Spaghetti squash is just about a staple here. Since it's gluten-free AND a vegetable, I'm happy to chow down on it to my heart's content, and the kids think it's kinda cool that a squash can make pasta in the first place, so the novelty got them hooked - that and lots of butter and garlic and salt, and on a good day, PESTO!
Spaghetti squash is so named because when cooked, the flesh becomes stringy when scooped out of the shell (I use a fork), like thin pasta noodles. ("Vermicelli squash" just doesn't have the same ring to it. LOL)
Since I have friends who live in places that don't have this miracle of nature (which seems to be limited to the US and some availability in the UK as far as I can make out) and because a lot of people just don't know what to do with a squash that doesn't lend itself to the usual uses of squash/zucchini......
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2014
Spaghetti Squash: Is There Anything It Can't Do?
I've always been a musician and music teacher, which got me interested in how the brain works. When my first child was born with some neurological issues that we've since learned can be helped by our diet and lifestyle, we began to learn more.... and more... and now my head is spinning with the things I'm learning about how the Standard American Diet (and lifestyle!) not only was hurting us but how it impacts all of us. Frustrated with The System that assumes that One Size Fits All and that leadership (and therefore information and power) must come from the Top Down, I suppose I'm also just a teensy bit subversive. LOL (That and I'm into parenthetical asides.)
I'm the author of My Very Own Crunchy and Progressive Parenting Blog and Scratchpad; my eldest is the primary author of Stuff I Wish My Teachers Knew (under construction). :-)
Monday, August 12, 2013
Color My World... On Second Thought, Please Don't! Food Colorings (for starters)
Originally posted on Monday, January 9, 2012
Ah, the marvels of modern science! Our children can have cereal with marshmallows (if you can call them that) in every color of the rainbow: Pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds! And that's just the last time I heard a Lucky Charms commercial, which has been probably 20 years, not long after they added the blue diamonds because four different artificially-colored sugar bombs apparently wasn't enough in one box of cereal. (I understand it now also comes in chocolate. *shudder*) And oh, the yogurt colors: not just baby blues and pinks any more, or a bit of a yellow or green tint, but full-on intense deep RED and BLUE!
Until you've seen a child completely fall apart shortly after having had some of these brightly-colored treats, it's easy to think of them as harmless additives that make our food that much more appealing. Adding red to sugar-saturated kids' yogurt will make it more appealing to the children, so when they eat it, they will be "eating healthy," right?
*Ahem*
Not so much. :-(
I hate to break it to you, but if you regularly eat foods with artificial colors, you are eating petrochemicals. And if you're giving artificially-colored stuff to your kids, you're feeding THEM stuff derived from coal tar and petrochemicals. For real. Many European countries have had the sense to ban these chemicals from all food, and manufacturers have made changes in those countries in order to keep selling their products there, while American food remains loaded with colorings and additives not found in their European counterparts. Look at these photos of Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bars (I found this picture in several articles, including this one, which is LOADED with information about this!) for just one example among many.
WHAT?!?!? But surely our government wouldn't permit dangerous substances in our food! If it weren't safe, it wouldn't be approved!
Until you've seen a child completely fall apart shortly after having had some of these brightly-colored treats, it's easy to think of them as harmless additives that make our food that much more appealing. Adding red to sugar-saturated kids' yogurt will make it more appealing to the children, so when they eat it, they will be "eating healthy," right?
*Ahem*
Not so much. :-(
I hate to break it to you, but if you regularly eat foods with artificial colors, you are eating petrochemicals. And if you're giving artificially-colored stuff to your kids, you're feeding THEM stuff derived from coal tar and petrochemicals. For real. Many European countries have had the sense to ban these chemicals from all food, and manufacturers have made changes in those countries in order to keep selling their products there, while American food remains loaded with colorings and additives not found in their European counterparts. Look at these photos of Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bars (I found this picture in several articles, including this one, which is LOADED with information about this!) for just one example among many.
WHAT?!?!? But surely our government wouldn't permit dangerous substances in our food! If it weren't safe, it wouldn't be approved!
I've always been a musician and music teacher, which got me interested in how the brain works. When my first child was born with some neurological issues that we've since learned can be helped by our diet and lifestyle, we began to learn more.... and more... and now my head is spinning with the things I'm learning about how the Standard American Diet (and lifestyle!) not only was hurting us but how it impacts all of us. Frustrated with The System that assumes that One Size Fits All and that leadership (and therefore information and power) must come from the Top Down, I suppose I'm also just a teensy bit subversive. LOL (That and I'm into parenthetical asides.)
I'm the author of My Very Own Crunchy and Progressive Parenting Blog and Scratchpad; my eldest is the primary author of Stuff I Wish My Teachers Knew (under construction). :-)
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