Argentina has halted export of a main dietary staple, beef, to keep local prices down. This has led to a beef shortage worldwide, along with an increase in price.   How will that affect us here in the Middle East? And what can we do about it?

According to Ynet, beef prices in Israel are set to rise by about 20%. And make no mistake: Chicken, fish, egg and dairy prices will follow, because of demand. If you’re already a vegetarian or vegan, you’ll feel it less. But if meat is an important part of your diet, current market forces could give you the incentive  you need to switch to a vegetarian, or a “vegawarian”, diet.

Learning to cook without meat requires a change in outlook, and most important, planning ahead. Otherwise you could end up eating processed, expensive and fattening foods from vegetable sources. Eating vegetarian is not just a green thing to do—it can be frugal and healthy as well.

To help you get started, I’ve collected some tips for eating less meat whether your goal is a vegetarian, vegawarian or vegan diet.

1. Analyze the situation. When did you eat meat and chicken during the last week? Resolve to cut back on the amount of meat meals this coming week. Talk to your family and friends to get them on board.
2. Find vegetarian options for the meat meals you’ve decided to give up. You may already cook some vegetarian meals, so start by making them more often. If you need recipes, why not try Butternut Squash Stuffed with Quinoa, or Majadra (Lentils and Rice)?
3. Get creative with substitutes. Use rich and flavorful portobello mushrooms as the basis for your meal. Incorporate garlic, hot pepper, spices, and fresh herbs as seasoning. Instead of rice and potatoes think quinoa, oatmeal, buckwheat, bulgur, wild rice, or barley . And add legumes, nuts and seeds wherever you can—in soups, stews, spreads, and salads. Keep in mind that some items, like quinoa or tree nuts, can be expensive.
4. Plan ahead. Wash, peel and chop vegetables in advance and store in the refrigerator for a quick meal later in the week. Soak beans in advance, although smaller legumes like dried peas, black-eyed peas and lentils don’t need it.
5. Use the right equipment. Some legumes, like dried kidney beans and chickpeas, take a long time to cook. Save time and money by cooking a large batch in the pressure cooker or slow cooker and storingin small portions for future meals.

What techniques have you used to cut back on the amount of meat you eat? Let us know in the comments.

For recipes, you may also like:

Where Macrobiotic Meets Makluba in Jerusalem

More Posts by Hannah Katsman:
Five Edible Wild Plants You Can Pick Yourself
Israeli Parents Organize Walking Bus to Transport Schoolchildren
Twelve Tips for Getting Kids Used to Healthy Food
Photo credit: meaduva

Few people would say that they lead stress-free lives. It starts with the pressure to fit in at school, then you need to wear the right clothes, pass your exams, get into a good university, pay off your student loans, meet your mortgage payments – and before you know it, you’re worrying about college funds for the kids.

Some of us already have an inkling that stress is a factor in many of the metabolic and emotional disorders we see today. Stress wears us down and hangs heavy on the shoulders of our immune system. It’s no wonder that the rates of diabetes, anxiety disorders, depression and heart disease are at an all time high. And now for the first time, an Israeli team has located a gene in the brain that appears to be triggered by high levels of stress, and causes a series of negative physiological reactions.

In the recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot have identified a gene in the brain that when activated causes two very distinct reactions to stress – anxiety and changes in metabolism. A protein released by the gene called Urocortin-3 (Ucn3) appears to be involved in a cascade of events related to stress and to elicit both anxiety-related behavior and type II diabetes in animal models.

Study supervisor Dr. Alon Chen, a neuro-endocrinologist at the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Neurobiology, says: “We showed that the actions of a single gene in just one part of the brain can have profound effects on the metabolism of the whole body.” And this gene may be influencing our choice of snacks, contributing to our cravings for food that is fatty, poor in nutrition and especially sweet. In essence, stress may be turning us fat.

Turning off the ’stress switch’

“Stress is definitely influencing every system in the body,” says Chen, who recently worked in San Diego for four years on stress research before returning to Israel. He tells ISRAEL21c: “It’s not just causing anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder but is influencing metabolic syndromes such as obesity. It’s complex.

“In the lab, stressed animals eat less. But in humans some eat more or less when stressed. What’s key here is that food preference is changing,” he explains.

The Israeli researchers have discovered that there’s a ’stress switch’ that seems to lead to diabetes and obesity.

The Israeli researchers created their own method for changing the activity of the gene in the brain, causing it to release varied amounts of Ucn3. They discovered that increased levels of Ucn3 caused anxiety and changes in metabolism.

With increased levels of Ucn3, the bodies of the mice used more sugar and less fatty acids and metabolic rates increased, showing the first stages of type 2 diabetes. The pancreas produced more insulin and the muscles measured a delayed sensitivity to insulin.

A better stress meter and monitor

Several genes and proteins are involved and coordinated when we’re feeling stressed, Chen continues. The Ucn3 protein that he and his team identified is produced in the brain, which controls the pancreas, muscles, and liver among a symphony of biological processes, and appears to be involved in a cascade of events related to stress.

The Ucn3 appears to be the tie that binds these systems – we have Ucn3 receptors all over our bodies, including in our hearts and muscles.

According to Chen: “This system is not only in the brain, but it is also working in the periphery. Showing up in the heart and muscles responsible for insulin sensitivity, it helps us cope properly with stress.”

Until now the lines drawn between stress, appetite and anxiety were pointed out, but never fully explained. This new research may be the important missing link that can help drug developers create drugs targeting stress that could have multiple side-benefits, like preventing diabetes, promoting heart health and keeping our weight down.

Helpful if you meet a lion

This complexity of the Ucn3 system, with its receptors all over our bodies, probably helps to keep us healthy in normal situations. It’s when our lives run amuck and we are constantly stressed out that nature takes its toll.

“Stress is good when you need to cope with an event, like when you meet a lion. Your metabolism is changing; you consume more sugars, and more glucose goes to the muscles to help you escape the lion,” Chen says.

But it needs to be a fine-tuned response, and an appropriate one. There are no lions running around Wall Street, at least not the furry variety our ancestors met in the jungle. Says Chen: “The stress response needs to be a tightly regulated system. The genes need to kick in at the right time. If any are not working properly it can lead to psychiatric and metabolic disorders.”

At the very least this protein studied in Israel could be used as a biomarker to tell doctors when stress levels, often a subjective measure, are shooting up too high. Then we’d know that it’s time for a vacation.

(This article was first published on ISRAEL21c – www.israel21c.org)

The event is free and open to the public (with limited seating on a first-come, first-served basis).

Tuesday, April 20, 6:00 pm
Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
195 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut

Mr. Petrini is a vibrant force who has led the Slow Food movement to great international visibility. In 2004, he was named a “European Hero” by Time magazine and in January 2008 he was the only Italian to appear in The Guardian’s list of “50 People Who Could Save the World.” At Yale, he will present a talk on the international Slow Food movement and his new book, Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities.

At the core of Slow Food’s mission is the belief that food should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare, or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.

Mr. Petrini’s visit is cosponsored by Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale’s Office of Sustainability, Yale Dining, and the Yale Sustainable Food Project.

Chef Moshe Basson created this pungent, chunky pesto in just a few minutes, right under our eyes.

According to Wikipedia, Za’atar (Arabic: زعتر‎, also romanized as zaatar, za’tar, zatar, zatr, zahatar or satar) is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the genera oregano, calamintha, thyme, and savory. It is also the name for a condiment made from the dried herbs, mixed together with sesame seeds, and often salt, as well as other spices and enjoyed as a seasoning or like salt in Middle Eastern cuisine. Used in Arab cuisine since medieval times, both the herb and spice mixture are popular throughout the Middle East and Levant. Today, Slow Food chef, Basson gives us his surprising and mouth-watering alternative: a recipe for za’atar pesto.

Za’atar Pesto

Ingredients:

1 cup toasted, blanched almonds

3/4 cup fresh, rinsed, za’atar leaves (in season right now at open-air markets), patted dry and  stripped off the stalks

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered sumac (rhus coriaria, an edible Middle-Eastern variety of sumac with a lemony flavor)

2 large, fresh garlic cloves

1 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

Method:

1. Place the almonds in a food processor. Whizz till they’re coarsely ground, not pasty.

2. Add the za’atar next. This sequence is important: if you grind the za’atar first, it will liquify too much. Process for a few seconds.

3. Add the salt, sumac, garlic cloves, olive oil, and lemon juice. Process for a few minutes, till you have obtained a spreadable pesto.

Enjoy it as a flavorful shmear on sandwiches, to top pasta as with basil pesto, or as a dip for raw vegetables.

And remember…za’atar is a protected plant in the wild, so buy it from a farmed source.

Wild Za’atar

More about pesto and sustainable agriculture in Israel here:

• Vegan Pesto Recipe
• Negev Nectars Imports Israeli Organics
• Palestinian Farmers Look To Export Fair-Trade Grapes

Moshe Basson’s culinary roots stretch back through time from 200 CE, when the collection of Jewish oral law known as the Mishnah began to take shape – to the Jewish presence in Iraq, where his family lived till the 1950s – to the present time in Jerusalem. He takes his deep knowledge of foods mentioned in the Bible and other Jewish sources, adds kitchen wisdom garnered from grandmothers of all ethnic streams, and distills the essence of Biblical cooking in his Jerusalem restaurant, Eucalyptus, every day.

Basson’s passion for the land and its native edibles began when he was a small boy roaming the hillsides and abandoned gardens between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Arab women taught him to forage wild herbs; his father taught him the names and uses of culinary and medicinal plants growing in the home garden. His fascination with the authentic, historic foods of Israel eventually led him to establish a restaurant and to become a founding member of Chefs for Peace. His involvement with the Slow Food movement brought him the Slow Food Award in Bologna, the “Nobel Prize for chefs,” and honorary citizenship to that city. Today, he’s a respected food historian and his restaurant, Eucalyptus, is rightly famous.

You’d think Basson would be too important or too busy to catch for an interview, but Green Prophet found him accessible and down-to-earth.

Who were your first culinary influences?

My mother, a great cook. My father, who owned a bakery and grew herbs and vegetables in our family garden. Then, old ladies. Arab, Druze, Iraqi, Syrian – whatever their background, women are the ones who cook native seasonal foods and serve them to their families.They keep the tradition alive.

Can you tell us a little about native herbs and how you cook them?

Let’s take chicory – olesh in Arabic. It’s related to endive, and like endive is slightly bitter. It’s in season in late winter till early spring and was used as maror, the bitter herb eaten at the Passover Seder. I pre-boil chicory leaves for a few minutes to take the bitterness away, then cook them with olive oil, garlic, and lemon.

Most people don’t know that the common cyclamen also has edible leaves. They are slightly toxic, but preboiling and then rinsing them makes them safe to eat. In Iraq, they are served stuffed with minced lamb and rice. Never eat a cyclamen root! Only the leaves can be made edible.

Do you know of medicinal uses for wild herbs?

Oh, Yes. One of my workers wasn’t feeling well today, so I clipped some twigs off an olive tree growing near the restaurant and simmered the leaves for 10 minutes. Olive leaves lower blood pressure and blood sugar, as well as being antiseptic, antiviral, and antibiotic. My worker drank several cups of this tea over the day and felt better by the time we closed than when she first came to work.

How do you know so much about food in Jewish historical sources?

I’ve studied Tanach (Bible) and the Mishnah all my life. Keeping my eyes and ears open, I draw logical conclusions. For example, the Arabs maintain a tradition of smoking green wheat (frika). It’s an historical ingredient with common roots in Jewish law; the Mishnah mentions it with regard to Passover and Shavuot. The wheat is green, but ready to be harvested exactly at Lag B’omer time (33 days after Passover). Before then, farmers worry over the safety of their harvest because late rains could ruin it. They harvest and smoke it over bonfires before it’s entirely ripe, while the grain is still green and “milky. I think the Lag B’Omer fires traditional in Israel have to do with a memory of this procedure, which has been kept intact by the Arab population.

The smoking kills mice, insects, and insect eggs in the wheat. I believe that our forefather Yosef (Joseph) used this method to store the abundance of seven year’s wheat harvest against the seven-year famine he foresaw.

It’s like a puzzle, an endlessly fascinating way of putting together a picture of how our ancestors lived and ate. I love to fit the pieces together, then cook what I know. At some point, the search and the knowledge became a part of me. It’s something I need to do.”

We see that you’ve spent a considerable amount of time traveling in Europe and the Far East. How do you manage to communicate when you’re abroad?

Apart from Hebrew, I speak Arabic, English, a little French, Italian, and Spanish – and a smattering of Yiddish. No, really, Yiddish. I learned it from my late father, who owned a bakery and learned to bake Israeli breads with Ashkenazi bakers. When it comes to cooking, I can give a recipe over in any of those languages, spontaneously, even if I’m not fluent in it.

What do you consider your finest achievement?

I’m proud of having returned Israeli cuisine to its roots, and of having made this authentic style of cooking known to the outside world. To be authentic, by the way, it has to be kosher. Even Christian tourists insist on that.

We took a quick tour of the spic-and-span kitchen at Eucalyptus restaurant. Basson uncovered a pot – the most appetizing aroma of potatoes cooking in the pan juices from roast lamb wafted up. Three vividly-colored soups in espresso cups stood on a tray: just enough for a taste of each. (We know from experience how delicious those soups are, the Jerusalem artichoke soup especially.) A young worker rolled out dough for pitta bread to cover the chicken stew – it bakes on top of the ceramic stew pot, sealing the food inside. And we saw no waste in Basson’s kitchen (“Leftovers go to the chickens or to the compost.”). The entire place spoke of the chef’s fine palate and respect for the food.

Food historian and Jerusalem restauranteur, this is Chef Moshe Basson.

Related posts you’ll enjoy reading:

• Eco Rabbi Explores Passover Cleaning As A Good Opportunity To Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Five Edible Wild Plants You Can Pick Yourself
• Organic Whole-Wheat Bread for Harvest Time and Shavuot
• Greening Your Breakfast: A Recipe for Muffins

I love this blog. I love Lebanese food, and author Joumana, a Lebanese ex-pat living in the States, presents recipe after delicious-looking recipe, Slow Food style.

Just a small example – the Toom garlic paste, a staple flavoring in Lebanese kitchens. Whirl garlic, lemon juice, salt and olive oil in the blender, thickening the paste if you want with a cooked potato or bread. Use it to flavor almost anything. That won me; I’m an unabashed garlic fan.

Then there are at least four recipes for kibbeh, recipes for flatbreads (the one featuring baby artichokes brought water to my mouth), and many more.

The last time Joumana visited Beirut, Lebanese chef and food project genius Kamal Mouzawak gave her several packages of za’atar spice, herb salt, khamouneh, a spice mix based on cumin, and freekah, wheat smoked in the fields while still green.

She is now running a raffle for them, including a recipe booklet. The raffle is on till Jan. 31st, so if you’re interested, leave a comment on her post about Kamal Mouzawak and the amazing work he’s done with small farmers and local ingredients, here.

Good luck!

More recipes to enjoy:

• Vertical Farms May Be The Only Crop Solution For The Middle East
• Ful and Choumous, The Middle-Eastern Working Man’s Lunch
• Community-Supported Agriculture: Organic, Local, and Tasty!

::Taste of Beirut blog

After changing location several times, Jerusalem’s Eucalyptus Restaurant has taken root in the prestigious Khutzot HaYotzer artist’s quarter in Jerusalem. Chef Moshe Basson hosted a “Biblical Cooking Class” there last week, taught by visiting American health and nutrition authority Christina Pirello.

While Ms. Pirello sliced fennel, onions, and lemons and chatted with the audience in the upstairs dining room, Chef Basson prepped the evening’s main dish in the kitchen. I was waiting to hear more about the foods of the Biblical period, but as the event progressed, it became evident that the focus was going to be mostly on macrobiotic and vegan cooking.

I confess I was a bit disappointed, but the rest of the audience, composed mostly of English-speakers, was content. From what I could see, most of those present were already knowledgeable about, or at least in favor of, the macrobiotic/vegan life.

The engaging Ms. Pirello had nothing but praise for local produce:

“I swear, I’m ready to move here,” she said. “It’s the wonderful food, the friendly people. I was in the shuk (open-air market) yesterday, and I’m telling you, I’ve never seen anything like the abundance, the colors, the aromas, the sensuality. I wanted to buy everything and cook it all.

“Israelis have a better relationship with food than Americans,” she continued. “Americans ask, what’s a sauté? Israelis ask, what’s the difference between a 5-minute sauté and a ten-minute one?” She added that she was impressed by Shabbat and how observing Shabbat rituals has preserved a strong connection to family and food.

I asked Ms. Pirello to describe her impressions of Israeli food habits.

“Israelis eat too much meat,” she said frankly. I don’t think everyone has to be vegan, but with all these beautiful vegetables and grains, there’s no excuse for Israel not to be the healthiest country in the world. And I’d stick to the local food. We ate at a Chinese restaurant last night and it was – not really Chinese. On the other hand, today we ate houmous at some little hole-in-the-wall and it was absolutely delicious!”

I confessed I know little about macrobiotic cooking.

“I don’t label my cooking macrobiotic anymore,” declared Ms. Pirello. She says that a strictly macrobiotic diet will move blood pH into a normal, slightly alkaline state where health and healing take place- but a body can’t sustain that forever.  Judging by the mouthwatering recipes on her site -  like vanilla flan (based on soy or rice milk) and spicy black lentils with candied onions, I’d say she’s right.

We learned to make a pressed salad from those onions, fennel, and lemons. It had a generous amount of sea salt in it, which surprised some of the audience. Apparently salt is harmful only when added “cold” to finished food – when cooked, it takes its place as an important nutrient. In this salad, lemon juice “cooks” the salt, and both act to marinate the vegetables. The result is that the salad isn’t considered raw.

Ms. Pirello rubbed added lemon juice into the salted vegetables with her hands, saying that when the salad feels cold in the hands, there is enough salt. Then she balanced a stack of heavy bowls over the salty, lemony vegetables to press them down and reduce in volume. This salad should be eaten in small quantities at the end of a meal, as a digestive.

Dinner, served after the cooking course, consisted of many little plates where lentils, black-eyed peas, stuffed Jerusalem sage (a specialty of Chef Basson’s), and the pressed salad disappeared almost as soon as they were served. To drink, water and hibiscus/sage tea.

But for me, the main event was the appearance of Moshe Basson, banging a big tin platter like a gong while ahead of him walked one of his cooks carrying a vast pot of Makluba.

This classic Arab dish is usually made with chicken, layers of vegetables, and white rice, all cooked slowly in broth “till the bones melt,” said Basson. To accommodate the vegetarians among us, however, roasted fennel bulbs took the place of poultry, pre-cooked brown rice substituted for white, and instead of chicken soup, the dish was cooked with vegetable stock.

I felt snobbish and thought that it couldn’t possibly come up to scratch, but was amused at the grand finale. Basson reversed the pot onto the big platter, and knocked on it a few times to loosen the food inside. Then he and Ms. Pirello stood with folded hands and prayed that when they lifted the pot, the dish hold its shape.

Success! And delicious it was, too. I was happy to be wrong. Carrots, zucchini, fat Portobello mushrooms, and fennel, each separately roasted in olive oil and spices – brown rice made aromatic with Basson’s secret vegetable stock – I was in vegan heaven.

More on macrobiotic and healthy eating:
Organic Diet and Health Expert Christina Pirello Visits Israel
Recipe: Flavors of Peasant Cooking
Recipe: Two Winter Salads

Acclaimed American macrobiotic cook, food writer and TV personality Christina Pirello will be in Israel this week, teaching how to cook for health, from the 3rd to the 12th of the month.

She has authored five cookbooks and is an activist for better nutrition worldwide. She has also founded a program focused on bettering children’s nutrition in schools and at home.

Pirello was diagnosed with leukemia at age 25 and given nine months to live. On changing to a macrobiotic diet, her illness went into remission and seems to have disappeared.

Convinced of the direct relation between diet and health, she went on to study Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine and earned a master’s degree in nutrition.

Pirello started teaching local cooking classes in Philadelphia and now hosts an Emmy Award-winning TV series, Christina Cooks.

Pirello is now age 54. Together with her partner, husband Robert Pirello, she is presently on an international teaching tour, showing locals how to cook for health using local ingredients.

According to Pirello, a purely macrobiotic diet isn’t universally suitable.

“Every person has a different constitution and lives in a different environment. This is the shortfall of macrobiotics, that it is very rigid.”

The Pirellos incorporate Mediterranean and Native American foodways into their culinary philosophy alongside the macrobiotic way.

Learn more about Christina Pirello cooking classes in Israel at The Rice House.

More about healthy eating on Green Prophet:
Israeli’s Organic Eggs: On the Political Edge?
Celebrate Independence…From Pesticides in Your Falafel
At Buddha Burgers, I’ll Have the Veggie Burgers – With a Whopping Side of Karma
Tel Aviv’s LovEat Loves to Drink Organic Coffee

Taking cues from the Arab women foraging for mallows in the kindergarten in front of my house, and Miriam’s latest winter salad recipe, I decided to do a little urban foraging myself.

(That’s me above sampling what tastes like dandelion leaves, but it could be roquet.)

This time of the year is perfect for leafy greens – ones we can find growing just about anywhere in the Levant region getting rain. Find them in a neglected city park, out in a forest, or in your background, here I present some of the greens I found in my backyard. Next week I am going to tell you (with the help of an expert), which ones you are allowed to eat and how.

Meanwhile, look through the pictures and let us know in the comments section which ones you’d eat (if you dare), and how they’d taste yummy.

A. I don’t think these are fit for human consumption, but my pooch Tasha loves eating winter grass. She is munching on some here in this picture.

B. Would you eat generic looking weeds?

C. These ones have potential. Heard they taste good stuffed.

D. These ones look kind of poisonous. Do you think they’d work in salad?

E. These are the weeds in my mouth above. I am growing crops of these things without even trying. I think they are dandelion.

F. These weeds look poisonous and not something I feel like biting into. But maybe they have some medicinal purpose.

G. Another weed better left in the garden? Or can we forage it?

H. These ones look like carrot tops. But they don’t smell like carrots.

So what weeds would you eat? Leave your ideas in the comments section, please!