The Spice of Life Challenge

Lily

Hmm, I have Spiced on my shelf … may have to hold off reading it until the challenge begins.

Helen from Hawaii

Aloha,
Dr. David Kessler was director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)under Clinton and Bush. He has his medical degree and was dean of the Yale medical school. He also got his juris doctorate from the University of Chicago Law School. This was the man who proved that nicotine was a drug and therefore tobacco could be regulated by the FDA like any other dangerous drug. His watershed book, “A Question of Intent” received a Pulitzer for his discovery…that cigarettes were simply a delivery mechanism for the drug nicotine and thus resulted in billions of dollars in lawsuits against the tobacco industry.
Ahh, but was does this have to do with food year???
Well in his newest book,Dr. Kessler theorizes after extensive empirical testing is that foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain’s chemistry in ways that COMPEL people to overeat. “Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology — what’s going on in our body,” he said. “The real question is what’s going on in our brain.” This theory described in his new book, “The End of Overeating,” is startling!
Yah, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Doughnuts, Cinnabon, and even MacDonald’s have figured out that they can make us ADDICTED to fat, sugar, and salt the same way that tobacco made us addicted to nicotine.
So as the USA becomes the most obese nation in the world…
as much as 32% of our population is obese..not just overweight (that’s about 70% of us) but significantly obese to cause cardiovascular disease and diabetes, we continue to eat everything wrong. Despite our advanced technology in medicine we have the highest rate of heart disease, strokes, and cancer in the world! All preventible if we just were normal weight.

Am I putting a downer on this food blog. NO! We love to eat! Who doesn’t love red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Let’s just remember that food is just fuel for our body to perform at its top capacity.
So let’s enjoy our food but with a modicum of common sense. I would highly suggest Kessler’s two books plus Michael Pollan’s book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”
Just stay away from processed foods (HO-HO’s anyone?) and think of what we are putting in recipes and thus into our bodies. More delicious fruits and veggies and less Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream.
Next week I’ll post my national award winning pasta recipe I learned in Sicily!
Ciao and aloha!
Helen

Helen from Hawaii

Here’s a great book! “Like Water for Chocolate.” In addition to serving as a central organizing principle, food is often a direct cause of physical and emotional unrest, and serves as a medium through which emotions can be transmitted. Tita prepares most of the food in the novel, and she uses food to express her emotions because her lowly cultural status affords her no other opportunity to do so.
The title comes from the fact that you need to bring water to the boiling point several times before you can use it to make chocolate. And so emotions simmer and boil over in this relgious-mystical novel.

Susan

I would love to join this challenge1 I just found your blog again, I think you commented on mine a while ago, so I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to find you! I cook alot, and have lots of favourite cook books, plus books to read like Michael Pollan’s book….do you have the challenge site up yet?