Disease-Proof Your Child
My brother the doctor insisted I read this book. It's out of print, but I found a copy at the Indianapolis Public Library.
Let's get the negatives out of the way. The book is poorly written and poorly organized. Most of the prose borders on ranting, and many of his assertions are unsupported. It's ironic that a doctor wrote it; the attitude of the writing oozes the know-it-all-doctor stereotype. To top it off, the included menus and recipes don't measure up to what you would find in any reputable cookbook. It's obvious why this book is out of print. I'm glad I didn't buy it.
Nonetheless, it was well worth spending an hour thumbing through it. He drives for a vegan diet that minimizes cholesterol and sodium, radically opposess processed food, and strongly discourages dairy. I agree with his targets, and it inspired me to think about what I can do to get there.
I have to be practical. The unspoken challenge in these diets is how to prepare food that is low-fat and low-sodium but still tastes good. My brother's wife is a professional cook and is willing to devote a lot of time to food preparation. For the rest of us, we have to find a compromise that works.
I feel like I have the family in a pretty good spot already. I prepare the meals, I push veggies, I don't fry, I avoid salt when I can, etc. I'm still going after some easy kills to do better.
- Stop buying potato chips and cereal
- Make more bread myself
- Switch to unhomegenized peanut butter
- Introduce nuts
- Increase the fruit and veggies ratio at meals
- Cut back on meat and cheese in routine dishes, e.g., the sausage in my red beans and rice or the cheese in my lentil cassserole
The timing is good. I've been in a cooking rut for the last year and have needed something to shake me out of it. I pulled my Moosewood cookbook off the shelf with new eyes yesterday and spent an hour menu planning. Grocery shopping today should be fun; I'm sure I'll end up at Trader Joe's for some of this stuff.
