Recipe Four: Turkey Meatballs and Sauce

Here's a healthier (turkey) meatball option for when you cook, with a delicious homemade sauce to go along with it.

Turkey Meatballs
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground turkey
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup dried basil leaves
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp. dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 16 oz can whole cut tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 1/4 cups chicken broth
• 6 oz can tomato paste
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Small can sliced black olives

Instructions

1. Mix turkey, parmesan, egg, basil, breadcrumbs, parsley, and oregano in a bowl
2. Form into 1 - 2 inch meatballs and sautée in large skillet until no longer pink in center
3. Add the rest of the ingredients to the meatballs in a large pot
4. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered until sauce thickens, about 30 minutes
5. Salt and pepper to taste, serve over hot pasta

Nutrition Information

• 213 calories
• 16 g carbohydrates
• 2 g dietary fiber
• 4 g sugar
• 5 g fat
• 25 g protein

This is such an easy recipe to make, and once you are done forming the meatballs, you basically just let them sit and cook - very little attention required. Bon appétit! 

Why Eating Makes Us Feel Good

Everybody eats.  And many of us eat and eat and eat. Having a full stomach makes us feel good and content. But why do many of us overeat...continuing to stuff ourselves even when we are full?

Evolution has given us the instinct to eat a lot every time we can, preparing for hard times. It's the drive to survive, like squirrels storing up for the winter. It's also fueled by competition: beating others to the food.  And as for that warm, content feeling after eating a meal, scientists studying that good feeling call it ingestion analgesia, literally pain relief from eating. Despite the modern environment bombarded by appetizing advertisements and fast food, the wiring in the human brain hasn't changed. The reward circuits in the brain still release chemicals that comfort and satisfy.


The body rewards fatty, salty, and sugary foods by releasing endogenous opioids, chemicals which help control pain. A study published in Nature Neuroscience recently suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. According to this study, when rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction.

It is this addiction to foods that are bad for us that has helped to cause the current obesity crisis in the United States, and many other parts of the world. Our brains tell us that we are full, but we ignore ourselves because evolution tells us to keep eating. We need to learn to listen, and I leave you with a few tips that might help:

• STOP EATING when you are full
• Eat when you feel hungry, because if you wait too long to eat (become 'starving') then you are more likely to overeat.
• Eat slowly - give your brain time to figure out that you have eaten, and are full. The dinner table is not a competition of which family member (or apartment mate) can finish first (if it was, I would consistently lose)

Ingredient Highlight: Apple

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away"

How many times have we heard this phrase in our lifetimes? Do apples really deserve this much praise, or is it just a way for parents to get their children to eat fruit?  Well the answer is simple: apples are good for you, and (red) delicious.

Since this is the first ingredient highlight, I'm not really sure what people want to hear, so I'm just going to have a few different sections - let me know what you like or don't like so I can adjust for future ingredient highlights.

First, a little bit of background.  There are over 7,500 different varieties of apples grown worldwide, about a third of which are grown in the United States.  Charred apples have been found in prehistoric caves in Switzerland, and the apple was the favorite fruit of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Apples have a number of health benefits, even though they are lower in vitamin C than most other fruits and vegetables.  Some of the most notable benefits are:

• Prevention of dementia
• Increase in bone density
• Decreased levels of bad cholesterol (LDL)
• Helps with weight loss
• Prevention of breast, colon, liver, lung, and prostate cancers

Apples are a great source of fiber (about 5g per apple).  In fact, two-thirds of the fiber and lots of antioxidants are found in the peel.  So DON'T peel your apples.  However, I would personally suggest that you buy certified organic apples (really you should buy organic for any fruit or vegetable where you eat the skin).  Why buy organic?  Well, in the case of apples, many apples have commercial grade wax applied after harvesting and cleaning.  Did you really think your apples were that shiny all on their own?  Not only is eating wax a tad disgusting, but the wax coating actually traps pesticides used when growing the apples.  In fact, apples are one of the top twelve pesticide containing foods.  So I'll reiterate: buy organic.

Wax scraped from a commercially sold apple

Peak Season: September to May
Tip: Apples ripen six to ten times faster at room temperature than if they are refrigerated

Apple Gadgets: (Yes, I know I really love my gadgets)

Oxo Good Grips Apple Corer and Divider

Cuisipro Apple Corer

Not only are apples great to eat as an afternoon snack, they are a wonderful ingredient for all types of recipes (read: APPLE PIE).  Okay, okay, you can make some healthy foods with apples.  You can cook up anything from caramelized apple-onion soup to apple curry chicken to ginger apple stir fry, and let's not forget apple pie!