To mark National Nutrition Month, Gina DeVito, a registered dietitian and Director of WIC (the Women, Infants, and Children program) at the Open Door Care Network, prepared black bean quesadillas with cilantro crema during a cooking demo for patients at Open Door’s Sleepy Hollow, Ossining, Port Chester and Brewster sites.
Her intention was to reinforce “Food as Medicine,” a concept that began in the days of Hippocrates around 400 BC, who famously said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Using ingredients commonly found in the kitchens of many of Open Door’s patients – such as tortillas, black beans, cheese, cilantro and lime – DeVito and her team demonstrated a fresh, minimally processed, high fiber recipe that underscored Hippocrates’ focus on disease prevention that, by the way, also tastes good.
The audience’s response? They wanted to know if they could have seconds.
More recently, a Food as Medicine approach has emphasized the importance of nutrition in preventing, managing or even reversing disease, and recognizing that access to high-quality nourishment is essential for individuals to thrive.
“While food certainly doesn’t replace medicine, in some ways it’s a form of medicine because it can be therapeutic,” said DeVito. “There is a lot of new buzz around that term, yet WIC has been recommending prescriptive, nutritious foods for families for over 50 years. The science hasn’t changed that much in terms of the recommendations for the general population in terms of what we should aim to do. We should be eating a variety of foods from different food groups. We should be focusing on meeting our daily fiber needs. We should be making sure we’re eating fruits and vegetables every day. We should be making sure that we’re trying to eat a low-fat diet and that we’re trying to minimize ultra processed foods.”
Added Sonia Ahuja, Registered Dietitian and Open Door’s Associate Director of Wellness and Nutrition, “Unfortunately, in addition to the science that is out there, there’s also a lot of misinformation. It can be very hard for the general public to weed through that, especially now with social media and the many wellness influencers who often provide information that skews to the extreme and may not be a good strategy as a long-term, sustainable solution for a majority of people. People need to go to nutritional professionals for their information.”
This is particularly important in communities where access to healthy foods and food insecurity presents an additional challenge. At Open Door, nutritionists work closely with patients who are often referred by medical providers. Many suffer from chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, or have food allergies. With WIC, DeVito works closely with prenatal patients to make sure they’re having the healthiest possible pregnancies and the best birth outcomes.
“We do an assessment with the patient,” she said, “looking at things like their blood work, their medication history and other things in their documented record and talk to them directly to try to get an understanding of what their current diet looks like, their meal schedule, the types of foods that might cause digestive or other issues, and then, based on this information, we’ll make individualized recommendations.”
Education is an important component of any discussion with Open Door’s nutritionists. “For some people it can be confusing to know which food are having an effect on their condition and which aren’t, and we help them understand that,” said DeVito. “So, if someone has high cholesterol, we’ll help them to understand where cholesterol comes from, which foods contain it and may be impacting their cholesterol levels, and which foods also might help to lower their levels. If they are allergic to a food, where there’s no option but to eliminate the particular food, we will help them to navigate alternatives.”
Very often, she said, subtle differences are made in a patient’s diet that will allow them to continue enjoying their favorite foods, only in a healthier manner. “In a lot of cultures, as an example, the traditional quesadilla recipe uses flour tortillas that might be served with sides that have higher fat content. The quesadilla that we prepared uses a whole grain tortilla that is higher in nutrients, fiber and protein. Within that quesadilla, we have black beans, which are pretty traditional in a lot of cultures, but we also added a sweet potato that is really familiar to a lot of the Hispanic families we serve, but is not necessarily found in a quesadilla. So, by incorporating more vegetables into their diet, we add this to food they already know and love, but as a much healthier option.”
BLACK BEAN QUESADILLA WITH CILANTRO CREMA
Quesadilla ingredients:
- 2 whole wheat tortillas
- 15 oz. black beans (canned or cooked, dried)
- 2 cups water or chicken broth
- 1 small sweet potato
- 4 oz. cheddar cheese grated
Cilantro Crema ingredients:
- 8 oz. fresh cilantro
- 8 oz. spinach
- 1 tbsp oil
- 8 oz. Greek yogurt
- Lime juice
- Salt and pepper
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Poke the sweet potato with a fork and bake for 45 minutes or until soft
- In a pot, add black beans and water or broth. Season as desired (cumin, chili powder, garlic powder). Simmer until beans soften and liquid reduces into a thick mixture
- In a blender or food processor, blend cilantro, spinach, and oil into a paste. Add yogurt, lime juice, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth and bright green.
- Mash cooked sweet potato into the bean mixture
- Heat a lightly greased pan over low heat. Place one tortilla down and sprinkle a layer of cheese.
- Spread bean-sweet potato mixture over cheese, then top with more cheese
- Place second tortilla on top. Cook until bottom is golden, then flip and brown the other side (about 4 minutes per side).
- Remove from heat, slice and serve warm with cilantro crema.
