The G-Free Diet

I picked up a copy of the G-free diet by Elizabeth Hasselback at the library last week. To be honest, I don't think I'll ever go gluten-free, but I thought the book might be interesting, and the cover looked so cute I thought I'd check it out.

There was a lot of great information on celiac disease, which causes the body not to tolerate gluten. The first thing I learned from this book was that it takes constant work to make sure you aren't eating gluten! If any of you reading this haven't heard of Amy's blog, Simply Sugar and Gluten Free, make sure to check it out. She has lots of great recipes and resources for those who are G-free.

The part of the book that I could most relate to is the Chapter "G-free and slim as can be!" Elisabeth explains healthy principles that can guide all of us in our food decisions, whether we are eating gluten or not.

From The G-Free Diet:

 "Gone are the days of living off foods with mile-long lists of ingredients, or one dimensional starches that left me forever craving more... without providing my body with the nutrients that it needed to thrive. I have more energy than before. I have more stamina to train and work out more efficiently. By default, when those factors are in synch, I tend to want to eat in a healthier way.


You, too may find that by building your diet around basic foods close to their natural state--foods direct from the earth such as fish and meats, fruits and vegetables and nuts-- you will nourish your body, instead of merely cluttering it with empty calories and unpronounceable chemicals...


We obsess over fat and calories but pay very little attention to actual ingredients in the foods we eat, and the essential nutrients that they should be delivering. Somehow, we lose sight of the fact that, quite simply, some foods are healthier and more nutritionally dense than others. Some foods fill us up and leave us happy and satisfied; other foods leave us constantly hungry for more. Foods that carry maximum nutritional impact are crucial , whether you have embarked on a particular diet out of necessity or by choice.


Most people can relate to episodes of overeating. Many times, you might feel a persistent dissatisfaction, even after a monster meal. Sound familiar? No matter what quantity of food you are eating, if your body is not getting the nutrients that it needs, it will continue to want more. Your body has an internal checklist of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that it needs every day to flourish. If your diet is not checking off every item on that list, your body sends signals to "keep on searching," to fill those nutritional deficiencies... thus throwing us into "overdrive eating."...


The secret to long-term health and fitness is not counting calories and fat and leaping on the scale first thing every morning. (I have done all of the above.)  Though these numbers may make you feel more in control, the critical information is what's behind those numbers. You can get triple the amount of fat from a bag of almonds than from a bag of M&M's, but the nutritional content isn't even in the same ballpark. In terms of heat and energy burned, 2000 calories is 2000 calories. That said, eating 2000 calories of junk a day would leave you with a significant mineral and vitamin deficiency-- and a significant lack of energy. Eventually, your body is going to cry uncle. Going G-free forces you to step up and start looking at the big picture."

EAting healthier for most of us doesn't have to mean going without gluten. It does mean making conscious decisions about our food. We need to choose whole over processed foods. We have to pay attention to what we're eating so that we can nourish our bodies.

Here are my suggestions to put this into practice:

1. Cook! Make something you would normally buy. If you make it, you can be sure of the ingredients.
2. Try something new. Quinoa. Kale. Flaxseed oil.
3. Read the list of ingredients rather than the nutritional facts on packages. Find out what your food is, rather than how much fat or calories it contains.
4. Take a look at your wheat intake. Try going wheat-free for a meal, a day, or more.

This post is part of Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Two for Tuesdays, and Tuesday Tag Along.

Food Rules & giveaway winner!

The winner of Michael Pollan's new book

 Food Rules, An Eaters Manual

 is............

TheWilliamsFamily

Congrats! I'll get in touch with you!

(The winner was chosen by random.org

For those who didn't win, I'll share a few of my favorite rules from the book, how I put them into practice, and share some of my own rules too!

Michael Pollan's Food Rules:

Rule #3: Avoid food products that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.

I don't know about you, but I don't stock my pantry with any maltodextrin, red dye #5, hydrogenated soybean oil or many of the other ingredients  you see on labels. This rule helps you know what you are eating. It also means that before you eat (or buy) anything, you read the label. For years, I was a diligent label reader. I would scour that "nutrition facts" section for important information- How many calories? How many grams of fat? Now, I don't even look at that part. I just skip right down to the ingredients with one question in mind: what is this? and usually, when I read through that list, I put it right back on the shelf, because it's full of ingredients that are nothing I want in my kitchen or in my food.

Rule #15 Get out of the supermarket whenever you can.

As I've started to change the way I eat, I change the way I shop too. Every Saturday, we pick up locally grown, organic produce from our CSA group. Our beef was raised about 35 minutes away- on pasture- and slaughtered in a local meat shop where I went to pick it up. Our eggs are from happy, truly free range chickens that live outside on a local farm. The local beekeeper was able to tell me what the bees were eating when they produced our honey. There are still many things I buy at the grocery store, and I probably will never totally get away from that, but often healthier, more environmentally friendly choices can be found in other places.

Rule #33 Eat some foods that have been predigested by bacteria or fungi.

Sourdough bread, buttermilk and yogurt count! And someday I may be brave enough to try fermented vegetables.


Rule #39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.
Just last night we had a treat. It was homemade lemon pudding. I made it with 3 egg yolks, whole milk, cornstarch, sugar and a lemon. It was creamy and rich and delicious- and guilt free. I reduced the sugar, and the fats were from whole milk and those happy chickens I talked about earlier.  Preparing foods yourself not only means you control what goes in, but in all likelihood means that you'll eat it less often. And even though I make treats, I never make "junk."

My own rules:

Eat as healthfully as you can... but make sure it tastes good.

I learned to make sourdough bread a while back, because I'd read that it's good for you. But the truth is, I've never liked sourdough bread, and even though my husband does, he wasn't a big fan of my sourdough bread;)  So, after a few attempts, I realized: it may be healthy, but it doesn't do us any good if no one will eat it! If you've read my thoughts on sugar, you know that I don't think that's a good-for-you food... but it does make things taste good. I continually try to cut back, but honestly, I'll probably never eliminate it altogether because it is important to me that things taste good!

Eat food the way God intended it to be eaten.

I'm pretty sure corn was meant to be eaten as... corn. Or maybe ground into corn flour or corn meal. That's a lot different than the chemical process involved to make something like high fructose corn syrup or maltodextrin. I eat the whole egg, not just the white. Whole milk instead of skim. Wheat flour instead of white flour. As much as possible, I eat foods whole, because that is how God made them.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Pennywise Platter Thursday.

My first giveaway!

Food Rules 
An Eater's Manual
by Michael Pollan

Product Description from Amazon:
A pocket compendium of food wisdom-from the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food 

Michael Pollan, our nation's most trusted resource for food-related issues, offers this indispensible guide for anyone concerned about health and food. Simple, sensible, and easy to use, Food Rules is a set of memorable rules for eating wisely, many drawn from a variety of ethnic or cultural traditions. Whether at the supermarket or an all-you-can-eat-buffet, this handy, pocket-size resource is the perfect guide for anyone who would like to become more mindful of the food we eat. 


This is the book that Michael Pollan talked about when he was on Oprah recently. Below is a clip from the show. Michael Pollan talks with Oprah about a few of the rules in the book, and the Western Diet.





Here's how to enter to win a copy of Food Rules. You get one entry for each of the following, for a total of up to 3 entries:


1. Subscribe in a reader or via email to Simply Real (or tell me if you already do).
2. If you have a blog or website, post about this giveaway linking back to this post.
3. Make a comment on any previous post on Simply Real.


Be sure to post a comment below telling me everything you did.  I'll choose a winner on February 23rd, so be sure to have your entries in by midnight on February 22nd. This giveaway is only open to residents of the continental U.S.