TABBOULEH

Ingredients

1/2 cup daliya, 1 cup chopped mint leaves, 1.5 cups minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, 1 bunch spring onions, sliced fine, 1 large tomato, peeled and diced, 3 table spoon extra virgin olive oil, 3 table spoon fresh lemon juice plus more as needed. 1/2 table spoon ground roasted cumin seeds.

Method

Place daliya in a bowl, cover with cold water and let it stand for 10 minutes. Then drain and squeeze dry. With a fork, seperate into individual grains. Stir in the parsley, spring onions, tomato, mint, olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours but bring to room temperature before serving.

Modak / Kolukattai Recipe

Modak is the favorite food of Hindu God Ganesha.

Ingredients:

Rice Raw - 1 cup
Coconut (Grated) - 1 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Salt - 1 spoon
Elaichi, Ginelle oil - as per requirement
Water - 2.5 cups

Wash the Raw rice and let is in the 2.5 cups of water for 2 hours. Then grind the rice well. Use the same water for the purpose.

In the kadai / utensil pour the rice mixture and put 2 teaspoon gingelee oil 1 spoon salt and roast well. The rice paste will turn color to light brown. Then take the utensil from stove. And close the lid of the utensil and allow it to cool.

Then wee need to create the poorna, the inner part of modak.

With purre jaggery add .25 cup of water and let the mixture boil well. Then add the grated coconut and elaichi powder and then take it out of the stove.

The rice paste is made into small ball of lemon size. using your hand press the pastes in hand and flatten them as disk. Use oil during this step to avoid sticking. Put the coconut mixture made above inside the disk. Close the disk in four courners as shown in pictures. Remove extra rice paste.

Put these pieces in Idly cooker or plain rice cooker and cook it in steam for 10 minutes.

Sweet and delicious kolukattai is ready to server.

Alcohol, how to drink and stay healthy

Dr. Robert Linn of the United States National Research Foundation has some surprising answers to questions about alcohol and its effects.

Q : How much alcohol can the average person safely drink per day?
A : "Safely" depends on your own individual situation: how old you are, how much you weigh, what kind of health you are in, how you happen to interact with alcohol. But there is no evidence that the amount of alcohol in two medium sized drinks a day can do lasting harm to average person in good health.

Q : What's the biggest single risk you run by drinking?
A : The major risk is probably that you might get drunk and wind up in a car accident. Although excessive drinking over a long period of time can cause liver damage and behavioural breakdowns, there is no evidence at all that moderate drinking is a health hazard.

Q : So why are alcoholics vulnerable to so many different conditions and diseases?
A : An excess of anything you eat or drink is bad for you, and alcoholism isn't any different. The danger of drinking alcohol in excessive amounts is that it has a great many indirect effects.

Some form of malnutrition is very common among people who drink heavily. There are two reasons. First, alcohol, in excessive amounts, dulls the appetite, which means that people tend to drink their meals instead of eating them. Second, alcohol provides calories that have no nutrient content. And if you don't make up for this loss of nutrients in some way, you're almost bound to develop deficiencies.

Q : Should you cut down on your drinking when you reach your fifties and sixties?

A : Certainly, if you're a fairly heavy drinker and I'm talking now about four or five drinks a day your body is going to have tougher time dealing with that amounts as you age.
But when it comes to moderate social drinking, age isn't as much of a factor as general health. As long as you're feeling will and have your weight under control, there's no reason t cut out drinking simply because you're getting older.

Q : What exactly is cirrhosis of liver, and why is it so frequently associated with drinking?
A : Cirrhosis of the liver is very a very serious condition that occurs when scar tissue develops and cuts off the blood supply to the areas responsible for producing and storing nutrients. The scar tissue develops after changes in the fat content of the liver destroy live cells. Liver enzymes, when they are breaking down alcohol, proudce fat which tends to accumulate and eventually filter into the bloodstream.
In small amounts, these excess fat blobules in the blood aren't very dangerous, and may even be healthy, since they appear to limit cholesterol, But when too many accumulate in the liver, they start to interfere with normal liver function.
The disease is commonly associated with alcoholics, but you don't have to be an alcoholic to get cirrhosis of the liver. Prisoners of war have developed it, persumably as a result of malnutrition. The big debate today is whether alcohol is the direct cause of cirrhosis, or whether it's the malnutrition that heavy drinking often produces that really causes the disease. Most researchers have leaned to the malnutrition theory, but recent evidence shows that even with a healthy diet, heavy drinking can produce liver damage.

Q : How can you tell if your drinking is having a bad effect on your liver?
A : The most common symptom of liver malfunction, although it could mean other things as well, is a general feeling of fatigue and weakness. The only way to find out for certain is to have blood test that will show if alcohol is upsetting liver function. One of the early signs of toruble is a rise in the number of fat cells in the liver. Most people who drink heavily develop a fatty liver, but not everybody who develops a fatty liver develops more serious problems. Why some people are more susceptible than others is something we don't know as yet.

Q : When does the "heavy social drinker" become an alcoholic?
A : It depends on how you define the term "alcoholic". The criterion I use is based on the idea of compulsion. As long as the amount of alcohol you're drinking isn't interfering in any way with your health, your family relationships, or your job, and as long as you don't fell the compulsion to drink, you probably don't have a drinking problem. But, if you continue to drink, you probably don't feel the compulsion to continue to drink quite heavily day in and day out, it could easily happen. You, too could become an alcoholic.

Q : Are certain drinks better for you than others?
A : From a purely nutritional point of view, you're better off drinking beer or even wine that you are drinking the hard stuff whiskey, brandy, rum, since there are a number of nutrients in beer, and some minerals in wine.

Q : Why is it a bad idea to mix different kinds of alcoholic drinks?
A : Mixing drinks isn't as bad and idea as some people would lead you to believe. But just like mixing certain foods, mixing certain kind of drinks can upset your stomach and give you a headache. It has noting to do with the alcohol content. Alcohol is alcohol whether in beer, wine, scotch or gin. But the other stuff in some drinks doesn't mix very well.
Probably the worst thing is to go from straight distilled spirits to those exotic cocktail monsters filled with sugar and fruit juice. Beet, though, isn;t bad as a mixer. It actually helps to settle an unsettled stomach - provided the stomach isn't so upset that anything you put in will spell trouble.

Q : Is it OK to have a drink or two if you're having trouble falling asleep?
A : If you're too keyed up or tense to fall asleep, a glass or two of wine or a shot of vodka will do as good a job of putting you to asleep it interfers with the part of sleep known as REM, or dreaming sleep. Your body will try to make up for lost REM sleep once the effect of the booze wears off. So you'll do a lot of tossing and turning, and won't wake up terribly refreshed. And chronic drinking, of course, is murder on your sleeping habits.

Q : Is brandy a good thing to drink on a cold night?
A : Definitely - as long as you're sitting in front of a warm fire. Otherwise, forget the notion that alcohol "warms you up". It actually has the opposite effect. The body's reaction to cold weather, without alcohol, is to direct the flow of blood from the limbs into the trunk and in that way protect the vital organs with warmth. Well, alcohol happens to be a vaso-dilater: it widens the openings of the blood vessels, and worse, makes the blood flow towards the skin's surface.

Q : What's the best way to sober somebody up quickly?
A : There is no best way other than keeping the drinker from drinking any more booze. Time: that's what sobers people up. Time allows the liver to burn up the alcohol that's in the blood, so that the blood alcohol level gets down below the intoxixation level.

Q : But isn't black coffee often recommended for somebody who has had a lot to drink?
A : Coffee is a stimulant. It wakes you up. But there is a difference between being awake and being sober. Coffee counteracts just one of the many intoxicating effects of alcohol-fatigue. It might even be dangerous to give coffee to somebody who has been drinking heavily, if he is going to drive. The coffee may wake him up enough to convince him that he's fit to drive, when actually his judgement and reflexes are such that he shouldn't be behind the wheel.

Q : Is there anyting a person can do to increase his or her alcohol capacity?
A : Unfortunately, the most effective way to increase your alcohol capacity is also the most dangerous. You simply drink more. Heavier drinkers, as a group, hold their alcohol "better" than occassional drinkers. The body apparently adapts to the added onslaught of alcohol.
ON a more practical level, the best way to slow down the effect that alcohol has on you is to make sure you eat when you're drinking, particularly foods rich in protein and fat.

Q : Is it true that drinking makes you forgetful?
A : It's true. Even very modest amounts of alcohol have been shown in laboratory experiments to affect th short-term memory of otherwise normal subjects, and some chronic alcoholics develop a terrible kind of amnesia due to a vitamin B1 deficiency. Of course, one of the particular effects of alcohol in moderate amounts is that it takes the edge off your worries, makee you forget things that you have trouble forgetting when you're sober.

Q : How long does the typical hangover last?
A : There is no such thing as a "typical" hangover. It all depends on the conditions that brought on the hangover; how much you drink; what you drank what you did while you were drinking; what you ate while you drank; and even how guilty you might feel about drinking. But forgetting these individual factors, a typical hangover, as long as you don't compound the misery by drinking more or further irritating your stomach, should clear up beteeen five and ten hours after you wake up.

Q : What's the best hangover remedy?
A : There has yet to be any one drink, pill, or method that has been scientifically proved to be an effective remedy. The problem is that a hangover isn't just one condition. It's a whole series of reactions - headache, upset stomach, thirst, dizziness, fatigue. Probably the best ting you can do for a hangover is nothing - except to take it easy, drink lots of water and let time do the job.

Meat, Weight, Health and diet

Vegetarians have always been considered a little odd. The domestication and slaughter of animals for food was, after all, one of man's great achievements. In the past, those who shunned meat for religious reasons were tolerated. But most people thought you had to be a nut to exclude such foods on mere dietary grounds.
Not any more, says nutrition expert Jane Brody. In recent years, the meatless way of life has surged in popularity, laregely because increasing evidence indicates that a sensible vegetarian diet is better for you than a meat-heavy one. Consider three potential reaons for switching to a menu that emphasizes vegetable foods.

1. To protect your heart:
A comparative study of diet and heart disease in seven countries showed that the death rate from coronary heart disease was highest in countries showed where the most animal products, including dairy foods, were consumed. The Finns, who consumed the most, had the highest death rate from heart disease.
Americans were next (except for seventh day Adventists, most of whom eat no meat or poultry; they have only half the amount of heart disease that other Americans have). In japan, where very little fat is eaten, the heart-disease death rate is lower than in any other industrialized nation.

Scientists at the university of Milan found that, on diets equally low in fat and cholesterol, persons eating animal protein had higher levels of cholesterol in their blood than who fed on a diet containing primarily vegetable protein. Recent research indicates that certain types of fibres found in plant foods can actually help to lower blood cholesterol.

2. To control your weight:

In view of today's obsession with slimness, it's surprising that more people have not switched to a vegetarian diet. A test group of 116 vegetarians wieghed on average almost two-and-a-half stones less than a comparable meat-eating group.
Why should this be so? Because a vegetarian diet is bulky and filling, it's difficult unless you gorge on cake and cheese to consume as many calories in a day as the typical meat and potatoes man. The calories in just two thick slices of bacon, for example, far exceed those in a whole cup of cooked porridge. And for the calorific value of a six-ounce steak (with its fat), a vegetarian could eat almost a pound of cooked pasta.

In addition to the social and psychological rewards of a trim figure, the health benefits of maintaining a normal body weight include a reduced risk of developing heart diseasen ang high blood pressure.

3. To reduce the risk of cancer

Research over the past decade suggests that the same kind of high animal-fat and cholesterol diet that may set the stage for heart disease may also contribute to the growth of cancers of the colon, breast and uterus. Among seventh-day Adventists and Japanese, these cancers are relatively uncommon, but they are leading types of cancer among people who eat a lot of meat.

There are several possible explanations for this relationship. With cancer of the colon, diets rich in saturated fats and cholesterol may result in large accumulations of natural cancer-promoting chemicals in the gut.

The relatively low fibre content of such diets may also result in slow-moving bowels and prolonged contact of the cancer promoting chemicals with body tissues. Finally, the growth of breast and uterine cancers can be stimulated by oestrogen hormones and diets high in fat an cholesterol tend to produce oestrogen-like hormones in the gut and in body fat.

A variety of vegetable foods - brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, turnips, cabbage and spinach can stimulate the production of anticancer anzymes in the body. In a study at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Professor Saxon Graham found that people who regularly consumed large amounts of vegetables in the cabbage family had lower than expected rates of cancer of the colon and rectum. A chemical in these vegetables in known to block the action of certain cancer-causing substances.

But, wait a minute! Weren't we designed to be meat-eaters? And don't we require animal protein for strength and energy?

The answer to both questions is a resounding "NO". Although we are historically omnivorous (both plant-and meat-eating), our anatomical equipment - teeth, jaws, digestive system - favors a diet that emphasizes plant foods. Most of mankind for much of human history has subsisted on near-vegetarian diets. Much of the world still lives that way. Faced with constant opportunity, we are probably eating more animal food than our bodies were designed to handle. (The average Briton eats more than 125 pounds of meat and poultry annually).

As for energy, a host of studies have shown that it is not protein but carbohydrates, mostly from vegetables, grains, legumes and fruit that fuel our muscles.

To be a good vegetarian, you don't need a lot of time, detailed knowledge of nutrition, or elaborate charts and formulas.

But there are several important facts you should know:
Most animal proteins are complete. Most vegetable proteins are incomplete. Since your body requires complete proteins to function properly, you must combine vegetable proteins in a way that makes them complete.
Two or more incomplete vegetable proteins can be combined in a meal to form complete protein, or small amounts of complete animal protein can be used to supplement an incomplete one. Here are three simple ways to do it. Combine legumes (dried peas, beans, peanuts, lentils) with grains (barely, buckwheat, rice, rye). Combine legumes with nuts, and seeds. Combine eggs or dairy products with any vegetable protein.

If the protein you eat is to be used to meet your protein requirement, your diet must contain enough calories to support your ideal weight. Otherwise, the body will use the protein for fuel and there won't be enough for growth and rebuilding of body tissues.

As a vegetarian you must also meet your vitamin and mineral needs. Strict vegetarians, who eat no animal foods, get inadequate amounts of vitamin B12, unless they take B12 supplement. But even if you eat milk or eggs as well as plant products, you should eat a variety of vegetable foods, since different kinds provide different essential nutrients. If you choose your foods properly, you will not have to take any vitamin or mineral supplements.

Select your daily menu from each of the following food groups, in addition to dairy products or eggs:

Legumes, nuts and seeds - two or more servings. Whole grain and enriched / fortified breads and cereals - three of more servings.

Vegetables and fruits - one or more servings of the following: citrus fruit, potato, melon, tomato, raw cabbage, strawberries, broccoli and spinach.

Two or more servings of dark-green and deep-yellow vegetables and fruits. Fats (vegetable oil - or margarine) about one or two tablespoons.

If you are pregnant or nursing a baby, your requirements of protein, vitamins and minerals increase significantly. Consult a doctor or a dietician.

Despite evidence that adults can live healthy on a strict vegetarian diet, some infants and very young children fed on this regimen suffer growth retardation and even malnutrition. This is not the case, however, when dairy products (beside the mother's breastmilk) and/or eggs are included in a child's vegetarian diet.

Percentage of FAT in MEAT

Fried streaky bacon - 45%
Grilled streaky bacon - 36%
Grilled lamb chops - 29%
Pork pie - 27%
Luncheon meat - 27%
Liver sausage - 27%
Roast lamb (shoulder) - 26%
Fried pork sausages - 25%
Roast leg of pork - 20%
Fried beef burgers - 17%
Grilled rump steak - 12%
Casseroled pigs liver - 8%
Stewed steak - 7%
Casseroled chicken - 7%
Fried lambs kidneys - 6%
Tinned ham - 5%

Even if you have no interest in becoming a vegetarian, there's no reason why you should have animal protein at every meal, or even every day. By adapting the vegetarian approach to your daily menu planning, you can greatly reduce your dependence on animal protein - especially on high-fat, high-calorie meats. If, for example, you prepare a vegetable casserole containing a substantial percentage of balanced vegetable protein, an ounce or meat, poultry or fish will be more than enough to complete your meal.

we woul all be better off if we stopped thinking of vegetables and grains merely as side dishes to embellish a chunk of meat. Meals based on vegetalbes can provide sound nutrition for everyone.

weight and diet

For most people it is all too easy to put on weight and the most likely reason is that you are easting too much of the wrong sorts of food. Here are some of the common fallacies about fattening food.

Myth: Grapefruit will burn body fat.
Fact: Grapefruit has been the main ingredient in several "miracle" reducing plans. It's a fine food, with relatively few calories and plenty of vitamin C, but it does not burn fat. Unfortunately, no such fat-burning food has been discovered.

Myth : Bananas are fattening.
Fact : Compared with an apple or an orange, a banana has more carbohydrates: yet the average banana has only 60 calories.
A Medium apple or orange has about 50 calories.

Myth : 'Sugar-free' foods have fewer calories than those with sugar.
Fact : A product can claim to be made without sugar (sucrose) yet be loaded with other kinds of sweeteners that have about as many calories as sugar. Corn Syrup, molasses and fructose are all high-calorie substitutes. When you buy something that says it has been made without sugar, check the list of ingredients and compare the calorie count with a similar product made with sugar.

Myth : Margarine has fewer calories than butter.
Fact : By law both butter and margarine must have the same fat content of 80 percent, so you end up with the same amount of calories (About 100 per tablespoon) for either butter or margarine. Diet margarines have about half as much fat and more water, and therefore fewer calories.

Myth : Foods like celery and apples have negative calories because of the energy needed to chew and digest them.
Fact : A calorie is a calorie, whether you're eating apples or strawberry shortcake. An average-size person burns only 0.3 additional calories per minute while eating. That means a five-calorie stalk of celery would have to be chewed for 17 minutes to have no caloric value. You may have better things to do.

Myth : Using non-dairy cream substitutes or dessert toppings saves calories.
Fact : Sorry. Non-Dairy creams and toppings have more calories per tablespoon than milk itself, since most of them are made with coconut oil, which has the highest saturated-fat content of any vegetable oil.

Myth : All fish are low in calories.
Fact : Fish vary widely in fat content. Generally, you can spot fattier fish in a flesh the darker the flesh, the higher the fat content and more the calories. A fattier fleshed fish is better suited to grilling or roasting because of the extra oil in it. A leaner-fleshed fish is often cooked in oil or butter which may bring the caloric count up to more than that of the same-sized serving of a fattier fish. Instead grill, poach or steam it.

Myth : Meat from cheaper cuts of beef contains more fat.
Fact : Not at all.It depends which part of the animal the meat comes from. Generally, the more expensive the cut, the more marbling or fat in the meat. When you are buying beef for the family, choose topside, rump of thick flank for roasting. They are usually leaner than rolled ribs, forerib or sirloin.

Myth : Your stomach shrinks as you diet.
Fact : When you diet successfully, you get used to eating less food. Your stomach stays the same.

Here are some further food facts which you may find just as surprising. For example, did you know...

Smaller turkeys and chickens are leaner than larger ones.

Tuna in brine has up to 161 fewer calories per 3.5 ounce serving than the oil-packed variety

Dry-roasted peanuts 175 calories per ounce have nearly the same amount of calories as peanuts cooked in oil

If you use plain low-fat yoghurt instead of cream, you save about 275 calories in every eight fluid ounces.

At 61 calories a tablespoon, honey has more calories than sugar (46 caloreis a tablespoon)

Two 12-ounce cans of beer amount to 320 calories. That's nearly one-third of a dieter's daily calorie intake

A hot-dog roll has 108 calories, a hamburger bun 89. A typical 1.75 ounce hot dog has 124 calories, a three-ounce burger has 140. You get more meat, fewer nitrites and about the same calories when you choose a small hamburger rather than a hot dog.

One ounce of Cheddar cheese has 122 calories. If you thought that hard cheeses were a low-fat source of good protein, you're wrong. About 75 percent of the calories are fat, and only 25 percent are protein.

If you think you are saving calories by eating sorbet instead of ice-cream, you're not. You do get less fat in a sorbet, but you also get more sugar. A helping of sorbet equals 120-150 calories, about the same as a portion of vanilla ice-cream.

கேழ்வரகு இனிப்பு இட்லி

கேழ்வரகு இனிப்பு இட்லி உடலுக்கு உகந்தது. சர்க்கரை வியாதி உள்ளவர்கள் இத்தனை தினமும் செய்து சாப்பிடலாம்.

தேவையானவை:
கேழ்வரகு மாவு : 2 கப்
பால் : ஒரு கப்
பொடித்த வெல்லம் : 3/4 அல்லது ஒரு கப்
தேங்காய் துருவல் : ஒரு கப்
முந்திரி பருப்பு : 10
உலர்ந்த திராட்சை : ஒரு டேபிள் ஸ்பூன்
ஏலக்காய் பொடி : 1/2 டீ ஸ்பூன்
நெய் : 2 டீ ஸ்பூன்

செய்முறை:
வெல்லத்தை அரை கப் தண்ணீரில் கரைத்து வடிகட்டிக் கொள்ளவும்
கேழ்வரகு மாவு, தேங்காய் துருவல், பால், ஏலக்காய் பொடி ஆகியவற்றை ஒரு பத்திரத்தில் ஒன்றாக போட்டு அதில் கரைத்து வைத்துள்ள வெல்லத்தை உற்றி கலக்கவும்.

முந்திரி பருப்பு, உலர்ந்த திராட்சை ஆகியவற்றை சற்று நெய்யில் வறுத்து மாவில் சேர்க்கவும்.
மாவை இட்லி மாவு பதத்திற்கு கரைத்து கொள்ளவும். மாவு கெட்டியாக இருந்தால் சிறிது பாலை சேர்த்து கரைத்துக் கொள்ளுங்கள்.
இட்லி தட்டில் நெய் தடவி மாவை அதில் உற்றி, இட்லி பானையில் வைத்து பத்து நிமிடங்கள் வேக வைத்து எடுக்கவும்.
கேழ்வரகு இனிப்பு இட்லி ரெடி

நாவிர்க்கினிய உணவு செய்முறை

Food is one of the basic and fundamental requirement. Every human being consumes cooked food everyday. Different cultures have different food customs and cuisines. For bachelors working away from home and mom's want to try new recipes for kids can try the recipes in this blog.

இனி தமிழில். தமிழ் உணவு செயல்முறைகளுக்கு அநேக வலை தளங்கள் உள்ளன. அவை யாவும் ஆங்கிலத்தில் உள்ளன. எனவே எளிமையான தமிழில் உணவு செய்முறைகளை வழங்குகிறேன். நான் ஒன்றும் சமையல்காரன் அல்ல. நான் படித்தவை, கேட்டவை , பார்த்தவை இவற்றை வைத்து எழுதுகிறேன். தவறு இருப்பின் மன்னிக்கவும்.