Weinstein Bruce - Real food has curves : how to get off processed food, lose weight, and love what you eat with over 100 recipes

Real Food Has Curves

ALSO BY BRUCE WEINSTEIN AND MARK SCARBROUGH

The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

The Ultimate Party Drink Book

The Ultimate Candy Book

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The Ultimate Brownie Book

The Ultimate Potato Book

Cooking for Two

The Ultimate Muffin Book

The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book

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The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book

The Ultimate Cook Book: 900 New Recipes,
Thousands of Ideas

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Cooking Know-How

Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter

How to Get Off Processed Food, Lose Weight, and Love What You Eat

With More Than 100 Recipes

Bruce Weinstein
AND
Mark Scarbrough

PHOTOGRAPHS BY Nisha Sondhe

NOTE TO READERS: Certain product or establishment names mentioned in this book are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. The authors and publisher are not affiliated with these products, establishments, or owners.

Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2010 by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough
Photographs copyright 2010 by Nisha Sondhe

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2010.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weinstein, Bruce, 1960
Real food has curves: how to get off processed food, lose weight, and love what you eat with over 100 recipes / by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough; photographs by Nisha Sondhe.1st Gallery Books hardcover ed.
p. cm.
1. Reducing dietsRecipes. 2. FoodPsychological aspects. I. Scarbrough, Mark. II. Title.
RM222.2.W3285 2010
641.563dc22
2009047194

ISBN 978-1-4391-6038-1
ISBN 978-1-4391-6932-2 (ebook)

By dumping the overly processed stuff, relishing what you eat, and never fearing food again, you will feel better, lose weight, and most importantly, be satisfied.

Sounds great, right? Because in all honesty were not satisfiedalthough we can eat whenever we want: rip open a bag of this or a box of that, cook a meal by assembling it from premade parts, eat it hot, eat it later, take it out, call it in, sit down and be served, put it in a doggy bag and have it right at hand anytime, day or night.

We can do all this and remain unsatisfied because the foods not real. Its processed, packaged, ridiculously sweet, unbelievably salty, mass-produced in such plummeting quality that its had to be shellacked with fat and artificial junk just to make it palatablenot to mention pumped with preservatives and emulsifiers to keep it on the shelf well into the next Ice Age, all while fooling us into believing its almost fresh.

Almost. Thats the deal weve struck: a half-baked attempt to jog our memories about some real food we once had. But elves dont make cookies. Uncle Ben doesnt convert rice. And Mrs. Baird doesnt bake bread. Instead, marketing charactersor the corporations behind themhave given us strawberry pudding doped with artificial strawberry flavor, tomato juice loaded with more sodium than a cheeseburger, and microwavable chicken dinners laced with high-fructose corn syrup.

These fake-out flavors, fats, and additives give us little satisfaction. But boy, do we keep trying! As our friend Leslie Fink, the head nutritionist for weightwatchers.com, puts it, When youre hungry and/or craving, if nothing satisfies you, you tend to keep eating until you get what you needand that might be way past satiety.

Its time to stop eating the fake stuff and start getting what we need.

Fake food. Over the past few decades, as life moved more quickly, we gave up ripe vegetables for canned ones, tossed out sweet/tart orange juice for pasteurized concentrate, passed on the crunchy bread in favor of the gummy presliced stuff, traded steaks for boil-in-a-bag dinners, and gave up real desserts in favor of supersweet snacks that made us feel ridiculously overfed but definitely disappointed.

Despite our best intentions, we misled our stomachs, feeding them a bunch of artificial flavors, sweeteners, and additives that gave us a head rush without any deeper contentment. Our brains may not know an artificial sweetener from a real one, a mess of tasteless trans fats from a better fat, or a wad of processed apple pie filling from some freshly sliced apples and honey. Thats because our brains process sensory information (sweet! sour!) and then can reward us for finding food thats not necessarily the best. Weve let those up-top neurons override the ones in our bellies.

Did you know weve got a separate nervous system down there? Its made of neurons that operate with serotonin, dopamine, and the other chemicals also at work in our heads. Called the enteric nervous system, it has a profound effect on how we feel, how we eat, and maybe even how much we eat.

Having lost sight of real food and its true satisfaction, weve Were now in danger of whats inelegantly called the modern diseases: diabetes, clogged arteries, and even bad knees.

Lets be clear: eating fake food doesnt cause these problems; eating too much does. But fake food is so prevalent, cheap, and abundant that weve indeed gained weight, not because of it, but by means of it. In the end, its not that we love food too much. Its that we love it too little.

Chances are, youve heard that one beforeand tried to act on it. Ever walked into a supermarket and thought, Im going to eat better from now on? Maybe you loaded your cart with whole-grain crackers, fish fillets, and asparagus. And then what? You got a few vaguely satisfying meals out of it before you thought, Hey, lifes too short for this.

Resolutions arent plans. Theyre flirtations with deprivation. You tried to say no to the huge world of less-than-the-best food until you couldnt say it anymore.

Thats not real change. For that, you need a real plan.

Youre holding it in your hands.

Its time to rediscover real food: curvy, voluptuous, juicy, sweet. And sexy, too. You dont really want boxes, mixes, or frozen entres, all right angles and marketing scrawl, with a host of fake-outs lurking inside. You want ripe, gorgeous tomatoes; chicken with a crisp, brown skin; and a fruit crisp with a fulfilling allure far beyond the sweetener used to make it. So dont wait a moment longer. Step off on a journey to what truly satisfies.

Yes, youll lose weight. But if you find yourself obsessing about a little cream in a skillet, youve mistaken this plan for some horrid diet. If you look in your fridge this week and wonder what you should toss out, youre getting too far ahead. Step back, take a deep breath, and continue with us.