William Davis - Wheat Belly 30-Minute (Or Less!) Cookbook

WHAT CAN YOU accomplish in 30 minutes or less? In todays electronically connected world, you could publish a few comments on Facebook or post a few Tweets. Or you could walk on your treadmill for a little exercise, vacuum a couple of rooms, or read another chapter in a novel. You could light some candles, darken the lights, grab your spouse okay, enough of that!

Or you could take action that helps you and your family make a huge leap toward better health and prepare a meal that frees all of you from the appetite-stimulating, health-impairing, visceral fataccumulating effects of modern wheat, enjoying quick and delicious meals that satisfy everyone weaned from the breast on up!

Since the original Wheat Belly was published in August 2011, followed by the Wheat Belly Cookbook, an international movement has been launched, a dietary revolution now embraced by millions of people eager to regain control over appetite, weight, and health. We certainly cannot credit my charm, wit, or good looksits the power of the message and the wonderful stories of success that pour in day after day, month after month, that have catapulted this message into the spotlight.

Weve witnessed what happens to people who take the brave leap and do the opposite of what conventional advice tells us: Weight and health are transformed. A long list of health conditions diminish or disappear. Most typically, people experience relief from acid reflux, bowel urgency, joint pain, and mental fog. Many diabetics become nondiabetic. People suffering for years with the pain and deformity of inflammatory and autoimmune conditions experience markedly reduced symptoms, or even outright cure. Depression lifts in many, while anxiety and paranoia disappear in others. The food obsessions of bulimia and binge eating disorder can dissipate within days. And, of course, pounds of fat, mostly from the inflammatory visceral fat of the abdomen, the infamous wheat belly, shrink sufficiently to allow you to dust off the skinny jeans you saved in the back of the closet or comfortably wear the several-sizes-smaller dress or trousers from 20 years earlier.

We choose to liberate ourselves from all things wheat, while also rejecting the processed gluten-free foods made with junk carbohydrate ingredients (cornstarch, rice starch/flour, potato starch, tapioca starch), as well as processed foods (which nearly all contain wheat).

Though we can relearn many important dietary lessons by simply recalling many of the habits of our grandparents or great grandparents, most of us have no desire to return to the 2, 3, 4, or more hours of preparation that were often required to prepare a full meal in their day. Thus, the quick, 30-minute or less, wheat-free effort youre now holding in your hands.

Or I might hear that it is too time-consuming, or too inconvenient, or involves too many hard-to-find ingredients.

No question: There is a period of adjustment required. After all, we creatures of the early 21st century have allowed, both purposely and inadvertently, modern wheat to balloon to 20 percent of all the calories we eat. For some people, it can be as high as 50 percent of calories, given the convenience, portability, ubiquity, and addictive properties of this creation of genetics research called wheat. Banning it from your diet and that of your family means an abrupt break from long-standing habits. It means no longer relying on frozen dinners and delivery pizza. It means breakfast, lunch, and dinnerat least at firstneed to be rethought, planned out until new habits are established, with the right mix of ingredients stocked in your pantry and refrigerator, and even new sources located to purchase ingredients. There is indeed an up-front investment in time and effort.

But neither do you want to devote all of your time to making this conversion.

This was the motivation for the Wheat Belly 30-Minute (or Less!) Cookbook, a collection of tools and ideas to help you compress the time required to navigate this new enlightened lifestyle. While we lack the convenience (with all the health compromises) of microwaving a frozen dinner in 3 minutes, or the grab-and-run appeal of a Pop-Tart, we can adopt a number of important methods to reduce the time commitment required to adhere to this unique but enormously effective approach.

To conform to such a tight timeline, Ive employed several easy, commonsense, time-saving strategies, such as having a premade supply of the All-Purpose Baking Mix (page 19) on hand, a blend of healthy ingredients sans wheat and junk carbohydrates that can be used to create muffins, rolls, or focaccia flatbread ahead of time (on the weekend, for example), which are then stored in the refrigerator for use over the course of the week. (Healthy wheat-free products are just starting to become a commercial reality but are not yet available to most people.) You will find a wide variety of sauces, dressings, and dips that can convert a simple salmon fillet, for instance, into a delicious and exotic dish with just a dash of healthy sauce created with no unhealthy ingredients. There are wheat-free compliant seasoning mixes, toowith no junk fillers, such as wheat flour, cornstarch, or maltodextrinthat allow you to whip up delicious, fragrant, and spicy dishes with minimal effort while slashing several minutes off preparation time.

I also wander out of the 30-minute time constraint with several adventurous themed menus that collect several recipes into special occasions, such as Pub Night, Romantic Evening, and New Orleans Jamboree.

The goal: to allow you and your family to enjoy all the variety, flavor, and health benefits of wheatlessness without sacrificing the conveniences of modern lifestyles.

Some people are concerned that their new wheat-free diet will be more costly, as we lose the commoditized (and government-subsidized) cost advantages of modern wheat. But remember: We wheat-free folk consume 400 fewer calories per person, per day, meaning less food needs to be prepared or purchased, providing a considerable built-in advantage. A family of four can be expected to consume something like 1,600 fewer calories per day, approaching the daily caloric intake of another person. Most people following the wheat-free lifestyle who are in the habit of maintaining a grocery budget therefore report that overall food costs are either unchanged or modestly lower with the switch to wheatlessness.

If you are already a seasoned wheat-free adherent, then this new 30-minute (or less!) cookbook will add some new and easy possibilities for day-to-day meal preparation, as well as some unique ideas for special occasions. If you have come to believe that a life without wheat and other unhealthy foods has to be dull and tasteless, well, youve got some interesting, spicy, and delicious surprises coming your way! You will discover re-created ethnic foods, including Moroccan, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, and Italian dishes, as well as reimagined traditional American foods recast into this new wheat-free lifestyle. Pizzas, soups, sandwiches, muffins, cheesecake, barbecued porkthere are very few dishes that cannot be re-created minus all unhealthy ingredients in the 30-minute (or less!) timeline. And be sure to peruse the Snacks and Desserts section, as I believe you will encounter some delightful surprises!