This is an incredibly long, incredibly interesting read. Definitely recommend it! It takes a lot of studies that have come out recently and tries to patch them into something cohesive.

I can tell you the exact date that I began to think of myself in the first-person plural — as a superorganism, that is, rather than a plain old individual human being. It happened on March 7. That’s when I opened my e-mail to find a huge, processor-choking file of charts and raw data from a laboratory located at the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. As part of a new citizen-science initiative called the American Gut project, the lab sequenced my microbiome — that is, the genes not of “me,” exactly, but of the several hundred microbial species with whom I share this body. These bacteria, which number around 100 trillion, are living (and dying) right now on the surface of my skin, on my tongue and deep in the coils of my intestines, where the largest contingent of them will be found, a pound or two of microbes together forming a vast, largely uncharted interior wilderness that scientists are just beginning to map.

I clicked open a file called Taxa Tables, and a colorful bar chart popped up on my screen. Each bar represented a sample taken (with a swab) from my skin, mouth and feces. For purposes of comparison, these were juxtaposed with bars representing the microbiomes of about 100 “average” Americans previously sequenced.

Here were the names of the hundreds of bacterial species that call me home. In sheer numbers, these microbes and their genes dwarf us. It turns out that we are only 10 percent human: for every human cell that is intrinsic to our body, there are about 10 resident microbes — including commensals (generally harmless freeloaders) and mutualists (favor traders) and, in only a tiny number of cases, pathogens. To the extent that we are bearers of genetic information, more than 99 percent of it is microbial. And it appears increasingly likely that this “second genome,” as it is sometimes called, exerts an influence on our health as great and possibly even greater than the genes we inherit from our parents. But while your inherited genes are more or less fixed, it may be possible to reshape, even cultivate, your second genome.

Justin Sonnenburg, a microbiologist at Stanford, suggests that we would do well to begin regarding the human body as “an elaborate vessel optimized for the growth and spread of our microbial inhabitants.” This humbling new way of thinking about the self has large implications for human and microbial health, which turn out to be inextricably linked. Disorders in our internal ecosystem — a loss of diversity, say, or a proliferation of the “wrong” kind of microbes — may predispose us to obesity and a whole range of chronic diseases, as well as some infections. “Fecal transplants,” which involve installing a healthy person’s microbiota into a sick person’s gut, have been shown to effectively treat an antibiotic-resistant intestinal pathogen named C. difficile, which kills 14,000 Americans each year. (Researchers use the word “microbiota” to refer to all the microbes in a community and “microbiome” to refer to their collective genes.) We’ve known for a few years that obese mice transplanted with the intestinal community of lean mice lose weight and vice versa. (We don’t know why.) A similar experiment was performed recently on humans by researchers in the Netherlands: when the contents of a lean donor’s microbiota were transferred to the guts of male patients with metabolic syndrome, the researchers found striking improvements in the recipients’ sensitivity to insulin, an important marker for metabolic health. Somehow, the gut microbes were influencing the patients’ metabolisms.

via Say Hello to the 100 Trillion Bacteria That Make Up Your Microbiome – NYTimes.com.

Ginger. Leeks. Chili Peppers. Brazilian Refogado.

What do these things have in common? They are all aromatic vegetables that can be used to bring enhanced flavor to soups, sauces, stews and almost any kind of recipe.

Aromatics deliver deep, delicious flavor and aroma when crushed or heated. Other aromatics include garlic, onions, shallots, scallions, carrots, celery, peppers, parsnips and many more.

The best part of aromatics is that they add flavor without the use of unhealthy fat, sugar or salt.

Don’t underestimate the nutritional value of aromatic vegetables. Here are just a few examples of aromatics that can benefit both your recipes and your health:

Scallions can be used raw in grain or potato salads and salsas or cooked in pastas, stir-fry dishes or omelets, provide fiber, potassium and vitamin A.

Pungent, delicious garlic can actually reduce the risk of stomach colorectal and prostate cancers.

You can grill leeks in pasta dishes, and they are the main ingredient in vichyssoise soup. They are also a natural source of inulin — a soluble fiber — and provide vitamin A and C, folate and manganese.

Ginger is rich in antioxidants and believed to reduce nausea and symptoms of vertigo. It also provides vitamin C, magnesium and potassium and rocks an unmistakable savory flavor in many types of dishes.

Celery can be used as a crunchy low-calorie snack or a substantial ingredient in soups and salads. It provides Vitamin A, C and K and potassium, as well as quercetin — a flavonoid with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and heart-protecting properties.

Here are some tips for the use of aromatics in your recipes.

- Always use fresh aromatics for the best, freshest flavor and texture.

- Let the taste and aroma of these vegetables work. Don’t weigh down your recipe by cooking them in fats and oils. Saute or sweat them in small amounts of oil, broth, juice or water.

You can sweat vegetables by cooking them in a tightly covered pot. The vegetables will soften without browning.

- Chop veggies for even cooking, making sure heartier ones — like carrots and parsnips — are cut smaller so that they can cook through at the same rate as onions and garlic.

Barbara Parks is a registered dietitian at Saint Vincent Health Center.via Aromatics: A healthy alternative to fat, sugar and salt | GoErie.com/Erie Times-News.

By DAVID KESMODELand OWEN FLETCHER

CLOVER, Va.—Prodded by the largest U.S. hummus maker, farmers in the heart of tobacco country are trying to grow chickpeas, an improbable move that reflects booming demand for hummus.

The humble chickpea is having a heyday. But while demand for chickpeas and hummus is high, farmers are preparing themselves for a potential shortage. David Kesmodel has details. Photo: AP.

Sabra Dipping Co., a joint venture of PepsiCo Inc. PEP -0.30% and Israel’s Strauss Group Ltd., wants to cultivate a commercial crop in Virginia to reduce its dependence on the legume’s main U.S. growing region—the Pacific Northwest—and to identify new chickpea varieties for its dips and spreads.

For Sabra, which makes hummus at a plant near Richmond, Va., a secondary source of supplies could help protect the company if a chickpea shortage occurred because of crop failures in Washington or Idaho. Sourcing chickpeas locally also would lower its shipping costs. But the Virginia effort carries risk, because experts say the state’s high summer humidity could prove a significant obstacle to its viability.

“We need to establish the supply chain to meet our growing demand,” says Sabra’s chief technology officer, Tulin Tuzel. “We want to reduce the risk of bad weather or concentration in one region. If possible, we also want to expand the growing seasons.”

Long a staple of Middle Eastern cuisine, hummus is earning a growing following among Americans seeking more-healthful snacks. The chickpea dip is low in fat and high in protein. Sales of “refrigerated flavored spreads”—a segment dominated by hummus—totaled $530 million at U.S. food retailers last year, up 11% from a year earlier and a 25% jump over 2010, according to market-research firm Information Resources Inc.

Related Video: Hummus Recipe

Watch Denize Hazime of the popular online series “Dede’s Mediterranean Kitchen” share her recipe for hummus.

The growth has caught the attention of big food companies like PepsiCo, which bought a 50% stake in Sabra in 2008, and Kraft Foods Group Inc., KRFT -0.73% which owns Athenos, another big hummus brand. Sabra on Tuesday is expected to announce an $86 million expansion of its hummus plant near Richmond to help meet demand. It expects to add 140 jobs to the facility, which currently employs about 360, over the next few years.

Sabra doesn’t disclose financial data, but IRI data show its hummus sales were about $315 million last year, up about 18%. And because some retailers, including Costco Wholesale Corp., COST -0.53% don’t provide information to IRI, the figures understate Sabra’s retail sales.

Sabra, based in White Plains, N.Y., has helped introduce more Americans to hummus through huge sampling events in major cities in which it has handed out 10,000 2-ounce packages a day. Sabra began its first national television advertising campaign earlier this year.

“Most of the consumers out there still don’t know what hummus is,” said Adam Carr, chief executive of Tribe Mediterranean Foods Inc., a Sabra rival. “We think that there are going to be lots of new users coming to the category.”

Growing demand for hummus has pushed up prices for chickpeas, spurring farmers to increase production. The average price that farmers received for chickpeas was 35 cents a pound last year, a 10-cent increase over the mid-2000s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Though chickpeas are a tiny crop compared with corn or wheat, last year’s U.S. harvest totaled a record 332 million pounds, up 51% from the previous year, according to the USDA. The value of the U.S. chickpea crop hit a record $115.5 million last year, USDA data show.

Enlarge Image

David Kesmodel/The Wall Street Journal

Last year’s U.S. chickpea harvest jumped 51% from the previous year. Above, Virginia farmer James Brown is testing the legume.

U.S. farmers are expected to plant a record 214,300 acres of chickpeas this year, up 3% from last year and a fivefold increase over a decade ago, the USDA said. Demand for the U.S. crop from Spain, Turkey and Pakistan also has led farmers to plant more.

In Walla Walla, Wash., farmer Pat McConnell, 51, said he intends this spring to plant about 950 acres with chickpeas, more than double his crop last year. “They’ve become a pretty lucrative option,” he said. “I really think chickpeas are going to continue to grow in popularity.”

Virginia officials are eager to develop new crops in a state where tobacco farming has shrunk dramatically since the 1990s because of declining cigarette sales.

Sabra has provided financial support for chickpea research at Virginia State University, and this spring, Virginia State recruited farmers to plant chickpeas in on-farm trials.

But Virginia’s summer humidity and heat could make chickpeas more susceptible to a fungus known as Ascochyta blight that long has threatened chickpea crops in the U.S.

Virginia State University agronomist Harbans Bhardwaj is working on identifying a variety more suited to the climate, that could potentially be planted months earlier than most chickpeas. Mr. Bhardwaj thinks Virginia farmers may be able to grow the crop on a commercial scale within three years.

James Brown, a 72-year-old tobacco, corn and soybean farmer in Clover, Va., said he knew nothing about chickpeas when an extension agent from Virginia State called him several months ago and asked if he would plant the legume.

He said he jumped at the opportunity because he is looking for ways to make his roughly 300-acre farm more profitable.

Mr. Brown planted four acres with chickpeas in mid-April. That week, his wife served him the first chickpeas he’d ever eaten. “They tasted pretty good,” the farmer said.

via Hummus Is Conquering America – WSJ.com.