Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, In The Kitchen with Millie- How To's, Nourishment
I hear all the time, “I only eat eggs once a week or so”, or, “I eat only the egg whites”.
People are scared of eggs.
Let’s take a look at the health benefits of free range, organically grown chicken eggs.
We have been brainwashed about the dangers of this fabulous food. The whole cholesterol scare turned out to be false, high cholesterol does not lead to heart disease. We now know that there is a difference between HDL (high density lipoprotein) and LDL (low density lipoprotein). HDL is known as the "good cholesterol" because it protects against heart attacks, while LDL is known as "bad cholesterol" because it creates plaque that can clog arteries, contributing to heart attack and stroke.
Further research is showing that there are different types of LDL cholesterol, not all of which are responsible for clogging arteries. This makes a difference in determining what foods to avoid.
Studies show that eating eggs does raise LDL cholesterol, but NOT the type responsible for heart disease.
Man has always eaten the eggs of all animals that produced them: chicken, duck, goose, turtles. Called caviar and roe the eggs from fish are very special foods. Eggs are a wonderful source of nutrition and can greatly strengthen your health. A great source of protein, Vitamins A and D and Folic acid. and the adrenal-building minerals: choline, sodium and potassium. Eggs are a rich source of phosphorus and also sulfur.
Improve heart health. Choline converts homocysteine into harmless material. Homocysteine is the substance that can damage your blood vessels and is a precursor to heart disease. Eggs can also decrease your risk for heart attacks and stroke thanks to the anti-clotting agent found in yolks.
Enhance your vision. The lutein found in eggs can help prevent macular degeneration.
Nourish expecting mothers and their babies. Egg yolks contain high levels of biotin, a B vitamin that can prevent birth defects. Egg yolks should be a baby’s first animal food and can be introduced around six months.
Aid in fat assimilation. Eggs yolks contain lecithin. In fact, lecithin is the precursor to choline, which helps lower serum cholesterol.
Guidelines for choosing eggs:
- Organic. Organic chickens eat feed and grains that were not grown with pesticides. The animals are not given hormones or antibiotics, but "organic" on the label does not tell us if the chickens were able to exercise, nor does it tell us what they were fed.
Free range vs. Cage free.
- Free-range chickens usually have a covered shelter and access to an outside scratch yard. They are pasture-fed and can get worms and bugs, which is the ideal feed for health and strong immunity.
- Cage free chickens do not live in cages but typically live inside a hen house without access to the outdoors.
- Vegetarian eggs are not necessarily good for you. Chickens need protein to develop properly (that’s why bugs are a part of their natural diet) so chickens that are vegetarian may be fed genetically modified soy and other unhealthy grains.
- Conventional eggs. These eggs come from chickens fed conventional food, which includes GM (genetically modified) grains, GM soy and pesticides.
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- The toxins from pesticides and herbicides are stored in the fat of these chickens and their tightly packed living conditions make exercise difficult. It’s no surprise that these chickens are unhealthy and can harbor diseases like salmonella.
- Antibiotics are often needed to rid conventional chickens of diseases.
- Conventional eggs have abnormally high levels of omega-6 fatty acids. High levels of omega-6 fatty acids increase your risk for cancer, obesity and heart disease.
Putting it all together: Look for organic, free-range (or pasture-fed) eggs for the most health benefits.
I recommend cooking your eggs "softly." You never want to overcook proteins or they become difficult to digest. Eat the whole egg, not just the white, that is where all the nutrition is that is so good for you.
Dairy, Pork and Gluten Free Eggs Benedict;
Sauce for Eggs;
Blend cashews to a fine powder in blender, scraping down bowl and under blades a few times. Then add water and blend well. Blend remainder of ingredients until smooth. Heat gently when ready to serve over eggs.
I use Ezekiel bread instead of English muffins, but Kinnikinnick makes them gluten-free, but I do not care for them. I don’t like foods that “seem kinda like the real thing”. If I can’t make it perfect in taste and texture, I’m not going to make it! I do, however, ADORE thier rice bagels, and think that they are better than “the real thing”. Topped with real butter, s schmear of fresh mayonnaise, smoked salmon, a slice of tomato, a few slices of paper thin onions…and my mouth is happy!!!!
Anyway, back to the eggs benedict…poach the eggs until just the whites are set, the yellow still runny, as the bread is toasting. Heat or brown the Turkey Canadian bacon.
Butter the bread, lay the Canadian bacon on the bread, slide on the egg, top with warmed sauce…. My favorite Sunday Brunch food with lots of fruit.
I have been looking for a source of Organic Turkey Canadian Bacon, but so far have only found Oscar Meyer, Please let me know if you know where to get it!!
Enjoy those eggs each morning!
Filed under: Coffee
In 1993 I went to work as an Executive Chef at Juice ‘n Java, a coffee house on San Jose Blvd. near Lakewood. My job was to design and install a full service kitchen, and make the place a full service restaurant with formal service at night, and nice upscale lunches. I had a blast doing so but what fascinated me most was the coffee grinding and espresso making going on. At that time I had quit drinking coffee as I had had 3 children who had all breastfed and I had never gone back to drinking it after that. So I started learning about coffee, but didn’t go back to drinking it.
A few years later, while living in Ponte Vedra, I went to Venezuela to sail with a friend, and there is where I went back to drinking coffee. I fell in love with their coffee, the people, the little cafes we ate in and sipped Cuban style coffee. Back home in Ponte Vedra, there was a great little coffee house I began frequenting to buy freshly roasted beans. As I got to know the owner I expressed to him that I really wanted to explore, and discover, what kinds of coffee I really liked. He was very obliging, took me under his wing, and helped me learn. I discovered I loved Sumatran, Ethiopian, some south American coffees, Puerto Rican, Jamaican and Hawaiian.
But I did not know much about roasting, or making coffee. I had an electric coffee maker, but was dissatisfied with the watery coffee it made. I tried making it stronger; better… but not great. I looked into espresso machines. Ha! The price was ridiculous. I bought a French Press. I liked the coffee better than from the auto coffee maker, but I didn’t like the grounds in it, or having to filter it, or the fact that it cooled too fast in the glass carafe while steeping.
Then I discovered Sweet Maria’s, CoffeeGeek and The Coffee Review…and other coffee sites. I hit Chamblin’s Book Mine and found some books on the history of coffee. I immersed myself in studying, and applying all I had learned.
I got a Moka Pot, a nice thick espresso cup, some already ground espresso blend coffee and learned to make stove top espresso. I LOVED it! Then I bought some organic Ethiopian coffee, ground it in the store, and rushed home to make espresso…mmmm..heaven. It was perfect for that afternoon pick-up when I came home from work occasionally. Bit it wasn’t what I wanted to wake up to each day…I love to wake up to coffee, sip on it and read the NYTimes and catch up on email. Or wander to the back yard and watch the sun come up…
I learned to make Cuban coffee. Loved it.
I learned to make Turkish coffee…AHA!!! I had found the perfect cup of coffee!! I ordered an Ibrik from Sweet Maria’s, along with some green coffee beans. I learned to roast them in my hot air popcorn popper. Hmmm, then I had to take them to the store to grind them (thanks Publix!). What a pain.
So I ordered a coffee grinder; 
It is a Zazzenhuas grinder from Sweet Maria’s. I get up, grind beans (no electricity, and boy does it wake you up!!), make Turkish coffee, pour it into my double wall stainless steel cup (I am way picky about it being hot while I am drinking it) and enjoy heaven in a cup. I make another cup when I head out the door to work around 9;30 or so…..and put it in my no plastic travel mug from HighWave;
How to make Turkish coffee;
Turkish Coffee
Start with an Ibrik (Turkish coffee pot), some freshly ground espresso coffee.
Procedure:
Using a whisk, mix 9 ounces room temperature water with 2 Tablespoons sugar, 4 Tablespoons coffee, and spices (cardamom in traditional in Turkish coffee but cinnamon or chocolate is also awesome), stirred into the Ibrik. Then place on medium high heat. When foaming starts at the edges of the ibrik, slowly begin reducing the heat. The goal is to keep the coffee foaming, but not to let it rise more than a quarter of its volume. If you turn the gas down too quickly and the foaming stops, just turn it back up. The goal is to foam for 3 additional minutes (5 minutes total time). At 6 minutes total the coffee tastes over extracted, and at 4 it can be thin. The temperature at the end of 5 minutes should be around 167 F.
Swirl the ibrik gently to help the grounds caught in the foam subside. Traditionally the coffee is pored very slowly into the cups to keep the grounds out as much as possible. I personally do not like them in my coffee, so I use a Porcelain coffee cone with a hemp filter in it to strain the coffee through. (available at Sweet Maria’s)
You might have guessed by now that I am an extreme environmentalist, I do not use paper filters because I cannot stand to waste the paper. I rinse my coffee filter in a small bowl of water, pour that with the grounds in it into the compost bucket, then rinse the filter and put it in a cup of water which I keep in the fridge. It keeps it from going sour and I do not have to use soap on it which would get the taste into the coffee. Once a week or so I clean it in Oxyclean.
Sugar amount:
0-4% of water mass. I find using half the mass of coffee is just about the maximum to balance the bitterness and really let the acidity shine.
Grinding:
I like the Zassenhaus Turkish mill. Mine is set 3/4 of a turn past French press–the burrs brush lightly when there is no grist.
Better picture of Model 169 DG Closed Hopper Walnut Zassenhaus grinder, available from Sweet Maria’s.
From Coffee Review;
Coffee has been a medical whipping boy for so long that it may come as a surprise that recent research suggests that drinking moderate amounts of coffee (two to four cups per day) provides a wide range of health benefits. Most of these benefits have been identified through statistical studies that track a large group of subjects over the course of years and match incidence of various diseases with individual habits, like drinking coffee, meanwhile controlling for other variables that may influence that relationship. According to a spate of such recent studies moderate coffee drinking may lower the risk of colon cancer by about 25%, gallstones by 45%, cirrhosis of the liver by 80%, and Parkinson’s disease by 50% to as much as 80%. Other benefits include 25% reduction in onset of attacks among asthma sufferers and, at least among a large group of female nurses tracked over many years, fewer suicides.
In addition, some studies have indicated that coffee contains four times the amount of cancer-fighting anti-oxidants as green tea.
Of course, most of these studies do not take into account how the coffee is brewed, how fresh the beans, and so on. Perhaps as these studies are refined we may discover, for example, that drinking coffee that has been freshly roasted and brewed is more beneficial than downing coffee that is terminally stale or badly brewed. Certainly there is considerably more going on chemically in fresh coffee than in stale. And we may learn how much beneficial effects of coffee drinking are provoked by caffeine and how much by other, less understood, chemical components of coffee. But one thing is certain, if I were a nurse taking part in the study noted earlier, and if I were drinking cheap office service coffee, I would be much, much more prone to suicide than if I were drinking, say, a freshly roasted, ground and brewed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe.
Filed under: Skin Care
One specific treatment for cancer brought to the “research forefront” is sunshine. According to a study, men with higher levels of vitamin D (typically obtained through sunshine exposure AND grass-fed meat, eggs and butter, which are your best source for Vitamin D) in their blood were half as likely to develop aggressive forms of prostate cancer than those with lower amounts.
Experiments also suggested vitamin D inhibits cell growth. Yet despite sunshine’s apparent health benefits, doctors are not entirely comfortable with prescribing the “sunshine vitamin,” though many see little harm in getting the 15 minutes of exposure time a day the body needs to make enough of this vital nutrient. (It is recommended people get a daily vitamin D amount of 400 international units.) Doctors warn, however, that there must be a “happy medium” to receiving vitamin D: Too little won’t do any good, while an overload can cause critical health problems such as skin cancer.
Sunscreen Found to Generate Harmful Compounds that Promote Skin Cancer
A team of researchers from the University of California has found that sunscreen can do more harm than good once it soaks into the skin, where it actually promotes the harmful compounds it is meant to protect against.
The research team found that three commonly used ultraviolet (UV) filters — octylmethoxycinnamate, benzophenone 3 and octocrylene — eventually soak into the deeper layers of the skin after their application, leaving the top skin layers vulnerable to sun damage. UV rays absorbed by the skin can generate harmful compounds called reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can cause skin cancer and premature aging. The researchers found that once the filters in sunscreen soak into the lower layers of skin, the filters react with UV light to create more damaging ROS.
The Cal team’s research is the first to indicate that sunscreen filters — intended to protect the skin from the very UV damage they apparently promote — have reacted in such a way.
The researchers found that the filters only become damaging when they are soaked into the skin and another layer of sunscreen is not applied.
"This research confirms what the natural health community has been saying for years: That sunscreens are harmful to your health," said Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate. "The best sunscreen is actually achieved with a diet high in antioxidants," he explained. "When you eat berries, superfoods and fresh produce on a regular basis, these natural antioxidants are utilized by your skin to protect you from excessive ultraviolet ray exposure. Sunburns are caused more by poor nutrition than by UV ray exposure."
