Last night I taught a cooking class on Glorious One-Pot Meals at Nature’s Table Cooking School. It was my first time teaching at this adorable cooking school tucked behind a King Soopers in Littleton, Colorado. The photos and captions are courtesy of Chef Penni Royston, owner of the school. Thanks for bringing me in, Penni!
Just when you thought you were doing a good job in choosing natural products and avoiding adding chemicals to your body, along comes the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) to petition the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow them to add Aspartame and other “non-nutritive sweeteners” to milk products without identifying them as so “enhanced.”
These guys want to add Aspartame, a collection of chemicals used as a sugar substitute, to the flavored milks offered in school lunchrooms without labeling the milk as “low-calorie” or “sugar-free”. They believe that labeling that touts “lower calorie” or “sugar-free” will hinder the marketing of these flavored milk boxes to kids.
Since the flavored milks already say “low-fat” on the individual-size boxes, I think this is a specious claim designed to help push through their bigger agenda, which is to be able to add Aspartame to dairy products such as sour cream, half-and-half, yogurt, heavy cream, evaporated milk, dry nonfat milk… 17 dairy products in all, without prominent labeling indicating that this is an adulterated food.
You’ll reach for a quart of “milk”, but what you’ll really be getting is “milk with added Aspartame.”
Without going into why Aspartame is bad for you and what kinds of symptoms someone with Aspartame sensitivity might experience upon exposure (seizures, migraines, chronic fatigue, skin issues, Multiple Sclerosis-like symptoms, etc.), let’s think about living in a country where any normal-looking milk product you purchase at a store or ingest at a restaurant could likely contain Aspartame. Get sour cream on your baked potato, and you’re getting Aspartame. A latte at Starbucks? Aspartame. A cup of Boston clam chowder? Aspartame. Not to mention all of the normal routes that you’re already getting Aspartame through: diet sodas, chewing gum, bottled salad dressings, and on and on. All of that Aspartame really adds up in your system.
In case you didn’t know, too: Aspartame is a GMO.
What infuriates me perhaps most of all about this insidious method of boosting corporate profits, is that it takes away our freedom and ability to choose for ourselves what we want to put into our own bodies and gives it to chemical companies.
There has been a lively debate about this over at The Healthy Home Economist, with a few chemists piping up in the comments to claim that the chemicals in Aspartame are just as good for you as real food.
If you think we deserve to have Aspartame-enhanced foods, feel free to leave you comment for the FDA on how you feel about the petition to add Aspartame to milk products without distinguishing them as such. You’ll see the Comment link at the top right of the page.
Moving to Italy in 1989 was life-changing for me in so many ways, but one of the biggest revelations I had was that pasta came in different shapes and sizes and could be combined with things other than tomato sauce. Who knew?
Growing up, my mom made spaghetti once a week and lasagna once a year, both served with a delicious slow-cooked tomato-based marinara sauce. But now I was introduced to pasta shapes like farfalle, orzo, penne, rigatoni, fusilli, and more. It was a heady time!
Italians know how to wrap a meal around pasta like no one else, and I love the ease and versatility of noodles as a vehicle for a variety of ingredients and styles. There are so many gluten-free pasta options now, too, made out of rice, quinoa, corn, spelt, flax seed, and other non-wheat options, that even the wheat-sensitive among us can still enjoy noodles.
Here are some easy ideas to use for your next pasta dinner. Start with boiling water and cook pasta al dente. Drain and rinse, then add to these ingredients.
Pasta al tonno: Use a pasta shape like penne (a hollow tube) or rigatoni (ridged penne). Drain and break apart a can of tuna fish (preferably sustainably-caught, white albacore packed in water). Drain pasta and toss with tuna, high-quality olive oil, sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper, drained capers, diced fresh tomatoes, and shreds of fresh basil leaves.
Pasta con ceci: I like to use fusilli with chickpeas, olive oil, and diced garlic, sea salt, and cracked pepper.
Pasta con pesto: Save a 1/2 cup of the pasta-boiling water to mix together with the pasta and pesto. Penne, rotini, or other hollow pasta shapes are always great to hold onto and deliver the savoriness of pesto. Here are some easy and creative pesto recipes.
Cold pasta salad: Check out this recipe for cold pasta salad with salmon and this vegetarian pasta salad.
Pasta con formaggi: Otherwise known as macaroni and cheese, think beyond the blandness of simply cheese and noodles and add in vegetables, meats, and even some marinara sauce. The other night I tossed together farfalle (bowtie) pasta with the leftover chicken and vegetables from a crockpot stew in a pot with a 1/2 cup of marinara sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese. It was a delicious disguise for leftovers!
Pasta al forno (baked): For lasagna, you layer noodles with sauce, meats, veggies, and cheese and then bake it all together. Think out of the box: you can use this technique with leftover rotisserie chicken, fresh spinach, enchilada sauce, and goat cheese stuffed into large pasta shells or mixed around with penne and topped with cheese before baking at 325 F.
Vermicelli with stir-fry: I pick up nests of dried rice noodles from the Asian grocery store and love to serve one with a stir-fry of tofu, zucchini, squash, bell pepper, and onion marinated in Annie Chung’s Sweet Chili Sauce. These skinny noodles cook in about 3 minutes, so keep your eye on them.
Pasta with fresh tomato sauce: Not every tomato sauce needs to be slow-cooked. A quick tomato sauce can be put together in a shallow saucepan with fresh or canned diced tomatoes. Heat some olive oil in the pan and saute chopped garlic and onions; add the tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Stir in fresh basil shreds and serve over linguini.
Pasta con aglio e olio: Italians love simplicity in their food that allows the purity of the flavors to shine through. A favorite dish on many menus is this pasta with garlic and olive oil. Dress cooked pasta in high quality olive oil and freshly chopped raw garlic, sea salt, and pepper. Yum!
Earlier this week, my son and I attended an IMAX screening of the documentary “Chasing Ice” at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science followed by a Q&A session with James Balog, the acclaimed National Geographic photographer and the man behind the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS). The EIS uses time-lapse photography to document the movement of glaciers on this planet.
Let me tell you: the documentation is mind-blowing. In a few short years, sped up through time-lapse photography, we watch glaciers receding a dozen miles and deflating enough to expose new vistas. It’s all there, climate change before our eyes, in artistically stunning photographic reality.
Exalted at the Sundance Film Festival and others, a Best Song nomination bringing it 50 seconds of video at the Oscars, and the subject of several TED talks, Chasing Ice will be coming to the National Geographic channel, Netflix, and other venues soon. Watch for it.
I’m very excited to share a testimonial from my client who ended her lifelong migraines by doing the MRT food sensitivity testing together with LEAP dietary management protocols. She is a smart, successful, 29-year old attorney, but without the MRT test results it would have been almost impossible to deduce that one of her main sensitivities is the additive fructose, as in High Fructose Corn Syrup. Here’s her LEAP story:
I was diagnosed with migraines at the age of 13 and have been suffering with them for over 16 years. It has been a long a tumultuous journey in discovering the root cause of my migraines. I became fed up with the lack of answers from doctors who just wanted to prescribe medication to me rather than discover the cause of the migraines. My journey led me to eliminating many daily activities as well as food. I am a very active and healthy person by nature, but I began suffering from a migraine every other day. Work suffered, social activities suffered, everyday was an anxiety roller coaster riddled with worry of the next migraine. After continuous research, I discovered hypersensitivity testing and the options available to me to finally discover the root cause of my migraines. I found Elizabeth’s website during my research and contacted her immediately. She was extremely prompt and informative and was genuinely interested in helping me with discovering the root of my problems. Needless to say with her help and counseling I was able to discover the root cause and avoid the foods triggering the migraines all together. At the time of this writing I have been migraine free for over a month and my quality of life has drastically improved. Thank you Elizabeth! ~Abby H., New York
It is amazing how many chronic conditions can be helped by switching to a customized anti-inflammatory diet! If there’s inflammation where it shouldn’t be at the root of your distress, then an anti-inflammatory diet will help. Let’s just rattle off a few inflammatory-based issues that are helped by simply changing your diet: irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s Disease, diabetes,… and on and on. So many of our modern health issues can be traced back to unwanted inflammation. I’ve even had success working with a Parkinson’s patient who, after changing his diet, was able to regain motor skills and memory.
Wanna see a few more stories of people who’ve used this scientific protocol to personalize their diets and are now feeling better?
Contact me to schedule a free consultation to see if a customized anti-inflammatory diet would work for you.
