Love of Food

Temptation to eat away from home abounds in many of our lives.  Lent has inspired a friend of mine to remove “fast food” from their family routine.  As for myself, I simply love food.  This love doesn’t pair well with my mission to resume triathlon training or to return to a great level of physical health.  I could return to an effective routine of cooking to my heart’s content and then treating all those around me to the excess calories.  Unfortunately that solution is in conflict with my professional role.  What kind of dietitian would consciously derail the health goals of others?  We’ll save that discussion for another day.

 

Unlike other habits, eating is not a habit that we should remove from our lives.  I am becoming less and less of a fan of products that provide zero calorie savory or sweet through a creative combination of chemical mixtures not found in nature and with unknown effects on our health.  I want real food.  I want wonderfully presented food.  I am no fan of bacon but show me the real butter.  So my solution has been to combine my love of food with my love of planning meals, experimenting with recipes and cooking techniques and the knowledge of feeding a healthy body.  Science has increasingly demonstrated how little we really know about nutrition but many things are increasingly clear – eat more raw foods (unprocessed fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds), nature didn’t provide us with a calorie free sweetener that taste good, how much we eat of different foods may be more important than any specific food we consume (more details at a later date but just know that adding acai to a crappy diet ≠the magic bullet to health).

So my plan-I have been selecting 3-4 meals to prepare each week.  The meals planned become a balance of food sources, cost considerations but all are planned with the intent to promote variety for feeding the body as well as great taste to feed the soul.

The process:

1)      Be realistic about your schedule-don’t attempt a meal that takes over an hour to prepare if your cooking limit is at 20-30 minutes.  The crock pot/slow cooker, assigning a cooking day each week or dividing cooking tasks among your household members are all great strategies for managing the time associated with food preparation.

2)      Shop at home-take a look at items in your pantry, freezer, refrigerator to start planning your meals based on what items you already have on hand and might need to use quickly.  The pears and Coq au Vin are the direct result of the need to use of some pears and chicken that I have on hand.  What makes each special is the long desire to try poached pears and the soul nourishing concept of some Coq au Vin on a bed of fresh whipped garlic potatoes.

3)      Make a Plan-meal plans can be as simple as a list of the meals you plan to prepare for the week or as detailed as a daily plan for all meals, snacks and food preparation tasks.  I sometimes jot down a note to portion out my meals for lunches or quick dinners on non-cooking nights.  A plan might help you avoid planning chicken for dinner and then coming home to a 10 pound container of chicken that is frozen solid. 

This week Coq au Vin, Salmon Patties, Manicotti, Cheesecake Pancakes, Poached Pears and Homemade Pizza are on the menu.  Who’s coming to dinner?