Stikine River King Salmon at Aroma Thyme Bistro

Just arrived from Alaska, Stikine River King Salmon. This King Salmon has 25% fat and is a true Alaskan classic like the Copper River. The Stikine is not that well know because it was not commercially fished for 19 years. And then all of a sudden about 5 years ago my Alaskan fish specialist told me this was a must. And he was right. Some years this river is fished before the Coper River which is the traditionaly kick off for the Alaskan River season.

We have a limited supply of this King Salmon. We are serving it with a White Wine & Mustard Dill Sauce.


The Stikine River (pronounced /stɪˈkiːn/) is a river, historically also the Stickeen River, approximately 379 mi (610 km) long,^[1] in northwestern British Columbia in Canada and southeastern Alaska in the United States. Considered one of the last truly wild rivers in British Columbia, it drains a rugged pristine area east of the Coast Mountains, cutting a fast-flowing course through the mountains in deep glacier-lined gorges to empty into Eastern Passage, just north of the city of Wrangel, which is situated at the north end of Wrangell Island in the Alexander Archipelago. The name of the river comes from its Tlingit name Shtax' Héen, meaning "cloudy river (with the milt of spawning salmon)", or alternately "bitter waters (from the tidal estuaries at its mouth)". Its watershed encompasses approximately 20,000 mi² (52,000 km²). Its Grand Canyon was compared by naturalist John Muir to Yosemite.
from Wikipedia

This Thought Process Will Change Your Life

This came straight from Dr. Robert O. Young at the pH Miracle Living Center in Valley Center, California. I look forward to his daily e-mails. Here is a great one on the effects of negative emotions. Visit his website for more great facts.

Can positive or negative thoughts and emotions affect the body's delicate biochemistry or the acid/alkaline pH balance?

Love, fear, joy, anger, sadness, happiness, and resentment.

Can positive or negative emotions affect our bodies' physical, mental and spiritual health?

Is a woman more likely to become pregnant if she eats a lot of vegetables or if she goes on a long, relaxing vacation? Are you more likely to end up with cancer if you have a hot temper? Do people who laugh a lot live longer? Does your fear or discomfort with crowds, elevators, blood, heights, spiders, hospitals, or flying in airplanes somehow affect your health?

My theory of one sickness, one disease and one health, set forth in what I call "The New Biology," not only considers how our diet affects our physiology, but also how our psychology affects our physiology and how our psychology affects our spirituality.

Not only does the health of your body affect the emotions of your mind, but your thoughts and feelings can affect the health of your entire body.

Bottom line, your mental state is so critical. In ever so many ways, your mental state, if it's negative, can create more metabolic acids than the acidic food that you're eating.

In fact, you can create two or three times more metabolic acids from your thoughts or your mental and emotional state than from ingesting highly acidic dairy, animal protein, sugar or alcohol.

So your thoughts are critical. Your thoughts or words do become matter, and can affect your physiology in a negative or positive way. Your thoughts do become biology. And the way that thoughts become biology is as follows:

When you have a thought or say a word, it requires electrical or electron energy for the brain cell(s) to produce those actions. And as you carrying on with that thought, you are burning or consuming energy. And when you are consuming energy in your thoughts, you are producing a biological waste product called acid and an energetic acidic waste product which can be measured in hertz and decibels.

Next, if the metabolic acids from your thoughts are not properly eliminated through the four channels of elimination which are urination, perspiration, respiration or defecation, then the acids from your thoughts are moved out into your connective and fatty tissues . Metabolic and/or dietary acid cannot be allowed to affect the delicate pH of the blood. The delicate balance of the blood must be maintain at a constant 7.365 to remain healthy.

What happens next is this. As the excess and overload of metabolic acid from your emotions are thrown out into the body tissues, this can easily lead to all sorts of symptomologies: lupus, fibromyalgia, arthritis, muscle pain, fatigue, tiredness, obesity, cancerous breasts, cancerous prostate, cancerous stomach and/or bowels, indigestion, acid reflux, heart burn, heart attacks, and the list goes on and on.

For example let's say you've been doing sadness or depression. This downer feeling is coming from a negative experience that you keep looping and re-looping in your head. It's like a mind movie. It's a mini-drama that you keep playing over and over. And because you are constantly thinking about it, eventually you even start to be concerned or worried about the fact that you are so preoccupied with the whole affair. So now in addition to the sad drama, you have upset about the fact that you're having the drama itself. All this thinking requires energy and when your are consuming energy you are producing metabolic acids.

Do you know any angry people? You may not know it, but many people who become angry easily not only get angry at various people, events, and situations, but eventually they are irritated with themselves for being so angry at everything else. Anger, for instance, requires a tremendous amount of energy and emits a tremendous amount of electrical energy. You have undoubtedly felt the vibrational energy of someone who is angry. Or maybe you have felt your own anger and how it can upset your physiology, i.e., especially upset your stomach and bowels with acid.

Even worse, many of these negative emotions are chronic and can be traced all the way back to early childhood experiences. So, at one level or another, it's been going on for a long time and creating excessive acid all along. Early childhood are some of the most fearful and vulnerable years for many people. Have you ever wondered why you can't remember much before age five or six? Many of those years are filled with fears and tears, mads and sads and how about the "bads"? What happened when you were "bad?"

Chronic emotions begin early:

"O dear white children casual as birds, Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences, Of dreadful things you did..."

It is during these vulnerable and unprotected years that we often plant eternal seeds of emotion that will yield an unwelcome harvest of acidic internal results, perhaps throughout one's entire life.

The turmoil between parents and children, not to mention the conflicts between children and children, have been documented by literally millions of social science books are articles.

"Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them."

So, let's take a look at all of that emotion. Perhaps you are feeling emotional. It could be any emotion.

First of all, emotions are energy in motion. When you are (e)motional, you are energetic, either in a positive or negative way. And if you are energetic in your (e)motions, you are literally energy in (e)motion. You are now producing metabolic acids at a very high rate which is a waste product of such (e)motions that will make you sick, tired and depressed.

The rate of acid production in an (e)motional state can be even greater than that of someone who is jogging or working out. So, your thoughts do become biological or metabolic acids that can make you sick, tired, depressed, angry and even too fat or thin.

When you start producing acids with your thoughts, what happens inside? First, you activate the alkaline-buffering systems of the body in order to neutralize these (e)motional acids. The body begins making a primary alkaline buffer know as sodium bicarbonate. It's actually made from the blood and in its production it creates a waste product known as hydrochloric acid. This poisonous acid cannot remain in the blood so it is left in the gastric pits of the stomach. This is why people get upset stomachs when they are (e)motional. This necessary increase of sodium bicarbonate is critical in maintaining the alkaline design of the body and the fluid pH of the blood and interstitial fluids at pH 7.365. If (e)motional acids, including the hydrochloric acid, are not buffered and/or eliminated through the four channels of elimination, they can create serious health challenges in your body, mind, and spirit.

On the other hand, positive (e)motions, such as love, peace, hope, faith, joy, forgiveness and charity can be alkalizing to the blood and tissues. These (e)motions require far less energy in motion and can cause you to be relaxed in your mind and stop the playing of an acidic movie in your head. Students of higher consciousness know that you can even enter into a state of bliss wherein you have no thoughts and wherein you are producing no metabolic acid.

For myself, I have decided to call this place "Young Love." That's because I exercise and meditate every day. And I Love it! And it raises my level of consciousness and connection with the world. The connections between "Young" and "Love" are numerous. My name is Young, of course, and the purpose of life is Love. So Young and Love go together. I Love my exercising and it Loves me back in terms of its gifts to me. I find myself Loving this state of bliss daily which I know is helping to alkalize my body. That is why I am addicted to --and why I Love--this type of alkalizing exercise that I do every day. It's called a Positive Addiction. I Love to have my friends and guests work out with me as I lead them through the steps. I teach them the Younga version of Yoga. I tell them that it is known as Younga Yoga. They Love that. (Well, at least they laugh.) It incorporates proper breathing, stretching, toning, mediation, relaxation, and of course some sweating to rem
ove yesterday's dietary and metabolic acid and to bring me into a state of happiness and bliss.

Through my personal and clinical research, I have found that maintaining the alkaline design of my body with an alkaline lifestyle and diet is the most important thing anyone can do to live a happier and more blissful life. Having an alkaline day is a way of life that I call Young Living. I guarantee you that what I call Young Love will go hand-in-hand with the goal of Young Living.

Now this next thought is very important! The negative (e)motions of anger, resentment, and fear being the most powerful and acidifying of all emotions are all highly acidic to the blood and tissues and in many ways are paralyzing to all bodily functions. Over time, the fear of the unknown is probably the most powerful and acidic of them all. Fear is so devastating to the body that even if you're on an alkaline diet, overcoming a serious health challenge is practically impossible.

In such a case, with apparently little or no improvement, you might be wondering if the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet may not be working. You may be asking, "What else am I not doing that I should be? How come I feel the way that I'm feeling? I'm eating the right way, I'm drinking the right alkaline electron rich water, but I can't seem to achieve the type of extraordinary health and energy that I'm seeking." In most cases, it will come down to your negative acidic (e)motions or thoughts that are holding you back from achieving extraordinary health, fitness, mental clarity, happiness, love, charity and bliss.

The leading cause of death in the world today is said to be heart attacks. But people are having "thought attacks," NOT "heart attacks." There are studies showing that over 80% of all heart attacks are (e)motionally triggered. I have said that people don't die of a heart attack, they die of a thought attack that medical science refers to as a heart attack. And if you have wondered if you can die from a broken heart, the answer is absolutely! And the cause? Acids from energy in motion or (e)motion. The loss of a cherished love one can increase your metabolic acids from the (e)motion to the point that it can stop your heart from beating and pumping life-giving blood throughout your blood vessels. And life and death is in the blood.

So, is it fair to say that negative emotions can affect the way a person feels and heals if a person is overwhelmed with negative (e)motions? Does anyone have a fair chance of healing themselves from a degenerative disease or dis-ease like heart disease or cancer? Can you ever achieve a state of blissful happiness? I say "absolutely!"

Given the importance of (e)motions in cancer or acidic causation, etc., I have been particularly interested in the unique biochemistry of the "reptilian brain" which includes the Amygdala. Acid or sugar activates the areas of the Amygdala very specifically. I have wondered if the pH Miracle electron-rich alkaline Lifestyle and Diet is not more "calming" to the lower (e)motions (responses of the reptilian brain) than a drug which "inactivates the Amygdala...assuming we still find value in sexual attraction, socialization, and attraction to home and hearth (all functions of the Amygdala as much as "fight and flight")."

In our attempts to find a drug to treat everything, we (more often than not) create more problems than we eliminate...one step forward and three steps backward. I know that ADHD responds to an alkaline regime....and hyperactivity is an Amygdala function ..so it follows that an alkaline lifestyle and diet would produce less "stress" (really just the fight or flight mechanism by another name) as well.

The pH Miracle electron-rich alkaline lifestyle and diet is calming to the mind and thus calms the negative (e)motions or energy in motion. This calming of the Amygdala function produces less "stress." And, with less "stress" you have less "acid." And, with less "acid" you have less sickness, dis-ease, so-called disease, depression and unhappiness.

Can our (e)motions cause cancer? Absolutely!

I have said that cancer is a four letter word - ACID. When you are doing negative acidic (e)motions, such as anger, revenge, hate, sadness or depression you are creating metabolic acids that can cause ANY and ALL cancerous conditions of the body tissues. If metabolic acids are not removed via urination, perspiration, defecation or respiration then they are delivered to the body tissues. When constant excess acid from negative (e)motions are poured into the body tissues the body tissues will degenerate causing a cancerous condition. Pharmaceutical companies are creating drugs that may give you the illusion of feeling better but they DO NOT deal with the metabolic acids from negative acidic (e)motions. This can only lead to more physical and emotional pain.

When you are in a negative (e)motional state, it can become impossible for you to heal your serious degenerative or acidic challenge. But, I will say this: if you are willing to commit to change and begin the alkalizing process, even if you are not completely out of your state of fear, anger, depression or anger, you will begin to put more Young Life, Young Energy, and Young Love into your body.

When you're living and eating an alkaline lifestyle and diet and when you are overwhelmed with negative (e)motions, thank God if you are living and eating an alkaline lifestyle and diet or you might be dead. Your acid causing (e)motions can kill you. But the pH Miracle alkaline Lifestyle and Diet is the saving grace of all this and the hope and love that you can hang on and be healthy physically and mentally.

It has been said that you can live without food for forty days, you can live without water for four days, you can live without air for about four minutes, but you cannot live without love for more than a second. You see, love is the key, and that's what the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet and "Young Living and Young Love" will do for you - give you the hope and love you are seeking and deserve. The pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet program gives you the hope and love you need to breathe better, to start drinking the right kind of water, to start eating the right kind of food, that will lead you back to the right (e)motions so you can start feeling better, thinking better and doing better.

When I have a client that's in negative acid forming (e)motions, all the body fluids, including the blood will show a decline in the pH even if this person has been eating an alkaline diet. In order to buffer the acid forming (e)motions the client will have to hyper-alkalize the blood and then tissues to bring the body back into alkaline balance. When the client is hyper-alkalizing the pH of the urine will increase into the high 8's and 9's. Hyper-alkalization is necessary in order to overcompensate for the negative acidic producing (e)motions and to bring the body back to health, energy, vitality, hope, peace, harmony and "Young Love."

I have found over the years that when you start feeling better, you start thinking better. And when you start thinking better, you start doing better. So, you don't have to have your (e)motions under control in order to start losing weight, to start feeling better, to start reversing a serious illness, to start to have more sustainable Young Energy and to start to be happy, blissful and spiritually connected.

When you start the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet program, you are then making a conscious decision to try to do a little better. And, when you get on this healing path that leads to "Young Living," "Young Energy" and "Young Love," this gradual alkalizing process--you start having those little and then big pH miracles. You start feeling better and you start thinking better. And, when you start feeling better and thinking better -- all of a sudden, you forget your depression and your sadness. You forget that you were angry. You forget that you were fearful. In fact you forget what you were fearful about in the first place. Why because you feel so good. You are rewriting your genetics with your positive (e)motions. You are taking your alkalizing eraser and erasing all your past life's negative (e)motions. On the pH Miracle Lifestyle and Diet your (e)motions or energy in motion will finally be under your control. You will become the master of your mind, body and spirit
. You will be living an alkaline lifestyle and diet full of energy, happiness, bliss and love. You will be living and breathing "Young Love."

To learn more about the affect of negative and positive (e)motions on the brain and body and to learn more about "Young Living" "Young Energy" and "Young Love" read, The pH Miracle for Weight Loss.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/c-25-books-dvds-audios.aspx
Founder of 'THE NEW BIOLOGY' ® and
Creator of the 'SCIENCE OF ALKALINE LIVING'™ for Health.


Click here to Join the 'pH Miracle Fan Club':
http://tinyurl.com/lqepz2

Don't Tricked into High Fructose Corn Syrup

Thanks to Mike Adams, The Health Ranger, for putting together this great article on high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). At Aroma Thyme Bistro we have a strict policy of high fructose corn syrup. most kitchens purchase corn syrup and gallons and use it for certain desserts. And even worse-just corn syrup is in the majority of prepared foods. So as a restauranteur I take caution and read every single label very carefully. And while reading these labels I'm also looking for other ingredients like MSG, trans fats and other chemical preservatives. So we can proudly say that these ingredients are not in our kitchen. However there is one exception, and that is soda. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are loaded with high fructose corn syrup. But the good news is we also offer other sodas that are alternatively sweetened. So if you like rum and coke I would suggest you order a rum and Steaz.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Diabetes: What the Experts Say

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) According to the Corn Refiners Association, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is no worse for you than any other dietary carbohydrate. Many health experts, however, disagree, warning consumers that HFCS is strongly correlated with diabetes and obesity.

Today, we bring you selected quotes about HFCS and obesity from noted natural health authors. Feel free to quote these in your own work provided you give proper credit to both the original author quoted here and this NaturalNews page.

Here are the quotes:

Roughly $40 billion in federal subsidies are going to pay corn growers, so that corn syrup is able to replace cane sugar. corn syrup has been singled out by many health experts as one of the chief culprits of rising obesity, because corn syrup does not turn off appetite. Since the advent of corn syrup, consumption of all sweeteners has soared, as have people's weights. According to a 2004 study reported in the American journal of Clinical Nutrition, the rise of Type-2 diabetes since 1980 has closely paralleled the increased use of sweeteners, particularly corn syrup.
- There Is a Cure for Diabetes: The Tree of Life 21-Day+ Program by Gabriel Cousens
- Available on Amazon.com

Since the fructose in corn syrup does neither stimulate insulin secretion nor reduce the hunger hormone ghrelin, you will continue to feel hungry while the body converts the fructose into fat. The resulting obesity increases the risk of diabetes and other diseases. Since you obviously cannot expect to receive much help from those who only know how to treat the effects of illness and not its causes, you may need to take your health into you own hands.
- Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You by Andreas Moritz
- Available on Amazon.com

More than half of the carbohydrates being consumed are in the form of sugars (sucrose, corn syrup, etc.) being added to foods as sweetening agents. High consumption of refined sugars is linked to many chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Generally, the term "dietary fiber" refers to the components of plant cell wall and non-nutritive residues. Originally, the definition was restricted to substances that are not digestible by the endogenous secretions of the human digestive tract.
- Textbook of Natural Medicine 2nd Edition Volume 1 by Michael T. Murray, ND
- Available on Amazon.com

The growing prevalence of overweight and obesity correlates with the increase in consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. Fructose also increases blood levels of triglycerides, the "bad" low-density lipoprotein form of cholesterol, and the "very bad" very-low-density lipoprotein form of cholesterol. Furthermore, it raises blood pressure, which is associated with overweight and diabetes.
- Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes by Jack Challem
- Available on Amazon.com

Processed foods commonly include refined sweets such as sugar, honey, corn syrup, molasses, and corn sweeteners that contain no fiber and only insignificant amounts of nutrients per calorie. Numerous studies offer evidence that the consumption of white-flour products and sweets such as these can be a significant cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer. Each time you eat processed foods, you miss out not only on important known nutrients and phytonutrients, but also on all of the yet undiscovered phytonutrients.
- Cholesterol Protection for Life, New Expanded Edition by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
- Available on Amazon.com

During the 1980s, food companies began to use high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten soft drinks, ice cream, and other foods. high-fructose corn syrup appears to be worse than plain old sugar in terms of its health effects. Food companies also started to use large amounts of trans fats (in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils), which contribute to diabetes, overweight, and heart disease.
- Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes by Jack Challem
- Available on Amazon.com

High-fructose corn syrup is sweeter, is easier to handle during processing, has a longer shelf life, and keeps baked goods soft while giving them a warm, toasty color. Interestingly, as the use of high-fructose corn syrup has soared, America's obesity problem has also spiraled out of control. In fact, journalist Greg Critser, author of the intriguing Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, observes that the lower-priced high-fructose corn syrup has allowed food producers to increase portion sizes without sacrificing profits.
- Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track by Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

Other sugar derivatives, including fructose and corn syrup, contribute to the excessive sugar load. Sugar provides empty calories and is a cheap way to get a boost of energy, since it is metabolized by the body into glucose. But too much sugar swamps the body, which is incapable of processing the sugar effectively. With continued overuse of sugar, the pancreas eventually wears out and is no longer able to clear sugar from the blood efficiently. The blood sugar level rises and diabetes may result.
- Alternative Medicine the Definitive Guide, Second Edition by Larry Trivieri, Jr.
- Available on Amazon.com

As high-fructose corn syrup takes off, obesity soars in the 1970s and 1980s, most major American food manufacturers began replacing sugar (sucrose, made from sugarcane or beets) with such corn-based sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). high-fructose corn syrup now is found in an astonishing array of processed goods, including soft drinks and fruit juices, as well as condiments, breads, cookies, breakfast cereals, pasta sauces, frozen foods, jams, and jellies.
- Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track by Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

The whole of the industrial food supply was reformulated to reflect the new nutritional wisdom, giving us low-fat pork, low-fat Snackwell's, and all the low-fat pasta and high-fructose (yet low-fat!) corn syrup we could consume. Which turned out to be quite a lot. Oddly, Americans got really fat on their new low-fat diet-indeed, many date the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes to the late 1970s, when Americans began bingeing on carbohydrates, ostensibly as a way to avoid the evils of fat.
- In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
- Available on Amazon.com

The people who make those awful bottled "natural" fruit drinks and teas aren't going to like this, but it's possible that the steep rise in our consumption of high fructose corn syrup has contributed to the rise in diabetes by depleting chromium. (As our consumption of high fructose corn syrup has risen 250 percent in the past 15 years, our rate of diabetes has increased approximately 45 percent in about the same time period.
- Bottom Line's Prescription Alternatives by Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
- Available on Amazon.com

Although sugar is frequently disguised in labels under another name, whether as fructose, sucrose, corn syrup, dextrose, lactose, or maltodextrose, it's still sugar. High-sugar diets contribute to the development of Syndrome X, yeast infections of all types, obesity, diabetes, hypoglycemia, gallbladder disease, and some types of psychological problems, especially depression and premenstrual syndrome. Processed foods and junk food, these foods are synonymous with "fast food." They are devoid of sound nutrition and high in sugar, fat, salt, and chemical preservatives.
- Intelligent Medicine: A Guide to Optimizing Health and Preventing Illness for the Baby-Boomer Generation by Ronald L. Hoffman, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

The average American now consumes over 100 pounds of sucrose and 40 pounds of corn syrup each year. This sugar addiction probably plays a major role in the high prevalence of poor health and chronic disease in the United States. Research in the past three decades has provided an ever-increasing amount of new information on the role that both refined carbohydrates (sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and low-fiber starchy foods) and faulty blood sugar control play in many disease processes.
- Hunger Free Forever: The New Science of Appetite Control by Michael T. Murray and Michael R. Lyon
- Available on Amazon.com

Some suggest that high-fructose corn syrup, which is widely used as an inexpensive sweetener in juice, soft drinks, and processed foods, might predispose people to diabetes. In animal research this sugar leads to insulin resistance and poor glucose tolerance. Until this controversy is sorted out, we discourage the consumption of foods and beverages containing high-fructose corn syrup.
- Best Choices From the People's Pharmacy by Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

These types of sweeteners are among the main causes of obesity in the United States today. Corn syrup is a cheap sweetener which helps hold the product price down. This corn sweetener is six times sweeter than cane sugar and started replacing other sugars as its popularity and low price caught on in the market place. It is now used in 40% of all products that have sweeteners added. The average American consumes high amounts of corn syrup every day.
- Defeat Cancer by Gregory, A. Gore
- Available on Amazon.com

Some evidence indicates that fructose and high-fructose corn syrup have a more pronounced effect than do glucose and sucrose on taste receptors, imprinting both the tongue and the brain with a stronger desire for sweet foods throughout life. There is also evidence that fructose and high-fructose corn syrup modify the brain's appetite-regulating centers. Fructose decreases levels of leptin, a hunger-suppressing hormone, and it boosts levels of ghrelin, a hunger-stimulating hormone creating a double-whammy that fosters more eating and weight gain.
- Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes by Jack Challem
- Available on Amazon.com

Diabetics must be careful about their use of natural sweeteners, including honey, maple syrup, and molasses. Artificial sweeteners should also be avoided. Aspartame is especially bad for insulin-dependent diabetics because it affects blood sugar levels and thus makes controlling them more difficult.
- The Enzyme Cure: How Plant Enzymes Can Help You Relieve 36 Health Problems by Lita Lee, Lisa Turner and Burton Goldberg
- Available on Amazon.com

Some of these sweeteners may be honey, invert sugar, corn sweeteners, molasses, maltose, corn syrup, galactose, glucose, dextrose, fruit juice concentrate, and maltodextrin. If necessary, food can be sweetened with stevia. Stevia is a potent sweetener that is naturally occurring but does not cause a rise in blood sugar levels. A very small amount (approximately one-sixteenth of a teaspoon) is equivalent to one teaspoon of table sugar. Using too much stevia makes foods taste bitter. If you purchase stevia, make certain that it is a pure product.
- Getting Rid of Ritalin: How Neurofeedback Can Successfully Treat Attention Deficit Disorder Without Drugs by Robert W. Hill, Ph.D. and Eduardo Castro, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

In the carbohydrate category, relatively low-glycemic carbohydrates include things like yams or sweet potatoes; whole grains, like whole grain brown rice and whole grain barley; and sugars like Agave nectar rather than fructose, processed sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Stevia is, of course, an excellent sweetener to use. It has virtually no blood sugar effect whatsoever. If you want a tasty sweetener that is extremely low on the glycemic index, get Agave nectar. Ideally, get Agave nectar grown and harvested from Blue Weber agave plants.
- Natural Health Solutions by Mike Adams
- Available on Amazon.com

How excessive tax subsidies of corn production result in the ubiquitous sweetener high fructose corn syrup (which some experts say contributes to weight gain) is an excellent illustration. But I am especially outraged by the examples in this chapter because they are blatant and deliberate strategies to place corporate profits above public interest. It's as if government officials aren't even trying to hide how deeply inside industry's pockets they have buried themselves.
- Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back by Michele Simon
- Available on Amazon.com

Consumption of sugar (or its equivalents, like corn syrup) in soft drinks has been linked to obesity in children and adolescents. But a recent study of almost all fifty-year-old men and women in Framingham, Massachusetts, found that having more than one soft drink, whether sugared or diet, increased the risk of metabolic syndrome by 44 percent over a four-year period. The risk was increased similarly whether the drink was sugared or diet.
- You: Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty by Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

At one end of the spectrum would be white refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup, probably the two that cause the most harm to the body. On the other end of the spectrum is Stevia, which is actually beneficial to the body and has little to no effect on the blood sugar. Concentrated sweeteners of any kind, natural or otherwise, are best kept to a minimum. Consider foods made with them as special treats rather than daily events. When you do indulge, the natural sweeteners that follow are your best choice. On a regular basis, keep them to a minimum in accordance with your tolerance level.
- If It's Not Food, Don't Eat It! The No-nonsense Guide to an Eating-for-Health Lifestyle by Kelly Harford, M.C., C.N.C.
- Available on Amazon.com

Whether you take your sweetness in the form of table sugar, brown sugar, turbinado, raw sugar, honey, glucose, dextrose, or corn syrup, it puts an enormous strain on your system and acts as a cross-linking free radical to damage your cells. One of the most common results of over consumption of sugar is hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. Some 35 percent of all Americans suffer from some form of this condition, in which a craving for sugar is followed by a swift high and then a painful crash as sweet foods are consumed.
- Stopping the Clock: Longevity for the New Millenium by Ronald Klatz and Robert Goldman
- Available on Amazon.com

A fight between picturesque villagers who want to drink water where they've lived all their lives and a multinational that wants to buy it on the cheap, whip some corn syrup into it, and sell it back to them at irrationally exuberant prices is one into which even Tom Friedman might find it hard to fly. America's right to consume as much oil as it can lay its hands on may be god-given and defensible by thermonuclear warfare. But obesity from sugary water still sounds like a dubious privilege in a constitutional republic. That, briefly, is the quandary of the new globalized world.
- Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics (Agora Series) by William Bonner, Lila Rajiva
- Available on Amazon.com

Instead of containing fat, they were loaded with sugars like corn syrup, sucrose and other refined sugars. As a result, when people consumed these products, their bodies converted those sugars into body fat. Thus, the very products that claimed to be fat-free were promoting the creation and storage of body fat in the bodies of people who ate them. That's classic misdirection. Today, we see a lot of products that claim to be sugar-free foods.
- Spam Filters for Your Brain by Mike Adams
- Available on Amazon.com

All sugar-intolerant people, especially those suffering from seizures, should avoid all refined sugars (white sugar, corn syrup, fructose, commercial honey) and all synthetic sugars, especially NutraSweet. Even organic whole sugars such as sucanat (whole sugar cane) and raw honey can be problematic. The source of dietary sugar should be organic whole fruits and fruit juices. Blood Sugar can be maintained at night by eating a salty snack, drinking fruit juice, or eating a light protein snack just before bed.
- The Enzyme Cure: How Plant Enzymes Can Help You Relieve 36 Health Problems by Lita Lee, Lisa Turner and Burton Goldberg
- Available on Amazon.com

Eliminate refined sugar and processed food that contains refined sugar such as table sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup and dextrose. Use natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, raw honey, black strap molasses, date sugar and others. Eliminate trans-fatty acids, fat is a much-maligned macronutrient. We have been brainwashed by dieticians and the diet industry into believing that eating fat is bad for our health and that dietary fat is responsible for obesity.
- Overcoming Thyroid Disorders by David Brownstein
- Available on Amazon.com

A 1989 study by the National Research Council ("Diet and Health Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk"; Washington, DC, National Academy Press) concluded that the typical individual consumes more than 100 pounds of sucrose and 35 pounds of corn syrup every year. Clinical nutritionists also concur that low blood sugar causes foggy brain functioning. Think of it this way: The brain is dependent on glucose just as the lungs are dependent on oxygen. When the ratio of either is askew, your body will feel off-balance.
- Food Swings: Make the Life-Changing Connection Between the Foods You Eat and Your Emotional Health and Well-Being by Barnet Meltzer, M.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

Soft drinks are for the most part sweetened with corn syrup, a mixture of glucose (a monosaccharide sugar), fructose (a monosaccharide sugar), maltose (a disaccharide sugar), and other small saccharides in other words, sugars. From a biochemical and physiological standpoint, these sugars are similar to sucrose, as all are convertible to glucose (blood sugar) in the body. To argue that soft drinks "do not contain sugar" because they are not sweetened with sucrose is misleading and not in the interest of public education about diet and health.
- Food Fight by Kelly Brownell and Katherine Battle Horgen
- Available on Amazon.com

Certain types of sugar also have less impact on blood sugar than others. Those that least affect blood sugar contain a higher proportion of fructose relative to glucose or sucrose. The newest "star" in the sugar world is agave nectar or syrup, which comes from a cactus-like plant. It has a very low glycemic index, as it is 90 percent fructose.
- Defeating Diabetes by Brenda Davis and Tom Barnard
- Available on Amazon.com

Any label that says sucrose, glucose, maltose, lactose, fructose, sugar, corn syrup, or white grape juice concentrate is a source of added dietary sugar. With all this talk of lowering cholesterol and improving the cholesterol ratios, it is easy to forget how important it is to balance the blood pressure and how foods may have a positive or a negative effect on this. For example, a diet low in potassium and high in sodium is associated with high blood pressure. By contrast, a diet high in potassium and low in sodium can protect against elevation of blood pressure.
- Women's Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine: Alternative Therapies and Integrative Medicine for Total Health and Wellness by Tori Hudson, N.D.
- Available on Amazon.com

High fructose corn syrup came into widespread use as a sugar substitute in the 1970's because of its lower price. By 1990 the quantity of fructose consumed had gone up ten fold. This is now present in candy, soda, cereal, crackers, bread and hundreds of other foods. Fructose was believed to be a safe sugar substitute because it has no adverse effects on either blood sugar values or insulin output. However, there are two serious problems from fructose usage. When ingested, fructose is immediately shuttled directly to the liver.
- A Physician's Guide To Natural Health Products That Work by James A. Howenstine, MD
- Available on Amazon.com

Are Kids getting Healthier?

This is an interesting article on how kids eating habits are getting better. I know, by having two kids, that most kids eat junk food. And in most cases this food is approved by their parents. But it's not entirely the parents fault. Food companies have a neat way of making us think foods are healthier than they really are. They use the front of the box to post things like 100% RDA of vitamin C, contains whole grains or 100% RDA of some mineral. When in fact these foods are loaded with white sugar, white flour, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup and usually some funky preservatives.

But this article mentions things like chocolate milk. At a recent grocery store trip I actually looked at the ingredients of chocolate milk. I was shocked to see the sugar level. And most of the chocolate milks contained high fructose corn syrup and several other unpronounceable ingredients. I'm sorry but I don't care what their claim could be, but there is nothing healthy about chocolate milk. And even worse is Yoohoo.

I actually threaten my kids with a trip to McDonald's. My kids have never at McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Wendy's or any other fast food establishments. So my kids have no idea what's behind the Golden Arches. They do know it is loaded with food that we do not eat.

Having healthy kids begins at home. My wife and I have spent the last nine years making sure that our children are eating nutritionally dense, raw whenever possible, organic and whole foods. have one conversation with my kids and they will teach most adults a thing or two about nutrition.

Where do parents start? believe it or not it is easier than ever to get cutting edge nutritional information these days. And it all happens on the Internet. Some of the countries top nutritional doctors and nutritionists have phenomenal websites loaded great information and mouthwatering recipes. So it just takes a little time to research the right foods and Lovin of experimentation in the kitchen to get the family on a healthy start.


June 16, 2009
WELL
Kid Goes Into McDonald’s and Orders ... Yogurt?

By TARA PARKER-POPE
The eating habits of American children appear to be shifting. And for a change, the news is good.

Chicken nuggets, burgers, fries and colas remain popular with the under-13 set, of course. But new market research shows that consumption of these foods at restaurants is declining, while soup, yogurt, fruit, grilled chicken and chocolate milk are on the rise.

The findings, based on survey data by the Chicago market research firm NPD Group, follow a report last year that childhood obesity appears to have hit a plateau after rising for more than two decades. That finding, reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association, has been greeted with guarded optimism, and it remains unclear whether efforts to limit junk food and increase physical activity in schools have had a meaningful effect on the way children eat.

But the new data suggest that a number of factors, from the economic downturn to new offerings from fast-food giants, may be influencing a general shift in eating preferences among children.

The data, from NPD’s Consumer Reports on Eating Share Trends, are collected from a representative sample of 3,500 households and 500 teenagers who give detailed information on their restaurant habits. The figures are considered highly reliable because the researchers collect answers daily, asking participants what they and their family ate and ordered at restaurants the day before. While this recall method is never 100 percent reliable, the data, collected since 1976, provide a consistent look at long-term trends.

Clearly, the economy is playing a big part in these trends. Orders for kids’ meals that included a toy were down 11 percent last year, for example, while “value menu” orders were up 9 percent. More recently, children’s orders for cold-cut sandwiches are up 11 percent, a surge that appears to be driven largely by the fast-food chain Subway’s “$5 foot-long” campaign. And after more than three years of growth, restaurant birthday parties for children dropped 5 percent in the quarter ending in February, compared with the same quarter last year.

But economics cannot explain the entire shift, said Bonnie Riggs, a restaurant analyst for NPD. Cheeseburgers, fries and colas are all on value menus, but their consumption among children under 13 has fallen while healthier foods are on the rise.

Among the losers in the year ending March 31 were colas (down 10 percent), chicken nuggets and strips (8 percent), French fries (7 percent) and hot dogs (6 percent). Winners included soup (29 percent), grilled chicken sandwiches (26 percent), yogurt (21 percent), carrots (9 percent) and fruit (6 percent).

Even pizza is losing favor. While it is still the most popular food for children in quick-service restaurants, its year-to-year growth is flat, according to NPD. And in full-service restaurants, it has been replaced by pasta as the most popular food among children.

“Kids’ tastes and preferences are changing,” Ms. Riggs said, adding that they want “more choices and sophisticated fare.”

To be sure, pizza, burgers, fries and kids’ meals are still the most popular items ordered by children; the percentage gains for items like soup and yogurt are from a smaller base. But the trends bolster an argument that children’s health researchers have made for years: if you offer more healthful food, kids will eat it.

And many restaurants are taking the hint. Last month, Burger King announced three new kids’ meals that include small burgers, sliced apples that look like French fries, reduced-sodium chicken tenders, calcium-fortified apple juice and fat-free chocolate milk. McDonald’s offers apples and yogurt, and Wendy’s kids’ meals include mandarin oranges.

“The food industry is always saying, ‘We’re giving people want they want; that’s why we’re giving you chicken nuggets, burgers and fries for your kids,’ ” said Leann L. Birch, director of the Center for Childhood Obesity Research at Penn State. “That’s not really true. If kids are given different options and if parents make them available and let them choose some of those things, I think quite often we see you do get shifts in eating.”

Not every choice is resulting in a more healthful meal. For instance, the NPD data show that breaded chicken sandwiches are on the rise while burgers are declining. On the Wendy’s kids’ menu, the breaded chicken has 340 calories, and a junior cheeseburger has 270.

Among beverage orders, milk consumption is on the rise and colas are down. But orange and grapefruit sodas and root beer are rising.

“The perception might be that orange and grapefruit soda are better for you,” Ms. Riggs said.

Still, it is noteworthy that the NPD data are based on orders in restaurants, where children are often allowed to make their own choices.

“We don’t know how many choices kids really make,” Dr. Birch said. “But my sense is that parents are much more likely to be hands-off in a restaurant situation and allow kids the freedom to make more choices.

“You go to these places where they offer healthy options for adults. But until recently, kids haven’t had the opportunity to choose the right thing.”

Mad Cow in Fish

It is about time this issue has been addressed. I have read every book on Mad Cow disease that I can get my hands on. This is very serious stuff, in fact more serious than our gov't wants us to know. Deadly Feast, a must read for Mad Cow info, proved that this prion can be transferred from one species to another. So this is no surprise to to me that farmed fish are susceptible to this prion from their food.

In fact several species of animals are known to have wasting disease of the brain. Really everything from pigs, sheep, mink, chickens and so on have this so-called mad cow disease. But this wasting disease of the brain typically happens in older animals. And livestock animals never reach full maturity. So the actual cases are an unknown. it is very similar to Alzheimer's disease, which happens later in life.

The bottom line to this tragedy is that these animals are not designed to eat their own species. We have turned livestock into cannibals. There are laws and set up so you could not feed rendered cows back to cattle. But rendered cattle to get fed to other species including being put into cat and dog food. Cows were designed to eat grass. When cows are allowed to experience grass pastures they will reach the pinnacle of health. This is why true grass finished beef is the healthiest of all meat.

If you are truly concerned about mad cow disease then one should do adequate research. Cow byproducts end up in food and cosmetics across the board. Simple things like white sugar has been filtered with cow bones. Most of distilled spirits are filtered using the same ingredients. Cosmetics use cow byproducts because of the affective cost to stabilize their products.

Study: Farmed fish may transmit mad cow

By SeafoodSource staff
6/16/2009 4:16:07 PM - A new study claims that farmed fish may be able to contract mad cow disease if fed cow byproducts. The study was led by University of Louisville neurologist Robert Friedland, M.D., and published in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

The risk of transmitting mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), from fish to humans is “low,” acknowledged the researchers.

“We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans,” said Friedland. “Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited. Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows.”

“The fact that no cases of [mad cow] disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe,” he added. “The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public.”

Mad cow disease, also called Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, is fatal and can be contracted by eating parts of an animal infected with BSE. There have been 163 deaths from Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in the United Kingdom attributed to eating infected beef. BSE has been identified in nine Canadian and three U.S. cattle.

Most countries, including the United States, ban the practice of feeding cow byproducts to other cows because the disease spreads easily within the same species.

University of Mississippi researchers said in late 2007 that some U.S. fish-feed manufacturers have voluntarily discontinued the use of meat and bone meal.

Artificially ripened mangoes prove risky

I have always been an advocate for fruit and vegetables that are ripe when picked. There is a magical effect the sun has on them when you leave them attached as long as possible. That magical adds flavor and nutrition. But what happens when they do get picked early and ripen in a controlled environment of a warehouse. The following story is very interesting on Artificially ripened mangoes.
Marcus Guiliano
Aroma Thyme Bistro

Agri. & Commodities
Artificially ripened mangoes prove risky
R. Sujatha and K. Lakshmi

Chronic consumption could affect the kidneys and lead to carcinogenic action, experts say

CHENNAI: A few days ago, Kasiamma of Thoraipakkam, a domestic help, reported for work with a swollen face. She said she was fine until she ate a mango. Kasiamma took several medicines but has not yet recovered.

Vanitha Rajan of Maduravoyal had a similar experience. “I bought mangoes in a shop here last week. Within hours, I suffered a stomach upset and was sick for two days.” Several people in suburbs such as Ambattur, Avadi and Nerkundram also reported similar problems.

Though eating the fruit will not bring about such an allergic reaction, the method of ripening it could cause such problems, say public health specialists.

Regular consumption of artificially ripened fruits could result in diarrhoea and gastric irritation. Chronic consumption could affect the kidneys and theoretically lead to carcinogenic action, said T. Jeyakumar, former Joint Director of Public Health.

Wholesale traders in Koyambedu and Madhavaram said a fall in the arrival of the fruits could have resulted in more instances of artificial ripening to meet the demand. The city receives most of its supply from Andhra Pradesh besides from Dindigul and Salem.

Traders in Madhavaram said that this year the wholesale market received 1,500 tonnes of mangoes, which is only 50 per cent of its usual supply. S. Sudarsanam, a wholesale trader, said: “Artificial ripening will be done at the beginning of the season, mostly in April-May, when more people crave to taste the fruit.”

Fall in supply and higher prices (a tonne of the Banganpalli variety is priced between Rs.50,000 and Rs.60,000) could mean more sellers would consider artificial ripening, he said.

Calcium carbide stones are powdered and placed in paper pouches in the basket or as a stone in mango godowns. An artificially ripened fruit would present a yellow outer skin but the tissue inside would not be ripe. Though mangoes ripen in two days they cannot be stored for more than two days, Mr. Sudarsanam said.

A customer cannot differentiate between a naturally ripe mango and an artificially ripened one, Dr. Jeyakumar said. “Eating artificially ripened mangoes causes stomach upset because the alkaline substance is an irritant that erodes the mucosal tissue in the stomach and disrupts intestinal function. Chronic exposure to the chemical could lead to peptic ulcer,” he said.

Artificial ripening is banned under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 and the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955. Seized fruits are removed from the markets and buried. Bleaching powder is added to the fruit to destroy them, said Chennai Corporation’s Health officer P. Kuganantham.

Traders said June and July, which marked the end of the mango season, would be the best time to taste the fruit as the market would be flooded with ripe mangoes.

Officials of many local bodies in the northern and western suburbs said cases of artificial ripening had not been reported so far. But mango godowns are periodically checked by the sanitary inspectors of the respective local bodies for artificial ripening of the fruits.

Another Green Winery

Niagara wine country goes green TheStar.com - Travel - Niagara wine country goes green

MELANIE CHAMBERS PHOTO

June 15, 2009

Melanie Chambers
Special to the Star

From menus that change with the seasons, to organic wine, to leaf-eating sheep, and one wicked long bike path - Niagara is leading the country in green tourism. And now with a new GO Train service to the area, it's easy to ditch the car for the bike and get back to basics.

Number one: wine reinvention.

Frog Pond Farm is Ontario's only certified organic winery. It's the kind of place that serves wine tastings inside a country house. It's also a place where insecticide and chemical-free grapes are hand picked.

Why go to so much trouble? "I don't want to call my children into the house because I have to spray," says Heike Koch, who bought the farm with her husband Jens Gemmrich in 1996.

Recently the winery became licensed to serve wine by the glass. Visitors can sip the new Cabernet Franc Rose on the picnic table with some homemade bread, courtesy of their daughter. "She likes to experiment with the herbs from our garden."

In keeping with sustainable agriculture the owners of Featherstone Estate Winery in Vineland have replaced noisy fuel-sucking machinery with sheep and birds. "Hired" in 2007, the sheep eat the lower grape leaves, thereby giving the grapes better access to sunlight.

"You can't get a cleaner and riper fruit," says Louise Engel, who co-owns the winery with partner David Johnson. Engel recently received the Premiers Award for Agricultural Innovation.

But, the sheep get their own recognition: Black Sheep Riesling is their namesake wine.

Engel also employs other furry friends. As a certified falconer, Engel orchestrates birds of prey to scare off grape-eating nuisances such as Stirlings; this enables the winery to rely less on noisy propane-fueled bird-bangers.

Number two: produce-a-plenty

Supporting local farmers is easy in Niagara. "I come from P.E.I. where there's great fish and potatoes, but that's where it ends," says Ross Midgley, chef at The Kitchen House, the new restaurant at Peninsula Ridge Estate Winery in Beamsville.

"Here in Niagara the bounty from a cook's point of view is really endless for at least six months of the year."

Midgley is one of many chefs in the area who offer a seasonal menu that changes when the produce changes - sometimes daily. "The server goes to the table to say we're serving grilled salmon and then talk about these other pleasant surprizes that are not on the menu."

Last week his supplier brought in rhubarb, seedlings, collard greens, mint tops, and one of his favourites, fresh nuts from Grimo Nut Farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Number three: Ball's Falls Centre for Conservation, in the Twenty Valley. (www.npca.ca).

Built near a century old mill, this building is almost as natural as the Niagara Escarpment it straddles.

During its construction, bulldozers didn't rip up the earth; in fact, it was the other way around: the undulating uneven floor flows over the natural topography.

Inside, in the centre of the building, a drain pipe gathers rain water that is then used for the plumbing system. "We're saving 73% of our heating and operating costs by having these natural systems," says Andrea Wilson, the centre's program manager.

The centre features oodles of nature exhibits including a simulated flight that flies over the rivers, watersheds and rock formations of the entire Twenty Valley.

Awarded a Gold certification by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the building is a testament to the future of green construction.

Number four: GO Train.

Starting at the end of June, GO Train is offering service to St.Catharines and Niagara Falls four times daily on the weekends. GO hopes to continue the service year-round.

Cyclists are encouraged to bring their bikes on the train, which leads us to perhaps the best reason to visit Niagara.

Number five: The Waterfront Trail. www.waterfronttrail.org.

It's an 800-kilometer long multi-use path that joins hundreds of Ontario communities along Lake Ontario and the St.Lawrence River. In Niagara, the trail meanders along the gorge overlooking the Niagara River.

And if you get tired, the trail passes dozens of wineries and fruit stands. A basket of fresh strawberries, a glass of rose and fresh air - it doesn't get more simple than this.

This year also marks the second annual Great Waterfront Trail Adventure (July 4th to 11th). The ride begins in Niagara-on-the-Lake and ends, eight days later, on the Quebec border.

One of My Favorite Resaurants

June 10, 2009

A Locavore Before the Word Existed

By FRANK BRUNI

BY all accounts, the two of them are collegial, even friendly. But still you have to think that Peter Hoffman sometimes wants to bean Dan Barber with an extra-juicy heirloom tomato — at the peak of its season, of course — or scatter some Jolly Green Giant into Mr. Barber’s freshly harvested sugar snaps.

Mr. Hoffman must marvel: How did this whippet-thin whippersnapper, some 14 years his junior, become downtown Manhattan’s farm-to-table guru, enshrined by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people and affirmed by the Obamas themselves, who used Date Night to dine at his Greenwich Village restaurant, Blue Hill?

Mr. Hoffman, after all, was foraging in the Greenmarket (to which he has always traveled by bicycle, mindful of his carbon footprint) when Mr. Barber was still in high school. And Mr. Hoffman, and his wife, Susan Rosenfeld, began exalting all things organic, sustainable and humanely raised at Savoy, in SoHo, a full decade before Mr. Barber did likewise at Blue Hill.

It’s easy to overlook that, given all the loud and proud locavores upon the land today. It’s easy to forget about Mr. Hoffman and about Savoy, whose leafy, principled menu now seems less a breath of fresh cooking than the default setting of the urban bistro, where a chef contemplates ramps in May, butternut squash in November.

But if Savoy is no longer a trailblazer or paragon — and if, indeed, it makes a more modest impression than a latter-day temple of ethical eating like Blue Hill — it remains an attention-worthy restaurant, on account of how deeply pleasant an afternoon or evening here can be. Its low-key charms haven’t faded since its opening in 1990, and its adjustments over time have been wise ones.

Physically, for example, it’s more attractive than when it was last reviewed in The Times, in 1995, getting two stars from Ruth Reichl. That was around the time it expanded from one level to two. But it was configured differently, and it didn’t have the long bar just inside its entrance, one of the most inviting bars in the city, a band of dark stone shaped like a horseshoe, so that when you sit at it, you face the people around you. It’s a bar as a drinking and dining community, a circle (almost) of enlightened epicures.

Early in the evening there’s a cutting board at the base of the horseshoe. On it are olives, pickles, meats cured in house, farmstead cheeses and the like. They’re seductive bar snacks, though the one you shouldn’t miss isn’t in view. It’s a plate of crunchy battered duck livers, which make an important statement about Savoy. They say that for all its virtue and vegetables, it’s not playing waistline watchdog. It will give you something rich, even something fried.

The breaded egg that’s part of an appetizer of asparagus, for example. Egg and asparagus: scores of restaurants do that. But lightly breading the egg after poaching it and dunking it briefly in hot oil? That’s not as prevalent, and it gives the dish an extra texture, an added heft.

Over the years Savoy has served as a classroom for Greenmarket chefs who graduated to other restaurants just as beloved, if not more so. It has also, apparently, served as something of a gastronomic dating service.

Charles Kiely and Sharon Pachter, the couple who own the Grocery in Brooklyn, met at Savoy. So did Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens, who own Franny’s, also in Brooklyn.

In fact there’s a tie between the style of cooking and restaurant that define the current Brooklyn scene and what’s been going on at Savoy for two decades. There’s a shared concern not just with the provenance of ingredients and the straightforwardness of their presentation but with a dining experience more folksy than glitzy, more bluntly nourishing than madly exhilarating.

At Savoy, whose front windows open onto an intersection with actual cobblestones, that sensibility translated into a wild dandelion salad with toasted hazelnuts whose faint and distinctive sweetness was the perfect counterpoint to the bitter greens. It translated into a clear-flavored, resonant spring onion broth with ramp-and-Gruyère dumplings that lifted it above the kind of soup you’d find in a lesser restaurant or could make at home.

The Savoy kitchen, in which Ryan Tate is chef de cuisine, doesn’t operate in a showy manner. But it definitely operates in a skilled and diligent one, manifest in the dependable juiciness of the roasted Belle Rouge chicken, served on a broad plate that, when I had it, brimmed with mashed new potatoes and braised leeks. Almost all of the entrees I had — including an excellent salt-crusted duck (with caramelized sunchokes) and a pork shoulder (with cornbread pudding) that was gorgeous one visit, dry the next — were generously portioned.

The desserts, under the direction of the pastry chef Lisa Fernandez, reflected as much of a premium on pure indulgence as on Greenmarket correctness, the standout being a vanilla cheesecake that was more like a mousse — like a cloud, really — flecked by early-season strawberries.

Mr. Hoffman’s menus are confidently edited, with no more than eight appetizers and eight entrees on most nights, so the duds stand out. A cornmeal-crusted soft-shell crab tasted mainly of salty batter, and bacon-wrapped rabbit sausage had a generically fatty, unfocused flavor.

The grass-fed beef that he uses at Savoy and at Back Forty, a more casual sister restaurant that he opened in the East Village a year and a half ago, doesn’t have the richness of the best grain-fed beef. So Savoy’s steaks, by far the most expensive entrees, don’t seem worth the price.

Instead get the halibut, poached in olive oil and served with sugar snap peas and a radish salad. Ask to sit downstairs. While both dining rooms have working fireplaces, the street-level one feels at once more intimate and livelier.

And raise a glass of wine (from an appealing, varied list) to Mr. Hoffman, an evangelist outpaced by younger adherents but not out of the picture. Not even close.

Savoy

★★

70 Prince Street (Crosby Street), SoHo; (212) 219-8570, savoynyc.com.

ATMOSPHERE Two homey floors of a 19th-century town house in SoHo with fireplaces upstairs and at street level, where there’s also an inviting horseshoe-shaped bar.

SOUND LEVEL Moderate.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Fried duck livers; asparagus with poached egg; dandelion salad; roasted chicken; salt-crusted duck; confit pork shoulder; vanilla cheesecake; rhubarb upside-down cake with beet sorbet.

WINE LIST Well organized, diverse and appealing, with many bottles under $50.

PRICE RANGE Dinner appetizers, $9 to $18; entrees, $26 to $45; desserts, $7 to $9.

HOURS Lunch from noon to 3 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Dinner from 6 to 10:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and to 10 p.m. Sunday. Limited bar menu from 3 to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

RESERVATIONS For prime times call at least a week ahead.

CREDIT CARDS All major cards.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY Ramp to entrance and accessible restroom off street-level dining room.

WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.

Let Do Something About Our Contaminated Farmed Salmon

Photo credit: Jeremy Keith

Americans, it's time to ask the FDA about unapproved chemicals in your salmon!

The FDA is in the hot seat again. And once more, it's about unapproved chemicals in the farmed salmon being sold in the US.

A few months ago, Pew Environment Group called out the FDA for allowing Chilean farmed salmon to be imported and sold, even though it had been treated with chemicals that have not been approved for use in the US and, in some cases, contained residues of the pesticide. But it seems the agency continues to turn a blind eye to the rest of the farmed salmon imports that are treated with the same chemicals-even though the FDA itself has said these chemicals cannot be used on fish destined for US consumption!

Numerous drugs and chemicals are routinely used in net-cage salmon farm operations. For example, emamectin benzoate, more commonly known as SLICE™, is used to control sea lice and is used in much of the farmed salmon sold in the US. It's mixed with feed and fed directly to the fish, yet it's nasty stuff that is a known toxin that can affect fish, birds, mammals and aquatic invertebrates.

The FDA was alerted to the situation months ago but to the best of our knowledge has failed to take any substantive action. Americans who care about your own health and the health of the oceans can encourage the FDA to act - it is your health they're mandated to protect.

You can send an email or write a letter to let the FDA know how you feel about unapproved drugs in farmed salmon. Click here for the contact info and a template you can customize (you'll be redirected to CAAR's site).

Thanks for your efforts!

________________________________________________________

As most of you know Aroma Thyme Bistro only serves wild Alaskan Salmon. Alaskan Salmon is the most monitored population in the world. And Alaska has the some of the worlds cleanest waters.

Check out Monterey Bay Seafood Watch for a full listing of sustainable seafood. Here is a great link for Alaskan Seafood.

Marcus Guiliano
Aroma Thyme Bistro
Ellenville NY