#carnosol

Water soluble rosemary extract (rosmarinic acid): mainly used in fresh-keeping processing of aquatic products, natural pigments, oral liquid, shower gel, shampoo, beverages, wines and transparent packaged foods.

Beet Chips With Rosemary and Sea Salt and rice wine vinegar make a super healthy snack.

Beet Chips are a tasty, crunchy nutritious snack, rich in  cell protective cancer fighting super antioxidants.  Rosemary not only adds flavor but also contains carnosol, a potent phytochemical widely studied for its impact on cancer cells.  The aromatic oil in rosemary leaves also enhances digestion.

Beet pigments are  rich in healing plant chemicals called  betanins and  betalains which have a positive effect on inflammation and also enhances the vitally important Phase Two detoxification function in the liver, allowing you to process and get rid of toxic chemicals and properly detoxify your own hormones, including estrogen. That is why beet juice is part of so many healthy detox plans. You will also find betalains in the stems of red chard and red rhubarb. Cancer cells exposed to beets in the lab demonstrate lower levels of pro-inflammatory molecules including COX-1 and COX-2.  Cancer both thrives in and produces inflammation, so controlling inflammation is crucial.  Betalains also appear to slow down the growth of tumor cells in the lab.  The effects of beet pigments have been studied for their effects on cells from breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and stomach cancer cells.

Rosemary  not only adds flavor  and enhances digestion but also contains cancer fighting carnosol.  According to the National Cancer Institute  carnosol is “a promising anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory agent….and has been studied in breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer. ”

Vegan, Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Heart Healthy, Diabetes Friendly

Four Servings

Ingredients

2 large  organic beets very thinly sliced using a mandolin, a food processor or a very sharp knife

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, stems removed, finely chopped

1 Tablespoon Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Rice  WIne Vinegar (usually found in the Asian Food section) or  Organic White Wine Vinegar

Preparation

Heat oven to 375′ F

Place sliced beets in a stainless steel or enamel ware pot

Cover the beets with rice vinegar

Bring to a boil, immediately turn off the heat, allow to steep for 15 minutes and drain thoroughly

Put the beets in a large bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon of oilve oil until evenly and lightly coated

Place the beets evenly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper

Bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp and just slightly brown

Remove from oven

Sprinkle with sea salt and rosemary

Variations

Use both red beets and golden beets.  Be sure to cook them separately so you get both deep purple and bright orange chips

Try this same recipe with finely sliced carrots or yams

If you like your chips  a bit spicy sprinkle sparingly with ground cayenne pepper or black pepper

Instead of Rosemary sprinkle with Chinese Five Spice Powder or Cumin Powder

Serve  Beet Chips with

Pam’s Homemade Humus (vegan and  dairy free ) or

Roasted Garlic Yoghurt Dip (contains dairy)

or both!

It's the well-tailored blazer of your kitchen. It's classic, timeless and goes with practically anything. And when you use it to garnish a dish with one of those fragrant springs, you know you feel just a little fancy. But, as you've probably come to expect from this blog, there are some interesting biochemical secrets that rosemary is keeping. Trust me: you'll be glad you always have some on hand.

And you do always have some on hand, right? I know I'm mostly about science and not so much about cooking advice, but seriously people, there is no excuse to not have fresh rosemary on hand at all times in your kitchen. It's ridiculously hardy, so next time you buy one of those $4 plastic cartons in the produce aisle because you need half a teaspoon, pop the rest in a ziplock and keep it in your freezer. Much nicer than those dried up old pine-needle-flakes you get in a jar.

A big part of rosemary, about 20%, is camphor. It's the aromatic compound that makes rosemary smell vaguely like pine trees; that almost medicinal smell. That's because camphor has been used in various medical applications since about the 9th Century. You're probably most familiar with it nowadays as the active ingredient in Vicks VapoRub (along with menthol). On the skin, it produces a slight cooling feeling, and has mild antimicrobial and anesthetic (numbing) properties. That also makes it a clever ingredient for topical anti-itch creams.

Even though it's found in much smaller quantities (1.5%-2.5%), the real power-player in rosemary is carnosic acid. It's a potent antioxidant and antimicrobial, which makes it a key component of health and beauty products like toothpaste, mouthwash and gum, where it kills the bacteria that cause bad breath. Applied to your skin, it can even protect you against UV-A radiation.

But it doesn't stop at making you kissably fresh. Carnosic acid is also a powerful anti-inflammatory (something that reduces swelling). A study in rats, published just this month, found that carnosic acid (and its chemical relative carnosol) measurably reduced swelling in the ear tissue. To better understand how the carnosic acid was working, they did genetic testing and found that it was actually suppressing the COX-2 enzyme (like popular drugs Naproxen, Celebrex and Vioxx. Oooh. Well, maybe Vioxx isn't quite so popular anymore). It also suppresses IL-1β (a protein responsible for inflammation), TNF-α (another inflammatory protein, this one linked to cancer) and leukocyte infiltration (a rush of white blood cells to the inflamed area).

Speaking of cancer, a (very) preliminary review of papers on the "Mediterranean Diet" and the incidence of cancer suggests that the carnosol in rosemary (obviously a common Mediterranean herb) shows promise as an anti-cancer agent because it is well-tolerated (and delicious!) in humans, and selectively targets cancer cells while leaving healthy ones alone.

You would think that after soothing your cold symptoms, prepping you for a makeout session, reducing inflammation, protecting you from cancer and making the perfect roast chicken, rosemary would take a break. But no.

When the carnosic acid from rosemary is oxidized (ironic for an antioxidant, but it happens), it becomes electrophilic. This means it can soak up free electrons that may be floating around. One place you really don't want that happening is in your brain. Those electrons can do some damage up in there, leading to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Syndrome. It appears that in your brain, carnosic acid actually binds to proteins in your neurons (brain cells) to help shield them against damage. And on the way up there, it helps protect your brain's blood vessels from damage that can cause aneurysms and stroke.

Who would have suspected that rosemary, rarely involved in anything more controversial than a pork tenderloin, could be implicated in cutting-edge medical research? The more I continue to blog and research for you guys, the more I'm amazed at what I'm turning up about the most innocuous ingredients.