Anonymous wrote:Im South Indian and grew up (until almost 30) completely vegetarian. I now eat fish (salmon and tuna mostly), but only on occasion. I like the mediterrrean diet and find it simple and tasty. Despite my family growing up eating healthy foods (my dad and brother occasionally ate meat, and my brother loves seafood), my mom died of stomach cancer and both my parents had type 2 diabetes. Tyey ate mostly home cooked food and were not overweight. I am also prediabetic and take metformin. (I am 5’4 and 138lbs, size 4). I try not to overly control my diet. It’s not on my personality to do so anyway. I have two daughters and would hate to give them a complex. I am starting to cook more with them. It’s actually interesting— tiktok or instagram has actually influenced them to want to eat healthier.

Forgot to add: my dad died from a neurological illness thats genetic and my brother has been overweight his whole life. I think lack of protein when growing up caused him to over eat, and he wasnt terribly active. All to saw, no diet is fool proof. Vegetarians still die of terrible cancer. Do your best. Try to control stress, stay active and sleep (note to self).

Im South Indian and grew up (until almost 30) completely vegetarian. I now eat fish (salmon and tuna mostly), but only on occasion. I like the mediterrrean diet and find it simple and tasty. Despite my family growing up eating healthy foods (my dad and brother occasionally ate meat, and my brother loves seafood), my mom died of stomach cancer and both my parents had type 2 diabetes. Tyey ate mostly home cooked food and were not overweight. I am also prediabetic and take metformin. (I am 5’4 and 138lbs, size 4). I try not to overly control my diet. It’s not on my personality to do so anyway. I have two daughters and would hate to give them a complex. I am starting to cook more with them. It’s actually interesting— tiktok or instagram has actually influenced them to want to eat healthier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easiest way to get in greens for me is at least one meal (lunch or dinner) needs to be a greens based bowl. I usually add two different greens for taste and texture (arugula, baby spring mix, baby kale are my go-tos) and sometimes a lighter salad green as well (romaine or butter crunch) or even something like red cabbage shreds. The big this is to season this. Olive oil, garlic salt, Aleppo pepper are my usuals.

Then I just add to the greens. Go around the bowl and add small servings of a whole grain or complex carb (couscous, farro, brown/wild rice, barley, roasted sweet potatoes), or beans or lentils, lean protein if you’re having meat that meal, and then as many other chopped vegetables as you have on hand. Bell peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots, shaved Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, red onion, sautéed mushrooms with fennel are all things I commonly have. Any leftover roasted vegetables from dinner the night before can work as well.

Healthy fat for the topping - I add a sprinkle of hemp hearts or sprouted pumpkin seeds, a handful of broccoli or alfalfa sprouts, and a drizzle of olive oil. This one meal is filling with tons of fiber and healthy nutrients.

That all sounds great, but what if you are not a lover of salads other than tomato with salt and oil? What if you like traditional meals for your lunch and dinner?

Then you cook those things. That’s why I said “the easiest thing FOR ME.” If that’s not going to work for you, do what is better for you.

Yes, I understand I cook those things. It is just that my meals are kind of old fashioned and I make a big pot of stew, roast on Sunday, of curry and such, so I have it for the week and for my work lunches. Food is also getting pretty expensive. Maybe that is why I am cooking more potatoes and less fresh greens than before.

I have a similar problem (I’m the arugula popsicle poster so you can tell I’m trying to get creative about the greens 😝). One thing you (and also my curry loving family) might try is adding saag into the rotation? It’s basically spinach stew.

You can also do summer soups: sauté veg, adding broth of your choice, blend. Have done this with beets, pumpkin, zucchini, lettuce. Most are good hot or cold. Lots of colour can get in that way and I eat them with homemade whole-wheat sourdough or some other really filling bread (add cold cuts or hard boiled egg if you’re still feeling hungry) to make them feel complete.

Another option is pan fried tofu or shrimp with peanut sauce and fresh vegetables and roasted peanuts — I usually do mine on rice or vermicelli but I bet it would be good on cabbage or greens. Budget bytes has a good peanut sauce recipe.

And of course my planned banana spinach honey popsicles. I’ll report back how they turn out I guess. 😂

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. For me part of the issue is that I can't have dairy, and my default was some feta with tomatoes, some sour cream with spinach and my taste buds have not adjusted to just liking these on their own since I was diagnosed with the dairy allergy.

I hear you. One of my favorite ways to make spinach is to boil it for 2-3 minutes only, then dump it in an ice bath to stop the cooking. You then grab it all in a ball and squeeze ALL the water out and chop it up. Add garlic, sesame oil, red pepper flakes or chili oil. It’s a Japanese way of preparing it and it’s incredible. I literally ate a whole bag of spinach this way for lunch today because it cooks down so much .

OP here again. For me part of the issue is that I can't have dairy, and my default was some feta with tomatoes, some sour cream with spinach and my taste buds have not adjusted to just liking these on their own since I was diagnosed with the dairy allergy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is the plan I follow and it makes it INCREDIBLY easy to get in a lot of vegetables and fruits and whole grains. Very nutrient dense. And your body feels amazing.

OP here. Thanks for that pyramid! it is good to see something else than pasta in the bottom!

Anonymous wrote:^ damn that’s crazy. But I agree, you feel so good when you eat the Mediterranean diet that it’s actually quite easy to be adherent to it. It annoys me how much it’s true that if you eat processed garbage food, that’s what your body will want, and if you eat good, whole food, THAT is what your body will want.

YES! It’s bizarre to me (but I am grateful) that my body is actually craving vegetables!! when my lifelong experience of food cravings has been for sugary stuff or processed cheesy stuff. My body has already adjusted to the point that I cannot eat certain cheeses without feeling a little gross and nevermind oils - my body ONLY wants evoo.

Earlier this summer I read a book called Eat Like the Animals which I borrowed from the library; it’s not a diet book it’s written by a couple of PhDs who have studied the nutrition and diets of insects and mammals for 30+ years and basically show that we are all programmed to eat the ideal diet for our bodies, that programming is in us at a cellular level even bacteria in Petri dishes will seek and choose the right foods in healthy portions and humans have this capability as well but it has been poisoned out of us by our modern processed food practices which disrupt the entire system in the brain/gut. It’s a fascinating read and I really made the connection of just how bad UPFs are for human bodies, it’s no wonder we are all sick and many of us fat - which of course you don’t see in animals unless their diets are controlled by humans.

Again Dr. Lustig is worth reading. He is a brilliant endocrinologist who believes the modern food system with UPFs is an experiment that has gone very badly and must be reformed.

Okay and I’m posting a video from Spain on a Fork because I want folks to have an easy intro and I hope some of you will love this guy like I do - his videos are easy enough for beginner cooks but not tedious for the rest of us, and he has such a lovely voice it’s like a mini meditation to watch.

^ damn that’s crazy. But I agree, you feel so good when you eat the Mediterranean diet that it’s actually quite easy to be adherent to it. It annoys me how much it’s true that if you eat processed garbage food, that’s what your body will want, and if you eat good, whole food, THAT is what your body will want.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This is the plan I follow and it makes it INCREDIBLY easy to get in a lot of vegetables and fruits and whole grains. Very nutrient dense. And your body feels amazing.

Yes I forgot to say, I feel like I can feel life buzzing in my body as I eat this diet - a feeling I haven’t felt for many years since my youth.

I suffered a terrible vitamin deficiency that went undiagnosed for half a decade and really destroyed my health - I had dry beri beri from chronic thiamine (B1) deficiency and doctors spent years putting me through expensive tests looking for zebras but had never done a breakdown test of the B vitamins so it went undetected. Dry beri beri causes a host of neurological and movement symptoms very akin to MS, which was my first provisional diagnosis on the journey of nearly 8 years to get resolved - but the recovery of my health will take more years as the beri beri and immobility wrecked muscle ton and packed on pounds.

Having had the experience of this condition, it really made the connection for me how critical these micronutrients are and how devastating their absence. So I’m unsurprised that suddenly eating a diet based on vegetables and fruit and beans and whole grains and nuts/seeds has my body singing.

Ultra processed food has us all sick and slowly dying. Read Robert Lustig, MD - and I will stop evangelizing.

My doctor urged the Mediterranean diet at my last annual so I have spent the last few months eating up the red meat and pork that was in my freezer from my local meat share (which I am now quitting, at least temporarily) and transitioning to a diet based around more vegetables and fish/shrimp and chicken.

Luckily I am a fairly good cook who likes to cook and isn’t afraid to make mistakes - especially since I have a dog who eats a mostly raw diet and is always happy to eat whatever I make that I don’t like (only dog safe stuff, of course).

I made up my own recipe for a breakfast quiche which I now make every week and is my standard breakfast. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t mind repetitive menu as long as it’s tasty. I used store pie crust because I’m lazy and it’s easy; blind bake the crust before filling. The quiche has six eggs, 3/4 cup cream, 2-4oz Parmesan cheese, 5oz package baby spinach finely chopped, 6-10 cloves garlic finely minced, 4oz sun dried tomatoes drained and chopped, Italian herb blend to taste, red pepper flakes to taste, pinch of sea salt.

I have been feeling fantastic since eating this every morning. I try to eat healthy the rest of the day too, but even if I don’t this breakfast does a lot for me it’s a phytonutrient packed protein and fat bomb that keeps me full for at least 4 hours before I even begin to feel a little peckish, at which time I have 1/4 cup of walnuts or almonds or pistachios and that usually gets me to late afternoon which is when I eat my last meal - I like to be done eating by 6/7pm.

I split the quiche in 6 servings it’s about 400 calories and even with the cream the nutrient profile works fine in my daily calculations. I am doing isometric exercises, weight training and walking my dog and have been losing weight steadily. I am religious about getting 7-9 hours of restful sleep which is critical - you cannot lose weight with elevated cortisol.

For anyone else trying to eat blue zone/Mediterranean diet, I highly recommend the YouTube and website for Spain on a Fork; the recipes are ridiculously delicious and very heart healthy - most are vegetarian, but you could easily add meat if you desire. (Your heart desires that you eat less meat.)

I grew up typical American diet of the 70s/80s (remember the recent thread?) so it is a journey for me to learn to love so many vegetables, I find for myself it helps to use a lot of garlic and heat. (Garlic and heat are both very good for keeping blood pressure down and have many other physiological benefits.)

https://spainonafork.com/