What's cookin' good lookin'?

This is an example of a nutrient dense dinner.
Dinner
Veggies, bean and rice taco-style sandwiches
Loads of Steamed Chard with sautéed shallots
Shredded Carrot and Mache Salad
Dessert
Basil Fruit salad with raw almonds, walnuts and sunflower seeds


First, a gentle reminder that cancers, diabetes and heart disease begin decades before they're even detected in the human body as symptoms and are primarily a result of our feeding practices. We'll touch more on our magical cell factories and they're machinery in later posts.

But me just say this again in a different way.
Diseases of affluence are diseases like cancers, diabetes and heart disease. These are the diseases that Americans are sick with more than any other country in the world. Cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are diet-related and most importantly, unnecessary diseases, people.

The war on Cancer is already won - if we let it be. It's already won with the veggies, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds as the unsung heroes in this epic battle. The battle is indeed epic too because the same high quality food heroes that can beat cancer and reverse heart disease and diabetes can also beat the asses of chronic migraine headaches, depression and autoimmune diseases.

If you want to live strong, don't wear a yellow rubber-band around your wrist and give your money to the next 3 day walk for the cure. Go to the freakin' produce isle and start eating the greenest stuff you can find and feed it to anyone who comes to your house for dinner. And feed that stuff to your kids too. They'll eat it if you eat it. They'll eat it if they have no other salty, sweety, *processed type stuff to choose from and you'll find a way to help them eat it if you understand that feeding them anything else on a regular basis is contributing to their future as a sick adult and even sicker nation.

*processed = any product that is sold to you in a package with more than 2 or 3 ingredients.

And don't be fooled if you think you're exempt. I thought my diet was pretty nutritious too until I had some very real diabetes symptoms. It's natural to think we're not the ones who'll be sick. But unless you eat a high nutrient, mostly plant-based diet, which means that 90% of what you eat is plant-based and high nutrient, you're not exempt. Even if you don't have symptoms of disease now does not mean the disease process hasn't begun in your body. Childhood feeding practices play a large and important role the disease process.

Take an honest look at what you eat each day and then recognize that the act of eating and what you put in your mouth is one of the most powerful acts you take part in each and everyday. You could provide for yourself and your family a powerful act of kindness, respect and healing by introducing a new nutrient dense way of eating into your life. You and your children could live a healthy, long, uninterrupted, pleasurable life without prescription medications and without the fear of chronic, debilitating illness in old age.

So, give yourself the gift of a few hours to play around in the kitchen. Give yourself the gift of spending some time with beautiful food magical enough to reverse even the most stubborn diseases. Give yourself and your family the gift of making your kitchen a happy and vital place to be. You're making the home. It's a lost art. And it's a gift that can help save humans and the planet.
Seriously, how can you refuse?
The quantities that you buy of these ingredients will depend on how many people you're feeding. We cook for the 2 of us and we eat a lot. It may take some experimenting to find out how much you need to buy and cook for yourselves. Make enough so that you actually get full and if you make too much, the leftovers are fantastic the next day.

When we first started shopping in the bulk and produce isles, it seemed rather expensive, but then we crunched the numbers and we were spending about the same amount of money that we would spend going out, taking out and buying packaged and processed meals and foods.

When we began buying most of our foods in the produce isle and local open air markets, the quality of our food increased, which means the nutrient levels in our cells increased, which means our cell factories, the magic factories that make up our entire body, have less toxins and more nutrients. And the garbage we made by buying less packaged product decreased, including recycling, which is still ultimately garbage. So take note that when you shop this way, you buy less in the way of packaging. Children and the planet will thank you since you won't be contributing as much to our hidden and dangerous landfills.


Sidenote: Eating a high nutrient diet is the most effective fight against the Swine Flu. Your immune system gets strong by feeding the cells micronutrients. The most nutrient dense foods are plant-based. Bottom line. So eat the veggies, beans, nuts and seeds first. And then wash your hands about 3,000 times a day. In that order.

So, on with the menu for tonight along with a few recommendations.

We recommend you really try and give yourself plenty of time to cook and make the atmosphere in your kitchen enjoyable. My favorite atmosphere changes regularly depending on the season and such : ) Right now, I'm really enjoying good jazz and a glass of quafable red wine with Mati at the table too. I cook, he DJ's and we chat each other up. We've been enjoying Art Blakey lately with a little Herbie Hancock thrown in. But it changes frequently.

The ingredients are documented below in the form of a shopping list. You should only have to go to a few isles in the grocery store; the produce isle, the isles with the grains and beans and maybe the section with the condiments.

Shopping list:
Beans and grains section
Whole wheat (organic) flour (3 cups)
Bulk dry kidney beans or a bag
Brown basmati rice
Produce Section
Red leaf lettuce
Mache or Baby Spinach
Cucumbers
Red peppers
Yellow peppers
Red onions
Tomatoes
Carrots
Avocados
Shallots
Swiss chard
(Buy and make lots of this. It's highly nutritious and delicious and should be a major part of your meal)
Bananas
Melons
Oranges
Any other fruits you'd like to mix in. The more variety, the better. Go for it!!
Nuts - Make sure they're unsalted and preferably not roasted
Pine nuts
Walnuts
Almonds
Sunflower seeds
Condiments and Spices
Stone ground dijon mustard- unsalted
Balsamic vinegar
Dried onion flakes (A delicious staple in our kitchen)
Bay leaves

I’ll keep this as simple as I can. Read the instructions first and print it if you need to and most of all Have FUN

Okay, so in the order of efficiency, first put your kidney beans on to cook.
You'll want 3 parts water to 1 part kidney beans and 2 bay leaves.
Bring them to a boil and then turn them down to medium heat.
They'll need an hour or an hour and a half to cook.
You'll know when they're done because you can pierce them easily all the way through with a fork.
Whole Wheat Tortilla Time
3 cups of whole wheat flour(organic, preferably) in a big bowl
1 cup of water added gradually and you mix with your hands
Work the mixture into an elastic-y ball of dough and then divide it into about 12 or 13 equal dough balls.
Heat a non-stick pan on medium heat.
On a smooth surface, roll a dough ball into a little flat tortilla and cook it for 30-40 seconds on each side. (you’ll need extra flour to use for your surface so the dough doesn’t stick to the rolling pin or the surface you’re rolling on)
If you don’t have a rolling pin, which I didn’t for a while, you can use a bottle. It works too.
Or you can just stretch them out. Be creative.
You may need to remove your pan from the heat from time to time until you get your timing down. Rolling the dough and cooking your tillas at the same time can be tricky but its you’ll get it.
If you can’t bear the thought of this, buy yourselves some quality whole wheat tortillas without salt. – but I highly encourage the handmade method. It’s like working on art in the kitchen. You are a painter, sculpture, artist person with magic tools and even if its hard at first, it will eventually be rewarding. Your kids will think its fun too.

Next the Rice.
Once you put your beans on to cook, in a medium pot, put 2 parts water to 1 part rice and bring that puppy to a boil.
Then turn in down to a simmer and let it cook for 15 minutes or so.
You’ll know when it’s done because the water will have cooked away and the rice will taste yummy ; )

Wash and chop your veggies
Wash your red leaf lettuce and shred it. Put it aside or in a big bowl or something on the table.
Peel the cucumber if it’s not organic and slice it into thin rounds or match sticks or whatever shape you feel like. Be creative. and then put them on a platter or in big bowl.
Slice your red peppers. and put them in with the cucumbers
Slice your yellow peppers and put them in with the cucumber too
Slice your red onions very thin. Very thin so as not to overpower the other veggie flavors and put them in with the cucumbers too.

Check on your rice if you haven’t been.
And your beans.
Maybe give yourself a refill on the vino : )

Wash your swiss chard and chop it.
Use those big white celery like stems too. Rich in nutrients.
Slice your shallots

Now for the Dessert.
Chop, slice and dice all the fruit and put it in a big salad bowl.
Put the salad bowl in the fridge to chill.
Coursely chop the walnuts and almonds and put them aside to top the fruit salad.
Keep some extra fruit washed and by the whole piece in a bowl for those who’d like more dessert. Plus it looks so pretty on the table. You’ll have a fruit frenzy.

Next make your Carrot Mache Salad
Grate at least 4 carrots. I like about 1-2 carrots per person. You’ll have A LOT of grated carrot.
Put the carrots in a big salad bowl.
Diced your tomatoes small. Throw 'em in with the carrots.
Wash and coursely chop the mache. If you don’t have mache, baby spinach will work too.
Put that in the bowl with the carrots and tomatoes.
Add Balsamic vinergar and mustard to taste.
Mix a handful of pine nuts in there and you’re good to go.

When your beans are done cooking, and you’re just about ready to eat, time for chard steam.
Water sautée your shallots
When they’re translucent, add all that magic swiss chard.
Turn off the heat, add a lid and let the chard wilt.
Put it in a bowl on the table.

Put in all on the table.
Eat it up.

Divide the chard between the peeps eating and serve it up.
Combine the beans and rice in a bowl and give everyone a hearty helping.
Put the nice warm pile of tortillas on the table.
The mustard too.
The dried onion flakes.
Put the carrot mache salad out too. Give everyone a hefty helping of that.
Isn’t it pretty?
And the giant bowl of mixed veggies.
Chop the avocados and put those on the table too

Me, I like to spread mustard on my tortillas
then smash some bean and rice mixture
add all the veggies I can and eat it like a taco. It’s my favorite.

We'd like to build a strong community of exchange, dialogue and tasty high nutrient recipes.

So, if you do indeed, try our dinner menu, leave a comment and tell us what you think. Or ask a question if you have one.

Until next time,
Be well little cell.

Make no mistake: the science is clear.

Book Review 1

All of us have a friend or family member who suffers from diet-related diseases like diabetes, cancer or heart disease. Can we really continue to turn a blind eye to evidence that may radically change our lives for the better? With the right tools we can take back the power and become our own primary care providers.

The most important question when assessing any piece of research is to know who authored it. Dr. T. Colin Campbell is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. He has more than seventy grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding. Remember that peer-reviewed research funding is the gold-standard for ensuring honesty and transparency in the research process. Dr. Campell has authored more than 300 research papers in more than forty years of research.


“By any number of measures, America’s health is failing. We spend far more, per capita, on health care than any other society in the world, and yet two thirds of Americans are overweight, and over 15 million Americans have diabetes, a number that has been rising rapidly. We fall prey to heart disease as often as we did thirty years ago, and the War on Cancer, launched in the 1970s, has been a miserable failure.

Half of Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and over 100 million Americans have high cholesterol. To make matters worse, we are leading our youth down a path of disease earlier and earlier in their lives. One third of the young people in this country are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.

Increasingly, they are falling prey to a form of diabetes that used to be seen only in adults, and these young people now take more prescription drugs than ever before. These issues all come down to three things: breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

--The China Study, Introduction

The China Study is the result of 20-year project jointly arranged through Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The New York Times described the book as the “most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.”

The China Study examined "more than 350 variables of health and nutrition with surveys from 6,500 adults in more than 2,500 counties across China and Taiwan." Researchers sought to compare disease rates in China and Taiwan with those in rich Western countries. They wanted to know why Americans and other Western populations die of cancers and cardiovascular disease while the Chinese and Taiwanese almost never did at the time of the study.


The book’s authors claim to "conclusively demonstrate the link between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer." But don't take their word for it. Judge for yourself.

Among the claims the book makes:
•Drugs and surgery don’t cure the diseases that kill most Americans.

•The genes that you inherit from your parents are not the most important factors in determining whether you fall prey to any of the ten leading causes of death.

•Vitamins and nutrient supplements do not give you long-term protection against disease.

•Type 1 diabetes, one of the most devastating diseases that can befall a child, is convincingly linked to infant feeding practices.

•Heart disease can be reversed with diet alone.

•Breast cancer is related to levels of female hormones in the blood, which are determined by the food we eat.

•Your doctor probably does not know what you need to do to be the healthiest you can be.

In Dr. Campbell's own words:
“What made [The China Study] especially remarkable is that, among the many associations that are relevant to diet and disease, so many pointed to the same finding: people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. These results could not be ignored. From the initial experimental animal studies on animal protein effects to this massive human study on dietary patterns, the findings proved to be consistent. The health implications of consuming either animal or plant-based nutrients were remarkably different.”

When someone of Dr. Campbell's credentials makes the above claims you might want to pay attention. And he’s not the only one. In the following weeks we’ll bring you more doctors, scientists and authors who represent the very best in the American spirit. Do yourself a favor and check them out. It’s your life we’re talking about here. So be well little cell.


The China Study website: www.thechinastudy.com/about.html