Tag Archives: food philosophy

Variety is the spice of life, and I certainly take that to heart when it comes to grains (and food in general!).  As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t go for lo-carb or fad diets (as a health- and eco-conscious vegetarian, a decent number of my calories come from whole grains and legumes), but I DO avoid eating large quantities of refined grains.

The first step for me was switching to products (bread, pasta, breakfast cereal, crackers, etc.) that were 100% whole wheat.  Growing up, my family used a lot of whole grains, and did most of our baking with 100% whole wheat pastry flour, so this wasn’t a huge switch for me, overall.  [Tip: when trying whole wheat pasta, start with angel hair; also, brand can matter.]

But there’s a lot more to the grain-scene than wheat, and, while I don’t have a medical reason to avoid wheat, I realized there were health benefits to expanding my grain consumption.

Fortunately, there are now a variety of easily accessible options in this department:

• Brown rice
• Quinoa
• Millet
• Oats, including oat groats (for risotto)
• Corn meal (for polenta and cornbread)
• Potatoes

That list is by no means exhaustive.  Some of the above straddle the line between grain vs. seed or starch vs. vegetable.  For my planning purposes, I tend to treat them all as grain/starch, though the distinctions can be important, nutrient-wise.

Avoiding an all-wheat, all-the-time diet does require a bit of effort, and it’s become part of my [informal] meal planning.  Sometimes it’s tricky, especially with a toddler, who, while a great eater overall, is not always into quinoa or millet.

Here’s what an average day looks like for me, grain-wise:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal (I use a mix of rolled and steel-cut oats)
• Breakfast #2/Morning snack: Wheat-based — 100% whole grain pancakes, waffles, toast w/peanut butter or egg, or quick bread
• Lunch: Alternate grain
• Afternoon snack: Often wheat-based, though sometimes granola, whole-grain corn chips, or non-wheat leftover
• Dinner: Wheat-based

Lunch and dinner flip-flop, so if our lunch one day is wheat-based, I try to prioritize an alternate grain for dinner.  If I know we’ll be eating away from home (whether a restaurant or someone’s house), I usually assume the meal will be wheat-based, and plan accordingly throughout the day.

Even with a concerted effort to eat a variety of grains, I end up eating a decent bit of wheat — it’s pretty ubiquitous in the U.S. diet.  Here are some of my thoughts and experiences with the wheat alternatives.

Potatoes
We grow almost all of the potatoes we eat, which is great, because we know they’re not full of chemicals (a problem with conventionally grown potatoes), but not so great in terms of prep time.  Potatoes store best unwashed, so that means meal prep involves not just chopping and cooking the potatoes, but also rinsing and scrubbing off a substantial amount of dirt.  Strike one.

I also feel like, relative to other grains/starches, potatoes require a large amount of both fat (butter, olive oil, cheese, sour cream, etc.) and salt.  Strike two.

But there’s no strike three.  Potatoes are one of the only calorie crops (think grains and legumes) that don’t require special processing like milling or shelling, which make them a great option for the grow-your-own scene.  If you eat the skins, they are a good source of several nutrients and they help increase variety.  I didn’t realize how much the potato option helped with grain/starch variety until we ran out of potatoes in March.

Quinoa
Technically a seed, quinoa is one of the highest protein grains out there.  It also cooks relatively quickly (faster than brown rice) and works in a variety of dishes.

The protein and nutrients come with a price though, as this is one of the more expensive grains you can buy, even if you stick to “white” quinoa (still a whole grain, just a different variety than the more expensive “red”).  Until recently, I found the bulk bins at Local Harvest Grocery to be the best bet, priced a bit under $4/lb (making it cheaper than the WF bulk bins).  Unfortunately, on my most recent LH visit, the price had jumped to over $7/lb!

I was so surprised that I asked the cashier if the price was correct.  He confirmed that it was, though he didn’t know why.  (I haven’t gone back to see if there was a similar price jump at WF.)  I plan to continue eating quinoa, but at that price, I may not increase my consumption (currently averages one dinner plus one lunch [leftover] per week).

Toddler tips
Grain variety is a bit trickier with babies and toddlers.  Wheat-based products, like bread and noodles, lend themselves to little fingers (and are often kid favorites).  While you can buy alternate-grain version of pasta and bread, they tend to be pricey.

Adding peanut butter (or another nut butter) after cooking rice, millet, or quinoa is one trick that worked for us.  The nut butter a) increases tastiness and b) makes the grain easier for a toddler to handle on a spoon or fork (or even with fingers).

Before G was using a spoon, I made him oat clusters instead of oatmeal.  To prepare, I made a really think batch of oatmeal on the stove top, then chilled.  In the morning, I served bite-sized chunks of the oatmeal, dotted with peanut butter.  Perfect for little fingers, if a bit labor intensive.  Now he eats oatmeal with me every morning; I intentionally keep his on the thick side, for ease of spooning and less mess.

Finally, potatoes are a great finger food for babies and toddlers.

Your turn: what is your favorite non-wheat grain, and how do you use it?  Anything I should add to my regular rotation?

 

 

I was in the car returning from a Whole Foods/Trader Joe’s run last week, when the DJ on the radio station mentioned something about a new diet, the “honey diet.”  While I didn’t bother going to the station’s website for more details, the gist was “replace all white sugar with honey, eliminate all carbohydrates one [or two?] days a week, and, whatever you do, don’t. eat. potatoes.  EVER.”

Um, yeah, can you say, “Fad diet?”  Like a string of fad diets before, the “honey diet” picks something to villainize, in this case, the humble potato, along with carbohydrates in general.  Would potatoes be a problem if you’re sitting around all day consuming nothing but french fries (and oil and salt)?  Sure.  But potatoes, especially locally and/or organically grown potatoes cooked with the skins on, can certainly be part of a healthy diet.

I read the phrase “Paleo diet” before I heard it spoken anywhere, and in my head it was pronounced “pa-lay-o,” with the emphasis on the “lay.”  I didn’t realize it was referring to our Paleolithic ancestors, and thus pronounced “pay-lee-o” for quite some time.

My first reaction was, “Haven’t we already [more or less] done this?  It was called Atkins.”

Or, to paraphrase a quote from Zoolander,  “Atkins? Lo-carb? Paleo? They’re all the same [diet]. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.”

The thing is, I agree with some of the Paleo principles, especially those of the “Eat real food” variety.  I also agree that there are benefits from minimizing some of the foods that Paleo says we should minimize or eliminate, like dairy and added sugar.  The diet also talks about eating eggs and meat from pasture-raised animals, another plus.

One of my problems with Paleo is the vilification of whole grains and legumes.  I just can’t get on board with eliminating two major categories of nutrient-packed foods, both of which can be good vegetarian sources of protein.

From an environmental and world-population standpoint, we can’t all eat a diet based on pasture-raised meat.  There were far, far fewer humans on this planet when our Paleolithic ancestors were running around, so it worked then.  Now?  Not so much.

The Paleo diet also doesn’t take into account the fact that the idealized Paleolithic humans had far different lifestyles and energy needs than we do today, nor the fact that few of our Stone Age ancestors lived past the age of thirty, meaning we don’t know how this diet will play out, health-wise, in an age when people are regularly living seventy years or more.

The blog post, Archaeologists Officially Declare Collective Sigh Over “Paleo Diet,” while apparently satirical, and not reflective of a real scientific conference, offers some good food for thought in the midst of an over-hyped fad diet:

What people seem to ignore, he said, was that the fresh fruits and vegetables forming the basis of the Paleo Diet were created by the same agricultural process that produced cereal grains. “Nearly every food item you currently eat today has been modified from its ancestral form, typically in a drastic way, ” he began. “The notion that we have not yet adapted to eat wheat, yet we have had sufficient time to adapt to kale or lentils is ridiculous. In fact, for most practitioners of the Paleo Diet, who are typically westerners, the majority of the food they consume has been available to their gene pool for less than five centuries. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, potatoes, avocados, pecans, cashews, and blueberries are all New World crops, and have only been on the dinner table of African and Eurasian populations for probably 10 generations of their evolutionary history.

“You really want to be Paleo? Then don’t buy anything from a store. Gather and kill what you need to eat. Wild grasses and tubers, acorns, gophers, crickets- They all provide a lot of nutrition. You’ll spend a lot of energy gathering the stuff, of course, and you’re going to be hungry, but that’ll help you maintain that lean physique you’re after. And hunting down the neighbor’s cats for dinner because you’ve already eaten your way through the local squirrel population will probably give you all the exercise you’ll ever need.”

In a world where we’re faced with an overabundance of unhealthy food choices (not to mention other barriers to healthy eating, like lack of time or money to prepare healthier foods), the black and white, “Eat this.  Don’t eat that,” structure of fad diets is seductive.

The trick is to build your own healthy eating plan, whatever that looks like for you, but which can probably include almost all food, in moderation, if most of your calories come from a variety of real, whole, unprocessed foods.  Look any “diet” over with a critical eye, take the good advice (if any), and leave the rest.  Fads come and go; healthy eating habits last a lifetime.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some potatoes to cook.

Next up: “Great Grains,” my approach to carbohydrates.