Whatever you love, you are

“Eat your vegetables.”

For many of us, that was a litany of childhood, an 11th commandment — often followed by “or no dessert.” I even know a mother who tried reverse psychology on her son — “You can’t have your vegetables until you’ve finished your meat” (or chicken or fish) — though I can’t testify to its success.

As evidence of the health benefits of vegetables has accumulated, public health scientists, nutritionists, federal health experts, growers and marketers, teachers and physicians have been urging — and urging and urging — that Americans eat more of them.

Producers have gone to great lengths to encourage vegetable consumption by a public increasingly pressed for time and overly focused on fast food and takeout. Farmers’ markets are springing up all over the country, with enticing displays of locally grown produce. Supermarkets feature ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook vegetables — spinach, salad greens, complete salads, broccoli florets, peeled baby carrots. Simple, tasty recipes are often part of the produce display. Even the major fast-food purveyors have made an effort, introducing salads as side and main dishes; McDonald’s now sells more salads than any other eating establishment.

Yet last month came the discouraging word from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans have fallen far short of the goals set a decade ago to increase consumption of vegetables. In 2009, just 26 percent of adults had three or more servings a day (including those who count a tomato slice and a lettuce leaf on a burger as a vegetable serving). That was half the percentage public health officials had hoped for.

And it falls even shorter if you look at the current recommendations: at least four to five vegetable servings daily. Please note the definition of a serving: half a cup of cut-up or cooked vegetables, one cup of fresh greens, half a cup of cooked dried beans, or, if you must, six ounces of vegetable juice.

So what’s so good about vegetables anyway? First, vegetables are loaded with vital nutrients: potassium, beta-carotene (the precursor of vitamin A), magnesium, calcium, iron, folate (a B vitamin) and vitamins C, E and K, as well as antioxidants and fiber. Despite an ill-conceived effort years ago to “package” vegetables’ nutrients in a supplement, there is no good way to consume them short of eating the foods that contain them.

And unless they are drowned in butter or a high-calorie sauce or dressing, vegetables provide those nutrients at minimal caloric cost, an important attribute in a society where obesity is ballooning out of control.

Curbing weight gain can reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes, now rampant in America and an important cause of heart disease, kidney failure and premature death.

Fiber, Potassium and More

Vegetables provide dietary bulk, filling the stomach and reducing the appetite for higher-calorie foods. The fiber in vegetables helps reduce blood levels of heart-damaging cholesterol and is a major antidote for constipation and diverticulosis.

The potassium in tomato products, dried beans, sweet potatoes, spinach, Swiss chard and winter squash can ease high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and may also reduce the risk of developing kidney stones and bone loss.

Folate is a critical nutrient during pregnancy to prevent spinal cord defects; it also helps the body form red blood cells. Vitamin E, an antioxidant, protects against the deterioration of essential fatty acids and premature cell aging, and vitamin C is important for healthy gums and teeth, healing of wounds and absorption of iron. Vitamin K aids in blood clotting (note, however, that people taking blood thinners must curb their intake of foods rich in this nutrient).

The vitamin A formed from beta-carotene is vital to the health of the eyes and skin and may help prevent infections. A Harvard study of 73,000 nurses, published in 2003 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, linked a carotenoid-rich diet to a reduced risk of coronary artery disease, and a Swedish study found that it cut the risk of stomach cancer in half.

Two other carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, can reduce the risks of macular degeneration and cataracts, common causes of vision loss as people age. These nutrients are found in dark green leafy vegetables, like spinach and kale, which are packed with other valuable vitamins and minerals.

Lycopene, another carotenoid, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer and was also linked to a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease in women. Lycopene is best obtained from processed tomato products. (Tomatoes, of course, are technically fruits, as are squash and other “vegetables” with seeds. The foods we usually think of as fruit have plenty of nutritional value but tend to have more calories than vegetables — and may not supply all the same nutrients.)

Several other vegetables, not all of them popular among Americans, have also been linked to protection against cancer. These are the so-called cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, collard greens and brussels sprouts.

Then there are the allium vegetables, onions and garlic, that researchers in Milan have linked to protection against cancers of the colon and rectum, ovary, prostate, breast, kidney, esophagus, mouth and throat.

Last year The Nutrition Action Healthletter, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group based in Washington, ranked vegetables according to nutrient content. Kale led the list, followed by spinach, collard greens, turnip greens, Swiss chard, canned pumpkin, mustard greens, sweet potato, broccoli and carrots.

Others among the “superstars” listed were romaine lettuce, red bell pepper, curly endive, brussels sprouts, butternut squash, green pepper, peas and bok choy.

Except for sweet potato (100 calories in one medium potato) and peas (70 calories per half cup), none of these (when unadorned by fat) have more than 40 calories a serving, and most have only 20 or 30 calories.

(Source: NYT)

IT started as a gag: spaghetti tacos.

On an episode of the hit Nickelodeon series “iCarly,” the lead character’s eccentric older brother, Spencer, makes dinner one night. Glimpsed on screen, the dish consists of red-sauce-coated pasta stuffed into hard taco shells. What could be more unappealing?

When Julian Stuart-Burns, 8, asked his mother to make the tacos one night, she simply laughed. “I thought he was joking,” said Jennifer Burns, a Brooklyn mother of three. “But then he kept asking.”

Ms. Burns finally gave in — like thousands of other moms — and cooked up the punch line for Julian’s birthday party.

That punch line has now become part of American children’s cuisine, fostering a legion of imitators and improvisers across the country. Spurred on by reruns, Internet traffic, slumber parties and simple old-fashioned word of mouth among children, spaghetti tacos are all the rage. Especially if you’re less than 5 feet tall and live with your mother.

Mom blogs and cooking Web sites are filled with recipes from dozens of desperate parents who have been confronted with how to feed their offspring the popular gag. A Facebook page has sprung up with more than 1,200 fans.

There’s a dessert version, made with brownie mix, white frosting and strawberry preserves; a guacamole-covered version, with Mexican-flavored tomato sauce, at Barefoot Kitchen Witch, the Web site of the Rhode Island blogger Jayne Maker; and a recipe available at spaghettitacos.com that uses Italian sausage and peppers.

Ed Dzitko, a dad from Woodbury, Conn., uses oversize taco shells to fit in more spaghetti. Cheryl Trombetta, a grandmother from Secaucus, N.J., makes them whenever her 5-year-old grandson asks. A woman in Lincoln, Neb., posted a meat-sauce version on Food.com in the winter, crediting her 7-year-old son with the idea. And Karen Petersen, a mother of two from Rye, N.H., fries her own taco shells and breaks the spaghetti into thirds to make the strands fit more easily.

“Clearly, it’s spread like a virus,” said Ms. Petersen, a self-described “foodie,” who said that she has made them several times for her 11-year-old daughter, Amelia.

After seeing them on the show, Amelia was served the tacos at a friend’s slumber party this year and then begged her mom to make them.

“The mixture of spaghetti and tacos is odd,” Amelia admitted. “But it’s actually pretty good. They’re one of my favorite foods. I guess kids like making them because they think it’s cool to be like the people from ‘iCarly.’ ”

But the real reason, she said, is that “the taste is really, really good.”

For those who need to be brought up to speed, “iCarly” is about a teenage girl, raised by her brother, who creates a weekly show for the Web with her best friends. No one seems more surprised by the vast popularity of spaghetti tacos than the creator of “iCarly,” Dan Schneider, who invented the gag three years ago.

“It was just a little joke I came up with for one episode,” Mr. Schneider said. “Then it turned into a running joke. And now it’s this thing people actually do.”

For Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, the question is not why kids are asking for spaghetti tacos, but why they haven’t asked for them sooner.

“This combination seems to be an inevitability, sort of like chocolate and peanut butter running into each other on that Reese’s commercial,” he said. “The amazement should be only that it took ‘iCarly’ to bring it into our melting pot of a culture.”

“Spaghetti tacos has made it possible to eat spaghetti in your car,” he said. “It’s a very important technological development. You don’t even need a plate.”

Perhaps the nearest pop-culture equivalent — that is, a sitcom artifact that thrives in the real world — is Festivus, an alternative to Christmas introduced on a 1997 “Seinfeld” episode, Mr. Thompson said. Festivus now has a number of real adherents.

Mr. Schneider said he came up with the spaghetti taco idea while writing a first-season episode, broadcast on Nov. 10, 2007, in which Spencer finds himself in the kitchen. “Spencer’s an artist, a sculptor, he wears socks that light up,” Mr. Schneider explained. “So he’s not going to make a roast chicken for dinner.”

The joke resurfaced in five more episodes, but what pushed the dish onto the front burner of parental consciousness was an entire show devoted to it — a cook-off between Carly and a crazy chef named Ricky Flame — which was broadcast in September 2009.

Ms. Burns, the Brooklyn mom, was an early adopter, having made the tacos about three months after the dish was first mentioned.

“I had six boys coming over for dinner, and asked Julian what he wanted,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Spaghetti tacos.’ I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ ”

Julian, now 10, had never had them before and had never heard of anyone else making them besides Spencer and the cast of “iCarly.” “But I wanted them because they looked really delicious and fun to eat,” Julian said. “They’re really crunchy and they have my two favorite foods, spaghetti and tacos.”

Every kid at the party ate them, even Julian’s picky friend, Henry.

“P.B. & J., that’s the extent of this kid’s repertoire,” Ms. Burns said. “His mother was shocked.”

The boys, who have enjoyed them for the last three birthday celebrations, now compete to see who’ll eat the most. A boy named Jake won this year, with a record five spaghetti tacos. “I thought he was going to be sick,” Ms. Burns said.

The first time they made them, Ms. Burns’s husband cooked an elaborate homemade sauce. “But I said, that’s so unnecessary,” she said. “I’m not eating them.”

Now, Ms. Burns simply doctors a jar of tomato sauce.

Even Ms. Petersen, the New Hampshire mom who crisps up the tortillas to order, said she uses a prepackaged sauce.

“Hey, I’m frying the tacos,” she said, laughing.

Amelia will then use taco toppings for garnish: tomato, lettuce, onion. She hasn’t tried avocado yet, but she’s looking forward to it.

Often, Ms. Petersen will make the dish when Amelia has her friends over.

“They’ve been so influenced by the media,” she sighed. “They’ll make their own ‘iCarly’ show in her room and then come out and have the spaghetti tacos. It’s kind of a thing we do.”

The spaghetti taco phenomenon, Mr. Schneider said, actually fits with the Do Try This at Home spirit of “iCarly,” which encourages, and then uses, skits and bits made by the young people who are watching. That philosophy has now spread to the kitchen.

Some children bypass their parents altogether and make the dish themselves. Emma St. John, 10, of Montclair, N.J., has been making them since January, when she had them for the first time at a friend’s party.

She starts with a can of Red Pack tomato sauce and then adds “a little bit of this and a little bit of that”: chili powder, cinnamon, Singapore curry oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, oregano. Her parents help her warm the taco shells in the oven and boil the spaghetti, then she does the rest.

“Everyone likes it,” Emma said. Even her 13-year-old brother, Ethan. The first week of school, they ate spaghetti tacos five times. “It’s good for people to come home and have something to look forward to,” said her father, Allen.

Mr. Schneider, the writer, said he plans to have the “iCarly” cast to his house to make a batch in the next few months, so that he can tape it and post it on his YouTube account. He’s only had a low-calorie/low-fat version prepared by his wife, Lisa Lillien, whose Hungry Girl franchise appeals to weight-conscious snack-food lovers. “I’ve never tasted the real, real version.”

Cammie Ward Moise, a Houston mom who featured the tacos on her parenting site, Moms Material, under the heading “Crazy Dinner Night,” said she doesn’t just make them for her kids, but also enjoys them herself. Still, she adds: “It’s a great thing to make, especially when you’re having the food battles at home. It’s a fun way to get them excited about eating.”

Her children, Taylor, 11, and Myles, 9, love the dish, she said. “It’s something their idol is doing,” she said. “They love ‘iCarly’ and would probably eat anything the cast of the show ate.”

“Now,” Ms. Moise said, “we just have to get her to put broccoli in a taco.”

(Source: NYT)

THE FACTS The prospect of ingesting pesticides and other contaminants can make supermarket produce seem less than appetizing. Buying organic lowers the risk, but is no guarantee against food-borne pathogens.

Scientists have found some effective household measures that can eliminate germs and pesticides. The simplest? Rinsing with tap water, which works as well as a mild soap solution or fruit and vegetable washes.

In studies at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in 2000, for example, scientists compared pesticide removal methods on 196 samples of lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes. Some were rinsed under tap water for a minute; others were treated with either a 1 percent solution of Palmolive or a fruit and vegetable wash. Tap water “significantly reduced” residues of 9 of 12 pesticides, and it worked as well as soap and wash products, the studies found.

Water temperature was not the key; friction was. “The mechanical action of rubbing the produce under tap water is likely responsible for removing pesticide residues,” scientists wrote.

For micro-organisms, try rinsing produce with a mild solution of vinegar, about 10 percent. In a 2003 study at the University of Florida, researchers tested disinfectants on strawberries contaminated with E. coli and other germs. They found the vinegar mixture reduced bacteria by 90 percent and viruses by about 95 percent.

THE BOTTOM LINE To remove pesticides and germs, rinse produce with a vinegar solution, then wash with tap water for at least 30 seconds.

(Source: NYT)