The other day I went to
buy some of the individual bags of flavored waters for my kids. I was thinking
that they would be preferable to the no-sugar-added juice boxes I normally offer
to hydrate them in the car. Water, I reasoned, is always a healthier choice than
juice.
What a surprise, then, to
see that one of the most popular brands of these water bags listed high fructose
corn syrup as the second ingredient and sucralose as the fourth!
Some believe our current
epidemic of obesity and skyrocketing health problems including diabetes, heart
disease, and cancer can be directly traced to the abundance of high fructose
corn syrup in our packaged foods. It is a highly processed sweetener, one of the
many synthetic sweeteners available that fool the body into secreting extra
hormones and packing on the pounds.
Results from an 8-year
study of more than 1,500 people by the University of Texas Health Science Center
at San Antonio, suggest that those who drank diet sodas gained more weight than
those who didn't.
Organic, unrefined,
unbleached sugar from sugar cane is always a more health-conscious choice over
high fructose corn syrup or other artificial sweeteners such as saccharin,
aspartame, acesulfame-k and sucralose.
Additional healthy options
to satisfy a sweet tooth might include locally-collected honey, real maple
syrup, nothing-added fruit juices and brands of chocolate syrup that don't
contain trans-fats or high fructose corn syrup.
Here's a tangy recipe that
uses citrus and honey to be sweet and healthy without resorting to synthetic
ingredients to cut calories.
Citrus-Ginger Chicken with
Root Vegetables
Servings : 4
Ingredients
2 oranges
2 lemons
4 Tbsp. ginger, freshly
grated or 1 tsp. dried
4 Tbsp. honey
4 pieces chicken, fresh or
frozen
1 sweet potato, cut in 1/2
” chunks
1 parsnip, 1/4″ slices
1 turnip, 1/4″ slices
1 cup broccoli florets
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450
degrees F. Spray inside of 3 1/2- or 4-quart cast iron Dutch oven and lid with
olive oil or vegetable oil.
Wash the orange and lemon
carefully and grate the zest from 1 of each into a small mixing bowl. Add the
dry or grated ginger to the bowl and the honey. Slice the fruit in half and
squeeze the juice from the scraped lemon and orange into the bowl and stir well
until honey dissolves. Slice the remaining fruits into thin rounds and arrange
in the bottom of pot in alternating order (orange, lemon, orange, lemon, etc.)
to cover in a single layer.
Arrange chicken pieces on
top of the citrus rounds and pour 1/2 of juice mixture over chicken, spreading
to cover. Layer with sweet potatoes, parsnips, and turnips and cover with
remainder of juice mixture, making sure to include the chunks of zest and
ginger. Top with a final layer of broccoli florets.
Cover and bake for about
53 minutes, or until 3 minutes after the aroma of a fully-cooked meal wafts from
the oven.
Notes
This is a tangy dish with
an unexpectedly sweet, zesty flavor that is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. I enjoy
serving this to company and seeing their surprise when they discover that
they’ve been enjoying turnips and parsnips-vegetables with undeserved negative
reputations.
I prefer to leave the
skins of potatoes, parsnips, and turnips on and simply scrub them well and
remove any eyes or bad spots. Peeling is always optional in a Glorious Pot Meal
and vegetable skins add many vital nutrients while aiding digestion. Once you
peel a vegetable, it is no longer a "whole food." On the other hand, I can live
without chicken skin.
Nutritional Analysis per
Serving
Cal 320
Prot 31g
Carb 51g
Fat 3.9g
Chol 75mg
Sod 96mg
Fiber 8g
About the Author:
Elizabeth Yarnell is a
Certified Nutritional Consultant, inventor, and author of Glorious One-Pot
Meals: A new quick & healthy approach to Dutch oven cooking. Surprisingly,
Elizabeth didn't discover parsnips or turnips until she was in her 30s. Visit
her online to subscribe to her free newsletter at
www.GloriousOnePotMeals.com. Her unique cooking technique holds US patent
6,846,504.
