The simplest idea of all: learn to REALLY cook, not just reheat take-out
From: Lemon1
Subject: Nutrition
Date/Time 2006-07-23 15:50:18
Remote IP: 192.234.160.253
Message
"Eating clean" is not about incorporating "super foods" in your diet or eliminating all white flour and sugar etc. Books and articles written around tactics like those are gimmicks written by people who are trying to exploit the American public's laziness and credulity. The "real" answer is to learn how to really cook, without relying on the convenience foods and prepared foods that take up 75% of the space on the shelves of your grocery store. I'm not saying NEVER use those convenience foods (I use things like boxed low sodium chicken broth all the time) - but use them judiciously.
Once you learn to make simple, high quality meals for yourself and those around you, the need (and temptation) to eat processed junk will simply be crowded out of your life. And yes, I include "real" red meat and whole fat dairy products in the category of "simple, high quality" food. 6 oz of marinated, pan seared skirt steak is (IMO) far more satisfying than two slices of take-out "meat lovers's" pizza, or sweet-and-sour chicken with fried rice, and will do you far more good.
One book I wouldn't hesistate to recommend for starters is Stephen Lanzalotta's "The Diet Code". That's where I started, and it did me no end of good. You can ignore all the blather about the "Golden Ratio" in the front half of the book and just concentrate on the recipes in the second half, which are based on simplified Italian "peasant" cuisine. The recipes are simple, easy to pull off, produce great results, and are practically "bulletproof" (ie, if you can boil water, you won't screw them up too badly) and are based on simple, whole, unprocessed food - tomatoes, sardines, olive oil, 'real' bread, beans, leafy greens, etc.
Another good book along the same line is Dr. Will Clower's "The French Don't Diet Plan" which is really about relearning how to eat. The skill required to pull off his recipes are a bit higher, and some of the ingredients may be a bit harder to locate, though.
Once you've got your confidence, you can move on to "real" cookbooks with "real" cooking. Start with something obvious like Rachel Ray's "30 Minute Meals" series, or Alton's Brown's "I'm Just Here For The Food".
(OK, don't start with Brown's cheesecake recipe, heh). Have a look at books like Leslie Revsin's "The Simpler the Better" series, or Michael Chiarello's "Casual Cooking" (ok, Chiarello's book is pretty high end.)
If you have the Food Network on your cable setup, you can't go wrong watching Alton Brown's "Good Eats", which is essentially state of the art education on cooking methods, doing simple foods right, and getting s handle on the biochemistry underlying your recipes. He's smarter and funnier than hell, and you will probably watch episodes more than once just for the jokes and the digs at pop culture. This show by itself was enough to get me started eating mussels and clams, grilling tuna steaks, steaming salmon fillets in aluminum foil, roasting chicken, making my own tomato sauce, and poaching sea bass in court bouillion and catfish fillets in evaporated milk. I also made my own lemon curd and cinnamon ice cream, but I don't claim those are 'clean', just 'GOOD'! ^-^
The real problem with the Atkin's diet, or the South Beach diet, or the Pritikin diet is that their recipes all suck. You can't stick with them because the range of tastes and ingredients and textures are too limited, and your inner self eventually rebels. Real cooking, with real meals and real ingredients, and taking the time to enjoy your food while you eat it, will lead to the most holistic, functional, natural clean diet of all.
The rant has ended, go in peace.
[Top of List] [Previous Thread] [Next Thread]
