Blog : Nutrition

A Comforting Breakfast — or Anytime — Meal that Your Stomach Will Enjoy By Yon DeonJang Joog (된장죽)

DeonJang Joog

Ingredients

3 cups broth, such as bone, chicken, beef, seafood or vegetable

1 cup cooked rice

1 cup cabbage, thinly sliced

1 cup potatoes, thinly sliced

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon DoenJang (fermented Korean Soybean Paste - can be found at a Korean grocery store or J Mart in Peachtree City)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small avocado (optional; add for a buttery flavor)

Instructions

  1. Mix the tablespoon of DoenJang into the prepared broth. Be sure it's blended well and that the soybean paste is not in chunks. Set aside.
  2. Warm the tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the sliced potatoes and cabbage.
  3. Add the DoenJang mix broth to the saucepan.
  4. Cook on medium heat until it comes to a hard boil.
  5. Add the cooked rice and minced garlic. Stir gently.
  6. Boil for one to two minutes. Then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes until all the ingredients are fully mixed. The consistency should be similar to porridge.
  7. If you'd like to add tasty, buttery flavor, mix the avocado in your bowl of DoenJang Joog just before eating.
  8. Enjoy it!!

Worthwhile Tips

  • The thickness of the DoenJang Joog is up to you. You can adjust it by using less or more of the broth or rice.
  • The saltiness of this meal is also adjustable; just add or reduce the amount of DoenJang.
  • You can add other main ingredients, such as spinach, mushrooms and thinly sliced meat or fish.
  • If you do not have cooked rice, wash a cup of rice and soak it in water overnight or a few hours before you make the DoenJan Joog. The longer the rice is soaked, the easier it is to cook.
  • To keep cooked rice on hand, you can cook a lot of rice, place small servings of it in zip-locked bags and store them in the freezer.

I hope you all try this, enjoy it, share it with your loved ones and create your own favorite versions of DoenJang Joog!

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A Quick Guide to Quick Pickles

When we first talk about how a patient can "jump-start" their digestion, people often ask, "If raw veggies are not very digestible, then what can I do instead?" The answer to that question is PICKLES.

Also known as refrigerator pickles, 'quick pickles' are an easy and fast way to prepare tasty summer veggies that retain the satisfying summer crispy snap that people love about eating raw vegetables. No canning is needed!

Pickling is a time-honored way to preserve the nutrients in fresh produce. As with the fermented pickles, quick pickles are also easy to digest.

A wide variety of vegetables can be quick-pickled, like cucumbers (obviously), carrots, radishes, zucchini, summer squash, green beans and cherry tomatoes. Prep the veggies; they can be halved, sliced or left whole.

Pack them in a wide-mouth jar and add any spices you wish. Dill, garlic and peppercorns are traditional choices, but this is an opportunity to get creative - try ginger, turmeric or red pepper flakes.

In a saucepan and over high heat, bring the brine - half-vinegar and half water with some salt and/or sugar - to a boil. Pour it over the veggies, leaving some air space. Tap the jar to remove air bubbles, screw on the lid and pop it in the fridge.

Wait at least a few days before enjoying your pickles. The taste will improve as they age.

For more information and a detailed recipe, check out this blog post!

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Bone Broth

Based on a traditional cooking method, bone broth has been happily gaining in popularity over the past few years. It’s a slowly simmered stock made from animal bones and connective tissues. Different types of bone broth include beef, chicken and fish broths.

David Toone shared the nutritional principle, “if you want to build good bones, you’ll get the best nutrients from bones. And brain health is extension of the bones’ marrow.”

Bone broth adds ‘yang,’ or warmth, into our systems, and it’s rich in minerals like calcium, he explained. “So, you’re getting a lot of minerals and a high nutrient content from bone broth. You get a lot of the benefits of meat in a more digestible form.”

Beef Bone Broth

  • About 4 pounds beef marrow and knuckle bones
  • 3 pounds meaty rib or neck bones
  • 4 or more quarts cold filtered water
  • 1/2 cup vinegar
  • 3 onions, coarsely chopped
  • 3 carrots, coarsely chopped
  • 3 celery sticks, coarsely chopped
  • Several sprigs of fresh thyme, tied together
  • 1 teaspoon dried green peppercorns, crushed
  • 1 bunch parsley

Good beef stock/bone broth must be made with several sorts of bones: knuckle bones impart large quantities of gelatin to the broth. Marrow bones impart flavor and the particular nutrients of bone marrow. Meaty rib or neck bones add color and flavor.

Place the knuckle and marrow bones in a very large pot with vinegar and cover with water. Let stand for one hour.

Meanwhile, place the meaty bones in a roasting pan and brown at 350 degrees in the oven. When well browned, add to the pot, along with the vegetables.

Pour the fat out of the roasting pan, add cold water to the pan and set over a high flame. Bring it to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen the coagulated juices. Add this liquid to the pot.

Add more water, if necessary, to cover the bones. The liquid should be no higher than within one inch of the rim of the pot, as the volume expands slightly during cooking.

Bring to a boil. A large amount of scum will rise to the top; it’s important to remove this with a spoon. After you’ve skimmed the broth, reduce the heat and add the thyme and crushed peppercorns.

Simmer stock for at least 12 hours, or as long as 72 hours. Just before finishing, add the parsley and simmer another 10 minutes.

You’ll have a pot of rather repulsive looking brown liquid with globs of gelatinous and fatty material. It doesn’t even smell particularly good.

Don’t despair! After straining, you’ll have a delicious and nourishing clear broth that can be enjoyed on its own or as a base for other recipes, like soups and stews.

Remove the bones with tongs or a slotted spoon. Strain the stock into a large bowl. Let it cool in the refrigerator and remove the congealed fat that rises to the top.

Transfer the broth to smaller containers and refrigerate or freeze for long-term storage.

Variations to the beef stock are lamb stock (use lamb bones, especially the neck bones and niblets, for a delicious stock) and venison stock (use venison bones, especially the feet of the deer and a section of antler, if possible).

Some tips from David

  • When possible, include cartilage and tendons as well as bones.
  • If you get the bone mix right, it becomes gelatinous when cooled, and especially when refrigerated. It will liquify again when it’s heated up.

“That’s when you know it’s really good,” he said.

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Apple Butter

                                                                              

The arrival of Fall brings chilly morning, warm colors, and cooler evenings. It’s the time of year leaves begin to change. The great debate about pumpkin spice starts up again. And, it’s time to go apple picking!  

The Georgia mountains have some glorious apple orchards with a season that runs from late August to October.  

When you find you have more apples than could possibly be eaten, do like we do, and make some apple butter in your crockpot. Here’s the recipe: 

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Quick Pickles

More than just an old-fashioned way to preserve food, pickled veggies are a delicious way to help your digestion. Most of the time, people think of this as a labor-intensive process and think they're too busy to make it for themselves. It doesn't have to be that way! You can make pickles at home, it's super easy and gives you more control over what goes in your body.

Here's a recipe featuring the most popular pickled veggie, the one that we all think of when we hear pickles- the cucumber.

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March Newsletter: Digestive Tune up

My teacher, Iwashina Sensei, would always teach his students: regulate the digestive system and 80% of the time 80% of the problems get better. Every treatment we give at Red Earth has a portion dedicated to improving, restoring, and optimizing your digestive system - that’s one of the reasons why the pain starts to go away so fast. 

In December, we had several new patients begin treatment where the digestive system needed a complete “overhaul”. One patient was recovering from cancer treatments; another was diagnosed by their MD with Gastroparesis and another with severe gallstones. In each case, they needed to do more than just take the pressure off the digestive system, which we do by having patients avoid the “SCR” — sweet cold and raw. Check out our short e-book that delves into the how’s and why’s of “SCR” and the importance of a healthy, functioning digestive system. In the aforementioned cases, people have to go further than just drinking warm drinks, eating cooked foods, and cutting down on sweets. 

So what is the next step and how do we take it to the next level?

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Night of the Living Veggies

The mild-mannered broccoli, cancer-fighting kale, and flavorful cauliflower. All are part of the healthy-sounding group known as Cruciferous Veggies. They sit in many fridge crispers and are the staple of many holiday veggie trays. You may even be about to dip one in ranch as you read this newsletter. Yes, they are in almost every household waiting… FOR REVENGE!!!

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Fats Feed Your Brain

Animal and vegetable sources of fat provide a concentrated source of energy in the diet and also provide the building blocks for cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone-like substances. Fats as part of a meal slow down absorption so that we can go longer without feeling hungry. They act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K as well. Dietary fats are necessary for converting carotene to vitamin A, for mineral absorption and for a host of other important bodily processes.

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Are Potatoes A Healthy Choice?

Potatoes are an important food staple and the number one vegetable crop in the world. There are more than 5000 varieties potatoes around the world that range in size, shape, color, starch content and flavor. The potato belongs to the Solanaceae or nightshade family whose other members include tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and tomatillos. Potatoes are technically tubers and not root vegetables. Essentially, they are enlarged stems that are higher in starch and complex carbohydrates.

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