  • 1 lemon, sliced
  • 10 green pitted olives, sliced
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp tamari
  • salt
  • 1 cup mushrooms, diced
  • 2 cups vegetable stock

Cut the seitan into 4 equal pieces and fold the basil and a pinch of salt into each cutlet. You will have to really knead them to get the goods absorbed. I also added a little bit of minced garlic to the raw seitan. Flatten each piece and place them individually on a sheet of aluminum foil. Fold the foil into a square packet around the seitain, flattening and shaping it into a cutlet. Place the packets in a steamer for 30 minutes.

While the cutlets are steaming, prepare a roux of 4 tablespoons olive oil and the flour. Keep it at medium heat, stirring constantly until it becomes a golden brown. Add the turmeric and garlic and mushrooms. Cook with a cover on for 10 minutes. You may need to add a little water to keep things from getting pasty. When the mushrooms are soft, add the vegetable stock and stir in completely. Let simmer.

Once the cutlets are done steaming, remove them from their packets and place in the roux. Add the sliced olives and lemon slices and tamari. Let cook on low heat for another 15 to 20 minutes.  Serve over brown rice or other grain of your choice. Top with parsley.

Toxic Veggie Burgers!

April 14, 2010 in Reviews by bursty | 1 comment

Mother Jones is reporting that MANY (most?) non-organic veggie burgers are made with the chemical hexane, an EPA registered pollutant and neurotoxin.  And, incidentally, a biproduct of gas refining.  nice.  Including my favorite, Morningstar Farms spicy black bean burgers (the list of culprits is MUCH longer than I would like it to be).  Tear / Mad face.  I guess this is why macros need to be super vigilant of our food choices, and why the food system in America is effed up! 

Here’s a nice quote from the MJ article (not so nice, actually):  “In order to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers, manufacturers of soy-based fake meat like to make their products have as little fat as possible. The cheapest way to do this is by submerging soybeans in a bath of hexane to separate the oil from the protein. Says Cornucopia Institute senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys, “If a non-organic product contains a soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or texturized vegetable protein, you can be pretty sure it was made using soy beans that were made with hexane.”

Yuck.  Out go another snack option.  All the more reason to grow your own food, pick your own food, and make your own food!  It makes me so mad, it’s like it’s all a big game to big-food people — a game that is damaging our health!

Sugar Addiction

April 9, 2010 in Personal Health by bursty | 4 comments

One of the toughest parts of going “whole hog” for me was kicking my lifelong addiction to sugar.  And although some may say that *addiction* is too strong a word to use, it’s not.  The biochemical make up of sugar is nearly identical to alcohol, with only one molecule different.  If you are a sugar addict, you know what I mean.  There is the desire to eat more and more sugar, even though you know that it makes you feel lousy and that it’s not good for you.  Dopamine and Serotonin (”feel good” neurotransmitters in the brain) are affected by sugar in the same way they are by cocaine and other hard drugs!  As you build up your tolerance to sugar, you need more and more in order to feel that sugar high you crave.  And, when you stop consuming sugar, you go through withdrawal:  headaches, nausea, irritability, etc.  So — are you addicted to sugar?  Were you?  How do you kick the addiction?

For me, kicking the addiction began by realizing that sugar (although a completely acceptable and common addiction in our society) is actually damaging to my body and I was not gaining anything good from my addiction to it.  Refined white sugar has absolutely NO nutritional value!  It actually strips your body of minerals and nutrients in order to be metabolized!  It also damages and alters proper functioning of the nervous system, endocrine system, metabolic system, cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal system, and immune system.  There is a CRAZY long list of health problems associated with over consumption of sugar ranging from diabetes to depression, from insomnia to fibromyalgia! 

Sugar puts your body and brain on this crazy roller coaster of highs and lows — you eat sugar and you’re high, then when it wears off (relatively quickly) you’re very very low so you crave more to bring you back up, and on and on in this cycle.  It’s really hard for your body to keep up with this roller coaster!  Your kidneys and liver are fighting to keep up with cleaning out the blood, while your pancreas is like WTF are you doing to me!?  Producing insulin and then retracting it, etc. etc.  For me — this cycle resulted in lots and lots of terrible headaches.  When I eat macrobiotically, and particularly when I am very aware of my sugar intake (i.e. not taking any in), I get remarkably fewer headaches than when I eat sugar and other “non-macro” foods.

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Only after…

April 8, 2010 in News, Personal Health by bursty | No comments

“Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”
- Cree Indian Prophecy

Alright.  With earth day approaching, I’m about to go all political on you.  When people ask me why I eat the way that I do, I give a variety of answers, usually depending on how sassy I am feeling.  If I’m in a particular mood, I’ll give an answer that offends people of the meat-eating genre.  If not, I’ll say something like “I just don’t like the taste of it, never have.”  Both / All of my answers for why I don’t eat meat are true.  I draw from them all in my daily decisions. 

You’re in luck (or not, depending on your political biases) because I had some inquiring minds with me over the weekend, and right now I’m feeling a little bit sassy.  One of the biggest reasons that I chose to become a vegetarian about 10 years ago (with varying levels of commitment in between) was because eating meat (at least the way we (and by we I don’t mean me, I mean Americans, generally) eat it right now) is completely unsustainable.  It helps that I truly don’t like the taste / texture of most meat (chicken literally makes me gag) and whenever I see meat I get a pretty clear vision of the energy of the terrified animal before it went to its bloody and painful death.  But all that aside, the meat industry is completely unsustainable.

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[Vegan] Pineapple Fried Rice

April 2, 2010 in Recipes by bursty | 3 comments

This dish has become one of our staples — it’s what I order from our favorite little Thai restaurant whenever we go, and I’ve since started making it at home (without the egg).  Super simple, filling, yet light and refreshing!  We recently made the big SPRING SWITCH to long grain brown rice (a big deal in our household) — and this dish was even more delightful last night.

Pineapple Fried Rice (with tofu):

1/4 onion, sliced thinly and then into half moons
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 (15 oz) can of pineapple chunks (drain off *most* of the liquid)
1/2 package of tofu, drained & cut into cubes or small rectangles
2 cups of cooked brown rice
olive oil
black pepper (to taste)
and shoyu or tamari (to taste)

Saute the onions in olive oil until they are clear, then add in the garlic & tofu — turn up the heat and brown the tofu to your desired amount, adding olive oil as needed.  Once the tofu is as fried as you’d like it, add the pineapple with a *little* (about 1/4 cup) of its liquid, and a couple of tablespoons of tamari/shoyu to taste.  Let this cook together for a few minutes to get the flavor into the tofu.  When the liquid has cooked down some, add the rice, and fry at a high temperature until browned the way you like it!

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