9-22-98

Contacts:
Elisabeth Schafer, Food Science and Human Nutrition, (515) 294- 1359
Arianna McKinney, News Service, (515) 294-4777

PROFESSOR'S COOKBOOK OFFERS FOOD FOR THOUGHT

AMES, Iowa -- Many people don't like to eat vegetables, but they love desserts.

That was the premise that inspired the cookbook, Vegetable Desserts: Beyond Carrot Cake and Pumpkin Pie (Chronimed Publishing, Minneapolis, 1998), co-authored by Iowa State University professor Elisabeth Schafer and Jeanette Miller, a dietitian in North Dakota.

Although it is recommended that people eat at least three servings of vegetables each day, the average in the United States is two, most of which comes from sources such as French fries, Schafer said. She decided to use America's love affair with desserts to promote vegetables.

The book contains recipes using 24 different vegetables which Schafer said were tested on friends and children until they were just right. "People eat these and ask, 'What's in here?,' because they can't tell," said Schafer, a professor of food science and human nutrition and Extension nutritionist. "Then they ask for a second helping."

The book also gives history and folklore of each vegetable, as well as information about when and how to find the best ones and how to store them. Each recipe is simple and quick and includes complete nutritional information analyzed with the aid of a computer program designed at ISU.

Vegetable Desserts is available at local bookstores.

Schafer and Miller met while working for the Iowa Heart Association, where they discovered they made a strong team. They collaborated on the cookbook through e-mail and meetings when Miller came to visit her son, an ISU student. Schafer and Miller also co-authored Brown Bagging It: Lunches to Go, a book of low- fat, low-cholesterol lunch ideas.

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