Posts Tagged: vegetables
Looking for a smooth(ie) spring
If you’re like me and can’t pass up the bananas at your warehouse store, then hit the banana wall, freeze the extras in chunks on a plate, and use them in smoothies. When the last of the strawberries are looking a little sad to eat fresh, freeze them individually on a plate and use them in smoothies. Ditto for peaches, kiwis, mango, melon, pineapple … just about any ripe fruit, frozen, is an excellent addition to your smoothie. And speaking of that warehouse store, they also sell this delicious Greek yogurt, which is an excellent and healthy addition to your smoothie. And speaking of additions, in our family, we like a little bite to our smoothie, and usually end up dribbling a little lime juice to finish off the blending.
Want to expand your smoothie repertoire? How about incorporating vegetables? Smoothies are a painless way to add some extra vegetables to your diet. Often, you can barely tell they’re there and they sure add to the nutritional punch of your smoothie.
Almost everyone could benefit from eating more fruits and vegetables, and smoothies are an easy way to do it. With ingredients low in fat, low in calories, low in sodium, high in fiber and nutritionally dense, smoothies could, and maybe should, become a regular part of your warm days routine. Here are a couple of websites and my favorite recipe to start your smoothie engines:
Mix-it-up Smoothie
½ frozen banana
5-7 frozen strawberries
½ C frozen blueberries, raspberries, kiwi or pineapple
½ C greek yogurt
Enough milk to get it swirling in your blender
2-3 T lime juice (preferably fresh squeezed)
Cruciferous vegetables help fight cancer
The role fresh vegetables play in maintaining good health is no secret. But, according to a University of California scientist, eating from a particular group of vegetables can help protect the body from lethal illnesses like cancer.
These extraordinary vegetables are in the cruciferous family - including broccoli, kale, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.
UC Berkeley toxicology professor Len Bjeldanes says cruciferous vegetables are good sources of the natural chemical compound diindolilmentano, or DIM. DIM suppressed harmful cells in studies with rats and Bjeldanes believes it can have the same effect in combating cancer in humans.
"We were really surprised to see that we've got about an 80 percent reduction in the amount of virus that could proliferate in those animals when we gave them the combination with DIM," said Bjeldanes, who is conducting the experiments with colleague Gary Firestone, a molecular biologist. "This is really a very strong indication that this is helping the body deal with these immune insults, like in this case a virus."
Bjeldanes said prostate cancer is sensitive to androgen, a male hormone.
“This makes our finding that cruciferous plants contain an anti-androgen important,” he said. "DIM is the first example of a naturally occurring anti-androgen from plants that we know of. So this is quite remarkable."
DIM may also play a role in suppressing breast cancer.
"We had been studying for some time the effects of the vegetables on mammary and breast cancer and there's a fair amount of information that says indeed, they are in fact protective of mammary and breast cancer," he said.
The scientists will next determine whether protective effects of DIM found in experiments with rats will manifest themselves in human studies.
Bejeldanes cautions that eating cruciferous vegetables is not a miracle cure for cancer. But he encourages people to include vegetables rich in DIM in their diets. The vegetables will give a boost to the body’s immune system, enabling it to defend against all manner of illnesses.
"These are chemicals that are important in activating the immune response and help the body fight the bad guys, like bacteria or viruses,” he said.
To get the most immune-boosting compounds from broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, nutrition experts suggest eating them raw, in salads, or lightly steamed. Boiling the vegetables destroys more than half the nutrients.
(Original article by Alberto Hauffen. Adapted to English by Jeannette Warnert.)
Romanesco cauliflower is one of the more unusual cruciferous vegetables.
Eating right doesn’t have to break the budget
Even though dietitians have for decades strongly recommended eating lots of fruit and vegetables daily, very few Americans hit the mark. Food prices, taste, inconvenience, and a failure to understand the link between diet and health have been blamed for Americans’ poor food choices.
New research by the USDA Economic Research Service dispels one of those obstacles. The study determined that buying the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables costs on average only $2 to $2.50 per day.
“For those with access and the means to buy them, the assertion that fruits and vegetables are too expensive is not a good excuse,” said UC Cooperative Extension nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor Cathi Lamp. “Consumers should be able to purchase a days’ worth of fruit and vegetables for less than it costs to buy a cheeseburger.”
The ERA researchers estimated the average retail prices of 153 fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. Processed fruits and vegetables included frozen, canned and dried plus 100 percent fruit juice. They also estimated the average price per edible cup for each vegetable and fruit.
Costs in the study were defined as the average prices paid by all American households for a food over a one-year period, including purchases in different package sizes, under different brand names and at different types of retail outlets (including supercenters such as Wal-Mart, wholesale club stores like Costco, traditional grocery stores such as Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons, and convenience stores.)
The research indicated that:
- Fruits and vegetables cost about 50 cents per edible cup.
- The lowest average price for any of the 59 fruits in the study was for fresh watermelon, at 17 cents per cup. The highest average price was for fresh raspberries, at $2.06 per cup.
- Among the 95 fresh and processed vegetables in the study, a cup of dry pinto beans was the least expensive at 13 cents. The most expensive was frozen asparagus cuts and tips at $2.07 per cup.
- Processed fruits and vegetables were not consistently more or less expensive than fresh produce, but with certain types of produce, the prices varied quite a bit. Canned carrots, at 34 cents per cup, were more expensive than fresh carrots, at 25 cents per cup. However, canned peaches, at 58 cents per cup, were less expensive than fresh, at 66 cents per cup.
Lamp suggested smart shopping can also help consumers reduce the cost of their fruits and vegetables. For example, buy fresh fruit and vegetables in season, use canned and frozen fruit and vegetables when it is cheaper and stock up when items are on sale or when shopping at a supercenter or wholesale club.
USDA says fresh watermelon is, on average, the least expensive fruit.
Vegetables, farmers, kids & adventures
Unusual vegetables and fruits get me every time. Rainbow carrots? Watermelon radishes? Party cauliflower? Romanesco?
Bright colors, quirky shapes and even creative names can stop me in my tracks at any farmers market. If I can't identify it, I feel compelled to buy some to take home and share.The small-scale farmers who are likely to be selling these tempting curiosities are counting on customers like me (and maybe you too?). They often cannot compete on low prices alone, but small-scale farmers can succeed by differentiating their products from more widely available commodities through taste, appearance, harvest time or other qualities. Planting a new specialty crop can help a small-scale framers carve out a profitable niche in the marketplace.
For that reason, identifying and field-testing specialty crops is a focus of the UC Small Farm Program — and of a new project officially launched this week.
The UC Small Farm Program is a partner in the "Great Veggie Adventure," an effort launched by the makers of Hidden Valley Salad Dressings to identify a vegetable that few people have heard of, but that children might just love. The Small Farm Program is helping identify vegetable candidates that meet criteria highlighted by a survey of elementary school students' vegetable preferences.
Our farm advisors will be growing varieties of rainbow carrots, watermelon radish, party cauliflower and Romanesco in demonstration plots around the state. Though small farm advisors frequently test and demonstrate interesting new crops, this time they will be bringing kids behind the scenes, with blog posts and video updates from their fields.
Will these "new" vegetables snag the curious tastebuds of kids? We'll have to wait and see.
But I know some vegetables that I'll be keeping an eye out for at my farmers market...
Did you know?
- Aziz Baameur, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor (also with the Small Farm Program) and Maria Giovanni, nutrition advisor, conducted field tests and tasting panels with a rainbow's array of carrots. Read more about it in UC Delivers.
- The Great Veggie Adventure is part of the "Love Your Veggies" program, now in its fifth consecutive year. Hidden Valley created the Love Your Veggies program in 2007 after a study by UC Cooperative Extension Butte County and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. Read about their study in this ANR News Blog post.
Video: Manuel Jimenez, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor in Tulare County, introduces his work with the UC Small Farm Program — and the program's involvement in the "Great Veggies Adventure"
Color, color and more color
When my daughter was a young swimmer, she wanted to collect a ribbon of every color. Picking up on this, my husband and I encouraged her to eat many colored fruits and vegetables as a game. Red strawberries, green kiwis, and hmmm, what kind of fruit is white? Bananas! Then we have green cucumbers, red peppers, purple eggplant. You get the picture.
We all know we need to eat more fruits and vegetables, so why not make it a game? If you had an orange with your cereal for breakfast, have a spinach salad with red onions, mushrooms and sprinkle of bacon for lunch and blueberries on yogurt for your afternoon snack. Let’s see, that covers orange, green, red, white and blue. I guess we’re having a spaghetti dinner! It’s interesting that much of the nutritional value of a particular vegetable can be found by just looking at the color of it.
- Red — lycopene, anthocyanins — Heart and circulation health, urinary tract health, memory function
- Yellow/orange — carotenoids, bioflavenoids — Vision health, healthy immune system, heart health
- White — phytochemicals — Cholesterol levels, heart health
- Green — indoles, lutein — Healthy bones and teeth, vision health
- Blue/purple — anthocyanins, phenoles — Healthy aging, urinary tract health, memory function Phenol
Now that we know what the colors do for us, let’s make sure to keep all the nutrients we can. After planning, shopping and preparing, you don’t want to cook the health right out of your veggies! Of course most people eat their fruit raw, which, in general, is the best thing to do with all fruits and vegetables. An exception is tomatoes. Heat processing actually enhances the nutritional value of tomatoes by increasing the lycopene content that can be absorbed by the body, as well as the total antioxidant activity. The best way to cook veggies is to steam or stir-fry for the shortest time possible. If you can avoid it, don’t boil your vegetables as their nutrients leach into the water.
Fruits and vegetables are packed with vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that keep you and your family healthy and thriving. Try adding more colors to your diet today starting with this delicious recipe from Family Fun magazine.
Chicken Lo MeinThe best part about this colorful dish is its versatility -- you can pick and choose the vegetables you include to accommodate your family's tastes.
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- Cook the noodles according to the package directions until just tender. Drain out the water. Rinse the noodles with cold water, drain them well, and then set them aside.
- In a small bowl, mix the hoisin sauce, chicken broth, soy sauce, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Then set the sauce aside.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a large wok or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Stir-fry the ginger for 30 seconds. Then add the onion and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and carrots and stir-fry 2 minutes more. Finally, add the broccoli, pea pods, and corn. Stir-fry the vegetables for 2 more minutes, then transfer them to a plate.
- Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in the pan. Add half of the chicken and stir-fry it until it's no longer pink, about 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer it to another plate. Stir-fry the remaining chicken, then return the first batch to the pan. Add the cooked noodles, vegetables, and sauce. Turn the heat down to medium.
- Using two spatulas or wooden spoons, lightly toss the mixture until heated through, about 3 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.