The Panache of Pistachios

TheGreenNut.org

Pistachios. Forget for a moment that they taste great and it is nearly impossible to stop eating them. Sometimes the only thing between you and a pistachio overdose is the (often) hard to open shell. 

Pistachios were iintroduced to the U.S. in about the mid to late 19th century. The pistachio tree is native to western Asia and Asia Minor (ie, Turkey) and there is some evidence that pistachios were eaten as early as 7,000 B.C.  and by the first century A.D., these little nut nuggets had made their way into Italy by way of Syria.
 Take a look at  http://www.ThtGreenNut.org    if you would like to find ways  to incorporate pistachios into other dishes besides the snack bowl (perfectly okay as a snack; these green nuts are loaded with potassium, fiber, protein, Vitamin B-6 and are naturally cholesterol-free.) Asparagus Spinach Pistachio Pesto Pasta, Pistachio-Blackberry Financier, or Braised Pistachio and Apple Stuffing with Apple Butter are just a few ideas to get you started. Just have plenty on hand because you are sure to eat half as many as you incorporate into any recipe.

http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pistachio.html is another site that details the history and origins of Pistachios.

Soo Foo, So Good

SooFoo—the name is unusual and the nutrition and taste are very special indeed. Soo Foo is a gourmet, low-fat, sodium and cholesterol-free blend of U.S.A-grown long-grain brown rice; brown lentils; wheat berries; oats; barley; black lentils; rye berries; green lentils and buckwheat. Its Inventor, entrepreneur, author, film producer and master distiller Maurice Kanbar created and honed his “perfect” combination of ingredients over time after making SooFoo for himself in his own San Francisco kitchen. “I decided to call it SooFoo because it is super good food,” Kanbar recalls. SooFoo is 100 percent natural with five grams of protein per quarter-cup (45 grams) dry serving. A good source of fiber (with 16 percent of daily value per serving), it has no additives or preservatives.

The texture and taste are very pleasing and complement many types of dishes. If you cannot find it locally, you can purchase it from the company’s website:

http://www.soofoo.com/soofoo.html

Souperb!

So, a soupçon of soup can help nourish you and help you lose weight? This idea is not so new but now another recent study gives more credence to it. Here is a brief excerpt. For the entire BBC article go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8068733.stm

“In the battle to lose weight, hunger is the dieter's worst enemy. But research has revealed a simple aid to taming the appetite: soup. It's dieting's best kept secret says one science writer.

Imagine a typical lunchtime meal - say, chicken and vegetables with a glass of water.

If you eat the food and drink the water, you will feel full for a couple of hours before hunger kicks in. But if you blend the food with the water - to make soup - you will stay hunger-free for much longer, and less likely to snack through the afternoon. “

Come September Progresso is bringing out a new line of High Fiber Soups: Chicken Tuscany, Creamy Tomato Basil, Hearty Vegetable and Noodles, and Homestyle Minestrone. Each will give you 7 grams of fiber per serving and each tastes like home-made and are a bit more filling than soups without the added fiber. The taste and texture of this line is very appealing and delicious.

So you will get extra fiber and very tasty soups, which should help anyone who is trying to not only watch what they eat but just eat healthier. Soup on your side. Just remember NOT to also eat a half a loaf of bread or half a box of crackers.

Delicious Pancakes with Fiber

Like pancakes? Concerned about perhaps not getting enough fiber and maybe too much cholesterol per serving? (and that’s not counting any butter or topping you may heap on the mesa of that pancake pile.)

Try this one. Fiber One Complete Pancake Mix from General Mills gives you 20% of your daily fiber with 0 trans fat ( 3.5 grams of fat per serving). But the best part is these pancakes taste really, really good. The taste is slightly sweet and the cakes are very light and fluffy. And since the mix is complete, all you need to add is water so making pancakes is quick, and the result is a tasty alternative to fat-heavy pancakes. And the mix can also be used to make waffles.

Fiber One Complete Pancake Mix. Add water to the mix, add some fruit and milk or soymilk to the meal and you have a satisfying and healthy breakfast, perfect for the cold weather slowly but surely heading our way.

Bread with Something Extra

Bread is such a food basic that is often just absent-mindedly tossed into the toaster or used to slap together whatever constitutes the middle of your sandwich. True, relatively recent changes like that whole wheat bread costumed as the smooth and tasty white bread of an earlier decade, have made it more interesting and the more recent endless variations on grains—whole wheat, cracked whole wheat, 12-grain whole wheat, wheat berry, etc., ensure that when you are paying upwards of $2.50 a loaf (if it’s on sale) you can pretty much get what you really want.

Arnold, long a baker of good-tasting and hearty breads, has four new very tasty choices:

Grains & More Double Fiber
Grains & More Double Oat (to help lower cholesterol)
Grains & More Double Protein
Grains & More Double Omega

Now there are even more ways to get your Omega or Fiber.

Here is a bit of background of this company from their website

http://arnold.gwbakeries.com/history.cfm


“Arnold Bread is a love story in baking. In March 1940, in a brick oven at the rear of a small house in Stamford, Connecticut, Dean and Betty Arnold baked the first two-dozen loaves of Arnold bread. Placing their trust in superior ingredients, unbleached spring wheat flour, honey, butter and eggs, they developed the compact, golden rich bread that would soon become a leading premium bread with an international reputation.
Ironically, Mr. Arnold established a baking business of his own because of a serious allergy to flour. After graduating from Columbia University, he worked for a large baking company until his allergies grew too severe to continue. In January 1940 with only $600 in severance pay, he and his wife, Betty, moved in with his uncle on a farm in Armonk, New York, and the love for baking began.
Always believing there was a need for a better loaf of bread, Dean and Betty took their unique recipe and stoked up their first brick oven. Soon, the whole family was involved as relatives helped to slice, wrap and hand deliver the bread from house to house. By 1941, business was booming and the bakery needed to expand. Though he didn’t have a financial statement, Dean was granted a bank loan on the taste of his bread alone and moved the bakery to Port Chester, New York…”.
“…In the sixties, they built the largest bakery under one roof in the world in Greenwich, Connecticut, with the largest brick oven anywhere.”

Arnold is now a part of George Weston Bakeries.

Kashi

If you haven't tried some of the of the foods offered by Kashi, make it a point to sample some of the healthly cookies, bars, crackers, cereals, frozen meals.....etc...they offer. Available in the supermarket, most Kashi products do not require a trip to the health food store, although you may find more variety there. Kashi offers selection of frozen entrees but their real talent lies in cereals, bars and cookies.

Taste is purely personal, of course, and while one person may find Kashi chocolate chip cookies an acceptable and even palatable alternative to say, Keebler chocolate chip cookies, another cookie muncher may find the Kashi kinds are not sweet enough. But perhaps you just need to wean off the other stuff and give naturally-better-for-you alternatives a few chances before you turn your back on healthier baked goods. And, you can't consume the whole box at one sitting, either. That can never be healthy.

http://kashi.com/?gclid=CPGu7_2C2pYCFQOuFQodTy5M3g