It’s a new year, a new decade - and there are a lot of folks looking for a new way to eat. Since we rang in the new year, I’ve noticed many articles about making changes and people’s panicked notions about food and weight. There is no question that it’s hard to make changes - especially when it comes to food. So, for a long time, I tried coming up with the best possible “diet” concept to help people achieve better health. I’ve come to realize, however, that there is no one-diet-fits-all - we are all so different! Our bodies, our cravings, our weaknesses, our strengths, our lifestyles, and our metabolisms - how could one diet work for every single American?

Yet people are still searching for the magic bullet. And fortunately, we are getting a little closer. I was glad to see that the top ten 2009 diet books addressed important topics like improving metabolism, starting the day with breakfast, and eating foods that make you happy. And then, there is always Michael Pollan’s food rules and excellent advice to: eat foods, not too much, mostly plants.

There are some great nuggets of information out there but maybe, it’s not a specific diet we are looking for but rather, it’s a matter of finding methods to make change. We need a breakthrough in developing techniques to change our habits and palates. Otherwise, we could stumble across the best diet ever - but if we can’t shift ourselves over to it, then it’s a moot point. It also boils down to customizing a way of eating that works for each individual.

While traveling, I caught up on my magazine reading and came across some interesting articles about REAL people who made huge changes in their lives - using various eating and exercising strategies. People magazine (January 11 issue) featured regular folks shedding half their body weight - no gimmicks, no personal trainers, and no surgery.

While I was reading, I focused less on WHAT they were doing - since different methods worked for each of them - and instead, zeroed in on HOW they were doing it. Here are some of the themes that I noticed:

They each had an A-ha moment. No matter how trivial it was (i.e. wanting smaller jeans), they each had a “trigger” moment that made them realize that continuing as they were sounded infinitely more exhausting than doing something about it.

They found inspiration - for some it’s their kids, for others it’s being able to shop in any store. It’s much easier to motivate when we have a reason -  whether it’s a Breast Cancer fundraising walk or the dream of being able to fit into a kayak.

They started small. This is so important! One woman said, “the first thing I did was just park further away from where I was driving.” Pick one or two realistic goals to start with and keep cheering yourself on.

They asked for support. They had at least one family member, friend, or instructor/trainer who offered them encouragement and advice. If you feel like you need extra support, there are lots of resources online including SparkPeople.com and LiveStrong.com.

They used technology. Some of them downloaded applications to their phones while others recorded their diets in an online journal. Take advantage of what’s already on the internet.

They re-trained their palates. This is key - we have to love our new way of eating or else we won’t continue with it. This is why I teach cooking for a living - it’s behavior modification at it’s best. Find new foods that your taste buds LOVE and that make you feel GOOD. As one Biggest Loser contestant said, “I literally can’t eat ‘bad’ foods. My taste buds have changed and I crave the healthy stuff.”

They started eating whole foods. Instead of following a diet fad, they completely altered their approach to food.  They cut out fast food and products made in laboratories - and replaced them with foods that exist in nature. In Oprah magazine’s article, “Can You Transform Your Whole Life in 60 Days?” Paige Williams noticed that she “was hungrier on the drive-through diet of probably 3,000 calories a day than I am now on half that amount.”

They learned to forgive themselves. When they fell off their new regiment, they understood that the pathway to change is sometimes 5 steps forward and 1 step back. They didn’t let setbacks stop them from achieving their goal.

They created new habits. This is the key to creating change. For every old habit we want to quit, it helps if we replace it with a new one. This helps the brain re-wire itself. For more on implementing new habits, check out Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink.

Most importantly, they didn’t give up! They had a vision and they kept moving towards that goal. This goes for any dream. Keep at it. You can do it.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” -Calvin Coolidge

I have a pet peeve. All right, so I have more than a few pet peeves. But a major food pet peeve is when I try to serve a homemade dessert to someone, either in class, or in a social setting, and they decline. Now, if they have a health concern (diabetes, celiac, etc.) or religious restrictions, of course, I completely understand. But you’d be surprised at how often people say “no” and admit that they don’t have a good reason for turning it down.

It’s rare these days that someone offers a fresh-out-of-the-oven homemade dessert that they lovingly prepared from scratch so it’s my policy to answer in only one way: “YES, ABSOLUTELY. Thank YOU!” I often don’t take a huge piece (I can always go back for more!) and I may not eat the entire thing but my philosophy is that one never, ever turns down homemade goodies. There is something so personal about baking something from scratch - you put a little bit of yourself into each decadent bite - and it feels so good to give some of your own “sugar” to someone else.

We’re heading into holiday season and the articles and magazine covers will be pleading with you to watch what you eat - when in reality, most Americans gain only 1 pound between Thanksgiving and New Years. Of course, as a nutritionist, I encourage people to find ways to stay fit and healthy all year long - but I also think it’s important to remember to enjoy that healthy life. And homemade goods are so much a part of that.

This concept came up in my Whole Foods cooking class at Bastyr last week, when my students were indulging in the Apple and Cranberry Crisp recipe they had just finished preparing. We had an array of optional creamy accessories: organic vanilla bean ice cream, creme fraiche, or soy ice cream. When everyone sat down to eat their dessert, the room was silent - always a good sign. I reminded the class that eating “well” goes beyond nutrients and the components of food. We also have to feed the soul. Eating a homemade dish prepared by someone you know gives the cells in your body a little bit love - which they need as much as they do vitamins and minerals.

So, if you’re looking for a way to share some of your own “sugar love”, try out this stellar autumn recipe developed by a dear friend and colleague, Jennifer Clair. It’s so good, you won’t even notice that there are some nutrients and fiber in it. Seriously, you can never go wrong with a crisp -  cooked fruit with sugar on top? Yum.

Apple and Cranberry Crisp

Take the kids apple picking and have them help with the preparation of the dish: peeling, sprinkling, and squeezing the lemon are favorite tasks for them.

For the filling:
5 medium apples, such as McIntosh, Gala, or Fuji, peeled and cored
½ cup dried cranberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, for dish

For the topping:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
¾ cup chopped toasted walnuts
½ cup rolled oats
½ cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ cup packed light-brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche, for serving (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Cut the apples into 1-inch pieces, and transfer to a large bowl. Add cranberries, lemon juice, and sugar, and toss to combine. Butter a 9×13 glass baking dish, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine all the topping ingredients and stir until combined.

Pour apples into the prepared dish. Spread the topping mixture evenly across the fruit. Bake until the fruit is soft and the topping crisp, about 35 minutes, watching carefully that topping doesn’t brown too much. Let cool 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche.

Preparation time: 1 hour
Serves 6-8
Recipe adapted from Jennifer Clair, Founder of Home Cooking New York which provides private and group cooking classes in New York City and the Hudson Valley. She is also the author of the forthcoming Gourmet Cooking on a Budget (Globe Pequot Press, Spring 2010) with Michalene Busico

I just got back from the annual Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) conference which took place in Des Moines, Iowa, or as some call it, “the belly of the beast.” Iowa grows the majority this country’s food but, strangely, Iowans import 80% of the food that lands on their dinner table.  Doesn’t make sense, right?

This is the crux of what’s happened to our food system - our farmers are super efficient at growing food but can’t use their crops of corn and soy to feed their own families. I’ve been reading about these issue for years - but let me tell you, reading about it and standing in a farmer’s field next to hogs are two entirely different experiences. My field trip entitled, “Farmers Tell It Like It is,” which took us on a tour of Iowa farms, was extremely enlightening.

A chasm has been growing between writers like Michael Pollan and farmers who work in the field. I have to admit that I didn’t quite understand why the farmers are so angry with Michael Pollan. But as I listened to Jerry Peckumn, a farmer, stand in his fields explaining how difficult it would be to shift from large, conventional farming to small, organic farming, I realized how complicated it really is. And this is the interesting part: Jerry is into eco-friendly farming practices - he raises what are essentially free-range, organic cattle. Yet, he has concluded that it just isn’t economically feasible to switch over to a more sustainable way of farming. He said he’d be more likely to try it if he had more data but he couldn’t find it. Currently, our government gives farmers only one real option: grow conventional soy, corn or wheat - or go broke. Check out this video of one of the farmer’s we visited, George Naylor, describe why big farms keep getting bigger. (This picture is from a conventional farm - you can see how huge the equipment is.)

Farmers are SMART. They can do something that most of us can’t: grow enough food to feed others. Second, they have an incredible grasp of food politics and the complicated legislation that goes along with crop subsidies. And third, they have mastered the intricate, ecological connection between land, animals, and water - I had to ask Jerry several times to explain why simply planting prairie grass improved a host of environmental problems.  And this was just in the first 2 hours of the field trip!

I could wax on about all of the issues that farmers are facing right now - but I will let someone with more expertise do that for me. Jill Richardson, who I had the pleasure of meeting while on the Farmer Field trip, writes the blog, La Vida Locavore and covers all of these topics and more. I bought one of her books, Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It, right there on the bus. (And please note, that I still think that Michael Pollan’s work is brilliant - it’s important that we see both sides of the issue.)

The best part of the whole day, of course, was being fed a home cooked meal by Chris Henning, one of our lovely tour guides, at the Wilbeck farm, aptly named Farmhouse Life. We sat down to a mouthwatering meal made from local foods: Corn Bread, Beef and Vegetables, Black Beans and Corn Salad, Jack’s Favorite Biscuits, Grandma’s Rye Bread and my all-time favorite dish, Squash Casserole - which was divine.

We then visited a dairy farm, Picket Fence Creamery where Jill Burkhart and her husband sell dairy products and other locally produced food items at their country store. I found it amazing that as her customers walked away with their food, she called out to them by name. What a concept that we have lost in this country: knowing the people who grow and prepare our food by name.

The Burkharts served us each a huge piece of homemade apple pie and their homemade ice cream. (YUM.) Ordinarily, I can’t eat ice cream - it causes me tummy problems. But the Picket Fence Creamery ice cream? I was just fine. This is something that I’m going to continue to investigate: the fact that much of our food intolerances and other health problems may not be linked to the actual food but how it was grown, produced and prepared.

The rest of the conference was incredibly informative and I met some extremely dynamic people who are doing everything that they can to make sure that the food you put on your table is of the highest quality possible.

In the mean time, I will leave you with some wonderful insight from a cookbook I bought at the Burkhart’s country store, Grandma’s Recipes - Recipes from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. Here is advice from Grandma Horst and Grandma Hoover:

“There is one important point to remember: Do not feed a child too many cakes and cookies, so that plain foods are slighted.”

You tell it like it is, Grandma!

[THANK YOUS to the Greene County folks who coordinated our tour: Chris Henning, Jerry Peckumn, George Naylor, Chris & Kevin Wilbeck]

This past weekend was a major family event – we gathered together to celebrate the birth of my two new nephews. All three of my siblings and three of my cousins (who are like siblings) were in town with their respective families. As usual, every gathering revolves around a meal. This time it was at my Auntie Janet’s house – who, like most of my family members, is a wonderful cook.

After we stampeded the buffet table and piled our plates high with my aunt’s homemade delicacies, I noticed that my 5 year old nephew - who makes most picky eaters look like serious gourmands - gobbled up his borecas (Sephardic potato and cheese pastries - they are in left corner of photo). Even this little guy who could live on just French fries and pizza, already shared the family love of home cooking: at age 5, his palate was already being “trained” to eat the real deal.

Observing my nephew made me think about how we often hear about the importance of introducing new foods to children - but rarely do we talk about refining their palates. Because the truth is, the more refined our palates are, the less likely we will indulge in an unworthy food.

When we regularly consume really scrumptious, superb meals, we are much less likely to reach for a carefully engineered “item,” otherwise, known as processed foods. It can be hard to figure out how to teach kids to be healthful with the rise of childhood obesity – but simply exposing them to quality meals (which happens to be fun for everyone) will minimize their preference for processed foods and set up good eating habits for life.

Turn them into food snobs (without spending a fortune):

1) Many children are naturally picky, which is normal, and will eventually  outgrow it. But if the child continues to be treated as a picky eater and never offered anything new, then their meal repertoire will never expand. I was out to dinner with my 6 year old niece - who is actually a very adventurous eater - but when I offered her soy sauce for her rice, my brother started to say she didn’t like it.  She stopped him and said she tried it at school and liked it. Keep offering new foods - they will often surprise you.

2) When you eat in a restaurant, disregard the kids menu (which is often not as healthful) and instead have them pick something from the main menu. If you don’t see many dishes that are kid-friendly, check out which vegetables and proteins are on the menu – and create your own meal. Many chefs want happy customers and are more than willing to prepare simple dishes like steamed broccoli and cauliflower or plain grilled chicken. Discuss the menu options with the kids and ask them to be creative in coming up with a meal. I’ve spoken to many people whose kids are sophisticated eaters - and a lot of that is because they keep the food conversation going.

3) Find eateries that have naturally healthful cuisines like Asian or Mediterranean restaurants. The Seattle restaurant, Boom Noodle, has wonderful bento boxes for kids that include a protein entrée, edamame, fruit and rice – all “real” food and I watched kids all over the restaurant chow down on them.

4) While cooking at home (or eating out), if your kids still opt for the usual wheat-and-dairy fare, try offering a few side dishes that will provide some extra nutrients like black beans, raw or cooked vegetables, fruit, brown rice, cubed tofu, corn, olives, sliced avocados, or any other healthful ingredients. Offer the most nutritious foods first, while they are hungry, and after they’ve had a few bites, then bring out the rest of the meal.

5) Try to use high-quality ingredients as much as possible and help them learn how to pay attention to how food tastes and smells – to enjoy and savor each bite. Ask them to describe what it tastes like - they are very imaginative. Set up a taste test between a tomato shipped in from far away and a tomato from someone’s garden. And of course, my usual advice: get them cooking!

If we put delicious, “real” food in front of children, they will eat it. And likewise, if we keep putting processed foods in front of them, they will eat that too – so let’s get them hooked on real food that’s full of nutrients as young as possible!

Read this article to find out how it’s never to early to expose children to strong flavors!

Stay tuned for the next post where I will share my family recipe (and photos) on how to prepare borecas.

My brothers, cousins, and the kids eating together.

Undoubtedly, gardening is the comeback hobby of 2009. This year, the National Gardening Association reported that 43 million households planted a backyard garden or has a share in a community garden - up from 36 million in 2008.

But what about cooking? In Michael Pollan’s most recent article in The New York Times Magazine, “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch,” he asserts that cooking has become a spectator sport:

“Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation…that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking…when Julia [Child] arrived on our television screens [in 1963]. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef”…. many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.”

I’m thrilled that Mr. Pollan has drawn attention to this issue, especially the fact that the more we cook, the healthier we are and the less we weigh - which is pretty much the entire focus of my career. However, I disagree with him that people are cooking less because they “no longer have the time.”  I do think that’s an issue for some folks but it’s been my experience as a cooking instructor that people often don’t cook because they don’t know how to - can you imagine how much time it would take you to do a task that you are completely clueless about?

The art of cooking has been lost. “Scratch cooking,” (i.e. cooking a meal entirely from scratch) according to Mr. Pollan, is a rarity these days. He mentions many reasons for this - the least obvious one being that food corporations spend billions of dollars convincing us not to cook so that we spend more money on their products. And for a couple of decades, it seemed like a good idea to let other people prepare our meals - even if it meant families stopped teaching each other how to cook.

“Scratch” cooking used to be passed on from generation to generation - and for good reason. Even the best written recipes can be hard to figure out if you’re a novice cook and never made them before - learning how to cook is hard to do unless someone actually shows you how to do it. To make matters worse, home economics classes are now almost nonexistent in schools.

If no one is showing you how to cook at home or at school, there are limited options as to where else you can learn the basics, like knife skills or when to use a saucepan versus a skillet. As Mr. Pollan points out, most of the cooking shows on television don’t offer step-by-step instructions like Julia Childs’ real-time shows.  Bookstores are stuffed with cookbooks but it can be overwhelming for a newbie cook to figure out which one to buy. You can plow through the internet and find every recipe under the sun but what if you don’t know what the word “mince” means? The simplest of recipe instructions can frustrate someone with zero kitchen experience.

It’s only recently that we, as a country, started to realize that we should be more involved in our food preparation (and growing it too). I don’t mean to absolve people from personal responsibility - that is not my intention here. Rather, I think it’s important to recognize that there is still a growing awareness emerging about reconnecting with food and getting back in the kitchen. And this movement, similar to the gardening movement (I hope) can’t happen without more culinary education opportunities.

We need modern home ec classes back in the schools and parent/child classes available in the evenings or on the weekends. We need to take it upon ourselves to ask family members and friends to teach us how to prepare simple dishes. I’m curious to watch Jamie Oliver’s new show this fall where he will teach Americans how to cook! I think that viewers will be surprised at how enthusiastic Olivers’ students will be to learn.

I truly believe that if people had the necessary kitchen skills and access to healthful, inexpensive food, they would be cooking more - and cooking well. As Mr. Pollen said so beautifully in his article (and I also mentioned in my “Can Cooking Make You Happier?” post), there is something about cooking that we need:

“Maybe the reason we like to watch cooking on TV is that there are things about cooking we miss….Why? Perhaps because cooking — unlike sewing or darning socks — is an activity that strikes a deep emotional chord in us, one that might even go to the heart of our identity as human beings.”

Some of us just may need a little help finding our way back to the kitchen….

Tips on how to learn how to cook without spending a lot of money:

• Cooking stores that offer free cooking demonstrations to help sell appliances

• Large “community kitchens” where you prepare two weeks worth of meals while socializing and receiving guidance from chefs

• Private cooking classes in your home with a chef instructor – do it with friends and the cost comes down per person

• Your own at-home cooking “class” – invite a mix of friends who are beginners and experienced cooks

• Join Rouxbe, a wonderful online cooking school with professional videos at http://rouxbe.com/cooking-school

Declare your Food Independence this 4th of July by preparing a meal made with only local ingredients - join others in this grassroots campaign.

Independence day is fast arriving (where has this year gone?) and although, most of us are just thinking about how to spend the holiday, it’s also kind of nice to remember what the day is actually about: that us Americans are a scrappy bunch who think for ourselves and are willing to do whatever it takes to make big changes in our lives - even if it means revamping the way we buy and grow food. We may not be getting a lot of kudos around the world right now but I can’t help but focus on what we are good at: we are pioneers, we’re inventors, and we don’t give up.

And now we have a big food mess on our hands. Our aptitude for technology took us down the wrong road - when we should have just stuck to eating what Mother Nature intended.  I won’t bother listing off the many problems we are facing - fortunately, some pretty smart people have already done that in some great books and in Food, Inc. (which I highly recommend seeing - it’s funny how people find it easier to learn that our planet is melting than discover what we’ve been eating all these years).

I prefer to be the bearer of good news and fortunately, I have some. I’ve been part of a fringe food movement for over 15 years and in just one short year, that Food Movement has gone so mainstream that it’s landed directly on the White House lawn. Every day, I receive emails through my nutrition listserves discussing extraordinary people working hard to improve our food system on behalf of you and your children. There is more opportunity to make changes to our food system now than ever before and you don’t have to be a nutritionist, a farmer, or a writer in order to pitch in and help keep the ball rolling.

I’m not sure who coined the phrase, “Vote with Your Fork” - but it looks like it was Marion Nestle. Regardless of who invented it, it’s brilliant. It can be hard for the average citizen to feel like they can make a difference in the face of huge, powerful food companies - but the truth is, they are more dependent on us than we are on them. Although it may not sound easy, we do technically have the power to grow our own food. Urban farmer, Will Allen, of Growing Power (featured in this Sunday’s NYT magazine) is showing lots of people how to do exactly that - no matter where they live. And for those who can’t start a farm in your backyard or on your rooftop, you can still be a lobbyist and advocate every time you go to the grocery store.

Why do you think major stores started carrying more “natural” brands? Because you asked for them. Every time you buy groceries and the bar code slides over the scanner, you are telling a marketing company what you prefer to purchase - you are able to: Vote with Your Fork - and also Lobby for your Local Farmer or Advocate for Clean Food:

1) Ask your produce manager if they carry fruits and vegetables from local farmers. The more you ask for it, the more likely they will start carrying it.

2) Talk to whoever is in charge of meat ordering about whether your store carries local, grass-fed beef from reputable ranchers (beware that many labels, including “grass-fed” doesn’t always reflect the highest quality meat).

3) Make friends with your fishmonger and learn from them which fish are fresh and wild-caught, which ones are farm-raised (very few fish farms are reputable although they do exist) and print off a  list of “Best Choices” of fish to bring to the store with you. Mark Bittman wrote about how complicated this topic has become if you want to learn more about it.

4) Become more savvy at recognizing when companies are using vague or unapproved label claims to sell their products - many terms like “natural” may mean nothing (or in the recent case of Horizon, may mean “no longer organic”). I will work on writing a longer post about this topic in the near future.

5) Be aware that the “hippie” brands (like Toms of Maine and Odwalla) you thought were owned by small, independent companies often have been bought by the same 12 or so huge food companies. Your best bet is to buy truly local products as much as possible - keep asking questions about where your food comes from - the more we keep asking for this information, the more likely we’ll get it.

6) Remember that making small changes is still helpful. If we all worked on making even the smallest changes (buying free-range, organic eggs or local fruit), we will keep moving in the right direction. Don’t think your changes don’t matter - because they really do.

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”   -Margaret Mead

Happy 4th of July!