The Responsible Diet Experiment - The Beginning

If you read my last post, you'll know we're trying to eat more responsibly by cutting out some of the meat we consume on a daily basis, and adding in lots more fruits and veggies. After hitting the bookstore (my mecca), I decided on Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook - 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living.

If you're not familiar with Mark Bittman, here's a synopsis: Food writer extraordinaire and James Beard award winner, he recently was diagnosed with very high cholesterol and was 35 pounds overweight. His doctor instructed him to take drastic measures by becoming vegan, but obviously with his job this was next-to-impossible. So he adopted a "vegan before six pm" attitude and set out to not only eat more healthy foods, but to make sure those foods he did eat actually WERE healthy and responsible for the planet. He wrote a book called Food Matters and then created this companion cookbook.

First up from the book for us: Cold Cucumber and Avocado Chowder with Shrimp and a panzanella salad. After shopping for ingredients, here's what we have:

Certainly looks like we're on the right track! Things I learned from these recipes:

1. The people who print preparation and cook times in cookbooks are sadists. And my knife skills are seriously lacking.

2. Chopping large amounts of vegetables goes best with a glass of wine and the first *NSYNC album.

3. Panzanella is essentially bruchetta in salad form with the bread already in it.

4. Cold soup kinda weirds the husband out.

"Soup" is on the left, and panzenella is on the right. Bittman's comment on the soup that it's "really more like a chopped salad that you eat with a spoon" is an understatement. This was just a chopped salad that you pour an avocado and orange puree over, like a dressing. I thought it was tasty enough, but the husband didn't like it. Said it was missing something and the cold shrimp was off-putting. But he ended up eating both his and my helpings of the panzenella, and that was the dish without any meat! But as he put it, "I could eat bruchetta till I'm sick."

Final verdict:

Panzenella: Making again. Easy ingredients, easy prep, and a great use for stale bread.

Cold Cucumber and Avocado Chowder with Shrimp: Mixed reviews, not worth the time spent.

The Journey Towards a Healthier Diet

I've been tossing around the idea of cutting some of the meat from my regularly prepared meals, and, good sport that he is, my husband has given me the go-ahead to try it.

The move away from processed foods was simple, except for the I'm-exhausted-and-refuse-to-chop-or-otherwise-prepare-more-than-three-ingredients meals. Just last night we flew home from a week-long trip halfway across the country and went straight from the airport to a friend's birthday party at a dueling piano bar. Afterwards, the last thing I wanted to do at 10:30 pm was go grocery shopping to restock the house and then cook. Frozen bagged meals are my friends at these times, though they're loaded with sodium. But all in all these minor offenses aren't really a cause for concern.

The move away from red meat wasn't too difficult, either, once I learned how to properly prepare pork. Much more lean, usually cheaper, and more versatile than beef, anyway. Hamburger Helper no longer sits in our cupboard as an evil temptation, and I can whip up an awesome pork tenderloin in no time.

But even though we've cut out many boxed-and-bagged foods, and hardly ever eat red meat (aside from the weakness my husband and I both have for Carl's Jr's western bacon cheeseburgers - don't judge), we still don't need to eat meat at EVERY meal. It's just not necessary. Meat is hard to digest, and it's expensive. Plus nowadays, who knows where it came from, or what other friendly hormones or additives have hitched a ride?

My new goal is to incorporate some non-meat dishes into our diet. I'm not going to call them "vegetarian" because I'm sure there will still be milk, butter, eggs, and other animal-related paraphernalia in the dishes. Our biggest challenges will certainly be:

1. Protein. My husband and I both have very physical jobs. On our feet from 8-12 every shift, sometimes overtime or extra shifts, working with equipment or hazardous materials, we can't exist on vegetables, and we don't get breaks to snack on carrot sticks. Those meals have to stick, and have to last.

2. Tofu and beans. I dislike most beans, and tofu is not allowed. I may be trying to eat healthier, but I don't believe in half-assed substitutions like tofu. If a meal doesn't taste good because you substitute an inferior ingredient, you just ruined your whole meal. There's enough good food out there you shouldn't have to "suffer."

So off I go to the bookstore to find a new cookbook. "Flexitarianism" is the new "it" term for doing a partial-vegetarian diet, and it at least gives me a starting point. Hopefully you'll be able to look forward to great new recipes that will help you incorporate healthier ingredients without even missing the meat!

Wish me luck!

Join a CSA!

One of the best things my husband and I did for our health and eating habits was to join a Community Supported Agriculture program, or CSA. The general idea is you pay a farmer (or group of farmers) a set amount every month, and in turn you get a box of fresh produce delivered straight from a local grower. The produce is fresh, in season, often organic and pesticide-free, locally grown, and super tasty! The image above is just a sample of one box we received: fennel, butter lettuce, kale, avocados, oranges, celery, broccoli, strawberries, and Swiss chard.

Not only are you supporting local growers, a CSA forces you to incorporate more veggies into your diet, and more versatile ones at that. We had fallen into a routine of only eating broccoli, carrots, and asparagus, since those are our favorite. Sure, they're good for us, but where are the green leafy veggies? The iron? The vitamin B? And we hardly ever ate a fruit other than a banana.

When we received our first CSA box I remember opening it up and wondering, "what the hell is that?" Some of the veggies I knew, but there were definitely some I didn't. Turns out the mystery veggie was Swiss chard, which has now become one of our new favorites. A month or so later, and we had baby bok choy. Ooookay...guess I'll have to figure out what to do with this, too! A couple minutes on the grill with some olive oil and salt and pepper, and bok choy is very tasty!

I really recommend trying one out. It benefits everyone involved. If you live in Southern California I suggest Farm Fresh To You - they're the CSA we use, and not only can you choose the frequency and size of the box you get, they deliver to your door! Plus their program you can cancel at any time, whereas others you have to sign up for a year. If you are interested, visit their site at www.farmfreshtoyou.com. Otherwise you can Google "Community Supported Agriculture" for your area and get started! Enjoy!