The Health Benefits of Roasted Barley Tea

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The Health Benefits of Roasted Barley Tea

Overview

Individuals interested in beverages with therapeutic properties may be intrigued by roasted barley tea, known in Japanese as mugicha or in Korean as boricha. Barley tea is available in loose grains, tea bags or prepared tea drinks. It is traditionally used for detoxification, to improve digestion and for urinary tract infections, among other applications. While these uses have not been proven by scientific research, barley tea has other health-promoting properties.

Antibacterial

Roasted barley tea interferes with the absorption of oral streptococci, states the December 2006 issue of the “Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.” Italian researchers exposed pretreated ceramic beads mimicking tooth enamel to bacteria and the tea in various combinations, discovering that the tea inhibited bacterial colonization and adhesion. Researchers noted that one chemical known for its anti-adhesive properties was absent in barley tea which was not roasted.

Antioxidant

Barley tea has antioxidant properties, notes the December 2004 issue of “Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry.” A team of Japanese researchers from Shizuoka University analyzed the chemical components of barley tea and their effects on peroxynitrite. This unstable oxidant can lead to cell death and health complications including cardiovascular, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, explains nature.com. The research team determined the presence of 10 chemicals within barley tea which were able to scavenge, or destroy, the peroxynitrite.

Anticoagulative Properties

Barley tea improves blood fluidity, according to the April 2002 issue of the “Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology.” High blood viscosity can lead to impaired blood circulation and related health disorders. Japanese researchers working for the Kagome Company found that the fluidity of the blood increased directly in proportion with the presence of alkylpyrazine, a substance which gives flavor to their tea.

Roasted Barley Tea is available to purchase at SFMart.com

This article is originally posted on LIVESTRONG.COM

11 Delicious Ways to Eat Black Beans

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You’ll almost never find our kitchens without a can or two of black beans stocked in the pantry. This versatile ingredient can be used in so many different ways. From soups and chilis to enchiladas and salads, the recipes are seemingly endless. We chose our 11 favorite black bean recipes to get you started with something new.

(Image credit: Michaela Cisney)

1. Chilled Black Bean, Feta & Cucumber Salad

This is one of those salads that actually gets better with more time spent in the fridge to let the dressing work its magic. We recommend making a big batch over the weekend and enjoying it for lunches all week.

(Image credit: Faith Durand)

2. Cuban Black Bean Soup

To make this soup the right way, use dried black beans and let them soak overnight. You’ll also want to give it ample time to cook on the stove, so really, it makes a better weekend recipe. Finally, don’t skimp on the vinegar — it’s what gives the soup that little extra kick.

(Image credit: Nick Evans)

3. Crunchy Black Bean Tacos

These pan-fried tacos are made with soft tortillas and are somewhere between a taco and a quesadilla. You can fill them with anything you want; they are a great way to use up a small amount of leftovers.

(Image credit: Megan Gordon)

4. Black Bean, Sweet Potato, and Quinoa Chili

While the options for vegetarian chili recipes are nearly endless, we’re partial to this one with sweet potatoes (or you could substitute butternut squash) and quinoa. Just remember — you might have to add a bit more water at the end since the quinoa will soak it up.

(Image credit: Emma Christensen)

5. Slow-Cooker Black Bean Enchiladas

Slow-cooker enchiladas are a bit magical. They might not be the prettiest meal on the block, but they are one of the tastiest. Plus, they are easily adaptable, so you can basically clean out your fridge and end up with a mouth-watering meal.

(Image credit: Emma Christensen)

6. Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup

The secret to the subtly smoky flavor of this black bean soup? The single piece of bacon it’s cooked with. It takes a quick weeknight staple to a whole new level.

(Image credit: Emily Han)

7. Kale and Black Bean Tacos with Chimichurri

No, chimichurri wasn’t originally intended for vegan tacos, but the garlicky sauce adds a whole new dimension to these tasty tacos. Of course, the big chunks of avocado and sautéed kale don’t hurt either.

(Image credit: Kimberley Hasselbrink)

8. Baked Black Bean and Avocado Burritos

Somewhere between a burrito and an enchilada, these avocado and black bean delights reside. You can play around with additional fillings, like sautéed peppers or greens; make sure you taste-test the filling to get the spices to your liking.

(Image credit: Joanna Miller)

9. Vegetarian Black Bean Espresso Chili

It can be hard to get that rich, meaty taste in a vegetarian chili, but the addition of instant espresso powder adds a depth that most vegetarian chilis lack. Try making this version, or adding a little espresso powder to your own favorite chili recipe to get the full effect.

(Image credit: Emma Christensen)

10. Southwestern Pizza with Black Beans and Corn

One of our favorite unexpected black bean recipes is this Southwestern pizza. In place of traditional red sauce is a black bean mash. The whole pizza gets topped with corn, peppers, and a healthy dollop of avocado cream.

(Image credit: Faith Durand)

11. Avocado Lime Black Beans

We call this the can-o’-beans lunch. It takes almost no time to make, and can be eaten for a couple days in a row for lunch. You can also dress it up with a few other freshly chopped veggies and make it into a delicious side dish.

Organic Black Beans is available to purchase at SFMart.com

This article is originally posted on The Kitchn

Taste Test: Shin Ramyun Instant Noodles

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[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

As a kid, my sisters and I would spend our Saturdays expanding our minds, honing our hand eye coordination, and discovering the meanings of discipline, hard work, and lost childhood through the Tiger Mom-approved double-header of Japanese school and music school. It was a grueling eight hour schedule that left me with about an hours’ worth of free time in the middle of the day, during which I’d catch up on cartoons or football with my dad while making myself lunch. Sometimes this meant frozen chicken pot pies or pastrami sandwiches from the deli down the street. More often than not, this meant instant ramen.

I wasn’t a ramen prescriptivist, but my selection usually landed upon either Myojo Chukazanmai, a premium Japanese brand, or on Shin Ramyun, the Korean brand of instant noodles flavored with beef and chili. Its fierce heat and intense saltiness has earned it some rabid followers—it was the number one response when I asked people to name their favorite ramen brand over Twitter, and it’s one of the best selling non-Japanese brands around, available in over 80 countries.

For two and a half decades since its introduction in 1986, Shin Ramyun was available in only two forms: in a packet, and in a cook-in-the-container styrofoam cup. In 2011, they introduced Shin Black, the premium version of their traditional ramen.

We tasted all four options to see how they stacked up.

BLACK VS. STANDARD

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Straight out of the package, there’s a pretty clear difference between the Shin Black and the standard cup: the Black version contains one extra seasoning packet. Rather than the straight-up mix of beef extract, chili, and vegetables that you get in the standard, the Black comes with one packet of chili mix, and another which has a beef and anchovy soup base.

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The dehydrated vegetable packet in the Black is also larger and contains bigger chunks of mushrooms, scallions, and peppers. With the packet version of Black, the vegetable mix also includes slices of dehydrated beef. More on that in a moment.

OVERALL WINNERS: EITHER RAMYUN FROM A PACKET

While tasters were divided on how the broth and noodles in the standard Shin Ramyun compared to the premium Black version, there was one clear consensus: the ramyun that comes out of packets and gets cooked in a pot is superior to the cup-style. It makes perfect sense. With the former, you’re cooking the noodles at a fast boil; with the latter, you’re steeping them like tea.

The ingredient labels on the packets reflect a difference in formulation for the noodles as well, perhaps in order to compensate for this difference in cooking method.

Overall, tasters found the packet noodles to be bouncier and more like real noodles, though Max was the lone exception in enjoying the thinner, softer noodles in the standard Shin Cup (“If you’re not going to get great noodles anyway, you might as well get ones that are better at absorbing sauce,” was his reasoning).

The soup bases for the packet-based soups were also superior. It’s tough to decipher from the ingredients lists what made them better, but they were richer, fuller, and slightly more “natural” tasting. Soups from the cups were labeled as “harsh,” “aggressive,” and “artificial.” Not so bad that we wouldn’t eat them, mind you, but enough that taking the time to make the packet-based version is a no-brainer.

Interestingly, cost had virtually nothing to do with our preferences. When you buy the make-in-the-cup style ramyun, you pay double the cost for the convenience of not having to use a regular pot. Similarly, the Black versions of both the cup and packet soups cost twice as much as the standard. All told, people were pretty evenly split on naming the $.24/ounce standard Shin Ramyun Noodle Soup packets and the $.47/ounce Shin Ramyun Black Premium Noodle Soup packets as the winners.

Here are some more tasting details.

SHIN RAMYUN NOODLE SOUP PACKET ($.24/OUNCE)

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This is the classic flavor of my youth. Salty and spicy with a mild ocean aroma and bits of rehydrated shiitake mushroom and scallion floating in a thin but flavorful broth. The noodles are better than your average packet of ramen (I’d put them on par with our top-rated Sapporo Ichiban), but by no means mind-blowing. As Jamie put it, this is something “I’d want when I was sick.”

Max, on the other hand, says that he’d “like to dip [his] dosas in it.” I’m not quite sure what that means and I’m a little scared to find out.

SHIN RAMYUN BLACK PREMIUM NOODLE SOUP PACKET ($.47/OUNCE)

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The first thing you’ll notice when comparing the Black version to the standard is the larger chunks of vegetables. Real-sized slices of shiitake mushroom and slivers of hot chili peppers float around the opaque, mildly creamy broth. The front of the package shows thick slices of real beef. What we get instead are these little nubbins:

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Sort of like the bits you find at the bottom of a bag of beef jerky that you resort to eating when you’re at mile 169 of a road trip and the real food ran out a few miles past the last rest stop. We could’ve just as soon done without them.

The broth for the Black contains dehydrated beef stock and anchovies in addition to the “beef extract” and “beef fat” that flavors the standard version, creating a more subtle, balanced broth. It’s heartier, but also milder. If you’re looking for more of a salt and spice punch, the standard packet is the way to go.

SHIN CUP NOODLE SOUP ($.47/OUNCE)

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The overall loser, the Shin Cup had both the thinnest, harshest broth, as well as super-thin, soggy noodles that are very similar in texture to those you’d find in other cup brands like Nissin’s Cup Noodles. The dehydrated vegetables were also the smallest—little bits of scallion, hot pepper, and shiitake mushroom add a bit of interest, but not much. As far as instant soups go, we wouldn’t kick this one out of bed, but we wouldn’t feel the need to put on a new shirt before meeting it at a bar either. Even if we’d spilled some ramen on the old one.

SHIN CUP BLACK PREMIUM NOODLE SOUP ($.89/OUNCE)

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A big step up in noodle and broth quality from its less premium cousin. The label on the top of the box claims that the Shin Black Cup is “Spicy Pot-Au-Feu Flavor,” though an examination of the ingredients doesn’t reveal anything special as far as unique flavorings go. Like the Black packet version, the Black Cup has a creamier, milder broth with a more “real” flavor, though this guy doesn’t have the dehydrated beef chips you’ll find in the packet version. No big loss.

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at@thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.

Shin Ramyun Noodle is available to purchase at SFMart.com

This article is originally posted on Serious Eats

Health Benefits of Black Sesame Seeds

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Health Benefits of Black Sesame Seeds

Overview

Sesame seeds are so nutritious that you might not want to wait until your next visit to the bakery to eat the few that top your bagel. Sesame seeds are an excellent source of many essential minerals as well as a very good source of vitamin B1 (thiamin) and dietary fiber. The nutrients found in sesame seeds may contribute to cardiovascular health, reduce inflammation, support respiratory health, protect against colon cancer and osteoporosis as well as other conditions. Depending upon the variety, sesame seeds come in many different colors, including white, yellow, black and red.

Many Major Minerals

Black sesame seeds are an excellent source of magnesium and calcium. A 1/4 cup serving of provides 126 mg of magnesium, or 32 percent of the Recommended Daily Value (DV), and 351 mg of calcium (35 percent of the DV). That’s slightly more than you find in a cup of milk, however, the calcium is located in the hull of the seeds, so hulled versions offer much less calcium.

Magnesium and calcium are important essential minerals that help regulate blood pressure, reduce the likelihood of developing tension and migraine headaches (triggered by blood vessel spasms), reduce the occurrence of airway spasms in asthmatics and regulate sleep patterns, especially in women suffering from menopause-induced sleep disturbances.

Essential Trace Minerals

A 1/4 cup serving of black sesame seeds provides almost 1.5 milligrams (mg), or 74 percent of the DV, for the trace mineral copper, and 2.8 mg (about 19 percent of the DV) for zinc. These minerals are needed in very small quantities, but are essential for human health. Copper plays a role in the anti-inflammatory process which is beneficial for reducing some of the swelling and pain characteristic of inflammatory diseases. Copper also is needed to activate an enzyme necessary for building collagen and elastin, which provide structure and elasticity to bones and joints.

Low dietary intakes of the trace mineral zinc (low circulating levels in the bloodstream) is associated with a depressed immune system as well as loss of bone and decreased bone density of the hip and spine. Consuming zinc-rich foods, such as black sesame seeds, reduces the risk of suffering from bone fractures caused by reduced bone density (common among the elderly) or osteoporosis. Optimal zinc intake may reduce the frequency and length of the common cold because it keeps the immune system healthy.

Tiny Cholesterol Fighters

Black sesame seeds help lower serum cholesterol levels (which contributes to cardiovascular health) in several ways. They contain two unique substances known as sesamin and sesamolin. These substances belong to a group of fibers called lignans (flaxseeds are another rich source of lignans). Lignans are rich in dietary fiber and have a cholesterol-lowering effect.

Black sesame seeds are rich in phytosterols. Phytosterols are plant compounds very similar in structure (chemical) to cholesterol. Consuming more dietary phytosterols not only decreases blood cholesterol levels but reduces the risk of developing certain types of cancer. Sesame seeds offer the highest phytosterol content (400 to 413 mg per 100 grams or 3.5 ounces) of all nuts and seeds.

Organic Black Sesame Seeds is available to purchase at SFMart.com

This article is originally posted on LIVESTRONG.COM

NYC Guide to Koreatown’s Best Food

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Korean BBQ, soon tofu, hot stone bowls, and ho-dduk…it’s hard to pick just one favorite when talking about Korean cuisine. Fortunately, New York City’s Koreatown has them all for you, and then some! Rounded up below are our top five picks for dining in NYC’s Koreatown, so if you find yourself in the neighborhood, be sure to bring an appetite.

Best of NYC Koreatown: BCD Tofu House

BCD Tofu House

While BCD Tofu House has a decently sized Korean menu, it’s the soon tofu that you come here to order. BCD offers ten unique soon tofu dishes that include traditional Korean options such as kimchi, dumpling, and soybean paste and more diverse seafood options with shrimp, clam, and oyster. The restaurant is also loved for their soon tofu combo deals that include your choice of spicy pork, spicy BBQ chicken, spicy raw crab, Atka mackerel, and other entrees accompanied by the Assorted Soon Tofu (beef, shrimp, clam). 5W 32nd St., 212-967-1900, bcdtofu.com

Best of NYC Koreatown: Woorijip Authentic Korean Food

Woorijip

Open until two and three in the morning, Monday through Saturday, Woorijip Authentic Korean Food will not let you down if you’re looking for some late-night grub. You’ll find just about every traditional Korean dish here, from kimchi fried rice and abalone porridge to fried flat fish and rolled egg pancakes. It’s hard to beat the prices here, and the self-service atmosphere makes for a quick grab and go experience that is perfect for when you’re on the move. 12 W. 32nd St., 212-244-1115, woorijipny.com

Best of NYC Koreatown: miss KOREA BBQ

Miss Korea BBQ

All of the dishes at miss KOREA BBQ have been delicately crafted by renowned Korean food consultant Chef Sun Kyu Lee, and you can taste it in everything from the signature clay pot galbi’s flavor (marinated for over 48 hours) to the black pork belly entrée and organic tofu soup starter. Of course, you can’t come here and not order Korean Barbecue, which you cook to your own liking at your own table. Meat combos can be ordered so that you can enjoy beef short rib, spicy pork belly, chicken, and the like all in one go. 10 W. 32nd St., 212-736-3232, misskoreabbq.com 

Best of NYC Koreatown: Hangawi

Hangawi

Hangawi describes itself as “a vegetarian shrine in another place and time”, and with its traditional shoes-off, floor-seating setup, you can bet that it’s just that. Don’t let the vegetarian menu scare you off if you’re a meat-lover, because you’ll be missing out if you do. The rice and vermicelli noodle stone bowls are filled with the likes of spicy kimchi, avocado, gingko nuts, and ginger, providing you with all the flavor you could ever ask for. The Mushroom Sizzler in a Hot Pot and Spicy Rice Cakes are also local favorites. 12 E. 32nd St., 212-213-0077, hangawirestaurant.com

Best of NYC Koreatown: Grace Street

Grace Street

If you’re grabbing dinner in Koreatown, always leave some room for Grace Street. This Korean coffee and bakeshop is always bustling, and there are a few things on the menu that are must-tries. The Ho-Dduk is one of them, a Korean donut that is made from soft, pillow-like dough filled with melted brown sugar, chopped walnuts, and cinnamon. Grace Street is also well known for their Shave Snow, which comes in Green Tea, Toasted Black Sesame, and other rotating flavors. 17 W. 32nd St.

This article is originally posted on NYC’s Original City Guide