Ever-Changing Ichabode Health Ideas

 

"Mom, I am only going to eat one at a time."

I could  conjure up a number of dazzling recipes and diet catastrophes. Instead, I am going to list some basics that are easy to follow and use with steady (not roaring) success.

1. In early 2022, I began weighing myself daily and posting it on Google calendar, using lb to accumulate ups and downs. 215 lb was the starter, though I recall it being higher but not written down earlier.

2. I read Dr. Joel Fuhrman repeatedly, which opened my eyes to the value of basic nutrition and the folly of my Standard American Diet (SAD). I still read Fuhrman and added Dr. Michael Greger to my row of nutrition books.

3. I was eating walnuts daily (YAY!) but I always used them on ice cream (BOO!) My cholesterol went down and I was diabetic on the blood test. 

4. One day I bought some ice cream that really appealed to me (carton graphics). It was truly horrible and probably not real ice cream. I gave it to the squirrels and they would not touch it. Though I wavered, the ice cream deep freezer was converted to bags and bags of frozen chopped greens and vegetables. No more ice cream, pies, or frozen pizza. McDonalds? Nope.

5. I was staggered at the relationship between basic foods (chopped greens, vegetables, fruit) and SAD (cow and chicken products, bread, candies, fried chips, fried everything, desserts, sugared and dietetic drinks).

6. Greens, fresh fruits, and vegetables were filling and often delicious.  I kept trying new/old foods and found them very tasty in time. My vegetable consultant urged me to also try spices, so I now store and use many kinds - mustard, ground black pepper, turmeric, cumin, allspice, bagel spice, etc. I have one sausage serving in my patented Creation Super Stew. Meat is essential but we mostly overdo it.

7. Shocking facts - The SAD Diet is very expensive, especially since we add fast food restaurant items to the sugar-fat-salt prepared foods from the grocery store. Prepared food (microwave and fast-food) can be delicious when everyone is starving or at least feeling starved. Once away from sugar-salt-fat enhancers, returning to them is painfully disgusting, even when venturing back just a wee bit.

8. Encouraging facts - God has already arranged a vast array of healing medicines in greens, vegetables, fruits, and meats. I need eye drops (cataract surgery) so I see the pharmacists once a month. I said to the pharm tech who has waited on me since the Walmart opened nearby, "You have very few cures in your department, especially the over-the-counter things." She said, "I know." I asked, "How did I get perfect blood results?"

"I'm not getting paid?!"

Take the Spinach Challenge - Filling Up without Calories - Loaded with Nutrition

When the doctor scared me into dropping ice cream as a significant factor in meals, I began to drop various fat-forming foods:

• Bread with butter
• Desserts in general, cookies, candy
• Processed meat with lots of salt and fat
• Eggs and cheese, both satisfying and fattyfying.

I lost 35 pounds but stalled below that level. I knew from daily weighs that a raw spinach day meant losing a pound a day, but I also backslid, a typical reaction to losing weight and celebrating the wrong way.

Fuhrman's positive response is to fill up on spinach and similar greens, which are super-beneficial and almost calorie free. I bought spinach boxes at Walmart and forgot to use them daily.

So I have switched to morning spinach (no blobs of dressing on top) and a huge apple for dessert. My childhood loathing of salad dressing returned and rewarded me with a simpler spinach response.

My first trial was this - I was very hungry and wanted a binge reward. I had none at home, due to poor planning. "Maybe I can get stuffed on fresh, raw spinach," I told myself. 

I got the largest bowl out and packed it with very fresh spinach. As I ate, I felt a mild euphoria and no hint of stuffiness. The spinach almost immediately extinguished my hunger, without my feeling stuffed and guilty (as in PBJs). 

Today I began with black coffee and waited to feel a bit hungry. Beans and veggies could have been rustled up fast, but that removes the spinach effect.

I got out a huge serving dish and filled it with fresh spinach, about 1/3 the box. I put a large apple on top for dessert. Both were delicious and fun to eat. The famine switch is reversed and my energy is very good.

Spinach 101: Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits

"Nutrition facts

The nutrition facts for 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of raw spinach are (1Trusted Source):

• Calories: 23
• Water: 91%
• Protein: 2.9 grams
• Carbs: 3.6 grams
• Sugar: 0.4 grams
• Fiber: 2.2 grams
• Fat: 0.4 grams

Carbs

Most of the carbs in spinach consist of fiber, which is incredibly healthy.

Spinach also contains small amounts of sugar, mostly in the form of glucose and fructose (1Trusted Source).

Fiber

Spinach is high in insoluble fiber, which may boost your health in several ways (2Trusted Source).

It adds bulk to stool as food passes through your digestive system. This may help prevent constipation.

Vitamins and minerals

Spinach is an excellent source of many vitamins and minerals, including (3):

• Vitamin A. Spinach is high in carotenoids, which your body can turn into vitamin A.
• Vitamin C. This vitamin is a powerful antioxidant that promotes skin health and immune function.
• Vitamin K1. This vitamin is essential for blood clotting. Notably, one spinach leaf contains over half of your daily needs.
• Folic acid. Also known as folate or vitamin B9, this compound is vital for pregnant women and essential for normal cellular function and tissue growth.
• Iron. Spinach is an excellent source of this essential mineral. Iron helps create hemoglobin, which brings oxygen to your body’s tissues.
• Calcium. This mineral is essential for bone health and a crucial signaling molecule for your nervous system, heart, and muscles.

• Plant compounds

  Spinach contains several important plant compounds, including (4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source, 8, 9Trusted Source, 10Trusted Source):

  • Lutein. This compound is linked to improved eye health.
  • Kaempferol. This antioxidant may decrease your risk of cancer and chronic diseases.
  • Nitrates. Spinach contains high amounts of nitrates, which may promote heart health.
  • Quercetin. This antioxidant may ward off infection and inflammation. Spinach is one of the richest dietary sources of quercetin.
  • Zeaxanthin. Like lutein, zeaxanthin can also improve eye health."
• APPLES - Popular and Satisfying 

Fuhrman Has the Key to Food Craving. No More Dessert Zombies

I saw that look when we ran out of chocolate cream-filled berliners. "YOU ARE OUT? When will you have more?"

The overall Eat To Live argument is sound, because Joel Fuhrman replaces the processed salt-fat-sweeteners of the American menu with the old-fashioned greens, beans, and fruit of common sense nutrition - God's Creation.

Some have asked, "What about craving food?" I got to know that while dropping down to 195, after being at 224 and higher. At 195, I would grab a bag of kettle corn (sugar, salt, fat, high glycemic popcorn) or crave PBJs (sugar, salt, fat, bread). In a few days the scale screamed 198, or did I?. 

I realized I hated salad dressing - not plain fresh spinach, which is crunchy and good, loaded with nutrition, a super-food. Now I am eating spinach early in the day, no matter what, and eating a huge crisp apple as dessert several times a day.

1. Packed full of vitamins

It is a challenge to find other plants that can compete with spinach in terms of the range of valuable vitamins and minerals they contain. For example, spinach is an excellent source of calcium, magnesium, and iron. It also serves as an excellent source of vitamins A, B6 and C and niacin and folate. This is far from a complete least of all the important elements that spinach brings to healthy bodies. Another significant fact about spinach is that it has a very low amount of fat.

2. As good as a gym for muscle building

The cartoons illustrate how eating spinach causes Popeye to develop huge muscles on his arms. The physical transformation of spinach eaters lacks this drama in real life, but the cartoonist's association between spinach and muscle building is not simply a whim of fancy. Spinach contains a compound called Factor C0-Q10 that has muscle-strengthening properties. This could help those arm muscles develop, but scientists find that it is especially beneficial for the heart muscles. C0-Q10 is already in use for certain heart disease treatments.

3. The vegetable that helps improve vision - lutein - tomatoes have it too

If you ask people to name a vegetable that is good for eyesight, the carrot is the one they are most probably going to mention. Folk tradition contains the belief that carrots help you see in the dark, but maybe spinach has comparable properties. Researchers have discovered that it contains lutein and other elements that protect against vision loss. There is scientific evidence that eating spinach can stop the progress of the Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) that damages the vision of the over 60's age group.

Returning to pure spinach salad, I have now gone down from 198 to 191, with craving stopped by spinach, fruit alone, or spinach and fruit. Pineapple is a superb late night dessert and not loaded with sugar. Oranges are just as delicious. Ripe pears, papaya, blueberries, and other fruits are always available in variable amounts. 

Sugar-grease-pastry desserts actually numb the mind. I know, because I observed so many dessert zombies come into the donut shop and ask for donuts, Danish rolls, cookies, fudge, and peanut brittle - that hollow, vacant eyed, possessed look.

The cost is never an issue for the dessert zombie. Restaurants thaw frozen desserts from a service, so they talk about "getting it ready," which means warming it up. 😁 Desserts cost many times what the meal does, if people just take a look at size, cost, and value per ounce. 

Panera bread is another example: sweet bread and desserts to attract - salads for virtue signaling.

Since good foods are medicinal, we should carefully consider, with a doctor's supervision, over-the-counter remedies. I stopped daily Benadryl (allergies, sleep inducer) when I saw that it increased blood pressure and eye pressure. Blood pressure went down and sleep was easier. I slept better and no longer have antihistamine hangovers.

Why Is the Fat Food Group the Most Promoted One?

Yes, I am still losing weight and improving what I eat, with some meat, lots of greens, beans, vegetables, and fruit.

 

The key component of the American sugar-salt-fat diet is fat. The first two parts, sugar and salt, are too obvious to ignore, so the fat component remains ideal for gaining and maintaining too much weight.

The highly promoted fat group starts with milk. Ice cream is so profitable and appealing that they deliver it to our doors.

Sadly, fat is quite overwhelming in milk, cottage cheese, and cheese. Those cheese sandwiches are really satisfying because of the cheese, butter, and bread. Salt is prominent, and the sandwich can be enhanced with jelly or honey. Don't ask how I know.

Eggs are high protein, but also high fat, often cooked in fat or made more delicious with butter, which I understand is 100% fat. That is why I stopped buying bread, because it is a gateway drug for butter. Or is it the other way around? 

Fat adds up easily (with salt and many kinds of sweeteners) in all our snack foods. We may have seemingly wonderful plans while including plenty of fat with the fatal partners - too much in the sugar group and omnipresent salt.

The simple alternative is a new but old way of eating. Walmart has gigantic rows of snacks and one devoted to candy. Candy is opposite frozen vegetables at our store.

Snacks and candy are manufactured, quite expensive, and fattening - no nutritional benefits.

Frozen vegetables and the produce area (fruits, vegetables) are low in cost, low in calories, and very nutritious. The last part was my gigantic blindspot, because the healthy American diet is long on protein, fat, and salt. 

The parents of Boomers grew up on fresh vegetables, some meat, no sodas, and plenty of fruit. Dr. Joel Fuhrman is a bit extreme at times but simply true to our rural heritage, which is also how poor people around the world - and in America - have eaten with great success.

Could You Spare a Few Minutes To Talk about...Fiber?

This is so funny. The over-the-counter medicine companies want to sell us various forms of fiber - pills, powder, fibrous food products. They are as appealing as burlap. 

What we need the most is also what we shun, so we can eat food that spikes our blood sugar. The non-fiber foods leave us craving for more high glycemic foods, like Jello, popcorn, corn, white bread, snack foods, white rice, breakfast cereal, white bread, and a rainbow of candies and desserts. Salt and sweeteners are added to make the flavorless and cheap foods more appealing.

Fruit Fiber - The Dessert with a Peel

Slowly I realized that all those delicious fresh fruits are sweet but bind up their sugar in fiber - the difference between apples and apple pie, the latter begging for whipped cream or ice cream, yea even cheese (a Midwest delicacy).

Sceptics and grouches may name a few sugary fruit, like grapes, but how many people gain 100 pounds from binge eating grapes? Few, I am sure. 

My main fruit is raw apples, several a day, but I also love ripe pears. Blueberries seem very sweet but are not sugar bombs. Besides, they are heart medicine. Whole pineapples recently sold for $2.50 each. All it takes is a serrated knife to slice them horizontally, then eat everything except the triceratops skin. I was recently introduced to papaya, which also balances sweet juiciness with fiber, plus other benefits.

If fruit is past its prime, I share it with birds and squirrels. Lately birds have been flying down to my feet and looking up at me.

 “Blessed are you, Lord God, maker of all living creatures. You called forth fish in the sea, birds in the air and animals on the land. You inspired Saint Francis to call all of them his brothers and sisters. We ask you to bless these animals. By the power of your love, enable them to live according to your plan. May we always praise you for all your beauty in Creation. Blessed are you, Lord our God, in all your creatures! In Jesus' Name. Amen.”

Raw Vegetable Fiber 

The vegetables I eat are raw, most of them frozen and simply warmed up from the freezer or de-canned and warmed (chickpeas, lima beans, tomato paste and sauce).

This combination of beans and vegetables is the key to protein, a wealth of nutrition, and long-term satisfaction. I had to give up bread to continue the downward weight trend, and I found bread a trigger for craving and a gateway drug for butter, jelly, and peanut butter. I am at 192 pounds, the lowest weight since I was awakened to nutrition.

Leafy Greens

I was avoiding leafy greens because I do not like salad dressing, never did. I tried using chopped frozen greens, but that did not help. 

Raw leafy greens fill the stomach but not the calorie counter, and they are astonishingly nutritious for their weight, plus some added benefits. Spinach is a super-food in the leafy green category, and I love it, so I eat one or two bowls of spinach every day. Yes, I know the joke, without dressing, or Honeymoon Salad, lettuce alone.

Craving Is for Real, Man

Craving food, usually the wrong food, is the great fear of those wanting to change their habits. Diets, which are disasters parallel to fiber pills and powder, generate overpowering cravings for candy, desserts, and snacks. So I have heard. 

If we always eat what we have always eaten, we will always get fatter because we always age. We have to give up groups of useless food and address craving with good food - 

1. raw fruit - fiber!
2. mostly raw vegetables - fiber! 
3. leafy greens - fiber!, 
4. nuts and seeds. 

I dropped ice cream and colas first, slowed down cookies, and finally stopped buying bread. This gave me a blood sugar drop (A1C) to normal, blood pressure near normal, and weight loss of 32 pounds. Yes, I still eat meat every week.

I now answer craving with two helpings of fruit or eating one or two bowls of spinach. Yes, that works very well and the craving for all the Melo-Cream delights disappear.

Eat To Live, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman was no help to me - for years! That is because I never read it. I found a brand new, forgotten and unread copy in my own library and read it. I bought copies for others, and read it again.

I also get good advice from members and friends.

Icha-peek: Cardiologist Loves Fuhrman's Work

I talked to a couple about Fuhrman's books and sent them several titles. They obtained even more - Fuhrman is on YouTube. They went together to see the cardiologist, and the doctor loves Fuhrman's idea.

Eat Your Medicine! - Your Midnight Icha-peek

My parents loved desserts, so they launched my career in the bakery business with my own cake for my first birthday.

The new battle cry, after reading Joel Fuhrman, is "Eat your medicine!" I had a big laugh with one couple about that. If we put the favorite food items for Americans - loaded with sugars, fats, and salt - on one table, and the healthiest foods - packed with nutrition - on the other, the choice would be more obvious.

I weigh myself on a digital scale each morning, so I can get immediate results from the previous day's food. Yes, I have slipped two pounds and worked back to the lowest weight quickly. I have concluded that butter remains a gateway drug for bread-eaters, so I have tossed the last loaf of cheap bread out for the birds. They love it.

The scale is a warning, the Law, but the fresh foods are all positive, created from Day One to keep us healthy. I enjoy refreshing my nutrition memory by looking up "the nutritional value of" and studying why I am eating a wide variety of beans, vegetables, fresh fruit, with nuts and some seeds.

Some people hate lima beans, they have have shocking high values for various minerals. Try this lima link.

Chickpeas reign supreme - look at these garbanzo values, lots of zinc. I am rust-proof now.

One part of changing habits is filling up on greens, which have almost no calories until people put dressings on with a snow shovel.

Another part is feeling satisfied without fats, a good solution with beans, which are rich in protein and other key ingredients for health.

I finally got wise about various sources of fiber, which keep us full and also slow down food burning. We tend to deny that desserts do the opposite.

This became my nightmare, forced into papal donut tyranny.

Lots of raw food combos are delicious and packed with nutrition, going far beyond a list of vitamins. There are many medicinal substances in plants, fruits, and seeds. The irony is replacing inexpensive foods with highly promoted and expensive over-the-counter cures. 

People gasp at the price of fresh, good apples and eat drive-through sandwiches at $5 each. But the sandwiches have sugars, salt, and plenty of fat - added value! A $5 McDonalds quarter cheese with bacon will buy a box of spinach leaves that will last six or more large salads. The sandwich has almost no nutrition, protein plus the things we do not need. Spinach leaves have lots of benefits.

Fruits at home right now are:

• Blueberries
• Oranges
• Apples
• Papaya - lots of Vitamin C
• Fresh pineapple

Desserts will kill our appetites for fruits, but fruits do the same for desserts. Since being overweight causes or contributes to so many health problems, it makes sense to spend less and get more from shopping.

 At the age of four I was an unpaid model for the annual donut calendar. A glazed donut uses all the main food groups - sugar, white flour, grease, and salt. These are diet glazed donuts, because the hole in the middle decreases the total calorie count.

Flood Watch for Our Area - Planting and Eating the Best

I had a couple of bargain roses left to plant; I thought that would take very little time. But I barely got two divots in the rose garden, even though I watered yesterday and some rain fell. The little craters would absorb some rain later, I thought. Then - boom, crash. After the first round of rain and thunder, we enjoyed a pause.

I went inside, thinking about our growing nutrition fan club. I get a lot of responses about replacing our way reliance on the sugar-salt-fat group with the vegetables-greens-beans-fruit-nuts group.

In short - we need to replace the fattening, over-priced prepared, over-salted foods with foods that cost little and have great benefits. Long-term food choices are either 

• The dessert kind, which stuff us and empty our pockets, or 
• The nutritious kind, which are low-cost and loaded with medicinal value - like the old days of picking fresh food out of the garden.

The nutritious kind are -

1. Super-nutritious greens, fresh or frozen vegetables.
2. Inexpensive beans.
3. Fresh fruits of all kinds.
4. Nuts that have special qualities - almonds, walnuts, etc.

For lunch today I began with mustard greens, the first time ever in my life. I use a larger sauce pan and add ingredients as I paw through the freezer. I have spurned fresh spinach, kale, mustard greens, etc for the chopped, frozen versions. They last much longer. Here is one link on mustard greens.

Chickpeas (garbanzo) are the basis for a meal, delicious and inexpensive, protein and fiber plus many nutritional benefits.

I love breads and cookies, growing up in a bakery and feeling no ill effects from the fringe benefits of having fresh desserts of all kinds. The trouble with bakery output is its lack of nutrition and its ability to make us crave even more. I have moved from apple pie and apple turnovers to apples. Apple pie is great with whipped cream and ice cream, but no one would use either additive to a fresh, raw, juicy apple. 

It is more a matter of seeing the correct foods as delicious and healing, the bad foods as contributing to our worst medical fears: heart problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes, high cholesterol - all addressed by good foods.

Craving!

Craving, I'm craving and feeling so hungry.

I'm craving, craving for chocolates so few.

I knew you'd feed me as long as I wanted,

And then someday you'd leave me for some body new.

[Apologies to Patsy Cline, one of the greatest singers of all time.]

 

 Blueberries or blueberry pie, kid?

Food as Medicine

I remember the day when a customer asked for various diet sodas (none stocked) and settled for six chocolate cream-filled berliners. I was an active participant in this vocation.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, treating food as medicine. Of course, all food has medicinal value, but some is bad medicine, the rest are good medicine.

This morning I had a can of garbanzo (chickpeas) mixed with various frozen vegetables, cooked on a natural gas stove. Garbanzo provided the complete protein and fiber, plus other nutritional ingredients. The frozen vegetables this morning were:

• Chopped frozen collard greens,
• Green and red peppers, plus onions,
• Peas,
• Mushrooms, and
• Canned tomato paste for flavor and low calorie nutrition.

There are lots of choices in these categories, such as adding milled flax seed, walnuts or almonds, and side dishes of oranges, apples, prunes, and blue berries.

Everything listed so far has lots of nutritional across a broad spectrum of low-cost food. One should price a quarter-pounder versus the same money spent on frozen vegetables. No one can eat a quarter-pounder worth of frozen chopped collards. That is also equal to four (4) cans of garbanzo beans. The quarter-pounder is mostly fat and salt, with sugar added - because we all love the sugar-fat-grease  foods.

Panera is a fun place for breads and desserts. They go stale quickly so they must be eaten quickly (my excuse). Bread products are close to dessert. A breakfast of toast, butter, and black coffee has very little nutrition but lots of calories from flour and butter, even without jelly. Cinnamon invites sugar, which may already be in the bread and coffee

Several people have been changing more habits than nuns before a Day of Obligation. They feel much better from eating good food, and they lose 15 to 30 pounds without much trouble. These are some habits which are natural for me now:

1. No ice cream or desserts, with very few exceptions. I did not have any ice cream from December until the trip to DC. Someone enticed me to eat ice cream and dessert twice.
2. I weigh myself almost every day. That is encouraging and sometimes a warning. From 224 pounds to 195 is fun, and I enjoyed the cooking practice,
3. Usually, I have much smaller portions of whatever I eat, which comes from eating slowly.
4. I am getting more exercise all the time, which burns the fat. Anyone taking away fat, sugar and white foods (white flour, white rice, white whipped cream) will benefit.
5. I am much more careful about the foods I eat and favor the low cost frozen items over the salty, greasy, and sugared ones.
6. No more take-home colas, yes some McDonalds with Sassy Sue. Infrequent fast-food stops. No hard candy. No donuts. Very little chocolate.

Removing the Bad Food To Make the Nutritional Food Taste Great

The atrocity of my food habits is becoming obvious as I dethrone the Standard American Diet (SAD) and replace it with Furhman's nutritional ideas. Each day I study the two Fuhrman books I have, because they are so full of information.

• Eggs, toast, and butter - gone.
• Cheese - bye-bye.
• Candy, desserts, and diet drinks - too obvious.

That did not happen at once, because I was paring down the fat-producing foods in favor of nutrition. In the last month I have lost weight and increased in energy. I also sleep through the night, which is another improvement. 

My new kick is leafy greens. I had two piles of them yesterday, for lunch and supper. I will have one today for breakfast. There are two basic reasons:

They are almost calorie free but add a lot of nutrition, especially when eaten with some nuts (almonds, walnuts) and some seeds (flax ordered).

I used to read things like "four fruit servings a day" and think - I will try for one a day. When protein and desserts are a priority, fruit is a distant goal, a long-distance goal. Now fresh fruit replaces dessert 100% and I consider fresh oranges and apples dessert. Juices are banned, whether sugared or sugar-free, because they have the same bad effect. Diet juices and sodas can be very addicting.

Furhman calls this a relying-on-fat diet, because it is possible to avoid eating fats with so much stored around the waist. Some call this a fat-burning diet, which also makes sense. Relying on sugar and fast-acting sweets for energy, the liver quickly lays down a new row of sandbags - fat layers. When this is denied, stored fat is rousted from its comfortable position and used for fuel.  That is energizing while storing new layers makes us tired, sleepy, and unambitious.

That explains why sensible eating helps us lose weight while giving us more energy. Crash diets lose weight in a miraculous fashion, but they do not change habits. The rebound is something to see, gaining it all back, adding another 10% for margin, and feeling like a dope.

Long ago I spotted a diet book-of-the-month club, which is as hilarious - or as sad as - the Church-Growth-Book-of-the-Month club. Both assuming that one idea per month is a complete failure, so they try the new one. Church Growth soldiers on because the apostates love it and cannot digest Biblical doctrine.

 Mencken was a bit harsh on the WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC combine. Add a boatload of Thrivent salesmanship.

What Tastes Good When Really Hungry? - Answer - Everything!

I only had BelVita crackers for breakfast, with pour-over coffee from Costa Rica. I was not really hungry until lunch, which was the perfect time to try some new foods.

I picked chickpeas or gorbanza beans.

1. Packed with nutrients

Chickpeas boast an impressive nutritional profile.

They contain a moderate number of calories, providing 269 per cup (164 grams). Approximately 67% of these calories come from carbs, while the rest comes from protein and fat (1Trusted Source).

Chickpeas also provide a variety of vitamins and minerals, as well as a decent amount of fiber and protein. A 1-cup (164-gram) serving of cooked chickpeas offers (1Trusted Source):

• Calories: 269
• Protein: 14.5 grams
• Fat: 4 grams
• Carbs: 45 grams
• Fiber: 12.5 grams
• Manganese: 74% of the Daily Value (DV)
• Folate (vitamin B9): 71% of the DV
• Copper: 64% of the DV
• Iron: 26% of the DV
• Zinc: 23% of the DV
• Phosphorus: 22% of the DV
• Magnesium: 19% of the DV
• Thiamine: 16% of the DV
• Vitamin B6: 13% of the DV
• Selenium: 11% of the DV
• Potassium: 10% of the DV

They tasted much better than red kidney beans, but were a bit dull in flavor. I added almonds, walnuts, and blueberries, all three tasty and loaded with beneficial nutrients.

Fuhrman promotes green, leafy vegetables because a huge serving provides no calories, plenty of healthy nutrition, and satisfies. I bought balsamic vinegar dressing for a mixed selection of greens.

This was a plunge, because I associate lettuce with unpleasant eating, especially when my mother found out I was hiding my portion behind the curtains. (Note to self - throw away what is hidden!)

The salad was delicious, especially because I was still hungry. I finished with an orange, my first for the day, but not the last. Envy apples were in the fridge cooling. They are juicy, a bit tart and a bit sweet.

Fuhrman is right - this kind of eating is very filling, but it does not make me feel stuffed, as the SAD diet does (Standard American Diet). I am going to have an apple or two. One giant apple later - that Envy was good. 

Losing Weight Is Not the Answer - It is the Result

 

I wrote to someone that I weighed less than I have for a long time. I was lighter when we were on a tight budget and food was carefully picked and eaten with elan. A transient came to our home and we borrowed money from him!

The recipient said, "I need to lose some weight." That was a major part of my problem, because I never faced the necessity of dealing with nutrition first and last. Once the warrantee ran out on my pancreas, I faced the facts because I had to. My habits ranged from horrible to SAD - Standard American Diet, long on carbos and fat, short on beans and greens.

I already had Fuhrman's (unread!) Eat To Live and read that back and forth, a great source for nutrition in all the major food groups. I ordered Furhman's book, The End of Heart Disease, a hardback in new condition from Alibris.com.

Blood sugar, blood pressure, and heart problems are closely related, and I wanted some focused material on such things as blood pressure medicine, insulin, and the relationship between food and heart problems.

Arkansas is the second most obese state in the Union, beaten only by Mississippi. (We beat them in literacy, too!) Nothing is talked about more than football contests, sweetened tea, and biscuits with gravy. And it shows. Everyone who doubts the relationship between weight and illness should spend some hours at a hospital waiting room. Unfortunately for me, the men I saw made me feel like a contestant for Mr. Universe (in the elderly category, of course). 

Some look at body mass, but body girth will do the job, too. Riding on a scooter is a hint as well.

Complete Change in Eating Habits

First I woke up to foods on the banned list - favorites:

• Candy, ice cream especially - and desserts.
• Worthless greasy salty carbs (snack foods).
• Eggs - oh no! I cut way back but am making them rare.
• White bread (I'm good) but much lower on dark bread (NY Rye? - sob). On the rare list.
• Meat and fish - rare. No steaks.
• Cheese is basically fat, lots of fat. Noping that.
• Butter, oils, oils in pills. Cut back and now rare.

Here is the challenge, getting to the place where those are undesirable and not a bit tempting.

Here is a coffee parallel. I drink various kinds of coffee. If it is the one of the best I have ever had, I drink every drop - I savor every drop! If it is an ordinary bean, I drink 2/3rds and lose my desire for more.

Behold, the key to desiring good food - cut out the SAD calories. Why eat an orange after bacon, eggs, toast, and butter? "No, barrumph, I am full."

Fruits are very nutritious and not sugary because of the pulp, etc. Juices are sugar syrup. Fake sweeteners do not help because they make the body think sugar is being consumed.

Beans are loaded with nutrition and very satisfying. So are the crucifers, members of the cabbage family. A bowl of kidney beans or brussels sprouts are very enjoyable warmed up.

Greens are super-foods as well - with no calories. Fuhrman emphasizes the micro-nutrients and the many overlooked virtues of greens. The big one is - No calories! I am a big fan of spinach, so I will be getting canned spinach and work into other leafy greens. Kale? - I used to make fun of it when I could see it green in the snowy garden. I am changing my mind.

Nuts and seeds. I am already keen on walnuts and almonds. I will work on the seeds next.