I find that mindless activities are excellent for creative thinking. There's something freeing about having your hands busy and your brain minimally occupied! Needlework, driving, dishwashing and solitaire games are examples of when a lot of "eureka moments" hit me ... and i had one this morning.
Way back in my Atkins-days, i found it fascinating that the foods i most craved were GREENS. As a child, i (strangely enough) liked spinach, but never was a huge fan of the occasional beet- or turnip-greens to be found in our house -- well, i just didn't like the way my mother cooked them! Flavor-wise, the seasoning of all these was redundant, and she cooked the roots WITH the tops, and i believe they're better separate. My husband started making things like mustard, kale, chard and collards using different styles, and i became an AVID enthusiast. To CRAVE GREENS -- a completely new experience....
A similar pattern emerged when i started trying new cocktail recipes. I quickly tired of the sweet, koolaid-like bases for alcohol, and new favorites like the Calvados Cocktail (with a whopping 1/2 oz of orange bitters), Satan's Whiskers and Campari-&-soda are now my before-dinner choices.
Maybe i'm a little slow, but it took me awhile to connect the dots after i read that study last week (thanks, Bill!) and did some more googling -- bitter flavors on the tongue prompt an increase in stomach-acid AND bile production. More of each makes for a happier digestive system, and the bile specifically encourages the conversion of more thyroxine (T4) to triiodothyronine (T3): short answer, bitters make me feel more "normal"!
The old-timers were right ... as usual. Eat your greens and drink your aperitif, they're good for you -- and now we know why.
"bitter flavors on the tongue prompt an increase in stomach-acid AND bile production"
ReplyDeleteohhhhh! thats interesting, what links did you find for this?! :)
i found that yesterday but didn't bookmark -- i'll get back with you when i find it again! thank god for "history" huh?
Deletethe leafy green vegetable meme has always irked me to no end. I just cant get my head around the idea that spinach is either A) food for humans, or B) nutritious.
ReplyDeleteFor example, when I put some sirloin steak in my mouth, the molecules of the food interact with all the receptors over my tongue, and a neural signal is sent to the brain. Basically, my brain "tells" me if what I have in my mouth is food or not. I do not need another human to tell me what is or is not food, because my brain will do it when I put it in my mouth.
But when I do this with spinach, im not getting the feedback from my brain telling me "hey this thing in your mouth is not food".
Raw spinach elicits a similar response to chewing gum, my brain says "hey, its interesting and chewy, but its not food" Cooked spinach on the other-hand is incredibly bitter. INCREDIBLY. Cooking spinach completely changes the taste and makes it too bitter to taste.
perhaps what i'm experiencing is like dogs and cats eating grass -- to them it's not FOOD, but something therapeutic.
DeleteInteresting about the bile...I don't think I've EVER craved anything bitter, nor do I particularly care bitter flavors...Spinach, okay if it's fresh, mixed in a salad, Kale...I'll eat it if I have to, but it's no treat...I've been enjoying not eating green stuff the past couple of months. Likewise with sour/fermented flavors...I like them, but I don't think I've ever 'craved' them...not even when I was pregnant....
ReplyDeletethis experience has really grown on me over the past decade! ...to me, spinach salad tastes like a lot of nuthin'! :-) as for sourness, to me it needs a balance -- always enjoyed the sweet-sour combo. i never liked pickles though, till i tasted the lacto-fermented sort, which don't have the harsh tang of vinegar.
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