Old Resolutions for the New Year

January is the traditional month for new diets. I get kind of amused reading this week's Time magazine which chose 3 of the new diet books to review. The first one disallows wine, salt, sugar and artificial sweetener. The second forbids carbonated drinks, coffee, gassy foods including cabbage. The third forbids dairy, white rice, and processed foods. And the last one forbids volume. Eat anything you want but just choose small portions.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Why does every new diet start off by telling you what you cannot eat?

People have had problems with excess weight ever since mankind began to grow food. The hunters and gatherers weren't fat. They spent a lot of time just searching for food and were grateful for what they could find. And the game and berries they found also spent time searching for nourishment and water and didn't store fat either.

But that was then. This is now. We are besotted with food, drink, choices, and chance. What on earth can we do?

Dr. John Salerno of the Salerno Center in New York city has taught me that I can really indulge myself, eat fabulous foods and lose weight. I have, to date, lost 31 pounds. My blood sugars are now normal. My cholesterol has gone down. And I have not suffered one day.

I propose that you can treat your self to luxury foods, pates, smoked salmon, steaks, ham, shrimp. You're beginning to see a pattern here, right? High fat, high protein foods. Why would a person do that? Won't it clog your arteries? Haven't I read all the materials from main stream medicine that tell you NOT to eat fat? Entire careers have been built on this premise. Am I not paying attention? Dr. Salerno has shown me the light.

I myself used to be on the masthead of Cooking Light Magazine which made a very successful venture teaching people to take fat out of foods. Of course the dark secret in the test kitchen was that the so-called portions they recommended were laughable. A cake with 15 servings? Sure it looked good on the cover of the magazine. Sure its nutritional numbers looked good. But everybody who worked on the recipe could joke that they'd eat 3 servings in a hurry. The whole notion was as flawed as Bernie Madoff's money making schemes.

Fat is good for you. Protein is good for you. I am not making this up.

Before South Beach, Before Atkins, there was a doctor in England named Richard Mackarness who wrote a book in the fifties called Eat Fat and Grow Slim. Now Dr. Mackarness was not basing his diet on some poppycock theory, but on solid science that went back as far as the nineteenth century when a mortician named William Banting, who was so fat he had to walk down the stairs backwards made a stunning discovery. with the help of a nineteenth century eye, ear, nose and throat doc, he figured out he could lose weight and eat all the fat he wanted to.

Be cause, mirable dictu, Banting discovered it wasn't fat that was his problem, but rather bread,sugar, beer, and potatoes.

Banting was a fashionable London mortician who actually made the coffin for the Duke of Wellington. Before he came upon his amazing discovery, he had tried a number of other remedies: Turkish baths, violent exercise, spa, drastic punishing diets, and what they called purgation which sounds so awful we don't even want to go there. I suppose its the equivalent of high colonics today which promise to drop 20 pounds in an hour. Ugh.

But eventually, he went to see this ear, nose and throat doctor named William Harvey who put him on a new diet. Within a year, he had lost all the weight he needed to and much to his astonishment, Dr. Harvey's diet was pleasant and not the least painful.

So this is how Banting became famous. He wrote his own little book which he called "Letter on Corpulence", published in 1864. He breakfasted on 4 or 5 ounces of beef, mutton, kidney, fish, bacon or cold meat. He had a little dry toast and a cup of tea. For lunch, he had 5 to 6 ounces of fish except salmon (See everybody has to leave something out...) pork, meat, poultry and game. Any vegetable except potatoes, a little toast, a glass or two of claret or sherry and some fruit. For tea, he had 2-3 ounces of fruit, more tea and another piece of dry toast. By dinner, he ate again 3-4 ounces of meat washed down with more claret. for a night cap he took a shot of gin, whiskey or brandy.

And following this generous regimen, he lost more than 100 pounds in a year. He was elated.

His diet was almost totally fatty meat, with some roughage and booze helped him regain his youthful shape.

Now perhaps the most significant caveat about this diet is that it is meant for people who tend to gain weight. Not for those who have picked up 10 pesky pounds.

But, in fact, after Dr. Salerno's Full Fat Fast, which lasts a couple weeks and jump starts your metabolism by restricting all carbs, you could easily go with the good mortician's diet and find yourself healthier, slimmer and sound for the coming year.

I am happy to report that I got through the holiday parties without gaining any weight. I didn't lose any but I didn't gain, and I pretty much stuck to Banting's suggestions. Yes, I did have bites of desserts often. I am addicted to sugar.

But now its the new year and for the first two weeks I'll stick to the full fat fast and know that I will not have to suffer, I will not have to shave off calories until I'm as mean as a snake. And I will continue with the weight loss plan that I started last year. I've lost 30 pounds and expect to lose 30 more.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to stop and eat the third 2 ounce meal for the day. Smoked salmon from Mackenzie, Ltd.com and some capers and a squeeze of lemon. What's not to love about that kind of diet?

Try some Terrific Grass Fed Beef

Chicago Steakhouse Style Grass-fed Steak



The secret to mimicking a steakhouse style steak in the comfort of your own home is to heat your broiler 20 minutes before you put the steaks in. You want the oven really hot! Some people go as far as to broil the steaks over a rack that is placed over an aluminum tray filled with salt so that it catches the juices. With a grass-fed steak you want to broil it about 5 minutes on each side. But each broiler is different so do please use your personal discretion. Make sure to season the steaks with salt and pepper. I made herb butter with mine because I love the flavor of the charred steak with herbed butter!

Herb Butter: In bowl, blend 1/2 cup softened butter, 2 cloves finely chopped garlic and 2 Tbsp. finely thyme and parsley.

You can see how easy it is to do this high fat, high protein diet, when you see the luscious piece that came my way from a great website you should check out called Grass-Fed Party. These are the folks who are taking on the political problems in the mea inustry and we applaud them.

Order a great steak today. Your body will thank you.

The Dark Side of Dieting

So, for weeks and weeks, I have followed the low carb diet plan faithfully, sometimes going for a week or so with no carbs at all. But once in awhile, something inside me just snaps and I have to have my old favorites.

Like today. I can't really tell you why. Perhaps its just old tapes playing. You know, You need comfort, you eat something sweet and sassy. But when i got up this morning, I just knew I had to have pancakes.

So I hustled around in the kitchen making the basic dry mix, you know, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. All the things I NEVER eat. Then I broke an egg into the mix. I didn't have any milk in the house. I'd bought some Eggnog for the coming holiday visitors. Its one of those things I can have in the house to serve to friends, and know it will be safe because I don't really like it much. So I whizzed it into the dry mixture but it was thick and noncompliant. There was a bottle of jack on the counter so I sloshed a little whiskey into the mix. Perfect texture, thin, pale, creamy colored, and I poured it into the hot skillet. Now let me tell you, the mixture of egg nog and whiskey just made almost perfect pancakes. The flavor was mysterious and smoky, a little sweet and a lot of lovely.

I ate two of them, but I gave the other three to the dogs. Let their diet slide a little today too.

But now I'm back on the wagon. I won't be doing that again. I'll have pork loin and brussels sprouts for lunch.

And maybe I'll make the dog run extra long this afternoon, in expiation for my sins. Thanks for hearing my confession.

Nuts to You: The suitable snack for a high fat diet

Well, okay. Nuts are good for you. they offer plenty of vitamin E and other good stuff. so when I'm on the hunt for a suitable snack when I'm away from home, a little bag of nuts is often the best I can do.

Here's a shot I took of a walnut tree when I was in California for the walnut harvest this september. Such glorious trees. Such great products.

But back to yesterday. I was in Target for laundry detergent, but of course -- I'd been out so long, I missed my lunch, so I thought nuts. I'll find nuts.

Now you would think I could find some nice, simple walnut halves wouldn't you? But no. I went like a shot to the jars of fancy nuts. And then to my alltime fave cashew32s. Two for $7.00 I thought that sounded pretty good, so I grabbed on jar of pepper flavored nuts, and then -- against all good sense, the triumph of hope over experience, and any other single thing, I got a jar of those luscious sugar coated nuts. I told myself, I'd save those for a party.

You know where this is going don't you. Over the rest of that day, I ate the whole damn jar of sugar coated cashews. Telling myself the truth, I toted up the calories. 1300 calories with more sugar than I've had in WEEKS. Oh lord. The guilt. I only ate one thin brothed cup of soup for supper. Punishment.

But by this morning, I'd decided to fess up. I got on the scale. And here's the unbelievable part. I lost six pounds. I am not making this up. Is the body not more peculiar than we know? But I'm back on the straight and narrow today. I ate my two eggs for breakfast. Had a couple cups of good strong coffee with cream. Now I'm ready for lunch. Gonna have mesclun in evoo and balsamic with walnuts, dried cranberies, and aged gouda alongside a slice of Pate Forestier. Lemon water to drink.

The moral of the story is, if you fall off the wagon, don't beat yourself up. Just get back up and ride again another day. Because who knows? You might even lose some weight.

Here's what I learned about cashews.

Diet Nutrition & Cashew Nuts:

Cashew nuts, like all nuts, are an excellent source of protein and fiber. They are rich in mono-unsaturated fat which may help protect the heart. Cashew nuts are also a good source of potassium, B vitamins and folate. They contain useful amounts of magnesium, phosphorous, selenium and copper.

Calories in Cashew Nuts:
1 oz/25g = 160 calories

This is before they dipped them in sugar. argh