White Foods, Corn Island, et al

Travel certainly is enlightening, even the portion spent on a plane. Foodie flew east yesterday and came across the following alimentary tidbits in Sky Magazine:

A fellow named David Lassiter recently lost 50 pounds after following the advice of his doctor to "eat no white foods." So that means white bread, spuds, sugar, rice, cauliflower ( seems harmless,) library paste ( a favorite snack of school kids, back in the day,) white beans ???, what?  Vanilla ice cream? Pasta--beige, surely....Ricotta and mozzarella? 

The Currant Company in upstate New York is bringing back the black currant, an extraordinarily healthy fruit that once was a major crop in the Hudson River Valley. Long valued by Europeans, currants are the latest fruit touted as effective in warding off Alzheimer's. 

The town of Louisville, KY, had its beginnings on Corn Island, in the Ohio River. Evidently the island was an important farming area for local Indians.  In 1773  the first English settlers called the island Dunmore, after the 4th earl....but apparently the agricultural impact of the island was such that its name changed in 1778 to reflect its import. Today the island is underwater, thanks to assorted manmade ventures, including a dam built in the 1920's.

On sale in the Sky Mall magazine, three must-have items: A $50 pop up hotdog and bun cooker, sort of a toaster as envisioned by Dr. Seuss; a $70 upside down tomato planter; a $50  electric garlic roaster. 

Comments

[foodie]

Thanks, Jane--where's the Dessert Cafe?

[Jane]

Enjoyed visiting your blog and reading your thoughts.

[foodie]

Discussing this crazy white food ban, a friend said the purpose was to get people to at least focus on the white bread/sugar thing....but of course, as evidenced above, to not eat cauli, onions and garlic would be an absurdity.

[Vespetro]

Being a chef, I encounter all kinds of questions throughout the day...every day. One recently was in fact about the whole white foods thing. The general public is so bombarded by information telling them "You should do this or you should do that or else you are not living..." Crap. A friend said to me just last week, "I hear that you are supposed to have color on your plate. Cauliflower is white so I should not eat it, right?" Unless you genuinly find 100% of RDA Vitamin C, 1/3 % folate, vitamin B6, and bioflaonoids packed into a serving consisting of only 25 calories per cup disturbing then absolutely do not eat it...

[foodie]

Angel Food cake be damned!

[Cynthia]

Well, they do say onions with color have more antioxidants, but it's quite a leap from "fewer antioxidants" to "don't eat it because it's white." And as for garlic -- sorry. There is a point at which quality of life becomes a consideration. Even if I didn't know how incredibly good for us garlic is, I'd still want it in my diet. I'll just assume that the "no white foods" thing was just to make it easier for the dieter -- you don't have to think "is this a good or bad white food," you just don't eat it.

[foodie]

Onions and garlic, too, Cynthia--they cannot possibly be serious, right?

[Cynthia]

I understand why white bread, sugar, and other highly processed white foods might be harmful, but cauliflower? And yet, it is an avoid for type Os in the Blood Type diet, so maybe it has some secrets of which I am unaware.

As for the return of currants -- hurray. I love currants. If they reduce risk of Alzheimer's disease, all the better, but glad to have them back just for the flavor.

And as for the electric garlic roaster, I was just discussing those with friends the other day. They have one, and they love it, because you can roast garlic without heating up the entire oven. What will they think of next?