Sensible eating

Tara Parker-Pope of the NY Times has a great column on sensible eating -- paying more attention to what you eat rather than just counting calories, carbs, or fat grams. A couple of different surveys have shown that about five percent fewer people are dieting now than five years ago, and 53 percent of consumers say they are cooking at home more now than they were six months ago. That's great news for losing weight. If you saw Supersize Me, you've already heard about how restaurants -- especially fast food -- are serving larger portions than three decades ago. Another interesting tidbit:

Last year, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported on a study of 97 obese women, all of whom were avoiding high-fat foods. Half the women were instructed to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables. By the end of a year, the women who were focused on adding vegetables lost an average of 17 pounds, 20 percent more than the women who were just paying attention to fat consumption.

And this morsel:

... the more time people spend on tasks like food shopping, cooking and kitchen cleanup, the more likely they are to be of average weight. The Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture found that people of normal weight spend more time on meal-related tasks than people who are overweight or underweight.

The article ends with the advice to eat really good food, and although that sounds so bland, it is so true. Six years ago, when I lived in the 'burbs, I would never have thought that I could become such a food snob. But living in the middle of nowhere, it becomes ridiculously obvious that driving somewhere for dinner is silly, so we cook all of our meals, unless we happen to be away from home at mealtime. And then we're pretty darn picky about where we eat. Once you get accustomed to fresh, natural foods, you can taste the "old" milk in the Starbuck's latte, the anemic eggs in the McMuffin, and the preservatives and chemicals in the McDonald's apple pie.

Tonight's dinner is goat cheese pizza with our own homegrown sweet and hot peppers and homemade goat cheese.