The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

Good thing I eat each of these foods every single day. Does that make me a perfect human being? Yes, I believe it does.

Thank you TPP, for vindicating my neuroticism.

FROM TPP — Happy to help. :)

We are heavy users of cinnamon and tumeric in my house. We put blueberries in pancakes, and occasionally buy pomegranate juice, although it’s a bit tart for my toddler’s taste. Thanks for this list.

I’d like to see Mark Bittman do a series of recipes using these foods. Do NYT blogs ever coordinate?

I like them all and eat most of them fairly frequently but I wish pomegranate juice wasn’t so expensive!

FROM TPP — Here’s a tantalizing beet recipe from Mark Bittman’s Bitten blog. Click here.

Almost every day there’s another list of a dozen foods that should be part of your diet. The other day there was a list of must-eats which included turnip greens, almonds, Brazil nuts, dried apricots, cooked tomatoes, broccoli, sweet potatoes. Tomorrow I’ll come across another list with green tea, red wine and dill. Let’s face it: All fresh fruits and veggies, nuts, lentils, beans, are good for you. Stop getting people into a frenzy by making these authoritative but haphazard lists which make people feel that if they don’t eat these foods, they will die soon.

Dr. Bowden responds: You are absolutely right, but you missed the point of the article. These are simply a bunch of foods that are great for you that many people overlook when they think of “healthy foods”. No one ever said if you missed one- or five- or ten- you would die.

Beets! About 10 years ago when I still worked in Manhattan, I would stop at a juice bar in mid-afternoon. I discovered the extraordinary energy of beets. When combined with fresh carrots, apples, and a touch of ginger it makes a great drink. I also eat them sliced on my salads. I found that in my latest career (middle school teacher) that a salad packed with beets, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and garlic croutons, on a bed of spinach (occasionally with slices of turkey or chicken) gave me the right fuel to make it through the afternoon, and not suffer from food coma, as is evident in most of my students in the 30-45 minutes after lunch.
Also, smoothies with tofu instead of milk are a better energy drink. No heavy feeling as with milk or ice cream. Firm tofu, oj, lots of ice, bananas, strawberries, and plenty of honey. Happy, happy.

I eat most of the items on this list because I like them, but had no idea they were nutritional superstars! I have never tried sardines, because they look squiggly, but I’ll give them a chance. I do use turmeric, cinnamon and cumin together to make vegetable tagines – a good way to get many healthy foods into one satisfying and filling dish.

Ridiculous. Take a multivitamin daily and eat what you like while limiting fats and total calories. “Natural red pigments may be cancer fighters,” “said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes,” “helps control blood pressure and cholesterol” – poorly substantiated claims as applied to a normal human diet. “Healthful foods that people should be eating but aren’t,” such as purslane, guava and goji berries? How about baloney.

I had always assumed that cinnamon raised blood pressure. btw/ sardines (fresh) are great when grilled on a BBQ; perfect for summer.

Just about everything on the list is on the menu here, with the exception of the pomegranate juice and Swiss chard.

This is not news. Swiss Chard is rather acid and using butter defeats the purpose. Substitute olive oil. Read and follow any book on macrobiotics and you will stay well. Peace and Health to you.

Dr. Bowden responds: I’m not sure what you mean by “defeats the purpose”. What purpose? If you mean adding butter adds fat and defeats the purpose of eating healthy, I couldn’t disagree with you more. Healthy organic butter from grass fed cows is a perfectly healthy food and actually contains CLA, a cancer fighting fat. So I’m not sure how adding butter to a great vegetable defeats any purpose at all.

Here in Boston, farmers markets are now selling great local beets. We roast them wrapped in alumnium foil in the oven (as Mark Bittman’s book How to Cook Everything says, that’s the easiest and best way to cook them) and separately saute the greens. I guess sometime I’ll see what they’re like raw, in light of the suggestion in this column, but it’s hard to imagine that would be as delicious.

I wanted to post a comment because whenever I buy beets, I get asked if I want the greens cut off. Just say no. The greens are the most nutritious part of the beets. One guy I bought beets from last week told me, shaking his head, that lots of his customers want him to cut off and discard the greens, and then they turn right around and buy swiss chard, which is very, very smiliar to the beet greens (but more expensive). Meanwhile my supermarket cuts off most of the greens before even displaying the beets. Why is chard a delicacy if beet greens are a throw-away? Both are great. Very odd.

Dr. Bowden responds: You are 100 percent right. And whenever I juice the beets, I include the greens. They’re terrific for you and should not be a throw-away!

A question.

When you give the “How to eat” for each, are those just suggestions? For instance: for prunes, wrap in prosciutto and baked, and for tumeric, put it in scrambled eggs. Do I have to? I don’t particularly like scrambled eggs. Is there a synergistic effect from an egg-and-tumeric combo? MUST I bake the prunes (I mean dried plums)?

And how much of each of these uberfoods should we be eating to get a benefit? Two heads of cabbage? A pallet of beets? Help us, Obi-Wan, you’re our only hope!

FROM TPP — The “How To Eat” items are just suggestions to get you thinking about ways to prepare the items. But no, you don’t have to. The best advice is to make these food a regular part of your weekly diet. I don’t think there is a specific prescription — we simply know that these foods are packed with nutrients and compounds that are beneficial.

Additional comment from Dr. Bowden: I want to echo TPP’s comment which is pitch perfect. These are not prescription drugs with a perfect recommended dose. They are simply foods which- along with many others not mentioned- have been found to have huge nutritional benefits and are found in the diets of some of the healthiest people on earth. You don’t have to eat every one, and there is no perfect “dose” ( eat 2 heads cabbage and call me in the morning). Rather, these are foods that- like colors in a palette- should and can be incorporated into an overall dietary program that gives you the most nutritional bang for your buck.

I learned about canned pumpkin while pregnant and trying to up my quotient of daily “yellow vegetables”. One doesn’t have to eat much of it (a tablespoon or two?) to make a serving. (See “What to Eat/Expect When You’re Expecting.”) I also tend to keep frozen blueberries on hand, thawing them for pancakes or for cereal or yogurt toppings. Cabbage, yes: here are many good recipes for cabbage salads, some with cole slaw dressings and others with Asian dressings, sesame seeds, and almonds. Turmeric, a common ingredient in curries–yes–and cinnamon, yes. Not on this list, but another easy way to include a healthy vegetable in a routine meal: I keep frozen packaged chopped spinach around and eat it as a side dish with scrambled eggs for breakfast. It tastes very good to me, and it’s both nutritious and filling.