Sweet Potato Salad

It's a new year, and time to blog something again. My hiatus was long enough, I think.

Do you have any New Year's Resolutions when it comes to food? Planning to eat healthier, lose some weight? Join the club. Isn't that on everyone's list? Mine is to eat less, period. And to start juicing.

And eat more sweet potatoes.

One thing I never tire of is sweet potatoes. And that's good cuz they are so darn good for you. Recently I made this salad from Mark Bittman. Since I'm the only one in the house that eats sweet potatoes (well, my dog Lucy likes them, too, but she gets them plain) I had leftovers for several days. Usually I get tired of leftovers by the second time around and will usually toss whatever hasn't been consumed by then, but not this! I kept eating it (4 days I think it was) until it was gone.

This salad is so good any time of year. Do make sure to serve this slightly warm or at room temperature.

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad

4 large sweet potatoes

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

1/4 cup sherry vinegar

1 medium red bell pepper, quartered

2 tsp. ground cumin

1 Tbsp. grated orange zest (optional)

1/2 cup sliced scallions

1/2 cup minced parsley or cilantro (I like it with cilantro best)

1-2 fresh minced jalapeños

1/4 cup raisins (optional)

Turn on your oven and preheat to 400F. Peel potatoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, toss. Add salt and pepper, toss again. Roast, turning occasionally until crisp and brown, approximately 30 minutes. If they aren't crisp and brown, keep roasting. Meanwhile, make the dressing.

Combine the oil, vinegar, bell pepper, cumin, zest, salt and pepper and puree in food processor.

When the potatoes are done, take them out and let them cool a little. Add them in a large salad bowl with the remaining ingredients. Toss with 1/2 cup of the dressing, coating everything. Add more dressing if necessary.

If you like things a little spicier, you could add a few roasted red pepper flakes.

A Book Review and the Four R's

When your digestion isn't functioning well, a comprehensive approach is needed to put it right. I have a wonderful book called "Optimal Digestive Health - A Complete Guide" that is packed with great information about digestion. It is a collaborative effort on the part of many experts in the field of nutrition and digestion and is over 550 pages long. You might want to look into getting it at your local bookstore on online at amazon. 

Explaining first How the Body Works, then providing a list of Tools for Evaluating Your Health, Finding New Strategies for Inner Health, Therapies for Mind-Body Medicine, to providing a List of Treatment Options for Specific Conditions, it is a great resource for anyone interested in improving their digestion. I wanted to share a section from the book written by Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D. that I find to be the core of not only the book, but of improving digestion. Something called "The 4R Support Program".

Here's what Dr. Bland writes:

"A comprehensive approach to normalizing gastrointestinal function, referred to as the "4 R's", involves four basic steps: Remove, Replace, Restore, and Repair. 

"Remove" focuses on eliminating pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, allergens, and toxins from the GI tract. This is a crucial beginning step on the path to digestive wellness.

The second step is "Replace", replenishing enzymes and other digestive factors that may be lacking, such as pancreatic enzymes, hydrochloric acid (HCI), or intrinsic factor. 

The third step, "Restore", refers to restoring the beneficial bacteria that are commonly found in a normal digestive system, but may be missing from a dysfunctional one. It is an important step in restoring healthy function to the gut. A variety of supplemental resources may be considered helpful in this phase, including cultured and fermented foods and supplements containing live beneficial bacteria.

The fourth step in a 4R approach, "Repair", addresses intestinal permeability through the use of nutritional supplements known to be critical in intestinal function.

Step 1: Remove

• Common food allergies or sensitivities
• Bad bugs - candida (yeast) or bacterial overgrowth or parasites
• Problems from viruses
• Minimize environmental and digestive toxins

Step 2: Replace

• Betaine hydrochloride (hydrochloric acid)
• Enzymes (animal or plant-based)
• Bicarbonate (which enables the enzymes to work)
• Intrinsic factor

Step 3: Restore

• Probiotics - L. acidophilus and other probiotics
• Provide prebiotics if starches and sugars are tolerated. Nourishment for the beneficial microflora such as FOS (fructo-oligo-saccharides) and inulin
• Increase fiber and monitor the response. Soluble fiber such as oat bran increases butyrate and other essential fatty acids. Nonsoluble fiber such as cellulose is best tolerated by some people, but not others
• Increase resistant starch in the diet to reduce acidity, and raise fatty acids
• Monitor level of starches and sugars (carbohydrates are a common source of digestive upset)

Step 4: Repair

• Provide nutrients to heal the GI mucosa: vitamins A and C, B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyrodoxine), the amino acid L-glutamine, and the mineral zinc
• Support the immune functions of the GI tract: vitamin A to nourish antibody production
• Continue to avoid allergens and irritants: certain drugs (such as NSAIDs), alcohol, and foods that trigger allergies."

In Step 1, finding out if you have these "bad bugs" requires testing, and usually not by a regular doctor. You might have to request these tests from a specialist. Some can even be performed by a specialized lab via mail. The book has a great list of resources throughout on where to go for help.

How to go about doing all these steps is outlined in the book, of course. Each section gets a well-researched and extensive list of suggestions to get well. Of course no one thing works for everybody, and it might take trial and error to find out what's really going on with your own digestion, but it helps to have a place to start from. I highly recommend this book. It has helped me immensely.

Regarding my own digestion, I have had much success avoiding lactose and doing the FODMAP Diet. While I sometimes still have low-lactose-containing foods, they still cause some discomfort and therefore must remain an occasional treat nad be eaten in small quantities. Onions and garlic are back in, and while eating them raw causes the most trouble, cooking them very well or adding them to foods during the cooking process and then removing them (and not eating them) helps tremendously.

Just like life, it seems, getting to know one's ever-changing body is a journey and a learning process. Learn by reading good books such as this one.

Featured Vegetable: Swiss Chard

This leafy green was identified by a Swiss botanist and is a variety of Beta vulgaris, belongs to the same family as beets and spinach, and shares a similar taste profile with a flavor that is bitter, pungent, and slightly salty. The plant has numerous monikers, including silverbeet, Roman kale, and strawberry spinach, though I always see it as "Swiss chard" at the markets where I shop.

Swiss chard is one of several leafy green veggies often referred to as "greens", something we're supposed to be eating much more of because of their impressive list of health-promoting nutrients. Chard is available throughout the year, but its peak season runs June through August when it is in the greatest abundance at your market. So now is the time to run out and get some at your farmer's market!

Swiss chard has a thick crunchy stalk that comes in white, red, or yellow, with wide fan-like green leaves. Plants can grow to 28 inches high and look really good growing in the garden. They make a great display of color and look pretty even if you don’t plan to eat them!

As I mentioned, Swiss chard is a nutritional powerhouse -- an excellent source of vitamins K, A, and C, as well as a good source of magnesium, potassium, iron, and dietary fiber.

And like beets, chard is a unique source of phytonutrients called betalains. In this family are found reddish-purple as well as yellowish pigments that scientists have identified provide us with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxification support.

Sometimes at the market, different colored varieties will be bunched together and labeled "rainbow chard". I like to buy these because they're pretty. When the nutritionists tell you to "eat the rainbow" it doesn't get much better than this.

One cup of chopped Swiss chard has just 35 calories and provides more than 300% of the daily value for vitamin K. But skip this veggie if you’re prone to kidney stones; it contains oxalates, which decrease the body’s absorption of calcium and can lead to kidney stones. (One way to reduce the oxalates is to boil the chard.)

According to some research I did, chard shows benefits for blood sugar regulation in animal studies due to it containing syringic acid, a flavonoid shown to inhibit activity of an enzyme called alpha-glucosidase. When inhibited fewer carbs are broken down into simple sugars and blood sugar is able to stay more steady. While studies on humans have yet to be performed, I take this research nonetheless as another reason to incorporate it into my diet.

Cooking Swiss chard:

Prepare Swiss chard by rinsing the crisp leaves several times in warm water. Leaves and stalks can be boiled, sautéed, steamed, or roasted, but boiling seems to reduce the bitterness the best, from what I’ve read.

Ideas for using Chard:

Toss with penne pasta and olive oil, lemon juice, and chopped garlic

Add to omelets and frittatas

Use in place of spinach when preparing veggie lasagna

I once posted a recipe for Swiss Chard and Bacon Quiche. It's still one of my favorite things to do with chard, although now I’d make the crust gluten-free. And while that quiche is totally delicious, I would save a recipe like that for the weekend when I have more time to cook. Here’s what I typically do with Swiss chard on weeknights.

Sauteed Swiss chard with bacon & garlic

Chop some bacon into little bite-sized pieces and place in a saute pan. Get it nice and crisp.

Once crisp, you can either remove the bacon, leaving the fat, or leave everything in the pan. Either way, clean your chard well and chop off the stalks and then chop them into pieces the same size as the bacon. Dry these off really well before adding to the bacon fat else your stove top will get a good splattering of fat all over the place. Saute the chopped stalks for several minutes to soften a bit. Then add the leaves, which have also been chopped. Let the leaves steam a bit before giving everything a good stir. Add some chopped garlic, and continue cooking until the leaves are properly wilted (about 10 minutes), stirring every so often. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with a little fresh lemon juice before serving.

We had it last night alongside a piece of sauteed fish in garlic butter. Mmmhh, boy did we smell like garlic!

To make this vegetarian, simply replace the bacon with a generous amount of butter. Do not use oil and most definitely do not use margarine! That stuff'll kill ya.