For The Love of Food

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

Why eating organic food doesn’t make you a jerk, how a pastry chef in Paris keeps his man-ish figure, and how NOT to get your husband to eat better.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato, Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• The FTC vs. POM Wonderful: the latest round <<Remember when POM Wonderful claimed their mass-marketed juice could cure cancer? Turns out that wasn’t exactly accurate. (Food Politics)
• When you eat may be as important as what you eat <<Timing is important, and so is rest. There is some really interesting new rodent data that overnight fasts help control weight even when the exact same number of calories are eaten. Will be interesting to see how this works in humans. (Obesity Panacea)
• Does organic food make you a jerk? <<Excellent debunking of some pseudo science that was making headlines this week. Thanks Grist for calling BS of the week.
• How I Eat <<Interesting discussion by pastry chef and awesome food blogger David Lebovitz on how he manages to stay thin while eating what he loves. I appreciate his emphases on everyone needing to find their own healthstyle.
• Food Fight or Romantic Dinner? Communication Between Couples Is Key to Improving Men’s Diets <<While I agree that communication in relationships is important, I think this study also brings to light how important it is for us to learn how to make healthy food taste good (or more accurately, what healthy food actually is–––I know plain ground turkey is never on my menu). (ScienceDaily)
• More Physical Education in Schools Leads to Better Grades, Study Suggests <<Nice to see such a carefully designed study. These were very young kids too. Start them young! (ScienceDaily)
• Lower Blood Pressure Naturally <<Hey guess what, it’s not that hard. And you have lots of options. (Whole Health Source)
• 4 Health Benefits of Turmeric <<Turmeric spice lowers the carcinogenicity of grilled meat, and other fun facts. (Dr. Weil)
• Calcium Supplements May Be Bad for Your Heart: Study <<I wasn’t sure if I should post this, but if you don’t know that calcium supplements increase heart risk (and prostate cancer risk) you definitely should. This is not a new finding. But I was annoyed by the commentary they used from an osteoporosis physician that he disagrees with the data for no apparent reason. Did no one tell him that calcium doesn’t protect against osteoporosis either? Don’t you wish doctors bothered to look at the data before giving their opinions? (Medline)
• COCONUT RICE SALAD WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND CORN <<Um, yum. (The Year In Food)

What inspired you this week?

A couple weeks ago the New York Times health section featured several recipes using quinoa (keen-wah), a small, round ancient seed from Peru that can be used much like a cereal grain.

• 1 teaspoon(ish) cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon(ish) coriander
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium leek, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 cups cooked quinoa, (1 c. dry)
• 1 cup cooked chick peas (canned are fine), rinsed
• 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds

Rinse and chop kale and place in steam basket over shallow water. Cover and steam 8-10 minutes. This step is particularly important for dinosaur kale, which can be very tough. If you are using traditional kale, reduce cooking time accordingly. Cook until tender then sprinkle with sea salt.

Clean Pomegranate Seeds

Pomegranates can be intimidating because they are notoriously messy and the tiny seeds can be difficult to separate from the convoluted center. However, with a few simple tricks you can have a pile of clean pomegranate seeds in about 5 minutes.

First cut off the flowery tip and score the leather-like skin of the pomegranate along the veins where the membrane goes through to the center. Make the slices about 1/4 inch deep. You can cut the pomegranate in half if you like, but this will damage some of the seeds and make an unnecessary mess.

Next, fill a large bowl with cool water and submerge pomegranate. Use fingers to pry open the skin at the incisions and break pomegranate in half as shown. The skin should bend easily where it has been scored, so continue to break open the fruit and gently begin removing the seeds under water with your thumb and fingers.

Submerge Pomegranate

Because the seeds are filled with juice they readily sink to the bottom of the bowl, while the airy, white interior of the pomegranate floats to the top.

Once you have dislodged all the seeds, remove the large chunks of skin and lining with from the water with your hands. If any seeds remain floating, they are likely attached to a floating piece of the pomegranate interior. Separate these pieces.

Removing Pomegranate Seeds

Next, add cold water to the bowl then let the seeds settle to the bottom again. Dump off the top layer of water, being sure not to let any seeds escape from the bowl. Remove as much water as possible and then refill the bowl. With the water now slightly cleared, check the seeds at the bottom for any stuck pieces of the white interior of the pomegranate and remove them.

Continue to rinse and drain the seeds until no more pieces of pomegranate interior float on the water. Finally, dump the clean seeds into a strainer to remove the water. These can be stored in a sealed contain in the refrigerator for 3-5 days.

Pomegranate seeds are a fantastic addition to salads, cereals, rice, couscous and vegetable dishes.