Nutrition Nerd

Allergies, tofu, B vitamins, wine

Fruit stand in Modiin, Israel, hometown of Baila

I haven’t done a post on health topics for a while, so here are some recent internet picks:

• Allergies: why are they on the rise? Lots of theories, such as a possible link to vaccines. Feel free to argue with any theory. I’m going to highlight this idea:
  

  Allergies And Ubiquitous Presence Of Some Foods

  Before the advent of freezers and airfreight most people ate local foods in season. Now most fruit and vegetables are available all year round, so that our systems are exposed to the same foods continually without respite.

  There has been a dramatic increase in people experiencing soya allergy, since soya has become a common ingredient in many processed foods. In Europe and North America rice allergy is relatively uncommon, whereas in Asia where it is consumed more frequently it is much more common.

  Note: In Israel one still eats local foods in season. It is difficult, for example, to obtain strawberries in the summer.

• Why Tofu Wrecks Your Brain
  Always a good idea to read comments on Dr. Mercola’s posts
• Can a good B vitamin help reduce susceptibility to sunburn? I’ve heard that B vitamin supplementation can ease the mosquito bites. However, my son claims he eats a lot of cereal, so he doesn’t think this is true. He gets very itchy mosquito bites.
• Resveratrol in red wine prevents cancer

As I am married to a red wine lover, I’ll conclude with a photo from our trip to the Galil winery:

The wine is stored in these oak barrels (oak is either from France or the US) for a few years before being bottled and sold. We bought some Galil Pinot Noir and enjoyed it with our friends in Hashmonaim.

Tanks for fermentation and storage of wine are the answers to my quiz on this post.

Recipe Ramblings

Last week Little Frumhouse on the Prairie (isn’t that a great name?) posted that she is hosting the next Kosher Cooking Carnival. So my mind starts churning…maybe a post on food photography?

I photographed one of the dishes I made for dinner one night. Because it was pretty. And it looks nice against the blue background. Food often looks good against blue, because there really isn’t any true blue in food. Even blueberries are really purple.

Later, I go visit my neighbor, arguably one of the best cooks in Highland Park. Last erev Yom Kippur she gave some of her Gondi, a Persian specialty of ground chicken, chickpea flour and spices rolled into balls and cooked in a sauce. Wish I had a photo of that! Are you making anything special for Purim, I ask. She said always makes something different for the Purim seudah (feast). I could tell her mind wasn’t yet on Purim.

On Friday night my husband came home from shul and said our rabbi spoke about the times one can have the Purim seudah (feast) this year. Purim falls on a Friday, not my favorite timing. Batya doesn’t have this problem. We can have the seudah at a choice of three times: in the morning, after noon, or at the end of the day, right before Shabbat starts. One then says Friday night kiddush in the middle and continues one’s meal. The latter sounds like an interesting idea, but then my husband would need to find a minyan for ma’ariv of men doing similar. We ended up agreeing on a brunch for the seudah this year. Eggs, bagels, fruit, veggies and salmon sound like a plan…

Years ago I made a Persian Purim feast… I can’t for the life of me remember what I served, but rice was certainly on the menu.

So, in the spirit of Nutrition Nerd, I’ll teach you how to make brown rice in a crockpot. It’s SUPER easy. Put in a cup of brown rice and 2 cups water. Cook for 2 – 2.5 hours. If, for some reason (you have nothing else going on in your life, right?) you forget the rice, don’t worry, you’ve just got brown rice with crispy edges. The middle is still edible.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my strung together food photo, exotic Persian dish, halachic (Jewish law) note, and recipe all in one post.