If you’re like me, and you care about your diet, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture by micromanaging every bite: Is it healthier to drink green tea or yerba maté? Sprinkle cereal with blueberries or raisins? Recently, I was reminded to take a wider view by Heidi Swanson, a young, hip, multi-talented cookbook author from the San Francisco Bay Area (in addition to being a culinary whiz, she is also a photographer and graphic designer). Swanson runs two websites www.101cookbooks.com and www.mightyfoods.com and recently published Super Natural Foods: Five Ways to Incorporate Whole & Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking, which aims to turn readers on to everything from teff (a type of whole grain) to antioxidant-rich goji berries. In it, Swanson suggests:
- expand your pantry with whole and natural flours, oils, fats, sweeteners, and spices,
- experiment with alternative grains like quinoa, teff, and amaranth,
- understand the importance of eating from a colorful plate,
- get acquainted with powerful, nutrient-rich superfoods, and
- branch out from white to natural sugars as you did from table to sea salt
At Delicious Living, we approach food in much the same way, so I’m psyched to try out a few recipes from Super Natural Cooking. Maybe this week I’ll treat my family to the Spring Minestrone (with asparagus and peas), the Sprouted Garbanzo Burgers, or the Coconut Panna Cotta.
