Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Our household relies on whole-wheat pasta, and only on occasion.

I dread eating on the road. These days my standard road lunch, which is
available almost anywhere (though it was a little hard in Brawley), is a can
of beans and a can of stewed tomatoes.
  

    

I'm always looking for healthy food that is also portable so that I can 
eat it in the car while driving.  Therefore it can't be drippy or 
crumbly or need utensils.
  

    
This is the time of year when my CSA box has a lot of greens, so I
make a warm greens/sausage/potato salad with a mustard/vinegar
dressing.
  

    
I like to do a very simple vegetable prep with greens and summer
squash:  melt a bit of butter in a glass casserole in the microwave,
add some chopped cashews (optional), zap briefly again to 'toast' them
some more, then add some sliced summer squash, and before they're
completely cooked, add washed, sliced or torn greens, and zap until the
greens are nearly done.  They'll finish cooking as you stir or toss
until all the veggies have a bit of butter & nuts on them.  

Worked great with spinach, water spinach, amaranth greens, and a few
other asian greens whose names I never knew, but never tried it with
mustard greens.  

Have to put that up on my web site.  Odd that it's not there already.
  

    

Yum!  Will add summer squash and cashews to the mustard greens.  Sweet and
tangy!
  

    
Nuts are one of my favorite things to add to vegetable dishes and I
think they're very underrated. They add so much texture and complexity
to dishes, really elevating food from good to great. My favorite nuts
to cook with are pistachios and walnuts. But I use almost every kind. 
  

    
My grandfather had a walnut orchard, so I have a special fondness for
them.  But after years of working with dessert recipes where almonds
seem to complement stone fruit so well, I was not eating nearly as many
as I used to.  Now I'm eating more of them again, in part because of
several studies of their use in diabetic diets, and in part because
I've started to toast full bags of them before I toss them in the
freezer, to make them easier and tastier to use.  

Have you seen much evidence for differences in the nutritional value
of different nuts?
  

    

When I was researching diets for MS, walnuts and almonds were most highly
recommended.  I don't remember the reasons or the research, at this point,
alas.  I add walnuts to muesli and to many/most of our salads and, 
particularly, to squash dishes.  Almonds, I carry almonds in the car, in 
my briefcase, in my carryon, and love almond butter on toast.  Not a day 
goes by without my eating at least a couple of handsfuls of both.
  

    
Browsing today's links of the week, I am appalled to find out that my
ball chair is accused of 'bouncing my spine into shape.'  I abandoned
my regular desk chair as soon as I had an office & desk that wasn't a
lab (just didn't seem like the right thing for the close quarters and
occasional nasty chemicals of molecular biology), and thought I was
doing my spine a big favor.  
  

    

But, how does your back feel?
  

    
Happy, mostly. 
  

    

Well, then, I say keep bouncing along!
  

    
Different nuts definitely have different nutrient profiles, but I
think it is a mistake to get hung up on numbers like this. My guess is
the reason we've heard so much about walnuts (high in omega-3s) and
almonds (high in vitamin E) is that they are common (i.e. mass
produced) and thus more research has been done on it. I doubt anyone
would benefit much from seeking out one kind of nut and eating it
exclusively.

On the other hand, all nuts are very nutrient dense and a great part
of a healthy diet. I recommend eating which ever nuts taste best with
whatever else you're eating and just making a point to get a diversity
of nuts in your regular diet.

Does this make sense to everyone? The idea of "superfoods" I think is
a bit misguided.
  

    

 Makes sense to me!

Now what abut this bag of sprouted almonds I bought at the jack London Square
market this morning?  How are they different (nutritionally) from raw or
toasted regular almonds?
  

    
That does bring up another very interesting question. I've come across
the idea of soaking most grains overnight before they're cooked, with
the idea that even such a short soak activates them to start making
compounds they'd need if they were to sprout, and therefore their
nutritional profile starts to shift a bit from grain/seed to plant,
which is supposed to be better. 

Are sprouts always healthier?
  

    

To these really interesting questions, I'd like to add another.  When I was
researching optimal foods for MS, I saw several cuations not to toast or
roast nuts, but to eat them raw because the heat somehow changed the nature
of the fatty acids.  I'd appreciate current views on this subject, as well.
  

    

I can't digest them if they're raw, so I will be disappointed to 
discover that roasting them decreases their nutritional value.
  

    
Great questions everyone!

First, on the sprouts. Supposedly there is a slightly different
nutrient profile in sprouted grains (because they are growing) that
some people claim is beneficial. I've never seen solid data that
sprouts are innately better. Like most things they are probably just
slightly different, and the impact on your healthy is not significant.
If it makes you feel better to soak your nuts, go for it! But unsoaked
nuts are perfectly healthy.

Here's the best article I've found on the subject of nut soaking:
http://www.hollyhickman.com/nuts/

As for roasting/heat damaging the oil content, I call BS. Again, any
difference imparted by cooking method is very very small. And both raw
and roasted nuts are good for you. I've heard a lot of people claim
that heating oils makes them bad for you, but the kind of heat that is
imparted by your stove or oven just isn't strong enough to do any real
damage. Oils do well in heat, that's why we use them for cooking.

I'd be much more concerned about eliminating processed foods and
sugars from your diet than making sure your nuts are soaked and toasted
properly. If you're eating nuts, you're already a winner.
  

    
That's a great link!

I will continue with my toasted-walnut walnutty cookies now.
  

    
(and yes, I know the refined sugar is not good for me.  But I'm all
about moderation here).
  

    
Darya, did you have a pointer on one of your blog posts about a
lecture on how sugar is metabolized?  I think that link was passed
around some in one of the other conferences inside The WELL...  maybe
<news.> or <health.>   I think it was a UCSF lecture....  do you recall
where your post about that is?  Do you agree with the sentiment and
the science?
  

    

Sugar: The Bitter Truth by Dr. Robert Lustig

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>
  

    

A *great* video.  My husband and I thank you again for posting it, David.

Thank you, Darya, for the nutty information.  I am so glad that I haven't
damaged myself by eating toasted and roasted nuts, which I *much* prefer.
Walnuts, especially.
  

    
Dr. Lustig is here at UCSF and he's a great scientist. I've actually
been considering contacting him for an interview. Do any of you have
more questions for him? Would this interest you?

I like toasted walnuts waaaay better than raw, which tend to have a
bitter taste. One of my favorite parts of my job is telling people it
is ok to eat delicious foods that have been marred by phoney nutrition
dogma. Hooray for good taste!!
  

    
The big problem with most walnuts is that unless you're shelling them
yourself, and pretty close to fresh off the tree, they start to go
rancid almost immediately.  Toasting kills the off flavors and develops
new ones.  

I've long wondered, though, if the purported extra benefits of walnuts
vs other nuts are tied to the very oils that are unstable and do go
off so quickly--that's one of the things that led me to using more of
other nuts that don't go off so quickly, once the annual fresh walnut
delivery from grandpa stopped.