Let thy Salad be thy Main Dish

Hello everyone,

To be super healthy you have to nourish your body with as many as possible micro nutrients - Vitamins, Minerals & phytochemicals - as simple as that. And what's the best sources for the above? - Greeeeeens!! you have to eat tons of greens. Yes, you can get your vitamins and minerals from meat - true! But you will have to pay with lots of calories. If you eat meat and you are thin then it means you are consuming a moderate amount of calories and it means that you don't get enough nutrients. Period. The greens have the highest density (nutrients per calorie) and thus they should be your main dish.

So don't tell me about a miraculous goji berry that I MUST try, and don't tell me that you read that black chocolate is good for the health and that there's this bee pollen that you eat and it's good for you. All of this is total bull. Yes they are healthy - but who cares? These foods are at the perimeter. They cost money, the enrich whoever sells them to you - and you are busy reading and searching for these miraculous medicine when they are right in front of your eyes - THE GREENS!!

You have to eat them, you have to learn to enjoy them. Every food other than breast milk is an acquired taste  Yes, the first time you eat the real hardcore salad - it's gonna be tough. And so shall be the second and the third time. But taste is acquired - you will get used to it.

And please don't start with "I rather live less but at least I enjoy myself, I can go to Moses and eat a good stake whenever I feel like". Don't you start with me. I enjoy my salad way way more than you enjoy your stake - cause you know what? taste is acquired and when I eat I am already truly hungry so I salivate and I need my real food and then the food tastes 10 times more! So both of us are going to live happily. You are going to die at the age of 85 and I am going to die at the age of 105. You wanna live happily as long as I do? Then "suffer" just one month... - NOW and then you will be back to where you were - happy, healthy, with no pains, no illness, with perfect fitness level. It's your choice - you are gonna "suffer" during the transition period and that's it. 

Think about it - how many years did it take you to acquire your Bsc degree in MIT? How many years of hard work have you invested before you became a lawyer, a doctor? Here I am talking about one month of getting used to something that's gonna be as important as your job - your health!!!

So how do you "prepare" your main dish? There you go - 

A handful spinach

מלוא החופן תרד

A handful mixed leaves

חופן עלי בייבי

Few chard leaves cut without mercy

כמה עלי מנגולד חתוכים ללא רחמים

Green onions

בצל ירוק

Dill

שמיר

Some cucumbers

מלפפונים אחדים

Mushrooms

פטריות

Chopped onions

בצל חתוך

Now that looks quite like the food you give chimpanzees or you used to feed your turtle with. So every 3 year old knows that turtles should be fed with this stuff. They just can't imagine that we human - we are supposed to eat this stuff as well. Hell it's written in the user manual that accompanies new baby on this plant! But no... - let's feed the turtles something good and continue devouring our McDonald's Mac Royal. And with Chimpanzees it's the same story - when you go to the zoo they are asking you please please not to feed the animals and the signs explain that whatever you are eating could poison the chimpanzees!!! I wish I had the picture of this. 

And then you pour some lemon - you need the vitamin C in order to digest the greens.

And then you add your favorite sauce which could be nuts/seeds based or tofu based - and you make sure not to exaggerate here - cause now and for the first time we are talking REAL calories here...

And then you take the oil bottle and you throw it out the window. One word of caution here - when you throw the m*er f**er out the window - you make sure there's no body standing there. Another word of caution - when you throw that olive oil out the window - you make sure nobody watches. And why do you throw it? Cause these are empty calories - the ratio of nutrients to calories is 0 - you gain no nutrition from olive oil. And yea olive oil is better than canola or the fat that you have in meat but still it's an empty oil - it should be avoided.

And then you mix the whole thing and voilla.

Now half of my salads are raw as above.

But then another half are half raw - half steamed...

So here's the veggies as I am steaming them - see? broccoli, Brussel sprouts, peas & green beans.

ברוקולי, כרוב ניצנים, אפונה ושעועית ירוקה.

These folks are frozen so I steam them for 10 minutes or so.

And one half of the salads that are half raw - half steamed - I add starched veggies - which I will describe on one of my future posts.

That's it for today,

Enjoy you salad,

Aviel.

Top ten nutritious foods

Hi there,

The most important and basic nutritional tip that you ever hear is to get just enough calories such that your body gets all the nutrients that it needs. Just enough means way less calories than normal western diets provide. I know many of you hate math - but just remember that your goal is to maximinze N/C where N stands for nutrients and C stands for calories. You want to get more nutrients for less calories. 

I already presented you with the nutritional target map where you can see how nutritious is every food type and how it makes you feel full. But is there a way to give a total score to a food and then sort all foods on earth according to this score?

Well there *IS* !!! - The ANDI Score!

ANDI stands for "aggregate Nutrient Density Index". It shows the nutrient density of a food on a scale of 1 to 1000 after evaluating an extensive range of micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidant capacities.

Now let's look at the top 10 - they all belong to the green family!!

KALE (score = 1000)

קייל

Just a week ago I was frustrated cause I could only find it in the Tel-Aviv Port but this week it appeared in Shufersal both in Ayalon Mall and Givataim and also the store where I get my greens in Ramat-Gan. Do yourself a favor - eat this stuff!!

COLLARD GREENS(score = 1000)

עלי קולארד

I couldn't find it in our little country.

MUSTARD GREENS(score = 1000)

עלי חרדל

WATERCRESS(score = 1000)

גרגר הנחלים

The guy from the greens store in Ramat Gan told me that *this* was watercress - but it was NOT. I haven't found this one in Israel yet.

SWISS CHART(score = 895)

עלי סלק

BOK CHOY(score = 865)

בוק צ'וי \ פאק צ'וי

SPINACH (score = 707)

תרד

ARUGULA (score = 604)

ארוגולה

ROMAINE (score = 604)

חסה ערבית

as pictured in my kitchen...

BRUSSEL SPROUTS (score = 490)

כרוב ניצנים

I eat these every day at least once, I keep them frozen. They are very yummy - a bit bitter.

Anyway - what's common to the top ten nutritious foods in the world? They are all greens. Yes - this is what humans should consume! Remember that!

Aviel.

The cruciferous vegetables

I am still learning here about the new nutritarin diet and would like to present here the Cruciferous vegetables. If normal vegetables are wonderful for your health, full of nutrition, etc - then these guys here are super-super foods. They see some toxic compound trying to mess with your DNA and they get rid of him right away. You eat these things, they are a bit bitter for you but for cancer they are a deadly weapon. When you get older, let's say when you are 80-90 you notice that many people are dying around you - those that were not eating this stuff. You see, when the tide is over - you can clearly see who was swimming without a swimsuit. So yea, you don't have to love their taste - YOU HAVE TO EAT THEM!

How to eat them? Try to eat them raw and if you just can't then eat them lightly steamed.

Alright let's name them!


Arugula
ארוגולה

Bok Choy

בוק צ'וי

broccoli

ברוקולי

watercress

גרגיר הנחלים

HorseRadish

חזרת

Kohlrabi

כולרבי

Cabbage

כרוב

Rutabaga

כרוב הלפת

Red Cabbage

כרוב סגול

Brussels sprouts

כרובי ניצנים

Turnip & Turnip Greens

לפת ועלי לפת

Mach

מאשה

Mustard Greens

עלי חרדל

Radishes

צנונים

collard

קולרד

kale

קייל

Aviel.

The Nutritional Target Map

Folks,

Today's posts is very important - Do yourself a huge favor - read it & comprehend it. I am going to talk about nutritional density and fullness factor and understanding this issue is the basis for understanding how the best diets in the world work. This is new stuff!!

I am familiar with 3 diets: 

• Calorie restriction that uses this concept to optimize the number of years you live on earth.
• Doctor Fuhrman's "end of diabetes" diet that optimize your chances of getting rid of diabetes.
• Weight Watchers diet that optimize... well optimize the inflow of money into the pockets of the owners.

So first of all I would like to say that all of the information from this point onward - I got from this absolutely wonderful website: nutritiondata.self.com. I urge you to take a look and use this site as a great reference for optimizing your diet.

Today I am going to talk about the nutritional target map which is nutritiondata.self.com's trademark.

Each food gets two marks: its fullness factor and its nutritional value and thus is located somewhere on this grid.

The vertical axis is the fullness factor. Foods that are located at the top are very filling. That is - you eat them and you feel full. Food that are located at the bottom part of the grid are food that you eat and eat and eat and you never feel full.

The horizontal axis is the nutritional value. Food that are located at the right side are very nutritious. That is they have more nutriants per calore. You can think vegtables here. They are full of micronutrients, vitamins, phytochemicals and you get tons of these with few calories. On the left side you have all the food that give you nothing in return - you invest your calories, but you stay hungry, your body doesn't get what it needs. This is one reason why some people can't lose weight using the weight watchers method. It is perfectly ok there to eat a cake here and there but then the person is wasting his points on something that doesn't give any nutritional benefit. Then, after a while, the guy (or actually the lady) becomes hungry again.

So the trick is to make sure that most of the food that you eat is at the right side of the grid- high nutrition density. Also you want to reduce the number of calories, you want to eat less - so that's the fullness factor - you want to be at the top right corner of this chart in order to eat less food, feel full and get as much nutrition as possible with the few calories.

Now let's look at some typical foods...

French Fries (One large please... - Mcdonald's)

Well turns out French Fries are not that bad right? The nutritional value is average, but I would say that the fullness factor is quite low - which means you will want to eat more, more, more....

OK, next...

Cheese Danish - Starbucks

"A flaky pastry folded around a generous serving of cream cheese filling" mmmhoo whooo... yum, yum, yummy. Unfortunately this is one food you should avoid - it has almost no nutritions and you won't feel full after eating it. Do you get it? Do you understand why you end up fat after eating this? it's because you are hungry for more after this, it's because it has no nutritional value and your body neeeeeds nutrition!!!

OK let's look for one healthy food that I shall consume in large quantities in my diet.

Cooked Pinto Beans

Now this is what I call an ideal food - it is very nutritious and it is filling you and soothing your hunger. Amazing stuff.

OK, my gym instructor told me to look for low fat chicken because it's very nutritious and low fat, well let's see

Chicken Breast

This one is 4% fat but it doesn't matter much. It's quite fullfiling - that is after you eat it - you are ok in terms of hunger but look at the nutritional value... - it's very average.

Now let's go back to real food - shall we?

Raw Tomato

As you can see - extremely nutritous and very fullfiling. Now this is true for almost all veggies, they are super nutricious and super fullfiling. You eat as much as you want and you can never get fat. Actually - the more you eat - the thinner you get. Do you know why? Because they are so nutritious that your hunger shall go away.

Now let's talk about oil shall we? We do need 10-30% of the calories coming from oil. So which one would it be? Yes, I can read your minds - you are saying olive oil...  let's analyze this one - 

Olive Oil

First of all - all oil products must be located at the bottom of the chart. I hope this is understood but just in case let me clarify: oil is a product that makes you gain weight, the fullfilness factor is low meaning you are going to consume tons of olive oil before you feel full and on the way you are going to add thousands of calloreis to your belly.

So this is something that is common to all oils.

Now the question is if this is the best oil we can consume - and as you can see it has miserable nutritional value. It means that when you add this tbsp of olive oil to your salad - then you are wasting empty calories. It's better if you get these calories from something nutritous...

Is there such a thing? 

Let's see - 

Almonds

As you can see almonds are not only more nutritious but are also more fullfilling. Now this is not true only for almonds, it's true for all nuts and it's even more true for all seeds. 

In summary:

• You want to flood your body with nutrients to let it feel great and nourished.
• You want to do it w/o becoming fat.
• That's why you are looking for foods that are located at the upper right corner of the nutritional target map.
• Vegetables & beans are great winners.
• Abandon olive oil - forget about this myth - get your fat from nuts and seeds.

I really hope that you understand the information above - this is so basic and so important for having an optimal body.

Aviel.