The one in which I blather on and on about food

“I don’t want to see you with a book from the library,” said my dear husband to me over Christmas break.

What? Come again?

You.  You can’t return a book on time.  Get ebooks from the library.  When they’re due, they just take them back.

Like magic? And HEY, I told you when we got married that I was genetically incapable of returning books and movies on time.  It’s just who I am.

So, free books! And they take them away when you are done with them.  Ideal!!

Over break I read Wildly Affordable Organic: Eat Fabulous Food, Get Healthy, and Save the Planet–All on $5 a Day or Less by Linda Watson, Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck, Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustaingable Food System for All by Oran B. Hesterman, and 366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans, and Grains by Andrea Chesman.  I also checked out the blog of Twinsanity who feeds organic food to her family of EIGHT on about $400 a month.

There was a lot that I valued in each of these books.  After reading Food Matters, 100 Days of Real Food, and watching Food, Inc. last summer, I made a lot of changes in our diet.  I found pleasantly last week that the changes resulted in a 20 pound weight loss for me, without even trying.

I won’t summarize each book, but will highlight the most important pieces.  Everyone has different ideas about food, but these might give you some food for thought.

1.  Eating organic isn’t that much more expensive.  You can find savings by buying in bulk, local, in season, and eating less meat.  Spending $1 locally has far more impact on improving the economy than spending that same $1 at a major corporation.  Some impoverished cities, like Detroit, do not even have a major grocery in their city limits and residents either buy their food at corner stores, liquor stores, or have to travel to the suburbs to buy food.

2.  Drink whole milk.  Your body needs the fat in order to make good use of proteins and vitamins in milk.

3.  Use solid fats, like butter, because they are most stable when heated.  Plus, HEY the French do it.  Throughout the 20th century, as use of vegetable oils increased, and use of butter and lard decreased, our 20th century health problems increased as well.  Olive oil is full of good fats.

4.  You should eat Omega 6 fats and Omega 3 fats in no more than a 4:1 ratio.  This, for me, was the most stunning information I read.   Too many Omega 6 in your diet results in an increase in all inflammatory diseases, most notably, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, arthritis, cancer, and others.  The beef, chicken and eggs that I can purchase at the grocery have Omega 6 fats in excess of 20 to 1 of the Omega 3 fats.  Whereas grass fed beef is 3:1 and pastured eggs are 1.5:1.  This is the most significant change I can make to combat my high blood pressure and Ismael’s type 2 diabetes.

5.  Eating grassfed meat, chicken, eggs, is a little more expensive than the grocery store alternative, but it can be offset by eating more beans, grains, and vegetables during the week.  The book, 366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans, and Grains, has been extremely helpful in that regard.  I made her recipe for stuffed cabbage tonight and while I only intermittently thought, “this would be SO GOOD WITH BEEF,” I have to say it was easy to put together, fast, tasty and I only burnt myself once.  That’s sufficient to become a regular in our household.

6. and of course…eat fish…eat whole grains.

7. And in our house, avoid pork for the husband, fish, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, coconut, and eggs for the boy.  Avoid a nervous breakdown for me.  Pass the wine please.  I heard red wine is good for me.  BONUS.

Rice Stuffed Cabbage in Sweet and Sour Sauce

From 366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans, and Grains

Sauce

1 T olive oil

1 Small Diced Onion

4 Garlic Cloves

1 tsp grated ginger

1 28 oz can of Tomato Sauce

1 T honey

1 T lemon juice

Cabbage Rolls

8 large cabbage leaves

Olive Oil

4 garlic cloves

1 green pepper finely diced / I added a red pepper here too

Salt / Pepper

½ cup chopped scallions

2 cups cooked brown rice

1 tsp caraway seeds (I got a small amount of these for this recipe at Georgetown Market, for $.60)

To make sauce:  Heat oil add onion and garlic, sauté 3 minutes.  Add remaining sauce ingredients and simmer.

Blanch cabbage leaves in boiling water for 3 minutes.  Plunge in cold water to stop the cooking.

Filling:  heat oil in large skillet.  Add garlic, bell pepper, and scallions and sauté for 3 minutes.  Add rice.  Season with seeds and salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 350.  Coat dish with olive oil.  Stuff cabbage and loosely close each roll.  Place in baking dish. Pour remaining sauce over rolls and bake for 30 minutes.