Sprout & Pea

I can’t take credit for my new-​​found dis­cov­ery and love of Ezekiel bread.  My friend Nicole intro­duced me to Ezekiel prod­ucts on my first visit ever to LA.  When I arrived at her cozy oasis of an apart­ment (with an inner ear infec­tion and cold that was tak­ing over my entire head), I was greeted by an incred­i­ble spread of fresh made hum­mus and Ezekiel tor­tilla chips, fresh fruit and green tea with sweet lit­tle pome­gran­ate seeds float­ing in it.

The Ezekiel chips were deli­cious (and I came to find out– nutri­tious).  Upon my return to Brook­lyn, I went to the local mar­ket and pur­chased some Ezekiel bread.  I cre­ated a fast, sim­ple and deli­cious lit­tle break­fast that I now eat every morn­ing.  It fills me up, holds me over and gives me a lit­tle energy boost as healthy break­fasts should.

(this one’s super easy)

2 slices Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted Whole Grain Bread
Hum­mus (you can make your own – recipe to fol­low in com­ing entries.  Still per­fect­ing this– or I also rec­om­mend Wild­wood pro­bi­otic red pep­per hum­mus)
1 tomato
half a lemon
sprouts
gar­lic pep­per (or sea­son­ing of your choice – some­times I throw on a dash of sea salt)

Toast the Ezekiel bread and spread on thin layer of hum­mus.  Squeeze lemon juice and place tomato on top with sprin­kling of gar­lic pep­per /​ other sea­son­ing and add the sprouts.  I’m a fiend for lemon so I like to squeeze a lit­tle more on top.

More notes on Ezekiel bread ver­sus flour-​​enriched bread:

I started to try to avoid reg­u­lar flour bread/​products all together because I noticed that when I started eat­ing Ezekiel bread, my nor­mally sen­si­tive stom­ach was feel­ing a lot less sen­si­tive.  It cer­tainly makes sense too.  In an NPR inter­view, Michael Pol­l­lan, author of Food Rules, In Defense of Food and Omni­vores Dilem­mai, talks about the health detri­ments of refined white flour which is found in most breads:

“We do know that one of the ear­marks of the West­ern diet that is respon­si­ble for so much chronic dis­ease is the refined white flour. This was a real nov­elty when it was intro­duced into the human diet, and it begins in Eng­land in the last years of the 19th cen­tury. And, you know, it deliv­ers a jolt of glu­cose to the body that, you know, leads to these spikes of insulin and is one of the things respon­si­ble for the epi­demic of type 2 diabetes”.

While whole grain breads do have more nutri­tional value than white breads, beware of whole-​​grain white bread which Pol­lan dis­cusses in In Defense of Food.  He notes that food sci­en­tists often add high fruc­tose corn syrup, guar gum and azodi­car­bonamide (flour bleach­ing agent) to whole grain breads to make it taste and feel more like the white bread most peo­ple are used to eating.

If it’s acces­si­ble to you, try Ezekiel bread.  Look at the ingre­di­ents on a pack­age of Ezekiel bread and the ingre­di­ents on a pack­age of stan­dard whole grain bread from the super­mar­ket and decide for your­self which seems more nutri­tion­ally ben­e­fi­cial.    You can read more about the ben­e­fits of sprouted grain Ezekiel breads  on the Food For Life web­site .  Note, they also make pastas!