(This post was originally published on June 30, 2008, and recently appeared on The New York Times’s list of most-viewed stories for 2009.)

Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren’t. But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren’t always available at regular grocery stores. I asked Dr. Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts. Here’s his advice.

Link to full article: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ent-eating/?em

Make years I have not ate Beet and I don't like Sardines.....

All the rest is really cool

lol, I often buy Beets... for my horse

He missed Broccoli

Well, it's "food you aren't eating". Probably assume most people, by now, are eating broccoli to some extent.

Gotta get up quick to catch you out

Welcome to the Forum

yea beets are hard for me to really like to eat. not my thing, but i really love beet and carrot juice- so i guess i'll be drinking more of that.
i find that the veggies i'm not that fond of taste better in juice with carrots or apples.

borscht!
beets in salad!

I think most North Americans are getting through at least a kilo of cinnamon a week. It's hard to escape the stuff in the US.

Plenty of cabbage being eaten in Switzerland too . . .

This is a rather good, ultra-simple cabbage recipe:

Stuffed cabbage in the troo style

i was force fed that russian salad crap when i was younger and now, yucky.

and honestly i don't know what borscht is!

ok, googled it. borscht, no thank you.

but why does it state frozen blueberries and canned pumpkin? isn't it better to have both fresh?

I eat seven out of those 11 but I wouldn't consider myself to be particularly healthy.

Perhaps it has something to do with the chocolate, cheese, eggs, chips etc.

It might be a good idea if there was also a list of 11 Worst Foods that we are eating but shouldn't

Good stuff. Must make an effort to eat more pumpkin seeds and Swiss chard.

One good way to eat sardines is to cook it with sliced onions in a tangy, spicy 'Assam Laksa' soup with rice noodles. Another way is to saute it in a bit of olive oil with soy sauce, onion, garlic and cubed tomatoes; eat it with rice.

The thing about the pumpkin and the blueberries, and to a large extent the pomegranate juice - those are hard to get year round fresh, so that's why I guess he suggests you have canned, frozen and a pomegranate is always an enterprise to eat, so juiced is just more convenient.

Do they sell pumpkin seeds in these parts? Aside from late October, I haven't seen pumpkin around either, though I know I could order it canned online if I was really motivated (ha).

I haven't seen pumpkin seeds, although I've roasted my own. Not a success. And I didn't see pumpkin for a long time, but just last week I bought a pumpkin at the Bern farmer's market - I think it was pretty much the end of the season, but it was one of those greenish skinned pumpkins that's really sweet inside... kombucha or something. You can also substitute butternut squash, I imagine, if that's available.

The wifey just bought a chunk of pumpkin yesterday at Manor I think. Made a brilliant soup! (I chopped it, she worked the magic.)

i don't know what borscht recipe you're looking at but it's nothing like my wife's. Her version is very clean (i.e. after years of marriage I got her away from her sour cream and mayonnaise upbringing. )

Yeah, Manor has pumpkin, it comes with seeds still inside, if you dry them you can pop them open and roast them to garnish your pumpkin dish.

Soup:
Fry finely chopped onion and garlic on a spoon of oil, add clean and cubed pumkin a few mins later, bring to boil. Season with a bit of cummin, curry or mild garam masala, salt and a tad of sugar and lemon juice, I don't go overboard with spices so one can taste the warm carotene flavor of pumkin. Blend in a blender or use a stick musher, serve with a swirl of cream. My favorite winter soup. One can use the leftover next day for some curry dish or veggie stew.

The other healthy soup is BORSCH, love it. I love the beets in it, the three types of meat and all the veggies and cream, makes me homesick for home and my Ukrainian skating partner I used to cook it with. Pickled beets is lovely in salads.

An easy way to eat seeds without feeling like a rodent is having it in the morning in a plain youghurt and a bit of honey, it is so tasty that I am surprised how healthy it is. I eat sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax and pumkin, they come in nice fresh bags of it in Manor, bio. Last me good part of the year.

But can one still consider it borscht without all the good stuff??

I had some version of it when I was visiting some relatives in Latvia ("no we are not Russians!") and it was pretty tasty. I remember lots of veggies in it, maybe a bit of sausage or something. And the sour cream.