Other Kinds of Flours

Many people are gluten intolerant or allergic to wheat - and most people who are, are not aware of it. Mysterious stomach problems and minor health ailments like sinus conditions, headaches, and skin problems can be caused by this. Wheat flour is so pervasive in our cooking culture, it is very hard to avoid it unless you go to a lot of effort. If you have these minor, but annoying, health issues, its worth taking a vacation from wheat to see if they improve. Regardless, our food culture is boringly fixated on wheat - there are lots of other flours out there.

Most people are familiar with corn meal and rye flour, but did you know that you can cook with chickpea, lentil, soy, rice, oat, sorghum, millet, quinoa, tapioca and amaranth flours? Other cultures use these flours every day. They have their own interesting flavors and uses. Here's a website with lots of information about alternative flours.

Use oat flour in pancakes and cookies. Chickpea and lentil flour make an especially good coating on fish and chicken. Rice flour makes cookies delicate and light.

In recipes that need gluten for chewiness - like breads, biscuits, and cookies - you will need to use oat flour or at least 1/2 the flour must be wheat.

A mixture of 1/3 chickpea, 1/3 rice, and 1/3 sorghum flour or 1/2 rice and 1/2 chickpea flour can be used in cornbread recipes to make a very pleasant quick bread.

Soy, chickpea, and rye flours are nutrient rich enough to belong in a low calorie diet. Rice and wheat flours should be limited.

Here's a nutritional comparison of some of these flours:

Make Your Own Salad Dressing

Please. The ones in the store are mostly soybean oil. You can do a lot better than this.

You should eat salads with a little oil to make sure you absorb all the vitamins from the greens. And a little acid helps you absorb all the minerals! There's a reason that salads have traditionally been eaten with oil and vinegar - your great great great grandmother knew best.

Salad dressing is an opportunity to get some good oils. Olive oil and nut oils are all excellent choices. Make sure you get cold pressed oils and extra virgin olive oil. Our favorite relatively inexpensive brand is actually Whole Foods store brand. You can add cold pressed flaxseed oil or walnut oil to get some Omega 3 fatty acids. Mix the oil with vinegar or lemon juice and add some seasonings. A teaspoon of lecithin will help it stay mixed and is actually good for you.

Here's my favorite recipe:

Mary's Omega 3 Italian Dressing

1/2 cup olive oil
3 T flaxseed oil
1/4 cup vinegar or juice of one lemon (I like to mix this 1/2 and 1/2)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp of oregano, dried
1/2 tsp of basil, dried

A tablespoon of this is about 90 calories.

Another alternative is to use lemon juice and feta cheese - Greek style. Crumble an ounce of feta on your salad and sqeeze on the juice of 1/2 a lemon. This adds about 75 calories and adds some calcium. It also adds 4g of saturated fat vs. 2.25 in the recipe above.

CR Barbecued Beef Brisket

This is a spicy barbecue sauce, Texas style - more piquant than sweet. Beef brisket can be very healthy. Braised at low heat in a nutritious sauce full of antioxidant vitamins, it provides plenty of B vitamins and lean protein. Braising at low temperatures should minimize the amounts of AGEs produced. Trimming of all fat is necessary to get the amount of saturated fat to an acceptable level.

Barbecue Brisket

3 lb. of brisket, completely trimmed of ALL fat
1/4 cup vinegar
1 T. mustard
3 T. picante
1/2 jar of barbecue sauce
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp worchestershire sauce
1 tsp lime or lemon juice
1 T. molasses salt and pepper to taste
chile powder to taste
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp coriander

Mix all the ingredients in a covered roaster big enough to fit the brisket, stirring just to distribute ingredients evenly. Immerse brisket in the sauce. Put in a 275 degree oven and cook for 3-4 hours. Remove lid and cook for another 1-2 hours until the sauce cooks down. Check occasionally to make sure the sauce is not too reduced. Remove the brisket and slice. It should be very tender and falling apart. We use an electric knife. Put back in the sauce and let it sit in the oven with the heat turned off for another 15 minutes - if you can stand to wait.

Lettuce and greens

Not all lettuces and greens are created equal. As an illustration look at this nutritional comparison:



As you can see, iceberg lettuce is the least nutritious green of the five. Kale, chard and romaine are all significantly more nutritious. Here's another set of greens, including kale again as a comparitor:



On average, spinach is the most nutritious. It's higher in almost everything except Vitamin C. Parsley, kale, chard, and romaine are pretty equal in nutritional value, and just a notch below spinach. Collard greens, arugula, Boston lettuce and iceberg lettuce are all very good for you for the amount of calories they provide, but don't measure up to the other greens.

Notice how similar these greens are in protein and carbohydrate composition! The values shown are for the amount needed to get 100 calories. You have to eat a lot of lettuce to get 100 calories (and the nutrition that goes with it) - over 1 1/2 pounds! These are very nutritious foods for their low calorie content. The large amounts of A and C these foods contain throw the comparison scale off, so it's not easy to see how valuable these foods are for B vitamins and minerals as well. Notice that 100 calories of spinach has close to the RDA of iron and magnesium. All these foods are rich in nutrients if you eat enough of them. Even though iceberg lettuce looks weak in this comparison - it's 50% more nutritious than steamed green beans.

So don't be afraid to eat all the greens that you can manage. I see people leaving lettuce on their plates all the time. Finish your salad. Fill your bowl.

Paleo Eating

"Paleo" diets are not uncommon among CR practitioners. One reason for this is that it's pretty easy to get high nutrition from paleo foods. What is a paleo diet? Here's a website that goes into detail. In general, paleo diets attempt to recreate the diets of our early ancestors - hunter/gatherers. They eat lean meats, fish, shellfish, eggs, vegetables, nuts, and fruits. They avoid foods like beans and potatoes that cannot be eaten raw. Lean meats are the only kind of meats that make sense, since fatty meats were not available to early humans. One of my favorite diet books is Neanderthin - which sounds silly, but is a well written book with interesting points.

This concept is related to eating traditional diets. I prefer eating cuisines with a long, long history of being eaten by people who are healthy. Ronald Schmid's book has an interesting discussion of this. You can rely on these diets - if you really eat them as the natives do - to provide reasonable balanced nutrition. However, they may provide way too many calories, since traditional diets are no doubt meant for peasant farmers or hunter gatherers, not desk sitting couch potatoes. So, one way to adapt them is to cut out the least nutritious elements of them. This means that you eat Asian food and skip most of the rice, eat Middle Eastern and skip the pitas.

Paleo diets don't really have this problem. They have virtually no high calorie elements with low nutritional value. Only nuts have the potential to push the calories too high if you avoid the fat in meats. If you focus on lean meats, fish, fruits and vegetables, you will find that fruits are needed to give you enough calories.

P/C/F ratios

This is protein/carbohydrate/fat ratios - a topic of continual debate among diet gurus and CR practitioners. For me, a Zone-ish regimen works far better than any other, giving me good energy and keeping me from getting hungry. Many other CR practitioners have had the same experience. Being a relatively flexible eater, I don't get too hung up on achieving Dr. Sears 30-40-30 ratio at every meal. But I stay within a range, regardless, because I know if I don't, I won't feel as good and may have appetite control problems. In my opinion, the level of fat doesn't matter that much - it's protein and carbs that have the most dramatic effects.

I average 70g of protein and rarely get below 60. I space this out and get at least 10g with each meal. I avoid meals with lots of high glycemic carbs, but I also try to get at least 75g of carbs a day, and no more than 150g, averaging 120g. I try to space the carbs over the day as well. If I drop below 75g of carbs, I feel spacey and light headed. If I go over 150g, I experience hunger and appetite control problems - often for days afterwards.

This makes my P/C/F ratio on average 25/40/35 - a little low in protein for Sears and a little high in fat. I add very little fat to my food and a lot of the fat comes from my protein sources.

At my calorie level - 1150-1200 calories a day - you can't afford to eat many carbs outside of fruits and vegetables and still get vitamins and minerals. This means only 1 or 2 servings of grains a day. Someone eating at a higher level of calories has more flexibility in what they eat. I choose to spend a lot of my carbs on fruit - because I love fruit so much. A piece of bread has about the same calories as 1/2 a pound of watermelon. Bread has 1 more gram of protein than the watermelon, but 1/2 the B vitamins. The 70 calories of watermelon has almost 30% of the RDA of A and C - the bread has none. The bread has more minerals, but it's not a high source of minerals. I choose the watermelon over the single slice of bread.

What fish to eat

There are three considerations to take into account when choosing fish: environmental impact, mercury, and nutrition. Actually, all fish are great sources of lean protein. They also all provide high amounts of B-12, which is relatively low in most other protein source that are low fat. Fish, in general, provide good B-vitamins and some minerals. Oily fish are generally good sources of Omega 3 - though some CR society members avoid the long chain form found in fish and eat only the short chain plant version.

A nice guide to the environmental and mercury aspects of common fish can be found at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium site : recommendations. The best choices include Pacific halibit, Alaskan wild caught salmon, and farm raised catfish, tilapia, striped bass, sturgeon, and rainbow trout. Bigeye and yellow tuna are also good - but these are not common. Light tuna is okay, but all tuna has significant mercury, and should be eaten once a week or less.

Farmed shrimp are not environmentally friendly, but farmed oysters, mussels and clams are. All shellfish are safe for mercury - they are at the bottom of the food chain.

Nutrition-wise, oysters have fabulous amounts of B-12 and minerals for the calories. 100g of oysters has 5 times the RDA of B-12 and almost 4 times the RDA of zinc.

Many popular fish have either an environmental or mercury issue. Avoid Chilean sea bass, swordfish, Atlantic flounder, halibut and cod, orange roughy and red snapper.

Comparing "Milk" Products

My last post had a smoothie recipe that let you choose different milk products. Many people avoid cow's milk for several reasons: allergy, lactose-intolerance, vegetarianism, hormone-and antibiotic avoidance, saturated fat restrictions, and the belief that it's not that healthy for you. Cow's milk has a big dairy lobby behind it and the USDA is there to help sell it, so a little skepticism is not unreasonable. Countries with high dairy consumption do not have good osteoporosis stats and the recent claims that it helps you lose weight have been brought into question by later studies.

Regardless, if you don't use cow's milk products, please take a good calcium/mineral supplement, like Bone-Up from Jarrow. And if you do drink milk, make sure you get magnesium, because cow's milk does not provide balanced minerals - it has too little magnesium for its high level of calcium.

Many CR Society members avoid soy - there are studies that say it's associated with dementia, especially in men. Modest amounts of soy, say a few cups of milk a week, nonetheless, should not be an issue.

Let's look at the nutritional data for 5 kinds of "milk" - lowfat cow's, soy, rice, coconut, and oat. Oat milk is not nearly as available, but can be purchased at some grocery stores. I don't have data for nut milks, which are also available at some stores. These look more like soy or oat milk than rice milk in nutritional composition.

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Soy milk has the best B vitamins and minerals, except for calcium. Soy and oat milk more closely resemble cow's milk in protein and carbohydrate content. Rice milk does not measure up to cow, soy and oat milk nutritionally. Coconut milk is even less nutritious and has a high fat content.

It's all a matter of personal preferences. Most cow's milk drinkers will find that their taste buds adjust to alternative milk products after a few weeks. I do not recommend rice milk unless you are allergic to all the other products, which is quite possible, since many people are allergic to cow's milk, gluten and nut products (oat milk has gluten).

Breakfast Smoothie

This would also make a nice dessert on days when you've eaten really light otherwise.

Fruit Smoothie for 1
125g of frozen berries and/or mangos
125g of milk (1% cows milk, soy, rice or oat)
scoop (25g) of whey protein
teaspoon of flax seed oil
tablespoon of ground flax seeds
Spenda/sucralose to taste (may be needed for berries)

Put all ingredients in a blender and give it a whirl. It will be thick. Add water if it's just too thick for you.

The cows milk version will be the most Zone balances and nutritious. My fruit recommendations apply - berries and mangos are your best bet here. Skip the bananas. The mangos are higher in nutrition than the berries, but have more natural sugar.

All versions are around 250 calories and provide 30-40% of the RDA and 15+ grams of protein.

Chili for dinner

Homemade chili can be nutritious and quick. You can use lean ground beef, ground turkey or ground buffalo as the meat. The easiest chili recipe is to use Bush Chili Magic - a canned product that is basically pinto beans in a chili sauce base. However, you can reproduce the same thing with canned beans and chili powder.

CRON Chili
1/2 an onion, chopped fine
two cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 a green bell pepper, chopped fine
1/2 tsp of olive oil
1 lb of extra lean ground beef, ground turkey, or ground buffalo
1 can of diced tomatoes (soup can size)
1 can of Bush Chilimagic
(OR 1 can of pinto beans and 2-3 tablespoons of chili powder, 1/2 tsp cumin, salt to taste)

Saute onion, garlic and bell pepper until soft in olive oil. Add meat and cook until no longer pink - but don't brown. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes or more, until chili ingredients "blend and meld".

150g of this chili is only 210 calories and provides 25% of the RDA of B vitamins, 23% of minerals, and 11% of antioxidants.

A balanced 400 calories dinner using this chili would be:
150g of chili (5 1/2 ounces)
green salad with avocado, carrots and tomatoes (50g of romaine, 2 oz of avocados, 2 oz of tomatoes, and 1 ounce of carrots)
bowl of fresh blueberries and peaches (2 oz of blueberries and 4 oz of peaches)

This is relatively low in calcium but high in A,C, B-12, folate, and zinc.

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Meats are not all created equal

I try to eat a variety of protein sources, since I make a practice of getting the RDAs for the B vitamins from food. The nutritional profiles for beef, pork and chicken are actually pretty dissimilar:

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As you can see, beef is relatively high in B-12, zinc and iron. The iron requirement used in the graph is 18mg/day - the RDA for young women. Pork is high in thiamin and riboflavin. Chicken is high in niacin and B-6. All three meats have pretty similar protein and fat values.

Fruits and Nutrition

Any fruit is better than a piece of cake, at least from a nutritional point of view. But all fruits have little protein or fat and many have significant amounts of sugar. Compared to most vegetables, fruits do not provide as many micronutrients per calorie. But fruits are not all equal. Some of the most commonly eaten fruits are some of the least nutritious - in terms of Vitamin A, C, and ORACs. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity. This is a good stand in for anti-oxidant capacity. There are many anti-oxidants besides Vitamin A and C. We're still discovering them all. They all have different properties and capacities.

Here's a site with the ORAC value of many common foods on a Web page maintained by Greg Watson, one of the CR Society members:
http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au/OracLevels.htm

Taking A, C, ORACs and fiber into account, the very best fruits are berries. All berries are high in all of these components. Berries are also relatively low in calories.

Yellow fruits are also high enough in A to overcome their often high sugar content. So mangos, peaches, and cantaloupes are all well worth eating.

Likewise, citrus fruits and cranberries are so high in Vitamin C and ORACs that they are a good choice for breakfast, snacks or dessert.

Watermelons and plums are both fairly high in both A and C, as well as fiber - so eat them without guilt.

Grapes and cherries have high ORACs and moderate amounts of A and C, still acceptable in a calorie restricted diet in reasonable quantities.

Apples, bananas and pears are some of the least nutritious fruits, with relatively lower levels of vitamins and ORACs. While there are many worse things to eat, they should be considered a treat, more than a nutritional component.

Here's my heirarchy of fruit goodness:

Best
Strawberries Blackberries Raspberries Mangos Cantaloupe Kiwi

Very Good
Blueberries Peaches Apricots Oranges Grapefruit Tangerines Watermelon Honeydew

Good
Plums Grapes Pomegranate Cherries

Poor
Apples Pears Bananas

April and Applebees

April and her mom ate at Applebees yesterday from the Weight Watchers menu. I am not a fan of Weight Watchers. The focus on calories without nutritional consequences worries me. I am sure most men eating 1800 calories or more on WW are getting reasonable nutrition. But what about 1200 calorie or less a day women? No way.

I've been on a hundred diets before I started eating well five years ago. They never worked - at least not for very long. I think my current diet has worked for me because I am well nourished. I feel great. I am never sick. And I am not hungry.

Looking at the WW menu from Applebees, there are several dishes that would qualify as EW4L dishes, as well as WW. And there are some that would not.

Berry Lemon Cheesecake - If it's your birthday, yes. Otherwise, let someone else order it and just have one or at the most TWO bites. See my recommendations on desserts. Remember, cheesecake is on the once in a great while list.

Chocolate Raspberry Layer Cake - NO, NO, NO - there is no redeeming value.

Grilled Shrimp Skewer Salad - This looks very good - shrimp for protein, mixed greens, sugar snap peas and tomatoes. I might even go to Applebees myself.

Grilled Tilapia with Mango Salsa - Also a good choice. You might leave some or all of the rice on the plate if you are eating less than 1200 calories a day.

Mesquite chicken salad - Go ahead - this looks a lot tastier than the McDonalds salads.

Onion Soup Au Gratin - No. I don't get it. I am not a fan of reduced fat cheese. It reminds me of Elmer's glue.

Sizzling Chicken Skillet - This looks healthy, but I am suspecting that the supposed 360 calories does not include the 2 whole wheat tortillas, which would bring the total up closer to 500. I may be wrong though - in which case, this is a nice choice.

Tango Chicken Sandwich - Too much bread, not enough vegetables for 370 calories.

Teriyaki Shrimp Skewers - Another good choice - 290 calories and lot of meat and vegetables.

Tortilla Chicken Melt - Not the best choice. 460 calories, with more of the reduced-fat cheese and lots of tortillas. The other 5 good choices are a lot better.

When McDonalds is your only choice

Yes, there are some meals you can eat at McDonalds. Willie had this experience the other day and made the same choice that I did a year ago - he ate the Chicken Caesar salad without dressing. McDonalds has three salad choices that are all pretty nutritious - if you skip the dressing and the croutons. Avoid the Crispy Chicken versions - no telling what oils were used (and reused and reused) to make it. All three salads have enough fat in them without the dressing to make them Zone! I find that cutting up the chicken into smaller pieces and eating a piece of chicken with each fork of lettuce gives you plenty of flavor without dressing. The biggest problem I had with the salad was that it was not as fresh as my homemade salad would have been. All three seem pretty equivalent to me, so order the version that sounds best to you.

Bacon Ranch Salad with Chicken - 250 calories and 30g of protein. This provides lots of A and C, plus reasonable amounts of B vitamins, iron and calcium.

Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken - 210 calories and 28g of protein. This provides lots of A and C, plus reasonable amounts of B vitamins, iron and calcium.

California Cobb Salad with Chicken - 270 calories and 33g of protein. Same amounts of A, C, etc as the Bacon Ranch Salad.

I find the RDA amounts suspicious, since they are such round numbers. But then, there is probably enough variance between actual servings that this is accurate enough.

If you just have to eat breakfast there, the least objectionable thing is the Egg McMuffin. This is not something that I would recommend every day, but it does have 17g of protein in 290 calories and provides 10% of A, 30% of calcium and 15% of iron. It claims to have no transfat. To make it a little more nutritious and less caloric, throw away one of the 1/2s of the muffin.

Shellfish for B vitamin and minerals

Many people today eat a far too limited selection of high protein foods. Health conscious women are probably the most likely to limit protein sources to egg whites, chicken breast, turkey and fish. While this is probably not a bad idea for middle aged men with high cholesterol, it's a mistake for younger women. At their lower levels of calories, they are very unlikely to be getting the B vitamins and iron that they need. Women of child bearing age (14-50) need twice the iron that men do - and a lot of them don't get nearly enough. Poultry and fish don't have all the B vitamins either. While fish provides the B-12 that chicken is low in, they are both too low in riboflavin, thiamin, and iron.

With low iron, women may experience fatigue and mental fuzziness. B vitamins are important for the proper functioning of your nervous system.

One way to boost B-12, iron and riboflavin is to eat shellfish - especially oysters, clams, and mussels. Here's the scoop on these foods:

Oysters
4 oz of raw oysters is only 76 calories but provides 877% of the RDA od B-12, 490% of Copper, 75% of iron, and 1430% of zinc. Make your own super nutritious oyster stew by adding raw or smoked oysters and a cup of chopped kale or spinach to chicken broth and simmering for 10 minutes.

Clams
4 oz of clams have lots of protein - 28g - in 162 calories. This much provides 4532% of the RDA of B-12 and 308% of Iron, 43% of riboflavin, 76% of copper, and 43% of zinc. An easy way to get clams is in Manhattan clam chowder. Make your own by adding canned clams to a good vegetable soup.

Mussels
3 oz of mussels provide 15g of protein in 167 calories. Also high in B-12 (573% of the RDA) and iron (45%) . This amount provides more than 20% of the RDA of E, folate, riboflavin, and zinc. Mussels can be steamed in a light broth or cooked in a marinara sauce.

Eating Traditionally

For tens of thousands of years, our ancestors ate a variety of traditional foods - lean grass fed meats, eggs, shellfish, fish, fruits, nuts, greens, tubers - and things like bugs, too. Then, 500 generations ago, agriculture added grains and beans. Dairy foods were added a little later. Oils came from the foods and later from cold pressing olives and other seeds.

Then, in the last 5 generations, we've introduced refined vegetable oils, high in Omega 6 polyunsaturates, large amounts of sugar and refined grains, and recently high fructose corn syrup. Hydrogenation is now common - introducing transfats. In the last several years, food manufacturers have started adding milk and soy derivatives to many processed foods.

It's well known that people from cultures with traditional cuisines - ones that have been handed down for many, many generations - are generally healthier than Americans. And when these people adopt an American diet, they start to get our chronic diseases. Our genes are not programmed to thrive on these new foods. We are not adapted to them. They are making us sick.

I personally think its unwise to eat a diet largely composed of these new foods - as most Americans now do. When I see what people buy at the grocery store - it's these new foods that they are buying. I think they are buying poor health.

When I shop, I fill my cart with grass fed meats, free range chicken, wild caught fish, nuts, fruits and vegetables. I consume few grains and limited dairy. I avoid sugar, corn syrup, and vegetable oils other than extra virgin olive oil.

I think it's smart to observe the eating patterns of cultures that have long culinary traditions and borrow from them. I make one adaptation. I assume that traditional diets are too high calorie for our sedentary society and cut out a lot of their starchy staples - the rice in Asian cultures and bread and potatoes in European ones; the tortillas of the Americas, and flatbreads of the Middle East. But I keep the meats, the oils, the vegetables and fruits.

Most Americans are now overweight - too many calories for a sedentary lifestyle. It's important to return to traditional foods - though with a lower level of nutrient-poor carbohydrates than is typically eaten by hard-working farmers or hunters-gatherers. If you want the best health possible, this is the path to achieving it. I've had remarkable success with this strategy. I lost 40 pounds in 8 months - going from 156 to 116, my weight at 18 - and have kept it off without once regaining it for 4 years. I haven't had a cold or the flu since. I have double the energy I had before. My skin looks the best it has in ten years. Aches and pains are gone. I feel really great for a 51 year old - more like a 31 year old. Better than a lot of 31 year olds.

I have found it easy to eat this way. It quickly become a habit, even though I previously ate a very typical American diet. You feel so good that you can't imagine going back to Krispy Kreme hell. Food tastes better and you enjoy it so much more when it's nourishing you. I can eat 1200 calories a day, every day, without hunger or feeling deprived.

Diets don't work. Just cutting calories or carbs or fat is not enough. You need to give your body everything it needs to work well. Or you will get sick or tired or stressed. The purpose of this blog is to help you to eat well for the rest of your life - your long and healthy life. I've been eating this way for 5 years, and I want to share what I've found with you.

P and J Eaters

This is about Meyers-Briggs.

In case you are not familiar with it, M-B is a system of personality categorization. You take a test and it gives you a 4 letter word that describes many aspects of your personality. One of the letters can be a P or a J. P stands for Perceiving and J for Judging.

I am very, very P. This makes me terribly interested in figuring things out and learning all about things. I do not have a problem with changing my mind - if it seems like the right thing to do. I don't believe there is the "one right way" to do things. Or even the best way. J's are the opposite. They like to stick with the right way. P seems to stand for Procrastination to them, and J for Just Right. Variety is not important.

Many of the CR Society folk eat the same "perfect meals" every day. This is a very J thing to do. It is righteous - and I don't mean that in a negative way. But, this would drive me insane. One of my favorite things to do is to try new foods and go to interesting restaurants. So, I do CR like a P. It's all about learning. Every day is a new CR learning day for me. More choosing and experimenting. Variety. P is about Perception, not Perfection.

So, I have come to realize that I know a lot about food as a result. I've spent hours on the Web looking up recipes for ethnic foods and analyzing them. I see how my choices resulted in a high nutrition Zone-ish day - or did not. No day has been exactly like another. I can wing CR. I can CR on the road.

So, the perfect tool for me has been my diary tool. My diary tool is like my microscope for food. Each day is like a specimen, put under the lens for examination. Very interesting to a P. But, I am thinking that J's would probably rather have menus of preconstructed "good meal days". So, my new tool is for this. I am making a J tool. The patterns I have learned from my P studying make me able to think of many, many variations of CR. I hope these will be useful for everyone, especially you many wonderful Js out there.

Thai Restaurants

I love Thai food. Thai people love beautiful presentation and insist of fresh, natural, whole ingredients. It seems like the food is an artistic creation - both for the eye and the tongue. There are always lots of choices with lean protein, especially seafood, and vegetables. They often include lots of carrots, cabbage and lettuce.

Avoid the Pad Thai - too many empty carbs in those rice noodles. For the healthiest choices, look to the soups, salads and curry dishes with added vegetables. A good choice for dinner is either a soup and salad combination or one of the curry dishes.

There are many healthy Thai dishes. Here's some of the best:

Num Tok or Nam Tok- a spicy green salad with strips of marinated beef flank

Green Papaya Salad - Shredded green papaya, with a lime dressing, it usually comes with broiled shrimp

Larb - A tasty chicken salad dish - very high protein and low calories

Any soup - really - they are all good. Even the delicious ones with coconut milk are relatively low in calories and good protein sources. The lemony ones without are really low calorie.
Tom Kai Gai - chicken in coconut milk
Tom Ka Talay - wonderful mixed shellfish in coconut milk - lots of B-12!
Tom Yum Koong - piquant shrimp soup

Curries with Rice
If you like spicy food, these can be a good choice. The curry sauce is always high in vitamin A and C. Choose a curry with added vegetables - like bell pepper, broccoli, asparagus or carrots. Thai restaurants are a good place to get shellfish - squid, shrimp, mussels, and scallops. Use as little of the rice as you can - 1/2 a serving at most.

Food vs. Supplementation

It seems like it should be easier to just take pills. Why bother to try to get the RDA of vitamins from food?

If we really understood the human body completely and knew what we needed to be well for our entire lifetimes, this would be acceptable. But, we don't. Medical science has not spent a lot of effort understanding nutrition - it's too focused on developing drugs for people who are already sick.

So, we must assume that we need to look to nature and the world we live in for guidance on what to eat. Think about what our ancestors must have eaten thousands of years ago. That is what our bodies are designed for. Science has identified a few dozens of essential nutrients. There is nothing that gurantees that there are not many more. They may be so common in our food that deficiency is rarely encountered. Common diseases whose cause is unknown may even be caused by these deficiencies. Perhaps we will find this out in the future.

Because of this, it seems like a good idea to get at least the RDAs of vitamins from food. There may be other vitamins that we need that are undiscovered. If we eat foods high in the vitamins that we know, we are likely to get any that we don't know. It's easy to get several times the RDA of the carotene form on vitamin A. It's also a simple matter to get significantly more than the RDA of C. With a varied diet that includes lots of lean protein sources, the RDA of the B vitamins is attainable even at a low calorie level.

To summarize, your diet should provide 2-3 times the RDA of vitamins A and C and 100% of B vitamins. No point in supplementing A - the research evidence does not support this. Hypersupplementing C does help you throw off infections and has been proven to be valuable. Animals other than apes make their own Vitamin C. They don't need to eat is at all. When they are stressed, their body makes a whole lot of it. So, you can copy your pets and take extra C when you are exposed to illness. Smokers need more C. Pollution raises your need for C. So, extra C makes sense. I take 500mg of C a day and will take 3-4 g of C when I am stressed. Hypersupplementation of B vitamins may be helpful to some people. Some people need more. Your body will just filter out extra B vitamins, so unless you have kidney problems, extra B won't hurt you. I take a B complex that provides 25x the RDA on average.

Minerals are better understood - there are only so many elements. Supplementing these are acceptable as an alternative. Minerals interact - they are electrolytes. So it is important not to get too much or too little of them. I recommend getting 100-200% of the RDA of all the minerals - no more and no less.

Beverage choices

Humans did not have high fructose corn syrup in their diet AT ALL until the 1970's. Ever since it was introduced, Americans have gotten fatter and fatter and diabetes is not an epidemic. It's very difficult to find any sweetened drinks now that don't include it. Stay away! Drinks that contrain it have little or no nutritional value.

Here's some drink recommendations:

Mineral Water
These have 0 calories and can contribute significantly to you mineral intake. If you don't drink milk, then they can provide a good source of calcium. You can get used to the higher mineral content waters if you give yourself a chance. A very common brand that is pretty high in mineral content is San Peligrino. Whole Foods Italian Sparkling Water appears to be private label San Peligrino. Gerolsteiner is my favorite - it has twice the mineral content of San Peligrino. A liter of Gerolsteiner has the same calcium content as a 9 oz glass of milk, but more than twice the magnesium. Cow's milk does not provide balanced calcium and magnesium - so you really need to eat high magnesium foods or supplement if you get your calcium from milk.

Tea
Hot and iced tea are both good for you. Herbal teas and decaffeinated teas as well as black and green teas all provide some B-vitamins and minerals. Each tea has a different profile, but they often provide folate and trace minerals.

Coffee
Much maligned, coffee appears to have no ill effects, despite many studies that have tried to find them. Unfiltered European-style coffee does contain oils that raise cholesterol. But filtered coffee appears to provide useful antioxidants. Again, zero calories and trace amounts of minerals and niacin. If you drink a lot of coffee, these amounts can actually add up to a substantial contribution. 5 cups a day of decaffeinated coffee provides 20% of the RDA of niacin, magnesium and potassium.

Low Calorie Cocoa
This might sound unappetizing, but if you are a chocoholic it's actually very tasty and provides a major chocolate fix. Buy a good quality cocoa - organic is best for avoiding heavy metals. Pour a heaping tablespoon in a cup of hot water and add a packet of Spenda. Stir until mixed. For 15 calories, this provides 2 grams of fiber, 27% of the RDA of copper and 10% of the RDA of iron, magnesium, manganese and zinc.

Lowfat or Skim Milk
Nutritionist love to encourage milk drinking. I personally avoid it and have an allergy to it. It also causes nasal congestion in many people. If you have stuffy sinuses, you might try avoiding dairy for several days and see if you feel a lot better. But, if you are a dairy fan, this is a great beverage. 10 oz of lowfat milk, at 135 calories, provides 16% of the RDA on average and lots of protein.

Vegetable Juices
These all provide lots of anti-oxidants for few calories. They tend to be high in sodium, so look for low sodium versions if you are watching your salt. Both mixed vegetable versions and tomato juice are great for you. A big glass is always less than 100 calories and typically will provide as much most of the RDA of A and C.

I really don't recommend fruit juices. They are high glycemic index foods and are too sugary.

I also don't recommend diet sodas. Their high phosphorous content may cause bone loss. If you don't drink them for a month, you will be surprised at how really awful they taste to you when you try them again.

Little, simple breakfasts

Not everyone is ready for a big breakfast. A simple pattern to follow is:

Light and Easy Zone Breakfast
1 egg or 1 ounce of ham or 1 ounce of Canadian bacon
1/2 grapefruit or cup of vegetable juice

Any of these combinations is Zone balanced, about 90-120 calories, and provides 12-24% of nutrients. The Canadian bacon or ham is a little more nutritious than the egg. The vegetable juice is better than the grapefruit. I like the ham or Canadian bacon for breakfast, since it provides thiamin that is not easy to come by at low calorie levels. Eggs have great protein and the yolk has lots of minerals and B-12 and riboflavin. Don't choose eggs if you are watching cholesterol - choose the ham or Canadian bacon.

The egg can be scrambled, boiled or cooked in a teflon pan sunny-side up with a couple of drops of olive oil. The ham or Canadian bacon can be heated in a pan or the microwave.

So, just buy 4 oz of Canadian bacon and a dozen eggs (free range, please), a bottle of V-8 or organic vegetable juice, and a grapefruit or 2. Now, you have a week or 2 of breakfasts that you can vary every day.

If you want more calories at breakfast, you can just double up on each of the ingredients. In fact, a double combination is a great breakfast choice:

Ham and Egg Breakfast

1 egg, over easy, cooked on non-stick pan, with 1/2 a teaspoon of olive oil
1 oz of Canadian bacon
1/2 a grapefruit with sucralose (Splenda)
1 cup of vegetable juice

Total 232 calories, P/C/F of 26/34/40, and 36% of the RDA. High in B vitamins, full RDA of A and C, and lots of minerals.

Taco Bell

Sometimes you have few options on eating. It's nice to have some reasonable fast food alternatives. None of these really meet my criteria for every day eating, but when you are on the road or at the airport, you should not feel bad about eating them.
Fresco Style Enchirito
The best item at Taco Bell to eat is the "Fresco Style" Enchiritos. These are each around 250 calories with P/C/F ratios of 25/50/25 and 25% of the RDA for the day. The steak and chicken are somewhat better nutritional values than the beef. Enchiritos are high in A and C due to the red pepper sauce on them. Make sure you get the item with sauce - it's highly nutritious and low in calories and fat. Meat provides good B vitamins, iron amd protein. Beans are a good source of folate.

Regular Enchirito
Almost as good is the regular enchirito, which has cheese instead of extra salsa. This is considerably higher in calories and fat - 370 calories and P/C/F of 21/38/41. These also provide calcium from the cheese. Again, the beef is somewhat higher in calories and fat than the chicken and the steak variety.

"Fresca Style" Burritos
Similar in nutrition to the regular Enchirito, the various Fresca Burrito Supremes include the Steak Burrito Supreme, the Chicken Burrito Supreme and the Chicken Fiesta Burrito. All are around 350 calories with a P/C/F of 22/55/23. These have lots of nutritional value and are higher in calcium and iron than the fresca enchiritos, but lower in A and C.

One Last Word
One of the things I like about all these choices is that they aren't fried food - so minimal bad oils that are reused over and over in the fryer. The enchiritos have 1 g of transfat and the burritos have 1 1/2 - 2 grams.