“Eat real food, not too much, mostly from plants.” -Adapted from Michael Pollan

Almost 2 weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the best educational conference ever. Now, mind you, as a physician/community volunteer/Sorority member, I have attended lots of conferences and conventions. This was the absolute best, hands down! Entitled Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives, this conference brought together medical and culinary professionals to talk about one of my favorite things – food! There were scientific presentations, culinary demonstrations, and hands on kitchen workshops. I was re-introduced to the healthy plate and, more importantly, taught how to make healthy plates delicious, filling and fun to eat.

It was a 3 day conference and, at the end of it, my main takeaway was we all need to: Eat real food, not too much, mostly from plants. So what does this mean in real life? It means that a lot of food in the typical American diet is not food, it’s food-like substances. It’s things that were developed and manufactured for ease and convenience, not for nutrition and health. For example, let’s consider a packaged yogurt with “raspberries”. Real yogurt with real raspberries is super healthy – providing protein, some healthy fat, lots of fiber (raspberries have lots of fiber in them). But if you look at the nutrition label of many yogurts with raspberries, they are full of sugar, have no fiber (how is that even possible if you added “real raspberries”), and have ingredient lists full of chemicals. Eating real food means reaching for things you can recognize (and pronounce).

Not too much is kind of self explanatory. Watch portion size. But it also means eating mindfully, without distraction, so you can recognize when your appetite is satisfied and stop eating at that point. Put the phone down, turn off the television, focus on eating and tasting your food. And for kids, this means moving away from the “clean your plate” mindset and allowing them to stop eating when they are full.

Mostly from plants. Oh boy, this is where I knew I was going to run into issues with my family, particularly my self proclaimed “meatatarian” husband. While I was at the conference, I was posting pictures and tidbits to my Facebook page. He promptly replied to one of my pictures “Don’t come back here with that liberal, California, plant diet”. Seriously? This is where so many people get caught up. I see it all the time when I’m talking to parents and children in my office about eating more vegetables – their eyes glaze over, sometimes they roll their eyes, sometimes I just get the blank stare. Occasionally, one of my patients will be very honest and say “Yuck, I’m not going to eat that!”

The problem is many people don’t like vegetables because when they have had them in the past they didn’t taste good. Period. Why would you voluntarily eat something that doesn’t taste good? I wouldn’t. This conference focused on the relentless pursuit of deliciousness. We watched culinary demonstrations that introduced and reviewed techniques for making vegetables delicious – use spices, try different ones, cook vegetables properly. We also talked about plants beyond vegetables – beans, legumes, whole grains. I was introduced to freekeh (an ancient grain full of protein and fiber) and curried green lentil soup and both were delicious!

So, I came home, ready to move my family to a more nutritious, delicious and healthy diet. That was 2 weeks ago. And what I have learned is….I have to take baby steps. You can’t completely uproot and discard someone’s entire way of eating in one fell swoop. That won’t be successful and it’s not fair. Our relationship with food is complicated and often emotional. And I also can’t expect myself to be able to completely change the way I meal plan, shop for groceries, prepare and serve meals, all in one day or even in one month. I have to be patient with myself and with my family. I need to pick a starting place and take my time to grow from there. I have decided to start with the following:

• Half the plate will be fruit and/or vegetables at every meal. This means adding a fruit to breakfast and cooking 2 vegetables (instead of 1) for dinner. I have some divided plates that the kids use, now I put the fruit/veggies in the big section and the meat in the small section.
• I will try at least 1 new plant forward recipe each week – last week it was honey sriracha chicken with broccoli and zucchini noodles. This week it is black bean and cheese quesadillas and curried lentil soup .
• We will not buy anymore Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. And we will have grandparents follow the same rule.
• Try new items for breakfast. This is a tough one because we have been letting CJ eat breakfast at school everyday – it’s easier. But it’s also a nutritional nightmare. Lots of fat, sugar and simple carbohydrates. He likes oatmeal but only “big kid oatmeal” (not instant oatmeal). Mornings are so busy, I don’t usually prepare oatmeal during the week. So my goal is to figure out something nutritious and delicious that I can feed him during the week. This week I’m going to start with Tuesday and Thursday, trying out an overnight oatmeal method. Next week, I’ll try homemade granola and yogurt.

Ultimately, my goal is to have 10 dinners, 3 breakfasts and 4 lunches that are healthy, delicious and easy for me to prepare. Yesterday I cooked all of the veggies for the week – roasted broccoli, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted corn salad and I made curried lentil soup and baked chicken thighs. It took me 3 hours! I hope with practice and a better set of knives (mine are not sharp enough, makes it take longer to chop the veggies) I will become faster. It will take some time but I’m sure we’ll get there eventually. Who knows, maybe one day my entire family will eat and love a “liberal, California plant diet”. I’ll keep you updated along the way.