The French Don't Diet Plan Page 7

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Make sure to buy small—because these calorie-dense nuggets should be eaten small as well, they will last a long time. If you buy in the smallest increment available, you could try a delicious new kind each week.

  E. Fresh Breads

  You are truly blessed and have been good in all your previous lives if your grocery store bakes fresh bread on-site—not the loaves wrapped in plastic. I’m talking about the ones that have been warm in recent memory and will go bad by the next day: your daily bread. (If you don’t have access to fresh daily bread, see the recipe for Baguettes.)

  Practice this habit when you’re buying your bread: Pick up less than you think you’ll need, so that you’ll run out. If you have to throw away part of it because you didn’t eat it all, buy a smaller loaf or baguette next time. This will help keep your consumption under control at home, and helps you to get in the habit of picking up fresh bread once or twice per week.

  Any variety of fresh baked bread is enough to brighten your day, but you’ll find yourself satisfied with smaller portions if you get the richer breads made with whole grains. Again, for recovering low-carb dieters, you don’t have to eat whole-grain bread—there are no magic foods. But this variety will help keep you from being hungry two hours after eating.

  Fresh bagels are fantastic, but please skip the doughnuts (bagels are cooked in water, doughnuts are cooked in a deep-fat fryer often filled with hydrogenated oils).

  BEST: Fresh breads and bagels made on-site.

  ACCEPTABLE: Fresh sweetened bread products such as coffee cakes and banana breads.

  FAUX: Boxed coffee cakes, doughnuts, pastries, and pies.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: You should have a little bread almost every day. If you indulge in coffee cake, doughnuts, or other sweetened products, do so only once per week at most.

  F. Fish

  Fish provide some of the best sources of healthy oils you can find, and taste great with white wine! So as you lay out your menu plan for the week, lean on fish. That said, faux foods lurk here, too. “Farm-raised fish” sounds wholesome—like apple pie, rosy cheeks, and straight white teeth. And the number of farm-raised fish and shellfish now account for about 15 percent of the total market. In fact, an incredible 70 million pounds of trout are grown on fish farms in the United States.

  The process of growing farm-raised fish came under scrutiny when toxic chemicals were detected in them. Unfortunately, the issue of quality and contaminants and poisons in our food supply varies dramatically depending on who you talk to. The companies and industries making money selling farm-raised fish point to studies that say they are perfectly safe. Other studies say just the opposite. A July 2003 report from the Environmental Working Group pointed out that farm-raised salmon can harbor up to sixteen times more of the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) than wild salmon (if you’re still working through the faux-food concept, PCBs are definitely not a food).

  But here’s the irony. One reason the fish retain these harmful chemicals is precisely because of their wonderful healthy oils. That’s where the PCBs happen to concentrate.

  And then there’s the dye that’s injected into salmon flesh to make the salmon look as if they never needed to be injected with dye. Normal salmon eat shrimp and krill, and that turns their meat to a rosy coral color. Farm-raised fish are fed ground-up salmon, which leaves their flesh gray. So some marketing guru advised that the fish be injected with the chemicals canthaxanthin and astaxanthin to turn the salmon pink again. Magic. Canthaxanthin, in high quantities, has been associated with retinal damage in the human eye. The salmon industry says its fish, and the revenue stream they came from, are both safe.

  What to do? Get wild-caught fish when you can. If you can’t, remember that the concentration of contaminants in your body will depend on the volume you consume. Enjoy your fish, and eat small. By the way, the cheapest source for fresh-caught salmon is the stuff you find in the can.

  BEST: Wild-caught or line-caught fish of any variety.

  ACCEPTABLE: North American farm-raised fish is currently better than North Atlantic. Pressed imitation crabmeat is largely just leftover fish parts of unknown origin.

  FAUX: Fish sticks and nuggets.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: If you eat meat, fish should be one of your staples. A proper serving might be about one-third of a pound per person, and you should have some variety at least one or two times per week.

  G. Pork

  In the pork section, look for the leanest cuts. Pork chops make for wonderful, simple meals. They can be easily spiced and baked or sautéed in no time, and go perfectly with black beans, corn bread, any potatoes, broccoli … these are very versatile. A touch of pork sausage is lovely as a flavor enhancer for your spaghetti sauces, chilis, and gumbos. And most of the time these can be found as “Spicy” Italian or Cajun. If you love a little heat, you’ll like these. Pork sausages should be enjoyed sparingly—certainly not every day.

  BEST: Lean center-cut pork chops, tenderloin.

  ACCEPTABLE: Pork sausage in moderation.

  FAUX: Nothing faux here.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Keep enough on hand to have pork a couple of times per week. The sausage used for flavoring freezes very well, so just keep some on hand in your freezer. You will end up buying this once every few weeks.

  H. Beef

  A few years ago, the beef industry sued Oprah Winfrey because she doesn’t really eat beef, and said so. Can you imagine? I’m glad they sued her. Who is she to not pander to a food industry? Who is she to have personal opinions of her own?

  THE TRADITIONAL HEALTHY MEDITERRANEAN DIET PYRAMID

  Perhaps the beef industry should start suing whole cultures as well. Mediterranean countries eat less beef than any other kind of meat. These are the thin, healthy people who outlive us and have fewer heart attacks. Can you imagine? Who are they to eat beef only once per month, maybe? Who are they to be so blatantly healthy, implying a link between healthy hearts and low beef consumption? Sue them all, I say.

  According to the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid, put together by Oldways, the food issues think tank, and the Harvard School of Medicine, if you were to eat like these thin healthy people, you would avoid beef and have it only once every other week—if that! But don’t tell anyone or the Texas lawyers will swagger up to your door, lawsuit in hand, for you and your healthy friends.

  Moreover, the majority of U.S. cattle are typically given hormones to beef them up. These hormones include estradiol, progesterone, testos-terone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate, and melengestiol acetate. The possibility that those hormones are retained within the meat should give anyone pause before picking it up. When you choose beef, avoid that with these bonus chemicals in them and get organic beef whenever you can.

  BEST: Hormone-free beef, any cut.

  ACCEPTABLE: Other varieties, conventionally raised, are not faux, but are not nearly as good for you as normal beef.

  FAUX: Beef jerky.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Treat your beef like the French treat their entire approach to food—high quality, low quantity. Your beef should be very good, but eaten as an exception to your normal routine.

  I. Chicken

  The chicken section of the meat department has pieces, parts, and whole birds. Some of these will be “free range” and others will boast “no artificial ingredients.” If the packages don’t say anything at all, unfortunately, you can pretty much count on the fact that the birds were raised in a cage the size of your fist, force-fed, and injected with enough steroids to create the super chicken you see before you. It’s not pretty, but it seems to have become the norm.

  Like fish, you should rely on chicken as a staple meat—just try to avoid the injected birds. Most people live their lives struggling to cope with the hormones they have on board naturally. Don’t add to your worries. You don’t need those chemicals in your chicken, and then in your body, and especially not in your children.

  BEST: Free-range chickens and those produced without artificial ingredi
ents.

  ACCEPTABLE: Birds with no artificial ingredients.

  FAUX: If it doesn’t say free-range … and it doesn’t say “no artificial ingredients” … you should avoid it.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Chicken should be one of your principle meats, and you should have it as often as one or two times per week.

  J. Nitrate Depot: Preserved Pork

  Laminated sausage products will be the food of choice for a nuclear winter. In fact, this whole section of kielbasa-like products can be eaten healthily, but must be done so very sparingly. The nitrates used as preservatives have been associated with a number of health problems, and are completely unnecessary (see Appendix II: A Rogue’s Gallery of Faux-Food Additives).

  How much can you have? Two bacon slices at breakfast is plenty, no more. And you shouldn’t have bacon with your breakfast more than twice per week. The Scottish and Irish have some of the highest heart disease rates in this region of the galaxy, and tend to eat bacon every day. You do the math.

  BEST: If you can find nitrate-free bacon (and this is actually available now), this would be your best bet. Freshly made sausage from your butcher or, in some cases, from right there in your grocery store meat section, is wonderful because it does not have to be spiked with preservatives.

  ACCEPTABLE: All standard bologna, hot dog, and sausage products in this section are acceptable, if barely.

  FAUX: Prepackaged lunch packets with processed meat, hydrogenated-oil crackers, and faux cheese spread should be avoided altogether.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Shrink-wrapped pork products should be purchased no more than once every other week, but you should shoot for buying them only monthly at best.

  K. Dairy Products

  Milk, sour cream, buttermilk, cream, and half-and-half are all healthy choices that have the added benefit of being delicious. Try buttermilk when you bake (see the recipe for Somebody’s Buttermilk Biscuits), half-and-half in your coffee, and sour cream in your mashed potatoes or chili. Milk’s calcium, as we know, is terrific for the health of your teeth, bones, and even for weight loss.

  If you like low-fat milk products, or have concerns about normal milk, keep in mind that there’s nothing inherently wrong with drinking the low-fat variety. But it tastes thin, so typically you’ll need to consume more of it to satisfy you—good for the food industry, bad for you. Normal milk will satisfy you more with less volume, and helps you make the transition to the low quantity–high quality approach to eating.

  If you don’t want to drink organic milk, whatever you do, don’t try this experiment. Don’t have someone fill two identical glasses, one with organic milk and the other with milk from regular massproduced, hormone-injected cows—and then do a blind taste test between them. What you won’t be noticing when you don’t do this experiment is the overwhelming difference between them. Hormone milk tastes watery (as if they’re forcing more out of the cow than it was made to give). Organic milk tastes full and delicious. And once you know this, you can’t “unknow” it, and it’s very hard to go back to the flavorless milk.

  The hormone injected into cows to make them produce more milk is genetically engineered recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). That milk can be laced with hormones (insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1) that you certainly don’t need. Don’t bother reading the label for a warning either—the people who make it don’t want you to know that you’re drinking milk from their chemo-cows. Again, here’s where the sliding scale comes in again. It’s better for you than soda, but not nearly as good as organic.

  BEST: Organic dairy products.

  ACCEPTABLE: Conventional dairy products, with the proviso that normal levels of milk fat will satisfy you more on less volume than the low-fat versions.

  FAUX: Any dairy product such as low-fat half-and-half or nondairy creamer spiked with high-fructose corn syrup is definitely faux.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: The French, as adults, don’t actually drink milk. So if you were to be rigorous about living their lifestyle, you would never have it, and get your calcium from cheese and yogurt. But I see nothing unhealthy about moderate consumption. Organic milk, in my house, is kept in stock at all times.

  L. Eggs

  Here’s a complete fallacy that we’ve believed forever. Ready? The cholesterol you eat shuttles straight into your blood, clogs your arteries, and increases your risk of dropping dead from a heart attack. This notion, it turns out, is a myth.

  Need more information? Dr. Walter Willett, analyzing data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, has shown that you can eat one to two eggs per day (diabetics aside), without raising your likelihood of having a heart attack. Even better, the changes you do see in blood cholesterol actually indicate that eggs improve your ratio of “good” HDL to “bad” LDL cholesterol. The higher your HDL cholesterol—and the lower your LDL cholesterol—the better.

  Here’s the take-home message: You don’t have to be afraid of eggs anymore. They’re the most nutrient dense of all foods with an absolute trove of health benefits. The French eat eggs nearly every day, don’t have our heart problems, and these healthy people are certainly not eating “egg products,” egg substitutes, egg remainders or any other silliness. In fact, no one else on the planet is eating fake eggs except us, the overweight, unhealthy people.

  Have you ever compared organic eggs to “regular”? The yolks of the organic eggs tend to sit higher in the whites, which tend to be clearer. Of course, everything depends on the particular factory your grocers get their eggs from, but in general, organic eggs will be better.

  BEST: Eggs, organically grown.

  ACCEPTABLE: Conventional eggs.

  FAUX: Egg substitute has an incredible 444 milligrams of sodium per serving. That’s almost 20 percent of your recommended daily allowance for the entire day, in one serving.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Normal eggs should be in your refrigerator at all times—not just for eating, but also for sauces and baking as well.

  M. Butter

  Margarine has been around since the 1800s and was invented, ironically, by the French. Today, of course, they won’t touch it (I think they just wanted to sell it to the rest of us). The benefit of margarine for industrial food products is that it makes them more nonbiodegradable. Bacteria won’t even eat it—think about this. The shelf life of hydrogenated oil in your kitchen is listed as “indefinite” with no need to refrigerate it. The shelf life of motor oil is indefinite, with no need to refrigerate it. The shelf life of plastic … you get the picture.

  By contrast, butter has nutrients like vitamin A, vitamin E, and selenium, all of which are vastly better for your heart than anything found in margarine. The concern with butter is that it contains saturated fats, but the Harvard School of Public Health has recently announced that hydrogenated oils (most commonly found in margarine and Crisco) are even more dangerous for your heart than saturated fats. And the hydrogenated oils do not have the benefits of the heart-healthy vitamins and minerals found quite naturally in plain butter.

  And in countries like France, where they eat saturated fats every single day in the form of butters and cheeses and yogurts and creams, they still have fewer heart attacks than us. A principle difference in their butter consumption is that their food volume is quite small. So the rule is the same for butter as it is for every other fabulous food. If you eat a vat of it, it can be unhealthy. If you have a little, you get the health benefits. In this line of thinking, butter is not a problem unless you and I make it one with our eating patterns. We’ll go over this in detail in Steps 5 to 7, when we learn the how of eating.

  One last thing: Buy unsalted butter. I learned this at a “convivium” of the Slow Food Society, in which we had an extensive butter-tasting afternoon, with expert chefs and representatives from local dairies. I was surprised to learn that salt is added to butter simply as a preservative to keep inferior batches of cream from going from marginal to worse. The better cream doesn’t need the salt, so remains unsalted.

  BEST: Real butter, unsa
lted.

  ACCEPTABLE: Salted butter.

  FAUX: Margarine or any other butter substitute.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Butter should be a staple that you have on hand for cooking and baking at all times.

  N. Fake Breads

  You’ve seen them. The rows of shiny plastic-wrapped sliced breads, and not one of them has fewer than ten ingredients. They can’t just include normal ingredients because the loaves would go bad too soon, the company would lose money, go out of business, and then you’d have to get your bread fresh from a bakery.

  In this row you find sliced breads, bagels, English muffins, pita, and everything in between. In general, if there are fresh, real food varieties of these products, they’re not shelved in this section.

  BEST: Fresh baked goods, which you’ll not likely find here.

  ACCEPTABLE: Some varieties may have no other faux ingredients, but you’ll have to dig to identify them.

  FAUX: The lot.

  HOW OFTEN TO BUY: Never buy chemically preserved breads with hydrogenated oil.

  O. Freezer Desserts

  Of the millions of desserts, confections, and toppings in the store’s freezers, only two are decent: quality ice cream and 100 percent fruit pops. The ice cream, however, should have only a handful of ingredients, such as plain Breyers. Though even this brand has many new products with an unpronounceable litany of fillers that seem at odds with their original mission to produce products with “ingredients that Johnny can read.”