Healing with Food Newsletter

All-of-the-Carrot

Accompanying recipe: All-of-the-Carrot Salad

I’m still inspired by the “whole foods” practice of my first cooking teacher, Aveline Kushi. With a carrot, for example, this translates as using its skin, top end and sometimes its greens. Aveline never just lopped off and tossed a carrot’s top.

Rather, she would carefully pare off all the darkened (oxygenated) debris from where the stalks connect to the root.  Try this out yourself. With some carrot varieties you’ll uncover a inviting bite sized morsel.

There’s not a lot you can do with carrot greens. Like their parsley relative, they’re fibrous and bitter, but even more so. However, younger greens are more toothsome than the fully mature, dark green leaves. Aveline would sometimes chop carrot greens, saute in sesame oil, season with miso and ginger and serve as a condiment with rice. Tasty!

Energetically, a vegetable’s leaves nourish your liver and lungs.  The root, helps strengthen your “roots,” i.e., intestines, adrenals, reproductive organs and kidneys.

As for the stalks, their function is to connect and transport. So, one way I work with feelings of being stuck or “unconnected” is to favor vegetable stalks or those with exaggerated conduits such as celery and scallions. Using whole foods is about sustainability on multiple levels.

I’ve recently discovered www.culinate.com. This newsletter is full of common sense articles, recipes, podcasts, news and cooking tips about cooking with real food.  I invite you to check out. Reprinted here, with permission of Culinate, is the following recipe. All-of-the-Carrot Salad with Moroccan Flavors.

May you be well nourished!

Rebecca Wood