Use What's Useful

Why I chose this book.  First, the title attracted me, “The How Not to Diet Cookbook.”  Second, the author, Dr. Michael Greger lists the daily ingredients he wants us to eat and he gets complaints that it’s too much food and not enough calories.

Isn’t that a dieter’s dream?  Too much food/not enough calorie!   What do you think?   page xiv  

Dr. Greger explains that any long-term eating plan must be nutritionally complete, containing all essential vitamins and minerals.
          The healthiest diet is the most effective.  A whole food, plant based diet is the single most effective weight loss intervention ever published.  This was proven in a random control trial with no protein control, no calorie counting and no exercise component.  (Although you’ll see he does list exercise on his daily list.)

After I finished the book, I realized that he doesn’t have any meat at all.  Also, no eggs, nor milk.  What he posits is probably true but it’s impractical for me.  My husband has gout and can’t eat a lot of beans and greens.  So take what I say, and what he proposes in mind when you plan your meals.  A lot of things he mentions, I forgot or have forgotten. So this book got me back on track.

 Not all calories are the same.  Calories have different impacts on your body.  100 calories of chickpeas impacts you differently than 100 calories of chicken, depending on your bodies’ absorption, appetite, and microbiome.  It’s not WHAT we eat but HOW and WHEN.

 This is the whole plant food lifestyle.  It’s got to be a way of life.  It’s safe, inexpensive, and healthy.

BTW, Dr. Greger donates 100% of his profits to charity.

To decide how healthy a food is, he checks off how many attributes it has.  

The more checkmarks a food gets, the healthier it is. 

At each meal, Dr. Greger recommends to preload with water. Add apple cider vinegar to the water with your meal.  Eat an apple before each meal, or a salad, or soup, or some other negative calorie food.  The point is to fill yourself up before the meal, with good food. 

Use what you can.  I certainly am not going to go all plant-based meals.  My husband can’t.  Most of these recipes use chia seeds.  Some others use flaxseed and miso paste.  I don’t know what those are so certainly I’m not buying, nor using them. 

This book reminded me of the apple vinegar in the water trick. Eat soup and salad first. He has a salt substitute that uses yeast, so I added yeast and cumin to my own salt-free seasoning.  

 

What do you think?