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The Nagasawa family diet Last updated May, 2011
As we continue this journey of trying to eat more healthy, with the hopes of sharing our thoughts with our neighbors and friends, we are encouraged by how a few changes can have lots of benefits. Here's a list of top changes we've made to our diet, in a rough order of importance.
For stunning indictments of fructose, see: * the 10 minute summary by "Underground Wellness" on fructose, or * the 5 minute talk by "Underground Wellness" on why we ought to avoid fruit juice.
2. Use whole wheat flour instead of white processed flour. White processed flour is just sugar; it's stripped of the nutritious wheat bran and germ, leaving only the carbohydrate. The rise in American diabetes is probably due to the use of white processed flour. Many products say "Made With Whole Grains" on packages, but use dark brown colors and deceptive names; they actually have ordinary refined wheat flour as their main ingredient, since they are not required by law to disclose the percentage of whole grains versus refined grains. In fact, some processed flour has a harmful plastic called bromine. So we try to eat NO white flour products at all: pasta, bread, buns, muffins, croissants, pizza dough, almost all cereals, crackers, and flour tortillas. Instead, if we buy things from the store, we buy oatmeal, flax seed cereal, nuts, whole wheat pasta, and Ezekiel bread from Trader Joe’s. At Christmas we also bought a small electric mill that grinds whole grains into whole wheat flour. We started making our own bread and pizza dough, which is delicious. Here's a picture of the homemade pizza I've made:
Here's a picture of the bread we've made, using a Dutch oven:
These two points alone have completely changed how we eat breakfast. No more packaged breakfast food. Now, one of my favorite things to cook is fresh whole wheat blueberry pancakes. If you buy whole wheat flour from the store, it can be a little grainy when you cook it. But if you mix an equal portion of plain yogurt with the flour in a bowl, and leave overnight, it will start to ferment the wheat. The wheat will become softer and lighter; and the yogurt will release even more nutrients from the wheat for your body to absorb. In the morning, just mix in a little bit of baking soda, 1 – 2 eggs depending on the amount of flour. Sometimes I boil and puree a sweet potato and mix that into the pancake batter. We use 100% maple syrup. Whole wheat pancakes are a lot more filling than the light, empty pancakes made from white flour.
Other breakfast favorites are now: * fruit: (fall) apples, grapes, pears; (winter) grapefruit, clementine oranges; (spring) pineapple, strawberries; (summer) blueberries, cherries, raspberries, peaches, watermelon * yogurt with honey, maybe some lemon curd, and fresh fruit * oatmeal with honey * eggs with cheese and perhaps ham (nitrate free, see below) * french toast fried with olive oil, with blueberries or raspberries in the summer * toast with butter
Also, we changed up our desserts and snacks. For healthier desserts, we've gone with things that we can make with freshly ground whole wheat (from our mill) which has the bran and germ levels mixed in there, and turbinado sugar, not white or brown sugar (which is only white refined sugar with food coloring added back in); honey and 100% maple syrup are really good substitutes for sugar also.
Here's a picture of fresh blueberry pies that we made with our whole wheat flour and 4 lbs of blueberries we picked from a nearby farm (in July, for $2/lb):
6. Buy nitrate-free packaged meats. Nitrates are preservatives in bacon, sandwich meats, hot dogs, sausages, etc. But they are toxins that make your organs carry less oxygen, which can lead to a condition called methemoglobinemia. You can find "nitrate free" meats in most stores nowadays. If you eat nitrate-free bacon, you can save the fat and use it for frying something next time - surprisingly, it's also healthier than vegetable oil.
8. Eat organic vegetables and organic fruit in season. Heavy leafy greens like cabbage, collard greens, and kale (get organic to avoid pesticides) are nice because they absorb flavors and have more iron. Arugula in salad is quite tasty. Broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus are probably the best vegetables you can eat, although asparagus makes your pee smell! Raw carrots, celery, and tomatoes with garlic hummus are good. We've also discovered some recipes with beets, leeks, and sweet potatoes. Again, mixing some of these veggies in with good broths, or beans, has been tasty. Pictured (left) is an improvised Mexican tostada I learned in East Palo Alto, CA: a tortilla (wheat, fried in organic canola oil) with beans (not canned refried, but from dried beans that are boiled then mashed) with raw cabbage, onion, and cilantro, boiled and shredded chicken, and hot sauce. Also (right) is raspberry jam made from raspberries picked from our garden (June-July), and homemade ice cream.
9. Eating more fermented vegetables like Korean kimchi and Japanese napa because the enzyme content helps with digestion. Almost every traditional culture has fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut in Germany and Poland.
11. Use a water filter. Tap water lets too much flouride pass into the water. And with filtered water, we're able to make a fermented tea called kombucha which detoxifies the body and helps your liver, though you can also drink a little bit of apple cider vinegar in water to get a similar benefit.
12. Stop using plastic plates, cups, and tupperware because of plastic leakage in the dishwasher. You can wash plastic stuff by hand in milder water - it's just that the super hot water in dishwashers strips plastic particles off to be ingested next time. Plastic intake is suspected in developmental disorders like ADD, ADHD, autism, etc. It is likely to be a big issue in the future because of all the plastic garbage floating in the Pacific (a garbage patch twice the size of Texas) and now in the north Atlantic. As that plastic travels up the food chain through fish to us, we're going to be in trouble.
Some decent ideas for eating healthy and saving money: How to Save $3,000 a Year on Food Without Even Noticing.
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1. Use raw sugar, organic sugar,
or honey instead of white sugar and artificial
sweeteners. We don't usually drink soda, sweetened milks,
or most juices anyway, but did eat a decent portion of desserts
(ice cream, brownies, cookies).
*
macaroons, because coconut is a protein and it's awesome
- no regrets on that
3. Use brown,
black, or purple rice, not white rice.
Brown, black, and purple rice have more nutrition. Like white flour, white rice
is the starch leftover after the nutritious bran and germ layers
are stripped off. Unfortunately, in most Asian cultures,
brown rice is associated with poverty and wartime shortages,
although we should have known better from history: In the
past, it was eaten by the sick, the elderly, and as a cure for
constipation (it has more fiber). Some say that if Asians
ate brown rice instead of white rice, Asians would have been
taller than Europeans because brown rice is better than wheat as
a staple grain. It's currently more expensive than common
white rice, partly due to its relatively low supply and
difficulty of storage and transport. But, if more people
eat it, we'll produce more and the cost will go down, right?
Brown rice has natural vitamins B1, B3, and iron (the FDA
requires rice suppliers to "enrich" white rice with those
nutrients). Brown rice also has 84 mg of magnesium per
serving, which is awesome (magnesium is quite important), while
white rice has only 19 mg.
4. Use
coconut oil, palm oil, organic canola oil, and
cold-pressed olive oil for frying, not vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is
chemically altered and our bodies absorb more of it. After
eating no vegetable oil for a month, Ming and I went to a
Chinese restaurant and shared in a nine course banquet. It
was probably the vegetable oil and MSG in the food that gave
Ming a bad stomachache that night and throughout the next day.
One nice dish is homemade "french fries" - really, sliced
potatoes (sweet potatoes, too) baked with canola oil or olive
oil; we've had a couple of dinners
with that and homemade salsa (tomatoes, avocado, cilantro,
garlic, salt, and hot sauce) that the kids love. We've not
bought McDonalds' french fries for years, but now we have a
really good alternative to that.
5. Make broth from bones
(preferably grass fed cows, free range chicken, and fish).
Dr. Sally Fallon, author of the healthy cookbook Nourishing
Traditions, recommends that people make broth once a week to
get the benefits of the marrow. It's important for our own
bones and joints. Especially for runners, who probably
don't get enough calcium, etc. to heal bones and joints from
pounding the pavement. Seasoning the broth with sea salt, rosemary, thyme,
tarragon, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and other herbs gives the broth a nice flavor that
can be made into most kinds of soup. The fat that rises to
the top after refrigeration can be saved for frying - it's
healthier than vegetable oil. Incidentally, I've given the
Nourishing Traditions cookbook as a wedding gift 4 times
now.
7. Eat more beans, from dried
beans, not cans. Canned beans have preservatives. As
you know, beans have a lot of good protein and fiber.
They're also filling. Some of my favorite dishes are: (1)
Moroccan chickpeas with garlic, oregano, cayenne pepper,
paprika, cumin, and salt (and sometimes with eggplant - pictured
here with brown rice and lamb); (2)
sweet potato and chickpea stew with kale, onion, curry powder
and rosemary; (3) black bean soup with garlic and cilantro; (4)
minestrone type soup with beans and cauliflower; (5)
Mexican-style red beans with nitrate-free sausages - easy to
reheat on the stove and serve to the kids for breakfast.
10. Use a crock pot. Dishes
made in the crock pot are disproportionally good compared to the
amount of preparation involved in just chopping stuff and
putting it into the crock pot. Plus, you don't need oil
since you're letting food cook in its natural juices and broths
(like organic, free range chicken broth available in stores).
Some of our favorite easy dishes are: (1) chicken with
coconut milk, carrots, potatoes, onion, curry powder, garlic,
and salt make a juicy, tender Thai curry chicken; (2) lamb with
chicken broth, paprika, turmeric, cayenne pepper, garlic,
ginger, salt, with lime juice and dried prunes added later makes
a nice Moroccan lamb which just falls off the bone (pictured).