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Green Leafy Foods Can be Dangerous to Your Health

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, July 20, 2013 Permalink 0

Green Leafy Foods Can be Dangerous to Your Health

From the archives

by Jonell Galloway

The Huffington Post says Americans have reason for their eternal, but ever-changing, plate fright. In the US, E. Coli, Salmonella, Norovirus and numerous other bacteria and viruses are found in food more often that we might think.

Peppery pourpier from the Lake Geneva region.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a non-profit, consumer advocacy group, often referred to as the “American food police”, says the leafy greens we are encouraged to eat every day can in fact be the most dangerous of all vegetables. Over the last 20 years, there has been some 363 outbreaks and 13,568 illnesses due to green leafy foods alone.

According to Dr. Steve Swanson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, lettuce is only second to ground or minced beef in cases of E. Coli. Snopes gives a good explanation of how all this happens, and many suggest that we lay off pre-washed, bagged salads until more is know about exactly how greens are contaminated.

One thing is almost sure: one of the reasons salad is particularly more high risk than other vegetables is that we most often eat it raw. So wash your salad, and then wash it again. Don’t just spray it. Wash it in a basin or sink, and change the water several times.

The other high risk food is eggs, numbering 352 outbreaks in the US in the last 20 years, with 11,163 cases of illness reported.

If we want to make a “top ten” list, the other culprits, in order, are tuna, oysters, potatoes, cheese, ice cream, tomatoes, sprouts and berries.

Switzerland: Tomatoes and Swiss Chard, and it’s in Season!

Published by Jonell Galloway + Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Swiss chard, along with kale, mustard greens and collard greens, is one of several leafy green vegetables often referred to as “greens”. It is a tall leafy green vegetable with a thick, crunchy stalk that comes in white, red or yellow with wide fan-like green leaves.

The Swiss variety tends to have whitish stems not dissimilar to green celery but wider and somewhat fan-shaped, while the varieties found in North America can be red, purpose or yellow. Some say chard is second only to spinach in terms of nutrients, and it is certainly full of fiber and phytonutrients.

When choosing chard, make sure the leaves are not wilted and the stems look fresh and crisp. If it looks limp in any way, pass it up.

It is one of the few vegetables that probably shouldn’t be eaten raw, due to its high acid content.

Although it is referred to as “Swiss” chard, it isn’t actually native to Switzerland. It is a Mediterranean vegetable. Already in the fourth century B.C., Aristotle wrote about “chard”, the common name used in the Mediterranean region. It probably got its name from a vegetable that it resembles, the cardoon. It is thought that the French confused the two and ended up calling them both “charde”.

In modern times, the French call Swiss chard blettes, the Swiss call them côtes de bettes, and, funnily enough, the English-speaking world has kept the name closest to the original used in ancient times: chard.

Its actual homeland lies farther south, in the Mediterranean region; in fact, the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote about chard in the fourth century B.C. This is not surprising given the fact that the ancient Greeks, and later the Romans, honored chard for its medicinal properties. Chard got its common name from another Mediterranean vegetable, cardoon, a celery-like plant with thick stalks that resemble those of chard. The French got the two confused and called them both “carde.”

Swiss chard is in season for a good deal of the year in Switzerland, but this recipe takes advantage of summer to use some of those divine tomatoes that embellish the farmers markets.

In winter, it can be mixed with potatoes to make a lovely purée or soup.