The Controversial Sweetener


Aspartame is an artificial sweetener used in many processed foods, particularly low calorie foods, such as diet sodas, gum, candies, cereals, baked goods etc. Since aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar (Murray 2005, 45) it is billed as a no calorie sweetener that is a perfect sugar substitute!

Let’s look at some reasons why this so called “perfect” sugar substitute may not be so perfect.

Although aspartame is currently the most used artificial sweetener in the US, it also receives the most complaints at the FDA than any other food substance (75% of all non-drug complaints to the FDA). (Murray 2005, 45) (Ross 1999, 268). Aspartame is made by chemically combining two naturally occurring amino acids (phenylalanine and aspartic acid) and methanol. Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is a known poison. (Fallon 2001, 51) Our body breaks down methanol into formaldehyde, a deadly toxin. (Mercola, 2010)
Aspartame has been shown to actually increase appetite and the desire for sweets in particular. Take a look at some symptoms that have been reported to the FDA from people who have ingested aspartame in food and beverage products: (Ross 1999, 36)


seizures
migraine headaches
hives
menstrual changes
weight gain
headaches
severed depression
insomnia
anxiety attacks


Another thing to consider: no chemicals in our bodies are isolated. Compounds such as aspartame will interact with other ingredients in the foods, medicines and other toxins we ingest and these interactions have not yet been studied. (Freidlander in Bauman 2010, 127) There is still some controversy as to whether or not aspartame is actually absorbed by the body. Whether or not it has been proven that the body absorbs aspartame, the list of symptoms above should be enough to make us question the safety of this artificial ingredient

References:
http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm “Aspartame: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You” (Mercola)
Bauman, Edward;Freidlander, Jodi. (2010). “Aspartame Research: Questions Remain”. Bauman College NE Handbook, 127.
Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions. Washington, DC.: New Trends Publishing Inc., 2001.
Murray, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods. New York: Atria, 2005.
Ross, Julia. The Diet Cure. New York: Penguin, 1999.

Cleaning Cilantro

Most of the cilantro you buy is pretty dirty so it needs to be washed thoroughly. Just rinsing the bunch of cilantro under running water does not always wash away the little pieces of grit that can be nasty and uncomfortable when they end up in your mouth. There is an easy way to clean cilantro. Keep your cilantro in a bunch and fill up a medium size bowl with water. Dunk the bunch of cilantro in the bowl of water and, using your hand, swish it around really well, dump out the water and refill the bowl. Repeat the swishing of the cilantro bunch and then leave it to sit in the water for about five minutes. The dirt particles will sink to the bottom of the bowl by this time. Gently lift out the bunch of cilantro and at this point spin dry in a salad spinner(my preferred method) or dry out on paper towels. You can then pick off the leaves, keep them whole or chop them. Unlike other herbs such as parsley, basil or thyme, the stems of this herb are edible and taste pleasant, not too stemmy. So if you like, use them up along with the leaves in rice paper rolls, soups, pestos, tacos etc. instead of throwing them away!

In the past five or so years I have modified my diet once again to include animal proteins. I was a vegetarian for about 10 years and slowly moved back into the circle of meat eaters (of course they welcomed me back with wide open arms). I experimented with fish, then chicken and finally could officially no longer be called anything close to vegetarian, I was (and am) once again a meat eater. I ventured back into animal protein territory because of physical issues in my health that needed to be addressed. I will say that the re-inclusion of fish, chicken and red meat have all been quite beneficial to my physical being.

That all being said...this post is more about recipe discovery and tips for anyone who cooks or wants to than it is about my ethical and nutritional values and needs.

I recently tried Carne Asada for the first time this past year and had it once again just the other night in an SF restaurant. I have always loved tacos and eating this type of taco was so so enjoyable, flavorful and nourishing. I thought I might experiment with making it myself...here is the recipe I came up with based upon some internet findings. Look out for some basic tips that will help anyone cook up some healthy fresh food to follow!

Carne Asada Tacos
1/2 pound Flank steak or Skirt steak
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 limes, juiced
1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika

Vegetables for Tacos
1 Red Bell Pepper - sliced into strips
1/2 bunch Green Onions - Trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 - 1/2 Jalapeno Pepper - minced
1 Yellow or White Onion - Diced
1/4 bunch cilantro - leaves chopped rough
1 Tb. olive oil
6-8 small corn tortillas

Whisk all the ingredients (except the steak) together in a glass pyrex dish (the one you will use to marinade the meat in). Place the flank steak in the dish and coat with the marinade. Cover and marinate for at least 1 hour, and up to 8 hours, in the fridge.

While waiting for the meat to marinade, cut all your veggies up and get them ready for cooking!
Heat up the 1 Tb. of olive oil in a skillet and saute up the Red Bell Pepper until it starts to turn a bit charred and soft, add the green onions and saute until soft. Place cooked bell pepper and green onion on a plate to the side.

Heat up that same pan until it is very hot, pull the flank steak from the marinade and sear on each side. Remove the steak and place on a cutting board and add the diced onion and jalapeno to the skillet and saute until the onion is translucent. Cut the flank steak into strips and add it back to the pan with the onion and jalapeno until cooked all the way through.

Place some steak and vegetables in each tortilla and top with cilantro and any other fixings you choose!


This marinade would also be excellent on chicken, tofu or tempeh! This dish is fast (excluding the marinade time), fresh, healthy and really delicious!

Other ideas for this recipe:

- Place all warm ingredients in a larger tortilla and top with cheese, sour cream and salsa to make a large burrito.
- Make extra meat and vegetables and us them the next day cold in a spinach tortilla or lavash with a bunch of greens such as spinach or mixed greens to make a lunch wrap.
- Take the leftovers and place on top of a bed of fresh greens with a nice vinaigrette to make a salad.

Check out some of the knife skills described below demonstrated on CBS 5 "Eye on the Bay"

http://cbs5.com/video/?id=57034@kpix.dayport.com

Let me know what you think and what other knife skills you would love to learn!

More Tips and Tricks

The dreaded onion!
I honestly don’t know of anyone that loves to cut onions, or even particularly likes it. Unfortunately the onion is a staple of almost all cuisines, so it makes it almost impossible to avoid cutting into its raw and most potent state. In professional kitchens everyone has to be the onion cutter at one time or another and no one is allowed to cry about it! A guy I used to work with said that he held a job where his morning consisted of cutting cases and cases of onions before he could move on to the rest of his prep work for the day. (Whole cases ended up being 50 pounds of onions each. Yikes!) I never complained about having to cut an onion or two after that.
Usually people take an onion, lop off the ends, peel and chop as fast as they can to try and avoid watery burning eyes. It may seem like this is the fastest way, but when we keep exposing and breaking the cell walls of the onion we give those burning vapors more and more opportunity to seep out and into our eyes.

It is important to remember that the more a vegetable rolls around on the board the harder and more dangerous it will be to cut with a sharp knife. In order to create stability cut one side of the vegetable to make it flat…here is how you go about cutting an onion safely and with out too much crying:

Cut off the top end and keep the root end in tact

Place the onion on the flat side we just cut off (by continuing to place the onion on its exposed flat surface we also keep the vapors reaching our eyes)
Cut the onion in half right through the root.
Place one half of the onion to the side and lay the other half down on its flat exposed side.
Peel back the skin of the onion, all the layers that you do not want to eat.

Now you have only three easy cuts to make!


One- place your palm on the top of the onion, and hold your fingers up so that they will be out of the way of the knife….cut about three horizontal cuts to the root end but not through the root.
Two- turn the onion so the root end points away from you…place the point of your knife in the onion right next to the root end and again not through the root…make about 4-5 slices like these.
Three- turn the onion so it is again parallel to you and slice through, from the top down to the root.

The root is what holds the onion together, limiting the exposure of the inside of the onion and making it easier to cut. Now you have diced half of your onion, you can save the rest for later, and quickly sweep your dice into a bowl, set aside covered for when you are ready to use it!

Tips and Tricks

SOME BASICS
One thing I have noticed about those who love to cook in their homes is that they hate cutting vegetables. Getting onion vapors in our eyes that cause us to cry is so uncomfortable. Scraping, picking out and cleaning up all those little seeds in bell peppers becomes annoying. We all strive not only to make our food taste good but also look good. Most people just want to cut down on the time it takes to prepare ingredients that go into a meal. If we learn some basics about knife skills, we will be able to buy the freshest ingredients and prepare them ourselves and still have that extra time for enjoying a meal with friends and family.

8" Chef's Knife and Sharpening Steel

If you have been cutting vegetables with a poorly made steak knife, or some version of, you have probably become frustrated by the amount of time it takes as well as the results. Your frustration may have even led you to buy bags of expensive pre-cut vegetables. The larger, all purpose knives (called Chef’s knives) aren’t just for the Iron Chef’s on T.V. or the Toque wearing chefs in your favorite restaurant. Understandably those big sharp knives can seem intimidating, but using a chef’s knife in your home kitchen will make a world of difference for you! The most obvious fear is that you will cut yourself, but actually it is much safer to use a sharp knife than a dull one as long as you follow some simple and safe techniques.

Choosing the knife for you:
Always use a knife that feels comfortable in your hand

There are three sizes to consider when searching for a basic vegetable prep knife: 6” ,8” or 10” Chef Knife

Look for weight and length first- if the knife is too heavy or too long that you feel uncomfortable and fearful when using it then try another size. I have a small hand so I feel comfortable using a 6” knife for most of my basic vegetable cutting, saving the 8” for when I have larger things to cut such as melons or large eggplant.
If holding a heavier 10” chefs knife feels intimidating then try a smaller size, an 8” perhaps, but try them all, you may be surprised by what you actually feel comfortable using.

Make sure your knife is sharp:
A brand new knife is always sharp, but how do we keep it that way?
Buy a sharpening steel and hone your knife before or after each use.
(A sharpening steel is used to help keep a fine edge on a knife. Honing the knife on a steel is not the same as sharpening it. When you hone the knife you are helping to maintain the sharp edge but eventually that edge will wear down and it needs to be re-sharpened and reshaped professionally.)

Bring your knife in for sharpening once or twice a year, depending on how much you use it. After using your knife for awhile you will be able to tell when honing alone isn’t keeping your knife at its sharpest.

Next we will look at some basic knife cuts that make cutting vegetables more enjoyable and more efficient.

Pickles

About a week ago I traveled over to the Lafayette farmers market to visit my friend Suzy who was selling her very own flavored sugars. I passed a farmer selling his pickling cucumbers 5 for $1.00!!! I bought ten and decided I was going to try my hand at home made pickles. I wanted to make sour, salty and crisp pickles - the ones you get from a jar in the supermarket or a good deli...so I am currently fermenting a large jar of pickles in a quiet dark corner of my house. I tasted them yesterday and they are already on their way to becoming my next beloved salty crispy (and naturally fermented) obsession! I modified a recipe from Sandor Katz's book "Wild Fermentation"

Around 8 small to medium pickling cucumbers - washed really well and cut lengthwise into quarters

1 Head of Garlic - peeled

1 Bunch of fresh Dill

3 Tb. Sea Salt

1 Quart Water

1 Pinch Whole Black Peppercorns

Wash all containers very well and thouroughly in hot hot water. I placed the dill at the bottom of the jar with the garlic and layered in the cucumbers. I then poured the salty brine and peppercorns into the jar. It is important to make sure that all the ingredients are submerged in the brine. Place a jar or plate that will fit inside the mouth of the large jar (I used a mason jar) to press down on the cucumbers submerging them in the brine. Then you cover with a light towel and place in a cool dark area. Check jar every day and skim off any mold that appears washing the inserted plate or jar and replace, cover. Sandor Katz says that you can leave it like this for 3-4 weeks and then transfer to the refrigerator for slower fermentation. I have tasted mine a couple times and they are defenitely on their way! It has been one week and they have turned dark green and crispy, flavorful already!