In case this doesn't fit into your kid's lunchbox, 100% natural coconut water is sold in more convenient juice-boxy cartons.

I don’t know about where you live, but here in New York, it hit 90 degrees this week.  And it’s not even May.  No sooner did the flip flops come out did I find myself compulsively buying drink boxes of coconut water each time I passed by a bodega.

What is coconut water, you ask?

Not to be confused with coconut milk, coconut water is the clear “juice” of a young (green) coconut that slowly gives way to coconut “meat” as a coconut matures.   Coconut water is very low calorie, fat-free, and is an excellent source of potassium, an important electrolyte.  (In addition, it also has small amounts of other electrolytes, such as magnesium, calcium and a teensy bit of sodium.) If you’ve ever traveled to the Caribbean or southeast Asia, you’ve likely seen people drinking coconut water from a straw straight out of a green (or white, if it was shelled) coconut.   In contrast, coconut milk is a high-calorie/high-fat (albeit super delicious), creamy liquid derived by squeezing the grated meat of a mature coconut.  It’s used for cooking and baking mostly, although recently I’ve seen it used as a non-dairy alternative to milk to make lactose-free  yogurts and ice creams.

Meet the many faces of coconut water…

Coconut water as sports drink?

When you sweat, you lose trace amounts of electrically-charged minerals called electrolytes, one of whose many important functions in our body is to maintain fluid balance.  In other words, they keep the right amount of water in the blood, in the cells and outside the cells so that everything can work the way its supposed to.  When your electrolytes become imbalanced–which can happen if you have prolonged diarrhea, excessive vomiting, if you run a marathon without replenishing properly, or if you ingest a super-human amount of water in a really short period of time, for example–then crazy things can happen to your fluid balance.  You can lose too much, become dehydrated and pass out from low blood pressure… your heartbeat could become irregular… you could overload your cells and cause them to burst.  Lots of fun things.   Luckily, we’ve got kidneys to handle the electrolyte balancing act, so we rarely need to think about it.

Now I will preface this by saying that plain-ol’ tap water is more than sufficient for the vast majority of gym rats and weekend warriors to prevent dehydration.  According to the American College of Sports Medicine, electrolyte replacement really only becomes necessary for intense physical activity that lasts for more than an hour, particularly among people who are sweating profusely and/or drinking a lot of plain water. The most important electrolyte to replace is sodium, since you lose a fair amount of it when you sweat.  (Our bodies are better able to hang on to some of the other electrolytes, such as potassium, so replenishing that in large quantities is less of a concern.)  Specifically, the ACSM recommends that, for intense physical activity that lasts over 1 hour, athletes should aim to have 500-700 mg of sodium per liter of fluid consumed, which translates roughly into 300mg of sodium in your typical 20-oz bottle of, say, Gatorade.  Of course, if you don’t like the taste of sports drinks or don’t want to spend the money, there’s absolutely no reason you couldn’t meet your fluid and sodium needs by drinking plain water and nibbling on a snack of some salted pretzels from your fanny pack.)

There several major marketers of coconut water that I’ve come across in the US, including Goya, Zico, O.N.E , and Vita Coco.  Several of these brands market their coconut water as a ‘natural sports drink,’ and it’s an interesting claim.

According to the USDA and all of the product labels I consulted, 1 cup (8oz) of pure, straight-from-the coconut coconut water has about 45 calories, 10g of natural sugars (2.5 tsp worth) and no fat.  (If you decided to splurge on a coconut water with added fruit puree for extra flavor, that would bring the total to somewhere between 45-60 calories per 8oz (about half that of an equivalent amount of apple juice) with 10-13g of sugar (2.5-3 tsp worth), depending on the brand.)   In the electrolyte department, that serving contains: 600-680mg potassium (12%-14% of the daily value), 40-60 mg sodium (2%-3% of the daily limit), 4%-6% of your daily calcium needs and 6%-10% of your daily magnesium needs.   This translates into 200 mg sodium per liter, which falls short of the ACSM recommendation of about 500 mg per liter for intense workouts over 1 hour long.

Compare that to 8oz of your average leading sports-drinks, where the same 8oz portion contains 50 calories, 14g of added sugar (3.5 tsp worth), 1% (30 mg)of the daily value  for potassium, 2-5% (110 mg) of the daily value for sodium, no calcium and no magnesium.  For athletic rehydration purposes, these products provide about 440 mg sodium per liter consumed, which is much closer to the ACSM recommendation for intense physical activity lasting more than 1 hour.  Of course I doubt that the artificial colors do very much to boost one’s athletic performance.

In a (coco)nutshell: The coconut water would appear make an acceptable substitute to a sports drink for intense indoor activity lasting just about an hour, but if I were running outdoors in the summer for an hour or more, racing in a marathon or competing in a triathalon, I’d play it safe and stick with the fakey sports drink.

Coconut water as a secret weapon to fight high blood pressure?

If you have high blood pressure, you’ve probably already been advised to stick to a low-sodium diet.

But it’s less likely that you’ve been advised to stick to a reduced-sodium AND high-potassium diet.  (Doctors don’t actually learn much about nutrition in medical school…)

One 11-oz box of plain coconut water has about the same amount of potassium as 2 small bananas.

As it turns out, sodium and potassium play opposing roles in regulating your blood pressure.  While sodium causes you to hang on to more water, thereby increasing your blood volume and by definition, your blood pressure, potassium has the opposite effect.  It LOWERS blood pressure by causing “diuresis” (or, making you have to pee) which eliminates excess water from your blood, reduces the blood volume, and therefore reduces the blood pressure.  I bet your doctor also didn’t tell you that there’s solid research which shows increasing dietary potassium by about 1,550mg/day has more of a blood-pressure lowering effect than reducing your dietary sodium by an equivalent amount (1,400-1,800mg) per day.  Now, my guess is that for most people, it’s much more pleasant to get to eat more fruits and vegetables and have to cut back a little bit in the sodium department than to have to just have to cut back a whole lot in the sodium department. Am I right?  Generally, you should aim to eat 4,700mg of potassium per day (unless you have kidney disease, in which case your doctor will need to tell you how much is safe to eat.)  Fruits and vegetables are the best dietary sources of potassium, with foods like prunes/prune juice, bananas, OJ, melon, apricots, spinach/leafy greens, tomatoes, potatoes and asparagus being among the best sources.   But if you’re falling short of getting in a solid 9 servings of fruits/vegetables daily to meet this goal, then perhaps you might consider adding one 11-oz tetra-pak box of plain coconut water per day.  That alone should get you to about 20% of your daily potassium goal while only spending only 2% of your ideal sodium budget.  Efficient!

Coconut water as lower-sugar juice surrogate?

Even if you’re not among the sports-drinking or hypertensive set, coconut water may be useful to you yet.  If you ever make smoothies at home using fruit juice as a base, replacing it with plain coconut water would reduce the calories of your smoothie by 60-75 calories and 12g of sugar (3 tsps worth) per 8oz used, due to the lower sugar content of plain coconut water versus an equivalent amount of, say, 100% apple juice.  True, the coconut water lacks the vitamin C that you get from juice, but if you’re having a smoothie with real fruit, then your vitamin C bases will be more than covered.  For economy’s sake, you can buy larger (32 oz) boxes of coconut water to keep in the fridge.

Alternatively, if you have kids who are juice-addicts and you’re trying to wean them off of it due to the sugar, perhaps you might consider replacing their current juice box with a lower-sugar coconut water “juice box”?   (This may be more appropriate for an older child, since I haven’t come across any brands that are selling an appropriately child-sized tetra-pak in the 4-8oz range… the standard size is 11oz, which is a bit large for a younger child.)   As you may be aware, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends limiting a child’s intake of 100% juice to a modest 4 oz-6oz per day…  that’s 1/2 cup-3/4 cup max!  This recommendation is based on research findings that show excess sugar intake in kids–a lot of which can come from juice– as a contributing factor to childhood obesity.   To start the weaning process, go for the flavored coconut waters, which taste like watered-down juices and fruit punch but still have anywhere from 1-2 tsps LESS sugar per 8oz serving than does 100% juice.  From there, see if you can wean them down to the natural (unflavored) coconut water, which has even less sugar: more like 3 tsps less per 8oz serving.  One way to try this would be to seek out an actual young coconut from a Hispanic/Caribbean/Asian grocery, buy it, lop off the head ans stick a straw in it (see photo above).  Your kids may be so enchanted with the novelty of drinking straight from a coconut that they choose to give the taste a chance… and then, boom!  They’ll be as cuckoo for coconut water as I am.

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Is it just me, or is this airport-quality salad incredibly unappetizing to you, too?

At the risk of being kicked out of nutrition school, I’ve decided to come clean and admit a shameful thing: I don’t particularly like to eat salad.  I look across my classroom night after night at my fellow future dietitians grazing away on their salad dinners, and I am overcome with envy.  What kind of nutritionist doesn’t like salad?!?

Well, I guess I should qualify my statement.  I love vegetables, and I have no trouble getting my daily servings in.  And I’ve had salads that I still dream about to this day: there was that one arugula salad with roasted beets, toasted hazelnuts and shaved parmesan drenched in a tart and tangy lemon dressing I once had at a restaurant and am still rhapsodizing over.  And I’ve paid $10 for a plateful of plain old buttery bibb lettuce drizzled in a champagne vinaigrette without even batting an eyelash.  But I find that these swoon-worthy salads are the exception, not the rule.  Most salads I encounter on a day-to-day basis consist of a pile of iceberg or romaine lettuce dotted with a few huge wedges of an anemic, tasteless winter tomato and garnished with some sad, industrial carrot-shavings. And to add insult to injury, they come with a packet of generic Italian dressing that may or may not contain wheat gluten in it as a thickener.  Can you blame me for not embracing these afterthoughts of salads?

Still, I recognize that when two people (or, one person and a bowl full of vegetables) want a relationship to work out, they sometimes need to work at it a little.  So I decided to find some solutions to my biggest beef with generic salads: the lettuce.

With so many lettuces… why so little variety?

There’s no better time to reconcile with lettuce than right now, when the lettuces planted in the cool early spring air (mid March) are just starting to be harvested. To find these in-season leaves, you’ll probably have to look beyond your supermarket.

Clockwise from left: Tatsoi, Ruby Red Chard, Mizuna, Tuscan Kale, Wild Kale

Most supermarkets carry the requisite iceberg lettuce and romaines.  And thanks to the bagged salad revolution, it’s pretty easy to find baby spinach, arugula and some sort of “spring mix” or “mesculun,” which is typically some blend of baby lettuces, endive, radicchio and  frisee, year-round.  If you’re lucky and you have a Whole Foods nearby, you may even have access to more luxurious and exotic leafy greens like sharp, peppery watercress; outrageously expensive but admittedly delightful heads of velvety, hydroponically-grown Boston Lettuce; and even the occasional bag of Mizuna (Japanese mustard greens).  But my visit to the Union Square Greenmarket this afternoon put even this relative bounty to shame.  Here in New York, local farmers are harvesting a cornucopia of interesting and flavorful greens right now: wild arugula, wild kale, tuscan kale, tatsoi, mizuna, mache, ruby red spring chard, mustard greens, and dandelion greens.

Once upon a time, access to this diversity of lettuces was the rule, not the exception.  In fact, there were loads of lovely lettuce varieties with charming names like “Amish Deer Tongue,” “Forelleneschluss,” and “Tom Thumb” roaming the earth. But with the advent of cross-country refrigerated transportation, Iceberg lettuce from California managed to muscle regional varieties of lettuce out of the diverse American salad-bowl NOT on the basis of its taste (it has none) or nutritional value (it has very little), but rather because it was cheap and could survive the long trip.

Well, the tyrranny of iceberg is over as far as I’m concerned.  Last month’s issue of Eating Well magazine had a great feature on different salad greens to try out, and it gave me the inspiration (and advice) I needed to get out there and meet some new lettuces, as well as to try growing some of them on my own in a container garden.  (We urbanites aren’t blessed with backyards, but balcony space will do just fine for a modest garden of herbs and baby lettuce).  I’m a little late on lettuce planting season, as Spring and Fall are apparently the best times to plant, but no matter: I’ve decided I’ll keep my containers in a shady part of the balcony that only gets morning sun.  The fun part is picking out which varieties to grow. A visit to seedsavers.org was my first stop.  Seed Savers is a non-profit organization whose members save and share seeds of heirloom varieties of all sorts of vegetables so that these rare foods that once comprised America’s more diverse diet will not be lost to humankind. Thanks to these dedicated seed savers, I’ll grow my own darn Amish Deer Tongue, thank you very much.  Take THAT, iceberg!

While it’s germinating, however, I will make do with some of those new species I picked up at the farmer’s market.

Nutritional benefits that make Iceberg Lettuce green with envy

Whereas iceberg lettuce is almost a nutritional blank slate (it has some Vitamin K and a little bit of Vitamin A, but not much else) , these other species of lettuce bring a lot to the table.  For starters, most all leafy greens with any color to them will be good sources of Vitamin A (immunity, vision), Vitamin C (wound healing, collagen production for healthy skin), Vitamin K (for blood clotting and bone health), and folate (heart health, proper DNA replication for healthy new cells).  But additionally, Arugula, Mizuna (Japanese mustard), Wild Kale and Tatsoi are all members of the Brassica family, which make them relatives of cabbage and broccoli.  That means they share the same cancer-fighting properties as broccoli, and are respectable non-dairy sources of calcium as well. A ~1.5 cup serving (about 1 oz) of raw mizuna leaves will have about 70g of relatively bioavailable calcium (7% of the daily value), that same serving of arugula and tatsoi will have about 5% of the daily value for calcium (hey–that’s nothing to sneeze at… it all adds up!) Alas, I could not find any specific information on their cousin, wild kale.  Mizuna is way milder-tasting than mustard greens or arugula (which can be quite peppery), and wild kale tastes quite like broccoli to me.  Both look very similar to arugula (see photo).  Tatsoi grows in pretty little rosette shapes, and is recognizable by its rounded leaves.  It has a very fresh, pronounced grassy flavor to me, although I’ve seen others describe it as more cabbagey, similar to bok choy.  And like all leafy greens, these varieties clock in at less than 10 calories per ounce.  Most importantly, these leafy greens are all bursting with flavor, which means they can hold their own as a side dish when accented with a simple dressing. Unlike iceberg, they need not be relegated to “filler” for a heavily-dressed, kitchen-sink salad.

As an aside, If you’re taking the anticoagulant medication warfarin (coumadin) and are not in the habit of eating lots of green vegetables, just be sure to check in with your doctor before going on a major salad bender, as she may need to adjust your medication dose so that it stays in balance with the additional Vitamin K in your diet. (Your dose was probably determined based on your “usual” intake, so a significant increase in dietary vitamin K might make your meds less effective.

Recipe: Quickie lunch of Wild Kale salad with Grilled Cheese & Peppadew Panino

Grilled cheese seems way more respectable when it's served alongside a pile of wild kale.

To celebrate my newfound love affair with salad, I made this tasty, high-calcium lunch for myself in 7 minutes, flat.  Make the dressing while the panino is grilling.

1.5 cups wild kale (you can substitute mizuna or arugula if you can’t find the kale), rinsed and patted dry

2 pieces of bread (I used a gluten-free frozen one)

1.5 oz of a good, melty cheese, like fontina

4-6 peppadew peppers (from a jar)

Canola oil spray

For the dressing:

Blend together the following ingredients

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 TBSP lemon juice

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp minced red onion or shallot

Make a sandwich out of the cheese, peppadew peppers and bread.  Spray the grill surface of your countertop panini grill/George Foreman grill with non-stick canola oil spray. (Alternatively, spray a small frying pan).  Heat it until ready, and grill sandwich until cheese has melted and the bread is nice and brown and crispy.  (Alternatively, fry the sandwich in your frying pan, pressing down occasionally to flatten the sandwich and help brown the bread; flip and cook on the second side until cheese is melty and bread is nice and golden and crisp.)   Drizzle the salad leaves with your dressing and serve!

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Yes, the wax is edible. Dig on in.

For two to three short weeks in April every year (that’s now!), a brief window of opportunity exists for some lucky honeybees in southern Georgia and Florida to pollinate the flowering Tupelo trees in their neighborhood.  Soon after, a brief window of opportunity exists for some lucky people like us to taste the fruits of their extensive labor, in the form of rare, buttery Tupelo Honey.  I say “rare” because there aren’t a whole lot of Tupelo trees left in this country, and the super-short flowering season means that not a whole lot of honey can be produced in any given year.

I first learned about Tupelo honey–and all honey, really–from a charming beekeeper named Ted Dennard, who runs a boutique honey operation out of Savannah, Georgia called The Savannah Bee Company.  (So charming, in fact, that he’s probably the only beekeeper who has ever gotten a full-page photo spread in Vogue…)  Years ago, Ted let me tag along as he trekked over to the humid, swampy coastline near Savannah where his bees were camped out, tirelessly pollinating the Tupelos, which are a type of flowering gum tree native to wetlands in the US south.  He opened one of the hives and pulled out a screen that was coated in a powdery white beeswax, then stuck his finger right through the wax to release a stream of gooey, golden tupelo honey.  I was amazed at how different it tasted than the cloyingly-sweet supermarket honey sold in those corny bear-shaped squeeze bottles.  (As I later learned, almost all ’supermarket’ honey is made from a mix of light-colored honeys and labeled as “clover honey,” which produces a very different flavor profile.)

All honey is not the same

The flavor, color and sugar profile of a honey will vary with the type of flower pollinated to produce it.  Colors can range from white to dark amber, and flavors can pick up a range of nuances, ranging from floral (as in orange blossom or lavender honey) to smoky (as in mesquite honey)… and anything inbetween.  While the sugar profile of honey varies by variety, your typical honey will be about 35-38% fructose and 30% glucose, with water and other sugars making up the rest of the volume.  As a sweetener, honey has the same number of calories as table sugar: 1 tsp of honey or sugar both have 16 calories.

Tupelo is rare in the honey world, as it contains a higher percentage of fructose than other honeys (closer to 44% fructose).  Fructose is the same type of sugar found in fruit, and it is metabolized in our bodies differently than glucose.  In this way, Tupelo honey is similar to Agave Nectar, which is also a natural, primarily-fructose-based sweetener. (As a side note, while a lot of food marketers would have you believe that Agave nectar contains ~90% fructose, in fact the fructose content will vary dramatically by how the nectar was processed, and can be as low 55%.)   In reality, though, Tupelo’s different sugar profile may make more of a difference in flavor than it does in its impact on blood sugar levels: a super-small 2006 study whose results were published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association compared the effect of four different honey varieties on raising blood sugar (known as their “glycemic index”).  The researchers didn’t find any statistically significant differences between the varieties tested–one of which was Tupelo.  Still, other studies do seem to show an advantage when it comes to glycemic index for honey over sugar.  So it seems that the jury is still out, and I personally wouldn’t recommend honey as a material improvement over sugar when it comes to blood sugar control–particularly if you’re diabetic.  (Sorry, bees.)    Still, the 2006 study researchers concluded that using honey as a sweetener instead of refined sugar should have some health advantages, since honey (especially some of the darker varieties, and especially raw) contains antioxidants, prebiotics that help promote the health of your friendly, health-protecting gut bacteria, and may be able to sweeten foods with less volume than table sugar since it contains fructose, which is sweeter than sucrose.  So score one for honey.

On the topic of honey and nutrition, it is prudent to mention that infants 12 months of age and younger should *never* be fed honey– raw OR pasteurized.  Both can contain botulism spores that are harmless to adults with mature digestive systems, but in rare cases can germinate in the immature GI tracts of young babies and cause fatal infant botulism.  But for immuno-competent, adult people, raw honey is a safe and lovely way to enjoy honey’s many benefits.

My last fun fact (as if botulism wasn’t fun enough) about Tupelo honey is that, due to its sugar profile, it will not crystalize.  In other words, you can pull out a 10-year old jar of Tupelo from the back of your pantry, and it will still pour right into your tea.

With a honey is as rare and flavorful as Tupelo, I think it’s a waste to use it for baking, where the complex flavor gets buried. Instead, I like to use it in ways that highlight its flavor and texture, like drizzled on some lowfat plain yogurt and topped with a handful of toasted almonds.  Ted likes to put out a plate of Tupelo-drenched honeycomb as the center of a platter with some aged cheeses, sliced apples and thinly-sliced baguettes… it’s such a simple and surprisingly elegant spread to set out for guests (or trade show attendees in his case, I guess).  If you live in New York and are planning to attend the Fancy Food Show this June, stop by his booth for a sip of his delicious (non-alcoholic) Honey-Limeade… or just visit his website for a recipe for the adult version, called a Tupelojito to make it–or a number of other Tupelo-inspired recipes–at home.  If you’re looking for a signature summer cocktail that’s refreshing and unfussy, the Tupelojito may just fit the bill.

Better yet, if you find yourself down in Savannah for work or for play, visit Ted in his new Honey House, where you can enjoy honey tastings (he makes more varieties than just Tupelo, as it turns out, and many of them are organic), learn about the magical world of honeybees and take a repose from the Southern heat at his Honey House cafe.

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This sure beats a Lean Cuisine! Salmon with Beluga Lentils and Spinach... for one.

Lentils seem to have a reputation as poor man’s food; a high-protein staple that fills you up on the cheap.  But no one would dare to characterize Beluga lentils in this way.  Even when cooked, they stay firm and maintain their regal, caviar-like appearance (hence the name), which makes them perfect for salads, appetizers and standalone dishes.

My husband is off tonight taking a Szechuan Chinese  cooking class (!), which means one thing: Salmon for dinner.  You see, despite his many virtues, Alex is not a huge fan of fish, which means I have to sneak off and get my fish on anytime he’s out of town or is otherwise engaged during the dinner hour.  And when considering what to pair with Salmon, beluga lentils were the first thing that popped into my head. Salmon and lentils are a classic French bistro combo, and I’ve had a bag of belugas in the pantry and a single 4 oz fillet of quick-frozen wild salmon waiting patiently in the freezer for exactly this occasion. Oh, when the cat is away, how the mice come out and play…

They may look like caviar, but they’re as easy as pie…

Lentils are a perpetual favorite, since they can cook up from dry in about 30 minutes.  The ratio of beluga lentil:water is 1:4, so 4 cups water to 1 cup of lentils would serve 4 people.  If you want them al-dente and firm to toss into a salad, cook them for 12-15 minutes.  If you want them a little softer to serve as a side dish, cook for 20-30 minutes.  As with all dry beans, save the salting until the end of the cooking process, or else you’ll slow it down.

Since I was just cooking for myself, I decided there was no need to make a big huge production.  To make beluga lentils for one, I just diced up a quarter of an onion and minced a garlic clove and sauteed them for about 3 minutes in 1 tsp olive oil in my little saucepan.  Then, I added 1/4 cup of dried beluga lentils (rinsed), a bay leaf and 1 cup of water.  I brought them to a simmer, covered and cooked for 20 minutes. Then I added salt/pepper to taste and simmered for another 5 minutes until the lentils were tender to my liking.  I removed the bay leaf, and voila!  You can multiply this recipe by as many times as you need to to serve more than just yourself.

I also decided to steam a side dish of spinach right in that same lentil saucepan so as to avoid dirtying up another pot.  (The problem with cooking for one is that you can’t pawn off the dirty dishes on someone else.  Best to be economical, then.)

Salmon and Beluga Lentils: A luxurious pairing.  Nutritionally speaking.

Belugas are royalty in the lentil kingdom for their nutritional value, as well.  They are even higher in protein than many other lentil varieties (which are hardly anything to sneeze at themselves): 13g per 1/4 cup dry, versus 8g for the same size serving of standard green lentils.

Also, 1 cup of cooked Belugas (1/4 cup dry) contains a whopping 9g of fiber. That’s ~35% of the recommended intake for women and ~25% of the recommended intake for men.  That same serving size contains 13g of protein and 20% of the daily value for iron–whose relatively poor bioavailability will be greatly enhanced by our genius pairing with the fish.  All for a modest 170 calories.  The high fiber content is  what makes beans in general– and belugas in particular–a very smart carbohydrate choice for people with diabetes, and a very smart overall choice for people with high cholesterol, heart disease or anyone looking to feel fuller on fewer calories.

Belugas and salmon, served atop a bed of spinach, may possibly be the most satisfying and nutritious combinations you can eat for under 500 calories. Assuming you eat your belugas as I did–accompanied by a 4oz fillet of salmon pan seared in 2 tsp of olive oil and 2 cups of spinach, steamed–this modest little meal contains about 450 calories, 36g (!) of protein, 40g carbohydrate (of which 11g is fiber–mostly the cholesterol-lowering kind), a full day’s worth of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, a full day’s worth of Vitamin A, and about 30% of the daily value for iron.  As I mentioned earlier, the presence of the fish will help you absorb the relatively large amount of iron in the lentils and the spinach, which would normally not be very bioavailable.  This is *a lot* of food and *a lot* of nutrition for not a lot of calories. It is beyond me why any body builder would waste their time with protein shakes or muscle bars when they could eat something this nutrient-dense and delicious to the same effect.  And if you’re on a cholesterol-lowering diet, then this is a filling, satisfying meal that was practically made for you.

Oh, and did I mention that the entire meal took me 30 minutes, start to finish?  Now *that’s* a luxury!

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This is what authentic South-of-the-Border alegria looks like

I first encountered Alegria--which means ‘happiness’– when I was visiting Puebla, Mexico. It sort of looks like a thick rice cake, only it’s much denser and sweeter.  The fact that it’s mostly sold in confectionary shops belies the subversive nutritional value of this beloved treat, which is made of puffed, whole-grain, gluten-free amaranth bound together by honey, sugarcane syrup or molasses.  Some versions are studded with nuts and seeds (as pictured above), while others are pure cakes of uninterrupted amaranthness.

What’s that?  You’ve never heard of amaranth?

Well, I hadn’t either before I was forced to start exploring gluten-free grains to replace the couscous, pasta, bread and bulgur in my life .  And it’s a crying shame, since amaranth is one of the most nutritious ‘grains’ on the planet--second only to quinoa and teff in my book.  Like quinoa, amaranth hails from South America, is a seed that behaves like a cereal grain, and is very high in protein and fiber. It  also has a more complete protein profile than most other grains, containing certain essential amino acids that are not commonly found in other grains.  Amaranth has twice the iron as wheat does; though vegetarian sources of iron are generally difficult to absorb.  (But eating iron-rich plant foods like amaranth with vitamin-C rich foods, like fruit, can help with absorption.)

1/4 cup of raw amaranth, which will pop up to 1 cup “puffed” in the recipe below, contains 179 calories, 31g of carbohydrate (of which 3.2g is fiber), 77 mg of calcium (a non-trivial 8% of the daily value), 10% of the daily value of folate, and a surprising 3.7 mg of iron!  (That’s almost 50% of the daily value for men, but remember it’s not likely to be very well absorbed unless you eat it along with some vitamin C.

Cooked amaranth is delicious and nutritious as well, but be warned that the texture will be gooey/gummy and pasty rather than fluffy and grainy; in fact, it is often used as thickening agent for soups and stews.  I’d think about using cooked amaranth as a more nutritious substitute for savory grits or polenta rather than as a substitute for rice.  Perhaps I’ll even come up with a recipe that features it in the not-too-distant future.

Finally, amaranth leaves are also edible and ridiculously nutritious.  If you live in a neighborhood with a large Jamaican population, you may have seen them sold as callaloo, but they’re also used widely in East Asian, Southeast Asian and African cuisines under different names.  (Other Caribbean cultures call Taro leaves–rather than amaranth leaves– “callaloo,” so it may be hard to know which plant your callaloo really comes from unless you know what amaranth leaves look like.)   But I digress: if you happen to find it in your neck of the woods, don’t be afraid to give it a try!  You can use it in place of spinach in any recipe. 1 cup of cooked amaranth leaves/callaloo contains only 30 calories and almost a full day’s worth of Vitamin C and Vitamin A, 20% of the daily value for folate, and 30% of the daily value for calcium, making it an excellent non-dairy source of that elusive bone-building mineral.

Making alegria

The trick to making alegria at home is in puffing your own amaranth.  And the trick to puffing your own amaranth is a super-hot non-stick wok with a tight-fitting lid.  (Of course, if you live near a well-stocked health food store that actually sells puffed amaranth cereal, then this recipe will be an absolute breeze.)  It took me a few attempts to get this right, which is why I’d recommend having a little extra amaranth on hand in case the first few batches don’t quite puff as you want them to.

Raw amaranth (left) and popped (right)

Basically, get the wok nice and piping hot.  And then get it even hotter.  When you think the wok is hot enough, try adding 1 TBSP of the amaranth and close the lid immediately.  If it doesn’t start popping like crazy, your wok wasn’t hot enough.  (It took me a few failed TBSPs before my wok was hot enough, which is why I’d recommend having about 1/4 cup extra, just in case.) Within a minute of adding the amaranth, your crazy popping will slow down; using oven mitts if necessary, swirl the covered wok around a little as if you were popping popcorn; this should give the popping action a brief second wind before it grinds to a halt.  Once the popping dies down for good, remove the puffed amaranth from heat and repeat this process until all of your amaranth is puffed.  With each progressive batch, your puffing will improve since the wok will be hotter and hotter.  But don’t be tempted to add more than 1 TBSP at a time to speed things up, or you’ll end up with too many unpopped kernels.

Recipe: North of the Border Alegria

North of the border alegria: Maple-y and muy delicioso!

1/2 cup raw amaranth grain, puffed to about 2 cups per the instructions above (or, if you’re lucky enough to find puffed amaranth cereal in your area, you can just use 2 cups of it)

1/2 cup pure maple syrup (this is the part that makes it North of the Border.  Don’t use an adulterated “pancake syrup” like Aunt Jemima for these!)

1/4 cup dried fruit pieces (I used Vitamin C-rich dried cranberries)

1/4 cup toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

Directions: In a saucepan, bring the maple syrup to a boil, and boil for at least 7 minutes to cook off some of the water so that your alegria bars won’t be too moist and fall apart.  (Ideally, if you have a candy thermometer, boil the syrup to about 240 degrees).  Then, add the amaranth and stir with a spatula to combine.  Add the dried fruit and pumpkin seeds and stir until well combined.  Pour mixture into a 9″x9″ baking dish lined with parchment paper and let cool.  Cut into 8 bars.

Nutrition info per bar (assumes recipe above makes 8 bars): 145 calories, 25g carbohydrate (of which 1g is fiber), 4g protein, 4g fat and 2 mg (25% of the daily value) of iron.

Take that, Rice Krispie treats!

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Oh, fancy minted Quinoa pilaf... if they only knew how easy you were to make...

I resisted writing about quinoa for some time.  Not because I don’t think it’s awesome (I do!), but because it seems like the mainstream media has finally picked up on its awesomeness and has been writing about it ad infinitum… designating it a “superfood”(whatever that means) and tutoring us all on how to properly pronounce this exotically-named seed/grain.  I suspected that to my savvy readers, quiona would seem like yesterday’s news, and I didn’t want to write about it unless I could bring something new to the table.

Still, what self-respecting nutrition blogger could ignore the most nutritious of all grains…and a gluten-free one at that?  So I decided to take the plunge and add two of my cents on the topic.  Hopefully at least one of them will be newsworthy…

What you’ve heard is true

Although it’s only been available in the US since as recently as about 1980, quinoa has been well-known (and eaten) in the Andean regions of South America for thousands of years.  It’s a seed of a plant that’s related to beets and spinach, but it cooks up just like a cereal grain.  Its claim to fame is the fact that its’ one of the very few plant foods that contains all 9 essential amino acids, which makes it a vegetarian source of complete protein.  (In other words, quinoa is different than most vegetarian foods, which need to be strategically paired up to provide all of the amino acids we need… like beans with rice.)  Like other whole grains, it has multiple benefits for cardiovascular health, and it also contains high levels of antioxidant minerals like manganese to help protect against cell damage in your red blood and other cells.  Lastly, a single modest serving of quinoa has about 10% of your daily needs for magnesium (Mg), a mineral that plays a role in keeping your blood vessels nice and dilated.  Now while that may not sound like it’s relevant to you, if you get migraines or have high blood pressure, it certainly is.  The average Americans falls short on their daily Mg intake by at least 25%, so adding more Mg-rich foods like quinoa can help close the gap.

But here’s what I find most compelling about quinoa: It’s a whole grain whose cooking time is about the same as–if not quicker than– white rice, making it one of the most nutritious go-to grains you can choose for those quick weekday dinners.  Furthermore, it has the same amount of calories as brown rice, but it’s slightly higher fiber/less starchy and takes 30 minutes less to cook.

1 cup of cooked quinoa has 222 calories, 39g carbohydrate (of which 5g is fiber) and 8g of (complete!) protein. Compare that to 1 cup of brown rice, which has 218 calories, 46g of carbohydrate (of which 3.5g is fiber) and 4.5g of (incomplete) protein.

How to jump on the quinoa bandwagon:

1. Cook up some whole quinoa grains.  They come in all sorts of colors, but red and white are the most widely available in these here parts.   They look mighty festive when blended together, as I did in the pilaf recipe pictured above and linked to below.  If you’ve tasted quinoa before and were put off by a slightly bitter flavor, it’s probably because the raw grains weren’t rinsed before cooking.  If you’re cooking them at home, it really does make a difference to take the time and give them a good rinse  to remove a naturally-occurring resin called saponin. (Yes, that’s why they make suds as you rinse.) Quinoa cooks exactly like rice, and uses 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa.   I made this easy recipe for Minted Quinoa with Pine Nuts for Passover this year and it was a hit.  It’s a nice, springy dish that pairs *perfectly* with some easy, home-made, casing-free lamb sausages that my husband made after seeing a recipe for them in the New York Times.  Consider it a modern spin on the favorite Easter flavor combination of lamb and mint. I also like to use quinoa-based pilafs to stuff vegetables.  I’ve made this recipe for Quinoa Stuffed Peppers countless times, and love it because it’s a substantial vegetarian dish that can be served as the ‘entree’ alongside the vegetables of your choice–especially if you melt some cheese on top of it before serving.  And as serendipity would have it, one of my favorite gluten-free bloggers has just posted her version of this recipe: Quinoa-stuffed portobello mushrooms.

2. Drink your quinoa? When browsing at a not-at-all fancy local supermarket, I came across a ready-to-drink quinoa beverage called Quinoa Gold.  It appears as if they’re aiming to compete in the protein-drink market, which although it sounds odd at first, makes sense: a quinoa beverage would be a clever soy-free alternative to the other protein drinks on the market for people who are allergic/intolerant to soy. Since quinoa (like soy) is a complete source of protein, it’s a perfect source supplemental source of vegetarian protein for people whose diets may not be adequate.  As far as the Quinoa Gold-brand drinks themselves, I was a little disappointed to discover that each bottle (2 servings, 320 calories) only contains 4g of protein…. which is not much of a supplement… and 52g of sugar! (That’s the equivalent of 13 teaspoons, my friends.)   So to be honest, I like this idea in principle more than in practice.  And I’d love to see the scientific evidence behind some of their marketing claims, including that the product “helps manage stress-related hunger.”  For the same calories, you could make yourself a protein-rich quinoa smoothie that *will* manage your hunger by actually providing you with some fiber  (and lots of vitamins/minerals): in a blender, combine 1/2 cup cooked quinoa flakes (sorta like oatmeal) with  1 cup low-fat milk or coconut water, 1 banana, 1/2 cup frozen berries and 1 TBSP ground flax seeds.  Voila!

3. Bake with quinoa flour.  There are plenty of ways to use quinoa flour.  As a rule, you can substitute up to half of the white all-purpose flour in any recipe with quinoa flour, or all of the whole-wheat flour.  Alternatively, if you just want to take your quinoa flour out for a quick spin, try this simple recipe for Quinoa pancakes from Bob’s Red Mill.

4. Use Quinoa flakes in any recipe that calls for rolled oats as a gluten-free alternative in the event that you can’t get your hands on certified GF oats.  While most people with celiac disease can tolerate oats just fine, many brands are heavily cross-contaminated with gluten from shared growing and processing facilities.  If you’re wary about having a reaction from rolled oats, play it safe and try out quinoa flakes instead.  Quinoa flakes also make a nice oatmeal-esque hot breakfast cereal, a killer gluten-free Matzoh ball, and  are sold in the oatmeal/hot cereal section of your grocery store.

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Spring is a much anticipated time in my world, as it marks the beginning of Asparagus season.  While it’s true that you can find these magically delicious stalks year-round in most supermarkets, wintertime asparagus tends to be tough, bland and expensive. It’s picked before its prime from faraway places like Chile and Argentina, and never quite achieves the sweet and tender qualities of asparagus grown in season from somewhere closer-by.  But as it warms up north of the equator, asparagus is more abundant, more affordable and more delicious than any other time of year.  Here in New York, the locally-grown asparagus doesn’t hit the farmer’s markets until May-June, but if you live in California or in warmer climes, then April is already Asparagus-hunting season.  Get ready to start stalking your local markets for the first crop of pencil-thin spears…

Delicious AND good for you

When I think of asparagus’ many nutritional blessings, the first one that comes to mind is folate.  One cup of asparagus (or, the equivalent of ~8-10 spears), contains 260 mcg of this important B-vitamin, which is 65% of the daily value for mere mortals and 43% of the recommended intake for pregnant women.  While folate deficiency isn’t an epidemic in the US since the government mandated that enriched flours be fortified with it, it’s certainly not uncommon, and people who don’t eat bread, cereals and pasta regularly may be at particular risk if they’re not eating their 5-a-day of fruits and vegetables.  (Yes, that includes the gluten-free crowd, since our GF cereals, breads and pastas are almost never fortified with folate.)

And what’s so darn important about folate, you may ask?  Oh, only that it’s an essential component of DNA synthesis.  And lest you think that you don’t need much new DNA synthesized, consider this: even on your laziest, most unproductive day, your body makes 200 million new red blood cells, which you need to deliver oxygen throughout your body and prevent anemia.  (All of a sudden you don’t feel so unproductive now, do you?)  Plus, you’ve got a bajillion cells (OK, that’s not quite a scientific term, but there are lots of them) lining your intestines that need to be regenerated every 3 days and each of those cells contains DNA, so you do the math.  It should also be clear by now why folate is so essential for pregnant women, as a growing fetus is generating a heck of a lot of DNA.  In fact, folate deficiency during the first 3 weeks of pregnancy (yes, that would be when most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant) is directly associated with neural tube defects (like spina bifida).  Are you ready to join me in stalking the asparagus yet?

Folate aside, 1 cup of asparagus has a mere 43 calories, 5g of protein and 3g of fiber.  So feel free to gorge yourself on the season’s bounty.

Why the smelly pee?

Of course, you needn’t have gorged yourself on asparagus to know about the strange side effect of this delicious vegetable: Asparagus Pee.  (This odd physiological phenomenon was the reason that we chose not to serve asparagus at our wedding, and I’d caution anyone planning a large event to consider doing the same.)  The smell is caused by the digestion of a sulfur-containing compound in asparagus called mercaptan, but I was surprised to learn that, according to the book “Why Men Have Nipples,” not everyone has the gene for the digestive enzyme that breaks down mercaptan.  In other words, some people don’t experience asparagus pee at all.  Next time you have a dinner party, go ahead and take a poll.

Eating asparagus

My favorite way to enjoy asparagus is simple: sprayed with some olive oil, sprinkled with salt, and grilled. Grilling it on our countertop Cuisinart Griddler (basically, a stainless version of the George Foreman grill) works like magic. They taste divine just plain, but a shaving of fancy parmesan is always a lovely accoutrement.  If you have thin stalks, just grill them as they are.  But if your stalks are the fat kind, do yourself a favor and use a vegetable peeler to peel down the woody bases a bit before grilling.  Otherwise, they can be tough and stringy and may wind up being discarded.  

Asparagus risotto is also up there as one of my favorites, but it takes substantially more time and attention, though it’s easy as pie and requires no more than 10 minutes of prep.  I save this recipe (see below) for when we’re having company, since you can make a huge batch of it for no extra effort, it can be reheated ad infinitum and is no worse for the wear, and it’s always a crowd pleaser.  My husband added the part about the truffle oil at the end, which is an obscenely delicious addition that I can’t say I objected to.  I like to serve it alongside seared scallops, which take 5 minutes to make and can be started once your guests arrive and everyone’s ready to eat.

Another riff on the asparagus risotto recipe comes courtesy of Jamie Oliver, who came up with a divine and springy Asparagus, Mint and Lemon risotto.  The British seem to like the asparagus/peas and/or mint combo, and for good reason.  I still dream about a minted pea and asparagus soup I tasted at a the NYC branch of a London cafe/restaurant called 202.  It was so heavenly that I spent weeks trying to recreate it at home.  I succeeded, as it turns out, but have since lost the recipe and have been kicking myself ever since…

Truffled Risotto with Asparagus and Peas (adapted from the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant cookbook)

Serves 4 as a main, more as a side… cooking time ~45-50 minutes.

5 cups stock (vegetable or chicken, as you prefer)

2 TBSP olive or canola oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups arborio rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 lb asparagus spears sliced into 1/2″ pieces, tips reserved separately (tough bottoms discarded)

1/2 cup frozen peas, preferably petite, defrosted

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional; the risotto will be plenty creamy without the cheese, so if you want to avoid the dairy or the calories, feel free to leave it out.  Alternatively, you can sprinkle some individually on people’s plated servings to their liking and leave it out of the batch itself.)

Black truffle oil to garnish

Directions:

1. Heat the stock in a saucepan,  and set aside, simmering on low heat.
2. Heat oil in a large stockpot or Dutch Oven over medium heat 
3. Add onion and saute until translucent (but not brown), about 3 minutes
4. Add rice and stir for a minute until coated.  Always USE A WOODEN SPOON for stirring when making risotto to prevent rice kernel breakage.
5. Add wine and continue stirring until absorbed.
6. Add 1/2 cup stock and the asparagus pieces (NOT the tips), and keep stirring constantly until stock mostly absorbed.
7. Keep adding stock, 1/2 cup at a time, as the rice absorbs it.  
8. 5 minutes after adding the asparagus pieces, add the tips.
9. Repeat the stock-adding-and-stirring cycle until you’re down to your last 1/2 cup, and then add the peas with that last bit.   
10. Remove risotto from heat, add the cheese if desired, and plate.
11. Drizzle each serving with a touch of black truffle oil

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