For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week skinny people don’t diet, healthy eating is cheaper than junk food, and Starbucks is worse than 6 donuts. I included a couple of extra ones, because they were just too good to leave out.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week picky eating is unhealthy, a big win for organic meat, and why you should eat more collagen.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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From reading books like Nourishing Traditions and Super Nutrition for Babies, and following along with the “nose-to-tail” movement, I know that organ meats are incredibly nutritious. That’s why I wanted to try cooking chicken livers for Lily, my one-year-old, but having never cooked them before I kept passing them by at the meat counter.

Then I read Darya’s post 18 Nutrition Habits You Are Probably Neglecting, where she discuses all the “weird” foods she devours, and I was inspired. I decided it was time to get out of my comfort food zone. Up first: I was going to make a dish using chicken liver.

I consulted my notes and recipes from studying at the Natural Gourmet Institute and came up with this recipe. After the first round of testing and tasting, I decided to add walnuts into the spread to give it some texture and balance out the gamey flavor of the liver.

At first I was hesitant to serve the pâté to guests, but to my surprise everyone was delighted by it. Lily was adorably signing “more, more” while Grandma exclaimed it reminded her of her childhood and asked if she could take home the leftovers (luckily this recipe makes enough to fill two small ramekins).

When buying chicken livers, be sure to buy from a reputable butcher. Since the liver is the organ that filters out toxins, liver from pasture-raised or organic chickens is preferable to minimize exposure to toxins.

For an impressive appetizer, serve this French-inspired spread on top of thin baguette slices that have been drizzled with olive oil and toasted under the broiler for a minute on each side.

Weird food is oh so good! Thanks Darya for the inspiration.

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Going to a restaurant with me is not a normal phenomenon. I’m not impressed by comfort foods that most people love like mashed potatoes and mac’n cheese, and I almost always order the “weirdest” thing on the menu––think crudo (aka raw) platters, seaweed tastings and organ meats.

Just last week, for instance, I took my brother Shay to lunch at Mozza in Southern California, and without even asking him ordered the bone marrow appetizer. He looked at me incredulously. “Bone marrow?”

Me: “Yep, don’t worry about it. I always get it. You don’t have to have any if you don’t want.”

To Shay’s credit he tried it and––like 75% of the “weird” stuff I’ve encouraged him to try––he loved it.

So why am I such a freakshow?

Beyond my general disdain for social norms and conformity, my desire to eat at the fringes of the menu and grocery store stems from my desire to get as broad a spectrum of nutrients from my food as possible.

Healthy eating is about more than avoiding flour, sugar and trans fats. It also requires optimizing your nutrient intake of basic vitamins and minerals, as well as essential fats, amino acids, and trace micronutrients science may still be unaware of.

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Photo by Michael Hodge

We already know that food manufacturers and the media tend to exaggerate the benefits of popular health foods, but what about all the wonderfully healthy foods they ignore?

It’s time to shine the spotlight on 10 of my favorite healthy foods that never get the attention they deserve.
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For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Why you probably don’t need to worry about your love of seafood causing prostate cancer, how health conscious people are tricked by clever packaging, and why I still won’t eat anything from China.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links at Twitter (@summertomato) and the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Is Fish Oil Linked to Prostate Cancer? <<A few people emailed me in a panic this week about new data on fish consumption and prostate cancer. Here the lovely Denise Minger describes why there’s no need to worry just yet. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• Is Coconut Water Worth It? <<I love Dr. Weil’s take on the new coconut water trend. Anyone who has tasted the real stuff knows the difference. (Dr. Weil’s Blog)
• Big Sugar Sues Big Corn Over “Corn Sugar” Ad Campaign For HFCS <<BS of the week. Two big producers of dangerous foods are battling in court to see who deserves to trick you the most. Don’t fall for it. (Consumerist)
• Dieters can get out of ‘healthy’ food trap by checking ingredients <<I mentioned recently in office hours that the only thing I look at on packaging is the ingredients. Looks like that’s a pretty good idea. (Los Angeles Times)
• Interval Training and Healthy Eating Is Solution to Obesity, Study Shows <<Encouraging news about lifestyle approaches to weight loss. (Science Daily)
• Eating Healthily for $3 a Day <<It’s a common misunderstanding that healthy eating is expensive. It certainly doesn’t have to be. (Mike Turitzin)
• Why China Struggles with Food Safety <<I don’t eat anything from China, and I won’t until they get these issues resolved. (Wall Street Journal)
• Coca-Cola not ready to drop bisphenol A in can linings <<Yep, it’s even in Diet Coke cans. (The Vancouver Sun)
• Fish Livers Contain Beneficial Fatty Acids, Study Suggests <<Hooray for organ meats! (Science Daily)
• Chicken Piccata <<This looks so good I think I’m going to have to make it this weekend. Yum! (Chez Us)

What inspired you this week?