Shopping – Winter Week 3: Why Watercress, What is Bragg’s, Benefits of Black Soy Beans

Fresh Watercress with Roots

Watercress – Helps Protect from Cancer & Reduces Inflammation

Watercress is a member of the brassica (also called cruciferous) family of vegetables.  This elite group of foods include:

• watercress, uppercress, landcress, arugula
• horseradish, radish, daikon radish
• cabbage, bok choy,Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage
• broccoli, cauliflower, rutabaga, turnip, kohlrabi
• kale, mustard greens, collard greens

Health Benefits: Brassica foods contain nutrients including phytonutrients that are important additions to our diet for three reasons:

1. Enhance and support all three phases of liver detoxification
2. Reduce inflammation
3. Repair cellular DNA

There are benefits to enjoying both raw and lightly cooked brassica foods – when cooking, light steaming and minimum (<1 minute) of microwaving is best.  Watercress provides a flavorful, peppery way to enjoy a raw variety of brassica in the Everyday Greens Mix.

Selecting: I prefer watercress that still has its roots attached (pictured above).  Simply snip roots off with kitchen shears and rinse well with water or lightly soak with mild vinegar solution (about 2 tbsp per gallon of water).  If I can’t find watercress with roots, I like to buy arugula or more kale to use throughout the week.

Bragg’s Liquid Aminos – Gluten-free Soy Sauce

Bragg’s is simply an alternative to traditional soy sauce.  Like soy sauce, Bragg’s is derived from soy beans (non-GMO varieties).

Bragg’s is processed to be gluten-free vs. traditional soy sauce which is processed with wheat (unless buying wheat-free tamari).

I personally have both tamari and Bragg’s in my spice collection.  I put Bragg’s in the meal plan to introduce both a taste and gluten-free alternative to you. Bragg’s, in my opinion, is a bit softer tasting than the more robust traditional soy sauce.  Although you can easily substitute soy sauce, I do recommend buying a small container of Bragg’s (even once) to see if you like the variety it brings sprinkled on veggies and whole grains.

Bragg’s can be found in the Asian section of your supermarkets.

Black Soy Beans – Higher in Antioxidants than Traditional Yellow

The only whole canned soy beans that I could find this week where black soy beans (versus traditional yellow).  I’m really excited to make the soy patties with the black soy beans tomorrow.  Black soy beans (similar to black beans) have a higher concentration of antioxidants than their fair yellow-colored cousins.

If you have problems finding these canned, you can certainly make your own from dried soy beans (not to be confused with ready-to-eat dry roasted soy beans used in the trailmixes).

When time permits (which honestly isn’t as often as I would like), I like to make my dried beans using a pressure cooker.  Cynthia Lair, one of my former cooking instructor, provides easy to follow instructions for making beans from scratch.  It really is a tremendous money saver and environmental boon.

Pumpkin + Sweet Potato Puree – Beta-Caroteine Rich Lasagna

I’m so excited that it’s pumpkin lasagna week!

When I was getting ready to go to the store, I saw that I had a can of sweet potato puree in the cupboard.  The recipe needs 2 cans of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix), so rather than buying 2 cans of pumpkin, I am going to try substituting my can of sweet potato puree.  The nutritional profile will stay the same; pretty excited to see how it goes!

I hope as you use the recipes, you, too, will see how flexible they can be.  And once you learn the basics of portion sizes and what foods fall into which categories, you’ll be able to adjust and make substititions for any recipe!

Have fun shopping! ~Teri