Protein (eggs, beans, fish)

“Natto, miso and tofu are the daily soy of the Japanese table. Miso is fermented soy and salt. Bridge: one bowl a day, thick with vegetables, tofu and wakame.”

“Goya (bitter melon, Momordica charantia). Summer vegetable in goya champuru (stir-fry with tofu, egg, a little pork) and juice. Its bitterness is the point: ryoyaku wa kuchi ni nigashi, good medicine tastes bitter, said with a smile.”

“Laurel (bay leaf). In the lentils and the stew, a leaf in the infusion for a heavy stomach. Take the leaf out before serving.”

“Boter, olie, tandpasta, bloem, eiwit. Never: they trap heat and dirt. Oma said it plainly: butter on a burn, never.”

“Onion (Allium cepa). Ceapă, crni luk. The whole plant boiled into Baba's syrup. Red onion skins dye the Easter eggs. Onion on the chest or in a sock, the old way: harmless.”

“The red thread. Sourced among Roma at Ederlezi: the Burgudjii decorate a Holy Saturday candle with red thread, nettles and grass and keep the first red Easter egg. Outside Ederlezi her notes have no Roma source for it. Never round a baby's neck or wrist.”

“A home way: rinse one cup of mung beans, add about eight cups of water, bring to the boil, then simmer 30 to 45 minutes until the beans burst open. Drink the broth warm or cooled and eat the beans too. Some families sweeten it with rock sugar, which is still sugar.”

“Add-ins the tradition uses: Chinese yam in small cubes, lotus seeds, or adzuki beans (soaked first), cooked along with the rice. Job's tears with barley and adzuki for damp weather.”

“Food for old age. Warm, regular, enough. Soups, porridge, soft cooked vegetables, beans and lentils, eggs, dairy if it suits you, bread, rice. Many older people eat too little, and Dutch health advice stresses enough protein for older people. Many older people also feel less thirst and drink too little: a warm drink at fixed times helps. Ask the GP about vitamin D, which Dutch guidance advises extra for older people. "At my age the problem is not eating too much. It is forgetting to eat at all, because the tea is more interesting."”

“Rice, dal and vegetables: the everyday food of exile in India. "In Tibet we ate barley. In India we learned lentils. The lentils were very welcome."”

“Ash-e reshteh. Beans (chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils), a great deal of chopped herbs (parsley, coriander, dill, spinach or other greens), reshteh noodles, finished with kashk, fried onions and mint warmed in oil (typical home practice). It is cooked for Nowruz, for Sizdah Bedar, on the eve of Chaharshanbe Suri and in winter, often in pots big enough to share with neighbours and passers-by. Its noodles are said to symbolise life's many paths. Farzana: "When you eat reshteh at Nowruz, you are taking hold of the threads of the new year."”

“Baghali polo. Very cold broad beans and cold rice, balanced with a great deal of hot dill. Often with lamb, another garm partner. One line: anyone with G6PD deficiency (favism) avoids broad beans, the condition takes its name from them.”

“The six on one plate. A Kerala meal holds all six without trying: rice and coconut for sweet, tamarind, kudampuli and buttermilk for sour, salt, pepper, ginger and chilli for pungent, bitter gourd or fenugreek for bitter, raw banana and lentils for astringent. "A sadya is Charaka's table of tastes on a banana leaf." (The keralakitchen skill set holds the sadya.)”

“How it is made, as the inventory describes it. The beans are roasted over a charcoal kanun in a qallaya pan, until the smoke fills the yard. They are pounded in a funduk, a mortar decorated with metal discs that rattle, so the whole street hears that coffee is coming. The coffee is boiled in a sharaghragh, then brewed in the jabana itself, the clay flask that gives the drink its name. Ginger, cinnamon or cardamom go in when the guest asks. Cloves belong more to the Eritrean and Ethiopian cup.”

“The custom. Coffee is hospitality. The guest sits, the beans roast, the smoke and the rattle of the funduk announce it, the small cups are filled again and again, and nobody hurries. "In my house, coffee first. Then we talk. Problems shrink a little while the beans roast."”

“What: Protein that promotes neuronal growth, survival, and plasticity. "Miracle-Gro for the brain" (John Ratey). Higher BDNF = better learning, memory, mood, neuroprotection.”

“Heat shock proteins (HSPs, especially HSP70): activated at core temperature increases of 2-3 degrees F. HSPs repair misfolded proteins, protect against neurodegeneration, and enhance cellular stress resistance.”

“Water next to hydrophilic surfaces (like proteins, cell membranes, fascia) forms an ordered, gel-like layer”

“The charge separation is literally a battery - it drives cellular transport, protein folding, enzymatic reactions”