Cold season aproacheth

I haven't done much with this blog, have I? Sorry! (Who am I apologizing to? Does anyone even read this?) In all honestly, I'm not much of a cook and there's only so much you can write about trying not to burn the chicken while microwaving frozen vegetables.

But then I got a cold and I thought that saying something about cold remedies that won't mess with one's allergies might be a good idea.

So here it is. Tea.

Herbal tea, specifically. The Altivia and Traditional Medicinals brands, even more specifically. No added flavorings, just herbs and whatever you'd call things like licorice root and cherry bark. My own 'nuclear option' cold remedy consists of about five different herbal blends steeped in a glass of water for about fifteen minutes. I'm told it smells bad enough to kill so I don't recommend it for people with a working olfactory system. Still, there are some pretty good teas out there for colds, and they taste pretty good even without adding honey. Do recommend adding honey, though. It's great for colds. If you have allergies to any particular plants, you might want to get a brand of honey that specifies which flowers it's been made from.

Oh, and mullein tea with warm milk and honey is wonderful. Not sure how milk counts as part of an herbal remedy, and if you can't drink milk than you can leave it out, but dang if it doesn't feel good going down! And mullein is a traditional cold remedy. Kinda makes me want to head for the highway and dig up a couple plants to keep.

Tofu, the plant equivalent to meat?

Almost two years ago I had the pleasure of visiting a sushi parlor in Washington, DC. There I had, among other things, inarizushi. I loved it. Later I found that one of the primary ingredients is tofu. That's okay for me, since I'm fine with soy products, but it did mean I wouldn't be able to share that taste with certain members of my family.

Anyway, that was the first time I'd ever had tofu. The second time was yesterday, when I tried adding it to some stir fry. It was weird stuff but I was assured that it had just as much protein as meat and was a lot healthier. So why was I craving a steak afterward?

I decided to do some checking, after all, one can't simply take these claims of health value on word alone.

For complete transparency, I'm using figures from Nutrition Data for both samples.

Sample 1: 100 grams of MORI-NU Tofu, silken, firm
Sample 2: 100 grams of ground beef 70% lean meat/30% fat, patty cooked, pan-broiled

I'm using ground beef because that's the sort of meat I'm most often able to afford, besides liver.

A zero means that there may be some in there but the amount is too small. A tilde (this thing ~ ) means that the substance isn't in the sample at all.

Fat
Sample 1: 3g Sample 2: 16g

Cholesterol
Sample 1: 0mg Sample 2: 78mg

Sodium
Sample 1: 36mg Sample 2: 92mg

Carbs
Sample 1: 2g Sample 2: 0g

So far tofu seems to be winning, at least by contemporary standards of health. But what about protein and other nutrients?

Protein
Sample 1: 6.9g Sample 2: 22.9g

Vitamin K
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 2.8mcg

Thiamin
Sample 1: .1mg Sample 2: 0mg

Riboflavin
Sample 1: 0mg Sample 2: .2mg

Niacin
Sample 1: .2mg Sample 2: 5mg

Vitamin B6
Sample 1: 0mg Sample 2: .3mg

Folate
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 10mcg

Vitamin B12
Sample 1: 0mcg Sample 2: 2.4mcg

Pantothenic Acid
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: .6mg

Choline
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 76.6mg

Betaine
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 9.9mg

Calcium
Sample 1: 32mg Sample 2: 37mg

Iron
Sample 1: 1mg Sample 2: 2.4mg

Magnesium
Sample 1: 27mg Sample 2: 20mg

Phosphorus
Sample 1: 90mg Sample 2: 194mg

Potassium
Sample 1: 194mg Sample 2: 308mg

Zinc
Sample 1: .6mg Sample 2: 5.8mg

Copper
Sample 1: .2mg Sample 2: .1mg

Selenium
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 19.2mcg

Fluoride
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 22.4mcg

In short, I think I'm going to be sticking to real burger.