Mediterranean Cod with Tomatoes - Healthy Food Tip and Recipe

Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
Enjoy this low-fat meal with cod as part of your Healthiest Way of Eating this week. It contains less that 200 calories!
Mediterranean Cod with Tomatoes
Prep and Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:

• 1 lb cod fillets
• 2 medium onions, sliced medium thick
• 3 medium cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 cup + 1 TBS chicken or vegetable broth
• 2 cups fresh or 1 15 oz can (BPA-free) diced tomatoes
• 2 TBS fresh lemon juice
• *1/4 cup chopped black olives
• *1 TBS capers
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
• 2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1 lb cod fillets, cut into 2-inch pieces
• salt and cracked black pepper to taste
• red chili flakes to taste
• * optional

Directions:

1. Slice onions and chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out their hidden health benefits.
2. Heat 1 TBS broth in a 10-12 inch stainless steel pan or skillet. Healthy Sauté onion over medium heat for about 5 minutes in broth, until translucent. Add garlic and continue to sauté for another minute.
3. Add rest of broth, diced tomatoes, and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer on high heat. Once it starts to simmer reduce heat to medium and simmer for about 5 minutes.
4. Add herbs, olives, capers, and cod fillets; cover and simmer for about 5 minutes, depending on how thick the fish is. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve cod mixed with tomato herb sauce.

Serves 4 Serving Suggestions: Serve with

• Great Antipasto Salad
• Brown Rice

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In-Depth Nutritional Profile for Mediterranean Cod with Tomatoes
Healthy Food Tip
Which is better: monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats?

Both types of unsaturated fat-monounsaturated and polyunsaturated -can offer important health benefits. We know from studies involving the Mediterranean diet-where intake of olive oil is especially high -that monounsaturates can be heart protective. (Olive oil has the highest level of monounsaturated fat of any commonly used oil.) With polyunsaturates, there is also evidence of decreased risk of chronic disease, but only when the diet is also relatively high quality and accompanied by healthy intake of antioxidant nutrients.
The reason we need plenty of antioxidants when we eat polyunsaturates is simple: the more unsaturated a fat is, the more delicate it becomes. Heat and oxygen are more damaging to polyunsaturated fats than to monounsaturated ones. This situation is problematic for highly polyunsaturated plant oils because they have lost the antioxidant protection that was originally supplied by their whole food origins (i.e., beans, seeds, or nuts). At the World's Healthiest Foods, we encourage consumption of many whole foods that contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fat, but we do not encourage consumption of high-polyunsaturate oils that have been processed from these exact same foods! Oils processed from whole foods do not have the same protection from heat and oxygen that whole foods have-too many antioxidant nutrients have been lost during processing.
Due to the problems with heat damage to oils that are high in polyunsaturates, many companies offer oils that would ordinarily be high in polyunsaturates, but in fact contain much fewer-than-expected polyunsaturates and much higher-than-expected monounsaturates. These oils are produced from plants that have been hybridized (not genetically engineered) to contain more monounsaturated fat in their beans or seeds. Since most of this monounsaturated fat comes from oleic acid (one of the most common monounsaturated fatty acids found in food), these oils are usually called "high-oleic oils." You can buy high-oleic sunflower, safflower, and corn oil in many grocery stores. If you plan to use cooking oils at high heat, these high-oleic versions can be a good choice.