PUFAs: The Facts Mom Never Told You About

Posted July 10, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

Don’t blame mom. Actually, I probably need to revise that statement, since so many of you are now much younger than me. More aptly, I might say, “don’t blame great grandma”. Since I’m talking about a generation that lived back in the sixties, when TV commercials were loaded with ads for vegetable oils…

In any case, mom, grandma, whoever it might be- she only knew what she heard on the television. She didn’t have the internet to use as her research library. Even now, a lot of my friends don’t know what PUFAs are. Noting the apparent increase in many diseases, a friend remarked, “It must be all the saturated fats in the American diet”. She majored in nutrition and dietetics back in the late seventies. But let’s take a closer look…

How things have changed! In my virtual world online, I come across countless latest findings from grass-roots studies. It’s not info you found in our text books fifty years ago, for sure!

Let’s look at vegetable oils– touted as being “heart-healthy in so many ways”. But chemicals and high heat and intense mechanics have extracted the oils out of stuff like cotton, canola, safflowers, soy and corn- how much oil can these things contain?! And they get added to almost every commercially-prepared food on the planet. Those very processes make the oils highly unstable; they become oxidized and rancid quite quickly. Not that you would notice; so many oils have been refined and “deodorized” enough that you’d never taste anything off. Ew.

Not scared yet? Oxygen and heat turn those PUFA oils into toxic lipid peroxides, carcinogens and mutagens (much more than what’s found in saturated or monounsaturated oils).

That’s why I get sad if a friend says they add flax seed oil to their smoothies. That flax seed oil is not likely to stay fresh. I imagine that if it’s in capsule form, it will stay fresher, as it’s protected from oxygen. It’s probably been cold-pressed too, so that helps. But, I’m giving you flack about flax! Unless you grind it fresh in a little electric coffee/spice grinder, or in a Vitamix or the like, it’s probably rancid.

Besides rancidity, PUFAs have another problem: They are inflammatory, due to their high Omega 6 content. I mentioned something about the Omega 6 to 3 ratio in this post. To sum it up, that ratio is highly unbalanced due to the average modern diet. Food industry advertising doesn’t mention that. But you can decide who you’re going to believe: Profit-seeking companies producing “information” (in the form of commercials), or doctors who aren’t bought off by those companies. There’s also the anecdotal info from individuals, speaking from personal experience. Do word searches and you’ll find countless blogs written by folks who have challenged the conventional wisdom, have applied new food rules, and have seen victory over all kinds of symptoms.

I’ve posted here, on the PUFA content in various oils, and what that can mean for you in the kitchen. (How do you cook and keep it healthy?!) And I’ve posted on whole-food sources of PUFAs here. At least those nuts and seeds are lower in Omega 6s than most vegetable oils. They are our bad guy today, since they have a far greater chance of being fresh.

For now, start checking out labels. Almost every trendy prepared food I find (at Trader Joe’s even), uses canola or other PUFA oils… I guess there’s more profit in using those, and more expense in using olive oil. I know, I know- it may seem like a small deal compared to the giant issues we have to deal with these days. I’ve updated this page in 2022, to make sure links and such still worked, and there certainly are bigger issues on the horizon… In any case, may all your food be blessed by Jesus. That’s really our best hope, haha!

New Recipes, for Jen’s Upcoming eBook

Posted July 8, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

We did a taste test today for a recipe I’ll include in the new soup ebook (due out this fall). Just roasted some yellow peppers, adding to a puree of poached pear and corn. A dash of nutmeg and salt (plus chicken stock, if desired) was all it took to put this over the top. We added creamy goat cheese to ours at the deli, since we always have fresh goat cheese around. Yum!

So I’m back to work on that ebook. It took a lot of research. A lot of pondering. And that was after working up bunches and bunches of recipes, tweaked hundreds of times, for home cooks’ kitchen success.

I personally thought it would be pretty cool to have all my recipes in one spot (like, in an ebook), that I could access on my phone, wherever I might be (grocery shopping, in the deli kitchen, in my home kitchen, or at a friend’s). A few other folks might agree. (At least a few at the deli concurred.)

But I’ve been held up on the project for a year. Where did a year go?! Well, I had to research my publishing options. To start, I looked into the cost for publishing a hard copy of over two hundred and thirty recipes, including photographs.

Cost prohibitive, that’s what that is!

So I looked into how to format for ebooks. I couldn’t publish that large of an ebook either; there’s a file size limit of 5 MB, and with photos, mine would be bigger than that.

But that helped me develop a plan. Lord willing, I will soon join the ranks of self-published authors putting out their own ebooks; I’ll start with one on soups. I’m excited!

I had some “custom self-publishing” done for my first cookbook (From the Land of Milk and Honey), which went out in hard copy. But that gets expensive. I love it that I can put out an e-cookbook for less of an investment (except of my time). And no trees will be cut down in the process. Welcome to the 21st century, right?!

Feral Cats in a Snowstorm (Or, “How Can Man Be Saved?”)

Posted July 7, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

Soul Food Sunday

(This is the day I might go off-topic and talk about whatever God’s been putting on my mind. Hope you don’t mind!)

My brother-in-law was a slave to sin, with a drug addiction that controlled him for years. But he finally gave that up, and found the Lord in his last few years of life. I thank God he became a born-again believer before he died! In those later years, his body had been irreparably damaged by the drug abuse. His spirit had been reborn, but there wasn’t much hope for his body. He went to be with the Lord.

He left behind a wife of five years, twenty years younger than him, that he’d met near the end of his druggy days. Perhaps she was just as reckless and wild in many ways, as he had ever been. They seemed like a good match. That is, until he starting getting a revelation about Jesus.

She had already come from a “religious” family, and appeared to be looking for something as far from that as possible. She and Bryan grew apart. And then he passed.

Now, she’s on her own, society’s rebel, finding alternative lifestyles. She knows what her husband had professed in his dying days, and she’s had an earful from a sister-in-law (me). But she’s yet to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. It will only be by the power of his Spirit that she will ever know that.

Meanwhile, she’s discovered ISKCON (The International Society for Krishna Consciousness). Back when Bryan (her husband) got caught up in that (in the early eighties), it was called Hare Krishna. My husband and I knew it as the thing we wanted to avoid. We may not have been Christians at the time, but we weren’t going to be tambourine-shaking, shaved-head vegetarians wearing purple, pink and turquoise gowns, either. Does that make us sound politically incorrect? Were we mocking another religion? Well, we were just scoffers, if anything, back in those days.

That my husband’s brother fell into that for a time was no surprise to us. It seemed to go with his propensity for weirdness. We might have been the gray sheep of the family, but he was definitely the black one.

Bryan is at peace with the Lord now. But he’s left a widow, whom I’ve have the pleasure of corresponding with through the years. I’m up on her latest (the Hare Krishna thing), yet I don’t know how to respond. Jesus says, “…if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” (John 8:28) I will continue to lift up His name.

I’m reminded of a story. An old man sat at a window, looking out at a snow storm, watching a litter of feral kitties shivering and starving. He had tried to get near them, to take them to shelter and feed them, but they always ran away. He said, “If only I could become a cat for a bit, I could communicate with them what they need to do, and they would listen.”

His wife responded, “That is exactly what Jesus did for us. We were out shivering in the storm, but we were too afraid of the very thing that could help us (God), so He came down in the form of man, as Jesus, to tell us what we needed to do to be saved.”

That cat story reminds me of another one- the story of the peaceful, beautiful cat in today’s picture. “Samantha”. She had been a stray. She was so beautiful–we always wanted to pet her. But she would never let us near. She came to love us though. We would leave compost buckets (leftover scraps from the deli), in the garage for a day or two, before taking them out to the compost pile. This wild cat would sneak into the garage for her meals, feeding on the compost scraps. She eventually became tame, even having a litter of kittens up on a shelf in our garage later that year.

We adopted all the kitties, and Samantha too. She had come to know and like us, as her friends. All because we had fed her.

Maybe that’s all I need to do with Bryan’s wife.

Healthy Chocolate Fix: Easiest, Cheapest Way to Get It

Posted July 5, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

I’m the mad scientist in the kitchen, and my quest is to explore healthiest foods and find the easiest, tastiest, most economical ways to eat them. So, in this study, I went full circle. I had tried unsweetened cocoa powder in various recipes, but it didn’t seem wise to take the fat out. I’m a stickler for eating whole foods as much as possible (the way God created them). I don’t want to wait around for scientists to explain how they just found one more incredible, brand new nutrient in some whole food, that we could’ve been getting all along if we just ate stuff whole to begin with.

But I rabbit-trailed. I was curious about cacao butter. The name alone sounded so delicious. So I ordered some online for a very reasonable price.

It did not taste like chocolate butter. It was a bit waxy, not exactly melting in my mouth. But I used it up, mixing it in with unsweetened cocoa powder and other goodies. Then it was pretty tasty!

I began to think, there had to be a better way. I needed something that contained the whole cacao bean. I discovered that that thing was “cocoa mass”. It’s basically unsweetened cocoa powder plus cacao butter, before they separate the two. It’s also pretty much what you get with “unsweetened chocolate squares”, but had you noticed how expensive that’s gotten?

So I got some cocoa mass (AKA Raw Cacao Liquor/Paste, but it was pretty pricey too. (What?! $17/lb.?!) Again, I doctored it up, adding coconut oil and palm sugar. Basically, I could create delectable sweets using better quality, healthier ingredients than what’s in your standard chocolate bar.

But then I got a Vitamix, with amazing powers. It will even grind grains into flour! I could give up my dream of getting an attachment for my Kitchen-aid, and just get one machine to do the work of several. And I did want to put it to work. So I figured I would process the raw, whole, organic cacao nibs I buy on Amazon (by the 5-lb. bag, for under $9/lb, including shipping), and see what I could come up with.

I processed the cacao nibs, but, alas, the raw nibs didn’t process completely smooth. I finally had success when I toasted them in the oven first, and I decided that was the perfect way to do ’em anyway. I’d been reading more and more about how cooking can increase the nutritional qualities of many foods (and decrease the quantity of annoying phytates and such). So this was a perfect solution.

To the processed cacao nibs, I added several other superfoods (coconut oil, cinnamon, turmeric, and palm sugar), and created “Chocolate Fix” (recipe here).

And now I can tell you: There is a way to get a healthy, economical “chocolate fix” using top quality ingredients. Perhaps you’ll want to try it yourself!

Chocolate Fix (Easy to add to Smoothies- High-Octane Fuel!)

Posted July 5, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

Update: I think Michael Pollan has made a great point, about how raw foods don’t always release as many nutrients as properly cooked foods (article here). So I toast my raw cacao nibs first, for 10-15 minutes in a 375 degree oven (and then 10 more minutes with the oven off), until darker-colored. They then process in the Vita-Mix into a creamy, fragrant, chocolatey butter. Perfect!

Here’s a recipe for a quick, healthy, paleo style smoothie. It’s also a recipe for time-saving. By making a big batch of a puree I call “Chocolate Fix”, one just has to add a scoop of that per smoothie, along with other fave ingredients. (Frozen banana chunks, ice cubes, probiotic brews, nuts and yogurt are all possibilities.) It’ll already have antioxidant-rich, nutritious cinnamon, turmeric, and cayenne in it, blended with metabolism-boosting, immune-system-improving coconut oil, lightly sweetened with low-glycemic coconut palm sugar. Adding raw cacao nibs lends the endorphin-stimulating, heart-healthy, blood-oxygenating, detoxifying element of one of our fave foods (chocolate!), pureed into a delectable base for all kinds of smoothies. Wow- don’t you feel healthier just reading about it?!

I will admit that you should have a Vitamixto whip up the “Chocolate Fix”. Check prices. I got mine on sale for $379, regularly $489. My friend has success with her Ninja, which would be the next best thing. The dry blender attachment for the Vitamix works particularly well, to make a smoother mix. If you can find the Vitamix Container with Dry Blade for under $99, you’re getting a good value.

INGREDIENTS FOR “CHOCOLATE FIX”

3/4 c. coconut palm sugar

2/3 c. water

1/2 c. coconut oil

2 c. cacao nibs, toasted*

1/2 tsp. (or more) cinnamon

1/2 tsp. (or more) turmeric

1/4 tsp. cayenne

1/4 tsp. sea salt

PREPARATION

1. Bring water and palm sugar to a boil to dissolve the sugar: > 3/4 c. coconut palm sugar > 1/3 c. water

2. To that mixture add: > 1/2 c. coconut oil > 2 c. cacao nibs, toasted (see toasting directions in purple section at top of page)*

3. Add to blender/Vitamix, along with: > 1/2 tsp. cinnamon > 1/2 tsp. turmeric > 1/4 tsp. cayenne > 1/4 tsp. sea salt

4. Add more water if necessary, to allow mix to blend smooth. Store in glass jar in refrigerator, using large spoonfuls in smoothie blends. This also makes an excellent hot chocolate, with hot water added.

* Toast nibs for 10-15 minutes in an iron pan, in a 375 degree oven. Stir, then leave in for 10 more minutes with the oven off, until darker in color.

NOTE: If using a regular blender, cacao nibs may not puree smooth. It might just add a little more “texture” to smoothies!

Fourth of July, Paleo-Style (Awesome Deviled Eggs)

Posted July 4, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest- set some hard-boiled eggs in bowls of water colored with food coloring for two hours, then proceed with your fave deviled egg recipe.

I was game for that! Our friend has been blessing us with extra duck and chicken eggs from her egg-layers, and I’ve been putting ’em to use. (A hard-boiled egg makes a great snack, if you’re into eating Paleo style.)

What better an appetizer today, before the grilled stuff gets done, but some festive deviled eggs? Did I mention they don’t even have mayo in them?! I’ve been trying to avoid the weird GMO oils, sweeteners, and chemicals found in most mayonnaise, so I figured I’d mash the yolks with some avocado. I added a splash of olive oil and a giant pinch of salt, plus… a secret ingredient, which makes the deviled eggs lighter and delicious- homemade chicken stock. The kind that actually gels up ’cause it’s got so many good things in it. (Not the kind out of the box/can, as I don’t think it would hold up as well.)

I heated the stock and added enough to the yolk mixture to make it creamy (a few tablespoons). After I chilled ’em, the stock firmed up some, which means the deviled eggs weren’t sloppy, but were definitely delicious!

Pesto Torta: Fave Appetizer, Perfect for Buffet Table

Posted July 3, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

The Pesto Torta holds up well for big events, keeping at room temperature for hours. It can be assembled the day before, and the pesto can be made ahead of time, as it stores well in the freezer. Serve with crackers or sliced baguettes, and if there happens to be any left over, it will keep for a week or so. Serves 40 or more.

INGREDIENTS

4 c. fresh basil leaves (12 oz.)
1 1/2 c. olive oil
3 to 4 c. fresh spinach
1/2 c. fresh garlic cloves, peeled
1 c. pine nuts
2 c. Parmesan
1 lb. butter, room temperature
1 lb. cream cheese
1 c. pesto
1-2 baguettes, sliced thin (or crackers)

Pesto

Take advantage of fresh basil in its prime in late summer. Portions of the pesto mix can be frozen up to six months. Add pesto and grilled veggies to pasta for an easy meal, or use on pizza, or for the Pesto Torta recipe that follows. Makes approx. 2 lbs. (4 c.).

1. Process the following: > 4 c. fresh basil leaves (12 oz.) > 1 1/2 c. olive oil > 3 to 4 c. fresh spinach

2. Add and process again: > 1/2 c. fresh garlic cloves, peeled

3. To the above, add and process: > 1 c. pine nuts > 2 c. parmesan

4. Store 1/2 c. portions of this in the freezer, or a week or so in the refrigerator. If refrigerated, a thin layer of oil on top, or a piece of plastic wrap pressed against the surface, will preserve the color.

Pesto Torta

Pesto is layered between a cream cheese/butter mix. Good on crackers or French bread. 2 1/2 lbs. Serves 20.

1. Use a round, 1/2-gallon-size container for the mold. (A 2-quart plastic yogurt container works well.) Line it with dampened cheesecloth. Use a few herb-leaf sprigs (rosemary, basil, or the like) for garnish, arranging them in the center of the cheesecloth-lined bottom of the container. To assemble, start with a layer of the butter-cream cheese mix on the bottom, about 1/2″ thick. Spread a thinner layer of the pesto on next, continuing until both are used up, ending with the cheese mixture.

2. For the cream cheese mixture, beat the following until blended, on med. speed: > 1 lb. butter, room temperature > 1 lb. cream cheese

3. For the pesto layer, use: > 1 c. pesto

4. Follow directions above for assembling the torta, then let it refrigerate for 1 hour or so before unmolding. To unmold, invert onto serving platter, which can be lined with lettuce. Remove cheesecloth and serve with crackers or thin-sliced baguettes. Can sit at room temperature for several hours.

Long-chain Omega-3’s, Get In My Belly (Balance w/Right Food)

Posted July 3, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

Note: I had my cholesterol levels checked recently (after eating like this for almost two years) and… (drum roll), the levels have improved! More of the good cholesterol in my system, less of the bad. I guess adding a little (grass-fed cow) butter to my morning smoothies hasn’t been hurting at all!

Most of us have heard about Omega 3’s, and how we need them. Just do a word search on long-chain Omega-3’s– up will come studies on it slowing the onset of dementia, helping in treatment of depression and other mental disorders, keeping the heart healthy.

So I was pretty excited, years ago, when I read that flax and chia seeds are full of Omega 3’s. After all, for vegetarians, it can be difficult to get enough of those in the diet. Most vegetable sources (nuts and seeds) are high in Omega 6, but not Omega 3.

But then I found out that of the two kinds of Omega 3’s (long-chain and short-chain), flax and chia contain Omega 3 of the short-chain variety, which doesn’t convert well into the long-chained that we really need.

On top of that, the more Omega 6’s we consume, the more unbalanced our diet becomes, and the more we need that long-chain Omega 3. The modern diet is so out of whack that instead of a balance between Omega 6’s and Omega 3’s (in a ratio close to 1:1, or up to 4:1, according to some sources), the ratio is more like 20:1, even up to 40:1. Forty to One, folks. Yipes. Gasp! Polyunsaturated oils play a huge part in that, as they are loaded with Omega 6’s. Grain-fed meats also contain more Omega 6 than their free-range, grass-fed, organic cousins. No wonder the modern diet’s out of whack!

How do we balance that Omega 6/Omega 3 ratio? The long-chain Omega 3’s we need are found in cod liver oil, wild-caught fish, grass-fed meats, and good eggs. I still like eating flax and chia seeds, but I’ve been eating more eggs, fish, etc., hoping to balance things out more. An extra benefit of those long-chain Omega 3’s: It promotes weight loss, since they help you to feel full and satisfied. (Have you ever tried to lose weight and had to suffer through hunger pains and still not lose weight?! So wrong…)

I still don’t eat large portions of beef, chicken, or fish, but I do look for grass-fed, free-range, and wild-caught. I haven’t noticed a huge increase in the grocery bill, since a little seems to go a long way. It’s not like we’re eating 10-ounce steaks daily. But what we do eat is prime quality.

I’m also watching the quantity of nuts I eat. They are loaded with Omega 6’s and “PUFA’s” (polyunsaturated fatty acids), and will get that Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio off-balance pretty quickly.

I’ve posted here on how PUFA oils can’t take the heat (and this post mentions other issues). Plus, I’ve posted a breakdown of PUFA content in whole nuts and seeds here. For now, I think I’ll defrost one of those long-chain Omega-3 critters from of the freezer!

Blueberry Muffins, Using Easy “Whole-Grain Oat Flour”

Posted June 26, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

This recipe uses oats, processed into a whole grain flour with a standard blender or food processor. A quick, easy recipe–the other dry ingredients can get processed in with the oat flour, and are added (along with the blueberries) to the wet ingredients. The secret to light muffins: stir lightly (a few lumps are fine!).

Eat these fresh out of the oven. Or rewarm in toaster oven a few minutes to refresh. Makes 1 dozen.

INGREDIENTS

1 egg
3/4 c. yogurt
1/2 c. olive oil
1 1/2 c. quick-cooking oats, ground
1/3 c. sugar
1 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 TBS. baking powder
1 1/2 c. fresh blueberries (or 1 c. frozen)
1-2 TBS. sugar for topping

PREPARATION

1. Let egg and yogurt get to room temperature for better baking. Into metal bowl, add: > 1 egg, stirred

2. To egg in bowl, add: > 3/4 c. yogurt (or substitute milk) > 1/2 c. olive oil

3. To a food processor or blender, add and process into a powder: > 1 1/2 c. quick-cooking oats (or substitute 1 c. white flour)

4. To food processor, add the remaining dry ingredients: > 1/3 c. sugar > 1 c. white flour (or whole wheat) > 1 tsp. salt > 1 TBS. baking powder

5. Add a bit of olive oil to the bottoms of a 12-muffin tin, or use cupcake liners. Mix the dry ingredients and the blueberries into the wet mix, stirring lightly just until mixed. If it seems too dry, add 2 TBS. water (if yogurt’s especially thick). Fill the 12-muffin tin with batter, and sprinkle 1-2 TBS. sugar on top. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or so, until golden. Eat warm!

The Smoothie Breakfast “Diet Plan”: VitaMix Rocks Raw Produce!

Posted June 25, 2013 by Jennifer Cote

For seven years, I ate what I thought was a great, healthy breakfast. I even prided myself a bit on my discipline. I soaked buckwheat (or millet) overnight, rinsing and eating it raw the next morning with some dried fruit, cacao nibs, coconut milk, and soaked nuts.

Then I learned from the Paleo hacks, that grains are fairly indigestible if not treated properly. They contain anti-nutrients. (WHAT?!) They should be cooked. (Really?!) They should soak, or perhaps even ferment. (Not raw?!)

So. Back to the drawing board. I wasn’t ready to get out my Champion Juicer again. I like the idea of whole foods, but the Champion removes all the pulp. Then, to not feel guilty, you can save the pulp, and add it back in to stuff like bran muffins and such.

Whoa- way too much work! I’d heard from a friend that the Vitamix was a worthwhile gadget. She was bringing me smoothies every day at work (bless her heart!). They contained raw veggies (like beets, carrots, kale), pureed smooth and yummy.

I tried an experiment. I used my “regular” blender to make such a smoothie. Of course I had to pre-grind my flax seeds in a little spice/coffee grinder, since I knew my blender wouldn’t do those. It still wasn’t smooth! And the kale tasted a bit like brillo-pad fibers in my mouth (well, not quite that bad). The beets were pretty chunky too. Switching to smoothies for breakfast wasn’t going to work if they were going to taste like that!

So I ordered a Vitamix. It arrived this past week. I discovered I could add flax seeds to the smoothie’s first run (which purees all the tougher veggie-type stuff). I didn’t even have to pre-grind the seeds!

Speaking of flax seeds, fresh-ground is the way to go. As with any other food loaded with PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), those oils in the flax seed deteriorate quickly once ground. Be wary of flax seed oil too (although capsules might not oxidize as quickly). And pre-ground seeds might even be rancid already. I used to grind mine every morning, in a little electric grinder. It was worth it- they were so fresh!

As for the liquid part of the smoothie mix- I ordered some water kefir grains and started brewing my own “water kefir”. It starts with a jar of spring water mixed with 1/3 c. brown sugar and a teaspoon of molasses. The little grains are added, and for a day or two, they live off of the sugar, converting it into B12 and other vitamins and nutrients. (Not to mention, a ton of probiotics to keep your gut happy.) After one jar brews, I add the grains to a new batch of the sugar-water mix. The finished batch can go a step further- I usually leave it out for another day or two, adding a handful of raisins (or other dried fruit), some lemon slices, and perhaps ginger root, all to season it into a delicious probiotic “soda”.

The finished product of my Vita-Veggie Morning Smoothie Routine? A few beautiful glasses of delicious smoothie, ready to share with my husband (and whoever else might be around).

One last thing: A helpful post on making spinach (or other veggies?) ice cubes, to use your veggies at their peak, and make the morning smoothie-making routine much easier. (From Carrie at “Roudy Stroudy’s“.) I’m going to start doing this, so I don’t have as many small pieces of this and that veggie to prep every morning! (I’ll just use a few ice cubes instead.)

I’m feeling so healthy I can hardly stand it!

PUFAs: The Facts Mom Never Told You About

New Recipes, for Jen’s Upcoming eBook