Wednesday, August 10, 2011

10 Flavors That Can Save Your Life and Linzertorte

Spanish eggplant with pasta
Food Diary (August 10, 2011)
Breakfast: Polenta porridge with banana and sunflower seeds
Lunch: Spanish eggplant with pasta
Dinner: Pickled apple and sauerkraut salad, sourdough
Baking/sweets: semolina pudding

The pickled apple and sauerkraut salad was excellent. I pickled raw apples so it was a bit tart. It went sparingly well with the sauerkraut, the salad was a salty tart party. I will certainly be having this on a regular basis until the tart apples are out of season. Unlike offseason fruits which you can buy throughout the year, raw tart apples are a bit harder to find.

Yesterdays favourite photo featured a brownie with orange salt. Some of the readers wondered about orange salt and went to the source to find how it was prepared. The source site is not in English. According to the author to prepare orange salt all you need to do is to mix sea salt with orange peel. This sounds interesting plus orange salt sounds impressive too.

Today's Favourite Photo
Linzertorte with Port Stewed Damsons


Today’s Favourite Blog
Source: Daily Meal
An interesting article titled “10 Flavors That Can Save Your Life”. According to the author, in the Western world, people have started asking where food is sourced from and how it’s grown in order to determine how healthy it is. On the other hand Eastern food philosophy has always focused on what food does for the body. Here are the 10 flavours that can save your life:

Improve Memory: Rosemary
A powerful source of antioxidants, like oregano and basil, rosemary is also believed to improve memory and cognition. It’s known to have purifying effects as well.

Prevent Diabetes and Lower Blood Sugar: Cloves
Because cloves and clove oil are the best sources of anti-oxidants, according to one study, eating them can have a ton of different benefits including controlling blood sugar and reversing the tissue damage caused by diabetes.

Lower Cholesterol: Laksa Leaf
Known as Vietnamese mint, laksa leaf is thought to be a blood-thinner and help lower cholesterol. It’s an ingredient in various Southeast Asian curries and soups.

Treat a Cough: Thyme
Oregano, basil, and rosemary are often used to treat colds, but thyme is especially helpful for coughs. Try making an herbal infusion tea.

Help an Upset Stomach: Ginger
The compounds called gingerols in ginger can relieve nausea and indigestion.

Fight Alzheimer’s: Cinnamon
Cinnamon is known to have anti-viral properties, but a recent study suggests that it can prevent Alzheimer’s and slow down the debilitating disease.

Lower Blood Pressure: Black Pepper, Cayenne (and All Chile Powder)
Because these are the “warming” spices, along with allspice, nutmeg, ginger, star anise, and cinnamon, they are believed to improve circulation by equalizing blood pressure, moving blood from the center of the body towards the skin and extremities.

Improve Digestion: Banana Leaf
The banana tree is technically an herbaceous plant, and its trunk and leaves, which are used for cooking, release an enzyme when heated that aids digestion. Try wrapping fish in a banana leaf and then steaming or even just serve hot food atop a clean banana leaf.

Heal Wounds, Burns, and Sprains: Turmeric
Turmeric is been found to be a cure-all for everything from cancer prevention, bowel disease, and asthma to arthritis and tendinitis. Aside from its anti-inflammatory properties, its value as an antiseptic also makes it useful for treating wounds, burns, skin problems, and sprains.

Treating the Flu: Star Anise
Many might not realize that star anise played a starring role during the influenza pandemics of the past decade. The Chinese variety (as opposed to the Japanese variety) contains shikimic acid that is used in Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that countries stockpile for influenza outbreaks, and has been traditionally used in Chinese medicine and cooking.


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14 comments:

  1. I love reading about the health benefits of different foods and spices.

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  2. thanks for the info on the spices! i really need to add more of those into my eating. i love ginger in my greenjuices!

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  3. That linzer torte looks so delicious with lots of fruit filling!

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  4. Veeeery cool info. I wonder about the thyme one though. I toss thyme in everything and I'm like the queen of chest infections. Which double sucks for me since I work in radio. Boo!

    That eggplant pasta is totally droolable.

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  5. I love the eggplant pasta combo. What a great meal!! Thanks for sharing the 10 flavors info, very interesting!

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  6. Fascinating. Graet post about the health benefits of so many everyday things. Thanks for sharing this

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  7. Torviewtoronto: thank you

    Yummychunklet: me too:) Its great to eat spicy food and also know that its good for you too!

    Simply Life: and the flow of new recipes never ends

    Junia: you are most welcome. I also need to eat more of some of the spices. Spices are nice so its not so bad

    Lorraine: it does, it’s a bit of a torture to be able to see it but not eat it!

    Parsley Sage: oops, they are not always correct.

    Kristen: you are most welcome, glad you enjoyed it

    Maris: you are most welcome

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  8. I am sold on that stunning linzertorte with Damsons - I adore herbs so it's really interesting reading their uses - thanks for that :))
    Mary

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  9. Thanks for the saving flavours list. I have heard that clove can be put and kept tightly on the sore tooth (apparently it works like paracetamol...). I have never tried it though! There are many facts listed I have never heard about. Thanks once more!
    I must try pickling apples. I read here simply too often about them to ignore them!

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  10. Mary: glad you liked the post on herbs

    Sissi: You are welcome. I have tried clove flavoured tooth paste. I pickled the apples differently this time - I just used salt and let it sit in the refrigerator, it got better the longer I left it.

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  11. Love the article! I remember the smell of cloves at the dentist's when I was a kid. Hated them (and the dentist) for a loooong while. LOL!!

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  12. Wow I never knew Laksa Leaf can lower cholesterol, I need a lot of those :)

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