Homemade Hummus

It's amazing how much time I've spent in the kitchen over the past week. I used to be the sort of person who only went to the kitchen to microwave things.

My acupuncturist told me just over a month ago that she thinks I have a gluten intolerance and needed to cut gluten out of my diet entirely. I gave myself a little time to binge on my favorite gluteny foods (and binge I did, oh my). Last Sunday, I officially started my gluten free diet. Due to my body's utter hatred of dairy, I have cut out all dairy as well - even in chocolate.

Fortunately, there are tons of gluten free (GF) resources out there, so I haven't really been hurting. The best thing about this change is that I have been forced to do more cooking than before. It's possible to get all sorts of pre-made GF foods, but they are usually absurdly expensive. Gluten has a nasty habit of sneaking into all sorts of things (like soy sauce), as does dairy, so it's important to make sure I know every single ingredient that goes into my food. The easiest way of doing that is for me to cook everything.

Hummus is a naturally GF food, and I'll be honest, I don't think they make it with gluten anywhere. Despite the fact that I could just go out to the store and pick up a tub of it, I decided to make my own. My favorite brand runs $5-6, so I figured it would be a fun experiment, and it would save me some money. It turned out amazingly well. In fact, I think it's the most delicious hummus I've ever tasted.

Hummus

1 c dried garbanzo beans (and 1 square Kombu)
1 Tbs tahini (see below for homemade tahini instructions)
1 clove garlic, chopped
lemon juice to taste
salt to taste
olive oil

Soak garbanzo beans overnight
drain beans and cover with fresh water, throw kombu into the pot
Bring to a boil
Reduce to a simmer, and simmer for 30 min - 2 hours until beans are soft
drain beans saving liquid
let cool
put in food processor with a small amount of olive oil, and all other ingredients, and blend
If the mixture is dry, add reserved liquid until it's as moist as you want
If you want a creamier mixture, add olive oil
Blend until desired texture

Seriously, it's super easy. You can add whatever add-ins you want.


Home Made Tahini

Sesame seeds
olive oil (1/4 cup per 1 cup of seeds)

Preheat oven to 350
Put seeds in oven safe container, and put in oven for 5-10 minutes. Mix frequently. Don't let them brown.
Let cool
Put in food processor with oil
Process until desired consistency. I like it to be pretty liquidy, so I processed the heck out of it.

Beans Beans the Magical Fruit...

Beans are wonderful and high in protein, which is great when you don't eat a lot of animal products. It's well known, however, that eating beans will make you bloated and gassy, and let's face it, that's no fun. Not only is it uncomfortable, it makes people less inclined to hang out with you when you're the person who's always farting.

Beans create gas because they contain sugars that our bodies can't break down and are too big to be absorbed in the small intestine. When they get to the large intestine, the bacteria that live there eat it up, creating gas in the process.

Fortunately, mother nature thinks of everything, and there is a 100% natural solution to dealing with the problem.

When you're cooking your beans (make sure you soak dry beans over night, or it will take forever for them to cook), add a 2 inch square of kombu (also spelled konbu). It's a seaweed that you can buy in dried form from natural food stores, Asian markets, or in the Asian food section of your grocery store (if it has one). It doesn't do a whole lot to the flavor of the beans, but it does break down the sugars into smaller, digestible chunks, leaving nothing for the bacteria to munch on. When you're through cooking, just remove the kombu, and you're good to go.

Does Your Doctor Eat Right?

My best friend sent me a link to this New York Times article about doctors who are trying to get the word out about eating well. The sad truth is that medical doctors don't get much, if any, education in nutrition, and many of them eat unhealthy diets.

My favorite quote from the article is, "Food is at the center of health and illness, he argues, and so doctors must make all aspects of it — growing, buying, cooking, eating — a mainstay of their medical educations, their personal lives and their practices."

I would argue that this is true of anyone in the medical profession - not just doctors. Most people in the US have absolutely no idea what they should be eating because we're not educated about it, and our culture encourages us to eat the worst possible food. We look to our health care providers to tell us what is healthy, and if they don't mention diet (which most of them won't), then it's easy to feel like whatever you're doing is fine.

If you're feeling completely overwhelmed about your diet and what you should be eating, I strongly recommend seeing a registered dietitian (RD) in your area. They are wonderful resources for all food-related issues, from obesity to food allergies, and a lot of insurance plans will cover a few visits.

Black Beans and Rice with Kale

I have a confession to make: I don't like leafy greens. When needed, I can choke down some spinach salad or other green, but I won't enjoy it. It's hard to admit this to people who are health conscious. My friends and classmates talk about greens like they're the second coming, and when I say I don't like them, they react like I've uttered the most heinous blasphemy. Unfortunately, greens are extremely good for you and are chock full of vitamins and minerals that your body needs. At times my body even craves them, even though my brain says, "ick." So what's a girl to do when she knows she needs to eat them, but she would really rather eat sawdust?

The answer is remarkably simple: disguise them. Mix them up with other food until you can't taste them any more.

The following recipe is one of my successful attempts to get greens into my diet without offending my poor overly-sensitive taste buds.

Black Beans and Rice with Kale:


2 cups rice uncooked (I like Jasmine for this recipe, but do whatever works for you)
water to cook rice
1 can black beans (or the equivalent in soaked black beans - normally I wouldn't use the canned stuff, but I had a can sitting in my pantry, and I decided to get rid of it)
1/2 large yellow onion chopped
1 clove garlic (or more if you're so inclined) minced
1/2 a bunch of kale (I used 5 or 6 large leaves)
salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste
olive oil
approximately 1 tsp lime juice

Cook the rice according to the directions.
Steam the kale for a few minutes until bright green and wilted (my rice cooker has a steam tray, which I like using because all of the vitamins that would normally disappear into the water and get thrown out drip right into the rice)
Chop the cooked kale into small pieces
In a medium sized pot, saute garlic and onion until onion is clear
Add the kale to the pot and saute for a minute or so
Add the black beans (You can add the liquid in the can if so desired. It makes the dish a little mushier, which I like)
Add salt, pepper, cayenne, and lime juice and mix
Once the beans are hot and the mixture is seasoned to your liking, take off the heat and add to the rice.
Thoroughly mix
Enjoy.

Chocolate: The Good and the Bad

For my botany class this quarter, I had to do a research project on a plant of my choosing. Being a chocoholic, it seemed natural to go with Theobroma cacao, the chocolate plant - Theobroma translates to "food of the gods," and cacao is what the plant was called by Mesoamericans. The history of chocolate is fascinating* (the Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and valued it more than gold!), but I was much more interested in the health benefits.

The Good

Chocolate has all sorts of chemical constituents that make it a wonder food. All of the good stuff is found in larger quantities in dark chocolate than in milk chocolate, and it's found in even larger quantities in cocoa nibs (roasted cocoa beans that have been shelled but haven't had anything added to them).

-It is the best source for theobromine, a natural stimulant similar to caffeine (which chocolate also contains in small amounts) that has also been shown to be one of the best naturally occurring cough suppressants.

-It contains Phenylethylamine, a chemical that occurs naturally in humans that seems to be responsible for people falling in love, and it is present during orgasm. It can also relieve depression without any negative side effects.

- It has large quantites antioxidants, chemicals that help to prevent cancer.

- It contains anandamide, which has a role in short-term memory (I'm totally eating chocolate while cramming for exams from now on!) and is necessary for implantation of embryos.

- Tryptophan, an essential amino acid (which means it's not produced by the body so must be eaten), is found in chocolate. It is the rate-limiting factor in the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter important for relaxation. (It's the same chemical responsible for the food coma you get after eating a huge turkey dinner)

- It's a great source for magnesium, which assists in the absorption of calcium. It also turns out that magnesium deficiency makes PMS worse, so the chocolate cravings that women get are perfectly reasonable, and we should pay attention!

The Bad

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to chocolate. Most commercially produced chocolate is tainted with child slavery. The Ivory Coast is the largest producer of cocoa beans in the world, and slave trade in boys is rampant there. They are either kidnapped or sold for absurdly small amounts. They are forced to work under harsh conditions, are beaten regularly, and are only given enough food to survive. Because they are so inexpensive, they are viewed by the plantation owners as completely expendable. What makes this even more appalling is that chocolate manufacturers know that it's happening, but aren't doing anything to stop the problem. A common excuse is that because beans from plantations that use slave labor are mixed with beans from plantations that don't use slave labor, they can't determine whether what they're buying is slave-free or not. What they are really saying is that they don't want to make the effort and expense to ensure that they are buying beans from good plantations. Unfortunately, this includes all the manufacturers of the most popular candy in the US.

Fortunately, we do have options. Your best bet is to look for the Fair Trade symbol on your chocolate (you should do that for coffee, as well). Fair trade means that the plantations they are buying from guarantee their workers a living wage and decent working conditions. My personal favorite fair trade chocolate comes from Theo Chocolate, a local Seattle company. They are the only organic, fair trade bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the US. For more information on chocolate slavery, and for a great list of chocolate companies that produce slave free chocolate, check out http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/.

*A wonderful, well written, and beautiful book with tons of info on the history, and the preparation of chocolate is The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with recipes by Maricel E. Presilla

For more info on the chocolate in general, check out http://chocolate.org/