Do you walk into our store and feel overwhelmed? Our local friend, Hilary Boynton, Certified Holistic Health Counselor, offers hour-long tours of our store. You’ll discuss what's on our shelves and Hilary will share tips on quick, healthy cooking strategies. You’ll get simple recipes and handouts. Mother of 5, Hilary is passionate about food. Call her today at 978-580-1616. Hilary charges $50 for an hour tour, and it’s worth it! (Feel free to talk to our knowledgeable staff as well.)
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Little Chew Salad
This salad keeps everyone happily chewing, which means you get the pleasure of each other’s company around the table for longer than it takes to wolf down a burger and fries. That’s only one thing I like about Little Chew. The colors, textures and yummy taste are other reasons to make this. And of course the health benefits of this salad are enormous (it’s all those cruciferous veggies, edamame and garlic).
Just in case you don’t know (now you will!), edamame are the young, tender, green soybeans. High in protein (a half a cup yields 11 grams of protein), that protein is “complete,” meaning they contain nine essential amino acids the body needs. Edamame are low in fat too.
What’s the “Best” Antioxidant?
A Little Background, and a Few Lessons Learned from the USDA ORAC Database
You’ve probably heard of free radicals and antioxidants by now. In case you haven’t, here’s the quick summary: a free radical is a rogue chemical compound buzzing with unstable energy. If the free radical gets close to another molecule, the energy instability may “jump” to the other molecule, making it a free radical. And of course, as a free radical, it can pass the instability on to yet another molecule, and then another… and another…
So there’s a chain reaction, sometimes described as a “molecular game of hot potato.” Only this game of “hot potato” leaves destruction in its wake: molecules transformed into free radicals can be damaged or broken, sometimes permanently.
Bibimbap
Bibimbap is a Korean stir-fry with a fried egg on top. This is my easy version that takes about 20 minutes from start to serve. Some may want to fry the eggs separately, but this method works fine for me. If you’re a vegan, use smokey tempeh strips instead of eggs.
Italian Chestnut Flour Bread
How many of you have tried this oh-so-easy recipe? Yes, it appears in our third cookbook, The Blue Ribbon Edition: From Our Kitchen to Yours, but it’s simply too delicious not to nudge you again. Try it at home! As I said in our 3rd cookbook, chestnut flour is mentioned in print as far back as the 16th century in Italy when the chestnut was often referred to as a “grain that grows on a tree.” Chestnuts were survival food. In the mountain regions of Italy, the nuts were used fresh during season, and then dried and ground to make flour so there would be food when it was snowy.
Yes, Cold Coffee, Says Jocelyn
I admit it. I’m a coffee snob. My love affair with coffee goes back to my years in Paris during the ‘70s, when my lips first uttered the words “un café, s’il vous plait.” I can live without many of life’s pleasures, but I cannot, no, I will not live a life without coffee. It has to be organic, strong, and smooth like velvet.
Can Magnesium Make You Smarter?
We all want a pill that will make us smarter. And natural medicine has a lot to offer… sort of. There are herbs and nutrients that can help us focus, eliminate distractions, reduce cognitive fatigue, pick us up, calm us down, help the brain develop in infancy, and maintain its function into old age.
Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot that can help an otherwise healthy adult (or child): someone without problems, without distractions, without fatigue. In other words, there are herbs and nutrients which can bring us back towards “normal,” but not a whole lot that can make us “better.”
Enter the mineral magnesium.
Ask Gracie
More than half a million Americans received angioplasty in 2007 (the most recent year for which data is available). This invasive procedure involves inflating a thin balloon in a narrowed artery; a stent (a wire mesh tube) is often then left behind to keep the vessel open.
When used during a heart attack, angioplasty can quickly open a blocked artery and save lives. However, oftentimes heart disease patients receive angioplasties and stents when there is no heart attack, even though a new analysis of eight clinical trials involving over 7,000 people found that “Initial stent implantation for stable CAD (coronary artery disease) shows no evidence of benefit compared with initial medical therapy for prevention of death, nonfatal MI, unplanned revascularization, or angina.”
Mary Jane’s Gardening Handout & Rescue Remedy for Seedlings
Growing veggies? Pick up one of Mary Jane’s handouts on gardening hints. We’ve run it in our newsletter in the past, and I re-read it each year before I plant. It’s great! Concord citizen, Debbie Bier, said she waters her seedlings with water made magic (my words) with a few drops of Rescue Remedy. Her pictures of the seedlings that got the Rescue Remedy enriched water and the control group that did not were astounding. Rescue Remedy is, of course, one of the Bach Flower Essences.
