»  Weigh facts on organic | ABQ Journal

Make good choices

If you are concerned about pesticides, consider avoiding the non-organic fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residues per the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen: apples, strawberries, grapes, peaches and imported nectarines, celery, spinach, bell peppers, cucumbers, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and hot peppers.

Instead, choose more fruits and vegetables from the Environmental Working Group’s Clean Fifteen: pineapple, papaya, mango, kiwi, cantaloupe, grapefruit, corn, onion, avocado, frozen sweet peas, cabbage, asparagus, eggplant, sweet potatoes and mushrooms.

Organic meat and dairy products also deserve consideration. Antibiotics are commonly added to animal feed to help animals grow more quickly. This practice has resulted in an alarming increase in dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria with more than half of ground turkey, pork chops and ground beef at the grocery store contaminated.

The Stanford researchers found less antibiotic-resistant bacteria in organic chicken and pork than in conventional meat. They also reported more heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids in organic milk.

Organic food benefits farm workers and consumers by reducing pesticide exposure and risk of acquiring dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

» Weigh facts on organic | ABQ Journal

My friend Johnny_Mango is a local institution, one of those people everyone in town knows of, like Don Schrader or Geraldine Amato. Someone who is not, in the strictest sense, a celebrity or public figure, as in politics or media, but well-known. We are sympatico, liberal lovers of the outdoors and poetry. I do not wish to overreact to his recent column, Notes from the Fattest Man in Crested Butte on Duke City Fix. I know what it is to regularly produce Web essays, to try to be thought-provoking and humorous. It’s a tough job, at times.

Nevertheless, my response is a serious one. Kidding or not, he’s wrong to say the best or easiest or advisable way to lose weight is to eat foods you hate. If you want to be healthy, which will result in a healthy weight, consider the following:

• Drink water all day long. Reach for it before any other beverage. (Stop drinking all sodas.)
• Make a big salad with any veggies or fruits you like. If you don’t like veggies, start with iceberg lettuce; you’ll try others when you get bored with that. Use a salad dressing you make or buy the only one whose first ingredient is vinegar instead of water. (Use nothing with corn syrup.) Eat all you want of this salad anytime you want. No limit.
• Roast any veggies you like. Cut them all to bite size. Toss them in any oil other than corn or vegetable oil. Add spices. Don’t like any veggies? Everyone loves roasted potatoes or carrots; add more as you get bored. Don’t like any spices. What’s wrong with you? No wonder you need advice about getting healthy. Try black pepper or red pepper flakes. I highly recommend curry. (Roast at 425 for up to 20 minutes, stirring part way through the time. I add whole garlic cloves or thick slices and shallot slices halfway through because they cook faster than the rest. If you hate brussel sprouts, you will love them cut in half and roasted.)
• Eat oats for breakfast. Not instant oats in a little package. Buy any large package of any variation of oats. Make oatmeal. Soak raw oats overnight in milk or yogurt. Roast oats as a part of making your own granola — there is nothing better than that (see recipe at end). Eat with milk or yogurt or milk alternatives. Add fruits.
• Snack on nuts. Any kind of nuts (except brazil nuts). Eat as much as you want, but start with a palmful. Who doesn’t like some kind of nut?
• Make your own guacamole with those avocados that you’ve been wasting (plus raw garlic, minced onions, jalapenos and/or a little salsa). It is amazingly filling and lasting.
• Eat dark chocolate if you can resist eating too much at once.
• Sip a glass of red wine with any of this (except at breakfast). Salud!

These are all delicious foods. They involve nothing you don’t like. (Your tastes will naturally expand to new foods, including those you used to hate.) They involve NO LIMITS. Make a pig of yourself with a salad or granola, assuming you don’t add spam and maple syrup to either. No deprivation. No calculations or portion control. Just enjoying good food.

If you want some don’ts:

• No sodas of any kind
• No wheat in any form (read Wheat Belly)
• No junk food (you know it when you see it, often by its unnatural color, shape, or texture)
• No fast food (unless you can find something truly healthy)

Don’t start with the don’ts. Expectations of prohibitions and strict limits and having to eat food you don’t like all sabotage a healthy lifestyle. Start with lots of good stuff; the rest follows naturally.