Today's Recipe - Curried Chicken Over Spinach

Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
This is a great tasting dish that requires little work. The curry coconut complements the flavor of spinach and you can easily include more vegetables. Just increase the amount of sauce slightly and add along with the bell peppers.
Curried Chicken Over Spinach
Prep and Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces (6oz each)
• 1 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 TBS fresh ginger chopped, or 1/2 tsp dried
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 medium sized onion, cut in half and sliced
• 1 medium sized red bell pepper julienne about 1 inch long
• 1/2 cup coconut milk, make sure it is mixed well before using
• 4 bunches fresh spinach
• salt & white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Bring water to a boil for spinach. While water is coming to a boil, cut chicken into bite sized pieces. Healthy Sauté onion in a medium sauté pan over medium low heat for about 5 minutes stirring frequently. Add garlic and fresh ginger and continue to sauté for another minute. Add turmeric, and curry and mix well. Add stock, chicken, and coconut milk. Simmer for 5 minutes and add bell peppers and other vegetables you desire. Cook until chicken is done, about another 5 minutes.
2. While chicken is cooking, cut ends off the bunch of spinach all at once. Don't bother trying to do it one stem at a time. It will take you too long and it is not necessary. Rinse spinach well and drop into boiling water for just 1 minute. Strain and press dry. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Place spinach on plates and top with chicken mixture.

Serves 4 For optimum flavor and nutrition serve with:
Minted Carrots Printer Friendly Version of Curried Chicken Over Spinach
In-Depth Nutritional Profile for Curried Chicken Over Spinach
Healthy Food Tip

How do organic foods compare to non-organic foods in terms of nourishment?

From a research standpoint, I believe that scientific comparisons of organic and non-organic foods show the clear benefits of organic. However, I also recognize that there are a relatively limited number of studies in this area and that the results have been controversial. Virginia Worthington, as part of her doctoral dissertation at John Hopkins University analyzed (and later published) 41 existing studies that compared organic to non-organic foods. On average, she determined the organic foods to contain:

• 27% more vitamin C
• 21.1% more iron
• 29.3% more magnesium
• 13.6% more phosphorus

In her review, she also noted that while five servings of organically grown vegetables (lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage) provided the daily recommended intake of vitamin C for men and women, their conventionally grown counterparts did not. Organically grown foods were also found to contain, on average, about 5% less nitrates than conventionally grown foods. While nitrates have not been conventionally spotlighted as toxic risk factors in food, they nevertheless appear (in the 216th spot) on the 2007 CERCLA Priority List of Hazardous Substances as published by the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This review of organic foods also determined them to be lower in protein than their non-organic counterparts but to contain higher quality protein in terms of amino acid composition.
Other studies on organic versus non-organic foods have found fewer statistical differences between their nutrient content, and in some cases, greater amounts of some nutrients in non-organic versus organic foods. These studies also typically show large amounts of variability in the nutrient contents of different foods, both organic and non-organic.
From my perspective, it makes sense that certain crops, grown under certain very favorable environmental circumstances, would be likely to show greater concentrations of certain nutrients than other crops grown under less favorable environmental circumstances, even if non-organic farming methods were used in their cultivation. Basic patterns in sunlight, rainfall, temperature, and other factors would always remain critical in the final chemical composition of the foods. For this reason, when I consider the research as a whole, I believe it clearly shows the nutritional advantages of organically grown versus non-organically grown food.
A second and equally important consideration with all organic foods is the absence of unwanted contaminants. Organically grown foods are very important for the chemicals they are missing! The stringency of the federal organics legislation makes it illegal for most synthetic pesticides to be used in organic production. Sewage sludge is also prohibited. The absence of potentially toxic residues on organic food has also been studied, and organic foods have been compared to non-organic foods in this regard.
In a study reviewing data sets gathered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, researchers found that in a comparison of 8 fruits and 12 vegetables, 73% of the non-organic crops were found to contain pesticide residues, in comparison with 6-27% of organic crops (depending on the exact crops that were compared). For some non-organic fruits (apples, peaches, pears, and strawberries) and for one non-organic vegetable (celery), over 90% of the non-organic food samples showed pesticide residues.
Additionally, 12-62% of the non-organic crops were found to contain multiple pesticide residues, and in some cases as many as 14 different pesticide residues. In the case of organic crops, this range was only 1-7%. About two-thirds of the time, a lower quantity of the pesticide levels was found in organic versus non-organic foods.