I’ve been a fan of fish since I was a child. I liked eating oil packed sardines eaten straight from the can, tuna salad sandwiches, and bagels with lox (Nova Scotia Salmon) and cream cheese. I remember several holidays in which my mother ordered half a side of smoked salmon from Hegg & Hegg Smoked Salmon from Oregon or Washington state. It was a favorite in omelets. By my early teens I liked Caesar salad (made with anchovies). These were among some of the healthiest foods I ate back then. For that (and for my mother’s wisdom in buying them) I am eternally grateful! Photo right from Wikipedia.com
I didn’t grow up eating three square meals a day or many vegetables. My mother bought some things considered “health foods”–– Roman Meal Bread, oatmeal, brown rice cakes, fresh and dried fruits, and carob candy bars. She also bought potato chips, bologna, margarine (by request because I didn’t like rock solid, unsalted butter taken straight from the fridge), boxed macaroni & cheese, TV dinners, Jell-O, Cool Whip, Pepperidge Farm cookies, canned fruit cocktail, artificially flavored fruit punch, Kool Aid (which I discovered at my friends’ houses), a cornucopia of sugar frosted cereals, and a long list of other abominations of the processed food industry. I shudder to think about how I would have fared had I not had regular infusions of oily deep ocean fish to fill in some of the nutritional gaps in my otherwise deficient diet.
I missed the boat
Unfortunately, I missed out on hundreds of possible fish meals during most of the time I lived in Seattle, Washington. At least eight of the 12 years I lived in the Pacific Northwest I followed vegan and near-vegan macrobiotic diets, which not only left out the fish course but also the eggs, meat, poultry, and dairy. My health suffered on those regimens regardless how many how diligent I was with food selection and preparation, how many times I chewed each mouthful, and how much I believed in that way of eating.
In early 1997, after 12 years of mostly vegan diets interspersed with several 6- to 12-month periods of eating some animal products, my former husband and I still had signs of nutritional deficiencies, so we decided to follow a paleo diet modeled on hunter-gatherer or paleolithic food ways. We continued to eat generous amounts of fresh vegetables. We increased our fruit consumption, which the macrobiotic diet had limited, and added in lean, clean meat, eggs, and fish. We limited grains, beans and sweeteners to very infrequent use.
Dr. Price was right
In the 1930s, Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist from Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife traveled around the world visiting primitive groups of people isolated from modern commerce and free of the diseases of civilization. Dr. Price visited Swiss in isolated mountain villages, Gaelics in the Outer Hebrides, Eskimos, Indians of North and South America, Melanesians and Polynesians, many African tribes, Australian Aborigines, and New Zealand Maori. He took thousands of photographs of people eating primitive diets, and of people of the same genetic stock who had switched to modern diets. He recorded what they ate and analyzed many of their foods. In 1936, Dr. Price published his findings in a landmark book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (republished by Keats in 1999).
Price examined many mouths looking for dental disorders and spoke with physicians knowledgeable about the natives’ general health. He found numerous people isolated from modern influences who had handsome faces, straight, decay-free teeth, and robust physiques. In some tribes, such as the Maori, Price had to look at 2000 teeth to find a single decayed or missing tooth. These people also appeared to have a high resistance to both infections and degenerative diseases.
Interrupted heredity
Price showed that most degenerative diseases are caused by what he called “interrupted heredity.” Originally people had healthy genes, but when eating deficient diets, their genes are not able to produce handsome development and robust health for lack of proper (building) materials.
Imagine you have a blueprint for a sturdy house, but only give the builder cheap, weak materials. No matter how hard he tries to make a sturdy house, in the end it will only be as good as the raw materials. This is how weak and sick bodies are created and how people who appear seemingly health can, over time, become increasingly ill.
Keys to health
All of the tribes Dr. Price studied ate omnivorous diets; some ate animal foods in large amounts (e.g., Inuits). When he studied the nutritional composition of their foods, Price concluded that their robust health resulted from high intakes of animal products rich in fat-soluble vitamins, special fat-soluble activators, water soluble vitamins, and essential minerals.
Health food from the sea
Dr. Price was particularly impressed with the physical and mental development and high immunity to degenerative diseases among coast-dwelling people who ate liberal amounts of seafood, the best source of iodide. He found natives all around the world were aware they needed foods from the sea to maintain health. When Dr. Price asked highland Peruvians why they went to great lengths to obtain fish eggs and kelp from coastal people, they told him it was necessary to maintain female fertility and prevent the “big neck” disease––i.e. goiter––often developed by white people.
Safe seafood
Seafood is still a superfood, although we have to be more selective about the kinds we eat due to over fishing and problems with polluted waterways. Wild Alaskan salmon is one of the cleanest fish you can eat, far more nutritious than Atlantic or farmed salmon. My friend Kenny Aschbacher (know in Phoenix, AZ, and Albuquerque, NM, as The FishHugger) sells several varieties of sustainably harvested wild salmon from the Kodiac Islands, where he fishes commercially every summer. He sells his fish at farmers’ markets around the valley, to some local restaurants, and to individuals. If you’ve had salmon that tastes too strong for your liking, he has some mild-tasting varieties.
Still crazy about salmon after all these years
Wild Alaskan Salmon is one of my favorite foods. Here’s a recipe I’ve made twice so far, once in January and again today. I pan fried the salmon in Ahuacatlan Avocado Oil that I got from a vendor at the Town & Country Farmers’ Market here in Phoenix. I’ll tell you more about the virtues of avocado oil in the next couple of weeks. You'll have a chance to enter to win a bottle of this oil as well. It’s a great all purpose oil rich in monounsaturated fatty acids and far safer for cooking and salad use than vegetable oils.
- A 5-ounce piece of Spice Crusted Wild Alaskan Salmon (recipe below)
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups locally grown (leftover) blanched vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and bell peppers) dressed with a tablespoon of light and toasted sesame oil mixed with a squeeze of fresh ginger juice
- 1 locally grown orange from McClendon's Select Citrus
1 to 1.5 ounces of outrageously delicious Askinosie San Jose Del Tambo 70% dark chocolate bar w/Crunchy Cocoa Nibs*
- about 1/3 cup Pralined Pumpkin Seeds (recipe from The Ice Dream Cookbook, honey replaced with Swerve brand erythritol)
- 1 cup darkly brewed Teeccino (coffee alternative) with a few tablespoons of plain, unsweetened coconut milk and several drops of liquid vanilla stevia
* Note: A 1.5-ounce serving (half of 3-ounce bar) of this variety of Askinosie chocolate contains only 7 grams sugar. It also contains 5 grams fiber, 4 grams of protein, and 17 grams of good fat. It was so delicious!
Spice Crusted Salmon
Prep: 15 minutes Cooking: 8 to 12 minutes Yield: 4 servings
I found this recipe in Healing Foods: Cooking for Celiacs, Colitis, Crohn’s and IBS by Sandra Ramacher. Even if you don’t have digestive disorders, I highly recommend this cookbook. It has some amazing recipes. I've tried at least three of them so far and they've all been winners.
My notes: I doubled the amount of spices and sesame seeds to make enough to coat both sides of the salmon fillets. I cooked enough fish to allow for leftovers the next day and two pieces to freeze for future meals.
Ingredients:
1½ tablespoons whole dried coriander seeds*
1 tablespoon dried cumin seeds*
1 tablespoon sesame seeds* (I used black sesame seeds today; brown ones last time)
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
4 salmon fillets with skin on one side (I used FishHugger salmon)
1 egg white
Olive oil (I used 2 tablespoons avocado oil, which has a higher smoke point than olive oil; Spectrum Palm shortening, Tropical Traditions Palm Shortening, and ghee also work well)
*seeds are only for advanced stage of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and need to be crushed finely.
- Heat a dry skillet; toast the coriander seeds and cumin seeds, stirring constantly until they become fragrant. Remove seeds. Repeat the process with the sesame seeds. Remove from heat, add to the spices, and crush with a mortar and pestle (or pulse on and off in a spice-dedicated coffee grinder).
- Add the thyme, salt and black pepper.
- Dip the skin side of the salmon fillets into the egg white. Then press into the spice mixture. (I dipped both sides of the fish into the egg and spice mixture, so I needed more coating.)
- Brush the skillet with olive oil and bring to a high heat. (I oiled the pan more liberally)
- Place the fillets with the seeded side onto the oil (start with the flesh side, then flip to the skin side for the pretties presentation).
- Fry on high for two minutes.(I used medium high heat for about 3 minutes per side.) Turn the heat to low. Flip the fillets and cook on low for up to 8 minutes, depending on how well done you would like them.
- Serve with our asparagus with hazelnut butter and sautéed Asian greens. (I served my favorite: blanched vegetables).
Source: Healing Foods: Cooking for Celiacs, Colitis, Crohn’s and IBS by Sandra Ramacher
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