Americans apparently are showing deficiencies in vitamin D and there are myriad findings for the implications of these deficiencies and apparently just as many ideas about what to do about them. The most common suggestion seems to be upping the RDI and encouraging medical practitioners to give patients who seem to have deficiencies and/or issues that are now being connected to deficiencies high doses of vit. D supplements. The second solution is to increase the vitamin d in the food supply, already vitamin D is put into whole milk and also some orange juice. So this would increase the vitamin D intake of those who consume those foods, whether or not they have deficiencies.

I take issue with both solutions and here’s why. Vitamin D is only found in a few foods, and my inclination is that there is a reason for that. Most of our vitamin D is synthesized through exposure to the sun, and to avoid getting too much of the nutrient steroid hormone the body starts to block the synthesis process when we get too much (hence the darkening of the skin). These two facts seem to say, vitamin d is important but it’s not something to have in excess. That said, clearly our consumption of this nutrient steroid hormone would be in decline since so few of us now have livelihoods that bring us outside and even when we aren’t working, much of our time is spent under roofs. Then, even for those who do go outside there is that pesky dark and cold part of the year that makes it even more difficult. We also consume far fewer vitamin D rich foods, like organ meats, fish, and eggs.

I’m sorry if this seems too obvious, but instead of raising the consumption level of vitamin d to levels that the human body has maybe never experienced we should probably just increase our consumption of naturally vitamin D rich foods as was traditionally done, in the winter and spend some time outdoors when it’s nice out. This follows a very sound and traditional pattern of labor and consumption, meat and indoor activities in the winter, lots of veggies and sun in the spring and summer and fall. Why would supplementation be necessary since we have historically gotten what we need from food and being outside?
I guess it is this kind of controversy that draws me to premise of the research of Dr. Weston Price and the information put out by the Weston A Price foundation. The first question of his research was “is disease inherent?” He saw so much disease in his dental practice- in the mouth and beyond- he was moved to find out if this was just the plight of humanity or an expression of something wrong but preventable. So he looked for people in the world without disease and then looked to find out how they got to be in that lucky state. Dr. Daphne Miller did the same thing in her book. She found people who lacked certain chronic diseases and then looked to their traditions (mostly food traditions, but their lifestyle as a whole as well) to find out how they maintained that level of health. Miller and Price did not isolate a substance and call it a cure, though they did identify powerful foods (raw milk and raw milk products, cod liver oil, nopales, fermented foods, whole fats) that when eaten in their natural/whole state along with the regular traditional diet contributed to remarkable overall health. The research I have come across of sources of vitamin D may discuss co-factors (things the body needs to use something else) but never looks at the whole food. Complexity of a diet, maybe there is more to vitamin D rich foods than just vitamin D?
The lack of attention to traditional foods is a problem in general for health research and specifically the supplement solution this research often leads to, particularly through the food supply- putting substances in other substances where they don’t necessarily belong. (I talked about this before here, and it doesn’t seem beneficial) Maybe, just maybe, the world works the way it does for a reason and there is a good explanation for why milk doesn’t have vitamin d (human or cow). Not to mention orange juice. I think many would agree that our limited understanding of such complex processes might not lead us to the right conclusions and that we need a better point of reference for guiding what we put in our bodies than isolated scientific studies. If you feel like you need a reminder of how little we know about the body, check out the Human Microbiome Project.

I found this article interesting for pointing out the flaws in much of the research supporting increased D supplementation. They also have some useful observations of the role of money and industry in these recommendations, particularly the excitement over increased D fortification by those who produce the supplemented products and the concern that supplementation continues only in their foods so they can maintain that market edge. (A note about this article: the authors of that site have a particular understanding of the role of Vitamin D in the immune system and the relationship with pathogenic bacteria that the they suspect are responsible for chronic disease. Now, their whole theory is currently on the fringe and flies in the face of much research to date about immunity and particularly about vitamin d. But most research dealing with the role of microbes in our body is currently fringe because it is something we know so little about, and most of it flies in the face of what is currently known about such things as human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition. But it makes sense that if we don’t understand something that makes up 90% of our cells we probably know very little about all that stuff over which that 90% has influence. Again, check out that Human Microbiome Project)

My general conclusion from looking into Vitamin D is that the problems and benefits of the hormone isn’t the hormone per se, but everything the hormone is involved in. And we know very little about all that, so what is our point of reference for understanding what the body needs beyond this limited reductionist view? The Weston A Price foundation can turn people off because the information is often self-referential and can seem too scrupulous or the recommendations too impractical. These are  fair assessments for the most part, but what I appreciate about their information is that they use traditional wisdom and foods in their whole form as a guide for what works and why. This practice doesn’t fit in with scientific method, but what if it did? What if, in addition to clinical trials, health researchers had to find out what the role of the substance they are researching was in traditional and healthy populations and then work from their on how to best utilize that substance for modern health issues. Vitamin D researchers might then see the role of the other fat soluble vitamins in balancing out the toxicity potential since they are often found together in foods. There might be better connections made with the role of fat in the diet and cholesterol in the body when looking at how the body makes and uses the hormone D. We might have avoided the low-fat craze if there had been a requirement to take into account fat in the diet of healthy people around the world.
The issue, as always, is that food as medicine in the traditional sense isn’t a very profitable enterprise. If it were, vitamin deficiencies of any kind would force us to look at what worked before the deficiency and to return to that practice. Instead of encouraging the sale of more pills, the National Institute of Health could support funding for outdoor education and workforce requirements for taking lunch breaks and walking/biking to work. Such suggestions may not seem practical, but at least we know they’ve worked for humanity thus far.

Photo Copyright. Mother and Father. 2009. HODGES & CO. all rights revealed

                          

I stopped buying pre-made breadcrumbs not right after Alice Waters told me to make my own (via her book The Art of Simple Food) but when I stopped (mostly) eating wheat/grain products that aren’t fermented or soaked. The whole wheat panko we used to buy came in a plastic container and didn’t really get used much anyway. Now, I throw the heels of our Alvarado St. Sourdough Sprouted Grain (double whammy) sandwich bread into a waxed paper bag. Last night was the first time I actually remembered that I had that bag of heels on the top of the fridge and also had a distinct use for tasty breadcrumbs.

Two heels made plenty of crumbs for a 1/2lb of fish (which is just the right amount of fish for two people, another reason not to balk that the high cost of sustainable fish per pound- you don’t need very much)

I used our sauerkraut pounder, the instructions I’ve seen say to use the food processor, but that was too dish-intensive for something supposed to be simple. You could also use an empty bottle. I have  seen recipes that advise for bread to not be totally stale, which mine was…it turned out fine. If you can’t use actually stale bread, than what’s the point?

As neat as I think the breadcrumb resourcefulness was, I think this post is really just way to get in a word (at last) about my love for the waxed paper bag. It is a great alternative to plastic, which, for many foods, performs better due it’s ability to keep out moisture but allow the food to breathe, especially important for bread and cheese. A good ziplock, plastic wrap, or aluminum foil alternative. I highly recommend getting a pack of these compostable, handsome, handy items.

                          

In Nourishing Traditions, there is one instance that Sally Fallon gives a thumbs up to the increased globalization (and industrialization) of food and that is to the availability of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables year round, which insures that people will eat enough variety of plants. (I’m not sure if she still holds this feeling as so much of her work involves supporting small farmers to provide ecologically grown local food.) Nina Planck also admits that she goes beyond the farmer’s market in winter to have a fresh green salad every day, for her it’s worth it. Ultimately I would probably make the same choice if I didn’t live in a place where lettuce is bright and happy all year, but I wonder if we are “supposed” to eat the kinds of food we are able to find in a given season. Not just to ecological or economic reasons, but because of what our bodies need at a given time.

I’ve tried to explore an intuition that the foods in season are just the foods our bodies need in a given season. That is, could it be that collard greens, broccoli, brussell sprouts and butternut squash, carrots, and yams are all available right now and such timing matches up with my body’s particular nutritional needs in the winter?

It isn’t really an easy thing to answer since people live in such different climates (around the world and different from their ancestry). Apparently, in Traditional Chinese Medicine “the foods that are natural to a particular season carry strong messages of Qi balancing and tonifying for that season.” (more on that here) From my limited understanding of this body of knowledge it seems that winter is yin, and balance is created by consuming yang foods. Yang foods are warming and include crops that take a long time to grow and those that are eaten cooked. This means that the food needed for balance in winter are just those foods that are available in winter, which would make sense

In western medicine terms winter means cold and flu season and SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Both of these issue can be valiantly battled through food, but it isn’t clear to me that the foods available in winter are uniquely rich in immune supporting qualities (for cold and flu) and omega 3’s, Vitamin D, and antioxidants (for SAD). They all have all these things, but not, it doesn’t seem, in special winter abundance.

So, there is some discrepancy on whether foods really appear during the season in which they are best for your body. But even if nature might not be writing me a seasonal prescription I still hold that eating in season is the best way to get the fullest variety of foods over the course of a year. Even though you might be getting less variety in a given season, you get more greens for your green because in-season food is cheaper and over the course of the year the variety is great because you are not just sticking to the veggies and fruits you are comfortable with, but are challenged to try favorite dishes with seasonal alternatives. Sally Fallon may be right that some people wouldn’t eat fruits and veggies at all in the winter if all they had only brassicas and roots to choose from, but maybe that’s only because they’ve never been challenged to go without. (I have to admit that I am still stuck in the naive assumption that fruits and vegetables are the only things that change with the seasons (besides getting venison at hunting season from family, crab for the first (only) time in the year around Christmas, and a limited supply of pastured eggs at the farmer’s market during winter). For a more complete understanding of the seasonality of food, I recommend reading this article from Mother Earth News by Joel Salatin the famous grass farmer.)

There is also the argument that seasonal veggies and fruits are more nutritional because the food is fresher; that is, you eat it closer to the time it was harvested and it was harvested ripe, which is when a plant is also most nutritious to those animals who eat it…clever plants.

In addition to my New Years resolution to eat more greens I am trying not to get too deep into the details of the nutritional profile for a given whole food. Basically, the  clearest way to talk about food in this culture is to use the terms and taxonomy of western science (The Chinese Medicine example above is a refreshing alternative, but unfortunately doesn’t translate as easily). But this view of food I think has obscured our understanding of what we eat, rather than expanded it. Michael Pollan dealt with this issue in his In Defense of Food, basing a discussion of the rejection of Nutritionism with a whole book about nutrition.  Ultimately a healthy relationship with real food will come from people not relying on lab work with fruit flies to tell them what feels good in their bodies. It seems that best place for this research is a kitchen counter or a table with loved ones. That all said though, if you are interested in knowing the nutritional profile (and much more) of a given food  I highly recommend this site (though their data on cholesterol is limited, like most healthy food sites). See what my orange and green winter meals are providing us here and here (respectively).

Also new this new year I started taking Cod Liver Oil (fermented actually). This is the only supplement I take and the reason is for the difficulty in finding food sources of vitamin D. From another Mother Earth News piece (about SAD actually):

Eat D-licious foods. Only a few foods contain much vitamin D. Sources of vitamin D include cod liver oil (1,360 IU per tablespoon); oily fish such as salmon, sardines and mackerel (about 350 IU per 3.5 ounces); eggs (about 20 IU per yolk); and fortified milk, soy milk and orange juice (98 IU per 8-ounce serving).

                          

So to be honest I guess I like the idea and product of the bowl of flavorful and healthy rice and beans much more than the process. But a recent post on the Culinate Blog about various foodies’ favorite rice and beans combos made me feel that maybe avoiding this primary dish could be a glaring omission on my Eat Healthy on the Cheap repertoire. So I was inspired to make my favorite rice and beans dinner, not just to have for a dirt cheap dinner and hearty leftovers but to overcome my general aversion and get the process under my belt to make it easier in the future. (When I think about the ease with which my parents threw together healthy vegetarian meals after full days of stressful work I think about how many dinners they had made by the time I was 18- thousands! So I try not to get too discouraged when my fourth or fifth attempt at something is still slow and awkward)

The post on Culinate was clever and helpful, especially the reference to this post about cooking beans generally which I only just read, but I wasn’t directly inspired by the famous foodies’ particular choices. So I decided to make a classic straightforward black beans and red rice pilaf.

(As a side note, I am generally pleased with this Culinate blog, based mostly on writing from my hometown of Portland OR, it provides the type of recipes I feel never come across through a general google search which are usually simple meals based on whole foods with intelligent discussion. So this is my plug for others to check it out.)

The recipe for the red rice pilaf was from Alice Waters’ Art of Simple Food. The tomatoes of course making it red, it is just made with brown rice. But this is an important variation because the cooking time is significantly longer than she has as is the amount of stock. (Of course water is totally good to use to, I just felt like making something a little richer)

I made black beans from Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen a great resource for a huge variety of traditional Mexican dishes- and a bit overwhelming both in the quantity and variety and the assumption of ingredients on hand and additional cooking ware. I am working on keeping more dried chiles on hand since they are of nominal cost, keep well, and add exceptional flavor. And I often have dried masa, but many times i look over dishes that sound delicious but I just don’t have a lot of the ingredients and he doesn’t really give alternatives. But the Classic Mexcian Pot Beans are much less particular than his other dishes. I used pre-soaked the beans and cooked them with browned onions in olive oil with a dried chipotle chile, which added the perfect kick, salting them after they were done and letting them sit for a bit.

The whole operation was a couple of hours really from start to finish. But it was largely hands off other than stirring the beans and adding water when needed. I made sure to cook them longer than I really wanted to because I am often impatient and don’t give them enough time. The rice was rich and creamy and the beans were spicy and delectable. A long process but certainly worth it. The change I would make for next time would be to make more of each so the long wait is worth more. Doubling the amount wouldn’t double the cooking time (I don’t think…) and then I would only go through the effort once for more meals. The nominal cost definitely provides incentive for the time commitment.

                          

I don’t have a good dedicated baking book (Baking Illustrated takes the cake (har har), and is on my list of cookbooks once I get an income again) so I started with Joy of Cooking, usually a pretty standard place to start. My jewel cookbook is The Art of Simple Cooking by the great Alice Waters. She has written an exceedingly helpful and comprehensive resource for just the type of cooking I want to be second nature; simple, fresh, versatile, and completely delicious. She limits her treatment of bread however. She explains that she is not a baker and has access to better baked good than she could produce- I can only imagine she means place like the Cheese Board, Acme, and Semi Freddy which, delightfully, I have access to a well (though only geographically anyway, not monetarily). She has a fine recipe for foccacia and pizza and other more quick breads and desserts.

So back to the Joy of Cooking it is. The most straightforward recipe is for “White Bread”, which doesn’t sound so appealing- but it’s what I had.

I have bulk yeast so I first had to figure out how much yeast is in a “packet”, since that’s so standard. 2- 1/4 teaspoons.

I also looked into flax meal, which I had on hand. I wanted to something to boost the texture, flavor, and all around wholesomeness, since I had only all purpose flour and some whole wheat pastry.

So I got to mixing the first ingredients, I added less sugar than called for (I added under 1 tbsp) and then stopped at salt- 1 tbsp!?!? That just seemed really excessive. I checked other bread recipes online with their ratio of salt to flour- and most used only 1-1/2 tsp, so I went with that.

I scalded 1c of milk. Here’s another place I stopped. We are lucky enough to be able to buy raw milk, and we love it. It’s the most expensive item in our grocery list, but so worth it. All that life helping my belly process stuff and the taste is unbeatable- we decided if we couldn’t afford to buy it raw, we won’t buy it at all. So, why use this special product in cooking- cooking it defeats the purpose of the extra expense. I did it anyway, but it’s something I need to think about. I’d like to just use buttermilk (keeps so well, and I love it) or water if possible.

With the wet yeast mixture I added about 5 cups of a all purpose/whole wheat pastry mixture and about 3/4 cup flax meal. Since it’s usually an egg or oil sub, I wasn’t really sure about the result of using it like another type of flour. I definitely added another cup or so of the WW pastry in the kneading process.

As I was mixing the dough I was worried it would end up too light, given the daintiness of my flours and the addition of the flax (homemade bread always seems like it should be dense and filling). But the dough took on a nice heaviness and elasticity in the kneading, so I decided not to worry.

(credit to mom on the handmade towel, and note the oven is off for the rising)

I misread the instructions a bit and let the whole thing rise to double twice and then put it into two loaves, at which point I wasn’t sure if I should let them double again or just bake them. So I left them in the slightly warmed oven (I had started to pre-heat and bake and then changed my mind) covered for about twenty minutes.

In skimming the different recipes out there, it seemed there was some debate about pre-heating. I decided I would take a chance, since I was now getting impatient, and just put the loaves in while the oven got hot and let them bake from there. I did follow the JoC instructions to cook at 450 for 10 mins, then lower to 350.

I put in a little pyrex dish of water to help the crust harden, but after more research, I think a bigger pan of hot water does a better job.

It seemed to work out okay and they were certainly dense. A little bland I guess but a nice, very homey texture.

(this is one of the two)

I’ll continue to try some different approaches, in fact I think next time I will try this one. I like the idea of having a ready to go starter to bake as needed, ensuring no waste and convenience for the next few batches (and apparently you can freeze yeast dough,which I have never been sure about). I used to listen to the Splendid Table program weekly before I moved (not sure when/if we get it here in Berkeley, and the recipes and discussion is worthwhile-though I am always a little put off by the sponsorship by Super-Target)

The bread joined this swordfish and chard/maitake dinner…and went on to many more.

                          

Sauerkraut:

Two of my favorite cookbooks, the Art of Simple Food (Waters) and Farmer John’s Cookbook; The Real dirt on Vegetables, have recipes for homemade sauerkraut, and both tout the health and taste benefits of fermenting cabbage and other vegetables.

(note: both books are excellent resources for a variety of veggie-specific recipes. Very helpful with things that are in season with which you are not so familiar and ways to branch out in techniques, like braising, gratins, unexpected baked-good ingredients etc…I personally really appreciate this format)

The process for fermentation was a little different in each book. I leaned more towards the Farmer John method as it was framed as very traditional and involved pounding, which sounded fun. Waters’ process was simple enough, more about “working the cabbage with your fingers” than pounding and then adding extra “brine” if the working with the fingers didn’t produce enough liquid.

Well, Farmer John didn’t say anything about the amount of liquid, just to pound until you got some. Waters says to add a salt water mixture if there isn’t enough brine to cover the cabbage and even to make sure the cabbage stays submerged by weighting it down with something (a rock or whatever).

So, in the spirit of experimenting. I decided to go only by Farmer John and just see what happened. I started with less cabbage than called for, but sort of thoughtlessly added about as much salt and caraway seeds. So we’ll see. I’ll check on it in a few days and report with the taste. After this batch is eaten or composted, depending on the result I will try Water’s version.

Cabbage cut fine
and fermented in a brine
Made of its own juice, with salt.

(So it seems a little dry, but since the recipe doesn’t specify I am trying it out without my own changes- I will check back in)

Wait! There is more cabbage ahead!

Braised Savoy Cabbage:

From The Art of Simple Food this cabbage dish is sort of perfect; savory, crunch,and open to variations- my favorite. I decided to go with one of her listed variations that browns wedges of cabbage in olive oil. Then add garlic, a bay leave, thyme, salt and pepper. Having just picked up some beautiful fennel at the market yesterday I wanted to try out using the stalks/leaves- so I chopped up one stalk and threw that in too.

Immediately the kitchen filled with an earthy sweet fragrance- I was sort of taken aback actually by how delicious it smelled so quickly. Some glugs of wine go in and it cooks for a little while. Then stock is added (or water, but I prefer stock, and at 4 bucks a box it’s cheaper to just boil a whole chicken).

The cabbage needs another 15 minutes to get tender. In the meantime I pan fried two chicken sausages. I can’t pan fry without ending up throwing in a de-glazing liquid of some kind (usually white wine) and finishing whatever was frying with a quick pan sauce. All sorts of brown bits stuck from the sausage. Waters suggests putting some red wine vinegar over the cabbage when done. Instead I put the vinegar into the sausage pan (after the sausages were done and on their plates. Scraping up the good stuff and hearing that perfect hissing sizzling of the pan sauce, I poured it all over the dished out cabbage. Boy, it really turned out well. The whole process was maybe a half hour.

My fiance had the wherewithal to put some mustard on the table and that was it. Some leftover bread with a little butter served well to soak up the remaining liquid on the plate- too good to let it go to waste.

Indicative of how fast this was to prepare, there are no pictures of the process…and I could barely take a photo fast enough to catch the final product before devoured.