The Quintessential Soup for Locavores: Zucchini Curry soup at Moulin Brégeon

I’m just back from my second annual gluten-free summer vacation to France.

This year, we decided to visit the Loire Valley, since I figured what better time to visit a region renowned for its wineries and soft goat cheeses than when you’re pregnant?  Of course, I won’t lead you to believe for one second that my experience was in any way ascetic; even without the bread and wine, I happily, deliciously and easily found an extra 600 calories a day (and then some!) for the twins.  And even though it involved bending numerous pregnancy food safety dictates, I ended the week a bit heavier than when I started and no worse for the wear.

The cuisine in the Loire Valley was simple and delicious, featuring locally-grown produce in season, like strawberries, cherries and zucchini.   Locally-grown mushrooms also played a starring role, and locally-caught pike perch (fish) and locally-made goat cheeses are ubiquitous.

While our meals were quite varied, the one dish that kept resurfacing was some version of a curried zucchini puree.   At La Licorne restaurant in Fontevraud L’Abbaye, it showed up as a luxurious, warm,

Curried Zucchini Mousse at La Licorne

mousse-like amuse bouche that was clearly spiked with a generous bit of creme fraiche.  At a small tapas cafe (Le 7) elsewhere in town, it arrived as a thick, cold puree meant for spreading on bread–almost like a zucchini-curry hummus.  But the last–and by far most successful– variation on the theme was a cold, pureed soup served by our lovely and talented hosts at Le Moulin Brégeon, possibly one of the most idyllic places on the planet.

Moulin Brégeon’s Curry Zucchini Soup

This recipe was graciously provided by Bernard at Moulin Bregeon (a man whose talents, incidentally, would put Martha Stewart to shame.  It’s almost worth the trip just to sample his homemade elderflower syrup or cherry jam).   After having tasted the cool soup, which was incredibly refreshing after a long, hot day of touring around the region, I expected the recipe to be a considerably more involved and nuanced affair than it turned out to be.  The actual process is astonishingly simple, and really highlights the difference that locally-grown, fresh ingredients make from a flavor perspective.  In our case, the zucchinis used for the soup were picked from the inn’s garden just 3 hours before dinner, and we watched Chef Pascal clip some chives and pansies for the garnish just moments before we were seated for dinner.  Bernard emphasized the importance of using small, younger zucchini for this recipe–about 6 oz each– rather than the monster-sized zucchini we’re used to buying in the U.S.   He also mentioned that the trick to the texture is really blending the soup until it is a very smooth and creamy with no chunks or visible pieces; this gives such a velvety and rich effect without using any cream whatsoever.  For my vegan readers, I’m sure a vegetable broth would substitute just fine for the chicken broth.  While I’ve never much been one for cold soups (or making soup in the summer), I must say that this dish won me over; it’s a lovely substitute for a salad to start off a summer meal, or would make a fine half of a light soup-and-salad lunch.

Chef Pascal gathering the garnishes for the soup from the front garden

Serves 4

One large, peeled onion cut fine

2 tablespoons virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons curry powder

4 young zucchinis (~26 ounces total, or about 1.7 lbs), washed and cut in fine rounds

~4 cups (1 liter) of chicken broth

1. Pour the oil in a big pot, throw in the onion, the curry and a pinch of salt. Brown until the onion is tender (3 or 4 minutes).
2. Add broth and zucchinis, cover and reduce heat, cook for 20 minutes.
3. Blend until the soup is creamy.
4. You can eat this soup hot or cold; you can also add more curry if you like it spicier.
5. Garnish with fresh chives if desired

Approximate nutrition information per serving (this is so un-French to add, but I know many of you are watching your weight and counting carbs, so I hope I will not be considered too gauche for doing so): ~120 calories, 10g carbohydrate (of which ~2.5g is fiber), 6.5g protein and 8g fat (the healthy, unsaturated kind). This is a very diabetic friendly recipe (less than one carbohydrate exchange per serving), so long as you don’t go and start mopping up the leftover soup streaks in your empty bowl with lots of spongy bread!  (You will surely be tempted to do so).

Bon apétit!

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As for the Spinach?  Well, I always have at least a bunch (or bag) of it in the fridge as a key standby ingredient for a number of my favorite healthy, 30-minute-or-less, weeknight dinner recipes.  At least once a week in our house, spinach saves the day (or at least, dinner).

My Favorite Spinach Standbys

Yellow Lentils (or Split Peas) with Spinach and Ginger

Topping the list is my trusty old recipe for Yellow Lentils with Spinach and Ginger, by far the most stained and sticky page from my dog-eared copy of the Mayo Clinic Cookbook.  I love this recipe for its bright and cheery appearance, its subtle and earthy flavor profile and the sheer lack of prep work  it requires.  Just mince a shallot (1/2 a red onion makes a fine substitute), measure a few pantry items and get the dish cooking within 5 minutes.  While the lentils are cooking (12 minutes!), you can toast up the sesame seeds and chop some cilantro for garnish.  In 30 minutes or less, you’ve got a 240-calorie, high-protein (14g), high fiber (9g!) entree that’s moderate in net carbohydrate (36g total minus 9g fiber=27g, or about 2 diabetic exchanges).  I enjoy this dish on its own, but in the wintertime when I’m looking for a bit more substance, I might pair it with a cooked quinoa, rice or millet for a little extra stick-to-my-ribness.  Last night, it followed a steamed artichoke appetizer dipped in a quickie chipotle aioli... and hit the spot.

When I’m looking for something a bit more heavily seasoned, I beg my husband to make us his version of Chana Saag–chickpeas with spinach.  It takes a bit longer to prepare (which is why I try to offload cooking it onto him), but delivers a very similar nutritional profile: 235 calories, 10g protein, 8g fiber and 23g of net carbohydrate (32g minus 8g of fiber)… that is, before you count in the rice you’re almost certainly going to want to pair it with.

Popeye Had it Right

Spinach ranks high on the ANDI index with a score of 799 (out of 1,000), meaning that it’s among the most nutrient-dense foods one could eat.  It’s a ridiculously excellent source of bone-building and blood-clot enabling Vitamin K, immunity-enhancing and night vision-enabling Vitamin A (in the form of beta carotene), blood cell and DNA-replication-enabling folate, bone-building and healthy blood pressure-maintaning magnesium.   1 cup of these magic green leaves cooked contains over 1000% of the daily value for Vitamin K, 365% of the daily value for Vitamin A, 65% of the daily value for folate, and over 35% of your daily magnesium needs… for just 40 calories.  Spinach also contains good amounts of other B-vitamins, Vitamin C (30% of the daily value) and potassium, but I fear I’m embarassing it by going on and on about its nutritional merits.  I should also mention that spinach contains high levels of various other compounds–such as several different carotenoids and flavonoids–whose consumption have been associated with a protective effect against degenerative eye diseases and certain types of cancer (particularly prostate and ovarian).

Heaps of praise notwithstanding: while spinach is often cited as a good source of both calcium and iron, its high content of these two nutrients belies the fact that neither of them is particularly bioavailable.  Because of spinach’s high amount of natural compounds called phytates and oxalates that bind to minerals in food and prevent them from being digested, the calcium in spinach is very poorly absorbed (only about 5% of its calcium content is absorbed, compared to about 60% for other leafy sources of calcium like kale, collards and broccoli that contain much lower levels of oxalate).  Similarly, only about 2% of spinach’s iron content is absorbed in our digestive tract, compared to, say, about 20% from red meat, though you can enhance your absorption of its iron somewhat by pairing your spinach with vitamin-C rich foods, like a generous squeeze of lemon juice, tomatoes or red peppers… or a piece of meat, poultry or fish.

Spinach isn’t for Everybody: The Low-Oxalate Diet for Kidney Stones

One final nutritional note on spinach pertains to my unlucky friends who have had the displeasure of experiencing kidney stones.  Most–but not all–kidney stones are made from calcium oxalate, and these result from a variety of factors related to one’s urine chemistry and genetic susceptibility.  In predisposed individuals, high levels of oxalate present in low levels of urine (from inadequate fluid intake) can cause this natural compound to precipitate with calcium and form a stone.  The diet recommended to prevent the recurrence of such stones is one that’s (1) high in fluids (2-3 liters per day); (2) moderate in protein (<80g/day… so trash your Atkins diet at once!); (3) moderate in sodium (<2,ooomg/day); (4) high in calcium (~1,200mg/day, or 4 servings of calcium-rich foods); and (5) restricted in high-oxalate foods, such as spinach (and most dark leafy greens), rhubarb, beets, soy, chocolate, strawberries, tea, wheat bran, nuts and seeds.  Some research also suggests that taking a calcium supplement with meals (200-400mg) may help prevent calcium oxalate stones if dietary calcium is inadequate.  Lastly, if you’re prone to kidney stones, avoid taking high-dose Vitamin C supplements (1,000mg/day or more), as excess vitamin C is converted to oxalate.

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The yogurt which established a new Greek Empire in your supermarket

But the google-searches for lactose-free yogurts continue unabated, and since I posted that initial article, the only brand of dairy yogurt on the market that used lactose-free milk (True Yogurt) has become unavailable due to the loss of their production facilities.

Despair not, my fellow lactards.  There is another yogurt option that your intestines may find tolerable: European Style yogurt.

You may have noticed the European invasion in your local dairy aisle: there’s a veritable Greek Empire led by brands like Fage, Oikos, Chobani, The Greek Gods, Trader Joe’s Greek Style yogurt and Brown Cow Greek yogurt; then there are the Icelandic Skyrs (Siggi’s), and the continentally-inspired “European-style yogurts” (Cultural Revolution).  What these products all have in common is that they’re strained to remove a large amount of the lactose-containing liquid (whey) found in your typical American-style yogurt, so they’re a) very thick; b) naturally higher in protein; c) naturally lower in carbohydrate.  Now: since all of the carbohydrate naturally found in yogurt is lactose (milk sugar), a lower carbohydrate yogurt means a lower-lactose yogurt. For some people who can tolerate small amounts of lactose but still have trouble with conventional American-style yogurt, these products may be perfect for you.

How low-lactose are European-style yogurts?

Ounce for ounce, your typical European-style yogurt will have about half or less of the amount of lactose as a standard American-style yogurt.  (This is also very good news for people with diabetes, as plain European style yogurts are very low-carb.)

Let’s start with a standard American-style product for comparisons’ sake: a 6oz container of plain, Dannon low fat yogurt, which contains 11g of naturally-occurring sugar, all of which is lactose (milk sugar).  All conventional yogurts will contain roughly this same amount of lactose, which means any additional sugar listed on the label beyond 11g is added sugar for flavor.  (As a sidebar: if you’d like to read more about how much added sugar is too much added sugar when it comes to yogurt, read this response to a reader who asked that very same question.)

By way of comparison, a standard 5.3oz container of Greek-style yogurt contains 6g lactose (or about 7g for brands sold in a 6oz container), which amounts to 45% less lactose than American-style yogurt.

If that doesn’t excite you, there are thicker, more strained versions out there with even LESS lactose.  A standard 6oz container of Siggi’s Icelandic-style yogurt contains a mere 4g of lactose, or 64% less lactose than American-style yogurt.  (It also has 16-17g of protein and 20% of your daily calcium needs.)

If their labels don't lie, 2% fat Cultural Revolution yogurt has the least amount of lactose (2g) you can find in a milk-based yogurt

And finally, there is Cultural Revolution yogurt, whose low-fat version (2%) is an unimaginably low-lactose product: Just 2g of lactose in a standard 6oz container. That’s 82% less lactose than a conventional American style yogurt.  (Note that the whole milk version (5%) has more lactose: 5g per 6oz container.)

One last–and important–lactose-related factoid when it comes to yogurt is this: the live, active cultures (bacteria) in your yogurt will have predigested some of its lactose before you even eat it, which is why yogurts (and cheeses) are often better-tolerated than straight liquid milk in people with some degree of lactose intolerance.

To put this in mathematical terms: a very low lactose yogurt + some lactose pre-digested by the yogurt cultures= a very good chance people with some (but not complete) lactose intolerance will be able to enjoy yogurt again.

Ready to give real yogurt a try again?

My recommendation is always to choose plain (unflavored) European or Greek-style yogurt if you like how it tastes–or if its convenient for you to doctor it up with a touch of your own sweetener or favorite add-in (I’m partial to almonds + 1 tsp honey, or just a sprinkle of granola).

Virtually all flavored yogurts are loaded with added sugar–often over 3 tsp worth in a teensy little container.  (As a rule of thumb, 6 tsp added sugar per day is a good limit for most women.)  Flavored Greek Yogurts are no exception, and all sugar listed on the label beyond the lactose content detailed above is straight up added sugar.  (In fact, I’ve seen many Greek yogurt products with an unheard-of 30g+ of sugar per container!  I won’t name names, but you know who you are, you sugar-pushing bullies…)  Note: if you’re concerned about lactose, you may want to avoid Cabot’s Greek Style Yogurt: their yogurts contain added whey protein concentrate, which contains lactose.  As a result, their Greek Yogurt has the same amount of lactose as your standard, American-style version.

You make a mean Skyr, Siggi.

If your tastebuds simply won’t adapt to the flavor of plain, then there are some brands that have less added sugar than others.  When I’m not buying plain, here’s what I’d buy:

• Siggi’s Icelandic style yogurt in Vanilla, Grapefruit, Blueberry or Orange-Ginger  (These flavors have 10g total sugar, or 1.5tsp added sugar.  So does the Acai flavor, but I think it tastes kinda weird.  Sorry, Siggi.)  Plus, its made with milk from hormone-free, grass-fed cows.
• Cultural Revolution yogurt in Vanilla, Strawberry, Peach or Raspberry.  These flavors have 10g-11g total sugar in the whole milk variety, which is ~1.5tsp added sugar; and only 8g total sugar in the 2% (lowfat) variety.  And bonus, its made from organic milk.
• Stonyfield Farm’s Oikos Greek-style yogurt in Vanilla only (has 11g total sugar per container, and it’s made with organic milk.)  The other flavors have way too much sugar added for me to recommend them.
• In a pinch, Brown Cow Vanilla Greek Yogurt isn’t egregious at 12g sugar per container… but it’s pushing the limits.

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Gigante beans: Some foods are OK to supersize

If you know not the creamy comfort that is biting into an enormous and aptly-named gigante bean, then it is my mission today to convince you to seek out this elusive packet of leguminous deliciousness.

I’ve gone on about my love for beans–and their nutritional virtues–in the past.  And while many folks profess to like beans well enough, too, they fail to see what inspires my unbridled passion for these little packets of complex-carbohydrate goodness.  After all, the American bean vocabulary tends to be pretty limited: we know garbanzos, kidneys, black beans and cannelinis.  Occasionally we dabble in pintos or black-eyed peas.  But unless it comes in a can, most of us can’t be bothered to expand our bean horizons.

If ever there was a bean to inspire a nation to abandon its lazybean tendencies, however, surely the Gigante (aka: Gigande, Yigante, Hija) must be it. Most popular in Greek cuisine (yes, the same clever people who brought us geometry and democracy have also retained this most delicious of beans in their collective leguminous repertoire), gigante beans boast a divine creamy texture and the ability to maintain their shape after all sorts of cooking.  I decided it was time to start making my own gigantes after the $9.99/lb Antipasto bar at Whole Foods lured me in one time too many with that ridiculously delicious Gigante Bean salad of theirs.  (What kind of person spends $18.98 on an impulse bean purchase?!)  Like all bean varieties, Gigantes are an excellent source of complex carbohydrate, protein, fiber, antioxidants and a good source of iron.

Buying Beans

My new favorite place to buy beans is Purcell Mountain Farms, an Idaho-based farm with an excellent online store.  In addition to having the most reasonable prices for my favorite hard-to-find Gigante beans and Beluga lentils, they offer a surprising variety of organic and heirloom bean varieties with romantic names and fashionable appearances.  If you’re bored to tears with your kidneys and pintos, surely an Eye of the Goat, Jackson Wonder or Mortgage Lifter bean will liven up your winter soups–and spirits–mighty fast.    And if you’ve eschewed standard beans for their dull, lackluster appearances, might I suggest the speckled Dapple Grey variety, or perhaps a melange of Orca, Jacob’s Cattle and Painted Pony beans to match the animal-print napkins at your next dinner party?  There are so many gorgeous, interesting, delicious historic bean varieties to try if you’re willing to venture beyond the supermarket aisles.  And by buying heirloom bean varieties, you’re doing your small part to support environmentally-sound practices that promote biodiversity.  Forget  blue ketchups and animal-shaped nuggets to entice your finnicky kids to eat; let them pick out their own mix of fashion-colored and patterned beans and see if that doesn’t get them engaged in the healthy eating process.

If you are a bean buff and are interested in learning more about the folklore behind the wide, wonderful world of beans–as well as how to prepare them–I strongly recommend Aliza Green’s essential cookbook, Beans, from which I learned, for example, that Gigante beans are a variety of so-called “runner beans” that were brought to America from Greece and Spain.

Cooking beans from scratch

While I resisted it for years, I have come to discover that cooking beans from dry isn’t nearly as annoying as I had thought it would be. If you have the foresight to plan ahead, tomorrow night’s dinner beans into a big bowl of water in a ratio of about 3 cups water per 1 cup beans before you go to bed is the easiest way to prep your beans for a faster cooking time the next day.  And if you’re as Type A as I am, the feeling of accomplishment that comes with multi-tasking overnight will lull you into a happy, albeit geeky, slumber.   This would be the regular soaking method.

The quick-soaking method takes about an hour to an hour and a half.  In this case, you’d put your beans in a large saucepan so that they’re covered with 2 inches of water.  Bring the water to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes.  Then, turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let your beans soak in the water for 60-90 minutes, until tender.  Drain the water and proceed with your recipe.

The #1 rule when cooking any dry bean is to avoid adding acid of any kind with the bean until it is already tender.  Don’t add any vinegar, wine, citrus juice, tomato product or anything else acidic to the cooking water until your beans are nice and soft; otherwise, the acid will prevent your beans from softening no matter how long you cook them.

Gigante Beans: Two Ways

Yigandes Plaki: Loosely translates to "Why, oh why, was I not born to a Greek grandmother?"

I am obsessed with this first recipe for Greek-style Baked Gigante Beans, (aka Yigandes Plaki) which was adapted from Nancy Harmon Jenkins’  The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook and posted on another food blog.  (Better they should have to deal with the copyright issues than me!)  While I’ll admit that it took forever and a half to make, don’t forget that I live in a freezing house and am all for any recipe that involves keeping the oven on for long periods of time.  (If you pre-soak your beans overnight, the first 40-50 minute bean simmering step can be cut in half.)  It strikes me that this recipe would be perfectly suited for a slow-cooker, but since I have yet to figure out how to use the slow-cooker I got for my wedding, I will defer to any ambitious crock-pot enthusiasts out there to adapt this recipe on our behalf and post their findings in the comments section.)  Since I didn’t have fresh herbs, I used a bunch of dry ones (including basil and oregano), which resulted in a final product that, in addition to being mouth-meltingly creamy, gave a similar flavor effect to lasagna…in the best possible way.  In fact, I would recommend serving it like you would lasagna; accompanied by a nice garlicky side dish of broccoli rabe or sauteed bitter greens to counteract the sweetness and bring some green to the plate.  It is absolutely delicious.  If your children don’t like this recipe, then send them back for a refund.

Another easy way to serve gigantes is as a room temperature bean salad appetizer.  Gigantes are commonly featured among the mezze in Greece, and a salad is a perfect way to pay homage to this civilized bean.  Mark Bittman offers an easy-to-follow formula for a Greek-style gigante bean salad in his modern kitchen staple, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Of course, to replicate the Whole Foods Antipasto version that I’m so addicted to, here’s the closest recipe approximation I could come up with, reconstructed from the posted ingredient list on their salad bar signage:

Recipe: Tamara’s Whole Foods Gigante Bean Salad Knockoff

• Cook 1/2 lb of gigante beans per the cooking instructions above
• Roast 1 small red pepper and 1 small green pepper over open flame (your gas burner will do just fine).  Peel their skins off and slice peppers into super-thin strips.
• Mix cooked beans with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 2 TBSP olive oil, 1 TBSP fresh chopped parsley, 1/2 cup (or more, to taste) or roasted pepper strips, 1-2 minced garlic cloves and salt to taste.
• Let salad marinate in fridge for several hours so flavors can blend.
• Serve at room temperature.

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Introducing the Burgeriest (soy-free, gluten-free, vegan) homemade Veggie Burger

For some time, friends and readers have been asking me to share a recipe for a good, easy to make, homemade veggie burger.  And so my New Year’s Resolution this year was to make good on my promises to do so. (Besides, it’s a heck of a lot easier than losing weight.)

As it turns out, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction out there with the available options.  Most commercial offerings have gluten or soy; ingredients which many people avoid by choice or necessity.  And most recipes for homemade versions are incredibly time-consuming, multi-step ordeals; I still have nightmares about the 2-hour Shutter’s veggie burger project I took on two summers ago that involved cooking brown rice from scratch (45 minutes), cooking beets from scratch (1 hour), and mixing them with a laundry list of hard-to-find-GF-versions-of  pantry items* to produce a delicious but exhausting veggie burger.  Then there was that Martha Stewart Chickpea burger that tasted suspiciously similar to falafel.  (Tasty…but if I had wanted falafel, I would have just made falafel…).  I had all but given up on finding a tasty, easy homemade burgery veggie burger until the most recent article in a recent New York Times series on the safety (or lack thereof) of ground beef sold in America provided the second wind I needed to find a delicious, easy, healthful ground beefless recipe for my dear readers to make at home.

Resolved: Eat Less Red Meat in 2010

Even if you’re not a vegetarian, swapping out a beefy burger for a meatless one every so often will do you good– and help you make good on those New Year’s Resolutions to start eating more healthily.  In a landmark study of over 550,000 people aged 50-71 years (that’s crazy huge, by the way) by Sinha et al published in March, 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers followed subjects for 10 years to determine how various dietary factors contributed to mortality. They controlled for all sorts of factors, including race, smoking, alcohol use, weight, exercise habits, vitamin use and multiple dietary habits.  And they found that men and women who ate more red meat were  31% and 36%, respectively, more likely to die for any reason during the 10 year period when compared to people to ate the least red meat. Cancer was the leading cause of mortality, followed by cardiovascular disease.  On average, the group with the lowest red meat consumption ate only about 1/3 of an ounce per 1,000 calories in their diet, compared with the highest meat consumption group, which ate about 2.5 oz red meat per 1,000 calories in their diet.  In other words, in a typical 2,000 calorie diet, the lowest-risk group ate less than 1 oz red meat per day on average (~4.5 oz per week), versus the highest risk group who ate about 5oz per day (~17 oz per week).  The results were statistically significant for trend, meaning that even reducing red meat consumption somewhat from the highest level (without going as low as the lowest-intake level) was still associated with a reduced risk of death.

The bottom line: swapping out one average beef burger a week with a meatless version brings you 3-6oz closer to the group whose dietary habits have been associated with the lowest risk of death within 10 years. And what better New Year’s Resolution than to live past New Year’s 2020?

The Best Homemade Veggie Burger Recipe

And so, after countless veggie burger experiments, spanning several years and multiple genres, I’m pleased to point you in the direction of Mollie Katzen’s Lentil-Walnut Burger. I know what you’re thinking when you hear “lentil-walnut.”  You’re thinking about long-

Two Lentil Walnut burgers on a (gluten-free) bun

haired tree huggers.  70′s style health food stores that smell like vitamins. Hemp, bean sprouts and Birkenstocks.   But do try to keep an open mind.  Mollie loves food, and she knows food.  As such, this burger tastes nothing of lentils or walnuts; it’s greater than the sum of its parts.  The batter has a similar texture and appearance to ground beef–it looks like a beef burger when cooking and when cooked.  Not in the creepy Boca Burger way, but in a ‘it definitely feels burgery rather than bean-pattyish’ way.   The burgers have that same savory, umami flavor profile of a beef burger–delivered by the cider vinegar and mushrooms?–rather than the more bean-and-vegetably flavor typical of a veggie burger.  And you can make the whole batter in the time it takes to cook lentils: 30 minutes flat.  (If I may offer a tip: mash the cooked lentils with your hands–squeeze ‘em real good until they’re totally mush.  It helps make a very coherent batter.) So give this tie-dyed, hippie burger a chance, will you?

To make Mollie’s recipe gluten-free you have several options instead of the bread crumbs/wheat germ/oats she calls for:

1. Use gluten free breadcrumbs, like Gillian’s, Hol-Grain, or Glutino
2. Use gluten-free oats, like Bob’s Red Mill
3. Use the Quinoa Flakes you have leftover from making my gluten-free Quatzoh Balls (of course this will make the recipe more hippie than it is already)
   
4. Make your own gluten-free breadcrumbs by toasting your favorite frozen gluten-free waffle and tossing it in a food processor (Click here for instructions from the clever gluten-free goddess who came up with this nifty idea

Approximate nutrition info per burger (assumes each recipe makes 6 burgers and you use 1 TBSP of oil to cook the burgers in a non-stick pan.  Excludes bun.):  250 calories, 29g carbohydrate–of which 10 huge grams are fiber (so, a net of 19g of carbohydrate–or one and a half diabetic exchanges), 11g protein, 12g (heart-healthy, unsaturated) fat, and 3.8mg iron (~20% of the daily value of 18mg).  Serve with ketchup and a slice of tomato to help absorb the iron from the beans and spinach.

** If I haven’t scared you away from the Shutter’s recipe and you’re up for the challenge, you can substitute Wheat-free Tamari sauce for the soy sauce.  Premier Japan makes a gluten-free Hoisin sauce.  And use any of the bread-crumb-replacement strategies listed above in place of the oat bran or wheat germ she calls for.  And for goodness sake, use canned beets instead of roasting your own fresh ones as I foolishly did and you can redeem that extra hour of your life to play Rhythm Kung Fu on the Wii Fit Plus you got for Christmas.

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With about 5mg of iron per serving, this hearty vegetarian chili is far from an anemic entree.

Iron is a problem for lots of people.

While the average American man eats enough of it, most babies, children and pre-menopausal women do not.  And that’s not even including the vegetarianally-inclined.  Iron deficiency is the #1 nutritional deficiency in the world, and remains a problem even in over-nourished America.  Data from population surveys (1999-2000) show that toddlers and females aged 12-49 have the highest rates of iron deficiency in our country, with prevalence of  7% and 9-16%, respectively.

The majority of iron in our bodies exists as part of hemoglobin–the oxygen-transporting complex in red blood cells.  (A much smaller amount is used for other functions, such as DNA synthesis, the synthesis of neurotransmitters, immune function and the metabolism of food to create energy.)  Given these varied roles of iron, it makes sense that (1) people who lose more blood lose more iron, and (2) people who are growing (infants, children, pregnant women) will require more iron to manufacture more red blood cells, new DNA for each new cell in their growing bodies, and to promote brain development.  When someone has an insufficient number of red blood cells due to a lack of dietary iron, the condition is called Iron-Deficiency Anemia (though there are other types of anemia caused by non-iron factors as well).  Symptoms of anemia range from mild (fatigue, always feeling cold, rapid heart rate or palpitations) to severe (all of the above, plus atrophy of taste buds, sore tongue, sores at the corners of the mouth and spoon-shaped fingernails.)  Children with iron-deficiency anemia may experience retardation in cognitive and motor development that may be irreversible, irritability/attention deficit, stunted growth, and increased susceptibility to illness and lead poisoning.  Pregnant women with iron-deficiency anemia are more likely to miscarry and have low-birth weight babies.

Iron absorption and storage is a very tightly regulated process in our bodies; iron is efficiently recycled from old red blood cells that have been decommissioned, and used for the creation of 200 million new red blood cells per day.  On average, we only lose about 1.2mg of iron per day, which is approximately the amount that we absorb from our diets.  When we’re deficient, our body is able to absorb more.  When we’re awash in iron, our body is able to absorb less.  (Although large doses of supplemental iron can overwhelm our body’s natural feedback mechanisms, which is why it’s important to keep your iron supplements out of reach of children–iron overdose is the #1 cause of poisoning among children under 6 years old.)

Don’t let the Daily Values deceive you

Officially, the recommended daily value for iron is 18mg, which is the amount of dietary iron needed by adult women aged 19-50. (Though women who use birth control pills only require about 11mg per day due to an average of 60% less blood lost in their monthly periods.)  Adult men and women over age 50 require significantly less–only 8mg.  Pregnant women require 27mg/day, which is why a prenatal vitamin is recommended; it would be incredibly challenging to meet these needs consistently through diet alone.

More interestingly, infants 7-12 months need 11mg–or almost 40% more than a grown adult male! This is the reason why experts recommend iron-fortified cereals or pureed meat as baby’s first complementary foods after age 6 months; with the amount of iron infants need and the tiny quantities they eat, it’s virtually impossible to meet their needs on breastmilk or formula and foods like applesauce or pureed veggies alone.

But the daily values can be deceiving, as they assume one important fact: that the average American consumes an omnivorous diet. Since iron from animal sources (called “heme iron”) is up to 10x better absorbed–and the presence of meat, poultry or fish in a meal containing vegetarian sources of iron (called “non-heme iron”) helps increase the body’s ability to absorb it– the vegetarians among us actually have significantly increased irons needs as follows:

Vegetarian adult males: 14mg/day

Vegetarian pre-menopausal women: 33mg/day (though less if you’re on the pill)

And for those of you who donate blood with any regularity, know that each pint of blood you donate has over 200mg of iron that you’ll need to replace over time (though NOT all at once… iron toxicity is very serious, and wholly unpleasant).

What foods are the best sources of iron?

Iron absorption ranges by food source, from as low as 2% for spinach and legumes to 20% for steak.  Average bioavailability of iron from a mixed diet is 18%, whereas it’s only 10% from the average vegetarian diet.

Oysters are an iron-rich, sustainable seafood choice. Slurp ‘em if you got ‘em.

The best non-vegetarian sources of iron are:

• • • • • Chicken liver (12.8mg in 3.5 oz cooked)
        • Clams (11mg in 1/4 cup canned)
        • Oysters (5.6mg iron in 6 oysters)
        • Shrimp (2.6mg in 3oz)
        • Beef (2.3mg in 3oz)
        • Dark meat turkey (2.3mg in 3oz)
        • Canned light tuna (1.3mg in 3oz)
        • Dark meat chicken (1.1mg in 3 oz)

When it comes to vegetarian sources of iron, it’s tricky to talk about ‘best sources,’ because the absorbability of the iron will vary widely by what you eat the foods with. While tofu is an excellent source of iron on paper, there are compounds in soy protein that have an inhibitory effect on iron absorption.  The same goes for legumes and spinach; the presence of compounds called phytates drastically reduces the absorption of their significant iron content to as little as 2%.  The presence of significant amounts of calcium can also inhibit iron absorption, which is why prenatal vitamins have very little calcium in them and cow’s milk is NOT recommended for children under 12 months old.  In contrast, several dietary factors can enhance the absorbability of non-heme iron; these include: vitamin C, organic acids such as those naturally found in certain fruits and vegetables (citric acid, lactic acid, malic acid), alcohol, and the presence of meat, fish or poultry in the same meal (the mechanism behind this last one is unknown, so the scientific community refers to this mystery phenomenon as “MFP factor”–or meat, poultry, fish factor.  I’m not making this up.)

With these important caveats in mind, here is a list of some of the best vegetarian sources of protein:

• Fortified breakfast cereals (e.g.,Total, Raisin Bran, Cheerios): content varies, but one serving may contain up to 100% of the 18mg daily value.  Sadly, gluten-free cereals tend not to be fortified.
• Tofu (6.2mg in 1/2 cup firm)
• White beans (3.9mg in 1/2 cup)
• Lentils (3.3mg in 1/2 cup cooked)
• Blackstrap molasses (3.5mg in 1 TBSP)
• Cooked spinach (3.2mg in 1/2 cup)
• Baked potato (2.8mg in 1 medium potato with skin)
• Kidney beans (2.6mg in 1/2 cup cooked)
• Amaranth grain (2.6mg in 1/2 cup cooked)
• Prune juice (2.3mg in 6oz)
• Cashew nuts (1.7mg in 1 oz)
• Rolled oats (not fortified) (1.7mg in 1/2 cup dry)

When Life Hands you Anemia, Make Chili

Whether you make it with ground beef (or better yet, turkey) or keep it vegetarian, chili is one of the first foods I recommend to my anemic brothers and sisters looking to increase their dietary iron intake.  (One can only eat so much chicken liver, after all.)  The presence of tomatoes–which contain absorption-enhancing Vitamin C, citric acid and malic acid– help improve the bioavailability of iron in the beans.  If you use ground meat of any kind, you’ll get a two-fold effect on iron content: both from the heme iron content of the meat itself, as well as though the MFP factor’s further enhancement of the vegetarian iron bioavailability.

My go-to- recipe for vegetarian chili is this classic one for False Alarm Vegetable Chili from Martha Stewart.  It will surely go down in history as the unfussiest recipe she has ever featured, as it basically calls for chopping up a bunch of vegetables, dumping them in a pot all at once, and then dumping a bunch of dry and canned ingredients in 5 minutes later.  Voila.  It serves 10, and each serving contains ~4.7mg of iron.

If you prefer some meat in your chili, try this recipe for Colorful Turkey Chili from Whole Foods market.  It serves 4-6, and assuming one serving is ~1/5th of the recipe, each serving would contain ~5mg of iron.

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