Real-world Healthy Eating and Cooking

[mizducky]

After literally decades of dealing with doctors, nutritionists, dietitions, self-help books, natural foods stores, medical websites both official and alternative, support groups both official and alternative, etc. etc. ad nauseum, I am more than familiar with all the guidelines about what one *should* be eating. Actually, even the official guidelines have contradicted each other in various places and times over the years, and the alternative suggestions are all over the map, but more on that later perhaps.

For now, I shall note that, even despite the contradictions and controversies, I do have a pretty good idea of how I should be eating for optimum health and to help address various health issues. The problem remains, though: how to translate these healthy goals into meals I actually *want* to eat. I have found most official nutrition sources worse than useless for help in this regard. They tend to fail me for the following reasons, which as you will see are closely related:

1) These health experts seem not to be foodies, to judge from their actual meal and recipe suggestions, which IMO evidence the culinary equivalent of tone-deafness. Usually their suggestions are rife with heavily chemicalized and substandard-tasting items such as artificial sweeteners, margarines, low-fat dairy products, flavor-free ways of preparing foods (the proverbial grilled boneless skinless un-oiled unsalted chicken breast and steamed unbuttered unsalted vegetables), and other ideas that I for one find simply hare-brained (no, sprinkling a sodium-free seasoning blend on that poor naked chicken breast and those boring steamed veggies is *not* going to miraculously make them any more appealing).

2) These experts seem to have no grasp on *why* people find the unhealthy foods they prefer so enjoyable. It's like there's an informational disconnect between the culinary world, where *everyone* seems to know that fat carries flavor and salt opens up that flavor to the human taste buds, and the medical world where they just go "oh, fat and sodium are bad for you, so just cut 'em out." Mind you, a lot of their patients are inhaling their excess fat and sodium through highly overprocessed foods like fast-food burgers, etc., which can hardly claim heightened culinary status ... but still. It's like these doctors have no grasp whatsoever of the culinary function of the ingredients they recommend or disrecommend, only the nutritional function, so they have no realization of the culinary doors they are slamming shut when they sentence one of their patients to one of these eating plans.

3) These experts, in their certainly well-intentioned zeal to get their patients healthy, seem to have allowed no sympathy whatsoever for the quality-of-life issues surrounding food. It's like they're going "hey, your health is paramount, and enjoying food is a tiny inconsequential issue in comparison." Well, yeah, certainly it's majorly meaningful to live a long, healthy life, but if the food plan for maintaining that long healthy life is so unappealing that your patient can't bear to stay on it, how are they ever going to reap the plan's benefits in the first place?

4) These experts seemingly have no grasp of the difficulty of the task they're asking their patients to attempt when they advise them to change these life-long eating patterns, probably ingrained early in childhood. Numbers of you have specific food dislikes, that you're totally willing to acknowledge as not amenable to rational argument--you just dislike item X, alway have, and all efforts by your friends along the theme of "oh, you only dislike it because you've never had it cooked right" and etc. just totally fail. It somehow got hardwired into you somewhere along the line. Now imagine that a doctor comes along and tells you you can no longer eat a whole host of your favorite foods, and instead have to eat foods you've been hardwired to avoid since before you can even remember--but you have to do it, because it's for your health and you'll keel over from a heart attack or whatever otherwise. And all they do to help you with that massive transition is hand you a piece of paper with a food plan, and maybe recommend a support group where you sit around and bandy about recipes for lo-fat no-sugar cheesecake. Hell--no wonder people fall off those plans!

What nobody has been able to tell me--no doctor, no nutritionist, no diet club guru, no healthy-cooking show, no best-selling book--is how to actually take all these healthy-eating guidelines and turn them into real-world food that I might actually find sufficiently appealing that I am seldom if ever tempted to eat the unhealthy crap again.

For awhile, I thought Atkins would be my answer--especially since I am a dedicated carnivore with an especial love for all the fattiest foods. Alas--my stint on Atkins, on top of a lifetime of being said carnivore, provoked me into my first acute gout attack. Even if I were now *not* officially barred from any more Atkins by my doctor, I would never do any low-carb diet ever again ever. If you've ever experienced a full-on gout attack (think gallstone pain, only going off in your big toe), you would totally understand why I've been so effectively negatively-reinforced around that one.

So ... I've been working on other answers. Answers that take into account my real-world situation as a foodie for whom the taste and pleasure of my food is actually important, recognizing that no food plan will help me if I can't bear to stay on it. I will put out some of the ideas I have come up with in subsequent posts, but in the meantime I wanted to at least get this topic rolling to see what kind of responses I got.

[dockhl]

mizducky~

I am thinking that a 'plan', as such, is probably not the best idea, mostly 'cause they are too restrictive and don't allow us to make our own decisions.

I am a big fan of Stephen Pratt, MD, an ophthalmologist that I knew from San Diego who did a great research study on REVERSING macular degeneration with spinach. Cool, huh? He has published a book called SuperFoods Rx that talks about 14 foods that are so nutritionally packed that just incorporating them into your diet will make you healthier.............the best part is that they are foods you'd eat anyway ! If you don't like one, he'll suggest something similar.

Here is the list:

Beans

Blueberries

Broccoli

Oats

Oranges

Pumpkin

Salmon

Soy

Spinach

Tea

Tomatoes

Turkey

Walnuts

Yogurt

Well, hell......we can work with THAT, right?

My husband and I just consciously work at adding these things to our diet. He is trying to lower his cholesterol nonpharmaceutically, and one of the best things you can eat for that are oats. So every morning he has oatmeal with blueberries and nuts, a little flaxseed, maybe some wheat germ, soy milk, etc. No hardship there.

Here is a link to a similar -concept brochure from our local Wild Oats markets......you can download it:

Superfoods Brochure

K

[Anna N]

I hear you, but my only non-medical answer is to eat the food you enjoy but a whole lot less of it than most of us do. That is the only "plan" that makes sense to me and seems doable. Except in very specific medical conditions, I don't buy the idea that ANY food is by its nature BAD. It's the quantity we consume that causes the problem. I am not referring just to obesity but to all the life-shortening conditions that arise when we don't do things in moderation. That said, I don't do things in moderation very often but I still believe that is the answer.

[dockhl]

I hear you, but my only non-medical answer is to eat the food you enjoy but a whole lot less of it than most of us do.  That is the only "plan" that makes sense to me and seems doable.  Except in very specific medical conditions, I don't buy the idea that ANY food is by its nature BAD.  It's the quantity we consume that causes the problem.  I am not referring just to obesity but to all the life-shortening conditions that arise when we don't do things in moderation.  That said, I don't do things in moderation very often but I still believe that is the answer. 

←

Anna~

I agree with you, just feel better when I know that the foods I am eating have more, rather than less, value. Doesn't stop me from eating pork and crispy chicken skin....I just load up on the good dstuff I like, too !

K

[pamjsa]

Just to reiterate Anna's point--portion control, not food control, is the only "plan" that works long-term. This was the message I finally, finally managed to absorb from three stints with Weight Watchers. When I got it through my head that telling myself "No more ice cream! Ever!" was a sure-fire way to fail at getting my weight under control, I was able to see that eating a small serving of real ice cream on occasion wasn't a problem; eating a pint of lowfat ice cream, in one sitting, on a regular basis, certainly was.

As I try to teach my kids now, there's no such thing as a bad food or a good food; there are foods we should eat more of and foods we should eat less of. I don't want them to think that deprivation is the road to healthy living; I want them to eat that ice cream cone with abandon. And then go home and make a nice big salad for dinner.

[bavila]

Even simpler:

If you want to lose weight, BURN more calories than you CONSUME.

If there's such a thing as a panacea, exercise is it. One of my best foodie friends is also a fitness instructor, so even with the non-stop of butter laden dishes she turns out (and eats), she is still pure muscle. Exercise will also help ward off loads of ailments and other indignities that otherwise come with age. The trick is to get to the point where you feel worse on days you don't work out than when you do.

It also helps to learn to enjoy (if you don't already) foods that are big on flavor but light on fat and calories -- herbs, roasted red peppers, etc. Patricia Yeo has cookbooks to this end.

Take heart, mizducky, and keep trying!

[therese]

So far we've discussed a lot of the strategies that work for weight loss (or maintenance, a reasonable goal for many): eat more "good foods (nobody ever got fat eating blueberries), exercise portion control rather than "food control" (pamjsa's ice cream example is spot on), and get as much exercise as you can.

Based on your web site/blog, mizducky, I'm guessing you'd like dancing: get up and get that groove thang on: no need to go out clubbing, just turn on the radio and wiggle around in your bedroom (particularly great after a glass of wine). Yoga is a lot more effective than you might think; try and find a class that's not full of laughably scrawny folk who can effortlessly bend over and put their heads between their knees---I'm sure they're fine people, but I still hate them.

Low fat/no sugar cheesecake is the work of the devil, IMO. I would sooner eat core board. But for some people the low fat/no sugar approach can be helpful, in that it gives them a sense of control. To the rest of us it just feels wrong, and it's really not possible to feel nourished eating "wrong" food. But food that feels "right" may not necessarily be altogether right if it means that you end up feeling like hell if that's all you eat.

I see it this way: the longer I live and the better I feel, the more opportunity to eat great food. In reasonable portions, of course.

[Bernaise]

I'm throwing my hat into this ring with a cautionary caveat: please let's not start a huge and ugly fat war!!

MizDucky clearly you have put a great deal of thought and reflection on this topic and frankly I feel you have addressed the issues the larger public seems to want to ignore.

I am a proponent of 'everything in moderation including moderation' but after years of watching carefully and getting regular exercise - I seem to be losing the battle

Seems to me we have a million stories of the friend who can eat anything or as someone stated earlier the fitness\foodie wonderwoman. But the focus always seems to be on losing the weight with little if any discussion around the topics that always seem to be on my mind:

Why do those 'eat anything' people have that ability? and why don't I?

Where does metabolism come from an how does it work?

What happens metabolically\chemically\organically? to persons who reach adult with more than 50 lbs to lose? (Ithink there is a real difference between persons trying to shake 10-40 lbs vs. those at 40 or higher)

Consider a study that found that thin people would eat the same amount ice-cream whether or not it had salt added to it. By contrast larger people were discerning and would not eat the salted ice-cream, but, would double up on portions when it was not.

People who enjoy food really enjoy flavour. My thought is that MD's etc are hoping to convince us that if we take the colour and flavour out of food it will be less attrtactive and therefore we won't eat as much. All those years of science, logic and medical training and sadly flawed thinking.

Burn more than you consume...makes so much sense and yet...for many people this doesn't seem to work. Wait let me qualify, it works to a point. A good friend decided to take on the consume less burn more theory-walked 8km per day(to work and back), rode a stationary bike for 1 hour every other day and alternated with circuit training. She carefully regulated her diet from 1500 to 2000 per day (which many of you would be shocked to learn is actually not as much food as you'd think!). Gave up alcohol for 2 years and refined sugar for 3 years. Her results: she lost 65 lbs in about one year..she excitely expected the rest (40 lbs to follow), but no. Three years after she started her journey, she is healthier but those 40 lbs would not budge and have not. What gives? Her MD says she is still 'obese' and therefore at risk for other health conditions.

My last thoughts are about sugar and women. Supported by what I have read in the PMS cravings thread I really have to wonder how women are much more complicated hormonally etc and need to regulate their blood sugar in vastly different ways then men do. I've met lots of men who 'forget to eat' but not a woman. Even the ones who control their eating are thinking about it all the time.

I suppose we need a total reframe: there are people on the planet who have no choice but lentils and rice pretty much every day. So enjoy the variety and the choices we have and accept that butter is not always the enemy

Jeez what a rant\ramble I've had...food ideas will follow.

[Smithy]

I agree with you that a lot of the "eat food that's good for you" literature is pretty uninspired. However, there are more efforts all the time to make good, well-flavored food from the "good" ingredients. While I'm generally in the "eat less, burn more, make sure the food is high-quality" camp, I've thought a lot about substitutions and removing particular foods from the diet, too. My best friend went on a diet to severely restrict saturated fat (no more than 5g sat fat/day; unlimited unsaturated fats ok) some years back for health reasons, and she's been learning more as she went, about things like omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and their apparent connection to autoimmune diseases.

She had to give up certain things that really hurt: cheese was the worst, with red meat being (to my mind) nearly as bad. She hasn't missed the red meat much, once she got used to the idea of not eating steak. However, she hasn't sacrificed flavor, nor has her family. Each year I spend about a week with them on vacation. We eat a lot of fish and chicken. Yes, she skins the chicken breasts. But she simmers them in broth with a lot of seasonings, or mixes them with rice with a lot of seasonings, or marinades them with olive oil and vinegar, or does something equally creative. There are seasonings beyond salt that do wonders for things like this. Beans of most types, foods cooked in canola or olive oil; green salads, cooked vegetables; any type of fruit; all are okay. We've made cakes where applesauce was substituted for the fats; I'm a purist about those kinds of things, and I thought the cake was wonderful. (We're talking chocolate cake, now, not something like carrot cake, which has always seemed a waste of good fat calories to me.)

She is a physician, by the way, but she has frequently commented that medical training in general doesn't teach much about nutrition. I'm not surprised that you're getting lackluster information from doctors about what to do.

If you're interested in more specific information, I can ask around and find out what books she read, and what books some other friends who've successfully come out of autoimmune disease issues by dietary changes, and send you some recommendations.

Here's another idea: tell us what foods you think are acceptable, and throw the floor open for recipe ideas. I bet the gang here can come up with a ton of good ideas.

[mizducky]

Cool! We're off to a good start!

A couple of additional points about my personal health situation:

--Re: exercise--this has become vastly complicated in the past several years by extensive osteoarthritis, in addition to the gout (at least that's the current diagnosis; I'm in the process of making my MD test me for additional conditions, because this "osteoarthritis" is not at all behaving like the descriptions on medlineplus.gov). Anyway--yes, I used to love to shake it on the dance floor, but nowadays if I do that for one song's worth I often wind up having to spend the next day in bed in excruciating pain. And getting concrete suggestions out of my doctor on how to exercise without damaging myself that way has been an "exercise" in frustration. In fact, I have a whole parallel rant about how doctors and health people always say "go out and exercise," but leave you as much adrift without practical suggestions how to accomplish that as they do about sticking to that food plan. To follow that thread would definitely take us totally off-topic WRT eGullet, but suffice it to say I am also currently trying to come up with end-run strategies for sneaking up gently on the exercise thing--including seeing a physical therapist to find out how to exercise without causing myself even more pain than I'm in already.

--Re: losing weight==burn more calories than one consumes: I have to add a "yes but" to that one too. Surely I can stand to eat less ... but past weight-loss dieting history has shown me that my body has become marvelously resistant to losing weight, stubbornly sticking on plateaus even back in my dieting heyday when I could and did spend four evenings a week in the gym while doing a 1200 calorie diet. I do believe, from my own experience and that of many friends I have observed, that some people's metabolisms are simply resistant that way. My theory is that it's an evolutionary adaptation against famines or some damn thing. In any case, one of the resolutions I've made for myself is that from here on in, weight loss as such is to be viewed as a possible happy byproduct of healthy eating, but NOT THE MAIN GOAL. If I'm eating in an optimally healthy way, with my cholesterol, blood pressure, and all those other blood chemistry thangs are all textbook-perfect, but the number on the scale still happens to be high according to some actuarial table, I am officially Not Going To Give A Damn Anymore.

--And that gets down to my real goal in healthy eating: the blood pressure, the high triglycerides, the high cholesterol, the gout. Those are what are scaring me, not the number on the scale as such. I know, I know, doctors point to obesity as the cause of all those things. But I believe the pell-mell quest for lowering that number on the scale by any means necessary, no matter how extreme, is the one single thing that has most messed me up in my quest for genuine health. It's why I've done some extremely damaging diet behavior over the years--quasi-anoretic behavior, controlling hunger by smoking cigarettes, doing crash diets like Atkins and Stillman (anyone remember the Stillman Diet?)--often as not with my doctors looking the other way because they were so happy with that magic number on the scale. Nuh-uh. Never again on that stuff, either. Like I said: if some of the weight comes off, that's a lovely side benefit. But that's not gonna be my yardstick.

Okay, on to an example of strategies I have figured out so far:

1. Dealing with gout means drastically decreasing the amount of gout-provoking foods I eat, the main culprits being animal protein. The typical gout diet prescribes a maximum of two 3-ounce servings of meat a day. That ain't a helluva lot. Even with anti-gout meds, I've discovered that if I go much over that on a given day, I can count on warning twinges in my feet and additional stiffness and pain throughout my bod for the next few days. So I'm on a pretty tight leash there. But totally cutting myself off on meat made me crazy with cravings. So the quest became to find healthy foods that satisfied me in ways similar to meat. I had to do a lot of thinking about exactly what it was about meat that turned me on in ways no salad or apple was capable of doing ... and on reflection I realized it was a combination of that dense, chewy, "meaty" texture, and that savory flavor now known by that incredibly-helpful label "umami." So: somebody above mentioned roasted vegetables--those have become some of my best weapons in substituting for the "umami" hit that meat gives me; to a certain extent, their density of texture kinda helps too. Mushrooms are also good that way--although ironically, it turns out they're gout-provoking too! (though not as profoundly so as meat). Eggplant cutlets help. And right when I was first diagnosed with the gout, I ate a ton of cheese (dairy protein doesn't provoke gout the way animal-flesh does). Dairy that's not low-fat, of course, has its own problems in terms of provoking the cholesterol level; still, the cheese was a useful tool in weaning me away from the ultra-danger foods on the way to less dangerous foods.

(For those of you who are curious about the specific requirements of an anti-gout diet, here is a PDF of a typical one.)

2. Occasional splurges are officially okay, within reason. Every once in awhile, I still allow myself, say, a meal of spare-ribs or turkey, even if my feet will twinge for the next few days. It's the long-term average performance I'm after; and totally banning foods, I've discovered, will eventually tempt me into a total breakout binge with much worse consequences than if I did allow myself a moderate indulgence in the danger-food.

3. There are some foods that are the centerpieces of most healthy diets that I simply cannot stand--so I don't eat 'em. For instance--after decades of dieting, I've come to have a real ambivalence-to-hatred regarding the typical green salad. Once in a blue moon I'm in the mood for one, but generally they leave me unsatisfied, and even feeling "punished" the way I used to do when slaving under an old-school diet. But one day light dawned on Marblehead (as we used to say back in Bahston): If I didn't like green salads, I bloody well didn't have to eat 'em! Again, analyzing what aspects of foods turned me off or on, I realized I had a distinct preference for foods with a lot more density than your typical lettuces. So--why not make a non-lettuce-based salad, then? Since then, I've been happily making myself chopped salads of diced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions or scallions, bell peppers, and other "meatier" vegetables, dressed with a simply olive-oil-based vinaigrette, and been much more satisfied.

4. One of the biggest helps to me in figuring this stuff out has been the work of Annemarie Colbin, the natural-foods teacher and author. Like all such authors, I do take her work with a grain of salt (so to speak), but IMO she's got a lot on the ball. Taking a hint from her non-doctrinaire use of macrobiotic concepts, I came to realize that the common theme in the foods I liked most was that, in macrobiotic terms, they were all very "yang"--dense in texture as well as nutrition, flavors strong and concentrated. So, no wonder I don't care for salad greens--in macrobiotic terms, they're way the hell out on the yin end of the yin/yang continuum. Macrobiotics also holds that zipping madly back and forth between the extremes of yin and yang tends to leave one's system all jangled--that would be a good model for why going cold-turkey from my meat-heavy ways directly to an optimally healthy diet always seemed to backfire with me, so that I'd break off the diet with a messy binge. So, using that as my model, I am gently noodging myself down the continuum from the extreme yang of heavy meat consumption, to the lesser yang of smaller meat portions and non-meat foods with "meaty" qualities; and as that progresses okay, I will gradually noodge myself even further along, into less and less yang foods, until I'm at balance (and can look a green salad in the eye without feeling like I'm in dieter's jail).

(A few further comments on macrobiotics: I'm not really wanting to get into a debate about its scientific underpinnings or lack thereof. I just know that its categories seem to have a lot of explanatory power for me. And oh yeah--macrobiotics does not equate to vegetarianism. All macrobiotic texts I've ever read, even the most extreme ones, allow for eating some animal protein; and they don't even outright ban any particular food, no matter how unnatural. All the system does is provide a ranking of foods according to how they play against each other in terms of leaving the body feeling satisfied and "in balance." I view it as a useful model for thinking about food. Nothing less, and nothing more.)

5. About the sodium thing: There has been some questioning out there as to whether it's totally necessary to nearly or totally eliminate all sodium whatsoever, which is what certain health pundits recommend. I should say here that, totally aside from any doctor's suggestion that I watch my sodium intake, I have noticed that high salt intake does affect me very drastically and very badly. A meal very heavy in sodium makes me retain water like a sponge, swelling up my feet and ankles so that it's nearly too painful to walk. HOWEVER--I neither want, nor actually need, to eliminate all sodium--the amount of salt, say, to make a pot of home-made soup taste properly seasoned does not affect me; it's the amount of salt in, say, a typical can of Campbell's soup that is more than enough to turn my feet into ouchy dirigibles. So--a little salt: OK; a lot of salt: no-go.

I realize the above longwinded rant doesn't directly address a number of well-taken points of you previous posters, but I think most of 'em got indirectly addressed in there somewhere or other.

What I'm mainly looking for at this point:

--more feedback/responses as I "think aloud" about what I've figured out so far and what I'm trying to figure out next about this healthy eating thang;

--further suggestions on food strategies to help me wean myself off my extreme meat/fat-loving ways into a more balanced way of eating (these can include general suggestions as well as specific recipes etc.)

--really, pretty much anything else you wanna throw in that you think might be helpful to the topic at hand.

Edited July 24, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[Syrah]

MizDucky,

Last year my boyfriend discovered he had a gallstone and the Dr strongly advised that he lose weight in order to help the recovery from the surgery and just his general health. In order to do this he started walking in the mornings. First 30 mins, then 45 mins and then an hour plus. He really enjoyed that. I helped by changing how I cooked. I tried to incorporate a wider range of foods, and started menu planning so I could allocate nights to different types of meats. We also have two vegetarian nights a week. I don't know what your living situation is but when it is just two people, it's a challenge to incorporate all of the veggies one should eat into a meal. This way, I felt we were concentrating the vegetables into a main dish. Roasting vegetables really brings out their flavour. I love to eat a plate of them by themselves. If you like Asian food, try some veggie stirfries with noodles. Also, when I eat really spicy food, I seem to get full faster. I have no idea if that would work for you.

[SuzySushi]

A couple of suggestions:

Go grains. Grain dishes made from fragrant brown rice (I've been buying Nishiki brand), whole-grain kasha, barley, etc. are filling and satisfying. Get the "umami" in by sauteeing the dry grains first in a little olive oil, or adding mushrooms (I like reconstituted Chinese black mushrooms/shiitake).

Watch your beverage intake. Juices and anything sugar-sweetened pile on the calories. I'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners... but I recently discovered that ice water in which I've floated a few slices of cucumber or a few fresh mint leaves is surprisingly refreshing, and I don't miss the sugar.

Can you swim for exercise, or exercise in water?

[Daniel Rogov]

One does hate to sound simplistic but the solution to healthful eating is, as several have already implied: eat whatever you want, whenever you want, and prepared in any manner you so choose but do so with intelligence and moderation.

It is clear that those with specific health requirements must make adjustments to those but beyond if one cannot deal with moderation no book, no research findings, no control methods are going to help us or in the end "be good for us"

[therese]

Another vote for working out in the water (since your groove thang's laid up with osteo and the gouch). Takes the weight off your joints while providing fantastic resistance for your muscles to work against. Sweating and overheating not an issue, of course. Yes, you have to wear a bathing suit, but it's not like you're lolling on a chaise longue with a mai tai (get that food/drink connection in there).

And I wouldn't write off yoga---I did a modified version of yoga when I was pregant, and we made all sorts of special conditions for our body shapes and potential problems with joint instability. I'm doing it again now for the first time since pregnancy, and have been surprised at how much I enjoy it. The slow movements and breathing are very pleasant. I don't even think about food when I'm doing it.

The benefits of physical activity aren't limited to "burn calories": you also strengthen the heart muscle, promote vascular drainage from your extremities (so less post-soup puffiness), and improve flexibility and lessen pain in OA-affected joints. The endorphin surge can be a huge benefit, at least as good as many prescription meds in treating depression in some women.

For instance--after decades of dieting, I've come to have a real ambivalence-to-hatred regarding the typical green salad. Once in a blue moon I'm in the mood for one, but generally they leave me unsatisfied, and even feeling "punished" the way I used to do when slaving under an old-school diet.

Boy, do I hear this one. A green salad is just about the least interesting thing I can imagine eating. Earlier this year I was getting huge bags of salad greens as part of my CSA, and I might as well have put them directly down the garbage disposal for all the good they did me.

Veggie and grain-based salads are main summer mainstays. I pack my lunch pretty much every day, so that I get not only healthier food but much tastier food than I'd otherwise be able to find.

Salads I've made recently:

Roasted beets with sheep's milk feta (billed as low sodium, but apparently low sodium in this instance was a relative thing---I bought it because it was sheep's milk, and so has even more of that umami quality that your looking for). I skip dressing on this one.

Zipper peas (fresh, blanched---these are like crowder or black eye peas, so there's a mild smoky/peanutty quality to them) with sauteed Vidalia onions and minced country ham (yep, salty as all get out, but very tasty and so a small amount goes a very long way), dressed with apple cider vinegar. Triple dose of umami, lots of texture.

Roasted carrots with minced raw onion and fresh dill, dressed with vinaigrette. Roasting the carrots brings out the sweetness and improves the texture, nice contrast with the raw onion.

None of these are "diet food". Not only will my husband and children eat them, I serve them to dinner guests (who ask for seconds).

[sockii]

Do you cook, or eat out a lot?

I've found that the biggest factor in eating healthy longterm has been cutting back on how much I eat out/buy pre-prepared foods. Because no matter how "healthy" that grilled fish with roasted veggies may sound on my favorite restaurant's menu, it's probably still going to come out loaded with hidden fats, sodium, oils, and all sorts of other stuff much in excess to how I would prepare it at home.

(Case in point: when I started going out with my current SO, we were eating out 3-5 times a week. Before then, on my own I was only eating out maybe 1-2 times a week, max. I very quickly gained 5 pounds, after maintaining at my previous weight for over a year. No other factors in my life changed, not how much I excercised or anything, so it definitely drove home to me that if I wanted to keep my weight at healthy levels I needed to restrict how much I ate out.)

As far as figuring out appealing ways to make healthy foods, my own answer, really, is experiment. Buy new cook books, try things out, see what works for you. I'd say avoid the cookbooks that go "overboard" on things like meat replacement (I mean, when I look for a book on tofu, I want recipes on how to bring out the best of tofu flavor and texture, not how to try to disguise it to make "mock" beef tacos or something like that.) Look for ethnic cookbooks from regions that have consistently learned to make a small portion of meat last and be flavorful by filling a meal with healthy grains, vegetables, etc. Decide which substitutions work for you, and which don't: can you taste a significant difference using 2% instead of whole milk in that recipe? What about skim? Well, if you don't like skim, go back to 2% or low-fat, it's better than whole milk.

Some books I highly recommend for great healthy recipes are Linda Ferrari's "Good-For-You" series (Good For You Soups & Stews, Good For You Pasta, etc). Check on half.com for them. They have virtually become my bible for healthy cooking because there's very little use of fake/artificial ingredients, just lots of flavorful, vegetable-heavy recipes that taste excellent and don't taste "Good For You" at all. I also do a lot of country-style Japanese cooking, which is great for coming up with interesting (and easy) ways to do lots of vegetables.

Also, I'd say that finding a good market for the best quality ingredients is really key. There are veggies & fruits I used to think I hated, until I started getting them from a farmer's market or other super-fresh foodstand. Now I know there's nothing like a big bowl of fresh, fat blueberries at the peak of the season--and it's a much more satisfying snack than the bag of potato chips I might have grabbed before.

Those are just my first thoughts off the top of my head. I can probably come up with more cookbook suggestions after checking my shelf for my favorites.

Edited July 24, 2005 by sockii (log)

[Tess]

I'm reading this thread with great interest-- a lot of good thoughts and suggestions here.

Mizducky, have you taken a look at the Weight Watchers thread? Along with some discussion that's probably indecipherable if you're not in the program, there are a lot of descriptions of healthy, relatively low-fat meals, often with photographs. Not all of them will fit with your particular restrictions, but I think there are a lot of good ideas for modifying your diet in subtle ways that still allow you to eat well.

Speaking of Weight Watchers, it's certainly not for everyone. In my opinion, they don't allow enough food, and they penalize you too heavily for eating healthy fats. But I've found their journaling principle incredibly useful. Writing down everything I eat for a while has helped me identify the things I can change relatively easily and the patterns that get me in trouble. For example-- and this is just me-- I can have ice cream, but not for lunch because eating sugar at mid-day makes me hungrier later. And there are times when I tend to eat double what I really want just because standard portion sizes are so large, and I'm small. I'd rather make adjustments on that level that give anything up altogether.

[Susan G]

I've recently started having soups for lunch: A warm meal makes me more satisfied than a cold one........

[Bernaise]

Green salad is our friend!

I grew up in a household where green salad was served every dinner. Often soup was also served. as a result we ate less meat - a typical meal might be: leek and rice soup, roasted chicken with a carrot or two and a green salad.

What I learned from this is shake up what you eat with texture and temperature and it helps satisfy. If you eat only a salad you will be unsatisfied physically and emotionally-which can easily lead to a justification of nibbling.

Greens can seem flimsy and unsatisfying but they do provide lots of crunching and digestion advantages, so, here is my favourite way around the salad:

Use about 4-6 cups of greens, and dress them lightly with olive oil and vinegar. I feel if you dress the greens first they will wilt slightly and I find them more enjoyable this way!

Next add a layer of the veggies you enjoy-chopped a bit finely i.e. tomato and cucumber.

Top layer, 4 oz of meat-highly flavoured and shredded. Sometimes I do curried chicken(and use a sweetier style dressing) or flank steak and use fresh ginger and garlic.

1 slice of thick cut bacon cooked crisp and crumbled also great-especially with bitter greens.

Fruit and nuts!! strawberries and toasted sliced almonds! Cherries and toasted hazelnuts! try it they're great!

Also I sometimes tire of the rawness of salad my substitute is cooked veggies at room temperature.

Green beans french style, or the flat italian beans are great cooked dressed just like a green salad and made heartier with the addition of a hard-cooked egg.

For dinner I also like green peas thrown frozen into a flat pan where half an onion and about 2 thin slices or equivalent of prosciutto, pancetta or italian salami with a touch of rosemary and if needed a dribble of white wine or chicken broth is added. I consider this a meat and potatoes dish!

[Susan in FL]

Ellen, I probably can't provide you with more valuable info or feedback than you already have, but I wanted to thank you for setting the tone for one of the best threads I've read on healthy eating and the like. I have learned a lot just by reading this thread, thanks mostly to your extensive research. Actually, I was amazed that my attention span lasted long enough for me to read every word in one sitting!

I'll be following this topic, since between the two of us, my husband and I share in some of the health problems mentioned. We both have gout, his much more severe than mine. I'm a cancer survivor, and have fibromyalgia. He also has a couple of other conditions, and we both want to lose weight. I'm in the category of needing to lose 5 to 10 pounds, and he's in the category of 40 or more, as someone mentioned above. I really do identify with so much of what you so elequently stated... especially in regard to the love of food and the satisfaction that some foods give. Each of us would do better if we lived alone, but put together, we do what we love the most, cooking and eating, and often get carried away.

I hope this thread continues. It will be helpful for our current attempt.

[mizducky]

Once again, thanks all for thoughtful replies.

Some responses:

1. More on exercise: alas, I've got a lot of damage to undo here. There was a time in my life where I could walk or bikeride five miles without blinking. Now I literally cannot walk two city blocks without having to stop from pain and stiffness. That's why I finally requested physical therapy. It's going to take awhile before I can manage even a thirty-minute walk again--I'm going to have to sneak up on that one gradually.

Yoga is definitely a great idea, but having once studied it when I was a lot healthier, I fear it's going to be awhile before I'm ready for that too. In fact, the PT class I'm taking does incorporate some intentionally yoga-like moves (one of the PTs actually called one move by its yoga nickname--"downward dog"). I'll get back there too, eventually.

I used to love to swim too, and swimming would definitely be a great exercise for achey-jointed people like me. Right now, however, I confess the massive anxiety produced by the thought of appearing in front of others in a bathing suit is such that I just can't bring myself to do it. I mean, I've even driven over to municipal swimming pools, and turned around and driven home because I couldn't persuade myself to get out of the car. I realize this is totally psychological, but just telling myself to "get over it" has not worked. (It doesn't help that I have a whole childhood's worth of nightmare experiences of being taunted and bullied about my weight, especially in phys ed classes.) I finally realized this is another thing I'm going to need to sneak up on, to ease myself over what has in effect become a kind of phobia. My hope is that, as I continue to attend the physical therapy (which is a group class with people of all ages, sizes, and levels of health), I will gradually desensitize that "phobia" or whatever the hell it is, so that my eventual foray into public swimming pools will not feel quite so emotionally threatening.

(You see the general overall strategy that I'm trying to develop here? Whenever a change of any sort feels like too much of a leap, I am trying to come up with ways to shorten that leap.)

2. Portion control--alas, this is definitely another issue for me. There is no denying I am addicted to that feeling of fullness. And I've been the gamut with that one, including compulsively weighing and measuring every single particle of food that went into my mouth--that was the strategy of a couple different food programs, and alas that strategy awoke a crazy anorectic streak I had no idea was in my psyche, with some really unpleasant results. I've also done the "fill up with 'free' foods strategy," but that tends to backfire too--filling up on celery does not seem to shut off the food-craving switch in my head. Soooooo ... I'm still working on ways to sneak up on this problem too. This brings us to ...

3. Whole grains and other complex carbohydrates. They would definitely help with the satiation issue that seems to bedevil my efforts at portion control--especially when cooked with small amounts of healthy fats (like olive oil) and umami'ed up a bit. But my doctor threw me a real curve-ball with the anti-gout diet--which specifically cites whole grains products like whole-wheat bread and brown rice as foods to AVOID! And to even substitute with refined carbs like white bread and white rice! Yep, whole grains are relatively rich in the amino acid purine, which is the metabolic predescessor of uric acid, the stuff that crystalizes in your joints to cause the painful gout attacks (yep, it's also the stuff that forms gallstones). As the first nasty acute gout attack finally came under control through meds and super-careful eating, I've been tentatively adding whole-grain foods back into my diet. So far, so good--especially if I continue to keep all the other gout-provoking foods relatively low.

I should add that this is yet another example of my medical professionals handing me advice that contradicts other advice. I have also been handed a diet sheet to deal with the high triglycerides, which of course says to avoid refined carbs like white bread and white rice. When I pointed out the contradiction and asked, "so okay, which do I do? What do I do?" I essentially got a non-response--something like "well, do the best you can," followed by a quick change of subject. And unfortunately, all I can afford right now is this HMO, and I have one of the better doctors in it--this is yet another reason why I've been getting a lot more achtung on figuring stuff out for myself, as I simply cannot count on my doctors figuring this stuff out for me.

4. Cooking in vs. eating out/take-out. I love to cook. Too many times, though, pain and fatigue has made me not feel up to cooking, so I get take-out--which, yes, tends to be nowhere near as healthy as cooking where I control what goes into the food. Plus my meat/fat addiction has made burgers dangerously tempting. Plus I'm single; while I do have housemates, our food preferences and eating schedules are so different that shared meals are unworkable. The strategy I'm trying to implement here (and it's hard) is a combo of preparing food ahead during windows of opportunity when my bod is not feeling so cranky; allowing occasional indulgences in dining out/take-out so as to avoid feeling deprived; and trying to make most of those indulgences relatively healthy (like choosing Asian or Mexican food more often than burgers--hey, I know it's not *much* better, but depending on the Asian or Mexican place, it can be at least a little better).

5. Weight Watchers--I know it sounds dumb, but as WW was one of the groups I had a bad experience with way back when, I've been kinda functionally "phobic" about them too, even though I know they've changed a lot since I last went. What can I say except, I'm working on trying to get over that one too.

More later ...

[Tess]

5. Weight Watchers--I know it sounds dumb, but as WW was one of the groups I had a bad experience with way back when, I've been kinda functionally "phobic" about them too, even though I know they've changed a lot since I last went. What can I say except, I'm working on trying to get over that one too. 

Doesn't sound dumb at all. WW culture is strange. That silly slogan they have: "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." To which someone on this board replied: "You just haven't tasted my cooking." Exactly! WW tends to promote food that is not good and not even that healthy. The thread here is what I really use, along with reading some blogs and journals by people who are doing WW in one form or another. I attend no meetings. I'm not even sure why I'm still paying dues to belong online, except that I find the software good for tracking things; it's that little bit of effort-saving that makes it doable. I agree with you that it's very much a matter of finding a balance and not doing things that are such an effort they become overwhelming.

[Smithy]

Wow...the whole-grains thing just threw me for a loop.

I'm still going to suggest that one way to reduce the meat is by putting chunks of meat in with another dish. My thought was, for instance, to saute cut-up chicken breast in canola oil with the seasonings of your choice (say, basil, oregano and lemon juice for a Greek flavor) and then throw in some rice, let it turn translucent in the oil, and pitch in chicken broth with it. Simmer until rice is done, and you have a pilaf. Change the seasonings and you can switch countries with the same general combination of ingredients. It gives a filling feeling without totally depriving you of meat. Maybe if you used white rice you could get around that whole-grain prosciption.

I've actually had the best luck with forced reductions in food, but only when they were associated with either going off on vacations involving strenuous exercise and a different diet altogether (think backpacking) or else getting sick and not being able to eat anything. The first won't work for you and the second is quite counterproductive. When I try the same thing at home ('no more xxxx until I've lost yy pounds') it's backfired on me the same way it has for you. Therefore, barring some forced change I'm inclined to agree that gradual reductions are better than the cold-turkey routines. That way, you can sneak up on your subconscious.

What about beans? Kidney beans, chickpeas, white beans? I love the meaty texture and flavor of bean salads, and they can be jazzed up with bits of onion, herbs, preserved lemons, that sort of thing.

What about fruits, dried or otherwise? Sun-dried tomatoes in oil? Those can be good ways to work some extra texture and flavor into your foods. I can't help thinking that fruits and vegetables are likely to carry nutrients that you need, as well as good flavor. You can throw those sorts of things into rice dishes, too (there I go again with the rice).

A lot of nuts have the right sort of fatty acids - walnuts are good for you, for instance - and might help with that meaty requirement.

I think you're spot-on about needing to look for the right nutrition for your particular health needs instead of watching the scale. I neglected to mention upthread that when my friend cut back on saturated fats and started paying attention to the omega-3 vs. omega-6 fatty acids bit, she lost some 15 or 20 pounds even though she always ate plenty. I generally lose a pound or two when I go to visit them. Their diet isn't that peculiar, and there's always plenty to eat, but it's light on animal protein, with little to no animal fats, no corn oil, and canola and/or olive oil as the cooking fats. Since we like green salads those are always around, but that isn't a requirement of the way they eat.

A lot of the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids business goes toward autoinflammatory diseases and autoimmune diseases. I think gout fits in there, and I'm sure arthritis does.

[therese]

Yoga is definitely a great idea, but having once studied it when I was a lot healthier, I fear it's going to be awhile before I'm ready for that too. In fact, the PT class I'm taking does incorporate some intentionally yoga-like moves (one of the PTs actually called one move by its yoga nickname--"downward dog"). I'll get back there too, eventually.

If you're doing downward dog you're in better shape than you describe. I sure the helll wasn't doing downward dog when I was 9 months pregnant!

I used to love to swim too, and swimming would definitely be a great exercise for achey-jointed people like me. Right now, however, I confess the massive anxiety produced by the thought of appearing in front of others in a bathing suit is such that I just can't bring myself to do it. I mean, I've even driven over to municipal swimming pools, and turned around and driven home because I couldn't persuade myself to get out of the car.

I was thinking more along the lines of a water aerobics class at the Y, or at another gym with a (preferably) indoor pool. No kids, no bikini clad stick women, just other people who are interested in a good low impact workout. Just about everybody will have some sort of joint or other health issue, and absolutely nobody cares what anybody looks like. The trip from locker room to poolside includes a robe.

It's basically PT, so you may be able to get hooked up with a suitable class that way.

[Maison Rustique]

Ducky, I have a friend who had to have both knees replaced. They refused to do the surgery until she lost weight. She started a strict diet, but diet wasn't enough. They told her to sign up for water exercise at the Y. Like you, she was mortified at the thought of people seeing her in a bathing suit (She's also about 30 years older than you.). So, the first time she went, she wore sweats. After she saw what everyone else looked like, she immediately went out and bought a bathing suit.

If nothing else, why not just go and look in on a class before you sign up? I wish you lived closer--we'd go together!

And BTW, my friend lost her weight, had her surgery and is doing great!

[Pookie]

If you are looking for some high fiber grain that is also low Purine you could try Barley. Nice and bulky and low calorie, but yet with a little spicing can be used in place of rice in many recipes.

Barley is reccomended on a low Purine diet. A nice barley pilaf with chicken and some roasted veg could give that umami taste and be very healthy.