Adventures in Whole-Food, Plant-Based Eating
The old management maxim holds that we can improve only what we measure. While there is a useful truth in there, the downside is that it can lead to obsession with measurement. Worse, we become tempted to affect the measurement itself in ways that are not consistent with the value...
We have raised two generations of people who don’t know how to cook. Many are quite proud of it, as if being able to cook implied a lower caste upbringing. Most people I ask tell me that they eat pretty healthfully. They often say they don’t eat much red meat,...
Most people understand “vegan” to mean a person who does not eat any animal-based foods. Just avoiding animal-based food does not guarantee one a healthy diet, and indeed there are many fat and sick vegans. Usually this is because they eat large amounts of nuts, vegan cheeses which are just...
Breaking addictions is a big topic, and I refer you to Johann Hari’s book Chasing the Scream for a rewarding treatment of it. For food addictions like sugar, salt, oil and cheese, try these ideas: Some people do better gradually tapering off, some do better all-at-once. Do what works for...
It is easy to form the belief that foods that appeal to us must be healthy, or at least okay to eat. Listen to what your body asks for and you will know what to give it. This may have been close to correct in the environment in which we...
I eat a lot of food, roughly four pounds each day. What do I consider to be food? Fruits, leafy and root vegetables, whole grains, beans and other legumes. I eat lots of spices but little salt. Maybe one or two ounces of nuts and half an ounce of the...
It is 2009, and I work at a small company headed by a man named John Tanner. John is three months younger than me. We are 52. In October, he is out jogging on a Sunday when he suddenly falls over with a heart attack. His heart had stopped. I’m...
Many people are convinced that they don’t know how to cook. When they try, they don’t like the result, which just reinforces their conclusion that they can’t do it. I love to cook, and I love to eat my own cooking. But I don’t like to spend much time cooking,...
It is summer of 2021. Kathryn and I avoid crowds more than before Covid, and eat mostly our own cooking. I watch more television than I think is good for me. There is an ad blitz for an app called Noom, which claims to offer personalized, psychology-based weight loss. My...
