Anti-oxidant support: Pesto made with kale and Brazil nuts.

nuᐧtriᐧfy \n(y)ū-trə-fī\ v (made up by me): to make more nutritious by adding nutrient-dense ingredients not usually found in the dish, or traditional ingredients of superior quality.

I firmly believe the way to eat a healthy diet is not to completely change the types of food you eat. By and large, it's to take the foods you love and nutrify them. Yes... nutrify them.

I first came across this idea in my culinary classes at Bastyr. We took a class called Whole Foods Production, and our instructor was the illustrious Cynthia Lair, author of Feeding the Whole Family, and other wonderful cookbooks. In the class we did learn how to pressure cook beets to perfection and serve them alongside a buckwheat kasha with almond-ginger drizzle and kale. We did learn how to cook buckwheat soba noodles, quinoa and make scrambled tofu. Amasake pudding. How to cook with seaweed. But if you look closely into Cynthia's cookbook, you'll see some interesting titles.

Tempeh and Red Pepper Stroganoff, Cranberry apple walnut muffins, pear-plum crisp and some awesome fish tacos. Like so many of the recipes she writes about in her book and aught us in class, they were her ways of nutrifying her favorite dishes. She was taking the food that she and her family loved, and making it with nutritionally Superior ingredients.

Carrot cake made with whole wheat pastry flour, eggs, walnuts and cream cheese icing... and lots of nuts and dried fruit

For example, when making cakes, cookies and sweets. It's easy to replace the white flour in many baked goods with whole wheat flour. You can even mix in some almond meal with that. Real maple syrup can be used as a sweetener in many dishes. In my apple crisp and blackberry crisp recipes, I still use brown sugar in the crumbly top bit, but I use maple syrup, spices and vanilla in the filling, which gives it a really great flavor.








I've posted before about whole grain waffles and pancakes. Souring the batter overnight knocks it out of the park, as does using a whole grain sourdough starter. Souring your grains neutralizes the phytic acid in whole grains, making it easier to digest and makes the minerals like magnesium more bioavailable.

I like to ADD rather than take away if I can. For example, pesto. Now, there is nothing bad about pesto at all. Pine nuts, cheese, basil, garlic and olive oil. Yum. But I find pine nuts to be a little expensive so I make mine with walnuts (omega-3!). I also skip the parmesan until serving. A while back, I started adding fresh kale from the garden to my pesto, then just the other day, I had the inspired idea to add a handful of Brazil nuts to the walnuts! Hello, SELENIUM! Thyroid support. Glutathione. Yes, please. So now I have a great pesto to pour over pasta, rice, fish, chicken, steamed vegetables and pizza that is totally delicious and nutrient dense. (see recipe at the end)

Another nutrification method I use is adding seaweeds to foods. I've posted Youtube videos on this. But every time I bake muffins or make oatmeal, I add a teaspoon of dulse flakes. When I make soups and stews, I add an inch of kombu. It adds iodine and trace minerals and the kombu really gives soups a rich, umami flavor from all of its glutamic acid.



Speaking of soups, it's great when I have some homemade bone broth to use. But sometimes I don't have any and use a boxed broth. No problemo. I simply add some high-quality, unflavored gelatin or collagen protein. I get it in bulk from Azure Standard or buy it from Great Lakes off Amazon. It adds lots of glycine (an important amino acid) and gives soups and sauces a certain body I really like. I also use this to make jello when my kids are sick (or when we just want jello).

So many of our favorite dishes actually have very nourishing origins, and it doesn't take much to devolve them back to their better selves. Somewhere along the line, someone figured out how to substitute a rich cream soup with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom, use evaporated milk, a flavor packet or cornstarch and annatto coloring in place or egg yolks. Foods have been powdered, purified and shelf-stabilized to a shadow of their former selves. Let's bring back some of the nutritious deliciousness with our creative nutrification.

Nutrified Pesto

• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1 cup walnut halves
• 5-6 Brazil nuts, shelled
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 5-6 large kale leaves, stripped off the stem
• 1 cup packed fresh basil leaves, or 3 Tbls. pre-made pesto
• Extra virgin olive oil. About a cup.

1. In a clean, dry food processor, mince the garlic first. Then add all nuts and salt. Blend until finely ground.
2. Add kale leaves and dry basil if using. Blend until all chopped.
3. With motor running, add olive oil until the mixture forms a smooth, but thick pouring consistency.
4. This can be frozen for up to a year or kept sealed in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.