Tempeh, Tofu and Balance

One of the things that I love about New York is its diversity. On any given day in any given neighborhood I will walk down the street past people of all shapes, sizes, colors, religions and ethnicities. I’ve actually met people from Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Nicaragua, New Zealand and Spain. I’ve walked past Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Hassidic Jews and Asians. I’ve overhead conversations in Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and sometimes even English. New York is where the world comes together and the variety of restaurants here represents that diversity.

This morning’s session at the Natural Gourmet Institute was brought to us by Chef Rich and featured Tempeh and Tofu. Although these food products are both made from soy, Tempeh is considered the more healthful of the two. That is because tempeh is a fermented food made from whole soy beans whereas tofu is basically coagulated soy milk – a highly processed food in itself. One thing to remember with any soy product is to BUY ORGANIC. Almost 80% of the soy produced in this country is GMO (genetically modified) so the only way to protect from this is to buy organic.

We made some pretty interesting dishes with these soy products including tempeh scaloppini (sautéed marinated tempeh simmered with mushrooms), tempeh Bolognese (grated tempeh in tomato sauce), pan glazed tofu and barbecue tofu. My favorites were the tempeh scaloppini and the pan glazed tofu.

Grilled Tofu

Nicola with the Barbecue Sauce

The afternoon’s session was pretty special. We were honored with a lecture by the founder of the Natural Gourmet Institute – Annemarie Colbin. Annemarie is a Ph.D and the author of several books including “Food and Healing”, “The Book of Whole Meals,” and “The Natural Gourmet.” You may be thinking, just as I did, that Annemarie would be very rigid in her philosophy about healthy eating when in fact just the opposite is true. Those of you who know me best know that I have been stressing about food for the last couple of years – what should I eat, what shouldn’t I eat, how much should I eat, do I drink too much alcohol? Although Annemarie is an advocate for healthy eating she is also a realist. Her philosophy is called the “Three Bears Rule.” “Too much is no good, too little is no good, in between is just right.” In other words “moderation” – wait a minute isn’t that what my mother has been preaching for years????? Annemarie also says, “Don’t feel guilty if you eat something bad. Consider it research. No more guilt!” Wait a minute, isn’t that what my husband has been trying to tell me for years???

Annemarie does have some concrete thoughts on food. She basically categorizes foods as either expansive or contractive with Drugs/Alcohol being at the top of the list (expansive) and eggs and salt being at the bottom (contractive). Our goal should be to achieve a balance somewhere in the middle – land vegetables, sea vegetables, roots, beans, grains and fish. Basically if you have too much of one food you should combat it with the other.  For example: if you have too much alcohol (expansive) you should combat it with a salty food such as Umeboshi paste (contractive). I won’t even attempt to further explain her philosophy but I encourage you to read it for yourself in her book “Food and Healing.” She has some great home remedies for colds and headaches including Kuzu drinks, garlic soup, lemon tea and ginger tea. Also remedies for digestive problems which many of us have.

If you are having digestive problems here are two quick tips from Annemarie:

1. CHEW YOUR FOOD. At least 25 times. As Annemarie says there are no teeth in your stomach. You should chew your food into mush before you swallow. This will make it easier to digest. And don’t drink until after you have chewed and swallowed your food. If you take a sip of water or wine or beer while you have food in your mouth you are only washing down pieces of food that will be difficult to digest.

2. Drink water after a meal even up to two hours later. This will help your digestive system process your meal.

Today is Wednesday. Do I really only have two days left in New York???? Hard to believe….