Archives for November 2014

The Splendid Sweet Potato

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Sweet Potato Graphic

How do you prepare sweet potatoes or do you not eat them at all?

If not, you are missing out on one of the more nutritious root vegetables.

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Fond Memories

Growing up, I frequently enjoyed sweet potato dishes. They were prepared as desserts during the holidays in our home. But, most times they were used as just the right sweet and savory compliment to a meal of meat and vegetables such as succulent roast beef and tender mustard greens.

However, I never thought about their nutritious value much. I think a lot of people don’t. We often hear about how nutritious the varieties of green vegetables are but not much about some of the root vegetables except maybe carrots.

Yet, the sweet potato is a great source of beta carotene, vitamins A, C, and E as well as some others. This means that the sweet potato offers nutrients that guard against night blindness, skin disorders such as acne, and cancer.

What They Are Not

By the way, even though there is a resemblance and a shared name, sweet potatoes are not potatoes as in the white potato type tubers which are members of the Solanaceae (also known as nightshade) botanical food family.

Nor are they yams. In the United States and Canada some varieties of the sweet potato are called yams. True yams are members of the Dioscoreaceae family.

What They Are And How They Look

The sweet potato is a member of the Convolvulaceae (also known as morning glory) family.

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Sweet potatoes (native to ancient America) come in a variety of skin and flesh colors. Some of the  skin colors are beige, brown, red, and even purple. The flesh can range from purple to white. It seems that orange ones are more prevalent here in the U.S. although I have prepared some with yellow flesh.

Also, the darker colored flesh is said to have more beta carotene than the lighter ones.

Their peak season is during the Fall.

Some Of My Favorites

As an adult with a family of my own, some of my favorite ways of preparing and eating these nutritious power houses include candied, baked with a dollop of butter (well, actually palm shortening), and the scrumptious sweet potato pie..

What are some of your favorites?

 

Filed Under: Healthy Food

A Delicious Discovery

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Have you ever run across a cookbook that you absolutely love and use it almost all of the time?

I have. Actually, there are about three that I’ve found and use quite frequently. One of these favorites is The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook by Cybele Pascal.

When I realized the severity of food allergies that my children and I have, I had to make some fast and significant changes with some of the foods we ate – mostly baked goods.

Drastic Changes

I’d known about some of our allergies from observation and would try to avoid them. But, once we were tested and it was revealed just how many allergies we actually had and their severity – gluten, peanuts and soy being the most severe – we had to change our eating habits drastically.

These changes included almost no eating out and cooking everything from scratch. It’s quite difficult to find restaurants and fast food chains that offer items on their menu that we can eat. And prepared foods that are available for purchase at our local grocers are heavily laden with ingredients that we must avoid.

But, even though cooking everything from scratch gave me the control over what was included in our meals, it wasn’t easy finding allergen-free recipes that actually tasted good.

Allergen-Free and Great Tasting

Then, I found Cybele Pascal’s cookbook. It is chocked full of wonderful, great tasting recipes that are free of the top 8 allergens: dairy, soy, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, fish, shellfish, and eggs. They are also vegan and gluten free.

You can find the book here.

Do you have a favorite allergen-free cookbook? If so, leave a comment and share.

Filed Under: Green Product Reviews Tagged With: ,

Too Many Choices?

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Choices, Choices

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all of the choices of products that you can purchase for yourself, home, and family?

Is it confusing to try and figure out what’s green and healthy in the first place?

The “green” industry is booming and vying for your business by presenting what seems like a gazillion products to choose from all with different “levels” of greenness.

Once you’ve investigated those, how do you decide which ones to choose?

Well, I know what it’s like to feel as though you’re looking for a needle in a haystack when searching for that green and healthy item you can feel good about using.

New Feature

So, I hope that Natural Green Oasis’ new feature  “Recommendation Wednesday” will help to ease the overwhelm.

Periodically, on a Wednesday, I will recommend a product that I use and think may be helpful to you.

I try to find the healthiest and least toxic products that I can for myself and my family. I will share these finds and the reason why I chose them with you. That way you can decide if they are a good fit for you and your family.

The frequency of my recommendations will depend on my finds but you can look forward to a new featured product at least once a month.

I hope this will help make your efforts in creating your own natural green oasis a little easier.

 

Filed Under: Green Product Reviews

Something New

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Have you ever felt like you’re tired of the same old, same old and yearn for something fresh and new? Well, I’m no different.

You may have noticed that the site has been down for a while. Well, we’re back with a new look and a new feature that I hope you’ll enjoy. I’ll tell you more about the new feature next week.

I will continue to provide content about green, healthy living that I hope you will find useful as you create your natural green oasis.

Fall is here and the holiday season is right around the corner. One great way to celebrate the season is with great tasting food!

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 I think the sweet potato is one of the least talked about power houses in the vegetable world. I plan to share what I’ve discovered about this versatile root vegetable later this month.

I’m looking forward to a greener and healthier rest of the year and sharing my experiences with you along the way.

What are some things you plan on doing to make the rest of this year greener and healthier for you?

 

Filed Under: Healthy Home