Monday, June 15, 2015
I feel that nature recently gave me a massive download of
understanding. I’d like to relate the
experience, as well as the information (with recipes!).
Last week, as I gazed upon a meal I was consuming, the
thought that scallions must have a lot of silicon in them crossed my mind. Scallions have a shiny, waxy finish, and are
thin tubes that must resist winds that want to push them over, all attributes
of plants with a lot of silicon – bamboo, whole grains, and asparagus, for
example. The skins of root vegetables
can be silicon-rich, too, such as onions with their shiny sheaths. That’s what led me to think there must be a
generous amount of silicon in scallions, and sure enough, the internet did confirm
that onions, therefore scallions, are high in silicon. Anyway, the thought passed through my mind,
and I shortly forgot about it.
A week or so later, at another meal, my girlfriend Gina
mentioned that she liked the way the restaurant’s chef had prepared the
escarole we were sharing, because she or he had taken the time to make sure the
stems were soft. Gina mentioned that
she’d read that the soft parts of leaves have more nutrients than the hard
parts. I had an immediate intuitive hit
that this was not true, it was that the nutrients were different, and the two
parts of leafy plants had to be prepared in a manner reflecting those differing
mineral profiles. The stems needed more processing, in this case cooking with
heat, in order to make their nutrients bio-available. I got that this was because stems would tend
to have more silicon, and silicon requires extra processing.
Silicon is a mineral central to the production of healthy,
glossy hair, skin, nails and strong bones.
When we are born we have oodles of silicon, as our bodies will need to
grow bones, skin and hair many times more massive than that of the body we
arrive in. This is one reason why
children and young people have beautiful skin, hair and nails. As we age, unless we take care to replace it,
the store of silicon becomes depleted, wrinkles develop in our skin, and our
hair and nails become thinner and more brittle.
The possibility of broken bones increases.
Bones, when made into mineral broth, take a long cooking
time to get out all the nutrients, one of which is silicon. That’s why stems, which actually look a
little like bones, and perform a similar function, would require additional processing,
or cooking. By ‘stems’ I mean the edible
parts of vegetables that have thick, fleshy uprights – think of the supporting
structures of Swiss chard, broccoli, and collards. I do not mean the inedible supporting parts
of plants, say, tomato stems, or the woody stems of something like sage.
Here’s a French tip on cooking greens and stems, hence the
recipe part of this paper: Separate the stems from the dark, soft parts of the
leaves, and then make a separate dish by stewing the stems in some water with
sun-dried tomatoes, onions, and capers. This
little stew is really delicious. I know
that silicon is best absorbed when in the presence of salt, and the capers add that
salt. Interestingly, onions are in there
too, making this stew very rich in silicon. It’s great to have a second dish to make from
a mess of greens. The cooking time is a
little longer than the soft, darker part of the leaves, so plan accordingly if
you wish to serve them together.
So, Nature communicated by setting up a scenario in which I
thought about silicon in scallions, and then followed through a week later with
a bigger, more developed package of information: greens; stems; cooking with more heat; bones;
silicon. The permutations just kept
pouring out of me – I had to write them down.
Not a bad bonus for a couple of meals.
