Tel Aviv University students join Paul McCartney’s and Yoko Ono’s international effort to raise awareness about the impact of meat on our health and environment. [Photo credit: Erez Katsav] A couple of weeks ago, Tel Aviv University students joined others at Harvard, Oxford, Columbia, and many other universities worldwide in a campaign – Meat Free […]
A totally redundant and ungreen invention automates Middle East meat cutting. We were fooled by Grist yesterday and the news that McDonald’s meals won’t compost for 1,000 years, but this meat-cutting robot, a donor-robo looks like no joke. Designed by Turkish engineers, your Middle East street meat will never be the same, boast developers of […]
New disturbing news about the McDonald restaurant chains that have found themselves in practically every Middle Eastern country except for Syria and Iran: With plans to set up a worldwide composting program, the Mc-company canned its plans after learning that its food scraps simply will not decompose. Well, not for the next 500 or 1,000 […]
The end of the line of the bluefin tuna in Japan? A Doha, Qatar conference proposes a ban on fishing. The verdict: defeat for the ban and the tuna. At the recent CITES Agreement conference in Doha Qatar, a proposal to ban commercial fishing for the Atlantic bluefin tuna, a prized delicacy in Japan, was […]
Imported garlic looks beautiful, but locally grown is healthier. Contaminated garlic from China was a scandal in the late 1990s and up till 2009. Fueled by anger over tainted pet food, toothpaste, and medicines from China, health-conscious consumers were outraged at the huge quantities of cheap Chinese garlic that were being “dumped” – sold for […]
Shrimps aren’t haram for Muslims, and are tasty for a lot of people in the Middle East. But are they safe to eat if they’re bought from China or Thailand? A new Saudi project comes to light. The imported fish and seafood industry: shrimp, prawns, and various species of both fresh and salt water fish […]
Miriam continues the fourth part of her series on medicinal herbs from the Middle East. To keep things simple for this series, we’re only considering the medicinal properties of dried seasonings. (See parts I, II, and III here on Green Prophet.) Some herbs don’t amount to much when dried. Basil, parsley, and coriander leaf, for […]
Hungry? Run on down to your local shuk and get yourself a butternut squash. Butternut squash is still in season. Try stuffing it with quinoa, the seed that the pre-Columbian Native Americans called “mother of the grains.” With its nutty taste and high nutritional protein levels (not to mention amino acids and minerals), quinoa’s a […]
A new study finds that smokers tend to have lower IQs. If you live in the Middle East, like I do, you’ll notice one of the most irritating habits you can’t escape is smoking. Cigarettes, pot, hookah pipe. Either you fight it or join them – something I did after being a virgin non-smoker for […]
With all the time we spend in bed, it behooves us to make sure they are safe as well as comfortable. Our pillows can do more than cradle and support heads and necks. Use the wrong kind, and they can make you toss and turn in your sleep. That is why this post is dedicated […]
Kitchen spices as medicine are a green way to get a useful, and always on hand supply, when you need it. Choose organic when you can. This is the third post in a series on medicinal spices. You can read Part I and Part II by following the above links. If you’re a Green Prophet, you […]
You won’t be able to keep these halvah-like cookies around for long. And they couldn’t be simpler to make. We never thought to use tehina (or tehini as you might know it) in baking, but this recipe produces the most meltingly delicious cookies you can imagine. If you’re looking for ways to use up your […]
Poussins stuffed with pine nuts, Middle-Eastern spices and rice bring roast chicken to a higher level. A poussin is nothing more than a baby chicken, under a month old and hardly bigger than a man’s fist. Each one makes a serving. They’re very good grilled or stuffed and roasted quickly. We love to serve them […]
Dried galingal root is a Middle East spice great for nausea and flatulence. In Mama Nazima’s Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine, author Rivka Goldman mentions that her mother cooked soup to help invalids regain strength. Well, all the recipes involve spices: curry, black or red pepper, turmeric, ginger, cloves, and cumin. Mama Nazima, with her rich fund of […]
In the Middle East, aromatic traditional foods are regarded as medicine. Soup made with basil and thyme warms the body. Traditional Moroccan mint tea, or tea with a sprig of wormwood in it, aid digestion after a rich meal. Arab grandmothers well know the value of za’atar as a cough remedy. Food well-seasoned with spices […]
A variety of healthy, homemade, organic spreads and olives at Cafe Louise in Haifa. Israel has no shortage of organic cuisine. From LovEAT café in Tel Aviv to Mizpe Hayamim in the Galilee and Negev Nectars in the south, this country is chock-full of good organic eatin’. And here’s one more to add to the […]
New Tel Aviv University research investigates anti-fungal agents in the sticky “pitchers” of carnivorous plants. Biomimicry at its best. In the tropics, carnivorous plants trap unsuspecting prey in a cavity filled with liquid known as a “pitcher.” The moment insects like flies, ants and beetles fall into a pitcher, the plant’s enzymes are activated and […]
Organic Foods & Cafe, an organic supermarket and cafe in Dubai, brings a range of organic products to the United Arab Emirates and defines part of its mission as “furthering learning about what is healthy for us and our world and environment around us and promote it.” The supermarket attempts to create a welcoming and […]
Eggplant seems an unlikely soup ingredient. But blended with vegetable stock, herbs, and cream, the shiny purple vegetable makes a creamy soup full of Middle-Eastern flavors. Now is when eggplant is coming into season in the Middle East. In any market there’s a table piled high with long purple-black eggplants, round eggplants, ridged eggplants, purple […]
Need another reason to eat organic? Or at least pesticide-free? In a study to be published this month, Israeli researchers examining the prevalence of Parkinson’s disease in the Wadi Ara communities in northern Israel found an unusually high prevalence of the disease in Baqa al-Gharbiyeh. Baqa al-Gharbiyeh, an Arab community, has an incidence of 73.39 […]
There’s really no better way to get to know someone than by sitting down and sharing a meal. Sarah Melamed, plant biologist and naturalist, aims to make those connections happen by recreating recipes from all over the Middle East and the Mediterranean on her eclectic blog, Foodbridge. In multicultural Israel, where Melamed lives, every kitchen offers […]
How can you be sure that bacteria are not festering in your food? Dangerous pathogens like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and chemical contaminants are responsible for more than 76 million food-borne illnesses a year in the US alone, according to the Center for Disease Control. Bacteria, viruses and toxins thrive on food that is undercooked, […]
IsraWinexpo 2010 opened last night to journalists, critics, and wine industry representatives. The exhibition opens to the public today and tomorrow, Feb. 10-11, from 16:00 -22:00 hours. It takes place at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Center. Green Prophet attended. Glass in hand, we circulated between the attractive, well-organized stands, which were staffed by friendly, knowledgeable […]
Fresh za’atar at Ramla Open-Air Market Chef Moshe Basson created this pungent, chunky pesto in just a few minutes, right under our eyes. Za’atar (Arabic: زعتر, also romanized as zaatar, za’tar, zatar, zatr, zahatar or satar) is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the genera oregano, calamintha, thyme, and […]
Chef Basson makes za’atar pesto Moshe Basson’s culinary roots stretch back through time from 200 CE, when the collection of Jewish oral law known as the Mishnah began to take shape – to the Jewish presence in Iraq, where his family lived till the 1950s – to the present time in Jerusalem. He takes his […]