Diet Food

I don’t do diets well. Frankly the problem is that I love food and I really don’t like not being able to eat whatever I want and as much as I want. The truth is I don’t eat a horrible diet. Honestly, I don’t. The real problem is I eat too much (and those pints of beer probably aren’t good for the waistline either). On a recent trip to the library, I noticed I had reserved a book on the Okinawa diet. The funny thing was I didn’t remember putting it on my reserve list. I had been expecting a copy of 100 Deep Fried Foods You Can Make at Home and Lard Every Day, but they conspicuously missing. Perhaps it’s related to the fact that my wife has my library card number and the login info for the library website.

The Okinawa Diet is based on some studies of the inhabitants of Okinawa who have longer than average life spans. Not surprisingly, their diets have a lot to do with it. I will avoid the details of the studies and the diet itself to concentrate on what I consider the more interesting point. Okinawa has traditionally been a poorer part of Japan. The traditional diet was filled with whole grains, lots of fruits and vegetables, some fish and very little meat. It doesn’t differ that dramatically from the diets of a lot of people in a lot of traditionally poorer areas. They ate very few expensive foods, like meat, which accounts for their healthy, long life spans. Take these same people and feed them a more affluent diet that’s higher in fat and animal products and they drop dead as fast as the rest of us.

Studies have been done on other populations with healthy diets with similar results. The Mediterranean diet has been touted as a very healthy one as well. It, too, is filled with whole grains, fruits and vegetables, some fish and very little meat. I read once of a study of the Greek diet in the early 1950’s that showed how healthy the typical Greek diet was. However, when they asked the participants of the study what they would change about their diet if they could, the largest response was that they would eat more meat. Traditional diets are healthier than modern ones, because traditionally, food was more expensive and the biggest problem has been getting enough calories every day.

The real problem with our modern diet is our affluence. In US, people spend a lower percentage of their income on food now than they did in 1970. Good food is still expensive, but calories are cheaper. We have reached a period in human history where food is so plentiful and cheap that a large percentage of us are becoming unhealthy from overeating as opposed to many of us being unhealthy from a lack of calories. I am not arguing that we have eradicated hunger, or that all of the cheap abundant food is good or good for us. But our affluence is in fact killing us.

I’m a perfect example of this. I eat too much because I can. But I do need to lose weight, both for health reasons and because I’d like to avoid being forced to buy a new wardrobe. I am using books like the one on the Okinawa diet for ideas, but the truth is I know how to lose weight. It’s easy, but the process is heinous. Eat more whole grains, more vegetables and fruits, cut down dramatically on meat and cheese, use less fat in cooking and get lots more exercise. And watch those portion sizes. There that’s easy. Now I just need to do it.

But the idea of going back to traditional diets where the unhealthy foods, like meat and other high fat foods, are used in lower quantities is likely the only way I’m going to be able to do this. So what am I cooking? Last night was pretty good. I’m not particularly adept at really authentic Asian food. I do some dishes, like traditional Thai curries, really well, but I’m not an expert in any particular Asian cuisine. But I do Pan-Asian (or faux Asian), where you can mix things from different traditions pretty well.

Last night was soba noodles with poached chicken breast and vegetables. Soba is a buckwheat noodle from Japan. If you go to a good Asian grocer you will see a variety of soba at different prices. Most of them are a combination of wheat and buckwheat flours. In general, the more expensive they are, the more buckwheat they contain. Buckwheat contains no glutens and the more buckwheat you use the more difficult the noodles are to make. Unfortunately most packages won’t give percentages. Experiment with different ones until you find one that has a good buckwheat taste and isn’t insanely priced.

Poaching is a great way to cook meat or fish because it doesn’t require added. You can poach the chicken in water or in a flavored broth. Obviously a flavored broth gives you better flavor. My favorite currently is a mix of water with soy (about 50/50) with several slices of ginger in it. The high salt content of the soy keeps the chicken moist. You don’t need to cover the chicken with the liquid to poach it, but it should be almost completely covered. Remember, poaching isn’t boiling. If you boil it, you’ll get stringy meat. You want the liquid to shimmer but not in a rolling boil. If you’re using chicken breast, you should be able to cook it in 10 minutes or less. Thighs may take a little longer and won’t overcook as easily.

When the chicken is cooked, take it out to cool and slice it into bite size pieces and add them to a large mixing bowl. You can use a variety of vegetables including grated carrots, julienned cabbage, and scallions, and don’t need to cook any of them. You can also add herbs like cilantro, Thai basil or mint. Last night I used shredded carrots, scallions, mint and cilantro. Cook the soba (they cook quickly so don’t overcook them), drain them and toss them with the chicken and vegetables.

You can use a variety of sauces. Last night’s was faux Southeast Asian so I made a sauce of fish sauce, sugar, green chile, garlic, ginger, and lime juice. Previously I did a sauce from soy, miso, mirin, and garlic. Add the sauce to the noodles and toss it again. You can garnish it after with toasted sesame seeds or chopped roasted peanuts.

Add a malty beer to balance the chile heat and you’ve got a good dinner with no added fat. Diet food I can actually eat.

Convenience Foods I Love

April 7



I've been meaning to write something about convenience foods for a while. Initially I thought it would be called "10 Convenience Foods I Can't Live Without" but when I started a numbered list, I had a hard time getting to ten. What exactly do I mean by convenience foods? I define it as food products that save you time and but still taste enough like the real thing that you can use them every day without ruining your food. Some of these may be things that other people don't consider convenience foods, since they're just frozen or canned items, but to me they're convenience foods. So here, in no particular order, are some convenience foods I love.

1. Canned low sodium chicken stock. Is it as good as real stock? No. Is real stock that hard to make? No, but although I do try to have homemade stock on hand at all times, I do run out. Canned chicken stock can be very good (far better than canned beef or vegetable broth, both of which I really dislike) and if you need real stock for something like paella or risotto, you can boil canned stock with some onion, celery and carrots for 20 minutes to dress it up and make it taste more like homemade. No it's still not the same, but in a pinch it's fine. It's better than foregoing a meal you're craving because it requires real stock.

2. Canned tomatoes. I couldn't cook without canned tomatoes. I use them for all kinds of things. In fact, if tomatoes aren't in season, I'm one of those people that thinks canned tomatoes are better than the hard pink tomatoes that most supermarkets carry. In fact, even some of the expensive hot house tomatoes aren't that good either. Don't get me wrong, nothing beats a real, ripe tomato, but given a choice of anemic plum tomatoes in the supermarket and canned, I'll choose canned every time. I use them for pasta sauce, for braises, and soups. No, you can't use them on sandwiches or in salads, but I make salsa from canned tomatoes and it's considerably better than jarred or so-called fresh salsas in the supermarket. The ugly truth about canned tomatoes is that the canners have so much buying power they actually get some of the best tomatoes from growers every year.

3. Frozen corn. OK, so maybe some people don't consider these types of things convenience foods, but I do. Corn is another vegetable with a short season. Frozen corn works well in a lot of things. I make corn salsas, corn and bean salads, pork, chile and corn soup and all kinds of other things with it. If you're using it for a salsa or salad, you can spread it on a sheet pan and toast it in a 300 degree oven to dry out the kernels and give it a little more texture and toothiness. Again, it's not a substitute for fresh corn, but it can do a lot more besides being a side dish. Stuck for a quick meal? You can make a soup from canned stock, fresh or dried chiles, pork or chicken and frozen corn in about 20 minutes. Finish it with some lime juice and cilantro, and optionally, some strips of fried corn tortillas.

4. Individually frozen cubes of chopped basil. I get these at Trader Joes, but I expect other stores have them as well. These are incredible. They come in a tray that looks like a mini ice tray, and the cubes of chopped basil are about 3/8 inch cubes. They also make the same thing with parsley and garlic, but those don't seems to have the same fresh flavor. You can use these in vinaigrettes, pasta sauces, to finish a pan sauce, etc. Far better than dried basil and with more convenience and less waste than real basil. Are they so good that I won't grow basil in the summer anymore? No, but they are incredibly good.

5. Frozen spinach. I hate it as a side dish because it's bland and insipid, but it works really well in Indian dishes like palak paneer or saag. When I was younger I came up with something I called Chicken Florentine that was a quick knock off of the American Italian food in small Italian restaurants in NY. Steam some frozen spinach and drain it. Place the spinach in a couple of piles on a sheet pan. Sauté a couple of chicken breasts in olive oil. When they're almost done, pull them from the pan and put them on top of the spinach. Put some grated mozzarella and parmesan on top. Pop it in the oven until the cheese melts and is bubbly. While the chicken is in the oven, add some shallots and garlic to the skillet. Deglaze it with white wine. Mount the sauce with a little butter and added some basil. Pull the chicken out of the oven, plate it, and spoon some of the pan sauce around the dish. Instant NY Italian American food. It's not real Chicken Florentine, but it's fast and easy and when someone asked me what it was when I cooked up a batch for some friends in the wine industry years ago, it was a fancy enough name that no one bitched. No it's not real Italian food, but it's not fresh spinach either, but it is really good.

6. Bags of pre washed mixed greens. I used to buy a lot of expensive mesclun greens, because there weren't a lot of alternatives for quick mixed greens salads (except buying four kinds of lettuce and doing it all yourself). Now there's not a supermarket in the country that doesn't have bags of mixed greens. Some are undeniably nasty and not fresh, but most are actually pretty good. If you go to a decent store with good turnover, you should be fine. These make entree salads a breeze. Have some left over steak? Slice it thin and drape it over greens that you've tossed with a dressing of fish sauce, lime juice, ginger, garlic, chiles, and sugar. Sprinkle some chopped, toasted peanuts and some minced cilantro and mint and you have an instant faux-Southeast Asian salad. Have some left over roast chicken? Dice it and add it to the greens and toss it with a good vinaigrette. Top it with some olives and capers and you have an instant Mediterranean salad. Are bagged greens as good as real mesclun mix from baby greens that were picked this morning? No, but they're also not $8-10 a pound either.

7. Julienned sun dried tomatoes packed in oil. OK, nothing screams late 80's fine dining like sun dried tomatoes and I confess, at the time I used to buy them dried and them steam them myself and store them in flavored olive oil because I thought they were better than ones pre-packed in olive oil. Despite their ubiquitous overuse in the late 80's and early 90's, I still like sun dried tomatoes. They're a great alternative to fresh tomatoes in the winter. One pet peeve is dishes that use sundried and fresh tomatoes in one dish. Use one or the other, but don't muddy up a dish by using both. I buy them pre-julienned in jars packed in olive oil. Drain them and toss them in a pan with some garlic, olives and capers and toss it with pasta. You can make the sauce before the water even boils, much less before the pasta is cooked. You can also mash them up and use them as the base for a vinaigrette or in braises and stews where you want a rich tomato flavor.

8. Jarred pitted olives. I used to just buy olives from the "olive bar" in top end supermarkets. I still detest canned olives which I find to be flavorless and mushy, but pre-pitted jarred olives are actually pretty good and convenient. Some of the do have bad texture, but most are fine for salads and pastas and some are even good even to serve plain as a tapa or mezze. Yes, I still love the specialty $8 a pound olives you can get in high end supermarkets (like good black oil cured ones), but I love the $2.70 a jar pitted kalamatas at Trader Joes. Besides most of those $8 a pound olives came pre-packed in cans or buckets anyway.

I’m sure I’ll think of others. If I think of enough I’ll make a second list.