A food memoir of weight loss, family recipes, digital cookbook and nutrition information for family and friends
H Robert Silverstein, MD, FACC
After 47 years as a cardiologist with 200,000 patient visits, I can firmly say that vegans are my healthiest patients. I certainly agree with you it is not easy. My position is that 90% vegan which is 19 of 21 meals a week will do just fine. Foods should be, prior to preparation, ideally organic and unprocessed whole foods exactly as they grow up out of the ground and in the field.
Source: A Fix For Food Waste And Hunger: Big Batches Of Soup
I loved this story. You will too.
Source: Substituting Beans for Beef Would Help the U.S. Meet Climate Goals – The Atlantic
This article link is for all of my militant Vegan readers.
Enjoy.
People often call my mother’s recovery a miracle. And while I understand the sentiment, I believe the miraculous thing may be that so much illness could be avoided if people could only move from foods that hurt to foods that heal.
Source: From Hospice to Healthy: How a Plant-Based Diet Saved My Mom’s Life
Great story about love and plants.
I’ve spent most of my life working in various areas of the life insurance industry. Currently I am back where I started over 41 years ago as an underwriter specializing in mortality risk assessment. My job is to understand what kills people. Sounds simple but it’s not that simple. As a creative and destructive species people have figured out a myriad of ways to kill themselves. When someone applies for life insurance I figure out what is most likely to kill them and charge an appropriate rate for the risk. I really like what I do. Each and every day is another opportunity to learn and improve.
I also love to cook. The Boss has to declare a No Cook Night otherwise I will cook. This love started early watching my father cook supper every night. Dad was a great cook and I had a role model from the beginning. One day I asked him
“Why do you cook?”
“You’ve tasted your Mother’s cooking. Survival.”
Eat to live. Not live to eat. For me, this was a hard lesson learned. Before the age of 20 I weighed over 370 pounds. I’ve used 370 as my highest weight but it could have been higher. I stopped weighing myself because I really didn’t want to know how heavy I was. The story of how is for another time but suffice to say I managed to lose 200 pounds by the time I turned 21. As the years have passed my weight has slowly crept up. I’m proud to be near 190 pounds and approximately 180 pounds lighter than my personal peak. Eat to live, not the other way around. I’ve learned not only how to lose weight but how to keep the pounds off.
I’m a published writer. It’s been decades since I’ve published any of my writing but I’m still a published writer. I maintain two blogs and a journal. This short piece started in my journal and ended up public. This food blog got started to share family recipes. Over time it has changed to the point where I now describe this blog as a food memoir. Now I’m beginning to think the description should be changed again. There is a lot more space devoted to nutrition science which used to be posted on my other blog. For now though, food memoir still works.
One of the fascinating things about writing here is how the recipes are not the dishes I grew up with eating my Dad’s cooking. You also won’t find a lot of the recipes I made years ago for my own family. Some family favorites are here but not many Box Project recipes. For example I pulled one of my “favorites” from the box, handwritten on a white lined 3 x 5 index card. It’s an old James Beard chicken recipe that is delicious. When was the last time I made this dish? I can’t remember. I suspect that many of the recipes I considered to be family favorites I no longer make. What I’m learning is I don’t cook nor eat the same as I did when I was younger. As Dr. Wareham says you start with one good habit at a time. I say you also stop one bad habit at a time (but I did quit smoking, drinking Jack, and start running all at the same time).
The writing, research, and recipes that end up here are mostly where I am at now. And that’s fine. There’s a pot of Vegan Chili Beans on the stove as I’m writing. Defiinitely not a family favorite recipe from the past. But it might just become a family favorite for now and the future.
Source: Food & Watch Watch Wants USDA to Halt Chinese Chicken
Source: Chinese Chicken Shipments Already Endangering Public Health | Food & Water Watch
This blog started as a repository for family recipes. Over the years since inception this thing has become a mash up. I’ve spent the better part of my working life learning about what kills people. My other blog didn’t feel like the right place for stories like this. So if we’re passing along article links about food you’ll find plenty here.
I hope readers find this type of information useful. I’m not going to discourage anyone from eating nasty fried fast food chicken nuggets processed in China from unsanitary chickens raised and slaughtered in Chile.
It’s your personal choice.
They eat monkeys.
Which means they’re not vegetarians.
Mac and cheese, chili, eggs, hash browns, omelets, buffalo wings—probably not what you’re thinking of when you hear “burger toppings.” What happened to the good old days when a burger was a patty, a bun, and maybe some lettuce, tomato, and mayo?
Source: These restaurant burgers are over the top – Nutrition Action
I like the 2900 calorie platter!
Source: What’s in your hot dog? A histological comparative analysis | Medical Journal of Australia
Where do we begin? The results of this study were surprising to these authors. Although the absence of identifiable squamous mucosa definitively refutes the oral and anal mucosa hypothesis, the truth, if possible, seems much worse. The surprising lack of skeletal muscle may have been depressingly expected; however, the wide variety of tissues present and the extensive amount of fat making up the majority of the specimen were not. And as stated before, the origin of the recognisable vegetable matter does not bear thinking about, but one result of this study is that these authors may never eat hot dogs again.
Revised 02.24.18 (see below)
“Why don’t you make those veggie burgers that you used to make?”
Sure. That was only a quarter of a century ago and I can’t remember the recipe. The only thing I remember was that my homemade veggie burger of days past had wheat germ in it. Maybe carrots. So after reading too many recipes online, I decided to start experimenting using this recipe as the starting point.
The end result was pretty good. I’d forgotten how much better tasting a homemade veggie burger was when compared to the frozen varieties.
Tips and Pointers
Other vegetables would work well. Be creative in your selections. For example, if you have leftover broccoli, chop it up and use instead of the zucchini. Carrots, sweet potatoes would be good too. You can use fresh garlic and/or fresh onion. I have learned that powders provide the same flavor punch without the harshness of fresh which sometimes doesn’t get cooked thoroughly enough.
Revisions
There were some nice zukes at the store. It was February so I surmised they came in from Mexico. But they were small and buying just one became a problem when preparing burgers. So I shredded some organic carrot for around 1/4 cup. When added with the tiny squash the total vegetable content came to around a cup total. I ended up using 1/2 cup of mushrooms and the mixture didn’t get too loose if you know what I mean and I think you do. I had time to chill the burger mix and this makes it easier to shape and fry.
garyskitchen.net 