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Berries, Berries, Berries!
Submitted by Julia Bennett-Gladstone
The Suquamish territory is blessed with a wide variety of berries that can be harvested from late spring until early winter! Delicious and nutritious, berries are loaded with vitamins, minerals, fiber and powerful antioxidants! This month we are featuring some of the berries that can be found during the summer months.
Salmonberry are one of the first berries to ripen, usually in May or June. This grows as a tall raspberry-like shrub with numerous short prickles along the stems. The flowers are pink and the berries range in color from salmon to gold to deep ruby to black. Traditionally these berries were eaten fresh as they are too watery to be dried in cakes.
Wild Strawberry: There are two types of wild strawberries in our area, the Coastal and the Woodland. These per-ennial plants have white flowers, a basal clump of compound coarsely toothed leaves and runners that spread. Traditionally strawberries were eaten fresh.
Blackcap Raspberry is found in open woods, burns and clearings. This berry bush looks similar to a raspberry shrub with tiny curved thorns, prickly veined leaves that are white underneath and fruit that turns blackish when ripe. Traditionally Blackcaps were eaten fresh or dried. Dried raspberry leaves are high in minerals and are known to benefit women‘s reproductive health.
Trailing Wild Blackberry: This cherished berry can be found on low trailing vines in open to dense woods, exposed clearings and often in burned and logged areas. The wild blackberry plant has compound leaves which are more sharply toothed than raspberry leaves. There are both male and fe-male plants, each have white flowers with elongated petals that grow in small clusters, but only the females produce fruit. Traditionally this berry was eaten fresh and dried as berry cakes. The roots and leaves are helpful in treating diarrhea.
Soapberry, also called soopollalie, buffalo berry or sqwaseb. These popular bright red translucent berries have always been associated with feasts and are still a highly traded food! The shrubs can grow up to eight feet tall, with oval leaves that are dark green on top and white with little scales on the underside. Soapberry bushes are found in dry towel drained moist open woods and thickets, gravelly river terraces, streamsides and washes. These extremely bitter berries contain compounds called saponins that lather like soap and when the berries are whipped they make the pink foamy dessert known as Indian Ice Cream. It is best to collect soapberries in a clean metal container or basket that has no oily residues on them.
Here are some berry recipes:
Homemade Fruit Leather
6-8 cups fresh or frozen berries (blackberries, salal, thimbleberry, huckleberry, strawberry, raspberry, etc.)
¼ cup honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Clean and rinse berries if necessary. Place ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Fit wax paper over a cookie sheet with sides. Pour mixture onto sheet and smooth out to an even thickness of about a quarter of an inch.
Place the berries in the oven on the lowest temperature and leave the oven door cracked so that water can evaporate off the berries. It will take 6-10 hours for the berries to dry. Place another piece of wax paper over the berries and flip them over when they are mostly dry to make the process quicker. Carefully peel off the wax paper and continue drying.
Indian Ice Cream
1 cup fresh frozen or canned soapberries
1 cup water
Sugar, or honey to taste
When you make Indian Ice Cream it is VERY IMPORTANT that oil does not come into contact with the berries! Use a clean glass bowl with absolutely no oil in/on, and clean hands and utensils. Oil will break down the frothing action of the saponins in the berries. Whip the berries and water into a light froth. This can be done with a wire whip, egg beaters, a bundle of inner cedar bark, or Salal branch. It should turn very light pink and look a little like whipping cream. Add sweetener to taste, remembering that the berries are naturally bitter and sour, so no amount of sweetener will completely cover these flavors. Serve immediately as the foam will soon break down and cannot be rewhipped.
Serves 8
Small Changes Lead to Big Benefits for Health
Weight management isn’t just for those who want to lose weight. If you are happy at your current weight, you must also practice weight management to keep from gaining unwanted pounds! Those of us
who aren’t managing our weight are probably gaining weight gradually without even realizing it.
Consider trying one new nutrition or physical activity goal each week. Here are some ideas to get you
started.
Some Nutrition Goal Ideas
- Buy a bathroom scale and check your weight at least once a week to help avoid the holiday weight gain creep
- Cook a healthy meal at home
- Bring lunch to work
- Start taking a multi-vitamin
- For one day, eat only foods that my grandparents would know and recognize
- Plan ahead for healthy snacks, such as fruit, air popped popcorn, low fat granola bars, & vegetables
- Drive by (not through) the fast food restaurant
- Write a list of the benefits I feel when I make healthy food choices (and post it on my refrigerator or desk)
- Eat a piece of fruit today for my snack
- Cross "super-size" off my restaurant ordering vocabulary
- Use mustard instead of mayonnaise
- Drink 6-8 glasses of water today
- Use olive or canola oil to cook
- Buy/choose whole grain bread or pasta, or
- brown rice
- Buy/choose low fat dairy products (1% or skim
- milk and reduced fat cheeses)
- Have a green salad today with a light dressing
- Stop eating when I am full
- Check my hunger level before getting a second
- helping
- Enjoy a family meal most nights of the week
- (turn off the TV and have a pleasant conversation)
- Eat a traditional protein source such as wild
- salmon, clams, or wild game
- Plan to attend one or more of the weekly Wellness
- & Weight Management classes that will be
- held beginning in early January. More information
- on these classes will be announced soon.
Some Physical Activity Goal Ideas
- Take an after lunch or dinner walk with a friend or family member
- Walk the dog, don’t just watch the dog walk
- Wear a pedometer so that you will become more aware of how active you are
- Play outside with the children or grandchildren
- Buy a new pair of walking shoes (and use them)
- Take an activity break at work—walk or stretch
- for a few minutes and get away from your desk
- Do calisthenics or bounce/stretch on an exercise ball while watching TV
- Pace around the house while talking on the phone instead of sitting in a chair
- Park farther away from the store to get in a few extra steps
Small changes such as the ones listed above can help you continue along the path of wellness, stay healthy, and avoid winter weight gain.
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Kid Friendly Fruit & Vegetable Recipes
Submitted by Fran Miller, Suquamish Tribe Community Nutritionist
Kids love to help in the kitchen, and they love to eat the food that they have helped prepare. The recipes below are all healthy and feature fruits or vegetables in a rainbow of colors. They are simple enough for preschoolers to help with, or for older children to make on their own with a bit of supervision. Have fun in the kitchen with your child this month!
Bookworm Apple Bark
Grab your books and this crunchy, sweet breakfast treat as you dash off to school.
1 Granny Smith Apple
1 tablespoon peanut butter
2½ tablespoons raisins
1½ tablespoons dried sweetened cranberries
Instructions: Cut apple into four quar-ters, starting at the stem. Remove the core by cutting away to leave a flat surface on the apple quarter. Be careful not to cut too much of the edible portion of the apple away. Drop and slightly spread the peanut butter on apple quarters. Mix together the raisins and dried cranberries then sprinkle on peanut butter.
Serves: 1
Banana in a Blanket
1 (6 inch) whole wheat tortilla
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 medium banana
1 teaspoon maple syrup or honey
1 tablespoon crunchy, nutty nugget cereal
Instructions: Lay tortilla on a plate. Spread peanut butter evenly on the tortilla. Sprinkle cereal over peanut butter.
Peel and place banana on the tortilla and roll the tortilla. Drizzle maple syrup or honey on top.
Optional: garnish with more cereal on top.
Serves: 1
Crazy, Curly Broccoli Bake
1½ cups whole wheat corkscrew pasta, dry
3 cups broccoli, frozen, chopped
1 10.5-oz.can low-fat cream of broc-coli soup, condensed
½ cup low fat milk
2 tablespoons plain bread crumbs
¼ teaspoon salt-free seasoning blend
Instructions: Preheat oven to 350F.
Cook pasta according to package di-rections. Place frozen broccoli in large microwave safe and oven proof dish and cook for 2 minutes on HIGH. Coarsely chop cooked broccoli. Mix soup with milk, and add to chopped broccoli.
Add cooked pasta and mix. Top with bread crumbs and seasoning blend. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes until heated through.
Serves: 6
T-Rex Tortilla Pizza
2 seconds butter-flavored cooking oil spray
1 (6 inch) flour tortilla
1½ tablespoons mild salsa
½ cup frozen yellow corn, cooked
1½ tablespoons cooked chicken breast, shredded
1 tablespoon cheddar cheese, shredded
½ teaspoon dried chives
Instructions: Preheat oven to 400F.
Cook corn according to package in-structions. Spray cookie sheet with cooking oil. Place tortilla
on oiled sheet. Top with chicken, cooked corn, cheese, chives, and salsa. Bake for 10 minutes.
Cut in quarters and serve.
Serves: 1
Recipes are adapted from www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org
Using Traditional Food Principles to Guide our Diet
Submitted by Fran Miller, Suquamish Tribe Community Nutritionist
We know that eating a traditional Coast Salish diet of sea food, game, plants, berries and nuts promotes health and can help to prevent chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The ancestors of the Suquamish people were strong and healthy; in fact, they had a longer life expectancy than the first white explorers. In most cultures, as people adopt the traditional western diet that is high in fat and low in fiber, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, health suffers.
Historically, the Coast Salish people began to suffer higher rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer with the move to reservation living. In a single generation, fishing, hunting and gathering gave way to commodity foods and store bought foods. Fast food followed soon afterwards.
Today, Americans spend about half of their food dollars in restaurants. Fast food is quick, inexpensive, and high in calories for the amount of money it costs. The price we have paid for the convenience, though, is high. Today one third of American children are overweight or obese and diabetes rates in the United States are at epidemic levels, with rates even higher for Native Americans. Most of us can not go back to a hunting and gathering lifestyle to provide all of our food, but we can use its principles to begin to improve our diets and health. Here are some examples:
• Sea food is still easily accessible, and salmon is one of the best fish to eat for heart health. We can aim to eat salmon and other sea food at least twice a week.
• Game meat is very low in fat. When we purchase meat at the store, we can buy the leanest cuts that we can afford. We can use ground turkey, ground buffalo, or extra lean ground beef. We can also cut back on or avoid heavily processed meats such as bacon, sausage, salami, and bologna. Somehealthier substitutes would include sandwich meats that are at least 95% fat free.
• Most Americans do not eat enough vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. Plant foods were very important in the traditional diet. In today’s diet that would translate into eating lots of vegetables, which provide a similar nutrient profile to the wild plants.
• Berries were the most important fruits in the traditional diet. Today we have a large variety of berries and other fruits available to us from the store, and we can still gather local wild berries in the summer for year round use.
• There were not many grains in the traditional diet. Some roots and nuts were dried and pounded into flours; whole grains would be a reasonable substitute. Most Americans eat too many refined and not enough whole grains; a good rule of thumb is that half of your grains each day should be whole grains.
There were no dairy products in the traditional diet, but the diet was high in calcium that was provided by bone soup, oysters and wild greens. Because these are foods that we don’t usually eat today, we have to think about adding good sources of calcium from 1% or skim milk, low fat yogurt or cheese. Fortified soy or rice milk is a good substitute for people who can’t tolerate cow’s milk.
Michael Pollan, who has written several books about the American food industry and its effects on our health, gives us this simple food rule to guide our thinking about today’s diet: “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant (factory), don’t.”
Blood Pressure and the Nutrition Connection
Submitted by Fran Miller, Suquamish Tribe Community Nutritionist
High blood pressure affects 65 million Americans. Many of those people may not even know they are at risk! High blood pressure is usually painless and is often called the silent killer because many people do not have any symptoms. If you have high blood pressure, you may be have a higher risk of having a stroke, heart attack, congestive heart failure, and developing hardening of the arteries and kidney disease. The only way to know if you have high blood pressure is to have your blood pressure checked regularly. In addition to taking medications as prescribed and checking your blood pressure regularly, here are some steps you can take to prevent and control high blood pressure.
Reduce Sodium (Salt) in the Diet
Reducing your salt intake is one way that you can lower your blood pressure. On average, the higher a person’s salt intake is, the higher their blood pressure will be. Here are some tips to help you eat less salt:
- Read the Nutrition Facts Label. Foods that have less than 140 mg of sodium or 5% of the DV (daily value) are low in salt.
- The nutrition facts label shown here is from a food that has 20% of the daily value for sodium; it is a high salt food.
- Eat fewer convenience foods as they tend to be high in salt. Compare nutrition facts labels when you do buy pre-prepared foods—different brands of similar foods can vary widely in their sodium (salt) content.
- Choose low sodium canned foods when they are
available.
- Cut the amount of salt a recipe calls for in half, or skip the salt in the recipe altogether.
- Take the salt shaker off the table. When you begin eating less salt, your taste for salt will decrease after a while.
Experiment with other herbs and spices to add more flavor to your food.
Eat More Potassium Rich Foods
A diet rich in potassium can also help to lower blood pressure by helping to decrease the effect that salt has on blood pressure. It can also help to reduce risks of developing kidney stones and possibly osteoporosis. Potassium from food sources (not pills) has the most effect. Fruits and vegetables are the best sources of potassium, which is another great reason to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables every day!
Fit in More Physical Activity
Aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. Walking is a great way to get more active that doesn’t require a gym membership or any special equipment—all you need to get started is a comfortable pair of shoes.
Aim for a Healthy Body Weight
Even a 5 to 10 pound weight loss can help to improve blood pressure levels. Eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and limit fatty, greasy foods. Choose low fat or fat free dairy products, and choose skinless poultry, lean meats, and fish. Limiting portion sizes and getting in some daily physical activity can also help with weight loss goals.
A Word about Smoking
If you smoke, quitting is one of the most important things you can do for your health. The Community Health Program can help you meet your goals in this area—call 394-8468 for more information.
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