Skip to main content

The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

Captain's Log, Stardate 01.12.2009

Just read this great article on the New York Times online:

The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

Go ahead and read it, it’s not long. I’ll wait here until you come back.

I have to say, I’m very heartened by some of the foods on the list. I already eat some of them, although some I don’t like.

For instance, I really don’t care for beets. I mean, really. They’re up there with turnips for me. Just not tasty.

Cabbage and Swiss chard, on the other hand, I eat a lot thanks to the organic co-op we belong to. Our weekly veggie baskets usually have one or the other or both almost the entire year.

Cabbage I love to chop thinly and stir into soups. It adds body to the soup and the cooking gets rid of the more harsh odor of the raw deal.

As a kid, we had them mixed with mayo and a little soy sauce in an Asian-style slaw, but I didn’t care for it too much. (I know it sounds weird, but I grew up with stuff like that.)

Swiss chard is great for those sauté pasta sauces. I chop and stir fry the entire bundle of stalks with garlic and some type of meat like chicken or shrimp and then add maybe marsala wine and a little tomato paste, or red wine, or balsamic vinegar, or just parmesan cheese. Then I toss the pasta with the sauce and I have a low-fat, veggie-rich pasta.

This year, I also discovered I like fresh pumpkin when I started cooking with it versus just eating it in desserts. I made pumpkin soup with Gruyere cheese (Williams-Sonoma cookbook) and that was fantastic, besides being rich in fiber. The key to a good pumpkin soup was in using homemade chicken stock, which was super easy/fast with chicken bones and a pressure cooker I bought on Amazon.com.

Plus pumpkin is so cheap and roasting is way easy, and I just froze the roasted flesh until I wanted to make soup again or maybe use it in a dessert.

Blueberries I like, but they’re a bit expensive, so I don’t eat them much.

How about you? What did you think of the article?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh goodness. I don't eat barely any of those on the list. Am I gonna go to food hell? **smile** I'm terrible at eating a well rounded diet. Grrrr. I need to get better at that.

So, where do the two HUGE pieces of chocolate birthday cake fit in?? YIKES
Anonymous said…
Oh wow, my family and I eat pumpkin all the time, seeds and the flesh. But it's not canned, we do it fresh, and I freeze what we don't get to right away.

Problem for me is some of the foods suggested I can't eat due to my thyroid. Cabbage and swiss chard, supposedly reduce thyroid production and now that I'm only down to half of one, can't make it work harder than it already is. Tho I'm very fond of American cole slaw!

I'll pass on the beets and sardines, blech!
Crystal Laine said…
Ok, Camy, I'm with you on beets. They taste like red dirt to me. And if you eat them, well, you might think you are bleeding to death. Sheesh. My mother-in-law, 91 years old, loves them. 'Nuff said?

And sardines--eee. No thank you.

But all the rest, I like and probably eat when I can. It's hard to find pumpkin seeds here at certain times of the year. I love cabbage in many forms. Love summer slaw, in soups, as a wrap for meatballs, etc. Oh, yeah!

I buy blueberries frozen and throw them into cereal, salads or yogurt.

Anyway, more food. Wow.

Is there a club we can join on Facebook called Women Against Beets?
Camy Tang said…
Lynn, chocolate cake is its own food group, don't you know that? ;)

Winnie, I totally didn't know that about cabbage and chard!

Crystal, my beet-hating fellow goddess, that's why we're friends, babe!

Camy
Reihaisha said…
I love beets (beets and red onion salad)- especially when I need the iron boost.

My diverticulitis keeps me away from pumpkin seeds.


I love cabbage but it makes me toot if I eat too much. Napa is great in when wilted at the last minutes in stir fries.


Pomegranites - they are a fave and I try to get the juice once a month - it's pricey and never seems to be on sale. I found a pomegranite cereal that is filled with fiber and it is not bad.

Sardines - the canned ones are okay but when i really crave them I get them fresh at the asian market and grill them.
Camy Tang said…
Reihaisha, do you know I've never had fresh sardines? I'll have to try that sometime!
Camy
Mindy said…
I am not sure about all those different veggies, I tend to only eat what I like. I am not much for trying new things, but Chocolate cake I can do. Any tips on some good ways to use butternut squash?
Camy Tang said…
Mindy, this past year, trying new veggies actually lowered my cholesterol about 10 points (no weight loss, just changing diet), so I'm all for trying new things and having more veggie variety.

For butternut squash, I like to roast it with a little butter and brown sugar.

Camy

Popular Posts

No Cold Bums toilet seat cover

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.22.2008 I actually wrote out my pattern! I was getting a lot of hits on my infamous toilet seat cover , and I wanted to make a new one with “improvements,” so I paid attention and wrote things down as I made the new one. This was originally based off the Potty Mouth toilet cover , but I altered it to fit over the seat instead of the lid. Yarn: any worsted weight yarn, about 120 yards (this is a really tight number, I used exactly 118 yards. My suggestion is to make sure you have about 130 yards.) I suggest using acrylic yarn because you’re going to be washing this often. Needle: I used US 8, but you can use whatever needle size is recommended by the yarn you’re using. Gauge: Not that important. Mine was 4 sts/1 inch in garter stitch. 6 buttons (I used some leftover shell buttons I had in my stash) tapestry needle Crochet hook (optional) Cover: Using a provisional cast on, cast on 12 stitches. Work in garter st until liner measures...

Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And...

SUSHI FOR ONE: Original chapter 8

I found this yesterday and had completely forgotten about this. I had originally plotted a different set of dates for Lex in Sushi for One and one of them was Duane the Dweeb. He got combined with/switched to George in a later revision, and I rewrote their date scene, but I found the original scene tucked away in my computer. For those of you who haven’t read Sushi for One , don’t worry, this won’t ruin the book for you. For those of you who have read it, you’ll hopefully get a chuckle over some jokes I didn’t include in the chapter 8 that’s in the book. Back cover description: She’s searching for Mr. Perfect. God keeps sending Mr. Unexpected. Lex Sakai is completely unfazed by her family’s dreaded title, Oldest Single Female Cousin. As a competitive volleyball coach and athlete, she has bigger priorities. So when her iron-willed grandmother threatens to cut funding for Lex’s team unless Lex brings a date to her cousin’s wedding, Lex does what any competitor would do—she cre...

What Is a Brutus Cut? A Regency Hair Trend Inspired by Ancient Rome

Regency Haircuts and Disguises in Lady Wynwood’s Spies In this excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 8: Traitor , Phoebe prepares for a dangerous mission—one that requires her to disguise herself as a young man. The hairstyle she receives, called a Brutus cut, was actually quite fashionable during the Regency. Read on to find out more about this curious trend and why it suited her new identity so well. Excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 8: Traitor : By far, the absolute worst part of Uncle Sol’s plan was that Phoebe had to cut her hair. Of the four agents, Phoebe and Mr. Coulton-Jones would be the least likely to be recognized when they entered the Ramparts building—Mr. Coulton-Jones, because of his skill in altering his facial features and his posture, and Phoebe, because she could play a convincing young man, which no one would expect. A disreputable hat would hide her long hair to an extent, but it would not fool anyone who looked closely. Also, because she would lo...

Merry Christmas! Enjoy The Spinster's Christmas

As a Merry Christmas gift to all my blog readers, I’m going to be posting my Christian Regency romantic suspense, The Spinster’s Christmas , for free on my blog! I’ll be posting the book in 1000-1500 word segments every Tuesday and Friday. (When I do the calculations, it’ll finish around the end of May.) Why am I posting a Christmas story when it won’t be Christmas in a week? Because I can! :) The Spinster’s Christmas is the prequel volume to my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series . Right now I’m editing volume 1 of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, and it’s on track to release in 2020. (If you’re on my Camille Elliot newsletter , you’ll be sure to hear when it’s available for preorder.) I anticipate that the Lady Wynwood’s Spies series to be about ten volumes. I think the series story will be a lot of fun to tell, and I’m looking forward to writing up a storm! Below, I’ll be listing the links to the parts of The Spinster’s Christmas as I post them. (I created the html links by hand so please ...