Salad Days

The quick answer:  To achieve the recommended goal of 4-5 daily vegetable servings, you’ll need a salad in the center of your dinner plate, and maybe lunch.

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The Ensign Finds Its Voice

The 52 Healthy Changes of Word of Wisdom Living derive from three oracles: tradition, scripture, and science.  In the last century “science” dominated the conversation, often leading us in wrong directions.  A most welcome change of the 21^st Century is the rediscovery of the wisdom of olden ways and of scripture. 

This blog takes its name from the LDS dietary scripture known as the Word of Wisdom but anyone can benefit from this revelation so we avoid Mormon jargon and write for all.  The LDS are known for neither smoking nor drinking, not even coffee.  Now they are rediscovering the forgotten half of the Word of Wisdom, a diet based on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and a little meat.   

For example, Ensign, the LDS Church magazine just found its nutrition voice with two articles in the February issue.   Here are highlights from each article:

“Nourishing our Bodies and our Spirits” made these points:

1. Religious people, though they smoke and drink less, are more overweight.
2. To encourage better eating, we are invited to bring healthy foods to Church socials:  “. . . the healthiest desserts are fruits and the healthiest snacks are vegetables”.
3. As a contrast to the “convenience” foods of the last century, the act of actually cooking a meal is an act of service and an expression of love.

  “A Principle with Promises” reminds:

1. Four causes of chronic poor health are a) tobacco, b) alcohol, c) inadequate fruits/vegetables, and d) too little exercise.  The W of W, written over 180 years ago, forewarned of this and offered an antidote.
2. Processed foods and packaged snacks (all commonly found in LDS homes) are deficient in nutrients and high in sugar, refined grains, hydrogenated oils, and sodium so should be minimized.
3. Soft drinks (especially energy drinks) are low in nutrients and high in sugars or artificial sweeteners so should be avoided.

This is unusual attention to the W of W—though written in the soft tones of the Ensign, it is a clarion call to better eating according to the W of W.  People seem to be listening— visits to our blog doubled the day after this Ensign came out!

Plant Foods

We say a healthy diet is based on whole plant foods (vegetables, fruits, grains) plus a little meat.  It’s easy to eat fruit so it’s the subject of just one Healthy Change.  Vegetables, at least for Americans, aren’t so easy.  So eight Healthy Changes encourage greater vegetable intake.  We start with the counsel to eat salads daily.

Yesterday the BBC published this article:  Cancer ‘tidal wave’ on horizon, warns WHO.  The lead sentence said:  The globe is facing a “tidal wave” of cancer, and restrictions on alcohol and sugar need to be considered, says World Health Organization scientists.  Good counsel, but what to eat instead?  Enjoy a salad!

Salads

Catherine de Medici—queen of France in the 1500s—is said to have introduced salad to the French.  Likely the credit belongs to an unknown chef but if you want to eat like a queen, try her salad found here.  You’ll need pecorino cheese, capers and anchovies.

When I was a kid green salads were less common.  I remember Waldorf salad, a carrot-raisin salad, a macaroni salad with canned shrimp, and Jello salads with canned fruits.  When I married the Beautiful Wife green salads—mostly iceberg lettuce in those days—became a staple in our diet.  Now it’s rare to eat a no-salad meal and that’s a good thing.

Americans eat about one serving of vegetables per day (if you exclude French fries).  It’s a big problem because 4-5 servings are recommended.  Fortunately, salads can add several daily servings.  Salads featuring a variety of colored vegetables are the easiest and cheapest way to eat well.  We’re not raw foodists but there seems to be a benefit to consuming uncooked plants and salads are a good way to do this.

A past post told of farm reformer Wendel Berry and his famous 1981 essay, “Solving for Pattern.”  The idea that patterns could facilitate the daily problem of “what to eat” made sense so we wrote “A Pattern for Salad.”  Visitors shared their salad recipes (look under ‘comments’).

When we shared the recipe for Brooke’s Broccoli Salad readers shared more salad recipes.  The BW makes the salad in the picture above, called Kelly’s Signature Salad.  (Recipe available on request.) 

In the post The Joy of Coleslaw we featured the recipe for Skip's Peanut Coleslaw.

Our most recent discovery is a CostCo product, Sweet Kale, a easy-to-use but very healthful salad kit for when you’re busy.  Shrimp were on sale at CostCo so we bought a large bag (what other size does CostCo offer?), divided them into smaller bags, and put them in the freezer for future salads.  You can’t miss with salad.

Please comment.  Share your favorite salad or dressing recipe. 

Comments

[Jessica brown]

We eat salad for dinner once a week - grilled chicken or steak sliced on top. A little meat goes a long way in a salad.