Ever notice all the ads for diabetes medicine?

Do you think it's as scary as I do?

It's become a dark cloud over all of us.

But does it have to be?

Nope, not if we cook to prevent and manage it.

Wait, what?

We can do that?

We sure can and I'll show you how as we go Back to the Cutting Board today on Christina Cooks.

(soft music) ♪ (announcer) Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties, sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by Old Yankee Cutting Boards, designed for durability and custom crafted by hand with Yankee pride and craftsmanship.

Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by: ♪ Hi, I'm Christina Pirello and this is Christina Cooks, where each week, we take fresh, seasonal ingredients and whip them up into amazing dishes.

Will they all be plant-based?

Yeah.

Will they all be fabulous?

Yeah.

So let's get started.

We need to talk, right?

Diabetes has become much more than an epidemic.

We call it a lifestyle disease but it's more like an industry.

And if it's a lifestyle disease, doesn't that mean it's caused by your... lifestyle?

So wouldn't it mean you could change it, reverse it, treat it, manage it with your... lifestyle?

Now we're not talking Type 1 here.

Type 1 is a disease that comes with you by birth, it's an autoimmune disorder, I get it.

But Type 2 is about 90% preventable and about 90% treatable and reversible.

So stay with me.

What do you think causes diabetes?

Uh, is it sugar?

No.

Is it carbohydrates?

No.

Is it fruit?

No again.

What causes it is saturated fat.

Saturated fat clogs the cell membranes, preventing them from uptaking sugar from the blood, resulting in glucose levels that are off the charts.

Does sugar and simple carbohydrate aggravate it?

Yeah!

So must you avoid them?

Yes.

But should you avoid all carbs?

Probably not.

So I guess the question would be, what role does diet play in controlling, treating, reversing, preventing Type 2 diabetes?

A huge role.

If you don't change your diet, you will never manage it.

Yes, there are other factors, I get all of that, but if you don't alter your diet and move toward plant-based eating, it's gonna be really challenging for you to handle diabetes.

So this first recipe has very simple ingredients, there's no excuse not to make it, and it could really change the course of your condition in preventing, treating, reversing, and managing diabetes.

If you don't have diabetes, this is not the time for you to sorta like change the channel because you could be one of the 110 million people who are pre-diabetic.

About a third of the country is either pre-diabetic or diabetic.

So you might want to pay attention.

This is a really simple soup, it's a consommé which means that it's brothy, it's not a lot of ingredients, and it's very easy to make and very easy to eat.

This is a daikon.

A daikon is a long, white root vegetable that tastes like a radish but it's really high in fiber and contains compounds that metabolize fat.

So it's a really good idea since the root cause of diabetes is fat.

So we're gonna take-- we have water in this pot that we're bringing to a boil and we're gonna take the daikon and we're gonna cut it into thick, round pieces.

A small daikon like this is a bit sweeter than a big one.

And then you're just gonna take the tip of your knife and cut little score marks crosswise, like a crossword puzzle, in each little piece of daikon.

What this does is open the daikon up so it cooks really quickly.

This soup cooks in under ten minutes.

I'm kinda making it so you kinda have no excuse, get it, to not take care of yourself.

So now you've got the little score marks in your daikon and that can go into the soup.

This is the thing that takes the longest to cook.

So the next thing to go in are shiitake mushrooms, and we have dried shiitake and shiitake mushrooms that have been reconstituted.

You can use fresh in this recipe but they won't have the impact on your wellness, particularly with diabetes, that the dried ones do.

So invest in them and get them.

Underneath the cap of the shiitake mushroom, you have spores that contain something called b-glucans and b-glucans can help to control blood sugar.

They also boost immunity, lower cholesterol, treat prostate and breast cancer, reduce high blood pressure, they contain eight amino acids and linoleic acid.

They are amazing.

They'll wax your car.

They don't.

So we're gonna take these soaked shiitake, you wanna get them tender, and you're gonna take them out of the water but don't throw the water away.

And I usually take the stems off and you wanna take the stems off not because there's anything wrong with them.

Shiitakes don't grow in dirt or organic matter, they actually grow on logs.

So it's not like they have to be washed, but the dried ones, by removing the liquid, concentrate their healing properties.

But you wanna keep the water because the water will add a nice mushroom flavor to your broth.

So that'll go right into our boiling water.

And then the second to last ingredient is kombu.

Kombu is a sea vegetable that has a very mild flavor but is really high in keratin which is the protein that makes up your hair, but it also helps the body to break down fat.

So again, very good if you're struggling with diabetes or trying to prevent or control it.

And we're just gonna take and cut little rib marks in this piece of kombu.

This is gonna come out of the soup, you're not actually gonna serve this.

We're just gonna let it put all of its goodness and minerals into the soup.

Then, final thing... you're gonna season it with organic soy sauce and you're gonna pour it into your soup, depending on your volume of water, until it looks like the color of dark beer.

Then cover it, bring it down to a simmer, and this is gonna cook for seven to ten minutes.

Well, that was quick.

So now we have our soup and all we have to do is get it into a bowl and eat it.

This will be your first course.

Some people like this as a snack because it's very satisfying.

You wanna make sure you get some shiitake and daikon into each bowl that you bowl with this.

Don't worry about getting the kombu.

You can eat it if you like to but not everybody does like to.

A nice little serving and you garnish it, as usual with soup, with nice fresh scallions or parsley to help to create a nice fresh, uplifting energy and this will start you on your path to wellness.

♪ -Can a vegetable be a fruit?

-A fruit can be a vegetable.

What?

It can be both?

What happens if you swallow the seeds?

(unintelligible) -I don't get it.

-I am so confused.

♪ (Christina) There's a lot of confusion around plant-based eating.

Vegan, vegetarian, do I eat fish, not eat fish?

What's healthy?

What's not healthy?

So I thought I would bring in my friend and expert vegan chef, Rich Landau, who owns Vedge Restaurant in Philadelphia along with V Street and Fancy Radish in DC.

His résumé reads like a Russian novel.

We've known each other-- hi, Rich-- for 25 years.

-Yeah, ever since we were two.

-Ever since we were two, very good.

And like, one of the things I want to ask you about, first off, is when people switch to a plant-based diet, they often talk about what they are leaving behind, what they are giving up, instead of seeing it as a new adventure.

And you speak so beautifully about the process of the food to your plate and I kinda want you to have that conversation with me yet again.

(Rich) Yeah.

You know, it's so funny because, you know, a lot of people think vegan restaurants and a lot of 'em-- it becomes this apology.

Let's pile in all this food and put a million garnishes on and give 'em a side of pasta and all these mashed potatoes.

You gotta stop apologizing for what's not on the plate 'cause what is on the plate, if it's cooked well... -Is amazing.

-is absolutely amazing.

-Right.

-You know, great food is about flavor, it's not about flesh.

And a great cook can make vegetables taste amazing.

And it's what chefs did to meat that made it taste so good, so if they did the same thing to vegetables, you know, it opens up a whole new door.

When I was growing up, I saw a little segment on Sesame Street about this little girl going out to visit a garden, -Mrs. Wilson's Garden-- -Mrs. Wilson's Garden.

-Yeah, you remember it?

-Yeah!

(Rich) And they picked the vegetables and brought them into the kitchen, washed them off, lightly cooked them, and ate them and I said, "That's a beautiful process."

And, you know, they always say, "You are what you eat," I'm like, well, we consume that process as well and I found that to be beautiful.

But they didn't show any meat, so I asked my dad, "Well, how-- what's the process for meat?"

and when he explained that, I said, "That's not so beautiful."

and I found that most people could go to a garden and pick vegetables but if they did want to get meat on the plate, it's a process that most of us would not want to partake in.

(Christina) No, and my dad was a butcher, you know, and he used to say the worst thing in his life was watching me eat meat at the table.

He said I was born without the DNA to eat meat.

Maybe that's true, I don't know, but I remember when we were kids, my father's 6'2", Irish, you know, all muscle from slinging sides of beef or whatever they are around, and he got a job to make a lot of money for the time in a slaughterhouse.

And there's a reason the slaughterhouses are so far removed from the population.

He came back within an hour and sat at the table, all 6'2" of him, weeping that he couldn't do it.

And that was the nail in the coffin for me.

I was like, that's it, this seems so awful, so horrible, and for me as a kid, even a teenager, I couldn't see what was the difference between eating a cow but we looked at cultures that ate a dog or a goat as barbaric, and I thought, this is barbaric, watching my brother, you know, tear turkey off the turkey leg.

I would be like-- (imitates gagging) So it's kinda like the process was always traumatizing for me even though I never actually watched it happen.

So from that, I kinda want to move to the accountability that we all have.

I mean, we all feel personal accountability to the planet and there's a reason that Native Americans said you think seven generations ahead, of what we're leaving them, but there's also an accountability in our business.

(Rich) Absolutely.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I think chefs-- I'm not here to ever tell a chef what to cook, what to do.

I do what I do, I put it on the plate, that's my art, that's how I talk to people is through our art.

And hey, if it touches you, moves you, that's great.

If it was just a great meal, then thank you and that's wonderful.

But I do worry about the accountability some chefs aren't taking when it comes down to vegetables.

For instance, it's May, it's, you know-- let's just say it's May and we have beautiful asparagus in.

We've waited all year for it, it's perfect.

-We love it.

-You don't even need salt.

I mean, and it's just so perfect the way it is.

So when you see someone doing a cooking show and they say, "We have some beautiful asparagus, let's put some butter and bacon on it," and the audience just erupts in applause, we're sending the wrong messages to a society plagued with diabetes and heart disease and obesity that we've taken something so simple and beautiful and had to make it unhealthy to be attractive.

(Christina) Thank you, my friend.

-It was a pleasure to have you.

-Absolutely my pleasure.

Okay, don't be so confused.

♪ So I know what you're thinking as you look down at the cutting board.

"Wait, this is a show about preventing and treating diabetes and she has squash on the cutting board?

Isn't squash a sweet, starchy vegetable that we're not supposed to eat?"

Wrong.

Winter squash is rich in something called polysaccharides which actually help to control blood sugar.

That, along with vitamin C and fiber, make them the ideal food to manage and treat diabetes while at the same time helping to satisfy your sweet tooth by relaxing what we call in Chinese medicine your middle organs-- spleen, pancreas, and stomach.

When these organs are relaxed and open, you don't crave sweets which are detrimental to your condition.

You can actually help to balance.

Now, don't get too excited.

You're not gonna wake up in the morning after you have squash and go, "Pfft, dessert, what was I thinking?"

But you won't have apple pie chasing you down the turnpike in your dreams.

You will actually be able to control your cravings for sweets.

So this is a winter squash.

This is called a kabocha, it has green skin, orange flesh, and lots of seeds inside.

They also have orange skin with orange flesh, you can use butternut.

I find that this one has the sweetest flavor and cooks up with the nicest texture.

Do not--do not--peel it because this peel has vitamin C, there's no need to peel it, it gets nice and tender, and look at the work I just saved you.

Once again, no excuses.

When you don't use a whole squash, which you probably won't because they're gigantic, make sure you take all the seeds out so that the squash doesn't go sour.

Put it in a plastic produce bag, you'll get one or two weeks out of it in the fridge.

So what does nishime mean?

Nishime means, in Japanese, "waterless cooking" and you'll see what I mean with that.

So what we do is, you're gonna take a sauce pan where you can layer, and you're gonna take a small piece of kombu which has fiber and minerals that help to tenderize vegetables and that's gonna go into the bottom of the pot.

Doesn't really flavor it and it doesn't add a lot of salt so settle down.

And then we'll take a shiitake mushroom, a dried shiitake mushroom, save this little bit of water.

The shiitake mushroom is also gonna help to tenderize the veggies and flavor the dish.

The next thing to go in are nice, thick onion wedges and these will cook up to be super, super sweet.

This kind of size of cooking is what you do in the wintertime.

In the summer, if you want to make a dish that's this kind of a stew, you would make the onions and even the squash in smaller pieces.

On top of this goes the squash.

By layering the veggies like this, what you create is a dish that nourishes this middle part of the body and kinda puts the fire in the fireplace.

Now goes in this little tiny amount of mushroom cooking water.

A little bit of mirin, which is optional.

Mirin is a Japanese cooking condiment made from sake and because it's made from rice it doesn't produce acid in the digestion the way, like, sherry made from fruit does.

If you don't want to use it, you can use apple juice, but mirin will give this a nice sort of full-bodied sweet taste.

And then, a tiny pinch of salt which'll start the vegetables releasing their moisture.

Now the key to this dish is that the vegetables don't fall apart and look like mush.

So what you do is you put it up over a medium-low flame and let the boil slowly, slowly build.

If you do this on a high boil, you're making pâté.

Which is fine, you can spread it on bread, but if you want a stew, you have to cook it slowly, slowly, slowly.

And midway through cooking, season it with a little soy sauce.

This dish will take about 20 to 25 to 35 minutes depending on the size and hardness of your squash and as soon as it's knife tender it's ready to go.

So we're gonna let this cook and you'll see how lovely it looks and how sweet it'll be.

♪ This is how you split a winter squash.

First of all, when you buy them, very often you see these little dry pieces on there.

If you want to, just go in and remove them.

They just don't make a great mouthfeel.

If you don't want to, it's also fine.

All right, take your knife and you lay it next to the stem and push down and pull toward you.

You need a sharp knife.

Then you go on the other side of the stem and you do the same thing.

And now you can break the squash open.

I never said it would be easy.

But if you want to eat winter squash, this is what you have to do.

So your squash falls open and that's it.

Now, when you go to store it, because it's unlikely you will use the whole squash in a meal, take the seeds out of both sides so that your squash stays fresher longer.

♪ So you're thinking, "What do we do about dessert?

I mean, we talked about sweet squash," which we're gonna get back to, "but what about dessert?

I mean, I love dessert."

I love dessert too.

We're gonna get to that, but first we're gonna finish up our nishime.

So what you wanna do is turn your nishime off when it's ready.

And the squash is nice and tender.

Now when it's to the tenderness that you like, which is just about sort of knife tender, the onions are nice and caramelized color.

You see how the vegetables still have their shape though?

It didn't turn into mush.

This dish will be so satisfying for you, you'll lose your mind over it.

And I mean you'll lose your mind over it.

You'll be making this so often that you'll forget everything else ever existed.

So that's our squash.

I'll be back to you later, sweetheart.

Okay, so now we're gonna work with baked apples and you're thinking, "Wait a minute, apples?!

Fruit?!"

Yes, with diabetes, fruit can actually be your friend if it's an apple.

Apples contain pectin, pectin is a soluble fiber known to lower blood sugar.

How 'bout that?

And we're gonna bake them, which gentles the sugars, and we're gonna add a few things to it that balance it even more.

So you're gonna take your apples.

I like to use Fujis or Macs or, you know, something that's a more sturdy apple so it holds up to the cooking.

And you're gonna shave the side of each apple just so that it can lay flat.

So it doesn't wobble around in the dish.

Now you can also bake apples whole but honestly, they're huge, that's a huge dessert.

So dessert should be reasonable.

You know, remember, we talked about, many, many times, that dessert should be about three bites.

After three bites, you don't really taste the sugar anymore, so you wanna keep your dessert intake to about three bites.

Now you take a sort of pointed spoon.

Sometimes I use an apple corer but if you don't have one, just use a spoon, you can use a grapefruit spoon, and you're gonna take all of the seeds and the core out of the apple and you're gonna lay them flat in the dish.

And a baking dish like this, which is like a 9x9 will hold about five halves.

So this is five servings of dessert.

And yes, you can make these once and freeze them and then have them when you're ready for dessert.

Make sure you get all the pits out.

Now I know some people eat the pits and the core and everything.

The pits can be a little bit bitter so if you wanna eat them go ahead, but if you don't, you can plant some apple trees.

I don't know.

So once you have your apples cored like this, now we're gonna create a filling to go into the apples so that they're really satisfying, really richly flavored, but also help to balance your blood sugar.

We're gonna take some golden raisins... which are really high in sulfurs so they're anti-inflammatory.

We're gonna take some powdered ginger which will stimulate circulation which is really good for blood and help to lower blood sugar.

And powdered ginger works best here, fresh ginger not so much.

Some shredded coconut which I'm not really sure does a whole lot for your diabetes but man, is it satisfying in these apples so they'll help you to eat less.

Some pecans because nuts give us fiber, protein, and fat that help to balance blood sugar because you're satisfied longer with less.

Then we're gonna take some orange and lemon.

Now we're gonna grate the zest.

When you are using fruit that you're gonna grate the zest, please buy organic, please.

So spend those extra pennies and get yourself some organic citrus if you're gonna use the zest.

(soft scraping) So a little bit of orange, a little lemon.

And what this'll do is help to balance the sweetness of the fruit, help to balance the fat and the protein in the nuts, help you to digest the dessert.

So again, it's win-win-win-win-win-win when you understand what it's like to put your ingredients together.

So now we'll take a little bit of brown rice syrup, just enough to sort of make this goopy.

That is a technical kitchen term that you must learn if you're to cook with me.

Tiny bit of salt to make it sweet.

And then... we mix it up.

(scraping, tapping) And you just want to mix it until it's sticky and holds together and all of the nuts and the raisins and the coconut are a little bit sort of coated with it.

Then you take and you dollop each apple, making sure you get it down into that little hole where you put the core.

Right, you took the core out and you kinda made a little cavern.

Put that in.

And you can pile some of this on top, it doesn't have to totally or only fill the little opening.

You wanna create a lot of richness so that when people eat this dessert they're really satisfied with it.

So make sure your apples are well covered with this stuffing.

And if you're doing them whole, then make sure you get really down in the core so that the whole apple is filled.

Then, we're gonna take a little dollop for each apple of some fruit-sweetened apricot preserves.

Now apricot preserves, like orange marmalade, very similarly has a little bit of a tang to it, so rather than just add sweetness like a sugary syrup would, this is gonna help to balance the sweet flavor of this dessert with a little bit of sour tang at the end.

Then, we have a little bit of apple juice, olive oil, and a tiny bit of rice syrup and this is just gonna be ladled over the apples so that they stay very tender and moist while they bake.

You kinda put this over top.

You can either come back and put all of this in or you can create a tiny little sort of shallow pool under the apples and then baste them as they bake.

But I kinda like to do it once and be done.

Like I've said many, many times, I'm pretty lazy.

So if you have the time, these go in the oven uncovered for about an hour until the apples are fork tender and all of the topping has melted and browned and they're ready to eat.

If you don't have time, cover them with foil for 15 minutes, then uncover and cook them for ten minutes more.

So I'm gonna take these to the oven and I'll be right back.

♪ So after about an hour, this is how they look.

Matt, come in here and just show everybody how the topping has melted, the apples are tender.

I mean, you can really-- they're falling apart.

They're so beautiful and soft.

These will be-- and the topping got a little bit crunchy.

This is perfection.

So as I dive into these apples, what are you waiting for?

Let's get Back to the Cutting Board and I'll see you next time on Christina Cooks.

♪ Mm.

♪ ♪ (announcer) Underwriting for Christina Cooks is provided by Suzanne's Specialties, offering a full line of alternative vegan and organic sweeteners and toppings.

Suzanne's Specialties, sweetness the way Mother Nature intended.

♪ Additional funding is also provided by Old Yankee Cutting Boards, designed for durability and custom crafted by hand with Yankee pride and craftsmanship.

Jonathan's Spoons, individually handcrafted from cherry wood, each designed with your hand and purpose in mind.

Additional funding is also provided by: You can find today's recipes and learn more by visiting our website at ChristinaCooks.com and by following Christina on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The companion cookbook, "Back to the Cutting Board," takes you on a journey to re-engage with the soul of cooking.

With more than 100 plant-based recipes, finding the joy in cooking has never been simpler.

To order your copy for $20 plus handling, call 800-266-5815.

Add Christina's iconic book, "Cooking the Whole Foods Way," with 500 delicious plant-based recipes.

To order both books for $39.95 plus handling, call 800-266-5815.

♪