Healthy Italian Style Meatloaf

While I am not a vegetarian, I tend to cook like one.  However, this recipe is my current favorite meat dish.  I’ve made it many times.  It has even converted a “vegetarian” into an occasional meat-eater.  It’s that good!  If you can chop some ingredients and get your hands a little messy, you can definitely make this meal.  The whole house smells amazing, and leftovers are even better.   So without further ado…

Italian Style Meatloaf

In terms of Chinese Medicine, this dish serves to supplement blood and it is warming in nature.  In general, foods that are red (eg. red meat, tomato sauce) in color are said to nourish blood.  Other blood-nourishing foods include beets, red wine and red grapes, and leafy green vegetables.  Patients who are blood deficient, specifically heart blood deficient (palpitations, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, thin, weak pulse, pale tongue) are advised to eat red, blood-nourishing foods.

Conventional science also suggests that eating cooked tomatoes and drinking red wine may benefit the heart, as in the study titled Lycopene, Atherosclerosis, and Coronary Heart Disease.

While eating a diet high in saturated fat may lead to heart disease, 92% lean ground beef, in moderation, can be included as part of a healthy diet.

Notes:

*When choosing meat, it’s healthiest and most eco-friendly  to buy local, organic, grass-fed beef.

*I use Newman’s Own tomato and basil sauce and think the texture works great.

Remember, you are what you eat.

In good health,

Molly