Tag Archives: Lemon Juice

Lemons + Lemon Slice “Tea”

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Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

lemlemons.jpgLemon cultivars can be sweet, sour, and downright pucker-inducing. In the kitchen, they can be used in savory dishes and sweet treats, as well as employed as antibacterial cleaning agents. They’re good for digestion, too. That’s a lot of work packed into these little yellow fruits!

Like other citrus fruits, lemons are high in vitamin C, and they also contain small amounts of potassium, folate, and B6. When consumed along with iron-rich foods, vitamin C may help the body absorb more of this mineral. (A good tip for patients who tend toward iron deficiency anemia. Who wouldn’t want lemon garlic lamb kebabs? Or, for vegetarians, how about fresh squeezed lemon juice on an iron-rich bean salad?)

The acidity of lemons may help aid digestion, and their pectin—a soluble fiber—may help reduce total cholesterol as well as improve bowel health. (It should be noted, however, that lemon juice doesn’t provide fiber. For that, the pulp of the fruit must be consumed. A tall order, perhaps, for people who don’t like the sour taste, but grilling lemons is a way to bring out their sweetness. Preserving lemons in salt or with spices is another way to tone down the tartness and bring out the sweet zing while making the pulp very soft and easy to eat—including the rind!.

What’s the Difference Between Meyer Lemons and Regular Lemons?

Lemons are sometimes promoted as a weight loss aid. While squeezing a bit of fresh lemon juice on a salad or even eating the pulp of a lemon isn’t going to put bariatric physicians out of business, there’s some evidence that lemons may help just a little in the battle of the bulge. Mouse studies indicate that lemon polyphenols suppress body weight gain and body fat accumulation by “increasing peroxisomal beta-oxidation through up-regulation of the mRNA level of acyl-CoA oxidase in the liver and white adipose tissue.” Lemon polyphenols also improved serum levels of insulin, glucose and leptin, which may be of benefit to individuals with insulin resistance and/or metabolic syndrome. Additionally, adding a splash of lemon juice to water may help individuals drink more of it throughout the day, which may translate into slightly greater weight loss, owing to the thermogenic effect of water. (Many patients simply don’t like to drink water, and a little bit of lemon may make it more appealing.)

Other populations that may benefit from increasing lemon fruit and juice intake are those at risk for kidney stones or those with a history of stones. The high content of citric acid in lemons may help increase urine volume (particularly if added to beverages) and raise urine pH, creating an unfavorable environment for stone formation. It also increases urinary citrate excretion, with citrate acting as a natural inhibitor of urinary crystallization. “Achieving therapeutic urinary citrate concentration is one clinical target in the medical management of calcium urolithiasis”—and drinking plenty of lemon juice might be one way to boost urinary citrate levels.

Lemon juice is a powerful antimicrobial agent, which accounts for the use of lemon essential oil in many household cleaning products, particularly those used to clean kitchen counters and cutting boards. Lemon juice has demonstrated antibacterial effects against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and strains of Salmonella, as well as anti fungal effects against Candida Albicans. Another helpful thing lemons do in the kitchen is keep apples, bananas, pears, and avocados from turning brown when they’re cut prior to adding to a recipe. (Other citrus juice will do this as well, such as orange and lime.)

What’s the Difference Between Meyer Lemons and Regular Lemons?

Here is a great article from David Wolf-

20 Incredible Things Happen When You Add Lemon Water to Your Morning Routine

Lamb

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                                                                    LAMB

It’s always nice when off-the-charts amounts of nutrients come wrapped up in delicious, satisfying foods. And patients are more likely to stick to healthful diets when they know they can eat foods they genuinely enjoy. One food that health professionals can confidently recommend to patients is lamb.

Lamb is a staple food year-round in some regions of the world, but in North America, it’s more common in spring. Cultural practices and religious rituals dating back thousands of years used the traditional sacrifice of a lamb to honor religious laws and mark the beginning of the spring season. In the modern age, many families’ Easter dinners and Passover Seders wouldn’t be complete without a centerpiece of succulent lamb.

It’s interesting that, for many individuals, vegetables and fruit usually come to mind first upon hearing the phrase “vitamins and minerals.” The surprising truth is, the meat of ruminant animals contains an array of nutrients that rivals most produce. The nutrient profile of lamb is similar to that of grass-fed beef, which is known for its generous concentration of minerals and B vitamins. Besides being a fantastic source of complete protein, lamb provides impressive amounts of the B family, and is particularly high in niacin and B12. It’s also loaded with zinc, iron, copper, potassium, phosphorus, selenium, and even contains appreciable amounts of magnesium—a mineral more closely associated with leafy green vegetables. In light of all this, lamb might be the tastiest multivitamin around!

Most lamb available in North America is grass-fed and grass-finished. The raising of lamb for meat is still a relatively small industry, so unlike beef production, it does not rely on animal feed consisting mostly of subsidized grain. Many small farmers across the continent raise lamb on pasture year-round, so you can find it at a local farmers’ market or online. Imported lamb largely comes from Australia and New Zealand, where it is also primarily grass-fed and finished.

Of course, anyone who’s ever eaten a roasted leg of lamb, dripping with fat and juices, knows there’s more to lamb than just its meat. Mutton tallow—the rendered fat of an older sheep—contains mostly saturated and monounsaturated fats, with a smaller amount of polyunsaturated. A growing body of evidence suggests that, in the context of a lower-carbohydrate diet, dietary saturated fats have little undesirable effect on blood lipids. Moreover, despite the nearly automatic association of red meat with saturated fat, the predominant fatty acid in mutton tallow is actually not saturated, but monounsaturated. In fact, it’s oleic acid, the same one that is believed to be responsible for some of olive oil’s health-promoting properties.

Mutton fat is also a good source of the parent omega-3 fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). With about 4.7g ALA and 11.3g linoleic acid per cup, the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is approximately 2.4:1, making it an ideal part of any low-carb or Paleo-style diet. As if all that wasn’t enough to reduce the practice of draining every last bit of fat and sticking only to “lean meat” when it comes to lamb, lamb is also a good source of conjugated linolenic acid (CLA), but the amount depends on the animals’ feed and supplementation.

Lamb is delicious and nutritious all by itself, but the nutrient profile gets boosted even higher from some of the culinary preparations it’s commonly paired with. Herb rubs and marinades containing fresh lemon juice, rosemary, and mint are classic with lamb, as is yogurt sauce. Yogurt contains probiotics that support immune health and may also aid in digestion. Phytochemicals in rosemary have been shown to be anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic, and the antioxidants in its primary polyphenols, rosmarinic acid and carnosic acid, are more potent free radical scavengers than vitamins C and E. Mint also contains powerful antioxidants, possible anti-carcinogens, and mint has been used for centuries to aid in digestion and calm an upset stomach.

So the next time a patient says that health food is boring, point them toward herb-marinated lamb. It’s one of the most delicious “diet foods” out there!

Note: As a Sicilian American, lamb was eaten often but especially in the spring. If cooked correctly, there is nothing better. I myself prefer American Lamb over Australian and New Zealand varieties as the latter two can be too gamey for me and that is a definite no no.

There is a school of thought that claims lamb is the only land animal that does not grow tumors and that it is the easiest of all animal proteins to digest –true or not I do not know.  AND the blood smeared on the doors during passover was the blood of the lamb–