Tag Archives: Food

Via: The Guardian

Of course, “curry” is shorthand for a vast, complex food culture, not a dish per se, but given the unique way it is enjoyed and eaten in Britain, it made sense to cover it as one.

Choosing a Curry House:

No, the supermarket won’t do. And who among non-Asians has ever cooked a satisfying curry at home? However, identifying a curry house that is cooking fresh, clearly differentiated dishes is difficult. There are no hard and fast rules. These pointers, though, may help.

Encouraging Signs:

-It’s south Indian. Bad south Indians must exist, but I’ve yet to eat in one. Instead, the sensitivity of the spicing in most Tamil or Keralan eateries is revelatory. From light, interesting rices cooked with curry leaves, cashew nuts, mustards seed and lentils, to the thali – the ultimate meal for the indecisive diner – you can’t go wrong.

-There are women in the kitchen. A sign that you’re in good (often Gujarati) hands.

-It is vegetarian and, therefore, will be working that bit harder to maximise flavour.

-It is a basic, no-frills cafe. It will be cheap at least, and with nothing going for it but the food, likely brilliant.

When to Eat:

There is a common misapprehension that the best time to eat a curry is when you’re drunk. In fact, the best time to eat a curry is when you’re hungover. There are several reasons for this: you can’t be arsed to cook; you’re craving carbs; the piquant flavours of a good curry will penetrate the muggy fug in your head like few other foods; eating something with a decent chilli heat feels restorative (erroneous endorphin claims or not); and it’s a great excuse to crack open what you really want, which is a belated hair-of-the-dog beer. The existential gloom will lift rapidly and (as it’s probably Sunday night), an hour later you will be having a heated debate about why are we still watching this bloody nonsense Homeland?

Click for more tips on — How to eat Curry?

Here’s a great depiction of how wild salmon stacks up against farm raised salmon in terms of our health and the environment.

In the go-go world of modern life, a lot of people think breakfast has to be fast — a doughnut on the way out the door with a cup of coffee in the car. But the very word breakfast has a spiritual meaning.

To eat breakfast is, literally, to break one’s fast — to resume eating after having an empty stomach. Never mind that the “fast” has been enforced by sleep. Just as deliberate fasting during the waking hours can be means for spiritual renewal, so can the de facto fasting we do at night.

In Zen monasteries, monks receive their meals with a chant reminding them of five things:

1) To be grateful of the meal, no matter how simple;

2) To appreciate the effort of all, both seen and unseen, who labored to put the food on the table;

3) To reflect on their own actions, and whether those actions make them deserving of the meal;

4) To regard the food as medicine to sustain their health and ward off illness;

5) To accept the meal as a means of attaining enlightenment.

When breaking the previous nights fast, we can start our day off the same way as those monks in the monastery: By putting our minds on the plane of gratitude before filling our empty stomachs.

In this way, breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day.

Via Zen 24/7 by Philip Toshio Sudo

We have talked a lot in the past about mindful eating. Dr. Joel Kahn does a great job explaining this practice.

Read on — here.

Originally Posted on Mind Body Green

Superfoods are becoming commonplace in kitchens across the world. Now that we all know what they are and why we should eat them, it’s time to learn how to store them properly.

My absolute favorite way to store any kind of superfood, specifically nuts and seeds, is in a glass mason jar in the refrigerator.

It sounds simple, but storing your superfoods this way is so important. Here’s why:

You can see what you have and how much you have left.

Too many opaque containers get pushed to the back of the refrigerator, and you might not even know they’re there. Storing them in a see-through container means you’ll use more of them, more often.

Tip: use a label or masking tape to add the name and expiration date to the lid if there’s a chance you won’t use it or forget what’s in the jar.

Most of these superfoods are easy to pour out of the jar; less scoops and spoons mean less dishes.

This will also help you make quick work out of salad and smoothie prep.

Mason jars are inexpensive and can be found online or at a hardware store.

I’ve found them in packs of 12 for less than a dollar each. Bonus! They also make excellent drinking glasses and flower vases. You can store your green juices and green smoothies in them, too.

Glass jars are reusable and last forever, and they’re good for the environment.

Plus, glass is non-reactive, so you can feel good about storing food in them for long periods of time.

Tip: Mason jar companies now make BPA-free plastic lids that are cheap and are a little easier to open than the traditional metal canning lids. The metal canning lids can also rust after multiple uses, so these new white lids are awesome. I found them at my local hardware store for just a few dollars.

Nuts and seeds contain delicate oils, and those oils can quickly spoil.

Storing them in the refrigerator will extend their shelf life; this will save you money in the long run. Throwing away expired food is sad for everyone.

Tip: If your superfoods came in a package on the shelf that’s perfectly fine. Some companies vacuum seal their packages to store at room temperature to be shelf-stable. Just store it in the refrigerator after you open them.

Here are the six superfoods that are always in my refrigerator:

• Raw almonds
• Raw hemp seeds
• Ground flaxseeds
• Raw sunflower seeds
• Raw cacao
• Chia seeds

Tyler Cowen poses this question on Marginal Revolution:

Could it be Hmong Village, 1001 Jackson Parkway, in north St. Paul?

It is a large indoor market, set in a warehouse, Hmong stores and stalls only, a kind of Eden Center (for those of you who know Falls Church, VA) for Laotians.  The produce and spice and bark sections are amazing.  Along one wall of the warehouse are about fifteen small restaurants, barely more than stalls, mostly Hmong in their cooking but two served authentic-looking Thai food.

Based on visual inspection of the options, we dined at Houaphanh Kitchen, which was superb, don’t forget the dipping sauces.  And I hope you like purple sticky rice.  The other places did not look much worse and there were many more dishes I wanted to sample.  Overall entrees ran in the $4 to $6 range.  Highly recommended.

Traveling throughout Thailand for 5 weeks a few years back, I thought the food was delicious and extremely affordable. My answer to this question would be specifically be the city of Pai, Thailand. I think that most people would argue that India presents the best food for the price.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-9396/your-definitive-guide-to-fiber.html

“Quite simply, fiber is plant roughage — the part of veggies, fruits, beans, grains, nuts and seeds that resists digestion.”

“Fiber helps clean out your digestive system and get rid of things (namely extra hormones, cholesterol, toxins and waste) that shouldn’t be there.”

“The recommended intake for disease prevention is 14 grams of fiber for every 1000 calories consumed, which averages to at least 38 grams per day for men and 25 grams per day for women. “