We don’t need another diet book. There are already far too many plans that all basically come down to the same thing: you have to cut something (carbs, fat, calories, anything but cabbage soup) and usually add exercise as well, in order to get results. Probably any of them could be effective if a person could follow them consistently for a long period of time.
But the trouble with diets is, first, a lot of people can’t seem to follow them religiously; second, once people lose weight they want to go off the diet, and reverting to old habits will cause weight regain.
Mark Bittman, cookbook author,
, knows all this. He also understands that the current American diet — full as it is of junk food, processed food and mass-produced meat — isn’t just a problem for individual waistlines. It’s damaging to the planet as well.
He notes that worldwide, livestock production accounts for a fifth of all greenhouse gasses, and that it takes 40 calories of energy (fossil fuels) to produce one calorie of beef protein, compared to 2.2 calories for one calorie of corn.
It’s not just meat that’s a problem, though, lots of processed foods take a lot of energy to produce and provide little in return in the way of nutrition. More than 12 percent of all calories consumer in the United States come from sweets and desserts, the most of any “food group.” Seven percent of calories consumed in America come from non-diet soft drinks alone.
Bittman doesn’t advocate a diet free of meat or even completely without junk food. In fact, he doesn’t call his approach a diet at all, again since diet implies something you do for awhile, then stop.
It could well be — and this is as close as I can get to Something I’m Very Nearly Sure Of — that by eating simple, natural, minimally processed foods, known to be at least benign if not beneficial, in place of foods that are suspect in any quantity (junk food, highly processed carbohydrates), or those that may be damaging if consumed in large quantities (animal products), you’re going to be healthier and quite likely thinner.
The way he follows that advice is by eating a more or less vegan diet (no meat or animal products) along with a focus on minimally processed, whole grain and otherwise healthy foods, until his evening meal, when he is free to enjoy meat, cheese, alcohol, white bread, dessert or any combination of the above.
While sanctioned cheating on a daily basis could just lead to gorging on lots of unhealthy stuff at the end of the day, Bittman says with time eating healthier choices throughout the day will become the norm.
As months of this style of eating turned into years, I found myself front-loading even grand meals with vegetables, and becoming less interested in the heavier meat dishes that followed. This is an important point: My food choices have changed, even when I go out, and they reflect my mood more than what was surely a habit of focusing on meat, with simple carbs in second place. That balance has shifted.
When he started the “diet,” Bittman weighed 214 pounds and had high cholesterol and blood sugar, as well as sleep apnea. After a month he’d lost 15 pounds, within two months his cholesterol had dropped 60 points and his sleep apnea was gone. Over the course of four months he’d lost 35 pounds and was lighter than he’d been in 30 years.
The book includes general information about what’ wrong with the current state of food in America and, increasingly, the rest of the world, as well as details of his approach to sane eating.
There are also a variety of recipes for meals, snacks, desserts and breads, many of which have options for varying the meat or eliminating meat altogether.
He also offers hints for making this way of eating easier for people to whom avoiding processed foods is a foreign concept, such as eating fewer animal products and more fruits, veggies and legumes, chosing whole grains over white stuff, snacking on nuts or olives (and always carrying healthy snacks with you), using olive oil for most applications and allowing yourself treats daily.
In a nutshell: Buy lots of fresh and supplement with some frozen and dried produce. Buy correspondingly less meat, fish, and poultry, but buy the highest quality you can afford, ideally from sources you know and trust. Stay away from any processed food that has more than five ingredients; and ingredients with more than three syllables (in other words, stay away from preservatives and additives).
Bittman offers a sane, simple, easy-to-follow plan that should allow followers to lose weight and get healthier without a lot of deprivation. It’s not intended to be a temporary fix but instead a permanent solution to the American way of overeating that will help make both individuals and the planet healthier.
(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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