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Healthy Holiday Cooking
‘Tis the season for overeating
by Wendy Smith
I saw the listing for healthy cooking classes on either a flyer or in a local health magazine. As I perused the class listings I saw “Breakfast—the most important meal of the day” (too much trouble), “Vegan” (not sure I’m quite there), “Cooking for Balance” (a little too balanced, perhaps, for me) and, there it was, “Cooking for the Holidays.” I was immediately intrigued because the holidays are all about cooking and eating and cooking and eating, for the most part, unhealthy food. (Bring on that pumpkin cheesecake!) I signed up, but I had no idea what I was in for.
This particular class had about 10 people in it. Most of the folks had taken classes from the chef, Michelle Samples, before. When I got there, Michelle was behind the cooking counter with a wooden spoon in each hand demonstrating a Tai Chai move she had learned the previous weekend. Michelle Samples has been teaching cooking classes for 16 years. She is a vegetarian chef and has degrees in Microbiology, Medical Technology and Public Health, so I felt fairly confident that the kitchen was clean and the class would probably be interesting. And it was. Michelle is a spirited, energetic woman who seems to lack a vocal or motion censor and says and does whatever pops into her mind concerning cooking or life in general. Her energy is as good as her food.
Michelle cooks with the goal of balancing every meal with five tastes. Most of us have heard of Feng Shui—the balance of the five Chinese elements in one’s environment. These elements also carry over into food and tastes and, as in Feng Shui, the elements are associated with a color. The five tastes are pungent (metal, white), sweet (earth, yellow), sour (wood, green), salty (water, black) and bitter (fire, red). Michelle believes if a meal contains all these tastes then hunger can be satisfied and cravings, and thus overeating, can be avoided.
Michelle’s classes are informal and informative. She cooks, talks and fields questions while the class asks questions and eats. During the class I attended, she made some incredible holiday dishes that were also extremely healthy. She started the meal out with a miso soup made from the green broth left over from blanching kale. Miso soup is a good appetizer, as it starts the digestive juices flowing. She made chickpeas with carrots dusted with ground toasted black sesame seeds (sweet, salty), mashed sweet potatoes with barley malt and cinnamon (sweet), kale with a sunflower seed dressing (bitter, sweet), pressed salad (pungent, sour), cole slaw (pungent, sour), dressing with millet and pine nuts (pungent, sweet, salty, bitter) and arame, a type of seaweed and my new favorite food, with portabella mushrooms and broccoli (salty, sour). She topped the meal off with pumpkin pie (sweet) and “whipped cream” (sour, sweet) for dessert. It was delicious. But the amazing thing was that no simple sugars were used and no butter was used. The whipped cream was made out of tofu. Seriously. The pumpkin pie used rice syrup and barley malt instead of sugar. The dressing contained wild rice, brown rice, sage, millet and pine nuts. As Michelle cooked, she talked about what elements the food represented and what part each dish had in the digestive process. I thought I was going for one of those “cut down on sugar” lectures and got educated in a new way of thinking about food.
I asked Michelle what those of us could do who might want to cook healthier this holiday season but don’t have the knowledge she does—or the desire to become a vegetarian. The first thing she said was to substitute complex sugars such as barley malt, rice syrup and maple syrup for white or processed sugar. Also, use less sugar. Most dishes still taste fine with a much smaller amount of sugar. Don’t use so much oil and use the highest quality oil. The stronger, brighter taste will go further. Get a hormone-free, antibiotic-free, free-range turkey. Reuse water from boiling vegetables in a soup or other dish. Substitute umeboshi vinegar in salad dressing or use in combination with other vinegars. It’s a liver cleanser and very alkaline. Use rice vinegar. Finish off a meal with bancha twig tea—it aids in digestion instead of coffee. Avoid processed grains. Eat more vegetables and don’t overcook them. Vegetables help alkanize the body and most people are too acidic, which can cause sickness. And last but not least, try to incorporate all five tastes into each meal to avoid cravings that cause overeating. This is especially important at this time of year when tempting treats are around every corner.
Michelle was kind enough to share a few recipes with us, which can be found here.
I fully intend to serve seaweed (arame) to my family on Thanksgiving and not tell them what it is until after they rave about how good it is.
Michelle Samples teaches healthy cooking classes based on balance and the five elements. Call 865-584-3864 or e-mail [email protected] for more information.
November 24, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 48
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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