Eating Well is Best Diet

Increase Satisfaction by Going “Slow”

Sep 17, 2008 Jacqueline Church

The Slow Food movement is all about rediscovering the joy of eating real food, preparing, sharing meals. Put processed food back in its box. Go Slow - Get Thin.

Slow Food Trend is Best Diet

Wheat berries, discovered at the Slow Food Marketplace, are a delicious, nutty and satisfying item to add to any gourmet menu or mealplan. Former dieters are finding that focus on Slow Foods, additions rather than deprivation, is key to healthy weight loss. Forget about diet sodas and snacks. HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) is not your friend! Replace one pilaf or rice dish with wheatberry salad for a change of pace this week.

Discovering Slow Food and Corn Lobbyists' Maneuvers

The Slow Food movement is all about putting processed food back in its box. Or leaving it there. Instead of opening a box, enjoy real food with family and friends.

Fad diets are as popular as ever but consider this: many "reduced fat" or "diet" products contain HFCS to mask the flavor of lost fat. Since HFCS was added to the American diet, obesity has doubled during the same period of time that HFCS consumption shot up over 300%. (see Overflowing American Dinner Plate, NYT.)

HFCS is in so many of the processed and packaged foods we eat. You know it's time to reconsider its value when their lobbyists start running prime time commercials for it, touting "get the facts." They just don't want you to have these facts:

Did you know that your digestive system operates largely on secretion or suppression of two hormones: ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin increases your appetite while leptin tells your brain "I'm full."
HFCS suppresses leptin, making it harder for your brain to register satiety. It never shuts off ghrelin however. So, you have a diet coke with your burger and fries but you keep eating. Your brain can't actually register the satisfaction of feeling full. And you still experience hunger because the ghrelin is still going. (To all you night owls, sleep deprivation has the same effect: suppressing leptin, increasing ghrelin.)
HFCS forces more fat into the bloodstream via the liver. It does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin or the body's fat cells to produce leptin. The body is tricked into still feeling hungry even while it continues to store more fat.
Diminished production of insulin is associated with diabetes.

Dieters Discover Joy in Slow Food

At Slow Foods' inaugural US event in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend, 60,000 people reveled in the joys of good food. And now it's clear more dieters are discovering the benefits of Slow Food. Some say it helps to focus on the good things they "can have" rather than the list of foods they can't. [NYT]

We have rediscovered the experience of enjoying an heirloom tomato, grown locally, eaten in season. Slow food adherents are also discovering pork that tastes like pork and chicken that tastes like chicken. Heirloom fruits like Sun Crest peaches or Paw Paws are thrilling us with their luscious flavors.

Grains and the Mediterranean Diet

Whole grains are scarcely found in the typical American diet. Contrast that with the Mediterranean diet, which is associated with a much healthier demographic profile than ours. It contains healthier fats and much more whole grains.

Wheat berries, farro, and quinoa are grains that fell out of favor largely because they are difficult to mass produce in mono-crop, industrial farming methods. Farro, which is a relative to our wheat, is very nutritious but annoyingly non-compliant with highly mechanized farming methods. Delicate heirloom tomatoes were hybridized to withstand machine picking and cross-country trucking. Similarly, we did away with old grains because they weren't as profitably farmed in the new, fast way.

Wheatberry Salad

Here is a salad that will help you re-connect with, or discover, the satisfaction of whole grain that deserves a place at your table. MassaOrganics sold this at the Slow Food Marketplace for $1.00 per bag. A delicious Slow Food bargain.

These little "berries" are the unhulled seed of wheat. They are what wheat is like before we stripped away all the endosperm, bran, germ, nutrients, folic acid, protein to make white flour. Fiber, folic acid, protein, B-complex vitamins, iron, and vitamin E, they're all here in wheat berries.

Wheat berries are versatile: savory in a mushroom pilaf, or sweetened with shagbark hickory syrup for breakfast. Either way they are nutty, chewy, and full of fiber which helps you feel fuller, longer.

Cook 2 C of wheat berries in 7 cups of cold water.
Make vinaigrette: 1 tsp of dijon mustard; 3 T of balsamic vinegar (a berry or cherry balsamic is nice); 4 T good quality olive oil (tangerine or bergamot is terrific); grated lemon zest and juice of about half a small lemon.
Chop red onion or scallion, bell pepper (orange, red, yellow, green mix or choose one), celery. About a 1/4 C or 1/3 C each.
Toast a 1/3 C of pecans in a dry pan, chop when cool.
1/3 C of dried cranberries
1/2 - 3/4 C kidney beans

Optional additions:

Poached chicken or cubed leftover turkey or pork.
Add orange sections.

When wheatberries are tender (one hour, no pre-soaking necessary!) drain.
Mix about two cups with the dressing and chopped vegetables.
Add generous fresh ground black pepper, salt to taste, generous chopped fresh Italian parsley.

Remaining cooked wheatberries can be frozen and used in soups or stews. It also makes excellent vegetarian chili.

This is a very simple adaptation of a salad from Eating Well magazine.

The copyright of the article Eating Well is Best Diet in Gourmet Food is owned by Jacqueline Church. Permission to republish Eating Well is Best Diet in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.