Perhaps you’re wondering what bacon is doing on a weight loss site.
Well, as I’ve said many times before, eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Refined carbs and sugar make you fat. Eating “foodlike substances” such as soda, candy, pop tarts and fast food make you fat. Eating too much makes you fat. Too much estrogen and poor liver function make you fat. Skipping meals makes you fat. Stress, insomnia, and lack of exercise make you fat.
Good-quality bacon makes you full. It also makes your mouth do a little dance because it just tastes so good.
Oh, and it’s got B vitamins too 
This dish has several advantages:
1. It’s protein-dense. Why are people so obsessed with protein for weight loss? There are a number of reasons. A couple of the most important: it keeps your blood sugar stable, and it’s thermogenic. That means that just by digesting the protein you’ll burn 30% of its calories.
2. It’s a great way to sneak in greens. Lettuce is a no-brainer, but sometimes people aren’t overly excited about the bitter greens like kale, mustard greens, and collard greens. These babies are drenched in onion/black bean/bacon juice and they’ll go down easy.
3. It’s filling. With plenty of delicious fat, it will keep you satisfied for hours.
4. It’s well-rounded. You’ve got each macronutrient represented: protein, fat, and carb. And it goes without saying that it wouldn’t be on this site if it weren’t nutritious. Nothing refined or synthetic about any of these ingredients.
(please note that I have nothing against hamburgers…just fast food burgers)
INGREDIENTS
1 onion
1 bunch greens (collard and mustard work best)
4 slices bacon
1 can black beans
salt and pepper
water
As always, all ingredients should be as organic / local as possible.
1. Chop up onion and bacon and fry them in a pot. You won’t need any oil because of the bacon fat.
2. Wash and chop your bunch of greens and add them to the pot along with about 1 cup of water.
3. Simmer for 20-30 minutes.
4. Add black beans, and salt and pepper to taste.
5. Simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Feast.
Coconut milk itself may not fall under “recession cuisine”. One can of organic, full-fat coco milk equals nearly $2. But I will tell you that a little splash of it goes a looooong way towards filling you up with delicious fats. And that’s what recession cuisine is about: stretching your dollar while maximizing your nutrient intake.
“COCONUT?!” you may be saying. “Isn’t this a WEIGHT LOSS SITE?” Well, yes. The fact is, we’ve been fed some really skewed information about fats. Saturated fats in particular. We NEED them! And coconut milk’s a wonderful source. Ironically, studies have found that eating enough saturated fat actually supports the weight loss process.
Here are just a few of coconut milk’s benefits:
- It’s been shown to aid weight loss by speeding up the metabolism.
- The lauric acid in coconut milk is anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-microbial, so it helps boost the immune system, which is your body’s defense against illness.
- It contains potassium, calcium, chloride, Vitamin A and Vitamin E, so it’s great for your skin and hair.
Do I have you convinced yet?
Now, I KNOW you like the sound of coconut milk shake. How could you not? What if I told you that drinking about 12 oz of this shake kept me full for six hours? Everyone’s body is different, so I can’t guarantee the same results for you. But if you’d like to experiment, try blending up the following:
- splash of coconut milk
- splash of any other “milk” (dairy, almond, rice, hemp)
- organic frozen berries (another recession cuisine idea, as they are cheaper than fresh. I like to use cranberries, blackberries and blueberries)
- spoonful of almond butter
- Stevia to taste (just a few drops should do it)
- optional: raw egg (I don’t recommend eating them at ALL if you’re getting feedlot, non-organic, gross factory farmed eggs, but I get them from a good source and like adding them to my diet every so often)
- optional: raw cacao nibs (I happened to have some on hand and they add a nice chocolaty crunch)
Stew is the most ancient form of cooking. It is also arguably the simplest and the most comforting. Who doesn’t love the scent of simmering herbs, spices, and onions wafting through their refuge on a Sunday afternoon? The traditional devotion to slow-cooking has waned as our lives have become busier and we’ve traded a pot of bubbling Bolognese for microwaved taquitos. But let’s not forget that although stew takes some time to prepare, most of it just involves throwing everything into your cauldron and letting the heat do its thing. Think of it as an opportunity to perfume your house with the hearty and peaceful scent of a well-cooked meal.
The great thing about stew (well, there are a lot of great things, but here’s one) is that you can use the opportunity to scrape the backs of your refridgerator and cupboards. This is truly recession cuisine. You toss in odds and ends of things that are getting old and forgotten and allow them to be useful. Food wants to feed us. Got a few handfuls of grain, not enough for a serving? In it goes. Some chard stems that you don’t feel like juicing? Chop them up and add them to the broth. A couple bites of ground turkey chili left over from a few nights ago? Yay, protein.
Pick an afternoon or evening when you’ll be home doing chores, working, or relaxing with a book or movie. Plan to prepare your stew right when you get home so it’s got a couple of hours to simmer. Most of the work is just the up-front chopping. And then you’ll have enough dinner for 4-5 people, or healthy lunches to bring into work the rest of the week. You can freeze a couple of batches too; thawed, they’ll be no worse for the wear. Here’s a super-basic stew recipe that you can’t go wrong with, even if you’ve never made stew in your life.
Nutritionally, please note that when you boil something, the minerals leach out into the surrounding fluid. This is why boiling a vegetable, throwing out the water, and eating only the vegetable is not a good call. So in a stew, the vegetables themselves end up existing mostly for the fiber, which is still very important, but the broth is going to be what’s chock-full of minerals…hence broth’s reputation as a powerful healer.
1 1/2 lb stew meat. I have tried elk and bison and both are lovely. I choose them because both tend to be grass fed. If you are choosing beef please ask your butcher for organic or grass fed specifically. In a pinch “all natural” is ok.
1 onion
1 bay leaf
1 qt water
1 tbsp oil. PLEASE DO NOT USE MARGARINE OR ONE OF THOSE BUTTER SUBSTITUTES. Ew. Butter, olive oil, coconut oil, lard, or suet are all fine. You can also fry a piece of bacon and use its fat.
vegetables. Choose 2 or 3 of the following: 3 small potatoes, 3 carrots, 3 ribs of celery, 1/2 head of cauliflower, 2 parsnips, 1/2 head of cabbage, 1 1/2 cups peas
salt, pepper, and seasonings. Good seasonings for this dish include the Simon and Garfunkel quad of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. You can also use a pre-made Italian blend or Herbes de Provence (my favorite)
1. Brown the stew meat in the oil,
2. In a pot, add the meat, chopped onion, bay leaf, 1 tsp salt, and the water.
3. Simmer, covered, on very low heat for about an hour and 30 minutes.
4. Add your veggies, herbs, a dash more salt, pepper, and herbs.
5. Simmer for another half hour.
6. Taste and adjust seasonings. If it’s bland start with more salt.
7. Feast in the old school way!!!!
Think because you’re poor you must be deprived of seafood? Think because you can’t buy those fancy supplements you’re doomed to Omega-3 deficiency? Think again. Although you may not be able to afford the slick lemon flavored fish oil from Norway, canned seafood is always an option. Yes, I said canned seafood. It’s not gross. It’s good, and it’s cheap. Try it.
This recipe calls for canned salmon which will run you a mere couple of bucks. Purchase wild as opposed to farmed, water-packed as opposed to oil-packed. Per 3 oz serving, salmon offers 1.1–1.9 grams of Omega-3s. The only fish comparable in Omega-3 content are tuna and herring. Before you start freaking out about mercury, note that salmon’s mean mercury level in parts per million is only 0.01. Even tuna, which has been so slandered, is only 0.12.
The recipe also makes use of smoked oysters. If you’ve never tried these, keep an open mind and pick them up next time you’re at your local grocery. You’re in for a treat. Now, please be careful when purchasing these. Often they are packed in soybean or cottonseed oil which tend to be partially hydrogenated (shorthand: “bad”). Choose olive oil instead. These little nuggets of the sea are incredibly high in Vitamin A, B12, and D, and chock full of minerals, particularly zinc, copper, and selenium. And best of all they taste great.
photo credit: conskeptical
“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood.” – Barack Obama, earlier today
Sure, Barack is talking about the dismal state of world affairs, but he’s also referencing the economic challenges plaguing Americans. In tough times, it’s best to pull inward, hunker down, and get to some serious grounding. And what’s more grounding than a hearty home-cooked meal? Food’s one of the easiest areas in which to scale back spending, with the added benefit that the simplest meals are often the most satiating (maybe that’s why, when you eat at that Noveau Japanese-Cajun-Antarctican fusion joint you always leave hungry…). Every week, on Recession Cuisine Tuesday, we’ll be exploring an inexpensive recipe that’s packed with nutritional power. Learn to stretch your dollar while fueling your body with the most micronutrients possible.
Today we are going to look at the ancient technique of sprouting, developed by the Chinese several thousand years ago. You know those organic broccoli sprouts you used to drop $7 per bag for at the Berkeley farmer’s market? The ones that turned brown in your vegetable drawer about two days after you got them home? Well, when you make your own, they’re far cheaper. And since seeds bulk up as they sprout, multiplying 8 to 15 times their weight, they’re a very economical choice. Rich with proteins, enzymes, vitamins and minerals, sprouts are one of the most nutritionally complete foods in existence. They’re a live food, which means they keep growing until the moment you bite into them – compare this with other vegetables, whose nutrients begin to oxidize (break down) the minute they’re harvested.
Sprouting is incredibly easy. All you need is a dark, cool place, a glass jar, a piece of cheesecloth with a rubber band, and the beans (mungs are a nice one to start with – be sure to get organic!). Put a ratio of 1 part beans to 3 parts water in the jar, cover with cheesecloth, secure with rubber band, and place in said dark cool place. After about 24 hours, drain off the water and add some fresh water to the jar, swirling or stirring a bit to rinse the beans. Then drain that off, still keeping the beans slightly damp. Re-cover, return to the dark cool place, and repeat the process every 12 hours. You’ll see the beans start to grow little tails. It’s your choice when to eat them – tails can be short, medium, or long.
The recipe below is by my friend and colleague Kelly Walker, a holistic nutritionist in San Francisco. It was my introduction to sprouting and it’s so delicious that if it’s your introduction, you too will become a sprouting groupie. Sprouts contains so much life force that you may feel bionic after consuming this salad.
MUNG SPROUT SALAD
2-3 cups mung sprouts
2 avocados, sliced
1 cucumber, diced
OPTIONAL: protein i.e. tuna, chicken, salmon, shellfish…
DRESSING: (to taste) salt, pepper, olive oil, cumin, paprika, either Balsamic Vinegar OR Apple Cider Vinegar OR lemon juice
Add everything together, stir, and eat. It’s fine to chill for an hour or so but will be soggy by the next day, so if you are stretching this out for a few meals, keep the dressing on the side…
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