Fiber is the Future

Just beneath the pebbly skin of every hand-picked California Avocado lies a myriad of culinary wonders: taste, texture, nutrition – these fruits have got it all!

California Avocados are in season. And in keeping with this week’s avocado theme, here are a few kitchen tips for getting the most out of these premium fruits at their tastiest time of the year:

Selecting an Avocado: Gently squeeze the avocado in the palm of your hand – if it’s ripe and ready to eat, the fruit will be firm but will yield to gentle pressure

Cutting an Avocado: take a ripe avocado, cut lengthwise around the seed and rotate the halves to separate from the seed; guide a spoon gently under the stone to separate it from the fruity flesh

Peeling an Avocado: with the cut-side facing down, use a sharp knife or your fingernails to peel away the skin, starting at the small side; remove skin slowly, preserving the fruit closest to the skin which has been shown to be the most concentrated source of phytonutrients

Ripening an Avocado: If your avocados are just a tad shy of ready-to-eat, speed up the ripening process by placing the fruit in a brown paper bag, store at room temperature for 2-5 days, and Voilà! – a perfectly ripe result every time

For a DIY, hands-on approach, check out Chef Trey Foshee’s demonstration of how to cut an avocado:

Now that you know the finer points of avocado preparation – put your creative juices to work and enter the Fiber is the Future Recipe Contest by clicking here.

You could win an avocado-lover’s dream prize pack, compliments of the California Avocado Commission.

For more great avocado tips, visit the California Avocado Commission’s website at www.CaliforniaAvocado.com.

California Avocados are in peak season – which means there is no better time than the present to get crackin’ in the kitchen on your most creative avocado recipe!

Enter Fiber is the Future’s Avocado Recipe Contest this week for a chance to win a fabulous giveaway pack, compliments of the California Avocado Commission.

Entering is easy:

• Create a recipe that features avocados as the primary ingredient – get creative, any recipe category is fair game!
• Email your recipe with a picture of your final creation to fiberisthefuture@gmail.com by 5:00 pm PT on Monday October 1, 2012
• The most creative – and delicious – recipe will be chosen on Wednesday October 3, 2012 and the winner will be notified by email
• The winning recipe will be featured on Fiber is the Future on Thursday October 4, 2012
• Contest is limited to US residents only

About the California Avocado Prize Pack

The California Avocado Commission gift pack is a prize worthy of any on-the-go professional! The package features a laptop messenger bar, California Avocado insulated coffee mug, journal, stylish engraved pen, pocket note pad and carabiner flashlight key chain.

For the cook in you, California Avocados is also throwing in their avocado slicer that makes perfect slices for a beautiful presentation on any dish as well as the avocado Slice-n-Scoop tool. Finally, for those days when you just want to relax, put on one of two California Avocado t-shirts, pull out your travel wine & cheese set, pack up your avocados and enjoy!

Why California Avocados?

California Avocados are always hand-grown, always hand-picked and always delicious! Every California Avocado is carefully selected to provide you with the most flavor-packed, nutrient-rich, creamy and delicious experience imaginable!

California Avocados are loaded with nutrition, providing over 20 essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. With just 50 calories in a 1/5 medium-sized fruit serving, California Avocados are an excellent addition to any part of your day.

These fanciful fruits grow year round, and California Avocados are in peak season right now! Check back for more avocado tips throughout the week – and visit the California Avocado Commission at www.californiaavocado.com to learn more about the premium qualities of California Avocados!

A special thanks to the California Avocado Commission for providing the giveaway pack for this recipe contest!

Just because September – Fruits & Veggies: More Matters Month – is coming to a close, doesn’t mean you have to stop powering your plate with more colorful produce!

The Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics offers the following ideas to get you packing your plate with nutrient-dense, lower calorie fruit and vegetable options:

Begin with Breakfast

• Wake up to fruit; make a habit of adding fruit to your morning oatmeal, ready-to-eat cereal, yogurt or toaster waffle
• Mix up a breakfast smoothie made with low-fat milk, frozen strawberries and a banana

Snack and Shop Smart

• Try crunchy vegetables instead of chips with your favorite dip or low-fat salad dressing
• Stock up: Fill your fridge with raw vegetables and fruits —“nature’s fast food”—cleaned, fresh and ready to eat

Mains that Matter

• Make a veggie wrap with roasted vegetables and low-fat cheese rolled in a whole-wheat tortilla
• Grill colorful vegetable kabobs packed with tomatoes, green and red peppers, mushrooms and onions
• Make your main dish a salad of dark, leafy greens and other colorful vegetables; add chickpeas or edamame (fresh soybeans) and top with a low-fat dressing
• Stuff an omelet with vegetables; turn any omelet into a hearty meal with broccoli, squash, carrots, peppers, tomatoes or onions with low-fat sharp cheddar cheese

Complement Your Plate

• Add color to salads with baby carrots, grape tomatoes, spinach leaves or mandarin oranges
• “Sandwich” in fruits and vegetables; add pizzazz to sandwiches with sliced pineapple, apple, peppers, cucumbers and tomato as fillings

Topping Tips

• Variety abounds when using vegetables as pizza topping; try broccoli, spinach, green peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and zucchini
• Top a baked potato with beans and salsa or broccoli and low-fat cheese
• “Grate” complement: Add grated, shredded or chopped vegetables such as zucchini, spinach and carrots to lasagna, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, pasta sauce and rice dishes

Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth with Fruit

• Get saucy with fruit: Puree berries, apples, peaches or pears for a thick, sweet sauce on grilled or broiled seafood or poultry, or on pancakes, French toast or waffles
• Banana split: Top a sliced banana with a scoop of low-fat frozen yogurt. Sprinkle with a tablespoon of chopped nuts

For more great nutrition tips, visit the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Nutrition Information page.

Source: Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, Nutrition Care Manual: Resources, 2012.

Never thought I’d meet a fiber food I didn’t like. But I have.

Orange rinds.

Now, slathered in chocolate – they’re all right, because, like most things you wouldn’t eat by themselves – let’s say, a coffee bean – things are tolerable when dunked in saturated fat and sugar.

But, Bella Viva Orchards’ Pure & Natural Orange Slices: you are no chocolate covered coffee bean!

I was pretty amped when I saw these orange slices on my market shelf recently. (OK, it wasn’t a market. It was an impulse buy in the Marshall’s check out line.)

But, anyway, in 4 slices – 98 calories – there are 8 grams of dietary fiber. That’s pretty impressive considering that in a medium-sized rindless orange you get 70 calories and 3 grams of fiber. According to the USDA, one orange with peel is 100 calories and 7 grams of fiber, so the Bella Viva nutritionals are spot on.

Now, the fiber blog is usually a love fest for all things fiber. But there’s no pull in these peels. Problem is, the dried oranges tasted awful. Well, technically it’s hard to taste something when you’re gagging on the texture….

Regardless, I was flat out surprised how inedible the product was. I am curious to know if anyone from Bella Viva’s Quality Assurance department has actually tasted these crumbly, pasty chunks of compost?

Now, it could be that I bought a bunk batch from America’s favorite brand name and designer fashion for the whole family store. Or it could be payback for all those times I tricked my unsuspecting little brothers into taste testing the melted unsweetened chocolate I was preparing for brownie batter…

But back to the orange peels: just because something is edible, does not necessarily mean it should be eaten. I don’t care HOW much fiber a food has, if you can’t get it down, what’s the point?

I must say however that the dried oranges are gorgeous in appearance. These beauties shall make a lovely addition to my high fiber potpourri bathroom basket. They just don’t belong in my GI tract.

And the worst part? These dried oranges – for a 4 ounce bag – are cheaper online ($3.00) than they were at Marshall’s ($3.99). So maybe the joke really is on me.

Nopal is a vegetable made from the pad of the prickly pear cactus that is indigenous to Mexico. The texture of cooked nopales is reminiscent to green beans, and they are used extensively throughout Mexican cuisine.

Nopales have been used in Mexican and Central American cultures to lower blood sugar in people with diabetes. Although there are no large scale studies indicating that nopales do demonstrate consistent blood glucose lowering effects, the high pectin and fiber content of nopales are thought to play a role in decreasing carbohydrate absorption.

Because of their high water content – almost 94% – nopales are very low in calories. A one-cup serving has 14 calories and 2 grams of dietary fiber.

To prepare nopales, the younger plants are selected, de-thorned and then cleaned and boiled, broiled or sauteed. When seasoned properly, the end product is usually tasty, but the preparation is nothing short of a pain.

Enter Tortillas de Maize con Nopal – nopales in a tortilla. I found these spectacular low-calorie tortillas at Northgate Market in San Ysidro, CA. They look, taste and cook up like regular corn tortillas – with about half the calories per tortilla of a regular corn tortillas.

One Tortilla con Nopal contains:

• 25 calories
• 0 g fat
• 6 g carbohydrate
• 1 g fiber
• 1 g protein
• 10 mg sodium

The only discernible difference between this and a regular corn tortilla was a slightly longer cooking time required to crisp the tortilla – and of course, the garish green color.

If you want the calorie-controlled high fiber benefits of nopal in the convenience of a tortilla, I highly suggest you check out the bright green tortilla, the one con nopales.