You can probably guess that the obesity epidemic has changed the way medicine is practiced, but you may not know that this change has come about more quickly than doctors have been trained to address it. Ever wonder why doctors are clueless about how to address this problem? Because most of us are as stymied by the problem as the next person. If there was a quick fix, we’d all be better off. But there isn’t, and we’re all in the same boat. Continue reading
Author Archives: Dr. Sukol
Enjoy Your Meal, Taste Your Food
I like to think that nourishing oneself is actually pretty basic, and I love Michael Pollan’s famous guidelines: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Instead of forbidding yourself an entire food group, or filling your grocery cart with the latest processed food-like sensation, how about just focusing on the basics? Meals were never meant to be about protein bars, diet sodas, fast food, or drive-thru windows. Meals are for taking a break, catching up, sharing food, experiences, stories. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just needs to be the point of the exercise. Not eating on the run, for example, but eating for purposes of eating. And I would add one more suggestion — enjoying every bite. Continue reading
A Call to Our Chefs — Could We Call a Salad Something Else?
When my friend’s husband said that he was sick and tired of eating “salad,” she was kind of surprised, because she had thought that, if anything, their dinners had recently had more variety than usual. That was true of the ingredients, she realized, but not of the dishes. Caesar salad, Waldorf salad, Chef Salad, Salad Nicoise, Cobb salad, and Caprese salad (fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil) had all been on the menu in the prior two weeks. It seemed to her that it wasn’t that he was actually tired of the food, but more that he was tired of the word “salad.” Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Peach Pie (vegan, grain-free)
It is peach season, and I couldn’t be happier. They seem to disappear just as quickly as they arrive in our kitchen! Here’s something truly inspirational for you to try with yours. Continue reading
Processed Food: A Menace to Satiety
Have you ever thought about the fact that you might be able to eat your way through several pounds of potato chips, but not the same weight of baked potatoes? How many pounds of baked potatoes do you think you could actually eat in one sitting? A friend of mine came for a visit a while back, and reported to me that she had been discussing my recommendations with her clever boyfriend. This is how he summed it up: “Processed food is a menace to satiety.” Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Judith’s Southwest Chopped Salad
It’s time for another recipe from Judith! This time I got her to share her Southwestern Chopped Salad recipe, which is going to make you so, so happy! You can throw this together and have it for dinner all by itself, or you can take it to a party, where it’s sure to get rave reviews and unlikely to leave leftovers. Use canned black beans, canned corn, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder instead of garlic cloves — keep it as easy as you want. This is also a great recipe to set out deconstructed for kids, with lettuce in a large bowl in the center, and add-ons in smaller bowls all around, so that they think they’re the ones deciding what to eat. If you make the salad this way, you can serve the dressing separately in a small pitcher. Wink-wink. Continue reading
Stripped Carbs: The Emperor’s New Clothes
I promised a friend that I would write another post about stripped carbs and processed edibles. Sometimes stripped carbs are called simple carbs, but there’s nothing simple about them. Stripped carbs include white flour, white rice, corn starch, corn syrup, sugar, fruit juice, and beer. It’s not that you can’t eat them at all; it’s that Americans are drowning in them. Continue reading
YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Grains and Greens
This is one of those wonderful recipes that works no matter what’s in your kitchen. It gives you the opportunity to use whichever grain you feel like eating today, whichever greens are in season, and whichever other vegetables you are in the mood to sautè. I chose bulgur, red pepper, asparagus and spinach here, but you should feel free to use whatever is in the veggie bin. The onions and garlic are important, as are the herbs and spices, but everything else is flexible. Continue reading
The Miracle that is Yogurt
There’s more to yogurt than meets the mouth, and you sell yourself short when you limit your yogurt consumption to the commercially manufactured dessert-like versions that fill the shelves in supermarkets and cafeterias. Continue reading
Trust Your Gut
We’ve got a big problem in this country: we have lost the ability to listen to our own bodies. We eat things that make us feel sick, but we don’t make the connection.
We discount how we actually feel in favor of how we think we should feel, at least according to the latest nutrition claims and advertising on that box of “Frosty-0 Jumbos” or “Specialized Healthy Nutrient-Brand.” [I made up these names in case you couldn’t tell.] Here we have an entire country filled with people who feel kind of sick, for one reason or another, and have no idea why. That’s pretty wild all by itself, but it’s just half the story. The other half of the story is that we continue to accept as dogma all kinds of food-related information, even in the face of significant evidence to the contrary. We experience distressing symptoms, and then ignore them. Continue reading