healthbriefs
Healthy, Tasty Cooking with Essential Oils U
sing certified, therapeutic, food-grade essential oils that are 100 percent pure can be a healthy alterna-
tive for flavoring foods and beverages when cooking. Different than common vegetable oils such as olive, flax, sesame or canola, essential oils can be enjoyed for their taste as well as the healthful benefits of the plants from which they are derived. Today, hundreds of food products, including chocolates and chewing gum, contain essential oils for aroma and flavor.
Cooking with essential oils is easy—just substitute them in recipes that call for dried herbs, spices or fruit juices. When replacing dried ingredients with a companion essential oil, remember that the oils are 50 to 70 times more potent. For example, one drop of peppermint oil equals approximately 28 cups of pep- permint tea.
When a recipe calls for less than a teaspoon of an herb or spice, dip a tooth-
pick in the center of the essential oil dripper cap and then swirl the toothpick in the recipe or beverage. Always use this “toothpick method” for oils such as cinnamon bark, clove, ginger and oregano. In recipes or drinks that call for citrus zest or juice, use eight to 14 drops of a companion oil in place of the zest of one lemon, orange or tangerine.
Substitute one-half to one drop per tablespoon of herbs like marjoram, oregano, sage, rosemary, thyme or coriander. Be aware that not all essential oils are safe for cooking or consumption; be-
fore adding any to food, refer to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) online list at
Tinyurl.com/fda-oils.
Resource: Dr. Michelle Brown, Alternative Natural Healthcare, LLC, 16517 Vanderbilt Dr., Ste. 3, Bonita Springs.
AlternativeNaturalHealthCare.net. See ad, page 11.
R
WHY WE MIGHT NEED MORE VITAMIN C
esearchers at the Linus Pauling In- stitute at Oregon State University, a leading global authority on the role of vitamin C in optimum health, forward compelling evidence that the recom- mended dietary allowance (RDA) of vitamin C should be raised to 200 milligrams per day for U.S. adults, up from its current levels of 75 mg for women and 90 mg for men. The RDA of vitamin C is less than half of what it should be, scientists argue, because medical experts insist on evaluating this natural, but critical, nutrient in the same way they do for pharma- ceutical drugs, and consequently reach faulty conclusions. The researchers base their rec- ommendations on studies showing that higher levels of vitamin C could help reduce chronic health problems including heart disease, stroke and cancer, as well as underlying causal issues such as high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, poor immune response and atherosclerosis. Even at the current low RDA, U.S. and Cana- dian studies have found that a quarter to a third of the total population is marginally deficient in vitamin C and up to a fifth of those in such groups as students, smokers and older adults are severely deficient in it.
20 Collier/Lee Counties
swfl.NaturalAwakeningsMag.com
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