Real Food IX: Idlis

Traditional cultures throughout the world went to great lengths to maximize the nutritional value of the ingredients they had. Fermentation is a technique that was widely used for preparing grains and legumes. Humans are not well adapted to grains or legumes, in large part due to their assortment of anti-nutrients (substances that prevent the absorption of nutrients) and other toxins. Fermentation is a very effective way to eliminate anti-nutrients, making grains and legumes more nutritious and easily digested.

Idlis are steamed, naturally leavened cakes made from a fermented mixture of ground rice and beans. They're mild, savory and fluffy, and pair well with nearly any dish. I think they fill in well for bread. Due to the combination of rice and beans, they contain a fair amount of high-quality complete protein. They are also very economical. Idlis have their roots in Southern Indian cuisine more than 1,000 years ago. They may have originated as a fermented bean dish, with rice added to the recipe later in history.

The recipe takes 2-3 days to complete, but actually doesn't require much work. First, the beans and rice are soaked separately, then they are ground and mixed, then they are allowed to ferment for 24-48 hours and steamed. This type of days-long soaking and fermentation process is common in many grain-based cultures worldwide.

The recipe traditionally calls for short-grain white rice and urad dal (split black gram). I've been using short-grain brown rice with good results. You will only be able to find urad dal in an Indian grocer, specialty store or online. If you can't find urad dal, try experimenting with other types of mild dry beans.

Ingredients and materials

• One cup urad dal or other dried bean
• Two cups short-grain brown or white rice
• One teaspoon fenugreek (optional)
• Two teaspoons non-iodized salt
• Filtered or otherwise dechlorinated water
  
• Muffin tray
• Large pot for steaming (optional)

Recipe

1. Soak urad dal and rice separately for 6 hours (longer if you're using a different type of bean). Add fenugreek to the rice before soaking (optional). It's used traditionally to speed fermentation.
2. Pour water off the urad dal and rice/fenugreek mixture. Don't rinse.
3. Grind the urad dal in a food process or or blender with a minimum amount of water until it's a smooth paste. The water must not be chlorinated or it will kill our bacteria! Brita-type water filters remove chlorine, as does boiling or leaving water uncovered overnight.
   
4. Grind the rice/fenugreek mixture coarsely with a minimum amount of dechlorinated water.
   
5. Mix the ground urad dal, ground rice and salt. The salt must be non-iodized, or the batter will not ferment! Pickling salt, kosher salt and unrefined sea salt work well. Add dechlorinated water until it's a thick paste, stirrable but not liquid.
6. Ferment for 24-48 hours. You know it's ready when the dough has risen significantly, and the odor has gone from harsh and beany to mild and savory. Fermentation time will depend on the ambient temperature.
   
7. Fill muffin trays about half-way with batter and steam until a knife inserted into them comes out clean, 15-20 minutes. You can also bake them at 350 F. It's not traditional, but I like them baked almost as much. If you really want to be traditional, you can buy an idli steamer.

Here are photos of my last batch. Soaking the urad dal and rice:


Batter, pre-fermentation:


Batter, post-fermentation (48 hours). It more than doubled in volume. The color didn't actually change, that's just my camera.


Ready to steam or bake.


After baking. One escaped! Into my belly.


Thanks to Soumya dey and Wikipedia for the top photo

Tips Sehat Meningkatkan Kualitas Sperma

Anda ingin meningkatkan peluang memiliki anak atau hanya sekadar ingin ejakulasi dengan tingkat sperma dan air mani yang tinggi? Sperma yang banyak merupakan satu tanda sistem reproduksi yang sehat. Tidak diragukan memiliki air mani dan sperma yang lebih banyak menghasilkan orgasme lebih lama, termasuk meningkatnya hasrat seks. Jika Anda ingin menyirami pasangan dengan cinta sekaligus menjadi seorang calon ayah, inilah beberapa tips untuk memperbaiki dan meningkatkan jumlah sperma:


Berhenti merokok
Jika Anda seorang perokok saat ini, berhentilah. Selain menyebabkan napas tak sedap, merokok juga dapat memengaruhi jumlah sperma. Penelitian menujukan perokok memiliki jumlah sperma lebih kecil dibanding pria yang tidak merokok.

Hindari memakai celana ketat dan panas
Testis perlu memiliki suhu lebih sejuk dibanding bagian tubuh lain karena itu memakai celana dalam atau celana panjang ketat akan mengakibatkan suhu di sekitarnya panas. Sedapat mungkin usahakan tidak mengenakan celana dalam sewaktu tidur untuk menjaga suhu tetap sejuk.

Mulailah makanan makanan yang tepat
Diyakini atau tidak, pola makan akan memengaruhi produksi sperma. Cobalah makan makanan rendah lemak, berprotein tinggi, sayuran dan seluruh jenis padi-padian yang baik bagi kesehatan.

Kurangi hubungan intim dan masturbasi
Banyak pria mengeluhkan air mani mereka sedikit dan encer. Semakin banyak ejakulasi, semakin berkurang kekentalalan air mani tersebut. Jika Anda melakukan hubungan intim setiap hari atau lebih buruk lagi masturbasi akan berpengaruh pada jumlah sperma dan kekentalan air mani itu sendiri.

Kurangi alkohol
Alkohol dapat memengaruhi fungsi liver yang pada gilirannya menyebabkan peningkatan tingkat estrogen. Jumlah estrogen yang tinggi dalam tubuh akan memengaruhi produksi sperma. Sebaiknya hentikan minum alkohol mulai saat ini apabila Anda tidak ingin kehilangan jumlah produksi sperma.

Mencoba suplemen alami
Obat-obatan buatan pabrikan mungkin bisa menghalangi produksi sperma, sementara suplemen alami diyakini dapat meningkatkan produksi sperma, seperti L-carnitine yang ditemukan dalam daging merah. Selain itu, susu merupakan asam amino alami yang dapat meningkatkan produksi sperma. Folic acid atau asam folat ketika digabung dengan seng dapat meningkatkan produksi sperma, L-arginine yang ditemukan dalam kacang-kacangan, telur, daging, dan wijen juga memiliki khasiat yang sama, termasuk vitamin E dan selenium yang dapat memperbaiki kecepatan dan konsentrasi sperma.

Cobalah konsumsi Bee pollen. Suplemen yang berasal dari serbuk bunga ini mengandung seluruh komponen nutrisi yang dibutuhkan manusia untuk hidup sehat. Komponen nutrisi tersebut mulai dari asam amino essesial, beta karoten, vitamin B Kompleks, vitamin C, D, E, gula, kabohidrat, asam lemak, protein, mineral (antara lain: kalium, magnesium, kalsium, selenium dan fosfor). Memiliki khasiat sebagai pembangun (regenerasi) sel yang baik sehingga mampu untuk meningkatkan kualitas dan kuantitas sperma.

Konsumsi Herbal
Selain itu, konsumsi herbal diyakini bisa membantu menyuburkan sperma dengan cara meningkatkan vitalitas dan daya tahan tubuh. Umumnya herbal jenis ini yang berasal dari rimpang seperti purwoceng. Purwoceng telah lama dikenal khususnya daerah dataran tinggi Jawa Tengah sebagai peningkat vitalitas pria. Dari beberapa penelitian menyatakan bahwa purwoceng memiliki efek farmakologi seperti, meningkatkan libido (nafsu), meningkatkan hormon testosteron dan meningkatkan jumlah spermatozoid.
Dapatkan produk herbal capsule Purwoceng dan Bee Pollen yang terbuat dari 100 % herbal alami dengan proses modern, namun tetap memiliki sifat asli, aroma dan khasiat yang sama dengan tumbuhannya.

Dikutip dari : Kompas Cyber Media

SehatHerbal.Com menyediakan Bee Polen dan Purwoceng. Info lebih lanjut ke 021-91752768 atau 081310343598

Cardiovascular Disease and Vitamin K2

Vitamin K2 is intimately involved in calcium metabolism. Matrix Gla-protein (MGP) is a vitamin K-dependent protein that is secreted in cartilage, lung, heart, kidney and arteries. MGP prefers the MK-4 form of vitamin K2, the type that occurs almost exclusively in animal foods. Mice lacking MGP develop extensive arterial and soft tissue calcification (accumulation of calcium, as in bone). Same for humans with naturally occurring mutations in MGP (Keutel syndrome). It also happens in rats treated with warfarin, which inhibits vitamin K recycling. Let's hear what Dr. Cees Vermeer and his group have to say about MGP:

Among the proteins involved in vascular calcium metabolism, the vitamin K-dependent matrix Gla-protein (MGP) plays a dominant role. Although on a molecular level its mechanism of action is not completely understood, it is generally accepted that MGP is a potent inhibitor of arterial calcification. Its pivotal importance for vascular health is demonstrated by the fact that there seems to be no effective alternative mechanism for calcification inhibition in the vasculature. An optimal vitamin K intake is therefore important to maintain the risk and rate of calcification as low as possible.

So why do we care about vessel calcification? It associates strongly with the risk of heart attack and total mortality, better than traditional markers like the Framingham risk index*. That's because it's actually a measure of the disease process, rather than a marker with an unclear connection to it.

In my post on vitamin K2, I mentioned the Rotterdam study, which found that vitamin K2 intake is strongly associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and total mortality. Vitamin K1, which is the type found in plants, was not associated with reduced mortality. I just came across another study in women selected from the PROSPECT cohort that showed something similar. Women with the highest K2 intake had the lowest level of coronary calcification. There was no association with K1. This suggests, yet again, that humans aren't very good at making the conversion from K1 to K2 MK-4. This is probably because during evolution, we always had a ready source of K2, so efficient conversion became unnecessary. Vitamin K2 MK-4 is found almost exclusively in animal foods.

Notably absent from the main text body is a discussion of where the K2 is coming from. It's tucked away in one sentence of the methods section: "cheese contributed 54%, milk products 22% and meat 15% of menaquinone intake." Oops! These are the foods that are supposed to cause heart disease! And do you remember where the K2 is? In the fat-- double oops! Yet another important nutrient that's found in animal fat.

Keep in mind that these Dutch women have an intake of K2 that is probably lower than what we would have eaten as hunter-gatherers. Most people in modern societies are verifiably K2 deficient. A focus on the organs (brain, pancreas) and fats of wild animals, shellfish, fish eggs and insects would have assured hunter-gatherers a high intake of vitamin K2 MK-4. This is precisely what Weston Price found in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. He refers to vitamin K2 MK-4 as "activator X" in the book. In modern times, our most readily available source of vitamin K2 MK-4 is actually not a paleolithic food at all, it's butter from pasture-raised cows. It's how we can get away with not eating brain, pancreas and bugs.


*I plugged my numbers into this Framingham risk index calculator and it gave me the message "Please go back and enter an HDL value in the range of 20-100."!! I can imagine if you follow NCEP dietary guidelines your HDL would never break 100 mg/dL!

Cannon Balls & Brass Monkeys

When you are out running trails with some one new, who you wish to impress with the depth of your knowlwdge of some very deep subjects, please feel free to use this.

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others.The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called, for reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them of brass - hence, Brass Monkeys.Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.Thus,it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time, you thought that was just a vulgar expression, didn't you?

Winterize Your Diet

As winter approaches, there are steps you can take to preserve your health and well-being. Here's a list of things I find useful:

-Eat in season. Root vegetables like beets, turnips, rutabagas and potatoes are in season and make a satisfying dish. Try baked beets with raw garlic, sage and butter. Winter squash are tasty, nutritious and colorful. They make excellent soups and mashes, and can be baked or steamed. My favorite varieties are butternut, kabochas, delicata and gold nugget. They pair well with sage or nutmeg. In some places, hardy greens such as kale and collards are available in winter. Many fruits such as apples, pears and citrus are in season during the winter (or stored from fall).

-Prepare soup stocks. There's nothing like a long-simmered bone broth to drive away the winter chill. They are also rich in minerals and gelatin, which aids digestion and soothes the digestive tract.

-Make sauerkraut or other fermented vegetables. Fermentation was once used as a means to preserve flavor and nutrition for the winter. Fermented vegetables are a powerful digestive aid. After the first frost, cabbage is at its sweetest. Sweet cabbage makes the best kraut.

-Keep your vitamin D level high. This may protect against the typical winter ills, including flu and seasonal depression. Unless you live in a warm climate and spend time outside in the winter regularly, it's wise to seek out vitamin D. High-vitamin cod liver oil, pasture-raised animal fats, shellfish and fatty fish are good sources. Some people may wish to supplement with vitamin D3.