FROM MFR:
My patients and the thousands of people who read the prior RealAge books and logged onto the RealAge.com Web site, and sent questions, notes, cards, and e-mails, inspired this book; I would like to thank them first and foremost. They compelled me to be passionate because they taught me that RealAge and this process of thinking about health have meaning to them. I hope this book will motivate them and the rest of its readers to live younger longer. That would be the best reward any physician could want.
I am especially indebted to the members of the staff and faculty of the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at the University of Chicago, and of the Office of the Dean and Vice President at Upstate, who afforded me the time to do this project and who had the vision to understand that the best medicine happens before a patient ever gets sick. I am grateful to the many, many other people who contributed to this book. Some deserve a very specific thank you: Shelly Bowen and Maurina Sherman of the RealAge team, who rewrote and helped develop the early editions of several chapters; Sukie Miller, whose passion proved to be the consistent encouragement I needed; Anita Shreve, for saying the RealAge book was possible, and that the chapters were just what she wanted to read; Candice Fuhrman, for making it happen; Elsa Hurley, for making it clearer, much, much clearer; Pauline Snider for keeping the English crisp and the grammar and style appropriate and consistent; Jennifer DeFrancisco for her excellent editing and contributions; the many gerontologists and internists who read sections of the book for accuracy; Jack Rowe, Linda Fried, the many investigators of the Iowa, Nurse’s Health, and the Physician’s Health Studies, for invaluable research and advice helped make the science better; others on the RealAge team who helped edit; the many chefs who contributed recipes, including Rich Tramonto and Gail Gand of Tru in Chicago; Marisa Curatolo of the Cooking Studio in Winnipeg and now Vancouver; Linda DeFrancisco of Syracuse, and those whose recipes we modified to make them make you younger, including the chefs of the Canyon Ranch; our amateur chefs who tested the recipes, especially Donna Szymanski (she must have incredible patience—she taught me how to cook); our tasters, especially Nancy (my wife), Jennifer, and Jeffrey, the Wattels of Lettuce Entertain You, the Shermers, the Pelligrinis, and many others who tasted only occasionally; the research associates who worked tirelessly to analyze the nutrients and calculate the RealAge effect of each recipe, Shivani Chadha and Kate Poneta; Norm Faiola, for his suggestions about food safety; Michelle Lewis, for her endless patience and good humor in producing the manuscript; Brisa Kilfoy, who worked late into the night, tirelessly and enthusiastically, to produce corrections to many of the more than forty editions of each chapter, and the final copies of the manuscript; Anne-Marie Prince, for doing so much so well and doing it so calmly in the midst of a constant storm; Shara Storandt and William Germino, who each made this a better book than it would have been; Arline McDonald, Tate Erlinger, Linda Van Horne, Jeremiah Stamler, and especially Keith Roach, Axel Goetz, and Harriet Imrey, as the scientific partners in the process of evaluating the data and scientific content of RealAge; Sidney Unobskey and Martin Rom, who inspired the process and named it; Charlie Silver, who funded the research and assembled the innovative RealAge team that continually evaluates and updates RealAge and its Web site; Diane Reverend, whose faith in the work inspired it to be better; Kathryn Huck who tirelessly edited the book and made it better and improved it, not just a little, and not just once; and especially Megan Newman, who believed in this book and made it happen. She conveyed her excitement to me and to the book. And of course to my partner, John La Puma, who really taught me that nutrition could and should be delicious.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Nancy Roizen, for her constant love and support, and my children, Jeffrey and Jennifer, for their encouragement and patience. The book is dedicated to them.
FROM JOHN:
The people to whom I am most grateful are my patients and clients, especially those of CHEF Clinic. They gave me the courage to champion the pleasures of healthy eating, too often buried beneath the fear and uncertainty about what to eat.
When I returned to Santa Barbara to create a new medical practice in nutrition, my work in writing this book and nearly all of these recipes was made easier and tastier by Bill Coleman of Coleman Family Farms and Barbara Spencer of Paso Robles (and her brilliance with heirloom tomatoes)—two farmers who know and love their delicious plants, their flavors and medical uses, and their customers. Drs. Chris Donner and Andy Binder opened their arms and Rolodexes to welcome me to the medical community, and Drs. Allison Mayer-Oakes, Helmuth Billy, and Tony DeFrance invited me to integrate RealAge Diet recipes into medical practice. Michael, Kim, and Emilio De Paolo kept a glass of red wine (soon, their own Zinfandel) waiting for me as I edited and wrote, and Emma Cantu and her husband Rex offered from their hearts and gorgeous organic garden luscious exotic chilies of which I can only dream. Al Kuntz saw that I needed small goals in a beautiful setting, and helped me set them. Bill Ashby modeled the RealAge way, and offered UCSB’s extraordinary College of Creative Studies as a home base. Willa Seldon started the Healthy Weight Program Executive Coaching business in my mind. Kathy Zant developed its Web site, www.drjohnlapuma.com, brilliantly and passionately, and Marsha Marcoe helped me believe that it could run, and in her kindness and generosity, worked hard to make her friends as young as they could be.
I had many other wonderful teachers and incurred several large debts of gratitude in writing this book. Gary Hopmayer of the AIWF National Board promotes understanding of others’ needs as a way of success in life and is first on that list. His wife and my friend Meme is second. Gary is an inspirational mentor who gives generously and from his heart, and has creativity, insight, tact, and perseverance to which I can only aspire. His belief in my abilities allowed me to give myself to this work.
I thank Karen Levin of Highland Park, Illinois, for her terrific recipe development and testing skills. Karen’s carefulness and care, and our mutual passion for great ingredients and new flavors, made every kitchen session a delight. Executive Chef Kimberly Schor of Nordstrom’s, so filled with enthusiasm and possessed of a terrific palate, also assisted with the development and testing of recipes. Both women bear no responsibility for any recipe I offer that doesn’t taste great.
Christian DeVos of Kendall College provided a first-class culinary setting for an executive CHEF Clinic program—many of the techniques in this book were honed in that special, one-day seminar. Don Newcomb and Jim Price worked to create the unity of food and health, and Scott Warner of the Chicago Medical Society helped me make two transitions, one to my own weight loss of 30 pounds in 1992, and the second to ChicaGourmet’s special Kendall program “There’s a Doctor in the Kitchen.” Theresa Roti captured it all and inspired some of the best home cooking I’ve ever done. Beth Shephard and Lisa Ekus helped to create ways of integrating my work in RealAge within the fabulously fun business of food, and Kathleen Gallagher, Howard Gilbert, and Roger Fox made sense of it on paper.
Lisa M. Drayer, now of www.dietwatch.com in New York City, did much of the original research to create a running start on this work. And Laura Walsh, R.D., a thoughtful, first-rate clinical dietitian in private practice in Elmhurst, Illinois, did a brilliant job of researching and assembling resources for nearly all of the kitchen equipment.
John Reyes, remarkably wise and humanistic and so solidly grounded, helped me put one foot in front of the other. Bill Rayner did the same—with his ambitious and friendly way of helping me create food that everyone will want to eat, whether at a stadium or in a store.
I am also grateful to dietitians Jennifer Becker and Judy Kolish and physician-assistant-extraordinaire Jeanne McMahon for permission to allow me to devote stolen time to completing the book. They are excellent clinicians to whose care I would trust any member of my family. Natalie Giacomino, Kathi Kardos, Kelley Clancy, Dean Grant, and Nancy Hellyer of Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village deserve many thanks for providing the space and time to allow me to continue this work and conduct hands-on private classes and tutorials for my patients. Chef Chris Stoye melded great professionalism and great knife skills with great hands-on teaching.
Milo Falcon, Stefanie Lewis, and Brenda Mooney of American Health Consultants deserve special credit for allowing me the freedom to create medical meeting meals for two hundred physicians. So do Dennis Wentz, Charles Willis, Jacquelyn Craig, and Regina Littleton of the AMA, and Jill Keenan and executive chef Kevin Randles of the Baltimore Marriott. Working with Galveston’s Moody Hotel Executive Chef Klaus and Garvin O’Neill on a conference menu plan was a huge pleasure—great chefs like Klaus love making food that is good for you taste good. Visionary Vic Sierpina put it all together. Paula Cousins and Leslie Coplin have my deep daily gratitude for their faultless work on Alternative Medicine Alert.
I also owe special thanks to Chefs Rick Bayless, Tracey Vowell, Kevin Karales, and Geno Bahena, and the staff of Chicago’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, for opening their hearts and sharing so generously what they knew. This food honors their commitment to local farmers, to flavor first, and to seasonal foods. Deborah Madison, so long a culinary inspiration, lives her values and inspires the promise of the local flavors sprinkled here. Patricia Greenberg’s passion for social change and eye toward achievement do the same. Manny Valdes of Frontera Foods offered regular, welcome sparks of entrepreneurial encouragement. David and Kim Schiedermayer continued to offer their kindness and editorial support (and in season, David’s eye for steelhead, morels, and wild asparagus); it was my privilege to try out some of these recipes at their nephew Jack’s birthday party.
Tuscan cooking school teacher Pamela Sheldon Johns encouraged me from the beginning to try my hand at a complementary partnership. Juliana Middleton inspired me with her love of plants grown with care, and then prepared with her magic hands. Dun Gifford and Sara Baer-Sinnott of Oldways are champions who know the synergy of traditional diets and great health. Walter Willett, Susan Bowerman, David Heber, and John Foreyt’s pioneering research in weight loss; Dan Nadeau’s enthusiasm for food as medicine; and Bill and Erin Arnold’s insight into the science behind an arthritis pain alleviating diet all promise to take nutrient-rich, calorie-lean food and meals to the next level.
And finally, I would like to thank Mike Roizen for the exceptional opportunity to work with, learn from, and most of all, become part of the RealAge team. His absolute focus and visionary leadership move and excite me. Mike’s passion for science is now joined by the pleasures of the table—and of a healthy, younger RealAge.