Natural Foods Guides
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Salt comes in all colors, shapes and sizes; as well as pure white, salt may be pink, grey, black or green. Salt truly is a rainbow-hued rock. Here’s a guide to many of the common salts available. Excerpted and adapted from The Salt Book by Fritz Gubler and David Glynn, reprinted with permission of Arbon Publishing. Read More→
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Sea vegetables are getting more attention now that sushi is so popular. For thousands of years, cooks on every continent have made flavorful meals from sea vegetables—soup, stews, garnishes, condiments, and even desserts. Sea vegetables are rich in minerals and vitamins and low in calories. You may also find that eating sea vegetables satisfies your need for salt. (Rinse sea vegetables before cooking them to reduce their sodium content.) Photo from Ocean Harvest Sea Vegetables. Read More→
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Vinegar, from the French words vin (“wine”) and aigre (“sour”), has been made since ancient times by fermenting various liquids. There are numerous types of vinegar, from the cheap, harsh white distilled vinegar to precious varieties, such as well-aged balsamic vinegar that can cost up to one hundred dollars a bottle. This section will give a brief overview of just a handful of vinegars—those most commonly found in natural-food stores or those that are common to ethnic cuisines popular in the wholefoods realm. Read More→
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For those accustomed to eating white rice, brown rice might take some getting used to—with its nutty taste and chewy texture it doesn’t fade into the background of dishes as does white rice. But once you do, there’s no reason to go back. The most compelling reason to switch is that nutritionally brown rice is far superior. This article will enlighten you on how to cook brown rice and present a list of recipes you’ll find here on VegKitchen. Read More→
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Where do you shop for your pasta and noodles? If your answer is “at the supermarket,” then you may be missing out on a world of variety. Pastas and noodles available in natural food stores, ethnic groceries, and specialty food shops come in all manner of flours, flavors, shapes, and sizes. And those who are wheat-intolerant need no longer feel deprived, with all the wheat-free varieties to choose from. Read More→
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While the detrimental effects of white sugar are still being debated, there’s little doubt that Americans consume far too much of it. But most of us would be loath to giving up sweets altogether, no matter how bad the news. While most natural sweeteners aren’t nutritional bell ringers, they are generally thought to produce less of a shock to the body’s blood sugar level and metabolism than do simple sugars. Here’s a brief guide to using and enjoying these kinder, gentler sweeteners. Read More→
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[Excerpted from Healing Spices by Bharat B. Aggarwal, PhD, Sterling Publishing, 2011] Like grapes, black pepper grows on perennial vines. But pepper vines soar to a height of 30 feet or more—you can see them trellising swaying palm trees in the state of Kerala on India’s Malabar coast, where black pepper is big business and pepper vines are everywhere.
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Much of the research on the relationship of saturated fats and heart disease points to the possibility that saturated fats and cholesterol in animal products may play more of a role in causing health problems than saturated fats in plant foods. However, as researchers uncover more information on the role of nutrition in health, it often becomes less clear why various foods cause or prevent disease. Heredity plays a key role in shaping our biology and to what degree each of us is susceptible to certain health problems. Although the consumption of cholesterol and saturated animal fat can lead to high cholesterol levels and heart disease, there are scores of people whose cholesterol levels are not adversely affected this way.
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