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Why Cook?
With our busy lives, so many of us shy away from cooking. Between our never-ending to-do lists, demanding jobs, busy children’s schedules, and perhaps less-than-stellar skills in the kitchen, cooking seems to slide down the list of priorities. But when you consider all of the benefits of making a meal, you’ll be inspired to channel your inner chef. Cooking a meal for yourself, a family member, or a friend is an act of love. It’s a chance to strengthen bonds, teach important life-extending skills to our children, and enrich and nourish our bodies and our souls. The food industry wants us to believe that cooking is difficult, time consuming, inconvenient, and expensive, but meals need not be complicated or time consuming to be delicious and satisfying. The science is clear. You can eat well for less money by making simple, whole, fresh food. In fact, a simple dinner for a family of four consisting of roast chicken, vegetables, and salad can cost about half of what dinner out at McDonald’s would cost.
I once visited an obese sick family who had never cooked. They lived on food stamps and disability. With one simple cooking lesson and a guide from the Environmental Working Group called “Good Food on a Tight Budget,” they started cooking. In the first year, the mother lost over 100 pounds, the father lost 45 pounds, and their teenage son lost 40 pounds. Unfortunately, the son has since gained the weight back because the only jobs for teenagers in the food desert where they live are at a fast food chain. It’s like sending an alcoholic to work in a bar! These days over 50 percent of meals are consumed outside the home, but it’s my goal to get you to reconnect with your kitchen and the bounty of benefits it offers.
The reasons are simple. With today’s toxic food environment—the slick combination of sugar, salt, and fat that’s pumped into a wide range of packaged food—our genes (and our jeans) are overwhelmed. Our taste buds have been assaulted and our tongues and brains adapt by craving even more of these toxins. However, our hormones and biochemical pathways haven’t adapted to this style of eating. The result is that nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight, and obesity rates in the United States are expected to top 42 percent by the end of the next decade (up from only 13 percent in 1960).
Today one in two Americans has either pre-diabetes or diabetes. In less than a decade the rate of pre-diabetes or diabetes in teenagers has risen from 9 percent to 23 percent. Perhaps even more shocking, 37 percent of kids at a normal weight have pre-diabetes and one or more cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high blood sugar, because even though overly processed food doesn’t necessarily make you fat, it can make you sick. In addition to raising the risk for chronic, life-threatening diseases, the sad truth is that obese children will earn less, suffer more, and die younger.
But all of this can be reversed, and the cure lies in your kitchen. It also lies in your supermarket, not just with the fresh foods in the produce aisle, but also with some of the packaged foods that are tucked away in the middle. Healthy foods such as nuts and nut butters and nondairy milks are hidden gems in the middle aisles of the store. There are even brands making healthy packaged meals using quality ingredients from real, whole food—for those nights when cooking truly is out of the question. Some companies, such as Luvo (www.luvoinc.com), have created high-quality, delicious, affordable, and healthy frozen meals.
By purchasing these foods, you’re going to transform yourself, but you’re also helping to transform the food industry one small choice at a time. The problems are global, but the solution is as local as your fork! The movement is already under way, being driven by those of us who are fed up with Big Food poisoning our taste buds and our bodies. You have the power to join the movement, and it doesn’t take a picket line or even a huge pocketbook. All it takes is voting with your wallet at the grocery store.
It’s time for a revolution. Cooking real food is a revolutionary act. Without kitchen skills, we have lost the means to care for ourselves. Our children will grow up without these survival tactics, and their children will face the same fate—not being able to identify common fruits and vegetables, and not realizing where food comes from. I urge you to reconsider whatever notions you have about cooking—that it costs too much, that it’s too hard, that it takes too long. The recipes within this cookbook are designed to challenge these myths, to reunite you with real food, and to delight your taste buds while nourishing your body. As an added bonus, you may find, as I do, that cooking can be fun and relaxing.
THE FAMILY KITCHEN
There is a reason why today’s modern kitchens are open and inviting: People love to gather in the kitchen. It’s the place for nourishing your body and your relationships. It’s a space in which to bond with your children while teaching them valuable life skills.
Sadly, today’s overscheduled families have a difficult time slowing down and tapping into this sacred space and all the wonders it has to offer. If this sounds familiar, I encourage you to reclaim your kitchen and your family time. Look carefully at your days and examine where you spend your time. Are you watching TV at night? Spending an hour on Facebook and Instagram? Most Americans spend more time watching someone cook on television than actually cooking. After close consideration, you may find that you can reorganize your to-do list, revisit your viewing habits, shut off your computer, and recover your precious time.
What we need is a lifestyle that makes cooking easy, inviting, and fun. And whether you’re preparing food together or passing it around the family table, dinner is a wonderful time to reconnect, get the day’s download, share laughs, and discuss important events. Start your new ritual by making your kitchen as warm and inviting as possible. Create a family playlist that puts everyone in a good mood. Invest in terrific lighting. Change your curtains. Open your windows. Put stools by the counter, or pillows on your chairs. Make the kitchen a place you and your family want to gather.
Once you set up the environment for success, let the fun begin! If you’re new to cooking or your skills have gotten rusty, don’t aim for perfection with your first recipe—experiment and practice. Start with one of my more basic recipes, with only a few ingredients, and work your way up to something more complex. Enlist help from family members—drag your kids away from their video games and ask them to measure ingredients, pull food from the fridge, or even chop veggies if they’re ready to take on this task. Decide on meals together to get everyone excited about what’s in store.
I encourage you to start your own family traditions around cooking and enjoying meals together. One of my favorite things to do with my kids is to hang out in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, telling stories, catching up, cooking, and anticipating sharing a great meal together. Once you get in the habit of nourishing your family life in this way, you’ll never want to return to solo dining out of plastic containers and take-out boxes.
DINNER CONVERSATIONS: CREATING MAGIC AT MEALTIME
Want to make a great meal even better? Share it over an inspired dinner conversation.
Life coach Lauren Zander (cofounder of the Handel Group and creator of the Handel Method) has a fantastic mealtime tradition I’d like to share. She calls it “Creating a Conversation.”
It works like this: At the start of the meal, your family or dinner guests suggest a potential question to be answered by each person at the table. Everyone must agree on the question. Once a question is decided upon, everyone at the table must answer. The magic happens as everyone shares about themselves and connects with one another. You will get to know your family and friends on a deeper level.
To help you get started, here’s a list of some of our favorite dinner conversations:
- What’s your favorite thing about the person sitting to your right? Why?
- How would you describe the person on your left to someone who had never met them before?
- What’s your favorite thing about the current season (winter, spring, summer, or fall)? What makes it special to you? What’s your best memory from this season?
- What’s something you can confess that nobody at the table knows about you?
- If you could pick any career in the world, regardless of ability or age, what would it be? Why?
- Dream up a new career for everyone at the table—if you could pick any job in the world for them, what would it be? Why?
- What’s a city, town, or country you’ve never seen that you’d like to visit? Why?
- What’s your very first memory of life?
- Tell the story of your first true love. Who was it? How old were you? What happened? Do you know anything about where they are right now?
- If the house was on fire and you could save just one of your possessions, what would it be? Why?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Why?
- What’s the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you? What did you learn from it?
- If you could give the person to your left a superpower, what would it be? Why?
- What’s something you saw, heard, or experienced this week that touched you?
- Tell a story of someone you deeply loved. Let us know what made that person special.
- What do you love most about your life? Why?
- What’s something you do that makes you feel powerful? Why?
- Everyone has their own magic gift (e.g., finding a parking spot, intuitively knowing when someone important to you is sad or having a hard time). What’s your magic gift?
- Imagine something you really want to achieve in your life. How will you achieve this?
- If you could invite a historical figure to dinner tonight, who would it be? Why? What would you ask him or her?
- If you could date anyone on earth, past or present, who would it be? Why?
- If you were stranded on a desert island for a year and could pick three CDs and one book, or three books and one CD, what would you choose?
- If you had unlimited funds and a month off starting tomorrow, what would you do?
- What is your slogan/theme song/motto for living life? Explain why, and how it impacts your life.
- What three things are guaranteed to make you smile?
- What song do you love to sing at the top of your lungs? What makes you love it?
- Name something you’re scared of but would love to find the guts to do.
- What moment in life gave you goose bumps and why?
- What’s something you tried to do but failed? What did you learn by failing?
- Make a wish for each person at the table for something you’d like to see them accomplish this year.
- If you could combine three people on earth (alive or dead, famous or not) to be your perfect mate, who would they be? Why?
I would love to hear from you about your favorite dinner conversation. You can post your favorite conversation-starting questions at www.10daydetox.com/tools.
And, if you want more help turning your dreams into reality, then please visit Coach Lauren’s website (www.handelgroup.com) to learn more about how she and her team can help you dream big.
NUTRITION 101: WHAT WE NEVER LEARNED IN SCHOOL
The foundation of your diet should be high-quality protein, fats, and nonstarchy vegetables that don’t spike blood sugar or insulin. The reasons are simple: These are the types of foods that not only detoxify your body, reignite your metabolism, calm body-wide inflammation, and crush cravings, but also fill you up. Remember it is very hard to control how much you eat, but easy to control what you eat. It is the quality of the food and the composition of your meal that matters most in reversing weight gain and creating health.
When you eat the right combination of foods, you can eat until you’re gently satisfied without focusing on calories or portion sizes, and excess weight will come off naturally. But since calories have been the focus of conversations around weight loss and health for so long, I’ll put it this way: If you eat four Twizzlers—a small amount by most standards—you would consume about 160 calories, and it’s unlikely they would put a dent in your hunger. However, for those same 160 calories, you could have a heaping spoonful of almond butter and a practically endless supply of cherry tomatoes, jicama, and celery. I think you’ll agree which is the more filling option. Not only that, a snack of nuts helps stabilize your blood sugar and provides you with lots of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals—health-protecting substances that ward off diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. The Twizzlers? They have the opposite effect.
Snack foods such as Twizzlers and other hyperprocessed fare are high on the glycemic index (GI). This is a measure of how quickly a carbohydrate raises your blood sugar level. The index is measured on a scale of 0 to 100, with glucose (a form of simple sugar) having a value of 100. Higher numbers mean that a food causes a sharper rise in blood sugar. It’s easy to see why candy would be considered a fast-acting carbohydrate, but you may be surprised to learn that any white flour—white rice, white bread, refined cereals, and even some whole-grain breads—convert to simple sugars in your body quite rapidly. In fact, bread has a higher GI than table sugar or sucrose; 2 slices of whole-wheat bread will raise your blood sugar more than 2 tablespoons of table sugar. On the other hand, nonstarchy vegetables, protein, nuts, seeds, and good fats raise blood sugar levels slowly.
While the glycemic index can be a helpful tool, it doesn’t take into account what the rest of your meal looks like, or even how your food is cooked. All of this can impact your blood sugar levels. The best approach to meals is to combine slow-acting carbohydrates—those veggies listed in the produce section here—with lean proteins and healthy fats. In fact, the 10-Day Detox Diet is a high-carb diet—because nonstarchy vegetables, fruits, and even nuts and seeds are all carbs—so it might be more accurate to call it a right-carb diet. You can shift the composition of your diet to help balance your blood sugar, and this will speed up your metabolism, activate burning of belly fat, and cut hunger and cravings. The goal, whether you’re eating in your family’s dining room, at your work cafeteria, or in a fine restaurant, is to always build your meal from these three types of foods. These three basics—quality proteins, healthy fats, and nonstarchy veggies—can be mixed and matched in any number of ways, so you’ll never tire of your options. Have a miso-glazed salmon fillet with bok choy sautéed in avocado oil. Enjoy a spicy chicken breast over a chopped salad with a drizzle of fine olive oil. Dig into a juicy steak served with roasted broccoli and cauliflower. At every meal, you can enjoy a variety of foods, flavors, and textures so you’ll never be bored.
Herbs, spices, and seasonings kick your cuisine, and your health, up a notch. Think of your spice cupboard as your new medicine cabinet and stock it with every imaginable seasoning. By flavoring your food liberally, you’re not only keeping your taste buds happy, but you’re also adding loads of phytonutrients to your meal. Cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne pepper—to name just a few—have properties that stabilize blood sugar, quell inflammation, and boost metabolism. Different spices and seasonings have different benefits, which is why I always have lots of these gems on hand. Just be sure to use up your spices often and keep them sealed tightly in jars, as they become less potent with time.