The “Bells” Toll for You

Bell peppers are packed with several nutrients. They are a good source of vitamin C, thiamine, vitamin B6, beta carotene, and folic acid. Bell peppers also contain a large amount of phytochemicals that have exceptional antioxidant activity. Those phytochemicals include chlorogenic acid, zeaxanthin, and coumeric acid. When comparing the nutrient values of the different bell peppers, studies have shown that red bell peppers have significantly higher levels of nutrients than green. Red bell peppers also contain lycopene, which is a carotene that helps to protect against cancer and heart disease.

Possibly due to their vitamin C and beta carotene content, bell peppers have been shown to be protective against cataracts. Just like other nutrient-dense vegetables, bell peppers contain many different powerful phytochemicals. Bell peppers have also been shown to prevent blood clot formation and reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes probably due to their content of substances such as vitamin C, capsaicin, and flavonoids. Although chili peppers contain a higher amount of those substances, bell peppers should still be promoted especially for individuals with elevated cholesterol levels.

Sources:

Murray , Michael N.D.. The Encyclopedia Of Healing Foods.
New York: Atria Books, 2005.

Centers For Disease Control And Prevention-5 A Day. National Agricultural Library-USDA. usda.gov.

Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia

On Top of Spaghetti: A Few Facts About Meatballs

Meatballs anyone? Most people love em!

It’s the traditional start to the Sunday dinner in most Italian families, served warm with fresh mozzarella cheese, crisp italian bread and fried hot peppers. Whether they are fresh from the pot, or simply gracing a heap of spaghetti, nothing beats a meatball!

Here’s an amazing fact about making meatballs: Give ten people the same basic recipe and each batch will turn out differently. Go figure…

No one really knows the true origin of the meatball but in an 2003 article entitled “Ask the Chef” John Piso describes it this way:

“Meatballs originated in some Italian’s kitchen when she found that she had some ground beef left over. Hamburger meat was popularized at the turn of the last century, so it makes sense to assume that meatballs started then, as did meat loaf. I could just see some nice Italian housewife ready to make a tomato sauce and find some left over ground meat in her ice-a -box-a. Always having eggs, parsley, garlic, cheese, and hard bread around, she must have felt a surge of lightning that hit her with this idea. Ground meat, garlic, cheese, breadcrumbs, parsley, and some beaten egg to hold it all together. Fry it in oil; drop it in the sauce and Bingo! Two courses in one pot – pure genius!”

Then comes what I call the “Christopher Columbus” question about meatballs…Why are meatballs round? Because it’s a meat-ball, silly. Actually, if meatballs were flat, they’d break apart when stirred in tomato sauce. Hand size is also a factor. Big hand, big meatball, small hand, small meatball.

Wikipedia, The Free Online Encyclopedia, describes a meatball as “a generally spherical mass of minced meat and other ingredients, such as bread or breadcrumbs, minced onion, various spices or eggs, usually fried in a pan or baked in an oven. Except for shape and size (there’s usually more than one meatball per serving), meatballs are very similar to meatloaf.”

That may be half true. A meatball is only similar to a meatloaf because of the ingredients that cement it togther. The meatloaf is a traditional American dish, made in a loaf form, sometimes stuffed, sliced and covered in brown gravy. A meatball is the stuff that dreams are made of because there’s a nostagia factor here: I recall sleeping in on a Sunday morning and waking to the most delicious smell in the world, then entering the kitchen and hearing that sweet sound of meatballs sizzling in a frying pan….it’s always so hard to resist grabbing one. Can’t get that feeling from a meatloaf!

 

Go “Bananas” and Spice Up Your Next Johnny’s Pizza

“Superfoods Rx” author Steven Pratt recommends peppers as a food that is as unusually good for you as fast food hamburgers are unusually bad. “Good Eats” host Alton Brown recommends the sweet and spicy banana pepper for dishes ranging from stir fry to ice cream. Regardless of what you do with your banana peppers, conscious eating requires knowing just what’s going on inside these colorful veggies.

Serving and Calorie Information

One banana pepper, approximately 4 inches long, brings 9 calories to the table. Only one of these calories comes from fat, reports nutrition resource website The Calorie Counter. According to Brown, typical recipes will call for anywhere between half a pepper to two or three. Printable Grocery List List is created from week’s worth of recipes. Organized by dept. www.FoodontheTable.com

Fat Profile

A typical serving of banana pepper carries one-tenth of one gram of fat, which is relatively low, compared with other foods. The fat in banana peppers is polyunsaturated fat, the healthy fat that contributes to production of heart-friendly HDL cholesterol.

Carbohydrate Profile

Only 1.8 g of a 30-g banana pepper consist of carbohydrates. That carbohydrate load consists of 1.1 grams of dietary fiber, known to contribute to circulatory and digestive health. Peppers in general are sweeter than many other veggies, and banana peppers are sweeter than many other peppers. Of the remaining carbs, 0.6 g are from simple sugars.

Vitamin and Mineral Content

Like most peppers, banana peppers are high in vitamin C. One serving provides 45 percent of the recommended daily allowance. It also delivers 2 percent of your vitamin A, 1 percent of your iron and half a gram of protein. Banana peppers are low in sodium, carrying only 4.3 milligrams per serving. They deliver 2 percent of the recommended allowance of potassium.

Micronutrients

Pratt’s research suggests that banana peppers contain micronutrients, especially carotenoids, that contribute to overall health. Specific effects of carotenoids include decreased risk of cancer and reduced rates of heart disease. They contain the same micronutrient found in carrots, and they also contribute to eye health.

Scoville Heat Units

The Scoville heat scale measures how spicy a food is by rating the capsaicin content, giving each food a rating from zero, not spicy at all, to a maximum of 16 million. Law enforcement pepper spray ranges in the 500,000 to 2 million range on the Scoville scale. Banana peppers rate a Scoville range of 100 to 500, spicier than bell peppers and less spicy than Anaheim green chiles.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/254286-nutritional-value-of-banana-peppers/#ixzz1DZdT7fjQ