If you don't know what to have for dinner tonight ...

If you want to enhance the flavor of chicken or fish as well as add extra vitamins K, A and C to your meal, try this pesto that can be prepared in a matter of minutes. It's also a great addition to fish tacos; top with pesto and avocado for a taste treat.

Prep and Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 3 scallion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 or 3 canned jalapenos, depending on desired heat
• ½ cup coarsely chopped pumpkin seeds
• 2 TBS water
• 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out their health-promoting properties while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
2. Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Add olive oil a little at a time at end. You want the pesto to be blended yet not smooth. It is best with a little texture. Serve at room temperature. Do not heat it.

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In-Depth Nutritional Profile for Cilantro Pesto with Pumpkin Seeds

Daily Food Tip

I've heard that black pepper stays in our body for many years and is a health hazard. Is that true?

No, it's not true. First of all, black pepper is a complex food composed of many different substances. No complex food that we eat stays inside our body whole and intact. Complex foods don't even get absorbed up into our body as whole, intact foods. Instead, they are broken down into much smaller parts in our digestive tract before they ever get absorbed.

Therefore, at the very most, it would only be some isolated component of black pepper (not black pepper itself) that got absorbed up into our body and then stayed either in storage or in transit for a long period of time. However, even the isolated components of black pepper do not stay in the body for extended periods of time. For example, one of the substances that can act as a type of irritant in black pepper (and provoke a sneeze, for example) is a well-studied alkaloid called piperine. In animal studies, researchers have found that 90% of this substance is cleared within 6-24 hours. Other important substances found in black pepper, like the polysaccharides that have been shown to have potential immune-supportive properties have also been found to be readily metabolized.

For a food component to stay inside our body for any length of time, it would have to be stored inside some body tissue that kept it fairly strongly attached. Minerals found in food can sometimes be stored in this way when they become part of the bone matrix. It's possible for the bone matrix to hold on to some of its mineral content throughout the course of a lifetime. However, the whole, intact foods that we eat only serve as the initial carriers of these minerals from the outside world into our body. The foods themselves do not stay inside us undigested.

For more information on this topic, please see:

• Black pepper
• How Does Digestion Work and How Can I Improve Mine?