Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research report marvelous news on the cancer prevention compounds found in cruciferous vegetables. The key vegetables in this category are broccoli sprouts and raw cabbage. In has been known for quite some time that these vegetables contain sulforaphane, a powerful compound long touted for its ability to fight off free radicals. However, today’s news has even more good news.

Today’s reports specifically mention other benefits of consuming cruciferous vegetables. A bacterium, called H. pylori (discovered in 1982 by a Nobel Prize scientist) allegedly causes most stomach ulcers and also can cause gastritis, in which stomach walls become inflamed (thus increasing the probability of stomach cancer). H. pylori can be decreased by consuming something as natural as broccoli sprouts. With the increase of irritated esophagi and stomach acid problems, it is quite obvious that our acid intake far exceeds our fresh vegetable intake.

But the most interesting part of this report was the findings on consumption of cabbage by Polish women. After they migrated to America and reduced their cabbage consumption, their rate of breast cancer increased. Cabbage is another member of the cruciferous vegetable family just as broccoli and cauliflower. It too ranks high for cancer prevention. It is recommended to eat cabbage raw. Perhaps it is time to seek out a good coleslaw recipe!

I have long been an advocate of a diet heavy in fresh fruits and vegetables. Though people do wish to have a longer and healthy life, it seems like TV programs health are quickly cast aside for a news flash on Brittany Spears.

I highly recommend the updates you will find on CBS Web Doctor. In my vegetable pizza book I suggest finding information at www.ohio.osu.edu or searching for “photochemical” on a search engine. In the meantime I am leaving you this reference list. I seriously ask you to consider all natural medicinal gifts from nature before assuming that cancer is simply our way of life in America.

FOOD WHICH MAY HELP PREVENT CANCER:
Garlic and onions: allicin
Carrot, yams and apricots: beta-carotene
Broccoli and Cabbage: sulforaphane
Beans, Soy and legumes: isoflavones
Chili peppers: capsaicin
Red wine: reveratrol
Blue foods: anthocyanidins
Flaxseed and grains: ligans
Grapefruit: limonoids
Not a complete list but enough to warrant further research into your life-saving choices.

FOODS WHICH MAY ACCLERATE CANCER GROWTH
Rancid oil or butter: (oils left opened for long time)
Burnt fat from a barbecue
Fat in ground meat
Grease from restaurant fryers
Old nuts easily become rancid
Processed meats (from nitrates)

Be on the lookout! This web site will soon be taking new directions, however, all my culinary advice will still be available through the Savvy Kitchen Solutions archives. All articles from this weblog: Savvy Kitchen Solutions will be published in my full length book next spring under the title of “KITCHEN CLIPPINGS” with photos and drawings not available on the website. Example: a photo of a freezer organized for efficiency and ease to search. It will be a unique “how to” book on basic and sensible ideas for your life in the kitchen. A good gift for Mother’s Day 2006.

How often have you found yourself eating something that has little resemblance to the photographic claim on the outside of the box or to the image accompanying the recipe? You can’t even imagine what expense marketers go to and how much these images are manipulated to convince people to buy things.

I hereby classify this as “eating outside the box", named so because the contents are only a remote likeness to the packaging photographs. For example, in the store, those images of huge chunks of meat and chicken catch your eye, but upon weighing several samples I found the meat volume quite a bit less than the box indicated. Then, there are those bright colored vegetables that look like they just came from the Farmer’s Market but in truth are rather anemic pebbles or chunks of produce. Often, the vegetables are either not cooked to edible tenderness or are overcooked. When buying pre-cooked stir-fry dinners, you will see prime-looking vegetables on the box. If you’re lucky enough to prepare it so that all the vegetables are consistent in texture and size you may be able to “eat inside the bag". More often then not, however, what you see in the picture and what you get is often like an unreliable weather report: overcast with intermittent sunshine.

I have always been amused by the product at supermarkets which promises you a miracle in a box by only adding a pound of hamburger. It is known as HAMBURGER HELPER. A more honest marketer would create a box showing a hamburger patty with crutches walking alongside a rice nurse or pasta doctor. However, the box misrepresents its content by showing a complete dinner: what you are eating is “outside the box". Other products from the same brand are TUNA HELPER & PORK HELPER. And just down the aisles from those popular products is none other but an INDIGESTION HELPER. What would we do without our handy antacid? Not to worry, for every eating mistake some pharmaceutical company is waiting to solve your problem with the promise of relief right on the box.

Apparently a perfect picture is worth a million dollars. If you think Hollywood has to do movie takes over and over, imagine the salary paid to the photographers whose task is to glorify and enhance food. The bright colors and box designs lead you to believe that a culinary Emeril or Martha creation is inside to please your taste buds. But in reality, it’s the trust towards authoritative figures that exceeds good common sense in our current non-cooking society! Whenever we see a bright box, we shall assume that a great dinner awaits us without the need to collect recipe ingredients, cook or wash pots and pans. While we may be savoring a fabulous dinner made without effort, the truth of the matter will be that what we eat will taste little better than consuming the box.

I can’t possibly write about all this foolishness without mentioning LUNCH IN A PLASTIC CUP. The commercials for this product, most appropriately named “Soup in Hand", show a deliriously happy consumer walking down the street carrying his plastic cup of soup clutched in his hand. While it may be convenient, the safety of heating a plastic container in the microwave has not yet been established. Most people prefer having homemade soup within minutes than considering the risks this chemical cup of petrified veggies and sodium may pose. What you expect and what get once you open the cup is parallel to what a youngster really wanted from his Grandma for his birthday and what was really in the box. Oh well, life is just full of reality checks! Is it not?

Last but not least, my latest discovery in deception was hardly what we would expect from the world number 1 authority in food expertise and perfectionist of the culinary world. On the October 2005 cover of the MARTHA STEWART LIVING magazine, there is a photograph of two traditional pies: pumpkin pie and apple pie. While this is certainly the right time of season for these images, there is something uniquely different about the pumpkin pie in this photo. I noticed that the outer edges of the pie are carefully shaped and baked. However, the center of the pumpkin pie never saw the center of any oven. It is obviously completely uncooked. While it is a great photo, it is a fraudulent pie. This is yet another great example of eating outside of the box, however in this case it’s eating outside of the magazine. A mere publishing faux pas I am sure that will be overlooked by many and excused by a public that does not have the ability to detect the real from the close imitation.

Pomegranates are native to the Himalayas and India. Since Biblical times, they have been cultivated and naturalized over the entire Mediterranean region. Pomegranates flourish in the drier parts of Southeast Asia, Malaya, East Indies and Africa. The fruit was first introduced to California by Spanish settlers in 1769. Since the pomegranate prefers a semi-arid and mild temperature to a subtropical climate, they are grown primarily in California and Arizona. Some are even grown in greenhouses.

The character of the fruit is quite different from most common cultivated fruits. Pomegranates grow on small trees or shrubs, which typically reach a height of about 12 to 16 feet. The tree has bright scarlet flowers with 5 to 8 petals. They self-pollinate, and are additionally cross-pollinated by insects. Some species of pomegranate have survived up to 200 years, however, fruit production usually declines after 15 years.

This funny fruit will probably outlast most common edible fruits of today, even the genetically altered ones. Most pomegranates are 2 1/2 to 5 inches across in size, and have a leathery skin or rind with a yellow to maroon color. Within the fruit’s jacket are a multitude of juice-filled sacs surrounding seeds. Before the appearance of modern manufactured beverages, the juice was considered to be a desirable refreshment by those who lived in arid regions along the Mediterranean. Its essence is used to make grenadine, a popular component of many modern cocktails. It has also been used in various medicinal forms throughout time.

There are other interesting facts about this ancient fruit. In Thailand, a branch from the pomegranate tree dipped in water is used to spray attendees returing from a funeral, a ritual which was though to free one of any evil spirits that may otherwise follow you. From 14bc to 135bc, the image of three pomegranates appeared on a silver coin used in Jerusalem. The image of the pomegranate was also used in the building of Solomon’s temple as noted in I Kings 7:18

Today, the pomegranate is gaining new acceptance not for its impressive historical virtues but its amazing anti-oxidant value. Besides being placed into many vitamin supplements, its juice is growing in popularity. For good reason! Compared to an orange, the pomegranate possesses nutritional superiority. Trader Joe’s or local health food stores have many versions of its tangy juice. If you thought that the cranberry has a pucker, your lips are in for a new surprise at your first sip of this Biblical berry.

For those who own a tree:
Your fruit will be ripe when the fruit develops a distinctive color and makes a metallic sound. If picked too late the fruit will crack. The apple and the pomegranate have a similar shelf life and can last up to 7 months in cool temperatures. While the sacs can be twisted out and eaten as is, there are several ways in which the juice can be extracted: by a wire press or warming the fruit and rolling it in between your hands to soften. Besides drinking the juice, it can be used for jelly, sorbets and hot or cold sauces. Oddly enough, as the fruit ages, it becomes juicier and stronger in flavor.

Unfortunately, living in an age when consumers expect everything instantly and properly spiked with ample sugar, this amazing fruit most often ends up in a Martha Stewart fruit bowl with a gourds and dried twigs design painted with paints from Ms Stewart’s latest craft corner at the big K. Of course, a few truly adventurous souls will realize that this funny ancient fruit has some amazing value and they will take the time to test its pleasing pucker power!

As we reluctantly watch the exit of summer, Mother Earth is releasing her horde of crisp multi-colored apples. They seem to be spilling over everywhere from the Farmer’s Market, along the roadsides, and brought by in shopping bags by friendly neighbors.

• Apples are cheap, they are plentiful and packed with a nutritional punch. Heathful pectin is abundant in apples, additionally, they are low calories, have high amounts of potassium, and contain only 16 grams of fruit sugars (in a medium size apple). All the more reason you should be chopping one of these delightful spheres of fiber. Unlike many other fruits that demand a tedious peeling, the apple is ready to go without any special preparation. Their versatility is boundless.
• Having lived several years in Santa Rosa, I visited Sebastopol – the self-titled “Apple Capitol of the World” – many times. Sebastopol holds two festivals celebrating the apple each year, in April, the “Apple Blossom Festival”, and in August, the “Gravenstein Apple Fair”.
• Johnny Appleseed was a nickname for the real John Chapman, who spent most of his life traveling and planting his beloved trees throughout the Allegheny Valley to the territories of Ohio and Indiana. He was a gentle and religious man.
• Apples are steeped in tradition and folklore. Apple pie, Apple cider, Applejack and “apples for teacher", just to name a few.
  Apples play prominent roles in our cultural history: one only has to think of Newton and his discovery of gravity, Snow White and her evil stepmother or Eve in the garden chomping on this source of great temptation.
• Apples have a long history of being adulterated with alcohol. Before prohibition Apple Brandy was popular and also referred to as Apple Jack and Jersey Lightning. Who could forget an 1800s-era political slogan like “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!”? William Harrison promised “log cabins and cider” This cider was hard. During long political speeches, the jug was passed among potential voters.
• The longest lasting symbol of the apple lies in New York City. How did the pet name of the “Big Apple” attach itself to New York City and remain so for 75 years? It is now thought likely that the term originated in horse-racing circles and was first popularized by John J. Fitz Gerald, although there are numerous legends surrounding the origin.

Just like every good thing that nature has provided to people, we’ve managed to screw the apple up. In the fall, we like to dip these crisp gems of natural goodness with caramel coating. Thousands of commercial pie companies place them inside a
pastry shell half – cooked and heavily sugared, especially during the holidays. For preservation purposes many are coated with wax. Some are stored a little too long and taste mealy. All the above seems to be part of living in a modern automated society. Regardless, the apple cannot be changed and it promises a savory flesh within its protective skin. Nutritional data on apples and other fruits is available at www.bestapples.com.

Here are some easy rules and suggestions for getting all the benefits from this wondrous fruit phenomenon. If possible, buy from a grower’s or farmer’s market where prices are usually most reasonable. At home, store them is cold place like the bottom of the refrigerator (please take them out of any plastic bag). Place a few in a place where the family spends time. Keep apples handy when potato chip and cookie cravings become unbearable. Wash, quarter, and remove the seeds of apples before putting them in kids’ lunches – this will keep the school garbage can from being filled with half-eaten apples. It’s even possible to freeze sliced and seasoned slices for busy future days.

Learn to make bottomless apple pies: Recruit family members to peel and cut into small pieces enough apples to fill
a 10 inch glass Pyrex or even a long glass lasagna pan. Add only 3 tablespoons of sugar along with teaspoon of cinnamon and 2-3 tablespoons of flour.Sprinkle over apples and cover with thin pie crust. If you wish, piecrust is available in the freezer case, or make your own (look inside the Joy of Cooking for crust-making directions). Apples are already sweet, so the addition of minimal
sugar is meant only to provide a base for the cinnamon and flour to adhere to. Here the true sweetness of the apple brims in glory.

Homemade apple sauce is a good way to utilize those apples waning in flavor: add a little lemon, about ¼ cup of water, place in a double-boiler. Cook down gradually, the use of a double-boiler will prevent the apple sauce from scorching.

Recently I’ve revisited the Waldorf Apple Salad. The original recipe was retuned for a client, who wanted to introduce more walnuts and celery into her diet. I cut up lots of apples and combined them with celery bits and dried softened cranberries. To this mixture I then added the walnuts. Use a simple dressing of canned cranberry sauce and equal yogurt, and if desired, a bit of low-calorie sour cream. Easy is the key word. By keeping routines simple you will see in time that preparing an apple pie can be a piece of cake.