Some of the top food sources for vitamin B6, per ounce (daily need is 2 mg)

Some of the top food sources for vitamin B6, per 28 grams or roughly one ounce (daily need is 2 mg):

sunflower seeds: 0.38 mg

pistachio nuts: 0.31 mg

wild salmon (cooked): 0.26 mg

white meat poultry (cooked): 0.23 mg

pork sirloin (cooked): 0.22 mg

prunes: 0.20 mg

beef (cooked): 0.19 mg

bananas: 0.10 mg

avocado: 0.08 mg

spinach (cooked): 0.06 mg

More here.

Happiness is a morning smoothie

Forty grams of banana

not imported from Havana,

Yogurt, flax and berries bluey

all went in my morning smoothie,

Here in Michigan, not Montana.

 

-- Johnny 

I used to make a livin' man, pickin' the banana

Yes, we have no bananas . . .

That's no banana . . .

. . . we have no bananas today.

The UK Independent reports here on a fungus which threatens to devastate worldwide Cavendish banana production, a major food source for hundreds of millions of people, including smoothie lovers everywhere:

Since it emerged in the 1950s as the replacement for another banana variety ravaged by an earlier form of Panama disease, Cavendish has helped make bananas the most valuable fruit crop in the world, dominated by large multinational growing companies such as Fyffes, Chiquita and Dole.

But the crop – and many other banana varieties – have no defence against TR4, which can live for 30 years or more in the soil and reduces the core of the banana plant to a blackened mush.

My Current Super Foods Menu

Monday--Burritos (homemade pinto beans, onions, and saved bacon fat from uncured bacon, ground turkey, homemade Mexican seasonings, in an Azteca brand flour tortilla with extra sharp cheddar cheese and fresh toppings including homemade guacamole, black olives, salsa, green onion and chopped spinach)

Tuesday--Basil Pesto Sockeye Pie (canned wild sockeye salmon, eggs, homegrown tomato sauce, homemade basil pesto sauce, rolled oats) with a green salad of romaine lettuce and spinach with a lemon-evoo dressing

Wednesday--Italian pasta with homemade hot Italian turkey sausage, homemade tomato sauce, grated Pecorino Romano cheese and steamed green beans or baby broccoli or a romaine-spinach salad

Thursday--One of two flexible nights in the week like Sunday, but often curry night, usually leftover poultry, butter, garlic, Penzeys curry powder, canned coconut milk, flaked coconut, dried cranberries, diced Fuji apples and chopped almonds served over Jasmine rice with a salad on the side, or Italian meatloaf made with ground turkey, rapini and seasonings, or baked chicken with rice and broccoli

Friday--Filet of something from the sea, these days baked skin-on steelhead trout with lemon pepper, Jasmine rice and a steamed vegetable like baby broccoli or green beans, or a curried salmon-rice cake with a fruit sauce, or sockeye pie leftovers

Saturday--Napoli style pizza baked in cast iron with homemade basil pesto sauce, homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, and fresh roma tomato slices, with a fresh salad

Sunday--Charcoal Grill Day: usually hamburgers ground at home from a single piece of Angus chuck served with all the toppings desired on a potato bun and steamed green petite peas with butter, otherwise grilled marinated Otto's chicken (locally grown) with red potatoes baked in the oven, or a stir fry in the wok, or pasta carbonara

Luncheon is usually a homemade barley-lentil soup using homemade chicken broth with some homemade buttered toast, or leftovers like a burrito, and an apple on the side with a square of 70% cocoa chocolate to finish, or a can of Norwegian bristling sardines on rye crackers with a fresh pear

Breakfast is usually stove-top espresso with 2% milk steamed, a hardboiled egg or a fried egg with toast and jam, and a fresh orange, or a blueberry-banana smoothie with homemade yogurt, coconut milk, cinnamon and ground flaxseed meal, or whole oatmeal with berries and walnuts

Wine, especially on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Purists will revolt as purists do, but life is for the enjoying.

Natural Radiation in Salmon

Bananas have 3.5 pCi/g, or 525 pCi per 150 gram banana, enough to alarm a radiation monitor. One per day would give you 36 microSieverts per year.

In America from all sources we get about 6,200 microSieverts per year.

Salmon has 20.0 pCi/g, nearly 6 times as much. A 150 gram piece of salmon will thus emit 3,000 pCi of radiation, a little over 200 microSieverts per year if you ate that much everyday.

Naturally!

Vila's Banana Bread

I love this recipe as much for its simplicity as for the fact that it comes from my mother-in-law. It's on an old, yellowing, 3 x 5 card in her delightfully unmistakeable script. The style of the list of ingredients and instructions is terse and to the point. It's all no fooling around, because she had places to go, and people to see. "This is your favorite mother-in-law calling" is how she addressed me whenever I happened to be the one picking up the phone. I'll never get to hear her say that again. She passed away unexpectedly recently, at the respectable age of 83.

The recipe is wholly lacking in super foods in its original form of sugar, butter, eggs, bananas, baking soda and flour. But add some chopped walnuts, dried fruit like cherries or cranberries, and substitute some whole grain flour for the all purpose unbleached variety and you've got a passable super foods platform going. And a potassium platform, to which topic Steven Pratt devotes over three pages in his SuperFoods HealthStyle, ranking bananas in the middle of the list of potassium-rich foods with 422 mg in a medium sized one. Walnuts have 124 mg in one ounce. When you consider that you need 4700 mg of potassium daily for controlling blood pressure, balancing the body's acidity and alkalinity, and preventing osteoporosis, every little bit helps.

Recipes from Vila are keepers for another reason: she was a discerning judge of character. Not long after making our first acquaintance, she spied a piece of religious propaganda in my possession while seated next to her in the backseat of a car, the title of which had something to do with finding true happiness. After we got underway she non-plussed me with the question, "Have you found true happiness, John?" The tone of her voice was more the knowing tone of adult skepticism than of unalloyed innocence. She already had me pegged.

Blessed with copious amounts of serotonin, one couldn't fail to like her. She was easy to talk to, and her company a pleasure to keep. She never changed, and neither did I. "Cheer up, John" she regularly told me throughout over thirty years of our relationship. And if she could talk to me now, I'm sure that's what she'd say, adding "What I have done you also will be able to do."

Vila's Banana Bread

1 cup sugar

.5 cup butter

2 eggs well beaten

3 large ripe bananas mashed

1 t. baking soda

2 cups flour (one of which can be finely stone-ground whole wheat flour)

.75 cup chopped nuts (walnuts preferred)

.75 cup chopped dried cranberries or other dried fruit (optional)

1. Preheat the oven on bake to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream sugar and butter.

3. Add eggs and bananas.

4. Add sifted flour and soda.

5. Add nuts and mix well (and fruit if using).

6. Pour in greased loaf pan and bake approx. one hour till done.

Fiber-Packed Morning Oats

Come, says Puss, without any more ado,

'tis time to go to breakfast; cats

don't live upon dialogues.

-L'Estrange

Readers of this blog know that oats aren't just for breakfast anymore. We eat them twice a week at dinner in Basil Pesto Sockeye Pie, which is a super food grand slam all by itself. But let's face it, oatmeal for breakfast is probably the best opportunity we have on a daily basis to get this important super food.

Oats are classified among the foods primarily responsible for providing soluble fiber to the body. Other common foods doing so include peas, beans (like pintos), barley, prune juice, plums, berries, bananas, apples, pears, broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onions. The importance of soluble fiber, which is fiber which dissolves in water, is that unlike insoluble fiber, it ferments in the gut and produces short chain fatty acids which do a veritable host of important things for you.

Short chain fatty acids help control blood glucose levels, working on both the pancreas and the liver. They nourish the cells lining the colon walls. They suppress the synthesis of cholesterol and reduce levels of LDL and triglycerides. They increase the colon's acidity which in turn protects the lining from polyp formation while improving mineral absorption. Increased acidity also stimulates production of crucial elements of the immune protection system and improves the health of the colon's mucosal layer which helps inhibit inflammation and irritation.

As you can see, the health of your gut doesn't just make you happy in the toilet. It affects your over all health, touching on issues as diverse as diabetes, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and compromised immunity generally. You can improve your odds against these by making soluble fiber a daily habit. And oatmeal for breakfast is a fast and easy way to start doing that. The basic recipe includes quick oats and oat bran, which can be supplemented from day to day to keep it interesting and boost the levels of optimum nutrition. To accomplish that I always add some kind of berry and an ounce of nuts, and often some cinnamon and a tablespoon of raw wheat germ and/or ground flaxseed meal. As listed, the ingredients in the recipe below provide about 15 grams of dietary fiber. Everyone needs 25 grams per day, men even more. Eating this sort of breakfast gets you well on your way each and every day.

If you have more time, use whole oats and simmer them on the stove for about six or seven minutes. For a really delicious form of oats, try the steel cut variety toasted in a cast iron pan in a little butter and then cooked in milk on the stove for about thirty minutes, stirring constantly. I buy my oats in all their forms in bulk at Apple Valley stores, and I buy organic if they've got them.

Fiber-Packed Morning Oats

.25 cup quick oats--2 grams dietary fiber

.25 cup oat bran--6 grams dietary fiber

1 cup water

dash of salt

stir into a bowl and microwave for about two minutes

then add:

.5 cup fresh blueberries (or 1/3 cup dried cranberries)--2 grams dietary fiber

1 oz. (=.25 cup=30 grams) walnuts (or 1 oz. almonds)--2 grams dietary fiber

1 T raw wheat germ--1 gram dietary fiber

1 T ground flaxseed meal--2 grams dietary fiber

dash of cinnamon

sweetener if desired (I use Splenda)

stir and add a little water if necessary, and microwave if needed another minute or so

Blueberry Smoothie

Let's face it, the most important meal of the day is breakfast. But who has time? And who has the time to make it healthy? The answer is, you do. Here's a simple, fast way to get some calcium, some good bacteria for your gastrointestinal tract, the rich antioxidants found in blueberries, plus the abundant sources of omega 3 fatty acids, minerals, and fiber found in ground flaxseed meal and raw wheat germ:

Blueberry Smoothie

1 ripe banana

.5 cup frozen blueberries

.5 cup yogurt, Stonyfield Farm Plain Fat Free Organic

2 T raw wheat germ (available refrigerated at most health food stores, usually less than a dollar per pound)

2 T whole ground flaxseed meal, Bob's Red Mill, refrigerated

1 packet Splenda, to sweeten

.5 cup fat free milk, to thin

Add the first three ingredients to your food processor and pulse until blended. Then add the wheat germ and flaxseed meal and pulse. Add some sweetener, and then the milk, pulse, and you're done. You'll need a really big glass for this! Instead of sweetener and milk, you can substitute some fruit juice, if you'd rather. I sometimes do.

So there you go, out the door with four super foods in your tummy, just like that! One nice side benefit of this recipe is that all that ground flaxseed meal kind of "expands" in your stomach after about an hour, making you feel really full. You won't feel like eating for hours. If you don't like the feeling, just adjust the amount down to suit yourself.