It's About Time

Gluten is the name for proteins in grains like wheat, barley, and rye. In the U.S., gluten is found not just in baked goods, but in items such as candy, medicine, and fast foods. Gluten also creeps into our entire food system. Grains like oats and rice that don’t contain gluten can be contaminated in the field during crop rotation, or at any point from harvesting to packaging.

One in 133 Americans has gluten sensitivity, with most people undiagnosed. We rely on accurate food labelling. But can we trust a gluten-free label?

In 2004, President Bush signed the Food Allergen and Consumer Protection Act, directing the FDA to issue final rules on gluten-free labelling by 2008. To date, the FDA has only made a recommendation: that to be labelled “gluten-free”, a food not contain a prohibited grain like wheat, rye, or barley, an ingredient derived from these grains, or a prohibited grain that was processed to remove gluten if more than 20 parts per million of gluten remains. Twenty ppm was considered safe for persons needing a gluten-free diet.

The recommendation doesn’t state how gluten is to be tested, nor does it address gluten testing in raw ingredients. With varying accuracy in tests for gluten, and without a mandated standard reference method, a label’s claim of gluten-free is tricky.

Research into why some patients with celiac disease don’t improve on gluten-free diets has shown us that inaccurate gluten-free labelling is the culprit. Independent testing of store-bought foods for gluten contamination show that store-bought flours -- including non-prohibited grain flours like rice flour -- can contain more than 20 ppm gluten.

Because there isn't a requirement for manufacturers to test non-gluten containing grains for gluten contamination, gluten-free labelling is being applied indiscriminately and inappropriately to both contaminated and non-contaminated foods.

The FDA is finally asking for input on a new gluten-free labelling regulation. I say "it's about time."

For information on commenting, view this article: http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm265838.htm

On Being a Girrilla

The U.S. is a market-driven economy. If you have food sensitivities, you need to let people know about them. It's really the best way to educate companies and help them improve their products and procedures.

Most of the companies I have corresponded with have been thrilled to have my feedback. At the least, conversations have resulted in my learning more about a company's products, and the company learning more about my preferences.

Your voice can help a manufacturer find an alternate ingredient, modify their labeling, or come up with a new product line. One of my top three wishes is for chocolatiers to stop using soy lecithin as an emulsifier, and to replace it with sunflower lecithin, cranberry, or some other ingredient.

Some stores allow you to special order a product, providing impetus for the store to carry that product on a regular basis. At Whole Foods, I special-ordered one of my favorite shower gels from Pangea Organics. It is a gluten-, dairy-, and soy-free concoction, incorporating delightful organic herbs and oils and using a recycled container with minimal packaging.

I've written to companies simply to thank them for making a marvelous product. I like Naked Juice, Dagoba Chocolates, Flying Apron Bakery, Aubrey Organics, Hugo Naturals, Enjoy Life, Food for Life... and I'm happy to send a note when a congratulations are due.

Make it a habit to speak up for your health!

Here are some contact addresses to get you started:

Whole Foods Market: Contact Whole Foods
PCC Natural Markets: Contact PCC
Super Supplements: Contact the Customer Care Team
Bob's Red Mill: Contact Us
Lundberg Family Farms: Contact Us
Arrowhead Mills: About Us/Contact Us
Tinkyada Rice Pasta: We'd Love to Hear From You
Dagoba Organic Chocolate: Contact Us
Naked Juice: Welcome to Naked Juice
Kroger (QFC & Fred Meyer): Contact Kroger with Comments and Questions
Uwajimaya: We Want to Hear From You
Starbucks: Starbucks Customer Feedback
Costco: Costco Customer Service
Safeway: Contact Safeway
Odwalla: Talk to Us
Bissingers Handcrafted Chocolatier: Contact Us

Happy Commenting!

Gluten-Free Breakfast Bowls

Many Americans don't eat breakfast, but we all should start out the day with some balanced nutrition. Here are some breakfast ideas you might not have thought of:

• Gluten-free oatmeal (Bob's Red Mill and other brands)


• Non-dairy Yogurt


• Lundberg's organic brown rice cereal


• a bowl of fresh organic fruit, or fruit and coconut milk yogurt


• Arrowhead Mills organic maple buckwheat flakes


• Arrowhead Mills sweetened rice flakes


• a bowl of rice dotted with lentils and dried cranberries, or a bowl of hot rice and vegetables, or a bowl of pho


• a gluten free tortilla rollup: nuke or grill a Food for Life brown rice tortilla and then roll it around anything you like: hummus or beans, for example.


• mochi


• Macadamia nut Daifuku (rice cakes with adzuki bean paste). Find these at a store like Uwajimaya in the grab-and-go refrigerator section.


• a bakery item from Flying Apron Bakery....


• a cranberry orange relish you can make by chopping up fresh cranberries and adding chopped orange. Mix in a spoonful or two of organic sunflower seeds, then drizzle with agave syrup or honey, mix thoroughly, and ... well, you get the picture

• yesterday's dinner is also pretty good for breakfast..

Spill the Beans

Is it easy to cook your own beans? Absolutely!

I say that because I tend to meet with disbelief when I promote the topic of home-cooked beans.

What many people don't realize is that on top of being simple to prepare, home-cooked beans taste delectable. They pack nutritional wallop -- especially in terms of iron, and they are an excellent source of fiber. The last time my doctor reviewed my lab values, she was surprised to hear that I don't take iron to supplement my mostly-vegetarian diet. I told her it must be the fresh-cooked adzuki and garbanzo beans I like to eat.

About flavor: You know how most chili recipes call for canned beans? You dump the beans into the cooking chili and know beforehand there is no reason tasting the pot because the beans will taste terrible until they've picked up the chili flavorings. Well, that's all different with fresh beans.

Even without having any salt added to the pot while cooking, beans I cook myself always taste delightful; the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle differences among beans really pop out to let you appreciate them. I'll find myself sneaking a spoon into the pot for one more bite before I set cooked beans into the refrigerator. Since I'm not a devotee of salt, these are mighty naked beans I am finding so tasty.

In addition, beans are probably the cheapest source of protein you can find. Check out the price of beans in your store's bulk food section, and you'll see what I mean.

Here's how I cook beans:

1. In the morning, I pour a cup of dried beans into a quart-size tupperware bowl, then I add sufficient cold water to drown the beans by several inches. I set this bowl out of the way for the day.

If you want to be all Suzy Homemaker, you could cover the bowl with a very cute kitchen towel, but remember it's just cold water and beans. I enjoy leaving the bowl open because if I'm home and popping in and out of the kitchen, I get to see the beans swelling in size and that's often fun. (I am easily amused.)

2. Eight hours later, I grab the bowl and dump the beans into a strainer over my sink, rinsing just a bit. Then I find a large lidded saucepan and pour the drained beans into the pan. I pour between 3 and 4 cups of fresh water onto the beans, put the lid on the pan, and set it on the stove over high heat until the water starts to boil.

3. When the water has started to boil, I turn the heat down to a low simmer -- low enough to keep the water moving but not so that bubbles crawl all the way up the sides of the pan. I'll simmer as follows:

• adzuki beans, 50 minutes


• garbanzo beans, 2-1/2 hours


• navy beans and kidney beans, 1-1/4 hour


• black-eyed peas, 1 hr

I usually set the timer on the low end of time and check the beans partway through the cooking process, adding the full time if necessary. Depending on the weather, how long I've presoaked the beans, and how I've set the heat, I'll have slightly shorter or longer cooking periods.

When done, I pour off the cooking water and use it for other purposes -- to add nutrients to my dog's food bowl, for example.

You can add a stick of kombu (dried seaweed), some sprinklings of sage, or some sea salt to the cooking beans towards the end of the cooking time to add flavor, but it's really not necessary!

Cooking lentils is just the same as cooking beans, without the eight-hour presoak. Simply rinse the lentils well before adding water and cooking. Lentils typically cook in about 35 minutes.

Enjoy and thrive!

Food's Incredible Health Secrets

Now this post contains gluten, dairy and soy content! But since it is also about the health benefits of eating certain foods, I think in that respect we're okay.

I came across the most marvelous book about food and I wanted to share it with you. The book is called "The Jungle Effect", and was written by an American physician, Dr. Daphne Miller.

Because Dr. Miller is a family physician, her practice includes a number of patients with modern diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and the like. Not content to treat these diseases with drugs alone, she decided to investigate populations where there is resistance to disease -- her so-called "cold spots" (as opposed to hot spots) for disease.

By traveling throughout the world and working with experts in the fields of anthropological nutrition and disease, she has been able to dissect the diets of a number of indigenous populations and explain to us why these diets are so healthy.

For example, the island of Okinawa, Japan, is a cold spot for colon and prostate cancer. As it turns out, people on this island eat a diet that is different from the rest of Japan, a kind of fusion diet influenced by a number of nearby Asian countries. They eat far more fruits and vegetables of every kind, and especially those containing lycopene.

In men, lycopene concentrates in the prostate gland, and studies have shown between a 25 - 80% reduction in risk for prostate cancer in men eating a lot of lycopene. But that's just one antioxidant. Okinawans also eat foods high in glucosinolates -- for example, garlic, cabbage, brussels sprouts, bok choy, and broccoli, which have been shown to inhibit the development of hormone-sensitive cancers (i.e. breast cancer). On top of this, most Okinawans drink their water flavored with tea high in EGCG -- a flavonoid that has high anti-cancer properties. They cook their foods only briefly using a light steam or short stir fry (preserving the antioxidants) and they eat less food than they need to.

"The Jungle Effect" talks about these diets and methods of food preparation, along with indigenous diets from many other parts of the world: Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Senegal, and so forth. It has recipes and tips for finding indigenous foods in today's markets. The truth is, I had never understood how to cook my own beans before reading this book, and now I cook them all the time (with impressive flavor results!)

Tip: Mixing a tablespoon or so of vinegar with rice will make the rice slower to digest, reducing the rice's glycemic index.

Tip: Cooking vegetables such as carrots in a little olive oil makes the beta carotene easier for the body to absorb.

Where do these tips come from? Find out in the book and enjoy good health!

Any Nog in the Storm

I have a non-dairy version of Egg Nog -- which does contain egg -- that I can whip up in a snap using light Coconut milk, a little Horchata or plain rice milk, Cinnamon (sometimes Ginger and clove), a little raw egg, a dab of honey or agave, and, for those who like it, the booze du jour.

I start by whipping the egg with a wire whisk until it is light and frothy.

Then I slowly add the honey or agave.

After whipping some more, I'll slowly pour in "some" coconut milk -- perhaps 1/2 cup, then another 1/4 to 1/3 cup of Horchata or rice milk, and the spices.

I whisk and whisk, even though I know the mixture will start to separate as soon as I stop. I pour the frothy mixture into a mug, leaving about an inch at the top if I plan to add booze.

Right about this time, it is approaching evening and KPLU's All Blues is wafting in over the speakers, with a little Howlin' Wolf leading the hour.

Do you need more?