Tag Archives: protein

Protein is a macronutrient. Protein is a molecular component found in both animals and plants.

Protein functions as biological cement.

🟢Steel Cut Oats. Warm, chewy, sweet with 0% calories #UPF


A bowl of oatmeal made with steel cut oats is one of my favorite breakfasts. Especially appreciated when it’s cold outside and I want something warm inside my gut.

Steel cut oats are the closest version to oats in their whole, unprocessed form. Those unprocessed oats are called oat groats. Making oatmeal with steel cut oats is a time intensive process so it’s understandable why most of my fellow Americans prefer the option of quick cooked oats. But nothing can match the flavor of a well cooked soft, chewy, deliciously nutty consistency bowl of steel cut oatmeal.

The ingredient I use to make a bowl of oatmeal reads clean and un-trafficked: water, steel cut oats, blueberries, strawberries, pecans, turbinado sugar, butter, salt. You can see the pecans if you look closely for brown edges peaking out from time to time between oats and fruits. The ingredients I use are mostly minimally processed except for the culinary processed ingredients – sugar, butter, salt.

In one of those rare moments of consensus what tastes delicious to me actually matches what the friendly food police would allow me to label healthy. Whole Grains, Fruit, Protein (pecans are now protein foods) qualify my bowl of oatmeal as food. And as long as I limit my serving size to one cup, those nutrients of concern (added sugar, sodium, saturated fat) comply with current “healthy” thresholds.

In today’s food marketplace, oatmeals come in different degrees of processing. At one extreme is my bowl of steel cut oatmeal – time consuming to make and labor intensive to source and prep. At the other extreme is off the shelf instant oatmeal – boil in a cup, just add water, no added sugar made with novel or artificial sweeteners, often fortified with folate, and definitively #UPF ultra-processed.

And that brings me to the food matrix and cellular / acellular nutrition.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

The USDA defines “food matrix” as the nutrient and non-nutrient components of foods and their molecular relationships to each other. In other words the food matrix is the cell’s molecular structure.

There’s a complementary concept floating in and out of certain European research studies that focuses on cellular nutrients. The logic goes something like this – nutrients that remain within the cell structure – cellular nutrients – take longer to metabolize and by extension are considered healthier than nutrients that have been extracted then added back in.

Here in the US, both enrichment and fortification are common practice. And both processes require adding isolated nutrients back into a food product. Both are examples of acellular nutrients. Acellular nutrients are rapidly and completely digested in the stomach and small intestines.

Does the body care are whether nutrients arrive in a cellular structure or if these nutrients are acellular? Here in the US, the answer is pretty consistently that it makes no difference. Moreover, folate fortification has good research data to support a clear health benefit.

What can be said with certainty however is that our gut evolved over the millennia to metabolism cellular nutrients, not acellular nutrients.

🟢Green Split Pea Soup. Freshly prepared with 0% calories from #UPF

Winter is soup weather. The colder it get outside, and trust me here in New York’s Hudson Valley it can get pretty chilly, the more I appreciate a bowl of steaming hot soup. Warms me up from the inside out.

My ingredient list is simple. Green split peas, water, mirepoix (onion, carrot, fennel), olive oil, salt. It’s a tradition recipes made from scratch with no assistance from any processed or ultra-processed products so the recipes gets a green 🟢 dot.

I think I just heard someone ask what is a mirepoix? Mirepoix is a French word and it’s the basic flavor enhancement made for much of classic French cuisine. The French version consists of onion, carrot, celery. But the concept is global, infinitely mutable, and every traditional culinary cuisines uses some form of aromatic vegetable flavor base. It’s how cooks and chefs enhanced flavor prior to the industrial food era.

The taste of home made split pea soup can’t be captured in any canned or instant soup I’ve ever tasted. Cleaner. Fresher. More robust fully developed flavors. I’m not a food scientist so I can’t tell you why however. What I do know is the best quality ingredients make the most flavorful soup.

Industrially formulated soups will sometimes use combinations of aromatic vegetables but today it’s also common to use artificial or natural flavors. Industrial processors find it easier and cheaper to pick and choose from the myriad of flavorings now available.

Whether you are an home cook like me or an industrial manufacturer, the problem with soup is the same. Too much salt. Soup is notorious for being high in sodium. My home made version uses less than commercial brands do, but it’s still a lot. And for sure when it comes to using the word “healthy” on a product label, “healthy” is the Kiss of Death ☠️.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Within our regulatory framework, there are multiple perspectives on how to evaluate salt and health outcomes. The health problem with salt is the relationship between sodium and blood pressure in some people. And the problem with high blood pressure is it can increase the risk for cardiovascular vascular disease. It’s at this point regulatory guidelines can get messy. Using the example of my homemade soup, let’s take a look at just how messy …

❌ The Nutrition Facts Label reflect a high sodium value. High means a cup provided more than 20% of the DV (Daily Value). The Dietary Guidelines has set the value for sodium at 2300mg per day using CDRR (Chronic Disease Risk Reduction) methodology.

✅ The FDA has established a Voluntary Sodium Reduction program for food processors and restaurants. This program evaluates sodium using grams per 100 for shelf stable soup. Without boring you with calculations, my homemade spite pea soup is already below target for all three categories – restaurant, frozen, and shelf stable soups.

It’s a dilemma and a bit of a kerfuffle. Is the food police going to come after me because when I salt to taste, I increase my risk for cardio vascular problems? Or should I get a standing ovation because I’m doing better than most of my fellow Americans because I my split pea soup is homemade?

🟡Grilled Chicken, Red Peppers, Pinto Beans, Pasta. Freshly prepared with 29% UPF

Food is complex. Nutrition is wicked hard. Cutting through all those layers is no small feat, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Americans are used to starting with nutrients. So my first suggestion is to forget nutrients for a moment and focus on the food. Those gorgeous red peppers. The grilled chicken strips. That occasional pinto bean that is peeking out here and there. Or the pasta. The Italians call the pasta “elicodale” which translates into English as spiral shaped and as you can see those deep ridges create a sort of spiral pattern.

The grilled chicken dish is freshly prepared with traditional ingredients. But as noted above, nearly a third of the calories come from ingredients which are classified as ultra-processed – NOVA Group 4 UPF. These ingredients are the grilled chicken, the vegetable broth, and the tomato basil sauce.

These three items are industrially formulated convenience products and all were developed relatively recently. Home cooks like me know that making vegetable broth or red sauce from scratch takes time. And cutting up and grilling chicken breast strips is messy. Scratch cooking tastes better, but life intercedes so I’m okay using industrially formulated products as long as they are made with simple intact ingredients and do not contain flavors, colors, texture modifiers, or acellular nutrients.

The 29% calories UPF noted above is the sum of the calories from the vegetable broth, grilled chicken, and tomato basil sauce. The yellow 🟡 dot means I used ultraprocessed products but each of the products I used are acceptable. To me.

Focusing on food is easy. For those not used to home cooking, it may take some practice but it’s a skill anyone can develop. It just takes practice.

Focusing on nutrients is not easy.  The Nutrition Facts Label can be helpful for assessing the three nutrients that health professionals recommend limiting. As you’ll note from the label above, the sodium percentage stands out from the other Daily Value percentages. Palatability is as important to me as health when I cook at home so I salt to taste. Although I use salt in moderation, the food police will still bang on my head for using too much salt. Compared to the high sodium valued seen in restaurant meals or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) however, my moderate use looks a lot better.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

American who pay attention to labels are used to putting nutrients first because that’s the message labels have been reinforcing for the last 50 years. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has been nutrient focused for 5 decades! It wasn’t until December 2024 that a “meaningful amount” of food became a component for using the word “healthy” on food product labels. It’s a positive step however and I applaud the FDA for finally acknowledging that food does count.

🟢Tagine Braised Lamb Shanks. Freshly prepared with 0% calories #UPF

My traditional Christmas meal for the last couple of years has been lamb shanks. I use my tagine and cook the shanks in a slow oven with aromatics, tomato, and dry vermouth.

Before the braising process starts, the shanks get a 20 minute oven roasting as the picture above illustrates. They look a lot different of course after braising, but a picture of that initial roasting makes it easier to see the shanks themselves as well as the fat content.

The shanks come out so tender you can cut them with a fork. And they taste so good most folks want a whole one on the plate. As for me, a half a shank will do. The label above reflects the facts for approximately 1/2 a lamb shank.

The ingredient list is simple and short – lamb, tomato, dry vermouth, onion, fennel, carrot, olive oil, parsley, salt. That means a green 🟢 for NOVA compliance. But as happens with so many of my traditional recipes, lamb shanks get a thumbs down for “healthy” due to the saturated fat from the meat.

As my zealous colleagues love to point out, avoiding ultraprocessed food products is not good guidance for a healthy dietary pattern. And lamb shanks are a good example of what my colleagues are pointing out. Even though lamb shanks have less visible fat than lamb chops, there’s enough to exceed recommended values. Those beautiful lamb shanks aren’t high in saturated fat but they don’t qualify as lean either. Even a moderate amount of saturated fat is more than the evidence based percentage DV (Daily Value) allows.

Am I concerned about a moderate amount of saturated fat? No, not really. As I used to tell my clients when I worked in counseling, you can eat pretty much what you want to as long as you’re willing to manage frequency and portion size. So if fat isn’t the uncomfortable truth, what is?

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

My uncomfortable truth is sustainability. Beef and lamb have environmental issues, even when the animals are pasture raised and grassfed. And that issue concerns me.

Industrial livestock production can and does cause significant environmental damage. Eating less meat and more plants is better for the environment. So what’s an omnivore like me to do? I’ve wrestled with that question for a long time and here’s what I’ve come up.

I’m fussy about sourcing and avoid industrial production when ever I can.

I also take my own good advice – smaller portions less often. The lamb shanks are a once a year celebration meal. And I know that what’s important about celebration meals is sitting back and enjoying friends and family.

I do have another approach to sustainability but I’m going to save that one for another post.

🟢Mayocoba Beans. Freshly prepared with 4% calories #UPF



Is it just me or am I the only one who loves beans because they can taste good?

Pictured above  are some beautiful Mayocoba beans I made for a holliday dinner last year as an accompaniment for roasted duck. Mayocoba beans are savory enough to stand on their own yet earthy enough to share the plate with a robust partner. Like roast duck.

The Mayocoba bean is a native of Peru. Mayocobas grow many places now including California which is where I source from. My taste for savory beans developed early on because I grew up eating Mexican street food and New England baked beans on a regular basis. We probably go through about 20 pounds a year per person. The average American on the other hand eats closer to 6 pounds.

Beans do need tender loving care to achieve tastiness. Heirloom beans, some culinary skill, an honest olive oil, the right amount of salt, flavorful aromatics like onion, carrot, fennel, and a handful of parsley.

Why heirloom beans? Because these varieties tend to have more nuanced flavor profiles than commodity crops.

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

 Beans have officially displaced kale as the new nutrition obsession as per a headline that crossed my feed recently. My dietitian colleagues, the advisory committee for DGA2025, a growing number of Influencers, and the combined marketing muscle of American farmers who grow them – everyone seems to agree that a healthy dietary pattern includes eating a lot more beans.

If those Mayocoba beans pictured above were a product however I couldn’t market them as healthy because I used too much salt. At the same time, the amount I used meets the FDA Phase II sodium goal for restaurants.

In my view, we’re not going to be able to persuade Americans to eat more beans if we ignore palatability.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to make a respectable place for moderation within the healthy model?

 

 

🟡Actual Veggies Burger. Quickly assembled with 87% calories #UPF


Veggie burgers were born during the 1980s. The rational was simple – concentrate or extract the protein component of a plant instead of using muscle meat. Next enhance using texture modifiers, colors, flavors to form a flattened, rounded patty that resembled a ground beef paddy. These original veggie burgers were clearly ultra-processed. 

An alternative method was to use an intact food like black beans or mushrooms. Since I am partial to the intact food approach, I have always favored for black bean version. So when I found a new black bean burger “chef crafted with caramelized onion”, I decided to give Actual Veggies Black Bean Burger a try.

Like every other veggie burger in the freezer unit of an American supermarket, Actual Veggies meet the criteria for an UPF – an industrially formulated mass produced food product with considerably more than 5 ingredients.

There are good reasons to be cautious with UPF. A decade of research, most of which has been done outside the US, has established significant correlation between percentage of ultra processed food products in the dietary pattern and negative health outcomes. On the other hand, avoiding UPF means systematically avoiding convenience products and about 70% of the food currently sold in our supermarkets.

Not an easy decision especially if you’re a working mom or dad and depend on convenience to feed the family. Even tough for folks like me who prefer the taste of freshly prepared but welcome a break from the daily grind of scratch cooking. So the question then becomes, where do we draw the line between acceptable convenience and frivolous indulgence.

The best place to start thinking about making a decision is to start with an ingredient list.

The Actual Veggies burger list reads as follows: Black Bean, Carrot, Parsnip, Oat, Yellow Onion, Red Onion, Red Pepper, Chickpea Flour, Lemon, Spice Blend (Ovata Seed, Kosher Salt, Garlic Powder, Paprika, Chili Powder, Cumin, Black Pepper).

There are no added colors, no added artificial or natural flavors, and no texture modifying agents like xanthan gum or lecithin or methylcellulose. On visual inspection, I can see the black beans are intact and I can see small flecks of red pepper. The rest of those vegetables however have lost their individuality and become part of the puréed mass that holds the burger together.

I do see one “unfamiliar” ingredients I don’t keep in my kitchen cabinet – ovata seed. In fact I’d never heard of ovata seed until I read the ingredient list. Here’s what came back from a Google search. Plantago ovata is a common medicinal plant widely cultivated in tropical regions of the world. The outer seed coat of P. ovata, obtained by cleaning the seeds, contains soluble and insoluble fibre in a ratio of 7:3, making products containing P. ovata husk an ideal source of health-beneficial fibre.

Time savings are significant – I didn’t have to make my own black bean burger or bake my own brioche bun or mix up a batch of home made mayonnaise.

There’s a taste test to follow of course, but in terms of degree of processing, Actual Veggies burger gets a yellow dot. 🟡

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Always important to remember that people eat food not ingredients. That means the burger needs to be all dressed up before I take my first bite or run the numbers. Besides the Actual Veggies, I used an artisan brioche bun from a local Northeast regional baker, some olive oil for frying. I also added a couple slices of tomato, some mayo, and lettuce.

I’m happy to report that my Actual Veggies burger passed my taste test.

The calories clocked in around 400 / 450. Nutrient analysis reflects 11 grams protein (plant based protein for the sustainable crowd), 8 grams dietary fiber, and a serving of vegetables (Actual Veggies, lettuce, tomato).

The sodium does look high and there’s not enough potassium to balance the potassium:sodium ratio. The sodium comes from ultra-processed foods (my brioche bun, the mayo, the Actual Veggie). But honestly, if I had done it all from scratch, the sodium would have roughly comparable.

The CDRR for sodium is 2300mg per day independent of age, gender, or lifestyle. The Advisory Committee DGA2025 meeting #6 this year made a sobering assessment regarding sodium reduction in US dietary patterns. Sodium exceeds 2300mg even when criteria are applied to identify lower nutrient density foods. My reading of that assessment is Americans are going to have to adjust to a No Added Salt dietary pattern to comply with the CDRR. And I’m not sure setting such an austere goal is helpful. Or even attainable without enlisting the food police.

🔴Boca Burger. Quickly assembled with 97% calories #UPF


The Boca Burger has been around since 1979.

That means Boca marks the beginning of an era. During the 1980’s, the dominance of ultra-processing #UPF was established in our American food environment.

A plant based burger is a lot more sophisticated today than it was in 1979. Most plant based burgers however, regardless of the degree of sophistication, are classified as NOVA Group 4 / #UPF.

The Boca I served for dinner the other night consisted of the burger, hamburger bun, shredded lettuce, tomato, mayo. There’s not much controversy over what makes the Boca ultra-processed. Or for that matter what makes the commodity hamburger bun ultra-processed. Both are industrially formulated convenience products manufacturer with markers and processes not available to home cooks. Both products have a lengthy ingredient list. Commodity mayo is also ultra-processed because it usually contains a preservative but I’m okay with food safety. The shredded lettuce and tomato are both minimally processed but these ingredients constitute only about 25% by weight.

So that’s the scoop. Thanks to the Nutrition Facts Label we know my Boca Burger puts lots of sodium on the plate. Using the NOVA lens, it’s easy to see why my Boca Burger qualifies as ultra-processed. In my opinion #UPF is not a reason to avoid the Boca Burger unless …

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

My significant other likes burgers and buns. He’s okay with plant based and that’s why I gave Boca a shot. Keeping a meal in the freezer that can be reheated and served on those days when I don’t have time to cook is handy so I’m always evaluating options.

He was fine with the Boca. My problem with most industrially formulated foods is they are boring – they always taste the same.

But my digestion was not happy. Something in the combination upset my gut.

Just because an additive is safe doesn’t mean the substance sets well in everyone’s gut. My gut is unhappy with one of the substances. Is it the soy protein concentrate? Or perhaps the modified cellulose, the wheat gluten, the hydrolyzed wheat protein, or the natural flavor? Or perhaps it’s simply that my gut is not used to metabolizing substances that I don’t eat on a regular basis.

What ever the reason, it’s still okay to say no thanks. Trusting your gut is just common sense and there’s nothing wrong with good old fashioned common sense.

The brutal business of steaming clams.

Long Island little neck clams

Long Island little neck clams

I have a lot of culinary respect for Chef Dan Barber. Never been to the restaurant, but I have read his recent book The Third Plate. It’s a good read.

Earlier this summer, Dan Barber did an interview with Eater New York

“Why Farm-to-Table King Dan Barber Believes Meat Is Hyper-Seasonal”. Here is the response to a question posed by the interviewer: “Do you believe people who eat meat should see an animal being slaughtered at least once to gain appreciation for what’s on their plate? If so, why?”

Intuitively I subscribe to that, but I don’t know that you need to see the sacrifice to be worthy of eating meat. There’s a part of me that believes that all cooks should, which is what we do here at Blue Hill. We make them part of slaughter because they’re working with these animals, with a ton of meat throughout the course of a week. I feel that it’s pretty important that they get that kind of side.

If you’re eating meat and you’re knowing the farmer and you’re supporting the right kind of ecology I think that’s enough. Or I’ll put it to you another way, if I were to demand everyone who eats meat thoughtfully should also slaughter or be a part of a slaughter of meat I would say the same thing about the harvest of a plant of kale or the harvesting of a tomato. You need to be there for the harvest.

Now you may be asking what in the world does a carniferous celebrity chef have to do with me learning how to steam clams? Let me explain.

I have always believed that people who eat meat should be prepared to slaughter and butcher the animal. Or the chicken. Or the fish. So to find someone of Dan Barber’s statue actually saying this out loud is notable. To me at least.

Would I actually be able to do it? Slaughter and eat an animal? I don’t know. I’ve never had a chance to try. But that is the connection with clams and this is the rest of the story.

Linguine and clam sauce is a truly delectable dish. One of the first restaurant meals I had after arriving in New York and it was love at first bite.

Being a California girl, the only clams I had ever heard of before moving to Long Island were Pismo clams. Pismos grew big up to seven inches and I think folks made chowder with them. I had never seen a small delicate clam before I arrived in New York.

We all tend to feel comfortable doing the things we are used to. So the first time I saw a native Long Islander dig up a clam, break it open, and eat it raw, my stomach wretched. It was way out of my comfort zone. Still can’t do it to this day.

But love is a powerful motivator and I really love linguine and clam sauce. So a couple of years ago, I took action. My analytic left brain knew if I ate clams someone had to get them from the shell onto the plate and logic demanded either I forgo the pleasure or I be prepared to do the job myself. Mind over matter is easier said then done. So for almost a year I just looked. Then one beautiful summer day I took the plunge and purchased a dozen little neck clams.

And yes the linguine and clam sauce was delicious. Been making variations ever since.

So I say thank you Casey, my greenmarket fishmonger, for picking out the smallest ones just for me. And I say thank you Dan Barber for giving me the courage to say out loud something I have felt in my heart but have been reluctant to say before.

Here is one healthy sustainable fish.

Porte or Scup | photo from NOAA fishwatch.gov

Porgy or Scup | photo from NOAA fishwatch.gov

Stenotomus chrysops, more commonly called porgy or scup, is one of my favorite whole fishes. I didn’t know how to call the fish the first time I bought one, but it was love a first sight. The right size and so fresh I could smell the sea. I like my fish whole. Grilled, steamed, broiled, pan fried. Just give me a whole fish.

I lived on the south shore when I first moved to New York, so I had good access to fresh fish. My curiosity and sense of culinary adventure have always been my best teacher, so although I never heard of a fish called a porgy or a scup before, it was the right size and the right price and I bought a couple on the spot.

Living on the South Shore of Long Island provided good access to fishmongers and local catch and we ate a lot of scup. The fish is just the right size for two modest portions or one big e.g. generous restaurant size portion.

Calculations for whole fish are easy. Count 50% edible and 50% for bones, skin, cooking loss, and all that other stuff. A fish that weighs 1 1/3 pounds (600 grams) as purchased means about 10 ounces (300 grams) cooked. The nutrition nerd in me really diggs those kind of calculations. I prefer using the gram amounts because I can do the arithmetic in my head.

My scup was a resounding success. They do have bones, but practice makes perfect and my daughter learned to tackle whole fish by the age of 12 with skill and gusto.

I no longer live so close to the shore and I have discovered that scup is not easy to come by. Greeks are fish eaters and whole scup or porgy is often served in Greek restaurants. And I also know there have been periods of intense regulation due to over fishing which has periodically limited the catch.

But my favorite Greenmarket fishmonger was the person who told me the real reason. Although scup is plentiful now, they just don’t sell.

“I bring them but no one buys them so I am stuck with the whole lot.” Next question of course is why don’t your other customers like them as much as I do. “Probably because they are sold whole.”

Since early 2013, an national organization called Chefs Collaborative has been holding Trash Fish Dinners around the country to bring attention to undervalued and underutilized species of fish. The goal is to encourage chefs and diners to focus on fish that have historically been left off menus to help to take pressure off of overfished species and help support our fishing communities

Sounds to me like scup fits that description well. It’s plentiful, sustainable, local and underused. Personally I like it much better than tilapia, another popular inexpensive mild flavored fish. The flavor profile is more interesting to my palate and because it’s local I can buy the fish whole. And serving it whole means the filet gets cooked protected by the skin so moisture and flavor are better retained.

So there you have it. For you fish eaters who live on the east coast and are looking for an underutilized “trash” fish to cook whole, give scup a try. Healthy. Sustainable. Delicious. Who can ask for more?

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