Why I love Basil Pesto

I didn’t grow up eating a ton of pasta. My mom always cooked but was already wheat intolerant, so she would make pasta on occasion only, and we would eat it bland, with olive oil and cheese. She didn’t plan it so didn’t buy pasta sauce. So when I discovered basil pesto, it was a revelation! Even the store bought sauce tasted so good, so imagine when I started making my own! Since then, I have learned to play with it. I swapped nuts for seeds, swapped types of cheeses, even swapped herbs. I pesto everything I have in my planters ! You will have to check my recipe for rosemary pesto and stinging nettles pesto, these are amazing and bring in so many different nutrients in!

Pesto has many uses

Since I started making pesto, I have made many uses of it, even replacing classic jam on toast with some pesto… Dipping sourdough in pesto and oil is one of my favorite snacks, making simple salad with steamed chicken mixed with pesto and arugula is one of my husband’s favorites too!

On the days I have to make a VERY quick dinner is when I pull the jar out of the refrigerator : boil water, toss (GF or organic wheat) pasta, steam a few veggies and chicken in the meantime, mix all with home made pesto sauce and dinner is ready ! In a total time of 15 minutes, just enough for my kids to be in pajamas.

How It Helped me Feed my Kids Healthy Foods

I am told being French makes me naturally crave strong tastes! I thing there is a lot of truth to it. Mainly, I crave FRESH tastes. That is what motivated me to learn growing the herbs I use the most, i.e. rosemary, oregano, basil and parsley.

When my oldest was only one, I didn’t really know what to feed him. So I started playing a bit: simply steamed vegetables with olive oil and salt worked wonderfully. But I saw fast that my kid would get a skeptical face at green stuff. May be because green vegetables tend to be more on the bitter side ! Pesto though is not as bitter ! So I started giving him green stuff that was not bitter, i.e. chicken mixed with pesto, or parsley apple dip. I also made it with him, which would make him more likely to try it out. The more kids taste the same food, the more their tastebuds acclimate and start liking these foods! I experienced it with all my kids.

That approach was very successful and my baby increasingly like everything green. I would give him anything now, he would eat it. He is now nine, and eats anything I’ll put on his plate. And so do his siblings.

Nutritional Advantages of making Pesto yourself:

• Of course, you get the fresh herbs and all their nutrients.
• You get to chose all the ingredients , including what oils, and to exclude all the toxic ingredients such as seed oils.
• You get to chose the kind of cheese you use ! And not all pesto require parmesan. I personally avoid cow’s dairy, so I am happy to substitute with sheep cheese Pecorino Romano.
• If you have nuts allergies, or don’t want to spend to buy pine nuts, you can easily swap with highly nutritious pumpkin or/and hemp seeds! It becomes NUT FREE!
• Do you have a vegetable and herbs garden? You can make pesto with any of them, try it out and tell me what worked!

Pesto with a gut friendly twist

So what is that gut friendly twist to my pesto recipe? Well, it’s mostly about the cheese.

My pesto recipe does not use classic parmesan. This is not because I dislike parmesan, it’s a very good cheese, especially when it is aged. As a matter of fact, longer fermentation improves digestibility of any dairy product. Raw aged cheeses add up to that by providing you with good bacteria to feed your gut!

However, I prefer using sheep or goat cheese in my family life. For pesto, in the U.S., I’ll use a hard sheep cheese like Pecorino Romano or Manchego , available in imported big chunks at Costco. For recipes involding softer cheeses, I often use goat cheese or sheep feta cheese. But what are pecorino ( pecora is Italian for sheep) healthier than cow’s Parmesan?

Is Pecorino Healthier Than Parmesan?

Pecorino, as well as Manchego, are sheep milk cheeses. Parmesan is a cow’s milk product.

Quality is determined by how the animal is raised

I think like any type of dairy, the quality determines the health grade, so to say. An animal raised in the best of ways, grazing around in the mountains makes the best milk and therefore the best cheese. Why the mountains? Because mountain pastures abound in fatty types of grass that contain omega 3 fatty acids, the famous brain fats! Other quality factors include methods of cheese manufacturing, and wether the cheese is raw – i.e. still contains ferments that facilitate digestion – or pasteurized – which kills bacteria.

Pasteurization gets rids of all bacteria, the good and the bad. So, pasteurized cheese is neutral to your gut, so to say, but is it the best for your health? Fermented foods are increasingly recognized for their benefits for digestion and the immune system by improving gut health. Pasteurizing makes cheese much less interesting nutritionally. It becomes, well, just fat; good fat, but just fat, without the good bacteria. What a shame! If I have to feel guilty for eating fatty foods, I might as well get the health benefits with it.

Are Goat or Sheep cheese healthier than cows milk?

From my readings and my experience as health coach, I may have less than mainstream opinions on some foods. Cheese is one of them.

Cow’s milk growth factors are meant for calves, not humans

I heard many times from French oncologist and professor of nutrition Henri Joyeux, MD, that it is better to eat dairy from smaller animal. Why? Because growth factors in their milk is designed for an animal that gains 365 kg ( over 700 lbs) within its first year. Humans gain perhaps 5 kg/ 12 lbs – my fat baby did! – within the first year. This is a very different nutritional profile!

Better drink dairy from animals smaller than cows

I can give you four reasons dairy products from smaller animals are better than cow’s:

• Scientific studies comparing goat or sheep and cows’ milk confirm that milks from animals containing different casein are easier on our digestive system. In fact, the ” breeds of goats have higher a-LA than cows; therefore, goat milk is considered an alternative food with less allergenicity than cow milk and protein of higher biological value (a-LA)”. Animal milks containing a-LA include sheep, goat and buffalo milks.
• But beside that, it is a fact that conventionally raised cows are fed very differently than cows that would graze alone in the fields, on their own. Who thought that feeding them corn and soy would be a good thing for their body? Grass and corn have very different nutritional profiles ! Conventionally raised cows are fed very inflammatory foods – often GMOs – which are very inflammatory to them and, by extension, to us.
• Moreover, sheep and goats are smaller animals and their babies do not grow as big as cows. The growth factors ( or types of casein present in these milks) are naturally less inflammatory to us. Besides, these animals are not raised in the same intensive manufacturing practices as cows ( or at least I hope so). So I would assume the food they are provided matches their organic needs better. Consequently, the quality of their milk does not worsen because of raising practices.
• The following table details the nutritional profiles of sheep , cows and goats milk ( source here). With regard to practically all nutrients, sheep’s dairy comes richer. Consequently, sheep’s dairy generally should also get a better nutritional profile. Better now, the healthy fat composition of sheep milk is far superior with regards to omega 3 than cow’s milk.

Human milk has a different nutritional composition than animal milk

Henri Joyeux, MD, explains that the growth factors in cow’s milk would act differently on our body, which is made for human mother’s milk. As a matter of fact, human milk has a very different composition than cow’s milk.

This table shows clearly how animal milks are not designed for humans:

From left to right, read “woman’s milk”, then “cow’s milk” ( I assume conventional milk), goat’s milk, mare’s milk ( in some countries, children may be fed or may have, in the past, been fed mare’s milk ), and donkey milk ( same comment). The author of the table, nutritionist Christine Bouguet-Joyeux summarizes (quote translated by me).

Compared to mother’s milk, cow’s milk, goats, mare and donkey’s milks are, depending on which milk:

• too protein heavy;
• too carbohydrates and trace minerals heavy;
• essential fatty acid deficient.

Choose a better cheese, for your skin’s sake!

If all these explanations did not make it clear enough: steer away from cow’s dairy product, especially if you have skin issues like acne. YES, acne ! Did you not know? If you have skin issues, it is often related to the type of fats you ingest, and the hormones naturally present in your foods. Cow’s dairy contains IGF1 and estrogen like hormones that tend to increase skin problems like acne – beside the fact that they are increasingly linked to cancer. Very recent study from May of 2024 confirms that.

Dairy products, chocolate, and saturated fats play a significant role in contributing to acne. Alcohol, salted products, gluten, eggs, biscuits, corn, fruit, sweets, cola, or soft drinks also appear to participate in the promotion and exacerbation of acne changes, but this needs to be confirmed by further research.

Ryguła I, Pikiewicz W, Kaminiów K. Impact of Diet and Nutrition in Patients with Acne Vulgaris. Nutrients. 2024 May 14;16(10):1476. doi: 10.3390/nu16101476. PMID: 38794714; PMCID: PMC11124289.

Bottomline: If you really like having some dairy, prefer goat and sheep. Just look at the back of the cheese package, you will see that if it may contain some cow’s milk, those cheese are generally better, and less inflammatory. Also usually tastier.

And good fat containing seeds

Traditional pesto is made with pine nuts. To me, the taste of pine nuts is unbeatable. But if you are allergic to nuts, or won’t spend the money on such expensive nuts ($10/ 8oz at Trader Joe’s these days!), you can replace easily with walnuts or pumpkin seeds, even hemp seeds. The advantage of these is that they all taste great and have high levels of omega 3 fatty acids. To me, hemp seeds comes closest to the taste of pine nuts.

What do I eat Pesto With?

And now without further ado, let’s check this recipe out and test it with steamed chicken, pasta, or spread on sourdough bread. Use this pesto recipe to make my pasta and pesto dish, which is a kid favorite in our home!

You can also steam sliced chicken for 5 to 6 minutes ( 2 minutes, then turn mix the chicken in the steam basket to make sure the pieces don’t stick to each other, then steam 3-4 more minutes), let it cool down, then mix with a generous amount and pesto, throw in some arugula, possibly sliced tomatoes, and eat as a salad!