Day Twenty-seven, Eating to Live

My view on what is and is not food is going through an epic transformation thanks to books by Neal Barnard, M.D., and Eat To Live by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. 

Of course, both doctors know (and probably their publishers, too) that to get people's attention they need to advertise weight loss on the covers of their books. That is all good and fine, but regardless of weight loss, the fundamental nutrition information they both offer up in their books has me realizing that I have not been eating real food for some forty odd years. 

OK, I have been enjoying vegetables and fruits for quite a while now, so I have not been completely deprived of nutrition. But, I have percentage-wise definitely consumed a lot more non-food, as I am now calling it. The nutrition information is so smack-your-forehead simple and intuitive, it is a wonder we ever got off track and into eating all of the processed garbage we now call food. He also offers up nutritional information that is not so readily available to the public. Or at least, it is not plastered to billboards or predominant in television advertisements. Those are held available for the disease causing, mega-rich "food" companies. 

If you are a die-hard meat eater, Dr. Fuhrman does not admonish you in his book, nor does he push or guilt you into giving it up. He offers the same advice to all, which is to make at least 90% of your daily intake of food fresh produce. He does bring up the harmful effects of eating animal products, but he says that if you focus most of your calories on fresh produce, you are better off than any person, vegetarian or meat eater, who eats mainly processed foods. 

Personally, I am sticking with the no animal products way of eating, but I think his book is good for everybody. He even includes two meal plans--one for vegetarians and one for meat eaters. I would rather see the meat eaters of the world greatly reduce their animal product foods over following a low-carb diet any day. A little bit of meat is a huge improvement over the colon cancer inducing amount many Americans consume these days. 

My diet contains some processed foods--I am not claiming perfection. I have, however, reduced my intake of them by using water in place of soymilk to make my morning oatmeal. I only use it in my coffee and enjoy the occasional chocolate soymilk as a treat. I have also continued to allow Tofurky deli slices in my diet. They are tasty and quick when I need to make a sandwich in a hurry. 

In trying to follow Dr. Fuhrman's produce guidelines, I have found that I do not have the time or energy to eat non-foods. He actually recommends eating an entire head of lettuce daily! I am doing my best to eat mainly vegetables and four or more fruits daily, but it is a lot of food! I am not quite there and may not be for many months to come, but I am greatly increasing my vegetable intake with a concentrated focus on leafy greens. If you read his book, you may also become fanatical about eating your leafy greens. 

Smoothies are an easy and tasty way to get a lot of leafy greens without a ton of chewing. I should just use water, but I will admit that I use orange juice mixed with water as my liquid base. Eventually I will just use water, but for now, I am going to enjoy my smoothies with a little more sweetness than just adding whole fruits provides.  

The above photo shows some vegetables I cooked up in vegetable broth and added to cooked quinoa. Like Dr. Barnard, Dr. Fuhrman advocates staying away from added oils. I cooked the chopped onion, garlic, and mushroom first. Then, I added cauliflower, zucchini, red bell pepper, and spinach. The spices I used were poultry seasoning, parsley, and garlic powder. The cauliflower crumbled into much smaller pieces on its own once it was cooked through. 

This is some amazing green lentil soup I made. I bought the green lentils from Trader Joe's. Lentils are great because you do not have to soak them before cooking them, and they cook up fast. I first cooked the onions, garlic, and mushroom pieces in a bit of vegetable broth* for about five minutes (*enough broth to cover the bottom of the pot and to keep the vegetables from burning). Then, I added more broth (~48 ounces), cauliflower, carrot, some garlic powder, dried parsley, and one cup of green lentils and cooked everything on medium-high heat for forty minutes. In the remaining five or so minutes, I added a few big handfuls of raw spinach and covered the pot so as to wilt it before stirring it in with the rest of the ingredients. I was surprised at how well it turned out. I think my palate is adjusted to real food now and does not need a ton of added seasonings to be satisfied.

I am still quite happy and plan to continue on with my vegan diet. Sorry for the gap in blog posts. More on that in a couple of days.

And now on with day twenty-seven...