Christmas around the world- The German Way

German families enter as wholeheartedly into holidays and festivals as they do into their everyday tasks. Parents and grandparents happily pass along the traditions and rituals of the special days that dot the German calendar.
Every year on the first Sunday of Advent—the time including the four Sundays just before Christmas—many Christian families set out an Adventskranz, an Advent wreath. An Advent wreath is a circle of evergreen branches.
It is decorated with four red candles—one for each Sunday in Advent. The wreath may be hung from the ceiling with red ribbons or placed in the center of the dinner table. Every Sunday until Christmas, families gather to sing Christmas carols as a new candle is lit.
German children sometimes count down the days before Christmas with an Advent calendar. An Advent calendar is a colorful calendar with little doors to open, one for every day in December until Christmas. Behind each door is a little surprise that makes the waiting easier.
The first week of December is often an especially busy time. During this time, the cook of the family does all the Christmas baking. Cookies, including the little peppernuts, are prepared. Rich Lebkuchen (gingerbread) and Christstollen (a special Christmas bread) are also baked and stored for holiday feasting. And, on December 4, Saint Barbara’s Day, apple or cherry twigs are set out in a vase of warm water so they will bloom in time for Christmas.
Best of all is the eve of December 6. This is the night Saint Nikolaus comes
Saint Nikolaus has a white beard, and he dresses in long robes. German children believe he has a big book that tells him who has been good and who has not.
Saint Nikolaus leaves gifts of gingerbread, apples, and nuts to children who have been well behaved. Those who have been naughty must promise to do better in the coming year.
A visit to the Christmas market is another happy December event. At the colorful market, families may buy marzipan candies, cookies (which Germans call biscuits), holiday decorations, toys, and even trees. Sometimes children visiting the market will be treated to a prune man, a figure with a body of prunes and features made with raisins and nuts.
Another favorite activity at the Christmas market is choosing the big heart- or star-shaped cookie, decorated and hung on a ribbon, that the child will wear home and then hang on the Christmas tree.
After a long month of preparation, Christmas finally comes. Christmas Eve is a magical night. Many families go to midnight church services. As people walk through the streets to church, the chilly night air is filled with the sound of church bells ringing.
Sometimes the first snow of the season falls on Christmas Eve. When families return home from church, they are surprised to find that the Christkindl has been there while they were gone. Christkindl, who is part angel and all mystery, has left presents for everyone.
And the Tannenbaum, the lovely decorated Christmas tree, which parents, grandparents, or both have trimmed behind locked—and taped closed—doors, is revealed. To extend the suspense of the waiting gifts, parents expect children to sing a carol or two—“Silent Night” or “Oh, Christmas Tree”—before opening the packages.
On Christmas Day, families gather for their traditional Christmas dinner. Roast goose with vegetables and potato dumplings is a favorite menu. If there is a hunter in the family, the main course might be roast venison. And Christmas is not over on December 25. On December 26, friends and relatives come to talk and eat and admire the tree.

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Eat more in the French, Italian, Japanese, Indian or the Greek style

Eat more in the French, Italian, Japanese, Indian or the Greek style

Bad food for us

I found recently this nice article:


Recently, a friend who was eating with me appeared shocked as I spread full-fat natural peanut butter on my whole-wheat toast. Isn’t peanut butter super-fattening, she asked? It’s high in fat but that doesn’t mean it’s fattening, I told her, noting that gaining or losing weight, and body fat, basically comes down to balancing calories. Knowing my master’s work focused on weight loss, she took my word on this. (Find easy, quick and delicious 500-Calorie Dinners to help you lose.)

That said, peanut butter is a concentrated source of calories, so you don’t want to go overboard. But you don’t need to eat tons of the stuff to feel satisfied: just a tablespoon (90 calories) or two of peanut butter goes a long way. I eat peanut butter nearly every day because it tastes so good and it’s really nutritious. Peanut butter provides protein and folate, a B vitamin important for the healthy development of new cells. (See the winners of our Natural Peanut Butter Taste Test.)

As a nutritionist, I often encounter people who fear healthful foods because these foods have somehow gotten bad reps they just can’t shake. Peanut butter is a common one. Here are four more “misunderstood” foods and why you should eat them—in moderation, of course.

Eggs
The bad rep: A significant source of dietary cholesterol, egg yolks are off-limits for those concerned about heart health.
The good truth: Medical experts now emphasize that saturated fats and trans fats are bigger culprits in raising blood cholesterol than dietary cholesterol is. Plus, eggs are super-satisfying: in one study, people who ate a scrambled-egg-and-toast breakfast felt more satisfied, and ate less at lunch, than they did when they ate a bagel that had the same number of calories. Egg yolks contain lutein and zeaxanthin, compounds that research links with reduced risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in people over 50. (Need new ideas for eggs? Find dozens here.)

Beef
The bad rep: Beef is full of saturated fat and dietary cholesterol, so people who care about their hearts should avoid it.
The good truth: Lean cuts of beef are a low-fat source of protein and iron, a mineral essential for getting oxygen from the lungs to cells throughout the body—and one many women (of childbearing age) are deficient in. There are many lean cuts of steaks: filet mignon, sirloin, strip steak, flank steak. If you can’t remember the names, pick steaks that are deep red with a relatively small amount of marbling—a fancy name for fat—to find lean cuts. Click here for a Bistro Flank Steak Sandwich that has only 3 grams of saturated fat per serving!

Chocolate
The bad rep: Chocolate has lots of fat, lots of sugar—and it tastes amazing, so it must be bad for you.
The good news: Dark chocolate contains flavanols, antioxidants that seem to have a blood-thinning effect, which can benefit cardiovascular health. And, recently, researchers in Switzerland reported that eating dark chocolate (1.4 ounces of it) every day for two weeks reduced stress hormones, including cortisol, in highly stressed people. But be sure to account for the calories (1.4 ounces delivers 235)—or you may be stressed to see extra pounds creeping on. (Discover delicious chocolate recipes here.)

Potatoes
The bad rep: Potatoes rank high on the glycemic index, which measures how quickly different foods raise your blood sugar. Foods with a high GI value tend to cause a higher spike in blood sugar—and in insulin, the hormone that helps glucose get into cells—which can be a problem for some people, particularly those with diabetes.
The good news: Potatoes are a good source of fiber, potassium and vitamin C. And unless you’re eating an absolutely plain potato all by itself, its GI value doesn’t matter. (It’s also worth noting that the glycemic index is an imperfect and controversial scale.) A high-GI potato becomes a low-GI meal if you simply add a little olive oil, because the added fat helps slow the absorption of the potato’s carbohydrates


you can read more http://www.eatingwell.com/blogs/nicci_micco/2010_02_22/5_bad_foods_you_should_be_eating or on this nice blog

healthy eating advices from new york times

In the more than four decades that I have been reading and writing about the findings of nutritional science, I have come across nothing more intelligent, sensible and simple to follow than the 64 principles outlined in a slender, easy-to-digest new book called “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” by Michael Pollan.Mr. Pollan is not a biochemist or a nutritionist but rather a professor of science journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. You may recognize his name as the author of two highly praised books on food and nutrition, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” (All three books are from Penguin.)

If you don’t have the time and inclination to read the first two, you can do yourself and your family no better service than to invest $11 and one hour to whip through the 139 pages of “Food Rules” and adapt its guidance to your shopping and eating habits.

Chances are you’ve heard any number of the rules before. I, for one, have been writing and speaking about them for decades. And chances are you’ve yet to put most of them into practice. But I suspect that this little book, which is based on research but not annotated, can do more than the most authoritative text to get you motivated to make some important, lasting, health-promoting and planet-saving changes in what and how you eat.

Reasons to Change

Two fundamental facts provide the impetus Americans and other Westerners need to make dietary changes. One, as Mr. Pollan points out, is that populations who rely on the so-called Western diet — lots of processed foods, meat, added fat, sugar and refined grains — “invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.” Indeed, 4 of the top 10 killers of Americans are linked to this diet.

As people in Asian and Mediterranean countries have become more Westernized (affluent, citified and exposed to the fast foods exported from the United States), they have become increasingly prone to the same afflictions.

The second fact is that people who consume traditional diets, free of the ersatz foods that line our supermarket shelves, experience these diseases at much lower rates. And those who, for reasons of ill health or dietary philosophy, have abandoned Western eating habits often experience a rapid and significant improvement in their health indicators.

I will add a third reason: our economy cannot afford to continue to patch up the millions of people who each year develop a diet-related ailment, and our planetary resources simply cannot sustain our eating style and continue to support its ever-growing population.

In his last book, Mr. Pollan summarized his approach in just seven words: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” The new book provides the practical steps, starting with advice to avoid “processed concoctions,” no matter what the label may claim (“no trans fats,” “low cholesterol,” “less sugar,” “reduced sodium,” “high in antioxidants” and so forth).

As Mr. Pollan puts it, “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”

Do you already avoid products made with high-fructose corn syrup? Good, but keep in mind, sugar is sugar, and if it is being added to a food that is not normally sweetened, avoid it as well. Note, too, that refined flour is hardly different from sugar once it gets into the body.

Also avoid foods advertised on television, imitation foods and food products that make health claims. No natural food is simply a collection of nutrients, and a processed food stripped of its natural goodness to which nutrients are then added is no bargain for your body.

Those who sell the most healthful foods — vegetables, fruits and whole grains — rarely have a budget to support national advertising. If you shop in a supermarket (and Mr. Pollan suggests that wherever possible, you buy fresh food at farmers’ markets), shop the periphery of the store and avoid the center aisles laden with processed foods. Note, however, that now even the dairy case has been invaded by products like gunked-up yogurts.

Follow this advice, and you will have to follow another of Mr. Pollan’s rules: “Cook.”

“Cooking for yourself,” he writes, “is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors.” Home cooking need not be arduous or very time-consuming, and you can make up time spent at the stove with time saved not visiting doctors or shopping for new clothes to accommodate an expanding girth.

Although the most wholesome eating pattern consists of three leisurely meals a day, and preferably a light meal at night, if you must have snacks, stick to fresh and dried fruits, vegetables and nuts, which are naturally loaded with healthful nutrients. I keep a dish of raisins and walnuts handy to satisfy the urge to nibble between meals. I also take them along for long car trips. Feel free to use the gas-station restroom, but never “get your fuel from the same place your car does,” Mr. Pollan writes.

Treating Treats as Treats

Perhaps the most important rules to put into effect as soon as possible are those aimed at the ever-expanding American waistline. If you eat less, you can afford to pay more for better foods, like plants grown in organically enriched soil and animals that are range-fed.

He recommends that you do all your eating at a table, not at a desk, while working, watching television or driving. If you’re not paying attention to what you’re eating, you’re likely to eat more than you realize.

But my favorite tip, one that helped me keep my weight down for decades, is a mealtime adage, “Stop eating before you’re full” — advice that has long been practiced by societies as diverse as Japan and France. (There is no French paradox, by the way: the French who stay slim eat smaller portions, leisurely meals and no snacks.)


Practice portion control and eat slowly to the point of satiation, not fullness. The food scientists Barbara J. Rolls of Penn State and Brian Wansink of Cornell, among others, have demonstrated that people eat less when served smaller portions on smaller plates. “There is nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day is not a special occasion,” Mr. Pollan writes. “Special occasion foods offer some of the great pleasures of life, so we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of them, but the sense of occasion needs to be restored.”

Here is where I can make an improvement. Ice cream has been a lifelong passion, and even though I stick to a brand lower in fat and calories than most, and limit my portion to the half-cup serving size described on the container, I indulge in this treat almost nightly. Perhaps I’ll try the so-called S policy Mr. Pollan says some people follow: “No snacks, no seconds, no sweets — except on days that begin with the letter S.

Recipes for Health: Peppers

At any time of the year, you can find red, yellow, orange, green, and even purple peppers at the supermarket. But, in fact, peppers are a seasonal vegetable, and when freshly picked they are sweeter and more intense than any hothouse variety. The skin is thinner, and the flavors are vivid. Eat the real ones often enough, and you may never return to the bland, expensive ones from the grocery store.

Peppers are very low in calories (about 25 calories per cup), and red peppers in particular are an excellent source of vitamins C, A and B6, as well as a very good source of potassium and vitamin K. By weight, red bell peppers contain three times as much vitamin C as citrus fruit. They also contain lycopene, a carotenoid found in tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables. Some research has suggested that lycopene helps fight certain kinds of cancer.

Peppers offer the cook endless possibilities. Roast them and they become a household staple, useful for snacks, salads and quick toppings for sandwiches and bruschetta. Fry or stew them, and they can be stirred into scrambled eggs and frittatas, risottos, pastas and pilafs. Uncooked peppers make a great, healthy snack, a crunchy vegetable that kids will eat.

I found this intersting article here

Be skeptical about nonconventional food

An ancient Asian practice to ferment soybeans and consume it as tofu cheese make this plant a healthy food that, consumed in almost any other form, would harm us.
Soy hasn’t the characteristics of basis nourishment, because it contains a series of “anti-nutrients” - compounds that block the digestion of vitamins and minerals in the body, which affects the hormonal system and prevents the body to decompose soybean proteins. Asian cuisine had to find different ways to make this plant at all inviting in an extremely nutritious food. By boiling soya beans in water, to get some kind of milk and the added gypsum (calcium sulfate), chefs have managed to turn soybeans into an easily digestible protein food: called tofu.
So, in which way are these traditional methods “for food processing” different from new engineering food practices? Just by the fact that traditional methods have stood the test of time, and those who have applied them have lived long and healthy for generations. Culinary traditions reflect a long experience and embody a nutritional logic that should not be overturned. So, here are some rules to adopt traditional diets:

Be skeptical about nonconventional food. Innovation is exciting, but when it comes to food novelty it should be approached with caution. If various types of diets or nourishments are the result of an evolutionary process, than this means that a culinary innovation is a kind of mutation: it could be a revolutionary breakthrough, but probably it is not. Abandoning the idea of pitched roofs was a great and interesting step for the modern architecture, but often trough horizontal roofs that replaced the pitched ones water could penetrate

Be the kind of person who takes dietary supplements

It is known that generally the persons who take dietary supplements are much healthier then persons who don’t. And it is known that in controlled trials, most supplements are actually neutral. Maybe the reasons why these people are healthier have nothing to do with pills: generally these subjects are persons that are more concerned about their health and have a higher financial and intellectual level. So, be as much as possible the kind of person that would take food supplements and save your money.

However, many nutritionists with whom I talked recommend multivitamins, especially as you get older. At least in theory,your diet should contain all macro-nutrients you need so that you could be healthy, especially if you eat real food and with many plants. After all, we have evolved to procure ourselves all the necessary elements for our body from the nature and if we were unable to do so, we couldn’t attain all of this.

But natural selection is not interested in our health or survival after the period in which we give birth to our descendants and, as we get older, the need for antioxidants increases and the capacity to assimilate them from food wanes. So, perhaps it would be better, and certainly you have nothing to lose, if you take multivitamins and minerals after the age of 50. And if you generally do not eat very much fish, it wouldn’t hurt if you would take a fish oil supplement.