Experts have concluded, again, that most heart disease is both preventable and treatable with lifestyle changes.

Gee, do you think that's why they're called a lifestyle disease?

Maybe a few tweaks to our diet could keep our tickers ticking?

Let's find out as we go back to the cutting board on how we think about heart health today on Christina Cooks.

(cheerful 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 into amazing dishes.

Is it all plant-based?

Yes.

Is it all delicious?

Absolutely.

Listen, we--we gotta talk about your hearts.

Rick, this show's for you.

We gotta talk about your hearts.

Since 1973, almost 50 years ago, heart disease has been the leading killer of both men and women.

I'm gonna be a little serious here for a minute, guys.

In America, 116.4 million people have cardiovascular disease.

Every eight seconds, that same disease kills somebody and every three to four minutes, someone dies of a stroke.

Here's the real...ticker, if you'd like.

About 90% of heart disease is preventable and reversible if the muscle's not damaged.

So we gotta get with the program, guys.

Every expert on the planet will tell you heart disease is caused by--together, crew-- -Food!

-Food!

So, we're gonna talk about food and creating some substitutions that will help you to get over your love of meat, which is the main cause of cardiovascular disease, not to mention the demise of the planet, but that's another show.

The demise of humans might be better for the planet, but let's not go there.

We're gonna make a Reuben, but we're gonna use tempeh, not corned beef or pastrami or whatever it is that they use to make them, and it will be just as satisfying and delicious.

We're gonna take a hot skillet and add some avocado oil, and we're gonna add to that skillet something called tempeh, this is tempeh.

Tempeh comes to us from Indonesia.

It's a fermented product.

They take soybeans, partially cook them, and inoculate them with the same starter that they use to make brie.

We're gonna lay this tempeh into the hot oil.

It has a really sort of... hardy texture.

I never say meaty because...ew.

Okay, then while the tempeh is frying, we'll take a grill pan over medium heat, brush oil onto it, and we're gonna grill our bread.

Now, we're not grilling the bread to be crusty, toasty here.

We just kinda wanna take off the softness that can be whole-grain bread.

Just gonna lay these pieces in the pan and let them lightly brown, and while this is all happening, all this browning is happening, we're gonna do the really hard part of the Reuben.

So, Reubens are famous for not only their meat but for their Thousand Island dressing, and if you've ever been in a supermarket and opened--picked up a package of Thousand Island dressing and read the label, it could be a Russian novel, but really, Thousand Island dressing has only a few ingredients.

Watch this.

We'll take some vegan mayo, as much as you like, because we're gonna make two sandwiches.

So a couple tablespoons of vegan mayo, right?

Unsweetened ketchup.

Just gonna give us our nice, pink, Thousand Island dressing color.

A little sea salt.

Not a lot of sea salt.

We are cooking for heart health here.

Garlic powder for flavor.

And some pickled relish.

About a tablespoon and a half, okay?

Mix it up, you've got gorgeous pink color.

It looks, smells, and tastes like Thousand Island dressing.

You wanna know why?

'Cause it is.

Okay, now we'll take a fork.

We're gonna turn our tempeh, and you can see it's beautifully browned.

Right, it's gonna have a nice, rich flavor and a great texture.

Turn our bread.

Again, we're not toasting this crunchy, we're just kind of taking a little bit of the softness off it.

Okay?

All right.

And while that's happening, we'll slice our tomatoes.

You don't have to garnish your sandwiches with tomatoes and lettuce, but it gives a nice sort of sweetness.

It also gives a little more texture.

It makes the sandwich seem more rich, and we're also gonna add to it some sauerkraut, which is optional but it's gonna help you to digest the protein of the tempeh, so it's a win-win.

So now, clean my area, everything should be ready.

Now we're gonna build our sandwiches.

Take two pieces of your toasted bread.

Take some Thousand Island dressing onto the bread.

These are supposed to be gooey.

The dressing is supposed to run down your hand, down your wrist, right.

They're gooey.

Now we take fried tempeh.

I love this color.

It's just so beautiful, I love these.

Now we take some tomato slices onto each piece of tempeh.

A little more Thousand Island dressing.

Remember, think goopy.

Sauerkraut.

Yes, no?

Crew?

Yes, no?

-Sauerkraut?

-Yes!

Okay, sauerkraut.

Buy the sauerkraut that's in the fridge, right?

If you buy the one in the fridge, it's actually alive and will act in your digestive tract like a pickle.

If you buy the one that's on the shelf, it's been pasteurized, and I know there's a joke in there, but it's dead, so you wanna get the one that's alive.

Some romaine lettuce.

I like to use just the tender top part of my romaine leaves and then use the rest in salad 'cause you want this to have a nice sort of flavor to it.

And then the bread goes on top.

You can serve them whole like this or take your tempeh Reuben, slice it on the diagonal... And I'm tellin' you, one bite of these and nobody, nobody is gonna miss the meat.

(pleasing music) ♪ -A fruit can be a vegetable.

-What?

It can be both?

(unintelligible) -I don't get it.

-I am so confused.

♪ We get emails and phone calls by the ton in our office, all people struggling as they try to find their way along the path of healthy living, so I thought, you know what, in this new show, why don't I bring people on who might have questions and see if I can't help smooth the way?

So I'm here with Louis Remolde, my lovely Italian friend who is a fitness trainer and amazing cook and baker.

-Thank you.

-And so, I know you have some questions 'cause you're changing over from traditional, conventional, to healthier.

(Louis) Yes, so, my question, one of the questions I have for you is, what about what's going on with all the sugar alternatives, especially with brown rice syrups, coconut sugar, what's going on with all that?

(Christina) So, at the end of the day, sugar is sugar.

It's in the way the body processes that sugar.

I mean, we all need it, we all need glucose.

So there's things like agave which are really high in fructose which affect the way the liver manages calories, so we kinda stay away from fructose and things like agave.

Maple syrup is a simple sugar, although it's natural.

Raw sugar is sugar, they just haven't pulled the minerals out.

My two favorites are brown rice syrup and coconut sugar because they're both glucose-based, they're low glycemic index.

Brown rice syrup being a liquid, you gotta kinda play with baking so that you get a good texture, but coconut sugar is a one-to-one sub, it's granular, and it tastes like brown sugar, so you kinda get your cake and eat it too.

They all have calories, but what I like about those two in particular is that they're low glycemic index so there's not such a huge insulin push for you to eat more and more and more and more, like you have a cookie and you're happy.

I am torn between tempeh, tofu, seitan.

What's healthy, what's junk food, what should you not eat all the time, what can you eat all the time?

-Yeah.

-Okay, well, tempeh, tofu, seitan, and beans are all-- while they have carbohydrates, they are all plant sources of protein.

That's why we eat them.

They keep us satisfied longer, they help build muscle, right, they're that.

Tempeh is a fermented food.

They take soybeans, add the same starter that they use to make brie, and so you end up with fermented soybeans so it's easy to digest.

Tofu is made from crushing cooked soybeans.

The curd and whey, like Little Miss Muffet, rise to the top, they press those into tofu.

So tofu is not fermented, and some people struggle a little more to digest it.

Both of them are extremely versatile.

Tempeh has a hardier texture; tofu is more gelatinous.

I know it's not a great word, but it's like a looser texture, even the extra firm.

Seitan is made from gluten.

They take wheat flour and they knead it under hot and cold water until only gluten is left, so it's pure protein, and then it's cooked in a savory dashi.

But if you're gluten sensitive, seitan is, no pun intended, off the table.

So, we go between tempeh, tofu, and beans in our house, like lentils, cannellini beans, kidney beans, with seitan here or there 'cause it's the hardest of all things to digest, and tempeh and tofu and beans are kind of where we get all of our protein in our house.

(Louis) Great, thanks.

(cheerful music) (Christina) So, no information about heart health would be complete without whole grains, but before you start rolling your eyes and go, "Here comes the brown rice and seaweed," settle down.

We're gonna make a whole grain called farro, with two Rs.

Gentlemen?

-Farro!

-Farro!

Very good, the more you roll your Rs, the more you love farro.

So farro is an ancient grain that comes to us from... beyond the Renaissance in Italy.

It's said to be Juliet's favorite food, but we don't know, because Romeo and Juliet, who really knows, right?

Anyway, farro is very high in fiber and minerals and vitamins and helps to control cholesterol.

So we're gonna cook it today in a way that makes it a little sexier when you think of whole grains.

So we're gonna take some extra virgin olive oil, which is heart healthy, oleic acid, with-- as a monounsaturated fat-- with some garlic, which is antibacterial, antifungal, and good for circulation.

Some red onions, which are rich in magnesium.

See, nothing's arbitrary.

All of this is good for your heart.

And we're gonna sweat those until the olive oil gets hot.

You've heard me say it a million times, but I will say it again: You can cook olive oil to high heat.

Have a ball.

What you cannot do if you want the flavor is cook it without the first ingredient in there.

Right, if you want that little hit of olive oil, peppery, fruity taste at the end of your dish, you put the oil in the pan and then your garlic and onions and then turn on the heat, okay?

So you're gonna have to let the sizzle build.

Sorry, it's not sexy, just let the sizzle build, let the onions sweat, and let that happen.

We're gonna add to it, while that sizzle's building, some lemon zest.

Now, lemon zest from an organic lemon.

Please use organic citrus if you're using the zest so there's no pesticides involved.

You want to cook the zest as long as you want to cook it.

You wanna put it at the beginning, put it at the beginning; you wanna put it at the end, put it at the end.

But you add the lemon juice at the end of the recipe when you're done cooking so you get a lovely sour taste and not a bitter, metallic taste.

The citric acid will turn really fast.

So now we're gonna sauté our onions until they're just...under raw.

I usually tell you sauté them till they're translucent, but you just want to take the edge of rawness off them because the farro is gonna get soft, and so you want a little bit of a different kind of a texture.

So now we have our cauliflower.

Cauliflower is one of the cruciferous veggies.

It is loaded with a compound called sulforaphane, and sulforaphane helps to lower cholesterol.

So if you leave here watching the show and think, "She's nice, but she's nuts," eat some cauliflower anyway to help your cholesterol go down.

With cauliflower, you can cut it if you like to, but I like to break the florets because then I don't end up with cauliflower all over creation, and the florets don't get damaged.

If the greens look good on your cauliflower-- sometimes you have to split the stem.

If the greens look good on your cauliflower, you can use it in soup, but if they're the slightest bit yellow, put them in the compost bin because they'll just turn bitter.

So, kinda keep that in mind.

(sizzling) And finally, the star of the show: farro.

You can see these beautiful, lovely grains.

Now, there's two kinds of farro.

There's whole farro, which takes about an hour to cook, and there's something called farro perlato, which is slightly refined and cooks in about 20-25 minutes, and that's what we're using here.

And you wanna use two times the amount of water as you have farro.

So it was a cup of farro, so about two cups of water.

And then a pinch of salt.

Cover, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cook it till all the liquid's gone and the farro is soft, and you have the perfect whole grain dish to complement the rest of your meal.

(cheerful music) ♪ All right, we're about to get into the lovely territory of dessert and heart health, but first, let's finish off our farro.

It's cooked, it's nice and fluffy.

So now we're gonna take and just snip some basil leaves into it with some scissors designed for herbs and greens.

I love these, they make my life so easy in the kitchen.

And by doing this, by not putting the leaves in whole, which you can do as well, this kind of opens up the aromatic oils and gives it a really nice, um, flavor of basil.

So we're just gonna do a couple more in there.

Okay, then a tiny bit of lemon juice, maybe the juice of one half of a lemon.

And then we'll just turn this out.

When you're done cooking something, whether it's greens, whole grains, vegetables, whatever, when you're done, please get the food out of the pan.

You want it to stop cooking when it's, you know, cooked.

So just let that sit there.

We'll do another little garnish of basil, and this dish is ready to go.

Lovely.

(pleasing music) Okay, dessert.

Dessert and heart health.

Sugar, simple white refined sugar, is the enemy of your heart.

So, we're gonna show a lovely carrot cake, not the kind slathered with cream cheese frosting, but a lovely, light carrot cake that actually is supportive of your heart's wellness.

And I have to say, I don't get attached to many material things, but this pan, this Bundt pan, not to coin too famous a phrase from a film, but this Bundt is actually from my mother-in-law who is now 99 years old, and, uh, it's cast iron.

It's--it's seen better days, but it is the most perfect pan, and every cake I make in it turns out perfectly, I said, jinxing myself, I know, but every cake comes out perfectly, and it's just so sentimental.

My mother-in-law said to me one day, "You know, I'm getting old, what do you want from the house when, you know, when I die?"

You know, she's older, they always talk about dying.

I said, "I want the Bundt pan."

So she said, "Take it now," so I did.

So this is my Bundt pan.

When you oil a pan for baking, make sure you get into all the little decorative grooves so that you actually, uh, you know... the cake comes out.

So now we're gonna mix the cake.

And, oh, I need a mixing bowl.

(snaps fingers) Wow.

Okay.

So, we're gonna start by measuring our flour.

I'm gonna use whole wheat pastry flour or you can use sprouted whole wheat.

I need a cup and a half.

Now, when you bake, everyone panics when they bake.

"It's a science."

It's not.

Baking is a passion.

It's not really a science.

If you love baking, you're great at it; if you don't, you'll be okay if you follow a recipe.

I never follow recipes anymore.

I sort of measure, like this is sort of a half cup of almond flour, sort of.

About a cup and a half of flour.

Maybe another half cup of semolina.

If you don't have semolina, leave it out.

Use another half cup of the whole wheat pastry.

The semolina just gives me a light golden color, that's it.

We're gonna use six tablespoons, generous, of coconut sugar, a low glycemic index sweetener made from coconut sap, that's gonna give us a brown sugar kind of flavor.

Amazing!

If you get five tablespoons, you get five; if you get seven, you get seven; it doesn't matter.

The only thing that really matters is baking powder and baking soda.

We're gonna use two teaspoons of baking powder.

So this is a half teaspoon, so four of these, okay?

Again, carefully measured.

And half the amount of baking soda.

The reason you have to sort of measure these is because if you use too much baking powder and baking soda, your cake won't rise any better, but you'll have a bitter, metallic aftertaste, so you don't want to do that.

Do what it calls for.

Pinch of salt.

Then we'll take some ground cinnamon.

(tapping) I also don't follow any rules.

I know at this point I should be telling you to sift and whisk and sift, and I don't do any of it.

So if you want to sift and whisk, feel free, but if you don't, don't.

I don't.

Everything has to be easy or I can't-- you know what I mean, I'm busy.

I would love to say I was a domestic goddess that stayed home all day and cooked and baked, but I don't.

I start cooking dinner just like everybody else around 7:00 at night.

I need to get it on the table, and once or twice a week, I have the time to bake, which I wish I had more time to bake, but I don't.

So once your dry ingredients are ready, then you can start adding your liquid, and we're gonna start with-- it's not really liquid-- but the zest of an orange.

And you just want a light flavor.

You don't even need to get the zest of the entire orange in here.

You just want to get a little hit because we're also gonna add orange juice and orange extract, so you don't want to get too carried away.

And then we're gonna grate carrot right into our dry ingredients.

The finer your grater for the carrot, the more tender your cake will be.

A lot of people like to do a really big sort of chunky grate on a box grater.

I really don't like to do that.

I think the cake is more moist if you use a smaller grate.

So you can use anywhere between a half cup and a cup.

I know that's a lot of variation, but when you're doing this, the more carrot you add, the less liquid you'll add; the less carrot, the more liquid.

So, it's your taste, man, it's your cake.

Okay.

I'm gonna call that about a half cup.

Who knows if I'm right or wrong.

Now we'll take and add fresh orange juice after we add our extracts.

Vanilla.

Again, good vanilla, real vanilla.

Don't buy the cheap stuff.

It'll taste metallic and not serve the purpose.

A little orange extract, but be really careful with this stuff.

A tiny bit goes a really long way.

If you use a lot of orange extract, you get just a metallic taste and no orange at all.

Now we'll add the juice of a fresh orange, the one you just grated.

Try to keep the seeds out of the cake batter.

That would be nice.

Okay.

And now we'll add our fat, which is heart healthy olive oil.

About a quarter cup, so it's not a lot.

And I really, I do measure my fats and my liquids because if you add too much oil to a cake batter-- to a pie crust you're okay, but to a cake batter, your cake can end up heavy and oily tasting.

So you want to make sure that when you add your liquids, especially the fats, that you're a little more careful.

And now we start adding a little bit of water.

Start with about a half cup and slowly start to mix.

When your batter comes together in what we call a smooth, spoonable batter, that's what you're looking for.

So we're gonna go for about a cup.

It's gonna matter and determine your water based on how you store your flour.

If you store it in the fridge or the freezer, it has more liquid in it, more moisture, you're gonna need less liquid when you make your batters.

If you store it in the pantry, you'll need more.

If it's a dry day, you'll use more liquid.

If it's humid, you'll use less.

So, there's a little bit of variation, but what you're looking for is what's called a smooth, spoonable batter, and since I'm doing it, you're seeing what that means.

It's a batter that just is silky smooth and, not quite runny, but not stiff either.

And then comes where you have to be a little bit dexterous.

So you start pouring batter, carefully balancing your spoon, and turning the pan at the same time.

This is where if you have kids, you get them to help you turn the pan so that your cake batter gets in there evenly.

You scoop it all out.

That's a really perfect batter, I gotta say.

I always laugh when people say that on TV, "This is a perfect batter."

It better be, you're on TV making it!

Okay.

Then you go in with your spoon and you just lightly lift out any air bubbles.

Don't do that thing where you slam the cake down.

Bad idea.

Your cake will be sunk in the middle and won't rise.

So this is gonna go into a 350-degree oven for about 35 minutes.

When you can touch the top and it springs back, the cake is done, so I'll see ya in a minute.

Well, actually, 35.

(cheerful music) Okay, so our cake is cooled, ready to be turned out.

So now you just put a plate over it and you gently flip it, and you should hear a nice little pop as your cake comes out.

And here you have this perfect, beautiful Bundt cake, which you can glaze or serve just as it is.

So what are you waiting for?

Let's get back to the cutting board and make our hearts healthy.

See you next time on Christina Cooks.

♪ ♪ ♪ (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: 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: 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: ♪