Over the past year, FoodTrients has been exploring foods and flavors from around the globe. This week, we take a look at the flavors of France as part of our new series on the world of foods, herbs and spices that help create some of the distinctive dishes we have featured, and the age-defying benefits they deliver. France is known for its elegant cuisine that is unlike any other. Not only is food an important part of French culture, but wine is considered a staple as well. France is well known for its wine all around the world and pairing […]
It’s so easy to eat well in summer! I get inspired every time I walk through a farmer’s market or even the produce section of the supermarket. There are so many stone fruits and melons available and right now they are at their peak. You just can’t go wrong creating desserts and salads from fruits like peaches, nectarines, apricots and the new pluots and apriums, which are hybrids created by crossing plums and apricots. In addition to the delicious taste there are plenty of health benefits from eating stone fruits. For instance: As a collagen booster: A cup of sliced […]
Potato salad is a great way to showcase ashitaba leaves. These healthful leaves, grown in Japan and Southeast Asia, are often dried, ground and taken as a dietary supplement. I grow my own ashitaba plants here in Southern California and I like to eat them fresh. The dark green leaves taste like spinach or sweet kale. But if you can’t find fresh ashitaba leaves, this potato salad is delicious without them. I like to use fingerling potatoes, but you can use small white new potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes instead. I prefer the French haricot vert variety of green bean, […]
You have probably heard of the Mediterranean Diet. Besides conjuring visions of sipping chilled prosecco overlooking a sparkling sea, this way of cooking and eating is a heavily plant-based diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, herbs, fish, lean meats (in moderation) and monounsaturated oils, such as olive oil. It’s a true farm-to-table diet that relies on locally produced/caught/raised foods. In a number of studies, people who live around the Mediterranean in Southern Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece, as well as countries such as Croatia, Israel and Morocco, and live a mostly agrarian life tend to have lower incidences […]
Over the past year, FoodTrients has been exploring foods and flavors from around the globe. This
Over the past year, FoodTrients has been exploring foods and flavors from around the globe. This week, we take a look at the flavors of Nicoya
Most of us enjoy sweet beverages during the warm days of summer—juices, iced tea, lemonade, and others. But there are times when drinks become even more refreshing if they offer a slightly savory element. Besides, juices and sweetened beverages have high amounts of sugar that can aggravate a propensity for diabetes and other health issues, including weight gain. Beverages that refresh with ingredients such as sparkling mineral water, herbs, florals and vegetables can be a welcome change. Non-alcoholic beer, for example, has a number of health benefits. Not only is it lower in calories than that alcoholic beer, but the […]
By Roberto Tostado, M.D. This pandemic has exposed our human fragility and compromised immunity from a steady diet of processed foods and a medical system that manages disease with drugs instead of healing with nutrition. We are vulnerable to infection, disease and death from this affliction of bad food and bad medicine. However, our quarantined existence can give us pause to reassess our habits and choices to create a healthier lifestyle for ourselves and loved ones and not consent to chronic disease and poisoned foods any longer. We have been weakened and debilitated by our own industries with chronic illness […]
Pauline Boss, PhD, is an expert on loss and grief. In the 1970s she coined the term “ambiguous loss” in the course of researching the grief suffered by people whose loved ones are missing but not declared dead. She has published 8 books that have been translated into 17 languages and she has been a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School and the University of Southern California. Her new book, The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change, was written to help us all deal with the losses we’ve suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic and […]
Here in Los Angeles, with our access to plentiful produce and a pervasive interest in healthy eating, we have a long history of plant-based cuisine. In 1885, a newspaper called The Daily Alta California reported on a popular vegetarian brunch item, “Quartered alligator pears with the pulp spread on slices of grilled bread and seasoned with salt and pepper.” Today we know this delicacy as avocado toast! When Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, it highlighted the exploitation of workers and unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry in Chicago. The novel inspired a minor craze for vegetarian restaurants […]