Recipe #3: Raspberry Fig-Date-Almond-Chia-Oat Dessert Balls

This tasty dessert is full of nutrient-dense foods that will leave you feeling full without the sugary rush and/or sluggishness of conventional desserts.  It is "nearly" raw (figs and dates are dried above 115F), and contains germinated grains, seeds, and nuts as protein sources that can help moderate blood-sugar impact of the dried fruit.  Fresh fruit can be added for taste complexity, however too much can alter the texture of the final product after freezing because of the water content.  I only use raspberries as an example, but any fruit can be used.

Equipment

• Food Processor (12 cups)
• Freezer
• Coffee Grinder (if using flax)
• Dehydrator (optional)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup chia seeds (or flax)
• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup shelled hemp seeds
• 1 cup unpearled buckwheat or 1 cup rolled or sprouted oats
• ~20 dates (2 cups) - (vary for sweetness)
• 6-10 (1 1/2 cup) unsulfured figs
• 1 cup/package fresh organic raspberries
• 1 cup almonds
• 2 cups shredded coconut
• 2 tsp allspice (optional)
• 3 freshly ground cloves (optional)

Directions

Preparing Ingredients:

1. 8 hours prior to making the dessert, put almonds in a bowl and cover with filtered water.  After 8 hours of soaking, strain and rinse thoroughly with water.  If a crunchier texture is desired, start 16 hours before processing and allow 8+ hours for dehydration at 115F.
2. Soak buckwheat for 1 hour, then rinse thoroughly until the water runs clear.  Optionally dehydrate the buckwheat for 8+ hours  at 115F for a crunchier texture with minimal nutrition loss.
3. If using fresh, whole coconut, shave and dry at 115F, starting 8 hours before moist mix preparation.
4. Soak sesame seeds and quinoa for 8-12 hours, then rinse thoroughly and optionally dry before processing.

Moist Mix Preparation:

1. In a 12-cup food processor add fresh fruit and puree.
2. Add the allspice and cloves (optional), mix briefly
3. Add soaked almonds, seeds, grains, and oats and chop finely
4. Add figs then dates one at a time with the food processor running.
5. Add chia seeds slowly while processing.  Stop occasionally and mix manually with a knife or spoon if mixing appears incomplete.

Final Processing:

1. Fill the bottom of a small bowl with 1/2 inch of coconut shreds
2. Spoon 1/2 oz spoonfuls (any size, really) into your (clean) hand and roll them into balls.  Roll them in the coconut shreds until evenly covered, careful not to crush the coconut into the ball while handling.
3. Stack balls on a plate or in a bowl and place in the freezer covered in foil or with a lid and allow to sit for at least 2 hours, ideally 8 hours or more.

Variations

• Skip straight to the moist mix preparation if you don't use soaked nuts, seeds, grains, etc.  Rolled oats and hemp--both available dry--will help balance the dessert but at reduced nutritional density as compared to the full recipe above.
• Non-sorbate prunes or raisins or any dried fruit of similar consistency can be added instead of figs.
• Adding 1/4 of a medium-sized beet just after the fruit will give them a fiber boost and a color change.
• Adding a small amount of highly concentrated water kefir or other probiotic blend and/or plant-derived digestive enzymes just after the fresh fruit will help maximize bioavailability of the nutrient content.

Top 20+ Dietary Risks Facing America: Applying the 80-20 Rule for Better Health

The Law of the Vital Few

There exists an engineering and scientific principle, really more of an observation, that 80% of problems arise from 20% of the causes, and also 80% of rewards come from 20% of the time spent.  A few examples: 20% of patients incur 80% of healthcare costs, 80% of manufacturing errors occur in 20% of car parts, 20% of citizens own 80% of the land, and 80% of diet-related health problems result from 20% of the food ingredients consumed.  It is called the Pareto principle (after the Itallian economist Vilfredo Pareto), the 80-20 rule, or the principle of factor sparsity, and it applies to a wide variety of natural and artificial systems--including ecosystems, electrical and computer systems, software, biological systems, and more.

The reasons for the disproportionality of return to investment are that not all factors are equally influential on the outcome of events and causes in complex systems nearly always contribute to multiple effects and tend to "clump" with overlapping effects.  When applied to a dietary system for example, this means a relatively moderate set of fundamental changes to dietary intake can result in a greatly improved profile of both monitored and unmonitored health-related physiological parameters, with improvements disproportionate to the cost of changes made.  Likewise, 80% of waste can be reduced by changing 20% of the most wasteful practices.


Which 20%?

The 80-20 rule comes with a caveat, however; it is important to identify which factors under your control are most fundamental so that the cost-to-benefit ratio can be minimized.  Microsoft and Apple have a host of often very expensive tools for this purpose, including quality control monitoring, customer feedback, beta testers, expert reviews, error reports, etc, so they know exactly where to concentrate their efforts.  At home with limited resources, an individual must rely on other organizations or groups of individuals to perform this function in the form of published literature from reputable organizations.  Enough nutritional literature exists, overlapping in enough areas, that is is possible to establish a list of basic food nutritional problems and identify the most fundamental 20% that are likely complicit in 80% of healthcare costs resulting from dietary deficiencies (upwards of $300 billion/year in the US alone according to the NIH, not including lost productivity due to diet-related diseases and disorders).


Top 20+ Risks Posed by the American Diet

Below in order of approximate relative severity of impact are a couple dozen dietary factors that I believe are most important concerning individual health.  Many of these factors are interrelated, forming a web in a may-dimensional space when connected with relevant nutritional parameters, and when improved in combination with one another, they can result synergistic improvement of multiple regulatory systems relevant to overall health and well-being.

Minimizing all of these causes of diet-related disease within practical limitations using all resources available represents 100% effort.  By reducing some, others will be reduced by association, so efforts to improve naturally result in compounded benefits.  The principle is self-similar, so addressing the most fundamental 20% of the remainder of problems always brings you 80% closer to maximum benefit, regardless of the absolute amount of factors left to improve.  The first handful (5-6) is a reasonable representation of the 20% most problematic causes.

1. Excessive Consumption of Biologically Costly Foods
2. Genetically Modified Foods: [1]
3. Nutritionally Sparse Foods
4. Lack of Diversity (Particularly of Raw Foods)
5. Too Few Prebiotics and Probiotics
6. Animal-Based Foods
7. Refined Foods
8. Excessive Use of Hydrogenated and Saturated Oils
9. Large Portions / Overconsumption
10. Excessive Use of Concentrated Sugars
11. Excessive Salt
12. Excessive Fat
13. Excessive Use of Wheat
14. Too Few Antioxidants
15. Partial and Unbalanced Foods
16. Not Enough Fiber
17. Unsustainable Foods
18. Overcooked Foods
19. Use of Isolated Vitamins and Supplements
20. Excessive Ingestion of Insecticides, Herbicides, and Fungicides
21. Food and Water Contamination by Heavy Metals
22. Excessive Intake of Man-Made Contaminants
23. Packaged Foods
24. Artificial Additives and Sweeteners
25. Lack of Processing Alternatives to Heating

Inefficient Changes

Many changes are in fact only perceived changes because they don't effect output physiological parameters with much, if any, cost efficiency.  This is mainly because they represent changes mediated by a large number of products with small variations along a very few dimensions of formulation, such as the many varieties of a single flavor of juice or canned soup, each set with very similar but slightly different nutritional or flavor profiles and none of which are fully optimized to maximize health benefits.  Many of these changes are induced by fads or marketing and often fail to demonstrate a justification for the additional cost.  These may not be completely without merit, but they are not among the most cost-effective dietary improvements.  Additionally, they may simply exchange real health risks in an effort to minimize perceived risk (e.g. diet soft drinks).  Examples of perceived dietary improvements with very mild or adverse effects on overall health:

• Changing to organic dairy
• Changing from refined salt to unrefined sea salt or Himalayan salt
• Drinking commercial vitamin water
• Eating soy cheese instead of dairy cheese on some sandwiches
• Replacing all meat and dairy with soy
• Reducing salt intake from 5000mg to 4500mg daily
• Changing brands of isolated vitamin formulations
• Eating 6 turkey burgers rather than 6 porkchops
• Drinking diet soft drinks instead of regular
• Using Splenda, Equal, or "raw" sugar rather than sugar
• Switching to organic potato chips
• Choosing a product with 20% less sugar or fat