Food By Franz

History – Moringa

Moringa is known in 82 countries by 210 different names, but the one name that fully encompasses all its attributes is “the Miracle Tree”. The indigenous knowledge and use of Moringa Oleifera is referenced in more than 80 countries and known in over 200 local languages. Moringa has been used by various societies (Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Indian to mention a few) for thousands of years with writings dating as far back as 150 AD.

Aside from the nutritional and health benefits of Moringa Oleifera, its seeds it has the full potential of producing biofuel, cooking oil, personal care products, cosmetics, aromatheraphy, perfume, industrial oil and lubricants. Its oil is comparable to sunflower and olive oil. It is much better than palm oil in terms of properties, for it has a low trans fatty acids. Twelve kilograms of moringa seeds one liter of oil can be extracted and about eight and a half kilograms of cake among others as by products.

7 times the vitamin C found in oranges
Vitamin C strengthens our immune system and fights infectious diseases including colds and flu. Citrus fruits such as oranges and lemons are full of vitamin C. Moringa leaves have even more.

4 times the calcium found in milk
Calcium builds strong bones and teeth, and helps prevent osteoporosis. Milk provides a lot of calcium, but Moringa leaves provide even more.

4 times the Vitamin A found in carrots
Vitamin A acts as a shield against diseases of the eyes, skin and heart, diarrhea, and many other ailments. Carrots are very high in vitamin A, with Moringa leaves even higher.

3 times the potassium found in bananas
Potassium is essential for the brain and nerves. Bananas are an excellent source of potassium. Moringa leaves are even better.

2 times the protein found in yogurt
Proteins, the building blocks of our bodies, are made of amino acids. Usually only animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy contain all the essential amino acids. Amazingly, Moringa leaves also contain them all.

.75 times the iron found in spinach
Iron is an essential nutrient because it’s a central part of hemoglobin in blood which carries oxygen to all parts of the body. Spinach is well known for its iron content. Moringa leaves also contain iron.

Moringa

Why Haven’t I Heard of Moringa Oleifera before?

While Moringa has been used by many civilizations with the earliest recorded date 150 AD, Moringa has only recently been “discovered” by modern science. According to Monica Marcu, Pharm D., Ph.D., “There are over 500,000 known species of plants on the planet and, to date, only 1% have been studied for medical and nutritional purposes.”
Where Can I Find Moringa?

Moringa may be the new kid on the block, where modern science is concerned, but with all its attributes Moringa will not only continue to help people who live a world away from us not only in location but also in need; it will also be integrated into many industries of the western world including food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics.

Not many people know about the health benefits of Moringa Oleifera, and it’s rare to find it in the US. The tree typically grows in tropical and subtropical climates. The Moringa tree is said to have originated in the Himalayas, today it can be found in countries like Africa, China, India and the Philippines just to name a few.

There is a US based company that has managed to turn the miracle tree into an energy drink called Zija. Zija contains all the parts found in the Moringa tree, it’s the first all organic energy drink with no sugar or preservatives added, Zija is also the first company to include the Moringa leaf in a health drink.

History of Meatloaf
About meatloaf, meatballs, & related ground meat products. Who invented meatloaf, why & when? Good question! Food historians tell us from Ancient times to present cooks have been mixing ground meat with minced bread/rice/vegetables, spices, thickeners and serving them with sauce. For what reasons?
1. To distribute meat to more people (protein economy)
2. To conserve resources (use it up, don’t throw it out)
3. To make tough meat more palatable (aid digestion)

Early ground (finely chopped or minced) molded meat recipes concentrated on sausages in skin casings, meat fritters (similar to meatballs), rissoles, hashes, terrines, and croquettes. The meat employed in these early recipes was usually already cooked, as opposed to the raw meat typically used by Americans to make meat loaf today. Finished products were typically fried, stewed, or baked (in molds or pastry) and served with sauce. Meatballs (a diminutive form of meatloaf) are known in many cultures and cuisines. Recipes evolved according to local ingredients and tastes. Middle Eastern kofta and Swedish meatballs are two of the most well known.
Some of the earliest recorded ground meat recipes are found in Apicius, written in Ancient Rome. Book II is devoted to “minces.”
Ancient Roman meat balls
“Suffed Meat Patties (Apicius 48)
Esicia omentata: pulpam cincisam teres cum medulla siliginei in vino infusi. Piper, liquamen, si velis, et bacam mirteam extenteratum simul sonteres.
Pusilla esicia formabis, intus nucleis et pipere positis. Involuta omento subassabis cum careno.

“Ground meat patties in *omentum: Grind chopped meat with the center of fine white bread that has been soaked in wine. Grind together pepper, garum, and pitted myrtle berries if desired. Form small patties, putting in pine nuts and pepper. Wrap in omentum and cook slowly in *caroenum.
“Within the section dedicated to recipes with ground meat, the Apician manual includes this curious rating: “The ground meat patties of peacock have first place, if they are fried so that they remain tender. Those of pheasant have second place, those of rabbit third, those of chicken fourth, and those of suckling pig fifth.” (Apicius 54).”
—A Taste of Ancient Rome, Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, translated by Anna Herklotz, forward by Mary Taylor Simeti [University of Chicago Press:Chicago] 1992 (p. 89-90)
*NOTE: *omentum means pork caul fat; *caroenum means reduced wine.

American History of Meatloaf
By Dana Jacobi

Food history is full of surprises. The history of an American staple, for example – meatloaf – offers more than a trip down culinary lane. It provides a glimpse into how advances in technology have shaped the way we eat and prepare food today. I was intrigued to discover that my grandmother’s hand-cranked grinder, the kind that attaches to the edge of a table, was key to meatloaf becoming an everyday dish. Cooks relied on it, particularly in the early half of the 20th century, until butcher shops installed refrigeration units that were able to reliably store more perishable chopped meat. In fact, when my mother bought chopped meat at the butcher – well into the 1960s – she made him grind it in front of her so she was sure that he used a clean machine and that he gave her the lean ground round she asked for.
Early meatloaf recipes called for veal, which was less expensive than beef at the time. The meat in one widely published version was first cooked then chopped, blended with other ingredients, molded, then cooked again into a loaf. Recipes indicate that meatloaf as we know it today – blended with bread or cracker crumbs, egg and seasonings, then baked in a rectangular pan – gradually became popular between 1900 and the 1920s. Among the most popular early recipes were several created by the Quaker Oats Company using their product as binder in place of breadcrumbs. Binder is an essential meatloaf ingredient because it creates an even, smooth texture. In addition to whole-wheat breadcrumbs, oats or even cooked rice, it can include a generous amount of finely shredded or chopped cooked vegetables like spinach, carrots or the broccoli used in this recipe. Nutritionally smart, the vegetables help keep a meatloaf nicely moist.

History-Focus on Tea
Posted on 01/28/2009 04:57 pm by manx | Edit

A Wealth of Antioxidants

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, tea is considered a “grease cutter” that prevents harm from fatty foods, according to Efrem Korngold, O.M.D., a practitioner of Chinese medicine in San Francisco, and coauthor (with Harriet Beinfield, L.Ac.) of Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine (Ballantine Books, 1992).

Japanese researchers wondered if this traditional belief could be scientifically verified. In the 1980s, they found potent antioxidant compounds in tea, notably epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). Antioxidants help prevent and repair the cell damage that can lead to heart disease and many cancers. Since then, dozens of additional studies have shown tea reduces risk of these diseases and helps treat them, thus validating Traditional Chinese Medicine’s claim.

Tea – White, Green and Black
The oxidation process that turns white and green teas into oolong and black teas destroys some of their EGCG. Black teas still contain significant amounts of antioxidants, which is why they reduce risk of heart disease and stroke. Alas, black teas have not shown much ability to reduce cancer risk. For cancer prevention, green tea is the way to go because it retains the most EGCG. White tea is promising too, although more studies are needed. As the least processed tea, it contains the most cancer-fighting polyphenols.

Tea Reduces Risk of Heart Disease

In the West, tea began its transformation from beverage into health food in 1993, when Dutch researchers published a study in the prestigious British medical journal Lancet on the effects of dietary antioxidants on risk of heart attack among residents of Zutphen, a city in the Netherlands. Men who consumed the most fruits and vegetables had the lowest heart attack risk. But tea also was protective, a finding that surprised Western scientists and sent them scurrying to the earlier Japanese research on ECGC. Since then, many studies have shown tea—both black and green—helps prevent heart disease and the most common type of stroke. Another group of Dutch researchers followed 4,807 men for five years. Compared with those who drank no tea, men who drank one or two cups a day had 43 percent fewer heart attacks—and 70 percent fewer heart attack deaths. Similar studies by Harvard and Saudi Arabian scientists also show fewer heart attacks and heart attack deaths in regular tea drinkers. And a Dutch study shows tea also reduces risk of stroke.

If tea really helps the heart, it should exhibit a “dose-response” effect—as tea consumption increases, heart disease risk should decline. That is the case. In the Harvard study, moderate tea drinkers were 31 percent less likely to suffer heart attack. The figure for heavy tea drinkers was 39 percent. The Saudi study also showed a dose-response effect. How do the antioxidants in tea reduce risk of heart attack and stroke? Several ways: They reduce cholesterol. They improve arterial function. And they slow the buildup of fatty, cholesterol-rich deposits on artery walls (atherosclerosis) that can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Note: If you drink tea for heart benefits, don’t add milk. A German study suggests milk somehow neutralizes ECGC, counteracting tea’s heart-helping actions.

Green Tea Reduces Risk of All Major Cancers
An occasional report shows no cancer-protective benefits for green tea, but these few negative findings are vastly outnumbered by dozens of studies that show increasing green tea consumption decreases risk of all major cancers, including breast, ovarian, cervical, lung, stomach, prostate, colorectal, esophageal, pancreatic and malignant melanoma.
Green tea shows a clear “dose-response” effect for cancer prevention. Consider breast cancer. Australian researchers categorized green tea consumption in 2,018 Chinese women as low, moderate or high. Low tea intake reduced breast cancer risk 13 percent; moderate, 32 percent; high, 41 percent. A study at the University of Southern California showed a similar dose-response effect for reducing breast cancer risk.

This excerpt was taken from an online newsletter from The Herb Companion – Great site!

Carson I.A. Ritchie in Food in Civilization makes the most comprehensive case for the Neolithic invention of soup. “Evidence suggests that the Neaderthalers had evolved quite sophisticated cooking techniques. They were able to keep alive members of the group who were apparently either very elderly or lifelong invalids. The remains of one young man found near La-Chapelle-aux-Saints in France were those of a cripple who could have been of no use in hunting for the group. Another skeleton was that of an old man who had his teeth worn down to such an extent that he would have found it impossible to chew meat. There was no milk in those days, the food on which, in later times, old toothless people were kept alive. It seems at least likely that people of this sort were nourished on a diet of soup. Now the invention of soup making opened the door for all kinds of other sophisticated cookery.

What went on in the Neanderthal kitchen is a matter for conjecture, but one sensible suggestion is that he boiled animals in their skins. The hide of a flayed animal would be suspended on forked sticks, filled with meat and water, and a fire lighted beneath it. After some time the water would boil, the meat would be cooked, and the broth could then be eaten by invalids. The skin would not catch fire with the heat because it would be cooked by the water. The experiment of boiling water in a bag made of fairly thick paper demonstrates that this kind of cooking is a practical idea. There can be no doubt that cooking in a skin took place in many parts of the world, and it was still being done in Ireland as late as the sixteenth century. …Until recently, Icelanders used to steam their bread in the boiling water of the hot springs by simply wrapping it in some waterproof substance and then dangling it in the hot spring at the end of a rope….

Another way in which Neanderthal extended his list of recipes was by using hot stones. The hot-stone technique meant the invention of frying. In addition, stones, heated to great heat on a campfire, could be transferred to any receptacle filled with water. A sufficiency of hot stones would induce the water to boil. [While] anthropologists have doubted the feasibility of primitive man’s being able to pick the hot stones out of the fire…two stout poles, tied together with a thong, provide a pair of tongs with which even the hottest objects can be removed from a fire. This was the technique used by gun founders in Southeast Asia to remove pieces of slag from a furnace….” (Beaufort Books, 1981)