Monday, July 11, 2011

Super Easy Superfood Sundae

I’ve been hearing the phrase “superfood” tossed around a lot recently, and obviously it has made me curious. Why, I asked myself, would I waste my time nomming on mediocre, everyday food when I could be ingesting super food? With, I presumed, super powers?

I did some digging around online and discovered that (surprise!) a lot of so-called “superfoods” are vegan. I also discovered that their super powers are limited to lowering cholesterol and inflammation, helping arthritis, preventing osteoporosis, and reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer (there might be some other things, too).

…so they can’t turn invisible? Bummer.

Finding out about superfoods’ pretty disappointing super powers made me grumpy. Good thing one of their other lame super powers is improving your mood.

You know what else would improve my mood? Eating a sundae for breakfast. So I decided to layer all my super ingredients in a sundae dish. Here are the superfoods I used (and what’s so super about them):

Walnuts: omega 3s, monosaturated fats
Blueberries: antioxidants, phytoflavinoids, vitamin C, potassium
Oranges: vitamin C, folic acid, potassium
Oats: fiber, protein, magnesium, potassium
Açaí: antioxidants, monounsaturated oleic acid
Ground flax seed: omega 3s, monosaturated fats

I was working with frozen Sambazon açaí juice; a better choice would have been to use their little packets of açaí pulp, but I didn’t have any. First, I cooked the oats and mixed in the ground flax seed. Then I began layering the ingredients in the sundae dish.

I started with a little açaí (it had the texture of shaved ice), then put in the orange slices, then a layer of hot oatmeal/flax seed, then more açaí, then a handful of blueberries. I topped the sundae off with walnuts. It looked like this:

I wanted to take this photo in natural lighting, like all fancy food photos are taken, so I went outside on my parents’ deck. Unfortunately, it was about 90 degrees outside, so the frozen açaí melted immediately and it all started looking pretty messy. If only açaí had the powers of Mister Freeze.

But it tasted great! (Of course, it’s possible I only think that because those sneaky superfoods improved my mood.) It's awesome that these foods that taste so yummy and seem like a treat are good for you. In fact, it's pretty super.

3 comments:

  1. HAHAHA I wish super foods made me invisible too... But regardless, they are super tasty and it's just an awesome added bonus to know they are good for you too. Thanks!

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  2. I would like to get the super power to fly from super foods. Why? I do it in my dreams all the time and I love it. I just take off and fly like Superman. When I do it in my dreams, it makes me high!

    Also I would not need to pollute the air with a car that uses expensive gasoline.

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  3. Chuck: I totally agree - and I can fly in my dreams, too! But it doesn't make me high, really. Usually it's to get away from some evil dream people :)

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