August 30, 2017

Why EPA Chief Didn’t Ban Brain-Damaging Pesticide

WASHINGTON – Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s defense for allowing the continued use of a dangerous pesticide starkly shows that he doesn’t consider protecting children’s health to be more important than protecting the agriculture industry’s status quo, said EWG President Ken Cook. In an interview with his home state newspaper, The Oklahoman, Pruitt said he aborted a scheduled ban on chlorpyrifos – a pesticide the EPA’s own scientists had found could harm kids’ brains – because “it had been used for decades.” He also cited disagreement over the pesticide’s dangers between EPA scientists and the Department of Agriculture, which consistently advocates on […]
August 30, 2017

Live & Dine LA Event Is a Foodie’s Delight

Los Angeles is not just the City of Angels, it’s the City of Food Angels who were out in force on Sunday (July 30) to support the Los Angeles Mission and to offer the over 1,700 people attending the event sample tastings. Angeleno Magazine’s annual Live & Dine LA event, which was held at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, honors the city’s most distinguished chefs and restaurants that help shape and evolve Los Angeles’ culinary scene, and the dishes they served were delicious proof of it. FoodTrients, the cookbooks and website created by Grace O and dedicated to the […]
August 22, 2017

Eat Like An Italian (Minus the Pizza)

Mediterranean cuisine has gotten a lot of attention for its potential impact on cardiovascular health. In fact, newer research in the Moli-Sani Study has added to the mounting evidence that certain food choices of Italians who live in the Molise region correlated with 37 percent fewer deaths during the research than those who didn’t make those choices. “Mediterranean diet” is a catchall phrase for cuisine found in Mediterranean countries; the diet generally features lots of fish and non-red meat sources, extra-virgin olive oil and plenty of fruit and vegetables, with additional flavor coming from herbs and spices, not salt. “There are components of the […]
August 22, 2017

Welcome to the World of Spice Blends

A few years back the New York Times ran an article about Lior Lev Sercarz, a professional chef who hails originally from Israel and has honed his professional skills in the kitchens of France and New York.  What was striking about his story, though, was that Chef Lev Sercarz veered off the usual professional chef path and drilled down into the world of spices, eventually making a name for himself among professional chefs as a kind of spice magician. It was his proprietary blend of spices that caught on and after much study and years of experimentation, Lev Sercarz eventually […]
August 8, 2017

Get Creative with Beet “Carpaccio” Salad

Serve this recipe as a creative salad course, or serve open-faced as appetizers. If serving as appetizers, top beet rounds and cheese with a few arugula leaves and drizzle with dressing. This recipe makes more vegan cheese than you’ll use. Store extra in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks. If your beet rounds are especially large, add another teaspoon of vegan cheese per round. It’s Gluten Free and Vegan! Ingredients: 2 large red or yellow beets, scrubbed FOR THE RAW VEGAN CHEESE: 1½ cups raw cashews, soaked at least 2 hours and up to 12 hours 1 Tbs. raw apple […]
August 8, 2017

The 4 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Going Gluten-Free

To say that there are hurdles involved when learning to navigate a gluten-free lifestyle is quite the understatement. Learning to manage this new lifestyle and all of the changes it brings can result in a lot of mistakes, but sometimes mistakes can be good. Mistakes allow us to learn from experiences and to improve. But let’s be honest — sometimes it’s hard to know when you’re making a mistake. And what you don’t know, you can’t fix! So we’ve compiled the 4 biggest mistakes that people make on a gluten-free diet — I’ll bet some of you don’t even realize […]
August 1, 2017

Olive Oil Intake Associated With Better Memory

Findings from a study reported on June 21, 2017 in the  Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology indicate a potential protective role for extra virgin olive oil consumption against the development of Alzheimer’s disease.  Olive oil is a prominent component of the Mediterranean diet and has been suggested by some researchers to be the reason behind the diet’s beneficial effects. “The thinking is that extra virgin olive oil is better than fruits and vegetables alone, and as a monounsaturated vegetable fat it is healthier than saturated animal fats,” commented lead investigator Domenico Praticò, MD, who is a Professor in the Departments of […]
July 25, 2017

Plants That May Help Boost Sexual Performance

The earliest humans used plants for medicine as well as for food. By medieval times, people were making huge amounts of money trading spices around the globe. People wanted to make their food taste good, of course. But the perceived medicinal benefits also were extremely important. According to author Jack Turner, “In the medieval mind, spices and medicine were effectively one and the same. Not all drugs were spices, but all spices were drugs.” An 11th-century monk named Constantine wrote that ginger, cinnamon, galangal (a root related to ginger) and pepper could be used to treat impotence. Indeed, the search […]
July 25, 2017

Flax Seed: Be Healthy, Stay Safe

Dear Health-Minded Readers, Lately, several of my patients have asked me about adding flaxseed to their diets. They’ve heard a lot about the important health benefits of Omega-3 fats and that flaxseeds are high in these good fats. While I agree that adding Omega-3 fats by adding flaxseeds to your diet is highly beneficial, you also need to exercise a little caution in doing so. Let me explain. The Health Benefits of Flax Seeds Flaxseed is truly a miraculous food with many health benefits that are varied and include the following: Rich in alpha linoleic acid. A rich Omega-3 fat, which […]