Italian Tempeh and Veggies in Tomato Cream Sauce
My sister and her husband came to dinner last night and I wanted to make a delicious Italian dish because she LOVES pasta! I created this italian recipe just for them. The recipe is absolutely delicious and is PACKED with nutrition!
This photo also features some gluten free breadsticks, I had little time so I made them out of biscuit dough, they turned out good but they aren't recipe blog worthy in my opinion so I won't feature the recipe here.
Recipe Thoughts, Nutrition Tidbits, and Carrot Juice Nutritional Profile
Carrot juice is found in many of my recipes because it is so packed with nutrients and adds such an amazing flavor to the food. It is sad to me that so many people are so ill informed when it comes to nutrition. Nutrition understanding is based on a totally reductionist view of nutrition.
We select a food such as protein, find the food we 'think' has the most protein and that food is then considered healthy and necessary in order to get your protein. We do the same thing for calcium, omega 3's and any other fad nutrient to come along. The problem with this is, we totally miss the boat entirely through this approach, we eat unhealthy foods that are not good for us because they contain some random, high prized nutrient in large quantities, when in reality ALL food contains this nutrient and therefore that particular food is unnecessary anyway.
To give you an example, our humble carrot juice. Let me guess, you think carrot juice has sugars and some vitamin A [carotenoids] right? Wrong? The nutritional profile of carrot juice is BROAD!! Carrot juice has been used by natural health professionals for hundreds of years as a healing juice, why? Because the nutritional profile of carrot juice is impressive and supremely health promoting. If you thought you knew a lot about nutrition, lets take a peak into the nutritional profile of carrot juice and you might think twice about what you think you know about nutrition.
Nutritional Profile of Carrot Juice
1 cup of Carrot juice
All percentages are the daily percent of the RDA
Calories..............94
Protein................2.2g [Carrot juice has protein....gasp...shock]
Fat.......................4g [Carrots have fat? Yes, this is how our fat needs are met without refined oil, gasp]
Vitamin A............1935%
Folate......................2%
Vitamin B1.............20%
Vitamin B2.............12%
Vitamin B3.............7%
Vitamin B5...........11%
Vitamin B6...........39%
Vitamin C............27% [But I thought only oranges had vitamin C]
Vitamin E............18%
Vitamin K...........41%
Calcium..............6% [Okay wait, only cows milk has calcium, NOPE!]
Iron...................6%
Magnesium.......10%
Manganese.......17%
Phosphorus......14%
Potassium........15%
Selenium...........3%
Sodium.............5% [But I thought we had to eat table salt for sodium, nope, it is in plants]
Zinc.................5%
Omega 3's......2% [Something other than flax and fish has omega 3's? I am shocked at the poor understanding of nutrition these days, almost ALL plant foods contain fat and even omega 3's, I know, I know how crazy is that, nature provided well for our nutritional needs and yet, we don't even realize it]
As you can see, something as simple as 1 cup of carrot juice can provide a significant amount of nutrition. In fact, consuming carrot juice mixed with a variety of vegetable juices can provide nearly all nutrients we require in a day.
Hopefully that helps you understand why you see so many vegetables, including carrot juice in so many of my daily recipes and menu plans, it is for the nutritional content! I hope this brief look into the nutritional profile of carrot juice has helped broaden your understanding of nutrition so that you see that nutrition and nutrient consumption is so much more than milk=calcium, fish=omega 3's etc....
on to more recipes............
Italian Macadamia Cream Salad Dressing Recipe
This salad dressing recipe was a creation in an effort to get my husband and kids to eat a salad for lunch.....it was a smashing success!!! They all LOVED this salad dressing recipe and cleaned their plates. I added the yellow squash to the salad dressing recipe as a thickener in place of refined, empty calorie oil and to increase the nutritional content of the dressing.
Blending zucchini, yellow squash and other veggies in sauces is a great way to sneak veggies into your family's diet!
More Nutrition Tidbits
Okay, so you read the carrot juice nutritional profile and you might be thinking that was interesting, but why add yellow squash to a salad dressing? Well, it is the same reason I add carrot juice to many recipes, NUTRITION. Unfortunately, most people have little understanding of the simple nutritional profile of vegetables, because our society focuses on protein=meat and milk=calcium and that's about where nutrition knowledge ends. Vegetables only make up about 5-7% of the American diet and therefore we have VERY little understanding of the nutrition in fruits and vegetables.
I enjoy creating delicious salad dressing recipes to share, but I think it is important for you to understand WHY you need to eat your veggies. Sure, you know veggies are good for you because your mom said so, but WHY are they good for you? Lets find out by using the humble yellow squash nutritional profile as an example.
Yellow Squash Nutritional Profile
1 yellow summer squash
Calories.................51
Protein..................4g [squash has protein? Surprise!]
Fat................... .6g [you can get all the fat you need from natural foods]
Vitamin A............28%
Folate..................23%
Vitamin B1.........14%
Vitamin B2.........42%
Vitamin B3.........11%
Vitamin B5.........10%
Vitamin B6.........54%
Vitamin C...........73%
Vitamin E............3%
Vitamin K...........11%
Calcium..............5%
Iron....................6%
Magnesium........17%
Manganese.........31%
Phosphorus.........18%
Potassium...........18%
Selenium.............1%
Sodium...............1/2%
Zinc.....................12%
Another shining example of how nutritionally dense vegetables are. In only 51 calories you get A LOT of nutrients!!! This is the reason you should EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!! Your mom was right! Most nutrient deficiencies are due to a lack of a variety of vegetables. They are nutrition powerhouses packed with a small amount of calories, this is the absolute key to weight loss too. Eat your veggies. The nutritional profile of the humble yellow squash is amazing and yet it is only one example of the potent nutrition found in vegetables.
This is the reason you will see vegetables featured in every main meal recipe I create, because they should absolutely take center stage.
Carrot Veggie Bean Burger Recipe
My sunburgers have been a hit with EVERYONE who has tried them. They are a staple in our house, however I decided to create a veggie burger with higher nutrient density and this delicious little veggie burger was the result. My husband said it is better than my sunburgers and that is saying a lot because sunburgers are his favorite!!
**I did not dress up this veggie burger for the photo because I wanted you to see the texture of the patty and the veggies.
Nutritional Profile of the Veggie Burgers
I thought it would be interesting to show you the nutritional profile of these veggie burgers so you can see how potent a plant based diet is nutritionally, I figured this for 1 veggie burger.
Calories....................150
Protein....................8g
Fat........................4.5g
Vitamin A............31%
Folate..................11%
Vitamin B1...........34%
Vitamin B2...........38%
Vitamin B3...........21%
Vitamin B6...........35%
Vitamin C..............12%
Vitamin K..............5%
Black Bean Dip Recipe
My goal this past week has been to get the fam to eat MORE veggies. My son LOVES beans, he will eat them right out of the can, so this was my little trick to get him to eat veggies, my black bean dip recipe creation. It worked like a charm, he dipped veggies in this bleack bean dip all week. However, he did end up eating a lot of the black bean dip right out of the bowl, but it still is a healthy snack without the veggies too!
This is a fabulous dip for veggies!! You can also bake up some sprouted ezekiel corn tortillas and dip those in it too. Enjoy!
Looking for Articles on Nutrition?
I have authored a couple of articles that are available on Article Base, if you are interested in learning more about nutrition please check out my articles.
I will be publishing articles frequently so please subscribe and read my articles, thanks so much for all your support!
http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/how-to-get-your-kids-to-eat-healthy-food-4128345.html
http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/fruit-nutrition-facts-4120868.html
