Learning to Love Asparagus

Fresh asparagus and tomatoes. Photo: SXC.HU

I love all vegetables. Well, almost all vegetables.

There are those few that linger at the bottom of the list, and I usually only eat them if they're covered in a creamy sauce or swimming in so much butter they're no longer considered a vegetable.

Asparagus fits in this group.  I know I'm not alone when it comes to being a little shy around this stalky vegetable.

So, to kick off the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I'm going to try to learn to love asparagus. I encourage my readers to be healthier and eat whole foods, so I need to practice what I preach!

I bought a fresh bunch of asparagus at the store and have committed to finding a way to make it tasty. After browsing my stacks of cookbooks, I decided to try preparing the veggie two ways: roasted in a hot oven and sauteed in olive oil.

The roasted asparagus had a wonderful, earthy flavor but was limp and kind of soggy. Maybe my oven wasn't hot enough or I used too much olive oil. The sauteed asparagus was much better. I lightly tossed it with fresh sliced mushrooms and onions before mixing it with pasta. The asparagus was still firm and reminded me of eating fresh green beans from the garden. Yum!

So, how do you like your asparagus? Please make my mouth water by leaving your ideas in the comments below!

Until Next Time,
Choose Healthy!

Angela Tague
Whole Foods Living


PS: This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Each day during April (excluding Sundays) my posts will relate to a specific letter of the alphabet. Stop back tomorrow, join this site with Google Friend Connect, or sign up for email reminders on the top, left side of this page to keep up with what I've got cooking! Thank you!

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One More Reason to Eat Vegetables

Photo Courtesy Krumdieck, Morguefile.

Think of that salad or side of brussels sprouts as an extra nudge towards a smoke-free life.

As a writer, I do lots of reading. This morning I came across an article on Futurity claiming that eating vegetables makes the taste for tobacco less appealing. This is fantastic news for smokers implementing a healthier lifestyle.

“We knew from our previous work that people who were abstinent from cigarettes for less than six months consumed more fruits and vegetables than those who still smoked," explained Gary A. Giovino, chair of the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior at the University at Buffalo in the Futurity article. "What we didn’t know was whether recent quitters increased their fruit and vegetable consumption or if smokers who ate more fruits and vegetables were more likely to quit.”

Here are a few key points from the article:

Smokers who ate more fruits and vegetables...

•  smoked fewer cigarettes per day and scored lower on a common test of nicotine dependence
•  were three times more likely to be tobacco-free after 14 months than those who didn't eat an increase in produce
•  feel more full from the increase in fiber consumption. Some smokers confuse hunger for the need for a cigarette.

*Futurity reports on scientific discoveries by researchers at universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Until Next Time,
Choose Healthy!

Angela Tague
Whole Foods Living

PS: Follow me on Twitter @AngelaTague to see what I've been up to!

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