Real food has curves
When is the last time you tasted a peach? Really experienced its velvety outer skin, inner succulence, and stringy pulp as it slid to the back of your mouth? Ever notice the notes of almond, honey, and vanilla in the fruit’s flavor? “Every bite should be like a wine tasting,” says food writer and chef Bruce Weinstein. “The more you take away from your food, the more pleasure you’ll feel eating it.” And the fuller you’ll feel afterward. That’s the premise behind Real Food Has Curves, a new book written by Weinstein and his partner, Mark Scarbrough. It provides a 7-step plan for weaning yourself off processed foods. “We feel very strongly that deprivation doesn’t work,” says Weinstein, adding that they each lost about 25 pounds by incorporating more “real” and less “fake” foods into their meals. Here’s how:
Step 1: Seek true satisfaction. Grab that peach or strawberry, examine its color, sniff it, and take a bite. Give yourself a moment to enjoy the genuine flavors. For comparison, nibble a Starburst fruit candy or a strawberry fruit roll-up. Notice that you mainly taste sweet without a lot of complexity? That’s because fat, sugar, and salt are added to processed foods to mask the metallic taste of artificial preservatives, sweeteners, and other chemical additives, says Weinstein. He should know since he used to test recipes for packaged food companies and tinker with ingredients to get the appropriate taste and texture. Processed foods are also made to dissolve quickly in your mouth, he says, to get you to eat faster and in greater quantities—often leaving you full, but not satisfied. Now you know why that bag of Doritos disappears before you’ve really had a chance to taste them.
Step 2: Read labels wisely. You don’t need to spend an hour making your own marinara sauce. You can also find “real” tomato sauce in the supermarket if you read labels carefully. Those containing ingredients you can buy on your own, like tomatoes, olive oil, salt, garlic, and parmesan cheese, meet Weinstein’s criteria for a real food; those that have preservatives, like BHT, thickeners like guar gum, or artificial flavors, don’t. Ditto for store-bought breads, breakfast cereals, and pasta.
Step 3: Relish what’s on your plate. This is all about devoting time to solely enjoying the pleasures of eating. Indulge in that piece of dark chocolate while sitting on a park bench, rather than while perched at your desk, catching up on E-mail. Sit down at your kitchen table for dinner, not parked in front of the TV. Eating without distractions will help you savor the tastes, textures, smells, and colors of the food on your plate.
Step 4: Wean yourself off excess salt, fat, and sugar. You’ll be doing this anyway if you’re eating fewer processed foods and restaurant meals, but you can also cook with smaller amounts of these ingredients by using natural substitutes. Strong spices like garlic, pepper, and oregano cut down on the need for salt.
Step 5: Give your palate time to change. While it may be tough at first to skip the afternoon candy bar or fast-food fries, you’ll gradually lose your taste for excessively sweet and salty foods as your palate adapts to a variety of new flavors. And you may even find yourself opening up to new foods.
Source: U.S. News
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Time for some guilt free treats
Yes, peaches!
“A ripe, irresistible peach is one of nature’s better pleasures. Our first step is to celebrate it. How do you find a great peach? Begin with your nose. If a peach doesn’t smell like anything, it won’t taste like anything. Search for that tantalizing fragrance…”
“We don’t even need a peach. If we imagine it, our brains instantly release those chemicals that drive us to find one and relish it. MRI scans prove that when we think of a specific food, our brains light up the same way they do when we’re eating it. As you were reading about our perfect peach, you probably started salivating. Your brain was just doing its job: priming you for a peach although there were none in sight, not the slightest whiff of the fruit, just some words on a page.”
“Get some peaches. Try one or both of these recipes…FRESH PEACH SALSA, POACHED PEACHES …”
Alas!
“Undue Significance a starving man attaches
To Food—
Far off—He sighs—and therefore—Hopeless—
And therefore—Good—
Partaken—it relieves—indeed—
But proves us
That Spices fly
In the Receipt—It was the Distance—
Was Savory—”
– Emily Dickinson
Peaches best comprehended by the eye of desire from the vantage of privation?
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Denis so much in your comment to digest (no pun intended!) – recipe suggestion and poetry plus your insightful comments. I feel honored today!
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Giving your palate time to adjust to new foods is key. In this week’s blog I talk about dark chocolate and that it may take some getting used to, but once you have, it’s hard to go back. The thought of eating one of those chocolate bars that’s been around my whole life gives me the shivers.
XOXOXO,
Brenda
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Oh I must go now and read your blog post Brenda 🙂
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I agree that we need to change our attitude to food to stem the increasing incidence of obseity in the western world
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Great information here!
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Very sensible advice
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What a great post
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Dear Marie,
Love your blog!! Enjoyed every sentence of it eventhough when I strated reading I thought: I don´t like peaches! Still don’t but you caught meattention and made me read and enjoy the entire piece. Thank you for sharing another wise lesson. Love, Annemieke
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Wow this was certainly food for thought (no pun intended) I have never looked at food this way before. This must be what has happened to me because since chemo my tastes have changed and I really “crave” more healthy foods on a regular basis. The pallet does get use to it. I am living proof! Thanks!
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I agree with Luann – my tastes have changed too and I crave natural healthy food now since my chemo. I hope this lasts!
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Really enjoyed this post
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