Tag Archives: Fruits

A fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. Some fruits like peaches, apples, or oranges are acidic. Other fruits like papaya, melons, or figs are less acidic. Still others like bananas and avocados have no acidity.

Can we eat healthy and high fat?

summer flounder | gourmet metrics

summer flounder | gourmet metrics

 

Wednesday is fish night and summer flounder is what I served for supper a couple weeks ago. The piece I picked out weighing about 2/3 pound (300 grams) so at $15 a pound, I paid about $10.

At my table small is beautiful, so a little bit of protein goes a long way. Just the two of us that night and we split the flounder. That piece pictured above was my half. Cooked and ready to serve let’s say about 4 ounces (120 grams) which by American standards is on the skimpy side. But taste wise and protein wise (15 grams) it’s enough for me.

Some of my more zealous colleagues look at flounder as a low calorie / low fat option because the fish is so lean. Not me. Now I love flounder or fluke as some call it because the flesh is so delicate and the taste so subtle, but even this eater has to admit that all by itself flounder tends to be on the bland side.

My way to cook flounder is to pan-fry in olive oil, season with salt, kiss with pepper, finish with whisper of unsalted butter, and serve with a twist of lemon. Delicious but not low fat.

For the rest of the plate, steamed local spinach and farro. Local fresh spinach has plenty of flavor and to my taste at least needs nothing else, not even salt. I added some farro for whole grain carbohydrate but I took the picture before putting it on the plate. We finished off with a salad of finely diced kohlrabi, red Boston lettuce, Napa cabbage, and a couple of hydro-tomatoes dressed with my vinaigrette. And local blueberries for dessert.

The calorie count ran around 650 per person. Not a big meal by American standards but more than enough for us. It was a work night and we prefer not to have a heavy meal before going to bed.

Sounds pretty healthy doesn’t it? Let’s take a look.

Protein. A modest portion. Bonus points for seafood.

Vegetables. 6 different kinds of vegetables, total of 2 cups. Bonus points for dark green.

Fruit. Blueberries, rich in Anthocyanins, 1/2 cup. Bonus points for whole fruit.

Whole Grain. Farro is a wheat (not gluten free) and one of my favorite ancient grains. Bonus points for whole grain.

Fatty Acid Ratio: excellent which means more olive oil and less butter.

Sodium. 780 mg for the meal and 33% DV.

And for added value the meal qualifies as sustainable and affordable. In New York, flounder is local and not currently overfished. And despite the high price per pound, a modest serving size makes the cost manageable.

But there is always that question from the back of the room. How about fat? No problem. I’m a nutrition nerd and I always have the numbers. The percentage is above the recommended cut off which puts my meal into the high fat range. Not a meal for someone who needs to adhere to a low fat regime or who believes only low fat meals are healthy.

And because regulatory compliance is cast in concrete leaving little flexibility for humans to exercise judgment, labeling my meal healthy would be illegal.

It’s what I call healthy versus healthy.

And that’s why, when it comes to my own table, I exercise culinary judgment.

“Judgment is to law as water is to crops. It should not be surprising that law has become brittle, and society along with it.” The Death of Common Sense, Philip K. Howard, 1994

Healthy can be seen, touched, and tasted … sometimes.

photo | gourmet metrics

photo | gourmet metrics

 

These are red, fragile, stem ripened local, end of season strawberries. The picture of healthy. Ephemeral, perfect, delicious.

So how do I know they are healthy? The farmer I bought them from told me they were picked the day before I bought them. They looked good, felt good, and tasted good. But I will be honest, there was no label or organic certification or other guideline for confirmation. And even if there had been, these picture perfect strawberries might have carried some pesky microorganism so you better believe that I washed them before eating.

Strawberry season has come and gone here into Northeast, but looking at those berries in all their pristine beauty helped me put the final piece in place on an observation that has been troubling me since last summer about the same time of the year.

I was picking out vegetables from a farmer I like when an attractive, articulate, well educated young woman came up from behind and starting asking all kinds of questions about the vegetables and the strawberries

Now I am the last one to say don’t ask questions. I ask so many questions that some people don’t want to be bothered with me. A royal pain in the ass some would say.

No, her questions didn’t bother me.

What troubled me was her unwillingness to accept answers.

Now I liked this particular farmer for a couple of reasons. Besides strawberries, she always had excellent local peaches, seasonal tomatoes, and a consistently good spread of local greens. It was also a family affair. The lady in charge looked and talked like she had spend her whole life growing vegetables. She came across to me as credible, authentic, and wise. She knew how to store onions and could tell me that the reason some onions rotted from the inside out while other onions were really good keepers. “You have to pull them out and let them really dry out before moving to storage …” The onions I bought from her never rotted out before I used them either.

She sat in the back of her stand and left most of the customer dealings to her niece. So the articulate woman began her questioning with the niece.

The articulate woman wanted to know if the produce was certified organic. Her questions were pointed and intense and anxious. She knew just how to drill down. The niece answered as best she could but since the farm has not bothered to get certified the answers were not what the articulate woman was looking for.

Now I already knew this farm was not certified organic because I had asked the same questions myself. “We just don’t want to bother with the extra paperwork. Too much hassle. You’re going to have to trust us …”

That was good enough for me.

It was not however what the articulate woman wanted to hear. I could tell she might have been tempted by the way she looked at my selections laid out and waiting to be packed into my bags. “I am just really afraid of all that poison … ”

So she left to look elsewhere.

I looked at the niece and the niece looked back at me and that was that.

This exchange has been haunting me ever since. And what it really comes down to is trust. People can lie. Our senses can deceive. Labels can mislead. Certifications can be fictitious. But we still have to eat and we still have to make decisions.

So the exchange has played over and over again in my head for a year. I keep wanting to reassure that articulate young woman that yes it’s a food jungle out here and yes being skeptical is important, but sometimes it’s okay to go with your gut.

But she went away as quickly and she appeared and I never saw her again.

Why don’t more people use fruit ripeners?

photo | gourmet metrics

photo | gourmet metrics

This is my fruit ripener. See that band of plastic there on the right side of the picture? That is the edge of the plastic bowl. After taking out what I need, I put the plastic cover back on.

Plenty of strategically placed ventilation holes for good circulation on both bowl and cover. My fruits are protected from outside contamination like dust. The cover also holds in beneficial gases for enhanced ripening. And I always put a paper towel in the bottom to absorb any excess moisture and to keep fruits from directly touching the plastic.

What you see in the bowl is a random selection for late June. Avocado and hydroponic tomatoes are available all year. But those nectarines are one of the first of the summer fruits. The ones in the bowl are from California.

After nectarines, I start buying local New York State for summer fruit. Apricots, peaches, all kinds of plums, and seasonal tomatoes. Moving into fall, there are numerous varieties of pears and kiwis. Winter is citrus, but those fruits are best kept in the refrigerator. Moving into spring of course the first tree fruits are cherries, but they too are keep better in the frig. Then we start again with nectarines. The fruit ripener gets year round use in my kitchen thought for non seasonal tomatoes and avocados.

The fruit ripener sits in a corner of my crowded workspace because of the important service it provides. I don’t forget about my fruits because I look at them everyday. Fruit ripens at its speed. The avocado is not ripe because I want to make a guacamole. It’s ripe when it is ready. But I can check things out every day. If one of my fruits starts to go bad, I pull it out, salvage what I can, and keep contamination from spreading.

So I say to myself, why don’t more people use fruit ripeners?

Maybe limited counter space?

Most kitchens nowadays are gigantic and full of all kinds of gadgets and tools. No something else must be going on. It’s my cramped New York City kitchen that has no counter space, but I can still find room.

Maybe folks don’t know how to prepare fruit? Or maybe they just don’t know fruit is a no work eating experience. That is a possibility.

But my gut says the real reason is that people don’t eat a lot of fruit.

And people who don’t eat a lot of fruit do not need a fruit ripener.

Fruit can be expensive. Actually very expensive. And if you don’t eat the fruit when it’s ready, one more chemistry experiment goes in the garbage can.

Habit may also be a contributing factor. I’m in the habit of having a piece after dinner every night. Not because I’m a dietitian, but because I like fruit. Most people I know given a choice of ice cream or a fresh ripe nectarine will opt for the ice cream. Not me, but I’m just weird that way.

Now being a dietitian, I wish more people would eat more fruit.

But also being an incorrigible optimist who likes to keep my focus on the positive side of the spectrum, I do see the bright side. The more good fruit out there, the more there is for me.