Regaining Our Balance

Happy Birthday to the BW

The beautiful wife starts her day walking with a few dear friends.  Depending on who’s there, they get in up to 10,000 steps.  They call it pavement therapy.  Their tongues must be tied to their quadriceps for they talk non-stop, chattering like the birds in the forest.  It’s a happy sound heard by many as they tirelessly circle the neighborhood.  It's amazing to me, how they never run out of words.    

The walk doesn’t tire her; in fact, she returns recharged, especially if they catch a pretty sunrise or someone has exciting news to share.  In contrast, I take my exercise at midday—hiking or cycling—for the vitamin D.  (The BW sunbathes on the patio for her "D".)  I do my workout alone, head bowed, deep in thought.  I stop here and there to do exercises.  When I return I’m sweaty, exhausted, and quiet.  See how different we are from each other?

Some years ago I read a short story that has stayed with me—The Visionary Maid and the Illusionless Man.  It’s about a girl who dances into the life of a rather dull boy.  The fellow is a steady and practical soul—a realist whose glass hovers below half-empty.  The girl is a joyful song who dreams a world of possibilities.  Her glass, of course, runneth over. 

The boy falls in love and they marry.  After the honeymoon the husband begins to puncture her dreams, one by one.  This isn’t done out of meanness; it’s just important, he feels, to be realistic about life.   Over the years this negativism takes its toll and one day the wife announces that as he doesn’t seem to appreciate or enjoy her, she’ll be leaving.  The husband, confronted by a world without her daily sunshine, begs her to stay and promises to change.  Funny thing, I can't remember how the story ended—whether it was, or wasn't, too late for him to change. 

You can appreciate why that story has stayed with me, can’t you?  It’s the beautiful wife’s birthday today and I’m on my best behavior.  Yes, that's her, the mom in the pix above.  The four children were joined by two more and all have their own families now but the BW remains remarkably unchanged. 

Catching Your Balance

Remember Eric Hoffer?  Hoffer was blind in his youth so missed the conventional education most of us suffer.  As a consequence, he spent his life in manual labor when his vision returned, working as a migrant farm worker, and then longshoreman in San Francisco.  Though he worked at menial tasks, his thoughts were large.  Here’s one that fits us today:

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance and keep afloat.

We lost our food balance this last week, overtaken by events.  A grandson was born and we cared for his siblings for two days.  Rather than follow our menu, we ate what the grandkids would like and that started a week of drifting.  So this menu puts two weeks together and ignores some improvised meals.  There’s a lesson here:  You’ll lose your food balance now and them—that’s life, it happens—but it ‘s important to swing and flail about until order is restored.  This morning we wrote a good menu for the coming week—order's restored.

Past Menu (We started with a Costco BBQ chicken, with the idea to spread it over three meals.)

Monday

• Roast chicken (We made 3 quarts of stock from the carcass.)
• Roast potatoes.
• Green salad

Tuesday

• Chicken rice pilaf  (a meal in one dish using leftover chicken and vegetables—recipe to follow)
• Dessert:  Cantaloupe. 

Wednesday

• Chicken salad (last of the chicken)
• Asparagus
• Watermelon

Thursday

• Beth’s Vegetarian Enchiladas (from the freezer)
• Green salad
• Dessert:  Cantaloupe. 

Sunday (A family birthday dinner)

• Roast pork tenderloin (yes, Costco)
• Pasta salad
• Mixed greens salad with pears, cranberries, and feta cheese.
• Orange Jello salad (a birthday request—tasty but pretty unhealthy)
• Skip’s Homemade Applesauce
• Apple pie with ice cream (I should have baked a cake)

Menu, Week 24

The End of Illness

Had a great weekend, in case you wondered.  Friday we made the long drive to picturesque Midway, high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.  Though it’s always a wrench to leave home, we love these trips to Midway.  Likewise, when it’s time to return home, it’s hard to leave lovely Midway. 

The last trip we came for a wedding.  This time's a work trip but I brought a new book recommended by a friend, titled The End of Illness.  The point of the book, I learned, is that just as we conquered last century’s pandemic of infectious diseases, we maybe could also conquer our current killers, the chronic diseases. 

The infectious diseases (influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox, etc.) had existed in history but were made suddenly worse by Industrial Revolution crowding of people into cities.  These people had once lived close to Nature—and Nature’s food supply—in farms and villages.  Now they lived in crowded cities without sanitary water or systems of waste removal, separated from fresh foods and dependent on processed foods whose only virtue was a long shelf life. 

The infectious diseases were the short-term result of these changes and were conquered by developing clean water and waste removal systems (vaccines came later).  I shouldn’t say conquered; it’s more accurate to say they were prevented by the rise of public health works.  Unfortunately, the food supply kept getting worse.

The chronic disease, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke, were the long-term result of industrialized life, and factory food.  They take decades to develop and are the plagues of our time.  A large part of medical research today is directed towards finding a cure for these diseases.

It’s the theme of this blog that prevention also offers our best chance of surviving the chronic diseases.  So imagine the encouragement of reading a book that advocated just that—prevention of chronic disease, through better diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and becoming your own doctor.  (The author shares my caution about vitamin pills and supplements.)

Because the author is both researcher and doctor, The End of Illness posits that science can offer better treatment through research into the million or so proteins triggered by our DNA.  The idea works like this:  The proteins in a drop of your blood can identify whichever chronic disease(s) you’re developing and guide you to a healthier lifestyle. 

A current example of protein testing is the PSA test for prostate cancer, the usefulness of which has been recently questioned, after several decades of use.  So I’m doubtful about how easy it is to innovate and implement such tests.  Besides, one lesson from writing this blog is an appreciation of how hard it is to change one’s lifestyle.  It’s easier to start down the right path than change it after you’re ill, though course adjustment could come from the protein testing advocated. 

The Wasatch Back Ragnar relay

Saturday morning, as I came outside to enjoy the morning air, a runner jogged by, followed by others.  These weren’t your regular Saturday joggers because they carried numbered tags.  I realized our home was on the route of the biggest relay race in the country, the Wasatch Back Ragnar relay.  Did I say “relay race”?  I suppose it is, but it’s more a mutual encouragement marathon.  The Ragnar is basically 197 miles with thousands of runners encouraging each other.  It’s the most positive thing I’ve ever seen.

All day long on Saturday runners and team vans, creatively decorated, passed by the house.  There appeared to be several thousand teams, each team composed of 12 relay runners and two support vans.  So, I’m guessing, 2000 runners, 4000 decorated vans and 24,000 cheering team members, mostly thirtyish moms.  There were guys too, but the Ragnar is really a women’s race.

I stayed outside all day Saturday, reading The End of Illness, looking up as runners passed, or enjoying the sun on my back as I took breaks to weed flower beds.  Picking up on the spirit of the race, I also spent time at the front gate, giving encouragement to the runners.  Despite their exhaustion, a few runners would glance over and then shout back as they passed, “Love the house.” 

You couldn’t watch the Ragnar and see all the cheering and encouragement that accompanied the hard running without just feeling great.  It was infectious.  At the end of the day I told the beautiful wife I’d never felt more positive about the chances for food reform in our society.  Sunday was Father’s Day.  It was the greatest weekend.

Please comment:  In you've run in the Ragnar relay, please share your experience.

This Week’s Menu

Monday—leftovers from Sunday.

• Chuck roast, cooked with potatoes, onions, and carrots
• Green salad

Tuesday

• Skip’s Vegetable-Cheese Sauce Casserole au gratin.  I’ll have to share the recipe but we had some cheese sauce left over so I cooked it with steamed eggplant, bell pepper, onion, and carrots and then finished it with a breaded crust.  The first time I made this it was great, this time I didn’t use enough cheese sauce plus the eggplant was undercooked.  My bad.

Wednesday

• Sweet Potato-Carrot Soup—well that was the plan because I wanted to work on a recipe but I got busy preparing for a trip to Midway and didn’t get it done.  My bad.  We ate leftovers but we do need to clean out the refrigerator before the trip.  Ditto for Thursday.

Friday

• Café Rio salad and pork enchiladas.  We were traveling and had lunch at the Cedar City Café Rio.  We ordered enough to have leftovers for dinner.

Saturday

• Egg omelets with vegetables cooked by the beautiful wife—a common Saturday dinner.

Sunday (Father’s Day)

• Salmon marinated in a spicy Thai sauce and pan-fried.
• Baked potato
• Cole slaw

Your Choice: Chaos or Order

The quick answer:  A menu-based shopping list will save time, money, stress, and maybe even your family’s health.

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I’ve been reading two totally different books—one about French food culture, the other a scientific study of synchronous systems.  In a flash of intuition, I realized they were discussing the same thing—how to organize our lives.  Here’s a brief summary of the books:

French Kids Eat Everything: How our family moved to France, cured picky eating, banned snacking, and discovered 10 simple rules for raising happy, healthy eaters.  You get the picture—an American mom, married to a French guy, was feeding her young children the modern American diet and using food, unsuccessfully, to win the kid’s cooperation.  The kids were in full rebellion; the more she catered to them, the worse they acted, and ate.  Their diet was terrible.

The family moves to her husband’s hometown in rural France and run headlong into a bastion of traditional food culture.  The relatives are shocked by the children’s diet, as well as their behavior at the dinner table.  The mom, resentful at first and overly protective of her children, puzzles her way through the French approach to eating, trying to figure out the rules.  She arrives at ten rules, which we’ll discuss in the next post.  The French are wiser about food, but the American wife is clever in a profitable way—she writes a likely bestseller about her experience. 

Sync: The emerging science of spontaneous order, the other book, investigates examples in Nature of order emerging from chaos by looking into cyclic behavior:  fireflies that began to blink in unison; heart muscles that contract at precisely the right instant, year after year; even the aquarium school of fish that turn in unison without an apparent leader. 

There was even an example of spontaneous order of interest to the beautiful wife, I thought.  My mistake.  "Have you heard," I asked, "how scientists have found that in coed dorms, as the school year progresses, the women began to have their monthly period about the same time?"  This was a poor topic choice—the beautiful wife never discussed such a personal topic with her dorm mates and didn’t think the scientists should either.

Winning Family Support

Do you ever have that mental flash of light, when you suddenly see clarity in something you’ve pondered for a while?  Trying to explain these two books to my wife, I suddenly saw the books had something in common with each other, but also with her.  Sync, the book, explores how Nature brings order out of chaos.  French Kids Eat Everything reveals how a society teaches the next generation their traditional food culture.  Isn’t that another example of order replacing chaos?  Isn’t that what mothers do on their best days?

I remembered how when rearing our six children, the beautiful wife had a way of winning their cooperation and support.  Harmony was her best dish; we were of one mind, especially at the dinner table.  The kids liked what she cooked and she mostly cooked what they liked.  Picky eating is often a subtle expression of child rebellion.  Somehow the beautiful wife organized order from chaos and harmony from rebellion.  Women are good at this. 

How does a family create harmony, unity, and a common purpose?  I think it happens at the dinner table but begins in the planning that precedes the meal.  It's planning that brinds order to our lives, and reduces the chaos.  Planning is a creative process—a tiny version of that first Creation.  Here are three essential tools:

1. A weekly menu, one created in a participatory process.
2. Recipes for familiar healthy foods (like our 52 Breakthrough Recipes).
3. A shopping list (the subject of this post) to keep the pantry stocked with only the good stuff. 

Shopping Lists

Here's a link to a shopping list if you go to several stores (like Costco, a grocery store, and a farmers market or health foods store).  Or if you prefer a list that includes space for menu writing, visit our daughter's blog inchmark.  In a post the grocery list, she shared her approach to meal planning and provided a link to her editable list.  You may be using an iPhone app for a list but if you don’t have a list you like, you’re welcome to try one of these.   

A menu-based shopping list brings big benefits:

#1:  A shopping list is a plan—an antidote to wandering the store aisles wondering what to eat, susceptible to the worst offerings of Food Inc.

#2:  A shopping list saves money—healthy food really is cheaper than the modern American diet, if you take a thoughtful approach to planning. 

#3:  A shopping list saves time—it’s your best way to minimize grocery store runs and streamline meal preparation.   

#4:  A shopping list reduces stress—how many times have you been in that last-minute squeeze to come up with an idea for dinner? 

#5:  A shopping list lets you teach—your family can’t learn by helping if the plan is all in your head. 

Please comment:  How do you organize grocery shopping?  Got an app for your iPhone?  Use a printed list you keep in the pantry during the week?  What works best for you?  Please share. 

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Menu for Week #15

Good Fats

Word of Wisdom Living covers 13 topics, revisiting and adding to these topics each quarter of the year.  The first discussion of fats was Healthy Change #2:  Never eat deep fat fried foods.  That’s a tough change for some—no French fries, no donuts, no corndogs, and none of those fast food chicken or fish fillets.

This week we’ve discussed the importance of balancing omega-3 and omega-6 fats and Healthy Change #15 advised including some omega-3 in every meal.  Next quarter Healthy Change #28 will address the fried refined starch found in the chip aisle of your supermarket.  Then in the last quarter Healthy Change #41 will recommend eating traditional fats (olive oil, butter, etc.).

Last year a post addressed the health of your brain.  Want to give yourself the best chance of avoiding age-related dementia?  Eat the long-chain omega-3 fat known by the acronym DHA.  DHA is 25% of the fat in your brain and essential to avoiding depression.  

The irony of the omega-3 fats is they’re everywhere present—they’re the most abundant fats on the planet—yet America, the richest nation in the world, eats the least.  Imagine, a famine in the midst of plenty.  Basically, omega-3 fats are incompatible with processed foods because they have a short shelf life once refined.  So if you want to take care of your brain, eat real food. 

Healthiest Cooking Oils

Most of what you’ve heard (outside of this blog) about fats is wrong.  You need to eat saturated fats, in moderation, because they perform essential roles in your body.  The refined oils and margarines—once touted as being “heart healthy” because they contained polyunsaturated oils—are actually bad for your heart.  Foods that carry “low-fat” or “reduced-fat” claims aren’t necessarily good for you. 

Basically, the traditional fats your great-grandmother ate are good for you; the modern factory fats are not.  It’s confusing so here’s a guide to the cooking oils you see in the store:

Week #15 Menu

We start our menu writing by searching the refrigerator and pantry for food that might go bad.  This week we had leftover scalloped potatoes, ham, butternut squash, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, asparagus, and radishes.  In the freezer we had the remains of a Costco rotisserie chicken, some Copper River wild salmon (1.3 lb.) and a 9”x 9” pan of Beth’s Vegetarian Enchiladas from two weeks ago. 

Monday 

• Chicken with Asparagus and Roasted Red Peppers (The beautiful wife cooked this dish for the first time, see the recipe here.)
• Brown rice, long grain
• Salad

Tuesday

• Leftovers from Monday (we really liked it)

Wednesday  (We had guests so finished off the Easter leftovers.)

• Skip’s Scalloped Potatoes
• Ham with pineapple
• Salad
• Dessert: strawberry shortcake

Thursday (The girls were planning a wedding so needed an easy meal)

• Beth’s Vegetarian Enchiladas (from the freezer)
• Salad

Sunday  (A little fancy but a totally healthy meal; we had guests.)

• Poached Copper River Salmon (It's in season, and on sale locally.)
• Roast butternut squash
• Skip’s Homemade Applesauce
• Spinach salad
• Dessert:  Skip’s Omega-3 Carrot Cake

In the next post we'll build on the Healthy Change to write weekly menus and talk about Shopping Lists. 

Sharing Menus

Mitt Romney meets Mike Pollan

The first goal of this blog was to share insights on healthy living, chiefly diet.  We distilled these insights from the oracles at hand: science, tradition, and scripture.   Our title is taken from the Word of Wisdom, a canonized scripture that Mormons are still learning to live.

Though scripture serves as our north star, our blog seeks a conversational tone that invites cooks of every persuasion.  Diversity is strength.  Which brings us to a current food article in the N. Y. Times, “Not Just for Sundays After Church”.  The article is about the evolving Mormon cuisine: “With Mitt Romney’s candidacy for the White House, Americans are newly curious about all the traditions of the [Mormon] church he has done so much to support.”

The article notes, “Healthy living was of great interest to the religion’s founders, and their dietary prescriptions of little meat, much produce and plenty of whole grains make them sound like proto-Pollans.”  And it’s true; Pollan’s excellent book, In Defense of Food, heavily influenced by science, also resonates with our understanding of a scripture-guided diet, in contrast to that crazy modern (MAD) diet the world has stumbled into.

The Last Word on Menus

The last three posts have invoked excellent comments on writing weekly menus.  You, who comment, besides sharing your ideas, also shape this blog.  I’ve gone back and analyzed the first 2000 comments on this blog.  It took me two days; two themes  resonated:

1. Readers want practical recipes that follow our healthy-eating precepts.
2. Readers want wholesome, affordable menus based on these recipes.

There’s a repeating theme in the comments.  Homemakers are concerned about the health of their family and they are tired of the pressure and poor outcome of “wingin’ it” at dinnertime.  There is a growing interest in menu writing but we need a better way to share ideas.

Please Comment

After some pondering, it seems we might move to a new format of three posts a week:

• One post would feature the Healthy Change of the week, with supporting information. 
• The second post would offer a suggested menu of three or four dinner meals, with recipe references. 
• The third post (most weeks), would provide a recipe congruent with the Healthy Changes(s).  To reflect a broad spectrum of ideas, we would need readers to share menu ideas.  This could be done through our email address.

Please comment:  Is this a good way to go?  Is there a better way? And please excuse that we haven't posted this week's Healthy Change on better breakfasts.  It will follow in a day.

Photo from the N.Y Times

The Weekly Menu

The quick answer:  To improve health and happiness, write a weekly menu and shopping list.

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I’ve Never Been Happier

Two women, friends who had not seen each other for many years, sat down to a leisurely breakfast at a lovely restaurant overlooking the ocean.  It was a warm, sunny Saturday morning.  They admired the view, talked about the happenings in their separate lives, and caught up on shared friends.  I came late to the meal—was really only there to pick up the bill.  As they said their good-byes, the older lady said something I won’t soon forget:  “I’ve never been happier in my life than I am now.” 

Why is her statement so memorable?  She is dying—painfully—of cancer. 

She had previously sold the home where she and her deceased, husband reared their children, packed what she could fit into a few suitcases, and come to live by the beach.  Her apartment is small and simply furnished, plain enough to suit Thoreau, though it does have a lovely view of Catalina Island.  Her plan, it seems to me, is to sit by the sea in the warmth of the sun, compose music (her avocation), and await her passing. 

So I’ve thought about her words, and how we can find joy through living in harmony with our truest values.  There's a hint here, I think, about changes all of us might consider.  It requires that we listen more to the voices within.

The Voices Without

Food Inc. spends over $30 billions annually to get us to buy their food-like concoctions.  Why do they spend so much?  Because it works.  Humans, the researchers say, fuss over the infrequent decisions in their lives, like what car to buy.  But we tend to outsource the simple, daily decisions, like what to eat, to the culture around us.  We just find it easier to go with the flow. 

A century ago, in 1911, a food that people had used forever, lard, was driven from the market by a massive well-organized advertising campaign.  The campaign promoted Crisco as the modern replacement and suggested that those who resisted weren’t “progressive.”  It was a very successful campaign.  Crisco turned out to be a terrible mistake, but it would take a century to assemble the proof and convince the public. 

Food companies didn’t miss the lesson of Crisco's market launch:  You could sell almost anything with a skillfully done advertising campaign.  This seems arrogant, but we know from sad experience that it works.  Imitation food products continued to replace traditional foods all through the 20^th century.  Clever advertising created a new food culture:  the modern American diet (MAD). 

One purpose of our 52 Healthy Changes is to restore real food to the American dietary.  We must tune out the siren song from the billions spent on advertising and quietly rediscover olden ways.  To regain conscious control of our daily food decisions we turn to the simplest of tools—the weekly menu. 

Weekly Menus

Few people write regular menus.  A basic menu, covering four or five dinners, plus, perhaps, Sunday supper will simplify your life.  The few minutes it takes to write a weekly menu will free you from the frantic scramble to come up with something for dinner.  If you use a menu, you’ll throw out less spoiled food.  If you make a shopping list part of your menu plan, you’ll reduce shopping trips, saving time and money.  If you save old menus and organize them in a binder by season, your life will be even simpler next year.

The popular blog Inchmark is written by our daughter Brooke.  Brooke wrote a great post on grocery lists and provided an editable menu planner and grocery list.

Five Steps for Menu Writing

Here are five steps that work for us in menu planning:

1. Set aside a regular time for menu writing.  Consult the family the night before to get their requests.  Involving them in planning builds family support for the outcome. 
2. Check your inventory.  We look in the refrigerator for food that might spoil, in the freezer to see what needs turnover, and in the pantry for ideas.
3. Write down your meal ideas with links to recipes. 
4. Review the menu for needed ingredients and write a shopping list.  In our best weeks, using a menu-driven shopping list, we only need to shop twice.
5. Share the menu with the family and save it in a binder.  Keep a blank menu in the binder as a place to collect ideas for next week. 

In the first two weeks the Healthy Changes were aimed at reducing sugar intake and eliminating hydrogenated trans fats.  This week’s Healthy Change is designed to protect you from impulse buying and the hassle of last minute shopping. 

Please comment:  How do you write healthy menus and simply grocery shopping?

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

The One Best Way

The quick answer:  To reform your diet, organize and simplify your kitchen.
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We stand at #48 of this year’s 52 Healthy Changes.  Taken together, they have the power to transform your diet, and your health, by reinventing how you eat.  Fair warning:  they can also complicate your life.  For example:

• Exercise:  We’ve asked you to get outside and exercise most days, to work up a sweat.  We even had the nerve to suggest you reconsider the laborsaving devices in your life.
• Refined flour:  We proposed that you replace the modern flour with freshly ground flour that is so full of nutrients it must be refrigerated.  We also suggested baking your own bread.
• Packaged cereals:  We’ve shown you how to make your own breakfast cereals, here and here, when it’s so easy (though costly) to just go to the store.
• Canned soup:  And we’ve noted that homemade stock is better than store-bought; a future post will include recipes for homemade soups.

There are two themes here:  First, cook more (some food processing now done in factories is best done at home).  Second, sweat more (exercise is good for you; it makes you stronger and healthier).  These things, good as they are, take time.  Rather than get crazy busy, it’s best to simplify our lives.  We suggest a process of not adding but of replacing bad stuff with good, and good stuff with better.  Simplification can also reduce the stress of life and bring us that elusive peace we all seek.

Cheaper by the Dozen

As a child, I loved the book, Cheaper by the Dozen.  Frank B. Gilbreth was the father and author, but he was also a leader in the emerging field of scientific management.  The goal was to discover the most efficient way to do every task—the one best way—so when Gilbreth took a shower, he used two bars of soap.  He was a creative guy who led the family on many fun adventures but there was a sad turn to all this rushing about—he died of a heart attack at the age of 55.    

From the shadows of Frank’s premature death a new star emerged—his wife Lillian, also a practitioner of scientific management.  Lillian maintained the Gilbreth’s consulting business while rearing the children and making her own contributions to scientific management.  She put her children through college (one died in childhood), traveled the world, and advised five US presidents on women’s issues.  A less known book was written about this early career mom, appropriately titled, Making Time. 

The Gilbreths made a big impression on me as a father (when the kids were small, I put them all in the tub at once), engineer, and novice cook.  For example, when we make freezer jam, I reduce waiting time by doing multiple batches at once.  The beautiful wife thinks this a little reckless and patiently does her batches one-at-a-time, with exactness unknown to me.  So in the kitchen, I look for that one best way, trying to improve my cooking skills.  Those are my credentials for the following discussion on simplification.

Simplification

We humans can’t keep from complicating our lives.  For many, self-worth is linked to owning whatever’s in fashion.  We live in a shopping culture and a whole nation—China—has grown its economy by cheaply manufacturing whatever we might next fancy.  Did you notice the elaborate Halloween costumes?  Or what those crazed shoppers were carrying out of Wal-Mart on Black Friday?  Acquisitiveness isn’t a new habit, rather a human trait exposed by the limitless productivity of the Industrial Revolution. 

The poet William Wordsworth spoke to this human frailty: 

“The world is too much with us; late and soon.
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”

Henry Thoreau, rejecting the materialism of his time, retreated to the woods about Walden Pond, seeking to discover the essence of life by removing all distractions.  He found new meaning in simplicity: 

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Concealed within the Healthy Changes is a thesis worthy of Wordsworth and Thoreau:  “Life can be made more healthful by using modern means to reinvent olden ways.”  This thesis allows us to reject the “getting and spending” but to embrace those few things that most enhance the quality of our lives.  If we can learn to do this, less really can be more.  So starting in the kitchen, here are ten steps to simplicity.

Ten Steps to Simplicity

Here are ten ways to simplify your life, all centered on healthy eating. 

#1.  Write a weekly dinner menu.  This is a major time saver and stress buster.  Save old menus by season in a binder for future years. 

#2.  Collect your favorite recipes.  It’s great that chefs, once hidden away in kitchens, have become celebrities, but we must resist the trend of complicating food.  Exotic 15-ingredient dishes may be fine for the chef but for the home cook, traditional dishes of six or so ingredients are practical, healthful, and delicious.  Let the family vote as you collect 24 favorite recipes of comfort foods.  If you use 2-3 each week, it will take several months to repeat.  Preparing a few dishes repeatedly is key to finding the one best way to cook.

#3.  Keep a weekly shopping list, as discussed here.  You’ll save the hassle and expense of multiple runs to the grocery store.

#4.  Make Sunday dinner special.  Plan your best meal for Sunday and have family and friends over from time to time.  Cook a roast, whether chicken, beef, pork, or lamb, and reserve a portion to flavor meals during the week.

#5.  When you cook family favorites, make a double portion and save one for a rainy day.  This is easier to do if your freezer is just ¾ full (see #9, below).  Soups are extra work but can be eaten for several meals. 

#6.  Relish leftovers (for smaller families; large families tend to eat everything in sight).  You don’t need to cook an original dish every night.  Get the family’s support to include leftovers in following meals.  Some dishes even taste better the next day.

#7.  Recognize that stuff accumulates.  It collects in your kitchen drawers, cupboards, and in your pantry. Periodically dump the kitchen drawers on the counter—save the simple tools you regularly use and toss everything you haven’t needed in the last year. 

#8.  Clear out the pantry.  We recently went through the pantry and threw everything away over the expiry date.  There was so much stuff it became a game to find the oldest item—the winner was ten years expired.  When the pantry’s too full, you don’t know what you have.

#9.  Manage your freezer.  Most of us toss stuff in until it’s full and forget what’s underneath.  This follows the FISH inventory rule (meaning, “First In, Stays Here”).  Adding a freezer in the garage may just expand the problem.  Here’s a better idea:  When you write your weekly menu, poke through the freezer for stuff you can use.  Set a goal to keep your freezer just ¾ full.  If you do this with your refrigerator also, you’ll save money via less spoilage.

#10.  Include frozen foods.  Frozen fruits and vegetables, unlike the produce in grocery stores, are harvested at their peak so you get extra vitamins while saving prep time.  In the next post, we’ll take a walk through the frozen food aisles of our grocery store, to sort out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Please comment on your favorite ways to save time while cooking better food.  Share your shortcuts and clever simplifications.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

The quick answer:  Change is hard and life is distractive.  Take charge of your diet by writing weekly menus.

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The last post on healthy school lunches led to wondering what school kids ate around the world.  I dug through faded slides and found the picture above, taken many years ago in Central America.  I still remember the shot; though his clothing was humble, he exuded a native insouciance and boyish bliss that called for a photo.  The food carried in the clay pot is simple—frijoles eaten on corn tortillas, plus some banana or mango from a nearby tree.   Switching gears, I then though of a more elaborate lunch—a memory from a business trip to Paris some years ago. 

We were touring a large French company, looking at equipment, when lunch was announced.  I expected a quick sandwich but we were ushered into a formal dining room for a meal of many courses that took much of the afternoon.  It was my first introduction to how differently the French view food, and dining.  During the cheese course, the distinguished gentleman at my left tried to help me appreciate the cheese, explaining that France had more cheeses than the days of the year.  You could eat a different cheese each day.  My mind traveled to our refrigerator back home where we had only Tillamook cheese, not counting the stale Parmesan cheese in the shaker can.  “Why should you need so many?” I naively asked.

As the meal progressed, different wines were served with the courses.  My host now explained the wines, and how they complemented the food.  “What, you don’t drink wine?” he asked incredulously.  He was even more disappointed when I declined the final course, which included coffee from specially imported beans, and a treat you couldn’t get back home—Havana cigars from Cuba.  The meal was exquisite but I would rather have eaten with the boy in the picture above, all things considered.

Nevertheless, we can learn from the French.  You’ve heard of the French paradox—how despite the pastries and buttery sauces, they have much less heart disease and half the obesity as the U.S.  The French take time to dine; they spend twice as much time at meals as we do and social interaction is expected.  They may enjoy their rich sauces, but there is a well-entrenched food discipline.  The French eat more vegetables, are less likely to snack between meals, and avoid the sugary drinks Americans love.  They’re also willing to spend more on food, and take time to cook more of their meals. 

A Backward Glance

It’s been a great summer but Labor Day signals the end.  Fall is just two weeks away and then the holiday season will bring 2011 to an end.  As the year becomes history, we’ll ask all you readers how healthier living has changed you, and your lives.  Change isn’t easy but it has its rewards.

The 52 Healthy Changes are designed to transform the standard American diet (SAD) to a healthy diet based on each person’s needs.  Some changes were easy, like eating more fruit.  Giving up deep fried goods is a snap, once you read about the harm trans fats do.  From reader comments, I conclude that the hardest changes are

1. Cutting back on sugar (real and artificial),
2. Eating more vegetables, and
3. Planning menus.

Menu Discipline

Menus save time, though you must take time to compose them.  Menus save you from stressing out over what to have for dinner.  And menus save money, through better organization of time and resources.  Writing menus is taking control of your life.  Menu writing is proactive—rather than going with the flow (just what Food Inc. wants) you stand tall and take a firm grip on the helm. 

We promised to summarize reader comments about menu writing.  One reader told how living the healthy changes made many of her recipes obsolete and left her feeling lost.  There’s a post coming up on how to “health-up” existing recipes, but we also want to share more gateway recipes—recipes that lead to a new food life.

Reader menu ideas:

1. First thing, organize a menu binder for saving menus and collecting recipes.  The first year will be the hardest, but the binder will make the second year a breeze.  Include some blank shopping lists in the binder.
2. Make menu writing a ritual; do it the same time each week, just before you write the shopping list.  Don't forget to check the pantry and freezer for foods nearing expiration, before you begin.
3. Develop a menu format that works for you.  (We’re working on one that reminds of foods to eat each week and we’ll share it soon.)
4. Recognize that menu writing is a new skill.  You’ll get better with practice.
5. See the “flow” in food use.  Sunday’s roast can reappear in Monday’s soup and Tuesday’s sauce. 
6. Make life easier by getting two meals out of a large dish.   Dishes like chili, stew, scalloped potatoes or lasagna can reappear with new accompaniments. 
7. Share menu control to gain family support.  Post a blank menu so people can request what they’re craving for the next week.  Review the menu with your partner and involve the children.
8. Try a new recipe each week and then give the family an up or down vote if they want to see it again.  This is one way to find some casserole recipes the family won’t groan about they they’ve grown up and left the home.
9. Include an easy meal each week to give you flexibility if other demands arise.  Put a couple of meals away in the freezer for emergency use also.
10. Meals can be simple.  Start with a salad, move to a main dish with vegetables, and finish with some fruit for dessert.

Please comment and share ideas about better meals, and better menus.  Also, request or share recipes that can be posted.  If you live outside the U.S., please share what you do for school lunches.

The Immune System

The Quick Answer:  Autoimmune diseases are difficult to diagnose and even harder to treat.  Protect your immune system through a wholesome diet.

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During the time this blog has grown to its current form, our photographer, and daughter, had a competing, even more creative engagement—growing a baby.  In the early, dark hours of the morning our phone rang . . . her time was come and they were off to the hospital.   The arrival of a new baby brings to mind Wordsworth’s timeless phrase, “. . . trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.”  Now I hear a shriek from my beautiful wife . . . on her phone, sent by the proud father . . . the first picture of a new grandchild. 

The newborn is a good segue to this week’s subject: the care and feeding of our immune system.  It’s unfair, but women are three times more likely than men to suffer a disease of the immune system.  These autoimmune diseases are onerous conditions, difficult to diagnose and resistant to cure.  Like many topics in nutrition, the process is unknown.  A possible cause, researchers speculate, is the women’s role in the creation of life.  Immune systems are designed to reject all that is foreign, but for nine months a woman’s must relax and permit the growth of a tumor whose DNA is 50% foreign.  This additional burden—essential to the preservation of our species—may underlie women’s greater vulnerability. 

Immune System Facts

• As wondrous as our bodies are, the immune system is even more amazing.  It’s a distributed organ, divided between the spleen, bone marrow, lymph system, leukocytes (white blood cells), G.I. tract, even our skin and heaven knows what else. 
• The immune system is essentially a second brain, capable of remembering among many thousands of foreign microbes which pose a threat, and how to disarm them.
• Because our mouth—through eating and breathing—is the portal for nearly all that is foreign, 80% of our immune capability resides in the gut.  The much smaller foreign bacteria in our gut outnumber the cells of our body.  Though outnumbered, the immune system keeps a watchful eye over these microbial visitors, both benign and toxic, and maintains control, with few exceptions.
• Everyone has cancer all the time, we’re told, but our immune system with rare exception detects and eliminates these cancerous cells in the early stages.  When there is a breakdown, a cancer may begin to grow.  There’s an important lesson here:  If we took better care of our immune system, these failures could be even more rare.
• It’s morbid, but the power of the autoimmune system to protect against hostile microbes can be appreciated by considering death.  When animals (or humans) die, the autoimmune system ceases its work.  Within hours and days, the body is first attacked then devoured by invading bacteria previously held at bay by the immune system. 

Immune System Mistakes

Sometimes the immune system goes haywire and attacks the cells it’s supposed to defend.  We call this autoimmune disease; type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and celiac disease are examples of this “friendly” fire.  The revelation of the last decades is that any organ can be mistakenly attacked—80 such diseases have been identified to date.  In fact, more Americans suffer from autoimmune conditions than heart disease.  Worse, atherosclerosis, the beginning of heart disease, appears to have an autoimmune origin.

The workings of the immune system are incredibly complex and cannot be told in this brief post.  But three factors should be considered in the rise of these diseases:

1. The post-WWII explosion of chemicals, some benign but many not, which was poorly regulated in the beginning and has now poisoned our planet.
2. The 20^th century decline in the wholesomeness of diet, particularly insufficiency of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients due to food refining, plus the addition of chemicals for various purposes.
3. The theory that autoimmune disease is triggered by infection.  If proven, the infection theory raises another question:  What has changed, are infectious agents more potent, or is our immune system weaker?

Foods for the Immune System

We can do little about exposure to infections, and pollutants will be around the rest of our lives.  (Regarding pollutants, the next post will discuss ways to minimize exposure, including safer cookware.)  The one thing we can optimize, in the view of this blog, is the ability of our body to overcome the harm done by pollutants and infections. 

We offer a new theory here:  The industrial revolution has brought many problems but perhaps it has also brought compensating benefits: 

1. Modern nations are less subject to devastating famine;
2. We enjoy a greater variety of foods; and
3. The seasons of foods have been extended. 

Perhaps a merciful God, through the bounteous supply, greater variety, and extended seasons of whole foods, has provided a pollution antidote.  Of course, to benefit we must avoid factory goods and cook with real food.

The following nutrients are important to immune system health:

• The antioxidant vitamins—A (carotenoids), C, and E.
• The essential minerals, zinc, selenium, and magnesium.
• Omega-3 fatty acids, especially if omega-6 is reduced and oxidized or trans fats avoided.
• Other antioxidants, like the bioflavonoids, known by their yellow, orange, red, and blue colors.

Though each of the nutrients above can be taken in pill form, they are naturally available by eating fruits and vegetables.  By taking them in the natural form, you also get accompanying phytonutrients that are believed to play essential supporting roles.

The Challenge

Prior Healthy Changes have covered the nutrients noted above.  The challenge is to regularly include them in our diet.  It’s not hard to include tasty fruits and nuts in our diet.  But we do find it difficult to regularly include the recommended daily servings of vegetables and legumes.  It’s much like juggling balls, as balls—think Healthy Changes—get added it’s harder to keep them all in the air.  This leads us to this week’s Healthy Change:

Readers have made prior requests that we post some weekly menus.  We’ll do this, from time to time, a few for each season of the year, guided by the three pillars of science, tradition, and scripture.  We hesitate to do this every week, first because people vary in their needs and there is not a single answer, and second, because the perfect menu remains a mystery.

Please comment on what works best for you in menu writing. 

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.