One of my hobbies is cooking. Here are some of the recipes I've either come up with myself, or collected from other sources.
I've also included a brief shopping guide for ingredients, plus some general advice.
In October 2002, Whole Foods opened a store in Pittsburgh. It didn't take long before I was doing virtually all of my shopping there. Here's why:
Whole Foods carries a wide variety of delicious food, including some of the freshest produce I've ever seen in Pittsburgh. (Their prepared foods department alone would put many restaurants to shame.)
Whole Foods carries environmentally-friendly organic produce, natural meats from animals raised and processed humanely, sustainable seafood, and a wide variety of organic foods and other natural foods and household items that reduce our impact on the environment.
Whole Foods products contain far fewer chemicals and additives.
For spices, though, Penzeys Spices still rules. (As an added benefit, Penzeys has a retail store in Pittsburgh, so if you run out of something, you can get more very easily.)
Whole Foods and Penzeys cover about 99% of my grocery shopping needs. The remaining 1% consists mainly of esoteric items, usually acquired from ethnic stores in the Strip District.
I strongly recommend reading Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills, by Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
I discovered this book because some members of my family are sensitive to MSG, and I wanted to learn more about MSG and why it can cause reactions.
From the back cover:
ex•cí•to•tox•in: a substance added to foods and beverages that literally stimulates neurons to death, causing brain damage of varying degrees. Can be found in such ingredients as as MSG, aspartame (NutraSweet®), cysteine, hydrolyzed protein, and aspartic acid.
In the book, Dr. Blaylock makes a compelling argument that excitotoxins are hazardous to our health, and implicates them in brain disorders (autism, learning disorders, hyperactivity, et. al.) and neurological diseases in general (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, et. al.).
Also check out the Truth in
Labeling Campaign, MSGTruth, Battling the MSG Myth
, and
NoMSG sites.
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