Sweet N' Sour Cod with Cabbage and Broccoli - Healthy Food Tip and Recipe

Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
If you are watching your weight, this is a great health-promoting recipe for you. It's not just low in calories it also adds a wealth of nutrients, especially health-promoting vitamins C and K, to your Healthiest Way of Eating. Enjoy!
Sweet N' Sour Cod with Cabbage and Broccoli
Prep and Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium onion, sliced medium thick
• 4 medium cloves garlic, pressed
• 1 TBS chicken or vegetable broth broth
• 1 TBS minced fresh ginger
• 2 cups small broccoli florets, cut into about 1/2-inch pieces with no stem
• 1 lb cod filet, cut into 1 inch pieces (use thick filets)
• 4 cups finely shredded green cabbage
• 2 TBS chopped fresh cilantro
• salt and white pepper to taste
• 1 TBS sesame seeds
• 
  
• Sweet n' Sour Sauce
• 3 TBS tamari (soy sauce)
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup mirin rice wine
• 2 TBS chicken or vegetable broth
• 2 TBS honey
• salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Slice onion and mince garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out their health-promoting properties.
2. Mix together all sauce ingredients and simmer in a small saucepan over high heat for about 15 minutes, reducing it to half the volume. Set aside. This will intensify the flavor.
3. While sauce is reducing, prepare rest of ingredients.
4. Heat 1 TBS broth in a stainless steel wok or large skillet. Healthy Stir-Fry onion in broth for 1 minute over medium high heat, stirring constantly.
5. Add garlic, ginger, and cod and continue to stir-fry for another 2 minutes.
6. Add broccoli and continue to stir-fry for another minute.
7. Add cabbage and continue to stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.
8. Add sweet n' sour sauce, cilantro, salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Serves 4 Serving Suggestion: Serve with

• Seaweed Rice

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Healthy Food Tip

Shouldn't we soak oats overnight in order to reduce the level of phytic acid that they contain?

I would not consider oats to be particularly high in phytic acid, nor would I consider the soaking of oats necessary in creating an optimally nourishing meal that contained oats. Following are some details that may help to more fully explain my position.
Raw, uncooked and unprocessed whole oats contain an amount of phytic acid that is similar to the amount found in other grains like wheat, corn, and barley. Like those grains, oats contain their phytic acid in their outside layers. For this reason, whether you are making oatmeal, or oat muffins, or our Swiss Breakfast recipe, or just eating a pre-packaged rolled oat cereal or bread made from oat flour, the level of phytates in your oats is going to have been naturally reduced as a result of cooking the oats. This reduction seems natural to me and I consider it a part of healthy eating.
One of the long-standing concerns about phytates in food has been their ability to interfere with mineral absorption. When oats have been cooked, or milled into flour, their phytate content will typically fall into a range of approximately 2-7 milligrams per gram. I've seen studies in which the absorption of minerals like zinc and copper — given a phytic acid level of 4 milligrams per gram in the grain or legume — falls into the general range of 10-30%. When virtually all of the phytic acid is removed from the grain or legume, this range will increase for zinc into the area of 25-40% but will remain essentially unchanged for copper.
While soaking can have some impact on the phytic acid found in oats and can lower this amount somewhat, it cannot remove as much phytic acid from the oats as was accomplished in these scientific research studies. As a result, I do not believe you would be able to increase the availability of minerals from your oats by a very large amount by soaking them overnight. In this context, it is also important to remember that phytic acid is often a plant's key storage form for the mineral phosphorus and for a nutrient called inositol. I consider these nutrient components of phytic acid to be potentially health supportive substances.
For more information on this topic, please see:

• Oats