You Are What You Eat Part V

I am finally ready to get semi-specific with food recommendations. I will start with the basic “cereal” recipe that is my breakfast every morning. And “start” is a key word here. If 100 people decide to give this an honest whirl, you can bet that within a short time there will be 100 variations on it.

Whenever I cook anything, my first ingredient is the music that stimulates the energy and free-flowing thoughts that make cooking time fly. As I write this, Eric and JJ serenade me with their beautiful guitars on “Ride the River.” JJ has floated off to his next astral plane, but his music lives on.

I use Steel Cut Oatmeal and Oat Bran,* but there are other grains that you might prefer as a regular base or to create alternative recipes for variety. Check them out on the Internet, and compare them with oats and one another.

The same is true for my basic “chili” recipe. Experiment with other legumes, grains and other ingredients for variety, but consult our mutual BFF for nutrients and proportions to ensure that you wind up with complete proteins and other essentials.

By the time I get through adding other ingredients, the two one-pound boxes yield eight-32-oz. containers full of "cereal,” but I eat only seven of them myself, giving one to my daughter to help move her to a healthier diet in her “becoming” process. The water I have cooked with probably doubles the quantity of the dry cereal, but that still accounts for only half of the final amount.

My next suggestion is going to sound like I’ve suddenly veered into pie or salad ingredients. Before you dismiss it, consider this: Ever eat pumpkin pie? Croutons in a salad? Grains plus vegetables. Try to suspend judgment until you get through this section. My 95-year-old mother loved it, but then it evolved from her fabulous, life-enhancing Brown Bread recipe, passed down from her grandmother.

Ready?

I add a pound of carrots and two pounds of pumpkin to my cereal once it has finished cooking to my desired texture. Don’t care for vegetables? Doesn’t matter. The spices and blender ensure that you won’t even know they are there. That’s only about two ounces and four ounces a day, respectively, so your microbiome should be able to adjust. I add walnuts that yield two ounces per day, each, from the cereal and the chili as well.

I get the same daily amount of carrots and pumpkin from my “chili,” along with half an apple and a “bunch” of broccoli.
I peel the stalks, chop it, nuke it to my desired texture and wind up with a quart of cooked broccoli. I usually cook three bunches at a time, simply because I happen to have a one- and a two-quart microwavable dish on hand (An-a-three-an-a four…). Thanks, Linda! Gone five years and still taking care of me.

I cook a “sauce” separately that includes my carrots, pumpkin, tomato sauce, ginger and half of the ground pepper. The other half having been added to the basic chili mix. Every night, I take ten minutes to mix my prepared ingredients for the next day, winding up with three containers that would each comprise a meal for most folks. I weigh only 130 pounds, but my feet whirl on my bike

and my brain whirls in my head, so I go through a lot of calories.

First, I combine the quart of chili with the sauce, then combine that with the whey (protein powder) in the first container. Then, I add the half-apple and broccoli to the remaining chili and split that into two containers. I eat that first container last, two hours before lights out, as it has a higher proportion of protein. When we get to “sleep,” I’ll go into why you want to do that. Short form: Sleep is for building/repairing muscle, but it needs the protein to be on hand, not already converted to glucose and burned up during the day.

I do spend a lot of time eating and take in a lot of volume, but that’s the beauty of the Volumetric approach. It keeps me from going through the day focused on food. I also chew Xylitol gum to keep the dopamine dribbling into my system as well. Could there be an issue with Xylitol? Someone has an issue with most everything. You’ll have to decide. Consult our BFF, then your gut (no pun intended), and don’t look back until you have new information.

I get three one-quart meals out of the chili, by combining it with the apple, the broccoli, two ounces of whey powder, and the cup of walnuts that go into both the cereal and the chili each week. I shouldn’t be so specific with the amount of whey powder as that depends on your weight, workout routine and goals. Or any of the ingredients. "Everyone to their own taste," said the old lady as she kissed the cow. (Also from my mother, who heard it from hers and so on.) 

About three hours before lights out, I drink a serving of tart cherry juice. This gives me some natural sugar (still glucose) that boosts me out of the mid-evening doldrums and then the sleep-promoting and antioxidant ingredients therein kick in by bedtime. 

To keep the cereal thin enough to mix in the carrots and pumpkin, I leave the lid on as the cereal cooks, but stir it per usual instructions. The pumpkin is already cooked before being canned. I nuke the carrots until they are soft. You can cook them in other ways, but it is my understanding that the cell walls of carrots are so tough that you aren’t going to get much nutrition out of them if they haven’t been cooked and run through a blender.

All of my cooking includes a lot of spices that are generally recognized as healthy. Cinnamon, turmeric, red pepper, garlic, cumin and ginger. You’ll have to decide whether you want, say, turmeric and red pepper in, say, your cereal). Those little containers are spendy in the quantities I use spices, so I order them online in bulk. You’ll want to experiment with small quantities of spices, though, so you don’t wind up with five pounds of garlic and decide you don’t like it or your boss complains you are driving away customers with your breath.

When I was working, I ate the more pungent foods after work to give them time to work their way through my system. Now that I’m retired, the world just has to put up with my many foibles as none of them are illegal these days, not even my smile. (Prine, J) John claims that song is not about marijuana. John. Please.

Re garlic and “gas,” you can “privatize” that if you eat the broccoli and apples in the evening. Apologize to your spouse. I mix them in with my chili so I’m eating them from naptime onward.  Nowadays, I’m retired and can “de-gas” at will. Why do you think they call us “Old Farts?”

Before I spring my surprise ingredient on you (as if I haven’t already asked you to think outside the cereal box), let me ask: “Have you ever enjoyed a chocolate donut or chocolate cake?” That would be chocolate with added sugar and fat and processed grain.

If you love this sinful pleasure as much as I do, “oh-ohh-ohhh-ohhhh-ohhhhh (Taylor, T. Home Improvement) here's how you delete the sin and retain the pleasure. Articles on the health benefits of “dark chocolate” usually fail to mention that you aren’t going to find it in the candy aisle, where it is “enhanced” with added fat and sugar. I finally had an “aha” moment and found Baker’s Chocolate, in, where else? It is 100% cacao.  No added fats or sugar. But isn’t that “bitter”? Yes, but I don’t eat it like a candy bar. I add it to my cereal when I cook it and it isn’t at all bitter and the heavenly taste of chocolate comes through accompanied by angels plucking harps.

I also add **chocolate to my basic rice and lentils   recipe, which is very similar to chili. I got some really, really hot chili pepper the last time I ordered online so be careful before you add it to a huge kettle of "chili."

I realize this is not a step-by-step Betty Crocker recipe session, but this post and this thread on the blog has gotten waaaay too long already. (See BFF for tips and tricks) In the unlikely event I find questions in the comments on the blog, I’ll try to respond there.

*Oats are naturally gluten free and have a low potential for allergic reactions in general.

**Chocolate has been an important ingredient in Mexican cooking for thousands of years. The Ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations first grew cacao.

If you have a topic you would like me to write about, please leave a comment on the blog, reached by clicking on the title, underlined in blue. 

You Are What You Eat Part IV

A commenter on a nutrition article got me started on this thread when he expressed concern about misleading labels. Hint: “Figures never lie, but liars sure can figure.” The more ingredients the manufacturer has to work with, the more opportunity to mislead the shopper who just wants to get home and fix lunch. I like to keep shopping simple. 

I have dabbled with “organic” and decided I can’t afford it. I seem to be doing fine with ingredients from the grocery store.  If you can afford organic, by all means eat organic.

I do most of my shopping around the outside perimeter of the store. That’s where you find the produce, fish, dairy, frozen food…About all I buy out of the middle are items like brown rice, lentils (beans), stone ground oatmeal, oat bran, canola/olive oil, canned solid-albacore tuna, powdered skim milk (I use it to make my own yogurt), lemon juice and canned pumpkin.

The latter is a good example of how to avoid misleading advertising. The label reads “100%” pumpkin” and features a nice orange pumpkin. 

My frozen blueberries with the purple berries on the bag are unsweetened, 100% blueberries. No labels to decipher on the produce, and the colors speak for themselves.

I don’t use sweeteners anymore. I opt for healthier flavoring from spices, lemon juice and a surprise treat to be revealed in my first “basic recipe.” To help you or the family ease into this new regimen, you might use frozen apple juice or molasses for sweeteners. Glucose (AKA, sugar) is glucose, but molasses is, for me at least, more satisfying in perceived sweetness per calorie, due to its intensity.

I also buy sauerkraut and tomato sauce in the canned goods aisle, both of which have added sodium. That doesn’t add up to a lot of sodium and, we need some sodium. And, along with yogurt, sauerkraut is a “fermented” food and contributes to a healthy gut microbiome.

Bonus tip: If the kids want a “choice,” tell them, “eat or go hungry.” No, ease them into it as well.

Full Disclosure: At this point, I do not accept payment for “product/vendor placements.” If that should change, I will notify you. 

Fuller Disclosure: Nobody has offered me any payment, but I have received a few death threats if I keep writing.

I see that I have once again jumped into a vast subject with a plan that is only half-vast. The food recommendations I intended to introduce one at a time have been given away in this “where to shop” post. So, next time I will give you a couple of basic recipes that you can modify to suit your personal tastes, introducing new foods in small amounts and one at a time.

If you have a topic you would like me to write about, please leave a comment on the blog, reached by clicking on the title, underlined in blue. 

You Are What You Eat Part III

Actually, before moving on to your next new food, let’s start by upgrading a food that you are already eating, with a fresh or frozen alternative.

You may be wondering, “Is ‘real food’ (nothing added or taken away) too expensive?” It all depends on how you look at it.  

Calculate the amount of money spent on habits you already know are unhealthy, replace them with healthy habits, and apply the money to your new healthy food habits. Lose the cigs and save your lungs. Lose the pop and save your liver. “Liver?!?” Yes. Fatty liver is a precursor to cirrhosis. Also, ingredients originating in laboratories cause the liver, your internal Environmental Protection Agency, to ask, “Red Dye #4? What am I supposed to do with Red Dye #4?”

I cannot deny that fresh/frozen food does cost more than canned. Two of my favorites are big expenses. A 48-ounce bag of frozen blueberries is just short of $11 at Walmart. I eat 12 ounces of blueberries a day. That is nearly $3 a day, around $1000 a year. Five percent of my income. And the same expense for my fresh broccoli! OMG! On the other hand, I spend zippo, “nada penny” on pop, nicotine and other drugs. I save a lot of money on gas and wear and tear on my vehicles by riding my bike whenever possible.

Also, those blueberries and broccoli reliably show up on most “superfood” lists and tend to satisfy hunger better for having met my body’s nutritional needs. Blueberries also appease my sweet tooth. In the case of broccoli, it also assuages my hunger by filling my belly with a low-calorie, nutrient-dense food per the principles of the Volumetrics plan.

Another consideration as you calculate the “cost” of real food: More important to me than money, the older I get, the more precious my time becomes to me. A few years ago, there were a number of articles on the rate of chronic illness, the kind that requires frequent “doctoring,” being cut in half for those folks who were Fit at 50. As fascinating as I find typical clinic waiting room literature,

 I don’t want to spend my Golden Years leafing through it, surrounded by crying babies and sick people coughing out aerosols of disease, while my doctor is at the hospital trying to stave off the “death spiral” for another chronically ill person.

 “Move it or lose it” and power that motion with real food. Healthy food for a healthy life. 

If you have a topic you would like me to write about, please leave a comment on the blog, reached by clicking on the title, underlined in blue.