Bean patties & Harissa

BEAN PATTIES WITH HARISSA

There are dozens of ways to make delicious patties. One reason I love this recipe so much is that the patties are heartier and nuttier than most, which makes for an even better meal. Top the burger with Harissa Sauce which is an aromatic, spicy paste frequently used in North African and Middle Eastern cooking. Makes 4 servings

INGREDIENTS - Burger

1 Tbsp 2 tsps 1/2 cup 1 1/2 cups

1/2 1/2 2 1 1/4

2 Tbsps 2 Tbsps 1 Tbsp 1/2 tsp 2 Tbsp

1/3 cup

2 tsps 1 tsp 2 3 1 Tbsp 2 tsps ground flaxseeds (linseed) blended peeled lemon (see p.59) old-fashioned rolled oats cooked or 1x425g (15.5 ounces) can salt-free kidney beans or black beans, drained and rinsed chopped walnuts chopped onion garlic cloves piece fresh turmeric, grated (or 1/4 tsp ground) tahini nutritional yeast white miso paste smoked paprika minced fresh parsley

dried hot red chillies, seeded and cut into small pieces, or to taste 1 Tbsp coriander seeds caraway seeds cumin seeds roasted capsicum garlic cloves, chopped nutritional yeast white miso paste savoury spice blend (p. 44)

INGREDIENTS - Harissa sauce METHOD - Burger

1. In a small bowl, combine the flaxseeds and lemon, stirring until well blended. Set aside. Grind the oats into coarse flour in a food processor. 2. Add the beans, walnuts, onion, garlic, and turmeric and process until well combined. 3. Add the tahini, nutritional yeast, miso, paprika, parsley, and flaxseed mixture. Pulse until well combined. Shape into four patties. (They will be sticky.) 4. Place the patties on a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat or parchment paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes. 5. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350ºF). 6. Bake the patties for 30 minutes; then flip them with a metal spatula and bake for another 15 minutes, or until firm and browned. 7. Serve topped with Harissa Sauce.

METHOD - Harissa Sauce

1. Place the dried chillies in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 30 minutes; then drain. 2. In a small skillet, stir the coriander, caraway, and cumin seeds over low heat until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer to a food processor and add the drained chillies, roasted red bell peppers, garlic, nutritional yeast, miso, and Savoury Spice Blend to taste. 3. Process until smooth. Add up to ¼ cup of water, as needed, to make a smooth, thick sauce.

This recipe is found in the incredible Dr Greger's How Not To Die Cookbook. Full of easy plant-based recipes and evidence-based advice.

Dr Greger: I always have this seasoning blend on hand to add flavor to dishes in place of salt.

INGREDIENTS METHOD

2 Tbps 1 Tbsp 1 Tbsp 1 Tbsp 2 tsps 2 tsps 2 tsps 2 tsps 1/2 tsp 1/2 tsp nutritional yeast* onion powder dried parsley dried basil dried thyme garlic powder dry mustard (mustard powder) paprika ground turmeric celery seeds

* Dr Greger recommends those with Crohn’s disease or hidradenitis suppurativa avoid nutritional yeast.

This recipe is in the incredible Dr Michael Greger's How Not To Die Cookbook. Full of over 100 plant-based recipes and evidence-based advice to help Prevent and Reverse disease. Founder of nutritionalfacts.org

1. Combine all the ingredients in a spice grinder or blender to mix well and pulverize the dried herbs and spices. Transfer the blend to a shaker bottle or jar with a tightfitting lid. Store in a cool, dry place.

Professor Maurice Curtis

Brain functions talk has CHIP Club audience spellbound

University of Auckland medical expert, Professor Maurice Curtis, kept a small but highly attentive audience spellbound with fascinating insights into the workings of the human brain at a recent CHIP Club meeting at

Drury, South Auckland.

His one-hour address covered some of the functional medical aspects and included curious details on how the brain learns and stores information. Other parts of his talk dealt with Alzheimer's risk, the importance of the olfactory system, stroke, blood pressure and more.

He expressed strong concern about the general risk of uncontrolled blood pressure and where it could lead. "We know that if you live with uncontrolled high blood pressure for six months, you will certainly, and of course there's always an exception, get dementia of some form," he said. "We know that keeping your blood pressure under control is really important. "A lot of people don't like taking blood pressure medication, but it is important for reducing stroke risk and the general wear and tear on your brain. The vascular supply to your brain is absolutely critical. We never see people with Alzheimer's disease that have a perfect vascular supply. They've always got plaque in the vessels and so on.

In response to a question on whether blood pressure could vary in different body areas, he said pressure was relatively constant throughout. "With blood pressure, it doesn't matter where you look in the body; the blood pressure is always going to be roughly the same.

It's the heart that causes that blood pressure. But if you've got vessels that are constricting, then it's the garden hose principle.

If you turn the tap on more then, you've got to get more water through the hose. If you narrow down the hose, the pressure goes up.

Pumping up the pressure

"If the heart has less diameter to pump blood through, then the pressure is going to go up. Not really does it put pressure on your heart, of course, because the muscle of the heart is under pressure the whole time, but the brain is going to be affected badly. The brain loves a good, clean, robust supply.

In response to a question about the value of nitric oxide, Professor Curtis said when people have received cardiovascular surgery, "they'll usually get their vessels flushed with something that has a nitric oxide producer in it which helps to vasodilate the vessels and allow them to be cleared out more quickly from the reactive oxygen species that build up when there is a lack of oxygen there. There is a range of drugs out there for this, but they are very much at the top end of the prescription end of things."

In response to another question on repeated messages and the way the brain learns, he said repetition deepens impression. "The more times you see it, the more ingrained it becomes, and the more you're likely to take it on. Tricking the experts

"There was a great show a few years ago about some people who were illusionists. They did this trick with some of the top marketing experts in London. They set up their way to work so that certain things were there without any of them knowing why. "They picked them up for a nice day out and told them that they wanted to do a test on what they could come up with in a day. In this particular case, they wanted them to come up with a marketing idea for a pet crematorium. The marketing people didn't know this, but they were put into a room and asked to come up with an idea of how they would market the pet crematorium. "They got driven past a school where there were kids walking past a pedestrian crossing. It was all set up. They were all carrying different placards and different things like a teddy bear etc. There was a billboard of a pet floating up into the sky, going to heaven. "At the end of the experiment, each of the marketing people had to present very quickly what their idea was and not surprisingly, almost all of the ideas were exactly the same. By showing people certain things on their way to work it was enough to influence their minds into thinking this is what we want our pet crematorium marketing to look like. "So not surprisingly, the more times you see something (like KFC as one interjector called) … the more the brain registers it."

One questioner wanted to know if the pathways established in the brain could ever be undone. "There are whole lot pathways that are just for routine. Many of you have been in this room before, but the room layout was different, and none of you had any problems. That's using conventional pathways, interpreting the world, subtly different but essentially the same. "When you are learning something new, it's quite different. You are checking which pathways are common and then which new ones need to be put into place for me to remember that. "For instance, I can still remember the half chapter of Shakespeare that I had to do at school, I could recite it to you now, but I won't. Time and time again, I put that into my memory to the point that it was commonplace. But other things will be done away with because they are in a category where you don't reinforce those memories.

A horizontal slice through a section of the human brain drew close attention as it was handed around the audience.

"The point I'd make there is that with Alzheimer's disease, you are essentially taking one of those neurons away. The neuron dies, and what does that do to the synapse? It leaves it no place to live, so it goes away; you lose that memory. But, of course, this is happening on the million cell scale; it's not just one or two cells."

Footnote: CHIP Club is open for anyone to attend. Its primary focus is on people who have previously completed a CHIP programme. CHIP Programme attendees learn how to readjust their eating patterns to follow a healthier path. CHIP Club acts as an ongoing fellowship and support group, helping them to stay on it.

But what is the CHIP programme & how does it work?

The Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) encourages transitioning to a more whole food, plant-based diet and may not only be the most well-published community-based lifestyle intervention in the medical literature, but also one of the most effective, says Dr Michael Greger.

He says its clinical changes may be on par with outcomes achieved in live-in lifestyle programs, and the average drop in blood pressure achieved with CHIP exceeded reports by the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) study and was comparable to results from trials with blood pressure–lowering drugs.

To make CHIP more widely accessible, each live presentation delivered by Hans Diehl, the developer of the program, was videotaped so volunteer facilitators, each trained and certified, could screen the lectures and foster discussion among participants.

Participants who completed the facilitated video program had a 20-point drop in blood pressure, a 40-point drop in bad LDL cholesterol, and more than a 500-point drop in triglycerides. Most of those who started CHIP with diabetic-level fasting blood sugars left with nondiabetic levels.

Typically, studies giving dietary advice to participants not in a live-in setting may get cholesterol reductions of 3 to 6 percent, and sustained reduction of 1 percent is associated with a 2 to 3 percent drop in heart disease incidence. Just one month of CHIP achieved an 11 percent drop on average and up to a nearly 20 percent drop among those participants most in need of intervention. Dr Michael Greger

On programme completion

Eighteen months after completing the volunteer-led video series, most CHIP participants maintained their reductions of animal products, though some began eating more junk food and less fruits and vegetables (though not back to baseline quantities). Importantly, they were eating about 400 fewer calories a day than before they started CHIP. At the end of the six-week video program, they were down only 300 daily calories. "Ready for the huge shocker? Even though the participants had been told explicitly to eat as much as they wanted without any calorie- or carb-counting and without any portion control, just by being informed about the benefits of centering their diets more on whole plant foods, by the end of the six-week program, they were eating, on average, about 339 fewer calories a day without even trying. Instead of eating less food, they were just eating healthier food.

Unlike many weight-loss programs that count calories and limit portion sizes, an all-you-care-to-eat plant-based, whole food dietary approach appears to be more sustainable.