Category Archives: Health/Nutrition

Dragon Fruit Juice for a Healthful Welcome to 2012

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A dragon fruit juice that's a brilliant fuschia color. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

After imbibing perhaps a little too much on New Year’s Eve weekend, you’re probably in dire need of a quenching drink right about now.

How about one made from the exotic dragon fruit?

The fruit, which looks a bit like a hot pink flower bulb from outer space that’s about to unfurl who knows what, is the primary ingredient in Pitaya Plus, a new juice drink launched a year ago in San Diego.

Company founder Chuck Casano was working for a non-profit in Nicaragua when he got his first taste of pitaya or dragon fruit. He was so smitten with it and the people there that he wanted to forge an even greater bond to bring a taste of Nicaragua to the United States, while helping employ impoverished Nicaraguans in his new venture.

The unique dragon fruit. (Photo courtesy of Pitaya Plus)

The result is Pitaya Plus, two juice blends high in Vitamin D, dietary fiber and other nutrients. There are 70 calories per 8-ounce serving. They’re sold in more than 100 Whole Foods nationwide, where they rank as having the lowest sugar level of any juice on the shelves there, according to a Pitaya Plus spokesperson.

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Not Your Usual Spinach Dip

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Dip into this spinach-walnut-dried mint dip.

When the champagne glasses start clinking on New Year’s Eve, you’ll want something tasty to go along with all of that bubbly.

But why settle for the same old spinach dip in a hollowed-out bread loaf when you can have this instead?

“Yogurt and Spinach Dip ‘Borani Esfanaaj’ in the Persian Manner” sure looks pretty, doesn’t it?

It’s also a bit more healthful than the old standby because it’s made with thick, creamy Greek yogurt instead of cream cheese or sour cream. You can make it with low-fat Greek yogurt, but it’s far more satisfying with the whole-milk version. If you insist on being virtuous (even on New Year’s Eve), use both — a tub of each. Just make sure you get some of the full-fat version in there.

The dip is by Shayma Owaise Saadat, a Toronto economist, whose recipe is featured in the new “The Food52 Cookbook” (William Morrow) of which I recently received a review copy. The book is by illustrious food writers, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, whom as you may now developed the Web site, Food52.com, which each week for 52 weeks ran recipe contests to find the best recipes from home cooks all over the country.

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Hawaii Part 3: A Tale of Two Very Different Farmers

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Can you guess what this is? It's banned on airlines because of its smell.

HONOLULU, OAHU and KONA, HAWAII — Ken Love has had a multitude of careers in one lifetime: Associated Press photographer, Chicago Sun-Times restaurant reviewer and Tokyo culinary student.

But it is as a farmer on the Big Island that he is perhaps most happiest.

I can’t help but get that feeling as Love, a big bear of a man with a desert dry sense of humor, showed me around a five-acre plot of wild Eden on a friend’s property that he looks after. I had a chance to meet Love, president of the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers Corp., on my recent trip to Hawaii, courtesy of Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

A specialist in tropical fruit horticulture, he’s also quite the activist, rallying for the Big Island to feature home-grown fruit and veggies in school lunches rather than the rock-hard peaches and tasteless imported apples that often end up on cafeteria trays instead.

He’s also about to become a film star. Love recently filmed a documentary with actor Bill Pullman, who happens to be a fruit activist, himself. (Who knew?) The film, “The Fruit Hunters,” is based on the book of the same name by Adam Leith Gollner. It looks at the diversity of fruit in the world, as well as folks who become almost fanatically passionate about fruit. The movie is expected to be released by the end of next year.

Tropical fruit farmer Ken Love knows everything there is to know about fruit in Hawaii.

On this quiet afternoon, as we thread our way through this lush five-acre spot, Love stops every few steps to point with pride to a tree or bush, and to pick something amazing for me to taste. It’s a veritable fruit smorgasbord before my eyes.

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The Good Life at LYFE Kitchen in Palo Alto

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A drizzle of pomegranate balsamic vinegar makes this flatbread something extra special at LYFE Kitchen.

After seconds, thirds, perhaps even fourths on Thanksgiving, you’re probably in need of a less indulgent meal that does a body good.

Look no further than the new LYFE Kitchen in downtown Palo Alto, which opened in October.

LYFE (Love Your Food Everyday) serves up healthful food made with no butter, cream or GMOs. No dish is more than 600 calories and all are less than 1,000 mg in sodium.

The food may be lean, but it’s not mean. Not when it was created by James Beard Award-winning Chef Art Smith, a former personal chef to Oprah Winfrey; and Chef Tal Ronnen, an expert in vegan and vegetarian cooking. It’s healthful fare that never tastes too virtuous or leaves you wanting.

The project is a collaboration by Founder Stephen Sidwell, an investment banker; CEO Mark Roberts, formal global president and COO for McDonald’s; and CCO Mike Donohue, former chief communications and external relations officer for McDonald’s. They wanted to show that fast-casual food doesn’t have to be bad for you. Indeed, if the concept proves popular, they hope to open more LYFE locations.

If the crowd last week when I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant is any indication, LYFE appears to be a hit.

The light, bright space was constructed with recycled and eco-friendly materials, including bamboo floors, teak tables, LED lights, and a bench and drop wood ceiling fashioned from vintage high school and college stadium bleachers.

How many fast-casual places grow their own herbs on-site?

There’s even an herb garden wall just inside the entrance that supplies fresh chervil, spearmint, lemon balm, chives, basil and marjoram to the restaurant.

The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The calorie count and sodium level is listed for each dish. There’s also a variety of vegan-friendly options, as well as a selection of California wines on tap. And the highest-priced dish is only $11.99.

Order at the counter, then find a table. You’ll get a geolocation device to put on your table so a server can find you to deliver your food. It may be fast-casual, but you don’t have to pick up your food at the counter or bus your table when you’re done. Moreover, LYFE goes the extra effort to serve the food quite attractively on contemporary plateware, as well as with real cutlery and glassware. No plastic baskets or paper cups here.

Whatever you do, start with a refreshing “Cucumber-Mint Cooler” ($2.99). It’s like spa water, but muddled with cucumber pulp to give it more flavor and body.

How pretty is this cucumber-mint cooler? And it has only 47 calories.

Grilled artichokes with lemon aioli ($3.99) brings two artichoke halves, expertly trimmed and nicely charred with a velvety, bright-tasting mayo sauce.

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A Tasty Way to Get Your Grains

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SooFoo is a hearty blend of nine grains and legumes.

After you’ve been a long-time San Francisco patron of the arts, film producer and inventor of Skyy Vodka, what’s left to do?

For San Franciscan Maurice Kanbar, it’s creating a healthful grain mix that’s low fat, and free of sodium and cholesterol.

Kanbar started making the blend of California long-grain brown rice, brown lentils, wheat berries, oats, barley, black lentils, rye berries, green lentils and buckwheat for himself. But friends liked it so much, they urged him to package it and sell it.

So, SooFoo was created. The name is play on words of “super good food,” which is how Kanbar likes to describe his grain blend.

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