Healthy Food Choices for Life

Last fall when I checked to see if a local library carried my book, one of the librarians asked if I'd be interested in giving a talk. At the time I was planning a talk and slide show for this event in Snohomish, so I proposed a talk about healthy foods.

I've followed healthy whole food topics since I discovered whole-wheat bread as a teenager. That may sound funny to some people today, but Mom never bought whole-wheat bread when I was young. She said it was the kind of food she'd grown up eating during the Depression and it reminded her of being poor when she was young and maybe she was looking to escape her past, but when I first got my driver's license, I'd sneak off to this hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop health food store where I carefully look over oils, nut butters and I shamelessly spent my weekly allowance on carrot juice, heavy frut and nut muffins and raw milk. I'm not really obsessive about food like the organic-only-locally-procured-gluten-sugar-dairy-corn-and-soy-free crowd, but I've always felt at home in natural food stores (the mom and pop types) and I love farmers' markets even more. And most of the foods I eat today happen to be fresh and locally grown.

The event tomorrow evening at 7 pm at the Lynnwood Library features 10 of the healthiest foods to add to your diet. Of course I'll add a few Northwest farmer stories, and I decided to add a slide show since the one in Snohomish was so well-received.

Here are three foods I'll mention and a few of the slides that I'll bring to the show:

Apples have an amazing antioxidant content that inhibits cancer cells and helps lower cholesterol. According to this study, amount of phytochemicals varies among apple varieties with the bright red types containing more phytonutrients than green apples. Also apple peels contain many unique nutrients, so eating the whole apple is a healthier option than sipping fiber-free apple juice.

I snapped this photo at Bellewood Acres last fall at Whatcom County Farm day.

Carrots aren't just for your eyes like your mom may have told you in a lame attempt to lure you to try them as a child. With 87% water content, carrots still have the highest amount of carotene of all vegetables. Lutein, lycopene and alpha and beta--these powerful antioxidants reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. At Carrot Museum website, I learned that most of the nutrients in carrots were just below the skin, yet another reason to leave the skin on and pass on those baby peeled carrots in big bags. These Purple Haze carrots made a perfect picture at Garden Treasures in Arlington.

Berries are also on the list because no self-respecting healthy food list would be complete without them. While people often mention blueberries when asked to name nutritious fruits, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, huckleberries and cranberries all contain unique compounds that compliment each other. One component in strawberries was found to be helpful in memory retention; raspberries contain bone-building vitamin K; and cranberries (blueberry relatives) contain components that prevent E-coli from clinging to the cells of the urinary tract. This colorful photo was snapped at the Pennington Farms booth at the Medford farmers' market in southern Oregon.

These are just a few tidbits to arouse your curiousity about the foods you eat, but the most fascinating thing I discovered while compiling this list of ten foods was that a variety of fruits and vegetables in the diet enhance each other. Though one study in 2010 implied that eating fruits and vegetables won't protect people from getting cancer, another article about carrots and broccolis revealed these two vegetables act on different pathways to protect cells from free-radical cancer causing cells. And a berry study suggested that antioxidants in blueberries were enhanced by phytochemicals in raspberries, implying a diverse diet is as healthy for us as a diverse sustainable farm is for the earth.

My Cooking Assistant (and oldest basset Badger) yawn over my gushing enthusiasm for healthy fresh food. My Assistant isn't really lazy, he just prefers to get back to the real fun--food photos. Hope to see you at the event.

Celery: Learning to Love an Old Nemisis

These days at the market, I eagerly scan familiar farm vendors for the best celery. But I wasn't always this enthusiastic about celery.


In fact, I resented celery when I was young. This boring, party-stopping vegetable was nothing more than a crunchy distraction in my potato salad and an unwelcome offering on appetizer plates. Even in my Thanksgiving stuffing, celery seemed like an intruder. As a teenager I once forced myself to eat the pale green vegetable because a friend said celery had negative calories. It had negative flavor too.


But when I discovered celery's gnarly cousin, celeriac, at the market, at Willie Green's Organic Farm, I fell in love--vegetable love. After carefully peeling the hairy root, I steamed and mashed it with potatoes. The first bite left me hooked on this homely root. It imparted hints of celery and parley flavors and mingled with warm oozy potatoes,it was the comfort dish I'd always dreamed about. (For this celeriac and potato recipe check out my recent article about roots and greens "Beyond Spinach and Potatoes" for Marlene's Sound Outlook .) Celeriac easily earned a spot in my market bag, but I still wasn't sold on the stalks. Not until I discovered the most amazing thing about celery a few years ago.


It was a stressful year. My dad suddenly passed away, my favorite old basset hound died and I lost I job I'd had for 16 years. And as if that wasn't enough, my blood pressure went up. Besides exercise and cutting out salt, I looked for some natural remedies to lower my numbers.


Then one day, celery waltzed into my life. I'd picked up a copy of Michael Murray's The Encyclopedia of Healing with Whole Foods (2005 Atria Books) and read that celery was beneficial in reducing blood pressure. Murray said, "Just four celery ribs consumed daily could reduce blood pressure up to to 14 percent." The action on blood pressure is a result of a coumarin compound called 3-n-butyl phthalide (3nB). This compound apparently also lowers cholesterol. Celeriac or celery root (below) also contains this blood pressure lowering compound.


Lucky me, I read about about the benefits of celery in the fall, just when Northwest celery was in season. I bought some from Jeff Miller at Willie Green's at the market and started munching. The flavor was more assertive than the tame stringy tasteless grocery store celery. And on a long drive to California to deal with my dad's house I munched through an entire head of celery. My dad had always told me to eat crisp apples when driving to stay alert, but celery works just as well.


When I checked my blood pressure after I'd eaten copious quantities for week , the numbers were in the low normal range. They stayed there and my only question was how much would I have to continue consuming year round to keep my blood pressure low?


Gnarly celeriac roots pictured below.

Turns out, a lot less than you'd think. I sometimes go a month or so without consuming any, but mostly I eat small amounts on a fairly consistent basis. I like it best like my apples --with a drizzle of almond butter from my favorite organic California farm.

Dedicated local Northwest foodies should try it with hazelnut butter.

Now celeriac and celery are weekly market purchases. (Celeriac offers the same component for reducing blood pressure.) I add stalk celery to Waldorf and shredded carrot salads; I simmer celery in soups and stir it into braised vegetables. The stalks of market celery can sometimes be tough but the assertive celery flavor from market farmers is always amazing in cooked recipes and it's well worth the price.

The variety sold in grocery stores is called Pascal celery. It's cheaper than local varieties and is grown mostly in California, Florida and Texas. Pascal celery has a long-standing reputation for harvesting ease, transportability and shelf life and its mild flavor has also been a draw for grocery store shoppers. But I opt for more flavor and I always support locally grown when it is in season. Sadly, celery goes out of season in the Northwest during winter, spring and summer.

In these "off-seasons," I buy organic celery because The Environmental Working Group lists celery as one of the top pesticide laden foods, describing it as thin-skinned and difficult to wash off the numerous toxic farm chemicals. And who needs toxic farm chemicals added to an otherwise healthy diet plan?