"healthy" news and stories

Over at Cheap, Healthy, Good, they're usually pretty concerned with helping you find ways to lower your grocery bill. You can find posts on how to save, as well as how to make that inexpensive stuff into tasty meals. However, even a blog dedicated to being thrifty acknowledges that there are some things you just need to pay more for.

This post is about ten categories of foodstuff for which you simply must buy the top quality brand. The list includes cheese, with which I wholeheartedly agree, and store bought tomato sauce, which I'm in partial agreement. Never, in my opinion, get cheap cheese, but I find that I don't really use tomato sauce so I guess this one doesn't apply. Other highlights are chocolate and beer, both of which get an emphatic nod: both items are a luxury, so if you must indulge get something worth indulging in.

The post is interesting and amusing, but everyone has their own version of this list. What items do you absolutely have to have brand name for?

Source

I've been meaning for a while to write about healthy alternatives to the usual summer barbecue foods. My family hosted a desserts-only BBQ for this weekend (which turned into burgers and dogs BBQ), and I feel like I've been doing the circuit of barbecues featuring heavy slaws, burgers with lots of toppings, and rich chocolate chip cookies. While I love these foods as much as anyone, I'm trying to put together a list of the best alternative recipes from across the web to replace these often less-healthy favorites. Here's what I have:

My all time favorite lemon coleslaw from Epicurious.

Citrus-spiked jicama and carrot slaw from Cooking Light.

Smitten Kitchen's black bean confetti salad.

Mark Bittman's Leek Salad on Bitten.

Raw beet salad from stonesoup.

Rhubarb soda from Culinate. Okay, not a healthy alternative, but beautiful nonetheless.

Charred corn salad from Williams Sonoma.

Feel free to add your favorite healthy summer salads and slaws, barbecued goodies and summer desserts!

As I flipped past Maxim, Shape, and Better Homes and Gardens, a new mag caught my eye the other day - Clean Eating. Come again? I flipped through it for a minute or so, but couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what "clean eating" was. The opposite of 'dirty eating?' (see picture at right for an example of what I imagined 'dirty eating' to be). Perhaps a way of eating without spilling anything on yourself. Sadly, this intrigued me.

So I went home and consulted my trusty ol' Interweb, and there it was: the unofficial definition of clean eating: "Consuming food in its most natural state...it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to..." My eyes glazed over at this point (and by the way, why does every new diet define itself as a "lifestyle?" Can't anyone just eat anymore without defining themselves within a food "lifestyle?"

Anyway, I digress. From what I can tell, "clean eating" is just another way of saying "eat normal-sized portions of healthy, low-fat, fresh foods." Which everyone already knows. And like every di - er, lifestyle - there's a list of stuff to avoid (refined sugars, anything fatty, alcohol - y'know, all the tasty stuff) and a "seven-day meal plan" to get you started. Oh, and the best part: the token "Before and After" pics of a woman in a muumuu and then that same woman, 200 pounds lighter and "much, much happier." Because only thin people are happy, dontcha know.

Eh, I dunno. Maybe I'm jaded - and I'm sure Clean Eating could be a good source for new healthy recipes - but healthy eating and portion control are simply that. Stop trying to slap a label on it turn it into a book, movie, stuffed animal, or lifestyle. Just eat right, right? And have a beer or a cupcake once in awhile. Tell them Ellen said it's okay.

Black Currants, a 'super fruit' rich in anti-oxidants, have been under represented in the US market until just recently. Now sweetened, dried black currants are becoming available in a multitude of ways. Kendall Frozen Fruits has now made them available so that they can be used in a plethora of products like "healthy snacks, trail mixes, cereals, yogurt, muffins, salads, cookies, vinegars and other applications."

The black currant is known for its intense, rich, fruit flavor so well loved in the liqueur cassis and other alcoholic beverages. A while ago I wrote about CurrantC, a delicious black currant juice beverage. I'm so glad we are now going to have other black currant food options available.

Besides anti-oxidants, vitamin C, and Iron; black currents also contain anthocyanin compounds which may help the body fight against diseases like Arthritis, Cancer and Alzheimer's disease. I love it when healthy and tasty are combined in one product.

I've heard rumors that Slashfood used to have an "Ingredient Spotlight" post, but it got lost in the shuffle. Well, never fear, Slashfoodies: it's back.

For my debut post, I'm going to go really crazy and choose...tofu. Okay, stop groaning. I know what you're thinking.

But give it a chance. Tofu is like that nerdy kid in freshman year of high school who wore his pants too high and his shirts too low, and still brought his lunch in those insulated, brightly-colored bags with the matching thermoses when the cool kids were brown-bagging it. You made fun of him all year, but when you came back to school in sophomore year, something had changed. He was...different. He held his head higher, he walked up straighter, and he was wearing khakis and polos. And if you titled your head and squinted your eyes just right, he was almost...cute.

That's like tofu. Despite its pale, jiggly appearance and its dorky past, tofu has a lot to offer if you give it a chance. If you know how to use it, tofu can be the homecoming king of dinners.

The history

Tofu is made by coagulating soy milk into bean curd, similar to the way milk turns into cheese as it ferments. (I'll pause as you salivate). It usually comes in soft, firm, and extra firm/dried varieties, the only difference being that soft has the most moisture in the curds, while extra firm has the least. It can also be fermented, made sweet, fried, or frozen before packaging.

Tofu's main claim to fame is that it's really mild, so it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. Its taste and creamy consistency make it a great substitute for most dairy products, a star in smoothies, and a great addition to dressings or sauces.