"super foods" news and stories

Weight Watchers produces many best selling diet cookbooks, with recipes and advice that go along with their philosophy of moderation and promotion of living healthily. This spring, they have released two new cookbooks, Super Foods and In No Time. The books are packaged together and only sold at Weight Watchers meetings, which even non-members can attend as guests. While this does sound like a marketing scheme for their program, there are a couple of good reasons to take a look at the books. Super Foods has recipes using some of the most nutritious foods you can eat, like fruits, vegetables and whole grains - anything with a high nutritional value. In No Time is a book with meals that can be prepared and on the table in 20 minutes or less, making them perfect for weeknight dinners. With more than 170 new recipes between them, the fact that they're easy and healthy is a very good reason to stop in to a meeting and check them out. A better reason, however, is that $1 from the sale of each book set will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

[via The Cancer Blog]

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It might sound odd, drinking camel milk or making cheese from it, but really it is no different from using cows, sheep or goats. It is just that camels are, well, odd.

But according to the BBC camel milk is to be the next big thing (and who would have guessed that in their interviews?)  and it is all down to the United Nations who are calling for the milk, rich in vitamins B and C to be sold in the West. The milk also holds 10 times more iron than cow's milk and is slightly saltier too. It is widely consummed across the Arab world.

When top retailers such as Harrods and Fortnum & Mason express an interest, perhaps to cater for the large number of top spending Arabs customers in their stores rather than the likes of you and me, then it could have a niche to fill.

A couple of problems though, before camels milk makes it mainstream. Firstly the main producers are nomadic and second that the milk has so far not proved to be compatible with the UHT (Ultra High Temperature) treatment needed to make it long-lasting.

Seven new "superfoods" have been added to the original list of 14 by Dr. Steven Pratt, the founder of the superfoods movement. Superfoods are generally defined as foods that are incredibly nutrient dense, more so than any other foods. In his new book, Pratt describes the nutritional properties of these foods in detail, as well as naming similar foods, or "sidekicks", which have similar properties. Pratt's seven new superfoods are:

• Pomegranates
• Apples
• Kiwi
• Honey
• Cinnamon 
• Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Dark Chocolate

I wonder if there are any recipes that involve all the superfoods. These new ones seem as though they might be combined into some sort of dessert, but once you have added beans, blueberries, salmon and soy from the original 14, your dish will start to look very unusual, not to mention fairly unappetizing.

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