What Happens When Your Cholesterol Goes Too Low?

Below is the link to good articles that I found at Mercola.com

Hope you will find it interesting.


What Happens When Your Cholesterol Goes Too Low?

Gardasil Reactions and Deaths on the Rise

Is Tea a Powerful Health Tonic?

10 Things Your Restaurant Won't Tell You

Mango, Pineapple, and Coconut Lassi and Moong Dal Khaman

One more lassi with a really cool and refreshing taste.

This combination is so good, that I would like to have it all year round.

I used:

2 cups yogurt whisked

1 mango

1 cup pineapple cubed (canned or fresh )

2 tbsp coconut cream ( look here and here for the info)

few mint leaves for garnish

Sugar is optional as the fruits and cream of coconut already have sugar so you might want to check before adding any extra sugar! I didn't add any sugar.

Blend everything together in blender except the mint leaves. Serve chilled.

I blended mint together in half of the lassi and the taste was out of this world. Really good!

For the Moong Dal Khaman:

It's the same recipe as "Chana Daal Khaman" except that you replace chana daal with Moong Daal and add some cracked black pepper to the batter.

The ingredients for tempering are also the same.

This is the special khaman that you will find in Ahmedabad and they are sooooo good!!

Zeitun Tapenade

I know this post was going to be my entry for Nupur's A-Z of Indian Vegetables. But I am late for that, still posting it for you guys.

Zeitun is a Middle-Eastern term for Olives. In hindi it is called Jaitun and the same in Gujarati. (look here for the info)

It didn't originated from one language but perhaps a mix of different languages.

The olive is the only member of the Oleaceae to bear edible fruit. The fruit, a drupe like a peach, cannot be eaten fresh because of the presence of a bitter glucoside. Thus the olive must be processed in order to be served as food; either processed for its oil or processed with lye and salt to produce the canned or preserved table fruit. While fruit processed in California has almost all of the bitterness removed, that processed in the Mediterranean area is often left somewhat bitter.

Tapenade is a Provençal dish consisting of pureed or finely chopped olives, capers, and olive oil. Its name comes from the Provençal word for capers, tapéno. It is a popular food in the south of France, where it is generally eaten as an hors d’œuvre, spread on gourmet breads such as baguette or ciabatta. Sometimes it is also used to stuff fillets for a main course.

The recipe: Makes about 1/2 cup

1 cup of mixed olives, black and green

1 garlic cloves, sliced

1 tbsp minced fresh parsley

1 tbsp salted capers, rinsed and dried (optional)

2 tsp lemon zest (optional)

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 to 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

lemon juice to taste

Put olives, parsley, garlic, capers, lemon zest and process it by drizzling olive oil from the feeding tube. Once its finely minced. Take it out in a bowl and adjust the seasonings.
Set aside for 30 minutes before serving. Serve it on a toasted sliced baguette (crostini) or eat with crackers or toasted pita bread. It's tastes so good.

The tapenade will keep in the refrigerator for a day or two, after that its flavors will deteriorate. You can make this tapenade using almost any olive, including the mixed olives sold at the olive bars common in upscale markets these days.

If you select the olives yourself, try a mix of kalamatas, picholines, cracked green, and California black.

Salted capers are available in good delis and markets.

P.S: Do not add salt as olives are very salty and if using capers they have lot of salt too.

The guessing game answer!!

Okay so no one got it right. I know it was tricky but that makes the fun worth.

Well the greens that I used is known as Molokhia (Jute Plant) that I got from an Arabic store. I used the frozen ones as fresh leaves are impossible to get in US.

Now, before you get too excited to get it, let me brief you about the taste and texture. This is the most slimy greens I have ever seen. The texture is viscous and gelatinous and is used mostly in soups with meat or chicken to give it a gumbo like texture.

Molokhia is a leafy, green, summer vegetable. A traditional dish in Egypt and Sudam, some people believe it originated among Egyptians during the time of the Pharaohs. Others believe that it was first prepared by ancient Jews. Molokhia is nutritious soup made from a type of greens, known as Molokhia or Jew's mallow (also called Nalta jute, Tussa jute, Corchorus olitorius), which is found throughout and in other Arab countries with the same climate as well as in Israel. Dried or frozen molokhia greens may be obtained from Middle Eastern stores worldwide.

Since I am a vegetarian I tried to make a sabji with jeera and garlic but was highly disappointed not with the taste but with the texture. And the white specks that you saw in the sabji is garlic and not paneer! sorry

Guessing Game and Hall of Shame

Since everybody is into this posting of guessing things, I thought of giving it a try.

You have to tell me the name of the greens, that I used in this recipe.

I will be posting the answer in the next post.

Now to the Hall of shame thing.

Have you ever been out of energy, dog tired with two kids and forget about things that you buy from grocery store and stash it in the fridge. Well it happened to me quite a few times.

Now this is the poor red cabbage that I bought and completely forgot about it. Normally I don't, but we have two refrigerators, one in the kitchen and the other one is in the garage, so this poor thing was left out in the garage refrigerator. It decided to grow itself and see the flower stemming out of it?

Capsaicin's health benefits and The Scoville Scale

From Headaches to Arthritis relief- Capsaicin's Health Benefits

The word capsaicin actually describes a complex of related components named Capsaicinoids.
Capsaicinoids are the chemical compounds that give Chile/Hot peppers their bite.
The active principle that causes the heat in chile peppers is a crystalline alkaloid generically called capsaicin. It is produced by glands at the junction of the placenta and the pod wall. The capsaicin spreads unevenly throughout the inside of the pod and is concentrated mostly in the placental tissue.

Headache help: Substance P is the key transmitter of pain to the brain. In fact, Substance P is the body's main mechanism for producing swelling and pain throughout the trigeminal nerve, which runs through the head, temple, and sinus cavity. When the nerve fibers come in contact with Substance P, they react by swelling—an effect that yields headaches and sinus symptoms. Clinical studies have shown that capsaicin, a compound in hot peppers, is extremely effective for relieving and preventing cluster headaches, migraine headaches, and sinus headaches.

Arthritis relief: People suffering from arthritis pain typically have elevated levels of Substance P in their blood and in the synovial fluid that bathes their joints. Research has shown that eating foods that contain capsaicin or applying a topical cream that contains capsaicin can suppress Substance P production.

Capsaiscin as spicy sinus soother: Capsaicin also possesses powerful antibacterial properties, and is very effective in fighting and preventing chronic sinus infections (sinusitis). This purely natural chemical will also clear out congested nasal passages like nothing else, and is helpful in treating sinus-related allergy symptoms. Small daily doses of capsaicin have even been shown to prevent chronic nasal congestion.
Capsaicin as anti-inflammatory: In recent years, researchers discovered that capsaicin is a potent anti-inflammatory, and have even pinpointed how it works to fight chronic, sub-clinical inflammation. The nuclei of human cells contain chemicals called nuclear transcription factors (NTFs), two of which—activator protein 1 (AP-1) and NF-kappa B—are especially important targets when it comes to prevention of cancer and premature aging of skin. Each of these NTFs can be "activated" by ultraviolet light and free radicals: a result that produces a pro-inflammatory chain reaction that promotes premature aging and a wide variety of degenerative diseases. As it turns out, nature offers several effective NTF-activation blockers, including the capsaicin in chilies, and the yellow pigment curcumin in turmeric.

Gastric relief: A recent study on gastric disorders at Duke University showed capsaicin may actually lead to a cure for certain intestinal diseases. The Duke team found that a specific nerve cell receptor appears to be necessary to initiate the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a general term given to a variety of chronic disorders in which the intestine becomes inflamed—resulting in recurring abdominal cramps, pain and diarrhea. The cause of IBD is unknown, and it is believed that up to 2 million Americans suffer from this disorder.

Capsaicin versus cancer: Several recent studies have shown that capsaicin may actually prevent the growth of certain types of cancer. In particular, there have been several clinical studies conducted in Japan and China that showed natural capsaicin directly inhibits the growth of leukemic cells. Although these studies used pure capsaicin directly injected into isolated diseased cells in a laboratory setting, scientists have also concluded that daily consumption of hot peppers (thus capsaicin) may actually prevent certain types of cancer. Throughout South America, intestinal, stomach, and colon cancer rates are very low compared to the United States. It is widely regarded by medical experts that this low cancer rate may be tied to the large amounts of capsaicin in their diets, since nearly every main dish in their normal diet contains some form of capsaicin-based food, particularly hot cayenne and jalapeño peppers. Of course we must also take into consideration the fact these cultures also consume fiber-rich beans on a daily basis.

Capsaicin as fat burner: Capsaicin is an active ingredient in many of the most popular "fat burning" supplements on the market. A thermogenic agent, capsaicin helps to increase overall metabolic activity, thus helping the body burn calories and fat. Since the FDA banned the herb ephedra, supplement manufacturers have been searching for new thermogenic ingredients and many have added chilies to the mix. While capsaicin replaces some of ephedra's metabolic effects, it doesn't have that herb's negative, stimulant effects on heart rate. In fact, capsaicin is an actively "heart healthy" supplement.

(Source Dr. Perricone's Superfoods)

The Scoville Scale: Hot, Hotter, Hottest

Capsaicin is mainly found in hot pepper plants from the Capsicum frutescens family.
While most varieties are found in South America, where chilies originated, there are also Capsicum varieties in Africa, India, and even China.

Like bell peppers, which also belong to the capsicum falmiy, not all chili peppers are hot.
For example, paprika is from the capsicum family, but it's mild at best. On the other hand, paprika's cousin, cayenne, is scorching hot. It all depends on the heat factor within a particular plant.Hot peppers even have their own measuring scale for heat, known as "Scoville Units."

Mostly used in the food industry, the Scoville heat scale is regarded as the most accurate way to measure the true hotness of a pepper plant. Developed in 1912 by botanist Wilbur Scoville, a pepper's Scoville Unit number is based on how much the ground chili needs to be diluted before no heat is detected. Scoville Units measure the perception of heat in multiples of 100, with bell peppers setting the heat-free baseline at zero Scoville Units, pure capsaicin measuring more than 16 million Scoville Units, and most popular types ranking around 30,000 Scoville units.

Until recently, habañero peppers held the world record, with some varieties scoring a searing 300,000 Scoville units. However, in 2000, Indian research scientists tested a chili pepper called Naga Jolokia, from the remote northeastern province of Assam.
This devilishly hot Indian chili now holds the dubious distinction of being the world's hottest pepper, with a reported score of 855,000 Scoville units.About 80 percent of a chili's capsaicin is found in the ribs and seeds, which can be removed to reduce its heat.

Capsaicin is also distributed unevenly, in much smaller amounts throughout the flesh of a chili pepper.Aerosolized capsicum, better known as pepper spray (often used to fend off potential attackers) is now being used to fend off sinus infections, allergies and headaches, thanks to a new nasal spray packed with hot pepper extract.Always exercise a great deal of care when preparing hot peppers to avoid injury.
Check at the produce department to select the pepper with the right degree of heat for your palate. Use rubber gloves when chopping and seeding and don't touch your eye during preparation as the oil in the hot peppers will cause a burning sensation—advice spoken with the voice of painful experience
(Source Dr. Perricone's Superfoods)

Peppers Guide

Peach, Mozzarella, and Basil salad

This is real simple yet flavorful salad for summers. And it's a no fuss recipe with unique flavor.

I got the inspiration from here.

I did not use Fresh Mozzarella, I used the regular Mozzarella cheese and instead of cutting peach into wedges, I just diced them. Watch the salt you put in the salad as the store bought Mozzarella is already salted.

Recipe:

3 ripe peaches (peeled, if desired)

1 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

8 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into 1-inch chunks

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Cut each peach into 6 to 8 wedges, then cut each wedge in half crosswise. In a large bowl, combine the peaches, basil, and mozzarella. Drizzle with the oil, sprinkle with the salt and pepper, and toss. (You can cover and refrigerate the salad for up to several hours.) Serve cold or at room temperature.