The Sprout Book – by Doug Evans

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Sprouting seeds are more nutritious than most people think, and “seeds” is also a much broader category than people think. Beyond even chia and sunflower and such, this book bids us remember that onions do not just appear on supermarket shelves fully formed (to give just one example of many); most plants come from seeds and of those, most can be usefully sprouted.

The author, most well-known for his tech companies, here is selling us a very low-tech health kick with very little profit to be found except for our health. By sprouting seeds of many kinds at home, we can enjoy powerful superfoods that are not only better than, but also cheaper than, most supplements.

Nor are the benefits of sprouting things marginal; we’re not talking about a 1–10% increase in bioavailable so much as what’s often a 100–1000% increase.

After explaining the science and giving a primer on sprouting things for oneself, there is a wide selection of recipes, but the biggest benefit of the book is in just getting the reader up-and-running with at-home sprouting.

Bottom line: if you like the idea of letting food be your medicine and even like the idea of essentially growing your own food with zero gardening skills, then this is an excellent book for you.

Click here to check out The Sprout Book, and get sprouting!

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Recommended

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  • Do You Believe In Magic? – by Dr. Paul Offit
    Dr. Offit’s book challenges alternative therapies, providing well-qualified information and stats. It may annoy everyone, but it’s definitely stimulating.

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  • Frozen/Thawed/Refrozen Meat: How Much Is Safety, And How Much Is Taste?

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    What You Can (And Can’t) Safely Do With Frozen Meat

    Yesterday, we asked you:

    ❝You have meat in the freezer. How long is it really safe to keep it?❞

    …and got a range of answers, mostly indicating to a) follow the instructions (a very safe general policy) and b) do not refreeze if thawed because that would be unsafe. Fewer respondents indicated that meat could be kept for much longer than guidelines say, or conversely, that it should only be kept for weeks or less.

    So, what does the science say?

    Meat can be kept indefinitely (for all intents and purposes) in a freezer; it just might get tougher: True or False?

    False, assuming we are talking about a normal household electrical freezer that bottoms out at about -18℃ / 0℉.

    Fun fact: cryobiologists cryopreserve tissue samples (so basically, meat) at -196℃ / -320℉, and down at those temperatures, the tissues will last a lot longer than you will (and, for all practical purposes: indefinitely). There are other complications with doing so (such as getting the sample through the glass transition point without cracking it during the vitrification process) but those are beyond the scope of this article.

    If you remember back to your physics or perhaps chemistry classes at school, you’ll know that molecules move more quickly at higher temperatures, and more slowly at lower ones, only approaching true stillness as they near absolute zero (-273℃ / -459℉ / 0K ← we’re not saying it’s ok, although it is; rather, that is zero kelvin; no degree sign is used with kelvins)

    That means that when food is frozen, the internal processes aren’t truly paused; it’s just slowed to a point of near imperceptibility.

    So, all the way up at the relatively warm temperatures of a household freezer, a lot of processes are still going on.

    What this means in practical terms: those guidelines saying “keep in the freezer for up to 4 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 9 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 12 months” etc are being honest with you.

    More or less, anyway! They’ll usually underestimate a little to be on the safe side—but so should you.

    Bad things start happening within weeks at most: True or False?

    False, for all practical purposes. Again, assuming a normal and properly-working household freezer as described above.

    (True, technically but misleadingly: the bad things never stopped; they just slowed down to a near imperceptible pace—again, as described above)

    By “bad” here we should clarify we mean “dangerous”. One subscriber wrote:

    ❝Meat starts losing color and flavor after being in the freezer for too long. I keep meat in the freezer for about 2 months at the most❞

    …and as a matter of taste, that’s fair enough!

    It is unsafe to refreeze meat that has been thawed: True or False?

    False! Assuming it has otherwise been kept chilled, just the same as for fresh meat.

    Food poisoning comes from bacteria, and there is nothing about the meat previously having been frozen that will make it now have more bacteria.

    That means, for example…

    • if it was thawed (but chilled) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been chilled for that period of time (so probably: use it or freeze it, unless it’s been more than a few days)
    • if it was thawed (and at room temperature) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been at room temperature for that period of time (so probably: throw it out, unless the period of time is very small indeed)

    The USDA gives for 2 hours max at room temperature before considering it unsalvageable, by the way.

    However! Whenever you freeze meat (or almost anything with cells, really), ice crystals will form in and between cells. How much ice crystallization occurs depends on several variables, with how much water there is present in the food is usually the biggest factor (remember that animal cells are—just like us—mostly water).

    Those ice crystals will damage the cell walls, causing the food to lose structural integrity. When you thaw it out, the ice crystals will disappear but the damage will be left behind (this is what “freezer burn” is).

    So if your food seems a little “squishy” after having been frozen and thawed, that’s why. It’s not rotten; it’s just been stabbed countless times on a microscopic level.

    The more times you freeze and thaw and refreeze food, the more this will happen. Your food will degrade in structural integrity each time, but the safety of it won’t have changed meaningfully.

    Want to know more?

    Further reading:

    You can thaw and refreeze meat: five food safety myths busted

    Take care!

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  • Beat Sugar Addiction Now! – by Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum & Chrystle Fiedler

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    Sugar isn’t often thought of as an addiction in the same category as alcohol or nicotine, but it’s actually very similar in some ways…

    A bold claim, but: in each case, it has to do with dopamine responses to something that has:

    • an adverse effect on our health,
    • a quickly developed tolerance to same,
    • and unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when quitting.

    However, not all sugar addictions are created equal, and Dr. Teitelbaum lays four different types of sugar addiction out for us:

    1. Most related to “I need to perform and I need to perform now”
    2. Most related to “I just need something to get me through one more stressful day, again, just like every day before it”
    3. Most related to “ate too much sugar because of the above, and now a gut overgrowth of C. albicans is at the wheel”
    4. Most related to “ate too much sugar because of the above, and now insulin resistance is a problem that perpetuates itself too”

    Of course, these may overlap, and indeed, they tend to stack cumulatively as time goes by.

    However, Dr. Teitelbaum notes that as readers we may recognize ourselves as being at a particular point in the above, and there are different advices for each of them.

    You thought it was just going to be about going cold turkey? Nope!

    Instead, a multi-vector approach is recommended, including adjustments to sleep, nutrition, immune health, hormonal health, and more.

    In short: if you’ve been trying to to kick the “White Death” habit as Gloria Swanson called it (sugar, that is, not the WW2 Finnish sniper of the same name—we can’t help you with that one), then this book is really much more helpful than others that take the “well, just don’t eat it, then” approach!

    Pick up your copy of Beat Sugar Addiction Now from Amazon, and start your journey!

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  • Safe Effective Sleep Aids For Seniors

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    Safe Efective Sleep Aids For Seniors

    Choosing a safe, effective sleep aid can be difficult, especially as we get older. Take for example this research review, which practically says, when it comes to drugs, “Nope nope nope nope nope, definitely not, we don’t know, wow no, useful in one (1) circumstance only, definitely not, fine if you must”:

    Review of Safety and Efficacy of Sleep Medicines in Older Adults

    Let’s break it down…

    What’s not so great

    Tranquilizers aren’t very healthy ways to get to sleep, and are generally only well-used as a last resort. The most common of these are benzodiazepines, which is the general family of drugs with names usually ending in –azepam and –azolam.

    Their downsides are many, but perhaps their biggest is their tendency to induce tolerance, dependence, and addiction.

    Non-benzo hypnotics aren’t fabulous either. Z-drugs such as zolpidem tartrate (popularly known by the brand name Ambien, amongst others), comes with warnings that it shouldn’t be prescribed if you have sleep apnea (i.e., one of the most common causes of insomnia), and should be used only with caution in patients who have depression or are elderly, as it may cause protracted daytime sedation and/or ataxia.

    See also: Benzodiazepine and z-drug withdrawal

    (and here’s a user-friendly US-based resource for benzodiazepine addiction specifically)

    Antihistamines are commonly sold as over-the-counter sleep aids, because they can cause drowsiness, but a) they often don’t b) they may reduce your immune response that you may actually need for something. They’re still a lot safer than tranquilizers, though.

    What about cannabis products?

    We wrote about some of the myths and realities of cannabis use yesterday, but it does have some medical uses beyond pain relief, and use as a sleep aid is one of them—but there’s another caveat.

    How it works: CBD, and especially THC, reduces REM sleep, causing you to spend longer in deep sleep. Deep sleep is more restorative and restful. And, if part of your sleep problem was nightmares, they can only occur during REM sleep, so you’ll be skipping those, too. However, REM sleep is also necessary for good brain health, and missing too much of it will result in cognitive impairment.

    Opting for a CBD product that doesn’t contain THC may improve sleep with less (in fact, no known) risk of long-term impairment.

    See: Cannabis, Cannabinoids, and Sleep: a Review of the Literature

    Melatonin: a powerful helper with a good safety profile

    We did a main feature on this recently, so we won’t take up too much space here, but suffice it to say: melatonin is our body’s own natural sleep hormone, and our body is good at scrubbing it when we see white/blue light (so, look at such if you feel groggy upon awakening, and it should clear up quickly), so that and its very short elimination half-life again make it quite safe.

    Unlike tranquilizers, we don’t develop a tolerance to it, let alone dependence or addiction, and unlike cannabis, it doesn’t produce long-term adverse effects (after all, our brains are supposed to have melatonin in them every night). You can read our previous main feature (including a link to get melatonin, if you want) here:

    Melatonin: A Safe Natural Sleep Supplement

    Herbal options: which really work?

    Valerian? Probably not, but it seems safe to try. Data on this is very inconsistent, and many studies supporting it had poor methodology. Shinjyo et al. also hypothesized that the inconsistency may be due to the highly variable quality of the supplements, and lack of regulation, as they are provided “based on traditional use only”.

    See: Valerian Root in Treating Sleep Problems and Associated Disorders-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

    Chamomile? Given the fame of chamomile tea as a soothing, relaxing bedtime drink, there’s surprisingly little research out there for this specifically (as opposed to other medicinal features of chamomile, of which there are plenty).

    But here’s one study that found it helped significantly:

    The effects of chamomile extract on sleep quality among elderly people: A clinical trial

    Unlike valerian, which is often sold as tablets, chamomile is most often sold as a herbal preparation for making chamomile tea, so the quality is probably quite consistent. You can also easily grow your own in most places!

    Technological interventions

    We may not have sci-fi style regeneration alcoves just yet, but white noise machines, or better yet, pink noise machines, help:

    White Noise Is Good; Pink Noise Is Better

    Note: the noise machine can be a literal physical device purchased to do that (most often sold as for babies, but babies aren’t the only ones who need to sleep!), but it can also just be your phone playing an appropriate audio file (there are apps available) or YouTube video.

    We reviewed some sleep apps; you might like those too:

    The Head-To-Head Of Google and Apple’s Top Apps For Getting Your Head Down

    Enjoy, and rest well!

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Related Posts

  • A Statin-Free Life – by Dr. Aseem Malhotra
  • In This Oklahoma Town, Most Everyone Knows Someone Who’s Been Sued by the Hospital

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    McALESTER, Okla. — It took little more than an hour for Deborah Hackler to dispense with the tall stack of debt collection lawsuits that McAlester Regional Medical Center recently brought to small-claims court in this Oklahoma farm community.

    Hackler, a lawyer who sues patients on behalf of the hospital, buzzed through 51 cases, all but a handful uncontested, as is often the case. She bantered with the judge as she secured nearly $40,000 in judgments, plus 10% in fees for herself, according to court records.

    It’s a payday the hospital and Hackler have shared frequently over the past three decades, records show. The records indicate McAlester Regional Medical Center and an affiliated clinic have filed close to 5,000 debt collection cases since the early 1990s, most often represented by the father-daughter law firm of Hackler & Hackler.

    Some of McAlester’s 18,000 residents have been taken to court multiple times. A deputy at the county jail and her adult son were each sued recently, court records show. New mothers said they compare stories of their legal run-ins with the medical center.

    “There’s a lot that’s not right,” Sherry McKee, a dorm monitor at a tribal boarding school outside McAlester, said on the courthouse steps after the hearing. The hospital has sued her three times, most recently over a $3,375 bill for what she said turned out to be vertigo.

    In recent years, major health systems in Virginia, North Carolina, and elsewhere have stopped suing patients following news reports about lawsuits. And several states, such as Maryland and New York, have restricted the legal actions hospitals can take against patients.

    But with some 100 million people in the U.S. burdened by health care debt, medical collection cases still clog courtrooms across the country, researchers have found. In places like McAlester, a hospital’s debt collection machine can hum away quietly for years, helped along by powerful people in town. An effort to limit hospital lawsuits failed in the Oklahoma Legislature in 2021.

    In McAlester, the lawsuits have provided business for some, such as the Adjustment Bureau, a local collection agency run out of a squat concrete building down the street from the courthouse, and for Hackler, a former president of the McAlester Area Chamber of Commerce. But for many patients and their families, the lawsuits can take a devastating toll, sapping wages, emptying retirement accounts, and upending lives.

    McKee said she wasn’t sure how long it would take to pay off the recent judgment. Her $3,375 debt exceeds her monthly salary, she said.

    “This affects a large number of people in a small community,” said Janet Roloff, an attorney who has spent years assisting low-income clients with legal issues such as evictions in and around McAlester. “The impact is great.”

    Settled more than a century ago by fortune seekers who secured land from the Choctaw Nation to mine coal in the nearby hills, McAlester was once a boom town. Vestiges of that era remain, including a mammoth, 140-foot-tall Masonic temple that looms over the city.

    Recent times have been tougher for McAlester, now home by one count to 12 marijuana dispensaries and the state’s death row. The downtown is pockmarked by empty storefronts, including the OKLA theater, which has been dark for decades. Nearly 1 in 5 residents in McAlester and the surrounding county live below the federal poverty line.

    The hospital, operated by a public trust under the city’s authority, faces its own struggles. Paint is peeling off the front portico, and weeds poke up through the parking lots. The hospital has operated in the red for years, according to independent audit reports available on the state auditor’s website.

    “I’m trying to find ways to get the entire community better care and more care,” said Shawn Howard, the hospital’s chief executive. Howard grew up in McAlester and proudly noted he started his career as a receptionist in the hospital’s physical therapy department. “This is my hometown,” he said. “I am not trying to keep people out of getting care.”

    The hospital operates a clinic for low-income patients, whose webpage notes it has “limited appointments” at no cost for patients who are approved for aid. But data from the audits shows the hospital offers very little financial assistance, despite its purported mission to serve the community.

    In the 2022 fiscal year, it provided just $114,000 in charity care, out of a total operating budget of more than $100 million, hospital records show. Charity care totaling $2 million or $3 million out of a $100 million budget would be more in line with other U.S. hospitals.

    While audits show few McAlester patients get financial aid, many get taken to court.

    Renee Montgomery, the city treasurer in an adjoining town and mother of a local police officer, said she dipped into savings she’d reserved for her children and grandchildren after the hospital sued her last year for more than $5,500. She’d gone to the emergency room for chest pain.

    Dusty Powell, a truck driver, said he lost his pickup and motorcycle when his wages were garnished after the hospital sued him for almost $9,000. He’d gone to the emergency department for what turned out to be gastritis and didn’t have insurance, he said.

    “Everyone in this town probably has a story about McAlester Regional,” said another former patient who spoke on the condition she not be named, fearful to publicly criticize the hospital in such a small city. “It’s not even a secret.”

    The woman, who works at an Army munitions plant outside town, was sued twice over bills she incurred giving birth. Her sister-in-law has been sued as well.

    “It’s a good-old-boy system,” said the woman, who lowered her voice when the mayor walked into the coffee shop where she was meeting with KFF Health News. Now, she said, she avoids the hospital if her children need care.

    Nationwide, most people sued in debt collection cases never challenge them, a response experts say reflects widespread misunderstanding of the legal process and anxiety about coming to court.

    At the center of the McAlester hospital’s collection efforts for decades has been Hackler & Hackler.

    Donald Hackler was city attorney in McAlester for 13 years in the ’70s and ’80s and a longtime member of the local Lions Club and the Scottish Rite Freemasons.

    Daughter Deborah Hackler, who joined the family firm 30 years ago, has been a deacon at the First Presbyterian Church of McAlester and served on the board of the local Girl Scouts chapter, according to the McAlester News-Capital newspaper, which named her “Woman of the Year” in 2007. Since 2001, she also has been a municipal judge in McAlester, hearing traffic cases, including some involving people she has sued on behalf of the hospital, municipal and county court records show.

    For years, the Hacklers’ debt collection cases were often heard by Judge James Bland, who has retired from the bench and now sits on the hospital board. Bland didn’t respond to an inquiry for interview.

    Hackler declined to speak with KFF Health News after her recent court appearance. “I’m not going to visit with you about a current client,” she said before leaving the courthouse.

    Howard, the hospital CEO, said he couldn’t discuss the lawsuits either. He said he didn’t know the hospital took its patients to court. “I had to call and ask if we sue people,” he said.

    Howard also said he didn’t know Deborah Hackler. “I never heard her name before,” he said.

    Despite repeated public records requests from KFF Health News since September, the hospital did not provide detailed information about its financial arrangement with Hackler.

    McAlester Mayor John Browne, who appoints the hospital’s board of trustees, said he, too, didn’t know about the lawsuits. “I hadn’t heard anything about them suing,” he said.

    At the century-old courthouse in downtown McAlester, it’s not hard to find the lawsuits, though. Every month or two, another batch fills the docket in the small-claims court, now presided over by Judge Brian McLaughlin.

    After court recently, McLaughlin, who is not from McAlester, shook his head at the stream of cases and patients who almost never show up to defend themselves, leaving him to issue judgment after judgment in the hospital’s favor.

    “All I can do is follow the law,” said McLaughlin. “It doesn’t mean I like it.”

    About This Project

    “Diagnosis: Debt” is a reporting partnership between KFF Health News and NPR exploring the scale, impact, and causes of medical debt in America.

    The series draws on original polling by KFF, court records, federal data on hospital finances, contracts obtained through public records requests, data on international health systems, and a yearlong investigation into the financial assistance and collection policies of more than 500 hospitals across the country. 

    Additional research was conducted by the Urban Institute, which analyzed credit bureau and other demographic data on poverty, race, and health status for KFF Health News to explore where medical debt is concentrated in the U.S. and what factors are associated with high debt levels.

    The JPMorgan Chase Institute analyzed records from a sampling of Chase credit card holders to look at how customers’ balances may be affected by major medical expenses. And the CED Project, a Denver nonprofit, worked with KFF Health News on a survey of its clients to explore links between medical debt and housing instability. 

    KFF Health News journalists worked with KFF public opinion researchers to design and analyze the “KFF Health Care Debt Survey.” The survey was conducted Feb. 25 through March 20, 2022, online and via telephone, in English and Spanish, among a nationally representative sample of 2,375 U.S. adults, including 1,292 adults with current health care debt and 382 adults who had health care debt in the past five years. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample and 3 percentage points for those with current debt. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher.

    Reporters from KFF Health News and NPR also conducted hundreds of interviews with patients across the country; spoke with physicians, health industry leaders, consumer advocates, debt lawyers, and researchers; and reviewed scores of studies and surveys about medical debt.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Brown Rice vs Wild Rice – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing brown rice to wild rice, we picked the wild.

    Why?

    It’s close! But there are important distinctions.

    First let’s clarify: despite the name and appearance, wild rice is botanically quite different from rice per se; it’s not the same species, it’s not even the same genus, though it is the same umbrella family. In other words, they’re about as closely related as humans and gorillas are to each other.

    In terms of macros, wild rice has considerably more protein and a little more fiber, for slightly lower carbs.

    Notably, however, wild rice’s carbs are a close-to-even mix of sucrose, fructose, and glucose, while brown rice’s carbs are 99% starch. Given the carb to fiber ratio, it’s worth noting that wild rice also has lower net carbs, and the lower glycemic index.

    In the category of vitamins, wild rice leads with more of vitamins A, B2, B9, E, K, and choline. In contrast, brown rice has more of vitamins B1, B3, and B5. So, a moderate win for wild rice.

    When it comes to minerals, brown rice finally gets a tally in its favor, even if only slightly: brown rice has more magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium, while wild rice has more copper, potassium, and zinc. They’re equal in calcium and iron, by the way. Still, this category stands as a 4:3 win for brown rice.

    Adding up the categories makes a modest win for wild rice, and additionally, if we had to consider one of these things more important than the others, it’d be wild rice being higher in fiber and protein and lower in total carbs and net carbs.

    Still, enjoy either or both, per your preference!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

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  • Jamaican Coconut Rice

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    This is a great dish that can be enjoyed hot or cold, as a main or as a side. It has carbs, proteins, healthy fats, fiber, as well as an array of healthy phytochemicals. Not to mention, a great taste!

    You will need

    • 1 cup wholegrain basmati rice (it may also be called “brown basmati rice“; this is the same) (traditional recipe calls for pudding rice, but we’re going with the healthier option here)
    • 2 cans (each 12 z / 400g) coconut milk
    • 2 cups (or 2 cans, of which the drained weight is comparable to a cup each) cooked black beans. If you cook them yourself, this is better, as you will be able to cook them more al dente than you can get from a can, and this firmness is desirable. But canned is fine if that’s what’s available.
    • 1 large red onion, finely chopped
    • ½ cup low-sodium vegetable stock (ideally you made this yourself from vegetable offcuts you saved in the freezer for this purpose, but failing that, low-sodium stock cubes can be bought at any large supermarket)
    • 2 serrano chilis, finely chopped
    • 1 Scotch bonnet chili, without doing anything to it
    • 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tbsp coconut oil
    • Garnish: parsley, chopped

    Note: we have erred on the side of low-heat when it comes to the chilis. If you know that you and (if applicable) everyone else eating would enjoy more heat, add more heat. If not, let extra heat be added at the table via your hot sauce of choice. Sounds heretical, but it ensures everyone gets the right amount! It’s easy to add heat than to take it out, after all.

    However: if you do end up with too much heat in this or any other dish, adding acid will usually help to neutralize that. In the case of this dish, we’d recommend lime juice as a complementary flavor.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) In a big sauté pan, add the coconut oil, melt it if not already melted, and add the chopped onion and the chopped chilis, at a temperature sufficient to sizzle. Keep them all moving. Once the coconut oil is absorbed into the onion (this will happen before the onion is fully cooked), add the vegetable stock, followed by the coconut milk; mix it all gently to create a smooth consistency.

    2) Add the rice, chia seeds, and black pepper; mix it all gently but thoroughly; turn the temperature to a simmer, and add the Scotch bonnet chili, without cutting it at all.

    3) Cover and keep on low for about 20–30 minutes until the rice is looking done. Check on it periodically to make sure it’s not running out of liquid, but resist the urge to stir it; it shouldn’t be burning but paradoxically, once you start stirring you can’t stop or it will definitely burn.

    4) Take out the Scotch bonnet chili, and discard*. Add the black beans.

    *its job was to add flavor without adding the high-level heat of that particular chili. If you’re a regular heat-fiend, feel free to experiment with using sliced Scotch bonnet chilis instead of serrano chilis; just be aware that there’s a big difference in heat. Only do this if you really like heat. Using it the way we described in the main recipe is what’s traditional in the Caribbean, by the way.

    5) Now you can (and in fact must) stir, to mix in the black beans and bring them back to temperature within the dish. Be aware that once you start stirring, you need to keep stirring until you’re ready to take it off the heat.

    6) Serve, adding the parsley garnish.

    (this example went light on the beans; our recipe includes more for a heartier dish)

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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