Cooking Skills
The first step in taking control
of your own health destiny is developing some cooking skills.
You don't need to be a chef, capable of creating new
recipes. You just need to be a cook, capable of
following recipes. If
you don't have any skills, don't worry. You can develop them. True
story: when I started to cook I thought a "clove" of garlic meant the
whole bulb. The recipe called for two cloves. My point is cooking will
involve failure. That's one of the ways you learn.
Here are a few cooking skills videos from Jamie Oliver:
The New York Times: Recipes for Health - allows you to select recipes by ingredient or theme.
The Washington Post - includes a search that allows you to specify feature (fast, kid-friendly, meatless or healthy), ingredient, course and cuisine.
VegWeb - a wide selection of vegetarian recipes arranged by category and ingredient.
Edible Perspective - more vegetarian recipes with lots of pictures.
Live Better America - a wide range of recipes selectable by dish, cuisine, ingredient, course or special diet.
Forks Over Knives - vegetarian recipes based on the principles outlined in the movie Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health
.
Simply Recipes - has 28 different categories of recipes.
Many restaurants have salads for those who want to feel like they are eating healthy. Those salads will have many more healthy vegetables than you might have otherwise eaten. However, they can also contain dense ingredients that lead to overeating.
If you are going to order a salad:
1) Get an oil-based dressing instead of creamy dressing. Creamy dressings are easy to overuse because they are so thick.
2) Get the dressing on the side so you can control how much you use.
3) Consider leaving off calorie dense ingredients like cheese and bacon or getting them on the side.
There are only two restaurants that we would recommend plus a third for indulgence's sake.
Chipotle on Woodruff Road. NOT locally owned, Chipotle talks a good talk. They claim to use humanely raised animals and local and organic produce when available. One of the big pluses for Chipotle is that they create your meal in front of you.
Dino's on Butler Road. Dino's is locally owned and operated. They do have quite a bit of fried food, so overeating can be an issue but this is a meat and 3 style restaurant that offers whole vegetables like green beans, lima beans, cabbage, carrots and okra. Those are way better choices than almost any other fast food restaurant you can find.
Stella's Southern Bistro - OVEREATING WARNING! We admire Stella's Southern Bistro because they are more committed than any other restaurant in the area to using local sources of food. However, they specialize in indulgent southern cooking. That's the type of cooking that made Paula Dean diabetic. If you want to go somewhere indulgent for a special occasion, try Stella's.
Here are a few cooking skills videos from Jamie Oliver:
Basic Knife Skills
Cooking Fish
Cooking Meat
Making Pasta
Staples
There are a couple of Jamie Oliver's simple recipes. These are things you should learn to make well so that you can always have them on hand.Hummus
Salsa
Recipes
You need to evaluate recipes yourself. Remember there is one thing you can do right - eat unprocessed plants - and one thing you can do wrong - overeat.Great Recipe Sites
The New York Times: Recipes for Health - allows you to select recipes by ingredient or theme.
The Washington Post - includes a search that allows you to specify feature (fast, kid-friendly, meatless or healthy), ingredient, course and cuisine.
VegWeb - a wide selection of vegetarian recipes arranged by category and ingredient.
Edible Perspective - more vegetarian recipes with lots of pictures.
Live Better America - a wide range of recipes selectable by dish, cuisine, ingredient, course or special diet.
Forks Over Knives - vegetarian recipes based on the principles outlined in the movie Forks Over Knives: The Plant-Based Way to Health
.Simply Recipes - has 28 different categories of recipes.
Restaurants/Eating Out
Eating out is a big part, perhaps the biggest part, of your nutritional problem. You cannot really tell how healthy a dish is if you haven't seen it prepared. And you can't go by the menu description since that will undoubtedly not tell the whole story.Many restaurants have salads for those who want to feel like they are eating healthy. Those salads will have many more healthy vegetables than you might have otherwise eaten. However, they can also contain dense ingredients that lead to overeating.
If you are going to order a salad:
1) Get an oil-based dressing instead of creamy dressing. Creamy dressings are easy to overuse because they are so thick.
2) Get the dressing on the side so you can control how much you use.
3) Consider leaving off calorie dense ingredients like cheese and bacon or getting them on the side.
There are only two restaurants that we would recommend plus a third for indulgence's sake.
Chipotle on Woodruff Road. NOT locally owned, Chipotle talks a good talk. They claim to use humanely raised animals and local and organic produce when available. One of the big pluses for Chipotle is that they create your meal in front of you.
Dino's on Butler Road. Dino's is locally owned and operated. They do have quite a bit of fried food, so overeating can be an issue but this is a meat and 3 style restaurant that offers whole vegetables like green beans, lima beans, cabbage, carrots and okra. Those are way better choices than almost any other fast food restaurant you can find.
Stella's Southern Bistro - OVEREATING WARNING! We admire Stella's Southern Bistro because they are more committed than any other restaurant in the area to using local sources of food. However, they specialize in indulgent southern cooking. That's the type of cooking that made Paula Dean diabetic. If you want to go somewhere indulgent for a special occasion, try Stella's.
Books
Even though we recommend them, and regardless of who wrote them or how healthy they claim to be, it will always be your responsibility to make your own decisions.
There is one thing you can do right, eat unprocessed plants, and one thing you can do wrong, overeat. Look for recipes that include lots of whole plant ingredients and avoid dense ingredients that may lead to overeating.
Cook with Jamie This book looks to educate readers on cooking basics. There are loads of large, beautiful pictures and over 175 recipes. It is good for all skill levels, but is particularly recommended for the novice. As a bonus, Jamie donates all of the proceeds of sales to a charitable organization for at-risk kids called the Fifteen Foundation.
Everyday Superfood Jamie Oliver has many other books that are worthy of your attention, but this is the last one we will list here. Do not get too caught up in the idea of "Superfoods" - there aren't any. Some foods are definitely more nutritious than others, but there is no food that so much more nutritious than the rest that it should be called a "superfood".
Forks Over Knives - The Cookbook Don't get too caught up in the idea of vegan eating either. Coke and Lay's potato chips would be vegan meal. There is nothing magical about avoiding animal products and the science does not support the idea that this is something everyone should be doing. However, vegan recipes always start out with lots of whole plants. Use these recipes as a starting point, but do not feel obligated to keep them vegan. If a recipe calls for water or vegetable broth use chicken or beef broth instead. If you want to throw in a chicken breast, do it!
GENERAL NUTRITION KNOWLEDGE
These books are more than a little lacking in solutions, but if you really want to know what is going wrong with our food supply, these are the two books you should read.
The Gluten Lie Think you have a problem with gluten? You're not alone. One third of the U.S. population tries to watch their gluten intake. In reality, significantly fewer than 1 in 50 people would benefit from a gluten free diet. Gluten is just the latest dietary demon. That is because the war against fat and carbs didn't bring the impressive public health improvements they were supposed to. All the demons you imagine are in your food are just that, imagined.
The Dorito Effect So if the problem is not some dietary demon, then what is it? This book suggests that it has nothing to do with what the food industry has put into our food, it is all about what they have taken out. Industrial food is no longer completely nutritious, but they can make it taste like it is!