Healthy?

 A glam and modern plating of a traditional Persian / Iranian dish.  Please don't call it healthy.  (It is, by the way.) Just call it delicious.

There have been sad losses over the last few months. I begin to understand that one can be slim, trim, energetic, positive, clever and still get Parkinson’s, die of cancer or have a stroke.  One can smoke heavily, drink cola, eat fast food, avoid fresh water, watch Channel 7, be a grumpy bugger and live well into your late eighties and beyond.
 
But what an incredible apparatus is the body! It continues to detox our system (with our wonderful liver) without any outside "juiced" intervention, keeps us laughing, moving, thinking.

Nonetheless, people continue to be obsessed by "health",  filling their lives with fear, ritual and self-denial. I am involved in an on-line forum answering questions on food, cooking and ingredients, which is fuelling my cynicism. For some reason, I have been chosen and channelled over to the "nut-case" and lunatic fringe of so-called "health". Ah, how little they know me! 

See below a random selection of questions. I am choosing to abandon my involvement rather than wait for them to ban me for my  sarcastic responses.

• Would my health improve if I drank a cup of olive oil every day for five years?
• How unhealthy does a salad have to be before you can no longer legitimately call it a salad? 
• Is pizza healthy if I just eat the toppings & cheese and throw out the crust? 
• Can you eat very unhealthy and then eat fruit to cancel it out?
• Is canned spray cheese gluten free?
• What are good ways to sneak more vegetables into your diet?
• What personal health benefits have you experienced from kimchi juice? 
• Is it true you can get sick from eating fish and an orange at the same time?
• Is it true that eating star fruit can damage your kidneys? 
• Does eating a rock cause hardening of the arteries? Salt is a rock, not a fruit, vegetable or plant. People who do not eat salt, do not get hardening of the arteries. 
• How much exercising is safe while on a 3 day fast? 
• ​What are the pros and cons of an all smoothie diet?
• How many calories are in the average blueberry ( 6-9mm in diameter/ or 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch)?

They're selling Turmeric Lattes in Woolworths, for heaven's sake! Perhaps a mug might calm me down after my kale, kombuchu & chia smoothie.***
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​That said, you may be feeling a depletion of energy or health. You might need a genuine and massive ingestion of leaf greens. Try Kuku Sabzi, below.

Kuku Sabzi
(What is a bunch? A bunch of violets or a bunch of peonies?  Impossible to measure recipe quantities like this.  So I’ve done the hard work for you and weighed.)
 
200 gm silver beet, washed and trimmed of some part of stalk bottom. 
60 gm spring onion, finely sliced, green included
20 gm dill, main stalks only removed
60 gm coriander, main stalks only removed
60 gm parsley, main stalks only removed
2 tsbp ground turmeric
teaspoon of salt
6 eggs
 
You are aiming finally for roughly 500 gm.

• Trim the herbs of the tough centre stalks but no need to “go to the wire”.  Because of the fine chopping, you can leave some stalk.
• I’ve measured  - more accurate than “bunches”. The mixture is variable, and depends on what you have. 
• Whisk the eggs and pour onto the chopped herbs.  Add the turmeric and salt.
• Arrange in a buttered tin, about 20 cm diametre
• Bake in the oven about 25 minutes at 175˚C
• To serve, decorate with walnut halves and slice.

 
Purists may be horrified but I got help with the chopping – a bit of a short whiz in the Magimix, then finished by hand, chopped with a knife.
Mine were also cooked in 12 individual muffin tins and served on a creamy bed of walnut sauce and cucumber.

​***Disclaimer - I never drink from a mug.

Traditional serving  - cut into slices (note how a circle is cut in the centre).
Served at room temperature, perfect for a party or buffet.
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Now, you know how Popeye got his strength.

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