Health

Eat Bitter Foods for Better Health

Your mouth probably puckers at the thought of eating something bitter. But according to many experts, including clinical herbalist Guido Masé and integrative physician Tiearona Low Dog, a small dose of bitter can prevent and cure a litany of complaints.

Why do we need bitter foods?

Masé explains that plants developed bitter compounds to stop mammals from eating them. Then mammals developed detoxification systems, i.e. our livers, to deal with the bitter compounds. So bitters are the reason we have a liver, and it doesn’t work right when we don’t eat them.

Masé and Low Dog say ingesting more bitters, particularly before we eat, can:

Improve digestion

When there’s no bitter flavor in our food, Masé says we run the risk of poor digestion. “We see fat and cholesterol synthesis problems in the liver. … We see food passing untouched through the digestive system.” He recommends that instead of trying to “restrict, restrict and remove, remove” for concerns like toxicity, chronic inflammation, liver dysfunction, and digestive complaints and sensitivity, we “reincorporate bitterness.” When we activate our taste buds with the bitter flavor before a meal, the pancreas secretes enzymes, the liver secretes bile, and the valves through the compartments of the gastrointestinal tract work better. “As a result, the drama of incomplete digestion is really tempered.”

Nix heart burn

The mouth is not the only thing that puckers when we eat bitters. According to Masé, the valve at the bottom of the esophagus also scrunches up, keeping acid in place.

Eliminate food allergies and excema in adults and children

“I’ve seen big changes in the skin when we focus on enhancing digestion and restoring the microflora in the gut,” writes Low Dog in her book Healthy at Home. She prescribes children’s bitters for kids with food allergies, to be taken a half an hour or so before dinner. She also recommends bitters for adults with seasonal and environmental allergies.

Curb sugar cravings

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, we shouldn’t seek to eliminate the sweet taste from our diet, but to balance all five tastes. In the same vein, Masé is convinced that ingesting more bitters is the solution to sugar addiction. “Just make sure you get a little bit of bitter every day and you’ll find that your relationship with sugar is a whole lot easier.” He carries a tincture of bitters in his car and takes a little bit before he goes to the grocery store. That way, he insists, it’s easier for him to keep the chips and sweets out of his basket.

5 ways to ingest more bitters:

Greens

One of my favorite foods — dandelion — is a bitter. You can learn more about how awesome dandelion is in my (all-time most popular post) Dandelions are Superfoods. Chicory, arugula, radicchio, escarole, turnip greens, mustard greens, watercress, endive, and other bitter greens also make delicious pre-dinner salads.

Coffee and Tea

Coffee is probably most people’s favorite bitter food, and it’s been shown to be amazing for the liver. (But it’s the bitter taste that’s healing, so don’t sweeten it up too much!) Dandelion root, burdock, milk thistle, hops, gentian and other bitter herbs make excellent pre-meal teas.

Tinctures

Urban Moonshine, Herb Pharm, and other companies make bitter tinctures and tonics that you can take with a glass of water as a quick before meal ritual.

Dark chocolate

Dark chocolate is a delicious way to add some bitterness to your diet, and it was featured in this week’s People’s Pharmacy because of its many other health benefits.

Cocktails

Bitters are a common bar ingredient. Look for bitters at your grocery store and learn how to mix up a Manhattan, Rob Roy or Old-fashioned.

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Do you like bitter foods and beverages? Have they helped you solve any health issues? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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The Best Fast Food You’ve Ever Had

By Abby Quillen

Here’s my article about Portland’s food cart revolution, from the current issue of YES! Magazine. We’ve had a week straight of ice-cold fog, and these photos, taken last July, are making me delirious with summer longing (not to mention hungry).

Portland’s Food Truck Heaven: How a New Kind of Fast Food Brings Jobs, Flavor, and Walkability

Immigrants and other restaurant workers get a way to rise in local economies. Communities get the best fast food they’ve ever had.

by Abby Quillen

At noon on a sunny day in Portland, Ore., in what not long ago was a vacant lot, customers roam past brightly painted food carts perusing menus for vegan barbeque, Southern food, Korean-Mexican fusion, and freshly squeezed juice.

The smell of fried food and the tent-covered seating bring to mind a carnival, but a number of Portland’s food carts take a healthy approach to street food. The Big Egg, for instance, serves sandwiches and wraps made with organic farm-fresh eggs, balsamic caramelized onions, and arugula. Their to-go containers are compostable, and next to the order window is a list of local farms where they source their ingredients.

“We don’t have a can opener. We make everything ourselves, so it’s very time-consuming. And that’s the way we want it,” says Gail Buchanan, who runs The Big Egg with her partner, Emily D. Morehead.

The Big Egg usually sells out, says Buchanan as she hands a customer the last sandwich of the day, one made with savory portobello mushrooms. And on weekends, customers form a line down the block, willing to wait up to 45 minutes for their food.

Buchanan and Morehead dreamed of opening a restaurant for years. They had food service experience, saved money, and spent their free time developing menu items. “Then 2008 happened,” says Buchanan. Difficulty getting business loans after the recession convinced them to downsize their dream to a custom-designed food cart. When a developer announced he was opening a new food cart lot, Buchanan and Morehead jumped in.

Portland’s permissive land-use regulations allow vendors to open on private lots—food cart “pods”—like the one that hosts The Big Egg. Local newspaper Willamette Week estimates there are about 440 food carts in the metro area.

The food cart scene has taken off in Portland in a way it hasn’t in other cities—transforming vacant lots into community spaces and making neighborhoods more pedestrian-friendly and livable.

Recent features in Sunset, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and on the Food Network have pointed to Portland’s food cart pods as tourist destinations. There are even food cart walking tours.

Despite their success, Buchanan and Morehead have found that running a food cart isn’t easy money. They both work 70 hours a week, most of it prepping menu items—their fire-roasted poblano salsa alone takes three hours to prepare. But they’re grateful for the experience. They plan on opening a restaurant soon, like a growing number of he city’s most popular vendors.

Many of those vendors are first-generation immigrants who’ve found a way to make a living by sharing food traditions.

A few blocks from The Big Egg, Wolf and Bear’s serves Israeli cuisine from Jeremy Garb’s homeland. But it’s Israeli cuisine with a Portland influence, says his co-owner, Tanna TenHoopen Dolinsky. “It’s inspired by food in Israel, but we sprout our chickpeas and grill everything and don’t use a deep fryer.”

Wolf and Bear’s has grown to two locations and employs 12 people, and Garb and Dolinsky are considering opening a restaurant. “There’s a feeling of opportunity in Portland, and I think the rise of cart culture is representative of that,” says Dolinsky.

Nong Poonsukwattana has made the most of that opportunity with her food cart, Nong’s Khao Man Gai, famous for her signature rice and chicken dish. She describes hers as the best kind of fast food: “Fast service but not fast cooked. It’s fresh. I serve happiness.”

Poonsukwattana arrived from Bangkok, Thailand, in 2003 with $70. She waitressed at five different restaurants, working every day and night of the week, before buying her own downtown food cart in 2009.

Now she has two carts and a brick-and-mortar commercial kitchen and employs 10 people. Recently she started bottling and selling her own sauce.

Poonsukwattana likes the sense of community in the food cart pods, “even though competition is fierce,” but especially the cultural exchange with customers, many of whom she knows by name.

“I think it’s always good to support local business, mom-and-pop shops, or small businesses with different ideas. It’s beautiful to see people fight for a better future for themselves.”

Abby Quillen wrote this article for How To Live Like Our Lives Depend On It, the Winter 2014 issue of YES! Magazine.

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13 Aha Moments in 2013

By Abby Quillen

In 2010 and 2012, I shared the magic moments when I heard or read something that surprised or inspired me. Moments that made me say, “aha.” As we say farewell to 2013, I have 13 more for you:

Cooking might be the most important factor in fixing our public health crisis. It’s the single most important thing you can do for your health. – Michal Pollan

The next time you look in a mirror, think about this: In many ways you’re more microbe than human. There are 10 times more cells from microorganisms like bacteria and fungi in and on our bodies than there are human cells. – Rob Stein

You can find a way to make economic exchange one of the most satisfying, meaningful, and loving of human interactions.” – Judy Wicks

Since there is no “healthy soil/healthy microbe” label that can steer us toward these farms, my suggestion is to ask this simple question: “Does the farmer live on the farm?” Farmers who live on their land and feed their family from it tend to care for their soil as if it were another family member. – Daphne Miller

In Asian languages, the word for mind and the word for heart are same. So if you’re not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you’re not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention. – Jon Kabat-Zinn

“A seed makes itself. A seed doesn’t need a geneticist or hybridist or publicist or matchmaker. But it needs help. Sometimes it needs a moth or a wasp or a gust of wind. Sometimes it needs a farm and it needs a farmer. It needs a garden and a gardener. It needs you.” – Janisse Ray

Thanks to cutting-edge science, we know that happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement — giving us the competitive edge that I call the happiness advantage. – Shawn Achor

I melted, and accepted, and only then could I actually enjoy his presence instead of worrying about losing him or changing him. And this, as I’ve learned, is the best way to be. – Leo Babauta

Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were approximately twice ours. They had relatively little access to alcohol and tobacco; and due to their correspondingly high intake of fruits, whole grains, oily fish and vegetables, they consumed levels of micro- and phytonutrients at approximately ten times the levels considered normal today. – Paul Clayton and Judith Rowbotham

The findings suggest that job burnout is “a stronger predictor of coronary heart disease than many other known risk factors, including blood lipid levels, physical activity, and smoking. – Anne Fisher

We also know, more definitively than we ever have, that our brains are not built for multitasking — something that precludes mindfulness altogether. When we are forced to do multiple things at once, not only do we perform worse on all of them but our memory decreases and our general wellbeing suffers a palpable hit. – Maria Konnikova

Over the same decades that children’s play has been declining, childhood mental disorders have been increasing. … Analyses of the results reveal a continuous, essentially linear, increase in anxiety and depression in young people over the decades, such that the rates of what today would be diagnosed as generalised anxiety disorder and major depression are five to eight times what they were in the 1950s. – Peter Gray

The most profound thing I have learned from indigenous land management traditions is that human impact can be positive — even necessary — for the environment. Indeed it seems to me that the goal of an environmental community should be not to reduce our impact on the landscape but to maximize our impact and make it a positive one, or at the very least to optimize our effect on the landscape and acknowledge that we can have a positive role to play. – Eric Toensmeier

Did you hear or read something in 2013 that surprised or inspired you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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My New Favorite Cookbook

By Abby Quillen

I’m smitten with this cookbook right now. I’m not sure how I missed Deb Perelman’s popular blog all these years, but it’s almost worth denying myself all of that goodness to stumble upon these recipes for the first time in this stunning book.

Everything I’ve made so far — Slow-Cooker Black Bean Ragout, Kale Salad with Cherries and Pecans, Harvest Roast Chicken with Grapes, Olives, and Rosemary — is mouth-watering. As you can see, the photos, which she took herself, are delectable.

But the very best part are her one-page introductions to each recipe, where she reveals morsels of her personality. It’s hard not to fall in love with her. For instance, here she is on zucchini:

Can we promise to never talk about the weather? For example, New York in July is hot. So very hot. Also humid. And unpleasant. And have I mentioned this heat? It’s unbearable. But tomorrow the weather will change, and you’ll have spent fifteen minutes talking about something that you don’t even remember. In my mind, this is infinitely worse than spending an evening discussing the finer points of different vegetable-roasting temperatures. (You are welcome to pity my husband right now. I understand.)

But if I were going to discuss the weather — which I won’t, I promise — on those days in July when the zillion inhabitants of this tiny island are squeezed into structures coated with heat-soaking concrete from floor to sky, while vehicles weave through the grid in a way that makes living in New York City challenging, I would suggest an antidote in the form of a cold, refreshing salad. One that required no heated cooking and, even better, helped us with summer’s real torment — zucchini population control.

“Maybe we should try to cook every recipe in here this summer,” I remarked to my husband as we salivated over the aforementioned kale salad for the second night in a row. Yes, salivation-inducing kale salad — seriously, a wonder!

And he agreed. So apparently, Perelman’s recipes manage to strike the perfect blend of crunchy and full of vegetables (me) and rich with butter and cream (my husband) to beguile both of us. It’s a marvel. I definitely recommend checking out The Smitten Kitchen. And now you’ll find me over at her beautiful blog catching up on what I’ve been missing over the past seven years.

What’s your favorite cookbook right now? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Dispatches from Shanghai

By Abby Quillen

My sister Columbine is studying in Shanghai this summer, and she’s been sending me dispatches about the city and culture. I think a lot about urban life, especially how we can create more liveable cities (a new urban habitat, if you will), so it’s fascinating to hear about life in a city of 24 million.

Columbine has traveled extensively in Europe and Latin America, but this is her first trip to Asia. She’s amazed by how clean and safe Shanghai feels:

I didn’t know what to expect from China and Shanghai. I have never been to a city of this size. I certainly have never lived in a city this size. I think I expected to be a bit disgusted, since most large cities have an element of filth. Walls near the train tracks will be painted with graffiti. Sirens will be heard at all hours of the day. Whiffs of open sewer will find your nose. Trash will be strewn about. Shanghai is nothing like that. It is quite clean. Much cleaner than any American city I’ve visited, including small cities like Denver and Portland, and it is much cleaner than New York. I have not heard one siren. I have not seen any graffiti. And the streets are consistently being swept by people in sage green uniforms. It is also the safest-feeling place I’ve ever been.

Another thing she consistently remarks on is how healthy the elderly residents are:

Every morning the parks are filled to the brim with old people doing calisthenics, tai chi, fan dancing, and walking. It brings tears to my eyes and makes me smile. There are parks every few blocks, as most people here live in shantis or apartments and they don’t have lawns or yards as we do in the States, or even shared gardens as you often see in Europe. There is something magical about seeing all of these old people enjoying one another’s company, all in incredibly good health. I have never been to a country where the old people were in such good health.

Chinese culture melds ancient traditions that go back thousands of years, like tai chi and Traditional Chinese Medicine, with cutting edge technology that far exceeds what we have in the U.S.:

The fastest train in the world connects Pudong Airport to downtown Shanghai. It is an electro-magnetic train which reaches speeds of 270 mph. It was dizzying as the landscape whizzed by. I kept wanting to see what China looked like, but it was flying by so fast that I couldn’t get much more than a quick glance. You go 20 miles in less than 8 minutes. It was absolutely incredible.

Have you visited or lived in Shanghai, or another part of China? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

How Transforming Your Meals Can Transform Your Life

By Abby Quillen

Recently, I had an aha moment while I was eating a salad for lunch and skimming the newspaper.

I don’t have much time for newspaper reading in this season of life. Of course, we all know it’s not that we don’t have time for things; it’s that we’re not making time for them. But I make time to appear on the non-stop quiz show that is hanging out with my four-year-old: “How do the flowers bloom?” “Why does glass break?” “Why does it get dark at night?” I make time to chase my naked one-year-old around the house with a diaper, to prepare more sandwiches some days than a bustling Subway, and to meet writing deadlines, polish blog posts, and edit a book. So, reading the newspaper doesn’t always rise to the top of my to-do list.

But I grew up in a newsroom. My parents owned or edited newspapers until I was ten and then wrote for them. Newspapers were our bread and butter, and according to my parents (and civics teachers), the foundation of an informed democracy. Thus I’ve always tried to squeeze reading one into any moments of my days when I am sitting. Lately, during those moments, I’m also eating.

But on this day, as I ravenously devoured my salad with our bizarrely sordid City Region section — Armed man mistakes pregnant wife for an intruder! Mom lets toddler inhale marijuana smoke! Blind rapper robs car! Seriously. — I realized how ridiculous it was. I was hardly tasting the fresh, organic food that I’d spent good money on and labored to prepare.

Moreover, I was squandering one of life’s greatest pleasures – eating.

More ridiculous still, I meditate for fifteen minutes a day. So I was rushing through my lunch, distracted and multi-tasking, so that I’d have time to sit and pay attention to my breath. It’s like driving across town to run on a treadmill.

So that day I stopped.

Now I just sit and eat. If someone’s eating with me, we converse. If I’m alone, I pay attention to my food. Sometimes I watch the chickens peck around the grass, the squirrels scamper along the fence tops, and the bluebirds flit between the branches.

My meals are incredibly relaxing and pleasurable.

And when lunch is over, I usually find myself scribbling down notes, because it turns out quiet, unhurried lunches are perfect incubators for ideas — for stories, novels, essays, blog posts…

There’s a name for this magic that I’ve discovered: mindful eating.

Full confession: I’ve long been aware of it. I’ve seen half a dozen magazine articles and blog posts about it over the years. I’ve possibly even wolfed down a story about it in the lifestyle section while inhaling my lunch.

But I long resisted actually doing it. Why? I’m a compulsive reader. And the truth is, eating has always seemed, well, a little boring.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. When I worked in offices, the few people who left their desks for lunch lugged along a book, magazine, or laptop to bury themselves in.

The truth is, being mindful of anything can be deceptively tricky. It takes getting used to. But psychologists say practicing mindful eating can help people form a healthy relationship with food, desire more nutritious meals, and sustain a healthy weight.

And as I can attest, once you get the hang of it, it could become the best part of your day.

Do you practice mindful eating? Have you stumbled upon another small change that made a huge difference in your life? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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