Easy Chickpea Curry

Looking for an easy way to incorporate more beans into your diet?  Here is an easy weeknight recipe.  Picky eaters?  Try serving with diced bananas, chopped peanuts, raisins, and shredded coconut in small bowls as garnishes - the kids may enjoy sprinkling them on so much they forget they are trying a new flavor.

1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
1 large yellow or white onion, chopped
1 tsp kosher salt
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 cans (15 ounces each) chick peas, rinsed and drained
1 can (15 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 8 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 cup water
2 tablespoons honey (or pomegranate molasses, if you have it)
salt to taste

Heat oil over medium heat in a 4 quart pan until hot, then add onion and salt and saute until soft.  Add curry powder and cook 30 seconds.  Add chickpeas, tomatoes, spinach, and water and continue heating until mixture comes to a simmer, stirring occasionally.  Stir in honey, adjust salt to taste.  Serve over rice.  If desired, serve a variety of garnishes such as chopped bananas, peanuts, shredded coconut, and raisins.

Fruit Punch Can Make you Sad (and fat)

The short version:

• Drinking >4 cans/cups per day of soda, fruit punch, or sweetened iced tea is associated with a higher risk of developing depression 
• this risk is higher for those who drink diet versions of these drinks

The longer version:

An abstract presented at the American Academy of Neurology's Annual Meeting on January 8th examined over 250,000 adults in the United States.  They were asked about their beverage consumption in 1995-1996, and then followed up in 2004-2006 and asked if they had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000.  Over 11,000 participants reported a diagnosis of depression.  The researchers compared the beverage consumption of those with a depression diagnosis with those without, and found that the ones who had been diagnosed with depression were more likely to have reported consuming more than 4 cups of sweetened beverages (sodas and fruit punches) per day.

So switch to diet versions of you favorite beverages?  No - in fact the researchers found that those who drank diet versions of soda, fruit punches, and iced tea had an even higher risk of developing depression than those who drank non-diet versions.

The good news - caffeine and coffee intake were actually associated with lower risk of depression, so caffeine is not the culprit here.  But this is far from the first bad news for artificial sweeteners and the sugar in regular sweetened beverages.  For years, we in medicine have advised people to switch to diet versions of soft drinks to avoid the empty calories in sugar-sweetened beverages, but recent research shows that this is bad advice.  In coming posts, I will explore what the medical literature says about how the body handles sweetened (both naturally and artificially) beverages.

In the meantime - put down the soda can and try a glass of water.

Welcome to The Return of Logic.  In upcoming posts I will  take on the daunting task of sifting through all the messages that float around out that there about what is really best for your health.  Is coffee bad for you?  Will drinking diet soda keep you from gaining weight?  Should you buy that exercise DVD that everyone is raving about?  Should you juice? (Hint - the answer to all of the above is NO).  We will explore what the scientific literature tells us about these and many more issues, and I will try to give a clear answer if the data permits.

Please join me on this journey, and let me know what topics have been keeping you up at night (oh sleep - yes, we will cover that one too!)