Today was my mother’s birthday, so we invited her over for a dinner in her honor!

She has recently started eating according to Eat To Live, a plan that about ten years ago I thought was healthy when I followed its tenets (right after the book came out), but now know is damaging to the body in the long run (though there are some very positive aspects to it).  Those concerns come as a result of lots of reading about physiology, combined with my own search for better health after years of low fat/vegetarian eating.  Little did I suspect when I thought I was eating in a way that I thought was incredibly healthy that I was damaging my metabolism and teaching my body to be incredibly thrifty with fat storage.  This means since having baby number eight 3.5 years ago, it’s been very difficult to lose excess weight despite eating moderate amounts of properly prepared unprocessed foods, even after eliminating flour and sugar from my diet. I’ve been so frustrated and stymied by this, and despite having read lots about physiology and fats, only now am I finally really understanding how someone who focused on healthy eating devel0ped the same metabolic issues found in chronic dieters eating tons of junk food interspersed with restrictive diets.  I’d like to share on the dangers of so-called healthy low-fat eating on the metabolism in a future post, but this post isn’t about that.  😛

The introductory stage of this plan my mom is on is heavily produce based (that’s one really good part), with a small amount of nuts, starchy vegetables, beans, and nuts allowed, no grains (also a good thing) but very little fat otherwise.  It was surprisingly easy to make a meal that would work for her as well as for our family; the main difference is in fats and animal proteins, and accordingly I planned for a vegetarian meal with the fats on the side.  So I didn’t saute the onions for the soup, served cheese sauce on the side rather than as topping, and didn’t dress the salad.  Very simple.

So here’s what I made:

– 16 bean soup with broccoli and onion

– steamed cabbage wedges with cheese sauce on the side (this was a grain-free recipe I made up on the spot, and it turned out great; will share recipe in a couple of days)

– sweet potato fries (made with coconut oil even though it’s not on her plan, but I didn’t want to use heat-unstable extra virgin olive oil).  (When mom mentioned eating coconut oil to her doctor (before she started this plan), the doctor responded with horror, “But that’s trans fat!”  No, it’s actually not trans fat, it’s saturated fat, and there’s a huge difference in how they are processed by the body. :roll:) 

– large fresh salad

– bowl of olives

– plate of red pepper strips

– tahini (sesame butter) dressing

– dessert – frozen blueberries

Some of my kids felt we should make her a birthday cake, but I don’t think it’s a kindness to put a stumbling block in front of someone even in the name of love.  Dd14 wanted to make her a birthday card with a picture of a cake on it, but ran out of time before she got here.  In the end, everyone was too full for the blueberries so I sent her home with a bag of them.  🙂

Avivah