read up on healthy foods

Missed a couple of weeks. But the two I missed were garlic and figs, so I don’t feel too bad. Garlic is just so obvious; you hear about it everywhere. And figs just ain’t gonna happen. There’s less chance of me eating a fig than there is of me eating an avocado—unless it’s in a Newton, and even then it’s not that likely, especially since I’ve given up cookies along with all other sweets.

So . . . on to this week: shiitake mushrooms (which is redundant, I guess-take means mushroom). Who knew mushrooms were so good for you? They don’t have a lot of the typical nutrients that we look for in most other healthy foods-some iron, and a little each of vitamin C, protein, and fiber. But they do have some unique elements that are quite beneficial.

For starters, they’re really good for your immune system—shiitakes contain a substance called lentinan that’s better for fighting the flu than even prescription drugs. It’s even been shown to help people with HIV. They also have something called eritadenine that is a pretty impressive cholesterol killer. And most mushrooms (including portabellas, criminis and white buttons, in addition to shiitakes) are good sources of a potent antioxidant called L-ergothioneine.

I like shiitakes, but we don’t eat many of them. Maybe we’ll have to try working them into our diet more.

Raspberries are another food that I never really ate until I lived in the Inland Northwest. But we used to get them at the farmers’ market in Moscow, ID, and man were they good. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the strawberry jam we made out there, which was pretty damn good. But it was nothing compared to the raspberry. I’d give anything for a few more jars of that stuff. I buy raspberry jam all the time, even the all-natural stuff, but it doesn’t come close.

Anyway, raspberries are good for you. Big shock. I had heard that they were good antioxidants, but didn’t know any details. Apparently it’s the tannins; ellagic acid, especially. Also flavonoids, a word I’ve heard in reference to soybeans, but which I know nothing else about. Anyway, most berries are pretty good for antioxidants, but raspberries kick some ass.

In addition to the antioxidants, and in addition to some minerals and B vitamins, it turns out raspberries are a good source of fiber. Wouldn’t have thought that. So if you’re watching your blood-sugar, this is one of the few fruits that isn’t going to be a big deal for you.

Trivia: Like several of the other foods I’ve read about on the site, it turns out that raspberries come in quite a few more colors than we tend to imagine. Red, black, purple, orange, yellow and white. I wish I knew where I could get some in those other colors. My wife loves raspberries, and it would be a cool surprise some time.

As I write this, by the way, I’m polishing off a piece of raspberry-chocolate ice-cream cake. Does that count for much, do you suppose?

I discovered Salmon when I lived in Washington state for a while. Having now moved back to the Great Plains, I miss it. You don’t know what salmon is until you’ve had it fresh and well prepared.

But what you should know is that it’s really good for you. Everyone’s talking about the omega-3 fatty acids these days, and there’s pretty much no better source of them. But salmon is also a spectacular source for less trendy nutrients (what a culture we live in, by the way, when individual nutrients can become trendy—and you have to admit, they can). So, beyond the omega-3s, salmon is a great source of tryptophan (helps regulate the appetite and maintain good moods), vitamin D, selenium (helps support the body’s antioxidant system, and along with vit. D and omega-3s helps to prevent rheumatoid arthritis), protein, B vitamins, and macrominerals like phosphorus and magnesium (which are necessary for healthy bones and muscles—I know that sounds pretty general, but it is; it’s easy to focus on nutrients that provide specific things and to ignore ones that are just plain good for your body). Seriously, this stuff is just really, really good for you.

It’s a good idea to go for wild salmon, rather than farm-raised: the latter ends up with pretty high levels of some undesirable elements like PCBs and flame retardants. Bleah. In fact the risks associated with farmed salmon might just outweigh the benefits—and that’s saying something, when you think about how many benefits there are to this fish.

I’m actually not going to say much more about salmon, because I think these days we all know how good it is for us. And it’s damn tasty. My wife sometimes grills it with an orange-marmalade & ginger sauce thing that’s just unbelievable. Or we have it with a sweet soy mixture over couscous. My mouth is watering. Mmmmmm . . . salmon. . . .

Mmmmmmm . . . strawberries. OK, confession time: The first time I ever tried a strawberry I was 17 years old. This in spite of the fact that my dad grows them in his garden. And pretty good ones, too, he grows. But I never thought I’d like them, so I never tried them. That’s how bland I used to eat.

Of course now I love them, like any sane person who’s not allergic. This may be the thing I miss most about Washington state, actually—Klicker farm strawberries are absolutely to die for. For our wedding we bought about 50 lbs. of them and made jam for the little gift to give people. Even through all of that, we never got sick of them for a moment. We also had a bunch of that jam ourselves, of course—just finished it off, almost five years later. Man I miss those berries. Anyway, on to the health stuff.

Obviously, an excellent source of vitamin C. Also, apparently berries in general are a good source of phenols, which are good antioxidants. Phenols make strawberries good for your heart, and good for preventing cancer and staving off the effects of aging. They also make them good anti-inflammatories, which I didn’t know—chemically, they do the same thing that ibuprofen does, and without the gastrointestinal side effects that lots of people experience. Good to know. I’d much rather pop some strawberries than a couple of pills, anyway.

Beyond all that, of course, they provide a whole wealth of other nutrients: vitamin K, fiber, manganese (good for your bones and for regulating blood sugar, among other things), folate, B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, and plenty more. And as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (with apricots), it turns out that fruit is even better for your eyes than carrots.

I don’t suppose it will come as any shock that strawberries are the most popular berry in the world. Seriously, who doesn’t like these things? One piece of trivia I can offer, though, courtesy of The West Wing: strawberries are the only fruit that bear their seeds on the outside.

One other thing to note, unfortunately, is that strawberries are among the worst foods if you want to avoid pesticides. Unless you buy organic, of course. So do that. But you know you can’t turn away entirely. Strawberries are just way too good.

I’ve always liked garbanzo beans (chickpeas). On their own, in hummus, in falafel, whatever. I’ll take em. And I knew they were a good source of protein and fiber, but didn’t know much else about them. Now I do.

So, yes, like most beans, garbanzos are a really good low-fat (virtually no fat, apparently) source of protein and fiber. Which means they help regulate blood sugar, they’re good for your heart, they’re good for digestion, etc. Also like other beans, they have plenty of folate. Good for the heart, and essential for women who are trying to become (or have succeeded in becoming) pregnant. The blood-sugar stabilization is also good for pregnant women, to help avoid gestational diabetes. And while I’m at it, protein is good for avoiding toxemia. All good things.

Chickpeas are a good source of minerals: iron (helps boost energy, and of course is good for anyone who’s lost blood), magnesium (good for your heart), and manganese (good for energy and a good antioxidant). Apparently they’re also an incredibly good source of molybdenum. I know you’ve been looking for a good way to get that; now you’ve found it. So what does molybdenum do? It detoxifies sulfites. So if you eat a lot of prepared foods or, I suppose, drink a lot of sulfite-containing wine, it might be a good thing to eat.

The only real trivia this week is that there’s such a thing as chickpea flour. I don’t even know what to think about that. Also, they are apparently available in colors other than the beige that you usually see them in. On the site they have a picture of them in black, red, green, white, and brown. It’s freaking me out, a little bit.

I should point out, by the way, that all the images I use for these posts are from the whfoods site itself. That should be obvious, but in the interest of credit where it’s due and all that. . . .

Apparently apricots are one of the first signs of summer. I am woefully ignorant of the seasonality of foods (something this site is really helping me with), so obviously I didn’t know that. In retrospect, though, I should have. When we lived in Washington we used to make our own jam, and apricot was always the first one we made. So, duh.

Obviously, given their color, apricots are a good source of vitamin A (as beta-carotene). Also a good source of lycopene (which, along with vitamin A, fights bad cholesterol). Also they provide fiber. So, good for the eyes and the heart. For what it’s worth, apparently fruit is better for your eyes in the long term than other sources of carotenoids like carrots & other vegetables. Three daily servings of fruit is really the only thing shown to decrease your chances of ARMD (the primary source of age-related vision loss).

I didn’t know this, but if you’ve ever seen “bitter almond oil” in a store (I shop in co-ops and whole-foods stores, so I’ve seen it), that’s actually an essential oil taken from apricot pits. Where the “bitter almond” bit comes from is beyond me. What you use it for is also beyond me, but there you go.

Personally, I like dried apricots. But you have to get good ones. One way of drying fruits is to treat them with sulfur dioxide gas—no thanks. But if you get ones that are brown, that means they’ve been dried without the gas (sulfites help preserve the bright colors of the fruit, which is why they use it in drying them).

Obviously, being of discerning taste and sound mind, when you think of lettuce you do not think of the iceberg variety. In fact, you’re offended on the part of real lettuce that anyone would pass that drivel off under the same name. No, when you think of a generic, commonplace lettuce, you think of romaine. Me too.

I used to be one of those “I don’t eat salad” types, though I did actually try (sporadically) to get more roughage into my diet. (One of my favorite moments on The West Wing is Toby’s “you could cover this with barbecue sauce, and it would still taste like the ground” spiel.) Then recently my wife introduced me to really good, true Caesar salad. Now I not only eat salad, I actually find myself craving it once in a while. A little scary. But, as we all know, pretty damn good for me.

Vitamins A & C, folate, manganese, and chromium, for starters. And, of course, fiber. So incredibly good for the long-term (and short-term) health of your heart. Really, it turns out, that’s pretty much what lettuce is good for: your heart. But hey, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Also, if you’re trying to avoid carbs, lettuce wraps are the way to go. But if you’re trying to avoid carbs, you already know that. Mmmmmm . . . lettuce wraps. (Or something. I love carbs.)

By the way, we’ve found that really good tupperware is worth what you pay for it in order to store lettuce. You tend to think that if you buy lettuce you’re going to have to eat it within a day or two, but we’ve found that with good tupperware we can keep it fresh (in the fridge, of course) for a couple of weeks. In fact we almost never throw away lettuce anymore. So splurge a little and buy a couple of big, good quality tupperware bowls. You’ll be glad you did. And so will your heart, apparently.

I’m here to tell you, this week’s entry is going to make absolutely zero difference in my diet. I can’t stand avocados. I’ve known for quite a while about how healthy they are, and my wife absolutely loves them. But for me not so much.

For those of you who are interested, though, the best thing about avocados is their level of monounsaturated fat. The oleic acid (oleic from the Latin word for oil—i.e., fat) in avocados really helps fight bad cholesterol. They are also good for blood pressure (lots of potassium), and they’ve got a nice chunk of folate. Beyond that, as with every food on the site, there are one or two studies showing some way that they decrease cancer. OK.

I hadn’t realized that avocados can really be in season at all different times of the year, depending on where they’re grown. Even the same variety. The Haas avocados that people generally eat in the U.S., for example—in California they’re best in the spring/summer, in Florida they’re best in the fall. Weird. Also, I always wondered what the connection was between the name of this fruit and the Spanish word for ‘lawyer’ (abogado—in Spanish, ‘b’ and ‘v’ are almost interchangeable, and ‘c’ isn’t far from ‘g’ either; these words sound almost identical). Turns out there’s no connection—the name of the avocado comes from the Aztec word ahuacatl. Should have figured something like that, I guess.

None of which matters, though, because you will not catch me so much as sniffing a bowl of guacamole. Keep that stuff on your side of the table, thanks.

Peas, glorious peas. Of course, I like them best from a can. And yes, I know that they’re not nearly as healthy that way. But I do also like them fresh, or frozen if need be.

So, peas are good for all kinds of stuff. Vitamins, minerals, and of course preventing cancer (isn’t everything?). I didn’t know they were good for bone health. Has to do with the particular vitamin mix that’s in peas, and I’ll let you go to the link if you want more on that. But that’s something I didn’t know. Also good for your heart.

They’re also a really good source of B vitamins, iron, and Vitamin C—all of which can help with energy levels and other ‘overall wellness’-type things.

The article also reminded me (though they never really mention it) of one of my favorite ways to have peas—wasabi peas. Mmmmmmmm . . . wasabi peas. . . . I wonder if they have any of their nutrients remaining in that form, though.

They suggest a really interesting way of cooking fresh peas. I guess I haven’t seen a lot of fresh peas being cooked, but I never would have thought of this:

The classic way of cooking garden peas is to line a saucepan with several leaves of washed, Boston or Bibb lettuce and then place the peas on the lettuce. You can then add fresh herbs and spices if you desire. Cover the peas with more lettuce leaves, add one or two tablespoons of water, and cover the pan. Cook the peas for about 15 to 20 minutes, after which they should be tender and flavorful.