healthy food tip and recipe
Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
This easy-to-prepare recipe adds a combination of flavors that is
both complex and delicious to your Healthiest Way of Eating. It is also
a very good source of health-promoting vitamins D, K and B12. Enjoy!
Stir-Fried Seafood with Asparagus
Prep and Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 medium onion, cut in half and sliced medium thick
- 1 TBS chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 TBS minced fresh ginger
- 3 medium cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 cups fresh sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 1 bunch thin asparagus, cut in 2" lengths (discard bottom fourth)
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 TBS tamari (soy sauce)
- 2 TBS mirin wine
- pinch red pepper flakes
- 3/4 lb cod fillet cut into 1 inch pieces
- 8 large scallops
- 8 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes cut in quarters
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- salt and white pepper to taste
Directions:
- Slice onion and chop garlic and let sit for 5-10 minutes to enhance its health-promoting benefits.
- Heat 1 TBS broth in a stainless steel wok or 12 inch skillet.
Healthy Stir-Fry onion in broth over medium high heat for 2 minutes,
stirring constantly. Add ginger, garlic, mushrooms and asparagus.
Continue to stir-fry for another 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Add lemon juice, tamari, mirin, red pepper flakes, cod,
scallops, and shrimp and stir to mix well. Cover and simmer for just
about 5 minutes stirring occasionally on medium heat.
- Toss in tomatoes, cilantro, salt and pepper. Serve.
Serves 4
Serving Suggestions:
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Stir-Fried Seafood with Asparagus
In-Depth Nutritional Profile for
Stir-Fried Seafood with Asparagus
Healthy Food Tip
What are some of the best food sources for probiotics and prebiotics?
The terms "probiotics" and "prebiotics" aren't really food terms
and don't apply very well to food. These terms come from the dietary
supplements industry.
"Probiotics" usually refers to a dietary supplement that contains
bacteria (usually freeze-dried) in amounts likely to remain viable in
our digestive tract after we've swallowed the supplement. In order to
guarantee that some of the freeze-dried bacteria become viable in our
digestive tract, large numbers of bacteria are usually contained in a
single capsule. For example, a one-gram capsule of Lactobaccilus
bacteria might contain 250 billion colony-forming units (or cfu) of the
bacteria.
"Prebiotics" usually refers to a dietary supplement that contains
nutrients that serve as food for certain bacteria in our digestive
tract. FOS, or fructo-oligosaccharides, is one example of a nutrient
often contained in a "prebiotic" supplement. Inulin (a special storage
form of partly indigestible starch found in many root vegetables foods
including onion and garlic) is another commonly encapsulated
"prebiotic."
If you compare the world of supplements to the world of food, you
will find that "probiotics" and "prebiotics" are somewhat strange
terms. The vast majority of the World's Healthiest Foods are not foods
that we eat in order to obtain their bacteria. Although there are almost
always bacteria present in any food that we eat, bacteria are seldom
concentrated in the World's Healthiest Foods and it would not make sense
to have any concentrated bacteria in them.
One exception to this rule would be cultured dairy foods.
Cultured dairy foods such as yogurt and kefir can be great sources of
"healthy" or "friendly" bacteria. In this case, the term "friendly"
bacteria simply means bacteria that are needed for healthy digestion in
our intestinal tract (and proper balancing of different bacterial
populations). I would just be careful to read the labels and choose a
high quality product that says it has live active cultures. Because
dairy products are often cultured with these exact bacteria to make
yogurt and kefir, they can be highly beneficial in this regard, provided
that a person can tolerate them without any adverse reaction.
In most prepackaged, processed foods, however, it is unlikely to
find any sizable quantities of live bacteria ("probiotics") due to the
use of heat and chemicals in food processing. This same situation can
take place with cultured dairy products, such that yogurts and kefirs
can contain no live bacteria cultures even though live bacteria were at
one time added to the milk. For this reason, it's important to select
cultured dairy products that indicate "contains live cultures" or
"contains active cultures" on the packaging. Some manufactures will
actually report the amounts of live culture contained in the product.
Live bacterial cultures can be added to other foods besides dairy
foods. Sauerkraut-another name for fermented cabbage-is an example of a
cultured vegetable. An Asian version of fermented cabbage, particularly
popular in Korea, is called kim chee. A basic fermentation process is
used to culture the cabbage in kim chee, and chili pepper, garlic, and
salt are typically added to give this cultured vegetable its pungent
character. As with cultured yogurts and kefirs, these fermented
vegetables may or may not contain active bacterial cultures. Once again,
the manufacturers who are sensitive to these issues will often indicate
the presence of live bacteria cultures (if they are present) on the
packaging. Miso, a thick paste often made from soybeans, is another
example of a cultured food that can contain live bacterial populations.
Remember how I explained earlier that FOS are nutrients often
contained in prebiotic dietary supplements? Well, you can get these same
FOS nutrients in foods as well. Since Jerusalem artichokes and chicory
root both have concentrated amounts of FOS, these foods could be
considered as "prebiotic" in the dietary supplement sense of that term.
Earlier I also mentioned the popularity of prebiotic dietary supplements
containing inulin, a storage carbohydrate (technically called a
fructan). Inulin-and other inulin-type fructans-can also be found in
many root vegetables, including onion, jicama root, dandelion root,
burdock root, leeks, and asparagus.
Fibers found in many foods, including oats, barley, and apples
can be fermented into short chain fatty acids that help to feed the
beneficial bacteria in our intestines. For this reason, it is also
possible to think about these foods as "prebiotic." In fact, I would
tend to think about any high-fiber food that contained fairly
digestion-resistant fibers or starches as "prebiotic," and you can find
many such foods in my World's Healthiest Foods list. The
digestion-resistant fibers and starches found in these foods can be
metabolized inside our lower digestive tract and converted into
butyrate, propionate, and other short-chain fatty acids that can be
used by our intestinal bacteria for energy.
For more information on this topic, please see:
References
Annison G, Topping DL. Nutritional Role of Resistant Starch: Chemical
Structure Vs Physiological Function. Annu Rev Nutr. 1994;14297-320.
Brown I. Complex Carbohydrates and Resistant Starch. Nutr Rev. 1996;54(11 Pt 2):S115-9.
Asp N. Resistant Starch--an Update on Its Physiological Effects. Adv Exp Med Biol. 1997;427:201-10.
Roberfroid MB. Prebiotics and probiotics: are they functional
foods? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2000;71(6): 1682-7S.
Topping DL, Clifton PM. Short-Chain Fatty Acids and Human Colonic
Function: Roles of Resistant Starch and Nonstarch Polysaccharides.
Physiol Rev. 2001;81(3):1031-64.
Monday, November 18, 2013 —
Servings
Serves 2
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