A Rhubarb Fool and Real Food!

I was able to purchase my first little bunch of rhubarb last weekend and was so very excited to try out a Rhubarb Fool. For one reason or another I had never heard of this recipe but have since come across it many times in the last year or so. I had to try it!

It's a very simple recipe:

Cut up the rhubarb into small julienned pieces (or bite sized pieces) and put them into a pot. Add the juice of one orange and 1/8 cup of sugar--there is less sugar required because the orange juice adds so much sweetness--yes, yes,.....I know...oranges aren't local..but anything to cut down on the sugar content! Simmer until rhubarb is cooked through but not so mushy that they're falling apart. Let cool in the fridge. In the meantime whip a small carton of whipping cream with some honey until you get peaks. Mix the rhubarb mixture into the whipping cream. That's it!

Now, what I would do differently next time is double the amount of rhubarb I used or use half the amount of whipping cream. I would have liked to have a fuller rhubarb flavour.

This brings me to my next topic of the day--eating 'real' food. People are probably reading this post and thinking 'What? I thought she ate only healthy food? Cream isn't a healthy food!' Again, like my previous post of butter vs. margarine, cream has been given a bad reputation as a 'bad' food, but in reality, it's a 'real' food that has not been processed like the cans or tubs of fat-free or low-fat whipped cream (ingredients: water, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated coconut and palm kernel oils, sodium caseinate, vanilla extract, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60 and betacarotene).

Actually, I've just finished a great book by Nina Planck called "Real Food: What to Eat and Why". I absolutely loved this book and recommend others to read it. In the book she talks about the foods that she ate while growing up on the farm compared to the foods that she began to eat when she moved out onto her own. She began to avoid foods like eggs, butter, oil, etc..
However, by doing so she began avoiding 'real' (or traditional) foods altogether. But once Nina went back to her original roots and began eating foods that she grew up on she actually lost the 25 pounds that she gained while living on her low-fat vegan diet. In the book she also talks about how many illnesses and diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes began to increase when everyone's consumption of the 'bad' foods declined. She also provides a lot of information and research showing that fats and cholesterol are actually good for the body.

Anyways, it's a very good book and I definitely think it's worth reading.

Here's a link to an interview: http://www.foodrenegade.com/an-interview-with-nina-planck/